TKWong's Blog

Who would have predicted that a photo messaging application with a wicked looking ghost logo could turn out to be a multi-million dollar business? When SnapChat first emerged in our application stores, we were probably thinking this has got to be one of the most point-less application created in mankind. You open up an image, the image lasts for only 10 seconds before it disappears. Yup, that is called SnapChat.

Like almost every other social media apps, the initial market launch for SnapChat attracted doubts and negative feedback. But gradually, more and more people started to accept it as a trend, putting SnapChat on par with the popular photo sharing app Instagram. Much of its success could be credited to the company for developing a point of difference. Snapchat isn’t thought of as a social network. It’s presented more as a “photo chat” platform, like WhatsApp or SMS. Unlike Facebook, SnapChat allows users to send snaps to multiple people without them all knowing it.   Every photo is sent directly from you to a friend, so it doesn’t seem like you’re bragging to the whole world. SnapChat alleviates the pressure of feeling judged for who you’ve shared something with, perhaps for the first time in the modern age of social networking, and this is what has made SnapChat so addictive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapchat

http://blog.snapchat.com/

The latest series of FIFA have been real eye-openers for soccer fans. The re-designation of match engine and graphic enhancement has attracted enough gamers to put EA Sports’ FIFA ahead of their long standing rival Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer. When FIFA 13 was initially released, it has recorded a record-breaking sales success; sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide on all platforms in the first five days of release. With FIFA 14 being campaigned as the “Best Soccer Video Game” ever made, a great buzz has stirred on online news source and excited gamers’ minds. Although, with no surprise, in just 2 weeks time FIFA has top the sales chart, their sales were down by 24% as to last years’ sales. 

The drop in sales for Fifa 14 could be due to a number of different reasons, not least the fact that GTA V has already taken away everyone’s time and finances. But the main issue is likely to be indecision over the next generation consoles. With Sony and Microsoft launching their latest video game consoles, PlayStation 4 and Xbox 1, in just around a month’s time, people are not sure whether they will buy the game on their current game console or the future generations.

Whatever the reason is, this incident has put me into questioning the marketing team of EA Sports. Whether the drop was because of the launch of GTA V or gamers’ indecision over game consoles, the marketing team is responsible for all of the above.

References:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/09/30/fifa-14-ousts-gta-v-from-uk-number-one-but-sales-down-24-4128045/

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-09-30-uk-chart-fifa-14-sales-down-on-last-years-fifa-13-by-24-percent

Being one of the most anticipated initial public offerings since Facebook, social-networking phenomenon Twitter has recently revealed its plans to focus on expanding internationally rather than just catering to its users in the United States. An outstanding 77% of its active users in the past three months were from outside the US, and many potential investors and analysts see great potential in its international growth. However, Twitter’s advertisement system is still largely undeveloped compared to its social-networking rival Facebook. This revenue stream holds the tremendous potential at the moment and if Twitter is not careful in developing it then the company could end up like Facebook on the stock exchange. Twitter will need to evolve and adapt its development strategies in order to accommodate the different countries around the world it’s targeting.

Countries with authoritarian governments like China have become a large obstacle for Twitter. Its massive potential market for social networking services has already turned over to other its own solutions such as Weibo, Wechat, and Whatsapp as websites such as Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter have been banned. China, emerging as an economic super-giant holds great influence in social media as there are already a significant number of users using these websites in the neighbouring countries of China and even North America. Twitter will need to work extremely carefully with marketers in order to successfully expand overseas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/business/twitters-ipo-plan-has-an-international-focus.html?ref=media

Blackberry has just received a monstrous $934 million loss due to their inventory charge on unsold Z10 smart phones. They had extremely high hopes for this new smart phone release, believing that it would be the solution in their quest to regain their previous stronghold in the smartphone market. The physical keyboard that Blackberry had previously built into their phones was very attractive to text communicating consumers. I believe this particular segment of customers represented a high percentage of their overall customer base. With an all touch screen front and no physical buttons, I’d say that their new smartphone was tailored to lure in a younger audience; however, I believe this new design may have had the unintentional side effect of causing it to be more closely compared to their main competitor’s product, the iPhone 5S. With relatively similar designs, the main comparison points between the two would essentially be brand name, functionality, and price. With Apple having successfully marketed their smartphone as “premium”, Blackberry’s Z10 appears to be “second tier” in comparison. It would have been beneficial for Blackberry to “test the waters” and get an idea of how well their new product would do over a trial period, even if this would inevitably lead to a higher demand than supply. A higher demand would have been much less dangerous to Blackberry than the current reality they face.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/mobile/20680/blackberry-hit-934m-inventory-charge-over-unsold-z10-smartphones