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SMG Talks to Jim Kite, Strategic Development Director at SMG

Submitted by SMG Reporter on Tue, 14/05/2013 - 16:57

Kite discusses the effect of data on the media industry and how Starcom MediaVest Group’s positioning as The Human Experiences Company has come to life.

Kite feels the strongest emerging theme is that digital is no longer seen as a challenge and that it encompasses everything. Along with playing a leading role developing the use of digital, SMG’s positioning as The Human Experiences Company has come to life and results are being seen.

Discussing his role, Kite explains that the consumer is very much at the centre, but it’s essential that advertisers have the best insight and tools are being developed for this. To reach consumers the tool kit is changing, says Kite, data is allowing better real-time insight, bringing data and traditional research together that brings greater accountability.

Kite suggests the big ‘what’s next’ in the industry is increasing connectivity, as devices become seamless together and so emerges the opportunity for a single media buy across all channels, optimised in real-time.

SMG Meets Marketing Director of RSA, Dominic Grounsell

Submitted by SMG Reporter on Tue, 14/05/2013 - 16:54

The increased power of connectivity and sophistication of data can help companies create even greater brand experiences for customers, RSA Group’s marketing director Dominic Grounsell explains at the Google@SMG event.

Grounsell picked up on the increasing power of connectivity and sophistication of data which can be used to more intelligently reach consumers with new information through marketing.

Grounsell believes increased connectivity will enable RSA to deploy marketing to consumers at the right time. He adds that advancements in social media means human experiences have become more instant and can create a world that is much more interesting than that of 10 years ago.

Bringing together out of home and mobile

Submitted by Steve Smith on Wed, 08/05/2013 - 08:34
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Starcom MediaVest London’s CEO, Stewart Easterbrook, took part in a panel at a MediaTel event this morning, ‘The union of out of home and mobile’

The research shows that out of home experiences that explicitly incorporate and leverage mobile are likely to increase purchase funnel actions, conversations across communities, and brand equity.

Over half of UK adults now own a smartphone, and around 86% of smartphone owners regularly go online via their phones (Ofcom 2013). This, together with the fact that out of home has the second highest monthly reach behind TV, means that 16% of adults report using their mobiles to search the web partly as a result of out of home ads in the last month (Outdoor Media Centre). Clearly, search and brand sites need to be mobile optimised.

Searches resulting from out of home can also result in purchases. Thirteen percent of adults have bought because influenced by OOH advertising in the last month (OMC). Brands should look to see how they can increase likelihood of purchase through search, for example by showing local stockists and local deals, and through couponing.

Bringing mobile and out of home together also provides an opportunity to engage higher value customers. Young, mobile, affluent, connected and urban individuals are most likely to buy because of out of home. Forty four percent of 16-24s report having made purchases because they have been influenced by out of home media (OMC).

However, mobile activities should not be just about enquiry and purchase. Brand owners need to look to see how they can extend brand experiences through mobile, for example by using mobile to continue a story started on out of home. A partnership between Bing and Jay-Z to promote his autobiography is a good example of how this can be done.

Emotion is one of the biggest drivers to brand funnel and further media actions, and brand owners need to create out of home and mobile content that are likely to have emotional impacts. Fifty six percent of adults have had a positive emotional response to an out of home ad in the last month, closely followed by TV (OMC). Recommendation is the most common action by these people, followed by increases in brand equity.

Brand owners should also use mobile and out of home to drive talk and social media conversations. Ten percent of adults share (online or offline) something about an OOH experience per month (OMC). According to our Community Igniter research, 18% of people use out of home as a media source for at least one of their conversations.

Until recently, out of home advertising has been off limits to mobile phone activities on the London Underground. However, opportunities to engage people at some popular underground stations are now opening up due to Virgin Media, Vodafone and O2 opening up Wi-Fi hotspots in them. These provide the chance to target and engage higher value people, but connecting needs to be simple and easy. As with other locations, content needs to be compelling and people need to be given relevant reasons to undertake further activities on mobile.

