Communication x3

Cx3: Integrating social media survey

2011-12-12T12:09:00.015Z

InSites Consulting conducted a quantitative online survey among 400 senior marketing managers.

Markets included are the US and the UK.

The goals of the study are: understanding the current adoption level of social media among corporations and getting insights in the integration of social media in their business processes.

Some of the most interesting findings relate to valuable performance indicators. As social media increasingly becomes integrated into strategic communications, benchmarking of performance is going to be key in winning-over the adoption laggards. Those considered the most valuable performance indicators include:

52% - Leads generated via social media
46% - Volume in online reach
34% - Adoption of social media by employees
34% - Impact of online conversations
28% - Influence indicators

To the right is a useful infographic (click for full size) that gives a summary of the findings.

View the Social Media Integration Survey presentation on SlideShare including more presentations from Steven van Belleghem

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Transmedia storytelling
Cx3 blog entry: Social Media Content Grid
Cx3 blog entry: Conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: Fry's Planet Word

2011-10-17T17:13:00.008+01:00

Fry's Planet Word - The inimitable Stephen Fry provides expert curation on language and the written word across the world that has driven communication. If you have not already seen it, I do recommend you take the time to watch.

The series provides fascinating insight into the evolutionary (and revolutionary) characterisation of language and the essential development of the written word that supports interaction, engagement and technology. Without it, we would not be where we are today.

In last night's programme, "Stephen discovers the earliest writing - cuneiform - at the British Museum, and learns how our alphabet came from the Phoenicians. As part of his exploration of the diversity of scripts, Stephen visits 106-year-old Mr Zhou, the inventor of the Chinese phonetic writing system called Pinyin, who relates how literacy increased four-fold after its introduction under Mao.

After the written word came the printed word, and Stephen looks at how this has shaped our relationship with writing, giving us libraries, dictionaries and encyclopaedias. From the Bodleian to Diderot's favourite café to the cutting-edge research at MIT, Stephen explores how the written word evolved into printing, then libraries, encyclopaedias and computer code. Blogging and twittering is just the tip of a brave new future which no one dares predict."

There are echoes of Steve Jobs' passionate story about taking calligraphy classes upon dropping out of college, which retrospectively turned out to be a 'connecting dot', introducing multiple typefaces and proportionately spaced fonts to the Apple Mac.

Stephen Fry has carved his niche as an expert wordsmith and an influential voice on Twitter. He curates the programme with a down-to-earth raw passion that cannot help but draw you in. Watch Stephen Fry's Planet Word on BBC iPlayer.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Steve Jobs
Cx3 blog entry: Why follow a celebrity?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and Halibut

Cx3: Transmedia storytelling

2011-10-13T21:49:00.008+01:00

I'm always impressed by the collaborative infographics created by Brian Solis and JESS3...and the 'Social Media Brandsphere' is no exception. It illustrates a transmedia approach to storytelling connecting brands with audience groups spanning five media landscapes:

"Social networks and channels present brands with a broad array of media opportunities to engage customers and those who influence them. Each channel offers a unique formula for engagement where brands become stories and people become storytellers. Using a transmedia approach, the brand story can connect with customers differently accross each medium, creating a deeper, more enriching experience. Transmedia story telling doesn't follow the traditional rules of publishing: it caters to customers where they connect and folds them into the narrative. In any given network, brands can invest in digital assets that span five media landscapes.

1. Paid: Digital advertising, banners, adwords, overlays
2. Owned: Created assets, custom content
3. Earned: Brand-related conversations and user-generated content
4. Promoted: In-stream or social paid promotion vehicles
5. Shared: Open platforms or communities where customers co-create and collaborate with brands

Any combination of the five media strategies defines a new Brandsphere where organisations can capture attention, steer online experiences, spark conversations and word-of-mouth, and help customers address challenges or create new opportunities. Each media channel connects differently with people and thus requires a dedicated approach integrating tangible or intangible value. Doing so ensures a critical path for social media content: relevance, reach and resonance."

Visit www.theconversationprism.com for more on this and other infographics in this series.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Social Media Content Grid
Cx3 blog entry: Conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: Steve Jobs

2011-10-08T15:05:00.014+01:00

A while since my last post, but the demonstrable influence of Steve Job's death has reignited my Cx3 blog posts - and in tribute, written and posted in totality using my iPad.

In the past few days, since Steve Jobs died, there has been an unprecedented global outpouring of grief, tributes and reflection. He is labelled a genius in parallel with Einstein and labelled the creator of the 21st century.

Steve Job's Apple empire touches the world, quite literally, as it shapes the way we behave and communicate today - providing platforms to connect, share, inform, inspire, influence, educate, perform and entertain.

I myself (as did many others) found out about Steve Jobs death via my iPhone and actively shared the news appropriately - via my iPhone, which can only be a fitting tribute to a man who revolutionised communication. Twitter recorded 10,000 tweets per second on news of his death - the highest ever.

Clips of Steve Jobs were shared including his Commencement speech at Stanford University 'How to live before you die' and multiple i-product launch performances, which have a presentation style of their own. The 'opportunity in death' that Steve Jobs actively talks about, provides the world with the opportunity to 'save to memory' recognition of a man's leadership genius, and a not-to-be-forgotten creative visionary.

Cx3: Burberry digital runway

2011-05-08T00:49:00.007+01:00

Burberry's 'holographic' runway show in Beijing is one of my favourite videos on YouTube at the moment. There are only six real catwalk models in this show and it is quite mesmorising. The full show (see video below) also includes avatar models and an Inception based environment that has Burberry models parading up walls and on the ceiling. Full credit to Christopher Bailey's genius.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Digital renaissance of Burberry
Cx3 blog entry: Royal change management
Cx3 blog entry: London calling
Cx3 blog entry: Brand Beckham ambassadors

Cx3: Royal change management

2011-04-30T15:35:00.015+01:00

Yesterday, there was the royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. The day was declared a bank holiday in the UK, we were glued to the television and there were thousands of very British street parties up and down the country...hurrah for the happy couple!

However yesterday, the royal wedding also re-positioned the popular 'William and Kate' brand past a superficial excuse to have a party. The new 'Duke and Duchess of Cambridge' brand, for a day, lead the nation (and the world) with values of awareness, relevance, accessibility and acceptance that will be influential in shaping the future monarchy in the United Kingdom.

It was an uncompromising marriage meme connecting tradition with modernity, regal with common, youth with wisdom, Smiths with Beckhams, Grace Kelly glamour with fascinator fad, respectful etiquette with carefree abandonment, serious with fun, old with new...I could go on with the dichotomies, but the message is clear.

Accessibility to the royal couple's wedding day embraced today's technology. Live streaming records were broken as people around the world watched the wedding over the internet, topping 300,000 concurrent users on Livestream.

Social amplification of the event dominated trends on Twitter, Facebook and Google. 65% of the conversation came from the USA and 20% from the UK.

Healthy social commentary including the good (that McQueen dress by Sarah Burton); the bad (Princess Beatrice's ridiculous Royal Wedding hat - OMG); and the unexpected - the matron of honor upstaging the bride (the earthy 'Pippa Middleton Ass Appreciation Society' on Facebook), says it all.

The official royal wedding photographs have been released on Flickr.

So, to a truely global, social and accessible Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - royal change management facilitators, I raise a glass.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: London calling
Cx3 blog entry: Brand Beckham ambassadors

Cx3: Consumer touchpoints [INFOGRAPHIC]

2011-04-22T21:38:00.008+01:00

Loving this infographic from BLITZ that simply illustrates the daily channel touchpoint lifecycle of a sample consumer. The graphical concept easily translates across any specific audience demographic to identify high-value touchpoints when approaching targeted channel communications.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: Social media marketing spend [INFOGRAPHIC]

Cx3: Growth of mobile marketing and tagging

2011-04-13T23:55:00.009+01:00

View more presentations from Microsoft Tag.

Cx3: Japan earthquake and tsunami

2011-03-12T10:46:00.010Z

In the wake of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the maturity of digital networks and social media is being demonstrated.

Less than an hour after the earthquake, Japan's phone system was knocked out and Twitter became the go-to place in the emergency - the number of tweets coming from Tokyo topped 1,200 per minute according to Tweet-o-Meter.

Google has set-up its Person Finder service so people can look for others, or post information saying they are safe - more than 4,000 records were posted in the first hour.

On YouTube the Japan tsunami channel hosts official news and user generated videos. The video below has already been viewed more than 3 million times.

Mashable has posted an article Japan earthquake and tsunami - seven simple ways to help in the aftermath of the disaster.

No-one can say that the devastation of Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant explosion isn't shocking, and the essential need of digital and social channels for connecting people and connecting the world with information is clear.

RELATED LINKS:
Mashable: Japan earthquake and tsunami - seven simple ways to help
Cx3 blog entry: Iran's social media voice
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world

Cx3: The virtual business

2011-03-06T16:28:00.015Z

I like this article 'The virtual business: Doing deals in your pyjamas' - the article also poses the question, do modern businesses need four walls?

There is renewed interest in businesses leveraging the internet and the power of 'the cloud'. Although conceptually, the virtual office has been around for a while, it is only now that the convergence of technology connectivity and the economic climate as business drivers that a virtual reality is raising to the fore again.

But is a paradoxical virtual business reality a viable option? And can technology and digital communications sustain a virtual business?

The economic climate drives global operational economies and digital communications facilitates cost-effective management of those operations. No secret there.

The full-time/remote workforce split. Again cost effeciencies minimise full-time workforce overheads and temprorary on-demand remote-working specialist 'suppliers' make-up the balance that enables a business to negotiate beneficial rates. However, relationships with these temporary specialists is now the connection for a driven and motivated workforce. Cloud computing and social solutions are connecting stakeholders digitally, and nurturing loyal relationships.

There will always be grounding forces. Finance, corporate regulation and compliance. Growth may necessitate a physical reality, and can a virtual brand and its values be sustained?

Also, layer on top of this a generation of digital natives' natural virtual persona multiplicity, which is now grown-up - technology giant Microsoft is already exploring avatar technology for conferencing (interesting sign of the times). Going forward, the business drivers for virtual working may not be solely economic and technological, but behavioural.

RELATED LINKS
The virtual business: Doing deals in your pyjamas

Cx3: Yahoo! MarketDash for iPad

2011-02-26T13:39:00.006Z

Yahoo! launched MarketDash this week, their new iPad app that brings all of the real-time stock and financial data of their existing iPhone app, but optimised for the larger iPad screen.

The MarketDash app for iPad allows you to display real-time stock information for any company in your portfolio and see trend data and a stock's history over time period or stock performance and closing price on any day with a single tap.

If you use Yahoo! to track your finances, you can import a watch-list of your portflio and access real-time data also. Once markets close, you see closing price and access relevant news.

