The great SMS rip off

A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference, and one of the presentations was about SMS campaigns, competitions etc.

The speaker in question (can’t remember his name offhand), talked about Highveld Stereo’s loyalty scheme. I don’t listen to the radio, but from what the presenter was saying, throughout the day DJs mention certain words and when listeners who are registered for the scheme hear the words they SMS them to a specific number.

Each SMS costs the listener R1.50 to send. Now let’s say the cellphone network takes 50c of that cost, it still leaves Highveld with an income of R1 per SMS.

What makes this scheme even better (for the station that is), is that the “rewards” that can be redeemed with the loyalty points that are accumulated include content that has previously been broadcast on the radio (such as jokes from the Rude Awakening) that can now be downloaded as podcasts.

How’s that for smart? Get a loyalty scheme to not only pay for itself, but potentially turn a profit!

Surely loyalty schemes are about giving back to your customers (or listeners in this case) at no cost to them? How do you think Clicks customers would feel if they were charged a fee every time they swiped their Club cards?

This also started me thinking about competitions that you can only enter via SMS. One example that comes to mind is the trivia competition on eTV’s breakfast programme. It costs R2 to SMS the answer to e, with some sort of prize to be won.

Now no doubt the prize has been sponsored, so has cost eTV nothing, and let’s be really conservative and assume the cellphone network is taking half of the SMS cost, that still leaves e with R1 per SMS at no cost to themselves.

Again, aren’t competitions supposed to be value adds for customers, viewers etc? What do you think would happen if we were charged R2 for entering a store-based competition? We’d tell the store exactly what to do with their competition.

Now I don’t see anything wrong with companies covering the cost of the SMS entry, otherwise the cost of the competition would spiral out of control, but that can only be a maximum of 50c.

What justification can these companies have for charging up to four times this cost, but the bigger question is why we are so willing to let ourselves be ripped off in this way?

Samuel L Jackson

Talking of Oscars (and I know it’s going back a few years now), one person who didn’t win an Oscar but more than deserved to was Samuel L Jackson for his performance in Pulp Fiction.

Everyone focused on John Travolta and his “comeback” performance, but as good as it might have been he was overshadowed by Samuel Jackson. Who will ever forget Jules spouting biblical quotes seconds before “putting a cap in someone’s ass”, or his final major scene in the coffee shop where he decrees to “walk the earth” (or as Vincent puts it “become a bum”)?

Pulp Fiction was one of only a couple of movies I’ve seen that lived up to their hype (Fargo was another), and unfortunately neither Samuel Jackson nor Quentin Tarantino have managed to reach those heights again.

Dronegirls

I watched Dreamgirls this evening, and have to wonder what all the fuss was about.

The story was predictable, the performances (with the exception of Eddie Murphy) lightweight, and it couldn’t make up its mind whether it was a drama or a musical.

And as for the woman who won best supporting actress at this year’s Oscars, well she certainly can sing but that’s no reason to give her an acting award. Isn’t that what the Grammys are for?

Souper Douper

I was sitting in traffic on the highway the other morning, and next to me was a plain white Citi Golf with a set of the shiniest, chromed mag wheels I've come across. All that was missing was a set of those spinning hub caps.

I couldn't help but laugh.

Now I don't profess to understand what possesses people to spend a fortune chopping, changing, bedecking and bedazzling what is in effect a depreciating asset. And in the case of these enthusiasts perhaps they don't realise that in the long run they're depreciating their asset even more because no-one in their right mind will touch a vehicle that's been customised so much. Goodbye reliability, and manufacturer support.

Be that as it may, it is just another one of the weird sub-cultures that festoon the planet, and I have seen some really stupid customisations, such as a spoiler on the tailgate of a bakkie (pick-up to any non-SA readers).

However, what cracks me up the most is when you see small cars that have been customised so readically that the original model is barely recognisable.

My absolute favourite is the Corsa (not the current model, the one that's still being sold as the Corsa Lite).

