Luigicappel’s Weblog

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The Smart Connected Home

The home, its technology and its inhabitants are now becoming more and more connected. Many of us now have WiFi networks in the home. We can sit with notebooks on our laps, wireless routers connected to our internet connection allow us to connect entertainment systems, iPads and other network appliances, printers, external drives, Smartphones and more.

Many other devices are now being developed that also offer the benefits of connectivity. For example Internet TV is almost here with products like Google TV being right on our doorstep.

Many years ago I had the opportunity to spend a day at the Arthur Anderson offices in Chicago for a glimpse of the future. An example was an intelligent  fridge with a bar code reader that created a shopping list and could automatically send the list to the local grocery delivery company.

Bill Gates had a master plan of having a Windows CE engine in home appliances, creating an intelligent house. Smart Appliances will I’m sure be in the home soon and the idea Gates had was that if they all used Windows CE, they would all have a common platform to communicate not only with each other and with your mobile computer, perhaps your home appliances.

The European Commission has perhaps seen the light in setting up The Hydra Project. “The Hydra middleware allows developers to incorporate heterogeneous physical devices into their applications by offering easy-to-use web service interfaces for controlling any type of physical device irrespective of its network technology such as Bluetooth, RF, ZigBee, RFID, WiFi, etc. Hydra incorporates means for Device and Service Discovery, Semantic Model Driven Architecture, P2P communication, and Diagnostics. Hydra enabled devices and services can be secure and trustworthy through distributed security and social trust components of the middleware.”

This has the potential to reduce the risk of being tied to specific brands of computing, communications and other technology by providing middleware that everyone can work with. Of course the home is only one place that can benefit from this concept. It applies equally to telemedicine (monitoring patients in the home), business automation, security, agriculture, manufacturing, warehousing and pretty much any industry you can think of.

Once again Science Fiction is about to become reality. It’s taken a while, but looks like we are getting there.

The following video shows an e-home controlled by voice or even by your X Box Controller and of course you can control it from your iPhone:

September 7, 2010 Posted by | architecture, communications, computing, consumer electronics, disruptive technology, entertainment, FMCG, FMCG Marketing, future technology, futurist, home entertainment, ICT, internet, iphone, media, medical, medicine, mobile technology, people, research, Science Fiction, technology, Telecommunications, the future, Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Since When Do Major Sporting Events Govern Countries?

Making my first coffee today in the office at 8AM I noticed a story on the front page of the NZ Herald. Funny I can’t seem to find it online, but there were loads of results on the web’s news pages.I’ll share the Huffington Post story here because I can’t find the NZ Herald story online for some strange reason.

Basically the story is that Dutch Brewery Bavaria has been selling orange mini skirts to soccer fans as an ambush marketing stunt.  The clothes were available for sale in the Netherlands and as a very nationalistic country, it is normal behaviour for Dutch people to wear Orange on major occasions such as sporting events and also for children on Queen’s Birthday. So many Dutch people bought these skirts and wore them to the FIFA World Cup match against Denmark. The clothing had a tiny little label that would be very difficult to see with the Bavaria brand on it.

That wasn’t the problem though. The problem was that they allegedly paid a group of 36 blondes to wear them at the match, which is against the rules of sponsorship, where Budweiser are the only official beer sponsor of the map and have exclusive marketing rights. The story in the Herald said that 2 of the 36 women were arrested and charged and if convicted could face fines from 1,000 Rand to a term in prison. Subsequently they were released on Bail and FIFA has said they will not be charging the individuals, they will be bringing charges against the Bavaria Brewery itself.

As a marketer, I appreciate that brands pay outrageously high sponsorship fees to be able to advertise at major sporting events and expect protection, but how far should they be allowed to go? If I like a brand, why shouldn’t I be allowed to wear their clothing. I play poker and have played in tournaments sponsored by Jack Daniels and have won Jack Daniels clothing. If a group of my friends who also won their branded clothing to an event, could I be in trouble? If the organisers of the poker tournament encouraged me to wear their clothing at the event, would they be in trouble? Remember that the logo on the clothing, these 36 girls were wearing was only on a tiny tag that if you wanted to read it, you would have to get so close to the garment that you might get arrested on other charges.

