This month’s article looks at the positive steps you can take to make sure you stay secure in your current role. Jonathan Lindon, Director of Source, gives us the lowdown on how to impress your boss and keep your job.
Mobile, digital, traditional and experience media - the power of convergence on the senses
We all love technology to some degree or another, whether that's our Sky +, our car's Sat Nav, our latest Mac/PC, or the mobile game that keeps us entertained on the tube. Similarly we also are, for the most part, fans of advertising media, be that TV, press, radio or digital. Finally we all love experiences - from festivals and gigs through to shopping and community activities.
The most exciting times in media convergence are upon us and we are starting to see the power of cleverly targeted activity across all channels, to drive engagement of an audience through experience. So, why are we talking about this in this month's article?
Well, times are changing rapidly, with mobile technology advances are set to enhance convergence and to create seamless brand engagement - so we thought it would be nice to look at a case study that demonstrates some of what we can expect to see happening throughout the country in the future!
O2 Arena
O2 is synonymous with communication, but has in the last few years, enhanced the brand position with music, whilst using its power as a telecoms brand to get its audiences engaged through their hand sets. At the same time O2 is building brand loyalty from its mobile subscriptions customers, by giving them premium customer status at The O2 Arena, via options only available to them and their handsets through the O2 network.
The brief: To make O2 the world's most interactive venue O2's mobile agency responded with three executions.
Firstly, by creating an installation giving visitors the chance to create a personalised music video. By using a touch interface, visitors would choose a video that they want to star in and then they would perform in a green screen booth. The visitor is superimposed onto the video and once complete the video is sent to their phone or email, enabling them to upload this to a social media channel of their choice.
Secondly, they created a VIP Jukebox powered by mobile technology. Visitors to the VIP bar can use their handsets to choose tracks from plasma TV's. After texting their choice, confirmation is sent to them of when the track will be played in the bar.
Thirdly, as an O2 subscription customer, you receive a promotional code when you enter The O2 Arena. The customer sends this code to gain free access to The O2 Blue Room.
So, in summary O2 have created their brand position through traditional advertising methods, but in more recent times have utilised mobile, experience and digital technologies to build its reputation through association with having a great time socially and then telling all your friends about that great time, through social media. This is what I call full circle brand engagement. What O2 have done can be reciprocated by many major brands.
We already have mobile ticketing for festivals, Bluetooth stations in retail spaces that send vouchers to customers entering the store to redeem whilst they're there and community karaoke driven by social engagement, powered by brand campaigns. The world of advertising and marketing is about to get very exciting - and we haven't even talked about TV's whose set tops will allow them to stream video, surf the net , upload content and publish it to social media.
In such a fast changing space, staying well informed is important but enjoying the experience is vital.
Employers off the back of this convergence will be looking for an ever increasing variety of skills sets from their employees - the message here is keep learning if you want to be in demand.
This month’s CP Career comes from Source - a specialist recruitment business, dedicated to the digital, integrated and traditional creative communications industry.
They work to support the needs of advertising, marketing and design agencies, in addition to in-house departments of corporate clients and provide permanent, contract and freelance solutions.
