#MarketingTitbits – ‘Selfie’, Pinterest and Coke Zero

OFD-Pint-coke-smaller1. And the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year is…“Selfie”Every year, The Oxford Dictionary announces their International Word of the Year, in previous years we’ve had “bovvered”, “simples” and “credit crunch”. Arguably each year’s word tells a lot about society and the culture at the time. In 2011 “squeezed middle” was the Word of the Year and in 2007 it was “carbon footprint”.

2005: sudoku
2006: bovvered
2007: carbon footprint
2008: credit crunch
2009: simples
2010: big society
2011: squeezed middle
2012: omnishambles
2013: selfie

Despite the fact that the word ‘selfie’ first appeared in 2002, where it was used in an Australian online forum, it has taken 11 years to make it to into mainstream culture. Social networking apps and sites such as Instagram and Snapchat are a large part of the cause and we’re not sure what this says about today’s society; we’ll leave you to be the judge!

2. Inspiration for integrating Pinterest into your email marketing

Over the last few years Pinterest has become one of the fastest growing social networking sites in the world. Since the site launched in 2010 they have grown to have over 70 million active users.

Many brands, big and small, are catching on and beginning to use the platform more intensely and if you haven’t already thought about whether or not it could benefit your business, then you probably should. For businesses where the ‘visual’ is less intrinsic, it can be harder to use Pinterest in an effective way but for those of you whose business embraces ‘imagery’, here is some inspiration for you.

This week we found a great article from Econsultancy which showcases 20 retailers integrating Pinterest in their email marketing. To have a look, click here.

3. Coke’s hideous Christmas sweaters

 As the run up to Christmas begins, the shops are full of gifts for family and friends. Christmas decorations are starting to emerge and festive food fills the aisles in supermarkets. The competition for the most loved Christmas advert starts again, with John Lewis, Marks and Spencer and Waitrose amongst the usual favourites. Their classic Christmas adverts can be seen on television during nearly every advert break; however, this year Coca-Cola decided to do things a bit differently.

In recent years the hideous knitted Christmas jumper has made a comeback, appearing in shops everywhere. Coke Zero’s latest marketing campaign is in homage to this traditional Christmas apparel. The drink’s brand have launched a campaign to design of the ugliest Christmas sweater. Users design their jumper and then vote for other peoples. The 100 best tacky sweaters will win their very own custom-made hideous Christmas sweater. To enter, click here.

 

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CamKids Update 2013

Sreylim2013This week we received our Child Sponsorship Annual Update from the Cambodian children’s charity CamKids. We sponsor a young girl called Sreylim, whose parents are sadly too poor to support her and her brother.

Sreylim is now 14, she is very happy and healthy and doing very well at school, despite contracting Typhoid. She came 2nd overall in her entire class with her results this year. Her favourite sports are football and badminton and she loves reading English stories – the most recent one being “Anne of Green Gables”. Her favourite English band, perhaps unsurpisinglym, is One Direction.

She is very excited about her upcoming return trip to the Angkor Cycle Challenge, she has been entered into a 17km bike ride and has been training at 5:30am every morning. When Sreylim finishes school she plans to study to be a translator and then hopefully become a tour guide.

To read more about CamKids or the Who Will Village click on the links below.

CamKids

Who Will Village

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#MarketingTitbits – John Lewis, squats, Google

JL-Squats-Google-smaller1. John Lewis’ Christmas advert set to break its own records!

John Lewis have been gracing our screens with captivating Christmas adverts since 2007. The first one, in 2007, “Shadows”, showed a range of different Christmas gifts set up so that when a light was shined on them they created a shadow shaped like a woman with her dog. However, it wasn’t until 2011 that John Lewis made history.“The Long Wait” showed a little boy impatiently waiting for Christmas day and when it finally came he ran straight past the presents piled up at the end of his bed to give his mum and dad a present, the caption was “For gifts you can’t wait to give”.

