Remember meeting your college roommate for the first time or attending freshman orientation?  While this was an exciting time for us, it was also a very scary time.  I remember wondering, will my roommate eat smelly food, play loud music I don’t like, be a total snob, too nerdy,or even worse a backstabbing drama queen? It’s hard for me to imagine not having to suffer through those long months from March acceptance to August Orientation with these anxieties doing cartwheels in my head, but Millennials today are in a much different situation than I suspect most of us were.

Today’s Millennials have started to use social media not only to minimize pre-college concerns but also todecide what to buy on their back to school shopping sprees.  David Yarus, Marketing Manager at Mr. Youth, presented The New College Orientation: How Social Media has Revolutionized Back-to-School at the ARF People Forum in March.  The presentation was based on Mr. Youth’s study of 200 Class of 2015 Facebook Communities made up of over 50,000 students.  The following includes some key points of the presentation.

According to Mr. Youth, the average College Student spends an average of $800 on back to school shopping.  So the big questions Brands have to ask themselves are:

1. How can my brand get a portion of that $800?
2.  How can my brandturn these college students into long term consumers?

While school begins in August or September, the back to school season begins on social networks with acceptance letters in March. Millennials are celebrating their new accomplishment the best way they know how to: on social networks. After the initial excitement, they realize they are about to leave the comfort of their familiar home for a new unknown space.  For a generation connected to their parents and family, this can be scary, but social media helps them battle the fears associated with their upcoming endeavors.   With Facebook as their fighting partner, the worries of new college students will be dismantled, one new +add friend at a time.

During this celebration and exploration, social media allows young people to seek comfort by making connections and friends with their new college cohort.  But social media doesn’t just allow students to make friends, social networking helps students find roommates, share class schedules, connect to student clubs, and research which products work best in their new dorm rooms.  After they find their roommate(s), together they choose which building they want (of course with the help of those experienced Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.).  Then students co-plan purchases for their dorm rooms. Again, they seek advice from their upper classmen peers on what products work best in the dorms.  Which TVs get the clearest picture and best reception?  Which sheets fit the best on the beds?  What accessories make rooms cool and cozy?

According to Mr. Youth, 43% of students in the Class of 2015 like more than 23 brands on Facebook.  Brands need a Social springtime start. Brands that wait until August or September miss the opportunity on catching these new and soon to be independent consumers. March and April is the best time to start connecting with the Millennial Freshman.

It’s great to see today’s youth utilizing social networking to minimize anxiety about college.  Millennials are empowered and taking charge of their college experience.  Brands need to be ready for these future consumers.  The ARF Youth Forum provided insights about young consumers from Mr. Youth, YPulse, MTV Insights, Viacom, US Census Bureau, Ipsos, Sesame Workshop, and Disney Media. For more learning on Youth and other topics of interest attend an upcoming ARF forum and the ARF’s annual Audience Measurement Conference.

Mr. Youth’s white paper is available for download.

On a visit to Palm Springs we visited this small museum – a “general store” which was maintained to look today exactly the way it looked in the 30’s.  We were amazed at how many of the brands on the shelves of this store are still on the supermarket shelves today — we  counted 16. What’s your count?

 

How many brands can you spot in the pictures below? Leave your answers in the comments!

ARF: Briefly explain how you began the project of building a social media strategy for Johnson and Johnson. 

Diaz and Giles: Johnson & Johnson needed to map new opportunities to connect with key target audiences through relevant digital connection points. The team knew social media would be a big part of the solution, but Johnson & Johnson wanted the strategy to be built on actionable insights regarding how information about companies, including Johnson & Johnson, spreads through social interaction. The charge for Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange was to establish these foundational insights on which Johnson & Johnson and its digital agency could build a social media strategy to impact corporate brand reputation. Our solution was to study the ecosystem dynamics – people, places, devices, media and content – that shape how consumers talk about and think about relevant companies they’re exposed to in daily life. This would allow us to define specific brand jobs within this ecosystem that demonstrate opportunities for Johnson & Johnson to be present and relevant in the lives of its target audience(s).

