The Dubs recently rolled out the Britain’s Got Talent 2012 website for FremantleMedia – for the 5th consecutive year.
Based on the show teaser video, it’s shaping up to be yet another great year – we’ll certainly be watching ITV1 @ 8.00pm from Saturday 24th March!
Read what the @GotTalent team have to say about their new website here.
Please direct inquires to Toby.Sharpe@thedubs.com
The rise of social networks has allowed retailers to translate consumer insights into a relevant and engaging customer experience, writes Josh Frith.
Gone are the days when customers would walk into a shop, be greeted by an assistant before browsing the shelves to find the ever elusive perfect pair of jeans. Nowadays, the trend has moved towards customers being able to find what they want with a few clicks of a mouse. More and more people are using online platforms to find what they want at the best quality and price.
So as the ABS reports another drop in retail spending and a recent Commonwealth Bank report shows that of the $9.5 billion spent on online shopping in 2010, only $5.3 billion was spent in Australia, how can retailers make their products stand out from the rest? This is an ever increasing challenge as brands no longer just have to contend with the store next door but are now competing on a global platform.
Companies need to harness social networking sites such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter to maximise sales opportunities. The sites are the perfect place to gain instant feedback from customers, advertise and create opportunities for customer engagement. There is a growing trend for consumers to interact with retailers through social networking sites, with most of them using them to find out about promotions and to browse products.
Giving potential customers something, or someone, to relate to can draw them in and hopefully turn interest into purchase. So how can your retail business best take advantage of this growing trend?
Start a story that your customers can engage with
Tailor the story to the people you are trying to attract to your site/page. We recently created “The Buddies,” a branded content series for weight loss company Tony Ferguson about two people who completed the program and shared their experiences on the brand’s Facebook page. New content was uploaded onto the Facebook page each day, along with a weekly video showcasing their trials and triumphs each week. The campaign was a success, with more than 3500 active viewers and an average 5000 views per post.
Use a measurable platform to monitor the campaign
Being able to monitor how many hits your site receives or how many people are viewing certain content is a must. You need to know if your content is producing the results you need to influence sales. Take a look at Google news alerts, use Twitter Search, tweetmeme, trendpedia, howsociable or buzz numbers to track online and offline conversations and listen and respond to both positive and negative conversations.
Spend time making sure you understand your customer and what they want
Read and take on board the consumer’s feedback and remember the people visiting your site are the ones you are trying to engage with your product. Research showed that many ING Direct customers were using iPhones to do their online banking, The Dubs helped create an ING Direct iPhone Application which includes access to accounts, a borrowing power calculator, up-to-date information on interest rates and the ability to transfer money using BPay.
Keep on top of the latest technology and trends (or find someone who is)
It takes a professional to stay on top of the newest information and use it in a positive way to advance your business. If you choose to start on this path there is no point making a half-hearted effort and wasting the original effort made. Consumers will turn away in droves if you don’t keep on top of the latest trends and information. Make sure all of your sites are regularly updated and interact with followers as much as possible.
Continuously update the content as consumers have a short attention span
If you don’t have new content on your social networking site then there is no incentive for consumers to continuously check it. But, in saying that, putting up content for the sake of something new is not the right way either. Make sure it is something your audience is interested in.
Also make sure not to overload them with too much at once. There is nothing more annoying than someone constantly updating a Facebook or Twitter account – especially if it’s about something your audience doesn’t care about.
We have been working with Mambo, one of Australia’s most loved clothing brands, to help expand their social presence as a reflection of their core brand values of surf, art and music.
Now under the leadership of Angus Kingsmill and having re-branded and re-positioned themselves in the market, we are working with Mambo to bring brand awareness through social and digital channels.
Mambo’s digital and social channels include:
http://www.mambo.com.au/
http://www.facebook.com/100Percent.Mambo
http://twitter.com/MAMBOAUSTRALIA
http://vimeo.com/mamboaustralia
‘Mambassadors’ such as Erin McNaught, Cheyenne Tozzi, Luke Cheadle and Benji Marshall will be involved in ongoing social media activities and events to engage and deliver a deeper brand message for all Mambo fans.
The Mambo brand brings a wonderful cultural history with it as well as an exciting vision of the future, including expanding into foreign markets introducing the world of Mambo to brand new audiences.
We look forward to helping Mambo spread their unique vision, sense of humour, irreverance and amazing design sense to an ever expanding audience!
The X Factor 2011 website has just launched and we’re hugely proud to have been chosen for the 8th year running as the official digital partner.
