Category: Uncategorised

A great philosopher once said: “It’s not all about the money, money, money”. Okay, it was actually Jessie J in her first big hit ‘Price Tag’. While the sentiment of the song is self-explanatory, what we didn’t know at the time of its release was that this song was all about social influencers.

Recently this group has been accused of using their popular feeds, with typically large followings, to promote brands’ products for a fee and inadvertently taking advantage of young social media users. In some cases, this criticism is fair, but I believe it’s a biased view of the industry. A recent BBC Panorama investigation sparked a heated online debate with some viewers stating that the programme didn’t provide a “balanced” view of the topic. The programme highlighted the ease of which diet supplements, gambling-related products and alcohol are promoted on digital platforms but seemed to imply that all influencers who promote products on their social media profiles are doing so in an irresponsible and harmful manner. This is simply not the case.

In September 2018, the Advertising Standards Authority released the Influencer’s Guide that outlines the rules that social media influencers need to abide by when promoting products online. The guide states it’s the responsibility of both the influencer and the brand to ensure that advertising content is labelled as such using hashtags like #ad, #sponsored or #freebie. No one can disagree that these measures offer more transparency to the industry but should brands still consider partnering with influencers? Let’s consider the advantages:

Firstly, it’s now widely accepted that consumers are more likely to trust the people they see on their social media feeds than in traditional marketing. Secondly, social influencers allow businesses to reach larger audiences, promote positive branding and increase customer engagement and awareness. And finally, influencer marketing is a growing industry: in 2018, Google searches for the term “influencer marketing” increased by 325% compared within 2017.

In conclusion, the power of influencer marketing is continuing to grow from strength to strength and I don’t think businesses should be put off by the recent bad press of the role of a social influencer. By working with them, brands can gain a lot of value, especially as part of an integrated marketing campaign and using the right strategy to support them.

While the wintry weather definitely caused inconvenience and chaos last week, it has certainly become so much easier to keep a busy work life on track and stay efficient during challenging weather conditions. Thanks to technology, not only can we work from the comfort of our own home, but we can also better understand the changing weather and plan for minimal disruption.

Some years ago, having a ‘snow day’ ultimately meant that you could forget about achieving anything work-related. Travelling to the office was near impossible and VPN did not have all the wonderful qualities we are so familiar with now. Technology has since enabled us to carry out most, if not all, of our office duties from home and deliver equally high results. If you’re worried about team communication when you can’t reach the office, there’s no need. There are countless ways to maintain quality contact with your colleagues and continue working closely, whether that‘s by email, in an online meeting room, Skype or by phone. In an agency like ours, the use of technology ensures we deliver a high-quality service to all our clients.

The way in which technology can so accurately forecast the weather has done wonders for the working snow day. With this knowledge, businesses can be fully prepared for a ‘day out of the office’ and can plan a smooth-sailing schedule. More significantly, technological forecasting can now enable us to actually get to work – authorities can be made aware of vulnerable transports links, giving them an opportunity to make the journey possible for intrepid commuters. The development of IoT smart city technology is another way in which councils are tackling these issues and identifying areas at risk. One example of this is smart tree technology. Using tree sensors, councils can collect data which measures the movement of trees and evaluates their stability and overall condition. If, for example, heavy snowfall has put a tree at risk of falling and disrupting traffic flow, councils will be notified and can take immediate action.

We are even seeing the effect of technology on snow days at schools – a recent story from the BBC told of a new ‘e-learning day’ for students in the US whereby they are required to work from home.

Despite all these technology advances, the future of the traditional snow day is unclear. The need for a physical office is declining for some businesses due to the increasing use of IT solutions and some companies already operate solely through virtual workspaces. What’s more, with ever-evolving smart city and transport technology, we may once and for all beat the travel chaos!

Long gone are the days of clicking through Teletext pages or reading the TV Guide to see what programmes you wanted to watch over the next week – aside from the regularly scheduled soap slots.

