“This is the year of the mobile”

How many times have you read that statement over recent years? Ever since the I-Phone launched over a year ago and the Android platform was a mere rumour, marketers have been claiming that the mobile movement is about to erupt.

There are more mobiles in Ireland then people, yet there seems to be scepticism to mobile marketing, similar to that felt towards online marketing. A lack of knowledge, a fear that it is a fad and the ever looming recession stop many brands investing in these new media.

The need to occasionally sell online marketing to brands, that still don’t fully understand its value, is mystifying. However, it is more then obvious that the US and UK are spending more of their marketing budgets online than on television or radio.

Although marketing directors are increasingly investing more money online, mobile marketing has found itself in this similar position. Arguably the brands that have been most successful online are the brands that invested it in from the start. The early adopters, or more appropriately investors have reaped the benefits in the long run.

The RTE I-Phone application was released a month ago and it is already amongst the most popular applications in Ireland. This application allows you access to RTE News 24/7 with live streams available if you are in a wireless area. This type of brand interaction is not available in any other medium.

Marketers are now penetrating the one device that consumers carry with them day and night. O2 have benefited from a constant advertising position on the RTE application. They too have applications allowing you to engage with their product offerings, such as Treats and your O2 account. An application is something consumers use to gain information or be entertained. It is similar to an effective online campaign in that users opt in to engage with it.

With the movement to geo-marketing through handsets coming ever closer, the time to invest in mobile is now.

You leave your home. Turn on your phone. Get into work and turn on your computer. Sign into a social network.

What’s increasingly likely is you turn on your smart phone when you leave your home and sign in to your favourite social networking application straight away.

So are you actively promoting the fact that you are not in your house?

Please Rob Me is a website that was set up to promote the awareness of careful social networking. The website describes the problems with location based social media sites.

“The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the Internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have ‘friends’ who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the Internet.. Now you know what to do when people reach for their phone as soon as they enter your home. That’s right, slap them across the face.”

They even go as far as to highlight ‘opportunities’ for potential thieves. These opportunities are live tweets from people having ‘Checked in’ on Foursquare away from their home.

Although the site makes a valid point, the reality is that we just have to be careful with our privacy settings. This is something that is highlighted again and again with regards to social media. The importance of privacy settings and understanding what and who can gain access to your information is a much broader problem. However, when you are engaging with social media so regularly and actively, it is something all users must be aware of.

Does this spell the end of location based applications? Absolutely not. Location based applications can be extremely beneficial to users. They are also a significant opportunity for marketers allowing brands to geo-target consumers. Soon, we will be walking down Grafton Street receiving offers from the brands we want to communicate with.

Please Rob Me have done brilliantly to raise the awareness of being careful online. Something we at Radical, blogged about recently. There is, however no doubt that certain people wont be careful, adding ‘1 new opportunity’ for thieves in Ireland.

Visit Please Rob Me.

See the Coverage that his site has been getting.

]]> http://www.radical.ie/blog/2010/02/26/157-new-opportunities-please-rob-me/feed/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2010/02/09/safe-internet-day-2010/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2010/02/09/safe-internet-day-2010/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:26:53 +0000 Emer Lawn http://www.radical.ie/blog/?p=341 Well, who knew so much was going on this 9th of February 2010. In addition to being 09.02.10 day (for all you California-lovin’ David Austin Green Fans), it is also the date that marks Safer Internet Day 2010; this year’s theme of which is “Think B4 U Post.”

Organised by Insafe, Radical agree that its an important message to share, especially as we become more and more comfortable sharing our information within the social spaces that help us communicate on a daily basis.

Agata (here in Radical) found all we needed to know on the InSafe site, so we just thought we’d share it with you!

Safer Internet Day 2010 - All the Info!

]]> http://www.radical.ie/blog/2010/02/09/safe-internet-day-2010/feed/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2010/01/13/online-marketing-2010/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2010/01/13/online-marketing-2010/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 15:53:06 +0000 Emer Lawn http://www.radical.ie/blog/?p=334 I’m sure we all must remember when we were afraid of the year 2000, let alone the next decade. While it’s flown by, the growth in our space is exemplary of how much has happened. Consider online marketing ten years ago or lack thereof; and now (even in Ireland) brands and businesses are investing more and more in Online media, whether it be in search marketing, display advertising, or social media marketing; because it’s a measurable and low-cost option to achieve results.

So on that note, what are the experts saying we can look forward to in the new decade? We’ve rounded up a few snippets for 2010…

eMarketer gives us an overview of their predictions for the UK; which we can of course take learnings from in Ireland. Karin von Abrams writes that…

• While more and more people continue to shop online, e-commerce margins will continue to drop due to the increase in consumer demand for better deals.
• She said that mobile had its “first genuine year” in 2009; and that this will only continue in 2010 due to the number of providers of the iPhone opening up. Tesco selling the iPhone in 2010 is going to “shake up the market” she says. Hmm…
• She also outlines how more publishers of premium content will be tempted to charge for the information, following Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. as a way to monetise the continued shift of users from traditional media online. Will you pay?

