Digital Report, DCS, A.

Burton
Georgina Robb, Tom Rickhuss, Jordan Oates,
James Bayani and Lucy Amor
Word Count: 4,165

1
CONTENTS

Executive Summary 3

Product Launch 4

Target Audience 4

Launching Online 6

Competitor Analysis 7

Recommendations from Competitor Audits 10

Campaign Goals 10

Content Strategy 10

Campaign Strategy 11

SSC App 11

Content Plan 13

Facebook Content 13

Evaluation of Facebook 15

Website Content and Evaluation 17

Evaluation and Analysis of Analytics 20

Evaluation of Google Analytics 22

Future Campaign 23

References 24

Appendices 25

Reflective Essays 53

2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Agency:
TAG is a digital agency located in Bournemouth.
Ultimately we are producers of digital content. However, we are also strategists,
creatives and technologists that craft great ideas into engaging and innovative user
experiences.

Client:
‘The Simple Sauce Company’ (SSC)

Timeframes:
The online campaign will run 4th November – 2nd December 2012. An estimated
total of 140+ hrs (min) have been invested into the campaign from: Website Builder &
SEO Optimisation, Analytics Review & App Design, Facebook Content Manager,
Product & Consumer Innovation and Research & Development.

Objective:
1) Launch and raise awareness of product USP – a chilled and healthy cooking
sauce
2) Increase sales of The Simple Sauce Company products within the target
audience: Women, aged 35-44, in social group ABC1

Execution:
The work is to support The Simple Sauce Company’s array of fresh & healthy
cooking sauces through an online campaign. The Simple Sauce Company’s online
presence will be rooted in three platforms: A website, Facebook page and a mobile
application

Reasoning:
The digital choice has been made because we can target Mum’s surfing the web
when searching for information about health & well-being for their families. We will be
introducing them to a simple solution for their frequent concerns of providing a
healthy meal for their families at dinner time

3
Product Launch

Launching The Simple Sauce Company (SSC) concept of pre-made, chilled,

cooking sauces that have no artificial flavourings or preservatives will be
positioned as a fresh and healthy cooking sauce that allows easy homemade
cooking; cutting down cooking time for family meals without a compromise on
flavour.

Target Audience
The Long Tail Concept
When composing a target audience for The Simple Sauce Company online
campaign we referred to the ‘Long Tail’ concept (Figure 1: Anderson, 2004).
This concept focuses on targeting the niche audience for your product- it’s
effectively quality over quantity. Popularity is spread over a number of
products instead of mass marketing. ‘People gravitate towards niches
because they satisfy narrow interests better, and in one aspect of our life or
another we all have some narrow interest’ (Anderson, 2004).

Figure 1

4
‘The vertical axis is sales; the horizontal is products. The red part of the curve
is the hits, which have dominated our markets and culture for most of the last
century. The orange part is the non-hits, or niches, which is where the new
growth is coming from now and in the future’ (Anderson, 2004).

Technology enables consumers to ‘find and buy niche products’. There is

"infinite shelf-space effect" due to ‘the new distribution mechanisms, from
digital downloading to peer-to-peer markets, that break through the
bottlenecks of broadcast and traditional bricks and mortar retail’ (Anderson,
2004).

Therefore, considering ‘Long Tail’, TAG want to position the SSC to a specific
target audience as defined below.

Long Tail Target Audience:

 Women
 Mothers
 34-54 years old
 Class ABC1

Research on Target Audience

‘Digital Pioneers’: Women 35+ (Rick, 2011)

 Tech savvy, not as interested in online life (e.g. Twitter) as younger

women.
 Online to check stocks, weather, game, Facebook.
 Smartphones are organizational tools.
 Hang out at the kitchen table with family.
 Higher incomes, more established households make them draws for
new digital gadgets
 The working women are checking email, Facebook and weather
(Rick, 2011)
 ‘Mums make four out of five family purchasing decisions and 98% play
an active role in their family finances’ (Bashford, 2012)

5
  80% (35-44) use the internet to find information about good/services
(MediaTel, 2011)

Typical Lifestyle of The SSC Target Audience

HR manager Karen works flexible hours 9am-3pm allowing her to still do the
school run and not rely on childcare. Karen has two children, Maddie aged 12
and Oscar aged 9 and is married to Tim who works long hours as a
Management Consultant. On a busy week Karen will order an online Waitrose
home delivery. Oscar and Maddie come with Karen to do the weekend shop
on Saturdays so they can pick their favourite cereal and Karen will decide
what meals to cook for the week ahead. Karen will sometimes nip to the
shops after the school run for last minute essentials and ingredients. An
iPhone enables Karen to keep up with emails on-the-go, and she has a
weather forecast and Facebook app. Heart.fm will be on in the background
when the kids get in from school and Karen will sit at the kitchen table
catching up with friends on Facebook. Even though their family are financially
secure, Karen can’t resist a good bargain. Karen has a Boots advantage card,
a Café Nero loyalty card and is subscribed to Pizza Express emails which
gives her deals. Karen is the savvy shopper compared to Tim. Last week they
needed a new vacuum cleaner so Karen looked at online reviews and
comparison sites for the best price.

6
Launching Online
This target audience use the Internet to find information about goods and
services with health and well-being of their children in mind (Rick, 2011). The
SSC fits into this category of Internet behaviour.
The SSC products allow Mums to make a range of dishes using one base
sauce for different cuisines. Figure 2 (Google/OTX, 2010) shows that 67% of
Mum’s ‘Look for recipes’ when searching online. 12.4 million UK Internet
users search for online recipe suggestions and 36% of those users access the
Internet use smartphones (Mintel, 2012a). The SSC can use recipe
suggestions for their sauces to boost SEO and attract our target audience and
adapt content for smartphone users. When mums are researching Consumer
Product Goods, Figure 3 (Google/OTX, 2010) shows, the Internet is relied on
more than friends and family which creates a good online environment to
launch the SSC.

Figure 2 Figure 3

SSC Competitor Analysis

Figure 4

7
Figure 4 (Mintel, 2012b) shows the market sector in which the SSC would be
entering. The chart shows both dry and wet cooking sauces. The biggest
competitors for wet cooking sauces include Dolmio, Loyd Grossman and
Homepride. TAG have carried out competitor audits on several competitors to
see what their online activity is to help position the SSC at a vantage point.
Some competitors aren’t directly in the sauce market but could be products
competing for the same customers.
Online Competitor Audits include: Dolmio, Sacla, New Covent Garden Soup
Co, Heinz Soup, Patak’s.

