Scrabble was a bored board game, languishing alongside the Yahtzee in your Mum and Dad’s caravan in Yarmouth, and Scrabulous revived it. It should be hailed as the hero of the board game, revitalising a stagnant market and making games companies sit up and take note (we could even play games online, although I’m not sure there’s a market in it). Mattel / Hasbro shouldn’t be pulling it, they should be buying it, branding it, and sticking it on lunchboxes all up and down the land (or at least the digital equivalent of lunchboxes, like Bebo, Facebook and Messengers across the world). My point is simple (thankfully), Scrabulous was the most successful Facebook app of all time and ad space on or around it should have been like gold dust given the amount of time people were dedicating to it.

The transition from traditional board game to engaging, up-to-the-minute success has always been a tricky one. McDonald’s have tried the board game route with the ever-baffling Monopoly-on-your-food-carton giveaway, numerous other board game-style offerings are successfully launching themselves into mobile gaming and the Nintendo DS is doing sterling work with Brain Training in getting the Countdown Conundrum generation hooked on more numbers and letters than Carol Vorderman could shake a board rubber at.

So scrapping Scrabulous is a missed opportunity (no surprises to this ramble I’m afraid), although it would be interesting to see what people are going to do with their time now. Productivity levels are going to increase. Maybe someone’s going to have the time to come up with the next brilliantly simple Facebook app? Or maybe everyone’s sitting their revising their two letter words and Bingos for when Mattel / Hasbro realise their mistake, write the Scrabulous guys a cheque and get them to re-launch with some media support in the form of Scrabulous-branded lunchboxes…

The BBC ran a headline today online, looking at ten ways in which we have changed since the weekend olympic medal haul,

It might be our national sport, but any headlines about the English Premier League kick-off at the weekend were eclipsed by talk of lightweight double sculling and finn class sailing.

We can see this opinion is not just in the major publications, but the consumers are also actively talking about ‘Team GB’ this graph from blogpulse.com shows the massive leap in the number of mentions for ‘Team GB’. Whilst ‘Team GB’ is not a new term, we can clearly see the growth from the start of the Bejing Olympics but the massive leap actually occurs from Saturday morning, the 14th August.

So, with this onslaught of good will and good commentary, is Britannia cool again? For the time being, we think so..

But its not just the bloggers that are catching on to the term, “Team GB”, Google Trends also shows us a massive leap in “Team GB” references through August, again with a boost from the weekend.

And its not just us at home blogging and searching, the Olympians themselves are also blogging, usually with a brand endorsement or publication [see Jeanette Kwakye's blog on the Mirror.co.uk or more International Olympians blogging as part of Lenovo's global marketing effort around the games.]

So, with all this chatter, do we think Britannia is once again, cool? We think so…*

[* for the time being at least..]

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At Cheeze we aim to combine our interests in the real world with our interest in improving our clients campaigns using the best tools, the best knowledge and the best teams. Using data like this helps our paid search and natural search campaigns improve through smart use of harnessing knowledge, ensuring our activity is in line with market sentiment. We also use this information for our 2.0 activities and strategic consultancies.

Check the main site for more about us, or call Tom Griffiths on 01473 236892 [or use this contact page]if you wish to discuss anything for paid search to Ynglings…

]]> http://www.cheeze.com/blog/20081908/is-team-gb-the-new-cool-britannia/feed/ http://www.cheeze.com/blog/20081408/lucky-christine/ http://www.cheeze.com/blog/20081408/lucky-christine/#comments Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:30:20 +0000 Cheeze Meister http://www.cheeze.com/blog/?p=226 ShareThis

Brands occupy a huge and growing importance in our lives - the BBC quotes an Association of Teachers and Lecturers report that children are being bullied for not buying the “right” brands, but interestingly it finds that

…children are strongly aware of brands and logos, but pay little attention to the green or ethical values of products.

