Ponderings of The Orange Cow.....

Email Marketing Metrics Report - Australia (Jan-Jun 08)

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 07:35:00 +0000

Vision 6 have just released their latest metrics report for Email Marketing in Australia for H1 2008. Here are some of the top line stats:

Open Rates: 20.99%
Click Thru Ratses: 4.45%
Click Thru vs. Open Rate: 21.22% (vs.20.31% in H2 2007)
Bounce Rate: 10.34%

For more information and to see the report, you can go here.

Mobile Payments - Are they Secure?

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Here's a stat that some of you might be interested in. The annoying thing is that I can't remember were I read it. If anyone knows, please feel free to comment on this article and let people know. So here goes:

'The average time it takes before a person realises they have lost their mobile is around 25 minutes compared to the average time it takes for a person to realise they have lost their wallet which is around 1 day'

Interesting. Plus add onto this that all payment transactions can be validated through a user name/password mechanic and over https as per a user's experience on the web, I am definitely sitting in the 'secure' camp.

iPhone – Pleasure or Pain?

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:53:00 +0000

It’s been a while since we last posted to the blog so its only right that with our last post being about the iPhone, that our first post back should be about the iPhone.

Its been nearly 2 months now since the iPhone launched and if you’ve been keeping up the with the press and industry news you’ll know that the iPhone’s launch has been plagued with problems around their MobileMe product. But and I mean a big BUT, as the AFR pointed out in yesterday’s edition, Apple are one of the only brands that can withstand this kind of negative press and still come out of it smelling of roses! I consider myself a pretty hard critic but even I am yet to turn on Apple. They still remain the only company that have managed to make me part with more money for something just because of its colour – when the black MacBook launched, they were just too stylish to pass up!

So although I’m still an iPhone advocate, they’ve got to work quickly. There’s still issues with delayed messages and emails, and even in some cases the phone hanging. If this carries on it won’t be too long before even the greatest Apple advocates turn on their beloved. (P.S. you can check out more of the crazies here.....and no this is not me!

Phone, iPod, Internet, and more. iPhone 3G.

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:21:00 +0000

Wow.....and its 'twice as fast' but only 'half the price'. Sweet. I'm excited. July 11th can't come soon enough for me. And with MobileMe their mobile version of .Mac also about to launch, this could be a really sweet solution for businesses. I know we are using it. Long may it continue.

Singapore to see first 3G iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:59:00 +0000

Insiders at Singtel have leaked the launch date, June 23, for the Apple's first legitimate iPhone's in the region -- more than two weeks ahead of the world. Apple's official worldwide release isn't scheduled until July 11.

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:00:00 +0000

The new look to motorsport :) A thoroughly enjoyable day was had by all I think. Ben was awesome. He went from 20th to 7th and if there hadn't been - shall we say - some really poor driving in Race 1 on Monday by other drivers on the circuit, our car wouldn't have been taken out and have to have had started in 20th.

Derryn and the boys at Icon Motorsports really did us proud, even getting a backdrop for the race pit garage created by a student of a well known Australian cartoonist called Reg Mombassa.

Got some great 'talkability' for the Orange Cow brand but we also managed to help out a genuinely nice guy who is a seriously great racing talent. Long may the relationship continue!

Full video footage of the race (Sandown) and subsequent races will soon be made available, streamed from The Orange Cow site web/mobile for the remainder of the Forumla Ford National series.

Watch this space!

Holy Cow! Morley and Club Icon Head into Sandown

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 03:35:00 +0000

The Orange Cow, a leading digital communications agency, has come onboard as a major sponsor to support Ben Morley and the Icon Motorsport Team when they contest the third round of the National Formula Ford Championship at Sandown International Raceway in Melbourne Victoria this June Long Weekend.

Morley, who currently sits only 5 points adrift of current National Championship leader Paul Laskazeski in second place, is naturally thrilled to receive the major backing of The Orange Cow for the Sandown round and is hoping that this support will help him continue his stellar start to the year aboard his Spectrum 011C.

"To have a company such as The Orange Cow become involved with Icon Motorsport is certainly a major boost for the entire team heading into the third round of the National Championship," enthused Morley.

