NCIS: Los Angeles is one program I llike to watch once in a while. SageTV records it automatically every week. I watch it whenever I’ve sometime to spare.
This week Cisco Digital Display systems signage in building J piqued my interest with a reference to NCIS: Los Angeles. As usual NCIS: Los Angeles catered to in the building J showed that my favorite show was going to feature Cisco Cius.
I’m a skeptic of the utility of Cius Tablet . I for one think Cisco would be better of creating a software for Telepresence End Point that runs in Android and iOS tablets.
Well… I’m not the product manager!!!?
I had the same thought when Cisco acquired Pure Digital (flip). I know you would say it is hindsight 20/20!.
Product placement is a marketing technique used by many companies to promote their product to much wider audience.
New products get introduced to much wider audience.
Movies and TV shows get another source of revenue
NCIS: Los Angeles is too generous in product placements.
Recently one of the episodes prompted me to search for a sexy Chrysler car in the episode. In the end it wasn’t Chrysler rather an expensive Aston Martin Rapide.
Who would’ve thought Navy detectives would drive such an expensive car.
Clever product placement.. huh.
In the “Plab B” episode, NCIS analyst Nell uses Cius in the office and (surprisingly) in the moving car, in High Def!. Nice, does that demonstrate Cius’s 3G capability!
Remember “Super Size Me?”. The same team has created another documentary that deals with the product placement in movies and TV shows, called “Greatest Movie Ever Sold” . I can’t wait to watch it (in NetFlix – ofcourse).
What goes on in the minds of Groupon management these days? Remember they turned down $6B dollar offer from Google in December, 2010. I thought it was a dumb decision by Groupon to turn down that offer from a giant internet company. They could’ve done much better with the muscle power of Google and built a strong barriers to entry for competition. It seems competition is mounting pressure everyday and the eventual successful IPO might be in jeopardy.
Today every company that has a website with reasonable traffic seems to have a desire to tap in to this “Local Deals” market and consumers are tired of it.
Local businesses are already feeling the negative effect of advertising with Groupon.
Imagine the reaction of your regular customer when they learn the discounted price somebody paid for the expensive dinner they just had.
Think about another issue, when a coupon expires Groupon shows your competitors deals “similar” offer. How would you feel about that?
What was Groupon’s strength again? Network effect? ( they had most number of local businesses posting deals with them?). How difficult it is for competition to reach out to these local businesses?
At&T has announced that it is going to launch Groupon Competitor. It makes sense, it already has a relationship with local businesses through its Yellow Page Service.
Expect announcement shortly from other Yellow Page companies. There are no barriers to entry in to this market for the entrenched players. So why wait?
