Delivering Campaigns with Clout in 2019
As Communications professionals we are constantly being told how we are to be relied upon more than ever in 2019 to help shape a brand’s post-Brexit destiny. However, the fundamental challenges that we face are more paramount today than they ever were, with the main concern being Relevance.
Being relevant isn’t just jumping on the current vegan, neon-sign, unicorn, avocado toast band wagon, but delivering PR with a purpose, in line with business objectives, that resonates with a brand’s customers and is at the forefront of the news agenda.
Trends and Insights
Our creative team at 72Point utilises various tactics when brainstorming a client brief but often the most effective tactic is taking a step back and looking at the trends and insights that can help shape client strategy.
The ability to be agile in the ever changing news agenda is another trait that we must all continue to adopt to ensure survival – as so much about his year remains uncertain the ability to adapt and react quickly and effectively is paramount in delivering relevant thought-provoking work.
The 4 C’s
Some age old methods continue to remain relevant and an age old PR basic which we always rely upon, time after time when developing a campaign is the Four Cs:
- Coherence – messages should be logically and clearly communicated with the campaign call to action at its core.
- Consistency – All channels should reinforce the same message during that period.
- Continuity – The message should be connected through time. The content shared does not have to be identical throughout but it should relate back to the core values and ideas, building on previous content.
- Complementary – All activity should fit together to create an even stronger message. One piece of content should be strong in itself but should be made even stronger when read together with others.
This multi-faceted approach helps us build meaningful campaigns for our clients that deliver stand-out coverage. If Communications professionals are to play as a large a role in a brand’s destiny as our industry will have you believe, we must cement our position as the conscience of our clients’ organisations now more than ever, this means not being afraid to push back on irrelevant communications plans. After all 2019 is our time to shine and deal or no deal, at 72Point we’re excited to see how the next 12 months unfold.
Request our Ratecard
Error: Contact form not found.
Instagram Algorithms - How To Make An Impact
We've all been there - liked one single picture of a cute dog on Instagram and now your whole feed is covered in animal videos, pet memes and celebrity pets who somehow have more followers than the population of Iceland. Now you're looking at these posts and warming to their little furry faces, and end up making the biggest mistake - another like. That's it, now you won't ever be able to get away - who needs to see photos of your friends on their fancy holidays and eating from posh restaurants with tiny portion sizes anyway?
Rest assured, you're not the only one being roped into this. All rise to the wake of the NEW (and ever-changing, so bear with me) Instagram algorithm, and how it really works.
Let's be honest, the new algorithm sucks. Staying present even in your own social group's feeds seems almost impossible, but the fact is, if you are a business then you’re in luck, because as long as you work with the algorithm and not against it, you will inevitably see massive success at very little cost.
Sub head
Just to make clear - If you do take anything from this article, let it be this - even if you have the same following as another user, the posts you will see on your feed will most definitely be different, as the algorithm takes into consideration the amount of interaction with other posts, hence creating an individual feed for each user. Therefore, if you want to move away from viewing certain pages, simply don't interact with them!
Let's go back two years, when social media itself was a lot easier and apparently working too well for our liking. Businesses didn't have to worry about optimising their content for their viewers as Instagram's feeds appeared in chronological order, which meant as long as you posted regularly, you could pretty much get away with it.
Nowadays, it's a whole different story. Did you use the right combination of hashtags? But did you ensure there’s not too many as to clutter the post? Is the image itself attractive and not overly branded? Is the caption strong and witty enough? I could go on.
Ok now you’re panicking. But don’t. I’m about to give you a whole new lease on your social media life.
5 TOP tips on making an impact
- ENGAGE with more Instagram stories
The influence of Instagram on buyer and consumer behaviour is massive, and continues to increase. According to Delmondo, a social media analytics platform, 75% of consumer decisions are influenced by Instagram itself. This means there is huge potential, but if you really want to get up there - ENGAGE in other similar content! Join an instagram pod, post on a celebrity photo, comment on related stories - and most importantly make sure your competition isn’t doing it better.
2) Hashtag sparingly and intuitively
There’s nothing worse than seeing a brilliant image with a quirky caption followed by a sea of hashtags; some so irrelevant to the image of the new office that #foodie is included? How did we get to this? It isn’t just about randomly throwing together a few words and hoping for the best. By including more unrelated words you are actually decreasing the worth of your image, meaning that same image of your business’s swanky new office now can be found on a food search, making it look so unprofessional.
3) PLAN the layout of you Instagram page
One of the most important things to remember is no matter how well you engage with other Instagram accounts, if the content you are posting on behalf of the business is not visually appealing, your post will be disregarded.
The same rules applies when marketing for the business. Showing your brand’s uniqueness, your Instagram account should be just the same; conveying your brand’s message with a clever display of imagery with not too much 'branded' information to avert the reader’s attention. By sticking with a theme, such as a certain layout or strong colour running through your posts, you will inevitably allow the images to be instantly recognisable and hence related to your business.
