A mural created by Chris Nixon in Karratha 2011 – this video documents the installation process. Set to a marine theme the work explores the migratory patterns of the Pilbara’s marine life, ignited by a central character Inkan. Inkan acts as a catalyst for change amplifying the sea creatures characteristics, leading the imagination migration. The installation took 8 days and nights and used over 40L of acrylic paint.
Imagination Migration from Chris Nixon on Vimeo.
The recent London riots’ has sparked interesting discussions in social media. This case study shows how social media and smartphones helped to proliferate mass crime on various streets of the city.
Social media served as media coverage of the rioting on the streets. It was the key to forming and shaping opinions and discussions by the general public. The riots didn’t reflect the wider community opinion of dissent on Twitter and Facebook.
Driven by the need to belong and be significant these seemingly random riots continued. For Blackberry, it was a disaster for their brand with Blackberry Messenger (BBM) becoming a key tool for rioters to organize, communicate and distribute anonymously and discretely within groups.
As quickly as these riots took place over social media, so did mobilizing a cleanup afterwards. With no trust in the ability of centralized authority to either protect or clean up the community, Londoner’s turned to social media to spread the news.
Mobile devices have a few important attributes; they are always on, always carried and always personal to an individual. This is unlike any other communications device.
In the not so distant future we can see 50% of the developed world owning a “smartphone”. Because of the availability and accessibility of the web on mobile, the development of services will continue to be led by the youth market.
This will result in an acceleration of emerging platforms, which facilitate the need for information sharing and commercial use for all types of experiences.
Youth are discovering mobile services and devices that offer them a way to extend the real life behaviours of connection and sharing with those around them. The sense of ownership and identity that accompany a mobile phone empower the consumer, and allows them to become increasingly connected and informed, providing them with a sense of experience and independence.
Tips for targeting teens taken from marketingvox.com
1. Understand their motivations
Young people make decisions and develop brand loyalty based on the following:
2. Instant gratification will get their attention
The youth of today has grown up in the era of technology and a large proportion have grown up with the Internet available to them. Consider their attitudes when planning your campaign with offering instant rewards relevant to their interests.
3. Simplicity is the Key
Marketing delivered on mobiles are competing with a variety of other marketing messages being sent to your targets in different forms. Ensuring that your message is simple will help it to cut through the noise and make it more likely to have an impact.
4. It is ALL about the cost
Young people are concerned about cost and they prioritise spending based on what motivates them.
5. Keep the message in line with current trends
Youth culture changes almost as fast as technology. The line between hip and so-last-week is a fine one, and companies who are not intimately in the know when it comes to what’s currently capturing their audiences’ attention will find themselves on the wrong side of cool.
Facebook has not only been used for marketing but more recently as a place in which actual retail transactions happen. People are buying products on Facebook. (Asos) The only challenge is getting users to spend money in a context that they are used to just chatting with friends in.
There is definitely potential, and retailers are experimenting with creating more social experiences by showing users what products their friends have bought or conversations to develop around products.
As mobile technology (apps and web-based technologies) is advancing rapidly, there are many innovations in the ways people are trying to drive retail.
What is happening, in the example of the Korean market with the Homeplus Case Study. On their way to and from work, consumers were able to use their smartphones to scan the codes next to each product image. The products were then automatically dropped into the consumers’ online shopping cart and delivered to their homes after work.
Google, with Verifone Systems is hoping to convince shoppers to use their mobile devices to pay for goods at point of sale by waving a mobile phone in front of a detection device. This reflects the interest in, and potential for mobile shopping.
Also, one a creative level you can see in this McDonald’s Campaign, by using smartphones to engage consumers in a unique way, and directly drive sales for McDonald’s.
An interesting article by Cynthia Fedor of QuantumDigital called “Keep Your Eye on These 3 Consumer Trends” provides helpful tips for marketers when planning to reach current and future consumers:
All aspects of marketing, promotions, and engagement should be working toward the goal of solving the customer need. If, and how well a need is solved is your customers’ measure of success. And it’s a key measure of performance for you, your brand, and your business.
