Boris Johnson’s endorsement of McDonald’s Olympic credentials has proved to be a kiss of death, cementing the fast food giant at the bottom of a brand reputation tracker monitoring Twitter sentiment toward the 25 official sponsors of the London Games.
via Olympic brand McDonald’s suffers Twitter humiliation | Media | guardian.co.uk.
Now here is an interesting debate in the offing: Rosie Baker, writing at Marketing Week, is talking about Coco Cola, Old El Paso and Peacocks marketing and use of Twitter during the riots in London.
There are many more serious issues at hand concerning the rioting that has taken over London and other cities in the UK for the past three days, but being glued to Twitter and social media even more than usual for the past 24 hours has made me question exactly what it is brands think they are using Twitter for.
Read the full article: Riots on the streets on London | Blogs | Marketing Week.
I wonder how this all extends? Should brands be changing their press, radio and TV advertising during the riots? Are we to allow the rioters and looters to make their agenda the only one being discussed.
I do agree that brands need to be very careful if they try and piggy back their message on what has been very distressing, large scale, criminal activity.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s technology company Square, which enables e-payments anywhere, has raised US$100m in Series C funding, valuing the company at more than US$1bn.
The marketplace for mobile device payments is beginning to open up and last week Google chairman Eric Schmidt said the market could be worth US$1trn within a few years as various platforms, including near field communications (NFC) and iOS-styled browser payments, make it easier and simpler for people to buy goods and services electronically.
So, is all this stuff about NFC sound like a lot of hot air. Are you unsure whether NFC has a place in your marketing mix. Well this case study, yes an article with some useful history and facts, actually shows the story of a simple NFC smart poster activity that worked.
During late 2010, Zuma Fashions undertook a review of their customer engagement and retention schemes seeking to identify a way of utilising cutting-edge technology to extend their brand reach and adopt a market-leading position with the 18-30 clothing market.
Existing marketing channels relied on traditional printed advertisements, a monthly catalogue and an online store with a poorly managed Facebook page and corporate Twitter account. Does that ring any bells?
Read the full case study from this link: How Near Field Communication Smart Posters can work for you – Online-News-Today.
The current hot stories about B2B marketing and sales eminating from the US are about Facebook and its use in the mix. This may well be valid but I guess these messages are also being propogated by people with a vested tech/social media interest.
Andy Maslen on his blog reports that his successes are primarily all techniques and approaches that could have been executed in the 18th century. In ranking order of business success Andy reports this list:
So if you read this blog and visit Andy Maslen’s Sunfish site, do let him know a blog got you there 
But in all seriousness, if your business is B2B and you want to develop sustainable relationships I would wholeheartedly recommend referrals/word-of-mouth, attending conferences, running workshops, having coffee/lunch with prospect and speculative meetings as ways to get those conversations started.
Charities often lead the way with marketing innovation. They cannot just hit the ‘spend’ button like some businesses appear to. This has led to charity fund raising leading the way with huge public engagement successes like Race For Life (> £38m raised) and Walk The Walk (> £8m).
Social media ticks the boxes for charities as well. This is low cost stuff that builds on engagement. Add to this a layer of celebrity involvement and success is in the making.
The latest low cost, social media innovation for charity is a wonderful campaign: celebrities leave Facebook and Twitter until their fans donate enough money to get them back. In one or two instances this could be an excellent opportunity for us to wave goodbye to irritating celebrities, but as the cause is World Aids Day and the celebs are the likes of Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake and Usher … I anticipate success.
I was rather enthused about Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. I Tweeted about this a few days ago saying, “Giving Bing www.bing.com a go. It’s good and localisation seems to work well. I also like the ‘format to phone’ feature; ace on Blackberry.”
Today I was further impressed by the following email that I received:
Hi Kevin,
I’m writing on behalf of Microsoft to invite you to a discussion about Bing, the new search engine that recently launched in beta in the UK.
The session will be a small round-table event to discuss Bing and since we saw your recent tweet regarding the use of Bing on a phone, we thought that you might be interested in coming along. The idea would be to get your initial thoughts and you’ll get an update on the future steps for Bing which are being developed specifically for the UK. During the session you’ll have the chance to talk with Microsoft representatives and other people from social media like yourself, who have expressed some early opinion.
This will take place in the next couple of weeks, so if you’re interested in coming along, or have any questions, just get in touch and I’ll send you some more details.
Thanks,
Colin Mercer
Excellent, cooking on gas, was my thoughts. I replied straight away and guess what? The email bounced with this message:
Subject: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender
This is the mail system at host safetwo.sceur.ch.
I’m sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It’s attached below.
For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster. If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message.
Perhaps Bing will struggle against Google? Or perhaps this was a freak occurrence.
Apparently Colin works for 1000heads. He was representing Life Without Walls which is a Microsoft sponsored initiative run by 1000heads that organises events, social gatherings, trials and a host of other enlightening activities.
