The Cherry Pick

Some of our favorite ads of the moment appear to be targeting our Inner Child.

We love Aleksandr Orlov, founder of comparethemeerkat.com. So much so that some of us have become his fan on Facebook and are following him on Twitter. (more…)

We entered the Travel Marketing Awards for Haven in the Online Advertising campaign category and we picked up a silver….nice one Ian….its an interactive video campaign.

Take a look at the work…lovely..

To view the work click here

And why brands, marketers and advertisers should take it seriously

marketing-week-re-twitter

Essentially it looks at how Twitter is yet another example of interactive media giving consumers more ability to filter their media consumption and insulate themselves form the traditional ‘pitches’ of marketers

And as a result it will reinforce the importance to marketers of real life endorsement and support from their consumers. Word of mouth to you and me

Interesting piece here from Marketing Week about Monocle

monocle-article

Reminding us that value isn’t just about price. Something that all of us would be well advised to remember in these recessionary times where the default reaction is to cut prices and scream sale. And this is not to say that price and ’sale’ don’t have a role to play rather that the value equation is significantly more complicated and not losing sight of a brand’s dna is just as important even, perhaps more so, in this economic environment (more…)

OK, so I had got it completely wrong

Twitter is actually a ‘human search engine’

(see article at the end of this link: Twitch Hiker )

Great story about someone who is planning to hitchhike from the UK to New Zealand using only recommendations and help from users of Twitter (more…)

Ok, so I’ve been doing a bit more reading and Twitter is beginning to make some sense now (see yesterday’s post)

Attached is an article from the Sunday Telegraph (22 February)Twitter Sunday telegraph 22nd Feb 2009 describing how travellers are using Twitter to help plan their trips and benefit from up to date opinions from others with similar interests

When I find more I’ll continue this thread

I’ve been hearing a lot about Twitter recently and figured it was time to get myself connected

The concept is refreshingly simple - you write a short post, 140 characters, telling the world/your friends what you are doing NOW

However, I ask myself why?

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Given the current economic climate there is a need to focus on marketing expenditure that deliver tangible results. Inevitably this means focusing on digital marketing with its ability to track Return on Investment. However, the output of the IPA search group contains some interesting findings to consider when diverting media spend online.

The continous increase in expenditure on google has inevitably made the average bid price increase considerably, at the same time the click through rates have dropped. (more…)

We’ve talked before about the number of people who are cruising the internet whilst watching TV. The following article which appeared this week in dvice.com reporting on the CES in Las Vegas suggests that this trend is only going to gather momentum and make it ever more critical that advertisers ensure a seamless link between their TV presence and what they are doing online.

“After the full day of press conferences preceding the opening of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), there’s one big trend that keeps coming up from every electronics company hawking their wares to the press corps. (more…)

It’s been on our minds for a while now that video search is going to be huge. Not just for music videos, film clips or even ‘dog saying sausage,’ but for the useful stuff - ‘remove wine stain from carpet’ or ‘London hotels.’ Some of our clients have switched on to this, with Haven and The May Fair hotel in particular using YouTube to provide experiential footage of the product experience. (more…)

Who needs an advertising industry when consumers are perfectly capable of creating noise for a brand by themselves? It’s an inevitable question now that video website and satellite broadcaster Current TV is asking viewers/users to create their own advertising on behalf of brands. All submitted ideas are voted on by the community and the winner then gets real airtime, sponsored by the brand in question. The results are pretty impressive, (more…)

New figures from a report by Forrester indicate that not only is social media being used by more people, the age profile is increasing too. As expected in the shift to consumption by advocacy, more people are using social media tools to connect with each other and with brands. Interestingly, the big increase in usage is among 34-44 year olds with a significant rise too in 45-54 users. (more…)

Hands up all those people who have a facebook, myspace, linkedin or another social network profile? I suspect that an extremely high proportion of you. How many of you have noticed advertising on the site and then clicked on it? If like me you feel that advertising in my social space is one of the most intrusive form of marketing then this research you may find quite interesting.

The research has been conducted by Ball State University in the US and summizes that advertising in peoples social space can be seen ‘as offensive’. The research also found that in the 18-24 age bracket the respondants remain more responsive to email and direct marketing.

It will be interesting to see how this develops in the future as social networks develop their advertising platforms. Facebook particularly is innovating with their ability to target based on keywords from their members interests. Our experience of using their platform has shown some really interesting results over and above the response from Google adwords.

I think the old right message, at the right time in the right place continues to prevail.

To read the Ball State University white paper click here

It’s no mean achievement to be included in New Media Age’s Top 100 agencies for digital. Better still to be ranked third most efficient agency.

NMA Top 100 agencies

Understandably, many brands are wary of social media, believing there is too much scope for brand damage from negative content. Not giving the audience cause to be negative towards your product or service would be the answer but that’s not really the issue here.

Dell have realised that social media can be used not just to position positive messages about the brand but to plug the public directly into it’s business model. Dell Idea Storm is a site where anyone with a good idea or suggestion can come along and post it for both Dell and other users to chew on. (more…)

The value of deep targetting is soon to be shown in full effect as TV show Scrubs is promoted directly to its fanbase via Facebook:

“Paramount Comedy has become the first UK broadcaster to use Facebook’s Engagement Ads platform, for its first social media campaign.The campaign is in support of cult comedy show Scrubs’ new Moments season and will target the 500,000 Facebook users that have identified themselves as Scrubs fans. (more…)

Unilever’s Global Communication Planning Director, Asad Rehman summarises his view of communications in the digital era:

“Unilever — like many global FMCG brands — are in a rapidly changing world where advertising will never be the same again and where repositioning is a drawn out, considered and cerebral process that is going to involve mixing new media with the old rather than rejecting traditional communication tools. (more…)

In a word, no.

Discussions at the recent AdTech conference suggest that online can actually learn a lot from traditional advertising techniques and that the digital platforms work better when used in tandem with sit back experiences. (more…)

It’s not always advertising that drives traffic to your online presence. While bumbling round Waterstones last week we picked up a wonderful little book called Little People in the City by Slinkachu. It’s a photo essay on the miniature street scenes he creates, photographs then leaves for mankind’s greater benefit. We were happy enough to have discovered the book, but the experience was increased by finding within it a link to the artists blog: Little People - A Tiny Street Art Project.

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“Google is preparing to launch a UK trial to put branded search calls to action in TV ads, in a bid to drive search volume and revenues.”

Source: NMA 18.09.08

Seems like a rational step. We know that consumers are highly likely to start their online relationship with your brand via Google anyway, as many people simply type URLs into the Google search box when they have the search giant as their home page.

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