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Connected: The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How they Shape Our Lives

I’ve had a book on my desk for some time now, called “Connected (The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How they Shape our Lives)”. It was sent to me by the ‘nice and bespectacled people at Rubber Republic‘. (It conjures up images of them filing away books in a quiet library somewhere). I don’t know if they are bespectacled, but I do think they’re nice – they sent me a free book

Rubber Republic are specialists in viral and social media campaigns, seeding ’stuff’ (content) to influential audiences, getting ideas to spread online: Stuff like this.

The book idea follows the same simple ’seeding’ idea that works so effectively online – send the book to an initial group of people, make them feel special by getting the book first, let them read the book, and (hopefully) get them to pass it on to somebody else, distributing the message and exposure to the original sender. The difference being that with offline the idea is never really going to go ‘viral’ – it’s not possible for somebody to read the book and then send it to multiple friends – so the sharing element is a much slower process. (It’s quite a thick book too).

Send to a friend 'feature' - presumably by hand or post

It has had an effect though, and probably the desired effect. Without even having read the book, I’d already told several colleagues about the nice book idea, been back on the Rubber Republic blog and started following them on Twitter. The offline ’stuff’, in this case the book, has therefore definitely had a ‘return’ and has converted into an opinion that’s gone online (you’re reading it). It’s also had a much longer lasting effect on me than receiving something digital would have – it’s much more personal and intimate than receiving something digitally usually is.

This really does illustrate the power of including Direct as part of the marketing mix, and that offline and online can work really well together as part of integrated marketing campaigns.

So, thanks for the book Rubber Republic, and when’s the next one coming? And if only you’d include a ‘Send To A Friend’ on your Rubber Bullet email I’d probably pass that on too!

Now who wants the book next?

Mark

mark@accessadvertising.co.uk
@markhopetweets

Recently (OK not that recently), I was lucky enough to hear Sienne Veit speak at the How Do Mobile Marketing Conference in Manchester. Sienne is Social and Mobile Commerce Development Manager at Marks and Spencer and had plenty of interesting insights to share about the challenges for brands like M&S working across new online channels, such as mobile. She was a pleasure to listen to and was clearly very passionate about weaving Mobile and Social into everything M&S do.

This isn’t the reason I remember her talk. The thing that really stuck in my mind was her use of frilly knickers. Or rather, her use of a great analogy, illustrating the M&S approach to introducing mobile marketing, and how it relates to the attitudes of their customers.

For the most part the typical M&S customer wants to pick up a plain pack of white briefs. They’re consistent, comfortable, good quality, dependable, great value for money and the design is rarely changed – women know exactly what they’re getting and they’re comfortable with that (I can’t vouch for the knickers but their plain white T-shirts are similar). But, every now and again, they’ll want to try something a bit different. Something that feels a bit special, a bit sexier and a bit more glamorous. Most of the time they just go for what they know, but having something else on offer means that when they are ready to try something new, they’re more likely to try it with the company that is trusted and delivers the basics so well.

So how does this relate to Mobile Marketing? For the most part M&S still relies on a trusted mix of traditional, established media (I consider website, email and display marketing in this mix). Their customers are comfortable with it – it works, but, they’re not afraid to try something new. Take mobile for example. M&S have trialled a number of approaches including SMS alerts (offers, vouchers and loyalty points), 2D barcodes (QR codes), WAP links to mobile web content, Twitter, Facebook and other social sites, and customer feedback services like Fizzback. Channels you wouldn’t instantly associate with M&S’s customer base.

If you think your customers won’t try something new, think again. M&S’s do.

Sienne’s talk was specifically about the use of Mobile and Social Marketing but there are similarities with all online channels. Your brand may well not be a big as M&S, or you may just be starting out online, but your approach should be the same.

• Get the basics right: Make sure you follow best practice, gain trust and have a foundation to build on
• Be useful: Your audience will be more receptive and loyal if they get something from you (advice, an offer, or maybe just an opinion)
• Unify: Have a plan to get your team thinking about online, integrating it into campaigns and making sure the technology can deliver
• Start with the end in mind: Be ambitious, and keep taking steps that are manageable
• Be pants: Offer the good, reliable and consistent, but don’t be afraid to try something new

And finally…

• Test, learn and refine: Make sure you have the right tools and systems in place to analyse your activity – learn from mistakes and build on what works.

But what will it cost to try something new? What will the return be? How can you be sure it will work? The simple answer is, if you don’t try it you won’t know. The beauty with online is that it is extremely measurable – you’ll quickly be able to see what’s working and what’s not – the most important thing is to test and learn.

So what was the last thing you tried out online?

You can read a Q&A with Sienne Veit on the econsultancy.com website.

The Access team are celebrating the announcement that we’ve just won three awards in the 2010 Summit Creative Awards!

Among the thousands of submissions, from 24 countries, our creative work has been recognised among the very best.

The Summit International Awards (SIA) organization is dedicated to furthering excellence in the communications industry. It administers rigorous awards competitions throughout the year with the goal of recognising companies that excel. Throughout its sixteen-year history, the SIA has established itself as one of the premier arbiters of creative and communication excellence. Using both specific and comprehensive evaluative criteria and a blind judging process, its competitions reward only those firms and individuals truly deserving of special recognition.

This year’s international panel of judges included professionals from Ogilvy 2B and Saatchi&Saatchi, amongst others.

So, as you can imagine, we’re all suitably chuffed about it!

