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Posted in Content, E-commerce, Internet, Middle east, Middle East marketing, Mobile, Online marketing, social media |

Are you being genuine?

Posted on 12 May 2013 by Carrington Malin

"Reading the Spot On blog has certainly been the key to my success. Plus, I have lots more friends now, more free time and fresh minty breath too!"

One of the great challenges for companies investing in digital communications is content. As we’ve said before on Spot On’s blog, we are all publishers now. However, if your company is not currently structured to create great online content there are good reasons to take care.
Whilst there is room for both editorial and advertising in the new world of social communications, be careful your brand is not caught out trying to pass advertising content off as editorial. It is all too easy to do, particularly when many brands rely so heavily on their agencies to create new content.

We’re all quite used to seeing actors in TV commercials tell us how their brand makes them smarter, more successful, more attractive or in some way a better person. We know this is an exaggeration made to make a point about the brand’s unique selling point and most of the time, we don’t really mind. It’s often amusing and we’ve been exposed to so many years of advertising that exaggeration is pretty much expected.

Now let’s look at our expectations for personal communications. How much truth do we expect when we hear from a company executive? How believable is a deodorant brand product manager who says he’s become more popular since he switched to his company’s brand of deodorant? How likeable would a car company executive be if he said that he loved his car more than his wife and children? Would a business executive who claimed her company never, ever made mistakes keep her credibility? If they wouldn’t say it to you face-to-face, it’s best not to have them say it in a video or on a blog post either.

Next time you publish something in the name of one of your executives, ask yourself this question: does it sound believable? Or will their words be dismissed as pointless marketing speak or, even worse, held up as examples of clear disingenuousness?

While maintaining the persona of a brand may be one way to use social networks, this can’t be the case with communications attributed to a real person – here the imperative is clear – be genuine.

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Posted in Blogging, Content, Customers, Disintermediation, Facebook, Internet, Linkedin, Middle East marketing, Online marketing, public relations, social media, strategy, Twitter | Tagged blogging, Carrington Malin, Content, Online marketing, public relations, social media

The buzz around Arab film

Posted on 9 May 2013 by Carrington Malin

Those of us that are old enough to have known 1970s and 1980s television in the GCC, will remember, among other things, the broadcasting of old Arabic movies from the golden age of Egyptian cinema (or, indeed, turning the TV on to watch the English language movie of the week!). The video quality often left a lot to be desired and films often didn’t make it all the way to the end, but TV resources were scarce and know-how still limited.

Newcomers to the communications revolution, the Gulf states weren’t really in the production business and, in fact, aspiring directors across the Arab world struggled to find backing for film projects. The path for an aspiring new film professional was pretty clear: move to Europe or North America. So, it’s with excitement and anticipation that many have watched the increased recognition, investment and talent that Arab cinema has generated during the past few years: at home and abroad.

With film festivals cropping up all over the Middle East and North Africa and Arab contemporary film being celebrated at film festivals and awards events all over the world, there’s a kind of buzz that’s never been seen before around Arab film, Arab directors and the new opportunities for the film industry in the Arab world. These days, of course, a lot of that buzz can be followed online, via news sites, blogs and social networks. If you’re following the unfolding story of modern Arab film too, you might be interested in the following social media resources curated by Spot On:

Arab Film Twitter List

Spot On’s Arab Film Twitter list follows the Twitter profiles of hundreds of directors, producers, actors, film festivals and other film industry types involved in films made in or about the Arab world. Click here to view.

Arab Film Pinterest board

Check out Spot On’s Arab Film Pinterest board for reviews of Arabic language and English language films by Arab directors or produced in the Arab world. Click here to view.

Arab Film News Digest

We also curate content including breaking film news, features and film reviews via our Arab Film News Digest, which is a magazine created using Flipboard’s iPad app. Click here to find out more.