New Dolmio Sacla Patak’s Heinz Soup

Covent
Garden
Soup Co
Website **** *** *** ** **
Facebook **** * **** *** ****
Twitter *** N/A *** ** N/A
YouTube ** * * ** N/A
Blog N/A N/A N/A *** N/A
App N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
No. of 4 3 4 5 2
Channels
Average *** ** *** ** ***
Star Rating

Table Key:

Digital Channel Star Rating Quality/Use of Channel

* Bad

** Poor

*** Average

**** Good
N/A Not Applicable

8
Perceptual Map
NUMBER OF
CHANNELS
HIGH
Patak’s
!

New Covent Sacla

Garden Soup Co

QUALITY OF
USE OF Dolmio
CHANNELS

HIGH LOW

Heinz
Soup

LOW

This perceptual map displays the information from the competitor audit table.
The X axis shows ‘Quality of Use of Channels’ which is taken from the
‘Average Star Rating’ for digital channels. The Y axis shows ‘Number of
Channels’ used by the competitors.
Patak’s has quantity of channels but not quality- showing that they are not
utilising their online opportunities. A weak online presence could transfer into
a negative offline presence. New Covent Garden Soup Co and Sacla have
both quality and quantity, with a good correlation between number of channels
and quality. This is the balance and approach SSC need to take to ensure the
online presence is competitive.
Recommendations from Competitor Audits:
These findings will help improve the SSC online campaign

 Rich and Engaging content

 Consistency of digital channels- branding/content/linking pages
 Promotional and Emotional content on Facebook
 Invest time in SEO
 Give a reason for users to talk about your brand online

9
Campaign Goals
Before the online campaign we set out objectives, targets, strategy, tactics
and measurements:

Objective 1.Launch and raise awareness of The Simple

Sauce Company product USP- a chilled and
healthy prepared cooking sauce

2.Increase sales of The Simple Sauce Company

products within the target audience: Women,
aged 35-54, in social group ABC1

Target 1. 50 ‘Likes’ by December Sunday 2nd

2. A click-through rate of 1:25 (for every 25
people that visit the webpage, 1 person clicks on
the App link) by December Sunday 2nd

Strategy 1.The Simple Sauce Company Facebook page

and webpage linked
2.Providing a brand App
Tactic 1.Use Facebook to allow users to share The
Simple Sauce Company content posts
2.The Simple Sauce Company App allows
consumers to interact with the products and use
coupons

Measurement 1.Notifications through Facebook and the

number of Page ‘Likes’

10
Content Strategy (Figure 5, Vi Knallgrau, 2012 )
Research has shown the best environment and context for posting content:
 Posting less frequently increases virality
 After-work hours are peak times for virality
 Sundays have the best potential for virality as there are less postings
on this day
 3-4 lines of text produce the best response
 Writing should be simple, concise and evoke users’ emotions
 Repeat purchases are encouraged with an online coupon
(Google/OTX, 2010)
 ‘72% say the look online for money saving deals and 28% use their
phone’ (Bashford, 2012)
 7 out of 10 of Mums will buy a brand twice after trying it once with an
online coupon (Google/OTX, 2010)

Figure 5

Campaign Strategy:

11
SSC App

The use of an App targets mothers who use

smartphones as part of their family lifestyle:
‘Pregnancy and parenting site BabyCentre’s
research shows, in fact, that motherhood is a
trigger for smartphone adoption, with more than
a third of respondents (36%) saying they
purchased one as a result of having children.’
(Bashford, 2012)

The SSC App allows the consumer to become closer to the brand. To
integrate our digital platforms we have a QR code on our Facebook posts
(and would be on the sauce packaging as well).
The Simple Sauce App contains:
 Recipes
 Ingredients checklist for the recipes to add
 Product range linking to the website.

For example, ‘Kraft’s “Big Fork Little Fork” App helps mums educate their
children about food, from healthy-eating hints to cookery skills. It contains
recipes, educational games and videos’ (Bashford, 2012).

12
72% say they look online for money saving deals and 28% use their phone’
(Bashford, 2012).

‘A significant 55% are more likely to buy if others have recommended a

product online, and 89% check the web for brand information and discounts’
(Bashford, 2012).

Evaluation of SSC App

(For App see appendix R1 and R2)
The App was constructed due to the recommendations forged from social
media audits of competitors as well as research from Marketing Magazine
(Bashford, 2012). The design has been optimised for the Apple IOS, as this is
the most common used mobile operating system for our target audience
(Green, 2011).
The App follows the ‘House Style’ of the brand to keep continuity between all
the digital platforms, making identifying the brand easier for the consumer.
During the 4-week period the App received a ratio of 1:4 for a total of 37
download requests, achieving our target that we set, demonstrating its
usefulness to the brand.
The app was also evaluated through an in depth interview (see appendix R3),
in which ease of use, design and design continuity were tested.
Overall the App was rated highly and the interviewee was able to place the
printed cards in the correct order demonstrating its ease of use and simple
navigation. It was also mentioned that the design “was clear but not boring”.
Other positive points include:
 All text was clear and easy to read
 The recipe list and shopping list was very easy to find what you want
 Navigation buttons were clearly identifiable
 Range of interactivity with the app e.g. swiping on the product range
page

Negative points:
 The “add more items” page could be easier to use if a scrollable weight
metrics were added instead of having to type it.
 The links to the Facebook page and the website could be made clearer
 Not made clear when new sauces have been released

13
Things that can be changed in the future:
 Optimised for other smart phone operating systems such as android
 More integration with social media
 A way to add your own recipes

Content Plan

Campaign Dates:
Week 1: 4th - 11th | Week 2: 12th - 18th | Week 3: 19th - 25th | Week 4: 26th - 2nd

Facebook Content
Content for the launching of the SSC needed to establish brand identity whilst
providing information about the products. Initial posts were very product
orientated, as TAG launched a new flavour of Simple Sauce each Sunday for
the first three weeks of the four week campaign (see appendix B). As the
campaign continued and the products were established we focused less on
the products and started to include more topical and entertaining posts which
developed the brand personality.
Initially we only posted on Sundays and Wednesday as originally planned.
The Sunday posts introduced the latest sauce to the range, directed users to
the website to find out more about the product and on two occasions included
a promotion. The Wednesday post reminded users of the most recently
launched sauce, included further information or recipe ideas and directed
users to the website (see appendix C).
The TAG team made the decision during week three to also post on Friday’s.
These posts were to be topical and more focused on developing brand
personality, in order to ensure our Facebook page had both emotive and
rational appeal. As an example, on Friday 30th we posted an informative
reminder that it was the 1st of December the next day, prompted interaction by
asking the open question ‘who has started Christmas shopping’ and
supported the post with a related humorous and entertaining clip from the
Christmas film Love Actually (see appendix F).
Based on our research we posted during after-work hours, posting at 8pm on
Wednesdays and Fridays and 7.30pm on Sunday’s so as not to post at the
beginning of The X Factor.

14
The launch of each sauce was added on the Facebook timeline as a
‘milestone’ (see appendix A), which indicated the name of the sauce, when it
was revealed, included an image of the packaging, a brief description and a
link to the website for more information.
To support the launch of each new sauce, we updated the profile and cover
photo of the page each week to relate to the new sauce (see appendix H).
The profile photo changed each week to an image of the packaging of the
newest sauce and the cover photo changed to a meal that could be made
using the new sauce. The photos were accompanied by captions relating to
the product and directing users to the website for further information (see
appendix H).
After week two we recognized that the SSC posts with photos attached had a
higher response rate so made the decision to attach photos to all further
posts. This increased impact, helped posts stand out in the news feed and
made the SSC Facebook page more visually appealing.
Based on our research we kept posts short, simple and concise. As the
campaign went on we started to leave spaces between lines of text as we
found this was easier to read, separated the key points and was less likely to
be looked past due to volume of copy (see appendix G).
To reflect the social media environment on Facebook we kept language and
tone-of-voice informal. Posting in the voice of the ‘The Simple Sauce
Company’ personified your brand in order to develop a relationship between
the brand and the consumer. Many of the posts actively encouraged
interaction, for example the post on Sunday 2nd November asked “What’s
your favorite part of Christmas dinner?” further helped develop the SSC
brand/consumer relationship (see appendix G).
TAG included key phrases related to the SSC throughout our posts such as
‘freshest’, ‘healthiest’, ‘simple’, ‘recipes’ and ‘sauce’. Emotive and descriptive
words and phrases such as delicious, ‘winter warmer’ and ‘mouth-watering’
were used to engage the consumer and further develop the SSC brand
identity. When revealing the new sauce on 18th November (see appendix D),
the phrase ‘we are happy to reveal’ made the brand more ‘human’, further
helping to develop a social relationship between the brand and consumer.
Other similar phrases were used throughout the campaign, such as ‘proudly
presenting’ (25th November) (see appendix E).