So are we like children - do we buy brands purely on their strength of their reputation as defined by marketing, or do we adults work with richer concepts which refer to standards of corporate behaviour?

As the UK’s “most ethical brand” The Co-operative has done very well from its ethical / green positioning, which stems from its origins in the labour movement, and which is carried forward via a progressive outlook within a large retail set up - not traditionally an easy fit. They themselves quote GfK NOP to define what “ethical” means to the UK consumer:

When asked what an ‘ethical brand’ meant to them, the UK consumer has ‘treating third-world suppliers and workers fairly’ as their main priority, then ‘good environmental practices’, ‘ethical business practices’ and ‘treating employees fairly’.

It’s fair to say the Co-Op are covering many causes for consumer concern - their ethical policies now extend to food, waste and recycling strategies, reducing own-brand packaging, foreign purchasing policies, supporting Fairtrade, and animal welfare - and they are pleased to reap the marketing kudos for this, as well they might be.

But there is a flip side - businesses these days have to be aware of politics as much as their consumers, because decisions can come back to bite you. For example, BBC Worldwide are now on a boycott list since buying Lonely Planet publishers, who produce a tourist guide to Burma and refuse to stop selling it. The point here is not whether they are right or wrong, but the flak they are drawing when everyone knows the Burma regime are the bad guys. And it gets more complex than that - look further down the list and you’ll also find the Body Shop, who come third on the GfK NOP UK green list, who invented the concept of “Beauty with cruelty” :

Since L’Oreal (26% owned by Nestlé) bought out the Body Shop earlier in the year, campaigns have brought together concerns about animal testing, relations with the Majority World, human rights, discrimination in the UK and the environment.

The lesson here is: if you’re going to be ethical, be wise. Be green if you can, but be aware that it’s not a destination, it’s a journey - for as soon as you hoist that ethical flag, the eyes of the world will be watching to see whether your actions continue to match your declared intent.

As we move down the list we start to see reasons that can be affected by the sender listening to the consumer’s needs.

The next two reasons, “the email was not of interest” ; “I receive too much from this sender” can both be fixed if the sender actively monitors campaign performance. If the content is of no interest, there is a strong chance the consumer will stop opening the email - if you identify that, you can make steps to re-engage them. Similarly, if you are sending too frequently you can watch the data to see where the interest plateaus.

Both of those elements can be fixed before you have even started to communicate with the consumer. Remember, succesful CRM needs to service a need the consumer has identified. They identified their need by signing up to your service, so take time to communicate with your audience, ask what they want and how you can help, don’t keep delivering what you think they need.

The fourth point can also be fixed by paying attention to the top 3 reasons. If your email is valuable enough, it will cut through the rest of the noise and work well for you.

Or have you thought of RSS? Rapidly growing now with the inclusion on all major portal homepages, RSS offers a wonderful opportunity to deliver regular updates in an uncluttered enviroment. We are using it to great success for Budget Car Rental as part of their wider CRM strategy. [view the latest consumer email here]

Finding the email offensive can mean more than one thing. It may be an offensive email which should brands shouldn’t be involving themselves in, or the consumer may be offended by the email - was a special offer sent the day after they had booked their expensive holiday? Again, by talking to and listening to your consumer you can fix that.

There is no doubt that spam is a problem, for consumers and for brands seeking to maximise their retention campaigns. But by using the data and actively listening to your consumers, it can still deliver profitable business.

With thanks to Marketing Sherpa for sharing the data.

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We hope you liked this post. This article, and the many articles that make up www.cheeze.com/blog are the agency outpost for sharing the knowledge and expertise this agency delivers to clients every day of the year [yes, even Christmas.] If you would like to know more about our CRM work, check this page or contact us directly.

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We have always been big advocates for such notifications that Microsoft release in terms of the updates it makes to its search listings, however the key and most important factor here in our opinion is how this symbolises the importance of monitoring and analysing search campaigns daily, if not hourly.

