Olympic Guidelines for Business Promotions
The Olympics is a very tempting time for marketers to offer competitions and promotions loosely aligned to the games… but beware!
Thanks to the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act (2006) and the Olympic Symbol (Protection) Act (1995) any such use is not a civil matter (as is usually the case with copyright infringement etc.) but a criminal one – your competition could be breaking the law and there is a team of LOCOG “Brand Police” who are very actively seeking infringing adverts, events and promotions.
We’ve produced a simple set of guidelines, based on the LOCOG brand guidelines, to try and help*
Read MoreLatest study highlights the importance of online advertising
After today’s figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers revealing a 14% rise in online advertising spend, RT Media take a look into what this means for the future of Marketing, and how we can help.
The IAB have revealed the biggest increase in online marketing spend in five years with video ads and display ads helping to accumulate the massive £4.8bn spent in 2011. It’s apparent that with technology rapidly improving to allow for high-quality video, animation and interactivity within banner and skyscrapers adverts, that companies are now realising the central role that online marketing should play in their brands marketing campaigns. As online display advertising sails past the £1bn mark for the first time, no wonder the digital world is heralded by many marketers as the future of all marketing. We at RT have the knowledge and skills to go all the way with you, have a look at how we can help you keep ahead of the game with our online marketing strategies here.
Read MoreUsing You Tube for brand building and marketing
The popular video sharing website and social network YouTube has recently released what you could describe as a book of ‘Commandments’ for what the team at YouTube believe are the most successful and effective ways to help its users generate better quality content and drive more traffic to their channels.
This extensive guide dubbed the ‘Creator Playbook’ gives YouTube users a distinct structured list of the best strategy to maximise the potential of their online videos. It also explains how to promote your marketing material through other social media networks and is designed to be accessible to all users, mapping out a tick list agenda to optimise the opportunities that Youtube offers.
So, just what is it that makes the largest online video destination and second most used search engine such a valuable brand and marketing tool? One reason I can think that video marketing is so advantageous and so powerful could be linked to the fact that 90% of our day to day communication is non-verbal. This implies that messages are most likely to be understood when given out and received usingbody language and self-expression. Unlike written words in printed media and websites, and spoken words in radio advertising, video and television marketing have the additional messages which are transferred by eye movements, visual cues, and overall body language, which makes YouTube a great channel to add more depth to your brand strategy.
You can download the YouTube instruction ‘bible’ here:
http://youtube.com/creators/playbook.html
While you’re waiting for it to download I can give you a few of my own ways to use make the most of your ‘home generated’ content which are often overlooked.
Firstly, it’s important to take an honest and value based approach to using YouTube to raise awareness of your business. The direct selling route is not always necessary. Ultimately if your videos are interesting, informative, innovative or humorous then your audience are more likely to value them and share it, spreading awareness of your brand without any legwork from you. If a key factor to your video strategy is sharing then make your videos focussed and simple with a more subliminal marketing message. People are unlikely to share your video if they think they are being pitched to!
Make use of the close integration that YouTube allows with other social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Before you know it you can quickly and effortless have your video posted across platforms and embedded in your website and emails. YouTube video’s are viewed for an average of 2.9 billion hours a month so make sure you get a look in and use it as part of your overall strategy.
Customise your own YouTube channel (Like ours here: http://www.youtube.com/user/rtmediauk) to compliment your branding and to set up playlists with your personalised content. No lack of equipment or technology should stop you from producing original, creative content for your YouTube channel. Consider interviewing clients, or experts on a variety of topics which are relevant and authentic, and make sure an element of your brands personality shines through and reflects what your all about. You should maintain communication with your audience with regular updates and new posts.
Be Tag savvy. Remember…search engines like Google can only determine the content of your video if you tag it and your YouTube channel. Think carefully about the words and phrases you use for titles and descriptions. Link your social media accounts and make sure they are on your own website as well to encourage sharing and remind people to subscribe.
Check out RT Media’s You tube channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/rtmediauk
Read MoreRT Media supports young entrepreneurs
Ross Thornley, Creative Director of RT Media, regularly gives up his time free of charge to support young entrepreneurs; specifically assisting the Young Enterprise Group (Poole High School, meeting every week from September 2010) in the ways of business and inspiring them to achieve their business goals.
We are also looking forward to working with one of the companies from Young Enterprise to help them commercially take their idea to market. It is a great feeling to work with young people who are a constant source of inspiration.
