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  • How to Make a Love Connection Between Brands and Consumers

    We humans tend to fall in love pretty easily. But it takes some work to get the objects of our affection to fall in love with us. The same is true for brands. Marketers really, really, really want us to love their products. Because then they know we'll be there (with our credit cards) when they need us. Researchers at USC''s Marshall School of Business recently published a study of consumer relationships with brands in the Journal of Consumer Psychology . Fast Company 's Jennifer Miller does a nice job of summarizing the paper. Here is a key takeaway: the three things that make buyers fall in love: 1. Enticing Self Benefits. Park says that products must entice consumers through the senses. Is it aesthetically pleasing to look at it? Does it sound good, smell good, feel good? 2. Enabling Self Benefits. The product should make people’s lives more comfortable and convenient. "It’s about functional pleasure and letting consumers know what kind of life they can live by using a brand," says Park. 3. Enriching Self Benefits. This is the most important. "The consumer relates to the brand through shared values or principles," says Park. In other words, the message must resonate deeply with the consumer’s sense of self. Park points to Nike’s slogan, "Just Do It" and Apple’s "Think Different." The former is about not making excuses. The latter is about ingenuity and creativity. These are ideals that connect with consumers; they create a psychological bond. Read Researchers Explain How Brands Make You Fall in Love here .
  • Shoppers Looking to Make Deals, Fear Their Purchasing Power is Eroding

    Just because inflation hasn't hit doesn't mean consumers feel like they have purchasing power. A lot of consumers, in fact, may be feeling that their dollars aren't going as far as they should. At Marketing Profs , Ayaz Nanji points us to a recent Parago survey in which 42% of consumers responded that they have lost purchasing power over the last year. To be honest, we're not so sure their sentiment is accurate, but it does seem to have an impact on their decisions. From Parago: With this perception of lost power, consumers are looking for more deals. That makes sense. And they want to receive those deals in the places they hang out. Those places are online: Look at more survey results from Paragon here . And read Ayaz Nanji's summary, at Marketing Profs, here .
  • McKinsey Quarterly: 'On Demand' Marketing

    Living in the age of digital disruption, we are finding it hard to keep up with how the interaction between consumers and businesses--not to mention the interaction between different businesses--is changing. At the McKinsey Quarterly , Peter Dahlström and David Edelman try to prepare us for the very nature of marketing will change over the next few years. They write that the driver for change will be the user, the consumer, and how she engages digitally. The developments pushing marketing experiences even further include the growth of mobile connectivity, better-designed online spaces created with the powerful new HTML5 Web language, the activation of the Internet of Things in many devices through inexpensive communications tags and microtransmitters,1 and advances in handling “big data.” Consumers may soon be able to search by image, voice, and gesture; automatically participate with others by taking pictures or making transactions; and discover new opportunities with devices that augment reality in their field of vision (think Google glasses). As these digital capabilities multiply, consumer demands will rise in four areas: 1. Now: Consumers will want to interact anywhere at any time. 2. Can I: They will want to do truly new things as disparate kinds of information (from financial accounts to data on physical activity) are deployed more effectively in ways that create value for them. 3. For me: They will expect all data stored about them to be targeted precisely to their needs or used to personalize what they experience. 4. Simply: They will expect all interactions to be easy. Dahlström and Edelman provide a nice storyboard to illustrate the way they see marketing working in the near future. Here is an excerpt: View the full visualization, and read the article here .
  • MarketingProfs: Tapping Into Potential of Big Data

    We are living in the age of BIG DATA , though it may still be the dawning of that age. AT MarketingProfs , Verónica Maria Jarski suggests that many global businesses have a communication problem. When different departments are not working hand in hand, the potential benefits of having all this new data are not realized. Jarski presents an infographic to make her point (note: this is focused on marketing and sales departments, but we think there is a larger lesson for organizations here): See the full size graphic here .
  • Coca-Cola CIO Discusses Integrating IT with Marketing