“Our aim is to continue our surge towards the top of the leader board in the championship, and the main focus is to be consistent and most importantly finish all our races as that are what championships are all about.
“I was quite lucky during the last round, due to a number of other drivers failing to finish a race, when I finished out of the points in race three. I was still able to maintain my second position in the championship, but next time, I might not be so lucky.”

Having only competed at the Sandown International Raceway circuit on one previous occasion, back in 2002 in the now defunct MG Series, Morley believes that his previous experience around the circuit is going to be of no advantage.

“I can honestly say that running a MG around Sandown some six years ago is going to be of little advantage to me, it’s just going to be like visiting a new circuit again,” explained Morley.

“Normally we have two practice sessions at the National rounds but we only have one this weekend, which I think will help out the local drivers a little, but having said that, I’m still looking forward to the challenge.”

In between rounds Morley and the Icon Motorsport team have been able to do something that they haven't been able to do so far this year.... a testing session.
“Being able to have a test session has certainly built up my confidence heading into this weekend’s round without a doubt, and up until this point we haven’t been able to undertake a full test session for one reason or another,” Morley expressed.

“We were able to try a few new things with the car during our test session that we have naturally been unable to do in the heat of competition, and that is going to help us for the remainder of the year.”

With The Orange Cow coming on board for Sandown, the last 4 weeks have been a good one for Morley and Icon with members of the "Club Icon" supporter group additionally contributing to the next two rounds, and Powerhouse Global Logistics confirming
its renewed support in 2008 by becoming the Tyre Sponsor for the remainder of the year.

National Formula Ford Championship point standings (after two completed rounds):

1 Paul Laskazeski – 77
2 Ben Morley – 72
3 Nick Percat – 61
4 Brad Lowe – 54
5 Kristian Lindbom - 52

Icon Motorsport are still in the hunt for more sponsors and also members to join Club Icon and to find out more information about these exciting opportunities visit the official Icon Motorsport website: www.iconmotorsport.com.au

-ENDS RELEASEIcon

Motorsport media enquiries Daniel Powell – Redline Media

Phone: 0246 832 287
Mobile: 0432 126 210
Email: daniel@redlinemedia.com.au
Website: www.redlinemedia.com.au

Mobile ads years away from breakthrough: execs

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:03:00 +0000

This is absolute rubbish if you ask me. Read the article and see who's saying it and what they have to say. I've been in and around the mobile marketing/advertising space both in Australia and in Europe for over 8 years and with all sincerity, we are now at a real point in the market where mobile marketing/advertising services will become the must have accessory to really have any hope of achieving a 'Purple Cow' execution.

And particularly this line: 'Akhavan (Head of Germany's T-Mobile) said operators were starting to discuss this but that it was not a top priority.' That just simply isn't true. Vodafone, the World's largest mobile operator with over 500 million customers, have a global strategy around Mobile Advertising with approximately 15 of their operating companies with dedicated mobile advertising divisions. The local one here are Vodafone Australia is run by mobile marketing/advertising guru Dave Green. I know they are having enormous success in the marketplace currently.

I guess this only goes to show why brands are happy to work with niche digital marketing agencies who are real specialists. Why? Because the big boys just don't get it.

Here's the article.

Aussies Worth Watching...

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Tue, 27 May 2008 14:49:00 +0000

Len Rust has written a good article on upcoming Australian technology companies on his site Computerworld.

Here's one I'd put some money on:

EMAGINET offers advertisers and publishers behavioural targeting -- the ability to target an online audience by tracing their behaviour before they reach a site. This allows specific, relevant messages to be delivered to specific audiences, increasing the likelihood of response. Online activity, banner/display, e-mail, SMS, and search can be activated and monitored through a single interface.

What impact will the iPhone have on Mobile Advertising?

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:48:00 +0000

Well that's the question alot of industry pundits are asking themselves with the news that Vodafone and Optus are going to be stocking the iphone and delivering it to the market at some point this year here in Australia.

Join the conversation at the MobiAD News Forum.

CGM - Consumer Generated Media.....Fast Facts

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:34:00 +0000

Consumer-Generated Media (CGM) is content created online by anyone (other than a professional journalist) that is made available to other consumers through digital technology. Blogs, message boards, online forums, usenet groups, and consumer feedback sites are the most common examples. Marketers and communications professionals can benefit from CGM by “listening” to what the consumers are saying to gain unfiltered insights.

