Interesting back door for Google BUZZ. I am at a client’s office and they have Websense installed so I can’t access any of my social media outlets. But I can access BUZZ because it runs through the Gmail conduit.
Does this mean office workers with no access to video sites, social networking sites, etc. will now flock to using BUZZ to stay connected…interesting!
From Ann Handley (of MarketingProfs.com) for American Express Open Forum:
Dec 29, 2009 -
What do bacon, Bogota, yumberries and Foursquare have in common? They are all on the list of 100 Things to Watch in 2010 by the marketing communications company JWT.
Certain trends on the list suggest clear implications for businesses. JWT’s Ann Mack says that many items on it reflect broader shifts, like a growing action around health and wellness and environmental issues, to crazy-fast developments in the tech space.
There are also a number of trends tied to the so-called Great Recession (“trip bundling,” for example) and those that speak to various demographic, political and economic power shifts (“East Africa Wired,” and “TV for Tween Boys” among them). Interestingly for business, Mack says, the list “points to the way industries are redefining or reinventing themselves to survive or to fully leverage these power shifts.”
What trends might affect your small business in 2010? Here a subset you might find worth watching (as well as a few I found just plain interesting). The full list is in alphabetical order, below.
1. 3D at Home 3D is the new HD. Having successfully invaded the big screen, it’s on its way to the small screen: James Cameron, director of the new 3D film Avatar, will promote Panasonic’s 3D sets, out next year, which will compete with versions from Sony and Samsung.
During the past 18 to 24 months, senior executives at many companies have been forced to move away from long-term growth strategies to focus on short-term survival. These strategies have focused on making the numbers for each quarter, and, in many cases, have been funded by reallocating investments from brand-building activities. Chris Dickey from Barkley addressed this topic in his article on rethinking discounts and pricing strategy. While I agree with his assessment and pricing strategies, I’d like to take the discussion a step further and delve into exactly how marketers can execute these strategies by using analytics to balance both brand building and price promotion.
As the economy begins to strengthen and marketers chart their course for 2010, the discussion topic in many boardrooms will be about striking this balance between investments in long-term brand building and short-term price promotion. To do this, many companies will need to break some of the dirty habits they adopted and carefully wean customers off the “buy only on deal” mindset.
Consumer research demonstrates that shopper behavior has changed dramatically, with shoppers acting in a more deliberate and mindful manner. A recent IRI study, entitled “Competing in a Transforming Economy 4.0,” found that 64% of consumers say they are now making lists before they shop, while 51% consider coupons an important factor in their purchase decisions. And some consumers have even said they only go down the aisles that include the items that are on their list.
Additionally, this study organizes respondents into three emerging categories of shoppers — optimists, maintainers and pessimists — based on a diverse array of consumer demographics, psychographics, values and beliefs. IRI discovered that pessimists exemplify many of the attitudes that are driving behavioral change across channels and categories, such as searching for sale prices (87% vs. 82% for all households), making personal-care products last longer (62% vs. 55% for all households) and buying fewer prepared meals at grocery stores (61% vs. 55% for all households). Each of these emerging segments views fiscal responsibility from a different perspective. And, importantly, each group professes a different appetite for the “right” cost to pay in order to integrate or not integrate frugality into day-to-day life.
But these trends don’t all represent doom and gloom for marketers. In fact, they create new opportunities. One of the most telling findings of what’s most important to consumers is familiarity with the brand and price. The good news is marketers and sales teams can pull both levers. But the big questions are: Which levers to pull? When to pull them? How to balance them as consumer attitudes and behaviors continue to transform? Read Rest of Article
Why some iPhone apps become must-haves while others languish is still a mystery to many marketers. But AutoWeek, a 51-year-old magazine breaking into the app market for the first time this winter, has learned that promoting one properly plays a pretty important role.
For its first iPhone app, AutoWeek stuck to the basics: it would stream news, photo galleries, and auto show highlights from the magazine’s Web site. The challenge was getting the word out to the target audience: auto hobbyists as well as consumers in the market for a new car.
To reach its existing audience, AutoWeek put prominent ads for the new app, which was available free, in its magazine and on its Web site. But to reach car enthusiasts on their cell phones, they enlisted AdMob, the mobile ad network that Google recently agreed to purchase for $750 million.
“Even while we were working through the design phase of the app we worked directly with AdMob, took a lot of their input up front about what kind of app would play best in the market,” Marc Mathies, interactive operations director at AutoWeek, said. “And then when we went to market they helped us very rapidly get an adoption of the app and downloaded the app more rapidly than we could have done on our own.”
The app, which was created in conjunction with a third-party developer, launched on November 2nd, and did fairly well in its first week, reaching number 37 on the list of news apps. The AdMob mobile display campaign in the U.S. launched November 10 and ran for only two days, with simple text ads appearing on mobile sites popular with car enthusiasts directing them toward the AutoWeek download.
By the end of the brief U.S. campaign, the AutoWeek app had reached number 10 in the news category and had broken into the top 25 list of iPhone apps overall. The app experienced four times the number of downloads during the week after the campaign than the one before it.
An international mobile campaign followed, again lasting just two days. Afterwards, the AutoWeek app climbed from number 18 to number 5 in the U.K. news category, from number 37 to number 8 in Canada’s, and most notably, from number 90 to number two in Australia’s.
AutoWeek, which is based in Detroit, did not track which downloads came directly through the AdMob ads. But Mathies is confident that the app wouldn’t have performed nearly as well without the mobile promotion.
