Archive for October 2010
5 of our Favourite Green Themed Videos
If you know us at all at Powwownow you’ll know that we are interested in the environment. So in the spirit of sharing all things green with you, we’ve decided to put a list together of some of the best Green themed videos that we have watched this year.
Number 1. Greenpeace International – Give Earth a Hand video
We love how clever they have been in using hands to portray all the imagery in this video.
Number 2. This is Reality – Clean Coal Air Freshener
This little advert was made by the Academy Award Winning Cohen Brothers.
Reality TV, What’s next?
Dear Simon Cowell,
There was a time in my life when I wanted to be cool and different … Now I can’t be bothered; Now, I embrace pop culture.
Lady Gaga, Facebook, chick flicks – and of course reality shows. They don’t demand anything from you; you can just sit back and be entertained. What else could I ask for?
So, dear Simon, I know you are probably thinking what is the next big thing to bring to our screens, so as a passive (I don’t even vote!) fan (not an expert), I would like to help you decide…
When it comes to Reality Shows I only like talent competitions, my favourite being The X Factor, Britain’s got Talent and dance competitions such as Got to Dance. But please don’t do anything like Strictly Come Dancing – that’s tacky and boring!
The problem is that repeating this shows year after year with the exact same format (with just a couple of ‘wild cards’ which turn out to be not so wild) is a bit unexciting, so what I think you should do is change the format a bit (or completly) – and because you own many of them, you can do whatever you want, like God!
I once saw an X Factor for kids, and that was so good! I also saw ‘Rock Star: INXS’ years ago and I remember that was great! You should also look at other types of entertainment like Tyra did with semi-naked models. What about talent shows for comedians (if they make you laugh they pass!) or film directors or actors (where each week they need to show you a shortcut of their work). Or why not try totally irreverent shows like this reality tv spoof I found recently online – That would definitely turn some heads around!
Sincerely yours,
The Passive Fan
What counts?
So it wasn’t only the passing minutes and hours that we were counting during our World Record Three-way conference call. Take a look at this list; maybe you can spot some other records;
0 audible snores!
2 “stalker” fans who watched for hours on end
3 cases of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts devoured
7 different dogs jumping on the beds
14 varieties of chocolate nibbled
17 cups of coffee consumed
20 cans of Red Bull slurped
59 toilet breaks
157 tweets from the public
223 comments or questions submitted via the website
899 photographs taken
At least 3,000 annoying train announcements
19,000 unique visits to our websites
35,000 page views on our websites
And 45,000 oyster card wallets distributed.
That’s not all! The ‘Pow’, ‘Wow’ and ‘Now’ characters continued to spread the word, handing out over 16,000 Oyster card wallets on 13th October at Bank, St Pauls and Holborn. And they’re now warming up to share another 30,000 around London. Get yours at:
Waterloo, Kings Cross and London Bridge Stations on 21st October
OR
Liverpool Street, Barbican Station and Farringdon Station on 26th October
Powwowow Achieves World Record Three-way!
The record for the world’s longest ever three-way conference call was achieved on 1st October 2010.
For 24 hours, cricket legend Phil Tufnell, glamour model Jodie Marsh and funny man Patrick Monahan, were assisted by thousands of members of the public, both live and online, as they talked, joked, sang, danced, played games and much more to stay awake.
The experiential marketing event took place on Thursday 30th September and Friday 1st October. Throughout the duration of the campaign traffic was up 200% to both www.upforathreewaycall.co.uk and www.powwownow.co.uk – with 19,000 unique visits and 35,000 page views.
Watch the highlights video below or see the photos and read the top quotes at www.upforathreewaycall.co.uk.
Censoring Social
Posted by Andrew Pearce in Opinions on 7th October 2010
We recently launched a marketing campaign involving social media engagement with the public. This campaign included a live twitter feed to our website, when some negative tweets appeared using our Hashtag, it was suggested that we moderate (censor) the live Twitter feed to our website, thereby only allowing the positive Tweets to be published.
This led us to consider the whole idea of moderation and censorship in social media. Companies harness the power of social media for customer communication, customer services, marketing, sales, amongst other things. Social media is about communication It’s about having dialogue with your end users or customers. It’s about respecting an individual’s right to express their views and having a discussion with them about it. Social media is about embracing the freedom of speech.
The whole point of any company getting involved in social media is to learn what people were saying about you. It should be focused on learning from the good AND the bad, and not being afraid of it. There’s no point avoiding it, with any brand people have positive and negative experiences – social media should be about identifying the postives and patting yourself on the back, and the negatives, so that businesses can learn and make the changes necessary to make their service better.
Earlier this year Dominos Pizza developed a new campaign to kick off their improved pizza, which included a live Twitter feed, using the hashtag #newpizza. Dominos had it seemed, decided to face criticism head on. They received mixed feedback, negative, positive, confused and curious. Whilst professing complete transparency, they were actually called out for censoring tweets, despite their CEO Patrick Doyle saying at the time: ‘The old days of trying to spin things simply doesn’t work anymore. Great brands going forward are going to have a level of honestly and transparency that hasn’t been seen before’. They were forced to change tactics and lift the moderation process they had installed allowing the all the Tweets using the Hashtag. It seems even with a ‘complete transparency policy’ it takes a brave marketeer to allow all negative Tweets!
Social media, and Twitter particularly, is a wonderful instant medium that means anyone can have an opinion on anything, anywhere, anytime.
Companies only recognising positive Tweets and feedback, are going shopping with the best friend that tells them they look good in everything, and we all know that’s not always the case.