It’s that time of year again, and the Christmas ads are back on our screens. Over the years we’ve seen good ones and bad ones – and this year is no exception. Companies and businesses regularly throw millions of pounds at their Christmas campaigns, but how do viewers really feel about them?
Some can inspire some quite dramatic reactions. This year, the Littlewoods take on a school nativity play has received particularly negative feedback. “I rage every time it comes on,” comments one online forum user. “They should take it off air and burn the footage.”
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has received over 450 complaints claiming that the ad shatters the illusion of Christmas by revealing that parents are in fact responsible for delivering presents.
On the other hand, this year’s John Lewis advert has already had over 3 million hits on YouTube, and inspired such Facebook groups as ‘The John Lewis Christmas Ad Made Me Cry’. In contrast to Littlewoods, John Lewis does not advocate products so much as it does good values and kindness. Now isn’t that more important than a new iPad?
Here are some of our past favourites to get you in the Christmas spirit:
Woolworths – A Happy Christmas ShoppingSpree (1981)
Harleys is proud to be the main sponsor of the AC Bristol football club. The club were newly-formed this year, and play in the Bristol Regional Sunday League 4th Division. With two of our employees on the team, we are somewhat personally invested in their success.
The team recently donated their old football gear to Afrikit – an initiative which provides sports shirts, kit and equipment to some of the poorest areas in Africa.
“Thanks to securing our new home kit sponsorship with Harleys, we had a spare kit that was less than a season old,” explains Paul Martin, team manager and Head of Design at Harleys. “Rather than have it gathering dust in the kitbag we thought that some less fortunate people could make use of it.”
Following a successful pre-season campaign, the team are now halfway through the league campaign and have won five out of their last six games. In a recent match they beat the division leaders 3-2, and were the first team to do so this season. Their top scorer has scored 26 goals in just 9 games.
The club home ground is Backwell School in Bristol, and their use of the facilities there provides much-needed funding for the school.
“I’m delighted that a small club like ours can help other communities and promote the sport of football around the world,” says Paul.
The team currently stand at 4th in the league table, and have qualified for the semi finals of the Gloucester FA Sunday Minor Cup.
Google has recently launched a fun new feature called the Search Stories Video Creator. The name pretty much speaks for itself. You can choose 5-7 search terms, testing out different search types to get the results you’re after. Then you select a backing track, and the tool creates a neat little video of your journey within a matter of seconds. It’s that simple.
Here’s our effort:
It’s more than just a bit of fun though. Search Stories can be used to tell countless tales about what individuals and businesses plan and do. In that way it demonstrates just how huge search has become. Our Search Story is about developing our identity, and optimising it online. Have a go yourself, and let us know what you think.
Anyone who spends a reasonable amount of time browsing the internet will at some point have encountered error 404. It’s the standard response to the server not being able to find what was requested. How can websites deflect the resulting frustration?
There are two main reasons for landing on a 404 page. Either the URL is misspelt or non-existent, or the link is outdated and the content has been moved or deleted. A good 404 will suggest ways of getting back on track, including alternative links and search boxes designed to encourage the user to remain on the site. A great 404 will do the same thing – but with flair.
A well-designed 404 page not only allows you to gloss over failure, it can also add brand personality. The user may be put-out at not finding what they wanted, but it is possible to placate them with kittens. Kitten-based 404 pages seem to have become something of a trend, perhaps because they appeal to a ‘softer side’ that makes users less inclined to get angry. Most opt for conversational or witty text alongside a striking illustration or character. It’s a way of saying ‘yes, something did go wrong, but let’s enjoy the ride’.
Of course, a well-maintained website should offer rare occasion for 404. But on the off-chance that it happens, why not do something different? No-one wants to look at a blank screen.
On Saturday 15 October, a man living in New York Cityposted the following message on a site called MacRumors: “Divorcing wife. Thanks iPhone 4S and Find My Friends”. Thanks to the GPS tracking app he had installed on her phone, he had been able to track her location to somewhere entirely different to where she had claimed to be going that evening.
These apps are not exclusive to the iPhone. BlackBerry users can get similar functionality from LiveTracker. The idea is that you’re able to find your family or friends more easily. Once they have the app downloaded, their location becomes visible on the map. Great if you’re meeting a friend for dinner or checking that the kids got home safely.
Then there is MobiStealth. This goes one step further. It deliberately targets paranoid partners in its advertising, claiming that if you “want to find out if he/she is telling the truth…then MobiStealth cell phone spyware is a perfect solution for you”. With this software you can also listen into calls, read messages and view call history, in addition to tracking someone’s location. And it’s not the only app that can do so.
How far is too far? Should we really have to rely on applications such as this to know whether our partners are being unfaithful?
Of course, GPS has plenty of useful applications. Companies are becoming keen to encourage the social media phenomenon known as ‘checking in’. People can use GPS to tell their friends where they are, where they’ve been or where they’re going, via their news feeds. By enabling check-in at their locations, businesses can encourage customers, employees or anyone else to let people know about their visits. This builds brand equity – at no cost at all.
