Interactive PR

This blog is sleeping

2007-08-22T15:25:00.000Z

I'm not updating this blog for the moment. In the meantime, you can always check out my delicious account for Interactive PR at http://del.icio.us/paulb/interactivepr

Interactive promotion report: email marketing

2007-01-06T11:57:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Michelle Field looks at:

Email Marketing, Newsletters etc.
Michelle Field

E-mail Marketing is immensely used for commercial purposes often to promote a company’s services and products in hope to gain customers and therefore increase sales. In addition e-mail campaigns can deliver specific messages to an audience in hope to get them to carry out a required action (e.g. ‘register now’). E-mail marketing can also be used in the form of greeting cards, newsletters and event alerts. These e-mails are usually created using HTML (and elements of flash) or text formatting.

There are several aspects that make a good and bad e-mail marketing campaign. There are also advantages as well as disadvantages in using e-mail as a form of interactive promotion. I will be identifying some of these features and providing examples of where and how they are used on the internet.

Below are examples of web companies that provide e-mail services:

1) Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.co.ukyahoo/
Yahoo offers multiple services to their customers. For example, users are able to use the search option, shop, listen to music or they can read/compose e-mail all from the same page. This is convenient for users as almost everything they need is in one place, saving the time of having to search around a number of sites. I think that Yahoo mail is set up for all internet users (all ages) as its wide range of features caters for a variety of needs.

2) Hotmail
http://www.hotmail.com/

Every e-mail that is sent through a hotmail account contains the hotmail logo. Therefore, the millions of receivers of these e-mails will come to recognise the extent of hotmail users. In addition, this is a good way of 'spreading the word' about their e-mail facilities.

Hotmail also sends their current users e-mails informing them of the new facilities available in attempt to get them to sign up to them. Some cost money such as more e-mail storage space and others keep up with competition and keep users hooked, for example by providing updated versions of MSN. I believe that Hotmail’s target audience is the younger generation averaging from 12-28 years as its features such as MSN appear to cater for this age group.

Some companies using e-mail marketing have become concerned that their deliverability rates are decreasing through the use of spam filtering. Image/link blocking is currently used by e-mail providers such as hotmail. If the e-mail sender is not in the receivers address book links will not be live and pictures will not be visible. How do legitimate e-mails overcome this? ‘It's getting your recipients to "whitelist" or "safelist" you. How do you do that? Ask them to add the e-mail address you send from to their address books.’ (Jennings, 2004, Online). However this is easier said than done. Jennings also suggests, “You should also run every e-mail you send through Spam Assassin or another content/format filter before you send and check your score to be sure you're below the 'probably spam' threshold.” (Jennings, 2004, Online).

Below are some examples of companies that use e-mail marketing campaigns:

1) Cancer Research UK
http://www.cancer2020.org/

The company has sent automatic e-mails to existing members (e-mail blast) of their organisation, encouraging them to sign a petition, to prepare the NHS for future cancer needs. These people then also have the opportunity to 'Tell a friend' in hope to spread the word as a result this could create a viral effect.

I would say that the target audience for this campaign is very wide as it is an issue that could potentially affect everyone. Also many people have fought cancer or have had friends or family that has had the disease.

When receiving the e-mail a link takes you through to the website that is set up for the petition. From visiting the website I feel the need to participate in the petition because of its good cause nature. The use of stating the number of people who have already signed signifies the extent of how much people care. The use of calm colours such as blue and green connote a utopian effect suggesting how we can make a difference and have a positive impact on people’s lives. I think that this is a good landing page as it has been kept fairly simple therefore taking into consideration the wide age group and audience that is likely to be visiting the site. For example navigation is easy in that the ‘sign up’ box is bold and the use of rollovers indicates the link clearly. However I do feel that perhaps the ‘who are we’ link that is in small print at the bottom of the page should perhaps be more visible for new visitors that do not know much about the charity.

In signing the petition personal data is required; therefore data protection would have had to have been taken into consideration. Promotion mailing software would have been used in order to contact their existing users. In signing the petition there is also the option to receive further information via e-mail I think this is a good way to promote future events.

2) N.E.C
http://www.necgroup.co.uk/

You can sign up to a newsletter to receive information on events taking place at the NEC, NIA, Symphony Hall and the ICC. This can be known as an e-mail blast where a number of members are informed by e-mail of the latest events.

There are usually a number of links on the e-mails sent; I wonder which of these links are most commonly clicked on by people and which are least useful. This also makes me think whether the company has considered this and if some links drive more activity and create more interest than others. If this is the case then perhaps the commonly used links should be highlighted more. Loren McDonald? from the Email Insider says, “If you focus just on the CTR itself, you might miss a key indicator, like finding out just two of those links drove 75 percent of your activity.” (McDonald?, 2006, Online).

I commonly use the link ‘for a full listing of what’s on’ to see all of the latest events. The landing page in which the e-mail’s link sends you to is good as it uses a simple table format with boxes to separate individual sections such as venues, dates, months and keywords. I think this simple layout for navigation is good as potentially they could be receiving a variety of users and from different age groups. This makes me consider the importance of landing pages as they are the first page in which users come to through e-mail links and therefore have the potential to win over a viewers attention to ‘read on’. In criticising this campaign I think it would be of use to them if they included a ‘tell a friend’ option.

In creating newsletters you need to consider what format you intend to use such as plain text, PDF or HTML. These are discussed further by Scott F. Geld who suggests that newsletters “…keeps clients and potential clients informed about products, events and services that relate to your business…” (Geld, 2006, Online). In order to make professional newsletters you could use a software application such as Microsoft Publisher.

Landing pages

From the above example I then went onto find out more about the importance of the landing page. Jordon Ayan CEO of Subscriber Mail states that a bad landing page can ‘…destroy a successful email marketing campaign.’ (Ayan, 2006, Online). From reading his discussion it became apparent that the following should be considered when creating your landing page:

· It should work in conjunction with the e-mail (same aims, approach and focus).

· Keep viewers focused on the action in which you want them to perform therefore get rid of un-needy items such as links concerning other topics. Consider navigation.

· Ensure customers that they have arrived at the correct location e.g. match the heading from the e-mail to the one in your landing page.

· Short and to the point information to keep user interest.

· Lead the eye, with the use of elements such as images and graphics.

· If you require personal information provide a link on your privacy policy to reassure customers.

3) Greeting Cards
http://www.greeting-cards.com/
The company offers a range of free greeting cards as well as ones you can buy. The receiver of the cards that are sent will become aware of which company/website the card is from through advertisements, as well as the URL address which is located at the bottom of each card. For a charge you can send a card without other adverts being included, either way the company will benefit.

These e-cards are aimed at a vast audience as there are a number of different categories such as astrology, family, love/romance and friendship a number these are likely to affect each individual that accesses the site.

I would use their free services in the future.

4) Synergy
http://www.cosmogirl.co.uk/

Cosmo girl is a magazine aimed at young females. Synergy is used with the use of competitions printed in the magazine informing readers that if they wish to enter they should visit Cosmo girl’s website. By doing this readers are encouraged to become members of the site and therefore are likely to receive newsletters and other forms of e-mail from them. In turn these e-mails promote the magazine by reminding/alerting readers when the next issue is out. These e-mails are attractive and eye-catching with the use of flash and images inserted. They also cater for the young female audience with the use of pink and bold text for the important messages such as ‘OUT NOW’. However these e-mails also contain a lot of text beneath the images allowing readers to find out more if they wish to but there is quite a lot of information to scan through. The e-mail also provides links such as ‘The Mall’, ‘Music’ and ‘Guys’ this remediates the set up of the magazine which also contains these sections. Cosmo girl also provide a unsubscribe button positioned at the bottom of the page.

5) Product Promotion
http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/

It seems apparent that content is an important aspect to think about within e-mail marketing. Fragrance direct offers fragrances for both male and females. Once you sign up and buy a product off of them you can become apart of their mailing list. The company’s mail adapts a style according to the time of the year (e.g. Easter, Halloween, and Christmas) and plays on these themes to encourage sales. They know that around these seasonal times people are most likely to be buying presents for people. A recent e-mail the company sent out used images such as bats and words and phrases such as ‘Spooky Offers’ to entice viewers throughout the halloween period. I like the overall layout of these e-mails they show pictures of products for both men and women.

6) 2004 Election
www.imediaconnection.com/content/4499.asp

This article describes how both George Bush and John Kerry in 2004 used e-mail as a form of raising their standings in the polls, they also both used e-mail marketing as a fund raising tool, ‘ Kerry raised over $80 million during the primary over the Internet, with email a major part of that effort.’ (Jenkins, 2004, Online). The article goes on to inform us of the ways in which both candidates use of e-mail marketing was good and bad. For example one aspect that was drawn upon was the use of a strong subject line. Kerry seems to have tended to use headings such as ‘Polling Update’ whereas Bush’s stood out more like “Let the Voters Choose, Not the Lawyers.” In all, the article seems to suggest that Bush’s campaign was more successful. It seems that Kerry’s was less successful as he did not; maximize use of personalisation, use strong targeting/segmenting (e.g. Bush sent e-mails to the residents of Georgia on issues concerning people in that area), deliver frequently- during the final weeks before the election Kerry was less urgent in sending out e-mails on a daily basis, also he did not offer a ‘forward to a friend’ option (viral effect) or did he include a footer with an opt-in option allowing people to agree to receiving future messages.

Mail to links
http://www.photographicsolutions.biz/
Buisnesses often have a direct 'mail to' link that automatically opens a new e-mail window (e.g. Outlook Express) enabling you to instantly e-mail them. I think this effectively encourages people to get in touch straight away, instead of perhaps having to write the e-mail address down to use later and forgetting to do so.

Spam

An example of a company that sends out spam e-mails is http://www.jobserve.com/.
Junk email- They out send you spam e-mails in hope to persuade you to improve your academic skills in conjunction with offers/discounts if you choose to use them.

Spamming is seen as a nuisance spam filtering is often used by e-mail users to block unwanted information reaching them. A report I found on spam says ‘ In fact, spam makes up 75 percent of all messages sent today, according to email security firm Postini.’ (Fadner, 2006, Online). Fadner also discusses the new ways to filter spam “…called reputation-based filtering, can keep spam out of in-boxes. Senders are graded on their practices, and are assigned a reputation score based on complaint rates, volume of mail sent, and senders' responses.” (Fadner, 2006, Online).

However, spam can also affects legitimate e-mail marketing campaigns which can get filtered too. David Sousa in an IMedia article discusses some of the ways to avoid being black listed or filtered out. For example he suggests to ‘ Check your content. There is a lot of misinformation in the industry about content, such as using the word “free,” causing emails to be filtered .’ (Sousa, 2005, IMedia Online).

Conclusions

Advantages of E-mail Marketing:

Less time consuming and less expensive than direct mail or print advertising, for example an e-mail marketing report carried out in the US (results provided by the Direct Marketing Association) shows that e-mail in terms of response rate and cost was most efficient in 2003 out of 11 other marketing techniques. (2004, emarketer.com).
Instantly sent to the audience and quick responses from them.
Tools are available to allow the sender to measure the click-through rate (how many people clicked on the e-mail link in comparison to how many were sent out), conversion rate (the percentage of people who go to the landing page then do a required action, such as sign up for a product). The E-mail marketing firm Bronto has recently released an up grade to its e-mail analytic and marketing software. “ The new features include click-stream tracking, which allows marketers to track the path that users take from the marketing email through their Web site…” (Gupta, 2006, Online). Bronto can be found at http://bronto.com
Allows 24 hour marketing.
With the use of HTML you can make the e-mails interactive (use of graphics, video, music etc).
Global contact.
Finds the audience rather than the audience having to go out and find a service/product (like by visiting a web site).

Many companies rely on e-mail marketing to increase product interest, “Perhaps, that would explain why Microsoft sends out over 20 million email marketing pieces every month.” (Anuja A, 2006, Online). Anuja also discusses what she considers to be the top ten advantages of e-mail marketing at www.selfseo.com

Disadvantages of E-mail Marketing:

Sometimes it is hard for consumers to distinguish between legitimate marketing (e.g. one in which they have subscribed to) and spam.
Spam filters can sometimes block the legitimate marketing e-mails.
Deliverability- not all e-mails will be delivered this should be monitored by the company.
If attachments are sent out with the e-mails it is likely that they will get ignored because of the worry of catching a virus, formats such as PDF (use of Acrobat) often use attachments.

In 2003 both major ISPs and spam filtering companies such as AOL and MSN and SpamAssassin?, and twenty top e-mail senders including SilverPop?, YesMail? and Digital Impact got together, the General Manager of Deliverability Services for ReturnPath? said

"It provided both senders and receivers a set of concrete steps they could take to improve the deliverability of the legitimate mail that end users want." (2003, http://www.isipp.com/)

Some features that make a good E-mail Marketing campaign:

Call to action- words in an e-mail to trigger the audience to do something.
Eye catching material (perhaps the use of flash).
Fast loading material (some large HTML documents may prevent this). Therefore consider the advantages and disadvantages of text and HTML and which one suits your needs. Chris James on E-mail marketing discusses the advantages and disadvantages of both formats further at http://emailmarketing.searchfactor.com/.
File size- “You want to keep your file size below 30K if you can (for some clients with graphic-heavy products, we strive to stay below 60K)”. (Jennings, 2004, Online).
Opt-ins and opt-outs should be used as they allow a company to target genuinely interested people.
Personalisation- Adapting an e-mail to suit the needs and interests of the receiver. As mentioned earlier analysing the use of e-mail marketing in the 2004 election it came about that, ‘ The Bush campaign collects more data upon its mandatory registration and uses first name personalization on all emails.’ (Jenkins, 2004, Online). Whereas Kerry did not do this as effectively.
Segmentation- Using customer’s previous information to send a niche audience a specific offer etc.
Appropriate timing- sending the e-mails at the most likely time to interest an audience (e.g. wood burners in the winter). A report I found on Jupiter Media online says that 60% of customers that buy through e-mails did so because they were already considering to buy the products on offer ‘…underscoring the need to catch the customer at the right time with the correct offer.’ ( 2005, Jupiter Media Press, Online).
Include a good subject line in order to grab the receiver’s attention and encourage them to open the e-mail.
Monitor the e-mails that you send for example the click through rate but also things like deliverability. Also see if any of your links are used more frequently than others and make adjustments accordingly.
Keep information short and to the point, make your points easy to scan and pick out relevant information. In addition draw the eye using elements such as images, graphics etc.
A report I found on IMedia online suggests that e-mails offering one service/product gets more interest/sales than ones offering multiple items. Their test results show that the e-mails they sent with one offer had a conversion rate of 0.1150% and ones with a number of products only 0.0204%. (2006, IMedia, Online).
Could be effective to include a sense of urgency. A report I found included a discussion with an executive from the computer parts industry who said in an e-mail, ' As of 6:04 a.m. this morning, these are the lowest prices for these products on the web .' (2006, IMedia, Online).
Consider your audience and cater for their needs whether this is with the use of colour, simple navigation or the actual contents of the e-mail.

An article I read also states that, ‘ you have to design e-mail messages that give the user a quick and clear idea of who you are and what your message offers’ (Indvik, 2006, Online). The article also suggests that a good e-mail campaign should include things such as the company logo in the top right corner, a clear headline that delivers the main message, a sub-heading that has a strong call to action, a image that illustrates your message, use of buttons such as ‘buy now’, ‘learn more’ or ‘register now’. (Indvik, 2006, Online)

Bibliography

Anuja, A, (2006), Top 10 Advantages of Email Marketing http://www.selfseo.com/story-14500.php, accessed 10.10.06

Ayan, Jordon, (2006), What Makes for a Soft Landing, http://jordanayan.typepad.com/email_marketing/2006/05/what_makes_for_.html, accessed 10.10.06

(2003), EMAIL DELIVERABILITY SUMMIT SUCCESSFULLY DELIVERS FOCUS, COOPERATION, AND NEW INDUSTRY STANDARDS, http://www.isipp.com/documents/summitii-release.pdf, accessed 12.10.06

Fadner, Ross, (2006), Media Post, New Ways To Block Most Email Spam, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=46120&passFuseAction=PublicationsSearch?.showSearchReslts&art_searched=email%20marketing&page_number=0, accessed 10.10.06

Geld, Scott F, (2006), Small Business Brief, Newsletters: A Great Internet Marketing Tool , http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/articles/email_marketingnewsletters/005357.html, accessed 10.10.06

Gupta, Shankar, (2006), Media Post, Bronto Upgrades E-mail Marketing Software, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=38150&passFuseAction=PublicationsSearch?.showSearchReslts&art_searched=email%20marketing&page_number=0, accessed 11.10.06

Hallerman, David, (2004), E-mail Marketing, http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?email_jun04, accessed 04.10.06

Indvik, Kurt, (2006), IMedia Connection, An Email Cinderella Story, http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/9311.ASP, accessed 17.10.06

James, Chris, E-Mail Marketing, Newsletters: Formats That Work
http://emailmarketing.searchfactor.com/, accessed 10.10.06

Jenkins, G.Simms, (2004), IMedia Connection, Email Marketing and the 2004 Election, http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/4499.asp, accessed 17.10.06

Jennings, Jeanne S, (2004), The Jennings Report, The Biggest Challenges Facing E-mail Marketers Today, http://www.jenningsreport.com/Blog2004/blog012204.htm, accessed 10.10.06

(2005), Jupiter Media, Press Releases, http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/releases/05.08.16-newjupresearch.html, accessed 04.10.06

McDonald?, Loren, (2006), Media Post, Email Insider, About That Average Open Rate, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=48863&passFuseAction=PublicationsSearch?.showSearchReslts&art_searched=&page_number=0, accessed 10.10.06

Sousa, David, ( 2005 ), Emailing Best Practices (Part 2), http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/6115.asp, accessed 17.10.06

The Marketing Experiments Journal, (2006), IMedia Connection, How Implied Urgency Increases Sales, http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/10434.asp, accessed 17.10.06

The Marketing Experiments Journal, (2006), IMedia Connection, Testing Emails Offering Services, http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/9844.asp, accessed 17.10.06

I also referred to the following websites:

http://bronto.com/, accessed 15.10.06

http://www.cancer2020.org/, accessed 25.09.06

http://www.cosmogirl.co.uk/, accessed 12.10.06

http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/, accessed 12.10.06

http://www.greeting-cards.com/, accessed 07.10.06

http://www.hotmail.com/, accessed 27.09.06

http://www.jobserve.com/, accessed 10.10.06

http://www.necgroup.co.uk/, accessed 27.09.06

www.photographicsolutions.biz/, accessed 10.10.06

http://www.yahoo.co.uk/, accessed 01.10.06

Interactive promotion report: virals

2007-01-05T11:56:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Palminder Shubh looks at viral marketing:

A viral could be a video, email, quiz that is sent from person to person, therefore like a virus. a website that i find is a good example of this is http://www.weddingcrashersmovie.com/ where you can put your own pictures on the site and create a trailor.

As the name suggests viral marketing is something that literally spreads from person to person, or perhaps in our case computer to computer. It is a style of marketing which is aimed to spread awareness of a brand. Virals can come in many shapes and forms for example, e-mail, video, a quiz and others. A good viral should encourage an individual to “tell a friend” therefore spread awareness of a product or advertise it. Its aim is to create potential growth, therefore potential sales and business (if in that particular market).

Advantages to Viral Marketing

As viral marketing comes in many shapes and forms, this I believe is its biggest advantage. You can adapt the type of viral marketing campaign you create depending on what the campaign is, the content, keep the audience in mind. So depending on the mentioned factors you can create a viral campaign accordingly.

Viral marketing spreads easily; this is its job so this is another main advantage to this type of promotional technique. Growth in the market is very much guaranteed with this promotional technique, for instance if you give away an e-book to three friends and each give it away to another three friends and so on you can see the exposure the book has gotten by doing this, plus content in the e-book will also promote other business.

Disadvantages to Viral Marketing

Though viral marketing is a very positive, creative, effective and efficient way of marketing and promoting products it does have its drawbacks and negative aspects. First of all if we look at viral content itself which may be a video clip of streaming video, it may be too large for the recipient to receive. Not everyone is on the faster connection of broadband internet, so this may be an issue. The media format may also be an issue if for instance you require certain software to view the message. If a viral campaign is done through a email attachment then having firewalls and anti-virus software may prevent you from viewing the message. This particularly be the case in office based environments.

Examples of Good Viral Marketing

A very good example of a classic viral is www.hotmail.com. This is a free e-mail service, so when we sign up to this and send our friends and family e-mails there will be a little message under every email saying “Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com” therefore, this email facility will increase and become popular.

http://www.hasbro.co.uk/Subbuteo/English/kick/index.asp?allowKick=0

The above example is an ad game which I gained access through via the Sun website. This is I find a good example as it is very much interactive for the consumer and is entertaining. You do need to give your email address and a name, which may be off putting for some people but perhaps not for others. This is the only downside to this particular viral campaign. The target market for this website is 18-24. Again you need a very strong web connection.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,11064-11032,00.html

The above snapshot shows the top 25 viral emails that can be viewed on the sun website. The images you get are delightful and are meant to be funny. The images though are protected by copyright and you are not able to save them, unless you contact enquries@nisyndication.com.

One of my favourite viral campaigns I viewed had to be the coca-cola M5 project: purely because of the way it was designed, the colours it used. The theme, the style, the computer generated imagery that was used in this was very professional and I believe eye pleasing to any consumer. It is a very youth orientated design, with great use of vibrant colours and exciting music. I would email these to my friends as I am positive they would be interested in looking at the videos. It is targeted for a very large audience group, ranging from 16-25.

www.Heinzbeanz.com was also a very good example of the viral technique as it was targeted to a very wide range of audience. Even children can view the website and understand why beans are good for you, and also give adults a view on the origins of beans. Its user friendliness design approach is much appropriate as well as good use of colour and simplicity. As mentioned above it has a childlike feel to it but not just for children, but generally the masses. It is very simple and easy to use and navigate.

Examples of Bad Viral Marketing

One bad example of bad viral marketing was the movie called Corpse Bride: http://corpsebridemovie.warnerbros.com/, though it was designed with the very good effects and it had good use of sound and moving imagery, I classed it as a bad example purely because it was “too” complicated. Every time I clicked to view something new it would take a very long time to load. In my opinion if it was kept simpler it would have been more effective. People who do not have broadband internet would give up on this website, therefore would not promote the film as it is meant to.

