I was watching Harry Hill’s TV Burp on Sunday afternoon and it was whilst he was refereeing a fight between a “commercially available instant noodle product and River Cottage’s immediate noodle pot based item” that a rather random thought occurred to me.

What would happen if online marketing was to have a fight with offline marketing? Which one would win? Which one is more effective? Well for me it’s easy. Though I love the more traditional offline forms of marketing I think there is only one winner… and it’s online all the way.

So what am I basing this view on?  Why do I think online marketing is the heavyweight powerhouse of the marketing mix?  Well, my view is very much dictated by four key factors.

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As forward thinking marketers it is one of our many jobs to seek windows of opportunities, for our clients. We actively seek new ideas and ways, in which brands can be brought into the fore front of customers minds. For our account team, staying ahead of the game for our client, Swinton Insurance, certainly paid off last week.

Working alongside the personal lines marketing team we are always actively looking for what I like to call “windows of opportunities” to push client boundaries and expectations of our agency and ultimately to reach into consumers’ minds.

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Small is beautiful. Following on from Julian’s theme of little ideas that can be hugely impactful, one of my favourite street artists, the anonymous Slinkachu, fits neatly into this category.

His on-going microscopic street art project, ‘Little People in the City’, is utterly charming in terms of minimal representation of the human condition. Basically, he custom-designs miniature models from train sets and makes them over with modelling clay hoods etc, plus a few props. After putting them in their own real life scenario, interacting with subjects from Big Ben to bird poo, he then leaves his painted creations to fend for themselves in big bad cities. Poor little people. But not before documenting snapshot evidence of their short-lived existence; i.e. until the street-sweeper swish them away. There’s loads of photos on his website and in book, which is delightful. In fact, it was the most interesting artifact I found in the St Ives Tate Gallery at first visit.

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I consider myself to be pretty lucky. My parents have a home in the South of France that I get to visit at least once every summer. I get to chill in the sun reading a good book, drink lots of local wine and sample the great cuisine. I call it my rehab time.

It takes less than 2 hours for me to get to my parents’ place. Cheap air fares and easy access to flights has made the world feel very small indeed. Yet it always amazes me just how different everything feels when I get there. Not least in terms of the advertising. Read more…

There’s been a lot of talk recently about Spain’s sophisticated brand of ‘tip tappy’ football.  But, let’s be honest, it’s not proper football is it!  Last night’s game was all about just that; ‘proper football’.

Prior to the match Account Handling held their first ever tactical team chat where Adrian outlined his three point plan to defeat the ‘evil’ creative department.  Leigh and I actually thought this would consist of taking Lee, Stuart and Keithy P out of the game, but in actual fact they were rather sensible strategic suggestions.  I won’t give too much away but point 3 was asking Leigh not to “shoot at the goal”, but instead to pass the ball to the more “skilled” members of the team.   Classic!

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Ok, I’ll be honest with you. Spending an evening in a bar surrounded by ad-industry types while some bloke dressed as a kitten gives a talk is pretty much not high on my ‘fun things to do on a Tuesday evening list’. But the promise of meeting some advertising-types who have a passion for the web kind peaked my interest when Rubber Republic invited me to attend the first KittenCamp in Manchester.

KittenCamp is a monthly meet-up for web-loving ad industry type people to chat memes and drink beer. Why is it called KittenCamp? Well I made the guess that because meme rhymes with creme that’s how the name came about. Sadly after chatting with Chris Quigley, from KittenCamp organisers Rubber Republic, I found out that actually KittenCamp is just the result of a brainstorm in a pub over a few beers.

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Our client Swinton has over a million customers for which they have an email address and we had been working with them for a few months on some of their product focused emails.  We knew that there was much more they could be doing with email marketing and wanted to push the boundaries for them.  Our triggered email activity was first discussed in January when we received a nice timely email from Pizza Express offering BOGOF on all pizzas to celebrate the fact that the snow was finally melting and people were now able to get out to eat again. This triggered our own thoughts – “Wouldn’t it be great if our Swinton emails could be a bit more timely and relevant and well…. interesting really!”

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I’ll admit it to you all… I love Star Wars. And I’d love to have the powers of a Jedi. If I did, I’d use my Jedi mind-trick powers to stop unwanted ad clicks. Or better, I’d use my mind-tricks on an imperial storm trooper and get him to tell people to move along.

Ah well a man can dream… a man can dream.

Google does have a few tools, however, that we can use to help us direct our PPC ads at the people we want to see them and hopefully by-pass the ‘looky loo’s’, saving us money and improving our return on investment.

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Over the course of the last two years I have been involved in several conversations regarding what we should do with dormant or unresponsive email subscribers.  These conversations have always been rather enjoyable due to the complex nature of the issue.

One side of the argument has always been that once an email address has been dormant or unresponsive for 6 to 12 months then it is quite right to remove the address from the email file but I tend to sit on the opposite side of the fence.

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We have been producing a monthly e-newsletter for our home shopping client Freemans for a few years and it’s called the “Style Bible”. The purpose of the newsletter is to position the brand as a fashion expert and to give the customer value added content in the form of videos and advice. It also needs to look different to the rest of the email plan (whilst retaining Freemans branding) so that a customer recognises it and looks forward to receiving it. At the beginning of the year we decided to revisit these aims and decided it was time for a re-design.

I was delighted to be put in charge of this and have really enjoyed the challenge. We have updated the look of the newsletter to make it look fresher and feel more like an editorial magazine. Each month I work with both Freemans and the Red C studio to produce a Style Bible that is jam-packed with news about the latest fashion trends and bodyshape advice. Getting under the skin of the customer is important when it comes to briefing and as someone who is interested in fashion; it’s definitely enjoyable because I get to research the latest looks and trends!

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