Mar 05 2015
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Is it too late for BlackBerry’s return to the touchscreen mobile market?

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With Mobile World Congress in Barcelona almost at an end, last night Blackberry chief executive John Chen surprisingly announced BlackBerry’s re-entry into the touchscreen mobile market with the ‘Leap’, joining the recent classic keyboard models, with another three variants to come in 2015.

With an estimated 1,000 smartphones being shipped globally every minute compared to nothing less than a decade ago, can Blackberry reignite enthusiasm – not only amongst new customers, but those die hard brand advocates?

Blackberry shipped 7.9 million phones last year according to a Gartner study, six times less than in 2011 (51.1m).

The brand certainly still deserves some credence, after all it continues to dominate in the B2B sector and has suffered fewer embarrassing privacy leaks than some rivals.

This time, Blackberry will provide access to its services on iOS, Android and Windows phones for a fee as ‘experience suites’, which all sounds very complicated.

With hungry competitors like Microsoft, LG and Motorola bringing similar mid-range devices with more innovations and greater advertising spend to the market, can Blackberry continue to trade on good will and is its market now too business centric to be relevant to make the ‘Leap’?

I hope it’s not too late for Blackberry – it paved the way for the globe’s current top two players who most certainly copied what Blackberry created, and did it well with lesser products but great advertising and brand advocacy.

To survive in my view, Blackberry must once again focus hard on its brand, values, heritage and innovation in a manner which appeals to both more established and emerging demographics.

It needs to stay in the game and keep the competition fresh to offer more choice to both business and consumers.

I guarantee that every mobile carrier wants to see Blackberry survive to ensure certain brands have less control over their business models and a broad spread of brands to partner with now, tomorrow and long-term.

 

Read more at: http://wallblog.co.uk/2015/03/05/is-it-too-late-for-blackberrys-return-to-the-touchscreen-mobile-market/

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Feb 06 2015
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Electrical retailers can’t afford to ignore wearable tech

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Let’s talk about wearables and how retailers can capitalise on a category that, contrary to some people’s opinions, will in 2015 continue to grow in sales and value.

It’s becoming clear that wearables are not a fad. As more brands and products enter the market, some may disappear – Google Glass for one – but those that have demonstrated their credentials in 2014 will remain a fixture in 2015 and possibly beyond.

As the hype around a particular brand of watch spirals ever more out of control, the benefits of heightened exposure for the category is naturally index-linked for retailers, so now is the time to ride that wave and ignore the sceptics.

As of the end of 2014, three million Brits owned a wearable device, with Dixons Carphone reporting a 710 per cent increase in wearables sales over the year.

The UK wearables market value was predicted to have hit £313.6 million by the end of 2014 and many shoppers had wearable devices at the top of their lists for Christmas 2014.

The same research conducted by Dixons Carphone confirmed that Sony’s Smartwatch, Fitbit’s Flex and Samsung’s Gear Fit were the top-selling wearables during the Christmas period. It’s clear they are growing in popularity among consumers, with research from Samsung suggesting that sales during Christmas 2014 were 182 per cent higher than the same period in 2013. One can only assume that again this will increase in 2015.

With growth in mind, ranging of core lines is essential to appeal to a wide demographic, coupled with a greater in-store experience.

Staff need not only to understand the products well enough to sell them as standalone or add-on sales, but also become advocates themselves.

Think about giving your staff devices to use and live with for a sustained period. This could be done in partnership with a specific market leader like Fitbit or a relative newcomer like Epson Sensing to immerse them in the wearables experience and improve their sales technique – as they do when training to sell other CE products in your store. It may also make your staff healthier, happier and more productive – a win-win for all.

But seriously, with almost a quarter (23 per cent) of wearables  purchased as gifts, the person buying may not know anything about the product and store staff therefore need good product knowledge to help seal the deal. Also, with two-thirds of consumers citing ease of use as an important factor when selecting a wearable product, a demonstration becomes crucial.

Shoppers need reassurance that products are easy to use and include useful functions. Effective staff training for product knowledge and demonstrations reassures shoppers and potentially increases not only unit sales, but also the value of each sale.

Displays are also important. Think about the location in-store and connectivity to other devices you may range. The customer journey should be one that enables the customer to see how wearables work with the phone in their pocket, TV or even a washing machine.

