Tocquigny

In Gatorade’s latest effort to reach narrowly defined audience segments with targeted product offerings, the G Series Fit may have taken it one step too far. G Series Fit joins the original G Series and G Series Pro in the suite of products offered by the sports drinks powerhouse.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with G Series, it’s essentially Gatorade’s repositioning initiative that took place in early 2010, expanding its core product line into three parts — Prime, Perform, and Recover, intended to be consumed before, during and after activity (see chart below).

So what’s the difference? Pretty much nothing at all. Especially when you consider that the product’s popularity is largely due to the fitness image that’s associated with it. Marketers realize how important it’s become in today’s society to convey this image of health and fitness consciousness, for both athletes and non-athletes alike. And by creating and promoting an entire product line focused on the serious athletes that make up a just a small percentage of the audience, Gatorade missed an opportunity to reach a broader segment who ultimately possess the larger buying power.

Meeting audience needs is a foundation of effective marketing. And in many cases, the casual-lifestyle drinkers that make up the majority of Gatorade’s customer base don’t need three products when one will do.

Overwhelmed by too many choices, consumers are just as likely to pass your brand by as they are to read and evaluate every benefit for your various products. This continued product proliferation will inevitably lead consumers to choice paralysis and confusion.

.NET

In more than five years that I have been working on Microsoft technologies, .Net framework has grown immensely from 1.0 to 4.0. It is one of the fastest growing platforms and has become a proven technology over the course of many years.

Below are few important reasons to go with .NET:
•    Proven application design patterns
•    Proven security patterns
•    Performance
•    Scalability and much more

The only downfall in ASP.NET is the fact that it loses control over the generated HTML and that ViewState can quickly get out of hand. However, this is getting better with MVC.

+

OPEN SOURCE

With the advancement of HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery Mobile, there is no need to compromise on complex design and user experience.

=

WONDERS

We used this concept on BuzzBrawl.com.
Compromise was not an option on this project, which meant the performance needed to be top notch, the application needed to be scalable for future enhancements and user interaction/experience needed to be easy to use. There are three components of this project:

Background Service
This layer gets all the data from the various social media sources and does complex aggregation and stores it in a database.

JSON Web Service Layer
This layer gets all the aggregated data and applies a complex mathematical formula to calculate slope and returns a JSON object.

Front End:
This layer is light-weight, as it uses pure HTML, CSS and jQuery. This layer consumes the JSON web service and draw charts that show the latest trends accordingly.

All the heavy lifting is done using .NET, C# and the complex design was implemented using HTML, CSS & jQuery. We feel we have used the best of both worlds, and being a part of the team was a great experience.

Interesting development on the mobile advertising front, as a startup named Kiip (pronounced “keep”) is giving brands a chance to offer users coupons and freebies tied to achievements in mobile games.

I see some real potential in this idea, especially if the offers can be made relevant to the player’s interests. There’s a little emotional kick that a gamer gets from defeating a boss, or unlocking a new level. Will putting your brand in front of the user at that exact moment give it a little halo effect of goodwill, or will it just be an annoying interruption? Depends on how relevant the offer is to the user, I suspect. The rewards are targeted based on game demographics, so the potential for success is there. As Simon Mainwaring noted, “…the reward feels less like an ad and more like a gift, giving you a better chance of capturing that player’s attention and turning he or she into a brand advocate.”

Check out this video for more info.

In the age of accountability, measurement is more important than ever - not just in business, everywhere. As marketers, too often we’re characterized as the artsy, creative types. But, I pride myself on utilizing both sides of my brain. Especially lately, I’ve been taking a more scientific approach to business and marketing measurement.

So, for today’s inspiration, I present a quote from a father of thermodynamics, Lord Kelvin:

“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind;
it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the state of science.”

—Lord Kelvin

Prince Charles and Lady Diana. July 29, 1981. A global audience of 750 million, of which I was one.

Fast-forward 30 years to April 29, 2011: The wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton is set to break all records, thanks to the growth of the Internet, and social media in particular. The entire ceremony will be broadcast on YouTube, and viewership estimates are at one billion and counting. According to Greenlight, a London-based independent search marketing specialist and technology firm, discussions about the royal wedding have taken over social media, with one new mention every 10 seconds.

To me, the interest in this wedding is not just about the spectacle or the sheer opulence. In a time where things move so quickly that people don’t even talk face to face, this wedding symbolizes stability, tradition and hope. If you grew up in the Princess Diana era, you probably also feel a special bond to Prince William and this union. Tomorrow will be emotional and joyful for many people, and social media is allowing them to connect like never before.

Here are five ways you can share in the Royal Wedding frenzy using social media:

1. Join The British Monarchy Facebook Page, which has over 360,000 fans and growing, or add your name to the The Wedding Book Facebook app to wish them a happy marriage.

2. Follow @clarencehouse, @BBCroyalwedding and @ITNroyalwedding on Twitter to keep up with updates on the wedding route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey.

3. Track the #royalwedding and #rw2011 hashtags on Twitter to engage in conversations about the Royal Wedding.

4. Watch the Royal Channel Live Stream, the official YouTube account of the monarchy. The broadcast will begin at 10 a.m. London time (5 a.m. ET) and will be accompanied by a live multimedia blog compiled by St. James’s Palace.

5. View the royal wedding photos on The British Monarchy Flickr Page tagged rw2011.

There are other cool ways that technology will play a great role at the Royal Wedding. For example, you may watch the Royal Wedding route in 3D via Google Earth, or you can watch the Royal Wedding Procession in 3D on YouTube.

If you’re on the go at 5am CST (6am EST/3am PST) download the iPhone and Android apps that are dedicated to the Royal Wedding.

Now that you are armed with all this information and technology, prepare to watch and celebrate with the rest of the world and be a part of history.