London Media Poker Night – June 10th @ The Hospital Club
The London Media Poker night returned to its spiritual home in May due to the growing player numbers.
The event will now be hosted full time at The Hospital – The next session is on June 10th.
Doors open at 6.45 and cards will be shuffled and dealt at 7pm sharp.
Entrance is FREE to members and non-members but admittance is strictly by guest list only – already 50% full.
Buy-in to be decided on the night – There will be a game for all levels including a free table.
Address: 24 Endell Street, London, WC2H 9HQ
Make your guestlist application by contacting Al:
SMS: 07886 465 471
Tweet: @adfundal
Sort your life out – 02 Joggler
Cool new product coming out soon from O2, just seen the ad on YouTube which looks like it was made for TV so expect to see this gracing your telly soon.
Cool product from O2 and, as always, decent creative from VCCP:
New Drench Ad
Thanks to @lilly_rabbit @VCCP for tweeting this.
After the first ad featuring Brains from Thunderbirds and the iconic track ‘Rythm is a Dancer’ the team running the Drench account at CHI knew they were onto something.
So, the recipe is simple… striking visuals and heavy hitting, well known soundtrack – Cue a a rodeo rider mounted to an enourmous pheasant, charging around a bull ring to the sounds of Black Box…
Watch this and you’ll see what I mean:
London Media Poker Night – Round up
It was great to see some new players at the new venue, The Hospital Club.
Everyone played admirably but after all the efforts, I managed to clinch 1st place… again.
This is a challenge to anyone who likes to play cards – Be at the next London Media Poker Night and (try to!) steal my crown – In particular I am talking about @JMacDonald, @Digitcool, @Witters, @KT_Johnson, @drewellis, @acton, @photogirlUK, @glen_richardson.
Post-round up on The Hospital blog.
Will announce details of the next event soon.
Onwards and upwards
The real Blyk story
In the past 24 hours I have read two pieces of horrendously incorrect information from people who should know far better.
The first is that Blyk was allegedly closing its UK operation, this is absolutely FALSE – The story seems to have been first published by NMA and as JMac rightly states in his piece offering clarity, this seems to be the latest in a long string of events whereby the industry tries to kill itself.
There is an article written by David Murphyfrom Mobile Marketing Magazine with comment from Ann Sarimo, Blyk’s Head of Communications – read it here.
The second piece of absolute rubbish was included within the aforementioned article published by Mobile Marketing Magazine and it centred on the mobile agency YOC not returning to Blyk because it did not have enough REACH!
The excerpt reads as follows:
Christian Louca, UK Country Manager and Head of Publishers at YOC, told Mobile Marketing:
“When the idea first emerged, it seemed like a really interesting concept, a clever idea with lots of potential, but the problem is reach. In order to be able to give brands value, they need to have reach, and an extensive strategy in terms of acquiring customers and then retaining them, and this is always difficult. “We ran a campaign with Blyk for Coca-Cola, which was a relatively OK experience, but we did not go back, because as a mobile marketing agency using Blyk, it’s a great place to run a test campaign, but it comes back to reach. It’s a good place to test the marketplace, but it doesn’t seem to have come out of that space.”Why does any media activity need reach?
Because many of the communication recipients will not interact/be interested in what they receive.
Why will they not be interested?
Because the communications will not be relevant.
So, with most forms of media the ‘reach’ argument is valid but the reason why Blyk was considered so pioneering, the reason why it raised all the tens of millions of dollars of funding and the reason why it attracted some of the best brains in the business to work there is if you use the power of Blyk’s offering correctly, communications become totally relevant and reach is ABSOLUTELY 100% IRRELEVANT.
ASK people what they want to receive. Deliver what they have requested. Simple.
In short, YOC either knowingly used Blyk for the wrong reason or did not understand how to use the platform in the first place – either one is an absolute waste of everyones effort as well as the clients cash.
Not great in times like these.
Vodafone Rolls Out Mobile Advertising to 18 Markets in 18 Months
It would seem that operators are starting to get it. Partially.
