Online eTail is/Seems to be Stuck in the Last Century

Supposedly 2009 is the year that online retailing is really meant to come of age as sales continue to grow at the expense of physical retail locations. However, nobody seems to have told the retailers to actually shape up for this... Today (and over the last couple of weeks) I've tried doing my Xmas shopping online and in the end have decided to pretty much go back to the old fashioned way of shopping as, for various reasons (mostly bad system design or complete lack of maintenance/support), I've been unable to buy from Muji, Links of London, LastMinute.com and Molton Brown. Since I'm so seriously hacked off with my experiences with these retailers I refuse to boost their Google page ranks by actually linking to them.

Below is the catalogue of frustration:

• Muji (for whatever reason) failed to show the secure confirmation page for Visa to allow me to confirm my identity.
• Links of London kept on giving me different excuses (everything from system problems to my transaction being declined and an aborted session).
• LastMinute.com sold me a couple of, what I thought would be, straight forward spa vouchers... except for the fact that they've since just dumped me in the lap of the provider who 1) Sent me the wrong vouchers; 2) Took 2 emails (6 days apart) to even respond to my complaint; 3) Sent out a correct voucher, but NOT the two that I had ordered and paid for, and; 4) Have still to respond to my last email about this issue. If I had known that the Purity Spa at Hilton Park Lane was such an administrative shambles, I'd probably have taken my business elsewhere to begin with...
• Molton Brown sent me an email on November 9 saying they had dispatched my products... all fine and dandy, except for the fact that more than 2 weeks later I've not received them. Postal strike or not - that's just not good enough!

At least I had one positive shopping experience today when I received a confirmation of shipping from Amazon.co.uk for a printer I had ordered barely two hours previously. I must mention that Amazon have made several major screw-ups in the past, but at least they've made provisions for the misguided souls at Royal Mail and have found ways of guaranteeing delivery. I just wish that had been the case 7 years ago when I decided to do all of my Xmas shopping with them and the products arrived 2nd week of January despite me having ordered them at the beginning of November...

KEY LESSON: Even if we have moved into a digital age, there are still way too many amateurs when it comes to eCommerce and their projected customer service images don't fit in any way with the reality when it comes to dealing with them virtually. Even simple things like ensuring that URLs resolve without having to type in "www." seems to be an issue for at least one of the aforementioned sites and considering that a solution became commonplace at the turn of the century this shows us one of two things:
Either the marketing/customer service/sales people still don't "get" the Internet (or downplay its value - very dangerous in the times of social media where bad word of mouth can spread like wildfire), or;
The techies/agencies responsible for building the sites are either technically incompetent/lazy - and, even more worryingly, nobody on the client side has either the skills or the inclination to bother doing any kind of quality control

What baffles me as a marketer is the way these brands either don't seem to care about their customers or their brand and cannot seem to fathom the rule of lowest common denominator. If this is the experience I've had with Brand X online why should I trust in that brand to deliver a better experience in any other channel?

I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving - and Black Friday. Personally, even as an Internet veteran and digital marketer for a decade and a half, I'd urge you to consider doing your shopping in person this year.

OLED Really is the Display Tech of the Future

Just came across this beautiful little article (and article) from Wired Magazine, showcasing the sturdiness of the new Samsung flexible OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays. If we can get to the point of having ultra-thin and flexible displays it will open up untold opportunities for how our media are able to disseminate their content and marketers and broadcasters alike will be salivating at the prospect.

How many times have you broken the screen on your TV? Your mobile phone? Your laptop? For me the number is one of each of the latter two - thankfully no TVs :-). Imagine the idea of a thin, lightweight and flexible screen that is also unbreakable. You would pretty much be able to fold up a 20 inch TV and stuff it in your bag when you go on holiday - just hang it on the wall once you get there. It's going to be interesting to see how quickly they can bring down the price of the technology in order to allow developers of new applications to get their hands on it and bring a whole variety of uses of it to the market.

Check out the full article and video over at Wired, and see how it performs compared with a conventional LCD when you take a hammer to it.

"If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning. I'd hammer in the evening, I'd hammer all day..."

UPDATE: VisitDenmark MD Steps Down

Further to my previous post on the absolute cock up of the VisitDenmark marketing campaign, I was very happy to just read that Dorte Kiilerich, the MD responsible for the fiasco, has taken the consequence of her actions and resigned. I now hope that they can put this debacle behind them and move on with new forces at the helm, who can start to rebuild Denmark's reputation abroad using common sense while not eschewing the use of technology and innovative campaign tactics.

