order
Recommendations From Friends Are Most Influential but TV Still Ranks Highly
source: http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/television/data-dive-us-tv-ad-spend-and-influence-22524/
So why do advertisers keep pouring money into TV, even amidst the rise of everything digital, and even as audience numbers plateau? If the preponderance of research is to be trusted, TV is among the most influential and most favored advertising media – if not the most highly rated. Following is a select list of studies touting TV advertising’s influence (most confined to the US), in reverse chronological order.Social Media Is Changing How Supply And Demand Works For Big Brands
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-manufacturing-2012-12
Many companies see social media as just another marketing and communications tool. A particularly effective one maybe, but just another of many.
According to Erich Joachimsthaler, founder and CEO of Vivaldi Partners, they’re missing out on the biggest source of value from these platforms. In a recent report, he outlines how brands can use social media to change their entire business, not just their marketing.
“Where I see the biggest opportunity is to think about your entire business model. There’s so much of this social information that is unstructured information, and consumers make 75 percent of it,” Joachimsthaler says. “If you want to think about your business, if you want to create value and competitive advantage, it’s about thinking about that information and penetrating it at every step of your value chain.”
One of the best examples of this, which Joachimsthaler has studied in depth, is Burberry.
The first thing that’s allowed them to change their business is the sheer size of their social reach. “Burberry has about 15 million — and that’s growing rapidly — Facebook likes. This is an astounding figure,” Joachimsthaler says. “This is astounding because even Nike is not as strong, and Nike is a $15-18 billion dollar company. Burberry is at about $3 billion. So it’s a massive difference, the two companies don’t compare.”
They built that following by offering something useful. People on Facebo! ok can s ee Burberry fashion shows before the celebrities who actually sit in front of the catwalk.
But what’s truly innovative is what they do with those likes.
“What Burberry does is, it has made those videos shoppable. You can click on the particular garment and you can basically make an order on the spot. So Burberry can collate the orders from 15 million people. They haven’t manufactured the product yet in China, but they have taken the orders, they know exactly how many people have ordered what,” Joachimsthaler says. “They already have my money in the bank. 15 million times $200; that’s a lot of money in the bank. When they have the orders, they can then send the order to China, manufacture it, and within two weeks they can either deliver it to your home, or you can have it delivered to a store and you can buy additional garments.”
For a taste-driven and occasionally fickle industry, this saves a tremendous amount of money. “This changes the entire value chain,” Joachimsthaler says. “The fashion business is fraught with forecasting. You forecast what will be bought in the next year, you need to produce them, manufacture them in China, there are inventory problems, there are logistics problems, then you put it in the store, the thing doesn’t sell, if it doesn’t sell you have to send it to the outlet store and mark it down.
Burberry avoids a great deal of that.
There’s huge potential here that’s yet to be realized, and it could be a game-changer for the industry. We’ve only seen the beginning, Joachimsthaler argues. Someday, companies like Burberry could operate with a fraction of their inventory, and never have to mark anything down.
It’s a tremendous innovation in operations, and one that will have a large impact going forward, possibly even beyond the fashion industry.
IBM brings the fight to counterfeiters with nano-sized authentication methods (video)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/04/ibm-brings-the-fight-to-counterfeiters-with-nano-sized-authentic/
As counterfeiters continue to up their game, technology’s quest for the ultimate method of proving authenticity goes on. We’ve seen ideas at the nano level before, but IBM thinks its latest research might be so difficult to reverse engineer, that it’s impossible for forgers to reproduce. IBM scientist Dr. Heiko Wolf explains that the basic principle involves using the surface tension of water to orient nanorods on a stamp, which can then be printed onto any surface. These nanorods are so small that gravity alone isn’t enough to place the particles into predetermined patterns, such as corporate logos. IBM’s researchers have also patented a related nano-patterning method that uses fluorescent spheres that can take the color red, blue or green. These then arrange themselves in a completely random order, which is mathematically so difficult to replicate it’s known as PUF (physically uncloanable function). Both methods can be applied to a broad selection of objects, making them ideal candidates for anti-counterfeit detection for everything from diamonds to passports — all that’s needed to verify authenticity is an optical microscope. Don’t get your Picasso out of the vault just yet though, as it’s estimated that it’ll be another five years or so before the technology will find its way to market.
Source: IBM Research
Guess What Percent Of Black Friday Online Sales Came From Twitter Referrals?
