By Peter Wood

 In football, a preseason friendly is the chance to establish where you are with a playing squad, judge fitness levels and test out new formations. Last night’s Old Street encounter was no different. The added buzz to the occasion was the first ever Dentsu Network derby between the creative minds of Dentsu London and the Digital marketing specialists at STEAK.

STEAK lined up with a traditional 2-1-1 formation, offering protection to the keeper whilst trying to exploit the creative talents of Simon Wong in midfield. Dentsu, the more experienced of the teams played a more attacking formation and that paid off when they took the lead early on.

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By Peter Wood, The Wall

So I’ve had this inkling for a while. It goes a little something like this…

What your friends like does not have a massive impact on your purchasing decisions

I know, I know… it’s a hugely outspoken thing to say. After all, Facebook have dictated to everyone in the marketing world that people are hugely influenced by what their friends eat, wear, listen to and watch. Sponsored stories; the advertising function Facebook advertisers use to tell people what their friends have liked, is supposed to be hugely powerful to anyone who wants to believe it.

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By Adrian Goodsell, The Wall, 30th January 2012

Looking for a huge numbers of fans? Can’t wait a second longer? Then read on, this blog post is for you…

1. Buy your fans
This is definitely the easiest way to guarantee a following fast; decide how many ‘fans’ you want then simply go to any dodgy-looking site (probably via a Facebook ad) take your wallet out (remember to stick your head in the sand) et voila, success! But wait a second; by definition once you directly pay for a relationship what does that relationship become? What does it really mean? There’s a very obvious analogy here, one that doesn’t involve any love at all…

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By Peter Wood, posted on The Wall 14 November, 2011

Blogger outreach is an interesting concept that in theory should work but often doesn’t. The idea is that brands approach bloggers and ask them to write about their products, services or initiatives. In an ideal world, this should be un-incentivised. The reality might be different, but the idea is that the opinion of a blogger, a web promoted authority on a subject, will be worth more than the opinion of a journalist or a glitzy write up on the company website.

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By Peter Wood, The Wall, 2 November, 2011

Manchester United have struck a deal with Sapient Nitro to become their global digital agency and as part of that deal, word has it they’re going to create a social media platform that will allow the club to engage directly with their online fan base of nearly 660million.

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Steak’s Social Media guru Peter Wood delves into the world of premiership footballers to examine how effectively players and clubs are harnessing the power of social media to engage with their loyal fans, and who could be doing more.

Peter’s findings, published in this week’s The Drum, explore the growing online communities passionately commenting and blogging about football.  As Arsenal’s Head of Marketing Charles Allen put it, ‘We recognise we can’t accommodate all our Arsenal fans inside Emirates Stadium, but via social media we can give them a taste of Arsenal wherever they are in the world.’

You can read the full article here.

Steak’s Raging Bulls have made a winning start to the inaugural Yahoo! Premier League season.  The 5 a side competition sees 12 agencies battling it out over 2 groups  for the right to be crowned the first ever Ad League Champions and our very own Rooneys and Ronaldos have picked up two wins from the opening two games. 

 After a convincing 9-2 victory over Unique in the season opener things were a lot tougher against I-Spy with Steak leaving it late to score three times and seal a 6-3 victory in a hotly contested game with passions running high.  The team’s 100% record will be on the line against the tournament hosts Yahoo! in a fortnight as they look to build on their fine start.