Our Publisher channels

One of the things that I spent time on, late last year, was how to structure our team to get most out of social media for our brand and marketing communications. We use social media for other stuff beyond marketing (such as customer service), but I thought I'd share the marketing bit - in case other marketers are working on this.

For many years, we divided our marketing communications into two main areas - advertising and direct marketing. I now wanted us to formally acknowledge that social media activity was different, with different tasks and a slightly different mindset.

So at the beginning of this year, we split our communications into three areas and divided out responsibilities and budget among the team to give us this:

1. Advertising
2. Direct Marketing and
3. Publisher channels (blogs on our website, facebook, twitter, our forum)
   

While it is early days, I'm happy with how it is working. When we take a brief, we look at each area and the appropriate individuals figure out how they will treat the brief with the channel they are focused on.

For example, we've found we can use social media to keep a campaign message alive longer at a relatively low cost - but requires more people time. And we may not get the reach that advertising gets.

Practically speaking, we might decide to (1) advertise on TV to get fast reach to a mass audience, (2) send an email to existing customers to let them know about the offer and (3) have a competition (connected to the offer) on our blog or facebook page for say two weeks. We know we'll get higher engaged people on our facebook page but won't get the reach of advertising or the micro-targeting of an email. So each is used for what it is good for.

While the activity is not new or different, the team structure is.

And internally we talk about what will turn up on our publisher channels or what will be advertised or communicated directly. And we know that our publisher channels are not broadcast media for repeating a sales message every day and are therefore should not be treated that way. Similarly we acknowledge that our direct marketing is not really conversational or a real dialogue with our customers (even if the ambition for DM is a dialogue), but we actually do have a bit of a chat with customers on our publisher channels.

Socialisation of brands - wave 5

Wave 5, the socialisation of brands

Uploading this for my class: Test on Wednesday guys.

I forget to read in my rush to share

Sharing is in overdrive. We just love to share. And the internet is a sharing machine. We get it. No surprise - the smarter folks have been saying it for a long time.

I hate to admit it, but partly why I'm using twitter so much these days is most of my blog posts were simply sharing other people's stuff. I do this now with far less effort on twitter. There are other reasons, but this is a big one. I'll continue to blog, but at a slower pace.

More worrying is I find myself sharing stuff even before I've finished reading it. How stupid is this? It is almost like I'm in such a rush to share something that I'm forgetting to enjoy, well, the thing. I've re-tweeted things with links that I haven't even clicked on. Oh god. I know there is intrinsic enjoyment in sharing with people but the sharing shouldn't take over the content, right? Is it time to slow down, switch off and read a book?

Well, apparently we're not good at the whole book thing anymore. Nicholas Carr wrote one recently called The Shallows, where he spoke about how the internet changes the way we read, think and remember. And how we struggle to read books without the distraction of hyperlinks jumping off the page.

All sounded too familiar.

Congrats and thanks to the digital team for pulling this off.

Congrats and thanks to the digital team for pulling this off. We've redesigned our o2 website. And we did it at speed. The result is very single minded and looks stunning. (I know, bits still to fix). Thanks again guys.

Now the fun begins.

Don't Save. Save

This works. Assuming it was an online ad. Found here.

Fallon presentation on digital planning

Interesting presentation by Fallon on digital planning. I particularly like this quote "The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect" by Tim Berners Lee, founder of the world wide web.

Found via PSFK

Smart expandable ad

This is clever. An expandable ad that you re-size for your room measurements. Click here to see in action.

Nice VW online ad.

Click here to see it in action. Found via bannerblog.

Stunning piece of advertising here

Stunning piece of advertising here. Only to be surpassed by this. Give it a moment or two to load but you'll appreciate such creativity. Sure, turn up your speakers to get the most out of it.

Disclaimer: Yes, I was involved, but unfortunately, I can't take any credit for such genius. That is all Brando.

A good book (about digital)

danah boyd and several others wrote this book. If your work involves understanding teenagers, and how they interact with social networks, you could do worse than reading danah's blog, papers or presentations. As the book title suggests, 'Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out' describes different ways teens are interacting with digital. They describe "different levels of investment in new media activities".

'Hanging out' is mostly about friends being together. They just happen to do this online, but the focus is about being with their friends.

'Messing around' is a notch up from this. Teens use online to find information. Using search engines, wikipedia, forums etc. Their experimentation and playing with music, images, videos and photos is also included under 'Messing around'.

'Geeking out' is a step up again on this. And is some of the more intense activities teens get involved with online. This might include media fandom around stuff like Harry Potter or the Japanese Anime comics. And also includes gaming.

'Geeking' should not be confused with 'geeks'. The authors explain that these are not "geeks" as we might know the term - but rather kids very enthusiastic about a particular hobby. For example, they could even be sports nuts. And this is not really about digital for the sake of it. It just happens to be their way to get into their hobby and the online communities around it.

Like I said, if understanding digital and teenagers is important to you or your job, you'll learn stuff in this. It is research-led and allows you to get up close into the homes of the teens and their families. Here at amazon.

YouTube page takeover

YouTube video where character comes out of video to read a comment. Worth a watch. Here. Found via bannerblog.

