Digital Vision grant winners announced
At the end of 2011, we launched Digital Vision, a new grant program to allow aspiring thought leaders to conduct new research in the areas of advertising and marketing.
Today we announce the five award winners selected from the scores of applications we received. These winning ideas will receive grants of up to $10,000 USD in addition to research support and publicity from us.
New Cillit Bang product launched exclusively on Facebook
Reckitt Benckiser (RB) has announced plans to sell a new Cillit Bang cleaning product exclusively through its Facebook page.
It is likely to be the first of a number of e-commerce trials by RB, as it has said that it plans to invest an extra £100m in brand building across Europe.
Search engines attract 2.3bn UK visits in January
Visits to search engines in the UK increased to 2.3bn in January 2012 compared to 2.2bn in the same period in 2011, according to data from Experian Hitwise.
The additional 100m visits equates to a yearly increase of 4.5%.
Google still dominates the market with 90.64% of all UK searches conducted in January, slightly down on December's tally of 91.75% but up 0.27% annually.
Marketer versus machine discussions dominate OMS 2012
If there was a theme to Econsultancy's session at the Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, it may have been marketer versus machine.
We looked at recent research studies that explore some of the major trends in marketing and technology and often, success has more to do with people and priorities than the technologies they use.
How do you build an innovative company?
In yesterday's post, we took a quick top-down look at what innovation meant to some of the businesses who’ve made it onto the shortlist for our Innovation Awards this year.
While opinions differed greatly about what makes innovation, everyone we spoke to agreed that businesses need to push boundaries in order to grow and thrive in the current climate.
Our respondents work across a huge variety of sectors, from start-ups to multinational, but they’ve all managed to integrate practical, innovative ideas into their business.
We know you don’t read the Econsultancy blog for esoteric opinions, so today we’re looking more closely at how they managed this, by asking:
How do you build an innovative company, or foster innovation within your organisation?
Social media for the healthcare industry: examples from MENA
Are you a medical practitioner? Are you wondering how to harness the power of social media for your organization? Do you have a Twitter and Facebook account that has remained dormant because you lack a proper engagement strategy?
Hospitals, clinics and pharmaceutical companies need effective social media strategies to thrive in this age.
Five emerging revenue strategies for digital content producers
Free digital content has broken the revenue mechanisms for many media production companies. Nothing is fixed, and increasingly it appears as though few paths are exactly alike.
How are people making money with digital media? These five examples are newly emergent models of revenue generation being pursued by organizations.
How brands lost the Super Bowl race for the second screen
Here in New York last week, digital media and advertising commentators were all talking about the role that digital and in particular, social media, was going to play during the Super Bowl TV ad breaks. With advertisers paying about $3.5 million for a slot, this has been another record year for TV ad revenue and the show was the most watched TV event in American History.
Sunday night was going to be #Hashtag-Heaven, we were told – or at least a #FacebookFrenzy, with brands falling over themselves to drive people off their 47 inch flatscreens and onto their other devices – the so-called ‘second screen’. So you’d think that the ad execs would have thought the web in all its forms - mobile, tablet and laptop - would be the place to go make sure they extended the reach and level of audience engagement worthy of such an expensive commodity.
You’d be wrong.
Amazon rumoured to be opening shop on the high street
Amazon is said to be opening a trial brick-and-mortar store in Seattle to see if a chain of shops could be profitable.
Though this might seem like a step backwards for Amazon, the need to give its tablets and e-readers a physical shop window seems to be the main motivation.
What makes something innovative?
Innovation has always been one of Econsultancy’s core brand values and we celebrate this every year with our Innovation Awards, shining a light on those companies and individuals who’ve helped to advance the digital marketing landscape over the past twelve months.
But what do we mean when we talk about innovation? It’s a deceptively simple word with a million interpretations. For some it can be about simple changes; incremental decisions and refinements that give big results.
For others it could be a radical overhaul of the entire company structure. Some businesses seem to naturally burst with ideas, while others require specific challenges to inspire them.
In the run up to this year’s awards we thought we’d ask those who’ve reached our awards shortlist to tell us what innovation means to them.
We’ll be publishing a series of posts throughout February, covering everything from building innovative companies to exploiting new technologies.
We hope they’ll give you an insight into how some of the market leaders work and help you develop your own innovative ideas (and dare we suggest, enter them for an award in 2013).