- According the the Harris Interactive 2005 Survey, 85% of respondents said word-of-mouth communication is credible, compared with 70% for PR & advertising

- 65% of consumers trust their friends the most for product recommendations, while 27% trust experts, and 8% trust celebrities (Source: eMarketer)

- 26% of the top search results for the world's 20 largest brands are consumer-generated media sites (Source: Jupiter Research)

- Online influencers will forward positive messages to an average of 11 people and negative messages to an average of 17 (Source: Burson-Marsteller)

Mobile TV....Free or User Pays?

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Mon, 19 May 2008 06:39:00 +0000

The great debate at the moment is whether premium content on mobile should be available through a user pays model or an advertising funded model where the content is free to access but as a result a user is advertised to. Same model on the Internet, same model on Free to Air TV. I think we can guess what's going to win out and which way things will go.

Proof in point comes from a Mobile Video Advertising Research Study conducted by the MMA completed in late 2006 among mobile subscribers in the US.

- Approximately 23% of mobile subscribers are positively predisposed to the idea of watching advertisement supported video on their handsets

- More than 43% of mobile video viewers and intenders - or more than 19 million consumers agree that they would watch advertisements in order to watch mobile TV/video for free.

- Nearly 20% of viewers and intenders - or more than 9 millions consumers - agree that they would watch advertisements in order to watch mobile TV/video for a reduced fee.

I'll leave you to make your own mind which is the best model. Comments welcome.

Latest NIKE TVC

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sun, 18 May 2008 11:44:00 +0000

Another great Nike execution....

read more | digg story

CNN using Perceptive Pixel Touch Screen Technology

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:32:00 +0000

CNN using a Perceptive Pixel touchscreen in their Super Tuesday coverage.

read more | digg story

The Future.....amazing touch screen technology....

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:29:00 +0000

Perceptive Pixel, Inc. was founded by Jeff Han in 2006 as a spinoff of the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences to develop and market the most advanced multi-touch system in the world.

read more | digg story

Lastminute.com - Viral Video

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:19:00 +0000

Stansted Airport, London. 7 hidden cameras. 14 undercover actors. 1 unexpected performance...Take a look. I can't decide whether its good or not.

read more | digg story

A Purple Cow Execution....

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:33:00 +0000

For those of you, who have not read Seth Godin's 'Purple Cow', a purple cow execution is something remarkable. Its something worth talking about. Worth noticing. New. Interesting. Its a Purple Cow. Boring is invisible. It's a brown cow.

Although it's not a digital execution I thought I would still talk about the Heinz Soup outdoor campaign in the UK as in my mind it is definitely a 'Purple Cow' execution. Why? Well they created the UK's largest 'steaming' billboard.

Every day during the campaign, at peak commuter hours a giant pot of steaming Beef Stew and Dumplings soup enticed hungry passers-by to try out Heinz's Taste of Home range. But what for me makes it a Purple Cow execution, was how the site was brought to life through the addition of a 'steam' effect. Controlled by an electronic timer, the soup pot emitted steam at the busiest times of the day, at a location on London’s North Circular that was facing three lanes of traffic at a notorious commuter hot-spot reaching travellers on their way home.

No, not digital but a nice use of interactivity.

What do Media Planners Really Want from Mobile?

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:40:00 +0000

There was an interesting article written in MobiAD news this month by one of their journalists who was involved in a discussion at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in London earlier this month. The discussion centered around Mobile Advertising and around several key areas that currently act as barriers to faster development. Overall there was a strong belief that mobile is a very powerful channel, which should grow to a value equivalent to online advertising. However there are still some serious issues and challenges that must be overcome first.

Here is a summary of some of the key points raised by the panel:

- Within a media agency, mobile advertising must be evaluated during the Strategic Planning process, when budgets are allocated among various media, not handled simply as a part of the Tactical Planning for online.

- Measurement systems must be set up to bring data into the existing measurement and reporting processes so it will become more usable.

- The information that is used for planning must improve in terms of consistency, especially consistency across media, and there must be a more honest representation of the media by media owners.

- It is critical to ensure that there is content on the mobile internet that consumers find compelling, as this will keep them using the mobile internet. It is likely that a lot of such content is being developed already, but agencies currently have limited ways of finding and utilizing to this content.

