Richard Branson - "Be Fearless", London's not burning with Tan Organic - and more!

“Be fearless” – Richard Branson

When Virgin Atlantic pilot, Bernice Moran wanted to start her own confectionary business, her boss, Richard Branson gave the following advice - “Build your brand based on your passions and beliefs and your vision. Create your brand identity and the doors will open . . . people buy you and your brand. Be fearless going against global brand players in the confectionary business.”  Bernice and her sister Linda set up “Be Sweet” and now have 30 different products which are sold on British Airways flights as well as in Ireland, the Middle East, Asia and the US.  Her biggest mistake she says was jumping in with both feet without having done her homework and making herself aware of various cultural issues to take on board (sorry!) first!  A good read.

http://bit.ly/1MCrwhd

London’s burning?

Not if Irish self-tanning company, Tan Organic has its way!  I love companies and brands that think big!  Last week they brought a team of Irish models (pictured) and a 20 foot inflatable self-tan bottle for a major awareness and sampling promotion in London.  They appeared at popular spots including Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden, Trafalgar Square and more and gave away 5,000 free samples. A professional flash mob appeared throughout the day for added fun. But it wasn’t all frivolous - their serious message about dangers of sun tanning was supported by the UK cancer community and the promo team was led by blogger and cancer survivor Eimear Coghlan.  Well done to whoever thought of this idea – love it!

Who’s reading what?

Are Irish people still reading newspapers and if so, how?  4 out of 5 Irish adults are. Last week, the Joint National Readership Survey (JNRS) came out – this covers readership of Irish newspapers between July 2014 and June 2015.  720,000 people now read Irish newspapers online – up 27% on last year.  Laura Slattery reports, “Readership of The Irish Times, Irish Examiner, Irish Daily Star and Irish Daily Mirror increased over the past year, while readership of the Irish Independent was flat. The readership of the Herald, Irish Daily Mail and Irish Sun fell, researchers found. All Sunday titles lost readers, with the exception of the Sunday Business Post.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/irish-times-daily-readership-up-10-to-427-000-1.2316476

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21 ways to make content viral, how 5 brands tackle climate change & which social media sites work

21 ways to make your content more viral

Longer content is more likely to be shared than short – this is one of the surprising (to me) tips in this very helpful infographic in PR Daily depicting 21 ways to get your content shared.  Other tips include using plenty of images as this makes your content more credible, use odd number and [brackets] in your headline and only feature short URLs.  Targeted CTAs (Calls to Action) work much better than generic e.g. “share these weight loss tips” rather than “share this post.” 

http://bit.ly/1WfHn8f

How 5 big brands are tackling climate change

Communicating about their support for climate change in an engaging way can be challenging for brands – this article talks about how 5 big brands (4 of them familiar names to Irish audiences) are doing so. Focusing on one – Adidas – I really like what they are doing.  They’re a founder member of an organisation called “Parley for the Oceans”, an organisation where creators, thinkers and leaders come together to raise awareness of the oceans and collaborate on projects that protect it.  Adidas apparently specifically supports its educational and communications activities.  Recently Adidas launched the first shoe made from recycled ocean plastic.  Other brands covered include Ben & Jerry, Coca Cola, Unilever and Staples.

http://bit.ly/1NnT1YF

Business guide as to which social media sites are working

An “eye opener” is how the Indo’s Adrian Weckler describes recent quarterly results from the big players on the social media scene.  He talks about which social media to watch from a marketing point of view.  Facebook is still the biggie while Twitter is struggling to make ads work on its platform.   72% of Facebook members check into the site or app every single day. Also worth noting is that 76% of its advertising revenue now comes from mobile devices. Instagram with its 300m users worldwide has enabled advertising APIs – automated software that lets advertisers place ads without having to call someone. 63% of Snapchat’s Irish users use the app every single day and M&Ms have used it here to promote competitions but no advertising as yet, unlike the States where big brands have been using it for some time.  Excitement about Snapchat’s future is because of the ongoing development of its media channels, “Discover” and “Live”.

http://bit.ly/1JapDre

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Brands should focus on higher purpose, Not so Barking Mad & JNLRs

Focus on a higher purpose not just on profits

So says the Global Head of Social & Digital Marketing at Philips but he warns that you have to be sincere, be consistent and be prepared to stand your ground.  In this interesting article on CSR (corporate social responsibility) Blake Cahill states that employee engagement can be challenging and that some consumers can see the activity as exploitative. He mentions a couple of global CSR campaigns such as Kenco’s “Coffee V Gangs” and Toms footwear who, for every pair of shoes sold, give a pair to a needy child as well as talking about smaller scale ones from Oasis (‘spring a smile’) and UPS (‘your wishes delivered). “The cause should be rooted in the brand, it should make sense to customers and it should have a practical, shareable outcome.”

