Christmas is (almost) here!

Not brand new news, but a friend of mine just emailed me an on-line money-off coupon for Thresher.

For ten days, from 30 November until 10 December, they will offering 40% off ALL their wine. That means all Stormhoek, all red and white, all French, all Spanish, all Australian, all Champagne. Everything, tutto, tout!

Here’s the catch: they are not advertising it! The only way to get the money-off is to get hold of their super secret coupon, and because I am super nice, I shall tell you a little secret… click here but shhhhh!

As good as a gmail invite!

KLM - A story about courage, skills and discovery

What if you were a plane, and you could fly for fortune and adventure, would you give it a try?

I lost

Blogging update

 

 

 

 

Three months into blogging and I am already hooked! I guess I pretty much managed to stick to my original ‘mission statement’ - to blog about marketing, share my views and encourage fellow bloggers to take part in the debate.

 

Blogging so far has been a fantastic experience that made me realise that I was no longer thinking ‘out of the box’ since getting my first job in London after graduating 3 years ago. It’s also definitely helped me raise my profile in the industry! Most importantly I also met so great new cyber-friends, fellow bloggers on the way: a big thank you to those who added me to their blogroll.

 

And just to make this post a bit more Web 2.0, and thanks to Mack Collier, I discovered a new little widget that tells you whether you are an A-List Bloglebrity or not. And I am…

The Low Authority Group [D-List Bloggers]
(3-9 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
The average blog age (the number of days that the blog has been in existence) is about 228 days, which shows a real commitment to blogging. However, bloggers of this type average only 12 posts per month, meaning that their posting habits are generally dedicated but infrequent.

 

Way to go, way to go! Saying that, I totally agree with Mack that it’s not the ranking that matters but the enjoyment one gets out of blogging! And I might just about become a C-Lister with a bit of luck

And if unlike me, you cannot stay away from your blog for more than a couple of hours, or are simply in need of a good read or a good laugh, I strongly suggest you check out Bloggers Anonymous.

Pepsi gets fizzy with youtube

Despite the fact that we aren’t all switching off the BBC and watching brand-funded programming as was once predicted, there are still some interesting partnerships out there. Take the one between Pepsi and the newly-Google-owned youtube. Pepsi is launching a branded channel on the site to drive traffic to its own video site. It encourages users to create and upload video clips showing how they would ‘max’ their day with £1000. Will this promotion give Pepsi some extra fizz in its marketing or will the plan fall flat? To be continued…

The Campaign for Real Beauty

 

My blog stats meter tells me that you rather enjoyed ’The Evolution of Beauty’ clip I posted last night. How would you feel if I told you that this clip is in fact Dove’s  latest advertisement?  

This clip certainly was an excellent effort intended to serve as a starting point for societal change and act as a catalyst for widening the definition and discussion of beauty. 

The campaign for real beauty’s mission is to make women feel more beautiful every day by challenging today’s stereotypical view of beauty and inspiring women to take great care of themselves.The brand’s commitment to the mission starts with using real women, not professional models, of various ages, shapes and sizes to provoke discussion and debate about today’s typecast beauty images. The women proudly show off their wrinkles, curves and bumps provoking a debate through communication initiatives including advertising, interactive Web programs and attention-getting billboards. The program is also enriched by town halls, panel discussions and the Dove Self-Esteem Fund. The global campaign encourages women to join in the discussion about beauty and share their views on real beauty with women around the world.

What particularly amazed me about Dove was their ability to use and orchestrate various medium over a period of time starting off with 2 series of print and TV ads and now carrying on online. Here’s the best bit – Dove’s clip was a viral success but they also managed to communicate with their audience with their ‘share your views’ blog.

And with a mixture of online and offline marketing activity, Dove have probably managed to reach every single segment of their target market.

The Evolution of Beauty, the evolution of Web 2.0…

As I was flicking through my paper this morning, I read this interesting article about yet another youtube success story, a 60-second clip entitled ‘The Evolution of Beauty’.

The clip shows a woman getting a makeover transforming her into a top model using make-up and digitally enhancing her features. The clip has been downloaded 1 million times in the last couple of weeks.

However after browsing youtube, I found out that this clip was in fact a video response to this:

Remember a few years ago when MPs were worried that text messaging would impact negatively on people’s ability to spell properly? Web 2.0, on the other hand is all about thinking, sharing and creating.

This is a concept advertising and media agencies alike should embrace to communicate their messages in a powerful and effective way - Web 2.0 lesson #1, words spread quickly in the blogosphere!

It certainly is a bit of a gamble but can definitely be worth it!