Last night, the company hit down-town Park Gate and sampled the delights of our local Indian Restaurant.
It was good to see standards haven’t dropped and Rob made a special effort by wearing a suit and tie for the night out.
Our waiter must have been an ‘Indian Jacko’ in his spare time as he wore just one glove that could have been white in a former life. More alarmingly, all of the pearls were missing from the glove and the chickpeas were crunchier than normal.
Sorry to Andy for not managing to save him a poppadom. Next time…
There have been a lot of news stories recently that have been commended for their viral marketing capacity. The ‘world’s best job’ competition, won by Briton Ben Southall, proved the power of advertising across a global forum, predominantly through social media.
This week saw another piece of clever self-promotion, with the news that a former model and personal trainer became a junk food addict, causing him to pile on 7 ½ stones in weight. Melbourne resident Paul James did this to better understand his larger clients unique needs; although in truth what he has done, very well, is promote himself and Doherty’s Gym, with news stations throughout the world covering the story.
Today came the revelation that the infamous ‘Three Wolf Moon T-Shirt’ had received a monumental sales boost primarily due to the hundreds of mocking reviews posted on Amazon. The subject of these posts have been circulating throughout the Internet, including blogs, social media and email, helping generate further publicity and increase interest in the product – even if it is a little tongue-in-cheek.
Despite an increase in sales by 2,300%, the makers are understandably far from happy with the amount of negative attention that their garment has garnered. In spite of this, the huge public awareness that viral marketing – whether deliberate, as in the case of the Queensland tourist board, or otherwise – can potentially deliver, is enough to make seasoned marketers sit up and take note.
Unfortunately you can’t usually pre-empt or organise a viral campaign, they just grow organically. Evidently though, extreme originality can be the key to success. This certainly highlights the need to be creative in the modern marketplace. People power will drive any business forward, but it’s up to us as marketing professionals to generate the momentum.
With all the controversy surrounding the “will he, won’t he” debacle of John Sergeant and Strictly Come Dancing, I thought it would be interesting to see what impact this event has had in terms of the search engines and blogging community.
The sometime reporter and now legendary entertainer (apparently) has caused quite a stir by leaving the BBC show so as to not risk winning this dance contest and ruining the chances of the other contestants.
I picked another of the contestants completely at random, Rachel Stevens, to see how the pair compared in terms of search engine traffic:
John Sergeant v Rachel Stevens
Even with all the free publicity, John is still languishing behind Rachel in the search stakes. Fancy that. This is also borne out by the blogging community and the trends provided by Blogpulse:
John Sergeant v Rachel Stevens Blog Trend
Not as clear cut, but seeing that interest in John “Nice” Sergeant seems to be on the wain yet he’s clearly a safe pair of hands entertainment wise for the BBC, I wonder if there’s any vacancies over at Radio 2 that we’ll see him waltz in to?
Yesterday was the Impact Media Christmas outing which ended up being a bit of a triathlon.
Stage 1 – Go-Karting
It all started off with a friendly go-karting session (who are we kidding? More like all out war…) where the field was split: the crazy and the crazier! After the warm up / qualifying session (or to the competitive ones amongst us the first race) pole position went to Rob with 2nd going to Ben and 3rd to Adrian. The green lights of race time then came and Ben managed to catch the confident Rob napping for entry into pole position and the race was on. The race for pole was fast and furious between Ben and Rob with them managing to lap the rest of the group.
Rob #2 (IT Dude) gave up racing when he realised he had no driving skill so instead resorted to bumper-car techniques and made up his own game of seeing how many times he could run Andy off the track. Andy claimed it was 5 times in total ‘though, of course, this couldn’t be verified.
When the chequered flag came down, it was Ben that came in victorious over a disappointed Rob. Ben leapt onto the podium to collect the winners trophy followed by Rob a very close 2nd and Hannah in 3rd after a somewhat controversial overtaking manoeuvre on an orange light.
Stage 2 – Ten Pin Bowling
Next came the bowling which was split between 2 games: the practice and the main event. The games may have been split but the results were pretty similar for both of the games. Lucy ended up being the dark horse among us and although swearing blind she was no pro, beginners luck can only go so far. The real shock came when Andy managed to just pip Lucy to first place with a few well placed / lucky strikes.
Andy picked up his first ever trophy, a tasteful bowling pin money box in green. He immediately set about locating the nearest engraver…
Stage 3 – Food
By this time we were all starved so we finished the day off with a meal, drinks and discussions of the days antics!
A good time was had by all ‘though we can’t wait another 12 months before a bowling re-match.
If you are planning on doing your Christmas shopping online this year you have better be quick. With only 2 weeks to go until the big day, many online retailers are fast approaching their last delivery dates.
Each year more people are avoiding the high street and are turning to the internet to complete their Christmas shopping. From the comfort of your home you have access to a great range of shops plus you don’t need to worry about the queues. So you will be sure to find something for everyone from Grandparents to the Kids.
Happy Shopping!
Google have turned their considerable technological weight to helping children around the world track Santa Claus as we head towards the 25th December.
In their blog post, Tracking Santa, then and now, their Chief Santa Tracker explains the various ways that children can now monitor Santa’s movements using a combination of products, including Google Earth. There’s even a widget you can add to your Google page for up-to-the-minute monitoring of Father Christmas and his sleigh. Ho! Ho! Ho!
Day 2 of Lucy’s career with Impact Media and she’s already won her first game of table football, albeit it was only against Andy.
Winning 3-1 she immediately showed her sympathetic side by fetching the distraught SEO specialist a tissue to wipe his tears. This was after she first chalked up the score. Nice one Lucy 
The Impact Media table football league reached new heights today with yet another storming victory for Ben Norman.
Coming a close second was Andy Williams who had an outstanding game leaving both Adrian bold and Rob Arkell in joint third.
New week, new league so lets see what comes of it!!!
Week 2 of the Impact Media table football league reached new heights in excellence with a resounding victory for Head of Search, Adrian Bold.
With Rob Arkell sunning himself on holiday in Ibiza, he immediately forfeited his games and came last. Though, to be fair, the fact he was on holiday made little difference to the results.
Andy Williams put up his usual determined effort but with the same predictable result.
With the trophy changing hands, the MD of Impact Media, Ben Norman suddenly saw less importance in table football and had to leave the office for an important meeting shortly after the awards ceremony.
