Hands up who only started noticing Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo after watching one too many episodes of Sex and the City?

It may have seemed incongruous at the time, but product placement in the US is a multi-million dollar concept.

Now the UK ban on product placement is expected to be lifted; which could change the fashion retail environment in the country immeasurably.

While this has caused controversy, there’s no denying that in the recession, money needs to be made.

Retailers who feature on TV will no doubt see rising sales and increased brand awareness. An opportunity for an extra marketing channel is great news.

It’s also a fantastic break for young designers – Gossip Girl recently used up-and-coming Alexandra Vidal’s collection, which led to huge press attention and stars clamouring to get hold of her pieces.

Imagine watching X-Factor and seeing Cheryl Cole in a gorgeous designer dress that could be yours in a matter of minutes just by clicking online.

This really could be the way forward for fashion retail.

By Nicola Paul

Comment on this article ...

...And why not? Susie’s blog Style Bubble has a huge following and advertisers want to get in front of her audience.

Susie’s blog shows an ad for Levi’s

Advertising is a tricky topic in fashion blogging land (see here).

A lot of bloggers don’t want adverts, and many that have given commercialisation a go have been disappointed by miniscule returns.

Comment on this article ...

Check out the recent online fashion revamps of department stores Harvey Nichols and John Lewis.

Both brands have bought media on Handag.com to drive traffic and build awareness.

Harvey Nichols is sponsoring a daily handbag giveaway and has a live product widget that I’m liking a lot.

Harvey Nichols daily handbag giveaway and product widget

John Lewis has taken out leaderboard and above the fold MPU slots, both of which are interactively controlled by the user.

John Lewis advertises on Handbag.com

In terms of media buys I think there is a tad bit of conflict having the two brands run promotions in the same categories.

However, both creatives have been executed well it shouldn’t pose a huge problem.

I would like to see Handbag.com open up banner clicks in the same window to get around pop-up blockers - I think that’s something quality advertisers, such as Harvey Nichols and John Lewis deserve.

Comments (1)

Daniella Westbrook returns to EastEnders on Friday as Sam Mitchell.

Her comeback outfit is an orange and pink Lipsy dress, which can be seen in promotional adverts and press shots.

On Friday night and all weekend I imagine there will be a surge of Google searches for ‘where can i get the dress sam mitchell wore on eastenders’.

Well the answer is here.

So come on affiliates, grab that search traffic.

And Lipsy, get the dress on the homepage and blog about it too!

Comments (7)

What’s really best for brands that want reach, Network Buys or Influencer Engagement? Click to read my article on NMK

Comment on this article ...

Last week I was shown a demo of an online fashion television platform which will revolutionise the way the celebrity driven market buys clothes online.

The technology behind it is remarkable, and cleverly marries content with product in a way that just isn’t being done by anyone.

It was all very fitting as in the same week The Money Programme on BBC Two focused on the changing face of television in the digital age, with commentators calling on the government to allow product placement to offset a fall in advertising revenue.

Cadbury’s product placement in Kate Modern on Bebo

Whilst product placement would be a large revenue driver I think networks are still missing a trick with online retail.

TV stations have the opportunity to drive huge amounts of traffic to their websites where they can promote product from online retailers and take a commission on sales.

As the content they use to promote retailers would remain static and live forever it would provide them with a drip feed of ongoing revenue.

Comment on this article ...

Aiming to connect brands with the top 10% of bloggers in the web’s most lucrative sectors Tailsweep is on a mission to change the online advertising landscape in the UK.

By offering advertisers more insight into the buzz their online campaigns have created, the company’s UK Sales Director Dan Britcher and Operations Manager Duncan Chamberlain are optimistic Tailsweep can emulate its Swedish success in Britain.

I recently interviewed Dan to find out just how they differentiate themselves from Glam and how they can ensure advertisers appear next to quality content.

Glam has been adopted by many fashion and lifestyle publishers in the UK, is this a market Tailsweep is after too?
Dan: Yes. Our experience from Sweden tells us that this is an area that fashion and luxury brands have to engage with.

