Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Events, Mostly Mobile | Tags: Action Aid, adversiting, Andrew Grill, broadcast, commuting, Digital Lounge, impulse, iPhone, London Underground, London-calling, media platforms, mobile, mobile marketing, mobile phones, mobile technology, portable, poster, short code, the tube, Victoria line
On Wednesday I attended my second Digital Lounge event at the Adam Street Private member’s club. This month’s speaker was Andrew Grill (of London-Calling blog fame) who presented on Mobile Advertising. Andrew certainly raised some interesting points that allowed discussion to flow as freely as the drinks! Central to his presentation was the theme that mobile is fundamentally different from any other media and requires a rethink (see his presentation on his blog here). Despite the title of the evening’s topic it became clear that, in order to be successful, marketing on mobile cannot be seen as “advertising” but must instead be led by the personal and functional attributes of a mobile device.
Andrew argued that the age of mobile has already begun and it is now the industry’s responsibility to cash in on the saturation of devices and make the use of mobile marketing easy. For my part I think it is legitimate to consider 2009 the year of mobile for two reasons. Firstly, I believe that technology and lifestyle have only just got to the point at which mobile devices can legitimately be seen as media platforms (as well as devices) – here I mean for the average mobile user, who is not a technology follower but who relies on mobile communication. The second development, ushered in by the iPhone, is the fact that technologically advanced mobile devices are no longer the reserve of business users. On an individual level mobile marketing is about specific, targeted, personal, marketing content, however, it is not until now that enough consumers in enough target groups have enough potential in their mobile devices for most brands to get on board.
What makes a good mobile campaign, however, is still up for debate. Today a simple example reminded me of where the general state of play currently is. I take great interest in advertising on the tube and how different media are being used, so I make a point of noting down anything that stands out (this is rare unfortunately). Today I took note of an Action Aid poster within the carriage urging commuters to look up from their books, down their crosswords, and do something meaningful with their time on the train. The message was ‘act now’ – make a difference on impulse – do something worthwhile with this lost time on your commute. It was the use of text message short code that made this message possible. Potentially a great use of mobiles to get people engaged as soon as they see the advertising. Unfortunately this poster appeared on the a Victoria line tube train which wikipedia confirms “is the only line on the Underground, except for the two-stop Waterloo & City line, where the entire line is operated underground.” So good luck responding to that call to arms!
It's called that for a reason
At Neoco we’re excited to be getting involved with mobile marketing that works with both the immediacy of engaging on a personal portable device as well as the new way this can incorporate the brand message into consumers’ lives. The key is understanding exactly how mobile fits into people’s lives (it cannot be seen as a broadcast medium?!) and viewing it as a space that will only tolerate being filled by useful content. At Neoco we’re lucky enough to be developing iPhone applications at the moment and there’s nothing more exciting than making ‘marketing’ that you can’t wait to actually use yourself. The way I understand it a mobile device is like someone’s home page and it requires trust and permission to become a part of that.
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Cool & Online, Industry news, News, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: applications, banned, brand image, Burger King, campaigns, condiments, defriend, Facebook, fast food, i love cheeseburgers, mc, McDonalds, never trust bearded men, privacy, social networks, strategy, the king, US, viral, whopper, whopper sacrifice
Earlier this month Facebook removed a branded application by fast food giant Burger King over fears that it was against their privacy code. But then that’s probably what Burger King wanted, seeing as it has won them global press beyond the capabilities of just a facebook application, not matter how ingenious. The whole affair has triggered multiple debates on the state of social networks, the place of applications and the effectiveness of simple but extreme marketing stunts.
The facebook application in point invited users to ditch their friends (or defriend as it is now technically known) in return for a free whopper. A fun concept that’s win:win for all. By exploiting the fact that adding friends on facebook has become rampant and meaningless they can offer the user a freebie in return for practically no cost (we can all think of 10 friends we only added out of politeness/drunkenness/confusion/because we have to work with them!!) and BK makes a very powerful point in the process. On one level they are proving that whoppers rank above some of our friends, but they are also proving that they understand their audience very well and they are not afraid of sticking their necks out.
