The fantasy of free media

My world in a Shell

There was a time in which you CEO’s and CMO’s used to tell their teams, let’s do social media, it’s cheap and effectiv!. Wait, these are those times still. In my consulting I’ve come across several of these executives who are trying to cut Marketing expenses through the use of social media.

Are you saving money?

As digital marketers, we are to blame if this idea is still in place. We need to help understand our clients, bosses, and directors the enormous efforts required to create and maintain a social media campaign. Specially maintain. When do you think the “tweet nightmare” is going to explode? A Wednesday morning when your whole social media team is in the office? Of course not! It happens on a Friday night, where everyone is chilling at their place.

Of course it happened after hours!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing experience being able…

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The Future of Content: Upcoming Trends in 2014

Work in Progress

The Future of Content: Upcoming Trends in 2014

Awesome article jam-packed with helpful information for creating a content strategy. Did you know that there are 92,000 articles posted to the web EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.?! Crazy, I know. Personally, I found the section breaking down the key metrics for B2B and B2C companies the most helpful. Interesting stuff, definitely bookmarking this one. 

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Social Media: “Are you human?”

Verses In Motion Media

This is not one of those pieces about Social Media miseducation and the degradation of real human interactions. (Blah blah blah … Boring).  And it’s not a “remix” or remake of the fab 1980′s pop track by The Buggles.

Actually @ #mercuriosocialmedia we don’t believe the hype!  – Social Media definitely did not kill the “human star” – and this article is an inspired answer to a tweet with a simple question, sent as a ‘@‘mention  to myTwitter account: “Are you human?” …

Legitimate question, if you think, that so many of our actions online receive automated and automatic replies and responses, most commonly on twitter!

Big brands have fallen into the “automation” trap and some, have failed miserably with their social media strategy. Clients do not want to receive a reply which is “the copy of the copy of the copy” of a…

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You Are Being Crushed by Data and Losing the Consumer

Supporting Causes Is Effective Marketing

After reading this article, many purpose-driven brands/ social enterprises come to mind, such as Thank You Water. Through their journey you can see how their focus has been profitable and has pushed their brand to be extremely successful where you have not only staff that are passionate about what they do, but people and customers who want to help in their own way by purchasing the products. I have friends around me who only buy Thank You Water because they really believe in what the difference they can make and really see the impact as well.

Brands need people to believe in their purpose, why they’re doing what they’re doing. Is this what your brand is doing?

Under The Radar Marketing

These days, social media marketing with a significant social media presence is critical to the success of business. But, just marketing with social media might no longer be enough. It is about supporting “causes” socially that seems to be of great marketing value for businesses. The infographic below offers statistics on how customers and potential customers are choosing who to do business with.

This is critical for both profit businesses as well as for non-profits that serve as part of their mission. It used to be that supporting causes was just a “nice thing to do.” But, as the infographic below demonstrates, supporting causes is part of what potential customers look for when making purchasing decisions.

Of course, supporting causes has always and continues to be a good practice. These days, however, it has become apparent that supporting causes is not only good practice. It is also profitable for businesses…

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Wearable computing

There is so much talk about how wearable computing is the new thing and how marketers will have to be ready to utilise this as another channel in connecting with their consumers. From Pebble watches to Samsung’s Galaxy Gear:

and Sony’s SmartWatch 2

and even Google Glass,

all the tech giants are scrambling to get a good foot hold in the emerging market. But as great as these innovations are, are we as a society, ready to integrate them into our society?

We already talk about how mobile phones shut us off from ‘proper’ social interaction, face to face with our friends. And I’m sure it will only be more pronounced since the focus has shifted to mobile marketing. I don’t know about you guys but I’ve definitely seen a shift in how I talk to people during dinners and coffee catch ups, there is almost always a point where we’re all quiet and looking at our phones; reading messages or checking Facebook and Instagram and no matter how we complain that we’ve become anti-social, we still continue to do it. 

Its, as Forbes says, ‘The Wearable Computing conundrum’, our society can’t keep up with technology advancements. So my question is, with wearable computing so accessible, and companies like Google, Samsung, and Sony who are making it possible, how will it affect how we as people interact with each other, and would you buy one?

Coca Cola using IMC elements online

Coca Cola, the largest beverage company in the world with a ridiculously large portfolio is and always will be a great example of integrating most, if not all of the integrated marketing communication (IMC) elements including: PR, sponsorship and events, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, etc. And by using these elements and making them available to the online community to see through YouTube, blogs, etc. It exponentially increases the exposure.

