Last week BenQ Siemens have launched their new brand along with three new cellphones. The Location was an abandoned subway tunnel under the former East/West Border of Berlin.

Obviously the three phones EF81, S68 and S88 look like some heavy reverse-engineering job when you compare them with Sony Ericsson's K750i and Motorola's RAZR.

The only 13mm slick S68 premium phone is therefore a standout featuring Personal Information Management, Synching with your Computer, Document Viewer and Bluetooth looks like a good concept.

BenQ Siemens is a brand to watch in 2006. As Siemens has this affinity to design with their designlab and the Xelibri cellphones there is definitely more potential than copying other phones.

More info and video coverage from the launch event at the rather ugly page www.benq-siemens.com

In response to the mix media post www.psfk.com

How about starting a case-study series on succesful marketing ideas which have reacted on the shifted consumer behavior?

In Germany's largest national daily newspaper "Sueddeutsche Zeitung" I stumbled across a very interesting article about US Muvico Theatres.

Muvico is a movie theater chain intending to rival large multiplex chains such as Rave Motion Pictures. According to Wikipedia their current screens-per-franchise average is 19.5, the highest in the movie theater industry.

Since its foundation in 1984 Muvico has set up a dozen theatres in Florida, moving on to franchise their concept in Maryland and Tennessee.

Each Muvico Theatre has a unique architecture that reminds of Las Vegas theme hotels or Grauman's Chinesse Theater in Hollywood. Services include Valet-Parking, Unlimited Popcorn in the "Premiere Section", full service bar, gourmet restaurant, Red Velvet Lounge Seats, Regular 24-inch wide theatre seats, and on-premise childcare.

Hamid Hashemi, CEO of Muvico is quoted in the article "In the end our product is the film. And we get the film the same way everyone else gets it. The difference is how you package the film. It's the experience that you turn it into that makes the difference between going to one of our theatre's and someone else's".