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Controversial Viral Campaign

The film Speedbandits was intended to stop young Danish men from speeding, but lately is has stirred up quite a controversy because it shows women with naked breasts holding speed limit signs.

The film is a pastiche on a journalistic  segment about a fictitious campaign to stop speeding.

To sum up the criticism it centers on the fact that an official body like The Danish Road Safety Council engages in sexual rhetorics of this nature. Also politicians has called the film demeaning to women.

The proponents say the film is just right for the target group: young male drivers. I tend to agree. Mostly because the film communicates with a clear and humorous twist that you don't see in other communication to this age group. Modern commercials, music videos and pc games are full of sexual content but very often the communication does not contain the same ironic distance to the subject matter that "Speedbandits" does.

Also the film is a viral endeavor. Using the Internet as a vehicle for distribution has immense potential when you want to reach this specific target group. But in order to get young people to send links to friends and family you have to be innovative. The competition is tough.

Moreover you really have to look at the aim of the film. We already know that young guys are going to be thinking about breasts :-) But the Danish Road Safety Council says that the film has also has made young male drivers think more about reducing speed.

Success For Wikipedia

Wikipedia is now among the ten most popular Web sites in the U.S, reports Yahoo News.

The site passed the threshold to the top ten in January where it ranked ninth with 42.9 million unique visitors putting the collaborative encyclopedia ahead of sites like The New York Times (number 10), Apple Inc. (number 11), and Viacom International Inc. (number 12).

January last year, Wikipedia was the 33rd most visited Web site in the US with 18.3 million unique visitors.

Globally Wikipedia has been among the top ten most popular sites for some time.

All in all the significant increase in number of visitors strongly indicates that Web Sites, where users create content in collaboration, really do have a place in this world :-) 

Why CEOs Should Engage In Customer Dialouge

Who do you complain to when you're not satisfied with a company's Customer Services? Well you ought to be able to write the CEO or at least the director of Customer Services. But in a small survey I've conducted I've found that almost no major companies publicize the e-mail addresses for directors or CEOs. It's as if the managerial sphere in these companies is impossible for customers to reach. This rings awesomely false in a Cluetrain-era where making yourself available for dialog is alfa and omega for the relationship any given company has with it's customers.

In a concrete and recent case my wife tried to complain to KLM over a fare they had not refunded. Numerous calls to Customer Services got her nowhere. Next step was trying to locate the e-mail-address of the director for Customer Services on the KLM Web Site. Not possible. And looking for the e-mail address of the CEO didn't get her much further. Today weeks later there's still no wind of the money. All in all she's stuck in a rut and we're seriously considering shopping with other airlines next time we travel.

My point is that all companies will have its share of cases like this, where Customer Services mess up or cannot solve a problem quickly enough. Mistakes will happen. But by making other channels of communication available companies may save themselves from fleeing customers.

If KLM for instance gave its customers a chance of e-mailing the director of Customer Services or the CEO of the company they would come off as a company open to dialog with customers (if one of the two actually answered the mail of course). I'm well aware that this would put an extra burden on the managers of this world. But in reality it's a burden with a fat ROI: Happy and returning customers.