October 25th, 2009 by Wadds

X Factor missing out on online conversation (and revenue) opportunity

There were thousands upon thousands of conversations taking place around X Factor on Twitter tonight as the show was screened on ITV. Trending topics included the title of the show and the two finalists to face a knockout: Danyl and Miss Frank.

In addition there were 30 to 70 Twitter posts per minute during the show and immediately afterwards tagged #xfactor. These are conversations that are taking place outside the revenue generating phone-in and SMS polling mechanisms that are part of the current show format.

Mainstream media may be fragmenting but big media properties such as Britain’s Got Talent and X Factor can still pull in huge audiences (currently 13 million for X Factor) and generate thousands of conversations. ITV is missing an opportunity. It could be embracing these conversations within its programming.

Here’s are four ways that this could be done:

  • IPTV or integrated itv.com applications: conversation platform such as Twitter could be incorporated in live programming as a feedback loop
  • X Factor communities: fans of each singer or band could be organised by tribe on the ITV Factor site. These could be montised via ads or affiliate schemes
  • Gaming: a tie-up with an organisation such as Paddy Power would enable Twitter users to put their money where their mouth is and place a bet on their favourite to win
  • Downloads: the X Factor format is a career making opportunity for each of the finalists. Music downloads of their live performances would engage motivated buyers and provide and a revenue opportunity for both the finalists and ITV

My money? It’s on Stacey Soloman of course. She’s currently second favourite on Paddy Power after Joe McElderry.

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October 25th, 2009 by Wadds

Twitter customer conversations: Leon case study

Last week I bemoaned online retailers that are using Twitter as a one way channel to broadcast to customers.

The flawed formula is simple: build as big an audience as possible and use Twitter to push out marketing messages.

But it doesn’t work. It’s the TV model applied to a new medium.

But there are businesses that do appreciate the platform that Twitter provides to engage in a conversation with customers. Here’s an example.

On Thursday evening Mark Pinsent (@markpinsent) spotted that Henry Dimbleby (@henry_leon) was tweeting from the now infamous recording of BBC Question Time.

Dimbleby is a founder and CEO of Leon, the upmarket fast food chain.

Mark and I exchanged a couple of Tweets about Leon and at Mark’s suggestion I tweeted Dimbleby about the hefty price of Leon’s bacon sandwiches.

His response?

leon_twitter

Such a frank response is refreshing. Leon’s cares about what its customers think and responds directly to their queries.

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October 23rd, 2009 by Wadds

Cassetteboy BNP remix

The BNP’s leader Nick Griffin used the platform of BBC Question Time last night to lay bare his views. The remix genius that is Casetteboy has provided an excellent summary. Democracy is alive and well on the internet.

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October 22nd, 2009 by Wadds

Chris O’Shea’s ‘Hand from Above’ project

I love this art project by Chris O’Shea called ‘Hand from Above’ (via Neil Perkin of Only Dead Fish). It’s artistic, it’s innovative and challenges your thinking of real and virtual environments. But most of all its playful and fun. Have a look.

Hand from Above from Chris O’Shea on Vimeo.

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October 19th, 2009 by Wadds

Hit and miss customer service from Twittering internet retailers

Twitter is developing as a platform for customer relations. It is an incredibly efficient and cost effective means to communicate with customers.

In the last 48 hours I’ve polled internet retailers to find out whether they have contingency plans in place for the national postal strike.

twitter_questions

I asked a dozen brands using Twitter IDs sourced directly or via e-consultancy: @amazon; @CDWOWUK; @espares; @figleaveshome; @firebox; @grazedotcom; @Hotel_Chocolat; @lovefilm; @maplintweet; @overheardatmoo; @playcom; and @waterstonesltd.

I’ve had four responses from @espares, @figleaveshome, @firebox and @lovefilm. @mat_henton from espares deserves special praise. He responded within minutes.

twitter_responses

It’s hardly exhaustive or scientific survey (a bit like real life) but it shows that a handful of internet retailers are making extraordinary efforts to use Twitter as a channel and tackle the impending postal strike.

Equally others are using Twitter as a broadcast channel or have work to do to put contingency plans in place for the postal strike.

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October 19th, 2009 by Wadds

Royal Mail and CWU cannibalising UK postal service; businesses seek alternative arrangements

posting many letters to red british postbox on streetI despair at the Royal Mail. A business that needs to modernise is in the stranglehold of its management and the Communication Workers Union (CWU).