I have been reading with increasing frequency that decent ad opportunities are being made available by the people that have traditionally viewed their role as the ‘owner’ of the consumer – the networks.
Until recently, this dated (and often incorrect opinion) has led to minimal contact from advertisers directly to consumers via the networks because of the unappealing communication opportunities offered as so called ‘products’.
This is all about to change.
Vodafone have just announced:
Zonal marketing trial – This will allow opted-in customers to receive promotional messages from brands relevant to their profile and their realtime location. As they enter a pre-defined area they will receive an MMS or SMS message from Vodafone containing the promotion.
Incoming voice/text alerts advertising trial – Full screen advertisements from a range of advertising partners will be shown to opted-in customers during the moments before they answer a call or view a message. Customers who choose to join the database, and who go on to view adverts will be rewarded with points that they can redeem against goods or services.
Branded applications and widgets trial – Assessing customer acceptance of and interaction with, as well as brand marketing effects of, branded mobile apps.
Location based advertising trial – Vodafone plans to trial customer acceptance of and engagement with branded Points of Interest, (locations of – for example – stores, restaurants and petrol stations) and branded locational search.
Trial of an enhanced mobile internet browser – Vodafone is looking at how to simplify and enhance the mobile internet browsing experience for opt-in customers as well as investigating opportunities for mobile publishers and advertisers.
Vodafone myCampaign – An online self-service platform for mobile advertisers. Currently in development in Germany and Czech Republic, with further markets planned, this tool will allow small businesses to set up and run cost-effective, and local mobile advertising campaigns. The service is designed to be simple, quick and easy to use – combining creative, reporting and online prepayment via credit card.
Sounds like they have been very busy indeed – Now they need to scale their media operation so they can represent themselves to brands and agencies as a knowledgeable media owner, capable of understanding and executing based on capaign objectives rather than a network operator with enourmous reach and the ability to frequently contact/SPAM users.
The strength of Vodafone’s media business lies in the data they will collect from each campaign – It will not only help to make communication more relevant for users but also to increase effectiveness of spend across the Voda portfolio but as well as any other mobile activity the brand/agency is involved with. Let’s for arugments sake call this research.
Therein lies the real value of what they are doing.
NAVTEQ Location Point Advertising – Now Available In Europe
I am very proud to be involved with this.
At a time when marketing budgets are being cut and funding for new projects is being withdrawn, NAVTEQ have developed and launched a product which advertisers have been crying out for – In short, brands can now communicate with their current/potential customers on a location specific AND interactive basis.
Cian @ GoMo news wrote a good piece covering this:
It’s been a good few weeks for NAVTEQ. At the end of April, Samsung announced that it would be going to the Nokia-owned mapping service to get all location data for the Omnia HDs on-phone services. And today, NAVTEQ has announced the launch of it’s turn-key mobile advertising service, LocationPoint, in Europe.
Launched in the US in January, LocationPoint allows location-based applicationsto access its global, digital map. NAVTEQ is one of the most comprehensive digital mapping services around – if you’ve got a GPS device in your car, chances are it’s powered by NAVTEQ. The LocationPoint service allows advertisers to buy information points on that digital map, which appear on the screens of GPS devices and LBS mobile serviceswhen they come within range. The service also delivers ads relevant to a service when devices powered by NAVTEQ get close, and offers click-to-action on any of the ads it delivers.
From the release:
“LocationPoint gives advertisers a dynamic new medium to reach consumers with more relevant advertisements that research indicates have a higher perceived value,” said Chris Rothey, vice president, NAVTEQ. “Consumers see the exchange of content for advertising as adding value when presented in the right location-relevant context and integrated tactfully within the navigation experience. We believe that this new advertising service provides a valuable tool to meet industry needs.”
What we think?
NAVTEQ is looking like one of the wiser investments that Nokia has made in the last while. Following on from the Samsung deal last month, we could reasonably expect that LocationPoint will do good business in Europe. My initial feeling that this service might just serve to clog up yet another channel with advertising is probably inaccurate. Instead, it’s better to think of it as a comprehensive advertising-map that LBS can dip into as it needs to.
