Viral Marketing Case Study, News, Domain Name Tips

*** MarketingSherpa.co.uk ***
Practical News, Gossip & Tips for
Internet Marketers in the UK
June 8, 2000 - Vol. I, Issue 4

1. NEWS & GOSSIP: Oyster Partners, News From New York,
trainline.com, radio advertising

2. CASE STUDY: How Honda Motor Europe Drives Traffic

3. PRACTICAL HOW-TO: Choosing Fabulous Domain Names

4. JOBS: iPonics, YourAdventure.com

5. EVENTS

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NEWS & GOSSIP
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We’re very proud of the .uk in MarketingSherpa.co.uk
but, when we were given the opportunity to fly over to
the USA last week, we weren’t too proud to accept it.
Not because we wanted to take advantage of some of the
most glorious weather that New York has had in ages, you
understand, but because we wanted to keep you up-to-date
with what’s happening over there...

*The Clio: London-based Oyster Partners wins top US
Internet Award

Rule, Britannia! Britannia rules the waves. Well, the
Internet waves, anyway. Oyster Partners, an Internet
professional services firm based in Islington, has just
beaten off 18,000 entries to win a prestigious Clio
Interactive Award in the Relationship Marketing category
for its work with Rockstar Games. According to Bob
Welke, an Executive Jury member, winning a Clio is no
mean feat: ‘It’s a rigorous process. Oyster’s work was
judged by and against the best in the business, and came
up a winner.’


This is the third major US award for Oyster in the space
of a month (their work for Rockstar recently pushed
Volkswagen America into second place at the One Show
Interactive Awards). Hugo Manessei from Oyster puts the
company’s success down to the relationships they build
with their clients: ‘all the best work in this industry
is achieved when the client has the vision and guts to
let the agencies walk hand in hand with them through the
creative process, following instincts, taking risks, and
having fun’.
Oyster Partners: http://www.oyster.co.uk
Rockstar Games: http://www.rockstar.com

*Internet Marketing in the US goes Radio Ga-Ga

Have you noticed the sudden upsurge in the number of TV
ads for Internet firms recently? We have at
MarketingSherpa.co.uk and, for the most part, we like it
(although we wish everyone would get over little
animated mouse pointers and ‘click’ noises). Well, in
the US, Net-based firms have already saturated TV ads –-
it seems like every single ad on TV (and believe us,
they have a lot more than we do) is for a dot-com in one
way or another.

So what’s next? Radio. Any marketer worth his/her salt
in the US is campaigning on the airwaves -- already
there’s a huge number of radio ads plugging online
operations and quoting URLs, and it’s working.
Absolutely everyone we met is talking about
www.priceline.com (‘Name Your Own Price... and Save!),
for example. Where did they hear about it, we asked?
William Shatner on the radio. Is radio a broadcast
medium worth exploiting over here? You can bet your
bottom dollar. Sorry, pound.

*World Domination Plans Uncovered at International
Network 2000 Event, NYC

Last week, we visited the inaugural International
Network 2000 event staged in New York City by Rising
Tide Studios (of ‘Silicon Alley’ and ‘Digital Coast’
fame), under the premise that we were interested in
what’s being discussed Net-wise in other countries.
What we really wanted was to make sure that the
Americans aren’t planning total world domination via the
Internet. But, from the number of panel discussions
dedicated to overcoming cultural differences and opening
offices in foreign countries; and, the abundance of
American accents amongst both speakers and delegates, it
would appear that they are.

No need to panic just yet, though. They weren’t talking
groundbreaking stuff – it was mostly common sense. Like
how your international customers might be different from
your national ones, how their cultures might alter the
way they conduct business, how it might be a good idea
to employ someone with some local savvy, or perhaps to
expand by acquiring an established local operation which
offers similar services. This is all old hat to UK Net
marketers like yourselves, isn’t it? You’re used to
dealing with cultural differences everyday because
you’re European, right? Well, since there was a very
low turnout of Brits at the event, we presume that the
answer to both these questions is ‘yes’...

(NB: We just had to tell you -- one so-called expert
used the non-word ‘Anglifying’ whilst discussing the
difficulties faced by a US company trying to adapt its
Web site to a European market. Correct us if we’re
wrong, but we think he meant ‘Anglicising’. How
ironic.)