We differ to Glam in our business model and the fact that we are not an ad network in its traditional sense.

We are experts in blogs and there is a need to educate fashion brands about how to engage with consumers in this area. If brands understand this area it will reap significant returns.

To ensure quality for your advertisers, your publishers must be creating quality content. How do you make sure this happens?

Tailsweep only represents bloggers who are publishing high quality content in the first place.

We make a qualitative and quantitative assessment of their sites – strong editorial, site architecture, content structure, in/ outbound links, RSS, Page Views and Unique Users and then we invite them to join our platform on a non-exclusive basis.

A brand safe environment is obviously important for advertisers but at the same time they have to appreciate that editorial integrity is sacrosanct and not something to be influenced.

There is still a perception that the blogosphere is somewhat like the Wild West which is far from the reality. Our blog partners are publishing platforms of equal/greater influence than many of the major media publishers and we need to work to preserve that integrity and our role is to educate brands about this space.

Tailsweep would never even try to influence content. If a brand has a compelling product, service or marketing initiative and it is newsworthy our bloggers will pick up on it anyway.

Is Tailsweep only after independent bloggers and networks, or would you partner with a large media title?

We are looking for partnerships with independent bloggers and networks with strong blog platforms.

If we seek the scale of ad networks then we dilute our entire proposition.

We don’t have the ambition to work with as many fashion bloggers as we can, just the best ones.

Comment on this article ...

This is Knitkat, the Meerkat that meets my requirements.

Knitkat loves wool, and can knit.

Find the right Meerkat for you at comparethemeerkat.com.

Alternatively, get insurance quotes from www.comparethemarket.com

Comment on this article ...

Two experts in online advertising Simon Stone and Fiza Khan, and the IAB, give me their opinion on advertising in catch up TV services.

Read the full article on the IAB website.

Comment on this article ...

Behind every new look, new launch or new advert there has been thought as to how it will affect the industry, press and most importantly the end consumer.

Rebrands get planned months, if not years ahead. To make sure they’re right.

What does our new brand need to reflect? How will our current consumers/customers feel about it? Who are we trying to speak to with our rebrand? 

Product launches take years to master. To make sure they’re right.

Who would buy this? Why would they buy it? Where would they buy it?

And a lot of effort, by a lot of people goes into creating TV adverts, to make sure they’re right too.

How can we make impact? What times and which channels will it be on? Do we need a celeb in it?

Many will present a rebrand, product launch or advert and tell those in charge of their online – “this is what we’re doing, make our online fit”.

The wrong way round? I think so.

Nobody at Pizza Hut thought about registering or acquiring www.pastahut.net or www.pastahut.com

Vodafone has an exclusive deal to launch BlackBerry Storm in the UK – utilising online PR should have seen them rank #1 organically for ‘blackberry storm’, instead they’re bidding and paying per click.

Love Bingo could’ve made sure they ranked #1 for their name before advertising on TV – they rank #3 for ‘love bingo’ but I am sure JackpotJoy and ilovebingo.com, who rank #1 and #2 respectively, are the main benefactors of searches for ‘love bingo’ from Love Bingo’s TV advertising campaign.

Comment on this article ...

Product placement is a wonderful thing. We get little of it in the UK due to regulatory laws, unless of course we’re watching an American production when suddenly it seems to matter not.

Big brands can usually gauge how many people have seen their products in films by box office viewings, and likewise for TV. Neither was a true measure of consumer penetrability, but a good indicator anyhow.

Even better is today’s version.

Britney Spears’s Womanizer video has had around two million views within the first two days of being available on YouTube.

Real figures that Nokia, which features in the video, can count.

Comment on this article ...

Some websites make money by selling products.

Some websites make money by selling advertising.

Some websites make money by referring customers to other websites.

Some websites make money by collecting customer data which is sold on.

Ask an SEO for help and they’ll promise higher search engine rankings will help you sell more products, sell more advertising, refer more customers and collect more data.

