Welcome to ‘if only…’

Let’s be honest, every now again we all come across impressive campaigns, strategic insights or approaches where you just have to eat humble pie and wish you’d thought of it!  ‘If only we’d thought of that‘ is a distillation of some of the most inspiring work I come across within social media and interactive marketing, peppered with a sprinkling of my own strategic insights for good measure.  It’s intended to be a helpful and lighthearted resource for anyone in the industry, so do add this to your RSS feeds or follow on Twitter if you want to be kept up to date and inspired by some of the best practitioners in the business.  ENJOY!

TED talk: Creating intangeable value

Rory Sutherland (Vice Chairman at Ogilvy UK) is well known for his entertaining and insightful oratory skills and this recent TED talk is no exception.  The essence of the talk is based on the belief that it’s generally easier and probably more cost effective to change perceptions and intangeable value than to physically change reality or intrinsic material value.

He quotes many humorous examples to support his argument from the billions invested in medical research when the placebo may be just as effective, to the lateral attempts by the Prussian royalty to persuade the general public to adopt the humble potato!

Worth watching, if nothing else but to see his charismatic delivery.

Customers who vent their anger in social media

We all know that the growth in  web 2.0 has helped to shift power away from brands towards consumers but nothing demonstrates this more clearly than when you see customers using this platform to vent their anger and frustrations.  Whereas in the good ol’ days we’d have to brave the elements and take to the streets in order to be heard, nowadays we can protest from the comfort of our desks whilst sipping a cup of Horlicks. Far more civilised!

Here are a few amusing examples I’ve found but feel free to add to the list if you know any better ones.

Thrifty – a disgruntled customer galvinises support on Twitter.

South West Trains – a classic case of e-squatting where an aggrieved passenger for South West Trains registers the company name on Twitter and starts tweeting outlandish excuses as to why they provide such a shoddy service.  Makes for some amusing reading.

United Airlines – You’ve probably seen this one and bought the single already.  If not, this is what happened.

• Musician gets guitar smashed in transit.
• United Airlines ignore his complaints.
• He writes song about it.
• Result. 6 million views on YouTube.
• Moral of the story – ignore angry musicians at your peril.

Easyjet – no frills airline easyjet is renown for two things. Cheap flights and crap service.

KFC – nearly half a million KFC fans campaigning to get finger lickin’ food delivered to your door. They’ve just got one more fan!

Motrin – a spoof video in response to their controversial ad targeting Mums

Gordon Brown – I had high hopes for this amusing idea but with only 1 follower I think this may be the least of Gordon Brown’s worries.  It’s somewhat ironic though that his pseudo character on Twitter has a distinct lack of followers too!