A few thoughts on seeding programmes

    Steve at VCCP asked me a while back how I felt about the 3 Skypephone seeding programme. The timing is perfect to share my thoughts as I have just agreed to take part in another seeding programme…

1)    Pitch it right

In case you didn’t know, my name is not Darryl and no I don’t live in the US! I am not quite sure how I would be able to blog about a US product when I don’t have any knowledge of the market… Read my blog (or at least pretend to read it!) and understand what makes me tick and what doesn’t. In the 5 minutes that you take to customize your pitch, the chances of me blogging about your product has gone up from 1% to 100%…

2)    So I’ve agreed to write about your product…

Comments and feedback about my posts are always welcome – it shows that you’ve bothered checking your links and that you care about what I have to say. I would suggest leaving comments on both my blog and your blog – it allows conversation (blogging is all about sharing ideas, right?) and will probably increase traffic on your blog.

Both the O2 Cocoon and 3 Skypephone campaigns were well executed – good pitches, interesting ideas but overall I felt that that the online discussion was one-way when I would have liked to see a two-way conversation i.e. people bouncing off ideas of each other, rather than a list of all the posts/reviews. As a researcher, I like to understand the why’s and how’s therefore when criticising a feature, I would have liked to know why the bloggers felt this feature was bad and how/what could be improved in future phones.

The 3 campaign was cleverly orchestrated using a number of successful web 2.0 sites such as flickr and youtube, however (sorry guys!) I didn’t get involved beyond the phone review, partly because I am not the target market for the 3 Skypephone.  

Both the O2 and 3 blogs look great however, my main criticism is that they are hard to find and I can’t see a link on the networks’ websites – consumers should be able to find these blogs easily and I would suggest that O2 and 3 put a link on their homepage which should hopefully increase traffic hence online interaction.

Kudos to O2 for allowing consumers to co-create (i.e. write posts) on their blogs – this blog could be a useful resource covering phone reviews as well as an online troubleshooting portal. If marketed properly, the blog could become a real strength for O2…

Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this   

3 Skypephone seeding programme

The folks at 3mobilebuzz  contacted me a while ago to blog about the new 3 Skype phone. As it turns out, I am currently working on a project for 3 and I therefore agreed to take part in the 3 Skypephone trial. First of all, I have to say that their PR pitch is absolutely outstanding – their original email (excerpt below) definitely caught my attention and they have constantly kept in touch to find out how I was getting on.

‘Having looked through your blog, I’m a fan of your take on modern times, and was intrigued by the Bathroom Blogfest idea. Also reading back, the fact that Paddington likes Marmite! I feel defiled. Anyway I digress monumentally - I was wondering whether you’d be interested in trialling a pair of 3 Skypephones for a month?My name is Matt and I’m part of  3 mobilebuzz , an independent collector of online conversation relating to 3’s mobiles and service. Currently, the arrival of the 3 Skypephone is generating a lot of coverage and we’d like to get you involved […]’

I will be reviewing the actual phone shortly but I would like first of all to discuss their PR strategy. The folks have kept me updated on reviews all over the blogosphere and have put together a clever web 2.0 campaign using twitter, flickr, facebook and youtube.  They are also currently running a competition to win Skypehphones. Here’s how it works:

‘ We at 3mobilebuzz are running a little competition - the winner gets three 3 Skypephones, second place gets two and third place gets one. Also two devices will be awarded to the blog that refers the winning entry.

All entrants need to do is tell us why they want a 3 Skypephone – and it can be done however they want as long as it can be linked to. For example, it could be a blog post, forum thread or simple webpage, a picture or a set on Flickr, a link to a YouTube video or even a Facebook group where 100 friends sign up and support the quest for a 3 Skypephone. The more creative the better.’

If you fancy winning a phone, click here!

The dangers of copying and pasting

Bad PR can be sooooooooooo entertaining, don’t you think?

 I recently received an email from Jeff Cambron from Attention PR - spot the mistake!   

