Hotwire Blog

20 February, 2007

How influential are blogs?

At the tail end of last year we hosted a seminar on the impact of blogging on PR – yes, I know a common topic in 2006 – but we were keen to offer our delegates something different and original from the five other blogging seminars and conferences they had no doubt attended during the course of last year. Discussing the topic in the agency beforehand what was clear was that the blogging debate was built on a series of assumptions and intellectual leaps and what was missing was up-to-date hard facts to back these up. With this in mind we partnered with Ipsos/MORI to conduct some credible research both in the UK and across Europe, specifically looking at the role of blogs in influencing consumer purchasing behaviour. We were lucky enough to be joined at the seminar by MORI founder and keen blogger Sir Bob Worcester.

I'm not going to run through the entire research (check-out our White Paper for that) but given all the hype around blogs I was at first a bit surprised that only 1 in 5 people claim to have read a blog, but there was equal surprise amongst delegates that the figure was actually that high. What is clear is that the number of blogs is increasingly rapidly, and it will be interesting to see when we repeat this research whether readership is increasing at the same rate.

Another interesting aspect is that many consumers are reading blog content without actually realising it. Many news sites are increasingly adopting a blog format where the public's comments sit alongside that of the journalist's so user generated comment is penetrating traditional media and influencing the editorial which people are reading. It’s funny that in the UK which has one of the highest readerships of daily newspapers that the British public appears to have such disdain for the national press. The specific figure for the UK is 14% of people trust content in a newspaper, with trust in blog content actually 1% point higher. Today the internet has become the 21st century garden fence for the exchange of opinion and gossip. The blog author is the equivalent of the guy down the pub trusted more than the expert tech correspondent.

The research also found that those who spend more than 145€ on-line actually have a higher trust in blogs; I think this statistic really answers the ‘show me the money’ question when it comes to blogs. It’s interesting that those who spend more than 145€ are more influenced either negatively or positively by blog content. 45% of them decided not to make a purchase after reading a negative comment on line. I think this is quite striking and indicates the growing importance being placed on ‘impartial’ sources of advice and information.

What’s going to be exciting to watch is the influence that blogs begin to have in the B2B arena where purchasing decisions can be far more complex. The impact of blog content on the buying cycle would be an interesting one to quantify.

16 February, 2007

Hotwire at 3GSM - Day Four

Fourth and final day, and you find the last of the Hotwire team blogging from the long check in queues at Barcelona airport... Home time, and time to count up some of the results:

15 clients
172 media and analyst briefings
11 broadcast slots
5 speaker slots
1 award shortlist
1 award win!
15 team members...

... And too many Show Daily pieces of coverage to count (until we unpack them from our cases anyway!)

15 February, 2007

Hotwire at 3GSM - Day Three


Day three has come to an end at the 3GSM World Congress and tiredness has started to set in for many of us as we hit the midweek madness of the show. Today has been as busy as ever, but the sun is still shining and the end is in sight as we move closer to the final day – where things will hopefully start to calm down!

Last night the winners of the 12th annual GSM Association (GSMA) Global Mobile Award’s were announced at Barcelona’s National Palace. The GSMA hosted another spectacular event, showcasing the very best in mobile innovation from companies across the globe. Hotwire’s very own client Telepo was one of the stars of the night when it won the Best Mobile Enterprise Product or Service in the Mobile Services category. Well done Telepo, this is a truly amazing feat and we hope you celebrated in style, especially when there were over 600 entries for the awards this year.

Much of the buzz around the showground continues to be about the convergence of the mobile and entertainment industries. This year’s show has demonstrated that we are now entering a new era within the mobile industry, as the mobile ecosystem evolves at an incredible rate and heavily embraces new media and entertainment. This will provide huge opportunities for the industry as the mobile platform becomes the ‘fourth screen’ for consumer entertainment.

As the show draws to an end we can’t believe it is nearly over for another year. A lot of hard work and effort has gone into this and I think everyone would agree that it has paid off with another successful event. It’s unbelievable to think that as soon as we are back in the office we will need to start planning next year’s event.

14 February, 2007

Hotwire at 3GSM - Day Two


Day two of 3GSM and just when we thought it couldn't get any crazier, it did. Today was even busier than yesterday, with the halls and Avenida packed with the great and the good of the mobile industry. We had a fun day catching up with old friends, with a jam packed schedule of media briefings. There were a few sore heads after Jamelia rocked the kick-off party last night and our client parties started in earnest.

Yesterday was all about the hunt for news and today we saw journalists looking for more detail and analysis. We're starting to see the main themes of the show emerge. Everyone's talking about WiFi and dual mode handsets, the debate about content rumbles on, and how to make mobile TV work is a big issue.

It's amazing how global 3GSM really is - we've spent the day talking to journalists from India, Japan, South Africa, Israel, South America and pretty much anywhere you can think of. The countries may be different, but the issues are pretty similar.

This year Barcelona feels like a more established venue, and some of last year's teething troubles have been ironed out. But despite that, and despite the industry news and debate that's going on, the state of our feet, the lunch queues and the bocadillos tortilla (as well as where we are drinking tonight) remain our key concerns.

13 February, 2007

Hotwire at 3GSM - Day One


The mobile industry was in high spirits today for the opening of the 2007 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. Aside from a few hangovers after the Hotwire bash the night before - giving our clients, journalist and analyst friends a chance to mingle before the event kicked off - there was a positive and vibrant mood around Fira Barcelona.

Word on the street centred on user-generated content and the role of content, media and operators in the new mobile value chain. Fuelling the debate, father of the internet Tim Berners-Lee set the debate rolling with a call for openness and user control on the mobile web in his speech to the Innovation Forum.

Our carefully planned interview schedules ran like clockwork, the news announcements hit the headlines and the sun shone. All in all, great start to the biggest event in the mobile sector calendar!