Search results matching tag 'Gordon Brown'

Action TV stations

1716484 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:10:00 GMT

It is important to respond, to act. Ask Gordon Brown about biscuits and he’d better respond with something – anything – or else there will be trouble. Deafening silence rarely suggests success.

Advertising doesn’t always expect an instant response; often it is trying to change the way people feel or think about a brand. But if advertising doesn’t eventually lead to a response (ideally a purchase or a change in behaviour), then it is difficult to see its point.

But the issue of attribution is a tricky one; how can you identify everything that has contributed to a response? This is just as true in online media, despite their supposed easy accountability. The online world is trying to ditch the ‘last click wins’ model in order to assign value to other online ad exposures that precede the final response. Fair enough, but once the online world has opened that particular can of worms they must acknowledge the contribution of the radio ad, the PR coverage in the paper and, most significantly, the TV campaign that is running, or has previously run. Is, in fact, the supposed accountability of online more misleading than enlightening? This question of credit going where it is due is crucial if advertisers are to gain a better understanding of how advertising works.

So it is rather handy that a new econometric study from MediaCom, commissioned by Thinkbox, has measured TV advertising’s ability to send people online. It is the first time that the instant effect TV ads have on web response has been measured and made publically available.

Over a period of three months MediaCom analysed over 175,000 TV spots and the activity they caused on different advertisers’ websites in 10 minute intervals for seven leading brands across six different markets. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?

Two of the headline findings from their analysis are:

* When TV’s correct share of online responses is added to phone responses, TV accounts for 30% of all short term advertising responses, and even more when TV’s contribution to the long term is considered
* Of that 30%, a third occurs within just 10 minutes of seeing the TV ad - 15% by phone and 20% via the internet

We knew anecdotally that TV advertising has a massive impact on internet traffic, sending people to brand websites, either directly or via search, retailer or comparison sites. Google have confirmed it themselves and they have kindly provided us with some fancy graphs showing the dramatic effect of TV on search. But to be able to put some robust headline numbers to it is a big step forward.

The study concludes that TV advertising has been undervalued because its ability to generate viewer response online is generally not accounted for. Until now, DRTV optimisation at spot level has been based largely on the patterns of telephone response, which has been declining as a response channel. Across the seven brands, phone response had declined from over 85% to less than 40% of responses in the last 8 years.

The wider context to the research is that the take-up of home broadband and increasing laptop ownership has effectively brought the High Street into the living room. There is so little now to stop people from shopping for a product immediately after seeing a TV ad. TV ads are now at the point of sale.

It is another example of TV and online media’s ‘special relationship’, as Google recently put it. TV advertising provokes both emotion and action; and internet media enable people to act on their emotions immediately.

There is a god: Sun screws up in tawdry Brown affair (plus iPod moment)

255762 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:47:00 GMT

See just when you thought there wasn't a god The Sun comes out and makes a howler managing to spell the name of the mother Jacqui Janes wrong on its website as it uses her and her fallen Jamie son in a tawdry effort to attack Gordon Brown for political gain.

It is hard to say if this is a new low for the Sun - or just another in its "continuing voyages" after all this is the paper that set the bench mark on low with its coverage of the Hillsborough stadium disaster.

The paper has racked up than 130 comments under its story covering the letter sent by the prime minister to Jacqui Janes with the majority backing Brown. I'm not going to go into that, besides Roy Greenslade has a good post over at the Guardian.

As you can see from the image the Sun referred to Jacqui Janes as "Jacqui Jones". Glass houses and all that. And I think you have to be thankful for what you get. So I am pinging my digital stone back (yes, that was the sound of a stretched metaphor you heard snapping).

Co-incidentally after I'd been reading about this yesterday as the Sun (and others) relentlessly milked it (as you do in the run up to Remembrance Day; classy) I was listening to my iPod on the way home and it did what it hasn't done for a long time. As I hit shuffle from somewhere it dug up a Billy Bragg song that had snuck into some Apple "Genius" created playlist. I would never knowingly listen to Billy Bragg although I used to quite like the odd tune back in the day (and who doesn't have a soft spot for "its wrong to wish on space hardware...okay just me).

I digress, anyway, it served up a song called 'It says here', which is a really old song about trade unions and The Sun newspaper and such. I Googled the lyrics this morning and as I read them over I was struck by how little (in some respects) things have changed. In the case of The Sun it is still the place "where politics mix with bingo and *** in a strictly money and numbers game". And yes there are two sides to every story.

