| Sam Young Newsletter |
Issue 73, January 2004
Hi guys,
So what's new in marketing? Check out Pay As You Listen... below to find out about Jingle Casting.
And again on the marketing theme, Signs that its Time to Rebrand provides a list of tell-tale clues that you need to take a fresh look at your image.
Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.
| Pay As You Listen... |
It all started with Nike in the 1980s introducing the brilliant idea to make customers pay to wear their logo and strapline. Since then, not only have we been buying the core products, but we have been wearing a plethora of logos, buying jewellery logos, buying ads to put on our walls as posters, tattooing logos onto our bodies, shaving logos onto our heads and downloading logos as screensavers into our PCs and phones.
Now, according to Amsterdam-based research company, trendwatching.com, we can now expect audio to be added to people’s branding expressions. Called "Jingle Casting", this media has the potential to become an integral part of organisation's marketing strategies in the future.
Trendwatching warns us not to "underestimate the power of corporate jingles: just hearing the first few notes of 'Always Coca Cola' may entice thirsty consumers around the world to head for the vending machine or fridge" and is waiting for the first beverage giant to persuade a leading DJ to turn their corporate jingle into a global clubbing hit.
Jingle Casting started with Domino's Pizza introducing electrical delivery scooters with horns changed to match their ad jingles. Now in Japan, Coca Cola promotes by wireless text offering customers a free ringtone download of a Coke jingle with the purchase of a vending machine can of Coke; boosting sales by 50 percent amongst message receivers.
Now targeted at new generation cellphones containing 16-voice MIDI synthesizers, Trendwatching are expecting the cell phones to become yet another broadcast media, with organisations enticing consumers to download their company jingles, commercials or political catch-cries as ringtones.
Needless to say, currently Jingle Casting targets a fairly young demographic - teens to 20s, but is likely to reach into the 30s as time goes on.
Amazing, isn't it. We pay for the product, and then pay for the ad. Human nature is a strange and mysterious thing...
| Signs that its Time to Rebrand |
Rebranding can be a wonderful exercise to go through. But how do you know when it is time to start the brand audit to kick the process off? Following are several pointers that can make it very clear it is time to take a fresh look at your brand;
- Application of technology has changed how - or even what - you deliver to your customers
- Your changing business has left your customer base behind
- You have taken over another organisation
- Your organisation's offer has become splintered or diverse; and now it is time to consolidate
- Your customers don't like your "look"
- Prospective customers constantly confuse your organisation with another
- Your brand is fragmented through loose interpretations of your brand signature
- Your consumers know your organisation and trust you, but have outdated ideas about who your organisation is and what you do
- Your organisation has a strong customer base but are having trouble extending it
- Your staff feel it's time everyone knew that your organisation's "moved on"
- You're not getting enough of the work you want, and the work you are getting is now commoditised and therefore low value
- You are missing significant opportunities because your organisation is not even making consumer's purchase consideration sets
- Competitors have taken leadership - or worse, ownership - of what used to be your organisation's sole domain
| Great Woody's Outlook Tip |
From Woody's email essentials a few weeks ago there was a great Outlook tip to show extra Outlook windows.
You can add shortcut icons to your Outlook toolbar, your Quick Launch bar or directly on your desktop. Shortcuts in the Quick Launch bar will open your Outlook calendar or a custom Outlook email folder directly. By using a hyperlink in the format of a URI (see TLAs for the definition!) eg outlook:calendar or outlook:inbox, the shortcuts will always open in a new window.
Here's how to have single-click access to your Outlook Calendar at any time:
- Right-click on the desktop and choose New | Shortcut
- In the Create Shortcut dialog box key "outlook:calendar" into the Command Line field and click Next
- Name your shortcut (eg Calendar or whatever you fancy) and click Finish
- Move the shortcut by dragging it into your Quick Launch bar if you so desire
To do the same trick with other Outlook elements or mail folders, the names are:
- "outlook:contacts" opens Contacts in a new window
- "outlook:inbox" opens Inbox in a new window
- "outlook:tasks" opens Tasks in a new window
- "outlook:private" opens my mail folder entitled Private in its own window (NB: shortcuts aren't case-sensitive). Customise this naming schema to suit your own inbox sub-folders - if you use them ("outlook:private\banking" will open the sub-folder Banking within the Private mail folder; and so on)
The Woody's crowd are great. Not only do they produce a number of publications that are really worthwhile, they write those great "Window's for Dummies" books. To join the Woody's email tips, email WEE@woodyswatch.com.
| TLAs for SMEs |
Here are this newsletter's TLAs for you;
- Longhorn (not a TLA at all!), the new "beta" version name for MS Windows to be released to retail in 2005 or 2006. And the beta version isn't due for release for another year either
- URI, Uniform Resource Identifier.
- MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface
Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.
| Short+Hot Keys... and now tips |
All the Function keys for you again, but this time we are moving between files & doing things when the mouse turns to custard;
- Excel "Navigate between open workbooks", Ctrl & F6
- Global "Navigate between open files", Alt & Tab
- Global "Need to get out of any MS application, saving your work when you can't see the screen" Alt & F, then X, then Enter several times
- Word "Turn off auto hyperlinks" by off, by going to Tools | AutoCorrect (or AutoCorrect Options) | AutoFormat As You Type | untick the "Internet and Network Paths With Hyperlinks" box
| Hot Linx |
Want to keep up with the latest in office-speak? Then Word Spy is the site for you. Check it out at http://www.wordspy.com/?GXHC_GX_jst=8258c07850ea6165
Taking prospective clients out for dinner to a new restaurant? Then, before you blow your chances, check their listing and read their reviews on this great site at http://www.dineout.co.nz/
Want a dictionary with all those words that we should have in the language? cf "e-metics"! Then check out the PseudoDictionary at http://www.pseudodictionary.com/index.php
Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here
