socialmediocrity

I was reminded last night in conversation with good friend Martin Campbell, that vinyl as a format for recording and distrbuting music remains superior to most, if not all, digital formats. And whilst we reminisced about the sleeve artwork, the thrill of pulling a freshly pressed copy from the outer-sleeve, and then the inner dust sleeveI have long since given up the good fight and invested in CD technology, etc. But I have yet to be persuaded by streaming services, although never sure entirely why. Listening to the radio this morning a penny dropped.

If you’re into music in any way whatsoever, you can’t have failed to have come across, tried or read about streaming music service Spotify. And for the more avid follower of the industry, you’ll have heard about Pirate Bay, and the recent legal decisions against their approach.

As my regular reader will know, I’m not entirely against innovation, but I do like to see innovation that takes us forwards. That advances society in a positive way, and not innovation that is there for the sake of it. And so without ever having tried Spotify myself, I have decided to be the last person to ever use it.

And the reason for my inertia? Radio 2, and in particular Terry Wogan. If radio isn’t streaming music then what is? And before you argue that your streaming music channel is just like radio, but more personalised to your own tastes, then try another radio channel. There’s hundreds of them out there. And if you’re not in the mood for Terry Wogan this morning, just press another pre-set on the box. Or if you feel like discovering something different hit the I-feel-lucky button that is the auto tune.

It’s really not so hard.

Twitter Tag is here! And every day, a new game begins. Is there no end to the fun to be had?

A few rules to be aware of:

• No-one knows who starts the game. It will begin of it’s own accord. You cannot start your own game.
• You can only participate if you have been tagged by someone else.
• You cannot re tag the person that tagged you directly. The next tag in the chain must be to a different user.

The launch game has started. Keep an eye out for it.

I’m a big fan of social advertising. I like the idea that advertisers can use that information to give me increasingly relevant ads.

However, as mush as I tolerate, nay, embrace this new model, I can’t abide lazy creative.

Take this example. It talks to me as a fan of Liverpool FC. Bingo. Targeting achieved. I am one. Every bit of one.

But where it fails is the message. Apart from ending the question in their title with a full-stop instead of a question mark, their copy doesn’t seem right somehow.

Call yourself a copy-writer?

Yes, I’ve got the official shirt (two of them, actually).

Yes, I’ve got the hat (even the missus has one, reluctantly)

And yes, the scarf too (again at least 2 of those)

And yet somehow, somewhere, in the mind of a senseless out-of-touch advertiser or copy-writer, the hat-trick has not yet been completed.

Now last time I checked, a hat-trick in football constituted three goals. I remember Robbie Fowler scoring the premierships quickest ever (just over 4 1/2minutes against Arsenal in ’94). Liverpool won 3-0 so he definitely didn’t score more than three.

I remember Peter “good-touch-for-a-big-man” Crouch’s perfect hat-trick, also against Arsenal, in ’07. Liverpool won 4-1, but Peter Crouch only scored 3 of them.

But our learned advertiser, which I trust is the banking partner concerned and not the club themselves, is determined to sell me the mythical fourth constituent of every fan’s memorabilia “hat-trick” – a club-branded credit card.

In a day of launches and relaunches, Grape Digital, a new entrant into the Social Media advertising space is launching today.

Or at least according to their Twitter account they are.

The website is curiously still “coming soon” and there’s been no twitter update so far today (10:50 am on the 20th April).

I remain curious….

Fictional character Jeeves is set to return to the UK following a relaunch of the Ask.com search engine, in it’s latest attempt to become anything more than an also-ran in the search market and challenge the dominance of Google.

But it is unclear what, beyond a cosmetic makeover, they are planning to offer users that will differentiate their service.

Gone is the pinstripe jacket for jeeves, in favour of a less-stuffy charcoal grey, and in comes a high-def 3D rendition of the character.

Unfortunately a large part of the recognition users may have had for the old Jeeves (83% according to research) will be wasted – the 3D image is so vastly different to the 2D cartoon version originally developed. What is clear is that, at roughly one-tenth the size of live.com (from Google.com/adplanner) they have someway to go to recover any ground whatsoever.

As part of the campaign, Ask are going to release pictures showing where Jeeves has been for the last three years. Whilst photo-sharing has become increasingly popular, I’m not convinced this alone will be the killer social media campaign it’s obviously intended to be.

Does anyone really care where Jeeves has been the last three years? I’ve been getting along fine without him, and I’m not sure I have time these days to indulge him. I have trouble enough wading through the vast array of photos available from real people I am now connected to.

I can’t help feeling that the search market is not driven by brands. Google have acheived their position largely through superior product and word-of-mouth. It has become embedded in the psyche of the web-user. It’s probably one of the most-successful viral-marketing stories ever, possibly better even than Hotmail, and yet Ask seem to think investment in brand is the answer to compete against one of the world’s largest and most popular brands.