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…

When it comes to social media campaigns that catch the eye and tickle creative sensibilities, we’ve been spoilt for choice in 2012. In addition to innovative campaigns like Blu Dot’s ‘Musical Chairs’ or seamlessly integrated above-the-line and digital campaigns like Walkers’ ‘What’s That Flavour?’, there have been technological advances too. We’ve seen the introduction of Shazam in TV ads from Cadbury and Argos – the former using a track to entice the social-media-savvy Britain’s Got Talent crowd to enter their online competition, the latter using the app to cement their new market positioning as a digital retailer. We’ve even seen some head-turning Pinterest campaigns, notably from BMI, Guess Jeans and UNICEF. In short, 2012 has been a virtual smorgasboard of social media delights. Here are three tasty picks for you to savour… Read more…

It’s YouTube marketing, but not as we know it. I’m not talking about those annoying ads at the start of videos, whose “You can skip to video in 5 seconds” button we can’t help but hammer-click until it finally takes us to what we really want to watch. Or even ad banners, video adverts or viral videos. This YouTube marketing is more a type of product placement, or even celebrity endorsement, where YouTubers (people who film themselves and upload videos to YouTube) recommend everything from mascara to coconut water to their impressionable followers.

Making you beautiful

The most popular genre of YouTube endorsement is beauty videos from self-styled “beauty gurus”. These beauty gurus, some of whom attract hundreds of thousands of followers, film and upload various types of help videos to their ‘vlog’ channels. These vlogs include a wide range of beauty and fashion topics including tips on makeup for different occasions, nail and hair tutorials to OOTD (outfit of the day) videos, product reviews and clothes hauls. Some even post vlogs and TAG (question and answer) videos, which allow the viewer to get even closer to the YouTuber. By getting an insight into a day in their personal life of these beauty gurus, a virtual relationship is fostered between vlogger and subscriber – creating the perfect conditions for successful product endorsement.

Read more…

Not so long ago O2 had a catastrophe on their hands. Their network crashed, leaving hundreds of thousands of O2 customers unable to use their mobile phones.

Customers were outraged, and they took to Twitter to tell O2 exactly how they felt. As you can imagine, it wasn’t pretty. Insults were thrown and expletives were used, and this went on for two days before the network was fully up and running again.

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.

Read more…

Recently I had a quite splendid weekend. Not only did I spend most of it in my comfy pants, but I spent it watching hour after hour of simply amazing sporting action. The Cricket World Cup, Arsenal v Chelsea, Manchester United v Spurs (my team) and the 39th Ryder Cup… I was literally in my element! My Mrs wasn’t overjoyed but Strictly Come Dancing is back on very shortly, so she will undoubtedly have her revenge!

What makes sports so blooming marvellous is its unpredictability. Its ability to shock and surprise and this is exactly what this weekend was all about.

Read more…

The eCommerce Expo is THE industry event for ecommerce professionals in the North West of England, with over 35 exhibiting companies and a range of educational seminars to attend. Red C’s Emma Beagrie and Angela Cromack went along to find out more.

How web search influences website expectations

I was relieved to have arrived early and was at the front of the queue for the first seminar from Ed Hoffman from SLI systems.

This was a really interesting presentation about how search engines such as Google are raising the expectations for how consumers want to search when they land on your website. 40% of people go to the search function first on a website, so it’s vital that they are able to find what they’re looking for. Due to how people search on SE’s they expect that search functions on websites should work in the same way. Some top tips included:

Read more…

Been to the shops lately? Take a trip and you’ll notice that things aren’t quite as you’d expect them to be. Lots and lots of famous brands have gone all patriotic on us, casting aside their brand guidelines in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee.

From product packaging being splashed with old Blighty’s red, white and blue to complete product name changes, it seems every brand is jumping on the jubilee bandwagon this summer. The burning question is, who’s done Britain proud and tied their brand to this very special occasion with diligence and honour and who has the potential of being sent to The Tower? Here’s a look at some of the best and worst cases.

Read more…

Here’s a question for you: how do you contact people? Using your mobile phone? Facebook? Twitter? Skype? Today we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing how we correspond with others. However, I believe there’s one form of communication that’s far superior to any other, and it’s the traditional letter.

The pen is still mightier than the hashtag

Don’t get me wrong; I like my iPhone and the whole social network thing as much as the next person. But the traditional letter still stands out as the more thoughtful and personal way to communicate with others. Writing one takes time, effort and planning, and that’s what gives them their value and makes them so much more pleasing to receive than a quick Facebook update.

Read more…

It seems a day doesn’t go by without us being told about the ‘new facebook’ or the ‘next twitter’. Just as we find our way around the mechanics and etiquette of one social media site, we are presented with another. And unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few months, you’ll certainly have heard about the latest social media site to cause a stir – Pinterest.

So what’s it all about?

The concept is simple. Pinterest is essentially a bookmarking tool, a kind of virtual online pin-board.  It lets you ‘pin’ images or videos that you find on the web and group them into areas of interest, called boards. Images on your boards can be ‘re-pinned’ by other people, who ‘follow’ you just like on Twitter.

Read more…