Study: Web-traffic boosts in-store sales

In a recent study the research companies comScore, Accenture and dunnhumbyUSA found some significant relevance between in-store sales and a company’s web presence. The study was based on a panel of CPG customers and one million U.S. Internet users who have given comScore explicit permission to have their online activities continuously measured and matched to their in-store brand buying behavior provided by dunnhumbyUSA.

The report comes to the conclusion that consumers who visit a website prior to their shopping experience in a company store spend 34% more with that company and 57% more on products or services based on their specific industry sector. It also states that visitors of brand websites are frequent buyers of the brand in retail stores. It shows that 42% more of these clients finish their transactions than non-visitors. Furthermore, website visitors are also heavier buyers in a brand’s product category. They are spending 53% more in their category dollars than non-visitors.

“Since website visitors have higher affinity to the brand and the overall product category, there is an opportunity for brand marketers to drive loyalty through personalizing the website experience, catering to the preferences of their best customers.”John LaRocca, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, dunnhumbyUSA

And again another study highlights the importance of content marketing as the new emerging trend in marketing. Shoppers were more aggressive in their approach to understand and evaluate their purchases prior to their visit in shops as a result of the massive information access through the web. According to the research, content marketing plays a significant role here. So, campaigns on the web not only add value to web shopping but also -and for some companies and brands more importantly- will help to drive and boost in-store habits and sales – apart from positioning a brand’s capability.

“Marketers who create compelling (brand) website experiences for consumers are extremely effective in driving incremental and profitable in-store sales. Analysis shows that consumers visiting the best of the 10 CPG brand websites evaluated in the research study, spent over 200% more on the brand than non-visitors.” Jerry Lohse, Senior Director, Accenture Interactive

Based on the fact that Brafton reported some weeks ago that the average consumer visits more than 10 web pages before a purchase decision, this study marks an important point in the relevance between online and offline shopping. This might be catalyzed by the new opportunities that smartphones, tablets or Augmented Reality (see real-life community shopping) offer, and shows the straight relationship between the two shopping experiences which more and more merge to one close shopping cycle.

Spot On!
More companies are realizing that offering web shoppers the same information and service as in-stores will lead to more purchase at both ends of the shopping cycle: online and at offline locations. The challenge for companies is to differentiate the shopping experience by using SoLoMo (social – local – mobile). Here the question for the future will remain whether in-store shopping needs to become more of a lifestyle experience or adventure to attract more consumers to join in-store activity (see IKEA Sleepover), or wether people will want to have real people around them and thus make it a social reality world, rather than a social web world…

Top 3 Ways Web 3.0 Will Change Workflow

There are many ways to bolster the productivity of your workforce. You could bring in a business speaker to inspire the inner entrepreneur in your employees. You could offer financial incentives for reaching certain benchmarks. You could also upgrade the technological infrastructure of your office. Preparing for Web 3.0, for instance, will require all companies to rethink business as usual and adopt a wide-ranging portfolio of new online tools and services. The advent of Web 3.0 has already made a lasting effect and we can expect this trend to continue. Here are the top 3 ways it will change the workflow in the business landscape:

Real time collaboration. Complex projects can now be undertaken simultaneously by multiple people across vast distances. The software as a service model now so common with cloud computing services is making it so that documents can be synchronously changed on-line using Google docs and other services. This enables businesses to maintain a diverse and mobile workforce that can execute and launch projects outside the traditional constraints of an office. Web applications that facilitate real-time communication, such as Skype, also allow for non-location based business meetings between clients across the world. In the future, this should help reduce the energy demands of the modern office, as well as the broadband and IT requirements of the typical company.

Virtual reality communities. So far, the best example we have of a vibrant virtual reality world that has bred its own economy, global population, currency, and infrastructure is Second Life. In the future, many people will conduct the majority of their business transactions through sites like this. Everything from trade shows to business meetings to the stock market exchange could take place in an online virtual reality space. At present, VR systems are strengthening the efficiency of workplace environments by offering better visualization tools to manufacturers.

Ubiquitous smartphone use. As cell phones continue to be viewed more as online tools and replace PCs as the preferred method of web activity, we can expect businesses to adopt their widespread use. Smartphones are also increasingly used for journalism, file transfers and real time communication. Expect smartphones to be the pen of the future.

Web 3.0 will be making considerable headway in marketing, social media, and business protocol in the coming years. Many analysts expect it to dramatically change the way companies operate. Real time collaboration, virtual reality, and increased smartphone use are just three of the ways this change will be manifested.