The following year we saw “The Journey”, which illustrated a snowman travelling far, through woods and over rivers and mountains to get his Snowlady a scarf, hat and gloves, the caption was “Give a little more love this Christmas”.

And so to 2013 and “The Bear and the Hare” – a story about a hare whose best friend, the bear, hibernates every Christmas. After much deliberation the hare comes up with the perfect gift for his friend, an alarm clock to wake him up on Christmas day. The caption this year reads “Give someone a Christmas they’ll never forget”.

Despite huge popularity around John Lewis’ Christmas adverts over the past 3 years, this year’s ad is set to break its own records – in social media terms anyway. Within the first 24 hours after it was launched “The Bear and the Hare” was mentioned in 49,152 tweets which is more than double the 21,027 it got last year.

To read the full article, click here.

2. 30 squats = 1 train ticket (if you live in Moscow)

The price of train tickets have been rising for many years and are now at an all-time high. Unless you live in Moscow…

Forget the ruble, a Russian train station in Moscow now accepts 30 squats as payment for a train ticket. The exercise is a gimmick to promote the Sochi Winter Olympics, which are coming up in 2014. We think this is a great idea to promote exercise and at the same time getting a free train ticket!

3. The hidden features of Google

Roald Dahl once said “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.” And here is one of those unlikely places. They may not be the best kept secrets but Google have created some secret features that we’d like to share with you. To have a look at the hidden features of Google, click here.

 

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#MarketingTitbits – Google+, Instavid, Guinness

Google+-Instagram-Guinness-smaller1. The beginners guide to Google+
When Google+ first launched in 2011 they had 10s of millions of users sign up within the first few months. Despite constant scepticism since, the platform has been growing steadily and now boasts in excess of 235 million users. Because of the lack of understanding of what Google + actually is, many people and businesses have refrained from becoming a Google+ user. However, we have always felt that if you want to succeed with SEO on Google you need to play by Google’s rules. It is likely that Google + is central to one of these rules. If you are not already active on Google +, we think it would be a good idea for you to have a look at this beginners guide to Google+. To read the article, click here.

2. 10 of the most shared brands on Instagram

About three months ago, in an attempt to keep up with Vine, Instagram released an update that allows users to upload videos as well as photos. The majority of videos uploaded are from regular Instgram users, but 40% of the 1,000 most shared Instagram videos (Instavids) last month came from brands. The videos uploaded are a maximum of 15 seconds long and are already giving the 6 second long video app, Vine, competition. This week, we saw an article from econsultancy highlighting 10 of the most shared brands on Instavid, to have a look click here.

3. Guinness / Jonathan Ross advert #RoundUpYourMates backfires

On Saturday October 26th, Guinness aired three adverts during the break between The Jonathan Ross Show. The advert asked viewers to join in on Twitter with the hashtag #RoundUpYourMates. Unfortunately for Guinness, the campaign backfired and was heavily criticised, being called “painful” and “sexist” amongst other things.  Some of the #RoundUpYourMates tweets included:

Lee McEwan ‏@leemcewan 27 Oct
Interrupting a TV show with a worse version of the same TV show devalued the TV show itself #roundupyourmates

Paul Connolly ‏@PaulConnolly10 26 Oct
#RoundUpYourMates the grand tradition of great Guinness adverts died tonight

Mark Gordon ‏@markjgordon 26 Oct
The @GuinnessGB marketing team must be praying for that hurricane on Monday to take the spotlight off them. #roundupyourmates

To read more from Marketing Week click here.

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#MarketingTitbits – Facebook, Pinterest & Halloween

facebook-pinterest-halloween-final-s1. Facebook brand reputation suffers over beheading videos
In May earlier this year, Facebook released a statement saying that they will ban all graphic content uploaded to the social networking site, until it has been reviewed by them. Despite this, last week Facebook made the decision not to ban a very graphic video of a woman being beheaded. Subsequently, Facebook users  and various groups across society expressed dismay at Facebook’s new stance  – especially given children as young as 13 can have a Facebook page and therefore, access to content on Facebook. Even the Prime Minister, David Cameron, tweeted “It’s irresponsible of Facebook to post beheading videos, especially without a warning. They must explain their actions to worried parents.” In response to the public outcry, Facebook backtracked and altered their policy. Take a look at the full article, click here.

