Made me think, is this an interesting opportunity for Cadbury? Check it out. Bitesize Credit Crunchies!
Nice.
Merry Christmas
Monday 22 December 2008
Overheard New Colloquialism
I was in a funky bar the other day. It was packed, buzzing with people, and as you sometimes do I suddenly honed in on a conversation. Two interesting looking individuals were chatting about things when one remarked "I like the fact it's not too Crunchy in here". Their acquaintance was unfamiliar with the term and asked what they meant by "Crunchy". "Oh, credit crunchy, as in if a place is empty it's Crunchy, this place is packed so not to Crunchy".
Made me think, is this an interesting opportunity for Cadbury? Check it out. Bitesize Credit Crunchies!
Nice.
Merry Christmas
Made me think, is this an interesting opportunity for Cadbury? Check it out. Bitesize Credit Crunchies!
Nice.
Merry Christmas
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Jeff Buckley vs. Simon Cowell
A brilliant blog on the fierce battle for the Christmas number one single between the late Jeff Buckley and the latest winner of Simon Cowell's television talent show, The X Factor.The shows bosses decided that this year's winner should release a cover of Leonard Cohen's classic Hallelujah as their debut, but various Facebook groups have been set up in opposition to the release in an attempt to keep the the latest version of the song off of the top spot.
Judge for yourself which one you prefer by checking out the Jeff Buckey version and the Alexandra Burke version...
Immersive Insight Studies
Immersive Insight Studies
To engage, involve and inspire consumers, brands need to have a deep understanding of what it is their consumers want and need.
Samsung insight study Immersive insight studies offer a way for brands to get under the skin of their target audience by observing their lives for several weeks or months, without having to leave the office, without physically intruding in their daily routine and without taking them out of their environments. A virtual community of target consumers are selected to become the ‘social researcher’ amongst their existing networks. They passively observe as well as actively interact with their networks (online and offline), recording everything through video, images and text. This immersive technique enables a far deeper knowledge and understanding than can be afforded through 2 hour focus groups or
a 10 minute questionnaire.
The researchers receive full briefings to ensure they remain passive in their observations without exerting any influence. Those being observed are in turn made aware of the activity, with permission gained. Whereas the target audience might be naturally cynical and suspicious of a brand, they are relaxed and trusting of their friends and peers. By working with a member of their social network, a brand can therefore gain access and cross boundaries that would never otherwise be possible.
Particular aspects of their lives to be observed and key questions can be seeded at any time, and over the course of the immersion a rich picture is painted depicting the consumers’ pursuits, passions, brand interactions and perceptions, influences, social network structure, communication preferences, media and information consumption and more. All of this enables us to determine how the brand can best add value to or aid their pursuits, passions and lives, what an influencer programme might look like, how best to communicate with them and drive WOM, how best to position a retail programme, what a media strategy could and should include and so on.
In short, from a detailed analysis of the consumers’ lives we can develop an engaging, motivating and inspiring communication strategy.
The target audience will determine the methodology through which the content is collated. Usually, a bespoke online social network is created where the researchers can get involved in moderated and unmoderated chats, adding another dimension to and perspective on the content captured.
This im
mersive insight methodology has been developed, tried and tested by The Lounge on behalf of clients such as Lynx, Sure Girl, EA, Samsung mobile and Alliance & Leicester. It has enabled us to gain powerful insights, which have formed the corner stones of communication strategies which have gone on to engage and inspire.
But we don’t stop our interaction with the target audience there. Once we’ve pulled out the key insights, we work with the target audience to co-create and/or validate the ‘creative concept’. And, where relevant, we work with different groups of consumers to bring it to market through peer to peer and influencer programmes as an integral part of the communication strategy.
In summary, the advantages of an immersive insight study, where a consumer community becomes the ‘social researchers’ are:
* We can get first hand experience of their lives in situ rather than lifting them out of their environments to participate in focus groups.
* We are passively observing the interactions of existing social groups instead of bringing individuals who have never met together in a situation where they might feel the need to impress one another and/or the moderator.
