#MarketingTitbits – Coca-Cola’s Marketing, YouTube’s Viral Moments, Brands Colours

cocacola-youtube-brands1. How Coca-Cola overhauled its marketing in 2015
From its ‘single brand’ strategy to lower calorie, flavoured products, Coca-Cola are determined to keep up with changing consumer tastes. Back in March this year, the soft drinks company introduced a one brand strategy, where its four product family – Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero and Coca-Cola Life, were placed under one master.

The new branding came from its consumer research which found that half of consumers didn’t know that Coke Zero has no sugar or calories, as well as not knowing the difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke. Bobby Brittain, GB marketing director for Coca-Cola says “We’ve failed to communicate clearly enough the product differentiation. That’s a major wakeup call for us”.

Want to read more on Coca-Cola’s marketing? Click here.

2. YouTube has released its annual video mashup of the biggest viral moments of 2015

YouTube have recently paid tribute to all the biggest viral moments and people of 2015, and it already has 44 million views! From the tribute, people who are well-versed in internet culture and YouTube stars will recognise dozens of in-house jokes; others on the other hand, may not.

YouTube’s culture executive, Kevin Allocca, shared that shooting for the 7-minute piece took 21 days across multiple cities, in the US and around the world. He shares: “Some of these (YouTube creators) are pretty huge stars who are busy with crazy schedules, so to have them in the same place is really fun”.

Watch the video now by clicking here.

3. Quiz: do you know why these brands chose their famous colours?

For many brands, their choice of colouring can be just as iconic as their logo, and sometimes even their name. Have you ever wondered why brands like Coca-Cola chose red and white, or why Starbucks chose green?

Coca-Cola’s colours go back to the mid-1890s, when the company began painting its syrup barrels red so that the tax agents could easily tell them apart from alcohol during transport. Google on the other hand, chose a rainbow-coloured logo as it implied playfulness, particularly the order of the colours. Cadbury’s also shared that the colour purple was first introduced as a tribute to Queen Victoria, as it was her favourite colour – how sweet!

To see other brands’ reasoning for their colours, click here.

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CamKids 2015 Update

camkids
As you may already know, TLC Business support ‘CamKids’ – The Cambodian Children’s Charity, and this week we received our Child Sponsorship Annual Update.

We sponsor a young girl called Sreylim who is now 15, and is about to go into Grade 10 at school. She remains very committed and works hard at school; however she isn’t a fan of biology! She doesn’t yet have any firm ideas about what she wants to do when she finishes school, but she still thinks she would like to use her English skills. Sreylim has considered teaching or translating, but says she would also like to work as a tour guide, and thinks that the amazing temple complex at Siem Reap might be a good place to work.

Sreylim has previously travelled to Siem Reap to participate in the bicycle challenge, and this year she was very excited to return, but this time with her mother. She really enjoyed showing her mother around the temples, and Angkor Wat itself was definitely her favourite. She loved the steep stairs and all of the wonderful stone carvings.

Sreylim’s brother, Chanrith, is also doing very well, both near the top of their respective grades. Chanrith is now 19 and is in the year above Sreylim at school. They both remain very close and supportive of each other, and are looking forward to travelling home for the Pchum Ben holiday.

If you would like to find out more about CamKids and their incredible work, click here.

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#MarketingTitbits – Aldi’s Christmas Campaign, Marketing Moments, Periscope For Business

aldi-marketing-periscope1. Aldi’s ‘agile’ Christmas campaign wins first round of Christmas ad battle
With just 3 weeks to go until Christmas, Aldi has definitely run the most effective festive campaign of 2015, adopting an agile approach and social engagement to defeat their rival retailers. Aldi’s ‘man on the moon’ ad compared two telescopes – one John Lewis and the other Aldi which included Jean the infamous star of Aldi’s previous ads.

Aldi has managed to top a list of 13 retailers; scoring 154 compared to John Lewis’ lower score of 142. WE’s head of digital and insights, Gareth Davies, says “ If there’s one thing that the Aldi advert has shown us it’s that being agile and creating on-the-fly content can be a hugely successful strategy”.

Would you like to see the top 13 Christmas ads of 2015? Click here.

2. The top 10 marketing moments of 2015

With 2015 now coming to an end, us marketers have seen some of the most controversial, ground-breaking and, at times, baffling campaigns of the year. As we recap to some of the top marketing campaigns, Nicola Kemp unveils this year’s biggest marketing stories – enjoy!

There are no surprises here as Google have reached the #1 spot with their rewritten structure of Alphabet – their new holding company! Closely following Google was Apple and their new ‘Apple Watch’, as well as Moneysupermarket.com and their ‘Epic strut’ campaign which featured Sharon Osbourne.

Click here to view the top 10 marketing moments of 2015.