We began by meeting with the various stakeholders at Johnson & Johnson and its strategic partners to both align intended applications of the upcoming research and audit existing knowledge related to the focus of the study. In addition to the synthesis of existing research, we used social listening to identify current topics of discussion around Johnson & Johnson. This allowed us to categorize the types of conversations, what triggered the topic, and the context that typically leads someone to share information about a company with someone else. As a result, we were able to move into qualitative and quantitative phases of research with a basic construct for how consumers think about, talk about and interact with companies like Johnson & Johnson in the course of caring for their families.

ARF: How did you combine qualitative and quantitative research to derive meaningful insights?

Diaz and Giles: Our in-depth qualitative research phase highlighted the importance of an individual’s ecosystem of influence in their processing of information about companies and brands. Through story-telling, card-sorting and mapping exercises, we were able to identify the core needs people seek to fulfill and the building blocks of the ecosystem that influences their journey toward fulfilling these needs: the people, places, devices, media and content accessed and shared in daily life. Building on the social listening work, through the interviews we also catalogued a more detailed list of specific examples in which information about a company, including Johnson & Johnson, was exchanged in some way within and across this ecosystem. This provided context and detail around how people shape trust in a company while experiencing their journey through life.

The important next step was to seek to quantify the relationships between the influencers and the needs, to investigate differences in how the ecosystem is activated by audience and by topic and to find the opportunities for J&J to be relevant and connect. The survey used to project our findings across a broad audience and prioritize opportunities for Johnson & Johnson to connect with its target audiences was designed to connect the dots between reputation drivers, influencers in the ecosystem, needs in daily life and the specific ways in which companies enter into the dialogue.

• Establish the shape of the ecosystem by connecting influences (channels, platforms, people) to the core needs they serve. We began with a set of core needs and then learned from respondents which influences in their lives (both people and channels) served which of those core needs. Applying multivariate statistical techniques (correspondence analysis), we uncovered the underlying structure of the ecosystem, which influencers served similar needs, and which needs are related in terms of the influencers/channels that fulfill them. These relationships were data-driven, not pre-determined; yet, an underlying structure emerged, with one axis being functional-to-emotional and the other being personal-to-cultural. Another structural element that was revealed was tiers of specialization, with some influencers fulfilling multiple needs, and therefore being more central or essential (e.g., family and smartphones), while others are specifically in service of a single need (e.g., iPod for escaping the everyday). 
• Investigate activation of the ecosystem by topic.Once the structure of the ecosystem was established, we were able to delve into differences in the way topics activate the ecosystem and how that varies by audience group. For example, for certain topics an audience might turn mainly to people and channels that live squarely in the Personal/Emotional regions of the ecosystem, while another topic lights up the Functional regions. 
• Find connections to relevant Johnson & Johnson topics, the “ways in.” We then examined data on how information about Johnson & Johnson and other benchmark brands flowed through their ecosystem: topic of information, source of information (people and channels), whether it was shared further and how (people and channels) and the impact of shares on brand specific perceptions. These data allowed us to establish where Johnson & Johnson currently enters the ecosystem and point the way toward establishing new connection points through the channels people turn to for the topics that most activate their ecosystems. We were also able to identify targets for strengthening Johnson & Johnson’s presence in the information flow on topics that are most impactful against the brand perceptions that need to be addressed. These newly defined “ways in” give shape to the company’s social media strategy and its broader corporate reputation efforts.

ARF: What did you learn about where J&J enters the social media conversation? How can other brands learn from your findings?

Diaz and Giles: We believe this approach to understanding ecosystems of influence provides a more actionable, consumer-centric view than existing approaches and establishes a firm foundation for building marketing strategies for social engagement and beyond. It has provided Johnson & Johnson with a new understanding of the people that matter most to their brand by giving more context to the complexity of interactions people have relating to Johnson & Johnson and its products in daily life. The ecosystem construct and visual planning tool provided serves as a framework to define the needs and the relevance of people, channels and resources that deliver established roles within the network. This framework has become a valuable tool across the organization, impacting annual planning within the organization and among their agency partners.