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/black-friday-online-sales-from-twitter-referrals-2012-11
What percent of online sales on Black Friday do you think came from Twitter referrals?
How about Facebook?
While you’re pondering those questions, here are some other factoids from a report on Black Friday online sales by IBM:
- The average Black Friday online shopper bought 5.6 items per order. That’s down 13% from last year. It’s also down 40% from Friday, November 16th, a week earlier. Hard to know what to make of that.
- The average shopping “session” length was 6 minutes and 39 seconds. That’s down about 10% from last year. Compare that to the average hellish shopping session in a physical store, and you’ll see why ecommerce is continuing to grow as a percent over overall retail sales.
- The “conversion rate” of online shoppers–the percentage of those who visited the site who actually bought something–was 4.58%. That’s up 9% from last year.
- Mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) accounted for 16% of sales. That’s up from 10% last year.
- Mobile devices accounted for 24% of site traffic. That’s up from 14% last year.
- iPads accounted for 10% of site traffic, up from 5% last year.
- iPhones accounted for 9% of site traffic, up from 5% last year.
- Android phones and tablets accounted for 5.5% of site traffic, up from 4% last year.
The key observations here would seem to be:
- Mobile is ! continui ng to grow rapidly as a percentage of traffic and sales, but it’s not taking over by any means. 6 years into the smartphone era, with smartphones now accounting for more than 55% of U.S. handsets, traffic to mobile sites (including traffic from tablets) is still less than 25% of overall traffic.
- Apple devices continue to crush Android devices in terms of commerce engagement. Android users just don’t seem to do all that much with their gadgets.
And now to social referrals…
It wasn’t long ago that many people were arguing that Facebook was eventually going to be bigger than Google. Word of mouth, after all, is the most powerful form of marketing known to man. And people lived on Facebook, so they would soon be shopping on Facebook. And so forth.
Well, so far, anyway, that ain’t happening.
- Only 0.68% of Black Friday online sales came from Facebook referrals–two-thirds of one percent. That was a decline of 1% from last year.
And how about Twitter?
A couple of years ago, people were excited about Twitter’s potential as a commerce platform, too.
But Twitter’s impact on ecommerce, it seems, is zero.
Not “basically zero.”
Zero.
- Commerce site traffic from Twitter accounted for exactly 0.00% of Black Friday traffic. That was down from 0.02% last year.
So much for the idea that Twitter or Facebook’s business models are going to have much to do with commerce.
SEE ALSO: Here’s Why You Will Instantly Dump Your Cable Company To Get Google Fiber
Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
Huge Bank Buys 8,500 iPads — Chooses Apple Over Microsoft At Employees’ Insistence
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/bank-buys-8500-ipads-2012-11
Apple still hasn’t made much of a commitment to selling into and serving big companies, at least relative to traditional corporate IT vendors like Microsoft, but Apple’s products continue to sell themselves.
British bank Barclays just placed an order for 8,500 iPads for its branch network, Matt Brian of The Next Web reports. This is believed to be the largest single order placed in the UK.
The company says it reviewed other tablet options but went with iPad because its employees insisted on it.
The bank wants to use an app called “Mortgage Brain” that was developed by a bank consortium and will allow branch employees to better serve customers.
The IR reseller who handled the iPad order says that it is seeing “increased uptake” of Apple products among other corporate clients. Apple has often talked about the “consumerization of the enterprise,” in which employees drive corporate purchases, as being a key trend driving its business. This trend shows no signs of slowing.
That such a large order was placed for iPads on the heels of the launch of Microsoft’s Surface tablet and Windows 8 doesn’t bode well for Microsoft. Microsoft now finally has a tablet in market, so when customers choose Apple or Android equipment, it’s no longer simply a matter of Microsoft not having a product to sell.
Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
Zara Has Fundamentally Changed Fashion And There’s No Going Back
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-zara-is-changing-fashion-forever-2012-11
Fast-fashion retailer Zara is on a mission to take over the world, and in the process it has changed the whole fabric of the industry.
Zara’s strategy involves stocking very little and updating collections often. Instead of other brands that only update once a season, Zara restocks with new designs twice a week, reported Suzy Hansen at the New York Times.
That strategy works two ways, according to Hansen. First, it encourages customers to come back to the store often. It also means that if the shopper wants to buy something, he or she feels that they have to in order to guarantee it won’t sell out.
