Search results matching tag 'Samsung'

If the shoe fits, win it! She Says Golden Stiletto Awards

2292853 — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:06:00 GMT

This year’s She Says Golden Stiletto Awards (the second year for the awards honouring women in digital advertising) brought together top talent in London's digital advertising industry to celebrate female achievements in creativity, and showed that there is growing appeal for the organization, and its mission to showcase female talent in the digital sector.

She Says Golden Stiletto Awards is the only award ceremony of its kind that is for women, and judged by women working in the advertising industry, with judges for this year’s nearly 30 entries including:

Johannah Bailey, Programme Director Global Communications - Unilever

Liz Sivell, Creative Director at R/GA

Ida GronBlom, Senior Creative - Wieden + Kennedy

Toni Smith, Managing Director – The Viral Factory

Elspeth Lynn, Executive Creative Director – Profero

Charlotte Mcelany, Senior Writer – Creative Review

At the awards ceremony, held October 29 at the Getty Gallery who are sponsors of the awards, finalists showed a selection of digital advertising projects that demonstrated how the online medium can offer multiple layers of engagement for all types of demographic audiences. Women-led digital projects included an augmented reality campaign for BMW, an online/offline campaign that got 100 participants dancing for 24 hours in a “music phone dance-off” to promote the Samsung Beat DJ music phone, and a charity campaign for British Red Cross to change your online status, that had zero budget and seven days to plan.

The awards event itself attracted women from all aspects of the digital industry, including animator Sarra Hornby who spends hours working with paper and cotton thread to create animated shorts for commercial use. Although her work was not in the finals, she said that the She Says gathering offered her a powerful networking community to increase her professional career.

It seems cities beyond London are hungry for the same level of woman-to-woman professional interaction, as branches of She Says are now springing up in New York, San Francisco, LA, Vienna Paris, Sydney and Brighton, and more than 1,500 women are members. SheSays was launched in March 2007 by two female Creative Directors (Laura Jordan Bambach from Glue and Alessandra Lariu from Agency Republic at the time) who noticed that there weren't many women in top positions in digital agencies. She Says offers women in the creative and digital industries free networking and mentoring opportunities at monthly events held across the world with the aim getting more women into the industry and to the top of it.

This year’s Golden Stiletto Award winners include:

First place: Modern Foreign Languages

Second place: BMW Z4 airbrush

Third place: The Last Call

Commended: Look beyond the label

See photos from the award ceremony here.

Glad to see women winning,

-Lisa

Invasion of the Androids - What the Arrival of Android Means for Mobile Advertising

2619528 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:25:00 GMT

Much mobile advertising news in the last two years or so has been dominated by iPhone and understandably so. Probably more than any other single factor, it's been responsible for marketers and agencies understanding the potential power of the mobile channel for the first time, primarily because they have one themselves. At last, their own personal experience married up with what had been happening on the street for a while.

But iPhone's dominance in the hearts and minds of mobile advertisers might be about to be threatened by a new player in the market - Google's Android.

The iPhone has tight control over their product, from software and hardware design to manufacturing and negotiating distribution. Android has taken a very different approach of developing an Open Source operating system and letting it out into the wild. What that means in practical terms is that they need to persuade other branded phone manufacturers like Motorola or Samsung to integrate their software into a new generation of phones and then allow these partners to control manufacture and distribution. In theory, this approach will enable them to leverage these other giant companies' power and resources to potentially leapfrog other competitors, ranging from iPhone through to Nokia and their Open Source operating system, Symbian. The big disadvantage is that Google pretty much hand over control of the product hardware, meaning that even if their software is Rolls-Royce standard, it still might end up powering a 1975 Ford Cortina. In a market where looks are an important purchase consideration, this could be something of a problem.

What do we know about Android so far? Despite a pretty lacklustre handset range (perhaps we're talking a Mondeo to iPhone's BMW in terms of looks), it's clear that the software is powerful and once cool phones are in production, it's going to have some success. I'm not going to speculate if it's going to be as big as iPhone, but it's already clear that it's going to be an important channel for mobile advertising.

Every month, AdMob (my employer, just to be clear) produces a free Metrics report that we share with anyone who might be interested. You can see the latest copy here, but one of the trends we track is the type of operating systems that we serve our ads in. To be clear about our methodology, we serve about 10 billion ads every month to mobile web publishers and app developers globally. This means that we can't measure market share, but we can track handsets that are used more than they should be, to view mobile web pages and download and use apps. We noticed very early on that iPhone was getting a disproportionate amount of share when measured like this and history is being repeated with Android.

