Deloitte Consulting starts Viral Marketing Campaign

Consultants have an inherent tendency to use lots of jargon even when they talk about the simplest things in life. But now the Bullfighter, a new software from Deloitte Consulting, is about to give these guys a hard time.

It's a piece of software, which plugs right into Word or Powerpoint and checks documents there for jargon and readability. If you have used to many words like "holistic", "synergy" or "operationalize", the Bullfighter gives you a poor rating accompanied by some frank comments about your writing style.

Quite ironic for a consulting company to come up with such an idea, isn't it ?

But this is much more than just a self-ironic joke. It's a brilliant example for a viral marketing campaign by a professional services company. And using a small, intelligent program as the viral agent is, in this case, much more appropriate than a funny little movie clip.

But let's hope, it becomes standard procedure at Deloitte to check presentations with their own software, because it their customers will definitely do...

Terrorists in the US Senate - Part 2

The strange idea of Senator Hatch to let big media companies remotely destroy computers, which are used to share illegal files, was not very well received in the blogosphere.

As a result Mr. Hatch suddenly had to realize that messing with the online community feels a little bit like messing with the IRS. And as we all know from our last tax audit - if they start to look, they do find stuff:

• Stuff like the link to an obscure porn site, which was found in a section of the Senator's homepage, which promotes the natural wonders of his home state of Utah.



• Or the fact the Senator seems to use pirated software on his own website (via Wired).

As Rummy probably would put it: "Well, stuff happens..." ;-)

I wonder what would happen if BSA and RIAA would care to pay a visit to Mr. Hatch's Office !? Is really every MS Office-Version fully licensed ? No staffer is listening to relaxing mp3s from dubious sources ??

Oh, by the way: You now can even buy anti-Hatch merchandise right here on the internet. Pretty amazing, what a free market system makes possible in such a short time, isn't it ? ;-)

Gemstar says Good-Bye to their eBook Business

Gemstar today announced that they are leaving the eBook Business for good:

"It is with deep regret that Gemstar eBook Group Limited must announce that we are scaling back our eBook operations and that we will ultimately be winding them down.

We are both proud of, and grateful for, your support and would have preferred to continue our business in its present form. Unfortunately, however, we are not able to do so under today's difficult market conditions."

Citing "today's difficult market conditions" for the complete failure of their business strategy is ludicrous. As a publisher of tv-guides, Gemstar never really had a clue how to market this kind of concept. For them it was just another way to make money from publishing rights - at least that's, what it was supposed to be...

Unfortunately the clunky and costly hardware stood constantly in the way of this goal. Then there was that cumbersome process to put new content into the device. It always gave me the impression that the Gemstar engineers never even got close to a palm syncing with a pc !?

But the main problem was the content itself. Coming from the consumer-oriented tv-guide business, Gemstar focused on equally consumer-oriented book-titles for their eBooks - big mistake !! Because the Gemstar eBook is was quite expensive and only real book-enthusiasts would be ready to spend so much money for a book related product. But these kind of people - including me - want to have real books in their hands, want to feel and perhaps even smell it. What they definitely don't want is to stare at a cold LCD-display for hours... So with this kind of strategy, the Gemstar's eBook business was doomed from the start !

But I still believe there could have been (or perhaps still is) a market for eBooks: just sell it to people who need lot's of information from publications - e.g. consultants, lawyer or CPAs. These groups are often far away from their books-shelfs, while depending on the information which is "stored" there. So why not create a service which combines a subscription to these publications with a device that makes it easy to access them anywhere anytime without the hassle of unpacking and booting up a laptop ? In comes the eBook !

Such a device wouldn't replace a PC oder laptop, but books, like the big red ones that German lawyers are used to carry around all the time. Think of it as the iPod for professionally used information...

About two years ago, I pitched this concept to the head of Gemstar Germany. He afterwards told me several reasons why this wouldn't work and the consumer model would. Actually, I don't remember what he said exactly. But considering the way his strategy played out in the end, there probably is no need to remember.

Anyway, at least their cover-art was quite appropriate - even kind of prophetic, wasn't it ? ;-)

Terrorists in the US Senate ?

Dana Blankenhorn is a little mad at US Senator Orrin Hatch. He even calls him a terrorist and an anarchist. Just because the senator suggests a new approach to fight file-sharing, which is - let's say - unorthodox (from Wash. Post):

Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.

The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.

"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.(...)

Just to get this straight: The chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee really suggests giving big media the right to destroy private property, if they don't like the way it is used ??

I wonder, if this has anything to do with lagging sales of his own music-recordings, though I doubt they are very popular on Kazaa...

On the other hand, it is a rather creative approach that could be used to solve a number of other long-standing problems. What about handing out baseball bats to traffic cops, for example ? Hey, there is also no excuse for anyone violating parking laws, right ?

...will Advertise for Food !

The Seattle Times reports about a strange new form of advertising (via Adrants):

Homeless serving as billboards
Peter Schoeff, a 20-year-old homeless man, woke up in an abandoned house and planned to spend his day Dumpster diving and asking for spare change. "We dig in trash, but usually, you can't find anything good in the trash," he said. "Just half-eaten sandwiches, cold French fries, crumbs in a bag of chips."

So a slice of hot, fresh pizza dripping with cheese seemed like a good deal ? especially since all it required of him was holding a sign for about 40 minutes. The sign said: "Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money."

In what advertising industry watchers said is a first, a Portland pizza-by-the-slice company has hired homeless people off downtown sidewalks to take part in a guerrilla marketing campaign. They are paid in pizza, soda and a few dollars.(...)

First I thought, this must be a hoax. But apparently it is not !? At least it is more credible than the motives of the owner of this "caring" company. Of course, he only has the best interests of the homeless at heart:

"People don't have to feel guilty, while still appreciating the person is homeless. It's a gesture of kindness more than anything," said Jehan, sitting at an outdoor table at one of his downtown Portland restaurants. (...) The homeless were a new advertising vehicle ? and an opportunity to help, Jehan said. He's proud to see Pizza Schmizza's name associated with helping the homeless, he said.

Well, call me Old-Europe, but I hope, this is not becoming a big, new trend in Guerrilla-Marketing. It probably also doesn't have the desired effect. I could be wrong, but isn't such a "billboard" sending a message like "Hey, come to Pizza Schmizza - the supercool hangout for homeless people..."