Next year we have the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand and the International Rugby Board is running by the same rules. According to the IRB even the letters RWC in succession have been trade marked. In effect I could be breaking the law just be blogging the letters RWC. When did it become possible for a sporting body to prosecute people or businesses for using 3 letters in succession. I mean, we only have 26 letters in our alphabet! So what if they were the initials for your company? Are you breaking the law? If I worked for or supported the Roger Wright Centre in Christchurch, and they had corporate clothing, I wouldn’t be allowed to wear it to any World Cup matches in New Zealand.

So what happens to other companies or organisations that use RWC in their name? Have they lost the rights to their business names? What happens if their staff want to be proud of the company and go to a match in company clothing? RWC stands for Redwood City in California. It stands for Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester New York which has a proud sporting history.

I think this is very scary and another example of large corporations wanting to own and control everything. Some of those corporations in the drug world may now own the patents to some of my DNA!

Anyway, before you go to any of the matches in South Africa this year or in New Zealand next year, make sure you don’t have any clothing showing off any brands that haven’t paid the IRB for the use of the letters RWC or any of the other trademarked groups of letters. They probably won’t have Sky in the holding cells.

June 17, 2010 Posted by | advertising, Ambush Marketing, Business, communications, crime, democracy, economics, economy, entertainment, FMCG Marketing, genetics, media, new zealand, nz herald, people, poker, politics, soapbox, Sponsorship, sport, tourism, Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

What’s wrong with calling yourself a New Zealander

I love the Census. Every 5 years we get this massive set of questions about who we are, where we come from, what we do, where we live etc. There is an amazing wealth of information in the Census and this time the Government have made it available for free if you can find what you want without assistance.

I spend a lot of time helping people on the fringe of this and am working on the development of a web application to help people view both their own business data and relevant Census data. Watch for this in a future blog if you are following me.

One of the questions they ask us Kiwis is about our ethnicity. I remember in 2006 when there was a strong movement of people saying to each other that they had had enough of the racial issues between Maori and Pakeha (and this clearly came from both sides of the fence).  A large percentage of Kiwis grew up side by side with Caucasians, Maori and people from many othr places including the Pacific Islands. They grew up as friends and neighbours and if there was discussion of ethnicity it was with interest and pride, not with any tensions or mistrust.

On that theme, 400,000 Kiwis signed their ethnicity, not by selected tick boxes for European Caucasion. New Zealand Maori etc, they signed in a text box called other as New Zealanders.

Whilst this made sense in a way as they tried to make their point, it has also caused some significant problems for organisations who use that information for decision making and the Department of Statistics is looking for ways to get better information in the next Census is 2010.

In the Statistics New Zealand Draft report, prepared for public discussion, they outlined some of the concerns and explained ways that the ethnicity data is used. Here are some examples including some of my own:

  • The health sector uses ethnicity data to target services for groups experiencing inequalities in health. For example, it is commonly known that Maori have a significantly lower life expectancy than Europeans.
  • Asian people, especially new immigrants have unique health needs.
  • Local government agencies use these statistics in planning and service delivery, particularly in regions experiencing significant demographic, social and economic change.
  • Marketers with products targeted and particular groups are able to identify where those markets reside.
  • Education planning needs to take into consideration the demographics that make up local communities to ensure that education services are relevant to the needs of that community. Diverisyt is a key tenet in the NZ education system, but in order to best support it and plan for it, statistics are requred.
  • In the business world, demographics can help with many aspects of business planning. For example a manufacturer of baby bottles found that in one area bottles with blue teets weren’t selling and in another area bottles with yellow teets weren’t selling. After a year or so with lots of stock thrown away or discounted they discovered that it was an ethnicity issue. By rotating the stock to the other areas the problem was solved.
  • Today we have many ethnic communities, which is a relatively new situation, at least in Auckland where most of the population lives. This can be very useful for specialist retailers or service providers such as ethnic supermarkets, restaurants, clothing, music and entertainment providers. This is also of relevance for churches who want a lot of their congregation to be able to walk to their place of worship, immigration consultants, language schools or ESOL and so on.If a business can identify where their target market lives, they can better plan on placement of their business or how to find their new customers.

