Inbox Zero
Wednesday 19 May 2010 09:49 GMT
Between checking my work email at 6:30 last night, and 8:10
this morning, I had 50 emails. I had a brief glance at Facebook at 9:00 a.m and there were 200+ “most recent” items
in my News Feed. Then, foolishly, logged into TweetDeck. Damn, people have a
lot to say.
I’m away on holiday next week, and I’m worried
about the volume of communication I’ll have to wade through when I get back. To
sum up one of the 21st Century’s great working challenges – when should
I turn off my smartphone?
The challenge is asynchrony: I could ignore the outside world for 10 days, but when I turn on and
tune in again, there will be email conversations which I need to follow from
the start. There will be comments in client’s Facebook pages which I need to be
sure are addressed.
If the comments are contentious enough, there will be an
email thread about the Facebook postings, so I need to read those together.
Then of course, it would be sensible to have a quick search through Twitter to
see if anything relevant has been tweeted there.
If I don’t check in on holiday, then unstitching this mass
of emails, posts and responses ALONGSIDE dealing with the work that needs to be
done on my return will be enough to make Sisyphus blanch.
Of course, I’m not alone in this. We all have to work out
how to address the problem, and after 30 seconds with Google I was reminded of a
great talk by Merlin Mann called “Inbox Zero”.
Here it is...
The fat lady sings: Apple approves Opera.
Thursday 15 April 2010 10:30 GMT
Norwegian software developer Opera has just announced that its Opera Mini browser will be available in the App Store within days. Opera is the world’s most popular mobile browser, with 50 million users worldwide. Due to server-side rendering, Opera Mini compresses data by up to 90 per cent before sending it to the phone, resulting in rapid page loading and more web per MB for the end user. This also means the ability to deliver more for less, giving iPhone users the web they want quicker, without, the high costs. It is reported to be six times faster than Safari on the iPhone. Hopefully, this is the start of Apple relaxing some of the grip and control over what Apps can be sold.
Steve Connors, CEO
Cringe Now
Wednesday 30 September 2009 13:00 GMT
If you have been fortunate enough to miss the video promoting Microsoft’s Windows 7 Launch Party, then make a note: avoid it. Don’t search for it, don’t click on any links sent by your friends, stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Just. Avoid.
Long story short: Microsoft launch their latest OS on October 22nd, and they are naturally going to make a lot of noise about it. Because it’s the 21st Century, they are going to make a lot of this noise online, and because “online” means “social media”, you haven’t got a cat’s chance in Battersea Dogs’ Home of blocking out the noise.
So, back to the video. The idea is that people all round the world will concurrently host parties where they demonstrate Windows 7 TO THEIR FRIENDS. The video is variously described on various websites as “awkward”, “incredible” and “cringe-inducing”. The video is on Youtube (and other sites), and is liberally linked from every social site you care to visit. There are even Windows 7 groups on Facebook.
Why are they doing it? Simple: advocacy. In our (that’s GHMC’s) CRM model, we focus on advocacy – simply encouraging customers to talk positively to their friends and colleagues about a brand. Of course, we do this through Facebook and Twitter and email and anything else that makes financial sense. It’s not rocket-science, but it does depend on your target market having a positive impression of your brand. If they don’t, then they will still talk to their friends but their recommendation won’t be positive.
And that is what’s wrong with Microsoft’s party idea. Discounting my own immediate reaction, a quick Google suggests that my sentiment isn’t a lonesome knee-jerk. Of the first 10 of the 2.6m search results, 6 are negative reviews.
In an online world where understanding and reacting to your customers has never been easier, wilfully generating negative sentiment seems very risky. With tools to monitor sentiment maturing every day, I’m sure that the ladies and gentlemen in Seattle will be all over this like a rash. But from where I’m sitting, the concept is misjudged.
Those of us who depend on Windows to pay their mortgages hope that Windows 7 will be significantly better than it’s predecessors, so I’d be foolish to do anything other than wish Microsoft well with the launch.
I’d also be foolish to remind you once again – don’t watch this:
Ed Butcher, Digital
Director
Google loses its Voice
Friday 28 August 2009 16:30 GMT
I love and hate Apple in equal measure. Full marks for style, ingenuity and single-minded dedication to their brand, however I really hate the way they try and subvert innovation that is not under their control. Take the latest furore in the USA. Google Voice a new and wonderful service allows you to have just one number where your unique number finds you and redirects any call to your cell or land line, one voicemail box on the web, free transcription from voice message to text, conference calling, international calls even lower than Skype’s. And really neat you can collect voice messages, file them and keep them. Naturally the Google team developed an app for this to run on the iPhone. Apple rejected it ... I wonder why, did they collude with AT&T the network that provides iPhone connectivity in the USA? Worse it then deleted a couple of similar products from the App store because it duplicated features of the iPhone. This is now being investigated by the Federal Communications Commission. Come on Apple, history should tell you that you cannot hold back innovation you should embrace it. Not opening up has its consequences look how you allowed Microsoft to dominate operating systems, unforgiveable.
