‘There is no more powerful engine driving an organization toward excellence and long-range success than an attractive, worthwhile, and achievable vision of the future that is widely shared.’

Just down load this Vision and Mission exercise courtesy of Sticky Advertising Download vision_and_mission_statements.pdf

C-level execs want to hear it in person.

Word-of-mouth
(WOM) gets executives to buy, according to the "Driving Word of Mouth
Advocacy Among Business Executives: The Experiential Marketing
Connection" report, conducted by the Keller Fay Group and sponsored by Jack Morton Worldwide.

Half of those surveyed said that WOM would both get them to buy and pass along the word themselves.

So how does that word get spread? Mostly face to face.

Other surveys have confirmed WOM’s primacy in B2B marketing. Nearly half the respondents in a MarketingSherpa and
CNET study said WOM
had the highest impact on buying decisions for technology and services.
Online tactics made up 11 out of the 18 "influences" cited by
respondents, led by online magazines, e-mail newsletters from "a
company you know" and natural search listings.

"One-to-one communications
make the difference in the B2B industry," says eMarketer Senior Analyst
Lisa Phillips. "Word-of-mouth can be generated from trade events such
as shows and conferences. The Internet helps to sustain marketing
momentum."

Before a WOM campaign can work, however, companies must have
already established themselves as customer-friendly. Having satisfied
customers was cited as the most important factor by 53.3% of the 122
marketers surveyed by Osterman Research for BoldMouth. A very distant second, at 27.5%, was having "great products or services."

Without satisfied customers, there was nothing for WOM marketers to talk about.

Learn what works in B2B. Read the eMarketer B2B Marketing Online: Trends and Tactics report.

Source: eMarketer May 17, 2007

 Australians are still engrossed in Saturday
newspapers but most weekday mastheads have struggled to hold their
existing readers let alone attract more, according to the latest
quarterly circulation audit figures.

Weekday
newspaper circulation fell by 1.5% in the January to March quarter of
2007 while overall weekend sales were up 0.7% with The West Australian Saturday edition increasing (3.04%), The Sydney Morning Herald (2.78%) and Tasmania’s The Mercury’s (3.69%) respectively.

Newspaper inserted magazines were also strong, with The Australian Financial Review Magazine increasing circulation by 13.67% and Financial Review Boss 2.05%, The Sunday Ages’ SundayLife by 2.94%, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend by 3.71% and The Sunday Telegraph’s Sunday Magazine by 1.09%.

However, others failed to hold ground in the tough newspaper market with Wish carried in The Australian slipping 5.79% and The Age Melbourne Magazine 2.87%.

At the expense of their print genesis,
newspaper internet sites performed outstandingly during the six months
to March 2007 with traffic on the dailytelegraph.com.au jumping almost 80% and all other major sites recording stellar increases. Among the standout performers were theaustralian.com.au with a 56.2% traffic gain and the smh.com.au with 29.3% respectively.

Media analyst Steve Allen from Fusion Strategy described the overall audit result as predictable

“For the past ten years, there has generally
been a trend with a couple of blips in between that has shown weekday
papers are on a gentle decline and weekend papers are on slight
incline,” Allen said.

“In these harried times people don’t feel
like they have time to sit down with a newspaper during the week but
most of us relish the opportunity to read them on weekends.”

Allen said the figures also highlighted the broader issue that newspapers are contending with.

“The fact that all mastheads, particularly
white collar ones are generating good traffic online makes it difficult
for their readership and circulation to hold up.”

He said due to recent audit rule changes, it
was difficult to make realistic comparisons to the same quarter last
year it made comparisons.

“Once we have all quarters audited under the
same system, we are going to have a much better handle on the cycles of
circulation, at least how they been for the past year,” he said.

Meantime, among the weekly magazines, Northern & Shell’s OK!
title enjoyed the biggest circulation increase, period on period,
rising 11% to 125,405 in the three months to March 2007. The biggest
decreases were among the men’s titles, People and Picture which fell 4% and 5.7% respectively.

Source: B&T Weekly 18 May 2007

When you have reached your bank limit and need to extend your facilities for the purpose of exporting try EFIC HEADWAY.

EFIC HEADWAY is a guarantee from EFIC (Export finance and Insurance corporation) to a bank. it provides security to a bank to0 enable it to lend additional funds to you as a small to medium enterprise  exporter, without requiring additional security from you.

GET MORE INFORMATION from our breakfast function on May 25th at the Hunter Export Centre from 7.30am to 9.30am.

SPEAKERS:

Peter Dockery – Director Global Trade Finance, National Australia Bank

Sunil Aranha – Head of SME Business Development, EFIC

Don’t miss this export breakfast. RSVP today. Bring your staff and ask any questions. Booking details are:

Date: Friday the 25th of May

Time: 7.30am to 9.30am

Venue: Level 3, 251 Wharf Road, Newcastle

RSVP: Rachel Currey 02 4908 7333

Nearly half of European broadband users watch TV previews or full episodes online, according to Motorola research.

