Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Reach a younger demographic on SnapChat with the launch of SnapChat Discover
SnapChat Discover launches this week -and will run content on the platform from partners including CNN, Cosmopolitan, the Daily Mail, ESPN, Food Network,National Geographic, People, Vice, Yahoo! News and Warner Music.
They will have between 5-10 articles each, which disappear within 24 hours.
We can now run ads alongside this content - with an opportunity to reach a young demographic
The Connected home is here - as Nest adds another 15 companies - synching PCs, microwaves, fridges, cookers, smoke detectors...
http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/
Nest Adds 15 More Companies To Its “Works With Nest” Progra
Nest is today announcing significant new partners joining its “Works with Nest” developer program. The new additions continue Nest’s quest to turn its product into the heart of a smart home.
Among the new partners are Lutron, Insteon and Philips Hue. Each company built Nest products into its ecosystem. For example, now with the Lutron integration, homeowners can control their lights, shades and thermostat from the Lutron Caséta Wireless App, which also works with Lutron’s growing smart-home system.
Nest also penned partnerships with August Smart Lock, Automatic, LG appliances, Unikey and Withings to build the Nest Thermostat into their products.
Interestingly, though, Ooma and Philips Hue worked the Nest Protect smoke alarm into their systems. With Ooma, when the Nest Protect detects smoke or CO2, it will dial a local emergency service while the Philips Hue lightbulbs will flash different colors.
Best of all, these functions are available without a third-party service like IFTTT.
Nest is also announcing upcoming “Works with Nest” partners that are expected to launch functionality in the coming months. This includes Big Ass Fans, Beep, Chargepoint, OSRAM, Stakc, Whirlpool and Zuli.
Nest rolled out its “Works with Nest” program six months ago. So far the company has been successful signing up big players in the industry, and today’s announcement further cements the company as a staple in the smart home.
Five trends from CES 2015:
A Preview to CES 2015: Five Trends to Watch
Robots, smartphones, 3D printers, tablets, phablets, smartwatches, 4K curved screens TV’s; all of this and more will be shown at the 2015 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The shear number of gadgets, exhibitors and attendees is both awe inspiring and overwhelming.
The innovations, will be more evolutionary than revolutionary, with many refinements to existing products and technologies. Screens will get sharper, phones more powerful, gaming more immersive, automotive and wearables more integrated, to name a few.
But CES has always been less about what is in front of you, and more about what it will become in the next few years. The potential for smart, connected tech, to move consumers down the marketing funnel is huge. Here are a few big trends and opportunities to watch.
The Internet of Things
With 25 billion connected devices, the Internet of Things is one of the hottest trending topics in tech right now. It’s all about the opportunity to connect everyday items like cars, home security systems and kitchen appliances to networked devices like PCs and smartphones for greater control and management of our everyday lives. Imagine your refrigerator connecting with your Amazon Prime account and ordering milk to be delivered before you run out. This connectivity opens up many opportunities for marketers to engage with their consumers from offering virtual coupons to brand recommendations.
Virtual Reality
We have come a long way since 3D glasses. As audio quality, graphics and displays become more sophisticated and life-like, viewing is moving from a passive to a thoroughly engaged activity. Facebook’s recent $2 billion investment in Oculus, signals a broader interest for virtual reality within the technology industry. While most of the VR demonstrations at CES will be gaming-focused, take a step back and observe the enthusiastic and growing community around the Oculus Rift and think critically about the potential applications of a fully-immersive environment for brands to engage their audiences.
A World of Wearable Tech
In 2014, wearable devices became the rage, many collecting data on everything from calories burned to hours slept to blood pressure. In 2015, no doubt, major technology companies will build services and software that transform wearables as a platform the way the iPhone influenced Android and rewrote the smartphone industry. Once you have a platform and scale, data from these devices will enable marketers to more accurately pinpoint not only the type of advertising that will be most receptive to the consumer, but the precise time and place to deliver it.
The Road Warrior
“Connectivity” is the game-changing theme for automotive tech and the phone will emerge as the brain of your infotainment system. Last year, most car manufacturers were pushing their own proprietary on-board tech ecosystems. Enter the likes of Google, Apple, Microsoft, or Blackberry, who recently formed a partnership with Ford, and we will have a couple of big tech players competing to provide the OS (and associated apps) to on-board entertainment and hardware systems. The potential implication for all marketers may be that they can more seamlessly reach consumers both outside the car as well as behind the wheel.
