via scribd.com
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Toys R Us continues to increase summer sales via bigger QR code push - Mobile Commerce Daily
Toys R Us is using QR codes to promote more than 20 of its large outdoor items and is letting consumers visualize how the product would work and look in their own backyards.
Since many of the outdoor items are too large to display in-store, Toys R Us is using in-store signage that lets consumers scan the QR code of a product in which they are interested. According to the retailer, this is its largest QR code program to date.
“Customers are increasingly using their smartphones while shopping to find details on the products they are looking to purchase,” said Meghan Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Toys R Us, Wayne, NJ.
“With these QR codes, Toys R Us is providing customers with an engaging in-store experience that allows them to see these outdoor items, which are too large to display within our stores, in action,” she said.
Toysrus.com is the Web portal for Toys R Us Inc., one of the biggest toy retailers in the world. The company operates 1,550 stores, including 849 Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores in the United States and more than 700 international stores in 33 countries.
Toys in action
The QR code implementation is meant to help Toys R Us customers see the backyard toys in action.Consumers can scan the mobile bar code next to the product with their mobile device to view video footage or images of the item fully set up.
Additionally, many of the products have corresponding videos that showcase kids playing with the summer toys.
Many of the outdoor items featuring QR codes include trampolines from Bravo Sports, pools from Summer Escapes by Polypool and a variety of products from Step 2, such as sandboxes, slides, clubhouses and picnic tables.
Consumers can learn more about the products via the QR codes
“The display is prominently positioned in Toys R Us stores across the country for the summer months,” Ms. Kennedy said. “Customers can simply scan the QR code of the product they are interested in with their smartphone to view video footage or images of the item fully set up.
“Many of the products have corresponding videos that showcase kids playing with these fun summer toys,” she said.
Past initiatives
Last year, Toys R Us rolled out a virtual store that let consumers scan QR codes featured on billboards and shop the company’s 2011 Hot Toy List.On-the-go commuters and travelers in the New York metro area were encouraged to take part in the initiative.
Billboards located in John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport and nearly 40 NJ Transit Stations feature the showcased items (see story).
QR codes are a hot commodity and the technology is helping marketers bridge the digital and traditional world.
“We continue to look for ways to enhance our mobile capabilities and provide a seamless shopping experience for our customers,” Ms. Kennedy said.
Final Take
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York
Rimma Kats is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily and Mobile Marketer. Reach her at rimma@mobilemarketer.com.
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Tags: Meghan Kennedy, mobile, mobile bar codes, mobile commerce, mobile marketing, mobile shopping, QR codes, Toys R Us
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Point-and-Pint? | From PSFK: Guinness QR Code Pint Glass Can Only Be Scanned When Full
Guinness wanted to get more people talking about the brand, so they gave local bars some new pint glasses. At first glance, the glasses looked like a regular pints- but bartenders and patrons learned that when they were filled with a Guinness, the glasses were actually printed with a QR code.
Created by BBDO NY, the QR code could only be scanned when a Guinness (or for argument’s sake, any dark beverage) was in the pint glass; regular beer didn’t create enough contrast, and when nothing was in the glass, the QR code just looked like a creatively etched design on the side of the cup.
When bar-goers scanned the QR code with their smartphones, the app shared the news to friends that they were enjoying a Guinness via twitter, foursquare, Facebook, and Instagram updates. Scanning the QR code even sent out the bar-goers’ locations– with the hope being that friends who saw the updates would join their pals at the bar for more Guinness drinking.
via psfk.com
Simple & Sensible OOH-Meets-Mobile Marketing. | From MediaPost: Point And Shop: QR-Coded Outdoor Campaign Helps Commuters Plan Dinner
Answering the age-old question of what’s for dinner is an outdoor and mobile campaign by Allrecipes running in Los Angeles.
The "Fix Dinner" campaign uses pictures of the most popular local recipes in L.A. on Allrecipes.com during the month of May alongside a QR code.
Snapping that code with a smartphone will allow users to open the recipe and create a shopping list accessed via phone or the Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner app.