In addition, RT Media have helped the students from Queen Elizabeth’s School in Wimborne and here is what one of the students had to say:
“My name is Fern Johnson and I attend Queen Elizabeth’s School in Wimborne. We are currently doing a unit called ‘Product Promotion’ which requires us to investigate advertising agencies. We had emailed loads of different businesses with no reply, until Mr Thornley kindly got back to our teacher advising her that he would be prepared to even do a meeting with us.”
“We then organised the event and on the day walked into Wimborne to go to visit RT Media. Mr Thornley very kindly gave us 2 hours of his time, which to us was a priceless experience, having never worked or needed to think about promotion of products beforehand; we could only use what we could find using the internet, our own ideas and a text book, but Mr Thornley gave us more than any text book example, we talked into depth about the pros and cons of different media types, their range, what they do in particular, how they have to create unique ideas.”
“I learnt a lot from the experience and found it very interesting, as well as informative, I then went home that evening to find myself write up about 5 pages extra on my assignment as well as set off creating my own promotional campaign, which was another assignment for the unit, without this trip I would not have had the motivation to do so, let alone be able to write in the amazing examples that I now have been able to write into my assignment. Thank you Mr Thornley at RT Media for making what I thought would be a difficult unit for me into something that I have enjoyed and taken a lot of time over now due to his enthusiasm of the business.”
Read MoreCreating Brand Love
Believe it or not, us human beings are programmed to respond to emotion and we often make many important decisions based on how easily we are influenced by feelings and emotive language around us. For example, making purchases in a shop or from a website based on emotion is quite normal. Just like the age old head over heart argument, we know what we should do; the logical, sensible and often safe option, but the most successful marketers understand that successful products appeal to the heart, not the mind. Going by our emotions is usually what creates the action, and this is where the magic happens!
The RT Media Brand Love Mix and effect
If we take this philosophy and apply it to marketing, it could translate as: be inspiring, be adventurous and bold, or why bother? It’s entirely possible that if you are not inspiring or causing people to feel emotions, then your brand is just ‘existing’. Emotive branding is about taking everything you do today and creating a focus. These intentions can only be realised when everyone working for the brand is reading from the same page and embrace the brand’s emotive center.
However, there is a difference between using emotion in advertising and having an emotive brand that builds meaningful connections from the foundations of everything that you do. While using emotion in advertising can help consumers buy into your concept you will need to keep this ‘promise’ as it were so that it runs seamlessly into all aspects of the customer experience from creation all the way through to implementation.
Emotive brands engage their entire organisations so that every message induces a similar set of thoughts and feelings – consumer’s thoughts about brands are made up of groups of associations: feelings, sounds, memories and images as well as facts. Studies on how the brain processes and stores everyday messages and associations suggest that knowledge, experience and emotions are the three things called upon first to make up our representation of a brand.
If these are positive connotations, the recalls should bond the customer (and the employees) to the brand. Think of the infamous Coco-cola, ‘Holidays are coming’ adverts shown on the run up to Christmas- the resulting brand harmony means brand loyalty. The idea is to genuinely bond with your target audience through shared values, attitudes and behaviour which needs to be a long term creation not just a 30 second fling.
However, don’t lose sight of your realistic and rational benefits and values, the backbone for a ‘right decision’ is based on reason and marketing should highlight both the rational and emotional components of the brand promise to create a balance.
Ultimately, it’s the difference between indulging in meaningless marketing activity and striving for meaningful connections.
It’s a choice every brand can make.
If you would like help with creating brand love then please do get in touch. ross@rtmedia.com
Read MoreMobile Devices and You: Application vs Web
The term mobile device, while propagating quite quickly through our current cultural zeitgeist, is almost a misnomer. If we take the phrase, in context, at its most literal it would essentially mean any operating platform, which we can carry around with us. Laptops have been around for decades now, and yet they are lumped in with the personal computer market and not the mobile device market. Ultra portable might be closer to the mark, but even that is not quite there yet.
When the conversation turns to ‘mobile devices’, most people are probably talking about things like mobile phones such as the HTC Desire or iPhone and tablet devices like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab. It’s these devices we are concerned with. Current phones and tablets, while advanced, are still behind when compared to your typical laptops and netbooks; limitations are generally processing power, RAM, storage space, compatibility with things Flash and Silverlight and, as with the iPhone, the lack of a transparent and accessible file system. When developing for these platforms a lot of stuff has to be taken into consideration, and on top of that you also have a decision to make:
Do I need an app, or a web application?
This is something an awful lot of people will be asking themselves right about now. A mobile optimised interface for connecting with visitors and customers is becoming more and more important as the platform evolves. A mobile presence can build value for your brand in the eyes of the consumer and put you a step above the competition, if it’s done right. The difference between the two may not seem obvious; below you can find a list of the features and relative benefits of each approach.
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