*Yea/Nay: thetrainline.com

You can’t avoid thetrainline.com at the moment, so they
pretty much get a ‘Yea’ for sheer omnipresence. Yep,
they’re everywhere – on TV, across billboards, in the
papers, and you can’t walk through any major London
station without noticing one of their huge blue and
green ads painted on the floor. ‘Y Q’ they ask, when
you could book your train tickets online at
www.thetrainline.com? Their all-encompassing campaign
also exploits the radio: thetrainline.com get an
almighty plug every half hour or so on Natalie Wheen’s
weekend broadcasts on Classic FM because they provide
prizes for phone-in competitions. Wheen even gives
listeners instructions on how to use the site.

But the real ‘Yea’ is for originality: a booth at
Paddington Station, where lucky ‘contestants’ (those
people without an urgent train to catch, presumably) can
spend a few seconds in something resembling an over-
sized bingo machine, trying to collect prize-winning
coupons. It’s a bit like the Dome in TV’s ‘The Crystal
Maze’. Up for grabs: URL-emblazoned mugs, T-shirts, and
the like, and (for the very lucky) first-class rail
tickets.

http://www.thetrainline.com
http://www.classicfm.co.uk

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CASE STUDY: Honda Motor Europe
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* Honda Motor Europe Really Drives Traffic with Viral
Marketing!

We’ve been hearing a lot at MarketingSherpa.co.uk
recently about email marketing’s growth in popularity,
and so, this week, we thought we’d give you a case study
that shows just how well it can work. This particular
campaign was devised by Dow Carter and The Leith Agency
to promote the launch of the new 5-door Honda HRV ‘Joy
Machine’ by Honda Motor Europe (HME).

CREATIVE: Several ‘Joy Machine’ short films were shot,
converted and compressed so that they could be sent as
email attachemnts. Although they employed sound, the
films all worked as ‘silent movies’ so that those
without sound cards could appreciate them fully. Most
importantly, the films were designed to be entertaining
so that viewers would pass them on, maximising exposure
to the Web site address (www.hondajoymachine.com)
featured at the end of each one. And of course the
films made it clear that there was plenty more fun (as
well as films) to be had at the site, as well as
information about the car itself (and how to buy it).

MEDIA BUY: Emails, complete with attached films, were
sent to the primary audience –- employees of HME and its
agencies only. That’s it – 500 emails to personnel. No
emails were sent to prospective customers, and
absolutely no spamming of any kind took place. But the
key to this experiment was whether or not the initial
recipients would keep the emails to themselves...

RESULTS
Dow Carter set up an extranet stats site to
monitor traffic at www.hondajoymachine.com, and they
found some pretty amazing results: within the first week
of the initial 500 emails being sent, the Web site
achieved 2,779 user sessions. By week three this number
had soared to over 35,000. And the number is still
rising – when we spoke to Helen Lodge at Dow Carter
earlier this week she advised us that as many as 4.5
million people are now estimated to have seen the Joy
Machine films. Not bad for a campaign which was never
targeted directly at the end-customer, huh?

NOTES: Honda are not saying how much the films cost to
make, but thanks to email they’ve been distributed
worldwide for practically nothing, creating quite a
demand for the car. In fact the campaign may have been
too successful – we’re told that there’s a significant
level of interest for the Joy Machine in Canada, for
instance. It’s not available there.

http://www.hondajoymachine.com
http://www.dowcarter.com
http://www.leith.co.uk

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PRACTICAL HOW-TO: Choosing Fabulous Domain Names
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* MarketingSherpa.co.uk’s Top 8 Tips to Choosing
Fabulous Domain Names

1. Be Memorable
There’s a company we greatly admire, and we often want
to refer other people to them. The trouble is we can
never remember their domain name... (For the record,
it’s WorldWeb.net.)

2. Don’t Fence Me In
So many Venture Capitalists snarl ‘it’s not the business
plan I fund, it’s the management team,’ because they’re
anticipating the day (bound to come) when your Web site
direction changes entirely. And, when it does, will
your domain name still apply? Think how restricted the
baby Amazon.com would have been if it had been called
‘Books.com’ instead...

3. No Trendy Words Please
Think how foolish 30-somethings with names like
‘Rainbow’ and ‘Treehugger’ feel today even if, in the
’60s they were the ultimate cool babies. Now apply the
same lesson to words such as ‘Cyber’...

