DATE 2005 preview
With DATE less than a month off, anyone interested in the European EDA market should be planning their trip to Munich. EE Times UK has previewed the show, reporting that it will stress system design, focusing on common platform challenges for embedded systems. For more information about the comprehensive conference programme, which has just been announced.
Call for papers - Reed's Automotive Electronics Congress
A call for papers has been issued for the Automotive Electronics Congress to be held between 3rd and 5th October 2005 at the Paris Sofitel, Sèvres. The agenda is "under development", and Reed is inviting submissions for presentations on:
- Electronics Automotive Safety : results and evolutions
- Powertrain evolution: what are the future technologies
- Automotive Body Control: design and electronics challenges
- Passengers’ convenience and service requirements
To submit an abstract contact Lucy Letellier, Tel : +33 1 46 29 46 17 by Friday 18th February, 2005.
Reed launches "Product Showcase"
Reed Electronics Group has launched Product Showcase eNewsletters tied to EPN and CIE. Apparently this idea of sending subscribers an email that consists only of ads is in fact "paid for product news emailed to a requested / opt-in email database"!
Targeting a pan-European audience is pretty cost effective - working out at just over €51 per thousand for the 22K circulation, but the CIE email - with only 5.5K recipients - is more than twice as costly per recipient, at over €136 per thousand. Ouch!
BSP to represent Monch group publications
Customers interested in the defence market will be interested to know that BSP Media are now UK representatives for the entire range of Monch Group publications including Military Technology and Naval Forces. This expands their portfolio, which includes Defense Update and Indian Aviation.
Musical chairs for UK advertising sales people
It's all change in the UK! Mark Lery is leaving Electronics Buyer and will be replaced by Colin Beck, who is leaving Electronics.
Andy Pratt will be joining Datateam from EPD as the Publication Manager for Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Electrical Wholesaler, and will be announcing a replacement for Colin Beck soon. We will keep you updated with any further changes in this little merry-go-round.
In a separate move, Electronics Weekly has appointed Melissa Suppiah in a field sales role for display advertising.
CMP adds editorial director and loses editor
Jean-Pierre Joosting been appointed editorial director for EXE, Embedded Systems Europe and Microwave Engineering Europe. He returns to CMP from a spell working in PR. At almost the same time, Helen Duncan, editor of Microwave Engineering Europe has announced that she will be leaving the magazine to move into PR. A case of the grass always being greener on the other side? Helen will continue to edit the magazine until a successor is appointed.
hanser-automotive.de launches
We reported back in November that Hanser were developing an automotive site, which was formally launched on 17th January. An email newsletter is also available.
Sound like an online marketing expert
Confused about some of the different terms used in online marketing. Visit iMediaConnection.com for a simple explanation of the difference between Search, Behavioral and Contextual advertising. Then contact Napier to find out how you can use these different approaches to target your customers.
IEE Review - the choice of the British engineer?
The IEE are very proud of a recent survey that suggests that they are the second most popular title for engineers in the UK (after Electronics Weekly). Does this mean that everyone should pile their advertising budget into IEE Review? Probably not (although we do think that the IEE publications are good titles, and can be the right place for advertising). Contact Napier to find out why we think that there are a number of other factors you need to consider before making advertising placement decisions on this research.
French trademark law hits Google
If you use Google's AdWords technology to target searches made for your competitors, then a recent ruling in the French courts will be of interest. Le Meridian Hotels and Resorts have managed to stop anyone using their trademarks to trigger adverts on Google's French site. This ruling goes against the trend from the US courts, which have recently allowed the practice. Find out more about this on CNet.com.
Desktop search – update
We've covered desktop search before in Napier News, as we think that this provides the opportunity for other players to overtake the mighty Google. If this did happen, it would mean re-aligning the pay-per-click campaigns we run in Europe to the new leader. Well Microsoft delivered MSN desktop search right at the end of last year (as promised), and now Yahoo! has a desktop search product. Only time will tell which one wins the most fans.
We thought we would try a little experiment - we searched for "desktop search" with MSN, Google and Yahoo! Every search engine gave the Google product as the first result. Oops! OK, so we know that it's not really a fair test as the Google product has been out the longest. Still you would have thought that there was something that the other two could do to optimise the ranking in their own search engines!
Looking for the brightest test engineer
Test & Measurement World will be posting monthly quiz questions on their site. A correct answer will be selected every month, winning the lucky engineer an MP3 player, and in May 2005 one of the monthly winners will earn the title of "World's Smartest Test Engineer" and win a $1000 cash prize.
More online ads for Europe
JupiterResearch, one of the leading online marketing research companies thinks that European online ad spending will double by 2009 to €4.7 billion from around €2.1 billion in 2004. In 2005 they expect to see a 29% increase to €2.7 billion. Furthermore they expect that pricing will rise as the spend increases.