With an estimated 17 million Brits set to own a wearable in 2015, creating a potential UK market worth £1.7 billion, the opportunity is clear for all.

Don’t just think traditional wearables – the market will grow through innovation. Soon you’ll see a number of wearable devices for pets, including a smart dog collar from Motorola, which includes a remote 720p camera, GPS connectivity and speakers to communicate with your dog via your smartphone, accompanying the various GPS tracker collars already on the market.

Also expect connected clothing and jewellery – wearables developed more as fashion accessories – beginning to emerge, making tech more mainstream and commonplace among customers.

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Jan 19 2015
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Luxury Brands Launch Wearable Tech as Fashion at CES2015

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You may have noticed that last week the world’s largest Consumer Electronics Show was in full swing in Vegas and whilst most mainstream technologies were announced, in and around these announcements were many new wearable tech ideas flirted by many brands that will undoubtedly come to market within the decade and change the way we view our coveted fashion brands as wearable technology. The advancement of wearables at CES 2015 as a fashion statement is potentially huge, not to be ignored and begins the brand debate.

At this year’s CES we began to see the second generation of many wearable devices, including updated reveals from traditional tech brands: Epson, Sony, LG, Garmin and Fitbit to name a few. With the looming release of the unmistakably fashionable Apple Watch, many wearable makers are following suit by consciously developing fashion that conceals our technology as clothing, watches and jewellery.

For example, take a look at the Tory Burch range for Fitbit which turns your wearable fitness technology into high-end fashion jewellery. None of your friends or colleagues would know you’re counting calories or you’re on a detox. It would appear that fashion brands have realised a new category of consumers. If you like high-end watches, then why would you swap your favourite brand(s) for a rubber smart device that looks, in some instances, ugly and conspicuous.

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Wearable maker Misfit has teamed up with Swarovski to produce the “Shine,” a customisable series of fitness trackers disguised as jewellery. Hidden beneath Swarovski crystals, the Shine tracks activity such as steps, swimming strokes, and sleep via an accompanying app. It is also the first solar-charging wearable, reflecting sunlight through its crystals. The Martian developed “Guess Connect,” a Guess watch that looks like normal, but has the addition of small screen which displays caller ID and other alerts, Bluetooth connectivity, and can interact with Siri or Google Voice commands via an inbuilt microphone. Other offerings from watchmakers intending to join the wearable revolution are Tag Heuer and Mont Blanc. 

I suspect many more to follow once they’ve seen how it works for other luxury brands and how it fits within their own strategy, portfolio, and demographic. Rolex, Cartier, and Jaeger-LeCoultre may not be jumping on the bandwagon just yet and why should they if it doesn’t meet the brand’s ethos and heritage. Is there a need to adapt, dilute, or license the precious brand just to be in the wearable tech game? Is this another advancement the luxury watch makers & brands can’t ignore? 

As predicted, these innovations suggest just how wearables will begin to blend into existing fashion, becoming easily mistakable for a normal watch or piece of jewellery. These new wearables will suit any situation, not just the gym. Smart devices that are office-appropriate will increase the popularity of wearables for health, communication, and productivity use. Interestingly, take a look at CES winner in the “Best Offbeat Product” category, a new brand called Belty. Like Nike with its power laces, Belty is a motorised belt buckle –yes you read that correctly. It slackens and tightens to make you more comfortable, for example if you’ve eaten too much. More seriously, it has the tracking capabilities to aid diet and body shape. CES believes it’s a fun, quirky, and potentially viral product.

Belty

Consumers will ultimately decide the limits of wearable tech and for brands this is a risk. Do luxury heritage brands risk potential ridicule or failure for the sake of changing demographics and technology or do they focus on what they do best? There’s a consumer for every heritage brand and, with the exception of some gradual, natural, and subtle advancements in technology, we should keep brands focused on their authenticity. 

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Jan 16 2015
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The end of Google Glass?

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The end of Google Glass, in its current incarnation – yes. As a future viable, perhaps watered down, consumer based product – I doubt it.

It was ugly, you looked silly in them, and the health and social responsibility factors were questionable. Google Glass’s move back into a research project rather than a viable consumer product is indicative of the social stigma associated with this wearable technology.

