DigiTales Blog - Mel Carson

Fiat eco:Drive from the folks at AKQA!

Mel Carson — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:41:00 GMT

Video Interview with MaryLee Sachs from Hill & Knowlton at Cannes Lions 2009

Mel Carson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:41:00 GMT

When in Cannes for the International Advertising Festival I was lucky enough to get a few minutes with MaryLee Sachs who is Director of Worldwide Marketing Communications Practice at Hill & Knowlton and Chairman of Hill & Knowlton USA.

In this video she talks about how social media is changing the face of the PR, what brands should do and not do when engaging in the medium, and tells us what it means for PR to finally be recognised after 56 years of the festival!

PS: It was H&K that kindly set up the Biz Stone Interview - Thanks to Niall!

Steve Ballmer Seminar Videos - Cannes Lions 2009

Mel Carson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:28:00 GMT

Highlights 1 - Steve Ballmer Seminar Cannes Lions 2009

Highlights 2 - Steve Ballmer Seminar in Cannes Lions 2009

Highlights 3 - Steve Ballmer Seminar - Cannes 2009

Highlights 4 - Steve Ballmer Seminar Cannes Lions 2009

Video Interview with Biz Stone of Twitter Fame at Cannes Lions 2009

Mel Carson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Twitter's Biz Stone at Cannes

Been Bizzy at Cannes today so check the interview out.....

Twitter @ Cannes Lions 2009

Mel Carson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:38:00 GMT

Just a couple of days now till Cannes and I’ve been hunting down Tweeters for you to follow!

http://Twitter.com/Cannes_Lions {Obviously}

http://twitter.com/dabitch & http://twitter.com/adland from adLand

http://twitter.com/mnieuwpoort

http://twitter.com/TheDuffyAgency

Folks from Hill & Knowlton

http://twitter.com/hillandknowlton

http://twitter.com/CandaceKuss

http://twitter.com/niallcook

And of course us:

http://twitter.com/MSAdvertising

We'll be aggregating posts from blogs at Cannes Lions 2009 Microsoft Advertising Community

If you know of anyone else then stick them in below tweet them to us!

See you on the Cote D’Azure!

Cannes Lions 2009 – Countdown Begins

Mel Carson — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:42:00 GMT

This time next week I’ll be in Cannes for the International Advertising Festival – I know, I know, it’s a tough life!

Microsoft Advertising is sponsoring the event and we’ll be entertaining a raft of agencies and advertisers on the beach as well as in seminars and forums, most notably one hosted by Steve Ballmer who’ll be in town to pick up the Media Person of the Year Award from the organisers.

If you can’t make it you can follow all the action on our Cannes Lions 2009 Community Site and I’ll be posting here to the Microsoft Advertising Blog and to my personal blog throughout the week!

Check out the agenda here and let me know if you have a question you’d like to ask Steve at the event?!

5 Quick Twitter “Must Do” Tips!

Mel Carson — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 12:15:00 GMT

Last week the guys at HubSpot released a compelling report into the state of the Twittersphere!

The facts?

• 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
• 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
• 68.68% have not specified a location
• 55.50% are not following anyone
• 54.88% have never tweeted
• 52.71% have no followers

Fascinating stuff! I’ve been using Twitter for a while now for communication and information/news gathering and, as a marketer, find it bizarre that people are not using the settings link to provide the right kind of information to potential followers.

So here are 5 quick tips!

• Stick a photo or image up! If people see the brown square of doom the chances of you getting anyone to follow you back are….well…..doomed. You wouldn’t walk into a pub with a paper bag on your head so don’t do it on Twitter. If you’re shy then put a picture up of your dog or something that relates to your personality or what you’re going to Tweet about!

• Enter some kind of URL. If you don’t have a website or blog, use a LinkedIn profile or Facebook username, something that gives added credence to who you are and gives followers more to go on to make an informed choice as to whether to follow you or not.

• Where are you? I love seeing new followers from different places around the world. Twitter is a community made up of all sorts and geographic locations add come colour to the mix.

• Don’t end up following loads more people than follow you! It looks like you’ve not got any friends and are using Twitter to boost your self-esteem. It’s not about that and there are plenty of books on Amazon for help with your insecurities!

• For gawd’s sake TWEET! Even if you’re boring and have nothing to say express your feelings now and again. Seeing someone’s not Tweeted for a while is a turn off. It’s like those company “about us” pages that have not updated their PR for 18 months. Why would you take them seriously?!

Feel free to add yours below.....

Bing.com From Behind The Bling

Mel Carson — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 12:29:00 GMT

I’ve always been pretty agnostic on Digitales, but as this is my 300th post, I’m sure Steve and Rich at Media Week will allow me to talk Bing!

