I just recieved an interesting email from the owner of Blank Bottle Wines, Pieter H. Walser, describing some of the marketing/customer-engagement tactics they’ve used successfully lately.
1. Mystery wine. “I sold a few thousand bottles without telling anyone what’s in the bottle. There were 10 cases up for grabs for the closest answer. Two months later I revealed what was in the bottle. 125 people wrote back with comments, guessed the cultivar, vintage etc”.
My comment: Good idea, this gives people who know their wine the opportunity to show off that knowledge by correctly guessing its characteristics. It also gives people something to discuss around the wine, which (at least in my case), would make me more likely to take it along to dinner parties.
2. BLANKbottle™ Premium white released without price: “Instead of setting its price, I decided to let my loyal clients decide. I sent out 20 cases of “Moment of Silence” without payment or price, leaving it up to them to pay me what they thought its worth! Pricing suggestions reached up to R70, and most were prepared to pay around R50/bottle. As BLANKbottle™ was created to over-deliver on quality; I set the final price at R40″. i.e. He crowdsourced the price:)
My Comment: Good idea, following the same principle that RadioHead successfully applied with In Rainbows. However, I think the execution was a bit half-hearted by limiting it to only 20 of his loyal customers. Perhaps Pieter should have left the price people chose to pay open to suggestion for a few more weeks, as this would have created more buzz around his product.
As with his previous wines, “Moment of Silence” leaves you in the dark about the cultivar and year of vintage. To uncover the lineage of “Moment of Silence” or any of his other wines, you need to go to his website where you will find the full story behind your BLANKbottle.
Pieter is sending me a bottle to try, I must admit that the small incentive did encourage me to write this blog post. I’m such a sucker for freebies sometimes. Aren’t most bloggers?
The term “Web 2.0″ is derived from a naming convention in software, where upgrades that are released in the market get numbered (like Verstion 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 etc). This seems to suggest that the software of the internet has been upgraded, which isn’t entirely correct. However, the term is still useful if you look at it as a massive shift in the way the web is being used. Essentially, “Web 2.0″, refers to the functionality built into websites that allows people to more easily put their own information on them, to share it with others, and collaborate with them. These websites, then, shift from being simply “websites”, to being tools or “applications”.
The next “version” of the web (likely to be dubbed “Web 3.0) will allow these websites to integrate with each other even more effectively and naturally – so, for example, you will be able to incorporate many of the sites you regularly visit into one website, which also synchronizes your information, friends and updates so you don’t have to repeat yourself all over the place!
Social Media
Social Media, simply put, is a form of media created by people who post information (be that pictures, articles, videos, comments or votes) using Web 2.0 applications (such as blogs etc.). It is primarily driven by Amateurs, although big media companies have started integrating social media into their traditional offering too. This is part of what makes social-media special: it can incorporate other forms of media, increase it’s reach into niche communities of interest that are inter-connected on social-media platforms, and enhance it’s impact and effect by allowing interaction. So in social-media, the audience can become collaborators.
For this reason, the flow and process of creating Social-Media is often likened to a Conversation, which happens even if no-one actually speaks directly to any person in particular! Social Media depends on interactions between people as the discussion and integration of words, images, and sounds around a multitude of subjects and feelings builds shared-meaning around topics and experiences. For example, if a number of people who attend the same event post their own pictures, blog posts, and videos of it online, then by looking at the array of media around this event anyone will have a better understanding of it than if they just read one newspaper report on it.
Social Computing
Social computing a broader term, which incorporates Social Media. It refers specifically to the “sense-making” effect of all the interactions that are carried out by groups of people online. This is an idea that has been popularized in James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds. Examples of social computing in this sense include collaborative filtering(such as on Muti.co.za), online auctions, prediction markets, reputation systems, computational social choice, tagging, and verification games (A great example is Google’s Image Labeler game).
A paper on Social Computing by market research company Forrester Research states:
Easy connections brought about by cheap devices, modular content, and shared computing resources are having a profound impact on our global economy and social structure. Individuals increasingly take cues from one another rather than from institutional sources like corporations, media outlets, religions, and political bodies. To thrive in an era of Social Computing, companies must abandon top-down management and communication tactics, weave communities into their products and services, use employees and partners as marketers, and become part of a living fabric of brand loyalists.
Although these applications are easy to engage with and use, they can be potentially destructive, and costly to organizations and individuals who don’t have a strategy and an understanding about what they hope to achieve by engaging with other people on the web in this way.
The term “Social Computing” is often used interchangeably with the term “Web 2.0“, although as the Forrester report points out:
Web 2.0 is about specific technologies (blogs, podcasts, wikis, etc) that are relatively easy to adopt and master. Social Computing is about the new relationships and power structures that will result. Think of it another way: Web 2.0 is the building of the Interstate Highway System in the 1950s; Social Computing is everything that resulted next (for better or worse): suburban sprawl, energy dependency, efficient commerce, Americans’ lust for cheap and easy travel.
The clever chaps at Springleap have come up with another killer idea to engage SA bloggers and drive lots of signups to their new site. It’s called Blogger Warz, where each month two prominent SA bloggers are pitted against each other to get the most votes for their t-shirt designs.
I’m up against Mike Stopforth (with his design called “Fit-Shan“) in the first round. The design I submitted was done my my talented illustrator friend, Ryno Van Niekerk. It’s called “The Amazing Marketing Machine“.
The story that goes with the design is as follows:
A mashup of potent technological innovations, The Amazing Marketing Machine will help any marketer be more intelligent, more playful, more out-of-this world! But if you didn’t know that you might just think it was a pile of junk. Ironic huh?
If you dig it, please go and vote it up on Springleap HERE (note, you need to register). Some lucky people might even get the opportunity to wear this awesome design if we win.
On Tuesday night, a small group of us had the pleasure of having dinner with Joseph Jaffe, one of the world’s top new-marketing bloggers/podcasters. He’s president of Crayon, and wrote the bestselling “Life After the 30 Second Spot“.
During the dinner he wanted to give someone a signed a copy of his just-released book called “Join the Conversation” (which he’d brought to SA for his mom!), but has instead dedicated it to the Cape Town blogging and podcasting community to be passed around.
The inscription says:
“To the wonderful Cape Town community, I’m proud to represent you in the big US of A and I hope this book inspires, motivates and reflects the power of us“.
I’m almost done reading it, so if you’d like to get it next (and you’re in Cape Town) then just write a blog post mentioning the words “Join the Conversation” and then let’s meet for coffee and I’ll pass it on to you:)
One of the cool things about the book is that Chapter 10 was written by a bunch of people interested in the subject using a wiki. Interestingly, if you feel compelled to write more about it, you can become a contributor on the official blog by registering yourself there.
I'm a Digital Media and Marketing educator based in Cape Town, South Africa.
If you're interested in booking me for a talk or workshop you can check out my formal profile on the
About page.
I just recieved an interesting email from the owner of Blank Bottle Wines, Pieter H. Walser, describing some of the marketing/customer-engagement tactics they’ve used successfully lately.
The clever chaps at Springleap have come up with another killer idea to engage SA bloggers and drive lots of signups to their new site. It’s called 
