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Has Paid Media Found Its Mojo?

Has Paid Media Found Its Mojo? There are two types of branded content in this World; Paid and Earned.

Earned media refers to the process of garnering publicity through media, blogger and influencer relations. Out of necessity it has high quality content at its heart, and has somewhat short-sightedly become the de facto model used by PR professionals because of that. But contrary to belief, PR is not synonymous with earned media.

Public relations is defined by the Chartered Institute as the “discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour.” At no point is PR defined in terms of paid, owned or earned media. In fact, industry leaders are increasingly embracing the full PESO Model, but I’ll come on to that later. First, the paid media revolution.

Paid media is an effective means of creating brand awareness or new customer acquisition through traditional advertising, paid search, social marketing and, most recently, through content. Blogs, infographics, videos and news releases have all become wrapped up as part of the ‘paid’ arsenal as native threatens to displace display in the digital ad industry. Liberated from its conventional confines paid has found its mojo, and marketers are leading the pursuit.

The evolution has largely come about thanks to a change in media consumption habits. We know that media consumers can handle the deluge of content on the web, but what they don’t want is to consume content that is so heavily branded and full of advertising messages that it is clearly being pushed to them by an advertiser. Josh Black, CEO of GroupM Content Asia Pacific, says increasingly “the very best forms of content created by advertisers are truly becoming ‘content’ – pieces of work that consumers want to share with the friends, tweet about and like”.

“The expectations on quality are rising. The stories being told are well constructed, interesting and shot beautifully. The content these advertisers are creating and distributing are no longer pieces of ‘branded content’, they are just ‘content’. Audiences, consciously or otherwise, are not using or associating the word ‘branded’ with them.”

So does that make branded content obsolete, or just reimagined? I’d err to the latter, but what is for sure is that paid media has become a big player in the PR industry. And it doesn’t stop there. Shared and owned media are both increasingly prevalent and important media types. Combine all four, and you get the complete digital marketing strategy.

The PESO model (Paid, Earned, Social and Owned) is what the future looks like for PR professionals. Gini Dietrich, a leading voice for the PR industry and author of Spin Sucks, told Mashable that there “is a misguided perception in the PR industry that all we do is media relations. Get your boss or client on the front page of the New York Times and all of your troubles will vanish”. The current measurement of success is still stuck in the Dark Ages. We use impressions and advertising equivalences. But they will soon be irrelevant.

“If you aren’t using the PESO model for your communications work, and measuring the meaningful metrics that help an organization grow, you will not have a job in 10 years,” Dietrich says. The days when earned reigned supreme are gone. Future campaigns require an omni-approach.

by 72Point

Hippos, polar bears & paint: PR highlights of 2015

A good PR campaign or stunt can work wonders for a brand.

Get the timing, tone and creativity just right and not only will you see tons of national, regional, online and broadcast coverage but thanks to social media, it can also end up going viral, giving you more exposure than money could ever buy.

There is a fine line between a good stunt and a failure. They can be expensive to plan and carry out, with no guarantee of anyone talking or writing about it afterwards.

But here at 72Point, we’ve seen several stunts and campaigns this year which have not only had great results in terms of coverage, but were memorable and got us all talking.

Here are just a few of our favourites from 2015…

Polar bear

Campaign: Polar bear on the tube
Brand: Sky Atlantic/Fortitude
Agency: Taylor Herring and Sky’s in-house PR team

Last January, commuters in London were greeted with a life-sized polar bear on the tube, after it was ‘set loose’ by Sky Atlantic to promote its new crime drama Fortitude.

The huge bear, which was built by a team of Hollywood special effects experts and operated by two puppeteers from the West End production of War Horse, was seen around various places in the city including the underground and crossing the Millennium Bridge.

Fortitude was set in the Arctic, and what better symbol is there of the frozen landscape than a terrifying but beautiful polar bear?

Thanks to the amazing pictures of the bear riding the tube, walking over bridges and roaming the city’s parks, the campaign got widespread coverage but it was also great for social media. The first thing confused Londoners would have done is to Tweet, Instagram or Facebook about their unusual encounter with a polar bear that day.

It received 47 million impressions on Twitter – 30 million of which were from the UK, while the show launched with just over 700,000 viewers – the biggest audience to date for a UK originated drama on Sky Atlantic.

Fifty Shades

Campaign: Fifty Shades of Grey ‘Leaked Memo’
Brand: B&Q
Agency: Good Relations

At the start of the year, it was all about the highly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey film, which was released in February.