“Generally we see very small growth from promotions on our own media, so I would attribute 90 percent or greater to the AdMob effort,” he said.
More than a month after the end of the campaign, Mathies said the app continues to move briskly. “Since the promotion has finished we still are maintaining several hundred downloads a day, so I would say even though the marketing efforts are finished, the residual effects keep going.”
Buy: The company is keeping mum at present, but last year purchased four minutes and 30 seconds’ worth of air time, and has been known to stay at around those levels year after year.
Creative: n/a
Agency: Omnicom Group’s DDB, Chicago
Bridgestone
Buy: Will sponsor the game’s halftime show once again (this year’s festivities include an appearance by The Who). As part of its sponsorship, Bridgestone gets two 30-second spots. One 30-second spot will appear in first quarter and the other will appear in the second break of the third quarter.
Creative: Showcasing the performance of Bridgestone Tires with humor and the element of surprise.
Agency: Richards Group
Cars.com
Buy: One 60-second ad in the first half of the game. This will mark Cars.com’s third consecutive appearance as a Super Bowl advertiser.
Creative: The company says its ad will discuss how Cars.com gives shoppers the confidence they need as they prepare to head to the dealership to buy a car.
Agency: Omnicom Group’s DDB Chicago
Careerbuilder
Buy: One spot in the second quarter.
Creative: Focused on a consumer contest.
Agency: n/a
Coca-Cola
Buy: The beverage giant has bought Super Bowl ad time but declined to elaborate. In 2009, Coke advertised both Coke Zero and its flagship drink.
Creative: n/a
Agency: Wieden & Kennedy for flagship Coca-Cola; Crispin Porter & Bogusky for Coke Zero.
Denny’s
Buy: One spot, in a quarter still to be determined.
Creative: The company is considering a giveaway similar to last year’s Grand Slam breakfast freebie, which brought more than 2 million consumers to its restaurants on Feb. 3. Denny’s will supplement the 2010 event with significant social and digital media.
Buy: One 30-second spot in the fourth quarter for this popular popcorn, which makes its first appearance in a Super Bowl.
Creative: Diamond Foods is re-launching Pop-Secret as the perfect accompaniment to a family movie night at home. An ad campaign launched last week and expected to build up to the Super Bowl depicts Pop-Secret as a family of movie-loving corn kernels liable to get worked up over impressions and pop.
Creative: The company will try to refocus attention on its popular khaki pants.
Agency: Interpublic Group of Cos.’ DraftFCB
Doritos (part of PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay)
Buy: Three 30-second spots, in quarters to be determined. Frito has picked up last-minute spots for each of the last two years, in 2008 for Cheetos, and adding a second Doritos spot days before the 2009 game. The company said there are no plans to add Super Bowl media in 2010.
Creative: Once again, the company is sponsoring a “Crash the Super Bowl” contest, offering cash prizes to amateur ad makers who can create spots that garner top reaction from USA Today’s annual Super Bowl ad poll.
Creative: In the past, the online trading and investment firm has featured videos of a talking baby who typically says something or does something a little off color.
Agency: WPP’s Grey
GoDaddy.com
Buy: Two 30-second ads, one in the first quarter and one in the fourth quarter
Creative: Ads will feature “GoDaddy Girl” Danica Patrick
Agency: GoDaddy Productions (in-house)
HomeAway
Buy: This Austin, Texas, based online vacation-rentals listings services is a Super Bowl newcomer and will run one 30-second ad.
Creative: Ad will feature Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo reprising their roles as Mr. and Mrs. Clark Griswold from the popular “National Lampoon’s Vacation” movies.
Agency: Publicis Groupe’s Publicis in the West
Hyundai
Buy: A pair of 30-second spots in game; one will run one in the second quarter and one in the third quarter. Plus two 5-second billboards
Creative: As name sponsor of “The Hyundai Pre-Kick Show,” there will be programming 20 minutes before the kickoff by announcers at the stadium; the automaker will have three 30-second ads.
Buy: A spokesman for the company’s chocolate division confirms Mars has purchased some time in the Super Bowl, but won’t offer any specifics or discuss which brands might be advertised, though people familiar with the matter suggest Snickers might be one product under consideration.
Creative: n/a
Agency: Depends on brand selected
Monster
Buy: A spokesman for the company says the online-jobs site will have one spot in the game.
Creative: Monster has already been promoting its efforts to help find a “NFL Director of Fandemonium” via a contest that sends the winner to the Super Bowl.
Agency: Omnicom Group Inc.’s BBDO
Motorola
Buy: Motorola has purchased at least one ad, according to people familiar with the situation, though a company spokeswoman declines to comment. The company is the maker of the handset for the new Droid smartphone being sold by Verizon Wireless.
Creative: n/a
Agency: WPP’s Ogilvy Worldwide
Teleflora
Buy: After making its debut in 2009’s Super Bowl, Teleflora has plans for a new ad in 2010, according to a spokeswoman.
Creative: n/a
Agency: n/a
U.S. Census Bureau
Buy: One 30-second spot in third quarter
Creative: Not announced yet, but the ad will be part of a new campaign slated to break in January.
Agency: Interpublic Group of Cos.’ DraftFCB
Viacom’s Paramount Pictures
Buy: Three ads in the first and second quarters
Creative: Paramount will promote February’s “Shutter Island,” May’s “Iron Man 2″ and July’s “The Last Airbender,” a film from M. Night Shayamalan.
