What do people want from brands? Utility and good experience. There is plenty of different services trying to deliver on it. Here is one fantastic example that integrates mobile device, check-in mechanics, coupons with the shopping experience - Shopkick. Shopkick is a hardware and application system to be installed in stores. It rewards people for just coming into the store, adds social sharing and customized offers overview to you while you are in the store. Judging from the video showing how the product works, Shopkick makes the whole coupon and check-in idea more social and more fun in relation to retail experience.
It opens the new opportunities for building loyalty and closer relationship between customer and retailers, where the latter one is not just products provider but improves the whole shopping experience.
Read the whole article and see the video on Techcrunch
We so used to customiztion. We can adjust so many things around us, so they fit to our needs, from mail to shoes. Things are the way we like and want. So why not take it a step harder and change the reality by using the glasses that can photoshop reality. Funny and dangerous invention. Don't try it at home ;)
I went yesterday evening to see "Inception", the latest creation of Nolan. I must say I've had moderate expectations but I was curious because of the hype and those sublime words about "the best movie ever", "masterpiece", etc. The cinema was packed, tickets were sold out, ticket system went down, so show was delayed, but finally the movie began...
I let myself to be sucked into the film universe but as the movie finished I was spit out and left all alone wondering what was the ado about. I must say, it's well played and well done movie - the special effects are impressive but the deeper you go, the less you discover. Maybe 'Inception' was thought to remind of our subconsciesness: almost impossible to break through and see what's behind the walls...
I left the cinema with the feeling that there is something utterly wrong. How on earth can you call it a masterpiece? Don't get me wrong, I think it was a great movie, which delivered good entertainment but it isn't any significant different from plenty of flicks available out there.
As I walked home it struck me why the huge popularity. One thing 'Inception' does very good is depicting the state of humanity anno 2010. The chase after the watery pleasures of forgetfulness, living in oblivion and striving for being someone else - better person, have better body, work more, be healthier, be slimmer...you name it. The dreams are our oblivion. The dreams are where we can be whom we want to be. The dreams are where we escape from reality and the inevitable death. This is what attracts people - the 2,5 h. of dreaming of being able to do whatever we want and be whomever we want.It is slalom between reality and fiction at full speed, the common dream of the audience being awaken when we die. Life is a dream. Dream is a life.
It is exciting but when you leave the cinema, you leave alone, nothing was incepted. You don't have this feeling that something changed, that reality in a way was shaken.
I could help myself from comparing it to The Moon movie, which is telling the similar story, the difference is that it manages to plant a bug in your head that is drilling your brain and making you ask questions and wonder about the reality around...or Matrix. Movies that has power to influence minds and become cult.
Inception is cool and visually engaging but there is nothing cult about it cause it doesn't reach deep enough into its audience. Still, it is worth seeing for the sake of the ride you are going to be taken and not being able to tell a difference what's the dream and what's the reality.
