Serendipity, chance meetings and other stories

I don't know if it's just me, but I seem to consistently bump into a lot of people I used to know completely out of the blue.

A couple of weeks back, I was due to go to my friend's house for dinner after work. She bailed out of cooking me dinner (which is a shame, because she's a fantastic cook) so she took me for dinner at Brown's instead. I've never been before and it's a great place. No sooner had we sat down for dinner, but James, a photographer, whom I hadn't seen in at least 7 or 8 years, came in and sat at the table next to us. Of course I went over and had a good catch up with him which was lovely. And I thought not much more of it.

Then at the weekend, I went to Fruitstock in Regent's Park - a fabulous free festival from the people who bring us Innocent Fruit Smoothies. I ended up going along later than planned with my friend Sarah. We were just walking up to the main festival when I bumped into Jane Cooney who I used to work with at Episode in their flagship store in Knightsbridge. Now I haven't seen her for 12 years. She's gone from retail to motherhood (3 very gorgeous children) and is now a swimming teacher.

And then on my way home from Fruitstock, I decided to walk from Tooting Broadway tube up to my house as it was a nice evening (I usually get a bus or a taxi). So again, not my normal route and I bump into Liam from Streatham who was my ex boyf's best friend whom I haven't seen in at least 10 years.

Does this stuff happen to anyone else or is it just me whose past comes back and bites her on the bum?

Land Rover backs new Range Rover with mobile game

Another bit of news via Brand Republic - Land Rover has teamed up with Blue Sphere Games to create a Range Rover driving game. Looks like a pretty good game to me and an innovative way to market your product. So I thought I'd check it out and test the game for myself.

But just a minute, this isn't for marketing. This is a licensing deal and Blue Sphere Games is selling the game via its distribution network. And that it's going to be distributed via the network operators who will promote it 'as they see fit' and there will be an internet campaign run in-house by the games company.

So I thought I'd check it out still and see how much it was selling for and where it was available. Except that it's not for sale yet and I can't see anywhere that it's available. I tried various sites: Land Rover, Blue Sphere Games, various mobile content companies and a couple of network operators. And I couldn't see hide nor hair of the game.

Joined up marketing? I don't think so. Shame, this one could have been so good and a real chance to show how creating mobile media can be an integral part of your marketing effort. Or maybe I'm being a little harsh and the press release went out too early...

Coldplay, bluetooth, mobile content, data protection

I've just been reading about the success of the Coldplay campaign on Brand Republic to promote their new album X&Y and it seems like it has been a wonderful hit with fans. The record company offered music clips, interviews etc to fans via bluetooth at mainline stations in London. And it seems that 13,000 fans accessed the content, some 15% response rate. Great, some innovation at last.

But hang on, let's rewind and just work out how that bluetooth bit worked... Posters alerted fans to turn on their bluetooth so that they can be "discovered". The bluetooth engine is in constant search mode and hunts down devices that have their bluetooth switched on and sends a message to ask them if they want some free Coldplay stuff. And if they click yes, then they can access it.

But what about the 85% of customers who just happened to have their bluetooth on anyway - maybe to connect to their bluetooth headset for example, or for their phone and PDA to talk to each other? Just by switching on bluetooth does not give the advertiser permission to search for every mobile out there and send them a message saying 'may I send you a message please' in the hope that some of those devices are in the possession of willing consumers.

So unfortunately, as far as I can tell, this seems to contravene the EU privacy laws and data protection act. Until customers can filter out unwanted bluetooth messages so there is true opt-in, then I just don't see how this is legal, regardless of how popular it is or isn't, or how well it works. The law's the law isn't it?

Russell Buckley over at Mobhappy goes into it in more detail. This bluespamming thing is something he's been commenting on for a while.

What do other people think? Is it bluecasting or bluespamming?

Dirty Hippo spams again

I do not live in America
I do not have a 'cell phone', I have a mobile phone (that's what we call them this side of the pond)
I'm not a teenager
I'm not in the target group for Trick Daddy or Ja Rule ringtones or pictures. Who is Trick Daddy anyway? So why does Dirty Hippo think it should be emailing me to advertise its ringtones and wallpapers?

Not only that, but the email address they're using for me is not only obsolete and has been ripped off a website somewhere, but it is a business address not personal. I have many email accounts and the one they're using for me is not one of them.

I have now had the very same email, sent to the same dodgy email address 4 times in less than 2 weeks. It gets picked up straight away by my spam filter (cos it is) but I fished it out as it keeps catching my eye and I wanted to find out a bit more about what was behind it.

I don't know who harvested my email address but they can't spell...

"We are only concered (sic) with mailing interested users. You have received this message because you signed up and registerred (sic) with us or one of our affiliates. If you wish to be removed from future mailings please click this banner to unsubscribe.

We do not endorse or guarantee any of the goods and/or services advertised herein. You may contact us to be removed from our mailing list by sending a letter to:
Unsubscribe Request
449 S. Federal Highway
Pompano Beach FL 33062"

The email purports to be from "Ringtones [service@galaga2.com]" and on inspection, the domain name seems to be registered to Wes Savage. And on further googling, it appears that domains registered to Wes Savage, including www.galaga2.com seem to be on some spam blacklists. I can't say I'm entirely surprised.

Dirty Hippo (owned by Buongiorno), what are you thinking?! This is not intelligent marketing. You should know better than to stoop to these depths. Or am I just being commercially naive?

Regent Street Shocker!

I was up in central London yesterday for a meeting and before heading back to the office I thought I'd have a mooch round my favourite shops. Now I'm already gutted that Dickins & Jones is closing down. It's my favourite department store and has a character all of its own and I spend a lot of money there. I understand the commercial rationale behind the closure, but I was nevertheless hugely disappointed at the news.

And then, I was about to nip into Laura Ashley, another of my favourite stores to see what they had in the sale. I bought a lovely blouse there recently and I love the fabrics (I'm a bit of a whizz with a sewing machine and have a cupboard full of Laura Ashley fabrics from the 80s). And that had closed down too! Somehow I'd missed the news. Double gutted :-(

It's only taken me 11 months...

to work out that there's a light on my phone (a Sony Ericsson K700i) (and it's only 2 weeks until I can upgrade). I stumbled on it a couple of week s back when I was playing around with the camera and noticed that there was an option for 'light' on/off. And amazingly it turns a very powerful light on which kinda works like a flash. Except if you look at my pictures on flickr or moblog, you'll see that my nightwork pictures aren't much cop. Anyway, having discovered this very useful gizmo on my phone, I have since used it for all kinds of things. It made me particularly popular last week when I was at the launch party of Living the Moment at the Proud Galleries in Camden (courtesy of young Alfie). I was queuing in the ladies when the lights went out (I think they were trying to get rid of us at the end of the vening). Anyway, I turned my light on and lit the whole room - really handy. Thank you Sony Ericsson. Now if only you could communicate these useful phone things to customers that would be even better! I shall be upgrading soon, and I wonder how long it will take me to work out how to use my new phone!

Photo taken from Sixth Seal where there's a good review of the K700i.