Enjoy this best-selling updated 8^th edition – packed with new material, keeping abreast with AI, AR, VR, MR, MA and other innovative approaches to marketing communications. All integrated with the world’s most popular SOSTAC® Planning methodology that delivers a reassuring sense of order in a chaotic digital world and also that delivers success from better, MarComms’ ‘information-based’ decisions.

In Part 2 – all ten marcomms tactical tools (incl ads, PR, sponsorship, Owned, Earned and Paid Media etc.)  has a sample SOSTAC® Plan at the end of chapter.

Ze Zook and I are so pleased with it.  So much new material including AI integrating with MarComms.  We’ve tried to keep the edutainment angle so readers actually enjoy discovering some cutting-edge examples, tips and tools throughout the book. Thanks to the team at @Kogan Page including: Alison, Donna, Bruna and  Jack, Jeylan, Susie and of course, Helen Kogan.

What New Marketing and What Classic Marketing is in the 8th ed.?

What’s new and what’s old in Marketing Communications 8th ed.?

20% author’s discount can be used legitimately by following these instructions.

1. Go to koganpage.com/MC8
2. Click ‘Add to Cart’
3. Click ‘Checkout’ on the top right corner of the screen.
4. Complete your Billing & Delivery Information
5. Click ‘Continue to Review & Pay’
6. Scroll down to ‘Review Items’
7. In this section, click the ‘Add an offer code’ button – bottom right
8. Enter your code AMK20 in the box provided
9. Scroll down to input your payment information
10. Click the ‘Buy Now’ button at the bottom of the screen.

Enjoy Your Book

The post Marketing Communications 8th ed Released! appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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External Exhibition Transforms 500 Unused Poster Sites

The #Covid Crisis has created empty poster sites all around the streets  of Dublin. This creates a baron, empty, dirty, negative, pessimistic feeling in the community. Lowering everyone’s mood during this time of  Covid 19 crisis in cities, towns and villages around the world.

Question: How to convert this negative feeling into a positive feeling? Think outside the box. Many disruptive business models are enjoying large scale success. e.g. Alibaba, the world’s most valuable retailer, owns no inventory. Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content (though it does take ownership!). Amazon are looking at ship and shop’ (anticipate your needs – ship/deliver goods and then ask you to confirm the order) rather than the tradigital ‘shop and ship’ model. So how can a photo gallery think outside the box?

Answer: The Positive Space Project, a city-wide crowd-funded exhibition that turns 500 unused poster sites across Dublin into a gallery for Irish photographers to be enjoyed by Dubliners. Rather than bring people to the gallery, bring the gallery to the people.

Thinking Outside The Box

So if people cannot go to galleries, bring the galleries to the people.  Corina Gaffey started the GoFundMe campaign called The Positive Space. Basically they have raised money €7,500 (target €10,000) www.gofundme.com/f/the-positive-space  . This money pays for the production and installation of the posters.

A Visual Feast For the Eyes

Is how Naoimi Gaffey, photographer, describes it. So sit back and enjoy from a distance, the great work by the photographers, the Gaffeys, the poster postermen.  Art helps a city to thrive.

Shutters Also Improve Aesthetics and Promote #Brands

Metal shutters can be put to use: making the environment more pleasant, promoting the business  and securing the business at night.

Wall & Keogh, Richmond Street South, Dublin. My own mother, Úna Ni Glasáin, had a chemist shop,  at 13 College Green, Dublin 2. It was called Gleeson’s Chemist. It’s now a lovely little coffee shop called Keoghs  (see red canopy below).  I remember my Mum was deeply saddened when she had to put metal shutters up in the 1980s.

Keoghs, 13 College Green, Dublin (formerly Gleesons Chemist)

No one seemed to be thinking outside the boxes and generating beautiful eye-catching, city-enhancing, metal shutters back in the 1980s.  But today there is much more art on the street – helping local people, helping artists, helping  tourists, helping brands and helping businesses. And when we layer on #digital and #interactive signage, we will hopefully see even more interesting interactive aesthetically pleasing, yet secure, shop-fronts that help customers to preview, preselect or even order goods/services from a shop front.  Have you seen anything interesting – perhaps Scots Road in #Singapore  or anywhere else? Please send me in your photo and we’ll add it to this post.

