The Pit - IMI Trust

…actually, no.

1318 days and counting… there must have been a lot of bugs …

The new Apple iPhone flew off the shelves in the US after many months of hype.  Incredibly, consumers still parted with $600 (3 times now that on eBay) for a phone that is limited in functionality.  Even when you look at the basics, you can see where the issues are for the average phone user.

• Basic Camera 
• No Video Recording
• No MMS
• No Custom Ringtones
• No Speed Dial
• No Voice Dial
• No Flash Support

As is always the case with technology, Version 2 should be a lot better.  We hope

When we tell companies that we deal in both web and marketing they think we are pulling their leg.  Most web companies don’t have the first idea about marketing and most marketing companies are clueless about the web. 

Graphic designers and web designers are often focused on technical and visual aspects of a site whereas marketing specialists are hellbent on getting their message across.  The issue is that if favour to much of one the other falls down.  The internet is littered with websites that are exceedingly functional but have no visual appeal or they are incredibly, knock your socks off beautiful but impossible to navigate around.

Are there any examples you know of beautiful, functional sites?

Imagine if you woke up stupid every day, with a hunger to learn, grow and evolve! That is the difference between the minds of innovators and routine.  Actually, it would probably be immensely frustrating that you have to start from scratch every day but in essence, innovators are those who wake up looking to pioneer.

Innovation is about looking at problems or gaps with new eyes.

When News Corp saw computerisation take hold they revolutionised the newspaper industry by streamlining and templating the whole process.

When Apple and Steve Jobs were being a thorn in the side of PC manufacturers Apple were busy conceiving how the music landscape would be changed forever.

It is interesting to look at the increase in Apples share price when Jobs is there… and when he is not.

1986 to 1998 Minus Steve Jobs - 120%

1998 til today with Steve Jobs - 1240%

Anyone else notice the difference innovation can make? What inspires you?

Recently, the population of NSW witnessed what has to be one of the poorest marketing pitches in history.

For all the brain power behind these campaigns, this is the best slogan the NSW Liberals could come up with.

Are you ready? Drum-roll please!!!! This is it…

“Don’t Vote Labor”

That was their campaign slogan. Here is my personal tip for the NSW Liberals…

‘Sack your entire marketing team.’

This slogan would be about as effective as the military recruitment campaign slogan being “Don’t think about bullets flying past your head and potentially being blown up.”

Here are some more reasons the NSW Liberals want to sack their marketing team tomorrow…

• “Don’t look down”
• “Don’t think of the colour blue”
• “Don’t think of a tree”
• “Don’t think of the TV”
• “Don’t think of Morris Iemma being re-elected”

Ever watched kids? Have you ever noticed how whenever you say “Dont do…”, they do it? As adults… we are not that different!

Yes, NSW Liberal Party. You GAVE the election campaign to the NSW Labor Government with your poor attempt at marketing.

Now obviously this is being targeted at a Government, but the truth is… I see businesses doing this every day. In fact, one company I spoke with recently were looking at a campaign which would have people mentally connect fraud and their company name.

So if there is anyone from the NSW Government reading this blog, here is my last tip for you, “Don’t think about hiring our company to consult to you on your next campaign. Don’t entertain the idea. Please… don’t think about the possibilities of hiring IMI Trust to assist you!”

NO NO NO NO!  It is incredibly frustrating to see how people compete on price.

The number one reason companies compete on price is because they are poor at marketing.  It is the worst way to try and grow a business, as your marketing plan seeks to eliminate your own profits and the more aggressive you market the slimmer your margins are.

If your marketing appeals to your target market correctly then it is unneccesary to compete on price.  A well-known Australian Bank split-test a marketing campaign recently.  To a sample of 10,000 people they sent two separate credit card offers.

1. One offer with an interest rate of 12.5%
2. One offer with an interest rate of 16.5%

Clearly, credit cards that have the lower interest rate should be more popular.  Which offer do you think would be the most successful? Remember this was the same company, going to the same client client base.

To their sample, the interest rate of 16.5% was easily the most successful.  So what was the difference?

On the 16.5% offer there was a photograph of an attractive, healthy, female on the letter. Marketing and appealing to your target market wins over low prices.  In this case, just one photo encouraged credit card prospects to take an offer 33% more expensive.

There is so many frontlines in business in which the war can be won.  If you are trying to win it on price… ask yourself if this is really your best strategy

FON.  If you haven’t heard of them yet then you soon will.  They are backed by some of the most powerful organisations on the internet, Skype and Google as well as the venture capital companies behind these giants, Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures are all investor partners in FON.  So why has FON done so well to capture the attention of these giants?

