Have a great festive season and see you in the new year!

It’s that time of year and I am off for a week and a half’s holiday. So I won’t be back on the blog until 4 JANUARY 2009.

But I shall leave you with some nice links to enjoy if you happen to be searching out some marketing insights over the festive season.

Business Insider has done a Tiger Woods inspired list of the 10 Celebrity Endorsements that “went way wrong”. The list includes Verizon’s sponsorship of rapper Akon, which fell apart when the performer took the stage at what was supposed to be an 18-and-up show and simulated sex with a woman who turned out to be 15. Oops. Visit the link above or here.

On the same scandal-conscious topic, the New York Times has a report about how Accenture not only dropped Tiger Woods from its ads, it has also “Tiger-proofed” its organisation, getting employees to rip down posters or any other marketing materials featuring the disgraced star. Ouch.

If that’s a bit light hearted for you, you can always check out the McKinsey Quarterly (free registration needed) which has rounded up the economic conditions globally in December 2009.

Whatever you choose to read or do over the next few days, do have a very good holiday season and thank you for reading my blog this year. Best wishes for 2010!

The Fifteen Biggest PR Disasters of the Decade?

It’s the time of year when you get all those lists…”best idea of the decade”, “most profitable company of the decade”…..and so on. But nothing is more interesting than lists about what went wrong.

So this list from website Business Insider of the 15 Biggest PR Disasters of The Decade makes interesting reading. A few of the disasters that Business Insider has picked include:

The Bridgestone tyre debacle of 2000 (where the company was investigated after a couple of years of complaints from consumers about their tyres in accidents. The firm eventually accepted the blame and began what was then the largest recall in American history of 6.5 million tyres. It was eventually announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that nearly 200 deaths had been caused by the faulty tyres.)

Philip Morris saying that smoking deaths had “positive effects” in 2001. This was the conclusion of a study conducted in the Czech Republic by Philip Morris ‘proving’ that smokers’ deaths had “positive effects” financially for the Czech government. A huge public backlash ensued and the brand reportedly cancelled plans for any similar studies in other countries.

Cartoon Network’s “bomb scare”  ad campaign in 2007. Cartoon Network’s guerilla advertising campaign to promote  its show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”  involved magnetic, light-up signs placed around the city in random public places. The mysterious signs lacked any explanation, causing lots of consumers to fear the worst. Police received multiple calls and despatched their bomb squads and parts of the subway system were shut down for a period of time. The head of the network eventually resigned after taking blame for approving the stunt and the two men who were deemed physically responsible for putting up the devices apparently faced criminal charges for the hoax.

The list is worth a read, if only to work out what not to do in 2010.

When the message means more than the medium

Marketers are often taught that above all else, they must ensure that the integrity of the corporate logo is protected. It must be reproduced in the right size, format, colour and only be used by official partners.

But what if you’re a charity working in such areas as rural Uganda? This fascinating article on Mercy Corps’ logo being used in multiple formats across the world shows that sometimes the message is more important than getting the logo design just right.

Mercy Corps sees its logo appear on boats, on posters and on pieces of wood…..the colour varies, the size varies but what the message means to the people in the community remains the overriding concern. As Steff Geissbuhler, founding partner of C&G Partners, which designed Mercy Corps’ logo explains:

“A typical identity project involves plenty of personal creative investment, hours upon hours devoted to rounds of sketching, revisions, and the pain-staking final tweaks to create a singular, perfect end result. Once the identity is complete and leaves our hands, though, we can’t protect the precious qualities of what we delivered, and it’s at the hands of clients to see if it remains in its intended form as time goes on. Yet, during a routine check-up call — something I do from time to time with previous clients — one of my logos definitely strayed from any branding guidelines, but, surprisingly, done so to the betterment and even salvation of populations living continents away.”

“I had to laugh when I saw some of the pictures from the “field.” It made me in a strange way happy to see obvious non-designers succeeding in copying the logo, in a different scale, on wood, cardboard, cloths or stone. Needless to say, it’s more important to be out there, in a vaguely recognizable way and saving lives, than being “correct.”

When web design goes bad

I very much enjoyed this little story from The Oatmeal, which goes through the process when a client asks a new media creative to redesign their website.

It’s called “How a web design goes straight to hell”. Check out the full story after the link – first cartoon below. It made me smile.

