Craftsman Logos

They may look like normal posts, however you will be surprised to know that some of the posts on your news feed will now be paid adverts, with the only difference being that they will say ‘featured content’. For now Facebook will insert one advert per day however they haven’t ruled out that there may be more per day in the future. In the past adverts has come under ‘sponsored content’ however Facebook thought that they blended in too easily.

It’s possible that if you have ‘liked’ anything in the past you could now start advertising to your friends through news feeds. According to critics, you could unwittingly click on them thinking they are just a news feed from friends without realising. Facebook have assured users though that it will only display adverts for goods and services that somebody has already ‘liked’. The adverts will only be seen on full versions of Facebook and not on mobile sites.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has run adverts in the news feed the company ran them between 2006 and 2009, before Facebook reached the popularity it now has. However it’s thought it could be very lucrative now for the company to do so, because of the number of people now signed up to the social networking site.

It’s not yet clear how the adverts will go down with Facebook users as many don’t seem to like change. The recent changes made to the interface including the constantly-updated ticker and the Timeline feature has not gone down well with users. According to a poll by 86 per cent of users hated the update and an even higher number of teenagers, 91 per cent hated it.

In the UK there are over a 140 different dating sites, the number of single people who are registered on dating sites in the UK stands at around 15 million, one in five people in the UK have dated someone they met online, whether it be a dating website or through social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace and 17% of UK couples who have recently married, met online.

As it stands the world dating market in worth more than $4billion annually, this does go to explain why there are so many different dating sites out there. One of those is Parship. Different to some dating websites out there Parship looks to offer their clients long term partnerships through their services. For some dating sites offer the chance to find people to ‘hook up’ with rather than form lasting relationships and this is what Parship looks to avoid.

The Parship dating site was founded in 2000 and went online on 14th February 2001 (Valentine’s Day) in Germany. The company since then has expanded from Germany and it is now active in another 13 countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, UK, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, and Mexico.

Like some other dating sites, Parship uses a compatibility test and compatibility matching to help you find the right partner, these tests was developed by Parship co-founder Psychologist Professor Hugo Schmale. This has been developed after thirty years of scientific research into couples and their relationships.

As well as offering its services to heterosexual couples, Parship also offers dating services for homosexual couples, so everyone can find the person for them.

Popular coffee chain Starbucks has launched a new reward programme for their customers called My Rewards, which will offer additional benefits to customers who become “Gold Level members” after 50 visits. This new reward scheme will replace the company’s current prepay members cards, those existing customers who already have the prepay cards will be automatically upgraded to gold members.

In the future this scheme could potentially be extended to offer bespoke offers to members and additional levels, according to Brian Waring, the newly promoted vice president of marketing for the EMEA region.

As well as launching the new reward scheme, Starbucks are also introducing a transactional iPhone app which will allow transactional iPhone app and later on in the year an Android app will also be launched.

The new rewards scheme works by rewarding customers with a ‘star’ per purchase, you will receive a free drink for every fifteen stars collected. The company believe that this loyalty scheme “feels personal, and is easy to understand”.

The scheme has already started running in the US and Canada and has proven to be popular with customers. Starbucks have also made a number of other efforts to improve the experience of its customers by adding free Wi-Fi and downloads, as they put it to “add further value and give customers more reasons to choose Starbucks”.

Ian Cranna, the new vice president of marketing for Starbucks UK, says: “We’ve listened carefully and we know that now, more than ever, customers are looking for extra value. This scheme also allows us to be more personal, rewarding the most frequent customers with extra benefits. We also know that fewer customers want to use cash, so putting My Starbucks Reward on mobiles offers a faster, easier way to pay.”

Starbucks logo

Bain & Company conducted a survey of 6,000 UK shoppers to find which brand most people would recommend to a friend or colleague, hair care brand Kerastase was found to be “most advocated” brand in the UK according to the results of the survey.

Companies were ranked on their a Net Promoter Score (NPS) which is calculated by the percentage of people rating the brand highly on a scale of recommendation, subtracted by the percentage of those who would only rate it between 0-6 on a scale of 1 to 10. Kerastase achieved 80%, 26 percentage points higher than its closest rival in the survey, Mercedes.

