Real Time Demo Cartoon

via tacanderson.com

Google Wave explained (properly)

via holykaw.alltop.com

And here’s the more scientific explanation. Which worked best for you? Samuel L Jackson or this ‘proper’ one?

Millions of geeks failed to explain Google Wave as well as Samuel L Jackson

via malbonnington.com

Absolutely fantastic.

How Much Does Beer Consumption Vary By Country?

via snippets.com

Can you draw?

via thinkingalaud.posterous.com

5 Retail Marketing Trends for 2010

1) Inconspicuous Consumption

Consumers respond to the social moment by taking consumption into the closet. As when we talk about going to Fred’s (in-store restaurant), not Barney’s. Or, ask to have new purchases shipped, rather than be seen carrying a branded shopping bag. Or, decide to have shoes repaired and last year’s jacket altered. Spending as a covert activity. No bragging rights.

2) The Dyslexic Dilemma

It’s a “b.” No. It’s a “d.” Consumers stall in their tracks, trying to figure out what to do, right now. Are we heading out of the woods, or perhaps a bit deeper into it. The moment to watch: What happens when
unemployment hits 10 percent at the exact moment the Dow tops 10,000. That deer-in-the-headlights look on the consumers’ face: Now or not yet? What is the real barometer of economic health? Dare I buy a peach?

3) Private Labeling

The number one brands thrive, innovating, advertising and product improving. But, the number 2s and 3s stop striving, unable to compete with performance advances or on price. Into the vacuum steps Private
Label. No longer just “okay, available and cheap,” these grocery aisle invaders are well-branded, feature rich and are oh-so-profitable for the stores. Say goodbye to familiar but moribund household names; say hello to snazzy new entrants that shave quarters off the check-out total without sacrifice. (Store brands in play at Walmart pictured above)

4) Trading Down without Trading Off

Consumers make psychological assessments of where to spend and where to save their personal currency. Are we willing to buy last year’s iPod on close-out, rather than the latest and greatest? Where can we make a financial trade down without a steep payment in street cred?

5) Investment Grade Purchases

Consumers opt for quality – the kind that costs a bit more upfront, but is ultimately worth repairing and refurbishing. As in remembering (perhaps for the first time) that what makes Gucci loafers worth it is
not the buckle but the workmanship, leather and fit. Watch for articles in the fashion press to educate on what to look for and the importance of a couple of (new) important pieces to renovate last year’s look.

We share more on trends for 2010 here.

via brandingstrategyinsider.com

 

How to get people to use the stairs? Make it fun. Lesson from Stockholm

via garr.posterous.com

This is genius!

5 reasons you no longer need an Ad agency..

via glennedley.posterous.com

Controversial stuff yet worth a read.

Twitter, Facebook Traffic Surges, Myspace Fades

Source: Shutterstock

Recently, Facebook announced that it had surpassed the 300 million user mark. According to Experian HitWise, Facebook accounted for 58.59 percent of all U.S. visits among a custom category of 155 social networking Web sites in September 2009. This is an interesting stat and I would love for Experian HitWise to send the full list over, so that I can also analyze the playing field for new, emerging, and declining players across the board.

The report noted that Facebook’s growth was the highest among all social networks, with U.S. visits increasing 194 percent between September 2008 and September 2009.

Market Share of U.S. Internet Visits to Top Five Social Networking Web Sites

Rank	Name	Domain	Sept 2009	Aug 2009	Sept 2008	Yearly Change %
1	Facebook	www.facebook.com	58.59%	55.15%	19.94%	194%
2	MySpace	www.myspace.com	30.26%	33.00%	66.84%	-55%
3	Tagged	www.tagged.com	2.38%	2.36%	1.62%	47%
4	Twitter	www.twitter.com	1.84%	1.95%	0.15%	1170%
5	myYearbook	www.myyearbook.com	1.05%	1.16%	1.76%	-40%

But then, there’s our “social” darling…Twitter. Twitter had the largest percentage gain in market share of visits among the top five visited Web sites, increasing 1,170 percent compared to the previous year. In fact, 2009 is “The Year of Twitter” as documented by the traffic and reach of Twitter.com at Alexa and Compete.

 

According to the report, U.S. visits to all social networks was up by 62 percent from September 2008 to 2009. Except of course, at Myspace and myYearbook. From 2008 to 2009 each experienced a significant erosion in visits by -55 percent and -40 percent respectively. The good news for MySpace however, is that the network topped the charts for average time spent in the network. And, as engagement is a key metric for social media, this data is critical to the future of MySpace engineering, innovation, and the ecosystem it creates moving forward.  But, that engagement level is slipping, as it reflects a 12 percent loss of attention year-over-year.

