TRACTA :: 4eyes

OK, it’s a bit late.  But the wait will be worth it!

NZ News

Reader’s Digest have released their list of NZ’s Most Trusted Brands.  No real surprises, but interesting to see Sony top both the electronics and computers categories (not Apple, Microsoft, Google or HP).

Air NZ did well, ranking as our most trusted travel company. Their clear commitment to offering additional value to their customers – evidenced by Grabaseat, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter presences and ongoing promotions locally and internationally – results in customers feeling they have a closer relationship with Air NZ than they do with most other brands.

Now Air NZ are taking their digital social connection strategy a step further, with the launch of their FourSquare account.  What’s FourSquare?  The news item on Stoppress gives a good synopsis of what it is and what it’s for.  If you think it’s a bit geeky, I’d say you’re right, but remember:

(a) that’s what we thought about Facebook at first; and

(b) the geeks will inherit the earth!

In other news… TradeMe Jobs has reported its highest level of visitors ever for the month of May.  Is that down to the success of their “On The Job” ad campaign, or is it more closely linked with the fact that over half the population may be unhappy in their jobs?

And finally, while speculation has been rife that TVNZ were to further dumb down their news service by reducing staff numbers, they have assuaged our fears. Although it sounds like the journalists will now be spending more time editing and supplying stories than they will researching and collecting news?

International News

Probably unsurprisingly for a lot of you, an American study has shown that more than a third of women aged 18-34 are “addicted” to Facebook.   34% say checking Facebook is the first thing they do in the morning, even before their morning ablutions.

In other online news, an upcoming report on the effectiveness of banner advertising is expected to show that banners complement offline and search activity, despite some pundits predicting “the death of banners”.

YouTube has announced a couple of new initiatives recently, the most groundbreaking being Leanback.  It’s a new interface for YouTube that is designed to be accessed by remote control (rather than mouse and keyboard) and is easier to use at a distance… allowing easier access to YouTube content through an internet-enabled television set.

YouTube are also on the hunt for footage of A Day In The Life from around the world, to be combined into a documentary produced and directed by top Hollywood talent and screened at Sundance.  (Sponsored by LG who’s tagline is Life’s Good).

But despite all the innovation, developments and increasing engagement, the internet is completely over. So says hasbeen music superstar Prince.  And he’s always been so in touch with reality! (as you can see from the album cover, right).  Don’t you hate it when you realise someone you thought was kinda cool is just… well… old?

Cheers,

Have you used a Google service today?  Whether it’s the search engine, G-Mail, maps, books, youtube, ad networks, picasa, mobile software or the chrome browser, chances are that you have.  Since the brand became a verb, Google has continued to grow, acquire competitors and push the boundaries of what is possible, and acceptable, in terms of online marketing.  Their unofficial motto is “Don’t be evil”, which given the amount of information they now have about search habits, web and mail usage, is a pretty low benchmark to achieve in terms of protecting users’ privacy.

Now Google has admitted that when they were driving their Street View camera cars around, they were also collecting information about wireless internet usage from the houses (and presumably businesses) they were photographing.  Authorities see this as a potential serious invasion of privacy, and Google hasn’t yet said what information they collected or, more importantly, what they intend to do with it.  Google isn’t a stranger to court cases, and I’m sure this won’t spell the end of Google Inc, but it may seriously dent the trust that users have in using their services.

Meanwhile, Google is continuing to innovate, entertain and engage with their audiences.  The search home page currently includes a link to Google’s World Cup section.  They have also run a Google Doodle competition to support the World Cup (NZ finalists here and our winner here).  Ensuring warm fuzzies around the Google brand.  If those warm fuzzies get you wanting to be closer to the brand, here’s your opportunity, with everything from Google cricket sets to Google pens to Google lava lamps available for purchase.  And apparently, due to caffeine, Google’s search powers are greater than ever.  Is that why coffee prices are rising so much?!?

Tune in next week for more Google news. Same Google time, same Google channel.

Cheers

Social media. Heard of it?  Use it personally?  Professionally???

While recommendations from Social Media sites are still not as well regarded as true word-of-mouth from friends or family, social media channels are an important means of connecting with current and potential customers.  The common rule of “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket” still applies, so social media should not be seen as THE solution to all marketing problems, but should definitely be part of the mix.  And not just for da yoof, as Facebook is experiencing biggest growth amongst the 50+ age group. 

