News March 2009
Posted in News on March 3rd, 2009Two famous Guinness ads make comeback Two of the most famous Guinness adverts will hit the screens this month to mark 250 years of the black stuff. “The Island” advert makes a comeback as part of the Guinness classic ads campaign tomorrow. “Ta siad ag Teacht”, the only line spoken in the advertisement, captured the imagination of Guinness drinkers when aired for the first time in 1977 and won numerous industry awards. “Anticipation” – featuring the dancing man – goes on air next Monday. The 1994 advertisement became one of the most talked-about Guinness ads with actor Joe McKinney strutting his stuff around a pint of Guinness as he waited for it to settle.
Include Promotion & Coupon Terms into Your Marketing Mix
Coupons and promotions are an essential part of the shopping experience, and promotional search terms are popular on almost all referring search term reports. As a commerce site, there is an array of opportunities to employ the promotional frenzy to work for you.Coupons and promotions are an essential part of the shopping experience, and promotional search terms are popular on almost all referring search term reports. Like many online shoppers, I have learned that promotional codes can be found all over the web. As a commerce site, there is an array of opportunities to employ the promotional frenzy to work for you.Improve natural rankings on coupon terms using search engine optimization:Create a landing page to house all your active partners with coupon offers. For this posting, we’ll call this the Promotions Page. This dedicated landing page is a way to promote exclusive partnerships by providing links to partners with valid promotional codes.Promotions do not always have to be deep discounts, but rather cash back rebates to schools and/or charities with the help of online partners, such as Upromise. This is a website dedicated to help online shoppers save for a college education by directing their spending to Upromise partners. This Promotions Page is also to trade exposure with those partners.For three months, you will feature these exclusive partners’ promotional offer on your landing page and for the same duration they will feature your product/service on their homepage; conceivably sending a featured email to their member base. Work with partners to provide back links to each other’s websites in efforts to boost your natural search rankings.Promoting coupon terms using search engine marketing:As part of your search engine marketing efforts, build out pay-per-click campaigns to include bidding on coupon terms and directing traffic to your Promotions Page.Source
Online retail and travel sales to hit £56bn by 2014
Online UK retail and travel sales are expected to increase to £56bn by 2014, according to Forrester Research.The research house expects online sales to grow by 6% per year from its current level of £37bn as consumer spending continues to shift online.According to the research, which is due out later today, fashion was the fastest growing area of online retail during 2008. Books, DVDs and travel were the most frequently bought items over the period.The Forrester research, which places the UK’s online spend ahead of its French and German counterparts, expects the number of online UK shoppers to grow from 30m this year to 37m by 2014.In January the first new media age online shopping survey revealed 36% of people plan to do more shopping online and less on the high street this year to look for savings.
Google to serve ads in news results
It’s placing text ads next to headlines delivered from the 4,500+ global news sites sourced for the Google News service in an attempt to generate revenues from as much of its business as possible.Google project manager Josh Cohen wrote on the company blog, “What this means is that when you enter a query like ‘iPhone’ or ‘Kindle’ into the Google News search box, you’ll see text ads alongside your results, similar to what you see on regular Google searches.”The move could further frustrate some news organisations that have previously criticised Google for deep-linking into their content without permission. Google didn’t reveal a revenue model for the new offering, leaving it unclear whether ad revenues will be shared with news sites.Nevertheless, Josh Cohen said the company was only ever going to roll it out if all parties were happy.”We’ve always said that we’d unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike,” he said. “We’ll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers too.”Last month Google closed its underperforming Prints Ads programme, designed to apply the AdWords model within print and newspaper advertising.
Samsung Announced as Sponsor of Seachtain na Gaeilge
Samsung Ireland today announced that it is the corporate sponsor of ‘Seachtain na Gaeilge’, the popular two week festival which promotes the Irish language (2-17 March 2009).
The sponsorship forms part of a larger initiative with Conradh na Gaeilge which will see Samsung sponsor Irish language events and workshops in schools and Irish summer colleges throughout the year. This new partnership follows on from the success of Samsung’s Irish language enabled Gael Fón range which launched as the world’s first mobile handsets to offer T9/predictive text ‘as gaeilge’. Gary Twohig, Country Manager, Samsung Mobile, described Samsung’s dedication to promoting the Irish language through its Irish language enabled handsets.This year’s Seachtain na Gaeilge will be launched by Irish speaker Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh and Irish language novice and Today FM presenter Ian Dempsey who will be encouraging people across the country to use a ‘cúpla focail’ throughout the course of the two weeks. Pádraig Mac Fhearghusa, President of Conradh na Gaeilge and Chair of Seachtain na Gaeilge commended Samsung “for the very important step they took recently in communication technology when they introduced the first Irish-language enabled phone. This initiative has, without doubt, had a very positive effect on the promotion of the language, especially among young people. Good communication is central to the promotion of the language and having a partnership with a leading international telecommunications company like Samsung will certainly help us immensely in our work.”
Ryanair Site Launches Third-Party Advertising
Ryanair has introduced third-party advertising across its site for the first time. Global digital advertising agency Ad2One has been appointed to handle the sales, initially in the UK and Ireland. Expansion to other European markets will follow.
Ad2One will be responsible for selling standard advertising such as banners and skyscrapers and will look to attract mobile and FMCG brands. The carrier has redesigned its home page across all of its country sites to create a cleaner look. The redesign was carried out in-house.Separately, the carrier intends to close all its airport check-in counters by year end in a cost-cutting move.”All we will have is a bag drop where passengers can drop off their luggage, otherwise everything will be done online. Ultimately, we want just one in five people to check in luggage,” CEO Michael O’Leary told The Daily Telegraph.Approximately 75% of Ryanair passengers currently use online check-in. “We are trying to encourage the remaining 25% to do the same,” O’Leary added. According to Ryanair’s website, passengers can check in online from 14 days to up to 4 hours prior to departure.
