Category: Working

1000heads: Dear Blink-182. You Win.

Each morning I spend around 15mins of my day looking through my Google Reader for some decent content that I can share across the fairly interesting 1000heads Twitter feed.

Sometimes though, I come across such a fantastic idea, such a perfect execution that it warrants a whole blog post on its own.

Today is one of those days.

We’ve spoken before about what it means to reward engagement, surprise your fans and ultimately, let your community know you love them back but today’s effort, from American pop punk band (wikipedia’s definition, not mine), Blink-182, really takes the biscuit.

This video, explains it all –

Five reasons why this is awesome:

  1. Blink 182, unlike many, many other bands/artists, have decided to EMBRACE the ‘mis-use’ of their music and, instead of hitting ‘go’ on their lawyers, have recognised that if someone has used their music it probably means that they are a fan.
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  2. The sheer dedication and commitment to using not just the famous ones. Being a fan is not defined by how many views you’ve had or how many likes your video has garnered. It’s about being passionate and actually giving a damn. You like Blink 182’s music? They give a damn about you.
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  3. In the same way that the YouTubers featured in this video have ‘stolen’ Blink 182’s music, Blink have done exactly the same back by ‘stealing’ footage from their videos. The difference being the users in question won’t be hammering on the door with their lawyers.
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  4. The title: “The Blink-182 Film Festival You Didn’t Know You Entered” – perfect.
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  5. This is Blink 182’s first single release in eight years and they have a huge global fan-base. No matter what they did for their new single, they would’ve got huge coverage – the fact that they chose this particular idea for their return launch speaks volumes about how much they care about their community. To put it bluntly; that is epic.

So OK the video is part of a (somewhat strange) over-arching sponsorship deal with American mobile phone operator AT&T but still, it is a great idea.

And for that Blink-182, we applaud you. You win.

 

 

1000heads: Domino’s Pizza & Audiences

A comedic tale for the fast-food friendly amongst you –

It was Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK a little while a go and, for me personally, post-big birthday celebrations for someone dear. For breakfast/lunch/hangover-medicine, Domino’s Pizza was chosen (don’t judge) and, as I went through the ordering process, the social creative agency part of my brain refused to switch off;

“Now, wouldn’t it be awesome if I could share this order… I was out with a whole bunch of mates last night and the sheer comedy value of participating in hangover junk food is just too good not to share.”

And so it was, as I was greeted by the post-payment ‘your order is being prepared’ screen I was invited to share my order! “Yes!” I thought “that’s EXACTLY what I want to do!” – but alas, the only option available to me was Twitter.

Interesting.

OK, let’s be clear: I am entering into this from a fairly unique use-case position. I am (probably) not Dominos’ average customer. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that the average Domino’s customer may not even have a Twitter account yet (although given the recent News International debacle, that’s definitely changing) – in the UK at least. Conversely, Facebook usage is definitely country-wide and yet the ‘share this order to my wall’ button is strangely absent.

Odd.

Parking that for a second, the whole thing got me thinking about audiences. Often, when discussing word of mouth strategies with new clients, we first address the planning and optimisation; where are these users/customers/consumers [delete where preferable] in social media, what communities do they belong to?

An obvious example would be discovering that a footwear company has zero exposure on Twitter but a huge Flickr following of photographers (who love shooting their feet, as it were), and prescribing a strategy model to fit against that, ie: DON’T start a Twitter channel – at least not yet anyway – engage with your fans and advocates on their platform of choice (not yours).

Bringing this back to Domino’s, I don’t want to share my post-hangover pizza with my 7000+ followers, however my Facebook friends, many of whom who were out with me on that particular weekend and (perhaps rather tellingly) also not on Twitter – I’d definitely tell them. Hell, some of them might even be local enough to come ‘round and steal a slice.

My point is: you follow people on Twitter, you friend them on Facebook.

Do you want to share personal experiences with your followers or your friends? Or perhaps even both? Domino’s – it would seem – would prefer it if I chose the former. However, little ol’ me, I’d only really be interested in sharing with the latter.

Purchase sharing is still only in its fledgling stages (and will only get bigger), naturally some brands are more friend-friendly than others. When you’re ordering pizza this weekend, have a think about that –

When the time comes, who would you rather share with?

NB: This blog post only came to me after I had finished the original pizza. So the two pepperoni passions I ordered the other night were purely for research and screen capture purposes. Honest.

1000heads: Haye vs Klitschko: The Case Study

The Challenge:
How do we use WOMTrak to help market both 1000heads and its insights and analysis suite?

The Insight:
1000heads excels at reactive work. Contemporaneous content will always get bigger pick up, so throughout June we planned to keep our eyes peeled for an event where we could do just that.

