Banner | Bite Me

Media, networking and drinks

Thu, 11 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Three words you don’t often see together (not). Joking aside, the Banner media team recently hosted a very successful evening to thank 150 key publishers for their hard work and loyalty over the past year. See the photos.

'Marketech' - more sales, less outlay

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

All my rich friends, who work in the financial sector, think the world has ended. If you were employed in the technology sector in 2001, you felt the same way. After this bubble, the tech sector looks much more solid. Im not suggesting a consumer downturn wont hurt, but businesses still believe that new technology and investment online can help them cut costs and improve efficiency. And theyre right.

In the up-coming downturn, tech companies will obsess about market share, pipeline and, most importantly, revenues. Strong brands will prevail over the weak as they tend to do in shrinking markets. But gone are the days when brand advertising alone would drive sales. Welcome to the world of hard-nosed demand generation. This new marketing science brings marketing more in sync with sales than ever before.

Tech marketers will need to appeal to businesses and consumers under pressure. They will have to find solid, rational stories around unemotional issues like ROI, interoperability, energy efficiency etc. And tell those stories without big media budgets. Todays most effective marketing tools are all technology stories of their own social media, consumer generated content, search, video-on-demand, marketing automation, the long tail etc.

In 2001, the dot-com millionaires went back to banking. In 2009, the banks have run out of money and pure-play advertising has run out of road. The new marketing landscape is crawling with as many technology-based marketing tools as last years sub-prime mortgages. Feast yourselves on Google Trends, Google Analytics, YouTube, Myspace, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and loads more. Embrace them today theyll be more expensive tomorrow.

Aiming high at the Demand Generation Summit

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Over 120 people gathered at Altitude in the Millbank Tower, London, for the first European Demand Generation Summit. The event was a huge success with everyone learning something new from each other about industry trends and best practices. If you missed the event, or if you'd like to see it again, you can watch the full webcast here. If you'd like to view more webcasts on demand generation, please sign up to the Channel here. And, if you'd like to discuss the fast-changing world of demand generation with fellow marketers, why not visit LinkedIn and join the Demand Generation Network?

IMHO: Outsourcing brainpower

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 00:00:00 +0000

In the 80s advertising alone was able to make a profound difference to a business's fortunes. Today, this is much less true. The campaign is dead. Yet marketing has become intrinsic in modern organisations. Marketing now touches everything a company does, everywhere.

The struggle to create relevance and differentiation in a highly commoditised world has never been more intense. Undervalued, unloved and sometimes unkempt, the people best able to deliver this are still lurking in agencies and design shops - posing as planners and creative talent.

Unfortunately, today's obsession with procurement is driving agencies to 'unbundle' the deliverables of marketing and flog them at rock bottom prices. Clients simply aren't allowed to pay for strategic thinking. This is madness.

Management consultancies are able to charge exorbitant fees for suggesting strategies largely based on the forensic analysis of trailing numbers. How can this ever buck a market trend? Before anyone at McKinsey, Bain or Accenture puts out a fatwa on my life, I believe they all have a valuable part to play. But 'blank slate' creativity is simply not their bag.

And that's not all. Technology is affecting the marketing landscape faster than ever before. Automated marketing programmes, real-time reporting and mobile campaigns on 100 different platforms. Does any client have the bandwidth to cope? Frankly, I doubt it.

So step up and fork out for agency 3.1. Besides the typical skills, expect them to be digital and search literate but also business savvy and totally comfortable with tomorrow's technology.

They won't come cheap. But luckily for the procurement people, they'll be worth every penny.

Inside the mind of the IT professional

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

We recently got a unique first look at the Wave 15 research from IGS (IDG's international sales arm).

Wave 15 offers an invaluable look into the minds of IT professionals across the UK, France and Germany. It examines everything from spending and planned purchases to favoured brands and media influences (and everything in between). Wave 15 also looks at the awareness of the likes of podcasts, webcasts, blogs, wikis and RSS. If you'd like a look yourself, email our Media Director, Mike Jarvis at mike.jarvis@b1.com or call on 020 7349 2271.

