Facttactic

Corporate and technical writers

Journalism

feeling blue, add a bit of orange …

Have you ever noticed that a large number of Hollywood movie posters have blue and orange as their two main colours? Blue for tranquility and orange for action and energy.

It’s the best combination of colours to lure people into the cinema, they reckon. Think that sounds far fetched, check this page out!

I’ll never be able to look at another movie poster again … but it does shows the power of colour in communication.

You might also be interested to read an article on an NZ Trade and Enterprise website that looks at how businesses can use colours to guide customers to action, especially on websites.

digital marketing is ‘here to stay’

Digital marketing is becoming the most influential and representative manner in which to engage an audience, and this is down to social networking, according to a report in the NBR this afternoon.

The NBR website reported ‘Google innovationist’ Justin Baird, at the Digital Now New Zealand 2009 conference in Auckland, saying that marketing was “no longer about broadcasting your messages and then moving onto the next thing – it’s now an ongoing dialogue, which in turn is an amazing opportunity to learn from your customers via very direct feedback”.

Not a new message, but good to see it reinforced in New Zealand — and applicable, of course, for PR plays, too.  Read more from the NBR here.

Update 27 September

According to this NZ Herald article about New Zealand internet use:

* Nine out of 10 internet users participate in social networks
* More than a quarter have made a major purchase based solely on online reviews
* Ninety-seven percent research online before making a significant purchase
* Twenty-eight percent buy goods as a result of reviews they read on the web

The ability of organisations to get their message across in social media forums is now an essential and significant  part of any business communication strategy.

e-day – enough to drive you to drink

Tomorrow is e-day, an initiative designed to – excuse the blurb – “raise awareness of the benefits of recycling computers and the hazardous nature of electronic waste (e-waste), while offering an easy way for households and schools to dispose of old computers and mobile phones in an environmentally sustainable manner.”

Sure, all sounds worthy … but disposing in an environmentally sustainable manner at a “drive-through event” (as noted on the e-day website)? You can only take part in this environmentally sustainable event by arriving in one of the most environmentally unsustainable ways possible!

The e-day website even has a scoreboard on which it will proudly highlight how many tonnes of rubbish the nationwide event receives — and how many cars visit!

Now, if somebody could calculate the carbon emissions from the number of cars that visit and then subtract that from the impact of the 1000 tonnes of e-waste expected to be collected, we would have a much clearer picture of the day’s environmental impact.

Last year, 16,000 gas-guzzling cars turned up to drop off waste. I hope the people collecting the waste are given adequate protection from the exhaust fumes.

stand out, be different, find your niche

Anyone remember Sweetwaters?

Back in the day, it used to pretty much be the only music festival in the country. These days, outdoor summer music festivals are cropping up everywhere: from the highly lauded low-key, lo-fi Camp A Low Hum in the hills behind Wainuiomata to the increasingly mainstream sounds coming from Gisborne’s popular Rhythm and Vines and a myriad of other events of all musical flavours. Choosing your dates and saving your dollars for your favourite events must be no small decision for festival fans.

And it’s the same in the UK where the behemoth that is Glastonbury is now rivaled by a summer calendar packed full of outdoor events. Attracting the punters in such a crowded market place means concert promoters must be as adept at marketing as they are at finding the right sounds.

Which is way I like the concept of this festival – Indietracks: a mix of indie bands and steam trains, and quite possibly the mostly the most eccentric festival theme ever. I wouldn’t want to go to it but as an example of a niche product and a fund raising event (for steam train restoration) finding and connecting with an audience, I like it.

free at last, free at last

When I first got the internet at home 12 or so years back, I remember the Actrix ISP guy telling me to make the most of it because, sooner rather than later, we’d all have to pay to view anything on the web.

Today, thankfully, I’m still waiting for that, and savvy businesses are making more and more online stuff free – many getting rich doing it.

Wired editor Chris Anderson for one firmly believes things are only going to get freer on the internet. In his new book, Free: the Future of a Radical Price, Anderson says, “In the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.”

Tomorrow, though, the National Business Review starts to charge for ‘premium’ content on its website. The move comes as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation also ponders widespread charges for reading its news websites. So far, reportedly, it has more than one million paid up subscribers to its Wall St Journal online service. Which way, if at all, things will tip is still pretty unclear.

And will this trend extend beyond the grumpy old  men of newspapers? It appears unlikely. The free internet has been a huge tool for smart PR campaigns (think the best job on the world) using free content and, of course, for the free spread of ideas and thought, in general.

UPDATE: I visited the NBR site Friday morning. Most of the top stories have Subscriber content next to them, and you must sign-on and pay to access them. Did I do this? No. Do I miss not getting the content? Yes. Is the content crucial for my work or life? No. Has the website now become a bit unhelpful for me? Yes. Does it make the site less worth visiting? Yes. Will the site lose a visitor and NBR advertisers a potential customer? Looks like it.

online newspapers – change or die, says Google

Newspapers moan that Google steals their content and displays it for free. Google points to the fact that it sends a billion clicks a month to newspaper websites and pays newspaper billions of dollars annually for hosting Google advertising.

Google says newpapers would do well in the new world if they learnt from sites such as such as video site YouTube and the online shopping site Amazon that build their content so there is always more to buy or more to watch.

Google says linking to more information, engaging readers in dialogue and making the content more interactive are “web fundamentals” that could be used to build a product much different from news online today.

Find out more here.