Crystaleen Recyclable Point of Sale.

Many point of sale items are printed on vinyl. The problem with this type of point of sale is that vinyl cannot readily be recycled and is also not a sustainable material. Point of sale material need to be robust and often wipe clean which makes vinyl an ideal solution.

Purple Frog however can offer our clients Crystaleen. Crystaleen is a recycled cost effective environmentally friendly alternative to vinyl . Crystaleen is 100% recyclable after use and has a smooth, brilliant white finish with an excellent opacity.

The material is waterproof and weatherproof to a high exposure which allows it to be used for both indoor and outdoor point of sale. It can also be used in more than point of sale.

Crystaleen is available as a non and as a self adhesive material. It is stocked in a range of weights and a very varied range of self adhesives and paper backing sheets. All variations can be  printed, using either Litho or Digital printing processes, therefore ensuring the highest quality of image possible.

Crystaleen can be used in any communication material where vinyl was previously regarded as the best solution and as the printing quality is high it is a superb alternative to screen printing. This enables creative work to be more accurately represented and because litho printing can be used this enables special colours to be incorporated where required. Litho printing also means that Crystaleen is a cost effective solution where multiple quantities of the same communication are required.

Crystaleen is suitable for general point of sale, window graphics, stickers, on-product labels and other in store promotional literature.

For marketing departments looking for hygienic solutions to literature and point of contact posters read more about our antimicrobial solutions.

To find out how Purple Frog can help you with your point of sale requirements call 01844 295170 or email more@purplefrog.co.uk.

Marketing and advertising like any business disciplines have always evolved. The way products and services have been promoted has changed over the decades with new channels such as Radio, TV and the Internet becoming available to marketers over the last 50 years. Innovation has also been applied to mature channels with techniques and tactics being refined and redefined to ensure that the returns being made are increased or at least held constant.

2011 is no exception to the rule, other than the changes and the rules are now not in decades but in years and more often in months. Technology is the driver for this and new developments with mobile, web and apps are occurring on a regular basis and when social media marketing is added to the mix it is clear that the amount of knowledge a marketer needs to have is growing by the day.

It is possible to sit back and do nothing and in part this is the right approach as if you just dive into everything in one go and keep constantly changing and following new trends just because they are there you will struggle to give a clear message to anybody let alone those you are trying to engage with. A lot of action can result in total confusion!

So what is the art of being brave?

Believing in your brand, your products and/or services is a start, because if you do not believe in them no one else will. Having a clear approach to how you promote, market and advertise is essential and if this is based around a solid strategy with clear measurement and success criteria in place this can help you focus where your activity should be focused.

There are however 4 key areas to being brave:

• Listen – the art of listening is often forgotten in this day of shouting from the roof tops, but listening is the most informative area of marketing just as it is in selling. Stop for a while and listen to the issues being talked about and learn, then respond and answer the concerns of your potential customers.
• Wait – doing nothing is not a viable long term strategy but don’t do something just for the sake of it, or because others are doing it. Wait for the right opportunity and then act in a manner different from your competitors.
• Different – advertising needs to be compelling, different and interesting. Too many businesses and brands just do the same thing year in year out and wonder why their marketing does not really give a return. Let your marketing be different, if everyone else is being funny be straight, if your competitors only do trade shows go to ones they do not attend.
• Simple – is best, don’t try to say everything at once keep your advertising and marketing messages simple, far to many companies try to say everything in one advert or flyer but the brave and most successful advertisers stick with one message and a call to action where more can be revealed.

So don’t rush in and do everything at once, and don’t do nothing for ever, but plan, attack and deliver!

Read a very interesting article this week describing recent IPA/Thinkbox research that claims to have found a direct link between creativity and effectiveness, citing that ‘…the most creatively awarded advertising is 11 times more efficient at delivering commercial success’ (John Tylee, campaign – 25 June 2010).

As the article discusses, the findings are based on analysis of 175 campaigns, with emphasis on TV and FMCG case studies, and therefore may not be a true reflection of what constitutes effectiveness.
The debate around the role of creativity in marketing effectiveness has rambled on for as long as I can remember.

