2013 is truly the year of the mobile
Posted by Leanne on June, 7th 2013In recent years there’s been a major shift in the marketing arena—the shift from desktop to mobile. The last few months in particular have seen enormous growth in the sector with the entire landscape having changed in a relatively short space of time, and if you thought 2012 was big for mobile you haven’t seen anything yet! The first half of 2013 has witnessed even more growth with brands increasingly using this channel to target consumers, and it seems to be working—more and more of them now choose to shop through their mobile devices with 2012 being a flagship year, and if current trends continue things are set to get even bigger.
Let’s look at the facts. Over Christmas 2012 the levels
Read moreIs all publicity good publicity?
Posted by Leanne on May, 24th 2013There was once a time when any publicity was thought to be good for business. Even negative media coverage got a brand noticed and it was usually pretty easy to start the PR machine and get things back on track, but these days that’s no longer the case. The transparent and immediate nature of today’s online society means brands need to be careful—if they miss the mark the negative publicity can quickly spiral out of control, and if that happens even the savviest of marketers can find it difficult to put things right.
That means brands are becoming increasingly reluctant to take risks, particularly in the advertising sphere. Once upon a time a single ad campaign could rarely damage a brand which meant marketers were more open to
Read moreHow to make your press release work for you
Posted by charley on April, 19th 2013Press releases are a core part of any marketing campaign, having the power to get the attention you need for the sales you want. But, you need to spend time making sure your release is up to scratch—unless it hits the right notes it won’t generate the level of interest you’re after and the whole exercise will have been pointless, so we’ve put together a few tips that can ensure your press release will work for you and your business.
Make sure you’ve got something to say. Sending out a press release for the sake of it will do you no favours and could actually annoy the journalists you’re sending it out to, so don’t think that every event is newsworthy—a press release needs to have a distinct topic and there
Dealing with a PR crisis
Posted by charley on April, 5th 2013A lot of brands suffer from negative publicity from time to time, but the key to recovery is how they deal with such a crisis. In the PR world it’s all about developing an effective crisis communications strategy in order to overcome negative perceptions and get back on track, and there are three key areas you need to focus on so you can ensure that.
1. KNOWLEDGE. You need to give consumers sufficient knowledge of the issue as well as detailing ways you intend to rectify the situation, taking away speculation so the rumour mill can’t get going. People will often fill in gaps of knowledge with their own suspicions, but if you focus on the facts the word of mouth response should be much
Read moreEngagement key to the new season of F1 sponsorship
Posted by charley on March, 18th 2013Formula One season is upon us, and the start of a new season means advertisers have been ramping up their activity to get people at their most receptive. There’s been a wave of new sponsorship deals over the last few months with the likes of Rolex, UPS and Coca Cola all getting on board, and it seems the strategy for 2013 has changed—now, it’s all about engagement.
And they’re all getting in on the action. Coca Cola’s drinks brand Burn (one of the new Lotus team sponsors) started the season with a bang—before the season officially kicked off last weekend they used Twitter to encourage fans to tweet questions to Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean, whilst also taking to Flickr and Facebook to promote a teaser trailer shot by Ridley Scott. Sky Sports F1, meanwhile, is focusing on using brand advocates to promote its services and is launching a
Read moreMake the most of Facebook marketing
Posted by charley on March, 6th 2013If you haven’t started to reap the benefits of Facebook marketing yet, it’s high time you took the plunge—it’s becoming an increasingly viable channel and if done well can lead to fantastic results, being a chance to really engage with your audience and get them interested in what you’ve got to say. But, do it wrong and it could end up being a PR disaster, so it’s important you do everything you can to successfully develop your strategy and make the most of this form of marketing.
The first thing you need to do is make sure you’ve got a page that perfectly reflects your brand, and this applies to the images you use as well as the language. It’s all about familiarity and instilling trust, because if your audience recognises your brand and feels comfortable in who they’re dealing with they’ll be far more receptive. You’ll want to
Read moreReal-time data the way forward for BlackBerry
Posted by charley on February, 27th 2013BlackBerry is stepping up its marketing campaign after the launch of its BB10 operating system, and real-time marketing is leading the way. Live conversations and analytics are being used to fuel their digital and advertising strategies, just showing how important real-time data is becoming in the marketing sphere.
The company is focused on becoming more “customer centric” with real-time data being used to monitor its marketing activity across online channels as well as TV and in-store, using the information gleaned to improve decision making and ultimately change the direction of the campaign. It’s a very fluid construct and offers a stark change to their normal method of communicating—BB executives have even admitted that the company has never been that good at communicating their message via 30-second TV slots or billboards, but this
Read morePut emotion before reason in green marketing
Posted by charley on February, 26th 2013In marketing, emotion counts for a lot. You need to really engage with your audience and give them a reason to listen to your message, and whilst reason and logic will always be involved they’re not the be all and end all. This is particularly the case in the environmental arena—green marketing arguably requires more emphasis on emotion than any other sector to ensure the message resonates on a more personal level, so it’s important to put this aspect first in any campaign.
You might think that logical arguments would hit home a lot more in this kind of industry, but actually, this isn’t always the case. Emotion works—it’s that simple, with it being all about psychology and how you portray your ideas to deliver the level of awareness necessary. Logical arguments
Read moreAn insight into the mobile habits of Twitter users
Posted by admin on February, 20th 2013Creating a solid marketing campaign all comes down to knowing your audience and understanding when they’ll be the most receptive. That’s why data is key. Utilising consumer data allows us to target our campaigns to stand the best possible chance of delivering the necessary impact, and with social media and mobile use being such core parts of many people’s daily lives this is an area that deserves special attention. Luckily, new research has given us an insight into the mobile habits of Twitter users, and the data generated could be put to exceptional use in marketing campaigns.
Twitter has helpfully published a study to give advertisers a better understanding of the habits of its primary mobile audience,
Read moreGive it up for Lent
Posted by admin on February, 18th 2013Whilst many give up chocolate and sweet indulgences for Lent, Nestlé and Cadbury battle it out in the temptation field as Easter draws nearer with their new novelty products. With a 5.5% year-on-year slump in sales of traditional shell eggs last Easter according to Kantar Worldpanel, this year sees both companies striving to add an extra USP to their seasonal product range. We ask how their different marketing strategies could result in possible damages to Nestlé, or how they in fact work together from opposing sides of the apparent battlefield to ensure steady sales for both.
It has been a long run for Cadburys since the beginning of January. Their heavy advertising of the Cadbury Creme Egg deserves a congratulations, not only for achieving early wide-spread coverage of the