About Me

My photo
I'm a final year Marketing Student with a keen interest in Social Media, advertising, and new initiatives. My final year modules include Strategic Management, International Marketing Management, Business and Services Marketing and PR in the Digital Age.

Thursday, 30 December 2010

NI Water Make A Boob.

During the lead up to the Christmas Period, Northern Ireland experienced some of the coldest conditions on record, with temperatures plummeting to -18 degrees in Castlederg and the worst snow fall for 25 years. Christmas morning for me was a chilly -16 degrees. Fast forward 24 hours and Boxing day was a positively tropical 6 degrees. However, as the temperatures rose, burst pipes from the freeze began to drain reservoirs of their stores, commencing the nightmare for NI Water.

Tonight, Peter Robinson condemned NI's response to the fiasco, labelling it as "shambolic" and "ineffective". More than 6,000 homes tonight remain without running water and NI water is having to rotate its supply to some 60,000 customers. This for NI Water (NIW) is a PR disaster. What could they have done differently? Two words:

SOCIAL MEDIA

As far as I can tell, NIW is yet to take advantage of Social Media channels. What adds further insult to this fact is some clever cookie has jumped the gun and started a pseudonym on Twitter unofficially as NI Water. Under the name of 'Not Really NI Water', the do-gooder is not only helpfully tweeting updates from NI Water themselves but highlighting the fact that NIW are nowhere to be seen.




All NIW engineers carry mobile phones. All engineers therefore have the ability to send a simple update via sms, detailing progress made or update those areas with or without water in real time, turning this experience into something slightly less sour. Instead, some have been without water for 12days with no idea of when it will be restored. Others have had intervals between water supplies, resulting in timid use of taps for fear of causing an airlock in the system. Burst pipes were inevitable, we all knew this. However by keeping the public in the dark NIW has somewhat signed their own fate.

The damage has been done in this case and it looks like the only way out of the fiasco is to embark on a complete overhaul on how NIW is funded and operated. This is a prime example of how simple it could have been to keep the public on-side. The money required to change NIW's reputation back round in comparison to the pennies required to update a twitter account is, well, sad to say the least.

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

First Direct do Customer Service.

I just came across this new campaign by retail bank First Direct. Boasting great Customer Service, First Direct have created  'the buddy' app, whereby smart phone users can enable location based services and find their nearest 'buddy' - a fully trained ready to help real life person. With an alleged six months training under their belt, the buddies are real life Swiss army knives, helping you with everything from getting from a to b, doing your shopping or even providing a musical backing track whilst you propose to your other half. Quite a stunt. Whilst it's pretty light hearted, it does highlight the beauty of Customer Service and how important it is in society today.


Monday, 30 August 2010

Food Safety Labels

There has been a lot of chat recently regarding the amount of food wasted in Britain. Everyone has an opinion on the matter, one of which regarding the 'best before dates'. Many items of food have a singular use by date. However, others have a date for shelf life, for 'best before' and for 'use by'. Environment minister, Hilary Benn, has called for consumers to ignore best before labels, claiming that they should be able to decide for themselves if their food is good to be eaten or not. The aim is to have a singular, 'use by' date, so that the 6.7 million tonnes of food thrown away every year can be reduced.

Perhaps the government should have a look at what Japanese design agency TO-GENKYO  has designed. Hour glass shaped labels printed using a special ink that changes colour as ammonia is released, have been added to packaged meat. As the meat ages, it releases increasing amounts of the substance, obscuring the barcode at the bottom. Customers can quickly see if the meat is going bad – and when the barcode becomes completely covered, it can’t be scanned. Granted this method would only work on certain foods, it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Generating a Buzz.

I hate flies. Dirty little doofers buzzing around the place, what use are they in this world?
Well, a company at a German Tradeshow recently found them their calling in life… as banner ad pilots! A stroke of genius - the weight of the banners means the flies fly at eye level and have to take frequent breaks resulting in a quick distribution, and generating quite a buzz. (ha).