Like other’s that have picked up on this over here, I’m sad that BK was only running the offer in the US. In terms of marketing strategy they have always seemed to be less locally focused than their biggest competitor, and it’s a shame that a campaign with such appeal to a UK market as well wasn’t rolled out over here – sometimes I even think that the clown cares about us Brits more!
A real strength of the application is that it’s non-intrusive. By its nature it doesn’t require you to pass it on virally to your friends and it’s temporary. This is a shift that Neoco is also embracing in the facebook applications we build for clients. It’s better to make a statement that people want to pass on of their own accord. What BK have done so well is grab hold of the right statement at the right time.
To those unfortunate enough to be forced to listen to my rants of personal grievance it will be known that Burger King have been my thoughts for other reasons of late. I had an interesting ‘debate’ with a member of their staff last week on being told that not only would BBQ sauce cost me extra, but it was not possible to swap the tomato sauce that had been forced upon me for a condiment of my own choosing. The next day at another branch of the same chain I was informed that, over night, the price of BBQ sauce had risen from 10p to 15p. Particularly irksome because I was all ready to swallow my pride and hand over my 10p but I didn’t have another 5 little pennies! I understand that this is probably my own fault for eating at Burger King twice in one week!
The moral of the story, however, is that actually going to a fast food chain is often not the nicest experience – involving bad service, dashed expectations, and pointless, faceless, policy (I’m not involving the quality of the food for obvious reasons). The challenge in marketing such brands is to manage expectation and get consumers engaged with a brand image that makes sense. As BK have shown, there’s still a lot of fun to be had, and that doesn’t have to mean just ticking new ‘healthy,’ ‘eco-friendly,’ ‘caring’ boxes.
And now I’m off to clear out my facebook of the friends I can do without and then reward myself with a burger…but without the incentive over here I will probably just buy it from the nearest store!
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Cool & Online, News | Tags: amazon, bestseller, campaign, dead parrot, DVD, ecommerce, fans, Funny, how to sell, Life of Bryan, monty, none shall pass, online, product, python, sales, silly walks, Spanish Inquisition, tv show, YouTube
monty python you tube channel banner
Check out the new Monty Python YouTube channel. After years of fighting to have their stuff taken down on YouTube, they’ve gone and released all of their work on YouTube for free! So what’s the catch? I’ll let them tell you:
“We’re letting you see absolutely everything for free. So there! But we want something in return. None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.”
And you know what? It seems to be working. Monty Python’s DVDs climbed to No. 2 on Amazon’s Movies & TV bestsellers list, with increased sales of 23,000 percent!
Great marketing ploy to get one last silly walk from the dead parrot.
Enjoy.
Filed under: Our team, management | Tags: candidates, cold calling, databases, digital marketing, Falling Down, friends and family, harassment, injunction, internship, internship programme, IT, lovelies, PSL, recruitment, recruitment agency, rights, targets
The recruitment agents weapon of choice
I’d like to think that I am nice enough, eloquent enough, and straight talking enough to always get my point across. I can in most cases deal with people well and I like to think that I can strike up a good rapport with them should I choose to do so. Now, obviously, the work place is an environment where one must try to be a) as informative b) as polite c) as honest as possible and for the most part this comes naturally. That is until recruitment agent’s call. Have you ever been in the situation where you are asked a question and you politely respond, only to be asked the same question again about 10 minutes later?
Don’t get me wrong some agents I love and they are on my list of lovelies, others are quite nice as I can say no thank you, I have a PSL that I’m happy with, and they get the message and call it a day, filing me forever more under no point in trying so don’t bother (YAY). Others however, and this is the big companies I’m talking about, decide to get every single member of every feasible team in the agency to call me at 10 second intervals to offer me all sorts of candidates, mostly IT (don’t get me started on that one, as when on earth was a digital marketing agency and IT company the same thing), and they keep going until I am frankly looking for their address on the web, some sort of weapon, and dialling for a cab to come over and recreating a scene from the film ‘falling down’.
