When I tell you that I’m a big fan of Chrome, relax, I’m not hinting that anyone get Westwood round to pimp my ride – I am rather referencing Google Chrome, the web browser launched in late 2008 by the ubiquitous internet behemoth.

Having used it as my default browser since downloading the programme over a year ago, I’ve since installed it on my home PC and laptop, as a welcome break from Internet Explorer. I realise that I’m not the first person to break convention here, with any Mac users out there, along with the more technologically savvy, already well aware of life after Microsoft when browsing the web, with Safari – Apple’s own browser – and Mozilla’s Firefox, the main contenders for IE’s crown in the years BC (that’s Before Chrome); however, December 2009 finally saw Google’s new window onto the web overtake Safari’s hard-won market share. No mean feat, a year after launch.

This leaves the stats from December 2009 looking something like:

1. Internet Explorer - 62.69%

2. Mozilla Firefox - 24.61%

3. Google Chrome - 4.63%

4. Safari - 4.46%

5. Opera - 2.93%

6. Netscape Navigator - 0.32%

7. Various others - 0.68%

(Source: Market Share)

This may not look too significant a shift, although given that this % represents around 40 million users, and that Internet Explorer’s global usage dropped by almost 7% last year (from 69.23% in Feb 2009), you might start to appreciate the long-term machinations of Messrs Page and Brin, and how these might impact on one William Henry Gates III in the war of the super-rich supernerds.

In quite a major move for the brand, Google has even been running an offline ad campaign publicising Chrome. Commuters at Oxford Circus may well be familiar with both the posters and digital escalator creatives drawing attention to the ‘fast, new browser, made for everyone’. Indeed, in the lead-up to Christmas, Google engaged in another rare piece of ATL, with a Metro wrap (you may have seen this repeated last week), as well as a call to action for people to make Chrome one of their Xmas gifts to a loved one, via the www.givechrome.com website. Well, it’s better than a pair of socks.

This activity certainly translated into curiosity amongst web users, with searches for Chrome overtaking Internet Explorer for the first time ever, which Google – or its media department – would doubtless argue contributed to its rise in the browser rankings that very month.

So, what’s good about the product? Well, it’s very clean, clear, fast and free; you can have lots of different web pages running at the same time with no drag, and if any particular page crashes, Chrome simply shuts down that tab, rather than the whole browser. I’d definitely recommend it, although the programme is still not a catch-all: certain Microsoft plug-ins are incompatible with Chrome (hmmmm, how unexpected), making it difficult to use some online applications such as the SkyPlayer. For everyday browsing of the internet, however, it’s fantastic.

Other than the slow burn process of accruing new advocates and users, what next for Google Chrome? The answer is actually slightly more ambitious than you might think, with Google now moving further into Microsoft’s back yard through the development of the Google Chrome OS (Operating System). Whilst it’s still a way off, with an official release scheduled for the latter half of 2010, the concept is remarkably different to the traditional Windows offering. As outlined by company chiefs at Google HQ in November last year, the OS is designed with a focus on three user requirements: ‘Speed…Simplicity…Security’, achieving its aims via a radical approach: to all intents and purposes, Google Chrome OS only works when you are online.

What the hell? So I’ve got to be online for my PC to work, you say? Well, sort of.

Although this may sound pretty restricting, Google are not setting themselves the challenge of beating Microsoft at its own game, but rather carving up a piece of the action for themselves, namely through appealing to the burgeoning netbook market. Sales of these small, light, web-friendly PCs were up 103% in 2009, and with decreased price points and increased wi-fi availability, this trend looks to continue. To date, the concept has received a mixed reaction: for the always-online professional netbookers out there, Google are preaching to the converted, with a promise of a system that will be ready to surf the web within seven seconds of power-up; plus they won’t need to store all their docs on their hard disc, with data instead stored remotely and accessed via the web. Google aren’t the first to use a ‘cloud’ system, but probably are the first to take the concept of virtual storage for mobile PC users to such a commercial extreme.

