Brand Republic Community

So, farewell then...

Felix Velarde — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:24:00 GMT

So, the time has come. Or rather, the untimely end has come. Revolution is taken off the stands, its feature article spiked.

It is, in my opinion, a huge shame. I've been involved in the magazine in one way or another – reader, writer, interviewee, critic, blogger – for a dozen years. I've seen it change and grow and mature since its earliest raison d'etre of providing a more client-friendly window on our industry than NMA's then-trade newsletter view.

We, that is my friends and colleagues in the industry, even put up with the doldrum years of that one awful front-cover photoshop template and remained loyal. It's a crying shame that ad revenues couldn't support the title... but it's also testament to the power of the digital revolution itself, which Revolution has so diligently reflected, that has led to the incorporation of marketing into the online. The digital universe, once so revolutionary, took over.

That the print edition is going is not so sad, except that it ends a vital period of reporting and advocacy that has now, quite inevitably and probably quite rightly, moved online. As with all changes like this though it leaves the hugely talented and engaging people behind it adrift. I hope that this talent doesn't go wasted or diluted. Gareth Jones, Andy McCormick and the rest of the team deserve congratulations, as do their predecessors, for providing an important and valued perspective on our industry, one that has been accessible, informative and fun.

So, farewell then. Revolution is dead. Long live the revolution.

Bing: It's still here!

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:59:00 GMT

Just a few days ago we were having a discussion in the office about Bing and its seemingly terminal beta status... Following a bit of a debate regarding the rationale for leaving something in beta in one market whilst you launch in another (in summary: it enables a test-and-rollout approach for both the technology and the marketing and also enables two rounds of PR, one for the beta and one for full launch) we decided that it couldn't be long until Bing got a full roll-out. In fact the only reason we figured it hadn't already happened, given that the functionality now appears to almost exactly mirror the US 'full Bing experience', was due to Microsoft not wanting to detract from the recent Windows 7 launch.

Well now we're left wishing we'd all started a lottery syndicate, or at least that I had posted our prediction here first, because Bing just went and launched properly in the UK.

As I approached the usual slot I set aside for writing this blog it seemed like the most important thing for me to comment on this week but now I'm actually putting hands to keyboard I'm questioning the importance of the move. After all the product is no different today than it was yesterday and 'beta' as a notion seems increasingly irrelevant - Google leave products in beta for years, as evidenced by the 'feature' that re-introduces the Beta badge in Gmail just in case you got somewhat attached to its presence during the five years that service remained in beta.

What I thought would be more interesting then would be if I revisited my original thoughts on the subject - back when Bing launched I went through five reasons why Bing still has a long way to go. So, how far have they gone?

1. It was ugly. It still is ugly. Sorry, I still can't stomach that logo and still think the start images should be full screen.

2. The launch timing was all fumbled. The first few months of less-than-full functionality mean that many people will have tried a less-than-perfect product. It's not ideal. Now the product is the full version it is important it gets a real marketing push.

3. Google were already catching up. I argued that Google were rapidly catching up with the areas where Bing was supposedly pushing the envelope. Google Options does, to a certain extent, add extra functionality but I'm not sure how many searchers even know of its existence and Squared is very interesting but relatively unknown (and still... you guessed it, in beta).

4. Bing isn't social. Bing still fails to utilize passport data in any way that benefits users although, to be fair, no-one else seems to be doing much in this area either.

5. They just don't get the audience. Interestingly all the signs point towards the fact that Bing is no longer targeting the 'power searcher'. Integration with Ciao and Bing Cashback don't exactly scream 'savvy searcher' but at least Bing seem to be going after a more realistic audience now. Perhaps the audience talk was never any more than PR spin.

The latest (and much more significant) news is that Bing (along with Google) will use Twitter to introduce real-time search to their results and that they will be partnering with the computational engine Wolfram Alpha to provide answers to actual questions. More than anything this at least proves Microsoft's commitment to continuing to push Bing forward - important because almost every other search engine launch feels remarkably static in comparison to Google. It will be interesting to see if Google are working on something of their own to compete with Wolfram...

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?

Real People

Chris Hassell — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:33:00 GMT

I often wonder how many 'virals' have been viewed by real people.

I'm not talking about those figures that may have been faked by bots and all that underhandedness, but people outside of the industry we all have the privilege of working in. Ok, I know we are real people that consume so our viewing figures do count but if I had a quid for the amount of friends I've mentioned 'famous' viral campaigns to and they've never heard of them I'd probably have about £20.

Part of our job is viewing work being produced by our competitors so sometimes (well, most of the time) I'd love to be able to reclaim a YouTube view so as not to add to the clip's figures, or at least mark myself as "work in the industry, just checking out the promotion, not actually interested in the product".

Who needs Ad Agencies

Chris Hassell — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:10:00 GMT

After spending a couple of days digesting this news I'm still not entirely sure what I think about it so excuse the brain dump.

I do think it fits into the viral subject however as Ideas Bounty is surely a viral exercise in itself but can this really work as a sustainable model across a brand's advertising. I'm not a huge fan of over-inflated ad agency models myself but there's more to creative than just shitting out a one-off idea. Isn't the Peperami brief (which is a tactical element of the overall 'Animal' creative concept) essentially another lazy UGC campaign in the same vein as Doriotos, Confused.com and quite a few others? It's great news if a client is taking more responsibility for the creative output of their brand, but it's not like Creative Agencies have been doing absolutely nothing for the past 50 years; is it?

