Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contributors The Death of Digital Marketing Your Are a Product
Social media walks the tightrope
3 5 7 9 12 15 17 19 22 24 26 28
Big Data
Yesterdays news in more ways than one
Build a Comprehensive Marketing Plan for Your Star Customer Dead Mouse Measuring Influence Put Content at the Center of Your Search Engine Optimization Taming the Asian Dragon Design Trends to Kick Off 2014 Be a Better Client
The design review
HTML5
CONTRIBUTORS
Steve Ellis
CEO @steveellis
We are simply a new generation of marketers digital natives who have grown up with technology playing a central role in our lives.
Paul Burcher
Creative Director
Sally Yates
Head of Influence @sallyyates
Exerting maximum influence means getting the right message, delivered in the right way by the optimum channel.
Weve been tackling new design and interaction challenges with the advancement of natural user interfaces like voice-, gesture-, and touchcontrolled devices.
Mark Pinsent
Director of Content Strategy @markpinsent
Theres an old mantra in social media: if youre not paying then youre the product.
Evan Westenberger
Web Content Manager @evanwest
Deborah Hanamura
Director of Marketing @debhanamura
With computer-tobrain interfaces a proven reality, are we ready for bionic, brain-to-brain experiences?
Mandy Emel
Account Director @mandyemel
Andrew Martin
President @andrewcm
The integration between offline marketing methods and online technologies means that almost anything can be digitized.
All-star customers hit the trifecta: great brand, confident spokesperson and a passion for your business.
Sean Donovan
Regional Director, APAC
Asia Pacific region dominates the social media landscape, despite the fact it has one of the lowest internet penetration rates in the world.
Arguably, this is a modern-day extension of abovethe-line and below-the-line marketing strategies that many brands adopted in the past. In this instance, offline techniques mimic above-the-line marketing, as they are broadcast to mass audiences. Meanwhile, online technologies mirror below-the-line strategies where marketers use data to drill into their audiences and target those most relevant to their brand. The two by no means need to be separate, and innovative companies already recognize this and find ways to marry the two. We now see outdoor advertisements at bus stops with scannable QR codes, TV shows using hashtags to encourage social participation, and Shazam-enabled advertisements. The integration between offline marketing methods and online technologies means that almost anything can be digitized.
We can no longer call ourselves digital marketers. Digital is the now the norm, not a unique selling point.
Im a firm believer that paid can be employed to help owned gain traction amongst target audiences. In fact its difficult to avoid a strategy that combines both. But the quality of that owned content will always be where I put my focus. After all, theres no point throwing away advertising money if what youre pushing isnt aligned to the audiences interests and passions. As my mum would say, thats throwing good money after bad. Theres another old adage that still holds true: its not that people dont like marketing, its that they dont like bad marketing. Stock markets are fickle and sensitive. When a Facebook executive stated recently that the company was seeing teenagers being less active on the platform, the 14% increase in the companys share price following otherwise strong results was instantly wiped out. We will continue to see the markets nervous and sensitive to any signs that users may be leaving social platforms or reducing the time they spend on them. Every free social media platform is walking the experience/advertising tightrope. And while the phrase if youre not paying, youre the product may be true, every individual has the power to take themselves off the shelf. When that happens, the customers and make no mistake that in this context the customers are the advertisers will stop spending.
STATS
Social media has reached middle age. The fastest growing segment of social media users is now adults aged 4554. Fifty-five percent of this age group now have a profile on at least one social network. (State of Search) Furthermore, 75% of social media users object to major companies and platforms using their personal information for commercial purposes. And just 12% admit to having their purchases influenced by Facebook Likes or Google +1s. (Relevanza) Half of all social media users under age 35 follow their online friends product and service recommendations. (TECHi) Social media to engage or to advertise? Turns out agencies are slightly more likely than in-house marketers (81% vs. 75%) to advertise on social networks, while corporate marketers are significantly more likely to utilize free social media tools (89% vs. 71%). Seventy percent of brand marketers (and 60% of agency professionals) view social media advertising as more valuable for building brand awareness than for driving direct response. But contradicting the statistic above 66% of brand advertisers want to see a measurable sales bump from social media advertising. Sixty-four percent of advertisers surveyed indicated they expect to increase their paid social media advertising budget for 2013.
