Watching BBC Breakfast TV this morning, there was a short piece about a dispute over a trademarked phrase, “Keep Calm And Carry On” that I thought was interesting. The phrase “Keep Calm and Carry On’ was thought up way back in 1939 in the dark early years of World War Two by a government official for public motivational posters. For decades it was forgotten until resurrected a few years ago by an enterprising businessman.

They formed a limited company, trademarked the phrase and the logo and manufactured a range of products across the EU four years ago. Today, some people are saying that it’s unfair that the phrase is trademarked and as you will see from the BBC article, most of them are probably sore about the fact that they didn’t think if it. Business owner Mark Coop rightly says, he needs to protect his business.

For me, the remarkable thing wasn’t that Mark had trademarked the phrase, but that other people found it unfair. Also, in a side interview, the BBC made it sound as if trademark law was difficult to understand, which it’s not. Mark Coop isn’t trying to stop people saying the phrase, he simply wants to protect his brand. I haven’t searched online to see exactly what he’s reserved it for, but I imagine it’s for gifts and good such as T shirts, coffee mugs etc.

I find it surprising that other people actually think that someone should spend four years building a business and then simply allow others to directly copy his business plan without any comeback. If you have a business and you’ve built a brand, phrase or logo around it, have you gone to the trouble of registering it as a trademark yet? If not, do it now. If Mark Coop hadn’t he’d have no option but to see his brand diluted, along with his profits.

Anyone with any doubts over the power of viral marketing videos would have ben well advised to have been watching Channel Four and monitor Twitter last night. The launch of four new urban sport videos, plus a feature length documentary showing how they were made, the people involved and a final video involving all four sportsmen went ballistic on Twitter over the following 24 hours.

Apart from the obvious boost of a Channel Four launch, the videos were also bosted by the reputations of the performers, the most famous being the truly astounding Danny MacCaskill. Directed by Mike Christie the feature length programme showed how the videos were made and was compelling viewing.

Companies like Red Bull were very quick to get the whole idea of being involved in viral marketing and for anyone new to the idea, it’s a simple one. Create a really cool video, one that your target audience will say “Wow, you’ve got to see this”, upload it to YouTube, sit back and watch the view counter climb. MacCaskill’s videos have had more than 2 million views. That’s a serious audience.

There are very, very few Danny MacCaskills in this world, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t make a viral video without a stellar performer. Car manufacturers have realised it’s usefulness and have created a variety of videos, some quirky, some more conventional but non the less powerful, all designed to build their brand and entertain their target audience. Below are some of our favourites.

Porsche’s YouTube channel, showing Walter Rorhl in a Porsche 911SC on the Targa Tazmania

Toyota Aygo Five A Side Football first aired on Top Gear

Audi’s TV channel showing the story of that amazing LeMans 24 Hour race victory

Just half and hour ago, this happened. I’m writing about it here because I’m always interested in marketing ideas, but this has just got to be the daftest piece of doorstep marketing I’ve ever heard. It goes like this:

Knock knock… Man at the door
“Hi, just handing out some free raffle tickets for a prize draw, here’s yours..”
“Thanks”
Turn around, head back inside, already looking for the bin
“Oh, just one thing, how will we be able to notify you if you win?
‘You know where I live”
“Yes, but we need to do it by phone, can I have your number?”
“No”
“Oh, well can I have the ticket back then?”
“Sure, no problem”
Hand ticket back, turn around head inside.
Quite what this exchange was supposed to achieve is beyond me. Was I supposed to say, “I want to keep the ticket, here’s my number”?
In which case, of course, they’ve got around the UK laws on cold telephone calling and can bombard me with crap. But in this day and age, with so many people quite savvy to doorstepping, surely that’s a vain hope?
Or do people really fall for this crap?
Either way, I pity the poor guys hiking from one door to another, following the dumb script they’ve been given.

You’re probably sick of reading this all over the internet, but if you’re in the market for a professional grade image management and tagging application, Photo Mechanic simply rocks.

I’ve just spent an afternoon working on a website design for a client. The usual ‘mission creep’ happens with a phrase of “You couldn’t just add these shots and make a kind of gallery type thing, could you?” “Oh, and a little caption beneath each one too, please” Of course, The Client’s captions are on a separate word file, not embedded in the images…. And of course, the ‘few’ images turns out to be a folder full of dozens of different product shots, none of them sorted into categories. The only thing they got right was that someone had the presence of mind to title each caption with the file name, thankfully.