QR codes and near field communications have had a lot of coverage in the media. However, QR codes show little sign of success in most campaigns, and people are more likely to manually search on their phones instead, due to high barriers to using QR codes. More phones now have NFC chips, but they don’t have scale, there aren’t many opportunities for people to use them, and research shows that most people see no or only little value in them.

Instead of QR codes and NFC, brand owners need to look at simpler ways of engaging people. I really like the partnership between Boots pharmacy and Weetabix. Weetabix recently ran a TV ad that encouraged people to take a photo of the ad and then go into a Boots store to get a discount.

Some apps are available that can extend a brand experience such as Aurasma, through which people can download additional content when a person points it at an image, such as an out of home ad. However, it has a small user base and it is not always simple to use.

Google Now is an emerging technology. This tracks people to give them ‘the right information at the right time’. There may be opportunities around out of home, for example tracking people who pass posters for particular ads that can then be used for better targeting and tracking of subsequent online behaviours.

Opportunities develop for Boots as demand for photo prints drops

Submitted by Steve Smith on Fri, 12/04/2013 - 08:38
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It seems that mums using smartphones is proving to be both a blessing and challenge to high street retailers.

On the one hand, mums are using their phones to find the nearest stockist of an item they are interested in buying. A recent Google report shows that 17% of people who have searched on their mobile phone in the previous two weeks had visited a store as a direct result.

On the other hand, mums taking photos on their smartphones has led to a reduction in photo printing. Only last year, Boots closed 160 of its photography labs due to falling demand.

bootspharmacy.jpg

These closures and likely underuse of photolabs that remain open throw up the question of what Boots could replace these spaces with?

One answer is to look at the demographics and lifestyles of people shopping at Boots. 59% of people who have visited Boots in the past four weeks are women. Of these, 60% are mums, and over half have visited a cafe at least once in the last month (Touchpoints 2012).

With competitors such as Mothercare and other high street retailers like Waterstones opening up in-store cafe formats, using some of these spaces as cafe areas would help keep mums in-store, and give them space to relax and catch up with other mums.

In-fact, keeping mums in-store would help Boots overcome another challenge posed by smartphone use – mobile ‘blindness’ when approaching the checkout. For years, many brands could depend on bored mums waiting in the checkout queue to pick up a product or magazine, get engrossed in an article, and toss it into their baskets.

These days, mums are more likely to send a quick text and check their Facebook feed whilst in the queue. Retailers such as Boots need to uncover opportunities to engage shoppers elsewhere in the store for checkout purchases. In-store cafe formats might just be one solution.

Guardian's Changing Media Summit 2013 Live Stream

Submitted by Iona Murphy on Thu, 21/03/2013 - 09:29

We're pleased to be able to live stream the Guardian's Changing Media Summit 2013 - please feel free to tune in through out the day on the 21st and 22nd. Schedule below:

11.10 - 11.30: The Rise of Paywall 2.0 : Changing Media vs Changing Consumer

11.50 - 12.40: Keynote Panel Debate
Content economics: Maximising revenue in a converged world
Out with the old...how radical can you afford (not) to be in diversifying your business models?
How do you manage and monetize your content in a four screen environment?
How is data changing the fundamentals of your approach to monetizing content?

22nd March:
10.25 - 10.45: Two-way Presentation: Next-gen branding
Combining design and technology with brand and consumer insight
Toby Southgate, CEO, The Brand Union
Henry Brook, executive creative director, Digit London
10.45 - 11.30: Panel Debate: Future Gazing
Enter the Sandbox: Where's the next big thing coming from? The investment and start up landscape for digital media
Moderator: Rory Cellan-Jones, technology correspondent, BBC News
Kate Burns, founder, Kt3 Ltd
Saul Klein, partner, Index Ventures 
Brian Wong, co-founder and CEO, Kiip

11.30 - 11.45: Presentation: Real-time Analytics
Engaged Time: In pursuit of the ultimate quality metric
Tony Haile, CEO, Chartbeat