Another example of the tablet platform potentially finding a corporate niche with 'on-the-go' investor and analyst audiences? As the Yahoo! MarketDash app promo video says 'Money never looked so good'. One to watch.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: The Daily iPad
Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen
Cx3 blog entry: Interact with your iPad
Cx3 blog entry: One million Apple iPads sold
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview

Cx3: The Daily iPad

2011-02-06T18:39:00.006Z

News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch is extending his media empire once again - this time with a digital newspaper for the iPad called the Daily.

Mr Murdoch told an audience at the Guggenheim Museum in New York that he hoped it would be an "indispensable source of news" in the tablet era.

The Daily will cost 99 cents (60p) a week and will be sold exclusively via Apple's iTunes store.

The paper will initially only be available in the US.

News Corp has hired about 100 journalists to work on it.

The Daily will feature news articles, interactive graphics, HD videos and 360 degree photos designed to work with the iPad's touchscreen.

It will add Twitter feeds into some articles and offer personalised content.

"Our target audience is the 15 million Americans expected to own iPads in the next year," said Mr Murdoch.

"In the tablet-era there is room for a fresh and robust new voice. New times demand new journalism," he said.

He promised that the Daily would combine the best of contemporary technology with "shoe leather reporting, good editing and a sceptical eye".

According to Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president of internet services, 200m news apps have been downloaded and there are 9,000 different news apps to choose from.

Revenue share

It is believed that Apple will use the tie-up with News Corp to change the way it charges for subscriptions.

It means that any publisher offering content via the iPad will have to use Apple's payment method, known as in-app purchase, which in turn means Apple will get a share of the revenue made from any subscriptions.

"That is quite a big deal," said Adrian Drury, principal media analyst at research firm Ovum.

"The specific terms News Corp have negotiated are unknown, but every other publisher now faces paying 30% of their hard won application subscription revenue to Apple," he said.

It follows a tightening of the rules around e-book readers, which will also now be required to offer customers the ability to purchase books from within the app as well as from other sources.

News Corp's move onto the iPad reflects a wider industry appetite for selling device-specific exclusive content, Mr Drury said.

What sets the Daily apart is the fact that it has its own editorial staff.

"Others re-use content but the Daily has hired expensive US journalists and has its own editorial staff," he said.

"Its parent has deep pockets, and this is going to buy it time to build an audience and refine its model," he added.

Others who have already gone down the iPad route find it a difficult road, he said.

"Anecdotal evidence [suggests] that such publications have strong download sales when they first come to market, but when it comes to subscriptions, getting people to repeat buy, it gets really tough."

It also faces stiff competition from free apps such as Flipboard, which allows users to pick the websites they want to create a personalised magazine.

Paywalls

Mr Murdoch has made no secret of his desire to get consumers paying for news on the web.

The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sunday Times, all owned by Mr Murdoch, have introduced paywalls for their websites.

The Times has since revealed that it has seen a 87% drop in online readership.

In November, Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Branson launched his own iPad publication, called Project.

Unlike the Daily, it is a monthly magazine dedicated to style and culture. It costs £1.79.

Other paid-for newspaper apps for the iPad include Esquire, Glamour, GQ, the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired.

RELATED LINKS
BBC news article: News Corp launches daily newspaper for iPad
Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen
Cx3 blog entry: Interact with your iPad
Cx3 blog entry: One million Apple iPads sold
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview

Cx3: Black Eyed Peas Flashmob

2011-01-23T16:57:00.007Z

Always love a good flashmob and especially like this one from 2009 featuring the Black Eyed Peas in Chicago - if only for the expression on Oprah's face! ;-)

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street flashmob

Cx3: Social media marketing spend [infographic]

2011-01-19T23:26:00.006Z

'Infographic boy' - an interesting Superhero name that has unintentionally come my way. But why disappoint, so here is another one...Social media marketing spend - some 2010 numbers.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Facebook and Twitter demographics
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Social networking map stats
Cx3 blog entry: If Facebook was a country
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: London calling

2011-01-01T15:13:00.012Z

London's spectacular 2011 New Year firework fantasia demonstrated to the world the vibrance and confidence of a city commanding contemporary modernity, integrating seamlessly with its solid heritage foundation. A powerful and explosive message (excuse all the puns) against a backdrop of austerity, political coalition and global economic uncertainty...but a necessary one.

Digital communication turned a transitional corner in 2010. Economic escapism embraced 'Club Apple' and 'Club Google' feeding an uncontrollable behavioural craving enabling us to dance with the seductive iPhone, iPad, Android, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare brands...the hedonisitic 1980's revival relived for a new generation as they indulged - ordering another bottle of digital Veuve, posting their Facebook status, Tweeting when the Champagne was corked and uploading a brand reputation damaging video of complaint to the world on YouTube.

Joking aside, 2011 does have a more serious corporate tone - Relationships; Partnership; Performance; Delivery. 2010 was also a transitionary cornerstone for businesses as they too played with new ways of communicating through emerging digital channels, however, it's now time for the maturity of digital to be realised and strategic long-term commitment to enable the returns of nurtured stakeholder relationships and sustained growth to be fulfilled.

The complexities of corporate communications are such that traditional communication channels will not disappear from the mix, however, the focus of reaching and fulfilling stakeholder audience demands will be key. Maximising performance will result in appropriate targeting to reach 'the right' stakeholders using their preferred communication 'channel of choice' - even if that is now a 140 character dialogue on Twitter.

So the prospect for digital corporate communications in 2011 is positively coming of age. A solid strategic communication tradition is the foundation for confidently commanding new channels (including digital) to realise sustained performance and nurture ongoing stakeholder relationships and reputational brand loyalty.

London's New Year fireworks chimed positive sentiment for London to be sustained throughout 2011 as the world's eyes become focussed on the city as the stage (and worldwide tourist destination) for the marriage of Britain's future King and Queen, and on the upcoming London Olympics in 2012...oh my, I've embedded a YouTube video of the fireworks into my blog post - Let the digital games begin ;-)

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen

Cx3: Visualizing Facebook friendships

2011-01-01T11:11:00.006Z

This was posted a couple of weeks ago and passed me by, but better late than never as it is a pretty impressive bit of work (you could almost call it art), representing global Facebook connections.

It has been created by Facebook engineering intern Paul Butler and visualises the geographic friendship connections from available data. Paul writes in his article Visualizing Friendships that what emerged was

"a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn't represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travelling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life".

Quite noticeabley China is missing from the map (but then Facebook does not have a presence there), and parts of central Africa.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Facebook and Twitter demographics
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Social networking map stats
Cx3 blog entry: If Facebook was a country
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: 2010 Facebook and Twitter demographics

2010-12-21T09:33:00.008Z

Source: Digital Surgeons

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: 2010 Social networking map stats
Cx3 blog entry: If Facebook was a country
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: Connected devices from Nielsen

2010-10-24T19:35:00.025+01:00

Nielsen's study on 'The Increasingly Connected Consumer: Connected Devices' provides interesting insight on smartphone, tablet, e-book user behaviour.

'The Increasingly Connected Consumer' is a study intended to get a better understanding of the consumers purchasing Apple iPads, Amazon Kindles and other similar gadgets and how they are using them. The study takes a look at demographics, changes in behaviour, the content that people engage with and thier responsiveness to advertising.

Key statistics:

- Tablets is still a nascent market favoured by early adopters. In the US, 25% own a smartphone, 8% have netbooks, 6% have e-readers and 4% have tablets. Early adopters of technology favour tablets, and tablet owners own more connected devices

- Tablets are passed around more than smartphones or e-readers. 46% of people allow others to use their tablet, compared to 34% of smartphone owners and 33% of e-reader users

- 63% of iPad owners are under 35 years old, and nearly two-thirds of iPad owners are male. 47% of owners of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader are under 35, and 52% are male

- 91% of iPad owners have downloaded an app. The study revealed the most popular categories of paid apps downloaded include: Games (62%); Books (54%); Music (50%); Shopping (45%); News & Headlines (45%). For a full list, click on the chart to the left.

- iPad owners spend a longer amount of time engaged with content. The study compared iPad and iPhone devices and it was identified that a greater percent of weekday length of time per session across content categories was spent by iPad owners.

- Connected devices owners as a group are comfortable with mobile advertising, however, iPad users are much more receptive and are more likely to make a purchase

RELATED LINKS:
Connected Devices: iPads, Kindles, Smartphones and the Connected Consumer
Connected Devices: Does the iPad Change Everything?
Cx3 blog entry: Interact with your iPad
Cx3 blog entry: One million Apple iPads sold
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview

Cx3: Virgin Atlantic advert

2010-10-24T19:03:00.007+01:00

My favourite advert on TV at the moment from Virgin Atlantic: 'Your airline's either got it or it hasn't' - Bondesque camp to the hilt.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Cadbury's spots v stripes
Cx3 blog entry: Who is Gio Compario?
Cx3 blog entry: Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert - class

Cx3: About Radley Yeldar

2010-09-18T23:08:00.009+01:00

Radley Yeldar communicating effectively...finding the right answers to ever more complex questions.

RELATED LINKS:
Radley Yeldar wins gold at European Excellence Awards 2010
Cx3 Blog entry. Sound CR storytelling

Cx3: Foursquare times square equals...

2010-08-29T09:10:00.008+01:00

...a massive great Foursquare tower in the middle of New York's Times Square!

The Foursquare advertisement has been erected over American Eagle’s Times Square store. It is reported that Foursquare has a deal with American Eagle opening it to multiple location brands, even though it’s already one of the retailers using Shopkick, a location-based rewards app for iPhone (see video below).

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 Blog entry. Get your racy Calvin Klein ad

Cx3: Ofcom communications report 2010

2010-08-22T22:48:00.010+01:00

The average Briton spends almost half of their waking life using media and communications, data suggests.

The statistics from regulator Ofcom suggest people in the UK spend seven hours a day watching TV, surfing the net and using their mobile phones.

However, the average person actually squeezes in the equivalent of nearly nine hours of media and communications by multi-tasking on several devices.

The statistics come from industry sources and a survey of 1,138 adults.

The report also suggests that traditional media is holding its own.

Television still dominates people's media habits, with the average person spending around 3.8 hours watching television every day, it says.

"For the first time we have mapped the totality of communications use over one day," said Peter Philips of Ofcom.

The annual Communications Market Report says that the average person spends around 15 hours 45 minutes every day awake. Of this time, it says, the average person spends seven hours and five minutes "engaging in media and communications activities".

However, it found that most people are able to cram in even more by multi-tasking. For example, the report found that adults aged between 16 and 24 appeared to consume the least, spending just six hours and 35 minutes a day on the phone, laptop, radio or television.

But by multitasking - effectively using two or more devices at once - the survey found that young adults were able to squeeze the equivalent of nine hours 32 minutes worth of consumption into that time.

"They are taking up more and more communications activities but fitting them into the same amount of time," said James Thickett, director of market research and market intelligence at Ofcom.

