This surely warrants two exclamation marks. We’re thrilled to announce that eighty:twenty and our production company Sector 7 won a bronze ICAD Award for our Meet Mike campaign in the category of Viral Commercial Campaign last night. This occurred at approximately 9:30pm. The rest of the evening is a pleasant hazy memory. A few empty seats in the office today…

The latest research from BT in the UK shows that the number of small business promoting themselves on social networking sites has doubled in the last six months. 416 small business were sampled. 15% of these businesses are now promoted on social networking sites in contrast to 7% who were doing so at the beginning of this year. Start-ups especially are supporting themselves by using social networking, making up 22% of those businesses.

At eighty:twenty we’re always keeping a keen eye on developments in the mobile industry. We were bowled over to hear about the new Facebook phone being launched by the 3 network in the UK. It’s the world’s first mobile phone created primarily for social networking. The device is optimised for applications like Google, Skype, IM and other apps like Last.fm The availability date has not yet been announced but we’re predicting that it flies off the shelves.

We’ve joined Twitter, join with us at www.twitter.com/eightytwenty to keep tabs on the busy world of digital advertising!

The global recession, high purchase costs and other factors are affecting consumer attitudes to purchasing newspapers and glossy mags. Stateside, layoffs are happening at Entertainment Weekly, People, Sports Illustrated and even such institutions as Time and Fortune magazine. We’ve heard that Time Inc. had already cut some 800 jobs since 2005 in a bid, now failed, to maintain growth. There are just so many credible sources of news, reviews and views online that you don’t need to pick up a newspaper or glossy mag to stay on trend. We’re reading less magazines and newspapers than ever before and the reality is -there’s no more growth in this industry for the time being. High octane publishers have no option but to look at online to keep their businesses pushing forward. Certain publications have moved entirely online, leaving their print days in the past. The Christian Science Monitor in the US, a 100 year old newspaper, will now switch to a web-based publication offering a new magazine each week and digital daily bulletins. This isn’t the time to wallow but to grip hold of the power of online. For flagship publications which don’t appear to be suffering, the opportunity arises to double up on revenue income by creating a twinned entity online. Online ad income is set to rise despite the recession as marketers choose the economically friendly way to advertise. Consider digital editions, e-newsletters, downloadable magazines. Eighty:twenty are creating thorough strategies for Independent News & Media amongst others so we’re all over it.

Frances Macken

How did he do it? How did he move from being a first term senator to becoming the first
African-American President? Beating a Republican (post George Bush) was one thing but
how did he overcome Hillary Clinton. Sure he has as much talent as any politician I have
seen, sure the nation was ready for change, but to beat the first potential woman
president who was seen as very capable? It’s easy to forget that last summer he was
trailing Hillary 38% to 24% for a 6 month period, and then came the surge. He came out
of the pre-Feb 5th primaries in the lead and never lost that lead again.
Liam Maxwell from the Centre for Policy Studies in London said. “He ran a very well
executed but traditional campaign that uses the internet to get the central message out
consistently every time.” But didn’t Hillary try to do that as well?
There were five rocks that Obama built his campaign on:

1. Library: His web site performed as many others do by giving those interested any
information that they require. His was well done but not really that different to Hillary’s or
John McCains.

2. Social Networks: This is where his campaign really took off. Chris Hughes, one of the
founders of Facebook ran this for him. His site MyBO was the site that harnessed the
power of the volunteers. It signed them up in record numbers, reaching 2.6 million of
them. It enlisted them as donors and fundraisers and helped them communicate the
message with others. Over 50,000 events were organised and promoted across the USA
helped in no small part by the existence of these online networks. In short it was where
most people interacted with the campaign and the official site was more of a reference
book.

3. Portable Video: Huge numbers saw the campaign online and not through the TV
networks. At the end his YouTube site had 1800 videos compared to 400 for John McCain.
He had 1.7m friends versus 300,000 for McCain. Hillary’s Town Hall meeting on Hallmark
TV had 250,000 viewers compared with the Black Eyed Peas music video on Barack which
received 1m hits per day.

4. Twitter (email and mobile txt): This engaged people in their area. Messages
informed about forthcoming events, when the candidate was in town etc. It made it
personal and kept you in the loop.

5. On the ground presence: This enabled all of this latent power to be harnessed. By
using volunteers and temporary staff he was able to get people out and involved in huge
numbers. They were more than persuasive – they did something.
Ireland has been very slow to engage with the Digital world, with many advertisers relying
on their traditional advertising agencies for advice. Digital represents just 2-3% of
advertising spend in Ireland, compared to 12% in Britain, compared to the rock solid base
of Obama’s campaign. Hopefully the presidential campaign will help advertisers realise the
potential of a sound digital strategy. Finally, a politician who is saying something relevant
to us.

David Whelan
Chairman, Eighty:Twenty Interactive Advertising