Digital Marketing - what's it all about?

OK, so ‘digital’ is just another media, right?


In Medieval times, let’s say, about 1500 AD, when the ruler of the kingdom wanted to talk to his subjects, most of whom could not read or write, he would send out bizarrely dressed men with large bells and they would shout at people.

They would shout things like declarations of war, or tax increases – important things, things that mattered to the people.

And, slowly, over time, some of the important merchants, they saw that this form of mass communication would be good for business. They figured that, while they were funding the King in his wars, and paying him large amounts of tax, they were effectively paying for his town criers. And so they stared using them to.

And that’s when the advertisers moved in.

And for five hundred years, nothing much changed.

Sure, the media – the way of reaching the masses – changed. People learned to read, pamphlets became newsletters, which became newspapers which in turn became television, and the advertisers were never far behind. Someone had to pay for all this stuff, after all.

The media itself changed, but the process, the advertising philosophy, was always the same – the messages were delivered to a passive audience. And sure, some of the messages were more effective than others, but the audience itself was not invited to participate, to discuss, to question – the audience was invited to believe, to do what they were told.

‘Guinness is good for you’ ‘Go to work on an egg’ ‘Don’t be vague, as for Haig’, ‘Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach’’ Just Do It.’

Then along came the internet, and lots of advertising and marketing people said ‘Oh, another media we can use to reach our audience.’ And their clients said ‘Oh, another media we can use to reach our audience – and it’s cheap!’

And all the time there were a few tiny voices, and these voices said, ‘but look, it’s different.’

And these voices are getting louder - louder than the advertisers shouting at us and still expecting us to buy into them. These voices want crave more information, they want to discuss, to question. And these conversations are taking part on the internet.

The internet is a first; a paradigm shift. Much more than just another channel the internet is an infinite number of channels going in all directions.

And it’s moving fast. And woe betides any advertisers who ignore the voices.

We still want ideas that grab our attention. Of course we do. But we want to do more; we want to watch, to watch again on YouTube, to forward to our friends, to strangers connected to us by the same idea, who want to come on this journey with us.

If you can get us on board, and then come along for the ride, you’ll find, if you can do that, then we’ll be your evangelists, the word will spread, and people will connect to your ideas and then connect them to others.

This is not a single straight road that defines its audience simply through the use of it - it’s a myriad of pathways, and all of its travellers are unique. But all are connected.

We’re using digital connections to collaborate. We are well-informed. We talk to each other. We share experiences. Through interaction and dialogue we create the value of your brand and other people’s desire for it.

We control your destiny. You can shout all you like about it, but we’re already whispering to each other. We’re talking in language that is natural, open, honest and funny, and not marketing speak.

And if you’ve got something to say, and you speak our language, there’s a good chance we’ll listen to you and make you successful. But talk to us in the boring monotone of the boardroom, then at best we’re likely to ignore you, and at worst we’ll ridicule you. And then you will fail.

Tiger Woods - new sponsors required

Looks like the Tiger is not out of the Woods yet.


Following in the footsteps of Gatorade, Accenture has announced the end of their sponsorship of the woodsman, and now Gillette - already suffering a decline in razor sales in Ireland at the hand of Thierry Henry – has withdrawn him from their ‘close shave’ ads.

To add insult to injury today’s survey from Argyle Executive Forum reveals that when 600 senior marketing industry figures were asked ‘would you keep or change your celebrity endorsement business relationship with Tiger Woods if you were currently using him in your campaigns?’, a resounding 76% said ‘yes’.

So with sponsors deserting like rats from a sinking ship and the tiger poised to lose millions in earnings, isn’t it about time we helped him out with some ideas for new deals?

Eager pundits have indeed been populating the blogosphere with some helpful suggestions, and I think the best one so far is from WebTV Hub with a spoof of the Master Card campaign. Check it out at
http://www.webtvhub.com/tiger-woods-new-bastardcard-video-advert/

Burger King Shower Girl Campaign

Burger King in the UK has launched "the world's first guilt free showercam" where visitors can watch a bikini-clad girl “shake her bits to the hits at 9:30 every morning."

www.burgerking.co.uk/showercam

The idea behind this is to get men to buy breakfast at Burger King, and it might just increase sales in the short term, as boys hurrying to the office to pick up some soft porn might want to grab a bite on the way.

