This week the world’s favourite micro-blogging site Twitter announced that it’s crossed the 100 Million users mark. Quite an achievement for any online business and let us not forget that Twitter is a business. Their most recent round of venture capital funding will leave their value at 8 Billion dollars, but where’s the money coming from to justify that value?

Well as we all know, Twitter currently makes no money, it’s free to users and is a bottomless pit for the aforementioned funding. So what are the market speculators valuing at 8 Billion dollars? The site and all its posts? The technology behind the service itself? No, of course not. That myriad of information (purely narcissistic, or otherwise) although interesting is worth nothing, even the news reported on Twitter is usually a short version of what exists elsewhere in a much more readable form. Even the infrastructure itself over the years of R&D and redesign is probably worth somewhere from a few hundred thousand to a few million at the most (although the 24/7 running costs must be remarkable).

So what’s worth 8 Billion US Dollars to the many investors who keep Twitter running? You.
Quick calculation $8,000,000,000 ÷ 100,000,000 = $80

That’s pretty reasonable! Each user being worth $80 is a great deal, for it is you that they own. Unlike Facebook, to date Twitter seems to remain relatively unscathed in this regard. Facebook has come under plenty of fire for user privacy issues in the last 12 months. Mostly this is because Facebook is very clear that the user is their particular commodity, but people don’t like being seen this way. Facebook knows all about you, what you like, where you go, who you talk to.

Twitter is no different. It knows who you follow and therefore what you like. It knows who you tweet to and even where you are when you tweet. The reason it has escaped criticism is largely because it hasn’t taken advantage of this. Yet! But at some point the investors will want their $8 Billion back. Thus the conversation has been sparked, how long will it be until Twitter introduces advertising to their service?

On a wider level this has happened on similar services and successfully too. Google for example saturate you in advertising throughout all their services. They are so good at it though, the advertising itself is so subtle and so well targeted, that users rarely find it irritating. However, they achieve this in much the same way as Facebook, that being collection of personal data. Google know all about you, it’s just not as obvious as Facebook, who are recently the whipping boy for privacy issue gripes.

In fact, when Google bought out YouTube for close to $1.7 Billion in late 2006 they began the process of heavily commercialising the site. At first this resulted in the usual condemnation of any change but has been largely embraced and accepted by the sites users. And no doubt it’s this advertising that brings in the much needed running capital to ensure a site as complex as YouTube keeps going.

The fact is social media companies treat the user as a product, that’s just an underlying principle of online business. If you (the consumer) appear to be getting something for free, then you are the product. Overall, we have to recognise that this is a trend which is prevalent online now, the long game is king.

As members of this industry the strategy of these companies should be obvious to us, find a niche and populate that niche with great content for free. This will draw thousands, millions or even hundreds of millions of users to you. Once traction is that high, sell these users (or at least access to their prefrontal cortex’s) to the highest bidders.

Sounds horrific, doesn’t it but it’s actually not always a bad thing. The reason Facebook came under such scrutiny was their willingness to share user’s details with partners by default. If user’s have the ability to control what’s shared then bad press can be easily prevented, unfortunately Facebook learned this the hard way. That said, the other usage of our information by Facebook was internal, Facebook’s servers simply determined which, of their myriad of available adverts, were relevant to us. This actually works and personally I find it’s always showing me things I’m genuinely interested in. Google’s extensive algorithms seem to do much the same, with plenty of advertising, but all of it related to the searches I’ve made and hence, things I’m interested in.

We can only hope that lessons learned by others are taken into account when Twitter inevitably begins leveraging their huge user base for something more profitable. If adverts appear in my feeds which are relevant to me I should be happy, right? It’s a balance of course; most users accept that adverts are needed to support their favourite sites and services. This is still a learning period and both sides need to forge some tolerance. Users need to understand that who they are and what they like is up for grabs and online services need to understand there’s a limit to this, users will only tolerate being owned by their favourite service if that trust isn’t abused.

From March 2011 digital advertising falls more strictly under the remit of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). In short this means that any digital content in the UK that may result in or prompt a sale must now comply with the Committee on Advertising Practice (CAP) Codes on advertising.

This seemed to me like quite a big step and not one I fully understood. If you actually go to the ASA website you will find the CAP Code there but unless you are au fait with legal jargon and have a lot of time to spare you will be none the wiser. In essence I took the CAP Code to broadly mean, “don’t lie” but there had to be more to it than that.

Aside from the announcement itself I could not find much editorial on what the implications were. Thankfully the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) that David is Vice –Chair of organised an event with lawyers Kemp Little to explain it all. The remainder of this blog post is shamelessly paraphrasing their excellent presentation.

Why the need to introduce changes?

