Everybody's Doing It

In Europe each year, 130,000 women die from Breast Cancer. This year Samsung Electronics Europe have pledged to help reduce that number.



Samsung has launched the 'Everybody's Doing It' campaign, an online campaign encouraging women in Europe to check for breast cancer and prevent the disease from spreading. The campaign microsite is a place where women can find an instant community of support and a place to view or forward the above viral movie called 'Everybody's Doing It'. The campaign is aiming to reach over 400,000 women, which is more than the total number that are diagnosed with breast cancer in Europe every year.

The video utilises simple yet stark imagery of each woman holding their arms across her chest, their gaze fixed on the camera as it pans around. The video ends with the message 'Everybody's Doing It: Join us on October 15th 2009'. October 15th is the date that has been chosen for women to be breast aware and to pledge to raise awareness for breast cancer.

Jaesun Yeon, a 30 year old woman featured in the video, is a Samsung employee. She said, "I took part because a good friend is going through chemotherapy. I met some amazing women on the shoot, including Simone Francis who had a breast cancer scare when she was only 17. Social media and blogging has been a hugely important way for these women to talk about breast cancer and to tell others to check themselves, no matter what age they are. What Samsung has done, is to create a powerful online platform to spread this message across Europe."

Ines Van Gennip, head of CSR at Samsung Electronics Europe added: "It's so important that global brands such as Samsung use their influence to give women who advocate breast cancer awareness an even louder voice. This isn't a disease that only affects older women, it can touch women of all ages and as many people as possible need to know."

The campaign also utilises Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter. For more information visit http://www.morethantalk.eu.

--- Up Date ---

As part of the campaign, Samsung has donated its famous Piccadilly Circus Screen to aid the promotion of the campaign.


The 60inch LED screen located in the heart of Piccadilly Circus will run the campaign viral video, reinforcing the campaign call to action, ‘tell all the women you know to visit www.morethantalk.eu'. This will be the first time it has ever been used to promoted a non-product campaign.

Online Advert Spending Outstrips TV Advertising – a Paradigm Shift

The following guest post was written by Christopher Angus.

Online advertising has outstripped TV advertising for the first time ever, the “paradigm shift” is reportedly due to faster broadband speeds and the sheer amount of time people are spending online. I personally also believe that internet advertising provides a far higher return than traditional media. Google reports this at nearly 2.3 times above offline advertising. Online advertising revenues amounted to approximately £1.75 billion in the first half of this year, while TV advertising “only” managed £1.6 billion.

Internet marketing seems to be a truly “recession proof” industry – I think that this is down to business owners being able to target exactly which profile type of customer they need and being able to track the exact ROI down to the last penny. Another factor that should also be taken into account is the amount of money that businesses spend on Search Engine Optimisation. Almost any good SEO Company will also report an increase in revenue during the recession.

What’s genuinely different about Internet advertising is that almost any business can reach customers on a worldwide basis, whatever the budget whilst creating a decent return on investment. As more business managers and owners realise the amazing returns that can be created quickly and efficiently, profits will start to fall as Internet advertising prices and returns fall as competition grows.

Internet advertising is also changing the entire shape and form of the media. Traditional media such as TV and print advertising are almost in free-fall, with large well trusted news sources in dire financial trouble. Take for example ITV and the NYTimes, these traditional media outlets need to adapt or die as the whole market and consumer behaviour is morphing into a slick efficient machine. No longer will huge media companies be commanding hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single ad, rather it will be hundreds of thousands of tiny income streams that will make up the majority of the revenue.

Whether businesses are considering Pay-Per-Click or SEO, they need to act quickly and decisively as the wave has arrived and it needs to be ridden or businesses will be simply left behind.

BBC To Get Social

As reported by The Guardian, it looks as if the BBC's planned revamp to a more social media orientated website is an almost certainty. Sources from the BBC close to site's management have confirmed the changes will be launched by by March.

At the recent MediaGuardian Innovation Awards the BBC's controller of Vision and Online, Anthony Rose, was asked about the rumours that have been repeated by several online sources, and while he declined to reveal specific details, he did confirm that social media will play a major role in the relaunch of the BBC's whole suite of websites.

Mr. Rose explained that the BBC will be redeveloping their homepage but that the project will focus on also redeveloping their entire hosting platform. The basis of which will be to deliver "the next generation in social media". This will include "the plan to enable users to comment on particular moments while watching and see what other users said about the same moment or simply rate moments with 'Boo!', 'Good!' or 'Gosh!'."

It was also confirmed that the project would also be likely to include an open version of iPlayer. This would finally allow for third-party platforms to embed BBC content.

Beyond the addition of Social elements to the site, it was confirmed that there would be a strong emphasis put on promoting the BBC's sites as sources of breaking, up-to-the-minute news. Although the site attracts 10 million users a week, many fail to recognise that the BBC produces over 500 stories a day on top of a host of local content. According to a source within the BBC, there will be innovation in the choice of links on news stories, it might set a trend.

Whatever look or function the BBC decides to add, it is certainly clear that this is a serious endorsement for Social Media.

Virginia Pumpkin Festival

With the launch of Dublin's Oktoberfest tomorrow, I got thinking about what other fairs and festivals there were coming up in the next month or two, and which of them have decided to utilise digital or Social Media elements to help promote themselves. Without too much difficulty I found the perfect example - the Virginia Pumpkin Festival.



Now in it's third year, the festival will be held on the October 23rd to 26th bank holiday weekend in Virginia, County Cavan. The highlight of this years festival, aside from the pumkins ;) is the chance to catch one Bell X1’s last autumn performances. But be warned, the festival is expected to attract up to 20,000 people!

As I mentioned, the festival has taken the move this year to adding a Social Media element to their promotional suite. Their Facebook page can be found here, and has already attracted over 110 fans.

The festival is a great excuse to enjoy a beautiful part of the countryside, and an opportunity to see the town lit completely with candles, filled with fire throwers and acrobats and home to a host of other family orientated activities.

Activites taking place over the weekend:
Teddy Bear’s Picnic - Saturday, October 24 at 12 noon
Bell X1 - Saturday, October 24 at 9pm
Pumpkin Soap Box Derby - Sunday, October 25 at 3pm
Pumpkin weigh in and prize giving - Sunday, October 25 at 5pm
Street Carnival Parade - Sunday, October 25 at 6pm
Fantastic Fireworks Display - Sunday, October 25 at 7pm
Giant Fancy Dress - Saturday, October 24 at 9pm

Aleksandr Orlov Goes To Facebook First

It's been a while since Compare the Meerkat's Aleksandr Orlov has released a new tv ad, and this may just be about the best one yet. What makes this ad unique, however, is that it was released exclusively through Facebook for the campaign's 600,000 friends. The ad won't air on TV until today.

This is the latest example of how the Compare the Meerkat campaign has been able to fully tap into the potential of Social Media. Aside from the 600,000 fans on Facebook, the campaign has also been able to grow 27,000 followers on Twitter. Last month it was also revealed that Aleksandr will be getting his own web show to interview celebrities. First up is Piers Morgan.

According to VCCP, the agency behind Compare The Meerkat, in the first 9 weeks of the campaign, quotes on Comparethemarket.com leapt by 80%, while awareness of the brand tripled from 20% to 59%.