It says here

It says here that the Unions will never learn
It says here that the economy is on the upturn
And it says here we should be proud
That we are free
And our free press reflects our democracy

Those braying voices on the right of the House
Are echoed down the Street of Shame
Where politics mix with bingo and ***
In a strictly money and numbers game

Where they offer you a feature
On stockings and suspenders
Next to a call for stiffer penalties for sex offenders

It says here that this year's prince is born
It says here do you ever wish
That you were better informed
And it says here that we can only stop the rot
With a large dose of Law and Order
And a touch of the short sharp shock

If this does not reflect your view you should understand
That those who own the papers also own this land
And they'd rather you believe
In Coronation Street capers
In the war of circulation, it sells newspapers
Could it be an infringement
Of the freedom of the press
To print pictures of women in states of undress

When you wake up to the fact
That your paper is Tory
Just remember, there are two sides to every story

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My thoughts on the twins

1704826 — 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.

Brown boosts his social media reputation

255762 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:35:00 GMT

It isn't all bad news for Gordon Brown. Those chumps at News International (my word of the day) might have dumped him, but his keynote speech at Labour Party Conference did much to improve his social media reputation and hit back at some of the negative coverage.

This is more from Yomego and its new social media reputation measurement system that I blogged about earlier this week. It found that across Twitter, facebook and the blogging community Brown boosted his reputation by 17 points. Considering the flak he was taking, akin to a rough night over Germany, that's an achievement. From a starting score of 42.59 out of 100, Brown moved to 59.81, according to Yogemo.

It audited the Prime Minister’s social media reputation the week before and then again the morning after the speech was carried out and it showed that noise levels were certainly up and that sentiment levels had also improved significantly, indicating that the speech was well received on social networks.

Clearly as Steve Richards, managing director of Yomego says Gordon Brown had a lot of ground to make up with Britain’s 30m online social network users when he stood up to make his speech.

"Before he started, Conservative Party Leader David Cameron rated a score of 62.49, 20 points ahead of the Prime Minister. But both had much to learn from other world leaders, with US President Barack Obama scoring 77.79 and French Premier Nicolas Sarkozy achieving 66.15."

How important any of this will be is really hard to tell. I sometimes worry that social media is a bit of a bubble, but then increasingly we see that bubble burst into the wider world. So while I possess a degree of skepticism about the impact Twitter and blogs et cetera might have on the a general election campaign I also think that six months down the line we might be surprised.

I also agree with a lot of the sentiment appearing on blogs yesterday that the long predicted decision by The Sun to dump Brown will be less significant than some think. Time will tell.

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It's the Sun wot jumped on the bandwagon

1641923 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:22:00 GMT

And so it comes to pass, News International's most popular daily newspaper The Sun has declared its allegiance to David Cameron's Tories.

The Sun tells its readers in no uncertain terms today to vote Conservative at the next election, effectively ending 12 years and 7 months of "support", for the Labour Party.

"Labour's Lost It" screams the front page, followed by a detailed blow-by-blow account about how Labour's tenure has been punctuated by "under-achievement, rank failure and a vast expansion of wasteful government interference in everyone's lives".

Of course the announcement was perfectly orchestrated, coming as it does just in time to pop any feel-good bubble generated by Gordon Brown's rabble rousing speech at the Labour Party conference in Brighton last night. But don't worry Gordie, you'll always be a hero to your wife at least.

Regardless, despite all its bluster, in today's multimedia 2.0 age, the Current Bun switching sides is not the game-changer it once was. A barometer of public opinion, perhaps - but nothing more.

In the past, Sun editors have been wined and dined by politicians on both sides of the fence and famously claims to have won the election for the Conversatives in 1992. Yet this week we're told News Int's chief executive Rebekah Brooks couldn't event get 10 mins with the PM to end their relationship in person.

The only real surprise is that it has taken so long for Rupert Murdoch's red-top to turn blue.

As with all messy break-ups, the writing's been on the wall for some time. Now for the next six months we can sit back and enjoy the spectacle, as both sides try and convince us of their relevance.

Gordon Brown needs to consider his social media reputation

255762 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:28:00 GMT

Following on from Friday's post on Labour's Twitter lead, research says that Gordon Brown has a lot of ground to make up with Britain's 30m online social network users as he looks to make his keynote speech at the Labour Party conference this week.

Of course, his social media reputation is not the only thing he and Labour needs (a fight back would be nice, but not the place).

