Posts Tagged ‘New York Times’
Having blogged about it a couple of times, I have also been ‘using’ Foursquare’s location based platform to ‘check-in’ over the past five months. I am dubiously proud of being able to claim that I am the ‘Mayor’ of the Acela club at CitiField in New York.
And I have been to the Acela club exactly three times this season which leads me to think that people who visit the Acela club do not subscribe or care about Foursquare. In fact the few people I asked who work there had never even heard of location based services like Foursquare. As Acela club ‘mayor’ I have not been offered the key to CitiField or even a free drink – alcoholic or not.
In an article in today’s NY Times http://nyti.ms/aDGgmn, it was noted that Loopt is offering people a mobile game that rewards people for checking in frequently to particular places. And as such one can become ‘boss’ of certain locations – sort of like being the mayor. The key thing is that companies like Gap, Burger King Etc., plan to use Loopt Star to reward loyal customers. Foursquare is also working with its partners to offer real-time rewards for check-ins and frequencies of visits.
One thing the article fails to mention is the vagaries of GPS check in on these platforms. I know for example on Foursquare when I attempt to ‘check-in’ I am given a list of nearby locations even if I am smack in the middle of one on the list. (Somehow I find it really odd that if I am sitting in a Starbucks it tells me that the one I am sitting in is somehow 137 meters away). But I can also check-in to any of these GPS-enabled locations whether I am actually physically there or not.
GPS technology is set to make a major leap forward with the advent of High Accuracy-NDGPS which will enable accuracy to the centimeter level. This will be a critical enhancement since it appears that I can check in at any number of places simultaneously/concurrently (or at least in quick sequence), so that I could gain reward points at places I actually never visited.
Think about it, you are sitting at coffee shop in the middle of the city, but you check in at Burger King (for the third time that week) even though you have been to the Burger King. Now Burger King sends you a coupon for a soda with a sandwich purchase. Retailer margins will be squeezed. People will game the system – that can be guaranteed.
I understand that companies can counter that talk about the fact the patron actually purchased something, but at the same time product is being given away for nothing. And how is that a good idea?
So join up now and get free stuff – while you can.
The rebuilding of the World Trade Center (WTC) is an ongoing saga. It’s hard for me to believe that nearly nine years after the event of 9/11 construction is only now starting to get into gear. To call it a fiasco might be an understatement and I am overly thrilled with the final design. In addition, a lack of prime tenants (I would not consider the Port Authority of NY/NJ to be a prime tenant) had been of great concern to Larry Silverstein and his development team.
It’s no secret the publishing industry is in the midst of severe changes and employee downsizing. The future of publishing is fast evolving. So let’s say that one the largest and most successful publishers in the world (Conde-Nast – think Vanity Fair, Vogue, etc.) might be uncertain about their future in terms of how many people and they will employ (staff vs. freelance for example). What might they do?
Reading the article in today’s New York Times http://nyti.ms/cHwJyA gave me the idea that Conde-Nast moving out of Times-Square and down to the WTC is a nearly perfect arrangement. It gives the WTC a flagship tenant that very well could attract other possible prime tenants to head back downtown. Conde-Nast currently occupies 800,000 square feet at 4 Times Square as well as five other buildings in Manhattan. One million square feet out of 2.9 million total square feet will be a huge boost to Mr. Silverstein and his partners.
And what does Conde-Nast get? A back door perhaps? If for some reason Conde-Nast were to be smaller than they forecast, (I strongly suspect the brass at Conde-Nast have no idea what their personnel needs will truly be five years from now) they can simply renegotiate lease terms – less space, lower cost per square foot etc. In the meantime both parties can crow about a match made in heaven or at least the 110th floor of this 1,776 foot tower, (to be known as 1 World Trade Center after the term Freedom Tower was scrapped) which is to be the tallest building in the United States.
It’s a risk both parties have a good reason to strongly consider.
Agree? Disagree?
According to the “State of Inbound Marketing Report” from Hubspot, as reported by Marketing Charts, inbound marketing is continuing to grow in importance at the expense of outbound marketing. This is good news and further validation that paid search, SEO, social media, blogging really resonate with consumer as well as marketers. For a copy of the pdf – http://bit.ly/aewfHr
With so many marketers looking to employ social media and other non-traditional outlets the report should serve notice that attracting interest in products and services will become the dominant method of marketing. And I could not be happier.
I posted last October that my hope was with the passing of pitchman Billy Mays http://bit.ly/anfWYD the shouting might finally stop. In an article by Stuart Elliott in today’s New York Times http://nyti.ms/9CQlR9 companies like Proactiv are also getting the message that fast and loud is no longer the way to promote products. When the giant infomercial and marketing firm Guthy-Renker tests a less ‘noisy’ approach, that’s big marketing news indeed.
