Aden Hepburn: Online Marketing & Interactive

New Posts Coming Soon!

2008-06-23T23:11:00.003+10:00

Well, I'm back from Thailand, relaxed and ready to fight my way back into the working life! So stay tuned, I'll be starting to post with a might higher frequency from July onwards (which won't be hard based on my last 6 months online!).

Things like:

Best Practice E-Commerce Strategy
Best Practice Email Communication
Best Practice Online Advertising Campaigns
Any may many more articles...

Google Site Seach In Organic Results

2008-03-11T10:31:00.003+11:00

I'm wondering if I've been hiding under a rock or just completely missed the whole google "site search box" magically appearing under selected websites "site links" in Google's organic results. At first it feels a bit confusing that there are now 2 search boxes within pixels of each other - but then I start to see this is an ingenious idea - saving users considerable time and effort. But, is it only for affiliated Google sites like Wiki and Dmoz? Because I don't see this same functionality for websites that are used almost exclusively for search like Yellow Pages...?

Search Marketing Strategy Tip #1 (SEM)

2008-02-25T19:18:00.005+11:00

Search Marketing Strategy Tips are great, everyone gives them, even Google them selves give out SEM tips, tricks and best practice ideas! But not everyone gives you functional, industry Search Marketing Strategy Tips & Advice. So I thought I might start a bit of a trend and give SEM tips & advice based on current, live examples! So here we go;

Search Marketing Strategy Tip #1: Don't Sponsor Your Business/Company Name. But before you kick and scream for your brand, hear me out!

The basic benefits of search marketing are pretty clear, you get highly targeted traffic and you only pay per click! (not per impression) So the more popular the keywords you choose are, the more money (clicks) you'll spend on a Search Marketing Campaign.

Now, half the reason you probably started search marketing was to get a greater (targeted) exposure for minimal cost to your marketing budget. Now, your Search Marketing Strategy probably includes sponsoring your own business name to ensure anyone looking for you, gets straight to your website! Right?

Thought so, NOW STOP IT - turn that keyword off!
Search Marketing Campaigns and Search Engine Optimisation should work hand in hand and if they don't you're spending a lot of valuable money on a something very easy to do - for free.

Now, when I say "don't sponsor your business/company name" I mean, don't!! If you Google your business name/company name, you should come up in first place for your exact name. (if you don't then, you better email me!)

Now going off (2) key issues with Search Marketing;

Lazy Searchers (people who always click the first listing and don't really read it)
Credibility Searchers (people who only click paid ads as this think they are trusted)

So what you have here, is probably 70% of all users now clicking on your paid Ad, when just a few pixels below your free Ad is sitting there waiting to be clicked. And because your paid ad is nicely highlighted by Google / Yahoo / NineMSN above your natural listing - you're spending perhaps... $1 - $2 - $4 - $7 per click on your own business name?

Lets make a modest calculation - say $2 per click (probably much more) for a popular business name like - eTrade. A popular, world wide online share trading platform! Lets say in Australia alone, they are searched for, and clicked - 100? 200? lets say 300 times per day...

So 300 clicks per day x $2 a click is a $600 per day Search Marketing Campaign spend. Just on your own business name. Now seeing that eTrade is ranked No.1 for their business name they will start getting upset once we times the $600 per day x 7 days = $4,200. Times $4,200 x 4 is $16,800 per month which turns out to be whopping $201,600 per year spend on just your business name!

I guarantee you, if eTrade's marketing managers (or more importantly their MD/CEO) looked closely at this instead of listening to their Advertising Agency or Google / Yahoo them selves - they would be on shocked to find out the amount of money they would have saved for use in other mediums.

So below lets view a bunch of top companies with Australian websites that are throwing away hundres of thousands of dollars to Search Engines advertisng their own name, when they already rank in the number 1 position!

eTrade: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Roses Only: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Optus: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Virgin Mobile: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Nokia: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Holden: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Babies Galore: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

Samsung: (Search Marketing Strategy Tips - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name)

So, there you have it - Search Marketing Strategy Tip #1 - Don't Sponsor Your Business Name! Get your agency to be more strategic - sure, you're business name will get great click through rates, better conversions and more traffic - BUT - you're already ranked number 1 anyway, so don't throw your marketing budget away, keep that money and invest that saving back into some form of online advertising!