Normally, trying to add the captions to the files for upload into a good WordPress plugin like NextGen Gallery would take an age in Adobe Bridge. Adding them afterwards on the website would take even longer. No sweat, just dump the whole lot into Photo Mechanic, create some sub folders to sort them into product types, (something else the client didn’t do) before opening up the word file, getting a large cup of Yorkshire Tea and having an extended cut n paste session. After that, I realised that there were more images than captions… “Oh, right”, says The Client. “Sorry, there’s a few products discontinued now, can you work out which ones?”
Back into Photo Mechanic with another large Yorkshire Tea and hitting the ‘i‘ icon on each thumbnail opens up the IPTC info box. It takes just a few minutes to flick through them all and tag the images I’d added captions to earlier using the ‘Save & arrow” keys. Then a quick select of the tagged shots and drag them into another folder, leaving all the duds behind.
What could have taken me an age, with the chance of many errors as fatigue sets in, took me less than an hour in Photo Mechanic.
Sure, there are other image cataloging products out there with more screen sexiness and I’m about to try out Capture One’s Expression Media 2 to see how it works at archiving, but as an industrial strength platform for quickly sorting images, tagging them in an edit and adding IPTC caption infothat can be carried over into an online gallery, I can’t find anything to beat this thing.
I’ll be writing more about other ways I use Photo Mechanic in my workflow over on Car Photographer very soon, but this afternoons task shows that even if you’re not a photographer, if you work in publishing, web design or any other industry where you need to sort, tag and catalogue images quickly, this app is the business.

I’ve been writing professionally for years now, both for myself and clients in all sorts of different areas. I was kind of taking for granted the methods I use to get those ideas down until I was watching a professional sports writer I know hard at work and I realised that the little things he was doing to get his ideas out of his head were exactly the same as mine, so here’s the five top things I always do when writing blog posts.

1. Write it down – yes, really! If you’re like me, ideas for articles and features come to me at the strangest times (just ask my wife). I find that if I don’t write it down as soon as it’s popped into my head, I’ve lost it and that little nugget can’t be recalled later. Use anything that comes to hand, it’s really, really important that the initial idea is recorded, even if it’s just two or three words to jog your memory later. I use Notes, Voice Memo and Evernote on my iPhone, plus I carry a piece of folded A4 using the instant Folifax method here at the PocketMod website that gives you plenty of note space in a compact form. Add in one of those cool Fischer space pens that will fit into your jeans without stabbing you and you’ve got that vital tool for recording your thoughts. Have a folder on the desktop of your main work machine and keep all these gems here to be worked on. It make take a short while before the rest of the idea comes to you, but reviewing these on a regular basis will incubate great blogging.
2. Don’t use Word, use Text Edit or Notepad – Microsoft Word is just fine for creating documents for print, but it sucks for blogs. It adds all sorts of formatting ideas of it’s own and if you try and cut and paste your blog post directly into WordPress, it’ll all look crazy. Instead, simply use Text Edit on a Mac or Notepad on Windows. You can add formatting later, it’s accurate writing we need at this stage
3. Give it some polish – OK, so you’ve got your thoughts assembled in Text Edit in front of you, grab a coffee, a beer or glass of your favourite wine and give it some polish. Read it out, aloud if you wish and check it for grammar, typos and the overall flow. Add new paragraphs where you would naturally pause if reading it aloud to someone Basic stuff, I know but sometimes overlooked by the enthusiasm to hit the “post” button. At this point, it’s a good time to work out where you’ll put the tag. Pick a point that beckons the reader to hit the ‘Read On” link and see more of the article.

Diving into blogging? Don't forget your captions!

Do you have any vital things that you’ve learned when beginning blogging? I’ll be writing some more thoughts again, sooner rather than later and I’d like to hear yours. (See that cool call to action phrase at the end there? That was number six…)

Beginning Blogging? Don't crash out at the start..

1. Don’t use cut n paste journalism. If you receive plenty of press releases and you’re suffering from a bit of writers block, you’ll be tempted to just cut and paste some press releases. After all, it just today’s blog post and there’s 500 words there, right? Job done. Others will disagree, but I’m a big, big believer in original content, not just on blogs, but on printed paper too. By all means read press releases and other sources of information, but write your own views, it’s what people want to see, whether it’s on your blog on in a paid for magazine publication. “Control V, Control C” just doesn’t cut it.

