When I was a kid growing up in Bradford I had one very memorable trip home from school that involved walking right through the middle of a riot. You see, some dude called Salman Rushdie had put pen to paper and written something called the Satanic Verses… and quite a few people were very unhappy that it was being sold in our city (which has a high Muslim population), so unhappy in fact that they decided to smash up the centre of Bradford.

History is littered with groups of people turning to violence, or drastic action, to both highlight their anger at something or demand change within society. From the Suffragettes burning their bras to the student protests in the US against the Vietnam War to more recent G20 protests around the world.

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Unless you have been living in a dark room with no access to any type of media, social networks or office gossip you’ll probably be aware of the recent super injunction scandal concerning a certain footballer’s indiscretions.

In early April, a story about serial WAG, Imogen Thomas’ six-month affair with a footballer famous for his ‘family-man’ image was leaked via Twitter. Ordinarily a story about yet another footballer having yet another affair with a glamour model would barely raise an eyebrow, so why did this one cause such a stir?

Because the footballer in question had a taken out a super injunction – the highest level of legal gagging order – to ensure Ms Thomas kept her mouth shut and his identity was kept well and truly out of the public domain. This led to a bizarre situation where the national press were legally prohibited from printing the player’s name but social media networks buzzed with speculation. Within days a Twitter user had revealed all: the mystery man was none other than ‘squeaky-clean’ Manchester United star, Ryan Giggs.

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The last time a future King got married I was only seven years old, and to be honest I was probably too busy playing with my X-Wing to care about watching some stupid wedding. However, 750 million people apparently didn’t think it was stupid and tuned in on their TV sets to watch Charles and Diana walk down the aisle.

I’ll be honest with you; this whole marriage of William and Kate isn’t something that I’ll be tuning in to watch on the TV. But having discovered how much effort is going into the social media activity for the wedding, I will be taking a look at how things run on the big day… purely out of professional curiosity.

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Comic Relief is arguably the highlight of charitable TV marathons in the UK, and has been since its inception in 1985. Originally, fundraising for the event was focused around buying red noses and getting sponsored for sitting in a bath of beans.  But that was then and now things are done a little differently. Despite the financial pressures of a recovering economy affecting everyone, this year’s total broke all previous records. Were the British public particularly eager to part with their cash? Or could social media have played a part in helping them reach such a grand total?

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As marketers we don’t expect things to stand still. We’re always searching for new trends and ready to try new channels and methods to get our client’s brands out to the consumer market.

Facebook is one of those channels that doesn’t stay still for long. 2010 saw the launch of Facebook Places. Now not far into 2011 and we’ve already seen the launch of Facebook Deals, with the likes of Debenhams, Starbucks and Mazda all jumping straight on the bandwagon. But I think one thing every marketer should be keeping a close eye on over the coming months is the new Facebook Messages.

There has been much speculation since Mark Zuckerburg announced his plans in November 2010, both as to what this means for Facebook users and more importantly for us, how it is going to affect the way we market to them. Some think it won’t make much difference, yet others are heralding it as ‘the end of email’. Whatever your personal opinion or business agenda, it is now gradually being rolled out to all Facebook users, and a few of us at Red C have been testing it out.

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Facebook, Twitter and YouTube… not what first springs to mind when you think about politics. But over the last few years, more and more politicians have started using the internet as a tool to drum up political support.

When the Presidential elections in the US got under way in 2008, Democratic candidate Barack Obama used the internet to great effect to raise funds and gain supporters in his race to be President. His success has seen UK politicians follow suit and with the current general election, UK political parties have been pushing their online activities more than ever. Below are some examples of what they’ve been up to:

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Last year, like many brands and organisations, London Fashion Week flirted with Social Media by having event details, links to stories and comments posted on Twitter and Facebook… so far so very 2009!

This year, though, sees London Fashion Week take a great leap forward by embracing even more Social Media technologies and making London Fashion Week open to the masses rather than the privileged few… and they’ve done it in some predictable and also some surprising ways.

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We’re extremely proud of our work on the Swinton Mystery Tipper, especially as it has garnered the agency an armful of awards from two DMA Awards to two ISP Awards and two IPA Effectiveness Awards. We’ve had quite a few people ask to see our winning entry form… so here it is!

CONTEXT AND MARKET BACKGROUND

The insurance sector is a complex and increasingly challenging marketplace. For most of us, insurance has always been a distress purchase – something we grudgingly concede we need to have, and resent the increasing premiums. Three key innovations in the last decade have had a significant impact on the broader market. The launch of Direct Line’s online insurance offer, in 1999, following the formula of its breakthrough approach to offering insurance by telephone a decade earlier, forced every insurer and broker to reassess their approach – here was a company that made buying insurance simple and fuss-free, cutting out the middle man and talking everyday language. This sparked an extended period of discounting in the sector that still has ramifications today.

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I love shopping online. I can do it from the comfort of my home, not having to rush from shop to shop and then back to the first shop again, deal with fitting room queues or worry about buying something before closing time. If I have something in particular in mind then it’s also great being able to search for it with the whole internet at my fingertips and specify what price, colour or brand I want. And I’m not the only one! According to Nielsen over 875 million of us have shopped online, with that number increasing 40% from two years ago. And despite falls in sales on the high-street, online shopping has seen a 13% rise on 2008 with the most popular purchases being Books, Clothing & Accessories, DVDs & Games, Tickets and Electronic Equipment.

But shopping online can sometimes be a bit solitary. It doesn’t replace going shopping on the high street with your friends and picking out clothes together and it doesn’t replace the buzz you get from having loads of shopping bags full of new things that you can’t wait to try on again at home. So that’s why online shopping had to evolve into something more visually and socially appealing. And with the boom in social networking sites and niche communities social shopping was born.  OSOYOU was one of the first online shopping communities and was launched in 2007. It acts as an aggregator of fashion and beauty products with 49 of the top retailers on there. But shoppers can also create their own profile, chat with each other in forums and drag products into their own “style file” to show off their most wanted items.

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So, there you are having a little shopping trip in town by yourself when all of a sudden your phone bleeps! Instead of a text message or a voicemail or even a new email… this bleep is a notification of a different kind.

It’s a friend who has been alerted by their MoSoSo App that you’re in the vivcinity and they suggest meeting for a drink. Or they may not be in the area, but they have checked their MoSoSo app and seen where you are, so suggest you take a look in a certain shop. Sound scary? Well this is just one of the ways MoSoSo Apps are being used by people…

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