Tue, 23 Feb 2010 09:58:19 UTC by Chris Buckley
Last week, I spoke at the Figaro Digital seminar on social media. It's always great to hear what others have to say, so here are a few of the best bits for me. http://www.slideshare.net/buckersphere/figaro-digital-thoughts For those who still need a little convincing, we saw some compelling numbers around the adoption of social media by marketers. The rapid consideration and inclusion... Read more
Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:11:10 UTC by Graham Freeman
The 60s and 70s were about products and services marketed to ‘captive’ audiences in front of TVs watching set programmes at set times. In the 80s and 90s, audiences became segmented and brands gained balance sheet value. Then it all went digital with access to information and on-line shopping. Now, almost without us noticing, brands have gone soci... Read more
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:52:41 UTC by Nick Gill
Yesterday Nick Owen (Data Planner) and Mike Phillips (Social Media Executive) went to Monitoring Social Media in town yesterday. Here’s their key take-aways: Alan Moore (Not the Watchmen author) but Author and Founder of SMLXL: Spoke for a long time without saying much and was really just setting the scene. He said that Social marketing intelligence is the thi... Read more
Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:51:58 UTC by Martin Flavin, Chris Townsend, Nicky Standing, James Golding
Some of our esteemed creative folk went to Click London last week. Here’s the 10 most interesting things: 1. People don’t talk about advertising - they talk about what interests them and sometimes it’s advertising. 2. For a digital initiative to work it needs to be useful, easy and delightful: See this from AKQA for Fiat 3. Banners and micro sites are adverts adverti... Read more
Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:51:05 UTC by Matt Burrough
1 … something that lives in the marketing silo It disrupts the entire business model meaning you have to listen to customers and change your mindset and behaviour accordingly. Can the marketing department deal with customer services complaints? Senior management buy-in is integral. Social media requires a way of thinking which includes a willingness to listen to customers, make c... Read more
Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:50:22 UTC by Graham Freeman
Brands have value which make them important company assets needing to be evolved, remain compelling and provide return on investment. Providing disruption, impact and engagement, traditional media and press, whilst important, only provide part of the story in a digital world. Social brand interaction empowers us to contribute, both directly and indirectly, which in turn informs, is measurable and... Read more
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:49:31 UTC by Nick Gill
I had the joy of presenting Tweeting Social Stuff at the 14th Annual Youth Perspectives Conference with Marketing magazine yesterday in a morning workshop entitled: Digi Savvy Youth: Social Networks & Twitter in Focus. I tag-teamed with the delightful Graeme Ford from Phones 4U who gave the inside track on how they have developed their social media presence and a candid assessment of the highs and l... Read more
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:48:43 UTC by Nick Gill
I presented this little badger to an exclusive gathering of IBM folk at the Mermaid Centre, Blackfriars in London Town 20.10.09. I had fun. See, I even look happy in the pic from Fiona. And to cap it all, I even got a homepage featurette on Slideshare. Fame at last. Fiona even tried a little bit of live tweeting as an experiment but some way to go there me thinks. As alwa... Read more
Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:55:07 UTC by Nick Gill
We’re pretty chuffed with coming #66 in the NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies 2009. And even more chuffed at coming #36 in the Top Marketing Agencies sub-set. This sets the benchmark for our future ambitions including expanding our London and international footprint, capitalising on our social media offering through our specialist brand Headstream and building the... Read more
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:03:24 UTC by Nick Gill
To celebrate 40 years of Gap denim, Gap clothing launched the gap1969 campaign to revive the brand’s 1969 San Francisco roots. The celebration is brought alive experientially through the launch of two denim pop-up concept stores in London and Paris. Five by Five were tasked with activating the 40 year anniversary by immersing the target audience in Gap heritage and driving awa... Read more
Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:32:10 UTC by Nick Gill
Five by Five has created an interactive digital game to help WKD break into the cider market with their latest beverage, WKD Core. Designed to establish the word ‘core’ as a bar call, the game aims to raise awareness of the product and engage with the target audience of males 18 -24 years old. Launching this month on the campaign microsite www.wkdcore.co.uk, the aim of the gam... Read more
Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:25:04 UTC by Steve Sponder
There are certainly no shortage of agencies offering social media tactics to brands although almost all of this activity is crude, forcing a conventional advertising approach into this new social media environment. Social media has disrupted the conventional marketing model. People are one click away from the perfect job, the ideal product, a damming video diary o... Read more
Wed, 27 May 2009 12:03:39 UTC by Nick Gill
We were asked to contribute to the latest in the IAB's vertical handbook series: retail. With a focus on what makes a good online shopping basket experience, our top tips are below. You can download the handbook here. Shopping basket drop-off can be avoided by learning from the benchmark leaders: Amazon, Carphone Warehouse and Figleaves. What they do is simply make it easy for you to buy, change your mind, save it for later... Read more
Thu, 21 May 2009 10:22:14 UTC by Nick Gill