The Omni-Channel Consumer
Whether it’s a tablet, phablet, smartphone, PC, or a wearable, today’s always on, connected consumer lives in a world where multi-device ownership and usage is the new normal. This has created a consumer who expects experiences that are personal, relevant and available on-demand, 24/7. We are moving from a world of mass marketing to mass customization. As a result, marketers must learn to navigate this complex landscape, taking advantage of new digital tools and platforms to reach their consumers regardless of where they choose to interact.
25% of search is now through social, as Facebook eats into Google's dominance
http://www.thedrum.com/news/
Facebook is risking up the ranks as a search option
US public less reliant on organic search with 25% now using Facebook as a discovery platform, says Forrester
Facebook is risking up the ranks as a search option
Over a third of US adults use search engines to discover online content although social media sites are gaining in prominence, according to research from Forrester.
The survey of 4,600 respondents found that in 2014, 36 per cent of US adults located information and websites through search engines; this marked a 13 per cent drop in usage since 2013 as alternatives chewed up the platform's dominance.
Social networks are playing a bigger role in search with a quarter of US adults using Facebook to find information or websites in the last month. Notably, Facebook dropped Bing search from the site earlier this week as it introduced its own search function to browse its trillion posts.
Other networks offered considerably less website follow-through than Facebook, with eight per cent claiming Twitter granted them access to a desired website within the last month.
TV sent 23 per cent of respondents to specific websites while TV shows and news stories came next, only influencing 21 per cent . Emails influenced 16 per cent of click-throughs.
Differing from average consumers was ‘super-spenders’, individuals who spend over $1,000 online quarterly.
Forty six per cent of this group relied upon search engines for discovery. Furthermore, 37 per cent used Facebook this way in the last month.
TV ads and shows similarly directed 30 per cent. Across the board, super shoppers were more active on a diverse range of discovery platforms.
The report offered advice for marketers hoping to catch the attention of regular shoppers: “Make it as easy as possible for valuable super spenders to buy from you as a result of their hyper-search activity. Consider two approaches to help you do this.
“First, plan campaigns to optimise a multistage decision process; 65 per cent of revenue derived through Google comes from purchases made in more than one step. This means creating some discovery ads specifically to assist another ad rather than to drive a conversion. Second, follow through on your search and social listings with able social commerce capabilities.”
Earlier this week it emerged that Facebook is creeping up on Google's search dominance, with nearly a quarter of UK shoppers claiming to have researched Christmas gifts on the social network.
wearables become more practical - park your car using your smart watch
http://mashable.com/2014/12/
BMW is developing a car that can be parked via smartwatch
BMW is developing a remote-control valet parking system for cars that can be operated by a smartwatch.
The sensor-filled BMW i3 car, which will be on display at the 2015 International CES in Las Vegas in January, integrates with smartwatch and can essentially self-park. According to the company, a driver could activate the "Remote Valet Parking Assistant" via an app, which then guides the vehicle to a parking spot all by itself.
THE CAR WORKS WITH THE HELP OF LASER SENSORS THAT SCAN THE SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT SO IT CAN MOVE WITHOUT RUNNING INTO ANYTHING. IT WILL WORK IN TANDEM WITH A DIGITAL SITE PLAN, SO THE CAR HAS A MAP OF THE ENVIRONMENT, TOO.
IMAGE: BMW
The prototype BMW i3 is understandably imperfect. Previous iterations of self-parking cars — like the one Audi showed off at CES 2013 — worked with lasers positioned in the physical location. The BMW model requires a map of the environment, but it seems that it still occasionally crashes during self-park jobs. (In BMW's news release, the company said there's only a "possibility of entirely collision-free driving.")
BMW has been working on self-driving cars for some time now. The company tested out a "highly automated" in 2009 and again in 2011. The car manufacturer even publicly tested out a self-driving car at last year's CES.
Other companies, like Tesla and Google, have cars with autopilot-like features, too.
We may still be a way's off from sleeping during solo road trips, but big-name companies are working hard to make it a reality.
top 10 digital screw-ups - good guide what not to do
Top 10 big digital screw-ups by marketers
COLLATED FROM A DAY OF MARKETER TALKS AT BRANDMAX , FROM BRANDS INCLUDING O2, TFL, WILLIAM HILL, BARCLAYS, AUDI, BRITISH GAS AND HALFORDS, THE TOP 10 DIGITAL SCREW UPS REVEAL THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES MADE BY BRANDS IN DIGITAL.