B&Q ‘issued’ a memo to all staff telling them to get to know the storyline in case customers enquired about items inspired by the film, such as cable ties, rope and duct tape.

So many brands wanted to be associated with the famous movie, and all kinds of surveys, PR stories and stunts were planned to allow them to get on the Fifty Shades bandwagon.

But this was one of the best – the ‘leaked’ memo format was great and entirely believable, while still being very tongue-in-cheek, resulting in a huge amount of coverage including The Daily Telegraph, Sky News and BBC Radio Two.

They even saw a second wave of coverage after admitting the memo was, in fact, fake.

It was a great quick-win, which was quick and easy to execute, providing great talk value and standing out at a time when so many other brands were trying do stories about the same thing.

Lego

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Campaign: Lego-proof slippers
Brand: Lego
Agency: Brand Station

As a parent to an almost five-year-old, Lego-mad little boy, as soon as I saw this, I thought it was a brilliant idea – stunt or not.

Anyone who has a Lego fan in their house will know the unbearable pain that comes from stepping on a discarded brick, trying hard not to swear repeatedly because your darling child (who is most likely the one responsible for leaving said brick in the middle of the floor) is nearby.

The branded slippers come with an extra thick sole, meaning parents can walk around their house freely, safe in the knowledge that more of the little bricks will no longer be a threat to their feet.

Unfortunately for millions of parents, Lego and the French agency behind the slippers, Brand Station, only made 1,500 of the slippers, but the coverage and social media activity around the stunt was a great result for the brand.

Lights

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Campaign Christmas: Lights Untangler
Brand: Tesco

Christmas is a tricky time of year for PR – everyone wants to get in on the action but there is only so much Christmas PR the media can take.

Tesco came out on top with their idea to hire the first Christmas light untangler in one of their Wrexham stores after research found those in the town were found to be most frustrated by the festive job.

They took something which causes all kinds of stress in UK households at the start of December and tied it into their famous ‘Every Little Helps’ slogan with ease.

As part of the job ad, responsibilities included ‘manning and managing the Christmas lights untangling stand’, ‘checking lights and bulbs for signs of breakage’ and of course ‘successfully untangling customers’ Christmas lights neatly, quickly and efficiently and in an orderly fashion’.

The ideal candidate had to be ‘passionate about Christmas, ‘able to untangle three metres of lights in under three minutes’ and ‘be persistent and patient’.

After the first wave of coverage from the initial job ad, Tesco also saw further hits once they revealed more than 100 people had applied for the position.

NHS

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Campaign: Missing Type
Brand: NHS Blood and Transport

The Missing Type campaign, in June, was designed to raise awareness about the shortage of blood donations, and saw As, Bs and Os, removed from the brands logo to highlight the different blood groups.

It started with a host of brands such as Waterstones, Odeon and even Downing Street mysteriously removing letters from their signage.

A few days later, NHS Blood and Transport revealed they were behind the missing letters with a news story revealing that 40 per cent fewer donors had come forward in that year, compared to ten years ago.

But following the reveal, as well as the brands who had already joined in, other brands took part with the public also joining in by changing their Twitter handles to replace any As, Bs and Os with a blank space. We even took part ourselves. The success of the campaign is clear in the figures – more than 30,000 people registered as blood donors during 10-day campaign and it had more than 700 pieces of coverage, which even resulted in the public website having to be taken down as a result of the unprecedented demand.

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Snickers

Campaign: You aren’t you when you’re hungry
Brand: Snickers

Following news of the Jeremy Clarkson ‘fracas’ in March, Snickers jumped at the chance of some brilliant reactive PR.

As details emerged of the incident, where the Top Gear presenter was said to have assaulted one of the show’s producers because he was refused a hot meal, Snickers sent a box of the bars to the (former) BBC presenter with a note using the brand’s slogan ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’.

The chocolate brand’s campaign and TV advert sees a Snickers bar given to someone who is acting diva-like due to hunger. After tucking into the chocolate treat, they return to their normal self.

The parallels with the Clarkson story were just too good to pass up and Snickers were quick to react – and tweet a picture of the box and note to their followers, which was retweeted thousands of times.

And finally, on the subject of Jeremy Clarkson, we also need to give an honourable mention to the Robox, a 3D printer created by the husband of our very own creative account director Emma Elsworthy, who created a Jeremy Clarkson version of Hungry Hippos, ‘Hungry Jeremy’.

