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Consumers Plan to Use Mobile Phones for Holiday Shopping

posted on November 10, 2010

59% of mobile consumers plan to use their mobile phone for holiday shopping and planning holiday celebrations, not including making phone calls. That’s a huge jump over 2009, when the number was only 25%.

The numbers come from the October 2010 U.S. Mobile Consumer Briefing, which was conducted on behalf of the The Mobile Marketing Association and it’s even further proof that mobile marketing is on the rise.

Of those who expected to use their phone to faciliate shopping, 64% said they’re check their phone before going to a store, but only 12% said it would be in response to a  TV, billboard or newspaper ad. What are they using the phones for? To search for locations where a gift is sold and to compare prices were the two most common responses.

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Google Adds Instant Previews to Search Results

posted on November 10, 2010

Google is now more instant than ever before thanks to a new feature called Instant Previews. Now, when you skim a list of Google search results you have the option of turning on a preview of the webpage. To do this, you simply click the magnifying glass beside any result. Once it’s toggled on, all of the previews will appear as you skim down the page.

In addition to showing a snapshot of the website, it sometimes pulls out a quote from the page. I thought it was only doing this with blogs, but I can’t find a pattern to which sites have highlighted text and which don’t.

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It’s The Customer Experience, Stupid!

posted on November 10, 2010

Back in 1992, George Bush Sr. was considered unbeatable in the US presidential race due to major successes in foreign policy developments, such as the ending of the Cold War and the Persian Gulf War.  However, recession was hitting hard so James Carville, then Bill Clinton’s senior campaign manager, got the team to rally around the team the slogan “It’s the economy stupid!”  In doing so, they focused on what was most important in the minds of the voting public – the economy.  The strategy paid off.  Clinton went on the win the presidency and Monica Lewinsky became a household name!  But I digress…

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Android OS Smartphones Show Dramatic Year Over Year Increase

posted on November 10, 2010

At the risk of seeming hypocritical (don’t worry it’s not the first time and won’t be the last time, just ask my wife) I am going to look at some research and make a big deal out of it.

First, it comes from Gartner, which gives some measure of reassurance that there is an impartial bend to it. I say some reassurance because you can never be sure. Second, it’s about the ongoing Android v. iOS battle that promises to heat up more if Verizon does indeed get its own iPhone in 2011. Here’s the data I am referring to:

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Ask.com Throws in Towel on Search Development

posted on November 10, 2010

Ask.com is always an interesting subject when it comes to search engines. Every once in a while the IAC property will announce another iteration of itself, advertise it for a while then go away until we see the anemic search share numbers each month where we don’t even mention their ‘share. It’s been denounced as an arbitrage play in the past. The latest version of the ‘search’ entity is it’s Q & A approach started in July.
However you slice up Ask.com these days it appears as if search engine developer is now off the table.

Bloomberg reports

Ask.com, the Internet search engine that media mogul Barry Diller acquired for $1.85 billion to compete with Google Inc., is cutting 130 engineering jobs and conceding much of its search business to competitors.

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TV Ads Don’t Equal Big Sales for Online Products

posted on November 9, 2010

You’re the author of a book on how to turn kitchen waste into cash and you want to spread the word. So what do you do? Why not invest in a snazzy TV commercial to play on the Food Network or during Pawn Stars. This is your audience, foodies who love to treasure hunt! But author Joel Comm says don’t waste your money because despite all the hype, TV ads are not the stuff dreams are made on.

It goes back to the early days of TV, when Ralph and Norton demonstrated the Handy Housewife Helper and Lucy proclaimed that Vitameatavegamin was so tasty, too! For years, sitcoms have taught us that a single TV commercial can result in an avalanche of sales which generally left our TV hero struggling to meet the demand with comical results.  In reality, a TV commercial is just another tool in the tool kit and not always the best tool for the job.

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Consumer Online Brand Interaction: Satisfied or Indifferent

posted on November 9, 2010

Marketers are constantly looking for the silver bullet, the holy grail or the big kahuna, if you will, that can truly define just how much interaction people are actually having with their brands online.

What are people looking for? Are they are truly interacting or are they just serial “Likers”? This is a question that will nag everyone in the marketing game for as long as this game is being played because in the end the only way to gauge a person’s engagement is to measure their sentiment and that’s going to always be elusive.

In efforts to define this interaction we turn to studies like the one just completed by the Cone Media and brought to our attention by the Center for Media Research. The chart below comes from the report called “2010 Cone Consumer New Media Study”. I have added to it in case you didn’t notice.