I Absolutely Love Radio!

As a rotational grad we get many trips out to broaden our horizon within the media world. This week's trip was to Absolute radio in Soho.

Christian O'Connell on The Breakfast Show

This tour was one of the best - we got to go on Air with Christian O'Connell on The Breakfast Show! It is a very surreal experience seeing in the flesh what we usually listen to on the radio - seeing the banter between the radio hosts, the travel update and the news. It seems to me that to be a radio show host, you need to have the ability to multi-task VERY well. They have to fit in everything they want to say between songs, provide a good banter experience for their listeners, read the advertisements they get word for word and generally keeping their audience entertained whilst flicking the right buttons at the right time (they have many buttons in front of them including 4 computer screens). We each had to ask him a question about the radio industry, which I had a complete blank and forgot to even say my name...so I asked....'What's the worst thing about Radio?' .... original? I don't think so! Anyway, they responded with the fact that they had to get up at 5:15 every morning - to be honest, that does sound pretty horrible!

Me on Air

The rest of the day consisted of a presentation about what they did, in terms of the stations they offer, who they target and their popularity - Absolute Radio are one of the leading stations and have a very successful format which attracts more than 1.2million listeners (including myself). We then had a 'higher or lower' quiz about how many listeners we thought each station had - our team lost on the tie breaker question, it's OK, i'm over it now.

The Grads at the station

We then had a tour around all the studios and the departments etc, it is a very unassuming building and not massively big - which is surprising as it is home of  one of London's biggest radio stations. It was such a good experience as I had never been to a Radio station before. The morning also made me excited about the potential of advertising in Radio and what you can do with it - sponsor shows, sponsor stations and channels.....  you take the medium outdoors and have tie-ins with the radio and music festivals - exciting!

Painting of Debbie Harry - Defaced by Slash from Guns n' Roses

I didn't really consider much about radio advertising, and then I thought, actually it is a very powerful medium in supporting a campaign... the radio only uses one sense - your ears. Therefore it heightens that sense, you listen to it more carefully as you have no visual to help you along. Also when do you listen to the radio? Usually when you are doing something (like cleaning the house/driving etc) - so in essence Radio is used to keep us company - there is low ad-avoidance on radio as people enjoy being talked to and that is why they are listening to it in the first place - therefore people trust the adverts more? It is a very interesting medium ... it can be powerful when used on its own but also just as powerful when used alongside TV led campaigns as it acts as a reinforcement.... needless to say you can be very specific with your targeting in radio (type of music/region etc).

Lesson 8: I love Radio 

Thanks for a wicked Day absolute!

Oh for Google's sake!

Today was a fantastic day!

Today was the day we met Google... well it's London offices anyways. You would think the offices would be hidden away in some virtual wonderland, but it is in fact slab, dab right in the middle of London Town. It has a very unassuming exterior, but the offices are tucked up on the 6th floor with cool lighting which look like beach lilos, fluffy carpet and free canteen loaded with sweeties and soft drink. We were there to get a, sort of, starters presentation as the agency work closely with them. Essentially, Google is the way forward, the future of everything technology... I discovered a few new products which I didn't realise exist and which Google offer their users for free, so I thought i'd share them with you as I think they are awesome....

First of all, there is the Chrome Book. This is basically as laptop which only operates on the internet. There is no Word or Excel or microsoft... you open the computer and there is the chrome web browser.... nothing else. You do all you work via the internet and store it in a 'cloud', which apparently an online database which you save all your stuff to and which you only have access to. This way, if anything happens to our laptop, everything is completely backed up in the virtual world.... cool eh? I don't know how far this will go, after all nearly 70% of everything we do on a computer uses the internet.....

Following on from the Google chrome web browser, you can sync your chrome web browser to your phone through downloading an app, and anything you find on the net, but you want it on your phone (e.g. a number of a restaurant), you can send the search results from your desktop to your phone..... very very clever. This is called Chrome to phone, get it!