They designed a 3D-printable version of Clarkson’s head, which can be used to replace the hippos’ heads in the classic game, which saw great coverage across print and online. It goes to show that a killer of an idea is still at the heart of a good PR campaign – you don’t need to be a big brand to generate a buzz.

by 72Point

PR Resolutions: The art of decent exposure in 2016

PR resolutions Over the last few years we have witnessed many traditional PR companies start to reinvent themselves as the digital revolution has transformed the way their own clients reach and engage with their audiences.

Here at 72Point, we very quickly realised a simple survey and news copy were no longer enough to keep media outlets happy, and so we also began to more firmly integrate visual content services with our existing USPs.

The heart of 72Point is, and always will be, national news content. The backbone of our business is South West News Service, the UK’s largest independent press agency, which has been delivering hard-hitting news on a daily basis since 1978. This means we have top-class ideas, page-ready news copy, access to the UK’s best news experts, and a channel to the powers in the press at our fingertips.

Now is the time to consider revising the way you present your content to news editors who want page ready copy without the fluff and nonsense of the traditional press release.

In recognition of the changing media landscape, which brings with it the absolute necessity for additional content such as videos, pictures and infographics, we actively encourage our clients to pursue ALL avenues when putting together a PR campaign.

This is why, although we generally dislike the idea of making New Year’s resolutions, we do have 10 tips / resolutions for getting the most out of 2016:

1. Think visually – with every story you send out, make sure you have painted a picture of what you want to say. The majority of humans are visual learners, so are likely to absorb more through watching a video, reading an infographic or looking at a picture than by any other means. Think about how you are going to deliver your news to your audience, and how they are most likely to consume it.

2. If budget will allow, make a video – the demand for online video is at all-time high, and there is nothing out there to suggest the rapid growth we witnessed in 2015 won’t continue into 2016. The potential reach of a video is endless, and almost everyone in the UK has access to some sort of device needed to watch videos. A quick 90 second film, which is to the point and not over branded, is a powerful tool which can be shared millions of times across websites and on the likes of YouTube and Facebook.

3. Always illustrate a story with a picture – we know the national news desks and online sites all have stock shots, and can randomly select any old picture to go with a story they want to publish. So why bother to send your own picture? By tailoring an image so that it clearly spells out the content of the news copy, you have more editorial control and therefore increase your chance of securing relevant coverage.

If designed with the need to re-purpose in mind, infographics can be ‘sliced up’ into smaller bite size graphics making them perfect for pulling out key stats and headlines, and sharing multiple times with your own followers across a number of social channels.

4. Help consumers absorb the stats with an easy-to-read infographic – we all know there is more demand for visual content than ever before, and people are more likely to absorb statistics which are embedded in a pretty graphic than a body of writing. By producing an infographic alongside your copy you are making your story even more visible. An infographic can also be re-used time and time again across multiple channels. It may start as a means to getting media coverage, but can also be posted on your own site, used in your own marketing collateral.

5. Look to the future with digital sell in – print will always have its place in the media landscape, but to maximise coverage and help boost a brand’s online presence a full digital sell in is a must for all campaigns in 2016. Earlier this year the Mail Online surpassed 200 million monthly browsers making it the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world, and many other publishers are looking to replicate the model to attract new audiences. Not only does this spell value for PR campaigns in terms of reach, it also delivers ROI on search engine optimisation goals and creates a ‘social’ buzz.

6. Don’t underestimate the powers of social media – many clients are understandably focussed on getting coverage in the national newspapers and websites, or subject specific websites, and don’t actually consider the power of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn etc.

People love to share visual content of any sort, and some of the biggest news stories are those which have been shared by millions of people across social media.

We produced a video featuring Ben Hanlin for a client’s national media campaign. The branded video featured on The Mirror and Yahoo among others, but most impressively it was viewed more than a million times on the client’s Facebook page.

7.Think about dropping the press release – when you open the national newspapers, do you see bullet points at the beginning of a news story? Can you see a company logo in the top right corner? Are there footnotes for us to read later? If not, you might want to consider revising the way you present your content to news editors who want page ready copy without the fluff and nonsense of the traditional press release.

8. Have a brainstorm / think outside the box / attend a thought shower – whatever you want to call it, but generate good ideas and a story that your audience can relate to, and will find themselves talking about and sharing with others. We all know news is on a loop, and there are some topics that are covered time and time again, but if you can find that gem of an idea which the whole office ends up talking about, you know you’re onto a winner.

9. Do your research – a news story which is based on consumer or market research is more likely to be read by journalists than one without. Research led stories have an extra edge – the statistics give it a quantifiable news hook and help validate the point of the story. As well as being a great tool for coverage, market research enables businesses to differentiate themselves from others and illustrate their ability to identify with their audience.

