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.

The Social Google: Google Search and Google+ unite

Google revolutionized the internet, the way we interact, we use our brains and thus, somehow it changed the world. And now they will do it for the second time… with “Search, plus Your World”. This new search engine technology does not only bring us information from across the web. It proclaims to make search even better better by including photos, posts, and “more from you and your friends”.

With an all new algorithm for their search they have changed their search strategy. Today, people are searching not only for content. Today people also want to find personal and private information and touchpoints. The normal result is one which we have all expected for a long time since Google+ launched: Google+ will be integrated in Google search which will definitely affect the power of Google against their hardest social competitor Facebook.

Google’s new “Search, plus Your World” integrates also personal data like personal content, pictures or videos from Google+. Here is their new promotion video…

On the official Google blog Amit Singhal explains how the new Google search works with an experience of his past.

“As a child, my favorite fruit was Chikoo, which is exceptionally sweet and tasty. A few years back when getting a family dog, we decided to name our sweet little puppy after my favorite fruit. Over the years we have privately shared many pictures of Chikoo (our dog) with our family. To me, the query [chikoo] means two very sweet and different things, and today’s improvements give me the magical experience of finding both the Chikoos I love, right in the results page.”

Google’s first step to integrate Social Search results gets now followed by the integration of Google+ which becomes a massive hub to “socially unite” all of their own products and services. The new search offers three main benefits…

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page;
2. Profiles in Search, both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and,
3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

Spot On!
However, this might sound as if Google makes us more transparent, users have the opportunity to select whether they want the new Google search algorith, or not. This gives users the ability to see either the good old search results or the brand new private search results. People just need to use the little buttons…

…or they will simply change it in the account settings. And Google extends the Google+ circles idea to their search: Every single result in the private search mode gets marked whether it is private, public or limited entry. Somehow a clever filter, don’t you think…?

Google: Re-living 2011 from a search perspective

Last year, Google told us how the world searched throughout 2010. Now, we get to see the Top 10 search terms of 2011, and some more interesting global search analysis. And maybe we can learn something for our SEO capabillities.

However, we all know: New year, new challenge! This is the spirit of the end of a year: We all love to review it! Google doers that with their search re-living videos and their Zeitgeist 2011: One year in a review video. If you want to do some deeper analysis on it, you can go to Google Zeitgeist 2011 website and dive into your country analysis, zoom in and out the aggregation of billions of search queries people typed into Google in 2011.

This video is a short summary and nicely captures the spirit of 2011…

Study: Crowdsourcing proves benefits for enterprises

Crowdsourcing has been one of the main topics, we are talking about in our seminars and webinars as community experts these days. It’s definition and capabilities is perfectly described in the following video showing an MIT presentation (and with Evly you can start your own crowdsourcing project quite quickly)…

So, crowdsourcing is based on the right group of people, gathering around a topic of interest, a product or a brand. They are the extension of a company out in the market, working with the brand in terms of identification and differentiation which I have nailed down in my Community Centric Strategy model.

These people are working on company problems or tasks, and they contribute with relevant business input and ideas. Especially in the IT, telecoms and web industry crowdsourcing has been around for quite a while as this mass collaboration helped them catalyze their business exposure and feedback.

Today, I came across a study by the Everest Group called “Every Crowd Has a Silver Lining”. It finds crowdsourcing has got a fair business reason. It is experiencing some well-needed cost advantages which is leaving BPO behind. The study states that companies are utilizing crowdsourcing for as much as 50% of their product-related projects (like design, engineering, marketing, packaging, research, technology and testing).