As the battlelines are drawn (dialogue is combative not constructive) for the strike later this week businesses are looking for alternative means of getting post and packages to their customers.

Kelkoo published data last week that said online retailers would be among the worst affected with losses expected to reach £220 million.

Amazon has reportedly sought alternative services. Online retailers such as espares, Figleaves, Firebox and Lovefilm are preparing alternative arrangements. TNT wants to set up a rival postal service.

Neville Hobson has an incredibly sensible call to action:

“Messrs Hayes and Crozier, get yourselves into a room together and don’t come out again until you’ve solved this. While you’re talking, no strike.”

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October 19th, 2009 by Wadds

Blog that made the media star

Here’s further proof if any further were needed of the PR benefits of business blogging.

After writing about the Daily Mail Stephen Gately controversy on Friday Will Sturgeon was invited onto Sky News alongside Matthew Todd, editor of Attitude. And today Sturgeon appeared on More4 News to discuss Twitter activism.

Sturgeon has form of course as the former editor of Silicon. But there’s no doubt that mainstream media researchers are using the blogosphere as a means to find commentators.

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October 19th, 2009 by Wadds

Free speech doesn’t exist on the Internet in the UK

iStock_000003455183XSmallWe like to think that the Internet is re-writing the rules of business and the media. And it is, but not as fast as you might think.

Clay Shirky first showed us how crowds can be mobilised online for positive effect. But Ged Carroll sounds a note of caution:

“The door that we have walked through to allow justice and freedom-of-speech through the wisdom of crowds can also easily succumb to the wisdom of mobs. Society hasn’t really thought through how to deal with all the ramifications.”

And so social media watchers got very excited last week when huge number of conversations on Twitter about the Trafigura injunction against The Guardian seemingly forced its lawyers Carter-Ruck to back down.

I thought we’d observed a game changing moment. Not a chance. There are currently more than 300 so-called super injunctions holding tight in the UK according to Joshua Rozenberg on Sky News on Saturday morning (via @rfenwick).

Was the Trafigura incident a one off? I doubt it. But don’t let the Trafigura case fool you. Legal process is alive and well on the Internet.

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October 19th, 2009 by Wadds

Jackenhacks Award 2009 – the video

This video needs no introduction save to say that its not office friendly so turn the sound down or stick your headphones on. Its a cracking piece of work by Escherman’s Andy Smith.

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October 16th, 2009 by Wadds

Greenbang.com sets out manifesto for PRs: news not nonsense

I caught up with Greenbang.com’s Dan Ilett this week for breakfast. He’s a journalist and entrepreneur that is building a great business.

But he’s pissed off with PR people asking for stuff for free. It seems that PRs are starting to confuse the line between blog and commercial media outlet.

Earlier in the month Ewan MacLeod wrote an article on the site about how PRs representing EDF and Shell had sought favours.

“Burston Marseteller (Shell’s PR company of choice) [emailed] asking if we’d be interested in a) providing feedback on [its] videos) and b) posting the videos here on Greenbang.”

This was followed in short order by a request from Lexus PR, the communications firm for energy giant EDF for Greebang to host PDFs on carbon management and energy buying.

I suggested to Dan that he follows the lead set by publications such as Techcrunch and sets out his rules of engagement with PR people in clear terms.

He’s since published a manifesto: embargos, freebies and paradigm shifting bollocks are out and valuable business news is the order of the day.

PRs be warned.

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October 15th, 2009 by Wadds

Mainstream media audiences booming – unpicking the data

Accepted wisdom says that the audience for mainstream media is in decline in an inverse relationship to the growth in our appetite for social media. But it simplify isn’t the case. Mainstream media consumption is on the rise.

I’ve spent the last few weeks unpicking the latest audited audience statistics to find out what is really happening in mainstream media-land in the UK.

The most recent audience figures from BARB (broadcast TV), RAJAR (radio) and ABC (newspapers) show a decline in our appetite for print but year-on-year rises elsewhere. And while print audiences may be falling, ABCe figures report unprecedented audiences on the web.

Herein lies the issue and the opportunity for mainstream media publishers: audiences aren’t in decline but they are fragmenting across the web. Despite the rise of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube people remain firmly loyal to mainstream media brands.

This is a narrative about an industry undergoing a radical shift in its search for a new business model following the breakdown of the advertising and subscription funded models.

