A year in PR

Wadds has started the 2007 'A year in PR' reviewing session, he was followed swiftly by Ged. As a newbie to PR and only touching one specific part of the genre (online) I will do a micro version!

(1) Most important development in social media
webitpr's Social Media News Release?...it has got to be the development of Facebook.

(2) Biggest disappointment
MySpace's response to FaceBook - Maybe that will change soon!

(3) High
Cadbury's Gorilla and the Wonderbra follow up!

(4) Low
Limited in depth responses at the NMK Beers and Innovation event (Great event otherwise)

(5) Biggest cock up (in 2007 in general)
Steve McClaren - Joke list here...

(6) Predictions for 2008
Social networks being banned at work and home for steeling peoples lives...and some faddy sites/tools that will simply bob above the water and then sink without a trace. Plus more personalised and targeted advertising in 2.0 ways.

(7) Next big thing?
More and more specific social networks such as vbmaNETWORK and meandmybicycle.

(8) Most important tech development
'Mobility' the ease of going online wherever/whenever - nicely advertised here by Vodafone.

Some great Advertising methods from the year to date:
Handvertising, Shadow(vertising), On Police Cars, In 'the can', On Toast and Using Hills.

Over to Daljit and Dom for their thoughts.

Happy Christmas: A great Christmasy advert to end the year:

A social media social network

If you are "...involved in bottom up approaches to marketing (viral, buzz, word of mouth, social media, etc), business (co-creation, open innovation, etc) and social policy (participation, collaborative governance, etc)" then this social network is for you, pop along to vbmaNETWORK and sign up.

2007 the year of Facebook

How much media coverage has FACEBOOK got the last few weeks, let alone this year! Following the Facebook Beacon PR disaster, are they loosing out with selling ad space?

I have only seen blank adverts:

Wadds feels that the advertisers are trying to get him to have a hair transplant, maybe they will make me get a new shirt?

Apparently with Facebook ads you can:

"Advanced Targeting -Target by age, gender, location, interests, and more.

Content Integration -Get noticed, not skipped.

Flexible Pricing -Buy clicks (CPC) or impressions (CPM).

Trusted Referrals - Attach friend-to-friend interactions about your business to your ads."

Looking at another part of the Facebook promotion machine - The Stereophonics have managed to miss a trick and not link their application with there band profile page!

Quiz; how many Celebrities can you get in one advert:

Can Facebook work for PR? – Part 2 – Guest Post

As I previously mentioned I would be keeping an eye on uses of PR within Facebook.

I got in contact with Lee Henshaw, founder of 'Silence' a London based online advertising agency that were hired by Alicia Keys to boost her online profile. Silence created the “As I Am” application for Facebook as part of the brief.

Lee recently commented on Brandrepublic:
'Social media are a challenge for publicists,'...'There are no editors, so to reach this community you have to act like a friend, rather than as an advertiser.'

Lee had this to say:

'Of all the social networks, Facebook represents the biggest challenge for publicists.

You Tube, for example, has Featured Videos, and My Space has Featured Artists. These are editorial slots that a publicist can negotiate.

Facebook doesn't offer similar opportunities. You can set up a Facebook group, of course, but doing that well requires a flare for a rarer PR skill, the publicity stunt. Looking at groups my friends are joining and leaving today, I see that the group for the Manchester band Red Vinyl Fur has less than 200 members, while the “I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head” group has nearly 750,000 members.

The people behind the “I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head” group are publicising a Facebook app called Sekret Gifts. A good PR stunt? Yes and no. If they'd chosen to advertise their app and paid an £8 CPM, for example, it would have cost £6,000 to generate 750,000 page impressions. How much did it cost them to conceive this group? A few rounds in the pub, you'd guess. Their Sekret Gifts app though has only been added 4,000 times (representing a modest 0.005% click through rate), and wherever this wonderfully titled group is written about online, the app is never mentioned. There's no connection between the group and the product in the same way that Cadbury, for example, had one for its Bring Back Wispa groups.