We will look at Great Covid Idea: Silver Shutters as a separate post later.

Walls Also Improve Aesthetics and Promote #Brands

Dublin Print Company, 19-20 Redmonds Hill, Dublin 2

It is just great to see ‘owned media’  being used aesthetically. This is a small print company called Dublin Print Company. This is supported by the Grey Area Project in Dublin .

Today, however, retailers have options to be more creative. Let’s hopefully see a few more of these.  In fact #DublinWalls DublinWalls.com  promotes murals on walls.

DublinWalls.com is a photo collection of Dublin Walls created by talented artists. These murals embellish the capital city of Ireland. The next post,  will explore how walls (owned media) are used by some marketers).

We will look at lots of interesting walls in Dublin plus a few from Belfast (The Guinness mural is so good I had to include it!). Please send me in your photos of anything that brightens up a street, an alley-way , a wall, a window or even a  just a door.   As marketers, we  can brighten up our streets and support our brands and /or help spread important messages  simultaneously.  I will publish another blog post with lots of creative ideas from Dublin, Belfast, Dundalk, London and elsewhere.

See a lot more stunning images (and stories) in Great Covid Idea 2: Walls Of Gold .  If you enter your email address  in the ‘Subscribe to Marketing Insights’ form, I will send you an alert re any new posts.

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Leveraging your owned media (walls, windows, doors) is a tactic (free advertising but you must check the details of your lease first and any local council restrictions). This tactical tool is part of the details of  Strategy which is part of my  SOSTAC^® Planning framework. Those wanting to become SOSTAC^® Certified Planners can visit  SOSTAC.org 

 

PR Smith’s SOSTAC^® Planning framework circular diagram showing each of the 6 sections.

The Projects

Luciana Marin

Luli took a lot of photographs of street art in Dublin.  Luli stumbled across a Banksy mural one morning, in the middle of temple bar, close to the Mezz . Luli kindly gave us permission to use her instagram photos  @lulimarin86   Follow #streetartaroundtheworldbylulimarin  & #dublinwallscollection    www.lucianamarin.com contains an intriguing collection of street art entitle #StreetArtChaser

Congrats and thanks to Corina Gaffey for setting up #ThePositiveSpace Exhibition and for inspiring this post.

The post Disruptive Dublin Gallery Model – Think Outside Box appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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How can AR turn a competitor’s ads into your own ads? Answer: Use an AR specific lense in an app to recognise competitors billboard ads, magazine ads & discount coupons and then set them on fire (virtually, or at least on screen in augmented reality).

Burger King App using AR to show poster on fire

Here’s how: ‘Burger King (in Brazil) used advanced AR to enable customers to ‘burn down’ competitors ads – using a lens that recognised competitors ads (e.g. McDonalds) ads and caused them to burst into flames.

Plus they build in the Shared Experience: If a customer shared this experience, they get a free Whopper. This app also leverages BK’s USP: ‘fire’ or flame grilled burgers USP in a very different way. Although some criticise BK for using cutting edge technology negatively, I think many people will see it as a bit of fun, and certainly something different to show off. This unusual marketing hack also promotes BK Express, which allows customers to pre-order their meals to avoid the ‘real-world’ queues. Using technology to help customers – is the best way to consider using emerging technologies.

BK expects to give away over 500,000 burgers through this genius and super fun campaign.

‘Afterall, flame grilled is always best!’  (is what the app final onscreen message says after burning a competitors ad).

Perhaps this is all a spoof designed to generate increased awareness and usage of its app? Is it April 1st?  BK have not issued any news releases that I can find on their site – as yet.

What do you think,  is this:

(a) negative use of AR (‘burning your competitors’ ads)

(b) positive use of AR (new form of entertainment and engagement & adding value to the CX (skip queues)

(c) a clever spoof / publicity stunt – that we have all bought!

If you liked this, you might also enjoy:

Here Come The Clever Bots – bursting with artificial intelligence?

Here Come The Really Clever Bots – where AI meets customer needs 

Artificial Influencers – Meet Shudu & Miquela

Thanks to @AlixFrancis for the alert.