Social media agency Yomego carried out a Social Media Reputation audit (a new service it is launching) of the Prime Minister's online reputation looking across the spectrum at Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, Twitter and YouTube alongside other social spaces such as blogs, comments, ratings, reviews and user-generated content.

While the party might have more MPs Twittering and engaging with social media, David Cameron's reputation in the world of Twitter, Facebook and the blogging community is ranked 20 points higher, which is of course ironic give what he thinks for instance of Twitter ("Too many twits might make a twat.") although he really should come clean about Facebook as well (I'm just sitting here drumming my fingers waiting for that one).

Out of a possible 100, the Prime Minister scores 42.59 in the audit, which measures the volume and newness of social media chatter and whether it is positive or negative.

To be honest the recent week's that Brown has been having that is almost better than expected. From here on out, and with his speech this week, the party and Brown have to get that higher.

According to Yomego, in Brown's case there was lots of noise, but opinion was almost universally unenthusiastic with his "sentiment" score lower than that achieved by British National Party leader Nick Griffin (seriously? I find that hard to believe, but that is what the agency says).

Tory leader David Cameron rated a score of 62.49 with the level of noise on social media networks achieving similar volume and recency to the PM, but the overall sentiment rating more than three times better than his Labour counterpart. Well the Tories are between 13 and 15 points ahead in the polls depending on who you look at so that is going to happen.

A ray of light for Brown comes from the Liberal Democrat who should be soaking up the anti Brown/Labour chatter, but while leader Nick Clegg scores a respectable 54.13 he is let down by a low noise rating. You mean no one is talking Clegg? Apparently he is not exactly inspiring the Lib Dems to new heights as the party's recent conference appeared to demonstrate (either that or Lib Dems don't chatter/make much noise in social media).

Steve Richards, MD of Yomego, says that the audits carried out so far have underlined how important it is for brands (political parties) to manage that social media noise and sentiment around them.

"The noise around your brand may be deafening but if that noise is overwhelmingly negative, its reputation will suffer real damage. Conversely, if positive sentiment about your brand is drowned out by your competitors, you won’t see the benefits.

"For politicians, with nearly 30m people in the UK alone regularly using a social network, social media reputation is an important barometer for measuring whether their message is getting through and how it’s being received. That’s particularly true as we enter the party conference season and all parties start gearing up for a general election next year."

Other stuff thrown up by the audit, but not strictly earth shattering (but here you are) are the high scores achieved by Barack Obama who scored 77.79 (shocker - he is the social media king, or president as he likes to be known) and French Premier Nicolas Sarkozy achieving 66.15. Does he Twitter? Do the French? I'm sure they do, but weirdly I don't think I have ever followed/been followed by someone from across the channel. The rest of Europe yes, France no.

I digress, um here's a bit of how they did the Social Media Reputation audit, which Yomego says is a first measurement system combining quantity and quality, with insight and will be officially launched at Mipcom 2009 (5th – 9th October).

The result is a total score out of 100, representing an average of the level and freshness of noise generated and the nature and recency of sentiment behind what’s being expressed.

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Dirty tricks plot at the Labour conference 2009 revealed here

2114008 — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 16:57:00 GMT

So am back again at the Labour conference, this time it's at sunny Brighton. I'll actually be going to the Tories as well next week (tectonic plates, shifts of power and all that) but haven't figured out how to change the name and description of my blog to reflect this.

Anyway, just thought I would spread a delicious rumour going around the bars at the moment to which I will make a very tenous marketing link at the end.

Apparently a prominent right-wing blogger had hatched a plot to create havoc during Gordon's speech. The dastardly plan went thus. Blogger secures a stand at conference manned by disgruntled ex-soldiers with model helicopters seemingly meant for use on the said stand. However the real plan for the helicopters is to dive-bomb onto Brown from the balcony bearing subversive slogans.

This was foiled solely because the blogger applied too late to get access for the soldier-types.

The relevance to marketing? Always double-check your exhibitors before allowing them a presence at your conference no matter how desperate you are.

More insights of this calibre tomorrow. Off to the crash the New Statesman party.

Real change or empty rhetoric?

2175094 — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:35:00 GMT

Earlier this week Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered an interesting speech to the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in Oxford. He talked of the power of today’s technology in organising and uniting communities around the world on particular issues, such as climate change, the financial crisis or matters of foreign policy, and said that this citizen empowerment meant that we could create a “truly global society”, that foreign policy “can never be the same again” and could “no longer be run by elites”.

