News

Ducati is worth about the same as Instagram. Um

Posted by Andrew Grant on Wednesday 18 Apr 2012, 15:50:00


As I lay in bed last night and I scrolled through Facebook for the last time that day (as so many of us do before we go to sleep) I saw a post by a friend who works for Bank of America and is based in Seattle with an interesting comment “Ducati is worth about the same as Instagram?!? um....” Good point. Damn good point. See the Autoblog post about the sale of Ducati to Audi Whilst digital is all about the future and there’s no denying these connections are worth a financial sum, it does seem crazy that a business that’s has been been about for a few months and doesn’t make or sell anything of its own is worth the same as a historic and iconic brand, with awesome heritage and a global loyal following, manufacturing world class kit with a proven track record, are worth the same As the wheels are about to come off the billion dollar wunderkind business Groupon (who also don’t make anything and instead rely on ever increasing numbers of clients to sell their stuff through them at an 80% net discount to achieve growth) its no wonder Marketing Directors across the land are tearing their hair out about how to make the most of and where to invest time and money when it come to the ever changing, dynamic, sometimes crazy digital landscape Check out this article on The Drum about Groupon. 2003 brought us Myspace, 2004 Facebook, 2006 Twitter, 2011 Google + and now we have pinterest. Added to that clients have a roster of agencies all punting tactical executions asking for more and more budget. They compete against each other for attention, slag each other off when they can get away with it, fight for budget and control and the net effect is a marketing director that is overwhelmed, overworked, a budget that’s ineffective and at breaking point, no big central idea of coherent strategy and middle of the road returns.Check out this link to a great event being run in London on 14th June by Brand Republic pitched at the ‘savvy marketer’ Yet digital continues to grow, and deliver. See this report by the Economist on the rise of the digital shopkeeper and how the internet is driving retail sales growth in G20 economies. I often get asked; “yes I get it for Smirnoff and Red Bull, but how can social and digital help me?” One wee personal example to show how Twitter has worked for Nation1:As I stood waiting in the Bag Drop queue for my AB flight to Glasgow at London City Airport, just about everyone who approached the desk, seemed to take forever, standing chatting. To while away the time, I scrolled through Twitter and saw @britishairways, so I Tweeted them. “Its called bag drop for a reason. Otherwise rename it debate chamber”. They got back to me immediately and apologized, I suggested they have a queue for folk that have the app, as we obviously use the airline often and are loyal to have downloaded the app and completed the check-in work for them. They agreed and said that was a great idea, I suggested maybe they set up a page on Google+ and invite air travellers to submit ideas on how to improve the whole experience. Cut to email conversation between me and head of digital marketing with the cherry on the cake being a meeting with the Marketing Director of BA. The point of all this is, that no matter what: digital, social, online – whatever you call it - and whatever industry/sector you work in, this new media can reduce costs and deliver returns. You just need to know what our trying to achieve, be clear on what your selling, understand how to use the media and measure/monitor/learn. Nation1 has now been successfully running a London agency for some time now, having picked up some killer wins since our launch (which you’ll hear about in the coming months) across social and mobile. Our next big focus is selling in top-level strategy. Taking the nightmare away fro marketing directors and helping them get the most out of digital media, their roster agencies and their budget. For more information on how Nation1 can help you with the mind field, email me

posted in: News from the MD

Interesting stuff about mobile

Posted by Andrew Grant on Sunday 11 Mar 2012, 17:29:00

posted in: News from the MD

Social media and preparing for the "scammers"

