iPad - putting the magic back in magazines

 Harry Potter - The Daily Prophet

One of the most exciting things about the iPad for me is the way it's revolutionising publishing, magazines in particular. A few years back, magazines  had a lot of trouble moving from hardcopy to online and most of them failed dismally. They lost all the lustre and power of the magazine format in the translation, forsaking big, glossy pictures and straightjacketing themselves into copy heavy, image poor formats. Now the iPad is giving those with imagination a new lease of life. The hybrid format, both tactile and virtual - and big - allows publslishers to make magazines magical again. Magical enough - dare I say - to pay for them.

Harvey Norman's mystery shopping

I happened to turn on Sunrise this morning and there was Gerry Harvey doing some mystery shopping - in fact, highlighting poor customer service in his own Harvey Norman stores. While some might say he's taken leave of his senses, it suggested a level of transparency and bravery that most retailers wouldn't dare to match. It was also quite amusing to see Gerry Harvey with a prosthetic nose and to witness the responses from his sales staff to the "customer's" queries, such as "Well they're all for sale".

In order to solve a problem, you first have to acknowledge it exists. This was a public act of recognition of bad customer service with an implicit promise that things would change. And on Today Tonight this evening, Gerry Harvey will be giving his shopping tips for getting the best price.

We talk about "branded utility" - brands providing some useful tool or service to consumers. It's normally used in the context of the digital or social media space, for example, the Nike + training system that lets runners record and share their running data. But Harvey equally displays branded utility - he's championing a consumer cause of better customer service and sharing a useful skill of negotiation.

Samsung Shakedown

I love this Samsung campaign. It gets people involved with the product from the offset and taps into their innate sense of fun and playfulness. It uses technology to create nostalgia - I'm reminded of those dodgy fairground games of my youth.