But perhaps it’s worth taking time to consider who you’re sharing your location with. There’ll be no more pretending you’re “on your way” once your spouse learns the art of stealth.
An inspirational figure, Steve Jobs envisioned modern computer features like mouse controllers and clickable icons before the first PCs existed. He and Steve Wozniak launched Apple in 1976 to deliver on his vision.
Recently he was best-known for leading the development of revolutionary electronic products such as the iPhone and the iPad. Here are some things that you might not have known about him:
We’re attending DSEi in London next week. As a key event on the defence and security calendar, it’s a great opportunity for us to meet up with current and potential clients.
We’ll get the chance to see our work in action on our clients’ stands, including videos, stand graphics, ads, presentations and printed marketing.
Witnessing customer interactions first-hand around the event will allow us to assess the impact of what we do alongside what the competition is up to. This will make sure we have the intelligence we need to remain at the leading edge.
We’ll also be furnished with plenty of ideas and inspiration around what we can offer. If you’re interested in meeting us at the event, drop us a line at hello@thinkharleys.com.
It’s official: our customers think we’re outstanding. Harleys is now accredited by the Recommended Agencies Register (RAR). It’s an intermediary service that recommends agencies based on the opinions of their clients.
RAR measures customer satisfaction, asking clients to rate their agencies across key criteria including creativity, strategic thinking, value for money and effect.
Agencies who score above RAR’s threshold then become certified and included in the register.
Executive Director Terry Davies shares his thoughts on what this means for Harleys: “Customer satisfaction is what keeps our business going: we do an excellent job, and so our clients keep coming back, as well as spreading the world to their colleagues and networks.
“What’s good about RAR is the way it balances its assessments across such a broad range of criteria. This proves our strengths in every aspect – what we offer, the way we work and how we deliver.”
On Monday 27 June something happened to Google. A black bar at the top of the homepage appeared. It marked the humble introduction of Google+, the top-secret social project that the search giant has been working on for the past 12 months.
Google claim that Google+ is not a Facebook killer. Rather, it will offer people a better Google. It helps users to stay in contact with friends, family and acquaintances while simultaneously sharing content. Essentially you have a profile page, a home page, which is a continuous scroll of information from the people you are connected to, and a page to share photos.
But then it gets interesting. There is a tool called Circles, which is an improved way to share information with friends, family, contacts and the public. Put your friends in one circle, family in another and your work colleagues in another to ensure each group has access to the right – and most relevant – information.
Hangouts allow a user to create a place to use live multi-person video chats and Sparks delivers content on the topics the user is interested in and ensures there is always something to watch, read or share. Mobile features include location, instant upload of photos, and Huddle, a group messaging service.
But, before we get too excited, this isn’t Google’s first attempt at social media. In 2004, Orkut was unveiled a whole month before Facebook, and today it remains a huge platform in Brazil and India, but it’s failed to capture much of the market elsewhere. And then there was Open Social in 2007, before Google Wave in 2009 and Google Buzz in 2010. Each failed for its own reason: from slow user adoption rates to privacy fears.
A mash-up of Google, Twitter, Facebook and Skype, Google+ will be a slow burner and isn’t designed to be an instant success. Google hopes the limited rollout will hopefully encourage users to invite their contacts before it’s opened to businesses later this year. As always, though, a social network is only as good as the people that adopt it.
Bad spelling can be irritating and off-putting – but entrepreneur Charles Duncombe has claimed that it can have a dramatic effect on business revenue too. We assess his point.
The issue that Charles was raising concerned the credibility of his own e-commerce sites: “When there are underlying concerns about fraud and safety, then getting the basics right is essential,” he is reported as saying on the BBC. This is a valid point: people expect good businesses to be good at communicating. And the bigger and broader the business, the more this expectation holds.
The SEO world took its own angle on Charles’ story, claiming that if keywords are misspelt, customers are ‘unlikely to find you in the first place’. It sounds far-fetched – product name or service description errors are pretty major clangers. But consider that there are hoards of dedicated sites for misspelt eBay items that go cheap. These clangers do happen – and they do cost.
However, it’s Charles’ original argument that sticks the most: properly written content makes us feel comfortable with the site we’re visiting.
This is true for all sites, but easy to demonstrate with e-commerce. If a site has quality content, it’s more likely to be a quality company. It’s more likely to have good stock, and an accurate control system so we know they have the stock to send us. It’s more likely to have a robust card merchant system, so we feel happy about where our money is going – and it’s less likely to go bust next week, so we feel confident that our purchases will arrive.
Whether or not these things are true, it’s undeniable that we all feel like that, as consumers, when we are online. So if you want to look after your reputation and your revenue, make sure your content is written by professionals – and make sure your professionals are doing their job properly.
