Picking up a silver award in the ‘Best use of existing social media platforms/sites’ category for ‘Nokia / Tron: Legacy’ as well as a Digital Impact ‘Highly Commended’ award in the ‘Best use of online video’ category for ‘Behind the E7‘.
We’re immensely proud of our work on both of these wins and, as ever, we celebrated in the correct and proper way!
Fancy joining us for celebratory tea and cake? Why not apply to be part of our [multi] award-winning team?
We’ve just won a wealth of new clients and we need fresh, smart and hungry talent to help us deliver even more spectacular work for some of the best clients in the world.
Just over a year ago, the 1000heads Nokia account team were gearing up for one of the biggest/most intense workloads of our collective history as we headed towards the 24hr Nokia / Tron: Legacy takeover.
Here, in October 2011, it is still look upon as one of the best pieces of activity we have ever worked on and – for our client – it is continually held up and referred to as their best Facebook campaign, ever.
To put it lightly, we’re chuffed to bits!
A few thank yous:
To the SoMeComms judging panel for recognising our fantastic work.
To our partners at Disney and Propaganda, without whom none of this would’ve happened.
To the ‘heads who worked tirelessly (through the night on some occasions!) to make sure that this activity came together perfectly.
Last, but by no means least, to our awesome client(s) who continually challenge us and brief us into being able to dream, create and ultimately perform best in class and industry-defining work in the social media space.
Thank you, all of you.
Right, let’s get that champagne…
Awards are great, we love them, but what we love more is delivering great work for inspiring clients.
If you’re looking for a career change and want to work with some of the best and smartest people in the industry, then get in touch.
We have an ‘open door’ blogging policy for all staff here at 1000heads and today’s post is from Senior Strategy Executive, Ben Fox, he’s a talented chap and had this to say about a recent not-exactly-social retail experience – JW
Like many twenty-something males in the UK, I’ve always looked to Topman for fashion inspiration. The retail chain took around £1.8 billion in revenue last year and is a market leader because of their ability to influence (rather than simply follow the) trends; a trait that all brands aspire to. This ethos has always stuck in my memory and as a result Topman is front of mind when I want/need new clothes.
However, experience determines perception, and over the weekend I saw a different side to the retailer. I was in-store, browsing through the racks, when I saw the perfect T-shirt for a friend of mine. It was ideal and emblazoned across the front was “It’s all about me”; a running in-joke that we have together.
I took a photo on my phone to send it to him (so we could have a bit of a laugh and see if he wanted it) and to cut a long story short, I was promptly asked by a member of staff to delete the photograph I’d just snapped. I explained what was happening, and that I wanted to send it to a friend, but it didn’t seem to matter. I still don’t really understand why I couldn’t keep the photo, I was simply told to refer to the Topman ‘terms and conditions‘.
Being a disgruntled customer of the 21st century, I promptly tweeted:
Topman can make their own rules, of course. But are these restrictions rules stifling sales?
For a start, they’ve just shut down a direct product recommendation between two trusted peers – a big word of mouth no no. After that, there seemed to be an expectation placed upon the aforementioned peer to go home, remember the product, visit the website, find the product page and then send it on to his friend? Unlikely at best, inconvenient too.
OK, so, sticking to 1000heads’ blogging guidelines and turning this negative into a positive, I’d like to flip this whole policy on its head and create some kind of smartphone-based media sharing campaign for Topman. Without fleshing it out too much, it would basically aim to drive consumers in-store and encourage organic image sharing. I can imagine it being some kind of treasure hunt, using perhaps both Foursquare and Instagram, alongside Twitter and Facebook to push content out to the masses.
Just look at the number of tweets and shares that have driven the competition: 191 and 1175 respectively – that’s not bad at all. The Topman brand has fans that share their content and while it’s not officially related to image sharing, I can’t help the felling that – on the strength of the above - Topman is missing several opportunities to convert positive (and potentially negative) offline retail experiences into online activity.
The Land Rover competition is not inherently social. They’ve done a simple ‘stick a share badge on it’ job and let it go from there. Imagine if they’d actually tapped into something properly and, instead of shutting down P2P recommendation, embraced sharing of in-store content across multiple different platforms?
It could make for a very different story indeed.
To close, it’s worth saying that I still admire Topman, and will do, as long as they keep selling great products. I couldn’t imagine shopping on Oxford Street without visiting their flagship store. But when it comes to engendering positive word of mouth both online and off, they seem to have missed a beat.
Here at 1000heads we’re proud for our ethics. We don’t contact anyone under 16 to take part in our campaigns (and if we do it by mistake, as is all too easy online, we apologise sincerely and back out). We only invite people 18 and over to take part in our events.