    One often overlooked aspect of digital disruption at large companies is the extent to which various departments have had to engage more with IT. No longer does it make sense to see IT workers as servants to the people who are doing "the real work" to build up an organization. In an interview with McKinsey Quarterly , Coca-Cola CIO Ed Steinke speaks of getting his staff and marketing more integrated. Here is an excerpt: McKinsey : How is the role of IT changing at Coca-Cola, and, with it, your role as CIO? Ed Steinike : IT and marketing are very close partners at Coca-Cola today—more so, I think, than at most other companies—and that’s the way it should be. Coke is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on digital marketing, and that number will, no doubt, continue to rise. Almost all of that spending is IT-related. This development calls for a broader CIO role. It’s not enough to be an operational back-office CIO running the systems. It’s also not enough to be a process CIO reinventing the supply chain and transforming support functions. Important as those two roles are, they need to be complemented by what I call the revenue-generator CIO or business-level CIO. McKinsey : What were the beginnings of the strategic partnership between marketing and IT at Coca-Cola? Ed Steinike : Our marketers started to think more seriously about digital channels five years ago or so. As mobile adoption expanded, they started to build a direct connection with our customers by pushing mobile applications for social-media sites and our loyalty programs, such as My Coke Rewards. Marketing was driving a lot of it through its own advertising and digital agencies while IT, at the time, was struggling to be relevant. We were viewed as a back-office function, not as one of the strategic leaders and partners in our digital-marketing efforts. I believed we should be bringing ideas to marketing instead of marketing coming to us for creative solutions and more often than not getting the answer, “Sorry. We don’t have the people to do these things.” Our first step was simply to offer traditional operating, hosting, and security for the sites and platforms the agencies were building. We did that quite well and now have over 600 consumer sites hosted in one platform environment with great data protection. Read the full interview here .
  • ExactTarget: Super Bowl Miss

    CBS set new records for viewers of the Super Bowl during our de facto national holiday last Sunday. But most of the advertisers who helped make it a great evening for CBS failed to fully realize how consumers are using technology beyond the television to experience big events, says ExactTarget 's Jeffrey Rohrs . Rohrs lists Oreo as a key exception: Sure, the press today is giddy with praise over Oreo's quick-thinking, news-jacking, real-time marketing effort -- a picture of an Oreo in the dark that has been retweeted nearly 15,000 times as of this writing. It has led many to say that "Oreo's Tweet Won the Super Bowl." There's no arguing that what Oreo did was fast, witty, and a helluva lot less expensive than their "Whisper Fight" Super Bowl commercial which was the only ad driving viewers to an Instagram page during the entire game. The real reason Oreo won the #BrandBowl, however, was because both their free and paid efforts sought to build and engage audiences. Their ads weren't just "one & done," they walk away from Super Bowl XLVII with bigger followings on Instagram and Twitter--and those are audiences they can activate long after the Ravens' victory has faded from memory. Rohrs offers some key lessons to other marketers and company leaders here . And ExactTarget's graphics team put together this infographic to drive home the point:
  • Time Spent Using Mobile Apps Rises 35%

    Americans watch a lot of television. But our addiction to our smartphones may be cutting into our quality tube time. According to eMarketer (off of data from Flurry Analytics ) time spent with mobile apps rose 35% over the last year. So mobile apps have leapfrogged time spent on the web. Which suggests that the shift in ad dollars to digital will end up in the mobile space. Even when consumers are spending time on the web, more and more they are using a phone or tablet to do so: Read Time Spent With Mobile Apps Rivals TV here .
  • Paolo Cardini's Call for More Monotasking

    Watching the below Ted Talk from designer Paolo Cardini makes us wonder whether we would be a more productive society if we encouraged less multi-tasking? But then, even if we wanted to, are we too far down the road of distractions and constant high-tech engagement to put Cardini's ideas of "monotasking" into action? Either was, Cardini makes an interesting point about efficiency and focus:
  • Mobile's Growth and Impact on Marketing and Media Use