Ok, I'll eat my face (on face)

Chris Hassell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:32:00 GMT

As I've previously mentioned I'm not a big fan of face-on-face. This is perhaps just me, I don't get it, why would I bother. I don't like things not making much sense within their own world - however much fantasy is involved; I also still doubt how many people have direct to camera images of themselves.

However, if you get a chance to sniper a friend and the technology is the best implementation yet seen I can be proved wrong so check it out here.

Oh, and here's a kind of face-in-video that Ralph have just produced (www.jigsawsgame.com), but that's only one small part of the entire experience so I think we got away with it!

I'm wrong aren't I; people love seeing their own picture in anything?

Google: Even Better Than The Real (Time) Thing?

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:01:00 GMT

As we all know, Facebook were the top dog in social networking until Twitter came along and started to steal some of its thunder with the introduction of real time search. So in August, Facebook upped their game with the $50 million purchase of Friend Feed. Many commentators at the time said that the ability of Facebook to improve its real time search offering using Friend Feed's technology, whilst not the fabled ‘Google killer' many are waiting for, was something that would really affect the way users look at search and at least would make the boffins in Mountain View do some serious thinking. Do users want ‘algorithm search' based on how people link to each other like the current model of Google (and, though not executed as well, Bing which also now provides the organic results for Yahoo as well) or a ‘social graph' based on people's relationships and conducted in real time like Twitter and Facebook/Friend Feed?

Google know that real time could be the future and the fact that they hadn't managed to get on top of that was a real concern. Google did launch "Search options" in May, allowing users to filter their search by different types of results (videos, forums, and reviews), by time (recent, past 24 hours, past week, past year), as well as seeing related searches, a "wonder wheel" view, or a timeline view. But that's not "real time search", is it?

As Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that month, "Google has done a relatively poor job of creating things that work on a per second basis... We will do a good job of things now we have these examples."

And, true to their word, on October 21^st there were some big announcements.

At the Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, the President of Microsoft's Online Services Group, Qi Lu announced the integration of real time Tweets into Bing. Later, the same day Google's Marissa Mayer announced the same thing for the market leaders as well as a new Google Labs product called "Social Search". This is a new feature that allows the user to see results for queries from people in their social network. According to Tech Crunch, it is likely that these updates will only be included if the data is open, which would seem to exclude Facebook but not Twitter (as long as the Twitterer doesn't lock their Tweets). This could be huge for Twitter in terms of taking their offering to the next level and who knows, this deal may mean that they may actually make some money now, though CEO Evan Williams told the New York Times that "revenue was not the focus of the deals." Of course, Bing and Google have slightly different algorithms so observing the difference in how they filter useful Tweets for the user will be interesting but it does seem a natural next stage for the search giants to include these updates in their results, just as they currently do for news stories, much to the intransigent chagrin of, for example, Rupert Murdoch or Sly Bailey.

So is this going to drive more people to use Twitter or has their uptake peaked making this just a new way of cluttering up increasingly option heavy search results on Google's once famously clean pages? Are these Tweets, unfairly dismissed as inane chatter by some, going to improve searchers' experience or should Google just be concentrating on improving their ever changing algorithm which is the best we have but by no means perfect? Only time will tell but the outcome may dictate the way search evolves in the foreseeable future.

Never knowingly undersold?

FADI SHUMAN — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:31:00 GMT

John Lewis, love them or hate them, are actually doing something right.

Our biggest challenge as ecommerce evangelists is to ensure that retailers with on and off-line properties are properly integrated and sharing customers. After all, an increase in overall revenue is a good thing, whether it's coming from the spanking new website, or the fantastic in store customer service.

So what's the problem? Well the reality is that revenue targets are still designated at the store level, with the website counting as a store. So you have all these high street bricks and mortar shops encouraging customers to buy, and come back and spend more from their individual store, and on the other hand you've got your virtual eshop that's available to everyone and open all hours. Store managers are therefore always feeling that they're competing with the online store and no one is willing to share the love. Surely the sum of the parts is greater than the individual?

In an ideal world, you'll have a single view of the customer; they can shop online, in store or over the phone from a catalogue. Each touch point is tracked and every product can be delivered to the home, or can be collected at the nearest store. Not happy with your product? Well you can send it back through the post, or you can take it to your nearest store for a refund. How about this scenario: you visit your local fashion joint and you've found the perfect pair of shoes - they just don't have it in your size. Well it's simple. In our new multi-channel ideal world, they'll just order it for you from their website and you'll receive it the next day. Nice.

But this isn't happening. The high street is fighting with the eshop which is fighting with the catalogue for the same sale. Some customers actually use all three channels, but that customer is not regarded as the same by the business - it's three customers with three distinct shopping habits. It's getting better but there are challenges. Many. We are sadly still a very long way off that blissful, integrated multi-channel future that we all deserve.

So what's John Lewis done to deserve a mention? Well they've taken a very simple approach to this issue. The website is regarded as an invisible entity that is shared by all. If a purchase is made through the website, that sale is allocated to the nearest John Lewis store and hits their bottom line. Why is this good? Quite simply, it means that the staff in store are now actively encouraging customers to buy stuff from the website, as opposed to insisting they buy from their store. And if it's not in stock in that store, they're logging in to the website and purchasing the item for them. Fantastic! Short cut to multi-channel nirvana. Get rid of the website's P&L and use the stores to actively push web sales. Love it.

Here Lies the Wave

Felix Velarde — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:30:00 GMT

So, I've spent a week or two experimenting with Google Wave. I've had some correspondence with some journalists I know, a Vistage colleague in the US, other people who run digital agencies. And it's been a frustrating experience.