From a futurist persepctive we can use this information to try to predict what the city and country will look like in the future, where the opportunities and threats lie and how to support the changing community. For many people, New Zealand is seen as a wonderful safe and green place to live and raise a family, but each one brings a piece of their own culture with them, but also bring issues of culture, work training, language, education, commerce and the need to belong to a group of people with similar interests and problems, while their children are assimilating into the local community. New Zealand has changed dramatically over the last few decades and it is essential to the wellbeing of the country that the Census accurately represents statistics that can assist in making sure that everyone is able to enjoy living in this country and able to contribute in their own ways.

The Census provides valuable information about the changing nature of our country. Unfortunately this ‘movement’ towards calling people Kiwis means that it has been very difficult to monitor the change in ethnicity in NZ from the 2001 Census to the 2006 Census, meaning that the data is difficult to use for a 10 year period.

Statistics New Zealand is now asking the country for input as to how to allow people to assert their relationship to the country, while at the same time allowing Statistics to gather important information in order to help the country meet the needs of the large range of ethnicity in our country.

I think the answer has to accomodate both the desire for people to consider themselves bona fide New Zealanders irrespective of their ethnicity, but it is also essential to understand their roots or backgrounds. It shouldn’t be hard to combine the questions in such a way as to support the need for quality of information as well as the need of people, irrespective of their origins, to feel they belong and are important players in our multicultural society today.

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course http://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)

April 27, 2009 Posted by | advertising, auckland, community, Diversity, economics, education, ethnicity, family, FMCG, FMCG Marketing, Food, futurist, government, ICT, media, medical, new economy, new zealand, people, prolong life, race, religion, research, sustainability, the future, trade, Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

The Final Word on Unilever

If you read my last 2 posts about the new improved laundry detergent products from Unilver, my daughter just rang me to let me know that the new product has gone back down to the old price of $1.89. Social networking and blogging seem to help:)

The first blog was when it appeared that Unilever had a new improved product that does the same amount of work as the old one, but in concentrated form in a smaller pack. Pak N Save had been selling it on special for $1.69 and $1.89 and then offered the new one at 2 packs for $5.00, representing more than 25% increase.

The second blog was after a friendly discussion with Unilver who told me that they hadn’t increased the price at all and had no control over retail pricing, which was up t the retailer.

Today the price has come back down again and it seems that WordPress and Twitter have helped bring the price back down. Thanks Unilever for holding on to your values.

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course http://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)

April 20, 2009 Posted by | advertising, FMCG, FMCG Marketing, new zealand, people, retail, twitter | , , , , , | Leave a Comment

Seems Unilever are not trying to con us

A few days ago I wrote a blog about the new Uniliver products such as Surf and Persil, complaining that they have just launched new super concentrated products and that at a local Pak N Save store where they used to special the product at prices ranging from $1.69 to $1.89 a pack and were promoting the new pack which has the same washing power as the old one, but their new special was 2 packs for $5, a premium of over 25%.

At the time I wrote the blog, I also contacted Unilever via their website and asked for clarification of this and an explanation. Initially I got a very nice email from their Consumer Relationship Consultant, ellaborating on the wonderful properties of the product but bypassing the question on price. I replied to say that I agree, their products are great products and that being more biodegradeable was an excellent feature. The quality was never in question and I have to say that their website is excellent, full of great information about how to use their products in a variety or circumstances.

I then got another response saying that they haven’t changed the product pricing from the old one to the new concentrate and inviting me to call them with any further questions. I did call the Consumer Relationship Consultant who was open and diplomatic, explaining that they have no control over any pricing other than setting the Recommended Retail Price (RRP). That is in fact true and I should have realised that to start with. It was in fact Pak N Save who were manipulating the pricing.

I’m relieved to hear that, its just a shame that the promo person in the supermarket didn’t understand the question to start with. So what was happening? Basically the Supermarket were hoodwinking their customers by in effect saying you could buy 1 of the old product for $1.89 or 2 of the new products, which are the exact equivalent of the old product from a use per pack perspective for more then 25% more.

This is not an unusual trick in a supermarket. They have lots of ways to make you think you are getting a bargain. A common one is to haphazardly throw tins or other containers into an end aisle dump bin to make it look like the products are on sale, but still charge normal full retail. This is all part of the tricks of the trade. On the other hand they also have their loss leaders, where they sell product at very low prices, often below their cost to the supermarket, to get people to come in and combine those with other more profitable products for the grocery spend.