The post How Can AR Turn a Competitor’s Ads Into Your Own Ads? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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How To Leverage A Graphic Image To Get Maximum Impact

– The Sky Pool 

Embassy Gardens

This stunning computer-generated image from the Ballymore Group was leveraged/used across multiple channels:

• News Release distributed to luxury, trade (construction, property, architecture, design), international, London and national press online & offline
• Social media
• Web site
• Conference slide shows
• Award entries
• Marketing suites
• All marketing collateral

Results: Coverage  

The news release generated 1billion ‘opportunities to see’, 105 apartment enquiries, £27 million apartment sales and an award-winning chef opening his new restaurant in the same development. In fact, it generated just under a 1billion OTS’s (972,126,464) Opportunities To See (OTS)  calculated using readership figures for the various outlets where the image appeared in the usual media outlets (ie online & offline media). Note this did not include social media coverage/shares/likes/comments etc.

Results: Sales Leads

Within 24 hours of the image first appearing, it generated 105 new sales leads (from people wanting to buy an apartment). Apartment prices in the second phase went from £602,000 up to almost £2million, so if, say, the average apartment price was £1.3m and if, say, just 20% of leads normally convert to sales, then the 105 leads generated will convert to an estimated 21 apartments sold at an average price of £1.3m, which, equals £27m revenue generated by this image (& the idea behind it).  The image also prompted renowned award-winning,  Irish chef, Robin Gill to move in and set up his new Darby’s Restaurant in the Embassy Gardens.

Results: Profile Raising/Awareness Building

This image has also increased awareness of (and perhaps preference for) the Ballymore Group.

Where did the idea come from?

The Sky Pool was an idea formed by Sean Mulryan, founder and CEO of Ballymore Group, whose vision stemmed from a desire to push the boundaries in the capability of construction and engineering – to push the boundaries on all aspects of design. Sky Pool’s transparent structure is the result of significant advancements in technologies over the last decade. As such, Mulryan brought in not only architects and engineers but also aquarium designers to ensure the pool is at the forefront of design excellence. The pool will actually be made of acrylic rather than glass – and the experience of the pool will be truly unique, it will feel like floating through the air in central London.

Brief Excerpt From The Brief:

‘Do something that had never been done before’

PR Low Cost, High Credibility but No Control

Note: PR has very low costs, very high Credibility of message (higher than say, an advertisement in the UK) but no Control (as an editor or journalist can challenge or even rebuke a news release). So PR, like advertising and sponsorship is great at generating awareness (not as efficient at generating sales). Advertising has very high control of message, very high cost and lower credibility of message (compared to PR). Sponsorship sits in the middle.

See the savagely uncontrollable nature of PR and the consequences for Shell

Low Cost, High Credibility But Uncontrollable – PR Horror Story

If you like this, you might also like:

The Tactical Matrix – Choosing Which Tool – Owned, Earned or Paid Media

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The post How To Integrate & Leverage Great Graphics For Max Impact appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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Assuming you are clear about what objectives you are you are trying to achieve, I’m going to show you my Tactical Matrix which is designed to trigger some discussion about which tactical tool/s is/are best for you. Firstly we look at how good each tactic is at moving your prospects/customers through various stages of the Lifetime Buying Process:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Purchase
• Post Purchase Relationship Building
• Post Purchase Repeat Sales

The need for segmenting your customers or prospects by stage of the buying process emerges again.  Now, depending on what stage of the buying cycle you are trying to move your prospects/customers through, you can consider how good each tactic is across these 9 criteria:

1. Reach (how big an audience can reach?)
2. Speed (how quickly can it reach that audience?)
3. Time (how long to create &deliver this tactic?)
4. Message Volume (space to fit message in?)
5. Targeting (how granular or precise can the targeting be?)
6. Personalisation (can the tool personalise messages?)
7. Cost – is it expensive on a Cost Per Thous&(CPT/CPM) basis?
8. Control – can you control the message with this tactic?
9. Credibility – some tactics have more credibility

The last 3 criteria (cost, control & credibility) are sometimes used initially when choosing which tactical tool. We know that some tools give you more control over your message (advertising as opposed to PR or even social media),  while some tools cost a lot more (direct mail v advertising) in cost per thousand (CPT/CPM) reached. NB they compare a bit better when looking at cost per eventual conversion & some tools have more credibility e.g. PR, or editorial, has arguably three times more credibility than a message in an advertisement in the UK while reviews on social media platforms have, for many, the most credibility.

