Free Advertising

I clicked on CNN this evening and saw Wolf Blitzer using a Mac and a custom light (to light him up in TV style) with an open back. In the opening, you can make out Energizer batteries. What great exposure for these two brands for free on a site with millions of daily exposures! I wondered casually whether Energizer had a deal with CNN because it looked like that light could use a battery cover.

We have a lot of debate within Vocollect about how prominent our logo should be on Talkman(R) wearable computers and our speech recognition headsets. My view is that the name and logo are free advertising anytime our partners (or even our competitors on occasion) show a mobile worker wearing the Vocollect Voice(R) solution. Why sacrifice this free exposure? Sometimes we even see our logo on customer equipment in their promotional materials or in news articles covering that customer, resulting in some free recognition even among customers who would otherwise decline to provide us a reference.

This thinking came to mind a few weeks ago when I saw that one of our competitors chose a distinctive color for their equipment recently. Now personally I would not have chosen pink for a user community that is at least two-thirds male, but I solute their valiant efforts to get their brand image out there, visible and recognizable. They just need a new brand image consultant. And maybe some improved speech recognition capabilities. And perhaps a product that integrates more easily with WMS software. Then they might have a viable brand on their hands!