Internet leaders Google have implemented a feature dubbed ‘remarketing’, which enables advertisers to tailor online ads based on users’ web habits. The feature works by detecting when users visit a brand’s website, and then targeting them with ads for that brand on other sites they visit within Google’s Content Network. It seems like the first significant step, to the futuristic scenes in science fiction, with adverts talking directly to individuals.

Center Parcs (that isn’t a typo), are one well known brand who’ve adopted this strategy. For example, they give a visitor to their site a price for a holiday. If that person subsequently browses elsewhere, Center Parcs can run ads via the Google Content Network offering a discount on the original quoted price as an incentive to return to its site and book.

Someone else who like the idea is Paul Holden, chief marketing officer of Samsung, who said it was committed to using re­marketing after a trial campaign for its Behold II mobile handset. He added that the activity had reached more than 100,000 users when it ran on YouTube’s homepage.

We sell promotional products to all different sectors of the economy, and to a wide range of business and organisations. Our main client base is made up of public sector organisations like schools, councils and the NHS. We also sell promotional material to lots of charities, and to large businesses via marketing agencies.

One sector we haven’t broken into is the space industry – yet! The government in conjunction with industry and academia, have said the UK space industry can become a much bigger global player, employing thousands of highly skilled workers and turning over approximately £40bn a year.

The report does warn greater investment is needed, but will position the UK for future success. The Space IGS wants to see R&D spending within industry increase by £5bn, and for the government to double its annual civil space budget to £550m over the next ten years.

The nearest promotional item we can offer for the space industry, is the branded Fisher Space Pen. The Fisher Space pen range was designed for use in Space, when astronauts began to explore the reaches of outer space, Paul Fisher realized that there was no existing pen which could perform in its freezing cold, boiling hot vacuum!

If you think a promotional Fischer Space pen, would make a great corporate gift for your organisation, contact the friendly teams over at Gift Selection & Pens2order.

Marketing site Brand Republic recently interviewed the great British public, asking for their opinions over the proposed plans to change the image of dear old Mickey Mouse. The consensus was that Mickey should not be changed into cunning and cantankerous character as it would “spoil the essence” of the 71-year-old Disney character and be “a very expensive mistake. Not only that, but how many six year olds know what cantankerous means anyway?

Similarly when ordering promotional products, I always advise people to use the same branding across all their products, and only change your brand if you’re absolutely certain. It is unwise to have your branded mugs clashing with your branded pens for example.

Unfortunately Disney hasn’t got wind of their research and, in a bid to make him appeal to a new generation; the iconic character will now take on a “cunning and cantankerous streak” for a new Disney video game, ‘Epic Mickey’, to be released in 2010. The industry in general agrees with this survey; “There’s a distinct risk of alienating your core consumer when you tweak a sacred character,” said Matt Britton, managing partner of brand consultancy Mr. Youth.

Epic Mickey, designed for Nintendo’s Wii console, is set in a “cartoon wasteland” where Disney’s forgotten and retired creations live….The game also features a disemboweled, robotic Donald Duck and a “twisted, broken, dangerous” version of Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World.”

Printed promotional USB drives are popular corporate gifts for all sorts of businesses. If you’re planning on giving lots out, you probably won’t want to spend a fortune on an individual USB.

Bracelet USB drives are one the cheapest promotional flash drives available, but their quirky appeal means despite their low cost, they are still popular. A younger audience in general I think would approve of a printed bracelet flash drive, as it’s a promotional gadget that they can really get to grips with. The beauty being that silicon branded USBs are extremely hard wearing – which is ideal for kids.

Silicone wristbands are available in a few different styles, and if ordered in quantity can even be pantone matched. A quality supplier of promotional Silicon USB drives is gadgets2order, who have a full range of memory sizes available.

Anyone who has ever used an E-mail, thinks Spammers are as popular as Nick Griffin in a Mosque. No matter how many times you ask me, I will not be tempted to buy Viagra from Singapore (at least not for a few years). Similarly in my business E-mails, I’m not tempted to by ‘best price USB’ from Hong Kong, when Spam E-mails are written in pigeon English.

If you’re a fellow blog writer and are non to impressed by spam mailers, check out http://www.stopforumspam.com, which is a very useful website. The site was created to be used as a central database for known forum spambots – so well done guys. There search facility, which lets you browse I.P addresses particularly useful.