As you’ll see in a report I will soon publish, Twitter is starting to appeal to the youth who have powered MySpace in the past and still do today. Fusion and integration are key at the once dominant social network.

Click here to read the rest of the post.

via briansolis.posterous.com

 

CHART OF THE DAY: Yahoo’s “It’s Y!ou” Campaign Turns Off Consumers

via lenkendall.posterous.com

Six things VW???s Fun Theory campaign tells us about ???viral???

The social web is a-twitter with talk of German car manufacturer Volkswagen and its The Fun Theory campaign. The campaign homepage declares its mission statement in no uncertain terms:

This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

It’s an upbeat mantra and provides the backdrop for a very smart campaign by VW and DDB Stockholm which has seen a series of videos produced showing situations created to make life more fun and change people’s behaviour by giving them a fun option in an everyday scenario.

The most popular, Piano Stairs, has currently notched up almost 1,900,000 views on its official URL alone. In it, engineers rig up a set of stairs in a metro station in Stockholm to mimic the keys of a piano. The carefully chosen stairs were located next to an escalator, and the theory worked – the musical stairs persuaded more commuters than usual to walk up the stairs instead of taking the escalator. It’s been picked up by countless marketing, advertising and creative blogs and has generally met with a very positive reaction.

A similar result was achieved by The World’s Deepest Bin, an ordinary bin into which was installed a motion sensor and “50ft well” sound effect. Personally I think the effect is a bit rubbish (no pun intended) but the idea is rather nice.

So, if The Fun Theory can change behaviour by providing fun alternatives, can it tell us anything about “viral”, that scourge of the social media folk? You bet.

• The content should be fresh, fun and/or interesting. In a world of cynics, deep down most of us like to see people unexpectedly enjoying themselves in an everyday setting. Commuting is the obvious target for this, and Piano Stairs is a great example of creating a situation which speaks to millions
• VW’s videos are unbranded, save for a logo in the last frame. The social web is maturing and in many areas is coming to accept that big brands will be major players. But if you want your video to be shared around, subtlety is required and there is a line which shouldn’t be crossed: people are simply more likely to share great content which appears branding-free
• While many well-shared videos are just funny or natural, brands would do well to follow VW’s example in producing content which makes people think.  Larry Ferlazzo, for example, thinks teachers could benefit from encouraging kids to switch to a more positive behaviour because it has been made the fun option
• The videos are all based on clever creative. However, this does not necessarily translate into real-world shareability. It does give your video a chance to spread quickly through the echo chamber of social media, full of people who are looking for campaigns like this one and are willing to vocalise their appreciation to their peers. This may be a good starting place for the quick spread of some videos, but the sheer volume of views in this case suggests its mainstream appeal has been more important
• While the branding has been limited, there is a link back to VW. The idea behind changing behaviours from lazy/negative ones into positive ones is ultimately to encourage people to change the way they think about environmentally-friendly cars
• Viral is an effect, not a strategy. The only way to achieve this effect is to recognise it as such and treat your content accordingly. That means the creative and execution must both be specifically designed to achieve shareability and talkability. Almost all successful so-called “virals” are well seeded, and this one is no different

The key message here is that while creating a viral video is way more difficult than it sounds and should not be considered a tactic, shareability and seeding should be taken into consideration from the very beginning of a video campaign if a large number of views is the target.

via clickingandscreaming.com

Really great post from Chris Nee at Porter Novelli.

Why Email Is Still The Most Social Of Media

Why Email Is Still The Most Social Of Media

And here is how I arrived at this mad crazy postulation:

1. Email has mainstream acceptance – When I say mainstream I mean everyone who has a computer can use email. I can (and do) email my wife, my friends, my colleagues, my clients, strangers (should I wish to send spam, which I don’t) and family. I speak through email with my Great Aunt who is approaching 92 years of age.
2. Content – An email can contain text. This could be a quick note to a friend or a lengthy business case.  You can attach photos, video (ok not large files I agree) or documents. Links can be inserted and HTML emails can have external content embedded.
3. Mentions – Email had ‘mentions’ long before Twitter appeared and Facebook copied. It’s called CCing someone in. Even this gives you the option to include everyone in a conversation OR blind carbon copies to maintain privacy.
4. Social – Once an email has been sent this can then become collaborative and therefore social. One can forward, reply and crucially for this argument ‘reply to all’. Users can forward emails to anyone in their address book meaning an email can (and often does) go viral, much like Twitter.
5. Management – Who needs CoTweet et al to manage relationships when you have Outlook! List all emails, order by name, size, date or subject. Segment and store messages by keyword, subject, contact.