And there’s also a competition to win a date with the shower girl – well, breakfast at Burger King, anyway, which is not really top of my list to take someone if was hoping to get past first, if you know what I mean.

The brains behind this idea is Cow and Pancentric Digital, approved by Burger King UK marketing Director Sarah, yes Sarah, Power who is quoted as saying "our shower-cam gives hungry Brits the chance to watch the Burger King Shower Girl singing in the shower every day to help them work up an appetite for our fantastic new breakfast range"

And I’d have to agreed with this comment - as long as we’re clear that it’s not the food she’s talking about, right?

Merry Christmas

I love Christmas.


Christmas is when the three stars of Orion’s belt, known throughout the ages as the ‘Three Kings’, align with the Brightest Star in the sky, which rises in the east. You can draw an imaginary line through all these stars, and where that line touches the earth, that is where the Sun rises on Christmas Day.

In fact, for three days prior to this the Sun doesn’t appear to move its position, which it reaches on the shortest day, December the 21st. It’s almost as if the sun has been dead for three days; and then risen again. It does it every year.

I’d love to get my kids interested in Astrology. I could point out to them the ‘Three Kings’ and the ‘Star in the East’ rising in the constellation of Virgo, or House of Bread, which incidentally means Bethlehem in Aramaic.

But I don’t think I’d get their attention. Maybe if I made up a story about it that would help? I could make the ‘Sun’, the Son of God, the Three Kings could be ‘following’ the star in the east to the House of Bread where the Son of God is born.

That might get their attention. But they’d know it was just a story. I mean, they may be kids, but they’re not stupid.

Merry Christmas

If we ignore the customers maybe they'll stop bugging us

I’ve invented a new game to play in the car with my four year old daughter. It’s educational and it keeps her amused. It’s a variant of the Word Association played on psychiatrists couches all over the world and it goes something like this.

Me: Bus
Matilda: Driver
Me: Golf
Matilda: Cricket
Me: Bug
Matilda: Spider
Me: Car
Matilda: Garage
Me: Asda
Matilda: Shit

Word Association is great for kids because it stimulates their imaginations, increases their vocabularies and, in the case of my four year old daughter, allows them to get away with saying a rude word. This in turn is beneficial for me because, what makes the game enjoyable for my daughter keeps her wanting to play it; a sort of fun learning, which I can control the length of simply by saying the word ‘Asda’, the only real loser here.

But it really is Asda’s fault.

OK, the timing was probably unfortunate. I had toothache, I was coming to the end of a so far fruitless quest to find a Turkey Crown for Sunday Roast. I had the rest of the family seated around the table like the Bellingham’s fictional Bisto family, salivating at their collective mouths at the thought of Turkey juices mingling with roast potatoes and Yorkshire Pudding, which is compulsory with everything in my household.

I had crossed off Waitrose (only frozen, no good for Sunday Roast), been disappointed at Marks & Spencer (sold out), left high and dry at Sainsbury (only leg joints, Vicky wanted crown) and Asda was the next stop on the way to Tesco, the last resort; and I should point out here that this pecking order of supermarkets is merely geographical, based on their proximity to my house, and limited by my tolerance for spending Sunday driving round in circles.

Once safely parked and inside I spotted a stack of Christmas Trees priced at only £23, and decided to purchase a said tree along with the rest of the shopping. And when I got to the checkout it registered as £45.

I patiently explained to the man at the till that the tree was priced at £23. Then I led the manager to the stack of Christmas trees priced at £23.

And here is where we get to the problem that I have with Asda.

‘Incorrectly priced’ he said deadpan, ‘should be £45’

Why are they priced at £23? I asked. Were correctly priced this morning, sign must have gone missing, I was told. I looked at my watch which read 11.45am, which meant the store had been open to the public for the last 45 minutes. And I hadn’t seen a single customer other than myself with a tree.

