The Thoughtful Thud Revisited

The Campaign Medal to show that your campaign is working

I've written before about the need – as PR and marketing budgets start to get tough – for PR firms and in house teams to take programme measurement seriously. This is a inspired idea from American measurement dynamo Katie Paine. She’s using this clever device, downloadable from her blog with the quote made famous already by the new President Elect. Only Katie is using it to say to PR cynics: “Yes we can measure Social Media".

Katie literally joined a Digital Workshop being held in London by AMEC last week in her pyjamas from a hotel room in Chicago before 6.00am (she was using GotoMeeting, so all very respectable!) to give a presentation to prove "Yes We Can" measure social media. Every speaker at the AMEC Workshop proved that social media can and is being measured.

In an economic downturn PR and brand owners need to know that their money is being well spent. PR, which for me, "owns" social media", remains a terrific route to market but it is up to the PR industry to demonstrate that value by measuring the effectiveness of PR campaigns.

We need more champions ready to wear the badge!

Divided by a common language

spec·tac·u·lar   
adj.   Of the nature of a spectacle; impressive or sensational

Marks & Spencer having held what they called a “one day spectacular” with 25% off prices to boost sales announced today it has decided to run a second one day sale before Christmas. Excuse me if I sound like the Ghost of Christmas past, but I was in Boston in October when Macy’s, who know a thing or two about sales, were running a sale with…….up to.50% off.

But I’ll still be nipping into M&S for my discount off great wines. And maybe the second sale will be on the truly spectacular Macy’s 50% off model? Or am I misunderstanding what "spectacular" truly means?

Yes we can!

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

The headline did it for me. How Facebook toppled the BBC, a story about how the social networking site now gets more users than the bbc.co.uk site. How is it possible that Facebook in less than five years could overtake one of the great media groups of our time? The secret, I suspect, is that Facebook is new, unshackled by “Reithian” traditions and is constantly innovating. I've already written how Facebook played a significant part in the US election result.

In another weekend digital discovery, I learnt that the President Elect is not African-American after all. It turns out that the Irish claim him as one of their own. You have to see this clip from You Tube.

A master communicator who used modern tools

As I have written before I am a huge believer in the power of a single photograph. This one, despite the compelling images of his final speech, is especially striking for me. It reminds us that in the US Presidential Election, President Elect Barack Obama was a modern, fully connected candidate. He showed in his campaign that he understood and wanted to grasp the power of the web to spread his message. A master stroke was to bring Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook onto Team Obama to create their own social networking site, my.barackobama.com as part of the web effort. It was just one example of the discipline which went into the President Elect’s campaign to connect with voters.

And if you did not see President Elect Obama’s inspirational speech to a vast crowd in his home city of Chicago as the first African-American to win the White House, here’s another opportunity. It’s a master class in composition, patriotism and delivery. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7710079.stm

Copy and a coffee at the same time please!

Every PR and marketing consultancy has just been handed a wild idea to wake everyone up on (in the UK anyway) a grey November day – design your ideal pc. It’s led by Intel and manufacturer ASUS and they’re asking people to "dream the impossible" to help design the first community-designed PC, with “no limit to creativity”.

Right then, in that spirit and just dealing with laptops:

-               Have a detachable screen

-               Voice activated software built in

-               6 hours battery life to cope with most long distance flight needs

-               Loaded and ready to go in 25 seconds from opening

-               Coffee resistant keyboard

-               Range of colourful and low price cases to change the look of the laptop

-               Built-in media centre to connect to favourite TV, radio and iPod

-               Serious but lightweight speaker for audio built in

-               Would give me automatic score updates on screen for my football club

-              Docking station would incorporate Nespresso connector to brew proper coffee

 

Like I said what a brief for a brainstorm!

Retail giants square up but old technique grabs the attention

You can imagine the brainstorm session. Let’s remind ourselves. Our centre – Bluewater – is the second largest shopping centre in the UK. But we have a have a retail battle on our hands to stay on top when the Westfield Centre opens to become the third largest centre because it is nearer Bluewater as it is in West London.

“Let’s predict Westfield will have a glitzy opening day (correct) but let’s focus now on how we at Bluewater counter the media frenzy we expect in the first weekend of opening of Westfield and push our own successful formula in Kent.”

What Bluewater did was not new, but they got the timing right and delivered the product with enormous style. Predictably London’s evening newspaper, the Standard, had strong coverage of the Westfield Centre in its key into the weekend issue of Friday. Westfield had a six page insert in the newspaper's ES Magazine. Inside the same magazine, Bluewater had its own magazine – only there were 66 pages of ideas, colour and style!

Crash! Bang as Batman would say in a fight! Feels like Round 1 to the Bluewater Centre, showing that the tried and tested insert route, when done well, can still deliver a knockout punch.

More fun to come when the sparring intensifies in the Christmas run-in.