Obviously email is a dated technology but it really does have all of the elements synonymous with social media and the arrival of Google Wave is its  natural evolution.

via socialmediamashup.wordpress.com

 

Watch this: Social media in numbers. In real time!

via dannywhatmough.com

PRCA Awards 2009 – agency shortlist

 

The shortlisted agency entries for the PRCA Awards 2009 are:

 Financial Award

• Weber Shandwick: Res Non Dom Research

Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Award

• Blue Zebra PR: National Vaccination Month
• Kavanagh Communications: Eye to Eye Contact
• Ketchum Pleon: World Contraception Day

New Media, Digital and Broadcast Award

• Consolidated PR: Yes Yes Yes: Say Yes to Safe Sex (Months of the digi teams blood sweat and tears!)
  
• Focus PR: Mission Goo on the Loose (Twisted Super Agents campaign)
• Threepipe: ECB: The Great Exhibition
• Weber Shandwick: Mobil 1 SuperCircuit with Lewis Hamilton

Media Relations Award

• Brands2life: Making Flight Centre Unbeatable
• Fleishman-Hillard: How unified communications enables flexible working
• Good Relations: Honda meets the media
• Kaizo:  Now playing: You – Launching the Flip Mino in the UK
• Mandate: Save our Newsagents
• Mischief: DOGSIDE.com: Fashion snout
• Mischief: The UK launch of Twilight on DVD & BLU-RAY
• Nexus PR: Guilty Secret of Celeb Chefs
• Weber Shandwick: Has Anyone Seen Grandad’s Telly

Internal Communications Award

• Instinctif: Nomura Now
• MS&L: P&G shines light on employees

Public Affairs Award

• Burson-Marsteller: The campaign to stop the world’s largest congestion charge scheme
• Connect Public Affairs: Fair Pint Campaign
• Weber Shandwick: Saving Rural Medical Services

Consumer Award

• Brands2life: Logitech: Beat the Burglar
• Clarion: Gaymers Grassroots
• Mandate: Kleenex campaign
• Mishcief: Kempton Park: Royal Filly-Monic Orchestra
• Shine: First Class Guide to Britain
• Shine: Martini ‘Stay Beautiful’
• Shine: Watchmen DVD launch

B2B Award

• Brands2Life: The Cloud or Fog?
• Cirkle Communications Ltd: Walkers Do Us a Flavour (DUAF)
• EdenCancan Limited: Helping the advertising industry to go green
• Eulogy!: The Deceased Mail Funeral
• Mandate Communications: Licensing the letting industry
• MS&L: Generating more than just coverage

Public Sector Campaign Award

• Bell Pottinger: NHS Patient Choice
• MS&L:  Health & Safety Executive (HSE): Asbestos – The Hidden Killer campaign
• Munro and Forster: The Training and Development Agency for Schools national teacher recruitment campaign

 

Not-for-Profit (NFP)

• Good Relations: Really Naked Calendar
• ONE: theNewIceAge.com – British Frozen Food Federation (BFFF)
• Threepipe: Global Cool at London Fashion Week
• Weber Shandwick Scotland:Launch of Condemned

CSR Award

• Lexis: EDF Energy’s Green Britain Day
• Threepipe: Vodafone Cut It Out

Technology Award

• Bite Communications: Gandi.net – creating a name online
• Brands2Life: COBOL hits 50
• Firefly: Firefly Accelerates Steria’s Ascent to No. 2 Spot in SoV League Table
• Kaizo: Now playing: You – Launching the Flip Mino in the UK
• Onlinefire: It’s amazing what you can do with 30 peas

Crisis Management Award

• Firefly: Bebo blazes social networking innovation whilst preserving reputation
• Montpellier: Showing we care
• Unity: Orange Rockcorps

International Campaign

• GolinHarris: Magnum World’s Pleasure Authority
• KetchumPleon: World Contraception Day 2008
• Publicis: Malta Guinness Africa Street Dance
• Weber Shandwick: Launch of Zain in Africa

Campaign of the Year – will be selected from categories 1-14

Specialist Consultancy of the Year

• Eulogy!
• Insight Public Affairs
• Weber Shandwick Technology

International Consultancy- not UK based

• Upstream Asia: The Asia Pacific Bridge

International Consultancy

• GolinHarris: Real success from around the world
• Hill & Knowlton
• Weber Shandwick

