the molife of crappy booze

John Burbank, CEO, Nielsen Online Division

This week, Nielsen announced the creation of a joint venture with the Catalina Marketing Corporation. This venture is a major advancement for marketing ROI as well as a milestone in the evolution of online advertising. The next phase of the Internet— what we call the “audience-centric Web”— will be characterized by three things:

1. The audience is the center of everything. Small wonder that many brand advertisers only dabble with the Web; we’ve given them metrics—clicks, impressions, page views—but those metrics lack context and value and don’t relate to their customers. In the audience-centric Web, metrics will answer traditional marketing questions: Who saw my ad? Did I affect the way they think about my product? Did they actually buy more?
2. Online is no longer an island. Sophisticated marketers will be able to advertise across channels, supported by the transparency and efficiency of consistent media metrics. A brand’s measure of online impact will be the same as on TV or mobile or print. Online publishers will be able to compete—on a level playing field—across media.
3. The richer the consumer data, the richer the business opportunity. Nielsen has helped the largest and most successful marketers and media companies in the world grow their businesses. Their market shares have grown through a richer and deeper understanding of their consumers. Whether it’s reaching men aged 18 to 24, women with incomes of over $150,000, heavy users of Tide or Hispanic teens, the match of consumer need to marketing message starts with the audience. In the audience-centric Web, that richness of insight will now be available to online marketers, just as it has been offline.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The connected customer leaves brands in the dust.

As we close out the year, it’s important to look back at what happened in social marketing in order to plan for the future. There were four key trends in 2009 that CMOs should reflect on, starting at the macro level then shifting down to micro real-time updates. They are:

The Recession Spurred Consumers to Adopt Social Technologies. Humans are social creatures and, as a result, they tend to band together in hard times. During financial crises, this same behavior is evident: People connect to one other, share, learn, and communicate. What’s more, with unemployment at record highs, those with internet access have more time–and need–to connect with others. It’s evident through Facebook’s 350 million global users. For brands, it’s interesting to note a study by Razorfish, which indicates that 52% of consumers have blogged about a brand’s product or experience. Don’t expect this to change as the recession lifts, as it is the preferred method of communication for young people.

Some Brands Followed Suit With Social Marketing. Marketing budgets are pinched during tough times. Recent data from eMarketer indicates that companies are slashing print budgets by 37% and TV by 21% as a response to the recession. Yet marketers know that tough times also spur innovation, as they experiment with mediums such as social marketing. Social marketing promises lower costs and bigger returns. In fact, word-of-mouth campaigns encourage consumers to do the marketing on behalf of the brand themselves. Yet despite the opportunity, research conducted by the Altimeter Group (where I’m a partner) and Wetpaint found that while brands like Starbucks, Dell, eBay, and Google interact with their customers, most brands do not. Still, we’re seeing a noticeable increase in social marketing budgets, as brands find ways to innovative marketing.

Social Networks Share Data, Spreading Social Influence. A key trend across the technology vendor space in 2009 is that social networks are connecting with other systems. Much like how Apple’s iPhone developer program enables third parties to build and create new applications, many social networks are doing the same. Take for example, LinkedIn, a business network that recently began allowing third party sites to connect with the LinkedIn platform to share data. Similarly, Facebook Connect allows users to log into third party sites using their Facebook ID. There have been over 80,000 connections since this time last year. So what does this data availability mean? It means that consumers’ social experience will spread from site to site, and that wherever they go online or off, they can access their friends’ opinions, experiences, and recommendations in real time.

Consumers Move Faster By Sharing Real-Time Data. In August, 2009, blogger Heather Armstrong, who boasts over a million followers on Twitter was miffed about a shabby customer experience and tweeted about it. Although the company, Whirlpool, responded within hours, the damage had been done–Armstrong’s real-time feedback about her company experience spread quickly through her network and beyond. This spread of customer experiences in real time is a trend, in fact, status updates are a feature found not just in Twitter but in many social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. Recently, Twitter signed a deal to allow Microsoft’s Bing and Google access its real-time data, displaying real-time tweets which appear along side traditional search results. So what is the impact of this increase in real-time data? It means that consumers can instantly give feedback about their product experiences and tell their friends. For brands, it means they have to move faster to keep up with consumers who are sharing.

