news and comments

The recent Ashes triumph was just that, but are there lessons that we marketers can learn from the England team? As a brand, team England was in a sorry state the last time it toured Down Under. The 5-0 drubbing sparked calls for another bail to be burnt, but rather than roll over and die they took a good hard look at themselves and began planning for a brighter future. 

We’ve all had campaigns that haven’t gone to plan. Be it press, DM, digital, display ads or TV, failure is a constant threat, and while most aren’t as public as England’s in 2006-7 the ire rained down by the client can be just as painful. The trick is – to use an old cliché – to learn from the mistakes. England did. In the months that followed that disastrous tour they undertook a root and branch review of their strategy and set-up.  Nothing was sacred. No one was deemed indispensible. And through hard work, a revision of strategy, planning and passionate execution the result in 2010-11 was rather different.

Of course the temptation following a poor result is to chuck the whole thing away and move on. This is prevalent today in social media marketing.  Brands stick speculative toes in the social media pond and when, after a short time, they find either indifference or hostility they dismiss it out of hand and try something new or, more correctly, old. This sort of short-termism is the bane of many a new media.  Back in the 50’s when TV came along, brands scrambled to get onboard only to scurry back to radio and press when the results didn’t immediately match expectations. If only they’d taken the time to ask themselves whether it was the message rather than the media that was at fault. If so, many TV-killed brands across the world might still be with us.

Failure is hard and raking over the ashes of that failure can be harder still, but if England have taught us anything it’s that fortune does indeed favour the brave. So why don’t we as marketers make the collective resolution to be a bit braver in 2011? As Edison put it, “Failure is the first step on the road to success.”

Late in 2010 Aviva won the prestigious Marketing/Brand Campaign of the Year at the Insurance Times Awards. We were part of this success (together with AMV) for our joint 'Business End-user Campaign’ in support of Aviva’s UK brokers. Aviva beat off stiff competition from the likes of Axa, QBE, More Th>n and RSA, with the judges praising the campaign’s 'commercial effectiveness' and 'support for the broker market'.

As Aviva doesn’t sell commercial insurance direct to businesses, they needed to find a way to ensure that brokers had Aviva in mind when writing business. To do this they took the bold step of attempting to drive potential business customers directly to brokers. 

In order to bring this daring strategy to life we devised a campaign that worked across all media – TV (supplied by AMV), radio, press and web – and divided it into two phases. The first phase focused on raising brokers’ brand awareness of Aviva, while the second focused on brand response. What was consistent in both was the call to the Aviva created ‘Your Business’ website.

‘Your Business’ is a destination site that gives SMEs a search facility allowing them to find brokers quickly and easily within their region and/or sector of business. It was a service that was obviously appreciated. In the course of the campaign ‘Your Business’ received over 50,000 new visitors.

They say Christmas is a time for giving and it’s long been a Pret tradition to help feed the homeless at Christmas. This year they got into the spirit of the season in a really big way. With their ‘Really Big Christmas Dinner’ campaign they set themselves the ambitious target of raising £250,000 to provide hot meals, giving 5p from every sandwich sold to homeless charities. To ensure this worthy cause was destined for success we put Pret’s newly established digital and social media channels to work.  

The Pret.com homepage was taken over and a live totaliser installed – whose tally rose rapidly once we’d emailed Pret’s loyal email base. Social media was always intended to be at the heart of our strategy. Both Twitter and Facebook quickly became hotbeds of campaign news, messages of support and live total milestones. Midway through the campaign, supporters were encouraged to add a ‘Twibbon’ to their Facebook page in return for which Pret would donate an extra 20p.

Reaching our target of £250,000 was never going to be easy but thanks to Pret’s good will and their legion of loyal fans – many of whom tweeted and shared news of the campaign with friends – we did it with a few days to spare. The end of the campaign left us with a delighted client, many grateful homeless people and a collective feeling of not just having done a good job, but of having done a job for good.

balloon blog's Digital Ones to Watch in 2011…

2011 promises to be quite a year virtually speaking; Social Media, Mobile, TV and good old email are all set to see (yet another) revolution. So with all this is mind here are balloon dog's predictions for what will, won't and we want to be big in 2011…

Social Shopping: What is it?

Technically:
Social Shopping is a method of e-commerce where shoppers' friends become involved in the shopping experience

And not so technically:
A way for e-tailers to occupy SoMe space to recreate an actual shopping mall experience

Telling it like it is:
Shopping on SoMe so you and your mates can talk about the stuff you want before you buy. Peer recommendations are even more convincing when from a friend.

What it can do for clients?
Give insight into customers’ wants, grow market through product sharing, boost SEO, open a portal for targeted conversations, drive recommendations

How big will this be in 2011?
Economy-sized. Facebook already have brand portals and in time they’ll have their own retail arm too

Facebook Credits: What are they?

