Peripheral vision is not something we normally think about when designing marketing media, but eye tracking has demonstrated how crucial it really is to their performance. The peripheral field of vision has a significant influence on eye movement and direction, and can be a decisive factor in encouraging readers to maintain engagement in marketing material. So now let’s take a closer look at how it all works and how we can capitalise on it to create more effective communications.

Our visual span broadly consists of three distinctive levels of perception. When you focus on an object you see it in every detail that your eye can distinguish (the fovea), but you will also notice everything in the background, only in gradually decreasing levels of detail towards the edges of your visual span (the parafovea and periphery).

The fovea is the smallest region and is typically used for activities that require high focus, such as reading. But this task would take forever if it weren’t for the parafovea (the area directly surrounding the fovea), which helps us to see the things in close proximity to what we’re already focusing on. It is this mechanism that allows us to read several words on a page rather than one at a time, drastically increasing our reading speed. It also helps us to identify objects in our environment to enhance our awareness, allowing us to focus on anything that catches our eye from the periphery. Read more…

Advertising agency self-promotion is a wily old beast. Being given carte blanche for a piece of new business dm may seem like a creatives’ dream, but anyone who’s ever had a crack at the perennial Christmas card brief knows that in order to give your agency standout, whatever you come up, no matter how pretty, needs to have some really solid thinking behind it.

And in our case, an injection of something a little bit weirder.

Of course, when I said ‘carte blanche’ I actually was referring to the new double-dip recession version which can be defined roughly as thus: ‘Do what you like, but don’t take the mick’. Fair enough. Blowing the cash for our Christmas party six months before the event wasn’t going to make us popular anyway, so the wooing of potential clients with a personalised Tom-Jones-a-gram was (sadly) out of the question.

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Email marketing is a great, cost-effective way of keeping up to date with your customers and, for most companies, it’s now a great way of increasing sales too. But what is the key to a good email marketing programme? Well, most will say that it’s to keep them timely and relevant. And what could be more timely or relevant than sending one of your customers an email on their birthday!

Birthday email programmes are becoming increasingly popular. Companies are starting to realise that, compared to a standard email, the open rate can be 228% higher and conversion rate 108% higher for a birthday email. But, surprisingly, a survey by Silverpop found that only 7 out of 10 companies use birthday emails and 3 in 4 don’t intend to start.

Due to the obvious potential that birthday emails offer, I have been reviewing them here at Red C and testing what makes them work best. Below are my findings…

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Twelve months ago I became a mum for the first time. Little did I know that I was also going to become a marketers dream… and discover a whole new marketing world of marketing to mums!

From the moment you discover you are pregnant, an entire new world opens up that you never previously knew existed. There are new areas of department stores that you have never ventured into and websites you have never visited.  And you suddenly get inundated with freebies – lots and lots of them. At no other time in your life do you have brands actually wanting to give you something for nothing!

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The Swinton Mystery Tipper campaign began in March 2008 with the objective of generating insurance leads for Swinton Taxi Division.  Not only did it smash this objective out of the park, but it also won several marketing awards including a DMA Gold in the Financial Services category.  So when we were tasked earlier this year with improving upon it we were a little apprehensive, but netherless we accepted the challenge withgusto and started to devise a bigger and better Mystery Tipper campaign….  but would the awards follow!?

A brief overview

For those of you who are not familiar.  The Mystery Tipper is a mysterious blonde decked out in a mac and trilby who travels across towns and cities in the UK, handing a £1,000 tip to a cabbie who has a ‘Mystery Tipper’ sticker in their cab. Cabbies get a sticker after requesting a taxi insurance quote from Swinton Taxi Division. Easy, effective and successful, The Mystery Tipper’s appeal is its simplicity. that and the lure of a big tip.

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It’s easy to get a bit disillusioned with award ceremonies. You head there with a nomination, hoping that this might be your year. Sometimes it is and you come back not just with the gong, but the respect of your peers too. But sometimes it’s not to be. And while it’s tempting to shrug your shoulders, pretend you’re not really bothered or that some terrible injustice has befallen you, actually it’s always better just to hold your hands up and say well done.

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We have a rule at Red C.  If you attend an event, seminar or conference you must share your learnings and experiences with your colleagues and clients via a blog article.   So here is my report on Day 1 of the ECMOD Direct Commerce Show.

Power Panel – Where is the growth?

Speakers; Aamir Ahmad, MD, Dwell; Gerald Dawson, CD, Long Tall Sally; Kevin Hague, Partner, M8; Joe Murray, Founder, Worldstores; Nigel Swabey, CEO, Scotts & Co; Nick Wheeler, Chairman, Charles Tyrwhitt

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Pot Noodle... it's what students live off you know!

It’s been a month since I completed my placement at Red C, and I’m back studying at university. I’m back into student life, which, in case you’re wondering, doesn’t just mean sitting around eating beans on toast and watching Doctors on daytime TV. But it does feel  strange as the reality of returning to university as a final year student is a far cry from what I imagined it to be. Whilst I’m sat in a stuffy lecture hall struggling not to fall asleep from the lecturer’s monotonous voice, making notes about theory models, I can’t help but think back to my time at Red C and think how different it was.

I find myself missing the hectic bustle of the office, the ringing phones, even having to check through all the email links. It’s then I realise just how much Red C has changed me, motivated me and inspired me. When I look around at the other students who didn’t complete a placement, I can’t help but feel they’ve missed out. I feel my time at Red C was invaluable in helping me develop and for setting me on course to achieve my goals in advertising.

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Direct marketing placement: On a recent holiday to Egypt I did an introductory scuba course. Probably not the best of ideas considering I’m terrified of deep water. However, the opportunity came about and my attitude is that you should always face your fears, especially when it allows you to learn something new.

So I went scuba diving, and guess what? I loved it! I was locked onto the instructors arm refusing to release the grip as the instructor pointed out all the beautiful species of fish and coral to me. It truly was a fantastic experience which, even though I was terrified, I am glad my fears didn’t make me miss out.

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Why hate junk mail? Last night I was looking forward to settling down in front of the TV to watch a rather interesting debate on the subject of direct mail.  I was expecting a well balanced argument from respected Panorama reporter Tom Heap looking at the pros and cons of the industry.  What I got was anything but balanced.  I haven’t seen such a one-sided fight since, well it was Saturday night actually….  broken toe?  Come off it David Haye, you can do better than that.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised given the title Why hate junk mail? but Mr Heap’s argument was not only unbalanced but incredibly naive, not to mention inaccurate.  I also found it incredibly distasteful and dis-respectful to the direct mail industry to tackle the subject of ‘Scam mail’ in the same programme.

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