15
Evaluation of Facebook
To accurately reach the SSC target audience online, the most efficient
channel is Facebook. It’s usage in our target audience and benefits as an
online community make it ideal for the SSC brand. Measuring the activity and
effectiveness on Facebook was made easier through the analytics that is
provided by ‘Facebook Insight’ (see appendix Q). The analytics provided us
with data that enabled us to determine which content was the most effective in
engaging with the target audience, and the optimum time and day to post. In
terms of reach, the insight enabled us to assess our current audience and
accurate reach. ‘Facebook Insight’ also provided metrics into potential reach
via friends of friends. The data rendered through the insight provided useful
information into how the SSC was interacting with its audience on Facebook.
However, it cannot provide accurate details concerning who was engaging
with what content and who was ignoring it.
Also a consumer interacting with content by simply ‘Liking’ it does not
necessarily inform TAG of what they otherwise like and their general interests.
Although ‘Facebook Insight’ can help a brand to adapt their content in order to
get it seen and make it more engaging, it is still difficult to create original
content based on the provided data.

The SSC campaigns main objective: ‘Launch and raise awareness’ of the
Simple Sauce Company product USP; chilled and healthily prepared cooking
sauces’.
The target was to reach 50 ‘likes’ on our Facebook page by December 2 nd,
through the use of our posted content being shared by users. ‘Facebook
Insight’ accurately measured users’ ‘likes’ on our page. 70 ‘Likes’ were
achieved at the end of the campaign. We were able to determine the
correlation between content and ‘likes’ on the page. The top two posts that
generated most virality, (first: see appendix E1, second: see appendix G)
included visual content and encouraged for interaction. These were towards
the end of the campaign showing how evolving content to metrics improved
virality.

The second objective was to ‘Increase sales of The Simple Sauce Company
products within the target audience: Women, aged 34-54 in the socio-
economic ABC1’. We developed a mobile app to cater to trends in our
audience the majority of content posted included a click-through link to our
16
brand’s webpage that led to the app in order to maximise integration. The aim
to have a CTR of 1:25- for every 25 people that visit the website, 1 person
clicks on the app link. TAG exceeded this with a CTR of 1:4 (37:134).

Website Content
Strategy and Evaluation:
The Simple Sauce Company’s HTML5 website was active from 4 th November
– 2nd December. It contained a total of 9 landing pages (see appendix I):
- Home (see appendix I1)
- Sauces: Cook In Sauce #1 (originally Secret Sauce #1) (see appendix
J6), Cook In Sauce #2 (originally Secret Sauce #2) (see appendix J7),
Cook In Sauce #3 (originally Secret Sauce #3) (see appendix J8)
- Recipes: App Download (see appendix K3)
- Facebook (see appendix K4)
- Contact (see appendix K5)

This structure remained throughout the campaign with continuous little tweaks
to not only maintain the website but to also help improve The Simple Sauce
Company’ SEO and ultimately increase rankings in Google. These tweaks
were as follows:

Site – Entire Campaign

To improve the visibility of SSC’s website in Google’s search engine, the site
contained some fundamental elements:

Site Title: The Simple Sauce Company | Healthy Cooking Sauces

Site Description: A cooking sauce company that provides those busy people
with the healthiest, most essential ingredients a sauce can offer with NO
preservatives or additives.
Keywords: cooking sauces, cook in sauces, sauce, sauces, simple recipe,
healthy foods, sauce recipes

The title and description were later changed in the campaign to integrate our
core keyword ‘Cook In Sauce’.

Site Title: The Simple Sauce Company | Healthy Cook In Sauces

17
Site Description: A cook in sauce company that provides those busy people
with the healthiest, most essential ingredients a sauce can offer with NO
preservatives or additives.
Due to it taking a couple of months to do so, site details were not updated in
Google by the time the campaign had ended. To see how SSC appeared in
Google, refer to appendix L10.

Internal Links – Entire Campaign

Throughout the campaign, internal links were added to every element of the
website that had to ability to be navigated. These included:
Home Page – The brands logo & Icons for ‘Follow us on FB’, ‘Download App’,
‘Question? Email’
Sauces – Cartons for each flavour of sauce
Recipes – App icon & ‘SSC App’ when directed to ‘Sorry App under
development’ page
Contact – Photo to the left of contact form

Towards the end of the campaign, each of the 3 images on the homepage
received an additional internal hyperlink titled ‘Go to link’ (see appendix I4).
All of these were implement to redirect the consumer back to another section
of SSC’s website and encourage further engagement.

External Links – 4th November

On the ‘Facebook’ landing page, an external link to SSC’s Facebook page -
found at www.facebook.com/TheSimpleSauceCompany – featured.

Disclaimer – 7th November

A disclaimer (see appendix I2) was added to The Simple Sauce Company’s
home page shortly after launch. As we were collecting data through Analytics
cookies we deliberated that we would need to implement this to satisfy the
new EU cookie regulations.

Sauce Revealing – 11/18/25th November

We revealed a total of 3 sauces, one every week (for first 3 weeks), to
generate buzz and encourage people to get excited about launch of The
Simple Sauce Company’s equally exciting new products (see appendix J1-J8
& J13). On the landing page ‘Sauces’, internal links were changed from

18
Secret Sauce #1/#2/#3 to Cook In Sauce #1/#2/#3 after each sauce was
revealed (see appendix J9).

Before/After sauce reveal

Page Name: Secret Sauce #1 / Cook In Sauce #1
Page Address: secret sauce #1 / cook-in-sauce-1
Page Title: The Simple Sauce Company | Secret Sauce 1 / Cook In Sauce 1
Page Description: Secret sauces / Cook in sauces from The Simple Sauce
Company containing only the healthiest ingredients with NO preservatives or
additives.
Keywords: cooking sauces, cook in sauces, sauce, sauces, simple recipe,
healthy foods, sauce recipes
This was done because we recognised that the keyword ‘Cook In Sauce’ has
extremely low competition & high global monthly searches. Secret Sauce also
has low competition, however, the global monthly searches are non-
comparable and obviously it was important to drive as much traffic to the
website as possible.

Homepage Photos (H# Tags) – 11/18/25th November

After each sauce had been revealed, a relative image was uploaded to the
homepage portfolio e.g. Sauce 1 – Italian Tomato, Homepage Photo 1 – Big
juicy tomatoes (see appendix I2, I9 & I3).
Each of these images contained 3 constructs:
Title: The Simple Sauce Company
Alt Text: cooking sauces, cook in sauces, sauce, sauces, simple recipe,
healthy foods, sauce recipes
Link To: http://www.simplesaucecompany.co.uk

Keyword Density – 25th November

After the sauces were revealed it was apparent that we had an opportunity to
improve the sites keyword density. ‘Cook In Sauce #1/#2/#3’ was added to
each ‘Cook In Sauce’ landing page (see appendix J12). We also changed
‘Our Sauce’ on the ‘Sauces’ landing page to ‘Our Cook In Sauces’ (see
appendix J11).
This was done in addition to and to subsequently support the little statement
located top right of the sauces (see appendix J11), which contained some of
the other keywords selected for this campaign.
19
Evaluation and Analysis of Analytics
(For overall campaign analytics from 4th Nov-2nd Dec, see appendix L1-L11 )

The following tables show the overall four week campaign metrics provided by
Google Analytics.

