PAN Communications prSPEAK

Yesterday was April 1st, a prankster’s dream day to pull all the pranks he/she wanted and get away with it. Whether it was an innocent lie or a grand scheme that involved multiple months of planning, it’s a day to laugh at yourself, poke fun of one another and basically have fun. In today’s marketing and PR world, it seems these pranksters can even get their companies to get in on the joke.

Yesterday, IDC bought Forrester (SageCircle takes credit for this), Starbucks decided to sell new sizes, Plenta (128 fl oz) and Micra (2 fl oz), Google changed its name to Topeka and tween start Justin Bieber took over FunnyorDie.com.

With all 1086 news articles on Google this morning just about technology and April Fool’s Day from yesterday alone, one has to think whether this was good publicity for companies. As you can see from Google and Starbucks, time, energy and resources were used for this one day prank. The Starbucks release took the form of a social media release, with multiple pictures of the oversize and mini cups staged in various locations. Google also used photos (see below) to demonstrate the change and posted an entire write-up on their blog of the changes and about Topeka. These jokes, fake press releases and funny photos got everyone talking about them.

Google's April Fools Day Joke

Sometimes it’s fun to poke at oneself and take a moment to be less serious. It’s a great way to connect with people and engage with the customer.  Today’s April 2nd and everything’s back to normal. It doesn’t hurt to laugh and could be great publicity for your clients.

Technology is the single most trusted industry sector, with 79% of people saying they trust tech to do what is right, according to mediapost.com. With that level of public trust, what can other industries learn about what the technology sector is doing right?

I think it comes down to what the whole purpose of the industry is; making our lives more efficient. Innovations in technology make everyday tasks faster, easier, and of course, more fun. Technology is a vastly growing industry, with constant upgrades and changes. Consumers may buy the hottest new product this month, only to find out there’s a better version launching next month. In fact, Infosys’ co-founder and CEO, S “Kris” Gopalakrishnan, said he changes phones every month, according to cnet.com. People are surprisingly okay with the commitment to further purchases because they feel tech businesses are honest about the latest changes. Consumers understand that the products they buy will very likely be outdated soon, but it doesn’t stop them from buying the products.

Transparency in technology is vital; take a look at the recent launch of Apple’s iPad. Last week, I attended a guest lecture by the VP of Apple Retail, Jerry McDougal, where he openly stated to the captivated audience that over the next few months they will be making tweaks and upgrades to make this an even better product for Apple’s loyal consumers. No doubt though, that there will still be aggressive sales for the first version. When it comes to technology, consumers understand that this is the stuff that is making our personal lives more exciting, and our business lives more efficient. Technology is what makes our lives, and staying connected to the people in our lives, much easier. People in the technology industry never stop working for the consumer and maybe, just maybe, that’s what makes it the most trusted industry.

Even beyond the consumer though, developers of technology are creating products that make their own lives more efficient also. This provides greater motivation to create an unbeatable product and consumers could be more likely to trust a product, if the developer has personal interest vested in it.

Recent technological advances have provided us with unlimited access to information and the opportunity to communicate with anyone at any time. The Internet, instant messaging programs, and smartphones have revolutionized our culture and the way our society interacts. However, the question remains as to whether our social skills have been enhanced, or harmed by the innovations of the information age.

Much of what makes us human- our gestures, facial expressions, tone of voice, enunciation, etc.- are often lost or misunderstood through electronic communication. With the sense of anonymity we feel typing onto a screen, our words become depersonalized, misrepresented, and they can easily be misconstrued. We create virtual personalities that are often more recognizable to our peers than our true personality.

We can essentially live out our lives sitting in front of a computer screen; we can order our groceries online, communicate with friends, stay updated on world issues, sustain a job, learn a language, and virtually satisfy a dream by creating a Second Life. While the prevalence of these advances certainly has benefits, is it ever truly as genuine as the real thing? Where has face-to-face human interaction gone?

Even our emotions have become compilations of punctuation signs – , <3 , >:-(

How long before our soul, the core of what makes us distinctively human, becomes misplaced in a binary world of 0’s and 1’s?

Good read from George Colony’s blog at Forrester last week. In his post he talks about stabilization within the technology sector – no huge growths, but flat to steady growths mainly due to technologies impact on everyday business and consumers today.