BIG DATA
YESTERDAYS NEWS, IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE
More businesses operate in a sector where dynamic pricing applies than you might imagine.
Matthew Fontaine Maury was a promising U.S. Navy Midshipman assigned to a desk job after a crippling injury. Far from wallowing in his misfortune, however, Maury took it upon himself to analyze all the available data regarding the passage of naval and commercial ships across the worlds oceans. After plotting and analyzing more than 1.2 million data points, he published the Wind and Current Chart of the North Atlantic, which resulted in huge efficiencies in journey times and navigation. Maury didnt publish it as an e-book, because his book was released in 1855. So anyone who thinks that big data is new is sorely mistaken. The foundation of real-time marketing using big data is yesterdays news. Its hundreds of years old. Whats new are the tools and techniques to sort, manage, and use the data. Further, big data is all about yesterdays news. What happened yesterday that we can capture, store, analyze, and use to make our business and its products and services more compelling? What are our customers buying, at what time of day, in what weather, on what device, with what form of payment, and in response to what stimulus? What else are they discussing? And how can we use that to inform our proposition and marketing tomorrow?
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same flight and there were only three tickets left at that price (who knows, there might have been 40 tickets left at tomorrows lower price!) Hoteliers are similarly enthusiastic users of data, and the more they can feed into the engine (preferably all of it), the more effective their marketing will be. More businesses operate in a sector where dynamic pricing applies than you might imagine. Data can empower businesses to propose spot offers and discounts and to give a salesperson the flexibility to strategically tweak pricing. The more data you collect on buyers sensitivity to pricing the better the results.
Today, the company employs extremely accurate long-term weather forecasters as part of its businessplanning process, and has seen results in efficiently managing its supply chain and meeting consumer demand. Its likely that your business has historical sales data. But are you cross-analyzing that with external environmental data to deliver new insights? Even the smallest coffee shop might increase sales by promoting a festive drink a few weeks early if it knows theres a cold snap coming. This is about using all the data you can lay your hands on, not just your own.
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Get buy-in
You must gain support both internally and externally for your plan. Your leadership team must support the customer and the whole plan, and understand the goals and objectives of the campaign. The last thing you want to do is get your customer fired up about a co-marketing effort, only to find out that your leadership team has other priorities and wont fund the campaign. Once internal support is secured, its time to engage your customers team, including senior executives, communications and PR teams, and the legal department, which will help secure approvals down the line. Youll have to sell your plan, because it will demand your customers time, which is in high demand within their own organization. Before you approach your customer, you should be able to answer the first question that most of them ask: Whats in it for me? Remind your customers leadership team that you are providing a great way for their experts to demonstrate thought leadership in their field. It will deliver positive exposure to their customers, build relationships, give access to products and programs, and create valuable networking connections between senior leadership at both companies.
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89% of B2B marketers cite customer testimonials as the most effective form of content marketing
This process can make or break trust with your customer. Numerous deliverables with many people involved means that things could quickly spiral out of control. Deliverables that havent been reviewed or approved could be released by accident, or the customer could start to feel taken advantage of if there are four people asking for their time to review something. Some ways to mitigate this are to: Consolidate review loops. Hold some projects for customer review until you have the majority of work that needs their review/approval. Identify one point of contact. The customer shouldnt have to contact one person for written content, another for video, a third for social, etc. And remember to help the customer out! Be aware of how much time theyre investing in helping you and ensure that time is reciprocated. Taking them out for a nice dinner never hurts. There is a lot of work involved in successfully marketing a customer story so it might pay to get an agency to do the heavy lifting. Look for one that you can build trust in and one that has a firm grip on all the customer marketing activities you want to undertake.
