This week, HBO’s multi-part documentary The Weight of the Nation aired on cable TV and the web (they’re allowing you to stream it for free). The four-part series takes a look at the obesity epidemic hitting the United States and is a joint production between HBO, the Institute of Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, in partnership with the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and Kaiser Permanente. In reality, The Weight of the Nation is much more than a documentary series – the project includes information on hosting community screening and discussion events, a companion book compiled of expert data and interviews, and an action list you can connect to Facebook to promote healthy eating and lifestyle activity.
On top of it all, HBO has teamed up with Whole Foods Market’s Whole Kids Foundation to install 100 salad bars in elementary schools throughout the country as both a social justice initiative and advertising strategy. The Whole Kids Foundation and its partners have made it a personal mission to bring at least 6,000 salad bars to schools and have currently been able to actually realize 1,392 of those. While 100 salad bars to schools doesn’t seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, one has to admit that it’s a good thing to see a large company like HBO pushing their programming, having it cover an issue of large-scale national interest, and actually do something about the problem they’re drawing attention to.
It’s actually somewhat surprising to see HBO taking on such an experience economy marketing strategy when co-president Eric Kessler just made comments last week regarding streaming video and HBO GO that made the company look out of touch with modern day consumer preference. A number of companies have carved out a name for themselves by taking on the social responsibility role. For example, TOMS Shoes gives away a pair for every pair you buy, Warby Parker does the same thing with eyeglasses, and Starbuck’s (probably the most recognizable of the three) has its Shared Planet initiative. All of these companies have gained dedicated customers due to this social responsibility facet of their business model. While we definitely don’t see HBO becoming the next big name in philanthro-business, one has to admit that the warm-and-fuzzies this project will give to the more socially minded segment of their market can’t be a bad thing. After all, who doesn’t want to do something good for the world every now and then?
Posted by
Amy Xiong on Tue, May 15, 2012 @ 11:08 AM
What should you do with magazines and newspapers? How long will print media last? This seems to be an ongoing topic with both sides throwing out statistics and research. What does KSM have to say about this?
Magazines have seen both a decrease and a growth in sales throughout the years correlating with the current state of the economy. There has been no significant preference for the printed versus the digital version for readers. The customer loyalty with the digital version will decrease though. There’s one industry that has been performing well in the magazine world. The food industry has been successful in particular magazines such as Food Network and Bon Appetit.
In regard to newspapers, the publications that are larger and localized will be the ones that succeed. Their readership will be loyal as they are very interested in their local information. Newspaper readers want to know what is happening in their neighborhood and hear about the sales and other offers close to them. In addition, paywalls have helped consumers view news as something worth paying for. However, the challenge that newspapers are facing is developing the correct paywall to match their needs and also keeps the consumers interested.
Overall, magazines and newspapers are evolving with the rest of the world to become more digital and integrated. Advertisers need to realize that consumers need to be reached through print and digital media to compete. The more integrated a brand’s marketing strategy is the more consumers they will reach.
Are you curious about what else KSM has forecasted? Read about Display and Tablet Advertising and Mobile Advertising. You can also download KSM’s 2012 State of Media Report.
AdAge recently posted a great article urging magazine publishers to reveal more information regarding tablet performance.
Metrics and information they want:
Audience for subscriptions and single-copy sales
Readership
Duplication and basic demographic information
Ad engagement
Separate print and digital rate bases
Even though tablet is a relatively new medium, buyers are urging publishers to disclose as much information as possible. Getting this letter out to the Association of Magazine Media outlining the importance and need for data is a step in the right direction.
Source: AdAge
Audience buying behavior changes just about as much as the weather in Minnesota. One day, it may be 76 degrees and the next day it may be sleeting. The same goes for buying behavior and its continual evolution over time. Just like meteorologists, you can take an educated guess how people will be buying in the future but you can never be certain until it actually happens. Have no fear, display and tablet advertising can help by targeting your ads to reach the correct audience and influence their buying decisions.