As for Red Vinyl Fur, maybe their Facebook group would be more popular if its title reflected something they stood for - Girls With Guitars Rock Harder Than Boys, say. London's Heaven nightclub, for example, has a group that will donate 1p to a cancer charity for every member it attracts. They currently have 25,000 members, leaving them with a £250 donation to make. Their £10 CPM is arguably more cost-effective than paying for a website to serve 1,000 page impressions because they're paying for 1,000 people to respond to a call-to-action, and, of course, they're supporting a good cause rather than lining an online publisher's pocket.

The Facebook group, therefore, should be the publicist's responsibility. The right stunt can reach 1000's and if you make it newsworthy, maybe millions. The Facebook app, however, can't be the publicist's alone, because, as with most products, you can't make a Facebook app popular without advertising it.

There are 10,000 Facebook apps but only 4 of them - Super Wall, Funwall, Top Friends and Video - have over 1m active users. Publicists can conceive apps, manage their build, and contributing to their popularity by ensuring they're written about, but that approach alone will never bother the most popular apps. Parlaphone, for example, got plenty of publicity for Kylie's Kylierobotics app, but it only has 169 active users (Which Spice Girl are You? has 10,000). To break through the clutter you need a budget to advertise the app on Facebook, and Facebook will only start talking to you when you have a minimum of $50,000 to spend, which, while PR remains the thin end of the wedge, eclipses most publicity budgets.'

Instead of a advert, this week I am going for a video of my guest blogger:

Viral works!

I am trying hard to get people to talk to me about PR within Facebook, no success yet. But viral marketing got a big thumbs up today!

"McCain Foods' first viral ad has been viewed by more than 100,000 people in 124 countries in its first week"

The McCain Potato parade is the viral ad to reach this impressive number, add another 1 to that I think it's great.

Happy birthday Stephen for tomorrow!

See for yourself:

Can Facebook work for PR?

One of the main questions asked at last nights NMK event was:



"Can you show me an example of where a planned Facebook campaign has worked for an online PR ?"

Yesterday NMA announce that Kylie's new album 'X' will be available to download first (today) on Nokia's music store before the general release. This ties in nicely with the Facebook application kylierobotics.

Application description:

Send your Friends your favourite Kylie Robotic or even create your own! You can either look through the archives of Kylie robotics based on her different outfits over the years or send the new album 'X' Kylie to your friends.

The campaign is being handled by Parlophone, and follows Kylie's launch of her own social network http://www.blogger.com/www.KylieKonnect.com. Kylie is busy online!

The application currently only has 883 daily active users (1 is now me)! Some way behind Wispa, HSBC and Cadburys Gorilla groups. But maybe an application is the way to go? - More interactive?

Definitely one to keep an eye on!

Better finish with a Kylie advert:

"The Power"

No this isn't a blog post about darts, and Phil Taylor. But, the shear influence that YouTube has, check out these stats from 19/11/2007 at 23:24pm:

Most viewed video of all time - Views: 65,158,919 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg

Most linked proper* video of all time - Links: 4,013,639 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPOOWvP_dd8

Most commented on video of all time - Comments: 230,489 -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wPglHZQf-0

*Some spam type videos have more links

Mind blowing numbers, funny how a Google maps video is the most linked video...the power of Google?

One video/story generating 230,489 comments shows what impact the social media can have and how the public can have their say. (New comments are being added as I write this). A real tool in online communication.

As this is a topical news video and nothing to do with PR perhaps the Wonderbra Cadburys spoof is a better example - http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wonderbra+cadbury&search=Search

21 different related videos, over 400'000+ views, 200+ comments and even I have linked to it, all in 1 week! Amazing use of Internet video for guerrilla marketing (The advert wont be used on TV).


