The iPhone and iPod touch positively swept the Engadget Awards, winning Gadget of the Year, Smartphone of the Year, Handheld of the Year, Portable Media Device of the Year, and, finally, a spot in Editors' Choice.
So, what's this mean for you? It means you need to be on this device—and frankly, it isn't that hard to get there. All you gotta do is be useful.
Sure, you've heard the "be useful!" mantra before. And we all know the marketer's usual response: "OK, but how?" Well, here's a practical (and delightfully ticklish!) example to chew on: in its own effort to keep up with the techie Joneses, Procter & Gamble's beloved Charmin brand found a way to turn toilet paper into an indispensable handheld ally.
SitOrSquat, a Charmin-sponsored iPhone/iPod touch app, points anxiety-ridden gotta-go-ers to the nearest (free! and clean!) public facility. Users can contribute to the database, thereby constantly improving the service, at sitorsquat.com. As iPhone users busily digi-trawl their locales for the nearest comfort throne, they're exposed not-so-subtly to the familiar Charmin bear.
According to February stats from AdAge, Charmin's SitOrSquat logged 52,000 toilets across 10 countries. It's served over a half-million unique visitors and enjoyed 1,600 downloads of its mobile apps. Granted, that's no immediate toilet-paper brand deal-breaker, but SitOrSquat—a simple idea that took a few clever developers more thought than money to produce—probably goes a long way toward keeping the Charmin brand close at hand.
The Po!nt: Don't miss an opportunity to ride the hot-gadget wave. You don't need a BIG idea; small, useful ones can go a long way, too.
by Christina "CK" Kerley
