CONSUMER STALKING



A major CPG company, Unilever, is launching a promotion for its OMO detergent brand in Brazil that utilizes GPS tracking to follow a consumer into their home(s).


Creepy? Outrageous?


The PR effort, mounted by its agency, Bullet, will plant GPS tracking devices in fifty two- pound boxes of the detergent and scatter distribution throughout Brazil (representing about 50 million homes).


When a box is pulled form the shelf, activation of the device will occur and the agency will track and “visit” the consumer at home within “a few hours or days” to let them know they won a pocket video camera and a day of fun at a Unilever event.


Invasion of privacy?


If a consumer refuses to answer the door for the “visit” (Brazil’s crime rate is quite high), the team will activate the device to buzz, alerting the consumer to the promotion.


Not OMO, but OMG!


Is this not like putting a “bullet” to your head? Where’s the thinking that cooked up this law suit waiting to happen?


While on the surface the promotion may sound like "fun in the suds", it has so many risks attached to it that they outweigh any positive return.

3DTV SHORTCOMINGS



It should come as no surprise to my readers that I am not a fan of 3DTV. I've posted several times on the lemming nature of the movement and the costs to the consumer. From the TV itself to the glasses. What surprises me, however, is the blind surge and investments by the set manufacturers to jump on board a ship I don't believe will easily stay afloat.

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. Michael is a partner at Altimeter Group. His weblog can be found at gartenblog.net.

His post below confirms my own perception of 3DTV.

"It's generally a bad idea to extrapolate larger consumer behavior from personal experience and say "if I like it, surely everyone else will as well." It's a mistake that happens all the time, but there's is one case where I will use my personal behavior to at least start the foundation for analysis -- when I don't want a new gadget or technology. Granted, sometimes I'm just not the target audience, but even then I'm usually able to remove myself from the process and say it might not be for me but others will love this. In the case of 3D TV, however, I think my lack of interest doesn't bode well for the market.

I'm surprised by figures, forecasts, predictions and prophecies all showing a rosy outlook for 3D TV beginning as early as this year, because I've seen most of the 3D offerings available and I have no plans to buy -- not now and not anytime soon. I should be a part of the core demographic for 3D: I like TV, movies and video games. I'm am early adopter. I have reasonable disposable income. I'm not afraid of betting on the wrong standard. And yet, I'm not buying. Here's why.

Cost: I'm fortunate that cost isn't the biggest inhibitor for me when I buy things, but I still do a cost/benefit analysis before I make a purchase. To really embrace 3D, I need a new TV, even though my current 1080p set is only a few years old and is wonderful. I'd need a new media player. I'd need glasses -- lots of them, as there can often be five or six people sitting around my set. I'd probably want a new digital camera to take 3D shots. And of course, I'd need some compelling 3D content from somewhere. That's already starting up to add into a significant cost proposition that takes it far out of impulse purchase territory.

Hassle: It's not just the cost to move to 3D. It's the hassle. Moving to HD was a breeze -- you just plugged in a new TV and were wowed by immediately available content. My upscaling DVD player made existing SD content look better than ever. By contrast, just viewing 3D content is a hassle due to the glasses. They're not cheap. They are gadgets in and of themselves, which means they require care and feeding, and everyone in the room needs a pair. Worse, I find 3D glasses very uncomfortable to wear for long periods over my regular glasses. The hassle alone of acquiring and viewing 3D content is enough to put me off.

Benefit: The cost and hassle of 3D could easily be justified and rationalized if there was a superb benefit on par with the move to HD. For me, 3D is cool but at best gratuitous. It doesn't change the visceral viewing experience for most of the content I've seen. I just don't see the value or wow factor that 3D brings to the table in its current format.

Someday technology will advance and 3D will be integrated into every screen. Standards will be deployed and the bulky and costly glasses will disappear. Content providers will figure out how to tell better stories with 3D that wouldn't have been possible before. And if that happens before I do my holiday shopping this year, I'll be on board. Given the low probability of that scenario, I'm going to pass for now. I expect many other consumers will as well."

TRUTH WELL TOLD



As a departure from a more serious post, the video that follows points to frustrations consumers are exposed to in the face of advertising that "simply" provides useful product information.

In 1912, Harry McCann, along with four partners, launched H.K. McCann Co, introducing the still used credo "Truth Well Told". The slogan has been standing behind the overall creative work of the agency and holds its strategic integrity in check.