Search Marketing Strategy Tip #2 Coming soon!

Make My Logo Bigger Viral

2008-02-25T19:12:00.003+11:00

Virals are great, but when they are made about sections of your own industry they are even better. Check out Make My Logo Bigger Cream and see for your self how your clients can ensure their logos are bigger!

Rodney Clark Website

2008-02-25T15:44:00.003+11:00

Just a quick update here before we move on to more strategic matters, IdeaWorks Interactive has just launched (2) new sites for Rodney Clark. The first being a re-vamp of their previous flash site into a stylish CSS layout and the second being an interactive version of their catalogue.

Check them out below:
http://www.rodneyclark.com.au/
http://www.feelthedifference.com.au/

Frozen In Grand Central Station

2008-02-16T18:09:00.002+11:00

Great little piece here, 200+ people gather and get involved in a plan to spend 5 minutes standing completely still (I'm assuming they are all amature actors) and in sync, they stand frozen together creating a very cool display.

Enjoy.

Microsoft Bids To Buy Yahoo! Inc

2008-02-02T21:04:00.000+11:00

Google's D-Day is nearing, well - at least a day in which there may be an actual "competitor" in the market place for them to compete with. So Microsoft have finally done the inevitable - launching a takeover bid for Yahoo! Inc.

You'll see in my previous post some time back - "Microsoft to become a real Google competitor" that I was predicting the only company to possibly challenge Google, would be a Microsoft Super Company... Buying out the likes of Yahoo! & AOL.

So here is it, the official press release and $31 per share offer to buy out Yahoo! Inc. Official Microsoft Press Release - To Buy Yahoo!

What will the future now hold? Well if this goes through, then microsoft will be officially the largest "by far" super company in the world. The power that a company like that brings to the table is enormous, but will they have the smarts to out play Google?

Small Budget Visual Effects Look Big

2008-01-19T15:24:00.000+11:00

To kick off the year I just had a quick look through a stack of new work across various websites and came across this incredible video clip on Adverblog. The making of a low budget WWII documentary for the BBC. And the thing that's highlighted is the creativity of the producers and everyone involved. Check it out below and I promiss you will be impressed :)

So take this on board if your out shooting small commercials, or more likely new low budget viral ads. Enjoy.

Top Online Viral Campaigns

2007-11-08T20:47:00.000+11:00

Incase you didn't know where or how to rate you latest viral campaign - here is where and how! It's called Viral Video Chart and it tracks the top 20 viral videos across the internet, so if your on there you're doing pretty dam fine!

Ok sure, this won't track your standard campaign but it will certianly give you the latest and greatest virals floating around over the last week, month, year...

BIG W - New Live Big For Less Campaign

2007-10-24T23:46:00.000+10:00

In possibly the largest integrated campaign undertaken by a single ad agency in Australia to date, IdeaWorks today launches the new BIG W brand across all consumer touchpoints. In doing so, there have been some amazing feats undertaken, from a brilliant new Brand ID component - created by Glen Barry (Head of Brand Identity @ IdeaWorks) which has evolved through the entire campaign into touchpoints like;

New TV Brand Campaign
Press Campaign
Catalogue Design & Production
Environment & Store Design
Instore Communications & POS
Website Strategy, Design & Development
Online Communications (eDM's .etc)
Internal Big W Communications

On the interactive side of the campaign, we have taken BIG W into a whole new world online by creating a really fresh, totally CSS based design for the new BIG W website that will be enjoyed by all users. There was an amazing amount of work involved in this re-design from strategic planning right through to detailed usability design & testing. The project had a great level of difficulity to enhance the brand online, while staying true to the simplicity and freshness of the new branding, something that's great testimate the the designers in my team.

We've also created a Live Big For Less microsite showcasing the Brand TVC's to BIG W staff and suppliers. This microsite has not been created for the general public, but more for the suppliers and staff to give them access to the campaign before it was seen on TV. It's also a great reference point for anyone wanting to experience the new brand and its message.

So feel free visit http://www.livebigforless.com.au/ and enjoy the new TVC's.

In other areas we have created strategic eDM and online communication touchpoints that will be experienced in the coming weeks to months as the entire campaign rolls out, along with some fantastic instore communication work that will also roll out. Enjoy the campaign.