Here is some sound advice from the BBC: Don’t act too fast - some responses might just make matters worse. Here are some golden rules:

• Don’t reply, ever!
• Never buy anything from a spammer. Don’t make spamming worth the effort - plus you’ll get even more spam once they know you’re willing to buy.
• Think twice before forwarding chain-letters or petitions. Mass-mailings like this still constitute spam and the lists of addresses on them are later used by spammers.
• Don’t ‘mail-bomb’ the spammer who seems to have singled you out. The address included in the spam is probably forged or belongs to a mailbox the spammer ignores.

People have been going mad about Twitter, but is it all media hype? ‘Micro-blogging’ still remains in the hands of the few according to Harvard research. Despite the fact that where constantly told the whole world is tweeting about everyone else just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content.

Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network. However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter updated their page less than once every 74 days.

And most people only ever “tweet” once during their lifetime, the researchers found. “Based on the numbers, Twitter is certainly not a service where everyone who has seen it has instantly loved it,” said Bill Heil, a graduate from Harvard Business School who carried out the work.

However one could argue that Twitter is made up of two groups of people. There are individuals who use it to network amongst their friends, or  businesses looking to promote themselves to the masses. If the study removed the organisations looking for promotion, then the results may mirror other social networking sites.

Its unprecedented growth has become the poster child of social networking sites, particularly among media companies, which I think needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. This isn’t to say social networking should be taken lightly by any means. After all if Facebook was country it would be the eighth most populated in the world.

A recent study carried out by Soc­ial Media Affairs (SMA), found 19 per cent of bloggers identified as Conservative Party supporters, compared with 16 per cent each for the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats.

With perpetual PR disasters for Gordon Brown and his cabinet, I’m surprised that the deficient isn’t double this. However Labour bloggers have refuted this claim, with one of their parliamentary candidates Lucy Powell hitting back: ‘I thought we’d moved on from social media in politics being about how much traffic one blog gets versus another and towards how we actually adapt to a completely new social environment.’

As far as the actual councillors, it is the Liberal Democrats who are the happiest to type away. Amongst all Liberal Democrat bloggers, 55% are councillors, compared with 19% of Conservative bloggers being councillors and 18% of Labour bloggers…

The godfather of software Microsoft, has revealed plans for a new search engine, which it hopes to rival Google’s dominance of the market. Their new service entitled Bing will begin this weekend, and is planned to be fully operational worldwide by next Wednesday (3 June).

The search engine is said to help people find information in a quick and effective way, with a developed index making search results more relevant to the needs of the consumer.

The new Bing service will feature a regularly updated homepage, and will have a split search broken into categories, such as shopping, travel, news, maps and videos. Industry insiders don’t see Bing as replacing Google by any means, but they do think it could benefit shoppers when comparing items and travel planning for example.

Anyone involved in the promotions industry or in marketing in general, would have had to be living in a cave on Mars, not to have noticed the Twitter revolution. Apple obviously doesn’t see this as a flash in the pan, as they are set to make an offer of £465m for the company!

Industry experts have said that the iPod creator is involved in deep talks with Twitter, and aims to seal the deal by the 8^th of June, when Apple is set to hold its Worldwide Developers Conference.

Someone somewhere is making a lot of money, as the chaps at Twitter don’t come cheap. Last November they turned down an offer of $500 worth of cash and stock, from their rival social media giant Facebook.

The fact that Twitter hasn’t even made any money yet, and there being offered a mountain of cash seems bizarre to me, but there you are.  The implications are thought to be massive, as the social media site would go hand in hand with Apples phenomenally successful iPhone.

However this isn’t the first time that Twitter have been linked with business, so the truth still remains to be seen.

Remember those lovable USB men I brought you from gadgets2order a little while ago? Well those eye catching USB people picked up a Promotional Gift Award 2009 for best Communicative Product. The winning promotional products where picked from a record number of 297 submitted entries, sent in by 196 hopeful companies.

 The USB people were victors due to the high standards of design that went in to the individual professions such as doctors, businessmen and sports stars. As well as being able to choose characteristics such as hair, eyes and accessories, these fun promotional items can also carry personalised advertising messages on them.

On orders of 50 USB men, buyers can choose from one of several standard colours and apply their own logo. A 250 USB man orders can select from a number of predesigned sports, medical or corporate characters. While a bespoke character USB man, is available on an order of more than 500, where thee uniform or strip for any client, campaign or event can be matched.
 

If you would like more information on what is possible with USB men, or would like a quote or a sample, them the friendly team at gadgets2order are always on hand. Remember to watch this space, for more information about award winning promotional products, coming to a desk near you.