So we argued back and forth for a while, me getting ever more agitated and the manager looking increasingly bored and distracted but not budging at all.

No, I couldn’t have it for £23. No, there was nothing he could do. Yes, I could have the number for head office.

I didn’t bother phoning. It’s not the first time this has happened.

So all the money spent on projecting me images of happy shoppers slapping their back pockets isn’t going to make me feel any less like I’ve been ripped off. Even though technically, and as the manager himself so rightly pointed out, I haven’t.

I’m sure we all know that supermarkets get their prices wrong. In fact, it’s pretty common in my experience.

And when it’s in their favour and I don’t notice they get away with it. So when they get it wrong and I spot it, then I expect the advertised price to be honoured.

It’s happened in Sainsbury, Waitrose, Tesco and Asda and I’m sure it would happen in Morrisons and Lidl and all the others if I went there for my shopping.

But Asda is the only store that has refused to honour the advertised price. And like I’ve said, it’s not the first time.

In any of the other supermarkets I have been in there hasn’t even been a discussion. They’ve honoured the incorrect price in my favour with a murmured acceptance that the customer is king.

But not in Asda.

So, now seething, my daughter and I make our way back to my car empty handed, and on the way to Sainsbury to pick up a turkey leg, we invent our very own word association game, and Matilda listens patiently while I explain the rules.

And yes, Asda, you do stock Turkey Crown; and pretty good it looked too.







Russell Lawley Gibbs

Enigma Marketing Services



01628 581 058

07514 818 645

Please note that my mobile number has changed.



The New Boathouse

Mill Lane

Maidenhead

Berkshire

SL6 0AA



www.enigma-marketing.co.uk

Supermarket Sweep

I was shopping in Waitrose the other day. It's a nice experience shopping in Waitrose, like being invited to a posh party. Anyway, I spotted some coffee cups on the shelves. I need coffee cups. Vicky keeps throwing mine out.


So far, I don’t have a very good record at buying cups. The last time I bought some home they ended up in the bin before they’d even had a chance to look around the kitchen. I think it was something about them being second-hand; or having an ugly pattern; or that coming from a charity shop the previous owner may have died in some horrible coffee-drinking-related accident; or probably all of these.

But despite being burdened by previous form in the coffee cup purchasing stakes I knew I was backing a winner here - an absolute shoe-in. Because these little beauties had the name Cath Kidson stamped on the bottom and that horrible flowery pattern that apparently everyone else except me loves, stamped, well, everywhere else.

They were exclusive to Waitrose and they were a fiver each.

‘Bargain’ I thought to myself, which was an odd thought for me to have, because previously the idea of paying anything more than a couple of quid, even for new coffee cups, seemed to me gross stupidity. But there I was at the counter with as many I could safely dangle on my fingers (I don’t use a trolley at Waitrose, not even a basket, I don’t have that much money), and gratefully emptying the contents of my wallet over the conveyor belt.

Of course, I know that what made these coffee cups a bargain has nothing to do with their ability to hold hot liquid. After all, most coffee cups I know are pretty good at doing that, especially the second-hand ones, which are, by very definition, more experienced.

It was the name on the bottom of each cup.

I was buying the brand. Just to be safe.

And that very afternoon a visitor came to our wonderful riverside offices to chat about digital marketing. We talked about buying products online, and this led us to the relative merits of various laptops which then moved on to home entertainment systems. And we both discovered that all of the products this chap had at his home were by the same manufacturer. And up to that point he hadn’t even realised it himself, insisting that he naturally bought on price. And this was not a cheap brand.

So although the brand itself is probably more synonymous with home entertainment than Cath Kidson is to coffee, I think the principle is the same. Whatever rationale we go through, ultimately our purchase is made with our heart and not our head. We buy what makes us happy. And that is often a brand.

One of my cups broke on the way home, but Vicky, she loved them.

So who’s the mug?