When it comes to trying new products, family, partners, friends and experts are normally the main advocates who influence shoppers, especially when it comes to alcohol, fashion, skincare and makeup. This is why the results from the survey are so important for companies. According to the report “winning” consumer products brands must keep shoppers and consumers at the “heart” of everything they do and make their brands distinctive and relevant to shopper needs and “occasions”, such as at point of sale where consumers may be tempted to buy rival brands.

Looking at the brands who reached the top ten of the “most advocated”, only one of them is British (Hotel Chocolate) which means our UK brands have a long way to go to gather consumer support.

The results:

10. Rolex – NPS: 51%

9. Audi – NPS: 52%

8. HTC – NPS: 53%

7. Apple iPod – NPS: 53%

6. Cohiba – NPS: 57%

5. Hotel Chocolat – NPS: 59%

4. Redken – NPS: 59%

3. Apple iPhone – NPS: 60%

2. Mercedes – NPS: 66%

1. Kerastase – NPS: 80%

To help the company expand and engage more with customers L’Oreal has launched its first CRM programme which can offer consumers exclusive rewards. The scheme is called the L’Oreal Insider and it encourages consumers to open an online account for access to offers of free samples as well as expert advice, reviews and money-off vouchers for its products. L’Oreal have invested £20 million into this project and the company hope it will bring them closer to their existing customers but also bring them new ones. The rollout comes as the company marks the 40th anniversary of its ‘Because I’m worth it’ slogan.

To join the scheme you need to register your details on the L’Oreal Insider site, encouraged by the tag line; “The more you tell us, the more you’ll be rewarded”. Like a lot of other sites now you can also connect through Facebook and merge your account which means you can share promotions and content with your friends. The new site is aimed at women, however there is a similar scheme for men, which involves the companies Men Expert product range.

There has also been a major competition launched which will see three members of the public featuring alongside celebrity ambassador Cheryl Cole in a TV campaign for its Casting Creme Gloss range next year. This contest launched by L’Oreal which is tied to the Insider scheme is only available to those signed up.

Newcastle United St James's Park now to be known as the Sports Direct Arena

Known as St James’s Park for the 119 years, Newcastle United is set to see a change to that history by renaming the famous stadium. For the time being it will be known as the Sports Direct Arena making use of owner Mike Ashley’s high street brand. However the club will be looking to the global market to find to take up the name of the stadium.

Newcastle started the search for a stadium sponsor back in 2009,they renamed it “sportsdirect.com @ St James’ Park Stadium”, however that name never stuck with the Toon Army continuing to call it by its original name.

Newcastle are not the only club in the Premier League who have named their stadium after sponsors other clubs which have done this include: Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium and Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, however for these clubs their stadiums do not hold the history St James’s Park does because both of those stadiums were new when renamed. Chelsea are also currently exploring options to change the name of their stadium through sponsor ship which begs the question will this start to become a trend and will we start to see more name changes as sponsorship changes.

There are some clubs where it would seem a name change would probably be out of the option because of the history of the clubs such as Liverpool’s Anfield, Manchester United’s Old Trafford and Tottenham Hotspurs White Hart Lane. However if Tottenham in the future move to a new stadium then maybe then they may change and follow other clubs with a sponsored stadium.
Many clubs in the lower football leagues have their stadiums sponsored as a valuable way to raise money in leagues that are not as profitable as the Premier League.

Managing director Derek Llambias spoke about the name change he said:

“Our aim for Newcastle United is to continue to deliver success for the fans and everyone associated with the club. We must make this club financially self-sufficient in order to deliver that success. To grow sustainably and allow us to invest in our future, we will need to rely increasingly heavily on commercial income. These are very difficult economic times and the board have a responsibility to maximise all revenue streams for the benefit of the club. Stadium rebranding offers a lucrative way for clubs to secure significant additional income. When we initially launched our plans at the end of 2009, we invited sponsors to attach their brand to that of St James’ Park. However, it has become clear that in order to make the proposition as commercially attractive as possible, a potential sponsor must be given the opportunity to fully rebrand the stadium. Naming the stadium the Sports Direct Arena helps up to showcase the opportunity to interested parties. We are now actively seeking a long-term sponsor wishing to acquire full naming rights for the stadium. Our shirt sponsorship deal with Northern Rock will also expire at the end of this season, which presents would-be sponsors with the opportunity to acquire both the naming rights and shirt sponsorship deals.”

