5 F’s of Social Media

5 F’s of Social Media

Over a few posts I will highlight a number of case studies highlighting examples where brands have successfully implemented a social media concept.  To help illustrate the cases I may also identify a couple of the social media disasters.  A great recent example is the DSGi Facebook group where employees openly criticised customers.

However in this post I would like to highlight something that I call the 5 F’s of social media.  Don’t worry I’m not going to teach 5 new profanities beginning with the letter F.  Us marketeers like simple number-letter concepts to help add context to a piece of theory (4 P’s of Marketing).  This will also help me frame the case studies in future posts.

My 5 F’s theory does exactly that.  It highlights 5 distinct criteria – that if all are met, I believe most social media campaigns or activity will succeed.  Each campaign doesn’t necessarily have to hit all the buttons and success could also be achieved by simply turning up the volume on one or two of the areas.

Familiarity

To make any social media/participative marketing campaign a success brands really need to understand their target audience and the objectives of engaging with them.  If you can really get to grips with who your audience is and what they want then you will gain a genuine connection.  With this connection the community or audience should do your work for you, participate and  help towards growing the campaign.

The best method to underline the importance of this particular F is when people get it wrong.  Pepsi’s recent campaign “helping men pull girls” which helped alienate half their audience (namely women).  They obviously had great intentions to undertake something cool and exciting on social media utilising app technology – however it seems to be a classic case of letting the technology rule the idea.

Even if your intention isn’t to run a ‘cool’ participative marketing campaign but to have a presence within social media, you still need to be familiar with your target audience.  Remove the word media from social media and you have social.  People using these channels generally do so to communicate with each other.  They align themselves with likeminded people and as a consequence, generally don’t like companies just plying them with promotional messages.  Brands need to earn trust and the right to have a place talking to people via social.  You need to be familiar to know what messages people want to receive, above all you must be open enough to reflect the audience wishes and feedback.

Fortune

Fortune covers two angles.  Participative marketing campaigns can be amplified if brands put budget behind them.  Social is not free.  You need to make the same investment in those campaigns as you would any other.  Don’t be so blinkered to imagine all promotion has to take place through social media.  People engaging with social media also consumer other media, the Obama campaign perfectly illustrates.  The campaign lived within social media, utilising strengths of various platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, however substantial investment was made in traditional channels to support this activity.

That being said, the investment doesn’t necessarily need to be in promotional activity.  Participative marketing can benefit from having a great (relevant) payoff for the participants.  A prize or even an ongoing cash amount for people submitting entries (Walkers – Do Us a Flavour).  This incentivises participants to think in detail about their response or become more creative.  The lure of some ‘fortune’ will also help spread word of mouth associated with your campaigns.

Fame

In 1968, Andy Warhol once famously created the phrase, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”  This seems to be the undertone for the society we currently live in.  With the rise of reality TV shows and YouTube heroes, everybody does have their opportunity and indeed millions are positively striving for their shot at fame.  Just look at some of the hopefuls on XFactor.

With this in mind, if you can offer the chance of fame as part of your social media strategy, no matter how small, their is a greater chance of success.  As with the familiarity section, the accolade has to be in tune with your audience.  There is no point providing the platform to be an Exhibitor in the Tate to a group of stereotypical football fans.  Neither would a DJ contest be of any interest to a group of traditional BBC Radio 4 listeners.

If you get it right, the element of fame can really engage with your audience.  Even if the fame is only restricted to a particular social network.  The YouTube phenonomen is a classic example of this.

Fun

As with most activity online, making it fun is a key consideration.  If you can entertain your audience you are more likely to gain the talkability factor.  A sense of fun adds an element of personality to a brand.  This does not necessarily mean the concept has to be funny, more just fun, engaging and entertaining to the audience.

Again, being in-tune with your audience is crucial.

Forwardability

If you have one or all the of the above elements cracked to a good level then you should have produced activity that has the potential to be forwarded.  Your presence needs to be in peoples’ e-mail boxes.  On their phones and referenced on their individual social media profiles.  Your need to be so current to the audience and reflect what they want that they are proud to be associated with the brand.  The audience will do the work for you.

Remember, get it wrong and they are just as likely to forward to their friends but paint a very negative and potentially damaging response.

