Tweet Partnership Pays Off for “The X Factor”
AdAge, November 18 2011

Earlier this month, "The X Factor" became the first-ever reality-TV competition show to allow voting by Twitter. What's that done for its social-TV footprint? Ad Age asked our editorial partner Bluefin Labs, a Cambridge-Mass.-based social-media analytics company that specializes in social TV, to give us a view into the data it's been collecting on the show all season. Some notes about the charts:

The first chart shows social-TV activity for each episode of "The X Factor" this season (except for last night's airing, for which data is still being parsed). The fat red bars, labeled "Total Comments" on the top left, represent volume of commentary about a particular episode of "The X Factor" across social media, as tracked by Bluefin (with the lion's share of comments, as usual, appearing on Twitter and in public Facebook updates). The little blue square points, labeled "Avg # Comments / Commenter" on the top right, show just how active each unique commenter is on average.

Live episodes began airing on Oct. 25. (See this report from Entertainment Weekly's James Hibberd: "'X Factor' ratings surge for first live show.") Voting-by-tweet started after the Nov. 2 episode. If you look at the tweet volume in the weeks preceding the live shows, it's pretty obvious that viewer engagement has surged. And keep in mind that votes-by-tweet don't factor into Bluefin's count; per Twitter's partnership with "The X Factor," viewers vote by direct message (DM). "Direct messages," the Twitter Help Center explains, "are not public, so only @TheXFactorUSA will see your vote on Twitter."

One note about the deep dip in the show's social engagement on Oct. 16: That night's airing was on a Sunday—a shift from the normal "X Factor" schedule due to the World Series.

The most popular contestant coming out the show's Nov. 2 episode—the first vote-by-tweet show—was a young rapper named Astro. But viewers are fickle; you're only as good as the last performance, and on "X Factor" voters have lately turned on the kid. He had to "sing for his life" last night—thanks to low votes—and though he's still on the show, his survival is controversial. (See this report from Us Weekly: "X Factor Eliminee Stacy Francis: Saved Rapper Astro, 15, Is 'Ungracious.'")

"'The X Factor' has been a hands-down social-TV hit this TV season," Bluefin's Tom Thai tells me. "It averages 110,000 social-media comments per episode. It's the No. 1 social-TV show among reality series, out of 164 total, this season. And among all genres, it's the No. 2 show, out of 526 series, trailing only 'Glee.' And among all TV shows and events this season—which includes the Emmys, various political debates and sporting events—'The X Factor' ranks 14th out of 1,778."

Mobile Deals Set to Lure Shoppers Stuck in Line
The New York Times

As retailers battle to draw customers into their stores on Black Friday, online merchants are plotting a cunning ambush—offering an arsenal of mobile-only deals intended to pick off shoppers as they wait in line.

The Gilt Groupe, for example, which operates several Web sites, usually offers sales at noon. But on Friday, it will promote mobile exclusives at 6 a.m.—precisely when shoppers are expected to be crammed into checkout lines at some of its high-end competitors.

“We haven’t had the ability to compete effectively with Black Friday, and now we do,” said Andy Page, president of the Gilt Groupe, who predicted that poaching in-store shoppers would lead to Gilt’s best Black Friday ever.

The aggressive promotions by Gilt, Amazon, HSN and other online companies are creating a frenzy among traditional retailers, who have counted the Friday after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day of the year.

A few are fighting back. Best Buy, already acquainted with the sting of online price-comparison apps, declines to display standard bar codes on some products so they cannot be easily scanned by smartphones.

But online merchants have technology—and increasingly, consumer behavior—on their side. Almost 10 percent of e-commerce purchases made in October came through mobile devices, according to research from IBM Coremetrics, up from about 3 percent a year earlier. About 43 percent of Americans with cellphone service own smartphones, according to Nielsen. Amazon, the nation’s biggest e-commerce site, says that the number of American customers who shop Amazon via only their mobile device has nearly tripled since last year.

Not only can online merchants now offer a relatively annoyance-free alternative to shoppers stuck in crowded stores, but they can also even exploit the faster download speeds on free wireless networks promoted by retailers like Nordstrom and Macy’s. And most are throwing in free shipping.

Who Took The Storytelling Out of the Holiday Season Marketing?
AdAge

Cue "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid on YouTube. By New Year's Day you will have heard this song in stores and on the radio and maybe on your own iPod more times than you will see an effective digital ad from the retail sector.

