I am sorry. But anybody who has the intelligence capacity, or lack thereof, to run up a telephone bill of $85k should be shot and his body cremated so that the organs cannot be donated to another unfortunate soul.

Canadian, Piotr Staniaszek, thought he could use his “$10 unlimited mobile browser plan from Bell Mobility” as cheap access point to the internet to browse, download and download some more to his heart’s content without being charged additional costs.

His defense for running up the bill now appears to lie somewhere between lack of communication, ignorance and stupidity. Ok, fair enough, the last two was added by me.

As if that isn’t enough, He said he thought the first bill for $65,000 in November was a mistake.

When he spoke to Bell Mobility he was informed the bill had climbed to nearly $85,000 after more downloading.

He downloaded high-definition movies and other large files unaware that this incurred massive extra charges.

Bell Mobility has since lowered the bill to $3,243, but Mr Staniaszek says he intends to fight the charges anyway.

Then he delivers the killer line that erases all reasonable doubt for me on his mental stability.

The thing is, they’ve cut my phone off for being like $100 over,” he told CBC News.

Here, I’m $85,000 over and nobody bothered to give me a call and tell me what was going on.

So this article spurred me on to draft a list of the type of people who should be shot for owning a mobile phone:

1. Piotr Staniaszek (for obvious reasons)

2. People who pay additional costs for a state-of-the-art phone but hardly even use it to make calls

3. The same people in point #2 who then come to me to asking to explain to them what some of the phone’s features are

4. People who use “Meisie meisie”, the farting noise, the ambulance siren or the standard Nokia tone (Yes, you too) as ring tone

5. People like Kurt Darren who use “Meisie meisie” tunes as ring tones

6. People driving on the highway at 60km per hour in the fast lane chatting on their phones

7. People who speak on their phones like it’s a walkie-talkie (Have you seen those kids?)

8. Women who think mobile phones is an excellent weapon to use in matrimonial disagreements

9. Men who think the model of their mobile phones represent the size of their wallets and other parts of their anatomy (take a drive through Clifton, Seapoint and you’ll know what I mean)

10. People who’ve bought those clip-on thingies to wear their mobile phone like a 9mm pistol (On their belts)

11. People in #10 that tuck in their shirts to show off their “gun”

12. People in #10, 11 that wear khaki shirts and matching pants with it

13. People in #10, 11, 12 who’s phone is actually the Nokia 3210

14. People who prefer, after 8 years, to still choose the Nokia 3210 when eligible for an upgrade because “It has everything I need in a phone” (Sorry dad!)

15. Some people in my office that does all of the above

Please add some more in the comments section.

It’s not often that I write proudly South African articles, although I definitely should. Because regardless of the perennial diatribe often spewed at the misfortunes of our politico, the poor performances of our national sports teams (bar the Springboks of course) and the crime rate that escalates quicker than the interest rate, ours is a country full of remarkable people doing remarkable things.

Usually, round about now one would expect lists of all the top jocks and sassy gals that perform wondrously in the online arena, so that is why I will revert to articulating my praise to a single platform.

The future of the internet lies in the vehicles society uses to access it. It is no surprise then that in South Africa, one of those vehicles are (will be) predominantly our mobile devices. Some sceptico (I love making up words) will of course differ vastly from me, but these are also the people I’ve called naive and ignorant in a previous post.

Evidence of this is the amount of people I know that access popular sites like Facebook via their mobile phones. You’ll find many people blog and twitter from their mobile phones too, some of these people leading professionals and high society role players.

In fact, you’ll find more people doing more things via their mobile phones these days, including the early adopters, one of which I call mom, than ever before. The reason for this is quite simple and it because South Africa boasts with 39 million active SIM card holders opposed to only about 5 million internet account holders.

That, according to Vodacom, is a 90% penetration rate which is astonishing.

In fact, so pertinent is mobile technology that Nokia, the mobile emperor of the world, has partnered with South African developed social video and image networking site, Zoopy.

Newsworthy? Well, maybe not so much, partly because the older generation probably doesn’t even know Zoopy. But considering that Nokia has also partnered with probably three of the biggest video and imaging platforms in internet history, Flickr, Youtube and Vox, I believe puts the achievements of Zoopy in perspective.

Heading back to the ignorants, what has this got to do with your business? Well, pretty much in fact. So influential is the youth market and early adopters, that it is safe to imply that they are the trend setters of internet productivity and commerce.