The package

So this was an initial attempt at placing some theory behind social and participation marketing.  This is by no means exhaustive and I will hopefully come back from time to time to refine the concept of the 5 F’s.  I will also be looking at some case studies to critique and test my theory of the 5 F’s, so if you have any candidate campaigns or brands, please feel free to contact me.

Product Placement back on UK TV

Regulation U-Turn

As terrestrial commercial TV revenue streams continue to struggle in these difficult financial times, the government have agreed in principal to lift the ban on product placement on TV.  However this isn’t an even playing field as the ban is still likely to effect productions made for the BBC.

In theory the lifting of the ban could produce a decent level of secondary advertising income for programmes such as Coronation Street or Hollyoaks, however I would question the actual volume revenue unless we get into placements on the scale of those seen in 80s American blockbusters such as Superman.  I can picture X-Factor now, Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole drinking from very well branded Coca Cola glasses.  The introduction really needs to have some clear parameters.  The move is rumoured to be worth c. £100m to the commercial broadcasters, something that would be welcomed in these troubled times.  Contrary to some of the critics, I don’t see such a big issue as long as programme writers and producers can keep their editorial integrity in place.

The benefit of this U-turn does provide an improvement to the ambience of the sets in drama series.  Rather than some bizarre made-up lager in the Woolpack we will actually see genuine brands, making it more realistic.  Why should Eastenders be any different though?

If advertisers can get their products in the right placements and done in a non-intrusive way it could really support their brand.  Association with popular programmes or characters could help support their brand credentials.  However association with programmes such as reality shows could provide as many issues as benefits.  I would imagine that Big Brother would have made a significant amount of money from product placement.  Imagine the likes of Craig from the original series drinking a can of Carlsberg.  Or this years Big Brother winner Sophie tucking into Cadburys Dairy Milk.

Social Media, its decline and the youngsters

 Social Media on the decline?

 A number of commentators are waxing lyrical about the decline of social media, almost to the extent that they urging it to happen.

So whilst Twitter is growing, but not at the alarming rates of Facebook and MySpace before it, MySpace is in decline and Facebook seems to have plateaued, has social media really had its day?

Thanks to KJackson Photography for the picture

Personally I don’t think web users will swap from owning the media to reverting back to receiving messages that media owners and organisations choose. The issues seem to centre around younger audiences moving away from the likes of Facebook as the older generations engage.

So as the teens and 20-somethings move from Facebook because of the oldies, the really young youngsters have never really been into it. They have their own communities.  Before we explore this phenomenon, lets look at the figures.  So according to Hitwise, Twitter and MySpace share roughly the same number of visitors, a lowly 0.25% of all Internet traffic.  However, as you can read from a previous post in this blog the same source  (Hitwise) reveals MySpace has a bigger share of social networking traffic in the UK than Twitter.  Putting that to one side we must also consider that these numbers may not take into consideration the mass use of both Twitter and Facebook on mobiles and SmartPhones such as the iPhone. 

The other commentary surrounding social media at the present time is the sense that younger audiences are moving away from the likes of Facebook or not engaging with Twitter because nosey oldies are now on those sites.  (No we aren’t on to the topic of the really young yet) What self-respecting 17 year old wants to be seen regularly in the same place as their mum and dad.   Again, it may be that the younger Facebook audience are using the interface on different devices.  So Facebok is lining up solutions such as the well reported Facebook 3.0 to try and retain some of its appeal to the younger audiences. 

What about the real youngsters?

So here we are.  The real youngsters have never engaged with the mainstream social media sites we all know.  Partly due to age restrictions, although that doesn’t stop most teens.  More importantly because they don’t see those sites as being for them.  Kids have their own areas.  Areas they can meet up, interact and drive what they want to see.  As you would expect from most of these sites they are far more interactive, with more tasks and games built in to the overall concept.  The majority have you playing as a character, as much to protect the child’s identity as to help them immerse themselves into the virtual world (similar to Second Life).  These platforms are sometime known as MMOG (massively multiplayer online games)

What this means is that the platforms are more content rich and graphically more advanced than the likes of Facebook or the closest to youngsters Social Networking, Bebo.  This also allows for greater adoption of add-ons or Marketing to younger people.  I will illustrate what I mean by add-ons when I cover some of the examples.  The Marketing opportunities are massive though.  There are very few places where younger audiences congregate with the single purpose to interact with each other and embrace the community put in front of them.  Whilst we all have to be careful to obey the strict rules in connection to marketing to children, if you have a place, these are great environments.

