Whatever...

Even Germans get annoyed by the World Cup

By Ingrid Daschner

Does the World Cup annoy me? Yes, I’m afraid it does. Of course it's understandable that the best minds in marketing will jump on any major, headline-grabbing event with parasitic abandon, however, when it comes to the World Cup, the whole undertaking is approached in such an artificial manner, it just really annoys me.

Every other marketing- or PR-related email now seems to try to contrive a link to football.  Now, I don't want to tread on the toes of anyone's virtual football boots here, so I won't be naming any actual examples, but there are plenty of obvious candidates.

What on earth can we expect next? How about a security solution with the default password "Schweinsteiger" (that’s "Pig-Mounter" to the English)? Maybe a discount on 3D glasses if you can prove you’re eligible to play for the English football team?  Predict the Algerian team's total number of corners and get ten percent off the price of a blue-ray burner? Or how about freeware speech synthesis tools capable of pronouncing the North Korean national line-up – all in an authentic regional accent?

Painfully forced.  Or "dragged in by the hair", as we would say in Germany.  And, as we all know from our pre-school days: it hurts to have your hair pulled. Indeed, this World Cup marketing ballyhoo causes me far more pain than any fluffed penalty.

Still, the thought of July 11th still gives me hope.  Bearing in mind the words of the great Paul Gascoigne ("I never make predictions, and I never will"), I hereby predict that this circus will end on that date.  (Which will also put an end to those pesky vuvuzelas and the eyesore of German flags stuck into every clapped-out old banger on our national roads.)

It may, of course, end earlier. Much, much earlier.

How to get ahead in... social media?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past 18 months, you’ll have been hearing more and more about how social/digital media can be put to use by businesses.  Interestingly, the folks over at Social Media Influence have taken a look at the social media job market – the very existence of such a thing seeming to indicate that companies are readily deploying discrete social media projects.

Here are the top findings:

•    The social media “laggard” sectors include: financial services & insurance; petroleum & energy and utilities.

•    The social media “active” sectors include: healthcare, telecommunications, retail and automotive.

•    The number of social media job postings has increased by more than 600 percent to over 21,000 in the past five years.

•    On average, social media salaries come in $5,000-10,000 lower than their traditional counterparts.

•    Social media salaries are on the rise and could close the gap within the next year.

Although unsurprisingly still finding its feet, the social media market is here to say.  This time last year it would be a novelty to find a firm using Twitter – now firms are notable by their absence.

The full report can be downloaded here – registration required.

 

Increased traffic to ruin viewing of England game?

By Jacqui Depares

With the World Cup in full swing, it seems only fitting to dedicate a few words to it on this blog.

Now, I confess, during a normal football season, you are hardly likely to find me glued to the TV screen watching a match.  The World Cup, however, is a completely different matter.  The other teams I can take or leave... but when England is on, I am there... (if of course sitting on an armchair in Balham counts as being ‘there’).

Now that was all well and good for the match last Saturday and dare I say it, the match tomorrow. But come Wednesday 23^rd, what will the supporters confined to the average working day do to watch the match at the rather inconvenient time of 3pm?

Well, some of us, like my Account Director Claire, have booked a strategic half day off.  Now that's dedication. For the less die-hard supporters out there, we're all going to be relying on the BBC website to do its bit and stream coverage live from South Africa in pristine quality. So, no missed goals, no unfortunately timed Toyota adverts, just the beautiful game streamed down to our humble PCs.  Should be simple enough, right?

Well, think again. According to internet service provider, Star, we’re going to see a 50% surge in internet traffic on Wednesday 23^rd June, so brace yourselves for some serious buffering people.  Blue Coat has also issued a similar warning, coupled with some depressing survey findings.  Apparently, 54% of IT managers believe that employees should be banned from watching games over fears of network congestion.  All I can say is, and I think I speak for all our office when I say this, thank goodness Mike King is not one of these people. 

So, I guess the proof will be in the pudding (or something a little more football related). Meat, pie, sausage rolls and all that, come on BBC.co.uk, please let us see a goal!

Choosing the best World Cup planner

By Ben Roberts

The World Cup is finally here and all of us wish we were in South Africa to support our team.  Sadly, this isn't going to happen.

But we can keep on top of all the goings on, and we think that Marca – the Spanish daily sports paper – wins the prize for making the best World Cup planner, with this clever page.

PS In the office sweepstake I got Slovenia and France... not bitter at all.

 

Will it just work?

Interesting video from OEM InvenSense looking at MEMS gyroscope technology, as is featured in the upcoming iPhone4.

Although the technology enables cool functions, there’s the potential for it to be pretty annoying if it doesn’t work properly, is glitchy or can’t be disabled.  Will we begin to hear even more about testing and quality issues as a result of these developments?

“Les apéros Facebook”, a French cultural exception?

By Alexandra Radius

In France, a new debate is raging among local authorities on whether to allow “les apéros Facebook”. The concept is simple: flash mobs for drinking.

These events are becoming more and more successful, with real competition brewing between cities. The Paris ‘apéritif’, for example, was given “the record for the biggest apéritif in France" and now the growing popularity of the phenomenon has the authorities worried. Last month the death of a young person unleashed a lot of hostility against these gatherings. The Minister of the Interior, Brice Hortefeux decided that to authorise these giant “apéritifs” a number of conditions (size and nature of the event, exact location etc) would have to be met. Easy in theory, but difficult to implement.

I’m wondering why there is so much fear - as the concept is not new. Large numbers of people have always gathered together in France to eat, drink and be merry on New Year’s, Bastille Day, and for “La Fête de la Musique”  and these events have never been cancelled, even when there have been incidents. Although the Internet changes the way people come together, and pushes up the number of participants - the problem is not Facebook, but the increasingly excessive alcohol consumption among young people. The solution is perhaps to concentrate on advertising against binge drinking, rather than pointing the finger at Facebook and other social networking sites. But then burying our heads in the sand is a French speciality.