One I’d like to focus on is the PR campaign Coke did which placed a vending machine in India and Pakistan and enabled people to interact with each other through the machine to get free drinks. For those who don’t know, there has long been tension between the two countries.

Here’s a video so you can see how brilliant this was:

Public relations (PR) is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation (or individual) and its (or their) publics. The implications of implementing a PR campaign include the understanding of what the organisation is doing, in this case it is bringing two countries together for their target audience through deliberate, pro-active behaviour.

This video makes me want to buy Coke even though I don’t drink it. What about you? Do you think they executed this well?

Not so delicious spam vs. direct marketing

Pretty much everybody hates spam, so why is it still around? It’s intrusive, and downright annoying. After putting some thought into my own habits, I’ve realised that I naturally filter out or glance over spam comments, and delete spam emails pretty much straight away if they get through to my inbox somehow.

We’ve all seen it before, those messages promising us things like a whole lot of money from a Nigerian Prince or an amazing job that pays too well, or even a product through a link to what would be most likely spyware or malware. Just like this comment I got a while ago.

But with most people on the net, this annoying spam also gets confused with direct marketing (which includes email. SMS, post as well as telemarketing). In this case, we’re just concentrating on the email part of direct marketing.
Just to be clear, spam is the sending of ‘unsolicited commercial electronic messages’. So that means all messages have to follow three conditions:
1. Consent- The message must be send with the recipient’s consent
2. Identify- The organisation must give accurate information about them and how to contact them
3. Unsubscribe- The message must have a functional unsubscribe facility

So if you’re thinking that the constant emails you get from the deal website, or airline you signed up for once, it’s not spam. You’ve given your consent, and they always identify themselves and have an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email.

 

What do you think?

 

Melbourne Food Trucks

When thinking about my next food adventure I tend to start drooling when I visualise whatever I’m craving, from burgers to kebabs (yes, I’m very healthy). But this time, it got me thinking, how do these guys have so many engaged customers with little effort put into traditional marketing.

One example would be Beatbox Kitchen, one of my all time faves. They run their business out of a van/truck and move around each night, and how do you find out where they are, you ask? You have to look them up on Facebook for their exact location. But how do they get so many likes with barely any content aside from their location updates?

source: http://theburgeradventure.com/2010/11/beatbox-kitchen/

 

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is how good their food is, and by having happy customers that talk about them…Word of mouth got around and we can see by a quick search on my best friend google that they’re on Urbanspoon with and average rating of 89% and are on other websites such as theburgeradventure.com where they (obviously) go on burger adventures and write reviews about how tasty it is, how much it is and how long you feel sleepy for after you’ve eaten it. There are even apps you’re able to download to find where food trucks are.

Food Trucks like Beatbox Kitchen have got so many people talking about them that they don’t have to generate much content themselves. Its great to see small businesses in Melbourne, branching out and finding other avenues aside from traditional marketing to connect with their customers. And since they’re using all the platform…mainly the internet to get through to their target audience, it’s worked out pretty well for them.

 

Product placement in music videos

Product placement is not something that is relatively new, but I feel like its become a lot more relevant nowadays because of how good people are at blocking out more traditional ads online, like banners, ads on YouTube before the video that you want to watch, etc.

But before we get into anything really in depth, I think we need to address the first question, what is product placement? Its the conceived insertion of a brand within a movie, computer, TV, blog, video game, music video, etc., and we consume this all the time, mostly without even realising that we have. Pretty sneaky right?

From a marketers perspective, its the logical step to reach consumers. There are about 6 main advantages to back this up:

1. There isn’t a mute button

2. Implied endorsement (by the celebrity)

3. Low cost (comparative to other channels)

4. Less obtrusive

5. High profile

6. Far reach

It makes sense, although I’m a bit more skeptical now. If I was a naive teen I’d be following what my favourite celebrity was doing, from buying Dr. Dre headphones, to buying eos products like Miley Cyrus.

Let’s take a look at a music video that Britney did:

It showed us four different brands in under two minutes, Britney’s own brand, Sony, Plenty of Fish and Make Up For Ever. Most would say that was over-doing it and really over the top, but how can you argue when you’re supposedly raking in about 500k from one music video just from product placement alone? I personally don’t feel that this is a great example of how to get it right. The products were still in your face, quite obvious and it just puts you off.

So if this is an example of doing it badly, what would you say is an example of getting it right?