To answer the above question, in short – no! Well, at least that’s what the sponsors themselves say.

Euro 2012 sponsors Carlsberg, Orange and Castrol are all focusing their marketing/sponsorship activity on social media to avoid being overshadowed by the likes of Coco-Cola and McDonald’s, which are also sponsoring the London Olympics.

Social media has developed a lot since the last European Championship in 2008 so it does make sense that sponsors are utilising this platform in conjunction with their sponsorship!

A recently published article in Marketing Week investigated the activities by sponsors with less than 5 weeks to go until the opening match.

Carlsberg has launched a Facebook campaign that encourages fans to show their support for England via a series of challenges as part of a wider multimillion campaign. David Scott, director of marketing for Carlsberg UK, says “we’ve never previously used Facebook on this scale to understand the England fan and talk to them about what they know and love about the game. Consumers tell us that the Olympics don’t give the same sense of drinking occasion that a football match does, so we’re applying this insight to drive sales in pubs and supermarkets”.

Castrol is now using the predictions from its EDGE Index – the official tournament ranking system – to respond to fans in real-time on Facebook and Twitter. This means they will enjoy a lot more interaction with fans which will of course raise brand awareness.

Orange, similar to the other two, has also made interaction the brands biggest priority for its Euro 2012 strategy. The network is focusing the bulk of its marketing on direct channels, such as using social media for its Supporters’ Cup competitions and launching the official Euro 2012 mobile app.

All three sponsors will support their online presence by in-store, outdoor and press activity as the brand looks to engage with fans across multiple touch points. In addition to this, they are all confident that their social media marketing strategies will create the amount of interactions needed to provide a return on investment in their football sponsorship.

What will be interesting to see is how they are all measuring their marketing, particularly online to assess the return on investment!

Read more:

Marketing Week, Euro 2012 sponsors step out of London Olympics Shadow, May 2012

Love him or loathe him, if you work in financial services marketing you could do far worse than follow the adventures of Aleksandr Orlov.

The linguistically-challenged meerkat star of the Comparethemarket.com TV ads has also become something of a celebrity on social media channels with an enviable 800k Facebook fans and over 52,000 Twitter followers.

His success is hard evidence that the financial services industry can be creative and fun at the same time as delivering and supporting brand messages and raising awareness.

The rise in the use of digital channels in general and social media in particular is indisputable. US-based researchers Corporate Insight who monitor over 90 financial institutions say in their Social Media Leaders report: “In the four years since we published our first study on the subject, social media has evolved from an experimental communication tool used by a few forward-thinking firms into a nearly universal feature.

“Today, (end 2011) Twitter has replaced Facebook as the most popular social network for financial services firms with 92% actively engaging with clients on Twitter against 88% on Facebook.

“Engagement is truly what sets social media apart from more traditional business-to-consumer communications, and this direct interaction with current and prospective clients is a major benefit of a well-executed social media offering.”

Mobile marketing and video are also identified as channels to watch by financial marketing website.

In an overview of the top financial services marketing trends of 2012, the site says: “With 59% of UK consumers now in possession of a smartphone and 18% owning a tablet device, mobile marketing is a trend that businesses can’t afford to ignore. Companies that fully prepare for mobile will benefit from a potential client-base that browses – and shops – on the move.”

“The growth of video within financial services business marketing fits naturally with the broadening of social media channels and with increasing client focus on feedback and recommendations. Expect video to take on some surprising approaches this year with many financial services companies developing fresher and more user-focused forms of viral marketing.”

Of course, fear of falling foul of the FSA has been one of the biggest hurdles preventing the financial services industry from fully embracing social media. But attitudes are changing, according to media litigation lawyer Ashley Hurst.

“More and more financial services firms are now dipping their toes into the world of social media and reaping the rewards. Whether it be thought leadership on blogs, responding to customer complaints on Twitter, or creating common interest groups on LinkedIn, financial services firms are realising that brands can be enhanced and relationships built through social media,” he added.

Read more:

Get ahead of the curve, Top financial services marketing trends of 2012, February 2012

The Lawyer, Social Media and Financial Services – time to open up, December 2011

Corporate Insights, Social Media Leaders

On almost a daily basis, we read about a new social media platform that has come onto the market. Often we read about them one day and then they are forgotten the next. However, Pinterest is a new site which is gaining a lot of attention and continuing to grow in popularity.

