Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Dominos President apologized for video prank – media curve

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

The story of how 2 Dominos employees with a video camera and internet connection caused severe damage to the Domino’s brand last year is all too familiar to us in the food and hospitality industry.  If you have not seen the video, here it is for your reference.

The tragedy here is that Domino’s did not actively monitor social media activities nor once they found out, respond to this prank immediately. By the third day, it was too late to put out this viral fire and its fate of becoming a “what-not-to-do” example was inevitable.

The real come back story is how Partick Doyle, President of Domino’s USA, responded to this incident with his sincere apology. His sincerity was measured by Mediacurves.com, the technology responsible for charting and overlaying “believability” curve on his video. As you will see from his video, people responded well to his pledge for stricter hiring practices and higher sanitization standards.

The process of regaining customer’s trust is a tough one, especially having gone through fiascos like Dominos, Burger King and KFC. Businesses in the consumer goods sector can’t afford not to spend resources to monitor their mentions in social media as it evolves to become an influential and viral channel.

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Posted in Social Marketing Best Practices | 13 Comments »

Monetizing the web – do it like QQ

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

So what makes Tencent so successful?  Let’s see where their revenue comes from:

Revenues from IVAS were RMB 2.15 billion (USD 315.7 million), an increase of 13.2% QoQ or an increase of 107.9% YoY
Revenues from MVAS were RMB 470.0 million (USD 68.8 million), an increase of 6.9% QoQ or an increase of 38.9% YoY
Revenues from online advertising were RMB 243.0 million (USD 35.6 million), an increase of 65.8% QoQ or an increase of 9.1% YoY

IVAS = Internet value-added service

MVAS = Mobile & telecommunication value-added service

By far the cash cow here is IVAS, internet value-added service. It’s these

QQ_IVAS

Qzone gets about 4 million users to upload 60 million photos every day; it is interactive and it concentrates on peer to peer interaction to leverage social media for its success

VIP.QQ.com – exclusive club for early QQ privileges, sneak preview of new product & services + experiences.

QQ Show – Avatar system for dressing up online avatar. Like Cyworld, users shop for virtual clothing, hairstyles, and accessories with virtual currency to display on their QQ chat window, chat room, community and Qzone

QQ Music – leading online music service in China

QQ Live – leading online video service in China

Yes, just these 5 services are responsible for $315.7 million. If this remotely surprises you, let me explain why it works.

QQ’s secret of success lies in massive volumes of micro transactions.  For example, QQ Show lets people play dress up of their online persona and help individuals stand out from the rest. Now, you may think being different in China isn’t a such a popular thing to do because the culture is more homogeneous. However, this is where the population and anthropology study can explain the cultural phenomenon.

In such a large population at 1.3 billion, the majority of Chinese is asked to conform from early age by the government advocating the collective rather than the individual. This drives the barrier and cost to stand out higher whether it’s piano lessons, English & Math lessons or sports lessons, parents must be able to afford them if they want their only child to stand out to employers who naturally prefer employees with more skill sets. How does it all relate? Well, the cost to stand out is traditionally higher but now come QQ, offering people the opportunity to stand out at fractions on a dollar, appealing to the masses. You may argue standing out on the internet with a cool avatar isn’t the same as having the skills to say, code in Java, but with millions yearning to stand out in ways driven by a population and culture, somehow, purchasing virtual goods to be different is equated to vanity like carrying a Starbucks beverage. The point is, modern Chinese now rush at every channel to become different, to stand out, because they think that’s how they get ahead in life or induce praise or jealousy. Sure, there’s still the fun factor involved, but evidently it’s more beneficial than fun in China.

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