We were told prior to us going there that we must sign up for Google+ and then download the Google+ app..... which I did before I left the office. The sign up seemed pretty straight forward, very much like other social networks - but had this unfamiliar term 'circles'. You can create circles in order to group your friends, you can manage what these circle of friends or people can see on your profile, what you want to share with them etc. It seems to be an amalgamation of both Twitter and Facebook. I was not totally convinced when I first signed up, but then Google showed me about 'Hangouts', you can choose which circle of friends you want to 'hang' out with, in a virtual sense. It then creates this virtual common room where people in those circles can come and go as they please. Its sort of like Skype conference calling, but you can have lots of people in a conversation at once where you can flick through the cameras or the computer flicks through for you... wicked wicked stuff.

One of the highlights was definately 'The wilderness Downtown', if you do not gave Google Chrome, download it and go on to http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/ and type in your address, inc house number street and postcode, press play and see what happens! Although not enitrely difficult to put together, seeing as the images are already on Google maps, the images are displayed in order with an emptional track with this person running (who seems to be running to your house) - my description really doesn't do it justice.... do it and you will see what I mean.

The whole day was very useful in telling you best to optimise clients website so that your natural search appears right at the top and how a pay-per-click campaign can work well alongside a search campaign.... in essence Google provides a very good platform for businesses to generate more visits to their website and get their brand name out there. YouTube is another fantastic platform which allows user and non-user generated videos onto the site, where nothing is impossible. They used the example of the two young 8 and 5 year old girls, who sung a version of the Nicky Minaj song 'Superbass' in their bedroom (see link below).

                                                        http://youtu.be/T9mOIDFYh04

The very original version (not the one in the link below) generated over 14 million hits which resulted in a YouTube sensation.... the video got so much hype that they were invited to go on the Ellen show in the US to perform with Nicky Minaj.... crazy eh? (See link below)

                                                     http://youtu.be/IIvwUfhMbZ8

What lucky little girls, this should really provide some inspiration for all of us to upload some crazy video in order to generate enough attention and get something good out of it! If your video reaches over 250,000 hits, you will be approached by YouTube/Google and may be asked if you are willing to put advertising by it, by usually in a way of a pre-roll... this in turn would give you a bit of pocket money!

To sum up, Google have so many wicked products avaibale to their users at the moment, which are not cluttered with advertisement. In fact their advertisement methods are done in a very sophiscated way, which encourages people to use their site as a user and a brand even more. I will write a blog specific to Google advertising when I have my notes in front of me, but I was too excited to share this info with everyone!


 Google Offices, London

                                                                   Happy Googling!

1-year old plays with a magazine like it's an i-pad?

One of the headlines on #Mashable this morning is "1-Year old plays with magazine like it's an i-pad"(you can watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk&feature=player_embedded)... this in itself has sparked various thoughts buzzing around my head -  is this what the new generation is going to be like? Children will be purely technology driven? Long gone are the days of traditional media - is print dead?

Last week I went on an industry training day at IPC media - we had some very inspirational speakers from the editor of Nuts, to the head of music and men magazines (such like NME). I learnt a lot of stuff throughout the day, in particular - everyone thought print media was far from dead and felt that online materials supported the print as oppose to flushing it out - but is this true? I love having a print in my hand, I am not convinced by technology such as Kindles/iphone book apps etc, but I do use online news websites to get the latest news when I perhaps don't get the chance to pick up a paper. This could be because the technology was not available to us at school, so I got used to reading books/getting newspapers/going to the library. In fact, in my later school years we only managed to get dial-up Internet! It was not until I got to university, where I started to use Internet as a source of my research and online library tools etc... so if children start from a young age where technology is around for them from the beginning - with all the phone apps and computer technology getting vastly cheaper by the minute - won't they just turn to that instead of traditional means? I think print will have a real fight on their hands in the future to keep their audiences keep picking up print.... one spokesperson said print won't vanish until 2050, which maybe a good estimation, but I think the decline will start a lot sooner than that!

