Click through rate is currently running 5 times higher than the Android equivalent. The number are utterly stunning with ECPM rate 300 times higher than Android. Time will no doubt see that get lower, but compared to the minuscule click-through rate of normal web banners it’s astonishing.

iPad and iPhone sales are crazy – sure Apple had the hoohaa of the signal loss issue if you have your fat hands over the antenna while calling, but what kind of idiot would buy a £500 phone and not have a protective case for it. To be honest people like that don’t deserve technology, they’re the kind of user that slings their corporate laptop around on a table, or returns their computer with toast crumbs all over the keyboard.

While the iPhone is evolutionary, the iPad is revolutionary – I’ve seen users switch from PC laptops straight to an iPad with no teething issues – something that has quite frankly surprised me. It’s another nail in the coffin for paper based print as magazines continue to take the device seriously, although far from being the death of publishing it could be the second coming if taken seriously. All major tech manufacturers are now building their own versions of the iPad, Android, and Windows  mobile continue to try and evolve to take on Apples dominance of the market, and RIM are set to bring out a successor to the miserable STORM in the coming weeks. The problem with and Android phone is obsolescence – the steady march of firmware updates is leaving users clueless on features – While the iPhone is restricted to the Apple store – for the average non-geek this works out perfectly fine, you sync with 1 App you update with the same application – the only thing you need to learn how to use is iTunes. Apple have got it bang on for the normal user. Android is already plagued by a massive divergence in technology between manufacturers and phones shipping with Android 1, 2, 2.1 consumers are already confused. While an iPhone user can set their sites on the next iPhone upgrade a year away new android models are coming out every 3 weeks or even faster – causing confusion and frustration.

iPad, and the iAd platform is an amazing opportunity for any marketing agency to take a lead in a technology that’s seriously showing it’s potential to clients right here and now.

Ok – Rant over, i’m having a great birthday, and I’ll start updating some examples of the above soon.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m trading off some of my domains – here’s some of the best.

hyperco.net

hyperco.com

hyperco.org

as well as brandheat.co.uk – fantastic name to use as brand awareness and tracking portal.

brandsplats.com

brandleaps.com

brandingmotion.com

scatterbrand.com

all available for sale now via sedo.com FULL list here

The iPhone 3GS

Brands engaging in the social media space must start learning these lessons, they need to understand that they need to respond quickly and coherently when dialogues start spiraling out of control – they need to be able to escalate the situation internally, and be able to deliver an outstanding response that will focus and guide consumers. O2′s efforts made it seem like their persona was some teenager in a basement who just switched on their computer when they felt like it. Far from being connected O2 showed just how distant they really are.

The date 8th June 2009. Apple had just announced the latest iPhone, the 3GS, a faster iphone with movie recording, voice control and in built location features. It was the first iphone release in almost a year, hundreds of thousands of people were watching live streams and feeds of the event as they all read and reported on the latest must have gadget. The real hook was that this device would be on sale just 2 weeks later in the United Kingdom, with the only supplier being O2.

Existing iPhone 3g users were eager to upgrade, as it had only been 12 months since the last upgrade they needed to know the costs. They swarmed onto twitter in their thousands, and focused all their attention on the twitter.com/o2 user for answers.

Engagement at first went fine, as news trickled down through twitter users . Main questions would be when where and how can they buy it. What about existing contract users. Right from the minute the Apple announcements were over O2 did not have the pricing and phone information up on their website, they were unprepared for the backlash from the frustrated users not getting answers.

O2 twitter tried to respond to the demands for pricing information, by later that evening they had another 2,000 followers. Some asking when the pricing information would be live.

–
@ichilton I don’t have the exact time, but it’ll be morning12:43 PM Jun 8th

their final tweet that night was at around 8PM UK time

–
Our price changes will be live on the site soon, we’re logging now but will be back tomorrow. More question answering then!1:19 PM Jun 8th
–

When the Pricing pages went up later that evening there was uproar – Existing users (the early adopters and brand ambassadors who’d bought into the 3G) discovered that iPhone’s for existing users wouldn’t be subsidized by O2, to make matters worse in order to own a new iPhone those users could either buy themselves out of their existing contract at a cost of around £200 and then pay a further £170 to upgrade and re-sign an 18 month contract – or they could keep paying O2 their monthly rental and buy a PAYG handset at over £400. Even for users interested in data tethering had to pay further for a service that they expected for free. Either way they looked at it, it seemed like O2 were screwing them over, and they couldn’t contact O2′s twitter account to talk about it.