Here’s a look at the top 10 recipes in L.A. for May:
1. Actually Delicious Turkey Burgers
2. Lime Chicken Soft Tacos
3. Grilled Salmon
4. Yummy Honey Chicken Kabobs
5. T’s Sweet Potato Fries
6. Grilled Corn on the Cob
7. Chicken Tikka Masala
8. California Grilled Veggie Sandwich
9. Simple BBQ Ribs
10. Asian Lettuce Wraps
The out-of-home campaign is Allrecipes’ first. The bus stop takeover is no coincidence: Allrecipes found that traffic (the online kind) to its site increases significantly at the end of each workday. Lisa Sharples, president of Allrecipes, devised the month-long campaign when she was standing at a bus stop after work, trying to decide what to feed her five children for dinner.
Allrecipes is currently tracking the number of recipes accessed by QR codes by location and recipe, for some recipes appear in more than one location.
via mediapost.com
Survey Says: Airports an Attractive Audience to Advertisers - Scarborough (USA) via @ScalaInc
A nationwide Scarborough research survey found that Business Frequent Flyers are 83 percent more likely than all American adults to be the first to try or buy new products and services. This custom study was commissioned by Clear Channel Airports (CCA) and conducted by consumer market research firm Scarborough. The survey results highlight the value to advertisers of targeting frequent travelers while they are in transit in airports.
The study included nearly 2,000 adult participants age 18 or older, and highlights the importance of airports in today’s busy multimedia world. Airports, a “high dwell-time environment,” deliver a captive audience and provide advertisers with a potential for strong returns on investment. In addition, according to the survey, approximately three in four Frequent Flyers and Business Frequent Flyers both notice airport advertising and take the time to actually read the message.
The national survey found that airports provide advertisers with a saturated audience of affluent, educated, tech-savvy travelers. The two key audience groups identified by the survey are Frequent Flyers (adults who have taken three or more round trip flights in the past year) and Business Frequent Flyers (adults who have taken three or more round trip business flights in the past year). Frequent Flyers account for more than 38 million adults, and Business Frequent account for more than 11 million adults, with an average household income of $125,000*. While Frequent Flyers and Business Frequent Flyers represent 36 percent of total flyers, they account for 70 percent of all airport impressions due to their more frequent travel.
The survey also showed that airports have a number of unique, high-visibility touch points — from security lines and concourses to connection hub, baggage claim and ground transportation areas — that allow advertisers to reach captive audiences in impactful ways. Clear Channel Airports is able to capitalize on these touch points through innovative programs that complement the unique airport space, such as compelling digital networks in gate hold areas, baggage carousel wraps and interactive experiential brand exhibits in the heavily trafficked concourses.
“This is an important study that highlights for companies of all sizes the significant buying power of frequent travelers,” says Toby Sturek, president, Clear Channel Airports, Allentown, Pa. “This study identifies a consumer demographic that spends time and money engaging with airport advertising and is very receptive to new products and services. The study is clear: Airports deliver high returns for advertisers.”
"The survey revealed that frequent business travelers are key market influencers. It is noteworthy that even with smartphones, iPads and many other mobile devices, frequent travelers are influenced by airport advertising," said Scott Willoth, senior vice president of analytics & insights for Scarborough. "This research is consistent with the unique value that Scarborough provides by focusing on customized studies that offer deep and actionable insights."
From user demographics to the impact geographic signposts have on advertising impressions, the survey demonstrated airports to be an ideal environment in which to engage an audience of affluent consumers. Among the key survey findings:
- Frequent Flyers are 56 percent more likely than the average adult to be the first to try or buy new products and services.
- Business Frequent Flyers are particularly hard to reach with advertising in more traditional media due to their busy lifestyles. For example, Business Frequent Travelers are 48 percent less likely to be heavily exposed to television compared to the average adult.
- Business Frequent Flyers are more than twice as likely to download a paid app in the past year, and are 128 percent more likely to scan a QR code with a smart phone, compared to the average adult. High dwell time and compelling, large-format inventory provide the perfect venue to reach tech savvy travelers with modern, interactive media campaigns.
