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Email marketing is still so prevalent. Which is reassuring, but sometimes it appears to be in danger of turning dinosauric. The rise in m-commerce, social media platforms and more specific targeting methods up the likelihood of email campaigns being labeled as spam, or at the least making them seem a real nuisance. Even so, all it takes is a little tweaking to make sure your email doesn’t phish straight into the junk folder, which is where this infographic comes in. This handy diagram holds the key to how to set your email apart from all the rest.

Nike has managed to remain pretty fresh faced. Now it proves it can walk on water. The brand possess that heady combination of long standing familiarity with the ability to embrace digital progression. Some previous tongue-in-cheek campaigns prove it can be a little daring and subversive, where other sports brands fall back on shooting the run of the mill ad of a sport celeb to endorse its product. Nike try its hand at pushing a few more boundaries, this one in particular for the New York launch of Jordan Melo M8 trainers. It’s not the first time 3D water effects have been used in a campaign, but the synergy and synchronicity between the music and movement is pretty spectacular, making this advert a visual treat.

At first I thought this was news worth celebrating. But a little more probing made me re-think how great, really, is the recent announcement that Netflix is going to launch in the UK next year?

There is still some speculation as to how exactly Netflix will operate, after the way in which its stocks have been rollercoastering the last few months. They way I understand it, the online streaming company has lost over 800,000 US subscribers in Q3 after declaring it was splitting its service into its mail order DVD rental feature and the online streaming service, resulting in an increase in price and an increase in unsubscribers.

Unfortunately the news of its arrival in the UK followed this announcement, reining in the black cloud for the company and stirring up a storm of unease and discomfort for prospective users and investors in the UK.

On top of this the company shares have plummeted by 70% since its record high in July. A combination of ill-made decisions concerning re-brandings and product shuffling, as well as over-hype in its services are to blame for this.

Across the Atlantic doesn’t seem to fill the company with much joy. The Guardian quoted a letter that the company wrote to its shareholders covering its back concerning the UK launch, stating that due to the already competitive market alive in the UK, Netflix is not expecting to make any profit for at least two years. This competitive market includes rivals such as iPlayer, Amazon’s LoveFilm, Google’s YouTube service and BSkyB. Even so, these services don’t really compare to US rival Hulu, who’s only contrasting characteristic to Netflix is that it includes adverts.

All in all, the future looks unsteady for Netflix in the UK, a sentiment only heightened by the cosy ties emerging between Facebook and Spotify. Added to this the unfortunate (for Netflix) sounds from Apple indicate that some form of iTV is on the cards, allowing users to plug straight into their individual iOS.

So what will prevent Netflix from flopping? The only option it has to ramp up its prices or inundate subscribers with adverts. Neither of which, as a subscriber, I can get very excited about.

Augmented reality campaigns are the future of digital advertising. They have come a long way in such a short space of time, so if its rapid development is anything to go by then it won’t be long before all products are endorsing this format just to connect with consumers.

Firstly, a definition might help. The web holds many different variances of what can be classified verbally as AR, but after a bit of web trawling I’ve found this to be my preferred way of explaining it: “Augmented Reality is akin to virtual reality, but rather than immersing the user in a virtual world, the physical space around the person operating an AR device (like a smartphone) is layered with graphics or geo-specific data to form a blended reality that can be interacted with.”

This, to some, may sound a little layman. But for me that is precisely the key unique selling point of AR. What is so distinctive about it is our own humanity; the virtual world enhances our experience but never fully over takes it, as appose to the purpose of a virtual reality. This is fundamental if advertisers want the wider communities to embrace AR. After all, social business is taking off because it highlights the human interactions that were thought to be nearly suppressed by “electronic-mail”.

Who knows how much further AR can go in bringing products to life. It certainly offers a slightly sexier bridge between realities than the pixilated QR code. For a very cool example of it in action take a look at Volkswagen’s recent campaign; I can’t help but find it reminiscent of the shark attack incident in Back to the Future II.

The social media revolution has seen brands push themselves further into the networking arena in an attempt to engage and interact with their customers. Google+ is promising the “imminent” opening up of brand pages on the social site. Brands on Facebook have been met with varying degrees of success; only last week I detailed a new Heinz campaign that was so considerate it inherently epitomised social interaction between people.

In terms of Twitter there are several channels worth exploring for brands to elevate their presence. Firstly, Promoted Tweets, available in the US for a little over a year, this new service took 12 months to travel across the Atlantic. One huge success story in the States was the Coca-Cola promoted tweet that launched during the SuperBowl, understandably the impressions reached millions. But there is nothing revolutionary in two brands conglomerating in a huge super power.

The Twitter advertising blog, however, states that the introduction of Promoted Tweets has made a 3-5% increase in engagement rate with followers. Twitter’s advertising blog has only been live for three weeks, amassing a total of only three blog posts so far. But the initial aim was to inform the advertising, marketing and agency world about Twitter’s new developments in this space.

This blog, still in its infancy – but worth keeping on the radar, was launched in conjunction with a Twitter feed, @TwitterAds, used for the same reason, to inform marketing folk on news and such in the world of Twitter advertising.

So far the @TwitterAds feed has been updated with seem pretty slim examples of how brands have upped their engagement with consumers through promoted tweets, trends, and online digital growth. But this is sure to be an interesting handle to keep abreast of.

Bringing this post to a close, I came across this really interesting Heat Map, posted by the social media scientist, Dan Zarella. This image suggests where the best place to insert a link in a tweet is by analysing 2,000 tweets and recording highest concentration of click through rate (CTR). I suggest reading the whole post here if you want to understand the sciency part.