Engagement (see appendix M1-M4)

Overall:
Week three of the campaign were peaks for ‘Views’- 139 and ‘Page Views’-
543
Views 228

Page Views 839

Geography (see appendix N1-N4)

Overall:

Views 228
Page Visits 4
Average Visit Duration 00:07:16
New Visits 55%
Bounce Rate 41%

There was a 100% ‘Click-Through-Rate’ from IP addresses in the USA and

France.
‘Average Duration’ increased to its peak on week three- 00:14:34. The lowest
‘Bounce Rate’ was in week one at 33% when ‘New Visits’ were their highest:
39%. The highest ‘Bounce Rate’ was in week two at 69%.

Week three of the campaign had the most visits, page views, and the highest
visit duration.

20
Pages (see appendix O1-O4)
Overall:

Most ‘Unique Views’ was during week 1 with 476 views. Throughout the four
week campaign, the ‘Main Page’ was the most viewed.

Social (see appendix P1-P4)

Overall:
Views 228
Visits via Social Referral 157

Social ‘Visits’ were significantly higher during the fourth week at 139 visits.
Whilst ‘Visits via Social Referral’ peaked in week two.

Facebook visits totalled at 146 which accounted for 93% of social ‘Visits’.
Twitter accumulated a total of 11 views.

Keywords (see appendix L9)

Keyword Average Position
Cook in sauces 55
Cooking sauces 110
Sauce company 50

Impressions 50
Clicks 22
Click Through Rate 44%

Simple and healthy recipes 73

The keyword ‘cook in sauces’ and ‘cooking sauces’ both have low
competition. ‘Global Monthly Searches’ are 18,100 for ‘cooking sauces’
whereas ‘cook in sauces’ has 27,100. For the same level of competition but a
wide difference in search, these analytics helped our views by changing the
wording on the website to suit the metrics.

Audience Overview 4th Nov-2nd Dec (see appendix L8)

Unique Visits 134

21
Visits 228
Page Views 839
Pages/Visits 4
Average Visit Duration 00:07:16
Bounce Rate 41%
New Visits 55%
Returning Visits 45%

‘Average Visit Duration’ amounted to 7 minutes, with an under 50% ‘Bounce

Rate’. 45% of views were ‘Returning Visits’ showing continued interest in the
campaign.

Strengths of Google Analytics

‘Google Analytics’ allowed us to track the positioning of keywords. This led to
the change in keywords used on the SSC website. Therefore, improving SEO
raises visits and potentially return visits.
Benefits of using metrics include seeing the ‘CTR’ for pages to track
popularity and usage. This can provide useful data when considering content
marketing to boost traffic through your website. Geographic data can be
collected from users’ IP addresses, tracking visitor locations. This provides
knowledge of reach which could help develop a brand to expand in other
countries if there is sufficient interest.
Tracking views from different social media channels can help develop and
prioritize resources for online strategy and campaigns.

Weaknesses of Google Analytics

There are however disadvantages of this metric tool. There are no analytics
available to say if the user is browsing similar websites or looking at particular
information on the SSC webpage. There is also no data to explain the ‘bounce
rate’- whether users didn’t like the website for a particular reason or they
clicked on it by mistake. Metrics are quantitative data which requires us as a

22
digital agency to interpret to improve online activity. There are no explanations
on user behaviours which could have insight into strategy.

Future Campaign

Progressing this online launch campaign, TAG would like to evolve the SSC
strategy. We recommend running a PPC ad to boost SEM and increase the
reach of your product in its category. As the brand becomes more
established, content would be less product focused and more emotional and
indirect to be as engaging as possible with the target audience.
As well as this the app should be moved to different smart phone operating
systems such as Android to avoid alienating people without an Apple Device.

References

Anderson, C., 2004. The Long Tail. Available from:

http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html [Accessed 26 November 2012].

Bashford, S., 2012. Spare me the mummy marketing. Marketing, 30-32.

Google/OTX, 2010. What Makes Mums Click for CPG. Available from:
http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/library/studies/what-makes-moms-click-
for-cpg/ [Accessed 15 October 2012].

Green, A., 2011. Android vs. iPhone: Battle of the Mobile Operating Systems.
[Online] Available at: http://hunch.com/ [Accessed 2 December 2012].

MediaTel, 2011. Internet Activities by Age. Available from:

https://mybu.bournemouth.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_16
3_1 [Accessed 14 October 2012].

Mintel., 2012a. Social Media Food: Issues in the Market. Available from:
http://academic.mintel.com/display/618543/?highlight=true [Accessed 10 October
2012].

Mintel, 2012b. Cooking Sauces, Pasta Sauces and Stocks- UK-November 2012.
Available from: http://academic.mintel.com/display/644402/ [Accessed 5 December
2012].

23
Rick, C., 2011. How Women Connect and Engage with Online Video – Nielsen
Research. Available from: http://www.reelseo.com/women-connecting-video/
[Accessed 14 October 2012].

Vi Knallgrau, 2012. which content works on facebook?. [Online]

Available at: http://www.knallgrau.at/facebookcontentstudie
[Accessed 1 November 2012].

Appendices
Week 1: 4th - 11th | Week 2: 12th - 18th | Week 3: 19th - 25th | Week 4: 26th - 2nd

Facebook

Week 1

24
 A

Week 2

Week 3

25
D

Week 4

26
E

E1

27
F

28
H

29
 Website:
Homepage

I1

I2

I3
30
I4

Sauce Page

J1

J2

31
J3

J4

32
J5

J6

J7
33
 J8

J9

J10
34
J11

J12

35
J13 Overall Pages

36
 Landing Pages

K1

K2

37
K3

K4

K5

38
‘Google Analytics’
Overall

L1

L2

L3

39
 L4

All Pages
L5

All Queries
L6 40
L7

L8

L9

41
42
43
M1

M2

M3

M4

44
N1

N2

N3

45
N4

O1

O2

46
O3

O4

P1

47
P2

P3

P4

48
App Storyboard

R1

49
App
The Home Page
The app’s design follows the house that
R2 has been used in all of the digital
platforms.
The 4 buttons can be pressed to access
different subpages within the app
Facebook button in top left which takes
the user to The

Simple Sauce Company Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/TheSimpleSa
uceCompany

Website button on the top right that went

pressed takes the user to
http://www.simplesaucecompany.co.uk/

Qr Code List QR Code Scanner

This shows all of the saved scanned
codes which can be claimed by
tapping on a specific code which will
be scanned at the till of participating
supermarkets.
By Swiping left and right more codes
can be accessed.
Alert message gives information on
how to work the page for new users.
When pressing the capture new
promotion button this will activate
the smart phone’s camera which
when pointed at a QR code can be
captured and stored.
The user can also choose whether to
use the front or rear facing camera
on applicable devices

50
 Shopping list
Here the user can view all the items in
the shopping list which is stored
alphabetically
Items can also be checked by pressing
the blank circle to tick it, this will then
remove item from the list after 30
seconds.
Add to Shopping list
Pressing the “Add More Items”
button brings you to this page.
The user can insert the name of the
item and the quantity
This will appear on the list when the
user goes back

Product range
Pressing the “Our Products” button brings
you to this page
Here the user can scroll through all of the
available sauces by swiping a finger across
the screen.