He said this was largely due to the rise in the mobile internet and the use of smartphones.

"It has untethered people from being in one particular place."

The report says that the number of people using their phone to surf the web currently stands at 13.5m people. This has almost tripled since 2008, when the figure stood at 5.7m.

Concurrently, the use of mobile data has exploded, the report said, increasing by 240% between 2007 and 2009.

It suggested that, in part, much of this increase had been driven by one site - Facebook - which accounts for 45% of all mobile web use in the UK, followed by Google at 8%.

"All of the others have less than 4% market share," said Mr Philips.

Radio star

Facebook also dominates fixed line broadband use. The report says that social networking now accounts for nearly one-quarter of all time spent online, with Facebook accounting for the majority of traffic.

The majority of users of the site - and other networks - are between 16 and 34, although Ofcom said that there was a growing trend for older people to also sign up to the services.

The report also mapped the current state of broadband in the UK.

It suggests that internet take-up has now reached 73% in the UK, the majority of which is fixed broadband.

But despite the rise in new ways of accessing content, the report says that traditional media, such as TV and radio still dominate people's media habits,.

"TV still plays a central role in people's lives," said Mr Thickett. "We are watching more than at any time in the last five years."

Yet, despite the growth in online TV services and devices that allow people to record television, most shows were watched via traditional live broadcasts.

Radio also held its own, the survey said.

Although listening has gone down slightly, the number of people able to access radio services was at an all time high, at 91%.

"It is still a very important medium for people," said Mr Thickett.

RELATED LINKS:
BBC new story: Ofcom report highlights 'multi-tasking media users'
Cx3 blog entry. Ofcom communication report 2008

Cx3: Alice for the iPad

2010-08-15T20:56:00.007+01:00

This 'Alice for the iPad' video has been around a while, but just found it again - and still love it! It not just demonstrates how a classic book can get a new digital lease of life, but it also provides plentiful interactive inspiration for other iPad communication solutions.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: Interact with your iPad
Cx3 blog entry: One million Apple iPads sold
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview

Cx3: 2010 Social Networking Map - stats

2010-08-15T18:58:00.009+01:00

Another map to communicate the social networking landscape (click on the map to enlarge), but I rather like this one - maybe it is the Tolkeinesque 'Middle Earth' expanses, just begging to be explored.

Last month, Cx3 blog posted 'If Facebook was a country'. The 2010 Social Networking Map adds 'populations' to a few more 'countries' - The estimated number of users per designated network as detailed on the map are as follows:

- Facebook: 500 million
- Habbo: 178 million
- Myspace: 125 million
- Bebo: 117 million
- Friendster: 115 million
- Twitter: 114 million
- Orkut: 100 million
- Hi5: 70 million

OK, Frodo Baggins is now eating second breakfast and all set for a quest.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: If Facebook was a country
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: Sound CR storytelling

2010-08-12T21:34:00.014+01:00

Corporate and business communications specialists, Radley Yeldar (RY), work with Lloyds Banking Group’s Corporate Responsibility team and this year, they have developed a best-in-class online CR report.

The bank has many compelling Corporate Responsibility stories to tell, and they have taken the opportunity to communicate these stories simply in an engaging online format and with factual clarity, backed-up by supporting statistics and data.

RY's approach embraces the online channel and the opportunities for engagement, interaction and dialogue.

The online report purposefully uses interactive features enabling the exploration of content and strong sign-posting that directs users to related content. Pull-out facts and figures substantiate Lloyds Banking Group’s Corporate Responsibility credentials at a glance. An engaging and interactive approach is sustained when telling Lloyds Banking Group’s stories using inviting colour photography that encourages users to drill down to simple introductory teasers, and then the more detailed story itself.

Content can be shared via users’ choice social media channels by using a ‘share this’ feature integrated into the site. Throughout the site, a series of real-time polls have been integrated that start to open dialogue with audiences and opinions shared. The 16 polls across the site provide a simple route for audiences to express their opinions on Corporate Responsibility issues and in the first five days of the site going live have received more than 1,800 votes.

Elaine Cohen, co-founder of Beyond Business Ltd, has also commented positively on her CSR for HR blog appreciation for the inclusion of an 'HR Directors Introduction' in Lloyds Banking Group's CR report:

"Lloyds [Banking Group] clearly have an appreciation of CSR for HR. Let's hope this is the beginning of a new (tidal) wave of visible HR partnership in CSR-HR business practices and reporting".

Take a look at Lloyds Banking Group's Corporate Responsibility Report 2009.

RELATED LINKS:
CSR for HR blog entry: At last an HR Director speaks out on CSR

Cx3: Cadbury's spots v stripes

2010-08-08T20:36:00.009+01:00

Cadbury's spots v stripes is my favourite advert on TV at the moment and is part of the wider integrated campaign tying in the reach of broadcast media with incentivised online data capture, game play and viral social media.

Which side will you join? Go on, give it a glass and a half and take a side - play the Cadbury's spots v stripes game.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Grow social capital and go guerrilla
Cx3 blog entry: Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert - class

Cx3: Planting a seed simply - video

2010-07-25T10:47:00.004+01:00

Absolutely loving the simplicity of this video telling the story of the lifecycle of a seed. Beautifully executed and engaging.

See below a video of the 'The Making of the Seed' - cool stuff.

Cx3: If Facebook was a country - stats

2010-07-24T20:24:00.014+01:00

In the week that Facebook is hitting the 500 million users milestone, let's take a look at some Facebook statistics.

To put this 500 million users figure into some context. If Facebook was a country, its population would be the third largest in the world - behind China and India, and ahead of the United States in fourth place.

Currently, the country with the fastest growing Facebook population is China with a 47.02% growth rate. In fact, Asia dominates most of the top ten fastest growing Facebook populations.

Specifically in the United Kingdom, there is around 27,000,000 Facebook users (the greatest number outside of the USA) with a propensity of users in the 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 age range - click on the charts to the right for gender/age demographics for Facebook in the UK.

For more geographic and demographic Facebook statistics, visit CheckFacebook.com. It is a great interactive tool that gives some very insightful stats. Geek head now safely back in its box.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: BBC iPlayer and Facebook link
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: The growth of cloud computing

2010-07-19T22:15:00.007+01:00

Cx3: 47% of investors read financial blogs

2010-07-17T21:00:00.009+01:00

Stat of the week: 47% of institutional investors read financial blogs for investment research and ideas; 20% of them have even used blog research to execute a recommendation or investment decision. (The Brunswick Group).

RELATED LINKS:
IR Matters blog entry: Social Media and Disclosure – Minimizing the Risk

Cx3: Attention grabbing purple cow

2010-07-17T20:14:00.003+01:00

London's South Bank - Is it a cow? Is it a bull? Is it a bit of both? Whichever way it's literally purple, grabbed my attention, made me laugh, I took the photo, shared it on Twitter and posted it on my blog. Nice purple cow...moo!

Cx3: Get your racy Calvin Klein ad

2010-07-13T23:49:00.010+01:00

Whilst we are talking 'fashion', Burberry is not the only fashion brand to be embracing digital. Calvin Klein Jeans has replaced three of its billboards in New York and Los Angeles with a bright red QR code and the words “Get It Uncensored.”

Snap the QR code on your smartphone (go on, try it), and get a racy 40-second Calvin Klein Jeans commercial featuring models Lara Stone, “A.J.,” Sid Ellisdon, Grayson Vaughan and Eric Anderson. After viewing, share the QR code on Facebook and Twitter.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: The digital renaissance of Burberry
Cx3 blog entry: QR codes - the future of mobile channel communication?

Cx3: The digital renaissance of Burberry

2010-07-13T22:29:00.006+01:00

UK luxury group Burberry announces a forecast beating 24 percent rise in first-quarter underlying revenue. Reuters TV takes a look at how the 154-year-old brand is using technology to connect with consumers.

Watch the video from Reuters TV: The digital renaissance of Burberry

Christopher Bailey, Burberry's Chief Creative Director, is credited with connecting the Burberry brand with digital technology and e-commerce.

Burberry supports the launch of its 2010 Autumn/Winter collection with an interactive 3D-campaign on their website that enables the user to view the collection from multiple angles by just moving the mouse - simple, and not a chav in sight!

Cx3: Interact with your iPad

2010-07-04T22:12:00.015+01:00

So, I purchased an iPad yesterday...yey! I had clear thoughts on how and what I intended to use it for. Less than 24 hours later, and the iPad's intuitive interaction design and the interest from a circle of friends has generated unexpected user behaviour.

I intended to use the iPad to access the Internet and email, listen to music, watch videos, share photos, write blog articles remotely - all of which I have done already.

However, in addition to this, my creative side has been unexpectedly explored and I've doodled a few pictures (see left), relaxed with a few games of backgammon, shared a game of Scrabble with friends in the local park and badly played 'flight of the bumble bee' on Magic Piano's app (which is my left hand, again?).

Genuinely, in a short space of time, the iPad effortlessly challenged my own preconceived user behaviour, connected me with the iPad in a way I wasn't expecting and the iPad became a focal point for enabling social interaction with others.

The iPad truly is a revolutionary cornerstone driving interactive communications.

RELATED LINKS:

Cx3 blog entry: One million Apple iPads sold
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview
Mashable blog entry: Apple Has Sold 1 Million iPads

Cx3: The social media content grid

2010-06-20T17:46:00.009+01:00

Our friends at JESS3 have worked-up another infographic to help demistify the ever moving social media landscape. It is meant to help organisations figure out (and work through) oft-asked, burning questions about social media such as:

1. Which platform works best for what we are trying to achieve?
2. Where does social media figure in the purchase funnel/sales cycle?
3. Who should "own" social media?
4. How can we utilize social channels outside of just Facebook and Twitter?

Along the X-axis, they've plotted the purchase funnel: from awareness to consideration (and ultimately conversion and advocacy). Along the Y-axis, they've plotted to what extent their should be organisational input, oversight and control - and to what extent employees should be leading the charge to create content.

More information on the content grid can be found on JESS3's blog.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: The conversation prism 2.0

Cx3: BBC iPlayer and Facebook link

2010-06-20T14:10:00.008+01:00

The BBC will forge closer links with social networking firms this week when it unveils a new version of its catch-up television service iPlayer that integrates with Facebook and Twitter.

The corporation is trying to strike a more conciliatory tone over its digital expansion plans after coming under fire from commercial rivals, which accuse it of attempting to colonise the web.

The BBC is proposing to close or merge half of its sites by 2012 and cut its £135m online budget by 25%. But the launch of a range of iPhone applications has been held up by the BBC Trust after the complaints.

The iPlayer remains central to the BBC’s digital push, however. There were 118m viewer and listener requests to the service in March, including 84m to watch television programmes. The new version will let users share what they are watching with Facebook friends or comment via Twitter.