I will leave you with the highest ranked 'advert' video:

Hammer of the gods

Saw this on the old Viralmonitor, to promote Led Zeppelin's new album the "The Mothership" NetDisaster.com are helping Led fans to take over the net and do what they call "Zeppelise the net".

Check out PRvert.blogspot.com under attack to the sound of the immigrant song!


You can visit the campaign blog here, cool little application and online PR stunt...what site do you want to Zeppelise?

After Pudsey's version of this last night, here is a better spoof:

Is that a gun in your pocket...

...or are you just pleased to serve and protect me.


















Just saw this on Top Gear, an unfortunate piece of bus advertising by Hampshire police. If you still haven't spotted it check out where the exhaust pipe is...no that's not his trunction!

Good things come to those who wait

Emily at work spotted this advert courtesy of anotherflaminblog another classic from Guinness created by Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO. Digital.



The advert was directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of Sony Bravia bouncing balls fame


Here are some great 'Facts and figures' from the Dail Mail article:

• The advert was shot on location in a remote side village called Iruya, in the Salta region of northern Argentina, with a population of around 1,000 people.
• The cast is made up of locals from the village and surrounding area, none of whom had ever appeared in front of a camera before.
• The tipping scenes were created by world record breaking domino tipping experts, Domino Domain.
• Setting the domino's on the table from the start of the advert took a team of three experts two days, but took just 14 seconds to topple.
• Toppling items included: 6,000 dominoes, 10,000 books, 400 tyres, 75 mirrors, 50 fridges, 45 wardrobes and 6 cars.
• 24 hours of footage was captured.
• The car toppling sequence was successfully shot in just one take.


Don't forget:

Computer problems!

After going on Holiday WC 22nd October, I came home to computer problems = Lack of blogging!

Bear with me! Here is something to keep you going:

Best advert on TV at the moment Sony Walkman project you can see it here - http://www.visit4info.com/preview-flash.cfm?vm=0&type=3&adid=51961

Almost on par with:

Spice up your underwear?

The ladies' bras, the ladies' bras, the ladies' knickers and the ladies' bras!

Another music PR stunt today. But, this time it's the mother of all girl groups the Spice girls. They have signed a £5 million deal with US lingerie firm Victoria's Secret which means that the forthcoming 'Greatest Hits' album will be initial only be sold through Victoria's Secret stores across the US from November the 13th.

There have been so many changes in the music industry recently, Madonna and Nine Inch Nails to name a few more since Radiohead, Prince and the Charlatans, it seems that you need a novel promotion idea or big hitting PR to sell albums! What ever next? Lets see some more 2.0 ideas people.

So girls, can we expect a bit more of this (I hope not!):

ITS CHRISTMAS!

October 15th 2007, 8.16am (BST) Channel 4...my first spot of a consumer Christmas advert!

Disneyland resort Paris trying get school kids to bug their parents before work and book up for this Christmas.

Here it is in all its glory - http://visit4info.com/preview-flash.cfm?vm=0&type=3&adid=50705

Lets be honest, it doesn't come near the classic Coca Cola advert:

Football fever

Good luck to England tomorrow, do they have 11 fit players?

Spotted this piece on Brand Republic about Fulham and their sponsor LG electronics. (They have sponsorship on static in-stadia hoarding, LED screens and primary shirt sponsorship)LG has commissioned Comperio Research to evaluate the the sponsorship of Fulhan for the next 3 years.

From Comperio's website:
Comperio’s research agenda will be to measure the extent to which the sponsorship programme has influenced:

Brand perceptions and positioning Brand awareness Product range awareness Brand image Brand consumption

Something that interests me and I even wrote my dissertation on! I will be keeping a close eye on this, and keeping everyone up to date.

If only they were UK citizens...

Couldn't help myself...

Toyota has got a great advert doing the viral rounds. It made me laugh so much I had to put it up.

I'm not a World of Warcraft player, but thanks to Hollie (at work) I already know about the Leroy Jenkins saga.

