Man City FC launch attracts 1,000+ orders in first 24 hrs

We launched Manchester City's new website on July 1st after a tense season of ecommerce, rich media and real-time data. The site, built on Sitecore CMS, coincided with the pre-order launch of Man City's new kit. It painlessly handled over 1,000 orders in the first 24 hours, taking in excess of £50,000.

Together with creative agency Poke, Aqueduct provided the CMS integration and technical development that will unify the three previously separate platforms of retail, ticketing and information. We're building ticketing now, to be launched 1st August.

The site sets itself apart from rival clubs with a simple bold design and no display advertising whatsoever.

We're proud to support Man City this year. Come on, join us.

We get all "Michael J Fox" on M&S & help them go back in time.

"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads...."
(We need – um – papervision3d, flash and photoshop)

Back in February we pitched for a project with M&S – to design a timeline to celebrate their 125th anniversary.

Our concept was an interactive "popup book" style flash microsite – using images from the M&S archive of staff/products/fashion models etc from the 1880s to present day.

They loved the idea and now 2 months on it's finished and live on their corporate website – replacing the existing history section.

Those involved in the design & development really enjoyed working on the site – go view the end result here.

Marketing can look silly

A letter to the Times reads:
I have just received my new year edition of the Royal Bank of Scotland's magazine. It is called Sense, and it tells me that "it's more important than ever to be in control of your finances". I am a shareholder. Words fail me. - Julia Mills, Bedford

Marketing can look silly sometimes, but is it? What could RBS have put in their magazine? Would many people less erudite than Julia Mills actually benefit from this advice. Should the RBS people be publishing a magazine at all? Or were they caught out by long production and distribution time lines?

Probably, they've only really been pariahs for a matter of weeks (although you might have thought someone pre-press would have winced slightly on a read through).

One thing that could have helped would be to find a 'voice' for the magazine that isn't so direct-from-brand, the 'voice' being a place from which this advice could come that would not be so patronising and therefore galling in this instance.

Public service advertising has cracked this in the last few years - the 'voice' that speaks to us in those appallingly effective ads about crumpled children and gluey veins is not so much the government, to whom we might prickle at the interference, but is much more like our conscience and so avoids the problem.

I'm afraid the 'prickle' with Sense is also another example of the very broad tar-brush that so called bankers are getting slapped with these days, most of which should be reserved for the 1% of so called 'market-makers' that shattered 80% of the assets - and the government, who very tacitly not only let them do it, but encouraged it.

Digital trends for... Retail

Based on our digital trend watch and experience with clients in the retail industry, here are eight key trends we're observing:

1. Consumers are increasingly doing research online about high-value, mass-produced goods such as electronics - including reviewing user comments (e.g. Reevoo), price comparison (e.g. Pricerunner) and voucher codes (e.g. My Voucher Codes). Online retailers, typically offering cheaper prices, corner a significant and increasing share of such sales.
   
2. Despite falling sales on the high street, online sales continue to rise - forecasts by IMRG expect 15% year-on-year growth for the foreseeable future.
3. However, retailers should note that online is still a small part of overall spend. Only 4% of total Christmas spend for 2008 was online.
   
4. Online shopfronts of traditional retailers such as Littlewoods (66% rise in Christmas sales in 2008 compared to 2007, according new Nielson Online figures) are growing faster than internet retailers such as Amazon (18% rise for the same period) as they increase investment in powerful e-commerce and digital marketing.
   
5. Home and fashion sectors have had the highest recent growth online, demonstrating that consumers are looking to buy more of those goods historically needing that "see before you buy" reassurance.
   
6. Retailers are leveraging their strong consumer brands to expand into new industries, such as Aldi's Travel website and Tesco's finance products.
   
7. Effective digital marketing has significant impact in driving online sales, including the use of affiliates, regular personalised email, SEO, social networks and reputation management. Ask Aqueduct about conducting a review of your "digital spread".
   
8. A growing trend, certainly in media and entertainment is moving away from physical product distribution, combining the benefits of online shopping with instant delivery (e.g. music and video downloads, software, e-books, e-tickets and even stamps).
   

