The Marketing Debate - Internet Marketing and Online Advertising

Getting Tiger Woods out of Hot Water

mattbrocklehurst — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:24:57 +0000

Tiger Wood’s has been in plenty of hot water recently as we all know. But that’s not the water I want to focus on. I recently came across a great story of how EA Sports took a YouTube contributor who was poking fun at their Tiger Woods game and not only embraced it but used it to inspire a fantastic piece of marketing.

It all started when YouTube user Levinator25 posted a video taken of Tiger playing golf in the EA Sports game “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” in 2007. The video highlighted a bug in the game that allowed Tiger to walk across water and hit his ball that was resting on the water. Labelling it the “Jesus” shot, Levinator25 grabbed plenty of attention focusing on the glitch. Not disastrous for Tiger or EA Sports, true, but not really the sort of publicity you want.

See the video here.

So what would you do if you’re EA Sports? You could try to get the video taken down? Well this would probably generate even more publicity. Issue an apology and say the bug was fixed? Maybe but, again, this is not really great publicity.

What they did was inspired. They filmed the real Tiger Woods “walking” across water and hitting the ball and included reference to Levinator25 and the original clip at the beginning of the video. Then they posted it to YouTube.

See it here.

It’s a great response and a great piece of advertising. And it got great take-up: over 5 million views.
If only all mistakes could be turned around into positives so creatively…

Recommended kids’ lunch-packs: sandwiches, crisps and a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka!

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:11:19 +0000

Looking for new treats to spice up your child’s lunch pack? Looking for something a little more interesting then blackcurrant juice? How about a bottle of Smirnoff Vodka! Even in coldest Moscow I don’t think this recommendation would get much take-up no matter how daunting the afternoon’s lessons. However this was the recommended drink for lunch-packs by a leading online grocery retailer a little while ago according to Mark Stuart, Head of Research at CIM in his entertaining presentation at the CIM Digital Marketing conference in Cambridge this week.

It was obviously a coding mistake on the site. The interesting thing about this anecdote is that the retailer was able to quickly rectify it before it turned into a PR blunder. Apparently an online shopper updated her facebook profile to highlight the bizarre vodka recommendation for lunch-packs. Because the online retailer monitors their brand across social media they were able to immediately rectify the error stopping the story snowballing into the mainstream press.

There’s plenty of examples of brands making mistakes when using social media. It’s good to see how social media also helps brands with damage limitation. Cheers!

I’m so attached to Gmail

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 16:57:57 +0000

I’ve started using Gmail far more recently. It really is quite clever. One thing I really like is its intelligent suggestions on attachments.
The most common mistake I make with emails is forgetting to attach the document. Judging by the amount of emails I get with the sheepish phrase “and this time with attachment” I know I’m not alone.

In Gmail if you have text referring to an attachment and you send without an attachment a box pops up saying “Did you mean to attach files? You wrote “see attached” in your message but there are no files attached. Send anyway?”.

Simple but brilliant. And the best bit? I’m telling all my friends about this feature not because I work for Google but because it is so clever. And everyone loves it. I bet some of them will give it a go and also tell their friends. Just goes to show that little product features that solve a common problem can be word of mouth marketing gold.

Vuvuzela Gives Developers Something to Shout About

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:45:20 +0000

Whilst a number of teams may have underperformed at this year’s World Cup, few could have expected how dominant the Vuvuzela horn would have become. In stadiums across South Africa, the horn’s distinctive sound rings out – a symbol of the tournament – echoing fans’ frustration, pride anger and glory. And app developers have been quick to capitalise on the notoriety of the horn, described by fans and media around the world as ‘sounding like a giant swarm of bees’. Dutch app developer moblio.nl captured the imagination of millions of iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users across the world with its free application – Vuvuzela 2010 bringing the distinctive sound to phones near you.

