Brand Republic Community

Video Interview - Ben Chapman - BBC Radio 1 - Social Media

Mel Carson — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:56:00 GMT

More social media insight! This time from Ben Chapman who heads up interactive for BBC Radio 1.

In this 12 minute interview he serves up how they use digital to enhance radio for their 11 million weekly listeners.

Amazon opens up affiliate marketing on Twitter

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:04:00 GMT

So it may only seem like five minutes ago but all the way back in July I commented on Amazon's policy of rejecting affiliate commissions for sales generated through social media, specifically Twitter, in part due to a clause that requires sales to be generated from the domain listed in the Associate account the affiliate holds with Amazon.

Well this week Amazon appears to have, if not made a u-turn, then at least gone back on that position somewhat. Based on what I have seen they have not publicly acknowledged any change of policy but earlier this week they communicated a new feature that enables their affiliates to click a button from within Amazon to create a tweet promoting the page they were on at the time. Interestingly, despite evidence to suggest Amazon would use their own short-url service, these affiliate links use the popular Bit.ly service instead.

It seems a sensible move. We all know that online communication is increasingly moving away from a one-way broadcast model and therefore the volumes to be got through links placed on specific affiliate sites may well be on the decrease. What's more, Twitter's popularity seems to be in no way declining with news stories today suggesting that Twitter is achieving growth through increasing adoption from a youth audience. It is worth noting this contradicts some of the expert research Morgan Stanley released earlier this year that suggested Twitter didn't appeal to teens (excuse me whilst I remove my tongue from my cheek).

It will be interesting to see where this goes next. Given Amazon's policy on Affiliates only promoting their products on their own site it is not currently clear whether the links generated through this new method would still work if posted elsewhere (Facebook for example) but the evidence suggest they will, and that Amazon are no longer actively enforcing this policy. There is also still a lot of concern regarding the use of monetized links on Twitter (and social media generally) and what's more, given the current FTC review going on in the US, the use of such links without clear labelling could soon be illegal.

What do people think? Is it smart of Amazon to get in there and allow users to make money out of their social network now (before someone else gets in there) or is Twitter somewhere that should really stay 'ad' free?

Consumers show web is King

Graeme Crossley — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:29:00 GMT

With Christmas just around the corner, we are urging retail brands in particular to take stock of the changes happening in the sector and adapt their strategies to take account of the multiple influences that are now affecting consumer purchase decisions, in particular the use of the web as a place to gain insight prior to making a purchase.

In one of our recent whitepapers, we revealed that traditional consumer insight methodologies are no longer sufficient in understanding buyer behavior and brand owners need to have a significantly deeper level of understanding of what motivates and influences consumer attitudes. A customer that has a good experience will typically tell 3 to 5 people, but a customer who has a poor experience will tell more than 20. When this is trend occurs via the web, these numbers can rapidly multiply and could spell disaster for brands that don’t have strategies in place to combat online negative chatter.

A couple of months ago, we quizzed over 800 consumers about the influence of online reviews on their purchase decisions during August and September, and revealed that they relied heavily on online reviews for:

Consumer electronics                  56%
Home Furnishings                       33%
Apparel                                      21%
White Goods                              45%
DIY & Gardening                         18%
Entertainment Products              12%
Sports Goods                              9%
Food                                           2%

But this isn’t just about adopting trendy new social media strategies or having a fan group on Facebook. It is about directly interacting with your customers wherever they choose to have conversations about you. Customers expect and want to engage in two-way dialogue with the brands they use. The Internet should not just be viewed as a sales channel or an additional way to advertise your brand but as a method of communication.

Cost-cutting at Dentsu boosts profit forecast

BOB WILLOTT — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:02:00 GMT

Dentsu, the leading Japanese listed marketing group, surprised the industry this morning by upgrading its profit forecast for the year to 31 March 2010 by 44% from ¥11.4 million (£76 million) to ¥16.4 million (£110 million).

The increased profit is expected despite a continuing decline in revenues. “The harsh environment is expected to continue”, the company said, but it expected profits to benefit from cost reduction efforts.

In the first half year to 30 September, cost reduction efforts were supplemented by a refund of tax paid in previous years. As a result profits are expected to have beaten the previous forecast by 123%.

Ex McKinsey consultant gets Media Square chief executive post

BOB WILLOTT — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:50:00 GMT

The former McKinsey management consultant brought in two years ago to rationalise AIM listed marketing group Media Square under its executive chairman Roger Parry will take over as group chief executive next January. Parry will then become a non-executive chairman and thereby appease those shareholders currently baying for his removal who might otherwise have criticised his dual role.

Peter Reid’s appointment as chief executive is a curious one that leaves a number of questions unanswered. There is no doubt that a lot of change has taken place at Media Square since Parry assumed the chairmanship in 2007, and hopefully time will prove that the group is in a much better condition as a result.

Reid’s role in cutting costs and rationalising business units is bread and butter to a management consultant who typically moves on to pastures new thereafter. But those that eventually assume senior management roles do not always bring glory to the post.

First, they have to reap the rewards (or lack of) from their rationalisation labours. Costs may be much reduced but business building and skills development may not have received the same degree of attention they deserved.

Secondly, the skill set required to motivate and manage an ongoing business is not always a natural part of a consultant’s armoury. For example, according to Companies House 35 year old Reid has never held a board directorship in the UK before. And he doesn’t seem to have had first hand experience of managing the day-to-day operations of a commercial business over a long period of time.

Of course, stars can appear from nowhere and hopefully Reid will prove to be just the person for the job. But in a group that arguably had accumulated too many second hand and second rate businesses, shareholders might feel more reassured to know that the new boss has actually run a marketing company successfully before.

More pay walls – Emap makes its pitch/readers respond

Gordon Macmillan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:42:00 GMT

There are some interesting comments cropping up on Retail Week's blog about its plan to charge readers £150 and put some online content behind a pay wall on November 13.

In the blog post Retail Week editor Tim Danaher makes his pitch to the magazine readers telling them about Emap's plans to boost its online offering with a raft of new services and explaining how this new content should only benefit subscribers.