“We are witnessing a second fundamental inflection point for crowdsourcing where large corporations in a post-recession era are increasingly using global professional crowdsourcing services in new application areas, often as a cost-effective alternative to traditional BPO. (…) Our study finds that crowdsourcing utilization has evolved from small- to medium-sized businesses to an increasingly accepted business practice for large corporations. As cost advantages are progressively augmented by greater accountability, quality assurance and timeliness assurances, the ‘on-demand’ talent model will continue to gain a greater foothold.” Sarthak Brahma, Practice Director, Pricing Assurance, Everest Group

Spot On!
Well, I do not know whether you have to base findings on the global recession basis to make it a powerful message. Or whether this is just the pure modern nature of many consumer which enterprise need to be aware (“crowdsourcing on demand”) of and make the best out of it. However, it is a fact that companies shift their task solving process from ‘job-based’ hiring to ‘task-based’ resource management. Crowdsourcing might be a great way to enable this shift in business process management. It definitely offers companies more flexibility in terms of budgeting. More heads come to different solutions, get trained quicker, find supervisors outside the enterprise, aggregate thinking and re-new the point of view for a brand decision or a product development.

The near future of Augmented Reality (AR) and QR codes

Augmented reality (AR) has a glorious future according to a new market research published by MarketsandMarkets. It will be interesting to see which role QR codes play in that future as more and more technologies arise.

The new market research report “Global Augmented Reality (AR) Market Forecast by Product (HMD, HUD, Tablet PC, Smartphone) for Gaming, Automotive, Medical, Advertisement, Defense, E-Learning & GPS Applications (2011-2016)” states that the total Augmented Reality applications market will be growing by over 95% from 2011 to 2016. The research sees it reaching a market volume of $5151,74 million.

According to Comscore research almost 10% of all smartphone users have scanned QR codes in June this year. The interesting fact is that most users scan their QR codes from home (57,4%). In public only 20% use those QR scan options from outdoor advertising or in public transport.

Although screen technology (smartphone, tablet and eye-wear) is still in its infancy concerning AR, and also facing some challenges, the Universities of Washington and the MIT see a better future on the experience horizont. Especially, the head up and head mounted displays have become mature, finds the study. Leading and growing in use are online apps, gaming apps and GPS apps. So far, campaigns like the following by MIRAT Paris work on the basis of QR coding…

But what kind of Augmented Reality technologies are rocking the transformation from the physical to the virtual world, or shall we say to the mobile world?

Some months ago, we only had browser technology like Layar and Wikitude. Today, companies like Tesco are experimenting with other capabilities in their retail shops. For a long time, we had to use QR codes or trigger points to initiate some activity with AR technology.

Layar’s latest innovation called “Vision” is another reason why QR codes are becoming uncool. Vision is a tool that lets advertisers and content owners integrate Augmented Reality ads in publications. As an example you may watch the Dutch magazine Linda how the technology works…

Some other technology innovations are also evolving that might catalyze the technology shift in the AR sphere. Here are three of them…

Aurasma
The Aurasma technology -unlike the GPS based technologies Layar (until the Vision version) and Wikitude that merely recognizes what someone has tagged as locations or places- is a new generation augmented reality browser. Aurasma recognises images through cameras in a way search engines recognise words. The browser then creates so-called 2D or 3D „Auras“ which show animated audio-video content. Just watch some examples of Aurasma campaigns.

blippAR
With blippAR the whole advertisment becomes the response tool. It is enough to simply point in the direction of the ad with the app. Still, the awareness challenge needs to be solved. And, the need for a specific browser to use the technology. See some examples of blippAR usage. At the moment you can even participate in the interactive blippAR campaign “escape the map” by Mercedes Benz.

Printechnologics
Printechnologics is based on Touchcode carrier technology. It contains a blind or transparent code which is embedded via invisible data storage development inside print products like carton, foil or simply paper. Printechnologics turns the AR identification around as you lay the paper on top of the tablet or smartphone, and not the other way round. And you don’t even need to modify your device, download a browser, use NFC (near field communication), or a camera for it to identify and initiate the online activity form the offline trigger. The last issue from the ICONIST carried a Printechnologics card and here you can see how it connect the two worlds….