Key to the success of any app is where it features in the App store ranking. If an app has a high position in the store, users can easily discover it via search or by simply by stumbling across it. And if the app is free, people will be even keener to download it. Being number one also opens up a great opportunity to monetise. We’d like to share a fantastic story on how Vuvuzela 2010 became the number one free application all over the world – across Europe, including the UK, Germany, France and as far afield as South Africa, Argentina, Japan and Australia as well as top 3 in the USA. It has also earned its developers moblio.nl tens of thousands of dollars a week through advertising revenue.

moblio.nl formed in 2009 in Amsterdam by its directors Jeroen Retrae and Lyan van Furth specialise in creating and realizing iPhone applications and mobile websites for national and international companies. They needed a quick and easy way to monetise the Vuvuzela 2010 app globally and capitalise on the opportunity the tournament in South Africa presented, so they decided to join AdMob’s publisher network on a self-serve basis. Following a simple integration, AdMob adverts appeared within the application: clicks and the revenue grew and grew across the world. Real time reporting by country allowed them to see their success story unfold in front of their eyes.

The team developed the Vuvuzela 2010 app as an independent project and the company is now earning several tens of thousands dollars per week via its share of advertising revenue. We’ve helped monetise their inventory in over 100 countries worldwide. As of today, the Vuvuzela 2010 app has been downloaded over 3.5 million times and has experienced explosive growth across the world. With the whistle set to blow on the World Cup Final on July 11th, we’re still far from sure who will be lifting the trophy but there’s no doubt that Vuvuzela 2010 has won the affection of football fans across the world.

THIS BLOG FIRST APPEARED IN THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ADMOB http://blog.admob.com

Mobile will be a World Cup winner for fans and advertisers

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:39:40 +0000

World Cup fever is beginning to take hold across the globe and AdMob is no exception. We’ve recently done some research into how people will be using their mobiles during the tournament looking at everything from likely cross-media consumption trends to choice of mobile content. What’s more we’ve developed special packages to help advertisers engage with fans worldwide during the biggest football show on earth.

The survey focused on the host country and ran across the South African AdMob network. It confirmed that South Africa has well and truly caught World Cup fever. Over 80% of respondents said they would definitely be going to the games or to the big screens at the fan parks. It’s not only the fans on the move – with their mobiles of course – as 17% of South Africans said they were “red carding” the event to go on holiday.

As could be expected, the bulk of respondents, (37%) note they will be following the World Cup on television. Mobile also scores highly and is second at 20%. Third place is fixed line internet and, finally, on the “reserve bench” we have newspapers and radio.

Fans will be using their mobiles primarily to see scores, followed by checking team standing, read news and chat.

Although the survey was purely on South Africans it’s fair to assume that football fans the world over will be using the mobile Internet to keep informed. Mobile Internet usage spiked globally during the last World Cup and should do so again. It will also be a great opportunity for our advertisers to engage with World Cup fans. The AdMob network has one of the largest collection of football related sites and apps in the world. These have an estimated 2.5 million monthly unique users and over 110 million impressions globally. And that’s before World Cup fever takes hold!

The packages we’ve developed allow advertisers to focus on these football related sites and apps in our network so they can tap into the expected World Cup surge in usage. This increase in scale and reach should help advertisers drive even more traffic to their sites, apps or mobile experiences.

THIS BLOG FIRST APPEARED IN THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ADMOB http://blog.admob.com

How to ensure brand presence at England winning the football World Cup final

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 12:14:44 +0000

There are not many brands in the UK who wouldn’t want association with an England World Cup victory. With the England football team back at home, with their collective tails firmly between their legs, such an association seems further away then ever. But I have a “cunning plan” for brands to gain association with a trumphant England in the World Cup. The best bit of all is that you don’t have to rely on the current team or its successors.

It all began when I was sitting through yet another turgid England performance and my mind started straying from the game and onto the advertising hoardings. When did they begin? A couple of Google searches later I found out all I could ever want to know about the history of hoardings.

Hoardings, or advertising boards or a-boards, first appeared in football grounds in the 70’s. The first World Cup to feature a-boards was 1970 in Mexico. A second look at some of the iconic photos and YouTube videos reveal some great brand exposure. All the Brazilian goals, including the Carlos Alberto classic, in the final is against a backdrop of the Martini Rossi a-board. Philips is all over the final as well. While the Daily Mirror, I’m assuming it is the UK Paper, also appear prominently. There’s a case for these brands revisiting this footage to re-vitalise current day promotions.

There’s potential too for brands who didn’t happen to advertise during these classic games. Technology now allows for the superimposing of images including advertising and product placement into existing footage. Companies such as miiriad show how advertising posters can appear in feature films such as Forrest Gump or products such as cereal packets can be inserted onto the Cosby breakfast table.