10. Choose a company who can do all of the above under one roof – alright, this ‘resolution’ might be an excuse to plug 72Point, but if you are determined to make a media success of 2016, and can’t be bothered to hire several different companies to do the work for you, you might want to consider doing all of the above with the help of our very lovely team.

by 72Point

The changing media landscape

Digital media has radically altered the way we consume and interact with news. For more than 50 years, newspapers and TV have dominated news coverage almost everywhere until the internet created the low cost opportunity to go global.

Digital natives rushed to change the news, while publishers and broadcasters started to build online audiences producing video-rich news channels that are accessible across the world at the touch of a button. Let’s refer to this as “News 3.0” – the age in which companies as diverse as Bloomberg, ESPN, CNN, Daily Mail, Huffington Post , BuzzFeed and the like joined the worldwide fight for online viewers, readers and listeners.

Multi-channel, multi platform news that is distributed socially is a way of saying to the consumer “you are in control: you decide if our content is entertaining and relevant and we’ll supply it when and where you want it”. However this fusion of traditional and new media is a big challenge for many; most of all for the daily newspaper which faces the need to make a real strategic leap for survival. How can they compete in a socially enabled environment? Especially one where such a wealth of content is so readily available that we no longer have to go out of our way to access it? Where do they start?

Let’s refer to this as “News 3.0” – the age in which companies as diverse as Bloomberg, ESPN, CNN, Daily Mail, Huffington Post , BuzzFeed and the like joined the worldwide fight for online viewers, readers and listeners.

Start at the beginning. Content. Digital content is not about the traditional attention grabbing font-size and designs but reflecting the needs of online consumers. Mediocrity and repetition don’t pay anymore. Investigative, newspaper-centric journalism is what papers do best therefore they should seek to maximise the impact of genuinely exclusive coverage, while also providing links to alternative sources and ‘aggregated’ content. The value in creating the ‘best’ or ‘exclusive’ coverage is that competitors will end up linking back to you.

On the other hand, news sites should remember what so many readers have always liked about newspapers: the happy chance of coming across something they weren’t looking for and didn’t expect to find. Crowdtap research found individuals aged 18 to 36 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media, with the notion of “multi-channel” (merging digital, print and broadcast channels) media consumption commonplace therefore audiences have to be cultivated and ‘trained’ to become habitual users and will seek out news. This also means that element of surprise has been removed; the joy of coming across something they did not expect to find is reduced by the fact that they are actively searching for it and that their news feeds are tailored to things they want.

Video will likely become an online battle ground as audiences become more and more accustomed to consuming news through TV and digital. A key shift of resources for newspapers will be building up substantial video content to compete with TV news. Take for example the deal made between the NY Times and the US broadcaster PBS to share video journalism.

Digital media is not restricted to news sites and video. News mediums cannot afford to forget about the possibilities that social media can bring. All news organisations have to have an imprint on social media due to it being where so many of their audience regularly engage. It is a key source of content, distribution and competition. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat increasingly see themselves as platforms for news and information. Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2014 found Facebook to be the most important network for news with some 42% of respondents saying they select the media they consume online from their Facebook news feed. Almost a quarter said they have friends or follow people who they regard as authorities for news and almost 1 in 5 said they trust their friends to source news. The pull of Facebook as an access point for news has been further strengthened by addition of their ‘read-in’ feature which allows people to read news without navigating away from their social feeds. The concept of contributing content to ‘public spaces’ over which they have no control represents a challenge for newspaper-centric companies. They must collaborate with social media but should consider reserving their exclusive “branded” content for their own platforms.

It is already clear that most news providers will simply not be able to depend on readership revenues. News is something that most readers now do not expect not to pay for. This is reflected by the recent decision from NME to become a free publication following their significant drop in paid over the past few years. The decision was made to hopefully push circulation from 15,000 to 300,000, a risk which seems to be paying off.

Crowdtap research found individuals aged 18 to 36 spend an average of 17.8 hours a day with different types of media, with the notion of “multi-channel” (merging digital, print and broadcast channels) media consumption commonplace...

Most news will be funded by a combination of advertising and e-commerce therefore newspapers will need to abandon their traditional sense of ‘control’ and seek partnerships, collaborations and alliances in order to compete in the digital marketplace. Alternatively, as BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti recently suggested, perhaps the natural answer is for the printed newspaper to charge a higher price so that (perhaps) it can be viable just with its most loyal and committed readers.