Pepsi are taking this on board, as they commit more to social media conversation and interaction with their customers, rather than just shouting messages.  They have even gone so far as not placing an ad in the Superbowl this year (the first time in 25 years), reasoning they get better return on investment from alternative media.

Here are some tips on effective use of video marketing for small-medium businesses.  Of course it includes social media distribution!  I hope we all know this already, but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce the basics!

So how will you access your favourite social media sites in 2011?  Desktop, laptop, netbook, smartphone, game console, television?  What about a games console/smartphone in one?  There are whispers that Sony is planning to launch a Playstation smartphone sometime in 2010.  Where will it end?  And when can I get my hologram-video-phone-watch like they have in the movies?!

In more local news, TVNZ have made a couple of announcements recently.  Reservoir Hill - TVNZ’s first online-only, interactive programme for teens – has been nominated for a Digital Emmy.  That’s the real deal, so they can be very proud of themselves.  It’s not often NZ-produced TV gets awarded anything!

TVNZ today also announced they will be launching a new channel on Sky.  It will be available as part of the Sky start-up package, and will be called TVNZ Heartland.  Content will be entirely NZ-made, sourced from TVNZ Archives.

My picks for programming: A Dog’s Show, Country Calendar, maybe University Challenge and Krypton Factor?  It will be a challenge to present “old” content that is relevant and not just reminiscing, but they say they are aiming for a 40-64 year old demographic, so perhaps reminiscing is the way to go.  The channel will carry advertising: TVNZ say they are in the process of approaching selected advertisers for exclusive agreements with the channel.  Read TVNZ’s report and see an interview with John Fellet (Sky TV) and Rick Ellis (TVNZ) here.

Ads of the week

Two more outdoor executions that utilise the environment to carry the message.

Painting the town red… and blue and pink and yellow and green…

Clever, but I don’t know about walking through in a white shirt…

Cheerio!

As we March on through the year (geddit?) I realise there’s a need for entertainment as well as education in these posts.  So here goes.           I hope there’s something in here that tickles your… well, whatever you like to have tickled. Careful though, you might learn something!

Email marketing: how to ensure your message gets read.  The Marketing Association show they know how to utilise word of mouth.

Are you on Twitter?  Are you going to be away from home?  Probably not a good idea to post that information until you’re back, with sites like this one around.  It’s supposed to be raising awareness of the issue, but isn’t it doing that by inciting crime?!?

Some helpful advice from Stuff.co.nz on Facebook etiquette.  I initially thought this was a dumb idea for a news story, but in fact it raises interesting questions, especially within small industries in a small country like NZ!

For our design friends… Photoshop has just celebrated its 20th birthday.  See their reminisces and celebrations here!

The AXIS Awards… CAANZs’s’ celebration of those who are willing to pay to enter and pay to attend a back-slapping ceremony (no cynicism here).  They have however created one of the most addictive online games I’ve seen in a long time, to help generate agency enthusiasm for the event.  I just wonder if it’s original??

Amongst the media maelstrom that is the Olympic Games, I came across this Facebook Fan page.  Apparently Facebook took it down because it wasn’t actually a product, organisation or charity.  But under pressure they’ve put it back up.  Love those pants!!

And finally, can anyone tell me why cultural groups (and the NZRFU) may have been offended by this Coke ad from Japan?

Cheers,

Welcome to another Four Eyes Friday!  Today I’m attempting to show what might happen to media consumption in NZ in the near future, following trends in the US and taking into account the plethora of developments happening at Google.  It might look like I’m a Google-freak, but Google are at the forefront of a lot of technology and if they’re not, well they’ll just but the company that is!

First up though, internet on the TV.  It’s been talked about for a long time, and the new TiVO offering in NZ allows subscribers some online access, but nothing like what HDTV can now do in well-connected countries like the USA – as evidenced by this ad for a Vizio TV (screened during the Superbowl).  And from this news of Tetris being available through satellite TV, it may not be long until you’ll be able to do on your TV, everything you now do on your PC (or Mac!).

So, what’s Google up to? First up, this week they launched BUZZ - a social networking application attached to G-Mail.  In essence it looks very similar to Facebook, as it allows users to share status updates, photos, videos, etc.  The main difference from Facebook is that it integrates directly with G-Mail (setting up friends lists from a G-Mail contacts list) and draws in content from other (Google-owned or affiliated) social sites – Flickr, Picasa, Twitter and more.  And of course, there’s a mobile app too!

Official Google introduction video (scroll down).  Detailed rundown on the launch.

