An innovative and interesting idea inspire almost every people to share that idea with others. A Dutch marketing firm Natwerk came up with such an innovative and interesting idea of “UpperCup” – an iPhone cup holder. But the most interesting news is everybody including experienced “bloggers” as well as wise “reporters” actually made “fool” of themselves as they couldn’t understand that the idea of UpperCup was a fake, and Natwerk was actually “joking”.
The story is quiet interesting. Amsterdam-based Dutch marketing firm Natwerk needed a good promotion. But how would they do that? At then, the firm came up with a head-scratching iPhone Cup holder concept, named UpperCup. The firm was not sure whether the idea would attract reporters and bloggers or would it be a buzzing news or not, but still took a chance.
Natwerk posted some images and a video and mentioned that the firm would like to build such a cup that will hold an iPhone and for this purpose Natwerk needs $25,000 by March 1, which the firm is collecting through Indiegogo, a crowd funding platform. The firm mentioned the iPhone cup holder will come with more than two inches thickness. There will be a slide out cup holder that iPhone owners will be able to use while texting with two hands or playing a video game. Natwerk also mentioned that the UpperCup will hold any size of cup. Here’s a video that Natwerk posted.
Interested users who will donate $25, $30 or $65 will get an iPhone 4 case, an iPhone 5 case or three UpperCup cases for the iPhone 4, respectively. Natwerk mentioned that it expects to deliver the cases by April 2013. However, only very few people started to donate and as of writing Natwerk raised only $820 funding.
However, Natwerk’s mission of getting good promotion became successful. Newspapers and blogs like Los Angeles Times, UPI, Cult of Mac, Buzzfeed, PhonesReview, Ubergizmo, Gadgetsteria, BitRebels, and Incredible Things picked up the news and presented the news as attractive as possible. But as they had no idea that the idea of UpperCup was just a prank, just for Natwerk’s promotion, so all of them became a great fool.
Interestingly, the whole thing came out when blogger Paul McNamara sent an e-mail to the marketing firm with the three following questions:
- Is this a joke?
- Is this a publicity stunt?
- Are you telling me the truth?
and Kristian van Kuijk, a Natwerk spokeswoman replied the answers of those questions in the following way.
Is this a joke?
Yes, pretty much. For instance, the fact that we’ve made the whole thing about 3 times as thick as necessary we hoped would give away we weren’t all that serious. Nevertheless, we really think it is a cool device and we would really want to have it produced so we can walk around and be cool with it attached to our iPhones.
Is this a publicity stunt?
It actually isn’t a publicity stunt. We didn’t expect it to get so much attention as it does now. We have a range of products we develop in between jobs. It is a good practice and keeps the creativity flowing in our company. On top of that we really like having a laugh over stupid ideas. We did this for the fans who follow us, they will understand it is a joke. When we came up with the idea, we thought it would be extra funny to tell people that we have been walking around with this great concept for a long time, but now, thanks to internet crowd funding it was finally possible to make it into reality.
Be noted, “It actually isn’t a publicity stunt” means “It actually is a publicity stunt.” (It is a Paradox)
Are you telling me the truth?
Yes. Can’t be more honest. I think a dumb idea like this wouldn’t really make a good promotion for our company.
This incident would definitely put a mark on the trustworthiness of tech news sites.
Source: Network World (Blog)
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