Wearing my creative hat, I would argue that campaigns, advertising or otherwise, that achieve differentiating stand out from competitor marketing, memorable engagement with audiences, compelling offer/brand positioning and high levels of measurable success, require correspondingly high levels of considered, creative input.

Wearing my strategic planning hat, it is clear that creatively mediocre campaigns can succeed, if enough budget is thrown at them, by creating repetition based message cut through. On one level, provided marketing communication carries a strong singular offer message and clear branding, everything else is gloss. The key phrase here however, is ‘enough budget’.

Surely the answer lies somewhere between the two, with careful planning and creative excellence working well together and with clients and agencies developing open, rewarding and measurable relationships.

Creativity may not be the holy grail of marketing effectiveness, but marketers and agencies risk a great deal if they fail to embrace creative thinking and the undoubted benefits that great creative can deliver.

A recent rule change means that charities can now use comparative ads on TV and Radio. Whilst initially this may seem positive as it brings this sector in line with industries the fact that it will allow charities to compare how they spend donations and their working methods with others may well lead to divisions and conflict within the sector.

A spokeswoman (as reported in MarketingWeek) for the Institute of Fundraising, says the new rules could help charities “educate the public further about the charity’s work”, but charity marketers need to be careful they do not “denigrate” other charities’ work.

The recession is continuing to hit charitable donations. The latest Charity Commission study available from September 2009 found that 56% of charities have been affected by the recession, up from 52% at the start of 2009 and there is every likelihood that this will have continued into 2010 when the figures are available.

It is important that charities use the new rules sensibly although the one area we may find them highlighting is the “unfair” advantage the BBC’s charities gain by having a continuous stream of free advertisng and promotion available to them, if air time and production was given free to some of our smaller to medium sized charities they may well be able to raise a enough money to survive 3 or 4 years in one campaign, but unfortunately this will not happen, but if one of the larger charities was to compare costs of advertising to raise money with say Sport Relief then the public might be a little more sympathetic to their cause.

No doubt many of the larger charities will use this to their benefit and hopefully as a result benefits will filter through to local and smaller charities although if you are one of these do not rely on it but develop a clear strategy to increase your profile and even piggy back where possible on national events to help you raise money.

The Purple Frog team is thrilled to have won all Siemens’ white goods portfolio creative and campaign development.

Our work will include consumer brand awareness and product launch advertising in national and tactical press, in-store awareness and promotional activity, online support and specific niche campaigns.

This is particularly exciting for us as it comes as a direct result of our work with Bosch over the last 3 years. Purple Frog will handle both accounts to ensure the maintenance of brand distinction and effectiveness of marketing communication for each brand in the UK.

It is a significant and welcome reward for us, and means that we have to create clear demarcation between creative and account teams whilst maintaining effective strategic and brand custodianship across both – a fine balance for our Account and Creative Directors.

We’ll keep you posted as our work develops.

A recent article in the 30th January Issue of the New Scientist (pp 40-43) looked into the reasons people laugh. It concluded that people find different types of jokes funny, and, in particular, men and women seem to process jokes differently. In fact, women take “significantly longer” to decide whether something is funny or not.

Most jokes either have a clear punchline or are ‘nonsense’ humour, in which case they are only partially understood. Researchers conclude that an element of empathy is required for all kinds of humour – so it is therefore necessary to take care how you use humour in your marketing so as to avoid sending out the wrong message.

It is important that all forms of advertising and marketing are measured and their effectiveness understood. It is surprising how many companies even in this digital age continue to spend money blindly or at best with limited knowledge often spending money on advertising in a particular publication just because their competitors do without knowing if it actually generates any leads or income.

With the advent of the internet it is much easier to measure responses online but it is not difficult to measure telephone responses either. At Purple Frog we have an online system which enables us to allocate specific telephone numbers to specific campaigns or even individual advertisements so we can count the responses. Our client’s benefit because we are able to tell them how many calls they had, as well as how many unanswered calls, at what time of the day they were made and what area of the country they were from. They do not need to change anything their end, just answer the phone as we forward the calls to their normal number once it has been counted through on our system. These numbers can be standard STD numbers, local, national, free phone or premium rate numbers depending on the advert and type of response required.