    With new tablets on the market and smartphones all but taking over the phone market completely in the U.S., Americans' commercial interface of habit is only getting more mobile. So while this year desktop web traffic remains king, it is down to 71.5% of all web traffic and falling. Falling because mobile is rising at incredible levels. Take a look at the time-per-day growth in this chart from eMarketer : Time is not the only way to measure this shift. A growing portion of internet traffic is coming from smartphones and tablets. Net Marketshare put mobile’s share of global browsing traffic at 10.3% in October 2012. This was the first time mobile had topped 10% of all browsing for the web analytics firm, and its advance might even be greater, as the figure “actually underestimates the total amount of browsing share on mobile devices, since [Net Marketshare’s] sample does not contain data on apps, like maps.” In markets such as the US with high indices of smart device penetration, an even greater portion of internet traffic comes from smartphones and tablets. Online and mobile ad network Chitika estimated mobile’s share of web traffic in North America at 28% as of June 2012. Read Trends for 2013: Making Mobile-First a Priority here .
  • MarketWatch: "We Ruined Thanksgiving," and Other Things You Won't Hear from Stores About Black Friday

    It seems like we are being pressured to eat our turkey a little faster this year. With Black Friday starting on Thursday many places, it will be interesting to see how effective stores are at getting shoppers to jump from the table and into stores. But we should be a little skeptical about what our favorite retailers are telling us, says AnnaMaria Andriotis . At MarketWatch , Andriotis lists ten things that "stores won't say about Black Friday." The scariest one to us is #10: "We'll try to keep you in the store all day." Shudder. It used to be that shoppers who arrived at stores when they opened on Black Friday would get first dibs on the best deals on electronics, appliances and other in-demand items. That’s no longer guaranteed. A growing number of retailers are introducing a wave of doorbusters that occur every few hours on the big day — and leading up to it. Wal-Mart will kick off its specials on toys, gaming, home and apparel at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, followed by specials on brand name electronics at 10 p.m., and another series of discounts at 5 a.m. on items including TVs, jewelry and tires. And despite opening at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Target will have doorbusters on some electronics, toys and tech gadgets at 4 a.m. the next day. For shoppers, getting the best deals will come down to strategizing, says Bieri. They should consider keeping a list of the items they’re looking for and checking the circulars to see what stores are discounting them and at what time. Retailers say they want to make their stores the go-to destination for Black Friday, and they’d like shoppers to continue coming to the store throughout the day. Stores tend to staff up for Black Friday, paying more employees to man the registers and keep the floors stocked, says Green. But in previous years, many employees have been idle after the early morning rush when traffic would slow down, he says. By rolling out a series of doorbusters, they’re hoping to prevent this scenario. Read the full list here .
  • The Benefits of Handing Over Control to Consumers and Employees

    In the digital age, with the flow of information speeding up all the time, managers of large companies seem to have less control over the behavior of their employees and their customers. This can be rather daunting, but Tim Leberecht , chief marketing officer at frog , says it should not be. As a marketer, he learned long ago that he could not control how consumers thought of products. "Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room," says Leberecht. But thanks to "hyperconnectivity," marketers and brand strategists have "more control over the loss of control than ever before." In this Ted Talk , Leberecht gives advice on how to design for this "loss of control," and benefit in the end.
  • eMarketer on the Rapid Rise of E-Commerce in China

    eMarketer is projecting that 220 million consumers in China will make online purchases this year. That will exceed estimates of U.S. online buyers by almost 30%, but it will soon look fairly small. In four years time, eMarketer expects 434.4 million people in China will make purchases online. And here is a picture of what eMarketer expects to happen with business-to-consumer online sales in China through 2016: From the report: China’s fast B2C ecommerce sales growth puts it far ahead of any other country for which eMarketer creates estimates. China will continue to hold the top spot for ecommerce sales growth throughout eMarketer’s forecast period, even as growth in the country slows to 22.8% by 2016. Stilll there are plenty of nuances to the ecommerce market in China. Westerners mostly shop online for convenience, but in China the kick for the click is driven much more by availability and value. Shopping online means access to brands and goods otherwise not available beyond Tier 2 cities. “Try buying the latest Sony camera or a limited-edition Louis Vuitton bag somewhere like Datong without going online,” said Tim Schlick, senior vice president of strategy and market development for Asia-Pacific at Thoughtful Media Group in Shanghai. And foreign internet brands face hurdles entering China. The country’s ecommerce market, like its search, social networking, instant messaging and gaming sectors, is currently dominated by a handful of local giants. And while online shopping certainly is on the rise, China still faces rampant piracy and counterfeiting problems. Other challenges include ruthless competition and price wars, marketing and supply-chain costs, and uncertain taxation policies. Read China's Ecommerce Market Joins the Majors here .
  • Lessons from Successful Young(er) Entrepreneurs

