When Hal Varian speaks it pays (quite literally) to listen. The video below shows why.
For more of the interview click here.
Posted 1 December 2009 in Internet marketing, Marketing, Social Networking, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Google, hal varian, web design melbourne.
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Client:
3 Wise Men
Product:
Business shirts and accessories
Background
3 Wise Men – a successful New Zealand based business shirt label. Their slick Italian style designs, quality fabric and palatable prices combined with a decidedly cheeky tone of voice has made the brand a Kiwi businessman’s favourite. The famous “3 shirts for 3 hundy” offer has given them an almost cult-like status in the brands’ home country. With stores in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch the next obvious step was for the cheerful 3 Wise Men to say g’day to the Australian market. A store in Sydney was opened – that’s where we came in.
The Solution
A heavily social media driven strategy was devised – with a cautious eye on budget to minimise risk for the new Australian venture. We started by creating a Facebook presence along with a Twitter account and began building followers. Then we went on to re-skin the 3 Wise Men home page to freshen up the look, improve navigation and the overall shopping experience to better suit the brand – without having to go through the expensive process of an e-commerce redevelopment. The site also had geo-location added to ensure users would be presented with information relevant to their location.
To create a soft-sell environment for the brand to live out it’s cheeky personality we created a separate social media web universe – “The Bored Room” was born. Built around a video blog this mini site allows users to view selected video clips, comment, share and connect with the brand. To aid in viral spread we built in a variety of social media tools. To drive return traffic, the Bored Room also features changing discount codes for visitors to use in the e-store – ultimately driving sales.
The popularity of the Bored Room spun into production of a 3 Wise Men viral video. We took the popular story of the Emperors New Clothes and gave it a new, slightly bizarre twist to suit the cheekiness of the brand.
Next out of the gate was a Christmas campaign to drive traffic to both on and off-line outlets. “Smells like Christmas” is an online version of an advent calendar. At the core of the campaign is the mini site featuring a new offer – available for 24 hours only – made available every day from the start of December to Christmas day. The campaign is supported by social media tools (Facebook and Twitter) as well as off line collateral, window decals and local promotional events.
3 Wise Men are an exciting and fun brand to work with and we can’t wait to let you know what we’ll do next…
Posted 1 December 2009 in Clients, Creativity, Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Marketing, Working Three, web design, by
Jenn
Tags: Advertising, Marketing, Social Networking, Twitter, web design melbourne, Working Three.
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we recently had this article published on the Anthill website:
Unless you are Osama bin Laden’s roommate, you’ll know that 2009 is the year Twitter took off. It has grown by over 1,000 percent and the phrase “tweet it” has become part of the popular lexicon. While many people still “don’t get it“, it has become incredibly powerful. How did this happen?
The development of modern civilisation is marked by big changes arising from new communication technologies. The creation of the mail system, the telegraph, the telephone, radio, television, the internet and mobile phones have all been incredibly powerful influencers. They have made the world a smaller place and every step has allowed information to be passed along at a progressively faster rate.
The impact of these technologies has been all about their rate of uptake and penetration into societies. The more people were using the technologies, the more people could be influenced. Once a critical mass is created you begin to get powerful ‘network’ effects and then ubiquity.
Today we couldn’t imagine life without a mobile phone. It has achieved ‘ubiquity’. Yet it is worth remembering that the first five years or so of mobile phone technology was met with a lot of resistance from the general public. The technology was confusing for many and the price to many was prohibitive. Less than 15 years ago, penetration rates among retail consumers was relatively low.
The rise and penetration of social media has been meteoric compared to the adoption of the ‘new’ communication technologies that preceded it. Assuming you have the hardware to connect, the cost is practically free and the collective minds of all the users work to create ever-easier ways to use it. Facebook’s massive population of nearly 250 million is a great example of how this can happen if all of the elements are right. Social media is seeing the development of “The New Socialism“, as Wired magazine put it.
Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey in 2006. It was designed as a micro-blogging service that could be updated by computer or mobile phone. As more and more people began using Twitter, new ways of using it were discovered, and the service started to take off.
Today it is estimated that there are about eight million Twitter users worldwide. High profile users like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher give its popularity added momentum. Many people now turn to Twitter’s real-time search engine first to find out what is happening in the world.
There are new applications changing almost every day that allow account holders to use Twitter in new ways. You can connect to Twitter via any technology that can access the internet, which means you can connect your network too. The momentum it is experiencing suggests that it has reached the ‘tipping point’.
