When Blogger Out Reach Goes Wrong…It’s Not Pretty

A program to entice bloggers to love your product/service & write about it can be extremely effective when done right. The influence they have with their readers is phenomenon & their recommendations taken seriously. In the age of social media their influence goes even further than their core readers via Facebook & Twitter.

These programs have to be well planned, upfront an honest. The consequences are BAD when they are done wrong.

Interesting case in the US last month where food bloggers & mum bloggers were invited to dine in a fabulous restaurant with a promise of an Italian feast by a well renowned chef. They were also told that the dinner would include an “unexpected surprise”.

At the end of the meal the “surprise” was revealed.  The fabulous food they had just had was not made by the renowned chef, it was in fact from a new frozen food line by ConAgra Foods!

The blogger reaction? Pretty bad.

“Our entire meal was a SHAM!”

“We discussed with the group the sad state of chemical-filled foods,” wrote one blogger. “And yet, you still fed me the exact thing I said I did not want to eat.”

“I’m NOT their target consumer and they were totally off by thinking I would buy or promote their highly processed frozen foods after tricking me to taste it,”

Read the full article here.

“What have you done for me lately?” Consumer expectation from brands they connect with in social media environments.

Sensis released a fantastic social media study last week which outlined that consumers expect discounts/vouchers/special offers from brands they connect with on social media environments.

Inversely majority of Australian brands on social media are there to just ‘connect’ with their consumers & no doubt build their ‘Earned Media’ presence by  inviting comments/ratings & reviews. Only 29% of small businesses, 28% of large business & 49% of media sized businesses use social media to offer discounts & special offers. Quite a big disconnect between what consumers want & what brands are delivering.

A key question to ask when planning your social media strategy is “what real value can we bring to our consumers?” because that sure is what they are expecting.

Mehrak Saheb

Prophesy Digital 

Mobile Internet usage is looking fantastic in AU!

300,000 daily unique users and counting. This is in comparison to 55,000 daily unique users 2 years ago!

In addition to the massive growth rate 43% of mobile internet users say that they access the internet on their mobile several times a day. When you look at iPhone users, this figure jumps to 60%.

The hype is now reality. Thank you Smartphones & most of all, thank you apple!

Mehrak Saheb

Prophesy Digital

81% of people in country areas are online every month.

In the 90’s the internet was available in country Australia but with dial-up connection – a nightmare! Slow & unreliable connection meant that the internet was not hugely successful in those areas.

The roll out of broadband, faster Next G services & Wireless internet across these regions saw a massive take up. The internet now facilitates reach against 5.6 million people in country Australia who are spending on average 16 hours per week online.

The internet has had a significant effect on the time spent with other media. Since using the internet, Australians living in Country areas:

• 30% read less newspapers
• 18% read less Magazines
• 19% watch less TV
• & 17% shop less in stores

The reliance on the internet is massive across this audience with 56% claiming “they would be lost without it”!

The internet really is a key medium for reaching Aussies who live in Country Australia & should be a  lead medium for advertisers looking to reach this Audience. Interestingly newspapers are still getting a big chunk of adspend here.

Mehrak Saheb

Prophesy Digital

Source: Roy Morgan Dec 2010, Nielsen Internet & Technology Report Feb 2010

Internet, the first medium accessed in the morning...? Really?

Fairfax Digital have run an interesting study against 6,300 respondents across their network and they asked an interesting question: "Which media do you turn to first thing in the morning?"

A staggering 35% of respondents said the Internet. I am quite shocked, I would have thought TV would win hands down.

Also interesting that 9% quoted Mobile as their 'first thing' media of choice Vs 6% newspapers.

Oh dear...hanging with friends & family takes second place to our 'computer alone time'

Well this piece of research will give the "technology has made us anti-social" war cries a solid backing!

 Roy Morgan has just released a piece of research from the "State Of The Nation" study which shows that traditional past times of entertaining friends & enjoying the outdoors have now been surpassed by the house hold computer.

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Traditional Australian pastimes of entertaining friends and enjoying the outdoors have now been surpassed by the household computer, according to the Roy Morgan State of the Nation report, a major study of Australians spanning over a decade with almost a million interviews. 

In the twelve months to December 2010, 80% of the population used a computer at home, up dramatically from 48% in March 1999. In the same period there have been real changes in Australian leisure activities.

The largest leisure activity decline was the day trip in the car, which slipped from 50% to 40% between March 1999 and December 2010. Other notable drop-offs include entertaining friends and relatives, down from 71% to 65%, in steady decline since March 1999, and seeing movies is down from 50% to 46%.

However, Australians have continued to visit professional sporting events, and galleries and museums at similar rates to March 1999.

Traditional Media Losing Power With Young Affluent Consumers

The Luxury Institute has just released a research study which shows that young affluent consumers are turning to digital channels to satisfy their taste for the finer things in life...below is an article from Marketing Mag which outlines the details.

I would also add to this that digital channels have made it possible for 'less' affluent consumers to consume the finer things in life. The Internet has made 'luxury brands' much more accessible & affordable. Take luxury fashion brands as an example...Aussie consumers can log on to bloomingdales.com or neimanmarcus.com & buy 'Vera Wang' clothing for the same price as they pay for Charlie Brown clothing in-store.

Mehrak Saheb
Prophesy Digital

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Research shows that growing number of affluent Generation Ys are turning online for shopping pursuits.

By MarketingMag 

Traditional media is slowly losing its power with the young affluent consumers, with a strong percentage of them turning to websites, apps and mobile sites to satisfy their taste for the finer things in life.