It gained many column inches, which made it worthy of its impressive abilities. It also ignited the imaginations of programmers, who developed applications that enabled you to look up and see the solar system above your head, read signs in foreign languages and translate these signs in front of your eyes into your chosen language.

Even the beleaguered Tesco announced this week a Glass app for your online grocery shop. But with very few users purchasing and wearing, today’s was an unsurprising announcement from Google in response to poor consumer demand.

As seen at this year’s CES, wearable’s and VR have developed rather differently than expected giving Google, I suspect, an opportunity to exit with its head held high. It will review, redevelop, configure and improve what was a very clever innovation, but which unfortunately had significant flaws.

Google glass is not dead. It will I’m sure evolve and become something new, creating the same hype and publicity as Glass achieved, but come to market in a more viable form and function and perhaps a new name.

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Jan 14 2015
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Three massive trends that came out the world’s biggest tech fair

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Daniel Todaro, MD of technology field marketing agency Gekko, reviews his highlights of CES2015

You may have noticed that last week the world’s largest consumer electronics show was in full swing in Vegas: CES 2015.

While most mainstream technologies were announced, many other new technologies were flirted with in and around these announcements – technologies that will undoubtedly come to market within the decade that could change the way we live, commute and wear our technology.

The three big stories were the Internet of Things (IoT), which includes the connected home. Also announced were advances around in-car tech, with innovation nearer than you think, and also the advancement of wearables as fashion statements.

Big commitment to Internet of Things

A large proportion of Samsung’s keynote address at CES was devoted to the Internet of Things. Samsung pledged that by 2020 all of their devices would be IoT compatible, a huge step in the right direction for tech integration. Expect other brands to make this same pledge.

As we move forward, the smart home category will continue to grow, with domestic appliances, TVs and mobile devices playing a big part in connecting devices together. Brands will need to connect their devices to one another to stay relevant enabling us to connect our entire home from one human interface.

Take a look at Hive, the UK’s connected thermostat, controlling your heating and water remotely. It’s available now and an early innovator in this category.

With all this tech, you need power. Enter centre stage the Energous WattUp, winner of the Best Connected Home Product at CES, a wireless power solution that can charge wirelessly our wearables, phones and any other battery powered device in your home. Energous believe it will have the first wave of this product available by the end of the year.

Samsung’s pledge was also important because it promised ‘open’ connectivity. By opening up its devices to other brands, Samsung is leading the way in a true Internet of Things, where all devices communicate with each other, not just those of the same brands.

If other brands take up this pledge, the Internet of Things will make much more of an impact on our everyday lives by potentially connecting all devices together.

In-car tech

Automotive tech once again made headlines at CES, especially with the Audi self-driving car’s two-day, 550 mile journey from San Francisco to Las Vegas turning heads early in the week.

Self-driving innovations took centre stage for many motor brands, with self-parking cars from Hyundai and Volkswagen demonstrating how far self-driving tech has developed in the past year. Mercedes, winner in the Best Automotive Technology category at CES, showed off the F015 Luxury in Motion concept, which the company believe is possible by 2030 – in Mercedes’ words, “our vision is the car as a salon, a lounge you drift from destination to destination in like an extension of your home.”

Undoubtedly parts of this innovation will become reality soon.

The motor category is also another battleground for Apple and Google, here with their respective CarPlay and Android Auto platforms.

Both allow car users to mirror their mobile Operating Systems in their cars, giving access to GPS maps, hands-free calls, music and other apps through the car’s existing screen. Integration opens up many avenues, for example activating car features using Siri.

Whilst some believe these innovations are a further distraction to drivers diminishing passenger/pedestrian safety, cars, like our homes are inevitably becoming smarter.

Fashionable wearables

At this year’s CES we began to see the second generation of many wearable devices, including updated reveals from Sony, LG, Garmin and Fitbit. With the looming release of the unmistakably fashionable Apple Watch, many wearable makers are following suit by developing their own fashion conscious watches and trackers.

Take a look at the Tori Birch range for Fitbit which turns your wearable fitness technology into high end fashion jewellery.

Wearable maker Misfit has teamed up with Swarovski to produce the Shine, a customisable series of fitness trackers disguised at jewellery. Hidden beneath Swarovski crystals, the Shine tracks activity such as steps, swimming strokes and sleep via an accompanying app, and is also the first solar-charging wearable, reflecting sunlight through the crystals.

