The week in marketing

A new television advert for Scandanavian furniture store IKEA has received warm praise ahead of its debut this weekend. The commercial films 100 cats as they roam through the company’s Wembley store.

Fast food chain Burger King has introduced its brand mascot to UK audiences for the first time this week. The figurehead appears in the organisation’s ‘Taste is King’ campaign.

Totaljobs.com is launching its first television advertising campaign in over a decade in order to boost the employment site’s popularity.

The week in social media

American users spent more time on Facebook than on Google in August, according to an investigation from online research firm comScore.

The mobile use of Twitter has risen 62 per cent since April. The information was revealed by the site’s co-founder Evan Williams.

The week in online marketing

Women deliver a 23 per cent higher clickthrough rate for online B2B adverts than men according to new findings. However, the research discovered men were 53 per cent more likely to buy from an advert than females.

Google released Google Instant, its real-time search results option. The new feature sees live listings appear as users enter search terms.

The week at Delineo

The Delineo team will be strapping on their shin-pads to take part in the Creative Cup. The charity football tournament sees 32 agencies from across the North West compete for the esteemed trophy (as well as local bragging rights).

This week, we revealed some of our design work for Bell Micro. And very nice it is too.

Tasked with putting together a campaign for Bell Micro’s internal sales team, HP channel business partners and vendor staff, Delineo delivered a powerful campaign which illustrates how simple it is to mix together HP support elements to make the ‘perfect sales attach’ to all HP deals.

This campaign is led by a high impact animated sales presentation featuring fast-paced, bold animation with vibrant, colourful graphics depicting all the ingredients to make the perfect cocktail – with the lemon being the ”perfect attach’, and therefore, the finishing touch!

Integrated campaign elements: Digital, eDM.

Naturally, the announcement caused a great deal of discussion in the local SEO community.

• “Would the feature alter the nature of search engine optimisation?”
• “How would online marketing be affected by Google Instant?”

A vast majority of these questions and comments took place on Twitter last night. Here’s what the Twittersphere said about the launch of Google Instant:

“Straw poll from 3 non-techies on Google Instant: result is “nice”, “scary”, “too jittery”" @rhyswynne

“Much as I hate to be negative about new developments, my constant typing typos mean Google instant is actually hugely irritating.” @katiemoffat

“I quite like the new Google.” @lodge28

“SEO on Radio 4 this morn – wait for it…does Google Instant mean the end of it” @Searchpanda

“”SEO is dead” and “SEO the dark magic” are funny linkbaiting articles, but consider how that makes you look as a professional.” @SarahCarling

“Not sure about Instant. Are the results different from autocomplete / suggest? (More localised?)” @jamesbarley

“Going to affect both SEO and PPC Managers alike – Google Instant – A huge change in search?” @Peteyoung

“[phrase1] Google instant will [phrase2] SEO”. Dynamic SEO blog post title generator for the next week.” @richardbaxter with an amusing take on the response from the SEO industry to Google Instant.

“Queue angry calls from clients over the mega drop in CTR – good luck PPC managers!” @ChelseaBlacker

“Google Instant Search is making me forget what I am initially searching for, and going elsewhere online. Hmm.” @Paul_mcmanus

“I don’t think Google Instant will last. Can’t see my mum/gran/friends liking it. I bet they’ll get a lot of complaints…” @Super_Carly

“Dear SEOs why do we fall for ‘SEO is dead-bait’ every time? Will we ever learn?” @kelvinnewman

Here’s the real-time results in action:

If you’re interested in following the conference, a live broadcast will be available here, while a number of SEO and social media sites will be live-blogging from the event.

The service was declared as a Technology Pioneer for 2011 by the World Economic Forum.

But the social network also gives companies the ability to profit from the service. Organisations can increase their public exposure via ‘specials’; a feature which allows firms to place discounts and promotions specifically for Foursquare users checking into their venue.

For instance, Foursquare players can be rewarded with a free meal for visiting a restaurant or be given a discount if they become the mayor of a particular store. These promotions are designed to encourage footfall, sales and brand loyalty. Companies currently using the service include Gap, Dominos and Next, although a variety of organisations around Manchester are also offering specials.

Here’s just some of the Manchester specials the Delineo team found around the city:

• Common Bar is offering Foursquare users a free goodie bag on their 25th check in
• The Market Restaurant gives away a free bottle of wine to the mayor
• Trof Bar is giving away a free meal for people who check in on 10 different occasions
• Domino’s Pizza offers its mayor a free small pizza every Wednesday
• The mayor of Obsidian Restaurant gets a free drink or starter for checking in
• Luso Restaurant is offering users a complimentary glass of wine on every check in
• Revolution Martial Arts is giving Foursquare users a free lesson on their 10th check in
• Ning Restaurant is offering a free starter to the mayor

If you’re seen any other specials in Manchester, let us know. Alternatively, if you’re coming to visit us at Delineo, feel free to check in.

