Jun 24, 2009 3
I know I know – 6 months and not a peep. Things have been a little hectic but the time is right for me to return to the blogging fold. And, to mark danleach.co.uk rising from the ashes I have a new design courtesy of 5THIRTYONE.
With a new design comes a renewed focus. A focus not only on PR but marketing in general with the consistent theme of celebrating creativity within the industry.
Speak soon!
Dec 3, 2008 5
My morning kicked off with a conversation about Twilert and in particular why the site was launched in BETA and what BETA actually means. It got me thinking about my reasoning behind it and I ended at the question of “Why would I ever take the site out of BETA?”
For me, BETA means the final version of a service or site before small tweaks are made and a final, clean version is rolled out to the masses. However, that implies that the service is perfect as doesn’t require constant TLC, tweaks and improvements and I’m yet to find a single online service that fits in the “perfect” bracket.
The point is that, as I am finding with Twilert, user interaction online now means that feedback and advice for online tools and services comes thick and fast and webmasters (for want of a better word) need to react to this feedback by incorporating it into their sites. The feedback will never stop and therefore neither should the tweaking.
BETA works for real-world things, things that can’t be upgraded or changed en-mass easily. But online, there is no such thing as BETA. Every CEO, CFO and webmaster should treat their site like it is constantly in BETA and mould their service to meet the demands of those using it. If you don’t then a competitor that does, will, and you’ll lose users overnight.
Nov 27, 2008 6
It’s been pretty quiet round these parts (again) but there is good reason. Between my day job (usually 2am – 3am) I have been working on a new Twitter application that effectively replicates the Google Alerts service but, yes you guessed it, for Twitter!
So, I proudly introduce Twilert.com to the world!
Ideal for anyone interested in following opinion or discussion on brands, products, people – anything really.
Give it a go, it’s dead easy to use and completely free. Let me know what you think.
Oh and follow us on Twitter too.
Oct 29, 2008 5
Has the world gone mad….and when I say world I mean the British media?
I’m not condoning the actions of Russel Brand or Jonathan Ross, what they did went beyond an innocent prank and simply wasn’t funny, but this morning I’ve woken up the front page outrage aimed at the pair. What’s more, Gordon Brown has jumped into the furor blasting the pair, and Sky News informed me that the issue was likely to come up during Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon.
With two wars, an economic crisis, an entertaining yet globally relevant US election, Tory sleaze etc is the outrage caused by this practical joke really reflective of its severity?
I can’t help but think it’s all gone a bit to far a la Princess Di (oh no he di’n't). Perhaps Elton John should dust off his songbook.
While I’m on the point of the media: On Sky News this morning, after Noel Gallagher blamed the decline of Top of the Pops for youth crime, its newspaper critic responded – “I don’t know if it’s true but it’s a good point!”
A good point indeed, particularly if you step out of the realm of reality. As the old saying goes…why let the facts get in the way of a good story.
Rant over!
Oct 27, 2008 4
Another day another Internet meme doing the rounds.
MIchael Litman from LitmanLive and [EDIT 30/10/2008] Paul Stallard have tagged me in the Three for Three post where bloggers are encouraged to list their three choices across three categories before tagging other bloggers to continue the chain.
So, here goes…
Top three non-work websites:
Top three karaoke songs:
Top three weekend cocktails:
That’s given me a craving for a bit of Journey…”She’s just a small time girl….”
You are now tagged…
Oct 23, 2008 4
I was catching up with some friends earlier this week, most of which work in some sort of marketing / digital / interactive capacity. During the course of dinner we noticed the array of mobile phones on the table and in particular the fact that 5 out of the 6 phones were iPhones.
The conversation moved onto how to engage consumers on the mobile platform (seriously, we have some crazy rock ‘n’ roll dinners) with half arguing that brands need to engage users through iPhone apps and others arguing that the market share of the iPhone was still too small for it to warrant such a large focus. My view, for what it was worth, was that the focus should be on non-iPhone but there is no reason why this can’t be supported through the iPhone.
Anyway, it struck me, looking at the array of iPhones on display, how important it is for us to remember that as marketers we aren’t our client’s target audience – and we shouldn’t lose sight of what is the norm for us and what is the norm for the general population. I’ve see it so often, and I do it myself, when marketers presume audiences behave in a certain way based on their own experiences.
It’s vital when preparing comms. plans whether it’s PR, advertising or marketing that throughout the planning stage we engage and understand the audience we are trying to reach. We’ve (H&K) recently hired a planner and she’s already had us monitoring tourists at the British Museum or shadowing grocery shoppers in supermarkets!
Understanding our clients’ audience’s mindsets and behaviours more deeply allows us to better engage with them and ultimately achieve cut through with our messages.
Oct 21, 2008 0
I’m beginning to find some innovate ways brands are leveraging the Twitter platform. Two new services caught my eye this week!