Spot On!
In some months, the QR codes might be gone as an AR trigger, and thus leave the advertising world. However, all AR technologies have one weakness: You need to know that these technologies are embedded in any forms of campaigns. You need some trigger point, button, picture, image or QR code that people see. Thus, the main challenge for QR codes and Augmented Reality is to build awareness and understanding what it can do. Nobody is using a browser or a camera if there is no “visual” reason for virtual interactivity. I see TV using any of the forms as an extension for their TV shows in order to promote their digital content and advertising opportunities, just like the print industry did in the past. One thing is for sure: Augmented Reality will definitely become a new playground that connects the TV and online markets in the future…

What’s your view on Augmented Reality and QR codes? Let us know…

The Top Christmas Gadgets for 2011

Every Christmas season, I am looking out for the latest gadgets that I think my readers might find cool as well. And, you can win one of those in a draw on 20th of December 2011. That’s cool, right…?!

The last time around Christmas, I focused on the 7 brand gadgets. This Christmas season, we will keep it more general on freaky, funny and fantastic gadgets which I think were the coolest gadgets in 2011. Yes, we are not talking about the 5 best toys for boys, women will love these gadgets as well. So, please find my 5 coolest gadgets in the second half of 2011…

Always Run! – NIKE GPS Sportwatch mit TomTom

This Nike+ Sensor enabled sports watch with GPS system from TomTom lets you find out how you can start tracking your run instantly, and how to get accurate speed and distance information, indoors or out. It tracks your time, distance, pace, heart rate and calories burned. Can you imagine it mapped route, with pace data, and changes in elevation on Nikeplus.com? And it can do so much more for your fitness…

Always Air! – Philips Fidelio SoundRing

What I like about the Philips AirPlay technology? It lets me stream my entire iTunes music collection to the Fidelio docking stations – wireless music from the iTunes program on the computer, iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch to any AirPlay-enabled speaker at home. Just make sure the speakers are connected to the Wi-Fi network. And AirPlay lets you play simultaneously on every speaker in every room. So your favorite tunes will follow you into the rooms you go.

Always on! – Innergie Adapter

One of the best conversations I have seen this year: Wikipedia “I know everything!” – Google “I have everything!” – Facebook “I know everything!” – Internet “With me you all are nothing!” – Electricity “Keep talking b*itches!” This loading unit might help us in what what we need most for our modern lives: energy. Innergie’s mCubePro got a sleek design and unique features that will surely make us and our devices reload again. Get your device charged from every device everywhere you go. Reload your batteries!

Always live! – Vivitek Qumi

If you want to get a projector with 300 lumens that is weighing more or less nothing (1.1 pounds), maybe consider the Qumi by Vivitek. It is a very innovative pocket LED pocket projector that is 3D-ready via DLP Link™. And what is so freaky about it? The Qumi connectivity can be used with a variety of devices like smartphones, laptops, netbooks and tablets, digital and video cameras. The Qumi is the perfect device for sharing digital content at work and play.

Always wake up! – Logitech Clock Radio Dock S400i

Is it something special to wake up and fall asleep to your favorite songs while charging your iPod or iPhone in 2011? No! If an audio system does it with speakers that produce rich, full, stereo sound? Well, it might be! This black systems is small, smart and stereo. Not like in old times where the systems were massive and mono. Thus, this system will recharge your personal energy. I just like it. It looks cool, geeky (big silver control knob) and it had the chance to listen to it on Heathrow airport. The right push, the right music… at the right time.

Always iStereo! – Hohrizontal 51

Can a functional shelf on the wall play music, images and videos from the iPod® or iPhone®? Honestly, I could not believe the sound of the HOHRIZONTAL 51 when I listened to it in Zurich. It has got some powerful bass and room filling sound which comes from the integrated soundsystem. And the system can even be connected to your TV or plug your computer in. Remote control gives you the right flexibility and relaxing opportunities in great Hi-Fi quality. You can even choose from different designs and colours. Like it!

How to enter the competition?
Most companies have given us one product for a draw. Just write a Retweet (RT), comment, send us an email, and tell us which product you like most and why. Then you will get a ticket for the competition to win one of the products!

End of participation and date of draw: 20.12.2011. There is no right of appeal. Good luck!