Community Shopping on the street – NET-A-PORTER.COM’s Window Shop

Augmented Reality shopping is definitely a new trend these days. NET-A-PORTER have launched their Augmented Reality Shopping Windows in different capitals around the world like Sidney, Munich, London, Paris and New York.

The following video demo comes from late last year’s Fashion Night Out celebrations in London and New York. It will be rolled out globally now for the new Karl by Karl Lagerfeld collection. Consumers need to download the NET-A-PORTER iPhone/iPad app, then visit the stores and can use the Augmented Reality like a new shopping experience.

When pointing the iPad camera at the window, this will publish 360 degree product models doing their best on a video catwalk. It also displays product information, the clothes price and obviously the ability to purchase immediately.

Isn’t this a cool idea to offer a 24/7 shopping life? These doors are always open in the future. Well, ok their online shop as well but it is a different kind of shopping experience right…? Community shopping on the street…

THX for sharing!

At Mercedes augmented-reality lets gestures communicate

Some weeks ago, we have discussed the opportunity for car manufacturers with in-car internet access that KPMG sees as the “norm” in the near future. If this is to come true, then concepts like the Mercedes’ Dynamic and Intuitive Control Experience (DICE) is not far of, and the car windshield might get potentially more impact in terms of delivering essential contextual driving information.

The system was shown at CES for the first time and seems not to be too far away bearing in mind that we have seen smart windows from Samsung that become TV screens. Wether this is fiction or reaality soon, I definitely like the idea and the vision that Mercedes has…

The car manufacturer envisions complete new data transfer through windshields like seeing who is driving in front of you or getting relevant traffic data or restaurant tips. What sounds promising, might also become a challenge for the driver who needs to avoid being distracted by all that data. The Mercedes concept touches all new technology options that we know from smartphones and tablets in favor of gesture-based controls that communicate information while driving.

“With the DICE sculpture Mercedes-Benz provides a visionary perspective on how the vehicle becomes an intelligent mobility partner in the future. For this Mercedes-Benz uses a combination of Augmented Reality and natural gesture control to realize a completely new form of communication between people and their environment.”

Well, just have a look and decide if you like it or not..

ComScore study: 31% of banner ads get lost for viewers

Companies and brands love to book page impressions with publishers, shopping and trading sites. Users find themselves being bombarded with banner ads all over the web – and not often do these ads add any value on customer journeys and the digital shopping experience. Often they bore us (dresses and dishes), annoy us (gay ads for married people) or make us hate companies brands (you love a and get b beer brands). Real Time bidding (RTB), (Behavioral) Retargeting technology and demand side platforms (DSP) will become game changers in the ad space in the future.

Sounds good but do advertisers get what publishers promise today, just on the basis of ad impression buying? Well, not really…

Yesterday, ComScore announced their “Validated Campaign Essentials (vCE)” which is said to be a Holistic Measurement tool for verifying the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and their subsequent targeting tactics. Thus, ComScore can double-check of where the ads are being delivered, where they are positioned within a page and who’s eyeballs they meet with the optimization add-on to know where they can be better positioned and at what time. The new technology or tool (vCE) will allow ComScore check campaigns effectiveness on a demographics basis.

ComScore definitely recognizes clients need for a world of better performance with campaigns for a reasonable future of advertisements. However the good news, when you worried about the effectiveness of your last campaign, there is much worse stuff to think about…

ComScore has found, in a recent comprehensive study, that over 31% of online display ads get lost for eyeballs of potential viewers, and for some websites it is even a scary number of 91%. Reasons are obvious: Some of these ads are below the fold. User might not scroll down far enough to view them, and vice versa. Some people just scroll too quick and thus get passed them before they have been loading.

The findings also state that as many as 15% of campaign ads were delivered to viewers outside of the targeted media plan places. An average of 4% of ad impressions found viewers in locations that weren’t on the plan, or where products weren’t available. Do you still wonder why the above mentioned banner campaigns reach us? But ComScore works on the issue…

“One big issue with internet advertising is that not all ads that are served end up being seen. This is a core issue raised by the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative. In order for marketers to have the same confidence in the digital channel as they do in TV, we need measurement around the visibility of ads.” Mike Donahue, EVP, Strategic Partnerships, ComScore

Spot On!
Google will penalize companies and platforms that have too many ads above the fold in the future: 3 ads per page is sufficient and strategically clever, Google advices in this video. Just imagine your banners are being delivered to platforms that are damaging for your brand. It happens. Impressions appear beside content that were defined as “not brand safe” by the advertiser. Of all tested campaigns, 72% showed up on pages that had objectionable content, as defined by the brand. Now, that ComScore and advertisers like Chrysler, Discover, E*TRADE Financial, Ford, Kellogg’s, Kimberly Clark and Kraft among others push the development of the third-party tracking, there might be hope that consumers and clients get banners delivered that are targeted the right way. Nevertheless, companies need to start thinking about the right call-to-action in order to get the right conversation figures…