* The researched do not have to think about answers to a list of questions. Instead, the ‘answers’ come through simply being observed doing what they ordinarily do.
* The researchers and the researched relax into the process of observation over a period of weeks or months, overcoming any initial ‘performances to camera’ enabling a true immersion into the real day to day lives of the consumers.
* Consumers trust their friends, where they might not trust brands and corporates. By working with the target consumer to research their friends, brands are given access they wouldn’t otherwise be afforded.
To engage, involve and inspire consumers, brands need to have a deep understanding of what it is their consumers want and need.
Samsung insight study Immersive insight studies offer a way for brands to get under the skin of their target audience by observing their lives for several weeks or months, without having to leave the office, without physically intruding in their daily routine and without taking them out of their environments. A virtual community of target consumers are selected to become the ‘social researcher’ amongst their existing networks. They passively observe as well as actively interact with their networks (online and offline), recording everything through video, images and text. This immersive technique enables a far deeper knowledge and understanding than can be afforded through 2 hour focus groups or
a 10 minute questionnaire.The researchers receive full briefings to ensure they remain passive in their observations without exerting any influence. Those being observed are in turn made aware of the activity, with permission gained. Whereas the target audience might be naturally cynical and suspicious of a brand, they are relaxed and trusting of their friends and peers. By working with a member of their social network, a brand can therefore gain access and cross boundaries that would never otherwise be possible.
Particular aspects of their lives to be observed and key questions can be seeded at any time, and over the course of the immersion a rich picture is painted depicting the consumers’ pursuits, passions, brand interactions and perceptions, influences, social network structure, communication preferences, media and information consumption and more. All of this enables us to determine how the brand can best add value to or aid their pursuits, passions and lives, what an influencer programme might look like, how best to communicate with them and drive WOM, how best to position a retail programme, what a media strategy could and should include and so on.
In short, from a detailed analysis of the consumers’ lives we can develop an engaging, motivating and inspiring communication strategy.
The target audience will determine the methodology through which the content is collated. Usually, a bespoke online social network is created where the researchers can get involved in moderated and unmoderated chats, adding another dimension to and perspective on the content captured.
This im
mersive insight methodology has been developed, tried and tested by The Lounge on behalf of clients such as Lynx, Sure Girl, EA, Samsung mobile and Alliance & Leicester. It has enabled us to gain powerful insights, which have formed the corner stones of communication strategies which have gone on to engage and inspire.But we don’t stop our interaction with the target audience there. Once we’ve pulled out the key insights, we work with the target audience to co-create and/or validate the ‘creative concept’. And, where relevant, we work with different groups of consumers to bring it to market through peer to peer and influencer programmes as an integral part of the communication strategy.
In summary, the advantages of an immersive insight study, where a consumer community becomes the ‘social researchers’ are:
* We can get first hand experience of their lives in situ rather than lifting them out of their environments to participate in focus groups.
* We are passively observing the interactions of existing social groups instead of bringing individuals who have never met together in a situation where they might feel the need to impress one another and/or the moderator.
* The researched do not have to think about answers to a list of questions. Instead, the ‘answers’ come through simply being observed doing what they ordinarily do.
* The researchers and the researched relax into the process of observation over a period of weeks or months, overcoming any initial ‘performances to camera’ enabling a true immersion into the real day to day lives of the consumers.
* Consumers trust their friends, where they might not trust brands and corporates. By working with the target consumer to research their friends, brands are given access they wouldn’t otherwise be afforded.
Monday 15 December 2008
New Looks Best Dressed Uni 2008
Modern Wishing Well
A 'little' discovery over the weekend. A new age wishing well erected in the middle of Convent Garden.
An Audio visual integrated dream/wonderwork! It is all about voice recognition software that recognizes your voice from a phonecall, captures it, transcribes it in text and play it in this dome through a voice recording (you can hear your wish and feel the vibrations of the voice) and project it on the LED walls.
