Sales, Social and Tech

(Update: Bakerzin has extended the duration of the expired vouchers. http://socialpr.blogspot.com/2010/12/update-on-bakerzin-vouchers-turning.html ) In the age of Internet where almost every bit and byte is travelling at the speed of late, Bakezin Facebook chose to reward their fans with snail mail vouchers. Unfortunately,the time taken to process the vouchers and for the postman to deliver them resulted in fans receiving vouchers that were going to expire the next day. Hell knows no fury like a fan scorned. A comment from Melissa Heng resulted  in other fans and received negative comments from other fans. Not only are such comments open to the 8000+ fans on the Facebook Page, it also is read by her friends. Why subject your brand to such negativity on Facebook after all the hard work to get Facebook Fans to like you? So why not provide fans a quick, easy cost effective way to be rewarded at Bakerzin without having to spend the whole week waiting for expired vouchers? ...

Around this time of the year, Singapore Press Holdings will issue an annual report to highlight their circulation figures of their various newspaper.  The 2009/2010 period was a bad year for their English newspapers as they saw decline in circulation on a year to year basis, save for The Sunday Times which saw a very modest 0.05% increase. The Business Times saw decreased in circulation for the first time in 5 years. Tamil Murasu saw an increase in circulation by 5% year to year and an amazing 45% increase since August 2006. Shin Min Daily also saw a 4% increase with a 15% in circulation since August 2006. However, Lianhe Wanbao saw the biggest decrease in circulation by   Aug-06 Aug-07 Aug-08 Aug-09 Aug-10 Aug 2009 - Aug 2010 Aug 2006 - Aug 2010 Tamil Murasu 10,200 11,700 14,400 14,100 14,800 ...

There was quite an excitement over Lenovo Singapore Foursquare campaign at the recently ended Sitex 2010. One Singapore blogger expected the promotion to cause a trend among Foursquare users in Singapore. Kudos to Singapore Lenovo to use Foursquare for SITEX. Wrote DK , Think this is the first time a company in Singapore uses Foursquare at a consumer IT exhibition like this. With such promotion, the Lenovo booth will most likely be trending every morning. Once the location is trending, other Foursquare users nearby will see the location in the trending list. It’s a good way to inform visitors the booth location. I wonder how is the success rate. The campaign was rather simple. Check in to Lenovo’s Sitex booth on Foursquare and get a mystery gift. The first 30 check in daily would get a mystery prize. As such, I would assume that Lenovo Singapore was looking to get a total of 120 check ins over the four days of Sitex 2010.   However, at the end of Sitex 2010, only 12...

I love Singapore and I love the Singapore Flag. But when I saw the design of the swimming trunks of the Singapore Water Polo team, I thought I was watching National Geographic.  Wrong channel?

Check out this BBC interview on Taggo.

The above picture says it all.  On the right shows a standee that says OCBC credit card users get 5% off at Cafe Le Caire. On the right, there’s a Cafe Le Caire poster says fans get 20% discount when you present your ez-link card to be identified as a fan. If you were a customer at Cafe Le Caire, what discount would you go for? Banks in Singapore are offering their credit card users discounts but have problems getting retailers to commit huge promotions that will entice their credit card users to pay with their card. The simple reason is that there are no real benefits that banks can offer these retailers, except for the printing of the standee and the name of their booklets that nobody reads. It is the retailers that absorb the 10% discount,  not the banks. In addition, when the customer pay with a credit card, the retail shop have to pay a merchant fee plus the monthly rental for the POS equipment. In this social media decade, the transaction between the cust...

Qantas have made a request to Singapore’s ChannelNews Asia reporter and anchorman, Timothy Go, to take down his Facebook post questioning Qantas’ maintenance record. This after a second Qantas aircraft was forced to made an emergency landing at Singapore’s Changi Airport. Qantas was obviously offended when Timothy post the following status update: Qantas QF6 returns to Singapore after engine problems. This time a B747. Qantas have serious maintenance issues to solve! After that, Qantas asked Timothy to take down his post which Timothy decided not to. Qantas asked me to remove my previous post about the airline having maintenance issues. They said as a journalist I should not speculate until investigations are complete. So I wont. I'll let the article below explain. Friends of Timothy on Facebook have in turn question Qantas’ action. Commented George Orr, As a journalist, you inform the public without fear or favor. You don't work for them. You work for yo...

Advocate/Burson-Masteller recently interviewed Burson-Marsteller APAC CEO Bob Pickard and uploaded on Youtube. Given that the video was recorded with a Flip-cam, the digital team should have at least invested in a tripod and a external mic to improve the quality of the video. The video was rather shaky throughout and gave me a headache just a few seconds into the interview. The answers from Bob were rather inaudible at times. The BM Advocate team should look at investing in a Flip Video Tripod to reduce the shaking and an external mic for better audio quality. Though it shows initiative for the team to do a video interview with the Asia CEO, it creates the perception of the amateurish approach the digital team took to do an interview with a CEO. If you are a small brand with limited funds, yes, your mobile phone could be the only tool you would use. However, if you are using a video to represent your corporation, you want to give your video a little shine to well present ...

One of the biggest challenge for brands or agencies today is to get fans to join their Facebook Pages. For Indonesian Panggang outlet at NUS, a activation day started a viral effect among their fans’ friends that saw an increased in new likes a day of 8 to 20. Prior to Oct 27 2010, Indonesian Panggang was only looking at an average of 8 new fans a day. Most of these new fans would join the Page when there was content updated onto the wall. Days without any content would see very little activity on their page. The activation drive on Oct 27 2010 and we had close to 34+ new fans joining the Indonesian Panggang Facebook Pge and tapping at the cashier to get the 10% off which the stall was offering fans. Unlike most activation campaigns which focused on new LIKES, the registration was done away from the cashier and thus the cashier require fans to tap to be recognised as a fan. But on that day itself, there were more than 34+ fans joining Indonesian Panggang Facebook Page. A t...

Are you a fan of a F&B outlet’s Facebook Page? Have they given you any benefits for being a fan? It is more of a LIKE and FORGET approach these F&B outlets have taken. Yes, they want to communicate with you but not reward you for being a fan. Not at Paulaner. Fans of Paulaner Bräuhaus Singapore and get 20% of your total bill when you order from their Mushroom Madness menu. Those who pay by Citibank credit card only  gets 15%. Fans get 20% off. Fans get better benefits at Paulaner Bräuhaus Singapore.

It seems that the latest trend in the Singapore Twitter space is to follow the success of @BPGlobaPR and create satire accounts of Singapore corporate brands. The latest satire account comes from @smrtCEO whose name is not SMRT CEO. Singtel was not spared either. A propaganda relations (PR) executive decided to set one up too.   There is even the @fakestcom and so on. I expect this trend to continue into the Christmas season and beyond.

Talking to retailers and getting their feedback on how to to best use Taggo for their social media campaigns provided me with the best insights into the workings of a F&B outlet.  The idea for promotions, discounts aside, came flowing. When you put it to the service staff to test it out, discounts probably is the best promotion to offer the fans. Lesson 1: If money is king, the Point-of-Sale machine is the castle. In the F&B and service industry, speed is of essence. When you go to a restaurant, you expect to be served quickly. When you ask for the bill, you expect it to be send to your table as soon as possible. Wait any longer and you start to grow impatient and call for the service staff to remind them to bring the bill. As such, any promotions would require working with the Point-of-Sale machine so that it doesn’t disrupt the flow of the service staff. Furthermore, the Point-of-Sale is used as an accounting tool to ensure that sales matches inventory. S...