McCann truly follows the powerful credo, but tales well woven and jokes well made earn a berth here as well.

In just two years, the agency that became McCann Erickson will mark 100 years. That was the serious part and we will be wishing Nick Brien and what is now McCann Worldgroup well.

We can't wait for the party to begin .... but in the meantime enjoy the video and the laugh.


UP IS THE NEW DOWN FOR AD SPENDING



A US ad spending forecast update, released today by MagnaGlobal, paints a rosier picture than previously reported.

Barring a double dip recession MagnaGlobal is forecasting a 2.1 percent growth for the US ad economy for 2010 to $169.9 billion....an increase of 31% over the previously reported forecast. This does NOT include Olympic or political media investments in TV which would bring the growth in at a very decent 3.4 percent for 2010.

The annual run rate for growth through 2015 is expected to be 3.6 percent.

As the industry braces for a return to a somewhat normal environment it begs the question of readiness. Staff cutbacks over the past several years created a void of intellectual capital that agencies and marketers need to quickly address. As a bounce-back occurs will we have the manpower to effectively manage normal growth?

Not all is positive, however. A downturn in online classifieds is causing an overall reduction in the double digit growth rate for the online sector. Direct Media (yellow pages, paid search, lead generation, directories and direct mail) is signaling a slowdown in growth and a possible short term return to awareness-driven media channels.

You can register for a free download of the report here: www.magnaglobal.com

CONDE' NAST'S DIGITAL ALBATROSS?


A technology news aggregator and message board site with 280 million page views per month needs your help.

Why? Because they don't have a business model that works and have been losing money. Reader's are simply not clicking on ads.


Here's the kicker....the site's owner, Conde' Nast, purchased it in 2006, and is offering little or no technical support or funding until the site shows promise. So the four engineers running the site (which has had a spate of technical problems lately) are
asking readers to donate or subscribe to the site in an effort to secure additional resources.

Many of the readers are too jaded and will not pay for a subscription. After all, Conde Nast is a giant publishing company that can easily fund it. But as a business unit with its own P&L, it seems CN will let it flounder and fail.


The bigger question, however, is the lack of reader interaction with the ads. Are surfers finally getting tired of display ads? Are they becoming oblivious to those leader boards and skyscrapers?

With 280 million page views you would think there is some merit in the sites ability to generate revenue.


You be the judge. Oh yeah...the site, if you can get to it, is
reddit.com

BATTLE ROYALE



If you're sick of Apple's walled garden but have yet to make the jump from the iPhone to an Android handset, here's what to expect, how to adjust, and how to cope with certain app withdrawal. The following guide, courtesy of the folks at Lifehacker.com will help ease a transition.....

Let me preface all of this by saying that for many—not all—the switch from iPhone to Android will feel like being covered in band-aids and ripping each one off over the course of a few weeks. This is not because there's anything particularly wrong with either mobile operating system, but because they have different paradigms. Android and iPhone feel different, look different, and accomplish things in sometimes very different manners. Nonetheless, they're both mobile operating systems with touch interfaces, so it's hard to avoid comparing the two and finding similarities between them. If you decide to ditch your iPhone and give Android a try, be prepared for a little culture shock.

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

The Good

While some things are worse and others just different, there are quite a few things Android does best, and you'll want to be sure to check them out.

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

You've Arrived with Google Maps Navigation
Welcome to getting to your destination safely, courtesy of Android's phenomenal free turn-by-turn navigation. As much as I love beating a dead horse, I won't go on endlessly about the fantastic Google Maps Navigation app. The app has found new routes to places I frequent that save 5-10 minutes over what I learned from my iPhone. It's great, it's built-in, and it costs you nothing.

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

Your Voice
Voice capabilities are also new and exciting. The iPhone's Voice Control exists, but it's limited to music, apps, and a few other areas of the phone. Android gives you surprisingly accurate voice search that lets you enter text into any field with your voice, get directions while you're driving, make calls to businesses just by saying their names, or find pretty much anything on the web.

Freedom of Choice
On the iPhone you have the App Store; on Android you have the Android Marketplace. One of the reasons you may want to switch to Android is the choice of carrier and hardware it provides, along with its much more open app market. This has its disadvantages, which we'll talk about it later, but the upside is the freedom developers have to bring you all kinds of apps. There are apps that look exactly like their iPhone counterparts, but also apps that dig a lot deeper into the OS, letting you customize all sorts of uses and notifications, and have a seductive level of control over what you can do.