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/aug/04/brands-purpose-profits-cause-marketing

Not so Barking Mad!

Having worked in Mars (maker of Pedigree dog food amongst other brands), Paul Fortune saw a gap in the market for a quality dog food with a high meat content – so in 2008, he set up “Barking Heads.”  He and his two business partners were inspired by Innocent and Ella’s Kitchen – two other high quality brands who do their marketing in a fun way.  Barking Heads’ logo was researched in the primary school playground of Paul’s kids.  The article below doesn’t give a lot of info on the brand so here’s the website - http://www.barkingheads.co.uk/ and I see they do ‘Miaowing Heads’ food also for us cat owners and their products are sold here in Ireland.  I like their “Meet the Family” web page.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/small-business-person-of-the-week-paul-hunter--founder-barking-heads-10434080.html

Radio Listenership June 2014 – July 2015

RTE Radio 1 and Newstalk shows did well in July’s JNLRs (Joint National Listenership Radio) survey but Sean O’Rourke’s Radio 1 show was the only RTE programme to increase listener numbers (to 317,000) over the 12 months.  Apparently younger listeners turned to Radio 1 during the marriage referendum so some shows had particularly good figures for the past quarter.  Ryan Tubridy also had a very good year but now he moves to John Murray’s Radio 1 9am slot.  Newstalk Breakfast (a personal favourite) grew its audience by a very impressive 26,000 to 173,000 over the past twelve months.  Locally, Red FM overtook 96FM to become the number 1 local radio station in Cork.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/radio-1-recovers-lost-listeners-ratings-survey-shows-1.2302370

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Outlawed for 2016, is your business ready for Apple Pay & 5 'fringe' social media platforms

Trends in 2016

As we rebuild our world in 2016, it will be all about the “Emotional Web” according to Meabh Quoirin of The Future Foundation who gave an excellent talk at DIT on Tuesday.  “The Warming Web” and channeling people’s moods was just one of the trends she identified.

“Injury Time Appeal” was another – an example of which is a customer in-store getting a brand message telling him/her that they have only 10 minutes to redeem a certain offer.  The importance of “Peer to Peer” enterprises, social entrepreneurship and self-parody (showing that we’re not perfect, we’re human) were also highlighted. One excellent example was cited – Carsberg’s “Beer Body Ready” response to that “Beach Body Ready” ad campaign.  The slide above shows absolute “no-no’s” for brands in 2016.

I’ve only skimmed over the excellent talk that Meabh gave at DIT who, along with The Marketing Institute, ran the seminar to promote their Masters in Digital Marketing & Analytics.

Is your business ready for Apple Pay?

Possibly launching here later this year as Apple apparently contacted Irish banks earlier in the year, is your business ready for Apple Pay?   According to this article Apple Pay is definitely not just for the ‘big boys’ – any company that considers itself premium, tech-driven and user-friendly should be seriously considering enabling their customers to pay them this way.  It cautions that before you invest, you should check who your customers bank with and if they’re interested in using contactless payment services like Apple Pay. It’s a trend that can only increase with 44.8% of all UK online payments last year made with a mobile device.  If you do adopt it, you’re advised to train staff well on how it works and ensure you have an “Apple Pay Champion” on every shift.

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/jul/20/apple-pay-businesses-uk-payment-systems

Are the 5 ‘fringe’ social media platforms suited to your business?

Well, it all depends on where your target audiences spent time, of course.  This article gives one tip to find out where your audience are – check to see where your website is coming from and which networks they’re on.  They then give a brief description of Snapchat, Vine, Tumblr, Vimeo and Quora. 71% of Snapchat users are under 25, 57% of Vine (the 6 second video platform) users are women and this is ideal for Twitter users, Tumblr is for short blogs, Vimeo for professional video users and those who enjoy a quality experience while Quora boast 2.9m users on its Q&A platform.

http://bit.ly/1IeuCF8

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40 days of fine weather on the way?

With the weather forecast looking good for today, Wednesday 15^th July – St. Swithin’s Day – spare a thought for Sean and Kieran Murphy (pictured) from Dingle as they face 40 days of fair weather - and thus no ‘stock’ for their Rainwater Sorbets!

