When you really think about, it’s not too far removed from the personalised advertising we have been experiencing for a while now.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to be taken a back upon realising Gmail was tracking the content of mails in order to give me targeted messages. A friend told me recently about how minutes after he’d updated his Facebook status to single, dating site promos started to appear on his profile page.

Zuckerburg – you could at least wait a couple of weeks!

All outdoor advertising needed was some way of ‘logging us in’ so we can be recognised and hit with targeted ads when out and about. Ok, the segmentation will not be all that sophisticated right now, but watch this space……

Any bets on how long before it recognises that unsightly zit on your chin and serve you up a Clearasil advert? A slouch of the shoulders and drag of the feet results in an embarassing prompt to see your doctor about Prozac? Scruffy clothes result in a pay day loans offer where you can enjoy a 30000% interest rate.

OK I’m being cynical, there are certainly benefits to consumers – more choice, better targeting and less irrelevant noise in the bombardment of distration marketing we are hit with on a daily basis to name a few.

Intel’s forecast phenomenal growth for digital signage of up to $4.3 billion by 2016. Watch the video below for some of the applications being worked on:

There is an age old rule in communications to not say something because you want to be heard, but to say it because you have something to say.  But social media isn’t about communicating about how great your brand is, and how your offering is exactly what we all need, it’s about getting other people to say this for you.

More and more people are taking their behaviors online, and businesses have to follow.  The effectiveness of your evangelical supporter in spreading the word is (almost) immeasurable in marketing. Social media  platforms give the early adopters and evangelists the communication tools and audience to spread the word like wild fire, providing a potent catalyst to a dynamic we already know exists.

Get off the band wagon and on the boat

A social  undertaking has to have a set of aims on which to gauge your campaign’s success. Without a clear plan and strategy of using social channels to under pin and support your overarching business objectives, your company is in danger of jumping on to the social media bandwagon and missing the all important boat.

Some examples of those aims could be to:

- Drive more traffic
- Uplift sales values
- Increase conversion ratio
- Reduce strain on customer services
- React quickly to negative PR
- Drive recruitment

The following video, Social Media ROI: Socialnomics, gives some inspiring examples of successes through social media marketing, and most importantly, the ROI figures to back them up:

So social marketing isn’t simply about us broadcasting our message via these channels, but how we can employ them to make relevant connections. Just as off line sales is more about listening (for a requirement, for a problem) than talking, social media gives us the window to look through and see what people are saying , as well as the tools to make positive connections and have some influence over what is said.

The video above  was found on Shannon Paul’s very official blog – a must read for anyone interested in no-nonsense approach to social media marketing. You may also want to check out Johann Ronnestam’s  Social Media Marketing Simplified questionnaire too for more insights and to see if you are adapting to this channel shift.

But the law of the internet holds firm. If you want to receive something, you have to give something back. Just as  Google have to give you their free organic search results in return for your occasional click on a paid listing, you have to  give up your details if you want that report, free trial or access to that members area.

Filling in the blanks…

Online marketers are always looking for ways to increase conversion rates of data capture forms. Opt in data and qualified leads are gold in any online  campaign, so how do you woo your audience into giving up their details? What if your data capture form was more engaging, even entertaining?

Narrative forms, also known as madlibs style forms, are an inventive take on the classic form format, and it looks like Ron Kuti has proved you can increase your data capture rates with this idea, check out the example below from Vast.com:

(Image from Luke Wroblewski)

Through split testing, the only way to truly find out which of your options are going to work best, Vast noted an increase in conversion rate between 25 and 40% by using narrative forms.  Some additional tweaks have been employed, such as one field for  phone number as opposed to three, but this change shows a major improvement in enticing engagement.

This technique hasn’t worked for everyone, Patrick from Kalzemeus found a deterioration in conversion rate with his take on a  madlib form, but his example could have been improved. But this  goes to show you should always test out goofy ideas like this on your own target audience.

If you want to conduct some A/B testing yourself with madlib forms, grab this code from ELC technologies.

Download Cu3er for free

Image carousels are nothing new, which is why yours should capture attention with something your user hasn’t seen before. Cu3er adds a touch of the unexpected with it’s  3D transitions between slides and this free download is pretty easy to implement, and edit via XML. You will need to know a HTML few basics, and be able to edit your images to size.

