All aboard!

Virgin Trains asked people for ideas on ways to improve their service, and Richard Branson is picking the best (and most voted?) idea to take forward and develop.

Nice idea, nice microsite, not bad all round.

Turn the heater on....

Nice bit of co-branded CSR interactive gubbins over here. I'll write something once I've had a play around.

Yard sale

Lots of talk amongst people over how social networks can be incorporated into the marketing mix. Two decent clips coming up.

The Hub - Comment on the dynamics of online social communities , and the most appropriate way to approach a brief that declares "I want something web 2.0". Kind of a guide to etiquette (and this is the trick) than a set of instructions.

Reveries - This is mentioned in the article above and refers to an idea for referral marketing using your Facebook profile. It's something Google have been doing for a while now, offering bloggers and the like the opportunity to profit from traffic to their site (see Squidoo as well), but this gives Facebook participants a revenue, and brands some insight.

Who knows. I met a guy once who told me that if he stood on the corner of Camden High Street and asked every woman who walked past if they would go out for a drink with him, the odds were that eventually one of them would. He's now a very rich man. The lesson? Saying something to someone (friend or stranger) is one thing. Being tenacious with it is another thing altogether.

Dont tell me, bell me

Have heard of this sort of thing being tried before, albeit with barcode readers being distributed to the masses so they could scan a code in their favourite magazine and have their web browser go straight to the appropriate site on the internet. This is much cleaner and simpler, and has apparantly worked well in Japan. Point your mobile phone at a poster and get access to more content. Lovely.

Now, where's my jetpack?

(Web) 2.0 + 2.0 = 4.0

Smart video piece from Seth Godin looking at marketing appropriacy, and how existing ATL "broadcast" models of advertising (basically, it's a numbers game) have been challenged by the need for clever and insightful ways of not only communicating with potential customers, but getting them to want to tell their friends about you. Makes some simple points about the value of marketing being aware of the context in which its used. Throwing paint over a building to show how much you get the importance of colour when buying a TV is one thing on a commercial, and probably get you a fair few "oohs" and "aahs" into the bargain. Trying to do it all over someones online social space will probably get you a thick ear (if you're lucky).

Who dat?

From the man who bought you Squidoo, comes the online answer to Who's Who.

Squid Who is an online compendium of anyone, who's anyone, for whatever reason, and created by whoever can be bothered. Dr Who? Well, he's not on there. However, the site automatically builds you a page all about him and gives you the chance to take ownership of it and manage it forever and ever.

Simple idea, fun, and very useful (if you do a lot of pub quizzes or are trying to secure a wealthy benefactor).

All roads lead to....somewhere

The new smart fortwo is in the midst of being launched, and Claydon Heeley (who I work for) have created a wonderful site to help get it into the hearts and minds of the masses. The timing of this couldn't be better, given right now half of you are no doubt stuck on the M4 returning from your numerous countryside domiciles in the drama that is the bank holiday weekend derby.

www.smartenlightenment.com features life coach and driving guru Dr. Tridion, who guides you through the moral maze that is UK driving and shows you the true road to enlightenment is as much in the head as it is behind the wheel. It's a brilliant piece of work, with a great performance from comedy maestro Matt Berry (Garth Marenghi, The Mighty Boosh, Saxondale, The IT Crowd).

Broadening your marketing horizons

Good article showing how companies are using online tools (social networks, blogs, social search and online video) as a marketing channel and invaluable customer service channel. It's refreshing to see that companies have utilised these new conversations as a way to take their presence out of the boardroom and into the hearts and minds of the people that matter most, their customers.

Customers will stay with a reprobate business as long as that business goes over and above to rectify any grievances, or behaves in a way that demonstrates they really understand their role in their customers lives. Web 2.0 gives brands the tools to enable that to happen.

Bourne to be wild

This is great! Take the afternoon off work and spend it setting up spectacular stunts using VW's finest in tribute to the new Bourne film. Look out!