I think partly the way they've done the beta release is to blame. It seems that very few large communities of people that already correspond have been given a pool of invitations. So conversation has been very fragmented. The beauty of Wave, which is a kind of rolling discussion incorporating instant messaging, social media, productive wiki and email, can't show itself clearly when there are six of you but not all on the same wavelength at the same time.

One of the features I found quite interesting is that you can incorporate a Wave into a web page. In my case I hosted a Wave in my blog for a week, and people who were logged in to Wave could view the embedded Wave and people in the conversation could interact with it. My coding's not up to much, so it didn't look particularly elegant, but it's a far cry from the basic comment field.

So I think that one day Wave could be awesome. While some of my online colleagues didn't see the attraction, I think it might become quite a revolutionary step. For example, imagine constructing a collaboratively-generated screenplay or feature article, where several people can be involved in different time zones, editing previous contributions and suggesting new, constantly honing and refining, fact-checking, editing and clarifying as you go along, until the final polished artifact is ready. On the other hand, I can see all sorts of mischief; and the experience of wiki, where attribution and defacement become important, may have to be revisited.

It's not in itself particularly original – it is after all an agglomeration and blurring of the borders between a whole host of technologies that have been around for between 15 and 30 years – but it may take discussion itself to a whole new level.

Well, what a week

Felix Velarde — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:01:00 GMT

Well, what a week.

I started out the weekend getting my solo gliding certificate, and flying my first four flights with no-one else in the plane. Here's a picture of the KA13 I was flying (it's the red one at the bottom).

I then spent most of the rest of the weekend finalising our move into new offices while we wait for the brand new and very cool offices to be fitted out. How come? Well, we've just completed a deal to become part of Hasgrove-owned Amaze plc, the UK's biggest non-London digital agency. They've got 180 people in Manchester, Chester, Brussels - and pretty soon it'll be 50 in London too. We've made Head of Client Services Emma Nicol and Planning Director Pete Anderson shareholders in recognition of the work they’ve done over the past couple of years while we’ve built up to this point, and it’s well-deserved.

We'll continue to operate under the Underwired brand, and of course we own the eCRM.co.uk website and trade mark, so the pointy-head stuff we do, along with the lovely design work Jason Holland’s team produces, will continue but with a bit more, well, momentum behind it.

So, a momentous time. And we're extremely happy. You could say I'm flying.

The mobile agency conundrum

Tim Dunn — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:24:00 GMT

A journalist called me the other day as he was writing a piece on whether brands are better off using their existing agency set-up to deliver mobile services, or to use the services of a mobile specialist instead. While I would have an obvious natural bias towards the specialists, having been in that field for nearly 10 years now, it’s not an open-and-shut case.

The argument for the specialists goes as follows:

- Without a thorough grounding in the minutiae of concepting, specifying, and delivering mobile campaigns, there is a wealth of detail that the traditional agency will not be aware of, or know how to communicate to a client. Equally there are issues, such as data charging, which are well-known and acknowledged in the mobile arena but which can cause unnecessary alarm to those not familiar with them.
- While a traditional agency may find a Head of Mobile or similar to ‘do mobile’ at the agency, this provides some severe limitations in what they can achieve. Firstly there is only so much knowledge and experience that one or two people can carry around, particularly when mobile delivery has expanded to include ad-response, apps, media, experiential, mobile web and so on. With the way mobile changes so rapidly, it needs a whole business to stay on top of all these developments.
- Clients should also work with mobile specialists direct because so many great mobile ideas are ‘lost in translation’ while being transitioned from the specialist to the client via an agency. I’ve often seen a detailed and compelling case for mobile reduced to one slide at the end of a presentation, just after the plans for branded squeezy stress balls and baseball caps. In these budget-cutting times mobile is still lamentably the ‘first thing to go’ despite providing measurable value, through a simple lack of understanding.
- And people are a problem. Good people in mobile are like needles in a haystack, and you can probably count the number of really good broad-based mobile strategists in London on the fingers of two hands. Any Head of Mobile should have a minimum 5 years experience in mobile, and while the average traditional agency might just have one, a quick look around the MIG office shows no less than 30 people who qualify.

On the other hand though, there are great arguments for embedding mobile know-how in the mainstream agencies:

- Mobile ideas need to sit at the top table along with all the other aspects of creative and go-to-market strategy. A mobile guru who can shout loud enough, stay on top of current market trends, and deliver effectively has the chance to implement the benefits of mobile really well. Without integration and planning, the mobile channel will never reach its full potential.
- Most mobile specialists, with their background in technology, do not have the capabilities in creative and strategic thinking that their mainstream rivals have. While a few have truly bridged this gap, a mobile idea that falls out of the ad-planning thought process is likely to sit better within the comms plan and chime with the overall creative.

The best solution to my mind is to find a mobile agency with both a hardcore tech understanding AND a creative and strategic bent, and get them around the table with the other agencies working for the client. There’s no need for other agencies to worry too much about the new interloper: after all I’m not going to pretend to know how to plan for TV or write copy, but a helpful mobile agency will take both of these and more, and help them stretch a little bit further into the smallest screen.

Media owners and the move to paid content

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:20:00 GMT

Well, it looks like they're going to give it a go. With display ad revenues not enough to make substantial, or indeed any, profit, according to a survey from the Association of Online Publishers, around 70% of online publishers in the newspaper, magazine or TV industries will pay for content online.

I believe that a lot of them will be heading for a fall. There are simply too many of these mass media dinosaurs providing content that is too similar and usually available for free somewhere else. But admittedly, there are some big brands here with sometimes over 200 years of audience building, so surely that will count for something?