Trendwatching.com outlines “10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010” that we’ll need to consider online. They emphasise their trends list to be all about the consumer; and not about the market in general. Right, so what do they say…well, here are the top 10:

• Business as Unusual – Societal changes that we’re experiences were set in motion long before the recession. Things are different, we must adapt.
• Urbany – “Extreme urbanisation” in the upcoming years, leading to more sophisticated and demanding customers. This may not be as quick to happen in Ireland; but still relevant over the coming years.
• Real-time Reviews – Whatever you do will be reviewed…in real time.
• (F)luxury – Luxury will be whatever we want it to be, not what was traditional associated to those that can afford it. We are already seeing this happen as we adjust are consumer behaviours as to not seem “uncool” in recessionary times.
• Mass Mingling – Online lifestyles encouraging “mass meetups.” The emergence of Foursquare might help us do that here in Ireland.
• Eco-Easy – We have to make it easier for consumers to be eco-friendly.
• Tracking & Alerting – The new search allows consumers to have more control over the content they consume on the web.
• Embedded Generosity – Making giving and donating painless for the consumer. I sense a trend here…
• Profile Myning – The internet and social web has been around for long enough now that there’s a good amount of information about most brands and business areas on the web, so now’s the time to start mining that information to gain insights which can be built upon.
• Maturialism – Online will bring us an “even more opinionated, risqué, outspoken, if not ‘raw’” environment, since we know that almost anything goes in that space.

We were a big fan of this list; because there are lessons to be learned across all media. Points taken into the New Year…

And while it’s not his predictions for the next decade, Seth Godin’s wisdom is always welcome when we’re thinking about the future of online. His New Year’s Day post discusses how the last decade was full of opportunity for everyone, with our lives transformed forever. While we’re still a bit slower than other markets, Irish men and women have also experiences huge change in daily life because of the internet.

Seth asks us to not plan too far ahead this time; but to think about where you want to be in seven years (rather than ten). So do you want to be a brand leader in the social media space, have an active and engaged community of followers online, a new websites that drives more conversions, or simply learn how to best invest in online; then now’s the time to set those goals in sight.

Look forward to reading, speaking, and working with you all in the New Year. Sláinte to 2010!

A key consideration for using Facebook in a social media strategy, is to allow consumers to engage with your content without ever taking them away from the positive user experience they have on the site. With that, Facebook Connect allows us to enhance the experience users have on our own site by bringing in pieces of their relationships within Facebook; and again, they don’t have to leave your website. It seems the ideal solution.

Officially, Facebook defines the services as “Facebook Connect has many features to help you drive traffic, increase engagement, and grow revenue on your website or application.” They outline what all that means in their official overview of the Facebook Connect benefits here. The crucial benefit Radical observes from this, is the ability to see a greater influence of Facebook on your social media revenue. A blog by Ken Barbary, written in August ’09, goes through his reasons why companies should use Facebook Connect; and one of them is increase conversion. One of the examples he highlights is CBInsider.com, with over 85% of new user registrations happening because of Facebook Connect.

The examples show the real power of this capability that a lot of us in Ireland have yet to adopt. At the Simply Zesty Winter Camp the week before last, Gail Power of Facebook walked through where Facebook Ireland stands today; and Facebook Connect was outlined by one of the better known examples: CNN’s coverage of the Obama inauguration and its integration on site with Facebook Connect. Gail said her experience of the event was enhance because while she watched the event live online, she was able to view comments not only from people that shared her interest; but from her real friends. This takes user engagement to a whole new level.

Radical are increasingly looking to make websites more “social” in addition to making brands and organisations active on the social networks. And in order to do this, we must not ignore the fact that people have already developed their persona in larger social networks like Facebook. The point being that “everyone is on Facebook.” Or according to Facebook Ireland, 1 in 4 people are! So sometimes trying to create a new community on your own website is not feasible; and this is why Facebook Connect is so powerful.

I myself might try out the Facebook Connect Wordpress plugin, that is outlined on the Sociable! Blog. And for the Radicalers, we might consider using Facebook Connect to develop our internal social media communication, the way Tac from New Comm Biz discusses it on his blog.

