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Twingo's Building Brand Recall

Adam — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:40:33 +0000

I hope I can be forgiven for having no idea that the Renault Twingo even exists. Apparantly it's been around since 1992! So why mention in now, some 18 years later?

If you've been watching ITV recently you may have seen Renault's latest round of adverts. Are they working? Well I'm never going to buy one but if you say the word Twingo to me I can tell you what it is and who makes. Brand recall in 2 short adverts.

It's the humour based around what are seen as embarrassing social situations that makes them so memorable. Have a look for yourself and leave a comment.

Controversy over Cadbury's Takeover

Adam — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:38:02 +0000

It's easy to understand the reluctance by the family to let go of a 186 year old heritage. Even easier to understand the feeling of the some 4,500 employees who are threatened with redundancy.

What is difficult to understand is the board spending over £240 MILLION in advisory and financing fees in an effort to sell the idea to their shareholders. It's akin to me taking £100 from your wallet to convince you to sell your watch!

Assuming the £11.6bn offer is accepted by shareholders, US company Kraft will obtain some of the most iconic branding in our history. An exaggeration you say? I only have 3 things to say "How do you eat yours?", "Made with a pint and a half of full cream milk" and of course "everyone's a fruit and nutcase".

Interesting to note that 45% of shareholders reside in the US and that the Chief Exec stands to make £20m from the sale of his stock options.

Whatever happens I assume I will still get my Button's Eggs every year!

Power to the People

Adam — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:27:40 +0000

If you ever questioned the power of people's opinion then question no further.

Supported by a campaign on Facebook to stand up to the marketing machine of XFactor, Rage Against the Machine has leapt 79 places in the UK Charts to be the Christmas #1 for 2009.

2009 XFactor winner McElderry has the #2 slot with The Climb. Looks like he hasn't climbed far enough!

More info

http://www.facebook.com/pages/RAGE-AGAINST-THE-MACHINE-FOR-CHRISTMAS-NO1/197877130755?ref=search&sid=680623775.2295640310..1

Manipulating Digital Photographs

Keith — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:12:24 +0000

Digital photography means that more people than ever are taking photographs, even if some are of dubious quality.

More people than ever now also have access to a home computer and together with increased popularity of image manipulation software, this means that many people are realising for the first time that the picture they take is not just an end in itself, to be filed away and forgotten about. In fact nearly all images taken on a digital camera need to be manipulated to a greater or lesser extent. Too many people think that the camera does it all for them. Not so. In the days of film cameras you took the photographs then had the film developed. The same principle applies to digital. You take the photographs then you tweak (or develop) them using a program such as Adobe Photoshop.

Of course, we should still strive to get out photographs as right as possible at the taking stage, but it is nice to know that we are able to “fix” things later on the PC. Once the realm of specialist darkroom technicians or design studios, anyone can now manipulate their images.

With just a little knowledge of Photoshop it is possible to turn any digital photograph into almost any image – maybe even a good photograph! We can now alter colours or even turn them to black and white. We can tint, tone, adjust brightness, contrast, focus, twist, distort, manipulate. We can remove lamp posts from sticking out of people’s heads, change skies, add bits in, take bits out, and apply a whole gamut of special effects. In fact if you can think of it, it can be done – the only limitation is the extent of your own imagination.

As Albert Einstein once wrote, “Imagination is more important than Knowledge” …and how right he was!

On Page SEO? Off Page SEO? What ARE you talking about?

Adam — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:09:49 +0000

Confused by terms banded around by your SEO people? It’s understandable. Technical people think nothing about throwing technical terms around like ninja throwing stars.

There are many factors which influence the results you see on search engines. These factors can be split into a few basic categories:

On Page Visable
This is basically what you can see on screen when you visit a page on your website. Your copy (written content), alternate text (displayed when you put your cursor over an image), anchor text (text you use for links to other pages) and links to 3rd parties.

On Page Invisable
The information which is behind the scenes on the page you are visiting. The code used to create your website. The information (or meta data) used to describe the page

Off Page
Everything else! Mainly inbound links from reputable, high ranking, related sites.

Online Networking

Adam — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:18:50 +0000

There are an increasing number of social networking groups available over the internet but there are some issues to consider:

Pros

Enables you to find quality people who may not be familiar with you or your company
Mutual connections help foster relationships and help you to begin with a little more trust and warmth than with a total stranger
Allows you leverage with contacts you already have

Cons

Getting started requires an investment in time to signup, enter your personal information, and add your contacts
If you only have a handful of contacts you will get very little benefit since most systems only search for connections through your existing network
Getting your existing contacts to invest their time to join is not easy

We recommend using the following network services:

http://www.linkedin.com/
Linkedin is an online network of more than 11 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. A basic account is free and will get you a lot of the useful functionality. Upgrading to a business account will allow you to introduce yourself directly to people outside your network as well as increasing the methods other people can find you.

http://www.ecademy.com/
Ecademy is a Social Network for Business People founded in 1998 now with over 150,000 member profiles worldwide.

Ecademy allows you to add your products and services into its marketplace, which is searchable by all members. Your profile and marketplace entries are automatically included in Google (after a couple of weeks). Optimising your own profile is a fantastic way of getting a first page listing on Google.

Copywriting

Jane — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:16:21 +0000

‘Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.’ Mark Twain

That well-worn phrase ‘less is more’ could have been invented for writing websites. Short, sharp, succinct and to the point – that’s the kind of copy your users want to read. And, be honest, that’s the kind of stuff you want to find when you visit a site, isn’t it? Not reams of padding.

But the finely honed phrase doesn’t just appear from nowhere. You have to work at it. So here’s my simple, Five-Step Technique for getting the results you want:

1 Open a new page and just write. Anything, everything – get it all out and say what you want.

2 Read it over carefully; get it in order so that the story flows.

3 Now – be prepared to delete. Cut out anything you don’t need: long-winded sentences; vague filler content; repetitions. Check words like ‘that’ and ‘very’ – see Mark Twain’s advice above. If it doesn’t add anything – delete!

4 Re-write wordy cliches like ‘on a weekly basis’, ‘in a position to’ or ‘for the purpose of’.

5 Leave for at least 30 mins (overnight is even better). Then re-read – preferably out loud and with feeling. Tighten up the copy where needed. (Repeat Step 5 if necessary.)

Et voila! You’ll have a lean, mean fighting piece of copy that really does the business.

Remember, you just can’t bore people into buying.