Month: October 2015

Pebble, one of the first manufacturers of the smartwatch recently announced their latest invention, a circular smartwatch called Pebble Time Round.

With the release of the Apple Watch earlier this year, coupled by the many Android watches surfacing, the competition in the smartwatch industry is definitely heating up.

Pebble’s latest smartwatch aims to capture new and existing market share with the introduction of Pebble Time Round. With similar existing Pebble features plus the addition of an arguably beautiful-looking watch, Pebble aims to position themselves as a fashionable wearable.

And it is proving to be rather successful in positioning themselves as a fashion product. Early critics have praised Pebble’s new take on the design and many are eager to try on the Time Round.

What I think Pebble should focus on now is to try and push their product out to the market as soon as they can and get their brand recognition out before other competitors follow suit. There are also rumours of an Apple Watch 2 launching early next year and Pebble should take into account of such news.

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Twitch, the live streaming video platform that primarily focuses on video games was acquired by Amazon in August last year for US$970 million.

Watching video game footage has become an increasingly popular activity among many gamers and non-gamers alike and it is evidenced through the success of Pew Die Pie, a 25 year old video game commentator who has the most subscribed Youtube channel.

Therefore, it makes sense that many would consume the content on Twitch, given the rising trend of watching live video game footage. What I find interesting is how Twitch partners (broadcasters) earn money from this and how marketers/companies work together with them to do so. Aside from getting viewers to subscribe to a person’s Twitch channel, one could also obtain revenue through advertising which come in the form of:

• Commercials – which would be played in between play times. Twitch partners would generally play 3-4 ad commercials each hour.
• Sponsored content – most Twitch partners have a webcam to show themselves and they would generally wear/use sponsored content that audiences can observe.
• In-game advertising – this form of advertising, can and should be improved in my opinion. What this form of advertising means is basically, placing specifically targeted ads in the actual game that the broadcaster is playing. This could mean the ‘character’ in the game using sponsored content (eg. an in-game character wearing a company’s shirt).

Overall, I feel that to appeal to the right audience (gamers in this instance), marketers must be able to target them effectively by using the right methods. Only then would they be able to get more eyeballs to focus on their brand/product to increase brand awareness, which possibly leads to purchases in the future.

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New Snapchat data that was gathered by multiple sources reveal several interesting facts for marketers looking to increase their fan base and gain more profits. Point #4 and #6 particularly, show just how important Snapchat is to those consuming social media content daily.

Point #4 states that according to a Piper Jaffray survey, Snapchat is more popular among American teens than Facebook, while point #6 states that Snapchat gets 4 billion video views a day, which is the same number as Facebook.

According to these reports, the numbers are staggering. Snapchat is proving to be a powerhouse social media platform that competitors should not be taking lightly.

Snapchat is showing no signs of stopping and there’s now much less reason to write them off as “a silly toy only children will use”.

The facts show that a large number of Snapchat’s users are teens and going forward, Snapchat has to decide whether they should continue focusing on this target demographic or to rethink their strategies and appeal more broadly to a larger audience, just as Facebook, Twitter and every other social media platform has done before it.

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