What's also great for mobile advertisers is that Android and iPhone both offer much more creative advertising formats and that their ease of use generally mean more interaction and higher click-through-rates. Consumers are engaging with marketers via the mobile channel in very large numbers and that trend is going to speed up with more Android handsets in the market.

Does the arrival of Andoid complicate things for mobile advertisers? Certainly not if you just want to run ads on the mobile web or in-apps - though inventory in apps might still be a little scarce compared to iPhone. In fact, you wouldn't even notice that Android had been included in your buy, from a purely operational standpoint. The main complication would be if you wish to transfer your iPhone App over the Android platform too - this will require a little adaption by the developer. The numbers of Andoid apps available are still relatively small, certainly compared to the 100,000 iPhone Apps, but then competition to attract downloads is also small, so now might be a good time to make the leap.

Like mobile advertising, Android is here to stay, is going to be growing quickly and will be dominating mobile marketing chatter for a while. Brands who pride themselves on being innovators should be taking a look at it right now.

Technology & Fashion: A match made in heaven or hell?

2085942 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:18:00 GMT

Last week Dell hosted an event intended to unite the worlds of fashion and technology bloggers. Their goal was to discuss how technology could be re-positioned as fashion in order to sell it to women.

With Microsoft's research highlighting that technology is as important to women as fashion, should tech brands be positioning their wares as fashion accessories? Does it correlate that women love fashion and therefore if you position technology as fashion, women will want to buy it? Is a netbook the latest fashion accessory? Would women rather have the new Dell Adamo XPS rather than a pair of Jimmy Choos?

It's not an original idea to try to sell technology as if it were a fashion accessory. LG's Prada phone was the first time a major fashion brand put it's label on a phone. Despite it's modest capabilities it sold well, proving the allure and reach of the Prada brand.

Few woman have a strong attachment to technology brands – in such a vaccum a strong brand like Prada can help shift products, even if it does seem out of place on the shelves of the Carphone Warehouse. I suspect that the Prada label puts off as many women as it attracts, since there is something frivolous about being seen to flaunt a label, especially on a something as conspicuous as a phone.

There's a big problem with the technology as fashion proposition: Firstly, fashion is by nature short term. After a single season your old fashion is out of fashion. That's perfectly fine for a £20 top from Top-Shop, however it's not so fine when you are locked into a two year contract on a fashion-phone which is no longer a-la-mode. If the networks are going to sell a phone on a 2 year contract they need to continue to offer value over this period or risk alienating the customer.

Secondly, the reasons I buy technology are very different to why I buy clothes. Technology enhances my life, builds real and intimate connections with people. It gives me a voice. And amplifies my voice to those closest to me. Fashion is transitory. I get immediate gratification but its fleeting. Its fun but not meaningful. Brands risk trivializing themselves by positioniong themselves as fashion.

Lastly, every tech brand seems to take this approach to women. Samsung's Genio talks about it's exciting colours but does not mention what value it can add. Dell's “my colour is pink” tv-spot looks like a mid-90s' shoe advert. This is clearly not a way to generate sustainable difference. As one Lady Geek said, “What my phone and shoes do for me are very different. One connects me with the world and is about relationships. The other is solely just for me” To truly understand women, tech brands must research and understand how women engage with technology. Fashion is about 'me,' technology is about 'we.'

The Apprentice is the future of TV

902609 — Tue, 19 May 2009 20:30:00 GMT

I have watched the apprentice, as many of us have, for several seasons now. Last week brought a whole new dimension to the experience. At the start of the programme, the BBC encouraged me to play along with the Apprentice Predictor., This allowed me to vote at any time on who I thought would be fired, to change my vote at any point, but most importantly, to see how everyone else was voting at any one time. A careless or mindless comment, and their popularity for being the next to be fired could shoot up by 10 or 20%. You can instantaneously see whether you agree or disagree with the rest of the world. It really did make the programme much more entertaining and engaging.

And I see that Samsung is already adding in Twitter to its new range of TVs. Services like Joost already allow you to share your viewing experiences online, and this is one more step to sharing your TV viewing with your friends without having them clutter your lounge and empty your fridge of beers. TV is adapting to social media, and potentially making the experience much more compelling and complete.

