It's a Game Changer.

We are very excited to announce that the book is available now on Amazon, iBookstore and Google Play! Join us in making 2014 the year of PLAY.

Nothing is certain but death and Facebook algorithm changes

Yes that’s right – the algorithm has changed again. But unlike the changes made in September 2012 this round of changes has flown under the radar – perhaps overshadowed by the way more exciting (and easy to understand) announcement that pages can now run competitions without requiring a third party app.

That’s not to say that there isn’t still a place for the good ol’ app – which this infographic from allfacebook outlines really clearly. And of course there is still the minor issue of the law and the need to provide terms, conditions and privacy statements.

But I digress. The algorithm changes have flown under the radar because they are largely beneficial for most brand pages.

Previously Edgerank was based on three factors – affinity, weight and time decay – that determined whether any one status update would be seen by any one person. That’s now changed and there are reportedly a myriad of factors that are now taken into consideration. Two of the main ones being talked about are Last Actor and Story Bumping.

Last Actor looks at the last 50 interactions you’ve had on Facebook, then gives new posts from those people or brand pages priority on your newsfeed. Pages who post frequently will be rewarded – and those that are targeting the most active demographics need to post more frequently to stay visible.

But it’s not just about quantity. Facebook will also assess the quality of your post and demote content that is ‘engagement baiting’ just to get likes. Brands will need to come up with something better than ‘like this if you like fluffy kittens’ and the world will be a better place for it. Facebook haven’t quite said how they will do this, but brands that thrive on this type of content can expect to see engagement rates drop away.

The second factor – Story Bumping – works like this. If a page you regularly interact with posts some content and it’s getting good interaction, but you’ve found something more interesting to do than log onto Facebook every couple of hours causing that post to slip down your newsfeed – then don’t despair! Facebook will bump that post back up your newsfeed, givi

ng you a second chance to see content that it thinks you want to engage with. This is good news for brands – particularly those that still insist on posting status updates during business hours when only half of their fanbase is actually online.

There are many other factors that matter now. Anyone noticed Facebook prompting you to update sections on your info page? Yep, that’s taken into account too.

So how will these changes impact on brand page performance? We’ll probably never know because Facebook coincidentally rolled out their new insights platform just before the algorithm change. Virality no longer exists and has instead been replaced with the more all-encompassing ‘Engagement Rate’.

“What’s the difference?” I hear you ask. Quite a lot.

Virality took only the highest quality interactions – those that resulted in a story being created which shared your content with their friends – as being worth counting. All other interactions – usually called ‘other clicks’ in the exportable report – weren’t deemed valuable enough to include. Hence the rise of all those ‘like this if’ posts – unless people engaged in a certain way, they weren’t counted.

Image courtesy of Inside Facebook

The new Engagement Rate – defined as “the percentage of people who liked, comments, shared or clicked on your post after having seen it” is broader, but more worthwhile. If someone clicks on a link through to your competition app (oh, except we don’t need them anymore) or another piece of content you wanted to share – that wouldn’t have been included in virality, but is included in the engagement rate. Someone clicking on an image you have shared because they want to see it in more detail is counted as engagement, but wouldn’t have been included in the old virality metric.

The sound of page admins around the world patting themselves on the backs for a job well done last month was deafening (I wonder how many truthfully explained the reasons for the better results in their reports). But with all the changes Facebook are rolling out, they’ll still need to work hard to make sure Facebook continues to deliver results for their clients.

Graduate Job Opportunity - Junior Campaign Manager

PHDIQ is the digital media agency of the phd network in New Zealand. We work with some of New Zealand’s leading advertisers, developing innovative and engaging media opportunities online, on mobile and in other emerging media.

We are looking for a Junior Campaign Manager to join one of our planning teams. You will be responsible for the correct buying and implementation of campaigns across all digital media, including mobile, social and online display.

The ideal candidate will be a recent graduate with a strong interest in digital media.  They will have a good head for numbers, be able to quickly pick up and understand new technology, and have strong communication skills.  They will also be a great team player.

Please send your CV to Christophe.spencer@phdiq.co.nz as soon as possible if you are interested in the role.

Full training will be provided to the right candidate. 

News Pooper

This week the Advertising Standards Authority released their numbers for ad spend across all media channels for 2012.  In not so surprising news digital continues its steady growth, while that staple of the 20^th century the newspaper continues its decline.  I’m still baffled when I see those rolls of newsprint laying outside people’s houses in the morning, like some old news dog has pooped out it’s latest slightly out of date offering on the footpath for us to step in.  Weird. 

