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…

1. Video accounts for one third of web traffic, and by 2013 they’re predicting this will reach 90%
2. 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
3. 2bn videos are streamed every day – or in other words, everyone on the planet watches 10 videos per month
4. 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

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

Thank crunchie it’s Friday! I’ve had a bit of a busy one this week, hence no blog posts – I’m sorry, I promise to do two next week.

In the meantime here’s my pick of the best blog posts on search this week:

SEO

Matt Cutts offers some clarification re PageRank Sculpting, following his comments at SMX Advanced. Rand’s synopsis over at SEOmoz is also worth a read.

Does your content educate, engage, entertain and entice? Lisa Barone argues it’s more important to create good content than try to keyword stuff your way to the top. I couldn’t agree more.

Social Media

You might be  great at Social Media, but if this great experience doesn’t follow through when your customers hit your website, call centres, stores etc – then you need to get your ducks in a row. Excellent advice from Kristy on aligning your messaging across all touch points.

PPC

Joe at PPC Hero’s done a fabulous post on using Google Wonder Wheel for Keyword Research – it’s a must read.

Online Marketing

If you work in-house you may well be familiar with the topic of Bruce Hendrickson’s post Take Me To Your Leader - the online marketing game’s really changed, are you ready to join the fray?

Search Engines

Should Google be worried about Bing? Patricio Robles at Econsultancy cites 5 reasons…

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

Nope, that’s not photo-shopped. That’s the power of social media. Happy Friday!

Crunchie image credit trekkyandy

Thank Crunchie it’s Friday!

Here’s the weekly round up

SEO

Do you want to learn more about SEO? Danny Dover’s Learn SEO in 30 minutes per day is well worth a read.

Link building is arguably the toughest part of any SEO campaign – fortunately Rob Ousbey’s on hand at SEOmoz with 8 great tips. It’s all about the kittens for me

Social Media

Just starting out on the social networking scene? Kim Krause Berg has some excellent advice. 

PPC

Do you geo-target your PPC campaigns? Perhaps you should – Doug Drees explains why…

User Experience

Sometimes we can all get a little web-centric in our approach, I therefore also like to look at real world examples of user experience. Clearly Dustin Curtis feels the same way. The flimsy doorknob and the forgettable reciept are lovely real world examples of user experience, and might encourage you to think about your business a little differently. 

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

404 error pages explained, courtesy of Dilbert.

Have a lovely weekend :) 

Image credit kennymatic

Can’t believe it’s that time again – the week’s are rushing past! Here’s the round up of the best blog posts/articles I’ve read this week…

Search Engines

Microsoft launched a new search engine called Bing - available to microsoft employees now, and to the rest of us oiks shortly. Just can’t wait? Take a look at Greg Sterling’s Bing v Google head to head.

Meanwhile over at Google, they’ve been working on a new communications tool called Wave. Google describe it as:

 ”…equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.”

SEO

Approaching international SEO is always tricky – SharkSEO has outlined 3 approaches to site structure for international SEO and the pros and cons of each – essential reading. 

Over at SEOmoz Rob Ousby looks at how to increase clicks on your organic listings via some careful crafting of the snippet which the search engines display in their results – SEO meets marketing – love it! 

Social Media

Is Social Media the marketing end-all? Doug  deGrood at Advertising Age isn’t convinced. An excellent opinion piece and well worth a read.

Marketing

I’m a massive fan of Malcolm Gladwell writer of Blink and The Tipping Point (incidentally if you haven’t already, do read his books). His latest article in the New Yorker explores How David Beats Goliath - i.e. how the underdog can win – even against the odds. It is a long article, but well worth a read.  

PPC

The pros and cons of bidding on clients own brand names is always up for debate. Over at Search Engine Journal, Brian Carter illustrates the value of brand PPC, giving a compelling argument backed up with some interesting stats, which might make you think again.

Aaaannnnd Finally, Friday’s Funny

This week I’ve been somewhat preoccupied with grammar and punctuation, hence this cartoon really tickled me (NB there’s a naughty swear word in the cartoon, so don’t click the link if you’re offended by such things). 

Hat tip to Ciaran for this. 

Have a lovely weekend

Image credit joyosity