If we are not analysing such minutae, changes such as this update to the Microsoft QBR, can have an adverse effect on a search campaign and by the time you have found out, it may be too late to make any impactful changes to counter this.

At Cheeze, our in house search campaign monitoring tool ‘Campaign pulse’ allows us to monitor key performance indicators across search campaigns at a granular level. It means that we can react quickly and dynamically to any changes we see from any angle whether that be a qualitative factor such as keyword rejections or a quantitative factor such as a change to global search engine algorithms.

This QBR update is a welcomed step by Microsoft to improve their search listings but also a reminder for search marketeers to be aware of the impacts that these updates can have on their search campaigns and the importance of being able to react to this effectively.

As is usual in these intense battles, rules are bent or ignored on the web in a way which would be much riskier in broadcast or print media. For the moment, underdog McCain focuses on undermining his “celebrity” opponent, as Obama stresses his statesmanlike credentials, positivity and level-headedness. TubeMogul point out that McCain has just surpassed Obama in viral video views by mocking his celebrity status - proving that everyone likes a good joke, even if they got into trouble from Warner for using music without permission.

There is of fourse a danger that the negative tactic might rebound - the skillful Obama campaign report using the Republican “Celeb” campaign to assist their own (highly successful) fundraising.

It remains to be seen how this will ultimately play with US voters in the key swing states in November.

Republican Viral Video

Democrat Viral Video

Cuil’s arrival on the search engine scene is has been a modest one, (Techcrunch defined their modesty as ’stealth mode’). It’s a brave step to venture into a world that giants like Microsoft haven’t yet been able to become category leaders in, and under scrutiny which seems to expect them to be as good or better than the competition from release.

Cuil hasn’t had the easiest of treatment by the press, most of whom (understandably) have concentrated on the fact that the founders are ex-Google as to be fair, everyone loves to hear the hint of discord amongst the Google ranks or that their ’secret algorithms’ may have been leaked. The repeated downtime since launch has also been picked up on as a negative sign of things to come, which is perhaps a little hasty.

The Google pedigree is something Cuil has up its sleeves, but doesn’t guarantee that it will make their product good, or more importantly, popular. We know how many people migrated [from agencies and media owners] to MSN when they launched, but regardless of how good their engine is, the audience did not follow.

It would be naïve to think that Cuil could be a Google beater from inception, more it’s the ideas behind Cuil that make it interesting. Here are five reasons we think Cuil could well be the future of search….

1. A Unique Database of URLS

Claimed to be in the region of 120 billion [v. Google's 1 trillion] but what is more important is the fact that this is the first substantial new database for a long time. Instead of the big 3 search engines [from an index size], we could well be looking at the big 4.

2. Unique Look & Feel

Cuil is very different to the mainstream engines. Results aren’t ranked in a linear fashion and for a start, they include images on the same pages as the site description, rather than keeping them separate as Google do currently. Visual search is exciting, and whilst it takes some of us back to the days of keyword banners, it has been something that many have speculated could do for search what the album cover scrolling function did for the ipod.

Seeing really is believing, and whilst the images on Cuil are small and several people have noticed that at the moment they don’t always match the brand they are being shown against ( but do the images in the Google news feed always click through to the story they are displayed against?) they link the search result text to the website you will land on if you click, and this is good – we’ve all clicked on a link to find that it wasn’t what we were expecting.

If they can fix the bugs then this is a great addition to their product. Cuil are not the first to do this, and sites such as http://www.searchme.com/ show that others are getting results, and users from this approach. Google have recently switched the orientation of the paid search listings post page one so that they are all above the fold in three neat columns. We are all used to seeing hierarchical results for search, but a new approach is always welcome and a visual one offers new ways to increase click throughs by clever site image optimization and management.

The layout also reaffirms why they are potentially a new engine to behold. Google’s success has lead all other engines to mimic the layout, effectively becoming Google clones. A radical redesign is a bold and exciting move.

