If It Itches Don't Scratch It - Your TV's Watching

Best to resist the temptation to scratch that itchy place as you watch your favourite show on the box. What you get up to in front of your Smart TV may not be as private as you think.

According to a UK blogger, his LG Smart TV has a nasty habit of sending back unencrypted data and in the clear, to LG every time he changes channel.

Not that switching off "Collection of watching info" (it's set ON by default) in his settings did much good as his viewing data was still being sent back to LG's servers in a highly insecure fashion.

Source: DoctorBeet's Blog 

Go to the company web site and they boast "LG Smart AD provides the express way for advertisers to engage with targeted audiences through multi device screens in global scale and in the most effective and innovative fashion." i.e. targeted advertising.

On the face of it it would seem that LG are in breach of the UK's strict UK Data Protection Act?  One wonders how other countries are faring and if they are even aware of the nature of this risky data flow from their personal appliances.

According to a BBC report the blogger, Mr Huntley, "suggested that even if LG had never inspected the data, it could still pose a security risk as hackers could take advantage of the practice".

Buying a new television doesn't mean by default that you have agreed to be spied upon and neither it should.

With the Internet of Things upon us perhaps the best advice to give is 'better watch what you say to your toaster'!

Related articles

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• LG Smart TVs reportedly log user viewing habits regardless of privacy settings
• LG Smart TV Users Claim Systems Are Sending Viewing Habits to LG Servers

Percussion Obsessions - The Sound Of Distant Drums

Advertising should be a multi-sensory experience rather than a one dimensional prod.  Those of us who have watched the costume drama based on the life of Harry Selfridge in London will have acknowledged the reality that the greatest advertisers are those who are prepared to innovate.

It was Harry who opened London's first department store in the then unfashionable western end of Oxford Street and invented (although not many people know it) the oft-used catch cry ""Only ___ Shopping Days Until Christmas"..

Had he still been alive, Selfridge would have been proud to have been associated with another more recent British revolution in advertising. An English company, Novalia, have come up with a drum-kit poster that you play with the tips of your fingers.


The poster is produced on interactive paper with conductive inks, rendering a variety of drum sounds - from cymbals to snare, with the odd tom tom beat thrown in for good measure. As an ex-rock drummer myself I am delighted with this development although others who value their peace and quiet might be less than ecstatic.

The inventor of the process, former sheep herder and physicist Kate Stone, has a PhD in electronics from Cambridge University and is described by TED as a "Shepherd of electrons".

"I love paper, and I love technology," says Kate, who's spent the past decade working to unite the two. Her experiments combine regular paper with conductive inks and tiny circuit boards to offer a unique, magical experience. To date, applications include a newspaper embedded with audio and video, posters that display energy usage in real time, and the extremely nifty paper drumkit and set of DJ decks she demonstrates onstage." TED Talk video below.


So the 'sound of distant drums' emanating from a subway, bus shelter or shopping mall near you is about to become a reality.  It could well be the 'next big thing' in advertising, with perhaps a set of suitably branded earplugs thrown in for good measure.

Related articles

• Musical Poster Plays Drum Beats When Touched

A Much Admired Feat Of Engineering!

The creative potential of mankind is sometimes wondrous to behold.

This advertising development in Puerto Rica by fast food chain Burger King adds a new dimension to the concept of "wearable tech".

By this I mean that there is a distinct possibility that every 'Tech' on the planet will want one of these hands-free burger munchers.

Or, if you are more of an outdoors person, you can always trim the hedge or walk the dog wearing one.  No chance of the sauce oozing on to the side-walk with this little beauty.

Creativity-Online reports that it was DLC/Ogilvy & Mather who dreamed up the "Hands Free Whopper." "50 of these were handed out to members of the fast feeder's loyalty program".

Related articles

• Who has time to hold the burger while eating it?
• The technical joy of Burger King's hands-free Whopper holder

Stop The Spread Of Vacationitis

The Hilton and The Onion; hardly a marriage made in heaven one would think, but based on this innovative campaign one would be wrong.

Onion's creative arm, Onion Labs have partnered with the hotel company to produce a web site that encourages a worker to diagnose their ills and recommends vacations as a 'prescription'.

The Urgent Vacation Centre also features the 14 symptoms of Vacationitis and a plea to stop the spread of this malignant disease.

I can particularly emphasise with the malady 'Acute Retinal Monitoritis' !  The viewer has the ability to download a large or small version of each symptom for their office cubicle or share same through social media.

Yellow Post-It Fever doesn't look too pleasant either.

According to the New York Times, more than a third of the business of Hilton Hotels and Resorts is generated by leisure travelers.  The new campaign is directed at them, said Andrew Flack, vice president for global brand marketing.

