Marketing

#SMBenchmark

This week, we spent an interesting morning at Bloomberg HQ in London for a Social Media Benchmark event with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

With speakers including Thomas Brown – Head of Insights at CIM, Josh Graff – EMEA Marketing Director at LinkedIn and Dara Nasr – Industry Head at YouTube UK, it was a great opportunity to delve deeper into the insights and discussions around how businesses are using social media. It was a great event with lots of stats to bring back to the office.

So, who’s doing what? The CIM’s research shows that 71% of UK businesses are using Twitter, although just over a quarter are saying they are ‘just experimenting’ with social media.

Company investment in social media in 2011 was on the increase with 2012 set to grow even more rapidly. Over half of organisations who took part in the research say they are planning to improve social media skills in 2012 by investing in employee training.

Key points we took away: Experimentation is great, but without using the relevant analysis tools available you’ll never be able to measure your success. Social media is a dialogue – it’s more about listening to customers than selling them things.

Even with the global social media boom going on all around us, brands are only just scratching the surface… #SMBenchmark for more information

17 February 2012 Posted by Ian
Posted in Blog, Events, Marketing, Milestone, Social Media, Technology
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Strength in numbers…

This week on our blog I thought I’d share a few thoughts on a new buzz word in marketing – the ‘Infographic’. On display is one we created for RAC. It’s a summary of stats from their award winning Report on Motoring done as a ‘Charticle’. Making data come alive like this is right on trend at the moment. It’s not just about pretty pictures either. Cool infographics make great sticky web content, attract Google searches and they encourage the sharing of factoids through social media. What would make a great infographic about your industry, market or product range?

For more inspiration in this field take a look at work of David McCandless and the original master Edward R Tufte.

RAC ROM 2011 web infographic

13 January 2012 Posted by Ian
Posted in Blog, Design, Marketing, Web Design
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Value propositions today…

Today, in the ongoing realm of austerity, cuts and general belt tightening, company value propositions are changing. They are increasingly about how brands help deliver more value for less.

Traditionally, the value proposition describes the thing or things that elevate a standard commodity into a must-have brand. When times were good value propositions were often about an amazing service, experience or leading edge design, performance and innovation. They justified a higher price with superior standards.

Tesco has been on the value case for a while with ‘Every little helps’, but here are two recent campaigns built around new value propositions that reflect the current trend:

Sainsbury’s: Live Well for Less.

Kodak: Beautifully Cheap Printing.

Both neatly combine a saving message with positive benefit. Kodak has even embraced the ‘C word’ of value – Cheap. And Sainsbury’s is crediting its new line with a 6.6% rise in profits.

So, it might be time to reconsider your own value proposition: does it communicate real value alongside a big positive customer benefit? If not it might be worth talking to Milestone about our brilliantly cost effective branding services…

9 December 2011 Posted by Ian
Posted in Advertising, Blog, Branding, Marketing
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Branding fish

River Cobbler and chips anyone?

The naming and branding of fish is something that’s intrigued me for many years. It started when I discovered that the old chip shop fave Rock Salmon was actually a type of Dogfish. Of course, our job at Milestone involves the naming and branding of organisations, products, services and events. So who gets to do fish? And how do they come up with such unlikely names?

Fish Counter

Fish is good for you, so we should be eating more of it. Right, but they are also a scarce resource so we should be choosy about which ones we go for. Against this backdrop is a new sustainable selection coming to a slab near you:
Basa
River Cobbler
Pangasius
Panga
Vietnamese Catfish
Mekong Catfish

Sounding a bit fishy?

Well, the thing is they’re all the same fish. Latin name: Pangasius Bocourti, it is a type of catfish from the Mekong River in Vietnam. I’ve tried it and it’s OK – firm, white and bland. Just how we like fish in the UK. But I can’t help thinking that the confusion with the naming just leaves a bad taste, so to speak. Brands work best when they are confident and single minded. Like cod or haddock.

So, next time you’ve got a new product to name think fish. And if you can do better than River Cobbler you’re laughing.

2 December 2011 Posted by Ian
Posted in Blog, Branding, Environment, Marketing
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The future’s electric

If you think electric cars are for tree huggers only, think again. We went along to the RAC’s Future Car Challenge on November 5th. Like a London to Brighton run in reverse, it was a showcase for the latest EVs (electric vehicles) with a finish line in Regent Street. Grand Design’s Kevin McCloud was taking part in a Delta E4 Coupe – just one of a new wave of British electric sports cars. Pictured here is the amazing Lightning GT.

For more information about their range of electric sports cars visit the EEMS Accelerate website.

11 November 2011 Posted by Ian
Posted in Blog, Design, Environment, Events, Marketing
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It’s a wrap

The technique of vinyl wrapping makes cars the perfect vehicle for your creative marketing ideas. Why not take a leaf out of Lex Autolease’s book and go electric too. This is the new Nissan Leaf electric car with a full body wrap designed by Milestone. Used as a city run-about it helps promote their fleet business and supports their leading edge proposition. And it’s zero emission. Why not lease one from Lex Autolease? The wrapping process is simple, using a heat shrink technique to wrap full colour printed vinyl around the bodywork. Just think of the possibilities…

Nissan Leaf

31 October 2011 Posted by Ian
Posted in Advertising, Blog, Branding, Design, Environment, Marketing, Milestone, Technology
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Word play

Word cloud

Have a bit of fun with ‘word clouds’ at Wordle.net. It’s a brilliant site for creating word clouds from your own text. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and colour schemes.

Word clouds are very useful to examine tone of voice in marketing communications. They are a good way to visualise your own web text to see where emphasis is placed or misplaced.

Have a go…

 

10 May 2011 Posted by Ian
Posted in Blog, Marketing, Technology, Web Design
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People’s Supermarket

The People's Supermarket

You may have seen it on TV. A social experiment, consumer champion, antidote to superstores? I love the idea – locally sourced produce, staffed by members/shoppers from the local community, recycled waste… It’s got a lot going for it. A brave new model that many businesses could potentially adopt.

Continue reading “People’s Supermarket” »

11 April 2011 Posted by Ian
Posted in Blog, Branding, Environment, Marketing
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