Category: Marketing

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Dieselgate Volkswagen’s Advertising Strategy: Thou Shalt Not Take the Name of the Brand Invain

Yesterday I’ve stumbled upon the first Volkswagen’s TV commercial of the after-Dieselgate scandal.

At first sight, there is nothing different from the previous campaign: a car, its technical specification, the unique selling proposition and, final, a company full-screen logo. But, as they say, the devil is in the details.

The commercial only mentioned the car model’s name without any reference to the word “Volkswagen” during the whole duration and, when the logo-moment came, neither the name of the car-maker nor the claim “Das Auto” went on screen.

Volkswagen’s strategy to limit the lose of its market share, thus, seems to be oblivion-inducing based. Let people forget about the cursed name for a long enough time, to come back when? Dieselgate would have been buried in the past and the brand name can shine again.

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Giuffrè Editore (Lexis-Nexis partner)’s Update Disturbing Policy

consolleLexis-Nexis Italian partner, Giuffrè Editore, is active in both the editorial and software business. One of its tool is a java application to handle the electronic document filing to the Court’s dock.

As the screenshot shows, the OSX version of this software requires on outdated java version because Giuffrè didn’t update its code. As they write on the website: “last java versions have problem. Download from here the recommended version”.

In other words: we don’t want to fix the software you paid, so stay stick with an older java version.

So ? a lawyer wanting to continue using this software faces these alternatives:

  • downgrade the Java version installed on his computer, thus risking incompatibilities with up-to-date application and having his computer possible stability issues,
  • buy a computer (or virtualize one) “just” to use Giuffrè softwares,
  • move to another software and start using it for scratch.

Whatever the option, the customer is the losing part.

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When Digital Automatic Advertising Fails

badadThis is what happens when you leave to a machine the handling of a sensitive task.

The advertising engine used by Repubblica.it coupled fashion photos with a dramatic picture of a Syrian kid scared by a camera that she thought was a weapon.

While whenever you click the link to the picture the ads change (more fashion brands, mobile companies and so on), the final effect remains rather disturbing because of the feeling of misery exploitation transmitted by the whole image. So, putting aside ethical consideration, the outcome is that Fay.com got its brand associated to the wrong message.

The lesson to learn (or to remember) is that to deliver an effective advertising campaign, automatics doesn’t work.

 

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Our Digital Health And Electronic Money. IT Security Gets Tough

Let’s say the truth: IT security is just a bubble that no “serious” manager cares of. There is no possible explanation for the fact that today we keep talking about the very same things I’ve heard back in the early nineties, sold by somebody who wants to re-invent the wheel. But the indirect Paypal attack against Apple targeted at the upcoming Applepay platform and the spin put on the health-related application ? might change the situation: a (very)personal computing device allowing to manage the two most critical things of a (Western) human kind: health and money.

Can a company really afford to market software pre-release as “final” just to meet a marketing-set deadline? Or lure people into trusting a payment platform, risking to become liable in case of problems caused by a poorly implemented security?

It is really (still) possible to discharge any liability with a “simple” contract and put the barrel on the users’ shoulder when serious issues are involved?

IT companies should carefully think about it before entering into a sector where people aren’t so keen in just waiting for the next fix or hardware upgrade. They might be dead or bankrupted, in the meantime.

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A kindLE of Magic (or, why Apple’s Ipad is a bluff)

Despite Apple’s claims, Ipad can’t be an Amazon Kindle competitor. Here is why.

Apple’s Ipad announcement raised the usual hype on general press and even gained the cover of The Economist. Steve Jobs said, during his Yerba Buena talk, that Jeff Bezos, at Amazon, did a great job with Kindle, but Apple is actually going a step ahead whit its Ipad. Well, of course Mr. Jobs needs to say that, but the statement might prove to be incorrect.

A question first: what is the Ipad? Answer: a keyboardless computer (but if you want, you may purchase a separate one.)

Sure, you can read ebooks (with some fancy visual trick), you can write your papers and run your presentations, and do your math with Numbers, and enjoy thounsand of Iphone application, and surf the Internet and do everything a normal computer does. So, back to the point, the Ipad is just a (not-so-powerful) general purpose computer.

And now comes Kindle.

Question: what is Kindle?

Answer: a book reading machine.

Kindle does just one thing (allowing people to read books) and does it damn good. The battery lasts for a long time, the download of the purchased book is fast and free almost everywhere in the world, eyes aren’t tired by reading through the screen, usability is at every opposite-thumbs equipped human being’s range, learning curve is measurable in terms of minutes.

I don’t actually know whether or not the Ipad will be a bluff, what is sure, is that Amazon Kindle works like a kind of magic.

Thank you Mr. Bezos.