Outsource Digital – Part of Outsource UK Ltd. We're committed to bringing you the most interesting headlines and latest industry insight.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

My client is groundbreaking Facebook application in the social shopping space. They are a growing team with previous successful ventures under their belt, cool central London based offices, backing from high profile UK and international investors and very high ambitions. They are looking for a superstar Sales and Commercial Manager to join their team. Could this be you?
Are you an energetic, confident and bubbly professional with experience in commercial negotiations and an in-depth knowledge of ecommerce? We are looking for a best in class commercial manager to develop partnerships with the top retail brands.
What we do:
Duties & responsibilities:
  • Identify target partner brands based on thorough audience and market analysis & make contacts
  • Develop customized partner proposition/ campaigns based on brand profiles, liaising with design team as necessary
  •  Report back to brands on campaign success - maintain ongoing relationships with wide portfolio of previous/ potential partners through weekly newsletters, company events, etc.
  •  Develop strong network of industry contacts as well as good working relationship with affiliation platforms and digital agencies
  •  Supervise integration of feeds by third party supplier - daily scrum meetings & quality control
  •  Feed commercial content to marketing team for all company communications
Skills & requirements:
  • Experience in commercial negotiations
  • E-commerce experience and in depth knowledge of online retail in the USA and Europe primarily
  • Excellent presentation skills
  •  Confident and sociable personality, ability to nurture a strong network of contacts
  •  Strong quantitative skills
  • Energy and enthusiasm - ability to work under pressure in a fast paced environment
  • Strong English communication skills, both written and oral
  • Attention to detail
For more information apply immediately.
We welcome applications from anyone, irrespective of age, gender or religious persuasion.
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Monday, January 30, 2012

In theory, Trending Topics on Twitter are a Public Relations dream: It’s free publicity for your brand, simple to initiate, and -- providing they catch on -- can appear on every Twitter users newsfeed. Look at the UK’s Trending Topics right now and I guarantee you’ll find something related to One Direction, JLS or Justin Bieber. These tween fan girls may be annoying, but they get results!

McDonalds, however, is a brand without such a headstrong fan base and their recent attempts to promote themselves over Twitter have resulted in what some users are dubbing as a “McFail”.
Using the sponsored hashtag #McDStories (a clickable link that brings up all posts using the same phrasing), McDonalds encouraged Twitter users to share positive tales about the fast-food giant. Almost immediately this approach was met with negativity from individuals and animal rights group PETA.

One disgruntled diner Tweeted: “My father used to bring us to McDonalds as a reward when we were kids. Now he’s horribly obese and has diabetes. Lesson learned #McDStories”

McDonald’s social media director, Rick Wion stated, “Within an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned. It was negative enough that we set about a change of course. With all social media campaigns, we include contingency plans should the conversation not go as planned. The ability to change midstream helped this small blip from becoming something larger.”

The promoted Trending Topic was then discontinued, and McDonalds has commented that of the 72,000 mentions of McDonalds only 2% were negative.

LA Fitness also came under fire from Twitter users this week when news spread the company would not terminate a couple’s gym membership despite the husband having been made redundant and the wife being seven months pregnant.

A report detailing the issue was released by the Guardian and gained momentum over the next few days, resulting in LA Fitness beginning to trend on Twitter. The company then Tweeted they “do not comment on individual cases”. Following the LA Fitness link then lead to posts from Twitter users commenting the brand were “miserable” and “unpleasant”. LA Fitness has since waived the couple’s fees.

These recent events show that brand loyalty cannot always be expected from consumers, particularly when a brand leaves themselves at the mercy of the internet.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

132 year old Kodak has streamlined and simplified its business to cut costs.  
Shares in the firm went up 46% following the release of the new business structure.  The firm had been suffering to due smaller companies capturing the digital market more swiftly.
Chief Executive Antonio Perez commented "As we complete Kodak's transformation to a digital company, our future markets will be very different from our past, and we need to organise ourselves in keeping with that evolution," 
The firm has also filed against Apple and HTC due to concerns over patents regarding image transmission on handheld devices. 
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