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Post by Vanessa Rossi, Account Executive, Ogilvy Action

BirdLife International is the world’s largest partnership of local Civil Society Organisations actively engaged in the conservation of birds, their habitats and global biodiversity. Herlinde Herpoel, a representative from the European Division, one of the six BirdLife regional offices, attended a session at the Idea Shop with the hope that we would, together, brainstorm some ideas for future campaigns.

Upon research into the organisation, we were surprised to discover the magnitude of the current project. But why was the organisation not more familiar with the mainstream audience? It quickly became apparent that one issue BirdLife was facing was a lack of strong branding. As BirdLife has grown through partnerships, such as the NSPCC in the UK, the brand gets lost amidst the partner company in each end market. We recommended that BirdLife act upon this and ensure there are rules around their brand that requests a larger presence on printed materials and events organised by both themselves and their partners.

To be successful and meet their objectives, they are keen to attract not only a bird savvy audience (which they already have strong links with) but also a more family friendly audience. With the International Year of the Forrest starting in 2011, BirdLife are keen to plan events and restructure their marketing campaign around this key year. This is a fantastic idea; using forests, that so many hold dear to them, to educate their audience on matters related to birds will assist in drawing in a wider audience.

We found that their website was quite ‘dated’ and rather technical, and that this in turn might discourage a wider audience from perusing the site.  In the interest of not losing an already wide audience, Herlinde recommended that a steer away from the technical on the website will distance their current members. As a result, we began to brainstorm ideas around blog themes and games that would attract and educate a wider audience.  A family audience will be attracted to fun and educational games about the wildlife that surrounds them.

BirdLife was keen to consider a long-term corporate partnership in order to help broaden their reach. This would have to be a ‘European’ brand to cover all the countries they have partners in. We recommended that they focus on brands that take care in the environment, that require more trees to continue with their business. Although we had a long list of proposals for the UK, finding an environmentally friendly international brand which did not currently sponsor a cause would take some further research. Herlinde however seemed quite content that we had steered her in the right direction.

Finally, BirdLife are keen to produce an annual fundraising event. They have a fantastic list of contacts from the European Parliament that are members of the organisation. It was clear that with such high profile interested parties, a fundraiser event based near the European Parliament would be great for attracting heads of companies and generating some PR. With such a list of potential invitees, Herlinde was keen to begin planning the event as soon as possible bearing in mind the busy diaries of her guests.

Much was covered in this short 90 minute meeting. With so many potential projects to consider our guest was seeking guidance as to what options were available. Although Herlinde had already had some great ideas and plans for their marketing strategy, she now said she felt much more confident with her future plans and felt she had more direction.

You can support BirdLife at www.birdlife.org/

Post by Anik Sumon, Senior SEO Manager, Neo@Ogilvy London

Scootech sell scooters. Their shop is just over the road from our shop on Roman Road. But it was their website that brought that to Idea Shop, more specifically, how to optimise it for search engines.

Scootech are modern, forward-looking organisation with a new, nicely designed website, Scootech.co.uk. The objective of their web presence is to reach an online customer base to compliment their offline sales.

Scootech know that it’s not easy to sale scooters online due to nature of the product. People usually want to try and test before they buy bikes. However Scootech know high visibility in search engines will drive more offline traffic and spread the brand name to the web searcher. Strong web presence also increases credibility. In addition to that, Sccotech want to drive traffic to their webshop where they sale scooter clothing and accessories. People tend to buy accessories or clothing products online. Thousands of people are searching for scooter accessories every month.  So there is a great opportunity for them to increase their sales by driving traffic from search engines

Lack of management time and lack of knowledge of search engine marketing encouraged David Rosenberg to come to Idea shop. He discussed the problems they are facing in getting maximum traffic from search engines.  Despite spending some money to optimise his website he was not getting high performance results due to lack of search marketing strategies.

We chatted about how to structure an SEO campaign by going through the step-by-step process required to build a good strategy. I also showed him how to target good keywords based on his business objectives so that his website gets not only high traffic but also relevant traffic.

Then I provided some general best practice guidelines on SEO to improve his website. We also discussed how to do competitor analysis and how write SEO copy.

