Brands

By Chris Holmes

For any of you doubting the power of the interweb as a media channel, since the story of Facebook changing their terms of use was first reported by the Consumerist blog on Feb 15, it has been one of the most talked about issues across the world: “Facebook Privacy Fallout Goes Nuclear” The key thing I take from all this, is that it represents tangible proof that at least one person in the world reads the terms and conditions. Pretty much all of us suspect EULAs (electronic user licence agreements) or ‘click wrap’ as they’re otherwise known, are chock-a-block with weird and wonderful legal weasel words but that doesn’t mean we read them before clicking or ticking the “I have read the terms and conditions…” box, so clearly we’re not that bothered by it. Read more about: Red Face…book

By David Bomphrey

Recently many people had a day or two off due to the snow. Lots of people took the chance to let their hair down, have fun and play with their families. For some brands this is exactly what they want people to do all the time. Extreme Group, who operate businesses centred around “adrenaline living”, extreme sports to you and me, were hard at work branding the snow to show how their lifestyle is a comfortable fit with city living. They called it “snow tagging”, graffiting the snow. Read more about: Brand building in the snow

By Marty Carroll

Amazon is set to unveil the Kindle 2 today – Feb 9. E-books have enjoyed a few false dawns, but when one of the world’s most customer oriented brands gets in on the act things are a little different.

Quick quiz question? The most successful consumer electronics device in the last 10 years?
No prizes there….the ubiquitous iPod of course. The iPod launched in 2001 and in its first full year (2002) sold 378,000 units. But according to a leading analyst, Amazon sold 500,000 Kindles in its first full year of trading.
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What could be better than the planets two most customer-centric brands (Apple and Amazon) fighting it out for a share of the customer’s wallet?

By Marty Carroll

In my blog posting on January 26, 2009, I discussed the advantage Nokia had over other mobile phone manufacturers because most people were first introduced to the mobile phone by the Finnish firm.

Now it seems that Leapfrog, the educational toy company, have done the makers of the Blackberry (Research In Motion) a huge favour by introducing little people to the nuances of the Blackberry early in life

By Marty Carroll

It seems that the launch of the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has caused quite a stir.Should we be surprised? Probably not. While everyone has been swooning over the iPhone since it came to market 18 months or so ago we can’t forget that a huge proportion of the population were introduced to the mobile phone by Nokia and effectively grew up with the Nokia user interface. For years Nokia essentially dictated the paradigm for the mobile user experience. People find comfort in the familiar and this is particularly evident with customer experiences.

Yesterday’s novelty becomes today’s standard and the touch screen interface is no exception; the iPhone’s point of differentiation has essentially disappeared. Combining the touch interface with the very familiar Nokia UI and very competitive pricing could be a winner – although there are rumours that Apple is to debut an iPhone more in keeping with the frugal times we live in.

So, bizarrely, it could be the case that, while everyone was debating the eventual winner of the iPhone versus Google Android wrangle, the world’s largest mobile manufacturer can almost surreptitiously steal the show!