“We are particularly targeting working professionals. It’s becoming harder and harder to switch off work, harder for people to think about and plan vacations. This time of year is popular for people to plan vacation travel. When they come through Christmas, they think ahead for the year, think about where they might go.”

It all goes to prove that when it comes to advertising a little humour goes a long way; in this case hopefully a long way away from a cluttered desk and a frenetic office.

Text, Buttons Or Banners - What Works Best?

According to a post by Simon Penson of eConsultancy conversions from a corporate web site are best served by buttons, with the the traditional banners trailing a distant third.
The research was conducted on a casino web site over a period of 12 months and with a sample of approximately 10,000 visitors.

On the basis of these finding it would seem best to avoid placing too much of your advertising budget on web banner advertising.

Boom, Boomers

In the words of the immortal Basil Brush - Boom, Boom!

If you can remember the fox puppet then you might just be in the Baby Boomer generation.  If you can't then you are either too young to have see the show or possible too old to remember what you have seen. There are 80 million of them,  born between 1946 and 1964 and they have great spending power

Source: Nielsen

 Recent research  by a team of Nielsen Neurofocus neuroscientists have come up with the conclusion that the older we become, the greater the neural decline. This means that to market to Baby Boomers you need to keep it simple as they will begin to find it more difficult to handle visual or verbal complexity

But there is a flip side.  Baby Boomers have the ability to filter out negative messages and experience negative mentions less; at least that's the theory.

According to the Nielsen unit "the amygdala, an emotional center in the brain, tends to be active in older people only when viewing positive images. Negative images are overlooked unless they’re “immediately relevant.”

Marketers have tended to ignore the group once they migrated from the 18-49 demographic.

Source Nielsen

Nielsen make the point that in five years, 50 percent of the U.S. population will be 50+ and they spend close to 50 percent of all Consumer Packaged Goods dollars. Why is it then that less than 5% of advertising is targeted at this group?

Nielsen in collaboration with BoomAgers gives additional insights into this marketing opportunity.

Consider these points from the report:

• Between now and 2030, the 18-49 segment is expected to grow +12%, while the 50+ segment will expand +34%.
• Boomers are more tech savvy and more marketing-friendly than believed
• Their business is winnable and losable
• They are a much more sensitive and dynamic cohort than most realize
• By 2050, there will be 161 million 50+ consumers, +63% compared to 2010
• Internet users over the age of 50 are driving the growth of social networking as their usage of the social net has nearly doubled to 42% in the past year
• 53% of Boomers are on Facebook

Boomers drive car sales and according to the Huffington Post. they also buy 73 percent of all hybrid cars. A monthly poll by  AARP media sales  showed that 70 % of women 50 and older felt invisible to fashion and beauty companies.

Clearly there are some 'golden opportunities' being overlooked!

Related articles

• Only one in six 'baby boomers' in good health
• Baby boomers 'driving cosmetic surgery increase'
• The New York Times Gets in on the Baby Boom

Seeing The 'TV Light'

A large segment of the population don't bother too much about TV watching. They are often referred to as 'Light TV Viewers'.

31% of the18 to 49 age demographic spend an average of 39 minutes per day watching TV, so where can advertisers get better bang for their buck?

Google would have you believe that they and YouTube are better options for advert retention. TV by itself misses a whopping 63% of this target market, but with the addition of online there is a 27% increase in brand impression rate.

LG Optimus Hyper Facade in Berlin

Influencing South East Asian Consumers and Small Business Survival

According to a recent Nielsen report, South East Asian's respond well to advertising delivered on social media and mobile phones.

73% of these South East Asian consumers said they were “highly” or “somewhat” influenced by web site advertisements on social media.  This is 13% higher than  the global average (60%).

They also respond well to advertisements that acknowledge their previous purchase habits or third party site visits.  Living as they do, a full and active digital life, means that they think such personalised advertising techniques makes their lives easier.  74% found this to be so with the global average of similar sentiment being 58%.

Vietnam consumers were by far the most receptive to such personalised inducements.

Nearly 70% of SE Asian consumers have “liked” or followed a brand or company on social media which proves how vital it is for companies to develop a robust social media presence if they hope to succeed in this part of the world.

Consumer comment and sentiment posted online proved to be one of the most trusted forms of engagement and communication amongst those surveyed by Nielsen. 54% of respondents claim to completely or somewhat trust consumer opinions posted online.

All of which goes to prove that if you don't build your own online reputation others will do it for you.  The need to monitor the 'Buzz' and respond to it is vital for any business and this in turn requires understanding from management and resourcing to manage the process. This includes having the right person in charge of social media strategy and development.