ING's I-Needtogo Viral Campaign

2007-10-24T22:51:00.000+10:00

This is one of the best interactive online advertising campaigns I've seen in a long time. Created by Emakina, this online advertising campaign breaks new ground for big banks, and goes a long way to creating some freedom in that corporate banking space.

This is the perfect application for a this type of creative with ING promoting a free online bank account. It's perfect for a younger target market that's easily engagable online. This campaign also gives off a fantastic viral vibe while providing you with code to insert into your Blog, Facebook or MySpace.
Check it out at I-NeedToGo.com
Or, you can simply play it below - however, it's a lot nicer and larger on the official web site. But again, this is a very obscure campaign (but it smartly engages the users) - please feel free to leave your thoughts on this in the comments section.

Diesel Disco Dance Viral Ad Campaign

2007-10-24T22:28:00.000+10:00

This is one of the most creative viral campaigns I've seen to date, yet it's incredible simply and even more cost effective than you could imagine from a big brand such as Diesel. Diesel isn't particularly famous for its shoes, but this hilarious viral ad might just put them back on the map. Enjoy.

BigW New Release DVD MicroSite

2007-10-21T22:03:00.000+10:00

IdeaWorks launched another BigW microsite this week with New Release DVD's launching with pre-order opportunities for each of the blockbuster titles coming to DVD this summer and into the future. You might wonder why we would offer a pre-order, but - after studying some major launches and being sold out in some stores and not others, this sets a trend that allows BigW to move stock around to ensure every customer who wants an item, gets an item!

With a simple microsite, we are able to track pre-orders for each item and allocate stock to individual stores based on demand, providing customers with a guarantee their item is on hold for them and ready and pick up in store come release day.

BigW are also giving customers great reason to pre-order by adding bonus items with each new release. This is a great way to help drive customer interaction online, build trust with individual consumers looking for online purchases in the future or via their other online shopping websites.

BigW 2007 Aria Awards Sponsorship

2007-10-17T00:24:00.000+10:00

Last week we launched a tiny (so tiny it's a single page) Microsite for BigW's 2007 Aria Awards sponsorship, this site is designed to highlight the BigW Sponsorship and provide the customer base with some great deals on the Aria Award nominies albums in an interactive way thats both visually pleasing but also very fast and functional.

We've created an almost "iPod" style interactive menu there to choose your CD's which link off to the BigW online store where customers can purchase instantly at the lowest price.

Sony Bravia Ad - Stop Motion with Play-Doh

2007-10-11T22:05:00.001+10:00

Stop motion is a fine art, and Sony has cracked it with this new campaign by creative agency Fallon. This is the third Sony Bravia Ad, based around it's tag line of "Colour Like.No.Other" and it really lives up the the hype. It might not be as action packed as previous Bravia Ads, but this ads a new level of complexity, colour and purity.

The use of stop motion is becoming a lot more mainstream now, and with Sony picking it up i'm sure you'll see it in a few new commercials from other major corporates over the next year.

The concept is brilliant, and production very well executed.
An amazing 40 animators worked with over 2 tonnes of play-doh to great each and every bunny in each position. Enjoy the ad. And the making below :)

Plus the Teaser trailer / Teaser making of...

Blogger Play From Google

2007-10-10T09:27:00.001+10:00

Google have just launched their Blogger Play site that streams images that have just been uploaded to personal blogs using blogger. It's a never ending slide show (or stream) of weird and wonderful images from around the world.

If you click an image, you'll jump straight to the blog where that image has been posted. It's quite an interesting way to find random blogs that interest you, not from the titles you read but via the imagry thats being uploaded. So check it out. (caution, it's addictive)

Diesel - Human After All Campaign

2007-10-09T21:36:00.000+10:00

In an intersting move from Diesel, who are not scared to use inventive interactive elements in their campaigns comes this weird but wonderful webisode campaign - HandyCam style. I'm not sure how effective this is, this viral element doesn't seem to be strong enough for me to forward onto friends but i'll let you be the judge of that.

I guess what it does show, is that with a relatively small budget you can create ads good enough to get a laugh and attract an audience online, with the ability to be a little more creative for the $$ spend.

I'm not a fan of the poor French acting, although I'm sure thats all part of the style this is shot in. These ads are perhaps a little drawn out, but do have a punchy ending...