Break Out Session 3: Mobile
Mobile Media: Examining consumer interaction with content and advertising across screen and location context
Moderator: Nigel Walley, CEO, Decipher Media
Ed Haslam, senior vice president, marketing, YuMe
Alex Newman, head of mobile, OMD and Omnicom Media Group EMEA
Steve Wing, head of consumer UK, CBS Interactive

14.40 - 15.40: Panel Debate: Future of TV
Beyond the box: What does television look like in a social, mobile-first, user-centric world?
• How are digital innovations reshaping the creative process and the commercial prerogative in TV?
• How can social data and recommendation enhance commercial and creative returns as well as engagement?
Chair: Rory Cellan-Jones, technology correspondent, BBC News
Jason Titus, CTO, Shazam 
Emma Lloyd, director of corporate business development and investments, Sky 
Darren Childs, CEO, UKTV
Victoria Jaye, head of IPTV and online content, BBC Vision 
Charlie Muirhead, founder & CEO, Rightster

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Starcom MediaVest Group at Advertising Week Europe

Submitted by Gill Huber on Fri, 15/03/2013 - 14:36
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SMG At Advertising Week Europe 18-21, March 2013

SMG Presents The Power of Human Experience
09:00 Monday, 18 March
Run Run Shaw at BAFTA

Starcom MediaVest Group’s UK CEO Stewart Easterbrook introduces this must attend session that features top brand marketers, leading media owners and senior agency executives discussing what it takes to design and deliver experiences that resonate through every facet of communication.

Hear about the power of human experiences and how SMG’s clients are embracing the concept to overcome the challenges they face, how it is inspiring new thinking with media partners and what SMG is doing to bring this to life across the business.

Hear from our clients
Stewart will introduce three leading marketers; Andrew Garrihy, Marketing Consultant; Justin Skinner, Vice President Marketing at Cineworld, and Adrian Mooney, Vice President of Marketing, EMEA Region at Tata Global Beverages. Each will talk about how their approach to business is changing as the importance of consumer experience continues to grow and what this has meant for their communications approach.

Hear from our media partners
Steve Parker takes to the stage with Mike Gordon, MD, Commercial at Global Radio, Mark Trinder, Sales Director, Commercial and Online at ITV and Simon Davies, Sales Director at A&O UK to talk about building relationship through dynamic experiences that help deliver great work together.

Hear from our People
To conclude, Stewart will speak with SMG's HR Director Liz Nottingham to find out how being a Human Experience Company is brought to life. From revitalising a patch of waste land in Acton to create a new community garden, to new working practices that resulted in winning a Mumsnet Award, Liz will explain how an emphasis on experiences has made a real difference to working lives at SMG.

SMG will be participating in the following sessions;

09:00 Tuesday, 19 March
Evening Standard CEO Summit, presented by Evening Standard
David Lean Room
Today's CEO faces unprecedented turbulence as the winds of change blow with hurricane force from sunrise to sundown every day. Stewart Easterbrook takes part in this session that features insights from leading edge CEOs who are navigating forward, driving results for clients and expanding opportunities as others fight contraction.

09:00 Tuesday, 19 March
Future TV, presented by SpotXchange
Run Run Shaw at BAFTA
Programmatic trading is revolutionising the way media is bought and sold. As TV moves into a digitally connected world, will automation also revolutionise the way TV is traded? In this session leading experts including Chris Locke, UK Trading Director, give their view on the convergence between TV and online video and explore the changing landscape of AV Advertising.

10:00 Tuesday, 19 March
Connecting with Youth Audiences, presented by Channel 4
David Lean Room
As early adopters of new technology youth audiences are increasingly elusive and hard to reach en masse. What do these increasingly demanding young audiences want from broadcasters and brands and what does the future hold for those seeking to connect with them? Join MD of LiquidThread Amice Lock.