3. What is Periscope and how can you use it for business video streaming?

2016 is approaching and businesses are looking for the next tool to experiment with to advance their business strategy in the new year. For many, the next tool at the top of the list is Periscope – a video streaming/broadcasting service from Twitter which allows businesses to have video conversations through their network!

Anyone who follows your broadcast will be able to see your live video, like it, comment on it and even share it to other followers on Twitter. From a business perspective, Periscope is an excellent way to gain visibility. It’s important for businesses to be active on the platform to create a community with their target audiences – the more interactive, the better.

Want to learn more about Periscope? Click here.

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#MarketingTitbits – Influential Brands, Marketing Predictions, Success Advice

microsoft-predictions-success1. Microsoft ‘surprises’ as it tops The Guardian’s poll of the most influential UK brands
Surprisingly, it beat the likes of Amazon and Google in a new poll by The Guardian, subsequently being named the UK’s most influential brand – who would have thought? Microsoft’s move to imbue more social values in its marketing is being offered up as the the ‘primary driver’ for its success in the poll.

Surveying 2,000 UK consumers, covering 200 of the biggest brands, the results were unexpected. The results were defined by the respondent’s perception of a brand’s position for each of the following criteria – commercial influence, how a brand impacts purchasing habits and its impact on society and their audience. Not only did Microsoft surprise us marketers with their winning score of 58.3, but the runner up, with 54.7 points, was TripAdvisor, perhaps equally unlikely, closely followed by Amazon with 53.9 – more expected!

To read more about Microsoft’s success, click here.

2. Marketers’ 2016 predictions: from the video explosion to the next ‘new normal’

The marketing industry is changing rapidly and shows no signs of slowing down, forcing marketers to adapt to thrive. 10 of the industry’ best and brightest have been asked to share their predictions for 2016 – enjoy!

Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive at BT, predicts that the year ahead is full of ‘busy-ness’, where marketing will be an important way of communicating with consumers and businesses. On the other hand, Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice-president of Facebook, believes that video will become even bigger, where people can discover the world through sharing content.

Click here for the full 10 predictions for 2016.

3. 20 entrepreneurs share the advice that made them successful

Regardless of how success is defined, it can be a gruelling task for businesses to achieve it. Entrepreneurs can generally agree that it takes confidence, passion and drive to accomplish goals, and to recognise success once achieved. With this in mind, 20 of the most successful entrepreneurs share their best advice on how to succeed in business.

The renowned Bill Gates believes “success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose”, meaning success is worked for, not given. Other business fanatics like Steve Jobs says “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future”.

Want more advice on how to achieve success? Click here.

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What SMEs need to know for effective marketing in 2016 – seminar summary

Last week, TLC Business held our annual marketing seminar at The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, but with a slight twist. We teamed up with Simon Harmer and his company Blown Away to deliver an inspirational session for businesses looking to get their marketing up and running.

This year, the focus was to ‘Get Your Marketing in Order for 2016’, and this blog will outline the main themes explored on the day, just in case you missed it!

Social media

With social media now firmly embedded into all our lives, it is clearly of big importance to us marketers. To help you succeed in your social media exploits, here are some top tips:

  1. Make sure your timing’s are on point. Many businesses fail to engage with their social media audience because they are posting at the wrong times. There are now a variety of scheduling platforms such as Buffer that suggests the best times to post updates for your business – so take advantage!
  2. Get your business on the right platforms. If you’re looking to build meaningful B2B connections and the ability to forge lasting business relationships, then LinkedIn consistently comes out on top as your best bet. In contrast, if you’re a B2C organisation and are looking to drive audience engagement and ultimately sales, then Facebook tops the list.
  3. Ensure that your posts have that ‘visual’ appeal. Posts that contain an image are 94% more likely to be shared than ones that don’t. Many marketers miss out on this simple trick that can increase social media engagement and reach dramatically!
  4. Posting the same content to all channels can become a bit tedious for your audience if they are present on each platform. Take advantage of the respective strengths of each social media platform and post content accordingly.

SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is still perceived by many as a bit of a dark art. Despite constant algorithm updates, there are still opportunities to play the SEO game effectively and win.

Google is increasingly positioning itself as an ‘answers engine’. The advent of mobile has also put the cats amongst the pigeons (excuse the pun for those SEO geeks out there!) meaning there are even more opportunities to make your local business standout from the crowd.

