Product review: Riviera for Skype

Photo cred: Zsolt Vajda

There's a lot of buzz in the blogosphere around the "blogger outreach campaigns" done these days by companies. Lots of them go totally wrong, generating nothing but bad PR for brands.

This is a blog post I decided to write mainly because I recently got a software product review offer on the email. Don't know exactly how they picked me, but it just happens that the product they're promoting might prove to be useful for me after all.

Guys Listen Up

When you say skincare you naturally think about women as being the right consumer. But isn't that just half of the equation. Why not focus also on the guys ? According to Garnier, a lot of Singapore's men think of skincare as being sissy.

See how Garnier Men got them to talk about their complexes by using a video of a couple breaking up over oily skin. Using their interactive site, girls could customize the campaign's video and send it to any guy they think needs to listen up.

Drive-in Theater by Coca-Cola

How can traffic jams can create good will among your consumers. Well, to do this right you need to have the right ingredients.

Let me see:

1. A traffic jam - something that will hold people long enough for you to take action.

2. Something that will make them feel good while being stuck in traffic (I know, that's just pure evil).

3. The right incentive to make them use your product.

Well that's exactly what Coca-Cola and Ogilvy Columbia did in Bogota, Columbia. How long has it been since you watched a movie from your car? Or, did you ever watched a movie from your car? I believe some of you, just like me, never did it.

Before watching the video, allow me to explain what they did.

The problem: a daily 4 hours traffic jam in Bogota. How can Coca-Cola turn headaches into smiling faces?

The solution: build a giant video screen for those stuck in traffic and invite them to tune their car radio to the local FM station so they could hear the audio.

Incentives: what could make this even better, but people walking up and down the rows of cars offering 250ml bottles of Coca-Cola, popcorn, nachos and other goodies.

MINI Getaway Stockholm - a Social Media Success

Photo cred: Erik Mörner


I'm sure you will appreciate this post since it's going to be a bit different than the others. I've thought about starting to share with you some live examples on how social media works and what you can achieve using it.

I came across the advertising agency Jung von Matt from Stockholm. As Emma Hutchings wrote in this blog post, the creative agency won numerous awards for this creative and innovative modern-day brand building idea. I'm talking about the Getaway Stockholm campaign for MINI.

The prize - a brand new MINI Countryman.

The rules

To get in the race for winning the real car you needed to download an app into your iPhone. App users could then view the location of a virtual MINI on a map of Stockholm, and once within 50 metres of it, could claim the MINI for themselves and then run away from the other participants who could try to steal it. At the end of the 7 days campaign the person with the virtual MINI in his possession won the real car.

Your Customer's Birthday - The Perfect Time For Marketing

What happens once a year and it has something to do with you personally. That's right, your birthday. We all know that birthdays are fun, we are the center of attention and above all we get presents.

It was my birthday this week and of course that I've received a lot of messages. Among the senders there were also these messages from the top 3 recruiting sites in Romania: eJobs.ro, MyJob.ro and Bestjobs.ro . Now, I don't know how much do you know about these 3 companies but a study made 2 years ago showed that eJobs had back then a market share of 46 %, BestJobs 25 % and MyJob 10 %, the rest being other recruiting sites.

Since they all sent me email messages wishing me all the best, I thought to share them with you as well. You'll see why being the number 1 in the business isn't always something good. I'd like to start in the same order as I mentioned them since it reflects perfectly the podium (backwards).

Number 3:

This is a print screen of the birthday message eJobs.ro sent.

The good part: - they remembered my birthday

The bad part(s):

1. Well, for a company that claims to be the No. 1 recruiting website in Romania this is a message that should never be sent. It's way to short and above all doesn't make me feel special in any way.

I mean it's my birthday, if you really want me to appreciate you sending a message don't be lazy, get creative, give me a reason to recommend your service to others.

In any language you may translate this you'll find out that it says something like this: "Good morning Christian, We know it's your birthday so we would like to wish you Happy Birthday, lots of health and happiness and......good luck in your career !" If I had a talking dog, I believe he would do a better job than this.

Common mistakes marketers do when using social media

Photo cred: rutlo

More and more businesses are using it to get more visibility for their brands or products. But as easy to use as they seem to be, as likely you are to make mistakes that can cost you big money. What differentiates a small business from a big business? Or, better yet, what are the common mistakes your company doesn't want to do when using social media as a marketing tool?

Here are some useful tips for you to take into consideration:

1. Master the basics

There are a lot of companies that are in their infancy using social media channels to promote their business. Just because you have a personal Facebook account with 1.000+ friends or there are 200+ followers on your Twitter account doesn't make you a social media guru. Set up a your companies goals, create a clear marketing strategy and establish the role of social media in it. These are the bricks that stay at the foundation of every successful marketing campaign.

Keep yourself informed, observe what's happening around you and learn from other marketing campaigns that went wrong.

2. Don't just talk, put it into practice !

A lot of marketers talk about how you should use social media to promote your business, what you need to do, where and when to do it. How many of them put it into practice? Change the "I should do" with the "I must do".