There's an ongoing debate about the true value of user generated as part of the marketing mix (see Fosters Laidback Legends and Land Rover's Go Beyond campaign for recent examples of UGC in search of real value - and send me some positive stats if you have them!). The thing is, UGC has been alive and kicking for well over a decade in the gaming world, from early MUD's through to the latest multi-million pound blockbuster games (see Half Life and its various iterations for a case in point). The point is, if people like it and they find it easy to use, then they'll interact with it and contribute to it.

This campaign site give you a simple 3D environment in which you can create your own stunts and save them to a gallery section. The more you interact with it, the better it gets as you come to grips with the physics driven environment and the tools on offer.

It's a neat idea, well executed, and has resulted in a lot of online news coverage as well as much chatter amongst the bloggers and bookmarkers.

People help the people - talking to social networks

Recently came across a new addendum to those old favourites SEO and SEM. SMO (or SNO) is a means by which you can begin to utilise social networks, blogs, UGC as a marketing channel, without pissing off those you're trying to connect with.

Imagine if you were sat at home one night and someone knocked on the door and asked you if you wanted to buy a dog? You'd probably keep a cold bucket of water to hand (or maybe a baseball bat). Then, imagine if you had a load of friends round your house and one of them mentioned, over truffles, that they knew of a dog in need of a good owner, and how they knew you loved animals and would be the perfect match. You'd thank them, invite fido round for a meet and greet, and take holidays in the UK for the next 10 years. Well, it's the same principle with marketing to large communities online, with advocacy, insight and discussion the building blocks of a good social network marketing strategy.

Anyway, there's been some good discussion on the topic across a number of blogs:

- O'Reilly offers a good overview here
- A good article from Entrepreneur.com relating SMO to being part of an overarching PR channel mix
- Some older (six months is a long time in this business) comscore stats on the demographics across social networks, particularly with reference to age. Don't be fooled into thinking social networks are a young persons playground.

Access for everybody (some more than others)

Always useful to see how the chavs are measuring up to the toffs when it comes to the internet. The OxIS has been going for a few years now and provides a useful breakdown of internet access across socio / demographic and attitudinal lines. You can get it here.

On a related matter, stumbled across this site, which is perfect for when you're arguing with a client about how big their website should be and what browsers it should work across. This is the sort of information we all know instinctively (hmm, I feel a 1024 x 768 coming on), but it's nice to know someone has taken the trouble to document this stuff proper and make it available to all of us.

Putting on your game face

Link to a good article on facebook apps. I'll update this later.

New landscape, new ways of measurement

Nielsen Net Ratings have announced their adoption of dwell time as their new lead metric, replacing the long standing page view measurement. For sometime now, pageviews have been a bit bogus, and it's conversion (eg click through and eventual sale) that has been of most interest to brands and agencies alike. After all, what use is 5million page impressions if only 500 click through and bother to take a look at what you're selling / showing.

Dwell time takes into account the abundance of richer user interfaces. With the likes of AJAX allowing for more seamless, non-linear actions online, page refresh becomes a bit meaningless if the use is able to do everything within one space far more effeciently.

Rich media agencies have used this metric for some time now, with total time of interaction being a fair reflection of total brand engagement within a piece of online advertising. This takes these principles into the service areas, online stores, news portals, and gives companies a lear steer on where their customer services could be improved and optimised. Or summat.

How much is that doggy in the window?

Good article from the NY Times about the increasing importance of customer service within online retail. It throws up the ongoing debate between clients and their respective agency as to how much they should be investing in their online channel, and how greater investment can reap greater contribution to the bottom line.

Some brands have "got" this for some time now, noticeably John Lewis, whose website is now their largest store, with the necessary level of ongoing investment to reflect this.

All your face are belong to us...

If MySpace is Tesco, and Facebook is Sainsbury, does that make Bebo Morrisons?
Solid article about latest Nielsen Net Ratings figures for social networks here.

One thing that's struck me about the social networks is the brand loyalty and "switching" taking place as people find not only a social site that they like using, but that hooks them up with their friends and people they'd like to be associated with. There was some talk recently about the social divide of social sites, with MySpace being the more popular in terms of number but seemingly more down market and for the hoi poloi.