For B2B publishers in particular this is the pitch. It is the same one that Centaur and its NMA title made this week as these titles look to protect their magazine subscriber base in a tough climate where the B2B sector has been as hard hit as any. There have been a slew of magazine closures and job losses and that pain is far from over. More magazine closures are almost guaranteed.

Haymarket Media, which owns Brand Republic, yesterday reported a 43% drop in pre-tax profits (in the year to December 31 2008).

Today United Business Media, publisher of Music Week, Travel Trade Gazette and the Publican, said it planned to reduce the number of print titles that it published as they become "complementary components of an integrated product portfolio".

"In anticipation of this market trend, we are managing our portfolio towards a smaller set of market-leading, commercially sustainable titles, each operating within an integrated product portfolio."

As for Emap and Retail week it must be nerve racking to announce all this in the same week that Rupert Murdoch revealed that his plans to introduce paid content are not on track. Questions will inevitably be raised by readers and rivals.

The comments in response to Tim Danaher's blog post are only a few in number, but I think they are indicative of the spread of opinion in the market. What is encouraging to note from Emap's perspective is that there is positive in with the negative as it asks people to pay up during a steep economic downturn.

The very first commenter seems to sum up well the issues that everyone considering such a move will no doubt be mulling. I'll bullet point:

1. I cant afford it.
2. Mr Murdoch thinking about charging is relevant, however I have an alternative to the Times website and that's the BBC which is much better.
3. He's going to read The Grocer (the rival to Retail Week) instead
4. He wishes retail week Good luck as we all do.

Clearly, Emap has already researched this and worked out that if enough of its readers will join it on its foray into paid content and pay £150. Although I wonder if it asked readers if they would switch to a rival if a charge were introduced.

Clearly, having a healthy well resourced rival that remains free could prove a major stumbling block to achieving a successful paid content strategy.

There are a few other points that Retail Week readers raised. A couple expressed interest in an "online only service if it was cheaper than the printed and digital versions combined".

This sentiment appears to echo what UBM is talking about and while the reader might what it their desire does not chime with what Emap and Centaur are trying to achieve with their desire to protect print copies and any offline ad market they have a slice of as well.

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My thoughts on the twins

Jeremy Lee — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:12:00 GMT

Gordon Brown, who apparently can't be bothered to get in touch with the families of British soldiers killed in action but was able to express concern to Simon Cowell for Susan Boyle's welfare, has weighed into another crucial topic that is dominating the media.

Apparently he thinks the twins 'aren't very good'.

The beloved leader, once again, is wrong. The twins are great and my favourite is Christina Alessi on account of Caroline's slightly wonky mouth. End of.

Wear your Poppy with pride this weekend.

Brevity is the soul of wit

Lolly and Nat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:13:00 GMT

We've been going to an amazing sketch-writing course on weekends. It involves watching classic sketches from Smack the Pony and Monty Python, laughing a lot, and then analysing why.

So it's basically heaven. Oh and then we have to improvise on the spot in front of the whole class. Not so heavenly.

Wanted to share a few things from it, as - inevitably - there were many moments which crossed over into advertising.

So this week, class, we'll look at how the "craft" of sketch writing overlaps into crafting good ads. (forgive the use of the word 'craft', it is pretentious but necessary).

The classic sketch structure consists of:

The setup. The twist. Escalation. Pay-off.

The interesting bit is escalation. There are many different ways in which a comic can escalate the joke in a sketch...

Repetition - think of Lauren in Catherine Tate who is relentlessly 'bovvered'. Or Cleese and his million ways to describe how the parrot is in fact dead.

Revelation - where a new layer of unexpectedness is revealed. Or something new about the character which adds to the humour. e.g. the Constable Savage sketch in Not the 9 o' clock News. In this, the constable is being disciplined for a bunch of absurd arrests. Then we find out that it's the same man he's been arresting. Then we find out why - because he's black. and then we find out the script actually has a strong political polemic. Worth watching if you've not seen it (can't find it on youtube though)

Variation - a new version of the same twist. For example, in this god-like Fry & Laurie sketch, a man insists his surname IS the sound of a lighter being dropped onto a counter. the variation on this joke comes when he insists his address IS a tap dancing sequence.

I was struck by how similar this is to writing an ad campaign. The joke is the central thought, or strategy. And the variations are simply different executions of the same thought - just as three posters in an ad campaign are basically escalating the same concept in different ways.

Our homework this week was to write a 3 minute sketch. I'm writing about call-centre ineptitude. Nat's writing about delusional estate agents. Should be lots of fun. Any fun horror stories on either, please feel free to share - we may use it as script fodder - thanks.

Helping who, exactly?

Mark Roy — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:18:00 GMT

Another week, another round of bank bail-outs. The latest cost to UK taxpayers? £30.5 billion. That’s around £500 for every person in the country. Seems like rather a lot to pay for three new high street banking brands, which may or may not be viable sales propositions three or four years down the track, does it not?

It appears we’re set to end 2009 where we began it, namely with bankers’ grubby mitts deep in the public purse. Just out of interest, does anyone feel they’ve benefited directly from any of Darling Alistair’s largesse? I’m thinking in particular of his fleet of business assistance programmes from back in Q1 - the Working Capital Scheme, Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme and Capital for Enterprise Fund, among them – all of which were designed (supposedly) to increase lending to companies feeling the pinch.

Is it just me or have all of these schemes done b*gger all? It’s certainly hard to know who’s helping who sometimes.

Heroes of The Mobile Screen Conference- Dec 7th

Belinda Parmar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:10:00 GMT

I'll be speaking at Heroes of the Mobile Screen on Dec 7th at the BFI SouthBank which is taking an in-depth look at what's really going on in the world of mobile.

Its going to be a fantastic event with speakers and panelists from across the globe including Doug Richard, serial entrepreneur, from the TV series Dragon's Den. Uniquely the event also has secondary school pupils, college students and other members of the same generation, to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to them in terms of their mobile life.

