Monthly Archives: September 2012

Social Media, Location Based Services and Opinions

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  1. I had more than one person say, who cares about Foursquare and check-ins, Twitter said you had coffee and Foursquare told people where you had coffee, so what? 75% of the people we polled didn’t have mobile friendly web pages but a similar amount had smartphones. I guess they spend most of their time on the phone wondering why they aren’t getting enough business, but that could put me in the realm of opinion.
  2. This guy has empirical proof that Twitter doesn’t work. He says no one reads the articles that are linked to from his tweets. Well if I hadn’t read that, I wouldn’t be quoting and linking to him.
  3. This was an interesting story that several corporate people delighted in sharing with me. They said social media marketing is so useless that even GM is pulling out of it. It obviously didn’t occur to them that the problem might have been with GM and their lack of integrated social media marketing strategies that was the problem.
    So what’s your opinion?

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Nestle is tracking you down with Commandoes

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Nestle in the UK has come up with a very cool imho marketing campaign. They are putting GPS chips in the wrapping of 6 food bars such as Kit Kats and when they are opened / activated, within 24 hours they vow to track down the chips, send in the commandos to find, and possibly scare the hell out of the people who bought them and give them 10,000 pounds.

This is a very cool use of location based technology that will fire up marketing people and those into location based marketing like me big time. CNET says that this campaign will appeal to men and perhaps they are not usually the target market for chocolate. In this case I suspect sales will go through the roof and while this campaign hasn’t yet gone seriously viral, I’m sure it will. It is also likely to be winning awards as TV cameras from around the world follow the commandos to the lucky people receiving the prizes.

Just as well they are using TVC’s and billboards with NFC and QR Codes to promote this campaign or people will be thinking that a new war has broken out.

Location based marketing is going to play a major role in our lives going forward and those who are in early will reap rewards by standing out from the crowd. This certainly puts a new spin on guerrilla marketing.

So how could you use location based services to grow your unfair share of the market? For more ideas, check out my other blogs at The Future Diaries and SoLoMo Consulting.


Big brother speed watcher: Government plans pre-fitted GPS devices on … – Daily Mail

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See on Scoop.it – Location Is Everywhere

I understand the reasoning behind this, but unless I missed something, there is a fatal flaw here. There are times when it is necessary to accelerate rapidly in order to avoid an accident. Take away that option and you may potentially be causing more accidents, or at least accidents that may not have occured otherwise. If the system has telematics and is mandatory, instead of limiting the speed, a points system could be implemented which monitors driving behaviour and contacts the driver by email or otherwise, encouraging or penalising and offering opportunity for an explanation when it is an isolated incident.

 

Another option coming in some countries is insurance PAYD, (Pay as You Drive) effectively charging you insurance based only on the time you drive, rather than at a flat rate, so people who drive more, pay more, but potentially using telematics, can also have their premium based on the quality of driving, e.g. no speeding, regular harsh acceleration and braking etc:

 

Daily MailBig brother speed watcher: Government plans pre-fitted GPS devices on …Daily MailPrivate vehicles in India will soon come fitted with a GPS-based speed-limiting device – already in use abroad where it is called Intelligent Speed…

See on www.dailymail.co.uk

When GPS Confuses, You May Be to Blame – New York Times

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See on Scoop.it – Location Is Everywhere

GIGO

When GPS Confuses, You May Be to BlameNew York TimesConsider the experience of a man from San Diego who flew to the East Coast and picked up a GPS-equipped rental car at the airport. After 20 minutes, he sensed he was headed in the wrong direction.

See on www.nytimes.com