Most of us agree on the respective benefits of social media marketing. But that doesn’t’ stop figures suggesting otherwise; there still seems a reluctance in social media up-take by plenty of CMO’s. Is there something complex about implementing a social media strategy? Or are marketing officials still suspicious in the possibility of generating ROI from a model that doesn’t seem to cost to set up? Alternatively, is social business still very much in its infancy that more evidence of its success is needed before people spend valuable time and resources on it? This infographic holds some of the answers and offers up some surprising social media statistics on the state of B2B social media marketing.

As a disclaimer: don’t view this viral if you’re bug-phobic. Technology sometimes advances so fast it can seem hard to keep up, but every so often a curve ball comes along that plays with the most basic and simple principles. This campaign for Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon platform is pretty refreshing, if a little weird. It took a bit of digging to find out the association between Snapdragon and a bug circus (Snapdragon’s CPU is called Scorpion) so roll up and witness tarantulas running treadmills, a praying mantis on a bike, and the grand finale, a cockroach blasted from a canon through a ring of fire.

The buzz (ha!) surrounding the viral says this is all pretty authentic, but I’m not sure what bug-protection charities would have to say about that?

Steve Jobs’ passing has seen him and his work canonised. In his wake he has left swathes of distraught followers, showing their support and commemorating his name in some of the most innovative displays of hero-worship-gone-viral I’ve seen. For starters, the website www.i-SteveJobs.com has sprung up. This marks an entire site created posthumously and dedicated to the Apple CEO. This site features a few of the most peculiar commemorative shrines, but here are a few more examples on this behaviour that I found particularly imaginative.

Here are some of the more creative, bizarre and peculiar to make the list.

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I’ve just come across a piece of research that has been accepted for publication in the academic research journal Marketing Theory. The study details why the X Factor has come to be known as one of the biggest brands in the world.

Pieces of marketing theory that cite the X Factor excite my interest quite readily – I’m thinking of titles such as Six tips marketers can learn from the X Factor judges – and it’s not because I’m a huge fanatic. This kind of thing interests me because it shows a readiness to apply academic research methods to pop cultural subjects, which, in essence, signifies a reluctance to take oneself too seriously. (It is for this reason that I also appreciated the bon mots of Five tips PR’s can learn from True Blood).

Unfortunately this particular instance differed slightly in that the paper tries really really hard to examine why the X Factor has turned into such a giant super brand. The answer to this question would be valuable information to anyone, gold dust even. It would unlock the power to unlimited fortune and success. But the answer is not something that can be written down and replicated. Even the most optimistic of marketers will recognise the intangibility of its popularity, the role of chance and a million other elements that have contributed to the X Factor status.

Chris Hackley, professor of marketing at Royal Holloway, and co-author Stephen Brown, professor of marketing research at Ulster University, flag up in their study that fundamental to our current obsession with the hit TV show is its ability to “tap into a human need for rituals of change and transformation”.

This it masters in the dramatic tension caused by diametrically opposing the tragic back stories of the contestants with possible fame and fortune. By pitting “rejection/failure and acceptance/success” the audience recognises the similarities of the programme with ritual rites of passage and as a result feels a powerful sense of commitment towards it.

I haven’t read the whole paper so I’ll refrain from making any full judgement, but so far this sounds pretty bonkers. I will say this though; the study draws parallels between the X Factor judges and figures of mystical authority, such as a shaman or trickster, which traditionally led ritual rites of passage. From now on my enjoyment of the X Factor will mostly be got out of picturing Gary Barlow dressed in zany witch doctor garb.

Hackley, C., Brown, S. and Tiwsakul, R. (2012) The X Factor Enigma: Simon Cowell and the Marketization of Existential Liminality, Marketing Theory, (in press) A draft copy is available at http://pure.rhul.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/chris-hackley(bb78fbaf-7641-4f8f-87c0-57dc1b4db16f)/publications.html

A friend of mine and I were discussing the greater and lesser merits of the next generation-consoles; Xbox Kinect and Nintendo Wii. I bought a Wii a year and a half ago, and after only one misspent late-night Zelda foray, the little white box now quietly gathers dust in my living room.

My friend on the other hand, has not yet tired of his console so isn’t constantly faced with the reminder of a perfectly good waste of money in his living room. Having just purchased his Kinect on Amazon, his vexations were directed else where. Amazon’s recommendation page, often hailed as the e-tailers USP, is now offering him up suggestions that range from the bizarre and incongruous to the downright insulting. Apparently, bemused mutterings at the proffered Teletubbies DVD gave way to indignant grumblings after Amazon kept thrusting weight losing materials and high octane activity workout Kinect “games” through his laptop screen.

We’ve all suffered from similar endorsements, and of course, it is best not to take them personally. Amazon isn’t calling my friend fat. And I’m certain that it makes a fair amount of cash from the recommendations feature. But with Facebook’s further immersing of itself into the B2B world and Google not showing signs of slowing down soon, I think we’re going to have to grow some thicker skins.

What I find peculiar is that this marketing technique is most definitely not an old one. Companies have been compiling data of consumers’ prior purchases and predicting their tastes to shape its product endorsement since the dawn of trading. With the digital revolution this algorithm is more personalised, localised and directed. In essence the retailer is now being more transparent with the consumer, displaying that fact that it can ─ and with some indication as to how, it is able to predict these offerings.

Paradoxically, it’s this transparency that has consumers anxious about privacy-related issues and a Big Brother state of the internet. But thankfully, I heard that by the year 2016 the younger generation will care much much less about privacy issues, so I imagine that entire weekly shopping lists will be compiled by the e-tailer itself.