The Martian-developed Guess Connect looks like a normal Guess watch, but has the addition of small screen which displays caller ID and other alerts, has Bluetooth connectivity, and can interact with Siri or Google Voice commands via an inbuilt microphone in the watch.

Other offerings from watchmakers intending to join the wearable revolution are Tag Heuer and Fossil.

As predicted, these innovations suggest just how wearables will begin to blend into existing fashion becoming easily mistakable for a normal watch or piece of jewellery. These new wearables will suit any situation, not just the gym.

Smart devices that are both useful for productivity and office-appropriate will only increase the popularity of wearables for health, communication and productivity use.

Interestingly, take a look at CES winner in the Best Offbeat Product category, Belty. Like Nike with its power laces, Belty is a motorised belt buckle – yes, you read that correctly. It slackens and tightens to make you more comfortable, if for example you’ve eaten too much. More seriously, it has tracking capabilities to aid diet and body shape. CES believes it’s a fun, quirky and potentially viral product.

Consumers will ultimately decide the limit to wearable tech and how it intrudes on our lives.

 

Read more at: http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business-news/tech/three-massive-trends-that-came-out-the-worlds-biggest-tech-fair/9567.article

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Jan 09 2015
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The shape of things to come

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With the great and the good of the CE world having converged on CES at Las Vegas, what was announced that would or could enhance our lives?

Perhaps the biggest indicator of how we will be encouraged to live sooner rather than later was Samsung, which pledged that all its devices will be Internet of Things-compliant in five years’ time – in other words, products in many rooms of your home that will be controlled from one human interface.

With the UK officially building the smallest new-build homes in Europe, a gargantuan TV may not be on most wish lists, but there were plenty on show. Take LG’s OLED range, with sizes between 55in and 77in with both flat and curved designs. Also revealed was its 77in flexible curved flagship model, which can automatically adjust the curve of the screen to suit any viewing angle, perhaps creating space to let you stand in the room. Seriously though, brands like Samsung, LG and Sharp have created amazing TVs with depth, speed and smart functionality that enable us as consumers to enjoy TV the way we want to – not how broadcasters would like.

Samsung also revealed a number of SUHD TVs, representing its range of Quantum Dot LED TVs. QD technology delivers “the highest colour purity and light efficiency available today”. Benefits include near 100 per cent compliance with DCI (Digital Cinema Initiatives) colour range requirements, with very good quality images, similar to OLED. All the TVs shown come with 4K as standard, 48in being the smallest size.

2014 was only the start for the wearables market. Brands tested the water last year to gain valuable insight into what consumers want, how it should look and how we use it and have now created some amazing second-gen products, such as Garmin’s Fenix 3, Fitbit Surge and Sony Smartwatch 3 Steel.

The connected home in 2015 is going to be big. Nest and Hive have developed propositions that make the concept of the connected home more real to many homeowners. We are on an upward trajectory that will see the CE landscape change in retail, at home and in functionality.

Nest made waves at CES when it revealed its partnership with 15 brands under the ‘works with Nest’ moniker. Further integration of smart-home systems and Apple’s HomeKit integrated connected-home devices were revealed, such as the iDevices smart plug system that can control multiple devices, via Siri, by plugging existing appliances into the mains. There are definitely signs of competition heating up between Apple and Google for smart-home dominance.

Wearables are no longer for the early adopters or niche retailers, it’s a category that will continue to grow and by default we will all be wearing a piece a tech that moulds seamlessly into our lives.

At CES 2014, the Oculus Rift made its debut and stimulated the sector’s interest in VR/wearables. Since then, Samsung, Sony and Google have all made leaps in producing their own VR experiences, which will come to market in 2015. If wearables were last year’s breakout category, will 2015 be remembered at CES as the year Virtual Reality leapt to prominence?

Back to TV and how we stream and consume what we watch when we want and in UHD, which perhaps will be more mainstream on digital platforms. Whether subscription services or free-to-air, the significant change in CE is how we consume our entertainment on a quad-play platform.

Samsung, LG, Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic have announced a partnership with Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox to form the UHD Alliance – a group tasked with setting the standards for UHD content, outlining plans to increase availability of 4K content in coming months, perhaps a good sign of more 4K content to come.