Ever since I joined Microsoft back in the summer of 2005, the advertisers and agencies I’ve talked to have loved adCenter and helped it grow in functionality through and open and honest dialogue. They’ve appreciated the diligence and availability our service teams and revelled in the great ROI they’ve gleaned from the platform.

The lingering question has always been around volume. What were we going to do to increase market share and take some of it away from Google?

Share has slipped somewhat since those days and now stands at around 4% in the UK. Not a nice place to be. And to be honest, I personally never had the answer to what was needed to draw people away from what they already know, other than it had to be a significant shift in how we display results, and add more value than what was currently out there.

Enter Bing.com!

Launched last week, the new search experience has been getting some great reviews.

Badged a “decision engine”, the idea is to take the heavy lifting and frustration out of searching the web - all that “back and forthing” trying to narrow down result choices and potentially wasting advertiser clicks at the same time – by categorising results into intuitive buckets which make it easier for users to find and more importantly take the action that lies behind their intent.

I won’t go into all the features here but check out the demo and videos for more insight.

Now we’ve had our knuckles rapped in the past for launching advertising products in the US and seeming to ignore the UK while our American cousins get their house in order. After all, we’re two countries divided – I mean united - by the same language right?

How hard can it be?

Well we’ve indicated we want a product that is locally relevant and has locally produced bells and whistles, and the folks in Redmond have listened. We have now opened a Search Technology Centre in London, and are working hard to put together a compelling offering with a truly British vibe.

What you see today on the UK version of Bing.com is not the final product – it is in Beta and it will get more exciting as our local engineers enrich the global experience with strong local flavour!

What does it mean for advertisers and marketers? Well Rich Sutcliffe asks some pertinent questions in his Media Week commentary this week and he’s right to ask them.

But I truly believe we’re at the proverbial crossroads here – there is so much more we can do to improve the speed and relevancy with which we connect advertisers with consumers.

Software is the answer and we need to innovate and adapt business models and practices in order to capitalize on what is starting to become a brave new world.

Discover Bing and let me know what you think....

You Can Get Away From It All......

Mel Carson — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 05:01:00 GMT

I’m in the US right now busy organising and MCing some conferences here and in London. It’s 9.43pm and I’m still at my laptop on the 15^th floor of the Westin in Bellevue still working!

It’s a far cry from last week where I successfully negotiated a whole week or seven days or 168 hours or 10,080 minutes or 604,800 seconds without reading a single email or emitting a single Tweet while on holiday in France!

I did check the cricket score on my phone just once, but as for the rest of cyber-land, I kept well clear and d’you know what? It was wonderful.

I love all this online marketing nonsense. It’s fast-paced, cutting edge and there’s never a dull moment but you can and need to “down tools” now and again and simply (I hate this next word as I’m sure you do) chillax....

There were a couple of days of quasi-withdrawal symptoms but I reckon that was simply because all my senses were being bombarded with was sun, chlorine, red wine and cheese.

When you get stuck into all the social media side of this industry it can be difficult to switch off. There seems to be a thirst for knowledge, an urgency to not miss a thing.

Thankfully I’ve now realised that I can switch off and re-charge the battery, that I can be "done without" for a week and that there could be life after online if, for some ungodly reason, it all went horribly wrong.

My 300^th post writing for Media Week is coming up next......I might just write a piece about a certain new search engine ;-)

Is This The Year of Mobile?

Mel Carson — Fri, 15 May 2009 08:12:00 GMT

Maybe not......but one of these years (soon) it will be and you should be ready!

Media Week, reporting on the new IAB figures, headlined that mobile ad spend is up 99% in 12 months.

Reasons are obviously cheaper, better handsets, cheaper data packages and the fact iPhone users are seven times more likely to be checking news and info on the move.

And with prices coming down even further, sites like Facebook & Twitter easily driving people to network via their mobiles, and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.5 platform being released later this year, more and more time will be spent on handhelds which means more eyeballs for you!

Try and think globally too. I was in South Africa recently and TV ads were wall-to-wall driven by mobile, SMS this and SMS that. Most folks over there can’t afford PCs but the ALL seem to have mobiles.

The other reason to get savvy is because if you don’t, your competitors will be and that’s a bad place to be. Too many people think that a recession is for battening down the hatches and taking fright but it isn’t.

Now is the time to be experimenting with this stuff. You should be drip feeding some spend and resources and building up your expertise and brand impact for when big budgets get released and you can go gung-ho!

2009 may not be the year of the mobile but it’s sure as hell the year for learning about it and getting prepared for when the flood gates open and you have the opportunity to capitalize.

Funeral Advertising - Morbid or an Unnecessary Undertaking?

Mel Carson — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:19:00 GMT

At the weekend a guest at a lunch I was at who was a GP asked me why he never sees advertising for funeral directors or coffins on TV, in print or online.

I didn’t have an answer. Is it illegal? Are there guidelines set out by some higher body on the grounds of taste and decency?

