Blog

FoodBeats, the online music tool we launched for Lurpak® in partnership with Last.fm, has just been awarded Silver at The Lovie Awards in the Food and Beverage category.

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.

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.

We’ve developed Cravendale’s latest on-pack giveaway, EPIC Straws. They’re perfect for sipping, slurping, and making all the Cravendale disappear! To support the loyalty scheme, we’ve launched a content-driven social campaign that runs until December. Check out how you can take part in all the fun and become a milk magician too at epicstraws.co.uk.

Google Play: Tests

Continuing in the same intriguing style as the Chrome test videos, Google have created a series demonstrating the cloud syncing abilities of ‘Play’. You can find out more about Google Play here, and see the rest of the test videos here.

Google Chrome: Web Lab Experiments

Sticking with Google, they’re continuing their Chrome Experiments with a year-long public exhibition at the Science Museum in London, bringing together physical and digital in some really interesting ways.

Find out more about Chrome Web Lab.

Sonic Notify

Sonic Notify is an incredible (and slightly terrifying) platform that allows media to be delivered to a smartphone via ultra high-frequency audio signals. Imagine you’re at a concert, and at the end your phone vibrates. You take it out of your pocket, and you have a special thanks from the band, with a promotional offer attached. All triggered by an inaudible sound played with the music.

Check out Sonic Notify yourself here.

Facade Printer

A robot that works much like an inkjet printer – except it’s designed to paint graphics onto walls. The process is automated and controlled by simple software. This technology will no doubt evolve over time, perhaps replacing the need to scaffold buildings to place advertising or graphics.

Find out more about the Facade Printer here.

London Eye ‘Olympic Positivity Lightshow’

The London Eye will be transformed into a giant Olympics sentiment analysis tool, being lit up each night of the games to show positive/negative sentiment on Twitter. I wonder how much it will light up during commuter hours…

See the BBC News article on the London Eye Olympic Positivity Lightshow.

Nike Shoe Boxxxx Facebook App

Tapping into sneaker enthusiasts love of collecting, Nike Sportswear Japan have developed a Facebook app that allows users to collect and swap virtual shoes. The app tells the story behind sneakers, whilst rewarding users with points for their collection.

See the Nike Shoe Boxxx Facebook App for yourself.

Self-Playing Piano takes song requests from Twitter

Stanley the piano is a fascinating musical instrument. He’s managed to learn how to play songs from everyone performing at musical festival ‘Capital Hill Block Party’, and you can request songs simply by tweeting at him. Well done, Stanley.

Meet Stanley the piano.

The internet was kind to us last week. Here’s some of our favourite nuggets of goodness.

More Gymkhana madness

Part five of Ken Block’s (DC Shoes owner and rally driver) Gymkhana series. This time we’re taken on a visually stunning tour of San Francisco, where he shows off yet more of his utterly insane driving skills.

Lego Builders of Sound

To promote the new Lego Star Wars range of toys, a ‘barrel organ’ was created completely from Lego bricks and characters. When the barrel organ is turns, it plays the Star Wars theme.

How far will you go for a free snack?

Australian brand Fantastic Delite wanted to find out. So they built a vending machine dishing out various tasks for the public to perform in exchange for a tasty treat. From hitting a button on the machine 100 times (which eventually rose to 5,000!) to standing on one leg and dancing in the street, it seems people will do nearly anything for free swag.

The V Motion Project

Hook up a Kinect to some music production software and what do you get? Something like this…

More behind the scenes info here.

Perfect Curve’s Digital Strategy

“Digital is one of the most crucial things for a modern brand manager to get right, so the pressure is on for Siobhan to explain her strategy”. Who else has heard industry folk making just as much sense as this? ;-)

O2: Relaxed Community Management

O2 had all sorts of network problems last week. But it seems they loosened the reigns on their Community Manager, providing us with some entertaining tweet exchanges. Nice work shifting the focus onto O2 lols and away from having no phone signal!

Read some of the best tweets here.

It’s not every day an account we’re working on gets voted one of the top 100 social brands in the country. Actually, make that one of the top 20 social brands in the country. Oh, and make that two accounts we’re working on…

Yup, according to top social agency Headstream – who published their second annual roundup of the UK’s most socially effective brands this morning – both Lurpak and Cravendale have exploded into the top 20, beating off such giants as Ford, Marmite, Google and last year’s no.1, Dell.

What’s more, this represents two out of only five FMCG brands in the top 25 results, with no other dairy brands even breaking the top 100! Needless to say, we’re very proud.

The Social Brands 100 list was drawn from an initial crowdsourced pool of 300 nominated brands, with the final results calculated using a combined ‘data score’ from social media monitoring firm Brandwatch and a ‘panel score’ from a panel of top industry judges. This panel included Twitter’s UK head of sales Bruce Daisley, and judged each brand in a number of key areas such as their success in creating a credible community and their prioritizing of fans’ needs over the brand’s own.

A huge thank you goes out to all our staff working across these two accounts and everyone else who helps make Outside Line one of the top social agencies out there.

Next year we’re aiming even higher, with even more of our brands in the top spots. Make sure you come and join us…

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.

While we’re on the topic of conferences, it seems like a good time to mention that our director Lloyd is also due to appear at this year’s Social Media World Forum next week.

The event is one of the highlights of the digital marketing calendar, so we’re very pleased to be a part of it. Speaking on the topic of ‘Social TV’, and the opportunities offered to marketers by the rise in internet connectivity among today’s audience, Lloyd will be explaining how to bridge that increasingly important gap between the worlds of television and digital. Important stuff in these fast-moving times…

Representatives from LG, Orange, Zeebox and Samsung will also be appearing to give their input on the subject, making this an all-star cast of speakers that’s not to be missed. There might even be free cake.*

The event itself takes place on Tuesday 27th March at Kensington Olympia, and Lloyd will be speaking at 9:40am.

To book a ticket or find out more details, simply click here.

Come along. You never know, you might just learn something…

*Free cake not guaranteed.

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