Greedy old television keeps gobbling up ad spend to remain relatively stable.  I know, boring isn’t it.  Like Coronation St it just keeps fearlessly rolling on – for now.  OnDemand and Digital continues to nibble away at TV budgets, they will eventually succumb as they have in the U.S and U.K.  

Anyway, enough of this over opinionated babble, some key numbers;

• Digital spend in 2012 – $366m, representing 11.6% YoY growth
• Digital now no.3 media by ad spend
• TV no.1 - $614m, flat
• Newspapers no.2 - $540m, decline of 7.2% YoY
• Digital increased YoY by $38m, to represent 16.9% of all ad spend
• Mobile contributed $2.83m to digital spend, representing 176% increase from 2011
• On line video contributing $12.69m

Google Trademark Policy Change

Google have just announced a change to their Adwords trademark policy which will take effect from 24 April 2013.

Google will no longer monitor or restrict keywords in response to trademark complaints for ads served to New Zealand users which aligns with their global policy.  Google will continue to investigate and take appropriate action regarding use of trademark terms in ad text.

What this means: Despite your company holding a trademark, Google will allow competitors to bid on your trademarked terms - for example company and product names.

What we think: The standard Google rules regarding quality score still apply, so unless your landing page and ad copy are relevant to a competitor’s search term you will be penalised  and your cost effectiveness compromised. However, savvy advertisers who embark on an integrated comparative advertising strategy may well reap rewards.  There are other scenarios where bidding on competitors keywords will work depending on the key objectives.

To learn more about this trademark policy revision, visit https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=177578

The Screens of Our Lives

Google’s Think Insights recently released a report on the changing connected consumer, with an in depth look at Internet connections, device usage and subsequent behavior drivers.

Most of the findings are not unexpected, of which a few key takeouts are below:

Worldwide, 2012 was another big year for the tablet with a 60% YOY increase. Smartphones aren’t slouching either, notching a 33% jump. This trajectory isn’t anticipated to change much, with intent to use tablets in the next 12 months higher than that of smartphones in all but one of the six global regions.

That sole region is the African continent, where the importance of a mobile data connection and the fixed-connection ‘leapfrog’ is clearly shaping these device trends. This leads to another outtake on the correlation between national GDP and device usage. Unsurprisingly, among those nations with lower national GDP’s, there is less impact on overall Smartphone usage by comparison to the Tablet.

On average, across the globe households use 1.5 connected devices. New Zealand and Australia were near the top of those studied at 2.1 per household.

Lastly, there is less decline than some may expect among PC and Laptop usage within developed countries, the majority of those studied showing only fractional dips in usage and some such as Sweden and USA still displaying growth. Taiwan stands out with the biggest change - a decrease of around 10%.

The report, along with some other recent studies, can be found here.

Lipton Ice Tea Summer Festival

We're proud to announce that we've got a great new campaign which has just launched - Lipton Ice Tea Summer Festival project. This Facebook application integrates with Spotify to enable participants to build their own dream summer festival and market it to their friends. PHDiQ led this campaign with support from the awesome team at Fracture who built the Facebook application including the Spotify integration, unique design, look and feel of the game, and custom illustrations.

Play the Lipton Ice Tea Summer Festival Project  at https://www.facebook.com/liptoniceteaAU/app_298562060263010

Facebook - It’s time to put up or shut up (and some tips on how to put up)

Recent changes to Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm has got a lot of people up in arms. Yet again, the social sky is falling. And yet again, I’m here to be the voice of reason.

I was lucky enough the other week to be in a room with some of the Facebook global team where the change to the algorithm was discussed so here’s my take on it all.

Alot of people are saying the change in algorithm combined with the introduction of promoted posts is designed to make brands spend more on paid media to prop up Facebooks revenue and share price. News flash. Brands always did have to spend money on paid media in order to build and maintain successful community.

Facebook say the main reason for the algorithm change is to ensure peoples newsfeeds are filled with the most interesting and relevant content for them. This makes sense - they have a billion customers that they need to keep happy. We’ve all missed that important/exciting status update from a friend because our newsfeed is full of posts from brands that we liked years ago, no longer interact with but are too lazy to unlike.

The impact of this change which was made on 20^th September has been significant for those pages that aren’t supported with paid media spend. In some instances we’ve seen reach per status update drop by as much as 24 percentage points. For those pages that are supported by always on paid media, the impact has been minimal.
The good news is engagement rates – particularly virality – have doubled, if not tripled. This makes sense – if Facebook is showing status updates to less people, but those people are the ones most likely to engage, then of course engagement rates will increase.

What Facebook have done is nothing new. Take search as an example. You can put a lot of resource into SEO and use organic search to reach a small group of people who are likely to engage with your brand and not spend a cent on media. Or you can extend your search strategy using media budget to by paid search placements which extend your reach to a much broader – but arguably less interested – audience knowing that at least some of them will engage.