Have no comment to make as yet. Work to be done.

I'd like to teach the world to sing....

Nice ad placement on the Aint It Cool Website, advertising Coca Cola's music service. Simple rich media MPU in the far right (below the fold though, so I'd ask for some money back) with their top ten chart, "as voted for by you the listener". What's nice is that you can click on any of the tracks and it'll launch a neat little flash media player and play the full version of the track, then go on to play the rest of the chart.

You can add tracks to a favourites list, vote for tracks and help them climb up the chart, or change channels and listen to something else entirely (including brand endorsed podcasts).
Tracks are categorised by territory (nice brand echo there) and you can download a desktop version of the media player. Simple "send to a friend" mechanic spreads the love to your close ones.

Ooh, ooh, you can get the html for the player and embed it in your own website / myspace profile. The only thing missing is a link through to the coke website, which may be because its been cleverly hidden, is unneccesary, or is an oversight on an otherwise over enthusiastic creative team.

You can see the full web experience here (although I had trouble loading it in Firefox).

Good stuff.

Your mum!

Fact...mum's are neglecting their kids in favour of the internet. Dad's have been doing this for years, so I'm surprised its taken mothers so long to cotton on. If you can't beat them, join them, or something. Now, all we need is a Huggies campaign to put this research to good use.

EIAA report here

Credit to the Stream for bringing it to my attention.

Hi Fidelity

Record labels have cottoned on to the fact that the way we acquire and enjoy music has changed dramatically. In the days of the gramophone, music was very much a collective experience, exclusively for gatherings or family occassions, and rarely done in solitude (akin, so I hear, to whipping out a copy of Razzle on the Northern Line).

Whilst technology has offered vast improvements in terms of playback, both in quality and convenience, the combination of the MP3 player and the internet has taken the enjoyment of music into the personal realm, but the discussion and discovery of music into the wider online community. Look at the raft of community sites, and the recent acquisition of LastFM by entertainment stalwart CBS radio, and you'll quickly grasp that not buying music doesnt mean the revenue has dried up, it's just coming from a different source.

Anyway, some nice sites worthy of your attention.

MOG - US site, one year old, and a nice mix of proper community features, blogging, sharing of music (including full length tracks), and media. And it has a "magic button" (no, I'm still getting to grips with what it actually does). What's really nice is the way it populates your profile automatically, by whizzing through your music folder on your computer and posting it to your page.

Live Plasma - Interesting search engine, giving a visual map of bands / artists based on your search and helping you discover related music, music in films, etc etc. Works for films, actors and directors as well, all linking out to Amazon so you can buy the object of your desire.

Seeqpod - A search engine for music! Really simple. Does one thing very well. Search for a track or artist and it will search the web for tracks or video that match your search. Sign up and you can save your playlists and send recommendations or full lists to friends. Each search result includes a link out to related news, blog postings etc. Very nice. Very simple. Most of all, very useful and usable.

Happy listening!

Altogether now, one two three...

Been looking at the future of the music industry recently after a colleague of mine recommended to a major high street retailer that they should ditch selling records and turn their high profile stores into something akin to Nike town. The retailer in question, whilst offering a great way to lose £40 in a lunch break, have indeed taken a long time to "get with this web thing". For ages they refused to lower their prices, charging £14 or more for a chart album when their online rivals (no, not the good ship CDWOW) were selling the same UK product for £7 to £9. DVD's were no different (£24 versus £12) and only back catalog re-issues offering any kind of value (have you seen how many Tina Marie albums you can get for £40?).

The truth of the matter is that currently, digital sales account for approx 3% of total revenue compared to 87% of CD sales, so nobody's going for an early bath just yet. However, the nature of how we all discover and acquire (not always buy) music is evolving rapidly and within a few years the landscape will be considerably different.

There's a good article about the future of retail here from the BBC (who have been great at documenting this drama as it unfulrs (see next post).

If you tolerate this, then your children will be next.....

Kids tell companies what they want and companies are now listening.

Great piece to listen to here

I feel a Midwich Cuckoos moment coming on...