Personally, I enjoy having a paper under my arm. I love the act of turning a page and the satisfaction of finishing a worn and well-loved book, so I will continue to read the Metro, occasionally buy a paper and always pick a paperback over a kindle. Surely I cannot be alone in this! So maybe this means that print will always have a place. After all you cannot fold the corner of your kindle for later. Let's hope that the feeling i get from holding that newspaper under my arm will be shared by the generations of kids who have grown up with technology available to them since birth. It’s this generation that hold the future of print media in their hands.I'm sure their love of "retro" mediums can nurture the print industry back to full health.

by Chris Pharo

A holistic approach to blogger outreach

holistic approach What is ‘blogger outreach’ and how do I do it?

That was the prominent undertone from a series of creative workshop sessions we recently hosted in the trendy Ace Hotel in Shoreditch. The proliferation of alternative media platforms has rendered the PR industry perplexed, and the knee-jerk reaction has been to throw money at it. But a holistic approach to blogger outreach is possible, and it is a far more attractive proposition for both brands and bloggers alike.

Marketing Land defines blogger outreach, or influencer marketing, as the process of leveraging influencers with an established and substantial following in exchange for “free access to the product or service” or a fee for publishing content. But the notion that bloggers are simply ‘reviewers with reach’ is misguided, and PR professionals are missing a trick if they define them as such.

Successful bloggers are able to reach large networks of people because they produce great content that resonates with a target audience. Talya’s blog Motherhood: The Real Deal, is a good example. The hilarious account of the “general WTF-ness” that comes with being a mother embodies the spirit of being a blogger by connecting to her audience with good content that is relevant. We landed this release not because we paid, but because we have established a relationship centred around those principles.

As a PR firm working from inside the media – the so-called Trojan horse effect – we are able to land branded content across the board because we take a media-first approach to outreach. At a blogger level, that is about supplying good content, engaging with blogger communities and using our media-base to collaborate with bloggers to ensure the content cycle is rewarding for all parties involved.

Here’s a short guide to our blogger outreach programme.

Content generation

Bloggers, like any other publishing genre, are in the business of providing engaging content to readers. Where they differ is that they have free reign over how they produce that content. Unlike mainstream media outlets there is no protocol when it comes to blogging, which breaks the mould of the holistic model applied by PR companies when outreaching to the media. Press releases are outmoded, spokespeople are redundant and branded messages can be off-putting, but that doesn’t mean that content is unwanted.

At 72Point, we take a hands-off approach to content distribution. Our own digital media hub is tailored exclusively to online publications, providing all the necessary materials in a simple-to-use format. We encourage collaborators to get creative with the content we provide them, or even engage with it. Like this.

Building communities

Communities are a focal part of the blogger ecosystem. Social media communities exist across all genres, many of which are active with meetups and conferences regularly taking place across the country. In order to have a feel for the pulse of the community, it is really important to engage with these networks.

The digital hub has a large community of more than 500 bloggers which we endeavour to engage with on a regular basis. Our Ambassador Programme gives us access to key influencers who work within blogger communities, and we regular discuss topics such as content generation and co-creation in our forum, as well as outreaching over social media.

Co-creation

We strongly believe that bloggers should be a part of the creative process, and we endeavour to involve bloggers in the work we do wherever we can. Our ambassadors have worked with us on several releases which have subsequently given them great exposure in the national press. Here’s a couple of examples:

Plus Size Bloggers Speak Out About Body Shaming

Demand for Ethically Sourced Clothes Increasing

The blogging community has been somewhat neglected by the PR industry thus far, and it is to our detriment. Alternative media outlets offer a lot of promise and arguably as much or more ROI in terms of engagement and social interaction than national press. But involving them in the outreach process should be less about throwing freebies their way and more about involving them in the creative process. It’s undoubtedly a long-term endeavour, but ultimately for a very worthy cause.

by 72Point

Native Advertising: What is it and why should you be doing it?

Of all the ‘Zucker’ web pioneers in the World, Ethan Zuckerman is surely the most loathed. Working for Tripod.com in the 1990s he invented the odious pop-up advertising format which has enjoyed a lucrative career assaulting the eyeballs of innocent web browsers with sponsored messages and swindling clickbait. Last year he issued a public apology for “creating one of the most hated tools in the advertiser’s toolkit” in a paper questioning whether advertising – the “default business model on the web” – could be replaced by other possible revenue models such as subscriptions, micro-payments and crowdfunding. His argument, predicated on the notion that advertising was the internet’s “original sin”, somewhat complicates the solution in search of a face-saving digital utopia. In reality, we just need ads that are better at engaging with online audiences.