Want to hear more? Giles and Diaz will be presenting their case study with Sarah Colamarino, VP, Corporate Equity Program Development, Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday, March 27. Register now!

This post also appears on our MediaBizBloggers page. 

ARF: How does your experience at Research impact how you personally see and predict the changes our industry needs to get ahead of?

Robert Bain: Some of the big changes we see are about new technology and techniques – mobile, social media, neuroscience, and ‘big data’. Others are about the rise of competition from new areas. There was a great moment at this year’s Esomar Congress when Joan Lewis of P&G made an appeal to agencies for help in moving beyond surveys. When someone like that is saying that research has to change, you need to sit up and listen.

I think behavioral economics (or behavioral science in general) is a particularly interesting trend because it’s not driven by technological change, it’s just a bunch of ideas that have been around for a while but are getting renewed attention. It challenges the assumptions behind a lot of market research. Of course, any researcher who hasn’t realized yet that consumers don’t always do what they say they’ll do, should probably get a different job. The question is, do you just shrug off the shortcomings of the old methods or do you try for something better?

Because of trends like these, as well as economic pressures, I think researchers will have an increasingly hard time justifying the way they do things with clients. Which is probably a good thing.

ARF: You recently wrote an article, “Whatever next?” which discusses predicting and facing the future. In developing this article, what discoveries were most interesting to you?

Bain: Firstly, it’s really hard to predict the future – it’s amazing how wrong we are in our predictions so much of the time. Secondly, it’s amazing how bad we are at realizing this.

But the most revealing thing that came out of that article for me was what John Kearon of BrainJuicer said about the difficulty of persuading clients to try out new research methods. Even though researchers are supposed to be detached experts, they’re prone to the same psychological quirks as anyone else when deciding what to buy. In other words, this is an industry that provides hard evidence for decisions, but everything we know about human decision-making tells us that it often isn’t really driven by hard evidence.

ARF: We often see statistics as tools to predict change and how we can get ahead of change. Please briefly tell us about your November 2011 article “Statistics – lost in translation.”

Bain: That article arose from a debate about why statistics so often get misunderstood by the public and abused by politicians and journalists.

Statistics are vital, of course, and we have to try to use them to prepare for the future. But they can be tricky to communicate. In the 2010 UK election, Gordon Brown quoted as many statistics as he could in all his speeches to back up what he was saying. It didn’t work, because people just don’t connect with those sorts of figures. A million pounds, a billion pounds, ten billion pounds . . . it doesn’t really mean anything to anyone. In the end it just reinforced the image of Brown as distant, dusty, and boring.

The key is to find ways to present statistics that are engaging, easy to understand, and transparent. So I think the trend for infographics and data visualizations is really interesting – taking numerical data and making it friendlier, more human.

Want to hear more? Robert Bain will be moderating a panel of research executives on “Getting ahead of Change” at the ARF annual convention. Registration is now open.

ARF: Why has it become so important for brands to assess the value of their Facebook fans?

Flores and Struyk: As the use of branded fan pages has exploded within the last two years, we need to understand if it is a worthwhile component within the media mix.   While fan pages are free to set up and are a cheaper alternative to traditional advertising avenues, the price of running a page has actually expanded as the time, resources and capital required to maintain them increase.  Unlike other Digital properties, Social Media moves at an exorbitant speed, growing the overall investment.

Content creation and consumption are moving so fast that accountability has been somewhat overlooked until now. Due to this shift in marketing plans, assigning a value to a Facebook fan page justifies the time spent managing the page and linking that to how much consumer action was taken.  Assessing fan page performance ultimately determines how much or how little it is doing for the bottom line while also revealing the page’s role in a larger strategy).

ARF: What are some of the key metrics brands should use to figure out the value of their fans?