Reports

A article I found on the website to find out about successful viral marketing was the following: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/2003.asp what I discovered was “the message must provide value, be cool and avoid reading like an ad”. This is a quote from the website itself, the author is Tim McHale? and was written April 23 2003. Again it just reiterates that if kept simple and easy to follow with not many difficult or fussy downloads or time delays viral marketing can be very successful. Tim McHale? also gives the same example that I mentioned above where when viral marketing started, it began with free email services, it also points out that it is more than ‘send to a friend’ but rather “about the value proposition”. Another article I found was http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/marketing/wilson.htm which basically gives you the six simple principles of viral marketing. There are also companies created who keep track of your viral. One company who do this is: http://www.diffusion-media.com/ they are a company who track online viral marketing campaigns. They have quoted on their website that “Viral marketing presents exciting new opportunities for highly efficient online advertising campaigns. Viral marketing is increasingly being used by big companies and agencies as a cost-effective addition to the marketing mix”. If I take the http://www.heinzbeanz.com/ campaign as an example http://viral.halperncowan.com/ have again confirmed that is a very powerful tool and when done well can promote an offer very well. The way that this website I designed, its user friendliness and the fact that its target audience is very substantial is a very good approach.

Summary - Characteristics of a Good Campaign

What makes a viral campaign successful - easy to navigate and browse through websites always make successful campaigns. Viral marketing programs that giveaway valuable products or services is also guaranteed success. This can be from free email addresses, to free wallpapers etc. The marketing message itself should also be easy and effortless to transfer or ‘send to a friend’. According to the wilsonweb.com six simple principles to viral marketing the most creative and successful viral marketing campaigns are the one that uses others resources to get the word out. In other words to affiliate programs, meaning adding text, graphics or links on others websites.

References

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing#Barriers_to_viral_marketing

http://www.ezinearticles.com/?Advantages-of-Viral-Marketing-Through-Content-Distribution&id=125043

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

http://www.thesun.co.uk/section/0,,11063,00.html

http://corpsebridemovie.warnerbros.com/

http://biad.moodle.uce.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=8727

http://www.weddingcrashersmovie.com/

http://www.heinzbeanz.com/

Interactive promotion report: search engine marketing

2007-01-04T11:53:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Second year web design degree student Lee Aplin looks at:

Search Engine Marketing and Optimisation

Introduction to Search Engine Marketing

Put simply, search engine marketing is an important part of website promotion. A large part of search engine marketing is in optimisation and submission. Web design companies often offer these services when they build new websites for clients.

However, in order for this to be successful, the end result must be that the website in question ends up higher on search engine results, therefore getting more hits and creating more revenue.

There are several methods of optimising websites, and some of these are outlined below.

Search Engine Optimisation:

Search engine optimisation aims to index and improve website rankings on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or MSN Search. In order to optimise web pages, different methods can be used. Such methods include using keywords in the HTML coding, Meta and Title tags, and also Alt tags on images are useful. Good design and easy navigation in the website also helps to optimise it for search engines.

Advantages of Search Engine Optimisation:

Besides the obvious advantages of SEO, such as being able to find what we are looking for easily and quickly, there are many other benefits which are less noticeable.

For example, a well optimised website will often also be very accessible and have high usability. For example, by keeping maximum sizes of web pages at about 100kb, are not too large to be overlooked by search engine spiders, but they are also small enough that they will still load at a reasonable rate on slower internet connections. Another overlooked, but somewhat obvious technique, is using appropriate page titles.

Many people forget how important page titles are to both a user, and for search engines. The title of the pages is often the first thing that is recognised by search engines; therefore it should be meaningful and contain several key words. It is also the first part of the webpage that loads up in the browser, often before any of the content has loaded. This means it is the first thing that the user sees.

A good article which covers the advantages of SEO is Secret Benefits of SEO: Increased Usability, by Trenton Moss.

Disadvantages of Search Engine Optimisation:

The disadvantages seem to be quite minor in comparison with the advantages; however it could be argued that there are some flaws with SEO. There is always the chance of getting too much business. A company with a highly successful website may find that business is moving faster than they can cope. With something such as pay per click advertising, it would be easy to turn off or remove the advertisements, but it wouldn’t be as simple to remove a whole website in order to slow down sales.

The only website I could find with any real information about the disadvantages of SEO, was Cornish Web Services Consultancy, and the disadvantages are considerably less than the advantages.

Pay Per Click Advertising:

Often, text advertisements are placed near search results. When visitors click on the advert a small amount is charged to the advertiser for the service. The price of this varies depending on the amount of hits the website gets, and the popularity of the search engine.

Currently, PPC advertising does not generate any income for the advertised website; the PPC adverts merely increase the traffic to the website. Revenue is generated only when pop-up adverts or banners are clicked on.

There are 3 categories under which PPC advertisements fall under. These are Keyword, Product and Service PPC's.

Keyword PPC's:

Advertisers bid on keywords, which consist of different words of phrases which can be found in the HTML code of websites. When a specific keyword is typed into a search engine, a list of the advertiser’s links appears in order of bidding.

According to a study carried out by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation (SEMPO), bidding on keywords is a worthwhile investment and overall, advertisers could pay up to 33% more, and still make a worthwhile profit.

“The return on investment of SEM paid placement advertising continues to stay ahead of price inflation: advertisers said on average they have witnessed bid prices rise 26% in the last 12 months for keywords they commonly buy but said they could stand on average another 33% increase in the price and still make a profitable transaction.” SEMPO, 2005

A useful website for finding the best keywords is Wordtracker.com. The wordtracker compiles a database each week of the most used search terms, and recommends the best keywords for your website.

Product PPC's:

These engines let advertisers place "feeds" of their products on the search results page. When a user searches for a specific product, all these feeds are shown from different advertisers in a list. The list can then be sorted in order of price, and the product can then be brought from this page. Advertisers who pay more are given more prominence.

Some examples of Product PPC's are: JustCompareIt?.com, BizRate?, NexTag?, PriceGrabber?.com, Pricescan, Pricethat, Pricewatch, PriceLeap?, and Shopping.com

Service PPC's:

Service engines allow advertisers provide feeds of their service databases and when users search for a particular service, links to providers of that particular service appear.

PPC services include NexTag?, SideStep?, and TripAdvisor?.

Summary:

In conclusion, it seems clear that without Search Engine Marketing, traffic to many websites would be significantly reduced. The number of advantages heavily outweighs the number of disadvantages of SEO and Search Engine Marketing. However, there are other issues such as ethics which could be argued make SEO unfair.

For example, all keyword bids could be brought out by a single company, rendering it impossible for other companies to get the top spots on search results. There are also other ways to cheat the search engines into giving top spots in results lists. One of these would be buying many domain names and building small single page websites which contain just links to a main company page. Also, it could be considered cheating the system to duplicate a website and host it on two or more separate domain names in order to get as many hits as possible onto the website. Although it is hosted under a different web address, most search engines do not accept these duplicate websites and they are often not correctly indexed in the search engines if they are caught.

There are hundreds of search engine service websites available, and they all do pretty much the same thing, however there will always be customers with websites that need optimising and submitting to search engines, and as more and more businesses go online, there will be an increasing demand for Search Engine Marketing.

References:

· Secret Benefits of SEO: Increased Usability, Trenton Moss, 2004 http://www.sitepoint.com/article/increased-usability

· Cornish Web Services Consultancy http://www.cornishwebservices.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation/disadvantages.shtml

· Search Engine Marketing Professional Organisation (SEMPO), 2005 http://www.sempo.org/learning_center/research/research-results

· Wordtracker http://www.wordtracker.com/

Fake news

2006-12-06T15:41:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr]. The Media Guardian reports on the rise of the fake news report - essentially a video press release that is broadcast by news organisations without any attribution: "Video News Releases, or VNRs, corporate propaganda designed to look like legitimate news". It shouldn't come as any surprise that, just as lazy and time-starved journalists will reprint press releases verbatim, lazy and time-starved TV news operations are doing the same with VNRs. This seems to me like a very bad idea for PR agencies, and one that will ultimately blow up in their faces much as the fake blogs and YouTube videos have.

Interactive promotion report: social networking

2006-12-06T11:56:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Tarika Vara looks at:

Social networking

What are social networks?

Social networks are websites that enable individuals to interact with one another via the internet. It allows its users to use this platform to gain intersest from web users on a professional or social basis . These websites allow people to not only get to know one another but to also share Photos, music, view TV clips, messages ang blogs. In this way Social networks are used by companies in order to promote their brands or products to the public or for general use and as a way of making friends.

As the popularity of these social networking websites rose, it seemed that some have taken advantage of it by using them as a way of promoting themselves as a brand. This is mainly the case for those who are trying to breakthrough into the Music or Televsision industries. Therefore Social networking has now become an Interactive Promotion technique.

Examples of these Social Networking websites are MySpace?, Bebo and YouTube?. These are general websites that are open to anyone, whereby an individual can dedicate pages to themselves, promoting who they are and what they are about. Many use these websites to launch a career or generate a "buzz" on the internet before appearing anywhere else in the media.

The Advantages of Social networking as an Interactive Promotion technique

One of the main advantages of social networing websites such as MySpace? is it is free of charge to use and so many feel that there is less financial strain when trying to breakthrough into the entertainment industry. As it is free to set up an account and URL for themsleves, it is a cheaper way of creating a name or a branding image, rather than having to spend thousands of pounds on promotion in mainstream media and advertsising.

It is an easy way of promotion by word of mouth. The internet is a vast and potentially powerful tool when dealing with the masses and creating a stirr, especially when dealing with such well known websites and networks such as YouTube? and MySpace?. Therefore once a webpage has been set up with the aim to attract attention and enable poeple to view or sample a persons talents, the word quickly spreads and fanbases are created.

Many people that choose to use social networks as a promotion tool begin as unsigned acts, therefore they have complete control over what they promote and the style or image that is created.This is important as they are not seen as commercial puppets, but rather are themselves who genuinely have a passion for whatever it is they are promoting. In essence their raw talent shines through. This can be said of the award winning band who started off in this way, "The Artic Monkeys."- They made sure that they had cut out the middle man which meant no corporate interference and more control over what they showcased and how they did it.

The Disadvantages of Social networking as an interactive promotion technique

It can be a risk to use social networks as an interactive promotion technique as word of mouth can also be viewed as a negative reason. Once something is added to a persons webpage or uploaded and negative perceptions are made, it can be very difficult to retract this negative image from the public. This is due to the speed and mass audience the webpage can be viewed. The same could be said for Television too, however, the internet has less if no regulations and a persons image can be tainted very easily.
It has been noted that after a massive increase in the use of social networks such as MySpace? and Friendster, public images were being ruined. The new scientist online magazine has stated that; "The use of such social networks have led to the demise of reputations and even miscarriages of justice." (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=samplemg19025556.200). This can be very damaging as it can hinder a persons future job prospects and uncover illegal facts concerning politics, drug abuse and references of a sexual nature.
There are issues concerning privacy as a webpage on a social network is available to anyone at any time and therefore the target audience is not selective.

Examples of Social Networks

According to Nielson/NetRatings? (May 2006), the top five social newtwork websites in the USA are as follows:

MySpace?
MSN Groups
Facebook.com
Xanga.com
MSN spaces

These examples are based on the retention rate that had been reported on the Nielson/NetRating? report. It shows us what the most popular websites used were during May 2006.

Within the UK the Top Social Networks are as follows;

Myspace
MSN Groups
Friendster
Youtube
Bebo

Here are a few evaluations of what some popular social networks offer in terms of Interactive promotion and the differences between them.

1. MySpace?

Myspace is a user friendly website that has over 4million members, and many that use the website are not necessarily members but are browsing. The number of users is continuously growing as it is the number one social network worldwide. This social network is mainly to promote music whilst interacting with other people. Although it began and is still known as a social network, the promotion of music, Films and comedy has seemed to have taken over. The website caters for anyone who is interested in getting to know current artists from all sorts of genres and is a clever way of reinforcing the relationship between a signed or unsigned artist with their fans. The homepage suggests that Myspace is easy to use as all the icons on the top tool bar navigate a user to their preffered area of media or action. This website makes it easy for anyone to set up their own URL, whereby they can promote what they do. It appears as though this website is very much kept up to date and current and therefore it is a good choice of interactive promotion for anyone just starting out in the Music or Film industry.

An example of a campaign created using Myspace as an interactive promotion technique - CASSIE

Cassie- RnB american solo artist

Cassie is a successful solo artist who has been created through the phenomenon that is MySpace? music. Before she was signed to Bad Boy records by P.Diddy she and her music producer had taken it upon themselves to use the website as a way of promoting Cassie to the world as a brand, or image before launching her into super stardom. This campaign has been proven to be a success as there was a call from fans on the website for Cassie to produce a Music video for her first single "me and U" which was launched on her URl. After this became one of the fastest songs to be downloaded in the USA via Myspace, Cassie still remained an unsigned until her single reached the hands of Dj's and was being promoted in clubs and on radio stations. This proves how powerful the use of a social network such as MySpace? is when launching music.

How was the campaigned managed when using Myspace as an Interactive Promotion technique.

By creating her own webpage on Myspace and then creating an external URL via MySpace?, Cassie had complete control over her image. She was able to design the URL to suit her personality with no one pushing her to be portrayed in an unfair light. She used colourful backgrounds and her experiences as a model to showcase pictures of herself before she began singing. This enabled people to get to know Cassie as a person and not just an artist.
She then used the sites to promote her music once she had gained recognition and media interest. This was done by adding the option for fans to copy and paste a code to promote the first single, pictures and slogans were uploaded promoting Cassie and her management team "Next Selection". Video clips were also uploaded via YouTube?, showcasing Cassie during rehearsals and her new music video. This would gain her even more interest as people are able to watch this at any given time, as long as they logged onto her webpage.
MySpace? also make it very easy for fans or anyone to contact Cassie, there are many options ranging from an instant message to comments being posted onto her bloggs.

2. MSN Groups- http://groups.msn.com/browse.msnw?catid=61

MSN Groups is a social network website that enables users to search their category in a refined way. It is different from MySpace? in terms of the options of categories it provides. As it is called MSN groups, there are an array of groups to choose from, these include; business, computers, games, health, home and lifestyle, money and performing arts. By clicking onto any one of these groups you can then choose a webpage created from members that are promoting that category. This enables industry professionals to promote jobs, or any type of business or brand that could be connected to that category.

3. Youtube- http://www.youtube.com/index

Youtube is different to MSN groups and slightly similar to Myspace as it is a social networking website that pays less attention to the fact that it is a form of socialising and more focus is put on interacting with others by sending and sharing media to others from around the world. Youtube describes what it does as the following;

"Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide

Browse thousands of original videos uploaded by community members

Find, join and create video groups to connect with people with similar interests

Customize your experience with playlists and subscriptions

Integrate YouTube? with your website using video embeds or APIs."

Therefore we can see that Youtube has a different approach to social networking as their main emphasis is on sharing videos, although there are other options on the main navigation bar such as; channels, groups, categories. The example of the CASSIE campaign which was created using MySpace? that was mentioned above, features video links which have been uploaded using Youtube. Other artists such as P.Diddy and the Artic Monkeys have also taken adavantage of what Youtube can offer.

Reports- Social Networking

1.http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2006/tc20060530_170086.htm?%20chan=search- Social Networking goes Mobile

This report is interesting as it talks about how the largest U.S mobile phone provider; Cingular is to join a social networking site. This will enable members of this social networking site to view music, downloads and videos via their mobile phones. This report reinforces that social networking has become a part of our technological lifestyles.

2. http://www.newmediazero.com/Home/Default.aspx- MySpace? and Bebo boost UK sales teams to expand ad offer (Richard Simpson: 19.10.06)

This report suggests that; "Myspace and Bebo are both actively bolstering their UK sales teams in a determined effort sew up the online advertising sector for 18-30 year olds." This shows that the advertising and promotion market within social networks has grown massivley, to the point where they are using these sites to target a specific age range and the masses.

3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5140634.stm- safety tips for social networks (04.06.06)

This report struck me as it talks about the dark side of social networking. It highlights one of the disadvantages mentioned previously about the lack of privacy and safety issues from these sites especially when promoting ones self. This is particularly true when promoting an artist and not being selective about the type and amount of people they would be targeting.

4. http://www.nma.co.uk/Home/Default.aspx- Lynx forms brand community on MySpace? (Andrew McCormick?: 21.09.06).

The new Lynx boost shower gel has been promoted through the News Corp social network. This report states how larger corporations such as Unilever are using their poroducts to create a brand image by adding advertisements on these social network sites. It is also a way of leading consumers that use these sites to the corporate website, and further more promoting the new Lynx product.

Summary

After researching various Social networks we can see the impact that these sites have had on the USA and UK. As well as this we can understand how these social networks have been used as an interactive promotion technidues. Therefore we can conclude why corporations and companies would use this fairly new form of promotion as well as the general public. Reports and campaign examples from the most popular social network; Myspace, enable us to see the advantages and diasadvatages when choosing this particular technique.

References:

http://www.google.co.uk/

http://www.nma.co.uk/Home/Default.aspx

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2006/tc20060530_170086.htm?chan=search

http://www.myspace.com/

http://www.youtube.com/

http://www.bebo.com/

http://www.msngroups.com/

Interactive promotion report: mobile phone marketing

2006-12-05T11:55:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Marc Taylor looks at:

Mobile phone marketing

*Mobile phone marketing*Virals

>>WHAT IS MOBILE ADVERTISING

Mobile Phone advertising has taken the Advertising industry by storm. It is estimated in according to the Shosteck group, ‘the value of the global mobile advertising market could reach $10 billion by 2010’ Nigel Hollis 2006?

As Mobile technologies advance, the consumer experience has changed dramatically. As technologies converge, the mobile phone now offers consumers the ability to watch Television, listen to MP3’s and Radio and use the Internet (WAP) turning the phone into a mobile media center. But its not just mobile phones that can be interpreted as Mobile marketing. Nigel Hollis, Author of Mobile Marketing: Making a good connection says ‘Mobile marketing, interpreted most broadly could describe any approach to communicating with consumers while they’re on the move: all manner of electronic devices (MP3 players, PDAs, etc.), as well as more traditional media such as outdoor advertising.’ However I’m going to primarily look at Mobile Phone Advertising.

There are already companies like SMSconnect [ http://www.smsconnect.com/.] that specialises in Advertising campaigns to mobile phones.

So why use mobile Advertising instead of traditional means?

>>Benefits Of Using Mobile Advertising.

“ For marketers, mobile marketing and advertising has great promise - it combines the wide reach of television with the precision of direct marketing and the tracking potential of the Internet.” [http://www.cellular-news.com/story/18034.php 29th June 2006.]

>>The biggest factor about using Mobile Advertising is that it has a one to one marketing ability, (like direct advertising.) Mobile Phones, PDAs are very personal and are generally kept very close to the individual. This gives companies the ability to contact individuals wherever and whenever- which is an additional benefit over using Internet, television, radio or other means of Advertising, where people spend set periods of time on the computer, TV, Radio etc.

>>75% of the UK population carry mobile phones on them and so has a very high targeting possibility.

>>There are huge databases of mobile telephone numbers offering Senders the ability to trace, which they sent advertisements too, when they sent them and if they have had Interest/ a reply from the Consumer. (Like Internet advertising)

>>You can control and choose the name of the sender; making it very easy to change the company’s identity.

>> It is very cost efficient compared to print based, Television and Radio advertising

Here are the different forms of Mobile Advertising: -

>>SMS ADVERTISING

SMS messaging has already got the reputation as being “the cheapest and most widely-used mobile technology”

SMS connect [http://www.smsconnect.com/] is a company that specialises in Advertising campaigns to mobile phones; Offering games, Prize competitions, trivia and quizzes. Also offers txt alerts for gossip, news, product updates, receiving the contents of your websites and membership information.

At this current moment in time SMS messaging is “the only way 80% of adults in the UK can be contacted through their mobile phone. Volumes are still growing, and it’s short, concise, convenient and relatively cheap.” Dredge, Stuart 12.10.2006 Pp25?

--Major Downsides to SMS advertising

>>The main problem of SMS advertising is that if you don’t target your audience specifically the SMS messages can irritate users much like Email Spam.

“Some people did abuse the rights they has when the acquired lists of mobile numbers…A lot of these campaigns have been a complete non-success…Most have been completely unfocused. It’s about pushing messages to an unknown audience, which created a lot of noise, and a lot of irritated customers.” Dredge, Stuart 12.10.2006 Pp25?

>>Another downside to SMS messaging is that there is a limited use for it. “ With Text-to-win and similar efforts using SMS as a feedback channel, it is a trickier proposition for ad-funded entertainment mainly due to the character limitation of the technology.” [http://mef.typepad.com/weblog/ 2006. ] After you can send information (text) where else is there next to go? MMS advertising is the obvious next step forward offering the ability to send larger files sizes/ more information to users, through a variety of different mediums (video, Music, Images.) However MMS costs a lot more than SMS.

--Plus Side to SMS advertising

>However if SMS messages are targeted correctly the response rate is one of the highest of all advertising mediums. “Targeting is the Key. SMS is a Medium that generates anywhere between 3% and 8% response depending on how it’s used” Dredge, Stuart 12.10.2006 Pp25? and has even been as high as 29.1% response rate.

>After you have conducted your Advertising campaign you can get comprehensive reports telling you how well the campaign is, how many responses/replies you have had since the start

>Example of SMS Advertising

SMS advertising has taken the Nightclub industry by storm. “ Text Marketer’s nightclub clients are reporting huge increased attendance using SMS marketing.” With as many as “90% of clubbers” carrying mobile phones Companies have been set up (like PJB [http://www.pjb.co.uk/pjbsms2.htm ) that specialise in SMS Advertising for Gigs and Nightclubs.
Currently the three most popular digital accessories are Ringtones, Wallpapers and Games. All of these can be customised with corporate logos and be distributed to its audience using various different mediums (Bluetooth, SMS messages, Infra red and emails.) However the most common way of obtaining Ringtones, wallpapers and Games are through SMS subscription.

>>SMS Subscription: Jamster
A company that has massively benefited from Mobile Phone advertising is ‘Jamster’ (Who were recently bought by VeriSign?.)

The Distributors of the World Famous Crazy Frog Ringtone offers Customers the ability to buy Animated Screensavers, Ringtones, Wallpapers, Mobile Phone themes and Mobile Phone Games through a weekly subscription service.

