Quizzing the Experts in Marketing

Posted in Press on August 9th, 2011 by Angelina

Today, Gravytrain’s CEO, Kevin Taylor, took part in the Guardian Career’s Live Q&A about careers in marketing, alongside eleven other panellists from a range of fields. It was an opportunity for people who want to move into marketing, or graduates who wanted to start their careers in the industry, to raise any questions or get advice about how to get their foot in the door.

The Q&A was also an opportunity to find out more about how the experts got into the industry themselves, whether it was client side or agency side. Some went to university to study marketing degrees which led to a job, some did internships in marketing and decided to stay in the industry, while others went straight into work after school and found their path into marketing.

One of the questions put to the panellists was, what are the main differences between agency side and client side marketing?

Bryony Thomas, owner of marketing consultancy, Clear Thought Consulting Limited, who has experienced both client and agency side marketing, explains what to expect in agency side, “You get variety by working on a number of different clients. You learn excellent project and people management skills – which are skills that will always be useful.”

She carries on saying, “The biggest benefit of agency life that I’ve found formed the foundation to my career is pace and work ethic. You have to meet tight deadlines. You have to meet the client’s brief. There is nowhere to hide.”

Bryony explains that working in a client side, “You get more of the bigger picture, putting together an integrated plan using many niche suppliers. It’s a slower, but often more considered, pace.” She advises that you get a much more rounded view of business by working with peers in other disciplines.

On the whole, most of the panel believed that it is not just a degree you need to get into marketing nowadays, it’s about gaining work placements, volunteering work or internships and getting valuable experience to put on your CV.

Kevin states “What you need above everything is the right attitude, a desire to learn, strong work ethic and determination”.

If you are interested in finding out more about the marketing industry, the full Q&A session can be read on Guardian Careers.

Brand Marketing in a Digital World

Posted in Google, Marketing on June 4th, 2010 by Hannah

Last week I was invited to a ‘Brand Marketing in a Digital World’ session at Google.

Currently in the UK, total ad spend is £20bn, with 23% of the total spent online. However, there’s a bit of a disconnect when it comes to Brand Marketing – offline, the split is around 50% on brand marketing; and 50% on direct response. Whereas online, just 5% is spent on brand marketing and the remaining 95% is on direct response.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the primary purpose of the session was to grab some more of that brand marketing budget… well there’s no such thing as a free lunch, right?

However, the session managed to avoid being entirely pitch, and some pretty interesting stuff was shared – so in the interests of share and share alike, I thought I’d share some of it with you.

Undoubtedly digital has profoundly changed both how companies reach their target audience, and indeed the ways in which they communicate with them. Traditionally marketing has been very much about the ”push’ – i.e. transmitting messages from the brand to the consumer. However, increasingly brands are electing to utilise ‘push’ techniques in a slightly different way – rather than simply ‘pushing’ their advertising messages, they are using ‘push’ techniques to encourage consumers to engage with their brands. This stimulates ‘pull’ – i.e. where consumers actively choose to view a brand’s content. ‘Pull’ is essentially about consumer engagement – and of course, here content is king.

The challenge for brands today is to create content which ‘pulls’ consumers in – they actively want to engage with the brand, and perhaps even participate.

Doritos were highlighted as a case study see http://www.youtube.com/user/DoritosYouMakeIt – a campaign (NB this was heavily supported offline too) encouraging consumers to create their own TV ad.

Incidentally – did you know…

Video accounts for one third of web traffic, and by 2013 they’re predicting this will reach 90%
24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
2bn videos are streamed every day – or in other words, everyone on the planet watches 10 videos per month
YouTube is the second largest search engine – proof further (if indeed it were needed) that Bing/Yahoo have a long way to go

Bruce Daisley also highlighted that of course, YouTube is not just for brands… Check out this kid – well it is Friday:

I’ll spare you the rest of the YouTube sales pitch… and instead highlight some free, fun tools which you should definitely go play with:

Google Insights for Search – check out search trends over time.

Google Ad Planner – know what your customers look like? (I mean demographically – not literally) Check out which sites they frequent here.

Twittr Ratr – see whether people are responding to your brand positively or negatively on Twitter (NB this isn’t particularly reliable, but quite fun nonetheless)

Brand Tags – a collective experiment in brand perception. See what people think of famous brands here – tons of fun…

Well that’s all for today folks, hope you have a fabulous weekend

Online Marketing for Profit – Presentation

Posted in Marketing, PPC, SEO, Social Media, Speaking Engagements on May 14th, 2010 by Hannah

Well today’s the day!

If you can’t make it along to our Online Marketing for Profit knowledge session fear not – you can still view the presentation right here

Online Marketing For Profit

View more presentations from Hannah Smith.

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