I’ll keep this short and sweet because it’s just an instance of stupid company tricks.If you really wanted to get someone excited about a product that you have put together for a very specific industry like NEC has with its Vukunet product you could do what? Do a press release is definitely one option. Let’s forget the debate on whether press releases still work because this examples proves they do. Not in a good way, mind you, but in some way.
I have a friend in the digital out-of-home signage business and he found or was pointed to a press release for this new product. Honestly, I don’t exactly understand how all of this stuff works together other than my buddy thought this technology looked pretty neat.
So based on this press release, which announces the widespread availability of the service, he visits the Vukunet site and is asked to sign up to get started. There is some sort of special deal, etc., so he said that sounds good.
Long story short, NEC makes him jump through a bunch of form completing hoops, and then, when he finishes that process and hits the button to get his free trial or whatever the heck they said was available, he gets a message saying that thank you for inquiring but the product is not quite ready yet.
Huh? Why would you issue a press release and not have the website ready to handle the direct call to action that could result in a sale? Why? Because the PR hand wasn’t talking to the web hand who wasn’t talking to the marketing hand, etc., at NEC. That’s my guess.
No matter what the reason though this sounds like a company that doesn’t get it. Way to go NEC! Promoting nothing will get you just that: nothing. Now my friend is determined to use any of your competitors at any cost based on his experience with you. Smooth.
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NikosAcuna said:
Frank:
Great points here that open up valid discussions. I have been encountering a lot of chest-pounders lately in the digital signage industry and have been appalled by false claims of how they solve the industry's biggest challenge: fragmentation. A universal platform in which advertisers can hyper target their audiences across multiple networks has been known as a Holy Grail among digital influencers. The problem is that many of these companies don't walk the walk. Great marketing is one thing, but having an actual product is really the key. What happened to your friend is very interesting and I would like to show him a platform that actually has been around for almost a year. It's called Entourage Advertising. This is a beta platform that my company has developed that does exactly what Vuku claims--the only difference is that it's been ready and usable for quite some time. Why didn't we go the chest-pounding route? Because it was far more important to us to develop a platform that actually works--and its utility and usefulness will speak volumes on its own. Regardless, we will be talking about ourselves eventually, but before then, I would be glad to give you and your friend a guided tour and pull you guys behind the velvet rope before our next release in about a month. We already have about 50 networks on our universal platform--which has over 500,000 digital signage screens. Through Entourage, you can hyper-target audiences nationwide. Give it a try and give me a shout! www.entourageadvertising.com no BS, and this platform is more than ready--it's about to evolve to a whole new level. Thanks for the platform to springboard our discussion. Regards, Nikos
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Sat, 2009-11-14 18:52 — Nikos AcunaPost new comment