As far as O2 was concerned, this was and still is a completely standard practice, they did however set a dangerous precedent the year before when they allowed existing iPhone users to get a discounted iPhone if they re-signed their contract.

Throughout the night hashtags started appearing for #O2fail a twittition was setup for disgruntled users to sign http://twitition.com/owzm4 , and when O2′s twitter persona arrived into work the next day they had thousands of complaints, rants, and users frustrated about lack of response. From then on it appears that O2 backed off from twitter. As it failed to get the way the mobile business model works through to it’s users. Every network operator in the UK uses the same kind of tactics, however the iPhones hardware upgrades tend to emphasis this more, as if users take out an existing contract a new iPhone will always be out before their old contract ends. It may not be fair – but it’s the way they’ve done it for years.

I don’t need to repost too many of the #o2fail tweets, but they range from

iFatty: Apple, ditch @O2 and find a fairer network for iPhone in the UK #O2fail …http://twitition.com/q76uj @MarkCorrigan
to..
James132465: #squarespace I wan’t an iPhone lol – and shitty O2 won’t let me upgrade #o2fail
to..
EpicO2Fail: #O2Fail It just shows you how seriously out of touch o2 really are. Money talks, Make the silence deafening by witholding it from them.

The twitter account could do nothing against the tirade of frustration, there were plenty of blog articles and responses that sprung up, all mirroring the anger felt by existing users. O2 should then have responded quickly by pointing users at a central information site where they could understand O2′s upgrade procedure and why they couldn’t subsidize the upgrade costs. Finally they should have empathised with their consumers and won a huge pr battle by offering some sort of concession to existing users.

The o2 twitter account was frequently absent during peak UK viewing times leaving users no focus for their attention but to re-design the o2 logo with a subtle addition.

O2 gets rebranded by the twittersphere

Even when the stores opened on the 19th June the twitter information was wrong:-

O2: 15 mins to go until stores open!
Friday, 7:47 AM

It was wrong as there were plenty of stores around that didn’t open at 8AM to sell the phone, and there was no central source of information such a s a UK map to say which store was opening early. this time around there was certainly no shortage of stock.

The exact same situation was happening with AT&T who were trying the same trick, although at greatly reduced costs due to the exchange rate. After 5,000 signatures on the twittition website AT&T agreed to allow iPhone users to roll into newer contracts early. UK users spurred on by this expected O2 to follow suit. They didn’t, which meant more negative online vibe. Very few companies are geared for rapid response in order to mitigate brand damage caused by a social backlash, we’re continuing to see a cutting down of the barriers between companies, their brands, and their users. For a lot of brands it’s going to get really ugly. Watch this space.

Further reading

http://www.slaterjohn.com/blog/O2_ARE_TWATS

http://bendodson.com/blog/2009/06/13/the-tale-of-the-o2-fail-starring-the-iphone-3g-s/

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a little reality check for the people going gaga over facebook reaching 200 million accounts. The Chinese site http://qq.com still currently boasts the largest social network in the world, they hit 200 million way back in January, of course there are many people on facebook with more than one identity, Facebook doesn’t let users do it officially, but QQ does – as such there’s over 860 million separate user ID’s on QQ. How’s that for real stats! http://tech.qq.com/a/20090219/000343.htm Considering Facebook consists of users from all over the world and QQ is basically China, it offers a small glimpse of the eastern network power and its masssive potential.

A Sign Of Huge Success

In just over 2 years Twitter, the webchild of Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone has hit mainstream in a huge way. For those of us that were in on the beta its a testament to the power of a great idea, the benefits of being open, and the desire that people have to voice their opinions. I’m not going to go into a huge post about why people twit, how they’re going to make money from it, or who’s using twitter and for what reasons, there’s already an insane amount of material out there.

What’s really interesting now though is that the growth in twitter use is now so rapid they’re just running to catch up with demand, You’re starting to see more and more ‘Twitter is over capacity’ messages – and the Fail Whale image. To give you some of the latest stats though, a few weeks ago year Nielsen tracked twitter grown at an annual 1,382% but data in Feb-March alone showed a 76.8% increase showing that growth acceleration is increasing. According to Mashable that data is just its website traffic, and not even traffic from mobile devices where most of the tweets would be coming from.