It is even pretty funny without even knowing about that so take a look:

Going deeper underground

A development on a previous post, CBS Outdoor have announced a new development in the underground world. They are testing a cross-track projection system (XTP) at Euston at the moment.

The HD moving image advertising should be in place at the start of 2008! You can run, but you cant hide...

I like the idea as; you can never hear anyway, travelling is boring and it isn't some tatty old poster. I wonder what happens when the train comes? Could be annoying if you are interested in what is being advertised!

On another note check out this advertising..."the ads will be about five acres each"! - Mahooosive

Advert of the moment, spotted it on altogether digital and on New Media Curious already:

Are Radiohead leaving themselves 'High and Dry'?

Radiohead have announced that you can choose how much you pay for there next album, this comes after they split from EMI a while back. They will directly pocket any money that they make - apparently you can pick from between 0-99 quid!

You can visit the page for the new album "In Rainbows" and pre-order the download or discbox now. (Available on the 10th).

With a huge worldwide fan base and die hard fans maybe only Radiohead can get away with this distribution method? Time will tell...maybe we will see Thom Yorke at Eurovision when he needs to pay the bills?

Prince and more recently the Charlatans started the trend, I say bring on the free stuff!

Hell of a PR stunt, amazing way of doing it...Radiohead I salute you.

Going with a related song today - In my top ten of all time:

London baby

You might have seen my recent post about bluetooth that said "Lincoln let me down, bring on the bright lights of a real city!" in my hunt for a bluetooth advert.

Last night I was optimistic about receiving an advert in London. I was at the Y Design Awards with work (webitpr) in the Royal Festival Hall in the Southbank Centre. We were at the event as sponsors, and Adam even got to present an award!

Couple of snap shots from the camera phone:





























I had my bluetooth armed and ready (in fact I have had it on the last week now), Emily reminded me to keep checking it.

The Royal festival hall seemed like a suitable place to be transmitting a bluetooth advert. The whole building would be covered by a 100m transmission radius, and the Y Design Award is for digital design! But alas no joy...

We made our way back to Kings cross (often above ground) but still nothing! I have to admit i had forgotten about my bluetooth by the time we got to Kings cross. While we were waiting for the train I felt a buzz from my phone, thinking it was a text I calmly got my phone out to see. Bluetooth file: 'Transvision'! Bare in mind this was 11.20 and our train left at 11.30 - spooky timing or what! (I have to admit i was a bit excited - sad I know)

Here is the advert from the brilliant o2 (well done on using the bluetooth technology 02):



I think we deserve as absolute classic advert to finish on today - beat this:

Blue2ooth

My second bluetooth advertising post in a few days, big thanks to Bluepod media CEO, Stefan Hohmann for getting in touch!

The content that you can get across is pretty amazing, obviously the phone you have will have some say in what you can receive - check out this video for the Genesis 'turn it on again' tour.



Remember this is an 'opt in' service, so you can say 'No'. This helps the advertiser as they know who receive the content and who turned it down.

The 100m radius is large enough, especially in an enclosed area like a cinema. Unless you are like Asafa Powell in the cinema or you have a crappy old handset get that bluetooth on and enjoy your mobile and then advertising!

Going to London tomorrow, bluetooth is switched on and ready to rock 'n' roll. Lincoln let me down, bring on the bright lights of a real city!

This would be good to get on your iPhone:

OT - Buy a new hat

After dating for over 4 years (I know, I am slow!), yesterday I asked my lady, Rachel, to marry me and she said 'Yes'! :)

No date set yet, but I am sure I will see bride and wedding magazines appearing soon!

A glass and a half full of joy?

With almost as big facebook following as Spiderpig, the Cadburys Gorilla is pretty cool. (Or is that an unshaven Phil Collins?). PRWeek had the advert up for 'Hit or Miss', they went for the same outcome I would have = HIT!!! Apparently it is linked into the sponsorship of the 7km 'Great Gorilla Run' on 22nd September, I would have liked it anyway...