This isn’t just my point of view.  Disney payed a multi-million pound sum for Club Penguin and have began to reap the rewards both in online and real-world situations.  Lego have also identified this as a fruitful area and are planning to launch Lego Universe in 2010.  Lego Universe will cover a range of games and interaction, where no doubt there will be a merchandising tie-in and charges for certain components of the site.  Below are a few examples of these sites, all with a common theme.  Above the standard social aspects are themes and games that appeal to a younger audience, encouraging a rich level of interaction.

Club Penguin

Club Penguin is a virtual world of snow and ice.  Your profile is based around a cartoon penguin as your avatar.  You have an igloo (your base) and you can build it up, fill it with things and let others come and see it.  There is full interaction to encourage the social element and special events for the visitors to participate in.

Whilst anybody can go on, the revenue is driven primarily throuh membership, which can now also be bought throguh Disney shops and Sainsburys or online through the site itself.  The site has well over 12m members, who reguarly visit and spend an age interacting.  Club Penguin is such a success, after going live following a Beta test in 2005, it was bought by Disney in 2007 for $350m.  The entertainment giant has extended the revenue opportunities through the environment and even pushes merchandise through its netwrk of Disney stores.

Habbo Hotel

Possibly one of the biggest sites for teens, Habbo Hotel has a massive 118m avatars registered and over 8m UVs monthly.  It is said by publishers Sulake that 75,000 new avatars are being registered every day.  The main areas, are groups, chat and discussion board as well as the hotel itself.  This is where you can place extras in your room (at a real cost) and invite other Habbo inhabitants round to see and party.

The site began as a hobby in 1999 and as a result of funding for a virtual hotel game gained its place on the web in 2000.

Stardoll

Stardoll as you would expect is really targetted towards girls.  You get the oppotunity to dress your cartoon doll up in costumes and buy accessories to make it look better  The community vote and extra points are awarded.  The site has over 40m members (majority girls) that of course have an interest in fashion and celebrities.  The site also boasts a user generated fashion magazine and chat, forums etc.  Avril Lavigne and Hilary Duff are represented on the site as are a number of fashion labels.

 

 

Poptropica

Poptropica has over 13m visitors and is an iland based VR game.  Very cartoon focussed where visitor have to take on roles and complete challenges.  This site is more of a game with bolt on social elements and is given an edge with its Head to Head competitions.  There is also a Reality TV Island base on reality TV show Survivor.

So its all good then?

Well if we could be sure that everybody present on these sites were who they say they are then yes.  There are a number of key issues that were identified when I spoke to parents that I know.  The most obvious issue is child safety and the fact that these sites are targeted at children, nefarious older people can easily join.  One case took place in Holland in 2004 where a 36 year old man was imprisoned for targeting a young girl and getting her to meet him.  There have also been theft s of virtual furniture, which in essence is real theft as these were paid for add-ons. 

Other issues were thought to stem around links being disguised as innocent content that children would click on. These could dupe the youngster into receiving unsuitable material or download rogue software such as key loggers or Malware.

It is thought by the parents that I spoke to that more should be done to protect youngsters, for them to feel these communities were safe, before they will let their children freely use them in the same way you or I might use Facebook.  These protections should be put in place to ensure both the safety of the users bu also to avoid any contoversy that could also have a massive effect in their publishers such as Disney or advetisers on the site.

One thing is certain in my mind.  Social media in whatever form it takes is here to stay.  It may evolve and users may be less loyal to communities as others develop.  However, regardless of age or gender, the internet plays such a central part in our lives, social media is here and will be for a long time.  That is, unless we find out the reason younger audiences were moving away from Facebook is actually becuase they have realised that there is an outdoors and actually speak face to face with people rather than online.  You never know.

Best Buy Launches UK Holding Page

UK Holding Page Live for Best Buy

I am not one to generally do plugs for my place of work on this blog.  I generally don’t do short blog posts either.  However on this occassion I am happy to make an exception.

We have launched a holding page for Best Buy UK as our first step towards our UK launch.   Let me know what you think.