According to a new report from Ernst & Young, 30% of UK viewers say streaming is now their primary mode of viewing TV and film content at home as many consumers are continuing to ‘cut the cord’ on paid-for TV services and control their own viewing experiences. This is the same story across the pond too; in fact twice as many (60%) US households have ditched the cable.

Simply put, ‘cord cutting’ is the term for cancelling cable packages in favour of streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hayu – while also using catch-up and on-demand services provided by traditional broadcasters.

Since the introduction of Netflix in 1997 – becoming more popular in 1999 when it first adopted a monthly subscription model and reaching 20 million subscribers by 2010 – video streaming has boomed, and it shows no sign of slowing down. Even traditional broadcasters are now having to follow suit and offer customers more flexible viewing platforms, with big names in the entertainment business also cashing in on this trend.

One of the players entering the market is Disney which will be launching its own on-demand service, aptly named Disney+. Slated for launch in Q4 this year, analysts are already predicting Disney will sign up over 55 million international subscribers in the first five years alone. Time will tell if it can hit that kind of scale.

One of the biggest drivers of this change is the large sums of money being pumped into developing and marketing new content – The Economist projected in June last year that Netflix was going to spend almost $13 billion on original programming in 2018.

Alongside this, the advances in HD quality, and now Ultra HD/4K, technology and faster broadband infrastructures has allowed the video streaming giants’ content to be viewed anywhere, across a range of devices, at any time and all in high quality. As a result, viewers are ditching paid-for TV in favour of the simplicity of streaming, while avoiding sign-up fees, confusing bundles and long-term contracts which typically come with cable packages.

Streaming providers have also mastered the art of cleverly using data to add value to the whole experience, personalising customer profiles and offering programme recommendations based on previous viewing. This beats the 30-word blurb you were given in the TV guide to help you decide what to watch…

During the last 20 years we’ve seen first-hand how the broadcast sector has experienced  rapid rates of change as it continues to meet consumer demand and remain up-to-date. It’s going to be interesting to see what developments are ahead in the race for subscriber numbers and whether the cord is going to be cut for good.

Discover the Whiteoaks Difference

1. What’s your career background, in brief?

My career has been somewhat varied. After spending fifteen years within the IT industry — eleven of these as a partner business manager at Hewlett Packard — I decided to retrain as a science teacher. I spent ten years or so teaching at local secondary schools before joining Whiteoaks last year as a content writer. I haven’t worked for a B2B tech PR agency before, but my IT and science background are proving very useful in understanding our clients.

2. What’s the most challenging job you’ve ever had?

Teaching without a doubt! Imagine teaching six back to back lessons — 180 students in total — where you need to instruct, motivate and manage them. All this while remembering every name and ensuring that they all understand what they are doing and are staying safe with the various chemicals and Bunsen burners in the lab.

3. What apps, technology items and gadgets can’t you live without?

I’m fairly old school and if I’m totally honest, I probably wouldn’t miss any of them too much — I even possess a hard copy A-Z! Having said that, it’s a different story with the rest of my family. Holiday planning involves much researching to ensure that the Wi-Fi connection is available and fast enough to meet my teenager’s demands for data.

4. What’s the best advice you’ve been given?

Probably the best piece of advice is to try and enjoy your job – if you wake up every morning dreading it, then it’s probably time to look for something else. Life is too short to be miserable for the forty hours minimum we spend working each week. I would also like to add my own bit advice to this — keep learning, expanding your skills and don’t be afraid to change direction if your interests and priorities change.

5. Name one thing about your job that gives you a sense of satisfaction or makes you leave the office smiling…

When tasked with writing a 1,500 article for a client it can seem like a hill to climb at the beginning, but after some thorough research, quiet thinking and productive writing I get a great sense of achievement when it’s completed.  The icing on the cake is positive feedback from a client to say how much they liked it!

6. Do you personalise your workspace?

I don’t – I like to spread out while I’m working so my desk tends to be pretty messy while I’m working on a piece of writing.  I think anything else would just add to the clutter!