Facebook is no different. Focus on your conversation strategy and you’ll engage with a small group of brand loyalists. Invest in paid media and you’ll extend your reach to a broader, but less engaged, audience.

There are plenty of articles out there on how brands should respond to these changes. Here’s what I think:

1.    Differentiate between reach and engagement. Your conversation calendar drives engagement, your paid media drives reach and growth. If you aren’t supporting your page with paid media, you shouldn’t have reach or growth KPIs.

2.    Engagement is now critical. If you can't support your page with paid media, then you will need to build interactivity (like, comment, share, vote) into your status updates. This will ensure those you are reaching remain engaged, and when you hit that sweet spot with a post that gets great interaction rates your reach will extend to your wider fanbase.

3.    Treat your Facebook page like paid search. Have an always on media budget and upweight when you are in campaign. Buy reach through promoted posts and sponsored stories - but stick to targeting fans only and don't promote every single status update. Just pick the ones that are most important, engaging and on-brand - and make sure they encourage interaction.

4.    Consider your conversation calendar as your engagement strategy. Don’t just turn to building an app for everything. Think about whether you can use interactive conversation to achieve your objectives, or put your app development budget into creating other forms of content.

5.    Integrate your conversation calendar and your paid media schedule. If these are managed by two different people, tell them to get together regularly and plan how one can support the other to deliver the best possible result for the brand.

Brands have had it pretty good on Facebook. They’ve been able to build substantial communities of consumers and been able to engage with them like never before without huge investment. As result the playing field has been leveled - small brands can be just as powerful as their bigger competitors. 

So if brands want to continue to harness the power of Facebook, it’s time to put up. Put up the time. Put up the effort. And put up resources – both human and financial – that are needed to make this channel a success.

Keyword Targeting and the Chaff

Time for a good old fashioned blog post.  You know, the kind that is more knee jerk than it is carefully thought out.  Reactionary you might say.  The kind of one that could very well end up as a rant and that I may well regret when I wake up at 4am thinking about it.

It’s been a very busy, but in the main actually quite fun, day managing a client announcement that they are retiring a brand and merging the business attached to it into another brand.  Due to the timing, legal requirements and sensitivities of the announcement we were left having to implement some of the digital layers at relatively short notice, including some keyword targeting.  Which has unexpectedly helped sort the wheat from the publishing partners chaff.  

Credit where credit is due first.  nzherald, MSN and AdHub – all provided excellent account and technical service, fine tuning the campaign on the fly with me to have it running to order within two hours of letting them know it was happening.  Installing in me a sense that I’m working with true partners that care about helping us achieve our clients goals.

But then there was the chaff.  Despite some good account service, another main news portal and a main email portal were nothing short of technically hopeless.  For the love of Jesus, all I was asking for was either some effective keyword targeting, or them tagging the relevant stories to then serve my ads into them.  This is basic, 2007 stuff.  The kind of options these sites and their trafficking teams should be well and truly on top of.  I guess this is an old fashioned bad product story – confidence seriously eroded from bad experience.  One of them even suggested that their wasn’t enough money in it for them.  Okay, fair enough, your business prerogative.  But maybe your eyes need testing?  It seems you’re a bit short sighted maybe.  Can you read the letters in the middle of the chart?

And, as an aside, what an interesting study of the value of brand today has been.  While the services that the retired brand have been offering to customers will not change (only the colour of the buildings and bank statements, with all the staff remaiing the same) I’ve seen a steady stream of comments on web sites of people declaring their undying love for the retired brand and a determination to move to another supplyer.  Ah yes, irrational consumer choices based on brand loyalty, the ad industry loves you for them.  Anyway, time to get in my 3ltr, 4WD Subaru Outback and take the perfectly well sealed road home.

Rad Report #3

It's awards season, so here is:

My Judging Experience of Random Ads I Found

(I also bring to you today tales of Sasquatch and a Lady Pyramid… intrigued now aren’t you…)

SLURPEE

AUSTRALIA

This one ticks so many boxes: simplicity, user-generated ideas, word of mouth and definitely fun. 

Rather than identifying how to make the product different to the competitors Slurpee instead looked how they could make the experience different for the consumers by realising that the one thing that always stays the same with frozen drinks is the cup. 

But what if you could drink it out of a trumpet?  A megaphone?  A bathtub?  (Okay with that last one you’d probably have brain freeze and diabetes…)

Slurpee asked people what they’d use, and the best suggestions were made into an outdoor, instore and print campaign promoting a day where you could fill your own vessel for the price of a regular drink.

