Yes, lots of Coca-Cola going on in movies and series, as well as drinks, fashion brands and anything you’d ever think of. I am sure you all remember the Bridget Jones cheering on a huge screen. Or the Apple computers in Zoolander. But does product placement still work for popular movies and TV series?

I have to say I’ve started to overlook a lot of it. From clothes, to what they’re drinking or some of the gadgets they’re using. Then again, it also depends on how much the brand is shown off! If someone types behind a laptop for over 3 minutes, I might notice the brand. Or if you keep showing the computer game box each time you show the kid’s room, I might see it’s Heroes V Especially if I was a fan of Heroes III and IV

But other than that, do you buy something just because it’s shown on a TV screen but not during advertisement breaks? Is it a more effective advertising method? I mean, really, would you switch to the Head & Shoulders shampoo just because it was used to kill aliens in a rather silly movie?

I for one think it happens as it happens to all advertising: we learn to ignore it and it’s just wasted money. Are there any successful campaigns? Do you know of any and have you ever bought something just because you saw it in a movie?

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When we tweet something, a thought, a piece of information, we expect two things: starting a few conversations and getting retweets. Both are valuable, but while the first goal implies our community, the retweet part implies reaching out to more people and getting more views and opinions on what we have just sent into the Twitterverse.

So saying retweets are important is a bit of an understatement. And while we all try to read tips and tricks and find new strategies to have more retweets, I thought a road back to the basics of it all might help. And I asked myself: why do people retweet? And here’s a list of reasons I found:

• they find the tweet funny
• they’ve been through a similar situation – positive or negative. I should add here that when it’s a negative review, they tend to retweet more, compared to positive reviews of products and services
• they are interested in the topic and their community shares the interest
• they find your take on the matter unique and intriguing
• they are your raving supporters and like to promote your work
• they find it easier to add a quick comment to the retweet than post a longer comment on your blog
• they return favors

And now let’s get the comment-party started! What about you? Why do you retweet? Why do you think your followers retweet your articles and news?

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Websites have been around for so long, we imagine everyone has gotten the hang of the basic rules of usability. But apparently they didn’t! So here are three important things you should consider if you care about your visitors at all. And you should care, especially if you’re selling something through your website.

1. Stop making the www compulsory! People are lazy. They will always prefer to type name.com instead of www.name.com. Yes, most websites respect this rule, but there are still some parts of the Internet where people like to pretend it ain’t that important. It is! People will think your site is down first, then consider other possibilities, like needing to type three more letters.

2. Your site should at least work on major browsers! That’s IE and Firefox. Don’t believe me? Check your Google analytics or whatever tracking software you’re using. See what browsers your visitors are using. And make sure your site works on the most frequently used ones. If it just works on IE, you’ll let a lot of people down.

3. Don’t make advertising more annoying than it already is! Yes, we have come to ignore most ads. So stop making them extremely annoying by allowing them to impair navigation on your site. If you add a close button to an ad, then it should work, the ad should not open again when I try to click a menu button.

These rules are based on what I find most annoying when browsing online and trying to dig information on websites. What would you add to the list?

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Why is a hotel always full while the next door one is empty, although they offer the same services at comparable prices? Why does a certain video game convince millions to play it, while others struggle with a lot less buyers, although they are a bit cheaper? Why does an IT product sell, while others don’t, although they provide similar features? Why do you need an appointment made weeks in advance for some beauty salons and you need none for others, as their personnel seems to always be waiting for customers that never come?

It’s easy; people are not buying products and services only. They buy experiences which include those products and services. Everything else going on while they are researching, testing and buying is of ultimate importance, just as how they are treated after getting the product or service and they come back to either buy more or require assistance. Continue reading

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I have always been intrigued by the relationship Romanians have had with their car brand, Dacia. It is the only brand that still exists and that did not disappear after the Revolution that put an end to communism. But the way we’ve seen the brand, the way we’ve related to it or chosen to ignore it, makes for a very interesting story.

Dacias were not the best of cars during the communist period.  But they were one of the few types of cars you could actually get. Long lists and long waits came before any car purchase. And when I say long wait, I mean years. But then again, that gave you time to raise the money for it. The design was outdated, there weren’t that many options to choose from, and some relatives told me some now funny stories about how they prayed for their car to arrive with most of the parts on it.

After the Revolution, we finally had choices. And we went for them. Foreign cars, used at first, brought from nearby countries, Germany being the leading supplier. I grew up with high-school friends that made a business out of driving to Germany in one car and returning in three. They would work on them for a while, then resell them for some extra cash.

Old school Dacia, Sandero and Duster

Continue reading

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