Vikki Chowney

Vikki Chowney is head of community at creative communications agency TMW. She's a former journalist, most recently as news editor for Econsultancy.

Prior to that she was content editor for the JaguarFuture.com project, created by Jaguar to tell the stories behind the C-X16 concept car.

From 2009 - 2011 Vikki was editor of Reputation Online, a sister title to new media age at Centaur Media that presented both editorial and user-generated coverage of the digital PR landscape. During her time there she penned a weekly column for NMA on the same topic.

She helped to co-found The Really Mobile Project, contributing to the site regularly during its early life - and penned a monthly column for Communicate magazine throughout 2011.

She was part of the founding team of writers for BitchBuzz.com, an independent women’s lifestyle network with readers spread across the US & UK.

A G20Voice blogger for Oxfam at the London and Pittsburgh Summits in 2009, her work has featured in The Guardian, Mobile Industry Review, within Marketing Week and many others.

Vikki has also provided freelance consultancy to the likes of Vodafone, O2, Talk Talk and Big Yellow Self Storage.

In a previous life Vikki worked in PR, specialising in digital and social media for clients including Acceleration, ZYB, Skype and Vodafone.

Email and social media study highlights differences between US and UK

ExactTarget launched the latest addition to its Subscriber, Fans and Followers series of reports yesterday to coincide with the UK leg of its user conference for 2011.

'The Digital Kingdom' is the first of the series to deal specifically with the UK, and considers how attitudes towards email and social media differ between this market and the US.

by Vikki Chowney 09 November 2011 17:01pm 2 comments

Adobe to ditch Flash for mobile

Adobe is expected to cease development of Flash Player for browsers on mobiles devices.

A blog post from the company outlined plans to focus on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all major app stores.

by Vikki Chowney 09 November 2011 14:35pm 0 comments

Waitrose chooses Blippar for augmented reality Christmas campaign

Blippar, the mobile augmented reality app, is being used by Waitrose for its 'School of Christmas Magic' campaign.

Ambarish Mitra, co-founder and CEO of Blippar, told us that the retailer’s ‘pause and blipp’ concept first aired during The X Factor and Downton Abbey this past Sunday.

by Vikki Chowney 07 November 2011 16:42pm 3 comments

Publicis and France Télécom-Orange join Telefónica in funding digital start-ups

Global advertising agency Publicis Groupe and mobile giant France Télécom-Orange have pledged to invest €150m in digital start-up projects across Europe.

The fund will provide seed capital and early-stage investment of up to €1m for fledgling companies, and later-stage financing for more established companies in France and Europe of up to €15m per project.

by Vikki Chowney 08 November 2011 10:28am 0 comments

Burberry attempts 'mass customisation' with Burberry Bespoke

Burberry has made its first attempt at ‘mass customisation’ by launching Burberry Bespoke, a programme that allows people to design and purchase their own, personalised version of the company’s iconic trench coat.

Though prices are expected to start at $1,800 and extend to $8,800, those that can't afford to buy can still create a design and share it on Twitter and Facebook, extending the reach of the programme.

by Vikki Chowney 04 November 2011 13:04pm 0 comments

Thoughts on a CIPR/PRCA merger

I always have, and always will be, a champion for PR.

Good PR mind you, PR that is well considered, properly planned, measured and that’s designed to integrate with the broader marketing mix.

But today, I have a problem. It’s that last bit, the bit about PR needing to play well with others that’s giving me grief.

by Vikki Chowney 03 November 2011 11:49am 10 comments

50 key takeaways and soundbites from FUNNEL

On Tuesday more than 500 B2B and B2C marketers attended FUNNEL, our first event to consider where marketing meets sales - and leads become revenue.

With a definite sense of new confidence in the air, the packed speaker programme looked at key challenges and opportunities facing ‘considered purchase’ marketers today – how to best attract, engage, nurture and convert leads.

I’ve collated some of the key takeaways and soundbites below...

by Vikki Chowney 03 November 2011 10:21am 9 comments

Adobe acquires video ad platform Auditude

Adobe announced this morning that it has acquired video advertising company Auditude.

Privately-owned Auditude operates a video advertising management and analytics platform aimed at publishers and media companies.

by Vikki Chowney 01 November 2011 09:54am 3 comments

Landmark EU ruling moves the boundaries for publishers

Last week we saw Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) lose its appeal to overturn a privacy action in the French courts by actor Olivier Martinez.

Martinez successfully sued the publishers of the Sunday Mirror in 2008 over an article that was published online about the actor’s then relationship with Kylie Minogue, saying that it negatively affected his reputation in France.

by Vikki Chowney 31 October 2011 14:20pm 5 comments