Posted by Andrew Grant on Thursday 16 Feb 2012, 13:14:00


For the last six months, there has been a thorn in the side of one of our social media campaigns, which we have been running on behalf of an ambitious client, eager to buck the economic gloom, invest and try and make a difference. Often I meet marketing directors and entrepreneurs and sell them the benefits of social media, and just as frequently I am told they don’t want to put their head above the parapet. Its all too easy these days for folk that want to make trouble, to make trouble. I have been the victim of such cyber attacks myself. However that taught me how to deal with such nuisances. Bottom line, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Engagement and honesty are key, and you need to know that the truth will prevail and the public are no fools. Here’s a summary of what happened and how we are dealing with it29th November our Social Media Manager explained to him how the competition worked after a post on our FB page questioning the competition (immediately alarm bells rang). He was happy with it.6th December - our Social Media Manager sent our Managing Director and him an email telling him our Managing Director would like to talk to him and explain this was a genuine competition (after he again posted he thought this was a fraud) - no reply from him. 3rd January - he posted on the clients Facebook wall he thought it was a scam (for all to see). Not giving any reason for this. Our Social Media Manager emailed him right away explaining that it was not and saying he could simply unlike the page if he wanted to which he replied "Why would I unlike the page just because I think it is a scam, it would be my duty to notify other users and entrants."16th January – over Christmas Facebook made redundant/deprecated a protocol they asked use to use for our voting app. All the images were taken down bar two (as soon as our Facebook devs received the update, from being subscribed to the Facebook developer blog, this situation was sorted and all photos were put back online: check the Facebook dev blog over xmas for information about this – and if you’re running anything on Facebook, best to keep an eye on this stuff, as they don’t tell you, they just do it). One of the images which came down was his. He emailed asking if this was the final gallery, full well knowing the comp rules. our Social Media Manager told him no that we just had to upload the pictures again - no reply. 19th Jan – he emailed thanking us for the Ikea vouchers we sent him and asked for an email address to send a thank you email to the client, and again asked when the voting for the grand prize started. our Social Media Manager didn't reply to this as he had answered this question before and I didn't want to give the contact details of the CEO of our client. Here’s what he wanted, what he was getting at, what his objective was all along: I will be seeking compensation for the potential value of the contract which are as follows:1.Return flights from London to Miami with Virgin Atlantic7 Nights Stay at the Dream Hotel South Beach, Miami, £1000 Spending Money OR 2. £7,000 in the form of a chequeCompanies need to try and not be afraid of guys like this, who are hell bent on making trouble and cashing in. Its all to easy also to burry your head in the sand and hope it will go away.Here’s a quick heads up of how we are dealing with thisWe have not deleted any of his posts from Facebook, instead replied quickly and honestly.We have responded to every email sent, within 4 hoursWe have kept detailed notes of every interaction and have a file saved in chronological orderI, as Managing Director of the agency responsible for the campaign have emailed him three time, politely asking to chat about his concerns, each time the invitation has been made in writing by email. Our client has been kept informed throughput, from the very first post to the most recent threat and demand, as have our lawyers, who speiclise in social media, advise companies like Facebook and Google and are one of the biggest firms in the world.We brought this to a head today, before the competition heats up too much and we get to close to the final (we don’t wan this taking away from the fact that our client has invested so much in making this a success)Finally we have got it out in the open and been totally honest about what has happened, including what we did wrong and where we dropped the ball.Lets hope for the sake of everyone concerned that this is the end of it, however should this continue we are prepared on all fronts to take this head on.

posted in: News from the MD

Change nothing, and nothing will change...

