I’d never really noticed it before, but Burger King has a really cool homepage.
Take a look for yourself, but the website has three volume bars (‘Fun’, ‘Food’ and ‘King’), which control how big the central icons are.
For example, if you max out the ‘Fun’ bar, and minimize ‘Food’ and ‘King’, it makes it easier to see all the advertorial video content on the site. Read the rest of this entry »
Working in PR, marketing, advertising etc, we need to pull ourselves back from situations and realise that we don’t all spend the entire day behind a computer screen engaging with Social Media.
We should always, at the very least, ask how the offline is being influenced by the online. Jeremiah Owyang recently alluded to this in a post on his Web Strategy blog. If we don’t, then we can end up with a campaign overflowing with clever ideas that create dynamic online communities, but build limited relevance for the company in question and, as a result, limited revenue and ROI. Read the rest of this entry »
Nobody has the definitive solution for how to measure the success of Social Media. At least not yet.
Sure, you can talk about online ‘buzz’ created by how many blog posts, tweets, videos, status updates etc. that occurred for a certain brand, person or topic, but what’s ‘buzz’? Virtue, a company which does ‘technology solutions for social media marketing’ has just released its second annual list of the ‘most social’ companies in the world on this basis. I was interested in the result, which was, unsurprisingly, the iPhone, but took it with a pinch of salt. Of course, Apple, and others on the list, have built strong online reputations, but ‘buzz’ doesn’t necessarily mean success and it certainly doesn’t guarantee revenue as the mentions could as easily be negative as they could be positive.
Experiential marketing is about bringing the customer closer to the brand and, by its very definition, creating an experience. It’s fair to say New Zealanders love experiences like anyone else; tons of graduates take an OE and the country is full of different tours, promising the ‘Kiwi experience’.
In addition, there are plenty of campaigns that tap into Kiwiana and play on the strong sense of national identity. You only have to look at the extremely successful ‘Tourism Paeroa’ campaign by L&P and the newly launched ‘Get Some Kiwi in Ya’ concept from Kiwi Bacon to see that we all love engaging with a brand that feels alive.
With news that Google has just announced the next step in its plan to take-over the world , one tech sector at a time, it seems like an apt moment to highlight how it does PR/marketing. Read the rest of this entry »
With the huge increase in the role of online in the media world, in particular social media, it’s easy to forget the importance of face-to-face networking. It’s great to ‘connect’ with people on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like, but nothing beats having a drink and chewing the fat in person. Read the rest of this entry »
In the media we are always speaking about ‘trends’. Twitter was/is a trend; Google Wave is a trend; apps that drive core business revenue also seem to be an increasing trend (just take a look at the Pizza Hut app )…but what’s a ‘megatrend’? Well, according to Adam Kleinberg , CEO of a Traction, a creative agency out in San Fran, it’s something that transforms society as we know it; “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” and all that malarkey. Read the rest of this entry »
At what could be described as its ‘beta’ stage, social media was a tool for people to stay connected within restricted groups (think Facebook’s origins within American colleges). It obviously widened considerably after that and is now on a par (or even beyond) with us checking our emails everyday. It then became a tool for businesses to have a stronger online presence; one where they could communicate better with their customers and potential customers. In even more recent times, social media has evolved into an almost catch-all term for digital marketing. While those in the know will tell you there is more to digital than purely social media, it certainly plays a large part in today’s media landscape. The advent of Twitter has meant social media is now an information swapping super-highway and full-on customer service portal, in addition to all its other guises. Read the rest of this entry »
SEO and SEM specialist First Rate recently pointed out how data from Hitwise (the online data monitor) shows that Facebook has overtaken TradeMe as New Zealand’s second most popular website (after Google, of course).
With the rising popularity of other social media such as Twitter and Flickr and the further news that Facebook has just signed a deal with market research company Nielsen to boost its credentials as a genuine advertising platform, businesses in NZ need to be aware of how these events are changing the way they need to work. This ’socialisation’ of the internet is not simply a way for people to stay in touch; it’s bigger than that. The use of social media tools to speak to potential and existing customers has broken down the traditional barriers between businesses and the man on the street.
I was interviewed this week by business journalist Melanie Cooper for an article published today in The Independent which looked at the alleged blurring of the lines between journalism and public relations in New Zealand.
The article discussed the role of well known site, Scoop, which publishes media releases as well as news. In addition, the National Business Review, has recently launched a service, ‘From the Horse’s Mouth‘, which publishes unedited media releases.