The truth is that no one really knows but last week a paidContentUK/Harris Interactive poll showed that only 5% of people who read a news site at least once a month would pay for online access. Though if a free or discounted subscription to a printed paper were thrown in as well, that would rise to 48%. A huge leap. As a Guardian reader to has seen the price of the paper hit the £1 barrier for the first time, I find this idea is particularly appealing and as newspapers make far more money from advertising that cover price, it could be an option. Albeit surely quite a radical one.

In the Guardian last week Andrew Freeman, Harris's senior technology, media and telecoms consultant, said that this model of combining charges together for printed and digital content is "an interesting possible picture of the future": "The value of this type of reader, engaged with the content, and (because of the subscription structure) much more likely to be brand loyal, would be massively higher to advertisers. If newspapers can deliver this sort of model - combining the best of both media within a paid-for relationship, then the future will be more certain, but certainly different."

Unfortunately the bad news is that "when asked the maximum amount they would be prepared to pay, respondents who read a free news site at least once a month gave us [the poll] the lowest possible amount in each category - annual subscriptions under £10, a day pass costing under £0.25 and per-article fees of between 1p and 2p". I still believe that there are not enough newspapers readers that are loyal enough to a brand for all the current national brands to survive this change, and for those that survive this digital/print mixed subscription could be the way forward but these numbers don't really seem strong enough to prop up the bank balance of national newspapers, especially when ad revenues will be affected by the fall in traffic that will surely come from putting up a paywall.

Moreover, yesterday in the Guardian, the same poll asks about how those payments would manifest themselves and it would seem that the preferred method of carrying out this revolution (and it really is no less than that) is by no means decided.

53% of consumers said that they would prefer a subscription of up to a year which will upset the champions of the latest media wunderkind- the micro payment. Paying a few pence per article is the method that many have put forward as something more appealing to consumer especially since Google revealed a fortnight ago that they would roll out their out system of micro payments, possibly as an extension of Google Checkout, in a document sent to the Newspaper Association of America in response to a request for paid-content proposals that the association sent to several technology companies.

Freeman says, ""There's been a lot of buzz about micro-payment recently, and some prominent players, like Google, have moved into this field, but there are massive challenges: and not just technical ones. From a simple business point of view, micropayments are disproportionately expensive to administer until you have an enormous volume and value, it just won't be worthwhile. If consumers are going to give up their preference for single-subscription payments they can more easily check and monitor, they will need to have real confidence and trust in the brands they use. Micropayments will probably benefit only the very largest of companies."

Not good news for all but very few large scale media owners who want to make money from content. Long established institutions will fall before a system is settled upon, that much seems certain.

Surfing the Google Wave

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:09:00 GMT

Yes, sorry - I did just do that.

So this week we have been playing with that over-hyped new toy from Google, Wave. If you aren't familiar with it (and at the moment invites are like gold dust!) then it is basically a combination between email, IM and a wiki. You setup a 'Wave' and pick who is part of the Wave (from just yourself, up to everyone who uses the system) and then just typing... Content is updated in real time so if multiple users are looking at the same wave at the same time you can see the content being changed in front of your eyes - it's a little unnerving knowing all those typos could be being watched! Text and gadgets can be added, meaning you could add videos etc, but the overall flow of Waves, at the moment at least, is fairly basic.

Innevitably people are already asking what, exactly, is the point of all this?

And I'm not going to pretend I have the answer... What I can say however is that whilst it doesn't necessarily do anything wholely new, it does a unique combination of common things. By allowing users to edit text and documents together it provides a neat platform for collaboration, although in reality most businesses would be better off using Google Docs - and quite why more businesses don't is beyond me (it's free and very easy to share and collaborate over documents). But it also provides and easy way to keep a threaded conversation that remains persistent - useful for keeping track of projects for example.

Ultimately it's still early days - it took years for people to stop looking down at Twitter (and many still do) so I wouldn't expect everyone to jump on Wave just yet but it is encouraging to see Google finally bring something potentially revolutionary to the table, rather than simply gently evolving what others have done (see search, paid search, email and even the failed Knol.

So what do people think? Has anyone got on board yet?

TV eats digital dust

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:27:00 GMT

What a week - if you work in digital media you would have had to have your head buried in the sand to have not heard about this news by about 9:05am on Wednesday this week, let along Friday afternoon. But just in case you missed it: the IAB's latest spend figures finally brought the news that we've all been waiting for - in H1 2009 online advertising spend overtook TV ad spend for the first time, (sort of) giving it a larger share of spend than any other media.

The actual figures then - online ad spend grew by 4.6% but, in the context of a market that saw an overall contraction of 16.6%, this translated into a whopping jump in market share, up from 18.7% for the same period in 2008 to 23.5%!

As soon as the news broke there was much discussion at LBi as to whether the counting was fair - should digital really be lumped all into one or should it be split into display, search, affiliates and beyond? To me this seemed a bit like the equivalent of saying DRTV, product placement and the sponsorship of X Factor should all be counted separately and I couldn't help but argue that just because tv is so one dimensional doesn't mean the rest of us deserve to get a raw deal when the money gets counted. When you look across the other categories though, it is obvious that by that logic digital still has a way to go if it wants to have the largest share of spend - in the IAB's number print is actually split into classified and display, despite the fact that no such distinction is made for digital.

At the end of the day of course none of this is particularly important - as an agency or advertiser if you are buying in traditional and digital media (I don't, thankfully!) it may mean you should reconsider the respective weighting of your team. What is important is how your channels work together and that's what advertisers need to be focused on, not which is biggest. The big takeaway though? That 16.6% decline in spend... We're still in a recession, folks, even if the sun shines on digital.