14:00 Wednesday, 20 March
WEVE Presents: The Big Mobile Debate, presented by WEVE
David Lean Room
WEVE is the new, unprecedented joint venture between EE, O2 & Vodafone - set up to make true mobile commerce a reality for businesses and consumers. But when it seems as if every one of the last 5 years has been 'The Year Of Mobile', what is WEVE going to change and why should we all care? Steve Parker gives his view.

11:00 Thursday, 21 March
The Changing Relationship Between TV And Advertising, presented by Channel 5
Television has been at the forefront of advertising for over 50 years. Its power to create shareholder value remains undiminished. Channel 5 and guests including Starcom MD Pippa Glucklich will be debate how the medium can continue to grow by examining the way programmes are funded, the way advertising is traded and the way advertising is integrated with content.

15.00 Thursday 21 March
Advertising Week Europe Data Congress, presented by Advertising Week
We have unprecedented access to data and measurement tools. For the multi-billion dollar advertising and media industry this means leveraging data to connect with consumers in powerful new ways. The Data Congress unites an all-star lineup to detail how data and analytics drive performance and the bottom line. Join EMEA Director of Data and Analytics Thaer Namruti.

What does Apple’s stock performance tell us about human behaviour?

Submitted by Steve Smith on Fri, 08/03/2013 - 14:53
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You’d think the slow decline of the PC would be good for Apple. It had a good Christmas, selling 3.2m iPhones in the US during December, its share is rising to the detriment of Android, and it reported record revenues in the December quarter. People love their products, and Apple makes good profits.

Yet Apple's value fell below $400bn (£265bn) for the first time in a year on Monday. Some of the blame is put at short termism: profits haven’t met expectations, and it’s been three years (shock!) since it developed its last great product, the iPad.

appleshareprice02.Png

Whatever the merits of this explanation, investors' short termist behaviour* reflects broader changing behaviours and ways of thinking. Individuals are far less likely to plan for the distant future, tending only to have the present and very near future in mind (34% of people agree with the statement 'I like to enjoy life and don't worry about the future').

Other research shows that young people value ‘living for today’ more highly than their predecessors, spend a higher proportion of their income than other age groups, and are often in their thirties before they start thinking about contributing to a pension.

Much of this ‘focus on now’ is facilitated through media and technology. Once upon a time, we telephoned in advance to organise where and what time we would meet up with friends. Now, we arrive in vaguely in the right place, text where to meet up and then use the GPS maps on our phones to get us the exact spot. And when travelling, who needs to decide which book to take when we have a huge selection sitting on our eReader, tablet or mobile phone, or if we have immediate access to social networking and mobile gaming?

Because so much of our lives is now mediated through mobile technology, there are a wider range of opportunities available to brands to take advantage of people’s unplanned behaviour in city spaces . These include:

  • Mobile shopping (81% of mobile shopping related behaviours are spur of the moment)
  • Mobile search (80% of mobile search is spontaneous),
  • Local listings (a third of smartphone owners use them at least once a month), mobile video (18% of people use it to ‘fill time’),
  • Mobile gaming (63% of 15-34s play at least once a month).

Two ways brands can take advantage of people’s spontaneity are Aurasma and Google Goggles.

Aurasma uses a smartphone's camera to recognize real world images and then overlay rich media on top of them in the form of animations, videos and 3D models. These can be on in-store or on-street posters, or in the press.

Brands that have used Aurasma include O2, Tesco, Kellogg’s, The Gap and Universal, in the Times and Sun newspapers. Some of these have created their own apps that use the Aurasma technology. For example, Tesco has created an app called ‘Tesco Discover Us’.

Gap has created in-store posters that integrate Aurasma aurasma.png

Google Goggles is a downloadable image recognition application used for searches based on pictures taken by smartphones. For example, taking a picture of an object or its barcode in-store would search for information about it. The example below is a photo taken of a Relentless Energy drink can, which then leads to Google search results about it.

goggles01.pnggoggles02.png

*Goldman Sachs is on record as saying Apple is the top undervalued companies on its books, and Warren Buffet said earlier this week that Apple should use its huge cash reserves to buy back stock as it will make huge profits as its price goes up.