Looking at 2012, Kelly Scott Madison (KSM) foresees the evolving medium of display advertising as a means to deliver a more targeted and relevant message to consumers creating more efficiencies. In addition, based on current shopper characteristics and the confirmation tablets are here to stay, tablet-specific marketing can play a crucial role in your marketing mix.
Display advertising, still new to the marketing mix, provides advertisers with solid branding opportunities by aligning their ads within the best content. Wise marketers trying to reach their audience will take full advantage of this by utilizing these targeting options on the Demand Side Platforms: contextual targeting, audience targeting, and retargeting. Though these options differ from one another, contextual being the broadest and retargeting being the narrowest, they all aid in the extreme efforts to reach your consumer and sway their buying behavior in your direction while still being cost efficient.
Tablet advertising, around since 2010, has seen continued growth. Strategy and planning for tablet advertising has started to revolve around how/when people are using their tablet devices. Knowing your audience uses their tablet for ‘fun’ rather than work and has heightened engagement compared to other mediums allows you to tap their lifestyle and cater your advertising to influence a purchasing decision.
If you haven’t realized by now that both display and tablet advertising should be a part of your marketing mix, now you should be convinced. These media channels allow you to know who your customer is, what their interests are, when they are browsing and how they are browsing; further strengthening your reach and connection to your ideal consumer. If delivering a relevant, targeted message to sway buying behavior is the goal of your marketing mix, display and tablet advertising need to be involved. You can no longer ignore these channels.
KSM shared their thoughts on where display as well as tablet advertising is headed in 2012. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments section below.
Check out KSM’s 2012 State of Media report.
This week, Melissa Pitts from the media company gyro wrote an interesting blog post over at Forbes discussing ways in which Facebook’s purchase of Instagram will have a positive impact on brands and their approaches to advertising in the realm of social media. In particular, Melissa sees four key reasons the recent acquisition is good for brands: it’s simple to use, it allows for visual storytelling, it’s non-intrusive, and it’s made for mobile. I really can’t argue with her analysis and completely agree that social media applications like Instragram and Pinterest can really do a lot for a brand – there is so much more there in terms of quality content as compared to a simple status update.
In addition to Melissa’s points, there is another positive impact this full-on integration of Instagram and Facebook will have – it allows behemoth brands (like Pepsi and Red Bull) that may often be seen as distant and impersonal by consumers to finally open up dialogs with and amongst their communities. Some brands have already taken advantage of the community building advantages Twitter has opened up, hiring full-time tweeters to solicit feedback from customers, joke around with them, and offer customer service. As Melissa noted, Red Bull runs a “daily awesome” image campaign via Instagram and Twitter that asks followers to hashtag their images to be included in an aggregate feed. This manner of advertising does a number of things for a brand we haven’t seen before: it allows a brand to better know the culture of their customers through direct contact, opens a forum for customers to interact with each other, and provides consumers with award and recognition for taking part in the advertising and purchasing process. When you provide your customers with this type of experience, you’re really offering them a much more authentic interaction with your brand; they’re actually a part of the conversation and aren’t being forced to passively accept your message. This new opportunity is a blessing for brands because, as James H. Gilmore and B. Joseph Pine II write in the opening of Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want:
So just as the rise of services helped to establish quality as a field worthy of deliberate management attention, the rise of experiences calls for a new arena of management expertise. Organizations today must learn to understand, manage, and excel at rendering authenticity…. To be blunt: your business offerings must get real. When consumers want what’s real, the management of the customer perception of authenticity becomes the primary new source of competitive advantage – the new business imperative.
Posted by
Amy Xiong on Tue, May 08, 2012 @ 08:46 AM
In 2011, mobile devices outsold PCs, and almost half of mobile phones sold last year were smart phones. Kelly Scott Madison (KSM) anticipates 2012 as being “a pivotal year in determining metrics and values for the mobile platform.”
Smart advertisers will have already learned how to advertise on mobile phones by seeing how smart phones are being used. The top five activities mobile phones are used for are sending text messages, taking photos, emailing, using social networks/blogs, and checking the weather. Advertisers can send consumers text messages to inform them of sales or remind them of appointments. However, as an advertiser you need to make sure you are not being intrusive and invading your customer’s privacy.