If you have not tired this yet or just want to find out more email us at more@purplefrog.co.uk

When you consider the energy saving using a dishwasher instead of washing up by hand is the same as boiling a kettle 7 times, and the difference in water saving is equivalent to 200 showers every year, you quickly realise that standing at the sink doing the dishes is a whole lot of wasted money down the drain.

And when you combine the superior cleaning results using a dishwasher compared to hand washing with the above cost saving message you arrive at a very strong Bosch and Finish partnership proposition for non-owners and non-users of automatic dishwashers.

In 2009 both the BBC One Show and Which? magazine reported that dishwashers can use far less water and energy than washing-up by hand. And now the newest independent research from Intertec shows that the savings can be more than just marginal. Purple Frog were asked to promote this conclusive new evidence across national press ads and advertorials and encourage readers to seek further information online. This campaign microsite was the destination URL for Greener-Cleaner-Cheaper which reinforced the cost saving and superior cleaning performance of dishwashers with Finish Quantum tabs. The online experience was enhanced further with competition incentives designed to expose greater numbers of visitors to the revealing new data.

Visitor levels measured by direct links from the press advertorials have exceeded expectations since launch with an average of 350 daily visitors of which 85% entered the competition giving the correct answer.

Click here to visit the ‘Money down the drain?’ microsite

With more than 350 million hits on YouTube since its launch in 2001 the sexy Agent Provocateur advert starring Aussie pop star Kylie Minogue riding a bucking bull in her underwear has been named the most successful celebrity viral campaign in the world by Go Viral.

The advert shows Kylie gyrating on a rodeo bull of red velvet in order to show that Agent Provocateur is ‘the most erotic lingerie in the world’. At the end of the advert she then challenges the men in the audience to stand up and be counted.

Her raunchy ride earned her top spot in a list of 10 best celebrity viral ads of the decade compiled by online content distributor GoViral.

Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho came second in the list in the Nike Crossbar Challenge.

The film shows him demonstrating his sublime footballing skills by hitting the crossbar no less than four times, without the ball touching the floor and this clip has been viewed in excess of 50 million times.

Third most popular was US President Barack Obama’s Yes We Can song, featuring Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas, Scarlett Johansson and other stars, which was viewed 32 million times.

Last year, the Kylie viral secured the top spot in a poll from Digital Cinema Media (DCM), the market leader in UK cinema advertising, of the greatest cult cinema ads of all time.

The top 10 from GoViral:

Agent Provocateur – Kylie Minogue
Nike Crossbar Challenge – Ronaldinho
Yes We Can – Obama Song
Nike Car Jump – Kobe Bryant
T-Mobile Life’s for Sharing – Pink
”I’m ——- Matt Damon” – Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon
EA Games – Tiger Woods
Chanel No.5 – Nicole Kidman
Samsung – Ozzy Osbourne
Apple Mac – Ellen Feiss

Here’s that Kylie ad, one more time:

And if you are just a football fan at heart here is Ronaldinho:

Travis, Dizzee Rascal, Speech Debelle and many other artists are set to enjoy windfalls after a landmark deal between independent record labels and YouTube.

The PIAS Entertainment Group, which represents 200+ independent labels, has signed a global licensing and marketing deal with the online video giant which will result in artists and their record companies get a share of revenues from adverts shown alongside their works and as the deal covers both official audio and video releases as well as user-generated content there is a great potential for income from this source.

PIAS says it will also work with YouTube to try to drive up traffic to artist pages and develop partnerships with brands, through channel sponsorships amongst other ideas.

“Some of the world’s most iconic artists will now be able to engage with their existing fans and win new ones,” said YouTube video partnership director Patrick Walker.

The deal with independent labels comes just weeks after an agreement between Google-owned YouTube and Warner Music as revealed in an earlier blog.

Warner, home to hits by Madonna, Muse and Led Zeppelin, removed material from YouTube last December after a row over royalties. But the nine-month dispute was settled with a new revenue-sharing deal allowing Warner to sell advertising against its content on YouTube.