Meteor, Vine stats, AMEX offers, Google and Topshop, Bill Gates Q&A and a hover board

Submitted by Oliver Newton on Fri, 15/02/2013 - 11:47

Afternoon all,

First things first if you haven’t seen the videos of the Russian meteor this morning then stop what you are doing and check out the first wave of the apocalypse, amazing - As a side note, crazy how many dashboard cameras there are in Russia.

Vine stats: In more regular news, the Grammys, BAFTAs and Carnival, it was a bumper week for social platforms. With the newest on the block – Vine (6 second videos) being the focus. Here is a great bit of data from SimplyMeasured showing how in just 3 weeks the platform has really started to take off.

And some soothing Vines made with Lego

Search, now with extra enhanced flavour: As you will have heard and hopefully seen the search team’s write up of how the search landscape is changing – this really is a big deal and needs to be understood as we move firmly into the screens world

#AMEXOffers: Continuing their charge into trying out new models and ideas AMEX have built upon their Twitter deal of last year where card holders who synched their Twitter account to their card could tweet for discounts. Now you can directly buy via a tweet with selected partners such as Amazon, Sony, Xbox and others. (Check out their Twitter feed to see it in action](http://olinwtn.eu/AMEXtweets). As an example they are currently offering $50 off a Kindle HD tablet.

For all you fashionistas: This Sunday at 3pm, TopShop and Google will partner for the fashion show. Google, no strangers to the catwalk (DVB models walked with the Google Glass devices last year) will be bringing the behind the scenes action, models eye view with tiny cameras mounted in to the clothes, nice interaction features where you can change the colours of the clothes and of course click to buy amongst other things.

As an industry it is brilliant to watch how the labels are bringing the audience into the action with the tech platforms. The models are all posting on G+, in an honestly non corporate way and helping to create a great experience for the brand

Bill Gates types: In a wonderfully retro feel, Bill Gates was on Reddit the other day to do an open chat. It looks like a throw back to 2000 but some good answers from the big man particularly on what the new disrupting tech will be – “Robots, pervasive screens, speech interaction will all change the way we look at "computers". Once seeing, hearing, and reading (including handwriting) work very well you will interact in new ways”.

(If you go the right hand scroll bar to the 2nd yellow line you can see it all formatted neatly).

And finally… It isn’t the awesome pink one that Marty uses and it doesn’t hover, but you can buy an original Pit Bull hover board, as used by Griff, on ebay, only $12k!!!

Have a great w/e

Oli.

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Trends, Tweets and Toppings: surprises from Pancake Day

Submitted by Scott Thompson on Wed, 13/02/2013 - 16:15
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Yesterday's Pancake Day saw the traditional marking of the day reflected in online behaviour.

Looking at Google Trends, we can get a picture of how different countries see the day in different ways. Worldwide, there is a clear spike every February as those in several countries look for recipes and information;

In the UK, the peaks are far more pronounced, with searches for recipes a greater proportion of total searches; it is very clear that other than Pancake Day, there is very little British interest in the humble pancake;

Compare that to the US, where February sees a relatively minor blip in pancake-related searches;

And in Australia, a combination of the two; clear peaks each February, but with ongoing interest throughout the year;

On the social side of things, we used our ECHO toolkit to take a look at what people were tweeting around pancakes. With over 800,000 tweets mentioning pancakes, there was plenty of data to look at.

The pancake-related tweet that caused the greatest spike in volumes was from One Direction member Louis Tomlinson, who got over 55,000 retweets (at the time of writing) for tweeting that;

This was followed a little later by his long-term girlfriend's Eleanor Calder's tweet;

Which had over 11,000 retweets at the time of writing…

However, although the impact of those was notable — lots of retweets and replies in a short space of time, as a trend it was relatively short-lived.

A little earlier, this tweet from @Metal_Hammer magazine started the hashtag game "replacebandnameswithpancake";

The hashtag quickly took off and continued throughout the day and into the evening, with over 100,000 tweets including the hashtag by the end of the day— around one in eight of all pancake-mentioning tweets.

