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Whilst the intermittent wet weather of the last two weeks seems set to bring the British summertime to a close, we’ve recently been delighted to see the wide acclaim received by our client Halfords for their exceptional performance throughout the summer, making headlines in leading publications such as Internet Retailing and The Telegraph.
Halfords’ strategy focused on the on-trend phenomenon of staycations. Growing numbers of British families are swapping ten-hour flights for fish ‘n chips and pitching their tents a little closer to home. As one of the UK’s leading suppliers of holiday-making must-haves like sleeping bags, tents, bikes and roof-racks, it was essential for Halfords’ voice to be at the heart of the conversation.
In collaboration with Halfords’ internal teams, we implemented a cross-channel strategy to bring Halfords’ vision to life. With the objective of maintaining and increasing Halfords’ visibility for the camping category, we sought to create compelling content to drive organic visibility and secure coverage with major publications and features on high-quality lifestyle blogs. Production of an interactive camping guide whilst working alongside influencers to produce unique stories and advice helped Halfords increase SoV by 3.86% with over 50 pieces of coverage. Additionally, we supported staycation-specific products with promotional PPC ad copy to harness intent driven by the wider content strategy. Granular Shopping structure allowed dynamic support of key products during peak periods.
A snap from our work on the guide! (Halfords)
Revenue-wise, our combined activity provided the brand with a summer to remember. In comparison to the first twenty weeks of the last financial year, total sales rose by 11.2%, revenue from retail services (such as bike repairs and car -part fitting) increased by 18.3%, and overall revenue went up by 4.8%.
Another significant action by the brand was their perfecting of their in-store collection services. 85% of all digital orders are now picked up in Halfords stores, which is important for a brand who specialise in items difficult to ship. The availability enables customers to enjoy the benefits of easy online purchasing whilst minimising the hassle of delivery.
It’s always great to see our clients gain the recognition their efforts deserve, and we’re excited to how our brands’ successes will be received in the future!
Interested in how we can help your brand flourish online? Explore our range of digital services.
August saw a number of updates within social media. From the battle against fake news to new face filters and ad tech updates, here’s a breakdown of the top news from the last month…
Facebook:
In an increasing bid to compete with the likes of Amazon and Netflix with owned video content, Facebook has now rolled out ‘Watch’ to limited users in the US. This new video platform will host video content from a variety of creators and publishers, and aims to bring communities of TV lovers together through engagement, enabling audiences to see comments and connect with friends or other fans whilst watching the shows that they love.
A reported $1B investment on original shows next year would put Facebook in a similar ballpark to the likes of HBO, illustrating their commitment to the endeavour. The Watch tab, which is available across mobile, desktop and Facebook’s TV apps, will also provide a new stream of ad revenue for both Facebook and its partners, who will take 45% and 55% of the ad revenue respectively. 2018 certainly looks set to be an interesting year in the world of video content – ‘watch’ this space!
In August, Facebook also took further steps in its on-going battle against fake news and misleading content. In order to maintain the integrity of information on the platform, Facebook will now be demoting posts that feature fake video play buttons as well as static images disguised as video. The aim of this is to reduce click bait stories and prevent deceptive practices which often lead audiences to accidentally click through to low-quality landing pages from their feed.
Furthermore, as a build on their current prevention of ads which link through to false stories, Facebook will now be blocking ads altogether from pages that repeatedly share false content. They will continue to use third-party fact-checkers to deem whether or not content is false, which should ultimately help to prevent both the spreading of harmful misinformation and disrupt any potential economic incentives from doing so.
There have been some notable new Facebook features introduced in the last few weeks, too, many of which seem aimed at bringing people together. For example, it’s now possible to share personalised birthday videos as well as monthly or seasonal memory recap stories.
Usability has been high on the agenda with design updates to improve navigation and readability within the platform. From an engagement and community building perspective, comment styles have been improved to give better visual clarity between comments and direct replies to other comments on a post.