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Posted in Content, General, Middle east, Twitter | Tagged Arab Film, Carrington Malin, Content, culture, Egypt, film, film festivals, Flipboard, movies, Pinterest, talent

A modern marketing manifesto

Posted on 24 April 2013 by Alexander McNabb

Many of us have held the opinion for some time that the arrival of the new wave of social media would force massive changes in communications and marketing and even change the structure of organisations themselves. And so it has. The role of digital marketers in organisations has grown up fast, as marketing’s influence over technology strategy has also grown. Some companies now have chief digital officers. Others have CMOs that play an increasingly pivotal role in deciding technology strategy. So, where does this all leave marketing as a discipline? Is it now a digital profession, or digitally influenced or a strategic influencer of digital strategy?

Well, UK-based digital knowledge provider Econsultancy has set out a Manifesto for the Modern Marketer in an effort to appropriately position marketing in an increasingly digital world. Marketers and their CEOs alike would do well to read it. It will undoubtedly trigger some feelings of déjà vu for long term Spot On blog readers, as well as participants at our conferences and workshops – because Econsultancy’s Manifesto speaks sense and talks directly to many of the challenges Spot On and others in the digital marketing ecosystem have been banging on about for years.

Those challenges to organisations, their brands and traditional marketing disciplines are part of the set of changes that are being wreaked by the turbulence of Internet-speed communications and media. The evolution of new ways of doing things, of approaching things and viewing results that has been necessitated by Web technologies has all been fascinating to watch and difficult to quantify.

Econsultancy has had a good hard think about what the Internet and its associated technologies and cultural changes mean for the profession of marketing and for companies that employ marketers. The result of which neatly, and brilliantly, encapsulates these into a single, elegant document which spells out the role of marketing for the digital age.

The role of marketing has never been so important to companies and the consumer has never been so influential on the way brands act and are perceived by the market. The days of buying influence through disruptive and assertive media are gone – today’s marketers need to use information intelligently, communicate effectively and act conversationally for sure. But those marketers also need to be C-suite players with influence over companies that recognise values of transparency, accountability and truthfulness.

So, hats off to Ashley Friedlein and his team. Set down on paper, it all makes perfect sense. As a clarion-call for marketers struggling with the transition from one-way communications to a totally 360 degree world, it’s compelling stuff.

How you communicate this important set of messages to the boardroom is quite another issue – but we’d start by taking your CXOs for a day out somewhere quiet and asking them to look at the business with fresh eyes. This is a led process – one we have managed for many organisations – and it is always a massive eye-opener that results in organisational change to some degree as a result of the workshop. Trying it with a view to sharing some of the challenges and opportunities CXOs (and customers) believe the business faces because of the influence of the Web would be a really strong start to a journey we strongly believe every company will have to take. The question is whether yours will be a leader, a follower or even a victim.

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Posted in Customers, Disintermediation, E-commerce, Internet, Middle East marketing, Online marketing, social media, strategy | Tagged Alexander McNabb, communications, digital marketing, digital strategy, econsultancy, marketing, social media, strategy

Flipboard and the future of content

Posted on 7 April 2013 by Carrington Malin

It’s no secret that the Internet has radically changed the way we create, consume and share content and continues to do so. Spot On often talks about concepts such as disintermediation, the atomisation of communications, the social consumer and the pressure on all organisations to become publishers of content. It’s easy to spot the big things that are happening. It’s also easy to see the cracks appearing in traditional media models as content becomes more difficult to manage, control and make money from. However, it’s not always easy to see what new media, content channels or platforms are going to drive the next wave of changes.

What is clear is that the value of good content has never been easier to appreciate, nor harder to monetise. Content consumption has become more personal and distribution more social. Consumers now get to choose from an increasing multitude of channels from which to consume their content, which may be media producers, aggregators or simply their friends. There are also many ways for consumers to share content and Internet companies continue to introduce new services to give consumers more and more control over what their delivery channels look like.

One such new service is the new ‘create your own magazines’ feature from multimedia feedreader Tablet and iPad app Flipboard, announced by Flipboard Inc. at the end of March. It’s not an entirely new concept, but it is a bit of an eye-opener, because Flipboard’s new magazine feature is just so incredibly easy to use. It allows anyone with a Flipboard app and an Internet connection to create a ‘magazine’, aggregate content from a wide range of sources and share it in minutes. Flipboard has been careful to ensure that all content read and shared via its services is credited to its source and news organisations will benefit from another channel being opened that leads to their content. However, it does serve to highlight what little control news organisations have over where their content appears these days and the powerful new tools that consumers are being given to package and share content as they see fit.

