Posted at: 6:11 PM by Hammad

This ambitious start-up is hoping to capture the imagination of Home Cinema and Media fans in the South East with it's classy web site produced by Persona.

http://www.clickandplayuk.com

Not content with using false photographs or stock libraries, Click & Play commissioned us to produce bespoke lifestyle illustrations that would inspire viewers and create a modern extension to their brand. The illustrations produced have then been enhanced in Flash to become interactive tours of the solutions they specialise in.

Not only is the site attractive, but we've produced it using W3C Standard HTML code and in line with best practice and accessibility guidelines - a trademark of all web projects produced by Persona.

Labels: creative, digital, illustration, london, web site

Posted at: 9:03 AM by Hammad

Notebooks in Disguise

When Toshiba told us they would be tying up with one of the big summer blockbusters, we we're hoping it would be Transformers!

So, when we got the call to attend a briefing at Toshiba HQ, the childhood dreams of the lads at Persona came well and truly to life.

We've produced an interactive campaign web site in Adobe Flash that highlights their featured notebooks and promotes the tie up between the two iconic brands.

Optimising a Prime time experience

Using the movie footage as inspiration, we've used choice cuts of film, stills and sound to produce an intro sequence that sets the mood for the site concept.

The site then features an interactive, 360 degree viewpoint of a Satellite notebook that users can 'Transform'. Browsing through the site, visitors can also take part in a competition to win a Helicopter flying lesson - a direct reference to the new movie Transformer 'Blackout'.

On a more technical level, the site uses ASP.NET to provide 'send to a friend' functionality and also process the competition entries.

Under the bonnet

The intro sequence was edited together and sound synced in Adobe Premiere, with Adobe After Effects used to add the atmospheric lighting. Finally, this was exported as Flash Video and added to the main site without needing any additional browser or plug-in software for visitors to view it.<.p>

For the competition, our ASP.NET code validates entries and posts them as XML to a remote web service on Toshiba's contact database; in a format that complies with their specifications. The web service then returns XML instructions that we use to re-direct visitors to the right page; either a message highlighting any problems or a confirmation that their entry has been successful.

To keep a smooth user experience, we've also used AJAX for the navigation, so the page isn't reloaded when moving between sections.

More than meets the eye

Toshiba and Transformers are both iconic brands in their own right; so how do you start to blend the two together in a partnership?

After being briefed by Toshiba, we worked with the Paramount Pictures footage, image library and usage guidelines to ensure both identities were given the right balance.

In our creative brainstorm, we came up with the concept that just like the Transformers robots, we needed to show that there can be more than meets the eye.

Other than highlight the more obvious brand synergy of Technology between the brands, we wanted to do something different.

For the site, everyday features such as USB connections and Keypads have been shot in an abstract style; suggesting they could be parts of a Transformer. By focusing on areas often taken for granted, we've created a mood that emphasises that the difference with a Toshiba notebook is that style and technology are equally important.

Using the All Spark

Using our in-house photography studio, we had full control of the lighting to create the right artistic style. We then put the shots through digital post production to add the Blue lighting - a common feature in footage from the movie.

Autobots, Roll out

Producing a site is only the first part of a campaign - the challenge is to get people to it. Toshiba have used a number of promotional channels to market the site, including:

• Press Releases to the media
• Banners on the main Toshiba Computers web site
• Send to a friend email
• Viral seeding and link building

With the campaign being time-critical (it's only being ran for the Summer), it is important that the PR activity focused on outlets of quick turnaround; specifically weekly publications and online media. Press releases have been sent to the design, IT and brand media to bring awareness of the campaign to the more effective audiences.

Toshiba have also agreed page sponsorships with Tiscali and have promotional material and signage in Dixons and Toshiba retail stores around the country.

The site features a send to a friend feature, that is branded as either Autobots or Decepticons depending on the users choice. The email sent is branded in the same style as the site, so recipients are enticed to visit the campaign to find out more.

Finally, the site has marketing analytics installed to track visitor levels, user journeys and conversion goals for the competition.