A recent report by the times looks at how Mobile Text Subscription Company Jamster spent over £45 million over the past year “The group spent only £39,591 on Internet advertising, more than £28 million on its television campaign and more than £16 million on press adverts.” [ http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9071-1969273,00.html 2006] The ASA ( Advertising Standards Authority) even banned the television advert from being shown before 9pm within the UK, because of fear that children were being sucked into the text subscription. “ The 40,000 TV broadcasts in a one-month period made it most unlikely that a child would not have been aware of the characters." [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/21/crazy_frog_off_air/ ]

>>SMS Subscription Audiences/ Exploitation

SMS subscription plans are normally aimed at a younger market, with funky modern ringtones, wallpapers and games trying to entice them to subscribe. But there has been many reports looking at how SMS subscription can be very exploitative . Often people are tricked into handing over money weekly or monthly. However there is a new law that has just been introduced to stop this. “In January the UK's mobile phone industry and its trade association, the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), introduced new safeguards to protect mobile phone users… The new rules ensure that punters are clearly informed by text message about what they have subscribed to, with whom, and how much it will cost.” [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/28/ringtone_rules/ ]

For example of exploitation : Telecom was fined £5,000 following 31 complaints to the premium rate watchdog ICSTIS. The complaints centred on a web site which promised a free ringtone in return for people submitting their mobile phone number…Punters then received a text message asking them to choose one of three ringtones. However, the text failed to advise them that, as a result of requesting and receiving the free ringtone, they would also be signing up to receive three ringtones a week costing £1.50 each. .” [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/28/ringtone_rules/ ]

>>WAP

WAP will eventually become like the World Wide Web; Website banners can already be used, but because WAP subscribers pay per minute of data usage, customers feel cheated having to pay extra for the download of them. This is a huge issue with WAP. If it wants to become anything like the World Wide Web, there needs to be a new payment method or else people will get very annoyed at the lengthy downloads (and cost) that potential pop ups, Java games and videos etc. propose.

“There has been a massive increase in WAP-enabled handsets…. the trend in WAP usage is less encouraging. Over the last two years previous growth has stuttered, showing no real increase…the only factor to have changed markedly in that period is cost. Two years ago some operators weren’t charging their customers for general browsing and downloading, but they do now” Craig Barrack Pp30?

‘The year began well for WAP with 1.42 billion page impressions viewed during January 2005. The new total has delivered an 18% increase on the same period in 2004, and an average daily total of 46 million’ (http://www.mmaglobal.co.uk/news/industry-stats.php)

These two quotes proves that there has been a substantial increase in WAP enabled phones over the past 2 years, however there hasn’t been an increase in people going onto WAP. This could be a huge problem for advertisers as only a limited amount of people can be reached, and until the numbers grow it may mean that the Medium will be under estimated/ used.

“Things are set to change as Internet style advertising, in the shape of display advertising (banner ads) and search, and even TV-style advertising, come to mobile.” [ http://www.cellular-news.com/story/18034.php 29th June 2006)

>WAP advertising example - Football365

The website offers football news and information from its World Wide Web Internet site Football365.com, which has been recreated for WAP devices. Within the website is an Ad-Link that redirects users to 24/7 Media’s WAP ad server where there are able to access a selection of content including football scores and club news.

“The campaign, which is aimed at football fans of UK club football, runs in three countries on WAP services Sunpoint ( http://wap.sunpoint.net/ ) in Finland, Krak ( http://wap.krak.dk/ ) in Denmark and Fonedata ( http://www.fonedata.com/wap/index.wml ) in the UK, until 2nd April. It features a served WAP text link which enables users to cross networks and seamlessly access one of the UK's first WAP content sites - Football365 ( http://wap.football365.com/ ).” [ http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=48579 ]

Although the advertisement was to a very limited market, and is the First UK WAP Advertising campaign, it shows what is to come.

>>BLUETOOTH ADVERTISING

Companies like Toroblue [ http://www.toroblue.com/ ] offers participating businesses the ability to send out electronic business cards to mobile phones within a range of 40 meter. However the targeting is (like SMS messaging) totally unfocused, and so the messages could act like Spam.

However spamming isn’t the main issue with Bluetooth Advertising; it has a very limited range span (using unlicensed shirt-ranged radio frequency) and so the consumer needs to be near or around a participating shop/ sender for advertisements to be received.

In order for a Bluetooth device to connect to a receiver it needs to be discovered. “This process is called an Inquiry. However to discover all discoverable devices in an error-free environment, the device must spend at least 10.24 seconds in the inquiry mode” Aalto, Gothlin, Korhonen, Ojala 2006 Pp 51? however tests on certain phones has brought about serious problems. “When tested on a Nokia 3650 device the inquiry state is terminated after about five seconds…Because of this timeout, there is only a 50% chance for a device to be discovered during an inquiry period.” Pp51? Not all phones are able to pick up this Bluetooth signal, and not all phones have the Bluetooth technology.

>>Bad Example of Bluetooth messaging

In the Netherlands Asian food brand “Go-Tan” are using Bluetooth to inform customers of the discounted “Go-Tan” items within store. Anyone within the store or 100 meters outside with an open Bluetooth receiver can pick this message up. [http://www.adverblog.com/archives/002827.htm#more] However is this really ethical? Does everyone around and in the store really want to have Spam messages telling them about ‘buy one get one free’ deals?

>> Good Bluetooth advertising example (BLUECASTING)

With the examples below, the user knows what they are getting because it’s advertised to them through the billboards. However The Go-Tan Bluetooth advertising was just targeting everyone that went to the supermarket.

A good example of this happened i n Brussels on 12^th September 2006. The major mobile operator mobster (orange group) launched a Bluetooth advertising campaign in which a ringtone of the latest hit from Christina Aguilera was offered free for download within a range of 30 meters from a billboard. The Promotion ran for 6 days across 8 major Belgium cities. This campaign worked really well however only a limited amount of people could receive the free ringtone due to the limited 30 meters Bluetooth radius. This advertising technique is called “Bluecasting”
[To read more about this check out http://www.alterwave.com/documents/Mobistar_EN.pdf]

>Bluecasting Advertising in London
The Maiden Group who have handled billboard advertising in the United Kingdom for 80years, and Filter UK, who specializes in transmitter technology, are installing bilboards in Heathrow airport that "beam out text messages to the phones of people walking by to ask them if they would like to watch a video-clip ad on their phone's screen. The commercial, aimed at passengers in Virgin's first-class lounge, touts a new SUV, the Range Rover Sport. [ http://adverlab.blogspot.com/2005/08/bluetooth-advertising-in-london.html ]

>EMI Bluecasting campaign

EMI on the release of Coldplays X and Y album set up 6 screens dotted around London offering consumers the ability to download sound excerpts, video clips and never-seen before video interviews to their mobile phones and laptops. This campaign was very successful communicating to their target audiences, starting exchanging of clips/music and viral discussions about the release of the album but also promoting interaction and music sampling. “EMI’s Bluecasting campaign for Coldplay using Transvision screens achieved a 15% response rate; highlighting the formidable potential of these screens for consumer interaction and response generation” This has become the worlds largest known Bluecast campaign [ http://www.titanoutdoor.co.uk/analysis/bestpractisearticle/itemId/i65767346/index.html ]

This is the best example of mobile advertising I have currently found. It had a very high response rate, caused a lot of viral discussions and appealed to the right target audience. These examples show that the audiences to Bluetooth are varied, however all of them need to have some technological knowledge in order to receive the adverts.

>>INFRA RED ADVERTISING
Infrared Advertising has somewhat died out due to the introduction of Bluetooth. The problem with infrared is that it has a very limited span in which data can be transferred (much less then Bluetooth.) Bluetooth does exactly the same job as Infrared however is much more effective due to its larger range span, and more mobile are built with Bluetooth technology.

>>MOBILE VIRAL ADVERTISING

“While you’d pay small fortunes to get a fixed number of showing on telly, virals will stay on the net for a long time or, if you’re lucky, forever… people will just pass a good ad on to their friends if they like it.” Lindberg Pp38?

Mobile Phone advertising also uses a lot of viral marketing. When people get a new ringtone, video clip, Picture etc. the first question that is always asked is “Where did you get that?”

Viral marketing is mainly aimed at a younger teenage audience, in which video clips, songs, backgrounds are exchanged in a schoolyard type environment. A very good example of this is the Crazy Frog Phenomenal. This viral marketing caused the crazy frog to beat Coldplay and become number 1 in the UK charts. The fact that they had “ 40,000 TV broadcasts in a one-month period," [ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/21/crazy_frog_off_air/ ] and the catchy/ annoying sound the frog made caused everyone to talk about and send each other the ringtones.

>> MOBILE VIDEO ADVERTISING

Television and Video on the mobile phone is still a relatively new technology that needs to advance greatly in order for it to be used properly commercially. “In an ideal world, everyone wants to have video and audio and full-length multimedia capabilities in their ad campaigns on any platform. But the mobile market is not ready for it yet, in terms of penetration.” Dredge, Stuart 12.10.2006?

In a recent survey looking at TV and Video use on the mobile phone, it was found that “j ust 1% to 2% of mobile phone users” we watching television or Video clips on their mobile.” (http://mmaglobal.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=530)
However there are companies that advertise their television shows on mobile phones. The Soap Hollyoaks and football program Match of the day offers their audiences the ability to download the recent show or episodes by texting a number. A report by the BBC looks into how Television on your mobile has been released in Japan, and that 90 million users already are able to receive this. However “ Finding new phones in Japanese shops has proved difficult as only limited quantities have been produced so far. [“http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4868004.stm ]

>problems with Mobile Video Advertising

>Battery life is very limited
>lack of phones that can receive television and video clips
>Do you need a television licence within the UK to watch television?

>>Cons Of Mobile Advertising

>>Do people really want their personal space invaded by unwanted messages? ‘Therefore, unsolicited and irrelevant advertising will be even less welcome than e-mail.’ Nigel Hollis?

>>However there are many Legal Considerations. The Data Protection Act needs to be considered as Information obtained (through data collection) can only be used for lawful purposes, and not be misused. ‘Most users did not mind being pushed information, as long as they really needed the information. Thus location itself is not enough to trigger pushed advertisement.” Aalto, Gothlin, Korhonen & Ojala 2006?

>>This brings ethical questions; because we can be reached at all times of the day through our mobile phones, should it be allowed that Advertisers can exploit this?

>> Although SMS, Bluetooth and Infrared Advertising cost very little, Games requires specialised skills and so can be expensive to create. Ringtones and wallpapers can be created with little cost using just a computer and the Internet.
>>Data Protection Act

Mobile Phones are very personal objects, and because they are on potential consumers all the time, advertising companies need to consider the Data Protection Rights. There are two main parts of the Act that jumped out at me when reading it.

“The data subject has given his consent to the processing…and…Individuals are entitled to prevent processing [ http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance?/OrganisationPolicy?/RecordsManagement?/DataProtectionAct1998Article?/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4000489&chk=VrXoGe? ]

In order to advertise to mobile phones the user needs to have given their consent. Not everyone is going to be happy or willing to give their number out so they can be advertised too. Secondarily those individuals are entitiled to prevent processing for direct marketing purposes or if it causes the consumer “unwarranted and substantial harm or distress” data protection act.? This distress could easily happen if advertisers are constantly bombard consumers with SMS messages or bluetoothing audiences. These two issues could cause a real problem for mobile advertising.

>>Conclusion

There has been various tests using different mediums of Mobile Marketing, with the most popular being SMS advertising. Every mobile has the ability to receive SMS messages, and using the table below it is obvious that Text messaging is the most common use of the mobile phone. A lot of the uses on the table refer to SMS messaging (subscription services offering Wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, Mobile Games)
>>U.K. Mobile Subscriber Monthly Consumption of Content and Applications

[ http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=168749 ]

WAP also has huge potential in the future, as a good number of subscribers Browse News and Information but also check their emails on their mobile devices. This number and percentage could be a lot larger if WAP was cheaper and a lot more user friendly to use. When WAP technologies advance and it starts to resemble the World Wide Web, (plus becomes a lot cheaper to use), there will be a huge interest in Email Advertising to mobile phones and using banner, Video and Java clips, search engine and pop up advertising within the WAP browser.

Watching video clips or television on your mobile isn’t even included on this recent table. Is it because it is a niche consumption market and so isn’t worth including on the list? Mobile video advertising has yet to take off properly due to the limitations on its technology; however it has a very promising future.

Depending on who your target audience are depends also on the choice of advertising technique. All audiences can receive and be able to understand SMS messages, however more advance techniques like Bluetooth, WAP and Video Advertising excludes those whose phones cannot receive these technologies, and those who may not understand how to receive or connect to WAP/ Bluetooth. (The younger; under 13’s and older generations 50+)

If you want to reach a large audience and also have the best return rate SMS advertising is your best bet. However Bluetooth is a good alternative being that it’s innovative and has the ability to offer Music and video clips instead of just text. Alternatively Video clips are a good form of advertising however they cost a lot more to produce and send and not everyone can receive them.

>>Bibliography

Barrack, Craig 12.10.2006.? The Growth of Mobile Internet is still being held back by Price. New Media Age. Pp30

Dredge, Stuart 12.10.2006? The Evolution of Text, New Media Age Pp25

Lindberg, Oliver September 2006? Viral Challenge. .Net Magazine Pp38-44

>Internet Sources

Aalto, L & Gothlin, N & Korhonen, J& Ojala, T 2004? Bluetooth and WAP push Based Location-Aware Mobile Advertising System Online? Available from [ http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1000000/990073/p49-aalto.pdf?key1=990073&key2=3373480611&coll=ACM&dl=GUIDE&CFID=11111111&CFTOKEN=2222222 ]
Hollis, Nigel 2006? Mobile marketing: Making a good Connection. Online? Available from [ http://www.millwardbrown.com/(A(Ke4orUAjrgDZiJ?-6czubrcKY3jYihStEc8SDXRpQCGHQg05cJIgxDk7IGG_RlIEtJurSR2kQeJ7e9ro73oLwqDXKrYVIEbALlx2tn7EpIrk1?))/Sites/MillwardBrown?/Media/Pdfs/en/POV/Mobile.pdf ]

Minney, Jaimee Online? Measurement Firm Finds That 36.5 Million Mobile Subscribers Responded via SMS to an Ad. Available from http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=16874903.10.2006?
Verdoodt, Patti Online? Mobistar first to launch interactive communication via Bluetooth with JCDecaux Available from http://www.alterwave.com/documents/Mobistar_EN.pdf12.09.2006?

Ad-Funded mobile entertainment- a ‘brandtastic’ opportunity? Online? Available from http://mef.typepad.com/weblog/09.08 2006? Author is unknown

Data Protection Act 1998 Online? http://www.dh.gov.uk/PolicyAndGuidance?/OrganisationPolicy?/RecordsManagement?/DataProtectionAct1998Article?/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4000489&chk=VrXoGe? 27.03.2000? Author unknown

Mobile Advertising Worth $10 Billion By 2010 Online? Available from http://www.cellular-news.com/story/18034.php 29.07.2006? Author is unknown

UK 'S FIRST WAP ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN. Media 21, 365 Corporation and 24/7 Media Press release Online? Available from http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=48579 23.03.06? Author unknown

SMS Text Message Marketing - Nightclubs, Clubs & Bars Online? Availiable from http://www.textmarketer.co.uk/sms-marketing-nightclub.htm Author unknown

SMS text messaging for Marketing and Promotion Online? http://www.pjb.co.uk/pjbsms2.htm Author Unknown

Interactive promotion report: blogging

2006-11-29T11:54:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Esme Arora looks at:

Blogging, Podcasts, vodcasts and RSS

Blogs

A weblog (blog) is a web application, which range in scope from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs and corporations. Either an individual or a large group of writers can publish blogs. Many blogs enable visitors to leave their own comments, which can lead to a community of readers centred on the blog.

There are thousands of blogs on the Internet, some generating news or influencing events.

The format of blogs varies, from simple bullet point lists, to article summaries or complete articles. Individual blog entries are almost always structured in the same way, with the newest post at the top of the page and the readers’ comments appearing below it. The individual or whosoever blog it may be, needs to ensure that they update the blog on a regular basis, if one is to keep readership.

Advantages of reading and publishing blogs

There are many reasons why individuals feel that having a blog is beneficial:

1. Anyone (author of blog or visitor) can write anything at any time.

2. An individual’s way to speak out and get their voice heard.

3. A chance to hear what other people have to say in response to your own personal views on a topic.

Many organisations also see advantages in having a blog:

1. They are an excellent way of sharing knowledge within an organisation

2. Blogs are a low cost and fast publishing tool for any organisation.

3. An excellent way to maintain a stream of news from the organisation.

4. Blogs can be a positive way of getting feedback

5. Allows employees and marketers to post messages updating companies’ developments, and thus, serve as a useful PR tool.

6. The consumer and the organisation itself are potentially better informed, which is good in the long run.

As with anything, where there is good, there is bad. Although there are not many disadvantages in having a blog, the following are a few downsides in having one:

1. For an organisation to have a successful blog, they need to ensure that all the parties involved use the blog.

2. Must write down thoughts/ideas in a compelling and clear manner, because the thoughts in your head may come out different when written.

3. Blogs are easy to start, but hard to maintain.

4. They take up time.

Where to find blogs

Finding a blog on the Internet is simple and straightforward, this can be done either by searching for blogs on google or other search engines, or there are certain websites where one can find blogs. www.blogfinder.com and http://blogdex.media.mit.edu are just a couple of the many blog finders on the Internet.

Example of a blog

The most recent example of a blog is “the biggest blog in history” http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=3621 . This has been in the news during the week, as History Matters have been asking people all over the country to post a diary on the Internet of how they lived on the day of 17^th October 2006. The idea is that this mass blog will be a record which future generations can look at and see what their ancestors got up to in mid October.

Behaviour change from this :

This plan is a really good idea as it is aimed at people of all ages around the country, and encourages them to speak up and be heard. For people to write about themselves and their day can be seen as a behavioural change because talking about such things are personal to the individual and it is not something that they would normally take part in.

Factors to be taken into consideration with this particular blog

What needs to be taken into consideration when carrying out an exercise such as this is that many people may not give true accounts of what happened during their day, as they would want to make their addition to the blog sound interesting and different.

More examples of blogs

Blogs that I found useful were the ones on Ebay. It is like an online community, and the blogs are very informative as many are about the activities of Ebayers, and the products that they buy and sell. The blogs are aimed at a specific audience, which are the people who use Ebay on a regular basis, and potential Ebay users who want to get a feel for what Ebay is like, by hearing other people’s views.

By posting comments on the blog, it can be said that this increases the chance of people spending more money as they see products for sale in the blog that they may not have been looking to buy originally.

An individual blog such as ‘Donna’s online diary’ at www.grooveonit.blogspot.com is how the traditional blogs were structured.

This type of blog is aimed towards an audience who are interested in other people’s lives, or who are intrigued to see others who share their interests. When there are common interests between the author of the blog and the visitor, the visitor might want to leave feedback/comments.

‘Pro-Wal-Mart Travel blog screeches to a halt’ is a prime example of an unsuccessful blog. Business Week exposed the site as a promotional tactic engineered by Working families for Wal-mart (WFWM).

The main reason this blog wasn’t successful is because “everyone involved violated the basic rule: Be transparent. If you’re found out, it comes back as a slap in the face.”

Reports on Blogs

In April, the Guardian carried out a special report on weblogs, ‘Bloggers remain in a minority’.

The report suggests that according to new research, even though people have become more aware of blogging, this has not resulted into more people writing or regularly reading blogs.

To have a successful campaign, it is vital that there is enough/consistent media coverage on blogging to increase awareness and also a tool to remind people about blogs, the advantages of reading and publishing them, and where to locate certain blogs.

Also what needs to be taken into further consideration is that if one is publishing blogs, they need to ensure that the blog they write is relevant and shares a common interest with other people, also to make sure that the blog is user friendly in the way it reads and is presented.

Research/Report on Blogs and Podcasts

According to a new study in July, downloading podcasts have become more popular than blogging. A report written by Kevin Newcomb on http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3619616 illustrates that more people have been downloading podcasts lately than the amount of people who have published a blog.

“Podcast listeners skew younger, with Web users between the ages of 18-24 nearly twice as likely as the average Web user to download audio podcasts.”

“The portability of podcasts makes them especially appealing to young, on-the-go audiences”

Podcasts are very recent in comparison to how long Blogs have been around. This shows that it may be because of advertising in the sense that podcasts are mainly aimed at the younger generation, and so advertising has made people aware of podcasts to the extent that in such a short space of time, a vast amount of people are downloading them.

Blogging is slightly more difficult to reach out to people because blogs in general are aimed at everyone, and so it is difficult to make everyone aware of blogs.

In order to have a successful campaign, the main issue here is advertising to reach out to the target market. Blogging is a cheaper way of advertising to reach out to the audience and therefore is not as popular as podcasts.

Podcasts/Video Podcasts (Vodcasts)/RSS

Podcasts are the publishing of audio files via the Internet, which are designed to be downloaded and then listened to on a portable music player. E.g. iPod, mp3 player.

Vodcasts are simply the same as podcasts, except they are video files.

RSS is related to podcasts/vodcasts because it is a format for delivering the changes of web content. Once each item is in RSS format, an RSS aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

RSS, also known as feeds, allow you to see when websites have added new content. You can get the latest headlines and video in one place, as soon as it’s published, without having to visit the websites you have taken the feed from. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm )

Advantages of Podcasts:

There are many advantages of podcast marketing:

1. Regular podcast programming can draw a repeat audience.

2. Very low cost

3. Attracts search engine traffic

4. Podcasts are relatively easy to make

5. Podcast marketing or training files can be posted on a Web site, and they can also be distributed using RSS technology, ensuring a wider reach.

The main advantages of podcasts are:

1. The ability to subscribe

2. The ability to download the file to your computer, and

3. The portability of being able to put the audio onto a portable device, such as an iPod, and listen whenever you want.

Disadvantages of Podcasts:

The following are a few disadvantages of downloading podcasts:

1. Computers need sufficient bandwidth for downloading the mp3 audio files.

2. Podcasting is not designed for two-way interaction or audience participation.

3. Amateur podcasts do not have the same quality as professional broadcasts.

4. Some initial training is needed.

As video podcasts (vodcasts) are podcasts with video files, the main principles of both are the same, there aren’t any differences in downloading them and the advantages and disadvantages of them are practically the same.

Examples of Podcasts/Vodcasts

A really good example of podcasts/vodcasts is on www.news.bbc.co.uk/newsnight

On their website, Newsnight audio and video podcasts appear weekly featuring the best of the programmes interviews, reports and discussions.

This idea of downloading podcasts/vodcasts of Newsnight programmes is great because all of the viewers of Newsnight don’t always have the opportunity to watch every Newsnight programme and the podcasts give the viewer a chance to watch what they had missed.

This is particularly aimed at viewers of Newsnight or people who are interested in watching the news but may not have time to, in which case they could download the podcast and watch the ‘best bits’ on the train, bus etc.

The ability now to download podcasts, may result in a behavioural change of the viewers, as they may not bother to watch the programme as regularly as they may previously have done because they know they can just download podcasts and watch it.

A university is currently conducting some research on the topic of vodcasts. The university is the first with video podcast news. The programme about electronics and computer science is available on their website.

“We can take video from any source and enable lectures and students alike to create a video, either of a lecture, a seminar, or to record an experiment or expectation.”

“The great benefit is that this can be downloaded to be watched or listened to at any time or place.”

The research will contribute to a way of helping the student’s revision, as it is another method of learning. I.e. visually.

