Innovative Products = Innovative Media

‘Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything’ said Steve Jobs in his keynote when Apple launched the iPhone. In innovation theory there is a term for such a rare product. It’s called ‘dominant design' and was introduced by James Utterback. In his innovation classic, ‘Dynamics of innovation’ (1992), his definition is: “A dominant design in a product class is, by definition, the one that wins the allegiance of the marketplace, the one that competitors and innovators must adhere to if they hope to command significant market following” and the Apple iPhone has done just this. Just by looking at the aesthetics of mobile phones... They all tend to fit the same mould.

Apple’s been very fortunate as it has introduces a few of these dominant designs into the world.  In 1984 they introduced the Macintosh, the iPod in 2001 and then the iPhone in 2007.

To quote Jobs some more, he said, "I have been looking forward to this for two and a half years", and that "today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone." Jobs introduced the iPhone as a combination of three devices: a "widescreen iPod with touch controls"; a "revolutionary mobile phone" and a "breakthrough Internet communicator". This is why the iPhone was truly innovative. It pushed the boundaries, created a product people didn't know they needed and yet it is a product which they now cannot live without and which many other mobile phone manufacturers have copied. Welcome to the take over of the smart phone.

The development of the smart phone has made a massive impact on the advertising world in particular. A mobile phone is a person’s number one possession and it is certainly mine. I cannot leave the house without it; I compulsively check it ever 15 minutes; it has all my contacts on it; my photos; my videos and is now a means of internet access. My phone is practically my life.

To advertisers, the mobile phone is a dream. If advertisers can successfully communicate via a mobile then they have hit the jack pot and this is why innovative advertising is taking place. The fact that your mobile is so personal is also a disadvantage. It is somewhere that people do not want to be bombarded by offers deals and messages. Overstepping the mark could be the death of a campaign. Simply sending a text to someone isn’t going to be effective; neither is a banner advertisement on a mobile website.

New ways of communicating through the mobile phone are being thought up all the time. QR codes, which I have previously discussed, are just one of the brilliant methods to connect an audience to a company through the use of the mobile. Hundreds of advertising agencies have popped up all around the UK. Specialising in things like augmented reality and app development.

QR Codes Continued

After my pervious post on QR codes I discovered these little gems:

A QRcode that a fashionista would appreciate!

Theses QR codes have been adapted by fashion brands, keen to gain some geek points. Tokyo based creative agency SET developed this for Marc by Marc Jacobs which can be used to his access his new mobile site.

The agency also produced one for Louis Vuitton, collaboratiing with Takishi Murakami (the man behind the famous art work on the LV bags) to come up with this good looking code.

These little codes look more appealing than the standard QR code and because they work they also have the same function and benefits!

The Next Big Thing

In this post I'm going to be commenting on the genius that is a QR code. They are the new piece of technology similar to a bar code, which turns a little square into a URL.

According to: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ this is the QR code (below) for my blog: pretty cool! If only I had something to read it...

QR Codes, AKA Quick Response Codes are part of the new advertising and media possibilities linked to and focussed on the mobile phone! These codes can be scanned by a smart phone, a URL will appear and then you can be transferred to that website... pretty smart right?

There are a few problems though…

Most people are probably thinking that this is rather pointless and just technology for the sake of technology. Why scan this on your phone when you can just go on the website via your home computer?

Well... Although the QR codes may be used very rarely at the moment here in the UK, in other places such as Japan they are already massive with loads of businesses using them in their advertisements as a direct link to online information. They are also set to become big in other, poorer countries.

One of the most brilliant uses of the QR Code is the tracking capabilities. An advertising agency could place an advert in, for arguments sake, 5 different magazines, each with an individual QR Code on (the magazines name would be embedded into the URL). The implications of this would be that the agency would be able to see from which magazine the online traffic came from and therefore would be able to see which magazine was the most effective means of advertising. This is one of the specific uses of the QR Code in the western world however the QR Code simply as it is, is useful in countries such as India, South America and Africa where fixed internet isn’t readily available.

In these places, most people can’t have a home computer internet base with broadband. The only means of internet access is through a smart phone. In these places the QR Code is a direct link to a website via a mobile phone and it is pretty much the only way to get customers to access it.

