Thursday 3 September 2009

A Weak Attempt - Jim Breuer & Pizza Hut

Jim Breuer or more to the point, Pizza Hut have missed the mark with their latest viral marketing attempt. The scenario places Jim Breuer in front of a rolling camera as he shoots a new Pizza Hut "TV Commercial." I have gathered that the general premise of the not so funny or compelling clip is that Jim is angered when a production hand does not allow him to eat the pizza he is promoting. He is seen to "blow a fuse" and in apparent anger, "push the assistant in the pool."

In this case the actor isn't exactly convincing, however much of the blame must rest on the script writters and the people behind the concept. It would seem that the people at Pizza Hut were simply trying too hard, with lines such as: dude, don't roll up on me manand dude, why you even followin' me?I am interested to see if others think this is legit or not, view the botched clip below and leave your comments:

 

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Wednesday 15 July 2009

Advertising has Changed

Forrester Research interviewed marketers about their plans for the future and based on the response have made some projections. Here is a summary of the marketing forecast:

  • Marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and advertising less effective, per dollar spent. While budgets for online have decreased in this economic market, they decreased less than other budgets.
  • Digital marketing is no longer experimental. More than half of the marketers surveyed said that effectiveness of direct mail, television, magazines, outdoor, newspapers, and radio would stay the same or decrease within three years. In contrast, well over 70% expected the effectiveness of channels like created social media, online video, and mobile marketing to increase.
  • The result is that digital, which will be about 12% of overall advertising spend in 2009, is likely to grow to about 21% in five years.
  • It means we are all digital marketers now, since digital is at the center of many campaigns anyway. It means media is in trouble, or at least in the middle of a transformation.
  • And it means that social "media", which will account for $716 million this year between social network campaigns and agency fees, will generate $3 billion in five years. And this doesn't even count displays ads on social networks (which are in the display ads category.) Of all the parts of digital marketing, social network marketing one is poised for the most explosive growth.

For the full article please see Josh Bernoffs blog entry

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Monday 22 June 2009

What the Internet will never be!

I came across an article today that was written for Newsweek in February 1995...interesting to read his lack of foresight.

The Internet? Bah! (computers cannot replace books, teachers or newspapers)

Ive posted a few comments here but you can read the full article here:

Visionaries see a future of telecommuting workers, interactive libraries and multimedia classrooms. They speak of electronic town meetings and virtual communities. Commerce and business will shift from offices and malls to networks and modems. And the freedom of digital networks will make government more democratic.

Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works.”

“Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we’ll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.”

“We’re told that multimedia will make schoolwork easy and fun. Students will happily learn from animated characters while taught by expertly tailored software… These expensive toys are difficult to use in classrooms and require extensive teacher training.”

“Then there’s cyber business. We’re promised instant catalog shopping–just point and click for great deals. We’ll order airline tickets over the network, make restaurant reservations and negotiate sales contracts. Stores will become obsolete. So how come my local mall does more business in an afternoon than the entire Internet handles in a month? Even if there were a trustworthy way to send money over the Internet–which there isn’t–the network is missing a most essential ingredient of capitalism: salespeople.”

I am sure he is wishing these words never left his thoughts!

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Thursday 18 June 2009

Influencing purchase...

I came across some very research regarding which media influences greater purchases. Although its US based statistics I thought it would be interesting particularly to some of our clients that are pushing to increase social marketing in place of other activities. The obvious reason being that it is cheaper in most cases, however consideration must be given to whether its effective in actually producing sales...the ultimate goal!

An outline of the research by Harris Interactive that surveyed 2.355 American adults:

Consumer purchase decisions are informed by a mix of "old" and "new" media, but more traditional forms of communication appear to exert a greater influence than social networking websites.

The most common way shoppers mentioned that they collected information prior to buying a particular product was:

  • 36% via a company website.
  • 22% via "Face-to-face" interaction with a "salesperson or other company representative".
  • 21% spoke to someone "not associated with the company".
  • 19% found out about a brand from print advertising.
  • 15% via broadcast ads,
  • 14% made judgments "based only on my past experience."

In terms of online behaviour:

  • 19% used independent websites featuring product reviews – like Amazon.
  • 11% accessed internet message boards.
  • 4% turned to social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, with a similar number visiting "private social networking sites" and “customer communities".

Results varied slightly by age group:

  • 16% of 18–24 year olds employed social media to conduct product research. Although this result was higher the figure was still 5% lower than for ads on TV and radio, and 6% below that for print media among this demographic, and some 24% smaller than the number visiting company websites.
  • Ads on broadcast media were most widely-used among 25–29 year olds, at 22%.
  • Print ads were most popular among 50–64 year old shoppers, on 27%.

Over all demographics:

  • 57% communicated about their positive product/service experience to others after making a purchase.
  • 41% "recommended" what they had bought to others.
  • 11% of this group did so with regard to a negative experience, and only 6% "recommended against" purchasing an item.
  • 63% expressed their positive or negative experience when talking to "a family member, business colleague or a friend.", 30% used email, 12% used a company website, 9% employed social networks, 8% opted for online message boards, and 7% added their comments to independent review websites.
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Tuesday 21 April 2009

Database Marketing: A 24 Point Checklist

Arthur M. Hughes of KnowledgeBase Marketing has offered a list of the 24 database marketing techniques essential for "anyone who works in marketing..." Take a look at the article its an interesting read.

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