Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

Posts Tagged ‘media’

Just as the world has got used to the visual eyesore of wheelie bins (well most people…see this article in The Independent) and there are people drawing our attention to them again.

I noticed a ‘Choose to Slow Down’ campaign was being delivered on stickers applied to wheelie bins in Yateley, Hampshire. It made me wonder how long it will be before councils and/or residents are selling the media space as an alternative form of ambient media.

A quick Google search showed me that the use of wheelie bins as media is not new or restricted to Yateley:

• Here is a press release from 2005 from Australia.
• Staffordshire news about a wheelie bin campaign.
• And there are loads more references.

As a media opportunity it is only for 1/7th of the week though…well in most areas.

We make all sorts of assumptions about communication media for different age groups. Recent examples that help me keep a broad focus:

1. Charlie, my 6 year old son, not only now uses Outlook for his personal email account he is also sending me messsages with images embedded. The one on the left arrived the other day.

2. My mother, who has enjoyed free bus travel for some while now (to people outside of the UK: that means she is over 65), sends me texts littered with text speak. You know the type of thing, cu l8r and similar abbreviations.

3. I actually found someone in their late teens that doesn’t use Facebook/Twitter/MySpace. I am sure he is not alone.

The lesson to me was useful: don’t make assumptions. I’m sure I’ll need reminding of this again very soon!

Lists of top tens are often used to gain attention in the media. They seem to mostly appear in the tabloids and the best of them get repeat airings on the radio.

But of course the list can just be a personal opinion. Here’s one that worked from Sarah Drew at Marketing Ladder which arrived in an email newsletter:

“With the recent flag-waving, face-painting patriotism that comes with Wimbledon, the cricket and the upcoming Olympics, we thought – what better time to remind ourselves of the reasons you’re proud to be British?”

“Without further ado, here are my top 10:

:: The Queen (and open tours of Buckingham Palace this August!)
:: Wimbledon
:: Beer Gardens
:: The Edinburgh Film Festival
:: Grand Prix Champion, Lewis Hamilton
:: English Wines (Some of the finest in the world! No, really!)
:: Footie
:: Pimms and Lemonade
:: Tom Jones!
:: TheLadders.co.uk

Well, it was her personal opinion so we can’t argue with that can we? What’s your top ten things that make you proud to be British or whatever nationality you are?

I used to spend a fair bit of money with the PPC (pay per click) specialists, Eyefall. They did an excellent job for me in the world of pay per click advertising, an area that is still as much an art as a science.

Eyefall set a good example by running a blog with some quite varied content. This article about the search marketing show talks about consumers controlling their own media when we, as brand owners,are trying to control our message to the potential customer. Some good food for thought.

One thing is clear: we need to start operating differently.