We just keep getting cooler and cooler! The other week we went to the SB.TV Xmas party, and then on Friday, Marketing Zone’s Robin attended comedy gig, Kojo Live N Kicking, at Hackney Empire.

It’s all part of our celebrity product placement service, that saw us rubbing shoulders with England footballer Carlton Cole, and British rapper Angel.

Live N Kicking was also attended by UK sports and entertainment stars, among them songstress Jamelia, and stars from Eastenders and the music world.

If you want to get your product seen with the stars, talk to us on 01763 274440.

As advocates of good copywriting, we couldn’t believe our ears when we heard that book chain Waterstone’s is denouncing the apostrophe in their company name. Giving the reason that ‘in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling was required’; Waterstone’s will now be known as Waterstones.

We’re up on our high horses here! For a company that sells books and encourages reading, surely they can’t spell their own organisation name incorrectly. If McDonald’s and Sainsbury’s can cope, there is no problem.

We can understand that Waterstone’s is a brand name now, rather than traditionally known after its founder, Tim Waterstone. So we can see that for their website address, having an apostrophe isn’t essential, but nor have they ever been in urls. And apostrophes can create broken links on website headings as they are not picked up by the website’s coding system. But to alter the company name and spell it incorrectly within the copy on their website is just not on!

We’re very possessive about the apostrophe at Marketing Zone!

Here at Marketing Zone we’re young at heart! So tonight we’re heading to Camden for the SB.TV Xmas Party. We’ve arranged a sunglasses product placement at the event for one of our clients, so we’re attending the party to show our support, and to listen to the likes of Tinchy Stryder, Cher Lloyd Mr Faizer and Labrinth.

As the UK’s leading youth broadcaster, SB.TV has come along way since its humble beginnings, when its founder Jamal Edwards started filming gigs and broadcasting them on YouTube.

Today that’s all changed. SB.TV has 50+ million YouTube views and tens of thousands of subscribers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers, who view the interviews, music videos and viral adverts of some of the world’s most highly respected, globally recognised artists.

It’s going to be a great night!

Always ready for a challenge, I jumped at the opportunity to spend time with my sixteen year old son, as he took on a 229 mile endurance cycle challenge. The route took us from our home town of Buntingford to Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast, and so far this sponsored cycle has raised over £1,500 for cancer charity, Yes to Life.

Training began six weeks before the event, with long distance cycle rides through the countryside, to prepare us for the mountainous terrain of Wales. After a painfully slow start in wet weather things began to look up. With just one puncture along the way, it was great to complete the ride in the 4 days we set ourselves, with compulsory fish ‘n’ chips and hot chocolate on route.

Cycling through thick fog and up Welsh mountains was made that bit easier knowing my son had the backing of everyone at his college and the Mercury newspaper, who reported our success. A big thank you to all those individual sponsors, tutors and businesses including C&Y Scaffolding, LEKA, GPNunn, Buntingford Mowers, J Oliver Radley and Interviewing Services for their generosity and support. 

So which do I prefer – a day spent pedalling or a day at Marketing Zone?  I’m going to carry on doing both.

We’ve been working with British fashion designer, Alex Seroge Ignatian, to design and develop a portfolio style website to showcase his collections.

Alex wanted his website to represent his unique designs and to clearly display his latest collections. We developed a high fashion website which is simple to navigate and directs potential fashion buyers seamlessly to his most recent creations.

Alex is delighted that he received enquiries through his new website from fashion buyers on the day it went live!

I recently attended a Social Media Bootcamp arranged by The Chartered Institute of Marketing, where it was good to meet with other experts in the industry. The key insight that came from the event was that customers are engaging with social media more and more, and that they expect businesses to do the same.

Millions of us use social media. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, its part of many people’s daily lives. So it’s not surprising that search engines highlighting social media mentions in their search results.

You can read my full article on the Institute’s blog, but it’s worth noting that with 25% of tweets on Twitter including URLs, this can be a valuable way to create unpaid links to your website which could boost your web ranking. We can develop a Twitter account for your business, call Mark on 01763 274440 for more information.

As creatives, we’re always keen to see innovation and the latest What? Gravity Mobile Phone Holder from ideasbynet.com really hits the mark. Its silicone panel holds in place any modern mobile, and there’s room to feature your brand or website for a sleek looking promotional gift. With Christmas coming up, this could be a good way to get your business recognised.

Promotional merchandise can be an effective way to promote your message, and choosing a novelty or useful gadget that a customer will keep, may encourage your brand to be remembered when they require your service in the future.

If you need help with a logo design or creative content for a promotional item, or any other project we can help.

In this month’s Hertfordshire Business Independent, Marketing Zone’s Mark features in their Executive profile. Take a look at page 23 to hear from Mark about the importance of strategic insights, creativity and results in marketing.

Plus on page 31, Mark gives importance tips for businesses considering whether to outsource their marketing.

Polaroid Eyewear has been getting some great PR coverage this year thanks to our ongoing trade media relations plan. So it was fantastic to see the interview that Marketing Zone arranged with Marketing Week and Polaroid’s Chris Knight published.

The feature discussed Polaroid’s new 3D glasses, Lady Gaga’s involvement as a creative figurehead, and the importance of marketing when revitalising a brand.

During the interview, Chris was quick to point out the level of marketing support from Marketing Zone. We’ve developed the brand over the past five years, taking it from a relatively unknown label to now being stocked in John Lewis, Fenwick, Specsavers and on luxury cruise ships.

You can read the full article here. With over 40,000 marketers and industry influencers reading Marketing Week, this was an important piece of coverage for Polaroid Eyewear and has already inspired interest from a number of journalists.

We’re all for encouraging creativity and teamwork here at our marketing agency. So Mark was pleased once again to be invited by The Chartered Institute of Marketing to be part of the Expert Help Panel at the LionHeart Challenge Regional Finals this week.

The LionHeart Challenge is a Nationwide Enterprise Programme, acclaimed by Sir Howard Davies MBE and Director of The London School of Economics & Political Science. It involves school students taking part in a practical business challenge, overseen by expert marketers and business coaches.
The ethos of the Challenge is to inspire soon-to-be school leavers to become tomorrow’s business people.

During the last few years the Challenge has been delivered to over 250,000 young people across every region of England. It was great to be involved with such an energetic and dynamic experience and to share our expertise with motivated students. They really got to grips with the challenge, and the presentations they delivered with solutions to the case study were excellent.

The venue for the event was the prestigious Harrow School, which boasts alumni of eight former Prime Ministers including Winston Churchill. So the standards for this event were set high from the start! Well done to all who took part.