51
 Individual Product information
Here the user can view all of the
information of each product by tapping on
the individual products.
The user can also add the product to the
shopping list which will appear when the
list it accessed.

Recipe List Individual Recipe information

This page shows all of the available
recipes in alphabetical order.
More recipes can be added through app
updates
When a recipe has been favourites a
yellow star will be shown next to it.
There is also a search box to find
individual recipes
This is a sample page to demonstrate
how a recipe will appear.
The recipes can be accessed by tapping
on them
The user can also add the ingredients
from the recipe to the shopping list
The recipe can also be favourited by
pressing on the favourite button at the
top of the page.
52
 App Interview R3

To further evaluate the design of the app an interview was conducted to find out how
effective the app was at design, ease of use as well as navigation testing.
The interview consisted several sections including:

 Testing to see if the user can follow the layout

 Can the user correctly navigate through each page
 Clarity of Design
 Clarity of Text
 Brand House Style continuity
The interviewee was a member of our target audience and owns an iPhone 4s with IOS 5 for
6 months which is regularly used and has also been informed about The Simple Sauce
Company brand.

Layout and Navigation

To evaluate the layout of the app, each page was printed individually and mixed up and
the interviewee had to formulate a layout using the printed pages.

The interviewee successfully managed to layout the pictures in the correct form in under a
minute

To evaluate the ease of navigation and ease of use, the interviewee was asked to get from
a specified page to another using the keys printed.

The interviewee was asked 3 random tasks to complete:

Navigate from the home page to scan and save a QR code

The interviewee correctly identified that the QR code button on the “home page” needed to
be pressed and then the “scan new promotion” button needed to be pressed to get the “Scan
QR code page”. Finally the interviewee recognised that camera button needed to be pressed
to save the code

Navigate from the QR code page to find the “Italian Tomato Sauce” product information
page

The interviewee successfully identified the back key to navigate back to the home page and
then identified that the “Our Products” button took you too the “Product range page” and
then knew that pressing the picture of the product would take you the page.

Navigate from the “Italian Tomato Sauce” and favourite the “Shepherd’s Pie” recipe page.

The interviewee again went back to the homepage used the recipe button to access the
recipe list page then correctly tapped the shepherd’s pie recipe name to go to the recipe page
and correctly identified the favourite star button at the top of the page.

53
Other Questions
To evaluate the design of the app several questions were asked.

Is all the text Readable? : yes

On a scale of 1 – 10 how would you rate the clarity of the design? : 8

Why did you give this rating?

The design is very clean and easy to look at but maybe have more of a WOW factor

What are your 3 favourite points about the app? The recipe section and shopping lists are
really easy to use as they are all alphabetical and you don’t get lost finding what you want.
The simplicity of the app makes it really easy to use.

What 3 areas would you improve about the app? The Links to the Facebook page and
website could be better placed. Maybe make it easier to add more items to the shopping list
having to type the weight, quantity or measurement can be a bit annoying. The design can
seem a bit too plain.

Does the app design fit with the website? Yes but the colours could be better used

54
 Jordan Oates - Individual Reflection Essay

I began this term thinking I had a relatively knowledgeable understanding of the

digital sphere, the resources available, who uses those resources and for what
reasons, who’s communicating with who and the ways in which they are
communicating. However as this terms comes to an end I have realised I am only just
starting to learn about the vast digital landscape that is set to evolve and have an
continue to have an increased influence on our lives and how the world works. Both
the individual assignment brief and the group report I have undertaken for DCS this
term have developed various sets of digital skills and my overall understanding of
digital communications.
The individual competitor audit report I completed on the food brand Sacla
definitely helped to indicate the factors that help build a positive, engaging online
presence for a brand and what does not. Quality of content is key to interacting
successfully with your target audience online, if what you are saying to consumers
does not interest, excite, intrigue and essentially engage them then it is very unlikely
that they are going to take notice of what you are trying to tell them. Similarly,
another aspect that I realised is essential to consider when trying to interact with
consumers is analysing the behaviour and interests of your target audience, then
adapting your content and communication around the information you have gained.
It became clear during our live campaign for the group assignment that the time of
day and the day of the week which a brand posts content on social media has a large
influence on how effective those communications will be. A tool that helped to gain
this form of data as well as help to analysis and coordinate the information gained
was Facebook Insights (Facebook 2012). The Facebook Insight tool provided accurate
metrics as to how many of our ‘fans’ were engaging with each post as well as how
many saw it. Information concerning the virality of our posts allowed us to review
our content and decide what to post and at what time to allow for increased
efficiency and effectiveness.
The detail of research that has been required this term has also helped to develop
my skills in terms of accessing resources online and being able to utilise them in the
best possible way, it became clear a thorough understanding of a given target
audience is absolutely necessary when developing communications both online and
offline. In order to access the information I needed, I have learnt to use resources
such as Mediatel.com and Mintel’s market and trend reports in a much more
efficient and comprehensive way. With regards to my assignments both group and
individual, Mintel’s report; ‘Social Media: Food – UK’ published in July 2012 provided
as an extremely useful source of information, accurately covering both aspects of my
work – social media and the food industry.
One aspect of gathering information and research via online sources that I did find
initially difficult involved trying to determine universes and the sizes of the target
audience. With no official censuses or lists immediately available, at least to my
knowledge, I found it hard to accurately specify exactly how many people were
included in our target audience, data needed to try and indicate how active they
were and were not when it came to digital. Despite percentages and other statistics
being available in online reports, I would have liked to more accurately got to grips
with the amount of consumers the we were trying to digitally communicate with.
After studying an established brand’s online presence, I gained a better
understanding of integration across various online channels i.e. Facebook, Twitter,
Youtube, Websites, Blogs etc. Despite arguably not being as much of a market leader
or household name as competitors like Heinz, Uncle Ben’s and Dolmio, Sacla had
55
arguably as good if not better potential to be able to let their success in store carry
on online and develop improved relationships with consumers. A predominant
reason for this was their ability to integrate their channels to form a more
wholesome presence. Their website displayed, almost a third of the page, a live feed
of their Twitter account, as well links to their Facebook and YouTube.
Whilst applying for placements I have struggled to find any placements that are
specific to digital advertising and/or marketing, however all make it very clear that
the it is a very important part of what you are expected to know and be getting to
grips with. One placement I did apply for that I was very interested in was with iD
Experiential, an experiential marketing agency based in Camden. A speciality of the
company is using digital technology to build integrated experiential marketing
campaigns, predominantly through ambient media, a channel that I would very
much like to learn more of.
In conclusion this term has definitely left me with a keener, more refined eye when
studying and reviewing digital communications online, though I still have a lot to
learn in terms developing of developing an online presence for a brand. I am very
interested to so how Web 3.0 is going to develop and the new technologies that will
accompany it, especially in terms of social media.

Word Count – 847

References

Facebook, 2012. The Simple Sauce Company. Facebook. Available from:

http://www.facebook.com/TheSimpleSauceCompany?sk=page_insights [Accessed
12th December 2012]

MediaTel, 2012. MediaTel, MediTel. Available from: http://mediatel.co.uk [Accessed

12th December 2012]

Mintel, 2012. Social Media: Food – UK, 2012. Mintel

56
Individual Reflective Statement: Georgina Robb i7958512
Word Count 1096

Previous Knowledge

My previous experience of digital communications was only as a social media

user. I was introduced to the concept of analytics during this unit. I understood
the concept of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
however it was difficult for me to see how this could be applied in practice to
an online campaign.