4. Word of Mouth
A large percentage, if not the majority, of your new
visitors will find their way to your site because a
friend or colleague recommended it. Most of the time,
these recommendations will be made verbally –- chatted
down the phone, for instance, or shouted across a
crowded office. So you’d better make sure your domain
name is something that can be clearly heard, understood,
and spelt at first try without any questions. We’d
suggest you avoid numbers (people are never sure whether
to spell them out or not) and unusual spellings of
common words...

The good news: once you’ve picked a great name for ‘word
of mouth’ you are well set up for radio campaigns.

5. dot-com v. dot-co-dot-uk?
Whenever we look at our lengthy subscriber list (thanks
a lot for subscribing, by the way – and if you haven’t
done it yet, nip over to
http://www.marketingsherpa.co.uk straight away) we are
rather startled to see how many otherwise very British
companies use ‘.com’. This probably dates back to the
time when America ruled the Web and you needed a ‘.com’
to be taken seriously. But this certainly isn’t the
case any more (see news item on oyster.co.uk in this
issue). If you do own the .com, you might consider
switching to the .co.uk and continuing your old domain
as a ‘shadow’ address so that people using it will still
get to the right place.

If you’re registering a new name altogether, you’ll want
to register both the .co.uk and the .com anyway just in
case lots of people visit you by guessing your URL. But
don’t buy the ‘.com’, or (God forbid) the ‘.net’ if your
dream ‘.co.uk’ is taken. We have friends who did this,
and now they have to pay heaps for a full-time banner ad
on the other domain owner’s site to redirect mistaken
visitors. And they lose an awful lot of email that
way...

6. Buy common mis-spellings of your name!
Until recently, there was a company in Canada making a
living simply because their domain name (Yahooo.com) was
typed accidentally by shed loads of people looking for a
certain search engine. If you’re an existing offline
company, your mailroom staff can probably tell you the
most common mis-spellings of your name. Alternatively,
we suggest you pop down to the pub for a few pints, try
to type your proposed domain name a few dozen times, and
then buy the most common mistakes resulting. We like
this method – it’s one of the few opportunities you’ll
have for tax-deductible drinking...

7. DUYAYDN.co.uk (or, Don’t Use Your Acronym as Your
Domain Name)
We are constantly surprised by the number of companies
who use their acronym as their domain name -- after all,
even the Bluffer’s Guide to Marketing says that acronyms
(especially long ones) are harder to remember than
words. Unless you are willing to spend millions on
branding ads (like IBM), or you have an acronym that
looks like it might be a word (like Bol.com) it’s a
very, very bad idea to use them, as they are horribly
difficult for customers to recall.

The same is true of domains that are sliced bits of your
company name stuck together (eg. ‘XYZMag.co.uk’). This
is because nobody (besides you) will ever remember which
bits to spell out or not. And anyway, these tend to be
such utterly boring-sounding names...

8. Fun Resource
Want some more tips on Internet naming? Check out
‘Naming Fatbrain.com: The Black Art of Internet
Branding’, a free downloadable essay by Chris MacAskill,
CEO of Fatbrain.com (formerly ComputerLiteracy.com) at
http://www1.mightywords.com/asp/bookinfo.asp?theisbn=EB00000001

PS. ‘How did MarketingSherpa choose its name?’ you ask.
Well... it was a very long night, and LOTS of drinking
was involved!

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JOBS
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* iPonics Seeks Marketing Strategist
Working as a core team member of this small but
expanding incubator, your key competency will be to aid
in the evaluation of the feasibility and marketability
of the business plan(s). You will play a leading role
in developing the business model, and formulating and
implementing strategic marketing plans for in house and
incubate programmes. Experience in either traditional
or online marketing methods, excellent communication,
flexibility, and the ability to multi-task are all
essential for this very exciting opportunity. Contact
honormarks@yahoo.com for more details.

*YourAdventure.com Seeks Director of Marketing
A Director of Marketing is sought to join the management
team of a global Web-based Adventure Holiday Agency
start-up. Existing team is both strong and experienced
in travel start-ups, travel General Management, Finance,
IT, and Call Centres. Recent senior experience in the
Tour Operator market would be beneficial. Appropriate
equity involvement and market-rate salaries offered.
http://www.YourAdventure.com

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EVENTS
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22nd & 23rd June 2000, The Cumberland Hotel, London
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http://www.wbr.co.uk/etail00 for a complete agenda.

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