Filed under: News, Ping.fm update by Neoco, research | Tags: advertising, audience, Digital Strategy Consulting, DSC, DTA, ecommerce, IAB UK, Lightspeed, online, reserach, shopping
A recent survey by Lightspeed Research and the IAB UK has found that consumers are most receptive to online ads whilst researching and shopping.
The research found that consumers believe they are most likely to pay attention to ads from the early evening onwards, particularly if they are engaged in social networking or e-commerce activity. However, while the early evening was the best time of the day for all age groups, for younger audiences there was likely to be a steady increase in their attention to adverts as the day progressed, especially with entertaining ads. This was markedly different for older age groups who had peaks between 9-12pm and 2-6pm – this was the same for a recent digital marketing campaign by Neoco promoting movie entertainment.
The survey also revealed that people prefer not to be interrupted when they are engaged in an activity that requires their full attention such as watching catch-up TV or movie clips.
(Thanks to Digital Strategy Consulting for the graph)
Want more insight like this? Neoco send out a regular email with a collection of great facts and insight like this, combined with a series of workshops for that enable you to maximise that knowledge. Just get in touch with Benn for more info.
Filed under: News, Ping.fm update by Neoco, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: 100 posts, ping, Twitter, updates
Yay! Neoco hit the big 100 on Twitter updates… keep watching people as it’s going to get a lot fast from here 
Filed under: Coffee Break, Cool & Online, Ping.fm update by Neoco | Tags: bacon, chocolate, DV, food, fun website, quirky, subscribe, why you are fat
Stuck for something to eat? http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/ one person’s website collection of the fattest foods on the planet, from chocolate covered bacon through to a heart-stopping 1170% of you daily recommend intake of cholesterol per serving! I love the fact you can RSS feed this but the owner should of called it ‘fat feed’
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Environment, New Technology, Ping.fm update by Neoco, Technology | Tags: best ad, broken, Digital, installation, projection, reboot, tube, turn it off and on again, Underground, wrong
Following on from our popular blog series on Tube ads, here we see a crashed video display unit. The really interesting thing about this was that more people were looking at the crash screen than the working model before it. The problem for Intel is that their logo and name was the only one in display amongst the error code.
If only I was a little taller I could have fixed everything. Wondering how? Turned it off and on again, of course…
Filed under: Ping.fm update by Neoco
Testing, testing… syndicating all updates via http://ping.fm – One update to rule them all!
Filed under: Coffee Break, Cool & Online, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: acting, actor, apology, Batman, BBC, blogging, censorship, Christian Bale, f word, Family Guy, Funny, hollywood, internet meme, NSFW, remix, Sarah Connor, sequel, swearing, Terminator, Terminator Salvation, TMZ, who are you, why do we need another Terminator, YouTube
Every now and then something happens to remind me of the power of the Internet and why I love it. The latest came in early February this year when the celebrity gossip website TMZ published a recording of Christian Bale throwing a bit of a strop on the set of his new movie, Terminator Salvation. Within hours the recording had hit YouTube and clocked up millions of views, with people from all over the world listening to it and blogging about it.
The recording quickly became an internet meme and computer geeks the world over flocked to their laptops to create their own versions and remixes.
RevoLucian’s Techno Remix was one of the first: (NSFW)
YouTube user ‘TheMaeShi’ went as far as creating their own song: (NSFW)
While my personal favourite played out a re-enactment on the streets of Hollywood: (NSFW)
It even got the family guy treatment (NSFW – again!)
Peter tells his friends about his run-in with Christian Bale
Eventually it hit mainstream news channels around the world. The BBC had to apologise for accidentally broadcasting the un-censored version, and even Christian Bale’s mother had her say. Bale was forced to make a public apology for something that he probably never thought would be listened to by millions of people.
Thanks to the internet I got to spend a few hours laughing at an overpaid Hollywood prima donna making an idiot of himself, and you can’t say fairer than that!
Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Environment, Industry news, New Technology, Technology | Tags: bus shelter, bus stops, Cadbury, chocolate, commuters, creme egg, game, goo, google maps, how do you do it?, I suck out the middle, installations, interactive, Saatchi & Saatchi, splat, touch screen, vandalism, YouTube
It sounds like something out of one of my old uni sketchbooks. How can Cadbury boost sales of everyone’s favourite chocolate egg this year? I know, street installations! Yes, in bus stops, brilliant! Then bored commuters can interact with the brand on a new level with cutting edge touch screen technology – how can they resist, with nothing better to do other than wait for the number 68 to turn up? No one’s ever done it before, it’s a sure fire winner!
‘But what about budget?’ your tutor would interlude, ‘what about vandalism?’ I don’t have to care about that stuff, I’m a student, its theoretical (and looks very pretty in my sketchbook!)
Saatchi & Saatchi however have unbelievably put this in to practice by transforming a number of bus shelters over the country into interactive touch games, where players must splat as many eggs as possible in an attempt to rack up a high score.
You can find your nearest crème egg stop via their website, and imagine my excitement when I discovered that a number had sprung up around our Soho office, the closest being on New Oxford Street – I had to go and see this for myself.
So here’s the stop in all its glory:
Yes I know: thank-you Google maps, it is just an ordinary bus stop. I took the above photographic evidence solely to document my disappointment. Perhaps the vandals got there before me, or maybe Google’s just lying? I’m not sure.
If anyone’s actually interested in seeing what it should have looked like, the fun has been documented:
Shame I couldn’t find one, but nevertheless this is a really brilliant idea. We’ve done some innovative digital installation projects over the years and they are a great way to engage audiences. I hope it pays off for Cadbury’s and S&S. If anyone comes across a functioning game at a London bus stop, let me know!
Filed under: Industry news, Social Networking/ Word Of Mouth | Tags: Alex Bainbridge, BA, community, Cravendale, Facebook, hosting, london, Make The Tea, maps, Metrotwin, New Media Age, New York, NMA, social networks, trave;l, Trip Advisor, trip pods, Virgin, Virgin Active, virgin atlantic, Vtravelled
As reported in January’s New Media Age, Virgin Atlantic are preparing for the soft launch of their new travel portal “Vtravelled”. According to the article, the community site will aim to recruit 2 million founding members between the soft launch date (end of Feb) and the rollout in June – an ambitious target.
The site moves Virgin into territory already covered by their main long-haul airline rival – BA. “Metrotwin” is based around the idea of “use[ing] what you know about one city to explore the other one.” So Borough Market in London is twinned with Union Square Greenmarket in New York. It’s an interesting idea, complimented by the excellent look and feel of the site and interesting content – a point well observed by Alex Bainbridge in his blog.
Virgin’s community site takes a different approach. According to the NMA article, the site will focus on:
• providing an “inspirational” site that will help “spark ideas for new trips”
• image and map content
• hosting “personal travel content” in the form of “trip pods” that allow users to share their travel plans, photos, notes and chat
Ultimately, Virgin want customers to “think of the site when making a travel decision”.
As Alex points out in his blog, with this approach, much of the content appears to be focussed on an individual’s travel plans. This differs from sites such as TripAdvisor and Metrotwin where much of the content is focussed on a place and therefore often of interest to other users.
There is also a crossover of functionality with the large social-network players (Facebook, MySpace etc.). Can Vtravelled persuade users to leave Facebook and other social networks to post photos and chat to their friends?
I believe that the success of the site will come down to the implementation. If the look and feel and feature-set are attractive enough to the target audience (users who wish to share travel plans or plan trips), then users may embrace these tools and make the jump.
Arguably Virgin have the clout to make this happen. Other recent Virgin advertising activities (agreeably not in “digital) seem to have been a success. I joined Virgin Active after the “lose the bits you hate” tube poster campaign and the more recent Virgin Atlantic TV ads are extremely impressive.
Whether Virgin can meet their ambitious targets remains to be seen. I for one am looking forward to following the success of the site, not least because of what it will say about consumers appetite for niche social-network communities. From my experience implementing social networks for our clients I do believe that niche networks are the future. I think users are willing to sign up to sites that they identify with, me included. Recently I’ve signed up for the BA website and a Cravendale branded ‘make the tea‘ site! But at Neoco we know that, however grand the scope of a new social network, it’s expert implementation that will keep members engaged over time.