I’ve previously read Clay Shirky’s ‘Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and

Generosity in a Connected Age’ (Shirky, 2010) which developed my
awareness of the power of the web when providing solutions to peoples’
needs and wants. Targeting key users with the correct content can
accumulate momentum quickly. During the campaign it was crucial to provide
content to the correct people which was a challenge when launching a new
product to a fresh audience who have no previous relationship or motive to
interact with your brand.

What I have learnt

Digital channels allow for specific targeting which can be monitored by

metrics. This provides an ideal environment to launch certain products that
don’t necessarily appeal to the mass market which are usually targeted by
offline mediums such as television. Chaffey’s theory of the ‘Long Tail concept’
(Anderson, 2004) made me realise how some products need to be more
strategic in their online approach, than others. It also focuses on the quality
rather than the quantity of users.

Carrying out my individual online audit I was able to appreciate how a brand
can interact and successfully engage with their audience. However this is
highly dependent on their target audience’s online activity. Target audience
can be distinguished into online and offline groups to aid content decisions
and chosen channels. I don’t think that every brand belongs on a Web 2.0
platform, as engagement between consumers and brands online is dependent
on the product and the target audience.

Therefore, big market shares offline don’t necessarily mean a big share of
online. Brands have to have a target market that uses online for them to put
resources into this medium. Not every brand will be successful using social
media and I believe these brands should refrain from this activity as it
weakens their brand equity offline.

I underestimated how influential online deals/promotions are when wanting

user engagement with brands. This can weaken the long-term loyalty a brand
receives online as unless a brand can keep offering deals, the consumer has
no reason to keep engaging. There needs to be a balance between short-term
strategies like promotions and long-term strategies such as relationship
building through content (Wasserman, 2012).

Web 2.0 has enabled people to communicate better, which brands are able to
use this to their advantage. Building brand value through social media
57
interactions provides a two-way conversation rather than a one-way
communication of a website.

Brand reputation doesn’t stop at visible posts/interactions; protecting the

brand in an open forum environment requires social media policy. Brands lose
their power and rights when using Facebook, unlike a website where it is their
domain as they don’t own the channel.

Analysing several channels for the individual audit showed me that different
channels require different formatting to work for that individual medium.
However, saying this, integration of activity and the online persona of the
brand is key. There needs to be a balance of continuity and adaptability.

Thinking Juice’s Adrian Durow and Lee Hill presented their agency’s use of
SEO and PPC during a guest lecture (Durow and Hill, 2012). Durow
developed my understanding behind the strategy of SEO. His tips for boosting
organic search results in Google included using keywords or lines of text in
the title of articles, adding keywords to content that match highly searched
topical articles online and the extent to which Google monitor these tactics.

Lee Hill described the concept of using topical events for PPC strategy. An
example is ‘Ann Summers’, which used ‘linkbait’ for their ‘Chinese New Year
Rampant Rabbit’ campaign. The PPC ad was not directly related to the user’s
search words however the ‘Chineese New Year’ was connected to the animal
‘rabbit’ which was a keyword for ‘Ann Summers’. This approach would also
transfer into PR for the campaign.

Application of Knowledge

Online provides a flexible environment for the length of text and content
provided however this doesn’t mean it should be exploited. Particularly on
social media its shown that short, simple, relevant and occasional posts works
best. Emotional content has to be attached to this otherwise sterile
environment. Interaction on social media is driven by relationships between
people therefore a brand needs to act emotionally to fit into this context.

Knowledge from secondary research about user and search data helped me
develop ideas for the type of product matched to a core online demographic. I
previously underestimated the importance of targeting key ‘influencers’ when
driving online engagement (Fiegerman, 2012).

My understanding of the undetected work carried out by a digital agency has

vastly improved. Knowledge of SEO was weak when this project began.
Applying the theory into a strategy and campaign has made me appreciate
the difference well constructed SEO/keywords can make to the success of
online campaigns.

Digital campaigns rely heavily on user engagement and buzz to pull the
campaign through. It’s important to have an adaptive approach to reflect the
current situation of the campaign. During our campaign relevancy and in-
direct posts that emphasis the consumers interests rather than the product
were more successful. It was important to evolve our content to match the
metrics.

58
Future Development

Ending Digital Communication Strategies leaves me with a holistic

understanding of the steps and processes taken to launch an online
campaign. Situation analysis requires a different skills set when using online
channels. I’ve had to be more independent in how I analyse data that is
available. Using perceptual maps has visualised this data to show insights
that are unique to online activity.

Regardless of specifically working in a digital agency for my placement, I’m

able to appreciate and have a well-rounded understanding of communications
in this area. This will help me think about relevant strategic planning when
considering a brand’s place online. How they use their engagement, what
they are gaining from being online, targeting, how to compete with SEO, using
‘Google Analytics’ and how being on the first page of Google search
drastically improves website hits.

I feel confident in speaking the language used for online communications. I

would be able to offer a digital work placement adequate knowledge and
strategic thinking for carrying out an online campaign. My skills in analysis
have become more insightful and I can understand the meaning of results
from social media metrics and ‘Google Analytics’.

References

Anderson, C., 2004. The Long Tail. Available from:

http://www.thelongtail.com/about.html [Accessed 26 November 2012].

DUROW, A., and HILL, L., (2012, November 14th). Thinking Juice. [PowerPoint
slides]. Presented at Wallace Lecture Theatre at Bournemouth University.

Fiegerman, F., 2012. Only 6% of Fans Engage With a Brand’s Facebook Page
[STUDY]. Available from: http://mashable.com/2012/10/18/facebook-fan-
engagement-2/#747977-Highlight-Posts [Accessed 10 October 2012].

Shirky, C., 2010. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.
Penguin.

Wasserman, T., 2012. Facebook’s 6-Point Plan for Building Brands in the Social
Media Age. Available from: http://mashable.com/2012/03/12/facebook-brand-
building-tips/ [Accessed 10 November 2012].