PancakeTweetsOverTime.png

So, what could the pancake-related tweets tell us, other than about the popularity of pop stars and hashtag games? We took a look at the most popular pancake toppings that were mentioned to see what Twitter's favourite pancakes were (by number of mentions, along with the keyword 'pancake'.)

PancakeToppings.png

Fairly unsurprising that the classic lemon & sugar came out top (boosted by a mention by Gary Barlow). But perhaps the appearance of Nutella in second place was more surprising — the only appearance of a brand topping in our charts.

But a little upsettingly (especially for pancake lovers), the 800,000 pancake-mentioning tweets yesterday marked a significant decline from the 1.2 mentions on pancake day 2012. Presumably as a result, most topping mentions declined in volume compared to last year — with banana as the one exception of a pancake topping that has held onto its following. This might well be reflective of a broader trend; according to Lyle's, the British Pancake is in danger of dying out, with 25% fewer people marking Pancake Day than ten years ago, 17% of Brits feeling that it was 'overrated', and a quarter of brits saying that they did not know how to make a pancake from scratch.

So, just for that 25%, one final tweet from Jamie Oliver which might be helpful for pancake day 2013;

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HOC, Interactive cameras, FB launches, learn to samba, Stubhub and future predictions from the 60's

Submitted by Oliver Newton on Fri, 08/02/2013 - 16:05

Afternoon all,

House of Cards update: Following on from last week’s mention of House of Cards, there have been lots of articles about Netflix dropping all 13 episodes at once and the potential impact. I certainly went for the binge viewing approach and finishing it on Tuesday night – brilliant if you haven’t yet got involved.

Anyway, I was curious as to how it was impacting search traffic, as one is. Taking a quick look at Google trends we can see the interest generated for it versus that of HBO (the flag bearer for original content). Over the last 30 days there is minimal activity then launch day it shoots up and briefly overtakes HBO and now appears to be level pegging it. With their strategy of exclusive new content it will be interesting to see how long House of Cards maintains a strong presence in search.

HOC_HBO.png

According to estimates across the web, Netflix needs the show to bring in an additional 1M new subscribers for a year to break even on it.

Interactive cameras: Thanks to Lucy Ferguson for the great link to this, a fun interactive experience at the top of the Shard

There seems to be a bit of a theme developing here. Ever wondered what it is like to fly a helicopter over an active volcano? I can’t give you that but I can give you a fully 360 interactive camera over 4 of them – stunning.

Again, another reinforcement of the power of video in telling a story. Think about how we could be utilising this type of technology and idea to generate a great human experience.

Trip down internet memory lane: It’s been a while since we did a historic trip. Well, today’s is a beauty. FB is 9 years old and here is the first article written about it when it was just 650 members. Harvard’s own the Crimson spoke with the founder when it was less than a week old.

Samba school: It’s Carnival in Rio starting this w/e, so Google have kindly put together a G+ guide to learn how to samba – enjoy.

If the shoe/shirt/suit fits…: The creative types at the Miami Ad School have come up with another brilliant idea for the web - a simple plug-in to determine your size across various clothes stores. This would be brilliant, please someone make it happen.

If you print it, they will come: Because Space stories always seem to go down well and 3D printing is all the rage, here is a combined one. Plans to print a structure on the moon from the moon rock rather than costly transportation of materials from earth. We’ve all seen Grand Designs, it’s always the window delivery that screws you. Crazy and very cool.

Pub quiz fodder: A nice piece from our very own StubHub team, some fun facts about gigs. Well worth following their G+ page if you don’t already.

And finally… Walter Cronkite talking about the home of the future (2001) way back in 1969, pretty spot on

Have a great w/e #fridaybegins.

Oli.

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Supermarket UK

See the latest supermarket news and insights from our ongoing research into supermarket shoppers.
Supermarket UK

 
 
 
 
 
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