Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

The next time your shiny white BMW gets covered in graffiti I suggest you thank Sytner BMW.

This fine example of a new BMW 635d was at the Big Day Out at South Hill Park in Bracknell this weekend. For some reason, best known to Sytner, they were inviting and allowing everyone to write all over their car (and a Mini that was also there).

I’m really not sure the artwork being applied to the car improved the brand image of Sytner or BMW. One thing is clear though; a number of locals were introduced to a new way to show their appreciation of BMWs.

How on earth would you advertise your services if you were offering circumcisions? This is a synopsis of a Facebook conversation. 

POST: Circumcision leaflets through your door as junk mail, welcome to London, E1. 

POST: Are they advertising that they come at a snip of the price! 

POST: 20% off if you buy before the end of June. 

POST: Don’t even joke – there is one of those little clip-art stars in the corner with the caption “Bookings being taken for this summer”. Seriously, who decides to be circumcised because of a leaflet through your door? 

POST: They have to advertise via leaflets as getting product placement on daytime TV is a little tricky. 

POST: It would probably do very well after the money saving section on GMTV! 

Well, it all made me wonder. What other obscure services do you think are difficult to market?

I was rather enthused about Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. I Tweeted about this a few days ago saying, “Giving Bing www.bing.com a go. It’s good and localisation seems to work well. I also like the ‘format to phone’ feature; ace on Blackberry.”

Today I was further impressed by the following email that I received:

Hi Kevin,

I’m writing on behalf of Microsoft to invite you to a discussion about Bing, the new search engine that recently launched in beta in the UK.

The session will be a small round-table event to discuss Bing and since we saw your recent tweet regarding the use of Bing on a phone, we thought that you might be interested in coming along. The idea would be to get your initial thoughts and you’ll get an update on the future steps for Bing which are being developed specifically for the UK. During the session you’ll have the chance to talk with Microsoft representatives and other people from social media like yourself, who have expressed some early opinion.

This will take place in the next couple of weeks, so if you’re interested in coming along, or have any questions, just get in touch and I’ll send you some more details.

Thanks,

Colin Mercer

Excellent, cooking on gas, was my thoughts. I replied straight away and guess what? The email bounced with this message:  

Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender　

This is the mail system at host safetwo.sceur.ch.

I’m sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It’s attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message.

Perhaps Bing will struggle against Google? Or perhaps this was a freak occurrence.

Apparently Colin works for 1000heads. He was representing Life Without Walls which is a Microsoft sponsored initiative run by 1000heads that organises events, social gatherings, trials and a host of other enlightening activities.

This YouTube video is a fine training course for buyers. I’m indebted to Jan Choudhury from The Stopgap Group for sharing this with me. I understand that she will be invoicing me next week…so the negotiation can begin (joking, I think).

New competitors for established businesses can come from surprising places. If all a bank does is monitor competition from other banks they could be in for a surprise or two.

Here are a couple of lines from CNN:

“It’s become increasingly clear in recent weeks that Facebook is finally inching toward the launch of a micropayment platform.

“The social site has been expanding the presence of its virtual currency, which Facebook debuted last November when it changed the monetary units for its “Gifts” product into “credits” rather than U.S. dollars.”

How near is Facebook Bank plc? If you read the whole artice, and an interesting article it is too, you will not see the mention of Facebook becoming a bank. But with the possible developments discussed they get a stage closer. And with in excess of 200,000,000 members what a constituency to work with.

The additional reason why Facebook could suprise markets and excite the public is trust. Trust is the basis for most relationships. The Edelman Trust Barometer talks about this in great detail.

We all like to deal with businesses we trust. Trust in conventional banks is at a low. Here Joe Garner, HSBC, talks eloquently about trust in banks.

Facebook could become a bank. eBay, with PayPal has already created a new bank model. Who else would the world’s public trust with their money?