Five by Five

Check out your copies of Marketing Week’s Interactive Seven supplement today, turn to pages 26 and 27 and you’ll find this fetching ad and the following article from Steve Sponder, our Chief Digital Officer, on the importance of online advertising.

You can download the supplement here - Interactive Seven

Interactive Brand Experiences

People don’t separate the message they receive from a brand based on where they see or hear it. The Internet Advertising Bureau states that the internet now accounts for 18.7% of the total UK advertising market, with press display at 19.3% and TV at 21.7%. What we do online either adds to or takes away from the overall brand experience.

The challenge for brand owners is two fold. Where do you put your message; and once you have the space, how do you get a smarter and more selective consumer to engage with your content?

Here in lies the opportunity. Digital production is ever-evolving and more accessible than ever before, so every brand has the option to create richer and deeper brand experiences online. Campaign ideas can be created and expressed seamlessly across a growing spectrum of media - perhaps for the first time, ideas can be boundaryless.

Online advertising provides different spaces to build a brand experience. What makes digital advertising different and exciting for both brand owner and consumer is that online ads aren’t static. Consumers can interact with the content, play games within the space, watch multiple video streams, buy stuff and even change the ad themselves.

In today’s digital age, concepts for online advertising are increasingly being put at the centre of the campaign rather than an after thought. Brand storytelling can happen in different spaces that are linked together, with digital providing the richest part of the story.

Online advertising is by far the most measurable, reactive and immersive advertising medium. Data and ROI are part and parcel of any digital offering. Better still, you don’t have to wait to the end of the campaign to find out how it went. Data is immediate, optimisation is in real-time. Technological versatility also allows for effective campaigns to be rolled out globally and easily personalised to the end audience.

Brand owners have always known that it takes great branded experiences to engage audiences. Embrace the opportunity to find new and innovative ways to do this through digital advertising and you will get great results.

Follow Five by Five

http://twitter.com/FbFdigital

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiveby5/

Today Five by Five launched Kiwi Katapult- a power/ angle based Flash game where users have to launch New Zealand’s national mascot, across Europe to the CeBIT show in Hannover Germany.

The game was created as part of a campaign for New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, in association with Air New Zealand. The intention of the game is to raise awareness of New Zealand as a strong force in the ICT industry and to draw traffic to their stand at the CeBIT trade show for information and telecommunications technology. The secondary purpose of the campaign was to increase sign-ups to the Air New Zealand database, incentivised by a draw for a pair of Premium Economy tickets from Europe to New Zealand. Traffic is being driven to the site using some content targeted display advertising and paid search on the Google network planned by the media team.

The client is very pleased with the end result, and it is a credit to the agency being able to do a fantastic production and media job, on a tight budget.

Check it out: www.KiwiKatapult.com

After watching the Web 2.0 hyper-juggernaut scream into town a couple of years back it’s been interesting to see it delivering a big boxes of social media filled with shiny new tactics including a bunch of social networks, a corporate blog, a few micro-blogging platforms, a suite of widgets and a packet of chicklets.

It’s unfortunate that there was no mention of which department to deliver it to and no instructions. As a result the box was mistakenly handed to the marketing department. Interestingly enough a similar story happened 10 years ago when the Web 1.0 hyper-juggernaut incorrectly delivered the website boxes to the IT department instead of the marketing dept, remember the issues that caused?

So, and in lieu of any instruction manual the marketing guys have been busy blending social media into the marketing mix; resulting in social networks being added to the media planning process, playing with corporate blogs, producing widgets and starting a Facebook groups. But they are simply applying existing marketing principles to these new media, that’s not their fault that’s the natural thing for them to do.

The other thing missing from the social media box was the sticker ‘Interactive - Handle with Care”, this means social media opens up a feedback-loop, encouraging a response, a comment and sometimes conversation, something the marketing team have not been prepared for.

We’re now becoming aware the box should have been delivered to the CEO as we appreciate that the impact of social media is far, far broader than the marketing department; it touches every brand touch point, customer service, human resources and challenges the product development team to deliver the ultimate product.

