HP Digital Integrated Campaign

In what we're pretty sure is a first for the category in the UK, we recently launched a multimedia campaign for hp which is supported by a mobile website. The campaign is in-market in the UK at the moment and will follow soon in the Netherlands.

HP has launched some great new products recently that have features that don't fully come to life on a static image. We briefed Blue Star Mobile to put together a mobile site that shows the products in action and gives somes specifications. You can check out the sites on your phone or in your computer browser. The tx1000 is a laptop with a screen that swivels and becomes touch screen. The iPAQ 514 is hp's first 'phone'. Among other cool features it allows you to listen to your email.

The campaign integrates analogue and digital worlds through SMS response options on the print advertising and billboards. We're also running some mobile banners on Orange World in the UK.

The number of people who see the site is not likely to be vast. The cost of producing and distributing this kind of content, however, has dropped substantially over the last couple of years and it's now a pretty attractive addition to a conventional campaign.

Facebook - the hype is justified

I have finally, somewhat behind the curve, started to use Facebook. Initially I intended to spend some time figuring out what the hype was about and whether it could be ruled out as a tool for advertising. It's proven to be a lot more fun than I expected and potentially, even, useful for advertising.

Almost a month into my tenure and it still seems that the hype is justified. It has sustained its addictiveness by being user friendly and useful. It has put me back in touch with people and allows for a very low maintenance method of communicating. Unlike My Space, my last attempt at 'social networking', it is pretty spam free and very searchable.

From an advertising point of view, there are a couple of angles. Banners on social networking sites have been much maligned and typically seem to be for online products of a dubious nature. There are, however, bound to be circumstances where Facebook's (substantial) inventory could be subdivided into useful segments. Advertising for University of Toronto events is often targeted to me. This happens to not be useful as I'm nowhere near the UofT campus, but I expect it is reaching a large proportion of those that are.

There are also occassional 'integrated messages'. Within my news feed (which summarises the various activities of my 'friends') there was an update today which read: "Harry and Voldemort have set their relationship status to "Mortal Enemies."" It's a playful, intelligently integrated reminder that the next wave of Harry Potter mania is on the way.

I've done a quick, unscientific, measure of Facebook users and graphed it (below). The graph represents the breakdown, by graduating year, of Facebookers from secondary schools in three different countries. I got the data by searching the database for numbers, by year, from my highschool and the schools of two of my colleagues (and friends). The sample is very small but is anecdotally illustrative nonetheless. Here are some generalisations:

Facebook is still primarily made up of people who are in education or have recently left it. Three quarters of the sample are in secondary education or have been in the last 4 years.

The spread into the generation older than those currently in education is more advanced in North America than in Europe.

The graph supports a theory that Facebook adoption, as it is driven by 'member get member', tends to occur in clumps. The popularity of the site varies significantly between different graduating years for the Italian and English schools, likely driven by individual social groups. For the Canadian school, where Facebook has more developed penetration, there's a more gradual trailing off. Individual social groups have little impact.

Ad-funded Software

I've had two meetings recently with companies that are experimenting with ad-funded software from either end of the spectrum.

The first was with Spiceworks , a company that has developed an IT management package for SMBs that is ad funded. It seems like a great idea. By the sounds of it they have a good piece of software with a loyal and growing user base who have significant influence on IT purchasing. (If anyone has used the product I'd love to hear their views on it). The software is browser-based and the advertising can be served through third-party ad servers. They don't yet have a great deal of European usership but I'm keen to try them out at some point.

At the other end of the spectrum is Microsoft. They're now selling advertising on their Office Help pages . Office is not going to be entirely ad-funded in the near future but it is an interesting development. Steve Ballmer was extremely pro-advertising when he was in London in October.

MS Office help is not, currently, as compelling a place to advertise as Spiceworks. There are better environments to advertise in and the audience is not as refined and specific as Spiceworks. It does make me wonder how long it will be before other non-media brands monetise their web traffic through advertising. E-commerce is the new in-store.

Mobile Codes Consortium Mission Statement Announced

I posted a couple of months ago about the work that was being done by Tim Kindberg at HP Labs in Bristol to promote a standardised approach to mobile barcodes.

One of the topics of conversation was a 'Mobile Codes Consortium' - a project to gain understanding and consensus across the different industries that are needed to make the technology work.

A reader has kindly pointed out that a mission statement for the consortium has been posted on the Active Print website.

If the consortium succeeds in creating enthusiasm within handset manufacturers and/or mobile networks I don't think there's any question that this technology could take off.

The media planners in the room in November were certainly excited about the technology. In the near future it could be very useful for a specific type of campaign that supports a strong brand and targets early adopters. In the medium to long term, direct response campaign planners will likely get excited about the opportunities as well.

I do think, however, that the technology has greater applications outside the conventional definition of advertising. There is a great deal of potential applications related to local search and mapping as well as dynamic packaging and in-store display.

There is still the considerable question of mass adoption of the technology on handsets. I have no doubt that this would be greeted with enthusiasm by media planners and that in some isolated ways we'll also be able to bring it about a little bit quicker.

Any thoughts?

Divining Rods III - Pôle Nord

The acquisition of Pôle Nord by Publicis Groupe is very much of today's media zeitgeist. Not entirely unlike Rupert Murdoch's spate of acquisitions, it is 'old' advertising learning from new.

Pôle Nord as a company has earned its stripes by servicing e-commerce companies. For those of us who have worked in online marketing for established companies, this is an impressive place to prove yourself. Established companies tend to be burdened by complexities of multiple corporate objectives and legacy systems. E-commerce, typically, has a sharp focus on a single bottom line - delivering the maximum return on what is usually almost 100% online spend through a single sales channel.

This is the smithy at which Pôle Nord's tools were forged. As a result, they are very exciting. Word Catcher delivers unparalleled insights into SEM effectiveness charting brands against competitors within key categories in terms of volume of search terms and position on the listings.

Click 2 Sale is sufficiently flexible that it is an ideal divining rod . It's an automated bid management tool that works with APIs and javascript coding to create a platform which allows advertisers to maximise their investment by delivering as much relevance as possible - matching a wide variety of 'post-click actions' to keyword data with sufficient ease that marketers can devote their time to adding the human touches which are so important to real relevance.

The future of marketing will be when machines do jobs appropriate for machines, humans do jobs appropriate for humans and the rigour of e-commerce marketing meets the magic of 'old' advertising.