2. Don’t use crappy $1 images – See above about words? Pictures are the same. Those stock shots been seen absolutely everywhere, but far more importantly, those cliched shots of office staff wearing telephone headsets and engaging in Catalogue Man poses just look so, so cheesy, plus anyone who’s met you know your staff aren’t like that. Most important of all, studies have shown that those type of images turn people off and you lose credibility. Why do you think that the quality motoring magazines still commission their own photography, even though there are lots of manufacturers press release shots to go at? They could save substantial sums of money, creating car magazine features is labour intensive and time consuming, but they need quality, original images, as they know that their audience expects it.

3. Don’t use flowery language – “Herewith, for your perusal…” You wouldn’t talk to someone like that, so don’t write that way. By that same token, you’re not passing your audience a pint in a local pub, so “here y’go mate” doesn’t really work either. And whatever you do, please do not write in TXT SPk. I H8 it… That’s what iPhones and Blackberry keypads were made for – making the TXT’er extinct.

4. Don’t edit it to death. It’ll never be perfect, so don’t dwell too much on re-writing. Unless there’s something badly wrong technically, be sure you’re reasonably happy with it and leave it alone. I’ve written 2,000 word features I’ve been proud of, but I’ve also known areas I’d like to have gone back to and changed. Get over it.

5. Don’t just write for Google. It’s important to write with search engines in mind when writing online, but don’t do it at the expense of good grammar and the flow of your thoughts. Try and make your important keyword phrase in your first paragraph by all means, but don’t worry to much. Google is very clever today and if you consistently write interesting and useful articles, you’ll pass the test.

So lots of things you shouldn’t be doing, right? If you’re new to blogging and made it this far, you’ll be wondering how on earth you get started with your blog. Don’t worry, my next post gives you the five most important things you need to do to get started with some creative blogging and feature writing.

Great Brand Building - The LS400. Photo courtesy Lexus GB

Back then no one had heard of Lexus in the UK. That’s not a figure of speech, it really was like that. Nobody knew about it and that posed a problem. As a small scale, new start, muscling into brands like Jaguar, Mercedes and BMW, it was tough to get that all important golf club car park credibility. And Lexus GB simply didn’t have the budget for TV advertising on a grand scale back then – after all, they were only planning on selling a few hundred cars in year one, nationwide. So we had to do things that hard way.

As a salesman, that meant using a snipers rifle, not a blunderbuss, when it came to local marketing and advertising. The dreaded phrase, ‘Prospecting’ was hammered into us and we got out there with our single demo unit, gave the longest test drives ever and used what were then unusual methods for a car dealership. We used to spend what little the money we had on a single event each quarter, no local press advertising, no bus backs, just get an invited selection of people to drive it and give them a great time. As well as the staple diet of the car manufacturer- golf and more golf, we also went horse racing, used helicopter rides from hotels, plus anything else we could think of that didn’t blow our budget. We were building relationships that are so important in the executive car market.

The car was, without a doubt, technically brilliant for it’s time. But in that market, that didn’t always count for much, back in the days before JD Power. Jaguar drivers were a particularly tough nut. The XJ40 series had just been polished up by Ford with ‘new’ engines and a better warranty that was costing them a fortune. Jaguar drivers would drive a Lexus, praise it’s stunning ability over a coffee, go on to complain about the three gearboxes their old XJ40 had needed, the head gasket and the V Mounts that had fallen apart….. Then go right back and order another XJ. I didn’t get it until I spent a two year break from Lexus selling Jaguar, which was good experience to bring back to Lexus, when I returned.

So who were the early UK Lexus drivers and what made them tick? With hindsight, they were the kind of people who today would probably buy a Tesla. The kind of people who were either ‘old money’ – they were wealthy and had nothing to prove and bought the LS400 because they knew it was the best. Who cares what the peasants think? Or they were the kind of younger, self made maverick who liked to create a stir in that golf club or squash club. The kind of person who challenged people to question their decision and then went on to explain in great detail why it was a logical choice with even greater product knowledge than us. And as we sold more, the ‘early adopters’ became our champions, defending the marque, giving us referrals and banging the drum at our corporate events.

Today, building a brand still takes all of the painful things that building Lexus from scratch in the UK did back in 1990. But today you have many more powerful tools to help you. The sheer power of social media to engage in conversation with your target audience and gain help from your ‘champions’, the cost effective way that you can have a powerful website, with professional photography, the amazing new ways that you’re able to create High Definition video content and display it on devices like the iPad all make building your brand still painful, but more cost effective.

Today, Lexus and Toyota’s command of social media globally is superb. But when I think about how we started at that little Lexus dealership, in the corner of the Toyota showroom, all the things we did then are just as relevant today, it’s just the tools to do the job are far sharper.