FON is the world’s largest WiFi community. Started in Spain by Martin Varsavsky, FON is built on the idea of creating a community of people who get more out of their internet connection through sharing. Every router purchased by a user enables that user to become a mini-ISP.  The beauty is they can choose to charge for the service or give it away for free if they so wish. Any amount they charge is split down the middle with FON.

Clearly, this is the best home-based business idea in a long time.  Have an internet connection and resell the bandwidth to people in your local area.  Be your own ISP and profit.  Or be chartiable and give it away. 

We love the idea here at IMI Trust but we are not alone.  There are over 300,000 ‘hotspots’, or router portals worldwide and FON want to grow that to 1m by 2010.

When FON finally hits Australia, it will cause a massive shake up in a stagnant and relatively service-free industry.  Large Internet Service Providers are getting fat on the easy profits made by broadband users.  Wireless service is poor in Australia and worse still, fees for usage are ridiculous compared our international counterparts.

So FON sound ambitious.  You are not wrong.  To kickstart their success in the US, they have have just offered 10,000 people who live near Starbucks, or any cafe with any existing WiFi hotspot, the opportunity to receive their FON WiFi router for free. A bold move considering Starbucks has its own service it provides, but when you have Google, Skype and Sequoia Capital backing you, bold moves come with the territory.  Since there are over 13,000 Starbucks stores worldwide, this initiative is only the beginning of a large scale, long term plan.

Forbes Magazine have listed them as one of THE companies to watch this year. Not bad for a company which only had its first birthday this February.

The question on Australian lips is surely when is FON coming to Australia? We need your service sooner rather than later. 

Also, on a more self-interested note, when is the IPO? And where can we sign up?

When companies choose to have nauseatingly redundant Flash intro pages is having a Skip Intro button signifyng that the content on the page is worthless and not worth seeing?  

Well…Yes!  

Does a kettle have more value because it displays a pretty, neon light show before it starts boiling water? Well…No!  

Redundant design is bad.  There is a lot more to say about this subject so….*****permission to skip blog post enabled*****

Now when you use Mozilla and have Skype installed, a Skype icon appears next to phone numbers on browsers. You simply click on the icon and the call is placed. 

For those not in the know, Skype is the most popular global internet telephone system.  Calls can be placed through your internet connection as if you were making calls on a landline.

What makes this simple addition so remarkable is that Skype have accessed the second most popular browser on the net.  Approximately 18% of all web users use Mozilla.  This means millions and millions and millions of people will have this functionality available to them.  No amount of advertising and sponsorship can match that reach. 

By creating a simple, yet powerful joint venture, Skype will boost their revenues by millions overnight.  You too could do the same thing.  Maybe not to the same scale but by choosing your joint venture partners carefully you could effectively double or triple your business.  If you do, you may need to use this number…

- Say Hello to the Australian Tax Office.  HELLO!!

Unless you have been hiding with the weapons of mass destruction this week, you would have noticed that Microsoft have released Windows Vista.

You have to love the hard sell. Not many corporates really do it to consumers anymore. Not Apple, not Google, not the oil companies, not the car manufacturers. They are all into the brand.  Microsoft have allocated US$500million to marketing their new operating system and it shows.  Come back Crazy Frog all is forgiven.

Actually, Microsoft, well done for bringing back blanket coverage in marketing and sticking it in my face everywhere I look. It is a good reminder as to why you are a $300 billion company.

The truth is the only companies persistantly doing the hard sell is the credit card companies and the banks. Can’t understand why they keep on announcing record profits.  Probably because if you put a product in front of a consumer that services a need then they consume it…

When I checked out the Microsoft site to read the Vista marketing, i was stunned to see 100 reasons as to why Vista is so great. If you were absolutely insane… that is perfect for you to discover all of Vista’s benefits. if you are a bit more human, they had the highlighted benefits. From a marketing perpective, this warmed my heart.

The truth of the matter is I am going to Harvey Norman, or similar electrical retailer, and ask for a PC that is loaded with XP.  I know for a fact they will be fire-sale-ing that stock so I can get one or seven really cheap.  That is only one reason but better than the 100 reasons Bill gave me for getting Vista. 

Experts have come out of the their holes to comment on Vista.  Us included. The reality is in 2 to 3 years time, we all know we are going to be using it. This should impact their share price of (MSFT) Microsoft significantly. Will its recent bull run continue until then?  Maybe.

PS. Bill, I dont care that you have copied Apple, nor do I care that they will release something even more impressive with Leopard. Which they won’t because I’m over operating systems named after big cats.  Just please be taking notes when they do. Look forward to my Wow beginning Now!