Consultancy of the Year

Small Consultancy Of The Year

• Pretty Green
• Threepipe

Medium Consultancy

• Eulogy!
• Insight PA

Large Consultancy

• Brands2Life
• Lansons

Consultant of the Year

• Amanda Pierce, Burson Martseller
• James Tyrell, Insight Public Affairs  
• Kitty Parry, Templars PR

Young Communicator of the Year

• Maria Allen, Burson-Marsteller
• Kelly Teasdale, Chandler Chicco Companies
• Olly Kendall, Insight Public Affairs

via prca.org.uk

 

Your eyes will often deceive you. TED talk from Beau Lotto.

via lenkendall.posterous.com

10 Branding and Marketing Trends for 2010: Branding Strategy Insider

10 Branding and Marketing Trends for 2010

 

Niels Bohr once noted that “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future,” but then he didn’t have access to predictive loyalty metrics. Happily, we do. And, as they measure the direction and velocity of consumer values 12 to 18 months in advance of the marketplace and consumer articulations of category needs and expectations, they identify future trends with uncanny accuracy.

Having examined these measures, we offer 10 trends for marketers for 2010 that will have direct consequences to the success – or failure – of next year’s branding and marketing efforts.

1) Value is the new black

Consumer spending, even on sale items, will continue to be replaced by a reason-to-buy at all. This spells trouble for brands with no authentic meaning, whether high-end or low.

2) Brands increasingly a surrogate for “value”

What makes goods and services valuable will increasingly be what’s wrapped up in the brand and what it stands for. Why J Crew instead of The Gap? J Crew stands for a new era in careful chic –being smart and stylish. The first family’s support of the brand doesn’t hurt either.

3) Brand differentiation is Brand Value

The unique meaning of a brand will increase in importance as generic features continue to plague the brand landscape. Awareness as a meaningful market force has long been obsolete, and differentiation will be critical for success –meaning sales and profitability.

4) “Because I Said So” is so over

Brand values can be established as a brand identity, but they must believably exist in the mind of the consumer. A brand can’t just say it stands for something and make it so. The consumer will decide, making it more important than ever for a brand to have measures of authenticity that will aid in brand differentiation and consumer engagement.

5) Consumer expectations are growing

Brands are barely keeping up with consumer expectations now. Every day consumers adopt and devour the latest technologies and innovations, and hunger for more. Smarter marketers will identify and capitalize on unmet expectations. Those brands that understand where the strongest expectations exist will be the brands that survive – and prosper.

6) Old tricks don’t work/won’t work anymore

In case your brand didn’t get the memo here it is -consumers are on to brands trying to play their emotions for profit. In the wake of the financial debacle of this past year, people are more aware then ever of the hollowness of bank ads that claim “we’re all in this together” when those same banks have rescinded their credit and turned their retirement plan into case studies. The same is true for insincere celebrity pairings: think Seinfeld & Microsoft or Tiger Woods & Buick. Celebrity values and brand values need to be in concert, like Tiger Woods & Accenture. That’s authenticity.

7) They won’t need to know you to love you

As the buying space becomes even more online-driven and international (and uncontrolled by brands and corporations), front-end awareness will become less important. A brand with the right street cred can go viral in days, with awareness following, not leading, the conversation. After all, everybody knows GM, but nobody’s buying their cars.

8) It’s not just buzz

Conversation and community is all; ebay thrives based on consumer feedback. If consumers trust the community, they will extend trust to the brand. Not just word of mouth, but the right word of mouth within the community. This means the coming of a new era of customer care.

9) They’re talking to each other before talking to the brand

Social Networking and exchange of information outside of the brand space will increase. Look for more websites using Facebook Connect to share information with the friends from those sites. More companies will become members of Linkedin. Twitter users will spend more money on the Internet than those who don’t tweet.

10) Engagement is not a fad; It’s the way today’s consumers do business

Marketers will come to accept that there are four engagement methods including Platform (TV; online), Context (Program; webpage), Message (Ad or Communication), and Experience (Store/Event). But there is only one objective for the future: Brand Engagement. Marketers will continue to realize that attaining real brand engagement is impossible using out-dated attitudinal models.

Accommodating these trends will require a paradigm change on the parts of some companies. But whether a brand does something about it or not, the future is where it’s going to spend the rest of its life. How long that life lasts is up to the brand, determined by how it responds to today’s reality.

via brandingstrategyinsider.com

 

Only Dead Fish: Post Of The Month – September ’09 – The Winner

Post Of The Month – September ’09 – The Winner

 

In spite of a late run on Helge’s post, the early leader held out so I’m delighted to announce that the winner of this months Post Of The Month is Michael Litman with his excellent post on social media measurement. Well done Michael. You get the props of your blogging peers and are entered into the ThinkTank Hall of Fame. Thanks everyone for taking part. Don’t forget to bookmark your good reads to nominate for next months vote.

