eMarketing Trends|Verbal Acrobatics & Graphic Gymnastics

Last week, Mario Gamper paid Virtuosa a visit taking time as an ‘intern’ with the hope of learning more about specifically online  marketing and  search marketing  in the Agency  environment in South Africa. He met Ingrid Rubin, our GM, at Cannes two years ago at a Lowe Worldwide Digital Conference; and made Africa (specifically South Africa) one of his stops as he is interested in seeing how agencies are structured here, the maturity of the market and approach to strategy and emarketing.

For 5 days Mario had  an intense ‘internet marketing crash course’ to help him in writing his book before he continues with his worldwide tour to other countries and continents.

I had the opportunity to interview him while he was here and I must say that he is a very knowledgeable and interesting guy, with a fresh approach to looking at online advertising. I envy his vision and the end result of his worldwide summary of advertising and the future is certainly going to be interesting.

Mario’s Background

Mario Gamper has a TV and Print Ad agency background where he worked at Scholz & Friends for 10 years. After heading up the interactive department, he finally decided to travel and write a book on changes in the advertising sphere around the world and what to expect in the future.  He has teamed up with designer Raban Ruddigkeit, who is the editor of Freistil, a magazine on Illustration in Germany.

What the book will be about?

Mario’s project is called ‘Ideas Will Travel’, which is derived from the notion that people have to be moved by the ‘ideas’ in a campaign/ad. Mario views ads as ideas in motion and the book goes further to investigate:

• how we create ideas that are being talked about,
• why they are being talked about,
• how they are being passed on.

Basically, in Mario’s view the challenge for ad agencies (on and offline) all over the world is to generate a successful ad that can generate a discussion, in his own words “that is the value… that is the lesson“.

Why is the book different?

Mario believes that we are already living in the ‘future’ that we predicted 5 to 10 years ago with micro-blogging and augmented reality, and the question the book answers is: “What can we expect in the next 5 years of the advertising industry?”.

He believes that ads/campaigns (on and offline) will aim to constantly re-educate and their success will be measured by their ability to create new ideas and be shared through various mediums.

It was great hosting him and I for one can’t wait to get my hands on a copy of this insightful contribution to advertising. There are not too many authors and books in this market that have managed to provide a well researched and global insight into changes in marketing and advertising.

To keep track on Mario and his journey visit: Facebook and to ask him any questions, you can also visit his blog: www.ideaswilltravel.com .

Now you can check in quickly, from anywhere, and monitor what is happening in your Adwords account. Google just rolled out AdWords for Mobile with a new interface for Android, iPhone, and Palm Pre devices.

AdWords for Mobile provides mobile access to your account, key alerts and statistics as well as a facility to make quick changes to your AdWords settings even while on the move.

You have to customize your experience for your mobile device. To do this you should first log in from your desktop computer and choose the parts of your account that you want to monitor closely. You are able to set up custom alerts for key account events such as when your campaing reaches a certain threshold of your daily budget or to monitor when traffic drops significantly.  You can also set “saved filters” to flag your most important keywords and campaigns.

The interface was designed to access the essentials in your account by viewing and making basic edits to campaigns and keywords. If you need access any other areas of your account then you can switch to the desktop version of AdWords through a link at the bottom of the screen.

AdWords for Mobile is now the default mobile interface for a small percentage of English language advertisers, and Google will be enabling the feature for additional advertisers and languages in the coming weeks.

To try out AdWords for Mobile immediately, simply direct your Android, iPhone, or Palm Pre to http://adwords.google.com/dashboard/Dashboard

The growth in the Mobile Industry over the last decade has made it paramount for all businesses to have Mobile Sites in order to reach this growing new target market.

Current local (South Africa) trends show that:

• There are ten million mobile Internet users in SA (Five million PC Internet users in SA)
• One in six Google searches in SA originates off a mobile device.
• In South Africa about 40 percent of mobile phone users have WAP-enabled phones.
• The top Mobile Applications currently in South Africa are: Mxit – with 15 million+ users – and Facebook.
• Mobile search and eCommerce will be a large area of growth in 2010.

