Online Business Blog

“Good things come to those who wait.” A well known and excellently marketed slogan designed by Guinness has been chosen as Britain’s most popular and the one that is used most often in everyday life.

A recent survey taken by one of the largest UK advertising agencies has shown that nearly 50% of people frequently use the famous line from the Guinness TV adverts. The survey taken by 2,000 people decided that the Tesco’s advertising slogan “Every little helps” featuring celebrities like Terry Wogan and Jane Hurrocks was in second just slightly ahead of the simple “It does exactly what it says on the tin” by household products company Ronseal.

In fourth was the catchphrase used by fast food giants McDonalds “I’m Lovin’ It” and in fifth came Budweiser with their iconic “Wassssuuuuupppp?” commercial which was used by school kids everywhere.

A slight surprise to be as low as sixth is Nike’s famous line “Just Do It” with British Telecom coming seventh with their classic “It’s good to talk”

Tony the Tiger from Frosties comes in at eighth with “They’re grrrrreat’” followed by Orange the mobile phone company with “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange” Another alcoholic drink finishes off the top ten with “Probably the best in the world” from Carlsberg.

These results show that the advert doesn’t have to be beautiful or expensive (although Guinness do usually win awards for their adverts) to get peoples attention. The Tesco’s and Ronseal adverts are very to the point showing that an effective and catchy slogan can stick in people’s minds. As you’ll see below the slogans are short, memorable and creates an amount of trust .

The results also shown that 80% of UK residents use famous advertising slogans in everyday conversation. The most vital statistic however for direct response advertising agencies is that nearly 40% of people will be more likely to purchase a product if it has a decent slogan or advertising campaign.

So where does the recruitment industry find itself in the economic climate. Well experts are saying that companies should use job boards, websites and online recruitment companies to find new candidates. Managing Director of the IT job board, Alex Farrell thinks that online recruitment services should look to take advantage of the situations businesses are in.

Many companies will be looking to make savings and cut costs and recruitment will be one of the areas thought to be hit. Businesses are expected to use online services as they tend to be cheaper than traditional recruitment companies.

Mr Farrell also noted “Job boards are one of the most cost effective methods of recruiting, especially in comparison with the traditional media and recruitment agencies.”

But a lot of recruitment companies are said to be confident in the current market, but is this the case for 2009. Human capital consulting firm, Watson Wyatt has warned there maybe recruitment freezes in the New Year. Companies are expected to slow down recruitment and use restructuring within the business to help with the tough financial climates.

But one good thing is that according to a study of HR practitioners in the financial services industry, pay cuts or freezes are not to be expected. This is some slight good news considering unemployment figures have reached a 10 year high with numbers of people out of work expected to hit 2 million in January.

As well as company restructures, businesses taking part in the survey stated they will also try to cut costs with freezing hiring, restricting company travel, restructuring HR departments and reducing training courses.

No one knows exactly what will happen to recruitment for banking jobs and jobs in finance in the New Year. But hopefully things will have settled down this time next year.

Recent reports have found that a large percentage of marketing executives are most intrigued by internet marketing strategies when it comes to choosing a online advertising agency.

This is thanks to the latest study by business development consultancy Reardon Smith Whittaker (RSW) which states that nearly 70% of advertising professionals from some of the biggest firms world-wide, rated online marketing as the most interesting niche that they wanted to find out more about.

After internet marketing there was experiential campaigns, mobile advertising, buzz marketing, travel marketing and search engine marketing. Reardon Smith Whittaker also confirmed that the two most important criteria when deciding to work with a new online advertising agency was being able to understand their clients planned direction and creative thinkers.

Mark Schneider - Managing director for RSW explained what people are looking for, particularly in this current financial climate “Given the challenges clients are facing in light of the economy, they need agencies that can get up to speed quickly, add smart value-added thinking and are a trustworthy lot.” This doesn’t come as a massive surprise considering that online advertising has now risen to 20% of the advertising market in the UK.

Consumer relevancy:

A lot of data and information can be taken from viewing habits of people watching TV online. E.g. an advertising company can add specific adverts for specific viewers. Two neighbouring houses are watching a football match online, during the break the marketing advertising company can send adverts for the person supporting the blues and separate adverts for the person supporting the reds. Thus contacting the appropriate viewers and more likely to get a sale.

Accountability:

This new form of interactive advertisement means that customer interest and clicks can be finely measured. Companies now can tell what their most popular product is and what isn’t. Meaning that the famous quote “I know that half my advertising doesn’t work. The problem is, I don’t know which half.” can eventually be retired.

Advertisement Capping

This clever idea is saving alot of money for alot of companies. If an advert has been shown to a particular user over four times and there has been no click through or a poor return the advert is then sent to a different group, targeting a different demographic. This form of capping is particularly popular with recruitment advertising agencies

Filtering Different Markets:

Alcohol adverts avoid certain times and programmes for the obvious reason of marketing for people under the age of 18 and wasting budgets. User data can be implemented to block adverts for people outside of the adverts market and replaced with more relevant messages.

Pricing:

More and more companies, particularly those on a tight budget are able to advertise on online TV instead of through more traditional TV advertising. Thanks to the superb target market filtering system adverts for Ferrari or Omega are available to millionaires in their yachts on the coast of Monaco. This specialised advertising looks to be the future and long may it continue.

Taking up a franchise opportunity is an extremely big decision, so there are several factors you need to take into account so that you don’t end up losing money and wasting your time.

The first step is to make sure you are looking at a proven franchise business that will offer you a high chance of success. There will be plenty of bad franchises out there trying to lure you in with good deals, but no real potential. Franchises require you to pay a fee to buy into the company and usually a percentage of your sales. But for this money you will get an effective business strategy you can follow and make a success from and secondly you get brand value from advertising the company will already carry out.

Plenty of research should be taken with potential franchisors; find out if there is training available and whether it costs and the quality of it, what support they will provide to you, whether you will need to perform marketing yourself or will they cover that. How much control you have over the business in regards to company policies will differ with each franchise, some businesses will be very protective of their brand and will give you no creative control on how thing are run.

As well as research into the franchisor and their company, you should conduct local business research. See if the proposed franchise will work in your area. There are plenty of local organisations and council departments you can contact to find out how many similar businesses are in the area and how they are performing. These organisations can provide information on how well they area is doing economically as a whole so you can judge whether it is a good market to enter.

Don’t just take the franchisors word for it, go and visit other franchisees for advice and how they feel about the franchise opportunity that you are looking at.

Getting legal advice from someone who has experience with buying franchises is advisable as they can tell you what legal areas you should be covering before making any decisions.

But this advice we have covered in this blog post is just the start of things, so make sure you cover all aspects as at the end of the day, this is your money you are investing.