Avoiding Decepticons

Targeted traffic is being sourced and driven to the site using viral marketing. This was chosen over Pay Per Click advertising, so that the word-by-mouse effect would spread fast and search marketing budgets could be reduced - giving more creative freedom to the production side of the project.

Labels: campaign, creative, digital, experience, media, movies, toshiba, transformers

Posted at: 3:48 PM by Hammad

Our old pals at Toshiba have been keeping us very busy recently, with a whole host of projects being worked on throughout the Persona team, such as:

A new style of Flash and graphic banner adverts. The theme of summer is present in both campaigns and will be changed to Autumn as the new school year starts in September.

Community Pages within the Toshiba web site

These pages contain product, solution and support information for different community groups Toshiba specilises in. We've created new layout grids that can be used in their existing CMS template system and made good use of the lifestyle photography we have previously shot for them to represent the actual communities.

Premium Service web site for the education sector

Toshiba also asked us to carry the new, modern brand elements through to a secure web site for the education market. Under the 'Premium Service' banner, Toshiba will be rolling our more sites that focus on their channel audiences and our designs ensure the visitors have an easy to use navigation and a lasting user experience.

Next month, we'll be launching our most exciting project with Toshiba to date - a sponsorship site for Toshiba and Transformers the movie. You won't want to miss the next edition of our newsletter when we 'roll out' with the Autobots.

Labels: banners, branding, campaign, creative, digital, flash, photography, toshiba

Posted at: 4:06 PM by Hammad

Diva Telecom continue to push their brand persona with the launch of a new site for sending and managing SMS marketing campaigns.

View the site at www.divatxt.co.uk

We designed the site to be intuitive and bring the fun, vibrant brand of Diva Telecom to the world of online SMS. Unlike many other SMS marketing sites, DivaTXT is simple to use, with clear and useful content to help you decide if SMS marketing is for you.

Labels: digital, mobile, web app, web site

Posted at: 4:04 PM by Hammad

The British Red Cross has worked with Persona to produce their first online marketing campaign:

View the campaign site at www.crosstheredline.org.uk

Taking part in a sponsored run for a charity really is a win-win situation. Not only do you get fit and have some fun but you help to support some of the most noble causes we all rely on when times are tough. The British Red Cross are one such cause and have produced this site to encourage runners to join them for the Nottingham Robin Hood Marathon.

In a world of corporate sponsorship deals, we've created a campaign that is all about having fun and raising positive awareness. The campaign site has been created in Flash, with a static HTML version also available for those without the correct player or in need of accessible content. By using Flash, we've been able to create a more engaging user experience, whilst the HTML version also allows for Google traffic to get through and be indexed.

Visitors to the site can view an interactive map of the marathon routes, get training advice and pass on a digital baton to a friend to spread the message.

Labels: branding, campaign, charity, creative, digital, flash, illustration, nottingham, web site

Posted at: 6:18 PM by Hammad

Fast growing telecoms supplier Diva continue to work with Persona, this time launching an e-marketing campaign targeted at the Travel industry.

We've designed an eye-catching series of banners and email postcard email campaign, complete with an interactive landing page that highlights the areas travel and tour operators can save or make money through Diva.

See the campaign landing page

To compliment that campaign, we've also made some cosmetic enhancements to the original site to give a more vibrant and rich experience. The entire site has also undergone a search engine optimisation process to boost the brands awareness. This will be extended to Pay Per Click (PPC) ads on GYM (Google, Yahoo and MSN) with matching landing pages and a new blog. The Diva Telecom site also fully complies with W3C development and Accessibility standards, proving that you can have a responsible, cost effective and effective approach to your online marketing.

Watch this space for more news on sustainable e-marketing initiatives from Persona Creative.

Labels: banners, campaign, creative, digital, illustration, ppc, telecoms, travel, viral

Posted at: 8:35 AM by Hammad

Digital marketing rocks! Or at least we think so anyway. A cost effective channel, with quick turn around times, the ability to track success criteria and a constantly hungry and growing audience of consumers - what's not to love?

