Posted by Anneke Onwijn @ July 3rd, 2009 in 77News

Yesterday 77Agency held its first knowledge sharing / networking event in London with keynote speaker Facebook and a special guest appearance by BootB.

We felt that now by having been working in the digital media space for more than five years and writing about it online in 77Lab, it was time to go ‘offline’ and start sharing our knowledge and experience with marketers that are confronted everyday with new trends in social media marketing.

As social media continues to be a hot topic (an in our view will continue to be so), and the immense growth of Facebook continues unabated, it seemed good idea to start off with a seminar regarding this topic and what better than to talk about the most successful social network?

Facebook grown to become the third most visited site in the UK after its unique users rose to an incredible 23.4 million in April 2009, (comscore, nma) and it is by far the most successful social network as it is slowly increasing its share of online marketing spend as advertising and targeting opportunities continue to grow.  We were very lucky to secure Josh Smith, Head of Inside Sales, as our key note speaker for last night’s event.

The seminar provided insight into the fast European growth of Facebook and the demographics of the UK audience, and also focused on the advertising possibilities on the social media platform and the use of fan pages. We saw a number of examples of how well known brands use the platform to enhance consumer engagement and build brand equity.

At 77Agency we believe creativity is a key factor in making social media campaigns work and therefore a special appearance was made by the CEO of BootB, Pier Ludivico Bancale. He introduced the concept behind “Brands out of the Box”, which is a pitching engine that brings brand owners and creative brains from all around the world together.

The combination of Facebook, BootB and 77Agency turned out to be a successful recipe. Some of the companies that attended last night were The Post Office, Barclays Global Investors, The Science Museum, Buongiorno, GlaxoSmithKline, Bauer Media and Anya Hindmarch.

Many thanks to Josh Smith, Head if Inside Sales @ Facebook and also thanks to Pier Ludivico Bancale, Ceo of BootB, for making last night a great first seminar for 77Agency.

If you would like to be kept up to date on upcoming seminars in London, please send an email with your contact details to seminars@77agency.com or contact us on +44 (0) 207 3787358

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ July 2nd, 2009 in Social Marketing

Twitter has made the cover of Times Magazine. Michael Jackson’s death froze the media and caused a massive rush to the internet. Facebook continues to get ‘poked’ by DTS for a piece of the social network empire.

What do they all have in common? It all revolves around the Web, but not only that, the online is also outperforming all other media.

Take a look at the graph below. It’s taken from an article by Luca Conti, featured on today’s IlSole24Ore technology supplement, Nova24. It’s a comparison graph between Web 2.0, Email and Video that shows how Web 2.0  surpasses email and video.

We can certainly attribute this growth of the online medium to social networks due to the fact that brands continue to see more opportunity to exploit the digital enviroment as an effort to increase brand visibility and overall revenue.

The big story here is that social networks have opened up a whole new world for brands and marketers. Now, instead of anticipating what consumer’s reactions will be after the launch of a product or new brand design, brands can instead turn to the different social platforms for feedback and valuable opinions.

In like manner, brands are also realizing that they can change the way in which they communicate with the consumer and use these social channels to listen, interact, answer questions and share experiences with their own target markets.

According to Nielsen, Social networking sites eclipsed E-mail in global reach at 68.4% vs. 64.8% in February 2009.And even more significant, in only the first few months of 2009, the reach of these sites is growing at a brisk pace, faster than any other online sector.

Twitter, as we’ve mentioned before, has been and will continue to be the biggest social media story in 2009. However, MySpace and Facebook are not left too far behind as it clearly shows on the following buzz graph.

It’d be interesting to see some corporate social media stories revealing how companies have decided to tap into this whole new world of connectedness and interactivity and how it’s proven to be effective for them.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ July 1st, 2009 in Social Marketing

Gucci is doing it. So are Oscar de la Renta, Donna Karan, Target, Urban Outfitters, Louis Vuitton and Rachel Roy. This was the opening paragraph from one of WWD’s recent leading stories, ‘Social Media Rewrites the Rules for Brands’.

Even some of the most prominent designers you would have never expected to see using Twitter, Facebook or any other online social media, are making a point that such channels are radically changing the way fashion brands engage with their customers and prospects online.

