I came across this video Christmas card last year, and even over 365 days later it’s still pretty cool.
As another year quickly comes to an end, we at Eulogy and Onlinefire wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Archive for December, 2009
Phil, Senior Account Manager
December 21st, 2009 by Helen
It’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part
December 18th, 2009 by Helen
Eulogy! has won 7 awards so far this year. By the end of November we had 3 accolades for best campaign, 2 agency of the year awards and another 2 for agency individuals.
Sounds good doesn’t it? Yes, our email footer is ridiculed for being so long and our clients mock us for showing off about it again, but I refuse to apologise. Industry recognition is important!
But the taking part in the awards process can have just as much impact. For example:
- Morale. Enter a campaign into an award and team morale goes through the roof. Even if you didn’t work on the campaign, you get a buzz knowing you work among award-winners, award-winning contenders even
- Recruitment. Other people see you at the award ceremony; they see you shortlisted in the trade magazines; they visit your website, and see the campaigns and awards there, too. Hello direct job application, goodbye recruitment fees.
- Reputation – we’re in the business of it, after all. The award circuit is a tight one. Judges talk and they usually judge several different awards throughout the year. When your name pops up again and again, people get thinking and talking.
Despite the ridicule about our signatures, I believe our clients enjoy the awards as much as we do – especially if it’s their campaign that wins. Saying, “this campaign, that we worked on together, is worthy of an award” is great for client retention.
But let’s get down to the hard facts. A client recently won an agency of the year award. Being the technical sort they were quick to look at the uplift on their website. In just two hours they’d had 172 visits, the average time on the site increased to more than two minutes, average page consumption was four. In the latter part of this year the Eulogy! website has seen similar results. Visitors are up 20%, page views are up 15% and time on site is up 10%. We’ve not won every award we’ve entered, and sure there are peaks in website performance when we do, but the overarching effect of entering any award is a positive one.
PR – taking flack
December 10th, 2009 by Katrina
The Eulogy! office was united in its mirth this week at the publication of a blog entry on I Am the Client, which equated all PR to bad PR. This wittily-written diatribe from an anonymous (and let’s face it – probably fictitious) member of the marketing industry generalises all PR as coming down to three key tactics – celebrities, making things bigger, launching a dedicated ‘day’. In between the general amusement of the author’s assertion that all PRs are always dieting (not with this office’s appetite for cake) and always drinking (surely ruining the diet?), two main points stuck with me.
- Bad PR is not all PR. Yes, celebrity, big cheques and national awareness days are tactics used by some. However, they wouldn’t be used if they didn’t work, at least in certain specific cases. PR is about communicating with audiences in the most effective way for both client and consumer, and delivering on set objectives. If you want to raise general knowledge of an issue, an awareness day is one route to take, among many.
- Good PR has a – perhaps unfortunate – tendency to be anonymous. It’s a lot more widespread than many realise, but when PR works well it’s not always obvious, flashy, or trashy. That’s because you’re getting what you need – information – and the client is getting what they need – the information out there. It’s seamless, it’s effective, and it’s all around you. There’s a reason why, when advertising and marketing budgets have taken a massive recessionary hit, public relations has both kept going and kept growing.
In its purest form, PR is just about communication, creating a dialogue, bringing people together. Personally, I quite like it to be somewhat anonymous, akin to being the man behind the curtain. It’s not flattery, but a simple fact – communication needs to keep coming.
Any number of companies who have simply stopped talking to their audiences know this can be incredibly dangerous. Silence breeds contempt, and it allows rumours to spread. I may have ranted in the past about PR’s bad reputation in film and on TV, but it still rankles when our industry is criticised. At least we (as somewhat smug multi-award winners this year) can take courage from the fact that it’s specifically bad PR taking the flak.
Taming the viral beast
December 9th, 2009 by Rik
Viral marketing is a tricky beast. Get it right and you can hoodwink millions of people into getting excited about industrial-strength blenders. Get it wrong and you provoke thousands of panicked Americans into demanding that NASA reveals details of the imminent apocalypse.
Everyone wants to crack a good viral these days. Of course, most seem to overlook that the term ‘viral’ should only really be applied to something that has caught the imagination of the online community and rapidly spread, like a virus. If we’re being picky, simply uploading something to YouTube and issuing a press release about it doesn’t constitute the creation of a viral.
To be responsible for a successful viral campaign it’s vital that you do the unexpected and create something original, such as a mini-drama about a teenage boy having his first period. But rather than simply being outrageous or ‘wacky’ for the sake of it, brands need to make sure they’re creating something that will be able to tap into their target market.
Thankfully most marketing agencies understand this by now, and it’s great to work with clients that get it right. Euro RSCG 4D Digital, the digital arm of EHS Brann, for example, recently created a genuinely innovative campaign in support of the launch of the Peugeot 3008 Crossover. The agency could legitimately lay claim to creating something original that also reflected the values of the product it was supporting. The campaign generated discussion in the marketing press because there was clearly a lot of thought behind it.
These values should not just be limited to digital media, however, and are also reflected in more traditional forms of marketing. EHS Brann has strong roots in direct marketing, and looks to incorporate humour and generate discussion wherever possible in offline campaigns.
The agency’s recent work with Foster’s saw risqué Top Trumps-style cards sent out to targeted groups with the sole aim of generating discussion in the pub. If a campaign can do this, whether via YouTube or through something that’s dropped through the letterbox, you know you’re onto a winner.
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