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!!

What comes up? Photos of you from yesterdays party? or a video of you puke in your best friends hand bag? Or is it positive information about you volunteering or helping an old woman across the street?

Anyway it is difficult to control what is posted about you online. According to VG employers finding employees through recruitment agencies demand the agencies to Google the employees before recommending them.

Is the past going to hunt you? This is a warning, be aware!

Movie star Demi Moore reported a suicide attempt made on Twitter and appears to have genuinely saved someone’s life in the act.

Actress Demi Moore’s frequent postings on Twitter put her in the middle of a life-and-death drama Friday 3 April when a woman sent her an online message threatening suicide. Known only by her Twitter user name, “Sandieguy” the woman wrote “Getting a knife, a big one that is sharp. Going to cut my arm down the whole arm so it doesn’t waste time” Seconds later, “Sandieguy” followed up with another message reading, “gbye … gonna kill myself now.” After the original threat was posted by the woman who’s Twitter profile placed her in the Silicon Valley area, Moore reposted the message on her own page, saying, “It is my understanding that the situation was not a joke and that through the collective efforts here, action was taken to provide help” Moore’s husband, actor Ashton Kutcher, also twittered “Wifey reported a suicide attempt based on a at reply tweet she got and saved someones life. the woman is in the hospital now”

There are several ways to use Twitter, some god others bad. But to hear that Twitter saved a life is sensational. Social networks can help people who is alone, to gain a network and friends.

It is amassing how fast a trend spread, also among politicians. The President of the United States is using it, the Prime Minister in United Kingdom is using it, as well dozens of other politicians have also signed up to the social networking site that lets users answer (in 140 letters or fewer) the question: “What are you doing now?”

The Prime Minister of Norway Jens Stoltenberg just became a “tweeter”. The politicians are going new ways to keep/get in touch with the public. And understand that they have to be where the public are to gain votes. The Norwegian government election is every fourth year, and the next one is 14 September 2009. It is obvious that he is preparing.

I am going home to Norway for my Easter break today, and I am really looking forward to it For all you Norwegians friends that read my blog, hope to see you soon. And to all my other readers hope you all have a awesome and happy Easter!

Rumor has it that Jennifer Aniston has ended her relationship with musician boyfriend John Mayer because his obsession with Twitter.

Are the social networks now ruining our real relationships and lives? Are we too busy updating our profiles, that we miss out on our own life? Are we getting lacy and turning in to people just sending each other a birthday cake on Facebook?

I got very scared reading this. How much did John Mayer acctually Tweet? How much is to much? Wops, I got up with all these questions and no answers, because I do not have any answers. We are all new players in this game.

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

It happens on the 11th of March

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a redesign of Facebook to make the social-networking site more like Twitter. Facebook profiles will change, and the updates will be faster than before. The most visible change will occur when users log into their profile. The new homepage will let you see everything that’s shared by your friends and connections as it happens, not like the “old Facebook” that only updates every ten minute. The new design will give users the ability to easily feed the news stream by friend type and network, and users can more easily post/share links, photos and videos.

Last time Facebook did a redesign, people was protesting via a dozen groups on Facebook, will people react the same way now? Or are we more OK with further product development?

Skittles launches an amazing social media campaign. Skittles have turned their homepage as a social media site. Yes, paste Skittles.com into your web browser and, after you fill in your birthday, then a Facebook or Twitter page shows. Skittles is also linked to You tube, you can share your thoughts and meaning about the product via chat rooms or just using Facebook.

All PR is good PR? It is new thinking and is an incredible big move for Skittles, they are making history within marketing and PR. It was Econsultancy that started the combination of social networks together with their web page, Skittles just did it better. The Econsultancy started it with everybody that displayed the word “Econsultanct” on their tweets.

Skittles commercial

Is this the next big thing? The firms that already did it have got huge publisity, but they do not have control over their own homepage anymore, and this could be a problem for them regarding bad publisity. Are they digging their own grave? This could result in a huge PR problem.