Schweppes has appointed GPY&R Melbourne to handle its digital portfolio.
The agency has held Schweppes mainstream business for more than 15 years producing internationally acclaimed work for the brand including the multi-award winning Burst. The digital business was won following a competitive pitch.
The Herald & Weekly Times recently hosted a forum, Pixels & Ink: A discussion about the Future of Journalism, in Melbourne.
The forum featured Steve Rubel, Edelman’s head of Global Strategy and Insights; Y&R Brands CEO Russel Howcroft; News Limited Group Editorial Director Campbell Reid; Herald Sun editor-in-chief Phil Gardner; and RMIT journalism lecturer Renee Barnes.
The event can be viewed here.
My favourite TV show right now is Man vs. Food, showing on TLC. It’s about one man’s journey to take on the biggest food challenges and pleasures the US has to offer. It has zero pretensions or foodie aspirations, it’s just about the food people love, whether that’s a pizza the size of a baby, a seven-pound breakfast burrito, or a sumptuous meal from an award-winning restaurant.
The presenter, Adam Richman, is the most charismatic, cuddly, all-round good bloke you can imagine. His love of food is palpable and his lack of judgment sincere.
In a world where we’re constantly being hectored to shape up in some way, shape or form, Man vs. Food makes people feel good about themselves and the things they enjoy. No guilt. No bullshit.
Understanding geography, time perspective and its impact on culture.
Big Russ, Wil Anderson and ‘that other guy’ are back with old favourites, including The Pitch (where two agencies compete to sell the unsellable), along with new segments, which they say we’ll find out about soon.
Looks like the show will be fully supported online with ‘exclusive and extended content scheduled for the Gruen website (www.abc.net.au/gruentransfer)’. One episode will feature the worst ads of all time. (Can’t wait for that one).
The Gruen Transfer averaged more than a million viewers a week, in it’s first two seasons, and still holds the record for the biggest ever debut of a Light Entertainment program on ABC TV wth1.287 million viewers.
BEHIND THE SCENES VIDEO
During 2009, Google reported $24 billion in gross revenue. If you subtract the $6 billion Google paid out to partners as revenue splits and traffic acquisition costs, Google’s net revenue last year was $18 billion. Almost all of this revenue came from ads.
With all that money, you’d think the two founders would drive something other than a Toyota Prius.
While we really don’t need any more advertising award shows, the Tomorrow awards at least have created something interesting. No Categories, just work voted on it’s quality no matter what the channel.
Gang, this is the letter Russel received today.
Top 25 brands based on social engagement index.
1. Starbucks.
2. Dell.
3. eBay.
4. Google.
5. Microsoft.
6. Thomson Reuters.
7. Nike.
8. Amazon.
9. SAP.
10. Intel.
11. Yahoo.
12. BlackBerry.
13. Accenture.
14. Oracle.
15. Cisco.
16. Pepsi.
17. MTV.
18. Sony.
19. Disney.
20. Adidas.
21. Toyota.
22. Ferrari.
23. H&M.
24. HP.
25. Nike.
Engagement varies by industry.
It’s no surprise that engagement tends to differ by industry. Not only are some industries on average present in more channels, they also engage with them more deeply. For example, media and technology companies tend to be in more channels and engage deeply within them. In contrast, apparel, consumer products, food & beverage, and financial brands in general don’t engage as much – which is to be expected given that companies in these industries are just beginning to experiment with social media. But even within industries, there is a wide spectrum of engagement. In the auto sector, some brands like Toyota are highly engaged in many channels, especially around the Prius. In contrast, luxury brands Mercedes Benz and Porche are in just two channels each. In other words, distinct target audiences can influence the appropriate level of social media engagement even within specified industries.
Financial performance correlates with engagement.
Social media engagement and financial success work together to perpetuate a healthy business cycle: a customer oriented mindset stemming from deep social interaction allows a company to identify and meet customer needs in the marketplace, generating superior profits. The financial success of the company, in turn, allows further investment in engagement to build even better customer knowledge, thereby creating even more profits – and the cycle continues.
Is your brand engaging in social media?
For all the excitement about social media, there’s a specter hanging over its use by companies. Is all this Tweeting, blogging and Facebooking paying off? For some proponents, the question is irrelevant. They agree with the view encapsulated in the social media bible The Cluetrain Manifesto — markets are conversations. Companies have to participate in the conversations where they’re happening, ROI be damned. Their dismissal of metrics is summed up in an oft-repeated question, “What’s the ROI of putting on your pants on in the morning?”
Those kind of pithy ripostes are music to the ears of the social-media faithful at conferences and on blogs, but they’re unlikely to impress budget-strapped CMOs who, while eager to find new ways to reach consumers, are under more pressure to prove their efforts are pushing the business forward. Measurement remains the single greatest challenge to social-media adoption by companies.
