Posted by litmanlivecouk on Jul 1, 2009 in PR, Social Media
Pitching to bloggers, it’s a necessary evil and probably loathed more than it’s loved. I find it fascinating being in the lucky (?) position to be able to experience both sides of the coin. I enjoy the therapeutic hobby of writing down my thoughts, yet at the same time, in my day job I also pitch to bloggers. I really quite enjoy receiving pitches myself because I’m always keen to see how others do it. At the same time, I always try to highlight the pitches that really took the time to research my blog, finding that little bit of information about me to show that it’s not just a blind email sent out to many others.
I thought starting off the email with Hello and their name was pretty much standard, common practice. It shows from the off that the email before them was specifically meant for them. If there was a mental tick box when I receive a pitch, that gets the first tick.
What riled me to write this post was receiving what I think is an awful attempt at ‘engagement’. That’s really what you’re looking for when pitching right? A reply gives you validation, maybe a celebratory fist punch in the air.
This isn’t however going to be a naming and shaming exercise. That’s not the point. We’re all still learning right? I’ve made mistakes along the way and will still continue to do so but seeing as we’re all in this together I’d like to address a few parts of the pitch that particularly bothered me. I also don’t wish to draw attention to the agency, client who they are contacting on behalf of or the individual making contact so I’ll use excerpts from the pitch but not explicit detail.
Here’s the first paragraph..
“I’m getting in touch with you on behalf of (removed) as I thought you would appreciate an advance look at its new UK advertising campaign. As Lit Man Live is influential within the Media sector, we’d like to take this opportunity to provide some insight into why (removed) is pursuing a new brand strategy, beginning with this (removed) (but it was a YouTube video)”
First thing: Address the recipient. Say hello and if their first name is on site somewhere, use that. Then there’s a chance that you’ll have me at hello.. It’s such a simple first step that really needs to be there, always. In this instance being addressed as Lit Man Live shows that categorically no research has been carried out, not a jot and I was actually a bit embarassed myself to receive it. I’ve been called a lot of things but that was the first time I’ve been called Lit Man Live. Personalisation is indeed key but when you get the basic fundamentals wrong, it’s shocking, not a great place to start.
“Any pitch that doesn’t refer to me by my correct name is deleted immediately without being read.”
The whole debate about influence comes to fruition here also. Being perceived to be influential in the Media sector is complimentary but verging on laughable. Keep that in your internal notes but to me it’s signalling in the first paragraph what you want to get out of this before you’ve even asked.
Three overly long paragraphs about the history of the campaign, how it came about, who created it, who directed it and what they’ve directed before is not opt in. I didn’t read them, they’d lost me by that point. Instead of writing endless paragraphs of background info, make the email a bit more punchy and succinct and summarise the key messages in one short paragraph with an opt in at the end, something like would you like to find out more? It provides the recipient with the option and instead of metaphorically meeting them in the street and shouting your sales pitch at them, you’re going to talk with them on their level and see if they talk back.
Read the blog before you pitch to it. Show that extra level of research and mention a post that I’ve written and give me your opinion on it. Do you agree or disagree? What did you like about it and why do you think it’s relevant to what you’re pitching me with? Hint: It should be relevant.
You’ll probably be familiar with this, you can apply it to pitching too..
Final paragraph:
“The link enclosed is to an advance version of the video which we are specially making available to you. (If it was made available just to me, why does the video have 300 views?) We will be ‘killing’ this link at midnight GMT and making the video publicly available on (removed). If you would like to write about the ad and embed any video on your blog I would be grateful if you could link to the video on (removed’s) YouTube channel”.
I received the email at 4pm. They were giving me 8 hours to view the video before it was being ‘killed’. This pitch should have finished with the opt in, which requires more forward planning but may result in a more positive response. Asking me to write about it, embed the video on my blog and which link I should link to was too much. I wasn’t going to jump through hoops to write about a YouTube video.
The next time you decide to solicit a blogger with the pitch of a client, imagine we are both meeting at a cocktail party. Imagine I don’t know you and we are meeting for the first time. What is the first thing you would say to me? I don’t think it would be the same words that you would have otherwise used when doing your “pray and spray” email solicitations about your client’s shiny new product or service. No, I think you would first introduce yourself and look for something in common between us. And then only if you were feeling comfortable would you try to pitch me on behalf of your client.
Finally, again, do your research. Tell me why you think what you’re pitching me is relevant. Customise each pitch. Why should I be interested? Seriously, all of the above, coupled together is the difference between talking favourably about it and highlighting it in more of a how not to pitch light.
