Super markets for the elderly

Yes, supermarket is one word. But when you reposition your supermarket to service the needs for a special group, I might call it just Super. Take the Lawson market in Japan. The whole store was designed for the elderly - softer colors, aisles and shelves designed for easy access, particularly for wheel chairs, and a special lounge for those who can't stand to shop that long. And it all makes sense, or Yense as the case may be - more than 20% of the Japanese population is over 65. So don't just target your products, target your markets to meet the special needs of your special market.

Product placement does not work

The latest 007 movie has over 20 product placements. Apparently, a recent Sylvester Stallone movie had over 100 product placements (more than one a minute). Companies spend a LOT of money (sometimes tens of millions of dollars!) to get their product into a movie. But does it work?

A recent report on AdAge says not only does it not work, it works against the brand. A brain scan of people watching a movie showed that at times, when a product appeared on the screen, it actually gets deleted from the brain.

Hey companies, tell you what, I've got a great service for you: just give one million usd, and I'll promise not to place it in a movie. I now have evidence my campaign will work better than yours!

ZunaVision - Simple in-video advertising

Want to earn advertising dollars on your home videos? Ever wanted to replace that picture of your ex in YouTube videos of your living room? Ashutosh Saxena, Siddharth Batra and Andrew Ng at Stanford University have come up with a way to easily embed pictures or videos into an existing video. The result is a way to monetize any video or image on the internet. They also have some good ideas of how to use this for everything from mundane activities like home remodeling to adding sign-language overlays.

I think the application is awesome! Anybody know how I can get a piece of this action?



Having said that, I wonder: won't this lead to a new generation of faked photos, fraudelent news, and just really annoying YouTube experiences? What do you think?

Capitalism = death

Ok, I'm a capitalist. That is, I believe that people should be allowed to start a business, earn money, and spend it how they see fit. Businesses, too, should be allowed to spend their money as they see fit, for example by offering a great sale on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. But businesses have to keep in mind the dangers of the mob. No, not the mafia, I mean a large set of humans milling around waiting for some meme to take them over, to remove their free will.

Take, for example, Nov. 28 of this year. Take, for example, Wal-Mart. Consider, for example, that they always offer low prices, and Nov. 28 they undoubtedly had a bunch of extra specially low prices and great deals. Hence the mob of over 2000 gathering, even before the doors opened at the extra early hour of 5 in the blessed a.m. This mob is waiting and waiting, it's cold, they're getting impatient. They start chanting, which can be a good thing, but not in this case: "push the doors in," they say.

The workers, sensing impending nuttiness, form a human chain to slow the mob down. Then the mob starts pushing. Someone apparently removes the hinges of the doors, others smash and crash. Then the flood....

And poor 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour became a victim of capitalism, a martyr to low prices. Trampled to death by the very people he awoke so early to serve. Okay, being pushed down is terrible. But if you notice you're stepping on someone, wouldn't you stop to pick them up, even if it meant you'd miss the 50% off sale on diapers? Why did money make these people stop acting human?!?!

Not that that isn't terrible, but what really gets me is the postscript in the article on this consumer craziness, is that, although the customers were told to leave after Jdimytai was killed, they felt miffed since they had waited so long. So they kept shopping.

Capitalism 1, humanity 0.

More dialogue - less reaction

Since my previous post on Twitter vs Motrin there has been a considerable amount of backlash about the backlash. As has been pointed out, the majority of the commentary was by relatively few folks, and the majority of that was neutral and perhaps even positive.

So why did Motrin yank the ad so quickly? Was it prudent or just plain wrong? As has been further pointed out, the ad itself had very poor visibility, and pulling it indeed could be a fine way to prevent the issue boiling over. However, the reaction to the ad was actually a very potentially positive pointer to the nerves (pun intended) it was hitting - mom's are in pain, and people do like Motrin, they just didn't like some specific elements of the wording.

Rather than reaction, Motrin could have turned it into a firestorm of pro-mom proactivity. Dialogue with them. Get them to reinvent the wording, have a contest, collect testimonials. Heck, partner with the baby-sling folks to make some joint campaigns. Anything other than a knee-jerk disbanding of the campaign!

Twitter as anti-ad platform

Motrin knows their customers - people with pain. And they know their subgroups, like baby-toting-moms. What they don't know, apparently, is how to advertise to them. Motrin had an ad campaign targeting moms who carried babies in slings or baby backpacks (why not dads too?!). But they blew it in their text, sounding like moms carry their babies as fashion statements, with first-person statements in their ads like it "Waring your baby is in fashion... [it] totally makes me look like an official mom". Consumers hated it, and Twitter gave them an outlet. In fact, there were so many rants against the Motrin ad machine on Twitter that Motrin halted the campaign.

While I would say Motrin blew it, I must applaud them for listening to their consumers, and keeping their ears on the social media machine. A bad campaign perhaps, but not a total loss. Three cheers for Twitter, and at least one for Motrin.

BipBip - Reinventing mobile advertising

Recently I came across a neat model for user-controlled advertising. The folks at BipBip* are developing a service (patent pending) where consumers set a wish list of products they want, a maximum price (or minimum discount?) and geographic distance for each product. The mobile alert service will only let through (SMS) ads that meet your criteria.

Sounds to me a bit like the old Priceline concept, with a few nice twists. In particular, not only can you ignore the offer, but they also promise to donate 50% of their advertising revenue to the consumer's charity of choice. That's a nice incentive. Other services try to buy consumers off with cash or discounts - this one goes to the heart. Nice call BipBip - I wish you success!


* If you need a password to see the description, go to the BipBip message posted on the Killer Idea Developers group on LinkedIn