Technically:
Facebook’s secure internal currency that can be exchanged for games, accessories, virtual gifts and apps

And not so technically:
Paypal-style way of enhancing your life on Facebook in a similar model to that of ‘Second Life’ without having to use PayPal

Telling it like it is:
Right now a way for people to buy souped-up tractors for Farmville. In the near future you’ll be able to buy anything for anyone.

What it can do for clients?
If you’ve a product or service that can be retailed, gifted, discounted, recommended, delivered or shared, then shed loads!

How big will this be in 2011?
Its Facebook; it could be family-sized with 20% extra free! The only limit is how fast they want to grow it, but given that credits are available in Tesco I doubt they’re looking to hang about

Social Media Subscriber Targeting

What is it?
Social Media’s greatest potential marketing weapon and as we continue to move from search to share, Google’s Room 101

How so?
As you share, like or indulge in Social Shopping so Facebook et al will sell that info on to advertisers and marketers allowing for a greater level of targeting than ever before, and in real time. Think of it as geo-targeted Pay per Click (PPC) on steroids

Cor lummy, sounds a bit 1984!
It is, and caution will be required. SoMe and privacy is already a sensitive issue and many SoMe users don’t want their space invaded by ads or their personal info traded. That said, many will welcome being told about stuff they’ll like, with fashion, travel and leisure likely to be the early adopters

What it can do for your clients?
In terms of customer insight and targeting, everything. And in time it could replace PPC and revitalise banners with a far lower CPC

How big will this be in 2011?
Trial pack size but with money off next purchase coupon. Caution will be key for both brands and, even more importantly, SoMe sites

2011 – The Year of the Mobile (again)?
If you believe the digital press then yes, and here’s why…

• According to PWC, mobile marketing spend rose 32% in 2009 to £37.6m and by 2014 will top £340m. The same report suggests that mobile browsing will surpass desktop by 2014

• The app market is predicted to grow to $17.5bn by the end of this year

• 35% of UK mobile owners use it to web browse – of which 63% use it for SoMe

• Smartphone usage grew by 70% in the UK in 2010

• Handsets and bandwidth are getting cheaper as we see life beyond iPhone (heaven!). In January 2010 AdMob saw 1bn requests from Android phones – this will rise exponentially in 2011

• Tablets (iPad etc) have made mobile browsing easier. Apple expect to sell 65m iPads in 2011 and the network ‘3’ now sell more 3G dongles than phones

• Improved security and near fulfilment technology (a way of ensuring transactions go through) will be another big boost to mobile commerce. Large companies – such as John Lewis last November – are building mobile-friendly sites which will only help adoption

What’s in it for marketers?
Plenty. Plenty good… plenty bad!

How so?
Mobile’s (another!) digital game-changer and the phrase ‘adapt or die’ couldn’t be more apposite

So what should you do?
Build mobile-friendly sites and include mobile comms strategies into your 2011-2012 plans

And if our clients aren’t as rich as a cream-coated chocolate Croesus?
Get an app. As an interim measure it can solve a lot of woes and won’t cost the earth

Anything else?
Mobile's no longer the future; it's the present and the future and the future's coming and you can’t run from it!

Google TV: The dampest squib since Cyril the squib got his water wings?

What is it?
It’s where TV meets web. Web meets TV

How so?
It allows you to get the interweb through your TV with the addition of a Google TV box or a pre-prepared TV (available this year from Sony, Toshiba etc). This will make interactive telly and streaming movies, music and games a live reality

Sounds great!
Shame it isn’t. Take-up in the US has been poor and a legion of TV networks have barred access to it

Oh, shall we ignore it then?
This is Google, we can’t ignore it

Is there anything in it for clients then?
No… not yet. Despite the hype since its launch last May it’s yet to set the world alight. With Google’s might and content, however, and the drift to consuming content on-demand online it can only be a matter of time before TV and web advertising converge

How big will this be in 2011?
Free-sample sized with the capacity to become the next sliced bread

Interactive Email: What is it?

Technically:
Using a platform such as Hotmail’s Active Views you can use Java in email to deliver live content without people having to click through

And not so technically:
It’s email that allows recipients to receive content that’s always in date and which allows them to take actions on a site from their inbox

Telling it like it is:
Thankfully, you’ll never get an offer for a sold-out Justin Bieber gig again and responding to a tweet can be done from your inbox

What it can do for your clients?
Loads. You need never disappoint on a limited offer again, interaction with brands is quicker, news can be updated so mails don’t date and targeting can be improved

How big will this be in 2011?
It deserves to be bigger than multi-pack Monster Munch on BOGOF. Sadly it probably won’t be; most people don’t do basic mail well and the investment will go elsewhere

Right, that's our colours nailed to the mast. Whether we'll turn out to be Nostradamus or Doris Stokes only time will tell, but one thing is certain; it's going to be fascinating finding out…