‘Sex Sells’ – that old phrase is still alive and well online. This latest example is a ‘viral’ site for Perrier, hosted by model Dita Von Teese. The premise is relatively simple, you have to visit a mansion and play some ‘games’ with Dita that result in here showing her stockings, squeezing her breasts, oh and drinking some water.

To keep the punters entertained, the games get ‘raunchier’ as you go through, (no touching Dita as she undresses) and at the end there is no call to action. Just a thanks, and a small invite to the fan page.

But what is the point?

Will it increase my interaction with the Perrier brand? Sort of. Will I buy Perrier next time I am shopping because I have been on the site? No.

Will it make me write about Perrier? Yes. So, this could be viral for viral’s sake.

If this were to be done properly, I would expect Dita branded bottles, a bit like the Diet Coke/Karl Lagerfield bottles which I thought were cool and would buy one. [He can keep his clothes on.]

OK there have been some interesting articles of late talking about how brands don’t get Twitter [this NMA article is a good start]. With my experience of brands and with social media, I have seen that luxury brands are even further behind their take up and attention to social media. I am not sure how they don’t get it, really. So, based on my experience [blog post coming] here is the simple equation all luxury brands need to pay attention to.

Take 1 Luxury Car – Retail Value £40,000.

Add in some appalling customer service.

Annoy said customer with over 4,000 Twitter followers.

Customer complains on Twitter to his audience.

If 10% of this audience are engaged then 400 people will see the brand is not delivering against its values.

If 5% of this 400 were in a similar demographic and lifestyle to me then we are talking about 20 potential customers.

If 50% of the 20 potential customers decide against buying that luxury car then the potential lost revenue is £400,000.

We haven’t even calculated the lifetime value of those ten lost customers.

The time taken for me to tweet said complaint? 60 seconds. Long term damage – considerable.

Do I need to explain more?

Now, these figures are open to argument – the engagement of my audience may be higher, the number of people that take action could be a lot lower, but it could be higher. Just because a brand is deemed as luxury it does not mean they can ignore the masses. Of course, offering good customer service would negate this equation in the first place but you can’t take that for granted either.

Take this equation, put your own numbers in and see what happens and let me know what you come up with.

I was delighted to receive this letter in the post. As an RAC member, I had opted not to receive any further promotional literature about other RAC services.

The letter I received noted that I had asked not to receive such information and that “normally we wouldn’t but…” OK STOP. but…? You either respect my wishes or you don’t?

Click for larger image

The letter then goes on to advise me that their ‘carefully selected panel’ will find me the cheapest car insurance price and that if I need anything just call.

So, it looks like a marketing message, it smells like a marketing message….. It is a marketing message !

Good thing they respect my wishes. What next, “well, we usually come and get you from the side of the road, but….”

These are my bookmarks for June 17th from 13:13 to 17:11:

• Royalty Free Stock Photography : Matton Images UK – A great new royalty free images website
• Yellowsn0w becomes ultrasn0w, iPhones everywhere swoon – iPhone Dev Team displayed their inimitable talents with a live video demonstration of yellowsn0w’s
  big, bad, unstoppable brother: ultrasn0w
• Nest Unclutterer – It's a new web app called Nest Unclutterer and it simplifies the process of knocking out those Twitter friends who are no longer bringing you value.
• Good.ly – the URL shortener for Twitter that generates cash for charity – If you use Good.ly to make a product recommendation on Twitter (it’s also at @good_ly) and people click on and then buy what you suggested, Good.ly gives 55% of any earned referral fees to one of its nominated charities.
• Parallels Plesk Panel 9.2 — Demo, Tutorials & Screenshots – Possibly the best demonstration suite I have ever seen. You effectively get to trial using the system in a sandbox rather than watching a video.
• Job Listings on ScriptLance – A place to get freelance designers working on your specific script requirements
• Reseller Hosting, Web Hosting & Domain Names | Web Hosting Heart Internet – Good hosting company recommended by EggBoxRobin

These are my bookmarks for June 4th from 09:23 to 13:11:

• Can Webwise Discover save Phorm? News – PC Advisor – Controversial behavioural advertising firm Phorm has announced a new system called Webwise Discover, a tool that can be used to recommend deep site content to web visitors based on tracking previous internet use.
• 9 Crucial UI Features of Social Media and Networking Sites | How-To | Smashing Magazine – This article goes over crucial features of the user interfaces of social media and social networking sites. It discusses important features, techniques and concepts behind these designs and explains why they are important, with examples from top sites. These easy and general usability strategies can be applied almost anywhere and to almost any type of user interface.
• BBC NEWS | World | Aerial guide to the D-Day beaches – BBC correspondent Robert Hall gives an aerial guided tour of the French coastline where the D-Day landings took place 65 years ago
• Shut The Hell Up You Self-Promoting Turd | chrisbrogan.com – A great article on the power of brands and bonds

These are my bookmarks for June 4th from 08:49 to 09:23:

• Shut The Hell Up You Self-Promoting Turd | chrisbrogan.com – A great article on the power of brands and bonds
• http://www.betonylloyd.com/ – Formerly known as debatwise