The impending challenge for CEO’s to respond to this new world order, without the instruction manual, is huge; re-structuring and streamlining internal departments, processes and communication channels. So, if you’re in the marketing department and see a big box labelled social media please pop it up to the CEO’s office, thanks.

Steve Sponder | steve.sponder@fivebyfivedigital.com | @stevesponder | blog.stevesponder.com

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmak/

In this latest podcast I speak with Jane Gleadall of Biglight on e-commerce and the challenges faced both on the high street and in digital from the credit crunch and the current and future impact of social media on e-commerce.

You can listen to the podcast here. You’ll also be able to download it, subscribe via iTunes and all that plus download the transcript if you’d rather read than listen.

Here’s some nuggets:

On the economic impact affecting retailers and e-commerce:

I think that online sales whether its high street or online it will be a hard fought battle this year, I think that what we are going to see is that many of the consumers are raising their expectations and they want improved service at lower cost, I do think that online will be high on the agenda for many retailers this year, and I think that getting that share of business is going to be an essential part of their survival strategy. The principles of online to a large degree are no different to what you are seeing on the high street, it’s about improving margins, it’s about reducing your costs, it’s about improving your efficiencies.

On social media’s future impact on e-commerce:

I think social media in the retail context plays a slightly different role than as it’s used for the pure community context. In the pure community context people just want to talk to one another, want to share information but retail have got to see a bottom line improvement. I think that as I have said before retail tends to apply the philosophy of testing and if social media and what it brings to the table can improve conversion, can improve average order values, it will absolutely be used. What is becoming evident is that social media is becoming very important to purchase decisions

As usual, I’ve run the content through Wordle and it looks like this:

Catch up on previous podcasts:

Tomas Nihlen of Urban Lifestyle Report

Future of search with Love Digital

Kym Niblock, bbc.com

Content also shared in these spaces:

Five by Five blog on Brand Republic

Five by Five Podcasts

bluurb.wordpress.com

Who to heckle for this post:

Nicholas Gill, Planner | nick.gill@fivebyfivedigital.com | @nicholasgill | bluurb.wordpress.com

Get in touch:

fivebyfivedigital.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiveby5/
http://twitter.com/FbFdigital

19 Bolsover Street, London W1W 5NA
4 Grosvenor Square Southampton SO15 2BE

Five by Five, has today launched a new website for SunnyD to support the drink brand’s re-launch in to the UK kid’s drinks market. The brand is launching a new juice formula, which contains 70% fruit juice and absolutely no artificial colours or flavourings.

The site, www.sunny-d.co.uk, will act as an information portal to communicate the benefits of the drink’s new formula and has the support of the Parent’s Advisory Group (PAG).  The site features the product showcase with nutritional details on the drinks along with the Parental Advisory Group which is made up of a group seven mums from across the UK who have helped advise on a number of factors which have helped to re-shape SunnyD to be the drink that it is today.

Because of the natural nature of the new drink, SunnyD wanted the new site to have a fresh vibrant out-doors -y feel of the lifestyle of the west coast of the USA. 

Nicky Standing, Head of Design at Five by Five, says “The new SunnyD website has a rich, vibrant and engaging interface and  is the perfect arena to provide key information about the products and the Parents Advisory Group. The website communicates the products new all-natural formulation; allowing parents to feel reassured and for kids to enjoy being part of a healthy and active lifestyle”.

Richard Baragwanath,  SunnyD Commercial Manager, have been extremely impressed with the Five By Five project management team, they have worked to our critical path and within budget guidelines”

Follow Five by Five
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiveby5/
http://twitter.com/fbfdigital

Nick Gill, our Digital Planner, has written this article in the January 2009 edition of Urban Lifestyle Report, which you can now receive for free when you register.

Download it here http://www.urbanlifestylereport.com/index.php

Follow Nick

twitter.com/nicholas gill

Follow Five by Five
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fiveby5/
http://twitter.com/fbfdigital