V
Well perhaps you don't, but I guarantee that now the new site for VB has gone live you will genuinely feel inspired about wanting to travel around Britain.
A personal success story for me this. Having led the initial pitch team over a year ago, developed a truly innovative strategy for how to re-market the UK overseas and in the UK itself. Based on the powerful insight of "Bragging rights" and specifically using the web /social to help potential visitors to discover the unique and individual stories of others across their travel through Britain as a way of helping people achieving their own "Bragging rights" when talking to their friends about where they go on holiday, and ultimately aid them in the expression of the kind of person they are.
The site itself takes a beautiful simple design approach and using technology to the max to make a rich experinece. From long scrolling pages, video/photo widgets (see above)to bringing to life holidaying experiences and the use of behavior recommendations in the search functionality to help people plan from inspiration through to the travel experinece itself.
And all just in time for the Olympics....
Should make a whole lot of Chinese tourist very happy indeed.
Fingers crossed
Showing posts with label My work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My work. Show all posts
Thursday
Small steps, big potential...
Today was a very exciting day for us all, Finally released a nifty tool that can help people take simple small steps, but with potentially big consequences. Produced for the Energy Saving Trust (EST), the water saving calculator suggests ways that users can save water and energy, as well as cutting their carbon footprint. The Trust says CO2 from energy used to heat water in UK homes accounts for 5% of the nation's total carbon emissions. Yet, it adds, water use is the "forgotten energy saving opportunity" by homes, businesses and policymakers. We produced this tool for EST as an interactive, "easy to understand" tool for people to make the link between water efficiency and energy efficiency. Energy used in the UK water sector accounts for about 6% of the nation's total CO2 emissions, 89% of which is a result of homes and businesses heating the water. Figures from the Trust estimate that heating water accounts for about 30% of the average household's energy bills. The calculator provides each user with a personalised report that tells them how much water their household uses, the related carbon emissions and the cost of the water and energy used.
The report also offers a series of tips that can help reduce the amount of water and energy consumed. "For example, it will say that if you took a minute off the time you spend in the shower then you could save 'x' amount.
Not only has the tool had great feedback from consumers and in initial user testing, but the BBC were so impressed with the tool the have decided to a news piece on it. Hopeful this will drive even more people to use this simple tool to make a real difference.
Friday
Roll the dice and see it's California or bust!
SapientNitro has launched the official California board game.
It took a lot of effort to convince California Travel and Tourism that an online board game would be an effective way to sell California -and it took even more effort to bring our vision to life. We had to sell CTTC on the power of online games. Then sell them on our ability to build a game and promote it. Then, once we had CTTC on board, we had to help them sell the idea to an advertising partner to share the costs. Southwest Airlines agreed to co-promote this campaign, and SapientNitro integrated SWA and their “bags fly free” message into the game and the prizes.
The beauty of the board game is that it delivers on so many levels. Here are some of the strategic benefits that we wanted to deliver:
1. Get more people to interact with the brand.
2. Increase each person’s interaction with the brand (5 minutes or more).
3. Provide a great experience that educates people about everything California offers.
4. Provide a promotional platform that California could sell to their partner Southwest Airlines
5. Provide a promotional platform that California could use over and over with different advertising
partners, and different markets (international).
But that was just the beginning. It also took hard work to ensure that we delivered a great user experience. In the face of pressure of multiple agendas, our group kept focused on creating an experience that was fun, challenging, and played like a board game. We knew it was critical for the game to be good in order to achieve the all-important word-of-mouth effect, and ultimately get big results. In addition to the game, the team had to create, sell and coordinate an integrated campaign with another ad agency and two PR firms – not to mention 2 clients.
Thankfully, all this effort is paying off. A week in, the game is a huge success. We are getting tons of visitors. People are really enjoying the game. And we are generating tons of leads. Here are some of the eye-popping numbers: 75% of all players finish the game. 50% submit their score to CTTC. And over 20,000 people have requested a copy of the California visitors guide mailed to them – so many that California will run out by the end of the week!
The integrated campaign for California – The Game includes OWNED, EARNED and BOUGHT MEDIA. Advertising and PR will work together to launch and sustain interest on social networks, blogs, and entertainment websites. But please help us spread the word! Post the game and share it.
