Brand Tags allows users to contribute to the collaborative perception of a brand. Contribute by tagging big names such as Nike, Pfizer, Visa and at least a hundred other well-known international brand names. It’s fun to see what tags others have given to your favs as well as contribute your honest tag opinions. A good time waster at the very least.

It is not getting a great deal of engagement at the moment, however, they have just recently launched last month and I haven’t seen much about it in the blogosphere so it must be a soft launch. It is a nice looking blog and the content is good, if a little suspiciously too well polished. I think this is an interesting approach for Coca-Cola to take. There is a huge amount of value in their brand and history and this is very much the right sort of approach I think.

Top marks for effort, I think this is a well executed strategy so far.

“Heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000,” the study said, and they “are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites ? a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.”

“While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns,” said Erin Hunter, executive vice president at comScore. “For many campaigns, the branding effect of the ads is what?’s really important and generating clicks is more of an ancillary benefit. Ultimately, judging a campaign?’s effectiveness by clicks can be detrimental because it overlooks the importance of branding while simultaneously drawing conclusions from a sub-set of people who may not be representative of the target audience.”

Let’s just pay special attention to part of this quote; “clicks are more of an ancillary benefit”. Wow!

This study is interesting as it was actually sponsored by one of the largest media agencies in the US. They are effectively trying to justify low clickthrough rates (CTR) on banner campaigns. This is positive that they are trying to address the issue, but it leaves us with the reality that banners are simply a brand spend and are not really appropriate for direct response. With the lack of clarify around the effectiveness of brand advertising online, this just makes the return on investment calculation even more grey not less.

So in summary:

Don’t buy banners for direct response – it won’t work – the people who make millions from selling them to you are saying so.

Do buy banners for brand advertising – but make sure you have specific criteria agreed on how you will measure success.

Or, even better, why don’t you put that budget into creating or sponsoring some really compelling content online that will actually provide value to the consumer and associate this with your brand? Whichever way you spin it, the banner ad days are limited, you need to start thinking differently about this.

This morning in my inbox, I’ve received an email from Air New Zealand – guess what it’s for? Domestic deals ending tonight. They’ve taken the exact promotion of Qantas and priced themselves lower. Check it out:

Then, in comparison here’s the email I got from Qantas the other day:

$10 difference between the two – like I said the other day, Qantas tried to make their deal out to be a lot better than it really was. Basically they just set themselves up to be easily beaten.

The brilliant thing though, is Qantas have responded with a price drop.

This is a screen shot just taken from the Qantas website:

Because of the perfect price information around, they were able to respond to Air New Zealand’s efforts and be competitive again and they were able to make changes quick enough to save a bit of face.

Qantas, good on you for trying with the email on Tuesday and even better for responding. But I hope you’ve learned you can’t get away with pricing hire the competition.

Just to give you a picture of the full market, here are Pacific Blues prices, the same as Air NZ and the updated prices from Qantas.

So the price wars have ended on a draw – it’ll be interesting to see who wins on brand.

Simpl launched their new website and blog last week, with help from Marker. When I met Bennett Medary, the Group CEO at Simpl, I knew he would be a great blogger. The brief was to help promote the profile of the company in the marketplace.

Well be careful what you wish for! The first day Computerworld picks up his post about the TUANZ ICT Skills Shortage conference and sparks intense commentary on the blog. Essentially Bennett was saying that Gen-i actively poach staff from the smaller players in the marketplace, which doesn’t really solve the skills shortage.

There are very few CEO’s in New Zealand who have launched blogs and this was a big thing for Simpl and Bennett. I applaud Bennett and John at Simpl for having the conviction to do this and the trust in me to begin with. This truly demonstrates the power of Web 2.0 to have an impact on your business.

If you are a CEO interested in setting up a blog, let me know.

And this is how the logo came to be: An unfortunate mishmash of city politics, disparate ideas and a severe case of mixing oil and water.

Personally I think the NYC device (done as part of a separate project) is really a strong, flexible 21st century brand.

Check it out: I Heart Wolff Olins

Technorati Tags: NYC Taxi Logo, Auckland City Council Logo

Search advertising ? Google AdWords
Reach people in the middle of their online Christmas research/shopping. You can target websites with gift ideas and advertise there, or specific keyword searches for your product and reflect Christmas in the ad creative.

Send promotional email
It?’s an effective way to tell your customers what?’s going on ? and fully measurable. There should be no excuses for not running an email campaign.

There?’s also permission lists like Smile City. If you?’re going to drop a flyer in someone?’s letter box ? why not send an email who is asking to hear about promotions just like yours? The cost can sometimes be a factor, but of course less than print but the targeting options you get make it worth it.

Add a feature on your website
There?’s no advertising more targeted than you?’re own website. Throw an ad up on your homepage or a relevant page to tell your visitor about the great promotion you?’re offering. If it?’s a huge promo, you could even go all out with a micro site or landing page tailored to the promotional campaign running.

Also, if there?’s any talk of a special Christmas promotion anywhere, it?’s more than likely if someone wants to know more about the promo, the first place they?’ll go is your site.

Banners?
A promo campaign will usually look to make sales and get that beloved ROI and banners probably won?’t give you this. You might see positive impact if they match an offline advertisement like a TVC where it just reinforces the same message and gives an easy way to complete the TVC?’s call to action.

If there?’s anything here you would like more information about please don?’t hesitate to contact us.

Let?’s get a conversation going ? put a comment on this post with what you?’re doing in the way of Christmas marketing and comment on others ideas.

I was on one of the better hacker sites on the subject, when I saw a Google AdSense ad in the left hand column:

This ad is linking to a website for a yoghurt drink.

Do you see the problem? I’m looking to hack my iPhone and it is assumed I’m actually interested in a probiotic yoghurt. Now to be fair to Google, their algorithms are smart enough to stop this happening, except if you get your traditional agency to set up your campaign and they forget to turn off broad matching of your targeted search terms.

This is actually very important, not only to ensure the relevancy of the audience who will see your ad, but also to try to limit potential brand issues where you ad is delivered on a content partner site, that you might not want your brand to be associated with. In this case, I don’t think the Activate people would be too concerned, but it is still something to be aware of. Some of the placements you get with Google’s content network are a little questionable so it may not be the way that the campaign is configured, or maybe as an iPhone owner, I’m in the target market for probiotic shots?

Some internet banking sites just exude bad customer service. No doubt these sites are where most of their customers use the bank the most, and they are saving the banks tons of cash by staying out of the branches and off the phone so it would make sense to reinvest in getting your online services immaculate. It doesn?’t just need to do the job, it needs to do the job easily, quickly, reliably and then leave a mint on my pillow.

ASB ? you?’re going well. The system usability and design is great, but more customer service and friendliness would help. Netcode text verification makes you feel secure too about the bigger transactions. With you ASB, I?’ve banked my way to brand loyalty.

Westpac ? you?’re swell. The way you talk to me through, I like you. Very personal, easy to use and it doesn?’t look like DOS. It talks you and I would.

National Bank and ANZ. Honestly? If staff in your branches looked like this no one would ever visit

There shouldn?’t be any offline campaigns you?’re doing that aren?’t backed up with either organic or pay-per-click search marketing.

Take a look at the full article on AdAge