OS4 has 100 new user features, and the one that was most anticipated (at least by the marketing community) was the iAd mobile advertising platform.

Developers have been embedding single adverts in Apps for a while but this is obviosly limited. iAd works like Google AdSense and delivers appropriate adverts  into your App experience. iAd allows advertising to appear directly within iPhone Apps, without the need to be redirected to a website.

According to Jobs the average user spends over 30 minutes every day using Apps. If Apple wanted to put an advert up every 3 minutes, that would be 10 adverts per device per day.

That’s the equivilant to 1 Billion advert opportunities per day, being delivered to targeted demographics.

And the creative engaging potential of these adverts is high, as being directly in the OS they can be interactive and utilise video etc.

Apple is going to sell and host the adverts with App developers getting a 60% split.

Question is, is this just another example of Apple trying to squeeze every last cent out of a very loyal (sometimes lemming like) fan base?

Whilst I’m an admirer of Apple I chose not to be customer (I replaced all the Macs in our design studio as they just weren’t worth the extra money) and whether fans will stay loyal and put up with the interruption of advertising to this level within Apps, being delivered directly to their person, wherever they are, has yet to be seen.

What is certain is that this new channel for delivering your marketing message is one that deserves a look. Can you see yourself utilising this channel?

First posted on Marketing.co.uk April 9th 2010

A brief History of Internet Explorer can be found on Wikipedia, which is very interesting reading (sic).

I’ve been designing websites since about 1994 so I’ve used every single version of IE and have seen it take over from the original Mosaic, fight off Netscape and now compete with Firefox as the browser of choice (with IE still accounting for over 60% of all browser usage, depending on which browser usage report you read).

The thing is that 60% is actually made up users of IE6, IE7 and IE8 and that’s where a lot of the problems lie.

IE6 is horrible and should be discontinued as soon as possible. It doesn’t comply with Web Standards making it a pain to develop for (with many developers now just giving up and telling users to upgrade) and more importantly has lots of security issues which are keeping IE’s bad name well and truly alive. Even Google is phasing out support for it as it was responsible for recent security problems.

IE8 is a big step forward, but it’s still not there. Maybe IE9 will finally address the issues, but I somewhat doubt it.

Unfortunately many large organisations still use IE6 and the logistics of extracting it is really slowing down it’s extinction.

Of course a large percentage of the computer users of the world use IE as it’s always been bundled with Microsofts Operating Systems (OS). This explains the market share that IE has traditionally had, but this is changing fast.

Firefox has built up a strong following, initially amongst the development community owing to the way it meets web standards and its use of plugins. This support has spread and it’s now breathing down the neck of IE8.

As someone who builds sites I use IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari (for the PC… I have issues with Macs and their advocates which I’ll save for another Thought), as well as a range of others including mobile clients and accessibility led clients where applicable, so I’m not in that percentage who know one browser and that’s therefore the best.

However, I personally have always tended to use IE as my primary browser as I like to put myself in the shoes of the largest browser audience of the websites I develop.

Now for the first time this ‘loyalty’ is being tested after I was hit recently with a malware attack owing to security flaws in IE8, and by the scope of the pluginsnow on offer with Firefox. In fact probably the only reason I don’t switch immediately is that Firefox takes ages to open on my work PC, and I don’t have the time to figure out why.

So I guess like most of the population (though not my peers) I’m still using IE despite all it’s flaws as it’s convenient and I’m lazy.

However, recently Microsoft has been forced to offer users of it’s operating systems a choice of web browser upon install (OS or updates) and this has seen IE’sgrasp on the market loosen further with browsers like Opera reporting an increase in downloads.

This choice is a huge step forward for browsers and if continued will force improvements in IE. I don’t think it will see the death of it in my opinion as Microsoft is still such an important player in pushing technological advances out to the masses. However, I think people will seriously consider which browser to install when given such an easy choice, and if any of the competition start mass marketing their product to expose their brand to the populous I think a change might well come about.

What browser do you use, and why?

Client: Anthony Briscoe  (2010)

Anthony is a gifted wedding photographer specialising in reportage style images as well as the more traditional formal wedding images found in most couples albums. His focus is the Herfordshire and London catchments (and surrounding area) but he works across the country when the right projects come along. He needed a clean understated website to showcase his work, with smooth image slideshow and gallery (built with XML and JQuery).

The result can be seen at www.anthonybriscoeweddings.co.uk  (mention SynEgg and you might well get a discount!).