Lorraine next for the chop!

Should big brands make a move into social media?

2292853 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:07:00 GMT

Last night, as a guest speaker at The Future Laboratory's idea networking event, I had the opportunity to chat about who is doing what in social media, and the pros and cons of big brand's moves into the social media space.

Love it or hate it, with Facebook fast approaching 200 million users worldwide and Twitter adding thousands of new members daily, not to mention the popularity already established with platforms such as Linkedin, YouTube, Flickr and MySpace, the social media channel of influence can make or break a brand. Discussed was the fear factor that big brands have now toward the social media monster, and the question of whether to enter the arena, or stay out, for fear of losing control of a brand. As The Future Laboratory's mission is to look ahead and keep ahead of the curve, my counsel last night was that big brands need to define social media strategy now, rather than wait for a point in time when they may have to be re-active rather than pro-active toward the medium.

Whether it is a comprehensive strategic plan to making a brand's presence known among social media channels, or a short-term experiment into the space, such as a contest or other promotional campaign, brand's need be bold and step into this brave new world where consumers are hanging out and, in some cases, stirring their own little revolutions. In considering a few examples we discussed:

Mars recent campaign for its Skittles candy, a courageous approach that saw the website homepage transformed to showcase the brand's live streaming Twitter feed along with its Facebook, Flickr and YouTube pages. Usage triggered was so high for this campaign that at one point Twitter crashed, and the brand discovered that turning things over to consumers opens up to a challenge when not everyone played nice with the Tweets they sent along. In the end, the fantastic publicity received around the experiment, has made Skittles top of mind and won new enthusiasts for the brand, even if there has been a bit of brusing.

Comcast, an American cable and broadband provider, has been using Twitter to supplement customer service responses. They've posted a guy named Frank Eliason to man the Twitter customer service site, positively giving a corporate brand a real human being to interact with in real time. Customers simply Tweet their queries to @Comcastcares and quickly receive response.

Other big brands that are stepping into social media with a variety of approaches include: Dell, Starbucks, JetBlue, TheHomeDepot, Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods Market, HRBlock, Best Buy, Popeyes, Forrester Research, Ford, Samsung and Kodak, to name a few.

Here's a few quick tips I shared with folks last night in thinking about approaching social media for a brand:

Be Seen: What do you look like to your social media audience? Are you human, or are you something off a shelf? People want to see other people in the world of social networking so in reaching out to your audiences pay attention to showing them what you and your team look like. Upload images to your Facebook group of your brand in action -- people at events, people using your products, people in your office. Use Flickr to build an image trail of both products and people. Use YouTube to seed videos, integrating several visual tools to showcase the human side of your brand.

Be Real: Don't piss off your audiences by engaging in blatant heavy promotional use of Twitter, Facebook or other social networking sites. Show a personality and offer up a variety of information to your audience, pointing them to helpful or quirky items.

Be Brave: This is new territory for brand building, and it takes an adventurous sort to take some risks in approaching social media. Think out common sense approaches to using social networking for your brand, and don't be afraid to experiment out there.

Be On It: Assign a member of your team, or several, to be monitoring and watching for responses that come back via Tweets, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr comments, and blogs. Response to people's comments should be swift and effective, helping those with complaints and thanking those with praise.

Be Interactive: It isn't enough to hang up a billboard in Second Life or set up a Facebook group or Twitter account, unless you think out how your approach should interact with people. Think about what you can offer up to your audience that will be of interest and relevance to your brand. Can you host a virtual conference in Second Life with prominent speakers? Can you run a contest through Twitter? One company called Going.com created one of the most popular Facebook applications called Naughty Gifts, a slightly cheeky way to give adult gifts to your friends, that has produced millions of exchanges. To promote Going.com, they took the popularity offline and held adult-themed parties throughout America, promoting the events through the Naughty Gifts Facebook application.

For more about future branding trends, sign up for The Future Laboratory's Lifestyle News Network (LSN).

Thinking about social media branding,

-Lisa

Brave Brands With Social Media Strategy:

Flash report from the imedia brand summit

1319935 — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:59:00 GMT

Intel, the BBC, Dell, Coca-Cola, Samsung and Cadbury’s et al presented experiences of interactive capacity and competency in their companies.
I was asked to moderate a panel of experts from the newspaper industry, the BBC, the online travel world and the global advertiser on the state of the nation of the impact digital technique has in the world of communication. A very high quality panel discussed a range of issues, including how businesses are organising themselves for effectiveness in the digital world, and what some of the challenges have been in getting them there.