You can add featured content and navigation text, add styles, control shading and colour – there’s even a helpful customization guide to get you started, and a more detailed manual for advanced users.  If you have a WordPress blog and want to feature Cu3er, read on.

Flash sliders are not always the best way to engage  your target audience  and do raise accessibility issues, so don’t expect to show case your new slider to your iPhone audience just yet, but Cu3er is worth considering for an image switcher or banner rotator if you are looking for something fresh.

Cu3er is now available as a WordPress plug in

If you run a WordPress blog, there is a Cu3er plug in available, I’ve tested it and it works great, but read on for some tips on implementing it.

Cu3er Elements for WordPress Tips

• Cu3er Elements takes the first image and excerpt of the post and adds it to the carousel. So make sure your image is added to your post at a large enough size to to fill your carousel, then scale it down within the content editor.
• I’ve seen a  few complaints about Cu3er Elements in that you can’t specify the post you want to feature, it just takes the last X number of posts. BUT you can set the Cu3er elements to only show posts from a specific category.
• Create a new category called “headlines” (or whatever you like!) , set Cu3er to only show the posts under it and apply this category to only the posts you want in the gallery. Hey presto – you have control over the posts you want to feature.

Cu3er Elements – Free 3D image slider for WordPress.

If you have any problems adding Cu3er Elements to your WordPress site, leave a comment and I’ll do my best to help…

I came across a cracking article by  Johan Ronnestam on Douglas Atkin’s – ‘The Culting of Brands. But  real world examples are neglected, and I could see every one of Johan’s points at work in  Gorillaz cult marketing experience:

Difference – Distance your cult from the establishment

The idea for Gorillaz was formed by Jamie Hewlett and Daman Albarn in protest to the cartoony images of the Pop Idol establishment coming into prominence at the time.   Gorillaz are the twisted reflections of Simon Cowell’s creations,  the antidote to the current epidemic of meaningless empty drivel in in popular music. Pop, yes, but they are about as far out on the fringe as they can get. They hammer home their exclusivity with claims of “the world’s first virtual hip hop band”

Connectors – Recruit successful, attractive and respectable souls

Gorillaz have nailed this requirement hands down.  Not many cartoon bands can count the likes Madonna, Bruce Willis, Snoop Dog, Sean Ryder and Lou Reed among their entourage.

Exclusivity – Not anyone can join

We always want what we can’t have.  The power of fear of loss and exclusion wasn’t ignored  with Google’s  Gmail invites. In the literal sense, if you do not have membership to the Gorillaz club (£26 fee), or an 02 mobile contract or a Glastonbury ticket – then the chances are you won’t be even be getting a look in at tickets to any live performances.

In the not so literal sense, you either “get” Gorillaz, their eclectic collaborations and musical style or you do not.

Solidarity, a clear sense of belonging to a group & the paradox of making joiners feel that they become more individual

The Gorillaz’ edgy, dark  image and sub plot is far too challenging and edgy for mainstream to buy  into. This is also reenforced with Gorillaz club and whether your in the “we get it” gang.

Ideology – A clear belief system

When Gorillaz were nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize award, it was politely turned down. Taking part in a hyped industry publicity event would have gone against  Gorillaz ideology. They create an intense buzz just fine on their own,  and don’t need any noise from the “finger on the pulse” gang.

An Enemy – To define what you are not

Every cult brand needs an enemy. Challenger brand Apple’s (technology  of the liberal arts….apparently) enemy is Microsoft (big, bad monopolistic capitalism). Gorillaz’ enemy are the plastic, manufactured pop characters of the mainstream media, they’re not fans of the Mercury Music award panel either.

Contact – Splash your ideas onto the right people

Gorillaz hijacked the homepage  Guardian music for the album launch, ensuring exposure to their fringe culture loving core audience.

With the likelihood of Gorillaz replacing U2  heading lining this year’s Glastonbury, Murdoch and his animated band  can expect yet another jet boost into super stardom.

I recently stumbled upon a couple of great online photo editing sites – Splashup and Pixlr . Both of these  systems allow the PS features we love like layers, drop shadows and gradients. Splashup allows both online image editing and a download  of a lite version of the software and cleverly allows you to start editing images from Flickr, Facebook, Picassa etc.

