Say Google to almost anyone and they’ll know what you mean.OK, so great grandma Ruby may look at you vacantly, but that’s about it.Google has become synonymous with the web and the term ‘google it’ is now an everyday phrase.Google became the No. 1 brand in the world in 2007, according to Millward Brown Brandz Top 100.
But start to talk about the Google logo to someone and they will immediately have a favourite.A version of the logo which has stuck with them.They may have hovered over to see what it’s all about, clicked through to find out more or discussed it with colleagues and waxed lyrical about how clever it all is.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, how do I look in the Aqua Circle-Print Tube Dress? Oh it’s nice…but it’s not quite right…have you got it in red…and maybe one size up? Oh yes…that’s perfect. Now let me send this to my friends…girls look at me…what do you think? OMG they love it – I’ll take it…”
Coming soon to a high-street fitting room near you…welcome to the exciting world of Interactive Mirrors.
Interactive whatnow?
An Interactive Mirror is – as its name suggests – a mirror you can interact with. Basically, simply looking at your reflection is like so last year. Now you can actually manipulate it, using the mirror’s touch-screen surface to do everything from trying out new clothes and hairstyles, to giving yourself a tan.
On 28th May 2009, Google announced its grand vision for the future of internet communication. By harnessing the power of HTML 5 – the next major revision to the core language of the World Wide Web – Google is putting the final touches to a brand new “personal communication and collaboration tool” for a brand new era. It’s called Google Wave.
As a real-time communication platform, Google Wave combines email, instant messaging, web chat, wikis, social networking and project management (among other things) in one elegant, in-browser communication client. With a release scheduled in late 2009, it is already being hailed by some as the ‘next generation’ of email. Read more…
Here’s a question: how do you feel about Paris Hilton? Personally, I have nothing against the pointless, spoilt, insipid, undernourished, narcissistic, empty-headed, fame-hungry little brat… but I know others feel differently.
When Ms. Hilton was found guilty of drink driving in 2006, her PR team decided to harness the power of public outcry in a campaign to request her pardon. The Free Paris Hilton petition – which includes the incredible declaration “[Paris] provides beauty and excitement to our otherwise mundane lives” – received an impressive 33,000 signatures. Unfortunately, a counter petition requesting that the socialite serve her full sentence got over 91,000 signatures and was featured on several major news channels. Proof, if it were needed, that not everybody shares my innate capacity for forgiveness.
Good old Yellow Pages. They don’t just help with the nasty things in life, like a blocked drain – they’re there to help you understand about collaborative marketing too. See, collaborative marketing is the practice of unifying lots of brands from a similar sector under one big marketing umbrella… and it’s a practice that’s really starting to take off.
Bringing companies together Collaborative marketing, also called ‘horizontal’ or ‘fusion’ marketing, is the strategic alliance of two or more companies under a single marketing banner. In layman’s terms, it’s a case of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’. Read more…
Direct mail may still hold a slender lead as the most dominant form of Direct Marketing, but things are definitely changing. Recent technological developments are giving marketers more and more opportunities to get their message directly to their audience. In years to come both mobile marketing and social networking may be the most effective forms of Direct Marketing, but right now the biggest rival to the DM pack is undoubtedly email marketing.
The practice of contacting customers and prospects through email has really taken off in recent years. In fact, The Direct Marketing Association estimated that US firms alone spent over $400 million on email marketing in 2006 – and the technique has only grown in popularity since. The reason for this is simple… email marketing has a number of benefits over traditional DM and door drops.
How much of your day do you feel like you are constantly doing things but not achieving anything? We can all think of examples of where we seem to be wasting our time – sitting in road works on the way to work, filling in a report that no-one reads - but after attending a course on Applying Lean Methodologies from Process Management International (PMI) I learnt several tools on how to examine and change your processes to improve them. Whether it be putting work through the Creative Department or simply cooking dinner!
If you have ever commented on a blog post, web news article or Facebook group, you will probably have come into contact with trolls. They are the thoroughly irksome, pedantic and occasionally downright unsavoury individuals who post irrelevant, inflammatory and/or abusive remarks in message boards, often with the sole intent of disrupting on-topic conversation or undermining other forum users.
For the most part, trolls are accepted as just one of those irritations that happen online – like receiving those persistent emails about enlarging your penis, or unwittingly helping to prolong Rick Astley’s career – but for us marketing types trolls are more than just an annoyance. The simple truth is that these cyber-tosspots cost advertising agencies in the UK alone millions of pounds every year. Read more…
Success in marketing, and certainly direct marketing, depends on one factor above all others… reaching the right people with a timely and relevant message. And that’s why data, and certainly quality data, is valued so highly.
Ever since the introduction of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), where a company has tools to track and organise its contacts with its current and prospective customers, there has been talk of allowing the consumer to manage the data that companies hold about them.
You may have heard on the news reports or read in the newspapers that apparently we’re in the worst recession to hit these shores for 30 years. How very depressing. So how do we respond to a situation like this? Should we take shelter under the boardroom table and hide from this economically fragile world or should we down tools and hope to the heavens that we aren’t gobbled up by the doom and gloom that is the global credit crunch? No, of course not. We react. We plan. We implement. After all, in every situation there are losers and there are winners. Even in the darkest, deepest depression for 30 years.
Say Google to almost anyone and they’ll know what you mean. OK, so great grandma Ruby may look at you vacantly, but that’s about it. Google has become synonymous with the web and the term ‘google it’ is now an everyday phrase. Google became the No. 1 brand in the world in 2007, according to Millward Brown Brandz Top 100.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, how do I look in the Aqua Circle-Print Tube Dress? Oh it’s nice…but it’s not quite right…have you got it in red…and maybe one size up? Oh yes…that’s perfect. Now let me send this to my friends…girls look at me…what do you think? OMG they love it – I’ll take it…”
Here’s a question: how do you feel about Paris Hilton? Personally, I have nothing against the pointless, spoilt, insipid, undernourished, narcissistic, empty-headed, fame-hungry little brat… but I know others feel differently.
Good old Yellow Pages. They don’t just help with the nasty things in life, like a blocked drain – they’re there to help you understand about collaborative marketing too. See, collaborative marketing is the practice of unifying lots of brands from a similar sector under one big marketing umbrella… and it’s a practice that’s really starting to take off.
Direct mail may still hold a slender lead as the most dominant form of Direct Marketing, but things are definitely changing. Recent technological developments are giving marketers more and more opportunities to get their message directly to their audience. In years to come both mobile marketing and social networking may be the most effective forms of Direct Marketing, but right now the biggest rival to the DM pack is undoubtedly email marketing.
How much of your day do you feel like you are constantly doing things but not achieving anything? We can all think of examples of where we seem to be wasting our time – sitting in road works on the way to work, filling in a report that no-one reads - but after attending a course on Applying Lean Methodologies from 
If you have ever commented on a blog post, web news article or Facebook group, you will probably have come into contact with trolls. They are the thoroughly irksome, pedantic and occasionally downright unsavoury individuals who post irrelevant, inflammatory and/or abusive remarks in message boards, often with the sole intent of disrupting on-topic conversation or undermining other forum users.
Success in marketing, and certainly direct marketing, depends on one factor above all others… reaching the right people with a timely and relevant message. And that’s why data, and certainly quality data, is valued so highly.