Work smart
It pays to work smart. You should use your customers time efficiently. For instance, you can get a lot of information from interviewing members of the business for a case study, and then repurpose this interview content for blogs, social content, and creative briefs for videos or ads. Consider all of the different content outlets that you plan to use when you create your interview plan.
Only 25% of B2B marketers use content marketing for customer retention
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Before you approach your customer, you should be able to answer the first question that most of them ask: Whats in it for me?
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dEAd MOUSE
You used to control the mouse. Are you ready for the mouse to control you? Natural interfaces, which are any human-to-machine interfaces, are moving inside the body. The implications for experience design are not to be ignored. It all started with the mouse. Doug Englebart died at age 88 on July 2, 2013. An electrical engineer responsible for a raft of original thinking concerning human cognition and computing, Doug gave the world many gifts, perhaps most notably was the computer mouse. Initially demonstrated as early as 1968, the mouse, in conjunction with the keyboard, has been our predominant tool for interaction with computers for more than 30 years. Shortly before Englebarts passing, a report was published in the February issue of Scientific Reports detailing an experiment in which researchers electronically linked the brains of pairs of rats, enabling them to communicate directly via implanted microelectrode arrays. The electrodes were implanted directly on the surface of the rats brains, and they enabled two-way communication via thoughts. In August, University of Washington researchers performed the first non-invasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.
With computer-tobrain interfaces a proven reality, are we ready for bionic, brain-to-brain experiences?
By September, the first mind-controlled bionic leg was demonstrated by Zac Vawter, a 32-year-old amputee at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. When Vawter wants to move the leg, a brain signal travels down his spinal cord and through peripheral nerves, and is picked up by electrodes in the bionic leg. A version should be available to more than 1 million Americans within five years. What would Englebart think of this shift toward NUI that not only surpasses the classic mouseclick, but actually leapfrogs touch, voice, and gesture navigation? With the computer-to-brain interfaces a proven reality, are we ready for bionic, brain-to-brain experiences? As technology becomes increasingly integrated into our daily lives, it is a logical next step that it will become embedded into our bodies. The cyborg gap is closing, and its only a matter of time before these advancements in mind control make their way into commercial ventures, with gaming and social
media at the top of the list. Rather than invest in a variety of devices each of which performs a specific set of tasks, people will be the devices, using internet connections to control and communicate with other people and things. NUI is not limited to consumer and/or infotainment applications. The focus on the way we productively work will intensify: the notion of the work desktop has been profoundly influenced by a broadening of users interaction expectations and preferences fuelled by an increasing challenge from the demands of Bring and Choose Your Own Device (BYOD/ CYOD) and flexible work style policies. When you consider the potential impact that brain-to-brain interfaces can have on collaboration, a vision of the future virtual workspace starts to come into focus.
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MEASURING INFLUENCE
Are algorithms the key to measuring influence, or are traditional methods still best?
Klout considers itself the standard for influence. Thats a big claim. The Klout Score, in one neat package, gives you a number from 1 to 100 that pinpoints your influence rating. If it were truly that simple, determining influence wouldnt be the subject of much ongoing debate. The debate normally starts with the question, just exactly what is influence? Until that is squared away, there is simply no right way of measuring it. Influence is many things and happens both online and offline. Klout and its peers only measure your online social influence so its missing a massive part of what Id define as true influence. Influence is also more than a numbers game. Lets be clear, quantitative measures are certainly part of it, have relevance, and make interesting reading. The size of your community, how often it interacts with you, when it does, by which preferred channels is valuable insight, but its not the be all and end all. Qualitative insight is essential for example, the tone, the relevance, or the context. Human interactions are complex and have many layers. This is where human insight is invaluable. It provides intelligence that cant (yet) be measured by an algorithm. There are also many traps in defining the sphere of influence that will deliver the results you need. An easy one to shout out is not to simply choose your influencers based on numbers. Just because an influencer has a large community it doesnt follow that they are a key influencer for what you are trying to achieve. This is, again, where the human touch is invaluable. Influencers change rapidly, and so any defined ecosystem may also constantly evolve. Determining who should be in it takes skill. Influence works in multiple directions where the PR wishes to influence a journalist, the journalist will similarly influence the PR. Where one spokesperson works for one sphere, they may be less influential in another.
