Whale weekly wisdom

Amongst a busy week at Whale Marketing delivering client campaigns, networking events and developing an interesting new business pitch the team has again found some interesting things to share from our regular review of key press.

Here are some of them;


Something for the whales

This week The Observer featured an interesting article available in print and online on "The cultural life of whales".




A humpback whale in Antarctica. Photograph: Steve Bloom /Alamy


The Peninsula Arts Whale Festival will later this month celebrate this extraordinary animal.

Whales are at the heart of our brand and our passion for marketing is just as big as the heart of the blue whale (it is the size of a VW beetle believe it or not).
Check our website for more interesting whale facts.


Viral campaign

Have you seen this Downy viral campaign? #mikeinwindow

It is a great viral / buzz marketing campaign about a comedian from the US who is living and sleeping in Macy’s store window for a week.

It was launched by ‘Downy’ an American fabric softener brand and it has been trending on twitter, gaining heaps of coverage.

Charity fatigue

While on the subject of social media, it would be hard not to notice the increased exposure to charities. BBC talks raises the question: "Do our fundraising friends secretely turn us of?"

Social media has enabled an increased connectivity with people.

How many of you have got a friend doing a run, a walk, an abseil, all in the name of charity and they've just told you through Facebook or Twitter? Do you feel obliged to make a donation?

Charities are under pressure to sustain sponsorships and the increased numbers of events is just an indication of this.

Either way charity fundraising is not just about street fundraisers anymore. By promoting charities personally we are raising awareness of causes we support and unknowingly creating viral campaigns, when these campaigns grow traffic to charity websites increases and so do donations.

Charities don’t have control over this type of activity. This is ok when the resulting viral campaign is positive but requires active online involvement from charities to both capitalise on increased traffic and manage positive and negative messages that arise from viral campaigns. A recent viral campaign that drove traffic to the NSPCC was going well until a report caused panic by suggesting that it was the work of a paedophile ring hoping to determine the age of Facebook users by the cartoon they chose to represent them. In this example the NSPCC kept users up-to-date about what they knew actively communicated to their new audience via their own Facebook page. So whilst like many aspects of social media you can’t control everything, pro-active communication is key.

What other marketing tools can charities use to increase fundings and sponsorships?

Whale have worked with a few charities including Brook and Body Positive and enjoyed the challenge of thinking outside the box to create sustainable campaigns.

When social media goes wrong.

All over the news the last week, the two Sky TV presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray have been caught up in a sexism row after a microphone apparently caught them making disparaging comments about female assistant referee Sian Massey and West Ham vice-chairman Karren Brady.

It raises the question of when privacy becomes a gray area.

Privacy stops when something is shared on any of those social network. So do we need to watch what we say?

Companies are setting guidelines as to what their employees can claim as their own opinions or share as the company's own.

The phenomenon that social networks have become are setting new sets of rules in the way we think, act and express ourselves. It is something to keep an eye on as we increase social media activity for both business to consumer and business to business clients.