You should find Splashup particularly user friendly, with the additional social platform integration and downloadable lite version, it has  has the edge.

Hewlett and Albarn cooked up the idea for the band in protest at the cartoon images of the popular commercial acts at the time, and the result was an ironic backfire as their popularity exploded. In 2006, a rumours of a rare live performance in Harlem led to tickets being sold in less than an hour from release. Their last release, Demon Days was the 5th biggest selling album of 2005, so this has a lot to live up to.

And they’ve returned with guns blazing. As ever, the collaborations are as eclectic as the musical style it’s self. Mark E Smith of post punkers The Fall, Snoop, Lou Reed and Bobby Womack all lend vocals to chunky hip hop beats, and bass lines so solid you could build a skyscraper on them. You can listen to the entire album at the Guardian.

Mixed Appeal

The art and characters of Jamie Hewlett account for a massive part of the appeal of the Gorillaz experience, and this hasn’t been ignored with the supporting release media. The new website allows you  explore the  Gorlliaz’ new home  for yourself and fully immerse yourself in the lives of band members 2D, Russell, Murdoch and Noodle.

This time round, visual media is playing a more predominant role. Idents focusing on characters stories have been released, along with an orchestral introduction to the Plastic Beach environment. They’ve even recruited a demented Bruce Willis hit man for the video  for the debut single Stylo.

Doing what most bands so after momentousness success, for the past few years they’ve been living somewhere on the south Pacific on their own island. Unfortunately for the Gorillaz, the island is made up of the washed up debris of humanity -  visit the Gorillaz’ Plastic Beach



I’ve worked with a few heavy duty content management systems and have to take my hat off to Matt Mullenweg and all the open source contributors -  WordPress is a triumph.  Follow these steps and you can set up a site like this in an evening with next to no programming skills. There are countless great plug-ins out there, but others are a bit dated and cranky. This should help you sort the wheat from the chaff and save the time I spent on trial and error. Best of  all, these WordPress magazine theme downloads are 100% free:

1. Getting set up

• Sign up and download WordPress – this gives you the basic frame work and back end to upload your  theme to
• Buy some hosting -  one.com currently offer a year’s hosting and and a domain name for peanuts
• Notepad - Not vital, but very handy for cutting and pasting code. You should always paste your articles from Word to Notepad, then from Notepad to the WordPress CMS. This ensures you are adding nothing but clean text, and don’t get any weird renderings on page
• Firebug -  Again, not vital, especially if you do not want to change things too much. This is a fantastic developer plug in for Firefox that allows you to select and locate code and CSS for easy editing. I could not have customized this site without this tool

And finally, the most important thing of all:

Content, content, content. Don’t blog because you want to say something, blog because you have something to say. Brainstorm ideas around something you are passionate about. Try and come up with a unique angle so you can offer new, helpful,  insightful, funny or informative content. Then write a couple of two hundred (ish) word articles to get you going.

2. Choose a WordPress magazine theme

There  are zillions of free WordPress templates out there and some excellent premium themes available for a nominal fee. I was after something that didn’t scream “I AM A BLOG!”, and that offered a rich navigation and structure. After a  lot of  researching, Arthemia seemed like the best free wordpress magazine theme out there.

This theme’s featured content area and thumbnailing works really well, the navigation coding is slick, Micheal Hutagalung has even created a drop down menu if you need it.

Download Arthemia – Free WordPress Magazine theme

I will write up an Arthemia customization guide separately to make your WordPress theme unique – leave a comment and hassle me to get on it!

3. Cumulus – 3D spinning tag cloud
Tag clouds have had the tendency to appear a little cluttered and ugly, that is until  Cumulus came along. This sexy flash based widget renders out tags or categories or both with in a 3D spinning tag globe.   A super simple back end allows you to customize colours of background and font, size and the speed of spin. You can insert your cloud in the predefined Widget docks or place code anywhere in your template.

Download Cumulus

Make sure you read the readme.txt files in each of the widget downloads, but here’ a quick tip on adding Cumulus outside the usual widget place holders:

You will need some tagged content loaded into the CMS to fill your cloud, but you can choose to pull in the categories just to check it out and have a play with the customization tools.

