Last week, Burger King announced it had created a very limited edition 50 'hands-free' Whopper holders as part of its own 50^th birthday celebrations - a stunt which was received with mixed emotions; some thought it quirky and fun, others pointed out that sloth is an excellent companion to gluttony as far as the Seven Deadly Sins is concerned.

However this week Burger King backtracked, laughing, and pointing the finger saying "haha - fooled you - it was all a hoax!", debunking their own video of people using the hands-free Whopper holder in action. Which begs the question… what's the point? Is a hoax-spoof really a 'thing'?

There's nothing wrong with quirky, fun, spoof content - but to create it, let it go relatively viral, then debunk it seems, well, gratuitous. And - ironically - greedy. More to the point, for those people who liked the idea of a hands-free Whopper holder, (sloth / gluttony combo aside), and were bought into the idea, do they really want to be poked fun at now and told they'd fallen for a 'hilarious joke'?

Making fun of yourself and your brand can be good, and a way to appear more approachable, but to turn the tables and make fun of your customers seems a step too far.

@wonky_donky

I think an individual's Google search history is quite personal; one of my housemates won't allow me to use her iPad for fear of me judging her for the ridiculously far-fetched things she has tried to research.

This leads me to believe that the Google 'search by voice' feature isn't entirely practical. You probably don't want the world to know that you're searching for help with how to do your job properly or symptoms of exotic diseases.

But that's not to say my first experience of the feature wasn't enjoyable.

Despite it taking marginally longer than it would for me to simply type my search terms - and annoying my colleagues by inanely speaking into my laptop - I thought it worked well.

It's likely that it will lose its appeal very quickly. Either that or I'll be reprimanded to a meeting room on my own to Google at my heart's content! But it will be interesting to note how effective and widely used it will be in the long run.

My first three Google voice searches (and the results):

BBC

Sausages

Octopus Group

@1KatiePotts

Whether it's looking for a journalist's email address, a publication's contact details or keeping up-to-date with industry news, Gorkana is usually the first stop for PRs. Last week, the Gorkana Group launched a new dashboard format for its PR database and, at a glance, it really looks like a step in the right direction.

The update combines sector-specific PR news, social media updates, RSS feeds and all my contact folders in one homepage format.

At a time when integration is becoming increasingly important across traditional, digital and social, Gorkana's 'one-stop-shop' approach fits nicely.

For a tool that is often taken from granted, it's worth taking a step back and appreciating the new layout as it's one that could make our lives a lot easier.

Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see if other PR tools like Features Exec and Precise get similar updates in the coming months.

@JP_Charles

With Wimbledon just around the corner (bring on the champers, strawberries and close-ups of Nadal in his little white shorts!), it was interesting to read today about the tennis championship's new social media strategy (in partnership with digital agency SimplyZesty) which this year includes Twitter's 'Magic Mirror'.

First used at the Oscars earlier this year, the Mirror will give tennis fans (and fellow Nadal pervs like me) the chance to see photos from behind the scenes of the All England Lawn Tennis Club.  The Mirror will be placed where only players can access it and, once the photo has been taken, the images will automatically be posted on Wimbledon's official Twitter account (@Wimbledon), accompanied by the hashtags #TwitterMirror and #Wimbledon.

It's very cool to see such a traditional event embracing technology - and particularly social media - in this way.  My only concern is how I'm going to get any work done during Wimbledon fortnight…live streaming on my PC, big screens showing the key matches in the @OctopusComms office and now photos of the world's best players on Twitter!  Perhaps I'd better book the fortnight off?!

@LauraSlade

Amid the huge media attention this week around Microsoft's major launch of its XBox One, (and Sony's hints at the imminent PS4), an announcement from Twitter appears to have gone rather under the radar, despite it being a massively important move for consumers in social media spaces.

The announcement was Twitter launching its Lead Generation Cards, a functionality that could see it truly own the customer for brands online and off.

The Cards will act as single-click ways for consumers to register an interest in a product, special offer or service either pre, during, or post launch and is a great example of thinking backward from the consumer experience to app functionality.

Instead of coming up with a solution which works best for the brands, Twitter has created a simple process which works best for the punter, (and for businesses alike - it is so simple it could be translated to the b2b space easily).

Lead Generation Cards also demonstrate the importance of synchronising different portals and steps in the lead-gen world; tweets with special offers or sign-up options will have an expandable button the user can click on, and then register an interest for, with Twitter taking care of all personal (email, name) details by using those registered to the account.

If you compare this to trying to convert Facebook 'likes', (themselves not necessarily a confirmed interest in buying a product), into a direct sales lead, it's incredibly simple for both the brand and the consumer.

The Cards could - and no doubt will - take off, and provide a great route for brands to turn engagement into sales online, a true holy grail.

It also demonstrates how Twitter might finally have worked out how to monetise its popularity - and may even see it extend its phenomenal reach further, by signing up consumers keen to get bespoke promotions from brands rather than engagement, Twitter's current basis. A cunning development indeed.

@wonky_donky

 

In the world of PR where we live and breathe the spoken and written word, I seem to spend a lot of time looking at pictures, usually in a powerpoint document. Hours, no, YEARS of my life have been spent putting together campaign proposals and review documents and while the pictures vary from happy, engaged looking workers through to wind turbines, some stay the same.