Once again, The Dubs proprietary content platform underpins The X Factor website, ensuring that The X Factor content teams can rapidily and simply publish and share a plethora of X Factor content with fans pre, during and post TX.
“The Dubs is a great partner agency and are uniquely positioned to provide strategic, technical and developmental solutions across our flagship brands. They are committed and enthusiastic and can be relied on to execute top quality work in highly pressured, commercially sensitive environments. Our 8+ year association with The Dubs continues to ensure that the digital offering for the largest broadcast Entertainment brands in the UK remains best of breed”.
Oliver Davies, Head of Production. Talkback Thames.
The Dubs’ technical team has worked collaboratively with Talkback Thames and ITV’s technical and design teams over the last few months in prepartion for launch and wishes all involved the very best of luck with this year’s show!
Finally – if like us you love telly and have a penchant for the web’s way back machine - visit The Dub’s Behance channel to see how The X Factor website has visually evolved over the years…
TELSTRA has increased its investment in social media, but has been unable to stem the tidal wave of negative comments about its brand.
Telstra has more than 50,000 Facebook fans, but the Facebook page ”I Hate Telstra” had more than 12,528 fans last night, and the page ”Hi. I’m Telstra. Omnomnom Your Credit” had 20,481 fans. There are several other pages critical of the telco with comments from enraged consumers.
Telstra’s head of online communications and social media, Kristen Boschma, said she would rather people vented online than be silent and unengaged with the brand.
She said the company had increased its commitment to social media and constantly monitored online conversations.
”What we’ve found is that those people who are fans of the Telstra brand online are actually highly engaged with our brand. Often people will ‘like’ a hate page but then not go back to it for a year or two.
”It is unrealistic for any brand to think that consumers will always be a fan of your brand. Some people are satisfied and others are dissatisfied. But you’ve got to listen to them all.”
Telstra is tackling the naysayers head-on by recently establishing Telstra Digital – a dedicated team of 10 staff to monitor and respond to problems posted on social media.
”Our ultimate aim is to build up a community online so that people feel comfortable and can learn from each other,” Ms Boschma said.
A digital expert, Lee Hawksley, said Australian companies had stood on the sidelines of social media for too long, which had frustrated consumers.
The senior director of ExactTarget said most people vented anger online because they wanted to know the brand was listening. ”And if you’re not there listening and responding, consumers can feel ignored.”
Tristan Fawley, the Group General Manager of the digital agency The Dubs, recommends that Telstra builds pockets of unpaid brand advocates to lead conversations online.
”Telstra needs to find advocates and let them push their message against the flow of negative sentiment. Fans of the brand may well appreciate having a platform upon which to show their admiration,” Mr Fawley said.
However, many companies made the mistake of responding to online chatter before establishing a policy and strategy, said Ian Farmer, the strategy director of Webling Interactive.
”Crisis management is a tricky issue in the social media space. Things can go horribly wrong in just 140 characters.”
Mr Farmer suggested brands nominate an individual to make online posts rather than using a company logo because ”people find it a lot harder to hate a real person”.
Brands needed to be a lot more reactive and responsive in social media than they had been, Mr Farmer said.
“Brands need to find ways to add value to the online conversation.”
By Josh Frith, Managing Director, The Dubs
It is pretty clear that most online marketing campaigns target 16 to 35 year olds. They are the cool, hip and happening age group. They spend more money on brands, on consumer goods, and are tech savvy. Right?
Wrong. They may think they are cool, hip and happening – as do marketers – but with the ageing population, the group with increased spending power are the over 55s.
Since 1999, the number of Australians aged between 55 and 64 years has risen by 47%. Over 55s make up 21% of Australia’s population and control 39% of the nation’s wealth. According to Access Economics, their spending is predicted to grow by 61% in the next decade.
As with the cool kids, this aged group is reading fewer newspapers and magazines and listening to less commercial radio.
So if they are reading less newsprint where are they sourcing their information from? You guessed it. The internet. This age group is fast becoming hard to ignore for marketers – and in particular online marketers.
No longer can marketers think this group isn’t tech savvy and suspicious of the internet. In general they like to use the internet as a source of information before purchasing and actively engage in with content.
Many often actually have the time to read through content such as blogs, make comments and participate in forums. For example, they may not be You Tube addicts like their younger counterparts, but they do watch online video.
Online video is often thought to be consumed solely by a younger age demographic, but as Trendstream US stats prove, 65% of the 55-64 year age bracket consumed video content online. According to Cisco by 2013, the sum of all forms of video (TV, VoD, Internet video, and P2P) will exceed 90% of global consumer IP traffic.
