marketing

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Skype just announced a new business spin-off of their popular VOIP service partnering with European Directories to offer free click-to-call services for their business listings (free to the consumer at least). Pretty much it takes your typical yellow pages a step further by allowing the user to connect directly to the service provider by clicking on a “Free Call” button attached to each listing. According to their press release, this will provide free consumer phone calls for up to 700,000 business across Europe. The most interesting part of this deal is that the Skype/European Directories partnership doesn’t end with just covering directory services. Skype plans on offering each company the ability to embed the “Free Call” button anywhere else on the web that their number is posted.

Is there a catch? Of course there is. In order for you to be able to use (or probably even see) the click-to-call button you will need to have both the latest version of Skype for Windows installed in addition to the latest Skype browser plug-ins. This now sounds more like a click-to-download promotion. Ouch.

I should point out that this isn’t even close to being a new idea, directories like Yext have been around since 2006 offering fully-loaded click-to-call advertising & directory services. Yext just recently was awarded $25 million dollars in funding after participating in the TechCrunch50 (they also broke this news story a few hours before the official Skype press release).

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The marriage of VOIP & Online Advertising is something that will soon be taking over the current way we interact with online ads with companies like Twilio & Voxeo leading the way by providing inexpensive developer platforms for creating IVR/VoIP solutions (and of course, really cool web-apps!)

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Plannercollective

I’d like to introduce the latest project of mine that has recently gone ‘live’ – the Planner Collective. It’s still in the early beta stages as I wanted to roll out the features in bundles so that everything will work together smoothly. Currently the website is divided into two sections. On the homepage you’ll find an blog/news aggregator similar to popurls or alltop. These are only planning/strategy/branding sites that I’ve thrown in to make it a one-stop shop for catching up on posts written by other planners out there. It hasn’t been up very long but I already have a good list of sites that will be added on the next update. Eventually you’ll be able to sort and/or create your own Strategy/Planning aggregator but for now it’s just one main feed. The second part of the site is pretty cool (at least I think so). You can find it by clicking on the Tweet Farm link on either the header or footer (or just follow this link). There you’ll find a live feed of planners who have twitter accounts. Unlike all the other twitter widgets or scripts that i’ve seen out there, this is a full-blown twitter integration that includes account history. The possibilities of what you can do with this are endless.

I’m about to update the entire site with the first round of updates. Some of the features that will be added include the ability to search the twitter feed (it will only search the account planner tweets), a better looking css/layout, a bunch of new blogs for the homepage, and hopefully I’ll also be able to include the media/link top-lists in time. That last one is a top-10 list of the top links shared by account planners as well as the most popular new videos/slideshows which relate to our industry (it will also allow for user suggestions/feed submits).

If you have any ideas, comments or questions about the site please feel free to use the contact form on this site or on the Planner Collective and i’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Before you send me a message, keep in mind that:

  • This first round was just to iron out all the cache kinks and get the aggregators running fast, that’s why the design is very basic and in some cases broken/ugly. This will be fixed AFTER the functionality is running smoothly. If you’d like to volunteer to help with the design, or better yet, donate a logo then please contact me immediately (and thanks).
  • I don’t currently, nor do I plan on trying to make money from this site. It is my goal to turn it into a resource for account planners, researchers and brand managers to share their ideas, tools and links with others.
  • If you’d like to be added to the twitter feed, first check your own list of followers and see if @plannertweet is one of them. If he’s on your list then you should already be aggregated into the site. If you’re not being followed by @plannertweet, send me an email with your twitter name and a brief introduction. If you’d like updates on the site then just follow @plannertweet back, I promise not to spam.
  • As for a list of current/planned updates, I need to compile the list that people have sent in along with my own and will be posting it on the site. I was thinking of maybe integrating it into a voting system but for now just email or tweet (@brentter) any ideas to me directly.

Thanks!

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Now this is very cool! Titled The Man Who Walked Around The World, this short promotional video involves Robert Carlisle (Trainspotting, Hamish MacBeth and the Full Monty) walking through the Scottish highlands narrating a killer version of the history behind Johnnie Walker. It starts out with Robert telling a bagpiper to ‘Shut It’ so he can start his story, which is a rather impressive five minute continuos shot of the actor walking through the misty countryside while interacting with various props (including getting a drink) along the way. It took 40 takes for them to get this on film in one, unedited shot. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Produced by creative director Nick Mahoney for BBH London, this spot was conceptualized by creatives Justin Moore and Jamie Rafn (Ruben Mercadel was the agency producer). Shot on location near Loch Doyne in Perthshire, Scotland, by director Jamie Rafn from HLA with George Richmond as the DOP.

Glyn Tebutt from Glassworks was responsible for the visualfx with editing done by Kate Owen from Marshall Street Editors. Aaron Reynolds from Wave Studios designed the sound(which was composed by Jamie Masters from Adelphoi Music).

For more on the piece go check out the interview Shots Magazine has with director Jamie Rafn.

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