Dogs or Bacon?

Following on Lex's post on the use of dogs in advertising, I thought of something weird today.

My contract for my phone is running out soon. In other words, it's time to upgrade (yeey, new iPhone!). Here comes the issue though - what contract do I go for? How many free minutes do I need, how many free texts (loads) and how much free data?
Most providers seem to have rather similar deals and for some reason I just thought I'd go for EE. Simply because I do home broadband with them which means I get a little bit of a discount when signing up for a new phone. Then I changed my mind and thought that maybe I should stay with o2.

The reasoning here is very irrational, but honestly, I really do like dogs (and cats) more than Kevin Bacon.

It's the most wonderful ad of the year.

I don't understand how John Lewis does it. I thought the Christmas ad from 2011 blew the bank; a year later, I thought surely it was the 2012 one that did it.

Now, it's 2013, I'm 10secs into the newest ad and I'm already in tears.

John Lewis, I salute you. Coke Santa has got absolutely nothing on you; now I know it's Christmas time.

The joy of not being sold anything

I stole this from The Cool Hunter.

A brief note on TV advertising

According to Campaign’s Danny Rogers (1), TV advertising is rising in terms of adspend. It’s estimated that advertisers will spend 3% more on TV compared to last year. Considering the emergence of digital media and all its possibilities, that we are said to live in “The digital age” and the fact that it’s 2013 and the first TV ad ran in 1941, this direction does not instantly make sense.

Giving it a second thought and taking some advertising research (there’s references at the end of this post if you’re interested in knowing more) into consideration made me change my mind.

First of all, Byron Sharp (2) explains that good business depends on acquiring new customers rather than convincing current customers to buy more. Research has shown that a successful brand does not necessarily have frequently returning customers; they simply have a higher number of customers (more on this later).

And here’s the thing: it is harder to effectively reach new customers than existing ones. Frank Harrison (3) explains how customers who are using a brand have a higher recall of the brand’s advertising than consumers who use other brands within the same product category. This goes for all types of media; paid, owned or earned. However, recall amongst non-buyers is higher for paid media and TV advertising in particular.

In other words, TV advertising should be the most effective type of advertising for reaching new customers, so spending a bit more money on TV doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.

1) http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/opinion/1214638/tv-booming-again-everything-changed/

2) http://marketinglawsofgrowth.com/index.html

3) Frank Harrison (2013) Digging Deeper Down into the Empirical Generalization of Brand Recall: Adding Owned and Earned Media to Paid-Media Touchpoints, Journal of Advertising Research, June 2013, No.2, Vol. 53

Now you Seetickets, now you don't.

Where's the balance between too little information and too much information? Where's the balance between being happy for your business success and remembering that you're in the service industry?

Social media, y u so challenging!

Admittedly, I'm no IT consultant (hence I'm not giving IT advice to Seetickets), but perhaps reconsider
1) giving more information on what type of technical difficulties you are facing (nothing quite like getting kicked out after thinking you'd paid for tickets!)
2) give out less information - well done on the record time, but not really something the desperate online audience needs to know right now
3) you've already admitted there was a mistake - giving out attitude will not make it disappear

Wish I had done it.

I love advertising, I really do, but sometimes I wonder if even seeing tube advertising is worth another survival of the fittest -thing in a London morning rush hour tube.

But then again, sometimes it is. Wish I had done this. To me, the copy is so compelling that it actually made me forget it was a Monday morning in a London rush hour.

Keeping or faking up appearances?

"I'll bet my right testicle that my late granddad didn't fight in the war for this country 70 years ago so that idiots of later times could whore---"

This starting sentence of a blog post, titled "About the people who ruin this country", caught my attention on a late night Facebook link clicking spree. Or maybe it wasn't the sentence alone, but the picture of the blogger. I recommend you click on the link now, if you didn't already.

Now excuse me for my stereotypical thinking, but someone who looks like that using language like above makes me intrigued. The post in itself was about the environmental mishaps of the Finnish political scene, and to be fair, from a point of view I wouldn't first connect to a middle-aged man in a suit. In fact, it rang quite a few bells.

After a bit of more clicking, it turns out that it's not really him, but a younger chap who would "look the part" behind the contents of the blog post. Reasoning for using a fake image? Being taken seriously. Would the post have created a serious, well-argumented discussion in the comments from people all over the society on a political portal if the picture would have been of a 20-something guy on a beach in Goa with a guitar?

Is it in what is said or who says it?

I have dreadlocks. And tattoos. I can't walk in heels. I'm also an all A's student and I've bagged a few European PR awards. Yet, when I first turn up to a "serious" event, I get looks. I don't look the part, especially in London, but hopefully I'll be the part if given a chance. It's just about who is willing to even look behind the looks - isn't it about 3 seconds that we have to make a first impression? And we all know how easy it is to change those.

Perhaps that's the beauty of the world wide wonderful. Anyone can be an expert. Identity theft aside, is internet by making people faceless actually making us pay more attention to what is said than who is saying it? Or is it [still] a fake it till you make it -sort of a truth that's out there?