Advertising on mobile phones is important, because although it is not used as a final point of sale it is definitely aiding in the purchase decision. You need to make sure your brand is top of mind compared to your competitors. Many consumers will use their mobile devices to do research on store products by scanning barcodes, comparing store prices, and emailing/text messaging pictures of products to friends or family. The smart phone is more and more becoming an integral step in the buying process.
Advertisers may still face challenges with advertising on smart phones, but need to focus on the benefits of reaching the wide demographic of consumers. The challenges advertisers face are having campaigns that will function for the different operating systems as well as the small mobile screens. However, the lower prices of smart phones have expanded the reach of smart phones to include more than the 25-34 age group as well as including large families, retired and low income consumers. This opens the mobile channel to a wider swath of the demographics and gives advertisers in a number of categories, including both products and services, opportunities to take advantage of this channel.
How do you use your smart phone on shopping trips? Are there any mobile ads that you consider memorable? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.
Check out KSM’s 2012 State of Media report.
Posted by
Amy Xiong on Mon, May 07, 2012 @ 02:58 PM
Mediaspace Solutions just completed its first book. Shattering the Status Quo: Interviews with Business Leaders Making the Rules Today is a combination of interviews with successful c-suite individuals and original content on building a better, more efficient business.
“At Mediaspace we strive every day to shatter the status quo and think of ideas and ways we can do that for our clients and our business,” said Scott Jagodzinski, CEO at Mediaspace Solutions. “We knew we could learn by talking to other successful business leaders and wanted to share the insights and methods they use; so we wrote a book.”
Shattering the Status Quo is another example of how Mediaspace is not your typical marketing services agency. The company takes an unconventional approach to nearly everything it does. Taking a page right out of Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone, the book demonstrates the power of relationships. As a tribute to the company’s belief in Ferrazzi’s methods, he was invited to write the foreword.
“Our business is built on relationships. The relationships we have with our clients are just as important as the relationships we have with all our publishers. Whether its newspapers, magazines or online, our first goal is to determine what our client’s goals are, and how we can help them achieve them,” Jagodzinski said. “At the same time, our position allows us to help our publication partners reach their objectives.”
Shattering the Status Quo features interviews with Peter Taunton, CEO of Snap Fitness, Greg Kurowski, President and CEO of advertising agency Periscope, Terry Clark, CMO at UnitedHealth Group and Dan Buettner, author of Blue Zones, and seven others.
What’s for lunch today? Leftovers from last night include a heaping piece of the best meaty 
lasagna, gooey garlic bread, salad and a sliver of chocolate cake to top it all off. Sounds amazing, right? You devour everything leaving no crumbs behind and return to your desk stuffed. You glance over a few hours later and see your coworker is crossing things of their to do list left and right while you are suffering at your desk, choking down several cups of coffee just to stay awake. Turns out your coworker went to pump some iron over lunch. What does the fit person next to you have that you don’t? Minus the toned arms and svelte figure, they also have more motivation and a higher productivity level at work. Say what?
It’s true. Exercising during work can lead to a happier, less stressful, more productive day. Key findings from a study conducted by the University of Bristol, researching the correlation between working out and work performance, included:
- Individuals who exercised saw improved time management skills, increased mental performance and better management of their workload
- Individuals who fit exercise into their workday were re-energized, calmer and more capable of problem solving
You may be asking yourself where people find the time to exercise during a hectic day seeing as you can barely step away from your desk for a bathroom break. Stellar question. Here’s a not so pretty answer: these people don’t look for reasons to skip their routine. They work hard before AND after their gym time leaving no room for excuses. Though the physical and mental benefits of exercise should be enough to convince you to work on your fitness, having a supportive atmosphere at work does help.
While there are endless ways to promote wellness in the workplace and make it healthier, Jack Groppel and Ben Wiegand highlight five realistic solutions in a recent article:
- Supply low glucose snacks
- Give people short breaks before going to another meeting
- Promote people walking to meetings on different floors
- Suggest “health coaching” courses that teach meditation, yoga and overall health principles
- Give people a half-day off before tackling a new assignment
Still finding excuses as to why you can’t exercise for a short period of time during your work hours? Check out these top health and fitness apps. Now, you literally have no excuse. Start today. Plan to accomplish a number of tasks on your to do list in the morning. Then, schedule in a break to exercise. Finally, plan to accomplish the remaining tasks on your to do list after your workout. You need to stick with it for at least a week or two. Evaluate if it has made a difference and decide what your next steps should be. I am willing to bet the physical activity has a positive effect on your work life.
