Blog

By Antti Öhrling

Yesterday, I had the pleasure to speak at the Marketing Society Annual Conference “Winning in the Downturn”. The organisers assembled a very interesting group of people for the day… and the topic? What could be more on the pulse. And yet, still, we all hate downturns, or do we? Is there an opportunity, when the scared ones stop spending in their brands, for newer and braver ones to gain market share and build long-term brand equity?

Although in the current world where everything is driven by quarterly results, most of the decision makers that make these big cuts in their marketing spend today, don’t have to see the havoc they caused in the years to come. They take the short-term gains and future CEOs will pay the price.

Blyk really fits the market today. I shared the story of Blyk starting from the business idea – uniting young people and brands with free communication. With our 200,000 members, member-get-member (being the fastest growing channel), high Net Advocacy level (on par with Facebook and MySpace), 25 percent unparalleled response level in the more than 2,000 campaigns we’ve run and nearly 200 brand on board already – it’s all working, and working really, really well. And the audience seemed to agree. If you can get a 25 percent response and spend 50 pence per response (much lower than any other digital or direct media), why wouldn’t you agree? It’s all about the 100 percent opt-in audience and engagement. Advertising is good, when it is relevant.

Key highlights from the day include:

David Taylor from Brandgym opened the session by addressing the audience with 5 tips to survive in the current economic situation: 1) Brand everything 2) Stand out 3) Kill the small line extensions 4) Cut the costs, not corners 5) Never mind the “emotional” advertising.

Les Binet and Peter Field gave 10 tips (we’re improving) on the same issue:
Don’t panic
Cut the right costs (not marketing)
Cutting Share of voice cuts your future
Cutting SOV causes long term damage
Cutting SOV outs your brand at risk
A recession is a marketing opportunity
Promotions are not the solution
Emotions are the key, even when times are tough
Aim for the fame
Harness the power of multi-channel media approach.

Gayle Troberman from Microsoft shared her experience from the “I’m a PC” campaign. Ordinary people are interesting… also for other people. That was their learning. You must ask, listen and continuously adapt in your campaign whilst you are running it. And create a lot of digital assets.

Will Whitehorn from Virgin Galactic was sharing the exciting prospect of space tourism and the revolutionary opportunities associated with it. They have built a solid business case around an innovative idea.

Nick Vermont shared some lessons learned from McCain Foods over the recent years, namely how to recover from a “health scare” driven by tabloids. They have done a brilliant job by becoming open, approachable and doing the good thing.

Sir Keith Mills talked about how an integrated media solution is the most efficient one – a very important point. The era of TV as a mass medium is over. You have to be clever by combining media to achieve the best results. And you need the ability to pick yourself up when the times are tough, the same way the best athletes can do.

Levi Roots took us through his extraordinary story of Reggae Reggae sauce – the big success of the year – and his passion to bring Jamaican food to a wider audience. And he sung and the Reggae Reggae song which really delighted the audience.

Sir Matthew Pinsent was talking about winning margins and shared his story when preparing for the Athens Olympics – a true thriller! No wonder he has become one of the UK’s most successful and highest profile athletes of all time.

Simon Clift from Unilever gave interesting viewpoints of building real brands for real people. He claims that environmental sustainability will be the centre of consumer behaviour. He made us think about all the millions of kids dying from diarrhea every year due to poor hygiene which put the current recession in the right perspective.

Jill McDonald from McDonald’s shared with us how they have made a complete brand turnaround which was a good description on how to improve your position during hard market conditions.

Tony Juniper / Kelvin MacKenzie / Jo Kenrick had an interesting discussion about various aspects of morality and brands. In hard economic times, will consumers go ‘more green’ or will they just go ‘more mean’? A nice juxtaposition from viewpoints resulted a vivid and interesting discussion.

Big thanks to chair Andrew McGuinness, host Krishnan Guru-Murthy and entire Marketing Society for the interesting day!

New media partnering approach with operators is the core of expansion strategy

Helsinki, Finland and London, UK, 18 November 2008 - Blyk, the free mobile network for young people funded by advertising today announced an additional €40 million investment to support its ongoing operations and international expansion.

“The advertising industry and operators have expressed a strong interest in bringing Blyk into new countries and €40 million in additional funding demonstrates the commitment by investors to the Blyk media model.” said Pekka Ala-Pietilä, Blyk’s CEO and Co-founder. “However, we like everyone else are feeling the impact of the world’s financial situation. As a result, in parallel to securing the new investment, we’ve taken decisive steps to cut costs and streamline our organization.”

By launching a new media partnership strategy, alongside organizational realignment, Blyk will gain greater flexibility and speed to capitalize on new growth opportunities and global demand for its media model.

Blyk launched in the UK in September 2007 where it has achieved major successes both in member growth and advertiser usage. In its first year, Blyk achieved a milestone of over 200,000 members and has run over 2000 campaigns with an average response rate of over 25%. With 180 brands on board today, Blyk is well on track to hit its goal of 200 brands using the service by year-end.

“We have a winning formula which makes Blyk attractive globally. The Blyk media model, which is based on highly relevant messaging, has proven to be an extremely effective form of advertising to the youth audience.” said Antti Öhrling, Blyk’s Co-founder and Executive Director. “Blyk’s new partnering strategy will make this powerful model available for operators, brands and young people around the world.”

The Mediatech 100 is a list of Europe’s hottest private media technology companies likely to have the biggest impact on the industry in the future.

Today Library House, the essential source on fast-growth, innovation-led private companies across Europe, today revealed its 2008 Mediatech 100 in association with Kemp Little and New Media Age. Blyk was awarded a spot among the top 10 companies.

