Since the beginning of December Google have been doing a huge promotional push surrounding their browser Google Chrome. The campaign leads with the message that Chrome is a faster browser and is utilising various channels such as press, digital and traditional outdoor as well as online across 12 European countries.
The push comes as the EU is to bring in new legislation which may mean that rather than having a default browser already on your PC you will have a choice over what browser you download and use, which means they will need to know more about what a browser has to offer. This is due to come into effect in the next couple of months and after it does Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Chrome will begin vying aggressively for market share.
Traditionally Google have opted for an aggressive DR approach for Google Chrome capitalising on its unique offers such as personalised themes in order to get users to download and use it. The new online campaign has taken a more branded approach utilising high impact placements across Europe’s biggest sites. This is only the beginning as Google is likely to invest more budget in pushing its offering during the first half of 2010. Expect to see much more of Chrome and what it can offer over the forthcoming months.
This is what all the fuss is about:
Simon McCarthy is a senior planner buyer at i-level
With this being my very last post of 2009. I thought i would post about a singer/songwriter who has used this year to develop a huge social media fan base and is likely to big in 2010. Last week a friend of mine sent me a link to London born Mia Rose singing in Youtube
I was surprised to discover that Mia has built up a huge following by posting videos of herself singing and playing the guitar since 2006. Her latest song ‘What would Christmas be like?’ uploaded just 3 weeks ago, has had 1,216,855 views, with 7,447 ratings and 5,697 comments. She had recently asked her online community of fans to design the CD cover to her latest single. This is a great example of an up and coming singer seeing the benefits of using social networks to build a fan base and then rewarding them. I look forward to seeing what social media delights 2010 will bring. Merry Christmas and a happy new year
QR codes have failed in most places but Japan. The reason being their simply isn’t enough awareness about how to read them to make them a viable platform for advertisers.
In Japan though, that educational piece is driven by the government and the operators, meaning more people know about it and crucially all handsets sold have QR code readers installed (Nokia currently pre-installs in the UK but even then not for all handsets)
A few brave advertisers in the UK have tried to crack it, most notably probably Pepsi by printing a code on 400,000,000 cans with fairly limited success. People simply didn’t know what to do and the explanations offered, whilst helpful weren’t enough to get over the education chasm.
Pepsi added QR codes to 400m cans in UK
There have been a host of other advertisers who have tried, but none to great success. Interestingly, a few companies are using them internally such as Outdoor poster companies to keep track of what ad should be where and when to change them. The reason it works in this case is that they are educating their workforce as to how to use them.
It is a great piece of technology and deserves to succeed, but it also shows the need to make it plug and play, it has to be easy enough that people don’t realise they are using it (think iPlayer).
So it is interesting to see that Google are incorporating it into their offering and encouraging shops and restaurants in the US to use and display them on their window fronts. Embedded in the codes are discounts and coupons, reviews and other information that Google can provide and a map presence under the headline “favourite places on Google”.
Google has currently sent out 100,000 of the branded bar codes across the whole of the US through some 9,000 towns and cities.
Google hasn’t said what its plans are for the uber promotion layout but could this be the shot in the arm to make it mainstream?
Oli Newton is the head of emerging platforms at i-level
As we saw last weekend, buzz isn’t enough to predict the winner – there’s something good going for each of the contestants, so which one is the best prediction?
Olly Murs has had the most buzz since 10 October and during the week leading up to this weekend’s final.
Source: Brandwatch
Stacey Solomon has the most fans on Facebook.
Source: Sum of Facebook pages with 100 or more fans
Joe is winning in the polls.
Forums on the Daily Mail, Digital Spy, Entertainment.stv.tv, PopSugar, StudentRoom and UnRealityTV forums all agree that Joe will win.
StudentRoom forums
Entertainment.stv.tv
DigitalSpy forums
So what’s the best predictor of who will win?
Buzz gave some indication of who would be voted off earlier on, but now that it’s down to the last three, buzz isn’t reliable enough. Stacey has a lot of Facebook fans, but it could just be her personality giving her fans. Polls are the closest to the actual vote, so I’m willing to bet that Joe will win this weekend.
Really like this Facebook campaign by Ikea, One of those ideas that you think…damn that is so simple I wished id thought of it.
To promote their new store opening in Malmo, Ikea set-up a Facebook profile for Gordon Gustavsson, the store’s manager. Pictures of the stores showrooms were uploaded to Gustavsson photo album. Any friends of the Ikea Facebook page had the opportunity to tag themselves in photos in order to win free furniture. The first user to tag a specific product in a photo would receive that item for free. This use of Facebook photo tags generated a great deal of online publicity as the photos spread around the social networking site. The photo tags appeared not only on the specific users profiles but also in news feed. This in turn basically used Facebook for one big word of mouth promotion…. So simple and effective
YouTube has recently asked their customers what they are missing from their favourite video host. The result was a large outcry for something that goes well in line with Twitter’s genius: Simplicity. Most YouTube users want to watch videos with minimum hustle. However, there is one smaller group of people, that is very important for YouTube’s revenue stream, that wants the complete opposite: the uploaders. The latter user group wishes to enhance communication with the audience and asks further ways to increase audience volume, and both would need further added features to the interface.
So, who did YouTube listen to? Today it was announced that the video site will be launching a new version of the site, quite similar to Facebook Lite. It is not officially made yet when YouTube Feather will go live but, we the Beta version is ready for testing now. It will provide viewers with the benefit of watching video with the minimum latency possible. The downside? It achieves minimum latency through limiting many of the features available to the user lowering the amount of bytes that needs downloading by the browser. This will definitely make it more difficult to feature sponsored content, but could however contribute to an enriched brand experience for the viewer.
What will it mean for Facebook? Well, there’ll probably be the compulsory whinge period whilst people get used to it, before everyone forgets how it used to be (check out my comment in MediaWeek in 2008 – it’s at the bottom of the page). Then there’ll be the changes that need to happen to apps and pages if they’ve been developed for a 760px wide tab.
Update: These updates will happen in February 2010.
In the mean time, here’s some pics (via PC INpact of course):