Takeaway: This year, consumers are more connected, and moving faster than brands. It’s essential for senior marketers to use the past to plan for the future, and these four trends indicate that people are connecting and sharing with each other–at an increased pace. Brands need to develop a strategy and a plan to respond–not simply react–to the latest technology. In our next piece, we will discuss the key trends to watch in 2010 to help with strategy planning.

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That’s for today till after Christmas! Have a safe holiday!

Popularity: 3% [?]

There’s no denying the value of a professional wedding photographer, but that’s not to say that guests don’t sometimes snap some gems of their own. Aiming to give newlyweds a place to gather all those amateur treasures, Olapic is a Columbia Business School startup that allows users to easily gather, share and print guests’ pictures from their special day.

Couples begin by creating a profile on Olapic and uploading the email addresses of their guests; Olapic then reminds everyone to bring their cameras to the wedding. After the big event, the site will stay in touch with guests via emails and cards to remind them to upload their pictures. Once they do, the pictures remain private until the happy couple decides to make them public, whether on Olapic or on their Facebook, Flickr or Picasa accounts. Unlike most social networking sites, Olapic allows not just those strict privacy controls but also bulk downloads of high-quality pictures; it also offers printing services to generate albums and prints. Couples can try Olapic for free for up to 100 photos. After that, a flat fee of USD 99 includes unlimited photo storage for a year (annual renewals are USD 25) along with 100 high-quality reminder cards to give to guests. Olapic also gives professional photographers the opportunity to offer additional services by incorporating guests’ photos into their own offerings.

At weddings—as virtually everywhere else in life these days—user-generated content is an increasingly valuable complement to what the professionals create. Help make sure it gets captured and enjoyed, and you’ll soon be smiling for the cameras yourself! (Related: Email a photo to send prints to friends & family — Easy photo sales, direct from anyone’s blog.)

Website: www.olapic.com
Contact: info@olapic.com

Spotted by: Marta Plana

Popularity: 4% [?]

We’ve seen a couple of Canadian businesses that aim to improve the gift-giving process: DreamBank, which lets people collect donations towards their dream purchases, and ECHOage, which does much the same thing for kids’ birthday parties. Now bringing the concept over to the world of matrimony is UponOurStar, a startup also out of Canada that aims to be a “wedding registry for wishes.”

Couples about to be married typically provide a list of all the physical goods they’d like to receive, but on UponOurStar, they register instead their wishes and dreams. Once they sign up with the site, couples get a customizable web page to share with their wedding guests. There they can describe the wishes they’d love to have granted–”our first home,” for example, or “a college fund for our future family.” UponOurStar provides tasteful e-invitations to the site for guests, and when contributions come in, it notifies the happy couple by email. When the wedding date has passed, couples can log in and collect their funds via bank transfer. It’s free for couples to create a registry and send e-invitations to guests. A fee of 2.5 percent of donations is withheld for credit card processing, while a one-time amount of USD 15 is paid to the couple’s bank for the direct deposit. Guests, meanwhile, are charged a transaction fee of 6 percent.

As the growing ranks of transumers increasingly seek experiences rather than things, it stands to reason that traditional services like the wedding registry will need to be updated. One to emulate for all the happy—but stuff-averse—couples in your neck of the matrimonial woods…?

Website: www.uponourstar.com
Contact: www.uponourstar.com/wedding-gift-registry-ContactUs.aspx#contact

Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski

Popularity: 7% [?]

Rojak! A Rojak seller’s take on Malaysia’s multi-faceted social political tapestry. Made entirely with CGI special effects. Visually stunning.

Popularity: 4% [?]