Report on Blogs and Podcasts

Following the resignation of Charles Kennedy who confessed to having an alcohol problem, the Liberal Democratics were in search for a new leader. The three short listed candidates were Simon Hughes, Sir Menzies Campbell and Chris Huhne. All three used similar approaches of campaigning, some opting in favour more to one area than others. The main areas being e-mail, podcasts, vodcasts and blogs. Sir Menzies Campbell, who was eventually the successful candidate had the content on his website continuously updated therefore meaning the information posted was most recent and relevant. Regular podcasts, vodcasts and blogs enabled visitors of the website to keep up to date with his campaign and his manifesto. Blogging was taken most seriously and this is the information that was most commonly visited as users on http://campbellcampaign.org used google maps to track his progress throughout the country and podcasts/vodcasts and blogs to highlight his following in those areas. The reason his campaign was successful was because he used different mediums to communicate with party members targeting amateur users but also those more experienced and comfortable with technology. Such was not the case with the members that only used one or two of those mediums therefore highlighting the point that pluralizing the methods leads to greater success in a campaign.

Summary

In conclusion to the above reports, research and articles about blogging, podcasts and vodcasts, we can see just how much technology has modernised. Different mediums have made us aware of these latest advances that keeps a lot of us up to speed. The use of blogs, podcasts and vodcasts being used in campaigns (e.g. the Liberal Democrats campaign mentioned earlier) shows how popular they have become. Of course, as well as having advantages in using these methods, there are several disadvantages, but that is with anything, and it only tells us that there are many more advanced technologies still to come our way in the future.

References

Internet Sites:

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/libdems/story/0,,1719183,00.html

http://www.corporateblogging.info/

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3619616

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/5204778.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/2006/10/newsnight_podcasts.html

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/

http://kierenmccarthy.co.uk/2006/03/15/are-blogs-now-more-powerful-than-newspapers/

http://www.internetsafetyzone.co.uk/root/Parents/icc/ 01a_Blogging?? /

http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=3621

http://gilbane.com/gilbane_report.pl/104/Blogs Wikis_Technologies_for_Enterprise_Applications?? .html

http://publications.mediapost.com

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/story/0,,1757426,00.html

http://www.sundayherald.com/57781

http://blog.rssapplied.com/public/blog/90739

http://www.scpr.org/help/podcasthelp.html

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/ictineducation/connected/connected15/ictinpractice/podcastshelp.asp

http://www.whatisrss.com/

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html

http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog/

http://www.electronicstalk.com/news/unv/unv104.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm

Bibliography:

RODZVILLA, JOHN 2002, We’ve got blog: how weblogs are changing our culture Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing

BLOOD, REBECCA 2002, The weblog handbook: practical advice on creating and maintaining your blog Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing

Interactive promotion report: search engine marketing

2006-11-28T11:52:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. UCE Birmingham Interactive PR student Dorota Jablonska looks at:

Search Engine Marketing (including SEO)

A search engine is a program designed to help find information stored on a computer system (e.g. World Wide Web).It also helps to drive the potential customers to your website. What is more, Search Engine Marketing builds online brand awareness and consumer relationships.

There are different kinds of search engines:

search engine, which searches for information on the public Web,
enterprise search engine, which searches on intranet (a private computer network),
personal search engine, which searches individual personal computers,
mobile search engine.

In order to achieve the business objectives the producers can use one of the Search Engine Services that offer optimisation and submission services.

Let’s look at some examples of those.

HQ Search Engine Service
Interactive Return- Online Marketing Agency
Get me on Google, a specialist search engine marketing company
SearchPath? Internet Marketing

What do they offer?

Search engine submission, which means getting listed,
Search Engine Optimisation, which refers to the act of altering your site so that it may rank well for particular terms,
Search engine placement and positioning refer to get your site to the “top ten” ranking for a particular keyword or search terms.,
Search Engine Marketing and Promotion as the overall process of marketing on search engines such as: submission, optimization, managing paid listings etc.
Internet Marketing Consulting
Pay Per Click Advertising
Online Advertising
Email Marketing builds brand awareness, influence sales offline and keep their customers informed with relevant updates, news and offers.
Online Marketing Training, courses are facilitated by Interactive Return's online marketing, usability and ecommerce consultants.
The main solution of these websites is to connect the business to the Internet searchers.

Some of these point need to be described in greater details

Search Engine Submission: Getting listed

Act of getting listed with several different engines , other words search engine registration. In order to let know the search engine that your web exists .

"Search engine submission is akin to you purchasing a lottery ticket. Having a ticket doesn't mean that you will win, but you must have a ticket to have any chance at all." (SearchEngineWatch?.com)

Search Engine Optimisation : Improving The Odds

Method that improve the number and quality of visitors to your websites from search engine listings. It is also a subset of search engine marketing, which includes sponsored search listings. The term SEO also refers to "search engine optimizers".

" Returning to the lottery model, let's assume there was a way to increase the odds of winning by picking your lottery numbers carefully. Search engine optimization is akin to this. It's making sure that the numbers you select are more likely to win than purchasing a set of numbers at random ". (SearchEngineWatch?.com)

Search Engine Optimisation Tools

Keyword Research Tool
Search Engine Position Checker
Link Popularity Checker
Keyword Analysis Tool
Search Engine Spider Simulator
Meta Tag Generator
Web Page Analyser
Top PPC Bids Checker
Link Appeal
Rewrite Rule Generator

Search Engine Optimizer

An industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients

Pay Per Click Advertisements

They can be found next to search results and are called sponsored links or ads. When the user clicks on the ad the advertiser gets paid for the service. PPC is categorized in Keyword, Product and Service engines.

How to register with search engines?

If you want to use the Search Engine Marketing service you need to pay for an initial setup and monthly fee. Some of the services offer you monthly trial, so they can convince you that their service is worth investment. You can register online, but also you can contact representatives regarding your online marketing requirements.

Multi Channel Feature

Search Engines develop their services as everything else in the virtual word. Now it is possible to assign multiple custom channels to a single ad unit. Google AdSense? Launches Multiple Channel Feature. For more information about the invention go on Google Ad Sense blog

SearchEngineWatch?

Website where you can find all the information in relation to Search Engines “The Source for Search Engine Marketing” as they called themselves. These include:

Latest stories
Current Articles but also Search Engine Report Archives
Search Engine Listing
Search Engine Resources contain a collection of links relating to different search engine subject
Search Engine Ratings. Personally I found a very interesting article about online searches done by US home and work web surfers in July 2006 that were performed at a particular search engine. The researchers were carried out by the Nielsen/Net Ratings Search reporting service. Readers can find there a graph, figures and information about the issue. There is plenty of different information which are related to the subject and can clear up any problem.
forums, blog
submissions tips

Confusion over search listing

If you tend to get lost in trying to distinguish between paid-for and normal listing, you are not alone. 70% of users claim that “online ad clutter is hampering their ability to perform key task” (Dillabough,2003). The reason is marketing jargon that is used by the search engines to describe their paid for listing. Luckily there are services that provide help for clients to “understand the unbiased research, analysis and advice, backed by proprietary data, to help companies profit from the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on their business” (Jupiterreserach, 2005). Jupiter Research Business Intelligence for Business Results company is one of those who will help you to understand all the rules that are estabished.

Event for Search Engine Marketing & Optimization

There are also events where you can learn how to maximize search engine marketing and optimization opportunities and stay informed of the latest search developments and solutions in this area. For Example: Standing-Room-Only event by Search Engine Strategies

What can the Search Engine Marketing be used for?

As an example let’s look at the Coca Cola Company that uses Search Engine Marketing as a tool in its public relations arsenal. Company uses paid search to help managed its reputation that was violated by Sinaltrainal, a Colombian labor union who charged in court that Coca-Cola is responsible for improper anti-union tactics in bottling plants.

Read the article

Summary

Search Engine Marketing is extremely useful to promote the business online. It helps to rank better, among million of other websites. Search Engines build brand awareness, customers relationship, influence sales, keep people informed with what is important, and also with what is not. That is the annoying side of the Search Engines Marketing. We all have to deal with PPC, unwanted emails and online advertising. Finding the relevant information is not so easy since the number of websites has been increasing every second. The rat race of those who want to be the most noticeable remains. Every single Search Engines Service will advertise itself as the best, the most helpful and managed. They always say that as a customer you will get the best service, and your website will be ranking well. Registering with them is not enough. Knowing how to maximize search engine marketing and optimizing opportunities, staying informed about the latest developments, understanding analysis, research, etc and constant increasing of the knowledge are the keys to success.

References

Americant http://www.americaint.com/

Dillabough, 2003, New Media Age

Danny Sulivan, 2006 Nielsen NetRatings?

Google blog AdSense? http://adsense.blogspot.com/

Get me on google http://www.getmeongoogle.co.uk/

HQ Web Service http://www.hqwebservices.co.uk/seo.htm

Interactive return http://www.interactivereturn.com/

Jupiter Research http://www.jupiterresearch.com/

Media Post Publication http://publications.mediapost.com/

National Geographic http://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/

Submit Corner Wired 2000 http://www.submitcorner.com/

Search Engine Watch http://searchenginewatch.com/

Search engine Strategies http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/

Webmaster toolkit http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/

Web Site Optimization http://www.websiteoptimization.com/

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org

Interactive promotion report: interactive TV advertising

2006-11-27T11:49:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash]. Guillaume Piot looks at:

Interactive TV advertising

What is interactive TV ?

Interactive TV is a recent marketing technique, that has been developed during the evolution of digital TV. The option that is available to the consumer is to press the “red button” of their remote control in order to access an interactive page displayed on the TV screen.

The “red button” option usually appears in the top right hand corner of the program or advert that contains an interactive page. Interactive TV is the perfect example of media convergence and remediation as it needs a connection to the internet in order to access the interactive page.
The following quote describes some application of this marketing technique:

“Typical interactive TV uses are selecting a video film to view from a central bank of films, playing games, voting or providing other immediate feedback through the television connection, banking from home, and shopping from home.”
www.sidetrips.com/support/glossary_a_l.asp

In order to understand the way interactive TV works, I thought it would be useful to present the following schema (figure 1) :

(sorry, impossible to upload my picture on the wiki)

Advantages and disadvantages

The advantages of Interactive TV marketing are:

• It is a new experience for consumer who can interact with the advertiser (or the brand). “Interactive and personalized TV offers significant opportunities to advertisers, advertising agencies, TV Channels but most importantly can turn passive viewers to active participants, enhancing the TV viewing experience.”(Lekakos, http://www.eltrun.aueb.gr/papers/itv.pdf).
• It is accessible from the comfort of TV room and uses the fact that people spend a lot of time in front of their TV screen, and just have to press a button to access which is not a difficult task.
• It uses the advantages of interactive TV itself to enhance the quality of advertising, which are the following :

o high-speed internet access
o digital quality video
o surround-sound audio
o email via your TV
o films on demand or selected from a list of possible choices
o online shopping and banking
o cheap telephone calls over the Internet
o video conferencing
o many more TV channels, some USA companies are quoting up to 1000!

(information available from: http://www.school-resources.co.uk/advantages_of_interactive_digita.htm)

One main disadvantage of interactive TV marketing is the “digital divide” between the one who have digital TV and Internet connection and the one who haven’t. Nowadays, this is not the majority of the TV viewers who have this option and therefore restricts the audiences on interactive TV. Nevertheless, interactive TV subscriber number is rising (see figure 2) and therefore the digital divide should narrows during the new few years and widen the audiences on this marketing technique.

Examples
• The National Geographic channel is currently using interactive promotion to advertise its brand new programme called: "I didn't know that". The programme broadcasted on digital TV gives the option to "press the red button" in order to get further information.
On the National Geographic web site, different techniques are used to get the attention of the visitors on the new programme, and to spread the message. A banner adverts send the user to a flash animation which features a game, a competition, some videos, and a virtal marketing applicattion (eg. apply a fake smile to picture and forward it to your friends). The promotion gives a lucrative view on National Geographic programme, usually seen as boring.
http://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/vc/idkt/

• The toothpaste and soap brands (Colgate and Palmolive) recently associated in a red button advertising campaign. The principle is that consumers can send a picture of their smile with their mobile phone (MMS) and then see if they have been selected by pressing the "red button".
More that being entertaining with the idea of sharing and showing people smile, the campaign is a real encouragement for using the red button and therefore be familiar with it. Every person who sent their picture will press the red button at least to see if they have been selected. In this way, I consider that the campaign is efficient, pushing the consumers to use the interactive TV.
"The ubiquity of the mobile phone and the interactivity of the red button complement each other well and enable Colgate to engage its target audience on a one-to-one basis in an innovative way," said Matt White, interactive manager at Channel 4.
The target market is essentially teenage and young adults who are the most likely to be familiar with picture messaging.
http://www.colgate.co.uk/app/OralHealthMonth ?/UK/WinSpaBreak?.cvsp

• The famous toy brand LEGO plan to start soon an interactive TV campaign aimed to advertise their new range (Batman LEGO). An article from NMA gives some information about it:
“The sponsorship will be supported with a 30-second TV commercial intended to drive viewers to a specially created Lego campaign site, featuring a range of tailor-made mini-movies” (Jones, 2006).

“Viewers can also press red on their remote controls to access the Lego-branded iTV game. Created in-house by Turner's design and build team, the bespoke maze game allows children to guide a Lego Batman through ten different levels” (Jones, 2006).

The LEGO iTV campaign is made of videos and games, targeted to children and easily accessible on TV by pressing the “red button” during an advert.

I think it will be very efficient especially during the post-Christmas period, emphasizing the influence of the TV adverts and enhancing the LEGO experience for children.

LEGO TV commercial: http://www.lego.com/eng/create/downloads/default.asp?page=tvcs

Researches

Rob Cover wrote an article in the journal New Media & Society that “examines the ways in which recent theorizations of interactivity work to reconceive the author-text-audience relationship” (2006). The author tries to define the concept of interactivity, using example in CD-ROMs, DVDs, interactive TV and Flash Web sites.

In the same context but more related to our subject, Kim & Sawhney wrote an article that “examines the meaning of interactivity or interactive communication and the theoretical issues related to interactive TV” (2002). The article reveals a very important difference between Commercial TV and interactive TV:

“The business model of traditional TV depends on the intermediary firms for mass delivery of content from the control center to the audience in the periphery. In a nutshell, the basic goal of these intermediary firms is ‘control’: control of production, control of distribution and control of consumption. Interactive communication, however, is able to eliminate the intermediaries as it can bypass the center to constitute communication channels” (Kim, 2002).

The control of the content by consumer is becoming more and more common in the media, as it is in interactive TV.

Extensions
• More than a marketing technique, interactive TV can have some education functions. A good example is “t-learning”, which stands for the convergence of interactive TV and e-learning.
In an academic research about the convergence of interactive TV and and e-Learning, it “argues that iTV can facilitate e-learning, and also add value to this practice” (Lycras, http://www.eltrun.gr/papers/tlearning.pdf)

Summary

The key to an efficient interactive TV campaign is to target it to the right audiences and bring content such as games or videos that entertain the consumer, while giving him control of what is on the TV screen.

Interactive TV is still a new marketing tool that hasn’t been adopted by the majority of consumers yet, mainly because the consumers need the technology to access iTV, which is still not affordable for everybody. Nevertheless, as we saw in figure 2, the percentage of interactive TV consumer is rising, which give this marketing technique some very good prospects.

References

Cover, R (2006). Audience inter/active: Interactive media, narrative control and reconceiving audience history, New Media & Society. SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi Vol8(1):139–158. Available at: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/8/1/139 Accessed on 19/10/06?.
Jones, G (2006). Lego in digital deal with Turner as it pushes new Batman range, New Media Age. Available at: http://www.mad.co.uk/Main/News/Sectors/Consumer-Goods/Articles/e3f61ce88fe34958b268bc372bbfec82/Lego-in-digital-deal-with-Turner-as-it-pushes-new-Batman-range.html Access on 19/10/06?.
Kim P, Sawhney H (2002). A machine-like new medium – theoretical examination of interactive TV, Media, Culture & Society. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 24: 217–233. Available at: http://mcs.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/24/2/217 Accessed on 19/10/2006?.
Lekakos, Papakiriakopoulos, Chorianopoulos, (year unknown). An Integrated Approach to Interactive and Personalized TV Advertising. Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. Available at: http://www.eltrun.aueb.gr/papers/itv.pdf Accessed on 19/10/06?.
Lycras, Lougos, Chozos, Pouloudi, (year unknown). Interactive Television and e-Learning Convergence: Examining the Potential of t-learning. Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. Available at: http://www.eltrun.gr/papers/tlearning.pdf Accessed on 19/10/06?.

Interactive promotion report: display advertising

2006-11-24T11:48:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Today, Marie Williams looks at:

Display advertising (banners, Flash, etc.)

It’s the cookies that give information out on what adverts should be placed on each individual page.

Online Advertising

Every where you look you will always notice some form of advertisement; whether it be sitting on the tube, reading a newspaper, watching the television or walking down the road, you will always see, read and take in an advertisement; but most recently advertising on the Internet has become a new medium in itself.

No matter where you click, or what site you look on you will always be bombarded with adverts; whether they are banners, pop ups or standard adverts, you will always notice one when you browse the internet.

Online advertising is becoming a vast medium in which a huge amount of revenue can be made; placing your advert in the right place could be the best move you could make; ‘All advertising is tricking the reader into reading your ad with a clever, cute or curious head line.’ (Vitale, Joe:1997)

Online advertising can be anything from display banners to pop ups. Interstitial is also another way of advertising by inserting flash anagrams and adverts between pages, with the use of flash and rich media products, online advertising can be used to not only enhance sales and media distribution but also personalize and further more enhance product knowledge across the World Wide Web.

‘ Display advertising is a step above from both "in-column" and "listing" level advertising. Display advertising is available in many different sizes-from a quarter-column ad to two side-by-side pages ("Double Trucks")! Whatever your message is, you can say it all with a display ad.
Don't miss an opportunity to attract new customers! In fact, more than 54% of top headings users are new to the business. 88% have made or intend to make a purchase. Display advertising gives you a competitive advantage over other advertisers in your heading.’

( http://www.bellsouth.com/bapco/products/1.4.1.6.html 29/09/06 )

Pop Up Ads:

‘Pop-up ads or pop-ups are a form of online advertising on the World Wide Web intended to increase web traffic or capture email addresses… A variation on the pop-up window is the pop-under advertisement. This opens a new browser window, behind the active window’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popup (29/09/06)

Pop up ads such as those for casinos, credit cards, loan repayments and pornography can be blocked by using specials buttons such as the one on Google: http://toolbar.google.com/.

The new Msn Live network now has a large pop up box when you sign in; although this comes automatically with the new version, there are still some additional banners on this pop it self, one links off to msn games and the other to a windows live page, which advertises the Xbox. This once again reinforces the fact that pops ups and online advertising are used to create revenue and links between major websites.

http://www.bromleyfc.com/ is another website that’s uses pop up boxes. When logging into the forum, you have wait for a pop up box advertising credit or cars to load and then click on it too close, but like many pop ups if you accidentally click on the box it automatically takes you away from the site you want to look at. Not only can you not block this pop up, but there is no way of looking at the site unless you get rid of it.

When trying to find more sites a lot of the pop-ups kept getting blocked. The recent revolution of the pop up blocker has enabled viewers to look at web site with out boxes springing out from no where with content they don’t want to look at. The pop up blocker can be turned on or off.

Banner Ads:

‘Banner ads are less expensive than traditional media advertising.’(Pg139)

When looking on various internet sites it seemed to me that different groups of sites used banners ads for different purposes; take football club websites. Both http://www.millwallfc.co.uk/ and http://www.crewealex.net/ use banner advertisements on their home pages.

When you enter the websites, you are presented with a plan page with one banner across the middle, this normally advertises some thing to do with the club or the England team, and you have to look at this advertisement before you click on the small link below that takes you to the main home page.

With the obvious target market being men aged between 16-35, advertisements on these sites must have the ‘football theme’ running through them; ‘the consumer must have knowledge about what the product category or subcategory the brand belongs to and its unique characteristics that differentiate it from competitors.’(ps138)

Search engine websites are another key medium that uses online advertising.

These web sites are one of the most visited sites on the net, they use flash, pop ups, and more evidentially banners. When looking at http://www.yahoo.co.uk/ the top of the home page is a banner that doesn’t advertise for companies, but advertises other ‘yahoo services’ such as Email, messaging and chat. This banner has been used to try and promote yahoo as a brand but doesn’t complete the job successfully. There is nothing that stands out to bring your attention to the top of the page.

‘As the number of consumers with high speed Internet connections increases banner ads will become more complex and will also be able to communicate brand-differentiating information.(Haygtvedt,Curtis:1995:p140)

Case study: myspace.com

http://www.myspace.com/ is now one of the leading web sites for the younger generation. It allows them to communicate across one network, gaining friends and so fourth; however is also advertises a vast amount of information.

Whilst logging in I noticed a variety of different advertising segments. There is always a banner which runs across the top of the screen, these change every time you click onto a different page; adverts for phone companies, efax free trial, credit card companies, smiley downloads, national lottery gaming are just a few examples.

Not only does my space have banner advertisements across the top they sometimes appear to the left or right hand side of the screen, these usually relate to some kind of design, or layout website and appear when reading bulletins or looking at other people profiles.

It was when I clicked onto my home page that I noticed a small arrow pointing upwards with the word advertisement against it, before any image had appeared I already knew that an advertisement would appear, even if the image didn’t load, I would still be able to click in the space and the link to the advertisement would still work.

My Space is a key place that advertising could really work; ‘Online ads must be posted where ads are permitted… Post any ad where it is not welcome and you will get flamed.’(Vitale, Joe: p118)

New display advertising gimmicks:

‘Google has announced a partnership with Yahoo to provide advertising and search services on Web wag.’ http://nma.co.uk/

‘Known as “AIDA,” it represents “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action”: a proven structure for a successful ad. But the online world requires a new formula.’(Vitale, Joe:1997:P111)

‘Online ads must be posted where ads are permitted… Post any ad where it is not welcome and you will get flamed.’(Vitale, Joe:1997Pg118)

Factors to consider when advertising online:

When advertising online it must be taken into consideration where, what and why you are advertising; ‘By positioning an advertisement? on a website which relates to the target markets specific interests, interest and further speculation should occur.’ (http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/ 15/10/06)

Conclusion

When trying to look at online advertising I was bombarded with information; so much so I looked to heavily into the adverts themselves and not the reasoning behind them enough.

Every page that you click on will have an advert placed somewhere on it, whether it being a mere small box or flash anagrams they all count. A continuous rise in the Internet networking will effectively help online advertising; ‘Online advertising will grow by 30 percent next year’ (http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3450801 15/10/06)

Advertising on line is vast becoming a strategy for businesses to promote products unknown to the viewer, by taking the viewer away from the site they were originally looking at it; ‘Strategically gets your web site or name where you want it. New Web sites can build strong traffic by strategically placing banner ads on sites that relate to what they offer.’

