How job hunting led me to spend a day on the website 'Compare the Meerkat'

Having now completed my degree I thought it was about time to start some serious job hunting!


After trawling through what seemed to be an endless array of job hunting websites advertising pretty much exactly the same jobs I came across something a little different.


It was a job vacancy entitled "Ambassador of Meerkovo" for the well known company Compare the Market. The job was simple - 6 months working from home for a the healthy sum of £40,000 (yes, you read it right) saving the "plight of the Meerkats".....well, I'm not much of an animal rights activist (although I do not condone cruelty to animals in any way) but for 6 months work for that wage I'd happily help save a bunch of fictional Meerkats in the fictional land of Meerkovo from the evil reign of the sister website comparethemarket.com. The application seemed simple. All you needed to do was spend a bit of time on the meerkat website and come up with a cunning strategy for a new campaign that the company would promote in order to "save Meerkovo" - if you were lucky you would get to implement the idea with the help of their team of professionals and get to attend events as the official "Ambassador of Meerkovo".....at which point I did envisage myself in a chariot being pulled by meerkats.


So, I started my research by going directly to the meerkat website. Two hours later, I was still in the meerkat website going around the fictional town of Meerkovo and finding out about the inhabitants and how comparethemarket was ruining their lives. The website was very clever. It had me playing games, going on quests and best of all it had a pop up that went off every half an hour that asked me if I really did want to be comparing meerkats or if I wanted to go directly to the insurance comparison website. What a cheeky bunch of Meerkats, ey?! 


So, I'm wasting my whole day using their website, finding out about the company and trying my hardest to come up with the best idea to win me the job that by the time it came to writing the application, I realised just how cunning they had been. Not only has the company increased their website traffic a lot (based solely on the ridiculous amount of time I had to spend on the website, all of which was necessary to complete the application form) BUT on top of that the company then receives a barrage of new and innovative marketing ideas for FREE on behalf of the general public. 


On the one hand, I admire the Meerkat vs. Market strategy - it has entertained us for a few years now. So much in fact that the fictional autobiography "A Simples Life" by the star of the campaign "Aleksandr Orlov" became the UK number one best-seller for Christmas 2010, outselling celebrity authors such as Nelson Mandela, Stephen Fry and Cheryl Cole. 


They are definitely doing something right. But, from my experience on the website I found it all a bit too much. I feel like the company has lost credibility by over-working the meerkat angle. I have used the insurance comparison site and found it to be a good, fast and effective method of getting my car insurance but with the constant pop-ups between comparing car insurance to comparing meerkats it does become a little overwhelming.


Before I sign off, I will leave you with the image of the meerkat that I created and 'compared' Not a completely unproductive day after all?!

Simples.

Morgan Spurlock's at it again...

You remember Morgan Spurlock, right? No? Ok, so what if I said the guy who famously stuffed his face with McDonalds for a month and documented it? That's right, the 'Supersize Me' guy!

So, he's back but this time with a different focus. His new project is highlighting the growing trend of product placement within the media. With products and programs such as online tv media players and Tivo, advertisers are finding it increasingly hard to reach their audiences. This has therefore led to an increase in product placement within TV shows and advertisers having to adapt and find more cunning ways to get their products out there. Hands up who has seen the recent adverts advising the UK public that a small little P symbol will pop up at the bottom of your TV screen making you aware that product placement will be used in the show? 

So, to highlight this issue Morgain Spurlock has produced a film based on exactly this but the twist being that the entire film is funded by advertising. He managed to get a total of 15 companies to fund the project in exchange for name recognition and/or product placement. 

Check out the trailer here.

Fancy a coffee?

If you do, make sure you head to a Starbucks or Costa Coffee! Next week they have teamed together along with Caffe Nero and Marks and Spencer in a marketing campaign to raise money for Project Waterfall, a charity that raises money in order to deliver clean water to African coffee-supplying countries.

From April the 4th these high street giants will put aside their competitive spirit in order to spend more time marketing the campaign which takes place during national Coffee Week.

If you go and get a coffee you will be asked if you would like to add an extra 5p which will go straight to the charity.

This is a fantastic cause and I think it gives the coffee chains an opportunity to market themselves in a very different and innovative way.

Internet Advertising

According to a new report, a quarter of the entire spend on advertising in the UK is now spent on internet advertising.


For the full story, head to - BBC NEWS

Image credit: http://www.connect-web-solutions.co.uk

TED

Dan Cobley is the Marketing Director at Google - check him out here on TED giving a talk entitled "What physics taught me about marketing"

TED is a non-profit organisation with the moto "Ideas Worth Spreading" The innovative thinking and passion held by the speakers is for me what makes it such a useful and inspirational tool.

Photoshop: If at first you don't succeed, thank goodness for online tutorials

Learning Photoshop can be distressing. Yes, it really can be. But to get that dream job in Marketing it turns out that it's not something to be sniffed at.

Here are some online tutorials to help you along your way. Tried and tested by myself, the once novice, the now part novice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqD851MIWVo&feature=related

The next series of tutorials are really informative if a bit tongue in cheek - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_X5uR7VC4M

And finally, a great tutorial on poster making with Photoshop - 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu3HLqDe4-I

Facebook: it's not just for procrastination

I have a definite love/hate relationship with Facebook. Sometimes, I think I just love to hate it. I must admit though, it has become a big part of my life with many social events being orchestrated via the wonders of the event application and even more so for the simple fact that I can just keep up to date with all my lovely (real!) friends around the country and even more importantly, around the world. 

So then, who is the average user of this wondrous website? Well, demographically speaking it turns out that I am just one Facebooking year away from being in the largest female user demographic according to statistics released by Ken Burbary on his Web Business blog.  

http://www.kenburbary.com/2011/03/facebook-demographics-revisited-2011-statistics-2

What does this mean for businesses though? An opportunity to reach out to their target market or the potential to destroy brand image? Questions such as these have been explored on toprankblog.com  - 

http://www.toprankblog.com/2011/03/facebook-marketing-qa/

In my opinion the adverts that crop up on this site and other related sites do not persuade me enough to make me click on them but with that being said, I could probably reel off a few brand names that I have seen without realising on Facebook without even having to think about it. Curious!

Image credit: The Guardian