In total we raised £787 through ticket sales, a raffle and silent auction of a Spa Day for two and signed England football shirt. All the proceeds raised are to be split between MEC Manchester’s 2014 charities – Brake and The Children’s Society’s Manchester projects.

While some seasoned Scottish dancers took straight to the floor with their partners, it may have taken a couple of drinks to get some others in the mood. But, it only took a couple of dances before everyone let their inhibitions about not knowing the steps go, taking to the dancefloor like ducks to water. The caller from band Northern Comfort helped everyone along by shouting out each step-by-step move and got everybody who attended up on their feet. It was loads of fun and there were certainly plenty of giggles, especially when some of us got the steps wrong.

Katie Milne, Emily Ross, Alex Wade, Paul Chisnall, Alexandra Lever, Sachin Desai, Richard George, Rob Stanley-Jones, Chris Greer, Lucy Beard, Jonathan Walsh, Olivia Thomasson and Alex Heywood took part in the race. Between them they raised a staggering £2062.99 with more donations still incoming for our charities Break and the Children’s Society.

For anyone still wishing to donate to our two charities you can do so through our Virgin Money page here

Well done to all who completed the race especially in such hot weather – it’s good to know that most people celebrated with an ice cold beer.

See you all on the start line in 2015!

Future’s Sport portfolio is predominantly cycling focused and includes magazines such as Cycling Plus, Procycling and Mountain Biking UK. Their digital platforms include the likes of BikeRadar.com and Cyclingnews.com. Future’s Craft magazine portfolio includes the likes of Love Patchwork & Quilting, Simply Knitting and Mollie Makes.

The deal is set to be completed in the summer of 2014.

MEC View

The capture of Future’s sporting portfolio adds another dimension to Immediate’s current offering, opening up additional revenue streams from clients they may not have dealt with previously. The addition of Future’s Craft portfolio will help strengthen an already established Immediate Craft offering which includes the likes of Card Making & Papercraft, Craftseller, Knit Today and World of Cross Stitching. Whilst this gives Immediate greater monopoly of this particular sector, clients looking to reach an audience with a keen Craft interest should expect some very strong cross media package ideas as a result.

Mobile advertising reached £1 billion in 2013, accounting for 16 per cent of all digital spend in the UK. The growing investment in the market shows how important this technology has become and how quickly it has got there. It’s not hard to see why this is the case, as with ever growing functionality in mobile phones they’ve become the hub to our lives while also being incredibly personal. During the conference the room was challenged to unlock their mobile phone and pass it to the stranger next to them, you could feel the whole room hesitate at this thought.

Mobile strategy has to be part of a brands consideration. In a study performed by looking at the top 50 FMCG brands by the IAB it found that only 54 per cent had a mobile optimised site and only 22 per cent had a responsive web design (enabling content to format based on what device you’re running). Thirty per cent of the brand investigated had no mobile presence at all, this is worrying when nearly 46 per cent of users will use a mobile device when researching.

There is an incredible amount of research into our relationship with mobile devices and where brands/advertising fits into this. A user’s relationship with mobile is unique and different to their relationship with other screens. This demands a different marketing mind set.

In a piece of research conducted by the IAB called real view there were a number of key insights that set the tone for users behaviour on each device. The below chart shows this clearly with the mobile phone being the time killing device, the tablet for entertainment and the laptop and desktop being for clear and decisive actions.

Advertising has a tough task to perform to this audience, they’re very protective about their device and they are looking to fill time on their mobile device. Think of mobile advertising as ‘Imagine that you had access to a persons diary – both the back copies and as it was being written: how would you advertise yourself in the diary?’

This question leads to a great formula ‘Smart Phones + Dumb Adverts = A Problem’. For a user its easy to get annoyed at mobile advertising. If done wrong it can lead to feedback such as

• Don’t waste my time – Mobile users expect instant information, a video which takes 2 minutes to load will not be a good experience
• Don’t invade my space – Personalising adverts is a good thing, but can go too far!
• Don’t tell me what to do, when to do it or who to do it with!

