I have just discovered the Four Square application and I must say I am pretty excited about it!
For those that haven’t heard about FourSquare, you can check it out here.
Basically, it is a mobile application which enables you to “check-in” to destinations around your city, leave comments, offer suggestions, redeem discounts, earn points, unlock badges and even become the “mayor” of certain destinations.
After its Open day launch in May 2009 the Grand Ocean housing development has successfully sold all of it’s Phase 1 apartments and is now entering into the second part of it’s marketing push.
With over 20 apartments sold already, the response to this new development has been overwhelming. These positive figures highlight the obvious benefits of an engaging and highly targeted X-channel campaign.
Elements of the campaign include a concept driven website, social media mash-up, contextual outdoor advertising, and an array of local media activities and offline collateral – all of them strategically combined to create an overall story which prospective buyers can relate to and buy into…
So congratulations for Phase 1 and here’s to Phase 2…
Visit the site yourself… www.gograndocean.co.uk
Recently the government released a safer sex campaign aimed at teenagers, which has been branded as ‘gimmicky’ and a waste of taxpayers money! The ‘Want respect? Use a condom’ campaign (initiated by the NHS Leicester viral banned from YouTube) was based around a custom made drama series which cost over £250,000 to film and create… and when launched only 5,576 people signed up to the series (over the past 4 months) meaning so far it has cost £45 per subscriber…
According to the government the campaign has been a success so far, but tax payers argue that “too often the government engages with gimmicky marketing and advertising because they think they are going to reach a new audience”.
Now, in this instance, I don’t necessarily think the government are trying to be too ‘alternative’, hoping to reach a new audience, but instead they are taking a more obvious route, hoping to appeal to the desired target market through known (and tested) social media marketing, such as Facebook, YouTube, mobile phones, etc… which makes perfect sense – however, I wonder if these methods of marketing are becoming over saturated.
Where they may have fallen down in this instance is simply through lack of (or the wrong type of) exposure… although saying that, we’re talking about it now! Even though the campaign seems to have had a negative response amongst tax payers and critics, it could have all been part of a cunning plan to simply get some exposure… and it could be argued that any exposure is good exposure!
Marketing methods such as these can generate great results, especially if the campaign is seeded and pushed in the right direction – however if incorrectly deployed they can remain unseen in an ocean of campaigns, all fighting to get pushed through to your inbox or txt to your mobile phone! Besides, it’s obvious that tax payers aren’t happy with the government taking this ‘risky approach’ – so maybe they should stick to more conventional methods… or finish the job they started and make sure it’s effectively fulfilled.
As creatives, its our responsibility to ensure that creativity helps create change, define future thinking and help towards shaping the way people absorb, understand and interact with the information they’re given. That way we can ensure that our marketing & advertising solutions will continue to grow ever more inspirational, more engaging and most importantly of all… successful!
It would be good to hear some other opinions and let’s see if we can help boost those stats! Go and visit www.thmbnls.co.uk, sign up and watch the series… maybe you’ll learn something 
Harley street specialist, Endocare commissioned We Love to develop their brand including their logo and offline collateral – creating a specialist marketing pack for distribution throughout the UK.
Through a structured layout and vibrant colour palette, the final solution was clean, elegant and distinctive, adding value to their brand and bringing life to an industry that is traditionally seen as ‘dry’.
Found this on the web… good advice for those of the worrying disposition…
By Anita Campbell of Small Business Trend:
We can all use a little help every once in a while, especially in times like these. If your small business is searching for marketing and sales tips to not only survive, but thrive, during economic downturns, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ve created this roundup of 10 resources to help you market and sell — and thrive and be successful — during tight economic cycles