It's interesting to note that you really can't tell what brand they are wearing.
Something I thought would have been a much more promiment feature in these ads.

Google Maps Hurting Webmasters

2007-08-17T11:54:00.000+10:00

With the latest Google update many will really start to question Google's promise to "do no evil", it's been increasingly one of the most asked questions at seminars, forums and cafes alike! Is there some evil creeping into Google? Or is this just lawful market domination?

Never the less, in the latest Google update we see something REALLY stick out, and that's the huge jump in Google Maps advertising & positioning. This is something that has webmasters and SEO experts asking for Google blood.

Lets take a really good example a good friend thrust upon me.
If you search for "Terrigal Accommodation" in Google, you'll get a result like the screen shot below & you'll notice how prominent the Google Maps positioning is:

So if your're not advertising with Google, chances are your clickthrus will suffer because you've just had the "oh so pretty" Google Maps sponsors thrust upon you! Users will more than likely be drawn to the nice Google Maps image and small sponsored listings.

Now what you probably don't know, is that Google gets it's local business listings through a partnership with TrueLocal.com.au. So if you have not paid for a listing on their website, you have much more work ahead of you to come up under the Google Maps listing here. Shouldn't everyone get the chance to optimise their site and come up under local business listings on an even playing field? Seems Google thinks not.

Sure, you can goto their Local Business Center, insert all your details, locations and even store photos, but you won't be magically featured in the Google Maps inserts at the top of Google search results, sure, you're store locations page probably gets crawled and ends up in Google Maps, but at what point does your business get promoted to the search results map, and how do they rank the importance of your location to feature on the results map?

Must you have paid for a listing on TrueLocal? I'm not sure.
So is this fair? What happened to the left hand side is for natural ranked pages only? Now i'm a pro-google kinda guy, but this really gets to me. It's guaranteed to reduce traffic to natural ranked sites who will now site below the huge Google Maps promotion. Would love your comments!

Oh, and I'm sure that Stayz.com owners - Fairfax Digital - wouldn't be happy at all. They would be experiencing a huge reduction in traffic to their previously number 1 ranked search term "Terrigal Accommodation".

Carlsberg Beer Viral Ad Campaign

2007-07-25T18:30:00.000+10:00

Well, it's about time I started cataloging the best online viral ads. And what better way than to start with this new Viral Ad from Carlsberg Beer. Where they take on the very famous Mentos & Coke style experiment. There have been plenty of people jump on this bandwagon, but perhaps this might just be the best yet?

New XGAMES Website

2007-07-16T22:21:00.000+10:00

Seems that the XGAMES have launched a new site for the upcoming August 2-5 competition. This site seems less about the compeitions and more about the stars that will attend. What i'm interested in, is the graphics & animation.

They are slick. Infact, this site is so well done i'd be supprised if it didnt win a few awards. Unfortunatly, the navigation is possibly the worst i've ever seen, but if you have some time to burn you probably won't even notice you wasted 20mins trying to find all the secret parts with in the website.

This concept reminds me of the Eminem website, it's got the same DNA and finger prints all over it. That site was created by We Fail and i'd presume these guys created the new XGAMES site too.

Google Faces Court In Australia

2007-07-12T19:22:00.000+10:00

In breaking news this afternoon, The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has filed action against Google in the Australian Federal Court. With allegations that the search engine has engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct.

We are told that Google has breached the Australian Trade Practices Act. This has come from Google failing to "adequately distinguish between sponsored links on its search results and "organic" search results."

The word is that Google has denied the claims, and will fight them in the courts and win, because the claims are with out merit. This is the first claims of its kind in the world, one that if won - might create a precedent world wide for future claims.

Google will appear in court in Sydney, some time in August.
View the Report here, on the ABC's website.

It's an interesting scenario, one which might open them up to some amazingly large lawsuits if this case is won. However, I'm sure Google will pull in every layer in town to secure a win here.

Update: ZDNET article.

Coke - 2 Great Hits, 1 Great Taste

2007-07-10T22:54:00.000+10:00

If you have not seen this new campaign, I'm not sure what rock you have been hiding under!

It's every where. All over TV and Online from NineMSN full page commercial breaks and MySpace block outs to Yahoo and every other website that is in some kind of online advertising network!