IMHO: Personal advertising

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Staff Writer, Steven Elliott

(Rod Banner is in California at FORTUNE's Brainstorm Tech 2008)

It may be an apocryphal story, but it's said Lester Wunderman, the self-styled father of direct marketing, laments the fact that he chose the term 'direct marketing' over 'personal advertising'. Poor Lester may not have to despair for much longer. As marketing becomes more digitally-driven, it strikes me that the distinction between advertising and direct marketing is increasingly blurred.

Today's most celebrated advertising campaigns invite interaction from their audience. Engagement is the new measure of success. Few channels don't now offer the ability for a customer to respond in some way. From the red button on your digital TV to Bluetooth-enabled posters. We may not always be selling directly off the (web)page, but levels of response are now being used to measure the effectiveness of brand advertising.

Of course direct marketing hasn't stood still. The combination of variable digital print, personalisation and advances in data mining and analytics is making campaigns more relevant and targeted than ever before.

What's really changed in the past year is the application of similar analytics and mass personalisation to online advertising. Publishers like Google are now capturing user data every bit as revealing as the shopping habits monitored to such effect by the likes of Tesco. Behaviourally targeted television advertising won't be far behind.

In this converged marketing landscape the separation of advertising and direct marketing disciplines is nonsensical. And in my view it's going to be far easier for brand-savvy direct agencies to evolve than it is for advertising agencies to acquire the left-brained marketing skills needed to thrive in this new world.

SanDisk

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:00:00 +0000

Since January 2007 SanDisk has been the proud sponsor of the Ducati Corse MotoGP racing team, a performance leader in the high-speed world of motorcycle racing.

This year Ducati team member Casey Stoner stormed to victory in the MotoGP World Championship. To celebrate this, SanDisk asked Banner's Media team to plan and implement a print campaign congratulating Stoner. The campaign also had to raise awareness of SanDisk's association with the Ducati team. To achieve this, we created a media plan with activity that ran in premium positions within quality news publications on Monday 5th November, directly after the last racing weekend: the Valencia GP, on Sunday 4th November. We also executed a high profile campaign across the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, South Africa, Sweden and the UAE. Best of all though, we were able to secure unique media coverage at the Valencia GP itself.

Squeeze more out of the web

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:00:01 +0000

Due to the pressures on marketers to deliver ever-quicker ROI, online is increasingly being seen as a low-cost, rapid method of generating leads. But how can you guarantee you're squeezing the most out of your online investment? And how can you be sure you're taking advantage of the latest tools and techniques to drive quality leads? This is where Banner comes in. We've produced an entire presentation about online lead generation, the pitfalls, the advantages - all the things you need to know. For a personal run-through, email steven@b1.com or call him on 020 7349 2311.

Hip, hip, Hanne! (and Rupert)

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 17:00:00 +0000

Congratulations Hanne and Rupert. They've both been selected as Internationalist magazine's Agency Innovators of 2007 - making them 2 out of 24 to be selected from over 100 nominations throughout the world.

It's playtime

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:00:00 +0000

We're all giving our thumbs a workout after winning Glu Mobile. Glu is a leading global publisher of games for mobile phones and we've been chosen to handle all their media planning and buying in the UK. Glu's gaming portfolio includes award winning titles such as Brain Genius and Project Gotham Racing, but their big release this summer is Transformers the game, based on the new blockbuster movie. Banner will also take care of Glu's pan-European online activity across networks including MSN, Orange and Yahoo.

Banner creates splash with polar bear

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:30:00 +0000

'Think' is a new construction and property event focusing on sustainability, regeneration and innovation. Autodesk asked us to create something that would help them stand out from the crowd at the show. In response, we built a huge polar bear made of ice. The bear slowly melted over the 3-day event, providing the perfect metaphor for global warming. Delegates were also shown the many ways Autodesk products can help environmental design. We even built the stands using sustainable materials for which we received a highly commended award at the show.

