Category Archives: Electronics

Grandma Gangnam Style

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Today, I thought I’d share a light-hearted personal story.

So, I have a grandmother who is 79 years old. She lived very close to our family growing up, so naturally, our family has a very close relationship with her. Ever since I came to Canada she misses me tremendously and always lets me know of it as well. Although she is almost 80, she is still very mentally agile, and when the iPad 2 was about to come out, I demanded my dad to buy her one. All I expected her to be able to do with her iPad 2 was for her to make Facetime calls to see my face every now and then. Ever since then, she has been using it to listen to radios through Internet, read the news, browse the web, play Tetris & Angry Bird, send me messages with picture attached, oh and of course, lets not forget Facetime. Her latest pastime is searching for YouTube videos and Podcasts – Can you believe she brought up Psy’s Gangnam Style before I even thought of mentioning him because she watched his video on her own?

Betty, you got competition.

Yes, I love technology and I am a rational consumer who is aware that Apple is not the only one innovating these days. But there is something to be said about creating a software that achieves such intuitive integration with its hardware that an 79 year-old lady, who can’t operate a computer to save her life, can learn to communicate through it and consume digital contents on it. On paper, Apple may not wow anyone, but in experience, it still wows me whenever I get a Skype call from my grandma.

By the way, her new iPad mini just arrived last week. There is something very strange about our family picture if my sister is getting my grandma’s iPad 2 as a hand-me-down, as she gets the spanking new iPad mini. Strange indeed.

Blend in Your Product with What Everyone Is Talking About

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rofgMueCOqo&feature=plcp]

Last week in my e-Marketing class, Paul showed us a video made by Blendtec, a company that manufactures premium blenders that sell for hundreds of dollars. Tom Dickson, CEO of Blendtec, has been starring in his company videos for years, delivering humor and entertainment for countless viewers by answering one question: Will it blend?

The man has blended iPhones, iPads, superglues, and more things that would make you think, “Why would you even think to blend that? But I’m curious now cause nobody probably ever will again.” For a company that makes such premium products, those gadgets are probably very cheap alternatives for what they would have spend on a full-fledged marketing campaign of the same impact.

He posted a new video today blending both iPhone 5 & Samsung Galaxy S3 side by side. It occurred to me that Blendtec is not just blending whatever gadgets in their hands or just any high-priced items randomly. They have blended roses on Valentine’s Day, skeletons on Halloween, and now they are blending the phones of these two companies, who seem to make the headlines day after day for their rivalry, to tap into another question that has been drilled into consumers minds over these recent months: Which is the better phone?

Blendtec

They are reading into what is most relevant and current to the demographics and making it the topic of the video for maximum impact. I’ve watched many of his videos over the years but never made that simple connection. I guess I just mindlessly clicked on those videos. While not every single one of their videos is viral, many of them garnered respectable amount of viewer counts for its production value. It’s a good example that one can’t hope to create a viral marketing campaign without understanding the target audience.

Can Slate Make a Splash?

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=des3dpKtfIM&feature=plcp]

While the media is buzzing again with iPad mini around the corner, Microsoft just announced the specifics of pricing and availability for the upcoming Windows 8 RT version of Slate. It’s a toned down version of Windows 8 that’s aimed at the tablet market. I love the idea of Windows 8 tablets, but the pricing makes me pause a little. An entry-level surface with 32GB capacity starts at $499 without the touch-sensitive keyboard cover featured in the video, while one with the cover costs $599. For $699, you can go up a capacity to 64GB with the cover included.

Now as a disclaimer, I’ve been very interested in Windows 8 tablets in general for a while. I also really like the commercial. It is not your regular “look at our product, look at it some more, and a little more,” but it has a heart-warming entertainment in it. But since the early announcement of the product, I subconsciously framed the RT Slate as a tablet since it can’t run x86 based programs, and would provide a full Windows 8 experience, and framed the pricier Windows 8 tablets as a fully functioning Windows computer in your hand. When they announced that they are going to have an RT version to have a competitive price point with the competitors, I imagined they were going to price the RT Slate lower than at $500, for the sheer purpose of market penetration.

Among countless contenders, I can only think of Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 as the ones who succeeded to take a bite out of that Apple’s market share. I am sure Windows 8 tablets are here to stay, but how fast they will make people put down the tablets they already own and pick theirs up instead will be interesting to watch.