Nice bit of digital advertising

I generally stay clear from writing about O2 here (nobody likes when folk that talk about themselves all the time). But I really like this little piece of digital advertising and felt it was worth sharing.

We have an ad on the recently-launched RTE News iPhone app.

The ad is part of our 'Be the difference' rugby campaign. The campaign is a lovely little idea with a nice fit for the O2 brand. Based on the insight that supporters can actually influence the action and result on the pitch - O2 are making it possible for rugby supporters to get their signatures literally on the back of the players' jerseys.

Well done to Kevin Dunne and our digital agency Brando for their integration of this for the iPhone - so we can sign up directly from our iPhones. As you'd expect I know - but still nice to see it working smoothly.

As there are only so many jerseys, I'm assuming it is a first-come-first-served set up. So if you'd like to show your support - pop over to the bethedifference site sooner rather than later. There is another nice feature there too - you can upload a team talk. The best ones are played to the team. (I'm thinking Any Given Sunday as featured on Piaras' blog this week.)

The RTE app itself is pretty good. I dip into it most days for a moment or two. It's free too.

Digital Breakfast session this Tuesday @ Burlington hotel.

Just a quick note to say there is a breakfast seminar on, this Tuesday, in the Burlington hotel, Dublin 4.

"Using the internet for profit and political gain" is the name of the session. The organisers tell me they are going for an 'x-factor' type gig - so won't be stuffy or formal.

There will be a panel and some discussion on Search as well as a review of how Obama used digital in his campaign. I won't be there myself but do let me know how it goes if you are there.

The event is free but you must register beforehand. More info on how to register and on the presentations and speakers here.

P.S. They are serving up a free breakfast too. How generous. Kick off is 8am.

Digital Festival this Feb. Line-up is good.

I don't make it to many conferences to be honest. I'm lazy and happy to read the book/blog instead. But I'm going to this one. The line-up is good. Very good....Russell Davies, Peter Kim and Shel Israel (co author of Naked Conversations) among others.

The Digital Festival - Wed 24th Feb. In Berkeley Court Hotel, Dublin 4.

More info here.

Creativity in the banner

I think we all agree that an online strategy is more than a suite of banners, some adwords, a facebook page and a preview session with some bloggers. But banners still have a role.

Banners get a hard time. Perhaps rightly so. But they have a value beyond the click-through-rate. I've written before that nobody clicks on outdoor ads - but their value is not disputed. The problem is a lot of the banners are not particularly creative. Then again, most advertising, regardless of medium used, is only average.

But banners can be creative. Click here or on the image to see this Bernardo's ad.

Online video ad

Online video ad from Apple. Nicely done.

Found via Darren at digital agency Brando.

This online ad picked up an award recently.

This online ad picked up an award recently. Worth clicking through to see in action.

Design display ads with Google

Now, I suspect creative folk will hate this. And initially I was sceptical. Surely you can't reduce advertising to this? But the reality is this has a use. And I like it. If you don't have budgets for an online agency to make your banners ads, this could be for you. It allows you to upload your brand colours, fonts, logos etc.

Of course this is no substitute for high-end online advertising but would be a substitute for low end digital work. You can even work up the suite of different banner ads you need.

Nobody clicks on outdoor ads

Nobody clicks on outdoor ads. Clearly.

But this doesn't mean outdoor advertising doesn't work. It does. And when I say work, I mean it drives sales. Of course, the ads need to have impact, to communicate and be persuasive. Such as these. But few doubt the effectiveness of the medium itself.

The problem with online display advertising is the pressure to measure it only by 'hard measures' such as cost per click. Of course these are important. But it is dangerous to determine the success of an online campaign based only on the number of people that clicked. If we do, the tendency will be to aim for the lowest cost-per-click every time.

Is this a bad thing?

I think it can be. On the face of it, lowest cost-per-click sounds like the only right thing to do. If we went just for lowest cost-per-click every time, we'd probably just do Google ads all the time. The production cost on Google adwords is nothing and you only pay per click. So, very little upfront risk and lots of transparency.

This is a bit like classified newspaper ads. They too are low cost. In fairness, Google's model is better for a number of reasons but there are similarities. It is safe to assume most brand managers would not put their entire campaign into classified ads. Yet, many put most of their online budgets into Google.

Maybe we decide to splash out and bang up a few flash display ads - to link in with some offline advertising. Not cheap if you measure the cost divided by clicks. And not cheaper than Google, so how do you justify the cost? And how do you make the case for rich media ads, video, full page takeovers or some interactive game?

We start by trying to understand why we would do each format. Why do brands take full page newspaper ads? Or gatefolds on magazines? Or wraps on the Metro or Herald AM? Or a roadblock on all the TV stations? Not for efficiency. Small ads will always be more efficient.

They do these for impact.

The difficulty I've come across is finding a common language for measuring anything beyond adwords and low-cost flash banner ads. I believe they have value in terms of fast reach, impact and other brand engagement. But I'm not happy with the measures. We can't just do full page takeovers because they look nice.

Which is why I was happy to discover a new report on Cybercom's site. All my questions are not answered but there is some good stuff in there. Drop over there for a read.

Impressive online page takeover

This is good. Click here to see it in action. Well worth it folks.

Found it here.