Baxters to Enter the World of Social Media

As part of their £5M marketing campaign Baxters are set to enter the world of Social Media...


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Workbrands’s Campaign for Property Firm Andrews

Workbrand a Bristol based agency has been appointed by Andrews, a property company to promote their services...


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PSD’s Manchester Move

Parker Sandford Digital (PSD) has opened a new office branch at The Greenhouse, MediaCityUK based in the Salford Quays, Manchester.


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Arsenal to Increase their Digital Marketing to Raise their International Fanbase

Arsenal is set to up their digital marketing campaign through digital activity by introducing social gaming and other media initiatives in order to compete with other world known Premier UK football clubs such as Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool... Click here to read more!

Levi's and VisitBritain pull advertisements in wake of riots

Levi's and VisitBritain have suspended their marketing campaigns due to the continuing riots in London, Birmingham, Manchester, and other areas.

The 'Go Forth' campaign was launched by jeans brand Levi's in July to express the brand's "youthful optimism and energy", and was due to air throughout August in a global advertising campaign. However, the TV and cinema ads feature scenes that resemble riots, and have since been pulled in the UK.

Global chief marketing officer, Rebecca Van Dyck spoke to AdAge: "Rebecca Van Dyck, global chief marketing officer of Levi’s told AdAge in the US: “We’re in touch with all corners of the world and want to be sensitive about what’s going on in the U.K. and, specifically, London."

“While ’Go Forth’ is about embodying the energy and events of our time, it is not about any specific movement or political theme; rather, it’s about pioneering spirit.”

You can view the video below:



VisitBritain have postponed their overseas campaign which features a number of British celebrities 'inviting' viewers to visit the UK. The pre-roll video aired on BBC.com prior to BBC World News.

Joss Croft, head of marketing at VisitBritain, stated it was not appropriate to run the campaign ahead of the news on BBC.com at this time, but was reviewing the situation "hour by hour".

“We need to recognise that people’s perceptions of Britain are formed over many decades, if not centuries, and these incidents are not likely to have a long-lasting effect. We think this will all blow over quite quickly.”

You can watch the advertisement here:

Can Google+ build on it's 25 million first-month visitors?

Google+ managed to attract over 25 million visitors since it opened its digital doors on 24th June, according to research from Comscore. Thtis is much quicker than the early growth of Facebook, but Andrew Lipsman, ComScore's vice president for industry analysis, told the LA Times that speedy uptake does not necessarily mean stable and sustained growth. He said that Facebook's growth was much more steady and stable than that projected for Google+.

Here at BD, we've been checking Google+ out and although the 'Circles' functionality certainly improves on the Facebook privacy settings, it seems that this is the only major improvement over Facebook. Otherwise the layout is strikingly similar, aside from slight cosmetic changes, such as being able to use italics in status updates. We've also noticed that they may be a severe flaw in Google+ in terms of spamming. It is currently possible to import up to approx 5,000 email addresses, click "select all", drag them into a circle and start spam messaging. This is similar to how spamming works on Twitter, but in this case the spammer can have thousands of contacts from the get-go. You cannot do this currently on Facebook, and Google may have some sort of impenetrable spam filter in the offing, but it doesn't seem to be operating now.

Binghoo! Now Provides Major Challenge to Google

 Bing-powered Yahoo searches, or 'Binghoo!' if you're that way inclined, are creeping up on Google and may pose the first serious threat to their search monopoly in many a year, according to some new research by the Rosetta agency. The research measures the percentage contribution of organic clicks and splits the results into vertical markets such as financial services, retail, B2B and healthcare. Whilst the study showed that Google is still dominant in many respects, generating up to 75% of clicks in some markets, there were surprising results in some areas. Google's dominance was as low as 54% in the financial services vertical market, and came in as 60% for retail. Binghoo! clicks were as high as 37% in retail, and TechCrunch have reported that Bing's year-on-year market growth is an impressive 41%, whilst Google's growth is at 6.4%. 

Rosetta also created a 'search success' variable, which measured the number of searches that led to a click on website, and Binghoo! won out again, with a conversion rate of 81% compared to Google's 66%. Adam, our London SEO specialist, thinks that learning Bing/Yahoo SEO techniques could put you at an advantage in the job market: "Although there's no sign of Google's dominance ending, the amount of money that is being pured into Binghoo! search means its imperative to understand the subtle differences between Google and Bing in terms of SEO, if you want to compete for the top SEO jobs." Adam is currently recruiting for an SEO manager and SEO specialist at two of the top digital agencies in London. The job details can be found here and here.

