Make mine an iPint

 engagement marketing, iphone, Manifesto, mobile  No Responses »
Oct 152008
 
even wetter than the real thing?

even wetter than the real thing?

As the sun passes the yard arm and my thoughts (already?) start turning to what I might be consuming down the pub this evening, I was entertained to read that the iPint app on the iPhone (developed by a UK agency to promote Carling’s particular brew) is now the subject of a lawsuit from the US developers of a notably similar looking app called, er, iBeer.

I’ve never really seen why someone would pay $2.99 to get iBeer, personally, but I loved the creativity involved in Carling’s use of a similar looking but functionally different (yes, apparently, that’s the truth) app as one of the first ‘advertising’ uses of an iPhone app. A simply great piece of engagement marketing.

I wonder how much extra mileage all parties will get out of any ensuing PR coverage?

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 Posted by Sandlines at 12:25  Tagged with: , , ,

Today the newspaper made me laugh

 recession, sidelines  No Responses »
Oct 142008
 

Things must be getting better – or at least, further to my post last week – the media are beginning to run out of black ink, so the heavy borders round the front pages are on the ebb at last.

Anyway, I saw this in the Times, under the heading “You’ve got to laugh”. I’ll quote directly:

How markets work

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 Posted by Sandlines at 16:44

iPhone already market leader for eBooks?

 ebooks, iphone, smartphones  3 Responses »
Oct 132008
 

Over at Forbes.com, speculation has been raised that the iPhone already has a larger number of ebook readers (people that is, not apps) than Amazon has sold Kindles… this is based on 390,000 downloads of an app called Stanza.

cover flow on your bookshelf?

cover flow on your bookshelf?

Interestingly, this far outpaces the eReader software I’ve been using. I can’t see figures for it, but I believe the number to be around 1/3 of that CORRECTION: about the same (see comment below). I suspect this difference in take-up relates to the choice of ‘free’ books available on Stanza rather than offering access to a paid-for store with a broader range of titles. I will watch with interest to find out if the 390,000 who have tried Stanza stick around with it.

What it certainly reinforces for me is that, as discussed earlier on Sandlines, the future of ebooks is with devices you already carry, not new stand alone devices.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 11:49  Tagged with: , , , ,

Yahoo!: fast follower? Hmm.

 engagement marketing  No Responses »
Oct 102008
 
Yahoo!

Yahoo!: What does fast mean?

When I worked at Yahoo! during the bubble burst of 2002/3, there was much made of the outward positioning of the company as an innovator. Privately, however, key personnel would declare that, while Yahoo! was crammed with innovation (blah, blah… but defensible then), it was just as valuable to be a fast follower.

I agree.

So when I read this story over on ClickZ just now I had to go to dictionary.com and check out the definition of ‘fast’. Turns out ‘fast’ can also mean “…held or caught firmly, so as to be unable to escape or be extricated.”

I wonder if that’s what they meant… It’s certainly how they’ve looked to me this past year or two.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 11:10  Tagged with: , ,

Digital marketing is the ark in 2008′s flood of doom

 email, engagement marketing, Manifesto, recession  1 Response »
Oct 092008
 

Curiously, the media this morning seems to have had a bit of a change of tone. I’m seeing positive (comparatively) comments in a number of places that have become more doom laden than a Joy Division sountrack to an Ingmar Bergman film.

The Times are telling us that markets are responding positively to yesterday’s government and central bank announcements. House prices are falling slower than (month on month) than any other time this year (!). Even the Daily Mail is getting in on the act, with a real tabloid lead of “Phew! Shares bounce back…” before dissolving into another attack on the government. Even so!

My favourite though is from The Sun – classic red-top reporting:

Simply FAB Darling

The Sun: Simply FAB Darling

It’s good to see the press recapturing a bit of a sense of fun. Maybe, just maybe, things are on the up and up.

I’ve spent the week at a couple of event – Silverpop’s customer conference and the launch of a new product, Vtrenz – talking to people in the digital business. I’ve been struck how the mood has been distinctly lacking in despondency about business and it’s prospects.