Here are our first three Flipboard magazine titles (Flipboard’s iPad or Android* reader apps are required to view these):

Each magazine took us about 10 minutes to set-up and publish. Ok, we are a bit geeky and already armed to the teeth with our own RSS feeds, but nevertheless, it’s easy enough for any user to create their own Flipboard magazine in minutes. Becoming a publisher has never been so easy.

* Note: Users of Flipboard’s Android app will be able to view our magazines by clicking on the images above. However, Flipboard’s Android app doesn’t seem to have enabled Flipboard magazine or Flipboard user search features yet and so Android app users will not be able to search for these magazines for the time being.

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Posted in Blogging, Content, Disintermediation, Facebook, General, Internet, Linkedin, Middle east, Newspapers, Online marketing, Publishing, social media, Twitter | Tagged Android, apple, apps, AppStore, Arab World, Carrington Malin, Content, Disintermediation, film, Flipboard, Google Reader, iOS, media, media freedom, MENA, Middle east, newspapers, press freedom, publishers

Taking a bite out of the CITC

Posted on 31 March 2013 by Carrington Malin

‘Biting the hand that feeds IT’ is UK-based The Register’s amusing theme line, a reference to the IT news website’s irreverent editorial style, which often has harsh criticism for IT company announcements, spokespeople and other IT news. This week, Saudi Arabia’s English language newspaper the Arab News seems to have decided to do some biting of its own, running a front page story about the Kingdom’s telecommunications regulator CITC’s plans to regulate access to Twitter.

To the surprise of many, Saturday’s Arab News cover story headlined ‘Twitter may be linked to IDs’ quoted unnamed sources at the CITC, and began ‘Twitter users beware’. Stories about Twitter and the Middle East have made headline news since the early days of the Arab Spring. Following the recent global stories about the CITC’s urgent request to the country’s telecom providers to recommend ways of monitoring mobile chat and VoIP apps such as Skype, Viber and Whatsapp, the newspaper’s front page story pretty much guaranteed global news coverage. As one of two main English language newspapers in Saudi Arabia, the Arab News website is monitored by news organisations across the globe and often quoted in media stories about government announcements in Saudi Arabia. Saudi government plans to regulate access to Twitter accounts, denying anonymity to Saudi Twitter users is big news and its front page position ensured that newswires wasted no time in filing the story.

Twitter has a huge following in Saudi Arabia, with 51% of Internet users surveyed by digital research firm Global Web Index stating that they use Twitter: the highest rate in the world. According to Global Web Index, active Twitter users in the Kingdom have grown by 56% over the past year (from Q2 2011 to Q2 2012). In a country that has ubiquitous restrictions on media, free speech and communications, Twitter has become a key communications platform for both advocates of reform and civil liberties, and those that simply want real-time updates on what’s really going on without the media filtering.

Despite running the Twitter regulation story front page on Saturday, the Arab News removed the article from its website later the same day. Removing the story in the wake of global media coverage, was clearly shutting the door after the horse had bolted and so one can only assume that the newspaper succumbed to pressure. Did the Arab News jump the gun on breaking news of CITC plans or was Saturday’s story a brave exposé? Either way, all eyes will be on the CITC as it considers regulation for social media and online communication services.

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Posted in Disintermediation, Internet, Middle east, social media, Twitter | Tagged Arab News, Carrington Malin, CITC, cyber law, Internet, law, media, media law, newspapers, regulation, Saudi Arabia, social media, telecom, Twitter

Why retiring Google Reader is anti-social

Posted on 15 March 2013 by Carrington Malin

The web is now full of reactions to this week’s announcement that Google will retire its RSS feed reader on 1 July 2013. Perhaps, as pointed out by Tech Crunch’s Matt Burns, the retirement of Google Reader will pave the way for more innovative feed management apps from competitors that have hitherto been too intimidated by Google Reader’s pervasive presence on Google’s main navigation menu (although there are no guarantees that Google won’t roll-up some of Reader’s RSS features into another app further down the line!). However, retiring Google Reader also removes a critical link between content producers and content consumers, particularly when it comes to the work of bloggers and journalists.

