Consider what your customers will look, smell, touch and feel – from the start to end of your experience
Let’s try this thought exercise for a few minutes.
Imagine that you’re a customer of your own company’s business. This could be anything of course, depending on what your company do. During this time, you should don the hat of your prospective customer, be he or she a swinging single, working parent, active ager, awkward teen, or urban professional.
Tina and Ethan posing next to an animatronic Apatosaurus
“Roar, Growl, Hiss, Grr, Screech and Scream!”
Welcome to the world of the fabulous dinosaurs (also known as the “terrible lizards”) at Dinosaurs-Live!, a recently opened exhibition at the Singapore Science Centre. Happening from now til 26 Feb 2012, the exhibition showcases almost 50 life-sized dinosaurs, reptiles and other prehistoric creatures brought realistically back to life by awesome animatronics.
Courtesy of Lost & Found Online Marketing
One of the most important chapters in the book of marketing is customer segmentation and targeting. You need to know who you’re reaching and how you’re making your product or service relevant to their needs, wants or desires. Without a keen understanding of your target segment, everything else may fall apart.
The challenge however is this. How do you know who they really are?
Its time once again for GovCamp Singapore, our island’s only “unconference” focusing on how citizens and government can work together to improve our lives using technology as an enabler.
The second event this year – I moderated one of the sessions in the first in on 19 January – GovCamp looks at positioning government as a platform to engage key stakeholders in a country (namely everyone of us!) in a spirit of open collaboration, ideation, networking, and joint problem solving.
As part of my recent work trip to London, I spent many hours visiting numerous museums and art galleries in the city, topped by a full day meeting with the Tate Group. The institutions I visited include the Tate Modern, National Gallery London, National Portrait Gallery, Natural History Museum, Science Museum, V&A Museum, and the British Museum. While the trip was exhausting – we’ve put together a comprehensive report on its outcomes – there were many learning points that we have gleaned from some of the world’s leading cultural institutions.
Here are 20 highlights of my trip, in no particular order. Note that this list is quite museum-centric as that’s where I spent most of my time. Each highlight is accompanied by a photograph.
An eye catching installation at the entrance of the V&A Museum.
iPhone 4S’s short battery life was blamed on the super juiced up iOS 5(courtesy of Obama Pacman)
Something wrong seems to be happening in the hallowed corridors of Tech.
First, we’re met with the “dynamic” and ever changing new Facebook News Feed which apparently is riling many of us. Between “Top Stories”, “Recent Stories”, “New Entries”, and the ever updating Ticker on the right which gives me a constant migraine.
Aerial view of the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC (source: Tripadvisor)
NHB’s Night Festival 2008
I love reading Nina Simon’s Museum 2.0 blog for her cutting insights on stuff happening in my neck of the woods. One of the issues that she recently wrote about – audience development – is something that museums and art galleries in Singapore are also grappling with.
In her post, Nina questioned the need for museums to organise “hip” events to attract younger audiences at the expense of alienating a broader more diverse crowd. While many museums have shifted from being a “cabinet of curiosities” for an elite few to “community destinations”, the question now arises whether their activities should be narrowly focused on distinct segments or appeal more broadly across visitor groups.
According to the latest post on Church of the Customer, the most important platform for consumers to talk about brands isn’t on Facebook, Google +, Twitter or even SMS! Rather, it is good old person-to-person communication in the flesh (well at least in the US).
Have a look at this chart here from eMarketer:
Source: eMarketer.com
Do you ever wonder why some people look fab in black, while others look sinister? Want to add a dash of colour to your professional wardrobe without looking like a clown (or 7th month Getai singer)?
I found out the answers to this and more at a recent Colour Dynamics seminar organised by Jill Lowe International, thanks to my buddy James Soh (Living in Singapore Today) and the folks from Jill Lowe. Held at their cosy premises at level 2 of the Raffles Hotel Arcade, the session provided much food for thought.