Instant Web
On Android, the web is here. On your iPhone, you have to bring it to you. If you're an eager Google service user and you supply your Android phone with your Google credentials, you'll quickly find your phone is filled with all sorts of information. You'll have e-mail, calendar items, contacts, bookmarks and more. I found out I had calendars and contacts in Google I didn't know existed. You can also connect to Facebook and Twitter to pull even more information into your phone. When Android detects contact information that should belong to an existing contact, it'll suggest you link it. While the way it displays everything isn't so great, and you don't always have easy handles on what you don't want to see, information is in constant sync with your web apps.

Passively Notified

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

If you were asked to pick just one complaint about the iPhone's interface, there's a good chance it's about how it handles notifications. Nobody loves frequent pop-ups, and it's almost bizarre that Apple has implemented such an archaic notification system. Android handles notifications passively, allowing you to check when you want and be otherwise uninterrupted—but, if you'd like, set specific notifications to ring, vibrate, or flash your trackball light for attention. If you're new to Android, you might not know where to find these updates. Just drag the down on the status bar up top and you'll pull down your notifications drawer.

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

The Bad

It's not all good news when you switch. Android has its issues, too. Fortunately, you can work around most of them.

Spyware
Apple insists their walled garden of an App Store is necessary to keep everyone safe—and, infamously, offer freedom from porn—and in some ways they may be right. The Android Marketplace has begun to see a spyware problem. How big of an issue it is may be up for debate, but it exists. When you download an Android app, you'll need to consider its source and note the warnings about the sorts of data it can access. Be prudent and think before you install.

It is worth noting that Apple's App Store isn't bereft of spyware; it just hasn't grown to the projected proportions of the Android Marketplace.

Blame the Manufacturer

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

Carriers and hardware manufacturers can sometimes add to the Android experience, but in most cases you'll wish you could get rid of that Sprint Nascar app (for example). HTC likes to add their Sense layer on top of the standard Android experience, as a means of beautification and betterment, but you might find it more cumbersome than helpful. Of course, you may be the minority that loves mandatory carrier apps and added interface layers. If not, you can relegate carrier apps to the app drawer by simply dragging them from the home screen to the trash (and then further banishing them through the "Manage Applications" section of Settings/Applications). Better still, if you don't like the home screen, change it.

Low Battery Warning

Certain Android phones (that'd be you, Evo) have embarrassing battery life. While the iPhone's battery isn't endless (even though it's more battery than phone nowadays), due to Android's true multitasking, the battery life falls a little short. You may be able to eke out a little more longevity by utilizing apps like TasKiller (see #6) to quit processes you don't want running, or the buggy-but-brilliant JuiceDefender app to cut back on data and screen usage. There's a debate over TasKiller's efficacy, and you don't want to abuse its power in fear of killing off an important background task you actually want running, but I've found it helps me keep the phone on a little bit longer. If you don't want to take such extreme measures, just make sure you actually quit apps when you're done with them. Unlike the iPhone, you need to be a little more active in your app management.

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

The Uncomfortable

The good and bad aside, you'll most likely be uncomfortable until you hit the other side of the learning curve. Switching from one OS to another isn't supposed to be, so stay patient and stick with it.

Bad Touch
There's something about (multi)touch on Android that isn't quite as elegant as the iPhone. The animations aren't as smooth, touch doesn't always respond the same way and things just don't feel right. In some cases you'll find yourself adjusting to the little differences, such as sliding down to unlock your phone rather than left to right (as you're used to with the iPhone). In other cases you may find things just don't feel the way you hoped, like when scrolling and you hit a hard stop at the bottom of a page (whereas an iPhone will bounce a little to let you know you've reached the end). How hard it is to adjust to the touch, the feel of cotton Android will depend on you, but remember this: It's different. It's not an iPhone, so don't expect one.

Different Strokes

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

When you buy a new keyboard for a computer, the displacement of a single button can become very frustrating. Once you memorize key locations it's hard to switch, because they're embedded in your muscle memory. Depending on the Android phone you choose, you'll either be adjusting to a physical keyboard with its own layout, or you'll be presented with a familiar but notably different touch keyboard. The number/symbol selector may be on the right side (it varies), your spacebar is a bit smaller, and you have a microphone button that will let you speak what you want to type instead of typing it. It's slightly different and you'll slip up, but you'll adjust with practice. But once you get the hang of it you'll discover keyboard shortcuts that'll help you type faster. Here are a few shortcuts, but note that they may or may not work based on your hardware:

  • Alt + Spacebar lets you insert special characters
  • Alt + Delete will delete an entire line
  • Pressing Shift twice will initiate caps lock.
  • Menu + X will cut all text, Menu + C will copy it, Menu + V will paste clipboard text and Menu + A will select everything in the current field.
  • Alt + Q inserts a tab space.

