Looking for an ambassador (fail)

Last month Geberit organized the contest ‘Beste Fitter van Nederland 2011’.
After five laps it was time for the final. The winner got great honor and won a price. However for Geberit it is really important that the winner become the ambassador of the contest and other marketing communication activities during the coming year.  
So, it is really important that the person who won the contest is suitable as an ambassador. Last year the contest was first held and then the right person won,  a charismatic and communicative person, so a real ambassador. However, the winner is chosen because of his plumber skills and not because of his communicative talent. On the other hand it is really important for Geberit that the winner is quite communicative, so he is a good ambassador for the contest. Therefore it was exciting to see who won this year. This year the winner is  a quiet person, a doer not a talker, not a real ambassador, so Geberit, what now?

Summer hit 2011?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMYfEFJVjCU

‘Andre Rouvoet leaves politics- What will remain of his principles?’

This header on Nu.nl remind to other politicians who left the politics. Mostly, politicians has a lot of principles while they work in Den Haag. When they are in politics they stand for their principles and defend these in every possible way, however when they leave politics sometimes these principles disappear. One good example of this type of politicians is Thom de Graaf (D66)

Thom de Graaf had one great wish, a case for which he wanted to fight and that was the elected mayor. Not chosen by the queen, but the people should decide who the mayor is. Thom made a draft law, was every evening on television to show his plans and finally the government had to decide whether the law would be approved. Finally the law wasn’t approved and Thom de Graaf decided to leave the politics.

But what happened some months later?  The person who really fight for the elected mayor became mayor of Nijmegen. In contrast to his principles he was selected by the queen and not elected by the people. Did Thom change his mind, is it then better that the mayor has been elected by the queen?.....Did he need a job? Or was his principle, the case he fight for, not that important? In this perspective it is not strange that people lose their faith in politicians. They are able to change their views and principles completely in a couple of months.

Prof. Dr. Postma on spotting fake paintings, A.I. and face recognition

ARTificial Intelligence - Prof. Dr. Eric Postma teaches about Artificial Intelligence at the University of Tilburg, one of his recent studies focuses on using computer vision techniques to detect fake paintings. In this interview we discuss this study as well as other topics that he works on that go beyond using computer vision for just paintings. One of these techniques is Facial Expression Recognition, to allow the computer to detect the nonverbal cues that humans make while interacting. One of the goals is to allow computers to engage in a nonverbal dialog with the user. For those interested in AI and Computer Vision be sure to check out the interview!

For more information about Prof. Dr. Postma and what he's currently working on take a look at; http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/nl/webwijs/show/?uid=e.o.postma

To see the interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RGO2doBMr8

Return on investment of Marketing communication

As a company it is important to produce products  what consumers really want to buy. These products should fit to the consumer needs and wishes, so the products should be reasonable priced, the quality should be important and off course the functionalities and the design of the product are important. However, when a company produces a product what really fits to the needs of the consumer it is important to be known as a company. Therefore, marketing communication is really important. There are different types of marketing communication, like TV advertising, promotional leaflets, exhibitions, a website etc.. Almost every company uses marketing communication, what costs a reasonable amount of money. However, what is the specific revenue of these activities? One of the main difficulties of marketing communication is the calculation of the return on investment (ROI) of the activity. What will be the profit of an activity after deduction of the full costs?
There exist several models to calculate these figures, however with these models it is still not easy. Which consumer buys due to the activity or would he bought the product without the activity too? This is what it makes difficult to calculate the ROI of an activity. You have to be aware of the fact that the type of marketing communication  influences the accountability of it.  
Marketing communication wherefore it is reasonable easy to calculate the ROI is by example when vouchers are used. Then it is clear which consumers bought the product due to the marketing communication activity.
In the contrary, exhibitions costs a lot of money, and it is not clear which consumers bought  the product due to the visit of the exhibition. Then it is really difficult to calculate the ROI of the activity.
So, marketing communication is a really important tool for a company and needs to be used. However,  it is not easy to calculate the ROI what makes it a sort of a controlled gamble and therefore you have to be aware of the ROI all the time (logical reasoning).
 oHoweH

Persuasive communication in vocational development.

Last week I worked at an exhibition called Skills Masters. During three days students compete to become the best cook, electrician, mechanic etc. Each stand represent a trade or business and so I had to work on the OBIT stand, what represent the installation trade. Several MBO and VMBO students fight to be the best heating installer, roof builder, bathroom installer etc of the Netherlands. During this competition the exhibition is visited by schools and their students. These students are between 12 and 15 years old and have to choose their study direction. The Skills Masters exhibition shows all possible studies and every exhibitor tries to inform and persuade the students to choose the presented studies.
Students visit the exhibition with their school and will separated in groups of 10 persons. Every group get a ‘tour guide’ and these guides ensure that the students will visit all stands. At each stand there are employees who will guide the students through the stand and tell them about the studies represented.  It sounds like a very good an useful method to inform the students about the study opportunities they have, but there seems to be a contradiction between reality and theory.

However, to communicate you need a sender and a receiver. Walking on the exhibition you can see that all senders did their work very well, but their success depends on the interaction between sender and receiver, so the receiver is really important to succeed. During my work on the exhibition it was clear to me that most of the receivers are not interested in the information and are not listening to the tour guides. A small amount of information the exhibitor want to communicate to the students will be received and so all the effort has less success.  All these companies and trade representatives tries to inform and persuade the children, they put a lot of effort in the exhibition but what will be the outcome of all this? In my opinion the outcome of the exhibition is minimal, simply because it seems the receiver is not interested in the information.

Computer Mediated Communication (CMC)

Computer mediated communication is communication by the computer. Some examples of this type of communication are MSN, E-mail but also Dating-Sites and social network sites. Since internet became normal in every household and so everybody has access to these technologies our communication has changed. The good-old Face to Face communication now has to compete against all these computer types of communication. However, are these new communication technologies a step forward or backwards? Researchers developed different theory’s, some researches think face to face communication is still the best form of communication. Other researchers think that the computer mediated communication is the best form of communication.

In my opinion both types has their advantages and off course disadvantages. Face to Face communication is mostly verbal and non-verbal. Computer mediated communication is mostly text based communication and then it is only verbal communication, but the latest technologies made it possible to communicate non-verbal too (skype/webcam/sending pictures). By Face to Face communication it is possible to share more information in a shorter time, however 
research shows that people share more intimacy in computer mediated communication than in Face to Face communication. Two conflicting theories about computed mediated communication is the rich-get-richer theory and the poor-get-richer theory. People who communicate easy in Face to Face situations are helped by CMC and so, the richer people get richer. Other researches think that people who communicate not very ease in Face to Face situations are helped to communicate by CMC. In my opinion both of the theories are true. The rich will get richer, but also the poor will get richer because they can communicate anonymous, and only when they want to communicate and to people they want to communicate with.

Overall, I think CMC is a very useful type of communication what can help a lot of people to communicate to their friends and to new people. I would say it is a rich type of communication because of all its advantages. However, be careful because in several occasions people can swap their identity.