There is a fantastic piece of in depth discussion relating to the advert on 'altogether digital', it goes into what brands are having to do to make an advert stand out in a crowd.

The moment you have all been waiting for:

*K810i*

Spotted a cool advertising tool today thanks to Brand Republic. Bluepod has launched a bluetooth marketing network in some UK cinema's. (Vue and Cineworld).

"Bluepod Media has developed hardware that can communicate with Bluetooth-enabled handsets over a radius of 100m"

This is the type of advert you might receive:









I am going to have to go to sunny Scunthorpe to see if they have it at Vue...Trek!

I will be seeing how much bluetooth advertising is going on by leaving my bluetooth on all the time. (I am usually afraid that a drunk person in a pub will send me a picture of their dog...stranger things have happened!) I don't have high hopes for Lincoln, maybe London can make me proud on Tuesday.




Another classic - Levis know how to advertise!

It's in the game

Spotted an interesting story on mad.co.uk about In-game advertising the other day.

Research has shown that 87 per cent of gamers remember integrated brand messages in computer games, demonstrating the opportunities for marketers.

it went onto say:

...a recent UK survey that found 82 per cent of nine to 19-year-olds have at least one games console and 70 per cent play computer games online.

This was followed up by an article today on 'gi' about another poll of gamers:

Overall, of those respondents who said they had seen adverts in a game, 64 per cent reported that they felt positively towards the brand.

Now just to find who plays what and you have a willing audience!

Some games have implemented product placement for along time. The Fifa series has had realistic stadiums since I can remember, and the advertising hoarding has tended to be game manufactures and sponsors. But this has started to change with the obvious attraction of this ever growing new medium for advertisers.

Spotted these brands at a real game before?










They even manage to get adverts in games that you would expect like Splinter Cell, subtle 'ey?












This links nicely to a Social Media Release that Coke created earlier in the year for a Second Life competition called Virtual Thirst. Check out the YouTube page for some of the entries - hmmm more advertising for coke. They certainly don't need any more brand recognition, even in the most remote parts of the world I have seen Coke imprinted on the landscape.
















I need a new PC so I can have a go on Second Life!!!

I'm confused...I am I in the real world or the World of Warcraft:

Everything's happy underground

My first glimpse of the CBS Outdoor digital underground advertising today on the London underground. Unfortunately, Stephen and I were going too fast (avoiding the strike!) for me to grab a video going up the escalator!

There was a fantastic flowing advert for 'The Mousetrap' that I wanted to get on video, but to get the idea take a look at this picture and quick video or go have a look for yourself sometime.

The new O2 arena advert:













Sony Bravia underground advert:


After Stephen's comment that its getting like the Minority Report, I was half expecting the digital boards to say "Hello Mr Shorthouse" or even "Mr Yakamoto"! Maybe that's due on the next round of underground upgrades...


Anyway - It's back! The amazing Skoda Fabia advert on TV:

Football.com

As I mentioned in a previous post "More and more brands are giving out direct web links at every opportunity", this was the case in the half time adverts of tonight champions league game on ITV. Nikefootball.com have launched a new series of adverts to accompany their fancy new site and 'T90' gear, plus they have got the Dirty Sanchez boys on board to feature in the "Put it where you want it tour" where "precision meets punishment" the adverts feature Rooney, Malouda, Frings and Gattuso trying to prove who is most accurate in their T90 lasers.

Good follow up to the cage series of adverts from a few years back. But what did those adverts advertise? Answers on a postcard.

You can see Rooney's efforts on target better via Youtube:

Work, work and more work

...only kidding boss! For those of you who don't know, here is a bit about what we have been up to at work.

At webitpr we have been very busy, you might already know from Stephens blog that we have developed and launched a new part to our service - our Social Media News Release (SMNR). Obviously I am biased, but the SMNR is damn cool. The functionality of the concept is perfect for a variety of online press releases and benefits enormously from our monitoring prowess. Take a look at our latest news if you haven't seen Todd Defrens original template in action. (I told you we have been busy!).