Twitter is working on a Discovery Engine that will let you search tweets without leaving your webpage, Google haven’t yet missed the boat, they can still unlock that safe and get those truck fulls of cash ready. Take a look at the recent TED talk below by Evan Williams.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Skittles have made the incredibly brave move of making a twitter search their custom home page.

Any tweet that uses the word ‘skittles’ now appears on the skittles home page. Brave because no bigger brand has done it before, dangerous because that includes negative skittles comments, wonderful because it’s generating a massive amount of comments that involve the word skittles, people are tweeting posts with the word skittles in them just to get their post appearing on the skittles home page.
They haven’t just stopped with twitter though, their media section has now become their youtube channel, their pictures section is now their flickr channel, Social is their facebook section, and about is wikipedia in fact just about the only non social part of their site is the actual product range page. It must have been a fairly low-cost experiment – but it’s almost a total embrace of the social web. It’s an exercise in not re-inventing the wheel, and a totally honest opening of the brand for the world to rip it apart or build it up (even if they can’t buy skittles in the country that they’re looking at twitter in). The buzz that’s being generated right now is totally off the scale. Genuis.

When there’s been such a positive response from one of my previous blog posts it’s hard following it up, especially when I know I’m now going into far more uncharted waters for the traditional agencies. I apologise in advance for the length of this article, it seems too long for a blog post, and too short to cover everything, maybe i’ll have to get that book done. I’m going to talk about things that a traditional agency doesn’t do -  R & D (I could almost sense an intake of breath there). But before that, let’s ease things in a bit, by looking at the roles that are utterly essential in larger integrated agencies but get overlooked as they’re a little bit ‘out there’.

First off, let’s talk “Information Architect”.  Yes, it’s a fancy title for what is potentially one of the most stressful roles in a modern agency. In smaller agencies this job is normally taken on by the project manager, but if that project manager has come from the traditional side problems are inevitable – let’s review this. The IA role is to translate what the client wants from a web site into a design structure that can be understood and used by both the creative and programming teams. They have to draw up site diagrams and relay changes to the the respective teams so the creatives know which sections they’re designing for, and so the programmers know what they’re building at the earliest opportunity. They also have to ensure that the client (or other agency member) knows the full implications of re-designing a site structure and the knock-on effects to deadlines and budgets to reflect those structural changes. The IA is a real ‘meat in the sandwich’ role. They’ll get pressure from clients or internal staff from the management side to meet deadlines and get work delivered, but they’ll also bear the full brunt of the backlash from programming or creative teams should large structural changes be needed without proper consideration. But aside from the politics, they’re a special breed of individual – they’ll understand design, good navigation and structure. They’ll also understand the target market of the site, the client’s goals and how to get the most out of navigation. They’ll be working closely with the creative team, but understanding how the actual site mechanics will affect the experience. This role relieves massive amounts of pressure from the programming and creative teams.

You’ve probably already guessed where the sticky point is for the traditional agency – the fact is that often a normal agency project manager gets moved into that role, or the role gets completely missed out and the project manager is simply trying to do everything. The pressure of site structure either stays with the project manager (which then causes them insane amounts of stress) or gets moved towards the creative or programming teams who aren’t really suited to it. To put it bluntly a good IA is a very rare thing, especially one with an agency background. They can be home-grown, it’s perfectly do-able, but if you’re going to evolve a normal agency project manager without burning them out then they need a hell of a lot of support, as well as a willingness of the agency to respect the added skill-set needed for proper IA. Of course there are also other roles that can adapt to IA; the main thing is a good eye for design with a willingness to get stuck in technically, as well as being comfortable with talking to clients, and being able to provide the correct information when presented with a change that could have a catastrophic effect on budgets and deadlines.