Thanks to James at Car Dealer magazine for the inspiration and Lexus GB for the good times.

Welcome to Octane Factory. We bring together high quality digital photography, website design using industry standard Content Management Systems, cutting edge video and quality journalism and writing to deliver projects for clients worldwide.

With new technologies for presenting video and mobile content, we work in exciting times. It has never been more cost effective to create exclusive photography and video content online. Coupled with quality website designs and the power of social media and you have tools that can create interest in your products and services like never before.

Our blog below shows just some of the recent work we’ve been involved with, creating and managing complete projects or working with teams as part of larger projects.

Pretty much all of the websites we create these days run on the WordPress platform. You can read elsewhere about our reasoning behind it and why our clients find it a popular decision. WordPress, of course, keeps the ‘content’ part separate from the ‘design’ part, which is controlled by a ‘theme’. There are quite literally thousands of off the shelf themes available for WordPress, many of them free and perfectly adequate for non-business use. But several recent cautionary tales are abounding about the dangers of downloading free WordPress themes for your blog or website.
The big problem is, unless you’re downloading directly from WordPress.org, simply Googling ‘Free WordPress Themes’ is a recipe for disaster. This well written post over on the WordPress Multi User site echoes directly my own observations just recently. It reads as a horror story of themes full of hidden code and encrypted code designed to compromise your website and use it as a platform for launching all manner of unsavoury things.
Top of the list is the use of Base64 code to hide the real intent of the theme’s designer. Often this code is in the footer along with seemingly sage advice about not removing it ‘as it may stop your site from working’…. Yeah, right… None of the code I’ve seen hidden in these free themes will actually break your website, but in varying degrees they’re all sending traffic and links to locations on the internet you probably wouldn’t want to be associated with and definitely wouldn’t want your customers to think you were connected with….
So what’s the solution? Well, if you don’t have a budget for hiring someone like me to create your own theme and website layout for you, then the only 100% safe place to go is WordPress.org. You can be sure that the themes there will be fully compatible with the best practices and won’t contain any of the nasties you’ll find by using that dangerous word on Google – Free…

First let’s get this clear. This isn’t an Aweber Bash Fest. It’s a really great company, with excellent service and a good reputation, indeed, I can’t recall the last time an online company called me from another continent to thank me for signing up for an account, that’s how customer-focussed they are. But I won’t be going with them for my email list services and here’s why:

I’m already with another broadcast email provider called iContact. I’ve been using them since the end of 2008 and my list of subscribers for various sites has steadily grown and while it’s not huge, it’s important to me. To move to Aweber, I’d have to email all of my list subscribers and ask them to start over and respond to a confirmation email they’ll be getting.

And that’s my Problem Number One. Unlike many bloggers / website owners, I grow my email list from many sources and the critical thing is this:

My list is not just from people who’ve ASKED me to send them information. I build my list pro-actively by using it to carefully add prospects to it that I know won’t be offended to receive information, but who I know would not bother with a signup process. After all, why should they? I want to sell something to them and supply them information, why should they be the ones who have to make the effort, however small? I know right now that these people will not respond to a confirmation email request, but at the same time, they’re happy to accept a non-offensive stream of news from me. Most of them gave me a business card and asked me to stay in touch. They’re what I’d describe as long term prospects – people who I might be able to do business with in the medium to long term and who I’d like to keep in touch with to remind them I’m there, no pressure, no strings attached.

Aweber’s business model is built the other way up. They supply a very good service based upon people actively finding a website or blog they like and deciding they’d like to join a list. The problem I have with that is that it doesn’t easily allow me to add the type of prospect I’ve described above. Step forward iContact. They’re my other broadcast email provider and the one’s I’ll be staying with. I can add email addresses of those long term, slow burn prospects by a simple cut and paste, without needing a confirmation email. In addition, on my website signup boxes, I can opt to ask for the confirmation process with a simple check box. This gives me the best of both worlds – a locked down, spam proof signup box where I need one, plus the trust in me not to abuse my powers by annoying people with unwanted emails.

So who’s right and who’s wrong? If you’re just starting out building your subscriber list, there’s virtually nothing in it. Both services claim industry leading standards of deliverability and competitive, sensible pricing structures. Aweber is undoubtedly the darling of the Blogosphere, but iContact certainly provides a very good service with excellent support.

Disclaimer – by clicking a link to iContact, I get a discount from my account if you choose to sign up with them, it helps bring down the cost of running my email list.