brands

The average attention span is now just 8 seconds.

A study by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine shows the average attention span is down from 12 seconds 10 years ago to just eight seconds today.

Remember that dancing pony? Of course you do.

It demonstrated that mobile network Three understand that ‘silly stuff’ is important to its users; and more importantly, that they want to be involved in the campaign itself.

Social video advertising has exploded. Boom!

It’s up 5000% since 2006, according to Unruly Media’s Viral Spiral, charting the three most shared campaigns over the last seven years.

Chinwag has rejoined Digital Shoreditch to bring you the biggest and best Careers Day so far, taking place on Friday 24th May. 

The aim is to find and fill roles within the digital industry.  Here's a scoop: news of the location and a preview of the first companies who will be exhibiting.

Get your free ticket here.

A list of the top brands that 18-24s love has been revealed by The Beans Group. The results are the output of a month-long research project, The Youth 100. We asked young people to reveal their sentiment towards brands across industries ranging from technology, fashion and entertainment to retail, travel, finance and more.

Over 1,000 18-24s gave their views. We used an online survey to measure sentiment, and followed it up with focus groups.

For fifteen years I’ve provided research, evidence and carefully chosen words to anyone who would listen to describe the benefits of allowing interpersonal communication within a brand-space. We used to call that "social network theory" or "social engine theory". Over time, the 'social media' industry grew up around our voices (not loud enough to dominate it but still we prattled away).

Today, my agency and team operate as a very tiny part of a £Billion business based on the very same ideas; that conversations are a form of marketing, that the customer can be an ambassador and that brand choices are part of expressible identity.

The questions I’m asked each day remain essentially the same, although the vocabulary has changed a little. Ten years ago a major sports brand asked me "What will I do if the public are critical of our product in a forum we put our brand on", today they ask "What are the costs and risks of page moderation".

The terms “Luxury” and “Exclusivity” are often used, if not interchangeably, then at least with a high degree of overlap. Social networks, on the other hand, are all about openness and sharing. Shouldn’t luxury brands shun social marketing?

The experience of luxury brands like Tiffany & Co and Burberry suggest otherwise: social and mobile marketing have paid enormous dividends for both of those brands, so why the apparent contradiction?

As more and more companies effectively rip out their telephone lines to replace them with online channels, the accessibility and speed of the Internet seems to be heralded as a more effective way of businesses communicating with their customers.

But once the dial tones fades, will online customer service just shine a light on faults within in a brand?