Tips:

  1. Ensure that Google Analytics and Webmaster tools are installed and active on your website. Combined they will give you all the information you need (and more!) to get your website to be the best it can be. Google Webmaster tools will tell you what terms your site is being found for in Google, as well as identify any aspects of your site that are holding it back.
  2. Take full advantage of Google’s Keyword Planner to help inform the decision making process behind the keywords you choose to optimise your website pages for. And remember, keywords don’t have to be one word; they can effectively be phrases too.
  3. If you only do a few things SEO related on your website, make sure two of them are creating unique meta titles and descriptions optimised for the keyword-focus for each particular page.
  4. Get involved with Google Developer for page speed insights and how accessible on desktop or mobile your website is. Google gives marketers an insight into the loading speeds of their website, and will also give tips on how to increase load speed times. Alongside this, Google Developer provides a mobile-friendly test that will give marketers the tips and improvement suggestions they need to make their site better for mobile users.

PPC

96% of Google’s revenue comes from PPC ads, so clearly PPC is an important tool for them. We are sure you must be aware of the ads that populate Google’s search results pages! Statistics show that the top 3 ads on each search page receive 46% of traffic. PPC click-through rates are also shown to be 10 times higher than organic search clicks.

So what influences a good PPC ad? Each ad on every search page is ranked by Google. One’s ad rank is based on their cost-per-click and quality score. Your ads quality score has the ability to make or break your campaigns success. The quality score is made up of your ads click through rate, alongside your ads relevance to the keyword and your landing page’s relevance to the targeted keyword. The more relevant the better!

Tips:

  1. Make your ad text as relevant as possible to the keyword and ensure your landing page is targeted at that keyword too! Try getting your landing page’s URL to include the keyword in too.
  2. Get retargeting. Retargeting has given us marketers another tool to boost our marketing with. With retargeted visitors 70% more likely to convert, it doesn’t come as a surprise that retargeting is another highly effective marketing technique. To put it in its most simple form, retargeting is the practice of serving display ads to people who have previously engaged with your brand. It is vital for marketers looking to increase marketing results in 2016, helping to drive sales and increase brand awareness.  The numbers are compelling. Statistics have shown that retargeted ads receive a 0.70% click-through rate, compared to just 0.07% for regular display ads. Following this, brand search exposure can increase by over 1000%, just from retargeting. With this in mind, retargeting is a must for 2016!

E-marketing

With 2.6 billion email users worldwide, it doesn’t come as a surprise that e-marketing is still a massive hit with marketers. It is reported that for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $44.25, providing yet more reason for you to start thinking about promotion through email if you haven’t done so already.

The popularity of email marketing is continuing to grow, and more email scheduling platforms are being introduced. Platforms such as Campaign Monitor, ReplyApp and MailChimp are great tools for creating, scheduling and managing marketing email campaigns.

Tips:

  1. Use email marketing platforms such as Campaign Monitor to split test each email campaign. This will allow you to identify what content and approach is most effective at meeting your objectives and enables you to continually refine and improve on what works best.
  2. Personalisation is key! Send emails that are personalised to the recipient. Include their name in the subject line, reference topics and include content that they have expressed in interest in. This will not only help build better relationships between your business and consumer, but it will be demonstrable through better engagement and open rates.
  3. Make the email content mobile-friendly, that way the emails can be accessed by a wider audience.

Content Marketing

Creating and sharing content that engages your audience (Content Marketing in a nutshell!) is now a vital component of the marketing mix for marketers. New and fresh content should be published regularly. What regularly looks like depends on your audience. For B2B marketers, 26% post news and updates multiple times a week.

92% of businesses that use social media, use it as a tool to present content. Email is another vital content distribution tool.  LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube make up the top 3 for effectiveness when sharing content, but all have different advantages and disadvantages; therefore it’s important to make sure your content is tailored to your different channels.

Top Tools

With 2016 approaching, what are the top tools for more effective marketing? We have identified Datananas as a potentially effective tool for those looking to build their professional database, with its ability to export LinkedIn users and their contact information from LinkedIn without the need to be connected to them.

Other platforms like Buffer have also popped up on the radar, with its unique imaging software – Pablo! Brands are now able to upload an image of their choice and add text to it, making each social media post unique and eye-catching for their audience.

SumoMe is another top marketing tool for 2016, incorporating a series of apps all designed to get your website and content working. The toolbox includes on page analytics, free traffic for your site, image sharer and a smart bar that will increase your number of email subscribers – amazing!

What else is there to add to the marketing tool list? Google’s Webmaster Tools crops up again! As mentioned before, Google’s Webmaster Tools is a vitally important tool for anyone with a website. With the ability to understand your site’s organic search performance, as well as providing tips and tricks on how to get more traffic, the tool is a must.

One New Year’s resolution for you – download these marketing tools!

So, what matters for SMEs?

We think the top 5 themes that SMEs should consider in 2016 are:

  1. Content is king – still!
  2. Analytics
  3. Personalisation
  4. Online ads
  5. Video

We hope you find this useful and would like to thank everyone who attended. We look forward to seeing you again soon!

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