The new champion of murketing – Blackberry Bold

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Move over “viral”, “word-of-mouth”, and “permission”.

“Murketing” is the new buzzword.  Recently highlighted in the book, Buying In, Rob Walker explains how some marketers and advertisers have gotten so good at pushing their wares that the consumer becomes consciously oblivious, but subconsciously receptive, to the message.  Even better, we’ll sometimes argue vehemently that this form of advertising has no effect on us, then go and buy the stuff.

Remember the scare we had with “subliminal advertising”?  Well, this is scarier, because I’m pretty sure it works.

Basically, you know you’ve become a sucker to murketing when you won’t buy Bud Light because you hate the idea of a corporate machine telling you what to drink.  Then you get a Pabst Blue Ribbon tattoo because Pabst is so “underground”, and you can totally identify with that.  (You think I’m joking, sadly, no.)

Well, I am that sucker.  If you’ve been following my quest (or questiple) for the Blackberry Bold you know what I mean.  I’ve been lusting for this thing like a greyhound in heat.

I’ve even gone as far criticizing the ineptitude of the “chimps” in the marketing department at RIM.  Using the iPod 3G launch as my yardstick, I’ve been listing the ways that the Bold launch has been coming short:  no release date, no pricing, no official specs, no communication from RIM whatsoever.  From a corporate standpoint, it’s the anti-iPhone.

Instead, the bits and pieces I’ve gotten from the likes of Boy Genius Report and Engagdet have been tantamount to a 3 month striptease.  And the effect is exactly the same.  I don’t care about the details anymore, just lay it on me.

Case cracks? - I don’t care.
3G issues? – I don’t care.
Battery problems? – I don’t care.
Chile gets it first? – that just makes me sour.

Kudos to you RIM.  You’ve taken the Bold from the normal realm of utility (where I would be exchanging my money for the pleasure of using your product) to the realm of cognitive dissonance (where because I’ve wanted this thing so bad for so long, I’d be forced to question my personal worldview if I didn’t buy it.)

RIM marketing department, I salute you.  Now please can I have my Bold?

The Twitter experiment…

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The Twitter saga continues as numerous services like twitSMS, tweetSMS, 3jam, and Zygotweet are springing up to “free the tweet” (kudos to Zygotweet for the great little graphic.)

From a marketing perspective, it’s funny to see how these new players are spinning the recent news that Twitter will no longer be providing free text messages in the U.K.  The folks at 3jam glumly announce that “for anyone [emphasis mine] located outside of the U.S., Canada, or India” Twitter SMS will be discontinued, conveniently failing to mention that the service was only offered in 4 countries to begin with.

But more interestingly, from an academic perspective, we’re at the beginning of what economists call a natural experiment.  Since economists are social scientists, they’re usually unable to put on a white coat and test their hypotheses in a lab, so they tend to fall all over themselves when the opportunity arises in real life.

For instance, take a stretch of highway that the state decides to turn into a tollway.  Now that every motorist must pay for the privilege of driving on that road, you can find out how much that privilege is worth (versus using surface streets).

What everyone will be excited to analyze first is the utility (or value) of the Twitter service to the end user.  Since it was initially free, and now costs money, you’ll be able to see what this type of product is truly worth to people, and how many people will be willing to pay for it.  And, for the people that have a stance on Chris Andersen’s notion of free being the future of content, they’ll have some ammunition for their support or opposition (or both, or neither; that’s economics for you.)

And of course, you should also look forward to somebody like Steven Levitt (my boy) or Malcolm Gladwell (my homedog) getting their Freakonomics on and coming up with something entirely out of left field.  Like correlating the downfall of free Twitter SMS to juvenile delinquency in Canada, or the re-emergence of the caste system in India.  Those crazy economists, what will they come up with next?

More on the trouble with Twitter.

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Following my initial doom-and-gloom post about the uncertain business model of the popular microblogging service, a number of other bloggers and news agencies published similar critiques.  Business Week’s article I found most enlightening, and not because of the continued bashing it laid upon Twitter but rather the level-headed way it pointed out that their only real option, an ad-supported model, isn’t nearly as lucrative as it might seem.

You may already know that many of us marketers over here at NearU are followers of Seth Godin, and most notably his philosophy of Permission Marketing.  Business Week doesn’t touch on permission marketing explicitly, but in as many words they’re saying that the “traditional” (I love that we’re already calling these things traditional, like its the way your grandpa made money online) internet practice of free with some ads at the bottom is fundamentally flawed.

It’s no surprise to anyone whose ever ignored a banner ad that in-your-face push advertising has dismal response rates.  And they’re only getting lower.  Even Google’s recommendations, once the veritable Second Coming of online advertising, are showing evidence of decreasing returns and an uncertain future.