Posted by Andrew Grant on Tuesday 24 Jan 2012, 16:59:00

Tesco have issued their first profit warning in over 20 years with their new CEO stopping short of blaming global expansion and out of town hypermarkets. Philip Clarke has promised over £500m investment in core UK operations refocusing the retailer on fresh produce and customer service. Hitting their bottom line.As an active member of Scotland's Entrepreneurial Exchange (a network for growth focused businesses in Scotland with £1m turnover or more) I had the honor of often sitting next to a captain of industry or multimillionaire businessman (or woman). When in such great, experienced and successful company it's hard not to ask, "how did you do it?"Each and every one of them cited the same things:Passion, Determination, Never giving up, Belief (adding being in the right sector, at the right time selling something people wanted to buy) But dig a bit deeper, normally after the main course, a few glasses of champagne and before the evening’s speakers start and you get a ‘money can't buy’ lesson on how to grow a business. Empire building, the downfall of some of the greatest companies ever created. There are so many examples of good companies, that focused on a core proposition, aligned their human resources and marketing to deliver this proposition, built formidable reputations and became great (RBS, STV, AOL) BUT instead of remaining great, they refocused on growth, on empire building. Often fueled by greed (delivering investor returns) ego or both the company failed to remain great. They simply became big, having lost focus, passion and self-belief. Will Tesco agree they have fallen into this group, recognise that it is a great British retailer and retreat from their global campaign. Or will shareholder greed and senior management ego drive the business to pursue growth in developing economies where it has no experience of operating in, a corporate culture that is at odds with regional attitudes and a one size fits all approach that doesn't cater for local appetites? Empire building is very much a phenomenon of the post Thatcher entrepreneur, big is best; where turnover, office size, location and staff numbers are seen as a measure of success. I don’t know how many times prospective clients in a pitch process asked me: what’s your turnover, where are you based, how many staff do you employ. The ironic thing is, today most of the agencies we lost out to back then, because they had big turnovers, with glorious offices populated by payroll, are now bust. Gone forever. Nothing more than a name check on the ‘100 Greatest Ads Ever’ TV show and subject of folklore and old skool stories. Nation1 is one of the first agencies (yes that’s true by the way) to accept the new economy and adapt the agency business model to accept the fact that the way the economy is now is the way the economy will be. We’ve shut our physical offices, we’ve handed back the keys and we’ve sold all our furniture. We’ve binned the server (it was out of date, a few months after we bought it anyway) and moved all core services and process to the cloud, we made all but five of our staff redundant and re-employed the best on a pay as you go project by project basis, we’ve hunted high and low (and managed a number of recruitment and procurement rounds across the UK) to assemble the best in breed with regards to human resource and digital talent, we’ve handed over equity to senior players and we’ve refined our offer to focus on products and markets, we’ve incentivized our teams so their interests are our interests which are our clients interests (and vice versa) and we’ve aligned our resources an award winning standard at competitive costs. It was one hell of a roller coaster ride but today Nation1 is a lean, mean effective marketing machine that can count Barclays, Grant Thornton, CitizenM and Glasgow City Marketing Bureau as clients. The final step in this initial journey is to launch our new positioning. Our new website(s) go live in February promoting our three core specialisms: Nation1: (DIGITAL CONSULTING) joining up the digital dots by offering high end, top level KPMG style consultancy (but digital) exclusively for financial institutions and professional services firms. This is where our senior team (consisting of: strategy/planning, creative, social, search, mobile and media) help these guys (at a senior management and/or board level) get their heads round the fast changing digital economy, what this means for them, how it will affect their business, what they need to do and organizational change to be implemented to make the most of it. Joining up the digital dots (both internally across different departments and externally over multiple agencies) to deliver efficiency and maximize returns. Great British Mobile: (UK RETAIL APP) after the successful development and distribution of the iPhone and Android destination retail apps for Glasgow, we have further developed the app (which includes GPS store listing, real time offers, in app advertising, local retailer offers, push notifications, local events listings and local business listings) so that for the fixed price of £9,950 other cities, shopping Centre’s and destinations can have their own version of the app (both iPhone and Android) with their branding, data and local information. Shoreditch Social Club: (SOCIAL MEDIA FOR RETAIL) its not just about stats and numbers, its about engagement and sales. We’re focused at turning footfall and browsing consumers into active shoppers and purchasers. By taking the day to day headache of social media away from retailers who don’t have an in house resource, managing their central and regional Facebook and Twitter activity making sure every mention is handled professionally. For retailers that have social covered and a full time skilled resource in house our team can bring local and central teams and agencies together helping them work smarter, delivering more effective, creative and engaging campaigns. Added to this we deliver training, support and best practice as well as helping the biggest names on the high street manage their different agencies, recommend where they should be and how to get there, delivering cost effective strategy and resource management offering solutions that deliver commerce.Keep you eyes peeled for our new websites; email marketing and social media activity kicking off this spring followed by the launch of our events and PR campaign across London in September. If you are a bank, professional service provider, retailer or destination give me a shout to find out how Nation1 can take your headaches away EMAIL ANDREW