It was a powerful speech with some welcome words. It wasn’t really picked up by traditional media but the world of Twitter (NB Brown's wife, Sarah, has over 440,000 followers) was alive with praise. There was also much skepticism, including from within the audience he spoke to. Did he really mean it? How would he balance this ‘global citizenship’ with the national interest? He is of course right about the empowering nature of the internet and digital communications which bridges national boundaries, people and cultures. 10 Downing Street is participating in Bebo’s Big Think to encourage users to inform our politicians about ideas for the future.

But it’s not the first time the Prime Minister has spoken about technology changing foreign policy forever. Gordon Brown is right that global injustices and events are prevalent in our living rooms within seconds of them occurring (the best recent example being Iran). But this ‘global citizenship’ he speaks of is a bottom-up approach. Foreign policy – and indeed much of global policy – is governed by structures and systems that are inherently top-down. Our representative democracy was built upon it. Brown admitted this by suggesting that we can’t deal with environmental problems through existing institutions and that the likes of the United Nations are now out of date in dealing with foreign policy. It remains to be seen what he would advocate instead or whether this is just empty rhetoric as we move towards a General Election next year. However, his proposed ‘constitutional changes’ to Parliament as a result of the MP expense debacle shouldn't necessarily fill us with a whole lot of confidence.

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If we can house ducks we can house Gurkhas

1704826 — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:39:00 GMT

Good to see that the Government has finally realised that if we can find the public money to house ducks as well as Hazel Blears several times over, then we can also find it to house those Gurkhas who want to live here.

The speech by National Treasure Joanna Lumley, to use her full name, was notable for the fact that she thanked the Fourth Estate for helping with this cause and indeed credit is due to all those newspapers that united behind such a noble and right cause.

It's been a bad month for politicians and a good one for the media, what with them accurately reflecting the mood of the nation and also exposing the MPs gravy train.

My one small complaint is that Joanna Lumley described Gordon Brown as 'brave'. Where's the bravery in being forced to make a U-turn on an indefensible decision in the first place? Still, a minor gripe.

Incidentally I quite like ducks so don't mind housing them too. I wonder if there might be some votes in it?

Election 2010: The Digital Media Battle

2175094 — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:15:00 GMT

We should all welcome Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s return to YouTube this week. He was criticised by Cabinet colleagues (aka our ‘Communities’ Minister, Hazel Blears) and widely ridiculed by the media for his ‘MP expenses’ video late last month. But Brown knows only too well that we now live in a world of 24/7 digital media and he needs to use these tools to get his message across directly to the British people (he’s doing something right - apparently the 10 Downing Street twitter site is the UK’s most favourite). Of course, Parliament is the hub of our democracy and policy statements should be made first in the ‘chamber’ (but few people watch or listen to proceedings). Door-to-door campaigning is very personal but it is also time-consuming and effective on a one-to-one basis. So, as the political fighting (and in-fighting) intensifies in the run up to the European and local elections next month, another ‘war’ is beginning to emerge: the politics of digital media.

The truth of the matter is that the Labour Party (the party of government) hasn’t quite grasped the concept of social media: it is in ‘catch up’ mode. This is because it has been the party of power for over a decade and is restricted by the limitations of the civil service which has yet to truely embrace the enabling power of the internet. It is trying though with the appointment of a Digital Tsar – although bizarrely this was widely criticised. It also has difficulty coping with a media where the ‘message’ cannot always be controlled. However, there are many examples of Labour MPs and other elected representatives who are embracing the media as a way to engage and interact directly with their constituents. Many now have blogs, twitter feeds, Facebook pages etc. However, the Conservative Party has stolen a march in this area, using social media more effectively as a campaigning tool. David Cameron has used webcameron from day one of his leadership. The number of Conservative-leaning blogs (such as Iain Dale or ConservativeHome far outweigh those of the political Left, although there is LabourList but even this is experiencing troubles). The Conservative blogs are also not afraid to criticise the party’s leadership (although remain broadly loyal). The Conservatives also had the ingenious idea of buying key ‘budget’ search words directing people to the Party's website during live coverage of the Chancellor’s statement . This is a new step in political battle to get your attention.

The politics of digital media is set to become one of the largest battlegrounds in the next UK General Election (odds on May 2010?) as campaigning evolves from television and newspapers to social networking sites and other ‘direct’ and participative approaches. We’ve all heard about Barack Obama’s use of social media during last year’s US Presidential Elections. He’s set the standard. Let’s now see how British political parties overcome the restrictions on party election broadcasting to get their message over to you and me directly on your PC, iPod or mobile.

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