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STATS
Only about one in four (26%) agreed that they are able to measure their social activities. Social Media Marketing Industry Report Socialmediaexaminer. com Nearly nine out of ten (88%) of PR practitioners agree that output alone is not a sufficient measure of PR in any context. Around half (53%) of PRs say they measure and evaluate media output using qualitative metrics. Nine out of ten (91%) agree that measurements must be transparent, understandable, and replicable to be valid, suggesting that there is a strong need for sensible measurements in PR. Six out of ten (59%) agree that they always demonstrate the principles of best practice in measurement and evaluation to their client or employer, with a quarter (27%) disagreeing. Eighty-five percent of PRs would not use a measurement tool if they did not know how it worked, 82% if they didnt know how it was calculated.
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Successful content communicates without selling which helps brands build powerful customer relationships.
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CONTENT IS KING
Its a simple concept, but it isnt necessarily simple to execute. Marketers struggle with an abundance of choice, a lack of data or insight, disparate publishing systems, and perhaps most importantly old habits.
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Step 2: Help your audience find your story Your strategy must include online and offline channels how does your story fit into advertising, PR, events, websites, banner ads, etc.? Amplify your story across channels promote and sell the story, not the product. By creating a compelling story that builds curiosity, your customers will inevitably find their way to your brand and website. How? Theres no single recipe for success, but you can start by: Promoting posts on social channels. Pushing your story to the front page of your website. Making sure that the right people in your organization know about the story, and are ready to talk about it. Using it for PR, case studies, and speaking engagements. Linking to it in the footer of your email. Including it in company newsletters and email programs. Step 3: Engage Every hour, enough information is consumed by internet traffic to fill 7 million DVDs. And just a few years from now, itll be four times larger than that. Search engines dont want you to pump the web full of useless or uninteresting content consumers need content that will delight and engage.
Social media also factors into rankings. You dont need to wait for someone to respond on your companys social channels find people who have a similar interest and are active online. Tell them about your story, and ask them about theirs.
Start with one great story and tell it ten different ways
STATS
Mobile search queries will overtake desktop search by 2015 76% of marketers who have strategic SEO campaigns in place invest in content marketing; 92% of marketers say content creation is either very effective or somewhat effective for SEO
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The Asia Pacific region dominates the social media landscape, despite the fact it has one of the lowest internet penetration rates in the world.
Any company with serious global ambitions is highly likely to either have launched or shortly plan to launch in the Asian markets. And its easy to see why against a backdrop of a stagnant global economy, the Asia Pacific markets have growth potential. Not only that, but the sheer size of Asia Pacific more than 4 billion people in Asia with more than 1 billion (28%) of them on the internet means that there is potentially a huge, easy-to-reach audience for your product. However, for marketers this opportunity is not without difficulties not least of which is the cultural and socioeconomic differences around the region. At Metia, we have compiled a crib sheet to highlight the key opportunities and challenges for marketers entering this diverse part of the world. Considerations for a digital campaign in APAC:
Is your content optimized for mobile and smartphone use? Mobile is very popular in APAC nearly 2.5 billion of the worlds 4.3 billion mobile phone users this year will be in Asia-Pacific. An average of 80% of the developed countries in Asia are using a smartphone compared to 60% in the US. Video consumption on smartphones is especially high in APAC. If in doubt, test it. Paid social content or display advertising can be a cost-effective way to trial messaging in different regions to see which resonates best with your target audience.
Language
Do you need to translate any content? Does your audience in Greater China prefer simplified or traditional Chinese? Understanding and catering to these language preferences are vital. Dont forget your website if youre going to run multilanguage campaigns, ensure that your audience can digest the content in their preferred language once they hit your website or risk high bounce rates. It is also vital for local SEO. Before committing to local language web pages or social media properties, make sure you have enough resource to update them and respond to any issues or your efforts may backfire.