My final point relates back to banners and pop up advertisement. Banners are a very clever which to advertise, without annoying or obstructing the viewer, adverts can be cheaply put together and stand out whether they run across the top or down one side. Its pop up advertisements that I believe will not be used for much longer as software to stop these is becoming easier to get hold of people, will just block them all, and so money would be wasted. However this new ‘pay per click’ advertising strategy could be a good way to save money, you only need to pay when people are clicking on your advertisement.

Web sites such as http://www.bidvertiser.com/, promote this pay per click scheme.

The best way to use ‘online advertising’ is to look at the web page it as if you were the consumer, think about what they would want to see and how it would stand out, as expressed before “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action”: a proven structure for a successful ad.’ ’(Vitale, Joe:1997:P111)

http://www.bidvertiser.com/

Report Links

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/index.php?blogthis=1&p=117

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3450801

http://www.emarketer.com/SiteSearch?.aspx?pathID=770

http://www.lifeaftercoffee.com/2006/01/17/good-idea-bad-idea-internet-advertising

http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Main_Page?

http://http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Online_Advertising?

Bibliography:

Haugtvedt, Curtis, Machleit, Karen, Yalch, Richard; ‘Online consumer psychology’ New Jersey: Lawrence: 2005

Vitale, Joe ‘Cyber Writing’ USA: 1997

Internet sites:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ (03/10/06)

http://www.americaint.com/(03/10/06)

http://www.bannerreport.com/

http://www.bellsouth.com/bapco/products/1.4.1.6.html%20%20(29/09/06)

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/index.php?blogthis=1&p=117(15/10/06)

http://www.bromleyfc.com/(01/10/06)

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3450801 (15/10/06)

http://www.crewealex.net/(01/10/06)

http://http//www.emarketer.com(10/10/06)

http://www.internetnews.com/(16/10/06 )

http://www.lifeaftercoffee.com/(15/10/06)

http://www.microsoft.com/(18/10/06)

http://www.msn.com/(01/10/06)

http://www.millwallfc.co.uk/(01/10/06)

http://www.nma.co.uk/(12/10/06)

http://http//toolbar.google.com/.(01/10/06)

http://http//wiki.media-culture.org.(15/10/06)

http://www.yahoo.co.uk/ (01/10/06)

: Note: as you will notice three of my links do not work I have tried to link them but haven't been successfull.

Survey probes impact of social media on PR

2006-11-24T10:16:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Profile Extra has information about EuroBlog 2007, "the second major study into the impact weblogs and social software are having on public relations and communications practice.

"Last year EuroBlog 2006 discovered a two-speed Europe, with some practitioners
enthusiastically embracing the new media but a significant minority failing to
see any business or organisational advantage. The latest survey sets out
discover whether the enthusiasts were right and social media is changing PR
practice."

Practitioners are invited to complete the survey at www.euroblog2007.org/survey.

Interactive promotion report: giveaways and user services

2006-11-23T11:46:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Today the report comes from Katie Butler:

Giveaways and user services

What is a Giveaway?

A Giveaway is something that is offered for free, generally branded, and is usually a good tool to promote a company / business or product. This could be anything from free software to download, free samples, free screensavers & Wallpaper or free music for example.

Examples of Giveaways

Microsoft giveaway free trial downloads of their latest products and software on their website http://www.microsoft.com/downloads. The idea of this is not only to promote Microsoft’s new products, and encourage consumers (such as existing Microsoft users) to go out and buy the full product package or update their current one, but it also aims to promote to the consumer the company as one that is associated with good quality products – assuming that the consumer likes what he/she see’s.

Free Wallpapers ( http://www.freewallpapers.to ) are Google's highest ranked site for free wallpapers. This is great for the company as it reflects how Google have found the site through being the most talked about / and linked to on other websites; Displaying impressively how their promotion technique is already working.

This site is a good example of free giveaways, as they have hundreds of wallpapers under several categories such as 'Car Wallpapers' and 'Movie Wallpapers' that people can click on and set as their desktop wallpaper. The quality of these images are good, and the site doesn't ask you to sign up first which is an added bonus. The purpose of this site is not to promote the company, but simply to please people. However in doing this, they may actually promote themselves anyway through word of mouth.

Arsenal FC ( http://www.arsenal.com ) like many other Football Clubs, giveaway free desktop wallpapers for two main, beneficial reasons:

1 - To 'generate goodwill' - A way of saying thanks to the fans, their target audience, who already support the Club. And…

2 - To promote the Club (to potential new fans)

Arsenal’s wallpapers are of a high quality standard and are of recent pictures of players and matches. They are all offered in different screen sizes, which means that everyone's wallpaper will be of the same standard, regardless of their individual screen resolution – good usability.

The Arctic Monkeys ( http://www.myspace.com/arcticmonkeys ) are one of the most recent and yet classic examples of how giving away something for free can work well in your favour. The band, before making it big, offered free downloads of their music on the popular MySpace?.com . Through word of mouth and recommendations, the Arctic Monkeys were soon recognised for their musical talents and were fast signed up by a major Record Label. They are now one of the most popular British bands in the UK at present.

Initially, the target audience for The Arctic Monkeys would have been teenagers and young adults, however the excellent networking concept of MySpace?.com allowed the group’s music to reached beyond the target market, promoting them further and so resulting in their success.

What is a User Service?

A User service holds a similar concept but as its name suggests, provides a free service.

Examples of User Services

Hotmail ( http://www.hotmail.com ) provide 250mb of space & a domain name for free (NAME@hotmail.com) as part of an e-mail service for the public. As a result of this, Hotmail are skilfully promoting themselves across the World every time their users send e-mails.

Yahoo! ( http://www.yahoo.com ) an alternative company and arguably just as popular as Hotmail , who offer a free mail service. With 'Award-winning spam protection, anywhere access from PCs or mobile phones and tons of storage' Yahoo! Mail is just another service that seems to good to be true...whether or not it is, like Hotmail Yahoo! are consistantly promoting themselves everytime one of their users sends an e-mail.

BlueMountain? ( http://www.BlueMountain ?.com ) provide a free and easy E-card service where you can send E-cards for almost any occasion, including: Birthdays and Anniversaries. They are probably amongst one of the top sites for sending E-cards due to their range of choice and interactivity, for example you can 'Add a Photo' to your E-Card, or chose a 'Talking' E-card. The only negative aspect about this free service is that it requires you to sign-up before you can send E-Cards, some alternative E-Card sites don't even ask for this. For those wanting a fast and hassle-free E-card service, BlueMountain? may not be quite as appealing. For the company itself, every E-card that gets sent is a free advertising tool for BlueMountain?.

Reports on Giveaways and User Services

TopTenREVIEWS?, (2006) - 'BlueMountain?' http://online-greeting-card-review.toptenreviews.com/blue-mountain-review.html

This is a report on BlueMountain?.com – the free e-card service provider. TopTenREVIEWS? are a research company, and so reading this report prior to using BlueMountain? may be of some use. Areas covered in this report are BlueMountain?’s features, quality, ease of use, card selection and help and support section. Each area has both its good and bad points highlighted, and an overall rating out of 4 is given.

Kevin Savetz, (2005) - 'Inbox Tamers / Web Mail Services' http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,119983-page,2/article.html

In a similar way to how TopTenREVIEWS? have reported on BlueMountain?.com, PC World have considered the good and bad points about several free, Web mail services including: MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Google Gmail. They pay particular attention to issues such as spam filtering and storage space; therefore it may be a good idea to read through this report before signing up for a free mail service, as it may just influence your decision.

Heri Rosyadi, (2006) - 'How to use sample Giveaways as the bait to your prospects' http://www.ezinearticles.com/?How-To-Use-Sample-Giveaways-as-The-Bait-To-Your-Prospects&id=189763

In this article Heri Rosyandi, an internet marketing expert, discusses as the title suggests; how to use sample giveaways in order to be successful. He relates Internet giveaways to ‘those promotions girls giving away free samples in super markets’ and claims ‘this traditional marketing is still valid today for any promotion including to promote your products or services online. He later adds ‘Free samples also provide a great viral marketing opportunity.’ Not only is this report easy to comprehend, but it also provides some useful suggestions on how to go about using sample giveaways.

John Borland, Michael Kanellos & Brooke Crothers, (1999) 'How can Giveaways pay off? http://news.com.com/2009-1040-233336.html?legacy=cnet

In ‘How can Giveaways pay off? ’ John Borland, Michael Kanellos and Brooke Crothers report on the economical prospects of using giveaways, and pose the question: Can anyone make money in this market? They outline numerous examples of companies who have used giveaways as a promotions technique, and reflect on the degree of their success.

Kara Swisher, (2000) 'The Giveaway is going away on Web sites' http://www.infopoint.com/articles/thegiveaway.html

This is an interesting report that suggests the ‘giveaway’ in a sense, today, does not truly exist. ‘ The basic idea is simple: Give users a taste of a service and then "upsell" them, or persuade them to pay for better features.’ In other words, a company may well provide a free service or giveaway, but to receive the best services or products, you actually have to flash the cash. "Live free or die," or "Live free and die?"

3 Main characteristics of a good campaign using ‘Giveaways & User Services’

Being highly ranked by Google - usually within the first 10 results.
Having good reports written – good reports are good promotion.
Having many subscribers / members – Meaning continuing success

References

http://www.ezinearticles.com/

http://www.google.com/

http://www.infopoint.com/

http://www.pcworld.com/

http://www.toptenreviews.com/

http://www.wikipedia.org/

Interactive promotion report: virals

2006-11-22T11:30:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash]. In the third of my Interactive Promotion students' research reports, today Nushin Hussain looks at virals:

Virals (videos, emails, quizzes, games):

Viral promotion fundamentally is a form of advertising where a message is passed user to user through different forms of interactive methods such as videos, emails, quizzes and games. The purpose of viral marketing is to increase awareness of a brand or message. This technique of promotion creates growth in the message’s visibility and effect as it can spread rapidly. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions.

Viral marketing was a term originally coined by venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson to describe the unique referral-marketing program created by Hotmail, one of the first free e-mail services.Hotmail is one of the best examples of viral marketing without a database. Setting up a Hotmail account is free, but every time someone sends an email using the Hotmail service, the email automatically contains an advertisement for Hotmail. Hotmail had rapid development in the 90s, which grew from zero to 12 million users in 18 months

There are different types of viral campaigns –

Pass-along: A message which encourages the user to send the message to others. The crudest form of this is chain letters where a message at the bottom of the e-mail prompts the reader to forward the message

Incentivised viral: A reward is offered for either passing a message along or providing someone else's address. This can dramatically increase referrals.

"Edgy Gossip/Buzz marketing" ads or messages that create controversy by challenging the borders of taste or appropriateness. Discussion of the resulting controversy can be considered to generate buzz and word of mouth advertising.

User-managed database: Users create and manage their own lists of contacts using a database provided by an online service provider. By inviting other members to participate in their community, users create a viral, self-propagating chain of contacts that naturally grows and encourages others to sign up as well.

Viral Advantages

There are many plus points to viral marketing hence the popularity of it.

The first and most important advantage to viral marketing is that it is cheap as there is no media cost to it. But the concept of the campaign has to have time spent on it for it to work and extend as the campaign will be unsuccessful if the message is not passed on from person to person due it not being impressive. Another point is that viral marketing has the prospective to have a global audience. This is particularly useful if a product/ service exist worldwide as it is possible to promote with low costs rapidly. A further advantage to viral marketing is that it is easy to measure the effectiveness of a viral campaign as you can find out exactly who has responded to your message and capture data about them. Viral marketing is also a great method of promotion for the reason that people can trust a viral marketing message because they received it from someone they know therefore it’s trustable and most of all, the message will be looked in to where as if it was from an unknown person the email, game etc would be most likely ignored.

Viral Disadvantages

As well as the advantages there are quiet a few disadvantages to viral marketing. The main disadvantage is that there is no guarantee that the message being promoted is being read and being forwarded. Though the idea of a message being spread over the internet around the world may seem perfect, it does have its draw backs such as a message ending up passed on to someone you would rather not be associated with e.g. a competitor campaign taking ideas or getting information from the message.
Also a viral message has to be careful about the size of the message as it may be too large for a recipient to receive particularly if it’s a streamed video or a video clip. This further leads to an issue of software as a recipient may not have the software required to view the message. There are also spam related issues which can be caused as well as people may not want to receive e-mails and take offence and regard the viral messages as spam messages. This can make the receiver angry and create damage to the reputation of the advertiser as they would not be recommended.
Another disadvantage is that people who are sent messages at work may not receive them as companies have anti-virus software’s or firewalls.

Good Viral Marketing

The Subservient Chicken

http://www.subservientchicken.com/

The Subservient Chicken is a viral marketing promotion of Burger King's line of chicken sandwiches and their "Have it Your Way" campaign. This is a really good viral example based on Burger King. It is called ‘Subservient Chicken’ where there is a person in a chicken costume who listens to your commands that you type in. The site takes literally the advertising slogan "Get chicken just the way you like it". I would say the target audience would be 16 – 25. I personally found this virtual interactive chicken very amusing, especially to how it responds to your commands and most of all the fact that it’s not animated, It is like an interactive webcam.

Tenacious D

http://tenaciousdmovie.com/

Tenacious D ‘The pick of destiny’ is a movie by a rock band called Tenacious D. The website has an interesting concept where in the intro you can hear the band members designing the website step by step and what ever they say changes on the screen. Further in relation to the intro there is viral games called ‘Tenacious D rock the internet’ in which you can type in a website and choose one of the ‘rock’ looks you want Jack Black and Kyle Bass to give it. It is a popular game as it states a count of over 18,000 visits to the game. The target audience would be 14- 25 as they have a large audience of fans due to their music. Some form of law may be taken into consideration because I tried the game out on www.hotmail.com and it changed some of the text into rock language.

Family Guy DVD

http://www.familyguydvd.co.uk/

I found this family guy website which is promoting the ‘family guy’ seasons on DVD. What I found most interesting was that there was a form of viral promotion where there is a link to a myspace page which belongs to peter who is a character from the family guy cartoon. After clicking on it I found out all the characters have their own myspace pages. This basically links to the ‘Social networking’ promotion, which in this case creates viral marketing because people have added the characters to their ‘friends space’, so when other people view profiles they will also view the cartoon characters profiles and see the family guy seasons on DVD being promoted. Basically myspace is a huge sociable place on the internet, so the fact that the family guy characters have myspace pages with the promotion of their seasons 1-5 on DVD will be spread and viewed by many people. The target audience for this would be 14 and above because myspace is used by all ages, and the cartoon itself is very mature where adults can relate to it too.

Family guy my space profile:

http://www.myspace.com/petergriffinfreakinsweet

The Uglifier

http://www.uglifier.com/index2.html

Bad examples of Viral Marketing

M&M

http://us.mms.com/us/dark/

I found an M&M themed scary movie quiz, which finds you interpreting the symbols to identify movie titles. It is an interesting link in the sense how it has been put together but it was at times not user friendly where the controls would be hard to use at times, therefore it became off putting because the navigation bar was at the top so when you want to use the bar the screen would move the cursor even if you may not want it to move. The quiz is aimed for 18 and above as there are 50 movie titles hidden within the picture, and also because the movies are horror therefore some movies may only be suitable for 18 and above.

Measuring Viral Success

Tracking the progress of any campaign is important in measuring effectiveness. But tracking a viral campaign can often be a challenging task. While "hits" or "impressions" help define the level of activity on a web site, they are not often a true measure of the success of a viral campaign. A measuring way that is encouraged in the viral industry is analyzing the viral effect through the use of databases that will allow tracking individual activity levels and not just the overall traffic.

I also found a paragraph from a website called ‘efluentials’ where it gave few points to consider making measuring viral marketing easier:

‘The key to be able to measure viral activity is to decide on the outcome variable beforehand. What does success mean to this company or for this brand? Is it increased sales, hits on a Web site? Or the number of people who show up at an event? Or media coverage generated from the event times the number of people who read/watch these media sources? Marketers should tie each step of the viral campaign to a measurable outcome.’

In conclusion viral marketing is a great way of promotion as it can be spread worldwide within a year. But for it to spread, there are many aspects to take into consideration for it to be a worldwide success such as the design, the concept, the purpose, the clarity of the message etc. Another characteristic that would make a good viral campaign is that it has to be user friendly especially when it comes to games. The target audience has to be taken into consideration and base the viral upon what would suit and appeal to the target audience. A good viral campaign may also have incentives such as giving discounts for passing on a message. As well as the good points about viral marketing you have to be aware of points that make the success of a viral campaign depend on them such as whether people would even pass on a message. Overall viral marketing is a good method of promotion; it needs to be prepared in a correct way for it to be successful.

Bibliography

http://www.viralchart.com/games.php

http://www.uglifier.com/index2.html

http://efluentials.blogspot.com/2004/10/measuring-success-of-viral-marketing.html

http://www.subservientchicken.com/

http://www.myspace.com/petergriffinfreakinsweet

http://www.uglifier.com/index2.html

http://us.mms.com/us/dark/

http://www.familyguydvd.co.uk/

www.hotmail.com

http://tenaciousdmovie.com/

http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm

http://www.witiger.com/ecommerce/viralmarketing.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing

http://www.npadvisors.com/NewContent/100340.asp

http://biad.moodle.uce.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=208

Interactive promotion report: flash websites and animations

2006-11-14T08:51:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash]. In the latest of my Interactive Promotion students research reports, todayAzim Haque looks at flash websites and animations:

Flash websites, animated introductions etc.

“Back in 1994, Yahoo had only just launched, most websites were text based and Amazon, Google and eBay had yet to appear”. Mark Ward, ‘Technology Correspondant, BBC News website (2004)

Flash is said to be ‘99% bad’ and until recently, I would have thought that this statement was mistaken by one percent. There seems to be a divide amongst designers between those who like using flash, and those don’t. It was at one point quite trendy to have a flash website but as with most new fancy tools of the trade, designers can overuse an idea and it can become tired for many reasons. However when the tools are used effectively, the results can be quite impressive; as we will explore.
Here are some examples of websites that have used flash effectively, but who decides what makes it a good website or not? To understand flash, we must explore it through the designer’s vision, and the user’s experience. The context in which the designer has created the website will give us an understanding as to why the website looks the way it does, and how it was meant to be consumed.
I looked at these three websites created with flash are designed for young users to compare how flash is used in different ways, and to breakdown the pro’s and cons of using flash. These websites should therefore be easy to use, entertaining, colourful, fun and should satisfy and capture the imagination of a child.

www.nick.com
Nickelodeon Television Channel
The Nickelodeon website is colourful, the designer uses yellows, oranges, bright greens – if we look to colour theory, these colours stereotypically convey a sense of youth and vibrancy. The designer makes interesting use of bold typography and rollover button action. Aspects such as these create a more exciting and animated experience for the user. It is not so busy as to put the user off, but there is, in my opinion too much writing on the screen to sustain the interest of a young consumer.
This is a perfect example of how technology advances and how problems are quickly over come, the designer on nick.com, like many others has adapted the design to tackle a common problem with using flash. Usually the back/forward controls within the internet window do not correspond with flash as flash is a series of animation frames, and not a series of pages (unlike hand drawn cartoons, flash can be used cleverly to ‘tween’ groups of frames to create seamless movement from one point to another). This back/forward page control can still be a great problem, but in this case the designer has placed the individual flash movies onto a flash stage which allows for much easier and linear navigation as it separates the flash movies, and gives back the user of going back and forth with the normal controls.

www.citv.co.uk

Childrens BBC Channel

The Children’s ITV Channel makes very little use of flash, and fails at inspiring its user. The colours are dark, deep reds and navy blue colours are usually associated with formality. The website was created to look quite formal, possibly masculine, but it is not, to my knowledge, in keeping with its target market.
The flash advertisements, and tiny preview screen of shows to come are the most interesting thing on this website. Both these things are created effectively in flash and do add something to the page, but are also equally irritating as they bombard the user with flashing images. The advertisement for upcoming CITV shows looks very much like an advertisement for something that may not have anything to do with the site itself as it follows the same layout and conventions of a flash advertisement. Jakob Nielsen, ‘expert on Web usability’, suggests that “unfortunately, users also ignore legitimate design elements that look like prevalent forms of advertising” Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (www.useit.com, 2006) . It would be an area of concern for any company if its target market was not receiving, or purposefully ignoring their intended message.

www.peppapig.com

Official PeppaPig Website
The Peppa Pig website is an exciting website, and a great example of this sort of website should be like. As soon as you enter the website, you are given the option to customise your mouse, to skip sections, to watch an episode, print out pictures to colour in, and much more. The design is really quite simple, which makes it user friendly for all, Lee Gomes suggests that “it's really dangerous to design for a technical elite. We have to design for a broad majority of users” Wall Street Journal Online (2006). And that is exactly what this website is so great at doing. The problem arises when the user wants to navigate back and forth, but the designer has used an easy drop down menu and a ‘Back to home’ button to counteract this setback.