Although SEO is a technical discipline David seemed keen to pick it up. Here’s the step-by-step process we went through so you can too:

SEO step by step process

1. Research keywords using Google’s keyword research tool (just Google “keyword tool” to find it)

2. Select your keywords based on search demand, relevancy and competition.

3. Map your keywords to the relevant pages of your site.

4. Do competitors analysis.

5. Conduct a page audit based on SEO best practice.

6. Build your social and link profile by utilising social media, press releases etc.

And here are those SEO copy tips:

How to write the best SEO copy

Create unique and meaningful page titles using the keywords you selected in your keyword research stage.

Try to write brief but meaningful descriptions of your pages. The title and description appear in the search result. So writing a good title and description can improve your click through rate

Try to include selected keywords in your website’s body copy but make sure it remains logical and readable. Over using of keywords or keyword stuffing can be dangerous.

Use ALT text for images so that search engine can read them

Create a good navigational architecture for your site so that users can easily browse around. Use mostly text for navigation and try to use breadcrumb navigation if your site has a large number of pages. Use your keywords in the navigational copy where possible.

Relevancy is the key, so make sure you have relevant content which is compelling and useful for the visitors.

We’re sure you’ll have no trouble finding Scootech’s site after all that, but just in case www.scootech.co.uk

Post by by Katriona Gordon, Copywriter OgilvyOne

Damien O’Brian is a magician. Not the old fashioned type of magician that pulls a rabbit out the hat, but a young, talented ‘street’ magician.

At just 25 years of age, Damien is already a huge success. He performs backstage at the UK’s biggest events, entertaining stars at the Brits, the NME awards and T4 events. He has almost 1,500 fans on Facebook and thousands of followers on Twitter. He’s also been praised by the Times, Ok!, the BBC and Sky, amongst others.

The challenge for his agent, Aaron Syvester, is to make Damien a household name, to make him really famous.

As we’ve said, Damien is already a fantastic, unique talent, but Aaron needs to target the right people to get him really noticed. Damien already has some great YouTube videos of him bewitching everyone from Jedward to NDubz and Alexandra Burke, so we advised him to make a really high quality show reel to send to TV channels. Obviously this can be expensive, so we thought it would be a good idea to contact final year students at communications and film schools to see if they’d be interested doing in doing it.

We also thought it would be a really good idea to have a series on YouTube and talked about an idea where Damien could go on a mission to outwit the best security in the country with his magic, and then show it on You Tube.

Aaron mentioned that Damien would be interested in using his magic as part of an advertising campaign. We suggested that Damien film an advert for a product himself, hopefully generating buzz and getting ad agencies to notice him. We also recommended that he contact big events companies to get Damien smaller corporate events around the country, thereby generating buzz by word of mouth.

Aaron also mentioned that Damien was keen to teach magic to kids, in remote or deprived parts of the country. We thought this was a smashing idea and suggested approaching the Arts Council, outreach projects as well as TV companies for backing.

We’re absolutely convinced that it is only a matter of time before Damien O’Brian becomes a household name. And once you see this: Damien O\’Brien – Street Magician, we’ll sure you’ll agree.

The Red Restaurant - A Screen Deep Production

Post by by Katriona Gordon, Copywriter OgilvyOne

Olivia Bellas is an Arts Producer working within film/video and cross arts events.

She founded the Canary Wharf Film Festival establishing it as a successful annual short film event in London.

She is also co-founder of Screen Deep, a set design and film experience agency. They create interactive, unique productions and fantastic event design. For example, Olivia directed The Red Restaurant  – an immersive art experience combining film, theatre, music and food. Audiences were invited to come and dine in the opulent restaurant complete with 1930s jazz band. The evening’s events unravelled both on and off screen.

In the spring she, and her business partner Jo, have secured the use of a Second World War bunker for another interactive art experience. Olivia came to Idea Shop for advice on the best way to promote this event.

Olivia already has a database of people from the Canary Wharf Film Festival who would potentially be interested in Screen Deep productions. So we thought it would be a good idea to mention Screen Deep events in the next email she sends out about the Canary Wharf Film Festival.

We also discussed using Facebook’s ‘I know this great little place in London’ as a way to promote Screen Deep, as well as setting up a page on Facebook to keep fans up-to-date with the events. Olivia is in the process of redesigning her website, so we gave her some tips on the best way to do this.