posted in: News from the MD

People don't give a shit about burgers

Posted by Andrew Grant on Tuesday 25 Oct 2011, 10:11:00


I remember meeting the CEO of a leading UK car rental business UK two years ago selling him the idea that he should set up a Facebook page with a competition to spot branded vans around the country to win prizes.

He was impressed, intrigued and equally terrified. The old "don't put your head above the parapet" mentality….

Nowadays it seems everyone is jumping on the Facebook bandwagon (and this could be Facebook’s downfall. Maybe, just maybe). According to recent research kids are now far more likely to engage with social content via their Blackberry messenger service or Twitter. After all its not very cool to be on a website where your gran is your friend. But Facebook’s downfall: I have faith that the guys at Facebook HQ will sort this current trend out and come up with some killer creative app that addresses the granny effect.

It always astonishes me how clever people fail to get their heads around so-called technological advances. Social media is really the same as handing out leaflets or advertising in the paper. You wouldn't buy a billboard and shove one of your daughter’s nursery school paintings on it to promote your law firm, so why do so many companies feel its OK to adopt the digital equivalent online. A bad social media presence is far worse than no social media presence at all and once its up - who is going to manage it, update it, engage with your fans and followers through it and what's your KPI and ROI etc etc etc

I was sitting with the CEO of Trident Insurance (a Nation1 client) showing him how Facebook worked and what other brands are up to. So many (that should know better) are getting it dangerously wrong. Take McDonalds for example http://www.facebook.com/McDonaldsUK. One of the biggest brands on the planet and they have only 38,635 UK followers. Their Facebook wall is a dreary list of old adverts special offers and a countdown to the re-launch of the Big Tasty. There are few user comments and no real engagement. Even Ministry of Sound are pretty piss poor (and they should know much better. Tut tut guys)

It seems the amount of "Likes" you get is the measure of success. The other day BA announced "hurrah we have 100,000 likes' I posted the following comment: “Not very good to be honest. U have more staff than that. Ur FB page needs an injection of creativity and social engagement” I then got this comment in reply: BA usually responds (and fast) to negative comments posted on its wall. It’s been almost an hour since yours and there is still radio silence. There were not even comments from other people after that. Except for the number of employees (I checked), you are right! I cannot believe you left BA speechless”

To punt insurance for Trident we developed www.facebook.com/perfectpenthouse. The idea is simple: everyone loves showing off their homes and people love looking through the keyhole. Known within the building industry as "house porn”. So we teamed up with Dwell, Stirling Akroyd the London estate agents, Virgin Atlantic to offer the best photo submitted of home made interior design a holiday to Miami worth £10,000 and Ikea to offer monthly e-vouchers. Added to that we are using our wall as a destination for all things cool about design, interiors and architecture, aggregating stuff from other sites and inviting guest bloggers to get involved with style tips and advice. Most importantly we headhunted a guy that loves interiors, design and architecture running it all for us. Not some social media executive.

As a wee aside its worth pointing out anyone that is looking to run a ‘Like’ campaign on Facebook that you now need to develop an app to run this, as Facebook don’t want you using their own functionality and have recently been taking down pages that exploit this.

Social media is all about creative ideas that get people engaged and following through, with openness and integrity. Use your nut, get all your employees involved (if THEY can't be arsed - forget it), integrate your email marketing and blog. PR and advertising. Set objectives and measure them.

People don't give a shit about burgers, insurance or rental cars. So you need to give them something to talk about, to share, to get involved with. Its the same as the old billboard: come up with a great creative idea and the rest runs like clockwork (in fact with Facebook, come up with a killer core creative idea and sit back and watch them do it for you).

posted in: News from the MD

 

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