]]> http://www.radical.ie/blog/2009/12/16/facebook-connect-ireland/feed/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2009/11/26/golden-spiders-2009another-great-radical-night-out/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2009/11/26/golden-spiders-2009another-great-radical-night-out/#comments Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:43:29 +0000 davepower http://www.radical.ie/blog/?p=320 Golden Spiders

From the second Risteard Cooper began the night with a song about Irelands unfortunate World Cup exit, the night was underway. Risteard was covering for Des Bishop after late notice, as Des had to fly to America for family reasons. Risteard was a very entertaining host considering the somewhat extensive awards ceremony.

A Ferrai in the lobby of the Burlington greeted guests to promote the up coming Top Gear show, as we were ushered into a wine reception to get our bearings. The Spiders continues to be fantastic place to socialise with an endless number of people that you deal within the online marketing industry.

As we tweeted from our table,  the wine flowed and the winners celebrated. We were cheering on our own Julian Lynch as he presented Martin O’Leary the award for best financial services website.

Here is a list of all the winners.

We would like to say particular congratulations to:

Best Financial Services Website – RaboDirect

Best use of Film, Digital Animation or Motion Graphic – Discover Ireland

Best Interactive Marketing Campaign – O2

The big winners of the night were Muzu TV who won the Grand Prix award. They have had a fantastic year and fully deserve the accolade. The evening drew to close by the bar over a few ‘shandy’s’ where the Radical team enjoyed the company of our many industry collegues.

A thanks to everyone who organised it. Always a great night!

See you next year.

Eircom Golden Spiders supplement

]]> http://www.radical.ie/blog/2009/11/26/golden-spiders-2009another-great-radical-night-out/feed/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2009/11/18/barrackobama-using-twitter/ http://www.radical.ie/blog/2009/11/18/barrackobama-using-twitter/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:55:12 +0000 davepower http://www.radical.ie/blog/?p=312 Or is he….

You would’nt blame his 2,692,811 followers for believing that Barack was on Twitter. He has a profile and he has been an advocate of digital communication throughout his campaign and presidency.

On his recent tour of Asia, having been asked if he believes that Chinese people should be allowed to use Twitter freely, he responded, “Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter,” he said. “My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.”

Quite a clumsy comment from a leader that is usually very considerate and accurate with his statements; and also has been known to be quite the lover of his Blackberry.

His latest Tweet is quite ironic given his comment.

“In Singapore, continuing the visit to Asia. Watch trip updates by staff on the @WhiteHouse blog:http://bit.ly/3s4PCDhttp://bit.ly/16W8YM”

It is interesting to note that, although it is a verified Twitter account, anyone can legally write the tweets. This is the official declaration of ‘Twitter verification’.

What does Verified mean?

With this feature, you can easily see which accounts we know are ‘real’ and authentic. That means we’ve been in contact with the person or entity the account is representing and verified that it is approved. (This does not mean we have verified who, exactly, is writing the tweets.)

So verified in essence does not mean a whole lot.

The lesson to be learned here, something that we are consistently telling our clients, is to be aware of all you communication. Your brand loses instant credibility when something like this occurs. If companies are not aware of all their communication, it can potentially have a negative impact no the brand.

Imagine, if Coke came out and said ‘those “holidays are coming” Christmas television ads have nothing to do with us’ or if Nike said our employees “don’t just do it.” You would disassociate a lot of positive feelings towards that brand. These brands would never make such a mistake.

The shock lies in the fact Obama did this. He was arguably the biggest brand in the world in 2009. It is no surprise that their has been uproar online with news report after news report discussing how they now feel about Obama.

Either way, we must note that Twitter was a topic of conversation that Obama felt important enough to spend time talking about (despite his blunder)…and well, it makes it even more clear how important it is to consider as part of our social media strategies.

Follow Radical on Twitter, trust us, our thumbs are not too clumsy to type things on phones!

The successful candidate will have clear enthusiasm for this channel, will be creative and highly organised, and willing to contribute positively in a team environment, as well as have the drive to complete projects alone.

Excellent all-round communication skills are essential, with a high level of proficiency with Excel, PowerPoint and Word.  Radical provides all team members with continuous learning opportunities and as part of the growing Radical team the opportunities to fully experience all the online world has to offer are endless.

Just send julian.lynch@radical.ie an email for more details!

• Livemarketingchannel.com

• Sony Ad
  

This is an excellent display of the innovation. The man who brought us the Sony Bravia Colour Balls Ads and Cadbury Guerrilla Juan Cabrel is a genius who gets incredible ideas from such simple straight forward ways. He got the idea for this ad by listening to his I-Pod in a shop whilst thinking – ‘why isn’t everyone else listening to this?’.

Here: is the making of the ad.

• Twitter Tool

Twitter have (finally) created a “lists” tool whereby users can divide up the different Tweeters that they follow. An example of this would be dividing up your “Digital News Tweets” and “Sports News Tweets”. This is a great new tool.