A taste for all senses - REALLY COOL
Check it out on spinvoxwishingwell.com
Social Relationship Marketing
Social Relationship Marketing
People think big brands’ marketing activity is so cynical. That everything they do is purely self-serving. Clearly the majority of marketing undertaken is simply to shift product, why should it have any other role? Well, there is a change a-foot. What if brands could engage in marketing activity that, not only sells product, but also fundamentally benefits the life of their consumer?
So why would a brand want to add this social component? Well let’s go back a step, successful brands create relationships with their customers. These relationships in turn, drive value and loyalty with their consumers, this much you know. We have found that adding a new social component creates a faster means of establishing these deep customer relationships and driving behaviour change. We have called this method Social Relationship Marketing. We have implemented a number of campaigns that have seen some very positive results with this technique.
EA
EA: Big in the Game The first was for Electronic Arts, the computer games publisher. They came to us to create a programme to transcend individual game titles and establish EA as a “seal of approval” that would give consumers the confidence to try more of their products. We identified a number of groups to target with a Social Relationship Marketing programme - the first was urban youth. We spent time working with the target audience to create a nationwide programme called Big In The Game, which provided skills training in activities about which they were passionate.
The programme was designed to make a genuine connection with the target audience around hip hop culture. It consisted of expert workshops, which toured the country, building skills and confidence around the five pillars of hip hop – DJing, MCing, graffiti art, production and dance. Each session began with trial of a particular EA title, which went on to be the creative inspiration in each of the workshop disciplines.
The programme connected with this very difficult to reach target audience, not only at a grass roots level but also with the major players within the UK’s urban music scene, many of whom were keen to get involved.
Alliance & Leicester Inspired Choice
Alliance & Leicester came to us wanting to create a bank account that would appeal to 16-21 year old young workers. Rather than just create a simple gift with purchase mechanic, as all banks do, we instead developed a fundamental component to the account that would continue to give benefit to account holders in the long term.
Through our networks we gained a deep understanding of young workers needs and then identified a clear opportunity for A&L to take the high ground by genuinely adding value to their customers’ lives. We discovered that young workers are ambitious about their earning potential but often lack direction on career options and how to fast track within their careers. As a bank, A&L are well placed to offer advice to customers about their career prospects and associated earning potential. We developed a mentor programme that account holders could tap into. Working with 10 celebrity mentors we offered account holders the opportunity to learn from the best in their profession and get tips about how to achieve real success. Our Inspired Choice programme has driven a 225 % increase in bank accounts year on year and created a fundamentally different relationship between A&L and its young customers.
Orange Rokcorps
We’ve also seen some great examples of other brands adopting a social component to build relationships with customers. Orange’s recent association with RokCorps is another example. They put on a gig at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring Busta Rhymes, John Legend, The Automatic and more. But tickets were not for sale. Instead, attendees had to earn tickets by giving 4 hours of their time to a voluntary project. Through this programme, Orange have enhanced their corporate social responsibility profile, fully engaged with young people who have actively participated in the project and achieved significant media coverage.
People think big brands’ marketing activity is so cynical. That everything they do is purely self-serving. Clearly the majority of marketing undertaken is simply to shift product, why should it have any other role? Well, there is a change a-foot. What if brands could engage in marketing activity that, not only sells product, but also fundamentally benefits the life of their consumer?
So why would a brand want to add this social component? Well let’s go back a step, successful brands create relationships with their customers. These relationships in turn, drive value and loyalty with their consumers, this much you know. We have found that adding a new social component creates a faster means of establishing these deep customer relationships and driving behaviour change. We have called this method Social Relationship Marketing. We have implemented a number of campaigns that have seen some very positive results with this technique.
EA
EA: Big in the Game The first was for Electronic Arts, the computer games publisher. They came to us to create a programme to transcend individual game titles and establish EA as a “seal of approval” that would give consumers the confidence to try more of their products. We identified a number of groups to target with a Social Relationship Marketing programme - the first was urban youth. We spent time working with the target audience to create a nationwide programme called Big In The Game, which provided skills training in activities about which they were passionate.
