Having last seen The Cult in the mid 80’s, when they were riding high on the release of the Love album I was a little nervous as to what to expect.

The concert on this wet October night was an opportunity to hear the Love album in all its glory live. From the opening Nirvana it was one after another of great tracks, favorites included Rain, complete with umbrellas in the crowd, Hollow Man and She Sells Sanctuary. 

September’s mail order and online sales rose 11.9 percent on last year 

Retail sales also did well last month – 2.8 percent up on last year, the highest year-on-year growth since April according to the British Retail Consortium.

I’ve always thought that we’d come out of recession quickly and that there would be a surge from build up of demand where people would make the purchases they had been putting off whilst listening to the doom merchants.

On-line sales being up nearly 12% is quite a figure, bearing in mind that we’ve only just paid for the summer holiday and looking forward to Christmas expense.

Over recent weeks we’ve noticed that many clients have moved from saying ‘we’re doing alright but we’d better be careful because we don’t know what next month will be like…‘we’ve got some of the budget back that was taken away earlier this year and we need to generate leads/sales/activity before the year end’

Time to get busy!

Phil

The popular social networking website accounted for 14.5% of all UK Internet page views during September 2009, equivalent to 1 in every 7.

During September Facebook was the second most visited website in the UK after Google UK but because users view a much larger number of pages per visit, Facebook is the clear leader in terms of page views, receiving more page views than Google UK, eBay UK and YouTube combined. With UK Internet visits to Facebook increasing by 86.1% between September 2008 and September 2009. 

Although it has fallen somewhat off the media radar in favour of Twitter recently, Facebook remains far and away the most popular social networking website in the UK, accounting for almost half (49.2%) of all UK internet visits to a social networking website. The web monitoring company Hitwise showed that its average visit time increased from 19 minutes 59 seconds in September 2008 to 26 minutes 14 seconds during September 2009.

Coupled with the targeting opportunities available through their advertising platform, brand and product pages and linking with client websites and microsites, the joined up thinking that was missing is now here. With some brand groups attracting in excess of half a million followers it offers brands unprecedented access to their core advocates.

Introducing further features such as Facebook applications further allows brands to virally spread their messages. If you’d like to talk through the opportunities Social Networking could offer your brand, please feel free to email steve@pcdagency.com

Steve

The Phantom band

Checkmate Savage the debut album by Scottish 6 piece The Phantom Band defies categorisation. Lot’s of wierd styles – just down load Burial Songs as a good example. Most innovative thing I’ve heard for a while. (Thanks AB for putting me onto it).

Check it out. Tim

Graph showing changes in marketing spend by category

Marketing spend fell for the eighth consecutive quarter but nearly half of companies surveyed are seeing improved prospects, says the latest IPA/BDO Bellwether report.

The Bellwether report says that while budgets dropped once more in Quarter 3 it was the smallest reduction in more than a year. The proportion of respondents reporting a decline in budgets eased to 28% while the number reporting a rise moved up to 13%.

The report finds that business confidence is on the rise with respondents saying that the degree of optimism in regard to financial prospects for their own companies was at its strongest since the final quarter of 2006, with 47% seeing improved prospects.

As excepted, among companies surveyed, only internet advertising was the only category to see an increase in spend with marketing budgets rising for the first time since Q2, 2008. The steepest cut in spend came for the “all other” category, which embraces PR, events and sponsorship.

Cuts in main media advertising were the smallest for six consecutive quarters. Spend was also cut for direct marketing and sales promotion, though both saw only modest falls.

The research found that the retail, travel and entertainment sectors saw increases in spend, with the steepest falls seen in financial services, IT and computing, and industrial sectors.

After a period of dramatic falls across virtually all sectors, it has meant a rude awakening to both marketing departments and agencies alike, what long term impact this will have on the industry is anyone’s guess.

The most important issue and that which will make the most difference are the strong rise business confidence, and the suggestion that we may see a rising GDP in Q3.

Steve

The number of online shoppers will rise from 26.9m to 31.8m by 2013 – over half of the UK population.

Although the recession has led to some interesting changes in online shopping habits particularly in 14-17-year-olds, as their parents curb spending.

Because this group still rely on income from their parents and have a general lack of direct credit themselves their discretionary spending has been curbed as families tighten their belts. Online buying will pick up again in 2011 as the economy improves for families.

Overall 72.5% of all web users are likely to shop online this year, with the proportion increasing to 75.7% by 2013.

Steve

New media will not go away and indeed it already accounts for about 30% of PCD’s revenues, but like television in the 60’s it shouldn’t been seen as the holy grail, it’s a channel that is appropriate for some and inappropriate for others, it’s about delivering choice.

To say that television is dead is clearly wrong, its share of the market will fall, but consumers will still engage with television, just in a different way, instead of the magic box in the corner of the lounge it will become mobile, with consumers already consuming their favourite programmes online – is this still television yes, just with a new prefix.

Steve

There are signs that the economy is picking up and we are seeing the first green shoots of recovery,but how has the last 18 months affected consumer attitudes? ASDA recently asked their customers for their thoughts and came up with some interesting findings:

“The credit crunch has taught us to be less wasteful and even when the economy does pick up I will carry on being more careful with money”

“I make much more of a conscious effort to recycle things, cut out waste and conserve energy than I did before therecent economic problems”

“I am less likely to buy things on credit now than I used to be, and I try harder to live within my means”

These same customers said they trusted supermarkets more than politicians! But even with stock market and house price rises, it will take a long time before people forget recent events and gain the confidence to stop being so prudent. Marketeers will have to work harder to create a need for products and services. Companies will have to be cleverer with their targeting and personalisation to get the same ROI from these credit crunch scarred people.

Let the challenge begin…