TalkTalk gets the naming rights to consumer homes

How far would you be prepared to go for money? No, this isn’t a new version of Indecent Proposal but the question being posed by telecoms business TalkTalk.

The company wants to know: would you be prepared to give up the naming rights to your own house for money? While this type of deal is now standard for sports clubs (such as Arsenal’s “Emirates” stadium), it didn’t appear to have tricked down to Mr and Mrs Bloggs on the street. Until now.

TalkTalk’s scheme sees homeowners receive £250 in sponsorship and in return, they are obliged to incorporate the TalkTalk brand into the formal address of their dwelling for one year. Elaine and Darren Snow from South Croydon are the first homeowners to take up the offer. Their detached house in Sanderstead, South Croydon is, from today, to be called TalkTalk Towers.

“If the great sporting and cultural arenas of the nation can be renamed then why not individual homes?” said Mark Schmid of TalkTalk. “We aim to have 50 deals completed by the end of the year across the country and to do more next year.”

What do you think of this? I’m not sure how much I’d have to be paid to incorporate a brand name into my address, but I’m pretty sure that it would have to be more than £250.

Plus it would be nice to see some extras attached to this idea. Since Talk Talk are selling it as the average guy’s chance to get in on the act of lucrative sponsorships, maybe this could be taken further. After all, many deals of this nature involve some sort of technical support on behalf of the sponsor; some of the deal is paid in money but the rest in providing services or technology to the sponsored team. So perhaps Talk Talk homes being sponsored should get their line rental/broadband services thrown in?

Taking that goods-in-kind version of sponsorship down to the individual consumer might really make this initiative something worth talking about.

(If you do want to rebrand your house TalkTalk, email namingrights@talktalkgroup.com and ask for details. Houses can be rebranded with the following monikers: TalkTalk Towers; TalkTalk Mansions; TalkTalk@House Number; The TalkTalk House; The TalkTalk Home.)

The most popular food & drink searches of 2009 (says Google)

Google has produced a report of the most searched-for terms of 2009. It calls these the “fastest rising” tables as it compares these particular terms to how much they were searched for in 2008 – those with the largest boost end up topping the table.

While some of them are obvious and universal – “Michael Jackon” and “Twitter” for example – the food and drink items most searched for are perhaps more interesting.

Fastest rising search terms (food & drink, global)

acai berry
picnic
クックパッド
tesco direct
senseo
peanut butter recall
nespresso commande
habibs delivery
mocktail
masterchef australia

Hmmmm. I’d be feeling pretty pleased if I was Tesco Direct, seeing as this came up as part of a global fastest rising list of search terms. I’m not quite sure what the Japanese search term says, but I’ll take Google’s word for the fact that it is some sort of food and drink.

The fastest rising overall were:

michael jackson
facebook
tuenti
twitter
sanalika
new moon
lady gaga
windows 7
dantri.com.vn
torpedo gratis

And the fastest falling were:

beijing 2008
euro 2008
heath ledger
barack obama
amy winehouse
kraloyun
dailymotion
bebo
wii
emule

Why digital marketing is effective for SMBs

I attended a BT Business lunch yesterday which was all about breaking down the myths and concerns that small businesses have about digital marketing.

Among the participants were:

Ivan Croxford, general manager of digital marketing services at BT Business; Matt Brittin, head of UK operations at Google; Alex Hoye, CEO of agency Latitude; Ashley Freidlein, CEO of Econsultancy; Guy Phillipson, CEO of the IAB; John Dunsmure, MD at the British Chambers of Commerce; Mike Cansfield, principal analyst at Forrester Research; Kevin Eyres, MD Europe at LinkedIn; Stephen Haines, commercial director of Facebook UK & Ireland; Cedric Chambaz, marketing manager for search and SMB at Microsoft; and Claire Young (Elegant Venues) and Niki Chalkley (professional development practitioner), both small business owners.

Some of the highlights of the discussion:

Claire Young: Runs a small wedding planning business (following her appearance on the TV show The Apprentice). Said she was confused when starting to do digital marketing for her company just how to use such tools as search marketing (SEO) and found herself dazzled by terms like pay-per-click (PPC). She says that she uses such things as Twitter and has found it useful for getting her own customer service needs as a consumer sorted, but does not use Twitter and Facebook in her own business as she feels it is not appropriate for her own customers. Would like more help in managing her digital marketing and feels frustrated there is not one solution to digital marketing issues that can be easily fitted into her work schedule.

