This post has been moved to my new home on the web www.steve-e.co.uk. The post itself can be found here. 23Musings is going to remain dormant for now and some of its more popular posts will be transferred to the blog at my new site.
My reason for moving and not taking the years of posts with me is the need for a fresh start, 23Musings had been dormant for long enough for me to feel it was time to start my blog from scratch.
Don’t forget to check out my new blog! www.steve-e.co.uk/blog
Who are the coolest brands?
September 14, 2007
The Coolbrands UK top 20 has been announced. This is the 20 brands which were voted as most cool in a YouGov survey recently. There’s a few tech brands in there (unsurprisingly) and more of a surprise to me was Virgin Atlantic’s appearance at 10.
Here’s the whole list, seems Google still have a bit of work to do to shake off the geek factor, if they manage that I reckon they’ll move up the list next year.
- Aston Martin
- iPod
- YouTube
- Bang and Olufsen
- Playstation
- Apple
- Agent Provocateur
- Nintendo
- Virgin Atlantic
- Ferrari
- Ducati
- eBay
- Rolex
- Tate Modern
- Prada
- Lamborghini
- Green & Blacks
- iTunes
- Amazon
Marketers wasting money in Second Life
July 26, 2007
There’s a great article in Wired Magazine talking about the wasted marketing dollars that are being ploughed into Second Life at the moment. Here’s some excerpts below:
At least 50 major companies have ventured into the virtual world to date, spending millions in the process. IBM has created a massive complex of adjoining islands dedicated to recruitment, employee training, and in-world business meetings. Coldwell Banker has opened a virtual real estate office. Brands like Adidas, H&R Block, and Sears have set up shop. CNET and Reuters have opened virtual bureaus there. It’s as if the moon suddenly had oxygen. Nobody wants to miss out.
On a random day in June, the most popular location was Money Island (where Linden dollars, the official currency, are given away gratis), with a score of 136,000. Sexy Beach, one of several regions that offer virtual sex shops, dancing, and no-strings hookups, came in at 133,000. The Sears store on IBM’s Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke’s Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27. And even when corporate destinations actually draw people, the PR can be less than ideal.
This shows that for all the money invested, Second Life residents just don’t seem to be into the type of offerings that are placing themselves in the virtual world. Does this make it a waste of money? I reckon so for large investments (in pots and pans of course), it’s still worth getting into Second Life because it could be turned around and become more valuable to marketers and to win it you will have to be in it. Just don’t jump in with a huge investment straight away! It is with having brand presence!
Google the most powerful brand of 2007!
April 23, 2007
Microsoft has been knocked off the top spot of the most powerful brands list by Google. The ranking from Milward Brown Optimor shows the most powerful brands and it’s aim is to show the value a brand is expected to generate for its owner in the future.
It’s the second year in a row that a tech company has beaten the household names such as Coca-Cola and Wal Mart. It’s yet another indication of just how all pervasive Google is.
The 10 most powerful global brands of 2007 plus value are:
- Google – $66.4bn
- General Electric – $61.9bn
- Microsoft – $55bn
- Coca-Cola – $44.1bn
- China Mobile – $41.2bn
- Marlboro – $39.2bn
- Wal-Mart – $36.9bn
- Citi – $33.7bn
- IBM – $33.6bn
- Toyota – $33.4bn
The 10 most powerful UK brands of 2007
- Vodafone
- HSBC
- Tesco
- M&S
- Royal Bank of Scotland
- Barclays
- BP
- Asda
- Standard Chartered Bank
- Lloyds TSB
Quite surprised by the UK brands that Vodafone is top considering they have consistently underdelivered to me and caused me to change my mobile service provider!
Google running secretive CPM network
November 29, 2006
John Chow reports on a CPM display advertising network being run by Google today. Interestingly he claims it’s being aimed at Fortune 1000 advertisers and the publishers carrying the ads are selected on an invite only basis (most probably based on their past history with Adsense I would have thought).
It’s Google first foray into brand building display advertising as far as I can see. Adsense has always been much more functional and aimed at selling a specific product, where as we all know a lot of CPM advertising is purely about brand. Display is available on a CPM basis through Adsense, but in reality it’s aimed at smaller advertisers than the F1000. Aiming for these large brands and helping them get placed on sites with high relevance and high traffic should see Google make a success of this venture.