‘Hi Darryl, 

Some cool news you you that I thought might be of interest for your blog - The brand new “Friendly” marketing philosophy of 22squared (formally WestWayne) has now inspired its own web script and facebook network!  Looks like people are catching on!  Adam Crowe developed a script for FireFox that eliminates the dreaded “cword” (CONSUMERS!!) in all your web pages, and replaces it with people/person. Pretty nifty, plus, he’s also created a facebook community on the subject, boasting over 66 members and counting!   

This is great news for the folks at 22squared and their “Friendship Model” of advertising, as it is was directly inspired by their research and new philosophy of friendship marketing.  For more info on the subject, check out the 22squared blog, The C Word, which strives to turn around all the negative energy in the ad world, and treat people how they would hope to be treated - like friends, not consumers.   

The Friendship Model is based on many months spent mapping the consumer relationships of 128 recognized brands, and applying the principles of social psychology to  create an empirically-based approach to facilitating and deepening friendships between people and brands. 

Laurence, I would LOVE to read any thoughts you have on the subject on Blog Till You Drop.  If you’d like some more info, I have pasted a recent 22squared press release at bottom, and feel free to grab (and post!) either of the Anti-C-Word badges below if you like! 

Best,

Jeff 

Jeff next time you send blanket emails, please make sure you read and re-read your email before sending it. You only had three words to change yet you got this wrong!  That’s a shame because the blog looks good, but Jeff I would LOVE to see a comment from you in my comments box!

Introducing the O2 Cocoon

Peter Kwong of advertising agency VCCP in London recently approached me about a project he is working on for mobile phone supplier O2.  

O2 recently launched a new 3G quadbrand mobile phone called Cocoon and the guys at VCCP contacted me to blog about it. Very much like Neville Hobson, I do get quite a lot dodgy pitches, most of the time from the USA but:

1)     The folks at VCCP actually took the time to read my blog and leave a comment

2)     Their pitch is of interest to me - I try to understand consumers for a living and just thought it would be a good idea to check out and get involved with the O2 Cocoon blog.  

I have been an O2 customer for years and as ‘a valued customer’ O2 upgrade my phone once a year no questions asked. I have now had a Samsung phone for the last 3 years, and I upgraded to a Samsung E [insert number] back in May.  Well that’s right – I don’t even know what my phone is called! Kudos to O2 for using an actual name rather than some random code we consumers, can never remember!   

The Cocoon project

 Source: ‘Taking inspiration from real life, we asked designers, fashion students and musicians from London to Tokyo, Shanghai to Rio, “what inspires you, and what do you want from a mobile phone?”

The answer? Something emotional. Original. That doesn‘t look like a phone or a music player - something more natural, that‘s visually stunning and functions perfectly.’

I usually go for branded phones (Nokia, Samsung) even though I perfectly know that the O2 phones are out there… but why?

1) O2 phones are not advertised resulting in limited awareness of these phones

2) Consumers tend to go for well-established brand.

I won’t spend too much time reviewing the Cocoon phone at this present moment as I only received the mobile phone on Saturday – saying that the phone is pretty good and looks great and more will follow on the subject. I’d like to discuss the O2 Cocoon blog for now.  

First of all, I am glad to see that the Cocoon was developed with the help of consumers. Marketing lesson #1: marketing is about meeting your customers’ needs and wants.

I think the blog is a great idea – viral marketing can do wonders especially for an ‘unbranded phone’. The folks at VCCP told me that when purchasing the phone, O2 customers had the opportunity to blog about it on the O2 blog and they have also been approaching bloggers since July.  

Although I think the O2 Cocoon blog is a great idea, interaction on the blog is still fairly limited even though all technical problems reported seem to have been addressed.  The posts are generally good however the blog does not necessarily cover all technical aspects of the phone.

 As a qualitative researcher, I like to understand the ‘why’s’

• ‘I’ve had my phone for a day and I love it’ – what do you particularly like about the phone? Why?
• This is a seriously well thought out, sexy and functional piece of kit’  - which functions of the phone do you particularly like? Why?  

Although the feedback on the blog is certainly insightful to O2, I would like to see the blog’s administrator ask specific questions on the phone and get bloggers to leave a comment, something similar to a bulleting board. 

Saying that I am very impressed by O2 efforts and I’ll be reviewing the phone very soon!