Well worth your time because it takes you on a journey with the audio backdrop guiding you through from start to finish. This is brilliant and brings further to life an already visual and interesting presentation. You can follow the narrative of the presentation and how it’s all interlinked, better I find when you’re hearing Faris talking about the slides too!
The BBC have implemented some pretty cool stuff on site along with providing the usual brilliant Glastonbury coverage. It’s almost as if I’m there! Without getting muddy or wet. Last year they got 600,000 visitors in the week of Glastonbury to their page and I firmly believe with the harnessing of the social web they can double that.
Along with using wireless video cameras which overlook different parts of the festival site to give us, the people who aren’t there, a taste of the atmosphere, the site also includes an aggregation of Twitter feeds from various BBC presenters and journalists and will also be experimenting with Audioboo, the audio blogging service.
It looks to have everything you could possibly need to know about Glastonbury, all in one place and all integrated very nicely. You’ve got the weather forecast, BBC blogs, radio and TV listings, some stunning photography, videos of performances, webcams, a dedicated page for each artist and the ability for fans to comment on their performances on site. All relevant, useful and social.
They have a presence also on Flickr allowing you to comment on each individual image and share further. It will be interesting to see if it’s updated with the best of this years imagery as currently the images shown are from 2008.
What I probably found most interesting was almost an active encouragement to share the site content on your site, blog or social networking profile so you can embed the content with ease by simply copying the embed code and adding it to a post. They have a page on site listing all the embeddable content available here. I only chose not embed in this instance because it’s fairly image heavy already.
Similarly you can add a widget to see some live webcam footage, the weather etc. The red button plays a much more prominent role this year also, providing the user the opportunity to watch exactly what they want to, personalised TV.
Another nice little feature I thought was seeing who were the most popular artist pages on site. In a sense this could be seen as a barometer of how successful their performances have been in the real world, at Glastonbury. I’ve watched some of the footage from Lady Gaga’s performance and am not surprised it’s the most viewed, such an eccentric and entertaining performer.
Mobile also seems to be something that’s not been forgotten with the site being optimised to work on your iPhone’s and N97’s with a more limited service also on basic web enabled mobiles.
“We’re seeing a big difference in the number of people web browsing on phones this year. Call it the ‘iPhone effect’ or just cheap data tariffs, but there was no way we could let people have a poor experience on our festival sites,” Tim Clarke, a senior content producer for BBC Audio and Music online said.
To conclude, here are just a few ways the BBC have fully embraced old and new methods to reach out to a greater audience on a much more interactive level.
This is an example of how you can best capture the essence of what is typically a very real world physical event, online.
Posted by litmanlivecouk on Jun 27, 2009 in fun, tech
Can your PC do this? Ok, my Macbook can’t either but wow, just wow.
I have absolutely no idea how this works but I had to re-watch it and pick my jaw up from the floor the first time round. I wonder what the keyboard shortcut was to do this? It’s ok, you don’t need to understand French to appreciate it’s brilliance, keep watching..
On the face of it this looks like a really innovative and forward thinking use of tech, providing another way that some clever people are using Twitter for yet another mash-up. This time it has the clout of Vodafone behind it, itself speaking volumes for the medium with some actual investment behind it and solid rationale. Vodafone want to make a song and dance about abolishing roaming charges and by making itself front of mind when thinking about holidaying, it’s doing just that. Clever.
There’s been a lot of buzz about hashtag spamming, most famously used (and abused to horrible effect) by Habitat. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then see more here, here and here. I hope this also serves as a case study for any brand looking to get in to the dark and dangerous waters of the social web of how NOT to do it. When did anyone at Habitat think that using irrelevant messaging would target the relevant and targeted customers who would shop at Habitat.
This, on the other hand, makes brilliant use of the hashtag #ukhols. Check it out and see what you think.
However, it’s almost as if you’re putting a sign up outside you’re house, “Hello Mr Burglar, just letting you know that I’m off on holiday for 2 weeks so during that time my house will be empty. Feel free to take whatever you like, no one will be here to stop you”
Granted, I’m being a little facetious in so far that you don’t give out your exact address, just providing the first half of your post code but by providing your name (which most people do on their Twitter page) it wouldn’t be hard to find out more if you wanted to.
What I do like though is the ‘Top Destinations’ part of the site which is where you can see which part of the world holiday makers are heading to using #ukhols. Perhaps predictably, considering the people the site would interest, the US was ahead of the curve, with at the time of writing New York being the top destination to be heading to. Paris followed in 2nd place with Vancouver in 3rd.