Although this trend is likely to be reflected in the electronics industry, we see a somewhat different situation. With the high cost of generating frequent, compelling content, and limited audience (compared with consumer sites), we believe that whilst smaller sites will continue to successfully address specific niche topics and countries, it will be the larger sites that dominate the online landscape. Call Napier to find out which sites we believe will be the winners in the next four years.
Marketing "challenges" at the CES show
With everyone (well at least Napier's design team!) talking about the pretty new Mac Mini and iPOD shuffle announced at Macworld, we thought we would buck the trend and focus on some marketing decisions made at CES. It's quite likely that Bill Gates had some strong opinions about the decision to demo a version of Microsoft Media Center that crashed during his presentation (see the video at Silicon.com).
However we do wonder which PR expert suggested that Craig Barrett of Intel sang a duet with Steven Tyler from Aerosmith. Just in case you are wondering......we have never made a client sing a duet with a rock superstar!
Call for papers - 31st European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC 2005)
The largest optical communications conference in Europe, ECOC 2005, which will be held at the SECC, Glasgow,
Scotland from 25th - 29th September 2005 has issued a call for papers. With a deadline of the 28th April, there is still lots of time to get your submissions in.
Power Systems Design extends into China
Power Systems Design will be launching a chinese title in March. Creatively named "Power Systems Design China", the title has a similar editorial content to the European version. A Chinese editor hasn't yet been announced.
IEE launches Flipside
Can electronics and technology be cool? The IEE thinks so, and has launched Flipside - a magazine aimed to promote engineering to British teenagers. With the readers 4-8 years away from a career as an engineer, it's unlikely that the title will be viewed as an effective marketing channel for our industry, but we'd like to applaud the positive aims of this publication.
Nominations open for Women in EDA Achievement Award
Nominations are open until Friday 5th March for the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award, which will be presented at on Monday 13th June during DAC (Design Automation Conference) to be held in Anaheim, California.
EiH announces email newsletter
Electronique International Hebdo has launched a new weekly email newsletter covering news, views and trends that affect the French electronics industry. Online media has been slow to take off in France (although CIE already offers a monthly email newsletter), but we believe that this move is a real enhancement to the existing website from the two Groupe Tests titles.
Please welcome Amy to Napier
SOme of our clients, partners and editorial contacts will already know Amy from her work at electronica 2004. We're pleased to announce that in addition to working on her media studies degree, Amy will be working 3 days per week at Napier from the start of this year and will be helping out on a variety of projects. Click here to send her an email.
Last chance to present at 3GSM
Small private companies have until Friday 7th Jan to register for the 5-minute ‘elevator pitch’ to an audience of VC companies and senior level potential future customers at 3GSM. Each pitch will be graded by a panel of judges, and the winner given the 'Cutting Edge Promise' award, although we suspect that the prospect of VC funding is the main attraction! Contact Napier to get your submission in on time.
CAN-SPAM resources
With the final ruling from the FTC on the American "CAN-SPAM" legislation, it is important that European marketeers understand what is expected in the US. A great place to start is the marketing sherpa CAN-SPAM resources page (and whilst you're on the site, you might want to sign up for some of their free newsletters).
Amy Faulkner to leave EMP
Amy Faulkner is to leave EMP, the electronics manufacturing and test title published by MIT Publishing for Industrial Equipment News, the Highbury Business title that covers a the complete range of industrial products from robots to rubber gloves! Amy says she is happy to have secured an editorship of such a key title at a large publisher.
No announcement has yet been made as to who will take over at EMP, although editing this well-known title is likely to be a role that will attract strong interest from editors looking for a new challenge.
Huson Media to represent Elektor in UK
From 1st Jan next year, Huson Media has been appointed as the exclusive UK advertising sales representative for the UK
monthly magazine Elektor Electronics by the Dutch based publisher Segment BV. In addition, Huson will exclusively handle all UK sales into the French and Dutch versions of Elektor. The US offices of Huson will not be representing the product.
Elektor is often dismissed as a book for hobbyists and retirees, but more than
80% of the working subscribers to Elektor are involved in Electronics, Electronic Engineering, IT or Telecoms. More than 33% are working in R+D. In our opinion, this announcement and the recent appointment of Svetlana Josifovska as editor of Electronics World reflects the attempts of newstand titles to strengthen their products and gain greater attention from advertisers.
Reed International Automotive Electronics Congress 2005
Reed has announced that the second IAEC will be held on 3-5th October 2005. This high-level congress was a great success in its first year. The conference offers three streams covering Automotive Electronics Market Trends & Consumer Demand; Design & Manufacturing; and Analysis of the next automotive electronics challenges. Additionally There are two half-day workshops on Safety and Infotainment.