I haven’t got any answers but here are the actual numbers.

print_MSM_j
Table: Newspapers online (ABCe via MediaTel and Press Gazette – August 2009)

online_MSM
Table: Newspapers print (ABC via MediaTel and Press Gazette – August 2009)

BARB_j_jpeg
Table: Television multi-channel viewing summary (BARB – 20 Sept to 28 Sept)

RAJAR_j
Table: Radio (RAJAR – Q2 2009)

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October 13th, 2009 by Wadds

#Trafigura trending is a spectacular example of the Streisand effect

trendingThe #Trafigura trending topic on Twitter this morning is an example of the Streisand effect, an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor a story backfires and generates widespread coverage across the internet.

The conversation around #Trafigura resulted from an attempt to stop The Guardian from reporting on a question about Trafigua in the UK Parliament.

The Streisand effect entered Internet parlance after Techdirt founder Mike Masnick used it to describe the widespread Internet coverage that resulted from Barbra Streisand’s attempts to suppress photos of her Californian home in 2003.

For more examples visit the web site dedicated to The Streisand Effect.

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October 13th, 2009 by Wadds

Clients won’t pay for pitching – campaigning leadership required

The majority of clients (83 per cent) are in favour of payment for pitching according to a story filed by Peter Hay in PR Week this morning.

Confused.com is the exception that proves the rule. According to reports the client offered to purchase the ideas from agencies involved in its recent competitive pitch process after the pitch had taken place.

Clients might be in favour of payment for pitching when polled in a survey but the reality is very different. Why would a client pay when there are plenty of firms lining up to pitch for free?

The issue is the oversupply of PR agencies; for every agency that wants to charge there will always be an agency willing to pitch for free. As a result the cost of pitching is priced into an agency’s overhead. Many agencies probably haven’t even considered the financial impact.

The only way this could work would be if the industry switched wholesale to a payment for pitching model under the campaigning leadership of an organisation such as the PRCA or PR Week.

The research is based on a survey of 186 PR agencies by Furlong PR.

Related posts:


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October 9th, 2009 by Wadds

Jackenhacks plan busted

jackenhacksSpeed has joined up with Axicom Cohn & Wolfe, Daryl Willcox Publishing, Kaizo and Realwire to sponsor the Flackenhacks this year (renamed Jackenhacks in memory of the King of Pop), the satirical PR industry award scheme, run by Full Run and The World’s Leading.

Now in its third year, Steve and I will be presenting the awards at the Dust Bar, Clerkenwell Road, London, on Wednesday evening (tickets available here). It’s a defensive move partly to avoid being ridiculed in this years’ round of nominations. It hasn’t worked.

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October 9th, 2009 by Wadds

Bryne’s recessionary lessons for the PR industry

Weber Shandwick’s European CEO Colin Byrne was on cracking form as he addressed the PRCA and CorpComms Conference yesterday. He said that he didn’t think that we were out of recession but countered that it probably wasn’t a bad thing as it has forced the industry to get in shape and focus on client service.

“PR has an undeniably important role in business. The recession has forced us to focus on the value that we deliver for clients. Forget talk of reputation, we need to help clients be successful. We need to deliver tangible results and sales,” he said.

Byrne hung his presentation around a series of themes, littered with personal anecdotes, that he believed would set the agenda for the PR industry as growth returned.

  • Older generation – Byrne said that the marketing industry got hung up on youth marketing. He said that we should look at audiences beyond debt-ridden graduates towards more affluent elders
  • East – like WPP’s Sorrell earlier in the day Bryne said that we needed to look East to find the growing markets were our service are increasingly valued by business
  • Multicultural – Byrne said that our businesses need to reflect their customers’ customers. And in the UK they don’t
  • Planning – advertising agencies have always planned better than the PR industry. We need to catch-up. “Coming from a political background were a policy cannot be made without being tested by a focus group I find the PR industry’s lack of planning shocking,” said Byrne
  • Social media – digital is important but it’s overhyped. Unveiling research by his firm Byrne said that while 31 per cent of consumers are interested in interacting with brands online 43 per cent don’t believe what’s read online and will check mainstream media
  • Media – the mainstream media remains important. PRs should immerse themselves in the media. “I fire people that don’t read the papers,” said Bryne. And I don’t think he was completely joking
  • Environment – green isn’t a fad. PR needs to help its clients address and communicate around environmental issues
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