“We want to do fewer things even better,” said Erik Huggers, the BBC’s director of future media and technology. He added that the new iPlayer would be more “simple, personal and connected”. “We must no longer try to do everything online but focus on delivering genuinely world-class services like the BBC iPlayer.”

Last week Project Canvas, a BBC-led plan to bring internet television to the masses, avoided an Office of Fair Trading investigation despite being attacked by BSkyB and Virgin Media. By combining Freeview with a broadband connection, catch-up services such as iPlayer and ITV Player will be more widely available on television sets.

RELATED LINKS:
BBC links iPlayer to Facebook

Cx3: One million Apple iPads sold

2010-05-03T18:49:00.016+01:00

Based on the the quotes from Steve Jobs, Apple's iPad is exceeding market penetration expectations to deliver a serious interactive communications platform:

“One million iPads in 28 days—that’s less than half of the 74 days it took to achieve this milestone with iPhone,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Demand continues to exceed supply and we’re working hard to get this magical product into the hands of even more customers.”

Engaging interactive multi-dimensional digital comms are the 'here and now', and businesses should be aware that interactivity will very quickly become the expected stakeholder norm.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPad overview
Mashable blog entry: Apple Has Sold 1 Million iPads

Cx3: Apple iPad overview

2010-01-30T14:18:00.005Z

Not that I try to be swayed by sales pitches, but the Apple iPad does appear to be extraordinarily simple and a beautifully executed user experience that takes interactive communications to another level. Very excited about this.

Cx3: 2009 social media highlights

2009-12-23T18:49:00.005Z

2009 is almost over, and no blog would be worth its salt without the obligatory picking out of choice highlights from the year - and Cx3 is no exception. Yes, I may be slightly biased with my selection towards the UK and my indulgance in the banal, but hey...it's Christmas!

Twitter
What can I say? 2009 was the year Twitter went mainstream. Twitter progressed from the techy early adopters to the majority in the product lifecycle. Why? Most noticably was an acceptance by traditional media broadcasters that Twitter was a powerful channel for real-time news distribution (that acctually beat them at their own game). The publicity and exposure Twitter received with the Hudson plane landing and Iran elections catapulted the Twitter communication channel into the spotlight. Secondly, the increased share of the iPhone in the smartphone mobile market allowed the mainstream masses access to a multitude of Twitter apps.

Susan Boyle
Who would have believed that Britain's Got Talent would be the source of the most watched video on YouTube in 2009. Susan Boyle, the fiesty wannabe singer from Scotland, became a worldwide conversational buzz overnight. Yes she didn't win the show (and maybe this was a blessing in disguise), but it's not stopped the '#susanboyle' having the UK's Christmas number one album in 2009.

#uksnow
Us weather obsessed Brits demonstrated our need to share our meteorological interest when, in February 2009, we suffered the worst snow for 20 years. The '#uksnow' hashtag trended on Twitter, and mobile pictures / videos were uploaded to Twitpic, Flickr, blogs, Youtube etc...The world suffered a global drift of British snow - what are we like? Sorry world.

iPhone
Ok, so I finally succumbed to Apple's charms and purchased the iPhone 3GS in July 2009. Seriously though, Apple has made a major dent in the share of the UK smartphone mobile market with the iPhone, and is doing the same in the US. The iPhone has been elevated to a desirable must-have object that is transforming the way we communicate..."What iPhone apps have you got?"

Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry has become the unlikely champion and celebrity spokesperson of Twitter in the UK. The expert wordsmith and linguist, has perfectly tweeted his intelligent wry wit to the score of 1,000,000+ followers. A worthy face to represent British Twits (that didn't come out right, did it).

Citizen journalism
The Iran election (influencial event rather than highlight), proved the demonstrable truth that Twitter had arrived as a channel for citizen journalists to broadcast real-time news worldwide, where traditional news broadcasters failed. The Iran election was also a milestone for integrated media channel broadcasting - BBC TV news adopted to broadcast YouTube videos when their reporters were denied access by the Iranian government, in order to sustain a newsworthy story.

Facebook v X Factor
The might of Facebook against the might of X Factor saw a historic battle to reach the prestigious number one spot in the UK Christmas singles chart. A Facebook campaign 'Rage Against The Machine for Christmas No1', created by Jon and Tracy Morter, was a reaction against X Factor potentially spawning the UK's Christmas number one single for the fifth year in a row. The Facebook campaign captured the public's imagination and Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing in the Name' successfully beat 'The Climb' by X Factor's Joe McElderry into second place by 50,000 copies.

2009 really has been a year where social media 'est arrivé'. In observing these choice highlights, there is a bridging commonality of the seamless social media integration with mainstream communication channels - predominantly broadcast and mobile.

Marketers realise that social media reaches an audience, and its dynamics sit within the holistic communications mix - let's see how marketers maximise the effectiveness of social media in 2010.

Merry Xmas!

Cx3: Rage Against The Machine beats X Factor

2009-12-20T19:49:00.006Z

One of the most competitive battles to reach the UK's Christmas number one in chart history has been won by Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing in the Name' (supported by a fierce Facebook campaign), beating 'The Climb' by X Factor's Joe McElderry into second place.

The Facebook campaign 'Rage Against The Machine for Christmas No1', created by Jon and Tracy Morter as a reaction against X Factor potentially spawning the UK's Christmas number one single for the fifth year in a row, resulted in 500,000 downloads being sold beating the X Factor winner by 50,000 copies.

Colin Paterson, BBC News Entertainment correspondent comments:

"It is simply one of the biggest shocks in chart history.

The common belief was that the race for Christmas number one had been destroyed by the X Factor.

For the last four years the winning act has been top of the festive charts by a landslide. Bookmakers only took bets on who would be number two.

This year the corporate might of Simon Cowell has been defeated by a husband and wife's Facebook campaign.

The result is 'Killing In The Name', which most parents would be pretty reluctant to play to their children. It contains 17 uses of the F-word.

This chart shock is right up there with Spiller's 'Groovejet' derailing the start of Victoria Beckham's non-Spice Career in 2000 or crooner Engelbert Humperdink ending The Beatles' run of 11 number ones in a row.

Two other points - this could become an annual event - the public deciding on a track with which to take on the X Factor winner.

Secondly there is still every chance Joe will reach number one next week.

The Rage Against Machine campaign was designed for one week only so Joe could get the top spot, saving him the indignity of being the first ever X Factor winner not to hit number one with their debut single."

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: UK's best handheld - The Sun

2009-12-04T12:28:00.005Z

The Sun newspaper hits back and champions paper-based news distribution with this wonderful pastiche of the iPhone advert. The UK's best handheld for 40 years. Brilliant!

Cx3: Who is Gio Compario?

2009-09-27T17:00:00.006+01:00

Absolutely loving the 'Who is Gio?' PR campaign to support Go Compare's ATL advertising starring the coffee shop opera singing wonder that is Gio Compario (and he's only a tenor/tenner...oh how we laughed!). Inspired by the Google Latitude stunt, the search for Gio is on, 39 people, 39 locations...But who is Gio?

The rising Go Compare star introduces his own Gio Compario campaign site. You can join his many fans on Facebook, and also follow operatic antics on Gio Compario's Twitter.

Following this one closely to see where Gio goes next.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Grow social capital and go guerrilla
Cx3 blog entry: Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert - class

Cx3: Big Brother's social media future

2009-08-31T12:04:00.005+01:00

As an unashamed Big Brother fan (I indulge in its banality), and knowing for a while that Endomol's contract with Channel 4 was due to end in 2010 the recent spin targeted at Joe Public raising the prominance of a ratings slump was an amusing move in managing expectations.

I was interested to read Wildonion's insider thoughts on the subject and I totally concur with the opportunities mentioned that Endemol has for social network affiliation.

As Wildonion says "It [Big Brother] has a young audience. That audience don’t really watch too much TV", therefore, target the channels that they do access - does Endemol even need a traditional TV broadcaster to facilitate this? What we see today are managed bite-sized chunks of happenings in the house of what a Channel 4 producer wants a TV audience to see that supposedly makes good television and is an attempt to sustain TV viewing figures - but for what audience?

Big Brother started as a social experiment - a group of people cut off from the outside world and how they behaved over a period of time. As we all know, the programme became a perceived avenue for celebrity stardom. However, two interesting things happened this year that should not be overlooked:

- Firstly, the outside world came into the house for the first time in the form of a few 'celebrity gossip magazines', within which housemates were featured - their reactions were televised and it was a refreshing flashback to the original social experiment ethos of the first series.
- Secondly, conversations were encouraged by allowing housemates to discuss nominations.

In the future, why not give housemates ongoing access to social media whilst in the house so that they can view the conversations being said about them in the outside world - would this change an individual's behaviour in order to manage their own self's brand reputation? Housemates could engage with social media by recording their own diary-cam videos to upload to YouTube, they could write blog posts or interact with Twitter.

Ten year's after Big Brother started, social interactions have changed with the advances of social media. Therefore, it is these social media interactions that Big Brother needs to experiment upon again.

RELATED LINKS:
Big Brother - end of an era. Don't be so daft

Cx3: Powerful social media stats

2009-08-15T09:52:00.007+01:00

Some powerful stats demonstrating why social media is not just a fad - if Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world...plus many more.

Cx3: Nielsen Iran social media stats

2009-06-28T13:37:00.032+01:00

Nielsen has undertaken snapshot search results analysis from Google for Iran focussed key phrases (Iran; Iran protest; Iran election; Moussavi and Ahmadinejad) over a two week period. A number of insights have emerged about how the Internet and social media continue to be a transforming force for the news industry.

Findings from an Internet snapshot from June 18, 2009:
- CNN rarely shows up in the top five search results for select Iran Election terms, mirroring criticism from consumers that the global news network’s coverage of the Iran Election was lacking (#CNNFail).
- Wikipedia emerges within the top two search results for 4/5 of the leading topics.
- At least one social media source emerges within the top 10 search results for every term. In most cases, the social media sites emerge directly above a traditional, major news source, such as WSJ.com.

Findings from an Internet snapshot from June 24, 2009:
- YouTube emerges within the top 10 search results for all search terms in the second week.
- Wikipedia remains within the top three search results in the second week for four of the five search terms.
- Twitter emerges within the top 20 search results in week two, specifically the Twitter results for Moussavi and Ahmadinejad. Of course, traditional news sources such as the BBC (and CNN, in week two) bubble to the top of search results, as do general information sites such as Yahoo.com and Infoplease.com.