3. Privacy Policy

Cuil don’t track their user’s search history, unlike most of the competition, because they say they don’t need to. Google don’t need to, they just choose to. Whilst we are outraged, when ISP’s track user behaviour, try to sell it or pass it to the authorities, we don’t leave Google because their track our behaviour. So this privacy sounds great, but will it actually be a USP for the average consumer - possibly…

4. Philosophy:

Cuil have one, and it’s a good’un.

They have a page dedicated to how they work and why.

Does Google? Google has always said it champions the user and that it’s advertising restrictions and quirks are all about making sure that the results shown are the most relevant to the searcher, but do things like lifting their trademark policy on May 5th increase the likelihood that the user sees the brand they are searching for in the listings for their query?

Cuil rather sweetly explains in its philosophy pages it’s approach to indexing the ever increasing volume of web pages,

Imagine if the phone company decided to stop listing infrequently called numbers in the phone book. Maybe no one phones your grandmother much, but if her friend from the old neighborhood wants to get in touch, shouldn’t her number be in the book? Cuil lists all the numbers, even the ones that aren’t called much. Because one day someone will need that number.

There’s a fair bit of the ‘Innocent’ approach to consumer marketing in this statement, and it’s not the only place that echoes of their strategy come across in the way Cuil describe themselves, but what does the grandma bit mean for web masters and agencies alike? Does it mean that even if you don’t have to constantly reinvent the way you structure and optimize your SEO content to stay ahead of the competition for your relevant search queries?

5. Advertising:

None – yet. It took several years for Google to develop adsense, MSN & Yahoo are still working to make theirs as user friendly and expansive. Cuil’s backers will want to see a return, so it needs to bring in revenue -but how do you align paid search within their search pages? – will we see a tab for ‘sponsored listings’ appear at the top left hand side?

Half of making money from paid search is about the advertiser interface & capability, and it will be interesting to see whether their offering, if and when it comes is as unusual and innovative as their search engine.

In Summary

So, Cuil at launch is not the Cuil it has the potential to be in 5 years time. Google at inception was a work in progress and the volume of users and its search capability improved as it grew.

Google, circa November 11th 1998, courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

Cuil has some good features that make it a potential competitor to the others, or at least an engine to drive change amongst them. I hope that its critics can accept that there were always going to be glitches, but that as time progresses these will be ironed out.

What Cuil need now is to build their brand amongst consumers, because the site can be as beautiful and innovative as they like, with the best philosophy in the world, but without users what’s the point?

I hope that Cuil will grow and succeed, and if it does, it will mean advertisers and agencies alike will have to adapt to the Cuil philosophy. Maybe one day we’ll all be attending the Cuil Village Fete. Lets hope they don’t sell out!

‘a service that offers searching and access to advertisements from the most popular moto sites in one place’

Great – I don’t need to jump from the various independents, then across to Autotrader.co.uk, via Pistonheads.com and finish with a light sprinkling of eBay action. Job done… Or is it?

Upon loading the website you are greeted with a Google style plain and simple interface – the ubiquitous trend of ‘it looks simple, so it must be simple’. To kick things off I decided to search for a new car, the Alfa Romeo Mito (an absolute Monkfish among cars might I add). Debuting at this years British Motor Show, I wanted to understand if the search engine indexed new car news and previews or just literally classified adverts. After typing in the particulars the engine returned ‘No Results’, I repeated the exercise on Google - 1,830,000 results…

Admittedly that was a new car that isn’t even out yet, so I tried to search for something little more common. My new search string was for an ‘Audi RS4‘, a very nice car with plenty of used examples on the market. The first 4 results where for Audi TT’s, the fifth was for an Audi S3, the sixth another TT and the seventh an Audi A4 TDI. Not what I was after. Upon clicking the results to see where they lead, each of the first 3 results linked through to eBay, to bidding sessions that had ended – not particularly useful.

