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Chris Zagorski Posts Tagged ‘telecommunications’
Season finale of “Lost” or Verizon advertising event?
Recently we saw the end of an era for ABC with the series finale of Lost. However, it seemed to be what Verizon hoped for with a marketing blitz focused on the company’s wireless network and a variety of smart phones.
The night started off with a pre-show and Verizon using Lost-themed commercials to air farewell messages from Verizon customers who wanted to say goodbye to the show and its characters. I thought this approach was a very creative way to strengthen loyalty with customers and to provide an outlet for the many Lost fans saddened by the show’s end.
When the series finale started, there was a shift in ad focus as spots were more likely to promote the network and specific smart phone products such as the HTC Droid.
At the end of the night, I think I saw as much of Verizon as I did Lost itself. I kind of wish I took the time to count the number of commercials that aired (maybe I should find someone who has it on DVR and watch it again?)
Did any of the Verizon ads convince you to switch providers or upgrade? Let me know your thoughts.
What my cell phone search taught me about mobile banking
I recently bought a new cell phone. I previously had a phone that let me do my email and instant messaging, but wouldn’t allow me to do much else. I learned a lot of important things during the process of buying a new phone. Most importantly I learned that I only TALK on my phone for about 83 minutes every month. (My husband, who supposedly hates cell phones, uses our other 1,317 minutes each month.) But I’m getting off topic…
When I realized how little I talk on my phone, I realized that I needed a newer phone that would allow me to do more STUFF on it. What else I needed to do on it wasn’t exactly clear, but how else could I justify the $219 we pay each month for our cell phones? (Two phones, both with data and 1,400 minutes.)
After the agonizing process of trying to find the perfect phone, I now own an Android Incredible. I’m still learning how to use it. In fact, I’m learning really important stuff about it every day. So far it’s helped me navigate to strange places across town and find a restaurant in the mall. I also now always know the five-day forecast. Yesterday I bought my first app for the phone. It is going to organize my entire life and I know it will be life changing. I have a long list of other apps that I want to find.
I didn’t grow up with a cell phone. I didn’t grow up with a computer, let alone email or the Internet. I didn’t grow up with a scanner, a fax machine, a color printer, or an iPod. I grew up with Trim Line phones, typewriters and record players. But in this day and age I use my phone to run my life. I use it for my email, instant messaging, my entire calendar, my grocery list, my to do list, Facebook updates, GPS navigation, the weather forecast, to name a few.
And that brings me—albeit in a roundabout way—to my point. Mobile banking. Clearly mobile banking is going to happen – it needs to happen. It’s a question of when, not if. Right now mobile banking isn’t on my list of things to do on my phone. For me to do mobile banking, I need my bank to receive all my bills electronically. And I want to be able to use my bank to do all my budgeting. Those two things would make mobile banking work for me. But right now I don’t want to pay bills remotely because all my bills are at home in a folder. Is there an App for that?
Is Palm out for the count?
Already part of a very competitive market, Palm has its work cut out for it over the next few months. It’s attempting to add energy into the company’s sales, focus and branding. After worse-than-expected results for Q3 (a 19% decrease in shares to a 52-week low of $4.59), analysts are questioning if Palm’s stock price will hit $0 soon.
The company argues that despite high volume shipments to retailers, the product isn’t moving off the shelf because of lack of proper marketing and staff training. Palm is stating that retailers do not know the benefits of many of its phones, making it difficult to move product and in turn, change the downward trajectory in stock value. If this is the case, it seems education should be the key goal of Palm marketing and training, right?
It could be, however, that the product hasn’t fared well in comparison to other smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry) because it isn’t seen as a comparable product. How many consumers enter a phone retail location without an idea of the type of product they want? Not many, I’d assume.
So, is the issue an under-trained sales staff or that Palm hasn’t convinced the public that its product is superior to the top players in the market? If the company can’t do that, I agree with analysts that the company’s stock is going to continue to fall all the way to $0. The solution has to be in marketing and strategy, so hopefully Palm is revamping its strategy.
2010 Financial Services Trends – get the slides here
We had a successful webinar yesterday; thanks to all who attended! Sorry about the sound difficulties at the beginning of the webinar.
Those of you who tuned in submitted tons of great questions about our financial services trend forecasts for this coming year. I’m crafting answers today and this weekend, so I hope to have them up on the blog by Monday. Please of course, feel free to use the comments field here if you’d like to submit more questions about our predictions.
In the meantime, Mintel Comperemedia’s fabulous marketing team has created a link to the webinar recording. You can either listen to it again (or for the first time if you missed it yesterday!) or you can download the slides to peruse at your own leisure. Click here to do so.