…and what kind of horrible typo is this headline then? It’s Norwegian and translates into “Buying an iPod Nano”.
This article is a short rant and an important experiment. The Norwegian headline is part of the experient. More on that later.
First a rant about something that I guess most of my readers have experienced. Horrible errors in marketing material from retailers of consumer electronics. This example is only what I found after two minutes with an ad that came with our newspaper today. There are so many examples that I have played around with an idea of a dedicated blog on these issues.
Have a look at this one.
An iPod Nano with a hard drive. That’s truly exceptional. When I go to Apple’s spec page for the Nano the very first line of facts tells me that the Nano has flash based memory:
Hard drive or flash memory is a pretty significant detail about an MP3 player. Apparently not for Lefdal, the Norwegian retailer that keeps telling me that the Nano has a hard drive…
I actually read the marketing material from these shops. Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA etc… In Norway they’re called Elkjøp, Lefdal, Bonus etc…
It’s one of my strange hobbies and it’s part of my job to be fairly updated on what’s available for the average media consumer. The products and the prices.
But unfortunately I know too much about these products and end up thinking that these guys have to be inaccurate morons. The amount of errors and plain lies are simply sad.
Then, actually entering one of the shops asking questions to the staff is even worse.
Or am I the only one with this experience?
The important experiment
I am going to do a presentation for the Consumer Electronics Trade Foundation in Norway later this autumn. I am going to talk about big changes in the media industry. And about how blogging is changing the way they should communicate with their customers.
If this article on eirikso.com ends up with a high ranking in Google it will be a good example. I can stay on that stage and search for where to buy an iPod Nano, or “kjøpe en iPod Nano” in Google. And show them that an article that says that they’re all morons hits better than their own shops.
So, if you have a blog and a story about bad service or inaccurate marketing material from these kinds of shops then please write about it and link to this story as well. If possible let “kjøpe en iPod Nano” be the link itself…
Comment here as well, and I’ll update this post with a link back to you.
Update2
So far so good. I learn a lot from this experiment.
1. People in general agree on the fact that consumer electronics advertising is inaccurate and frustrating
2. Links really do boost google ranking: Kjøpe en iPod Nano
3. I look forward to my presentation for the Consumer Electronics Trade Foundation
4. I need to talk to Espen Andersen about Google optimization. His article that is linking to mine hits above mine! 🙂
Right now there’s quite a bit of traffic from ITpro. In addition to this loRdx, Mr. Sandvik, Tove, Sonitus and Anarkistix have been kind enough to link.
Update:
Links are ticking in. Espen Andersen is mentioning the iPod Nano Redux on his english blog Applied Abstractions. Because this post is mostly about lousy marketing you should have a look at his example regarding excellent customer support.
Espen links from his norwegian blog as well. If you are fortunate enough to manage the strange language of Norwegian you can have fun with this little story about Innovisjon AS.
Technorati tells me that links are ticking in from Henrik and Ole Bruseth as well. Both blogs in Norwegian. In my opinion Mr. Bruseths blog has the best name of a Norwegian blog ever. “Overstadig Bruseth”. And here I have to give a sincere apology to the 85% of my readers that don’t understand Norwegian.
eirikso 
iPod Nano redux…
Eirik Solheim is is trying to pull a Nigritude Ultramarine on behalf of all frustrated, if competent, electronics purchases out there. The operative phrase is "Kjøpe en iPod Nano".More power to him, I say…. ……
You’re absolutely not the only one. I’m constantly irritated by “facts” like these. I was particulary amused when Elkjøp announced a LCD monitor with 1024×768 DPI. That’s 786432 DPI! 😮 My current monitor only has 96 DPI though.
I guess this means a) the screen is one square inch large or b) the screen has an AWESOME resolution. 🙂
I don’t want the iPod Nano with a 4GB hard drive (i really prefer flash memory for that kind of players), but the 786432 DPI screen… Wow!
Unless your option a) is the correct one…
Lovely.