It is essential to have a clear understanding about the capabilities of mobile devices and social platforms. Today’s young generation are learning to interact with these tools as early as two years of age. They are in tune with technology at their fingertips and on demand. Understanding how a brand should be reflected on these devices and platforms will be imperative for future success.
Advances in social technologies have made the voice of the consumer more dominant in today’s marketplace. Consumers are vocal about their needs, wants, and preferences.
What brings customers back to a brand, creates loyalty, and strengthens financial performance? Price incentives? Loyalty programs? Big investments to build brand awareness?
A Harvard Business Review article on customer service highlights two key elements that should remain “top-of-mind” for businesses:
A company that wants to solve every customer’s need in a personal way is Amazon. The company does consistently well in customer surveys and performance rankings because of a strong focus on fulfilling customer needs. If there is a problem, it is quickly fixed, with the goal of getting the right product to the customer as soon as possible.
Amazon was ranked the most trusted brand in the US in a recent Millward Brown Study. The model at Amazon is to create a place where customers can find or discover anything they can imagine buying online.
“When a person recommends a brand they put their own personal trust and credibility on the line. They are only willing to recommend brands which themselves have proven reliable and trustworthy,” said Nigel Hollis, EVP and Chief Global Analyst of Millward Brown.
“Amazon.com, the brand ranked first in the U.S. by TrustR, has achieved that status through exceptional service and providing its own recommendations to users. This combination has made Amazon the gold standard of trust and recommendation in the U.S.”
We are pro online marketing and believe its success far outweighs the results delivered by offline marketing simply because so many people are turning to the Internet to look for absolutely anything they want, and generally will find it.
The integration of online and offline marketing is achieving results far better than they can produce on their own. Offline ads are heavy drivers of online search, and therefore online efficiency is multiplied when combined with offline channels.
According to a study by Jupiter Research and search marketing agency iProspect, “…a surprising two-thirds of searchers are led to search on a given keyword as a result of offline marketing”.
We are living in a technologically driven age where if you need to know anything all you need to do is search for it on the Web.
So what better way is there to find out if an advertisement (in a newspaper or magazine) is really advertising what it claims to be, than by searching for it on the Internet? And, while offline ads are leading to searches on the web, online advertising is able to track what is or isn’t leading to purchases or sales.
So for all those companies out there who have been weary of making the move to online advertising – it’s not one or the other anymore. By integrating the two you can achieve success!
These days, if you’re doing business, you’ve got to go social. The conversation is also broadening with all areas of companies adopting social media tactics both internally and externally. The world’s leading companies are realising that a solid grasp of social technologies and social platforms (along with trust) enables brands to build; it transforms product development; and enables re-time customer service while having a social interaction and collaboration with customers and stakeholders.
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The good thing about blogging is that anyone can do it. The downside of blogging is that it makes the already terrible writers even worse. There are so many bloggers online, but this can be good for you. Because there is so much clutter and so many bloggers are contributing to this noise without adding anything substantial to the discussion. In other words the bar has been set very low.
Our fame obsessed culture has driven everyone to create their own blog, with nothing else but rants and opinions, giving the “blogosphere” a bad name.
But now, there’s a new phenomenon according to Jeff Goins on Copyblogger.com: The mediocre blogger. This is a person who understands the basics of SEO and social media, and can attract a decent readership. The only problem is that their content generally “sucks” and they drive “real writer’s ‘nuts’”.
Social media has “levelled the communication playing field”. Those who are truly excellent in their craft and committed to finishing will “win in the end”. If you are one of those bad bloggers, start reading and learning from the good, well written blogs in order to improve. Or, take a lesson from the mediocre bloggers; don’t write content that “sucks”or get lost amongst the clutter, but start writing excellent content like a pro, and in turn help other writers to become better writers.
We all know how to post a Facebook status update and send a tweet. But developing the practical, applied skills to use social media communications strategically to support corporate objectives is something else entirely.
We can’t turn you into a superstar Tweeter but we can certainly help you along to launch a blog or a Facebook page, embed widgets, and install Google Analytics.
From an eMarketing point of view, it’s great to not only get the reassurance that blogging is big business, but to be able to find out what people are expecting out of them so that we can better suit their needs. So whether you want to increase page views on your website or increase sales for a new product, give us a call and we can help you with your social media strategy and campaign.