Ask an email marketer for help and they’ll promise email promotions will help you sell more products, sell more advertising, refer more customers and collect more data.

Ask an online media buyer for help and they’ll promise banners, buttons and MPUs will help you sell more products, sell more advertising, refer more customers and collect more data.

And so on.

The dilemma for most websites is that they’re all right. Everything helps. For instance, it helps your click through rate in Search if people recognise your brand from a banner advert.

Helping is good, but limited budgets and high expectations can often lead to a desire for marketing that does more than help.

Stripping away every type of marketing that fails to directly impact the end need - selling, referring or collecting – is a short term measure to hitting those high expectations with limited budgets.

After all you’re not interested in investing marketing budget which “helps”, you want it to “do”.

Great. For a bit. Until your competitors do the same as you PLUS the stuff that helps.

That’s when the thing that “does” it for you, “does” it for them instead, and consequently it stops “doing” it as well for you. All because they saw the value in “helping” the thing that “does it”. Get it?

Comment on this article ...

Are adverts the new online tip jar? Seth Godin thinks so. Apparently if we read something online that we like we should say thank you by clicking on an ad.

On his blog Seth says…

“If you like what you’re reading, click an ad to say thanks.”

In the view that the company or blogger will pocket your click cost from the advertiser.

But LEON Bailey Green says…

“If you like what you’re reading, keep coming back. And click on an advert IF you like it.”

So what are the effects of the visitor, webmaster and advertiser?

Seth’s way

Visitor – They have to load a page they are uninterested in.

Webmaster – Reduced advertising as advertisers notice the clicks are of poor quality (as nobody wants the product/service, they just wanted to tip).

Advertiser – Poor quality website visitors.

LEON’S way

Visitor – Enjoys the content. Comes back for more enjoyable content.

Webmaster – Repeat visitors. More eyeballs on adverts resulting in an increase in potential person-to-product relevancy, equalling ad revenue.

Advertiser – Quality visitors.

I totally get what Seth is trying to say, but I think there are better ways people can support publishers - Update here are a few.

Comment on this article ...

This is round two of marketing the L’Oreal brand to black women, who spend three times more on beauty products than their white counterparts – and with a growing black middle class on both sides of the Atlantic, it’s a target group not to be ignored.

Any number of entities could have been the target of vitriol after the release of the advert; Beyonce, the creative director of the advert or even the magazines which published it could have taken the hatred, but L’Oreal picked up this unfortunate tab.

The reason I think it’s a chance for L’Oreal to communicate its brand values to black women, whom supposedly feel like they have been slapped in the face, is because deep down we all know what would really drive the behaviour of lightening dark skin. And we don’t like it.

The L’Oreal brand is damaged if it is true that blacks really believe L’Oreal dislikes black women.

The L’Oreal brand isn’t damaged if it’s true that blacks believed whites subconsciously dislike, or are put off by, products with adverts featuring black people.

If the latter statement is true the outrage would be towards those whites rather than L’Oreal as a brand.
It’s all about understanding the player and the game.

The offended [blacks] will understand – not necessarily tolerate – the alleged offender [L’Oreal], if the offender is a player who was simply adhering to rules of a game [black doesn’t sell].

Comment on this article ...

Orange is now encouraging people to find their website by typing ‘I Am’ into search engines instead of advertising www.orange.co.uk.

At first I thought it was quite clever and innovative, but I am surprised that the only Orange presence for a search on ‘I am’ is in the sponsored listings.

Any brand that intends to follow Orange’s ‘find us by searching’ tactic, should employ an SEO agency to get their website to appear for the said phrase BEFORE the start of the campaign.

For Orange’s campaign website to rank naturally for ‘I Am’ they will need to try to encourage lots of websites and blogs to link to them with the text ‘I Am’. Where is the call to action on their website for webmasters and bloggers to add a link? Which part of the wider campaign encourages them to link in this way?

At least Orange will be helping I Am Bored, which ranks first for the term I Am, get heaps of extra traffic.

Comment on this article ...