A summary of PSFK’s annual Future of Retail report, some interesting stuff in here if you havent seen it already
People aren’t paying attention to ads anymore
Canadian ad agency John St. created this self promotion piece called exFEARential – hope they have enough people to respond to the requests for meetings!
Best Halloween Ad
I know I probably shouldn’t find this as funny as I do, but I do! Enjoy.
Oreo Twist Dublin
You have probably noticed the Oreo ads recently. It is Oreo’s first advertising forray into the Irish market where they are putting the Oreo Twist on Dublin Landmarks and events. There are a total of 16 ads in the series, with the 16th being an event or place chosen by a reader of the TheJournal.ie. The event ones, like the one below for the Bram Stoker Festival almost look like Oreo are sponsoring the events, when in fact they aren’t, they are just putting an Oreo twist on it.
The ads in the series (a selection of them are below) are all consistent in look and feel and simplicity. There is no mistaking they are from Oreo and as a way to launch the brand above the line in Ireland it feels like a good move.
Of course this is an extension of the hugely successful, Cannes Lions Cyber Grand Prix winning “Daily Twist” campaign which marked OREO’s centenary and made the cream-stuffed sandwich a social-media behemoth with incredible real-time culture jacking. There is a nice case study video which I have put at the end of this post for you.
Sadly this isn’t a sign of a new advertiser entering the market, the opportunity for Oreo is the result of PHD winning €150,000 of media space in JC Decaux’s “Fame – The Agency Edition” competition. I guess what it does go to show is the effectiveness of outdoor.
The work was done by Draftfcb London.
I just hope this means we will start to get some of the decent size packs of Oreos in the irish market now!
Using an App as part of your Content Marketing Strategy
Guest post by Lavinia Baciu
With over 12,000 downloads to date the new Irish Red Cross First Aid app is a great example of an approach to content marketing,
The app links perfectly to what the Red Cross believes – ie that everybody can learn basic first aid – and the App aims to get that message out there and make first aid more accessible to the general public.
When it comes to its inbound marketing benefits, this newest a
ddition to their content marketing family is really working. From a lead generation perspective they have already received inquries about first aid training courses – increasing their reach in terms of those who know that they provide this service.
The Analytics tool within the app is allowing the Red Cross learn more about the demographics and behaviour of their users. Analytics information is also used to tailor Social Media posts with content related to content that is popular on the app. Therefore offering consumers more of the content they want to see.
The same information from Analytics was used to optimize Adwords and Facebook ad copy. Initially the ads had the general sound of ‘download your app’. But soon the ad copy was optimized to reflect why the user should download the app-‘Would you know what to do if someone was bleeding?’
It’s been only a few weeks and the app is already sitting at the head of the table of content marketing at the Irish Red Cross. People don’t get all their news from the TV or radio anymore, but increasingly rely on their phone to instantly deliver them important information. The Red Cross, along side its role in disaster relief, is an active player in preparedness matters, eg notifying the public of various emergencies. The push notifications functionality of the app allows just that –deliver useful content to those who need it and also in a real-time fashion, thus bringing the organisation much closer to its audience.
The biggest take-away from this project was how useful app Analytics can be for the marketing and communications teams if thoroughly checked and compared with other stats from Email or social media campaigns. Even more, being able to track which campaigns or traffic sources triggered the app is pure gold and it allows for proper analysis of referral sources and also budget changes so as to suit the better working referral channels.
Digital Trends in Ireland survey results.
Great way to present the summary findings by vocal
Users three times more likely to engage with video on mobiles than desktops
dot rising reported last week that “new data reveals that those who view videos on smartphones are nearly three times more likely to click through to a brand’s website than if viewing videos on laptops or desktops.”
The report by Unruly revealed new stats that show CTR on desktop at 5.45%, compared to a 13.64% on mobile. As well as this, the data highlights that interaction rates for mobile are up a massive 105.63% to 22.64% in Q3 2013.
dot rising comments that “The continual reports regarding the rise in popularity of mobile highlights that now, more than ever, brands must ensure their sites are successfully optimised for mobile and tablet users. As well as this, branching into the realm video marketing is also of utmost importance for companies looking to stay on-trend and relevant for consumers”
Smart mobile ad
I saw this on Best Ads and thought it was pretty smart:
To promote LG’s new smart phone G2, M&C Saatchi, Stockholm created a whole new way of making banners relevant to mobile users. The banners detect what phone you are using, compare it to the LG G2 and customize the message. The banners appeared in Scandinavian HTC’s, Samsungs and iPhones on the 4th of October, 2013.
