Weblog Consulting Register Login Subscribe to Free Influx Emails Join our Facebook Group Branding Street Cred Technology Lifestyle Style Entertainment Interviews Art InfluxTV Map Widgets RSS — All Subjects RSS — More Feeds

Search

Advanced Search

Contact Privacy Policy

Westin has done a formidable job in branding the key elements of the hotel experience.

Now it's getting into bed with United Airlines to extend their branding elements into the air and airport.

- Westin Heavenly Bed products will be available to passengers on United's ps service

- Media experiences including music and soothing nature videos

- Westin food and beverage program- from WestinSuperFoods and White Tea heavenly experience in the sky

- Westin Renewal Lounges are already located within United’s Red Carpet Clubs to give travelers a soothing hideaway for relaxing and renewing

This looks like an incredible paid-for media deal. United, strapped for cash has gone and sold space to the highest bidder, or perhaps Westin came to United with a plan.

It's clearly a very smart play for Westin to secure this valuable media property and reach its core target in a new and interesting way.

It's safe to assume that with all US airlines searching for additional funds, similar types of deals will be available across the sky and present ad agencies and media companies with new opportunities to take advantage of.


Posted by Ed Cotton According to some recent research from Starcom, your online plan might be up in flames, that's because just 6% of users are accounting for 50% of clicks.

These "Natural Born Clickers" just seem to love those banners and seem to be clicking way more than any other member of the population.

The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

I thought online was going to save us, now it just looks like its created another problem.

What's going to happen when the people you want, don't watch and don't click?



Posted by Ed Cotton Mohamed Iqbal is a Senior Planning Director at Ogilvy in Bangalore, he is also a member of our Planning for Good team.

A couple of years back, he wrote a paper that connected The Long Tail to brand communication. It won him a top prize from WPP.

He has now distilled the paper down into a Change This manifesto and it makes a great read.

The essence of his argument is that for years brands and agencies have followed a disciplined approach to uncovering and communicating ONE thing about a brand.

Mohamed believes this thinking is now flawed because of the widespread availablity of free and cheap media. He doesn't suggest that it's wrong to have one lead proposition, it's just that you can have a number of others and target specific groups with them.



In addition, armed with real-time data, you can easily calculate the ones that aren't working and the ones that are.

One really interesting point he makes is that agencies believe when they launch a new campaign, they are making a clean break with the past. It's a pre-internet notion, today, nothing is forgotten because every message ever created is now accessible and informs our brand understanding.

Finally, he recommends letting the consumers work it out for themselves, put the messages out there and they will find the nuances that work for them.

For all the planners out there, this suggests there's a new way to work and that our briefs needs to change to reflect the opportunity. The world has certainly gotten more complex because we can tell more stories, so the critical component becomes, media, because we need to know where we can tell these stories.




Posted by Ed Cotton Nokia and the Future Laboratory, have just completed a research study that explored attitudes and developments in the use of technology and media.

They talked to 9,000 consumers in 17 countries. The breakthough finding and brave prediction is the emergence of what Nokia is calling "Circular Media"

"From our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call 'Circular'. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media.

We think it will work something like this; someone shares video footage they shot on their mobile device from a night out with a friend, that friend takes that footage and adds an MP3 file - the soundtrack of the evening - then passes it to another friend. That friend edits the footage by adding some photographs and passes it on to another friend and so on. The content keeps circulating between friends, who may or may not be geographically close, and becomes part of the group's entertainment."

Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia

It's an interesting theory, the idea that consumers will add and to, interact and participate with media makes complete sense, but the constant addition and participation by members of a friendship group is hard to believe, as is the shelf-life of each piece of content.

This could get easily become boring in a short period of time.

Nokia's report also appears to miss the blending and blurring of user-generated and conventional media; users taking established media content and adding their own spin to that content.

Posted by Ed Cotton A few days back, I wrote about the rise of YouTube as a serious media entity; often ridiculed for hamster videos and teenage rants, the channel is now moving into the big leagues; playing a significant role in the US 2008 Election debates and its recent announcement to partner with the World Economic Forum for its Davos event in January 08.

In the post, I speculated, somewhat in jest, that the brand would soon be launching a channel for the Queen of England.

Clearly, we all now inhabiting a world where fiction is fast becoming fact, today, the BBC announced the launch of YouTube's Royal Channel.

Posted by Ed Cotton YouTube has often been ridiculed as a media outlet, with analysts pointing to hamster videos and ranting teens

However, YouTube has a different target in its sights, it's clearly trying to build credibility as a media and is inserting its brand into all kind of interesting places from the 2008 US Election to its latest move to partner the World Economic Forum in Davos.



This is all about brand action; offering up the brand to the World Economic Forum to let consumers into a previously closed affair and in the process getting YouTube a seat at the top table of world leaders

It's all surprisingly simple and easy- no ad campaign, no PR, just a page on the internet.

Although YouTube may lack the seriousness of established media outlets it's community, scale and connection to the people makes it a media which offers access like no other and for a old-fashioned institution like the World Economic Forum, it gets a contemporary shot in the arm.

Who will YouTube partner with next?

The Queen of England?
The White House?

Suggestions in the comments section please.



Posted by Ed Cotton