Having saved a puppy’s life a few days earlier, just another service eGaming Consulting has to offer (yes people we save lives at no extra cost!*), we sent a man to Marketing Week Live at London’s Olympia with a skip in his step…
As I made my way into the heart of the conference I stumbled across Gary from BlondeFish (ok I might have bumped into him… and maybe some of my coffee might have landed on his shirt… ok maybe a lot!). Anyway the least I could do was listen to his business spiel. He got right to it and proceeded to explain the concept behind his company, which actually proved very entertaining.
‘Blondefish provides RFID and technology in interactive events.’ Gary said. I asked him what exactly that meant and he explained with a case study.
For Smirnoff, Blondefish organised for all guests to be given a cool wristband as they entered an event, so every time they saw, heard, sipped or experienced something they liked, they tapped their wristband on a Facebook Like Pod to share it with their friends on Facebook as it happened.
The average number of friends on Facebook for their target audience is 430, so while 2,500 guests had the time of their life, Smirnoff wanted to amplify the event to potentially over a million people in the virtual world of Facebook.
Instead of thanking him for explaining to me again in such depth I asked him why exactly they didn’t have a blonde girl in a fish costume to promote their company in a more accurate way. Gary didn’t laugh. But the idea was running in my head and I suddenly concluded that word of mouth, especially after a social event is truly dead and buried and has been replaced by “like of Facebook”. And with that thought I was out of there before Gary decided to stick me with his laundry bill.
I then ran into Tim from Ambient Media, this time without spilling any liquids on his or my shirt. He had a doll besides him with what looked like a computer screen around its waist, which made me quite intrigued to hear what exactly was on show.
‘We do a lot of guerrilla marketing and we do it well with high-tech devices’ Tim told me.
‘We go around the streets and people either come to us or we go to them and they touch us’, he added. Risky business you might think but what Tim means is they can, for example, install a game or a simpler version of an online site on a touch screen tablet and with a few carefully selected models of one’s choice promote a product or website on any street in the UK. He told me that they had just run a similar advertising campaign in Cardiff for a local casino where they installed a casino game on the touch screen and a representative went scouting for potential casino aficionados and every time someone played the casino game on their device they won 20 pounds in chips to play in the casino.
‘This proved a great success for the casino and it cost them a few hundred quid only’ Tim exclaimed. As I took mental notes of our conversation I could hear Tom from Giff Gaff begin his speech on the challenges of promoting an online website so I quickly said goodbye to Tim and hello to Tom, how exciting life was proving to be.
Tom from Giff Gaff was a very entertaining character, his hair was wild almost caveman-like and his beard was so thick and undomesticated that it looked like he was being sponsored by Gillette just with the sole intention of putting off people from ever considering growing a beard. **
Marketing Giff Gaff, a SIM only pay as you go mobile provider, proved to have a few challenges. At first with low traffic to the site Tom and his co-workers invested in social media and came up with the idea of the public promoting the site with user-made viral videos.
‘Most of the videos that were made were bad, I mean really bad but a few were good and I mean really good’ Tom shouted.
One of the videos that were made for Giff Gaff pictured a sketch artist on a zebra crossing sketching cars and the drivers’ reactions proved to be hilarious. Another video involved a man dressed up in a gimp suit walking the streets and members of the public could do whatever they wanted with this man including photo and video evidence which then spread around facebook, YouTube, etc.
Tom also mentioned introducing a forum that became highly popular, attracting many users to interact with each other and even a few of the more radical or crazy ones to shine through. One user went so far as to read and study the entire terms and conditions of the company and when others asked questions on any matters related to this he would promptly provide an answer. Another user tested one of their products across the M4 without being asked and posted the results. The forum received such a great amount of traffic that the members soon made a fan site of their own.
Amongst the vast sea of video advertising specialists, email marketing programs and chat solutions, the latter struck me as a good idea for online gambling sites in a world of high acquisition costs. I know it has been done before (don’t remember where I saw it). Interacting with users, depending on which page they are viewing on the site could provide that extra hook.
In summary, marketing live was in fact one of the best shows I have been to in a long while and I departed having realized the following:
eGaming Consulting can save your pets lives. Do not spill drinks on anyone’s shirt unless you prepared to listen to them for quite a while. If you have a company called BlondeFish or BlueMonkey it would be cool to actually have a blonde person dressed as a fish or a monkey painted blue. Word of mouth is dead and the Facebook like is now the way to spread the word. Going around the streets telling people to touch you and giving free vouchers equals success. Funny viral videos that are actually funny bring traffic and brand awareness, and by promoting your company on forums and social media sites you just might gain a few crazy fans that will do most of the work for you.
*Terms and Conditions apply. We may not actually save your life or anyone else’s. There may be an extra cost and it is likely to be your pet.
**This is not the opinion of eGaming Consulting Management who are big beard fans. Frequently they go as far as sporting a beard because it is very becoming as well as a sign of extreme manliness.