This is such a regular occurrence that it poses the question what are my rights? If this was a stranger calling me at home, or an ex calling me over and over this would be harassment and I could take out an injunction. I have called back numerous times asking to be removed from databases only to be called or email again about 2 months later. I have been told that if these people are contacting me on behalf of a company then I literally have no way of stopping them other than being incredibly rude and frankly why should I have to be.
It is not only unbelievably annoying but it is such a waste of our time, as the poor receptionist has to make polite excuses all day and I still get emailed and have to respond.
We are a small but perfectly formed agency and therefore our recruitment needs are NEVER going to be huge and if they were I am certainly not going to be brow beaten into dealing with a supplier. Instead of investing time in sorting through endless, pushy agencies, Neoco has invested in building a ‘friends and family’ network so we can fulfil our needs from a relevant and reliable pool of skilled people, many of whom have come through our really popular, year round internship programme.
I appreciate that you have targets but unless you want to be one of mine, please please please do yourself a favour and think twice before you call me. My lovelies know who they are, so if your not sure then chances are you aren’t – so please call it a day.
Filed under: Cool & Online, New Technology | Tags: 1966, 1999, 2009, banking, computers, ecommerce, email, Funny, future, husband, i still want a robot, Internet, viral, websites, wife
The husband ponders the wife's shopping bill
An utterly fantastic video from 1966 that speculates on what life will be like in 1999… so I thought I’d upload it to celebrate 2009! Unlike most videos from the past that speculated on flying cars and robots doing all our chores, this one went for the ‘home shopping’ angle, bank account unification and a way to send letters electronically all over the world… It is so funny the way they talk about ‘the wife’ and her shopping with ‘the husband’ picking up the bill. Aw, nuclear families.
Filed under: Industry news, research | Tags: American Depression, aspirational, banking crisis, behavior, behaviour, British Airways, consumer, consumption, Cooney, during depression, during recession, economic downturn, get out of town, Google, holiday, holidays, i forgot my passport, insight, marketing, media, please take me away, recession, Search, SEO, switching suppliers, UK, virgin atlantic
stats chart for UK consumer behaviour on holiday searches vs. most things recession based
It’s official. We are in a recession. So in this time of crisis, where the latest news announcements can make a massive difference to the UK consumer, what are they searching for? News on Banking Crisis? Recession? Debt? Switching Suppliers?… or Holidays?
Yes, it appears that when the sh*t hits the fan we all decide to jump ship or at the very least fantasize about what might be (if we were not sitting in negative equity on a £400,000 broom cupboard in central London). In fact, Holiday searches are actually 14 times more popular than the nearest recession term. This may sound trivial but there can be real value for brands who use aspirational or escapist campaigns to promote their product or service during these tough times. Terry Cooney in his book Balancing Acts identifies the power and role media during the American depression of the 1930’s:
“Whether [media] offered visions of order restored, affirmations of work-centered values, or celebrations of a culture … they also held out images … that might be entered through mimicry or consumption.”
People do not want to be confronted with the depression of their daily lives or the fear of tomorrow. A successful campaign would help them focus on the ‘better tomorrow’ (or at least an escape from the ‘worse today’) that they can reach via the brand. With this in mind, one wonders if there has been a better time for the BA, Virgin Atlantic sales (environmental issues to one side)? There has always been a place for aspirational marketing to consumers but for the foreseeable future it’s a space that can be inhabited by more than just the aspirational brands. Now if only my bank could make me think about when it would be good to start saving with them again…
Why not have a play with the Beta of Google’s search insight tool for yourself and see what interesting facts you can find on UK or global search behaviour.
Filed under: Events, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: applications, beer, cat burton, Dan Lester, event, Facebook Developers Garage, huddle, iPlatform, LinkedIn, london, mark baker, moshi monsters, MySpace, MySQL, Open Social, pizza, Santosh, social networking, sun microsystems, Twitblogs, victoria mcevedy
facebook developer garage london logo
Another event we will be attending, the FDG. A monthly staple of ours to chat to like minded folk about developing on Facebook. Again, we will feedback to clients anything interesting that comes out of this. This month doors open at 6 – which gives us more time for Pizza, Beer and that essential banter!
