What would you do if you were heading up a BP’s social media department and you found out that an imposter was operating a fake Twitter account on behalf of your organisation and also attracting more followers than your genuine account!
This is reality for BP and whilst some may panic and call in the high power law team to shut down the account, stating misrepresentation and brand copyright, BP have not. They are taking a far more relaxed approach, BP’s spokesman Toby Odone was quoted as saying:
“People are entitled to their views on what we’re doing and we have to live with those. We are doing the best we can to deal with the current situation and to try to stop the oil from flowing and to then clean it up”.
This was in direct response to the posting of satirical messages on the imposter account regarding the organisation’s continuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
With BP currently facing backlash from governments, environmentalists and the general public on this issue, we can assume they felt that it could do even more damage to their credibility by stopping people expressing their opinions on this matter.
At present the imposter account (BPGlobalPR)has garnered 120,219 followers, whereas the real account BP_Americahas 10,205 followers.
This is yet again, an interesting natural progression of the power of social media and how online communities create a force that often companies have no power to forsee or control.
Perhaps BP could learn a few tricks from BPGlobalPR for their social media strategy going forward!
The 25th of May saw Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg succumbing to the growing pressure from its users to tackle their personal privacy issues, with Mark admitting that settings had “gotten complex” for users.
From the 26th of May Facebook rolled out a new set of privacy settings. The new system will offer users one privacy page with a list of all their applications and a choice of three settings for each.
The backlash on the misuse of personal data started with changes made to privacy settings within member profiles at the end of 2009. Users were asked to re-set their privacy settings, to ensure their data was completely private to anyone outside of their agreed friends list. If users failed to carry out this action all messages would be viewable to everyone. This prompted a letter from the European Commission stating changes to its privacy settings were “unacceptable”.
Interestingly, (before Facebook made their announcement on the 25th of May appeasing users) other alternative social networking sites with tougher profile privacy settings have been prospering. One of these is Diaspora; the brainchild of four students from New York University, which they describe as “privacy aware, personally controlled, do-it-all distributed open source social network”. They originally set a target of $10,000 to get their open source project off the ground over the summer but to date more than 3,300 backers have pledged in excess of $125,000.
We’ll be watching (and commenting on) with anticipation whether Facebook users will turn their attention to the other data issues. One example is the current situation of personal data being used for targeted advertisements, which are then posted to users profile pages. This business model has been relatively simple and non intrusive so far, yet if this activity becomes more prevalent it could be argued that users whom are sensitive to using Facebook (given recent issues) will more complain more readily. Monetizing social networking platform’s is certainly a tricky area due to the dichotomy of meeting the advertisers needs without annoying members with unwanted adverts. However, with Facebook’s advert share being 30.4% of the online advert market, this looks to continue unabated.
In addition, members have been active in voicing their concerns about the site being poorly coded and at the mercy of open source applications, which gather email addresses from member profiles.
The irony of the situation is that Facebook has become a victim of its own success in so far it has the ability to forge member groups, whom are heavily influential forging Facebook’s strategy, whether they wish for this or not!
I do not think we could have not have posted this ad to our blog - it seems criminal to ignore it. Whether you love it, hate it, made you cry or made you angry - the point is it grabs your attention and gains a reaction. (And at a reported £6m you would be hoping that it does cause some interest).
It certainly has been one of the most talked about adverts within the mass media for a while - covered by The Sunday Times, Guardian, GMTV, Marketing and advertising industry publications alike.
Aside from the reminiscing, romanticising, debates and everything else in between - did the advert bring a return on investment to the store?
Well, JohnLewis.com has reported a 39.7% leap in sales since the advert has been aired and I certainly would bet that it can only strengthen their reputataion as one of the UK’s leading brands in customer service - carefully reinforced through the adverts strapline - Never Knowlingly Undersold on quality, price and service.
Infinium Technologies’ website is an integrated e-commerce site that reflects the two distinct business divisions the Company operates within; commercial and consumer.
The commercial side of the business manufactures plastic injection moulded parts which are supplied to varying sectors including; automotive, aviation, lighting etc. The other division produces the patented Infinium faders which are used within the consumer market for DJ mixing desks. Both very different businesses to represent within the one website indeed!
We overcame this challenge by designing and developing a main site that showcased the commercial manufacturing services and then integrating a microsite that appeals to a more consumer based market, in particular DJs.
The website was built using a nifty and straightforward content management system and easy to use built in analytics. The analytics show numbers of visitors to the site, where they originate from and tracks which pages are the most successful in terms of audience interest. Prism Creative will be using this data to conduct marketing reviews with the client to ensure that the website is working at its optimum and providing the client a successful return on investment.
The website also integrates ecommerce and email marketing functionality - thereby allowing the client to conduct the majority of their marketing and communications needs from within one system - offering greater efficiency and the distribution of some funky campaigns going forward.
The last few weeks have been really busy, hence the lack of dialogue on our side.
We are working hard on a great web project – for a company that specialises in plastic injection mouldings for the automotive, aviation and broadcasting industries. In addition, they have another part of the business within the music industry.
The company has commissioned us to build a fully integrated ecommerce website, for both their main and fader site. The design for the fader site is slick and funky, appealing to the DJ market.
The websites allow provision for online communities via its blog area, whereby consumers can provide feedback on the Company’s various products, which in turn assists the R&D department.
Another nifty part of the website is the Innovation section, where users can securely submit a request for assistance with their design, product or service ideas, therefore allowing the technical directors to translate their knowledge into help for budding entrepreneurs.
It’s been really busy on the website front lately; as we are also about to launch another clients 250 page! site, as well as kicking off with our very own new website designs.
Once all the websites are ready we’ll showcase them here for you all to have a nosey at.