Google study offers insights in B2B Marketing

Following up on the webinar “Social Media for B2B companies – tactics, tools and techniques” that I held today from South Tyrol, I have promised to share one of the latest Google studies on B2B marketing.

At their event “Thing B2B 2011″ Google introduced the results of their new B2B study. It refers to business decision makers and how they make their way to buying decisions, which tools they are using and which technical platforms influence their purchase process.

The study “Connecting with the Customer” (video) asked 1.600 B2B business decision makedrs from various industries. The results were then combined with the latest findings of a Compete Clickstream study. The Compete study is tracking website conversion rates of a panel that is based on 2 Mio. consumers.

The study concludes that 30% of conversions on activities like whitepaper downloads, Email, Calls or other pull activity happen after two weeks time, or even at a later stage. It also states that -not surprising- in order to reach B2B decision makers the Internet is the best choice. 57% of the respondents say Internet advertising sticks to their mind versus 34% print. Only 16% say TV ads have a lasting effect on them.

When B2B decision makers are in a purchase process, they make use of the following sources…
- 71% Internet
- 41% Professional organizations
- 39% Tradeshows
- 37% Catalogue
- 33% Consultants
- 31% Direct Mail
- 11% TV

The leading online resources where B2B decision makers go to…
- 73% Search engines
- 51% Brand websites
- 45% Online reviews
- 42% Websites of professional organizations

In the following video Sam Sebastian, Industry Director at Google reviews the most important results of the study “Connecting with the Customer”, and makes clear that Social Media has the best effect if it is connected with all the other marketing activities companies are running. The review is followed by a dscussion between Paul Miller, Vice President of eCommerce at Grainger; Kathy Leech, Director of Brand Communications at BP; Andy Markowitz, Director of Global Digital Strategy at GE. Just watch it…

Spot On!
Business decision makers are a challenging shopper category. However, the study makes clear that the Internet is the place to reach them easily – some website chat software allows you to interact with individual customers in real time. Mobiles and Social Networks are becoming more and more important in the lead generation process, too. One in three B2B clients who searches for information on their smartphones also uses Social Networks for research purposes. Sam Sebastian, Industry Director at Google summarizes the findings in three bullets:
1. The Internet is the new tradeshow
2. B2B customers search early and often across the Web to information
3. Think orchestration, not integration

Maybe I would have chosen a different third point… “Think stimulation, not penetration!”. But that is my view…

Source

TV & Online: Convergence or Collision?

In the digital tech space, we’re already seeing radical changes in television as it begins to converge more and more with the online world. Think about the massive transformation that TV has already gone through – starting with the humble video recorder to the range of connected satellite / cables boxes and gaming consoles – fundamental changes that TV is now more or less just a monitor. Not so very long ago, TV used to be considered the “lean back” medium and digital as “lean forward.” But, this no longer seems to apply as we increasingly use multiple connected devices to watch TV content and that large screen in the home is often hijacked by our game-playing teenagers. So, what’s going on? Is TV having an identity crisis or are we finally at a point of convergence or collision?

MediaMind recently held its annual Digital Experience Day (DED) 2011, a global summit series held in North America, Europe and Asia, that brought together leading industry leaders and experts to explore the consumer changes that are happening now. We explored the interactive and social experience that TV now provides. TV no longer offers a passive, social experience where one has to huddle around the same set and fight for the remote control. In fact, traditional ways of viewing television are now competing with the plethora of tablet devices on the market that keeps viewers entertained and occupied from just about anywhere they choose. But it’s not just about replacing the larger screen with smaller ones, we are increasingly bonded around quality content – from TV shows to interactive games – and utilizing Social Networks to fulfill those real-time experiences and discussions between multiple viewers scattered across numerous living spaces.

Recent research from Nielsen shows that the average US home with a cable subscription receives 130 channels and yet tunes in to only 18 channels. That means 86% of these channels are never watched, suggesting that channel surfing is dead; challenging costly cable subscription models. And yet, of the $500 billion in global advertising, TV advertising still takes the lion’s share. By 2015, it’s expected that 50% of Internet users will watch TV content through online connections.