In short, this indicates an importance for businesses to target mobile searchers and users of mobile applications.

Some of the best Mobile Site examples I can give include BBC, the Goal mobi site, and College Humour (N/B: “these examples obviously look better on your mobile phone – feel free to suggest your favourite mobile sites below“).

However, when creating a Mobile Site it is also imperative to build and optimise the Mobile Sites so it is user-friendly and accessible on the Mobile Web.

Mobile Design and SEO Best Practices
When designing a Mobile Site one aspect to consider is that one must understand that mobile searchers/users are different from PC searchers/users. In order to cater for Mobile users designers must:

• Provide an elegant experience by considering whether individuals possess a smart phone (for example an iPhone with fully featured web browsing) or a standard mobile phone (with stripped site features).
• Consider that phones are not used like PC’s – users are usually on the go therefore the site should be more goal oriented – Relevancy and Simplicity is key.
• Mobile designs are to conform to the new W3C standards in order to create mobile-friendly style sheets (CSS).
• Mobile Sites must be small, lightweight and fast-loading site – (< 20kb / page).
• Consider User Agent Detection –  this is another form of transcoding which takes into consideration the type of mobile phone an individual uses to search and provides more uniform browsing experience for various device types.

Once the Mobile Site has been built, Mobile SEO steps can now come into play. These include:

1.    Validating the page with the .Mobi Validator or the W3C Validator
2.    Following ‘traditional’ on-site  SEO Best Practices such as:

• Major keywords in the title tagging
• H1’s and body text
• Rich keyword Meta Titles and Descriptions
• Keyword-rich anchor text for internal links

3.    Mobile Search results tend to reflect ‘Local Search results’ – your site must be optimized for local type searches. Also submit your business info to local directories making sure your site is verified and included in sites like Google’s Local Business Center.
4.    Get the Mobile Site spidered and indexed – submit to major search engines:

• Google Sitemaps
• Yahoo! Submit Your Mobile Site

In short, the above Mobile Design and SEO factors are to be strongly considered when building a Mobile Site. These aspects help provide a solid Mobile Site foundation for your Mobile Campaign or Strategy. For further Mobile Campaign or Strategy enquiries, visit our Virtuosa website.

Its official there is a new big dog in the social media space. Just a week after Google launched Buzz, the social media service is already rattling the cage of top dogs Facebook and Twitter. It seems as if Google has finally made a successful foray into the social media world. Despite initial privacy flaws Google Buzz has proven to be an absolute success.

Google Buzz has surprised many experts who thought Google would never make it in the social media world. In the past Google suffered embarrassing setbacks with their attempts at creating a rival to Facebook and Twitter. Google Friend Connect and Orkut never really left the ground but Google Buzz shot into outer space.

The growth of the newest challenger to the social media crown has been phenomenal. According to statistics released by Google, just after the launch on the 9th of February 2010, there have been over 9 million posts and comments in about 56 hours, amounting to around 160,000 posts and comments per hour.

Google Buzz also generated big shock waves in mobile phone market. Google revealed that over 200 mobile check-ins per minute, nearly 300,000 mobile check-ins per day. The key to this success is the fact that Google Buzz is embedded into Gmail.

Gmail has millions of users around the world and by putting the Google buzz tab just under the inbox tab; Google applied a very innovative idea. When a user logs into their Gmail account they are greeted by a Google Buzz tab. The system is almost similar to Twitter the greatest difference is its integration to Gmail.

Many Gmail users find the system very convenient, when they open their e-mail account, they can quickly read the newest mail and won’t have to leave the account to create a social media post. Twitter, Flicker, Picasa and Google Reader can also be connected to the system. You can share pictures but this will be saved at Picasa. The most convenient aspect of Google buzz is that you don’t have to set it up if you have a Gmail account.

