Listen to the Client Side podcast here - http://www.theclientsideblog.com/podcast/
And here is another item from Promo Magazine. It was titled "Online Shoppers like to take each others word it". And what it said was about and it is no surprise here that about 65% of online costumers can be classified as social researchers and the social researcher cohort are interested and motivated -- excuse me -- by pure reviews of products and services that the find on web shopping sites. The research was conducted by a group called Power Reviews. They studied about 1,200 consumers who shopped online at least four times a year who spent about 500 dollars or more annually doing so and they almost always were all the time actively sought out and read consumer reviews prior to deciding on whether or not to buy an item. The social researchers as they are calling them this consumer group that they have identified. They said that about 78% of the time they spend more than 10 minutes reading consumer reviews on website and that 86% of the social researchers in this group say that they find costumer review is extremely are very important in formulating their purchased decision. Now, I do not think there is anything new here. We know that this goes on. I think it is just underlying the importance of it. The importance if you are in ecommerce site or you have a product and services available online for the -- even the offline world that it is very important to have good customer reviews and facilitate good conversation on your site. The study when on to say that 64% of these active reviews or active reviewers say that they researched the products online more than half the time. Whether the plan to buy it on the internet or through another venue meaning a store, a catalogue buy found. Now, early all of the respondents to this study said that online product reviews are helpful in shopping for in terms that run across the gamete of categories including toys, video games, sporting tones, gifts, specialty foods and health and beauty products. So, it really covers wide spectrum of shopping needs.
Another item in from AdAge. Put some number around Word of Mouth in terms of how much is being spent on it and Word of Mouth is actually worth 1 billion dollars. That as marketers are looking for a more measurable and ROI sensitive discipline that a billion dollars was poured into Word of Mouth analysis which was believe to be the first in depth to look at the Word of Mouth category reported that spending on the emerging discipline increased to 981 million dollars over 2006 which was up from 76 million dollars in 2001 and it is expected to grow to 3.7 billion by 2011. Now, it is still only worth 0.4% of the overall 254 billion dollar marketing services category but it feel it did grow by 35.5% in 2006. According to Patrick Quinn, the CEO of PQ Media and I quote the, "new media industry axiom, only what gets measure gets bought has lead to a discernible shift in media spending from traditional and alternative advertising and marketing strategies". So, it is obviously important as a discipline and a recent Nielsen Global Survey found that of 26,000 people nearly 78% of respondents trusted recommendation from consumers. So, nothing is surprising here, right? But I think what is interesting is the numbers that are being put around it. I had not heard of those types of numbers before so Word of Mouth obviously working and marketers are spending more money on it than ever before.
Now, the last item up here in the news is out of an advertising age and it is a better controversy that is going on right now as we speak where the title of the article was "An onslaught against "Onslaught". Dove viral means draws heat from critics." What is going in here is Unilever owns the Dove brand and Unilever is obviously represented by Ogilvy & Mather who has created some ads, some great spots for YouTube, some great viral videos that are getting out and really speaking to the nature of, I guess women and young women issues and the whole thing with Onslaught was all about the beauty industry and how does your clean of it and keep an eye on the reality of the situation. Yet, Unilever also owns and markets Axe and they have quite a controversy on there hands in terms of bloggers, videographers and mainstream media folks speaking to the hypocritical nature of Unilever marketing and owning both of those brands and marketing both of those products in totally different ways. And the article says that the Onslaught video is everything from low self-stream to plastic surgery to bulimia and Unilever is out there and "throttling its own endless stream of buxom, scantily-clad sex crazed women and asked to support the Axe product". One of the videos, one of the mash ups that was put on to YouTube to point out the nature of this one company having two radically different products, and radically different advertising techniques as it turns out the mash up of the Dove-Axe parody was created by a gentleman named Rye Clifton who is a strategic planner at interpublic groups Martin Agency. I guess a competitor to Ogilvy & Mather and the other folks representing Axe and he was quoted in saying his immediate thought was that it would make a perfect video on YouTube. You know, I am going to leave this news segment on that note. I am sure everyone out there has heard of it and I am sure you have opinions and I would really love to hear what you think about this. How should Unilever respond if you were in charge of the Dove or the Axe product or if you are in charge of Unilever. How do you see this situation? Is it to market both things out of there? Should they be a bit socially responsible with their efforts? How do you view it? Call in at 206 666 2204 and I have we hear from you sometime in the future and find out what our view is on this. So, we are going to get out of here with the news, I am be getting into the segment on the balanced scorecard and client and agency relationships.
 Digg this
 Bookmark with del.icio.us
|