• Once you have installed, activated, set the size to 300pixels wide, width is up to you, but the developers recommend 3/4 of the width (225).
• Int he  left hand navigation, go to Appearance/Editor/ then select in the right hand menu sidebar.php
• In the sidbar.php text, paste this code<?php wp_cumulus_insert(); ?>

in the place of the following

< ? php echo get_option(‘home’); ?>/wp-content/themes/arthemia/images/banners/square.jpg” alt=”” width=”300px” height=”250px” />

4. Dynamic content gallery

Any WordPress magazine theme can be brought to life with a dynamic gallery of images and post titles. Easy to configure and create on the admin panel,   you can insert this flash gallery by pasting the code line next to the Cumulus code.

Download dynamic content gallery

5. Sexy bookmarks
It’s so important in blogging to make it as easy as possible for your reader to bookmark and tell others about your site.  The trouble is most of the social book marking plugins out there do not look very enticing,  and are not complimentary for a slick magazine style site. Sexy bookmarks allows you to render up to 40 tasteful social bookmarking icons at the foot of your articles, and feature an enticing roll over effect.

Download Sexy Bookmarks

6. Find me elsewhere
Blogs are becoming more of a community based environment, so you should try to connect with your readers. Again there are lots of choices out there,  I found Find Me Elsewhere most complimentary to the theme although I need to edit it a little so the links are nofollow.

Download Find Me Else Where widget

The next four plug-ins are not completely necessary to create a magazine style  WordPress theme, but highly recommended to optimise visitor numbers and page views, and if you are looking for lots of control over your template.

7. Query posts
Easily create recommended article links and related posts. The various customization channels allow a dizzying number of options. Query posts adds a dynamic links list that pulls in posts dependent on the page, tags, category, template etc etc.

Download Query Posts

8. Custom widgets
This gives you complete control over your widgets – where they do and don’t appear. Particularly useful as you can tailor the right hand sidebar depending on your users’ journey. Whether you want to only have a widget appear on the homepage, on posts or page ID’s, custom widgets is a fantastic Worpdress plug-in.

Download TS Custom Widgets

**Combining the functionality of both Custom widgets and Query Posts gives you an amazing array of options. The possibilities are almost limitless, but bear in mind when you have a lot of content the extra queries will effect the site’s speed and performance.

9. Contact Form 7
A neat and tidy widget that allows super fast addition of a contact form to your website. You can create custom form fields and play with the styling.

Download Form Contact 7

10. All in one SEO Pack
With the number of blogs reaching ridiculous levels, you have to do all you can to get your blog found and read – so search engine optimisation is vital. This plug in will create search engine friendly titles for your pages and allow easy creation of  the usual meta data, you can just plug in with the standard settings and forget about it if you don’t know much about SEO.

Download all in one SEO Pack

Please leave a comment or ask a  question!

So how do you combat this and create a take over that is entertaining, engaging and relevant? Hemu have taken over their own homepage with this delicious piece of Flash.

View Hemu’s flash homepage take over

Either their programmer has WAY too much time on their hands, or this Dutch department store want to put whole lot of fun into their user’s experience.

Visit the campaign site and just wait, don’t click anything and see what happens.  I’m not sure what this digital marketing campaign is about, but I want to sign up!

Homepage take over chain reaction

You have to admit,  this is beautifully done. Successful selling is about creating a feeling in your audience, and there’s no doubt this slick piece interactive content hits it’s emotion targets right through the heart.   DraftFCB have managed to locate the key motivator behind paying towards a public service broadcasting body,  and hit the “pride” button.  I don’t want to give too much away, so make sure you check out the link and create your own video.

A few factors that have contributed to  this campaign’s success:

• A high degree “blow your own trumpet” factor – this takes showing off to a new level
• Unique personalization technology – any ideas as to how this video wizardry (or Vizardry™) is achieved? Please leave a comment

and some subtle but notable little touches:

• A Flash pre-loader with a clever use of “live” video to set the scene
• The pre-loader countdown starts at 100 and counts down – this makes more sense to me than an increasing number when you have no idea at what point the video will start.

You can view my “The Hero” video here