LV= Launch New Recruitment Advertising Campaign

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Gerard

The investment, pensions and insurance group, LV=, have launched a clever new recruitment advertising campaign to spearhead a new recruitment drive. The campaign uses a mixture of groundbreaking technology and LV= very own staff.

LV= will be utilising a whole range of media to target new recruits including, online, press and outdoor advertising and social media sites such as Facebook. The advertising material will use real life LV= employees telling their own stories of what it’s like to work for the country.

Those interested in working for LV= are asked to take a picture of the poster and either email or text it to LV=, LV= will then use some fancy technology to identify which employee is featured on the poster and that employee will then call the interested potential recruit. This allows anyone interested in applying for a position to find out a little bit more about the company. This recruitment campaign is not only benefiting LV= though as 10p from every text goes to the Great Ormond Street hospital.

The recruitment drive will be launched at 150 sites across cities such as Exeter, Croydon, Bristol and Bournemouth. LV= are looking at recruitment at many of there 28 offices across the country with positions with in their insurance departments being a particular focus.

If successful LV= could start a trend for innovative recruitment advertising which looks to utilise its own work force and cutting edge technology in a big to attract the best candidates.

Footballers and Advertising

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Geoffrey

As the world cup kicks off, England had their first game on Saturday night and in true form managed to have the nation in states of tension, frustration and at times embarrassment. Robert Green, England’s chosen goal keeper, managed to let a goal in that even I could have saved and in the wake of his embarrassment, UK Advertising Agencies have told him that he should have a fairly good career in advertising, presumably being the butt of his own joke.

So, who else has managed to make a career in advertising?

Gareth Southgate, Chris Waddle and Stuart Pearce who all famously missed penalties in crucial matches gained roles in the Pizza Hut advertising campaign. Southgate was seen with a bag over his head in the restaurant whilst trying to eat a pizza, trying to hide his identity from fellow diners.

Gary Lineker was a household name for his football abilities and clean record on the pitch and become the face of Walkers crisps in ironic roles as Mr. Bad Guy, stealing crisps off unsuspecting crisp eaters in a series of very successful adverts.
Eric Cantona retired early from an extremely successful football career playing for Manchester United and his country, to become an actor. Along the way he starred in a fair amount of adverts, the most famous being his Nike commercials which featured a whole host of world class players in a dungeon playing football, he was the dungeon master hosting the tournament.

It will be interesting to see which players sign up to a UK Advertising Agent and start to appear in adverts as a result of their success or demise in the World Cup.

Advertising and the Election

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Geoffrey

2010 Election

It would have been a bitter pill to swallow, in the wake of our turbulent economic crisis, to find the powers that be had spent millions on advertising fees to promote their party in the quest to govern this country. Thankfully the leaders, especially Brown had the sense not to.

For the three UK Advertising Agencies appointed to peddle each party, a baptism of fire ensued. It is often a few weeks, sometimes months, for the strategic briefing of an ad campaign to turn into the creative execution. For this election it was required within a matter of hours, overnight sometimes, to rewrite messages and tweak ads already lined up to run. The modern digital world moves at such a pace that it is possible (and sometimes vital) to reconfigure entire strategies overnight, reacting to the media frenzy and party oppositions day by day.

The recent election has been hailed as the Social Media Election. With tiny budgets, the evolution of social media has played a huge role. Allowing each party to work hard building relationships with the voters via social media opportunities along with email marketing to amplify their party policies and keep in touch with the voter.

Opinions are split on how much more effective social media has been for each party opposed to the traditional poster sites and press ads of yester year. One strong argument is that it is the real people within these realms that have had the most influence, rather than the parties themselves. From high brow intellects to youthful pop stars; it will be difficult to quantify how much impact their tweets and profiles have had in swaying the public with their unrestricted and transparent opinions posted on sites like Facebook and Twitter.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the run up to the next election and monitor how each UK Advertising Agent will strategise the campaign; will the emphasis be on Modern Social Media or Traditional Press Media?

