Sales, Social and Tech

Have you seen the new Notes on Facebook? Notes was part of Facebook to provide for longer updates, however, the old Facebook Notes was kind of boring and stale. Say goodbye to the old Facebook Notes The new Facebook Notes now allows you to add a cover photo, similar to Medium,  and even allows you to select Bold, Italics, Mono, and even add links just be simply highlighting the words and the option appears above the words. In comparison, the old Facebook Notes required you to know a little html that you have to enter before and after the text. So far, the new Facebook Notes only allows you to add photos, but hopefully, it could allow adding of videos and even let users put HTML for more advance users. Maybe Facebook should even allow users to add advertising in the post and earn from it, something similar to Google’s Adsense program. The new Facebook Notes will give the various online blogging publishers, eg Medium, Blogger, a run for the money. Google’s Blog...

Looks like Google.com.sg has gone voting. I wonder who did L vote for?

Advertisers and marketers are often tasked to take advantage of festive holidays to bring in the crowd with catchy taglines and creative advertisements. As most festive holidays in Singapore center around religious tradition and culture, it is important that the advertisement does not offend or against them. For IKEA Singapore, their "Bling Glamour Home" Raya advertisement has come under fire on their Facebook Page on how IKEA Singapore's creative definition as a total misinterpretation of the Muslim community. Even though I am not a Muslim, I found this IKEA advertisement to be a display of ignorance on the creative team on how Hari Raya Aidilfitri is celebrated. If the creative team took just ten minutes to Google and understand the real meaning of the Hari Raya Aidilfitri festival, it would have same them from the backlash of fans, especially those from the Muslim community. Hari Raya Aidilftri is the"festival of breaking of the fast". A quick Goog...

I was going through the ChurpChurp app over the weekend and these two campaigns appeared on it. UAT stands for User Acceptance Test and probably the two was targeted at the advertisers to see how their campaign would like on the app. It shouldn't have appeared on the end-user app but it did. I wonder if other Churpers saw these two campaigns on their app recently. ChurpChurp "allow members can get cash rewards for sharing brand messages, discover what people are reading or watching on the Internet, and be part of an awesome community and meet like-minded friends."

Model Manuela Arbelaez gave away a USD 21,960 car away on the game show "The Price Is Right" and the clip has become the gameshow's most viewed video in its Youtube channel. The video clip has already generated 5 million views as of this writing. The most popular video I can find on the "The Price Is Right" channel is the clip of the "USD7,000" iPhone 6, which was looking at 1.8 million views. Model Manuela Arbelaez wasn't fired for her gaffe though she thought she would be. Wrote Today , “It was a brain fart,” said Arbelaez. “I just zoned out. I literally did not see that coming. My body took over and reacted before my brain had a chance to stop it.” The goof brought Arbelaez to tears and sent “Price is Right” host Drew Carey into a giggle fit. “Congratulations, Manuela just gave you a car,” Carey told the contestant.  This gaffe probably generated more attention to the show that it ever had. In Singapore, with h...

Two of Singapore top banks are in a vanity battle of who has the most number of Facebook likes that ironically have little or no effect on their bottom line. Yet, OCBC Singapore and DBS Bank decided it is worth fight over at Marketing Interactive. Wrote Rezwana Manjur of Marketing Interactive , "OCBC Bank’s claim that it is the leading social media bank in Singapore has sparked retaliation from arch rival DBS.... ... In reaction to OCBC’s claims, Edna Koh, senior vice president, group strategic marketing & communications, DBS Bank has refuted the claims and told Marketing that in 2010, DBS was the first Asian bank in Singapore to adopt a regional corporate Facebook page which now has over 590,000 fans across its 12 Facebook pages established for different audiences...." If you were to ask either OCBC or DBS Bank how much of these likes or fans are actually account holders of the respective bank, you are more likely to get a blank check than a definite answer. ...

GrabTaxi has stolen ComfortDelgro Taxi's booking thunder since the app came into Singapore around April 2014. Comfort Taxi has launched a new app and will make this new app the de factor app by early March 2015. Can a new design alone help ComfortDelgro Taxi kick GrabTaxi off its pedestal and regain its number one spot? Comfort Taxi new app, ComfortDelgro Taxi Booking App, has a major design improvement from its predecessor. After you signed in, you will see the skyline of the Marina Bay area with different positions of the sun to show the various time of the day. Though the booking feature is quite standard, it is an improvement from the previous design. If you do decide to cancel, there is an option to feedback to ComfortDelgro the reason for the cancellation. The new ComforDelgro Taxi app also has a menu button to select several options and the one that I liked most is the e-receipt option. This eReceipt breaks down the various components of the taxi fare and...