Samsung Galaxy Gear: A Long Time Coming
Great piece by 72andSunny announcing the new Galaxy Gear. Tapping into nostalgia to deliver a product launch message.
Snapchat and you – what to do.
18.6% of iPhone users have the Snapchat app making it the ninth most popular iPhone app there in terms of usage.
So what is Snapchat?
Snapchat is a social photo app that allows users to send photos and videos up to ten seconds to a friend before the file self-destructs. Never to be seen again. Yeh – its like the mission impossible app!
So how can your brand use it?
Well in one of their handy e-books HubSpot suggest the following uses:
- Send discounts and coupons
- Host a contest
- Go behind the scenes at your company
- Sneak peak new products
What are the risks?
Snapchat has been criticised for encouraging sexting and despite message self destructing people have been saving images and sharing them on other social networks (i’ll let you google image search this one yourself!). Brands like Karmaloop are active on the platform and Megan Knisely, Karmaloop’s marketing director, said she’s willing to let her brand occasionally show a little skin to get the attention “Our snaps are not for the faint of heart—you got to be ready for a little bit of boobs and butt,”. Taco Bell are also active on the site, but they aren’t going the boobs and butts route.
Snapchat Stories
So snapchat is all about the moment, so its there and gone, but recently they introduced Stories. Stories allows you to add a “snap” to a feed for 24 hours before it vanishes. This clearly seems like a move that will help them monetize the platform and get more brands on board, but is it not a change in direction. I wonder will this impact the platforms popularity?
So what now?
Snapchat is certainly one to watch. But when we are looking at your resources and allocation of budgets, unless you are in the Taco Bell, Coca Cola (global brand, big spend space) this is probably all it is for now – one to watch. If you are a big brand in an emerging snapchat market, there could be merit in talking to them about a campaign that could get you a first mover/early adopter advantage.
What Keeps Marketers Up At night
Presentation from research carried out by Adobe
Is Ryanairs’ Twitter strategy right?
So Ryanair has joined twitter and while I don’t claim to know their strategy they have set thir stall out pretty early. Launching the account they made it clear that they are not there to listen to complaints – essentially saying they have too many customers, and to the more cynical of us they are possibly saying they have too many complaints!
https://twitter.com/Ryanair/status/379944310029811712
So Ryanair is on twitter for one reason (it seems) and that’s to sell us stuff!
And while there is nothing wrong with that as such, I would always suggest to brands that twitter should be about doing more than that. Customer care is a place a lot of service brands tend to go but there is more you can do.
A great example, bizarrely, is the Irish police Garda twitter account. They have shown fantastic personality and sense of humour on twitter
O2 in the UK had this funny “Ghetto Slang Exchange” recently
Here is another one from the USA between IHop and Simon Dumenco (seen on adage)
So Ryanair are clearly recognising that twitter is a channel they canno longer ignore, good news for twitter advocates as it shows the power of the platform, and I imagine we will see a lot more promoted tweets from them.
But is that enough?
In my view its not, so I hope Ryanair plan to do more, maybe get us behind the scenes at the airline and show us they actually can be likeable (even if they don’t really want to hear about your complaints!). This early tweet suggests they might be ready to have some fun, lets hope so
Need to explain Digital to your colleagues?
I found this presentation from Greg Pouy on adverblog and thought it would be good to share. Sometimes we do need to explain digital to people who may not quite get it, and most times its ok that they dont, but sometimes it helps you manage processes and expectations if they do understand some of the elements.
The Irish Digital Consumer Report 2013
Really clever idea by Digital Planner Shane O’Leary. He has created this really useful resource for people who are interested in digital stats. This is a great example of content marketing for a few reasons:
- Shane has created something people want (and are searching for)
- He has made it available to download through his site (driving visits)
- People are now more aware of digital planner Shane O’Leary
- Finally he has shown that content doesnt need to be intimidating or ridiculously long to be of value
If you would like your copy of the The Irish Digital Consumer Report 2013 – check out Shanes site here
Catch a GTI
Some more online advertising innovation here – Dutch agency Achtung created this interactive idea to catch a GTI on the ‘Volkswagen Bannerbahn’. It challenges the user to catch a Volkswagen Golf GTI by clicking on it.
Conor Byrne's Blog 