4) Find the perfect timing
It may not seem important, but the time that you actually post an image on Instagram can also affect the amount of interaction and impact it has, even if the previous tip was followed. Posting at a time when your target audience are most active is key. It's all well and good to create a platform for interaction on your business account's behalf by engaging with content ready to post an image, but if it's 3am on a Wednesday night and the majority of your audience are asleep you probably won’t get a lot of interaction with it.
Luckily Sprout Social created a heatmap of the time of day and day of the week where you are most likely to get the most interaction with an Instagram post - hence it might be good to invest in an app which helps organise and plan your posts in order to get maximum outcome.
5) Get PERSONAL
It may be simple business initiative to make sure social media pages look professional and orderly, just as you would like your audience to view the business. However, by constantly posting business content of glossed up and styled product images you can easily lose the authenticity of the very same product or service you are trying to promote. Instead, try for a more relaxed approach and give readers an ‘insight’ into the very life of the office, and any behind the scenes information which can easily create a buzz around the topic if marketed effectively, meaning more people are likely to engage with the content.
Consider yourself a detective? Take our latest quiz to find out...
COULD YOU GET AWAY WITH MURDER?
Over 154 pieces of coverage and counting on our project with Fox TV’s NCIS New Orleans – to co-incide with the new season launch tonight – revealing a quarter of Brits believe they could commit the ‘perfect crime’, featuring a quiz created by our in-house design team, to discover whether you have skills of a detective or not.
Take the quiz here.
Ode to Twitter
There’s a lot of talk about the impending death of Twitter; “it’s got no money”, “there are too many spam accounts”; “there’s too much content”; there’s this, there’s that….
All of these things are of course true.
Yes, Twitter is running out of money, that’s no secret but I’m not going to get into that now because, well frankly, money…snore!
Yes, there are too many spam accounts on Twitter. Whether it’s eggs that don’t tweet, naked ladies posting pictures of their flesh, accounts that live to follow people only to unfollow them weeks later and or the trolls, Twitter can at times be an unpleasant, ingenuine place to be and it has damaged the user experience. But they are working on this. Their latest announcement of their advanced muting options, which now allow you to mute offensive words, phrases and emoji in your notifications and mentions so although it won’t stop the existence of bad Twitter users, it will make their impact less noticeable.
Yes, there is too much content. Sometimes going on Twitter can be like wading through the medieval streets of London in flip flops. Treading in other people’s crap left right and centre.
But let me tell you something….I personally don’t care. I love Twitter.
I love that it’s everybody’s dumping ground. Isn’t that why we fell in love with it in the first place?! Because we could dump our thoughts there. Don’t get me wrong, there is sharing and there is over sharing but I’ll tell you this that excessive dumping has given me something that I just don’t get from other social networks: a good laugh. In a world that sometimes makes you want to run for the hills, Twitter can be a source of unlimited joy.
Take the shambles that was Euro 2016. English football fans were left devastated, if unsurprised, about England’s early exit and, although they won’t admit it, by Wales’ disappointing defeat in the Semi-finals. But devastation quickly dissipated when a moth landed on Ronaldo’s face and within minutes endless numbers of ‘Ronaldo’s Moth’ Twitter accounts appeared.
Then there’s Brexit. Millions of people awoke one morning to realise half of the population had potentially thrown their country into turmoil. But it was ok because of the abundance of ‘Twitter bants’ we had to get us through it. Buzzfeed had an absolute field day with them offering us 36 of the best to make us ‘laugh despite everything’. Other lists of Brexit based hilarity can be found on the Poke, IBTimes and Yahoo and, well pretty much all over the internet.
Live scenes from the Channel tunnel. pic.twitter.com/l04wXKpjaq
— John Myers (@johnmyersteam) June 24, 2016
Whoever created this, I salute you. pic.twitter.com/zsyMSd0GIL
— Nick Harvey (@mrnickharvey) October 10, 2016
The same goes for the mind blower that was the US election. When logic and reason had gone out the window, Twitter helped us laugh before we cried. It is also true that Twitter was partly responsible for the ludicrous outcome but it was tweets about Donald Trump that made us rational folk realise quite how ridiculous the man, and the result, is. Carefully edited videos, such as the one to the left, cut through the bile to show a beautiful outcome more positive than the reality. Not only that but the good people of the UK took to Twitter to bring the world back down to reality and help the world see what was really important during this confusing time….the changing shape of Toblerones.
Then there’re the GIFs. Yes, ok, so we can now get those on Facebook but we can also write big, long meaningful statuses on Facebook to convey how we feel. Twitter requires you to think about it. How can you convey how you really, feel with brevity? GIFs. How can you quickly engage someone scrolling through at lightening speed? GIFs. How can you make Ruth really happy? GIFs.
I also love Twitter for its sense of conversation. The world is a lonely place and with everyone supposedly becoming antisocial mobile phone/human hybrids, the truth is we’re actually being very social. It’s just not #IRL social. Everyone is having a chat, online.