Nielsen say that it is "yet another watershed moment in the ongoing evolution of news and media, further blurring the lines between being, reporting, and following the story". Read full findings from Nielsen: The Iran Election and Social Media: The New News Revolution

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Iran's social media voice

Cx3: Thinkbox advert - brand nostalgia

2009-06-27T16:25:00.012+01:00

Loving the trip down memory lane with the advert from thinkbox of some nostalgic brands made famous by TV advertising.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Grow social capital and go guerrilla
Cx3 blog entry: Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert - class

Cx3: #iphone 3G S and #HTC Hero - no contest

2009-06-24T23:57:00.016+01:00

HTC's Hero is based on the Google Android system, boasts greater personalisation and an angled design...and not much else. It's going to take more than an attractive handset to challenge the market position of Apple's iPhone now. The new iPhone 3G S is a must-have desireable and sustains the iPhone's iconic status as the smartphone of today and the future. With a PR buzz protecting the iPhone, competitors need to dent this before standing a chance of being a commercial threat.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Smartphone market trends
Cx3 blog entry: Google G1 or Apple i-Phone...fight!
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: Iran's social media voice

2009-06-22T07:49:00.011+01:00

The elections in Iran and the unfolding events in Tehran have demonstrated the growing power today’s social media vehicles have over traditional news reporting. Despite frequent attempts by the Iranian government to block ‘controversial’ communications (including the BBC website), it has been the blogs, the Twitter posts, and the video and picture uploads that have been the voice of Iranian citizens and the source of content for traditional media broadcasters.

On the back of the events in Iran, the debate has opened again on traditional broadcasters using social media as credible sources of information, in particular in the context of international news reporting:

- Broadcaster's acceptance of social media for international news reporting where areas may be inaccessible to journalists (e.g. governmental restrictions; geographical location; environmental barriers).
- The growth in mobile internet connectivity in remote locations enabling the two-way dissemination of information and greater reach of news content.
- The verification of information from more prominent ‘semi-professional’ journalistic sources, which require monitoring.

The BBC embraces the value of blogs and Twitter, and over the past week, BBC World actively called upon Iranian audiences to post links to videos, pictures and comments to a BBC email address, as their journalists were having difficulty accessing the streets of Tehran. Citizen-generated content was broadcast by the BBC, however, a ‘semi-professional journalist’ disclaimer distanced themselves from the content source.

There is recognition from traditional media broadcasters that social media has value in future news reporting and the Iranian elections have concreted this, however, content verification and editorial control are still hurdles having to be jumped before true journalistic synergies will be realised.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world

Cx3: Seth Godin talks Tribe leadership

2009-05-25T23:21:00.014+01:00

Cx3: Grow social capital and go guerrilla

2009-05-24T20:46:00.021+01:00

‘Citizen Journalism’, ‘The Conversation’ and ‘The Buzz’. These are 2009 buzzwords that describe mainstream consumer behaviour of interacting with social media, the social media vehicles that interact with each other to carry a voice, and the amplification of the voice by social media influencers.

Powerful stuff if the voice is talking positively about your brand!

Growing social capital enables a brand to more easily and cost-effectively influence via social media networks. Creative guerrilla tactics are becoming increasingly commonplace as brands start to leverage social media and grow their social capital. ‘The buzz’ has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is creativity that attracts the attention of 'citizen journalist'.

The Sony Bravia Balls campaign is a well documented case study as the benchmark for how to successfully use social media on the back of simple guerrilla creativity. This was complimented by the consistently creative Bravia paint explosion on a Glasgow housing estate.

T-mobile’s Liverpool Street flash mob dance campaign is another example of guerrilla marketing generating a social media buzz.

Both of these examples leveraged upon today’s consumer behaviour of recording videos and taking pictures on their mobile phones and sharing these via social media. Both brands listened to the unfolding conversation and encouraged the buzz by feeding consumers with more of what they wanted to hear. As a result, the social capital of both Sony Bravia and T-mobile brands established.

Social media communications are now mainstream and fully integrated into consumer behaviour, and it is this evolved and powerful consumer behaviour that brands need to be aware of and leverage upon. So Brands, what are you waiting for? Venture into the concrete jungle and go guerrilla – your citizens are waiting for you with their mobile phones!

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone sales grow despite market downturn
Cx3 blog entry: Social media heads are round, is yours?
Cx3 blog entry: How social is your conversation?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: The conversation prism 2.0

2009-05-08T00:03:00.013+01:00

Brian Solis and JESS3 have evolved the conversation prism since its first release in August 2008. The conversation prism 2.0 places brand at the centre of the prism and introduces a workflow rotation of concentric circles assisting in the establishment of rhythmic value-added engagement.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: The Dominos effect - reputation management
Cx3 blog entry: Social media heads are round, is yours?
Cx3 blog entry: How social is your conversation?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter

Cx3: iPhone sales grow despite market downturn

2009-05-02T13:53:00.009+01:00

Mobile phone sales have plummeted by a record amount in the first quarter of 2009 as the global financial crisis sapped demand, a research firm said.

The number of phones shipped worldwide in the first three months of the year dropped by 13% to 245 million units from the same period last year.

Strategy Analytics said all of the five biggest mobile phone-makers had drops in sales.

Bucking the trend is Apple's iPhone that had sales of 3.8 million, up from 1.7 million units the previous year - an annual gain of 123%.

"We expect Apple to launch one or more new models in the coming months as it seeks to maintain its breakneck growth rate," Strategy Analytics said.

Strategy Analytics said the previous worst quarter for mobile phone sales was in the third quarter of 2001.

Read the full BBC article: Mobile sales 'in record decline'

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Smartphone market trends
Cx3 blog entry: Google G1 or Apple i-Phone...fight!
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: The Domino’s effect - reputation management

2009-04-19T14:34:00.014+01:00

This week saw Domino’s Pizza’s social media reputation management go into overdrive in order to prevent a global toppling of the Domino’s Pizza brand.

A couple of employees in one of its franchises filmed themselves interfering with food that was supposedly destined for customers - the Domino's videos were then posted on You Tube. The YouTube videos were picked-up by the Good As You blog, which has subsequently become in active conversation with Tim McIntyre - Vice President of Communications at Domino’s pizza.

To further counter the negative impact that the Domino's videos may have on its brand, questions are currently being answered on the Domino’s Twitter site in an attempt to quash concerns from its customers.

It shows that the domino effect (unfortunate, but apt naming) is alive and well with extra cheese on top when the social media conversation goes sour, however, Domino’s Pizza have clearly shown how to leverage social media vehicles in order to manage its brand reputation when damage limitation is required on a global scale.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Social media heads are round, is yours?
Cx3 blog entry: How social is your conversation?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter

Cx3: Beware the Twitter fail whale

2009-03-21T10:32:00.008Z

Beware the Twitter fail whale - it made me laugh!

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Why follow a Twitter celebrity?
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world

Cx3: Social media heads are round, is yours?

2009-03-15T17:04:00.018Z

“Our heads are round so thoughts can change direction”
This profound quote from French artist and poet Francis Picabia (1879-1953) is an accurate philosophical musing that emphasises how today’s businesses should embrace emerging media and the social media conversation.

The conversation
The conversation vehicles are well known now:

- Micro-blogging
- Blog posting and comments
- Image/Video/Slide sharing
- Social Networking
- Bookmarking

The conversation is a wild and rampant beast, and erstwhile “life is for sharing”, the conversation risks turning into Chinese whispers. If the conversation generated by social media mentions your business, then you need to be involved. Reputation management goes hand-in-hand with the organic nature of the social media conversation – if your company or brand is being talked about, the conversation needs to be listened to, learned from and if necessary acted upon accordingly.

Media monitoring and listening
Media monitoring has been established for well over a century – Durrants was providing press cuttings to the aristocracy as far back as 1880. We live in a different age now, but the same monitoring goals apply, but to a much wider communications universe.

Purposeful campaign marketing and event-based communications will naturally tie into carefully prioritised key messages. Social media monitoring and measurement tools allow these key messages to be ‘listened for’ in the conversation. Companies can evaluate how influential the speaker is and assess the tone of what is being said. The volume of the conversation and the share of voice across the conversation vehicles can be identified and the timeliness mapped against a communications plan.

Learning and acting-upon the conversation
Our heads are round not stuck in the sand. The social media conversational evidence can be humbling when set against business expertise, however, this bitter pill must be swallowed for the greater educational good of understanding people, focusing on preferred communication channels and closer monitoring of a competitive marketplace.

Acting upon and taking part in the conversation as part of reputation management sustains the positive key messages, however, transparency and relevancy are of utmost importance – lie and you’ll be found out and the conversation could work against you. Ultimately, long-term insight generated by the conversation will lead directional change in business thinking and its interactions.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: How social is your conversation?
Cx3 blog entry: Social Networking World Forum
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: Smartphone Market Trends

2009-02-16T00:13:00.002Z

Smartphone Market Trends

View more presentations from Justin Lee. (tags: trend mobile)

Cx3: Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video

2009-02-14T20:19:00.008Z

There is a comforting nostalgia projected by the Virgin Atlantic Still Red Hot video. The TV advert created by RKCR celebrates the airline's 25th birthday with classic 1980's references including the yuppie, the mobile brick, the big hair and the Rubik's cube. I'm loving the advert and the return of many fond memories.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert

Cx3: Why follow a Twitter celebrity?

2009-02-10T21:21:00.009Z

Why not!

Twitter is reaching its populist celebrity-craved audiences now and not just the techy purists. Twitter has different priorities for different people whether business oriented, marketing focused, or pure entertainment, however, there is room for all - an intelligent quip from Stephen Fry or the latest gossip from Phillip Schofield helps the day go by.

Gordon Macmillan seems to be getting a little worked up on the subject with his blog post Why would you follow a Celebrity on Twitter. I say relax and accept Twitter, 'il est arrivé' - as I've said previously, celebrity Twittering is the new Heat magazine.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut

Cx3: How social is your conversation?

2009-02-07T19:57:00.011Z

Conversational marketing through social media is coming into its own in 2009. But are companies treating social media as a serious channel that can be integrated into their marketing mix?

The current economic climate affords accountability of marketing spend and, as a result, communication effectiveness measurement is high on the agenda. The timely rise of conversational social media marketing offers an attractive option that can be measured and evaluated quickly whilst achieving ultimate communication and business goals.

Harnessing 'the conversation' through social media for marketing purposes is understanding its fluidity, its reach and its speed. Conversational marketing initiatives must consider the wider channel mix (broadcast, mobile, online, mail etc.), what interaction social media has with these channels and the micro-social media interactions that occur over a period of time. Any conversation then needs to be monitored, assessed and responded to where necessary.

Vitrue, who analyse the online conversations of a variety of social networking, blogging, micro-blogging, photo and video sharing sites, has released a list of brands in the Vitrue 100 - Top Social Brands of 2008. Their analysis tracks the movement of a single brand over time based on online conversations and can be used to compare a brand with its competitors, either at an individual point in time, or over a period of weeks or months.