Flores and Struyk: Knowing the “value of a Facebook fan” is a hot topic, but many marketers do not have the tools to place a figure on what Social Media does for brands.  From our primary research findings, there are underlying metrics that indirectly tie to value as suggested below.

From an accountability perspective, these metrics help page managers determine future directions for a page by showing if a complete overhaul is needed or if the page is on track with fan expectations.

ARF: What are some strategies brands can use their fan pages in order to transform their “fans” into “quality fans?”

Flores and Struyk: There is not a “one size fits all” strategy that can be applied across all categories and brands; instead, the answer lies at a brand-by- brand basis.  There is an overarching strategy that we caution against: The use of promotional content as a value strategy. In most cases, a promotion does capture new eyeballs, but on the flip side, promotions are a “get in, get out” acquisition that does not facilitate a need to fully absorb the brand experience.  Therefore, this approach is typically unsuccessful in maintaining ongoing interest that converts fans into quality fans.

However, on brand-by-brand basis, we suggest using a crowd sourcing/ ideation technique to understand strategies for achieving this type of conversion (e.g. BRANDED strategies are typically at the heart of why valuable fans originally involved themselves with the page).

ARF: What predictions would you make for the future of branding on social network sites such as Facebook?  How do you see the marketing value changing as we move forward?

Flores and Struyk: Facebook must ensure that consumers form a positive opinion about commercialization: If they are not sensitive to this, the future may not be so optimistic.  Below is a brief description of the potential future:

Near Term Marketing Value:

Campaign driven- Pages are no longer solely dependent on newsfeed updates for B2C conversations.  Instead, interactive campaigns will be sporadically executed to recruit fans (special occasion content, interactive programs, etc.), augmenting the top of the purchase funnel. 

Microsite FB experiences- Fan pages will continue to mimic micro-experiences, perhaps overtaking brand website utilization rates to move the branding needle.

Ecommerce expansion-With targeting features of FB advertising, transactions made directly on the platform will become more prevalent.  According to Forbes magazine, the buy rate increases about 18 times when fans do not have to click through to a site to buy.  This is ramped up even further by the Friend-to-Friend recommendation feature, which drives conversions at the bottom of the purchase funnel.

Long Term Speculations:

Similar to the recent timeline roll out, Facebook aspires that consumers touch the brand every day.   Newer fan page capabilities may lead to possible scenarios that marketers will need to tackle.

Social Pod Advertising- With the largest reach and active network across the world, Facebook will morph into an aggregator social media platform as the hub of interaction:  YouTube, Twitter, Skype, Oodle, and Gamification (for example) will be housed within Facebook, challenging advertisers to work within a one stop social pod.

ConTEXTual Mining Algorithm- Facebook may eventually develop an algorithm to analyze behavioral patterns that are a predictor of market status. Based on brand pages visited, wall conversations, liking (WOM) behaviors, referral source, etc., the algorithm will pinpoint the type of ads to serve (setting a new approach to brand building with awareness, equity building and purchase persuasion happening simultaneously).

These are merely speculations for the future, but one thing we can be certain about is that it will be tricky to balance consumer expectations with marketer benefits on Facebook. Facebook and marketers must both take care to ensure that fans do not abandon Facebook because they feel bombarded by advertising.

Want to hear more? Want to hear more? Laurent Flores and Kimberly Struyk will be speaking at the ARF Re:think 2012 Convention. Register Now

This post also appears on our Media Biz Bloggers page. 

ARF: Explain why this is such a landmark study.

Keylock and Harvey: There has never been a systematic, multi-case study undertaken that allows marketers to quantify the synergy of price cuts, in-store marketing and television advertising tactics. This is the first time that household-level data are being used to address the impact of these tactics on the individual household, and the first time it is being done on such a broad geographic scale. Previous studies have focused on small market research or marketing mix modeling, and that can present a challenge when marketers seek to translate and action those insights on a larger, more general scale. Meanwhile, the TRA/dunnhumbyUSA study leverages anonymous household-level purchase behavior data from 60 million households across the U.S. and the second-by-second measurement of TV viewing habits from more than 2 million set-top box households. The scale of the data allows for a more granular understanding of brand purchase behavior and ROI of marketing approaches. For this particular study, TRA and dunnhumbyUSA focused on heavily advertised CPG brands that average upward of $20 million in television advertising within the categories of toothpaste, yogurt, and cereal; and the impact of brand marketing messages within the three tactics previously named: price-cutting, in-store marketing and television advertising. The study breaks new ground in the industry for its robust representation of each of the three tactics, which allows a more thorough analysis.