Some business types have been decidedly upbeat: a holiday company who are racing to keep up with demand; a high end bank who are seeing people having to put in desperately long hours to keep pace with the (profitable) trading they’re engaged in.

It’s true that growth is forecast to be somewhat slower than the heady days of the mid 2000s, but digital marketing spend is hot on the heels of Press and TV spending. And, according to Rebecca Jennings of Forrester when I spoke to her yesterday, there is every sign that it will continue to grow.

My instinct was to ask whether that was just Search marketing, but no, it turns out that her surveys said that spend would increase for Search, Display advertising, Email… even Web 2.0/Social Networking, which I might have thought susceptible to budget cuts as its ROI is still being proven. Only mobile appears to be showing a modest retraction.

To my delight she was championing the idea of measurement past the transactional level, on to the longer term customer value metrics I’ve long espoused.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 15:26  Tagged with: , , ,

Yesterday’s Twitters are tomorrow’s fish ‘n’ chip virtual paper

 iphone, sidelines  2 Responses »
Oct 082008
 
Twitterific

Maybe the whole point of twitter is that it is time-sensitive. If you feel that strongly, stop reading now.

But a colleague of mine was twittering from a conference that my company, Silverpop, staged yesterday in London. He was using his pet iPhone for the task.

Apart from showing some of the things that I’m professionally interested in, I was curious about how the twitters worked to develop a historic record of how the event worked. I’d love to hear any feedback!

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 Posted by Sandlines at 11:50  Tagged with: , , ,

Puppies on a roll?

 email, engagement marketing  1 Response »
Oct 072008
 
Andrexs 35% market share has put it at No 1 for 40 years

Andrex's 35% market share has put it at No 1 for 40 years

Over at MediaPost’s Email Insider, David Baker (a bit of a guru in the email industry across the pond) has written an interesting piece under the heading ‘Brand Connections’. One question he poses is whether digital marketing should be made to fit all client requirements. In doing so he recalls a colourful anecdote around a brainstorming session to create a digital strategy for toilet paper.

You’ll need to log on to read the story (which I recommend), but his point is that we shouldn’t try too hard to make things fit the medium, and he identifies four ‘values’ of email:

  • functional value
  • promotional value
  • social value
  • informational value

I’m not going to argue the toss on these: I broadly agree, particularly as far as email is concerned… while always reinforcing that the value is from the recipient’s perspective rather than the marketer’s.

However, I feel a crucial point has been omitted: in considering how ridiculously difficult it was to successfully brainstorm a digital agenda for toilet paper, the team’s response was to say “OK, let’s skip it.”

Fair enough: I’d rather that than some of the tenuous connections I have seen over the years.

But surely the creative team who came up with the sickeningly successful Andrex Puppies all those years ago (1972!) in old fashioned ad land faced the same problem – and the same tittering responses in their brainstorms. The puppies solved the brand problem at a sweep, leaving competitors with a really tough act to follow.

There are some compelling examples of similar creative genius online – but probably more offline. Not that surprising. But, if you’re interested in building brand connections, the medium you choose is certainly very important… but a big idea is far more the point.

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 Posted by Sandlines at 12:48  Tagged with: , , , ,

I didn’t realise the google phone was THAT heavy

 mobile, sidelines  3 Responses »
Oct 072008
 

I noticed a review last night of the T-Mobile G1, the first Google Android phone, in online magazine iGIZMO. I was alarmed when clicking on the ‘details’ icon (the little red “i” bottom left) to learn that the G1 is even more hefty that at first I’d thought… according to the reviewer it weighs 1.58kg. Makes my old XDA Exec look positively lean and mean.

Shurely shome mishtake?

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 Posted by Sandlines at 10:41  Tagged with: , , , ,

Nokia “Comes With Music” but not a network…

 DRM, mobile, mp3, music  No Responses »
Oct 032008
 
... just not direct to a mobile network

... just not direct to a mobile network

So Nokia has failed to persuade the mobile networks to stock it’s “Comes With Music” phones, notably the

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 Posted by Sandlines at 16:55  Tagged with: , , ,
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