In the 72Point report on the state of the digital media industry we coined the term “Citizen Editorship” to demonstrate how we have evolved to cope with the deluge of content online. Rather than acting as spectators, we have become agents in the media cycle and more powerful as a result, which is why disruptive ad formats such as pop-ups have largely fallen into disrepute. Today, browsers demand ads that complement their journey rather than detract from it, and smart marketers, publishers and agencies are moving aggressively to adjust their core strategies to reflect this.

What is It?

Native advertising is a form of online advertising that matches the form and function of the platform on which it appears, or, in the words of Peter Minnium, Head of Brand Initiatives at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), ads that are “so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the user experience that the viewer simply feels that it belongs.”

Sponsored search results on Google, sponsored posts on Facebook and sponsored tweets on Twitter are all examples of content that is ‘native’ to its platform, and the publishing industry is quickly following suit. Companies such as Time Inc, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today have introduced new advertising integrations that match the form and function of their editorial feeds.

Why Should You Be Doing It?

Native advertising represents a significant shift in the evolution of digital advertising. Not only does it offer a non-disruptive means of communicating brand messages, it also works seamlessly across platforms and is ideal fodder for social media channels.

Well Liked

Research shows that native ads widen the purchase funnel by 29%. Compared to traditional display advertising, there is a considerable uplift in regards to discovery (+33%), trust (+32%) and purchase (+29%). The click-through rate for native ads is 31% higher than regular ads, and in stark contrast to pop-ups and display advertising, the majority (59%) of consumers actually like native ads.

A Good Fit

Brands are spending big marketing bucks online. Digital ad spend has increased from £825 million in 2004 to £7.2 billion in 2014, an increase of 800% in the midst of a severe economic downturn. This extensive increase is thanks to new ad formats that fit around the natural browsing habits of consumers. Share through/IPG Media labs research found 25% more consumers were measured to look at in-feed, native ad placements than standard banners in a recent study that used eye-tracking technology to assess the attention of consumers. Most notably, consumers looked at native ads 2% more than editorial content and spent the same number of seconds viewing.

Changing Consumption Behaviour

One of the other big findings from our Generation Editor report was the extent to which consumers are using multiple devices as part of their browsing experience. A massive 95 per cent of the 7,500 respondents surveyed said they consume media on multiple devices, with mobile and tablet overwhelmingly popular. Content marketing and native advertising already makes up over one fifth of digital display and half of mobile display because it seamlessly fits with this change, or evolution, of consumption behaviour.

72Point Native Advertising Packages

As specialists in writing and landing branded stories within the news pages of national news sites and specialist press outlets we have always been focused on organic coverage. However the native advertising package is a great way of bolstering a campaign with guaranteed regional exposure that complements the coverage we achieve through our traditional methods.

In conjunction with Johnston Press, 72Point can offer an unrivalled native advertising package which guarantees coverage across 185 digital sites in the UK. In comparison to an industry average 0.18% CTR, our ads have been running at an average of 0.37% CTR and are as high as 1.2% thanks to its prominent position on all homepages in the Johnston Press digital portfolio.

If you would like further information on our native advertising packages, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

by 72Point

Social Media Content: It's a dog's life

Working at a press agency means I’m constantly surrounded by creative, passionate people in an office buzzing with ideas. Every morning my colleagues scour the news pages and sites to see if their stories made. Hours are spent every week brainstorming ideas for clients and writing witty, compelling copy. They deliberate headlines, by-lines and always push themselves creatively. In a competitive market, they are constantly asking themselves the age old advertising question: What sells?

In my role as OnePoll’s online community manager, it is my job to interact with our OnePoll panelists. Whether it’s competitions, answering member queries or just posting an image that I think they might like – the latter of which I like to do on a Friday to cheer everyone up for the weekend. A while back, I posted a picture of a dog. A picture of a wet dog if you want to be specific. Why I hear you ask. Well it had been a long week so work so I decided to Google ‘frazzled dog’, as one does. I saw the picture and loved it. I decided to add a few words to it, to really drive home my message. It turns out that this dog was no ordinary dog. It was internet gold. The image has so far reached 22 million people, been shared by more than 350,000 and has over 50,000 likes.

Who knew those words and that image would resonate with so many people! People have shared stories about their stresses at work, their lives in general and have told me about their beloved pets. They tagged people and those people tagged other people. At first we had a few likes and shares, then those likes and shares doubled, then tripled.

After a week we reached nearly 500,000 people (the most likes a post had got before was 819, and the post was boosted, so beating that was my original goal). I kept refreshing the page until it crashed and refused to update. I left work on Friday feeling super successful….just like Dave from Money Supermarket.