The future is real-time culture shifts, experience, and expectations with streaming, commerce, collaboration, customer support, and more …
Here is a presentation my colleague Rob gave about the realtime interweb.The abstract / summary described the the presentation as: A focus universe research strategy; imagine using the entire internet as your focus group. Analyze every conversation, visualize trends, compare brands, learn insights, envisage it over time, and get real factual answers, not just amplified assumptions based on focus and control groups. Now add IPv6 to the picture, digital invasion, UGC/MGC user and machine generated content; we’re not that from the day fridges tweet about food needs, tvs’ about programs, subways and highways about traffic, clubs about nightlife, … So now imagine adding that to the picture, a digital blueprint of society.
It covers real-time culture shifts, experience, and expectations with streaming, commerce, collaboration, customer support, and more … tons of very interesting data points.
Monday
Festival app for engaing cool kids...Why haven't I got one?
We have launched this exciting mobile phone festival guide for the Reading and Leeds music event.
It’s ensuring festival-goers don’t miss the action thanks to its app, which works across most handsets, and is free. It features general festival information including stage schedules, maps of both sites and a Rock Up & Play section providing full details of what festival-goers can enjoy at Nokia’s Rock Up & Play tent.
They can also personalise it, adding the bands they want to see to their own personal schedule.
Rock-up and play, go on, you know you want to...
Sorry, for this blatant plugging of my old work but I thought it would be great to capture this on my blog as I am still proud of both the campaign and the supporting app.
Here is the background. Nokia had witnessed a losing market share and loss of brand affinity with the all-important youth demographic. The mobile giant
also wanted to raise its profile in the highly-competitive, but very lucrative, mobile music player market, as well as boost its brand in general.
Research shows technology adoption is driven by young, leading-edge consumers – exactly where Nokia was performing weakest.
The Challenges
Music-immersed 16-24 year olds were identified as a key audience. Any campaign would need to reach them in large numbers and demonstrate a direct and emotional brand engagement.
But the challenge of winning over this cynical and sought-after audience was vast.
Luckily, while the challenge was great, so was the potential reward – once you’ve cracked them there’s a good chance they will stay with you for life.
Music is by far the most effective way of reaching this market. The problem is most campaigns fail because their methods are perceived as being corporate and cynical rather than credible.
Not only can a poorly devise
d campaign mean money wasted, it can actually damage the brand. Clearly, for an experiential campaign to be effective it needed to be unique and relevant.
Strategy
Haygarth’s solution was an interactive on and offline brand experience where people could showcase, share and connect in their passion for music. Nokia Rock Up & Play celebrated musical talent by giving bands, individuals and air guitarists the opportunity to simply turn up and perform on stage at pubs, music venues or at the summer’s top festivals.
Haygarth director Damian Charles said, “We wanted to create an interactive and ‘emotional’ brand experience that brought the best out of the brand essence of ‘Connecting People’ and tapped into the target audience’s hearts and minds.”
Solution
Rock Up & Play put festival goers in the spotlight, promoting the excitement of
the live experience with raw emotion and pure energy at its heart.
Haygarth’s Charles continued, “We acknowledged that the target audience needed to feel involved, and be part of something, rather than just ‘being there’. Unlike the numerous brands doing talent searches, we wanted to develop a really interactive and spontaneous concept where consumers formed the experience.”
Rock Up & Play provided a platform for new music talent and a place that new music fans could visit to find, review and promote new artists.
Publicity
Word of mouth was key to the credibility and ‘realness’ of the concept both prior to, and during, the festivals. The campaign was supported, both pre and post festival, through press, radio, third party banners and ticketing flyers.
A large proportion of the media spend was online due to the time spent by the target audience browsing sites such as Youtube, Facebook and MySpace.
Social networking & youth lifestyle sites such as Xtaster & MySpace were used to seed content and discussion threads across youth platforms.
Virtual Festivals were the key festival media partner and NME provided both reach and relevancy through on and offline editorial support, competitions and co-branded activity.
Digital
Haygarth developed an online platform that successfully captured the physical energy of the festival experience with various stages, continuous music performances and ways to share a feeling of inclusiveness including artist Q&A sessions and Air Guitar Championships.