From starting life as the cleanest, fastest and most efficient way to find what you need on the internet, Google has, in an incredibly short space of time become part of our culture, our very vocabulary. And in today’s information age, there appears to be no stopping them: news, video, mail, maps, photos, phones, toolbars, Trends, translation, into China (and out again?) - and we search, and we search, and we search…

By Jonathan Izzard on January 19th, 2010

Tags: Advertising, Brand marketing, China, Digital marketing, Media

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@synergytim tweeted this morning about a music download service soon to be launched by Sky. Sky Tunes, it says here, will take on iTunes and offer a bona fide alternative in the music download market which is to say these days, the music market per se. It’s the second such service to have crossed my bows in as many weeks, the first having been brought to my attention my my 11-year-old daughter Maddie who received what she perceived to be a genuine offer of free music from her mobile provider, Vodafone. Being the sensible girl that she is (she gets it from her mother) she first checked with me to see if it was OK to reply “yes” to Vodafone’s text and receive 10 tracks of her choice, for free.

I checked it out to find that had she done so, she would have been able to choose her 10 tracks from the UK top 50-ish, and then would have committed with no further action on her part, to a monthly subscription of £5 added to her mobile bill, for which she would have received a further 10 tracks and “the option to buy loads more”. Dangerous stuff when you’re 11 years old and Daddy pays your phone bill, so we declined to proceed.

@synergytim’s tweet reminded me of this today, as I checked out Sky’s service as described in The Guardian, finding that for a monthly subscription of £7.99 I could receive 10 tunes or an album each month. Pricier than the Vodafone service and with no apparent differential benefit.

If I understand these services correctly, I believe that in both cases should I neglect to choose tracks or albums or if I forget, the service provider will choose my music for me. How kind.

Digital natives will be too young to remember a company called Britannia Music, but migrants may recall how in the 1970s and 80s, members of the Britannia Music club, snared by the offer of four albums for £1 each, then paid about £5 per month to the club, for which they received the Britannia Music-selected “Album of the Month” in their chosen format: LP, cassette or 8-track (this last is a dimly recalled format from my pre-school days, I assure you). The entire catalogue of Britannia Music was available for purchase at full or discounted prices. Funny, but all the stuff I listened to always seemed to be full price.

Sky Tunes and the Vodafone Music Club use similar mechanics to the old Britannia Music club, adapted for the digital age. Having wasted my hard-earned pocket money as a teenager on Kirsty MacColl’s Desperate Character and Witchfynde’s appalling debut Give ‘Em Hell, I want to warn all you young folk out there that there is a better, more transparent way of buying music. It’s called iTunes and whilst I welcome competition in the free market, the above two examples are not it because they are fundamentally not transparent. Not honest, even.

These lock-you-in-to-a-punitive-contract music supply services are not new and offer nothing that can not be obtained for similar prices or cheaper elsewhere.  The Guardian points out two added benefits of the Sky service: first, that its tracks come DRM-free and can be played on any MP3 player whereas iTunes tracks require an iPod. With iPods dominating the personal music scene to as great a degree as Microsoft dominates the personal computer OS market, this seems a dubious benefit. And second: Sky offers unlimited streaming for free, which is nice, but I get that anyway via Last.fm and Spotify. I have done so for months.

And where do I listen to these free music services? On my iPhone and iPod, of course.

By Scott Garrett on October 12th, 2009

Tags: Default, Digital marketing, Downloads, Music, New Product Development

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I’ve just rushed to get the tube and I’ve amazed myself with how much access to information I need for my 20 minute trip home. I left the office frantically grabbing marketing press, to make sure I’m up to date with the ever changing marketing environment in which we live. On the way to the tube I picked up the (sadly only remaining) evening free sheet to stay in touch with London, sport and news. Not forgetting hastily refreshing my Twitter feed before I head to the depths of the underground to ensure I’ll be up to speed with all the goings on with my many new online buddies. They’ll be fixing the signal down here soon right?

All this for just 20 minutes? And in that time I’ll guess I’ve had 200 plus brands trying to talk to me.  The problem being (particular at this time of day) I don’t feel that up for a chat. I just want my facts and stats to keep me up to date. I don’t need info overload.

My short journey home provides a small example of the millions of channels available to me - but hopefully you see my point - engaging with your target can be more and more challenging each and every day. I recently heard someone with supreme intellect profess “It’s not the message, it’s the medium”. Wise words I thought. But, then two days later, I was at a fabulous talk when the online guru said “The channel is secondary, it’s all about the content”. Two quite different views and further weight to the challenge we face in the future of marketing.