Eliminating in your face direct marketing come-ons still will take time. And don’t think for a second that there aren’t consumers out there that don’t respond to FREE, and ACT NOW. There are many of them out there and the older you are the more accustomed (ok inured) to the blast and hope approach. They continue to be effective but if you look closely you can see the tide is changing.
Why do I think it’s better to attract? Mainly because it offers the prospect/consumer to choose to pay attention what interests them and to disregard messages that they individual feels are irrelevant. The result should be a deeper level of customer engagement since it’s THEIR choice to engage. It does present a major challenge and shift in thinking for marketing agencies. That shift has already begun and there is now a mad scramble in the agency world to show understanding, performance and measurement for social media campaigns in particular.
I’m both intrigued and excited at the direction things are heading with regard to attracting more interest as opposed to promoting it. To give you an example we have a client that wanted to send out text SMS messages to ‘opted-in’ teens promoting music in mall stores. While that can work (and we are planning to test) we suggested signage in the malls noting the number to text to in order to receive free music at the store. We are in development of the campaign right now.
Which do you think will work better?
For those of you that do not live in the Northeastern United States you may be unaware of the aftermath of the ‘unnamed’ hurricane that occurred over this past mid-March weekend. Hurricanes by definition have sustained winds over 75 MPH and there were several reports of winds in excess of that. Whether they were sustained or not is not the point. What is important is that millions of people were impacted – some tragically and 2 ½ days after the storm thousands of people remain underwater and without power.
It’s obvious that national newspapers would not cover local events, (to any specific or significant degree) like the impact of a storm in the suburbs of New York City. But our local paper (the Norwalk Hour) is there precisely for that reason. When I opened my paper on Monday to read articles about the impact of the storm locally there was exactly one article on the storm. No data. No rainfall or wind amounts. The website had little more to offer and did nothing to help people without power who could not access the internet anyway. Although I did not intend to pick on the Hour, I’ve been monitoring both their printed and web coverage of local events for several years.
Why do we even get a local paper? For me (and many people) it’s to cover local events. News, weather, sports, local politics and issues related to schools and services in our immediate communities. I realize that some people may only get one newspaper and the local paper may be it. But many people receive either national newspapers like the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal or read them online. But those papers will not cover local events such as high school and youth sports. Nor would they offer detailed local weather records or stories from people in the community. I suspect that most people are not looking for in depth reporting of national and international events in the local paper.
Their website can take on much of those added functionalities and offering full website access to subscribers would be added value. Contextual advertising could be created to serve up ads during weather events that would offer services such as snowplowing, services for helping after a flood, tree removal and generators. You get the idea.
There are some local newspapers that are marrying web and local content very well even now. But far too many are miles behind the curve. If they don’t change their approach I fear that they will be extinct sooner than later. That would be not only a loss of employment for those that work on the staff of local newspapers; it will be a huge loss for the local communities.
I’m not naïve. It’s terribly difficult these days in the newspaper business. People want access to information for little or nothing. But if local papers are not going to cover local events in a timely fashion their audience will disappear completely. It’s happening every day. By the way today’s paper did have three articles on the aftermath of the storm. A day late.
Agree or disagree?
Two articles today one in the NY Times and the other in the Wall Street Journal cover location based mobile advertising.
Using a tactic called Geo-Fencing a company called Placecast (http://www.placecast.net) has a platform of ‘location-triggered’ mobile marketing solutions. They ‘fence’ areas in cities and if you walk inside the fenced area and have signed up to receive messages from a marketer (in the case of the NY Times article the retailer The North Face is used as an example) the marketer by the use of the platform can text message offers, events and promotions. Visit http://nyti.ms/a5xLoR for the NY Times article.
The Wall Street Journal article also covers the combining of social media and marketing. Using a variety of platforms retailers can offer one-day promotions and offers. Visit http://bit.ly/9a1MKx for the Wall Street Journal article.
A 2008 start-up called FourSquare (www.foursquare.com) is a free application that allows participants to ‘check-in’ via a mobile application to essentially let their friends know where they are and in addition to racking up ‘points’ with individual retailers they also can be rewarded for frequenting eating and drinking establishments – even becoming ‘mayor’ if they go there enough.
I will readily admit that I don’t personally see the value in alerting my friends to where I am at any given moment. But I don’t live in the city and have not for some time. And when I was living in New York I was often surprised to run into people I knew at places and on the streets – not necessarily something one would think in a city of 8 million people.
For me I also don’t see myself signing up with retailers/merchants to receive offers from them when I step inside their geo-fence. But then again I’m a buyer not a shopper. And I personally am not so brand-driven but understand that I am in minority there.
Yet in terms of overall marketing strategy and engagement I think all these location based services are interesting, relevant and will shake out such that a few will emerge as regular every day parts of people’s lives – first primarily in cities but it will evolve beyond that as well to include people outside of cities.
2010 may not end up being the year of mobile but that ‘year’ is getting closer and maybe it does not make sense to anoint a year at all. After all why would we really care about which year is the year of mobile anyway?