App-watch: Spring into 3G

Spring has almost sprung and although we haven’t spotted any daffs yet, we’ve certainly discovered a crop of shiny new apps this month! With 4.5 billion apps estimated to be downloaded in 2010, apps are providing brands with opportunities to engage with their customers to provide new experiences.

This month we’re focusing on apps for retailers. Why not see if there any of these could apply to your business?

Next: shop on the move, including homeware as well as clothes, this app has had brilliant reviews and is so much lighter to carry than their Directory.

BA Flights: online check-in, arrivals and departure information…the only downside we can think of is that doesn’t come with a free flight!

Natwest: you’ve probably not used your phone to check your finances since the 90s (ah, remember the joy of those call centres), but this is fast and secure.

Tesco: no need for plastic cards anymore, this app turns your iPhone into your clubcard, you even get to scan it yourself…beep!

North Face: there was more snow in Scotland than at last month’s Winter Olympics, so use this app to check the snowfall in your ski resort with your own personal forecast.

We’d love to know which apps you rate and can’t live with out and so please let us know!

If you are want to talk to us about developing the perfect app for your business then email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Week one on my Marketing Internship at Perfect Circle

My first day at Perfect Circle went well, I met the rest of the team and everyone was very welcoming and seemed nice! I’ve been briefed for projects I’ll be working on this week and they seem pretty exciting, especially the social networking side of things. I’ve been asked to analyse and critique the company’s website and suggest a few ‘action points’ to possibly develop it, it’s a good feeling to know that my work is going to make a difference to the company. 

Reporting the tell tale signs of cancer

Bowel cancer survival rates have doubled since the 1970s but there are still 16,000 deaths per year in the UK. According to the latest statistics from Cancer Research UK regarding the 5 year survival rates for people with bowel cancer, the figures show a significant disparity between survival rates for early and late-stage diagnosis of the disease.

When caught in its earliest stage the five year survival rate is 93%, when the disease is diagnosed late becoming advanced bowel cancer it is just 7%.  There is also is also an advantage of between 5% and 9% in five-year relative survival for the most affluent patients compared with the most deprived groups. If this deprivation difference was removed so that all groups had the highest survival, then over 2,000 deaths would be avoided in the five years following diagnosis.

Currently, the Department of Health is providing £8m for PCTs across England to fund campaigns to raise the profile of the UK’s three biggest cancer killers – breast, bowel and lung cancer. Between them these forms of the disease account for 63,400 of the 155,000 cancer deaths in the UK each year.

PCT’s will be able to bid for up to £100,000 to spend on advertising campaigns, outreach work, and ensuring that more information about these cancers are available. The proposed campaigns are to urge people to report tell tale signs of cancer to their GP in an attempt to reduce the 10,000 deaths caught by late diagnosis of the disease each year.

As a social marketing agency with a proven track record working with PCTs, we can provide you with the support you require to access the available funds. 

The support package includes a strategic social marketing proposal and utilises the support of leading nationally recognised professionals within Psychology, Mental Health and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Our experience of social marketing has reinforced the importance of applying recognised academic theory to the scoping and evaluation stages of a social marketing campaign.  We provide a unique social marketing approach through our team that includes leading professionals within Psychology, Mental Health and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  This ensures that our campaigns deliver significant levels of behavioural change and the results that our clients require.

For more information please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

£8m of DoH funding to help cut local cancer deaths

The Department of Health is providing £8m for PCTs across England to fund campaigns to raise the profile of the UK’s three biggest cancer killers – breast, bowel and lung cancer. Between them these forms of the disease account for 63,400 of the 155,000 cancer deaths in the UK each year.

PCTs will be able will be able to bid up to £100,000 to spend on advertising campaigns, outreach work, and ensuring that more information about these cancers are available. These campaigns are to urge people to report tell tale signs of cancer to their GP in an attempt to reduce the 10,000 deaths caused by late diagnosis of the disease each year.

As a social marketing agency with a proven track record working with PCTs, we can provide you with the support you require to access the available funds. 

The support package includes a strategic social marketing proposal and utilises the support of leading nationally recognised professionals within Psychology, Mental Health and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Our experience of social marketing has reinforced the importance of applying recognised academic theory to the scoping and evaluation stages of a social marketing campaign.  We provide a unique social marketing approach through our team that includes leading professionals within Psychology, Mental Health and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.  This ensures that our campaigns deliver significant levels of behavioural change and the results that our clients require.

For more information please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Experiential Campaigns - Bluetooth to Apps.

To enable our clients to deliver memorable experiences for their target audience we’ve utilised some interesting media that has delivered these experiences including; surprise inducing talking bus shelters, one of the UK’s most successful ever Bluetooth campaigns, interactive SMS text backs and social networking sites that build communities around campaigns.

For our latest campaigns we are developing more iPhone apps that will allow our clients to build unique 3G experiences for their target audience and also help them to generate passive
income streams.

For more information about utilising the latest forms of media to deliver experiential marketing campaigns then drop us an e-mail at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Mental Health Social Marketing Campaign to Launch

Mental health problems cost the country an estimated £77billion a year in health care, benefits and lost productivity, with around one person in four experiencing mental illness at some point in their life and at any one time one person in six has a mental health problems. 

To address these issues Perfect Circle is working alongside NHS Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale to help launch their (IAPT) Improve Access to Psychological Therapies programme, as part of a Government initiative to treat 900,000 more patients who suffer from depression and anxiety over the next three years.  This IAPT social marketing campaign will launch towards the end of January 2010 and as usual will include a creative methods mix! For more information you can visit our case study page.

Iphone & 3G Apps- “I have the perfect idea for a great app!”

Today’s online experiences have expanded beyond the traditional, browser-based portals to include social media and then expanded again to include the latest mobile devices.  The 3G network has enabled mobile applications to capture the imagination of many and created unprecedented excitement across many industries. Though for many within sales and marketing developing their idea into an application remains a mystery.

We have identified five indicators of success which are covered as part of the ‘App-ideation™’ process that Perfect Circle utilises to generate market leading apps for our clients, transferring great ideas from grey matter ideation to interactive realisation.

1. Does your app solve a unique problem?
2. Does the app serve a specific niche?
3. Does it make people laugh?
4. Are you building a better wheel?
5. Will the app be highly interactive?

So if you’ve ever thought… “I have the perfect idea for a great app!”? then make it happen by e-mailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Real Life Learning in Education

Nearly half of employees feel that they have acquired their most valuable skills through work, according to research from lifelong learning charity Campaign for Learning. So ensuring that students have real work experience will give them a clear start in attaining relevant career skills. 

At Perfect Circle we are committed to our dream of successful people, leading healthy lives, in a sustainable environment.  To develop successful people we work with colleges, schools and acadamies to create ‘real life’ learning opportunities for students.  Our latest project involved Burnage Media Arts College, where we worked with over 100 students to develop a 30 second cinema advertisement to promote the College’s unique learning environment that is dedicated to Media and Arts. 

To see the actual film that was created, produced and stared the Burnage Media Arts College students then click the link to YouTube.  You can also visit the www.enjoymedia.co.uk to learn more about the campaign.

To find our more about this just click real life learning or e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

For related information about this project please visit our case study section.