Why? First, people don't get tired of the song. Second, retailing is too focused on direct response to get its message heard amid all the clutter of the holiday season.

Don't oversell direct response. We see this mistake over and over. Try the following experiment on Google. Search "winter jacket" and then "Gore-Tex jacket." You'll find hardly a website or ad campaign that communicates any information other than lower prices. But abandoning good creative in the busiest shopping season makes no sense.

A primary reason that creative drops off the priority list is that retailers aren't aspiring to communicate emotion and tell stories. Steve Jobs built Apple's success around creativity, design and emotion, so that it became one of a precious few retail brands that don't compete on price. Apple ads have created a loyal posse of brand advocates who would never consider "being a PC person." As marketers, we should aspire to create countless more brands like Apple. But we're not going to do that with banner ads that just push discount prices over and over again.

Another issue is that the internet is not built well for discovery. I can walk into an outdoor retailer at a mall or a big-box, consumer-electronics store and easily walk out with $100 worth of products that I hadn't planned on buying. It's harder to do that online, where the experience is so search-focused that impulse buys become much less likely. Spending money on search is certainly necessary in marketing, but we need to supplement this with display ads, exclusive experiences for customers and other ways to get consumers to browse. Direct response won't get it done.

What's the solution? Creativity and engagement. In the holiday season, tell a story with advertising. Make a connection with consumers that leads them to feel good about the brand and the experience of purchasing your product. Create awareness early in the customer-decision process. Rely less on price and direct-response advertising.

I can suggest several good examples of this creative approach. When you go to Patagonia's site, you won't be greeted by a big jacket. Instead, you will see the drama of ice climbing on a stunning winter's day. OfficeMax engages shoppers with a greeting that goes beyond the latest sale on printer ink and suggests the "Five Things You Will Need This Week." One of the hottest digital retailers, Moosejaw, simultaneously directs shoppers to specials on outdoor gear and to "Moosejaw Madness," a game-style experience that supports the brand, communicates a story and sells product. Moosejaw's physical stores are not Walmart0sized. They don't have big TV budgets. But they have the right approach.

Media All Stars 2011: ‘AdWeek’ honors the 13 most creative & innovative leaders in the business
Advertising Week

The morphing of the media world from a flat landscape of traditional buys to a 3-D bazaar of ever-multiplying platforms has created a dazzling, and sometimes overwhelming, array of choices for brands and their agencies. Clearly relishing the challenge, this year's All-Stars have responded with innovative, often brilliant work—none more so than Lisa Donohue, CEO of Starcom USA, who utilizes the power of creative thinking to help transform an industry once reliant solely on numbers. All our winners, in fact, bring a creative bent to media buys to help clients boost revenue and garner buzz. The marketplace may be loud and, at times, chaotic, but these media execs navigate it with an ease that truly sets them apart.

Last-Minute Shoppers Like Luxury Brands?
Advertising Week

Don’t be too hard on the last minute shoppers in your life. In fact, you should probably encourage their procrastination: New data suggest last minute shoppers just might end up giving the most expensive gifts.

Anticipating the holiday shopping mania, consumer Internet company Meebo mined its data and ran a study of more than 2,000 shoppers (using its Mindset Media technology) to look at how personality traits could determine consumer preferences.

They found that beyond being “irresponsible,” “spontaneous,” and “fanciful," last minute shoppers were 45 percent more likely than regular shoppers to purchase luxury brands and 27 percent more likely to plan to spend more on holiday shopping this year than last year.

Early bird shoppers, on the other hand, are “super responsible,” “risk averse” and more likely to “think of others." But they are a third (34 percent) more likely to say they’re bargain hunters and 30 percent more likely to use coupons. Shoppers who were neither early birds nor last minute laggards were two-thirds (65 percent) more likely to be a careful spender, Meebo said Meebo president Martin Green says that for brand advertisers, demographic data is insufficient for web targeting because it doesn’t provide insight into purchase intent and context.

“Rather your taste and personality traits are the big determinants of whether you buy Coke or Pepsi or a BMW or an Audi,” he says.

Those choices aren’t always either/or scenarios. But psychographic information still provides a deeper window into the kinds of purchases consumers are likely to make.To divine consumer preferences by personality trait, says Green, Meebo used data from its 250 million monthly unique users as well as surveys from its Mindset Media research arm.