The programme was designed to make a genuine connection with the target audience around hip hop culture. It consisted of expert workshops, which toured the country, building skills and confidence around the five pillars of hip hop – DJing, MCing, graffiti art, production and dance. Each session began with trial of a particular EA title, which went on to be the creative inspiration in each of the workshop disciplines.
The programme connected with this very difficult to reach target audience, not only at a grass roots level but also with the major players within the UK’s urban music scene, many of whom were keen to get involved.
Alliance & Leicester Inspired Choice
Alliance & Leicester came to us wanting to create a bank account that would appeal to 16-21 year old young workers. Rather than just create a simple gift with purchase mechanic, as all banks do, we instead developed a fundamental component to the account that would continue to give benefit to account holders in the long term.
Through our networks we gained a deep understanding of young workers needs and then identified a clear opportunity for A&L to take the high ground by genuinely adding value to their customers’ lives. We discovered that young workers are ambitious about their earning potential but often lack direction on career options and how to fast track within their careers. As a bank, A&L are well placed to offer advice to customers about their career prospects and associated earning potential. We developed a mentor programme that account holders could tap into. Working with 10 celebrity mentors we offered account holders the opportunity to learn from the best in their profession and get tips about how to achieve real success. Our Inspired Choice programme has driven a 225 % increase in bank accounts year on year and created a fundamentally different relationship between A&L and its young customers.
Orange Rokcorps
We’ve also seen some great examples of other brands adopting a social component to build relationships with customers. Orange’s recent association with RokCorps is another example. They put on a gig at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring Busta Rhymes, John Legend, The Automatic and more. But tickets were not for sale. Instead, attendees had to earn tickets by giving 4 hours of their time to a voluntary project. Through this programme, Orange have enhanced their corporate social responsibility profile, fully engaged with young people who have actively participated in the project and achieved significant media coverage.
Busy Ness as Usual
How nice to end the year on a high.
Here at Lounge HQ we are pleasantly busy, industrious even. Our clients are planning some interesting things for '09 and at the same time we've got more new business opportunities, briefs, and general good cheer than we've had since we started The Lounge.
Did you see our newsletter this last week? If not then check back here over the next week and you'll see the main articles. Oh there was some good stuff in that newsletter.
Oh did I mention we won yet another award for our A&L campaign? We just won a Silver DMA which was nice.
Friday 12 December 2008
The Lounge Christmas partaaay!!
As the festive season is well & truly upon us, we Loungers were ready to let our hair down at the Christmas party. We started with a festive feast at a lovely traditional pub in Chalk Farm. When we were so full we could burst, the secret Santa begun! The team put their creative thinking caps on and some of the more daring presents included a whip and nipple tassles…need I say any more? We then headed to The Proud Galleries in
Happy days!! Enjoy.
B xx
Tuesday 9 December 2008
Totally Wired
This is the latest work from Benedict Radcliffe, a contempory artist living and working in London. His work combines engineering and sculpture with graphic design and his love of machines.In the past he has had work commissioned by Paul Smith, Puma, Red Bull and Comme des Garcons after carving a niche for himself by transferring familiar images into unexpected contexts, resulting not only in asthetically beautiful, but often genuinely challenging pieces.
Ben's other work includes Fluro Ride a flourescent bike that you may have seen him riding around on down Brick Lane, and his double-ended Dalston Jazz Car that was a feature in the foyer of the Hoxton Urban Lodge earlier this year.
To see more of Ben's work check out; www.benedictradcliffe.co.uk
Wednesday 3 December 2008
Bambuser - live broadcast from your mobile
Yet another nifty gadget that you should know about. If you have the right mobile, and luckily for you I don't just yet, then you can live broadcast video and audio right from your handset.
Makes for some very interesting research opportunities. Does it kill off MMS video, well probably. But then who really ever used MMS videos?
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