7. What’s the first thing you do in the office in the morning?

I’m a big tea drinker and need a couple of cups of tea in the morning to get going so this tends to be the first thing that I sort out after firing up my laptop.

8. What are you reading, watching or listening to at the moment?

I tend to alternate between reading new fiction and something which I think I ought to read. I’ve just finished Normal People by Sally Rooney, which is an interesting love story and a great read.  I started The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck a couple of days ago, but I haven’t got into it yet — I’m hoping to be enlightened and entertained by the story and the characters.

I’m also following each episode of Les Misérables on the BBC. I can’t confess to reading the book but it’s a great TV production.

Technology has had a profound effect on the way we operate in every aspect of our lives — from the way we communicate, to the way we run our homes and the way we shop. Perhaps one of the most significant changes comes into play outside of our personal lives. While we might not realise it, the effect of technology in business continues to shape the way in which we work and organisations operate.

As an example; for any business with a supply chain, investment in technology is essential. We’re all aware that the modern consumer has demands that simply wouldn’t have been met twenty years ago. In retail we’re now accustomed to click and collect, same-day delivery and one-hour delivery time slots and VR apps that let you check how that mirror would look on the wall before you buy it. These are great conveniences, but the pressure for retail businesses to remain competitive is enormous.

In a B2B environment, technology now means that any disruption to the supply chain can be quickly resolved as businesses have access to real-time data and can scenario plan in advance to anticipate a host of ‘what ifs’. Despite the fact that legacy processes, such as a reliance on spreadsheets, still holds many organisations back from reaching their full potential, others are investing in the best technology available to digitally transform both the customer-facing and, often neglected, back-end processes.

Not only does technology affect business outputs and processes, it has also changed the workplace and the way we, as employees, function. We can work from home, get paid on demand, leave the desk and tuck ourselves away when we need a few quiet minutes to concentrate and manage our pensions, annual leave and payslips on an app. Cloud computing, fintech and developments in IT mean that some companies don’t even need an office anymore. Forward-thinking fintech companies, such as Hastee Pay, offer services that mean for those of us feeling the January pinch there is no longer a wait for payday.

At the rate technology has been evolving over the last few years I expect a blog on this topic next year will be entirely different. Will robot assistants be serving us drinks while we work away on a beach in the Caribbean before meeting our clients on the other side of the world via hologram? Maybe. Check back here in 2020 to find out.

The annual global innovation showcase known as CES has seen brands from across the globe take over Las Vegas and compete for the limelight since the ‘60s. Companies need to stand out from the crowd and cut through the noise, particularly at a show where nearly every technology company in the world can be found under one roof. The sheer scale of the event is a reason having a strong creative public relations and communications strategy can enable key brands to steal a march on their competitors.

In the past CES has been viewed as a gadget fun-fair which lacked any connection to the everyday consumer, but this year things are different. This year the consumer was put first.

When talking about winning the race for consumer favour you need look no further than the fierce battle between tech giants Amazon and Google as the two dominate the voice-aided smart speaker space. Amazon is estimated to have a 41% share of the global smart speaker market while Google has 28%, following a year of significant investment to catch up to their tech rivals.

Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant (GA) AI technologies need no introduction, but they are still in the early adoption stage as consumers come to grips with the benefits of smart-home tech and connected devices. Their comms teams have acknowledged this by demonstrating the technology in-use, through partner technology like JBL’s new GA headphone range and the smart TVs that have Amazon Alexa functionality built in. The marketing teams highlighted new functionality, but unlike previous years, the benefits of the products have been the focus, rather than the gizmos themselves.

Google managed to pull off an elaborate stunt involving a ride which uses voice commands to move the consumer along a journey, putting the user in control – Hey Google, give me a thrill but don’t make me throw up.

Speaking of thrills, a robotic sex aid for women by Ose was banned from this year’s show, which caused uproar on social media. Commentators on Twitter adopted the hashtag #CESGenderBias to debate the organiser’s decision and suggest there was a double standard because male-friendly sex products were displayed at last year’s show.