What We Did:
Working with a small but multi-talented team (and taking inspiration from an earlier 1000heads blog post) we would use the heavyweight championship boxing match between David Haye & Wladimir Klitschko as a test subject for our word of mouth analysis team. Tracking data before, during and after the fight would give us three groups of data, or ’rounds’, that we could give to our creative team and external design partners to build an infographic around.

1000heads is unique in this space in that we don’t just specialise in social media. We wanted the end result to not only demonstrate the power of our WOMTrak product, but also our speed & agility in turning projects around. We hadn’t attempted anything like this before and so the drive was there to not only get it right first time but to also somehow keep it uniquely 1000heads’.

The Result:


Things We Learnt

  1. Working the weekend is hard (but fun if the project means a lot)
  2. David Haye has a massive online following (and can mess with your data if you’re not careful)
  3. Twitter isn’t always right
  4. The Next Web is our friend
  5. Getting cut-through in the US on July 4th is nigh on impossible
  6. It’s amazing what Ukrainian fans will do for their prized champion
  7. Everything starts in a Moleskine (even the worst of design ideas)
  8. Not everyone likes an infographic
  9. Everything can be made better, there has to be a time when you say ‘No more. Publish.’
  10. Irrespective of the result, a good infographic will always get picked up

Overall the results (for what was fundamentally merely a test subject) were outstanding.

A 400% increase in blog traffic, a number of new business enquiries and of course, the proof that we have the team to produce this kind of work for all our clients, both old and new.

It should be said that, internally at least, we made our objectives clear from the outset: how can we use the latest news events to demonstrate our products, our creativity and ultimately our hard work and agility. I think I can quite safely say that when it came to answering the brief, our team stepped up and delivered.

Any questions?

 

 

1000heads: Word of mouth and the internet

Google dropped this blog post last week detailing a recent piece of US research they conducted with the KellerFay group to help understand the impact that the internet has had on offline word of mouth.

To quote the big G themselves:

Everyday in the US, there are currently 3.3 billion brand mentions. 2.4 billion conversations involve a brand each day which equates to approximately 1.4 impressions per conversation.

While the majority of conversations that involve a mention of a brand (WOM conversations) occur offline, the internet is now the primary source of information stimulating such conversations and it is the leading source for consumers to find information during and after a WOM conversation.

In more than 15% of WOM conversations, search engines are used to find additional information. Search websites have also been shown to be the number one place that consumers visit in order to take further action.

Those kind folk have even gone ahead and put together a (naturally rather google-esque) video for us also:

The best thing about this research (for us anyway), is that it was conducted by KellerFay and, as seems only fitting, the world’s leading offline word of mouth research and consulting group just so happen to use our London offices as their UK base of operations.

I grabbed Steve Thomson, MD KellerFay UK, at his desk just now and asked him for some comments about this new research:

“Ah, yes! I wondered when you’d ask me about that. The findings of that report are a stark reminder that buzz is not just about social media; search proved to be a powerful trigger of brand conversations. And brand marketers at some point want conversation to turn into actions, and for many consumers, search is still the go-to place when they’re ready to make a move.

Going forward, as more and more digital activity takes place in a mobile environment, we’ll need to learn better how online and offline conversations and actions interact and stimulate each other; social media and other online activities are not occurring in a vacuum among people holed up in their bedroom or chained to a desk.”

Steve’s right, buzz is not just about social media and search is, commonly, the place where everyone goes to make that move. However, , I’m not sure about the ‘search led’ stat, as in – sure if propensity to purchase is increased when search is referenced, but what content is that person reading once the search is complete? Is it social media? Is it a review site? Is it even an ad?

Either way, the figures in this video (as well as the accompanying study) are hard to ignore and, in the worlds biggest western market, it’s good to see that word of mouth is considered to be an important part of the overall marketing mix.

Hell, one might argue that it is the most important part…

1000heads: Haye v Klitschko: The Infographic

Last week, after getting all excited about this past weekend’s BIG FIGHT, I tasked our hardcore team of crack word of mouth analysts with monitoring and tracking all the social media buzz leading up to, during and after the main event.

Working tirelessly through the weekend (along with our creative team here internally and our design team at Lethal), they’ve just produced this awesome Haye vs. Klitschko online/offline infographic, check it out —

[click to embiggen]

What do you think?

As an FYI, WOMTrakâ„¢ is 1000heads’ own bespoke word of mouth and social media monitoring tool that uses both technology and human analysis to produce these kinds of results for our clients day in, day out.

Give us a call to find out more.

1000heads: Reputation Online Top 100

It is a bitter sweet pill that we swallow today as we proudly announce our placement in the Reputation Online Top 100 Agency rankings.

It’s great news that we came in ranked as the number one independent for our work in this space (and number two overall). But it is unfortunately tinged with sadness as we also say farewell to Reputation Online who announced its closure earlier this week.