The new coke campaign - 2 Great Hits, 1 Great Taste - is a blast. Literally, the new creative has not just been created into the usual flash banners and rich media from site to site. This time, Coke have gone to great lengths to ensure the campaign pulls some might - they went almost exclusively flash video with page takeovers, commercial breaks, media buzzers and more...

You can view the clip for your self below thanks to YouTube! I think it was The White Agency who ran this campaign for Coca Cola. A simple campaign with huge impact - and for a campaign like this it's through $$ spent on Media Purchases.

Snoop To Become An Aussie.

2007-07-10T22:28:00.000+10:00

Well, you'd never suspect it, but...
MTV Australia (with agency Lowe Hunt) has launched a new interactive campaign to petition the government into letting Snoop become a citizen! The government banning of snoop has work wonders for the campaign, as this was actually shot prior to him being banned! What luck for the campaign, as this registered on all the news bulletins for the days surrounding the event and pushed the campaign live with some fantastic publicity.

The campaign has a series of 16 webisodes, with the next one released every Wednesday. Luckily for you, there are already 4 awaiting your viewing pleasure. (yep, there is nudity) It's actually a pretty funny campaign, and I applaud Lowe Hunt for the scripts.

On top of everything you get to see there, there are of course some downloads and the ability to interact with the site by posting well wish comments for snoop. Fantastic campaign, can't wait to find out the stats. Make sure you check it out here.

How YouTube Video Advertising Will Work

2007-07-06T10:04:00.000+10:00

Firstly, view the YouTube video advertising clip below. The buzz is here & it's flying through the blog-sphere. YouTube's new video advertising has been seen, live on YouTube for the first time. Was this their engineers caught out or a live Beta test for their new video advertising platform?

Ofcourse, the advertising has now been pulled - or at least I can't replicate it going back to this YouTube Link now. Is anyone else having any luck getting the video advertising on YouTube now?

So the verdict - the new YouTube video advertising platform seems to be right on the money. It's non-intrusive, it's clean, it's sleek, it's as user friendly as anyone could have predicted. A small transparent bar across the bottom of your videos fades in, and the advertisement slides across. You can minimise the video ad panel or bring it back up. (Great option.)

Clicking a video advertisement on YouTube then shows the thinking of a great company - it doesn't just launch a new window to the advertisers website, it pauses your current clip, and launches a panel with in the current video to play a full streaming ad.

When you think about it, we are already accustom to this format. Australian tv networks already do a very similar thing, they run small ads horizontally across the bottom of popular programs with out too much debate. I personally won't be upset by the launch of YouTube Video ads by Google.

It's looking very positive, a lot of skeptics that were worried about ads taking over YouTube will "hopefully" be satisfied with this. There will of course, be negative publicity from with in various circles - but in the end - something has to pay for the bandwidth and on top of that, everyone is out to make a buck.

So finally, after all the worry, it seems we need not about YouTube being over run with Google Video Advertising. Would love your comments on this topic!

Supercheap Auto Pit Stop Challenge Game

2007-07-02T21:52:00.000+10:00

Today the Interactive team at IdeaWorks launched a fantastic new game for Supercheap Auto, called "Pit Stop Challenge". It's a fast paced flash game (or branded entertainment) based around their racing sponsorship with the Supercheap Auto Racing team in which the player competes against the clock to pit the racing car in the fastest possible time.

The player gets a 3D rendered view of the racing teams garage, and has tools and spare parts on hand to pit the car. You've got to change the tyres, disc brakes and refuel the car to get it back out on the track...

The idea behind the game was to leverage the racing teams popularity and engage users online by providing them a platform in which they can interact with the new Supercheap Auto website. Users not only battle for a place on the Top 100 leaderboard, but can challenge their friends to the game, with options to challenge up to 4 friends at a time.

Playing the game is an intense experience if your trying to beat your friends, a large pit time counter lets you know exactly how your going along the way. Users drag and drop elements into position and bolt on the replacement parts before sending the car back onto the track.

This game is a great example of branded entertainment and how it's effectiveness helps users interact with your brand online. Not only are we producing a fantastic game for Supercheap Auto, we are also providing a full suite of reporting options to track who is playing, how they got here, where they live, how long they spend playing the game - and that's just the tip of the iceberg as far as reporting goes.

So if you have a spare few moments (like the increasing % of people playing online games) give it a shot and see if you can beat my 27.430 second pit stop!