I thought it might be interesting to take some snaps of different adverts as I travel around the world. you can follow my travels on www.noflouryspuds.com
Pepsi Advertisement.
Gillette Mac III
Nivia
Here’s a quick intro to me, James O’Sullivan
Online / digital marketing is very different than old school marketing. Traditional marketeers would run campaign after campaign with no true measure of how well it really performed. I gave away 1000 t-shirts! woohoo, OK that’s great, so how did that contribute to the bottom line? It’s building awareness stupid! ok so how much awareness? well uumm….
In today’s difficult economic climate we need to prioritise everything, that means setting targets and measuring against them. In my view, if I can’t measure the performance, then I shouldn’t do it or really question whether it’s worth while. EVERYTHING can be measured, let me say again, EVERYTHING can be measured. If I’m on a radio show I want to know how many listeners I was reaching and if I experienced a lift in my web traffic. There’s a pleathra of tools available today to measure the impact your marketing, PR and sales team have on your business. Here are just some.
Before you start a campaign it’s important that you outline what the objectives are and define the success metrics. You can then calcuate the ROI by reporting on the following.
Remember you don’t have to close a sale to have an ROI, it simply depends on what your objective and unit of success is.
I found the following post in my google notebook which I forgot to post last year!
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Being from Kerry I absolutely love GAA! The passion, rivalry, commitment and intensity, it makes my heart jump with joy. The GAA is the fabric which knits communities large and small, urban or rural together which makes up part of our unique culture in Ireland. GAA followers are simply fanatical, a lot of these fans are involved with GAA at every level and what makes them extraordinary is their commitment and wiliness to give up their own time for the love of their community, county and the game. This year the GAA have decided to reclaim their brand and rename both the Hurling and Football championships by allowing Multiple sponsors. The Bank of Ireland All-Ireland Football Championship is now the GAA Football All-Ireland Championship sponsored by Toyota, Ulster Bank and Vodafone. The Guinness All-Ireland Hurling Championship is now the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Championship sponsored by Etihad Airways, RTE Sport and Guinness.
Sponsorship investment: Vodafone have been a great sponsor for the GAA over the years since their involvement in 1997. Since then Vodafone have played a huge role in sponsoring both Hurling and Football All-Stars which is a major event in the GAA calendar. Fair play Vodafone. In the March 2008, Vodafone secured a 3 year deal to sponsor the GAA Football Championship at an estimated 12Million. Their 2008 campaign features Sean Boylan reciting a poem by Rudyard Kipling “IF” The ad attempts to capture the feeling of what the GAA stands for and the imagery used is but is a little too over the top. The use of Kipling’s poem in this ad has been met with some distain since Kipling has been known as an enthusiastic supporter of British imperialism.
Ulster Bank: Sponsorship: Ulster bank are no newcomers to sponsoring major sports. They have almost done very well in creating a lot of brand awarness with their sponsorship of Rugby and creating quirky advertisements. They are now taking the next step and dive into to the hearts and minds of the general Irish public. They have secured sponsorship of the football championship.
I’m particularly impressed by Toyota’s campaign called “Meet Mike” who created an very innovative an humour campaign to engage with their audience online. Well done Eighty:Twenty for creating a truely outstanding campaign for Toyota.
Valentine’s Day. That time of the year when people declare their love for someone special by writing poems, sending cards or buying iPods!
Every year apple run a Valentine’s Day email campaign offering advice to guys on what to buy their girlfriend or partner. I presume they have their list segmented so they’ve targeted males only. It would be interesting to see what they send their female list segment. OK, so the emails are a little cheesy and having an email pop-up on my screen with Love splashed all over it which could leave me open to some slagging if I’m in the office. However, Apple understand the importance of establishing an emotional connection with their brand and are simply masters at creating brand advocates. Also if you haven’t done so by now you should take some time to create a event calendar to capture important event dates which can be broken down by category. eg sporting events - Champion’s League Final, All-Ireland Final etc
Then get your thinking cap on and plan some marketing campaigns to coincide with these events.
Over the last few years I’ve been receiving promotional emails from Ryanair.com informing me of their latest offers of their so called “Free” flights. True to the style guidelines of their website the emails are gaudy, loud and in your face with 1996 flashing images and so on. Back in November I received and email from Ryanair asking me to update my profile to receive more relevant offers. So I proceded to complete the profile page where it asked me where’s my closest airport of departure, first and last name and title.
As I expected they are now sending me offers on flights departing from Dublin Airport. Ryanair need to do some more work with their emails but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
Email before profile update: - Offer not tailored to my Airport of departure
Email after Profile Update: Offer tailored to Dublin.
You can check out all the ryanair emails I’ve received on docstoc.
With so much going on in our lives today and the proliferation of internet devices from iPhone’s to Twitter accounts it’s all too easy to get distracted from your task at hand. Being an online marketer you need to embrace a digital lifestyle and you must be willing to participate and engage with people instantly. Everyday we consume vast amounts of information, some of it sticks and some of it doesn’t. One minute I’m reading a newsfeed, then the phone rings while I’m on the phone I get a New Instant message, twitter update and email message while someone hovering over my desk talking about what they’ve planned for the weekend, which has just reminded me that I forgot to book the restaurant for the dinner I promised my girlfriend! Oh and I must call the travel agency to get those tickets for our trip to South America. Sound familiar? STOP!! There’s multi-tasking and there’s multi-tasking but trying to process too many things at once will cause a memory crash and you’ll end up doing nothing or a half ass job of things. This scenario is described as continuous partial attention.
Write down what you need to do. Break it up into personal and work and then break down each work task you need to do. Turn off those email alerts and if email is a problem close down your email client and limit yourself to checking emails every 1 hour or so. But what if there’s an urgent email! Check on the hour every hour. (oh, just got an idea, how about an email scheduler which auto kicks in to let the sender know the estimated time of reading!) ha ha good example of too much going on in my head! When you have a task to do which doesn’t involve the internet disconnect from your internet devices and concentrate on the task at hand. (how about an easy pause internet function which allows you certain access once the task is performed)
I’m constantly thinking of new ideas or ways to make or do things better. Even before I go to sleep my head is full of thoughts which my mind is trying to sort into the right filing cabinet! STOP! It’s crucial that you get a good nights sleep so, write down what you need to do the following day, disconnect from your digital life an hour or so before you hit the hay and find a way to relax before u hit the hay. Then like hotels.com slogan says - wake up happy!
Now you’re ready to take on a New day and crack into that to-do-list!
ahh that’s better, that post was floating around in my head for a few days…
I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I received two emails from the slideshare.net editoral team informing me that my slide has been featured on not one, but two prominent areas of their presentation website.
Spotlight email
Spotlight - Slideshare homepage
My slide also got showcased in the humour category
To be honest I didn’t expect this slide to get featured by slideshare, I found the photos in an email I received and it took me 2 mins create and upload the slides! As always, the key is to know your audience and keep it relevant. As NiallH pointed out it’s a great way to get some free promotion and traffic from the world’s top slide sharing website!
Babies and drunks always tell the truth!
Most businesses that are worth anything have competitors vying to take a schelp of your cake. If you’re the small guy looking to take some customers from the market leader then you might consider comparative advertising. This method can be very effective if used correctly, however it’s important to adhere to the appropriate legalities or you may find yourself in very hot water. so here are some guidelines you may find useful.
I'm James O’Sullivan
an Irish digital marketing Ninja who likes sport and beer..