The best examples of this are when we look at the link between Twitter and television. Twitter, more than any other social media platform, brings people together during the big (and little) TV occasions creating imagined online communities to fill the void of actual human interaction. Bake Off is perhaps the most obvious example of this.
Bake off is (or should I say was, boo hoo) appointment to view television meaning that, by definition, people are choosing to be inside watching TV and not ‘out’ socialising. But, in reality, the world was watching Bake Off together…tweeting along bake by bake. Innuendo by innuendo.
The correlation between hot TV and Twitter is so
You could hear a rolling pin drop around the country on Wednesday night at this moment. #GBBO #ExtraSlice pic.twitter.com/Bs0MV7060c
— British Bake Off (@BritishBakeOff) October 28, 2016
strong that Twitter is launching their live tv partnership with Apple TV which allows you to watch the live video (say American football) and have a curation of relevant Twitter feed next to it on the screen so that you can engage in conversation whilst you engage with the video.
The other reason I love Twitter is one of its biggest selling points; it’s THE place to go for breaking news. 2016 has been an awful year as far as news is concerned and Twitter has broken most of it to me. Whether it was yet another beloved celebrity who’d passed away or another horrific terror attack or shooting, I find myself going to Twitter rather than news sites for both verification and updates. 1n 2015, a survey conducted by Twitter and the American Press Institute found that 86% of Twitter users say that they use it for news, and the vast majority (74%) do so daily. In fact, the news angle is so prevalent that they have re-categorised themselves in the App Store; they are now listed under news rather than social media. The same cannot be said of Facebook, who are currently battling against their ‘fake news’ problem.
Twitter also has other positives over Facebook. The biggest, for me, being that the app itself and that fact that, well to be blunt, it isn’t Facebook. The Facebook app is enough to make Bruce Banner bust the seams of his clothes and smash up the nearest town. Twitter doesn’t force things on you in the same way. I mean does anybody actually want the Facebook market place to be in prime pressing position on the app? I don’t. I also don’t want to have to go round and round the houses to be able to access the most recent content in my feed. I don’t want to see stuff from last week that I don’t care about at the top of my wall. I didn’t care about it then; I don’t care about it now. Twitter, despite also having algorithms, lets me see what’s happening now. Yes, that might mean that it’s harder for content to stand out or that content might be missed but at least it’s accessible at my fingertips. If Twitter is ‘full of low-quality content’, Facebook is drowning in it.
But I suppose the key pull for me is that it’s based around two very important things: language and creativity. There is absolutely nothing more satisfying to me than getting appreciation for your use and manipulation of language. Conveying your point and personality in just 140 characters. Making someone laugh in 140 characters. Making someone think about something in 140 characters. That’s a skill and the way to make Twitter last is to harness the people who are best at doing that. Creativity, either through language or visual content is harnessed through Twitter. The spam accounts that I mentioned at the start of this, which feels like years ago (…sorry, ironically for a Twitter user, I’m a rambler) they don’t do any of that. And that is what is wrong with Twitter. Twitter isn’t dying. It’s being eaten from the inside by people with a lack of creativity and a poor command of language.
So, what am I really trying to say? Good question. Well, in case I hadn’t mentioned it, I love Twitter. Yes, it’s got its faults but are they problems that are unique to that particular platform?! I personally don’t think so. I think social media would be poorer if the blue bird flew the nest. There is no doubt that it needs to evolve, everything does, but at its very heart is something special and glorious. Whether it’s conversations being had or conversations being sparked from a tweet, conversation is at the heart of Twitter. And really, in the end, isn’t that the main definition of ‘social’.
Tim Peake: Master of content
I love Tim Peake. He’s the best thing to happen to space since Buzz Lightyear. In fact, I had originally planned to write this blog about why Tim Peake was the coolest person in the history of people but then I realised that whilst it was obviously true, that title might not wash with everyone.
So after a quick rethink I decided to go down a different route: Tim Peake – Master of content.
Here at 72Point we’re all about content. In our latest white paper, ‘The Content Umbrella’ we look at the way PR and digital disciplines have come together in order to boost the creation of better quality more engaging content. Tim Peake is a shining example of someone that is nailing content and here’s why.
- He knows his audience
Obviously being in space means he has quite a diverse audience; everyone on the planet beneath him in fact. He’s got something they want. Pictures of their planet from the skies above. But sometimes the success of your content goes beyond being desirable to the widest possible audience. In other words, it’s not always about ‘going viral’. For example being a B2B business, everything we do is aimed at a narrower, more targeted audience.
His photographs of individual countries give their citizens their own little bit of Space. Plus there’s the fact he’s British. He is the first British man to complete the Mission. And you know us, whenever we can find a reason to be patriotic and roll out the British pride we like to do so. Tim’s content echoes that patriotism. Whether it’s a caption on his pictures of the UK or the Flag of St George adorning his space pod Tim knows the Brits are watching.
And of course, when it comes to niche audiences, he’s also got the Space nerds. All those who identify, say ‘I’.
