Beyond Thinking : Bord Gais

Bord Gais (An Irish Gas & Electricity provider) are no strangers when it comes to trying out new ideas in their marketing communications. To announce their foray into the electricity market in 2009 they spoke to bloggers ahead of the mainstream media to get their take on it all. That was incredibly well received. Earlier today they announced the launch of their new iPhone App, Think Beyond. The free app, available from today, allows consumers to check account balances, billing dates and transaction history for their electricity and gas. A future version will allow customers to monitor usage of power in the home.

So how do you go about launching an app like this? Think of your target audience – people with smartphones. They don’t necessarily have to be Bord Gais customers, but providing such a useful app may make non customers consider becoming customers. This is combination of early adopters, office/desk/pc bound who will gladly give up some time for a reward. So how can these people be reached in a way that generates buzz, ‘beyond’ what would be achievable in traditional media? Design a bunch of activities for them to take part in, offer some really cool prizes, use Twitter for its real time updates, it’s ability to post photo’s, and use those taking part to help spread word of the app and competition virally amongst a much wider audience.

Quick Guide To Twitter

Twitter is literally everywhere, everybody is using it, talking about using it or is staunchly against the hype. I have been trying to grasp Twitter of late, the concept of knowing what people are doing every hour of the day is a bit much. But in the business world I can see its uses; for building and maintaining relationships with customers, as a means to provide customer services and for PR purposes. It is about promotion of what you or your company is doing, interacting with new and existing customers to deliver a better all round service. This makes it a useful tool to augment existing activities that are already in place. As founder Biz Stone said ‘it’s the messaging service we didn’t know we needed until after we had it’.

Twitter Founder On Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert interviews Twitter founder Biz Stone on last Thursday’s show – “Twitter is the messaging service we didnt know we needed until we had it”. The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Biz Stone comedycentral.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Random Things From The Week

A quick post of a few interesting things I found this week; An overview of Skittles Twitter fiasco. Such an idea was always open to abuse, almost like kids (or MBS students!) left in a classroom, there always needs to be a little guidance. On the subject of Twitter in marketing, here’s a webinar on [...]