Ask WKD’s Kev n’ Dave anything. Yes, anything. Right here on WKD.co.uk. Recently launched, Kev n’ Dave bring the WKD brand personality to life as well as help drive sales across the product portfolio. Featuring two cheeky characters who epitomise the brand’s essence, users are able to interact with Kev n’ Dave to obtain answers to any question posed, in true WKD style. ... Read more
Wed, 20 May 2009 17:01:44 UTC by Iain Trundle
Anyone come across memetic media? The term comes from a development of Richard Dawkins’ social/evolutionary philosophy of ‘cultural genes’ that he termed ‘memes’. He believes just as the best (or most evolutionarily advantageous) genes survive and replicate, so good thoughts, ideas, philosophies etc replicate and out perform the weaker or less suitable ones. The weak ‘flat earth’ theo... Read more
Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:59:07 UTC by Catherine Waldeck
Five by Five today launched the latest campaign site for fashion retailer New Look to support their Spring/Summer Most Wanted campaign at http://www.newlookmostwanted.co.uk/ The site brings New Look’s Most Wanted fashion magazine to life online using video and cat-walk imagery of the new range and links users through to shop online at http://www.newlook.co.uk/... Read more
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:36:44 UTC by Catherine Waldeck
Five by Five has today launched a new website for drinks brand Ocean Spray, www.oceanspray.co.uk, to support the launch of their new TV campaign. Ocean Spray wanted to engage with their target audience online and communicate the brand proposition, ‘helps protect you inside’. As well as featuring the latest TV ads that follow Kate and Fiona on their quest fo... Read more
Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:57:46 UTC by Steve Sponder
People don’t separate the message they receive from a brand based on where they see or hear it. The Internet Advertising Bureau states that the internet now accounts for 18.7% of the total UK advertising market, with press display at 19.3% and TV at 21.7%. What we do online either adds to or takes away from the overall brand experience. The... Read more
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:27:55 UTC by Darren Collins
Today Five by Five launched Kiwi Katapult- a power/ angle based Flash game where users have to launch New Zealand’s national mascot, across Europe to the CeBIT show in Hannover Germany. The game was created as part of a campaign for New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, in association with Air New Zealand. The intention of the game is to raise awareness of New Zealand as a strong force i... Read more
Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:01:13 UTC by Steve Sponder
After watching the Web 2.0 hyper-juggernaut scream into town a couple of years back it’s been interesting to see it delivering a big boxes of social media filled with shiny new tactics including a bunch of social networks, a corporate blog, a few micro-blogging platforms, a suite of widgets and a packet of chicklets. It’s unfortunate that there was no mention of which department to de... Read more
Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:58:14 UTC by Catherine Waldeck
Five by Five, has today launched a new website for SunnyD to support the drink brand’s re-launch in to the UK kid’s drinks market. The brand is launching a new juice formula, which contains 70% fruit juice and absolutely no artificial colours or flavourings. The site, www.sunny-d.co.uk, will act as an information portal to communicate the benefits of t... Read more
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:37:35 UTC by Catherine Waldeck
Five by Five has been chosen by ABTA, The Travel Association, to work on its first ever online marketing campaign. ABTA has planned a marketing campaign, which for the first time includes an online element, to capitalise on the busiest booking period of the year. Five by Five has developed a strategy that includes: paid search activity to drive traffic to... Read more
Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:39:32 UTC by Catherine Waldeck
With the high street gloomy, age-old favourites closing their doors or looking for buyers and even the previously buoyant M&S announcing 1,200 staff losses and 27 store closures, now really is the time to consider stepping up your online strategy to maximise sales and leverage your brand. With over £46bn spent online and consumers likely to be spending more effort searching online for the ri... Read more
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:30:08 UTC by Catherine Waldeck
New Look viral on You Tube Five by Five, the leading digital agency, has created an amusing viral marketing campaign for international fashion retailer ‘New Look’ - the first time the label has used this marketing medium. Christmas is coming and New Look want to share the Christmas love with their friends in a fun and engaging way. So, moving away from the traditional e-card... Read more
Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:24:13 UTC by Steve Sponder
Now, as the credit crunch finally begins to bite into company profits, it is vital for brands to be able to reach consumers in more effective and engaging ways, especially when the target consumer audience for the brand is one that has been traditionally hard to reach. For example, brands selling to young consumers are now realizing the impossibility of having “controlled convers... Read more
Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:14:32 UTC by Al Binns
As developers we seem to naturally always want to be on the cutting edge, the internet therefore often seems to be the best place to be to scratch this itch. Whilst this is largely true we also have a bit of a large downside to deal with as well, the horror that is legacy issues. Let me show you a practical example, I was recently reading a horror story of a feature from Javascript extraordinaire... Read more
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:28:36 UTC by Catherine Waldeck
Anyone who has experienced a user testing session on one of their websites will be familiar with the frustration of users missing the blindingly obvious. It’s a good job most testing sessions involve 2 rooms, as the design team’s language is usually fairly blue! Don’t forget that the act of testing itself influences user behaviour to a greater or lesser extent depending on the skill of the... Read more
Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:10:28 UTC by Al Binns
I’ve tried to resist the urge to write a post on the latest flavour of the month Google’s venture into the Browser market Chrome, guess my resistance isn’t that great. Being hailed by some as a market changer I have a somewhat more sceptical view of what impact Chrome will have on the market. Whilst there are obviously some good innovations in the browser, the one process per tab thing being in m... Read more
Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:33:11 UTC by Al Binns
A bit late to the party on this one, but hey better late than never! bbc.co.uk is one of the most visited sites in the UK and rightly so. It is a virtual treasure trove of information and fun. I have to admit I spend probably more time on it than is good for me, in particular the sports pages! It is also a site that I have long admired because of the fact they have always had clear and defined guid... Read more
Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:44:26 UTC by Al Binns
2008 is looking like a good year for standards, or is it? The browser wars continue to rumble on, Firefox, Opera and Safari all have recent updates which push their standards compliance forward yet another notch. IE continues to lag behind, but has a new browser round the corner with better, if not ground breaking, support. Could development finally be getting easier for us developers? I’d li... Read more
Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:05:24 UTC by Dan Prest
I recently read about updates to the US 2003 CAN-SPAM Act (not legally binding in the UK but nevertheless presents a good package of best practises). Two snippets caught my eye: The recipient must not be required to provide anything more than email address and associated opt-out preferences for that email address (i.e., no password, account number, name, etc. can be required) Th... Read more
Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:11:39 UTC by Al Binns
Social media is currently big news in, well, social circles. There are now multitudes of sites on the net which are dedicated to the social aspects of the web. There are so many different sites - Facebook, MySpace, Digg, reddit, Twitter, del.cio.us, and many many more - it is hard to know what each site is for and really how useful each one is. In the web age there ... Read more
Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:56:23 UTC by Claire Axton
Five by Five have just launched an online campaign for Guitar Hero Rock Icon with gaming publisher Activision. The purpose of the site is to provide the community with an environment where they can share the fun of Guitar Hero. Five by Five developed a fantastic competition site that allows a user to upload a video of themselves rockin out and be displayed within the video gallery. There i... Read more
Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:54:43 UTC by Claire Axton
Five by Five have produced a retro viral game show for Cancer Research UK to promote their ‘Make today Count’ campaign for Friday Febuary 29th. 2008 is a leap year, and this time around February 29th is a date to really remember - it’s a free Friday - an extra one - and you won’t get another for 28 years. That’s right – this February you get five whole Fri... Read more
Fri, 08 Feb 2008 15:38:56 UTC by Al Binns
I tend to subscribe to quite a few sites on a regular basis and have quite a few RSS feeds in my reader of choice. I have quite a broad range of topics I like to follow, but sometimes I come across a site where there is really only one bit I want to follow, but the site has only one feed url split into categories. This presents me with a problem as I only really want to visit the fe... Read more
Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:10:34 UTC by Dan Prest
The bods at Goodmail must have a big marketing drive at the moment. I’ve been questioned about their product, CertifiedEmail, a number of times recently. The answer, “yes, we can send CertifiedEmail,” is kind of by-the-by. I’m more interested in its relevance in the UK market and the potential negative aspects. CertifiedEmail, in a nutshell, is paid-for authentication of emails. An ... Read more
Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:28:59 UTC by Al Binns
I was catching up on a bit of reading this week when I stumbled across an article that for me gives a prime example of the importance of accessibility. This particular case was focussed on a feature which is referred to in the game as “progressive enhancement”. A recent trend in web development circles has been to implement what many people refer to as web 2.0 features to enha... Read more
Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:30:30 UTC by Dan Prest
“I’m worried my emails are being blocked. Apparently there’s too much graphical content in them.” In the last month I’ve responded to this deliverability query from a couple of clients. The argument is, of course, not without substance. Containing text within a graphic so it can’t be read by an ESP is an established spammer’s trick. Conventional wisdom holds that our ESPs are therefore me... Read more
Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:57:28 UTC by Patrick Mulford
Up to this point Southampton has been famous for five things… 1. Boats that almost make it to New York. 2. WWII fighters with cool names. 3. All the nice green and watery stuff that surrounds it. 4. A shorter commute into London than the commute for Londoners. 5. And us, naturally! But now a specially commissioned survey of the 15 largest cities in the UK reconfirms wh... Read more
Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:41:37 UTC by Neil Crookes
We often encounter the situation where after a large, content-managed website has gone live, the client wishes to add sizeable new features and sections. Sometimes the site is planned to launch in phases from the outset. The new features and sections will often require new code that needs testing and approval by the client before it gets put live, and new data a... Read more
