News and blog

In a world of constant change and innovation, separating the truth from the hype can be a bit of a challenge. With a new next-big-thing touted seemingly every week, how the heck are you supposed to know what shape your communication strategy should take?

Clare Briscall, our planning director, was recently asked by UTalkMarketing to talk about brands that yearn to be ‘cool’. This is her response to the following questions:

• Are brands obsessed with the pursuit of cool?
• What are the dangers of pursuing a cool strategy?
• When is it not appropriate for a brand not to pursue a cool positioning?
• What factors should they focus on instead for emotional engagement longevity?

Pursuing cool is a fool’s game if the brand is selling products that can never be cool. But hold on a minute – isn’t one person’s cool someone else’s lukewarm? So surely cool can be applied to every purchase and is a matter of opinion?

I’ve compiled a list of links to new and emerging technologies that are worth following. Some of them take the core of other products and add functionality, while some have spotted a new niche in the market. Most importantly, it seems that a few of them have been developed with Web 3.0 in mind…

Mobile

Most apps have been offering subscribers information based on their specific location but Loopt blends the love of social networking with location-based services. It detects mobile friends in your vicinity and lets you know where they are with the option of making contact.