The hallowed signs of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are now a must-have on any integrated project but the truth is, they cause something of an issue for me. What's the point in spending ages finding the perfect, colourful, vibrant and powerful images for your presentation when your social media section can only be described as, well, a little blue?

Actually, make that a lot of blue. When you think about it, the vast majority of internet and technology brand logos are blue - facebook, Intel, Wordpress, LinkedIn, Twitter, Outlook, Window's Explorer, HP, Samsung, Dell, Paypal, the list goes on and on.

But what does this mean?

Going by gender stereotypes, is the internet a man?

Is the use of blue meant to trick us into thinking we are staring at a calm, serene ocean rather than a million or more pixels on a screen?

Could it be that boy band Blue had a more lasting effect than any of us ever believed possible?

It seems that blue is the colour of progress, innovation, trust, communication and sharing, clarity and efficiency which says two things to me:

1)      We should expect to see a whole lot more blue branding as web-based companies continue to burst onto our screens

2)      The internet surely cannot be a man

Only kidding!  For a more eloquent account of why the web is blue, take a look at this rather marvellous interactive infographic called the Coolness of Blue in Web Design and if you are a brand, ask yourself this: what does your blue say about you?

By @Fablett

 

Two Octopedes discuss recent news stories, and how twitter impacted their respective reach…

Carolann: Stars Wars fans across the country will, I'm sure, be very excited that the latest edition of the sci-fi fantasy series is to be filmed right here in Britain.

I can't say I've ever got that in to it (although I did enjoy the Family Guy 'Blue Harvest' parody), but what got my interest was the fact that this news was announced by Chancellor George Osborne… on Twitter.

Even more interestingly, he posted the news at 9.50pm on a Friday night, which must have played havoc with the TV news teams getting ready to air 10 minutes later! What I think it shows though is the shift in where we get our news from.

More and more people are getting their news updates from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook simply because the rapid nature of them means that events can be reported on as they happen.

For instance, I first heard about the death of Margaret Thatcher on Twitter and then continued to hear about every Tom, Dick and Harry's opinion on it through the same channel so that I didn't need to read any articles or see any news coverage to know what everyone was saying on the subject.

Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't still value in traditional journalism but as we move to an increasingly digital, social world I wonder how this will change in the future?

Alvin: Meanwhile, last week, official news reached twitter of Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement as the manager of Manchester United football club, after 26 years at the helm.

Within just eight minutes Man Utd's press office tweet of "Sir Alex Ferguson retires #thankyousiralex" became the No 1 global trend, receiving 100,000 mentions within one hour. When I read this figure for the first time, I thought that my eyesight had worsened (even more) overnight.

According to data collected by Twitter, Margaret Thatcher's death saw a million tweets in the following four hours. Sir Alex broke that, easily. Within the first hour of the initial tweet going live, the announcement reached heights of an astonishing 1.4m interactions, maths might not be my strong point but even I can work that out to be almost 400 tweets per second!

Even as an Arsenal fan, I appreciate the career that Sir Alex Ferguson has forged, and I am in no way surprised at the sheer volume of people that interacted with this recent news. Thatcher and Ferguson are both icons for various reasons, but I believe more noise was made about Sir Alex's retirement due to the younger generation's presence on social media.

Thought that was impressive?

The announcement of the choice of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to be the new pope earlier this year received substantially more mentions than Thatcher and Ferguson combined! Over 7m tweets were written which, in the words of Charles Arthur, demonstrates "that while football may be a religion for many, it still has a little way to catch up with the officially recognised ones, at least on social media."

OBVIOUSLY, the majority of people realise the positives of using social media, for business and social use, I merely wanted to educate the few out there who sit on the fence, to the insurmountable reach of Twitter.

@CarolannG_85

@TeeLuck87

David Beckham's retirement from football has featured in the main headlines of every newspaper and news bulletin you'll have seen or heard since yesterday afternoon.

But the one that really stood out for me was the front page of today's The Sun newspaper - this is the sort of advertising and brand association that companies would pay a fortune for, and it poses the question as to whether Becks (the brewers) is celebrating the best free publicity of all time or whether this was a carefully engineered brand partnership?

@LauraSlade

An interesting story caught my eye last week concerning British heavy metal legends Iron Maiden. I have something of a soft spot for 'the Irons', they were the first band I ever went to see, it was Wolverhampton Civic Hall and I was 14 - and whilst my taste in music may have mellowed a little since then, I still keep a passing eye on what the old boys are up to. This story however, didn't concern their last touring schedule, album release, or even their music at all. It was in fact to do with beer. Iron Maiden announced that it has sold out of pre-orders of its first ever beer "Trooper" and Cheshire-based family brewer Robinsons is now brewing three batches a day for the first time in its 175-year history to meet demand. According to The Sun, over a quarter of a million pints have been pre-sold in the UK alone ahead of the May 9 release and over 100 countries have applied to stock the cask ale.