Get to high ground and grow some wings

There’s no doubt that the economic downturn really having an impact on every industry. Digital is not exempt either, but there are definitely some attractive opportunities out there.

This current change is happening at an interesting time for digital, which was, and arguably still is, in a high growth mode. A number of the large consultancies have announced staff cuts in recent months (LBi, Publicis), online-only companies have been hit (Last.fm, Yahoo!), traditional industries have streamlined their workforce (Marks & Spencer, Nissan) and advertising spend had been tightly controlled over the Christmas season at a usually generous time of year.

Yet it’s easy to be negative. There are clear winners – Google, Apple, Voucher Codes. New digital startups are emerging and capital funding is not dead. If you're in business, here are our tips for not just surviving the downturn but rising above your competitors, growing your business and improving the bottom line.

1. Go digital. Assess the value of producing, distributing and updating your print communication. Can it be done (better) electronically? Exchange & Mart announced last week that they are finally ceasing their print version, concentrating purely online. FT are making staff cuts but continue to invest in FT.com.
2. Increase use of digital technology across your business. Go beyond your website being a marketing channel. Consider it a sales and service channel. Improve efficiency further through the use of digital tools internally for CRM, knowledge management, HR functions and project management.
   
3. Use free and appropriate technology. Many market-leading tools are available for free. The free economy is booming! Consider web usage tracking with Google Analytics, community tools such as Kickapps and Ning, and video hosting with YouTube or Vimeo. Use appropriate technology rather than the biggest full-featured product you can find. Microsoft Sharepoint is powerful software, but not appropriate for every business. Also, consider scalable hosting services such as Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure so you don't pay for more than you need.
   
4. Employ smarter digital marketing. Traditional display ads offer low ROI. Experiment with and regularly monitor PPC and other search engine advertising. Consider affiliates, referral models and other forms of online marketing. Be different to stand out.
   
5. Be where your audiences are. Your prospects, customers and other audiences won't always get to your website. Make sure you communicate to them where they are - social networking sites, blogs, discussion forums, news and reference sites. You need to have your voice heard outside of your website!
   
6. Get your customers to work for you. Use a "crowdsourcing" or "production of the masses" model to get your customers to contribute to product development, technical support or other parts of your operations. Nurture advocates of your brand who will do an effective job of marketing your products or services.

2009 is the year for making your spend more accountable and valuable. It's also the year for digital to be a significant enabler for your business, provided you employ the technology effectively. Contact us for a digital audit and strategy for your business.

Intranets: Spending money to save money

In a time where efficiency and cost effectiveness are being scrutinised it is important to ensure that your company has the right tools.

Intranets are fast becoming recognised as an essential tool for business.

Jakob Nielsen has recently commented on the 10 Best Intranets for 2008.
It is interesting to see some of the trends amongst the top ten winners:

• Sharepoint is the most used product
• Finance is most represented sector in the top 10 winners
• ROI is measured with substantial cost savings for the top 10 winners
• BA achieved a cost saving of £55 million
• Campbell Soup Company achieved a 727% visit per day increase after redesign
• Personalisation has become a trend
• Feeds are more prevalent
• Company news still dominates the homepage
  

The cost of an intranet can vary considerably. Interestingly, the top 10 winners have users that range form 200 to 50,000 staff. This shows that finding the right technology to meet scope and budget effectively is possible at all levels.


Jakob Nielsen is regarded by many as the Godfather of usability.Nielson’s research and analysis takes a very clinical approach. His studies are almost too scientific and tend not to address other fundamental keys to success:

• Design
• Implementation
• Real world situations

Aqueduct has launched two global Intranets for our clients in the last quarter. Our experience reveals that besides the features and products there are many more factors that contribute to the successful launch and adoption of an Intranet.

If you are interested here is a link to the ’10 Best Intranets of 2008’ report summary.http://www.useit.com/alertbox/intranet_design.html

The full 362 page report can also be purchased via the same link.

Turn digital pennies into business pounds

In this economic climate, every hour and pound invested in marketing has to be justified. Smart use of digital is compelling for any marketer. It needn’t be expensive, and if your digital spend is mostly going on, say, technology or consultancy, your focus may need to change. 