In an always on world context is the key to success, being part of this world is the most important thing. Mobile is only going to get bigger, with increasingly powerful handsets and faster networks users expect more and not being part of this is no longer viable.

What is Panda 4.0

• Panda was first released in February 2011
• The purpose of the Panda update was to stop sites with poor quality and duplicate content ranking in the top search results
• Within its first roll out the update targeted article directories and spun content and there have been soft, rolling refreshes over time
• It was confirmed that Google has released a new Panda 4.0 update
• By officially releasing a new update, Google is signifying this is a major update with potential for significant rankings flux
• Google has stated it will impact c.7.5 per cent of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice

What is Payday Loan 2.0?

First launched in June 2013

• The Payday loan Algorithm update targets specific search queries that returned results pages with a high volume of spam
• This mainly impacted competitive industries, primarily payday loans, insurance and accident claims search queries
• Overall impact was very query-specific and in the scale of algorithmic changes had a moderate impact.
• This week, Google announced it was rolling out an update stating: “Over the weekend we began rolling out a new algorithmic update. The update was neither Panda nor Penguin — it was the next generation of an algorithm that originally rolled out last summer for very spammy queries.”

What happened to eBay’s organic traffic?

Following any large Google updates the SEO community always reviews the winners and losers. It was first reported that Ask, eBay and retailmenot were the big casualties of the most recent updates. A quick review of the search visibility of www.ebay.com in search metrics confirms a circa 50 per cent drop in organic traffic recently after the update (see graph below)

Other reports indicate that Google have actually placed a ‘manual action’ against the eBay website and the timing of the drop was purely a coincidence. Reports claim the Panda update would affect the entire site and not individual pages within the site.

Reviews of the eBay visibility drop indicate that Google has removed a wide range of low quality ‘doorway’ pages from the listings, which has resulted in the 50 per cent drop in organic visibility. These doorway pages were category and sub-category pages that eBay was creating specifically for ranking purposes and were over optimised to influence search visibility.

These doorway pages had the following traits:

• Over-optimised text
• Anchor text footer links to pass authority
• Cleverly linked into the site architecture to manipulate rankings

Although eBay was very clever with these pages, it seems it ‘overdid’ the optimisation and is now seeing the repercussions from Google.

Conclusion

Over the past couple of years the Google search team has been regularly making large updates to its algorithm. In addition it has implemented manual actions against some very large brands, with eBay being the latest casualty.

Google’s goal has always been to create quality unique content ‘that places users at the heart and not search engines’. These updates from Google send a message to all brands large and small that sites that invest in quality content for their users will be rewarded in their search engine rankings.

Global’s track record in investing in their radio brands and growing commercial listening (proven with the launch of the Capital network) continues with extensive marketing for both Heart and Smooth – and can only be a good thing for commercial radio moving forward.

Global’s domination of commercial listening hours (a 41 per cent share) and brands within its portfolio to take on the BBC (Capital and Radio 1, Heart and Smooth and Radio 2 as examples) places it in a strong position. Undoubtedly, both the new Heart and Smooth networks will demonstrate growth in the next few RAJAR surveys.

With the recent buy-out of Absolute by Bauer, talkSPORT is left as the ‘last man standing’ – who will buy talkSPORT? Global? Bauer? Someone else? Watch this space.

Headlines for RAJAR Q1 2014:

• Weekly radio reach now tops 48.1 million, (90 per cent of UK population) up 800,000 on the same quarter of the previous year.
• Global has maintained its dominance over the national stations and networks, with weekly reach now at 21.4 million. Heart has celebrated a quarterly increase in reach of 25 per cent, now reaching 9.1 million and standing strongly as the biggest UK radio brand.
• In London, Magic 105.4 has regained its number one position over Capital reaching 1.9 million listeners.
• Dave Berry and Lisa Snowdon continue to dominate breakfast as Capital London remains in the top spot, reaching just shy of a million listeners
• 51 per cent of the population have tuned in to radio via a digital platform, which means that all radio listening via a digital platform now stands at 36.6 per cent compared to 34.1 per cent for the corresponding period last year

The one day free conference covered a range of topics and current industry trends with a huge focus on content and the future of SEO. Here are our key takeaways from this year’s event:

Malcom Coles – general manager at the Mirror and founder of Usvsth3m.co.uk
Ignore SEO, instead focus on creating compelling content to generate shares, traffic and drive links. Make content responsive for audiences both on desktop and mobile.