Google+ adds further layer to Google's SEO monopoly

There has been much fanfare about Google+, mostly revolving aroung how it has trumped Facebook and Twitter is a series of ways, but many in the SEO world have known all along that one of the major reason why Google have invested so much into their social networking layer is because of the advantage it gives them in terms of social rankings.

As BD blogged earlier this month, Google+ has an advantage over Facebook in terms of both privacy and video conferencing, and it is primarily its better handling of privacy that is a key factor in the SEO advantage. The 'circles' strategy, where users can split their friends into different circles, which each have differential levels of access, may mean that users are more forthcoming about what content and websites are being shared socially.  The Econsultancy blog have pointed out that this could be a great addition to Google's search algorithm. They have noted that what some call the 'linkerati' - those who own their own websites and blogs, and have the ability to make multiple links to sites - have been the main early adopters of Google+, giving a boon to Google's new '+1' API, which has been designed to compete with the Facebook 'like' and the Twitter 'follow'. This concentration of webmasters and bloggers may see Google generate data on social trends faster than its competitors.

Meanwhile, Reuters have reported that Google+ is beginning to face it's first challenges, as some loopholes in user creation are beginning to be discovered, leading to an acceleration of 'spam' accounts and spam links. Google have been insisting on people using their real names, using the bizarre analogy of people wearing shirts in a restaurant (!). The way Google handles these teething problems will determine how successful it's social networking layer will be, with many groups such as the LGBT community slamming Google for not letting people hide behind pseudonyms for self-protection.

The Booming Promotional Marketing Industry: Going Digital?

The growth of voucher schemes such as Tesco's Clubcard and Sainsburys Nector Card have led to promotional marketing occupying a key position in retail, and not just amongst budget shoppers. The coupons and vouchers industry is worth around £36 billion and is growing fast, according to the Institute of Promotional Marketing. In particular, the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector, dominated by the supermarkets, is experiencing a boom. According to a recent survey by Valassis, 61% of people regularly use coupons, up from 51% in June 2010. Furthermore, 37% of consumers are actively looking for promotional deals, up from 28% the previous year. Although coupons and vouchers have traditionally been perceived as the reserve of the lower social groups, the research indicates that shoppers from the top two social groups use them just as much as others, with 61% of consumers reporting use.

BD Recruitment are currently offering a digital accounts director role at the top end of the promotional marketing industry, specialising mainly in the FMCG sector, with a salary up to £60k + benefits. Research earlier this month indicated that consumers are increasingly looking for online offers, vouchers and coupons, and are particularly keen to see their 'liked' and 'followed' brands offer them deals through Facebook and Twitter. This tendency can be seen through top-line digital reshuffles in the major supermarkets. Tesco recently poached direct marketing agency EHS 4D chief executive Matt Atkinson in order to bolster its social media and digital operations worldwide, whilst Sainsburys poached Ocado's head of retail John Rudoe to ramp up its digital and multi channel business.

News of the World Provokes Massive Brand Hostility

 The brand backlash against The News of the World is fully underway and is snowballing by the minute, according to Marketing Week. As the phone-hacking revelations went up a gear this week, to encompass not only celebrities but also the  mobile phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, families of murdered schoolgirls Hollie Wells and Jessica Chapman, and families of the victims of the London Bombings on 7th July 2007, the NOTW span into crisis as the brands it relies on for advertising revenue began to pull out on mass.

Marketing Week, one of the leading UK online magazines for news on advertising and marketing, is keeping track of the brands that have pulled advertising from the paper, those who are currently reviewing their position, and those that are monitoring the situation. It seems that very few brands have actually gone on record to say that they have no plans to change their relationship with NOTW. Currently, the brands that have completely pulled their advertising spend from the paper are: Halifax, Renault, Ford and Mumsnet. Procter & Gamble, William Hill and NPower are currently reviewing the situation and are poised to withdraw, whilst some, such as Tesco, Easyjet, Virgin and Vodafone are waiting for the outcome of the investigation. The Daily Mail have also reported a huge Twitter backlash from comsumers, with thousands urging people to boycott the publication.

Are you a multilingual marketer? Consider a job in online travel

With increasing numbers of people searching for and buying airline tickets, train tickets, hotel rooms and holidays online,it is perhaps no surprise that the major players in the market are currently looking expand and reposition themselves, in order to ensure a larger slice of the pie. Last week, global online travel brand Expedia looked to reposition itself as a 'trusted travel partner' through a global advertising campaign, in an attempt to move away from the 'online discount' brand strategy followed by the bulk of its competitors. Expedia are pulling no punches with their £40m 'People Shaped Travel' campaign, overseen by advertising heavyweights Ogilvy and Mather, and are emphasising the 'human face' of the brand in a new series of TV adverts featuring Expedia employees showing their passion for travel. 