As you might expect from Best Buy, we aren’t contented to put up a page and leave it at that.   We have also set-up an e-Mail address to hear your views.  The first subject we want to hear your opinions on is your current experiences of shopping for consumer electronics in the UK.

This is the start of our approach to launch, bookmark the page or look out for updates on Twitter @BestBuyUK

Enjoy

The Internet Landscape

NetImperative.com published a number of latest stats on internet usage this week.  But what does it all mean?

Rise and Fall of the Internet

So you probably thought that everybody that wanted to use the internet at home probably already has access.  Well according to the latest numbers from Nielsen (featured on NetImperative) there is still room for growth in major markets.  The US and UK saw significant growth, 10.4% and 3.1% respectively.    There was also growth of over 1% in Australia, Italy and Germany with more modest growths in Japan and Brazil.  Most startling isn’t the fact that some markets have continued to grow, more that some major markets have declined, including France, Spain and Switzerland. 

Whilst I don’t think the numbers should be read in pure black and white terms, it does demonstrate the issues of using data on such a small time frame and not looking at longer term trends.  The data was based only on May 09 Vs June 09.  If you were to read this on face value, it would seem USA is leading the way on the internet whilst some mainland European counties are turning their backs on the Internet, which obviously isn’t true.  I am not 100% certain but I can’t imagine the numbers Nielsen uses takes into account convergance and the growing move towards accessing the internet on mobile devices such as the Apple iPhone or the HTC Google phone.  This is also set to continue with newer style netbooks with mobile broadband capability built-in.

Top Social Networking Channels

So Facebook are the kings of social networking.  That is the widely held view and judging from the Hitwise numbers featured in NetImperative show that it represents 47% of all UK visits to social networking sites.  Interestingly Bebo has twice the traffic of Twitter and MySpace.  Another dark horse that many people completely ignore is Yahoo!Answers with 1.19% of all traffic. 

Whilst these numbers prove that Facebook cannot be ignored by marketeers, it does demonstrate the next tier isn’t as obvious and clear cut as many think.  All Marketeers should look at their target segments and choose which channel best suits their needs.  They should also consider what they have to offer each network and create firm reasons for being involved.  Despite Bebo’s claims within their advertising sales packages, I doubt they are as big in the 25+ market as they would lead you to believe.  You must therefore determine if you have anything to offer a younger audience and if you brand belongs.

Top UK Online Retailers

Once again on NetImperative they list the Top 50 Online Retailers within the UK (listed at the foot of this post).  The list published in conjunction with IMRG and using Hitwise data is based purely on visits.   The list is fine as a benchmark but to label its output Top 50 Online retailers is somewhat over the top.  The numbers fail to recognise usability, conversion, online SoV or the obvious benchmark of turnover and profit.  If all these factors were incorporated, I am sure there would be some differing positions and maybe even some change of faces in the Top 50.

Withstanding the rationale of creating the list, the top 10 is made up predominantly of names you would consider when talking about Top 10.  Amazon (1st and 5th), Argos, Play.com, Next, Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Thomson, Expedia and EasyJet.  OK so the final few wouldn’t be in my list of Top 10 online retailers.  Despite this list IMRG claim a massive rise in spend online, largely driven by the fashion sector (none of whom really appear at the top of the list, with the exception of Next and M&S)

The most interesting element of the top 10 is that all are recognised brands.   This shows that Internet Marketeers also need to recognise the importance of brand and cannot base every business decision purely on immediate ROI or DM metrics.