Niki Chalkley: Talked about how many people were giving up on digital marketing because they were confused by the terms used and the technical language. She said that this puts off many small businesses from getting too heavily involved in digital marketing even though it could really benefit them.

Ivan Croxford, BT: Explained that there had been tremendous growth in social media in the consumer space. He said that the low costs of social media made it an ideal way for small businesses to get involved in digital marketing without too much risk involved.

Matt Brittin, Google: He argued that people need to use the same skills online and offline. He gave the example of a store visit he recently went on with a well-known retailer with a chain of stores. When Brittin and the retailer walked around the stores, this man was able to point out where there needed to be extra staffing or where the outlet should be reconfigered to show off the merchandise better. At the same time, people were leaving this retailer’s store online in droves because he wasn’t optimising his digital operations to suit customers better. Brittin added that UK consumers spend 2.7 times as much per head as people do on ecommerce in other markets such as the US or Germany, so this is a market where people are really open to buying online if you make it easy for them.

Guy Phillipson, IAB: Drew attention to Monday this week being “CyberMonday” where £4000 was spent per second. He said that while marketing methods like press classified had been down 37% this year, online has been less affected. He said that small business owners need to appreciate that digital marketing can be even more powerful for them than larger companies.

Ashley Freidlein, Econsultancy: Said that the internet is transparent and amplifies both good and bad. He said it stops brands being able to hide bad propositions behind good marketing. He said that niche players can compete on search terms and social media very effectively as niche players are better at gathering round communities effectively than some of their bigger rivals.

Stephen Haines, Facebook: He said that he is seeing massive explosion of activity from SMBs on Facebook. He gave the example of a photographer who was able to send out an ad to 1800 engaged women in his local area in a 25 mile radius. He explained that this would not be possible in other media because this kind of information would not necessarily be available to a small business like this. He said that social media can help small businesses create a level playing field.

Kevin Eyres, LinkedIn: Argued that the big difference between LinkedIn and Facebook is context. He said that he wouldn’t know if someone got engaged to be married but he would know if they moved jobs. He said that knowledge is vital in this economy and social media platforms offer people a way of finding and sharing knowledge. If you are a small business, he explained that you should be using LinkedIn to network with likeminded people, joining forums and sharing expertise. He talked about using social media to make everyone in the business an advocate for the brand.

Cedric Chambaz, Microsoft: Mentioned that digital marketing has a very low barrier to entry. He pointed out you can use Facebook for free and even search terms are very inexpensive. Like DIY, he explained, it is all about whether you have the tools and the skills to do it. Some people will do it and really enjoy the DIY, while others would prefer to pay someone to handle it all for them. Digital marketing is the same – there is no “good” or “bad” whether you decide to handle it all yourself or hire an agency to do so on your behalf.

What happens when you cross an iPhone with a book?

When you cross the iPhone with a book, you get the “phone book”. This is a nice little idea that I picked up via BBH Labs.

Essentially, it’s an interactive storybook for children utilising the iPhone along with paper technology. I think this is a mock-up but it’s a lovely little idea for integrating digital media with traditional products.

Gillette’s trio of bad boys

AdAge has a very interesting article about how Tiger Woods’ recent bad behaviour may not be a bad thing for his sponsor Gillette. Alongside footballer Thierry Henry (who recently committed handball, preventing Ireland from reaching the World Cup Finals) and tennis player Roger Federer (who moaned a lot while losing in the US Open finals), it now appears all three of Gilette’s stars may have dented reputations.

Will this mean that next time P&G wants to sign up its trio, the consumer goods marketer will get its tarnished sports stars for cheaper than last time? Read the article here.

BT vintage ad: the Inphone sets the tone for the iPhone

We all know those gorgeous Apple iPod ads with people dancing around to hits.

But a friend sent me this fabulous BT vintage ad for the Inphone. I think they should bring back this advertising immediately. I enjoyed the lyrics to the special Inphone song so much that I have reproduced them for you below (apologies if I misheard any of this opus – I’m unclear on the section about a “frozen tone”):

INPHONE LYRICS

“I’m in with the Inphone!

I go where the Inphone goes!

In with the Inphone

Suits my style and suits my clothes!

It doesn’t matter where or what I do

It’s just my new way of getting through

In frozen tone in touch with me

In frozen tone in touch with you

In touch, in tone, Inphone

(BT voiceover: Inphone from British Telecom. Dial 100 now and ask for Freefone Inphone.)