Author: Stilgherrian

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Watch It Shred!

Thirty-seven points for marketing genius to SSI Shredding Systems Inc. Forget features and benefits” [yawns] — all you need to know is that they make machines which can turn three dishwashers into ragged shards in ten seconds.

Marketing Lessons:

  • Before you can talk to someone, you have to attract their attention.
  • To attract attention, trigger an emotional response first. They’ll remember you that way. They’ll come back for the facts when they become relevant because they remembered you.
  • If people think “Wow! Come and look at this!” they’ll tell others.
  • Do it quick! A typical website visitor only looks at one page of your website — two if you’re lucky.

If you’re in Wilsonville, Oregon, please buy these guys a beer.

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Disturbing the Store

My vote for “Prank of the Month” (well, last month) goes to the New York-based Improv Everywhere crew for flooding a Best Buy department store with around 80 people dressed almost like their staff.

The full report on this prank shows how the store management couldn’t cope — they didn’t like it, and people get nervous when confronted with something “different”.

It’s also interesting reading the comments on Bruce Schneier’s write-up of this event, where so many commenters fail to see the difference between a “threat to the store” and a “threat to the perceived authority of the store managers”.

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I look like David Trimble

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Apparently I look like David Trimble (pictured right), the Northern Ireland politician and joint winner of the 1998 Nobel Peace prize. Well, 67% like him anyway, according to face recognition website MyHeritage.com.

Here’s the deal. You give them your photo, they match it against their database of celebrities and pick the closest. And in return, they get to test their face recognition software — and along the way build up a database of over a million faces (so far) matched to names and email addresses and family connections. Neat eh?

A not a single privacy concern, not one. Because their privacy policy includes the magic words saying that they’re firmly committed to protecting your privacy. So it must be true.

I also look 61% like actor Anthony Hopkins, 56% like American poet Ezra Pound, and 55% like actors Annette Bening (should I frock up now?) and Hugh Grant (should he frock up now?).

And 53% like Boris Karloff, which doesn’t thrill me at all.

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