SPARKIN' INTEREST

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVOURITE ON RIGHT SIDE BAR>>> Get Your Friends Involved! (CLICK HERE TO TWEET) 1.  John Lewis 'The Bear & The Hare'   LINK

Photo courtesy of Slava Murava Kiss On Twitter it is vital to have strong control of your various posts. This requires being able to strategise and monitor your content in order to be operating efficiently and effectively on the platform and engage with your followers and subsequently grow your network. There are massive amounts of tools providing these services. Here I present my favourite tools and apps for helping personal users and businesses alike take control of their account from the ability to schedule posts to seeing who recently unfollowed you...

My Favourite Viral Ads For This Week   1.  John St. 'ExFEARiential' LINK 2. Volvo Trucks 'The Epic Split' LINK

My Favourite Viral Ads For This Week   1.  John Lewis 'The Bear & The Hare'   LINK

My Favourite Viral Ads For This Week   1.  Crest "Halloween Treats Gone Wrong" LINK

My Favourite Viral Ads For This Week   1. PlayStation 4 'For the players since 1995'   LINK

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So here it is the first guest contribution to Sparkin' Interest, hopefully the first of many!  Katherine Sparshatt provides an interesting and very relevant account on the future of sustainable brand communications, trends in Millennial consumer behaviour and what it takes for brands to truly be authentic and transparent in our contemporary environment. It also touches upon Smart Content , something which I wrote about earlier this week, and how it can be used for socially responsible causes, so some nice overlap there. Take a look and let us know your thoughts. Enjoy... Whilst businesses have been quick to use social media to promote their brands and use them for social engagement, many have been slow to realise the full implications of social media and why it is has pushed sustainability and transparency to the the top of business agendas. The fact is anything can go viral within a matter of minutes. Any cracks in a business’ social, ethical or environmental impact can be a...

My favourite viral hits for this week   1. PlayStation 4 'Perfect Day'   LINK

'Marketing Flash Mob' Spotted these satirical marketing cartoons today @ marketoonist.com Follow the artist on the website or on Twitter @tomfishburne

Shopping has firmly positioned itself within the digital realm in 2013, highlighted by the 26 million UK residents performing online shopping of some sort. With consumers seemingly turning their proverbial shopping baskets away from the high street in recent years, brands have had to adapt quickly to this dynamic. The buzz term ‘innovate’ has been the go-to-word for brand managers, marketers and consultants alike, so much so that in my eyes it is beginning to lose meaning, fading into obscurity like  our summer tans. But anyway, in which aspect of the current digital phenomenon can this ‘innovation’ take place? I urge managers to focus their innovation to U.N.C.O.V.E.R the potential of ‘Smart Content’. An example of Smart Content from Kiosked

Check out this short animated film to brighten your Monday: 'LOGORAMA': LA as an imagined city made completely of brands (click here to watch)

My favourite viral hits for this week: 1. Poo Pourri "girls don't poop"   2. Go Pro "Fireman saves kitten"

This month has seen the rise of the chicken for viral content for two brand giants. Both LG and Mercedes-Benz have called upon the farm-yard animal to star in their latest online communication hits.   A weird coincidence I know but both companies focus on the chicken's ability to keep it's head stable whilst the rest of its body moves. The 'head motion' control has been appropriated by the respective brands to promote the features of their new products and to humorous effect I might add.

Recent regulation of a TV advertisement in the UK for an electronic-cigarette brand has once again caused controversy regarding the communication and classification of the contentious 4" device. But what issues does the debate revolve around?

Brand managers need to view social media as a tool for the forging of long lasting, profitable customer relationships and for the development of building strong brands. The emphasis of using social media for these tasks must not be regarded as online advertising. The aim of mere advertising online through PPC, banner ads etc., is to create awareness, recall and knowledge of the brand and its offerings. Social media on the other hand, is about the retention of attention for relationships to occur via consistent and regular engagement and interaction with branded content. It is not a matter of the sheer volume of those who saw the content, moreover it is how the content has created a potential for future interaction with the brand through this medium. So in terms of social media marketing and its aim, it really can be said that there should be more of an inclination towards quality as opposed to quantity when it comes to the numbers of users seeing the content.

Urban Outfitters have launched a new campaign which attempts to monetise social advocacy. through sales generated from User Generated Content (UGC). In this case, users can post photos of themselves wearing various Urban Outfitters products, which are then moderated and linked to the product page on the retailer's site. Images like these will be displayed on the Instagram page and the product page after approval

The latest statement coming from P&G's global brand building officer Marc Pritchard, is that there is a need to bring an end to 'digital marketing'. Moreover 'digital marketing' should not be differentiated from 'marketing', due to its quintessential presence in modern brand building.  I myself, being from the generation 'growing up digital', wholeheartedly agree with the remarks made by Pritchard. I cannot believe that in such a forward-thinking industry, 'digital marketing' and 'marketing' are referred to as separate entities and are often disconnected. I fear this may stem from an inability or ignorance to fully accept the current state of affairs, and a refusal to let go of traditional methods. Surely, as the P&G officer asserts, the 'digital' aspect of any marketing campaign is a given in our current environment? Surely the time has come for 'digital marketing' to be referred as merely 'marketin...

Leaked Tizen OS on Samsung Device The two undisputed players in the mobile operating system (OS) industry have been iOS and Android in recent memory. Android in fact is beginning to quash the market share of iOS and is slowly building dominance, with projections for the next couple of years showing its mobile OS market share will continue to be over 70 percent. With this obvious fight for dominance at the top, there is another battle waging for the third spot in the market and a new contender emerging.  Currently there is a scrap between the likes of Blackberry OS (RIM), Windows , and Bada ( Samsung ). Windows particularly is in a strong position to claim this third spot within the next three years, especially with its acquisition of Nokia . Furthermore its great ambitions for capturing future market share, as the smartphone growth continues globally, is also shown through company plans to reach a 15% share of the market by 2018. In order to build their increasing shar...

'Check-ins' a form of consumer brand-related activities on Facebook In a world dominated by social media applications and a consumer group who are no longer inhibited or afraid to ‘share’ about their recent purchases and even their personal interests, i t is vital for brand managers to understand and recognise the importance of consumer User-Generated Content (UGC) and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Consumers are now “ active communicators and creators of content” , transcending the traditional role of passive recipients of marketing activity (Page & Pitt, 2011, i).  Users can share adverts to other users In this article we explore the recent phenomenon of consumer brand-related activities on Facebook, with reference to my recent academic findings (Sparkes, 2013).