While there is no mechanism for potential customers to buy your products directly from the site, there is huge marketing potential. Everything that is ‘pinned’ is linked directly to the site it came from; therefore it has the potential to dramatically increase the level of traffic to the sites you ‘pin’ from.

Conversis has just set up our own Pinterest account, which is still in the very early stages of development as we are still getting our heads round how to make it as successful as possible.

Like other social media platforms, there are key steps that can be taken to help develop and make your Pinterest site successful which we came across in our research. We found that Inc. summarised these steps in a clear and logical way so we thought we would share these.

1. Spend the time:

You must invest time to build relationships with those who are known for quality ‘pins’ at the site. Focus on the users who get the most likes and repins suitable to your market.

2. Keep it simple:

Pinterest is simply laid out and easy to use, so follow the basics and don’t make it complicated.

3. Connect your physical presence with your online presence:

It is important to connect the dots between a physical location and your Pinterest page. Create Pinterest buttons for your website (and other sites) and provide details of your other sites on your Pinterest account.

4. Make sure your business or reason for using Pinterest is a match:

This might seem obvious, but make sure you know your reason for using Pinterest and create your page around this. Pinterest focuses on images and the information behind these images so make sure that you choose relevant and interesting content.

5. Use other social network platforms to feed Pinterest:

Existing social networks have one advantage, a vast number of users – so use these sites to generate interest in your Pinterest account.

6. Launch a daily pin theme:

Companies who are using Pinterest successfully have created ‘daily pins’ to promote their brand. The idea is to come up with a catchy slogan that is tied to the organisation and is memorable enough so that the images get re-pinned.

7. Promote more than products:

The temptation to constantly promote your own products is high but it is also important to pin about related topics which may be of interest. Pinterest users are savvy in spotting a board that is too self-serving and only posts products photos.

So, will you be joining Pinterest? And if you are don’t forget to check out our new page!

Read more:

Inc, 9 Tips: Boost Your Business With Pinterest, December 2011

iMedia Connection, 8 social curation tricks for Pinterest and beyond, May 2012

Over the past century, there have been several attempts to create a universal language. Forget Esperanto or Anglish, Globish is the latest constructed dialect to set tongues wagging worldwide. But can a 1500 word vocabulary really get your global message across?

Globish is an economical version of English designed to aid conversations between non-English speakers. In 2004, Frenchman Jean-Paul Nerriere, compiled a list of 1500 high-frequency words to create an ‘English-lite’ for the boardroom, free of idioms and complex syntax. And since it takes much less time to learn than full English, Nerriere saw no reason for Globish not to become “the worldwide dialect for the third millennium”.

Nerriere witnessed the ease with which two men with limited English conversed and decided it should form the basis for a global language. But should two men’s attempts to get by form the inspiration for an international communication tool? And should people be encouraged to limit themselves to a set vocabulary?

Oxford academics recently published a list of the 3000 most important words in the English language, ‘The Oxford 3000’. With this list they believe a non-native English speaker can understand 80% of the words in a general English text. So perhaps Nerriere was too economical by half.

Interpreter Simon Kuper recently experienced the limitations of Globish on its home turf: an international business conference. “Germans, Belgians and French people stood up and, in monotones and distracting accents, read out Globish speeches that sounded as if they’d been turned into English by computers,” he explains in his blog.

“Sometimes the organisers begged them to speak their own languages, but they refused. Meanwhile the conference interpreters sat idle in their booths.

“Yet whenever a native English-speaker opened his mouth, the audience listened. The native speakers sounded conversational, and could make jokes, add nuance. They weren’t more intelligent than the non-natives, but they sounded it, and so they were heard.”

While Globish may have begun with good intentions, it’s clear that the more it becomes institutionalized the more it will dilute, rather than develop international business communications.

As Gloria Gibbons, a member of the Health Communications Council, recently wrote in Pharmaceutical Marketing Europe (PME): “We are in danger of watering down our communication in the name of global democracy.”

And anyway, with China making its presence felt more and more on the global stage, maybe we should be saying move aside Globish, ni hao Chinglish.

Some words that didn’t make the cut in Globish

Here are five words from this post that don’t feature in the Globish dictionary (there were 56 in total):

Hello
Worldwide
Conversation
Blog
Democracy

Read more:

Forbes, A new international business language: Globish, January 2012

Blogspot, Globish is rubbish – Simon Kyper, December 2010

Globish, Text scanner

Conversis’ business briefs are a series that give you a quick summary of the social, political, economic and cultural news that you need to be aware of if you’re doing business in a foreign country.