Haygarth’s Charles said: “The look and feel of the site focused on communicating the unique energy of the live music experience– whether playing on stage or being in the crowd. The main emphasis was to create something non-corporate.”
The target audience was encouraged to upload performances online, put questions to artists pre-festival, win tickets to perform or just view other talent. Online advertising included expandable banners streaming Rock up & Play video clips from the festival to promote ticket competitions. As well as a data capture form; users were encouraged to upload a clip of themselves performing for the chance to play live at the festival.
Other activity
The activity was also integrated into Nokia products, including the ability to load edited highlights of artist question-and-answer sessions onto N95 handsets, and participate in guitar tutorials with artists, which were compressed onto an N95, then fed onto a TV screen.
Festival goers were then invited to pick up a guitar and go through the tutorial while hearing what they were playing on a headset. There was also a free photo printing service available in the Rock Up & Play tent where festival goers could send photos via Bluetooth and collect prints in a branded festival photo wallet as a memento.
A free downloadable mobile festival guide was created for all to ensure festival goers could make the most of their experience with up to date line-ups and news, as well as Nokia competitions.
Other activity included special chill-out areas, mobile phone demonstrations and a trailer where people could recharge their phones free, which helped drive traffic to the main Rock Up & Play tent.
Results
In all, more than one million people directly interacted with Nokia Rock Up & Play through on and offline means.
Awareness was 28% amongst 16 to 24-year-olds, and 56% among the music-immersed in this group. This was certainly an impressive reach, but were the key messages put across effectively?
“Definitely,” said Charles. “The campaign specifically made those 16 to 24-year-olds aware of Rock Up & Play feel more highly disposed to the Nokia brand, while driving its association with music and demonstrating that the brand understands them and knows how to communicate with them.”
What’s more, at festivals the campaign was considered “fun, cool, innovative, unique and relevant”. It also delivered against key brand metrics, for example 87% of those surveyed agreed that “Nokia has products that allow me to listen to music”, 80% agreed “Nokia is a leader in mobile technology”.
The campaign also had a positive impact on product purchase consideration, with 77% of non-Nokia users saying they would consider buying a Nokia next time they purchased a mobile phone – a 7% increase from the 2006 campaign.
“This is a great example of a grassroots youth marketing initiative that really helped Nokia to connect with a disengaged audience in a truly engaging and credible way,” summed up Charles.
Part of the revolution (piad for that is)...
After a gruelling few months our team at News International have helped to successfully launch the successor to the Culture Plus site. The new site, Times+ is a subscription based service which allows its members exclusive access to travel and culture news, events and offers. The project was delivered on time and budget. Within the first 3 days the site is already looking like it will break 10,000 paid subscribers. Take a look for yourself at
http://www.timesplus.co.uk/
This project does not simply deliver a web site. It is in fact the first milestone in Rupert Murdoch and News Corporations strategy to drive the industry to a paid for model for content. This is the first site to be built on its custom IAM (Identity and Access Management) platform. This platform will eventually be rolled out across all products in the portfolio and deliver the digital strategy.
Let's see if this really is the 1st step in a new reality for the web!
(I kinda hope it isn't, but don't tell Rupert!!)
AutoTrader Iphone app goes live...
We have just launched our new iPhone app for motoring website Auto Trader yesterday, which contains car listings and reviews, as well as a number plate recognition tool.
It's potentially a very useful app, so I've been seeing how user-friendly it is...
Car search tools
Users of the app can search by make and model, while a postcode is also required. This can be typed in, or the app will detect your location and use that as the starting point for a search.
To select a make and model, users need to scroll down and select these from the drop-down menu, which can be a bit annoying, especially if you want to search for VW or Volvo.
With 100+ car manufacturers in the list, this could be made easier, by allowing users to key in the first letter and jump to the relevant point in the list.
Users can specify other parameters in their search, such as distance from the postcode entered, or price. Price and mileage can be adjusted by using a slider tool, which looks good.
For more specific searches, there are advanced options, allowing users to specify mileage, transmission, fuel type and more, as well as adding a keyword to the search, which is a useful addition if you have a particular model in mind.
Search results
The results are clear, and give key details on price, model, mileage etc, as well as a small photo of the car. Results can also be sorted by price, proximity, mileage, age etc.