As a result of its massive success, Zara is making luxury retailers pretty nervous. Zara tries to build their stores as close as possible to the luxury boutiques like Stella McCartney and Chanel. Meanwhile, those retailers are trying to stay far away from the fast-fashion company.
“They broke up a century-old biannual cycle of fashion,” an analyst told Hansen. “Now, pretty much half of the high-end fashion companies” — Prada and Louis Vuitton, for example — “make four to six collections instead of two each year. That’s absolutely because of Zara.”
Another important way that Zara has impacted the fashion is by negating the idea that expensive clothes are more desirable. Kate Middleton has often been photographed in the brand, and getting something chic for a steal is something to brag about.
Zara also fits in with another trend: today’s demanding consumer.
Now that shoppers can get what they want from virtually any channel for a variety of prices, they’re becoming much more discerning about what they want.
That means that a company that sells high fashion for low prices and offers constant new merchandise is set to do well in today’s marketplace, and other retailers should be rushing to emulate Zara’s model.
DON’T MISS: 19 Years In The Evolution Of The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show >
Please follow Retail on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
You Can Now Buy Wine from Amazon
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5958806/you-can-now-buy-wine-from-amazon
Books, hahaha! Streaming video? Whatever. But wine, the blood of Bacchus, harbinger of groping and maybe more? Now that’s what we’re talking about, Amazon—get dirt cheap bottles of wino sent straight to your door, you lush.
Starting today, anyone in California, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and the District of Columbia can get up to six bottles in one order, with a shipping cost of just $10. You’ve got your reds, your sparklings, and you bet your silky bottom you can chug a rosé from Bezos, too. All in all, Amazon’s now selling over a thousand kinds of wine. Some are just nine bucks.
You’ll have to get an adult to sign for your shipment at the door, and you can’t get bubbly sent to an Amazon Locker yet—it’s almost as if the company foresaw the interest of underage kids—but if you’re a teen living in an apartment building with a doorman or front desk that signs for all packages, prepare to be swimming in gallons and gallons of cheap wine. Thhsahnk youk,, intnernet! [Amazon]
Here’s The Staggering Number of Ads Facebook Serves On Its Exchange Every Day (FB)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-size-of-fbx-facebooks-ad-exchange-2012-11
Appnexus, the online ad marketplace intermediary, hosted an annual summit in New York yesterday and disclosed some interesting metrics about the size of its business as it relates to Facebook.
The company is one of let slip that Facebook Exchange — the real-time bidding ad exchange in which advertisers are allowed to match their cookies to a Facebook cookie in order to retarget shoppers inside Facebook — now serves a staggering 7 billion ad impressions daily. According to AdExchanger:
AppNexus is quickly ramping up on the Facebook Exchange, where it is one of approximately 15 real-time bidding partners. It now has exposure to 7 billion daily impressions on FBX, up from zero in July — a large and important new inventory source.
We recently told you that FBX has “quadrupled” the size of the RTB market, and that Facebook believes the total ad exchange opportunity could be as big as $2 billion annually.
Related:
Please follow Advertising on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »
Staples Is Getting Amazon Lockers
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5958020/staples-is-getting-amazon-lockers
Amazon lockers are a great new idea, allowing people to pick up their parcels when it suits them. Now, Amazon has announced that it’s rolling out the scheme across the Staples chain, too.
Reuters reports that the office supply stores will be the latest string of locations to feature Amazon’s ultra-convenient pick-up system. When we tried them out last month, we were convinced:
The lockers are stupidly simple. You can even have your locker code texted to you when your order arrives. It doesn’t cost anything-standard, one-, and two-day shipping is available for free if you’re on Prime. If you have the need for a surrogate mailbox, using Lockers is pretty much a no-brainer.
Amazon has already partnered with other stores in the US— including 7-Eleven, Rite-Aid, Safeway, and Walgreen’s—but Staples is a biggy. Just don’t mention that Amazon is stealing custom from right under its nose, because that would be rude—and at any rate, you can be sure some serious cash is changing hands to set this scheme up. [Reuters]
Cleveland Clinic and IBM team up to make Watson a Doctor (video)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/30/cleveland-clinic-watson/
Medical research facility Cleveland Clinic and IBM are teaming up to develop ways to let supercomputer Watson become a useful tool for doctors. The machine’s ability to analyze language and scour its database for answers is hoped to offer quicker and more exhaustive diagnoses for patients. As modern medical students spend less time memorizing diseases, they’re focusing on learning how to think critically and navigate the huge amount of available data. Big Blue is also hoping that the Jeopardy champion will learn how to digest a person’s medical records in order to match up their history with maladies. We’re just nervous that someone will give Watson a telepresence robot and send him out onto the wards — you’d be worried about his bedside manner if you’ve seen his ruthless quizzing manner.