2. Pinterest is now worth $3.8billion

Pinterest is a photo-sharing site first launched in March 2010. Since its inception, it has gone on to become one of social media’s success stories. In December 2011, the site became one of the top 10 largest social media sites according to Hitwise data. In October 2013, Pinterest now has 70 million users and 2.5 billion monthly page views. It is the fastest growing social networking site and has about 500,000 business accounts. Pinterest is now valued at a whopping $3.8 billion. If you’re not already a ‘pinner’, it is well worth taking a look to see if it could help your business. To find out more, here’s a great article from Mashable, click here.

3. Halloween marketing

Halloween is seen by businesses large and small as an opportunity to tap into the population’s increasing fascination with the ghoulish festival . Restaurants, bars and cafes ‘halloween-ify’ their menus with “Scary Sausage and Mash” or “Creepy Coffee”, whilst online retailers offer ‘Spooky’ deals and discounts. Despite the plethora of cynically tenuous attempts to jump on the Halloween bandwagon, the likes of Carling, Booking.com and Lyles have been a bit cleverer. They have gone the extra mile with their Halloween marketing this year. To take a look at the good, the bad and the ghastly of Halloween marketing 2013, click here.

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#MarketingTitbits – marketing, ASDA, Google

asda-google-marketing-smaller21. What can we expect from the next decade of marketing?Marketing in some form, impacts upon virtually every individual and business on the planet. That’s why we think it’s really important for you to have a look at this article from Forbes. Not only do they outline what we can expect from the next ten years in terms of marketing, they illustrate how marketing has developed over the last 50 years. Everything mentioned can easily be applied to your business – not matter how big or small. To read more, click here.

2. ASDA lets shoppers create models of themselves using 3D printing

Have you ever wanted a model of yourself? No – us neither, but for those that that have, ASDA is the place for you right now. Just in time for Christmas, ASDA is launching its newest product. Using 3D printing, customers can now buy models of anything they like. You, your pet or even your car, the list is endless. Shoppers can even chose the finish of their model – coloured, white or bronze. You can scale the model to any size. Prices start at £40 and go up to £250. To read the full article, click here.

3. Google says users are clicking on more ads

As you know, Google is world’s biggest search engine, handling over an estimated 100 billion searches every month. On a daily basis, 500 million of those searches have never been seen by Google before. As users searching habits change, Google has to respond. One trend Google has also observed this year is that the total amount of paid clicks has gone up by 26% – this is thought to be caused by users accessing Google via mobile devices. To read more,click here.

 

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What your SME can learn from social media

Last month, we introduced the first instalment of our three part blog, ‘What SMEs can learn from big businesses’. Part 1 highlighted ‘Guerrilla marketing’ and how larger organisations are adopting innovative campaigns in order to raise brand awareness and create that vital social buzz.  This month, part 2 focuses on social media and how more and more companies are including the likes of Facebook and Twitter into their marketing mix to help grow their business and attract potential customers.

Out of the total 7 billion people living on the planet, 1.5 billion use social media. From Twitter and Facebook to Google+ and Pinterest, social media has now become ingrained into our contemporary lifestyles, making it easier to engage and share content with individuals online, no matter what the social and geographical boundaries. But social media is no longer just influencing our personal lives; one in three businesses now use social media, with 58% of consumers ‘liking’ at least one brand on Facebook.

Companies are now harnessing the power of social media to build their brands within the landscape of status updates, pins and tweets. To create successful social media campaigns, an investment of time is essential. However, this alone is not enough. A note of caution – it is easy to rush into tweeting and posting pictures, without really understanding why you are doing it and what you hope to achieve. Like any marketing activity, researching, planning and implementing strategies are critical to turning a great idea into great results.

