chris dalrymple - blog

I read this slightly cheeky article with interest recently - I'm a big fan of the Northumberland coast and it really is stunning - stunning enough, it seems for a Canadian tourist board to use it in their ad promoting Alberta:

So far, so interesting, but what's this got to do with PPC?

Well, it wasn't until a few minutes later while, inspired by the Telegraph article, I started searching for tourist attractions in Northumberland that I saw this ad for the search 'Bamburgh castle':

Funny, relevent and great branding with personality - something lots of brands could learn from.

Labels: google, marketing, sem

Labels: 2009, affiliates, marketing, sem, seo

Labels: conference, marketing, sem, seo

Labels: affiliates, marketing

Labels: affiliates, marketing

Another example of ad execs not looking very far for their next idea, the brilliant Flight of the Conchords seem to have been ripped off by Coors Beer.

bears more than a little resemblance to:

But sadly it's not exactly uncommon. See Sugar Puffs vs Mighty Boosh, Pot Noodle vs Lazy Sunday and Sony vs Kozyndan.

I admit, it's always going to be difficult to come up with something genuinely new (see Copyblogger's latest post), but despite the fact that there are still some stunning , effective ads around.

The easy route is of course to borrow something cool from the internets that will appeal to the yoof market. But I'd suggest though that the longevity of something truly original will be a lot longer than something nicked off YouTube.

Labels: advertising, marketing

So last week I popped down to the big smoke for Internet World, a online/media/marketing type trade show with seminars from a range of people from the BBC to Microsoft to Mozilla.

What was interesting was the general 'noob' vibe around the place (punter-wise at least). Not that I claim to be a veteran of online marketing, but there were huge crowds around the 'older' online seminars - Google University, basic SEO, PPC etc. Conversely, there seemed to be a lack of interest in the newer side - 'web 3.0' stuff like virtual worlds, in-game advertising etc.

Anyway, clientele aside, I took a few random (being the operative word - this is by no means a complete summary) snippets from the various seminars which I thought note-worthy.

> Mobile - Interesting talk from BBC Worldwide. Only 22% of UK mobile users have 3G. Google the most visited website through mobile in the UK, followed by the BBC and O2's mobile portal - simple, information driven content.

> Virtual Worlds - 80% of Internet users are expected to have virtual world self within the next 4 years (not sure of the source of that stat - slightly dubious myself). This being the way people will predominantly interact online in the future, including for ecommerce.

> Viral Marketing - Many commented on the difficulties of getting sufficient momentum for Viral. The key being the core proposition or product has to be rock solid and something the customer would ordinarily forward/talk about anyway (see the Dyson AirBlade). The value agencies then add is the delivery mechanism and 'packaging' of this idea to ensure it is passed along. 'Fun games' don't work any more and distribution costs need to be comparable to the creative costs to gain sufficient momentum.

> Presentation from Thomson.co.uk - currently the highest trafficked travel agent online. In general there is a 20% year-on-year movement from offline to online holiday transactions.

> They've made a huge investment in technology and agencies - WebCredible and FoolProof for Usability/User testing, IntelliTracker/Visual Sciences for Analytics. Lots of A/B and MultiVariate testing and a huge focus on removing obstacles to conversion. They use Tealeaf (http://tealeaf.com) for real time analysis of customer activity.

I realise this is a pretty random assortment of snippets - I might flesh it out a little more if I get chance. However the really interesting one for me was Virtual Worlds - Justin Bovington, from Rivers Run Red, Ed Bartlett from IGA and Phil Guest from Habbo Hotel did a great job of debating the ins and outs of virtual worlds, raising some interesting points along the way. I'll try to blog that fully over the next couple of weeks...

More complete write-ups can be found here and here.

Labels: marketing

Jason Bradbury, him of Gadget Show fame, recently did an experiment in viral marketing which is useful for anyone looking to try something similar.

Jason has the advantage that he is a 'Famous', but there are good tips in there for us mere marketing mortals.

The whole thing came about as part of a Gadget Show challenge to get as many hits to some viral content as possible, and whilst co-presenter Suzi Perry went down the 'taking your clothes off' route with a Tamba Internet doing most of the hard work for her, Jason decided to caterpillar in garish 80s getup around London. You can see the results below:

Rather handily, Jason's put together a few posts giving some useful hints as to how to be successful on YouTube: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5.

Labels: marketing, viral

Found via Sixty Second View is the interesting stat that almost half of brand marketers are planning to use social networking to promote their brand in the next year, say JupiterResearch.

Now, big fat pinch of salt aside, this is an interesting stat for the sole reason that if there are that many marketers looking to promote themselves through social media, then where in the hell are they all? - I honestly can't recall seeing any efforts of big business, record labels aside perhaps, to social media to interact with me.

One of the problems I can see is all these good intentions are often abruptly halted by the raft of legal advisors most large scale organisations employ. Couple this with how much of an unknown quantity this relatively new medium is, as well as the relatively difficult job markers can face trying to track any ROI, and it's (almost) understandable that people are reticent to get involved.

I know from personal experience that without a considerable buy in from the business, these things are very difficult to get off the ground and even more difficult to prove worthiness, but unless companies start to embrace social media now, it's going to be way too far down the line to do anything effective. It takes open minds at the top, as well as within the marketing deparment to make things happen.

Labels: marketing, socal media