Despite this biased PR decision which plays into the broader gender discussions in society over the last year, many organisations have quickly adopted policies in their recruitment and business operations that will create a more diverse workforce and empower female leaders. Comms professionals can help tackle the issue by creating strategies that position business leaders from different genders and ethnic backgrounds to be equally represented throughout PR and marketing campaigns.

If one company were to win the award for best stunt, then in my view it has to be Apple. Apple wasn’t even exhibiting at the show, yet it managed to troll the competition with a giant ad on the side of a Las Vegas building, that read: “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.” The obvious dig at privacy standards in the industry puts the pressure firmly on the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon. Ultimately, I believe consumers are in the process of benefitting from the increase in attention on privacy, as devices become more secure and safe to use. And in one fell swoop it looks like Apple, not Amazon or Google, won the CES comms war.

We recently released the findings of a landmark piece of independent research which investigated the use of Account-Based Marketing and Account-Based Sales approaches. Entitled, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’, in the first of this two-part blog series, we revealed:

• The close alignment that exists between Sales professionals and Marketers;
• Which communications options they each think are most effective;
• How CRM systems are being used;
• Whether those people we researched are working to an account-based framework, and;
• The ways that both teams measure the effectiveness of marketing on lead generation.

Today we can share the concluding part of our research project and some further insights provided by the 200 senior B2B Marketing and Sales decision-makers.

Setting off on the right foot

As we reach the time of year where budgets start to be reviewed, refined and allocated and annual business plans and implementation strategies are signed off, it is the perfect time to ensure you have clearly articulated the goals and expectations you have for your marketing strategy. With three-quarters (76%) of the Marketers we researched working within an ABM foundation, it would be recommended that your next annual marketing strategy incorporates at least the beginnings of the journey to this approach.

Perhaps surprisingly for me, only 45% of those surveyed said that a persona-based approach to Marketing or Sales is a goal. For us, this is the ordinarily the foundation of an effective marketing strategy. By truly understanding your personas, you are able to visualise and put yourself in the shoes of your buyers and clients. Find out more in my recent article.

Related: Unleashing the power of buyer personas and account-based marketing

Our findings also suggested that while close rates and times mattered as a goal of their overall strategy to 57% of the group, both Marketers and Sales leaders were most focused on the slightly more qualitative measures of improving the quality and applicability of marketing plans to the overall business plan (71%) —rather than just quantity of leads. Understanding more about prospects also featured highly as a goal. This further underlines the importance of a sales and marketing strategy which both builds and develops a brand and also goes after leads and sales with short-term tactics.

Achieving impact from an ABM or ABS structure

With a strategy defined, the attention turns to how to achieve impact in day-to-day execution. While 76% of Marketers and 85% of Sales leaders said they are already working to an ABM or ABS structure respectively, dissatisfaction was higher than expected in terms of the impact it was having on their business. In fact, 60% of Marketing decision-makers wanted to realise a bigger impact, as did 79% of Sales professionals.

So, what’s behind the numbers? The top three challenges preventing both groups from seeing true performance improvements were:

• A lack of knowledge (46%)
• Less budget or time than ideal (45%), and;
• Lacking the required technical infrastructure (41%).

To take the final bullet point a little further, almost half of Marketing professionals said that they didn’t have the right technology in place. And from our experience, this likely reflects the difficulties which arise in evaluating the number of tools available and needed for an integrated Martech stack.

Surprisingly, only 31% of the combined audience said that they didn’t feel they had enough support from senior management, suggesting to me that these decision-makers have effectively educated upwards as to the need for an account-based approach.

There’s little doubt that implementing and working to an account-based framework can be hard work and may feel initially unrewarding – but just like improving a Martech stack, it will be rewarding and helpful in the long term.