Digital has woven itself into the fabric of our daily lives and is now the first port of call for our consumer decision-making research. Digital marketing has also become a lot more sophisticated. Banner ads and paid search are only part of the tool set for influencing businesses and consumers online.

It is worthy of note that £200 000 of the funding to extend the ASA came from Google whose paid-for listings were already being regulated (see next section). Why? Because Google needs the content appearing in it’s natural listings to satisfy the user and not mislead. They are protecting the authenticity of their brand.

Additionally there is growing concern in our society over the role of the Internet in the lives of our children, young people and vulnerable adults.

Between 2008-2009 the ASA had to reject 3500 complaints relating to content on websites that fell outside of their existing remit. The claims were often regarding misleading information.

So how is digital advertising regulated in the UK?

It would not be fair to say that digital has been unregulated in the UK prior to this year. In 2008 two pieces of legislation - Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations and Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations - were passed through government. They were created in order to:

• Treat consumers fairly
• Not mislead through acts / omissions
• Stop aggressive commercial practices
• Stop misleading advertising
• Create a framework for comparative advertising

In effect this helped to put an end to hidden adverts on websites and also pushed bloggers to declare affiliation with a product they were seeding.

The ASA added a self-regulatory element into this mix. It may surprise you but they did actually have a limited digital remit prior to this year covering emails and advertisements in paid-for space including:

• Banner and pop-up advertisements
• Paid-for search listings
• Commercial classified adverts
• Paid-for listings on price comparison sites
• Sales promotions in paid-for and non-paid for space online (social networks)

Summary of the changes

The CAP Code now also applies to:

Advertisements and other marketing communications by or from companies, organisations or sole traders on their own websites, or in other non-paid-for space online under their control, that are directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods, services, opportunities and gifts, or which consist of direct solicitations of donations as part of their own fund-raising activities.

What you should take note of:

• The catchall term at the start
• That this excludes individuals selling online e.g. on Craig’s List
• That all content of social networks (not just paid-for space or obvious sales promotions) applies
• The fact that anything resulting in a sale is covered
• That this also includes charities

The following is exempt:

• Marketing communications that promote causes or ideas
• Investor Relations (that has enough regulation already!)
• Heritage advertising such as the old “Guinness is Good for You” campaign

User Generated Content is outside of the ASA unless it is adopted in marketing communications or is featured on your own website or online space under your control.

This could strike fear into the hearts of marketers but I think context is key. Consumer feedback as part of a chat flow is not going to be taken as a serious breach compared to say, highlighting the same feedback on the homepage.

What are marketers required to ensure then?

The CAP Code requires digital advertisements to be:

• “Legal, decent, honest and truthful”
• Socially responsible
• Prepared in line with the principles of fair competition

How is it enforced?

Although it is very unlikely that any financial penalties will occur for falling foul the ASA has an incremental scale of sanctions that it will follow:

• Most guilty cases will result in a public adjudication on their website (negative publicity that journalists looking for a story will pick up)
• Withdrawal of trading privileges
• Pre-vetting of future advertising (for repeat offenders)
• Referral to OFCOM (for extreme repeat offenders)

Agencies are also not allowed to submit any work that has breached the Code for any awards and media owners are permitted to refuse to run ads by offending companies.

The ASA can ask search engines to remove the marketer’s paid-for advertisements and can themselves place paid-for ads referring to a public adjudication. However they cannot impact upon natural search listings.

One thing that we do not know yet is just how SEO friendly these public adjudications might be in search results for a brand name. It could be that adjudications hang around for years. The impact could be extremely damaging to a brand.

What should you be aware of?

The lawyers I met at Kemp Little have already dealt with the ASA on behalf of digital clients and had these words of warning should you ever be investigated:

• They are not always consistent and their previous judgements do not set a legal precedent.
• They can raise their own issues so an investigation is not necessarily triggered by a complaint from the public.
• There do not need to be obvious grounds for a complaint to be investigated. Their remit is to protect the most gullible consumer.
• Just one complaint can trigger an investigation and the consumer’s identity is protected. This may lead to “guerrilla” complaints, for example a family member of a person working for a competitor who complains.

I hope this has been helpful and prompted you to think more about the new regulations. Although I am sure this will create a lot more red tape and hassle for some advertisers I am in favour of a more accountable, safer digital space. The more credible it is, the more we will continue to use it as the foundation for our future lives and thus further innovate and improve.

However, I do hope that the ASA keep a balance on what is fair and reasonable and that we don’t end up in a similar position to some of the ridiculous Health and Safety laws we currently have to abide by. I for one like to take the chance of drinking my coffee without a sealable lid on it and I also believe I have some good sense and judgement when it comes to spending my own money.

Please do let me know your thoughts in the comments below and thanks again to the lawyers at Kemp Little for all their help.