Samsung revealed more details of its improved Tizen smart TV operating system that will power all of its new smart TVs in 2015. The new OS improves on the previous iteration’s features, as well as improving connectivity with devices over wi-fi and Bluetooth. This innovation follows a trend among manufacturers for developing more user-friendly interfaces (UIs), also seen at CES with LG’s WebOS 2.0.

Guy North, managing director of Freeview, agrees: “In general, UIs are evolving and getting simpler and more user-friendly, making it easier for viewers to navigate around the different services, which is a good thing.”

Samsung announced a partnership with Sony to have PlayStation Now games streaming through selected Samsung TVs in early 2015, bringing limited gaming content to homes without PlayStation consoles.
There were scares in 2014 about cloud sharing and the privacy issues surrounding exactly where those personal photos get stored and who has access apart from you and those hackers. Fear no more, because having your own cloud and uploading to your data storage device is now possible and these are peripherals I guarantee we will all own, either as new or to replace an ageing device.

There are lots of products coming to market and some to meet the needs of the style-conscious among you – from LaCie’s 1TB in Gorilla Glass designed by Pauline Deltour, and Seagate, which has released two wi-fi-enabled portable hard drives that act as personal cloud storage devices.

Toshiba announced its simple Canvio Basics drives and sharing-friendly Canvio Connect II model – a 3TB drive that lets you access files from anywhere via the internet, but there’s no wi-fi connection, so you can’t share files independent of a PC. Samsung also announced a new SSD [sold state] portable hard drive, the T1 with very quick data-writing speeds, available in 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB models, but unfortunately this does not include a cloud storage option.

Streaming is mainstream now, but for those who don’t want a subscription, there is Sling TV (not to be confused with Sling Box) that enables you to stream on multiple platforms, including mobile devices with no contract, instead using a pay-per-view model. Currently only available in the States, will a similar service soon enter the UK market?

When it comes to the brains that make our mobile devices work, Nvidia announced its new Tegra X1 ‘super chip’ for mobile devices, powerful and energy-efficient enough to bring PC-grade graphics to handheld devices, challenging Qualcomm’s Snapdragon, where we’re seeing a battle between these and Intel to dominate the smartphone chipset market.

In summary, smart-home innovations sat front and centre at CES 2015. While prominent at CES 2014, in 2015 the category was given a dedicated exhibition space – a good indicator of how far the smart home category has come in the past year.

 

Read more at: http://www.ertonline.co.uk/Default.aspx.LocID-05nnew3md.RefLocID-05n03s004.Lang-EN.htm

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Dec 18 2014
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At 20 Years Old, PlayStation Continues to Capture the Market

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For those of you that can remember, or have grown up alongside it, you might be aware that PlayStation celebrated its 20th anniversary last week, and how it’s flown by. Gaming as a category has evolved decade on decade, and is forecast to continue growing. Yet some brands have died before they even started: remember Gizmondo and its flagship store with no stock on Regent Street?

Gaming, like no other category, must work hand in hand with 3rd parties to survive and innovate. While you could argue that TV needs content and cinemas need film, together the gaming industry innovates by collaborative choices. At the heart of this is the consumer.

Fads come and go as dictated by the users, just look at those Wii Balance Boards cluttering up garages and car boot sales. If it’s not generational, it doesn’t work. Above the age of 12, who wants to play games with Mum and Dad? Yet for how many years have you and your friends played Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty, and above all honed your skills to better your peers?

Console manufacturers try to push some innovations. Look at Microsoft’s Kinect – while the innovation itself is impressive, the system is largely ignored by developers. With the release of the Xbox One, Microsoft tried to make Kinect an integral part of their console experience, but failed to engage users and developers alike. Motion tracking and voice control are yet more fads – what the gamers want is genuine innovation.

20 years in, creating a category is amazing in technology terms. VCR, Walkman and the like are all categories that have died and were replaced by more sophisticated technology which met consumer demands and changing lifestyles. Developers know this, console manufacturers are painfully aware of this, and when you’re products are reliant on one another, which innovation drives the other?

The Wii worked because it brought something entirely new to the scene and opened up a new generation to console gaming. This whirlwind success will not be replicated until manufacturers develop truly innovative ideas that revolutionise the console market.