Well, it appears as though not everybody agrees. There are still organisations out there (big and small) who simply haven't got with the program. Maybe they are scared, maybe they have been burnt in the past or maybe they just don't fully understand the potential. One thing is for sure, it's a brave new world out there in cyberspace (and the blogosphere of course) and just like the universe itself, it seems to only get b bigger.

We're asked about digital marketing opportunities so much, that we've put together a quick refresher list some of the best and most effective ways of getting the most from it.

1. Optimise your web pages for better performance and ranking by the three major search engines, Google, MSN and Yahoo (Also known as GYM). Remember to create a good balance between writing for a search engine and writing for a real person! Copywriting is a skill in it's own right and web copy writing is even more specialised. Persona Creative can do both and we can also teach you to do some of it yourself (but you need talk to us first of course).
2. Create a web gadget for the Windows Vista sidebar, or Internet Explorer 7. They have been around for a while, but with the arrival of Microsoft's new software, millions of people will be accessing them every time they start their computer or browse online. Do you want to be in front of them? Well then start thinking about web gadgets (or come and talk to us and we'll explain it all to you and give you some inspiration too).
3. Take advantage of online PR. For every credible trade publication, there are a hundred credible web sites and even more less credible ones. All are another avenue to post your publicity material to and also use to boost your search engine indexing. Remember that the people managing a professional web site are the same level of professional than in a printed magazine; treat the media with respect and as your friend (Luckily we're really good at building media networks for you and also getting your stories in front of the right people and places).
4. Providing an RSS Feed of your latest company/product/service news
   1. Customer version
   2. Media version
5. Creating business blogs for anybody who can add value to customers (along with an RSS feed of the posts of course). This could include:
   1. Management / Strategy
   2. Technical / Research
   3. Service / Delivery
6. Having a Podcast / Vodcast (Audio or Video Web Log) of musings, opinions, news and insights from your organisation.
7. Making your web site comply with UK laws and best practice guidelines
   1. Accessibility
   2. Data Protection and Privacy
   3. HTML and CSS development standards
8. Make your web site more interactive and not just an online version of your brochure. Let visitors contact you, find where you're based, manage their accounts and experience your brand values.
9. Create a new mini-web site that works on mobile devices (3G Phones, Blackberrys and Windows PDAs etc). Make the content useful on the move, rather than brochure-info.
10. Design, Develop and Deliver a high quality email newsletter on a regular basis
1. Comply with best practice standards
2. Don't spam people
3. Build a good data list (it takes time, so get on with it!)
4. Think about how it looks/reads on a mobile device (lots of us sync our mail to our phone now remember)
11. Produce some interactive and fun stuff to promote your brand values and get some word-of-mouse going (also known as online viral marketing).
    1. Games
    2. Video shorts
    3. Ad campaigns
12. Buy some advertising space on a web site that is popular with your customers, rather than taking our a printed advert in your local rag. Maybe even sponsor a section or their newsletter.
13. Do some pay-per-click search engine marketing (PPC SEM) and only buy keywords and links for your high-margin, niche products and services so you don't blow your money on wasted web traffic.
14. Do some online networking. Post your advice and expertise on popular forums and blogs and encourage traffic to visit you for more information. Remember to play nice and not abuse other peoples space (Online etiquette; or Netiquette).
15. Learn a bit of simple HTML. The whole web is based on it, you need it to manage / understand your web site and email campaigns and a little time spent picking up a new skill could save you a lot of money on simple tasks. If nothing else, you'll be able to work with your web designers to better understand the limitations and opportunities available to you.

Labels: advice, digital, feature, web

Posted at: 10:34 AM by Vivienne

The table below shows how the Persona Creative newsletter performed over the 12 editions in 2006

One of the most effective ways to analyse the success of an email campaign is by looking at the percentage of people who opened it.

Anything over 25% is generally considered to be good, with 30% being the benchmark we should all try to achieve. Over the course of 12 months, the Persona Creative email averaged over 50% - 20% higher than the benchmarks! Not only this, but the open rate never dropped below 40%, so the average is based on consistent performance rather than a few good months bumping up the statistics.

Due to the positive feedback we receive on each email, we believe the high open rate is due to the quality of the content and also the high build quality of the HTML; reducing the number of spam filters it triggers.

