Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

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.

So, have a guess what this is all about:

Since 1997 there has been much discussion of the use of focus groups, handfuls of people picked to be representative of a target demographic, then questioned in relative seclusion.

I’m thrilled to say this all about politicians. It is an extract from the BBC News Magazine.

The rather disgaceful scenes being enacted in Westminster do at least have some benefits. Finally we have some debate about our elected politicians and the need for them to be in touch with the UK public, and not just their constituency party club members.

>>> read the full article

Perhaps a few conventional marketing approaches would help them?

In the annual shareout of awards, The Stopgap Group(Stopgap, Rightstop, Fitzroy and Courtenay) won the award for ”Best Medium-to-Large Recruitment Firm to Work For“.

They collected the award at the big recruitment industry night, hosted at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, at the annual Recruiter Awards for Excellence. 

Stopgap, one of the UK’s leading marketing recruiters, had been nominated in not two categories: Best Recruitment Firm Website and the Best Medium-to-Large Recruitment Firm to Work For.

Well done Stopgap and thank you for your work on our current projects.

I found this quote today:

I started the £1k FTSE 100 Confidence Project in January as a personal show of confidence in the UK equity market. I was fed up with the doom and gloom and was convinced that the equity market had priced in bad news. I invested £1,000 in a FTSE 100 ISA tracker from the Halifax and commited to reporting its performance on my blog.Speed Communications – Wadd’s PR Blog, May 2009

You should read the whole article. It’s good to see someone putting their money where there mouth is and keeping at it.

Google Phone

I’m rather excited by the pending arrival of the Google Phone, G1. But it will be a quandary for me.

Out of principal I would not buy an iPhone as I find their distribution approach offensive. I don’t want to move to O2 and I don’t want a new phone number. These are both things that were demanded at the UK launch of the iPhone.

This resulted in me finally abandoning Sony handsets (having worked for them in the 80s and 90s there was a bit of a loyalty) to get the functionality I wanted. I migrated to Blackberry Pearl 8100.

But the Google Phone is looking very exciting. That said, there are mixed views about the launch. Do I depart from Blackberry in favour of Google?

Get the buying process right and your promotions and incentives will win over consumers.

Promotions and incentives are big business. Motivating consumers with on-pack promotions, merchandise, vouchers or money off coupons, continue to play an important role in the marketing mix. In fact, the size of the motivation market in the UK is worth about £6.3bn. Yet, successful promotions aren’t always guaranteed. It’s easy for marketers to buy into a ‘one size fits all’ promotion – but 2008 should be about getting the buying process right.

The two essential components to a successful promotional campaign are relevance and communication. Marketers need to make the right choice of promotional tool for the recipient – promotions can open the door to a world of experiences all of which can be rewarding and inspiring, but they won’t be effective unless they are relevant to the recipient. The promotion needs to be useful and the quality on offer has to be tangible. Quality cannot just be ‘perceived’, it must be experienced, for instance, through regular, excellent customer service and enjoyed through extra added value.

Secondly, there is communication. A product or service, however excellent, is of no use unless people know about it, understand it, and appreciate how and why it is better than a competitor’s offering. Retailers, promotional issuers, and marketers themselves have a role to play in communicating the advantages. A well planned communication channel with consumers is essential, but marketers should not forget that communication is two-way. Customer feedback presents opportunities to make promotions even better.

I would take it one step further and argue that when choosing a promotion, marketers should look at their buying process and reassess at every stage. If we take gift vouchers as an example – gift vouchers and cards play an important role in promotions and incentives. With a changing array of services and products on offer, the shopping voucher and card are of prime importance in the marketing mix, bringing flexibility, convenience and a perceived higher value that cash. However, marketers would be better to ignore the urge to compare what discounts they can get from different suppliers and instead concentrate on what is the best choice in terms of relevance to the consumer.

Communication is something that I believe in very strongly. In fact, we are currently actively telling our customers to spend less with us and invest more in their communication methods. It’s worth noting that the more invested in communication, the better the return on investment.
Let us not also forget added value. In this day and age, consumers are looking for, and indeed in come cases expect, more than just face value. It’s worth marketers investigating the added value that a supplier can offer. This added value could be something they could pass on to the recipient, which could take the form of discounts, promotions or giveaways. We set up the SayShopping Privilege Club this year to give useful added value to our customers, which includes monthly prize draws and downloadable money off coupons for extra discounts with our retail partners.

Technology will continue to impact on our industry. The spectacular rise of e-commerce through the internet has changed everything. The UK is now Europe’s largest online shopping market. This has been possible, in part through cheaper computers, more widespread broadband connections, and the proliferation of retail websites. Indeed, UK retailers are widely viewed as being the most modern, most innovative and most active in Europe. The internet gives marketers an exciting and adaptable platform to access consumers. Promotions and incentives will have to adapt and reflect consumer needs, and suppliers should be one step ahead of demand. In 2008 marketers should look out for increased presence of gift cards (plastic credit-card designed vouchers), online e-vouchers and coupons and SMS promotional added value.

So what then does the future hold? Where will promotions and incentives be this time next year? Well, if marketers take heed and find ways to improve their buying power, they will benefit from more efficient, more consistent, and more cost-effective promotional programmes. Old-style, random or one-off promotions will decline. Promotions and incentives will become the home for motivation. Ultimately, marketers will themselves benefit not only from inspired consumers but also from the tangible return on investment they’ve made into ‘buying better’.

Dot co dot uk

The thinking had always been that a dot-com domain name was more credible than a dot-uk one.