Car details
Depending on the level of detail and the number of photos added by the seller, the listings can be very useful.
Technical specifications, such as performance and economy are included for each car, which could very useful when checking out cars on a dealer's forecourt:
A detailed review is provided of each car, examining different aspects of performance, safety, reliability, and providing an overall score:
Larger version of photos can be viewed by turning the phone horizontally or clicking on the pictures, though it is unclear how to get back to the car details page after viewing pictures:
Number plate recognition
The USP of the Auto Trader app is the number plate recognition tool, which allows you to take a photo of a number plate, then returns results for that make and model.
This removes the need to spend time searching, and allows you to quickly look up details of a car they have just spotted on the roadside and find similar cars for sale nearby.
It also allows for easy price comparison, so if you are looking at a second hand car on a dealer's forecourt, you can easily check other dealers in the area to see if you are getting a good deal.
Crucially, it works well, as long as you take a clear photo in the first place. One you have the photo, simply pinch and zoom the photo so it fits in the rectangle on the screen, and then submit the photo:
Within a few seconds, you will see details of the make and model, with reviews and technical specs, as well as the option to search listings for similar cars.
The Auto Trader app is one of the first apps to do used car searches!
With an excellent review score on the App Store so far (No.1) , hopefully it should become a very popular app...
Sunday
Social media keynote presentations
Our planning team has recently been working on some keynote presentation for the Figaro Social Media Conference and the Social Media World Forum, both in London
Social Media 2012 focuses on new innovations in social media that are just starting to appear in production or experimental forms and that I believe will be future trends to watch as marketers. Regardless of your knowledge level with social media you will find content in here that you have not heard or seen before and I hope you find it as inspiring to listen to as I found it to research and develop for this presentation.
Social Media 2012 focuses on new innovations in social media that are just starting to appear in production or experimental forms and that I believe will be future trends to watch as marketers. Regardless of your knowledge level with social media you will find content in here that you have not heard or seen before and I hope you find it as inspiring to listen to as I found it to research and develop for this presentation.
Social Media 2012 Master
View more webinars from Freddie Laker.
Burn Alter Ego
The application we developed for Coca-Cola’s brand Burn just recently crossed 150,000 installs with over 85,000 users active on a monthly basis.
This app allowed users to create a customizable virtual avatar, and then “go out”- either with existing friends, or new ones. The next day, users could check their avatar’s blog to see what went down the night before, and view images that showed both avatars hanging out. The end result was that, just like actually going to a club, users received a story and a shared experience with a friend the next morning. Brought to them by the makers of the night-extending Burn energy drink.
Burn Alter Ego
We used technology in an innovative manor as an additional method to make the application stand-out in a sea of competitors. I’m proud to say the application is a finalist in both the MIXX and OMMA awards. Please wish us luck!
If you’d like to see a demo of the application without installing it in Facebook click the link below.
Tuesday
The power of digital is in engaging consumers: how interaction drives greater brand favourability and ultimately purchase intent!
This is a story about how one little moment flipped my life upside down.....oh no only joking it's about a campaign we ran for P&G for their Gillette brand, which attempted to change existing Mach 3 user’s behaviour and get them to trade up to the new Fusion razor.
The strategy had been to try and ‘engage’ this uninspired audience by going to where they hang out online and deliver an relevant and exciting ‘experience’ which demonstrated the benefit of the new improved technology. All nice and simple, the client loved the creative execution right form the off (indeed please feel free to have a go yourself and let me know your thoughts).
The problem arose when the media agency started to get involved. Driven by their ever present fascination with reach and frequency they started to kick-up a fuss – “how can we buy these rich media formats” “we were going to buy standard formats on network buy” went their screams and cries.
All valid points if awareness if your objective, but here we were talking about changing the behaviour of a disaffected group of individuals. As the digital agency, we knew that interaction (i.e. playing a game) would help the consumer become more involved, and therefore start to feel more favourably towards the brand (which we believed would ultimately result in purchase intent; not the use of a mass awareness tactic).
The theoretical arguments went bounding across the ‘table’ with no side refusing to back down. Just as the client was starting to lose confidence in the resulting battle the result of the concept testing started to roll in. And there it was, plain as day, indeed the added functionality of being able to be involved, did indeed result in much higher levels of favourability towards the brand, much higher levels of the key product messaging and more significantly much higher levels of purchase intent.
