Landrover Donation to British Red Cross vs Zara Phillips Advert

The Top Banana team are always keen to pass on good news when a brand or manufacturer goes the extra mile to give something back. In May we reported the plans for celebrating 60 years of Land Rover which began with Land Rover World Festival at Eastnor Castle in June – now we are delighted to report the charitable donation of 60 Defenders to the British Red Cross – one for each year of the anniversary.

It was disappointing to see this gesture was overlooked by marketing agencies who instead considered using Posh Totty Zara Phillips and a hay fever afflicted horse to create what they hoped would be a viral video to promote the British Olympic Eventing team at the same time as raising brand awareness for Land Rover

Zara is no stranger to online video promotion – see Youtube Zara Phillips Equestrian Princess which attracts hundreds of views and many complimentary comments – 199 at 15 July 2008.

The reception to this “viral video” is one of dismay – tagged “amateur” “snobbish” “disgraceful” it seems to be gaining notoriety for the wrong reasons.

However as any good marketeing BS’tter will gleefully claim – ALL publicity is good publicity.

Zara has featured in commercials before – astride a Freelander and the face of Rolex watches.

Countdown Clocks: Code for countdown and count up clocks

Ha Ha Haaaaa – I like to count!

With full respect to Richard Whitely – who opened Channel 4 in 1980 with its first programme, Countdown.

Often you’ll come across “Count Down Clocks” which tick away and display days, hours, minutes and seconds until a specific event. Usually these countdown clocks are an integrated part of fund raising or event awareness as seen on National No Smoking Day where the Marketeers expect visitors to return again and again to see just how long they have to wait until the great day.

Top banana thought an interesting twist would be for sites to prominently display how long overdue and event was. The completion of Wembley Stadium ran way over time and budget and as such would have been ideal high profile Count Up Clock opportunity.

Even individuals with a gripe can utilise a count-up clock to emphasise their dismay. Take a. It was with a wry smile TB noticed that an employee of a large digital media agency who has been waiting for a personal development review that is planned to be a regular six monthly event falling in October and April each year posted a count up clock onto the companies web blog to highlight the time elapsed.

<script language="JavaScript">
TargetDate = "12/31/2020 5:00 AM";
BackColor = "palegreen";
ForeColor = "navy";
CountActive = true;
CountStepper = -1;
LeadingZero = true;
DisplayFormat = "%%D%% Days, %%H%% Hours, %%M%% Minutes, %%S%% Seconds.";
FinishMessage = "It is finally here!";
</script>
<script language="JavaScript" src="http://scripts.hashemian.com/js/countdown.js">
</script>

However wordpress hosted sites can’t display the result of the script – Bah – so see the original source of the countdown code

Call Free Directory Enquiries

Free Directory Enquiry Calls

The UK Directory Enquiry Service became free again this month.

An official report by the National Audit Office said the switch to 118 from the old 192 service was an expensive flop that left consumers out of pocket and failed to improve service.

Hopefully the launch of 0800 100 100 will be the first nail in the coffin for rip-off 118 so-called providers that replaced the original free British Telecom 192 directory enquiry service. although BT have offered free directory enquiries online for at www.bt.com since the abolition of the 192 service which has been reasonably fast if you have a reasonable broadband connection.

You are required to listen to a 20-second advert but that is a small price to pay considering the long delays experienced on pay per second sevices – 40% of users thought 118 operators unnecessarily prolonged conversations to boost revenues.

Calls from landlines, cable networks and even mobiles will be free and answered by real people based in the UK rather than machines and international call centres.

Update see Comment by john smith — March 12, 2009 @ 8:41 pm

Have you tried it? “We are sorry this site is currently over subscribed but you can call our sister company on 118 ……” At 20:38hrs on a Thursday evening? How many calls does it take to “over subscribe” their system?? Clearly a rip off.

The service will be sustained by advertising. Enquirers will be expected to listen to a short message – twenty seconds – before they receive their information however top banana thinks this much better than the existing average call cost of 78p – over 378 million calls to directory enquiries in the UK annually – you do the maths.