ARF: What kinds of synergies did you find between TV and in-store? TV and price?  Did these finding surprise you?

Keylock and Harvey: Within the advertising and marketing community, we have historically accepted an inverse relationship between pricing and television advertising. Traditionally, for example, when brands go dark on TV, it is commonly believed that consumers are more price sensitive to the brand at the point of purchase in-store and when the brand is heavily advertised, they are less price sensitive.  We are excited to give ARF attendees a closer look at how these important tactics work in tandem and independently to drive brand sales.

ARF: How could your findings impact the way marketers determine and plan for ROI?

Keylock and Harvey: The study may lead to a common set of metrics for brands that apply across price cuts, in-store promotions and television advertisements. These findings can provide guidance for more accurate media buying and more strategic and effective allocation of marketing funds to determine budgets that will account for these marketing tactic synergies.  Guidelines derived from this study have the potential to significantly impact the coordination of in-store promotion and television advertising. With the complete results of the study, media planners will look to scheduling and placing television advertisements as they relate to in-store promotions and price cuts.  In addition, there is an opportunity to address challenges within the industry around “big data.” Many marketers struggle to effectively leverage their “big data” assets yet databases continue to grow in size and complexity. By giving marketers access to sophisticated measurement tools, that data can become valuable by creating the right insights to drive brand sales and sustainable business results.

Want to hear more? Matthew Keylock and Bill Harvey will be speaking at the ARF Re:think 2012 Convention on Monday, March 26.  Register now!

Matthew Keylock, Senior Vice President, New Business Development & Partnerships, dunnhumbyUSA is recognized as an industry leader in building winning customer strategies, helping to transform some of the world’s largest enterprises, including major retailers in North America, Europe and Asia. Keylock is responsible for building dunnhumbyUSA’s capabilities and customer base, providing foundational data solutions, insights, products, communication and media for companies within the retail, manufacturing, financial services, telecommunications, travel, automotive, utilities and e-commerce industry segments. Keylock also works to enhance and develop strategic partnerships that expand dunnhumby’s capabilities and innovation strategies.

Bill Harvey, Vice Chair and CRO, TRA, Inc.has spent over 35 years leading the way in the area of media research with special emphasis on the New Media. As the 24 year-old strategy head of the American Research Bureau (now Arbitron), he invented the Area of Dominant Influence or ADI, an audience-based definition of television markets that Nielsen emulated as the DMA, and which was called by Sales & Marketing Magazine “the most widely used marketing tool in the world today”. ADI has profoundly influenced the advertising and television industries. Founder of Next Century Media and New Electronic Media Science, third party research companies serving 70+ of the top 100 advertisers, as well as most of the major cable and satellite operators, networks, agencies, and other research companies; first to turn set top data into TV audience data to media research standards; leader of standard setting process in media measurement through ARF, AAAA, ANA; former executive of Arbitron, Interpublic, Grey Advertising, and OpenTV. Inventor of addressable commercials and passive peoplemeter concepts, consulted on PPM and Scanamerica with Arbitron, developed first automated marketing mix modeling system for General Foods. Initiated and spearheaded the writing of the industry privacy principles for the ANA, AAA, and ARF joint task force CASIE (Coalition for Advertiser Supported Information and Entertainment).

ARF: In your opinion, why is it crucial that we standardize practices for social media studies? What are some of the specific issues that you see affecting credibility of social media studies?  How can they be addressed?