Instagram:
Throughout August, a number of new face filters were made available on Instagram. Many of these provide a bit of light entertainment – such as the new kitten and sparkle filters. You can now also convey your mood through weather-inspired face filters which provide a “fun way to express how you’re feeling”. Other updates are more meaningfully inspired by the diverse community of Instagram users – such as a rainbow light filter.
New functionality has also been introduced to improve conversations within Instagram. Comment threads have been added – helping users to keep track of conversations, and making it easier to respond to a specific thread. In an effort to utilise the visual nature of the platform to improve conversations, users can now reply to specific videos, photos and reshared posts in Direct with photos and videos.
Finally, with over 250 million daily users, it’s no surprise that Stories continues to be a core focus for Instagram, and the latest development sees Stories become available on the mobile web, so that even more users can enjoy watching Stories from friends, influencers and brands alike.
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn has joined the growing ad ecosystem with the launch of its own Audience Network (LAN). This will allow advertisers to buy inventory outside LinkedIn itself, whilst still utilising the platforms demographic data – placing ads across a huge network of mobile sites and apps. The LinkedIn Audience Network was introduced in beta at the beginning of the year and is now set to roll out across English-speaking countries.
It seems an obvious business move given the depth of personal information shared by users within the platform, and the ad tech will now provide organisations with valuable retargeting capabilities as well as the potential to build out larger audiences for marketing activity and content. This is just one of many developments since Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn – and we’re sure there will be many more to come as it looks to increase revenue from its Marketing Solutions.
As the Internet catches its breath after last season’s Game of Thrones, and ‘winter is coming’ becomes more and more of a reality, the greatest minds in digital marketing continue to produce buzzing campaigns and pique the attention of the Internet.
A tea giant ran a giveaway in their cricket whites, the National Gallery introduced Van Gogh to Facebook, and an airline produced its own take on John Cage’s 4″33. Read on for five digital media happenings that caught the attention of Fusion’s content team last month!
1) Yorkshire Tea hits the content for six
In the build-up to last month’s match between England and the West Indies at our very own Headingley Stadium, an inspired Yorkshire Tea competition asked entrants to film themselves bowling their teabag into their cuppa as spectacularly as possible.
The prizes didn’t stray far from the wickets. The lucky winners received VIP tickets to the game, a signed cricket bat, and the opportunity to chat with legendary English cricketer Michael Vaughan.
The competition benefited the brand in several ways: it enabled them to highlight their Yorkshire roots and tap into pop culture interests, whilst encouraging the creation of unique user generated content that created animated conversations on social media.
2) Vincent Van Gogh gets social with the National Gallery and Facebook
Recently, Vincent Van Gogh has enjoyed an unlikely pre-eminence in digital media. In February, Airbnb partnered with the Art Institute of Chicago to build a real life version of his iconic painting ‘The Bedroom’, making it available for art-minded guests to stay in. Now, he’s starred at the heart of a foray into VR by the UK’s National Gallery, who used Facebook Live to host a virtual exhibition that united his legendary ‘Sunflowers’ paintings – displayed in galleries all over the world – for the first time in their history.
The exhibition functioned as a relay between five galleries. Each had fifteen minutes to present their own portrait to the audience, before passing the impressionist baton on to the next.
‘We launched our first Facebook Live a year ago’, said Dr Gabriele Finaldi, Director of the Gallery. ‘They’ve been growing in popularity ever since, so we are delighted to be teaming up with galleries all over the world and Facebook for the first ever live relay focusing on Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’. This collaboration is a key step in the National Gallery’s Digital Strategy, which will see us fully explore the potential of immersive media to create new ways of experiencing art’.
The joint effort provides a wonderful example of a brand capitalising on the new opportunities that new channels present to create unique, ground-breaking content. We’re excited to see how marketers will pick up on Facebook’s Live availability in the future!
3) easyJet gets ambient with charity album
Musically, August delivered a fairly happening month for the airwaves: Leeds and Reading Festival came and went, as thousands of starry-eyed festival-goers discovered the invention of the beer bong and depleted the country’s Frosty Jack’s, whilst Taylor Swift deleted her social media channels, before springing back with a new single which remained very Taylor Swift. However, what piqued our interest the most was the astonishing arrival of an ambient album from easyJet, with the release of their two-song EP titled ‘Jet Sounds’.