Channels
The secret sauce for any marketing campaign is communicating it through the most appropriate medium: Email is popular in Asia Pacific especially for B2B but delivery rates can be low. Counter this by appropriately localizing your email content to specific audience segments. Increase open and clicks by ensuring your email is optimized for viewing on a mobile or smartphone, and ensure your emails comply with regional communication and data protection laws. This is especially important in China.
Content
Does your content resonate well in Asia in terms of messaging, imagery, language, colors? Research and localize where necessary to make your campaigns more effective and ensure you do not commit a cultural faux pas. Consider different ways of conveying your message. Often imagery resonates better, and with such a diversity of languages, content such as infographics are an effective way to communicate to many people at the same time.
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Social media is huge in the region, and the usual suspects of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are popular here. However, there are differences between how they are used for instance, Facebook is used in many Asia Pacific countries for business more than informal conversations. There are also many regional platforms (especially for China), so make sure you do your research and know where and how your target audience is talking. Mobile is extremely popular, so brands are getting creative in using this medium as part of their marketing mix especially gaming. Also hugely popular are messenger services such as WhatsApp and Line, so it is well worth considering if you can leverage them as part of your messaging.
In summary, there is a huge potential for marketing your brand in APAC using digital, but to be successful it requires a specific approach. Five tips to take into account before launching your digital campaign in Asia: 1. Avoid the one size fits all approach. Research your audience and tailor messages accordingly, including translation to local languages. 2. Take cultural considerations into account. 3. Identify where and how your audience communicates. 4. Research local holidays when scheduling your campaign. There are varied cultural, national, and religious festivals. For example, Chinese New Year is a huge holiday across many countries, so campaigns shouldnt go out before or during this period. 5. Most importantly, try it, test it, and tweak it. We recommend taking a phased approach when marketing in APAC for the first time.
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Globalization
Global events like the Winter Olympics and the FIFA World Cup are going to drive a spike in global backdrops and a celebration of diversity in styles, tones, and patterns.
Person-ality
Big brands will mimic individual real personalities by producing campaigns that look personal. Camera angles will mimic selfies and Instagram filters, and food photography will take center stage as a reflection of popular social content. Fonts will mimic handwriting.
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BE A BETTER CLIENT
THE dESIGN REvIEw
The most exciting time to be working with an agency can be during review meetings when creative concepts are presented. Leading up to those meetings, you (the client) have provided a project brief and defined the campaign goals, and the design team has applied their experience, intuition, and insight to produce concepts. The first design review is followed by rounds of revision, accompanied by debates over approaches and elements until the process concludes with an approved design. The nature of those debates is what were talking about in this post. to guide the conversation about the specifics. If you dive into the small adjustments that need to be made before providing the overall impression, the designer loses sight of the big picture and business goals. Do: Ask the right questions Right Question: Does this meet our goals? Wrong question: Do I like this? Assumptions are the enemy of learning, so if you arent sure about something, ask the designer. Designers will be prepared to explain choices made in the design, and their explanation could be delightfully unexpected. If you dont like the color orange, ask the design team why they chose orange, and how using orange in the design will help the design succeed. Dont: Hold back The last thing we want is for you to politely tolerate a design that you have serious reservations about, only to bring your concerns up at the last minute. Talk about concerns early in the process to avoid big problems further down the line.
There are two types of criticism that come during design reviews
Objective Criticism: This criticism is tied to tangible facts and data. For example, if you are presented with a design with the wrong version of your company logo, it is a fact that the logo should be updated. Objective feedback is specific, explicit, and trackable. A good sign that your feedback is objective is that its simple to explain how and why a change is being requested. Subjective Criticism: This criticism is tied to intangible impressions and preferences. Design and art are cousins, but design is not just art; design is a business tool. Subjective criticism is harder for designers to navigate because yes, you are the client, but its difficult to discern if your rejection of orange is applicable to the target audience. Subjective criticism is harder to explain. Whether the criticism is objective or subjective, it can always be constructive. Here are some tips to give useful feedback to designers: Do: Start with your overall impression Before you dig into the finer details and feedback on a design, provide a big picture assessment of your take on the effectiveness of the design. Overall, I think we got the concept right/missed the boat will help
Dont: Prescribe solutions Its one thing to say that the buy now button is getting lost in the design, and its another thing to say put the buy now button here. Tell the design team what they need to accomplish, and then let them determine the best way to accomplish it. Good designers have years of experience and training, and while it can be difficult to defer to someone else, its the right call when it comes to such a specialized field.