Top 50 Online Retailers List  – August 2009

Source: NetImperative

1	Amazon UK	http://www.amazon.co.uk/
2	Argos	http://www.argos.co.uk/
3	Play.com	http://www.play.com/
4	Next	http://www.next.co.uk/
5	Amazon.com	http://www.amazon.com/
6	Marks & Spencer	http://www.marksandspencer.com/
7	Tesco.com	http://www.tesco.com/
8	Thomson Holidays	http://www.thomson.co.uk/
9	Expedia.co.uk	http://www.expedia.co.uk/
10	easyJet	http://www.easyjet.co.uk/
11	Apple Computer	http://www.apple.com/
12	Ryanair	http://www.ryanair.com/
13	ASOS	http://www.asos.com/
14	Tesco Direct	http://www.direct.tesco.com/
15	lastminute.com	http://www.lastminute.com/
16	Thomas Cook	http://www.thomascook.com/
17	B&Q	http://www.diy.com/
18	John Lewis	http://www.johnlewis.com/
19	Debenhams	http://www.debenhams.com/
20	Littlewoods	http://www.littlewoods.com/
21	HMV.co.uk	http://www.hmv.co.uk/
22	River Island	http://www.riverisland.com/
23	Currys	http://www.currys.co.uk/
24	Ticketmaster UK	http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/
25	Topshop	http://www.topshop.co.uk/
26	Odeon Cinemas	http://www.odeon.co.uk/
27	New Look	http://www.newlook.co.uk/
28	LOVEFiLM	http://www.lovefilm.com/
29	O2 Shop	http://www.shop.o2.co.uk/
30	Cineworld Cinemas	http://www.cineworld.co.uk/
31	TravelRepublic.co.uk	http://www.travelrepublic.co.uk/
32	Comet UK	http://www.comet.co.uk/
33	Vue Entertainment	http://www.myvue.com/
34	The TrainLine	http://www.thetrainline.com/
35	British Airways	http://www.britishairways.com/
36	ASDA	http://www.asda.co.uk/
37	First Choice	http://www.firstchoice.co.uk/
38	Dell EMEA	http://www.euro.dell.com/
39	Halfords	http://www.halfords.com/
40	Screwfix Direct	http://www.screwfix.com/
41	PC World	http://www.pcworld.co.uk/
42	GAME	http://www.shop.game.net/
43	IKEA	http://www.ikea.com/
44	Travelodge UK	http://www.travelodge.co.uk/
45	Homebase	http://www.homebase.co.uk/
46	Sainsbury’s	http://www.sainsburys.com/
47	Boots	http://www.boots.com/
48	ASDA Direct	http://direct.asda.com
49	The Orange Shop	http://www.shop.orange.co.uk/
50	QVCUK.com	http://www.qvcuk.com/

Web Analytics – how can you utilise to create improvement?

Web Analytics

In today’s economy most organisations have a website.  Most organisations invest in the design of the site.  A high proportion invest in usability.  A number of organisations invest in additional content.  A good proportion of organisations invest in web analytics, however a good proportion don’t.

Of the organisations that do invest a number don’t really utilise the full benefit.  So those that don’t realise the full potential of web analytics or don’t use them at all are really missing the real advantage of the web.  Most people love the internet because it is ‘so transparent’ or ‘it is the most measurable channel’.  However without fully utilising web analytics those benefits cannot be truly reaslised.

How do you make it work?

Most organisations completely fail to realise the full potential of their investment because they invest in the tools, however don’t invest in the resources needed to make the tools work.

The main building block to making web analytics truly work is to invest in personnel that can both operate the tools and as importantly understand the outputs, analyse and put plans into action to improve, based on the results.

Companies also need to recognise what they want from web analytics.  It may be that all you need to know are basic traffic numbers, or sales per visits.  These parameters should be set and where possible, dashboards should be set to ensure consistency of output and easily comparable data.  In addition, this should create efficiencies within business decision-making processes.

What should you use Web Analytics to achieve?

The obvious areas are measure, analyse and optimise on your KPIs.  Simple, however many organisations fail on these basic central points.

A key reason for adopting a thorough approach to web analytics is to input into your optimisation strategy.  Let the data identify key issues that are impacting on your conversion in both a positive and negative way.

Web analytics should also allow you to track the sources of your traffic.  You should be able to track all your sources of traffic, de-dupe and prove what channels are driving traffic, sales and ultimately conversion.  With the two elements combined you should be able to optimise both your site (layout, call to action, customer journey) and your media/creative mix.

Going back to the original point, if you clearly define your objectives and KPIs, web analytics can really

The continuous improvement process

The continuous improvement process sometimes termed kaizen (Japanese for improvement) is what should underpin any web analytics implementation or strategy.  The basis of this concept is actionable measurement.  You need to do more than just measure results, feed the output back in to everything you do.  Change both the elements that are measured and review everything it impacts.  Even though you may be identifying a away to optimise your call to action buttons on your website, it may be down to the language – this in theory could influence how retail staff interact.