Google announced the demise of Google Reader along with seven other Google apps on Wednesday stating declining usage over the past few years as the reason for Reader’s retirement. The truth is that the content world has changed radically since Google Reader was introduced in 2005 and Google Reader hasn’t. Since then, Facebook (launched 2004), Linkedin (launched 2003) and Twitter (launched 2006) have brought massive changes to the way the world browses, consumes and shares information. Social networks have become the primary method of news discovery for millions of Internet users and Internet users now account for the majority of news consumers in many countries. Google Reader’s basic, text-focused news feed, organised into folders, now looks very old-world alongside the dynamic news feeds of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and, more recently, Google+.

So, why shed a tear over the death of Google Reader? It doesn’t compete effectively with Facebook or Twitter’s news feeds. Its multimedia features are limited. It’s also no longer a social app (Google removed Reader’s social sharing features in 2011). And, as confirmed by Google, demand hasn’t kept paced with new social networks. Whilst all of these things are true, none are really a fair comparison. Google Reader is a stripped down tool that’s simply good at what it does: aggregating multiple content sources into feeds of text headlines. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but Reader allows you to scan hundreds or thousands of news, blogpost and other content headlines every day and quickly filter out the ones that are important to you or – and this is often the more important bit – your audiences. There are also plenty of third party apps available that add value to Google Reader’s RSS feed engine.

Innovation never sleeps on the Internet and the continual stream of new services means that people choose to use the Internet many different ways. Some users are biased towards search engines, some Facebook or Twitter, others traditional news sites. Recently, social sharing has soared as social media users discover that following other social media users with similar interests helps them discover more news and other content that’s in-tune with their needs. Sharing habits differ, but the biggest consumers of online news content are often the biggest social sharers and this is where Google Reader has played a critical, although largely unsung role.

Journalists, bloggers, researchers, analysts, communications professionals and other mega-consumers of news content the world over use Google Reader to filter through thousands of news headlines for content that might be of interest to their key audiences. Their followers, readers, fans, colleagues and clients rely on their content choices, share in-turn and, in many cases, this is how online content develops a viral life of its own. Google Reader was never going to compete with social networks on numbers of users, but it nevertheless underpins much of the news sharing that takes place everyday, ultimately influencing millions of content consumers and content sharers across all online social networks. Taking it away, with no adequate substitute in place, is an anti-social move indeed.

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Posted in Blogging, Content, Disintermediation, Facebook, Internet, Internet research, Linkedin, Newspapers, Publishing, research, social media, Twitter | Tagged Carrington Malin, Content, content consumers, content marketing, feed readers, google, Google Reader, Internet, RSS, RSS feeds, social media, social networks, technology

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Marketing after the click

Posted on 5 March 2013 by Alexander McNabb

In the old days, we used to place advertisements in trade magazines. These often carried ‘bingo cards’ for advertisers to circle numbers corresponding to advertisements. These ‘reader responses’ were collated by the publisher and the contacts of interested readers were sent to advertisers for them to follow up with a brochure and perhaps a follow up call.

Many advertisers came to depend on the bingo card responses as a metric: if the ad generated, say, a hundred leads then the thousand bucks it cost gave a cost per lead of $5. Of course, the quality of these leads could vary very widely indeed and many companies probably didn’t follow them up well enough. In fact, the vast majority of readers didn’t bother to use the bingo card at all in favour of making direct contact with the advertiser or, more likely, not responding to them at all because they simply weren’t relevant to that reader at that time.

As a metric, the bingo card wasn’t, well, very good. And it was just as useless as a sales lead conversion tool. But it was all we had.

Now, of course, we can use our spangly new social networks. We can pay to advertise with Twitter or Facebook and get Follows and Likes from people. Unlike the lottery-like game of traditional advertising, Twitter and Facebook will charge you per Follow or per Like, so you only pay for what you get. In fact, PPC – or Pay Per Click – is pretty much how Internet advertising works. You only pay for an action generated as a result of your advertisement, although you can also pay for impressions (PPM) if you are so inclined, which means you’re paying for eyeballs, not clicks.

