I came a across this interesting community website that targeted for Chinese community living in Vancouver. This site is very interesting because it is horribly designed. Even for those who understand Chinese, you might get lost in their website.  For comparison, I decided to find a similar Vancouver community website. The two website are very different. Their difference are almost polarized. I am not sure if it the Chinese Culture to have tons of messy ADs on their website. It is up to you to decide, tell me what you think 🙂

I have posted their link and pictures below, go have a look!

Chinese Vancouver Community (Van People)
http://www.vanpeople.com/

West Vancouver Community

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Chinese Vancouver Community Website

West Vancouver Community Website

Most of Youtube’s videos have advertisements, and you can usually skip them after 5 seconds of watching. For me I always skip them asap. Two weeks ago, while I was browsing on Youtube, I saw this A&W advertisement. As usual, I was going to skip the advertisement, but right before I click “skip”, I changed my mind and watched the whole Ad.

So what makes A&W advertisement so effective that made me watch the till the end? The advertisement begins with an A&W manager saying, “Some people might skip this Ad and never find out that the chubby chicken burger is only $3 at A&W.” While he was saying this, my mouse was waiting for the “skip” bottom to appear. When I heard “some people might skip this Ad”, it caught my attention and made me hesitate because I was going to skip this Ad. Therefore, I continued to watch the whole Ad, and find it funny and interesting. Later that night, I bought a $3 Chubby Chicken Burger to see what it taste like. A&W’s commercial is the only commercial that made me took an action. A&W won this time!

The key difference between A&W’s advertisement and other advertisement on YouTube is that A&W foresees audiences’ action.  It knows that the audience will be skipping the Ad, therefore, it mentioned “Some people might skip this Ad and never find out…” This creates a two way engagement between A&W and the audiences subconsciously:
Audience – I am going to skip this Ad.
A&W – Skip this Ad and never find out…
Audience – Find out what?
A&W – Chubby Chicken Burger is only $3
As you see, A&W is making an conversation with its audiences by talking about what audiences are doing at the immediate moment, which is skipping the Ad. This is what makes this ad unique and effective when compared with other advertisements, where they simply try to persuade you to purchase their product/service, and hoping that you are interested. These advertisement hardly grasp customer’s attention from the beginning because there are no two way engagement. Even if there is an engagement, its not about what audiences are doing at the immediate moment, like skipping the Ad.

P.S. You should really try the Chubby Chicken Burger. It is delicious, and it only costs $3 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHvDOaVM6ZA

This post is continued from earlier post “Making your customer a brand advocate”. Please read it before reading this. 🙂

I have replied to Power Theory regarding my thoughts and experience of their portable charger. They have replied back to me as soon as I emailed them. I am very impressed on how much effort they are willing to have the best customer satisfaction. They not only addressed my concerns for their product, but at the same time being pro-active to bring this satisfaction to the next level.

One of my difficulty of using their charger was that there is not a power (battery) level indicator. I have difficulty using knowing how much charge is left in this charger. Matt Dreier, the co-founder, explained to me how to find out how much charge is left.

More importantly, Dreier took a pro-active action to insure that I am satisfied with their customer service. When I purchased their power charger it was at full price of $39.95. After few days, it was on sale for $23.95. Without request, Dreier gave me a refund on the difference of $16. This is the first time ever that a company gave me a refund on the difference without me asking! It made my day!!!