General – Page 2 – Mike Berry Associates

Online display: clicks are nice but response is essential

Why is Online Display Advertising so named? After Offline Display Advertising of course. But why was that so named? To distinguish it from Classified. We’re talking about the full colour double-page-spread ad for the new Porsche vs. the densely packed page-full of ads for lonely-hearts and second-hand cars. And like offline, Online display is about finding the audience while they’re doing something else and attracting them to your brand; representing, at its best, a skilful combination of targeting, creative ideas and high-quality execution.

We’ve heard of ‘banner blindness’. Many people claim never to click on display ads and many regard them […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T16:54:17+00:00September 7th, 2012|General, Trends|1 Comment

Making the business case for Digital Marketing

How does one ‘sell’ digital internally?

Those of us who would describe ourselves as ‘digital specialists’ have a vested interest in evangelizing digital; we love it, we believe in it and we want to do more. However: working in real-world organisations, we need to make the business case to convince those who control the budgets which we require to implement our digital plans. Otherwise nothing will change and the effectiveness of our marketing activity is likely to decline as consumers/ business customers switch to new platforms; as brand owners we risk ‘missing the boat’.

Let’s be clear: the reality is that ‘the internet revolution’ […]

Mike Berry2021-08-17T11:55:59+00:00June 17th, 2012|General, Integration|0 Comments

Digital Marketing In Sri Lanka

Mike Berry gave this interview ahead of his trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka to present a 1-Day Seminar, ‘Marketing In The Digital Age’.

Q. Your show is about the best, effective digital campaigns. Can you generalize – what are the key success factors of digital marketing campaigns?

A. Digital has made a massive difference to marketing, particularly as regards the technical skills needed to make the most of the new communications platforms, but deep down the fundamentals are pretty much unchanged. The role of the CMO is the same as in the days of ‘Mad Men’ (the US TV Show about a 1960s US ad agency). It follows that successful digital […]

Mike Berry2021-08-16T23:37:39+00:00May 29th, 2012|General|0 Comments

The Three Secrets Of Content Strategy

My insightful view of Content Strategy:

1. Publish Good* Content.

2. Refresh It Regularly.

3. That’s It.

Please can I be a Content Strategist now? I hear it’s well paid.

*interesting and well-written

Mike Berry2021-08-17T11:56:22+00:00May 4th, 2012|General, Trends|1 Comment

Bumbling politicians serve up digital dog’s dinner

“The Law is an Ass” says Mr. Bumble in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Yes, even here in Good Old Blighty, the oldest democracy in the world (err…sorry Iceland, Greece, Isle of Man, America, NZ +++), we sometimes get it badly wrong: the upshot being that we end up with laws that are ridiculous, unenforceable, dangerous or all of these. One such is the new UK Digital Economy Act (DEA). The Act was rushed through by the last UK Government without proper scrutiny or discussion, in the pre-election ‘wash-up’ period.

I recently took part in a debate […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:10:03+00:00July 25th, 2010|General, Trends|13 Comments

Online video: it’s going to be HUGE…

This post first appeared on:
Digital Minds from the CAM Foundation

As Fairfax Cone, one of the founders of US advertising agency Foote, Cone and Belding (today Draftfcb) observed in 1940, “Advertising is what you do when you can’t be there in person”. Historically, posters and press ads ‘ambushed’ people while they were going about their daily business and offered them something attractive, useful and/or enjoyable – something to make their life better. This was called Advertising and, as we know, a whole industry grew up around it.

Then radio was invented and soon it became possible for companies to add commercial […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:15:36+00:00March 26th, 2010|General|4 Comments

End of the Hippie Dream: did business break The Web?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a scientist and something of an idealist. Oh yes: and he invented The World Wide Web. I wonder what it says in his passport under ‘Occupation’…

In my book that’s about as cool as having been in The Beatles. However I’m certain Sir Tim is worth less than Sir Paul (even without an expensive ex-wife). You see he has deliberately chosen not to exploit his invention for personal gain. Which (many would say) is also pretty cool.

When Mr B-L was working at CERN in 1989-90 he wrote […]

Mike Berry2021-08-18T09:00:19+00:00March 2nd, 2010|General|9 Comments

How was it for you? The joy of UX

Google is planning and currently beta testing some design/ layout changes, both on the Home page and the Search Results page to include a new left-hand navigation pane. Google is known for making such changes very rarely and when it does, for researching them very painstakingly. Which raises the question: isn’t agonizing about miniscule changes in logos, column width and colours all a bit unnecessary? After all, Google has a strong brand and isn’t it the reliability of its search results that really matters?

Well, in a word, “No”. We’re talking about the User […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:18:52+00:00November 28th, 2009|General|7 Comments

Online display: SORRY TO INTERRUPT!

“I find those ads on the internet really annoying; I never look at them.”

Anon. (OK it was one of my teenage daughters)

As you may be aware, those strips at the bottom or up the side of your web page are called banners and ‘skyscrapers’. Increasingly, you can ‘mouse over’ them to expand them and/or click to play a video. All (tell me if you know an exception) will take you through to a landing page on another website, generally owned by the advertiser. You will also have encountered films that play before the video you wanted to see (AKA pre-roll) […]

Mike Berry2021-09-23T17:25:34+00:00August 14th, 2009|General|4 Comments

PPC: how much will you pay per click? It’s all about Quality.

If you know all about Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) you might want to sit this post out (or better, please read and comment; this is Web 2.0 after all.)

Today’s big news in the world of tech/digital marketing is the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, which sees Microsoft become Yahoo’s search provider while Yahoo’s sales team will sell advertising on behalf of both companies. This will, subject to regulatory approval, create a serious rival to Google in the world of search and specifically in the world of PPC.

A random sample of advertised jobs from this week’s UK (digital) marketing press (online and offline) includes […]

Mike Berry2021-08-17T11:43:45+00:00July 26th, 2009|General|7 Comments