And it is not just large scale enterprises that waking up to this realisation. Small Businesses are also growing through the use of social media although a significant percentage still do not see it as important, with just 12% of US respondents in a July survey seeing it as 'a must'.

It also need to be said that in the same eMarketer report, 50% of small business respondents saw word of mouth as essential to business. Either they have not realised that 'word of mouth' in the 21st century is largely a social media exercise or they do not have the time and resources to use social media to its fullest extent.

Patrick J. Chambers, organizer of the Small Business Survival Summit however sees social media as critical to business survival.

"For most small businesses, word of mouth is the predominant way of getting leads and finding new business.Social media is an extension of the word of mouth platform. Social media education with practical application is the missing piece today - small businesses need to be comfortable with social media in the same way that they may have evolved from being a wallflower at a Chamber event to someone who is actively seeking to introduce themselves and engage with prospects."

Advertising Gets The Wobbles

The Pudding Face web site

Pudding power never looked so good.

The somewhat-famous Jello Pudding Face web site which monitors the mood of global tweets, has been up-scaled to a large interactive sign board on the corner of West Broadway and Grand in New York City.

When the mood of the world's tweets starts to plummet the site uses Twitter to give away pudding to reverse the trend.

Masterminded by the CP+B agency (Crispin Porter + Bogusky) in Boulder, the Jello promotion aims to keep America smiling, which is no small task in these tough economic times.

When frowns :-(  start to outnumber the smiles  :-)   the red light at the bottom of the screen flashes and Jell-o begins giving away free pudding through its @Jell-OMoodMeter Twitter account. 1,051 tweets have been sent form this Twitter account which probably translates into a similar number of free puddings?

The face in the animatronic billboard is that of  Ian Hart, a former copywriter at Crispin who has recently shifted to BBH. His surprised reaction to the billboard (which just happens to be around the corner from his office) can be seen here.

The campaign demonstrates just how innovative and seamless digital technology has become; social media, sentiment analysis and now projection on to a city street through digital sign boards.

Cooking Bacon And Eggs With Your iPad

Non stick cooking just like Jamie Olliver does it. Brazil­ian adver­tis­ing agency DCS's inter­ac­tive iPad ad simulates real cooking.

What's A Coupon Worth?

We all love a good bargain and in these recessionary days even the most staid and traditional department stores seem to be offering a never ending round of 'sales' to improve their cash-flow.

Customers respond to these incentives and the tills ring a happy tune. It is this same motivation that drive the success of coupons and online daily deals continue to influence retailing practice.

Source:Gordon Borrell

Note the rapid rise for online coupons which highlights how incentive sites such as Groupon will continue to not only survive, but thrive.

52% growth and the second highest face value indicates the importance of online coupons for advertisers.  Remember also that one of the key motivations for visiting a business Facebook sites is to receive offers.

Even Microsoft is reacting to the online coupon frenzy with a new product, Bing Deals.  They are now adding results about special deals to their Bing search engine, accessible both on its desktop and as a mobile version.

The company is promising access to more than 200,000 unique offers in over 14,000 cities and towns across the U.S.

Bing deals assembles leading offers from Groupon, Living Social and Restaurant.com (and others), "making it easier to discover, share and search for the best deals in your area – all from one place".


<br /> <a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&amp;vid=2d427226-041b-40e8-ba91-5c1ae7a8130a&amp;src=SLPl:embed:&amp;fg=sharenoembed" target="_new" title="Bing Launches Deals">Video: Bing Launches Deals</a>

The online coupon craze is also dramatically changing the face of retailing.  A recent New York Times article from Jay Goltz identified these potential threats to small businesses:

• While coupons can drive an awful lot of people into your store, not every store is prepared for the onslaught. 
• The daily-deal sites are also training people to expect that they can get a coupon for almost anything
• For many SME's few of the sales have turned into repeat customers so is there potential damage a daily deal can do to a company’s brand?
• What of price integrity? Charging some customers full price and others half price makes some happy and others unhappy. 
• The regulars are unhappy because they feel they overpaid and the discount customers are happy but will probably not return because they have got into the half-price habit.
• Daily deals train your existing customers to wait for the next coupon

Despite these reservations, the reality is that Groupon and other daily deal coupons are not going to go away so the business model needs to adapt to meet this customer expectation.  Retailers will probably end up with higher percentages for coupon redemption in the future due to competition between the online daily deal sites.

Wedbush analyst Lou Kerner believes there will be about $5 billion spent on LivingSocial and Groupon daily deal-style coupons this year

However a Yipit study shows that people who buy those coupons only redeem them about 80% to 90% of the time. So maybe the worry for small businesses is not as great as first supposed.