Looking at the Vitrue 100, an audience profile can be built-up based on the brands mentioned. This profile would be: youthful; media immersed; technology savvy; a communication maven – Generation Y ring any bells? There is a clear directional bent for the type of audience participating in ‘the conversation’ – marketers can learn from this. So how social is your conversation going to be in 2009?

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Social Networking World Forum
Cx3 blog entry: Generation Y communicate, unite and shout

Cx3: QR codes vs Microsoft Tag

2009-02-05T11:34:00.007Z

Microsoft Tag is Microsoft's version of QR codes and works in an identical way to the QR code system (download an app, take a photo, decode the photo through a gateway and deliver you the content). Read the full article on Techno Marketer: Microsoft Tag takes on QR codes.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: QR codes - the future of mobile channel communication?

Cx3: Social Networking World Forum

2009-01-31T16:28:00.010Z

Shaping the future of social media, the Social Networking World Forum is being held at the Olympia Conference Centre, London on 9th and 10th March 2009. The event includes:

- Two day conference dedicated to social networking.
- Co-located conference on - mobile social networking.
- Featuring key speakers from global brands, organisations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers plus many more.
- Joint exhibition combining social networking and mobile social networking formats.
- Evening Networking Reception co-hosted with Mashable.
- Co-hosted workshops from the Facebook Developers Garage.
- Free to attend exhibition only pass available.

Make a booking for the Social Networking World Forum

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter
Cx3 blog entry: 2008-2009 mobile trends
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face
Cx3 blog entry: Generation Y communicate, unite and shout

Cx3: Twitter, Stephen Fry and halibut

2009-01-30T01:27:00.013Z

Twits, Tweets and Twitterati are infectiously spreading at epidemic paces. Yet, the diarrhoeic verbal that Twitter generates is completely aligned to today’s disposable and celebrity-driven society.

Famous celebrity Twitterers/Tweeters such as Stephen Fry and Andy Murray have been pinpointed as advocates of Twitter. Stephen Fry ranted on Twitter today:

“Papers are asking me to write articles on Twitter. I've declined. Twittermania will calm down I hope. Forgive multiple tweets, but…I just know, although I don't read papers, that the "arentcha just sick of Twitter?" "Who cares what Fry ate?" articles will begin…Even though the only people talking about Twitter are the papers, the rest of us are just quietly doing it. It'll calm down though…and we'll be able to get on with it without all this nonsense. Rant over. XX”

Do I want Stephen Fry to tell me “I had halibut for lunch. I'll tweet you my dinner menu in a hour”? Well, why not! It is no different from a candid celebrity picture appearing in Heat magazine with the exception it is coming from the celebrity themselves rather than chasing paparazzi or a hungry journalist.

The day will probably come when a celebrity will try to go to court for invasion of privacy – but hey guys, check your privacy permissions.

Stephen Fry’s dinner menu came through an hour later: “The Ivy Club offered splendid squid followed by smoked haddock. Having a fish n seafood splurge at the moment. Quick dinner, home to bed x.”

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: The growth of Twitter
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world
Cx3 blog entry: BBC sports Olympic map Twitters for gold

Cx3: T-mobile Liverpool Street advert - class

2009-01-25T21:39:00.002Z

Cx3: The growth of Twitter

2009-01-25T11:30:00.010Z

Over the past twelve months, the use of Twitter has grown by nearly 1,000%, according to industry analysts HitWise. The Twitter site jumped from 2,953rd most popular site in the UK in 2008 to 291st as of mid-January 2009.

Hitwise research director Heather Dougherty said "A big driver of traffic to Twitter last week was around the US Airways plane crash in to the Hudson River last Thursday, driving many posts and updates about the situation." The first picture of the crash was posted to TwitPic, and has sparked a new era of citizen journalism.

The dominance of smartphone mobile technology in 2008, the integration of social media and social networking user behaviour becoming the norm can be attributed to Twitter's growth.

Twitter still has a long way to go. The ‘Social Networking and Forums’ communications category for week ending 17 January 2009 ranks Twitter as 23rd based on site visits – only 0.24% for the category. Facebook sustains its leading position, with nearly 38% of site visits, twice as many as YouTube and four times more than predecessor Bebo.

"Twitter receives the largest amount of its traffic from the USA, but its penetration is greater in the UK market," said Robin Goad, a research director at Hitwise.

"However, the US may overtake the UK the week following the surge in Tweets during Barack Obama's inauguration. The new American President is already the most followed person on Twitter."

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world
Cx3 blog entry: 2008-2009 mobile trends
Cx3 blog entry: BBC sports Olympic map Twitters for gold
Cx3 blog entry: Facebook, the influential social networking book face

Cx3: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world

2009-01-18T12:42:00.020Z

This week, the expert landing of the Hudson river plane crash was captured by Twitterer (a noun used by the BBC) Janis Krums and uploaded to the social networking site via his mobile phone. His remarkable Twitter picture of the Hudson plane crash instantaneously became an iconic representation of the arrival of social network reporting and raised the profile of Twitter as a global communications network.

Citizen journalism is not a new phenomenon, but what has got the media industry reeling is the fact that traditional reporting media channels were beaten at their own game as they struggled to broadcast the story. Mobile technology combined with social networking consumer behaviour and a newsworthy event has propelled an age of accessible consumer-driven journalism.

The BBC advocates these emerging communication channels and integrated Twitter into its online reporting of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Also, Robert Peston’s BBC blog became a credible source of information for the unfolding ‘credit crunch'. Other media heavyweights can only follow suit and embrace new media channels in order to attain maximum audience reach.

This does raise the question, to what extent are these new channels going to become the norm? Currently, event-based reporting leverages the viral nature of social networking, and the popularity of social networking providers (e.g. Twitter) piggy-back off of this, but will social networking ever take over traditional media channels?

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: 2008-2009 mobile trends
Cx3 blog entry: BBC sports Olympic map Twitters for gold
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: 2008 - 2009 mobile trends

2009-01-13T23:38:00.013Z

2008 was the year of the smartphone
The last 12 months has seen the launch of iconic devices such as the iPhone 3G, Google G1, Blackberry Storm and Nokia N97. 2008 also saw the emergence of the electronic ecosystems needed to get the most out of such handsets. However, the popularity of these devices has brought to light several problems that look set to become acute in 2009.

2008 mobile success factors
- Consumer social networking behaviour. Access to popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

- Applications. Applications introduced a new content category. Apple said more than 100 million applications had been downloaded from its App Store between July and September.

- Speed. 3G started to deliver on its promise and has been attributed to the use of a technology known as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) - the original 3G service, but on steroids. The service speed is set to increase with the introduction of HSPA+ in 2009, which allows up to 42Mbps (the maximum at the moment is 7.2Mbps in the UK).

2009 mobile switch-off expected
Mobile analysts CCS Insight predict 2009 will see sales of handsets shrink. They say this slowdown could be blamed on the global economic downturn that will hit every part of the mobile industry.

Handset sales look set to dip in 2009 following years of growth. As a result it is essential mobile operators ensure that greater numbers of people pay for data traffic.

Read full article on BBC: Smartphones drive mobile markets

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Google G1 or Apple i-Phone...fight!
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cx3: Don't you just love marketing

2009-01-10T09:37:00.003Z

Google G1 or Apple iPhone...fight!

2008-09-27T14:19:00.015+01:00

Google launched its long-awaited G1 mobile phone this week. There is no doubt that the Google G1 is credible competition for Apple's iPhone, therefore, expect flying baubles at the annual Christmas bun-fight this year.

So what's so special about the Google G1? Well, Google has taken the best bits of iPhone touch and added some of their own, integrated a slide-out Blackberry-style QWERTY keyboard, increased the camera picture quality, and boasts a faster connection speed to the internet - oh yeah, you can also make a phone call if you so desire. The Google G1 may not be the design classic as awarded to the iPhone (Apple will always have that sewn-up), but to a customer audience whose priority is functional integrated communications, the Google G1 is a winner.

Apps and widgets will be key to maximising the G1's success as an integrated mobile communications platform and Google's Android system aims to achieve this. The Google G1 is affiliated to the T-mobile network, who have been busying themselves in developing their own version of the very successful Apple App Store. Google has the opportunity to leverage its existing application empire via T-mobile.

Skepticism of Google entering the mobile handset marketplace in order to extend its advertising reach is rife, but so what? Currently, there is a troublesome lack of mobile channel advertising regulation, and if this is tightened by Google entering into the marketspace, then surely this can only be positive?

However, and a big "however", as much as the Google G1 may be a strong player, network loyalty to O2 and aggressive churn tactics may determine that the Apple iPhone remains in consumers' pockets. To benefit consumer choice and ultimately integrated communication reach, exclusive handset-network affiliation needs to change.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Ofcom communication report 2008

2008-08-17T16:39:00.015+01:00

Ofcom's 2008 communication report covering the UK’s £51 billion communications industry was released this week. Its key finding was that people in the UK are spending more time using communications services than ever before – but paying less for them.

The Ofcom report covers broadcast, internet, mobile, landline and radio communication channels and shows that in 2007 we spent an average of 7 hours and 9 minutes a day using communications services - up by 6 minutes from 2002.

The UK's mobile and internet usage increased by the greatest amount. Between 2002 and 2007 the time spent talking and texting on mobiles doubled, up from 5 minutes to 10 minutes each day. Meanwhile, time spent on PCs and lap-tops grew fourfold between 2002 and 2007 - from 6 minutes to 24 minutes per person every day.

Using more, paying less
Despite the growth in communication channel usage and take-up, consumers are paying less with overall average household spend on communications services falling 1.6% to £93.63 a month in 2007, a saving of £1.53 on the average spend compared to 2006, and since 2004, a saving of £4.31 (4.4%). There are three main reasons behind the fall in the price of communications services:

Discounts from bundles:
Consumers are increasingly buying bundles of communications services - paying one fee for multiple services, which is generally cheaper than buying individual services from different providers. The number of households buying bundles of three or more services – for example landline, broadband and pay-TV – has almost doubled up from 18% in 2006 to 32% by March 2008.

Lower prices for broadband:
The average household spend on internet and broadband services fell from £9.87 in 2006 to £9.45 in 2007.

Bargain hunting:
An increasing proportion of consumers are switching between providers in order to get the best deal. By March 2008, 27% had switched internet provider at least once; 37% had switched landline provider and 41% had changed mobile provider.

Broadband at home and on the move
Take-up of broadband through a landline grew from 52 per cent of households to 58% in 12 months, mainly as a result of consumers upgrading from dial-up access to always-on broadband. Increased sales of laptop dongles enabling internet access via a mobile network nearly doubled from 69,000 to 133,000 a month between February and June 2008. As a result, there were 511,000 new mobile broadband connections in the UK.

60% Growth in 3G mobile connections:
More than one in ten mobile phone users have accessed the internet on their mobile phone with the number of 3G mobile connections growing by 60% in 2007 to reach 12.5 million subscribers – an increase of 4.7 million in 12 months.