Kjøpe en iPod Nano…
…er vel ikke lenger mulig? Trodde modellen hadde gått ut, eller kanskje jeg tenker på iPod Mini.Uansett, Eirik Solheim har en plan om å vise makten i bloggosfæren – for ikke å snakke om å uttrykke sin frustrasjon m…
[…] Eirik Solheim from the good technoblogg eirikso.com has an interesting article about bad marketing from norwegian electronic retail shops. The interesting thing about this is an experiment from Eirik where he tries to drive trafic to his site and get a high ranking at Google to demonstrate that he “shows them that an article that says that they’re all morons hits better than their own shops”. Read the article at Eiriks blogg here: Kjøpe en iPod Nano […]
[…] Min flinke kollega skal holde foredrag for elektronikkbransjen og utfører et eksperiment. Bransjen vet veldig lite om hva de selger og Eirik bruker en kampanje hvor de viser sin inkompetanse som utgangspunkt for sin artikkel. Trykk pÃ¥ linken Bransjen viser sin inkompetanse og vi “stemmer” artikkelen opp i Google. MÃ¥let er at den skal komme høyere enn bransjens hjemmesider. […]
Spennende
– du er linket
[…] eirikso.com […]
[…] You can read more about it at Eiriks blog http://www.eirikso.com Good luck with this Eirik…. I think your little experiment will succeed! | Posted in:everydaylife | […]
[…] Lefdal selger iPod Nano med harddisk. Enten sÃ¥ er de inkompetente eller sÃ¥ sitter de pÃ¥ en verdensnyhet. En litt dÃ¥rligere versjon av Nano… SÃ¥ løp og kjøp en iPod nano med harddisk, før Lefdal er tomme… […]
Damn, what a mistake I made when I bought an iPod Nano with a 4GB flash drive… It works well though;-)
Yeah. We love the skipping, high power consumption and short life of a hard drive. This special Nano is a bargain. Solid state is overrated. We want moving parts in our portable equipment! Lefdal to the rescue.
niggers likes fish!
I must admit that I don’t see the value of the last comment, but I have a very strict policy of not deleting comments unless they are totally offensive.
The use of the word niggers is a bit controversial and could be considered an offence to a certain group of people. However, I don’t think so. I really don’t think anyone should even remotely consider being offended by this stupid comment.
And by the way, it’s niggers like fish. Niggers are the plural form of the word nigger.
[…] Les artikkelen hos Eirik her: kjøpe en iPod Nano. […]
I think typographical or iadvertent description errors often occur in non-English advertisements. Perhaps, a thorough proofreading and heavy editing is required before publish to avoid misconceptions.
Yes. Sometimes you can clearly see that they have done a very poor translation of the original english specifications or descriptions. Causing some strange, funny or stupid mistakes. But there are also cases of plain and simple lack of knowledge that causes advertisments like the one here in this article and others…
So, do you have an updat eon this story – or perhaps i have missed it already?
You haven’t missed it, because I hadn’t made it. I need reminders from my readers. 🙂 Here’s the update:
Lefdal and the iPod Nano revisited
The thing is, most people dont know the difference between harddiscs or flashdiscs. The people that know what the difference is will also be aware of the flaw, hence no problem really. I find this case rather boring.
Yeah. It’s no big deal. But it worked very well as an example in my presentation.
Er http://www.apple.no noe bedre?
http://www.apple.com/no/ipodnano/red/
Yes. They state in the tech spec:
The truth is – people don’t care if it’s a HD or a flash drive, or whatever geeks label them. They want to know how many songs they can store, not what medium they’re stored on.
I don’t think the fact that the general audience don’t care is a good excuse to provide inaccurate data in your marketing.
Hi,
Welcome to my ipod blog. Here you’ll find tips on how to get most out of your ipod. Here i’ll be sharing my ipod experiences as well as cool tweaks and hacks. From ipod accessories to interfacing issues, from itunes to audio enhancing, from remote accessability to free downloads centers, from podcasts to ipod DJ-ing….you name it…..
[…] Eirik Solheim’s blogg […]
Love the new Ipod Nano 4 style, but this version seems very flimsy. Anyone else think so ?