The Tactical Matrix

So this Tactical Matrix tries to encapsulate all of this – the 10 comms tools, the 5 stages  of the buying process & the 9 criteria to help you to choose which tactical tool is best for your plan. It was developed with the assistance of Mohamad Sameh, marketing  manager of IT Vision in Cairo.   I apologise that this is probably difficult to read here in this ebook but you can download it here from my PRSmith Marketing Blog.  It is something of work in progress so I welcome any comments.

Thanks to Mohamed Sameh from ITV Agency, Cairo, for his help in developing this matrix.

Message Volume means size of message or how much space is available.

This Tactics Matrix is designed to stimulate discussion about which tactical tool  (or suite of tools) is best in helping you to achieve your objectives.

This is an excerpt taken from my new SOSTAC® Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan available on Amazon eBooks or bulk tailored orders directly from me.

              The new SOSTAC® Guide for Digital Marketers

SOSTAC® takes 4 minutes to learn. It’s simplicity and logical structure is why it was voted in the Top 3 Marketing Models of all time by the Chartered Institute Of Marketing’s Centenary Poll.  See the 4 minute video, the instagram and what people say about SOSTAC Planning®.

The post The Tactical Matrix – Choosing Which Tool – Owned, Earned or Paid Media appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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If Customer Retention Is 600% More Profitable (than acquiring new customers) – why not shock your customers like these organisations do? How much are you willing to spend each year to keep a customer (for life)? Calculate it and then spend it on them. Here’s a few ‘wow’ examples.

Ulster Rugby wanted to say thank you to their fans (season ticket holders), so they surprised a selection of them by sending three of their star players out in a van to deliver the tickets personally.

In another refreshing example, TD Bank in Canada turned ATMs into Automated Thanking Machines ™ to create some very special moments for customers across the country. A simple thank you can change someone’s day. #TDThanksYou
Add a gift to it and people get very happy. Add a relevant gift and people get ecstatic. Would you like to see TD’s Automated Thanking Machine™ in action?

In another initiative, West Jet flyers were given gifts as they got off the plane (it was Christmas time).

Have you got any examples of wowing customers? Please post a comment at the end , ideally with a link if you have one and I’ll add it to this collection (and credit you for alerting me). It’s nice to be nice. It also makes business sense, to organise your CRM and all data sources to become more relevant in your customers’ lives and ‘wow’ them occasionally (it also makes great social media content)!

You might also like: 10 Useful Ways Big Data Is Used – That You Probably Didn’t Know

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The post Customer Retention Isn’t Boring – Here’s Wow! appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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This is just the start of the facebook filters or segmentation variables that allow you to target, very precisely, your ads on facebook.

Click here to see how precise you can get, if, you know your customers (who they are, why they buy/don’t buy or visit/don’t visit & how they buy).

If you have any examples of how tight your advertising targeting is, or can be, please tell me (scroll down to ‘Leave A Comment’) and I’ll publish it, here and, with your permission, perhaps in one of my books which I am constantly updating.

You might also be interested in 10 Useful Ways Big Data Is Used – That You Probably Didn’t Know

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The post How To Target Very Very Specific Audiences On Facebook appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.

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As marketers remix their Communications Mix and shift resources generally towards Social Media the question emerges:  ‘at what point does social media become less effective?’ Perhaps this World Cup is the turning point as brands compete as publishers, as sponsors and advertisers try to dominate the discussions, the awareness and preference levels and, ultimately sales.

What Are The Benefits Of Owned Earned & Paid Media?

Owned media, or own channels, such as your web site, your you tube channel or twitter stream give you a certain amount of control over your message. Earned Media means engagement which means Word Of Mouth (or mouse) generated by discussions, likes, shares all triggered by your content. Going viral to a marketer is arguably akin to winning a World Cup Medal for a footballer but with little control over your message. While ‘Paid media’, whether banner ads, pay per click ads, promoted posts, promoted tweets or, some argue, sponsorship offers more control and can be much faster way to spread a message.

More Free Content = More Expensive Attention

If all brands become content publishers and engage in conversations simultaneously, surely this makes it more difficult  to grab attention?