Life is for sharing...

Sam Conniff — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:51:00 GMT

T-Mobiles new advertising asks 'ordinary youngsters' what they’d do with ‘Unlimited Free Texts” for the rest of their lives, under the inspirational theme of ‘life is for sharing’.

The ‘real life’ not-that-glossy’ look, those ‘everyday young people’ and the crop that only just captures the camera lense and boom mic proves that, hey man, it’s just happening out there, like, totally, on the streets.

I’d like to thank T-Mobile for treating us like intelligent human beings with this honest approach, this genuine opportunity for young people to express themselves and recognise one of the UK’s most significant mobile operators for lending themselves to communicating young peoples dreams, ambitions and aspirations so vividly through the benevolence of their own multi million pound ad spend.

Sadly, for me, I have only seen the outdoor and print executions of this ‘creative’, but I’ll begin with my favourite one”

“I’d text all the musicians I know and we’d start a superband"

Would you now?

Gosh, really, is that what you’d do? Is that really all that’s been stopping you realise your lifelong dreams. Wow, you’ve had Lady Ga Ga, Damon Albarn and Kanye West’s number in your phone all this time, waiting for you to send them a smiley face and a Looooooooll!!!!

Then there is the timeless:

“I’d text everyone I know and have a party”

I might cry. It’s OK, don’t worry, you don’t have to wait for ‘Unlimited Free Texts” (terms and conditions apply) you can do that anyway. I mean, how many friends have you got in that phone of yours, unless it’s the little black doomsday book, why don’t you just text them anyway? Music, atmosphere, friends, some refreshments and a little personality is all you need? Perhaps T-Mobile will give you a free lifetimes supply of charisma, depth or likeability instead… depending which tariff you’re on.

And who could overlook the laydeez favourite;

“I’d text everyone I know to get them to come to my DJ night”

Because that’s what’s stopping them from coming to hear you play MGMT Electro Fidget Remixes on your iphone ! They might have deleted the email, politely pressed ‘maybe’ on the facebook invite, ignored their Myspace account for the last 8 months… But this text, this time, this SMS is the one. It’s going to send them over the edge and have them kneeling at your decks.

Thank you T-Mobile, thank you for the unlimited credit, for our intelligence.

As we stand on the precipice of digital technology osmosing completely into the fabric of our society, from a political level, a communications level, a societal level and even on a biological level…

As we take a deep breath whilst digital revolution becomes evolution…

At a point where tiny robots could be released into our bloodstream to release insulin when our body requires it, effectively rendering Diabetes A, a previously incurable disease, harmless… I salute your use of digital technology.

As we refer to our own children as “digital natives”, and accept the need throughout the globe to educate, empower and equalify access for young people around the world to digital communications with initiatives like the One Laptop Per Child project changing lives and the future of millions of youngsters… I bow to your use of communications technology to improve the planet for the next generation and aplaude your efforts to give young people a voice.

Life (really) is for sharing.

Is the very best suggestion that we can come up with, when presented with the opportunity for infinite immediate connectivity with our social and professional networks to inspire a generation to come to our ‘DJ night’.

Is this the best our best copy writers and creatives can muster, these three scenarios, do our children look up to these three characters, these pillars of opportunity, these thought leaders of information sharing and digital inclusion and think “one day… with these free texts I intend to ask questions, seek information, create ideas, share thoughts and provide solutions…” ?

Is there a ‘planner’ out there who thought, “With this million pound budget and network of millions of teenagers I shall encourage them to behave like witless nonces, shallowly pursuing social acceptance and unachievable materialistic ambition at the greatest time of shift our race has ever known”

I’d like to recognise O2, Marks and Spencer, Ctrl.Alt.Shift. Benetton, SonyMusic, Penguin, Adidas, Red Bull, PlayStation, Nike, Orange and a multitude of other brands, agencies and forward thinking intelligent media and marketing professionals for using their money, power and influence over young audiences to inspire, educate and empower their audiences.

I’d like to challenge T-Mobile, we know you’ve done some truly great ads (which only make these ones more… questionable?) and suggest your power, position and influence, as a leader in digital communications not only could, but should be used more creatively and constructively.

In the words of another brand with a massive and loyal teenage following, it was Spiderman who said “With great power, comes great responsibility”.

image taken from www.gapingvoidgallery.com/

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Sam Conniff

UK Social Enterprise Ambassador
Livity / LIVE / Dubplate Drama / The Livity Trust / Music4Good

MyO2 leads the way

Tim Dunn — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:45:00 GMT

There’s nothing more distracting than a new baby for taking your eye off the ball, hence no posts for over a month.

However, things move on apace in the world of mobile apps. Perhaps the biggest mover has been O2, whose myO2 app has finally been released to the App Store, meaning the getting on for 2 million UK iPhone users can now manage their accounts efficiently. While I have to declare an interest as we at MIG did the design and build, I have to admire its nice design and simple interface. Now that O2 have a really firm foothold in the App Store, it will be interesting to see how they go on to develop this: with such a raft of content and sponsorship opportunities just crying out for an iPhone execution, and the brand looking as good as ever, I would hope to see some updates to the app very soon.

While O2 have taken the end of their exclusivity period with good grace (and none-too-subtle references to the new smartphones they have coming out for Christmas) the news that Orange and Voda are stocking iPhone imminently is great news for all of us working in mobile. The relatively small number of iPhones in circulation in the UK has not stopped a number of brands jumping in to the App space, but with Orange’s move, and the merger with Tmobile underway, almost all of the UK will be able to take up the device without moving operators, and hopefully the increased competition will do something about the price as well.