Bottom line
The design process is highly collaborative, and the goal of everyone involved is to launch a killer campaign that produces results for your business. Its the agencys responsibility to collect and respond to feedback effectively, and its the clients responsibility to give feedback that is actionable, clear, and driven by business outcomes.
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RIGHT QUESTION
Do I like this?
wRONG QUESTION
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HTML5
Video staR
Website development and content consumption have been forever changed. Gone are the days of installing special software to watch video, or to listen to audio. New and innovative experiences are now made possible with HTML5. We have seen a steady increase in the interest in and adoption of HTML5, which benefits both developers and consumers. With HTML5, user experiences have been improved, and innovative experiences have been created. HTML5 expands on the capabilities of HTMLa programming language that many developers already use. HTML5 is easy to use and is becoming a common development language. It can be used to display content across the web in browsers, smartphones, tablets, Smart TVs, and more. It has native support for video, audio, apps, and more. It can even be used to detect a users location, which can provide personal experiences. The Art of Stars website uses HTML5 to track IP addresses. It translates the IP address into a physical location, and then displays the constellation above the users location. There are other Android, iOS, and Windows Phone applications that do this, but Art of Stars is natively supported by web browsers. This is unique because it doesnt require a user to download an application, and everything is done within the browser through HTML5. There are a few other reasons why people are choosing to develop with HTML5, too. Instead of building a native application for a specific device, developers have been producing hybrid HTML5 apps, which can save time and money. As an alternative to an application for every platform, HTML5 can be used across multiple devices and systems. It does not require manual updates because they can be made automatically, which ensures that the user experience is always current, both on mobile and in the browser. There are some HTML5 apps that can only be displayed within browsers on desktops or laptops. These applications are more advanced than what can be used on mobile. Some of the advanced features include fully immersive 3-D worlds. For example, Three Dreams of Black lets users not only hear a song, but also see it. They fly through and interact with a virtual environment. With the advances in HTML5, its only a matter of time until the smartphone experience catches up to what is available on the desktop. One of the coolest examples of what can be done on the desktop with HTML5 is This Shell. Users have two minutes to put a puzzle together, and instead of images used for the puzzle, pieces of a music video are used. If the puzzle is put together in time, the user can download the song for free. This is an intriguing approach to marketing, and only possible with HTML5. By creating engaging content for consumers, developers can offer special incentives after someone interacts with their brand. During the next year, expect to see companies pushing new boundaries in user experience with HTML5. While many devices and browsers support HTML5, there will be a surge in HTML5 as W3C finalizes the standards for the language in 2014. Additionally, technology think tank Gartner predicts that HTML5 will become a mainstream enterprise application development environment in this year. Within the next year, expect to see the adoption of HTML5 continue to increase, and prepare for some amazing online experiences. To learn more about what can be done with HTML5, view the current working draft of the language from the World Wide Web Consortium. Also, keep an eye out for the standards for the language to be finalized later this year.
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About Metia
In business for 25 years, Metia is a leading marketing strategy, design, and development firm with global offices in London, Singapore, New York, Seattle, and Austin. We know the technology sector: the innovators; the trends; their applications; the use cases; their business and cultural implications. Metia delivers programs that influence key decision makers, deliver fantastic user experiences, develop deep customer relationships and build vocal communities of advocates. EMEA/ASIA www.Metia.com www.twitter.com/Metia Tel: 44 (0) 20 3100 3500 E: info@Metia.com NORTH AMERICA www.Metia.com www.twitter.com/MetiaUSA Tel: 425.629.5896 E: infoUSA@Metia.com
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