Friday Roundup 18th July 2008

As far as our MarCom Professional team is concerned, there's a must-see post this week. Amongst the other great content featured below you'll see this post by Trevor Young that highlights two photographic slide shows of outstanding guerilla marketing in action. Click through to watch them full screen.

Leaning forward to read about marketing communications is all very worthy, but sometimes, on a Friday say, it's very nice just to lean back and watch.

Enjoy. And have a super weekend,

Andrew and the MarCom Professional team.

Message from God

by si crowhurst of We Love Mobile

Is there no end to the supreme power of the text message? Now it seems that even the Pope has got in on the act. Hundreds of thousands of young Catholics have gathered for the opening of World Youth Day (no, I didn’t know it was happening either) - a festival aimed at revitalising the church. And what’s one of the easiest, quickest and cheapest ways to reach the masses? With a text message, of course.

Pope Benedict XV1 texted thousands of young pilgrims, urging them to renew their faith. More...

Senior PR executive admits to blog misconduct

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

Hotwire recently blogged about a recent change to UK media law that makes a certain practice of ‘fake blogging’ against the law. What used to be just a faux pas is now more than just that. In plain English, the law means that organisations should not pretend to be consumers.

To prove just how relevant this issue is, an article appeared on the front page of the US edition of PR Week, describing an incident where New-York based agency 5W Public Relations acknowledged that a senior executive was involved in misconduct by impersonating a client when leaving a comment on a blog. More...

“Online journalism is about more than just writing”: Chris Green, Editor, IT Pro

by Andrew Smith of escherman

IT Pro Editor Chris Green has written a very good post regarding the changing nature of online journalism. (In tune with the zeitgeist, he says he was prompted to write the piece after he made a Twitter comment about his traffic/contributor analysis - and I and others asked him for more detail).

Specifically, he highlights things that he believes freelance writers will need to consider and change their working practices to incorporate. If you substitute the term “PR” for freelance writer, much the same principles apply. More...

Marketing budgets decline, but internet up

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

The Q1 2008 Bellwether Report, the quarterly survey of marketing spend published by the IPA, reveals that current budgets have again been revised down for the second consecutive quarter; suggesting business confidence has fallen further. All sectors of the industry have experience cuts with the exception of spend on internet marketing suggesting that budgets are being diverted into this area. Budgets are predicted to fall further as a result on low corporate profitability through the end of the year. More...

The Social Revolution is Our Industrial Revolution

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Broadcast and print media and the services the support the creation and distribution of information are not dead and Social Media is not going to get indicted for holding the smoking gun.

These powerful, influential, and age-old industries are however, undergoing some of their most radical transformations and metamorphoses in order to adapt to the elusive and rapidly shifting information landscape.

Money is migrating away from traditional media as well as the industries and services that support it - from creation to distribution. More...

Hanging out with Robert Scoble at Tapulous, producers of Tap Tap Revenge, the #1 iPhone game

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

I am a huge fanboy of Robert Scoble. From his pioneering scobleizer blog (which he started while at Microsoft) to his new gig as Managing Director of FastCompany.TV, Robert is always doing interesting things on the Web.

Robert wrote the terrific forward to my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR. The forward is the perfect way to introduce the new marketing world we’re all living in today. I am so grateful for him doing that for me! (Thanks again).

Remarkably, Robert has produced over 1,000 videos on the Web. More...

Google reveals keyword search volumes - and why you should care

by Andrew Smith of escherman

Don’t know how I missed this one, but last week - and without much fanfare - Google announced that it would now reveal approximate search volumes from within its Keyword Tool. The excellent Jason Baer at the Convince and Convert blog makes some very good observations as to why this is going to have a big impact on digital marketing. In particular when he says:

“If Google makes the marketing and advertising business as transparent as travel planning and stock purchases, the only agencies that will be able to survive are those that can add real value in messaging, creative, and integrating data into actionable tactics.” More...

WARNING: Guerrilla Marketers Stalk Streets For Maximum Buzz

by Trevor Young of One19

This will keep you amused if you're into really clever guerrilla marketing tactics. Strong creative ideas and solid execution = positive buzz and 'talkability'.
Hat tip to Rogier van Wagtendonk who compiled the presentation (along with various sources, as acknowledged by Rogier).
I recommend you view full screen via Slideshare for full effect.
Enjoy!
| View | Upload your own | View | Upload your own More...

Fiat’s mobile site

by si crowhurst of We Love Mobile

As I glanced through my regular Monday morning news feeds from various e-magazines about mobile advertising and marketing, one particular piece caught my attention. In between all the stories about the 3G i-phone launch and the varying views on what it can and cannot do (saddo’s) I read a very interesting piece in MobileMarketingWeekly about Fiat's new mobile portal (http://mobile.fiat.co.uk). This is not the first time Fiat has gone mobile so I was eager to see the output.

The portal is the work of AKQA Mobile (one of our industry friends). More...

Dan Roam’s “Back of a Napkin” approach to visual thinking (and how I bought the book).

by Andrew Smith of escherman

Dan Roam’s “The Back of the Napkin” book about visual thinking is a novel approach to problem solving (and deserves a blog post all of its own)

Informative blog too.

However, I thought it worth examining how I went from not knowing a thing about Dan Roam at midday on Saturday, to understanding a lot more about him and buying his book nearly 11 hours later - as well as finding out a few other interesting things along the way.

Here’s the text based version of events (the diagram above is my own pen and paper effort based on Roam’s tips). More...

A masterclass in how to do an interview

by Hamish Thompson of Twelve Thirty Eight Ltd

Here’s a link to a profile in the Evening Standard of Ian Livingston, BT’s CEO. It’s an object lesson in how and why to inject humour, intelligence, humility and anecdote into a conversation with a journalist.

I had the good fortune to work with Ian at what was then the Dixons Group (now DSG international). I’d like to be able to say that I taught him something about media relations, but I didn’t, being a relative newbie at the time. Instead, I learnt a great deal through osmosis and observation – More...