More Content = Less Attention

More Free Content = More Expensive Attention

If owned and earned keep taking a larger share of the comms mix, at what point does it become less effective? The World Cup has generated a frenzy of high quality content. Why? I think the potentially powerful viral component of reaching out and connecting with customers via, an emotionally charged, shared experience, tempts a lot of marketers to become publishers.

Connecting via An Emotionally Charged Shared Experience

Youtube executives talk about Viral Videos have always having a ‘shared experience’ component whether this means riding the right trend, mood, public holiday or major event.  The World Cup has elevated ‘notions of connectedness and shared experiences to new levels’ (Alex Benady)

Biggest Twitter Event In History

With brands spending over $1b on sponsorship (paid) and a lot more on content (owned) you can see how competitive it’s going to be  particularly as Twitter (earned) suggest the World Cup can be the biggest twitter event in history (Lewis Wiltshire, head of global partnerships at Twitter UK).

Leveraging Sponsorship Spend By 100%

Sponsors leverage the impact of their events by supporting it with advertising, sales promotions, PR, content generation and social media and more (usually requiring matched funding i.e. spend £1m on sponsorship you need to spend another £1m supporting it). Coca Cola have been known to leverage sponsorship 14 times over!

Non sponsoring brands will compete via Paid, Owned and Earned media with a lot of effort towards the deeper, more engaging ‘owned’ conversations.  As viral marketing is unpredictable some of the brand publishers (content generators) will push a lot of content through their owned channels (and some paid channels) and hope they get lucky and go viral. They increase their chances by monitoring trends, reflecting those trends with key phrases & relevant content and of course seeding their content amongst influencers.  Adidas has prepared 100+ videos to be released via social media (owned but hoping at least one will become seriously ‘earned media’ and go viral).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR1XQsCiAKE

Ironically, a Northern Ireland Road Safety ad went viral after it was shown (paid) at half time in the England v Uruguay game. I’ll write a separate post about this shocking viral video’s success (which certainly shares an unwanted emotional experience).

War Rooms Own & Earn

Marketers want Earned Media so much now that they build their own brand ‘war-rooms’ with teams of highly trained and well equipped social media professionals ready and primed to steadily release content (owned), respond to conversations (earned), react to external relevant events (e.g. Suarez Bite) and also react to  unwanted ‘earned’ conversations from critics, protestors, moaners and hyper competitors who can all hijack hashtags (dominate discussions on specific topics linked together by specific hashtags) and subvert posts with negative comments.  Constant monitoring is essential 24/7 as global & local brands have global audiences.

In addition to its 100+ videos, Adidas has a team of 50 in Rio including legal, marketing and FIFA teams to help expedite approvals of new content or reactions/rebuttals.

Initial Results 27 June 2014  Please note these figures will be adjusted.

Please note we will update these figures on an ongoing basis. Please do send us stats if you have any (please list your source and add a link if possible).

Nike at the early stage were beating Adidas  20 April and 6 June

Nike secured 200,118 social mentions between the 20 April and 6 June, according to communications agency Way to Blue, with 99,725 positive affinity mentions about the brand and its World Cup campaign. Adidas sparked 88,041 mentions in comparison with 9,530 of these posts discussing a positive affinity with their campaign.  However, it is not just in the attention stakes Nike seems to be winning out. Purchase intent for the American company jumped 2.1 points to 14.6 over the last month, a statistically significant rise according to YouGov’s Brand Index, while Adidas’ score dropped 0.3 points to 10.9. (Karl Lusbec 2014)

Even if the World Cup becomes the most social global event to date, could it, as  Alex Benady suggests, be the peak before the decline of earned media (and with it, perhaps owned media)? Post a comment.

For more on sponsorship see Intel Sponsor Inside of Barca Shirt

References

Benady, A. (2014) The 20th World Cup: Social media strategies and brand war rooms June 10,  PR Week

Lusbec, K. (2014) Sponsoring the FIFA World Cup: An Obsolete Business Model? Karl’s Football Lounge, 12 June

In CONCACAF HQ, Florida

The post The Rise & Fall Of Owned & Earned But Not Paid Media – World Cup Marketing Wars? appeared first on PR Smith Marketing.