Blogging: Breakfast of champions

This was posted at Villa 81 by Emmet Ryan. A three minute snippet giving an overview of the IIA's recent Business Blogging Breakfast. It was organised as a launch for their Join the Conversation: A Guide to Blogging for Business. Like the vast majority of stuff these days, it's available for free.*

I was there on behalf of Marketing Magazine, so I was a passenger in one sense, but it's always an ambivalent feeling to be the ad guy in a roomful of clients who are more clued in than their agencies. It may be that the extent of their cluelessness is all they realise, but that is where each must start. There were probing questions, honest bemusement and a very palpable sense that something has to be done in this space.

The more of these things I attend, the more I see the move from realisation to motivation. No small thanks, on this occasion, to simple and useful observations from Aedan in Puddle Ducks, Brendan in FBD and Michelle from PaddyPowerTrader.com. Start following them on Twitter why dontcha? You don't do that? Well why dontcha?

Oh.

Right. No, no, it's just- No, I'm sure that's a perfectly good idea for not doing Twitter. Very reasonable. No, no, it makes loads of business sense to me now. Sheesh. I feel like such an idiot. I've been wasting my time. And yours too. Here, let me just-

SFX: Shuffles off. A click is heard.

BAM!


*UPDATE
The lovely Roseanne from the IIA informs me as per the comment below that their guide is free until May 6th only, at which point you'll have to be a member to avail.

Monday's adlinks

'It’s becoming all the more clear that Ireland’s digital industry is growing both in size and sophistication.'

Interactive Return there, stating the increasingly obvious after Friday 13th's lucky scoop of the Grand Prix Award at the Digital Media Awards at the Crowne Plaza. Congratulations also to Strata 3, Cybercom, Curious Wines, Sabrina, Dialogue and all the others worthies who aren't, funnily enough, listed properly anywhere yet. Including on the DMA website. Tsch.

The grey market in Germany is now targetted directly by savvy supermarkets.

I don't care if Brian McCarthy is shilling for UTV Radio. It's a positive message and we're not hearing half enough of them. From Marketing Magazine for Feb.

Yay! More avenues for advertising on the way! (But if your mobile phone co. is selling your history will you want them?)

Lee Rolston, director of marketing for Cadbury Dairy Milk, says: "TV and online are morphing almost daily."

Old news I missed but sounds like a right good one:

"PRESS Ombudsman Professor John Horgan said newspapers would continue to flourish in the new internet age, if they stayed true to the principles of good journalism and truth and accuracy in the news."

And some other Independent chuckles from last week: Today FM dial down profits and Setanta searching down the back of the sofa.

And finally, a little bit of truth leaks out in the maxi-pad research focus group. What next? Boxy but good headlines?

Monday's adlinks

Fascinating insights into the behaviour of the top business brass in IAPI's new Business Media Study as reported in the Business Post. Lots of juicy, but these two caught my eye.

'Business people don’t seem to like online advertising, with 53 per cent saying they were unlikely to notice it'.

That's possibly because, as Moray MacLennan, CEO of M&C Saatchi Worldwide, says 'users are logging in for communication rather than commerce.'

Also, 62 per cent said they were unlikely to take note of a mobile phone ad. They haven't been exposed to this, then.

How about this to juice up your creativity. No idea who did this, but it is rather excellent. Does Mister Collins agree? From the Chip Shop Awards.

OMG! On the buses was never this funny.

Brendan O'Broin's A to Z of brands and performance in the last year. From Marketing Magazine.

Group Chairman of BBH on the future for agencies. Hmmm.

But digital will flourish. Wayy!

'With Design Innovations, Digital Platforms and Culture-Busting Ideas, These Shops Were Tops'
America's top ten agencies for '08.

Happy Monday, people of marketing.