All of this is timely as the race for smartphone supremacy hots up in the race for Christmas – with over 60% of all phones being sold in December. O2 will market their new Samsung Android phone aggressively, as well as the new Palm Pre which seems to have been an age in crossing the Atlantic. Maybe I just can’t shake off an old prejudice about Palms being nasty and rather pointless black and white devices from the 90s, but I can’t see Palm being able to take a significant market share with their device against the fast-growing Android.

But either way, this Christmas will provide an interesting yardstick for how the device market will map out, and for brands wanting to get decent coverage for their content across the mobile world, what they will have to do and how much it will cost them!

Mixed bag of advertising that fails to build relationships

Felix Velarde — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:02:00 GMT

After last week’s incredulous blog post about eBay leaping onto Patrick Swayze’s demise, and the general state of advertising (Go Compare anyone?), I’ve actually been paying a little more attention just in case there’s anything good in between the main events.

Barclays seems to have caught a great advertising team – two ads for two different products were clever and eye-catching. I liked the latest ads for some car marque, which seemed to offer three different cars depending on your budget but I can’t remember which brand; likewise the “chasing her metaphors” piggy bank ad again, amusing ad but can’t recall the brand. I loved the army ad detailing a strike on an insurgent gun, but on reflection felt underwhelmed when this turned out to be the chap’s career highlight (the army chap, not the insurgent chap). I really liked the Cadbury’s Fair Trade ad. Actually, it was a mixed bag. I’m very glad I can avoid it all with a PVR’s ffwd button.

None of it however has been designed to develop a relationship. Even the Cadbury’s one, which presumably is part of a series designed to give me a rounded sense of the brand new brand onion, felt stuck on – unrelated to the Gorilla or those other ones that didn’t work. I’d love to see advertising that deliberately led off-screen, not just to the shop but to a place where a relationship can flower.

I can’t remember the last time an ad told me to visit the website in a clear, beneficial way. Oh, apart from all those second-string insurance aggregator sites of course, which do so so risibly it’s more a distraction than marketing (“let’s grab the consumer’s attention, at any cost” we imagine the account guy saying, shortsightedly – smacking of desperation on the part of both client and agency). I’d love to work with an ad agency that had the confidence to work with a digital specialist to create a genuine journey. Meerkats and Army aside, they just don’t cross-refer – and the beauty of the modern customer journey is that it can and should be fluid, media savvy and engaging, not ephemeral, boorish and – in some cases thankfully – entirely negligent of brand recall.

An Industry in the Dark?

Caroline McGuckian — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:19:00 GMT

It has been another interesting few weeks for the music industry. In the same week that Spotify’s iPhone app has stormed to the number one spot of iTunes Top Free Apps within just 48 hours of Apple approving it, we have had Sony and EMI come out and slam Virgin’s plans to offer a subscription based music download service.

This of course this is nothing new from an industry that is determined to avoid change of any kind. The industry has even been given renewed confidence in recent months as Peter Mandelson waded into the debate by announcing the government’s plans to cut off the internet connection of those who file share - a government decision even more extreme than Lord Carter’s recent Digital Britain report. Mandelson’s intervention may well have been influenced by recent meetings with certain music industry figure heads; but it highlights (as some commentators have suggested) that this really is a case of an analogue man living in a digital world. Trivial details such as who is going to be responsible for regulating this across ISP’s and not to mention who is going to pay for it, as usual, seem to have been brushed aside as minor formalities.

Whilst this Government backing may show signs that the music industry is winning its battle to desperately carry on with business as usual, I feel it may be short lived. In recent weeks we have seen YouTube lift its block on music videos after the PRS and Google came to a licensing agreement. Whilst the lump sum has not been disclosed, I wouldn’t mind betting it is a lot less than the PRS was initially demanding. However, a deal was always going to have to be struck as the prospect of cutting off one of the industries key marketing channels was never a long term solution.

You might hope that this is a sign that the industry will start to face the realities of the digital world it has resisted for so long. This however will not sit easy with the major labels; they have for too long enjoyed far too much control over their distribution channels and avoided any deviation from their long established ways of doing things. Losing grip of even a little bit of this power does not sit easy with them. However, no matter how much government support they are able to drum up, a business model that relies on harassing, bulling and even suing its customer base seems destined for failure.

It has of course been obvious for years that the music industry will eventually have to move with the times and face up to a changing market which is seeing their revenues dwindling. What they seem to be missing is that people sharing and accessing music for free has always been a vital life blood of the music industry. Ok 25 years ago you had to sit down and make a mixed cassette tape, but the point is music has always been driven by a buzz that is created from people talking about and sharing music. The technology may have changed the scale on which this is possible, but this has also expanded the potential.

People have to make living and it is yet to be seen if the likes of Spotify, Virgin and others can actually turn a profit out of subscription or ad supported revenue. My guess is that the industry will have to start embracing a more varied approach and spread their interests across licensing, ad supported revenue, subscription, merchandising and live music promotion. And yes there may even be a case that people will pay for a certain amount of digital tracks, although I feel a higher quality offering than is currently available will be needed. Naturally the major labels will continue to lobby for the government to support their out dated business models, but sooner or later they will have to take their heads out of the sand and come to terms with the fact that a more creative use of digital channels is the future of their industry.

Bad viral is good viral

Chris Hassell — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:48:00 GMT

So there's a new set of groundbreaking Microsoft viral clips/ads out for Windows 7; I say that with sarcasm behind it but I think I'm wrong to slag them off. Here (1, 2, 3) are a few of them

Apple's competitor has become known for pretty dodgy advertising of late (well perhaps it's not just a recent thing) with the laptop hunter ads and ripping off Apple's "I'm a PC" concept - why even mention/reference a company that is by far the number two in operating system market share, come up with your own campaign, but I digress.