Now look at the 1966 World Cup final. This clip on YouTube has had nearly half a million views. And there are no a-boards in sight. These didn’t exist then but there are the blank fences just crying out for adverts to be superimposed on.

You’d need the rights obviously but there’s no previous advertiser contracts to deal with. If England of today can’t produce the success that advertisers crave then maybe brands should start looking through the archives.

Ever spent 7 hours shopping in IKEA? And still clicked on an ad?

mattbrocklehurst — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:29:26 +0000

I came across a compelling banner ad for IKEA. This statement is something coming from me. Believe me. I am not a big IKEA fan. One Saturday, a few years ago, I spent 7 (seven!) valuable hours in IKEA fitting out a new flat. My wife loves IKEA. I don’t. Strangely by the sixth hour there, while lying on a mattress on my massive shopping trolley in the storeroom, I started enjoying it. Stockholm syndrome I guess – well they are Swedish – or maybe they put something in the hotdogs. Ever since a trip to IKEA has not been at the top of my list of things to do.

This banner, here ,though and their marketing in general I do respect.

The banner allows you to play with the size of the banner, moving bits of furniture around to create new rooms. How more IKEA can you get? Like it. It works for me and it succeeded in me showing my wife.

Interestingly, the comments on the blog showcasing the ad criticise the lack of a logo on the initial banner. Makes sense I thought. My wife agreed there should be a logo on it. But then again she loves IKEA. I don’t so I wouldn’t have clicked on the ad and then shared with my wife.

Maybe they didn’t put the logo up-front for a reason.

Forget the Clegg effect – Conservatives most influential on Twitter

mattbrocklehurst — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:05:12 +0000

Clegg won the social media buzz war after the leadership debate. But the Conservatives are best placed to exert influence on Twitter. And Labour aren’t at the races.

The media fallout from last week’s leadership debate included much analysis on the ripple effect in social spaces such as Twitter and Facebook. Clegg was a clear winner here as well as in the polls but how much is this “a flash in the pan”? How effective as influencers are the Lib Dems based on their Twitter presence over time? Sorry to prick the Clegg bubble but it looks like the Conservatives are actually better placed, with the Lib Dems a little way behind and Labour playing catch-up.

Brand Republic reported last week that Starcom analysed one million plus online discussions to conclude that Nick Clegg was a clear winner in last week’s televised election debate.

The discussions occurred on UK blogs, websites, forums, and social networks, including Twitter and Facebook. The agency compared positive and negative discussions 24 hours prior to the broadcast as well as immediately prior to, during and post the debate.

Nick Clegg achieved the greatest increase in positive discussions – up 93%. Negative discussion rose 20%.

Gordon Brown arguably did well with a 74% a increase in positive discussion, albeit tempered considerably by a 54% increase in negative discussions.

Conservative supporters would presumably be disappointed with the fact that David Cameron had a 44% increase in both positive and negative opinion.

But let’s not get carried away with the immediate effect of the debate. Social media is a great barometer on public opinion, sure, but it is also an influencer itself. I thought I’d take a look at how well placed the respective parties are placed in terms of how well they are using Twitter and who is exerting the most influence.

For a fair comparison I went to the home pages of the official websites of the three parties to establish which Twitter account they recommend an interested visitor should follow. I then compared these accounts in one of the better Twitter tracker sites: Klout. In their own words:

“Klout allows you to track the impact of your opinions, links and recommendations across your social graph. We collect data about the content you create, how people interact with that content and the size and composition of your network. From there, we analyze the data to find indicators of influence and then provide you with innovative tools to interact with and interpret the data.”

Klout then allocates a K-score, the higher the K-score the more influence the Twitter account is having. The results are clear:

Conservatives (@Conservatives) 38
Liberal Democrats (@libdems) 31
Labour (@UKLabour) 21

This is more enlightening then a crude comparison of number of followers for example. The amount of followers obviously helps in terms of influence. The Conservatives do have over 27,000 followers which is nearly twice as much as Labour and the Lib Dems. But Labour actually have pretty much the same amount of followers (14,700) as the Lib Dems (14,676) but in terms of how they are using Twitter and how people are responding they trail quite badly as the above K-scores show. The Klout summaries are also telling.