What on earth possesses someone to spend tens of thousands dropping the suspension, fitting mag wheels and low profile tyres (tyres that absolutely msut stick out at least five centimetres past the wheel arch), smoking the windows and rear light clusters, putting a film across the front headlights that match the colour of the car, boring out the cylinders, adding a free-flow exhaust system to achieve that perfect sound (do they really think they're fooling anyone into believing they have anything more than a 1300 engine under that bonnet?), and adding silly blue lights next to the windscreen washers

Not forgetting the sound system that pumps out 1.21 gigawatts of energy (watch Back to the Future people), and take up the entire boot.

If you can afford to do all this to your Corsa, why not just buy a better car?

Profit before people

Corporate governance gets a lot of attention, particularly in the aftermath of the Enron and Parmalat scandal, and recently in SA the Fidentia scandal.

And yes, good corporate governance is crucial, but one crucial element seems to be missing - the responsibility of a company to its staff.

Citibank recently announced plans to reduce its staff by 17 000 (about 5% of its workforce from what I recall), not because the company is in financial trouble, but because apparently it's not making enough money. Enough money for whom?

Granted I haven't seen any information on how this reduction is to be carried out, but I certainly hope it's through attrition and voluntary redundancies, rather then actual retrenchments.

The company I work for is no different. Some months ago it went through a restructuring exercise with forced redundancies. The amount of upheaval and bad feeling it created was tremendous, and still has ramifications in how staff perceive the company. This from a company whose net profit is over $1 billion (no small number in SA terms), and where staff turnover is easily high enough to achieve the same staff reduction effect in less than a year, without the negative feeling that it created.

Profit is being put before people, for the sake of more money, and most companies still view staff as liabilities rather than assets. But without good staff the business can't perform, and if everyone's in fear of losing their job in the next restructuring exercise, you can bet most of them are on the lookout for other opportunities.

I was studying last year and one of the modules focused on customer service, and the obvious importance of staff in the equation. One of the companies that was brought up was Johnson and Johnson (if I remember correctly), and they hold their stakeholders in this order of importance: staff; customers; shareholders.

This seems sensible as if you treat your staff well then customer service should improve, and if customer service improves that should lead to greater satisfaction among customers which should lead to improved company performance.

In most companies the pecking order is completely reversed, and then companies wonder what the problem is with their people management practices.

Those testicles have finally dropped

Leo Di Caprio made an incredible impression in “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”, and really should have won an Oscar.

After Titanic however, all the adulation and hysteria irritated the hell out of me. You can’t blame Di Caprio for that I guess, but I do think he was miscast.

Part of the problem is that he was physically, how shall we put it, puny. And The Beach just made things worse. How can you watch him doing the martial arts moves (or whatever they were), without bursting into laughter J

The Departed is a different story altogether. He’s added bulk, and was believable in the role. I’ve also seen a couple of trailers for Blood Diamond, and dodgy South African accent aside, he does physically look the part.

I don’t think he’ll win the Oscar though. Although the movie isn’t out in SA yet, I fancy Forrest Whitaker for the Oscar. I’ve enjoyed his performances in almost everything he’s done, except Crying Game where he was woefully miscast.

Where have all the new actors gone?

One thing that really stands out from this year’s Oscar nominees is the dearth of good new acting talent.

Who among the pretty boys and publicity seekers has the presence of a De Niro or Pacino, or at least has the potential to get there.

It really struck me the other day when I saw a preview of Cruel Intentions on TV, starring Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon. Presumably an update of Dangerous Liaisons, how can you even begin to compare these lightweights with the power of John Malkovich and Glenn Close.

Athough neither Malkovich nor Close are fantastically attractive, their acting had such power and presence that actual looks are unimportant.

Contrast that with the latest crop who seem to trade only on looks.

I watched The Godfather again a couple of weeks ago, and it’s incredible how Al Pacino is not overwhelmed by Brando, and in many ways out-acts him by a mile.

What new “hotshot” would be capable of doing that?

Sweet dreams are made of this

I can’t even escape work in sleep.

Last night I dreamt I received a mail from someone at work and at the end of the mail they wrote “You, get this sorted out now”.

If ever there was a final straw for me to get out of this place that was it.

Why?

So why start a blog when there are millions of others out there? I guess just to let off steam about things that are happening in my life, things that bug me or I find interesting.

But more than that I just want to write, which I haven't spent time doing for years, and a blog seems less silly than simply saving my ramblings to my hard drive.

Anyway, this is just to get me started. Hopefully I can manage to post regularly.