Place Pins – The latest feature from Pinterest

Last week Pinterest launched their latest pinning feature, Place Pins. Users can now pin their favourite location whether it is a restaurant, shop or tourist location, you can add an address, phone number and comment about the place. The idea behind the new pin is to create boards that can be utilised while you are out and about or planning your next holiday. In addition to the address, phone number and photos of the location, you can easily get directions to your place pin.

To launch the new pins and show how useful they are, Pinterest has asked over a dozen travel gurus to create special boards like The Top 100 Hotels in the World by Condé Nast Traveler and Angie Eats New York by authors of The Long-Term Traveler's Guide. These boards show how you helpful these boards can be when planning travel or time around town. 

Black Friday – The official start to Christmas shopping

Black Friday looms and many retailers are bracing for the impact. Not as known in the UK, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving that has become synonymous with huge sales, crazy shoppers and sometimes even violence in the United States. What started out as an interesting way to bring customers into the stores on a day when most of America was on holiday has turned into a ‘not to be out done’ campaign amid all the major retails stores.

When I was a child in the States, I remember the Thanksgiving weekend being the start of the holiday season. We would have a filled Thursday of family, food, hanging Christmas lights and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. That evening, we would pull out the circulars from the paper and find out where the good deals would be and who would be offering the best ‘Door Buster’ gifts.

Outdoor advertising – revamping a classic

With the amount of advertising that people are inundated with every day via the internet, it is no surprise that advertisers are thinking outside the box to grab attention. The surprise comes when you realise advertisers are looking at a classic form of advertising to do it.

Outdoor advertising has made a comeback in recent years as an advertising medium. But with today’s technological advancements, it is anything but the static billboard that comes to mind when someone says ‘outdoor advertising’. The use of digital screens, social media and near field communication (NFC) technology has taken out-of-home media to new levels of personalisation and utilisation.

The Christmas gauntlet has been thrown – so who has the best Christmas telly advert?

Many companies have only just hit the screens and web with their Christmas adverts but there already seems to be a clear leader this year, John Lewis’ The Bear and the Hare.

What makes these adverts so compelling and unmissable? Is it the great sales message making us rush out to their store for our Christmas shopping? Or is it simply more about the story and building brand awareness and less about the product?

The 2013 Christmas Advert League Table

Company	Advert	YouTube Views*
John Lewis	The Bear and The Hare	7,280,890
Marks & Spencer	Believe in Magic & Sparkle	752,750
Argos	Gifts for Santa	632,727
LittleWoods	Spread the cost	485,940
Sainsburys	Christmas in a Day	346,687
Tesco	There's nothing better than Christmas	317,358
Boots	Full of Surprises	236,799
Cadbury	Unwrap Joy	123,834
Morrisons	Go on...its Christmas	120,693
Lidl	Unwrap your Lidl Christmas	75,585
Debenhams	Wishes made fabulous	65,570
Asda	Snowman	45,892
TK Maxx	The Moment	22,712
The Co-operative	Relax, Christmas is just around the corner	12,487

*Based on YouTube videos posted by each company directly as of 19/11/13. The stats do not take into consideration additional posts of videos by other users.

Goodger Design Associates launch new mobile friendly website

We're delighted to launch the new mobile and tablet friendly website for Goodger Design Associates. The previous version relied on flash elements which were not compatible with some modern mobile devices so this new html 5 version retains the original design whilst being consistent across all devices now.

Goodger Design Associates are a professional practice of chartered landscape architects with a successful track record of over ten years. 

My Controller launches new franchising opportunities

We're delighted to launch the website for the My Controller Accountancy Franchise offering. It has been created to offer accountants the opportunity to offer the My Controller service to other regions and capitalise on the existing, proven infrastructure for client acquisition, service delivery and client retention.  

My Controller started in 2003 and today represents an innovative and expanding Accountancy & Tax practice based in Windsor. 

Nikkie Foster Interior Design launches new website

We're delighted to launch the new website for Nikkie Foster Interior Design based in Reading which has been created to present and endorse their services to prospective clients.  

Nikkie provides interior design services in a variety of ways, all focused on understanding the needs and requirements of each individual client and exceeding their expectations.