Key Features

• Simple interface
• No set up required
• Social media integration
• E-mail integration

Initially there were major privacy concerns. The system had an auto follow function where a user automatically followed people he regularly sent e-mails to. According to Ben Parr Co-Editor of Mashable “the auto follow function can let people figure out your email habits.” Google has changed this to an auto suggested model. This allows you to control who you follow. Another concern is that your inbox can be flooded by Buzz spam.

There are clear indications that Google Buzz is already taking some market share from Twitter and Facebook. People are spending more time on their Gmail accounts than before and this is surely taking some time from Twitter and Facebook. The Buzz threatens Twitter and Facebook’s ad revenue. Advertisers are certain to be impressed with the reach that Google Buzz has.

The future of Google Buzz will depend on how it is going to react to upgrades by the two social media giants. Some predict there is going to be a major dog fight between the three networks. If this fight gets very intense Google buzz will be the last network standing. Google has immense resources and will be able to match any upgrade. Google has been salivating for some time now at the prospect of properly sinking its teeth into the social media world. It has shown great determination at penetrating the social media realm overcoming numerous setbacks. Like a hungry dog biting into a bone it won’t let go of its new grip on social media.

Little has been said about the Nexus One since Google gave the device to its employees last month for final testing, but now it is official, Nexus One is the first phone designed by Google’s own engineers and many speculate that while this is a much anticipated new arrival, it may not be a BlackBerry or iPhone killer, just yet.

Google is calling the Nexus One a super phone, obviously trying to set the device apart from the other players, saying that the Nexus One represented the next frontier in the company’s $20bn (£12.4bn) core business – selling advertising through search.

The dictionary definition of Nexus is ‘point of convergence’, simply explained as ‘a means of connection’. Nexus One is where web meets phone.

This is perhaps not earth-shattering news, but Google, like many in the industry, recognises that more and more people are accessing the web via their mobile phones rather than through their desktop or personal computers.

2010 will become more about the mobile web, and therefore companies like Google, who make their money by advertising online, is shifting paradigms. According to David B Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School, “This has the potential to change the economics of the internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”

It may still be early days but Apple may have their work cut out for them to stay ahead of the game.

At the moment, the Nexus One is only available in the US but will be sold in Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore in the spring through Vodafone. Google said it hoped to add other devices and carriers for sale in the future. It won’t be available in South Africa for some time to come.

For more in-depth news and technical specifications, read Google’s new phone to protect mobile advertising base and Liveblogging The Google Nexus One Phone Launch.

In recent years email newsletters have become one of the most important traditional online marketing strategies used to drive leads and traffic to a company’s website. Ben’s Beautiful Email Newsletters is a website dedicated to publishing creative and innovate company newsletters.

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As a follow on to Leanne’s blog post below, I think that Ingrid & Jaco’s presentation really gave the parents and students at HeronBridge College some food for thought.

This video was shown at the beginning of the presentation and in 5 minutes certainly shared some mind-blowing statistics …where would we be without the ever changing face of technology? I don’t want to imagine! If you haven’t seen this before enjoy, if you have watch it again

1989 the year that changed the world – the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tiananmen Square disaster, Mandela and De Klerk meet and, I suppose, most importantly for us in the digital arena the emergence of the internet – who would have thought that 20 years on we would be accessing internet sites on our mobile phones! Thought this article was very interesting.

It is not news that print media such as newspapers have experienced losses due to the growing power of digital publications. With news that the Irish company Independent News & Media (who owns a number of South African news titles such as The Star and Cape Times) might be declaring bankruptcy by Friday, 24 July ‘09, it really takes this concept home.

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Although many of you will be fairly familiar with the members of the panel discussion at the upcoming Journal of Marketing Breakfast Debate, I still thought it a good idea to take a look at each individual and their specific background. Read the rest of this entry »