Vanity numbers and phone systems that make you spell first or last names should become extinct for businesses that expect people to dial from a cell phone. 

RIM (Blackberry) has a 41% market share of smart phones and the overall smart phone market is 15.2% of all cell-phone users.  Blackberry’s are great phones (I use one personally), however one thing Blackberries don’t do is show you the alpha keypad translation like a land-line phone.
Go ahead, try calling a company phone system and typing in the name Swatorski, Zlinksy, or even Jones on your first try from a Blackberry.  Call 422-Blue to reach the St. Louis Blues or 1888-GET CHARTER… you get it.  Now try it while driving – whoops, watch out. 

Vanity numbers promise improved sales and brand recognition because a consumer can commit to memory and dial later – that still makes sense for consumers.  However, if your target audience is comprised of business people than give it up.  Companies should be striving to make it easier to buy or service their customers, but, now they are upsetting 41% of business users with a bad brand touch, or worse, no touch at all (I still haven’t figured out how to dial charter!).

Christmas isn’t over for TV manufacturers and electronics retailers. They hope (as they do every year) that the Super Bowl (now in all of it’s high definition glory) will drive TV sales.

Here’s the problem. 

Every time I see a commercial for the latest, biggest, bestest, newest TV…they show me how good my OLD TV looks (usually using a photo of a butterfly or a sailboat).  I have to admit, in their commercial the picture is FANTASTIC! Beautiful colors…the contrast is nice…WOW (it really is a very pretty butterfly).

In fact…the damn butterfly looks so good, I think I’ll keep my old TV. Now stop making me mock you and put the game back on…

Technology has made sending consumers highly-personalized messages easier and less expensive than ever. Whether via web cookies and a nifty database, digital broadcast zones, or variable digital printing, the ability to deliver precise messages is easy enough for even the very-most-middle-manager to do it.

BUT, just because you can do something, does not mean you should do it (see: sex in junior high school).

Sending highly personalized messages without being able to deliver on a highly-personalized experience ruins whatever possible relationship I had with your brand.

For example:

You could be getting super-duper special personalized service right now!
Each month I get at least five solicitations from American Express (some quite elaborate), each one telling me how wonderful their card is, and what delightful and personalized services they offer.

Does AMEX not realize that I HAVE TWO OF THEIR CARDS IN MY WALLET?! Um… hey AMEX ol’ buddy – don’t you remember your pal Dave? I’ve been a member since…

“Welcome back, David!”
OK, but if you know who I am (and have even shipped things to me), PLEASE don’t ask me what country I live in. Really? If I HAVE to fill out another form…do you think there’s maybe there’s a better chance that I live in the USA instead of the United Arab Emirates or Uzbekistan.

Also, once you have my ZIP CODE, shouldn’t your super-duper computer be able to figure out the rest?..like what freaking city and country I’m in?

Do not promise what you cannot deliver. Now come on over here and rub my lamp, baby…