Suzanne Griffiths, Managing Director, Whiteoaks International

Tell Us Your B2B Tech Story

Download our free report, ‘A Perfect Match: ABM and ABS’ today, by filling in our contact form below. In the report you’ll discover:

• How senior Sales and Marketing decision-makers are currently embedding ABM and ABS into their business;
• Which marketing communications both leaders say supports the business most effectively;
• The best ways for marketing tactics to demonstrate their direct impact on sales; and
• An in-depth look at the goals and challenges that Marketers and Sales professionals have when implementing an account-based structure.

1. What’s your career background, in brief?

After graduating Cardiff University with a BA in Journalism, I did an internship with a radio PR agency in North London for a few months. Then I decided it was probably the perfect time to shoot off travelling for a bit, so I did a ski season in St Anton, Austria, before starting my role at Whiteoaks.

2. What’s the most challenging job you’ve ever had?

Probably my job of selling Jägerbombs while I was at university! It may seem simple, but trying to navigate through crowds and dancefloors of nightclubs with a tray of 15 shots was no easy feat…

3. What apps, technology items and gadgets can’t you live without?

I couldn’t live without my iPhone. Twitter is my favourite app, mainly for the funny videos.

4. What’s the best advice you’ve been given? (life or career advice)

I can’t think of a specific piece of advice, but I think Forrest Gump sums it up relatively well with “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”.

5. Name one thing about your job that gives you a sense of satisfaction or makes you leave the office smiling…

Having a good laugh with my team.

6. Do you personalise your workspace?

Not intentionally, but yes… I came into work wearing a sloth onesie for a charity fundraising day and since then I haven’t been able to live it down, so for my Secret Santa gift I was given a load of sloth merchandise, which is now on my desk. I also currently have a mini Christmas tree because why not, it’s nearly Christmas!

7. What’s the first thing you do in the office in the morning?

Seek out the coffee – I can barely function otherwise.

8. What are you reading, watching or listening to at the moment?

I’m watching the new series of Masterchef: The Professionals and RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars 4. I’m a big fan of Drag Race – I spend most of my down-time re-watching episodes of that and Brooklyn 99 on repeat.

Innovate. Transform. Grow. Bold words, but all certainly applicable to Fintech Connect, which bills itself as the UK’s largest fintech trade show. Held at the ExCel in London last week, it didn’t let me down, with speakers and representatives from major institutions like Citigroup to smaller niche players like Smart Valor.

Our agency has a strong heritage in the Fintech space and we’ve represented disruptive firms from across the industry, from Regtech to small business finance and data management to invoice financing. This is an industry landscape that is constantly shape shifting, influenced by the regulation agenda, consumer demand and mobile technologies, to name just a few.

A glance at the speaker sessions and workshops gave just a flavour of the huge variety of solutions on offer: from augmented reality in banking to tokenised investments, the opportunities created by open banking to machine learning. This is an industry that is fertile hunting ground for innovation and it is a source of huge pride to see London and the UK rightly recognised as the perfect base for these sorts of companies to launch, grow and thrive.

I was fortunate enough to speak with a few of the home-grown Fintechs at the event and find out how their transformative technology will meet one or many market needs.

Their passion and belief is admirable, but it also strengthens our own resolve. What is clear to me is that PR is a strategic investment for these firms – it isn’t a budget pot they are willing to fritter away so that they get it again next year. Instead, it drives and supports strategic business direction, from breaking new markets to attracting external investment, increasing sales to generating new leads.

So as we continue to disrupt our industry with our results-driven engagement model, it was heartening to hear that these firms require a communications agency to complement their own company ethos or approach.

As a proof point, have a look at our work with Fraedom, a hugely disruptive B2B firm in the commercial credit cards and spend management space, which earlier this year was acquired by Visa.

Doing things the ‘same old way’ has been a terminal error for businesses in the past – and those working in the financial services and Fintech space know that better than anyone. Different results need different approaches, different ways of thinking and similar disruptive philosophies, which is where I think Whiteoaks truly sets itself apart from the rest.