So what’s coming next?  Google’s recent patent filings indicate that software to improve ad targeting (geographic, content-based and behavioural) and delivery across multiple media will be a big part of Google’s plans.  It sounds like Street View could be used as a virtual mall, with retailers paying for ads on their own buildings.  Google loves patents.  Last year they even managed to patent their (admittedly iconic) homepage design!

Google are also talking about technology that automatically translates phone calls between two people speaking different languages.  Sounds great, but translation can be a tricky business, as Google themselves have found in the past.

And to finish, if you’d like to picture yourself skidding down an Olympic ski-run Google has even made that easier, with StreetView imaging of the Winter Olympics venues. Quite cool!

Googled out?  I think I am.  I’ll catch you next week!

Google = New World Order?

This year’s Superbowl Sunday, when the New Orleans Saints won their first ever NFL title, garnered the highest average audience for any television programme ever in America.  Within about 3.5 hours of game time, there were nearly 48 minutes of ads, which went for around $3million per 30-second spot.

You can see all of the ads here, thanks to YouTube aggregating them all together (superbowl ads are potentially talked about more than the game itself). This may even have been a deal with the broadcast network CBS, as you’ll see their programme promos also feature within YouTube’s selection. Direct links to the most popular ads:

Snickers Doritos Bud Light Budweiser And my favourite   Google

But it’s not all about TV ads this week, and it’s not all about America either.  Here are three examples of taking a campaign idea and extending it, to take advantage of the media environment and generate true consumer interaction.

We start with a simple, but striking, billboard execution from Kenya.  We have seen this before, carrying a billboard execution outside the boundaries of the 6×3 to make it fit with its environment/placement.  High concept but not high cost!

This (high concept, high cost) tactical project for Nokia in the UK takes billboard advertising to the next level.  I’ll let the video tell the story!

Another video, this time explaining how DDB put together an interactive (TV, radio, web) campaign for NZ Coastguard.  I’m not entirely sure if it reached the core target audience of irresponsible boaties, but hopefully the coverage will have resulted in a bit of financial support for the Coastguard.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this (and not wasted too much time or bandwith!!).  Would you like to see more creative ad executions from Four Eyes?  Do you have any favourite ads you’d like to share? Let me know with a comment below.

OK this might be a bit late, but better late than never, eh?!  To those of you that have been hanging out since Friday, eagerly awaiting your weekly fix of Internet Information, I sincerely apologise.  Apologies, though, are a little harder to come by in the world of advertising and social media.  Over the last couple of weeks I’ve heard about a few instances where an apology could be in order…

Not content with just posting a comment on Twitter, a “jilted mistress” paid what must have been tens of thousands of dollars to place huge billboards across the US telling everyone about their affair.  Probably not the sort of publicity the guy is after, since he’s co-president of Oracle and is on Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board!

And in “watch what you say online – you never know who is watching” news:

A comment on a Yahoo community message board was picked up by mainstream media, and turned into a scandal! The community had a bit to say about it too…

And see how this social media fail got picked up by Stoppress marketing website, generating a whole new lot of comments for Waiwera Water.  Not many of them positive!  Learning: honesty in social media is fine, arrogance is not. Nice to see that Waiwera did say sorry in the end though!

It all goes to show that there is no such thing as privacy on the mighty interweb.  The amount of information being shared, often without users’ explicit consent, is causing governments to look at whether privacy laws are being violated, potentially opening up a whole new can of worms for social media operators.  However in Australia, the reverse is happening.  The government is preparing to control what their population can access online.  How will this impact on user privacy?  And freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of belief?

According to a SMH Online Poll, Australian internet users aren’t keen:

Internet censorship : What do you think of Senator Conroy’s plan to filter the internet?

Yes, I think it’s a good idea – 2%
No, it impinges on my freedom – 96%
Not sure, it sounds good in theory – 2%
I don’ t understand it – 1%

So that was a pretty serious Four Eyes!  Tune in later this week (should be back on track for Friday!) for more of your favourite news, gossip and speculation.  Coming up in the next issue… the iPad.  Hot or not?  And what about the name?!?

Catch ya then!

WELCOME to the first Four Eyes for 2010.

It’s a pleasure to still be here and a pleasure to continue to bring you, my loyal readers, more of the ins and outs of the media and online world.

It’s gonna be a big year, so let’s crack straight into it!

Since it’s the holiday season, let’s take a look at what’s happening in the Tourism Industry… It is clear that just running ads isn’t enough to truly engage with today’s highly involved and highly connected holidaymakers.  Word of mouth has always been a powerful tool for promoting holiday destinations (how many best kept secrets can one country have?!) but with Social Media, word of mouth recommendations can come from complete strangers.