Peter Ward from WAYN (the travel social network) spoke well about how his business has pushed the limits of technique from the beginning. As with many other social networking sites, WAYN enables its users to create a profile and upload photos. Users can then search for others, and link them to their profiles as friends. If you register it is possible to send and receive messages using email, discussion forums, eCards, SMS and instant messaging. Matt from the BBC spoke about how stakeholder management remains a skillset we need to excel at since the need to get so many interest groups focused on a single strategy around the consumer is as critical in the BBC's world as it is in the world of brand communication.

Simon Shipley from Intel was firm in his belief that delivering digital work required a commitment to learning new skills. Intel has undertaken a serious programme of training internally to digital knowledge. And the ability to develop communities of interest amongst target audiences has been one area of growing effectiveness. Intel runs a programme aimed at IT Managers, a critical audience (in both meanings of the word) called the IT Manager Game. It’s proving to be more and more effective as time spent and quality of content consumed through the game play increases. It’s a completely ‘non-traditional’ activity, which makes it harder to measure in terms of media metrics, but easy to measure in terms of effectiveness of shifting perception and commitment to the Intel brand.

Anne Foster from the Newspaper Marketing Agency reflected on how the demands of advertisers had changed to reflect the audiences, and the mood in the media industry was definitely a focus on sales and ROI rather than brand. Also there were different levels of media need by category. We had talked offline about an increased interest in emotional factors influencing decision making, which, and how we are in danger of too much focus on the short term. It’s inevitable, though, in current forecast market conditions. Anne also presented a strong grip on the statistics of consumer behaviour, how they consume media and what this means.

Measurement remained a big issue for everyone. I put the question to the floor “is anyone happy with their measurement?” and the universal response (although in such an environment it’s natural for people not to give too much away) was “not really.” There are new dynamics of measuring digital media, and dashboarding gives us a view, but there is a shortage of common currency, both in planning and measurement. For example, the current pressure on ROI and direct response means refocusing on click through, but as consumer behaviour online has adapted to the range of content and browsing behaviour, click through just isn’t enough.

So what’s the answer to that? Again, opinions varied, and the room was divided on what we’re trying to measure. My take is that if we accept the job of the marketer is to be gaining or defending ‘share’, or launching new products, services and variants, then we need to have people with the broad view as well as the detailed ability to pick targets off one by one. Share, of course, is only one aspect. Profitability is another, and sustaining profitable share is the job of everyone, not just the marketer. There is universal need to learn, however, how ‘being part of the conversation’ can be measured in these terms.

iPhone Killer ?

1649191 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:59:00 GMT

Google launched their brand spanking new G1 mobile phone in New York earlier today and immediately it has been heralded as the iPhone killer... but in my opinion, it's hasn't got a hope in hell.

Why ? Well frankly the name is a bit crap (G1 isn't exactly as funky as iPhone), it really doesn't move the game on enough and it simply doesn't look as good (and in these image obsessed times that we live in, looks are everything... well at least when it comes to choosing a mobile phone).

I'm not saying it's a bad phone. Apparently it's pretty good according to most reviews. Physically it isn't that different to the iPhone. It has many similar features (touch sensitive screen, GPS capability, mobile internet access, built in camera which is 1 megapixel more than the iPhone... woo hoo... ).

Indeed the G1 has some additional features that the iPhone doesn't have. For example it has a Blackberry style thumb ball. And a slideout qwerty keyboard. Nice, but hardly revolutionary.

Actually the one area it genuinely excels over the iPhone, is in terms of browsing. Using Googles new Android 'Open Source" platform it allows browsers to quickly access the web but (more importantly) it allows anyone to write software / applications for the platform for free.

Actually, that's pretty cool. But seriously, how many people out there are going to choose that functionality over the way the G1 looks by comparison to an iPhone ?

The G1, using a HTC unit, will be available for free in the UK just before Xmas exclusively through T-Mobile on tariff plans staring at about 40 quid. And it may cause an initial wave of interest but nothing to that of the tsunami of hype created by the iPhone.

Maybe when LG and Samsung launch their more design focused units supporting the G1 platform next year will it have a chance to compete... but by then we will inevitably have yet another new version of the iPhone which will have moved things on even further...