Experiential Marketing - leads to trials.

If you are trying to get consumers to try a product / brand that they do not normally buy / use - do not rely on your ad campaign to transform behavior.

Recent results of a research undertaken by EMF and IMI International in the US, where they asked consumers what influences them to purchase brands they don’t normally purchase, and which of the tactic has the greatest impact in that switch gave the following results;

While 52% by way of Experiential Activated and hence more one on one marketing is exciting - what is even more impressive is that this has stayed consistent over the last 15 years - where-in there is so much of a change in the media consumption pattern.

Nice to note, promotion is another 20%.

Awareness driven communication, does drive sales, but only to the extent of 24%.

Twitter integration into Google search results

Integration of the real time twits into Google search results in my view does three things;

1. gives a new reason for brands to not just be on Twitter but ensure they are monitoring conversation on Twitter, not just of the brand but of the entire eco-system.

2. it brings together the twittering "elite / few" to a searching "majority" and hence cannot be ignored.

3. has an amazing effect on the search engine optimization of any brand / site. In fact majority of 1st page search results seem to be from the social media space, with Twitter leading them all. And it is a lot faster.

Also there is a wonderful way of integrating twitter results specific to your google search into your results for every possible subject. Read here about Realtime Twitter Search Results on Google

Screencast of MarketPulse

MarketPulse is a superb last mile effectiveness measurement tool. It helps a brand understand how it is performing with respect to various consumer touchpoints - when compared to it's own benchmarks, or when compared to it's competitors.

It also allows a brand to understand the performance across geos and store types.

Check out the screencast of MarketPulse;

If you have problems of screen resolution and are only seeing half a screencast above :-) - please visit this site.

Engagement & reaction.

Wonderful engagement & it's amplification amongst the general audience. Done for Samsung NX10 World Creative Imaging Competition.

Just loved it for it's effectiveness and simplicity of the idea. Loved the reaction of the audience at the end and their move towards their cameras to record the moment for sharing.

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While on the site, do check out the chopper and the popcorn and of course the wonderful pics.

Digital Gets Physical

I am a firm believer in that Online marketing and On-ground marketing need to and should go hand in hand. The amplification of "great brand experiences" is best achieved by creating online buzz. Also in this case it is not a chicken & egg situation, it can / should work both ways.

It was therefore a pleasure to read this article in Adweek pointing out how digital mediums are reshaping the way marketers are connecting with their consumers to drive action.

What is really interesting is the absence of typical paid media.

"The Skittles campaign is part of a shift in digital away from users merely sitting in front of computer screens to using new digital tools to affect behavior in the physical world. The growing sophistication of smartphones is driving the creation of these location-based services, which promise to morph the Web from a solitary experience to a ubiquitous connector in the real world.

This evolution has major implications for brands, giving them the possibility of tracking the success of digital campaigns to the store level and changing how they market to consumers. "