As Jasons Travel Media recently found out, 91% of holidaymakers research their destination online, and 65% read online reviews of accommodation and activities.  So how will our regions spend the money the Government has allocated to regional tourism marketing?  A one-week, broad-reach, everything-to-everyone ad campaign, or an ongoing campaign of engagement and interaction with qualified prospects?

Here are a couple of examples of NZ towns taking promotions to the next level… you have probably seen the Tourism Paeroa campaign (so tongue in cheek I’m surprised they can talk at all), but have you heard about the promotion coming out of Cambridge, raising the profile of the Waipa district and raising funds for a new community centre?  Giving away a million dollar house is always effective!

For those of you who haven’t been able to have a holiday, remember you can visit almost anywhere in the world – virtually – with Google Earth, Maps and StreetView.  Some people have too much time on their hands, and have found the unfindable… Top Gear’s “The Stig” (seen in a BBC building) and yes… Wally!  That’s where he was!

Finally, this “technical problem” shows that even in the age of Web 3.0, broadband cellphones and live streaming HDTV, things can still go wrong.  Can anyone tell me what that thing is, that Mr Bowden is frantically pressing buttons on?

Iain’s Interesting Internet Information wishes you a nice weekend!

Ho ho ho Merry Christmas!  This will be the last Four Eyes post for 2009.  Bring on 2010!  As is the norm with Christmas-time (TV schedules, newspaper content, etc) I’m going to keep this relatively light-hearted and low on substance.  Noone wants to work hard in the lead up to Christmas!

Maybe informative

There’s this guy in Poland who is redefining the look and feel of newspapers, and actually increasing circulations.  This is how he did it.  (6min video, the best bits are from 2:30-5:00).  How can this new thinking be applied to advertising?

Firms who kept up marketing during the recession are now ahead of the game.  Well, duh!  But this is an expert analysis.

Stats show that despite the popularity of social media, email is still the preferred tool for sharing online content.  And the humble email isn’t just about text any more, with the advent of technology that can embed LIVE streaming video into emails.

Somewhat interesting

Internet monitoring allows us to see at a glance the ups and downs of a brand/personality/issue.  From Google’s Zeitgeist to Nielsen’s Buzzmetrics (online perceptions of John Key and Bill English here) to measures of Tiger Woods’ “celebrity score” (he’s more well-known than ever, but not as liked, surprisingly), if you want to know what the masses are thinking then the internet is the place to look!

The Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen has made that a hot topic recently and it has been interesting to see the approach taken in advertising to encourage consumers to change their behaviour.  Social marketing in New Zealand has typically used scare tactics, but these examples use humour to get the message across.  In Brazil, they want people to pee in the shower.  And in Britain it’s as simple as turning the lights off.

Purely entertaining

I just discovered yesterday that Google Earth has a cool, free feature.  You can turn it into a flight simulator and fly around the real world.  I crashed several planes into Wellington yesterday!  Instructions are here.  Have fun!

Have a four eyes christmas, don’t go swimming with sunglasses on, and see you all back in 2010!

Phew!  Next week it will be December.  Christmas is coming, the sun is shining and we’re all busy as really busy things, so I’ll keep this short and sweet.

In fact, I’m going to keep this post clear of any “hard” news.  Nothing Googley, nothing statisticy, this is pure entertainment.  But be warned – you may learn something too!

In New Zealand…

Did you know that some courier companies are offering advertising on their fleet vehicles?  As they have dozens of cars doing hundreds of kilometres around urban centres, TelstraClear saw this as an opportunity to promote their Business Network in Auckland.

Want to know what’s going to be on TV in March 2010?  TVNZ have released their New Season 2010 programming and schedules – all the links are here.

Want to know what TV people have been complaining about in 2009?  It’s all here.

Around the World…

How to integrate outdoor, PR, online and viral activity to sell 337% more chowder.  Clever, well executed and successful!

According to Guiness World Records, this is the most viewed online ad in the world.  Cute eh?

Sorry, I couldn’t do it.  Again!  I couldn’t do a whole post without a reference to Google Almighty. Sometimes their algorithms throw up results they’re not proud of, and they have to apologise.  However when I read this article and clicked on the “see the search results here” link I didn’t see the image in question, BUT Google kindly suggested a separate search for me!  And then they’ll apologise for it!

That’s the weird world wide web wrapped up for another week.  Have a good one!