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Tsunami Alarm System launched

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Telecom Asia has this story about a Tsunami Alarm System recently made available.

The company in question isn’t actually specifically mentioned so I did a Google and found it here.

The article goes on to mention that the service costs €29 for the year and €9 for a month — and that it’s being marketed to Germans via Vodafone.de.

Well, I get the concept.  I was thinking about taking a holiday somewhere like the Maldives — and yes — I did think ‘ooh, what about a Tsunami’ for about 20 miliseconds.  I’d wanna know. 

However I think I’d rather hope my hotel manager would be subscribing so that I could relax away from phones, blackberries and so on.

That being said, information costs money.  Information relating to a 50ft wall of water heading very fast in my direction is nigh on priceless to me.  The trouble is, sitting in drought-suffering South East England (hosepipe bans and everything!), I can’t quite get worked up enough to take out a subscription.

My friend Ilana has just popped off to Hong Kong for a week to see a friend.  I don’t think she’d be easily persuaded to purchase a €9 one-month subscription.  If I’m sat, clueless, in the Maldives, you could name your price for the text message.  I wouldn’t mind my credit card being whacked for a €100 notification.  Or more.  But — and this is a stick point — I’d only want to pay IF it was news to me.  I wouldn’t be that impressed watching a ‘BREAKING NEWS’ update on Sky News — and then get a Tsunami alert for the same news 20 minutes later.

Once I’ve paid my €29, I really do want them to do something for me.  I don’t want to pay €29 and then, a year later, get a text message saying ‘Thanks very much, there were no tsnuamis. Want to renew your subscription?’

It’s a difficult sale. 

You know what, if I was at the airport heading off to South East Asia and I saw an Advertising poster reading ‘Norwich Union Tsnuami Alerts: Text ALERT to xxxxx for your free Tsnuami update — be in the know’, … I’d definitely do it.

I’d maybe pay a few pence — say €0.25 for the priviledge.  However, I’d sooner you turn it into a good marketing exercise with an insurance brand as the umbrella, offering the service out of good will — AND the ability to possibly develop a continual dialog with me, a new (or existing) customer.   I think that’s the way to market to Europeans, the vast majority of whom don’t have the first clue about the power of a tsnuami, other than TV pictures. 

I’m willing to bet that a good marketing campaign around Heathrow could be phenomenally successful.  Good bit of fear, good bit of reassurance, good brand exposure.  Not gonna readily pay €29 myself though.