How a campaign brings multiscreen couples together

Many families, and especially couples, experience new formats of evening togetherness. Couples are not leaning back any longer and simply watching TV, or having relaxed chats next to it. With most couples, both partners are using their smartphones, tablets or notebooks to chat with friends, to update their status for their fans and keep in touch with their digital fellows while the TV sceen is fighting for viewing figures.

Did you realize that TV gets the former status of the radio in our digital world? People listen to TV but are actively engaged in something else, in another screen conversation, in a multiscreen reality. Mobile becomes the new prime time. Radio always was the number two from a user attention perspective. So is singlescreen attention today, it is out, digital leads. Multichannel is the big future, and the looser is… the personal relationship. We all know how relaxing it is to lean back, and how TV reduces our “most emotional relationship activities” to a minimum, multiscreen usage could become a limitation catalyst.

But there is hope…

CP+B has thought about this development, maybe not… Still, they tell us in a new campaign how couples most commonly book trips. They have created a 2 for 1 campaign for Scandinavian Airlines. The campaign called “Couple Up to Buckle Up” was launched in banners, emails, facebook app, or print ads, and used two unique QR codes to bring people closer together again, i.e. to book a flight to Paris together.

In the campaign approach, couples need to scan the QR code assigned to them. Then, they would sync their half of a video based offer and reveal the discount code split across both screens. Bit of a challenge to scan/play at the same time but still a nice idea on a critical relationship topic.

And maybe this will help to… Well, you decide!

Couple Up to Buckle Up from Tobias Carlson on Vimeo.

Samsung unveils the new of the old future generation of TV

We have seen films in which James Bond (or his “friends”) stands in front of tranparent TV screens, planning to save or change the world. We have seen Minority Report where Tom Cruise catches whoever and whatever in an impossible mission which becomes mission possible before it even happens. And we have seen visions of future screens here and here.

These were films. Are we living in this cinema world soon…?

Well, this “Smart Window” technology Samsung which is being promoted at CES 2012 is somehow groundbreaking and breathtaking. Lovely Ashley Esqueda is definitely real and checks out the new Samsung technology at their booth with a little demo of the window.

Would you want that “Smart window” in your living room where you can switch from looking out at the blue sky and watching Roger Moore or Samantha Morton at the beach? Or would you just be happy to have one more free wall without a black screen? I would.

PS: And if this is going to be the future, then I doubt the Accenture study forecast that states consumers will buy fewer TVs. How about you…?

Memories – History of Disruptive B2B Innovations

Sorry, if I am getting emotional in this post… After far more than 1.000 posts, there must be one that is more personal than the rest of this blog: Memories.

I haven’t been alive 1851. Well, I am not alone on that one, right…?! No, I haven’t changed the world.
Obviously. Many of the companies on this infographic could not make this happen…

However, in 1999 something happened that I did not expect those days, or when I started my career in the B2B marketing and media world. It was disruptive in my B2B marketing life. Ok, I admit it was no innovation…, maybe some tiny idea and thoughts were those days. It was a milestone for me personally. And a tipping point in my business experience…

Getting an award is something that gives people a career kick. No Grammy. No Oscar. No… whatever. Having an award from the company that is mentioned at the beginning of this chart is something special to me, especially when you were young, inexperienced but eager to become better and better in business. When United Buisness Media bought CMP in 1999, I achieved a Salesperson of the Year award from CMP. Big emotions, big memories, I can tell you…

Seeing JESS3 and Eloqua mention CMP in their history of disruptive B2B Technolgy Innovations infographic brought back these long forgotten memories. I haven’t seen anyone mention CMP for years…

This infographic is not only rewarding the importance of content marketing, it also shows that content marketing will remain to be relevant and thrilling in the future. However, it might shift more and more from text to audio-visual touchpoints? We will see…

PS: Thanks to Mai Nguyen to ping this through to me…

Study: In-car internet to become “the norm”

Never will I forget the day some time between 2001 and 2002 when I went to the BMW pavilion exhibition in Munich to get an understanding of what “Connected Drive” means. Those days, even the people in the pavilion could not help us, and it took BMW three days to give us some proper feedback on this term via telephone. Today, the term is clearly defined as driving with internet access which enables all sorts of connected infotainment, and if you want to know more about it, you can get plenty of information here.