Client: Designation (2008-2010)

Details: Touchpoint is the appropriate name for communication from Designation, focussed on the monthly e-shot supported by a blog where subscribers can post their feedback. The e-shot is on edition 25 as I write this, meaning it’s been going out on time every month for over 2 years, which is a remarkable achievement for a company this size.

My involvement is in preparing, test and sending the e-shot, in conjunction with updates to the blog, and the Designation website. I’ve also set the blog up so that updates are syndicated out to the Designation Twitter account and Facebook business page via Ping.FM. I set those social media platforms up a while back and they are also under the Touchpoint banner currently.

Utilised appropriately these channels can help your brand engage with its audience and can be hugely beneficial in helping you achieve your objectives.  Look at the great example of crowd sourcing by the team behind the Barack Obama presidential campaign which engaged and motivated millions of younger voters to get behind his ultimately successful bid for the White House using tools such as Twitter. He might have re-appropriated the idea from Hillary Clinton but his tends to be the example best remembered (as he won!). This use of Twitter to engage an audience and get them to share your message as an advocate is how to use the tool to it’s best advantage. However, you’ve obviously got to have a strategy for why and how you’re using the channel.

And you don’t have to use the channel directly. You might not think that anyone would be interested in hearing that someone has just brushed their teeth, but if that someone is a celebrity followed by thousands, who has justed brushed their teeth with your toothpaste brand, then you’d be surprised what the impact can be.

Twitter can be used effectively by most brands, once you know how to use it effectively.

For now, to protect your brand I’d always recommend that you secure your brand name with these channels as if you don’t then someone else will, and that’s not something you want. As long as you use it in some way (I often suggest just broadcasting blog updates into the account) then it’s not name sitting and you’re protecting your interests. When you’ve decided how to best utilise the channel to your benefit then you’re ready to go, and by just by being there it may help you guage interest in your presence as you may find that people start following you and telling you how to best engage.

What sort of experiences have you had with Twitter, both good and bad?

First posted on Marketing.co.uk in Feb 2010

Client: Communic8 Consulting for Designation (2009-2010)

Details: Communic8 wanted to run an email marketing campaign for their client. They urgently needed someone to manage the delivery side. I set up the mailing system, added the lists, coded all the emails and scheduled the mailings, with the first email ready to go out the same day we were commissioned. I then managed the system and provided tracking reports after each mailing to give Communic8 the marketing information they needed.

Client: Verasseti for Designation (2009-2010)

Details: When Dreamspace wanted to evolve they came to Designation having worked successfully together in the past. I ran the brand consultancy phase including workshops with the client. This phase following the Designation brand process to research and define a new brand based on the big idea that was identified to match the new direction the company was going in.

We proposed a number of varied brand names which were measured against a range of crtieria. From those option the client choose a name that I’d created, Verasseti, which is based around truth and integrity, values integral to the proposition. The initial branding launch collateral was then developed including a new website, which I designed and developed.

Client: MyRetailTherapist for Designation (2008-2009)

Details: The shopaholics at MyRetailTherapist needed a CMS website that would support their addition. As well as having a blog, news diary (linked into NewsNow), a directory of favourite stores and a feature to allow people to pick their shopping brains, the site has a poll and online advertising functionality. Basically it’s an integrated tool also used to support digital marketing channels such as Twitter.

Client: University of Reading for Designation (2008-2009)

Details: Reading Uni knew that there was a real lack of secondary school teachers in certain subjects. To tackle this they set up some new Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE) courses aimed at fast tracking new recruits onto the Post-graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) courses needed to become a qualified teacher.

However they were having trouble finding suitable qualified students to fill the places. I was part of a team that ran an intense last minute marketing campaign in late December and January to try and fill courses starting in February.

The techniques we applied got the campaign up-and-running within a couple of days and qualified potential applicants back in front of the entry board within a week. Over the course of the campaign we exceeded targets by over 400% and over 80% of the students on some courses came through our very cost-effective campaign.

Client: Atkins MC for Designation (2005-2009)

Details: When a client (Mantix) was taken over by the huge entity that is Atkins (becoming their Management Consultancy division) I was lucky enough to be able to continue on the account managing their website. I’ve been involved with their site over ten years now and I recently (Sept 09) made the 4^th evolution of their website live. This new site incorporates numerous MooTools scripts to add dynamism to their content.