As I have mentioned before, Samsung makes some good commercials. In this case, the commercials focus on Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone. The "Easy Mode" commercial is fine for what it is, which is an appeal to older individuals that are concerned about phones being too complicated. My favorite of the new batch is the "Grad Photo" commercial, which shows off a camera feature that lets users remove unwanted items from a picture. Quite frankly, this is a feature that every phone should have and the commercial does a good job of selling this as an essential feature. The commercial shows potential buyers a real world scenario where they might make use of and value such a feature.
Microsoft's Crazy Magazine Advertisement for Office 365
Jon Fingas, at Engadget:
Americans who've received a special issue of Forbes have flipped past the articles to discover a fully functional (if stripped down) T-Mobile router tucked into a cardboard insert. Once activated, it dishes out 15 days of free WiFi for up to five devices at once, at up to three hours per charge.
I have conflicted thoughts about this move. On the one hand, it's interesting from a technical and marketing standpoint. It certainly does a good job of getting the reader's attention on Office 365 (as well as T-Mobile). The troubling part, as noted by some of the commenters in the article, is the fact that this would look awfully suspicious if someone attempted to take it through an airport's x-ray machine.
Mobile Rewards Apps for Brick-and-Mortar Stores
Lauren Goode, writing forAllThingsD.com:
What would it take for you to shop in stores these days, rather than buy from the comfort of your couch? Some companies are betting that smartphones can help lure you back to the mall by offering rewards, coupons and other incentives that can only be earned when you’re physically in a store.
This is an interesting article on mobile rewards apps for brick-and-mortar stores. Goode covers the basics of two apps (ShopKick and Kapture) that encourage users to visit stores, scan items, or share product and business-related posts on their social networks in order to earn rewards such as discounts and freebies.
This is an area of increasing interest for traditional retailers. Every business, of course, wants to find new ways to increase customer engagement (and thus increase revenue). This type of rewards-based engagement is another way that physical stores can help combat the effects of lower-priced Internet-based competition such as Amazon.com. This is also intended to reduce the amount of 'showrooming' that is plaguing the brick-and-mortar industry.
The idea is to get customers to not just simply visit the store to see a product first-hand (and later make their purchase online), but instead to see the other products available at the retailer's location that can be added to their shopping cart. The addition of rewards and perks helps to not only minimize the cost advantages of Internet-based shopping, but also helps sway consumers to choose the immediate gratification offered by purchasing a product in a physical store.
It's worth noting that there have been some troubling developments in a similar space online. Lockerz.com, for example, was once the high-flying darling of the social engagement and rewards industry but recently laid off roughly 30 percent of its staff in its Seattle office and closed an office in San Diego. However, this is still a nascent and rapidly maturing industry. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Microsoft's Terrible Surface Commercials
Microsoft recently released a commercial for the Surface Pro. This commercial is in the same vein as the Surface RT commercial released last year.
The commercial is also rubbish.
Why is this? It's because in an attempt to look 'cool', 'hip', and 'edgy', Microsoft has failed to inform the public what its product actually does. This is an especially terrible idea when you are clearly lagging behind the market leaders. What are the market leaders doing right with their commercials that Microsoft is doing wrong?
Apple's iPad Mini commercial takes half as much time (roughly 30 seconds) as the Surface Pro commercial (roughly 60 seconds) to explain twice as much to the user in a more easily digestible format. This particular commercial shows that the iPad A) can let you communicate in real-time via voice and video, and B) comes in different sizes (standard iPad and Mini).
Amazon's Kindle Fire HD commercial has a narrator discussing the various features that the device has, overlaid to video showing people using the device in real-world scenarios. In 30 seconds, the video shows us that you can read books, play games, watch movies, play music, and communicate in real-time via voice and video.
Google's Nexus 7 commercial, at 60 seconds, is the same length as the Surface commercials yet is so much more informative. The commercial shows us a little girl reading a book with her mother, using a drawing app, communicating in real-time via voice and video with her grandmother, playing a video game, and using Google voice search to find out how far away the Earth is from the moon.
What could someone possibly learn about the Surface Pro from the commercial? If they are paying very close attention, they might possibly see that it has a stylus, connectable keyboard, and kickstand. Everything else gets lost in the blur of song and motion. Microsoft's competitors communicate the value of their respective devices in a very efficient manner by crafting short stories that resonate with the viewer. We already know why we want to communicate with our loved ones. We already know that we would enjoy playing games, watching movies, or listening to music. It's unclear why we would want to have a stylus, connectable keyboard, or kickstand.
Ultimately, Microsoft fails to inform the viewer why they should care.