To prove this case, The Dubs undertook research for AMP Capital Investors and found that the over 55s did in fact watch video through the online channel. They are the wealthiest demographic in Australia and are actively looking for investment options. Although predominate consumption is still with the 18-24 year old audience, the over-55 age group is consuming more and more video online, especially content that is professionally produced.
There will be over 5.5 million people retiring over the next 15 years in Australia. If marketers start to realize the cool kids are actually the ones with the cash – and the time – they will see the over 55s can generate a lot of online revenue.
Online marketers – and their clients – need to start thinking about how to engage with this demographic and treat them with the respect their bulging wallets deserve.
With social media now taking a larger bite of the budget cherry than ever before, marketers need to swap focus to continue getting results in an ever-growing and changing marketplace.
Social media is no longer simply a brand awareness platform. It is now a place to sell products and services to customers. The biggest platform being, of course, Facebook.
Just to put it into perspective, Facebook took seven years to reach an audience of 600 million, it took the web 14 years. If that doesn’t help sway your thinking take a moment to digest this: If Facebook was a country it would be the third largest in the world, even bigger than the US.
What the f?
Facebook has so far been used as a marketing tool with which to engage customers but 2011 has welcomed the rise of f-commerce. Major brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, Dove and Lady Gaga have already turned to Facebook to sell products. Lady Gaga has more than 35 million fans that have access to buy all things Gaga from music to merchandise simply through Facebook.
Gaga is cultivating a status as a social media music queen having recently tried, quite successfully, a number of different marketing tools for her new album.
One was a partnership with Zynga, creator of the popular game FarmVille available through Facebook, who created Gagaville allowing fans access to exclusive Gaga songs. It was hugely successful in driving interest for the album Born This Way and the campaign was debated in the media the world over.
Born This Way was the biggest album debut of 2011 at the time of its release.
Easy access
F-commerce is an effective marketing tool because your audience is already laid out in front of you; people who have liked your page have done it for a reason. So it is targeted marketing at its best without wasting precious time and resources on those who are never going to buy your brands product.
The trick is giving customers a reason to like your page in the first place.
While you don’t have to go to the extremes of Lady Gaga, exclusive Facebook deals are an effective method to entice people to like your page. Whether it is a chance at trying a new product before it hits the shelves or a Facebook only opportunity, customers love to feel they are a VIP.
Facebook also allows fans to more easily recommend products to their friends, simply by posting a link. With Australian Facebook users on average boasting more than 120 friends, this is a platform all businesses should invest time and resources into.
The final sell
So how do you create a successful Facebook store?
Find a store front application which suits your business. Make sure it is simple and easy to use.
You must brand your page. If users have to look too hard to find out who you are, they won’t bother.
Once it is set up, market your store, there is no point in having it if no one knows about it. Push it through other social media channels and traditional marketing.
Reward fans with exclusive deals and giveaways to make them feel important and to keep them revisiting the page.
Update regularly but don’t overload your fans.
Make sure to monitor what is happening on your site, the number of fans, comments, posts and what people are purchasing.
So now that you know the basics make sure you have the time and resources to invest before starting a Facebook store. Just like any other form of marketing, it will need consistent monitoring. But with Facebook taking over the internet it is a platform you can’t not afford to be involved with.
www.marketingmag.com.au/articles/opinion/5329/why-the-f-word-is-a-good-thing-for-marketers/
It will come as no surprise to you that individuals today are becoming far more self absorbed and are increasingly pursuing topics of interest and relevance to themselves with people they know. For brands today, this means they need to work a lot harder to engage with their audiences.
Marketing today embraces far more than traditional advertising and includes the convergence of entertainment, media and brands. Keith Weed, the chief marketing and communication officer at Unilever said that “We are going to have to make our brands media properties in their own right. We have to connect much more with content and make our brands more relevant.” This is where social content comes in.
Social content uses social media to connect with an audience. The premise of social content is that it is authentic. The content has a genuine story to tell that sparks social engagement with an audience. Brands can be involved and the driver of this social content for the purpose of connecting with their audience, but it is most definitely not an ad – it cannot be overly promotional or used to push a product or service.
So why is social content so effective?
Consumers are moving away from visiting traditional websites to become part of the connections and interactions made possible only through social networking sites. Facebook is the leading contender of social networking sites receiving 25 percent of traffic on the internet.
The potential consumers of a brand are actively participating in social media providing the perfect opportunity for a brand to form direct relationships and encourage advocacy. It provides the ideal platform to tap in to the most effective way of selling a product – peer to peer and word of mouth marketing.