This immediately struck me as genius! In an industry where your core commodity is increasingly worth less - in this instance albums, singles and other traditional music sales - it makes perfect business sense to diversify into other products which your current customer - i.e. Iron Maiden fans - will be interested in buying. Iron Maiden has nothing to do with the alcoholic drinks business but it only took a little creative marketing thinking to diversify the brand into this new product area. Marketing 101! (and great PR too).

So this got me thinking, with nearly 40 years in the music business and a brand that is currently stronger than ever, what other business and marketing lessons can we learn from Iron Maiden?

1. Timing is everything

In 1990 Iron Maiden had their first and only UK number one single, the BBC-banned song 'Bring Your Daughter… to the Slaughter'. The band - aptly - released the single alongside Cliff Richard's 'Saviour's Day' for the 1990 Christmas No. 1, but due to not being officially released until the week after Christmas it knocked The Peter Pan of Pop off the number one slot in the following week and went straight to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart on 5^th January 1991.

In a world before X Factor had Christmas number one sown up in November, everyone wanted to be Christmas number one , so all the big bands and artists would go head-to-head for the honour, nobody in their right mind released a single in the week after Christmas. Therefore statistically this was the easiest week in the year to secure number one with the lowest number of sales - so that's what Iron Maiden did.

Lesson: Anticipate when you can make the biggest impact and identify a period when you can galvanise your customer base to maximum effect.

2. Multi-task to cut costs

This top tip could also have been 'no job is beneath management' or 'continuous investment pays dividends'.

In the 1990s lead singer Bruce Dickinson trained to become a commercial airline pilot flying Boeing 757s for UK charter airline Astraeus. Since 2008 Dickinson has been the band's official pilot for overseas tours. In a band that prides itself on running cost-effective, lean tours, this is just one example of 'management' taking control and multi-tasking to cut costs.

How many UK MDs could cite such innovative examples of where they have managed to reduce costs on their bottom line?

3. Your best talent could be anywhere - even in the company's past

Of the current Iron Maiden line-up two-thirds have left the band only to subsequently re-join at a later date. The line-up is considered to be the strongest ever and key to the band's resurgence in recent years.

So consider this, when a good member of staff leaves and heads off to pastures new, do you leave on good terms and let them know the door is always open for a return; or cut them off, never to be given a further thought?

If it's the latter, then you might have lost a star employee not just once… but twice.

4. Don't be afraid to test new markets

Costa Rica, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and India are not traditional countries that rock bands tour in. But in the last 10 years Iron Maiden has been to all of them.

 The message here is that if you want to grow, then you have to keep finding a new audience, new customers and new markets for your service or product. And if you're a little bit niche, then you might just have to push the boundaries just a little bit further.

5. Relentlessly give your customers what they want

Finally, if you have a loyal customer, never take them for granted and continuously work at giving them a consistent product that aligns with the core values they originally fell in love with.

Since 1975 Iron Maiden has played over 2000 live shows and released 15 studio albums (plus a further 18 live and compilation albums) . That's approaching one release per year for 38 years. Not many software companies could attest to such work rate and consistency.

 Stephen

* Stats and references are taken from Wikipedia and from my own encyclopaedic and mostly useless knowledge of classic rock trivia.

Working in the technology industry, we all like to feel that we're pretty well clued-up on the latest trends and on the predictions for future trends. Indeed, if all you do is check out the Gartner / IDC / Forrester predictions at the start of each year then you'll have a pretty well-informed idea of what's going to be big in tech in the next 3-5 years.

With this in mind we've all probably had a moment when something which started out as a long-term bet in an analyst report, suddenly became common knowledge or parlance in everyday life. For example, 'cloud' used to be the preserve of just the IT and B2B tech mags and conversations between CIO - then suddenly Apple launched iCloud and now it's bandied around in mainstream advertising campaigns for just about every major IT vendor you possibly think.

Or what about social media - once just the domain of tech-savvy, switched-on individuals, suddenly your Mum wants to be your friend on Facebook, your Dad's LinkingIn with you and Twitter is awash with Z-list celebs being paid £££s for tweeting how much they love certain brands of shampoo...

These are the moments when tech goes mainstream.

I had a similar moment last week with 3D printing.

3D printing is one of those technologies that just seems too incredible to be true, a science fiction pipe dream that could never be reality. Yet little by little over the last 5-10 years we've seen incredible advancement in the technology, increased sophistication in what can be achieved and - perhaps most importantly - massive reduction in the cost the equipment. Then before you know it… Raj and Howard from the Big Bang Theory (yes I watch the Big Bang theory, let's just accept it and move on) are printing 3D miniature action figures.

Then, as if featuring on a prime time TV show wasn't enough to prove that 3D printing technology has gone mainstream, the news that 3D printing has been used to print a working gun certainly did the trick! BBC, Telegraph, Guardian and 250+ other news sites have covered the story in the last 48 hours. And that leads me to the ultimate golden rule of whether tech has gone mainstream… Coverage in the Daily Mail - Texas anarchist group fires world's first 3-D printed gun made entirely from plastic that can pass through airport metal detectors.

It's now just a matter of time until your Mum starts printing doilies and your Dad starts knocking up 3D garden gnomes in his shed.

@StephenDSSmith