This is a recent video released by Microsoft aimed at developers. Can anyone seriously watch this and tell me that Microsoft isn’t one of the tackiest companies around?
I Hate Ads
And other confessions of a 3rd year marketing student.
Oct 09
Sep 21
» There's Nothing There
A brilliant post by John Gruber on Microsoft’s advertising campaign and their branding in general.
Sep 07
Here’s another reason I’m not so fond of ads: sometimes they just make my head hurt. Like this Microsoft one, part of a $300m campaign. What in the hell are they trying to achieve???
Sep 05
Some food for thought
In 2000, Google launched AdWords, changing the entire landscape of internet advertising. AdWords is now Google’s main source of revenue, earning over $16 billion for Google last year.
AdWords refers to the contextual text ads which now populate many sites on the internet. Three short lines of text related to the content on the page they’re displayed on. They include ads on the websites of third-parties as well as those that appear next to your search results in Google.
Users and web developers alike love them because they mean less clutter and less annoying flashy things on the web.
But here’s the thing: who actually clicks on them?
I’ll occasionally click on one that appears next to my search results, because I’m actually looking for something. But I think I can pretty safely say I’ve never clicked on one of these ads outside of a Google search results page. And I’m not alone here, everyone I’ve spoken to has said the same thing.
So who is clicking on these ads and where is Google getting all its money from?
Aug 11
The home telephone is dead.
OK, that might be a little premature as almost households in the Western world still have 1 or more landlines in service. But the trusty home phone has been dealt a fatal blow and will wither away slowly to a similar status that the fax machine currently holds. Already, cap plans giving consumers “hundreds of dollars worth” of calls (a brilliant marketing ploy) meant that homestarters could simply add an extra $10-20 to their monthly plan and negate the need for a landline which costs $30 just for line rental alone.
But now, having a a home phone is not just unneccesary, but a flat out waste of money for most Australians who can now get unlimited calls, SMS and MMS to any phone in Australia for just $50 a month. That’s right, unlimited. With 200MB of data and some other goodies thrown in. All you have to do is sign up to the oddly-named Data Blaster plan on Optus Prepaid. What hope does the landline have?
R.I.P. Home Phone.
UPDATE: The Terms and Conditions for the Optus ‘Data Blaster’ plan were hidden away and the details of the plan were misleading - unlimited calls on this plan are only to other Optus Prepaid phones. Nevertheless, the home phone is still on the death bed as mobile phones plans include more and more calls. Of my friends who have moved out of home, none of them have a home phone.
Jul 28
Ads like this which use a popular song and change the lyrics should be banned. If I were to run for parliament, I think this would be one of my principal platforms. It’s been done to death and it’s extremely tacky. Ad agencies and the brands who commission them take note. I’m looking at you, Smiths.
Jul 23
This is a letter I received recently from my membership in the Snowgum Club. The Snowgum club gives you 10% of your money spent at Snowgum back as a voucher - a clever idea! But the reason I’m posting this letter is because I was impressed when I noticed the sentence I’ve highlighted where they reminded me that I hadn’t used my last voucher yet and said that it didn’t matter if I’d lost it, I could simply use this letter instead.
In fact, I happened to be at Snowgum a couple of weeks later, without my voucher or this letter. But knowing that they didn’t need the actual voucher, I asked if they’d be able to look it up for me, and they did. This meant that I wasn’t hesitant to spend my money there and then, and spent $200. Good marketing, Snowgum!
Jul 20
Jun 14
Bad apple
Apple is a company I have a great deal of respect for and their marketing of late has been pretty damn good. Most of all this comes down to their fantastic products which sell themselves, something I believe should be the cornerstone of any marketing campaign. Their new 3G iPhone is no exception; a truly remarkable product. I also tend to think of Apple as a respectable company, with their products leading the market in minimising environmental impact, for instance. So it saddens me to say that I find their marketing for the 3G iPhone to be misleading and deceptive. This is from the front page of Apple’s U.S. site:
“Twice as fast. Half the price.” If only if this were so. Apple has been at pains to not mention the fact that although the upfront cost has been cut in half, the price of the contract it is tied to has increased, meaning the iPhone will actually end up costing customers $160 more over the 24 months of the contract, for the same service (or only $40 more if the customer is willing to forego SMS).
A sneaky marketing ploy by Apple that will taint their trustworthy brand image.
Web 2.0 terminology
Wiki
A website, or the software used to create such a website, in which users can easily create, edit and modify the content of interlinked pages using a standard web browser with a simplified mark-up language.
Wikipedia
A large and well-known Wiki site used as an encyclopedia, operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.
Please don’t use these terms interchangeably, they have extremely distinct meanings, and it makes me cringe. Thank-you.