It was pretty surreal seeing my post pop up on my newsfeed because someone I know has shared it, without knowing who I work for, and colleagues (yes you Rick Maughan), telling me their friends are also sharing it. It was just plain odd.

I post on the OnePoll members Facebook page every day, it’s my job, and never before has anything taken off in such a way. So what is so special about this post?

Obviously we need to make something clear. The OnePoll Facebook page is a B2C. This gives it the freedom to feature light hearted, jovial content whether it be memes, YouTube videos, dogs, cats, goats …anything really. It’s the go to page for our panel; it’s the home of OnePoll’s online community. Being a Facebook page for our OnePoll community means therefore that follower numbers are considerably more substantial that other B2B accounts, which means the impression rate is automatically more impressive.

These things don’t automatically mean that content will go viral – an overused buzzword for the 21^st century – but they do obviously lend a hand in making them popular.

In the serious world of journalism and B2B marketing there were mixed feelings about the success of the image, or ‘cognitive dissonance’ if you want to be smart (Jay Williams, our Content Director!). On one hand, as Jay puts it, there is a sense of frustration that a picture of a soapy dog has done so well. But, on the other hand, and I’m quoting Jay directly here for maximum embarrassment, ‘Look! It’s a soapy dog! That’s soooooo cute!’ (Yes, he did over extend ‘so’. That really happened).

So why has the image done so well? Obviously no-one can predict what’s going to go viral (there’s that word again, sorry), but in an article for the Guardian in 2014 Buzzfeed’s editorial director, Jack Shepherd, gave the world some insight in to what makes it more likely.

His first piece of advice was to avoid the term ‘viral content’ like the plague, hence my overly apologetic use of the phrase earlier on. Shepherd described the term as sounding ‘like a vomit bag’. Lovely.

His second piece of advice was to share things that people can relate to, or in other words ‘things people share the most are things about themselves’. Shepherd commented that in the modern online world ‘your readers are your publishers’ – sentiments that relate strongly to our own findings from our Generation Editor report. ‘They are more likely to do that if the act of sharing helps them to make a strong statement about who they are.’ That doesn’t mean that the thousands of people who shared our dog image think of themselves as wet dogs, although some of them might and who are we to judge? What it means is that something about this image related to them on a personal level. Maybe it was the sentiments of the text. Maybe all 381, 839 shares were from people who had had the week from hell.

Shepherd’s third piece of advice was that people are more likely to engage with a something if they have ‘a strong, positive emotional response to it’. The guardian article refers to findings of a 2010 study into the New York Times’ “Most emailed” list (an early form of viral content, before social shares) which found that items on the list fell into one of four categories:

Awe-inspiring
Emotional
Positive
Surprising

Ok, so the soapy dog isn’t awe-inspiring, emotional or surprising but it is positive. The dog has had a rough week and come out fighting! (I know I sound crazy, but please suspend your disbelief for a bit longer).

Last and by no-means least, and this isn’t Shepherds insight, it’s a cute dog. Animal posts do well. It’s an unexplained phenomenon. You just have to look at the rise to fame of the host of internet cat celebrities….wow, there’s a phrase we never thought we’d hear. Since the early days of the internet cat posts have always done well, starting with email and chatroom images, then to the rise of LOLCats (which now has over 100 million views a month), right through to Keyboard cat, grumpy cat and Nyan (who isn’t even a real cat). One of our panelists even commented on a later post featuring a dog, that it’s nice to have a break from cat pictures.

Truth be told, we will never know for certain why this image was so popular. In my own personal opinion, as OnePoll’s online community manager I have come to realise that people take an interest in your post when it’s either humorous or potentially offensive. Also it was a Thursday and people were feeling tired and stressed out. The dog in the picture also reminds them of their own pet, which invokes a multitude of emotions. It’s relatable, both on a personal and professional level and who doesn’t love a photogenic dog! Turns out, from further investigation that it’s a famous dog, called Tusk. You can visit his Instagram and Twitter accounts. Bottom line though…everyone loves pictures of cute animals. It’s human nature and sometimes that’s all it takes.

Written by Jade Easton and Ruth Davison

by 72Point

Breakfast News: How Media Consumption Has Become Routine

Morning news Most mornings I’ve looked at my phone before I’ve even had a chance to open both eyes.

Swiping off my alarm, I’ll immediately raise the handset above my hideously scrunched face and, with one gunky eye half-open, allow the glare to bring me round to full consciousness.

First, I’ll deal with push notifications. Not thirty seconds awake and I’ve been pushed by my own technology. My bastard phone has the audacity to wake me up and then it bosses me around.