The event is run by the same team (which includes the inspiring and charming Helen Keegan) that brings you Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers, Future of Mobile, Over The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest.

Tickets are available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee).

You can register your interest in Heroes of the Mobile Screen by:
Checking out the website: http://mobileheroes.net/
Becoming a fan on Facebook
Following on Twitter: @hotms

I would love to see you there.

Room with a hell-of-a view

Greg Taylor — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:08:00 GMT

The Hotel Everland is a portable, green, rectangular room.

Conceived by Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann, it’s been stationed in beautiful landscapes and cities in Switzerland, Germany, and France.

In the picture below, it sits like a jewel on the roof of the contemporary art space, Palais De Tokyo in Paris.

The views from the large windows provide uniquely stunning views.

While inside the green and white container is a comfortable room with a king-size bed, a fully working bathroom in beautiful blue mosaic tile, a large lounge, a record collection, an over-stuffed mini-bar (included in the price), and breakfast is delivered to your door in the morning.

However, unlike a traditional hotel, guests are allowed to stay for one night only in the year and it's also open to museum visitors during the day.

Everything, including top class service, seems to deliver the ideal of luxury and indulgence most modern hotels want to deliver.

Well worth experiencing, the room costs around €333-444 to book for the night and bookings happen online exclusively.

To give everyone a fair shot, bookings can be made only two months in advance and new booking slots are opened every week.

Ref. http://www.coolhunting.com/archives/2007/12/everland_hotel.php

One-to-One Marketing goes 3D

Steve Moncrieff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:49:00 GMT

Lord Leverhulme famously said that “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the problem is I do not know which half”. In a downturn it is vital that none of the marketing pound is wasted and as planning director at Leeds-based direct response agency PCD, I can reveal how to be smarter with your marketing spend.

Whether you call it direct marketing or one-to-one marketing, the all important goal is to promote your message to your customers in a more targeted way. Achieving this goal becomes ever more vital as company boardrooms insist marketing teams justify their budgets and as such decisions, strategies and plans will become more customer data insight driven.

Digital opportunities and channels provide marketers with never before seen levels of interactions with customers and prospects. Integrating in a single process, for example via direct mail, sms, web or email, with levels of personalisation that are no longer restricted to simple variables but include imagery, product messages and copy to fit an individual customer’s particular purchasing habit and lifestyle, help to engage with target audiences.

Yes, this comes at a higher cost, however experience has shown that cost per pack whilst increasing is countered by an overall increase in conversion, lowering overall acquisition costs.”

To reflect this explosion in alternative on and offline media platforms, we at PCD have refocused the business and developed a 3D approach – data, digital and direct.

• Data means knowledge and provides insight, information and understanding which results in targeted planning, segmentation and a well defined strategy.
• Digital means one-to-one dialogue, delivering relevant and personalised comms. This means that the right message is being delivered the right way at the right time, both on and offline.
• Direct means accountable and results in brand building, generating response, measuring, learning and improving.

I believe that we needed to develop this unique 3D approach in order to provide clients with targeted methods to reach their consumers and increase customer value.

What’s different about our 3D approach is that you will realise it’s not just about sending complex mailing packs, building the biggest websites, sending the most emails or developing ‘flashy’ online campaigns. It’s about taking data and using it to understand your customers. It’s about understanding a customer’s journey with your brand, the touchpoints and conversations you’ll have and those you should have. It’s about segmenting data to target creative more effectively and then delivering campaigns that embrace and engage the customers.

This is all before a creative concept is hatched and means that clients fully understand their customers, allowing them to embrace and engage with them in a way they have not been able to do before.

I believe that our approach begins by understanding our clients data, the segments they form, the impact these segments can have on your business and then the creative message we can deliver, ultimately ensuring the right customer receives the right message by the right channel.

For more information visit www.pcdagency.com or telephone 01943 872505

Nine Top Digital Trends for 2010

Nuri Djavit — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:50:00 GMT

1: Facebook replaces personal email Question: Google has it, Hoover has it (in the UK anyway), TiVo had it, lost it and has somewhat got it back. Xerox had it, but nobody really cares anymore. So what is it? It’s when a brand name becomes the verb associated with its use. So rather than searching, you Google, or TiVo when digital recording a television show.

Arguably an even more powerful synonym is when a brand becomes a noun, such as Polaroid, for instant developed photograph, although that didn’t end so well. The newest one would seem to Facebook, although it has too meanings. ‘I Facebooked you’ could mean that you the person has added you as a Facebook friend or they sent you a private message though Facebook. The latter would seem to be of more interest as no-one has really owned this type of communication before. No brand ever became synonymous with email. To Hotmail or Gmail someone just never happened.

So the interesting and overlooked disruption of Facebook is its displacement of personal email as a communication tool. Completely permission based, no SPAM (yet), and no address book required - your friends are already on Facebook.

2: Open source software starts making proper money, thanks to the cloud There’s something starting to happen within the open source software world. Projects that were typically for the purview of programmers, or at least technophiles, are now available to the masses. An example is Beanstalk www.beanstalkapp.com a fully hosted, version controlled code repository that uses the Subversion open source project. The big deal is that to set up and maintain a Subversion repository can be a pain - plus you need a server if you want to give access to anyone. Beanstalk has created a subscription based service that, for a small fee, removes the hassle.

Services like this can only really exist with cloud computing infrastructure - so companies such as Beanstalk don’t have the huge upfront capital outlay for servers, they only pay for what their customers use. With the right skills any open source project can be commercialized in this manner.

3: Mobile Commerce - the promise that has never delivered, yet. As annoyingly tantalizing yet esoteric as the word ‘convergence’ has been over the last 10 years, mobile commerce has promised much but never delivered.

Mobile phones have delivered real benefits to societies world wide and in developing nations are used commonplace as devices for the transfer of money. However, until only very recently in the nations that invented and first adopted mobile technologies, has use of your most precious device been extended to payment for goods and services.