All of this got me thinking. How would I engage with me if I was a brand? A quite simple task you’d think. I know the target audience reasonably well. I’ve got a good grip of what makes me tick and can tap in to the inner brain that is so important to both influencing behaviour and planning the most opportune moment for interaction.

I’m quite a simple being. I love sport, cooking, a bit of music, the odd drink and going on holiday is right up there. I want short and relevant bits of information and, if you can give me something with added humour or something of genuine interest I’m hooked. Simple.

Now, the challenging element is finding how to give me this gift of humorous/interesting content along with the brand’s message. How do we know what media I’ll be consuming, how much time I’ll have and what distractions I’ll have along my way? The truth is we don’t, but we do know I’m loyal to certain media platforms, albeit ones that change and fairly regularly too. At the moment I’m hooked on Twitter and I scan the free sheets on my way to and from work, so get your message to me there and I should get it (as long as it intrigues me). Through Twitter I might even respond and you’ve suddenly gone beyond just a message and I’m in dialogue with the brand.

Now if that message was to invite me to an experience or event that floats my boat, the brand’s on to something. By engaging me further with one of my passion points, I’m happy to interact but I won’t hit the dance floor on my own. I need to be invited.  As soon as I’m hooked, I’m loyal and I’m long-term - the perfect consumer. And for me, here lies the true power for the future of marketing; an integrated approach to communication leading to an immersed brand experience to drive powerful long-term consumer relationships. 

Partnerships between brands and content/experience platforms strengthen the opportunity and that is why sponsorship is increasingly becoming the core of many major marketing strategies.  I certainly see it as the future, but am keen to get some opinions; if you’ve read this far please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Now, all this thinking has made me miss my 20 minutes with the London Lite, Marketing Mag and Twitter. I’m also questioning the content I’ve just produced. I guess if no one reads it I could always blame the medium?

By Ben Wilkinson on September 29th, 2009

Tags: Advertising, Communications, Digital marketing, Experiential marketing, Sponsorship, Sport

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The stand-out performer on the track at this week’s World Athletics Championships in Berlin has of course been the astonishing Usain Bolt. Off the track, his sponsors Puma have also demolished the opposition in the marketing contest (albeit that Puma had little to beat, given the complete lack of activation by the various event sponsors) with a funny, savvy, multi-platform campaign which is right up there with anything produced by the category titans, adidas and Nike.

The inspiration for the campaign was gifted to Puma:  the fact that fans and the media incessantly request that Bolt reprise his trademark ’arms pointing skyward’ pose from the Beijing Olympics wherever he goes. Puma’s inspired twist? A ’solution’ to the problem, developed after ‘a year of research and development’, in the shape of strap-on foam ‘Bolt Arms’.

“From now on, they do the pose”, says Bolt, at a fake but cleverly-rendered press conference included in a number of virals released as part of the Puma campaign, which is notable for its integrated use of social media platforms.

Cue from there a blitz of experiential activity in Berlin, including mass distribution of the Arms to fans, leading to an inevitable decision by the IAAF (sports equipment sponsor: adidas) to ban fans from wearing ‘Bolt Arms’ in the stadium - prompting Puma to ask fans via Twitter if anyone managed to sneak them inside, which they clearly did judging by numerous TV crowd shots.

All in all an exemplary case study, and to my mind a contender for campaign of the year.

By Tim Crow on August 21st, 2009

Tags: Ambush campaign, Athletics, Beijing 2008, Default, Digital marketing, Viral Marketing

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Just when Tuffers and Dizzy thought they had got over the worst of the dangerous, nerve racking and quite possibly life-threatening Betfair Challenges, they arrived at a farm in Leeds ahead of the Headingley Test to bowl each other down a giant hill in zorbs, attempting to hit the super sized inflatable stumps at the bottom. 

Sky Sports News and BBC Look North turned out to film the action and there was much concern from both Dizzy and Tuffers that they may well be sick live on TV!  Tuffers bowled first and sent Dizzy down the hill at 30mph with a googly that uprooted offstump.  Dizzy levelled the Challenge by launching a very ill-looking Tuffers down the hill and in to the stumps.  Challenge drawn, leaving the series poised at 2-1 to England, with the all important 6-aside cricket match to be played.