For more on this story (in Danish) click here.

Danish Marketing Reputation Going Downhill?

After I wrote a post in August last year about how Carlsberg made a rather large snafu in relation to their sponsorship of Liverpool FC, we've now had the insanely warped campaign from VisitDenmark trying to increase tourism. The YouTube video of a single mother, "Karen", who was looking for the father of "her" young child was supposed to show Denmark as a liberal and free thinking country. Instead, it managed to alienate a lot of families and people from societies a lot less liberal than Denmark - and excited a lot of young men who suddenly seem to think that Danish girls are easy (at least if you believe some of the comments posted on YouTube).

Dorte Kiilerich, Managing Director of VisitDenmark, stated ”Karen's story shows that Denmark is a broad-minded country where you can do what you want. The film is a good exponent for Danish, independent and dignified women, who dare to make their own choices.” At least that was the official line until the backlash started and the Chairman of the Board had to pull his support for it...

”I don’t understand the advertising agency that has produced this story. What do they think people will think,” says Roskilde University Sociologist and Women’s Affairs Researcher Karen Sjørup. ”They’re obviously trying to sell a type of promiscuous Danish woman and exploit the idea that you can lure quick, blonde Danish women home – without a condom,” Sjørup says, adding however that foreigners who come to Denmark with that idea will be very disappointed.

According to Politiken, a leading Danish newspaper, Peter Helstrup, at Grey, the advertising agency behind the video said it was a major success.

”It is the most successful viral advert ever. We have got through the media noise and it cost the same as a 30-second spot shown a couple of times on TV2,” says Peter Helstrup from Grey’s.

In less than a week, the video notched up 1.9 million Google searches, 773,000 YouTube viewings and is linked to 83,000 websites.

A day after the initial press release containing Ms. Kiilerich's quote above, VisitDenmark were forced to pull the plug and saying "I'm deeply sorry that this film has upset many people. This was not our aim at all. Our aim was to create a positive awareness of Denmark and stimulate discussions about Denmark. To avoid further upsetting people, we have now removed the film from YouTube."

She didn't exactly get any support from her Chairman who stated "VisitDenmark's mandate is to market Denmark abroad and, naturally, has to find new and different ways of doing so. When it happens it's important that your communication is very clear or you risk the opposite happening. And we must conclude that this has happened in this case. Therefore, I am happy to have seen that the film has now been removed."
[NOTE: no, doesn't make any sense to me either. Foot in mouth syndrome?]

Showing Denmark to be a country full of drunk and loose women of dubious morals - and using tax payer money to do so - is NOT the way to market Denmark abroad and as a Danish marketer I'm feeling downright embarrased on behalf of both VisitDenmark and the team at Grey who came up with this piece of junk. After the Danish politicians also started ripping into Ms. Kiilerich, I hope that necessary steps will be taken to remove her from the post as I cannot see how she can continue fronting an organisation responsible for the positive branding of Denmark. Furthermore, it should also be considered whether the organisation's mandate should be reviewed in relation to how tax payer money is spent.

Personally, I just don't hope this will have an adverse effect on the job prospects of the many talented Danish marketers plying their trade abroad.

Sorry about another extensive delay...

I've been away travelling for most of August and September so far and when I've finally been around I haven't been able to decide whether to laugh or cry at the mediocrity of the marketing I've seen recently. I know that many of you were expecting me to comment on the debacle, which was the so called "viral" video of the single Danish mother seeking the "father" of her young son on video, but I've decided to hold my breath until the initial outbursts/condemnation/sleazy comments died down before doing so. However, I will now address this in a blog later on today and will also publish a post about a campaign on the London Underground (or The Tube as we locals know it) from Hotels.com, which, at best, is bordering on being a complete breach of all rules regarding ethics in marketing, and why HSBC really have managed to get my goat recently (and why I'm terminating my banking relationship with them after 11 years). Hope you'll stay tuned. In the meantime, you can always follow my latest quick thoughts on Twitter.

BBC Realise Power of Brand "You"

According to a piece on the Digital Spy web site, auntie Beeb have hired a brand consultant to help turn their TV stars into global brands. This is a very smart move in terms of increasing the potential revenue streams for their commercial arm - only makes you wonder why they didn't do it sooner. This will probably mean a lot more people following in the footsteps of monsieurs Clarkson, Hammond and May in establishing their names far beyond the borders of Blighty.

Read the full story here.

Is This the Future of TV?