The first, Qwitter, aims to help stop people smoking. As a non-smoker I haven’t tried it but it’s simple to get involved. Simply follow Qwitter and send messages to the user (@iquit) telling it how many cigarettes you have had. Qwitter will track how many packs you’re getting through and provide tips and advice to help you kick the habit.
The second is Tweet What You Spend which, like Qwitter, allows you to send messages and track how much you are spending day to day.
What I love about this is the fact that it’s such a simple way of engaging an audience through an existing and established platform. Both Qwitter and Tweet What You Spend are the start of brands engaging Twitter users with value-add services.
Many of our clients are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, using it as a simple comms tool. But, the examples above show that Twitter is becoming much more than a micro-blogging service and extending beyond comms and into a powerful web app for both brands and consumers.
Oct 7, 2008 1
So some of you will have noticed that the old blog hasn’t been in its best state recently. Between work, a holiday and work I really haven’t had time to show it the love and tenderness it deserves. But I am still here and remarkably have found 10 minutes to myself and thought I would post a note around a topic I was discussing yesterday on Twitter – The Great Drain Robbery, or, in non-Sun speak, the fact that Starbucks has been caught wasting millions of litres of water every day.
I won’t go into the story itself, you can read it here. What is interesting though is how quickly the flames of such a potentially damaging story have been doused. Yesterday this was a front page story and appeared across a number of nationals and online publications. Today though, not a whimper. More than that though, a quick search on Google News reveals less than 30 articles. On BlogPulse and the various Twitter trend trackers the story barely raises a squeak!
I’m not going to judge Starbucks on this as I don’t know the ins and outs of the issue however given how prevalent environmental issues are within today’s media, their PR and crisis teams have to be commended for a job well done. Yesterday’s news really has become today’s fish and chip paper!
It is worth pointing out that they did get a small helping hand with Palin misquoting one of their coffee cup quotes the other day. It may not have sold lattes but it certainly deflected some of the attention off the running taps!
Sep 12, 2008 1
PR Lesson #63: Treat your customers like thieves and you will get, in most cases, a negative reaction
Poor EA Games, not content with creating the biggest games franchise of all time with The Sims and making millions in the process they decide that their bulging wallets just weren’t bulging enough. They have recently released their latest “must-have” game, Spore, with a new DRM system that means people that buy the game can only install it three times before the game locks and it can’t be used. Wait it gets better…
…now, this could be a brilliant ploy to sell more games but then a glitch with EA’s registration system means gamers were struggling to authorise their copy of Spore and ended up using up their three installations and locking the game.
The decision by EA games to treat all their (loyal) fans as software pirates has resulted in a flurry of negative reviews and uproar amongst the gaming community.
In one fell swoop, EA has turned the most eagerly anticipated game of 2008 into one of the worst.
Can I suggest next time EA skip the formalities of online registration and simply take fingerprints and DNA swabs at point-of-sale.
Sep 5, 2008 0
This week I watched an interesting video stream from Hot Dog Media where we discussed, amongst other things publishing content. Along the course of the debate we touched on whether making content available online means it should free and that artists/authors/developers should look to monetise their creations through additional services.
I argued that we shouldn’t assume that because something is online it is free however I do believe the way content is published should change.
For the music industry, I still find it amazing that the record companies continue to rip off fans with albums costing £15 plus. Their decision not to embrace the digital movement is leading to their own downfall as consumers look for more convenient and cost-effective means of getting their music such as Last.fm, Napster and of course illegal downloads. I have no doubt in my mind that the level of music piracy would plummet if labels offered consumers a fairer price for their purchase.
But, this issue isn’t confined to the music industry. We hear little from the publishing industry on the impact that e-books are having on hard-copy sales. Probably because e-books haven’t hit the mainstream in the same way MP3s have. However, with more cost effective readers coming on the market and mobile phones such as the iPhone offering e-book support, it is only a matter of time before this form of content overtakes the traditional hardback.
Authors and publishers are beginning to react to the growing e-book trend and finding new and innovative ways of distributing their work. A good friend of mine, Stephen Morris, wrote his second book last year and instead of popping it on the shelves of Borders he decided to distribute it online in five parts. The book was free until the final section where consumers were asked to donate £3 to homeless charity, Shelter. The book made thousands for the charity and provided some fantastic publicity for a young, new author.
Likewise another author-friend of mine left 20 copies of his new book on various London Underground trains in the hope people would pick them up, read them and pass them on. They did and he received hundreds of emails from grateful bookworms willing to buy the book.
Authors and the publishing industry are benefitting from the generational gap of readers. e-books are lagging behind MP3s but over the next five years I suspect we’ll see a sharp increase in e-book downloads and with it will come the inevitable financial and copyright challenges currently facing the music industry. Publishers have plenty of time to address the issue and plan a viable business solution that will allow the industry to thrive under sales of e-books but they can’t afford to wait for consumers to start exploring cheaper means of getting their reading material.
As I mentioned during the Hot Dog Media webcast, online content doesn’t have to be free but not adapting to an online audience will see creators and publishers lose out.
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