Anderson, Eckert, Pingitore: Right now social media research feels a bit like the “Wild West.” With so many tools of differing caliber available to the public anyone can sit down and run a social media “query.” In this environment, there is no standardization to the approach and the results vary greatly. Skeptics use this variation as a way to call the practice of social media into question. If anyone can get different results at any time why should companies rely on the results? By creating a set of best practices we can bring social media research to the next level, offering results that companies can really trust. Simple guidelines around how to build the queries and how to process the data can make the results more valid and reliable. These best practices will bring credence to this methodology, establishing it as a great addition to any researcher’s toolkit.

ARF: Why are queries so important for developing social media studies? What are the challenges in developing queries and interpreting their results?

Anderson, Eckert, Pingitore: Queries are the basis of all social media research. The old adage “garbage in, garbage out” is a perfectly applicable. Queries tell social media engines what to look for among the billions of data points that exist in the social sphere. The queries you build will greatly impact the data that you pull back to analyze. Simple brand level queries can result in a lot of spam, irrelevant comments, or non-user generated comments. In these instances the post-query cleaning process becomes much more burdensome and the results become less reliable and valid. There is an art and science to developing a perfect query. You want to confine the search enough so that your results are accurate, but you also don’t want to restrict your search too much so as to exclude potentially relevant data.

ARF: How can your findings help clients use social media more effectively?

Anderson, Eckert, Pingitore: Our findings will provide clients with some basic best practices that will help improve their social media research. Our examples will also give them information they can use to convince internal parties about the importance of taking the time to select the right tools and train properly when engaging in social media research. We often hear that clients aren’t given the resources internally (both time and funding wise) to select the best tools and really learn how to garner quality data from social media. Then, when the data comes back and is all over the place, those same people who wouldn’t dedicate resources to the process initially quickly dismiss social media research as a valid research methodology.

Our findings can also serve as guidelines clients can use when researching vendor partners. Using our findings they will be able to determine which service providers have actually taken the time to determine the science behind social media research.

Want to hear more? Jacqueline Anderson, Miriam Eckert, Gina Pingitore will be speaking at the ARF Re:think 2012 Convention on Tuesday, March 27. Register now!

This post also appears on our Media Biz Bloggers Page.

ARF: Who is using Mobile Coupons?

Daryl Battaglia: Our focus has been on Consumer Packaged Goods coupons delivered through smart phones.  We looked at users’ demographic profile, purchase behavior, and prior coupon usage – using a combination of retailer data, panel data, and customer surveys.

In CPG, mobile coupon users are a cross-section of shoppers and smart phone users, so for the most part the demographics reflect that.  Shoppers are more likely to be female.  Smart phone users are younger and more affluent.  However, mobile coupon users are not as young as smart phone users in general.  People of all ages do use mobile coupons.  In many cases, mobile coupons are delivered through the retailer’s mobile platform.  Those mobile coupon users tend to be among the retailer’s most loyal customers and spend more overall.  As a result of this profile, there are certain products they are more likely to buy.

To date, our research shows that mobile coupon users are primarily coupon enthusiasts.  They actively search for coupons and use them through a variety of sources – paper and a variety of digital channels, not just mobile.  They use some form of coupons nearly every time they shop.

ARF: Do mobile coupons make shopping more fun? Can consumers become “addicted” to mobile coupons?

Battaglia: Have you seen the show “Extreme Couponing” on TLC?  It certainly seems like they’re having fun, and they’re addicted.  But with mobile, the woman who climbed into dumpsters to find coupons from old newspapers will no longer need to do that!

Separate from the people on the show, there is a segment of consumers that really enjoy searching for deals and saving the most money possible.  Mobile is an exciting new avenue for them to search and save, which is appealing.

Many other consumers comment that mobile coupons are a convenience that makes their lives easier.  They like that they can select the coupons at any time or place – in the store or ahead of time.  They appreciate not needing to cut or print coupons, or worry about forgetting their coupons at home.  Once mobile coupons are available, most customers that were previously searching for those same coupons online, switch their usage to mobile.

