As we’ve discussed before, it can be really important for personal self-esteem to receive positive recognition, whether face-to-face, in writing or on social media. A couple of weeks ago we were delighted to win an award from the Creston group for a beautifully simple idea but pretty technically clever innovation that has improved the performance of our email campaigns. It was great to see our thinking and the work of often unsung colleagues acknowledged and rewarded by our peers.
And just a few days ago, we were delighted when our very own Matt Sutherland, a senior web developer and all-round Real Adventurer, was shortlisted as a Rising Star in The e-Consultancy/NMA Digitals Awards. We don’t usually make a habit of singling out individuals for public praise, but in this case we’re thrilled to make an exception!
Continue reading “Shortlisted for an eConsultancy/NMA Rising Star Award” »
One of the big trends this year is the concept of the ‘quantified self’; a movement where wearable technology and smart phone apps combine to give people detailed insight into their everyday lives. This ‘life logging’ creates a unique opportunity for brands to keep a constant presence in their customer’s lives, by providing them with real value and helping them to improve their well being. This potential has been highlighted by the recent success of the Nike+ Fuelband, which has turned a loss making division of Nike into a highly lucrative business. Read on to learn about the potential of the quantified self movement, its moral dilemmas, and how it is changing the world around us.
Continue reading “The rise of the quantified self – eight examples of life logging” »
Looking at the amount of advertising and media coverage for Kindles and the like, you’d be forgiven for assuming that printed books are in terminal decline, swept aside by a wave of e-reading, a triumph for progress and technology.
However, as a recent blog by David Taylor at the brand gym discusses, while it’s true that digital book sales are indeed soaring, they are at least partly driven by heavyweight price discounting, and are still ‘only’ 13% of the UK market. At the same time, physical book sales have only fallen marginally. Similarly, while digital downloads of singles now make up over 99% of UK sales, they only account for 30% of all album sales.
Given the time and effort that goes into building and running a website, it’s important that we understand how people use them, how they get there and what really drove them there in the first place so that we can optimise accordingly.
Many of us use Google Analytics to measure & track, so I wanted to outline a couple of features which are (or will be) accessible to everyone: ‘Enhanced Link Attribution’ and ‘Cross-device Tracking’.
In a keynote speech at a DMA seminar on 8th February, the UK’s Information Commissioner suggested that up to 60% of UK marketing agency CEOs were unaware of the EU Data Protection Regulations about to make their passage through the European Parliament and Council of the European Union and be brought into law. Worrying, given the Regulations in their proposed form would mean the end of one-to-one marketing as we know it.
It’s 18 years since the current EU Data Protection Act Directive was enacted. The digital world, to the extent that it even existed back then, has inexorably changed, and with it the volume and nature of data in existence. According to IBM, we now create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data each day, and 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone.
Continue reading “Is this the end of one-to-one marketing?” »
Although it can at times feel tediously familiar, our geographical position makes our weather hard to predict, and at times it can feel like we experience all four seasons in one day. Deciding what to wear, and even what to do, is a decision best made after consulting your favourite weather source – something we’ve all been doing a lot more of during the recent cold snap.
For some people it’s watching the evening news, for others it’s a website or their trusty iPhone weather app. For me it’s a bit of an obsession – I think it goes back to my childhood in Cornwall when I was constantly checking weather reports to try and work out the latest surf conditions.
Continue reading “Cloudy with a chance of iPhones – the UX of weather” »
A few months ago I wrote a blog post highlighting the main drawbacks of the responsive design approach to delivering a mobile-optimised website. Not wanting to be beaten by those drawbacks, we’ve been developing a solution – one that gives us all the benefits of responsive design, but none of those drawbacks.
We’re calling it Informed Responsive Design
Delivering digital projects isn’t easy. Particularly when it comes to mobile, web & app builds. Happily, we’ve got great people who are adept at doing it. But there’s always room for improvement. So that’s why we’ve formed a new team within the agency – and I think it’s going to work a treat.
To explain, let’s consider what a perfect digital project looks like…
Continue reading “The Digital Experience team – a better way to deliver digital projects” »
Digital has weaved its way into our daily lives almost without us realising to what extent. The typical consumer has many many digital interactions throughout their day from morning until night, as this short video shows.
In 1999, a group of writers declared that “markets are conversations” and, in the style of Martin Luther in Wittenberg in 1517, published their own 95 Theses, as a response to what they considered outmoded and archaic business thinking. More than a decade on, they are still enormously relevant and important.
Markets are conversations. Barter economies were based around individuals trading with each other to exchange goods. Information spread through word of mouth. Wise men kept their ‘ear to the ground’, and those with the best networks could command the best prices and biggest markets.