Guerilla Marketing campaign

In a world where people have become almost completely de-sensitised to advertising in any traditional sense of the word, trying to infiltrate people's consciousness is an increasingly impossible task. Smart advertisers recognised that the way to combat this apathy was to get their message into places where people wouldn't expect to find them, making them impossible to ignore. This practice has become known as 'Guerilla' Marketing.

Guerilla Marketing is all about surprising people, breaking their concentration and making them have an unexpected and emotional reaction.

Pioneered in 1984 by Jay Conrad Levinson, Guerilla Marketing was originally intended to establish a new tactic for small companies to keep up with the big players. Since then even organisations like Nestle, BMW and Unilever have learned to appreciate the advantages of a well developed Guerilla Marketing campaign.

Enough of the theory; here are some of our favourite examples of Guerilla Marketing campaigns:

If you think the first image simply shows a woman carrying a crate of beer, you have been taken in by a successful Guerilla campaign! This crate, looking like it only weighs half a pound, is a shopping bag in disguise.

This should make you smile. Hundreds of people appear to be coming out of a Mini Cooper, when in reality it is a subway exit. Well done, BMW!

Vacuum cleaner producer Miele is proud that their products suck :-)

Mr Clean puts other zebra crossings to shame...

As you can see, Guerilla Marketing campaigns include giveaways so that on closer inspection people realise that they are being advertised to, but hopefully the pay-off in terms of entertainment means they don't mind. The key is to add something unexpected and exciting to a space, not consume it with a corporate and boring advertising message.
Now let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Here are 5 golden rules, which you should keep in mind when creating your own Guerrilla Marketing campaign:

1. Don't forget to define your goals
Although Guerilla Marketing is all about creativity and the element of surprise, it still needs to be planed thoroughly. You still need to know what to do, where to do it and what you want from it.

2. Know your audience
Guerilla Marketing is effective because it is provocative. This is why it can bypass the 'corporate' constraints of traditional advertising. However, you also have to carefully consider your audience's sense of humour, you want to be memorable but not offensive.

3. Provocative or offensive?

This carries on from the above point. Prompting a positive emotion is what any advertiser wants, but in the case of guerrilla marketing you don't have to focus on humour. Appealing to people's sympathetic emotions can be just as effective.

However, you do have to bear in mind that there is a very fine line between being emotive and being crude. This is a good example of a campaign that manages to straddle the line well:

4. Be brief
A Guerilla campaign should appear out of nowhere and then disappear just as quickly. The mysterious and temporary nature adds to the effectiveness. In a nutshell, don't let the joke get old.

5. Do your research
Don't be caught out by any unforeseen issues:

• Permissions: You're not Banksy. Contact the responsible authorities and make sure you have got all permissions you need.
• Law: Know and obey the law. There are some crazy rules out there which you need to be aware of. For example, in Switzerland you are not allowed to dance on bank holidays. In Maine, USA it is forbidden to display Christmas decorations after 14th of January. And in Illinois, USA it is illegal to whistle in public on Sundays. Those are just some of millions of unbelievable laws that might constrain you and your work.
• Protests: Check the animal and eco friendliness of your campaign.

All in all, everybody enjoys a little surprise, a thought-provoking impulse or a reason to smile in his/her everyday life. Guerilla Marketing can turn ordinary and mundane activities, like watching people leaving a subway station, into entertaining events. Advertising can be fun for everybody, who'd have thunk?

Congratulations! You have just convinced a potential customer to click through from your HTML Email, Google Ad, Banner, Social Network message (the list goes on) you have their attention and they are ready to read, buy or subscribe. So where next?

Sadly in many cases marketers are happy to link hot leads like this through to their home or product page in the hope the user will work it out for themselves. Where is the context? Is this what the user was expecting to see? Is the language consistent? Is that special offer you mentioned clearly visible? Probably not. Welcome to the world of landing pages.

Whilst good landing pages adhere to the core principles of user centred design such as strong usability, clear information layout and simple navigation they are also single minded in their push to convert, not generally inform, the user.

Here are a few golden rules:

Be consistent
It is really crucial to maintain a consistent tone of voice from the source of the click through. You could even consider having the same headline on your landing page as your upstream ad. Sure, it's repetition, but at least the user feels like they are in the right place.

If users are landing from a wide variety of sources then you should probably segment the messaging rather than trying to please everyone with boring catch all copy. The same rules should also be applied to visuals if relevant.

Grab attention and don't waffle
Keep the page to a single point and use minimal text to explain it. Then ask yourself "Does my copy answer immediate, obvious questions or concerns?"