The study found that six in 10 French broadband households
watched Web TV. About half of Spanish homes watched TV online, as did
43% of UK households.

Almost two-thirds of Europeans under 25 watched TV shows online. Only 30% of those over 55 did.

The study also revealed that there were two or more PCs in 64%
of UK households. About six in 10 German homes had two or more PCs, as
did 54% of French households.

Karl Elliott of Motorola said that "people downloading video
want choice, which is why there is such a change in the marketplace."

Suggesting that watching TV online offered more options than
traditional TV, Mr. Elliott added that "200 channels [are] not enough
because consumers want to take control too."

Sourced: eMarketer May 7, 2007

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.

Users of RSS content use software programs called "feed readers" or "feed aggregators". The user subscribes to a feed by entering a link to the feed into the reader program. The reader can then check the user’s subscribed feeds to see if any of those feeds have new content since the last time it checked, and if so, retrieve that content and present it to the user.

The initials "RSS" are variously used to refer to the following standards:

• Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
• Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0)
• RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)

RSS formats are specified in XML (a generic specification for data formats). RSS delivers its information as an XML file called an "RSS feed," "webfeed," "RSS stream," or "RSS channel".

Actual code NEWS.com.au provides:

<script src="http://feeds.news.com.au/public/js/
news_breaking_news_32.js" > </script><a href="http://news.com.au/"/> News.com.au Home</a>

Below is NEWS.com.au actual RSS feed in action:

News.com.au Home

Austrade is calling for export grant applicants

Find out how the EMDG scheme can help your business go global…

The Export Market Development Grants (EMDG) scheme is a key Australian Government financial assistance program for aspiring and current exporters. Administered by Austrade, the scheme supports a wide range of industry sectors and products, including inbound tourism and the export of intellectual property and know-how outside Australia.

The EMDG scheme:

• encourages small and medium sized Australian businesses to develop export markets
• reimburses up to 50 per cent of expenses incurred on  eligible export promotion activities, above a $15,000 threshold
• provides up to seven grants to each eligible applicant

To access the scheme for the first time, businesses need to have spent $15,000 over two years on eligible export marketing expenses. 

Applications open 1 July 2007 and close 30 November 2007.

Call Austrade on 13 28 78 or visit www.austrade.gov.au/exportgrants to find out more about EMDG or to obtain a CD application kit.

Tiny steps toward more public communication

The buzz around collaborative
Web 2.0 technologies keeps going, and it is easy to think that every
firm now has a blog, a wiki and an RSS feed.

In fact, a global survey of internal and corporate
communications professionals found that more than half use blogs,
online video and RSS, or plan to do so in the next 12 months.

The Melcrum
study of communications at large firms also found more than 40% are
using podcasts and social networks, or say they are planning to do so.

However, "doubling" does not indicate an explosion of public blogging.

The word "public" is key here. Although firms may use Web 2.0
for internal communications, putting company details in plain view for
second-guessing by armchair CEOs still lacks appeal. Responses in the
Melcrum study confirmed this.

Almost half of respondents agreed that employees discussing
their organization online posed a significant risk to the corporation’s
reputation. Another 70% said that they had no guidelines or policies
relating to blogging or other social-media tools, indicating that they
were unprepared for public-facing communications.

Social media are well-suited to internal communications, with
communications professionals believing they help with employee
engagment and internal collaboration.

Firms looking to open two-way
dialogue with senior executives, however, need to decide who they are
willing to have on the other side of the conversation.

Source: eMarketer, 1 May 2007

"Hunter advertising agencies look to Hollywood"

While our Sydney agency cousins are complaining about The Commonwealth Bank turning to the US for help with brand strategy (as reported in B&T Weekly). The crowded Newcastle market is enjoying a bit of Hollywood oneupmanship between local advertising agencies.

It all started a few weeks ago, when Newcastle advertising agency Sticky Advertising promoted Tonya Bowen to the position of Creative Director. Tonya has had extensive production experience, both here and in Hollywood. She has worked in various production roles on major films including Blair Witch 2, Orbiting Venus, Komodo, Deep Impact, Eyes of God, Stir of Echoes, Legally Blonde, What Women Want and The Sixth Sense.

Not only did this make Tonya the only female Creative Director in Newcastle, but it also gave Sticky Advertising that Hollywood sparkle.

However, it didn’t take long before one of Newcastle’s big guns hit back. Yesterday, Enigma announce in the Newcastle Herald’s business section that a bit of Hollwood was brought to the Hunter to create the blockbuster "here for good" television commercial for the Newcastle Permanent. Enigma engaged the talents of Russel Boyd and Kimble Randell for this impressive commercial and shot it using high-definition digital format in the Wiggles Studio, Baulkham Hills. Now I know who’s the new yellow Wiggle…

Where next? Will Peach Advertising join this Hollywood talent search?