Make use of free (or virtually free), open, flexible and easy to integrate solutions that require little or no IT dependence.

In this post, Aquduct gives insight into 10 high-value initiatives marketers can try with digital - that won’t cost the earth.

1. Get your customers to work for you – use your website for “crowdsourcing”. Get your customers to contribute to product development (such as New Look), technical support (such as Apple) or other parts of your operations.
2. Retain and share your internal knowledge – make tacit knowledge work harder. Don’t rely on just one person to know about something in your organisation. Create a free hosted wiki (with PBwiki for example) or ask your IT team to add an open source wiki (such as Twiki) on your own network.
3. Make it easy to update your website without relying on IT – use an open source (such as MySource Matrix) or even hosted Content Management System (such as Wordpress) with the rich features you want, whether blogs, forums or workflow.
4. Scale your web hosting to what you actually use – many companies pay for more hosting than they need, or aren’t making the most of online-served applications. Consider scalable hosting solutions from “cloud” services offered by the likes of Amazon and Microsoft.
   
5. Add free “widgets” to your website – these are free bits of code you can add to your website; everything from Google Analytics to stock price feeds and bookmark sharing links.
   
6. Use more multimedia – video is now very economical to create and share online. Services such as YouTube and Vimeo allow you to embed quality video on your website without the headache and cost of hosting.
7. Have a presence on other websites – not all your prospects will even get to your website. Be where they are – it’s easy and free to create a group in Facebook, respond to relevant blogs or bookmark your top pages on Digg or StumbleUpon.
8. Build a community on your website – if Facebook and MySpace don’t suit your needs, create your own social network with free hosted tools such as Ning.
9. Get a branded, unique presence on all things digital – use products such as Umee to establish a rich branded presence on social networks, create your own widget for others to use, or build bespoke applications on the iPhone, Google phone or Facebook.
10. Conduct live testing on your website – use Google’s Website Optimiser to run tests of tweaks to key pages on your website, see the results and act on them.
    

Things we’ve learned on t’interweb

My mother has a habit of reminding me that “if your Father was alive he’d not be able to cope”—a situation she wholehearted ascribes to Modern Technology.

She has a point. Said Father used to drive out of his way to find a garage with petrol attendants, as he couldn’t work out how to fill up himself.

Fitting then to dedicate this inaugural What we’ve learned on t’interweb to him. Start spinning, Pa.

Beta path to here
What we'll all be doing in a year's time: the web's Top 100 Beta sites.

Earn 1,000s while working from home!
No, seriously. How the blogosphere has become the mainstream.

Web 1 + 1 = 2.0
Struggle with forms? Now you can have someone help you. Just like in the real world!

Do you know the way to San José?
Googlemaps become collaborative!

Site Specific Browsing—the web becomes app-lified
Be very afraid Mr Gates...
The Mozilla Prism project
Site Specific Browsing for Macs

Safety goes viral with our latest shocker

Our work for Network Rail continues to break new ground.

Blast From The Past sees us promoting the Safety 365-related portal—Safety Central—with a nifty bit of send-to-a-friend.

And what better way to leverage such cutting-edgeness than with a spot of recycling?

Watch the spot here.

Infernal communication

Without them, commerce would collapse quicker than a short-sold sub-prime shack in Santa Fe. So why (oh why oh why) do employers—and agencies alike—delight in repeatedly patronising the real engines of enterprise—employees?

No, we don’t know either. Thankfully, EDF Energy and English Heritage agree—and have appointed us to two of the most challenging internal communications exercises we’ve done in ages.

Both organisations understand that their brands are by and large determined by the behaviors of their people.

EDF Energy after all, have a product that no one can really see; English Heritage a remit so wide it is difficult to comprehend.

In both cases, people really do make the difference. Brains = Brand = Bottom Line.

It’s just the kind of challenge we relish—joining-up the behind-the-scenes bits other agencies cannot reach.

We’ve been appointed by EDF Energy to look at Employee Engagement activity—and by English Heritage to work on Brand Values for their Properties and Outreach department.