Email is great isn’t it? It’s just so easy and quick and such a terrific way get your point of view over and get a quick response back on it. And hey we all love the phone don’t we? Just pick it up – punch out a handful of numbers and you can speak to the person…it is like they are there right next to you!!!

But they aren’t.

If you have something really important to say or an idea that is really important to sell then there is only one way to do it. Go and see them and say it to their face. There is no substitute – and there never will be – for standing there with your client, looking them in the eyes and saying what needs to be said and asking them to do the same back to you. If you need any inspiration at all to remind you how powerful it can be to communicate face-to-face then please have a look at the video below. I must watch it half a dozen times a week. Human to human – the best channel there is.

YouTube Direkt

Last night the business media were all over the 2010 Federal Budget announcement.

And so were relevant brands, one being CPA Australia.

On one of the most important nights of the financial calendar, hwo deos an ad lkie tihs get oevr teh lnie?

Why is it that banks keep dishing out irrelevant campaigns? Click here for my recent rant about NABs current campaign.

Apparently the CBA thought aligning a music-based creative execution with music based website Inthemix, would be a good idea.

What the CBA has really done is align a bank (which is of course, not cool) with a music genre whose fans are  too cool for school.

I can’t see that generating too many conversions.

Am I being too cynical?

Will this work for the CBA?

What am I missing??

It was summer. It was hot. So what better to impress the chicks at the Bra with… VELOUR PIMPJAMAS?

I’ve seen a few bad forum spams (or “astro-turfing”) lately, which reminded me of this classic from the website Brasurf.com.au (note, read from the bottom up to get in chronological order)

Now, its our hunch that the website was punk’d. Maybe someone clever agency mind wanted to demonstrate what NOT to do for social media?

So is it a joke, or just bad marketing? Astro-turfing, or forum spamming, is not highly regarded. What do you think?

If it was marketing, I wouldn’t take this brand seriously. One of the most important inputs of brand and communications strategy is to know your audience.

Velour in the middle of summer, in an area where they’re running around in bikinis/boardies? In an area where the housing doesn’t even have air con? And can you picture the bra boys in pimpjamas?

You can now. If Koby partners his clothing line with pimpjamas, maybe we’ll be unlucky enough to get a special edition called My Brothers Sleepers.

Well, almost. In the same way amazon and iTunes always seem to know what you’d like, TVs may be able to predict your desires based on your past consumption and what your friends are into.

This preso is great – shows four ways TV may evolve in the future:

1- The couch potato – On demand everything, from email to tv content to phone.
2- The social butterfly – The amazon and Facebook model brought to TV: what your friends are watching, what they recommend.
3- The culture vulture – Polls and instant info incorporated into programming; almost like VH1s Pop-up Video on demand
4- The fan – Integrating fantasy leagues and tipping with TV content

And don’t forget 3-D.

But the important take-out from the presentation is that there still is a role for brands on TV. Advertising will not die, it will evolve. It will become seamlessly integrated into programming, such as offering us highly targeted and relevant product info or sponsoring synergistic environments.

Watching the Oscars and want to find where to buy Sandra Bullock’s dress? Click the orange button. Want to “Get the look for less” at Target? Click the yellow button.

Actually, forget clicking – TVs should be able to read our mind by then.

Not the chemical kind. Of course, I’m referring to a tablet computer, namely, the Apple iPad. Others call it a tablet PC or a slate. Whatever it is, it’s here!

On Saturday morning, devotees throughout the US congregated to become the first Apple iPad customers, at an entry level price of US$499.

Given the weakness of the US dollar, it’s not surprising that Apple isn’t saying much about its release in Australia. All we know is “late April”, with no pricing details.

A straight forward conversion would set us back by AU$550, though Apple’s usual, unwarranted 30% price markup is tipped to set us back by AU$650.

But whatever the price, who cares. I want one.

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT IT

I love my iPhone for all of its features other than phone calling, but the screen is too small and the typepad is too difficult to use. It reminds me of one of my favourite Simpsons quotes : “The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To obtain a special dialling wand, please mash the keypad with your palm now.”

This is just one significant problem that the iPad will solve. In short, the iPad will be much easier to use than current smartphones.

As Steve Jobs noted in his keynote speech back in January, “devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. Better than the laptop, better than the smartphone”.

Those tasks would involve web browsing, email, photos, video, music, games and ebooks.

And the iPad Apple store has already exceeded the 3,000 apps mark on iTunes, with about 20% being free.