The chart below shows our open rate performance against that of industry averages.

With printed Direct Mail, it is commonly accepted that a 1% response from a campaign is what we should aim for. For example, if we send out 10,000 flyers in the post, we should hope to get 100 people to respond in some way.

With email, the percentages for response a bit higher, but are dropping all the time as email overload becomes more of a problem for our inboxes. Over the course of 2006, the industry average is 15%, but the Persona Creative average click rate is over 25%! Again, this is an excellent sign that the content we produce for the email not only engages our readers, but encourages them to read more.

Email campaigns produced and managed by Persona Creative for our clients produce similar statistics, so if you want to make the most of this marketing channel, it's worth talking to us.

You can also have a look at the industry tables below to see what benchmarks you can aim for in your own campaign. Of course, we can help you get there if needed.

Labels: analysis, campaign, digital, email, media, persona

Posted at: 10:30 AM by Hammad

Just like we did 12 months ago, we're making three predictions for the year ahead - which should help you focus your 2007 marketing plans.

Poor quality digital marketing will no longer be acceptable

The Internet and the associated outlets for digital marketing are well and truly mature. Any organisation who thinks they can either use it as a place to experiment or cut corners is far behind the times. All of us who consume digital media (such as Internet, Email and mobile content) do so on a regular basis - and we switch off from anything of poor quality quicker than any other area of media.

Because digital content gives us so much control, we can choose to consume it or avoid it very easily. The old marketing concepts of forcing the marketing message in front of the public just don't work online. A poorly designed web site that never gets updated is as useful to a brand as a home made brochure that's 5 years old. Similarly, email newsletters or direct campaigns that are badly constructed, trigger junk mail filters and don't comply with data protection are a huge risk to those who think amateurism is acceptable. Not only can your recipients unsubscribe from your mailings, but they can report you for abuse and also get you blacklisted on a global scale. A scary thought, but only if you don't take the delivery seriously in the first place.

The advice we are giving for 2007 is this: If you're not going to do a professional job with online media, don't bother at all. Poor quality will no longer just be ignored from customers, but it will simply not be acceptable for any organisation wanting to be taken seriously.

Depending on whether you are a 'cup half full' or 'cup half empty' type of marketer; you'll see this as either an opportunity or a set back. Which one are you?

Companies will start to take their brand seriously again

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about branding being a dead end - consumers are so fickle that they have no loyalty to anybody. This is not strictly true; yes we are less brand loyal than before, but the main concepts of branding are as important as ever and professional organistions are re-investing in their brands in droves.

There is no denying that people like consistency, familiarity and value - something that your brand activity can help you deliver either consciously or subconsciously to your audience. If you haven't made any specific steps to build your brand before (or it's been a while since you took a look at it), 2007 is a good time to give it some thought. As your organisation has no doubt grown and evolved, have the brand values changed? Maybe the emotional response your branding provokes doesn't match up with where you are heading, or you need your brand to drive you forward rather than hold you back.

Brand value is something we are always passionate about at Persona, so we'd be more than happy to discuss your brand with you to see where you can take it next.

Online PR will become even more sought after than printed PR

Most of the large media groups are falling over themselves to be seen as pioneers and leaders online. Rupert Murdochs purchase of MySpace has given News Corporation a massive lead in the social networking space, with everybody trying to copy and catch up. Googles purchase of YouTube and ITV snapping up Friends Reunited are another two examples of media might and their attempts to 'buy' public interest.

However the so called "Web 2.0 boom" shapes up, online PR outlets are plenty; with publications such as the Sun reporting over a billion readers last year! Column inches in print will always be important and add that extra level of credibility compared to online, but organisations hoping to actually get value from their publicity (rather than an ego boost by seeing their name in print) would be well advised to focus on Internet based publicity.

We recommend developing your PR strategy to include consistent submissions to RSS news feeds and web publications. Making sure you are syndicating your regular news via your own RSS feed is also very easy now, so make sure you are giving people access to this. Online PR also allows us to easily track the coverage you are getting; by using search engines to keep on top of where your content is being indexed and linked from.

