Pay Your Subscribers Some Respect

Today, I received an email offer from a retailer for an online game where I can win discounts. I don't shop here frequently, but ok, I'll bite. Let's see what this is all about. So I click through (score one for the retailer's email marketing manager).

Upon clicking, I'm delivered to the promotional microsite for their new game/contest. The site prompts me to enter my email. This is mildly annoying, since I just clicked through from an email and it would have been simple for the website to recognize me or at the very least, pre-populate my address to save me a minute of hassle. Still, I am not deterred. In this economy, we'll all do a little more than usual for a great coupon. So I enter my address and continue on.



Do I get to play the game? No. I am now greeted with an even longer form! Keep in mind that I have purchased something from this retailer before. Online. Quite recently. So not only am I a registered user, but they already have my address and all of the other information they are requesting. In fact, notice they give me the option to register for their e-newsletter list, which I'm already registered for (that's how I got here!). At this point, I decide it's not worth it and abandon the form.



Why do marketers continue to make it so difficult to interact with their brand when technology should make it so easy? The example above is a clear case of what not to do. When you create landing pages or microsites, use caution and balance friction with incentive, or you'll surely notice high abandonment rates.

Exploring the Marketing Potential of Microsoft Tag

Ok, first things first, I did not closely follow CES '09 and my reader was so bogged down with posts on all the amazing technology that I admittedly didn't have the time to read most of them. If I had, perhaps I would have discovered Microsoft Tag last month, but instead I read about it today and it blew my mind (just a little!).

Microsoft Tag is technology that lets individuals (or businesses) create a personalized "colorblock" that can be stuck virtually anywhere and acts as a gateway to a wealth of digital information. Wait, what, huh? Yeah, it took me a minute too. Here's the scenario:

• I request a "tag" from Microsoft. This tag is individual to me. I am a beautiful and unique snowflake.
• I print or paste this tag wherever I please, be it on my business card, my t-shirt or my twitter profile.
• Someone who wants to know more about me snaps a picture of my tag with their compatible camera phone and they are instantly connected to a page of relevant information.
  
• Just like I can have my own tag, I can also snap pictures of others to learn more about someone or something.

This post on B2B Marketing Confidential examines just a few of the potential marketing tie-ins for these tags, including using them on retail displays and putting codes on hardware components for a direct link to relevant tech support. I think this technology has the potential to be really cool, if it takes off.

Tying in to the retail display idea - what if you could snap a picture of a tag on a product you're interested in and instantly be connected to consumer reviews of the product? I know you can find these using a smartphone anyway, but as technology progresses, it seems to be all about making things easier and faster.

The Future is Now: New E-Newspaper Reader Goes to Market

A few months back I referenced the Minority Report-esque "electronic newspaper" in a blog about the future of news.

It seems today we come one step closer to this futuristic dream- Plastic Logic announced it's e-news reader which mimics the look of a real newspaper. The reader uses the same technology behind Amazon's Kindle and similar readers, but in a much larger size, equal to a piece of copier paper. The device can be updated via a wireless link and stores hundreds of pages of information.

The reader goes on sale early next year. Plastic Logic is expected to present more information, including the price and planned news organization partnerships, at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January.

Electronic readers offer the opportunity to collect more information on subscribers, leading to targeted advertising campaigns. They also hold the promise of a greener news industry and would significantly reduce operating costs for news providers.

Digital Advertising Recognizes Your Demographics and Product Choices

New technology called ad targeting is on it's way to your favorite local stores.

Soon, in-store promotions will be based on products the you picked off a shelf, and it's not too long before you'll see ads based on what you look like.

Dunkin Donuts is currently testing the ads in two Buffalo, NY locations. In the morning ads will feature breakfast items at the cash register and lunch items at the pick up station, hoping to prompt a return visit.

But the real 'Big Brother' technology is being tested in Germany, where Proctor and Gamble have inserted radio-based ID tags in key products. If a consumer chooses a product from the shelf, a targeted advertising message is served up on an eye-level, digital screen in front of them. For example, if you choose a shampoo, the screen will suggest complimentary P&G styling products. Convenient, yet creepy.

YCD Multimedia, who provides the digital screens for Dunkin' Donuts, is working to quickly roll-out facial-recognition technologies that can classify people into certain demographic groups by identifying their approximate age and their sex. This technology would use face shape to serve up ads relevant to your identified demographic.

Another interesting application is inventory management. Israeli coffee chain Aroma Espresso Bar is using the screens to encourage consumers to purchase items that they may have overstocked and perishable goods. If there is a large amount of pastries that will go stale that night, for instance, a manager will switch ads on the screen to promote them, says Gali Goldwaser, marketing manager for Aroma.

Competitive Advantage: American Airlines Brings Wireless to the Skies

Today American Airlines will activate it's in-flight wireless services, available through Aircell. The charge will be $12.95 and is available to passengars on Boeing 767-200 flights between New York and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami.

"Today the days of being cut off from the rest of the world while in the air become history," said Jack Blumenstein, chief executive of Aircell LLC, the company providing Internet services for American and other airlines.

Though several other airlines are testing wireless services (in 2005, United vowed to be the first to offer in-flight wireless), American Airlines is the first domestic carrier to bring the service live.

Is the availability of wireless enough to convince you to make American your airline of choice?

Don't Listen to the Voices in Your Head

Advertising has moved to a new realm... invading your thought. So next time you think you hear voices in your head... it may just be Coke telling you that you're thirsty.

Companies are beginning to use hypersonic sound - a targeted beam that causes anyone who crosses it's path to hear a message in their mind.

Freaky.

Clive Thompson writes about his first encounter with this futuristic advertising medium in this month's Wired. He writes:

"Trolling down the street in Manhattan, I suddenly hear a woman's voice.

'Who's there? Who's there?' she whispers. I look around but can't figure out where it's coming from. It seems to emanate from inside my skull.

Was I going nuts? Nope. I had simply encountered a new advertising medium: hypersonic sound. It broadcasts audio in a focused beam, so that only a person standing directly in its path hears the message. In this case, the cable channel A&E was using the technology to promote a show about, naturally, the paranormal."

Yes, it's pretty cool... fascinating, actually. But is this new invasion of our thoughts ethical? Or even legal? Thompson also examines the greater world of emerging brain technologies... leaving us feeling that we're losing our grasp on what may be our only true sanctuary... our own minds.