“We formed patterns around people and what their personality traits are. Are they extroverted, introverted, more likely to be creative or pragmatic?” he says. “And then we associated those traits with validated brand preferences and behavioral data.”

Social Falls Short on Customer Loyalty, Traditional Methods Encouraged
Marketing Daily News

While much of the marketing community is focused on sealing better relationships between brands and consumers via social media, a new study from Pitney Bowes suggests that their efforts would be better spent in other areas.

In fact, the new study—based on a survey of 5,000 consumers in the U.S., U.K., France and Germany—found social media to be one of the least effective engagement techniques for encouraging customer loyalty for larger and small businesses alike.

The survey found that just 18% of the respondents believed that interaction with a larger company or its brands on social media would encourage them to buy from that business again.

The social media approach was deemed even less effective for smaller businesses, where just 15% of those responding said it would encourage their loyalty to a company.

“These findings will give decision-makers pause for thought,” the report stated. “Businesses can be forgiven for getting swept away by the hype of surrounding social media and wanting to invest in such activity as soon as possible. But results show that those businesses tempted to lead with such techniques will quickly find themselves out of step with customer thinking.”

Conversely, several other techniques are far more likely to resonate with consumers and encourage them to do repeat business with companies. They include a home-delivery option; having a say in products and services; control of channels and frequency of received communications and a choice of channels to contact a company. In each case, nearly half or more of the respondents said those tactics were preferred and effective for small and large businesses alike.

“All of these practices are aimed at increasing brand loyalty and retaining customers,” the Pitney Bowes survey summary states. "However, sophisticated social media and Web interaction can be time-consuming and expensive and outcomes are difficult to measure. Businesses are quickly having to learn the ‘customer dance’—when to lead and when to follow—if relationships are to be nurtured.”

Brand to Brand: How to React In Challenging Situations
Media Post Marketing Blog

The few weeks has not been a stellar one for the wide world of sports. As the story has unfolded out of Penn State University, maybe we’re witnessing the worst example of what “win at all costs” means in college athletics. Certainly, the horrific news surrounding the much-vaunted PSU football program has tainted what had been built up over many decades as one of the nation’s top-tier college football brands.

So what happens when the brand association that marketers rely so heavily on to make their investments suddenly becomes compromised—and how do sports properties rebound, especially when the brand equity that has been created over the years is degraded by the actions of a few individuals? There are a number of options for the two brand partners—properties and sponsors—in challenging situations like this.

One simple option for sponsors is to pause for a period of time—or cancel outright—a sponsorship investment. Cars.com made this move this past weekend by removing its association with the Penn State vs. Nebraska game televised on ESPN. On one level, it’s hard to fault the Cars.com marketing department as there is no way to really assess how negatively viewers would associate the Cars.com brand given the negative perception many fans may have right now around the Nittany Lions.

Another option would be to stick with your investment—as many advertisers chose to do over the weekend by keeping their ads running on air and at the game venue. The assumption here is that many fans—while unforgiving of the actions taken by a handful of key individuals—connect with the players and the Penn State brand in a positive way based on the many years of association they have with that college sports brand.

Again, while it’s hard to measure in such a short timeframe how fans truly feel about Penn State football in the first game following the terrible allegations, it’s admirable that many brand marketers felt that they might be part of the healing process by supporting the many players, coaches and fans who have been great contributors to all of the good things about PSU athletics.

Ultimately, a situation like the one that unfolded in the last 10 days or so at Penn State tests the true definition of partnership between a property like Penn State athletics/football and the many sponsors that value the brand association with PSU. On one level, in the darkness of such an appalling story there is an opportunity for this property-to-sponsor partnership to deepen and become even more meaningful.

This event represents a time of need—a time for sponsors to recommit to why they have invested in college sports in the first place. Using this time to work with Penn State to highlight the many great examples of student athletes contributing not just on the field but off the field as well. And taking the time to even think about deepening a sponsor’s brand relationship with youth sports at a time when we need to shine a light on this important area in the broader context of how we educate young children.

Yes, I was disheartened to see Cars.com pull away so quickly from Penn State this past weekend. I get it and can’t fault their marketing department – I certainly don’t have all the facts. But I’d really like to see Cars.com—and all other college sports sponsors—use this difficult situation to recommit their investments to college sports and to the foundation that feeds college sports: youth sports.