2. He’s topical
Being responsible for our social media accounts and our blog schedule I know how beneficial it can be to know what’s happening when, especially when it comes to content creation. Peak, despite being millions of miles away from the hustle and bustle manages to keep himself perfectly in tune with the rest of the world by joining in with major events. Whether it’s watching England during the Rugby World Cup or presenting an award to Adele at the 2016 Brit Awards. Or remember that time he ran the London Marathon from Space? Yep. He ran the London Marathon. In space. On a treadmill. (That guy!). Tim also uses his content to congratulate and celebrate achievements of people back home including:
- a photo for the Queens’s 90th of him holding a sign with #happybirthdayyourmajesty written on it;
- a congratulations to the Scouts on their 100th birthday;
- a call to Eddie Izzard to congratulate him on his marathons
- wishing good luck to those taking part in the Invictus Games;
- even a well done to everyone nominated in the Hospital Radio Awards!
Not much gets past him. His events calendar is, as they say, on point!
- His content is original
As we all know, due to regular commentary in both the industry press and our own blog, there is so much content available to the world now that in order to set yourself apart your content has to be original and engaging.
Ok, so he has a slight advantage that he’s in space and has access to views that we mere mortals can only dream of seeing. Tim’s photos are not only unique, they are stunningly beautiful. People want to look at them, regardless of whether they’re interested or not. Hands up who’s got Instagram envy?
But it’s not just photography. Take his marathon run for example. Have you ever seen anyone run a marathon in space before?! No, you haven’t. Of course, you haven’t. No-one has. Content doesn’t get more original than that.
- He’s entertaining
Now obviously Tim’s on the I.S.S to do a job. He’s not just there to have fun. You wouldn’t know it though. Whether it’s playing virtual reality Space Invaders, zero gravity somersaults or being chased by your colleague who’s jumped out of a box dressed as a gorilla, Tim’s always happy to embrace the lighter side of life to help keep audiences interested.
That’s what people want. Everyone knows he’s got the technical stuff nailed down. You can’t go to space for months on end without knowing your shit. But if you don’t keep them entertained and only talk shop, who’s going to care? Make people laugh and the boring stuff (sorry Tim!) becomes a lot more interesting and accessible.
People from all walks of life have developed an interest in space technology because it’s been made both accessible and entertaining. That’s a lesson that can be transferred to most campaigns. Obviously, it depends on the subject matter but there’s no harm in embracing your inner child every now and then.
5. He engages with his audience
Tim regularly gets involved with his audience directly, whether it’s his live video calls to school kids or GOSH or his space rocks competition. A couple of times a week Tim tweets some lyrics from one of his favourite songs and whoever guesses correctly wins a very special space rocks patch. Competitions or games are a great way of engaging with your audience, particularly on social media but not exclusively. People love the chance to win something, feel clever or have their say so give them the opportunity to do so and you’re on to a winner. At 72Point we’re regularly producing quizzes or puzzles for our clients to satisfy publishers’ calls for engaging content; take our ‘Where’s the Gherkin Lurkin’ puzzle for Deliveroo. This simple Where’s Wally style puzzle was such a simple idea but it featured on the MailOnline, the Independent, The Metro, the Sun and many more sites.
6. He’s multi-platform
Everyone knows that in this day and age if you want your content to be successful it has to span all mediums. To put it another way, it has to be multi-platform. This is something we’re passionate about at 72Point. We’re in a fairly unique position in that we have in-house specialist teams that cover all options, whether it’s surveys and news copy, design and animations, video or even photography. That means that we can offer the full comprehensive content package to really boost your campaign.
Tim doesn’t have this but he still manages to span all platforms. He blogs, he takes photos, he creates videos. He’s a one man fully integrated media campaign. And he is reaping the rewards. He’s just been featured on the Queen’s birthday honours list for crying out loud! It doesn’t matter what your platform of choice is, whether you love a newspaper, TV, surfing the interwebs or browsing social media, the chances are you’ve seen something that he’s done.
So with Tim shortly to be back on terra firma we’re sadly going to have to say goodbye to the world’s most beautiful Instagram account. But I think all PRs and marketeers have learnt a valuable lesson. Tim’s promotion of a niche subject to a wider, previously disassociated audience has been phenomenal. Know your audience; make your content engaging and original; don’t limit yourself to one platform or medium or discipline and your content will do nothing but stand out. And if there is a problem, Houston, let us do it for you.
The Social Media Election. Was this it?
Five years ago, at the time of the last general election, I was studying for my undergraduate degree. For the first time ever I felt the election buzz. Although I personally wasn’t that interested, I found myself surrounded by people who couldn’t shut up about it, and everyone, of course, was voting Lib Dem.
This time around things are different. I’m back at home, fully employed and paying attention due to my own genuine interest. This is in no small part down to the role of Social Media (and hours of TV satire and a determination to not let full time muppet and general pain in the arse, Nigel Farage have any sort of power). The role of social media in this election has been much anticipated. We’ve already seen how social media can be used to reflect the way votes are likely to go in our own light-hearted infographic. However it is the use of social media to attract and persuade voters and to promote the campaigns of individual parties which has stirred up all the fuss.