59
Individual Refection – Lucy Amor
Words: 1097
Prior to taking the DCS unit I had an interest in digital communications but little
knowledge of the area. Having never viewed it as something I wanted to focus on
I had not previously dedicated my time to exploring the area, although I was
aware of its increasing relevance in the communications sector through my
studies, media publications and my own experiences with digital media.
The unit made me realise how rapidly digital communications are becoming a
prominent form of communications. The most important thing I took away from
the unit was the understanding that with the Internet becoming an integral part
of more and more consumers’ lives, companies who do not have an official online
presence can be conspicuous by absence. This can damage their overall brand
image, regardless of how strong their offline communications are. This was
highlighted in my online audit for Dolmio, who have unofficial pages on both
Twitter and Facebook which customers were connecting with under the
impression they were official. Customers were then disappointed at the lack of
responses from Dolmio and the pages were full of negative comments. I was
surprised at how a brand as big as Dolmio hadn’t realised that this was going on
or done something to improve their online presence, especially as their target
audience are big Internet users and their competition are doing very well online.
Overall it made it clear that it is not simply a choice whether or not you use
digital communications as a tool, but monitoring your brands online presence,
both official and unofficial, is essential to maintaining your desired brand image.
This has changed my mind set and I realise now that my understanding of digital
communication strategies is something I will implement and develop throughout
my future career in advertising.
I found Tara Dee West’s lecture on SEO and AdWords very informative as it
taught me about an area of digital advertising which I previously had limited
knowledge about. It helped me develop an understanding of how consumers use
search engines. The most important information I took away was that the key is
to enhance webpages so they are recognised by search engines as being reliable
and relevant to the search, increasing their position in the more trusted organic
results. What I found most interesting from the lecture was learning about
creative ways AdWords can be used which is an approach I would find
interesting to explore in the future.
The “Web Culture” lecture highlighted that as we move towards web 3.0 the
Internet is becoming integral to people’s lives. My developed understanding of
how we view digital media in a different way to more traditional media,
expecting it to be more personalised and less intrusive, helped me realise that
digital communications must be executed in a very different way. I realise that
you cannot change people’s online habits, instead you need to understand them
and then design your campaign around them. Consumers can choose whether
they connect with you online which highlights the importance of having a clear
incentive and benefit for consumers to choose to connect with your brand. This
was my key recommendations for Dolmio and a point I tried to drive in the group
project. As my knowledge of the more technical areas of DCS was more limited
than others in my group, I often found it hard to get my voice heard and ideas
taken seriously. I believe if I had been more assertive and positioned myself as
somebody able to provide insight from an outsider’s perspective then my
suggestions may have been taken in the way they were intended to rather than
60
as criticism from someone with little knowledge of DCS. I hope that now I do
have a better understanding of the unit I will be welcomed into taking a more
prominent role in future group situations, but will ensure that I do not in turn
disregard any ideas from members of a group with less knowledge and will
instead recognise the insight they bring and support them in developing their
understanding of DCS.
The group project was a fantastic way to experiment with what we were learning
about in the unit and implement changes as we learnt more. It was hard to get
realistic results with no real product and I was aware that most of our
interactions were from friends helping us with the project. Were we to be
launching the product for real we would hopefully have an increase in interest
from our target audience, have support from food bloggers and key influencers
(who were not willing to endorse our product when it was not real) and we
would be able to offer incentives for interaction, for example coupons. As we
reached our objectives despite not having a real product, I believe if the product
was launched for real we would be able to use what we have learnt from this
project to create a successful online launch.
The phrase “right message, right people, right conversation, right place” is one I
will take away from this unit, the key message for me being that however good
your message is you need to think strategically about how you get it across. I
learnt that there are positives and negatives of digital communications, for
example brands can integrate themselves into people’s everyday lives and build
more personal relationships with the consumers, but consumers have short
attention spans online and for advertisers ROI is hard to measure.
For my online audit of Dolmio I was focusing on describing their online presence.
I realise on reflection that it is not about how communications look on the
surface, the key is the insight into how the user interacts with the online
presence. It is about understanding what the objectives are and whether they are
being reached and looking at current strategy and how it could be improved.
This unit has taken me longer to get my head around than others, but it has
meant I have been able to step back and focus on understanding the unit in its
simplest form before beginning to develop a more comprehensive
understanding. I plan to look into more case studies to develop my
understanding of how what I have learnt is implemented in the real world. I have
more of an interest in DCS now that I understand how many opportunities there
are to explore. DCS is constantly evolving and by staying up to date on the
subject I hope I will be able to bring valuable insight into the companies I work
for in the future.

61
Tom Rickhuss – Reflective Essay

What I have learnt and how I have learnt it

The Digital Communication Strategies unit has offered me deeper insight into certain
skills that, if I’m totally honest, thought I was already confident in. I couldn’t have been
any more mistaken.

I have learnt to critically understand behaviour in the public sphere and its subsequent
impact on user behaviour in the parallel digital media landscape. This was discovered
through our Facebook content posts; although the majority of posts during the
campaign were generic and related to product information etc., we later tweaked
content to match current affairs such as, ‘Cook up a real winter warmer - Shepherd's
Pie - using our new BRITISH ONE POT sauce. Head over
to www.simplesaucecompany.co.uk, download our app and enjoy the recipe!’, which
tapped into the popular social media posts at the time, regarding the cold weather.

I have learnt to exploit specific digital media in the digital sphere in order to support a
brands overarching salience whilst additionally pushing communications to the target
audience. Our group selected Webpage, Facebook & App as the 3 most important digital
channels. A webpage was imperative to adopt as the brand included a new product
launch; a website could host all appropriate content that needed to not only inform
potential customers but also generate interest amongst them. Our Facebook page was
used to supplement the website as content was easier to manipulate and ‘push’ out to
our target audience – research also informed us that our target audience were active
Facebook users and were likely to share products/recipe ideas with their friends &
family over this particular channel. Finally, our app provided a solution to a Mother’s
anxiety when deciding what meal to put on the household table whilst embracing the
developing trend of Mothers adopting smart phone technology.

I have learnt how important and difficult it is to generate interaction between a brand
and it’s consumers and further, how to adapt interactive media from evaluation of
current communications in an attempt to overcome this . During the campaign we
discovered how difficult it was to engage with our target audience. We therefore took it
upon ourselves to uncover how we could make content more interactive. We
implemented ‘richer’ content which included high quality stock images of food and
questions such as ‘December is finally here and we're already looking forward to
Christmas dinner! This year, why not try our new BRITISH ONE POT sauce over stuffing -
simply delicious. What's your favourite part of Christmas dinner?’. The decision was
the correct one as this particular post generated the second highest level of virality
throughout the entire campaign.

62
Difference between me now and me at the start of the module

Previous to commencing the DCS unit, I had built my own website which can be found
at www.trimages.co.uk . I already knew basic SEO practices such as the importance of
page titles, page descriptions and keyword density. Perhaps the most valuable piece of
knowledge I took away from this unit (with regards to SEO) was to look at Google
Analytics and tactically select keywords based on competition (low, medium or high)
and global/local monthly searches. Talking about this in seminar with my tutor was
incredibly beneficial and after this unit has been completed I will look at my own
keywords for www.trimages.co.uk and perhaps select them more tactically i.e. low
competition & high global/local monthly searches. Furthermore, my digital education
has progressed and I now understand additional good practices for SEO in order to
boost rankings in organic search results. These include: use of both internal & external
links and the notion of ‘how authoritative’ a website is i.e. how many inbound links your
site has featured on other websites.

What I now know about running an online campaign

Now I have both my consumer and my digital comms strategist t-shirts, I understand
that social media isn’t free. For a campaign to run successfully, people are required.
These people, with roles from crafting objectives & strategies to posting content, need a
salary. They additionally need technology to aid implementation. This technology again
costs money. Finally, perhaps one of the biggest surprises I have discovered is that
running a digital campaign takes time; a lot of it.

What I would have liked to have learnt / questions I have

It would have been exciting to uncover the digital media landscape from a heavier
advertising perspective. I would have enjoyed learning more about implementing
Google AdWords campaigns or running online banner advertising etc. to drive further
traffic to www.simplesaucecompany.co.uk . I understand however, that this may have
been difficult in practice due the module being shared with two other degrees. The one
and only question I have about this particular unit is, ‘what is Cisionpoint?’.

Mistakes made and lessons learnt

We assigned roles before the campaign to capitalise on our individual expertise.