I remember growing up in Denmark in the 1980s where everybody was talking about 3D television. My friends and I all rushed out to buy 3D viewing glasses only to be bitterly disappointed by the movies shown on TV, which just seemed blurred and in green and red. Now Channel 4 in the UK are trying to get us in the mood again with a 3D programming week. I wonder if we'll be just as disappointed as last time around or whether this could actually work by now. Thoughts on a beer mat please.

Congratulations to SAS: Mediocre Social Media Campaign

People who've known me for years know how much I detest SAS - and also why:
1. They're priced like a premium airline, but have low-cost airline components (like paying for food and drink on the lowest priced tickets)
2. I've been mistreated by them WAY TOO MANY TIMES...

I wanted to give them ONE LAST CHANCE when they ran an online social media competition, where the idea is that you spin a globe (funnily enough departure points are only in Scandinavia) and I never got a destination further away than Athens) and it then selects a travel partner from Facebook (you have to log in/connect) . On my 10th and final try (or so I thought) I finally got an interesting destination and travel partner, but when I tried to submit it I was told I'd already entered. Great way to piss off an already extremely irrate and lapsed customer, guys. I guess this will just reinforce my opinion: DO NOT FLY SAS!!!

If you're adventurous/dumb enough to waste your time, you can find a very crap competion at SASGlobeofFortune.com. Please let me know if you manage to win, as I can't wait to hear the obstacles they place in your way to make it impossible to claim the price (or maybe they don't even respond to your email when you try to claim - nothing would surprise me with SAS any longer)

The Importance of Being Integrated

I know I have banged on in the past about the need to ensure that your marketing efforts are integrated across all channels, whether they're digital or "old fashioned", to ensure you make the most of "cross-pollination" opportunities and increase brand awareness. However, it is also a good idea to double check that the left hand knows what the right is doing and vice versa.

This was really brought home to me today when I tried to sign up for a new promotion run by Tropicana in the UK, giving consumers the opportunity to collect cheap dining vouchers. A few weeks ago they distributed flyers to thousand (if not millions of households across the UK) inviting people to go to a URL and input a promotional code to collect your first point for free (additional points can be collected from the purchase of Tropicana juice and smoothie packs). There was just one slight problem... somebody seems to have neglected to mention that URLs after the domain name become case sensitive! This means that thousands of people who would otherwise have participated when receiving the flyer have probably just given up (if they are as web savvy as the person responsible for the copy). This is the kind of mistake that just shouldn't be allowed to happen. Thankfully, for the web savvy users, it is a case of just changing it around to lower case and "hey presto, it works!"

However, it does beg another question... Why do Tropicana want users to go to www.tropicana.co.uk/foodlovers when they then re-direct the user to the site: www.tropicanafoodlovers.co.uk? Surely it would have been just as easy just putting that URL in the promo materials - and avoid the case scenario in the first place...

UPDATE: Unfortunately it gets worse. When you try to register you get the following response:

Have agencies and brand owners just given up on quality control? I don't know, but there are too many mistakes in this campaign for my liking...

The Apprentice (UK): The Candidates Are Dross...

For once, I'm sitting and watching The Apprentice on BBC2 and I can't help but feel that it is great TV, but is so far removed from reality as is humanly possible. If TalkBack Thames, the production company behind the show, didn't pay the £100,000 salary of the winner, would any of these candidates even be considered? I personally doubt it very much.


As a marketing specialist, I found their efforts toe-cringing tonight. The right team lost, though, as the idea of posters with coloured backgrounds and full of text just do not work! Furthermore, the idea of trying to attract the gay community to a town with an older demographic was just downright suicidal in this instance. Imagine anybody trying to do that for Eastbourne. They would have been chased out of town faster than you could say "MY BAD!" I also had to laugh about the winning team as well as they, obviously, had no clue of how to work around the photos, where the backgrounds did not leave space for copy. Erm, I can think of two incredibly easy work-arounds off the top of my head...

I'm sure the casting process was great fun and it was all about un-earthing "TV talent", but I personally would not hire any of the current candidates. They can't communicate/sell/project manage or anything else, which would normally be required by somebody who pulls in a six figure salary, and I would not be surprised if the rumour that the previous winners who did stay on are on a MUCH reduced salary. It would be useful if these people actually had the skills to back up their annoying personality traits...

In summary, I guess it makes for great TV and for crap candidates who might be shooting themselves in the foot as all I see are some young and desperate people who are bordering on being delusional and which I, for one, would never even consider employing.