Wednesday, 4 November 2009

Easidream story spreads across China

The Chinese media have gone crazy for Easidream. We are picking up Google Alerts from different sites everyday. Translation by Babelfish.

Stokke® Sleepi™ announced as finalist

Just had some amazing news through from Mother & Baby magazine. Stokke® Sleepi™ joins Tripp Trapp® and Stokke® Xplory® in the finals at this years awards.
This is the first time that we have had every product that we entered shortlisted.
The awards are a huge amount of work for us. Liasing with testers and sending out products is very time consuming. Lets hope that all of our hard work pays off this year.
I love the Stokke® Sleepi™ and I had one before I worked for Stokke®. It really is a fabulous sleep system.



bababing! loBO geta a HOT BUY award

The bababing! loBO may only just have hit the stores but it has already been awarded a Hot Buy award courtesy of the leading style baby shopping site bambinogoodies.co.uk

I took one look at bababing’s loBO reclining bouncer and felt a surge of lust followed by a surge of disappointment that the baby’s already 6 months old and sitting up. Sigh…”  Commented the site.



Tuesday, 3 November 2009

More Award Wins...

A few award wins for our clients again this week.
The Prince Lionheart Wipes Warmer wins a BizzieBaby Silver Award.
This really is an amazing product - but one that really has to be used for you to see the benefits. Warm wipes give a better clean as the warmth gently opens pores. Perfect for taking your make up off too.

Stokke® Table Top is awarded Highly Commended at the Right Start Toy Awards.
The testers said that the tray does cut down on mess and is a great way to entertain baby too.


You may also notice on the same page that the new Silicone Bottles from Prince Lionheart were also awarded a Highly Commended.


Sticking with Prince Lionheart.... their fab new Balance bike also wowed the judges to pick up their third Highly Commended badge and TotsBots also picked up a double for their EasyFit nappy and Papoose carrier.


If you would like to call any of the products that we represent in for testing please pop us an email. Or leave a comment and we will be in touch.

Thursday, 29 October 2009

How social media can bring your brand to the masses

We have been promoting our clients successfully through traditional media for the last ten years. Building strong reputations with press and clients alike. But we knew that things were changing and so we buried ourselves in social media, learning on our feet and integrating ourselves into this online community.


The social media buzz is being felt around the world as networks such as Twitter and Facebook show a growth above and beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.  For the first time many brands are able to actually connect with and speak to their end users as if they were simply chatting about what to have for tea. This modern social accessibility is something many brands can only dream of.


Social media can take many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures and video. Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing, and voice over IP, to name a few. Examples of social media applications are Google Groups (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace (social networking), Facebook (social networking), MouthShut.com yelp.com (product reviews), Youmeo (social network aggregation), Last.fm (personal music), YouTube (social networking and video sharing), Avatars United (social networking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (social networking and microblogging), Open Diary (blogging), and other microblogs such as Jaiku. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like Mybloglog and Plaxo.


Phew, you may say. Do I want to know all of that? Do I need to know all of that? Is it going to help my business?
Answers: Maybe, not really, yes.


But where do you begin?
There are so many options that the danger is that you actually end up doing nothing because you don’t know where to start. Mistake - big one!
The real starting point begins we believe with asking yourself what it is that you want to achieve?
The usual answers of more sales, market share etc. can really be addressed in most cases by gaining more awareness of your brand - thus resulting in more visitors to your own web site.
But an effective social media strategy can achieve a whole lot more. Including improving brand loyalty and brand image whilst creating a loyal brand community.
That’s where we come in. Through a process of study and practice we have devised systems to drive more traffic to your website. We have this working for a range of customers varying in size and geographical location.
We will work with you to learn your core values and your business objectives and translate this into the message that we promote for you.


But what do we want achieve for you?
Increased traffic to your brand website.
Increased awareness of your brand.
Promote your products and services to identified target market.
To maximise brand mentions.
To offer review products to key influential bloggers.


Our social media service
Building of YouTube stream, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr groups that work to actively promote your brand.
Manage the above mentioned accounts.
Promote any blog or website that you currently utilise.
Cross tweet information across our well established Twitter accounts. We have a combined reach of over 13 million people. FYI, we have never used follow programs on Twitter. All of our followers have chosen to follow us and are receptive to our messages.
Act as the social media point of reference for all enquiries.


Why Us?
Well.... that’s quite simple really. We are early adopters and in social media that means everything. We are not saying that we have been there from the word dot....but we seem to be there 24/7 now (if you follow us you know that to be true!)

By early adopters we mean that social media has become a way of life for us. We are on line by hook or by crook - yes OK, we are addicts! That was one thing that Sian learned when over at the BlogHer conference earlier this year. That us social media geeks are all addicts. As much as we like to try to defend it - it is true. Our social media management does not stop when normal office hours cease. Much of our important social media networking is done in the evenings and weekends. Regular social media providers don’t offer this level of out of hour’s service.
We already run a number of highly effective social media accounts for our clients. Giving us an amazing potential reach of over 13 million people - which is way over ten times the combined circulation of every single printed parenting publication in the UK. This kind of puts things into perspective.
So that is us and what we do. We could go on wowing you with our success stories but quite frankly whilst we have been writing this we have been neglecting our Twitter feed. 
Whilst working with us cannot guarantee you more sales we can guarantee that we can build your brand and drive traffic to your site - and how do you think that could influence your sales?
If you would like more information on our regular PR service please visit our main site www.asclearas.com
If you would like to hear what we have to say on a regular basis please follow our blog by adding us to your RSS feed or by adding yourself as a follower on the right of the page. Our full contact details can be found on our main site.

Saturday, 24 October 2009

Prince Lionheart win Prima Baby editors award

The new Prince Lionheart Silicone Bottles have just won a Prima Baby Editors Innovation Award. 
These tactile bottles have to be seen in action to be truly appreciated. If you would like to test them for your publication please email us.

TotsBots making Britain Great Again

I placed this feature for TotsBots in the Daily Express this week. They are one of a dying breed of companies who still manufacture their products in the UK.
Their factory employs local people and boosts the local economy.
They have come a long way since they began making nappies in their kitchen - TotsBots are a real UK success story.
Fiona and Magnus are available for interview.

Daily Express
22 Oct 2009