brand-e » marketing

IKEA’s banner store

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 10:50:55 +0000

IKEA clearly likes to make the most out of any space, which is how the Swedish flat-pack brand came up with the idea of creating the ‘smallest store in the world’. The company thinks that, no matter how cramped someone’s space, there’s always a solution, and to demonstrate this belief, built an entire IKEA store in a 10.5 cm x 8.8 cm web banner.

“We targeted people looking for studio flats, as well as one-/two-bedroom apartments by placing our tiny stores in the real estate section of community websites,” explains the brand.

Shoppers stop Facebook brand interaction

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 08:00:23 +0000

More than 40% of Americans use social media to shop – the equivalent of some 95 million social shoppers – and that number continues to rise. In fact, when asked how often social media is used to shop today compared to one year ago, almost three-quarters of respondents to the Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide SocialShop study confirmed they are using it more frequently.

But brands need to work out what social shopping behaviour is all about.

“People assign a different purpose and expectation to each social media channel they use,” says Masha Sajdeh, strategy sirector at Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide. “Once marketers understand how people use social to shop, they can hone their marketing strategies and cater to different shoppers’ needs to drive engagement now and in the future.”

For brands, using social media in the wrong way can have a negative impact – 44% of social shoppers say they have stopped interacting with brands on Facebook due to lack of relevant or valuable posts.

“It’s no secret that social media is top-of-mind among brands,” says Sajdeh. “What isn’t widely known is how brands should use social media to serve the needs of shoppers.”

“Fifty years ago marketers figured out that broadcast media drove awareness and print media added depth of communication,” says Nick Jones, head of retail Marketing for Leo Burnett/Arc Worldwide. “Now we have all of these new social communication channels but no one has identified the optimal role of each.”

SiliconMilkRoundabout – jobs done

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 07:24:10 +0000

Well over 100 companies will be hiring at London’s Silicon MilkRoundabout job fair this weekend, including social media brands Songkick, Mozllia, Twitter and Shazam, plus there will be over 800 technical jobs up for grabs for attendees. Mobile developers are in hot demand in 2012, with the number of job vacancies is up two thirds year-on-year for Android developers, and over 100% for their iPhone and iPad counterparts, according to Adzuna metrics.

This year is seeing massive growth in new tech terminology in job ads, the job search engine adds. Graduates looking to get a head start should be clued up on – ‘Big Data’, ‘Social Discovery’, ‘Augmented Reality’ and ‘Mobile Payments’.

“It’s amazing to see the start up scene in the UK really starting to boom and it’s even better to see the brightest minds in the UK picking jobs in start-ups over banks,” says Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna. “Events like the Silicon Milkroundabout are fuelling this new, entrepreneurial wave in Britain.”

Brand calls for gentlemanly notions

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 07:13:16 +0000

Ketel One Vodka has teamed up with GQ magazine to issue A Gentleman’s Call: In Pursuit of an Idea That Matters. A Gentleman’s Call is a search for an original idea that champions ‘the lifestyle of the modern gentleman’ and men are asked to head to AGentlemansCall.com to present a notion, inspiration or endeavour to help raise ‘society’s behavioural bar’.

Proposed projects need to exhibit the values of entrepreneurship, craftsmanship or philanthropy in the modern world… while proving that ‘gentlemanly’ manner is not a lost art. All purportedly values of the brand itself.

A shortlist of five projects best will be put to a public vote later in the year and the grand prizewinner will get $100,000 of investment to turn their idea into reality.

“It is a privilege and a true responsibility to guide the next generation of entrepreneurs and help foster an endeavour that will enlighten society’s appreciation for the modern gentleman,” says Adam Garone, CEO of the Movember Foundation, and one of three mentors for A Gentleman’s Call.

Ketel One recently moved into publishing with the launch of A Gentleman’s Read, an online lifestyle magazine for men.

Havas joins UN with FeedBack

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:00:05 +0000

Havas Media has joined forces with the United Nations World Food Programme to help ensure more children go to school thanks to the promise of a nutritious school meal. “Whilst grabbing your morning coffee or eating your sandwich over lunch, we would like to bet you probably have not thought about world hunger,” Havas says. “Nearly one billion people will go to bed hungry tonight despite the fact that hunger is the world’s greatest solvable problem.”

To help consumers work out how they can help, the agency has developed an online WeFeedBack calculator where users can enter the name of their favourite food and its price to see immediately how many kids that would feed. Anyone one making a donation will see that sum doubled by Havas.

Prometheus hops on the metro

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:00:52 +0000

Movie marketers don’t have to go wild on social media to promote films, they can re-open disused rail stations instead. For Ridley Scott’s upcoming feature Prometheus, Paris metro stop St Martin – closed for more than 60 years – has been given a makeover takeover by 20^th Century Fox France for that very purpose.

Cue giant head on platform on line 9 between République and Strasbourg St-Denis so that passengers can spend a few seconds in the mysterious atmosphere of a cave found by the Prometheus travellers about to discover the origins of humanity, according to the studio.

Consumers get social VIP treatment

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:00:51 +0000

More than two thirds of UK consumers believe social media is a better way to communicate with brands than through call centres, while 40% think it improves customer service (compared to a mere 7% who fear social media will damage service), according to a study from Fishburn Hedges and Echo Research. In addition, 36% of consumers have already interacted with companies via social media, almost double the proportion of just eight months ago. Two thirds of people who have engaged with brands on social media believe it has allowed them to find their voice.

“Many people are currently enjoying the VIP treatment from brands on social media,” says Eva Keogan, head of innovation at Fishburn Hedges. “As millions more catch on to this great route into traditional customer service channels, the challenge for brands will be maintaining the same level of service.

“Over the coming years, will Twitter become the next call centre? We are urging brands to think about this now, as there are some clear and simple ways to use these new customer service channels to great effect.”

Here comes gamification

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:30:17 +0000

By 2020, there will have been significant advances in the adoption and use of gamification, according to more than half of some 1,000 technology stakeholders and critics surveyed by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University.

They believe it will be making waves on the communications scene and will have been implemented in many new ways for education, health, work, and other aspects of human connection. It will also play a role in the everyday activities of many people who are actively using communications networks in their daily lives.

“Gamification may be the most important social and commercial development of the next 50 years,” says Ross Rader, general manager at Hover and board member of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. “Commercially, we may be seeing the end of the marketing orientation, possibly marking the beginning of the ‘game orientation.’”