Adventures In Digital Marketing

We’ve all seen Minority Report and the computer interfaces in it that The Cruise uses with his very Johnny Mnemonic datagloves.

Well, in life imitating art style, some very clever people have gone and created the interface in it and made it into a real product.

Video if below, and it’s pretty impressive. Well worth watching if you’re at all interested in the ways the interface might changes in the next decade or so from a 2D desktop to an immersive 3D environment.

THere’s one particular part of the video which looks like the beginning of a cyberspace style environment – which i’ve always imagined as being terribly complex and almost too involved to actually work in – but as a true Gibson fan i love it when we seem to move closer to his vision.

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

I get a lot of sales calls during the course of a year. It’s just part of the deal. You get your name printed on or offline anywhere as a job title where you might just make a hiring or purchasing decision and bingo, next thing you know you are being called for the next few weeks by people who introduce themselves as if you’ve known them for years from companies you’ve never heard off.

“hi Howard. This is David. I’m from ’spandex donkey’ and we are the leading global supplier of obsolete JavaScript code to all the major agencies. Your colleague told me you were the person to speak to about this and so I think we could really work together. Tell me, where do you get your obsolete JavaScript from now?”

That kind of thing.

And normally it’s one or two a month of this type.

But something major has happened in the world of cold calling agency services of late and it’s resulted in me personally getting at least two calls a day in the last week with someone trying to sell me something or other. (I don’t think it helps we have a temp receptionist who doesn’t seem to understand call screening and just puts everyone straight through.)

I’m not saying it is 100% down to the credit crunch/recession but something has happened which means these service companies are ringing around like crazy in an attempt to get that fateful “cup of coffee some time to discuss how we can help”. I used to take those meetings once in a while. My thinking was it couldn,t hurt and maybe they did have something new to offer.

But now I don’t. If I did I’d spend all day meeting mobile/production/av/experiential service providers and not doing any work.

Maybe us on the actual agency side should take this up? I mean, everyone complains pitch process could do with a shake up, or it’s out of date, etc, etc. You know that one right? Well. Perhaps we should resort as an industry to cold calling marketing directors in potential client companies and pretending to know them.

“hey sally! This is Howard. I heard you were looking for some marketing to drive sales. I think we can help. Can I meet for a cup of coffee? No?”

It might work? It must work for recruiters and people who sell sms platforms because they all do enough of it!!!

Howard

OK, I know it’s not digital marketing as such.

But this Toshiba ad is just too great to not post.

Love it.

FAO Schwarz, the huge US toy shop, has got an excellent online tool on their site for the Xmas period – a microsite which allows you to design and create your own muppet “what not” (the generic muppet/sesame street looking characters like Swedish Chef of Beaker) in The Muppet Show WhatNot Workshop.

It’s kind of like Simpson-ise yourself, but it results in a physical end product delivered to your door for $90

Except, there’s a problem with the web execution – it isn’t excellent at all.

Sure, it works, and it’s easy to use.

But it’s boring. BOOOORING.

It’s a very simple form, nothing happens in real-time, so it’s hard to know what you’re creating as you proceed, and the end result is, well, a little disappointing in as much as it just lumps the assets you’ve chosen, like hair, nose, eyes, etc., onto a default body shape (which you also choose) but in a way with no finesse, no style, and it looks like a 10 year old cut and paste it together in MS Paint.

I’m not kidding – speccing up a new Dell is more fun than this process.

Come on webmaster of FAO Schwarz – you could have made this into on of the holiday seasons must-see web locations.

Instead, you’ve created a functional but decidely average online shopping experience.

User experience isn’t just about making things as simple and easy to use as possible, it’s about providing that as well as an online experience that engages with the audience and makes them realise the experience was fun and worthwhile and sticks in their mind.  If it was all about being easy to use we’d all do plain HTML sites in black text on a while background.

Use your imagination.  You sell toys!  That’s got to be a fun gig.

So why is this microsite so yawn inducing?

Howard

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