- The industry must work to educate a wider group of people within the agencies as to the role that mobile technologies play in consumers’ lives, and how brands can use these technologies to engage them.

Possibly the best viral video ever.....

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:53:00 +0000

Well its been a while since I last posted and what better way to celebrate the return than by talking about one of the best pieces of viral video I've seen. To be honest it is pretty old now, with the first cut being posted back in June 06. Since then, they've had nearly 20 million views of their videos and have helped drive huge incremental sales and awareness for the brands involved.

So what am a referring to? Well the infamous Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments by the guys at Eepybird.com. Their first video "The Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments," went online on June 3, 2006. They told one person. He told some friends... They told some friends....and nearly two years later, they've had over 20 million views, Mentos sales went up by 15 to 20%, and the traffic to Coke.com doubled. What an example of how powerful a piece of engaging content can be. If you haven't seen the videos yet, check them out below.

MySpace reacts to Facebook's dominance

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:38:00 +0000

With Facebook now having overtaken MySpace in the UK according to the latest figures from Nielsen//NetRatings, MySpace have come out fighting and have announced they will follow the Facebook model and will provide an API (Application Programming Interface) that will allow developers to build 3rd party applications to integrate into the MySpace platform.

Facebook originally opened up their API in May last year and since then over 6000 applications have been built including branded widgets from blue-chip companies such as Red Bull, Johnson & Johnson and the Discovery Channel. These applications are a big draw card for subscribers, with widgets such as Scrabulous which is based on the well known word game Scrabble, touting figures of over 377,000 daily active users.

Is there still life in virtual worlds?

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:22:00 +0000

Omnicom in the US seem to think so having just bought Millions of Us, a San Francisco-based digital agency that specialises in virtual worlds like Second Life. The agency specialises in helping brands connect with virtual worlds and has built a presence in Second Life for brands including Toyota, 20th Century Fox and Pontiac.

A statement from Reuben Steiger, an ex Linden Lab executive and CEO of Millions of Us praised the purchase: "We are entering an era known as the 'Avatar Age' in which people connect face-to-face online. Because people today trust the recommendations of friends much more than advertising, companies can now seize the opportunity to support online communities and connect more deeply with their customer through social networks rather than through traditional online advertising."

With the rise of Facebook and other social networking communities there's been less and less in the press about Second Life. Since much of the initial enthusiasm around Second Life and other virtual communities, many have questioned whether marketers are wasting their money in virtual worlds. Stats that show Second Life has over 10m registered users but that less than 500,000 have logged on in the last week seem to back up these misgivings.

More Brands attracted by mobile marketing

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:10:00 +0000

A recent slew of announcements out of the UK show that more and more brands are considering mobile marketing as part of their overall marketing mix. A survey, carried out by mobile messaging applications company Airwide Solutions has showed that the number of brands considering SMS and MMS mobile marketing campaigns has doubled to 28% since a similar survey was ran in 2006. The survey also found that more brands are looking to spend a greater proportion of their marketing budget on mobile campaigns in the near future, with 71% of brands projecting to spend up to 10% of their budget on mobile within two years time. Confidence in the medium is clearly growing with a number of big name brands announcing mobile initiatives in the last few days. Hello has just announced they are going to build a WAP version of their site to deliver a subset of their celebrity news and content. Nissan too has just launched a new mobile campaign in the US using a series of mobile games and wallpapers to help launch the new Nissan Rogue.

M:Metrics run Mobile Audit

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 03:06:00 +0000

M:Metrics the Mobile Marketing research company have released a report today in conjunction with AdMob, the mobile advertising network. M:Metrics used their auditing technology to run a study of the audience composition across the 2000 sites that AdMob manage. The results show that about two-thirds of the people who view mobile ads are in the desirable 18- to 34-year-old age group but also that there is still decent representation in many of the other genres. To see a detailed breakout go here.

Silverlight launches....

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 10:04:00 +0000

Well, it was 8 weeks later than we were told it was going to be but with the final release of Microsoft’s Silverlight on September 5th it’s only right that we talk about it. I’m a huge believer it what it has to offer, in fact so much so, that in a previous life I advocated delivering a Silverlight solution for Discovery Channel Asia back when it was still in beta – albeit a pre-release beta. The site was rolled out in July 07 was the first commercial application of Silverlight globally.