Those were some examples of websites for users of a younger age, now we look at websites created for a mature user. All these things have to be taken into account, age, computer/Web literacy, gender, ability - eye sight, hearing, navigation, mouse control and so on when designing a website; therefore it is crucial to know who your target market is.

www.viktor-rolf.com

Official Viktor and Rolf Website

The Viktor and Rolf website is designed for a reputable fashion house, the design of the website is stylish, chic, minimalist and timeless. However, the usability of the site is another matter. Jakob Nielsen warns, “don't assume that users know as much about your site as you do”, the first page of the website asks the user to install flash, enable pop-ups, then the user is to find an additional page to enter the site and is confronted by a page that repeats the names ‘Viktor and Rolf’ incessantly in a monotonous voice, there is a ‘sound off’, and a ‘fast forward’ option, but the writing is quite small – and the website assumes that the word ‘fast forward’ is the same as the word next, or skip.
The website takes some time to load, but once the user is in the main area of the site (the showcase of the new fashion collections) the usability is relatively simple. An elitist fashion website such as this may go against Lee Gomes’ on designing for the technically elite, as they may want to create an elite and sophisticated identity to their site. So it is quite possible that the designer has purposefully decided not to adhere to the codes and conventions of web design.

www.pulsethemovie.net

Official Pulse the movie Website

The FWA, Favourite Website Awards website, www.fwa.com, showcases many examples of websites created purely in flash.
The Pulse movie Website is one of those, it allows the user to immerse themselves into the film, as it uses conventions such as windows on the screen which can be moved around the page, closed and so on. The customisation on this site is limited, but it has an interesting flash introduction to the site, but this can become irritating as today’s users are ‘internet savvy’, “more Net savvy, the longer people have been using the Internet, the more likely it is that they'll use Google, study finds” By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service (2005) www.inforworld.com, and know that this is not ‘real’. Although we must not forget that not all users are equally Web literate. This website, very much like the official Madonna website, www.madonna.com, as it gives the user control of sound, windows, text, images and can allow the user to make additions and interact with the website, and other users. These kind of websites can be clever in design, but are they really making things easier or difficult for the user. Another example of some bad/difficult design is the official Donnie Darko movie website, www.donniedarko.com

www.jaguar.co.uk
Looking now at a more commodified website, such as Jaguar where the main purpose is to showcase the product and to reinforce company values, we see that it can add much more to the experience than viewing the car in real life. We are presented with a fully rotatable 360degrees view of the car, where the user can customise and select which colour, make and model he or she desires. Flash allows for a smooth navigation and a more real sense of the product, this would not be possible to create in a html document.

www.flickr.com

Official Flickr Website
Websites such as MySpace, Google, and Flickr have thousands of hits per day, these websites have well defined web searches, are broadly used for numerous reasons, and are increasingly branching out into different business ventures of their own. None of these are created in flash and are almost bare in terms of design. Some would argue that Google is more complex than other search engines, “is Google simple? No. Google is deceptive. It hides all the complexity by simply showing one search box on the main page. The main difference, is that if you want to do anything else, the other search engines let you do it from their home pages, whereas Google makes you search through other, much more complex pages” Don Norman www.jnd.org
Perhaps it is best to keep flash simple, as with any other website, flash designers could try and evaluate the success of their campaigns, not by how many hits they get per day, but judge their site on their campaign technique as well as usability.
Flash is constantly amending itself, with new versions steadily perfecting the tool to keep up with the fast paced nature of new media. “Faster download time, cross platform/browser compatibility and stability are not the only benefits that Macromedia Flash can deliver. Macromedia Flash can also deliver an improved user experience, when the developer makes the effort to include usability into the development cycle”. http://www.flazoom.com

Psychologist Donald Norman recognised some key principles. Norman, D (1988) the Design of Everyday Things, New York

“Principles:

1 - Recognize Diversity

diversity of users
- User Profile
  - age, gender, education, cultural background, job
- novice / first time users
  - novice - know little of task or interface concepts
  - first time users - have task conceps but shallow knowlege of interface
  - need to be able to accomplish basic needs with small number of consistent actions
- knowledgeable intermittent users
  - know about the task and general knowledge about the interface - will forget specific features
  - need to easily rediscover how to perform tasks
- expert frequent users
  - thoroughly familiar with task and interface concepts
  - need ability to quickly carry out actions, get rapid reponses, brief feedback
diversity of tasks
- determine set of tasks early in design
- choose 'atomic' actions
- look at task frequencies
diversity of interaction styles

Advantages

Disadvantages

Direct Manipulation

- visually presents task concepts
- allows easy learning
- allows easy retention
- allows errors to be avoided
- encourages exploration
- affords high subjective satisfaction

- may be hard to program
- may require graphics display and pointing device

Menu Selection

- shortens learning
- reduces keystrokes
- structures decision making
- permits use of dialogue management tools
- allows easy support of error handling

- presents danger of many menus
- may slow frequent users
- consumes screen space
- requires rapid display rate

Form Fillin

- simplifies data entry
- requires modest training
- gives convenient assistance
- permits use of form management tools

- consumes screen space

Command Language

- is flexible
- appeals to 'power' users
- supports user intiative
- allows convenient creation of user-defined macros

- has poor error handling
- requires substantial training and memorization

Natural Language

- relieves burden of learning syntax

-requires clarification dialogue
- may require more keystrokes
- may not show context
- is unpredictable

Interactive promotion report: games

2006-11-13T11:07:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. I recently asked my Interactive Promotion students to research a particular aspect of interactive promotion. I'll be publishing a different report each day, beginning with games, by Kylie Gammans:

Games (via email, phone or website)

Games via email phone and websites are a form of entertainment for users and can use a variety of different techniques to promote something. Games have a practical way of promoting something as they are bound to keep users amused, therefore consumers are more likely to take notice of the promotions that are taking place, rather than to get distracted by something else, such as things in the background of a website. A user of a game is constantly interacting so their attention is fixed hopefully making them more aware of the promotions that are taking place. Games can promote a range of different areas within the media including movies, television programmes, celebrities, companies and brands.

Games via email

Games via email are not as successful as games via websites and mobile phones. The reason for this is because when people get sent games via their email they may not have the correct software needed for a particular game on their computer so they can not gain access to the game.

Games via websites

Games promoting brands

Example 1 : www.nikefootball.com

On the official Nike website, viewers are able to play games that are linked with football and the famous stars who promote the brand Nike. For example the audiences can play a game called ‘kiss the ball’ where the viewer has to click the mouse to make the famous football star Ronalinho keep the ball up (there are different varieties to this game such as speed, touch and accuracy). Including a famous celebrity helps to promote the brand because if consumers see that particular celebrities who they aspire to take part in the website this will help to promote the brand in a positive way. On the website http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/29559/Analyst+Speak+-+Players+not+put+off+by+in-gaming+advertising.html I found an article called ‘statistics on in game advertising and games on medium forms’ it mentions how ‘ Over two-fifths (44%) of gamers think that having real brands or companies in games adds to the experience.’ (Milsom: 2006: NMA Magazine online) This shows that if a user of a game has had a positive experience and are aware of the brand its promoting they will relate this experience to believe that the brand is constructive.

This game is an excellent example of a successful game that helps promote the brand; it is on Nike’s website which looks very professional and the viewer is bound to see information about the brand before playing the game. As well as this, because the target audience of this website will mainly consist of males who are interested in football it is important to have a game which will keep their attention fixed, so they don’t go off track, get bored and cancel out of the game.

When searching for games that promoted brands on the internet I came across an article called ‘Nike launches soccer game online’ on the website http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=1006711 This stated that when Nike launched its “secret tournament” advertising campaign to ‘promote its new soccer gear in a four-month-long TV and online campaign’(Saunders: 2002: Online) they launched an online game in conjunction with this called “Scorpion Knock Out.” The advertising of this campaign aimed to try and convince people to visit nikefootball.com where they could ‘take on the role of coach, assembling teams of players, training the players to hone their skills and practice special moves, and ultimately, competing in matches against the teams of other site visitors.’ (ibid)This game allowed people to win prizes if they were successful at being a professional football coach. Having a chance to win something would persuade people even more to visit the website; this game was very successful as it ‘anticipated to be one of the largest advergaming efforts to date’. (ibid) This illustrates that if an advertising campaign of a brand allows potential buyers to interact with the brand through a form of entertainment, the campaign would prove to be successful.

‘think of a promotional game as a big game and the winner is the company that makes consumers think about their products most often.’ (Whitman: 2001: Online)

I found the quote above on the website http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/ken12oct01.html the report was called ‘Top of-the-mind-Awareness’ A sales and marketing professional mentions in this report what makes a good promotional campaign. He states that if a particular company does not have a lot of money to promote their campaign ‘they have to do it the grass roots way: word of mouth, demos, giving away samples to excited consumers, and so on. However, when you start making cash, you'd better take this campaign to the next level! Why? Because your competitor will!’ (ibid) When trying to produce a promotional campaign you always have to think about the main problem of the campaign: the competition, you will always have to try and stay a step above them.

Example 2 : www.cadbury.com

There is a game on this website called ‘The Perfect Pairing’ and you have a choice to play it in flash mode or not. In flash mode it enhances the viewer’s experience of the game as it is more interactive. To play this game the user has to uncover the images to pair them all up together. The bad aspect of this game is that the images that you have to match up do not relate to the brand Cadbury. As a result of this the user of the game may forget about the brand the game is trying to promote. However in the background of the window of which the game is in there are pictures of Cadbury chocolate and Cadbury text so it is partly reminding the viewer of the brand. If I was to design this game I would make the images you pair up relate to Cadbury, such as matching up pairs of Cadbury chocolate bars to keep the user of the game aware of the brand at all times.

Example 3: www.pepsi.co.uk

On this website there is a variety of games you can play, including football and barrel shooting. These games do not relate to the brand Pepsi yet they do have the text of the brand around the edge of the games for promotional values. These games are similar to the Cadbury game for the reason that if I was to design the games myself I would relate the games more to the brand, for example Pepsi shooting instead of basic barrel shooting to make the promotional side of the game more achievable.

Games promoting television

Example 1: www.bbc.co.uk/drama/robinhood/games/

This game is promoting the new Robin Hood drama which is broadcast on BBC 1. The game is called ‘The Outlaws’ Revenge’ which is a six part adventure. A new game appears on the website after each episode is broadcast so this creates a narrative enigma, making fans of the drama want to go online each week to see what the game is. Before you take part in playing a game information about what you have to do is shown, and as characters who are in the drama are involved in the game this allows the audience to learn more about Robin Hood and the other characters. This makes the games more appealing to play as it reinforces the characters endorsement and you feel as if you are taking part in adventures that characters would play in the drama; improving users experience.

Example 2: www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/coolstuff/fun_games/games/fun_games_puzzle.shtml

This website allows you to play a variety of different games on the television soap Eastenders. The target audience of these games would be people who have an interest in soaps which tends to mainly be women. When taking part in some of the games the viewer has to answer questions about the show and if they get it right they go further on in the game. If you get an answer wrong you are informed with the correct answer. Using this system allows the games to communicate key information about the show and characters to the audience allowing them to boost up their knowledge on the soap. This game will also appeal to people who are perhaps browsing on the BBC website and happen to come across these games. I think this game is an effective example of a promotional game as it relates to the soap as it involves characters etc making it more worth while compared to a game that would just have pictures of what it is trying to promote such as the Pepsi website; this also would make a consumer feel like they are interacting more with what is intending to be promoted.

Example 3: http://www.nick.com/games/index.jhtml

This website is promoting the children’s television show called Nickelodeon. There are number of different games you can choose to play and they are all on the programmes that are broadcast on this channel. The target audience for this website will be young children who watch this television channel. These games allow audiences to pick particular characters to be involved with the game, making them feel like they are interacting with the cartoon. So as well as entertaining the children, the games also promote the cartoons. For example if a child does not normally watch a particular programme, yet on the website they play a particular game and they have an enjoyable experience; they will be persuaded to watch the cartoon on television. As well as this there is an option for players to email friends about a particular game so this will increase popularity of a game and a cartoon.

I found a report on the website http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2006/10/10/miniclip-cartoon-channel called ‘Gaming site launches cartoon channel online’ which mentions how one of the largest gaming sites online called http://www.miniclip.com/games/en/ has launched a cartoon channel, this channel launched on September 27^th 2006 and features many ‘classic shows such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Sylvester and Tweety Bird.’(2006: NMK Online) The games online as well as the cartoons are free; customers will therefore most probably leave with a positive experience of this website, hopefully meaning they will visit again. I think this is a very successful way of promoting television because as well as customers being able to use free games online they are also able to watch cartoons. The result of this means the website promotes television mainly to younger children as cartoons are available to watch.

Games promoting movies

Example 1: http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/

The target audience of this film would clarify of people from all ages ranging from children to adults who are fans of the books and films of Harry Potter. This website is the official website for Harry Potter films and has a wide selection of games that you can choose to play. All of the games are related to different scenes and adventures that take place in the films. You either have to choose to be a character in the film or you yourself have to play against the evil characters in the film; this allows viewers to add to their experiences of the encounters that take place in the film. On every game there is a high score board, this will influence users of the game to play it even more so that they can try and beat people and have their name shown on the board. I think this website promotes the film in a successful way as consumers of the game are able to enhance their knowledge on the film as they can play games that reflect actions that take place in the films.

Example 2: http://www.grudge-two.com/game/grudge2_game.php?uid=amlist

This game allows users to travel around a house entering rooms and when they see an object they have to click on them and place them into a folder; there is a message that implies that when you collect all these items you have to ‘expect the unexpected’ this makes viewers want to carry on to play the game as they might gain knowledge about the film that nobody else yet knows. This is a game that promotes the film as it is not yet out at the cinema so it is trying to inform people that if they have a frightening experience with the game the film is sure to entertain them at the cinema. Underneath this game there is also a link to the official website of the film which offers trailers of the new up and coming film so this promotes the film even more.

Example 3: http://zone.msn.com/en/spiderman2/default.htm

On this website there is a Spiderman game which allows children to advance through levels by helping Spiderman to spell words. This game is an effective example of a good educational game as most children do not like to do work if it bores them but having a game online which has a super hero will allow children to learn in an exciting and entertaining way ‘ these games will hold your child's attention so that they can get the knowledge they need .’(Hall: Online) At the same time of educating children this game promotes the film and other products on Spiderman. Children are known to nag parents for something so if they see Spiderman as a favourite character of theirs; even though this game is educational children will want to play this game because if Spiderman likes spelling so will the children as they look up to super hero’s, as well as this the more they play the game the more they are gaining education skills.

Games promoting celebrities

Example 1: http://zone.msn.com/en/outsmart/gallery.htm

This website allows audiences to play against particular celebrities when taking part in quizzes. Underneath the title of the game ‘Outsmart’ there is a slogan which states ‘Beat ‘em at their own fame.’ The questions of these quizzes can either be multiple choice or about the celebrities you are playing against. There is a score board showing your scores against the celebrities; this would make the audience feel like they are interacting with a celebrity on a more personal level, which would boost up their popularity amongst people who play this game.

Example 2: http://www.girlsaloud.com/site.php

All of the games on this website have titles and actions relating to the titles of Girls Aloud songs. On some of the games you can pick which band member you would prefer to be to play the game. Similar to the games on the Harry Potter website there is a high score board which will make a viewer feel important and like one of the biggest Girls Aloud fans, these games emphasize the group seeing that when you play the games particular information tells the audience about different singles and albums that are available. Some of the games are very convincing to play as they mention that if you are one of the best players of a game you will be entered into a competition to win a prize relating to the group.

Example 3: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/games/default.stm

The official BBC website allows audiences to play games on all kinds of sporting activities. Many of these games allow the audiences to be a famous sports star; this will make them more admired in the public eye reinforcing their celebrity endorsement. The games associate sport with a positive experience as they tell you information on sport when you go through certain stages in the game allowing the audience to gain knowledge, therefore as well as making the games entertaining they are also educational.

Example 4: http://www.thefa.com/WorldCup2006?/DownloadsGames?/Postings/2006/03/GamesRoom?.htm

This website promotes football and allows you to play football quizzes allowing you to access information on certain football players on the England team, making celebrities better known. At the same time of entertaining the audiences there are educational games for children on subjects such as science, History and Geography. Relating to the Spiderman website this is a successful way of educating children as it keeps their focus on the game and at the same time it promotes celebrities making them more popular.

Games via mobile phones

Games on mobile phones are very worth while as ‘you can use a mobile phone to play a game while travelling on a bus to work…you have your mobile phone with you all the time, and you can use it to fill the downtime between your other activities.’ (Michael and Salter: 2006: pg5) Most people in today’s society have mobile phones and would feel lost without them. The main reason for mobile phones is to communicate with people but now so many phones contain the internet on them many people are using their phones for a form of entertainment; such as downloading games off the internet. Mobile phone operators some times include a certain amount of free downloads to persuade people to sign up with their phone company as gaming on phones is becoming more popular; therefore the operators will compete against each other to try and get more customers signed up with them. However after these certain amount of downloads are used up you have to pay.

One bad thing about mobile gaming is that you have to pay for downloads whether you are purchasing them online or from your mobile, yet downloading games onto your phone is much cheaper than buying a game console. However as most people carry their phone with them everywhere if you have games on your phone they are always available for you to play when ever you want.

On many websites you cannot see what a game includes before downloading it onto your phone however on this website http://ringtones.mobilefun.co.uk/mobile-games.php?ref=GS-J-GE-01&gclid=CJeWp5Gl?-YcCFSa6Qgod6XUTGg? you can preview a game before purchasing it so you are aware of what the game includes, yet you still have to pay £6.00 to download it onto your phone. However I think that being able to preview a game first before downloading it is successful as you can see what you are buying making sure it will be good quality.

When researching on the internet I came across a report which mentioned that IGA world wide and exit games (the worldwide’s in games advertising platform) would ‘enable advertisers to reach their consumers via mobile phones.’(2006: Games Press Online) It mentions that there is a lot of potential in game advertising especially for providers of mobile phones as there will be an increase in the high and professional quality available. I believe there is a lot of potential as almost every one in today’s society has a mobile phone and because many people use their phones for a form of entertainment I believe that advertising through games on phones will be successful.

Advantages of games

Games can provide ‘entertainment…playing online games or downloading games.’ (Michael and Salter: 2006: pg30) If this leaves users with a happy experience they are bound to use this facility again.
Audiences look up to and respect celebrities, therefore games will appeal to people if a celebrity is used to promote or take part in a game. They will also reinforce celebrities, making them more familiar to the general public.
Some games on the internet will allow users to email a friend about their experience which will enhance popularity of a game, this will also happen through word of mouth.
Games can enhance a users experience towards a particular medium. For example on the website www.weddingcrashersmovie.com it allows viewers to play a game which mirrors actions that take place in the movie.
If a game that is promoting a brand satisfies the user they will associate the brand with a positive experience.
Some games on the internet allow users to take part in quizzes that communicate key information about a certain something such as a brand or a company. Using this as a form of promotion is useful as it allows the audiences taking part to feel like they have achieved more knowledge, allowing them to relate more to the specific medium the quiz is promoting.

Disadvantages of games

· Games both online and from downloading onto your phone can have a costing fee, leaving some customers feeling upset as they had to pay for a form of entertainment. This means that the audiences are more likely to search around to find games that you can get for free as this will leave them better off through saving money. For example on the website http://www.myphonegames.co.uk/02-mobile-phone-games/ it allows people to download games with a minimum charge of £4.50 which is expensive for one game. There are not even any offers on this website such as buy one download get another free; therefore I get the feeling that this website is purely trying to make money out of people.

· The quality of some mobile phones is not of a high standard so this may put people off of downloading a game onto their phone as they may think that the game would not be as good quality as it should be.

· When a game is sent to its audience through an email some people may not be able to play it as they might not have the software required

· Most games online are easy to access, the same as most areas on the internet are. This means that young children are able to enter games that include violent actions in them. Such as on the website http://rockstargames.com/classics/ you have to fill out your details such as your email address to receive the grand theft auto video game online. This game contains violent behaviour as you have to pretend to be a criminal.

Conclusion

After researching on games via email phone and website I have come to a conclusion of what makes a good promotional game. There are many aspects you have to consider when designing and putting together a promotional game. You have to think about what it is you are trying to promote: whether it be a celebrity or a brand. I feel that the most important aspect is to actually involve what the game is trying to promote in the game itself. This will then allow consumers of the game to interact with what is actually being promoted, and if the user has a pleasant experience with the game this will promote that something in a more positive light.

One important aspect that viewers are fond of when playing a game is that it is challenging, this way competition can ‘be a powerful motivator. The Challenge motivated gamer is drawn to a game that tests their skills, preferably one that tests them to their limits.’ (Hall: Online)This results that a game has to keep the audience attention fixed so they are not bored, therefore games have to entertain throughout.

Bibliography

Books

· Michael, A and Salter, B (2006) ‘Mobile Marketing: Achieving competitive Advantage through Wireless Technology’

Online Sources

http://www.zerosix.biz/games/Improving-Spelling-With-Games.html Hall, S ‘Improving Spelling With Games’ (accessed 14.10.06)

http://www.zerosix.biz/games/Why-We-Play-Games-Part-1.html Hall, S ‘Why We Play Games’ (accessed 14.10.06)

· http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/29559/Analyst+Speak+-+Players+not+put+off+by+in-gaming+advertising.html Milsom, P (2006) ‘Statistics On In Game Advertising And Games On Medium Forms’ (accessed 14.10.06)

· http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=1006711 Saunders, C (2006) ‘ Nike Launches Soccer Game Online’ (accessed 15.10.06)

· http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/ken12oct01.html Whitman, K (2001) ‘Top-of-the-Mind Awareness’ (accessed 15.10.06)

· http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=15527 (2006) ‘Press Release: In-Game Advertising goes mobile’ (accessed 18.10.06)

· http://www.nmk.co.uk/article/2006/10/10/miniclip-cartoon-channel (2006) ‘Gaming site launches cartoon channel online’ (accessed 18.10.06)

Other websites I have referred to

www.bbc.co.uk/drama/robinhood/games/ (accessed 14.10.06)

www.bbc.co.uk/eastenders/coolstuff/fun_games/games/fun_games_puzzle.shtml (accessed 14.10.06)

www.cadbury.com (accessed 10.10.06)

http://www.girlsaloud.com/site.php (accessed 14.10.06)

http://www.grudge-two.com/game/grudge2_game.php?uid=amlist (accessed 10.10.06)

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com/ (accessed 08.10.06)

http://www.miniclip.com/games/en/ (accessed 18.10.06)

http://www.myphonegames.co.uk/02-mobile-phone-games/ (accessed 04.10.06)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/games/default.stm (accessed 08.10.06)

http://www.nick.com/games/index.jhtml (accessed 08.10.06)

www.nikefootball.com (accessed 15.10.06)

www.pepsi.co.uk (accessed 10.10.06)

http://ringtones.mobilefun.co.uk/mobile-games.php?ref=GS-J-GE-01&gclid=CJeWp5Gl?-YcCFSa6Qgod6XUTGg? (accessed 04.10.06)

http://rockstargames.com/classics/ (accessed 08.10.06)

http://www.thefa.com/WorldCup2006?/DownloadsGames?/Postings/2006/03/GamesRoom?.htm (accessed 14.10.06)

www.weddingcrashersmovie.com (accessed 08.10.06)

http://zone.msn.com/en/outsmart/gallery.htm (accessed 19.10.06)

http://zone.msn.com/en/spiderman2/default.htm (accessed 19.10.06)

Mailing list software

2006-11-09T08:40:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr ]. Thanks to the NUJ's Gary Herman for this list of mailing list software:

Free Groups/community:
Google: http://groups.google.co.uk/intl/en/googlegroups/tour/

Topica: http://lists.topica.com/

MSN: http://groups.msn.com/

Cool List: http://www.coollist.com/

Paid Groups/community:
NPOgroups http://npogroups.org/lists/

GreenNet (they do Catherds for NUJ freelances): http://www.gn.apc.org/services/services.html#lists

Free announcement lists:

Mailer4U.com: http://mailer4u.com

ListPower: http://listpower.com

FanBlast! (100 subscribers max): http://www.fanmass.com/

Server.com: http://server.com/communityapps/maillistapp/

Your Mailing List: http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/

Notify List: http://www.notifylist.com/

Bravenet: http://www.bravenet.com/

Free hosted lists:
Free Lists (tech related): http://www.freelists.org/index.html

Group Apps (from Server.com): http://grapps.server.com/groupapps.html

Free list software:
Majordomo: http://www.greatcircle.com/majordomo/
Mailman: http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman

Ecartis: http://www.ecartis.org/

How to track media mentions of your org with RSS

2006-11-03T09:10:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr]. Here's a useful article from NetSquared: "By using RSS, you can perform a search once and subscribe to receive all future search results automatically."

