I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a bit of a hippy – I’ve got a selection of recycling bins and have even installed solar panels – but there’s only so far I’d go for Mother Earth and that line is drawn when it comes to using a compost toilet!

So when I went happily off to Glastonbury last month, I was expecting to find a few like-minded people (and possibly even discover the festival Holy Grail that is the solar powered shower!). Instead I found myself crammed into a tent with a load of 30-somethings, who were dressed as if they’d just wondered off of Primrose Hill, listening to thoughts on sustainable marketing.

A marketing mogul with an interest in the low carbon economy bounded about green ideas to the assembled crowd covering everything from ‘Clean Advertising’ which involves water jets displacing dirt from pavements to create a picture or a logo, to ‘Grass Crafting’ and DM mailers imbedded with seeds.

On principal these ideas seemed great – easy to implement, no expensive billboard rental costs and environmentally friendly to boot. However I still felt uneasy, as if I was being sold a new religion or a bagless vacuum cleaner – would it take off?

I started to investigate the use of clean advertising within the realms of the all-important client budget and to my surprise found that eight clean adverts, which comprise of a single logo, weigh-in at less than a full page ad in your average lifestyle magazine. I looked into it further and, as clean advertising is designated as ‘street cleaning’, there is no need to apply for council permission or pay any fees if your adverts are on public land, so there is another cost saving.

So cheap and sustainable, but it is effective? Well this depends on how it’s used – to direct people to events or exhibitions, this could be a real winner and would be perfect for kicking off a series of guerrilla marketing tactics, but as a standalone marketing tool, in my opinion it lacks cohesion and needs something else to validate it such as a microsite or leafleting campaign.

Sustainable marketing is making its mark, albeit slowly, but is not something that would be likely to replace the more traditional forms of consumer outreach. So whilst it could be added to the marketing mix, I don’t think it’s (yet) the revolution that will transform marketing into a low carbon activity.

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It’s been a long time coming, but this morning Mashable is reporting that Twitter is set to roll out its long-awaited ‘Business Centre’ – a scheme that will allow businesses to add additional features (possibly at a cost) to help them use Twitter to engage with prospects and customers.

Twitter announced that this was on its way last year, but it has taken a bit longer than expected to finally appear despite some tests last year with companies like Starbucks.

According to Mashable, the main features will be:

• The ability to customise a business profile page
• Add a ‘verified account’ badge
• Additional ‘preferences’
• Add contributors so that multiple people can contribute to the same account (see how Starbucks already uses this here)
• The ability to accept direct messages from any of their followers, regardless of whether they follow that person or not

This is another huge step towards really helping businesses use Twitter more effectively. There is no news as yet as to whether Twitter will begin charging businesses for the server and/or when it will be rolled out beyond the early beta customers.

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Mobile World Congress kicked off in style on Monday with Microsoft unveiling their latest mobile operating system – Windows 7. The OS looks really slick with some really nice features including contact syncing with social networks and Xbox integration.

But is this all too little too late? The new iPhone (4.0) is set to hit in the summer and Microsoft don’t expect any Windows 7 phones to reach consumers until the end of the year.

It’s all about the apps

I’m a big iPhone fan, but I really like the Windows 7 UI – enough to make me consider moving, but there is one thing holding me back – the apps.

And this neatly brings me to one of the other big MWC announcements; a number of the leading mobile manufacturers have teamed together to try and bring about the standardisation of mobile applications.

This seems to be a movement that is gaining momentum. The BBC today announced that it is going to be launching mobile apps for parts of its website in the next few month, but launched an attack on mobile manufacturers who are making life too hard for publishers keen to get their content on mobile devices, by forcing them to create separate versions for different operating systems.

Are apps just a stop gap?

Apple leads the way at the moment with the sheer number of apps that are available for the iPhone. And for an iPhone user, this means the temptation to move to another handset manufacturer is fairly low. Sure UIs are great, but in a world where mobile handsets are now more like mini-computers, applications really do make the difference.

But the standardisation of apps could really shake things up. And it would make a lot of sense for the consumer, if not for Apple.

Of course, standalone applications themselves could soon be a thing of the past themselves – how will HTML5 change this space? I had a good tweet-chat with Matt Hopkins on Friday evening about how HTML5 web apps could in fact overtake – take the new mobile web app for Google Buzz as an example of HTML5 at work. This would render the whole compatibility issue a moot point.