Although at the moment they aren’t that popular in the UK, one of the main reasons being that you have to download an App to be able to read the QR Code. Adding that hassle into the equation along with a misunderstanding of the technology means that people just wont have the motivation to do it. At the moment, because the technology is in its infancy here in the UK advertisers don’t know how to use it effectively. What needs to be recognised by traditional advertising agencies who are sticking to ‘old’ media, the QR code is a way of using digital technology but still using print or TV advertisements. You can have your normal ad using traditional media but by including a QR Code it means that it is keeping up with digital world at the same time.

Give it a few years and advertisers will have got the hang of it, most phones will have a QR Code reader built in... I think it’s the Next Big Thing.

A Blog on.. Blogging

Seeing as I am new to blogging, I thought that this week I would write about it..

The idea of blogging was at first rather irrelevant to me. In my opinion it was an open diary; a means of attention seeking; a way for people to gain popularity through posting dramatic monologues about themselves or other things. I now realise that this was a naïve view of the whole concept and after contemplation and by looking at a few of the millions of blogs that are online, I’ve changed my mind. I can now see the method behind the madness and that blogging is used for hundreds of things that I never considered and not just the self centred means of getting your whining heard.

Blogging has managed to make news personal. We know longer have to hear opinions or stories from experts, it means that pretty much anyone can become a writer, editor or have their own website. It took me about 20 minutes to create this blog site. I probably could have done it even quicker if I hadn't messed around with the layout and personalised the colour scheme, but even that is relevant to my point. It is a way of delivering your own opinions, your own personalised means of communication to the masses in a fast and easy way. And with just as much ease, the masses can communicate back, reciprocating with their very own take on what you have said. Whether or not they are a friend or a stranger, from this country or the next doesn’t matter. The interactivity of blogging is revolutionising the idea and pushing the boundaries of freedom of speech.

A blog can create a massive stir amongst online communities and one comment can make or break a business if posted by the right person at the right time. One Blog I read featured a man who had a well followed blog and was receiving bad customer service from a certain company. He e-mailed the company, simply threatened to negatively blog about how unhelpful they had been; the company automatically responded and were happy to help in any way possible.

Most businesses, brands and influential people have blogs now, which update their ‘followers’ on the latest promotions, products, press and goings on. Popular blogs by ordinary people can now be ‘monetised’ by gathering enough followers and then selling advertising space on the blog site. Philadelphia is not going down as a great city to blog. The city has begun to request $300 from those with a blog website. The city calls it a "business privilege license." Proving that blogging is an easy effective and currently free (in most places) way to make money through the interaction with others!

Second Life verses Real Life

Until now I was unaware that a website called Second Life existed and I'm finding it difficult to get my head around. For those of you who are still in the dark, it pretty much does what it says on the tin; it is a website which allows the users to create a second, virtual life.

According to my Digital Advertising manual I am rather behind and some computer generated, virtual communities have been around for longer than the internet; second life began in 2003.

The design of these virtual worlds vary with not all of them mirroring real life: some ignore all conventions of the real world and try to avoid depicting things like walls or doors, in contrast others intend to mimic the physical world in every detail, or bend the rules only slightly. Second Life, known as a Hybrid Space (Kallay and Marx) focuses on the latter by creating a mix of the real and ideal, familiar yet fantasy.
Common misconceptions are that it is a game, this is wrong, second life even has its own currency! This is known as the Linden Dollar and can be changed to and from real life currency. This is where Second Life becomes relevant within the world of digital media…

Where money exists, products do too; therefore there are marketing opportunities within Second Life. The virtual customers within second life are real people and so, in theory, should respond to similarly to advertisements and marketing ploys within second life as they do in day to day life .

Currently some companies do use second life, for obvious reasons: if they want people to see 3d versions of their products; virtual BMW cars are sold, however I think that second life has a different use for online media. I believe that it could be used as a simulation of real life. If a new product is about to be launched then it could be created and launched within second life or other virtual realities and then sales and its reception can be monitored. If the product works in second life, then it is likely that people will react similarly in reality. The same thing can be done for advertising campaigns, if advertisements work in virtual realities then one would assume they would work in real life.

Purpose

The intention of my future blog posts will be to take a subject from my lectures and discuss it.. sounds easy enough but I guess we'll just have to wait and see..