Thursday 23 May 2013

Exams are over!

One of the most stressful times for any student are exams/deadlines, and for many of us, they're over!
Just a small update for my blog, will be hoping to cover a lot of content over the summer as I will have a lot of spare time on my hands if I don't find a part time job, so hopefully I'll have a lot of updates, new subjects, as well as thing happening in the world of marketing that catch my eye!

Although all my university work is done for the year (unless I have to resit anything so fingers crossed!) I've registered to the CIM (Charted Institute Of Marketing) as an affilitate member (studying member) and will be completing  the introductory certificate to marketing over the course of summer, so updates on my progress the task as well as any interesting facts I pick up along the way will be found right here!

Kyle :)

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Why revise when you can procrastinate!

Procrastinating is one off my biggest "hobbies" at university, although I have done a lot less since leaving college as I have found obviously there is a lot more work to do, as well as me paying £8500 in tuition fee's I can't be wasting all my time!

I find myself doing many different things, from cleaning my room when a coursework hand in is due, or watching countless episodes of TV programmes, which I would say is very enjoyable, and would recommend it to anyone who does not have revision or coursework to be done (oops!). Breaking Bad, Prison Break, Revolution, Family Guy, South Park, Game of Thrones and many other series', not mentioning the large array of movies that I've watched have been one of my major downfalls at university.
Even now, I have 3 exams all within then next 10 days, and I'm sat writing on my blogger, what's that all about?
 Anyhow, revision has finally started, and as you maybe able to tell its not going that well! Although I've made notes on nearly every topic for one of my exams I'm still struggling to get my head around it, and the other two....well don't even get me started!Truthfully, I'm not a revision kind of guy, I've always just turned up to the exam and hoped for the best, but at university its plain and simple, don't revise, don't pass, so there is my dilemma!

Anyway's a pretty pointless post, just me finding something else to do other than revision, but yeah, i problies most likely wont be making another decent post for the next week or so just until my exams are over, then my summer holidays will be here and I'll finally be able to get this blog up and running.

Sunday 12 May 2013

Digital Marketing, What's all the fuss about? - Advergaming

Another tool used in the digital marketing mix is "Advergaming". Knowing very little about this topic, i did a little bit of research just to find out the basis of what it is, what its about and some different examples to go along with it.

What is it?

Well using theory, a definition given by Baines et al, states:
"The use of video and online games to advertise a product, organisation or an idea, Advergames encourage repeat website traffic and reinforce brand loyalty."
This being a very simply and clear definition, there isn't really much to elaborate on what it is really. its simply a tool that combines gaming with advertising for a company to get a message across, as well as other means stated.

How it can be effective

In the past 10 years or so, gaming has became increasingly more popular throughout both genders and age groups, primarly you could say because of the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, which targeted its product at those who wern't particularly related too the "Hardcore gaming scene", people such as Mum's, small children, even grandparents! It set the mark for family gaming, allowing people of all ages to play games. And obviously adding the introduction of Web 2.0, and the accessibility of Broadband that the majority of the world have access too being a playing factor in advergaming.

So the market has increased incredibly, why is this important? Well for a communications tool such as Advergaming to work, there has to already be a structure in place so that Advergaming can successfully work for a company, thus its recent success.

Types of Advergaming 

Embeded in the game (Billboarding)


Advergaming can come in several forms, and can mix with other different digital marketing tools, such as virtual reality (which will be covered in another post....so stay tuned!). Advergaming sometimes can go unnoticed, yet still have an affect on us, as ( QUOTE ABOUT sdsd). An example of this could be a billboard in the latest Grand Theft Auto (GTA) game with a companies new product or their logo, although you may not think that this would not have an affect, the usual gamer (from my experience) would be that you will occasionally when bored, aimlessly drive around/walk around the streets of GTA, and pass these billboards over and over again, meaning that when in real life, you would recognise that product/brand, as it would be very familiar to yourself. These billboards can be static, dramatic or interactive.

Game created by the Brand (Monopolisation Occurs)


Another way that advergaming can be used, is by a company actually creating a game themselves, which would usually include the name of their brand in the game, or relate to it a significant amount. An example of this style of advergaming could be the Arcade game that was available to download from the Xbox 360 dashboard, named "Doritos Crash Course Challenge". This was a very popular game between me and friends when it first came out, as it was free, fun and had a competitive edge to it that just meant playing it repetitively... although I wasn't good at it at all. Anyhow, the game although with the name "Dorito" in, does not relate to the actual brand, but is a sort of spin of the popular TV show "Total Wipe Out" that involves different obstacle courses. Now personally I would not say that this game went out and made me buy Dorito;s, but it obviously did increase the awareness of their product to some degree, as the game was available on a huge scale (Around 30 million Xbox Live members), now this does not mean that everyone who downloaded the game would have went out and bought Doritos, not at all , but brand awareness is very important for any company, especially a large company, and as stated by Baines et al (2011), the main purpose of Advergaming is too encourage repeat website traffic and reinforce brand loyalty.