The 2015 election has been dubbed ‘the social media election’. This was partly due to the speculation and anticipation due to the rise in Social media’s popularity over the last five years. 5 million people have joined Twitter alone in the years since Britain last went to the polls. This has been key for political parties. It meant that parties and politicians had a direct way of speaking to people without having to trawl the streets. This was good for two reasons. Firstly it meant that the powerful elite of our society didn’t have to go into areas where people shop in Aldi rather than Fortnum and Masons. Secondly, it meant that they could target specific demographics at the touch of a button. In particular they could target youths, or as they’re known in Westminster, ‘bloody hoodies’. Youths are not a group politicians normally go near for fear of being mugged or stabbed but now they could talk to them without fear of physical contact.
The televised debates in the last election boosted turn out by 65%, but only 44% of young people (aged 18-24) turned out to vote. It would therefore be amiss of parties not to take advantage of a primarily young person’s medium to reach this audience. It was revealed fairly early on that our current lord and master, Mr Cameron and his Conservatives had spent £100,000 pounds on Facebook advertising, ten times that of Labour and 1000 times that of UKIP. A recent article in the Guardian stated that Facebook has the potential to reach 9.2 million young people with one post and with UK adults spending a minimum of 1.33 hours on social media, spending obscene amounts on these platforms isn’t exactly a bad idea.
But it’s not just paid promotion and it’s not just Facebook. Politicians have taken to Twitter to personally promote key party policies (or at least their social media managers have). This means for the first time in living history, politicians have been forced into giving short concise answers and policy announcements.
Parties have also embraced the ways of YouTube. As you can imagine this means a lot of clips of speeches and cringe worthy videos of politicians looking to camera giving heart felt speeches “to you, the voter” *VOM*. The Conservatives channel is particularly bad for this. The video of David Cameron welcoming you to the channel actually makes me physically look away as if I were watching a man on Embarrassing Bodies with some disgusting skin complaint. Labour’s channel is marginally more watchable. It displays a great deal more personality. For example the featured video is of Miliband playing pool with snooker favourite Ronnie O’Sullivan. In fact celebrity support is something that Labour play on quite heavily with their channel featuring videos from people such as Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Jo Brand. The Lib Dem videos on the other hand focus very much more on the general public. Their featured video is the Clegg Meister visiting a school, followed by a video of him visiting animals. Everyone together now…awwwww.
Despite this use of social media many say that the ‘Social media election’ never came to fruition. The build-up has even been described as ‘routine, predictable and over cautious’. If that weren’t bad enough much of it has been unpleasant.
This is particularly evident on Twitter . Twitter as a PR and marketing tool can be and has been successful. For example a recent Twitter campaign prompted the petition to get leaders from smaller parties involved in the leaders’ debates. However much of the party campaigning consists of mocking and bitching about other party leaders. A perfect example of this is the Twitter feed of the one and only Boris Johnson. Bo-Jo’s feed consists mainly of jibes at Miliband, with his tweet referring to Miliband’s wall of policies being a personal highlight (see image). 
Obviously all parties’ campaigns feature a certain number of put downs but this election is being referred to as one of the ugliest campaigns in history. One therefore has to wonder whether Twitter is doing nothing more than making things worse. After all with Twitter you get trolls. The only thing that gets met through the Twitter bitching is the hope that there is a Malcom Tucker figure behind the scenes taking control of people’s mobiles and blasting them with a particularly taboo outburst.
I think, on reflection though, social media has played a huge part this time round. Yes it might not have been ‘the Social media election’ that we were all promised but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. If nothing else, it has shown how seriously we should take social media as a platform and the benefits of social media advertising. That’s something businesses can take out of this election regardless of the outcome. If Twitter promotion and campaigning is good enough to get you to run the country it’s good enough to get you some business and get your message out there.
Furthermore Stephen Coleman, professor of political communication at the University of Leeds, commented that traditional methods of party promotion, primarily newspapers, are being disregarded time and time again by readers who are desensitised to it. This also applies to the mounds and mounds of party leaflets we get through our doors which seems to have reached frankly ridiculous levels this year. Therefore it makes sense that other methods of campaigning should be introduced, if only to pump a little fresh blood into the election build up. Remember the last election, the so called ‘TV election’ that saw the first ever live TV debates that boosted voter turn out by over half? What I’m essentially saying is that when it comes to getting your message out there you can no longer just rely on one platform to do so. It’s very much a multi-platform world that we live in and as a result campaigns, political or not, can only benefit from multi-platform content. Just remember to make it nice. The place for trolling is in fairytales. Not the internet. Or the Hopkins residence.
(All of the above views are mine, not the company’s…or are they?! Yes, they are.
