Following the recent expansion into Manchester, a new media agency has bridged the skills gap that was apparent in their Sheffield home. Established in 2000 Quba has been seeking Digital Marketing talent in and around South Yorkshire due to the increase in demand, but due to the lack of skills within this specialist marketing area looked towards Manchester to fulfil the shortfall.
After realising the Sheffield skills gap in this sector, Quba embraced the North West digital scene with the opening of their new Piccadilly offices in the centre of Manchester. It wasn’t long after arriving in the city that they were able to restart their recruitment campaign, which has seen notable success with the recruitment of their new Paid Search Manager.
New recruit Lillian Jackson joins Quba with a wealth of experience gained from top media agencies bigmouthmedia and Pavilion managing marketing campaigns across a range of clients. When asked about the move, Lillian commented; “The full service aspect of Quba really attracted me to the company, the ability to offer an integrated package to clients from web design to online marketing is a USP that not all agencies can offer. The level of expertise the company provides is on a par with the offerings of other big players. I am very positive about the future of the Manchester office and excited to be part of the growth and development of the department”.
As the Paid Search Manager, Lillian will be in charge of the Pay per Click and Display strategies, along with the existing Online Managers.
Quba’s Managing Director, Matthew Williams, sees the new addition to the team as the first of many; “Lillian is already a great asset to our team, and will play an integral part in the expansion of the company. We are constantly looking for online marketers that are as zealous about Digital Marketing as us. We need to increase the team to manage our ever increasing client base, and maintain the same standard of service our clients have become accustomed to”.

Notes to editors: USP – Unique Selling Point
www.quba.co.uk
www.qubadigitalmarketing.co.uk

From the heights of the ‘super club’ days of the early nineties, the nightclub industry has needed to evolve in order to maintain their audience. One such brand has bucked the clubbing decline by entering the potentially lucrative festival scene. Sheffield based Gatecrasher; who is renowned for staging one off events, embarked on creating the UK’s biggest dance music festival entitled ‘Summer Sound System’. Although the event took place over the second bank holiday weekend in May, the organisation and marketing started back in 2007.
With an audience predominately online Gatecrasher turned to new media agency Quba to assist them in their quest for festival dominance. Firstly the agency created a micro site for the event, and built an e-commerce system; eliminating commissions payable to third party ticketing companies, in turn saving thousands of pounds. Extensive research was carried out to build a profile of the target audience. The information was then used to ensure everyone who needed to know about the festival did.
Quba strategically placed the online marketing spend, within a highly focused range of music websites and social networking destinations. The subsequent results from this targeted approach were no less than ‘phenomenal’ with ROI at 2488% on their spend with Google. While the Facebook campaign created ‘outstanding’ click through rates of 47%, and conversions to purchase of 12% above and beyond the industry average of 0.5%. Speaking on the results, Gatecrasher’s Electronic Marketing Manager Jamie Wilkins said “We have used digital marketing in the past, but chose to invest more of the marketing spend online for our biggest venture to date. The results we received from our investment were beyond our expectations”.
Notes to editors:
The Gatecrasher Summer Sound System event hosted a line-up of 200 DJ’s, 20 Dance arenas and 20 live artists. The event was stage on 24th & 25th May 2008 at Turweston Aerodrome in Northamptonshire with a capacity of 60,000 people.
ROI – Return On Investment
http://www.qubadigitalmarketing.com/
http://www.quba.co.uk
http://summersoundsystem.com

The constantly evolving world of ‘new media’ has seen marked changes to the way that advertisers spend their money. Traditionally marketers have spent their budgets offline through print based publications, or via mediums such as television. Today in an online world marketing spend has continued its shift into online with digital marketing increasing its share year on year with a 38% increase in 2007 to £2.8 billion.

