Blog | Official Samuel (by Samuel Chan)

Why Google+ is a unique proposition, and how Author Rank is your new currency. 5

Nov

2012

As marketers or advertisers we are often asked of our opinion on the three social media giants out there. Which to prioritize and which to conquer. Consolidation or segmentation. Reach or engagement. If you do a quick Google search, you’ll find that there’s no shortage of good answers to all the above questions. I’d be ...

The 8-second attention span? Don’t bother. 2

Oct

2012

Some time ago I read an article on BBC News. Shouldn’t be any news by now, so I’ll be direct here: Web surfers have a painfully short attention span, one that matches the goldfish’s 9 seconds long short attention span. Wait. According to the latest statistics verified by The Associated Press, I am supposed to ...

How to sell “Pain”? (and why it’s an absolute pain in the ass) 20

Oct

2012

Selling pain. When it comes to selling, the difficulty of the task is almost proportionate to the degree of the product’s very own marketability. I said marketability, but it really means its potential for social acceptance. The better off it ranks on the product attractiveness gauge, the least difficult it is to find general acceptance ...

Big Hands Advertising Campaign: Know Thy Audience 2

Oct

2012

In 2006, a lingerie manufacturer ran a series of advertisements promoting their push-up bra. Hardly anything new, except that the lingerie company — long known for their notoriously creative (and historically award-winning) advertisement — decided to add a different twist with their advertising strategy for its range of push-up bras. What did the lingerie manufacturer ...

Reacting to the Challenger Brand strategy (Part II – Avoid The Noid) 1

Oct

2012

Most businesses find themselves competing with a plethora of new and rising firms, each relatively small in size and find their survival hugely dependent on the firm’s ability to craft a specific niche within the mass market. There are, however, businesses that compete with a smaller number of key competitors and they typically do not ...

The Economist: Advertising or Ego Satisfaction?

Oct

2012

All of us have a very peculiar taste when it comes to the consumption of advertisements. Sure, a big majority of us like it simple and direct. But there’s a different group in the society that are just more inclined to be entertained by clever, witty adverts. Adverts that feel as if it’s written for ...

The treacherous water of Challenger Brand strategy 6

Oct

2012

Backstory: “I’m the Underdog brand, Sam!” It dawned on me how simplistic rationales for brand positioning strategies are formed when brand managers anchor their expectations on the basis of past successes. I was having a conversation over the internet with this acquaintance of mine who has just started a business in Queensland. He practically has ...

Copywriting Tips: The sore thumb rule 8

Oct

2012

Ideally, copywriters are trained to write memorable catchphrases or marketing lines that get wired in hard into the audience’s memory long after he or she has read them. In the 1960s, the copywriting legend Shirley Polykoff produced “Does she or doesn’t she”. In the 1980s, we have Ilon Specht’s “Because I’m worth it”. The modern ...

Your call-to-action button deserves a colour of its own. [+examples] 3

Oct

2012

Where is a better place to learn about landing page design than from the landing page expert themselves? Here’s the homepage of Unbounce, the authority in building and publishing landing pages for marketing professionals. Notice the interesting bit about the color scheme Unbounce has chosen for its homepage? This is the isolation effect, describing our ...