Our winning entries are:

Award: Gold
Category: Self-promotion stationery/identity
Client: Access
Work: Access identity

Award: Silver
Category: Self-promotion website
Client: Access
Work: www.accessadvertising.co.uk

Award: Silver
Category: Healthcare/Medicine TV
Work:
Client: Smokefree Northwest

Access Branding: Gold Award Winner

Award winning branding applied to the studio

Award Winning TV Ad: 'My Little Baby' for Smoke Free North West

http://www.youtube.com/user/AccessManchester#p/f/3/dRc1LoJZLuo

Rice-paddy art was started in the Aomori village of Inakadate, 600 miles north of Toyko in 1993 as a local revitalization project, an idea that grew out of meetings of the village committee.

In the first nine years, the village office workers and local farmers grew a design of Mount Iwaki every year.

But their ideas grew more complicated and attracted more attention. In 2005 agreements between landowners allowed the creation of enormous rice paddy art.

A year later, organisers used computers to precisely plot planting of the four differently colored rice varieties that bring the images to life.

The farmers create the murals by planting little purple and yellow-leafed kodaimai rice along with their local green-leafed tsugaru roman variety to create the coloured patterns between planting and harvesting in September.

The village has now earned a reputation for its agricultural artistry and this year the enormous pictures of Napoleon and a Sengoku-period warrior, both on horseback, are visible in a pair of fields adjacent to the town hall.

More than 150,000 vistors come to Inakadate, where just 8,700 people live, every summer to see the extraordinary murals.

The murals in Inakadate cover 15,000 square metres of paddy fields. From ground level, the designs are invisible, and viewers have to climb the mock castle tower of the village office to get a glimpse of the work.

Last week we were pitching to St.Helens Council to help raise the profile and change perceptions of the area. I decided a little research trip was required, so I went for a look around to remind myself of what the region has to offer. Obviously I knew about the racecourse and The World of Glass, but I had never realised the impact that the award winning sculpture by Jaume Plensa, ‘Dream’ would have on me.

The first I saw of it was a brilliant white dome peeping over the trees when driving along the M62 from Manchester to Liverpool. After a short 10 minute walk through newly planted woodland, up what once was the less desirable slag heap of Sutton Manor Colliery, I rounded the corner to the most amazing vision of beauty that really took my breath away.

The sculpture comprises of a 20 meter high head of a nine year old girl in a medative state with her eyes closed. She faces south so that the sunlight travels across the contours of her face from morning to night. As you can see from my picture, with the unpredictable North West weather there is always a dramatic back drop. She stands at the same height as Gormley’s Angel of the North,  whose sculptures also decorate the beaches of Crosby just down the road. In the same way that these have raised the pride and passion of the region I believe that as awareness grows, Dream will do the same for St Helen’s.

As an added bonus to the experience we won the pitch too!

There’s still a lot of confusion between Social Media Marketing and Social Marketing – is it simply a case of terminology or do people really not understand the difference?

As we are increasingly asked to integrate both disciplines into campaigns, we thought it important to try and explain the difference – some clients may be unsure as to which one they need and, in some cases, they can have both!

There is already a vast amount of online space covering the topic, so without wanting to repeat anyone, here goes…

Social Marketing is used by government and other public bodies to communicate to audiences to encourage a change of behaviour for the common social good – i.e. we have worked with the NHS in the North West to engage with and encourage smoking cessation in certain parts of the region using social marketing techniques. These aren’t dark arts or new phenomenon – they are just practical ways of reaching, communicating effectively and changing people’s opinions and habits – and they’ve been around in one guise or another for 30/40 years. For more information the National Social Marketing Centre provides a comprehensive database of case studies.

Social Media Marketing on the other hand is very much the new kid on the block and has only been in existence, as a mass marketing tool, for the past couple of years. Facebook, Twitter, My Space, Linkedin and You Tube are all examples of social media – and that’s the key difference – these are media channels that can be deployed, taking great care, to communicate with discreet audience groups to disseminate information in a viral way. We are currently running a pilot social media campaign with the OFT – promoting their Scams Awareness Month 2010 – to determine what appetite the British public have for dispersing information. News on the results of this pilot will be released next month, see the Scamnesty Facebook page for more details.

Therefore you can use social media to deliver social marketing messages – just as you can any media channel.

Their commonality comes from their social status – as ‘communities’. Social Marketing looks to influence the thinking, attitudes and behaviour of real communities and social media looks to tap into the similarities that ties a community together – albeit a virtual one.

So it’s quite straightforward really. But are you ready for the challenge?

s a blog post really a blog post if I’ve nothing much to say? I just wanted to test this lovely drop cap from the daily drop cap blog.

Isn’t it infuriating when they go on about the terrible weather down south on the news and the presenter is stood in less than 5cm of snow! So I thought I would use this blog to show what deep snow is all about and how grim, but pretty, it can be up north!

On Tuesday morning after 24 hours of heavy snowfall and gale force winds we awoke to the road to our house being completely blocked by a series of 6ft drifts. It was like a Mr Whipy ice cream van had gone on the rampage overnight with white banks, curls and folds of snow as far as the eye could see. I had to lift Sammie over one of the drifts and he disappeared into a dog shaped hole on the other side! He was not amused!

If it hadn’t been for our trusty builder moving in next door I think I would have been stuck there till if thawed in June! But luckily once the wind stopped filling the lane he came and dug us out from our icy barricade.

At least next time when I call work to say I am snowed in at least people will believe that I am not exaggerating!

It appears that the vast majority of folks in the northwest got the day off today as the heavy snowfall ‘wreaked havoc’ with our transportation network. Though Trafford House was very quiet, about half of the Access team managed to battle through the snow to make it in to the office.

When lunchtime came around we could resist the lure of the snow no more and descended on the deserted car park opposite the office. With 6″ of snow outside it was inevitable that grown adults were going to behave like children!

Mark² captured the scene in pictures marvellously – View a slideshow of his photos »

Building a snowman - It's man's work