New media agency Quba has witnessed at first hand the developments of online, and since being established in 2000 as a web design agency has seen the industry change massively. In 2004 Quba began offering digital marketing as an integral part of their business; they have passed their expertise onto many of their clients who have reaped the online advertising benefits. Although recently the agency has found itself in an expansion quandary; their digital marketing development plans were being hampered by the noticeable skills shortage of digital marketers in the Sheffield region, this lead to the opening of their new Piccadilly office in Manchester.
When asked about the move Quba Managing Director Mathew Williams said “As Manchester is the capital of Digital Marketing in the North, the move to the city seemed to be the next step to ensure Quba is at the forefront of changes in the industry, whilst also having access to big clients and being able to further its expertise from specialist recruits; something we found difficult to achieve in Sheffield. Having a base in both Manchester and Sheffield enables us to compete with big players in the online industry and put Quba on the map”.
Notes to editors:
Quba have been established since 2000, and employ 28 staff based across their Sheffield and Manchester offices.
http://www.qubadigitalmarketing.com/
http://www.quba.co.uk
Digital Marketing stats: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/pwcadspendstudy080408.mxs

Sheffield based Quba have created a multi-platform online presence for the new Sunday morning BBC programme ‘Sunday Life’. Produced in conjunction with Leeds based programme makers True North, Quba have completed the website that brings the programme and the audience closer together.
Built upon multi-platform capabilities, the Sunday Life website provides a rich source of content through the use of video and presenter blogs. The blogs will provide behind the scenes insights into the hosts and their views on the subjects raised within the programme.
In turn the videos allow the editorial team the opportunity to tease content throughout the week prior to the programmes live broadcast on Sunday at 10.00am on BBC1.
In return the audience is encouraged to submit their own content inspired by the issues covered within the show. This results in providing potential future editorial content for the programme makers.
Former Olympic athlete and Sunday Life co-presenter Colin Jackson said “The website is important for the show. I’m excited about the potential for getting the audience involved, getting them to pose questions and share their opinions with us.”
The Sunday Life programme has been commissioned by the BBC for an initial 26 week run commencing in April 2008. During that time Quba will be providing advice around the sites content creation, whilst providing a creative input into the ongoing management of the website.
Quba Assistant Producer Robin Cramp said “This is an embryonic time for the merger between traditional and new media companies in the broadcast sector, and evaluating the out come of the Sunday Life project in this space will be a valuable exercise moving forward”.
Sunday Life’s multi-platform offerings are setting the standard for things to come in the 360º commissioning space. The show was the first tender in BBC Vision’s Window of Creative Competition (WOCC) where 25% of commissions are open to independents and in house BBC teams. The process allows the strongest propositions to compete to win the commission regardless of their sector.

Notes to editors:
Quba employ 28 staff between their Sheffield and recently opened Manchester offices. www.quba.co.uk
Quba’s sister company Symphony, who produce event management software, have won the prestigious and extremely detailed commission from the Lambeth Conference to provide them an events system. The Lambeth Conference takes place in July 2008, and is called once every ten years by the Archbishop of Canterbury and sees the greatest gathering of Anglican Bishops and their spouses anywhere in the world. www.symphonyem.co.uk
Sunday Life Website – www.bbc.co.uk/sundaylife

Final day here for me, but Darren will be staying on to see the results of the content 360 competition. I must that all the pitches within that group were strong, and all of the ideas are very worthy of being made. It would be great to see this moving on to the next stages.

Don’t forget that the results show is being streamed live (see previous post).

Ok this is it the moment we’ve all been waiting for – the results of the Content 360 pitches!!!

You can tune in live at 4.30pm GMT by clicking on this link

The pitch went really well on Tuesday and the face to face time with BBC commissioners was equally productive today. There a number of hurdles to overcome but not insurmountable. Fingers crossed!

Darren has been wiped out by Manflu today but hopes to be back in the saddle tomorrow.

So we hope you are all able to tune in watch the outcome.

BTW special note of thanks to Ricky for al the work he put into the presentation. Richard Smith the BBC commisioner loved the “coverflow approach” to the visual timeline for Time Capsule. Well done Rick!

Thanks

A demain!!

Darren and Sasha have been working hard on perfecting the pitch for delivery in the live sessions this afternoon. Mean while the other taks and sessions within the expo have been good to get perspective on how the industry is working.

Just managed to lose my first post of the trip!!! arrgggh!!!

I’ll leave you with a fitting image for today. I’ll come back and post some more tomorrow.