The Bell Micro, HP team tasked Delineo to come up with an educational and compelling campaign to convince IT channel partners that Bell Micro can provide a step-by-step roadmap to help them develop a profitable business for HP Converged Infrastructure.

This B2B campaign adopts a consumer approach portraying a simplistic message of  ’Life’s straight forward with a Reseller Roadmap’ at your disposal, enabling the audience to see further ahead in terms of the product life cycle.

The campaign visuals used are very clean, fashion-led photography depicting a straight road ahead, highlighting the benefits of the HP Reseller Roadmap to the channel partners.

Integrated campaign elements: Digital, eDM, partner workshops.

According to the document, American communications firm AT&T Mobility – the original network providers for the iPhone in the United States – emerged as the biggest spender on Google’s advertising platform, pumping $8.08 million (£5.2m) into the AdWords platform in June. Educational company Apollo Group spent $6.67 million (£4.3m), while travel firm Expedia committed $5.95 million (£3.6m) during the month.

Reporting on the leaked intelligence, Advertising Age’s Michael Learmonth noted:

“While the search-spending document obtained by Advertising Age is not a complete list of advertisers on Google, the accuracy of its data was verified by multiple sources with direct knowledge of spending levels.

“It’s a revealing cross-section of Google’s business that gives some clarity to one of the most opaque areas of ad spending, and the lifeblood of many American businesses.”

The data also showed that BP, the British energy company, spent $3.59 million (£2.3m) during the month in order to combat negative press relating to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the data, the company increased its AdWords spend from $57,000 (£37,000) in May in order to inform searchers of its efforts to halt the leak.

Reporting on the leak, digital marketing blog Econsultancy noted that, if the results were accurate, the spend of these companies would only account for five per cent of Google’s U.S revenue during June.

“Assuming the document AdAge has obtained is authentic and the numbers are accurate, Google investors, analysts and pundits have new insight into the company’s health,” reporter Patricio Roberts noted.

Speaking about the document, Dennis Woodside, vice president of Google American Operations, said:

“We can’t comment on these figures because we haven’t seen the document in question or determined what these numbers represent. We’re now looking into the possibility that someone improperly disclosed confidential information about our clients, and [we] will take all appropriate action.”

The week in marketing

Channel 4 are set to broadcast perimeter border advertisements during next week’s England football game. The promotions will encourage viewers to switch to the channel’s latest drama series after the final whistle.

The Advertising Standards Authority announced it would be extending its online remit. The new regulations will cover complaints against companies operating in online and social media marketing.

Google has given firms the opportunity to add brand logos to their locations on Google Maps.

The week in social media

Twitter announced a new URL shortening tool in the hope of increasing user safety. The feature is intended to make it easier for individuals to spot malicious and harmful links.

Apple announced Ping, a social network for its iTunes software. The addition allows users to share and recommend artists and bands to friends.

Google’s purchase of social site Angstro fuelled rumours that the search engine is set to continue its pursuit of a viable social network.

The week in search engine optimisation

Popular search engine optimisation site SEOMoz relaunched its homepage in an effort to increase sign-ups for its subscription service.

Google Chrome, the web browser from the search engine, celebrated its second birthday with the release of its sixth version.

Popular SEO article-submission site Sphinn courted controversy after announcing it would no longer post artices with the most user votes on its homepage. The site revealed it would allow editors to choose the most relevant articles for the front of the site.

The week at Delineo

On Tuesday, Tom Mason joined us as social media campaign manager. Tom, who has five years’ experience working across numerous channels, comes on board to manage our digital social campaigns.

Delineo are looking to hire an SEO Campaign Manager to work on a number of exciting campaigns. More details can be found on the Delineo blog.

The email announced that the social network site would commence the release of its URL shortening service from the end of the year. The new feature means that all links posted on Twitter.com or third-party applications will automatically be wrapped in a special format which can be monitored by staff at the site. It is designed to reduce the number of links to fraudulent or harmful websites.

A URL shortener is a service which reduces the size of a website link, allowing Twitter users to fit more characters into their message.

For instance, the address http://www.delineo.com/category/our-work/direct-marketing-our-work/ would be reduced to http://bit.ly/cHT8OK.

Writing for Forbes, Oliver Chian noted the announcement would be poorly received by companies with their own URL shortening service. He commented:

“This sounds like a good move for security on the service, but a bad move for competing URL shorteners like Bit.ly, which was the default shortener used by Twitter in the past. This isn’t the first time Twitter has caused strain to its relationship with the developer community that helped build out the functionality of its service, and it probably won’t be the last.”

Furthermore, the company has also announced it will begin introducing new rules for third-party applications which access the site. Starting from September, programmes which use Twitter to post updates (such as mobile applications like EchoFon or websites like TweetMeme) will be required to use a process known as ‘OAuth’ to access a user’s Twitter account. The new process is designed to improve user safety by ensuring third-party applications do not store passwords.