• Google Wave

Radical keep us to date with Google news. The Google – Wave developer, which has recently become one of the most watched Youtube videos of the past month. Google are claiming that this is one of their biggest ever developments. Well worth a watch. 

We’re back in Dublin and stuck into work after a really nice break across to London for the premier digital marketing event that’s been around for more than ten years. Hard to believe AdTech London was only last week! Now, did we learn anything this year that we can apply now that we’re back to business?

Along with our fellow Irish digital agency representatives, off we headed to London last Tuesday morning to arrive at the National Hall in the Olympia, greeted by the larger UK digital marketing community.

Upon first impressions, one would have to commend the vast amount of Expo stands the event organisers secured, despite the year we’re in. Expo stands pulled out all the stops to get the attention of our eager eyes; with pitches spanning across Search marketing, online advertising, mobile marketing, publishers, video and viral specialists, innovative promotions companies, and everything else you might have thought of.

If I had to choose, I’d give a high five to the Fox network and National Geographic stand, who caught all of our attention with the work of their hired Magician on Tuesday afternoon. Additionally, the representatives from PR Newswire displayed expertise in their product offering for Social Media Metrics monitoring tools. We’ve got our eyes open for similar products that are yet to hit the Irish market.

Additionally, this year’s exhibition was packed full of Mobile marketers, claiming to have the answer to the “year of mobile” that has yet to come around.  One such company who spoke on Tuesday afternoon, BlisMobile, outlined that we need an “integrated call to action,” reaching customers at all of their touch points in their daily journey. This sounds like your standard technique; but if we reach our consumers on their mobiles during their “dwelling time” we will be reaching them more directly. Not anything new; but reminds us to consider using not just one method to reach consumers on their mobile, but several. Consider SMS, Bluetooth, and mobile internet.

Talks on the future of digital indicated beyond clicks, interaction is key. Warner Brothers Pictures saw a great take off from consumers viewing movie previews within ad units with average viewing time reaching almost max ad time. From the ad unit consumers were able to select the option to view photos and see background footage all within the same ad unit. A low CTR in such an instance is insignicant. This raised an interesting panel discussion as to communicate to brands engagement time may just be as important for brand building as CTR

Ebay provided some insights into the area of shopping online. Ebay European research indicated “82% are spending more online in a recession” and “87% spending more time online researching.” We all assume this is the case but interesting that the percentages are so high. Trust, Value and selection are indicated as three main key points when buying online. From the European research it was noted people notice advertising in the following places, “Shopping channel, Search engine, Social Media - Facebook.” Context and targeting is very important for ROI as user behaviour moves more towards research, so let’s ensure this is all put into practice.

Of course an ongoing topic of interest for conference delegates is Social Media; and this year’s AdTech was no exception. While there were a few social media sessions in the Expo area that offered very little insight, the Social Media Power panel in the Auditorium was incredibly impressive; and used social media functionality to drive the panel discussion. While the panel was full of big names in the social media space (such as Simon Podd, Head of Sales at Bebo, Ivan Croxford from BT, Lulu Phongmany, Marketing and Business Development Manager at ivillage.co.uk, and Peter Ward, CEO of WAYN.com), the most impressive aspect of the session was the discussion driven by Tweets posted by audience members via their laptop or mobile phones.

You can see here the screen displayed a Twitter search for the session hashtag (#at09socnet) to feed in

questions from audience members; which were then fed to the panellists from the session moderator. (By the way, a “hashtag” refers to a keyword or phrase tag posted at the end of the tweet to categorise the post; and identify where others might be talking about the same thing. Compare it to a tag we attach to a YouTube video or a keyword we attach to a blog). While we tweeted and the panel responded, a representative from AdTech posed as a commentator throughout the session, taking quotes from the speakers’ responses.

I can imagine it sounds confusing, but it was simple: Everyone in the room was comfortable with social media, just like our consumers; and we were able to hold a traditional panel discussion…in a very untraditional way.

So what did the panellists end up telling us? Well, a few things I jotted down before heading off for dinner and drinks:
•    We don’t need the Social Media representative to be the expert; but we simply need to identify other experts.
•    Harness social media correctly; and you’ve got yourself “word of mouth on steroids.”
•    Choose a “default” social network to drive your interaction; and this will drive more effective interaction on other networks. We can’t use all social networks, all the time.
•    We can’t just assume Social Media will work; and must seriously consider the level of value we are adding to the community before entering the space. Remember that nowadays, the last place customers now go is your website.
•    And nicely put to summarize my findings, “A hammer’s useful, but you don’t need to carry it all the time.”

While we attended a number of sessions, we’ll leave it at that; and ask for your findings from the conference if you were also in attendance. You might find this roundup of AdTech Twitter Streams useful, posted by Suzie Shore of Juicy Marketing Intelligence.