VR could be the next revolutionary innovation that will take the console market by storm. It has the potential, but will it capture the imagination of consumers? As we can see from Nintendo’s falling profits in recent years, the gaming market is fickle and even whirlwind success will eventually die down.

Sky have just announced a number of Virtual Reality trials on up to fifteen shows in 2015. Perhaps a vested interest is at play here, but is VR where gaming and entertainment collide? We can already see evidence of games consoles developing into multimedia centres in the PS4 and Xbox One. Will VR be the next step in this development?

I suspect that in 20 years’ time PlayStation as a brand will still be going strong, perhaps as a console linked to a VR device. But at this point, who’ll be creating the content: gaming developers or actors and producers? With Remedy Entertainment’s upcoming title Quantum Break, which promises to blur the lines between television and gaming by allowing gamers to shape a personalised version of a linked television show. Could this represent the future of the entertainment industry?

 

Read more at: http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2014/12/16/at-20-years-old-playstation-continues-to-capture-the-market/

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Dec 15 2014
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Top 10 Gadgets for Christmas

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Daniel Todaro chooses his Top 10 gadgets for Christmas that can improve consumers’ day-to-day lives

Entertainment: EchoStar HDT-610R
The EchoStar Freeview+ box has an ultra-thin design at a mere 14mm deep, making it one of the most compact and stylish Freeview boxes on the market. Nonetheless, it manages to pack in a 500GB hard drive to store recorded TV. It also boasts two tuners to enable two TV channels to be recorded simultaneously. It has a simple and intuitive interface and menu, with excellent audio/video quality.

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Spring Cleaning: Kärcher SC1.020
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The Kärcher SC1.020 is the best-selling steam cleaner on the market at present, which is significant given the popularity of such products at the moment. It easily cleans a variety of different surfaces, including tiles and laminate flooring, eliminating the need for an extensive range of specialist cleaning products.
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Kitchen: Samsung Chef Collection dishwasher
Instead of the rotating arms found in other dishwashers, Samsung’s unique feature is its ‘Water Wall’ technology, which uses a line of spray jets that reach every corner of the machine. No more of those missed spots that often mean having to put things back in for a second wash.
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Printer: Epson EcoTank
Without doubt the main attraction of the EcoTank is that rather than refilling it with costly ink cartridges, the EcoTank has four built-in ink reservoirs that can be refilled from replacement ink bottles. This is not only a much cheaper alternative, saving up to 65 per cent on printing costs, but it also lasts longer than conventional ink cartridges without sacrificing print quality.
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Audio: Beats by Dre – Alexander Wang edition
Designer Alexander Wang has become the latest designer to collaborate with the Beats by Dre team. Together, they’ve created a pale gold and matt black Pill speaker with a signature printed glossy ‘stingray’ case with zipper and clip. The Pill is lightweight, portable, and wireless-enabled, meaning you can change tracks from your phone or take a call with Bluetooth conferencing.
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E-reader: Kobo Aura H2O
The latest product from the Canadian manufacturer boasts an impressive 265 pixels per inch, which beats rival product the Kindle Paperweight, providing a much clearer, larger paper-like screen. It is, however, a little heavier than the Kindle. Perhaps its most useful feature is that it’s waterproof.
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Fitness: Fitbit Charge
One of the latest of Fitbit’s new products, the Fitbit Charge, which will be out in December, is a significant step up from its best-selling Flex model. Like the Flex, Charge takes the form of a wristband that monitors all-day activity, tracking steps, distance, calories burned, steps climbed and minutes the wearer has been active each day. Similarly, it also monitors the length and quality of sleep. It might lack the GPS functions of other products in Fitbit’s new range, but it’s still a great gadget for anyone looking to keep trim over the New Year.
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Connected Home: Hive Smart Thermostat
Hive is a simple-to-use device that enables cost-conscious consumers to have full control over their heating. By being able to remotely control heating from anywhere with an internet connection or 3G, people can save up to £150 a year on their heating bills by only having the heating on when it’s needed, rather than on a fixed schedule. The price even includes the setting-up of the device, so factoring in potential savings, there’s few reasons not to invest in one this Christmas.
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Family: Samsung WW9000 10kg Ecobubble washing machine
The Samsung WW9000 Ecobubble is a top-of-the-range washing machine – and you get an awful lot of washing machine for the money. Growing families with a lot of washing will benefit from a number of time- and money-saving features. Its touch-screen takes the place of the complicated array of buttons you find on some washing machines and its customisable settings can be set as favourites, meaning you can start a wash within seconds of loading the drum.
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Smartphone: Apple iPhone 6 Plus
The sleek new design with a crisp display far exceeds what the competition can offer. IPS Retina HD technology is the cutting edge of phone design.The quality of the display is as good as a MacBook Pro.The display is also less saturated than other similar phones, producing deeper, darker colours and sharper text. The battery life is also excellent, especially given its size, and can easily be used for a full day without the need to recharge. It’s the best iPhone to date.