I now repeated the ‘Audi RS4’ exercise, this time using the advanced search option. Anyone who’s searched for a car online will recognise the standard drop down menus detailing, manufacturer, model, engine size etc. The results were much better; the engine indexed 84 Audi RS4 adverts, exactly what I was after. Unfortunately, again many of the links had expired.

Carocean.co.uk offers a self policing policy where users can flag expired results, but isn’t that the job Search Engine - to provide relevant results? I also have to point out that when linking through to eBay from CarOcean the expired link functionality tool bar disappears. An early glitch I’m sure, but as many of the results are eBay powered this needs to be rectified as soon as possible.

Poor search results and expired links are not CarOcean’s biggest problem. In my opinion one hurdle they must address is the lack of imagery. As a self confessed petrol head I like to see the gleaming metal in front of me (ask anyone who reads Autotrader – they don’t look at the ads without pictures). Searching for cars is very much like searching for houses, you instantly know if an ad is worth clicking on when you see the picture.

Overall I think CarOcean.co.uk is an interesting concept but needs a little more work and refinement. As most of the other car sites such as Petrolheads and Autrotrader offer up classified ads that are not expired (and have pictures the search results) I see little on offer to change my Saturday morning habits. If its to swim into my daily life, it may need armbands.

Twitter is a contemporary web phenomenon which illustrates the phenomenon very well. Calling itself a “communication utility” Twitter recently announced it has raised US$20.4m of funding. Designed to allow groups of friends to interact via the web, instant messaging and mobile, it has stolen the micro-blogging limelight, and despite its very visible failings and problems scaling, it has become the market leader of a veritable plethora of similar tools, including Pownce, the Google-acquired Jaiku, Plurk, and most recently Identi.ca . All these “Twitter clones” are more noticeable for their similarities than their differences.

Twitter is the daily haunt of an estimated two million people. How has it managed to achieve that level of usage? It’s a free service. It only offers a maximum 140 characters. It doesn’t allow file sharing (like Pownce). It ’s not threaded (like Jaiku). It limits the amount of SMS updates it will send to your phone to 250 per month. And it frequently falls over… Yet, it has attracted the users, and more importantly, the coders, who with access to an easy API have constructed a host of third-party applications from the entertaining (Twittervision) to the useful (TwitterKarma) to the imaginative (TwitterFone) and for every conceivable platform and device.

The fact is that Twitter has become a crowdsourcing application for knowledge - “where can I” “how do I” and “please find me a” are requests more usefully directed to a few hundred “friends” than to a faceless operator working for a TelCo. Twitter has proved a reliable news breaking service, often beating network news by several hours. It’s good for making useful business connections. People have met, got engaged, and even married on Twitter. As a social application, it beats Facebook hands down - less shared information, so more privacy, less distractions, no zombies.

Each of these platforms tends to attract not just the same kinds of people, but the same people. These are typically early adopting, gadget-using, ready communicators, used to screening out noise and often with something to say. As if panning for gold, they sift through the conversations which they monitor, plunging in to extract the occasional valuable nugget, or - and this is most important - providing similar value to their friends and followers. They use the same applications to update them - with Ping.FM or Twhirl (recently acquired by Seesmic) you can send the same information simultaneously to more-or-less the same groups of people on several different platforms at once. If you’re using Friendfeed you don’t need to visit anyone’s website to catch up on anything they might have said anywhere, because the chances are they are feeding everything into a single portal.

Will Twitter retain its dominance? Maybe not, according to Techcrunch, who see the Google acquisition of Jaiku as a stealth “Twitter-killer“. Pownce has a small set of devotees, but it’s scratching the surface of Twitter’s user base - it just hasn’t had the take up. Plurk innovates with its user interface, but annoys by disallowing features until/unless you build sufficient “karma” which makes it too time-demanding. Identi.ca is different because it’s both open source and decentralised - the more servers running it, the better it should become, so perhaps we’ll ultimately have a reliable, flexible tool which we can all use.

Confused as to the value of all this? You should be. Everyone is talking about it.