But that’s not to say TV as we know it is dead; quite the opposite. TV has a quality and scale that digital has yet to achieve. We will always need linear video content, but we just won’t need to consume it in the same way that we used to. We are now in the beginning stages of the marriage between online and offline. And for this to work out successfully, TV planners need to understand how digital works and vice versa. We are already seeing agencies using an iGRP to buy reach across media channels to maximize cost-efficiencies. These agencies are hoping to have completely integrated media buying teams within 18 months.

It’s both a convergence and a collision. On one side, we have a chance to reset our thinking and talk about enhancing the branding mechanism by overlaying interactive experiences via a mobile device and measure TV content through real-time social discussions such as comments on Facebook and/or Twitter. Yet the danger is as we seek to measure TV in the way we do online, it runs the risk of squeezing TV advertising budgets to the likes of online DR forced to justify spend via call to action. There are interesting times ahead for the whole media community and it certainly was the hot topic of debate at DED as we debated through the challenges of moving towards app-driven Smart TVs.

This guest post was written by Dean Donaldson, Global Director of Media Innovation, MediaMind. Dean and I often meet at different international conferences and events to chat about the future of the web world. You can read my view on the DED2011 in the post The multiscreen world is evolving.

Tags: Brand, Budget, Change, Community, Content, Facebook, Future, Marke, Media, Mobile, Networks, Research, Search, Share, Social Networks, Twitter, User, Video, Vision

National Geographic makes Augmented Reality go live…

21.11.2011 von Martin Meyer-Gossner  
Kategorie English Content, Mobile, Web Marketing

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The opportunities to attract peoples’ attention are increasing with the use of Augmented reality. Appshaker recently launched a fantastic way for people to interact with the world of National Geographic Channel’s content from around the globe. The set-up obviously took some budget. With the use of augmented reality, people could virtually interact with different scenes in which they were able to get in touch with dolphins, leopards, the space landings, dinosaurs and more.

The result..
1000s of people interacted with the National Geographic Channel brand in the process as it toured Hungary, with 1000s more people sharing snapshots and video on Facebook as a result.

Live Augmented Reality for National Geographic Channel / UPC from Appshaker Ltd on Vimeo.

Tags: Augmented Reality, Brand, Budget, Content, Facebook, Video

Active or passive? Don’t forget the “Social” in Social Media!

18.11.2011 von Martin Meyer-Gossner  
Kategorie English Content, Social Media

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The last two weeks I have been on the road in Germany, Austria and Italy, and it was great being in the offline world. Speaking engagements and panel moderations with real people, virtuals aside most of the time. Sometimes I went online in the breaks but did not know what to post or what value I could share with my social graph. Sometimes as there just was nothing exciting. Sometimes as time did not allow it. And to be honest, I did not even have the creative spirit between webinars and seminars for my quality standards. Productivity had to come to a rest.

I just preferred being quiet. And guess what: It does not hurt! Probably nobody missed me. My messages. My input. My sharing.

Often I just reacted. Saying “Happy One!” to my friends or business partners. Giving quick feedback on questions I was not even personally addressed. People liked it though. And I realized how great it is to work with teams that appreciate the ideas and thoughts you give just them without sharing every joke or funny story straight away. I found that approach of doing conversation and being productive quite “social” last week.

Stimulation instead of penetration.

At some stage I wanted to participate and be more active in the conversations with my social graph again. So I checked Twitter what’s up. In the first five tweets I found the video below which was a perfect kick-off for the training I had the pleasure to do. A big insurance company had offered me the chance to train their coaches and internal personal (executive) consultants on Social Media strategy.

I started off with the video below and I can assure you: We came back to the message of the video, the tactical ingredients and the strategy topics at least 25 times in two days. And I told them again and again… “Don’t forget the “Social” in Social Media! Let’s be honest: How often do we forget it?

Tags: Media, Productivity, SEM, Share, Social Media, Twitter, Video

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