Category: 1000heads

1000heads: Disrupting the norm

There’s an ongoing debate here at 1000heads HQ at the moment about how we can continually ‘disrupt the norm’ in fun and interesting ways for the benefits of our clients.

This article ‘Why effective word of mouth disrupts schemas‘ is to blame. For the sake of brevity I’m only going to pull one quote from the piece (which really is worth a click and read by the way), as follows:

“Word-of-mouth on brands uses these same cognitive principles. Consumers talk about brands when we disrupt a schema. They talk when we give them a piece of surprise that does not fit inside their mental model.”

I spotted a good visual example of this over the weekend with the latest television advert from DIY specialists, Homebase.

Annoyingly, the only place you can view it online won’t let me actually embed the video – sigh – however from the image below you can get the idea.

Everyday essentials at low prices

The premise is simple, while decorating what looks like a London Underground escalator tunnel, the posters and tools used are priced and demo’d. The end result can be seen with the closing shot; a fantastically decorated public space, that not only looks amazing but also – if you saw it in real life – would certainly get you talking…

But that’s where we think that the whole Homebase campaign could do with some WOM. The London Underground effort isn’t the only space that they’ve disrupted, the other ads include decorating outdoor ads as well as public swimming pools.

Sticking to our We Want Work With principles, if we were working with Homebase then we’d have to push for making some of these above the line ideas and making them real.

Seeing your local underground station kitted out like this certainly doesn’t fit in with ‘the norm’ and – a few logistic issues aside – would certainly get people talking

Do something different.
Disrupt the norm.

1000heads: A charitable thank you to those that Tuttle

Tuttle last week was so much fun, this week we wanted to find a way to say thank you to everyone that came along and made our office such a bubbly place to be on a Friday morning.

Earlier today, we dispatched a crack team of commando 1000heads girls to go out and find the two most cutest and fluffiest fluffy toys they could find.

This is what they came back with…

We’re going to be running a raffle tomorrow morning so you can maybe, just maybe win ONE of the two fluffy things above. I have no preference, well.. I do. The Monkey. But that’s just me…

The other one, the one that the winner decides he or she doesn’t want, will be put into our offline raffle run through our JustGiving page.

Any and all money donated will go straight to the Haiti Hospital Appeal.

If you want to tweet and help spread the word, copy and past the below 🙂

Thank you #Tuttle – Help for Haiti – http://bit.ly/bdVEzE

See you tomorrow! 🙂

1000heads: Getting clever with AR

I spotted this one before Christmas but only remembered it recently when I was tasked with finding broad new ways of engaging your man-on-the-street consumer with new and exciting methods.

AR – that’s Augmented Reality to you and me – has come a long way over the past few months, being used in various online campaigns as well as a number of mobile phone applications, both on the iPhone and Android.

However, this example from Hugo Boss, really does bring AR to the masses with an ease of participation so simple, a monkey could do it.

Take a look…

Here at 1000heads we talk a lot about Breadth vs Depth when it comes to levels of engagement. How we do reach as many people as possible while maintaining the option of deep level engagement to those that have the time and interest to cough up some real emotional investment.

Admittedly this isn’t the deepest of campaigns, but then again it doesn’t need to be.

What I love the most is that it takes a tangible real-world asset with digital components to drive real-world traffic to its offline store. In this case, the shop front to get your (personalised?) message – and then once there – it drives you inside to discover if you’ve won a money off coupon.

With the popularity of doing your shopping online showing no sign of waning, high street retailers need to consistently find innovative ways to increase in-store footfall.

Hats off to Hugo Boss. An instant success with instant word of mouth.

Don’t believe me? Watch the video again and see the crowds of people outside the store attracting the attention of passers-by…

Trust us – Re-inventing the shop front: it’s the next big thing.

1000heads: First Direct come first, but what about the others?

Recently our Data Systems Manager here at 1000heads, one Mr Andrew Stretton, was extolling the virtues of First Direct. Their first forays into social media have been widely covered by the trade press and – as such – FD have followed up with some facts and figures.

However, it’s these facts and figures that are raising questions with our manager of data systems.

