Conscientious Marketing and PR Blog

Stormberg- Entrepreneur and one of Norways most read blogger Steinar J. Olsen, was on the 22nd of January declined a glass of water when flying SAS. The first ting he did after arriving at Gardermoen Airport Oslo was to blog about Scandinavian Airlines absent of consumer behaviour, after that he sent a message to his 4654 followers on Twitter, with a link to his blog. Olsens Twitter message was spread fast,  others in his Twitter- network sent it further, and so on and so on.

“SAS is relaunching service, and they can’t offer a glass og water when the ticket price is 740£”.

This was so harmful for SAS as a company that Scandinavian Airlines communication director Claus Sonberg, Sunday 24th of January had to answer Olsen on his accusations against SAS on Olsens Blog.

Bloggers and Twitterers with many followers and big networks gain equal power. It is obvious that this power can be used both positive and negative.

Marketing has changed a lot since social networks first began to see day light and became popular around 2007. “Word of mouth” marketing is getting more and more important. A friend of mine posted this on Twitter a couple of days ago “Happy about my first week working at Thon Hotels, great people, great hotel, great company”. What value do Thon Hotels have in this positive statement reaching 132 of his followers?

I would guess that the majority of his readers are like him, highly educated, committed and at the start of their carrier. In other words, potential future consumers and employees. Today’s consumers have more trust in friends and personal recommendations than marketers and advertisements.

Stormberg and Steinar J. Olsen, have understood the importance of marketing throgh social media and channels like Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

Watch this

Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, is a British Centre that is dedicated to eradicating the sexual abuse of children. This means they are part of UK policing and very much about tracking and bringing offenders to account either directly or in partnership with local and international forces. At the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, they work committed to prevent sexual abuse of children in both online and offline environments. Sexual abusers have found their platform, Internet.

Just a click away, CEOP and Microsoft partnership makes reporting potential sex offenders easier in MSN and Windows Live Messenger. Millions of young people in the UK who use Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger to chat online with friends are now just one click away from making a report to police if they are concerned their online ‘buddy’ is a sex offender.

What Microsoft and the CEOP are doing today is saying is ‘enough is enough’. By working together in a very clear and tangible way we can safeguard children from online sexual predators.

Behind the report abuse button will sit police and intelligence officers who have been specially trained to tackle child sex abuse. We will tell you how to capture information and how to seize online discussions and then proactively do all we can to track down the perpetrator.

Microsoft’s partnership with the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre – the UK’s first dedicated organization focused on tackling child sex abuse – has brought about a new ‘safer-by-design’ element to the UK’s most popular instant messenger product. This page shows you how to get started.

According to CEOP a total of 297 alleged abusers have been picked up by officers from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre and 131 children protected from further harm. Ten of the highest risk offenders were also caught after their details were posted on the centre’s ‘Most Wanted‘ website.

So watch out for social networks, this is the new playground of sexual abusers. Use the red button, tell people about the red button. Stop Internet abuse!!

I really can not live without my PC and access to social networks, E-mail, Internet bank, Phone via Skype, maps via Google, read newspapers etc. It helps me and defines me, many people wonder what we did before the mobile phones, but I wonder even more on what we did before the computers with Internet access. A day on my PC looks much like this:

Facebook

Several times a day. Updating my own profile and watch other profiles, photos, groups, events, and all the other shit that just appers.

Twitter

Updates it several times a day, strange I do not put my alarm clock on when I am sleeping to update it.

MSN- Messenger

My Messenger is always on, when the PC is on. Even though I appear as of line once in a while I am there:)(maybe I should not have told this part?)

Skype

Since I am an International student I use it every day, to keep in touch with the people back home.

E- mail

I have two E-mail addresses, that I check every day.

Online Newspapers

I check VG, Dagbladet, Aftenposten and The Independent every day, often several times

Online Bank

Use the Internet for money transactions and to pay bills

I also use the Internet to, order flight tickets, orientate my selves by Google map, be oriented on X-stream via the schools homepage, blogging, do researh to my dissertation, order cinema tickets, order food delivery etc. I can not live without it, period.

My uncle as well use the Internet to promote his business, when I wonder where something is or what the different companies have to offer I Google them, and the companies without good website is the new age loosers.

What is fact and what is fiction?

In June 2005, Dove kicked off the second phase of the Campaign for Real Beauty with advertising featuring six real women with real bodies and real curves. These real women were not professional models and vary in size and shape. The result is a dialog between Dove and its consumers about the definition of beauty. But before Unilever committed to the controversial campaign, it secured evidence that the majority of their consumers would relate to it. “The real truth about beauty,” a global research report commissioned by Dove, reported that only two percent of women worldwide describe themselves as beautiful. Dove has now gained market share in all of its five major beauty categories, from bar soap, body wash, hair care to deodorant. The Campaign for Real Beauty accounted for almost one fifth of all advertising spend in 2004, despite the campaign only running from September that year.

Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty has caught the attention of women across Europe and has plugged the brand firmly into the trend away from stereotypes of female beauty and towards cosmetics and toiletries intended to enhance real women’s natural attributes. Dove released a thought-provoking mini-film, ,”Dove evolution” that got almost 5.5 million views on YouTube. The video, which lasts only one minute and fourteen seconds, is a photography view of how a plain-looking model becomes a sexy billboard face, thanks to an army of make-up artists and doctoring on Photoshop. The video, which ends with the comment, “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted,” is part of Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, which includes advertising, websites, billboards, real-world events and a charitable Self-Esteem Fund, according to Kathy O’Brien, Dove’s marketing director. The campaign video has been successful in “starting a dialogue about beauty that Dove is a part of,” says Berger. “It’s about more than hawking soap.” The Dove evolution advertisement become very known a couple of years ago. I have awful lot of respect for Dove and their campaign for “real beauty”, take a minute to watch their video, it is amassing. “No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted”.

Dove Evolution video

Dove have been tough, and have won a lot on being so. The Dove “Revolution”, changed advertising

As an answer to the Dove video, I came across this very funny “Slob Evolution” video on YouTube. This video sends a clear message “no one wants to look at ugly people”. Look at this.

The Slob Evolution video

\”Happy food\”

The Canadian author Naomi Klein tracks the birth of brand marketing in her much talked about book “No Logo“. According to Klein the mid 1980’s saw the birth of new corporations, which changed their primary corporate focus from producing products to create an image for their brand name.

Advertisers spend 100 of Billions a year world wide encouraging, persuading and manipulating people into consumer lifestyles.

Young children are increasingly the target of advertising and marketing because of the amount of money they send themselves and the influence they have on their parents spending and not to talk about the money they will spend when they grow up. Whilst this child- targeted marketing used to concentrate on sweets and toys, it now includes so much more, like clothing, fast- food, technical things, personal care products, and “grown- up products” such as cars etc.

As adults we cannot protect children from marketing, because commercials and advertising will meet them everywhere, TV, Magazines, radio, Internet, music, cartoons etc. But our job is to learn and teach them to understand the concept of it. We should be concerned about the effect materialism can have on the development of children’s self image and values.

Take good care of them.

The funny thing is, we are getting fooled everyday as adult to:)

Love <3 Anette