The UK’s leading used car supermarket; Carcraft has picked up the top award from the Experian Hitwise Top 10 Awards for being the most visited website in the UK’s Automotive and Dealerships industry. An improvement on last year where they were named the second most visited website in its sector.

The ten most popular websites are ranked twice a year by Experian Hitwise and they cover over 160 categories, basing the final score on popularity according to the market share of visits a website receives relative to other websites in their industry.

Carcraft came top for the period January – June 2011, they have seen a 25% increase in online visits this year, compared to the previous six months. The Rochdale-based business which offers used cars for sale, operates 11 showrooms nationwide, is now proving to be a popular car retailer with an increase in visitor numbers to their website.

Julia Dallimore, head of marketing at Carcraft comments: “As a business it’s very satisfying to have reached the top spot in the Experian Hitwise Awards for visitor numbers. The automotive industry is highly competitive and this achievement recognises our growing brand awareness and the strides we have taken in enhancing our customer experience. We are hoping to further build on our customer relationships with the recent launch of our ‘Drive Happy’ guarantee. The industry leading package not only covers parts and labour but also a year’s free servicing, MOT if required and a year’s RAC roadside assistance, which coupled with the selection of vehicles we offer ensures that we stand out in this crowded market place.”

Carcraft

Denim brand Levis look to give themselves a boost by engaging music fans and fashion fan by hosting a series of live music events at its UK flagship store on London’s Regent Street. Their campaign “The Craft of Music” kicked off on Tuesday and is in partnership with Spotify and Clash Music. Fans are invited to vote for their favourite artists to support Primal Scream at The Electric in Brixton on 10 November with the chance for them to also win tickets to see Primal Screen.

There will be three in store gigs happening in October on 25, 26 and 27 and you can vote for your favourite act online via the Levi’s Music website, or at the store gigs, with votes including an entry into the competition.

The campaign is being promoted across Spotify and Clash Music channels and all videos and interviews from the events available for users on their music platforms. The events are part of Levi’s’ “Go Forth” global ad campaign which the company hopes will target the youth market.

Craft of Music

Some of the top selling alcohol brand owners in the UK have agreed to an alliance to pre-empt legislation on responsible marketing practices in social media. The likes of Bacardi, Diageo and Pernod Ricard agreed to come on board with the self-regulatory guidelines for advertising on social-media sites which were devised by a partnership with The European Forum for Responsible Drinking and the Distilled Spirits Council of the US.

The new guidelines that the alcohol brands will stick to include restricting Facebook users aged under eighteen from accessing official alcohol brand pages and also a commitment to remove inappropriate user-generated content from brand pages on Facebook with 48 hours. They have also agreed to place advertising on non-branded channels only where at least 70% of viewers are over 18 and to link ads to responsible-drinking messages.

This week a multimillion-pound ad deal was announced between Diageo and Facebook, plus it looks like Bacardi is going to shift 90% of its digital spend to Facebook initiatives. However with all the interest in Social media, lobbying groups in the UK have accused the drinks industry of targeting young consumers through social media which they worry could lead to more alcohol related problems.

Social Media

Marks and Spencer’s sub brand Limited Collection is targeting fashion bloggers to drive up interest in the brand by using a Facebook campaign that will focus on “trend-led, street influenced credentials” that Limited Collection aims at. A number of influential bloggers will be challenged to make their own Limited Collection, so M&S can make their sub brand more distinctive.

The new campaign is the brain child of Marc Bolland, Marks & Spencer chief executive, who is looking to create more distinct identities for the company’s Limited Collection, Per Una and Autograph clothing who stated he wanted to make this possible last November.

For the campaign fashion bloggers will wear items from the Limited Collection for a week and create a new look every day, showcased on Facebook. Those taking part include; Kate Williams and Cait Harrington, they will be posting pictures of themselves in their outfit choices and will discuss what they like about the range.  M&S Facebook fans and the fashion bloggers’ readers will then be able to vote on their favourite outfits and the blogger with the most votes will win a trip to Paris.