We believe children should be left well alone by marketing agencies; most of the time it’s more effective talking to their parents, anyway. Our Different Size Feet division is dedicated to understanding families, their drivers and behaviours, and finding ethical, effective ways to harness their influence.
However, we know that not all word of mouth or social media agencies feel the same, so we’re committed to helping build guidelines to protect both young people and the reputation of the WOM industry.
Over the past few months I have been very busy in my role on the WOMMA UK Council, consulting with the Advertising Association about the Bailey Review on child sexualisation and commercialisation in peer to peer marketing campaigns.
It’s an important issue that has had a lot of attention in the press, and we’re proud to have been part of the group of associations and brands committed to shaping a response that is effective, realistic and actionable.
This week Mark Lund, Chair of the Advertising Association’s Children’s Panel, will present the new agreed guidelines to Prime Minister David Cameron. He says: “Bailey recognised that the commercial world has much to offer children and families, but that we need to ensure we observe sensible guidelines in the way we interact with them. These measures will help industry do just that.”
The new guidance reads:
“Young people under the age of 16 should not be employed and directly or indirectly paid or paid-in-kind to actively promote brands, products, goods, services, causes or ideas to their peers, associates or friends.”
At WOMMA UK we’ll be adding it to our Code of Ethics which all our members – including 1000heads – subscribe to.
But to make sure everyone understands what it means in practice, we’re also planning a WOMMA UK panel including some of the leading figures who have put the guideline together, so we can explore the ramifications and give all our members the chance to ask questions about how it will impact on them. Date and time will be announced soon.
What do you think of the guidance? Will it impact on your own work? Do you think this is a necessary piece of protection or a media storm in a teacup?
Add your comments below and get in touch with us here at 1000heads if you have any questions.
1000heads has been involved with the phenomenon that is Like Minds for two years now, and anyone who has attended one of their conferences, summits, immersive workshops or networking events will understand why.
Like Minds isn’t your average self-congratulatory, all-talk-no-action social media echo chamber. The organisation, led by the charismatic, down to earth double-act Drew Ellis and Scott Gould aims “to create a platform where participants can join fellow like minds in order to inspire one another and make those ideas happen, all on a level that is accessible both financially and structurally.”
Which means an emphasis on action; no bullshit; getting out of London; and on garnering insight from a huge range of thinkers and innovators from all sorts of backgrounds and specialities.
This year’s autumn’s conference, ‘Innovation + Opportunity’, takes place in a couple of weeks on 19-21st October and we’d love to see you there.
In June 2010 I headed to Helsinki to take part in a Like Minds Conversations event, speaking at the Nokia-sponsored conference on augmented reality and then heading to a villa to develop a social strategy for the Finnish tourist board.
This year, we’ve got a packed schedule – on Wednesday morningI will be presenting a keynote on ‘Graveyards vs Maternity Wards, or Culture vs Creativity’; on Thursday afternoon we’re running a word of mouth immersive workshop, before our CEO Mike explains why ‘Conversation is the Media of Now’; and on Friday morningJames takes the floor with ‘The 5 Word of Mouth Moments of 2011.’
We’ll be speaking (and listening) alongside some extraordinary talent such as Rupert Turnbull, Publisher of Wired UK; Craig Hepburn, Global Director of Digital for Nokia and John Bessant, Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Exeter University. And, knowing Like Minds, there will be plenty of laughter, eating, drinking and late-night-epiphanies as speakers and attendees alike explore Exeter, swap ideas and get to know each other as friends.
Yesterday, Facebook announced some fairly major changes to its Pages Insights product.
The ‘People Talking About’ feature is a major step forward and attempts to value brand engagement in a more meaningful way than a mere ‘Like this’. Facebook’s defining this new feature as stories people create about brand pages and could take the form of comments, shares, check-ins, RSVPs and @Mentions.
What’s more, it’s going to be placed right underneath the ‘Like’ statistic so you just know it’s something we’re all going to be paying attention to.
What’s interesting in the grab above is the relative scale of the ‘People Talking About This’ number. It’s going to be far smaller than other metrics.
This is a good thing.
Engagement has been a difficult sell-in for some time. True measures of p2p engagement have been dwarfed by reach and impression googolplexes and often dismissed to the cutting room floor come board level report time.
The obsession with massive figures has obfuscated the true value of social. This move is an iterative step towards encouraging a more balanced presentation of a brand’s social performance – one that considers breadth and depth in more equal measure.
Can I hear a speculative ‘Hallelujah’?
Check out Clickz for a more latitudinal exploration of the changes to Facebook’s insights and premium ad products.
Special thanks to Ken Murphy for the glorious Meh.