Like everyone else around the world, our team was shocked and saddened to see the awful aftermath of the recent Haiti earthquake.
Having decided that we wanted to do something to help the victims, a number of inventive, fundraising ideas were shared around the office. We focused on the theme of luxuries, items that we all have the benefit of and sometimes take for granted.
In the end, we agreed for a month long fundraising campaign entitled “Come Bake with Me”challenge. The crux of which is that all employees take turn in rustling up their signature sweet dish, charging for their portions and securing a score. All money raised will be donated to a Haiti disaster fund, being raised by Plan UK.
We have combined this with tea & coffee making and charging a handsome sum in the meantime! For all the participating employees.
Finally, Prism Creative has pledged that for every new contract won over the course of the next month we will contribute a scaling %, according to the project value, to the Haiti disaster fund. Giving the employees an extra incentive to secure new work and help work off their cake calories!
Our fundraising efforts total £120 so far (employees contribution) and its looking like Mike - our Designer is going to win the coveted “Come Bake with Me” challenge!
Perhaps you heard or saw the Outdoor Advertising Association launch of the ‘Britain Thinks’ initiative on the 4th of January? The 2 week campaign will utilise hundreds of buses for advertising, 11,500 billboards and poster sites nationwide.
Spending a whopping £1.25m on the campaign, the aim is to promote outdoor advertising as a viable way of directing buyers to websites as an alternative to the more popular digital advertising.
With additional controversial statements such as “1966- It won’t happen this year”, they are definitely covering the male and female audience with their offence tactics. It’s obviously an attempt to cause a reaction and spark a big debate; to such an extent that the OOA have been asked to remove the “Career Women Make Bad Mothers” strapline from all channels with immediate effect. Perhaps the statements could have been irreverent or humorous statements about male/female idiosyncrasies, getting people to laugh about themselves making an impression that way. I can’t help feeling that they may have hit on a too sensitive subject here from both male and female perspectives.
With online advertising (1.752 £bn) surpassing TV advertising (1.6 £bn) for the first time (1st half of 2009) against the backdrop of £1.5bn being wiped off the advertising industry spend. It’s easy to see why people have moved over to digital, with its rich media content, value for money and the ability to track responses via click-through; it’s much more measurable for today’s studied and budget constrained marketers.
We have already seen the level of audience uproar and debate, now its about seeing the outcome of the coverage penetration and subsequent interest taken from top marketers. However, with technology companies investing the most in online ads (19% of the overall market) followed by telecoms, finance, entertainment and media. It’s always going to be difficult to encourage these industries to move away; technology and telecoms will always want to show off their capabilities online, finance; a dry subject, can come to life online whereas entertainment/media are tapping well into social networking, podcasting and viral marketing to generate word-of-mouth advertising.
The Prism Group team are now working with the West Sussex Education Business Partnership (WSEBP) and have been attending their “Careers Speed Dating” events throughout local schools. Our team were interviewed by Year 9 pupils. We were asked to provide a series of “yes” and “no” answers to questions about our various roles, with the pupils then having to guess what jobs we did.
Both the pupils and the volunteers got a lot out of the events and we received some interesting guesses. Many pupils thought we worked in a doctors or dentists surgery as we met people for “appointments”, one other pupil thought that Mike, our Designer, was a model! We think a career in comedy beckons for this girl!
The pupils were amazed by the differing types of jobs that were potentially available and by being asked innocent and straightforward questions we learnt that that at times the best way to convey and communicate is by keeping things to a simple message.
Interestingly, the pupils all grasped advertising and were certainly product savvy, many noting the lastest hot, computer game they had seen advertised, for example. When explaining that advertising budgets can run into millions, many were aghast.
We may have just met our marketing, pr, web colleagues and competitors of the future!
Check out this new cinema ad for the anti-aviation expansion group Plane Stupid, directed by Danny Kleinman. Use of visual imagery and sound induce a shocking reaction, without the need to make any extra commentary to the audience. Very, powerful indeed.
This Sunday saw Cheryl Cole going straight to number one after her debut single “Fight For This Love” was released on the 19th October.
Whether you like Cheryl’s music or not……her record company has found some innovative ways of pushing promotional activity in the weeks leading up to her album release. Particularly, making use of online social media and bundling the CD with some exciting extras.
Online and offline album sales have been hit badly in the last few years by the illegal download of music. A recent Channel 4 News article quoted an academic survey result; that 61% of young people downloaded music illegally.In addition, they are not being put off by threatening letters or the offer of free, legal sites.
In response, perhaps it’s best to find a way of coercing youngsters with something exclusive, that they cannot gain from their current illegal sites. In the old days of buying a LP record you got (with the first released editions) lyric sheets, photos and poster pullouts galore. Cheryl Cole’s record company Fascination Records are doing something similar in the push for sales of her forthcoming album, leading up to the important Christmas present buying months. The record company has sent 200 signed CD’s to Amazon, in addition to selling special CD and calendar editions and editions with 2 photos, bag and CD. All of which are offered at just a few pounds extra on top of the normal CD price.
All of the above tactics are running in conjunction with a social networking campaign. MySpace hosted a live web-chat with the singer and Bebo ran a competition where users could make a video for the chance to interview the star. On Twitter, fans were able to ask questions and then see Cole answer them in a video on her website. All of which keep the fans happy as they feel more connected to the big star. By running these activities online there are no restrictions for the fan as engaging is not location dependent, just online access dependent.
It will be interesting to see if these tactics are just as measurably successful as the large: advertising, radio/TV schedules and CD signing campaigns artists usually engage in at driving up sales. Let’s see what happens to the Christmas charts and watch whether other artists move to these promotional tactics as a result.
Of course the effect on the record company’s bottom line and how these CD sales convert to profit is a longer term benefit that will transpire in months, perhaps years.
