Please sponsor me....

Yes, I love digital stuff, but some things in life are better off analogue.

As you may or may not know I'm up in Manchester these days and, in a bid to become a good citizen, I'm joining my fellow Code Computerlovers (my wonderful employer) and taking part in Byte Night Manchester on 10/2/2009 to raise money for Action for Children. I'd really appreciate your support and, if you have a look at what Action for Children do to support and speak out for the most vulnerable children and young people in the UK, you'll see it's an important and very deserving cause.

It's easy to donate online with a credit or debit card - just go to my JustGiving page:

http://www.justgiving.com/Alex-Comyn

JustGiving sends your donation straight to Action for Children and automatically reclaims Gift Aid if you're a UK taxpayer, so your donation is worth even more. I hope you'll join me in supporting Action for Children.

Thanks for your time.

Alex

Come fly with me...

Netjets, the private chartered airline service for the busy exec in all of us, have a campaign running on FT.com extolling their investment in pilot training, no matter the cost. The ad bumps you through to a microsite called "A Culture of Safety" that offers a few pages of content detailing their investment in safety. It's good to see high value elite brands bothering to advertise themselves, and finding a point of differentiation in a sector not always at the mercy of price wars. It's equally good to see them hone in on the real value of any airline - we get you to your destination without death or delay with people who really do know what they're doing. So, why the post? Well, to be honest I couldnt see why this was done as an online campaign.

The execution is pretty old school, and could have been carried out much more effectively as a high quality DM piece (think something akin to the wonderful Mercedes Benz luxury mailer from 2007). We're talking about 4 pages of nice imagery and a bit of copy, with a call to action to request a call back from one of their client services team.

Essentially, it's brochureware for a brand that I'd have thought would have a better grasp on it's marketing channels. Like I say, as a piece of DM, done to a high standard and sent to CEO's (or their assistants) it would have been perfectly acceptable. Now, if it was a matter of budget, and for their media agency digital offered the best spend in terms of reach, then I would have hoped for something...well...a bit more digital. Others are using digital admirably, not least in the area of health and safety (see this great post form The AirSafe.com news discussing the adoption of social media on this very issue).

Bear in mind that the airline is part owned by the reknowned Warren Buffet, and has Bill Gates (you know, keeps trying to invent the internet we don't know we want yet) as one of it's shareholders. It's got the right messages, but hasn't really exploited the medium in the storytelling, interactive manner I might have hoped for:

• Eight safety staff (their competition have none) - What do they do? How do they do it? How do I see it when I purchase my jet from them or charter a plane? Can I book a visit to their HQ?
  

• They select only one out of every 14 qualified pilots who want to work for them. Can I meet them? Can you tell me anything about them? Names? Some nice footage on YouTube? (again, Mercedes did some nice work for their AMG campaign a couple of years back celebrating the engineering team who make some of the finest cars in the world).

• Their pilots train longer and harder on flight simulators and have around (50% longer than most commercial pilots) and average 5000 hours flight time (3500 hours more than EU regulations). Wow! That's commitment for you. Tell me more! Show me the money!

Digital is a brilliant and interactive way to tell stories and to help your customer understand and demonstrate why you're better than your competition in an immediate, tangible and interactive way. High value elite brands, as much as anyone, should be embracing this to an audience increasingly connected to the internet 24/7. There's a ton of stories waiting to happen in this piece of work, I'd quite like to see them teased out a bit more is all.