Here are some good and bad examples how some well known companies have used social media to engage with their audience.

1. In October 2012, Cisco, the multinational networking equipment giant, wanted to make sure that they were listening to their customers and responding to questions and queries in ways that were relevant and accurate. With this in mind, Cisco launched their Social Media Listening Centre. On a daily basis, the centre monitors around 5,000 social mentions across 70 company-related platforms, from Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn and YouTube, to company blogs and forums. According to a recent independent evaluation of these listening activities, Cisco achieved a 281% return on their investment over a 5-month period, amounting to an annual cost benefit of over just over £991 million. This was calculated by comparing what Cisco spent on implementing and training staff to use social marketing tool with the benefits received, the avoidance of marketing and customer service costs to achieve the same results, along with indirect benefits, such as increased staff productivity. The results indicated that the new centre helped Cisco employees deal with more enquiries at a faster rate.

2. To celebrate their 100th anniversary, Oreo posted 100 adverts on their Facebook page over 100 days. During the campaign, Oreo’s Facebook friends went up from 26million to 27million and its Facebook interactions increased by 195%. The posts included relevant topics, quotes about Oreos, humorous cartoons and even Oreo themed recipes. The time invested in developing their Facebook campaign paid off as Oreo won the top Studio Award prize from Facebook.

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3. However, interacting closely with consumers online can backfire if you have not planned your campaign successfully.  Earlier this year, Tesco posted on their Facebook page “Click LIKE if you love getting your groceries delivered.” Alongside people liking the post, there were numerous comments from customers explaining their bad experiences with Tesco’s home delivery service. Tesco did not ignore or delete the comments, instead they responded to every single user, asking for details so they could look into each case and try and solve the problem.

4. Unfortunately, Waitrose’s attempt at #hashtags wasn’t exactly what they had planned either. In 2012, Waitrose invited customers to complete the sentence ‘I shop at Waitrose because… #WaitroseReasons’.  What Waitrose thought was a great way to showcase the affordability of the brand backfired, with Twitter users mocking the brands position within the market and their target audience. For example, ‘I shop at Waitrose because it makes me feel important and I absolutely detest being around poor people #WaitroseReasons. ‘I shop at Waitrose because I was once in the Holloway Rd branch and heard a dad say ‘Put the papaya down, Orlando!’

For a company embarking on using social media as part of their marketing, the seemingly endless choice and possibilities can see daunting. However, adopting the right platforms to represent your brand is important.  Twitter and Facebook are good for creating conversations with customers and responding to queries, complaints or praise. For the brands that are more visual, sites like Pinterest and Instagram provide an array of creative opportunities. The key to successful social media isn’t just about how many fans, followers or mentions you have, instead the secret to building your brand is the interaction between your business and your online community. For your campaigns to run smoothly, creating a social media strategy is essential. It will help your brand stay in the right direction, generate a return on investment, as well as increase your visibility online.

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#MarketingTitbits – paper, augmented reality, Google

  1. FINAL-ONE-SMALLERHow a 75 year old piece ofpaper started modern communicationIn October 1938, an American physicist, inventor and patent attorney, Chester Carlson spent a Saturday morning with his assistant creating the world’s very first dry copy. The world’s first xerographic image read “10.-22.-38 ASTORIA”. It took another 4 years before Carlson was issued a patent on his new process, which was eventually renamed xerography, a name which was later appropriated by the multinational printing company Xerox. Carlson’s invention heralded the beginning of modern computing and prompted the invention of the photocopier, which changed the way that people work in offices forever.

    2. Augmented reality

    Augmented reality is a view of the real world which has been edited or augmented by technology in some way. The idea of augmented reality has been around since 1901 when L. Frank Baum, the author best known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, spoke about the idea of an electronic display overlaying data onto real life. Despite this, nothing was put into practice until 1962, when cinematographer Morton Heilig invented and patented Sensorama, a simulator with visuals, sound, vibration, and smell. Between 1901 and 2013 a lot has changed, technology has moved from a simple idea to Google announcing the beta phase of Google Glass, turning the idea into reality.