Now grab a cup of coffee – it helps you get into the mood  – the minute a digital agency gets big enough to start building websites (and I don’t mean simple three-page sites; I’m speaking A1 clients here) – you’re going to need a Sys Admin. Smaller agencies don’t have one – they’ll typically use a programmer to advise them on where the website goes. However, any agency big enough to be thinking about integration is going to be larger than 30 people if they’ve gone past the outsource phase. You could think of the Sys Admin as the janitor of the digital world: they keep the systems tidy, they’ll make sure the locks are working, and if everything’s working well the majority of agency staff wouldn’t even notice they’re there. A Sys Admin for an agency is different from your average IT dept Sys Admin. They’ll speak to the project managers, creative and programming teams. They’ll understand the target audience of a website, and ensure that traffic is managed in the correct way. When you’re dealing with campaign websites, traffic will often come in bursts, and if there’s an integrated media or press campaign the Sys Admin will understand how the timings of those campaigns will affect performance and prepare accordingly. A Sys Admin for a tech company is typically seen as the person in the dark room with the closed blinds only coming out at night, and working some kind of voodoo magic. It’s a role that needs to be far more accommodating within an agency environment.

The other upside-down thing about the Sys Admin role is that in a tech company the sys admin is the role equivalent of GOD – the ultimate embodiment of knowledge is power. Nothing happens without their involvement – if you think a programmer can get a bit uppity, just wait till you experience an upset Sys Admin who thinks you don’t understand them. In an agency they’ll be working side-by side with both the programming and creative teams to ensure that sites are delivered working, and on time. They’ll make sure that content doesn’t go live without proper testing, and be responsible for hitting the ‘go’ button to make sites live.  If they spot a security fault before the site goes live then it WON’T go live.  What’s worse? – missing a deadline, or long-term brand damage due to major defacement of a client’s website? Of course the answer is obvious, but often security isn’t thought of until something like that occurs.  A Sys Admin’s day job is part compliancy and part system security; they’ll be keeping themselves and your external-facing systems up to date with the latest security patches, continuously keeping abreast of industry changes and technical requirements. They’ll be making sure that the project managers have full statistics to site traffic reports, and they’ll be making sure those domain names and email addresses are behaving as they should.  It’s an incredibly wide and varied role that tends to change depending on the size of the company, but a good hosting provider can take pressure off the Sys Admin by providing security updates and system patches. I know I’m only scratching the surface for that role – but I have covered the main touch points.

OK, back to R&D. Think of this as a bit of creative think-time, that comes at a higher price. Why on earth would a traditional agency do R&D? You’re selling ideas not cars! But what if those ideas and all that creative energy could be empowered and turned into money-making loveliness that helped drive new client offerings? There are literally thousands of innovations that are having an effect on our industry – you can’t stick to print ads forever. Print ad revenue for papers was down 15% in 2008, and that’s just the beginning. Regional daily newspapers are on their way out, as well as eventually a decline in regionals – how are you as a company going to be leveraging the digital switchover of television? How are you adapting to changing consumer habits, or increasing mobile internet connectivity? How does this affect your clients; how are their brands going to evolve and adapt? Do you get it yet? The R&D that you do can directly benefit your client brands, your offerings to the client, and the future capability of your agency as a whole. Within a digital agency, innovation is an adrenaline that can inspire new ideas and creativity.

It’s seeing something and thinking, “WOW! We can bring that to our client’s brand”.  It’s being brave, able to stand up and say, “People are doing this now.. but imagine if we added THIS!”.  But how do you get that idea across to the account managers, people at the cusp of client relationships?  Easy: you get stuff in and you educate staff.  They don’t have to be into it; they just have to understand how it could be relevant to their client.  Whether it’s multi-touch, mobile, a new way of branding, or the world’s most amazing audience engagement tool, the most important thing is for the account manager to feel confident and understand how it could be used. It sounds obvious, but all too often it gets skipped because people just don’t talk or because there isn’t an internal forum to talk about this and make time. Even harder is gaining funding for an internal thing that may or may not benefit a client – where does that budget come from? Your IT dept doesn’t want it – they don’t understand client-facing roles, or brand innovation.  R&D is not buying an upgraded server, or keeping software up to date. Does the cost sit with what used to be your digital dept? No – that department’s integrated now, besides aren’t you just sticking it there because it sounds a bit digital? Be brave and accept it as an internal cost that benefits everyone.

Who gets to choose the technology? Well, I’d like to think you had a person in charge of innovation, who really understood marketing, pr, and digital (both technical and creative) – they could tell you what was coming next and how best to leverage it.  Such a person should have varied industry connections, be empowered to disseminate the knowledge, and have contacts within the organisation. Ok – so there’s actually only a few people who can do that properly, and have that much experience, but it IS the responsibility of any creative individual working within your agency to know what’s out there.