    Shama Kabani , CEO of The Marketing Zen Group , went to a gathering of some of the top entrepreneurs under 30 years old, and she came back with some important insights. Namely, Kabani realized that she, and all of us, have a lot to learn from young business leaders. At Inc. , she shares five lessons she took away from the experience: 1. There is no "they." 2. Hustle is a muscle. 3. Timing is everything. 4. Entrepreneurs have 99 problems, but money ain't one. 5. We still need greater diversity. Here is more on #4: If you ask non-entrepreneurs what one of the greatest challenges to starting a company is, many might answer with an obvious one: funding. But, out of all the colorful stories and stumbling blocks I heard about from the 99 other Empact100 entrepreneurs, a lack of funding wasn't mentioned a single time. In fact, the general consensus was that there is plenty of funding available for the right ideas. And much can be accomplished just by bootstrapping and making smart choices. Entrepreneurship certainly has a lot of challenges, but a lack of money rarely ever hinders a great idea. Read What 99 Gen-Y Entrepreneurs Taught Me About Business here .
  • Infographic: Bot Traffic Online

    Here at The Watch, we are on alert for signs of primary ad spending shifting over to the online world where so many of us consume the vast majority of our media. But that shift is going to require significantly more knowledge of the impact of online advertising on consumers. And even some additional knowledge of consumer behavior online. It would seem then, that the presence of bots posing as consumers would get in the way of acquiring the necessary data, or full trust in the data we do have. Solve Media has put together the following infographic on the problem of bot traffic online. ( Click here for the full size version) Hat tip MarketingVox .
  • McKinsey Quarterly: Word-of-Mouth and Reaching the Rising Consumer Class in Emerging Markets

    As global companies work to connect with consumers in emerging economies, they have to be more cognizant of different buyer behavior in countries like India and Brazil. At McKinsey Quarterly , Yuval Atsmon , Jean-Frederic Kuentz , and Jeongmin Seong point to a few areas where these companies may need to shift their approach. The emerging consumer classes in the BRIC nations, for example, are influenced much more widely, the author's argue, by word of mouth: An important explanation for word of mouth’s outsized role is that in a land of consumer “firsts”—more than 60 percent of Chinese auto purchasers are buying their first car, and the comparable figure for laptops is 30 to 40 percent—few brands have been around long enough to ensure loyalty. Seeing a friend use a product is reassuring. Indeed, the less a consumer knows about a product and the more conspicuous the choice, the more the consumer is likely to care about the opinions of others. “The more people I know who are using a product,” consumers reason, “the more confident I can be that it will not fall apart, malfunction, or otherwise embarrass me.” The presence (or absence) of that confidence shapes the group of brands that consumers choose to evaluate. It is particularly influenced by the postpurchase experience of friends and family, along with their loyalty to a brand. Often, word of mouth is a local phenomenon in emerging markets, partly because of the simple reality that emerging-market consumers generally live close to friends and family. In addition, word of mouth’s digital forms, which transcend geography and are growing rapidly in emerging markets, still have more limited reach and credibility there than in developed ones. According to our annual survey of Chinese consumers, just 53 percent found online recommendations credible—a far cry from the 93 percent who trusted recommendations from friends and family. That same survey showed that only 23 percent of Chinese consumers acquired information from the Internet about products they bought. For food, beverage, and consumer electronics consumers in the United States and the United Kingdom, that figure is around 60 percent. Word of mouth’s relatively local nature means that companies in emerging markets are likely to reap higher returns if they pursue a strategy of geographic focus than if they spread marketing resources around thinly (targeting all big cities nationwide, for example). By attaining substantial market share in a cluster of cities in close proximity, a company can unleash a virtuous cycle: once a brand reaches a tipping point—usually at least a 10 to 15 percent market share—word of mouth from additional users quickly boosts its reputation, helping it to win yet more market share, without necessarily requiring higher marketing expenditures. The authors go on to outline two other key factors in emerging market consumers' behavior. Here is a look at how they interact: Read Building brands in emerging markets here .
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