That’s how it is now, to get read, heard, noticed it takes a good old-fashioned holler in your face. Not a nice ‘here we are, how about a little read of this, in your own time of course’ but a loud, playground-style shove.

Following the alerts, usually BBC or Sky news updates, I’ll deal with emails. A scan of the work inbox is followed by the familiar barrage of living social deals, Metro’s news stories of the day, the Buzzfeed newsletter and, would you know it, Amazon have more stuff for me - I love stuff! Also Zizzi are still cooking food, Spotify have music and ASOS have a clothes sale.

Next, the mandatory Facebook check. First, it tells me I have memories (Facebook tells me what to remember now). Then I’ll browse the timeline because I may have missed a vital update in someone’s life in the seven hours since I last checked.

It’s only at this point that I’ll get out of bed and address the basic issues of hygiene (shower), nudity (clothes) and sustenance (cereal). But while shovelling heaps of Coco Pops (When ‘grown up’ cereals turn the milk chocolatey I’ll consider switching) I’ll be reading BuzzFeed. I’ll jump onto Vice and then back to Facebook probably ending up lost in an article a mate’s liked, posted or commented on.

The commute sees more consuming:

Road crossing. Red man. Loads of time, I’ll just look at my phone a bit quick.

Train platform - sure as hell won’t be making eye contact with anyone, phone out.

Carriage – I’ll grab a hard copy of the Metro- cover-to-cover scan.

Even when finally at the desk, I’ll still do a whistle-stop tour of the basic sites, a few news aggregators, a few football sites, another look at Facebook because I may have missed a vital update in someone’s life in the 46 minutes since I last checked.

Then I’ll try and do the work I’m paid to do in between my non-stop news consumption. But, as we all know, when we’re sat with access to the big everything machine that is the internet at our fingertips, we’re never far from a quick scan of a few sites, a sneaky minimized window behind the work, a few more push notifications from our attention-seeking smart-arsed phones.

The way we take in stories is changing and, as research shows, we read more, we read mobile and we’re pickier because of the volume available. Whether it’s at the desk, on the commute or in the toilet even, we’re editing our own constant stream of news and consuming in spaces we didn’t before. We’re watching more videos and curating our own news from what friends are posting, liking, moaning about.

As ever though, story is king and no matter how much something is pushed to a publication or an audience, knowing your content will set tongues wagging or have the strength to cut through the noise remains more crucial than ever.

Now, a quick look at Facebook, because I may have missed a vital update in someone’s life in the 22 minutes since I last checked.

by 72Point

Periscope and the Citizen Journalist

Source: Anthony Quintano — Image: Anthony Quintano on Flickr

When future historians look into their time tablets, gazing back to the 21^st century in a desperate act of escapism from their damp, Kevin Costner’s Waterworld existence, they will see an age of voyeurism.

Technological advancements coupled with the rise of social media have fostered a time where we are more connected than ever before. The internet has become a window through which we view the lives of others in a weird dance of hyperbole, humblebrags, envious trolling and outright lies.

It’s a rabbit hole that we tumble deeper into every day. First you could tap out a status update and a couple of tweets. Now you can supplement that with photography on Instagram and a video snippet (snappet?) on Snapchat. Spotify and Apple Music even have social elements so we can see exactly what you were listening to while you were hunting for the best angle for your bi-daily selfie. The escalation from simple text update to multimedia running commentary has been rapid.

The next step is live video. It’s likely that you first became aware of Twitter’s live-stream app Periscope in March, about the time they were battering their competition, Meerkat, into a fine, pink mist. The app allows you to record and stream video live and direct to your followers. Followers who subscribe to your updates are notified when you start a broadcast, while those who miss out have 24 hours from the end of the stream to view your recorded content. After that it’s gone for good.

Ignoring some of the broader activities that Periscope will find itself used for – boring life updates, social shaming, pranks – it could be an interesting tool from the perspective of the citizen journalist. Smartphones and other devices made high-quality video accessible to the masses years ago, but with Periscope the delay from shoot to broadcast is completely removed. No edit, no upload bar, just raw, live footage direct to your audience.

Basically, the chances of an unsolicited live video of your bum-crack ending up broadcast to a load of strangers on Twitter just went right up.

It’s yet another tool in the growing pool of resources open to the citizen reporter. Periscope has already been used to break the news before traditional channels get a look-in, and with more people turning to social media for their news the implementation of live video seems a logical step. For the opportunist with a big following on Twitter and a knack for being in the right place at the right time, Periscope could provide a platform to make a real impact.

by 72Point