MarCom Professional

Charlie Robertson of Red Spider�

Quentin Boyes of Honeycomb Software��

Sadly the one of Andrew Howells of Zype didn't come out…. darn phone reception.�

Nice story fron the BBC with a suggestion that readers get involved in desiging the 'mascot' for the Olymnpics.

Including how to avoid gaffes like Atlanta and the london logo….�

Great idea.�

Not really social media but definitely community participation….

But I HATE mascots.� Why else would people buy a souvenir if there wasnt a cuddly mascot image on it?

In last week’s New Media Age, there was plenty on the pages about mobile. Good to see. I thought I’d share some of the Analyst piece with you as it raised some interesting points about using mobile for branding and direct response. According to Emarketer, this year’s global mobile ad spend will be 2.45million sterling, yet only 13% of that is intended for branding.

Christina Goodman, head of global marketing and client development at Dynamic Logic, says that her company, ‘has measured a number of mobile branding campaigns on WAP sites and initial results show exposure to mobile brand advertising can positively shift brand metrics across a number of sectors, including automotive, travel, FMCG, retail, entertainment and finanical services.’ She goes on to state that, ‘aggregate results from 12 mobile campaigns show an average increase in brand awareness of 7 percentage points … increases ar More...

Rebranding is one of the toughest exercises a company can go through. The irony is that most people will only go through it once, maybe twice in their career. This means a lot of learning gets lost in the ether of promotions and job moves. Luckily there are a handful of agencies out there who coordinate rebranding programmes day-in, day-out. Here are Endpoint's pointers on what to look out for. 

1. Project planning is crucial. Given the scale of works it is necessary to prioritise where and how efforts should be concentrated in order ensure individual business units know exactly how to approach rebranding. Realistic targets, backed by practical and technical knowledge, need to be set in order to push the rebrand through. More...

I have a ****** relationship with Google. Last week I was *****ing about the search giant because of bugs in its Blogger platform. This week harmony has been restored.

Google Mail and Docs users have opened their web browsers in the last couple of weeks to find a stack of new features have been added to each application in what looks like a move by Google to make its applications enterprise ready.

Google Mail has grown up into a full-fledged email application with the addition of features including a new mobile client. IMAP for syncing to mobile devices, the ability to retrieve mail from other accounts and respond from other domains, an auto-responder, mail aliases and all sorts of formatting tricks. More...

I found this great film made by Skoda, or by the creative agency Fallon London. An imaginative and ambitious campaign, with soundtrack the classic of Julie Andrews singing “My Favourite Things”.

A pure moment of pleasure!

I have been reading about the Australia Tourism pitch that's going on right now. It's a knotty one because there is one dominant, hugely successful campaign that lurks in the background (Paul Hogan's shrimp-on-the-barbie) which is now 25 years old but well-remembered.

The Economist quotes Geoff Buckley, MD of Tourism Australia "The Hogan ad was brilliant but it was never taken globally.  Nowadays we need a unique and motivating message that resonates in 23 different markets." Tough.

The contrast with the 100% Pure New Zealand ads that are mostly photographic (one was so beautiful I cut it out) is stark. More...

In a world cynical of advertising and sales spiel, copywriting has to not only persuade but to build trust. An effective way of doing this is to be able to offer value in exchange for your reader’s time - where value is not giving away coupons, but being entertaining or informative.

People like to do business with those they either like, know or trust. Most will keep their credit card firmly hidden in their wallet if they think they’re being manipulated by clever wordplay and false promises.

Promote your authenticity

Being authentic and genuine would be a good start if you want to persuade people to believe in what you’re trying to sell. More...

Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday. Up until now, advertisers using Google AdWords have been banned from using the brand names of their competitors in their adverts; now they can.

This has spawned all sorts of suggestions as to how businesses might capitalise on the change. One example I read was if you are Sainsbury, you can now use the word Tesco in your online advertising with Google. Fine; but what value does it bring you.

Let's take a look at some statistics. Wordtracker tells us that every 24 hours just over 1,200 people type in the word "Tesco" and a mere 500 or so type in "Sainsbury" or "Sainsburys". More...