Blog

What does it mean to do business in a truly social economy? More importantly, what does it take to succeed?

These are two questions at the forefront of any modern marketer’s mind, although the answers are slightly harder to come by. Thankfully, this month we’re hosting our very own seminar on the subject so you can really get to grips with your place as part of ‘The Networked Economy’.

Taking place at The Hospital Club in Central London on the morning of Friday 25th May, our planning director Ronnie Crosbie will be taking guests on a whistle-stop tour through three of the most influential marketing texts of recent times – Alan Moore’s ‘No Straight Lines’, Joseph Pine & Kim Korn’s ‘Infinite Possibility’ and Alex Bogusky & John Windsor’s ‘Baked In’.

Using these texts as a foundation, Ronnie will look at how advances in social, mobile and digital technology have rewritten the landscape of the modern marketplace, returning us to an economy in which word-of-mouth, personal recommendation and social communication are once again the keys to brand success.

The talk runs from 8.30am – 10am. Attendance is entirely free, however places are limited.

To reserve your seat, send us an email with the details of how many places you would like and which company they are for.

We look forward to seeing you there.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of ‘FoodBeats‘, an online music tool for Lurpak® in partnership with Last.fm, generating and streaming recipe-based playlists for food lovers.

FoodBeats uses Last.fm’s unique scrobbling technology to provide users with music recommendations to fit with what they’re cooking up in the kitchen.

Dan Rutherford, our Creative Strategy Director, explains: “The inspiration for FoodBeats came about whilst discussing how contemporary foodies connect with their laptops in the kitchen environment to seek recipe inspiration, tips and advice, whilst listening to their favourite music. We were excited to act on this insight by developing a tool that links the food and music worlds in an innovative, useful way. Ultimately, FoodBeats provides new music and recipe inspiration in one place, further enhancing the modern kitchen environment.”

By partnering with Last.fm, Lurpak® will deliver food fans with specially selected songs to provide the perfect soundtrack to their cooking. So, for example, anyone cooking sausage and mash might be served up a playlist of 90’s Britpop.

We also partnered with recipe network, Foodily, to further enhance the campaign’s foodie credentials by suggesting recipes for complementary dishes and serving up connoisseur tips like adding a touch of chocolate to a chilli con carne.

It’s generally accepted that social media changes the way organisations interact with their customers, but without the right expertise it’s not always obvious how to make the most of this.

How exactly should a company go about dealing with its customer base in an environment that is, by its very nature, public and intended for sharing? What is the best way to go about rewarding loyal fans, and what areas need to be addressed in the event of a crisis?

These are all tricky questions, and ones that are vital to get right if your organisation is to succeed in the social media universe. Thankfully, finding out the answers needn’t be a stab in the dark.

On 29^th March, our director Lloyd Salmons will be speaking at The Social Customer 2012 – the UK’s leading conference on social customer engagement. Appearing alongside British Gas Social Media Manager Laura Price, Lloyd will be discussing the best ways for large companies to tackle the issues of customer service, digital marketing and social CRM in the modern digital era, and you’re all invited to come and join the party (and by party, we mean interesting and informative e-business conference).

The event is being hosted by renowned social media consultancy blog Our Social Times, and takes place from 9am – 5pm at Prospero House, London, SE1 1GA. Also speaking on the day will be representatives from BT, Citibank, M&S and CapGemini, among others, making this a great day of talks that’s sure to bring a new insight into the online workings of some of the UK’s largest companies.

To see the full program of talks or to book tickets, head over to the event’s official website.

We’ll see you down the front.

Our news highlights from the past few weeks.

Facebook Timelines

Facebook introduced timelines for brands, bringing brand pages in line with individual user profiles following the recent design changes.  Timelines give brands a more visually impactful page with the addition of a ‘Page Cover’ banner, and provide some new features such as the ability to ‘pin’ a post to the top of the page. There’s also a new customer service feature that can be activated, allowing users to talk privately and directly with brands.

Timelines give brands the opportunity to tell the story of their history, filling in important milestones in their development and business. Visitors can scroll back through time to see these key events, be it the year they were founded or a previous advertising campaign.

Many brands are already using Timelines which become mandatory from 30th March. Our own clients, Lurpak and Glenrothes have made an early start, showcasing their current above the line campaigns and heritage.

Explore further at https://www.facebook.com/TheGlenrothes and https://www.facebook.com/LurpakButter

Absolut x Instagram

Alcohol brand Absolut recently launched a promotion using iPhone photography app Instagram. The competition gives participants the chance to win a limited edition bottle of Absolut designed by renowned artist Jamie Hewlett. Entrants take a photo of something that sums up London’s great features, adding an #absolutlondon hashtag.

