We all survived skiing!
TLC thoroughly enjoyed skiing on the dry slopes at Calshot Activities Centre, and surprisingly all came back in one piece!
Technology shifts and their impact on content marketers
With technology continually evolving, content marketers need to ensure that they stay on top of the trends and technologies that will influence their audiences and marketing channels going forward. With this in mind, we take a look at some of the emerging technologies that are shaping the world of marketing this year. Is your business on top of them?
Social purchasing
Social purchasing has been a growing trend over the last few years. It involves consumers being able to purchase products and services direct from an organisation’s social media channel, rather than their website.
Facebook have lead the way with social purchasing, through their Facebook ads, but other social media channels, such as Pinterest, with their buyable pins (where consumers are able to buy products straight from the network without leaving the page) have supported them. According to a study by Deloitte, 47% of millennials say their purchases are influenced by social media, indicating social purchasing opportunities are only going to increase. Businesses that have to-date ignored social media marketing, could be missing out on a trick!
As you might expect, social media is the most popular marketing channel for marketers looking to share content and build an audience. With the rise of social purchasing, it does raise the interesting question of is this the beginning of the end for the traditional business website?
Live streaming
Streaming live video has become a growing trend, with apps like Meerkat, Twitch and Periscope appearing more frequently on our smart phones. Even mainstream social apps like Facebook have adopted their own live streaming features, and users are beginning to demand new ‘in-the-moment’ content, rather than pre-scheduled.
This could put a heavy burden on businesses large and small. Even large organisations, like Red Bull and Home Depot in the States, who rely heavily on video content to engage with their consumers, will be challenged to come up with genuinely engaging ‘in-the-moment’ content. It will be particularly interesting to see how video leader, YouTube, will respond to the growing trend, with their platform currently set up to deliver pre-recorded rather than live video.
Live streaming also offers opportunities for SMEs looking for closer engagement with their target audiences. It is important that marketers in smaller businesses don’t discount this exciting medium. It is not all about the big brands!
Mobile usage
Mobile messaging apps are beginning to transform the way consumers interact with brands, and Facebook is once again at the forefront of this trend. In March 2015, Facebook announced their partnership with Dutch airline KLM, giving KLM passengers the ability to access booking confirmations and boarding passes via their smartphone.
The practice of carrying out transactions through messaging apps is already expanding in China, where consumers are moving rapidly towards mobile purchasing, and away from online purchasing. The rapid rise of mobile purchasing will force businesses that offer an online-only service to adapt and evolve.
The dramatic growth of mobile usage and the rise of the smartphone is heralding the slow demise of traditional PCs and computers. For a long time, laptops and desktops were the preferred choice of consumers for researching and purchasing, but now the tables have turned. With the advent of 4G and Wi-Fi becoming ever more ubiquitous, amongst us in shops, cafes, restaurants and even banks, smartphones are becoming our primary means of running our lives. From a content marketers perspective, ensuring your content can be easily accessed on a mobile device is now a must.
If you are involved in content marketing and aren’t considering the impact of these and other technological developments on your strategy, you’ll be missing out on some very exciting opportunities.
TLC’s Campaigns of the Month
With the New Year now gone and Easter on the horizon, it is a good time to review how some of the bigger brands have been boosting their marketing in early 2016 (or end of Dec 15 in one case!). Whose campaigns have stood out and why? We’re taking a look back at 3 of the more innovative and quirky campaigns that kicked off the year, just in case you missed them.
We saw pop-up shops from the likes of Crème Egg and Skittles and live-streaming billboards from Land Rover. Take a look at the details below to see if you can draw inspiration from any of them.
Crème Egg Café
January 22nd was an exciting day for all London-based Cadbury Crème Egg lovers, with a new Crème Egg Pop-Up Café opening in Soho, London.
The café is spread across 3 floors, where consumers are able to order takeaway Crème Egg toasties on the first floor, Crème Egg brownies and even Crème Eggs with soldiers on the second floor, and access a Crème Egg ball pool on the third.
According to EventBrite, the tickets were on sale 3 days prior to the opening, and were sold out by the time the café was scheduled to open. The café is open from 5pm Friday – Sunday for 7 weeks, and with nearly every day sold out, I think we can all agree that this is a highly successful campaign.
Land Rover
Land Rover’s Instagram filter OOH billboards definitely brought a new perspective to the people of London and Leeds last month, as part of their #Hibernot campaign.
Land Rover transformed the cities’ landscapes with their Instagram-like live filters on digital billboards, encouraging consumers to ‘see winter differently’. The billboards displayed live images of the immediate area and then applied their own ‘Land Rover filter’, encouraging consumers to follow their Instagram page, and get out and about to explore the season by taking a drive.
Skittles Pawn Shop
Wrigley-owned sweet brand, Skittles, opened a pop-up shop in Toronto on 26th December for 4 days. Consumers were able to exchange unwanted goods for sweets. Now, we understand that this campaign wasn’t quite in January, but we loved the idea so much we wanted to include it.
Consumers were encouraged to bring any items that they no longer wanted, and receive Skittles for them. The store particularly promoted novelty gifts, such as knitted clothing and cuddly toys. All items received were donated to the Goodwill ReUse centre in Toronto’s Scarborough district.