Here’s a snapshot of the information you get in a business brief.

Is Brazil a good country to do business in now?
Yes, we believe it is.

Here’s why

Brazil is widely acknowledged to be an economy with great investment potential. It has been one of the countries to lead the world out of recession.

Brazil is the largest and most populous nation in South America. Since the election of LuizInácio Lulada Silva in 2002 Brazil has taken on an increasingly prominent role in South American and international politics, and has established numerous trading deals and institutions of co-operation between nations in the southern hemisphere. In 2009, China became Brazil’s biggest trading partner, overtaking the USA.

Lula was the most popular president in the history of Brazil and made real inroads into easing poverty. He stood down after two terms and in January 2011, his former chief of staff, DilmaRousseff, was appointed president. She is Brazil’s first female president and has vowed to consolidate his legacy by continuing to fight poverty and improve public health, education and the country’s infrastructure.

Fast Facts

Population: 185 million

Language/s: Portuguese

Religion/s: Christian (secular)

Land area: 8.5 million square km (3.3 million square miles)

Currency: Real

Capital: Brasilia

Internet domain: .br

International dialing code: +55

Economic indicators: Real GDP growth: 5.0, GDP per capital (US$): $7311.15

Economy

The Brazilian economy has been expanding at a rapid pace since mid-2009 and grew at an annual rate of 9 per cent in the first quarter of 2010. It slowed toward the end of 2010 but is expected to continue to grow over the next two years as private consumption is fueled by wage increases and credit availability. Fiscal and monetary stimulus implemented during the global financial crisis has been eased but massive infrastructure projects will help lift growth rates in the near future.

Politics

Brazil is a stable Presidential Democracy. The president executes policy approved by the 513-seat Chamber of Deputies (the lower house) and the 81-seat Senate (the upper house). Constitutional review is handled by an independent judiciary. Although the president can resort to temporary decrees to push through legislation, the 1988 constitution gives Congress ample capacity to frustrate the executive. As a result, there are many political parties in Brazil and party discipline has traditionally been weak. Brazil elected its first female president in 2010 and she was sworn into office in January 2011.

Doing business

When conducting business in Brazil, remember the following few guidelines:

• Business is conducted mainly through personal connections. Brazilians will only be interested in long-term business relationships.
• Make appointments at least two weeks in advance. Arriving at an office without an appointment in unacceptable, especially if the person you’re visiting is a senior person in the organisation.
• Avoid scheduling appointments around Carnaval, which takes place in the weeks before Lent (February/March).
• Poor punctuality is characteristic of Brazilian business culture. Waiting around for your Brazilian counterparts is part of doing business here. Also, traffic in the main cities is chaotic and often responsible for the delays.
• Looking smart is important although it is not necessary to wear a suit.
• Shake hands with everyone at the meeting and maintain eye contact.
• Use local professional advice (legal and financial).

Read more:

Read Business briefs: Brazil plus 16 other business briefs here

HINT:

These business briefs may become very useful within the next few weeks in helping you to become a #GlobalGuru

The funeral took place on Tuesday. Almost a week has now passed and I can’t shift these mixed feelings of melancholy, pride, sadness and regret.

John Denton was my cousin and he passed away on 11^th April, victim to a very aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. He was 56 years old. I didn’t know John well, our mothers are sisters and remain very close, but, as is the way of these things, we didn’t see each other much as we grew older – busy lives got in the way. We exchanged Christmas cards and met up at the odd family ‘do’, but that was about it.

I heard stories of John from Mum, about how he worked in Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital, how he became a paramedic and later worked for London’s Air Ambulance, HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Service). I heard stories about his children growing up, bits and pieces about his life. And whenever we did meet up, I enjoyed chatting with him, his brothers Phil and Andy and sister Rachel. So when I heard of his passing, I wanted to go to the funeral although I hadn’t known him well – he seemed a real good guy, taken away from us too young and I wanted to pay my respects.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the sudden realisation was that my cousin was a real hero. The first clue was that it seemed to me that anyone who worked for London Ambulance Service and who wasn’t on duty was at the service. That’s a lot of people. Then it was the displaying of four separate awards for gallantry displayed at the front of the church. Then I heard 3 highly personal and emotional tributes from colleagues at the London Ambulance Service, revealing the courage and day to day excellence and dedication with which John carried out his work. His brother Phil and his son David also gave incredible and moving insights into the life of John. He was a great, generous, warm, brave bloke.