Do you think exercising during work can lead to happier, less stressful, more productive days? Share your insight with us below.
We recently interviewed Snap Fitness CEO Peter Taunton. Learn how fitness changed his life by downloading his STSQ Interview.
This week the social gift certificate giving service Wrapp launched in the U.S. after a successful pilot run in Sweden. The service puts a new spin on the old Facebook ad system. Rather than paying for banners and links, brands give away free gift cards to users to give to their friends online - essentially allowing users to circulate their offers for them via word of mouth. In addition, the brands only compensate Wrapp when a gift certificate is redeemed, meaning that advertisers are only paying for impressions that actually result in a sale for them. Wrapp even allows you to add money to the gift card if you'd like to give them something more substantial and mutual friends may also contribute to the gift via Facebook. Currently, the application has launched with 10 brands including Gap, WeSC, H&M and Sephora and you can redeem your gift card at most retailers simply by presenting the barcode made available via the phone app upon check out.
Wrapp claims to tailor the gift certificates you can offer to friends based on their demographics and location. It's unclear how true that is as I found the suggestion of sending my teenage sister a one month subscription to the Wall Street Journal a little odd when I went hands on with their Android app (iPhone also available). As you have to allow Wrapp access to your Facebook data, it will probably do a better job at targeting when it has permissions for both profiles. The free gift certificates essentially amount to a small discount - $5 here or $10 there - and cannot be combined to build larger pools of cash. When you think about it, Wrapp is an evolution in coupon distribution. While Wrapp still utilizes demographic and geolocation information to target its audience, integrating social giving adds a layer of personalization to the marketing process as your friends and family are bound to know what will appeal to you better than anyone else. Since going live in Sweden this past November, 165,000 people gifted 1.4 million certificates to the their Facebook friends. According to their website, Wrapp also has plans to expand their service to 13 other countries including Canada, Japan, Germany and France. If you'd like to know more about how it works, check out the video below.
Posted by
Amy Xiong on Tue, May 01, 2012 @ 12:00 PM
In long and banal meetings or during class, you might find yourself doodling to pass the time, but recently doodling is being more encouraged at the workplace. Walls are turning into whiteboards, and the surfaces of desks are covered in dry erased boards, which are great for impromptu meetings.
There are also companies who have begun training their employees in visual note taking. HomeAway Inc. and Zappos have actually hired graphic recorders to draw during office meetings and conferences. They are hoping to encourage engagement, idea generation and help communicate complicated topics. The act of “doodling” is also useful for global communication to simplify terms which can be misunderstood through language barriers, plus using white boards is more fun than emails and papers.
If you still think doodling at work is a bad idea, you should know research shows doodlers can retain more information compared to those who do not doodle, according to Applied Cognitive Psychology. Also when you doodle, it prevents your mind from daydreaming.
Are you worried you aren’t artistic enough? No one judges you on your doodling abilities. Stick figures, common shapes (squares, triangles, circles), and lines are all you really need to create. If you get more complicated than that, it might become less effective and may cause more confusion.
Convinced you need more doodling surfaces, yet? You don’t have to purchase an actual whiteboard. You can turn any wall or surface into a creative area with IdeaPaint products.
At Mediaspace we’ve taken this to heart and created chalkboards in many of the common areas (including a bathroom) to keep employees engaged and give them a space to share. Topics are as serious as ‘Wheat Thins or Triscuits?’ or ‘If you won the lottery, what’s the first thing you’d buy?’
If you’re looking for a new method of employee engagement, try the whiteboard, doodling or chalkboard route for innovation, you might be surprised what you come up with. Interested in learning more? Check out our STSQ interview with Greg Heinemann to learn how he encourages innovation in the workplace.