The Irish-American brothers who established Murphy’s Ice Cream in Dingle fifteen years ago, decided earlier this year to use Irish rainwater to good effect and they now make sorbets with it!  “We want Irish people and visitors alike to enjoy the Irish weather in a whole new way.  So it’s just as well there was plenty of rain up until the end of May!”

The Rainwater Sorbets come in two flavours – Chocolate and Raspberry and both are dairy and gluten free. 

Dark chocolate-lovers can indulge their passion for a rich, bitter and aromatic taste experience featuring ultra-premium Valrhona chocolate and cocoa combined with pure, distilled Dingle rainwater.  While, the Raspberry sorbet provides a blast freshness and intense fruitiness to the tastebuds thanks to Dingle rainwater and at least 35% real fruit. 

The Murphy brothers now have four stores – two in Dingle, one in Killarney and one in Wicklow Street, Dublin.  For further information, see www.murphysicecream.ie

St. Swithin was the Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. At his request he was buried in the churchyard, where rain and the steps of passers-by might fall on his grave. According to legend, after his body was moved inside the cathedral on July 15, 971, a great storm ensued.* 

-       Ends –

*Encyclopaedia Britannica

Man City builds global brand, how long should your videos be & advice from Brian Cody

Man City builds global brand

Manchester City FC is using technology to build a global brand according to this article in “Marketing Week.”  They want to track performance “from boardroom to pitch” and support business opportunities, football performance and fan engagement.  The club’s parent company is City Football Group (CFG) and it also has stakes in NYC FC, Melbourne City FC and Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan.

http://bit.ly/1JWomRv

How long should your videos be?

The most watched videos on YouTube are 3 minutes long while 15 second TV ads are growing in popularity – even though they may be edited down from the 30 second original version.  Ads for video on demand should be no longer than 20 seconds for those viewing on a desktop and 10 seconds max for mobile advises this article from the Irish Times.  Netflix preview ads for the next episode of a series are 15 seconds – the same length of time that Instagram video ad formats are.  So the message seems to be – different ad lengths for different formats.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/every-second-counts-as-ads-try-to-hit-the-sweet-spot-1.2277809

“If you lose, you’re not good enough to win”

So said Brian Cody, Kilkenny hurling manager when he spoke at a recent Smurfit UCD Smurfit Business School breakfast.  Writing in the Irish Independent, Michael Cullen tells us that Cody’s tips included - never to ignore your gut instinct, know the people around you and their way of life and surround yourself with experts but don’t tell them how to do their job.

http://www.independent.ie/business/media/cody-outlines-a-winning-formula-31362136.html

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tie Twitter to your Comms strategy, Tell your Story & 7 ways to make money from your Blog

4 ways to tie Twitter to your Communications strategy

This article features 4 tips on Twitter from the social media consultant for the American Heart Association.  While the article – from PR News - is aimed at people who work in PR, the 4 tips apply to anyone using Twitter for business.  Tip 1:  listen before you leap – this applies to any beginner of any social media – listen and observe before you jump in – and the great thing about Twitter is the ability to monitor conversations and topics easily (admission – I had to google API to see what it means - Application Programming Interfaces – allows programmes and websites to ‘talk’ to each other - but you, the reader, probably knew that!).  See other tips here….

http://bit.ly/1TOqWyu

Tell your Story

It’s vital to let customers see your strength – so tell your story – this is the leading piece of advice from Nigel Gahan of Gahan Meats in the Business section of the Irish Independent.  Nigel has worked in the family meat business in Dublin for 20 years.   He says that so many companies have great stories but they keep it to themselves.  His other recommendations include: Delegate; Focus; Recognise your Strengths & Weaknesses - and it is all about Customer Service…..

http://bit.ly/1LqGoxk

Make money from your Blog

7 tips on how to make money from your Blog from Ian Cleary of Razor Social – my favourite social media and online marketing guru as he really knows his stuff and speaks in plain English – not teccie speak!  With each of the tips, Ian recommends some tools and websites you can use.  The tips include: running webinars, promoting other content, doing product reviews and selling your own products.  See here for details……

http://www.razorsocial.com/profit-from-your-blog/?omhide=true

And finally……

Interesting info from Communicorp One – owner of Newstalk, Today FM and TXFM on the online behaviour of their listeners…….

http://www.communicorpone.ie/insights/online-behaviour/ 

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