The ever popular app is a great way for brands to tap into the creativity of their audiences, generating lots of branded assets in the process.

Find out more at http://www.ukstreetart.co.uk/absolut-london-instagram-competition/

Prepare for Pinterest

The buzz tool everyone in the digital sector’s talking about at the moment is Pinterest, a platform that allows users to compile a virtual scrapbook of pictures, ranging from products they like to things that inspire them, and everything in between. Many brands are already jumping on board, seeing it as a great way to give a visual representation of their positioning.

During London Fashion Week, Harrods created a Burberry board, inviting their audience to like or ‘pin’ clothing items that they most wanted to see the store sell. The most popular item then hit the shelves.

Take a look at http://pinterest.com/source/harrods.com/

London Fashion Week

On the topic of London Fashion Week, it was great to see some brilliant examples of brands using technology to various degrees. From rechargeable handbags for smart phones to live Twitter streams and video broadcasts, the week’s events set the mark for the digital teams of its international equivalents.

Take a look at http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/technology/lfw-goes-tech-in-2012

Cereal Tweeting

Breakfast giants Kellogg’s recently showed how extensive and reactionary their buzz monitoring is. Rock star Tim Burgess tweeted to say that he’d come up with a name for a new cereal and joked that he was available if Kellogg’s were interested. Shortly after, the brand created a one-off limited edition box of cereal based on Burgess’ idea which he went on to tweet a photo of, gaining lots of coverage across the marketing and music press.

Read more at http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/kellogg-creates-totes-amazeballs-cereal-response-single-tweet-138447

Female Behaviour Online

Last week, our very own Lloyd and Ronnie took to the pages of the Guardian online to talk about differences in the behaviours of men and women online and how the sexes respond differently to certain types of communications.

Have a read over at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media-network/media-network-blog/2012/mar/02/female-species-more-digital-male

Google+ Search results and SEO implications

Search king Google this month launched ‘Search Plus Your World’ where people logged in to their Google account and searching the internet see relevant content from their contacts on its social network Google+ as well as the wider web. Seen by many as a move to compete with Facebook and Twitter, the launch means that when someone searches ‘Garden Furniture’, they no longer just see sponsored links and natural search results determined by SEO, but any posts made by their friends on Google+ about the same topic. This increases the importance of brands considering a presence across Google+ if only to be amongst those top search results to then drive people out to official sites.

Learn more at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8643-google-adds-social-content-from-google-into-search-results

Facebook Timeline

Most regular Facebook users will now be familiar with Facebook Timeline, a stylish upgrade to how individual profiles appear. As it starts rolling out across Facebook accounts, one brand and another developer are already playing with the new feature.

Business card printers Moo have partnered with the platform to allow people to order business cards based on their Facebook Timeline Covers. http://mashable.com/2012/01/05/facebook-moo-business-cards/

Meanwhile, marketing agency Definition 6 has partnered with the platform to turn people’s timelines into sentimental personal movies spanning a user’s lifetime on the social network. http://www.timelinemoviemaker.com

Facebook Actions

Towards the end of 2011 Facebook made a series of announcements including the now rolled out Facebook Timelines design for user profiles. A more interesting one for brands perhaps, was that of Facebook Actions, now starting to build in prominence. The platform now allows for developers to dabble in verbs, whereby someone using Spotify through Facebook needn’t type a status update manually informing their friends, because a ‘Mark’s listening to Madonna’ note is automatically published.

Learn about some of the initial partnering apps using Facebook Actions: http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/18/facebook-actions-rollout/

Advertising Within Facebook

New research by TBG suggests that a discount of up to 45% on cost-per-click Facebook advertising is being offered by Facebook when adverts point to another Facebook destination rather than an external site, an interesting revelation for brands running media campaigns on the platform to promote standalone websites away from it.

See a closer glimpse at the research at http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8699-50-off-facebook-ads-if-you-keep-users-on-site

Curators of Sweden

Some of the most interesting digital campaigns have come out of the travel industry, be it an airline’s random acts of kindness or a tourism board’s job of a lifetime offer. Curators Of Sweden is the latest creative use of social media, granting one resident of Sweden authorship of the country’s @Sweden account each week. A campaign of variety and collaboration, we think it’s a great way to tell the country’s many different stories.

http://curatorsofsweden.com