Last night, the last episode of Downton Abbey Season 5 was on ITV, and so were the bombarding Christmas adverts between the programme. Although I did not count how many adverts I saw last evening that were specifically for the Christmas season, it will not be surprising even if I randomly pick the number of 10 or more: ALDI, Boots, Lidl, Waitrose, John Lewis, Debenhams, Coca Cola, and so on. Certainly Christmas is coming in the UK. It is impossible not to know this fact, thanks to the Christmas adverts. The Christmas adverts themselves are not new, but it seems there have been attitudinal changes among viewers towards the Christmas commercials, notably since the Christmas commercial from John Lewis in 2013. The viewers were absolutely fascinated by the commercial and are excited to see what this year’s advert is like. This change was possible because companies – like John Lewis -…
[youtube=http://youtu.be/TKNA5GnO7Xs] [Comodo NYC’s Instagram Menu] In late 2012, a new restaurant was opened in Soho, NYC, the US and they came up with a trendy digital marketing strategy, which effectively used the characteristics of hashtags and SNS users who like sharing their experiences. The restaurant introduced a hashtag on the menu – called #ComodoMenu – which Instagram users, especially those known as ‘foodies’, could use for their ‘foodstagramming’. Everyone who typed the hashtag could see the tagged photos and share theirs with other users. [http://instagram-menu-comodo.com/] As a start-up business, marketing could have been one of the trickiest things to do efficiently and effectively, but Comodo NYC amazingly fulfilled the two challenging issues on marketing, with almost the zero cost. This was a good example of viral marketing. The restaurant simply opened a platform for customers to play in, and visitors were happy to join this easy and fun digital playground. Thanks to helps from #foodies…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oF0-28MOoU (British Airways – Happiness Blanket) This summer British Airways (BA) conducted a new way to measure their customers’ experiences during the flight, adopting a creative technology. They distributed the so-called ‘Happiness Blanket’ to passengers with matching head gear, which sensed electrical changes in the passengers’ neurons depending on various situations: when the flight was taking off and landing in, and when the passengers were sleeping, eating meals, and watching BA’s entertainment programmes. When the passengers felt nervous the hairbands noticed it and sent signals to the blankets, which then changed the colour of the blankets into red. In opposite situations, when the customers were relaxed and happy the colour turned into purple-ish blue. Although it is a novel idea to evaluate customers’ experiences, it seems it is, yet, rather early to officially adopt the technology. The fact that customers have to wear the band around their heads all the time can…