Remove unnecessary navigation and keep refining the content as much a you can. Every item on the page needs to justify its existence. If you want to quickly test your page use the '5 second rule'. Show the page to someone fresh for 5 seconds and then ask them to explain what it was all about. If they can't or mention too many differing messages get back to the drawing board!

If you need a bit more help along the sales process and words, visuals and competitive pricing are not enough then sometimes giving away a limited free account, trial or sample can be effective conversion aids.

Learn to point
It is still quite important to keep your primary call to action (CTA) above the fold (no vertical scrolling) or to repeat the CTA throughout the page if it must be long. Arrows or oversized buttons are the usual visual metaphors for action online. Arrows can also be useful for breaking out of the standard grid lines of your design which will inevitably attract the eye.

If your design features people, face them in the direction of your CTA although resist the urge to be cheesy, authenticity is important.

Colour needs to be considered on CTAs. Red can evoke a strong emotional response although it does also represent "stop". Orange equates to an enthusiastic get-it-done attitude whilst blue is the default web colour for a link.

Use video!
Users are far more likely to watch a well crafted short video or screencast than read a long piece of text.

Only ask for the information you really need
As handy as it would be to know the age, gender and occupation of the user it is not always essential. The more you ask for, the less you will get. If you really do need to know personal information then turn it into a unique selling point e.g. "Tell us your birthday and we will send you a little present on the big day!"

Build trust
If the user clicking through is not already familiar with your brand then official accreditation or affiliation to organisational bodies, logos of well known brands you are partnered with or working for and testimonials (preferably not anonymous!) will support you in your endeavours to convert.

Don't stop the conversation!
Thank you pages are so often overlooked but why should we stop there? This is the ideal place to offer further incentives such as free ebook download or links to more information. A surprise bonus will leave the user feeling very good about the experience.

Likewise you have just converted your lead - well done! They are probably feeling at their most in love with your message at this point so add some social sharing functions here so they can tell their own community about this great product or service and help spread the word for you.

Track your results properly
If you can track the user journey you give yourself a fighting chance of learning from your mistakes as well as knowing what your conversion rate, bounce/abandonment rate and form completion rates are. How else can you tell if the campaign was worth while?

If you would like more information on tracking have a read of our blog article "Five Google Analytics tips you need to know"

I hope you have found this useful and please do leave any comments or other tips below. Also, I could not have written this article without some of the fantastic advice on http://unbounce.com/blog/

We have just launched our latest CBS Outdoor campaign promoting Bus advertising. You have probably seen promotional adverts for it driving around!

The 2009 Creative Challenge runs until July and features a different creative agency every two weeks. Each agency showcases their best work on some actual buses, in Campaign Magazine and our site. Users can review and vote on the designs and influence which pieces will feature in the "Grand Prix" final, where the winner will then be selected.

This campaign is the latest in a series promoting the benefits of bus advertising that we have worked on for CBS Outdoor and so far the results have been really encouraging with some great ROI for the client.

We are also busily working on a large international project for CBS Outdoor's main website so look out for that when we launch in the Spring.

Up Everyone's Street »

This week we have launched our microsite promoting Bus Superside advertising for CBS Outdoor. The concept is pretty simple, whack whatever the hell you like on the side of a big ol' London double-decker and send it to all and sundry! The highest rated advert will feature as a Superside on a REAL BUS... the stitch up potential is immense!

Your "artwork" integrates with a real video of a bus rolling down Camden High Street so its quite a shock when you first see it. I can say that with authority after Jenny prepared this delightful number above for me (note to all: do not take her on at pool when there is a wager in the air!)

So far we have had a (possibly not entirely genuine) marriage proposal, a request to find Trevor Eve look-a-little-likies (Shoestring was class!) and a memo from the boss...

Check it out - www.talktothetown.co.uk

An enterprising student in an effort to raise funds for a new Mac book has decided to sell Advertising space on this Mac book, and with 7x10 cm going for $250 it sounds like a bargain

I wonder what the Mac purists say about defacing the lovely minimal Mac design.

This summary of an article from the December issue of the Journal of Advertising Research says that common word-of-mouth advertising by regular people is more powerful than a message from a  “key influencers.” Which is to say that sucking up to A-list bloggers may not be worth it after all.

James Coyle, assistant professor of marketing at Miami University’s Farmer School of Business, Elizabeth Lightfoot of CNET Networks, and Ted Smith and Amy Scott of MedTrackAlert conducted the study by surveying website visitors, conducting in-depth reviews, and analyzing website usage patterns. Said Coyle:

“We find that trying to track down key influencers, people who have extremely large social networks, is typically unnecessary and, more importantly, can actually limit a campaign or advertisement’s viral potential. Instead, marketers need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages.”

After all if you think about who is your strongest "Key Influencer" more often than not they are going to be your friends and family, and not a self obsessed blogger in middle america.