Related articles

• Groupon Could Break Google's Record With $25 Billion IPO (pcworld.com)
• Bing jumps onto daily deal bandwagon (theglobeandmail.com)

Network Based Papers

paper.li

The use of social media aggregation to publication has been around for some time.  One such example is the Swiss company Small River, whose Paper.Li  which takes your daily tweets and creates an online publication from them.

I have used this platform to segment thedigitalconsultant tweets into three distinct publications.  Paper.li also has edition control - daily, weekly or morning & evening.. With the rapid growth in tablets such as the iPAD, this format has many attractions for spreading your content still further.

There are four types of Twitter account based papers a user can create, and one Facebook account based:

1. Account Based Paper - a paper created on your Twitter account
2. Hashtag based Paper - a paper based on a #tag you want to follow
3. User List Paper - a paper based from a twitter user list
4. Create a Custom Newspaper - advanced options for customized Twitter newspapers
5. Facebook based papers - giving you the ability to create a paper based on simple search terms. These papers are created on public posts.

All of the above offer ample opportunities for event marketing and target segmentation.

LinkedIn Today

News today that another social network, LinkedIn, is taking this 'entry to journal' principal a step further. As it prepares to list publically, the company has upgraded its web site with a new feature, LinkedIn Today.

With more than 90 million professionals using its network it is certainly time to try and broaden the companies public appeal and try and boost user activity.

LinkedIn Today allows the user to tap into articles that are being shared by their connections or by people in their industries.

According to the company's media release LinkedIn Today informs you of the following:
1. What your connections and coworkers – people you know – are sharing.
2. What your industry peers are sharing
3. What stories are interesting to a wider audience, outside of your industry

Offering users a personalised news stream is seen as a way of encouraging users to spend more time on the site. Only time will tell if this is so.

Being able to see who followed a topic headline provides insight into LinkedIn users who share a link publicly.

This content distribution also points to the advantage of having your content propagated and shared, as opposed to spending money on online advertising.  Your messaging is not diluted and the reach potential is as great, or greater, for less cost.




So will LinkedIn Today prompt me to use the social network more often?  To be honest, I doubt it. I find Paper.li's functionality far more engaging with greater editorial control over what I wish to publish or view.

LinkedIn's niche is professional networking and while job seekers make full use of it, most of them will still get their news from other media sources, Facebook and the more immediate source Twitter.

Related articles

• LinkedIn launches social news product (reuters.com)
• LinkedIn launches personal news service (news.cnet.com)

Make Me An Offer

A Groupon by any other name still smells as sweet.  Now one of the Web's biggest players is taking on the market leader and with its huge resources it should be an interesting battle.

With new CEO Larry Page at the helm we should see more passion and slightly less arrogance from Google and even more inspired innovation.

When Google's recent $6 billion bid for Groupon spluttered to a halt folks wondered what would be next.  Well now we know.

According to a report in Mashable Google Offers is the new kid on the discount coupon block.  Google's own fact sheet send to businesses claims that " Google Offers is a new product to help potential customers and clientele find great deals in their area through a daily email”
Google Offers Fact Sheet



The daily deal competitve lanscape is becoming increasingly crowded and it will be interesting to see what impact Google's announcement has on Groupon's recently announced $15billion IPO?

Google has also responded to Mashable when asked for confirmation about their Offers trial:

“Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing effort at Google to make new products, such as the recent Offer Ads beta, that connect businesses with customers in new ways. We do not have more details to share at this time, but will keep you posted.”

And so shall we.

Related articles

• Google readies Groupon competitor (news.cnet.com)
• Google Set to Deal Groupon Some Competition with 'Offers' (marketingpilgrim.com)

A Partnership With Fizz - Facebook and Coke

If you are on the look out for other creative winners in digital media also take a look at the Bees Award finalists and winners.
Categories included:

Best 140 Characters Message (SMS, Tweet)

• Best 140 Characters Message (SMS, Tweet) 
• Best Use of Micro-Blogging Platform
• Best Use of Social Media Platform
• Best Use of Mobile
• Best Relationship with Blogs
• Best Conversation with Customers / Engagement
• Best Use of Alternative Tools
• Best Use of Media Press Room
• Best Social CRM / Analytics
• Best Copywriting
• Best Art Direction
• Best Innovation
• Best Student Work
• Best Campaign
• Agency of the Year
• Client of the Year

Related articles

• Coke Abandons Plans for Campaign Websites to Invest in Social Media (hubspot.com)
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'Nuff Churp In Your Tweets?

Putting bloggers and advertising in contact with each other and making money in the process of so doing is not a new occurrence.