So what does Silverlight do? Why all the hype? Why would developers choose to develop on Silverlight that has limited penetration compared to the ubiquitous Flash that has close to 100% penetration. Well here are few reasons:

1) It’s a cross browser, cross platform presentation technology working seamlessly across Windows and Macintosh platforms.

2) It supports playback of WMV files on both PC and Macintosh and will deliver an optimised encoded video stream, depending on the available bandwidth, up to 720 dpi.

3) Silverlight supports seamless transitions between full-screen and windowed mode.

4) Silverlight includes a mini-CLR (Common Language Runtime) from .NET which means as with the usual .NET runtime, you can code in a number of supported programming languages – which means there are no special languages to learn – any developer can pick up Silverlight and start using it straightaway. For example, the Discovery Silverlight site took 2 weeks from first looking at Silverlight to delivering a working site.

5) Silverlight is a lightweight subset of XAML, the markup language, and by separating markup (XAML) from code, Microsoft has empowered designers and given them development control of the front end. This is important. An analogy that I’ve heard used by Microsoft is that of an egg. A design might start as a nicely formed egg that a client sees and buys into. That design is then handed off to a developer to code. Developers will have their own interpretation of the design and maybe there’s some elements of the design that just technically can’t work. The finished product, a broken egg, stuck together with sticky tape. Not what the client signed up for. What Silverlight does is empower the designers through their Expression Software suits. Designs instead of being saved in a JPEG or PSD format are created in XAML that are then handed of to the developers to integrate into the web page. The end result, a nicely designed Silverlight element, that looks exactly what the client signed off on.

6) Another key feature of Microsoft Silverlight is that it integrates seamlessly with HTML. Every XAML element can be accessed or manipulated from the same client-side JavaScript that would be used to interact with any DHTML element: there are no artificial boundaries or barriers. Unlike Flash that is self-contained element within a page.

7) The Silverlight plugin is also very small – only 1MB - and is also blindingly fast, being able to for example (depending on the bandwidth of course) play many videos simultaneously without stuttering or dropping frames.

8) Silverlight is both client- and server-agnostic – an element does not need to be specially encoded depending on the environment that it is going to run in nor does it need any specific software on the server.

9) Lastly, are Microsoft’s plans for Silverlight on the mobile. To date we’ve seen a demo that was created for the MLB (Major League Baseball) that shows both Silverlight applications and media streaming running on a mobile phone - so Silverlight even at this stage is about more than just the desktop browser and desktop market.

Well that’s about it. If you want to see more it's worth checking out the Silverlight site and if you want to see the site that was developed for Discovery then you can find it here.

AdNews Media Choice Study Released

noreply@blogger.com (The Orange Cow) — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 01:49:00 +0000

AdNews recently ran a questionnaire on their site in conjunction with Catalyst Research. The purpose of the study was to understand the factors behind platform decisions and the strengths and weaknesses of different media and how they are being combined.

The Topline report was released today and made pretty grim reading (from a digital advocate's point of view)! Here are some of the main points:

- Marketers / Brand Owners feel that Newspapers, Magazines and Direct Mail are more cost effective than do Agencies, who are more likely to perceive digital platforms, Outdoor and Free TV as cost effective.

I find it unbelievable that Marketers are still not touting the Digital medium as the most cost effective channel - particularly when it is the only channel when you can really measure your ROI.

- In terms of the relative strengths and weaknesses of each platform, Free TV rates strongly for Creative impact and Engagement for Branding. Magazines also score well on these attributes and Magazines lead the way for Targeting Ability along with Direct Mail.

How can Magazines and Direct Mail lead the way in terms of Targeting Ability?? Amazing - I won't go into my reasons but maybe have a read of one of my previous posts.

- Marketers and Advertisers employ an extensive assortment of other media in their campaigns. Free TV dominated in absolute dollar terms followed by Radio and Newspaper spend. Seven in ten would include a Magazine component, and over half would incorporate a Direct Mail and Online Display element; this is higher than Subscription TV, Outdoor media, and mobile platforms. Only a small proportion of budgets would be allocated to mobile marketing such as SMS or 3G. These platforms are not perceived to be as easy to deal with as more established media.

Well this backs up some of the other reports that we've seen in terms of spend although I'm suprised to see Radio and Magazines still up there. It also shows that there is still alot of education to do when it comes to marketers and their perceptions.