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Read more at: http://www.ertonline.co.uk/Analysis/Christmas-Gadgets.htm

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Dec 05 2014
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How the Christmas ads fared on social

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For this year’s Christmas ads we’ve had the lot. Almost every major retailer has now released their ads, laying out their stall for what they can offer consumers this Christmas.

These have been closely followed by an onslaught of social media reviews, some good, some not so good.

Firstly, let’s take a look at Sainsbury’s which has become possibly the most debated Christmas advert of all time. Some love it, some loath it.

Twitter is ablaze with #sainsburyschristmas conversation. Some love it for its cinematography and poignant message for the 100th anniversary of First World War, appreciating that the retailer is donating to the Royal British Legion.

While others are angry with Sainsbury’s depiction of the war, feeling that they are glamorising it and using the conflict to advertise their products.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the advert has already had a lot of complaints to the Advertising Standards Agency (more than 700 at the moment), most mentioning the distasteful portrayal of the First World War.

Yet love it or hate it, you’re not likely to forget Sainsbury’s contribution any time soon.

We move on to Iceland, which is possibly the worst Christmas advert I’ve ever seen. It is almost indistinguishable from its normal advert except it mentions some Christmassy food.

As far as social media goes, Iceland’s twitter post for the advert was retweeted an unremarkable three times (the account has more than 16k followers). Likewise, the advert’s uninspiring hashtag #icelandchristmasad has only been used by Iceland themselves. It also only has just over 400 likes on Facebook, compared to the Sainsbury’s advert’s 126,000 likes. Yes, the advert is that forgettable.

On the other end of the spectrum Boots‘ Christmas advert does emotional advertising right. Rather than relying on an animated penguin for emotional support, the advert concentrates on the importance of family, something we should all focus on at this time of year.

Social media users love it too, with many feeling moved and especially enjoying the connection to the NHS:

https://twitter.com/thisotheralex/status/531922898492325888

Boots’ simple #specialbecause hashtag is perfect for sentimentality during the Christmas period. It’s not an especially flashy advert, and is therefore somewhat underrated, but it has resonated with a lot of people, and that’s what makes it so great.

Then there is Tesco’s ad. Although it is well-produced with the right message, this year’s offering leaves me a little disappointed. The advert’s light show is fantastic, undoubtedly the best light show since the Olympics. But, in comparison to John Lewis and Sainsbury’s, this is a little mundane.

The Twittersphere seems equally unimpressed, with many finding the ad uninspiring and even unnecessarily expensive:

https://twitter.com/lunabranding/status/531937253678125057

Although Tesco’s Facebook is very popular, and the ad has tens of thousands of likes, even the comments section of the ad post is filled more with customer complaints than it is of genuine praise.

Even more unfortunately for Tesco, its hashtag #makechristmas was also used by Irish retail chain Dunne Stores. As a result, Twitter has an odd mix of both brands.

Now to Aldi, and though I quite like the concept of this advert, I think it’s poorly executed. Showing how Christmas is celebrated in different walks of life could make a great ad, but Aldi’s offering simply pans the camera over a number of different groups eating and drinking. The script is also dire, with lines sounding extremely scripted. Moreover, Jools Holland’s random cameo appearance at the end is extremely odd; why not use him more during the ad? Yet he seems to be the major attraction for many on Twitter and Facebook:

Although an unsophisticated offering, many people seem to love it. Perhaps Aldi’s simple, budget orientated ad is the right message for this year. And whatever you say about it, the Aldi advert probably has the truest slogan of any advert this Christmas – ‘everyone’s coming to us this Christmas’.