At the moment, there are more magazines than ever with 3,130 consumer magazines and 5,142 business magazines. To throw some more stats at you; 112m consumer magazines are read a month, 1.4bn are sold a year (in the UK alone, 43 magazines are sold every second)!  In fact, magazines are read by 85% adults - 88% of all women. This suggests that the magazine industry is fiercely competitive, with already lots of competing titles on the shelves - showing a very saturated market with probably little to no room for new entrants. Magazines can be a very good way of specifically targeting your audience - magazines are thought of as a 'friend' of the reader - someone they can trust for their information and companionship.

Taking Look magazine which competes in one of the most competitive type of mass market magazine; the fashion and celebrity goss mag - we can see who their readers are. Look magazine has a circulation of around 300,000, with 64% of their readers being ABC1 and 26 years of age. The readers have a work hard, play hard attitude and are very sociable people who are very fashion conscious and love to shop! 77% of Look readers trust their beauty advice and recommendations, with 7 out of 10 of them buying something as a result of their editiorial. This shows the type of power a magazine can have over their readers in terms of what they buy and what they do as a result of their specific targeting techniques.

Going back to the training day we had, I can soundly say it was one of my best training days yet! At one point we were all spilt into teams and given a brief of a new target audience and we had to come up with a new magazine idea in order to target that gap in the market.

Our team was given teenage boys aged 12-16 - a very tricky demographic as they are boys and a 12 year old boy is very, very different to a 16 year old boy. We decided to go for a mass market idea, where we came up with the name 'Banter'. The launch issue was going to have 'The Inbetweeners' on the front cover, with editorial which covered sections such like; 'The after school club' - focusing on after-school activities; 'Back of the bus' - talking about popular school chitter-chatter and what is going on in their world; 'People you need to know' - people interviewed from the past that are still important (e.g. Paul Gascoigne) to present day people. Some of our promotional techniques were getting a bus called 'Banter Bus' which went round all the schools in the country to try and promote awareness of the new magazine. We also though of creating interactive games within X Box Live etc to help get the viewers engaged with the concept and brand. Baring in mind we only had 40 minutes, we were quite happy with our idea!

We then had to mock sell our advertising space to some of the heads within the company... we sold a total of £23,700 worth of advertising which ended us winning the competition and getting a bottle of wine each - perfect! I have since copy-written our idea and we should hope to launch it in the New Year, any support of this would be greatly appreciated! :-P

Moral of the story; No, print is not dead, for now. They have to adapt to the time of technology but at the moment, print is still number 1 (over the magazines online sources that they offer). They will, however, need to keep adapting to the times and keep up-to date with technological advances - to make sure they do not slip behind their fierce competitors.

Pictures sourced from (in order); ipadarena.com, blogspot.com, magforum.com, fanpop.com

48 Sheets Later.....



The outdoor advertising medium is one of those media mediums that aren't often at the forefront of the mind when planning a marketing campaign - perhaps because it is difficult to know if you are pin pointing your target audience, how many people see it, can ROI be accurately measured as a result? It is however, a very effective medium in targeting mass audience when they are out and about. Outdoor media is strategically placed where there is more footfall and/or dwell time, such like stations where people, on average, are waiting for a train for up to 30 minutes (statistic relevant to Euston station).In fact, Euston station is where JCDecaux recently launched their new all encompassing digital screens which cover the whole station and can digitally interact with each other, allowing brands and advertisers to explore the opportunity of new creative ideas which can enhance the visual experience for their audience. Currently they have a car advertisement where the car zips round the screen, each screen following on from the next - needless to say, this is very good at capturing attention.



Euston Station Digital Screen

Outdoor media comes in all different shapes and sizes, the most common probably being the 6 sheets which can be stand alone or at bus stops (usually to catch people walking out and about - typical in shopping malls, pedestrianised shopping streets). Another common one being the 48 sheet (standard billboard size) - usually placed along main road sides where there is a lot of traffic or by traffic lights where there is more dwell time in the car and even car parks. In fact you can get elevated 6 sheets within car parks to ensure every car can see the advert from every part of the car park.  

JCDecaux Fake Street

JCDecaux Interactive Bus Stop

A lot of thought goes into the positioning of these mediums and to an extent you can find out at what type of people will pass them and at what time of day (business commuters coming into certain rail stations etc).

