You know when you were little and you went to your Grandparent’s house and listened for hours about what life was like, ‘in their day’? They used tin baths, outside loos and they didn’t have a telly. It sounded alien, especially the telly bit. I used to spend hours wondering just what they did to fill their time. Well, I suppose families were bigger back then.
It never occurred to me that stories I tell to my kids would make me appear just as archaic. I’m only 35, but it’s happened already. I was telling my 6 year old the story about how we didn’t have a telephone in our house when we were growing up. There was a phone booth at the end of the street that took 2 pence pieces and I used to organise my teenage social life from there. It would ring out and either be picked up by me at a pre-arranged time or by a local kid playing out. If it was the latter there would be a knock at the door of number 7, where I lived or a shout up at my bedroom window, “Helen, someone’s rung for you, it’s Louise.” I would put my shoes on and run down to the phone and spend hours racking up Louise’s Dad’s telephone bill.
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.
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.
Linkedin is often referred to as the business equivalent to Facebook but through the power of web 2.0 technology Linkedin makes it easier for users to do much more than just catch up with old colleagues! The power of this social networking site can often be underestimated. Linkedin has created an online network of more than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries.
You may have seen the requests arrive in your outlook inbox, along the lines of “Bob Smith wants to add you to his network on LinkedIn” , you recognise Bob, you once worked with him and so you click “accept “and without realising it you have a profile space on Linkedin.
31, Single, loves playing on his Xbox and motorbikes, Swinton Steve is certainly developing his own fan base within our office… especially amongst the girls! So it’s a good job then that Swinton Steve has been created to introduce some personality to a series of monthly relationship building e-newsletters.
Once known as ‘the man with the big glasses’, he’s now been reborn as Swinton Steve. Coincidentally, Steve is also the name of the Account Director who works on Swinton at Red C. And if you’ve ever met Red C’s Steve… we’re sure you’ll agree the likeness between him and this animated character is uncanny!
Believe it or not, Mahatma Gandhi is a bit of a hero of mine. I forget how many times I’ve said to people “Be the change you want to see in the world”… which I always confess is stolen from the great man himself.
One of the lovely things about Social Networking is how it has galvanised people into creating interest groups with the aim of creating change in the world. A quick search on Facebook under Darfur reveals one kind fellow promising to give $1 to every 1,0000 people who join his Facebook group.
Although such campaigns have the best intentions, you never really get to see whether they have worked or not, mainly because these groups have such lofty ambitions. There are, however, Social Networking sites out there that have a better plan… a plan that involves changing the world one small piece at a time.
“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…
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 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 know when you were little and you went to your Grandparent’s house and listened for hours about what life was like, ‘in their day’? They used tin baths, outside loos and they didn’t have a telly. It sounded alien, especially the telly bit. I used to spend hours wondering just what they did to fill their time. Well, I suppose families were bigger back then.
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!
Linkedin is often referred to as the business equivalent to Facebook but through the power of web 2.0 technology Linkedin makes it easier for users to do much more than just catch up with old colleagues! The power of this social networking site can often be underestimated. Linkedin has created an online network of more than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries.
Believe it or not, Mahatma Gandhi is a bit of a hero of mine. I forget how many times I’ve said to people “Be the change you want to see in the world”… which I always confess is stolen from the great man himself.
“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…”
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.
