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5 Cups of Morning Coffee

Each week our Knowledge Specialists summarize the top articles in 5 Cups of Morning Coffee below!

Measuring marketing’s worth

As new kinds of media have grown in importance and mobile communications have created new opportunities to reach consumers, the ROI challenge has become more intense. McKinsey Quarterly argues that you can’t spend wisely unless you understand marketing’s full impact, and proposes five questions executives should ask to help maximize the bang for their bucks:

1. What exactly influences our consumers today?

2. How well informed (really) is our marketing judgment?

3. How are we managing financial risk in our marketing plans?

4. How are we coping with added complexity in the marketing organization?

5. What metrics should we track given our (imperfect) options?

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For more info, check out the Marketing Tab in Morning Coffee

How to Win in China’s Media Environment

According to Nielsen, today’s Chinese consumers are more connected than ever before, with media playing a growing role in the lives of an increasing number of Chinese—across all age groups and geographic regions:

• Despite high costs, TV still offers tremendous reach, particularly as digital options thrive in the country’s most urban areas.
• China’s 500+ million Internet consumers and growing mobile/smartphone populations ensure that digital media remain on the minds of marketers as well.
• Multitasking audiences mean that digital ad campaigns are most effective when combined with other ad channels like TV.

The lines between TV, online, and mobile screens are becoming less and less distinct. Nielsen’s cross-media measurement panel in Shanghai has found that half of Shanghai households regularly engage in multi-screen media consumption while watching TV.

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For more info, check out the Consumer Tab in Morning Coffee

Tablets Becoming Go-To Device for Web Engagement, Adobe Study Shows

According to a new report based on an Adobe Digital Index analysis of 23 billion visits to the Web sites of more than 325 brands across North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific:

• Tablets’ share of Web site traffic is growing at an astounding 300 percent a year.
• By early 2013 tablets’ share of Web site traffic is on track to exceed the traffic of smartphones. Users still prefer PCs for accessing the Internet, but the force of the tablet explosion is such that tablets could challenge PCs in the more distant future.
• Effectiveness of devices varied by product industry.
• Financial service consumers were found to favor tablets nearly as much as PCs for repeated consumption of content.
• Media consumers consider tablets and PCs to be nearly interchangeable and are less likely to use smartphones to view media Web sites.
• Retail consumers generally prefer PCs for researching and comparing potential purchases as well as for online purchasing.
• Travel  consumers have some similar needs as retail visitors and likewise want to research and compare leisure travel options, typically on PCs. In addition, business travel is usually researched and purchased on PCs in office environments.

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For more info, check out the Advertising Tab in Morning Coffee

BrainTrust Query: Clicks to Bricks

Today’s RetailWire asks: how the emergence of digital flagships and store-less markets are changing the retail landscape. Is the digital-first, clicks-to-bricks model a viable one for growing brand awareness and market share?

Some examples of retailers who are establishing digital flagships, often in lieu of physical ones are:

• Japan’s retailer Uniqlo, which is said to be on the hunt for an agency that will build out a U.S. digital flagship for its brand. Uniqlo's e-commerce platform is designed to get its volume engine cranking, but also to prime the pump in markets slated for future stores, while driving global brand awareness in a way that its spotty physical footprint can't just yet.
• Chinese challenger brand to Nike, Li-Ning expects the U.S. to account for 10 percent of its international sales by 2018, but it has no imminent plans to build physical stores in the U.S. With the premise of enabling consumers to "feel the personality of the brand" Digital Li-Ning debuted in March and has garnered a 425 percent increase in unique monthly web visitors. The brand has since created a robust virtual ecosystem that incorporates Facebook, Twitter, Pandora, YouTube, and the blogosphere into its digital mix.

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For more info, check out the Shopping & Retail Tab in Morning Coffee

The Future of Gamification

According to a recent Pew survey of “tech experts” (this was a non-random, opt-in, online sample of 1,021 Internet experts and other Internet users, recruited via email invitation, Twitter or Facebook from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University),

• “There was a split verdict among experts about the scope and power of the gamification trend.”
•  “Some 53% of the respondents to this survey said the use of game mechanics, feedback loops, and rewards to spur interaction and boost engagement, loyalty, fun, and/or learning will continue to gain ground between now and 2020.”
• “A number of survey participants qualified this by saying the adoption of gamification will continue to have some limits. Moreover, 42% said generally the trend will not advance except in specific realms.”
• “Overall, a modest majority of the top tech experts participating in this survey believe game elements in some form will continue to play a role of gathering importance in the everyday activities of many of the people who are actively using communications networks.”

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For more info, check out the Consumer Tab in Morning Coffee

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