Utilizaion



A final way advergaming can be used is when a product is implemented in the game, and is actually used by the gamer. An example of this could be in a car racing game for instance, if you had to stop for petrol (Gasoline) then the type of petrol would be a certain brand, then when seeing this brand in real life, you would recognise it from when seeing it in the game. This method of Advergaming is very similar too billboarding  but personally I think it is a lot more affective as it involves the gamer, rather than just being a part of the background.

My Opinion


At the moment, I don't see Advergaming being utilised to its full potential at the moment, but I definitely think that more and more companies will start incorporating their products/brands into games, as it is a mass market is increasingly going because of the latest influences in different styles of gaming such as the Wii, Xbox kinect etc.

SO if for some reason your a big CEO of a company, and you have read my blog (extremely unlikeley) then by all means Start Advergaming!!! Oh, and if you do, you heard it here first (well probables not but I'd like to think that).

Next Blogging Topics


Although I will continue to cover the digital marketing tools, I will also obviously be talking about other things, such as exam prep for marketing students, or any students for that matter as well as other things in the world of marketing that I find interesting or would like an opinion about.
Feel free to leave feedback, tips for my next blog post or even topics you would like to find out about :)
Hope you enjoyed this post, and found out something you never knew, thanks!!



Thursday 2 May 2013

Digital Marketing, What's all the fuss about? - Social Web Marketing

Throughout my first year at university, the same words keep creeping up time and time again, "Digital Marketing." Obviously times are changing, technology is becoming more and more advanced every day and the majority of people have smart phones which give them access to social networking sites almost 24/7.

So I guess yeah, digital marketing will becoming the "norm" in the next few years to come, but the first thing I thought to myself was "what is it" I mean yeah I know about social networking sites and how companies are using them more through PR to keep in contact with consumers, but what else is it?

What it is

Digital marketing contains a whole number of things:

  • Web email
  •  Digital TV
  • wireless media
  • digital data about users.

And all of these different sections of digital marketing can be analysed thoroughly themselves. expanding those fields however, creates more "well known" types of digital marketing including:

  •  Internet marketing,
  •  Internet advertising,
  •  Search marketing, 
  • Email marketing, 
  • Mobile marketing,
  •  Viral marketing,
  •  Online retailing, 
  • Advergaming (Online games to advertise) 
  •  Social web marketing. (Baines et al, 2011)


Why do companies need to use Digital Marketing?

Part 1- Social Web Marketing - Manage online reputations

The use of social web marketing can allow businesses to keep up to date with what their customers are talking about, their needs, their wants , and use that as an opportunity to create new ideas for products/services, or advertise existing product. Blogs are used more and more by people to review products created by companies, and users will look at the reviews and make a judgement there and then. (The Nielsen Company research shows: 70% of people trust online recommendations, from complete strangers). Books, such as "The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott" which talks about how companies who are active user's on blogs can be involved with their customers, allowing them to comment on any problems that customers are having, or see a negative or positive side to their product, thus take into consideration any changes or features that they could adapt in their next model.
 "The old way of doing business is over, the time of brands dictating and advertising interrupting is now being overtaken by inter-active community-orientated engagement marketing." ( Ahonen & Moore,2005).

So what social media should companies use/interactive/look at? The majority of social networking sites can be seen in "The conversation Prism" image, taken from http://www.theconversationprism.com/. Some think that every company should be active on every single social media, but really, is that what a company should do? There are millions of users on your social networking sites such as Twitter & Facebook, 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute! But what about the not so well known sites, should companies be active on every single one. Personally I'd say a big fat NO! Why is that? Because yes, companies should be proactive with social media, but if they were to invest into every single social media platform available, a lot would be irrelevant for that company, a waste of money or really just a waste of time. So yeah, the main social media sites is it definite for any company, even a sole trader/partnership, small  enterprise business, especially as there is not cost at all, and it does not take a high-tech wizz kid to set up. And definitely keep track of Blogs, whether they're directed at your product/company directly, competitors, the same field of work or just generally related to you, what's the worse could happen!

Feel free to leave a comment on what you found interesting/liked about my first "proper" blog post, and all opinions are welcome,

Cheers guys :)

Kyle