In this case, they were just a bit silly and patronising of their customers who are often quite astute. Their timing was very poor and it has reflected poorly on them. On the other hand Pak N save are often cited as the best value for money grocery chain in the country. So the lesson is, be alert and watch for good deals and be aware of items that look good but aren’t. In today’s tough times, they would have done better to keep the price as it was and keep customers trust.

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course http://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)

April 16, 2009 Posted by | advertising, depression, economic depression, economics, economy, FMCG, FMCG Marketing, marketing, new zealand, people, retail, soapbox, Uncategorized | , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

What’s That Smell?

When I was a lot younger than I am today I had a keen sense of smell, many of which I still remember and can relate back to earlier times when I smell them again. There was the smell of ozone in the air when it was about to rain, the smell of the steam as a tar sealed road near my home dried up after a rain. Certain food smells evoke memories. For example a few days ago I was in Tauranga for the jazz festival and smelled food cooking in a nearby restaurant, which smelled exactly the same as the pork my late grandmother used to broil in butter on a Dutch winters evening. If you speak Dutch, here’s a recipe which is very similar to how she used to do it. I can still remember many odors from my youth.

According to C. Russell Brumfield, author of the book Whiff! The Revolution of Scent Communication in the Information Age, we can more easily remember what we smell than what we hear. Apparently scent goes straight from the nose to the brains emotional centers whereas the other senses have to go through an interpretation process first. Of course the ability to smell has many purposes that date back to our primitive past where this sense would help protect us from danger, identify food and when a partner was in season, so to speak. Pheromones are of course well researched and companies who manufacture perfumes and fragrances, would consider it the holy grail to come up with a scent that genuinely causes people of the opposite sex to flock to their side.

When I first embarked on my sales management career, I read the mandatory books such as Tom Hopkins, How to Master the Art of Selling Anything. One of his key areas of expertise was selling real estate. A classic example of his teachings was to drop a little vanilla essence on the stove element, which would make the house smell like fresh coffee. I’ve often wondered why nobody does these things, its much more appealing than the ammonia smell of wet nappies.

I often talked about smellovision and there have been a number of attempts over the years to come up with scratch and sniff cards for TV shows or movies. A couple of years ago I visited the theme parks of Disneyworld in Orlando and in one of the theatre shows, they sprayed the scent of cookie dough and others into the audience. The aromas were authentic and while it was a novelty, it certainly was a taste of what will come in the future. I’m sure that before too long, digital theaters will be equipped with atomizers designed to send odors around the room. It may not happen often, but this is a great opportunity to enhance the theater experience and keep people going out to enjoy movies. Whether it is the scent of flowers in a romantic spring scene, or the metallic smell of blood in a horror or action movie, technology will ensure that we are immersed in the scene.

Many organizations have been considering the use of smell with their products. For example, Nokia has been experimenting with the ability to emit smells from their mobiles. At MIT’s List Visual Arts Centre, they used a technology to immerse the smell of sweat and fear into the white paint, which you can smell if you rub the painted surface.

Pepsi used a similar concept added to the surface of the bottles when they launched their new Black-Cherry Vanilla Soda.

My early prediction of Smellovision came true a few years ago with the launch of Smellavision (oh well it was pretty close). I’ll leave the final word to ScentAndrea who are doing it now. They have scents from burnt charcoal, to car paint to fresh coffee and donuts and they have an agent near you.

OK I lied, here is the final word, scent has such a great following that last year they held the SCENTworld conference and Expo in New York and there is another this year in Las Vegas.  So if you haven’t got a whiff of it yet, don’t hold your breath. You could hit the casinos and smell the money as well:)

While this blog is starting to get a good following, I would love to get more readers and encouraging me to keep writing. If you feel that my blog is interesting I would be very grateful if you would vote for me in the category of best blog at the NetGuide Web Awards. Note that the form starts each site with www whereas my blog doesn’t and is of course http://luigicappel.wordpress.com.

Thanks so much for your support:)

April 14, 2009 Posted by | advertising, consumer electronics, disruptive technology, entertainment, film, FMCG, FMCG Marketing, Food, food science, future technology, futurist, home entertainment, marketing, mobile marketing, mobile technology, nz herald, people, research, science, Science Fiction, technology, Telecommunications, the future, Uncategorized, virtual reality | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

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