While digital channels and online interactions offer a plethora of data points, they don’t come with a set playbook for assigning value. Marketers have grown comfortable with formulas like gross ratings points and frequency, time-tested formulas for building brands in traditional media. Yet with social media, what’s a Facebook friend worth?
“The value of social media is it’s the richest data set that’s ever existed,” says Dan Neely, CEO of Networked Insights, a Wisconsin-based analytics company that uses social media to help clients make marketing decisions. “You can use this data for many things.”
The two sides of the social-media measurement debate are at the forefront as many marketers plan to ramp up their social-media budgets in 2010. According to an ExactTarget survey of 1,000 marketers, 70 percent said they plan to increase spending in social media, but less than 20 percent said they could effectively measure ROI. The seeming schizophrenia is because marketers using social media tend to blend “art and science” in their measurements, according to Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of strategy and research.
“ROI isn’t the thing that’s pushing people to social media,” says Stewart. “Companies using reputation as a measure of success are more likely to be shifting budget there. That tells you something about the mind-set.”
Patt's Sydney V8 Supercar team
Well that’s what the media are calling it and who are we to argue? Last night our very own Russel took to the stage at Fox Studios and introduced the campaign to a 500 strong crowd of media and stakeholders.
The campaign, which features P!NK, was produced in a ball breaking 17 days (from concept to shoot) to fit filming in with her tour schedule and relied on a production team of over 150 of the industry’s best to bring it to life.
Check out the work and some behind the scenes stuff too.
Behind the scenes
Very cool analysis on the success (or not) of online dating site profile pics. It tells us that:
Skip to about 2.15 to see the augmented reality bit kick in.
Generation Y has taken over as the most dominant demographic group in Australia.
The number of Gen Y (1976 to 1991) has increased by 158,000 to 4.67 million, while Gen X (1961 to 1976) jumped by 57,000 to 4.68 million. Based on last year’s mid-year estimates, Gen Y was neck and neck with Gen X, but with numbers fast expanding, it would have pushed past into first spot in the last six months. Baby boomer numbers (1946 to 1961) fell by 6,000 to 4.11 million.
The data bucks the conventional wisdom that Australia’s population is ageing, with seniors taking charge. But strong migration and a gradual increase in fertility over recent years are working to change the mix. After falling for the past 37 years, the share of people aged below 30 actually rose in the past year.
The changing shape of Australian society means businesses must be prepared to cater for these younger customers.
Any retailer working on the premise that younger consumers can be disregarded would be missing out on a large and increasing market. Baby boomers may have held court in the 1990s, but now the twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings dominate.
Factors that should drive communication with Gen-Y:
Creative content - prefers vibrant and unique communications content, especially with a sense of humour.
Inspiration - likes to dream and aspire to be faster, better and stronger, inspirational communications work well.
Truth - hates dishonest communications.
Brand utility - wants to touch and feel a brand, campaigns with an experiential component work well.
Interaction – wants to be a part of brands’ conversations, which is why blogging and social media can work well.
Basic article, but raises an interesting point about the separation between work personality and life personality:
Are you 1 person on social media? Or 2?
And how do you separate your personality, opinions and job?
Full article here: smashingmagazine.com
At a basic level, storytelling and user experience have common elements — like planning, research, and content creation — that can be utilized for effectively developing an experience. Storytelling offers a way for the team to really understand what they are building and the audience that they are creating it for. Stories allow for the most complex of ideas to be effectively conveyed to a variety of people. This designed product/experience can then offer meaning and emotion for its users. The professionals that are currently using the power of narrative in their projects are doing it in vastly different ways.
The storytelling approach allows us to transfer content in an anecdotal way. This has shown to have a better recall rate of information. In addition, being able to empathize with users through stories allows for better understanding of the emotional side of the experience. Films and video games deliver successful experiences that impact people on an emotional level. This is something people will begin to expect more from websites and applications that they use everyday. We can evolve the focus of creating a simple task-driven and functional website/application into a valuable human connection. We are, after all, a “global campfire” as Curt Cloninger refers to it. He goes on to say, “But the web is not a global network of connected computers. The web is a global network of connected people. And story-telling is still the most effective way to emotionally impact people.”
For Monopoly’s 75th anniversary, Parker Bros has replaced the board with a circular one and switched from cash to credit.
Parker Brothers new round Monopoly board
Resist the Usual!
Nielsen brand score index ranks Cadbury as the No.1 individual grocery brand in Australia. It is followed by Coca Cola, Bega, Smith’s, Kleenex Cottonelle and Birds Eye. Arnott’s is ranked as the No.1 umbrella grocery brand in Australia, followed by Nestle and Cadbury.