Top 5 Key considerations

1 Delve into your analytics and get past the top layer

2 Mirror the output with the objectives

3 Once the basics are cracked, undertake more complex initiatives such as multi-variate testing, which allows you to make dynamic changes to your site to speed your optimisation cycle

4 Can areas of improvement being made on the website improve other areas of the business?

5. Don’t just collect data, act upon it, optimise and review

Cost Vs Benefit

Remember, web analytics doesn’t have to be expensive.  You can get complex systems such as Omniture, that can interrogate all levels of detail and integrate into all your business systems.  However if your requirements aren’t as complex, your implementation timescales are shorter or quite simply you don’t have those levels of budget, you can get a very rich layer of information from free tools such as Google Analytics.  Whatever happens, don’t let cost be a barrier to implementing web analytics.  The benefits of a small investment will far outweigh any costs, as long as you act on what you are being shown.

Football Sponsorship in the changing climate

Is the backdrop for sponsorship changing?

There is a lot of talk in both the marketing and sports arenas that the climate for sponsorship is changing.  Sponsorship in football isn’t new.  During the 1920s Lillywhites negotiated exclusive rights to publish FA fixture lists.  In the 30s the top players of the time such as Sir Stanley Matthews, were seen to endorse and advertise a range of products from cigarettes to mens cosmetics.  So David Beckham was beaten in his endorsements by some 70 years.

In the 70s football was in the midst of a mini economic crisis, crowds were falling and players’ wages increasing.  The Football League decided to create some (short-lived) tournaments such as the Texaco Cup and the Watney Cup (won by Bristol Rovers).  However it was the Football League Cup that secured the first major sponsorship deal in 1982, the Milk Cup was formed.  Most of the major tournaments have since secured sponsorship deals, either associate or title sponsorship.

The combined factors of the economic downturn and the rise of online for more than just purely acquisitional methods of promoting your brand, has helped to create this perception.  Examples of the changing commercial climate in football were cited, when the likes of Setanta failed to make their rights to major football pay.  The collapse of Setanta in the UK despite rights to Premier League football and Scottish Premiership and several other high profile sporting occassions could be perceived as the end of the commercial euphoria that has changed the English game.

Never has the English game been under this kinf of pressure since ITV Digital collapse put a number of English clubs at risk.  The increase of clubs entering administration in the game at the lower levels also adds fuel to the fire.  The current decline of the pound against  the Euro (combined with 50% tax rate) is also resulting in some top players such as Ronaldo moving abroad or considering the move.

All doom and gloom?

However, there is still an influx of cash from (in the main) overseas backers, meaning football at all levels is still getting investment.  This isn’t just top flight any more, the likes of Southampton and Notts County are also being pushed.  The fact that Setanta had their rights replaced so promptly by the likes of ESPN also helped ease some of the concerns.

There are also some key sponsorship deals that have been signed recently including Chelsea’s deal with Samsung.

A new approach

Obviously it isn’t always possible to rely on investment from overseas billionaires.  For every Chelsea and Abrahmovic there are 50 not so fortunate clubs.  So how do they survive?  Well frankly, some don’t, however others have discovered more creative approaches to their sponsorship.

Some of the clubs have benefited from giving away naming rights.  For example when Arsenal moved from their long-term Highbury home to their new stadium, Emirates Airways secured a reported 10 year muli-million pound deal to create the Emirates Stadium.   A number of traditional supporters think this is a step too far, however most accept that this is the current trend and the only way to stay competitive.  So stadiums have been sponsored, shirts don logos, individual players have become commodities, the only thing left is the club itself, steeped in tradition and part of the community.  Not for too long.  Whilst accepted overseas with the likes of Eindhoven being name PSV (Philips) and Salzburg (FC Red Bull Salzburg) bringing corporate life to the centre of their existence.  Now financially troubled Stirling Albion are looking to go the same route and offer naming rights on a five year deal.  Whilst it will undoubtedly annoy the real traditional football followers it is better to keep the club going.

Whilst other lower league clubs continue to grapple with the current climate not all are going down the extreme route of auctioning their identity.  Bristol Rovers took the creative route to gain revenue by raffling its shirt sponsorship.  The club claim to have come up with the idea as they feared their sponsorship revenue would decrease if they managed to secure one at all.  The raffle is estimated to have generated double the revenue that they would have expected for sponsorship in a growing economy.  It also created a lot of buzz around the community and generated some good PR.

