I’ve got a confession to make.  I’m a PPC turncoat!

I’ve changed sides in the last 12 months on one of the most controversial issues in PPC marketing.  It’s a debate that’s generated a lot of virtual column inches in the search engine forums, and I’ve done a complete u-turn during 2010.  The issue is whether you should be bidding on your own branded terms, and I can recall throughout 2009 passionately arguing that clients shouldn’t pay for clicks that they would get anyway – for free – through being number one in the organic listings.  They would simply be cannibalising their own natural search traffic.

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According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), illegal downloading of music is solely responsible for a 23% decrease in worldwide sales of music CDs between 2000 and 2006. And in 2008, music sales fell from 449.2 million in 2007 to 360.6 million in 2008, according to Nielsen Co.’s SoundScan service.

It will come as no surprise then that people’s attitudes towards illegally downloading music have changed dramatically in the last few years. Researchers in the UK from the Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property (SABIP) found that 1.3m people used one file-sharing network on one weekday, from that they estimated that over one year these downloaders would have free access to material worth £12bn. And there is no sign of attitudes changing towards illegally downloading music.

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Sometimes I have to pinch myself about how lucky I am to do a job that has so many varied and fun aspects to it and get paid for doing them all in the name of Red C’s mantra of ‘getting under the skin’.

Wandering around the Grand Designs Live Show at the NEC last week was one of those times. Once we had negotiated the car park that was as far away from the venue as it was possible to be; the courtesy bus scrum and the entrance and coffee bar scrums I observed as much to my colleague, Rachael.

In my too many to mention years working in marketing I have worked in call centres, on shop floors, in a betting shop  and been out with delivery drivers in their vans all in a days work but this was a teeny bit more glamorous.

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Integrated agency Red C has won a three-way pitch to expand the role of online marketing for AGA Rangemaster Group, which celebrates the 300^th anniversary of its foundry this year.  The agency has been appointed to work on a number of brands including AGA, Fired Earth, Divertimenti, Falcon, Rayburn, Rangemaster and newly acquired Mercury.

“Each brand represented a very different challenge,” explained Red C Managing Director Adrian Rowe.  “For example, AGA already has a strong social media presence thanks to its passionate customer base and iconic status, whereas Falcon, which benefits from a strong commercial heritage, is aiming to raise its profile with those with a passion for cooking.”  The agency recommended a different blend of PPC, search engine optimisation, social media marketing and e-mail programmes for each brand.

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