The upside to Android? If you want to try a keyboard that's vastly different, like the gesture-based Swype, you have that option as well.

Consistent Expectations
Consistency of the interface is another piece of culture shock. Maybe staring at a grid of iPhone apps felt like staring into your probable future as a member of the Apple occult, but at least you knew what you were getting. On Android, you have several pages with different items and you may find yourself swiping around blindly. Just like you would with a grid of apps with no real immediate notification of what's what, you'll get used to the differing pages of your home screen. If not, you can always replace it with a nifty app like SlideScreen (something the iPhone could really use).

Localized Settings

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

On the iPhone you've come to expect some of your app settings in, well, the global Settings app. In Android, you'll always find them in the actual application. To get to any app's settings, you'll need to go into the app, hit your phone's Menu button, and then hit "Settings." This applies not only to apps your downloads from the Android Marketplace, but settings for your text messages, email accounts, and other features you may think of as part of the OS.

Real (or Unreal) Buttons
Speaking of the menu button, you'll find that navigating an Android phone requires the use of those four buttons below the screen. This can be very off-putting at first. You might wonder what purpose is served by offering dedicated buttons which, on some handsets, aren't really even buttons at all. As you get used to them and memorize where they are, you'll adapt, but initially you may want to pull your hair out wondering why everything isn't part of the touch screen. Simply put, iPhone apps have been designed for some time now as single environments with multiple screens to page through, while Android apps function a bit more like traditional desktop apps—a single screen, with buttons and options, made to be switched into and out of regularly.

Jumping Ship from iPhone to Android: A Switcher's Guide

Out of Sync

What about syncing? One of the benefits of Android is that, for the most part, you won't need to sync. You can copy media from your computer over USB if you need to. But do you miss the painful tethered syncing of iTunes? Then get doubleTwist (here's our first look), which can be described pretty accurately as iTunes for Android. If you don't like Android's media player, doubleTwist offers an alternative. If you're longing for iTunes after the switch, a couple of downloads should have you covered.

Storage Options
Storage on an iPhone is a sealed deal (much like the battery), but on Android it's expandable. On one hand this is great because you essentially have no limits, but it also means purchasing an additional MicroSDHC card (or two) in order to fit everything you want. Generally you only start with 8GB. Whether you go out and grab a 32GB card or a few smaller ones, you may have to start considering your storage a bit differently.

PREDICTING FLOPS - 3DTV



Several months ago we commented on the lemming effect of television manufacturers running over the 3DTV cliff. Not withstanding the expense, the need to wear glasses (and have extra pairs around for guests), and the cost of the glasses we predicted (and still do) the loss of hundreds of millions by companies the likes of Sony, Samsung and LG among others.

Major motion picture directors and movie critics panned 3D as a "waste of a dimension".

Today, a Japanese consumer survey may have hammered the first nail in the coffin.

Here are the results and a partial lift from website VG247 ....

Sony is preparing to stake its case for 3D gaming at Develop in Brighton this month, despite a Japanese survey today showing that nearly 70 percent of those questioned have no intention of upgrading to 3D TVs this year. Why? Because the glasses are turning them off.

Respondents blamed the need for wear glasses, costly TV sets and scarcity of general content for lack of interest, the survey by Kakaku.com showed (via Reuters).

The numbers aren’t small, either: 70 percent said the hassle of wearing special glasses put them off, 57 percent said prices were too high and close to 40 percent said there was not enough 3D content.

Of those questioned, 67.4 percent said they were not interested in buying a 3D TV while only 31.2 percent were considering or wanted to purchase one, the survey said.

The online survey ran June 10-16, receiving responses from 8,957 people.

Gaming firms such as Sony and EA pushed 3D titles in their E3 press conferences this year, with Sony in particular making big efforts to evangelise the fledgling feature.

Sony continues western 3D push

Unperturbed by the news from Japan, however, Sony said today it’s to showcase PS3 3D at Develop later this month.

Enough said.