This isn’t the usual blog post you will read here and there is no other reason for writing it than this. What this has taught me is never to take those closest to me for granted. Rachel said to me ‘this makes you want to hug and protect all those closest to you’. I know what she meant. I’m melancholy because I am reflecting on my life and my priorities. I’m proud because I was related to a real hero. I’m enormously sad at his passing. But most of all I regret that I didn’t find the time to get to know this great bloke better. He would have enriched my life. I won’t make the same mistake again.

Take the time today to give someone you love a hug.

Samantha Collier from PR Daily has compiled a list of other lies about social media which people need to be aware of. These include:

1. Social media is free.

Social media is NOT free. While the technology side is often free, it still requires human input (and quite a lot of it) to ensure the success of using social media. This takes time, and to use an old saying: time equals money. In addition to this, companies often outsource their social media to professional companies, which again, is not free.

2. You need influencers.

Influencers are people who are paid (or receive rewards) for promoting a product/service through social media. Their loyalty, in most instances, is minimal and very temporary. Businesses using social media should not be worrying about getting influencers and instead focus on brand advocates. These are people who love your products/services and will continue to spread the word because of their love and not because they are paid to do so.

3. You are guaranteed a new client within X amount of days.

Building a presence on social media takes time. Therefore getting clients builds time and unfortunately there is no timescales available as to when this will happen. It takes dedication, consistency and skill.

4. You need to be happy all of the time.

Nobody and no company is happy ALL of the time, so it is ok if your social media reflects some of this. Of course, it would not be advised to have a rant everyday online but it is ok to act like yourself (at least every once in a while!). Showing a real personality on social media platforms often works in a positive way, so try it out.

5. You should give up your real life for your online life.

People need to be able to switch off from their online platforms. It is not physically possible to be on there all of the time and it is acceptable not to be. So don’t give up your real life in an attempt to maximise the success of your social media – it will not work.

So have you fallen for any of these lies? Or do you disagree with any of them?

“It’s about pharma and fun. This is not an oxymoron. You can have the two in the same sentence.” (John Pugh, Director of Digital Communications, Boehringer Ingelheim)

Pugh was, of course, talking about ‘Syrum’ – the long-awaited Facebook game designed by German company Boehringer Ingelheim to improve disease awareness and public understanding of the pharmaceutical industry. The game will see players compete to develop lifesaving medicines in their own virtual laboratories.

Syrum is one of a handful of games being name-dropped as the hottest trend in digital healthcare communications.

Gamification, according to Dominic Tyer, Managing Editor of Pharmaceutical Marketing Europe (PME), goes beyond pure entertainment and has “real practical applications for pharma”.

“At its heart, gamification seeks to tap into our ingrained urge to play with, or succeed within, a defined set of rules. It’s about harnessing some of the core aspects of successful games – immersion, interaction, feedback, goals and competition – to create more engaging content,” agrees Alastair McQueen of digital marketing agency, eBee.

McQueen was one of the brains behind the award-winning GlaxoSmithKline game, ‘Paper to Patient’. This training tool was aimed at educating 10,000 healthcare professionals (HCPs) about major policy changes in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Inspired, apparently, by ‘90s Tamagotchi toys, ‘Paper to Patient’ challenges players to put their COPD knowledge to the test on virtual patients. McQueen argues that the gaming mechanics encouraged over 15,000 HCPs to successfully engage with ‘otherwise dense’ subjects. Judges at last year’s Pharmaceutical Marketing Excellence Awards called it “an innovative approach to a very real problem”.

Other healthcare games have been designed to educate patients. Pfizer’s football-themed ‘Back in Play’ helps players to spot the signs of ankylosing spondylitis. While some games have even solved pressing health problems — ‘Foldit’, developed by the University of Washington, managed to decipher the crystal structure of a protein that causes Aids in rhesus monkeys.

PharmaVille might still be a few years off, but it’s clear that gamification, when thoughtfully applied, has enormous potential for healthcare communications. And in healthcare there is a reason for these games to exist beyond pure marketing and money.

PME’s ‘How to’ Guide to Gamification’ sums it up nicely: “As with any emerging discipline there are many ways that it could develop but at the very heart of gamification are some basic truths: people like challenges, they love rewards and they certainly enjoy sharing their success.”

The technology may be new then, but the principles of gaming are as old as time.