However, it may have been more effective to switch roles frequently throughout the
campaign to ensure that each individual had a go at performing them. These roles
included:
Website Builder & SEO Optimisation, Analytics Review & App Design, Facebook Content
Manager, Product & Consumer Innovation and Research & Development. It was
disappointing that the Facebook content failed to be uploaded at the times researched to
be most effective (if at all), thus reducing our reach and, ultimately, successfulness of the
campaign. I would have enjoyed embracing this role in order to source more traffic.

63
Why I’m now more employable

The three prominent facets that I have gained from this unit to take into placement
are:

- Ability to design search and keyword strategies including application of

good SEO practice and removal of bad SEO practice
- Ability to monitor an online campaign’s results using metric tools such as
Google Analytics and further evaluate them to supplement SEO
optimisation
- Ability to complete an online audit of the digital media landscape for a
particular brand, including evaluation and critique of competitor online
presence

Word Count: 993

Supplementary Reading

Blanchard, O., 2009. Basics of Social Media ROI. Slideshare. Available from:
http://www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivier-blanchard-basics-of-social-
media-roi [Accessed 09 December 2012].

Snow, S., 2009. The New SEO Rules in a Content Marketing World. Mashable.
Available from: http://mashable.com/2012/12/06/seo-content-marketing/
[Accessed 10 December 2012].

Morgan, N., 2012. Delivering digital marketing success. Marketing Week. Available
from: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/strategies-and-tactics/delivering-
digital-marketing-success/4003319.article [Accessed 10 December 2012].

64
Reflective Statement - James Bayani
My Previous Understanding
I have always been fascinated by the rapidly changing world of digital and online,
often found myself amerced in the digital world. Because of this I had a deep
understanding of internet culture and behaviour, knowing the difference
between a LOL Cat and a Trollface, which may sound trivial but a clear
understanding of this is very important to avoid a Public Relation disaster such
as the Kit Kat “Pedobear” incident (huffingtonpost, 2012).
I also had a clear understanding of how the internet has evolved and O’Reilly’s
(2005) concept of Web 2.0 which is true eye opener for what the digital future
could look like.

What I have learnt during this unit

My knowledge of marketing and advertising online is a concept that I had limited
knowledge in, only knowing through exposure and interacting with online
adverts.
I have learnt how to effectively use and monitor SEO. In my group work we
decided on keywords that the target audience would use to find
www.simplesaucecompany.co.uk to increase the visibility of the brand within
search engines.
My group members also taught me how to use Google Analytics and I now know
how to monitor which keywords a target audience use based on popular search
queries and then discover which the least competitive keyword is.
I have also learnt about websites which offer social media Analytics how to
correctly analyse them for example I was able to discover how to identify the
organic reach of ‘Simple Sauce Company’ Facebook page.
I came into this unit with the preconception that social media marketing was
very cheap and a simple form of advertising due to most social media sites being
free to use, however I learnt that this form of advertising is a different type of
expensive. When working on the group assignment for “The Simple Sauce
Company” I discovered that the time and human effort invested is momentous;
keeping content up-to-date, researching which platforms will be most effective
for the target audience, the constant analysis needed and many more factors
requires a high level of commitment.
To further broaden my understanding of Digital Communication I have been
reading and keeping up to date with relevant text and online content.
The book which I have found most useful is Social Media ROI by Olivier
Blanchard, which taught me how to conduct quantitative as well as qualitative
analytics for example, establishing points to listen to user generated content.
Then to turn that data into insight that are deeper than the metrics (Blanchard,
2012)
Two online sources of social media I have really enjoyed following include:
www.wearesocial.net, a digital agency’s blog that provides great insights and has
taught me to think deeper about generating conversation for brands rather than
simple awareness.
I also kept up to date with current social media news and reports through
www.Mashable.com where I learnt about increasing trend for smartphone
internet access and applied this to the group research.
65
How I have further applied my knowledge
My main task for the group assignment was to design an IOS app with the target
audience in mind which I created using adobe Photoshop, which I have never
done before. From developing the design I now appreciate the importance of
usability and feel my ability to design an app has greatly increased.
During this unit I became the Social Media manager for the Bournemouth Rock
Newspaper taking over the twitter (https://twitter.com/BournemouthRock) and
Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/BournemouthRock). I was able to
bring my broad knowledge that I have learnt with me to this work.
From the skills learnt conducting the online audit into Heinz Soup, I was able to
fully assess the current online situation and set a plan of action through crafting
recommendations.
The main issue I found was the variety of content being posted was very limited
and sporadic. However, through applying research gathered such as vi
knallgrau’s (2012) Which Content Works On Facebook? And using the group
content plan, I was able to create a more rigid and varied plan including using
many more images and other methods to make content more interactive to
users.
I have also created an internal and external social media policy as I have learnt
how vital contingency planning is to avoid online disaster as the reputation of
the Newspaper can be effected.
Learning about the range of digital platforms available and what target audience
uses them has allowed me to implement the final main change which is to
increase the Newspaper’s presence across a variety of digital and social media
platforms, for example aiding in the creation of a website, and exploring further
social media such as www.pintrest.com and www.issuu.com
As well as looking to use SEO to bring the social media pages higher in the search
list when searching for “Bournemouth News”.
Since these changes I have conducted were implanted on the 25th of October,
there has been a substantial positive effect on the performance of the digital
pages: Facebook’s analytics (2012), shows a ‘Like’ increase of 39.2% and a reach
increase of 54.4% And twitter followers have increased by over 200.

What skills I will bring to my Placement

From guest lectures I now understand how vital a range of deep theoretical and
practical skills are needed to work in the online marketing industry which I am
looking to be a part of.
I feel that from what I have learnt I will bring a variety of skills to my placement.
I feel confident in my ability to critically analyse social media proposals and
current activity to clients and aid in the planning of a digital campaign.
I feel I am also able to gain insight about on-going campaigns through evaluating
analytics.
I would also like to learn additional skills such as:
Learning more about creating interactive websites using HTML5 or CSS coding.
Learning how to create online apps for Facebook, as from auditing Heinz it has
shown me that this can further increase engagement with brands

A further look into online legislation is needed as the new laws are being created
by the European Union (Internet Comminssioners Office, 2012) and the
International Telecommunications Union (Robertson, 2012), so it is important to
know if any content infringes these new laws.

66
Having these additional skills can be very useful in the industry.
Overall this unit has offered me a much deeper insight into the digital world and
what goes on in a digital campaign and has enforced my choice for a career in a
digital agency.
Word Count - 1081

Bibliography
Blanchard, O., 2012. Social Media ROI. Indianapolis: QUE.

Facebook, 2012. BournemouthRock page insights. [Online]

Available at: http://www.facebook.com/BournemouthRock?sk=page_insights
[Accessed 11 December 2012].

huffingtonpost, 2012. Kit Kat 'Pedobear' Photo: Nestle Pulls Instagram Image Resembling
Infamous Meme. [Online]
Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19/kit-kat-pedobear-photo-
instagram_n_1686379.html
[Accessed 12 Decemeber 2012].

Internet Comminssioners Office, 2012. New EU cookie law (e-Privacy Directive). [Online]
Available at: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations
[Accessed 12 December 2012].

O'Reilly, T., 2005. What Is Web 2.0. [Online]

Available at: http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html
[Accessed 12 Decemeber 2012].

Robertson, A., 2012. European Parliament opposes expanding UN internet regulations.

[Online]
Available at: http://www.theverge.com
[Accessed 12 Decemeber 2012].

vi knallgrau, 2012. which content works on facebook?. [Online]

Available at: http://www.knallgrau.at/facebookcontentstudie
[Accessed 1 November 2012].

67