With the advanced browsers of iPhone and the Android platforms one could pay for goods through full e-commerce sites, but who really wants to fiddle around with a phone in one hand and a credit card in another? The game changer is the iPhone / iTunes platform. In-app purchases on the iPhone can tempt users to buy small items, upgrades, updates, etc, while iTunes holds their precious credit card information.

All, of course, is done in seamless fashion, enough to promote impulse purchases. Would seem like an easy task for this to be extended to other platforms with PayPal or Google Checkout. But we have been here before haven’t we?

4: Fewer registrations - one sign-in fits all I use a great application on the Mac platform that securely holds my login details for upwards of 50 different sites. It means that I don’t have to use the same password for each site and that I don’t have to search around for post-it notes (my 1998 method) to log into the site I joined a week ago. However, I’m starting to resent having to register for anything ever again. I don’t see why, to leave a particularly pithy comment on a blog or news site, I have to register all over again. I’m sure I’m not the only one and that’s why services like Facebook Connect and OpenID are particularly useful and will continue to be adopted at great speed through 2010.

Who knows where these might go? Perhaps next year I’ll be able to pay for something using my Facebook login.

5: Disruption vs. Continuity - Alternatives to the “Big Idea” As the significance of social networks continues to grow, businesses are investing more in community building as a marketing driver. According to the recent Tribalization of Business study released by Deloitte, 94% of businesses will continue or increase their investment in online communities and social media and, for the majority of these companies, their marketing function will drive this investment.

At the same time, as evidenced by Google’s recent release of “free floating” social tools, such as Google Waves and Sidewiki, there is an increasing shift towards online identity and social activity being an integrated part of the network as a whole, rather than concentrated within discrete platforms such as Facebook.

With the increasing emphasis on marketing and advertising through social networks and the increasing pervasiveness of social tools, marketing objectives come into conflict with advertising techniques.

While advertising has often sought to distinguish itself and stop the consumer in their tracks with a disruptive “big idea,” the emphasis is shifting toward persuasion through fitting organically into the consumer’s social sphere. It will always be the objective of marketing to provide creativity and novelty, but the way in will increasingly be one of persistence and continuity.

6: Self-Sufficiency – The Continuing Evolution of Web-Driven,Open Source DIY Culture Much has been said about the power and potential of collective intelligence. From solving complex problems through crowd-sourcing, to reconfiguring industries to be leaner and more innovative by harnessing the expertise of a network of independent suppliers, many of the breakthrough solutions of tomorrow appear to lie in more effectively pooling the resources and intelligence of our increasingly networked world.

On the other side of the equation, the power of pooled intelligence and networked resources have empowered individuals to take on more and more complex undertakings themselves. From drawing on the collective intelligence of blogs and university open courseware to educate themselves, to services like ponoko, spoonflower and cafe press that facilitate small-scale production, to offline resource pooling like pop-up retail and collective office spaces, individuals are discovering that it has never been easier to try doing it themselves.

While we find new ways to thrive in a still struggling economy, expect to see lasting changes coming from empowering individuals to work together to become more ever more self-sufficient.

7: Info-Art Where we once had pop-psychologists and pop-philosophers, we now appear to have pop-statisticians and pop-economists. The growing wealth of data and the access to rich and diverse data sources that are significant byproducts of information networks have made the art of data analysis a defining skill of our time. By the same token, the skill of elegantly visualizing that data has become a defining art of our time. The art of the infographic is becoming increasingly pervasive as people look more and more to the growing amount of data at our disposal for insight, and more refined as the interactions of that data becomes more complex.

With an ever increasing need for real-time analysis of a growing torrent of raw data, expect to see greater innovation spurred by more elegant ways of capturing and visualizing information by a growing number of info-artists.

8: Crowd Sourcing Across many industries and organizations, crowd sourcing will become a growing tool as part of elance outsourcing strategies. Organizations will mobilize the passionate special interest groups to not only carry a message but, even more importantly perhaps, to lead and take part in activities on their behalf.

Predictions for 2010 are not as rosy as we all hoped and budgets for just about everything continue to be cut, encouraging ‘creative’ thinking regarding getting things done and done well. From political canvassing to software development, from people journalism to environmental activism, we will see huge growth in crowd sourcing models provoked and led, largely, by digital social media strategies.

9: More Flash, Not Less Outside of the obvious brand sites, micro-sites and media sites (video, games, etc.) Flash has often been looked down upon if not completely discounted by techies and search engine optimizers alike. It seemed to face an uncertain future as a viable tool for serious websites and applications such as eCommerce tools and corporate websites.

As it is, Adobe’s rich media tool has enjoyed the grit and determination of its advocates and external development community. Several tricks, authoring tools and server side scripting workarounds have meant that Flash built websites no longer serve up a single, impenetrable page. They offer deep, searchable, indexable sites that will allow acute, detailed traffic and behavioral analytics and search engine optimization. As websites continue to increase in their importance as a company’s storefront, the demand for rich, brand-extending experiences will also increase. Further proliferation of (lightning speed) broadband will reduce download issues while the adoption of Flash on mobile devices will dramatically increase and fuel reach and the desire/need for highly usable, brand transporting, conversion oriented experiences

Does Sir Roger Moore dye his hair?

Jeremy Lee — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:43:00 GMT

Yes. But I don't care.

Sir Roger Moore can pretty much do anything as far as I'm concerned. He's doing some chonky ads for the Post Office where the rheumy-eyed old actor hams it up while women pretend to swoon at his presence. And they're brilliant.

And now he's in a campaign for PETA - an organisation with which I have historically had mixed feelings - to highlight the cruelty involved in the production of foie gras.

Good old Sir Roger. Much like Bono, I'd pretty much have to agree with whatever he says. See this blog isn't just about hate?

Incidentally, his excellent autobiography - My Word Is My Bond - makes an ideal stocking-filler.

Vodafone confides: There will be no iPhone price war

Arif Durrani — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:29:00 GMT

I’ve got bad news for anyone waiting for the much anticipated “price war” to erupt over the iPhone in the UK: it’s not going to happen.