The next step to make coupons even more convenient is to provide a personalized set of coupons for each customer.  Currently, you need to scan through many irrelevant coupons to find the ones that you’re interested in.  However, the display and delivery of coupons can be changed to make it easier to find the coupons you want.  The capability exists to predict which coupons a customer will be interested in, products they already buy and products they might buy in the future if offered a coupon.

Brands and retailers can also offer special deals to select customers based on their purchase history.  These additional offers can help make a customer feel valued and appreciated, even understood; and they are more likely to be loyal when they feel that connection.

ARF: Will smart-phones replace scissors?

Battaglia: Not anytime in the near future, but mobile is certainly gaining traction.  For now, mobile coupons are mainly being used by active existing coupon users.  It’s adding to their existing coupon usage, not replacing it.  We have not yet reached the tipping point where mobile coupons have widespread adoption or are replacing paper coupons.

For mobile coupons to grow, they need to be more available.  Relatively few retailers have the infrastructure in place to either scan your mobile device or to allow manufacturer coupons to be downloaded directly to your loyalty card.  As this technology is deployed by more retailers, along with delivering a compelling and personally relevant user experience, more consumers will begin to try and adopt mobile coupons.

Also, mobile coupons are just one element of the mobile shopping experience.  If mobile coupons are used in combination with the ability to maintain your shopping list, plan your meals, view recipes, earn rewards, and find items on sale, they will become a more integral and regular part of how consumers shop.

Want to hear more? Daryl Battaglia will be speaking at the ARF Re:think 2012 Convention on Monday, March 26 at 11:15 am. Register now!

This post also appears on our Media Biz Bloggers page.

1. Bob Liodice’s Opening Remarks at the Masters 

Bob Liodice, President and CEO of the ANA, discusses changes in the marketing industry and gives an overview of the insights presented at the 2011 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference. This is a great primer on current industry issues and a preview of the other videos we’ve selected as the Best of the ANA.

2. RadioShack: Looking Back to Move Forward

Lee Applebaum, EVP and CMO, discusses why Radio Shack has invested so heavily in social media and why they found it necessary to build partnerships with leading social media agencies to quickly build a world-class social media organization from the ground up. Applebaum’s comments evidence an exemplary understanding of both digital marketing and the consumer electronics category. This video provides a quick bit of inspiration for anyone embarking on a digital or social media marketing campaign.

3. CMO Roundtable

An impressive collection of CMOs, led by Advertising Age Editor, Abbey Klaassen, discusses the key metrics for their advertising. Hear Tony Pace, Chief Marketing Officer, Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust; Barry Judge, Chief Marketing Officer, Best Buy Co., Inc.; Scott Remy, Chief Communications Officer, Nestlé S.A.; and John Felice, General Manager, Ford Lincoln Marketing, discuss why engagement metrics matter, and how they could be made even more effective. This video gives insight into the issues facing top marketing professionals at major brands.

4: Kraft Foods: Leap! Why It’s Time for Your Company to Make Big Moves

Need some motivation when dealing with complex business problems? Dana Anderson, Senior Vice President of Marketing Strategy and Communications at Kraft Foods, gives a stimulating speech about the skills we need to succeed in a VUCA world (V = Volatility, U = Uncertainty, C = Complexity, A = Ambiguity).

We hope these videos have given you some inspiration as you tackle your own business challenges.

Visit the ANA for more.

Marketers all want to make the next “viral” ad, but it’s not that simple. What makes people share ads with friends? What characteristics do viral ads have in common? We had the chance to talk with Thales Teixeira, Marketing Professor at the Harvard School of Business. Professor Teixeira’s work focuses on why people share and what content they’re inclined to share.

ARF: Why do viewers share ads?