So for now, I’ll be sticking with the iPhone, but I’ve still got my eye on Microsoft et al., as the mobile landscape could soon be very different…

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I’ve recently returned from a month’s sabbatical, touring the South Devon and Cornwall coastline. Although I must confess that amongst all the cliff walks and strolls on the beach I did indulge in more than a little ‘daytime TV’.

The counties of Devon and Cornwall embarked on their digital switchover earlier this year, so I had a multitude of Freeview channels at my fingertips in the places I stayed. But goodness, what is it with the ads they are running?

I promise, I really don’t have any old gold lying around in my home and I don’t need a lawyer as I’m not in the habit of tripping up or falling over at work. Sigh. All too often I found myself channel-hopping in the hope of finding something else to entertain me for a few minutes.

But perhaps I’m being unfair. It’s unlikely the ads are aimed at someone who normally works an office job from Monday to Friday. But it did make me think about the way I usually watch TV.

I was missing my digital TV recorder; that clever little box that captures all my favourite programmes so I can watch them whenever I want to – with my finger poised over the fast forward button waiting for the little fuzzy black and white box to appear that marks the looming ad break.

Digital TV recorders are already in more than a quarter of UK households and the switchover is only now really beginning to ramp up to its completion in 2012. Wow, I thought, we could be on track for an exciting revolution in the way we all watch TV!

But then I started to worry about what ditching live TV would actually mean.

You see, while I’m not really a fan of ad breaks, I am a fan of decent TV content. If we’re not watching the ads, then why will brands bother spending money on them? UK internet ad spend overtook TV for the first time this year and ITV’s falling advertising revenues have been reported widely this month. How, with falling revenues, will the stations be able to commission, or buy, lovely new dramas, documentaries and entertainment shows?

Could we be condemning ourselves to a multitude of commercial digital TV channels that show nothing more than repeats of Friends, Murder She Wrote and the like?

And here’s another thing. I have a nagging feeling that if we skip the ads too often we may well miss out on those gems of genius that show the creativity that our ad agencies are capable of.

Does anyone know if milk is still what Ian Rush drinks?

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We are often telling clients about the importance of search engine optimisation (SEO) as they establish themselves as experts or leading companies in their fields. And as a PR agency, we see the benefits from effective SEO ourselves in our own high Google rank.

As Google dominates in the UK with its market share, having a website optimised for Google searches is essential in gaining valuable web traffic. But how often does an organisation suffer from unwanted attention due to its high standing search result?

The Toronto Ghosts & Hauntings Research Society (TGHRS) is the first I’ve heard of.

Yesterday, in my hometown of Toronto, a woman tragically fell to her death as she was ghost hunting in a Toronto landmark. As the news hit, many curious people went online to find more information. When you type in “Toronto ghost hunting” into Google, the TGHRS are the first couple results that pop up.

The TGHRS website surged in traffic from all the searches and they were inundated with interview requests from the media, despite having no connection to the case or without previously mentioning any ghost sightings in that specific building. They were so overwhelmed with attention that they had to post a press release on their landing page!

Although this is a tragic story, it is a good example of the power of being in the top high ranking results on the Google search engine.

photo credit

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Spotify has well and truly become the new darling of the new media world and with it’s US launch slated for Q3 or Q4 2009, it is just about to get a whole lot bigger!

And two news stories out today suggests that the future looks even brighter for the music streaming service.

Firstly, there are rumours that Apple has finally approved the long awaited Spotify iPhone app (see video above). Why is this important? Well, it really adds the finishing touch to the Spotify proposition.

And, if it is true that users will have to be premium subscribers to use the application, then it will also be a very important part of the company’s business model and profitability efforts.

The second story doing the rounds today is equally as interesting, if slightly less accurate in terms of concrete facts!

Writing on Trusted Reviews, Gordon Kelly cites rumours from Techcrunch suggesting that Facebook is looking to acquire the service:

“We’ve heard that Facebook has been talking with the European startup about a partnership for well over a year (about the time the Facebook music rumors heated up), but that the talks have intensified dramatically in the last week.”

Now a link up between these two companies makes perfect sense. Facebook has always lost out in the music stakes to Myspace and a strategic acquisition like this would radically change that. This could also be seen as a move against Apple and iTunes, which is even more interesting when you consider that Apple is just about to approve the Spotify app.

After the Friendfeed acquisition earlier this month, it seems that Facebook is taking steps to assert its authority and acquiring Spotify would be a massive statement of intent. Valuing the Swedish music startup might prove tricky however.

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