IMHO: Marketing 2.0 - The pig is dead.

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:30:00 +0000

Jeremy Bullmore once said that marketing is a posh word for selling but for once, he's wrong.

Marketing is often perceived as the stuff you 'apply' to bring a product to the attention of its potential buyers. It may even include the persuasive argument required to make someone actually part with their money.

But today's customers aren't falling for spin anymore. Today's marketing has to affect a company's entire DNA. Product Design, User Interface, Out of Box Experience and Customer Support are all part of the brand experience and need to be considered as part of the marketing brief.

The key is to know what makes your customers tick and to be certain of what they are trying to 'get done'. Only then can you provide precisely what they will need to accomplish these goals. 'If I know what you need, I can build what you will buy'.

The day is past when you could simply put lipstick on a pig and expect it to become desirable.

Rain, rain, go away it's another Banner Sailing Day

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 09:30:00 +0000

Not content with just working hard for our clients, every year we like to play hard with them too. On June 15th the stage was set for another one of our infamous sailing days on the Solent in Portsmouth. The day saw our clients, friends and co-workers all coming together to learn how to sail, enjoy some lovely food, and share a laugh despite the soggy weather and lack of wind. To see some very wet but very happy faces click here.

Getting smart with FreeMove

Tue, 08 May 2007 12:30:00 +0000

You know the story, you're sure your communications are performing but discovering exactly which bit is working how hard can be pretty elusive. We set about addressing this problem for our client FreeMove. Running an awareness campaign across the UK, France, Germany and Italy, we moved beyond simple click-through tracking to add a Dynamic Logic Ad index study to isolate the effect of just this one campaign. While precise figures are confidential, this approach showed us among other things that the campaign was most successful with larger companies, C-level audiences and French businesspeople. All information we will use to tune further communications.

Search - the new research

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 08:30:00 +0000

Getting content onto a website is pretty simple now with the prevalence of Content Management Systems (CMS). Architecting it in a customer-centric fashion, however, has become more crucial than ever.

Differentiation and relevance are the two miracle ingredients for successful marketing but they still elude many companies. One way to nail them is to figure out what your customers are trying to get done and then ensure your offering helps them do it best.

In the past you could only gather insights into their attitudes and desires by spending a lot of money on research. But now there are heaps of new tools that help you to look into your potential customers' minds by way of search data. And many of them are free.

The big daddy of them all is arguably Google Trends. Though not the answer to everything, it gives some fascinating statistical insights into what people are looking for and where they are when they're looking.

More powerful still is Microsoft Adlab. MS have built some very impressive tools that predict the demographics of the people who hit your site - or anyone else's. Both of these services are completely free.

Then there's Wordtracker - a site built to help you discover the efficacy of various different search terms. They charge for this service but there's a free trial if you want to see what it's like before parting with any cash.

The upshot is that the marketing landscape is fundamentally changing. Web 2.0 innovations are throwing off powerful tools that help us create more customer-centric online experiences. It would be a mistake not to take advantage of them.

Promising the world to Autodesk

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:00:00 +0000

Stop right now. Take a look around you. Go on, check out all the stuff in your office right this second. Chances are, pretty much everything you see was made using the software of one company - Autodesk. To put it simply, Autodesk rules the planet in helping designers create anything that turns up in the real world. We've pitched and won a key piece of business in December and have been in super-stealth mode ever since on the global launch materials for their next generation of products.

This is the first time Autodesk have launched so many products centrally. It involved creating an end-to-end kit of communications to simultaneously launch over 40 products worldwide. We created DM, eDM, ads, web films, landing pages, banners, event materials, telemarketing scripts and a complete guide to putting the whole lot together. In fact, you name it, we created it. It's been quite a ride and hopefully marks the start of a wonderful new relationship.