Thales Teixeira: Consumer sharing of ads, the basis of viral advertising, has turned out to be a very uncertain and complicated process. My research breaks down the ad sharing process into three sequential consumer behaviors necessary for an ad to be successfully shared online: attraction, retention and sharing. First, viewers can’t avoid (e.g., skip) the ad. Second, they should watch the ad until the end. And third, conditional on viewing, they need to decide to share the ad with their acquaintances.  My research explains the ad features that facilitate, though not guaranteeing, that an ad will ‘survive’ these three stages so as to be on track to disseminate virally online.

Initially, we thought that people share ads to connect to others, to provide their acquaintances with content that they think has value, in an altruistic manner. It turns out that most sharing is done for self-interested motives. In one way another, consciously or not, the sender intends to gain ‘social capital’ in the process. It is not just about content. To create successful viral ads, brands need to enlist the right consumers to do the distribution job. Brands need to ask the question, ‘What’s in it for them?’ Providing desirable ad content (for example, novel humor), AND allowing them to gain social status in the process is the key to enlisting consumers to work on behalf of your brand. This ‘symbiosis’, wherein both senders and advertiser benefit, is what ads that have successfully gone viral have.

ARF: How can advertisers design to be sharable?

Teixeira: The tricky part is that just because a viewer may really like an ad, doesn’t mean she is also likely to share it. In particular, I found that although shocking content and humor may get people to watch an ad privately, it often works against their desire to share the spot. Bud Light’s “Clothing Drive” where the characters respond by removing clothes they’re wearing garnered high viewership but it was not as widely shared as other Bud Light ads. Even the blacked-out nudity was too shocking. The solution: Surprise but don’t shock.

ARF: Can you tell us about the effects of emotional delivery?  Were there any surprises in your findings?

Teixeira: Using facial-tracking technology we’ve found that ads that produce stable emotional states generally aren’t effective at engaging viewers for very long. The solution: Build an emotional roller coaster. Viewers are most likely to continue watching a video ad if they experience emotional ups and downs. This fits with psychological-research findings about human adaptability. When we come into a warm home on a cold winter day, or when we receive a pay raise, we experience pleasure, but the feeling is transitory; the novelty soon wears off. So advertisers need to briefly terminate viewers’ feelings of joy or surprise and then quickly restore them, creating an emotional roller coaster—much the way a movie does.  Surprisingly, giving the viewer the most amount of joy, surprise or other positive emotion in ads isn’t the best way to hold their attention.  Interrupting something good actually helps.

ARF: How can companies use these findings to develop ads?

Teixeira: Practically speaking, one clear means to develop better TV and online ads is to grab attention at the onset. Ads should evoke surprise followed by joyful or happy scenes, not the other way around, and alternate between high and low levels of joy. Entertaining the viewer first pays off to some extent. Using purely humor ads with the brand at the end is too high a price to pay with too little time left to persuade, the ultimate goal.

ARF: Why do viewers change the channel? What are views turn-offs and turn-ons?

Teixeira: Prominent branding puts off viewers. Using eye-tracking we discovered that viewers routinely focus on brand logos on-screen. This isn’t the boon it might seem: The more prominent or intrusive the logo, the more likely viewers are to stop watching— even if they know and like the brand. Why? People seem to have an unconscious aversion to being persuaded, so when they see a logo, they resist. The solution: Utilize “brand pulsing.” Smart advertising unobtrusively weaves the brand image throughout the ad. My experiments have shown that this can increase viewership by as much as 20%. One of the best examples of the technique is Coca-Cola’s animated “Happiness Factory” ad. It depicts a fantasy version of what happens inside a Coke machine when someone inserts money. A Coke bottle is shown repeatedly, but each appearance is quick.  So, if a primary goal is to get viewers to watch ads until the end, TV and online video ads should not show the brand logo too intrusively and should pulse it (on-off-on) whenever possible. One way to do this is to have the brand act as a hero in the story, as opposed to a persuading symbol. This technique also improves the ad’s virality potential.

Want to hear more? Professor Teixeira will be speaking at the ARF Re:think 2012 Convention on Tuesday, March 27 at 11:50 am. Register now! You can also read his report.

This article also appears on the ARF Media Biz Bloggers page.