There’s been much excitement about the iPhone being made available at lower prices ever since Apple announced it would not be extending its exclusive two-year iPhone deal with O2. But I’ve learnt it’s not going to happen any time soon due to one very specific reason.

The touch-screen operated iPhone is undisputedly the daddy of all mobile handsets right now. If you know someone who owns one, chances are you know someone who loves one.

Many admirers not on O2 have been waiting for the rollout of the iPhone across other networks, and the increase in competition is widely expected to act as a catalyst that will bring down the monthly cost of the iPhone.

There was notable disappointment when Orange, the UK’s third-largest mobile phone operator, unveiled its tariffs for its iPhone deal on Monday, and guess what, they are broadly in-line with those already being offered by O2 – around £30 a month for contracts, and an 18 month commitment.

Yes, there are slight variations over what is included in the monthly tariff, but the basic packages and, more importantly, the monthly cost to the consumer are very similar.

There’s a reason for this.

Those now pinning their hopes on Vodafone undercutting both O2 and Orange when it launches its iPhone package in the New Year will be equally disappointed.

A high-level Vodafone exec has told me the basic price ranges of the iPhone are being set by Apple at the negotiating table.

While some degree of variation is being allowed for, the general monthly costs, at least for the first round of contracts, have been stipulated by brand-protective Apple.

If you want an iPhone in 2010, it’s still going to cost you.

eModeration's Social Round-Up #11

Tia Fisher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:34:00 GMT

THE HEADLINES ...

HM Customs and Revenue is clearly in a state of some denial about the extent to which their pet subject is a byword for catatonic boredom: they have allowed the Boss Of All The Taxmen to have a go at delivering their new YouTube ad, instead of getting a professional in. If you are currently experiencing the agonies of insomnia, I advise you save this treat till bedtime. The Telegraph serves up a list of HMRC’s competitors for the title ‘Most Boring Video on YouTube (at Number 1: 'watching paint dry') here.

It sounds like the punch-line to an (admittedly low-hilarity) Tech joke, but apparently not: the internet really could run out of addresses within two years, unless more companies migrate to a new naming protocol, warn experts.

Over at BoingBoing, they claim that the top secret global Ante-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has been leaked – and that it’s blimmin’ bad news for us all. Amongst other things, ISPs might be forced to take proactive responsibility for pulling copyrighted material – which BoingBoing says would sound the death knell for YouTube, and much of Web 2.0.

One of the joys of remote working is being able to do so in your pyjamas (or, in my case, a maroon velvet smoking-jacket and spats.) Now Linden Labs has spoiled it all by launching Second Life Enterprise, where companies can do virtual business behind a firewall. My friends, pyjamas won’t cut it now.

Charles Dunstone, the increasingly vocal chief exec of TalkTalk, has castigated the government for the second time this month – this time over its plans for a broadband tax to fund the rollout of high-speed broadband to non-profitable rural areas. He warns that around 100,000 low-income households will be forced to give up their Internet connections because they will not be able to afford to pay the tax.

THE LOWDOWN ...

Twitter dejection appears to be catching. Following Stephen Fry’s attack of the dismals last weekend, Katie Price (aka Jordan, glamour model extraordinaire) has posted a series of overwrought tweets telling her ‘haters’ to do their worst, and saying that she feels she can do nothing right. Celebs and Twitter – an unhealthy combination, prone to increase self-loathing and thence end in tears?

It would be fair to say that Facebook's recent redesign has not gone down too well, and last week we reported that the group ‘Change Facebook Back to Normal’ has 1.4m rebels and rising. We hadn’t clocked, however, that the proto–revolutionary expertly fomenting this dissent is… a 14 year-old boy called Jonathan Woodlief, from North Carolina. Asked for a quote, the boy’s dad said "He's doing what on Facebook?" There goes the allowance.

IN OTHER NEWS ...

Crime and Security Minister David Hanson has confirmed that a number of suspects have been held this year by the police’s e-crime unit, in connection with cyber attacks on government depts. The minister declined to elaborate, citing national security – but did reveal that the (rather Gilliamesque) ''Office for Cyber Security'' had been established ''to monitor the health of cyber space and co-ordinate incident response''.

Is social networking destined for the same spam-bedevilled fate as email? The big networks need to do some urgent thinking, warns Graham Cluley of security firm Sophos, if they don’t wish users trust in the blossoming marketing platform to be crushed. Sophos found that 1 in 4 companies had been exposed to spam, phishing or malware via sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace.

MSN, the wallflower at the social media party, is finally getting a makeover from Microsoft. The site’s dramatically-different design is now sleeker and more minimal – and focuses on video and importing key feeds like Twitter and Facebook.

Sharp intakes of breath from cable companies, with the announcement that Apple is having another go at Web TV – this time with an iTunes-based subscription service.

And amid growing concern that some social gaming app developers are scamming both users and advertisers, MySpace boss Owen Van Natta has announced a “zero tolerance for app scams” policy – particularly those which sign users up for a repeat transaction without telling them.

ON FACEBOOK ...

It’s been a sedate few days for Facebook and Twitter – a pleasant change after the giddy whirl of the last few weeks, during which announcements came at breakneck pace from both. As you catch your breath and mop your brow, we bring you The Buzz Bin’s Facebook Fan Page Best Practices, followed by Jason Falls on why Facebook mentions of your brand won’t show up on your monitoring service...

ON TWITTER ...

... and for Afters, we have Mashable’s Twitter Lists How-To, plus a wee peek at Peek, the handheld device for mobile tweeting which launched this week.

ON YOUTUBE ...

Google’s YouTube wants to convince media companies like Disney that it's better to sell advertising space around illegally-uploaded material, than to take it down. According to YouTube their ContentID system can identify material even if it’s been customized by users - they hope that this will reassure copyright-holders, who will then play along.

BRANDS GET SOCIAL ...

