DavidBlanar.com

Photograph: Marko Djurica/Reuters

I admit it: I’ve taken the outcome of the farcical World Cup 2010 playoff between France and Ireland more seriously than I ought. My smug, albeit neutral, perch affords me the lofty position of unbiased – and therefore the harshest possible – judgement.

Thierry Henry’s shameful handling in the lead-up to the final French coup de grace, reminiscent more of a touch-down in rugby than the usually prescribed path to soccer goal scoring, leaves even the non-partizan reeling in contempt.

The incident has been described as the ultimate expression of human frailty; for the referees, whose experience and good sense abandoned their eyes at the crucial moment; for the French players, whose desire to win at all costs cruelly hijacked their common decency; and for the spectator, neutral and invested alike, who have been left roiling or rollicking to face a long, cold winter digesting the ugly and inescapable realisation that – regardless France’s performance in next year’s World Cup – the outcome is immutably corrupted. Read more…

In the very early 1990s America, my friend Eric and I revelled in the then-advanced technology of Laser Disc.  I’ve included a link to its Wikipedia entry as I’m guessing a few people will have no idea what Laser Discs are, having skipped that generation of technology entirely.

Eric and I stared, rapt, at the glorious picture delivered in delectable elegance on a magical disc.  It ditched all the horribleness of VHS – the dodgy picture, the interminable rewinding and the fragile tape – and bestowed crystal clear images, instant chapter skipping and full THX-like sound. Read more…

Image Credit: viZZZual.com

Most brands grappling with developing a social media proposition reach the ‘ROI question’.

It has many variants, depending if it’s asked by the finance department, the head of marketing or the CEO, but the ROIQ may ultimately be expressed simply as:

What financial benefits will the business receive in return for investing in social media?

Naturally this questions can be asked of any marketing activity but I choose social media specifically – as opposed to traditional media – as it’s the activity least likely to be understood by the senior executives in an organisation.

Nevertheless, it’s the right question to ask; we’re running a business after all.

In 2007 Forrester’s Charlene Li and Chloe Stromberg produced the much-thumbed ROI of Blogging, perhaps the first serious attempt to calculate, in hard dollars, the value of an activity which brands were increasingly being urged by agencies to adopt or at least consider.

While blogging is just one tactical consumer touch point, Li and Stromberg posed thorny questions the stampeding suite of fresh-faced, emerging online services would inevitably face. Read more…

Where to begin?

As many of my friends have repeatedly observed, I’m loathe to admit pain, the defining personality characteristic of an Eight according to the Enneagram model, I’m reliably informed.  In this case, the pain is ‘lack of knowledge’.

However, I’m liberating myself of the marketing consultant’s burdensome, perceived Cloak of Omniscience. I wish I knew everything, alas I do not, and at the risk of losing out on future contracts, I think it only fair to share some of the areas I know spectacularly little about: Read more…

Open Up Now was founded by a small group of thoughful, committed citizens.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead, US anthropologist (1901 – 1978)

I have been continually impressed by the recent campaign launched just this week by Open Up Now, a small group of concerned citizens asking, simply, that the UK “hold an Open Primary in every constituency before the next General Election, so that voters can directly select the MP candidates that will stand in the General Election.”

It is surely the least we deserve.

Of course the movement has a web site, a Twitter account and – most impressively – a dedicated YouTube channel with a selection of incredibly well-produced and humourous videos which aptly skewer the inanity forced upon us by the shenanigans and goings-on of our Parliament.  You can even be a fan on Facebook. Read more…

Perform provide the Ukraine v England match feed, featuring former England Manager Sven Goran-Eriksson

I watched the first web-only distribution of an England football match, the 2010 World Cup Qualifier hosted by Ukraine.  Ukraine won the match 1-0, I’m confident you can find a competent match summary elsewhere.

However, the real story is the fact that the game was only available via the internet; it was not screened on terrestrial television, via commercial satellite broadcasters or any other dodgy continental method.  Perform Media was the only distributor of the match which is the “biggest ever pay-per-view event in the UK”.

Defining success is difficult.

Success for Kentaro, the Swiss agency that held the rights is easy to define: did it profit from the initiative?  Undoubtedly, that answer will be yes; clearly, the largest pay-per-view (PPV) event in the UK will, almost by definition, deliver a profitable adventure, considering the target was the £900,000 offered by the BBC.  With estimates of more than 250,000 subscribers at £11.99 a pop, they look well on target to clear this amount.

But as others have already noted, the key factor to look at is not necessarily the distribution method – which, let’s face it, has been around for a while – but whether or not this is a legitimate channel for future delivery. Read more…

I generally enjoy the Church of the Customer blog and I don’t knock Ben McConnell, whose passion is admirable.

But his piece, Facebook fan pages are the future makes a leap which – aside from presenting a world vision of marketing I assiduously wish to avoid – strikes me as having little chance of coming true.

McConnell writes:

“When fans interact with a fan page on Facebook, that interaction is sent through the fan’s news feed, which goes to all their friends, practically daring a chunk of them to see what the page is about.

Compared to Twitter, Facebook fan pages rule. You’re not limited by Twitter’s 140-character posts, plus it’s far easier for fan page members to preview a photo, video or weblink than what Twitter offers.

What more could a brand manager want?”

Plenty. Authenticity; credibility; and even value spring to mind.  I firmly describe these types of promotional pages on social media sites as extensions of corporate blogs, which we all know finish dead last in terms of consumer credibility. Read more…

It’s embarassing, actually.

I’ll write it here, seeking a modicum of peace through my confession, but the truth is: my credentials as a blogger are in serious peril, even facing outright rejection. 

How did it come to this?

Back in the Day …

In 1999 I started managing my first web site, which was devoted to women’s football in the States (specifically, women’s football at the university level).  Initially CollegeSoccerDaily.com was part of the Rivals network, but I left and then managed it separately until I moved to the UK in 2000 when I stopped publishing the site altogether. Read more…

Having spent the better part 10 years publishing in many digital forms, I continually enjoy watching friends and colleagues discover blogging and, in turn, delight in connecting with others online.  Numerous, ubiquitous social network sites deliver simple publishing tools to whole societies, scaling what was the domain of geeks into a mass-market proposition.

Some reject blogging entirely, which is their right.  But millions have taken virtual pen to paper and, consequently, prompted corporations looking for competitive advantage to investigate how to best employ this activity for profit. Read more…

Slowly, inexorably, a relentless avalanche of invasive digital marketing is crowding our professional consciousness. 

Between e-mails, feeds, our Blackberries and text messages, businesses find themselves in danger of losing their voices in a market, literally, drowned in noise.  To cut through this clutter, companies are turning to digital tools, such as blogs, to help make meaningful connections with customers. Read more…