In other words, they are paving the way of the future in terms of communications, commerce and networking. The quicker we as marketers and businesses realise this, the better we will be able to align ourselves with our customers.

I remember my teenage years vividly. I was very impressed with the Winfield advertisements and commercials. It carried the essence of manlihood, rugby and satisfaction. I was too young to smoke back then, but I knew that Winfield epitomised the “Maxi-Man”. I wanted to be that guy when I grow up. Esteemed, in the know and well associated with the sport of men.

The youth market is something hot on the lips of marketers and businesses, but something rather reluctantly pursued. For we (I included) know just how menacing teenagers can be. How a seemingly simple approach could amplify their distrust, distaste and “so not cool dude” attitude to their peers.

Let’s face it, we’re scared. We have a brand to protect. Not to mention our ego. And even worse, they hang about these weird places like Facebook and Youtube these days. Things I’ve heard of, but not likely something I’d bother to invest in. I can’t even manage to have him sit still and listen to me for one minute.

And the last time I asked if I could drop him off somewhere, his “friend” with the tattoo and weird peircings ogled at me as if I’m from another planet.

Remember the days when we as teenagers watched 3.2 hours of TV a day, listened to 2.3 hours of radio a day, read 1.7 newspapers per day and 3.3 magazines each week?

Do they do that today? Unlikely. But I reckon we can just ignore them until they grow up and transcend back to normal human beings.

The chances of that happening are even less my fellow people. They grow up with more savvy, more knowledge and a stronger opinion than you have ever dreamed of having. Their voices carry more influential substance than your greatest public speech or television interview.

If you do not believe this, then I’m willing the venture a guess that you’re probably a very gullible and naïve person. Straight up.

This is all well documented and understood by most, but the real issue lies not in acknowledging fact. It lies in implementing fact into a strategy that could ensure actual returns, a reputation that’s intact and brand that is engaging the emerging market to great effect.

We know they won’t appreciate your authoritarian television commercial. They also don’t click on your banner ads or pay the slightest reaction to your grandiose testimonials, quarterly reports or inflated bottom line.

They’re willing to participate in a brand that provides them with an incentive. It is in their inner being to expect something back for their time and effort. And that trend will continue from hereon in.

There’s a couple of things that should be at the top of anyone’s mind willing to engage the youth market and looking to do it right:

1. Engage them using their medium of choice, not yours.
Mobile marketing is top of the list. Social networking sites such as Facebook, blogs, Mxit, Youtube et al are all platforms they frequent. Fortunately, these platforms also allow them to pay your message forward to your friends very easily.

2. Make it worth their while.
Like a kid willing to do you a favour if you give something back, so to will they be willing to experiment with your products or services if you are willing to incentivise it.

3. Make sure they think it is cool enough. Not your wife, not your product manager, but them.
The coolness factor is important. This will change over time, but best would be to research popular trends, hot topics and engaging matters to grab their attention. Once you have their attention, it is yours to mess up.

4. It has to make them feel part of your brand.
Gone are the days when your brand is forced down their throats. These days they’ll tell you straight up that you suck and they’ll make damn sure their friends know about it too. You need to plan your campaign that would interest them in associating with you.

As you can see from these 4 points is that everything is about them. It has always been about them and one of the biggest reasons we’re getting it wrong is because we continue to build our marketing campaigns around our brands.

Are you contemplating taking on the most difficult market of them all? Share your wisdom and fears here and let’s make sure these campaigns are successful the first time.

I believe most of my friends and family know that I am in desperate search of a new vehicle. If you’re not in the mood for a rant, then best would be to avert your eyes. If you’re willing to continue, brace yourself, it might get ugly.

It’s been a two months from hell for me. I’ve visited numerous car dealerships’ websites, Google’d a lot of vehicle models and even sent 34 e-mails to dealers across the country. I’ll have you know that I am no closer to finding the car that matches my style, my wallet and my image.

Have I paid a visit to a local dealer? Hell no. The first time I’ll set foot in a dealership is when I test-drive a vehicle. I just don’t have the time or the desire to be inundated with conspicuous sales pitches, badly crafted hairstyles and business cards before we get to the handshake.

I believe technology has put me in a position where I can focus on my business hours and my social life to the extent that the effort of driving places and wasting petrol and money is only needed to put pen to paper.

