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.

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:

1. Send discounts and coupons
2. Host a contest
3. Go behind the scenes at your company
4. 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.

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:

1. Shane has created something people want (and are searching for)
2. He has made it available to download through his site (driving visits)
3. People are now more aware of digital planner Shane O’Leary
4. 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

Romanian Coke ad merges Twitter and TV advertising

I read this on .rising this morning (a great resource). Its another bid of advertising innovation, this time using live Tweets in a TV ad. .rising explain it really well and there is (a slightly annoying) video that shows it in action.

In a bid to connect the often separate worlds of TV and online advertising, an innovative ad created by Coca-Cola and aired in Romania used software that allowed a TV advert to air live tweets by viewers while it was playing.
As the video below explains, Coke’s spring campaign in the European country looked to address the fact that 60% of people in the country prefer to sit in front of the TV instead of eat their meals together. Inviting them to share a Coke and eat a meal with others who may also be eating alone, viewers were asked to tweet with the hashtag #LetsEatTogether.
Ad agency MRM Worldwide in Romania then quickly edited the tweets that would flow in, selecting five to seven to be included in each ad placement.
The campaign, which took place in spring, made it to the national evening news, and saw Coke’s Romanian followers increase by an impressive 15%.
Nir Refuah of MRM highlighted the fact that the integrated media drove excitement for the campaign, saying: “It made people actually wait for the ad. How often does that happen?”
Innovation in advertising ensures viewers view brands as fun, fresh and interesting. By interacting with Twitter followers and getting them involved in Coke’s conversation, the drinks company managed to improve the reputation of its brand in the area and, hopefully for the company, help ensure people got together to eat, tweet and drink a coke in the process! Smart campaigning, indeed.

Five Key Trends in Search for 2014

Ok, I know its early for the 2014 predictions, but I found these views on search from Alan Boughen, SVP Global Search, Havas Media interesting. (Taken from a piece in iMediaConnect)

How do you expect search to evolve in 2014?

I think we’ll see five key trends set the tone next year:

Paid search strategies will continue evolving to take advantage of the Enhanced Campaigns features that roll out in Q4-13, including cross-device attribution and offline conversion tracking.

Optimising search campaigns and destination sites for mobile will be a continued focus as over 1/3 of all Search traffic will soon be mobile. Marketers and agencies will also have to start thinking about optimising campaigns for wearable devices, such as Google Glass, as their penetration increases.

Marketers will increasingly focus on SEO/PPC integration and understanding the effect of dialing down budgets – in particular, areas of their paid search campaign (e.g. branded keywords) and re-deploying budget in other areas (e.g. on non-branded/generic keywords).

More trademark cases will be decided and I anticipate that buying competitive trademark keywords will become an increasingly niche tactic.

There will be greater emphasis on the intersection of Social and SEM as Google and Bing continue their efforts to make Search more natural, conversational and personal.

Read more at http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/34819.asp

 

Dare to be Tender

Milka have taken the age old Last Rolo idea and created a campaign for the digital age of sharing. What must Rolo be thinking!

Red Bull Illume

Red Bull and adventure go hand in hand. They always seem to find different ways to express the link. This latest execution has resulted in some amazing photography – Below are just 3 of the shots that made the top 250! Go see more here – Red Bull Illume

Is Content Marketing part of your mix?

Marketing Directors are searching for that something that will help them measure things in a more scientific way, but don’t want data for data’s sake,  they want something that will actually start to shift the needle for business growth but that is clearly linked to ROI.  A big ask, but something the digital space is really starting to live up to, especially with the increased emphasis on content marketing.

There is a danger of getting distracted by the shiny ball and I don’t for one second subscribe to the view that content marketing is going to kill advertising. But it is certainly changing the landscape significantly. The funnel has become more complicated now and we all know how savvy consumers are these days. It’s no longer possible to put lipstick on bad business. As agencies we need to help our clients to do more and move people from being strangers to customers and ultimately promoters of their products.

Content marketing is an incredible tool in your armoury. It is not a shallow advertisement, a blatant self-promotion or an attempt to trick readers. It is about great content that is interesting and engaging. Content that people want to share with a friend, or that makes them feel differently about a brand. Many brands are engaged in a race to the bottom and competing on price, but this isn’t a strategy for the long term, it doesn’t make people feel anything, you are just something on their functional list of “to-dos”.

It is brining relationship marketing into the connected world and offers relevant scientific data that allows you to make informed decisions on.  The days of people saying that “50% of my advertising works, I’m just not sure which 50%” is over. Even the biggest of companies can and should now act like lean star-up’s, testing and tweaking and amplifying what is working to drive better leads and convert more sales.

Shiny Ball warning again. There is of course a danger of getting distracted by a creative shiny ball. As Patrick Collister, a creative director for over 25 years and now at Google says “Within some digital agencies, people tend to think platforms are a substitute for ideas, but you need both. Technology drives creativity, but it doesn’t lead it”.

These are interesting times and I certainly believe that a content marketing strategy should be forming a part of your companies digital strategy.

The Genius ‘Sugarpova’ Stunt

Yesterday social media, sports and news sites were buzzing with the news that Maria Sharapova was planning to legally change her name to Sugarpova for The US Open tournament. The Sugarpova story reminds me of the time Louis Walsh made up a story about his boyband boyzone being involved in a plane crash in Australia. It never happened!! But it made the front pages.

This was a genius piece of marketing/pr/content generation – call it what you will. It was practically free (bar the agencies hourly fee to come up with the idea and seed the news). It was all over the place and the brand awareness shot through the roof – globally.

I am sure distributors all across the globe are going to find it a lot easier to get the product in prime positions with retailers clammering to satisfy a demand and need that up to two days ago people didnt even know they had. Last year she sold 1.8 million bags of the sweets you can be sure that figure will double or treble off the back of this stunt.

Clearly this woman and her team get the new rules of media and created a story that people just couldn’t ignore, even if they wanted to. Sometimes less really is more

Cue tennis pun – Advantage Sharapova!

Digital Reports to read

Adverblog is a great resource and posted these three must reads which I thought I would share here, enjoy:

we often work in uncharted territory and therefore spend much time thinking about the big question “What’s Next?”. Where and how do we spend our future creative efforts? For the benefit of brands, clients and agencies alike, we better get that one right. Read up on these three reports: Razorfish’s Outlook, Reactive’s Perspectives and VJ-Isobar’s FYI – and make the right calls for the future.

Jump With Derrick Rose

This is fantastic London got a chance to jump with Derrick Rose for a pair of his signature adidas shoes.

(PS Derrick Rose is a basketball player who currently plays for the Chicago Bulls)

Vine V’s Instagram

I’m starting to think that Instagram Video is way too long – at a whopping 15 seconds its incredible to think that its possibly too long. I am sure there is rationale behind the longer format but I think we are much more used to consuming short content – photos are most engaged with on Facebook and we are used to scanning tweets for nano seconds to see what interests us. People seem to be a lot more creative within the 6 seconds and when it extends to 15 it just seems to get boring!

If you want to check out some Vines and Instagrams this site, Vine V’s Instagram is a fun way to do it