Tsunami Alarm System launched
Telecom Asia has this story about a Tsunami Alarm System recently made available.
The company in question isn’t actually specifically mentioned so I did a Google and found it here.
The article goes on to mention that the service costs €29 for the year and €9 for a month — and that it’s being marketed to Germans via Vodafone.de.
Well, I get the concept. I was thinking about taking a holiday somewhere like the Maldives — and yes — I did think ‘ooh, what about a Tsunami’ for about 20 miliseconds. I’d wanna know.
However I think I’d rather hope my hotel manager would be subscribing so that I could relax away from phones, blackberries and so on.
That being said, information costs money. Information relating to a 50ft wall of water heading very fast in my direction is nigh on priceless to me. The trouble is, sitting in drought-suffering South East England (hosepipe bans and everything!), I can’t quite get worked up enough to take out a subscription.
My friend Ilana has just popped off to Hong Kong for a week to see a friend. I don’t think she’d be easily persuaded to purchase a €9 one-month subscription. If I’m sat, clueless, in the Maldives, you could name your price for the text message. I wouldn’t mind my credit card being whacked for a €100 notification. Or more. But — and this is a stick point — I’d only want to pay IF it was news to me. I wouldn’t be that impressed watching a ‘BREAKING NEWS’ update on Sky News — and then get a Tsunami alert for the same news 20 minutes later.
Once I’ve paid my €29, I really do want them to do something for me. I don’t want to pay €29 and then, a year later, get a text message saying ‘Thanks very much, there were no tsnuamis. Want to renew your subscription?’
It’s a difficult sale.
You know what, if I was at the airport heading off to South East Asia and I saw an Advertising poster reading ‘Norwich Union Tsnuami Alerts: Text ALERT to xxxxx for your free Tsnuami update — be in the know’, … I’d definitely do it.
I’d maybe pay a few pence — say €0.25 for the priviledge. However, I’d sooner you turn it into a good marketing exercise with an insurance brand as the umbrella, offering the service out of good will — AND the ability to possibly develop a continual dialog with me, a new (or existing) customer. I think that’s the way to market to Europeans, the vast majority of whom don’t have the first clue about the power of a tsnuami, other than TV pictures.
I’m willing to bet that a good marketing campaign around Heathrow could be phenomenally successful. Good bit of fear, good bit of reassurance, good brand exposure. Not gonna readily pay €29 myself though.