Matthew Barby – digital consultant at Wyatt International
Harness the power of influences, find the right audience and produce the right content. Identify the key content hubs, drill down on key authors and find the top influencers of popular content.

Fili Wiese, Kaspar Szymanski – ex Google, Gareth Hoyle from Link Risk - Reality of Search Panel
Make the effort to remove bad links and prove it to Google – simply submitting a disavow file was not a recommended approach. The panel also agreed that it is much more difficult to recover from a second penalty.

Julia Ogden – ex journalist and head of content at Zazzle Media
Journalistic principles will help to shape the future of digital marketing and content. Put the important facts first, find what is trending in the news, use quotes to add credibility and provide a variety of content formats. “Platforms change, content remains the same

Stacey Cavanagh – head of search at Techmark
Start building good habits and land some links. Generate buzz with offline activities and conduct surveys. Discover 108 ideas in 30 seconds to generate new ideas and expand on other people’s thoughts. Use tools to get the content in front of the right people

Tim Grice - Director of Search at Branded3
If you are already in the top five of Google search results you have enough links to be at the top. Look at customer feedback/reviews, focus groups, social listening and market research. Be creative and audience lead, insightful, newsworthy and entertaining.

Pete Campbell - Founder and Director at Kaisen
Native advertising lets you promote branded content to people who instantly love it because they are targeted based on their interests. If you have click bait headline, clever formatting and encouraging people to link- you’ll win.

Overall, this was a great conference, providing us with plenty of information to put into practice for our client campaigns, as well as inspiration to explore new approaches and industry tools.

But for many, the appointment to view time slot doesn’t fit in to busy schedules. Here in AV we are always striving to understand the constantly evolving patterns of viewer behavior and new developments in the market, and how this will affect viewer engagement with TV content.

Sky have provided some interesting viewing patterns for the first episode of the new series. It premiered simultaneously with live broadcast in the US, at 2am GMT on Monday 7^th April, and was repeated at 9pm the same day. The chart below demonstrates the growth of viewing figures across the many platforms Sky provides.

9,000 individuals watched the live simulcast cast at 2am, with more than 40 times that number recording the 2am premier and watching it as live on the same day (Viewing On Same Day As Live). A further 170,000 watched the 2am recorded programme within a 9 day time period (Time-Shifted viewing).

The 9pm premier was watched live by 406,000 individuals, but nearly double that amount recorded the episode and watched it later (Prem VODSAL and TS)

Viewing of repeats, the On Demand and Sky Go services increased impacts by a further 677,000 to accumulate to a total figure of almost 2.5 million viewers.

This highlights the mandate for convenient on demand viewing that suits diverse audience needs. Time-shifted viewing, On Demand and the mulit-platform Sky Go service allows Sky to increase their viewership far beyond the appointment to view audience at live broadcast.

Earlier in the year, it was announced the IAB’s annual Digital Britain Conference was to be held in Manchester, marking both the first time that the IAB has not used London to reveal its Digital AdSpend results and Manchester’s growing influence on the UK’s digital marketplace.

So on April 9th, it was with great enthusiasm that the MEC Interaction team attended event, with the promise that 2013’s annual digital revenues were to be unveiled. The results were set to reveal which sectors were spending the most on digital advertising and highlight the size of the display, search and classified market across online, mobile and tablet.

When it came to the grand unveiling, it was announced the UK digital sector was worth £6.3 billion in 2013, a massive increase of £853 million (15.2 per cent) year-on-year. Given that the UK is still recovering from a recession, it’s incredible to see the exceptional growth across the digital marketplace.