There’s an argument that a Follow is more powerful than a Like (and vice versa), but both are undoubtedly more powerful than a click. But they’re all the cost of acquisition of a lead, an invitation to treat rather than the end of the process. Like those bingo cards, they’re valuable property, because someone’s just said, ‘I’m interested in talking to you’. The danger, as with bingo cards, is companies failing to realise that there’s a load more work to do to turn that interest into action.

So an online ad campaign budget isn’t just down to paying for the media and the clicks, but also paying for what comes after – the follow-up and engagement. And unlike the old days, an advertisement isn’t a one-off, transitory thing to be forgotten about once the issue date has elapsed. Because you’ve actually said to someone ‘I want to talk to you’ and they’ve said ‘Sure’ and now you’re standing in a room together and they have an expectant smile which is soon going to start wobbling if you don’t actually pull through with the goods.

We have really swapped media here. As the cost of online advertising increases, we’re going to start to see real pressure building for campaigns to be evaluated, for metrics to prove we’re not wasting the money. Although online is heavy on metrics, the important part of the campaign is increasingly not going to be on the cost per click, but the investment beyond that click and the effectiveness of the content and conversation management that turns that circle on a bingo card into a customer. What’s really changed, is the conversation doesn’t stop. And that’s where real investment comes in before you ever seek one single Like or Follow…

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Posted in Content, E-commerce, Facebook, Internet, Measurement, Middle east, Middle East marketing, Online marketing, social media, strategy, Twitter | Tagged advertising, Alexander McNabb, analysis, clicks, Content, conversation, conversion, digital marketing, Facebook, Follows, Likes, marketing, Measurement, PPC, PPM, sales, social media, Twitter

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Ooredoo or just plain redo?

Posted on 26 February 2013 by Carrington Malin

In the age of 24/7 online news and social media, what reaction should brands expect to receive from a major global announcement? Many marketers would expect the answer, and the preparation required to harness the benefit of such a reaction, to be second nature to most global brands. However, it seems that this is not always the case.

Qtel Group, one of the world’s fastest-growing telecommunications companies, has just announced its new branding at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain (watch the launch video here). The group will change it’s brand to Ooredoo (an English language transliteration of the Arabic ‘I want’ – أريد أُرِيدُ). Qtel is now a global communications investor-operator with a customer base of more than 89.2 million people and consolidated revenues of US$6.8 billion for the first nine months of fiscal year 2012 (source: Qtel press release). So, it was with a measure of some disbelief that we discovered just how far their online strategy is lagging behind their rebrand. In fact, one is left to wonder if there is one at all.

Qtel's new Ooredoo brand as unveiled at Mobile World Congress 2013

Twitter users were amused to find that the Twitter ID @ooredoo is not registered to Qtel, but to an Internet marketer who seems to be using it for link-building for some rather racy customers (it appeared that the company had started to use @_ooredoo_ instead, but as we were later advised, this turned out to be a fake account – see comments below). Okay, we were surprised, but Twitter isn’t the end-all for some brands (although we would have expected that it would be important for a leading telecom services provider).

Unfortunately, the lack of a Twitter ID synonymous with the brand name is not an isolated oversight. Subsequent research shows that the Ooredoo brand is not only not registered across social media platforms by Qtel, but the name is already registered by a variety of different social media users. Qtel doesn’t own its new brand name on Facebook, Youtube, ~~Pinterest~~(1), Google+ or Instagram either. It’s hard to believe indeed that in a global communications environment where social media platforms play a significant role in shaping global brand perceptions that a global brand should be unveiled without first guaranteeing the IDs that are critical for social media communications.

Online pages and profiles using the ‘ooredoo’ ID (26 February 2013)

Perhaps more worrying from a brand perspective is the fact that the global domain ooredoo.com was parked with a domain provider showing random Google Adwords advertisements until Tuesday afternoon (Dubai time). The site was clearly registered on behalf of Qtel, but nonetheless, did the telecom group really want the first visitors to ooredoo.com to be met with ads such as ‘Want Beautiful Filipinas?” or even “Download eXo Platform 3.5″. Thankfully, the URL now has a holding page with the new Ooredoo branding.