The less I am subjected to peer sales-pressure, the better. The less time used arguing (some call it negotiating) on prices, interior styles, colour and maintenance plans the better.

Here is the deal. Did you guys know I own a mobile phone? Do you even know what I mobile phone is? Yes, it is that device you use to call your wife from the pub after a big sale to lessen the trouble you’ll undoubtedly be in when you get home.

So if you’re going to be in heaps of trouble anyway, why not put mobile to better use than calling the missus. Use it to let me know of the latest cars on your floor, the price and the specs. Allow me to book a darn test drive via reply text. Better yet, allow me to negotiate a price using my phone.

It is this seemingly simple value added service that would almost certainly grant your dealership or your manufacturer a better relationship with me, your potential client. I have ranted about the poor episode I had with one Peugeot dealer before. Are there any other Peugeot dealers out there willing to take a shot at getting in my good books?

This is a public outcry: I really want a vehicle. Here is my number: 082 223 9354. Send me pictures of your cars (not the pictures from your brochure, the actual car), their prices and their specs. Please. Don’t call me, else this will happen.

Not just you Peugeot. I’m also in the market for Volkswagen. Your Polo TDi’s are fabulous. Second hand or demo’s are perfect as new cars’ value depreciation makes me feel nauseous.

To all other businesses out there: Did you know that your customer’s mobile phone is their most valued asset? Once they’ve granted you access to their personal communications device, you’ve got it made.

Anyone else still dumbfounded by the lack of understanding from businesses on the potency of mobile communications?

At the end of the day I’m still a consumer and proud to be one. I believe that despite being a marketer, I too have the right to throw my toys from the cot.

[Note: For experimental reasons, sharing this post to register response would be most welcomed]

From a recent analysis it was found that banner advertising is dying very quickly. Looking back, in reality, banner advertising never stood much of a chance at a good life anyway, at least not independently.

So what is the fixation marketers have with banner advertising and why is it a multi-billion dollar industry?

The short answer is twofold:

1. It is easy to track clicks. Marketers use clicks to sell advertising against.
2. There’s really no other way to track the effectiveness of banner advertising.

Here is a short summation of the report conducted in the US:

1. Most people do not click on ads, and those that do are by no means representative of Web users at large.

2. Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often.

3. Who are these “heavy clickers”? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older.

Assumptions derived from these findings indicate some interesting points:

1. Clickers are more representative of lower income households than the average user.

2. They are less educated than the average user (or from less-educated environments in the case of minors).

3. They are more likely to live outside of the major metro regions.

Readers of this blog will know that I’m constantly looking to improve ways in which businesses can capitalise on the web without intruding their clients’ privacy, without interrupting their experience on the web and without force feeding their products to them.

Banner advertising done well does lends a credible amount of brand awareness, especially when the ad is informative, funny, experiential and bold. These banners are not about the clicks but more about the relevant experience gained from the associated brand.

These are unfortunately difficult to measure as page impressions serve as the most accurate form of metrics.

Television advertising used to be the benchmark for advertising. With the likes of PVR and the multitude of channels available these days though, commercials tend to be skipped very easily and the effect of advertising on TV has decreased dramatically.

It does however still serve as an impressionable level of brand awareness. More and more brands turn to interactive campaigns as a means to engage consumers in participating in the campaign. The reason is to allow for greater measurement as participation can be used to warrant the budget spend and also as a means to extend the level of brand experience.

Consumer attention therefore becomes very important and the campaign material needs to be interesting enough to gain this. Therefore, we’ll find that competitions are usually the most popular drawing tool used.

It has been documented on this blog before that mobile serves as the perfect vehicle for consumer responses. Their mobiles are usually within reach of the majority of users and are perfect for everyday, everywhere advertising engagement.

So despite push campaigns (where products and services are delivered to the mobile phone), the pull campaigns are very effective in conjunction with print, radio, TV, outdoor and the web where consumers are often offered an incentive for their participation.

There are still opportunities for advertising, especially banner advertising, to serve a marketing purpose. The obvious truth is unfortunately that marketers and companies will need to keep adding interactivity, interest and inevitably sometimes more money to their campaigns to have their consumers experience the advertising in a positive light.

It is no secret that the future of marketing and advertising lies with the enormous growth of mobile communications and the advances of cellular technologies. In tandem with the other mass media tools mobile will serve as the ultimate differentiator between highly successful campaigns and the intrusive presence of (online) advertising.