Read more:

PM Live, Gamification in pharma, July 2011

PM Live, Award-winning Digital projects, December 2011

Boehringer Ingelheim, Syrum

A big reason is undoubtedly because we think we don’t need to. With almost one billion people around the world estimated to speak our language why bother to learn theirs?

Another is simply that learning languages is hard and tends to happen only if schools or the state insist on it. In 2004 the government removed the legal compulsion to teach foreign languages past the age of 14. Just 23% of state schools now ask their pupils to be proficient in a second language at the age of 16 and, as a result, the number of secondary-school children in Britain passing exams in modern languages has almost halved.

But it is becoming clear that monoglot Britons could find their job prospects increasingly restricted unless they parlez français or sprechen deutsch a little more in the future.

Brits are already losing out in Europe because of an inability to speak a second or, perish the thought, a third language. While Britain accounts for more than 12 per cent of the EU’s population, just 5 per cent of Eurocrats hold British passports. And British graduate applicants for EU jobs comprise a measly 1.5 per cent of the total.

The Lords’ call is one of a range of proposals aimed at boosting UK student mobility through greater participation in programmes such as Erasmus, where all or part of a degree is studied abroad. Currently students in France, Germany and Spain are three times more likely as those in Britain to take part in the scheme.

Personally, I agree with the House of Lords and believe the British education system is letting our youngsters down and limiting their future career and lifestyle potential by not making language lessons compulsory in school. The evidence is clear that speaking more than one language opens doors socially and in business. After the three R’s, I struggle to see what can be more beneficial, practical and intellectually stimulating than learning a foreign language.

Read more:

Explore, Most Spoken Languages in The World, February 2011

BBC News, All children should learn foreign languages, March 2012

The Pie, Lords call for greater UK-EU mobility, March 2012

Well, rather than predict what we must do in 2012 (from a techy point of view), Eric Anderson from iMedia has put a list together of trends that we can ignore in 2012. While we agree with a lot of his points, ‘ignore’ is a strong word and it is always good to keep at least one eye on what changes are happening in the technology world – but you can decide for yourself.

Below are some of the items on the list:

1. Kinect for marketers

Kinect (for Windows) represents the first, best chance to bridge the digital and physical words with gesture-based interaction, which is a huge boon for marketers and, of course, for Microsoft…but its not going to happen in 2012.

2. iPad 3

The iPad (all 3 versions of them) are by far the leading and most popular tablets around but they aren’t the only ones. Marketers need to start thinking about ‘tablets’ as a category and stop treating every edition of the iPad as a sacred tablet brought down from the mountaintop. If you’re developing applications for the iPad, there’s no longer any excuse for ignoring Android.

3. Marketing trends to Pinterest

Pinterest is creating quite a stir among marketers – to join or not to join! However, what Anderson thinks you should ignore is the endless lists advising you how to use Pinterest. Like Facebook, Twitter etc people should be able to figure it out for themselves. Pinterest is simply used to find the things you like, share it, get to know your local customs, and you will eventually find your tribe. Pinterest should also be treated as new territory for brands to explore, not as a set of protocols that guarantee success.

4. No touching

Touch screen smart phones and tablets are here to stay, so ignore those who are fighting the move to have more ‘touch screen’ products. Touch interfaces are simply a natural evolution of human-computer interaction and are here to stay.

5. Facebook likes

We have all spent time growing those ‘likes’ but now Facebook have changed how things work with the new timeline and those ‘likes’ will in fact become not so valuable anymore. What marketers do need to concentrate on is placing a lot more effort on taking care of the fans who actually do truly ‘like’ you.

6. Branded Apps

Research shows that smart phone users’ time spent on apps exceeded their time spent on the mobile web for the first time ever. However, research also shows that 80 percent of branded apps are downloaded fewer than 1000 times and therefore there is not a return on investment for most developers.

7. 3DTV

We were all excited when 3D came to the cinemas and we could watch our favourite movies in that way. However, the same excitement was short-lived when 3DTV’s were launched. To put it simply, there are very few things to watch on TV that can be made special by 3D and until these changes 3DTV can be ignored!

8. Social media exhaustion

Those who say social media is exhausted because new sign up rates are not as high are wrong. Social media is not exhausted so ignore those who say it is. In fact, it is simply matured which can be far more beneficial to brands.

Do you agree with all of these? Or what will you be ignoring in 2012?

Read more:

iMedia Connection, 10 tech trends you can ignore in 2012, April 2012