There is no doubt that 2010 is all about mobile, geo-location and ultimately reviews, either through actually writing them or word-of -mouth generated by a check-in which is usually accompanied by a Tweet. This post is a compilation of my thoughts from a couple of events that randomly seem to fit together.

First the power of reviews and why I include them in a post entitled “Check-In Currency”. Reviews are the one area where Google knows they dramatically need to improve in order to have search become more complete. I don’t think this is conjecture on my part because it is no secret that Google recently tried to purchase the review site Yelp. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Search is pretty awesome these days, you can search for most local businesses by name and be directed to a page that includes the phone and address, hours of operation as well as a Google Map. There will often be some pictures posted and perhaps the odd review. I don’t think you could ask for much more. However try to do the same search for local coffee shops and you get a listing of them and even though there are some ratings its tough to get a real semblance of which one is best, perhaps closest but best, I’m not so sure. So if you’re Google you don’t want to lose people to sites like Yelp, because, while you’re Google. So you first try to acquire them but get rebuffed, and know everyone realizes that reviews are worth a big pile of cash to Google and everyone cares about something Google really cares about. Continue Reading…

There is no doubt that people love loyalty programs and retailers love the fact that you come back time and time again spending hundreds to earn a free item or small value perk. However when was the last time you actually wanted to take the time to dig through your wallet for your loyalty card? How many of those little tags can one person actually carry on their keys? Basically the loyalty program was getting stale. Sure there were iPhone apps that stored your card and let you present it virtually but that doesn’t do much to advance these loyalty programs in a way that made them work for the new ‘connected’ and ’social’ customer. So I was impressed earlier this month when Mashable reported on a story where Tasti D-Lite (a frozen yogurt chain) announced that they were rolling out a new program (called TastiRewards if you care) that incentivised customers that linked both Twitter and Foursquare to the store’s loyalty program. It’s an incredibly simple concept when you think about it and the idea of loyalty combined with location services and social networking has a ton of potential if Foursquare (or others) help build out the business and make it simple for retailers to get on board. It’s this last point about integrating and showing value (versus simply signing them up to get numbers) to retailers that I think Foursquare will need to concentrate its efforts in order to make loyalty programs a decent size revenue stream. Continue Reading…

If you live in Canada I certainly do not need to tell you about the level of anticipation, excitement, passion and collective hopes that were riding on yesterday’s men’s Olympic hockey team selection. For my non Canuck readership the things I can compare it to include the lead up to a national election or for the techies, speculation on the next product from Apple all with coverage more intense than that of the flight of Balloon Boy. Just the selection of the team is a national moment and one which I’ve decided to turn into 5 business lessons you can learn from Steve Yzerman and crew.

So here goes my attempt at 5 business lessons from Canada’s Olympic Hockey Team selection. Continue Reading…

I have to admit that I quite enjoyed my own open letter to Starbucks, so I thought I’d bring back the format in this my open letter to Motorola.

Dear Motorola,

I don’t work for you and to be honest I haven’t owned one of your products for a while, but I know enough to know that you are undoubtedly the leader in bluetooth headsets for mobile phones.  I say this not to flatter you but to remind you that your market dominance is always at stake and that you can and should use your power in the market to continue to dominate. To that end, I’m here with a little suggestion for you and it goes something like this.

With all the states, provinces and other jurisdictions enacting laws that prohibit the use of cellular phones without a handsfree option there are going to be a mass amount of people who need to get in the market for your products quickly. Now of course you could take the traditional approach and offer some deep discounts right around the same time these various pieces of legislation pass, and I suggest you do. But here is where I think you can use your deep pockets to both make yourself look good and garner new customers. Continue Reading…

I came across this article in Print Magazine and thought it was pretty interesting when you think about the design elements. Basically Print asked four design firms to come up with the design for packaging and branding a pack of dubes. Besides the fact that it is a cool idea in general, when you actually step back and think about it, this is uncharted territory. Nobody has ever really tried to brand Marijuana and so these guys were playing in a completely new ballpark. Of course you can go to Amsterdam where coffee shops have different names for their marijuana but even there almost nobody advertises and the closest you get to branding is the coffee shops themselves becoming chain-like. Therefore, it was interesting to me to see four graphic design firms get a chance at “building a better baggie.”

The four firms chosen for this little task were – Lust, a graphic design practice in Amsterdam established by Thomas Castro, Jeroen Barendse, and Dimitri Nieuwenhuizen; the New York office of Base, which worked with its branches in Europe; the Oslo firm Strømme Throndsen, winner of the 2009 Award for Design Excellence for its flour packaging; and The Heads of State, a two-man operation run by Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers in Philadelphia.  The brief was simple: What would a legal pack of marijuana cigarettes look like? Continue Reading…