"April Fools!": The Best of April Fools 2015
Some days throughout the year pass us by under a commercialistic, ‘you must buy this crappy card that you don’t want’ sick making cloud. Even some days that we enjoy, such as Christmas and Easter have become so much about the products and the gifts that they are beginning to fade in to insignificance.
April Fools Day is, on the other hand, one day that everyone can enjoy. It’s a chance for everyone to bring out their inner child and be as silly as you possibly can with the security of the “April Fool!” get out of jail free card.
Whether it’s cling film on the toilet seat, salt in the sugar or simply pretending you haven’t done something you were supposed to do, April Fools day pranks never disappoint.Unless, of course, you haven’t actually done that thing that you were supposed to do, in which case you’re probably due a smacked wrist.
Some of the best April Fools pranks, though, are done by the geniuses in the Marketing + PR departments of major brands and companies. This year we the general public have been treated to a veritable Smörgåsbord of pranks, including such treats as Clear Marmite, a self-tanning digital shower and even the birth of a unicorn in Florida.
Having researched this year’s pranks in detail in order to write this utterly entertaining piece of literature, I have decided that there are three main types of April Fools Stunts.
The first type are the pranks that are so ridiculous they couldn’t have been anything other than pranks. For example the RNIB (that’s the Royal National Institute for the Blind, if you didn’t know) announced the launch of #CATNAV. If you haven’t guessed where this is leading, no pun intended, I’ll tell you. #CATNAV is the proposed use of Cats trained to guide the blind or partially sited. My favourite thing about this stunt was the images of cats on leads.
Similarly the Clarkson Caravan from Freedom to Go was unconvincing, despite admittedly being quite funny. The caravan offers such features as pre-programmed Sat Navs directing Jezza to the nearest Job Centre and an abacus for counting to ten in times of rage. Actually in hindsight that second feature might not be a bad idea.
Other obvious, yet hilarious examples include the launch of the Ginster’s TOWIE pasty- chicken and chardonnay in a pastry case with edible jazzles; Homebase’s Rainbow Paint; Hunter’s Dog Boots and Hailo’s ‘piggyback’ feature, which yes, does involve people getting piggybacks instead of cabs.
The second type of stunts are those that are clearly fake but actually may have the basis of a good idea, or at very least make people think for a second.
My favourite example of a stunt which fits this category is the bouncy isles in Tesco. Being vertically challenged, the placement of items on shelves higher than the jolly green giant is utterly irritating. Obviously trampolines in the floor of Isle 12 has its safety issues but the idea isn’t without promise.
Then there’s the introduction of selfie spots for footballers during goal celebrations. Again, not without promise. I’m sure many of them would quite like a selfie. Remember the Steven Gerrard camera kiss celebration? I’m sure he would have loved to have captured that moment in the ultimate celebration selfie.
There’s also Hiive’s effort. Being an (not-so-secret) fan of 90’s/00’s boybands Hiive’s stunt made me giggle. The social networking site announced the creation of sister site 5iive, a professional network for former members of the boyband 5ive. Obviously silly as there are only 5 of them, well now 4, but maybe it’s an idea they could roll out to the Sugarbabes. That idea’s got legs.
I have decided that there are three main types of April Fools Stunts.
The third category of April Fools Stunts are the ones that you actually can’t determine to be pranks. For example, this morning I read an article in the independent that stated that Jeremy Clarkson was to become Cameron’s chief advisor for Transport. I admit that it may seem an obvious jest but I wouldn’t put it past them. They live in the same village. They both hate the Green Party. Plus the Independent wouldn’t lie to me, would they?! My suspicious were raised, however, when reading the caption for the image which stated that ‘The Top Gear presenter will have ‘all the steak he can eat’ at Westminster’. To be fair he probably would but that’s not a genuine caption.
Amazon also cashed in on the tomfoolery with the launch of their new feature ‘Amazon Dash’. This is a little button that you press when you are running low on something, such as washing powder or shampoo, and then sends an reminder to your phone to remind you to order it. The interesting thing about this prank was that, apparently, it wasn’t a prank. That’s right it was so believable that it was true. The PR World were left debating whether the timing of this announcement, in line with April Fools was a touch of genius or simply fool hardy. Personally I think it’s a stroke of genius. People would look at something, wish it was true then find it out it was and do a little squeal.
What all three types of stunt have in common is the demonstration of how creative marketers and Comms Teams are. Also how embracing your inner child and simply looking at things in a silly, light hearted way can actually help creativity. I guess the moral of this story is don’t over think stuff. Some of your best creativity comes when you simply have a laugh.
To paraphrase Doc Brown in Back to the Future, if only we could somehow harness that creativity and churn out such innovations for real on a daily basis. If nothing else it would make Dragon’s Den more amusing and, more generally, the world would be such a happier place. No pressure Marketing. No Pressure.
To see more examples of this year’s hilarious April Fools tom foolery visit our Pinterest board https://uk.pinterest.com/72Point/april-fools-2015/ .
72Point Fun and Games
We’re all familiar with the festive well wishes that are sent by suppliers and clients at this time of year. Be they traditional cards, gifts, ecards or ‘hilarious’ animated santas and elves with personalised faces.