To extend the reach of the campaign, Skittles launched an accompanying digital campaign for those who weren’t in the area at the time, where fans could see how much their unwanted items were worth in exchange for Skittles.
We loved these campaigns and look forward to what 2016 has in store for us. Stay tuned for the best marketing campaigns of February!
Christmas came early!
Thanks to our clients, Green Team Interiors, Christmas came early in the TLC office today!
Camkids Winter 2015/16 Newsletter
TLC proudly sponsors Camkids – The Cambodian Children’s Charity, and this week we received our Winter 2015/16 Newsletter. Camkids are an amazing charity who supports less-fortunate children in Cambodia with parents who are unable to support them.
Camkids have had a great start to the year, as they are now a fully-registered International Non-Governmental Organisation (INGO), which underlines their commitment to providing quality education, nutrition, healthcare and development to the children of Cambodia.
To see what Camkids have been up to, click here to read the Winter Newsletter in full.
Facebook celebrates its 12th birthday, but will brands be celebrating in the future?
Facebook celebrates its 12th birthday, but will brands be celebrating in the future?
Last Thursday marked Facebook’s 12th birthday, and they were kind enough to let us users be a part of it with their ‘Friends Day’ video experience! The special occasion enabled users all around the world to view a personalised video experience at the top of their news feed, which included photos that were marked as ‘special moments’.
The ‘Friends Day’ videos were pre-populated, but users were able to customise and switch the photos being used to create the video, with their customised version being posted on their Timelines shortly after.
Despite a marked decrease in number of under 18s using the platform regularly, there are still many more birthdays to come for Facebook, thanks to the 1 billion users actively using the platform each month, but how many of these are actually brands? Below are just a few examples of how the big boys are using Facebook in its 12th year:
Nike
Nike is arguably one of the biggest brands out there and their Facebook page plays a key role in their overall marketing approach. The page is a balance of new products, science and charitable initiatives, but one way they differentiate themselves is using different pages for each of their product lines. From snowboarding to golf, Nike has a page for all interests. Do you?
Microsoft
When marketing a technology product, it can be challenging not to get too ‘techy’ and alienating your audience. Microsoft’s Facebook marketing is a great example of avoiding falling into this trap.
Their latest campaign was based around the hashtag #5to9, which was designed to focus specifically on a user’s time outside of the office. They also subverted typical workplace acronyms like PTO and ETA, converting them into non-workplace phrases, indicating that their products can be used at home, as well as in the office. Microsoft’s use of social media platforms like Facebook, is in marked contrast to Apple whose use of social media marketing is very limited.
Cadbury’s
As Cadbury’s Dairy Milk approached their 1 millionth like on Facebook, they decided to celebrate with an innovative campaign – the thumbs up! Cadbury’s built a giant thumbs up out of 1 million pieces of chocolate and allowed fans to participate and engage with the campaign through their Facebook page.
Cadbury’s are still devising quirky campaigns on Facebook now, with their festive #cadvent Christmas campaign last year a great success at generating consumer engagement.
With all of these brand giants embracing Facebook marketing, what does this mean for us marketers of smaller businesses?
Facebook is still developing new ideas for brands to showcase their products; their new Carousel ads, first introduced back in 2014, are a key example. Since then, advertisers have seen carousel ad links drive 30-50% greater consumer spend as a result of the social network. This, along with the rapid rise of video on Facebook, all points to the social media giant continuing to play a central role in many marketers’ social media strategies in 2016 and beyond.
What are your thoughts about Facebook marketing for SMEs?
On your marks, get set, bake!
To get into the Valentine’s Day spirit, Anna, Abby, Shannon and Sophie made some ‘hearty’ bakes for the #TLCBakeOff.
#TLCPlankChallenge
Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for – the #TLCPlankChallenge leaderboard! As you can see, Shannon has stormed ahead with a 3:26 plank, closely followed by Josh with 3:13!
Keep your eyes peeled for the next leaderboard update – will anyone out-plank Shannon?
Waiting for our first class!
Josh took a visit to King’s School in Winchester to deliver a series of marketing presentations to 240 students!
We’re running the Southampton half marathon!
After much debate, consideration and ‘gentle’ persuasion, the TLC Business team decided to take part in an activity which will test our limits, and what better than the Southampton Half Marathon? With just under 90 days to go until the gruelling event, we’re all attempting to physically (and mentally) prepare ourselves.
As you may already know, Josh and Anna completed the Basingstoke Half Marathon last year, whereas for the rest of us, it’s a new challenge. To encourage our training and a healthier office since the Christmas period, we invested in a running machine for the office.
To say we’re a competitive office is an understatement, and to build our strength and stamina, the TLC Business team are also attempting the #plankchallenge, where we all have to continually beat our personal time and record it on a table. So far, we have all ‘planked’ at least 4 times, each time improving by at least 10 seconds – impressive right?
As you can see, Shannon and Sophie have really taken to the challenge!
Many of us have been training for the marathon religiously, and it’s definitely taken its toll on Abby with her injured hip, Anna’s cracked rib and Shannon’s sore feet. We’re a dedicated team who will power through, but who’s next to ‘hit the wall’?