I made a number of points to Melanie which, for space reasons, could not all be published. So I thought I would post in more detail, here on BulletPoints, my thoughts around some of the issues she raised: Read the rest of this entry »
When the National Business Review interviewed me recently on the role of Twitter, I told marketing reporter Hazel Phillips that those companies contemplating Twitter shouldn’t get too distracted by the early adopters who may appear to dominate the conversations with endless updates of banal goings-on. The fact remains that there is a remarkably high level of serious communication taking place on Twitter and, more significantly, much of this is exclusively taking place on Twitter. So my first comment to our clients is: if you are not there in the first place, how can you take part? Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, the now ditched Aussie tourism slogan grew on me! Maybe it’s because I’m Kiwi; we have that much more cultural affinity with Australia than just about anyone else - I think it appealed to us. And of course, it spawned a whole bunch of amusing variations, particularly so at Bledisloe Cup matches!
The images on the TVC were simply spectacular - that mouth-watering variety of visual slendour from the great vastness of the Australian continent. It certainly made me want to visit Oz!
But apparently Canada and the UK didn’t like the language or something; Tourism Australia ditched it… and now the Aussie PM himself is having a go!
Ultimately the slogan fell victim to the tighter travel market - there was little or no discernible increase in inbound travel from specifically targeted countries.
But maybe Australia doesn’t need a one-size-fits-all global slogan - after all, what attracts New Zealanders, for example, to visit Australia may be entirely different to that of Japanese or Germans. What happened to targeted marketing?
So, bloody hell, whatever they come up with next, I hope for their sakes, it isn’t treated as a sacrificial lamb should greater macro-economic forces once again take their toll on tourist numbers.
Interesting article in The Australian last week. Nick Davies’ book Flat Earth News cites research finding that 80% of stories in British newspapers were rewritten wire copy and press releases, or “churnalism” as Davies puts it.
It’s true that newspapers around the world are cutting costs and trimming editorial staff. But the selected findings of Nick Davies don’t tell the full story. In a post-Enron world, the likes of Sarbanes-Oxley and equivalent laws in other jurisdictions, mean there is an increased demand for greater corporate governance in the private sector, and greater statutory obligations for transparency in the public sector. The reality is that many organisations must use PR tools by necessity in order to ensure full disclosure and regulatory compliance.
At the same time, the media has a greater need than ever for content due to the demands of their expanding online channels. The NZ Herald, for example, frequently runs material on its site that is not replicated in the print version. It is an unfair expectation on already stretched journalists that they fulfil this demand themselves, which is where PR-driven content comes in. As long as the content that’s provided is newsworthy, relevant and of interest, then PR serves a valuable purpose to the media.
The public relations industry has long been an easy whipping-boy for media commentators like Davies, who would have you believe that PR is responsible for devaluing or undermining journalistic standards, that in some way the industry is corrupting the integrity of the media. Well I’m sorry Nick, but that’s nonsense - it’s simply up to publications to ensure they cut the wheat from the chaff, and ensure that what makes it into print is relevant to their readers.
Following on from my previous post re the benefits of blogging, it?s also appropriate to point out the pitfalls to avoid in ensuring long-term blogging success. There is no better source to turn to than US Search Engine Marketing and Online PR guru Lee Odden of Top Rank Online Marketing and the excellent Online Marketing Blog. I had the pleasure of meeting Lee at Search Engine Room Australia. Check out his five very salient points in ‘5 reasons why business blogs fail’.
I spoke on a panel at the PRINZ Annual Conference last week on the future of the PR industry in New Zealand, alongside Pip Tschudin of Trustpower and Sharleen Pihema of Manukau City Council. It was a lively hour, lots of interesting questions from the floor.
One of the main topics of discussion was the role of technology in the industry, new media in particular. It’s obvious that we are a good few years behind the US and UK in how we utilise new media channels, but it was heartening to see that, on the evidence of some of the questions we received, NZ practitioners are becoming more aware of the potential of social media.
It has taken so long for the idea that blogs and user-generated content are incredibly powerful communications tools to filter down to this neck of the woods. I spoke on blogging at a PRINZ event in June last year, and the lack of awareness in the audience was surprising. Clearly, in the year since that event people have become much more clued up, and the next 6-9 months should see more and more organisations employing new media as part of their comms strategy.
