be the talk of town!

a short video from marketing guru himself in a TED conference that shows a receipt how you can sell your product more. How you should make your product have OTAKU (a japan word for people who obsessed fan of something), because OTAKU(s) will talk about your product, write about it, discuss it, and become your free-sales promotion people.

People don’t trust strangers (that’s what our mom always said anyway since we were a kid), but they will listen to their friends, they will listen to other people experience, they will listen to people that -they thought- independent.

I’ll take blackberry community in Indonesia called id-blackberry. Couple of years ago, one of the mobile carriers start blackberry service for public in Indonesia. They never heavily advertise it, but they successfully having more than thousands of people using the service. They create a community that consist of blackberry OTAKUs in Indonesia (well they also happened to be gadgets OTAKU – gadgets freaks). Blackberry never have any advertisement, mobile carrier who has the service also never advertise as heavy as their core product for this service. Blackberry OTAKUs do that job. They spread the news – and sometime very persistent – in order to influence people to use blackberry. From its superiority of compression and push technology, to their ease of use of messaging service such as blackberry messenger that can be a cheap way to exchange text based communication.

These blackberry OTAKUs willing to spend more money to enhance the look, performance, and have more than 1 BB devices. People start to know about it, these OTAKUs become their gurus in blackberry, their mailing list become one of the most active mailing list in Indonesia (i wonder why… :p).

Mobile carriers never spend their money to make a TV ads about this product, but BB subscribers increase in a speed that beyond their spending on ads.

These OTAKUs gathers, spreads the news, and persistently insist other to use BB without getting paid (beautiful isn’t it?). Now, mobile carriers start to do package deal for blackberry service; thanks to Indonesian BB OTAKUs!

Why they become BB OTAKUs?

1. some of them are already gadget freak, so they’re reason; they love its technology. Compression, push e-mail, and always connect – Great Product! (for these OTAKUs)
2. It’s (originally) design for corporate, but BlackBerry differentiate these product for retail to aim these technology OTAKUs. – Segmented
3. It keep enhancing its product from only a push mail service with great compression with GPS, camera, and create strategic partnership with software companies and internet service providers (facebook, google, yahoo, etc) – Strategic Partnership, expand OTAKUs from email OTAKUs to internet OTAKUs
4. The way it communicated -because it’s very segmented- made people talk about this product, create a buzz in OTAKUs world, and then spread widely in internet forums, mailing list, and word of mouth. – Be THE TOPIC

I think ( from a technologist that pretend to know a marketing world mind :p ) that’s what Seth mean. We need to make a product that not only aim for biggest chunk of customers, we need to make a product that segmented but have an impact to biggest chunk of customers by word of mouth.

Because these OTAKUs are willing to talk about your product, review it, and persistently insist people to understand its value if it worth.

mobile marketing in Indonesia – a case study from an existing client

Client: leading motorbike manufacturer in Indonesia

Objective: supporting media to create a unique way in order to complete pre-launch activities series using new media and generate database

Target: youngster, new jobber (18-35 y.o)

Concept:

• Create a PR stunt supported by girls in a bike passenger suit
• Girls will give out their ‘name cards’ with their mobile numbers in malls, campuses, and biker hang out places
• 2 type of responses are expected from this stunt;
  • SMS directed to the girls; All SMS will be replied with generic message, but its editorial will follow the way youngsters talk via SMS. Start to tease soon to be launch product by announce URL for pre launch website
  • Call-in; All calls will be answered by generic voice-mail

Execution:

• Based on client’s consideration on contra-productive effect of mobile marketing based on the proposed concept, a name card design changed from a usual ‘model’ name card without any client’s branding and product info into a mini flier that have client’s branding and URL to pre-launch website
• SMS reply also change from a regular youngsters text copy into a hard sell copy mentioning about new motor-bike technology

Result:

• 5% SMS penetration
• 1% Call in
• Buzz in motorbike community in Indonesia
• Average 1500 visitors to http://www.motorimpian.com

Consider major changes from its original concept from a ‘model’ name card to a mini fliers, penetration was not bad at all (compare to SMS broadcast penetration ~10%).
Most important part will still need to be done; follow ups and create a relevant messages to people who interested to the product.

who’s behind the gun?

Several days ago, youtube, multiply, rapidshare, and some other websites were banned in Indonesia. Internet users in Indonesia got a notification from their ISP that those URLs can’t be accessed until further notice according to government’s direction.

I will not discussed about the root cause, which I believe already became a hot topic in other blogs and Indonesia’s news portals. It was very interesting (and surprising) decision made by government. I’m questioning whether they aware that they can’t restrict people to go to where ever they want in www world; even if their destination URLs were banned. People can always use Internet proxy (as it shared in several mailing lists when this restriction happened), search from other sources, ask other people to download the contents and send to an Internet disk for Indonesia’s Internet users to download, and many other things that Internet geeks can think of. Internet has the most sophisticated contents distribution channels. If they really think of internet censorship, they really need to think of investing great amount of money and build a system like ‘great firewall of china’.

It’s really sad (for me and other internet users in Indonesia), to know a respectful IT institution in Indonesia had taken such step in order to do internet censorship. I wonder whether they understand how a content can be distributed in www world.

Looking at this situation, highlighted an old issue on how bad Indonesia need the right man behind the gun. Indonesia need a group of professionals that willing to ‘donate’ part of their busy time to at least be a pressure group in order to make things right in our beloved country.

are you one of them? do you care about your country? or you only want to state your comments but not give any solution?

consultant or whore?

working in creative industry and some experience in IT consulting make me wonder whether I’m a consultant or a whore??

Sometime no matter how we follow client’s requirements and guidance, there will be always a way for them to ruin our weekend…

Quoted from a best friend of mine “I think your job is similar to a *sorry* whore, it just clients pay your service with more trailing zeros……..” Working over the weekend -even long weekends-, 24 hours service, and no matter how hard you try to fulfill their request; you can’t make them always stick with you….. then I start to comparing the list between a consultant and a whore (read it with smile…. );

1. do you work by user’s requirements? consultant: yes – whore:yes
2. does your client demands your creativity on deliver the service? consultant: yes – whore:yes
3. do you have any product to be paid for? consultant:no – whore:yes
4. are you helping clients solving their problems? consultant:yes – whore:yes
5. do you need to build a sophisticated image around your service?consultant: yes – whore:yes
6. do you need to entertain your client by providing full service solution? consultant:yes – whore:yes
7. do you need to maintain your look? consultant:yes – whore:yes
8. will you take order from somebody stranger? consultant:yes – whore:yes
9. do you put your mobile phone number in your name card? consultant:yes – whore:yes
10. do you provide ‘onsite’ service for a long time? consultant:yes – whore:yes

~read it with smile….