KomodoPR.com

Whilst us Komodos were mulling over our morning intake of newspapers last week, we spotted something brilliant that we just had to share.

Last week, it appeared that a run-down empty shop unit on Whitley Bay high street, had been transformed into a luxurious and thriving delicatessen…or so it seemed. In actual fact, the apparent makeover was part of an experiential campaign to show the potential of the shopping centre and so attract new business to the recession-hit town. Not an organisation you’d expect to be associated with bucket-loads of creativity, North Tyneside Council had covered the empty window with a fake shop front, stirring up heaps of attention from passers-by and the media in the process.

A public sector job well done. Genius!

Put your hands together and give a warm welcome to two new Komodos. The creative mastermind of consumer PR, Caryn Lobley and digital darling, Selena Chan.

As well as being a First Degree Black Belt in Zen Do Kai, Selena has been kicking butt when it comes to all things digital and has already been pulling in some incredible results for our clients. She has previously worked in-house at Marriott, Canon Europe and Porsche and freelanced on social media campaigns for the likes of Simple.

Caryn has some sweet powers of persuasion. She once convinced someone to change their name to ‘Turok’ to promote the release of a videogame by the same name. She’s something of a creative superstar and has worked on brands like Universal Pictures, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Nickleodeon, ING Renault F1, Homebase, Electrolux at heavyweight consumer agencies.

Look out for future posts from them right here on Komodo’s blog.

Google Buzz was launched early this month but remains a widely discussed topic. Upon initial launch it received mixed reviews, many of which were not very positive. So what’s all the buzz about?

 

 

The main questions that seem to be asked include:

What is all the buzz about?

By integrating Google Buzz into Gmail it reaches out to a new base of users that might not have chosen to engage over social media. Something that made Google Buzz unique was that it had an effortless approach to getting started because Buzz would automatically follow the people you interact with most on Gmail. This function was not well received and was met with privacy concerns that Google Buzz did not consider our different audiences and privacy settings amongst other things. Since then a string of improvements have been made and to get a better understanding of the roll out of Google Buzz you can read this article.

 What about twitter and facebook?

Buzz is designed to integrate across social media platforms and is taking advantage of mobile. You can connect Flickr and twitter from Buzz in Gmail, although Google’s goal is to make Buzz a fully open and distributed platform for conversations it is currently not integrating with facebook.

What will Google Buzz mean for business?

Like any kind of social media Google Buzz will mean further merging of our personal and professional profiles and contacts. If Buzz works effectively it will reach out to a wider audience and also allow one to more easily capture set up networks on email address books.

We’ve seen Google react swiftly to address feedback so we’re excited to keep following the buzz of Google Buzz. It will be interesting to see how and if it will continue to impact the fundamental way we communicate and therefore how brands interact with their audiences. How can you get the most out of Google Buzz and do you think it is altering the social media landscape with its approach?