It wasn’t until June this year that it became apparent how powerful Twitter had become. The owners of Twitter had scheduled a standard maintenance outage. It was set for the middle of the night in the USA, Twitter’s biggest market. Then Twitter was approached by the US State Department. The Iranian election and subsequent protests were getting a huge amount of international coverage. The State Department determined that Twitter was the most important communication tool for the protesters to communicate and organise. As a result, Twitter was persuaded to delay the outage to fit with Iranian usage. As events unfolded in Iran, Twitter was buzzing with protests, including an attempt to shut down the Iranian state websites.
The future of specific platforms like Twitter is far from certain. What is a safe bet is that people will demand the real-time information flow these platforms enable. Social media will grow and spread until it reaches complete ubiquity and we will all wonder how we ever lived without it. It will affect how people from different cultures communicate, how governments are chosen and constrained, and how brands reach markets.
The sooner you and your company get on board, the better you will be placed to take advantage of the wealth of information being made available by this transformation.
Posted 10 August 2009 in Direct Branding, Direct Marketing, Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Social Networking, Viral, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Social Networking, Social Networking Melbourne, Technology, Twitter, web design melbourne.
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The great guys over at Marketing Magazine have published an article we have written.
Posted 24 July 2009 in Advertising, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Communication, Google, Marketing, marketing magazine, Social Networking.
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Google has finally announced the when it will launch it’s public beta of Google Wave. The announcement reads “… this morning we announced that we plan to start extending the Google Wave preview beyond developers on September 30th. This will take place on wave.google.com rather than the separate “sandbox” instance we are currently using, and we plan to involve about 100,000 users,”.
This is great news for us as we have been exploring the developers sandbox and are looking forward to incorporating Wave technology into our projects.
Foe more information about how Google Wave may effect marketers read our article here.
Posted 22 July 2009 in Features, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Communication, Google, Internet, Marketing, Social Networking.
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Social networking has hit new heights in America. Companies are asking agencies to submit proposals for social networking contracts – over Twitter. Read the whole article
Posted 25 April 2009 in Advertising, Clients, Creativity, Internet, Internet marketing, Market Trends, Marketing, Social Networking, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Advertising, Creative Advertising, Marketing, Social Networking, Twitter.
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A website devoted to scouring the internet for great wordpress websites recently selected workingthree.com for special mention. Wordpress, the platform we have built our site on and the platform of choice for many blogs is a great product and, best of all, Google loves it.
We Love WP has picked our site as one of the best sites for December.
To see view it on the welovewp.com
Posted 20 December 2008 in Advertising, Creativity, Design, Internet, Marketing, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Design, Internet, Marketing, web design, Working Three.
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Posted 19 November 2008 in Weird and wonderful, Working Three, by
Mark
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Well…sort of. It’s not a prospect we’ve ever entertained before but we’ve been looking forward to seeing the new Telstra phone bill. However this one is different, it’s our design.
In a high-level project with Telstra, Australia’s largest telco, we created the new-look phone bill in conjunction with research from our strategic alliance partner Axiom Consulting Australia.
According to Working Three Account Director, Christian Green, the new bill ‘worked extremely well in research and it helped to brand Telstra as modern and user friendly. It (the bill) features ‘grades of cooler blues and a more logical layout. I am genuinely excited to see that the core of our design made it through Telstra’s incredibly thorough review process.’
He continued, ‘It’s also a great example of how something mundane like a telco bill can get a real lift from true creativity. Congratulations must go to our Creative Director Mark Cameron and Senior Designer Will Clement.’
We’re sure you’ll see it in your mailbox very soon, however if you just can’t wait to see your next Telstra bill, you can see it in our Projects.
Posted 22 July 2008 in Clients, Design, Working Three, by
Julian
Tags: Phone Bill, Telstra.
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In a financial sea awash with credit cards and rewards offers Diners Club offers something truly different – they are a charge card not a credit card.
The Diners challenge was not to harass people in airports and sign up new customers but to increase Diners ’share-of-wallet’ with existing cardholders through leverage of their current rewards program with a simple proposition – swipe more often, get more points.
Our brief was to concept a broad array of ideas to communicate a way to increase share through a Direct medium. Diners asked us to go beyond their traditional brand boundaries and find some true originality. We did, it scared them a little and they liked it!
As befits both Diners Club and the importance of this particular campaign, the final designs are clearly on-message and brand. Strong results to follow. I think I can hear the sound of extra swiping already.
Posted 17 July 2008 in Advertising, Clients, Working Three, by
Mark
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Tags: Diners Club, Reward Offer, Reward Program.
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