The final Challenge took the series to the Hurlingham Club in West London - and Tuffers continued his good form and brought the trophy back to England. Although Dizzy had “The Cat” cowering to square leg against his aggresive fast bowling, Tuffers’ Tyrants held on with the help of a majestic knock from ex West Indies batsman Jimmy Adams.  To watch all the action go to FanvFan.com

Dizzy now has to face a forfeit for losing the Betfair Challenge series.  He will have the honour of having the St George Cross emblazoned across his chest at The Oval and have to cheer England on amongst the Barmy Army as England look to win the real Ashes in the final Test.

By Simon Roche on August 20th, 2009

Tags: Ashes, Branded content, Default, Digital marketing

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This summer, we at Synergy are working with Betfair, the online betting exchange, to bring their ECB partnership to life through a fun and entertaining online campaign. Ashes fever is sweeping the nation as ultimate rivals England and Australia battle for the Ashes urn. We’ve signed up Ashes legends Phil ‘The Cat’ Tufnell and Jason ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie to go head-to-head in a series of (Synergy-inspired) challenges that can be watched on the dedicated website FANvFAN.com.  

The website, designed by Engine group company Altogether, offers more than just the videos with the chance to win tickets to each Test match, a chance to play alongside Tuffers and Dizzy and the opportinity to win £4,000.

The virals started in Cardiff with the pedalo race before moving on to Lord’s and the extreme lawn mower race. Our most recent visit was to Warwick race course as Dizzy and Tuffers galloped a furlong down the finishing straight.

The campaign is proving to be very popular and even made the top spot of Media Week’s Great Viral feature.   

Betfair Challenges - www.fanvfan.com

 Keep your eyes peeled as the adventures for our two cricketing legends continue!

By Caroline Ayling on August 3rd, 2009

Tags: Ashes, Cricket, Digital marketing, Sponsorship, Television audiences

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Can you recall the last CD you bought? Unless you’re either a seriously early adopter or an MP3 evangelist, you’ll probably be able to dredge up that memory. What about the last album you downloaded? Chances are you might be able to remember that too. Okay, so what was the last single you got from iTunes? Maybe trickier?

Granted, I’ll still buy the odd CD, but we’re talking about a handful of artists whose records I’ve always bought – somewhere between a fan’s loyalty and a collector’s prerogative. Do I download full albums? Very rarely. You’d need to be talking about either a pretty esoteric band (which iTunes isn’t always guaranteed to stock) or a download-only release. And I’m not alone. Singles rule the download charts, whole careers etched out through a few million mouse clicks on Apple’s site.

Last year Katy Perry notched up over 2 million downloads of ‘I Kissed a Girl’ on iTunes (no wonder she liked it), but only 282,000 copies of her album. That sort of singles-to-album sales ratio simply never happened pre-iTunes.

Over the past couple of years both the distributors of digital content (read: iTunes) and even artists themselves have found this troubling enough a trend to warrant two very different reactions.

For iTunes this has meant ‘Complete My Album’. Described (by Apple) as “a wonderful new way that iTunes helps customers grow and enjoy their music collections”, this is an additional service made available for six months following the purchase of any individual song/songs from a given album, iTunes offers a discounted rate on the rest of the collection in question. In fact, by mid 2008, ‘Complete My Album’ was said to be responsible for 52% of all album purchases on iTunes, with a 10% conversion rate from single to full work. In response, a number of recording artists have capitalised on this opportunity, digitally releasing tracks in advance of the full album being made available, whilst ensuring that their fanbases are made aware of the facility and the deal iTunes is offering them.

By contrast, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins has publicly stated that the band will only be releasing singles, rather than full albums: “We’re done with that. There is no point. People don’t even listen to it all. They put it on their iPod, they drag over the two singles and skip over the rest.” Taking this a step further, AC/DC simply refuse to put their music on iTunes, stating “We don’t make singles, we make albums.” Schoolboy error? Given that their last album, ‘Black Ice’ sold over 8 million copies, having debuted at #1 in 29 countries, I’d say they’re fairly switched on.