We all agreed that the world war theme of the production lends itself perfectly to a doing a bit of a teaser in the run up to the event. We talked about using old world war secret methods to promote the event, perhaps using map co-ordinates to direct people to the bunker. We also discussed using the style of war posters to advertise the event.

We also thought it would be a good idea to contact journalists, telling them about the event and discussed when would be the best time to do this. Olivia was keen on the idea of having an opening night for VIPs and journalists, so we discussed the possibility of sending them a teaser in advance.

Overall Screen Deep is a really lovely concept and we’re sure the production will be great success, and we’ll definitely be booking tickets.

Find out more at Screen Deep

Post by by Katriona Gordon, Copywriter OgilvyOne

We were super-excited when we heard that a dog clothing company was popping in, and we weren’t disappointed.

Lily Shahravesh specialises in designer dog gear, handcrafting everything from trench coats for terriers, to tweed hats for the most fashion conscious pooch.

It all started when Lily wanted to get a gift for her sister’s dog, and couldn’t find anything in the way of doggy couture, so she made her own. LoveMyDog was born.

The business is now flourishing with Lily’s own dog, Rabbit, overseeing it all. Lily came to Idea Shop for advice on how she could further increase sales.

Lily brought along a selection of her products and we were amazed at the quality of the fabrics. She had everything from Harris Tweed hats to Liberty print leads. If there was a Vogue for dogs, her range would be a must-have.

So we started thinking that maybe Lily should be treating her collection the same way as top fashion designers treat theirs. She could have ‘dogwalks’ instead of ‘catwalks’ in London Parks, followed by doggy picnics, where dog owners could buy her products. We also thought a fashion blog for dogs would be a great idea. Just as ‘human’ fashion blogs, such as the Sartorialist feature photos of fashionable people spotted on the streets; she could do the same with dogs. Perhaps she could even send a picture of the best-dressed dog to a blog, like the Sartorialist, and see if she could get it featured as outfit of the day.

Rabbit, Lily’s dog, is central to the brand. He already tweets, so we suggested Lily builds on this by getting him to write part of the blog (he’s an exceptionally talented dog).

One of the problems that Lily has is finding enough content to fill her blog each week. So we suggested that, instead of just writing new products, she could write about dogs in general, reporting new trends, posting funny pictures and giving tips and advice.

Lily isn’t a big Facebook user, and because of this, is hesitant to use Facebook to promote her brand, so we suggested she should use it everyday herself to get her confidence up, before using it for LoveMyDog. This seems to be going well, as www.facebook.com/lovemydoguk is now brimming with content.

Love My Dog has already had great press, and Lily has even been on This Morning to discuss the range. We thought Lily could capitalise on this by sending out regular updates to journalists and we discussed the best practice for writing press releases: Attaching the press release rather than copying it into an email; ensuring the first paragraph encapsulates everything the press release says; offering images if the recipient wants them; sticking to the facts rather than piling in the adjectives; finding out the lead times for various publications and sending releases in a timely fashion. We also talking about developing a PR plan for the year so she has something new to talk to journalists about every month. With new products being added to the range, a new website launching soon and lots of ideas for events at her studio, Lily is already well on the way to enough news items to fill the calendar.

Lily has a studio in East London where she makes all her pieces and tailors for individual dogs. We thought it might be a good ideas to have a show room where people can bring there dogs to try on the outfits and perhaps have their photo taken, encouraging them to buy the outfit.

Lily already has a relationship with Liberty, and uses their fabric in some of her designs, so we encouraged her to contact Liberty to see if they would consider doing a LoveMyDog window display.

During the meeting, the subject of doggy dining came up. Lily said that very few restaurants let dogs in. Then we started thinking that perhaps that Lily could start a campaign to get the best-dressed dogs a seat at top London restaurants. Imagine the press that would get – ‘Rabbit gets a seat at the Ivy!’ It would also be a great topic for the blog.

We could have talked to Lily for hours, her product is fascinating and her passion in contagious. We loved her collection and with the right press we reckon it will become a huge success. As for Rabbit, well look out for him in the front row of London Fashion Week.

See Lily’s designs for yourself at www.lovemydog.biz

Follow @Rabbitlovemydog

Like www.facebook.com/lovemydoguk