Mobile marketing is a hot topic right now, and quickly gaining more and more momentum as companies look for new ways to apply its effectiveness. Companies are feverishly trying to figure out how to strategically incorporate this new tool into their overall marketing mix, as it provides an opportunity to expand customer convenience, both at the transactional and total customer experience levels.

Take Ikea for example. The international home products retailer recently entertained an idea to incorporate a mobile tactic into their overall mobile offering of solutions. Anyone who has ever purchased Ikea products knows that assembling them can often be a daunting task. They are a foreign company, and instructions are often poorly translated. Frequently the basic rendered drawings are difficult to interpret. Ikea viewed this common issue among their customer base as an opportunity for improvement and welcomed a creative solution: providing their consumers instructional videos through QR codes, a software based 2-D solution.

The impact of these codes not only has the opportunity to elevate consumers’ experience with the brand, but would also likely reduce the number of calls received by the customer service team. A win-win for all.

Imagine offering your customers a value ad tool like installation information and directions through 2-D codes, ultimately allowing your customers to elevate their experience with your brand. To learn more about the topic check out this story.

A recent article in the WSJ shows how consumers are shifting their spending away from improving their homes to purchasing high tech toys.  Retailers like Depot and Lowes can embrace this shift by featuring the growing number of technology products that they carry.  There’s no reason for consumers only to think of Best Buy for technology.  Perhaps a “Technology Days” promotion or even their own Geek Squad would gain these sales.  They also should more actively reach out to early adopters of technology like the readers or Dwell and Wired magazines.

An article written by Carmen Nobel from The Street business website shares statistics from the National Small Business Association (NSBA) mid-year economic report. According to the article, out of the 400 small business owners who were surveyed, only 11 percent have hired new workers within the last year. The president of NSBA said in the article that financing small businesses is much more difficult now than it has been in 17 years. He also said that financing will be a major factor in high unemployment. You can read the full article at The Street.

Building product manufacturers need to be aware of these challenges. Many of the contractors who purchase materials are small business owners. Therefore, any negative impact on small businesses could hinder their manufacturer’s growth and success.

Today is a great day in the office! We are celebrating Christmas in July. The smell of fresh zucchini and chocolate chip muffins is spreading throughout the kitchen while Christmas movie classics including, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation and Home Alone are playing on the TV. Sparkly Christmas lights are stranded along nearly every room, and we even have a Christmas tree with presents! Well, they’re white elephants of course, but sometimes those can be the best!

Christmas in July seems to be a popular event happening in several other places as well. According to Sandra Jones from Chicago Breaking Business website, Target spread some early Christmas spirit with online sales on more than 500 items last week. Sears also joined in the summer festivities this month by reviving its “Christmas Lane” and Christmas Club savings card, according to the website.

Christmas is a time when families come together to relax, reminisce, and share traditions with each other. Here at Interrupt we are definitely one big family! Although we are celebrating Christmas twice this year, our cheeriness and laughter that usually is associated with Christmas lasts all year long.

Home owners have enough difficulty fixing up their homes to be more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. Now it may be even more challenging.  An article written by Nick Timiraos from the Wall Street Journal talked about the Property Assessed Clean Energy Program (PACE).  

This is a program supported by the White House that enables homeowners to pay for the costs of doing renovations such as solar panels or installing economical furnaces. According to the article, in some instances of foreclosure the PACE loans would be paid before the mortgage loans. To counteract PACE’s risk to mortgage lenders, the article explains that oddly enough,  the Federal Housing Finance Agency is encouraging lenders to not get involved in the program or make it harder for people to get the loans.

In the past we’ve seen other government programs that are ease to execute. The challenge is to get Americans eager to change their behaviors. In the mid-70s when gas prices were high, more and more people were taking advantage of the easily-available tax credits. Nearly 2 million more people re-insulated their houses. Now that there is PACE, there could be increased impetus for people to improve their homes. When the government makes borrowing money and pursuing programs like PACE more difficult, the harder it will be for people to make their homes more efficient. Efforts to make our environment more sustainable will ultimately suffer.

A recent article by Jack Neff from Ad Age talked about a study conducted by the Nielson Co. According to Neff, the study found the more that senior-level execs from package-goods companies get involved in the new-product development process, the less successful those products are.
New product launches are often very risky, and the majority of them end up failing. When coming up with new products or design concepts, bosses have a higher tendency to push their personal opinions into the process. Their opinions may have nothing to do with what the end consumer desires, but because their employees are too afraid to disagree, they go along with the ideas anyway. Unfortunately for those companies with too much top-level involvement, this kind of mindset limits them on what they are able to achieve.
Execs need to understand that ideas can generate from many different places. The important thing is to take a step back and let employees develop those ideas and shape them into something great. When this happens, new products have a much better chance of succeeding.

Lowering the noise level in homes has been a trend in both residential and commercial buildings for a number of years.  Sometimes it’s to enable people to comfortably live close to noisy environments such as in inner cities, next to freeways or even airports.  Other times it’s to lower the noise levels within structures by lowering the sound levels in appliances such as washers, dryers, dish washers and refrigerators.  And then there is the quest to lower sound transmission between rooms so we don’t hear every bathroom flush, discussion or television program from other rooms in our quest for solitude.

As most noise levels are not as regulated in the US as they are in Europe, most of our sound control efforts have been driven by manufacturer’s and builders as a means to differentiate themselves and provide a unique benefit.  Unfortunately most of these efforts have now become a confusing commodity much like the green and energy saving efforts that are now basically meaningless as everyone claims them with no way for consumers to evaluate their performance.  This is also caused by manufacturers only thinking of their products when it takes a system approach to be successful.  A well insulated house with poor windows won’t save much energy.  A single quiet appliance won’t do much to reduce the sound levels within a structure.

The other factor driving the quest for better sound control is manufacturers who see this as an easy way to dramatically increase their sales.  For years insulation manufacturers such as Owens Corning see this a way to literally double the amount the amount of insulation in every house, even though the addition of insulation to interior walls actually does very little to lower sound levels.

The fact that three new books have recently been written about noise in our lives shows that the interest is still there.  Perhaps if everyone took a step back and read these enlightening books, they would better see what noise really represents to people which would give them a fresh perspective on the why of noise rather than just the what.  It may be as simple as a new definition of the benefits of sound control instead of the features.  Sounds like sales 101 to me..

Home prices are down 60% in Las Vegas.  There are 9,517 brand new unsold homes.  5,600 homes were repossessed in the first quarter of 2010.  And yet builders are working on 1,100 more new homes and looking for land to build more!  It makes no sense yet it’s happening.  What are you doing as a building material manufacturer  to be part of this opportunity?  What other unlikely markets are showing activity?  Read the whole story in the New York Times.

While residential construction has stopped falling, commercial construction continues to fall creating more challenges for manufacturer’s of materials used in commercial new construction.  You can read more from the New York Times. Even though residential new construction  has stabilized, it’s at a very low number.  The opportunity today for both residential and commercial is in retrofit and remodel.