Labour is a casual. The advice given by Klout could well be taken more widely by Brown and his party: “you have succeeded in building a strong audience but need to engage.”

Lib Dems is a connector. Again the summary echoes much current sentiment on Clegg and the LibDems: “Your taste and opinion is respected and your judgement is trusted”

Conservatives, however, stand tall as they are seen as a persona. Klout state that this means they “have built a personal brand around your identity…not just about having a ton of followers…make no mistake about it, when you (Conservatives) talk people listen.”

Clegg maybe getting all the buzz at the moment but a deeper look at who is best placed to use social media to exert influence shows that the Conservatives are a clear winner.

The wider point, however, is that none of the parties are really in that strong a position on Twitter compared to, say, Barack Obama (K-score 100) or even SarahBrown10 who has over 1.1 million followers and a K-score of 58. The official Labour Twitter account would have done well to have learnt a few lessons from Gordon’s better half.

Tamar expose World Cup sponsors for scoring own goals in search – then score one themselves

mattbrocklehurst — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:16:04 +0000

Tamar, the search agency, got some great publicity last week with their report highlighting the lack of paid search ads on World Cup terms by the sponsors of the tournament. Shame, then, that Tamar themselves are also guilty of neglecting paid search to make the most of this publicity.

The report is a great marketing idea. It looks at how World Cup sponsors such as Adidas, Sony and Coca Cola are not yet placing paid ads against terms such as “world cup 2010” and “soccer world cup”.

Indeed days after the report hit the press, they’re still not. See below screenshot.

This is a missing an open goal. These brands are spending tens of millions of pounds on the actual sponsorship and search would be a highly effective way to leverage the association with the tournament. They’ve got the websites crying out for traffic. Take CokeZone – below – for example.

Curiously even the PPC ads that Coca Cola do run on terms such as “coca cola world cup 2010” link to a pretty confusing blog page when the above would seem a better landing page.

For highlighting the missed opportunities by the World Cup sponsors, it’s definitely top marks to Tamar. It got them some outstanding PR including the Guardian and is a probable door opener to talk to the sponsor brands, and other brands, on their search strategies.

My one gripe is that when I search on Google for the report, using the obvious terms such as “Tamar search marketing world cup report”, not only did the agency not appear in the organic listing they were nowhere to be seen in the paid listings either. Their competitors are though. See the below screen shot.

A bit like a football commentator berating a player in the premiership for scoring an own goal then turning up for his Sunday morning team and doing the exact same thing.

Wi-Di, TV die? Look no wires! Beam video from your laptop to your TV wirelessly

mattbrocklehurst — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:39:46 +0000

Intel have just launched a technology, Wi-Di, that allows you to beam video from your laptop onto your TV with, wait for it, no wires. I’m not a gadget freak but even to me this is good stuff from a user’s perspective. A simple click of a button on your laptop is all you need to be watching anything from films and drama to a TED talk or video viral on your family friendly TV screen. All of a sudden video content from the web can be shared across the family and friends in your living room. Wi-Di is still in its infancy. It is only available in the US from BestBuy outlets on three laptop models – more details here from Mossblog of the Wall Street Journal in a short news clip (top video) – but the implications of developments such as this must warm the hearts of online video advertisers.

Indeed, they are probably already a pretty happy bunch.

Last week a video advertising survey demonstrated increasing confidence from media buyers. The Web TV Enterprise survey revealed that video advertising is now on over half of media plans and is worth 3 per cent of the UK TV ad market. As reported in a recent IAB blog:

“…over 40 per cent of media buyers now use video advertising campaigns to deliver incremental reach to TV, indicating that TV budgets are driving growth of the market.

The report also found that the number of campaigns being booked has tripled in the last six months, suggesting confidence among media buyers is growing….the developments demonstrate that the growing audience of professionally produced content on the web is beginning to have a significant impact on the market.

The research also shows that the majority of media buyers – 63 per cent – intend to allocate up to 50 per cent more budget to video advertising in 2010, with 13 per cent allocating more than 50 per cent.”

The increasing quality of video content on the web – YouTube content is now 80% professional – is already driving ad money. Developments like Wi-Di can only increase the viewing and reach of online video content and ad money will continue to flow this way. With broadcast/cable companies already struggling with DVR ad skippers and declining ad revenues the message is: adapt or die.