Don’t get me wrong, the ad dollars are out there, especially as long as consumers are paying attention to interesting and remarkable things.  But it’s also clear that consumer tolerance for untargeted or “stupid” advertising is diminishing with each passing day.  It seems like permission marketing, where consumers opt-in for the specific offers and ads that they want receive, is the only way the online marketing will redeem itself.

The real question in my mind is how things will play out at the intersection of personal privacy (the data mining that might be needed to properly target a given consumer) with the desire for more relevant ads (those that we didn’t necessarily opt-in for, but were still delighted to receive).

SMS fights crime in India.

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As a personal communication medium, SMS is unique in a number of ways, but one of its most remarkable features is the ability to give a voice to the voiceless.  It sounds horribly cliche, but if you’re stuck in a noisy nightclub and you need to give your girl directions, or you’re driving through an area with spotty reception and you need to tell your mom that you’re ok, a text message can really come through when a voice call isn’t an option.

And so from India comes the ultimate example of text messaging’s ability to bring power to the people.  Since August 1st, Indian citizens who observe government corruption can text their tips to a watchdog agency.  They’ve had the option to call it in for a while, but as anyone who tattled in the 5th grade can attest, the simple act of speaking up can be a serious obstacle to doing the right thing.  By having the option to send a text message instead, many would-be whistleblowers have an easier way to follow through.

Of course, this approach has its own caveats, especially if the SMS volume reaches a point where not every tip is thoroughly investigated, but I think its a step in the right direction.

What about the good ole’ US of A?  Our government’s ranking on Transparency International hasn’t been impressing anyone since Eisenhower; what better way to give Scandinavia a run for its money?  On second thought, if Homeland Security gets their hands on this and encourages Joe Citizen to send an SMS every time someone is taking snapshots of his wrought-iron fence we could have a serious witchhunt on our hands.

Is it worth it?

Is the free Twitter party about to end?

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Twitter has been a media darling, vanity aggrandizer, and user aggravator for the last two years.  And it hasn’t been entirely without merit, since it’s a legitimately fun way to announce to all your friends that you’re currently walking your dog or using the bathroom for the third time today.

But there’s indication that the text-messaging portion of Twitter’s free service may cease to be.  SMS Text News reports that carriers in the UK (one of four countries where Twitter’s service is available, the US, Canada, and India the other three) are knocking on the door of the party and asking “What’s all this then?”

SMS costs money, and unless Twitter manages to convince their investors to shoulder the price of all those outgoing texts while they figure out some ground-breaking business model, it looks like there’s only 3 plausible outcomes:

1)  Twitter shuts down its SMS service

2)  Twitter makes you pay for a premium package that includes the SMS bit

3)  Twitter puts ads on the bottom of each of your “tweets”

If there’s another solution you can think of, I’d like to hear it, although I’m betting that Twitter would hire anyone would a better idea.  Stock options anyone?

Obama’s running mate, via text.

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As much as I love announcements that announce a further announcement, this one is noteworthy.  If you’d really like to dig deeper into your Obamamania, you can be among the first to learn his running mate by signing up to receive a text message alert.

Presidential hopefuls are no strangers to leveraging new forms of communication.   John F. Kennedy beat Nixon because he better understood the power of television, Howard Dean built his war chest by crowdsourcing it over the internet, and now Barack Obama is using the super-immediate and super-relevant forum of his supporters’ mobile phones to speak to them en masse.

I also excited to see how Obama and his campaign manage this new link with the constituency after the VP announcement.  If they retain their audience’s permission, they could take advantage of the medium to spur incredibly fast action.  Imagine getting a message on election day asking you to “remind” your friends to go vote, or join an artfully coordinated rally (flashmob?) just down the street from you.  Heck, in the future, being able to vote for the president from your mobile handset might double our country’s participation rates.

And I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that the Obama campaign doesn’t hamstring this text messaging interaction with the public by leaking the news somewhere else first.  That would be a waste of the opportunity to create an incredibly intimate bond with their staunchest supporters.

As for Obama himself, let’s just hope that a case of bad TXT etiquette (CHCK IT!  BIDEN PRZ VEEP OMFG!) or worse, TXT spam (OBAMA NEEDS MORE MONEY — BROUGHT TO YOU BY PEPSI AND VANS WARPED TOUR) doesn’t derail his campaign like the Howard Dean crazed battle cry.

Want to buy a mobile network? Here’s your chance.

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Sprint would like to sell you some iDEN.

It’s been said that in business you always want to be the second buyer, and this adage is especially true when it comes to infrastructure.  The first buyer of things like buildings, machinery, and mobile towers usually pays a premium for the privilege, or fronts the costs for R&D and design.  By the time the savvy second buyer has the opportunity to purchase this business capital, not only has it depreciated a bit, but the fact that it’s up for sale in the first place typically indicates a motivated seller.