This year 72Point decided to do things slightly differently! Thanks to the fabulous work of our in house design studio, Drench, we shared a Christmas game for everyone to play for the chance of winning more sweets than you could ever dream of eating.
The format was a take on the retro Timberman game in which you have to help the lumberjack chop down the tree. With a little bit of design magic the lumberjack became Santa and the tree became dusted with snow!
The game was a huge success with some of our clients taking to it like ducks to water, and battling amongst themselves to get to the top of the leaderboard. In the office we peaked at 495, thinking it was impossible to get scores any higher……how wrong we were! Scores of 600 started to filter through. Then 700, then 8. The final winning score was 957! Outstanding work from Amanda Flanaghan from MEC Global. In fact we must give a special mention to MEC Global who refused to be beaten and reached a staggering company score of 50,078!
Thank you to all the lovely people who sent us a frankly ridiculous abundance of love and photos (which you can see on our Pinterest board, obviously)! It was and always will be our pleasure to show our gratitude (and keep sugar levels dangerously high, of course)…..So from all at 72Point and OnePoll, have a very merry Christmas and very happy New Year.
(Sadly there are no more prizes to award, but you can still play the game at (Christmascuts.com)
Christmas Ads are Coming to Town
It’s the end of November which obviously means it’s been Christmas ad season for months now. That means that every 10 to 15 minutes we’ve had flaming Christmas puddings, girls and boys dressed to the nines and unrealistically wrapped presents thrust upon our eyes.
Every year the nation’s (and the world’s) biggest brands spend thousands if not millions on their Yuletide ads; all trying to be the one that either makes you smile, makes you cry or makes your mouth water with delicious looking food. Every year they succeed and this year is no different.
In fact this year the ads seem bigger and better than ever. I find it hard to go on Facebook or Twitter without someone talking about or making me watch the latest Christmas advert. Pleasingly, this year, there seems to be a nice balance of ads which make you jolly and ads which make you borderline depressed.
Aldi for example, have pushed the boat out this year recruiting king of the Hootenanny, Jools Holland to tinkle the old ivories whilst being blasted with a dozen trumpets….none of which is a euphemism by the way. Then there’s the Debenhams ad showing what to many is the true joy of Christmas, happy smiling kids, running around and laughing. To me the idea of kids running around laughing is enough to make me never leave the house again but even I must admit that the Debenhams ad warms the cockles of my prematurely bitter old heart.
Marks and Spencer have gone down the jolly route with a magical themed ad which sees a couple of fairies making Christmas as special as it can be, whether it’s playing in the snow or having your washing magically upgraded (and consequently left outside on the line, in the cold, wet snow to spoil).
Boots on the other hand have taken a swerve from their normally jolly party mood type ad to focus more on a homage to the nursing industry. Their ad has gone down more the ‘I’m gonna make you cry until you buy one of our products’ route of advertising which seems to be increasingly popular at Christmas.
Obviously the John Lewis ad is a prime example. The John Lewis Christmas ad has become more than just an advert, it’s become an event. For many people it is one of the first genuine signs that Christmas is upon us whereas previously that accolade used to belong to Coca Cola with their iconic ‘Holidays are coming’ advert. John Lewis have made themselves the go to ad with the right balance of class, cuteness and emotion.
The John Lewis Christmas ad has become more than just an advert, it’s become an event.
This years offering is no different. Monty the Penguin has already become a household name and supplies of his plush counterpart are flying off the shelves. However the crown of most touching advert has been well and truly swiped from underneath John Lewis’ nose and plonked on the head of one Mr J Sainsbury.
The supermarket’s festive offering ties in with the 100 year anniversary of the start of the First World War, featuring the message that Christmas is a time for sharing, no matter what the situation. Although beautifully shot and profoundly heart-warming, the ad has unsurprisingly received its fair share of criticism with some remarking that it is cynical and disrespectful.
Christmas advertising, mainly due to an increasing dominance of commercialism has become a key part of Christmas, like it or not. During Christmases of old, people used to gather round a board game, or sit together to watch the Sound of Music for the millionth time. Now the family get together to see what festive spectacle John Lewis have put together. That is incredibly important in marketing terms. That means there is more pressure on marketers and advertisers to do something bigger than the ‘Buy this! Shop here!’ style adverts of old.
This explains why we see so many heartfelt, narrative adverts on our screens. For the big name brands and companies Christmas isn’t just about selling a single product, it’s about selling your whole company, getting people to choose you over your competitors. Therefore Christmas advertising has become more about portraying a message or a personality; about portraying the values of which your company stands for and with which Joe Public can identify. The Sainsbury’s advert is a great example of this.