Or do we just know there’s one on every high street so there’s no need to even go there.......unless we really have to?

Some are advertising on search which is obvious and a great idea, but what about other channels?

How could demographic and behavioural targeting play into what must be one of the oldest professions/industries ever?

IAB UK Gets Social Media - So Should You!

Mel Carson — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:38:00 GMT

I just got an email from the fabulous Guy Phillipson at the IAB which had a side bar that looked like this:

You'd have to be a woolly mammoth buried under ten feet of ice for the past 10,000 years NOT to have heard of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube!

But for every few people who have acknowledged their importance to marketing, there’s always one who appears to throw up slightly in their mouths at the thought of sending customers from a newsletter to the channels they’ve set up on these sites, because they’re worried they’ll see a dip in traffic or engagement on their own property.

Who cares?

People with control issues, or those that just don’t get it, that's who!

If millions and millions of your potential customers, readers, audience or whatever are on those sites then why not go where they are and they feel comfortable?

Sure, there are rules of engagement, but for goodness sake we’re operating in a fast-moving, ever-changing and dynamic (I think they all mean the same thing?) environment so get with the program.

There’s been a change in the way business is done and social media is now firmly part of the media mix.

Ditch page views and unique users and think about your ROI – Return On Inaction!

Think of the data! Look what people are saying about the IAB even now!

Failure to embrace these channels and to keep morphing as new channels start emerging simply isn’t an option.

Advertising Cards on The Table or in the Window?

Mel Carson — Fri, 01 May 2009 08:27:00 GMT

On my way to the station the other morning I spotted this sign:

Initially I was confused!

From the name of the company - Cards In The Window – I thought the idea was homeowners would get paid for sticking adverts on their double-glazing in an effort to catch the attention of passersby.

Genius I thought!

A company has been born out of these tough economic times that will pay hard up mortgage-payers for carrying advertising in their windows. Then I pondered, what about TV screens? Why not carry TV ads? It’d bring a whole new meaning to the phrase “neighbourhood watch!”

Alas no!

My advertising imagination had got the better of me.

Cards In The Window is like a local, newsagent-themed self-serve ad site catering for SW London, which lets you place a free ad for something you’re selling or a service you’re touting.

The different cards you can use are quite fun and design and functionality is very good.

On reflection, I’m glad it didn’t turn out to be what I had imagined but it does go to show what this business can do to your brain sometimes!

I'm looking forward to the Bank Holiday weekend!

Sneak Preview of Wolfram Alpha Search Engine Tonight!

Mel Carson — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:06:00 GMT

Just got a mail from those folks at Wolfram Alpha who've been causing a bit of a stir talking about the launch of a new search engine.

The mail offers a sneek peek tonight at 8pm GMT during a webcast filmed at Harvard University.

Participants will include Wolfram|Alpha founder Stephen Wolfram and Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law and they will discuss the underlying technology and implications of the so-called "computational knowledge engine."

Is it too late for yet another search engine to capture the imagination of the internet-using population? Will it be another Cuil.com?

Reserve judgement till after this evening because you never know.........

Consumers Are Still Searching! Are Advertisers Feeling Lucky?

Mel Carson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:28:00 GMT

I’m not really surprised that Hitwise, via the fabulous Robin Goad, have reported that clicks to retailers from paid search have declined slightly over the last year.

While search volumes are growing year on year because of the usual reasons – more time spent online, broadband penetration, better devices and offline marketing campaigns driving people online, the economic situation is obviously to blame for consumers not leaping online to buy stuff like they used to before all this mess.

In a piece I wrote yesterday entitled US Consumer Research Says Keep Investing in Search – Just Be Smarter! the research from comScore in the US says that people are still searching and some are surfing to just combat the stress brought on by the financial crisis!

67% of US consumers say search engines are important when they are shopping as that’s how they are navigating to brands’ products and services. However, as Carol Bartz from Yahoo! said recently - "Search is the equivalent of online window shopping right now. People are browsing around, and not clicking through to buy."

So with some advertisers a tad reticent to invest as much as they did maybe last year, it’s not difficult to see that there may be fewer clicks on those more commercial ads.

Last week Search Engine Land quoted Efficient Frontier’s latest research – “The drop in CPCs indicates a deflation in the marketplace. Thus we find ourselves at an interesting cross-road. On the one hand, advertisers are cutting budgets resulting in cheaper clicks, on the other hand more users are searching online.”

All the conversations I’ve had with other search engines, analysts and marketing professionals this year have rendered one common theme, and that is that those advertisers that continue to invest, recognise the positive branding effect search can have on their campaigns, pay for some decent analytics data and are willing to train their teams to think a new way during this economic re-calibration will emerge during the upturn as leaders in their space.

Holding your nerve in a channel that has proven to return and then some, will pay even better dividends in the long run!