All the iPad now needs is an open-source, so that app usage isn’t restricted to what’s available within the iPad store. Either Apple needs to offer this themselves – competitors surely will – or hackers will do it themselves by overriding the software lock-down through a process called jailbreaking. Users can already very easily jailbreak their iPhone or iPod Touch, and it seems as though hackers are already working out how to jailbreak the iPad.

HOW I SEE THE COMMS LANDSCAPE CHANGING

Sure, the iPad does comes with its pitfalls, but with the world now at our fingertips in what’s still a much more convenient way, it made me wonder, what will this mean for the future world of comms?

What will happen to laptops and smartphones if there is now a device that’s better than them?

The Nielsen Company already predicts that by next year, smartphone penetration of the US mobile phone market will overtake feature phone penetration by the end of next year.

Also in 2011, the release of 4G technology will bridge the gap between what our devices can do and what the networks can support. This new IP based network basically means faster broadband wireless access on mobile devices.

And by 2013, mobiles will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide, according to a study from information-technology research company Gartner.

This migration demonstrates the need for people to seek out information and entertainment from the web, not just whenever they need it, but wherever they need it, too.

I can’t help but feel the satisfaction of that basic need, will eventually cause PCs and laptops to become extinct – I see it happening in 20 years time from now.

The irony is, digital proponents once claimed that PC- and laptop-based internet capabilities would cause the demise of print media. They were wrong.

The mobile web will do it.

If people can use their tablet PCs on buses and trains, in cafes, or when lying down on the couch, it’s now not a question of if print media will die, but when. I’d give that even less time, say 15 years.

The Amazon Kindle couldn’t kill print media, because it offered readership of mainly books and some mags and blogs, but no additional utility, which meant consumer demand wasn’t significant and media owners therefore didn’t need to support it.

Now, media owners must support the migration of readers and viewers to mobile web-based platforms, or they will perish.

IMPLICATIONS FOR BRANDS

This migration will have huge implications for brands and the way they connect with people. The main reason is because media consumption will largely be self-selecting.

Who knows what this will mean for TV broadcasting. Perhaps TV schedules will need to become TV menus, whereby revenue streams change from being primarily advertising driven, to being entirely pay-per-view.

If consumers will be in total command of controlling what they consume and when, I wonder if finding people at the right time and place will no longer be a relevant part of connections planning.

I wonder if connections planning will be more about enabling people who are already seeking out brands themselves, to find brands easier. Obviously this places greater importance on content, in terms of both quality and accessibility, not to mention the context in which that content is delivered.

Understanding context largely means understanding channels such as those made possible by the tablet computer, founded on technology that facilitates the dialogue, when they’re new rather than when they become mainstream.

It really is an interesting an exciting time, now and ahead, and I can’t wait to hit the Apple Store in “late April” to have a chance to experience what I preach.

“It’s beyond technology. It’s a culture. It’s a community”.

(One proud new iPad owner in the US)

I’ve bought lots of goodies on the cheap (that I probably didn’t need) through one day deal websites (sites that offer products on the cheap for 24 hours). In fact, our we have 1-day.com.au to thank for our bh dartboard.

While most days offer interesting products, today’s email provided a real treat… or, er, trick!

This execution selling a Russian bride is a clever way to generate traffic to the website and also encourage consumers to forward to friends to increase awareness of the website.

But if they had offered more lucrative products/offers, this could have improved the lead generating ability of the joke. If they had made the items similar to some of their previous deals (such as below), this could have intrigued more people to subscribe and/or buy products.

Its Sunday morning in the Eastern suburbs; bootcamps and personal training sessions are in full swing, and I’m prancing off on my usual weekend run. When I pass these training sessions, I sometimes consider joining… but that thought quickly passes.

But yesterday, as I’m coming down the home stretch of my run in Coogee, in the distance I spot a new training group, with lean, tall guys, half of them training shirtless. Hellooo, Nurse! What boot camp is this and how can I join???

It seems too good to be true… must be some sort of work-off-the-extra-100grams-we-gained-at-mardi-gras boot camp session?

As I approach, its raining men, halleleuah! There’s a huge pack of extremely fit men now and half of them are sporting jerseys with QBE emblazoned on the front. Its clearly some hard core sports team (and not a post mardi gras bootcamp). Goodness gracious, great balls of fire!

After asking around, I soon find out it’s the Sydney Swans. I’ve never had much of an interest in the sport, but clearly I hadn’t scratched the surface…

I was a little disappointed to find only one picture from that training session on the internet (on their Facebook page). But maybe that’s the strategy… keep ‘em wanting more so that they come back.

Now that they’ve got my attention, who’s got some extra tickets to the next Swans game?