While the idea for me is more a showcase of the technology and what can be done with it more than it’s something of real value and use, Vodafone have to be applauded for taking a further leap in to the social space. Over the past year, they’ve really made a push for getting involved. Their ‘Live Guy’ campaign, which saw people tracking a man across the UK via GPS and Twitter in order to win a netbook was hugely innovative, engaging and interactive while they recently ran a ‘Twitter Hunt’ to advertise the HTC Magic phone. This is going to be the way of companies looking to engage with savvy internet users who love some shiny new way of engagement, myself included. Thumbs up here.
Posted by litmanlivecouk on Jun 18, 2009 in Social Media
If you didn’t know already, it’s been Refugee Week 2009 this week. To commemorate the cause Jaz and Ben have been doing a brilliant job getting the word out, energising the blogging community and collectively making some however big or small, social change.
When it comes to charity and making social change, i’m sometimes a bit too cynical for my own good. However, this got me thinking to myself what are the words that I think of first ordinarily when I see or hear the word refugee, here’s my top 5.
1. Poverty
2. Forced
3. Conflict
4. Unrest
5. Global
When you look at those words, they’re all pretty powerful and all probably stir some kind of emotion inside you. I’ve often thought just how lucky we really are in western society having all the luxuries we’re accustomed to and take for granted.
What are your top 5 and what’s this all in aid of?
Let me answer the latter part at least..
The Simple Acts campaign is about inspiring individuals to use small, everyday actions to change perceptions of refugees.
It consists of 20 actions that can be done by anyone and that encourage us to learn and do more with refugees. With every person who joins the campaign and does a small thing with and for refugees, we get a little closer to removing barriers between communities and to creating the kind of world we all want to live in.
There’s no way of knowing an exact number, but we hope to see thousands of people doing at least one small action by 2010!
According to the homepage 3298 simple acts have been carried out. Amazing. How about adding another one to the mix?
Posted by litmanlivecouk on Jun 11, 2009 in Digital, fun, tech
I was hesistant to call it a Samsung Viral because I think the dreaded V word is over used and often out of context. However, this to me is the very essence of a brilliant viral ad. I watched it, it captured my attention and thus I felt compelled to share it. That to me is pure and simply the desired end conclusion when making any video content to be distributed online. If it makes me want to show it to others, it’s done the job it set out to do.
It’s weird, it’s fun, it’s something a bit different and it’s entertaining. All at the same time.
Is there an art or a science to choosing the ‘right’ brand colours? Well, it’s generally not just something that is based on guess work. More often than not, expert consultation would have been sought and an incomprehensible amount of hours spent on choosing the right identity for a brand.
Colour is massively important but each has a different feel, identity and number of associations. There are also cultural differences when using colours, something that will always need to be thought about when doing global campaigns transcending different regions.
For example, a lesser known fact may be that in China, red is the colour of happiness and central to the wedding theme, signifying joy, love and prosperity. However, interestingly enough, the very same colour should never be used for text as when written it signifies death.
A few years ago now, Orange objected to easyMobile (easyJet’s attempt at dominating the mobile market, and failing) Stelios’s answer to that was, “I’ll see you in court.” and “It is our right to use our own corporate colour for which we have become famous during the last 10 years. We have nothing to be afraid of in this court case. They are clearly worried about the competition.” At the time, they also planned to add a disclaimer on the website saying that EasyMobile is not connected to Orange Personal Communications, arguing that the colour is an essential part of their iconic brand. More here.
How did it get to that stage? Who owns the colour? Is that even possible? Here’s a great article on the topic from back in 2005. Can you own a colour?
Then you’ve got T-Mobile who thought they ‘owned’ the colour magenta.
Engadget, the brilliant consumer tech site, launched a mobile arm, imaginatively titled Engadget Mobile and used a colour similar to what T-Mobile use in their brand messaging. They weren’t too happy about this and T-Mobile “requested the prompt discontinuation of the use of the color magenta on Engadget Mobile.”
Hilarious. They had no idea the backlash that was going to follow soon after, here, here, here and here. Not to mention the the 549 comments on Engadget’s post on the topic. The word I’m probably looking for is FAIL.
None of this would have happened if they used the rather superb Cymbolism. I lied, it probably would have, but check it out, such a brilliant website. It’s “the ultimate tool a designer has at his or her disposal to communicate feeling and mood.It’s a new website that attempts to quantify the association between colors and words, making it simple for designers to choose the best colors for the desired emotional effect.”
Using Cymbolism, Dmitry over at Usabilitypost worked through a series of colours, provided real life examples and the words that Cymbolism came up with linked to the colours. I’m sure you’ll agree that this is awesome.
At work, the branding is largely red. According to Cymbolism, this means that at Consolidated PR we’re passionate, powerful, bold, radical and excited. I’d say that’s entirely accurate too.
It’s ok, you don’t need to understand French to appreciate it’s brilliance, keep watching..