Join us this month as:
* Andy from Huddle talking about their experience on the LinkedIn platform, and how this compares to Facebook
*Victoria McEvedy – lets us know the legal stuff with ‘The law and social networking: third party applications’
*Cat Burton from Moshi Monsters join us to talk about their experience with Facebook applications
*We hear the latest on the MySpace platform from Chris Thorpe
*Mark Baker fro Sun / MySQL tells us about meeting Facebook’s scalability challenges, and scaling MySQL apps.
*Dan Lester, CTO of The iPlatform enlightens us on the framework for launching applications on multiple social networks
*Santosh from TwitBlogs talking about their experience building an Open Social container
Plus the regulars – Iskandar’s back with the Latest from the Platform and all the top advice, networking and free beer at Sun Microsystems.
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Events | Tags: advertising, Alastair douglas, Andrew Sibley, B2B, council, Covent Garden, Digital, event, forum, Guy Philipson, Hanne Tuomisto, hopefully they've got nice food, IAB, joe harrison, london, online, Richard Bush, UK
IAB banner
Another event that you can catch the Neoco team at – or ask us for a report from is the IAB B2B forum: B2B marketing can be hugely different to consumer facing campaigns, particularly when using online advertising, but it can also be incredibly powerful when used correctly.
This essential IAB afternoon forum will give you everything you need to use internet advertising correctly to attract, convert and retain customers in the B2B sector. Whether you are entirely new to internet advertising, or are simply looking to refine your skills, this event will equip you with actions to take back to your teams, improve your business systems and ultimately increase your return on investment in 2009 and beyond.
The IAB has been providing educational material and thought leadership in the B2B sector for many years through its B2B Council. Consisting of the industry’s leading experts, the Council has put together an agenda that is packed with case studies, helpful tips and facts. It will cover most forms of internet advertising from a strategic perspective, including search, email, display and video marketing.
At the event, the B2B Council will also be launching their latest publication with every delegate receiving a free hard copy.
AGENDA
12.45 – 1.15pm
Arrival and lunch
1.15pm – 1.30pm
Chairman’s welcome and B2B Market Overview
Joel Harrison Editor for B2B Marketing
1.30 – 2.00pm
ATTRACT – Innovative online thought leadership
Hanne Tuomisto-Inch – Banner Corporation
Andrew Sibley – Head of Brand & Advertising – Cisco Systems
Cisco’s European head of brand and advertising, Andrew Sibley, will shed light into Cisco’s worldwide experiences and strategies in branding and marketing to business and IT decision-makers in the digital space. Cisco, one of the IT industry’s leading innovators, is a good example of a company that is at the forefront of innovation in digital marketing. Online is key to all Cisco’s communications from enhancing brand experience to launching new products.
BREAK
2.20 – 2.50pm
CONVERT – Delivering business intelligence through digital acquisition 2 x breakaway sessions: long and short closing cycles
Edward Weatherall – Concep
Matt Cooksley – Global eMarketing Manager – Cushman & Wakefield LLP
Long closing cycles: Cushman & Wakefield is the world’s largest privately held real estate services firm with 221 offices in 58 countries and more than 15,000 employees. The firm offers a complete range of services to various clients, from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Based around the long cycle, if you choose to attend this session you will learn how to convert clients for larger purchases that require a longer period of consideration.
Alastair Douglas – Simply Business
Short closing cycles: If you run campaigns within quick closing cycle sectors, this session will be perfect for tips to improve upon your campaigns from an expert in this field. Simply Business is the UK’s most popular business insurance and finance portal, using many internet advertising tools including search to deliver undeniably good results.
2.50 – 3.20pm
RETAIN – The role of Internet marketing in Retention
Richard Bush – MD – BaseOneGroup
Retention is key, we all know that, but what role can the internet play in developing and retaining our most valuable customers. In this interactive session we’ll be investigating the retention potential of a whole range of web based techniques from search to virtual seminars.
