co&co UK

Albert, Miguel, a friend of mine and myself joined the API Hackathon in London last Saturday – The event was sponsored and organised by Vodafone, “The Guardian” Newspaper and some other companies. We were presented a few APIs in the morning and were given food and a room to hack something together by 6pm.

Then all teams presented to a jury.

They decided, our project was the best of the day and out of around 20 teams that presented! And to be honest, … ours was really good!

Check what we’ve come up with:

http://www.music-near-me.com

We also have an iPhone App which streams music straight from Spotify depending on your location, but it’s not yet in the store

Well done team! We won £500 worth of Apple gift vouchers!

Us being briefed

Us hackig

Us winning

Thanks a lot for organising this fantastic event to Apigee, Pearsons, Pusher, Vodafone, Betfair, InMobi and The Guardian!

We are proud to have produced two videos for Middle East online media and advertising expert FoldedUp.com. Soraya Abbar has been directing and producing two videos. The first one is a very nicely done short advertising getting the idea of FoldedUp.com to the point:

Finding your way around the variety of media channels is not easy these days. Especially in an emerging market such as the Middle East. FoldedUp.com is the perfect partner to bring clarity into the confusion. This has been nicely illustrated in the first, shorter illustration video using the music of Maura Musciacco.

The second video is more about company information, the hard facts and the actual tools the site provides.

Company: FoldedUp.com
VFX Director/Editor: Soraya Abbar
Agency/company: coANDco UK
Music: Maura Musciacco

Check out this great infographic about the history of advertising. Very exciting times ahead of us.

via Mashable

coUNDco and the Box Network Europe, a social marketing network that spans across Europe, have partnered in order to deliver world class campaigns across a broad range of markets.

We expect to be able to deliver much more powerful social campaigns with significantly more leverage across Europe. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

We’ve got a new member in the team! Ilja joined us last week as a Project Manager and will help us with getting things done smoothly!

Please join us in giving him a warm welcome to the UK team. He will be reachable under:

iljaATcoandcouk.com
+447917012480

Jamie Oliver have decided to team up with coANDco and it’s partner agency Dimaquina to roll out a SMS based recipe search service pilot in the UK. Users hereby send in a few keywords into a short code and will get back a long, >160 character SMS with the shopping list for that recipe.

The SMS also contains a link to the mobile optimised version of the recipe so users can read how to prepare the dish.

We are very thrilled that we have the opportunity to work with such great partners on this very exciting project!

It’s amazing what can be done in just 1k of CSS. Check out this website: http://css1k.com/

What to Listen For in Social Media

Any good conversationalist will tell you: It’s not enough to listen, you must know how to listen. That principle holds true in the sprawled social world as well. In a recent article at AdAge Digital, Kyle Monson notes that the “efficacy of social listening is determined not by the listening itself, but by how we listen, who we listen to, and what our next steps are.”

To help companies get a better grip on active social listing, Monson has compiled a list of what to listen for when preparing a social media campaign. Here’s a summary:

Listen for intelligence. This doesn’t have to happen in real time—weekly or monthly reports on your brand “pulse” are sufficient if this data is used for long-term strategy, not short-term responses—Monson notes. The purpose? To discover your brand’s most prominent advocates and detractors—and understand them. Another reason for intelligence-based listening is to get feedback on your campaigns: Are your users behaving the way you hoped they would? If not, you might glean pointers on how to change direction; if they are, you might get a sense of how your effort should evolve.

Listen for customer service. It’s easy to talk about companies doing tech support and outreach via sites like Twitter; but without the right strategy, real-time support can do more harm than good. Your goal is to develop a service strategy that improves brand experience by providing meaningful answers and resolving issues, he says. Uselessly apologizing, imposing on others’ conversations, or antagonizing (it happens!) will not help.

Listen for action. Don’t just monitor conversations; find opportunities to get involved. For bigger brands, doing so can be tough. Content producers should be prepared to provide quick, informed answers on the frontlines, so don’t make the mistake of stacking this responsibility on an overloaded intern. Those you task with the work of social outreach need clear direction and guidance, Monson advises.

The Point: Be an active listener, like you learned at school! But more importantly, know what to listen for in social media. You’ll find that’s half the battle.