Steve Connors, Chief Executive
Surprising Students
Wednesday 22 July 2009 11:00 GMT
This week, I’ve mainly been researching students’ consumption of media, holding a focus group to drill into specific behaviours. We’ve all been students, but it seems that things have changed: the breed we were is far-removed from today’s bright-eyed bunch.
Research is always challenging, particularly when there are some well-established stereotypes. Far from being lazy, party-mad hell-raisers, we met a group of sophisticated, choosy, hard-working young adults.
Our particular focus was how students access media – mainly TV – and how they are influenced by online marketing messages.
When I was a lad, we only had 4 channels, and one of those was only good for Blind Date. Saturday night in my hall of residence was a religious experience - everyone bundled into the room with the best telly / coffee combo. Today, with Freeview alone broadcasting 50+ channels, we expected to meet square-eyed couch-potatoes, with a serious junk-food and alcohol habit.
How wrong. Again we were surprised at how prevalent the use of iPlayer, 4OD and ITVplayer has become. Make a note – there’s a new generation of asynchronous media consumers who are downloading Top Gear to their iPods and laptops.
Make another note – students don’t care about the law, do they? Wrong again. None of our guinea pigs would consider NOT having a TV licence. In fact, because of the cost of a licence, some preferred not to watch conventional TV at all...
With mobiles, laptops and personal media players their constant companions, this group are expert media consumers. They could all list methods of accessing programming without a TV, using a variety of sites & techniques - some of which we’d never even heard of (and I won’t list here)!
How do they find out about this? Facebook, YouTube, Bebo. Every time we asked, “how did you find out about...”, a social site was mentioned.
So at least one stereotype held true.
Ed Butcher, Digital Director
In hard times your Marketing needs to work hard...
Monday 13 July 2009 11:00 GMT
A lot of people have been saying a lot of nice things about our Wallace & Gromit collectable promotion for Kingsmill, and it’s all the more appreciated when some of those compliments are from the competition! Reading a trade mag recently, I spotted a review of the Turbo-Matic promo by the MD of one of our rival agencies. He’s fulsome in his praise, describing our strategy as combining a retro vibe with compelling creative and a contemporary interactive execution to create a powerful sales promotion...
But that ‘retro’ word got me to thinking about why good old fashioned sales promotion should still be working so hard and delivering such great results in this day and age. And it occurred to me that there’s actually nothing ‘old fashioned’ about it. In fact, in a retail environment where brands are discounting like crazy, slashing their own margins and scrabbling for shelf-share by offering BOGOFs and link-saves, the use of sales promotion as a brand-building, product-differentiating, volume-driving technique has never been more relevant, or crucial in the mix.
Look back at other recessionary times – the power cuts and 3-day weeks of the 70s; the dark days of Thatcher’s dole-queue 80s; the Every Day Low Price free-for-all of the 90s – and associated with each era you’ll see strong ‘survivor brands’ and their classic sales promotions in the marketing Hall of Fame.
Some say desperate times require desperate measures, hence the current rash of desperate discounting. I disagree. In hard times, brands need hard-working ideas that enshrine the brand personality, capture the customer’s imagination and secure shopper loyalty to deliver extra sales and extra market share.
Ed Hughes, Managing Director
Influencer Marketing: time to get professional.
Friday 10 July 2009 16:00 GMT
We recently commissioned an independent study to quantify how consumers are influenced by different sources of information that help them determine which brand, service or product to buy. We looked at different types of products across different channels and in all these it showed that second only to friends and family, the 'professional influencer'—from dentists to opticians to veterinarians, to home improvement experts and golf professionals— is the leading source of influence among consumers for brand purchase decisions.
Given that this research shows that the professional influencer’s endorsement is key to consumers’ purchase decision it is astonishing that more attention is not given to understanding their role, wants and needs in shaping a brand and recommending a purchase. When we develop marketing campaigns it is not just the right message we need to pay attention to but how we deliver that message, through which media and which channels of communications that will be the most influential to that consumer or customer. By directing a comparatively small proportion of the traditional mass media budget to specifically targeted communications aimed at the professional we can influence them to give an active endorsement of our clients brand or service. In most categories, the audience of the professional influencers is relatively small and can be easily identified, making communicating to them a very cost-effective proposition.
Steve Connors, CEO