However, it is not just those lucky few Google Glass users that can get to experience augmented reality. Increasingly, there are a wide variety of mobile apps that use augmented reality to enhance your real life experience. This year, Ikea and Audi have released augmented reality apps that are not just for fun. Ikea’s app lets users ‘try out’ furniture and artwork in their home before they buy it and Audi have developed an augmented reality handbook app for their newest Audi A1 model.

3. Shared endorsements from Google

This week, Google updated its terms and conditions and the changes might give you cause to think carefully about the comments or ratings you give to anything on Google’s services like Google+ and YouTube. Google can now use adult users’ comments and ratings and provide them to companies to use as endorsements for internet advertising. These are accompanied with the endorsers’ names and photos.

To have a look at the full article click here.

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#MarketingTitbits – Ron Burgundy, Tikker, company growth

RonB-Tikker-Growth-smallerRon Burgundyis Chrysler’s new spokesman and “it’s kind of a big deal”If you’ve never heard of Ron Burgundy then now is about time. The fictional character played by Will Ferrell has been announced as the new spokesman for Chrysler’s new model, the Dodge Durango. Mr Burgundy has made an appearance in a series of television adverts and short films online in a bid to advertise the new Chrysler car where he describes it as “360 times better than a horse” and emphasises the glove box which can hole “2 turkey sandwiches” or “70 packs of gum”! To have a look at some of these hilarious adverts from Chrysler, click here.

‘Watch’ the countdown of your life with Tikker

A new digital wristwatch called Tikker has been designed to tell the wearer exactly how much time they have left to live. On buying the watch, users must fill out a personal health questionnaire which will give them a number, they then have to subtract their age from the number and the countdown begins. Feeling sceptical? Each watch comes with a handbook which explains the exact process that goes into working out how much time a person has left to live.

We have to admit when we first heard about this we thought it sounded a little bit depressing but Tikker claim that the idea is to stop people from wasting their lives. If you want to ‘stop wasting your life’ and get yourself a Tikker watch, or even if you just want to read a bit more, click here.

Grow your business in 5 easy steps

According to Entrepreneur.com, too many start-ups today are staying in start-up mode and failing to take actions to promote ‘real’ growth. If you thinkthis might be something that applies to you and your business this article is definitely worth a read. To have a look at the five easy steps every company must take to grow their business click here.

 

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#MarketingTitbits – Google, Innocent and valuable brands

Google-Innocent-Interbrand-smaller1. Help celebrate Google’s 15th birthday
September 27th 2013 marked Google’s 15th birthday and they celebrated in classic Google style with an interactive doodle that allowed users to play the Mexican party game piñata. Google also had a retro celebration by publishing a website which replicates the way the search engine looked in 1988. Mashable, the American online magazine have also been celebrating Google’s birthday with a poll on what your favourite Google product is, if you haven’t already voted then click here!

2. Innocent marketing

Right from the very start Innocent’s marketing strategy was unique. In 1999 the three founders created their first smoothies and set up a stall selling them at a music festival. In front of the stall they had two bins, one saying “YES” and one saying “NO”. They asked their customers to put their empty bottle in the “YES” bin if they thought they should quit their jobs to sell smoothies. By the end of the festival the “YES” bin was full and the “NO” bin had only 3 empty bottles in it.

Since then Innocent have gone on to sell over two million smoothies every single week. Last year they sponsored the 2012 Olympics and have proved to be masters of social media and experimental marketing. To read more about how effective they are at marketing click here.

3. The 20 most valuable brands in the world

Last week, Interbrand released their list of the world’s top 100 most valuable brands. For the last 13 years Coca-Cola have been at the very top of the list but this year they have been knocked off the top spot by none other than Apple. To have a look at how Interbrand created this list and to see the top 20 most valuable brands, click here.

 

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