I should also add that you can subscribe to links to your site, too. Do a search on Blogger.com, e.g. link:interactivepr.blogspot.com - and at the bottom of the results page will be a link 'Subscribe to this search RSS'. Click on one of the links and then copy the URL - you can use this as an RSS subscription through Bloglines or another RSS reader.

Using Screen Savers for Promotion and Profit

2006-10-26T15:37:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Reading a student's piece on giveaways has prompted me to search for online resources about them. Here's one, about screensavers; You might also check out 10 Reasons Why Screensavers Boost Marketing Results (registration required), while if you want to convert Flash movie to a screensaver you can do so with this or this kit.

What can we learn from Aleksey

2006-10-24T10:06:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, viral marketing, SEO]. The latest victim of the unforgiving glare of YouTube is Yale student and self-proclaimed "CEO and professional athlete" Aleksey Vayner, who created a 6 minute video for a job application to a bank (read more here). The video has found its way onto YouTube, where its self-delusional and allegedly fallacious claims (the 140mph serve; the skiing qualifiers; and 'lifting' enormous weights albeit with three other men 'helping') have produced much amusement, and email-forwarding.

A savvy marketeer would rush out a parody (if the original isn't beyond parody); a savvier one will figure out the qualities that have made this so popular online.

Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) releases Marketer & Agency Guide to Email Deliverability

2006-10-20T10:44:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, email marketing]. The IAB has released what looks like a very useful document in the Marketer & Agency Guide to Email Deliverability. Their site claims:

"This document reviews the definition of email deliverability, provides a perspective on how it has changed, and discusses the impact it has on marketers. [It] addresses the critical issues of how to measure, monitor and resolve deliverability issues, enabling agencies and marketers to increase the overall effectiveness of their email marketing efforts.

"Deliverability challenges can cause email messages to be placed in a Junk Mail folder, to be discarded before the recipient ever sees them or to include disabled links and/or images. More than 20%* of legitimate marketing messages are incorrectly identified as spam by server and client level spam filtering. The result for marketers is lower open rates, lower click-through rates, lower conversions, and lower revenues."

The Marketer & Agency Guide to Email Deliverability is available on the IAB website at: www.iab.net/emaildeliverability (PDF).

Pro-Wal-Mart Travel Blog Screeches To A Halt

2006-10-16T14:32:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, blogging]. Online Media Daily reports on some phony blogging tactics:

"A pro-Wal-Mart blog called "Wal-Marting Across America," ostensibly launched by a pair of average Americans chronicling their cross-country travels in an RV and lodging in Wal-Mart parking lots, has been reduced to a farewell entry. One of its two contributors was revealed to be Jim Thresher, a staff photographer for The Washington Post.
"The blog, launched Sept. 27, was profiled in this week's issue of BusinessWeek, which exposed the site as a promotional tactic engineered by Working Families for Wal-Mart (WFWM), an organization launched by Wal-Mart's public relations firm Edelman. WFWM paid for the RV and all travel expenses, rerouted the trip's original plan, and plastered a logo on the RV's side. Although the blog featured a link to WFWM, it did not identify the organization as a paid sponsor."

How To Win Links & Influence Engines

2006-10-12T08:17:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Here's a useful article from the Web Marketing Blog that covers strategies for getting links to your site and building your ranking on search engines. Sample quote:

"You will need to continue building links down the road to insure that the search engines continue to be influenced by how people have linked to you in the past and kept those links in place and also how new people are finding your site helpful and relevant. If the engines see a sudden spurt in link growth and then see that growth stop you are not likely to have a strong ranking indefinitely in any but the lowest competition sectors."

Search Engine Preparation Tool

2006-10-03T08:42:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. This is one of the best SEO tools I've seen in months: Search Engine Preparation Tool. Enter your webpage address and the keyword you want to optimise it for (i.e. the search term you want your site to come high up for), and it will tell you where you're going right - and wrong.

Email Experience Council launches

2006-09-29T11:28:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, email marketing]. Here's a website to add to your bookmarks: the Email Experience Council: "a resource that empowers you to positively impact your email marketing efforts. We are believers that the way to succeed with email is to leverage its power as the backbone of all digital communications. We advocate holistic messaging and data driven targeting as ways to make email successful. Our mission is to demonstrate the power and impact that email has in out lives."

Search engine SPAM detector

2006-09-28T12:54:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Here's a great tool to check whether you're likely to be penalised by Google for unsavoury site promotion tactics. One thing to note: no one knows Google's algorithms, so you can't be 100% sure that you're OK.

I'd Like To Teach The World To Ping: Coke Writes The New Book On Marketing

2006-09-27T15:03:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Some recommended reading and thinking from Online Media Daily:

"Coca-Cola interactive marketing guru Tim Kopp used a traditional medium to make a point during Tuesday morning's session of MediaPost's OMMA conference in New York: a book. Actually, two books. The first cited by Kopp, vp of worldwide interactive marketing at Coca-Cola Co., was co-presenter Rex Briggs' new opus, "What Sticks." Kopp said it was chockfull of sage advice on the new world order of integrated marketing--especially marketing that integrates digital media with analog.

"The heart of Kopp's message was that the shift to a digital media world, in which consumers control the flow of information, requires marketers like Coca-Cola to shift, too. It means moving from an era of classic Coke TV commercials, like "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" and "It's The Real Thing," to one in which consumers are doing most of the talking about Coke's brand.

"He cited two examples of commercials that didn't appear on TV, but in other platforms: movie theaters and the Internet. One of the spots, dubbed, "Happiness Factory," broke in movie theaters, but ended up on YouTube. A second, a videogame like ad that featured a twist on a "Grand Theft Auto" theme, in which a thug spreads goodwill to everyone he comes in contact with, has been running for about two weeks in movie theaters. It's already generated 300,000 blog posts and is featured on the homepage of Lycos in France. "We had nothing to do with it," Kopp said of the online viral spread of Coke's new spots

Marketer interest in RSS, podcasts, mobile ahead of usage

2006-09-26T09:48:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. From the latest Online Publishers Association Intelligence Report (subscribe at http://www.online-publishers.org/) :

"Marketer interest in RSS, podcasts, mobile ahead of usage
AdAge played an interesting game with its marketing-industry readers recently. First the magazine pointed to all the research that showed that small percentages of Americans were actually using RSS feeds, podcasts or mobile services. According to Jupiter, 8% of American adults listen to podcasts, 5% use RSS feeds and 1% of mobile phone users care about entertainment options. But in an AdAge poll after the article ran, 67% of respondents said marketers should jump on these new media now, even though people might not be using them in mass numbers yet. Meanwhile, AdAge also found disparity in mobile search, with only 5% of consumers ever using web search on their mobile phones, yet 70% of media companies were planning to buy mobile search ads in their media mix. "Mobile search is not here yet," analyst Greg Sterling told AdAge. "I thought it would take five to seven years, but now I think in two to three years there will be meaningful mobile-search usage."

» Marketing Reality Check: Blogs, Pods, RSS (AdAge; free registration required)

» Ad Age Poll Results: RSS, Podcasts Are Worthwhile Investments (AdAge; free registration required)

» Not Into Mobile Search? Just Wait a Couple Years (AdAge)

» The mobile Internet: Are we there yet? (News.com)

Search Engine Optimization Resources

2006-09-21T08:50:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Another useful resource from Larry Chase's website, with plenty of links - a whopping 46 of them, of various usefulness. If you find any of them indispensable, let me know!

Jumpers on a Bandwagon

2006-08-25T12:51:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr]. Snakes on a Plane may be the most literal movie title in recent history, but the story behind it is making headlines for reasons unrelated to plot, special effects or stars.

Story angle number one is the fact that New Line Cinema, following an increasing trend, decided not to show advance screenings for critics. This approach has adopted for a number of films this year, most famously with The Da Vinci Code, as studios increasingly decide the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Dennis Rice, publicity chief for Disney, has been quoted as saying: "If we think screenings for the press will help open the movie, we'll do it. If we don't think it'll help open the movie or if the target audience is different than the critics' sensibilities, then it may make sense not to screen the movie."

So how do you generate a buzz around a film without critics? You get the audience to build it for you. Story angle number two is the heralding of Snakes on a Plane as “the first Wikipedia-ised movie, created by the users themselves.” Peter Bradshaw (no relation), writing in the Guardian, says “The suits reportedly scanned the fan-sites for what should go in the script, and agreed to one blogger's suggestion that, at some stage, supercop Samuel L Jackson should definitely say: "I have had it with these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane" - a gem that could be dropped anywhere into the dialogue.”

Screenwriter Josh Friedman's blog entry about the film is widely credited as kicking things off, inspiring other bloggers to create mock movie trailers, posters, fan fiction, parodies, and all manner of other material around the title and star alone. The Wikipedia entry for the film also describes “the creation of graphics for fictional movies about other animals in odd settings, such as "Bears on a Submarine" and "Sharks on a Roller Coaster" (Tagline: You must be this tall... to DIE!).”

“Snakes on a plane” has even taken on a life of its own as a bon mot, thanks to Josh Friedman. The Urban Dictionary defines it as: “A simple existential observation that has the same meaning as "Whaddya gonna do?" or "Shit Happens".”

The question is whether all this Internet word of mouth is natural, or studio-led. The answer is probably a bit of both. Ever since The Blair Witch Project successfully harnessed the emerging power of the web to build an audience, studios have been trying to repeat the trick. New Line have been canny in setting up online competitions to have entrants’ music featured in the film, and are discussing including some of the viral videos on the DVD.

The Dallas Morning News’ Chris Vognar sees this as a negative move saying: “Snakes is bad in a bland, calculated, marketing-is-all way, which is what you might expect from a movie that has been shaped around its marketing campaign from the jump”.

And despite the online buzz estimates of the film’s opening box office returns indicate a disappointing return. Perhaps the bloggers and viral video makers just enjoyed the gossip around the movie more than they were ever interested in the movie itself. But what are you going to do? Snakes on a plane, man. Snakes on a plane…

---
Paul Bradshaw is a lecturer at UCE Birmingham’s media department (http://www.mediacourses.com/). He also blogs on online journalism (http://ojournalism.blogspot.com/), interactive pr (http://interactivepr.blogspot.com/), and web and new media (http://webandnewmedia.blogspot.com/).

Advertising on mobile phones on the up

2006-08-10T09:50:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, mobile advertising]. USA Today reports on the increase in advertising on mobile phones:

"TV networks are prodding viewers to send text messages to vote for their favorite reality TV character. Wireless websites are lacing sports scores and news digests with banner ads for Lexus (TM), Burger King (BKC) and Sheraton (HOT). A few companies are even customizing 10-second video ads for short, TV-style episodes that are edging their way onto mobile phones.
""The days of doing a TV spot and reaching everybody are dwindling," says Jon Raj, Visa's new-media ad chief. "The mobile phone is very personal, and it's always with you."
"Yet it's the intimate, insistent nature of cellphones that has made wireless carriers cautious about embracing mobile marketing, out of fear of turning off subscribers. Pushing tiny buttons to navigate the wireless Web or send a message can be clunky. And because subscribers typically pay for their minutes of data usage, many people don't want to burn them on ads.
"We need to make sure whatever we do is not perceived as intrusive," says Verizon Wireless (VZ) digital media chief John Harrobin."

Lots more useful info on the article.

Does your market want to be friends with your character?

2006-08-09T09:12:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr]. Interesting move by movie studios to promote their films as reported by the WSJ:

"Creating real-looking profiles for fictional characters is the latest step
in marketers' quest to reach the highly sought-after MySpace contingent. John
Tucker, the womanizing teenager of "John Tucker Must Die," and each of his four
girlfriends have MySpace pages. (You can check John's basketball schedule or
read about Carrie's plans for college.) So do seven of the characters from
"Accepted," a film about college students debuting this week. (Bartleby Gaines,
the fictional star, lists "Fake I.D.'s" and "Monica" as his interests.) Even the
creepily-quiet mascot king from the Burger King commercials has a site. ("If
you'd like to be the King's friend, he's totally down with that," his page
introduction says.)
"Although anybody can create a MySpace profile for free, and fake ones
abound, these pages are the result of paid advertising deals with News Corp. The
arrangement allows marketers to add extras like longer videos -- including
trailers for movies -- and more pictures than a free page has."

Although the intention is to create a 'relationship' with consumers, there's an interesting contrast between these pages and others created by fans, with the upshot that the tactic could backfire with some 'friends'.

SEO Answers on Google Video

2006-08-02T19:33:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Useful link from Webpages that Suck to Matt Cutts,

"one of the more public figures at Google, on the topic of SEO. What he says is very interesting. (He has, of course, his own blog and it's MR -- Mandatory Reading.)
Qualities of a good site.
Some SEO Myths.
Should you optimize for Search Engines or for Users?"

A shameless plug for my colleague's blog

2006-07-31T15:04:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. My colleagues at UCE Birmingham will tell you that I am endlessly pushing them to start blogging, so it's great to see that fellow lecturer Pete Wilby has not only given in but done so with gusto with his new blog Screaming Headlines, with a number of posts on PR and journalism that combine brevity with depth. In his own words it is:

"a source, archive and place to discuss Journalism and PR. Hopefully it will address questions on the nature of news, the role of journalism in our view of the world and the impact of PR on the news agenda. Do we get the news we deserve? Or the news we need to know? This isn't just a site for paranoid academics or their students - contributions are also welcome from professionals in journalism and PR or anyone with something to say about the world as presented through the headlines."

Of course I should also mention the blogs of my other colleagues Andrew Dubber (online music and radio) and Caroline Wilson (the more practical side of PR) before they get jealous and start fighting in the corridors...

A treasure trove of research papers on blogging at the 2006 AEJMC Convention

2006-07-26T11:19:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, blogging]. Shame on me for not posting in over a month - but here's one to keep you busy for the next four weeks: Constantin Basturea posts on a raft of papers about blogging and PR from the 89th Convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). He lists some of the most interesting abstracts as well as linking to the complete list - everything from uses and gratifications to women in the blogosphere and approaches to teaching blog management in PR courses.

First crossover viral video star

2006-06-14T11:06:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr]. A window into where good viral marketing skills can take you, as Variety report saying "YouTube has churned out its first crossover viral video star.

"Carson Daly has signed Brooke "Brookers" Brodack to a talent/development deal, making the 20-year-old the first talent to emerge, in an official capacity, from the online service.
"Brodack's portfolio of vids range from comedic shorts and parodies to video diaries. Her video "Zuma," a sendup of the widespread musicvideo for "Dragosteta din Tei," by Romanian boy band O-Zone, has been viewed more than 1 million times.
""There is potential for Webisodes, mobile series and definitely a great TV show here. She'll be an exciting package to present to networks," Daly said."

Promoting something? Join the community

2006-06-08T11:40:00.000Z

So advises The Viral Garden, with plenty of examples. You might also look at Online Journalism Blog: Why Blog Post Frequency Does Not Matter Anymore

Net advertising 'to overtake national newspapers'

2006-06-05T14:16:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. The growth of internet advertising has been reported many times on this blog, so it comes as no surprise to read a report in the Guardian, that:

"GroupM, which accounts for about 30% of global media buying, says in a report to be published next month that the internet will account for 13.3% of the £12.2bn UK advertising market this year, overtaking national newspapers with a share of 13.2%. The figure for web advertising could be even bigger, because the report excludes the estimated £1bn a year spent on "affiliate advertising", which largely comprises adverts placed on smaller websites."

Site indexation tool

2006-06-02T07:02:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. The Web Marketing Blog highlights a very useful tool for finding out if your webpages have been indexed by search engines: seoadministrator.com

"Seo Administrator reveals the pages of your site that have been indexed by various search engines. The program supports all major international search engines."

Free SEO Analysis Tools

2006-06-01T07:17:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. There's a useful list of SEO tools over at Trugrooves.com (don't miss pages 2 and 3 that are linked at the bottom). My favourite has to be Nichebot, which allows you to see that words people are searching on related to a given keyword - and work out which one you're going to have least competition for.

Who's linking to your blog? Who's linking to similar sites? Is a blog worth plugging to?

2006-05-31T11:32:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Those are three of the questions which Blogpulse, a blog monitoring service, answers pretty well. The profiles page allows you to enter a URL and find out who is linking to a certain blog, how often the blog posts, and what sources the blog itself cites. You can also use it to search the blogosphere in general on keywords. Nice.

Oh, and I've also noticed the clever Trends feature, which highlights current trends in the blogosphere.

PR meets the WWW

2006-05-30T08:41:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr]. This latest addition to my RSS feeds comes via the usual circuitous routes of the web (a colleague's site was mentioned on it, and she emailed me) - PR meets the WWW contains just what you'd expect from such a title - lots of useful updates about PR movements involving new media. Read.

Get Flash Sites Ranked in Search Engines

2006-05-18T10:44:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash, SEO]. Here's a succinct and useful article about making sure your Flash site doesn't get overlooked by search engines. Apart from the sensible advice not to use Flash if SEO is your primary aim, the tips include:

Splitting your Flash 'site' into different movies which are then placed on separate, optimised, pages.
Not using redirection scripts or splash pages
Having a HTML version of the site and monitoring user preferences - do they prefer not to use Flash?

keyword tools: Google Trends launches

2006-05-16T07:02:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. A new tool from Google (according to Boagworld), Google Trends "allows you to track the searches on a particular keyword." How does it work?

"You go along to Google Trends and carry out a search in the same way as
you would on the Google homepage. However instead of being returned a set of
results you get a graph showing the search volume on your phrase. It is also
possible to compare multiple search phases on the same graph by separating them
with a comma when searching.
"The graph produced shows the peaks and troughs of search activity and this
can be compared with site stats to explain fluctuation in traffic to your site.
Google even overlay related news stories in an attempt to explain what may have
caused the peak in interest on a particular search term."

The article concludes that Google Trends: "has potential to be a useful tool for the hardcore marketer [but] has yet to fulfil that potential. If you fall into that category then you are better off sticking with Wordtracker that provides much more specific information on search terms.."

Teaching Online Journalism: What lies ahead for online news?

2006-05-11T11:52:00.000Z

In Teaching Online Journalism: What lies ahead for online news? Mindy McAdams summarises the results of a call from WSJ.com for users' ideas for the perfect news site 10 years from now.

"Here's what they said they want:
Reliable filters to compensate for information overload.
Mobile options for news and information. To go along with that, they want new mobile devices that have more memory storage, bigger
screens, and better options for input.
Customized aggregators -- that's not what WSJ.com called it, but a user wrote:
Instead of having to duplicate my holdings all over the Web so I can get customized news from various sources, I
would login to my secure [brokerage] account and there I would find, alongside my portfolio, links to WSJ news and articles.
Less interference from advertising. People come to a site to get particular stuff, and they see the obtrusive ads as obstacles in their path.
User-based selection of top news.
Apparently, many of the WSJ.com users think they would make better gatekeepers than the paid editors. One user wrote:
Instead of traditional news bureaus, a sophisticated network of freelancers, some with no journalistic experience, will act as correspondents, filing stories from computers inside their homes from around the world. The news will be more in depth, and news will be covered much faster.
Context and depth in news reporting. This does not mean "more long text stories" but rather "efficient ways to look up background information
if I want it."
More audio and more video -- tagged and searchable. "

Online PR survey

2006-05-10T11:05:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr]. There's a weighty survey available over at Glide Technologies all about Online PR - specifically, online press rooms, what approaches journalists prefer, the role of websites, and more.

Web and New Media: Giant Mouse squeaks about this blog

2006-05-10T10:22:00.000Z

[Tags: web design, new media]. Had an interesting email today from Iain at GiantMouse.co.uk, who's very nicely reviewed this blog and thereby given me ample reason to return the favour. Despite my initial suspicions that this was a form of link farming, it turns out that GiantMouse.co.uk looks like being quite a useful resource for the budding web designer, with very clear and simple articles on subjects from improving your Google ranking to working out how much a site will cost. Well worth exploring.

Google Search Engine Optimization Pitfalls

2006-05-05T08:22:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Brief but useful article from SEO News which emphasises the importance of things like avoiding javascript, Flash and frames; and the need to validate your code and include site maps.

How to go to university

2006-04-25T15:42:00.000Z

Andrew Dubber has posted a fantastic post entitled 'How to go to university' on his blog. It may sound obvious, but advice like 'turn up' and 'read books' is really worth listening to...

Link Building: The Next Step in the Web Design Process

2006-04-25T10:33:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Useful article from the Web Marketing Blog to help focus minds around getting links.

Podcasting and SEO

2006-04-18T08:12:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, podcasting, SEO]. Now there's a clever idea for a blog posting. Thanks to Lee Odden for some helpful links around SEO for podcasts, as well as podcasting for PR in general.

Search engine for your site - or sites

2006-04-13T08:22:00.000Z

There's an article on sister blog Web and New Media on creating a search engine for your site - or sites .

Tips for Online PR

2006-04-12T07:57:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Lee Odden provides a breakdown of his tips for online PR on his blog, covering definitions of online PR, useful tools, SEO, and plenty of useful links. A useful definition:

"online PR involves activities geared towards influencing media, communities and audiences that exist solely on the Internet using online channles. That includes search engines, blogs, news search, forums, discussion threads, social networks and other online communication tools. Brand reputation monitoring and management is also a focus area for online PR."

Search Engine Optimization Tools

2006-04-03T14:45:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Here's a great selection of resources to help check your position in search engines, the popularity of links, or generate keywords.

Advice on SEO

2006-03-28T09:04:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, SEO]. Courtesy of Lee Odden, who offers advice on how clients can stop themselves undermining investment in SEO.

10 Creative Traffic Building Ideas

2006-03-22T09:05:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. The Online Marketing Blog has a useful list of ideas for increasing traffic to your site, most of them revolving around posting to blogs and forums, and listing your blog where you can.

Interactive Promotiong using Web 2.0

2006-03-13T08:50:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Here's some cutting-edge interactive promotion to aspire to: post-rock band Mogwai have developed a tour website that uses some great Web 2.0* technology to involve fans. To quote from the latest Matador Records mailing:

"we have harnessed the power of GoogleEarth-flickr-youtube mashup to Mogwai's tour bus via onboard GPS, a laptop and a scattering of cameras. See pics of the band lounging in their bunks. Read Barry's daily blog updates. Find exactly where the bus is at this very moment. (Franklin, Tennessee as I write this). Or upload your own photos and videos of the shows to the site.

"...Also click around the map to find links to Mogwai's fave eating spots, bars, BMX and skate parks plus much more."

*Web 2.0 definition: a horrible buzzword that is generally meaningless, but in this context means building on other people's technology (e.g. Google Maps, Flickr) to create something new.