Sainsbury's has been slow off the Twitter mark – its @JSainsburysPlc has made 9 posts since its launch in March. Now, though, it’s taking a leaf out of its celeb spokesman Jamie Oliver’s book, and launching @sainsbury’s, through which they hope to inspire shoppers with recipe ideas.

Kodak has launched a branded YouTube channel, ForMom, which encourages mothers to upload content on various topics that will make other mum’s live a bit easier.

US cake brand Mrs. Freshley's has launched a Facebook search to find “the real Mrs. Freshley” – someone who embodies the spirit of the brand which, till now, has not had a fixed persona.

Sara Lee Deli had lassoed some new Twitter followers whilst helping the fight against hunger. On Monday they donated $1 per follower (to a max of $25K) to Share Our Strength, which fights childhood hunger in the US. Followers used hashtags and retweets to help the campaign go viral.

ON MOBILE ...

Finally. After iPhone’s 2 ½ years unchallenged at the top of the market, here comes a competitor to make Apple twitchy. Buzz is getting busy around Motorola’s Droid – here’s a peak at the latest of its super-stylish (if slightly baffling) commercials.

VIRTUAL AND GAMES ...

Linden Lab announced its Q3 figures this week – with user-to-user transactions jumping 54% year-on-year, to $150 million. Total user hours, however, rose by a meagre 13% year-on-year, which Linden ascribed to the introduction of their bot-banning policy. Monthly repeat logins for September 2009 peaked at 750,446 - a 23% increase year-on-year.

Bebo launched its Social Games Experience ecosystem this week. The site section includes developer tools and games, fronted by the Games Homepage, which allows users to access social games apps and communicate around them.

The Chinese authorities have told NetEase, which operates World of Warcraft in China, that the game is in "gross violation" of Chinese regulations and that they must stop new account registration immediately.

Kzero have updated their very useful Brands in Virtual Worlds slideshare – it now includes campaigns from Hush Puppies, NBA, and Skittles amongst many others - and you can give it a quick once over here.

THINKING ...

If, in this light news week, you found yourself with a spare two minutes, you could do much worse than cast your eye over David Armano’s sharp assessment of where social media might lead us in 2010.

Education for the consumer masses

Greg Taylor — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:13:00 GMT

Many brands don't seem to want to educate their customers, just in case all the extra effort goes to waste or benefits a competitor. Not so Intelligentsia Coffee. This small chain operates a ‘lab’ in New York dedicated to helping people learn more about coffee.

They offer barista classes, coffee and food pairing, home-brewing, milk steaming and latte art, cupping, espresso and brewed coffee tasting.

Ref. http://www.influxinsights.com/blog/article/2417/making-your-customers-smarter.html

http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/about/about-us

Murdoch stalls on the road to paid content/NMA raise pay wall

Gordon Macmillan — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:06:00 GMT

First it was the New York Times and now Rupert Murdoch has hinted that News Corporation may not hit its year end deadline to implement paid content.

Murdoch, who owns the Times and the Sun, Wall Street Journal and New York Post (what a great front page; great game), told reporters that he can not promise that News Corp will meet its own deadline.

"We are working all very, very hard at it but I wouldn't promise that we are going to meet that date. It's a work in progress and there is a huge amount of work going on, not just with our sites but with other people," Murdoch said in a conference with journalists.

According to the Age when he was asked about the delay Murdoch said he was "not prepared to comment on that at all". Thorny issue.

Murdoch & Co are struck by the exact same thing that has hit the New York Times execs earlier this week when executive editor, Bill Keller, admitted that the issue of charging had proved a much tougher and more complicated decision "than it seems to all the armchair experts".

This seems to indicate that executives at both News Corp and the New York Times Company are struggling to work out which system they are going to opt for in their pursuit of paid content.

The delay will validate critics who say that newspapers are going to find it very hard to successful erect pay walls and get cash from their readers who are so used to a world of free.

The news that News Corp is delaying its decision to implement a pay wall came as its first quarter results revealed a sharp fall in operating income in its newspaper business, down to $25m in the three months to September from $134m last time as advertising revenue fell in the UK 15% and at the Wall Street Journal.

All those numbers say that Murdoch is not going to turn away or balk at the paid content conundrum. He doesn't think he can with news papers losing money like that. My bet is for some kind of limited subscription model – like the Financial Times where a certain amount of articles are given away (30 a month in the case of the FT) – or a membership club, which is something being looked at with interest by a lot of media firms including the New York Times, The Times and Guardian News & Media.

What I really wouldn't expect is micropayments. Well not in the short term at least. I'm sure the first step will be a limited pay wall option that could later be extended to something more complex.

It has been a busy week in paid content all round with real stuff happening – in B2B at least. Earlier this week Emap plumped for a £150 charge and now rival Centaur has opted to put more of the content of its digital magazine NMA (already £99-a-year with a subscription) behind a pay wall.

In a statement on its website NMA says the move is part of the "title's phased strategy to introduce a range of premium content and services to add value to bundled subscriptions".

"Like all other publishers, we're experimenting with paid-for models online," said editor Justin Pearse. "While previously lead stories from the magazine were accessible for free, we’re confident this content, together with the analysis our site provides to the industry, is worth paying for."

Next up?

Follow me on Twitter

Adventis raises extra £825,000 share capital

BOB WILLOTT — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:12:00 GMT

For a company that claimed at the end of September that it had a very strong balance sheet, was "cash generative at an operational level” and had “considerable unused bank facilities”, it seems slightly surprising that the AIM listed specialist marketing company Adventis Group has chosen to raise an extra £825,000 in share capital this week.

Fund-raising is never cheap and the amount of cash raised on this occasion was relatively small.

The management continues to assert that it is looking for acquisition opportunities although the extra capital is hardly enough to fund anything other than a very modest transaction. It may be pertinent that the group had net debt of £1.8 million at 30 June – a new experience for a historically cash positive group – and has some relatively modest outstanding earnout commitments to settle this year. And there may be more earnouts to settle next year too.

