Faster Future: Possibilities now and beyond: Advertising and Marketing

Showing posts with label Advertising and Marketing. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Social media by the numbers

FasterFuture nestles at number 33 in the latest top 116(?) of UK Marketing Blogs as derived from the Adage Power 150

So yaboo sucks for me? Nah, seriously, this is a very literal example of being made greater by the sum of my connections (the more of you who visit, link here, follow me, talk to me... the higher we rise) so are my connections.

And while speaking of charts (terrible link...) here's Mark Earls on what the death of Michael Jackson tells us about ourselves (in the Spectator).

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Your duty is to challenge your client - to save their asses

Love this post from colleague Jamie Burke (disclosure, Jamie's my boss).

It's born of his discoveries on his own journey to the networked world, from his own heartfelt and passionate beliefs - and from a real sense of what is wrong with what he encounters.

Righteous and right.

I don't oftern quote big chunks, but on this occasion...

-Branding exercises, no matter how much money you throw at them can’t hide that what you say you believe in and what you do don’t marry.

-The only awards worth winning are sales. Clever creative advertising just makes people talk about how clever the ad was and how great your ad agency is and not your product. Just because it’s a clever ‘viral’ ad where people were the channel you broadcast through doesn’t mean the same does not apply.

-Agencies that fail to enforce the required changes on their clients thinking just to protect old margins or be safe in meeting old KPI’s should also be held to account. As a purest it is my duty to show up these failings. If you are wasting 99.96% of your client’s budget you should not have a job. A conversion rate of 0.04% is literally just that. If you need you client to spend millions on getting people to engage with your mechanic they are paying for your incompetencies.

-Client: If your agency isn’t challenging you on a daily basis with these different rules you need to find a new one. The world is changing dramatically why aren’t your KPIs.

-If advertising bridges the gap between supply and demand. What happens when there is no gap?

-When you are left only with your naked product. What happens if it’s not the best one?

-Why isn’t it the best one when social media offers the market research nirvana of non-interruptive voyeurism? Listen.

-If you have to spend millions on trying to convince the consumer its what they need it obviously isn’t.

_____________________________________________________________________

-Don’t be so afraid of being seen to be real people? I can trust a fallible person far more than an apparently infallible one. Even if they were infallible how could I, a fallible one, ever connect with them? People buy people.

-Closed models of any sort won’t save you. The only restrictions and limitations you are imposing are on your own business.

-The only way most shareholders will realise this is when all that they possess has been stripped of any or all value.

-Marketing in social media is only just a bit better than marketing any where else because marketing treats things as ‘channels’.

-Business leaders that neglect the opportunities that the network presents to their company should be held responsible for gross misconduct. Even if their limited view of it is as a market condition they still failed to account for it.

The only thing I'd add to his list is Generosity: Before you can take, you have to give.
Go give him your support or shoot him down in flames here.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Mobile Advertising: Serving people not targets?

What's going on with mobile advertising? A couple of people I thoroughly recommend have come together to try to answer that question with an event in London on June 15 - James Cameron and Jonathan Macdonald.

Mobile Advertising UK is backed by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK.

Ogilvy, Mediacom, Mindshare, Alcatel-Lucent, Sponge, Mediaedge:cia, Inside Mobile, Unanimis, ringring media, AKQA Mobile, Vodafone, Telefonica O2, Orange and 3 will all take part.

And I'd have been there joining a panel if it wasn't for the demands of a family holiday.

On top of the conference, the event will host the inaugural EverySingleOneOfUs Mobile Campaign of the Year Awards, designed to recognise the past year's most engaging, creative and effective mobile advertising campaigns (download the entry form here). Image courtesy theworldscreams

Jonathan (who founded EverySingleOneOfUs, and was among the launch team at revolutionary mobile operator Blyk) has come up with a neat twist on the awards theme. It'll be judged on how useful it's been for the people it was intended for - us lot.

"The EverySingleOneOfUs Mobile Campaign of the Year award is the first award in new media to be judged for the benefit the campaign has to the public."

It will be judged for value, relevance, ease of interaction and transparency of offering.

Who dares enter?

Contact James for delegate passes, awards entries and the conference programme.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

THREE jobs up for grabs at social media agency

Pleased to say we're scaling up to meet demand at Brando Social (the full service social media agency I work at four days a week).
So if you fancy joining a growing company in a growing sector, we've got a couple of roles right now:
1. We need a web 2.0-savvvy Tech Project Manager to start NOW. Good if you can program some too.

2. Account Manager. Ideally you have 3 + yrs exp (some digital). You're great at managing relationships with clients and you're hungry to learn about social media (if you happen to know loads already, that's great too).
3. Junior Researcher. You're currently working or have worked at a market research organisation or similar and have 1-2 years experience.

If you're interested in any of these roles drop MD Jamie Burke a line (cc me).