EBuzzing does this quite successfully and now there is a Asia-Pacific equivalent, Nuffnang; the brainchild of a London School of Economics graduate, Cheo Ming Shen.

Mr Cheo has expanded his operation still further to promote similar advertising relationships using Twitter and Facebook.

Enter Churp Churp  which at this stage is only open to Singaporean and Malaysian residents.

In both cases the power of social media Influencers is being harnessed to deliver product information.

Not content with these two online platforms the entrepreneur and his company has also built Jipaban which claims to be South East Asia's largest online mall with 86 stalls and more than 3,000 products.

In a BBC Interview he says "he is fortunate to be able to do this and is wary of Singapore's attempts to create more self-starting entrepreneurs through government grants. He believes they could deter genuine business models with scope for development.

Instead, he fears that the schemes have the potential to "cultivate a group of people who just come up with ideas…for funding and they think: with this funding I can run off my crazy 're-invent the wheel' kind of ideas."

Related articles

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• 10 Twitterific Twitter Tools (sixrevisions.com)

Join the Q

If you are nor familiar with this image then you are perhaps not alone.

It is a QR Code ® and this one is for thedigitalconsultant blog's URL.

Such coding will becoming increasingly obvious on magazines and as prevalent as the barcode which appears on most products.

A 1994 Japanese invention, the QR Code is a two dimensional code (matrix code) which you can read on mobile phones that have a camera, smart phones and dedicated QR scanners.

The beauty of it is that you can encode text, site URLs, and other data that you wish to share.

The QR code (its name is short for quick response) was developed to promote quick identification and processing.

They have moved quickly from being a geeky novelty to an item that should be included in all digital channel communciations and deployment.

Source: Global Graphica

With the rapid deployment of smart phones expect Q Codes to be increasingly used in all forms of advertising - on buildings, buses, print material and even on business cards.

Even shopping will be quicker.  Imagine you are reading an article in a magazine and you spot a QR Code.

All you need to do is get your phone with its free QR scanning software and scan in the QR code.  One quick scan and you are instantly transported to the relevant website to get additional information. Simple - no keyboarding required.

So how do you go about creating Q Code for you company or personal use?  The answer is very simple using this free tool from Kaywa.

 Source: Kaywa.com

Those industries who rely on handscanners can use Q Codes to revolutionise their businesses and the scanner process will be considerably cheaper than the hardware currently in use. A cellphone with a camera is all that is needed.

Here is an example of QR Codes being used in the manufacture of electronics and if you would like to learn more about the technical side of this data encoding system I would recommend a visit to QR Code.com.

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• What is a QR Code? - QR Codes - Library Research Guides at Boise State University (guides.boisestate.edu)

On Target With Blog-vertising

Image by Mexicanwave via Flickr

Blogs are meant to be pure streams of consciousness, unsullied by the taint of commercialism - right?

When you are reading a blog you are getting personal opinion free from the undue influence of third parties is a commonly held belief.

Unfortunately this is increasingly not the case. The reality is somewhat different, with a growing legion of "professional bloggers"

Blog-vertising (a terrible term) is increasingly becoming part of the mainstream as companies scrabble for market share inthe brave new world of social media.

As Steve Green reports "As an advertising channel,  the blogosphere makes total sense. Certain blogs not only boast a valuable and rich list of subscribers, but have also developed a highly evolved authority, making bloggers a sought after commodity for advertisers "

The recently launched ebuzzing matches bloggers with advertisers and bloggers only survive if their content remains relevant to the audience that they serve.

The company's stated ain is to "be a platform for bringing bloggers and advertisers together. It is based on a simple principle: Like. Recommend. Earn. 

It allows bloggers to monetise their blog, earning money by creating posts about things they genuinely like and want to recommend, whilst advertisers can create buzz for themselves in the communities that are most likely to be interested in them."

The strength of blog-vertising is that it is a highly targeted channel providing a greater return on investment.  Advertisers need to be where their market is and companies such as the Euro-centric ebuzzing are building "the buzz", which is so essential to build online reputation and drive sales.

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Smart Billboards Target Consumers

With the aid of a small camera that scans the faces of passersby, a new type of  billboard will quickly tailor its marketing message to suit.  Sex and age triggers the relevant marketing messages.

The Digital Signage Promotion Project is currently being tested for a year by a consortium of 11 Japanese railway companies.

Twenty seven high-tech advertising boards now grace the subway stations around Tokyo and while face recognition software is being used, the companies are quick to assure commuters that no recorded images will be stored.

Only data related to groups of people will be held.  This information relates to categories of people, which ads they look at and the times of day when they do so.

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