We were in awe of the crapness on display with these 'Windows 7 Launch Party' videos, but I think we've been sucked in; damnit. They're meant to be crap, they're meant to make Apple fans go "peh, so not cool" and then pass it around. Why would they care, Microsoft will never be as 'cool' as Apple. All Microsoft want is for people to know Windows 7 is coming out and it's not called Vista.

I think I might have opened a bigger can of worms than I meant to, and there's more to be said about 'crap' work becoming viral - and it being so on purpose.

The end of DVD rentals?

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:37:00 GMT

With the launch of the Spotify App for the iPhone interest for streaming music is higher than ever. There seems to be no limit for its reach, with new users streaming free music every day, changing the way people think about ownership of music forever. And it’s spreading.

LoveFilm, the video rental company that sends DVDs directly to your door, has announced a new (and for some films completely free) online streaming service that could completely change the way films are rented. With films available immediately at your fingertips , ‘traditional’ rental companies like Blockbuster would have to think long and hard about how to compete. Their sluggish uptake of the LoveFilm model of sending DVDs to your door hurt them badly, and if they make the same mistake this time around, it could spell disaster. Admittedly, most films are currently ‘pay per view’ when streaming, and with the average internet download speed being where it is the quality of the films is not exactly ‘Blu-Ray standard’. But the room for expansion is massive, and with broadband speeds constantly increasing surely the only way for this market is up.

With the prospect of such a big market there have been rumours that Google, as always, may be throwing its hat in to the ring. Following trials that included making the movie Ghostbusters available on the site to watch for free for a limited time Google-owned Youtube have apparently been in talks with Sony and Time Warner to discuss an online streaming service and the effect was dramatic. Shares in Blockbuster dropped by 10% overnight!

Streaming films online is nothing new however, for years films have been available on illegal (but popular) websites, even on YouTube as it is today some films can be found. It is with these sites that LoveFilm and similar sites will have to compete, and this will be a difficult task, with many people simply not willing to pay to watch a film online. If YouTube brings films to our screens for free It will be very interesting to see what advertising formats open up to support these new content distribution channels and, importantly, whether 'free' can really support content which has, up until now at least, been considered premium.

Shame on you eBay

Felix Velarde — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:36:00 GMT

So, eBay scrapes the bottom of the advertising barrel, with an online banner / MPU combination listing results for Patrick Swayze memorabilia including a 99p video of Dirty Dancing – available now on eBay UK. I do hate advertising. In fact, there seems to be very little to redeem it these days. Ever since our ad breaks were transformed into zippy topped and tailed bits on Sky+, I've not missed it one bit.

And on the few occasions recently when I've actually had to sit through advertisements on the telly I've been shocked at how bad it is. To whit, crass ads that seem to have been created by morons from cheap advertising agencies, with no hint of irony. Bad acting (Peter Jones, there's no excuse), bad editing, bad voiceovers, bad construction, bad branding... has nothing moved on since the 80s? I'm aghast.

Anyway, the dross and unforgivably tacky online aberrations like eBay's let the few redeeming campaigns stand out, simples.

Innovation in ecommerce - where's it all gone?

FADI SHUMAN — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:04:00 GMT

Whilst preparing for a recent presentation I was giving, I found myself questioning whether innovation in ecommerce had ground to a halt. Now I’m not talking about innovations in technology here, there’s a lot of that going on. I’m talking about retailers embracing these innovations and applying them to commercial ecommerce websites.

I look back at 2007 and think about all the exciting things we were seeing/doing for clients. From the initial appearance of the single page checkout; to ‘shop the catwalk’ pages; look books; video product detail pages, etc. 2008 was all about optimisation and best practise; squeezing every last drop out of a site visitor. All good stuff of course, although it still amazes me to think how some retailers are still not doing these basics right.

But what has 2009 brought us? Outfit builders? Well, yes, but that’s not really caught on yet. Social Commerce? Blogs are great at engaging and drive traffic, but that’s certainly not new to the web (just to some fashion etailers). Luxury brands selling direct? Painfully slow. Twitter Commerce? hmmm.

So you see where I’m coming from. Not quite the heady days of two years ago that’s for sure.

Why has this happened? It’s certainly not because creative agencies have run out of ideas that’s for sure. (I can only speak from our perspective as an independent ecommerce agency trying to earn a buck of course). And there are all sorts of great new opportunities out there on new and exciting platforms like Magento Commerce. What we've found is that firstly, retailers have been extra cautious this year and are opting for the ‘safe’ option. Budgets are going to systems that do the basics really well, but aren’t going to set the world on fire with new functionality that customers are demanding. There’s also a shortage of brands actually looking to change platforms right now. We saw a massive increase in ecommerce platform deployment in 2007 and 2008, but this year it seems to about getting those systems to pay back on the initial investment. No new systems mean little progress in innovation. I’m pretty sure this will be the same story for the rest of the year as Christmas is around the corner and no retailer will dare do anything to their very stable (and very vanilla) ecommerce website.

Fair enough you might say, but at what expense? Well the reality is, to stay competitive in the ecommerce space, you need to stay ahead of what every one else is doing. There are more and more websites out there that are selling the same thing. Why would a customer prefer one over the other?

So there you have it. Four more months of struggling to get out of bed and living in hope of that brave client that wants to take the next step in ecommerce. One that understands the endless possibilities that something like open source can bring. One that allows it’s agency to really pull out the stops, using budget to do something creative, exciting and innovative in our wonderful world of ecommerce.

