A good day to visit… Impossible to imagine the sacrifice that the Russians made to win the war.

First trip to Russia with Yota to check things out.  Good to be back in the mother land…

New post from our guest blogger Fiona McKim from The Online Fashion Agency

On 19 February 2010 London Fashion Week will launch its first ever live digital schedule, groundbreaking in its blanket coverage of all British Fashion Council shows at Somerset House and selected shows in other venues across London.

Following in the footsteps of Nick Knights innovative Showstudio and the plethora of designers live streaming their shows during New York Fashion Week, the British Fashion Council will also be showcasing digitally presented fashion films from pioneering London designers including House of Holland, Twenty8Twelve and Hussein Chalayan.

With Fashion Week no longer only open to an elite minority, the democratisation of catwalk shows online means one thing for fashion brands; exposure.

Dolce and Gabbanna’s live streaming project “The Pre-Show diaries” showcasing their Spring/Summer 2010 collection generated approximately 16 million views globally on YouTube in September 2009, evidence of the audience scale for live fashion events.

Reaching a mass global audience of not only consumers but industry insiders can take a brand’s online marketing strategy past the current vogue for the immediacy of Twitter and into the absolutely instantaneous.

Online content, in particular blogging, has shaken up the hierarchy of fashion PR as more brands are beginning to recognise the power and influence of the style blog.

Live streaming enables these key bloggers to simultaneously watch a show taking place in London and comment from across the globe, generating buzz and creating instant brand ambassadors. It also provides a complete fashion show experience for every viewer by providing not just a flat, one dimensional photograph of specific garments but the anticipation, the lights, the music, the movement of the clothes and most importantly the message and ethos of the brand.

In embracing live catwalk streaming, London has once again proven itself to be the epicentre of innovation in fashion, casting off stuffy elitism and creating an interactive conversation with consumers, the press and the industry.
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For more fashion forward thinking visit:

http://www.theonlinefashionagency.com/category/retail-consultancy/fashion-business-services/

Anyone else think this Winter is going on FOREVER?

If so we’ve got just the solution for you – watch the Club Tropicana video a couple of times and it’ll sort you right out. They don’t make them like this any more…

Little known fact – one of the Iskra team has stayed at the hotel where this video was shot. Email us with the name of the hotel and the first correct answer will win a HUGE prize…

Love them or hate them, coverage of X Factor’s ‘Jedward’ twins has dominated the media this autumn. Tabloids, broadsheets, blogs, forums, Twitter… everyone’s been talking about them. In fact they generated 57% of all the X Factor buzz. And when it came to the crunch, Simon Cowell kept them in the show for one reason only – they had talkability.   

Brands also need talkability to survive in today’s increasingly cluttered media market.

Iskra is a brand communications consultancy pioneering a new approach to PR for a new decade. 

Our process begins with an in-depth ‘buzz analysis’ to identify where brand-related conversation is naturally happening.  We then identify the key influencers on these conversations.

Using this unique insight we develop a 360 cross discipline communications plan based on developing the right content or news hook and exploiting it via all channels. Successful comms plans can only come from true audience knowledge. 

We believe that the traditional PR agency model is failing brands.  Most agencies are using the same tools and techniques that they used when there were just four TV channels.  The new media landscape requires a new, more intelligent approach.

Instead of surveys, competitions and celebrity badging – we believe in breaking the rules, doing things differently and questioning traditional methods. 

So has your brand got the Jedward factor?  Does it generate conversation? If not, why not?  And if so, do you know what people are saying?  Do you know what they like or dislike about it?  Do you know who’s influencing these conversations?  Do you understand how to rank them and influence them yourself? 

If the answer is no, then we need to talk.  In a few hours, we could answer all these questions and start generating real dialogue with your audiences.

Iskra consultants have worked with global brands and start-up businesses – from Nokia to ITV, and Southern Comfort to Shopstyle.com – the process is the same.

And we’d like to begin that process for your brand by conducting a full buzz analysis and brand workshop in January.  We believe this will provide you with unique communications insight to take your brand into the next decade.