by Sean McCoy. The Virgin brand is fun, cheeky, challenging, pioneering, reliable and genuine, like its leader.
Category archives: Marketing
Shelf Life: Do the right things
Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) pick of new product, packaging and design launches.
A warm and fuzzy welcome for new employees at Prezence Digital; Joe Public smells the coffee; Baileys goes 3D in Africa; and Nike gets the boot.
Fair Exchange: Your brand in Africa — global guest or global bully?
by Erna George. One of my pet hates is those global brands who arrive on our shores thinking they can fill a gap in any market in Africa without altering their product, packaging or communication. While possibly an acceptable position in 1995 when our country was making its way back into the global economy, this has been a no-no for some time.
Newsjacking: a fad or the future for marketing?
by Richard Gruner, University of Melbourne A newsworthy event is happening right now. And another, and another — it never ends.
This is vital not just for feeding our 24-hour news cycle and hungry media corporations, but increasingly also for marketers working for all sorts of brands. That’s because every news story has the potential to attract the same people firms wish to reach and talk to, and is therefore an opportunity to be “newsjacked”.
Newsjacking. It means injecting a firm’s ideas or angles into breaking news to generate media coverage for your brand. A prominent example of this is when officials at the London Olympics mixed up the Korean flags, and optometrist Specsavers moved in with their slogan: “Should have gone with Specsavers”.
Bestselling marketing author David Scott explains that these stories do not even have to directly relate to your business. When Kate Winslet was staying with Sir Richard Branson at a private retreat, lightning set their home on fire, and Kate rescued Branson’s elderly mother from the blaze. That’s not only a story that will attract attention and interest, but the London Fire Brigade saw an opportunity here to run a story on their website, offering the actress a chance to train with their firefighters. I don’t think she ever took them up on the offer, but with little or no investment, the fire brigade had unprecedented media exposure and interest in their work. Newsjacking on fire.
Newsjacking should happen in near real-time to be executed well. It demands a fluid, creative team that can go from idea, to concept, to market in less than 48 hours. Of course, social media can accelerate this process. It can take weeks or even months for a print ad to get published, but to inject content on your Facebook fan page only takes a few minutes. And yes, as Simms says, if you do it right it’s an easy way to build consumer affinity, affection and saliency for your brand.
The Ad Contrarian: The devolution of social media marketing
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) What people don’t seem to understand is that social media and social media marketing are two very different things.
Shelf Life: Value wines online
Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) pick of new product, packaging and design launches.
Publishers embrace retail; new plans for Meyer & Associates; a whisky win for Grant’s; and Foschini launches a ‘rewards booth’ for customers.
Would you give away your campaign for a better future?
In a world facing massive change, we need to take drastic measures. A lot of the issues at hand from water scarcity to poverty are bigger than any one company or non-profit can answer. We can solve these pressing problems by sharing what really works. There are so many exciting initiatives around the world offering solutions, but most often people don’t know about them.
With the Right to Recycle License we can all encourage free sharing of good initiatives. If an initiative can improve HIV infection rates in India, what is to say it wouldn’t work in Sub Saharan Africa? By sharing these ideas, we can make a real difference with real results and turn local initiatives global!
I hope to encourage agencies, companies, non-profits, governmental agencies and foundations to work together to find lasting solutions for health, environment and society, by submitting their sustainability initiatives or non-profit campaigns to a central platform. If we all share communication solutions for good; we can accelerate innovation and ultimately do greater good for people, the planet and business.
Attrition, Talent, & Transformation in the Digital Industry Part II
Having pointed out the elephant in the industry yesterday, Prakash Patel now explains why he doesn’t just see it as a problem but also an opportunity for the industry to motivate staff, and give them a purpose in their jobs.
Shelf Life: Edcon squares up for ecommerce
Louise Marsland’s (@Louise_Marsland) pick of new product, packaging and design launches.
International design success for Porky Hefer; artful potato chips from McCain; Jacobs coffee pops into odd spaces to brighten your day; and Edcon begins rolling out its online shopping sites.
The Sell: Is a Cannes (Lion) on the shelf worth two cans in the basket?
by Mimi Nicklin (@miminicklin) I find myself asking how we balance the recognition for creativity, with our constant fight for value adding work that sells to shoppers as well as consumers.