The Lidl advert achieves exactly what the retailer wanted to achieve. Continuing its #lidlsuprises campaign, the ad does away with the cinematic offerings of its competitors, and instead focuses on the products. I think the blind taste test was a clever idea, really highlighting how Lidl products aren’t as budget quality as people think. This also seems to have reflected well amongst Lidl’s Twitter followers:

https://twitter.com/AThriftyMrsUK/status/531752914746748928

However, it’ll take more than an advert to convince some consumers that Lidl products are on par with their competitors:

While it is a good advert and puts the right message across, I can’t help but think it’s not that Christmassy. Other ads like Sainsbury’s and John Lewis have a distinct Christmassy feel, but Lidl’s is simply a Christmas branded extension of its existing ad. It does the right job, but it doesn’t have appeal of the more cinematic ads at this time of year.

By far the most engaging ad this year has been the Halfords ad – it’s supposed to provoke feelings of nostalgia and it does it really well. The ad could easily be set in any decade from the 1970’s onwards which makes it so appealing to a broad audience. The ad wants you to remember that seminal moment of getting your own bike as a child, and ultimately share this experience with your kids. Those using #nothingbeatsabike on Twitter seems to agree:

https://twitter.com/jenniferosevans/status/531472140676390912

This has to be my favourite Christmas ad; it does everything right. You might prefer the cinematic masterpieces of the likes of Sainsbury’s, but for me the simple nostalgia of a new bike is as Christmassy as it gets.

Last but not least we have the now famous John Lewis Monty the Penguin ad. There is little more to be said about the overexposed ad apart from the inevitable parodies which were released over the past few weeks, of which there are surprisingly many.

 

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Dec 01 2014
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This Year’s Best Christmas ATL?

halfords atl banner

For this year’s Christmas ads, we’ve had the lot, as more or less every major retailer has now released their ads and laid out their stall for what they can offer consumers this Christmas. We’ve had John Lewis’ CGI/stuffed penguin, M&S’ Christmas fairies, Tesco shining a light on community spirit, surprises from Lidl, Aldi’s hogmanay featuring Jools Holland and now Sainsbury’s topical war-themed incentive to buy and share chocolate.

They’ve been met with differing reactions. The initial response on social media to Sainsbury’s advert was positive, though subsequent analysis in the press has been less warm, with The Guardian criticising the supermarket for co-opting an awful period in history for commercial gain. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a strong, top-quality advert. Meanwhile, the M&S’ ad featured a touching point in the style of a Richard Curtis/Love Actually ‘if only’ Christmas message. While John Lewis’ attempt to repeat the success of its The Bear and the Hare advert has again relied on a lot of sentimentality and presented no products (besides the £95 toy penguin), it still exhibited good brand tie-ups and extensions on social media and in-store. The campaign is still a game-changer that others will certainly emulate. Tesco – amid its well-publicised financial issues – has gone with a comparatively paired down ad, featuring people in the community gathering for a light show. It makes sense for them to focus on community spirit and amplify the affection some may still have for the brand rather than centering around products or special offers (which discount supermarkets might well beat on price).

Among the hype and chatter, there’s one advert I feel has gone unnoticed and, for me, represents the best ATL activity this Christmas. Halfords, in partnership with Mother London, has produced a great advert which, unlike the others, places nostalgia, not sentimentality, at the centre of the ad. With a powerful Cairobi soundtrack, the ad focuses on what Christmas is all about these days, not forgetting its religious significance for Christians. It’s about kids and the rite of passage, those seminal moments Christmas throws up, such as the feeling of getting your first bike – along with the feelings of freedom and independence (not to mention coolness) that it evokes. Most of us will have memories of taking off the training wheels and being able to get away from homework to cycle to the park or the BMX track and experience freedom.

It’ll be interesting to see what such an evocative ad does for Halfords’ sales, especially given that it’s taken less high profile spots on TV compared to other brands. Like a pair of well-pumped up tires, it’d be nice to see this ad go the distance and resonate with consumers, who may agree with me that, by placing nostalgia and excitement at the centre of its ad, Halfords has won Christmas this year.

#NothingBeatsABike

 

Read more at: http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2014/11/27/this-years-best-christmas-atl/

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