Even so, the level of bank borrowings is very small by comparison with the £13 million that shareholders have invested in the company. But bankers also like to see healthy profits and, while chief executive Charles Phillpot points out that the group remains profitable (it made amost £0.5 million in the half year to 30 June), the current economic climate inevitably will be having a dampening effect.

The new capital has been subscribed by a Baronsmead venture capital trust with the backing of Arbuthnot Securities. So at least two experienced financial institutions seem happy to support the company’s strategy.

The facts may not be the facts

Dave Trott — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:09:00 GMT

At the beginning of the First World War, British soldiers went into battle wearing cloth caps. Obviously a lot of them died.

The government had to do something fast. So they issued every soldier with a tin helmet. They thought that would solve the problem.

But it seemed to make it worse. The number of injuries rose dramatically, and many more soldiers ended up in hospital.

At first they couldn’t work out what was wrong. Were the helmets restricting the soldiers’ vision? Were the helmets making them foolhardy? What was wrong?

It turned out that nothing was wrong. The helmets were working perfectly, which was why more soldiers were ending up in hospital. Because they weren’t dead.

The most lethal weapon in the early days of the war was the air-burst artillery shell.

As the troops were advancing, the shells would explode above the ground.

Shrapnel would go straight through the cloth caps and take their heads off.

But the shrapnel couldn’t penetrate the tin helmets. So it hit the rest of their body.

And they were wounded instead of killed. And hospital admissions showed a sharp upturn. Looking at the facts differently presents a completely different picture.

Later in the war it became apparent that Britain was in danger of losing the war to the U boats.

Britain is an island, it can only be supplied by sea. If the Germans cut this link, Britain could be starved into submission.

One answer was to form the cargo ships into large groups. Convoys that could be protected by Royal Navy warships. But when they looked at the numbers they saw there were thousands of ships sailing from British ports every day.

They couldn’t possibly arrange that many ships into convoys. So they didn’t try, and Britain nearly lost the war.

Until someone spotted that 90% of those ships were sailing across the English Channel to France.

The trip was so short they didn’t need protecting. The vital 10% of ships that were going to North America could easily be formed into convoys.

And, in two world wars, that was the system that won the Battle of the Atlantic. But, if no one had bothered looking at the numbers differently, we’d all be speaking German.

When I was at BMP, we were working on a COI account: Fire Prevention. In those days, most domestic fires were due to chip-pan fires.

David Batterby was our MD, and he came to see me, really excited. He said he and the planner had just had a great idea. Here it is:

Creative Leap

What measure will the COI use to evaluate if the fire-prevention campaign is successful?

Obviously, the only measure they’ve got is the number of times fire engines are called out.

So the real focus of the campaign is to
reduce Fire Brigade responses.

Creative Leap

How can we reduce the number of call-outs? Well if people could put the fire out themselves, they wouldn’t need to call the fire brigade. So let’s tell them how to put out a chip-pan fire.

Creative Leap

But this is a ‘fire prevention’ campaign.

So let’s show them how to put out a chip-pan fire in such a scary way that they never want to have one. So that was the brief the account group gave the creatives. After the campaign ran, Fire Brigade callouts to chip-pan fires went down by 40%.

We won a D&AD silver award for the ads. But the real creative work was done before the brief got anywhere near the creative department.

Morton shares in Media Square acquired from Yorkshireman Gill

BOB WILLOTT — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:59:00 GMT

Contrary to first indications, it now appears that much of the 6.9% shareholding in Media Square built up by Bob Morton’s Hawk Investment Holdings in recent weeks was acquired from Yorkshire entrepreneur Anthony Gill and not from Hansa Trust (see Name from the past builds near 7% stake in Media Square). Gill notified Media Square yesterday that he had sold 1.3 million shares – the same number as were most recently acquired by Hawk.

Gill acquired a 16% shareholding last April (see Yorkshire entrepreneur buys 16% of Media Square) and the partial sale leaves him with a residual 12% stake. The shares were sold for about 14p, giving Gill an £80,000 profit over the six month period.

A sizeable parcel of shares was also sold on 22 October by Acuity VCT, a fund managed by a private equity house that was formerly part of Electra Partners Group. The purchaser has not been identified but could also have been Hawk.

Given the above disclosures it now seems likely that Hansa Trust has retained its 1.3 million shareholding – for the time being at least.

AND THE WINNERS ARE....

robert campbell — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:02:00 GMT

We're delighted to announce that Nat and Lol scooped the Beta Blog Bonanza with nearly half of your votes!

So they get the grand. We think they might be on holiday, so as soon as they get back we'll present it to them.

So congratulations to Lol and Nat.

Thanks very much to the rest of you for your time, efforts and support.

There have been some wonderfully amusing, thought provoking, moving, and at times offensive moments.

We've had fun. We hope you have.

To Jack Gardener, who quite rightly campaigned for us to give the money to a children's charity - Jack we already are actively supporting two children's charities. The time, money and resource we give far exceeds the £1000.

And to Niail, who suggesed that we were 'twallocks' for blogging and staying at the Mount Nelson instead of attending to our clients - Robert is in fact staying at the Mount Nelson with a client. They've been shooting a commercial for some days now. The shoot is going well. So thanks for reminding us Niail what our priority should be, but trust us, we're on it. You twallock.

We're thrilled Nat and Lol won.

Let's celebrate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwEMxYggoKQ

Effects of social media on search

Jack Wallington — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:10:00 GMT

The relationship between search and social media is the subject I get asked the most about by advertisers and agencies at the moment. It’s a hugely complex area because both search and social media mean so many different things and work together in so many different ways.

To make matters worse, the last 18 months have seen radical developments in both. However, the two have an undeniably positive effect on each other and I believe that the secret to the most effective, integrated online campaigns lies at the heart of this relationship.

The IAB will be looking into this in far more detail in the future, but right now I wanted to share my own experience below and to gather some of yours. If you feel I’ve missed something, please email me or leave a comment below so that I can adapt it.

What is search and social media?