Yes it might be a little bad taste given that they overall aim is to boost profits for Sainsbury’s but the advert is also in partnership with the Royal British Legion. What better way to use the power of Christmas advertising than to promote the work of such a noble charity. The ad shows that Sainsbury’s value the fallen (not that everyone else doesn’t) and that the notion of sharing at Christmas is key to the company’s image. Likewise the John Lewis advert reaffirms the messages of love and companionship; Boots celebrate the work of the nurses who work all hours; the Marks and Spencer’s ad even suggests that we turn our TV’s off and go and play outside like people did ‘when they were ‘ nipper’.
Nobody is suggesting that these are documentaries. Everyone knows they’re adverts and they’re doing it for profit. Yes the cynics will say that it’s a negative reflection of 21st century society where we focus on materialism and commercialism. But quite frankly so what? Do we all have to be quite so grumpy about it? I think it’s nice to see brands win us round with positive messages. It’s nice to grow attached to a certain advert, look at the fondness we all have for the late Linda Bellingham and her OXO adverts.
For the big name brands and companies Christmas isn’t just about selling a single product, it’s about selling your whole company
So when planning this year’s December marketing schedule we all need to remember this. People like things they can take into their hearts and minds, whether it’s funny or heart-warming. We need to think about our audience and not just about our profits. Your audience are people. People with shared experiences. This style of advertising is all about giving people just that and it’s these experiences that connect people with each other and in the world of marketing, connect people with brands.
To see what all the fuss is about some of the best (and worst) examples of Christmas marketing are on our Christmas Pinterest board .
A Picture Paints a Thousand Words
It might not come as a surprise to you that more and more stuff is going digital. This is to some degree spurned on by the sheer speed and quality of technical advancements. It wasn’t that long ago that I had to plug my laptop into the phone line to surf the interweb. Now I can check my emails whilst on the train; 10 years ago that would have blown people’s minds, either that or I’d have been burned for being a witch.
The move to digital is also fuelled by a desire to make people’s lives more convenient. Whether it’s an app that tells you how long to cook your steak for or the e-reader which lets you have all your favourite books in one place. People are reaching out for things that make their life easier.
This trend is becoming more and more dominant in the world of press. As with books, people want all their news in one handy place and in condensed formats. In June of this year (2014), The National Readership Survey estimated a decline of 13% in the readership of national newspapers, yet an article in the Guardian reported an increase in their online readership. Digital news seems to be where it’s at.
I for one am an advocate of traditional methods; I like printed books, newspapers and magazines, but when it comes to finding out about what’s happening in the world my first port of call is to check twitter. I think it’s safe to say I’m not alone. As people get busier and busier, they want things at their fingertips, in small, easily digestible nuggets. People haven’t got time to read massive news articles anymore. You probably can’t even be bothered to read this blog, but as you’re here, you might as well persevere.
Infographics are a good example of how news and press is adapting to modern life. If people can visualise a story and take in the key points instantly, why bother reading a 3 page article on it? To put it another, more simplistic way, how many of you would rather read the Very Hungry Caterpillar over, say, Crime and Punishment?
The move to digital is also fuelled by a desire to make people’s lives more convenient.
A good example of this is the BBC. Earlier this year they announced that they would be launching daily infographics on their social media channels. In an interview with Jounalism.co.uk, the BBC’s editor of Visual Journalism, Amanda Farnsworth, stated that what they were ‘trying to deliver is a really salient, interesting nugget on a big story’. She claimed that the world of infographics was an answer to the question of covering the same story across all media platforms. Farnsworth added that “Visual journalism meets three audience challenges: distinctiveness; a modern and lively way to treat news stories; and an aid to understanding” with infographics ticking ‘all the boxes’.
It’s not just the BBC. More and more news sites are utilizing infographics to tell a story. Since the 6th October we found 8 infographics featured on the travel section of the MailOnline online, most of which were PR stories.
PR stories are one area of news that have always done well when in infographic form. As PR survey gurus… *cough* …we have first-hand experience of this. The British Airways infographic that we curated alongside our own design team, Drench, was featured on the MailOnline. Likewise the one we created for Monarch Airlines featured on Yahoo, as did our infographics for OnePoll and Tecmark. Both the Monarch and British Airways were also featured on infographic site Visual.ly, with the Monarch example making the homepage.
It is indisputable that infographics are becoming more and more popular, which is why we recommend using them in your campaigns. Visual media can transform a simple survey story into an online hit due to their readability and easily digestible content. Not only that but they can be split up into bite size chunks to either break up text or for use on social media.
We’re so enthusiastic about infographics that we have News-By-Design, our own site dedicated to showcasing both our own infographics and other excellent examples from around the web. The site is a true statement about just how popular infographics are and that is not just us showing off. The site has a huge following on both Twitter and Pinterest, including journalists and PRs within its diverse fan base.
Whether it’s a story about cats or a hard hitting piece about Ebola, News-By-Design really has covered it all. That is for one reason, and one reason only….because infographics work for every sort of story. There’s even one about why visual data works so well which is pleasingly topical. The infographics we have produced for clients have covered everything from yoghurt to back up relationships, from smartphone obsessions to vegetables. There really is no limit. All you need is an idea, some stats, and a design team……now if only there was a company that could do all that….