It was also revealed the online industry has experienced strong growth across all the major categories:

Display - Display advertising accounted for 30 per cent of digital advertising in 2013, with £1,862 million spent across all display formats between January and Dec 2013.

Search - Paid-for listings maintained its position as the largest single category with a 55 per cent share of the market. £3,495 million was spent on search in 2013.

Classifieds - Accounting for 14 per cent of the market, classifieds continue to make up an important part of the share at £887 million for 2013.

Other - Lead generation, Solus e-mail, mobile SMS / MMS and audio advertising accounted for a one per cent share of the market

There was further special mention for Digital Display advertising. According to the IAB/PwC study, Digital Display now represents 30 per cent of the digital media mix, leading the way with the highest like-for-like growth. This was largely a result of improved revenues across social media, which increased by a staggering 71 per cent in 2013 to a total of £588.4m – 16 per cent of which was on mobile devices.

It was pointed out this increase in digital display investment showed advertisers had started to really believe in digital as a branding medium

Special attention was also paid to mobile, with adspend passing the £1 billion mark, representing a year-on-year growth of 93 per cent. Tim Elkington, the IAB’s director of research and strategy, pointed out this meant “mobile is therefore outstripping GDP by a factor of 50”.

But what is the reason for the increase in digital ad revenues? Well, according to Comscore, more people were accessing the internet each month in 2013. The average number of monthly internet users (multi-platform) in January 2013 was 46 million, which grew to 48.6 million by January 2014. Therefore, as more users access the internet, the more we advertisers have the opportunity to reach. What’s more, tablet and mobile usage is really on the up, with 51 per cent of Brits saying they own a tablet and 74 per cent a smartphone (an eight per cent increase).

While the event did cover a broad range of digital media topics, a prominent theme that was repeated again and again was the rise of mobile usage and the challenges and opportunities for engaging via this platform. This led to some surprising insights, including:

• 42 per cent of top 100 UK brands websites not being mobile optimized
• 70 per cent of top retailers’ mobile apps are not offering transactions
• 58 per cent of data capture forms are not optimised for mobile
• 10 per cent of UK finance companies are not effectively redirecting to mobile sites

There were some great insights to take away from the conference, covering a vast array of all things digital. However, the key theme for MEC was the requirement for all of our advertisers to embrace digital and to also trust in digital display as a key branding tool. Furthermore, there is clearly a growing need for agencies to implement a clear mobile strategy as this platform offers an exclusive opportunity to engage with users on the most personal of devices. Any agency that went into the conference without a clear mobile strategy, will definitely be implementing one as we speak.

At the height of its popularity in 2005, with its slogan ‘When You Really Need Something Fun’, Nuts had an average weekly circulation of more than 300,000 and accounted for over 50 per cent of all men’s magazines sold in the UK. Paul Williams, managing director of IPC’s Inspire division, said: “After 10 years at the top of its market, we have taken the difficult decision to propose the closure of Nuts and exit the young men’s lifestyle sector. IPC will provide impacted staff with all the support they need during the consultation process.”

MEC Opinion
With Nuts Magazines circulation falling dramatically in recent years, to just over 50,000, what we must ask ourselves is why?

The first and most probable reason for the drastic decline is the magazine’s style simply fell out of flavour. Fit is the new fashionable and with titles such as Men’s Health gaining increasing prominence, alongside the decline of the ‘Lads Mag’ market these trends are seemingly working alongside one another. Nuts provided a diet of ‘girls, gadgets, footy and laughs’, something which men are becoming increasingly disillusioned with.

However, with the ever increasing versatility of the internet and magazines such as Nuts being forced to compete, is it any wonder the magazine’s popularity plummeted? According to IPC’s most recent figures, Nuts has very much failed to make the transition to a digital future, with just 8,776 digital monthly sales according to the most recent figures. Consequently the ever increasing presence of, and ease of access to, content of this nature on the internet can very likely be held responsible for Nuts’ downfall.