The day before the event they also did a nice little bit of guerrilla advertising using other companies’ outdoor ads.  The buzz generated and the results speak for themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9g600Gyabs

UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON

ITALY

Some of you may have already seen this one, but I think it’s a really fantastic message executed in a simple way that generates talkability (and controversy).

Benetton are famous not only for their fashion line but for a very open approach to a social responsibility of equality and peace.  The Unhate Foundation was created to overcome the culture of hate on a global level through basic understanding of difference in a pretty open and emotive way. 

Here’s the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8N2GX6of2I and if you’ve got the time check out their page: http://unhate.benetton.com/

The campaign created a huge amount of controversy with a number of different groups as the central theme is the kiss, the most universal symbol of love, and Benetton ran creative featuring world political and religious leaders, such as Barack Obama and Chinese leader Hu Jintao, Pope Benedict XVI and Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

They also ran guerrilla outdoor activity in Milan, New York, Paris and Tel Aviv, and Unhate went on to win the Press Grand Prix at Cannes.

FRIDAY FLUFF PIECE

JACK’S LINKS & FOOTLOCKER/ ADIDAS

USA

We all know creating a recognisable character association with a product can help to educate, inspire, entertain or personify the brand.  Whether that means celebrity brand ambassador or unique personality it can help the brand connect with the consumer.

You of course all know this after rushing out to buy Cornettos after seeing my awesome Cornetto bear, didn’t you… didn’t you...

Anyway, here are a couple of other brands that went for a… unique spokesman to make them memorable.

Okay fine, they’re also in here because I’m more than a little immature and personally find the words ‘sasquatch’ and ‘lady-pyramid’ hi-(wait-for-it)-larious.

Jack’s Links:                 

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/tv/jack_links_carpool

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/tv/jack_links_coffee_break

Footlocker/ ADIDAS:     

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c8U3DrTLcM

Happy Friday everyone!

Rad Report #2

Welcome to Issue 2 of the Rad Report.  Not all the campaigns are brand new, so if you’ve already seen them then feign interest for my ego’s sake.

MATTEL

USA

As the world appeared gripped in Olympic fever I was, of course, still watching MySkyed X-Games from a month or so ago. 

Amongst the awesome skate, BMX and Big Air comps there was also one of the coolest sponsorships/ PR stunts I’ve seen in a while.  I’m sure we all played with Hot Wheels at some point growing up (unsurprisingly I wasn’t really a Barbie kind of girl), and the gravity-defying loop was always the centre of any decent track.

Hot Wheels added their own highly anticipated event at this year’s X-Games by bringing on Rally car driver Tanner Foust and Hollywood stuntman Greg Tracy to set a world record by driving two Hot Wheels all-wheel-drive (isn’t that the same as 4–wheel-drive?) rally cars through the 66-foot tall Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare track at X Games LA. 

Branding heaven.

What 8 year old boy (and me) wouldn’t want a Hot Wheels set after seeing this!

Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6PQ49B5Gpw

4 out of 5 revs for bringing the brand to life.

SERVICEPLAN

GERMANY

Here at Spark we work hard to make campaigns great, sometimes I’m sure you’ve all felt like you’ve put your blood sweat and tears in to make the campaign a success.

Serviceplan, a creative agency in Hamburg, took this phrase a little literally when recruiting new staff through a pretty out-there (and not entirely hygienic) billboard campaign.

Company copywriters donated blood-samples which were pumped around tubing on a billboard to create lettering.  Designers sat in a mobile sauna and their sweat collected to be sprayed onto black fabric and the salt made the type.  Thirdly 3kgs of raw onions were used to make staff cry and the teary tissues were fixed to the billboard.

A QR code on the billboards linked to a micro-site about Serviceplan for interested applicants (their form of ‘TOGETHER’ is a little creepier than ours).

Well this one is, um, ‘creative’. 

1 out of 5 for staff treatment, 5 out of 5 for potential contamination from blood-born pathogens. 

Okay okay, sorry that one was a little wrong.  I’ll end on a positive note.

TROY LIBRARY

USA

The Troy library in Michigan was running low on funds and close to closing; the local council proposed to vote in a 0.7% tax increase to keep the library open, but the issue became more about taxes than the library itself and caused great debate.  With voting day near and negativity high about the tax increase the library officials took to social media in a controversial reverse-psychology WOM approach to change the public’s mind.

The campaign was picked up locally, nationally and even internationally and was a great result for minimal budget.

The video is a couple of minutes long but worth a watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOmgyWsksc

*Spoiler* the library didn’t close.  Told you there was a positive ending.

5 out of 5 hypothetical matchsticks for getting people talking.

Happy Friday everyone!