The Luxury Institute, a New York-based research company that looks into the behaviours and habits of wealthy consumers and offers consultation services to luxury brands recently found that 70% of wealthy individuals aged 35 and above own smartphones while majority of these high-spending consumes prefer watching online videos than reading a printed magazine or newspaper.

Close to a quarter also own an Apple iPad and spend an average of 100 minutes a week watching digital videos and 227 minutes consuming digitally recorded content. 

The institute’s research also points to wealthy Generation Y consumers being highly favourable to creating their own content in the form of blogs and video posts, along with an active presence on Facebook and Twitter.

“This is clearly a tipping point, with the rising generation of wealthy consumers consuming media in vastly different ways than anyone did just a decade ago. Luxury firms face a challenge to adapt accordingly but also a tremendous opportunity to engage younger customers,” says Milton Pedrazza, CEO of The Luxury Institute.

Phoebe Montague from the Lady Melbourne blog feels that Australian brands are doing their part to jump onto this new communication platform.

“I believe Australian retail brands do understand that their consumers are going online not only for research, but also for a complete 360degrees shopping experiences. Some brands do it better than others, but generally, I think our local brands are definitely addressing this trend well by connecting with consumers online.”

The Internet Is the Most Useful Medium For Finding Health & Well Being Information...

Roy Morgan has just released a study which shows that Australian's now find the Internet to be the most useful medium in finding health & well being information. "No kidding" was my first thought but my second thoughts was that it's good for reputable consumer research companies to verify what we have known for quite a while. Here is a snippet, enjoy!

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Australians now say Internet is the most useful media for information about Health, Wellbeing and Fitness products. Magazines and newspapers more valued amongst the older population, according to Roy Morgan Health MAP, a major new study of Australian Health, Wellbeing and Fitness spanning some  5 years and over 100, 000 interviews.

 

When Australians aged 14+ were asked which media they considered “most useful for providing information on Health, Wellbeing or Fitness,” 28% nominated Internet and 25% Magazines (estimated at 5 and 4.5 million respectively), whilst about half as many (13%) nominated Newspapers.

Gen Y - In Pursuit of Cool

I love reading research about Gen Ys, they are just fascinating creatures!

Telstra released an interesting study last month which highlighted the measures they go to to appear cool. Made me laugh but it's oh so true!
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• Facebook Places app boosts social cred: 44 per cent of Gen Ys use the Facebook Places “check-in” feature for appearance – to look cool (22 per cent), to fit in with all the cool people who are doing it (12 per cent) or to make others jealous (10 per cent).

• Check-in is used selectively: Half of Gen Ys only use Facebook Places to check-in at popular or trendy locations – so more mundane locations like work or the supermarket don’t make the cut!

• Downloading the latest iPhone apps: 27 per cent of Gen Ys admit they have apps on their phone they don’t use just to look fashionable or because other people will find them funny.

• Tweeting can make you cool: More than a quarter of 18-30 year olds have copied or ‘re-tweeted’ a Twitter update from others without crediting the original poster, and more than half said it was purely to make themselves look good.

• Gen Y heart phone faking: One in 10 Gen Ys admit to regularly faking where they check-in on Facebook Places, in the pursuit of improving their social status.

• Facebook is top of the popularity stakes on mobiles: 97 per cent of Telstra customers who use Tribe on their mobile phones access Facebook – well ahead of Twitter and MySpace. Tribe was launched last year and combines Facebook, Twitter and MySpace in a single location free of data charges for Telstra mobile customers.

• Men are bigger phone fakers: One in five Gen Y males admit they have checked in on Facebook Places at a location when they weren’t actually there, as opposed to 12 per cent of Gen Y females.

• NSW and VIC lead the states in phone faking: NSW residents are most likely to have checked-in using Facebook Places at a location they are not at (17 per cent), followed closely by Victoria (16 per cent). Victorians also scored highest when it comes to ‘selective check-in’, with 56 per cent claiming they use Facebook Places to check-in at a trendy/popular venue as opposed to somewhere un-cool. Gen Y poster child and social networking addict, Josh Earl, says he can relate to Telstra’s research findings of using new social networking tools to be a ‘phone faker’.

Ah got to love it!

Mehrak Saheb
Prophesy Digital

The Pitfalls of Demo/Behavioural Targeting

Last month a friend of mine turned 40. An interesting milestone for us women - a trying, perhaps challenging time as you can imagine. What we need to make us feel better at these times is a lot of reminders of how fabulous we are regardless of age.

The last thing we need is to be served a banner ad telling us to check out “hairstyles for women in their 40’s” which is exactly what happened to her last week!

Oh the horror! Oh the really bad media planning!

Now what you need to know is that this friend of mine is an extremely ‘trendy’ woman, very sheik, on top of the latest fashion trends, not at all the type of person who needs to be told what her hair should look like now that she is 40.

Do you think the ad achieved what it had intended to do? Get a response? Raise ‘brand awareness’ so that the next time my friend wants to explore new hair styles she would think of that brand first...? Nope! The ad left her feeling insulted & hurt! The only good thing the ad managed to achieve was to give us a great example of how bad media planning can easily create a negative brand experience.

Some Media Planners don’t think twice about applying ‘age targeting’ & serving ads within ‘contextually relevant environments’ but with the array of ‘behavioural’ targeting options at our disposal now it is negligent not to look deeper at your audience & apply an exclusion list to avoid insulting them.

Behavioural Exclusion works in the same way as ‘negative’ keywords work in search – allows you to avoid targeting people who have demonstrated a certain behaviour making them irrelevant to your product/campaign message. In this case, they could have excluded women in their 40’s who had visited ‘fashion/magazine/lifestyle’ sites in recent past, marking themselves as ‘trendy’ women NOT in need of hairstyle advice.

Mehrak Saheb

Prophesy Digital