In a few months we have hired Stephen, partnered with a translation service, commissioned an online PR survey and who could forget our 'kickit' table football event (Videos here)! Busy bees.


Personal Favourite: "Hello to you"

Facebook again

A few posts in, and another Facebook mention! They better start paying me soon...especially when the advertising kicks in.

Brand republic today highlighted the news that facebook is going to start 'targeted' advertising. Using details from you favourite music, films, books and activities but not personal details, they will allow advertisers to put targeted adverts on your personal mini-feed.

Commenting on Brand Republic - Dean Donaldson from digital marketing company Eyeblaster isn't a fan, can't say I am either. Ironically Dean has used facebook to vert his frustration, I wander if big brother is watching? I appreciate that Facebook have to make money, but an 'opt in' option would be nice Mr Zuckerberg - we get some adverts already that we can cope with NO MORE PLEASE!. You have the edge on Myspace, don't blow it...Facebook has grown 366% since the start of the year and attracted an audience of 7.6 million unique visitors.

Great use of 2.30mins of you life, great advert, great song...better in the cinema:

England beat Germany...

...with the amount of UK Advertisers on hoarding: 4-0! (+1 for Denmark)

Clutching at straws I know, but we are useless! Quick footie rant - we lost, we didn't play that well, we underachieved, Germany put out a weak side, Carrick was useless, Robinson is fat, Hanson/Shearer and Wright are wrong we didn't need to play well - we needed to win!

Back to the Advertising: Umbro continued to advertise their 'onelove' brand with Umbro.com digi-banners, to show it's "100% dedicated to football in all its forms". Nicely leading to the SX boots that hit you on the Umbro homepage (Gold studs?). More and more brands are giving out direct web links at every opportunity, looks like Vodafone have hit the nail on the head with a fantastic advert about mobile Internet - we can access the Internet whenever we want!

Nationwide introduced a cool initiative 'Sponsored by you' , where 6 members of the crowd get their name on the hoarding. I spotted "Joy Vickers" (Geek I know), better than watching England miss a hat full. The 'Blog: Add A Player' bit is very bare...where is David Healy on the list? See if you can beat my 9 out of 10 on the quiz too. Not the worlds best website but still got some good content.

A bit of a classic for you today...yes I am old enough to remember it!

Starter for 10

What better place to start than with facebook! I am a facebook fan, perfect for keeping in contact with friends (especially those that are abroad), setting up events and wasting time...Fair enough facebook has security flaws and so does Myspace, but I have found a 2.0 'friend'/marketer making the most of it all - Tom.

I am 'friends' with Tom, but so are 1312 others! That makes a mockery of the 198 friends I have. He is an event manager for Londonparties.co.uk and his facebook is an extension of his work. I get regular updates on 'events' @ Chinawhite and so do the 1312 others. With 34 yes' and 74 maybes I guess that's not a bad return for his guest list.

Good use of technology Tom, not quite sure on your choice of recipients (IE me!)...

"Most table bookings normally have a minimum spend of around £500 - £1000" See you there?!?!

Great advert from across the pond:

What's in a name

My best friends first comment, "doesn't that say pervert?!?" Well almost...

There is method to my madness:

1) PR
2) Ad-vert-ising
3) Pervert - "...a deviation from what is considered to be orthodox or normal"

Hopefully that will encompass what this blog is all about.

Now I bet your wondering what you name means!

http://www.whatsinaname.net
Giles - English, from Greek "young goat".

Welcome

After some encouragement from a few people, I am going to try out blogging! I enjoy working in a cutting edge firm and an exciting sector. But, i want to get back my first love too - Advertising - what better way than blogging my thoughts.

I hope you enjoy what I have to say...

My favourite advert at the moment: