We’ve increased our client base significantly, generated some fantastic results for our existing clients and developed some exciting new services.

We’d like to say a big welcome to our three new account managers, Sean Longstaff, Sarah Calderwood and Faye Harrington – these guys will be helping to take Wrigged Media to the next level, bringing some fantastic experience to the table and encouraging the growth of new clients internationally.

We’d also like to say a big thank you to our clients, suppliers and consultants for their business and hope for a successful 2011 together!

We hope that 2011 is successful for everyone reading this and hopefully this time next year, we will be celebrating another fantastic year!

By utilising popular media channels such as Youtube, Greenpeace have made a thought provoking video with the intention to set it viral as a part of their ‘Give the Earth a Hand’ awareness campaign.

The video features images being made up of ‘reaching’ hands, showing the true things that we should be reaching for, instead of our consumer defaults, such as cars and money.

We believe that this video is a great testament to the potential power that viral videos can have in shifting a brands perception – Just look at Greenpeace, – this video was posted only 5 days ago, and has already racked up 399889 international views with literally thousands of awe inspired viewers.

Take a look yourself, let us know what you think of the video, whether it’s the design, creativity, message, delivery or anything else – we’d love to know!

It’s not just the profit that has increased, there’s no smoke without fire, and with revenue up by 23% from last year, Q1 2010 has seen figures of $6.77bn (£4.39bn) which Google attributes to the improving economy encouraging big brands to spend on advertising again.

The UK accounts for 13% of Google’s overall business and generated revenue of £842m in Q1, up by 15% from Q1 2009.

The increase in growth has been explained by an increase in consumers clicking on Google’s sponsored adverts listed in the search results, namely increasing by 15% in Q1 2010 compared to Q1 2009. This combined with large advertisers returning to Adwords have been the central reasons for the company’s expansion.

According to Marketing Magazine, a fan page dedicated to the brand will be the hub of their social media activity, challenging users to take part in their ‘What’s the worst that could happen’ takeover, tasking fans to risk embarrassing themselves by putting their status in the hand of the brand.

The fan page will be the location of brand based content, news and competitions, including the status takeover. Fans will also be given the chance to receive free ringtones which could be classed as ‘good or embarrassing’ free with their 330ml and 500ml bottles, knitting together their offline and online marketing efforts.

The social media activity will also be supported through TV advertising, as Dr Pepper plan to rerun a couple of their most popular past advertising campaigns.

Cathryn Sleight, the marketing director at Coca Cola GB commented saying ‘The Dr Pepper, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ creative has a successful nine-year heritage for the brand, and continues to resonate strongly with our teen audience.

“In 2010, we’re looking to bring the message to life, giving consumers a personal experience in social environments and scenarios that are relevant to them, and appeal to their sense of humour.”

By introducing their tagline into social media, Dr Pepper are opening it up to interaction from fans, creating shareable content and viral potential – highly valuable within online marketing.

In January this year, Apple Inc. sold its two hundred and fifty millionth iPod – that’s 250,000,000 purchased since their introduction in 2001.

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, subsequently stated in his Keynote speech in San Francisco this year, “iPods have changed the way we discover, purchase and enjoy music”. With more iPods sold than any other personal music player, and with the iTunes store being the most commonly used music download centre for said devices, Jobs is right – albeit rather smug. “We started Apple in 1976,” he continued, “34 years later we just ended our holiday quarter, our first fiscal quarter of 2010, with $15.6 billion of revenue.” The global annual sales for its fiscal year ending September 26, 2009 was US $42.91 billion.

Co-founded by Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Cupertino, California, Apple has grown into a global brand with 35,000 employees. Originally acclaimed for its Macintosh computers, and later the iPod, Apple intoduced a third paradigm-shifting device when it released the iPhone in 2007. 21,000,000 iPhones have now been sold. Furthermore, there are approximately 150,000 applications currently availaible for the iPhone in the App Store, of which there have been three billion downloads.

“Apple is a mobile devices company,” reiterated Jobs. “That’s what we do.” Apple’s three basic revenue channels are iPods, iPhones and Macs. These can all be categorised as mobile devices, including the Macs as the majority sold are laptops. Although Nokia and RIM (the makers of Blackberry) have sold more handsets globally, Apple now makes more money per quarter than any other mobile devices manufacturer. “By revenue,” Jobs continued, “Apple is the largest mobile devices company in the world” – greater even than Sony or Samsung.

There is room for a fourth kind of mobile device however, Jobs pointed out; a machine that falls somewhere between laptop and smartphone but that would be better at email, web browsing and video streaming. It would need to be lighter and more portable than a laptop, yet have a more substantial screen than a smartphone. (The netbook, he claimed with disdain, is “not better at anything”.) Cue the grand unveiling of the iPad to excited whoops and cheers from a delighted audience. Rumours had long been circulating the net but Apple’s notorious secrecy combined with feverish customer loyalty meant that speculation was rife.

According to surveys conducted by J.D. Power, Apple has the highest brand and repurchase loyalty of any computer manufacturer. Fortune magazine named Apple the most admired company in the world in 2008, 2009 and 2010. A clue that new device designs were potentially in the pipeline may have been in Apple’s announcement in 2006 that it was expanding its 850,000 square feet campus headquarters in Silicon Valley to a second campus of fifty acres.

The iPad will be similar in functionality to the iPhone, running on the same OS (version 3.2), but with a larger 9.7-inch LED backlit screen with a pixel resolution of 1024×768, multi-touch functionality and longer lithium-polymer battery life. There will be two versions, one with Wi-Fi only and one with combined Wi-Fi and 3G. Each will come with a choice of three different memory storage capacities: 16, 32 or 64 gigabytes; weighing between 1.5 and 1.6lbs.

The iPad is hoped to reinvigorate the publishing business, with many publishers already rushing to create apps for their content. Apple’s iBookstore (similar to iTunes) will be the one-stop online shop for all books and magazines available to download directly to the iPad. Penguin, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Time Magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times will all disseminate content to the iPad via the iBookstore or in app form.

The publisher Hachette, for example, has announced plans for a digital version of David Baldacci’s novel Deliver Us From Evil, including audio, video, photographs, deleted passages and even a new ending – all will be touchscreen interactive. The Financial Times app will be a free download but will have the same subscription requirements as FT.com. The app will be sponsored at launch by Hublot, the watchmaker, subsidising a two-month free access period, thereby illustrating the considerable interest from advertisers that the iPad has already created.

The Wi-Fi only iPad will be released first in the US on April 3^rd at a cost of $499. The 3G version will follow later in the month. Both forms of iPad will become available in the UK simultaneously in late April. Steve Jobs said of the iPad: “This will be the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

Head of mobile at creative agency Ogilvy, Scott Seaborn commented saying that “Mobile apps are starting to infiltrate outdoor creative advertising… Orange’s SMS [customer loyalty] campaign, Orange Wednesdays, rarely featured in its above-the-line marketing until the launch of the Orange Wednesday’s iPhone app.”

Due to the success of the Orange Wednesday’s app, it was used as the focus of last month’s TV ad campaign. This is due to Orange, among other brands believing that mobile apps are key to engaging and retaining customers.

It’s not just the telephone network companies that are beginning to see the value of integrating their marketing efforts into marketing via mobile in order to retain customers. British Gas have recently begun to engage with their customers through an iPhone  app which allows users to calculate their gas bill. This has also been a centric focus in their outdoor advertising campaign too.

DirectGov have used their iPhone app on the Applestore to gain feedback about their approach to mobile which has helped to shape their overall marketing strategy.

What are your thoughts? We’d love to know – feel free to comment below.

This misdirection is harmful for Facebooks advertising product, resulting in a healthy new crackdown on their demographic data abusers.

This crackdown is mainly aimed at aggressive marketers who use the advertising service to target adverts with irrelevant messages to untargeted demographics. For example, the targeting of an advert with ’28 male, London’ as the ad text, but the product or service having no specific targeting would result in this advert being rejected.

Facebook will also be increasing the rejection of adverts which include an incentive to click through, but do not deliver on the promise for multiple pages, if at all.

However, if the product or service advertised does relate to the age and location of a specific demographic, the ads with this information will not be rejected. This crackdown will be powered by part digital and part human based intervention – meaning that there will be the efficiency of digital scanning and the judgement of human opinion.

This will hopefully greatly improve the quality and response that users have towards contextually based ads.

However, this addition to the 100 Million strong micro blogging site has received both positive and negative feedback from industry professionals. The ISBA Chair & Marketing manager at the Post Office, Alex Tait expressed concern that the addition of adverts could interfere with brands social media campaigns.

Due to the unregulated & conversational nature of Twitter, the integration of adverts and social media campaigns within the same social sphere has the potential to create

contradicting messages as well as the detrimental chance that adverts appear next to negative tweets.

In opposition to this, several online marketing experts have commented expressing the powerful potential that this new advertising system can be for brands. Ciaran Norris, the head of social media at Mindshare said that ‘Brands will definitely want to try this. Twitter has a decent audience and brands will want to test how they can connect to people.’

The advertising model will be made available to agencies first, then opened up to everyone with a self service platform, similar to Facebook adverts.

The website is to feature a strong social media integration, with Facebook hosting its marketing roots in order to grow the websites visibility, popularity and ultimate long term success.

Featuring brands such as Zavvi, Apple, Play.com and Nike Store – the scope of brands and discounts is broad, catering for all niches whilst staying focused on the student demographic, both new and current.

The site is to feature helpful uni guides written by students, for students, explaining some of the main issues and problems students face when at uni, and ways to overcome these – quality content directed appropriately to the people who need it.

The website will be using a mix of social media marketing and PPC advertising in order to get it off the ground – why not check it out, it’s our latest baby!

Because of all the work, the news posts here are far and few between at the moment, and that’s a real shame because there’s a lot I want to write about!

To name a few, Lost Season 6, my PPC work, Social Media, current news and stuff that’s developing in the industry and also a secret project that I’m working on, and really excited about!

Check back here soon as I’ll be launching my new site and will need some helping hands from people who have them!

Ciao for now!