1. Thinking 'Tech' - not consumer first
Brands were urged not to think about the technology they are using before they considered what their customers wanted and needed.
2. Bolting on digital to something that is analogue
Digital shouldn't be an afterthought now, so speakers picked this out as a core screw up by marketers.
3. Doing it all yourself, rather than collaborating
The velocity of change within people and society means brands won't always have the answer. Being able to collaborate with others means you can get the answers you need and keep up with your customers.
4. Approaching it as a digital transformation, not business transformation
The marketers agreed that digital was so fundamentally important that viewing transformation as purely digital wasn’t enough. Any digital transformation had to be a business transformation.
5. Adding little or no real value to the customer experience
Digital for the sake of digital is a common theme and a particular place it has an impact is the customer experience. Superfluous digital experiences can be a drain on important investment.
6. Waiting until something is perfect before launch
Marketers should be taking heed of the start-ups that are now becoming the biggest brands of the future by working in perpetual beta. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s now infamous quote ‘move fast and break things’ is becoming a mantra for businesses way beyond Silicon Valley.
7. Don’t get yourself a ‘bike whisperer’, never bother to ask ‘why would I watch this?’
Halfords marketer Ben Towers discussed the bike retailers’ investment in video, including its series ‘bike whisperer’ which it launched around the Tour De France. The message the panel of experts gave was to be brave in creating content.
8. Automatically transferring KPIs across media platforms without relating them to the very specific context your content will be in
The resounding message around content and measurement was "Content is not king, context is king". The debate around the measurement of social media and content is forever hot but marketers denounced the use of vanity measures and meaningless metrics, favouring context and KPIs set to real business objectives.
9. Don’t assume it takes 30 days to build a habit - people are more interesting than profiles
In a more social and digital world it is harder to change and predict customer behaviour, assuming this can be done quickly is a common failure of marketers.
10. Don’t attempt to know too much about how to blend social, search, display and affiliate activity
Trying to know it all but become a master of none is common as marketing becomes more complex.
treat your online presence as you would your shops and remove the clutter -from Coke's online chief
http://www.marketingmagazine.
Coca-Cola: Share a Coke campaign
Brands must not clutter the virtual world with 'rubbish', says Coke online chief
BRANDS NEED TO CLEAN UP, DE-CLUTTER THEIR ONLINE CONTENT AND TREAT THEIR VIRTUAL PRESENCES LIKE PHYSICAL STORES, ACCORDING TO DAVID MARTIN, EUROPEAN ONLINE DIRECTOR AT COCA-COLA.
Consumers are living in an increasingly fast-paced world, and brands must find ways to connect with them at credible and meaningful touch points in order to give them "solutions" that make their lives easier and help them manage their time, he said.
Speaking at the IGD online and digital conference this morning, Martin urged brands to avoid filling the "virtual world" with rubbish and to treat the space as they would their physical stores, which should be clean and de-cluttered.
He said the lives of consumers were now likely "the slowest they’re going to be" as they become more connected, and that understanding what is driving customers' needs is crucial.
As the world continues to change, data will provide businesses with "the bridge" between business insight and delivery, he said, with "data scientists" providing businesses with some of their most important hires over the next 18 months.
Martin said: "At Coke we’re absolutely obsessed about understanding the shopper journey – or the shopper cycle, as it never stops.
"To understand where we can add value to that experience, where we have permission to help solve the problems customers have [is key]."
One of the three key areas where a business could add value, he said, was in flexibility, providing customers access to what they want, when they want it. Share a Coke offers this and engages with customers on a personal level.
Customers are able to order their own personalised product, which Martin described as a "simple manifestation of the idea of flexibility and ‘providing stuff that’s right for me’... Undoubtedly the direction a lot of our businesses will take."
However, he urged brands to get some "basic things" right, for example creating meaningful content and considering the customer’s needs first.
He said: "Even though we work in a virtual world, it’s really important to remember our customers are real.
"Make sure you live life for your customer. I love what Dave Lewis is doing at Tesco. He’s making people go back to the shop floor, he’s making people go back to really understand what [customer’s] needs are.
"I think sometimes we need to reflect on the fact that just because it’s a virtual world, doesn’t mean we need to fill it with rubbish.
"By all means find ways of surfacing relevant content as and when customers are looking for it. What they want is easy and simple solutions."
OOH drives app downloads
Why Tech Brands Are Suddenly in Love With Billboards and Subway Ads
Out-of-home drives app downloads By Lauren Johnson- November 13, 2014, 1:01 PM EST
- Technology
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