The survey also focused on the amount of time air travelers spend in different areas of the airport, examining how that “captive audience time” helps drive advertising impressions and purchasing decisions. Notably:
- 89 percent of Frequent Flyers spend up to 30 minutes in airport security, meaning that fixed points of interest, such as security lines, are ripe for advertising.
- Half of Frequent Flyers spend 45 minutes or more in airport concourses after clearing security.
- Three out of every four travelers have purchased food and beverages from airport concessions.
- 73 percent of Business Frequent Flyers spend up to two hours in connecting airports during layovers, underscoring the importance of hub airports as advertisement investments.
- 89 percent of Business Frequent Flyers spend up to 30 minutes in baggage claim and 80 percent of Frequent Flyers have checked their luggage at least once during their last three personal trips.
The data in this press release is from a custom study conducted by Scarborough in fall 2011. Scarborough measured 1,983 adults nationwide in the areas of Frequent Flyers and Business Frequent Flyers.
*This data is from Scarborough USA+ release 2, 2011.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Hmmm... now, that's a thought! From AdAge: Are Consumers Ready for Mobile Grocery Shopping?
Since few shoppers can wait for Amazon to ship their gallon of milk, smartphone usage in grocery stores is an entirely different beast than in big-box and electronic retailers, where the "scan and scram" phenomenon of price comparing runs rampant.
Consumers aren't price checking against the Piggly Wiggly down the street the way they compare the values at Target vs. Best Buy, so mobile apps are popping up as tools for shoppers to find manufacturer deals and make lists as they trawl the supermarket aisles.
--> Food and medicine are the categories that see the least smartphone usage for research and shopping, according to an online survey from Omnicom Media Group and Microsoft. Phones are used more for shopping for entertainment products, restaurants and consumer electronics.Consumers are using mobile more in grocery.
"You see more scan-and-scram when you're buying a TV than when you're trying to save a $1 on Kleenex," said Daniel Blackburn, VP-mobile for interactive agency Rosetta's Level Studios.
Sixty-five percent of the 3,500 shoppers in five global markets wanted their cellphones to find in-store promotions, according to Omnicom's survey. Making shopping lists and finding items in stores are also top mobile priorities.
In recognition of this, last month, Catalina, the company that powers loyalty programs for 30,000 stores nationwide (including those back-of-receipt coupons), acquired mobile commerce company Modiv Mobile.
Modiv, now Catalina Mobile, is behind mobile apps in 110 of Ahold USA's Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Here's how it works: A shopper walks into the store, opens the store-branded app and receives offers based on their shopping history. To skip the line at checkout, shoppers can scan barcodes of items they put into the cart to buy the haul right on the phone. Catalina says the app will be available in 200 more Stop & Shops this summer.
The Ahold partnership predated Modiv's acquisition by Catalina, which operates in more than 85 U.S. chains, including Target, Kroger and Safeway, and distributes coupons for major packaged-goods brands. Catalina reaches 75% of U.S. households across 30,000 stores, said Todd Morris, the company's exec VP-brand development and marketing innovation.
Its focus remains on using mobile to change purchase behavior in stores, rather than warding off online grocers such as Fresh Direct. "Sure, I'll use Red Laser to compare prices on electronics, but no one's going to do that with a box of cereal," said Mr. Morris of the price-comparison app eBay acquired in 2010.
"The whole use case of scanning dozens of boxes of Cheerios to see which is cheaper is a little silly," said Dhana Pawar, director-mobile product management at Coupons.com, which updated its Grocery iQ mobile app this month.
Coupons.com, a behemoth in digital coupons that's raised $285 million in funding over the past several years, focuses on bringing packaged-goods brands into the list-making process with an app called Grocery iQ. In the first quarter, 71% of shoppers made their lists at home, according to the SymphonyIRI MarketPulse survey.