These are my links for June 1st through June 2nd:

• 37 Data-ish Blogs You Should Know About | FlowingData – You might not know it, but there are actually a ton of data and visualization blogs out there. I'm a bit of a feed addict subscribing to just about anything with a chart or a mention of statistics on it (and naturally have to do some feed-cleaning every now and then). In a follow up to my short list last year, here are the data-ish blogs, some old and some new, that continue to post interesting stuff.
• Wesabe > Your Money. Your Community. – We want to help you get rid of credit card debt and start saving for college for your kids. We are tired of getting stung by stupid fees from banks and credit cards. We believe pooling information on where we all spend can help you make better financial decisions and ultimately take control of your money to reach financial goals.
• Google Local Lures Small Businesses With Their Own Web Dashboard – Google wants more small businesses to claim their listing profiles on Google Local (which is basically listings that pop up in Google Maps and local search results). To entice them, starting tomorrow it will give local businesses in the real world with physical addresses a free dashboard akin to what Websites get for free with Google Analytics (see screenshot above). Except that it will show stats such as how many times their business comes up as a search result, how often people click through, as well as how many times people generate driving directions to their business son Google Maps and where those people come from.
• Show Pages – Backstory – CNN.com – We show you the story behind the story, revealing a side of news that is rarely seen. To accomplish this, we capture the passion and emotion of witness accounts. We hear how correspondents deal with the challenges and human emotions they confront. And we showcase the worldwide reach and resources of CNN
• Mobile Internet makes its way into cars – Auto Tech- msnbc.com – Just as radios evolved from hulking home consoles into expected accessories in virtually all cars, so may Wi-Fi Internet access break free to become a commonplace automotive feature. That’s the hope of Autonet Mobile, a company that supplies in-car Wi-Fi routers that let passengers use laptops and other mobile devices in their vehicles.
• Build Unlimited Affiliate Datafeed eCommerce Stores | datafeedr.com – In just minutes from now, you're going to learn about Datafeedr, a powerful push-button store creation system that makes it fast and easy for affiliate marketers just like you to set up, manage and update a complete affiliate store WITHOUT touching any clunky datafeed files, learning a programming language or hiring a programmer.
• Warmer, Fuzzier – The Refreshed Logo – NYTimes.com – A great article on the new refined logos which are represented a warmer, 'fuzzier' feeling for their brand.
• 60+ Amazing Poster and Advertisment Tutorials | Tutorials | Smashing Magazine – In this article, we have collected a mixture of Photoshop and Illustrator tutorials related to posters and advertisements. You will find some are intermediate and some are very advanced, but they’ll all give you a lot of direction with photo composition, illustration, coloring processing, typography techniques, pen tool tricks, shapes processing and much more.
• A Collection Of Resources For Motion Graphics Addicts | Spyre Studios – I have always loved motion graphics and animation and I’m sure many of you web and graphic designers do too (if not, don’t worry, it’ll grow on you!) So, I thought I’d make a list of resources, sites and blogs on the topic since it’s something I really enjoy, I hope you find it useful!

These are my links for May 31st through June 1st:

• Google Wave Drips With Ambition. A New Communication Platform For A New Web. – Yesterday, during the Google I/O keynote, Google’s VP of Engineering, Vic Gundotra, laid out a grand vision for the direction Google sees the web heading towards with the move to the HTML 5 standard. While we’re not there yet, all the major browser players besides Microsoft are aligned and ready for the next phase, which will include such things as the ability to run 3D games and movies in the browser without additional plug-ins. But Google wants to take it one step further with a brand new method of communication for this new era. It’s called Google Wave.
• Micro Persuasion: Visits to Twitter Search Soar, Indicating Social Search Has Arrived – According to data from Compete.com visits to the Twitter search page grew more than 400% in the last six months. This sub-domain alone recorded 2.7M unique visitors in April, up from just shy of 536,000 in October. Even more remarkable, traffic to the site, which is tucked away, grew 24% in April.
• Freshen me up – A nice blog about stuff…
• 100+ Incredible Twitter Backgrounds | cheth Studios – As the Title suggests these are the Best designed, kickass Twitter Backgrounds! I know that I cannot make justice to this I might have missed out some great ones, so do comment and let us know!
• Monday Note – media, tech and business stories – A potentially interesting blog
• Revealed: where Google’s data centres are around the world | Technology | guardian.co.uk – Analysis of data released by Google shows where its data centres – the places that keep it going .
• Zivity » The home of independent artists, models and rock-stars. GET EXPOSED. – A social network for artists, models & musicians. By paying a $10 subscription one gets the ability to view great work and vote whilst generating micro income for content providers. So fr the majority of the images on the homepage (I have not subscribed) include scantily clad females..
• New Economics of Advertising: 101 Twitter Tools to Help You Achieve All Your Goals – Twitter has become an incredible tool not just for communication, but for improving your life. Anyone can use it to expand their social circle, promote their side business, keep their coursework organized, and more. Whether you want to achieve your Twitter goals, or just use it as a tool to achieve others, these tools will help you get there.