Online and on-demand
Whilst there has been a small increase in the number of minutes spent each day watching the TV (218 minutes in 2007, compared with 216 in 2006), there is an increased trend for consumers taking control of TV viewing. Viewers are watching programmes when they want and how they want, rather than just relying on the TV schedules.

Growth in online TV watching:
The proportion of people with an internet connection who are watching TV programmes online more than doubled from 8% to 17% in twelve months. The BBC iPlayer, which enables viewers to watch programmes up to a week after they were broadcast, delivered more than 700,000 daily video streams in May 2008.

Growth in online video and webcast viewing:
Nearly a third of internet users (32%) watched video clips and webcasts in 2007, compared to a fifth (21%) in 2006. The number of UK internet users who watched YouTube, reached 9 million in April this year, nearly 50 per cent more than a year ago.

IM preference over email for Generation Y:
Instant messaging is more popular than email amongst children with 62% of 12-15 year old sending an instant message, compared with 43% of them sending an email. Adults prefer to email – 80% of adults sent an email compared to 34% who used instant messaging.

Increase in online radio listening:
The number of people listening to radio via the internet has increased to 14.5 million by May 2008, up 21% from 12.0 million in November 2007.

Slowdown in VoIP usage:
The number of people using voice over internet protocol (VoIP) fell from 20% in 2006 to 14% in the first quarter of 2008.

Mobile telecoms
By the end of 2007, there were almost 74 million mobile connections serving a population of 60 million in the UK. This was an increase of 3.7 million connections since the end of 2006. The total number of mobile connections increased by 48% in the five years from 2002.

Mobile preference over landline:
Seven out of ten people with a mobile phone and a landline use their mobile to make calls, even when they are at home. One in ten people with a landline at home said that they never use it to make calls.

UK text messaging addiction:
In the UK, nearly 60 billion text messages were sent in 2007 - an increase of 36% since 2006 and up by 234% since 2002 when 17 billion texts were sent. The average mobile phone user sent 67 texts per month from each mobile compared to 53 texts per month in 2006.

Generation Y gender channel preferences:
The majority of children have access to the internet and most have a mobile phone but there is a gender preference. Boys aged 8-11 are twice as likely to use the internet every day compared to girls of the same age (45% compared to 22%). Meanwhile girls aged 12-15 are more likely to use a mobile phone than boys of the same age (74% compared to 65%).

Generation Y mobile phone dependency:
When asked which media activity would be missed the most, 42% of these teenagers said they would miss their mobile most. Watching TV came next at 20%.

Television and Radio
Digital television and radio penetration continued and by July 2008, nearly 9 out of 10 households had digital television (87.2%) compared to 7 out of 10 twelve months ago. By March 2008, 7 million households (27%) had a DAB radio set, up from 17% on last year.

Increase in DVR penetration:
More consumers are now able to choose when to watch, pause and rewind live TV. At the end of 2007 nearly 6 million households (23%) had a Digital Video Recorder (DVR) up by 53% in a year.

Broadcast advertising reach affected by DVR consumer behaviour:
The vast majority of people (88%) said that, when they use their DVRs, they use them to fast forward through advertisements.

HD television becoming the standard:
By March of this year, nearly 80% of all TV sets sold in the UK were High-Definition (HD) ready, up from 50 per cent in twelve months. The number of HD subscriptions more than doubled to reach 829,000 over the same period.

Television most-missed media channel overall:
More than half of consumers (52%) said watching TV would be the media activity missed the most, up from 44% in 2005. The next highest ‘most-missed’ activity would be using a mobile phone at 13%, up from 10% in 2005.

Advertising
Internet advertising spend greater than broadcast:
Online advertising spend is up by almost 40% year-on-year reaching £2.8 billion in 2007. For the first time, more money was spent on internet advertising than the combined advertising spending on ITV1, Channel 4, S4C and five (£2.4 billion).

Paid-for search advertising spend domination:
Paid-for search advertising spend was up 39% during 2007 at £1.6 billion. Classified advertising saw the largest increase in 2007 – up 54% to £600 million while display advertising grew by 29% in 2007 accounting for a further £600 million of advertising spend.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry. iPhone: Driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour
Cx3 blog entry. Generation Y communicate, unite and shout

Apple iPhone App Store success reported

2008-08-12T14:25:00.009+01:00

Apple have announced that its newly launched App Store that enables users to sell and buy third-party applications for the iPhone was making an average of $1m (£500,000) a day, and had served downloads for over 60 million programmes since its launch last month.

Apple's developer revenue-share programme takes a 30 per cent cut of all revenues generated from the applications. Chief Executive Steve Jobs said

"if sales continue at the current pace, the firm stands to make at least $360m a year in new revenue".

He also predicted that the Apps Store could eventually pull in up to $1bn.

T-mobile have already been prompted to work with developers to create their own version of the App Store.

Despite the reported success of the App Store, concerns have been raised about the validity of some of the applications and guaranteed quality assurance.

Either way widgets and applications that connect communication channels are here to stay.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

BBC Sport's Olympic map twitters for Gold

2008-08-09T19:20:00.010+01:00

The BBC is continuing to embrace its approach to integrated broadcast/online communication channels by extending the reach of its news coverage of this year's Olympic Games in Beijing - and this time, Twitter enters the arena.

Ongoing mobile updates via Twitter provides journalists with a restriction-free channel to communicate an up-to-the-minute personal style of reporting from the ground. BBC sports journalist Tom Fordyce writes:

"15 minutes and counting. The stadium floor is now packed with drummers, all crouching in the dark. We're almost there..."

"It's like being at some sort of mystical rave. The scale of it is almost frightening. Although the fireworks are tremendous."

"In the 'Cube waiting for our first sighting of the Phelpmeister. What a pool. Mind you, when you're used to Putney Leisure Centre..."

"Just spotted former 100m Olympic champion Maurice Greene watching the swimming at the Cube."

"Now at the fencing. Talk about gladitorial - it's riveting, even though the finer points are a touch over my head. En guarde!"

This Twittering is supported by BBC Sport's interactive Olympic map that not only geographically pinpoints the mobile Twitter updates, but also provides links to BBC blog updates and information on venues and Beijing landmarks.

A gold medal to the BBC for championing Twitter.

RELATED LINKS
Cx3 blog entry: User-centric web design - my digital wellies gather no mud

Cool Cuil and the Google iceberg

2008-08-03T12:47:00.016+01:00

Anna Patterson's latest search engine venture since quitting Google in 2006, Cuil, had its PR launch this week and received a cold if not frozen reception.

To crack the mighty Google iceberg requires a biblical David and Goliath effort - the right stone catapulted on-target causing a giant to fall. Cuil's launch threw lots of little stones, but none of them directly targeted at Google. It demonstrated a search engine with lots of ideas, but also demonstrated a lot of flaws - currently, Cuil's user interface is not intuitive and too complex, the results returned are questionable and the matching of images against results is clearly buggy that could be detrimental to a corporate's brand positioning.

What Cuil successfully achieved was press coverage of a child stamping their foot whilst noisily munching on a 'Cuil' ice-lolly. One can only conclude that a flawed release was purposeful in order to generate awareness and help Cuil precisely select and throw the 'right' damaging stone in an attempt to directly down Google in the future...but, can the ice-lolly crack the iceberg, or, will both melt leaving behind just the iceberg and a stick with a joke written on it?

Facebook: the influential social networking book face

2008-07-13T13:02:00.018+01:00

Social networking is a significant communications channel and, like the 'Hoover' brand name that evolved to collectively refer to all vacuum cleaners, it is the 'Facebook' brand name that is creeping into everyday vocabulary of the masses ("I Facebook; I'm Facebooking; I'll Facebook you; I Facebooked you"), and as a result, starting to collectively represent an understanding of what social networks are about.

In the UK, Facebook has the greatest market share of all the social networks (with MySpace and Bebo following behind), however, attached to this comes huge proactive responsibilities to ensure that the perception of social networking, as a channel, remains largely positive going forward. The EU agency for network and information security ENISA has already published a paper of security issues and recommendations for social networks (PDF 0.8MB) that Facebook needs to embrace given the responsibility of its leadership position.

Gartner research has reported that businesses have yet to realise the potential opportunities and benefits of social networking that would support corporate communications, both internal and external. Part of this tardiness is down to what Gartner research term 'throwing sheep' syndrome - the superficial (yet popular) 'Am I hot?' widgets typically found on Facebook.

The research found that 38% of PC and mobile phone users connect to sites like MySpace and Facebook via PCs. Single people and teenagers and more men than women came top in terms of usage. The survey revealed that in large part they went online for entertainment purposes or to keep up with friends and family - social activities, therefore, the challenge is harnessing this behavioural usage for a business benefit.

The success of Facebook is its widgets, the viral approach it takes in organically publicising these ensuring compatibility across channels, the member-get-member approach to pulling-in new users, and the sustained loyalty it receives from like-minded social groups with a common interest who return to the network in order to fulfill a need. If businesses embrace these behavioural traits, then the power of social networking as a corporate communication channel can be realised.

RELATED LINKS:
Download ENISA Position Paper: Security Issues and Recommendations for Online Social Networks (PDF 0.8MB)
Cx3 Blog entry: Generation Y communicate, unite and shout

iPhone: Driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

2008-07-12T16:04:00.014+01:00

The latest report by Nielsen Mobile, Critical Mass - The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web, provides insight into today's mobile internet usage behaviour. Coming out of the report's statistical analysis, it states that "Mobile internet reached a critical mass this year, offering a large and diverse enough base of users to support large-scale mobile marketing efforts".

Globally, 16% of the US population browse the internet via a mobile handset, closely followed by the UK (13%) and Italy (12%). Nielsen found that 82% of iPhone owners access mobile internet, "making them five times as likely to do so as the average mobile consumer".

The report says that "PC internet users visit more than 100 domains per month, on average", however, 'mobile internet' users (in the UK) visited on average only 5.5 select websites per month...oh, to be on that precious '5.5' list.

The user profile of the iPhone owner has evolved over time. The first generation iPhone aligned itself with the lifestyle and psychological profile of early adopters:

- For 'Lifestyle seekers' it was new, shiny, latest 'to-be-seen-with' phone;
- 'Apple supporters' purchased the phone for its aesthetic appeal;
- 'Techies' purchased the phone to access the web and the widgets.

However, O2 then slashed the cost of the iPhone by £100 that opened up mass availability to wider audiences bringing the product into the mainstream.

The just released second generation iPhone comes with 3G, allowing faster access to the web. This can only support the growth of mobile internet usage that opens up opportunities for web marketing trends, whose target audience's contact point is the mobile phone. As the report says "Mobile internet users are 60% more likely to be open to mobile advertising than the average mobile data user".

RELATED LINKS:
Download full report: Critical Mass - The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web (PDF 1.5MB)
Cx3 blog entry: Mobile barcodes - the future of mobile channel communication?