So the moral of the story? Well firstly, always back yourself when you believe in your ideas (waiting for the result was one of the nervous times of my career and the most exhilarating). More significantly for us all is that a little bit of interaction really can help a brand engage with their audience to the point of changing behaviour; and to a degree which is vastly superior to any awareness driven approach as so often dictated and espoused by media agencies.
With a lot more involvement, (you can get) a lot more love (Brand), that's the real power of using digital!
Fancy getting a little closer to Kylie....
A bit of a shameless plug for my agencies work, but here at Haygarth we have been developing a fascinating integrated campaign harnessing digital, sponsorship, sales promotion, experiential and trade activity to help Nokia bring their European consumers “closer to Kylie”.
In a bid to underline Nokia’s association with music the campaign includes the development of 12 websites across
Consumers will be able to download the full album and additional content from the new website and will have the opportunity to win ‘meet and greet’ tickets to one of the dates on the KYLIEX2008 tour.
Not bad, even if I do say so myself….
Sunday
Probably the hairest campaign in the world!
Everyman & The Institute of Cancer Research collected a hair-raising £210,000 for their fight against prostate and testicular cance;r and I earned my 1st digital award! (even if I did not get to collect it)
Unique website visitors increased by 81% - the average time each user spent with the TacheBack brand online increased 300% from 3.5 minutes in September 2006 to 10.4 minutes in September 2007 and 98% of participants said they would get involved the following year.
The campaign strategy revolved around creating an enduring and iconic brand identity online for use across all online and offline activity. The creative execution brought nostalgia to the audience with a retro look and feel, and the technological creative solution aimed to bring out the competitive nature of men though a unique head to head voting system.
Tache growers where able to set-up personalised TACHE WARS HQs from which to wage their wars, uploading photos of their progress and going head-to-head in battle with each other. The HQ served as a focal point for the participant and their friends, family and supporters and, crucially, drove more people to sponsor the intrepid Tache growers than ever before. The concept, was taken from the site and ran through all online and offline CRM activity.
Great example of digital campaign for a FMCG brand
Here is another shameless plug for some more of our great work for Gillette, this time launching a youth-focused ad campaign on video-sharing site YouTube that encourages users to post clips of football tricks for the chance to win sports memorabilia and Gillette products.
"Trickstars 08", an integrated marketing camapign, is targeted at 18- to 24-year-old males and builds on Gillette's current above-the-line campaign featuring Thierry Henry, Roger Federer and Tiger Woods.
The digital campaign launched March 13 on Google's YouTube, challenging users to create a trick using any type of ball and upload it to Gillette's branded YouTube webpage.
Participants are entered into a free prize draw to win exclusive signed Gillette Champions memorabilia and hundreds of Gillette products.
All entries will then be independently judged and the winning trick will be aired as an ident during Sky Sports' 'Gillette Soccer Saturday'.
Gillette will also showcase the coolest tricks on a dedicated website.
Trickstars is an exciting development for Gillette. The campaign is designed to connect with and attract the 18- to 24-year-old market, broadening the Gillette Champions campaign to a more youthful audience."
The "Trickstars 08 campaign" also includes targeted email activity and banner advertising, which involves 10 refreshed banner creatives, released over a three-month period across various media sites including Maxim, FHM, Sky Sports and the Video Egg Network.
Got your 118 M8 for life?
Bit of a shameless plug for my agency's work, but I am genuinally proud of this one.
118M8 campaign is based around a mobile application we've developed to help 118 118's customers get what they want, that much simpler.
The strategy was to create a gateway that would provide their audience with the one stop service whilst they where on the go. Thus helping to reinforce 118's new positioning as having a really useful multi service offering, rather than simply providing just numbers.
An extensive concept testing phase and usability research identified specific user needs around cinema information and quick access to the info and purchase of the tickets. The campaign idea was to recreate the 118 118 fun and playfully tone through developing the concept of a whole 118 world on your phone. The brilliant art direction, easy of use of the site, downloading the app and navigating the app itself, really does create a simply, playful and rewarding experience for users.
www.118m8.com
As they say this campaign really has got your number!
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