Whatever happens to the economy overall, the British game will continue and will without a shadow of doubt continue to generate revenue, either from wealthy investors, major sponsorship tie-ups or the inventive methods shown by smaller clubs such as Stirling Albion and Bristol Rovers.

What about the sponsors?

Never has the need for sponsors to connect to the recipients of their sponsorships been so great.  With the growing consumpion of alternative media, people are now driving the news and owning the media agenda.  With the likes of Twitter or Facebook, users can endorse or undemine a sponsorship within mintues of its announcement or perhaps more importantly within minutes of being exposed to it.

Any organisation that sponsors any property, whether it is a football club, event or a broadcast property such as Big Brother, needs to have a reason to be associated.  When I was at Nationwide we developed a whole campaign that enveloped our sponsorship properties (primarily the England Football Team).  Our “Sponsored by You” campaign put all the perks of being a corporate sponsor back in the hands of our members and the average fan.  Members of Nationwide could win VIP tickets to see England, get a player to a local school or get signed merchandise.  It also encourage winners to post videos or photos of their experience.  This kind of approach allows the organisation a place within the recipients passion, and makes them feel welcomed. 

Sponsors need to move away from thinking about sponsorships as merely a means to get their name out to a mass audience.  They really need to make them work or face a waste of marketing spend that could have been utilised to a far greater degree elsewhere.

Teenagers Don’t Regularly Read Newspapers

Morgan Stanley Revelation

Well it seems to take a 15 year old boy to tell the corporate world the blinking obvious.  Matthew Robson a 15 year old school boy had a work experience stint at Morgan Stanley.  As part of his spell there he was asked to write a research paper on teens media consumption.

Now this isn’t a dig at Matthew Robson, or particularly at Morgan Stanley, but does it demonstrate a distinct lack of awareness at large corporations about online and other emerging media channels.  Matthew probably didn’t expect to become when he wrote a summary of what he and his mates thought.  Yet it seems his work hit the tables of analysts, investors and CEOs.

So what inspiration did Matthew afford to his six-figure salaried friends?  Well here are a few items:

Teens prefer streaming sites (e.g. Napster and Spotify) to regular Radio – as, wait for it, they don’t like adverts

Teens prefer Facebook to Twitter as it is seen as a better way to stay in touch – (apparently Stephen Fry isn’t cool for teens)

Teens also watch TV (a lot) but via internet rather than TV, so they can watch what they want when they want on channels such as iPlayer

Teens don’t buy newspapers, or indeed don’t buy CDs

Teens also find online advertising pointless

Well as I said, this is not against Matthew, I just think the stating of the blooming obvious really illustrates a lack of corporate understanding.  This lack of understanding is both lack of education of online and also most are so far out of touch with ‘youth’  the obvious becomes a breakthrough.  I just hope Matthew’s efforts opens the eyes of some corporations. 

I have thought of some other bright ideas that Morgan Stanley can get excited about:

Top 5 ideas

1. School boys like football and can often be found to wear replica football shirts

2. Very young children struggle to eat solid food, they prefer liquidised food which is easier to swallow

3. Kids enjoy sending text messages on their mobile phones

4. Children play games on their consoles

5. Girls and boys are different, as a result they should be treated differently when targetting products at them

Matthew is also quoted as saying that he is now considering a career in investment banking.  Matthew, I am not surprised, good luck.

Missing Blog Posts

So as some regular readers of my blog will have noticed I haven’t posted any articles recently.  Firstly I would like to apologise, this isn’t because I have lost interest but due to the fact that I have recently changed roles and endure a daily 2 hour commute each way.

So what am I doing now?

Having made my career progress at DSGi taking over all Online Marketing, Design and Content for Currys, Dixons and PC World,  I decided it was time to seek a new challenge.  Thankfully plenty of offers were on the table and I was lucky enough to choose from some fantastic opportunities.   I decided to opt for remaining in Consumer Electronics retailing but try my hand at delivering my experience within a start-up.  The opportunity at Best Buy (as reported in NMA) allowed me to set up a department and functions from scratch.