Every day today, people are sitting in their cars, grapping their smartphones while waiting at traffic lights – although a great Facebook page tells us not “Text-and-Drive”. The future will be different though…

According to the world’s top car bosses, in-car internet access is close to becoming reality. A recent survey by KPMG called “Global Automotive Executive Survey 2011″ shows that speech recognition and internet connection with Wifi and 3G will become the norm in the future.

The results of the study state that 37% of the 200 responding car executives see “infotainment” to be almost as important as car safety. It makes clear that over the next five years, car buyers will see in-car gadgets provided by the big tech firms like Apple, Google or Microsoft.

Intel already announced some collaboration with Toyota at the end of last year. Intel forecasts that the connected car is the fastest growing technological device following smartphones and tablets.

According to Reuters, Mercedes-Benz USA is bringing Facebook to its cars with the new in-vehicle telematics system that will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. It allows drivers to access Facebook on the road. However it is not exactly the same as using the social network on a personal computer or a smartphone. “The version of Facebook offered in Daimler AG’s Mercedes is stripped down to a limited set of features, specially designed for drivers and centered around the locations of friends and businesses.” Audi’s A7 series already offers a built-in 3G wireless which shall be extended to other new models.

Spot On!
Car manufacturers will look out for cooperation opportunities with IT companies as well as telecoms and the music industry. It will be interesting to see how much the in-car technologies will evolve and develop in combination with the Hybrid technology that will get the main investment according to 53% of the car execs. Apart from that 57% see speech recognition and built-in navigation as important product issues for consumers in the future. Just imagine you can send your tweet, write a blogpost or a Google+ status update without taking your eyes from the streets. If speech recognition performs, a lot of the dangerous texting and driving could end. Although it will take some time for people to adapt to the nex technology.

2012: Think Social Business, live Community Centric Strategy

2011 was a great year for Social Business!

Social Business got the right attention and awareness. And those companies which thought that “social trend” might go away, found themselves in business meetings, workshops, seminars, webinars with me, or conferences where people gave me the honor to be the moderator. After all, the feedback was such that I can definitely summarize the 2011 Social Business success with the opening statement.

What happened in terms of Social Business in 2011 and what is the outlook for web marketers in 2012…?

Well, first of all companies spend more time and resources understanding the challenge Social Media and Social Networking from a business perspective. We got the proof that European bosses don’t have to be persuaded to see the benefits of Twitter, that Social Media is a big internal topic, and that Social Business is critical to future business success.

ROI aspects are still key for Social Business performance. Nevertheless CMO’s were often lacking the right plan even for their Social Media efforts – and often CEO’s doubt their business credibility.

Job offerings spread around Europe, although sometimes clients asked me whether the offering is correct from a capabilities point of view. Often these openings were meant to be Social Business, in terms of a team-orientated or community-centric positions, but ended up being a “one-man-show-responsibility”: the Social Media Manager – although we all know about the importance of a multi-layer framework to set up a proper Social Media strategy.

From a client perspective companies were still very much in the broadcast or advertising mode. And the perception gap could easily be made out. Although communities were their targets, and many companies and brands tried their best to generate engagement around their business, many of them were still in an advertising scenario and mindset, instead of trying to think about change management in terms of culture and people.

Ultimately, companies have a massive opportunity in 2012 to change their perspective and become Social Business driven with the right teams…
- Teams that work with customer market intelligence.
- Teams that scale the business with social commitment.
- Teams that crave content for leadership and insights.
- Teams that understand business touchpoints in new context.
- Teams that leverage synergies between companies and brands with an appropriate plan.

And these teams don’t work internal or external. These teams group together cross-channel through Community Centric Strategy by understanding the 5C’s as the engines of Social Business: Competition – Commitment – Content – Context – Collaboration.

Finally, Google+ started listing brand pages in organic search results. One of my successful posts from November appears in the first page of the organic search results (see picture last entry).

Status updates will become a game changer in the social ecosystem and boost brand awareness. If companies and brand are blogging they should consider this in their SEM/SEO and keyword strategy when posting your topics on Google+. Marketers should consider this and watch out if this should not affect Facebook and Twitter marketing activities. Maybe it is time to invest more in content marketing…

Spot On!
All roads might lead to Rom – not many to lead to a Social Business. Companies that will work with the Community Centric Strategy in 2012 can close the perception gap between consumer and customers on their journey to companies. Social Business is about people and culture. The 5C’s of the Community Centric Strategy is a new way to Rom… but it will leave the “customer chariot” at home.

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