On October 30th the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) published a comprehensive research about Mobile Advertising in Blyk’s first expansion country; the Netherlands.

Even though Blyk has not yet launched in The Netherlands, we already participated in this research as a Launching Partner because of the importance of this research. It was the first ever national Mobile Advertising research gathering insights from consumers, advertisers, media agencies and mobile advertising experts.

The research showed consumers are sceptical about receiving ads on their mobile. However, this attitude strongly changes when consumers are incentivised (e.g. free text & minutes) and when the ads are relevant (e.g. fitting the consumer profile). From all forms of mobile advertising, consumers are most familiar with commercial text messages. In order of importance, an appropriate reward, control over what kind of messages they receive, tailored to their interests, and a permission-based model positively changes their attitude towards receiving ads on their mobile.

The advertisers still look at Mobile Advertising as being very new. It’s not yet a standard touch point in their communication planning. The research shows when advertisers start using Mobile Advertising it generates a better ROI than any other touch point. This results in recurring campaigns once advertisers have invested in Mobile Advertising.

The media agencies already consider Mobile Advertising as a key instrument. They see it as an important additional channel within a bigger picture. And it helps the media agencies to position themselves more strategically towards the advertisers – i.e. being a knowledgeable consultant on new media developments.

The mobile experts see a gap between the available Mobile Advertising technology and that what’s actually used by advertisers. Technically a lot is possible, but so far most Mobile Advertising is done through text and simple online banners.

All in all the research confirms Blyk is on track for a good entry in the Dutch market. Basically all lights are on GREEN:
• consumers will receive an upfront free text & voice bundle every month whilst they will only get highly relevant ads

• Blyk in the UK has already worked with many youth key brands resulting in high ROI for the investments done. The interest from Dutch advertisers is high based on these great UK results

• the media agencies are welcoming Blyk because of it’s very simple, open, honest proposition

• Blyk will “only” use text & mms for the ads. Both techniques are very well accepted and appreciated by Dutch consumers.

I really cannot wait for us to launch in The Netherlands! And yes…. Q1 2009!

I came across a really interesting (and exciting) blog post this morning from the Canadian Marketing Association’s Digital conference where there seems to have been quite a buzz surrounding Blyk. (‘Thursday, October 30, 2008. The Phone that Owns the Media…Blyk’)

From the Blyk perspective, it’s fantastic to see that there’s such discussion coming from events like this (and in North America none-the-less). Even more noteworthy is that the discussions surrounding Blyk are now happening among Chief Creative Officers from leading global agencies.

Coming from a traditional ‘creative agency’ background, I know all too well the challenges faced by traditional agencies when it comes to getting creative teams to understand emerging communications platforms (let alone, integrate new channels into their campaign development). The desire is there, but quite often there’s just too high a learning curve. Add the crazy timelines that teams are often faced with and it’s just not feasible to explore new channels. Lack of understanding and lack of time become huge barriers. And honestly, there’s often that underlying (but not verbalized) concern ‘but will it win me a Lion in Cannes?’

And, from my own experience (sad but true) when you finally have that brilliant communication concept that’s integrated across multiple platforms (with real potential to drive the client’s business and also to win that Titanium Lion), you then find yourself with a client who rejects the concept either due to fear of risk or a client that feels it’s simply too much work to ‘sell-in’ the idea to their own organizations. So they go back to what they’ve done over and over again…..even if it’s not delivering the ROI that it may have in the past.

So, here is this media called Blyk that from my perspective should be both the traditional creative agency and an advertiser’s dream.

1. Direct access to the young consumer… a captive audience of 16-24 year olds who see value in getting relevant communications from brands sent right to their phones… so they opt-in when they join Blyk. Just think about it, in the UK where Blyk has 200,000 members, it’s the equivalent of filling Wembley Stadium in London (the 2nd largest stadium in Europe) two times over with 16-24 year olds eagerly waiting for the message that you’re going to send them. Talk about ‘breaking through the clutter’.

2. And thinking about all the account planners out there who’s function is to the bring the consumer into the process of developing advertising, Blyk can give immediate insight and information on the target group without needing expensive and time consuming focus groups. Blyk members profile themselves when they join so you have a rich base of information and insight on the Blyk member right from the start. But through the process of asking members a question and then getting an instant response back, you can capture additional insight that could ignite the creative process and be the catalyst to the next ‘big idea’.

3. And in terms of delivering return on investment, I’ll give an example from the automotive industry. With one simple question, you can know exactly where the individual is in the car shopping process (an automotive marketers dream). So you can target your messages with absolute precision. There would be no mystery whether you are reaching the right audience with the right messages. And you can drive traffic right to the closest dealer and track behaviour all the way to the point of sale. So, in today’s climate of reduced marketing budgets and the need to prove ROI on every single campaign, Blyk can deliver you measurable results and can help you demonstrate ROI.

4. And while the mobile phone is Blyk’s communication channel, Blyk is not based on complicated or ‘future’ technologies but rather it’s based on what young people do every single day – getting a message and responding to it. Blyk knows the phone type of all of its members so Blyk can ensure that your ‘big idea’ (whether in the form of words, pictures, sounds, videos or a combination) is optimized for the phone type. Multi-media messages are not only possible but can be delivered at high quality. And since Blyk has both the audience and the communication platform under one roof, it means that you don’t have to sift through the traditional and complicated mobile marketing eco-system but rather you just make one call to Blyk and you can immediately connect with receptive and responsive 16-24s.

5. And Blyk is delivering great results for brands and agencies right now.

So, can it bring Lions in Cannes? We hope to soon see. The potential is certainly there. And it’s great to hear the buzz and endorsement coming from some of the most senior members of the creative community.