Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Online TV Comes Of Age In The UK - So What?

John Lewis, the UK department store chain, has created a very cute Christmas TV ad that continues its tactic of playing on people's heart strings to rise above the yuletide shopping onslaught.  My attention was drawn to the commercial by a Telegraph journalist I follow on Twitter who added that even his hardened hack colleagues had been moved to tears.  How could I not take a peek?  So over I went to YouTube to watch the ad (two hundred and fifty thousand views and climbing) and to see if I could pass the dry lacriminal test.  (I couldn’t, no one can).  @hwallop also noted that the first showing of the ad would be on the following Saturday night during X-Factor, and indeed I glimpsed it for a nanosecond as I steamed through one of the show’s giant ad breaks at 60x normal speed.  Now I recognise that my own media consumption habits aren’t a perfect microcosm for the country at large.  Not everyone will be guided by Twitter to the degree that I am.  However, I am a John Lewis customer (who isn’t?) and I suspect that as Web TV grows in the UK, my own experience of the ad will become more normal, not less.  Web TV I hear you cry!?  But YouTube isn’t Web TV.  It’s YouTube - where dogs skateboard and babies giggle.  Well not anymore it isn't.  Sharp-eyed VC Mark Suster spotted that...

That Distant Rumble Is Big Data

‘Big Data’ is the phrase of the moment in tech circles which probably means it will be appearing on the to-do lists of marketing folk soon.  The expression refers mainly to the oceans of information being poured continuously onto the open web and social networks by ever more connected consumers (aka people).  This tsunami comes in the shape of comments, images, scans, tweets, likes, views, posts, videos and a kaleidoscope of other digital expressions.  However, whilst people's everyday lives are providing a big piece of the pie, the scope of Big Data goes much further.  Less obvious but just as vast are the intelligence flows that stem from our web browsing behaviour or location signals from smartphones.  Other component parts include corporations publishing market information , governments opening up public data for others to use, or vast social platforms that encourage smart developers to weave new applications and services.  The result is a share-and-compare economy where people, companies and organisations trade digital views, opinions and information in order to help make decisions - commercial or otherwise.  As ever, this creates challenges and opportunities for marketing and brand folk.  But there’s no shortage...