The Effects of Social Media

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Geoffrey

As the internet evolves so do the opportunities of advertising and marketing avenues for UK Advertising Agencies. Whilst we once engaged in placement ads on social media sites with gusto we now see that people want to see what others are into, and like, and can offer, than just clicking on the adverts that sit next to these people’s profiles. That’s not to say paid placements are pointless. As we watch social media grow and mature we see more sophisticated methods of advertising coming through with developers designing much more reactive and measurable information in the form of capturing profile data, profile targeting and auction systems that meet the advertisers ability to engage and also to measure the results.

Away from the paid placements there are of course the social media usage itself that for the likes of almost every company has benefits: from increasing brand awareness to direct response call to actions. Marketers are awakening to the realisation people don’t want to be shouted at or have adverts thrust in their faces. More so, businesses see the effective benefits of offering relevant, informative and valued insights to facilitate building a relationship with consumers. By engaging in more social communicative ways and offering entertainment and benefits to their valued target audience, the target audience in turn, respond in a more effective way. Following companies tweets, becoming a fan of their Facebook page and signing up to their news alerts has become a way of life for consumers to keep in touch and stay informed with all the latest that company may offer.

They say in this industry it is far more cost effective for a UK Advertising Agent and indeed a business, to retain and market to their existing client base than reaching out to new, and in this social media world we live in, surely that is truer and easier today than when this statement was first penned.

The benefits of installing anti virus software

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Geoffrey

We all know just how much we rely on our trusted PC, laptop or notebook for internet access and daily usage. The whole family benefits from the World Wide Web, from parents researching and booking their family holiday to kids using its vast resources to help them with their homework and studies, even grandparents are getting involved because of course, it is a great way to keep in touch with distant members of the family.

With the amount of use the internet gets and the vast amount of surfing that takes place from site to site and page to page with it brings a great threat to your PC. From fast spreading viruses, trojans, spyware and other forms of malware your PC, without protection, is vulnerable to catching all manner of infections which could crash your computer and loose valuable work, photos and downloads that are saved indefinitely.

Fortunately there is plenty of free download antivirus software available online which can enable you to surf safely and will protect your computer and information. Preventing viruses, rootkits, spyware, hackers, online fraud and identity theft along with the lesser known but very real internet threats, it’s certainly something that you should be looking at to provide you and your whole family peace of mind for 24 hour protection.

Another acquisition bites the dust

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Geoffrey

The latest to fail in the world of online mergers and acquisitions is the social networking site Bebo. It was once the most popular website for teenagers, but now it faces a complete closure by the end of this year. Bebo’s demise has been put largely down to the failure of AOL’s willingness or ability to fund the site which has now made it impossible to compete with the likes of other social networking giants Facebook and MySpace.

Recent figures show that Bebo’s global unique visitors in February totalled 12.8 million against Facebook’s whopping 462 million. MySpace totalled 110 million and Twitter 69.5 million. Bebo’s stats were 45% down on last February.

The result of the acquisition by AOL led to insufficient investment and when compared to Facebook, who at any given time have 2, 000 engineers working on the site to keep it running effectively, Bebo had just 40; it is not difficult to see one of its downfalls.

In its heyday, Bebo attracted a host of direct response advertising companies all keen to participate in features like the well publicised web video dramas like KateModern. This was a strategy that worked well and also saw the site attract media focus and ultimately led to a more attractive sale. However, since the acquisition it has lost the vital investment and impetus to keep up with the big boys and this, coupled with a gradual reluctance of top UK Advertising Agencies to continue to commit to any length of advertising campaigns, has led to their ultimate demise.

Possible Interview Questions

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Dave

You have poured through the recruitment adverts and have finally found a suitable job, now you have to face the tricky task of getting through the interview. Job interviews can be a potential stumbling block for anyone so it’s always a good idea to practice your interview technique, not only will it help you prepare it will also give you a well timed confidence boost.

Here are some potential interview questions to help you practice.

What do you consider your greatest weakness?
What do you consider your greatest strength?
Describe your typical work week.
Do you take work home with you?
How many hours a week do you normally work?
How would you describe the pace at which you normally work?
How do you deal with stress and pressure?
What is your motivation?
What are your salary expectations?
What decisions do you find are the most difficult to make?
Tell us about yourself.
What has been the greatest disappointment in your life?
What are you passions in life?
What annoys you most?
What do most people criticize you for?
When was the last time you were angry? And what caused it?
If you could relive your life, what would you do differently?
If your friends and family were asked why you should be hired, what would they say?
Do you prefer to work on a team or independently?
Give some examples of teamwork you have been involved in.
What sort of work environment do you prefer?
How do you evaluate success and failure?
If your boss is 100% wrong about something how would deal with it?
Describe a difficult situation or project at work and how you overcame it.
Describe a time when your workload was heavy and how you managed it.

A New Way to Search for a Job

Posted on March 15, 2010 by Geoffrey

It used to be the case that when people were looking for a job there were a few places they would go. The first would be the newspapers, either local or national, depending on the type of work they were looking for. If they were looking for specialised work, then trade magazines might be included here, alerting them to specific opportunities within their industry. Job boards were also popular, as they gave people a good idea of what work was available within their immediate area, and could present opportunities that may not have been advertised in the newspapers.

However, since the rise of the internet, people have a huge number of extra resources to check. Not only have most newspapers made their job listings available through their website, but you can now go online and find a directory or even a search engine for job offers. Even the UK government have spread to the internet, making their jobseeker resources available online.

Applying for the jobs themselves is much faster nowadays as well. Emails are used in place of letters a lot of the time, and companies can display vacancies directly on their websites rather than having to wait for a weekly newspaper to go out. Application forms can be integrated into websites as well, allowing people to submit their CV directly, saving time for everybody involved.

ITV in the black (for now)

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Geoffrey

2008 was, in no uncertain terms, a flop for ITV, a £2.7 billion flop to be precise; this was the figure of the actual loss ITV made in 2008. 2009 saw profits, £25 million pre tax profits and the start of this year has shown advertising revenues, thanks to UK advertising agencies, grow by 7%, with predictions that this will rise to 15/20% in April. There is a new prosperity within ITV and with thanks to hit show like the X Factor and Dancing on Ice, being in the black for the first time in a while is reassuring. However, hopes are reserved, with many fearing there is along way to go to keep ITV afloat. The network has been criticised for not successfully riding the boom in internet services like their competitors BBC iPlayer and YouTube and because of recent woes the network scrapped its dividends last year. Debts still stand at £612 million.

ITV is still a major force in the UK commercial television industry but viewing audiences have been falling for years and the competition of digital and cable TV have added to the pressure. In a bid to adapt to multi channel television with freeview ITV launched their free to air digital channels ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and ITVplay. ITV admits that it is no longer in such a dominant position because of the big growth in digital rivals which is led by Sky and realizes that ITV would have to become a very different business over the next five years. With increased internet viewings and free to air TV being threatened by digital media, ITV has a big challenge ahead of them.

Best Ads of the Decade

Posted on February 16, 2010 by Gerard

In the 21st century adverts are everywhere we turn and we can’t help but notice and be influenced by them. All manner of products and services advertise and compete for our attention, be they government services, recruitment adverts, the latest game or a tin of salmon. With so much competition advertisers are having to be more and more creative to stand out from the crowd.

Here are some of the ads that managed to stand head and shoulders above the competition

John West Salmon: Bear Fight

John Smith’s: Peter Kay ads

Sony Bravia: Bouncy Balls

Guinness: noitulovE

Compare the market: Compare the meerkat

Honda: Cog

Honda: The Impossible Dream

Online Business Blog

Business News & Information