For the purpose of this article I have made three key assumptions:

Search = a website where the primary function is to search content including video, image, blog articles etc (e.g. Bing, Google, Yahoo!)
Social media = a website or tool that allows for user interaction and content creation, whether that's a blog, forum, picture upload site, social network etc (e.g. blogs, forums, review sites, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube)
Social search = the search function on a social media website, e.g. Twitter search, Facebook search, Digg search.
(NB: Digg, Technorati etc can be classified as search engines, but because their content is primarily user generated or user rated, for the purpose of this article, they are classified as social media)

Table showing the effects of social media on search

This probably makes things seem a lot more complicated and perhaps a little too general, but I wanted to document everything in one place.

Explanation of the effects

Direct improvement on own website search rank (via links)
Major social bookmarking sites and networks include ‘nofollow’ script which currently reduces the effect a link has to different degrees across each search engine. However, search engines still follow and record these links and of course there are many other benefits of receiving links from the sites, e.g. gaining traffic and raising visibility of an article to help bloggers pick it up. That said, blog articles tend not to have 'nofollow', so receiving a link within an actual blog article is currently the most effective direct use of social media for improving your own website's rank. The reason a blog, forum or review section on your own site can help is because of a technique known as 'pagerank sculpting' that allows you to raise the importance of your own pages - but this is an advanced and perhaps changing technique so I won't elaborate here! :)
Significantly improves reach in search
While you can optimise your search campaign to target lots of relevant key terms, it’s not always possible to cover the thousands of key terms that attract smaller - but once combined equally important - amounts of traffic. This is known as the ‘long tail’ and where the power of Forums and Reviews created by users come into their own. Users can create thousands of new articles, allowing you to reach the thousands of search terms that may only attract one or two people each but that you'd otherwise have missed.
Improves brand visibility in search
Pages of content that you run in social networks like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are all part of your own web presence, they also tend to rank highly in search engines. Use this to your advantage to help control the top 10 search results for your key terms.
Includes visuals or special placement to help visibility in search
Search engines now show more than just links and text results, they also show images, videos, stars for review scores and even author details. Some social media can help you make the most of these, e.g. it’s easier to include a video in Google’s results if it’s on a well optimised YouTube page, and once integrated, Twitter results may be separated out in a special part of the page in the same way that News and Blog articles are.
Improves control of brand reputation in search
Linked to 2., by extending your web presence in search and social media using social media tools, it also means you have more control over your own reputation. This doesn’t mean you can control what people say about you online, it means you can attract comments to your own properties rather than on some random ‘hate’ forum, then you can learn from it and do something about it!
Drives significant traffic to your site without search
It’s not all about search of course, social media can drive traffic to your website directly via links.
Extends brand presence into ‘social search’
By conducting the specified social media activities highlighted with green in the table above, you can ensure your brand will appear in various social network searches, e.g. Twitter, Facebook etc.
Indirectly increase searches for brand or brand phrases
You don’t always need a link, sometimes an interesting article or advert can spark a consumer to search for your brand, product or service in a search engine.This however is harder to track and measure in social media.

Conclusions… for now

This article is a whistle-stop tour of search and social media, trying to squeeze a very big subject into very few words. I’ve left a lot out here but I hope this has helped you think about the relationship between these two important marketing channels.

For me, the major breakthrough for advertisers will be the continued realisation that your web presence no longer means just your website. In fact, it’s interesting that actually, only links from other people’s blog articles will offer a significant direct improvement to your own website’s search ranking when talking about social media, while everything else is indirect word of mouth and branding.

However – and it’s a big ‘HOWEVER’ - by using social media in its many different forms, you can significantly increase the overall search ranking and visibility of your brand’s web presence in search engines in ways that no other media can.

Follow the IAB on Twitter

Red sky at night, cottage delight

Ian Moore — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:53:00 GMT

I'm constantly entertained by the stuff kids come out with. Only at the start of this term, two of ours independently came home to announce that their respective form mistresses were Miss Cane and Miss Smacky (quite close, in fact: Miss Kane and Miss Mackie... an ominous-sounding pair merely lacking the Trunchbull as head). So I'm always on the alert for lateral interpretations of sounds that we've long ago lost the childlike talent to hear. Another example was a question I got recently... "Dad - what's a shallawander?" (Surely you remember? Goosey goosey gander, with a shallawander.) It's great. And so easy to overlook that vast army of listeners out there who hear something completely different to what we think we're telling them. I suppose on the plus side, they often imagine something far more vivid than we could ever portray: I recall admonishing: "Don't drop crumbs, it attracts vermin".... to receive the reply "Who's Vermin?" I can just picture him. Wonderful.

Something's in life are sacred.....

Chris Reed — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:47:00 GMT

The news that Newcastle United’s incompetent owners (the ones that got them relegated) are now auctioning off the rights to their ground, the very famous St James’ Park, should surprise no one. A name is not just a name in the world of football. Newcastle’s ground has been called St James’ Park since 1882 and means the world to the most passionate fans in the world (of which I declare I am one).

The fact that the most hated man on Tyneside, Newcastle owner Mike Ashley, owns Sports Direct.com and has now decided to call the ground SportsDirect.com @ St James Park in the short term, should surprise no one who has followed his series of incomprehensible decisions. The fact that both of these decisions are to try and get some poor misguided brand to sponsor the stadium in 2010 shows how little he knows about brands and their relationship with other brands, especially sporting brands.

Any brand worth its salt would research how the fans felt about this and on seeing the anger currently pouring out of Newcastle United fans would realise that they would be making a massive mistake. The fans don’t want a brand where their beloved St James Park name is. Before it, after it or replacing it. No name. Any brand doing this would be boycotted by Newcastle fans and face unprecedented resistance and protests which would decrease not increase any positive relationship and sales they would be expecting.

Adidas, Newcastle’s club kit supplier, have already taken the advice and declared that they will not have anything to do with this ridiculous idea. Wise.

Any brand looking to do this would be entering hell. Football is not just about life and death to Newcastle fans, its much, much more important than that. This would be brand partnership marketing at its very worse. Beware any brand thinking about doing this. Heed these words. Don’t.