This wasn’t the sign of a change of heart for the airline brand, but a clever example of a zany, high quality campaign. It followed the UK Sleep Council’s recent findings that 22% of the population get a poor quality of sleep, and their recommendation that one way to remedy this is by listening to white noise before we go to bed – a monotonous and droning sound that soothes our minds and eases out distractions. As the low humming of an aircraft’s engines meets these criteria exactly, the airline decided to record two tracks of it on a plane flying from Gatwick to Nice!
All of the release’s proceeds go to The Children’s Sleep Charity. If you’re feeling a little tired yourself, or just fancying some Boeing 737 beats to liven up your weekend predrinks, check out the album on iTunes here.
4) Airbnb criticised over email marketing campaign
After the devastation of flooding in Houston by Hurricane Harvey, Airbnb waived rental fees across the city, enabling hosts to let out their properties for free and provide shelter to the tens of thousands of people left homeless. However, the company simultaneously received criticism for the poor timing of a concurrent email campaign which promoted an opportunity for holidaymakers to stay in a ‘floating world’, spending a trip in a home on the sea ‘without touching dry land’.
Striking too much of a chord with the events unfolding in Texas, the brand received an overwhelmingly negative backlash on social media:
Considering the major meteorological disaster atm, not sure @Airbnb's email promoting floating cottages was particularly well thought-out.
An Airbnb spokesperson said: ‘The timing of this email marketing campaign was insensitive and we apologise for that. We continue to keep everyone affected by Harvey and all the first responders and their families in our thoughts’.
Whilst Airbnb has thorough disaster response measures, it’s essential for all brands to ensure that their content schedule remains suitably responsive to current events.
5) The North Face challenges Trump’s wall in campaign championing social mobility
Since Trump’s election as President of the USA, talk of the border wall with Mexico continues to dominate the headlines. Leading outerwear brand The North Face alluded to it heavily in their latest campaign, cleverly titled ‘Walls Are Meant for Climbing’.
Integral to the brand’s campaign are themes of unity and community-building, opposing the barriers that divide us. ‘Some people build walls. Other people climb them’, says the print copy. Whilst there’s no direct mentioning of White House policy, the reference’s political elements are readily apparent.
On a less metaphorical and more practical level, the campaign centres on the brand’s objective of making climbing more universally available. They’ve invested fairly heavily to do this: they donated $1,000,000 to the USA’s Trust for Public Land, for them to build climbing walls and facilities in public spaces across the country, and partnered with gyms across the world to establish August the 19th as a global day of climbing, allowing people to climb, for a day, for free.
The North Face’s campaign placed the brand within an important, relevant and politicised conversation, which – as shown by Pepsi earlier this year – can be a risky line for brands to tread. When doing this, it’s essential for the brand to support marketing efforts with practical and impactful activity. Here, however, the North Face accomplishes this impeccably.
Google has sent notifications to Search Console property owners with sites using insecure HTTP regarding plans to display a “Not Secure” warning in the address bar on pages with input fields.
This is the beginning of a long term push to increase web security by persuading sites to use the secure HTTPS protocol.
Google My Business action URL update
Google has expanded support for “action URLs” within local listings set up using Google My Business.
More business types can now set up additional URLs for online orders, reservations and appointments, which are then displayed within the listing in Maps and search.
This will make it easier for potential customers to carry out common actions with a business.
“Product” label in Google Images
Following last month’s expansion of the display of structured data in Google Image results, thumbnails which contain product information now carry a label on mobile.
At first glance, these appear like ads; however, they are instead triggered by valid Product schema markup on the target page.
Google may End support for site name
There is evidence to suggest that Google may soon cease displaying custom site names within search results.
The site name could be set up for a site by using the WebSite schema markup. The documentation for the search feature has, however, been removed from Google’s developer docs site, suggesting a change in support.
There is not yet an official comment on whether this feature has or will be removed.
