There's so much happening out there.

Here's some of what we think.

Be a square

By: Todd Baker
17-05-2012
Our Thinking, Our work, Uncategorized
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Four of Arena's young guns currently partaking in the Squared programme, a collaboration between Google, Hyper Island, and the IPA.

The Squared programme brought together 85 young people from London’s media and creative agencies. Some had yet to start in their position, others had been working for almost two years and set us upon a 12-week course. The mission statement for the course was to ‘empower the next generation of leaders to power the industry [r]evolution’. Whilst this statement manages to toe the fine line between soulless corporate speak and the dead-eyed utterances of lost boys as they sign up to a cult, the mantra is simple – Google brings the digital nous to the table, leading workshops in analytics, data visualisation and management, coding; whilst Hyper Island provides personal development workshops – how to give and receive feedback, how to build productive teams, and how to grow as an individual in the workplace.

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Ringing the Search Bells

By: Simon Jacobson
14-05-2012
Our work, Search
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What have the search lot been talking about last week?

Bing have announced a relaunch of its search engine, with a big emphasis on combining its social assets and search. A new 3-column design with a new social side-bar has arrived. This move directly pitches Bing’s Social Search against Google’s Search Plus Your World. With Facebook integration – a pivotal part of Bing social search – and the growth of Bing’s share in recent months at the expense of Yahoo, this could be difficult to ignore. Watch this space.

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5 Cool Things

By: Rohan Tambyrajah
11-05-2012
5 cool things, Ideas, SXSW, Video
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PlaceMe

I’ve written about the next wave of Social, Location, Mobile (SoLoMo) apps that came out of SXSWi12 before. They are ambient and uninitiated, unlike a Foursquare or a Facebook places, which require a user action to check in. Whilst Highlight, Glancee (who Facebook have just bought to help evolve their mobile offering) and Sonar all fit strongly in this category, nothing is quite as pervasive as PlaceMe – the first app that really brings the auto check to life. Instead of declaring yourself somewhere, PlaceMe is always on, recording and publishing where you are, wherever you go. Too much? Let the founder talk you through app and how it functions. It’s not worth sticking through the whole 30mins, but the demo is worth a watch. Whilst this is intrusion on an unprecedented level, the richness of personal data it gathers could inform targeting and personalisation in a much more meaningful way. For example, it could give you advance traffic warnings knowing that you take the same route back from work every week.

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Auction #fail

By: Martin Greenbank
04-05-2012
Uncategorized
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As all keen Ebay-ers know the last thing you want to do when selling an item is stifle interest. It is a fine line between setting your reserve price too low and risk being caught short and setting it too high and driving away interest. But this appears to be exactly what Evening Standard have done in their most recent e-auction of their Olympic inventory. 

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5 Cool Things

By: Rohan Tambyrajah
04-05-2012
5 cool things, Ideas
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Intel Smart Sensors

Cities are about to get ‘smarter’. Much like the Internet of Things, which has been well written about, Smart Sensors are all about injecting connectivity into objects. Intel have developed a range of sensors that track motion, weather, air quality and, more relevant for us, what they are calling the ‘life management’ sensor. Also dubbed the ‘marketing sensor’, it will gather data from user behaviour in the real world and use this as fuel for targeted advertising. They are currently trialling them in petrol stations in Brazil, where the sensors communicate with computers in cars to look at last tire rotations and engine needs to feed digital outdoor formats for the likes of Pirelli and Castrol.

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and How Social Media Fulfil them

By: Sara Marques
02-05-2012
Content, Ideas, Our Thinking, Social Media
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Social Media has substantially revolutionised the way we communicate and interact globally, as well as the way we fulfil our social needs.

Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist that proposed a theory in 1943, called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. He used the terms Physiological, Safety, Belonging, Esteem and Self-Realization to describe which motivations are more important to us and to what extent. The more fundamental and basic needs are at the bottom of the hierarchy. The following infographic shows how we can relate the most popular Social Media platforms to Maslow’s social needs.

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You’re not as smart as you think you are

By: Marquin Smith
27-04-2012
Our Thinking
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Illusory Superiority at Arena

…but don’t worry, it’s a well known psychological effect known as ‘illusory superiority’.
We sent an anonymous survey round to Arena Media employees, asking: “Compared to your fellow employees, how intelligent are you?”

The results revealed the following:

  • 49% ranked themselves as having either ‘above average’ or ‘well above average’ intelligence;
  • 43% ranked themselves as having ‘average’ intelligence;
  • 8% ranked themselves as having either ‘below average’ or ‘well below average’ intelligence.

Obviously, these results can’t be right. The intelligence has to be spread evenly around the average (or ‘normally distributed’ for those of you who are mathematically inclined.) The explanation for this is slightly confusing, so follow the next part carefully…

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Anything can trend

By: Martin Greenbank
24-04-2012
Social Media
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Thanks to the internet (in particular social media), literally anything can now ‘trend’. Currently (24th April 2012 @ 2pm) Russell Brand is ensuring that his address he is giving the Home Affairs Select Committee is making the social media sphere. Who’d have thought it… Perhaps ITV can take advantage with a new Syco political debating talent contest.

The Olympic effect

By: Martin Greenbank
11-04-2012
Our Thinking, PPC, Social Media
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So with Easter out the way, consumer’s eyes now look forward to what the summer holds. In fact there are 2 events coming which should have an effect on how consumers behave.

Firstly, the Euros. A footie tournament that captures the public’s interest right up until the point England get knocked out (usually about halfway through the 3 week tournament). The effects past Euros and World Cups had on our clients show us that it usually defers purchase behaviour, although the net effects (i.e.: will it generate or supress overall sales in a year) is typically nil.

And so onto the Olympics…

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Google+ TV campaign

By: Martin Greenbank
30-03-2012
Search, Social Media
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Tomorrow (Saturday 31st March) Google breaks a new TV campaign to drive usage of its Google+ service.

Whilst most of the UK have yet to discover Google+, the search giant already claim 100m global users, and brands like Cadburys have also generated 700m ‘Likes’ in only a number of weeks through the platform. My guess is that the UK figure is probably 4m-5m users, of which about half have re-visited since signing up. (Only Google know the real answer here and they are notoriously cagey about their stats).

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