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Gorillas in the mist
With all the chatter about Phil Collins and drumming gorillas in 2007, it's good to see the Tefal Heads at adliterate take on the compelling question of whether the ads really worked.
Time is money....
...dog eat dog.... it's a jungle... lunch is for wimps....
Social Navigation...
Another blog about Web 2.0? No actually, this is about how consumers buy online. According to a survey recently run in the US with 1200 online shopper respondents, 'social navigation' is a phrase coined to describe the ability to narrow product selections based on reviews from like-minded people with similar interests.
Apparently two thirds of online shoppers actively use social networking as a decision maker between products. This has implications for shop assistants in bricks and mortar, for consideration of drop out rate in shopping basket and ecommerce sites (when was the last time you heard someone at a shopping till say to the assistant and everyone else in the queue - "hang on a mo', I'm just popping out to check someone's review of this food mixer") and clearly for site architects in considering review content.
The car industry found the shift in consumer footfall from uninformed to spec. ready tough to handle and have had to consider sales retraining over the last 5 years. It looks like the '4 out of 5 people that research cars online before buying' metric is one that all retailers of items with £10+ticket value might have to consider.
And why not? It's always been that way with buying ad agencies.
Open and shut case
So Google shares hit an all-time intraday high of $730.23. It's clearly doing some people some good.
More thoughtfully, a couple of the bigger stories around Google this week responsible for these stratospheric movements are to do with the invitation from Google to welcome all (well, nearly all) and sundry to enter its doors and share in the gains. Whether it's social networking with friendly mobs such as LinkedIn, Plaxo and Oracle or handsets and networks in developing a mobile platform with a group including Motorola, Samsung and T-mobile, they're all at it.
The Economist suggests that they may be avoiding the mistakes of the 90's and Facebook could be about to experience a "Netscape moment" with the new Google sponsored OpenSocial set of standards going directly against Facebook's proprietary (closed) approach, while the FT reckons "Google is not about to eat (Nokia and Microsoft's) lunch" with their new open source platform Android.
I reckon the difference between opening one selectively inclusive door and closing another exclusive door is a matter for some philosophical debate
In Google we trust.
By the way. Is anyone really using this social networking mallarkey?
"Ban facebook" say the techies who are all of a twitter
Ban Facebook?
IT management news service Silicon.com say half of businesses have restricted use of social networking sites.
It's because they're using up all the disk space rather than avoiding doing their day job by sorting out dates with the good looking account handler who just walked into the print room.
...or is it just a better way of passing information around for work or pleasure, email schemail....
what do you think?
Social networking. In or out?
You know a trend is a convention when the ad world starts picking up on it...
Advertising squared. Some questions. No answers.
How do you advertise an ad agency? Surely we should know best.
I know. Identify comms objectives, find target audience, consider what media they consume, plan communciations, then execute......
Did someone mention budget?
Of course within budget.
And resource?
We're bound to have a team free for a couple of ads and the website.
I see. Priorities?
It's VERY important.
More important then earning us fees then?
Er...
You'll provide all the sign off protocols that you demand of your clients too?
Come on, you've got my mobile number. Im always around.
Hmmm. You'll be writing the copy too for the home page?
I'll do it on the train.
Can I have a client project with a deadline, a budget and some objectives please?
Well, we have relaunched our website with (most of ) of work now displayed beautifully and we still have the rabbit (even though Simon pressed the launch button) and our Marketing Forum prospects can see what we do.
Of course it's not finished but you can always improve.
It's that easy. Thanks Mo. Thanks Adam. Thanks Spence. Very much.
Nice guys & Newcastle
It would be remiss of me not to mention a changing of the guard at St. James Park. Good guy Glen Roeder steps down (with a light if unwielding push from the Board), wheeler dealer, dull football, rainbow coalition team man Big Sam Allardyce stpes in (Probably).
What do we think of this?
"Buy the shirt, live the dream" was the phrase loved by punters and shareholders both. Do we think Big Sam can release the pent up desires of a footballing Unitary State by bringing home silverware? If he does will that actually disappoint the masses that thrive on the reputation of being supporters of the biggest club never to.....(insert as appropriate)?
Here lies the dichotomy. I always thought my dream job would be Commercial Director of NUFC - then I thought how on earth do you market a thing that already has a 90% share of purse of most families within a 50 mile radius of HQ (excluding a little hub of disinterest around Wearside) - 100% on matchdays.
Surely it should just take a great manager who knows how to tactically to run a football match? Enter Ruud, Kenny and Sir Bobby. Zilch results.
OK Souness was a (big)blunder but the rest had form. And Glen was a return to loyalty in a club that hadn't been awash with that quality in the Boardroom for a while.
And who has been the closest to success? King Kevin whose only thought of a back four were the seats on the bus that the poker games was played from but whose marketing credentials - all the way back to that great smell of Brut - are unquestioned.
There you go Freddie. Install a brand guru as MD and let Terry Mac run the football team. It'd be a laugh anyway. Something we've been a little short of for a while.
Adobe Apollo
Adobe has recently released an alpha version of their new Apollo runtime.
From adobe:
"Apollo enables developers to create applications that combine the benefits of web applications - network and user connectivity, rich media content, ease of development, and broad reach - with the strengths of desktop applications - application interactions, local resource access, personal settings, powerful functionality, and rich interactive experiences."
Basically Apollo allows web applications to be brought to the desktop so that a user can use local resources like accessing files and interacting with other applications but also the application can access the internet transparently without a browser.
The Speed of Technology
It has come to my attention recently that in web world certain programming technologies are progressing at a far greater speed than some of the systems we use to process and view them.