The move is thought to be a response to lastminute.com's decision to embark on brand realignment earlier this year, when they moved to a concept of telling 'unforgettable stories' in their first pan-European advertising campaign, which was also designed to distinguish them from the crowded discount market. Expedia also recently lost it's prestigious Eurostar contract to Orbitz, but due to the booming European travel market, it's stock price rose to to a more than healthy $30.60. Closer to home, UK website thetrainline.com has moved into the thriving European market, cutting a deal with Rail Europe to sell Interrailing tickets from its website, which now offers travel to 29 European Countries. 

These major moves in online travel have cleared the way for multi-lingual marketers says Chris Crawford, head of BD Recruitment: "...more and more we are being asked to find multilingual marketers, with companies looking for a more global feel, so people who have SEO and PPC skills but have worked in European markets and can apply content and search strategies in (usually) Spanish, Dutch and German." Although this has lead to an influx of European job seekers coming to London to fill this need, pricing many of their British counterparts out of the market, the market is going from strength to strength and it may be wise to develop your digital marketing career in this direction if you have language skills, as competition at the top digital agencies becomes more intense.

Destroying Your Business with a Single Tweet: How Social Networking can be a liability

It seems there isn’t a day that goes by without an actor, professional footballer or politician apologizing for a misplaced rant on Twitter - just ask Russell Crowe, Wayne Rooney or Anthony Weiner. Recent events have shown that these pitfalls are not confined to celebrities – poor usage of social networking can also ruin your business. 

Redner Group, a PR agency based in California, managed to lose its largest contract last week, with video games publisher 2k, after tweeting that those who had given bad reviews to the game ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ would not be receiving review copies of games in the future. The tweet read: “too many went too far with their reviews. We r [sic] reviewing who gets games next time and who doesn’t based on today’s venom.” It was sent by the founder of the Agency, John Redner, who later returned to Twitter to apologize. It turned out he was too late to stop his company losing the contract.

Earlier this year, car company Chrysler fired New Media Strategies after one of their employees, who was being paid to tweet on Chrysler’s behalf, used the f-word in a tweet from Chrysler’s account, thinking they were signed in to their personal account.

Chris Crawford, MD of BD Recruitment, thinks that the increasing importance of online reputation management could see more jobs being created for specialised social media analysts and reputation managers in coming years: “One person’s slip up could see multiple people losing their jobs and business’s going under. The appointment of social media reputation managers could become commonplace in organisations, as the glare of Twitter and Facebook increases.” BD Recruitment specialises in digital marketing recruitment, including social media jobs. Click here for our latest jobs.

Google unveils Voice Search, Image Search and Instant Pages, but what impact with this have on your SEO strategy?

Google revealed a new bundle of search features last week, which prompts the question: will the emergence of new forms of search change how results are generated? In an attempt to make complex requirements like …ahem… typing a thing of the past, Google has now made it possible to drag and drop images into Google search and to enact search using voice recognition.  There are clear knock-on effects for recruiters and job seekers in the world of SEO, SEM and PPC here - with search becoming increasingly non-textual, companies have to prioritise the development of novel ways to optimise audio and visual content, and to understand the different types of behaviours used when searching via images and speech.

Google also claims it has shaved half a second off page loading times through its new Instant Pages feature, which pre-renders pages it thinks you will click on.  Improvements in speed and efficiency are the selling points here, but the real motive is to make us search more, with one Google exec saying: “We have found even shaving 50 milliseconds from search process, users search more and more.” 

Attempts to ramp up the number of searches are reflected in improvements to Google’s mobile search app, which works to localise search results so users can find destinations more quickly, in view of the popularity of location finder apps such as FourSquare.

 Adam, our SEO recruitment specialist, thinks this underlines the need for companies to be more responsive to changes in the SEO landscape than ever before, and for candidates to sharpen up their mobile, audio and visual SEO skills to compete in an already crowded market: “Businesses who react to new forms of search the quickest, and recruit with this in mind, will reap the benefits, and if you’re an individual looking to move up the SEO ladder, a knowledge of mobile apps will put you at a distinct advantage.” BD Recruitment have exciting opportunities inside the UK’s top five digital agencies. For our latest jobs, check out our Twitter and website.