It provides an opportunity for brands to research their target audience and find out what they are interested in from a social point of view. This then provides a lead for a brand to understand how they can intrinsically become part of the conversation providing real genuine content that consumers will engage with.
Social content helps brands achieve a balance between entertainment and education, satisfying a consumer need without the need for over the top promotion.
No conversation – no social campaign!
It is important to take authentic content and build on it in a conversational tone that will engage an audience to respond to something that is of inherent interest to them. A campaign that is too heavily skewed and based on an advertising mindset will fail. When creating content, keep in mind that a brand can be the initiator, the host or the opener of the content, but never the hero piece.
If the content does not generate conversation, there is no social content campaign. Just because something is uploaded on Facebook does not automatically make it a social content campaign! This is why it is so important to get the content right.
The five key elements to social content
1. Research, research, research – Use social media to research what your target audience are interested in. There is no point spending hours creating content that your audience won’t engage with.
2. Keep your content authentic – Make sure your content is genuine and tells a real story that your audience will engage with. Avoid anything that is overly promotional.
3. Keep your concept simple – Brands often fail by trying to over complicate the content. A simple easy to follow story line that can be viewed and understood quickly will have more chance of succeeding.
4. Keep your content short – There might be a lot to say, but keep it short and draw your viewers in quickly. Include the hook to the story in the first 10 seconds and keep your content to a maximum of 1 – 1.5 minutes.
5. Keep it conversational – Understand who your target audience is to develop a tone that your audience will engage with. Avoid a corporate tone as this style is out of place on social media.
www.marketingmag.com.au/articles/opinion/5277/social-content-is-king/
By Andrew Frith, Social Media Director, The Dubs
I am sure you will agree that watching a game of Aussie Rules, or Rugby Union, or whatever sport it is you are into, at home by yourself is never as fun as watching it live at the game amongst the cheers and the screams, the boos and the sledging.
Next time you’re on the couch watching a game you will be able to feel like you are in the midst of the action – well as soon as the sporting broadcasters, carriers and content producers start embracing Social TV.
The new TV
Social TV is all about peer to peer interactions while sharing a broadcast audience. While it has been available for some time, Social TV is only really starting to take off. Most of the Social TV that is being embraced at the moment is based around popular light hearted TV shows and in particular reality TV shows.
Social TV is currently being used to check-in to TV programs, to engage in real-time chat, to vote, for social network integration and to offer exclusive content to users and viewers. It can offer fresh opportunities to enhance the viewer experience, drive interactivity, community and talkability, but most importantly it can be used to leverage a brand.
Social TV and sport
The average Australian spends 22 hours per week watching TV and a further seven hours on social media sites, so it makes perfect sense for sporting broadcasters to merge two of Australia’s favourite past times together and start leveraging on these opportunities.
Peer to peer interactions – banter – is what sport is all about. If you have ever been on Facebook or Twitter in the middle of a popular sporting game you would have seen the feeds on each of these platforms being dominated by conversations about this game.
There are lot of sport fanatics out there that would talk about sport constantly if there was a place where people would actually listen. Despite this, Social TV has not as yet been used successfully to cater to sports fans.
Sport unifies people, and whether you play it yourself or watch it, there is a huge urge to share the experience. Fans love to talk to each other and relive the experience and Social TV will amplify this. It will provide the opportunity to link existing fans with each other and become the channel to show support. It will boost emotions and make the traditional viewing experience superior.
Buying power
Through the process of immersing people in emotion around a sporting game that they love and have a passion for, fans are often more open to sharing valuable information with a brand.
People’s viewing habits are changing, most people no longer solely concentrate on the TV, but use smart phones, or laptops, swap texts, tweets, and status updates about celebrities, characters and commercials all while they are watching a TV show. They are online while watching TV, so if pushed in the right direction, they could be persuaded to buy things. There are endless opportunities to advertise, create loyalty programs and market a brand.
Sport provides the perfect opportunity to turn a format into a brand, enable interaction that in the long term people will be willing to pay for and provide opportunities for merchandising. Social TV is the perfect opportunity to create brand awareness and even sell tickets to the next game.
Social TV also offers ample opportunities for extra media value, measurements and conversion. However, ultimately Social TV must add to, not distract from, the TV viewing experience. Sponsors and advertisers involved in Social TV also need to concentrate on adding value as audiences will shy away from Social TV if they feel they are constantly being sold to.
By linking viewers with their friends and other sports fans broadcasters will not only be able to hold on to their audiences rather than losing them to other online TV watching platforms, but capitalise on multiple branding and marketing opportunities.
What are they are they all waiting for?
