So now there’s a Hitler parody ranting at all the other Hitler parodies on YouTube, this meme craze must surely have eaten itself now, unless someone creates a parody of a parody of a parody, but that would be ridiculous..
Although 75 million people had signed up for a Twitter account by the end of 2009, only 17 percent sent even a single Tweet in December ’09, an all-time low for the micro-blogging service, research from RJMetrics has found.
Overall, in the three years since it began, 40% of Twitter account holders have never sent one Tweet and 80% have sent less than ten.
Despite the high percentage of inactive users, Robert Moore of RJMetrics observed that 17 percent of 75 million people still translates to a large number and the study found “tremendous loyalty and engagement from those Twitter users who stay on the system after their first week.”
Among the study’s other findings: Twitter is currently signing up about 6.2 million new members a month, down from a July 2009 peak of 7.8 million a month and the average Twitter user has 27 followers, down from 42 followers in August 2009.
Sunny Queen eggs of Australia has launched a PR campaign that takes aim at the British, asking consumers if they should replace the traditional Sunny Queen egg smile with a frown and rename the brand ‘Whinging Pom Eggs’
The campaign created by BCM includes print, online and a Facebook page, along with a spoof news report claiming the British have a ‘whinging gene’.
Leveraging the ‘whinging pom’ stereotype has a history in Australian advertising. M&C Saatchi created the ‘Poms will whinge’ campaign for British Council Scholarships four years ago which was banned by The Advertising Standards Board.
Marketers expect to allocate a third of their budgets to creating content in 2010, up from 11% in 2009, the annual survey from Junta 42 has revealed.
Social media, e-newsletters and blogs remain the top favoured content channels, with mobile the fastest growing segment.
The survey of 259 marketers also found that small businesses spend twice as much on content as large ones do.
Overall, 60% of marketers planned to increase spend on content in 2010.
Related research from Hubspot shows that small business blogging generates 55% more website visitors and 102% more Twitter followers.
Pope Benedict XVI has spoken about the importance of new digital channels in an address on the Vatican’s YouTube channel.
In a sixty second clip, he urges followers to make use of “the resources made available by the digital age in which we live” describing it as “the urgent and unavoidable task” in the build up to The 44th World Day of Social Communications on May 16.
On his Pope2you website, the Pope’s Facebook, iphone application and YouTube channel, ‘The Vatican’ are evidence of his enthusiastic adoption of new media, though he is not yet on Twitter.
Personally I’d never heard of Jenny Craig until this week – apparently the weight loss company is a player in the $40billion US diet industry – and one that’s about to get bigger, thanks to the publicity the market leader, Weight Watchers is handing it by way of a lawsuit.
The employment of lawyers to fight publicity battles is almost always a bad move. You wouldn’t ask a PR agent to defend you in court, why employ a lawyer to handle publicity? Tiger Woods did it recently and that’s turning out well isn’t it.
Even if the Jenny Craig claims are deemed misleading in court, dieters won’t care really, it’s mere semantics, they’ll give it a go anyway and in far higher numbers than if Weight Watchers hadn’t drawn attention to them in the first place.
If you look at the offending ad below, Weight Watchers isn’t even mentioned, they say only ‘the largest weight loss program.’ Now everyone knows exactly which brand is allegedly half as good as Jenny Craig while before it was oblique. More »
YouTube has announced it’s going into the movie rental business, starting with five films from the Sundance Film Festival, available from January 31st.
YouTube says it is reacting to movie maker requests for a finance model online that doesn’t rely on advertising – which doesn’t always fit their distribution and monetisation needs.
The Google Inc. owned company indicated that this is the beginning of an expansive plan to offer movie makers a new way of managing the distribution of their films.
“These are early days and in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option”, YouTube said on their blog.
Google, which has struggled to make a profitable business out of YouTube after buying it in 2006 for $1.65 billion, may see pay-per-view as its best bet to grow revenues. More »
While Coca-Cola has issued guidelines for staff on how they should represent themselves and their company online, Manchester United has taken the Orwellian approach of removing its players from social media sites altogether.
In a post on its website on Friday, the club announced that none of its players maintain personal profiles on social networking sites.
“The club wishes to make it clear that no Manchester United players maintain personal profiles on social networking websites,” said the note posted on ManUtd.com. “Fans encountering any web pages purporting to be written by United players should treat them with extreme scepticism. Any official news relating to Manchester United or its players will be communicated via ManUtd.com.” More »
Interesting title for Gordon Ramsay’s comeback on C4 last night – no doubt the double meaning is not lost on Gordon Ramsay Holdings, in this first attempt at reputation escapology after “a shitty year” as he puts it at the start of the programme.
So Gordon’s gone to India on a culinary and personal journey to learn about authentic Indian food and show a different side to the sweary alpha-chef – a more humble, vulnerable, willing-to-learn Ramsay.
It’s an odd choice, a bit like Michael Winner seeking public redemption by reviewing kebab houses. Ramsay does genuinely seem at times appalled, deflated and out of sorts, the manic mannerisms are still there, the direct questions, but in languid India, where he’s definitely not in charge, the hyper Ramsay presenting style doesn’t quite work. More »
If a client phoned up and said – “we’re buying two new anaerobic digesters, can you get us some coverage – The Sunday Times maybe?” you could be forgiven for guffawing silently before moving into serious expectation management mode.
But there it was, half a page in The Sunday Times business section, a story about two anaerobic digesters. Few of their 1.1 million circulation can even have heard of these methane producing machines, I certainly hadn’t.
Signs that Bruichladdich, the 1881 whisky distillery buying them, is a talented, entrepreneurial business were much in evidence when I toured it back in May. From the slick packaging and innovative products, to the stealthy looking black helicopter parked on the lawn, Bruichladdich smacks of a star brand in the making. More »