Firefox Guinness World Record official

2008-07-03T02:26:00.007+01:00

Firefox's attempt to break the record for the greatest number of downloads in a 24 hour time period has been successful, with 8,002,530 Firefox 3.0 downloads in 25 countries.

The ingenious Guinness World Record campaign boosted Firefox's market share to over 19% making it the second most popular browser after Internet Explorer and is expected to break 20% later this month.

RELATED LINKS:
Cx3 blog entry: Firefox 3.0 World Record: Acquisition, Retention and Ongoing Loyalty in one go

Generation Y communicate, unite and shout

2008-07-03T01:25:00.004+01:00

The YouTube video above, uploaded by a 15 year old, is just one of many videos that have been posted remembering the life of Ben Kinsella, who was killed in a knife crime at the weekend.

Generation Y, moved by his death, leveraged their online social networks and called to unite and march against knife crime in Ben Kinsella's name. Dozen's of groups were set up on Facebook to remember Ben and recruited the call to march.

In a short space of time, social networking returned a 400-strong crowd to walk in the street and shout "What are we here for? Ben. Why are we here? No knives."

As a result, a united message was broadcast nationally on television and appeared in the printed press. This demonstrates how Generation Y achieve a motivated end goal by naturally harnessing the power of social networking and web 2.0.

User-centric web design: my digital wellies gather no mud

2008-06-29T01:42:00.009+01:00

Purists would say that to experience Glastonbury is to experience the mud; the camping; the endless queue for the portaloo (as well as the music). However, for music lovers who aren't so 'pure', the BBC's Glastonbury site and BBC three live arena allow audiences to choose how they 'experience' the festival - wellie dread is no more (even diamond studded pairs branded Bassey).

The BBC continues to embrace video integration into their website. The success of the BBC's i-player video-on-demand service demonstrates closer synergies between online and broadcast communications with both channels working seamlessly together, enabling audiences to choose what they watch, at what time, and via their channel of choice.

The BBC's user-centric approach to web development is also demonstrated with their customisable homepage. As a content-rich site, the BBC website attracts audiences who extract what they need from the site, when they want it. By embracing a customisable homepage, the BBC website survives by handing power to the user enabling them to select how they effectively and efficiently reach that relevant content.

This is another example of the pull approach to online communication development that assists in garnering valuable audience loyalty...muddy wellies are a thing of the past.

Internet domain name rules relaxed: communication opportunities

2008-06-27T01:43:00.011+01:00

The internet's regulator, Icann, have voted unanimously to relax the rules on 'top-level' domain names, such as .com or .co.uk.

So what does this mean from a communications perspective?

Precise geographic domain names such as .cym (Wales); .london (London); .sco (Scotland); .nyc (New York) are being introduced. This geographic drilldown opens up opportunities for campaign-based online communications, enabling those that target a location to retain and reinforce a geographic message in the selected URL (e.g. www.filmfestival.london).

The new internet domain name conventions also introduce foreign alphabets (e.g. Cyrillic). As a result, domain names using the English alphabet no longer monopolise the online channel - this localisation allows for extended reach of the World Wide Web to those who do not have English as their first language. From a marketing perspective, geographic campaign communication targeting will benefit.

As the domain name relaxation continues, potentially sector-based domains could be introduced and Corporates could emphasise brand positioning (e.g. www.lloydstsb.bank), and even specific communication-based domain names could be leveraged (e.g. www.lloydstsbannual.report).

Of course Icann's announcement will affect the way search engine algorithms prioritise returned search result rankings. It will be interesting to see how they handle this.

Is the 'World Wide Web' localisation now becoming the 'Country Channel Coverage'?

The power of webstats analytics: Driving directional development

2008-06-23T04:46:00.005+01:00

So you've integrated Google Analytics into your website...you've checked-off the 'to do' task, so now you can get back to concentrating on your day job managing all the other projects on your books. Then the dreaded day comes, the CEO calls you up and asks "how's the website? What are the stats like?" - panic sets in: where are the login details?; Did I remember to write them down?; The agency, can they access the stats?; If I don't get website stats to the CEO by the end of the week - my job, my mortgage, my...I need a drink!

OK, so a bit of an exaggeration, but the scenario of evidencing website communication effectiveness within today's business environment is very real. Proudly bathing in the quantity of visitors that reach your site, or frustratingly tutting the tumbleweed when visitor targets are not met is superficially short-sighted. A truer picture emerges when measured analysis of recorded website stats is undertaken, which often throws up a few nasty and nice surprises.

Key to website analytics is being able to keep on top of the data - ensuring that webstats data is monitored on a monthly basis and recorded. Get this secured, then the foundation is there to start understanding a website's quantitive statistics and recorded user behaviour, and how the two interact.

Clear KPI drivers need to be agreed that govern the effectiveness of the website as a communication - awareness of corporate messaging; goal conversions; sales leads; e-commerce spend; search reach...the list could go on, but once this is base-lined, the power of analytics is realised as an influential reference for communication development.

A website is normally one communication within a larger communication mix. In approaching analytics, it is important not to take an isolated look at the website as more often than not, PR campaigns, recruitment drives, fiscal announcements, events communication or 'unexpected happenings' will have an impact website usage. A known communications matrix referenced in parrallel to analytics data, will build-up the bigger picture on where the website sits in the communications mix, its share within the mix and how other channel communications interact with it.

All this and we've not done any analysis yet, and quite right too. In order to maximise upon the value of webstats analytics, a holistic approach is required that absorbs the wider communication landscape. Once this is a known, targeted analysis can be undertaken, conclusions reached and recommendations made that drive directional development of not just the website, but the communication mix as a whole.

I did say webstats analytics is powerfully influential, didn't I?

Brand Beckham: Ambassadors, you are spoiling us

2008-06-22T01:00:00.020+01:00

Cx3's love affair with the journey of British brand whores, David and Victoria Beckham (dVb), is only rivaled by the delicious journey being made by Peter Andre and Katie Price, but on a completely different scale.

This week, Armani underwear released the latest David Beckham advertising campaign. In November 2007, David signed a £20 million deal to be the Global Ambassador of the Giorgio Armani fashion house, and in December the first David Beckham Armani adverts were launched. This already iconic Sporno (sports porno) stands alongside other photographic classics such as 'L'Enfant' by Spencer Rowell or Herb Ritts' 'Fred with Tyres'.

As well as his contract with Armani, David is also Motorola's Global Brand Ambassador and 'The Face of Brylcreem'. Corporate marketers of course clammer to be a part of 'Brand Beckham' and, loved or loathed, today's society of celebrity worship and aspirational lifestyle seeking is a revenue stream marketers can't ignore. In fact, 'dVb' direct an invitation themselves to the lifestyle seeker, requesting they spend their money and an intimate night with the two of them by privately adorning dVb's 'Intimately Beckham Night' scent all over their bodies - erotic advertising reinforces the 'intimate' message...a very progressive threesome.

Since moving to the USA to play for LA Galaxy, choice product endorsemets have elevated David Beckham in order to satisfy sustainble public awareness and positioning of Brand Beckham at an international level...and Victoria has joined the game too by appearing, as herself, in Ugly Betty and clinging onto the arm of David at every photo opportunity. Brand Beckham's new found American audience throws up the competitive challenges of 'Brangelina', and 'Tom and Katie' - know your friends and keep your enemies closer...hmm, which is 'Tom and Katie'?

David and Victoria Beckham constantly crave audience awareness and acceptance, and breathe the oxygen of media publicity for their survival. They are 'A-list' experts in what they do and long may it last.

RELATED LINKS:
BBC article: Ten years of Brand Beckham

Firefox 3.0 World Record: Acquisition, Retention and Ongoing Loyalty in one go

2008-06-18T13:53:00.004+01:00

Firefox's Guinness World Record attempt for the greatest number of software downloads in 24 hours coincides with the launch of their new Firefox 3.0 browser, and is the latest tactic to gain share in an already saturated market place.

This ingenious campaign achieves worldwide awareness of their latest product and, comparing it with Microsoft's push strategy for rolling-out IE7, Firefox have adopted a pull approach that simultaneously covers off acquisition of new customers, retention of existing customers and engenders ongoing customer loyalty for the product in one fell swoop...and on a global scale.

The Guinness World Record for software downloads campaign is supported by the 'Spread Firefox' microsite and includes, of course, plenty of opportunities to download the new Firefox 3.0 browser, and a visual 'tangible' interactive world map that was highlighting the number of downloads throughout the time period. This reference point encourages a potential sustained relationship for a minimum of 24 hours, but then that's all Firefox needs - as long as the latest brower is downloaded...job done!

Although the benefits of Firefox 3.0 are highlighted, it is unlikely that these are driving people to download the browser - it's the event; the participation; the buying into human behaviour of belonging to a group of like minded people.

The beta version of IE8 is due in August. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft decides to be equally creative and intelligent with their rollout.

QR codes: the future of mobile channel communication?

2008-06-15T19:56:00.003+01:00

When the marketers latched onto the potential of the mobile channel for communication purposes blue-sky ideas were plentiful. The concept of targeted mobile communications, contextual advertising and location-based messaging were glittering flames of desire hypnotising many a marketing department.

The flames of contextual advertising opportunities (e.g. sending a text message to a mobile phone within a clothes store highlighting the in-store offers) glittered and died. The systems were available, however, consumer fear of the invasion of their privacy took over, driving opt-in guidelines. Location-based messaging (e.g. text messages to cinema audiences encouraging them to turn off their mobile prior to the movie) suffered the same privacy fears, but in this example, mobile phone etiquette matured and user behaviour now drives the silencing of phones prior to a movie or theatre performance, which can be prompted by a more cost effective audio message.

Over time, the mobile phone market has evolved and key behavioural usage trends have thrived:

- traditional voice calls
- text messaging
- photography
- listening to music
- accessing the internet

The QR code is maximising upon behavioural usage and is a tool that is changing the way consumers interact with other communication channels and diversifying mobile phone usage. QR codes photographed and then texted to receive targeted news updates are appearing in the printed press. QR codes are also embedded in text messages and subsequently scanned as proof of identity to grant entry to venues such as clubs and sports arenas. In Japan, mobile phone QR code scanning is already being used as an alternative to credit cards.

Currently, one of the key challenges facing the mobile communications sector is the lack of disclosure when consumers text a response to a competition, or vote in a game show. Is the QR code a veiled way of obtaining mobile data from consumers by wrapping a text message in a pretty barcode picture? Or, are previous privacy fears being turned on their head and are consumers willfully submitting data and accepting to be branded with a simple dot matrix barcode as a means of identification?

Potentially, the mobile QR code is revolutionising mobile channel communication and how other channel communications interact with mobile. If this generates profitable targeted communications to consumers, the marketers won't be far behind.