Guy Garvey, lead singer of Elbow has described downloads, and iTunes in particular, as being “responsible for the death of the album”, although you can most certainly purchase the band’s wares on said site. I guess there’s still something to be said about the age-old quest for albums that are all killer, no filler – but what happens to those records with the songs that used to grow on you? Understanding where a band was, artistically, when they wrote any given piece of music? Do certain tunes always have the same impact in isolation of their creative surrounds?

I mean, other than an executive at Sony, whose favourite album is a ‘Best of…’?

By Jonathan Izzard on July 22nd, 2009

Tags: Default, Digital marketing, Music

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Previously, golf’s best-known connection with Tweeting was the (probably apocryphal) story of Tiger Woods’ ’I just wopped Tweety Pie’ SMS to friends, having just beaten an infamously canary-clad Sergio Garcia in the final round at The Open in 2006. But now Ian Poulter is opening up a new front for golf in the Twitterena.

After only a matter of months, Poulter’s microblogs have attracted almost 250,000 followers - a phenomenal number for the platform - and won him widespread media coverage and praise. Which is just how the savvy, outspoken Poulter likes it. “It’s a very clever marketing publicity tool and one that I have complete control over”, he was quoted as saying recently.

Poulter’s success is no accident. It’s down to two factors

First, his dedicated, thoughtful use of the platform. As he puts it: ‘…this is a great way of getting the information out there quickly and giving golf fans some insight they’ve never had before.’ And he’s as good as his word. Take this morning for instance, when Poulter uploaded pictures from each tee at Turnberry as he practised for The Open. Brilliant.

Second, his use of media interviews to market his microblog and create his very own content factory. Enter ‘Ian Poulter Twitter’ into Google, for example, and you currently get 120,000 returns, and plenty of interviews like this, from today’s Times.

Plenty of food for thought for marketers on a variety of fronts. But Peter Alliss won’t approve at all.

By Tim Crow on July 14th, 2009

Tags: Blogging, Branded content, Default, Digital marketing, Golf, Tiger Woods

1 comment

Ever thought about naming a star? How about owning a nice plot of land on the dark side of the Moon? Fancy sponsoring a three-toed sloth in Costa Rica?

As PT Barnum famously never said, “There’s a sucker born every minute” – applying Newton’s Third Law (he’ll now be spinning in his Westminster Abbey sarcophagus) would suggest an equal and opposite reaction. After all, you only know you’re a mark once you’ve been conned, right? Therefore every sap needs a swindler, and in today’s society, there always seems to be someone out there ready to sell you something:

a) That isn’t theirs to flog

b) The customer can never really own

c) With strong virtual but low actual value

So it’s nice to see a company turning the tables on the snake oil salesmen and scammers: why buy something that’s worth nothing, when you can use something that costs nothing?

The company in question is Intel, whose 2009 ATL campaign, set to roll out over the next three years, sees the technology giant using the sign-off “Sponsors of Tomorrow”. I mean, who’s going to monetise ‘Tomorrow’…Annie?

It’s interesting that Intel should be using the collective plural ‘sponsors’ here, a move, in line with the content of their ATL, to both humanise the company and express the broad range of areas across which it – I mean ‘they’ – work.

Neatly turning things on their head, the campaign is less ‘Intel Inside’, and more ‘Inside Intel’. The execution below might aim at geek-chic, but it also emphasises who makes up the company, not just what the company makes.

You’ll notice that even the brand-defining/ubiquitous/maddeningly annoying Intel ‘chimes’ are now performed in the new ads by company employees (okay, the actors portraying company employees), reminding us of a company’s most important asset – its people.

As “Sponsors of Tomorrow”, the casual perspective of Intel being just a sticker on your PC may have had its chips.

By Jonathan Izzard on June 12th, 2009

Tags: Advertising, Ambush campaign, Brand marketing, Branded content, Digital marketing, Employee engagement, Media, New Product Development, Sales promotion, Sponsorship, Viral Marketing

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There are few things more irritating than a tube strike - probably only Wales losing at rugby for me - but I do like to see a brand making the most of a bad situation.  My good friends at Streetcar, a pay-as-you-go car share scheme, have just sent a great little email to offer a discount to all members who may be stranded at work because of the latest tube chaos.

By Ben Wilkinson on June 10th, 2009

Tags: Ambush campaign, Brand marketing, Digital marketing, Public relations, Sales promotion, Viral Marketing

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