Shoppers create lists in the app by scanning barcodes or typing in entries, then the app organizes those items by aisle. The most recent update ports coupons into the search tool so that, say, a shopper may add one brand of yogurt to the list over another because Coupons.com offers 50¢ off. Coupons.com reports that Grocery iQ has "millions" of downloads and active users use it three to four times a week. It's also added brand advertising: Hormel has sponsored the meat and seafood tab in the app.
To redeem coupons from the app, users can email coupons to print at home or sync the app with their loyalty cards at participating stores, including Safeway, so savings are automatically deducted at checkout.
via adage.com
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Fascinating. From HBR.org: Great Businesses Don't Start with a Plan?
You want to start a business. So you need a plan, right? No. Not really.
As part of the research for a book I'm co-authoring — Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck, due out in August from HBR Press — my colleagues and I interviewed and surveyed hundreds of successful entrepreneurs around the globe to better understand what it takes to be an entrepreneur and build a really great business. One of our most striking findings was that of the entrepreneurs we surveyed who had a successful exit (that is, an IPO or sale to another firm), about 70% did NOT start with a business plan.
Instead, their business journeys originated in a different place, a place we call the Heart. They were conceived not with a document but with a feeling and doing for an authentic vision. Clarity of purpose and passion ruled the day with less time spent writing about an idea and more time spent just doing it.
It's not that all planning is bad. It's that efforts to write the "perfect" business plan usually lead to being precisely incorrect rather than approximately correct. One problem is that the content that most people focus on in business plans has little to do with the reality that will actually emerge. Many start-up plans emphasize some gigantic potential market and how getting just the smallest sliver of it will make them and investors rich. A colleague of mine offers the hypothetical example of selling a bar of soap for a dollar every month to just 0.5% percent of the people in China. It's nearly a $100M business! Good luck making it happen, though.
At a business's inception, resources are limited, and the best content for a business plan is real-world data based on testing aspects of the concept. These experiments need not be complex. You want simple, iterative tests that are easily measurable and let you know whether you are winning or not.
It's not just start-ups. The strategic architecture of any business should incorporate facts from real world testing to allow one to adjust course as necessary. This is what Henry Mintzberg, a seminal figure in competitive strategy theory, once described as "emergent" or "evolutionary" strategy. My business partner Mats Lederhausen (formerly global head of strategy for McDonald's as well as former Executive Chairman of Chipotle) has his own saying for it: think big, start small, then scale or fail fast.
So don't worry too much about a business plan. But to guide your thinking, improve a pitch to prospective investors, or better align your teams, consider these design points:
1. Identify and clearly articulate your Heart and purpose. Whether you want to call it vision, Heart, purpose or calling, be very clear on the why of a business — the bigger goal at hand.
2. The team is more important than any idea or plan. The top three priorities should be people, followed by people, and then people.
3. Think big, start small, then scale or fail fast. Per Lederhausen's advice, set the right first "start small" milestone; it will usually involve seeing people's willingness to buy or at least try your product.
4. Focus on a well-defined market sub-segment or niche. At least to start, think of where you can potentially be the best. This strategy is almost always more successful than being just another player in a massive market.
5. Understand your business model. How you will make money is more important than pages of Excel showing financials that are simply too hard to predict at this early stage anyway. Understand instead the basic way you will make money - is it through transactions, advertising, subscriptions, etc?
There appears to be a perennial market for how-to classes, books, and templates that promise almost "color by number" instructions for populating business plans. While aspects of those tools are helpful for a structured approach, they are more likely to mislead because of their emphasis on completing the plan of a business before uncovering its soul and demonstrating whether others connect with it. People feel a sense of accomplishment upon completing their plan, but what does that plan really get them? Filling worksheets can never replace zeroing in on the passion and purpose of your business. That Heart has to be there day one. The most researched business plan holds little value without a genuine Heart behind the idea and the Guts to just get it going.
via blogs.hbr.org
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Well thought-out and well explained, @Posterscope.
Guide to Convergent Out-of-Home
View more presentations from Posterscope
Friday, May 11, 2012
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Blasphemous at first blush, but true when read through. Great piece @elowitz! Content Is No Longer King
“Content is king” has been a long-lived mantra of media. And in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was true.
