Nescafe salesman + more things

1 minutes estimated reading time

This Nescafe salesman is hard to refuse | Hong Kong Economic Insight – interesting use of technology, the robot Nescafe salesman in supermarkets. I wonder if other FMCG brands will look at this for shopper marketing? Softbank have used similar robot salespeople in their Softbank mobile phone shops. Softbank had an incentive, since it owned the French company that made their robots.

Amazon to unveil new service for Chinese | Shanghai Daily – just in time for singles day

PRSummit: ‘Earned Media Has A Distribution Problem’ | Holmes Report – pretty interesting take on things. Earned media has a relatively short time to get viewers, particularly on online platforms, compared even to newspapers. The panelists suggested using tactics for earned media amplification due to the short viewing window. The problem I see is that ‘more credible’ is trickier to prove than paid media measures

Hong Kong can’t afford to lose the Umbrella Movement generation | Quartz – interesting analysis by Jack Ma. The loss of the umbrella movement generation would hit a city that is also greying. In addition, Hong Kong is less attractive to mainlanders than it used to be

Game Changers | Wolff Olins & Flamingo – how consumers relate to brand and what brands get it. Game Changers is a report centred around five behaviours that Wolff Olins believe are shaping the future of business. These are ‘boundaryless’, ‘experimental’, ‘value-creative’, ‘useful’ and ‘purposeful’. What this hints at is a lot o tech related jargon around agile, iterative products and services. It also covers brand purpose.

Apple Eyes New Uses for NFC Beyond iPhone Payments – The Information (paywall) – logical extension given that people like TfL are looking to do more of their ticketing using PayPass-like technology

I, Cringely How to fix IBM – I, Cringely – interesting take, however it ignores the dynamic of the management with what will be increasingly active shareholders