Thursday, September 24, 2009

ABC plans to reduce ad time for new season programming

Just in from Ad Age...

ABC has opted to remove the first ad break from new programs including "Flash Forward," "Modern Family," "Eastwick" and others set to debut this week as part of the new 2009-2010 TV season, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times.....ABC execs said the ad-reduction idea is part of a larger plan to get viewers hooked on new shows at a time when they have a dizzying array of entertainment choices.

So reading between the lines, ABC believe that if they remove ads, their content becomes more engaging and appealing. Uh oh. What does this mean for their underlying business model?

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Viral infection

By now I’m sure you’ve all been Kanye’d (and if you haven’t then check out this out: www.draftfcb.co.nz) and it got me thinking about viral campaigns and how often we get clients asking us to plan one for them.

‘Creating’ a great viral campaign is about as easy as planning to win Lotto. In fact, planning to win Lotto might even be easier – all you have to do is get the correct numbers together on one line in the right week.

Creating a great viral campaign has many more factors that need to align in order to get the desired result.

First, you need a good idea. Actually, you need a great idea which also has enough relevance and appeal to capture someone’s imagination. But not just anyone – it needs to be someone who has the time and inclination to forward it on to their friends. And you need to hope that ‘someone’ has an extensive list of friends who also have the time and inclination to forward it on to their extensive list of friends. And so on, and so on.

And finally you need to have a client who understands that a) you only get one shot at a viral campaign; b) the internet community may take your viral campaign and turn it into something completely different and not aligned with your brand and c) whether it ‘works’ or not is in the lap of the Gods. Oh and d) no, you cannot accurately measure results.

There have been some cracking viral campaigns – like this oldy-but-a-goody from 42below http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMxzKQFl7pw which evolved from an award winning radio ad. Or the Cadbury’s Gorilla TVC which over the last 2 years has been mashed up and remade thousands of times by people from all over the world: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cadbury+gorilla&search_type=&aq=f.

But I’m pretty sure that for every great viral campaign out there, there are thousands that never made it beyond the email address book of the account director at the creative agency.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Are celebrities bigger than God?

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I stumbled across this news headline on stuff -

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/celebrities/2851918/Are-celebrities-bigger-than-religion

Unfortunately Firefox decided not to load the page so I didn't get to read it - which gave me a chance to ponder this on the way to work, and decided to find out how religion compared to celebrities in terms of online search volumes - the highest worldwide celebrity searches for the past 12 months were:

Britney Spears, Megan Fox (didn't she come out of nowhere!), Kim Kardashian and Angelina Jolie. So I decided to see how they all stacked up against searches for God - after all, he's kind of a celeb in his own right.

The results are obvious - God consistently maintained a high search volume throughout the past twelve months. And the country that has the highest index for searches? Eritrea, a country that is 50% Muslim and 48% Christian*.



*Sources: Google Insights for Search, Wikipedia



Thursday, September 3, 2009

We're Hiring! Search Marketing Specialist Wanted

We're looking for an experienced Search Engine Marketing Specialist to join the team here at PHDiQ.

Our search team are at capacity so we're looking for an enthusiastic person to help run search campaigns for some of the biggest brands in New Zealand.

You'll need to be passionate about online, have strong analytical skills and superior attention to detail.

In return you'll get to work with one of the largest media agencies in New Zealand. We have a great team culture, a work hard, play hard attitute and an environment where proactive and enthusiastic team members are both appreciated & valued.

Find out more and apply online through Trade Me Jobs.