But over the last several years, the Internet has upheaved the aphorism.
It used to be that media was linear. And in that world, content and distribution were married. The HBO channel had HBO content. A New York Times subscription bought you New York Times content. And Vogue and Cosmopolitan each month delivered exclusive and proprietary content from … Vogue and Cosmopolitan.
Until the Internet came along. In every single one of the varied businesses the Internet has touched — from commerce to media to communications to payments — there has been one common impact: disaggregation.
Content and distribution have parted
In the case of the hundreds-of-years-old media business, the Internet has fundamentally separated content from distribution.
Today I can watch hundreds of South Park and Jon Stewart clips, all without a cable box — on my Apple TV, my Android phone, or YouTube on my desktop.
But wait, South Park and Jon Stewart? Content is king, you say. It’s now even more free to reign, unfettered by distribution channels!
No; because content is no longer enough. Content has always been a means to an end. And the end has always been audience.
Content isn’t the goal. Audience is.
When it comes to the business of media, there’s no question: advertisers don’t pay to reach content. They pay to reach an audience.
What’s the first item in every brief from every advertiser? It’s not Target Content, it’s Target Audience.
Media has been slow to adjust to this new dynamic. Companies have sunk billions into content management systems — using CMS as the cornerstone of their modernization — under the impression that they traffic in content.
But they don’t. They traffic in audience. And how much have they spent on audience development systems? Not much, if any at all.
Now that distribution of content to audience is no longer linear, distribution decisions are suddenly more complicated. And, at the same time, they are immensely more important — and more dynamic — to create the impact media companies are looking for: drawing an audience! Social distribution can outperform search, if you use it wisely. Day-parting your postings can boost post performance by 100 percent or more. Packaging can triple the effectiveness of content in reaching an audience.
And yet, few in media have even begun to optimize these decisions.
Who’s your Chief Audience Officer?
Distribution decisions are just as important as content decisions in building and serving an audience, and yet they are being largely ignored. Everyone has an Editor-In-Chief or a Chief Creative Officer. But how many have a Distributor-In-Chief? Or a Chief Audience Officer? A Head of Digital Programming?
The myopic focus on content over distribution is widespread, and it’s a bad business decision. It ignores a critical access of leverage, and one of competitive advantage.
The smartest media companies will do three things to take control of their digital opportunity:
- Put someone in charge of audience development.
Give them latitude to think about the interplay between distribution and content, so that they can marry the two. Like a head of programming for a cable network, they should be tasked to realize the full potential of your digital channels. They should support the delivery of your content, and they should also provide back pressure to your content creators. Don’t merge it into your editorial jobs — that’s too precarious. Make it its own discipline.- Adopt an audience development strategy.
There are three basic components you have to master: insights (know your audience segments, and what each one will like); channel selection (identify the highest value distribution outlets for your brand, whether it’s search, social, YouTube, Hulu, or your own channels); and optimization (use data to create a feedback loop and tune your content, packaging, and timing to what works for your audience).- Systematize it.
You have sunk millions into content management systems. But how much have you spent on your most monetizable asset, your audience? You should be as systematic in audience development as you are in content creation, if not more so. Whether it’s with established processes or dedicated algorithms, make audience development a competitive advantage. Get so good at it that you truly know how to maximize every piece of content you create — and multiply your ROI. Use technology for what it does best: Systematize your advantages over your competitors.With the rise of new distribution platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Hulu, there’s no question that the next generation of digital media is as much about distribution as it is about content. Media companies that orient their organizations to prize audience development above all (with distribution as a key component) will catch the upside of these tectonic shifts. And they will be the ones that survive and thrive in the digital age. After all, audience is the ruler of media companies’ fortunes.
This article by Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is an exclusive selection from his Media Success newsletter for digital media leaders. Elowitz is the co-founder and CEO of next-generation media company Wetpaint and the author of the Digital Quarters blog about the future of digital media. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).
via allthingsd.com
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