The festive season is upon us once again and as this year draws to a close The Value Engineers would like to raise a glass to all our friends, clients and partners.

To ease you into that festive spirit click here and discover what your tipple of choice has in store for you.

The first drink is on us…

Cheers from The Value Engineers.

A survey released this month by Booz&Co revealed that top executives perceive brand building to be the key benefit of social media activity.  And, quite remarkably, brand building featured much more highly in the perceived list of benefits than acquisitive marketing objectives such as broader reach.

But how are brand owners measuring the impact of their social media efforts on their number one objective – brand building? Historically a key metric has been the number of “likes” on the Facebook fan page, but what does that really mean? Fancy standing up in the board room to make the case for further budget based on the number of extra “likes” it would buy? Not me. And if your social media campaign isn’t just about reaching a broader consumer base, then likes isn’t even nearly the right measure anyway.

Those businesses at the cutting edge are already dealing with more data and more sophisticated metrics – generated by their own teams and via partnerships with the social media brands themselves. But last week Facebook launched a new metric on-tap and open to the public:  “People Talking About”.  This measures the level of activity initiated by consumers, including new posts, checkins, poll participation, mentions and shares.

Today, mashable.com published an interesting analysis.  How do the top 10 consumer brands on facebook ranked by “likes” fare when we look at their performance against the “People Talking About” measure?

As we might have expected, whilst there isn’t much between the  top 10 most liked brands, the “People Talking About” measure is much more differentiating. Try combining Likes and People Talking About and you’d get some sort of engagement measure – we’re getting there.

But ultimately, the key here is for the metric to be aligned with the objective.

And whilst brand-owners are still experimenting with the various social media levers and measuring the consequences (“…let’s try launching a survey of a certain length at a certain time on a certain day across 3 social media channels, and then see what it does for us – then tweak and repeat”), selecting the right metrics is half the battle

We woke up this morning to the news that Marmite has been banned in Denmark.

The offending spread now joins the ranks of Horlicks, Ovaltine and Farley’s Rusks – all products considered by the Danish health authorities as threats to public health.

The loss of a European market with the potential for others bound by EU legislation to follow suit will be of serious concern for Marmite.  And perhaps even more dangerously, this is a very public attack on the health credentials of the product at a time when consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of what they eat.

But, what’s the silver lining for Marmite?

The high publicity ban and the protest already gathering amongst tweeters and the media is a fantastic (and free) confirmation of the cornerstone of the Marmite brand: you either love it, or you hate it.  As a means of reconfirming brand identity and consolidating support amongst the core marmite “lovers”, this is second-to-none. 

And presumably, it is not the Marmite brand that has been banned by Danish health officials.  It is the product itself.  No doubt we will soon see a new, lighter version of Marmite hit the shelves in Denmark, and perhaps even elsewhere.  In the meantime, Marmite will retain its brand presence in Denmark through its non-spread lines. Looking further beyond Denmark, it’s a question of turning the publicity on its head and harnessing the interest for the good of the brand.

We’ll be watching to see what Marmite do next.

An advertising campaign launched by National Australia Bank is causing a stir down under – and with good reason.

Cleverly timed to coincide with Valentines Day, the campaign is centred around the announcement that NAB is “breaking up” with the big four banking group and going it alone. NAB’s offensive against its three key rivals began last Friday when what appeared to be an embarrassing miss-tweet appeared on the NAB official Twitter page: “Sooooo stressed out. Have to make a tough decision and I know I’ll probably hurt someone’s feelings! Arrggghhh.” It was re-tweeted more than 100 times.

But the next morning, it became clear that the tweet was no mishap. NAB made a splash on the front page of the Daily Telegraph by declaring it would pay early exit fees to entice unhappy mortgage customers to switch from competitors.

Post Valentines Day, the offensive continued with a number of guerrilla marketing stunts; mock break ups were filmed around the country and then distributed on YouTube; several pranks on the three key competitors were also filmed and distributed via the internet (see clip below); CDs of break up songs were handed out at transport hubs and NAB branded tissues were given to customers entering and leaving rival bank branches.

And this was all backed up by a print version of the following Dear John letter plastered over the country’s newspapers:

The campaign is remarkably non-characteristic of banks – a bold move, which is refreshingly different. The marketing team’s dexterity in manoeuvreing the campaign between different mediums is impressive – beginning on Twitter but then carrying over to YouTube and print media. And all underpinned by the availability of top staff for press interviews. A commendable effort – and one which marketers everywhere can learn from.

In the US this week, Amazon launched “Price-Check”, an application that smartphone users can download and then use in store to scan product bar codes. The app returns the relevant product page from the amazon.com website, allowing the customer to compare the in-store price of the product with the price offered by amazon.com and its marketplace retailers. And if the customer prefers the online price, the app allows them to make the purchase there and then with just one click, seamlessly switching between the high-street and online retailer.

Meanwhile on the high-street, marketers are also finding innovative ways to capitalise upon the rising popularity of smartphones.  Shopkick, a smartphone application launched in the US this summer, now has buy-in from marketers at big name retailers such as Best Buy, Macy’s and American Eagle Outfitters. Shopkick is a location based service which sends offers in the form of “kickbucks” to shoppers’ mobile phones as they move down particular aisles, scan certain items or pass by daily deals. 

Is smartphone marketing the next big thing? It is still early days, but it is undeniable that pace has been gathering fast in the run-up to Christmas.  The rewards for first-movers have been substantial, causing marketers to pay increasing attention to this new innovation in mobile marketing. 

For the retail industry in general, this new trend could herald substantial change; as smartphones bring down the barriers between the customers’ high street and online retail experience, will competition between these two types of retailer intensify?  If Amazon’s new release is anything to go by, things are certainly hotting up….