Over the past two years Vikki Chowney and her team have consistently delivered the latest news, insights and industry perspectives that those who work in the social media space have often required to help stay abreast of the ever-changing digital landscape.

Not only has it been through their own contributions from all across the New Media Age team, but also with the addition of the ‘open post’ policy where anyone with a point of view (and a reasonable understanding of the basics of grammar) could submit their own story for publication.

Last year, for example, right when the Hyundai/ITV/World Cup debacle kicked off, we ourselves had an article featured discussing the merits of taking a potential PR nightmare for all involved and switching it to help boost sales.

And it is in this global-reaching area of marketing & communications [online reputation management], that professional teams across the globe are now learning to specialise in. Reputation Online’s work it seems, now more than ever, will be sorely missed.

We at 1000heads wish Vikki and her team the very best for the future and say thank you, once again, for the opportunity to appear in the Top 100.

1000heads: Postcard from Cannes (Part 2)

Cannes Lions is well and truly over and, with the Young Lions celebrating their latest win (along with many, many others), it’s time to look back over some of the more leading and creative thoughts that fell out of such an important conference.

Back in part one I promised some thoughts on the Diageo session I attended as well as some overall thoughts and links post-event.

First, Andy Fennell, CMO, Diageo –

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Key points and quotes –

  • Andy talks about his ‘FACE’ values. They are; Flair, Agility, Consumer insight and Execution
  • When discussing new creative, ask ‘What is ‘the centre of gravity’ of an idea?’
  • “We need to change our ideas inherently to build participation from the start” – a thought 1000heads has advocated for years
  • “For rich content to arrive in Africa, phones need to get cheaper or Silicon Valley needs to work out where Africa is on a map.” – contentious!

Speaking of Africa, Andy gave an example of how Guinness arrived in the football-loving continent with their very own football-themed quiz show –

The whole idea, initiated by Guinness (one of Diageo’s sub-brands), started and ended with the drink in question and resulted in a significant jump in sales.

I personally hadn’t seen a brand invent its own TV show before, not least of all one that actually delivered on both an entertainment value (average episode views are upwards of 4m) as well as on a brand awareness and sales front too. Very impressive.

Overall, the Diageo session was interesting as it was a brand talking about their creative as opposed to an agency. Hearing the insights and ways of working behind such a huge, worldwide company inspired plenty of food for thought and served as a reminder at just how impactful television can be when harnessed correctly.

Thanks for reading.

 

Additional links of interest:

My unofficial Cannes recap – via The Brand Builder
Nokia @ Cannes – via Nseries

1000heads ‘Digital Steriods’

This is, apparently, what word of mouth is on in today’s world of global social media acceptance and growth.

The source of such a huge statement?

This latest video from best-selling author, Erik Qualman. Word of mouth commentary aside, if you need the latest social media stats, figures and growth patterns, then look no further.

Watch it. Take it in. Watch it again.

1000heads: Postcard from Cannes (Part 1)

Hello from sunny Cannes!

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[yes, I know you all hate me and that the weather in London is terrible BUT!] I come bearing gifts of news, insights, words and pictures!

1000heads are over supporting Nokia as part of their lead sponsorship of the Young Lions Competition* kicking off later today. However, before that all gets under way, I want to explore and share some of the findings from some of yesterday’s talks.

Consider the following notes as a monumental brain dump to be consumed, digested and used as talking points for further conversation –

PHD: Beyond the Horizon

PHD, a global media agency, came under fire earlier this year for their ‘We Are The Future‘ video and I was intrigued to see what kinds of thoughts and theories they wanted to put forward around future technologies.

  • ‘Connected TV’ to be a firm fixture (along with 3D) in the homes of the future
  • Facial recognition will tailor ads to the person watching TV (I’m not sure)
  • Facebook Connect already structures websites around your social graph (eg: Trip Advisor) expect more of this in the future – personalised experiences based upon what you (and your friends’) behaviour and habits

  • Wi-Fi areas, already prevalent globally, will be running with wireless power – ‘Wi-Po’ (or Qi) networks – which will provide wireless charging of compatible devices
  • ‘Natural UI’, already widely available via Xbox Kinect, will replaces the traditional remote controls for home devices
  • “Change will never be this slow again” – Mark Holden, PHD
  • “People that are good at social will be the tomorrow’s superstars in business” – MH, PHD (one might argue that this is not a trend for 2016, but rather a trend for 201o, ’11 and ’12)
  • “The race is on for brands to become content creators” – MH, PHD (again, not new but still – these races take time to properly get going)

Like I said; just a brain dump. But some starting points for sure. Tomorrow I’ll be back with notes from the Diageo session (who we’ve written about before) and what efforts they’ve been putting into extending their brands globally.

Any thoughts on the above? Dive into the comments below…

 

*Keep your eyes on the Nokia Nseries blog and Twitter feed for more details on this later today