The fiasco behind the Iridium project is a perfect example.  Built as the be-all and end-all of mobile coverage (middle of the ocean, deserts, Antarctica, can you hear me now?) this network of geosynchronous satellites became a lot less attractive once consumers realized that the thousand-dollar-plus phones were the size of a healthy infant and didn’t get reception without a clear view of the sky (like inside office buildings…oops).

So when Iridium went bankrupt in 1999, private investors swooped in and bought all those pretty satellites for $35 million (they cost $6 billion, that’s half a penny on the dollar for those playing along at home).    For that kind of money, pursuing a niche but reliable market segment (sailors, oil drilling companies, Blackwater operatives, etc.) finally made financial sense.  The new Iridium only needed 60,000 subscribers to be solvent.

Sprint’s current predicament has left them seriously strapped for cash, and they’re putting on a fire sale pretty similar to Iridium.  The nationwide iDEN “Walkie-talkie” network has long since lost its relevance in the mass market, but for a non-trivial number of project managers, construction coordinators, and other employee supervisors the push-to-talk technology has become indispensible.

At what price does buying the infrastructure to supply it to a small but fiercely loyal market segment start to make sense, you ask? (Mr. Kravis, Mr. Roberts?)  I can do the financials for you at a moment’s notice, but my finder’s fee is 10%.  ☺

When the cloud becomes a shroud.

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Here’s the account of a Nick Saber, a man who had a serious case of the Mondays, thanks to Google.

After returning from lunch, he found that the entirety of his Google account (Gmail, Talk, Picasa, Apps, everything) had been switched off.   All he got was a single line:  “Sorry, your account has been disabled.”

As if that isn’t disturbing enough, Nick is a paying customer who opted for additional storage.

This bothers me.  Despite the fact that I occasionally call into question Google’s moral compass, I use Gmail for all three of my email accounts (including work).  Heck, I even use the Better Gmail 2 add-on for Firefox 3.  But since I’ve set Mail Fetch to pull all those messages off the company server, I’m completely exposed to the seemingly arbitrary account shut-down that happened to Nick.

Like an alcoholic that’s been increasingly ignoring the power of the drink, I’ve managed to not realize that Google Apps has become all but indispensible in both my personal and business life.

Is that why despite being live for almost 5 years, the Gmail logo still has the word beta affixed to it?  Are they planning to stop raining manna from heaven and charge a nominal fee for the service?

I actually wouldn’t be against it.  I think free is overrated, especially if it puts you at the mercy of a company’s “privacy” whims.  But Nick Saber paid for his Gmail, and Google still didn’t feel he deserved a decent explanation.  If there isn’t already a service out there that automatically backs-up all of your information from the “cloud” (emails, Facebook pictures, music, documents, your website) to a local physical drive, Google is certainly creating a great opportunity for one.

Maybe Googlezon will have the last laugh…

Googlezon 2014

For the love of…

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There are one of three things happening at the RIM marketing department right now:

1)  They’ve hired a team of chimpanzees to manage release dates.

2)  They didn’t hire chimps and they know exactly what they’re doing.

3)  They love to hurt me.

Chile’s Movistar just announced that they are first to proudly sell the Blackberry Bold.  Like right now.  I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me either.

I will be inconsolable for about 48 hours, and you can bet that I will renounce all Blackberry related blog posts from this point forward until I own a Bold of my own.  You’re getting very close to losing a prospective customer here RIM, and I was just about to ride on an Amtrak train for 80 hours just to get one.

I hope you know what you’re doing.

Google, doing evil, and martyrdom.

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Number 6 on Google’s list of commandments is “You can make money without doing evil.”

If you’re a business jockey, analyst, or pundit you’ve probably gushed all over the Googleplex’s corporate culture at some point.  And it’s true that they’ve been well-served by it, since its been one of those instances where internal marketing becomes one of the most valuable (and free) branding campaigns.  People and stockholders love knowing that the Google folks are trying to improve search, make money, pick dandelions and save the planet all at the same time.

But when your market capitalization puts you above the gross national product of most South American countries, you’ve got a little weight to swing around.  And when your stated goal is to index the world (down to the DNA) then you very quickly find yourself in situations where personal privacy forces you to think about “should we” instead of “can we.”

And I don’t doubt that Google thinks about this every day.  But if you have tens of thousands of little minions spreading your ten commandments around the globe, you’ve got to be quick to reign in the apostates.  So when something like this happens, it really is in your best interest as a company to roll some heads.

No one cares about the semantics of what “complete privacy” really means (philosophers and my friend Sam excepted).  Instead of quietly instituting a policy of allowing property owners to opt-out of Street View, Google’s legal team has created a David and Goliath story.  Even if Google wins this case in court, they come out looking like bumbling giant trying to strong-arm John and Jane Q. Keeptothemselves.

The last thing they should do is turn John and Jane into martyrs.  The people may go away, details will be forgotten, but that story will stick.

They’d be much better off just saying sorry, sending some Harry and David pears, and moving on.