What's in a (brand) name?

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:40:00 GMT

Monday morning we all woke up the news that Kraft Foods had made a £10bn bid for Cadbury, a bid which Cadbury quickly rejected the offer as it ‘undervalues the company’. Who says no to a takeover bid with a 31% premium on top of share price? – A brand which knows it can get a lot more.

Cadbury is the world’s second largest confectionery company with a stronghold in Britain and emerging markets which account for over one-third of the company’s revenue. Kraft is strong in markets such as Scandinavia and Brazil, where Cadbury has small presence.

Kraft is looking to use Cadbury’s strong brand presence in Britain and its positioning in emerging markets to create ‘a global powerhouse in snacks, confectionery and quick meals’.

I am not suggesting that a strong brand name is all a business should be about, but Cadbury’s decision to decline the Kraft bid had a lot to do with the strong brand Cadbury has created through innovative ad campaigns. We all know building a brand / brand equity requires huge investment and a long term commitment (not to mention a lot of creativity and market intelligence) and unfortunately the performance and return are never as easy to measure as they are with a direct response campaign. In the last couple of years, Cadbury has grown their brand through brilliantly planned and executed campaigns such as the ‘Gorilla’ and ‘Trucks’ spots – campaigns so persuasive we all forgot about the huge Cadbury product recall in June 2006. This means that, if they were to purchase Cadbury, Kraft would be able to focus on growing sales in Cadbury’s existing markets rather than their current conundrum – how to build Kraft’s own brands to be more personal and meaningful.

Kraft executive Michael Osanloo suggested that Cadbury was only worth what someone was willing to pay for it – as the world’s second largest confectionary company with average 12% growth per annum in emerging markets and a strong brand identity Cadbury doesn’t have to sell. Whether Kraft decides to put in a new (higher) bid or Hershey’s and Nestlé propose a counter offer, Cadbury is in the fortunate position of choosing when to sell. Osanloo would perhaps have been closer to the mark then if he had said that Cadbury is only worth what someone is willing to pay when (and if) it actually decides to sell.

Older people passing on viruses

Chris Hassell — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:37:00 GMT

I was sat in a meeting this morning talking about a Christmas concept we're working on. A lovely chap from the agency we're working with pulled out his iPhone and showed us an email he'd just got from his brother 'Look at this it's a cracker' was the subject line. I'm not going to tell you what the picture attachment was as I'm sure you can work it out for yourself.

This slightly boring story is a random link to talking about how different demographics interact with 'viral'. My Dad still sends me PPT files with a few funny pictures in and I usually respond in a Kevin The Teenager way of "oh gaaawd Daaad, I saw that yeeaaars agoo, pah". At Ralph we work predominantly in entertainment aimed at the youth market who are seemingly up for interacting with brands more than my parent's generation. Or is this bollocks? Is it just that the entertainment is different, perhaps a Hale and Pace sketch from the 80s on YouTube is the best way of reaching my Mum and Dad?

P.S. Ben, if you read this, I'm not saying you're old by receiving the cracker email!

Yahoo target Twitter with a Meme of their own

Caroline McGuckian — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 15:53:00 GMT

There may once have been a time when a Yahoo! product launch, even if it is a sneak-it-out-the-back-door Beta style event, would have been a hot topic for discussion so it says a lot that many readers may not even have heard of Yahoo! Meme, their attempt to move into the world of Twitter and Tumblr. As Yahoo's first move into proper user-generated content creation for some time (ignoring purchases and Yahoo Answers) you would think they have spent their time coming up with something worthwhile - unfortunately it's a little difficult to avoid the feeling that this is a rushed job.

Currently Meme is only available in Portugese and that, to some extent, may justify it's existence. Indeed, our own international PR work at LBi has taught us the value of understanding different market's approaches to social networks. Unfortunately there does not seem to be too much to Meme beyond that. It differs from Twitter in that it lets you post text, images, MP3s and YouTube videos and it doesn't have a limit on the length of posts, unlike Twitter's restrictive 140 character limit. Other than that the main difference is that in order to comment on anything on Meme you re-post (an equivalent to a 're-tweet' on Twitter) it on your profile and then add your thoughts, meaning other users get to see what you are reading.

These features may sound interesting but I can't help but feel Yahoo might have missed the point. Firstly you can fairly easily post any of these types of content on Twitter already using links to third party sites, with more and more companies springing up aiming to make this as seamless as possible. Admittedly it means users have to go outside of Twitter to get the content but this has the benefit of making Twitter much easier to consume on the go and has made it very easy for almost endless third-party systems to plug in to the Twitter API. More to the point, if you want to share this type of content you are probably already doing so on Facebook or Tumblr anyway (or even a proper old-fashioned blog)! Even the re-post feature / requirement for commenting, which may be a good way to stimulate connections (as users will quickly see who other users are following), won't take long before it starts to interfere with the difficult signal to noise ratio that Twitter itself stuggles with.

I would probably be prepared to give Meme a temporary reprieve, however, if it were not for one thing... The fact that it has launched as an invite only beta. Spot the problem? Invite only betas are a great way to carry out a controlled launch whilst you iron out teething problems / get a handling on bandwidth costs / figure out a business model / boil the kettle, provided the service doesn't need critical mass to be useful. Gmail launched invite only - it didn't matter because you didn't need to know people who also used Gmail for it to be useful. Social networks on the other hand live or die by user numbers - I might use Facebook or LinkedIn because other people do, but if everyone left so would I - and if they weren't there in the first place (because they had to be 'invited') I might never have joined.