Bad use of Flash

2006-03-12T18:03:00.000Z

[Tags: interactive pr, pr, flash]. Here's an example of bad use of Flash - okay, the Habitat site may look lovely and use all sorts of fancy transitions, and it even runs off a database quite well - but if I'm a customer wanting to search for products, the last thing I want to do is wait to load up your fancy site - and, even worse, have a search function that has to load up Flash movies to display the results. I suspect Habitat lose quite a lot of impatient customers before that point, who can get results quicker elsewhere. Branding is important, but service is part of that, and if you take too long to serve your customers, even with search results, a fancy design counts for nothing.

Google isn't always the best option for advertising

2006-03-08T14:48:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, SEO]. A clever bit of research by WebSideStory (*groan*) highlights the fact that you should look beyond Google when thinking about search marketing. Conversion rates at competing search engines such as AOL and MSN are much higher:

Median Order Conversion Rate by Major Search Engine at Business to Consumer E-Commerce

AOL: 6.17%
MSN: 6.03%
Yahoo!: 4.07%
Google: 3.83%

Internet Direct Response Marketing

2006-02-28T09:19:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Internet Direct Response Marketing is the subject of the latest Larry Chase email newsletter, with a raft of useful links. Here they are:

A/B Split Testing Tools

SiteSpect
http://www.sitespect.com

This company offers software that allows Web marketers to test and optimize Web pages on the fly, without altering any of their site code, in order to improve conversion rates. It supports A/B, split and multivariate testing as well as behavioral targeting campaigns. While complete details are not available at the site, it appears that SiteSpect will create an .asp version of your site. You can then use their Web-based tools to tinker and experiment with offers, design and placement of landing pages, checkout processes, search and registration - all of those prime conversion spots - without actually having to modify your website. This is a step forward for conversion rate testing software, as at the time of writing most solutions required marketers to focus on specific elements of a Web page (such as the offer or the placement of the call-to-action button) and test them one by one or else alter the underlying structure of the website.

Google AdWords CTR Validity Tool
http://www.vertster.com/adwords-tool/

Vertster is a hosted suite of Web-based site testing and optimization tools. They offer this complimentary tool which will tell you whether or not you have enough campaign history to eliminate a lower performing ad. Simply enter your AdWords performance metrics, and you will receive a confidence interval figure which will give you an idea of how safe it is to eliminate the lower performing ad. While revisiting this site we were also pleased to discover a blog devoted to split testing and website optimization which is well worth checking out.

Public Relations Direct Response Tool

PRWeb
http://www.prweb.com

PRWeb considers itself to be a Web 2.0-enabled press release newswire, which is a buzzword meaning that a company incorporates all the latest Internet and Web technologies and techniques into its service. A case in point is their integration of press release TrackBacks within any release distributed through the service. A Trackback is a mechanism used in a blog which indicates that a particular word or phrase is being written about on other blogs as well - ie., there is a conversation occuring around it on the Web and all the discussions link not only to one another but also back to the original document that sparked the conversation. In addition, because of this integration of TrackBack technology, when a blog or other site links to a press release hosted on PRWeb.com, a link to the post, along with an excerpt, appears below the press release so that readers - and the company that posted the press release - can see what the blogosphere is saying about the news.
Direct Mail Marketing Tools

MailersClub
http://www.mailersclub.com

At this site you can sit down at your computer and create a direct mail piece that will be sent to a real-world mailing list, all without ever leaving your keyboard. Start by selecting the type of piece that you want to mail - postcard, letter and so on - and price it in seconds based on the size of your list and details of the mailing piece. The cost of postage is included in this nifty little calculator, of course. You can then design your piece online with the available Word-based design templates, or upload previously designed creative. You can upload your own mailing list or purchase one along the way through the online services of several third-party vendors. And then you proof your piece online, submit a credit card for payment and they'll do all the licking and sorting for you and deliver it right to the USPS. There are lots of tutorials here as well if you get stuck along the way.
Mobile Direct Marketing

Enpocket
http://www.enpocket.com

Enpocket delivers mobile marketing strategies to more 400 brands across Europe, Asia and the US.
Direct Marketing Blogs

David Garfinkel's World Copywriting Blog
http://world-copywriting-institute.typepad.com/world_copywriting_blog/

Jim Edwards "I Gotta Tell You" Blog
http://www.igottatellyou.com/blog/

Direct Marketing Blogs

DMNews
http://www.blog.dmnews.com

DRLabs
http://www.drlabs.tv

Blogvertising

2006-02-28T09:04:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, blogvertising]. There's a well informed overview of the use of blogging for PR in the Feb 2 edition of New Media Age. And even better: the writer of the case study has published that part online, as well as an outline of the process he went through in writing it - particularly useful as New Media Age required subscription to access its content. Kudos to Graham Holliday, then, who has in the process made his work blogger-friendly...

Here's a quote:

"In October 2005, Budget raised the blogvertising bar. It launched an online/offline treasure hunt called Up Your Budget. Participants had to follow daily video clues posted to the Up Your Budget blog and find sixteen stickers placed in public locations throughout sixteen US cities. The total prize money on offer was US$160,000.
Using treasure hunts for advertising is nothing new. What is new is that this campaign was advertised solely on blogs and relied partly on spreading virally from blog to blog as bloggers joined in the treasure hunt and wrote about it on their own blogs.

...There was no traditional press release. The campaign was first reported on by the AdRants and MarketingVox blogs. US$22,000 was spent for advertising on 177 blogs and generated 50% of the campaign's traffic at a cost of US$0.25 per click.

“The cost of the campaign - including prizes and ad spend – was less than a 30-second spot on a highly rated primetime TV show,” says Budget Car Rental’s Executive Vice President of Marketing, Scott Deaver.

This low cost, blog-based campaign garnered some impressive results. Bloggers wrote hundreds of posts about the campaign resulting in as many as 20,000 unique visitors an hour to the Budget blog and well over 1 million unique visitors over the four weeks of the campaign. “Several thousand people registered to play the game and to have author privileges on the Treasure Hunter blog. This is the first commercial blog project with so many people contributing content,” says Ochman. Ochman tweaked the blog and the advertising as the campaign progressed. “The beauty of blog advertising is that you can test, change and learn in an hour.” In relation to other blog advertising campaigns Budget’s was also deemed a success. “UpyourBudget was in the upper quartile of campaigns in terms of clickthroughs,” says Henry Copeland, founder of BlogAds.com."

Eight PR moblog hacks…

2006-02-27T08:49:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, moblogging]. Forgive me for linking twice to the same site in the same day, but I've only just discovered the excellent PR Blogger. This post gives some great ideas for using moblogging in campaigning and PR.

Why researchers should use Firefox

2006-02-27T08:46:00.000Z

As usual I'm being lazy and pointing you to a posting on one of my other blogs... Online Journalism Blog: Why journalists should use Firefox

Web digest for marketers

2006-02-23T08:50:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Thanks to the Online Marketing Blog for introducing me to the Web Digest for Marketers, an email newsletter "that delivers short reviews of marketing-oriented Web sites right to your In box. Topics include Direct Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Email Marketing, Copywriting, and CRM." The great thing about email newsletters? I don't have to check an RSS feed every day.

Using technology for campaigning

2006-02-22T10:36:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Here's a great example of using the power of the internet for campaigning purposes: the Terence Higgins Trust campaigns page allows you to add your name to a pre-written email to a particular cause. This seems to be built using Advocacy Online's software - but you could create a similar email campaign by using a simple email link with HTML that fills in the recipient's address, the subject line, and the body of the email. You can find a page explaining how to do that at Email tips and tricks.

Warwick blogs wins CIPR award

2006-02-21T12:40:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. It's good to see some genuine innovation being recognised, as Warwick University's impressive blogging community wins the CIPR Midlands PRide award for Use of Photography, Design or New Media. Given that university technical departments are usually renowned for preventing anything new ("blogs? But students could put anything on there! They might even swear!"), particular kudos goes to the E-Lab for their part.

Training: New Technology and PR - the way forward

2006-02-15T15:22:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. PR workers interested in the new media field may also be interested in a course being offered by the CIPR on 'New Technology and PR - the way forward' - here's the outline:

"Broadband has freed the Web for broadcast PR

The course will look at effective use of the internet to promote your brands and companies. We will examine ways to develop techniques for utilising New Media, for example:
Streaming video and audio online as a way of branding
Sending material to broadcasters and to consumers directly
Identifying the providers for delivering video and audio to websites of major companies
Re-thinking how you write copy for the internet: the style, tone and content
The benefits of blogging as a new way for promotion, and narrowcasting (producing your own programmes for the Web)
How to deliver to mobile phones - the third screens - which can now receive live TV programming and advertising"

A bit obvious? Still trying to cram old media techniques into new media distribution channels? Your comments please!

The Wages of Spin - Starting out in PR: Asking Questions

2006-02-14T10:46:00.000Z

If you fancy helping out a final year student with her dissertation, pop over to: The Wages of Spin - Starting out in PR: Asking Questions

How communication professionals are using weblogs and for what purpose

2006-02-09T09:48:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. The first results from the EuroBlog survey ("to provide a comprehensive overview how communication professionals are using weblogs and for what purpose") are now posted on www.euroblog2006.org - direct link to the PDF. The full report will be delivered by the research team at the Stuttgart Symposium, on 16-18 March (details on the EuroBlog 2006 website).

Write about the impact of new technology on PR practice

2006-02-09T09:47:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. The theme of the next issue of Behind the Spin (May) is the impact of new technology on PR practice: all students are invited to contribute. Articles on other PR subjects are also welcome. Closing date for copy is 31 March. Articles should be either 750 or 1500 words and accompanied by photographs if possible. Offers to write should go to philip.young@sunderland.ac.uk.

Baaad BMW. In your room.

2006-02-07T16:33:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, SEO]. New Media Age reports (subscription required) on some naughtiness by BMW's web designers which has resulted in the site being 'sinbinned'. Here's the piece in full:

"Google has punished German car manufacturer BMW for using search engine optimisation techniques that break its guidelines. The software firm has issued what’s known as the Google Death Penalty, severely reducing BMW’s Internet profile.
According to reports, BMW created a doorway page that repeated the German term for used cars 42 times in an attempt to increase its ranking. In addition, a user’s browser immediately triggered a JavaScript redirect to a completely different URL to the one seen by Google’s spider.

This ‘cloaking’ technique breaks one of Google’s cardinal rules for Webmasters, which is that search engines shouldn’t be presented with different content to users. As a result Google last week reduced BMW.de’s PageRank to zero, knocking it off the vital first page for search results.

According to Matt Cutts a blogger who claims to be a Google employee, German camera manufacturer Ricoh could soon be penalised for employing similar techniques.
The story highlights the risk for companies using SEO techniques, as BMW’s technique was not uncommon. It’s not clear whether the car-maker knew it was doing anything wrong"

Public Relations: Does the journalist want an email - or a phone call?

2006-02-02T16:47:00.000Z

A useful link from a colleague: Public Relations: Does the journalist want an email - or a phone call?

Online Journalism Blog: Web now "core" to NYT

2006-02-02T08:05:00.000Z

I've reported elsewhere (Online Journalism Blog: Web now "core" to NYT) on this report at the World Economic Forum, but here's a quote particularly relevant to interactive PR:

"Building a community, concluded David Droga, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Drogafive, USA, means you can use "the snowball effect"and "don't have to push as hard”. Droga illustrated the potential held by viral marketing by telling the story of the Burger King "Subservient Chicken"ad. The ad, based on the website, encouraged visitors to type in a command, which a man in a chicken suit would then carry out. Droga estimated that the ad cost US$ 1,000, but that it received around 300 million hits.

"This type of viral advertising was also used by Charles Denson, Co-President, Nike Brand, Nike, USA. Nike's online World Cup advertising featured a ball-juggling Ronaldinho that was downloaded directly 12 million times, and forwarded innumerable times thereafter. This is not about spending a lot of money, said Droga, "it's about great ideas.""

Conference on new media PR

2006-02-01T11:30:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. From http://www.dontpanicprojects.com/news.htm: 'Delivering the New PR - How Blogs, Podcasts and RSS Can Work For You', a conference on behalf of the University of Sunderland which is taking place on the 15th of February 2006 at Lancashire County Cricket Club in Manchester. Blogs, RSS and other innovations are changing the way we all work and receive information. The event will provide practical advice and insight into these new developments and the implications for communications professionals. For further information click here (http://www.dontpanicprojects.com/The%20New%20PR%20Conference%20Flyer.pdf)."

PR students: you are what you blog

2006-02-01T11:27:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Stuart Bruce points out why you should be blogging if you are a PR student.

User-Generated Content and Ads

2006-01-25T15:51:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Poynter is recommending a new blog covering user-generated content, User Generated: "UG covers user-generated content, mostly as it affects the advertising space."

Bloggers to get PR news feed

2006-01-12T08:42:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, flash].

"The U.S. Army has hired Manning Selvage & Lee to do outreach to pro-military bloggers," the managing director of Hass MS&L, the firm's Detroit office that focuses on "new media" and the automotive industry, told O'Dwyer's. "The blogs are viewed as a way to distribute 'good news' about Iraq."

Measuring online audiences

2005-12-15T13:30:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, flash]. An insightful article at Poynter about why online audience-measurement services are still based on old media thinking:

"In this "Field of Dreams" approach to audience measurement, we are only interested in how many people look at our sites. If reflects the mindset that the issues traditional media face never have to do with content, but rather with proper marketing. As a result, the metrics we use reflect that thinking.
"...We need new stats for the converged media world. When it comes to blogging, you should be tracking how many other blogs link to your blogs and how many items are you linking to. Identify 10 other local blogs and track how frequently they link, mention or interact with your local blogs. The new media world is a conversation in which traditional media is only one part. If you aren�t linking to other sites and if you are not being linked to, you are missing the whole point.
"In another study released by the OPA, a new metric for tracking a Web site's success is put forth: SUM (site usage measure). This measure could be used for any media, but its focus is not simply on how many people look at something; it tracks the level of interaction a user has with a Web site. In essence, it's a loyalty index for your content.

"If you don�t have a loyalty index for your site, you are missing a key metric that other industries have found extremely telling: while all visitors are good for the site, some visitors are better than others."

Catherine Arrow on Brandlove

2005-12-15T13:17:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Here's a well written critique of the brandlover trend. "What's brandlove?" I hear you cry - here's her definition:

"Brandlove blogs are created by people who are, purportedly, ‘in love’ with a brand. One, for example, loves root beer, another loves a particular store, and someone else has devoted time to Starbucks-gazing. "

A New Ad Format

2005-12-14T16:40:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Poynter reports in some developments in online advertising, notably:

"CNET came out with a new format this week, called "Page Turn." It's basically a product-heavy banner ad designed to mimic a store catalog. (Here's a story from AdWeek about it.) The banners allow an advertiser to have up to a five-page catalog of products that can be perused without the user leaving the page he's on.

This is probably a trend: AdWeek notes that Point Roll and Chitika also have developed similar catalog-like online ads. "

What it is to be sandboxed

2005-12-14T16:25:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, seo]. An interesting post from the SEO Experts mailing list about the term "sandbox". Here it is in full:

"Message: 1
Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2005 13:36:59 -0000
From: "jeanatluri"
Subject: Google Sandbox Defined

I find it to be a real shame about the confusion around the Web as to what the term "sandbox" means. Google, of course, would not admit to it and I do not blame them. But there are so many different definitions of what defines a site to be sandboxed.

I believe we, at the Search Engine Roundtable, was the first information site (outside of a forum) to publicly acknowledge the existence of some form of issue with Google and new sites. The first post we had was named New Sites = Poor Results in Google, that was before it had a name. In a WebmasterWorld thread linked to from the "New Sites = Poor Results in Google" entry, the term "sandbox" came about. Later on, guest author SEO Guy posted an entry here using that title The Sandbox Effect, which helped make its name. Then Garrett French, who was writing at WebProNews wrote an excellent, early recap of all the coverage and named it Google "SandBox Effect" Revealed. Since then the word sandbox has been discussed here dozens of times. But it seems to me based on the forums I am reading, (see this thread and the confusion there), that people do not know that the true definition of a sandboxed site, so here it is.

A site is sandboxed when it is new and does not rank for keyword phrases that are not incredibly competitive (such as a unique company name) in Google after making the page "search engine friendly" and after being indexed.

Some are mistaken that a sandboxed site is a site that has not been indexed by Google. That is wrong. Sandboxed sites are very much so indexed by Google, but have a hard time ranking for keyword phrases, no matter how competitive they are.

How does Google do it? Well that is for an other entry. I have my theories but so does everyone else. :)

Help set the record straight about the definition of the Google Sandbox."

Blogger “destroys” business

2005-12-08T11:43:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. A salutary lesson in customer relations and overreaction.

PR and the Media Conference

2005-12-07T11:28:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. Here's a conference I won't be attending this year: PR and the Media trumpets:

" Fragmentation of the media means that where once PR professionals had to think about 5 terrestrial channels, a section of the print media and the few commercial radio stations, there are now 1,000s to choose from. The result is a much harder to reach audience.

"That's why PRWeek have brought together top media professionals from TV, digital radio, various print media and new technologies to explore the ever-changing, ever-hungry media landscape and how PR professionals can exploit and communicate through the fast moving and consuming media world to create true impact with their PR campaigns."

Who are these experts? The Editors of The Times, BBC 10 O'Clock News, Observer, Nuts, Working Lunch, and MediaGuardian; the Head of News of GCAP Media; the Political Editor of the Sunday Telegraph; the Chief Executive of Chrysalis Radio and the Programme Controller of LBC 97.3 FM.

Sounds more like Old Media than New Media to me. Not a website or digital TV channel or internet radio station in sight.

Top portals charging hundreds of thousands of dollars for prime slots

2005-12-02T11:15:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr]. The latest Online Publishers Association mailing contains the following interesting bulletin about prices for advertising on the top portals:

Top portal ad space sold out; price approaches Super Bowl
There is a new endangered species online: Premium ad spots on the major portals. That's according to a major story in the Wall Street Journal that found a serious supply issue for big display ads at Yahoo, AOL and MSN. Because demand is high and supply is low, prices for these spots are up, with Yahoo and AOL raising rates by double-digit percentages over last year. MSN said it's charging between several hundred thousand dollars and $1 million for prime 24-hour slots on its home page. The money quote came from OMD Digital exec Sean Finnegan: "It's starting to get into Super Bowl territory." Even remnant inventory on smaller sites is in higher demand, with prices there rising 3% even though there's no shortage of inventory.

The Journal found that many major portals and auto sites were selling their inventory up to 18 months in advance, locking in rates and perhaps hurting their chances for a higher rate down the line. The fact that premium online ads are being sold like the TV upfront shows that "online has indeed moved to the grownup's table," AOL's head of ad sales Michael Barrett told WSJ. Investor's Business Daily's Doug Tsuruoka wrote that the huge boom in online advertising was coming at the expense of TV and newspapers, which have been losing market share and viewership. "The trend means a sea change for TV and newspapers," he wrote. "It's forcing the nation's biggest newspapers to cut staff and forcing all old media to adapt to battle the Internet's new media players."

» Top Web Sites Build Up Ad Backlog, Raise Rates (WSJ; paid subscription required)

» Internet's Ad Gains Bringing Bad News To Newspapers, TV (Investor's Business Daily)

» Websites Ads "Sold Out" (iMedia Connection)

» Online ad sales soaring, report says (CNN Money)

Coca Cola goes viral

2005-12-02T11:02:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, flash, viral]. Coca-Cola has recruited five design studios - each from a different continent - to contribute to a viral project called M5, the theme of which being "visions of optimism". Good to see a UK design studio - Designers Republic - being selected for Europe.

Integrated print and online

2005-11-24T12:09:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, flash].

Paul's been talking to me about convergence so I thought I'd add this link. http://www.prweek.com/uk/wall-street/It's a quick interview by PR Week with the Editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe and the deliberate linking of the print version with the online.

There's more about convergence too in this article, http://www.prweek.com/uk/infiltrate/which talks about radio stations linking blogs, forums, WAP sites and text clubs to the stuff that goes in through your ears...

Caroline

Tool to help come up with keywords

2005-11-24T09:52:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, SEO]. Here's a useful tool if you're looking at your web marketing strategy - whether it's to buy search terms or to tweak your meta tags: Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool. Type in a basic keyword - e.g. "gifts" - and it will return suggestions for other keywords you might need - e.g. "gift idea"; "food gift"; "christmas gift" etc.

Like a virtual thesaurus with a mercenary edge...

Online Journalism Blog: Promoting your blog

2005-11-20T22:14:00.000Z

An old classic: Online Journalism Blog: Promoting your blog

Interactive PR mailing list

2005-11-18T12:42:00.000Z

For some reason the mailing list for this blog (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/interactivepr/) has stopped working (it's the same for sister blogs Web and New Media and Online Journalism Blog), so - off to Google Groups I've gone. If you want to sign up for email updates when new messages are posted register at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/interactivepr/

'Incredible, Unstoppable' Online Advertising

2005-11-17T10:47:00.000Z

[Tags: interactivepr, pr, flash]. The European - and UK - online advertising market is so healthy that Danny Meadows-Klue, CEO of Interactive Advertising Bureau - Europe, has said that in some European countries, online advertising is more or less on the verge of a tipping point that will result in an "incredible, unstoppable" upward trend. , Poynter reports.

"The U.K. online advertising market now attracts almost 6 percent of total ad spending. But, he says, "that 6 percent doesn't tell the full story, and that some marketers may be spending hardly anything online, while others, those early adopters, could be spending 40 percent of their ad budgets online.""

	Advantages	Disadvantages
Direct Manipulation	- visually presents task concepts - allows easy learning - allows easy retention - allows errors to be avoided - encourages exploration - affords high subjective satisfaction	- may be hard to program - may require graphics display and pointing device
Menu Selection	- shortens learning - reduces keystrokes - structures decision making - permits use of dialogue management tools - allows easy support of error handling	- presents danger of many menus - may slow frequent users - consumes screen space - requires rapid display rate
Form Fillin	- simplifies data entry - requires modest training - gives convenient assistance - permits use of form management tools	- consumes screen space
Command Language	- is flexible - appeals to 'power' users - supports user intiative - allows convenient creation of user-defined macros	- has poor error handling - requires substantial training and memorization
Natural Language	- relieves burden of learning syntax	-requires clarification dialogue - may require more keystrokes - may not show context - is unpredictable

»	Marketing Reality Check: Blogs, Pods, RSS (AdAge; free registration required)
»	Ad Age Poll Results: RSS, Podcasts Are Worthwhile Investments (AdAge; free registration required)
»	Not Into Mobile Search? Just Wait a Couple Years (AdAge)
»	The mobile Internet: Are we there yet? (News.com)

»	Top Web Sites Build Up Ad Backlog, Raise Rates (WSJ; paid subscription required)
»	Internet's Ad Gains Bringing Bad News To Newspapers, TV (Investor's Business Daily)
»	Websites Ads "Sold Out" (iMedia Connection)
»	Online ad sales soaring, report says (CNN Money)