Brands are coming to realize that people are interested to know beyond what’s hiding behind the fashion label. Oscar de la Renta does a great job in managing his Twitter profile by appointing what he calls the OscarPRGirl, to promote the brand ‘from inside one of the world’s most prestigious design houses’. Who wouldn’t want to know more about what goes on inside Oscar’s fashion empire?

Donna Karan tags right along with her very own PRgirl who provides the latest behind-the-scenes scoop from inside DKNY. And this is what people like to see, a more humanized, responsive and sensitive facet of the brand.

Social media channels offer great exposure for the brands and a great opportunity to reach out to customers, all this while profiting from all the free advertisingand virality that comes with it.

“Customers can feel like they are part of the brand’s extended family, and therefore the brand itself, while the interactive element further deepens that relationship,” said Alex Bolen, chief executive officer of Oscar de la Renta. “These characteristics address and satisfy that ‘tribal’ part of the fashion consumer — the way in which people identify themselves by the brands they buy.”

Social media represents a powerful brand advantage that allows for both the brand and the consumer to engage in conversation while offering a fun and easy way to stay tuned on the latest products, lines, and promotions. As reported by Nielsen Media, Facebook and MySpace represent the most established social platforms with a retention rate of almost 70%.

One important fact that should not be overlooked by brands is that social media is here to stay, whether they evolve, lose, gain influence, it needs to be part of a holistic marketing strategy. As we know, the fashion world is constantly shifting and people’s habits are constantly changing too-particularly shopping habits- therefore, brands would need to adapt to these changes and keep up with the consumer and their demands.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 30th, 2009 in Display Advertising

In an attempt to reach surfers who ignore banner ads or have a wider ‘blindspot’ than the rest of us, the Online Publishers Association has released new ad formats; XXL boxes that should, in theory, provide a greater branding impact than the usual banners.

Marketers, as we know, are always seeking for new and impactful ways of engaging the audience with their ads. This is why the OPA is opting to offer these new ’standardized blocks of space’ for advertisers and marketers to send their messages more effectively and a lot more visibly. We’re talking oversized boxes that can reach over 900 pixels wide.

Websites such as the New York Times (NYT), Wall Street Journal (NWS) and CNN.com are amongst the 37 publisher sites that will begin running super-sized ads in July.

This is what a super-sized ad would look like on your desktop:

This new ad format will effectively ensure the ads will not go unseen by anyone and it’s mainly thanks to their unusual presentation. However, and judging by the size, advertisers will most likely come up with some really creative pieces. Question is, are they adaptable for all kinds of brands?

One true fact that’s worth pointing out is that they will definitely increase users’ attention particularly if the ads have any relevance to the viewers.

Here are the exact specs of the new ad formats as presented by All Things Digital:

• The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page

• The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency

• The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.

Posted by Manuela Barreto @ June 29th, 2009 in Other Marketing

A new survey by StrongMail Systems was recently revealed by MediaPost explaining how social media has emerged as a direct marketing channel and how both email marketing and social media are being simultaneously used as part of a company’s’ online marketing plan.

Even though many declare direct marketing techniques, as email marketing, to be obsolete due to its lack of engagement, marketers are not entirely excluding such activity from their marketing strategies. It’s been around for a while, longer than microblogging and paid search, however one downfall as we know is that it has a bad spam reputation.

One thing that still holds true for direct emailing is that its cheap, tangible and measurable. Forrester recently estimated that by 2014 we will be receiving 9,000 more marketing mails, this meaning, 24 more emails per day will come into our inboxes.

Back to the aforementioned research, the data was collected through 500 marketers who responded to an online survey from May to June 2009. One of the main findings was that 66% of marketers are planning to integrate the two channels in 2009 and, 48% who have already formulated a strategy for achieving this initiative. Of marketers planning to increase budgets in 2009, 83% will increase spend in email marketing, followed by social media at 62%.

I’d like to leave marketers with a few tips from Forrester on what marketers should do in their future email direct marketing campaigns:

1. Segmentation of mailing lists. Never assume that all email recipients have the same interests. The more specialized lists you have, the better. You send more emails in smaller list sizes, but to more targeted audience.
2. Increase integration with social media. This calls for more integration between emails and say, Facebook, in spreading the whole message. Other initiatives include share to social calls to action links and buttons.
3. Maintain clean lists. It’s always been an email’s best practice to keep mailing lists cleansed from bounce, non-existent, malformed and duplicate emails.

Do you apply both strategies in your company? Which do you consider to be more engaging?