TRACTA :: 4eyes

This week Four Eyes presents the usual wrap up of advertising and online news from around the traps, along with my favourite ad of the week (if not the year!).

It’s still all about Twitter!  Somewhat unsurprisingly, a recent study has found that Twitter is used more often on mobile devices than any other social network.  Given that when Twitter launched a big part of its appeal was its mobility, it’s really a no brainer!  It is also becoming increasingly evident that Twitter is giving fans of TV programmes, movies, music, etc a means to share their passion.  Perhaps a new measurement of engagement with TV programmes could be the amount of Twitter traffic, as shown in this article about Tweets following Hey Hey Its Saturday.  And this article says how negative Twitter comments substantially affected Bruno’s ticket sales.  The democratisation of marketing is upon us.  Advertising won’t make a difference if people don’t like the product!  Don’t try to go behind the backs of your customers (as Nestle have learned) but if people are saying good things about you – promote that!  NZ Tourism should be using these comments to market to Australians…

Cool ads.  Google consistently raises the bar with their logo (or Google Doodles) that change out to represent special days.  The one on the left was for the anniversary of the invention of the barcode.  If you scan it, it actually reads “Google”.  Clever eh?

In other entertaining and innovative ad campaigns, Coke Zero has launched a technologically innovative programme to “find your double” through Facebook, Orcon internet has a multimedia campaign offering the chance to help Iggy Pop record a single and TSB used a prime ad space to respond to Westpac’s issues with the IRD.

But my favourite ad of the week, month and maybe the year is an anti-ad for Kettle Chips from Australia.

Finally, whoever can tell me why so many men are searching for “snow caves” on TradeMe will win a chocolate fish!

Enjoy your weekend!

Prime TV is now available on Freeview.

Expect this to have an impact on Freeview’s subscription numbers over the next few months.  And expect Prime’s ratings to improve (slightly) as a result.  Prime is the one Free-to-Air channel that a number of consumers still can’t receive with standard UHF reception, so its inclusion in Freeview gives consumers a chance to access their programming.

The expected increase in Freeview subscribers will also bring us closer to the 75% penetration of Digital TV required before the government switches off analogue TV altogether.  The switch-off won’t be all plain sailing though… what to do with the 25% of the population who won’t have Digital at switch-off time, and what about regional channels?

Regional channels outside of main centres face uncertain future under Digital

How do you watch TV?  Do you use Freeview, Sky, analogue, online or a combination?  Comments can be posted below (you will need to log in).

Cheers!

Can you believe it’s August already?  That means there are only 146 days left in the year.  Can you fit everything in???

This week Mobile and Social have been the buzzwords in online marketing (again!), as technogeeks ponder “what will be the next big thing”?

Facebook goes fully mobile, heading on to Google-driven phones

Sprint Mobile (USA) launches “Green Phone”

Tumblr = the new Twitter?  (Why do websites exclude the “e” from their names?  Flickr, Tumblr, etc??)

Twitter may not last if they can’t keep up their security and reduce “downtime”

2Degrees has used Facebook well to connect with new customers: they have 20,000 fans engaging with their brand

Facebook is now the Fourth Largest Website In The World (Moro should take note)

Following on from last week’s post about Paying for content and the growing divide in media accessability, here are some more stories that prove the point.

Rupert Murdoch reckons his content will be good enough that users will pay for it

Consumers are paying for content – in fact they are consuming more paid (books, cable, music) media than ad-supported (newspapers, magazines, free-to-air TV)

And they are even paying for virtual goods (i.e. things that don’t really exist!)

Do you Google?  Should you go Google?  Google’s campaign to promote their Applications (in direct competition with Microsoft Office, etc).

Campaign preview

Same again, with some market information.  Did we mention that Google is BIG?

Feel free to comment on this or any of my Blog posts.  A comment from last week asked for more funny stuff… a new post is coming soon!

Cheers,