Whilst Best Buy aren’t your traditional start-up (part of the World’s largest Consumer Electronics Retailer) it does mean you get involved in absolutely everything.  Formulating strategy, developing plans and ensuring buy-out throughout the entire organisation.   Add in the Carphone Warehouse (who I am supprting on a consultancy basis)  element and you get an organisation of amazing scale and opportunity.

 

 

Back to tradition

In addition to truly formulating the online marketing approach I am also, driving the overall brand and comms strategy, everything from brand architecture and positioning through to developing a fully integrated comms strategy.  All this in conjunction with the Head of Marcomms, allowing us to really plan from a joined up foundation from day one.  A really refreshing approach and one that has to be the way forward.  The main obstacle blocking generally preventing this from happenning is the fact that many online marketers don’t have experience in branding or ATL comms.  Luckily my experience at both Reuters and Nationwide is helping me lead and define the approach

More to come

Whilst I can’t promise to be as active as I once was on this blog, I will start to try and produce more articles again.  Thanks to everybody for reading and thanks for the positive and constructive feedback both through the comments on the blog and via e-mail.  Also look out for updates on Best Buy as we get closer to our 2010 UK launch.

Murdoch to Charge – Does Attention Economy now have its own recession?

Rupert Murdoch announces plan to charge for news content

So the announcement last week that Rupert Murdoch intends to start charging for newspaper content via his News Corporations newspaper websites came as a surprise to some.  Especially as Murdoch is widely credited with being the individual that introduced the Free-to-read premise of online newspapers.

Obviously the recession and falling newspaper circulation is behind this latest decision (NewsCorps profits slumped by 47%, advertising revenue in Britain slumped by 21%).  The strategy is being fuelled by the success of online subscriptions at the Wall Street Journal.

This is a completely personal opinion, but online subscriptions for a B2B publication, or one where you make expensive decisions,  is a completely different kettle of fish to consumer mass media publications.

Murdoch is determined to set the wheels in motions on these plans within twelve months.  So no doubt you regular readers of The Sun and The Times will be getting your cards out to get your subscriptions.  I didn’t think so!

Attention Economy

This story made me think about a previous post I made on this blog relating to Attention Planning.  Attention Planning in part works with the premise of the Attention Economy.   The Attention Economy is based on the fact that humans only have the capability to pay attention to a finite amount of information or a finite amount of messages.  With the rise of social media, the dynamics of the attention economy have changed, more and more information is available at an unprecedented pace and there are in increasing number of ‘editors’ that broadcast.  As a consequence our attention is become a scarce commodity, a valuable trading commodity.

Many site owners are charged with making sticky or engaging content.  Content that will make people want to return to their site time and time again.  Whilst this is a great move and is a great way of trying to attract people it is also contributing to the overload of information and making peoples’ attention an even more valuable commodity.

Why is it so important?

Well if you look at traditional economic measures for simplicity sake, the amount of money people have, founders of sites such as Yahoo, Facebook and Google became millionaire when there was no revenue being driven via their platforms.  Why?  Largely because investors know that is a site attracts thousands or millions of visitors there are definite money making opportunities through advertising or maybe even subscriptions.

People will trade e-Commerce properties before they have made a penny, in a number of cases while they are making big losses.  Everybody wants a piece of Twitter but how much money does it actually make?

Very few genres such as Twitter and Facebook experience such accelerated over-night success.  However, if you can targetted to your key area, tailor content to your particular audience, segment or niche you will have a great chance of gaining their attention.  Otherwise, at best they will skim your content, not take it in and are unlikely to return.

Back to Murdoch

So has Murdoch got it right if you consider the Attention Economy?  I would argue he is taking a short-term view on an issue to solve a long-term problem.  With the likes of the BBC distributing high quality broadcast information and the volume of information transmitted by individuals on Twitter and Facebook et al, I doubt it is a model that can be sustained.  That is unless NewsCorp can get content that is so unique people will pay the subscription.  Something that was overlooked in most of the debates, will Murdoch start charging for people to use MySpace?  I would imagine that would kill the community and drive the teens and 20-somethings to an alternative.

I would personally suggest NewsCorp need to look at their content.  Make it compelling and then gain revenues off the back of the increased visitors numbers.  But as Murdoch himself said “I am no economist”.