 

via neilperkin.typepad.com

 

Sean Kenney – Art with LEGO bricks

via seankenney.com

Apple said to be charging $10,000 for iTunes LP production, cutting out indie labels

 

Sure, it may be tough deciding whether to shell out the extra few bucks for a deluxe iTunes LP or not (okay, maybe not that tough), but it looks like that’s nothing compared to what record labels are faced with. While Apple itself of course isn’t saying anything official on the matter, Gizmodo spoke with the owner of one indie record label who got a bit of information after inquiring about the possibility of making some iTunes LPs himself. Apparently, not only is Apple not currently making iTunes LPs available to indie labels at all, but it’s charging the major labels a hefty $10,000 production fee for each one, which no doubt also means they’ll be confined to particularly big sellers unless something big changes.

via engadget.com

 

The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing

As web professionals, we all know that the concept of the page fold being an impenetrable barrier for users is a myth. Over the last 6 years we’ve watched over 800 user testing sessions between us and on only 3 occasions have we seen the page fold as a barrier to users getting to the content they want.

In this article we’re going to break down the page fold myth and give some tips to ensure content below the fold gets seen.

What is the fold?

Above the fold is a graphic design term that refers to important content being on the upper half of the front page of a newspaper. It’s commonly used on the web to describe the area you see on a web page before you have to scroll down the page.

Why we don’t worry about the fold

People tell us that they don’t mind scrolling and the behaviour we see in user testing backs that up. We see that people are more than comfortable scrolling long, long pages to find what they are looking for. A quick snoop around the web will show you successful brands that are not worrying about the fold either:

BBC, Play, Amazon.co.uk and the New York Times websites showing the position of the page fold

Adding evidence from user testing

When we user test here at cxpartners we use an eye tracker. The eye tracker lets us see what the user sees. We then take the combined eye tracking data from each study and produce a series of heatmaps. The heatmaps show us what as a whole the user group is looking at.

Scrollbars are used to assess page length and to indicate content below the fold

One of the most common things we see on a heatmap is a strong hotspot over the scrollbar. The scrollbar is used to assess the page length. Users expect to have to scroll. The heatmap below shows this.

Heatmap from eyetracking showing scrollbar as cue to page length.

Less content above the fold may encourage more exploration below the fold

The image below shows some recent eye tracking work we did with Bristol Airport. The screens show two different design treatments for the hero slot (the large, prominent image area) on the homepage. The surprising thing we learnt was that actually having less above the fold (one large content block as opposed to 2 smaller ones) encouraged exploration below the fold.

The image on the left has more crammed in above the fold, and the image on the right has less.

When there is not exploration below the fold

As we mentioned in the introduction there have been 3 occasions where there was little exploration below the fold. In each case the cause was the same.

One of these occasions was some user testing work we did for First Choice last year. The page below, a very long one, caused problems as users were not scrolling down the page.

The blue horizontal bar was the barrier to scrolling.

The long blue ‘Accommodation’ heading was acting as a barrier. This is the common theme – strong horizontal lines across the page discourage scrolling.

First Choice have now fixed the horizontal line issues and have content just showing above the fold.

The image library pokes up just above the fold indicating that there is content beneath.

Design tips to encourage scrolling

We can offer three design tips to ensure content below the fold is seen.

1. Less is more – don’t be tempted to cram everything above the fold. Good use of whitespace and imagery encourages exploration.
2. Stark, horizontal lines discourage scrolling – this doesn’t mean stop using horizontal full width elements. Have a small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold to encourage scrolling.
3. Avoid the use of in-page scroll bars – the browser scrollbar is an indicator of the amount of content on the page. iFrames and other elements with scroll bars in the page can break this convention and may lead to content not being seen.

 

Update Friday 9th October 2009. 10am GMT

Just some clarification. On all our testing set-ups we force the browser size to be 1024 x 740 px. This puts the average page fold at around 700px on screen shots above.

Our research shows the most effective place for content is above the fold, no surprises there. We are saying that people do scroll. Users scroll if there are cues to scroll and no design barriers to scrolling.

Update 2 Friday 9th October 2009 1pm GMT

Richie Lee make a really good point below about bordering content to  give a further visual cue that there is further content below the fold.

There are some tips here for designing e-commerce product pages and forms with further tips on dealing with the fold:

• What people see before they buy: Design guidelines for e-commerce product pages with eyetracking data
• Web form design guidelines: an eyetracking study

Keep the comments coming,

joe (aka @mrjoe)

Via CX Partners