Outdoor media is also stretching beyond the physical boundaries of structured formats, i.e they can now be more innovative in how they present the mediums - such like wrapping. Wrapping is where they go beyond physical formats like 6 sheets and 48 sheets and 'wrap' a certain area in a brand or advertisement, this will draw the attention of the consumers and make the brand unavoidable as most 6 sheet formats (and the like)can perhaps blend into the background. This innovation has extended to more digital and interactive formats, such as digital screens found at bus stops which can be interactive and engage the audience whilst they are waiting for the bus - in turn creating more brand awareness. This is an effective way of engaging the consumer with the brand and it is a lot of fun to do whilst passing time at a bus stop!

In fact, outdoor media is growing to a new level with the introduction of augmented reality, where people passing by in the station would stand in a certain location and they would have a 'fallen angel' stand next to them which they could only see on the projected screen in front of them. This had a fantastic response, with people really engaging with the brand and having fun with it, which then caused massive attraction, of other people in the station, to get involved - this then becomes viral, as word-of-mouth spreads from the people who had the experience - good word-of-mouth is something money cannot buy....

To watch the video of Lynx augmented reality at London Victoria station, click on the link below;

http://youtu.be/rFuUFeQIdpk

You can also be very specific with your outdoor advertisement in terms of what material it is printed on (you can get new vinyl ads which do not crinkle and look a lot more flatter and effective than wallpaper ones), whether you have it on a sight with lights, or a premium location where it is on a fancy structural design - making it look more attractive - all coming at a juicy price of course! In fact, companies have gone mad for outdoor advertisement with the ever encroaching Olympics, whereby the outdoor advertisers themselves are all going crazy for the best spots on all the road that lead into London and the Olympic area. This is a great opportunity for brands to get their message across to the masses, especially as the Olympics are supposed to attract 10 million people to the site.

Overall, outdoor media is a very good way of of supporting integrated marketing campaigns as well as continually reminding the audience to buy their products over others (Coca-Cola use outdoor advertisement to keep reminding their consumers to choose them when they want a drink). 

Outdoor advertisers such like JCDecaux, Clear Channel and Primesight all use traditional means as well as innovative ideas using digital and other creative space, however, companies which focus on nontraditional means are creeping in as brands try to find new ways of grabbing their consumers attention - where no idea is impossible - where temporary adverts can be made in organic matter and are placed in sort of a guerrilla way and then bacteria is placed on top which slowly eats away at the advert so it completely disappears after a given amount of time - I am not sure it is going to replace any of the traditional forms of outdoor media, but it offers an alternative idea in an industry where innovative advertisement options are more than welcome!



Steve; you did a marvellous Job!

This morning I awoke to find out Steve Jobs had died, which is truly, truly saddening news. Just yesterday and the day before, many people (including myself) were frantically trying to find out information about the new iPhone release; the 4S. The phone was pretty much as expected, a faster model with a better camera and also Siri, an iPhone personal assistant where you can tell it what to do without having to touch your phone! As I had recently upgraded to the iPhone 4, I am pleased that the physical aesthetics had not changed and that my phone doesn't already look pre-historic, however, I am left with the knowledge that there is a better and faster iPhone than mine out there!

Apple is really an inspirational company that knew exactly what their consumers wanted and how to satisfy their need for technology whilst being the most aesthetically pleasing product on the market. the iPad has been one of the most prominent developments in mobile technology and paved the way for all tablets, whereby all companies are trying their hardest to make theirs better - they have a long way to go in convincing apple consumers that anything else will ever be better.

The death of Steve Jobs, although not totally unexpected, due his battle with cancer; will, to an extent enhance consumer loyalty, especially in the near future. His legacy will live on through his ideas and products he has left behind which will continue to be released throughout the future. The foundations he has created on the expectations of Apple products will continue to grow and can only get better.

As a true Apple fan I want to say;
Rest in peace Steve Jobs, you were a genius.

Pictures sourced (in order); www.apple.com; www.yalibnan.com