There’s a lot of talk at the moment about the ‘always on’ approach. Agencies, clients, media – everyone has an opinion on why it’s something we should or shouldn’t be adopting, and what it actually means.

Some people say it’s the result of having instant access to data, rather than the previous 72-hour turnaround that Facebook used to make us wait for. Others claim it’s come about purely because social media doesn’t have an ‘off’ switch – and that people can access your content and interact with a brand at any time, anywhere. Read More »

Education, inspiration, connection, innovation and celebration. That is what I was told to expect when Advertising Week Europe (AWE) started on Monday and I must admit they pretty much kept to their word. There were a few things that stood out to me throughout the week most notably how we are on a slow move to Web 3.0 and the death of the TVC and rise of the six seconds of story telling. Read More »

The Super Bowl, the Brit Awards and the Oscars have acted as honeypots for brands seeking to ride the real-time zeitgeist in recent weeks.

There has been some truly inspired activity, like the now infamous Oreo tweet during the Super Bowl blackout. But there have been many more half-baked efforts that fail to be embraced by social communities or to add any real value to the brand involved. This can lead to a whole lot of wasted time and energy that does a brand’s reputation more harm than good. Read More »

What do Oreo’s successful Super Bowl Twitpic and a Furby craze in Thailand have in common Both are example of the power of ‘now media’, according to RamKrishna Raja, digital managing director at IPG Mediabrands.

In case you missed all the social buzz about the Super Bowl last weekend, Oreo was the surprise social-media winner among all those brands that were slugging it out in the digital gridiron. Read More »

This year has been a huge one in terms of social media and the Super Bowl with many advertisers including Oreo, who we wrote about earlier, Tide, Calvin Klein and  Go Daddy doing very well.  The Whispr Group has created this infographic that highlights some of the standout moments and evaluates social media ROI for the top brands buzzed about on Twitter last night as the Baltimore Ravens took down the San Francisco 49ers amid a power cut.

The above advertisers weren’t the only advertisers to do well. The Budweiser Clydesdale commercial, Brotherhood, basically went viral. It was the most shared and watched ad of the Super Bowl so far with over 1.5 million shares and 6 million views (that means every 3.6 people who saw it shared it). Read More »

The biggest moment on Twitter during last night’s Super Bowl was not during play itself, but when the lights went out at the New Orleans Superdome for 35 minutes and cookie brand Oreo scored the biggest ad win of the night.

The power went early in the third quarter, with the Baltimore Ravens leading the San Francisco 49ers 28-6, and the response by advertisers was a true social media one with ads being produced in minutes. Read More »

Every year, hundreds of millions of people get very excited about the Super Bowl. And every year, a smaller, but still significant number of people get even more excited about the breaks in between play. Super Bowl advertising frenzy is upon us again. But, as CNBC report, advertisers are taking advantage of the second screen phenomenon by directing viewers to hashtags rather than websites of Facebook pages, in the hope of driving conversations. Thousands of them. Read More »

As Super Bowl 2013 fast approaches Unruly Media have  come up with the Top 10 Super Bowl Social Video Facts Every Brand Should Know. Insights include that 75% of the top 20 most shared ads from Super Bowl 2012 were launched before Super Sunday and for two years running Volkswagen has been the most shared brand. Its 2012 teaser video attracted 3x more shares than its game day ad. Read More »

The London 2012 Olympics, Euro 2012 and The Super Bowl were all great examples of how fans are using social media to follow live events and share the moment. However, what’s also clear is that some sports stars and teams are using social media far more effectively than others. Sadly, there are also quite a few sports stars who would be best advised to steer clear of Twitter.  This infographic from Eventility, which helps sports clubs to organise themselves online, does a good job of highlighting the winners and losers in this relationship. Read More »

From worrying over divided attention to leveraging the potential of the portable screen, marketers have started linking the ‘second screen’ (tablets and mobile phones) with the ‘first screen’ (TV) to raise levels of engagement.

“The second screen can turn TV viewing into a shared experience, enable fans to go deeper into the story world, allow instant follow-up on a call to action, extend a message beyond the limits of 30 seconds—and the list goes on,” says Ann Mack, director of trendspotting for JWT.

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