Continue reading Cleveland Clinic and IBM team up to make Watson a Doctor (video)
http://w ww.engadget.com/2012/10/30/cleveland-clinic-watson/”>Cleveland Clinic and IBM team up to make Watson a Doctor (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 15:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Digital Consigliere
Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
http://twitter.com/acfou
Send Tips: tips@go-digital.net
Digital Strategy Consulting
Dr. Augustine Fou LinkedIn Bio
Digital Marketing Slideshares
The Grand Unified Theory of Marketing
Collaborators – Digital Profs
Pages
Popular Posts
- ActiveHours Gives You Your Paycheck Early, Free of Charge
- What is Web 3.0? Characteristics of Web 3.0
- Netflix vs Blockbuster - Perfect example of an industry replaced by a more efficient version of itself
- Try On New Glasses in Warby Parker's Virtual Booth
- Marketing Costs Normalized to CPM Basis for Comparison
- Samsung 52 inch HDTV $9.99 at BestBuy - purchase receipt below (6:21a eastern time August 12, 2009)
- Facebook advertising metrics and benchmarks
- Coke vs Pepsi vs Dr Pepper
- The Grand Unified Theory of Marketing(tm) - Digital String Theory
Tags
Prototype Web Services
- drag2share – quickly share news items by drag and drop on email addresses
- LivePhotoFrame – upload and remotely manage a digital photo frame via unique URL
- MedleyTuner – create a continuous listening experience by uploading mp3s
- MusicSamplr – discover new artists and music, listen to samples
- SharedMost – what links on ANY webpage are shared most?
- Signatory – sign and date a document and verify it hasn't been altered since that exact time.
- WebTeleprompter – just what it says it is
Archives
- February 2016 (2)
- January 2016 (6)
- October 2015 (2)
- September 2015 (7)
- August 2015 (6)
- July 2015 (2)
- June 2015 (5)
- May 2015 (4)
- April 2015 (32)
- March 2015 (57)
- February 2015 (79)
- January 2015 (86)
- December 2014 (69)
- November 2014 (98)
- October 2014 (150)
- September 2014 (109)
- August 2014 (44)
- July 2014 (92)
- June 2014 (118)
- May 2014 (173)
- April 2014 (130)
- March 2014 (247)
- February 2014 (167)
- January 2014 (222)
- December 2013 (167)
- November 2013 (111)
- October 2013 (116)
- September 2013 (214)
- August 2013 (210)
- July 2013 (200)
- June 2013 (87)
- May 2013 (87)
- April 2013 (70)
- March 2013 (114)
- February 2013 (89)
- January 2013 (136)
- December 2012 (96)
- November 2012 (130)
- October 2012 (147)
- September 2012 (93)
- August 2012 (93)
- July 2012 (112)
- June 2012 (71)
- May 2012 (82)
- April 2012 (80)
- March 2012 (122)
- February 2012 (114)
- January 2012 (129)
- December 2011 (60)
- November 2011 (54)
- October 2011 (29)
- September 2011 (17)
- August 2011 (30)
- July 2011 (18)
- June 2011 (19)
- May 2011 (22)
- April 2011 (23)
- March 2011 (52)
- February 2011 (69)
- January 2011 (108)
- December 2010 (82)
- November 2010 (67)
- October 2010 (68)
- September 2010 (44)
- August 2010 (101)
- July 2010 (61)
- June 2010 (28)
- May 2010 (28)
- April 2010 (26)
- March 2010 (33)
- February 2010 (21)
- January 2010 (13)
- December 2009 (4)
- November 2009 (2)
- October 2009 (14)
- September 2009 (6)
- August 2009 (19)
- July 2009 (34)
- June 2009 (11)
- May 2009 (4)
- April 2009 (6)
- March 2009 (13)
- February 2009 (32)
- January 2009 (25)
- December 2008 (1)
- October 2008 (1)
- June 2008 (1)
- November 2007 (1)