3.20 – 3.40pm
FUTURE – 2009: an IAB insight
Guy Phillipson – CEO – IAB UK
3.40 – 4.00pm
Q & A
Filed under: Cool & Online, New Technology | Tags: 3D, Australia, Champs Elysees, embarrassing images, france, Golden Gate Bridge, Google, google maps, Google Street View, Italy, Japan, launch, maps, Privacy International, privacy law, Spain, Times Square, UK, USA, Video Images
I’ve got to say I love Google Maps and am constantly using it to find my way to different places – being new to London it saves me a lot of time and effort trying to map read (which definitely isn’t a skill of mine!). So when I heard about Google Street View, which is soon to be launched in the UK, I was immediately sold – come the spring of 2009 not only will I be able to get a map to show me how to get to my destination, but I will also be able to visualise it thanks to the added benefit of 3D video images. Google is obtaining millions of these images and stitching them together to create a virtual replica of city streets. Having first launched in the USA in May 2007, the service is now available in Australia, Japan, France, Spain and Italy.
I think it is a great idea – not only can I familiarise myself with unknown destinations ahead of going there, it also gives me the opportunity to find an excuse not to go if I don’t like the look of it! I can also take a virtual tour of a dream destination – be it walking through Times Square, strolling along the Champs Elysees or passing over San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge!
But despite its potential advantages, Google Street View has courted a certain amount of controversy; particularly as critics believe it breaches personal privacy laws. For months now, Google have had cars and vans touring the country snapping photos with specially mounted cameras, which inevitably include people in their shots.
As a consequence of introducing Google Street View in other countries, there have been lots of amusing, wacky and also disturbing sights captured on camera! For example, in Australia a man who passed out drunk on his front lawn was horrified and embarrassed to find his picture subsequently posted on the internet. As he slept in a drunken stupor, a camera car drove by to take pictures of the street for Google’s Street View website!
In the USA, Google’s roving panoramic cameras have picked up pictures of street fights and even suspected burglaries.
Despite the reservations of some groups, such as Privacy international, to the idea of a commercial organisation taking pictures of people without their consent, Google have had the go ahead to launch the service from the UK’s privacy watchdog, provided that they put certain safeguards in place. These measures include blurring out people’s faces and vehicle registration plates. Also, if you think that you feature in any of their images, Google provides a facility for you to report your concerns to them.
Google’s Street View is a fun-to-use application that most Brits will find a use for – we’ll all just have to remember to spend a little bit longer getting ready to go out, in case any of those pesky cameras are roaming around!
Filed under: Brands & Marketing | Tags: advertising, BA, bad, Barcelona, celebrity, Digital, football, Konica Minolta, marketing, online, responsive, Ronaldinho, soccer, sponsorship, star, T5, Ternial 5, ugly people, waste of money
Konica Minolta ad with Ronaldinho
One of the great things about online and digital advertising/ marketing is how responsive it can be. The fairly recent BA T5 ads were great as they streamed almost live images of the queues at the airport to show you that things were back to normal (or not). There was also a lot of effort to make these ads appear in relevant places both online and offline. Well done BA marketing team and agency. Which leads me to the Konica Minolta marketing team and/or agency…
The other morning I saw this new(?) ad campaign, a £1.4m ad campaign that clearly shows bad advertising is bad regardless of media. The ads are for the print machine manufacturers Konica Minolta and dedicates approx. 80% of the media to the less than pretty face of footballing maestro Ronaldinho. The lone statement reads ‘Ronaldinho brings dramatic improvements to football. KM brings dramatic improvements to colour output’. A little more research in to the campaign shows that maybe this is not totally bad advertising but more out of touch. It appears the campaign was masterminded in Japan and handed down to territories. Now, maybe in the Land of the Rising Sun, Ronaldinho is still seen as something special but for anyone who actually keeps up with football (which is surely a large part of the target audience for this ad?) then they would know Ronaldinho has been struggling with his football game, weight and lifestyle for about 18 months or more. Famously dumped from Barcelona for being unfit, unmotivated and a little petulant, why on Earth would you think this is a good image for your product? So the ad campaign was launch exactly a year ago but he was struggling with all these issues back then.
Importantly, why keep running the ads now? This billboard went up a matter of days ago and highlights the issues of advertising offline. At least if this was online, the banners/ MPU/ whatever could be updated with new content or even a new tagline, maybe something like ‘KM printers stay in their prime long after others have lost theirs’