Google searches for the word ‘qtel’ alone exceed 300,000 per month. Add together the monthly searches for all Qtel’s operator brands in the Middle East and North Africa and you have well over 1 million Google searches. Qtel’s Indonesian operator Indosat generates 450,000 searches per month on its own. This doesn’t make Qtel Group the world’s most searched for company, but you’d think that these kind of numbers would provide pause for thought when planning for the online reaction to a major company announcement.

There are clearly circumstances that we’re not privy to that lead to the announcement of the Ooredoo brand in the current state of digital unpreparedness, but it does make one wonder. What’s the rationale for launching a global brand name without securing the online identities, registrations and rights for that new brand? What was the advice of the brand consultants? Can an organisation simply dismiss the value of social media IDs when launching a new brand name?

Meanwhile, Qtel’s new brand identity has received a mixed reaction from Twitter users. You can follow the Twitter conversation via the hashtag #ooredoo.

Updated 2230 hrs 26 February 2013

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Posted in brand marketing, E-commerce, Facebook, Internet, Linkedin, Marketing, Middle east, Middle East marketing, Mobile, Online marketing, social media, Twitter | Tagged Algeria, brand, brand development, branding, Carrington Malin, digital marketing, digital strategy, Indonesia, Indosat, Kuwait, Maldives, MENA, Middle east, Nawras, Nedjma, North Africa, Oman, Online marketing, online strategy, Ooredoo, Qatar, Qtel, social media, telecom, Tunisia, Wataniya, Wataniya Telecom

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Has the Arab Spring turned into a torrent of cash?

Posted on 28 January 2013 by Carrington Malin

Whilst debate continues, even now, on how pivotal the role social media was in the revolutions of the Arab Spring, there can be no doubt that Arab digital activism woke up businesses and governments across the world to the potential of new digital media. In the Middle East the change in attitudes towards digital media has been truly revolutionary, as the Arab Spring dragged business and government leaders off the fence and into the digital camp. The whole market certainly hasn’t turned digital overnight, but the process is accelerating and the trickle of money being spent online has, at least, become a fast moving stream.

The region’s marketing leaders are beginning to move beyond advertising impressions and investing more in content, social networking, mobile, search and other channels. A survey of Middle East advertisers by UK-based Econsultancy and Arabianbusiness.com has found two years running (2011 and 2012) that more than 50% of those surveyed planned significant increases in their digital spend.

Estimates peg the region’s digital spend at $200 million. A paltry sum, perhaps, compared with the UK’s £5 billion ($7.9 billion) annual spend, but it’s currently growing at a rate four or five times that of UK digital ad spend.

Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter

No surprise then, that the Arab world is now watched more closely by the world’s social media heavyweights Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. Twitter announced this week its commitment to the region and partnership with Connect Ads, an Orascom venture born out of MSN Arabia’s ad business and now media rep for both Facebook and Twitter. Although not unexpected (and, in fact, the deal was announced by Connect Ads in November last year) this is one of a growing number of Middle East moves as global digital firms recognise that the region’s Internet audience is coming of age.

The vagaries of Middle East revenue data being what they are, the surest sign that the region’s digital market is now worth betting on is that global firms have deemed that this is the time to invest. 2012 saw both Facebook and Linkedin open new regional advertising offices in Dubai. Internet investors in Europe, the USA, South Africa and elsewhere are investing in more and more Middle East digital ventures. Companies like these don’t invest where there are no returns.

Of course, part and parcel of the fast growing Middle East digital opportunity is that marketers moving online can also expect more competition, higher ad rates and higher expectations from their online audiences. The cheapest time to invest online is now.

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Posted in competition, CRM, Customers, E-commerce, Facebook, Internet, Linkedin, Middle east, Middle East marketing, Online marketing, social media, Twitter | Tagged advertising, Arab Spring, Arab World, Carrington Malin, Connect Ads, digital spend, Dubai, Facebook, Facebook Ads, investment, LinkedIn, marketing, MENA, Middle east, North Africa, social media, Twitter, Twitter Ads, UAE

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