But what of last years predictions? Read on...

Did mobile marketing actually come of age?

There is no denying it now - nearly everybody in the UK not only has a mobile phone and most of them are Internet capable. The only problem seems to be the network providers are still charging a small fortune for getting online whilst on the move. More and more of us are adopting PDA style phones (such as a Blackberry or Windows Mobile) and whilst mobile web hasn't quite taken off, the importance of email in your pocket is an area not to be ignored - and is the best place to start thinking about your mobile marketing strategy.

For many businesses, SMS/MMS marketing campaigns just aren't practical. The message costs and the lack of data can be prohibitive and most people just don't want to get messages sent to their personal phone. Email however is a little different. If you already have a well managed email contact database (You do have one don't you?) then these recipients are already warm to campaigns you send out; all you have to do now is tailor the content to be a little more mobile friendly.

Some quick tips on how to do this include:

• Keep your opening quick and to the point. Many mobile email clients default to the first 5kb of the message (or just the headers) - make is stand out!
• Pay attention to your text-only email - many mobiles won't display the pretty HTML version, so make sure you are getting the most out of your content by making it accessible to all.
• Use a simple, clear layout for your text-only email; this will prevent any ugly formatting appearing on different phones.
• Provide a link to your web site; even better if it browses well on a mobile!

There is enough momentum and user take up to start testing the waters with mobile marketing in 2007 and those who do will reap the benefits. It's a great way to show your customers and contacts that you are innovating and working to keep your services relevant and accessible to them.

A few other things you could talk to us about include:

• Mobile-friendly web services and content
• Text and Multimedia Message services
• Building your mobile database now, for campaign delivery later

We're already working on our own mobile marketing strategy as well as a few pilot projects, so if you want to stand out from the crowd, come and join in the discussions by dropping us an email/call.

Is ethical marketing and consumerism being taken seriously?

2006 was a big one for eco-friendly issues as well as ethical consumerism in general. Jamie Olivers well publicised lobbying for healthy meals wasn't the only major shift. The Conservative Party have adopted a Tree for their new logo, fast food advertising has been kerbed and supermarkets are falling over themselves to distance their brands from plastic bags and anything that doesn't suite our GDA for food consumption.

It's not just the retailers getting in on the act either. Bio-fuels and recycling are now accessible to all of us; in business and at home.

In 2006, we worked with a number of our clients to promote their ethical brand values. East Midlands Centre for constructing the Built Environment (EMCBE) gave huge support to sustainability in the construction trade and we helped them publicise the agenda. Urban Planters, the UK's largest interior landscaping company also flexed their ethical muscles by promoting the health benefits of planting in offices and are now making big strides to help publicise their impact on reducing carbon footprint. We're also working with another client to help publicise their long history in professional products that deliver the results - whilst being environmentally friendly as an added extra. Sustainability is a buzz word we keep coming across these days and the public are opening their ears to it.

Along with a major launch by the Carbon Trust, there has been some major happenings in this subject over the last year and we predict that not only will the trend continue in 2007, but consumers will genuinely start to adopt ethical brands, products and services as a viable alternative.

Given that we backed this idea from the beginning, we're in a good position to help advise you on both how you can adopt a more ethical approach to your communications as well as provide the same assurance as we do with all of our advice - that it's based on our experience, facts and ability rather than personal or biased opinions.

Has the boom in digital marketing led to more integrated campaigns?

Undoubtedly! the lines between digital campaigns and traditional media campaigns (above, through and under the line) are blurring more and more all the time. It's commonly accepted that the digital space will become the centre piece of almost all media activity and some would argue that this is already the case.

Most companies taking advantage of digital marketing are not limiting their campaigns to online only. The upsurge of YouTube has allowed small and large organisations alike to produce and distribute video content to the masses; often using this as an extension to TV adverts or printed campaigns that lead people online.

The message is clear - integrating your campaign across all the available media helps gets better results. Brands that are seen to have a consistent message and encourage their customers to engage with them are seeing their customer loyalty and retention stay strong.

Labels: branding, digital, marketing, media, mobile, persona, pr, prediction