Andrew, the floor is yours

___________________

First Direct captured my attention this week with an innovative ad campaign on London Underground, using the findings of an online market research study as its centrepiece.

“77% of what’s said about us online is positive”

It’s exciting to see companies shouting about their word of mouth. The sample WOM on the advert is also interesting – could we soon see realtime social media feeds on billboards just as Skittles attempted on their website?

On the other hand, the wording of the ad and the methodology used raises a few questions.

First Direct claim that 77% of what’s said about them “online” is positive, based upon a sample of opinions posted in a controlled environment on a brand presence. It would be interesting to know what the results would be if all banks gave their users the same opportunity and what the exact effects of the incentives involved were.

As Data Systems Manager here at 1000heads I’m tasked with bringing our clients a representative sample of spontaneous conversation from the widest variety of online sources possible. Benchmarked, contextual data from realtime, unprompted conversation could provide more interesting top line stats for an advert, giving people a birdseye view of what they themselves are saying online. For example:

“In online conversation, Brand X is strongly endorsed 20% more often than any other major UK bank”

This is of course is not to say that surveys have no place, it’s just that there is so much more insight out there to play with.

How do you think these different measures of opinion can be reconciled? Do let us know what you think in the comments, or if you would like to know more about our WOMTrak and WOMActive products please drop us a line.

1000heads: Demystifying Online Engagement

Last Friday, while all the cool kids were playing nice at our first ‘in-house’ Tuttle, I was dispatched to the NMA Live event: Demystifying Online Engagement

The event was an interesting one to say the least, with advertisers, media planners and buyers all discussing what kind of cost per engagement (CPE) models they should be working towards and what kind of results they should be expecting.

I went in with a slightly different angle.
My brief was as follows:

“Engagement Beyond Advertising: Identifying and Evaluating Engaged Customers in the Social Space”

First off, it’s important to establish what is meant by ‘the social space’. Social, more now than ever before, implies ‘online’. However, that’s not strictly true. Word of mouth is both an online and an offline activity. Conversations can happen EVERYWHERE.

And if conversations can happen everywhere then people can be engaged anywhere.

But what do I mean by engagement? Each speaker had their own interpretation. For me, an engagement isn’t just simply clicking through on a banner ad, nor is it really watching the video that rolls after said click.

True engagement is about the beginnings of something much bigger. The beginnings of conversation.

Whether that conversation be between brands and people or between people and people, what does it mean to be truly ‘engaged’?

How many brands have to ‘engaged’ with today? How many people?
How and where?

This is something I’m going to have to come back to another time. The NMA has written up their thoughts on the subject (based on the presentations from the day), but for now, take a look at the slides below and let me know what you think –

NMA Live – Demystifying Engagement

There are some notes that go with each slide but they can only be viewed over on slideshare.

As ever, I’d be interested to hear what you think.

What does engagement mean to you?
Where are your social spaces?
When are you truly engaged?

1000heads: Make mine McDonald’s

Sometimes the best kind of word of mouth is that created out of taking the mundane, everyday things we’re so used to and simply doing something different with them.

Take this example here from fast-food giant, McDonalds.

Nice huh?

They took your average, everyday bus stop and turned it into a point of conversation.

How?

By building a bespoke steam machine made to the exact measurements of the bus shelter which then fills the space whenever anyone sits near. Only when the ad is filled with steam does the message become visible. Very smart.

Suddenly the free coffee promotion becomes the point of a conversation, instead of just merely a call to action.

Look around you, what everyday things could you turn to your advantage?

Hat tip to @litmanlive for the original link

1000heads: How do you use yours?

We’ve just changed our Twitter background like so:

Why? Well…

We think, when it comes to talking to brands, it’s important to know exactly who you are talking to. Putting a human face to the oft-faceless corporations is something we believe in and, fortunately also specialise in.

Obviously the above method isn’t for everyone – I still have artichokes as my personal background (it’s a long story). But by updating your contact info using this under-used medium is just one way of maximising the impact of your company’s Twitter presence.

If you’re using twitter from a brand perspective, as we are above, how do you use your background?

^JW 😉