Contagious ideas is spotting trends. By Jeremy DUMONT, french strategic planner : interactive communications. Join PSST (opinion and trends) www.PSST.fr

Planning the Future of Planning. Nick Hirst [DARE] GOLD wrote an excellent paper on the division in strategy and how [user] Experience Planning provide a model to both understand behavior and architect holistic brand experiences.

A while back I wrote a paper to enter the ADMAP Future of Planning contest. 

I was shortlisted, which was nice. 

You can and should check out the winning papers. They are awesome and wise.

Nick Hirst [DARE] GOLD wrote an excellent paper on the division in strategy and how [user] Experience Planning provide a model to both understand behavior and architect holistic brand experiences. 

His perspicacious analysis of the strengths, and corresponding weaknesses, of brand planning ['conceptual planners'] and media planning ['practical planners'] is enlightening and rings true to me, having been on both sides at various points. If you have a hammer etc..

[As an aside

{I feel like it's been a while since I've been paranthetical.}

- I think everyone who works in advertising should spend time working at the other side of the fence if they can: creative, media, digital whatever. It really helps.

We need polymath thinkers to build holistic solutions in complex times.

Also we'd probably be more forgiving and less prone to fundamental attribution errors.] 

Tom Woodnut SILVER wrote about Mutuality Planning - that the job of the planner is to broker a mutually beneficial solution - an equitable value transfer - between brands and people. 

[He kindly credits a [poorly titled] post from TIGS back in 2006 as something he drew on.] 

Phillipa Dunjay BRONZE wrote that in a world where data mining will be able to predict who buys what when, the role of the planner will no longer be to mine for insights,

[Remember - there's no such thing as an insight - they are a kind of reifed strategic currency we use as an industry, no doubt useful but not technically that kind of noun, there's no THING called an insight, insight describes a quality or process of developing a deep and intuitive understanding of something.] 

[Once the square brackets come out it's hard to control them.]

but instead to find and foster microcultures around the brand for ongoing development.

I'm aligned with this thinking.

The issues of strategic fragmentation are important and structural - we have created them ourselves.

The impact of technologies will continue to change, well, everything.

Dynamic data definitely impacts the Platonic ideal of insight in some ways. Vocal communities of the interested, if you can find them, are our allies.

[See earlier caveats re: insights and square brackets]

The questions I was reaching towards are, perhaps, epistomelogical. 

How does advertising work? How do we make [purchase] decisions? 

How do we know? What if we have it wrong?

It's something I've been thinking and writing about for a couple of years, which is why it references a bunch of previous stuff I've published for discussion.

There has been lots of interesting experimental work in this area, most importantly by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman, captured beautifully in his magnum opus Thinking Fast & Slow [this is required reading, no excuses.]

The dynamic interactions between System 1 and System 2, or the unconscious and conscious if you like, and the impact that non-conscious elements have on decision making, have led scientists to dub this 'the new unconscious' [to distance it from the largely dismantled Freudian repression model of the subconscious or ID]. 

This is not to be reductive - clearly what we think has an impact on what we buy, but it's far from the only driver, nor is it, seemingly, the most important. 

In fact, some go as far to describe your experience of consciousness as an epiphenomen - something is being created by something else, rather the author of our actions. 

This directly challenges the fundamental model underlying advertising: AIDA.

So... that's something we should probably be thinking about..right?

I tried to map out some approaches based on the science as I understand it, borrowing heavily from Feldwick and Earls and Kahneman and Heath and Watts and lots of other people. 

Since part of the role of planning is to bring rigor to communications - to inform and help the work, work, - it occurs to me we also need to be thinking, more than ever in light of this stuff, about HOW and WHY it works. 

[The role of strategy is to decide if we need any advertising, but that's another discussion.] 

In fact, here you go - here's the paper. Forgive the title. 

Download Choose the Future - Faris - ADMAP prize

I would really love your thoughts here - our explorations are just beginning. 

I was very recently gladdened to read that I'm not the only person to suggest that Kahneman's work challenges the very fundamentals of advertising. 

One of the smartest minds we have - and definitely one of our most eloquent - Laurence Green, formerly of Fallon London and founding partner of 101London recently wrote this in his Telegraph column.

Professor Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his work debunking the myth of rational decision-making that underpins so much of the “dismal science” and, indeed, broader government policy.

Ten years later, his thoughts are finally lapping at advertisers’ shores.

The implications of Kahneman’s lifetime’s work, now summarised in his best-selling book Thinking Fast and Slow, are as challenging to the advertising orthodoxy as any ponytailed art director’s more intuitive pronouncements (and, note well, they actually turn out to have much in common).

....

But, faced with an audience of advertisers, he couldn’t help but dispense a little impassioned advice:

“You must recognise that most of the time you are not talking to System 2.

You’re talking to System 1. System 1 runs the show.

That’s the one you want to move.”

And it is here of course that his groundbreaking thinking butts against much ingrained marketing and advertising practice, which still adheres, consciously or otherwise, to the notion of “homo economicus”, or rational man.

Too many advertising briefs still set persuasion as their goal and modus operandi, tacitly assuming that the consumer can only be argued into desired behaviour.

They spring from organisations that “think slowly” (because no one ever got fired for System 2 thinking) but should, of course, start with the consumer, who, in most categories most of the time, is making choices impulsively.

Kahneman’s myth-busting also lights a bonfire under many of the advertising industry’s prevailing research methodologies, especially the rigidly structured quantitative variety. The very nature of “testing” creates conditions for System 2 responses when the category will actually be shopped to System 1.

Kahneman makes no prescriptions for the advertising industry, but his provocations should be taken up and debated by all responsible practitioners.

Thanks Lawrence!

Let's debate.

The 'new' planning doesn't need new planners or experience architects, even. Planning needs people with ideas that work, Tony Quinn believes.

http://www.brandrepublic.com/analysis/1147546/

Tony Quinn is the chief strategy officer-in-waiting of Publicis

I try to get home most nights to read to my little boy, Jake, before he goes to bed. He's four. It's not proved that difficult a challenge over the past six months if I'm totally honest as, on the whole, I've not actually gone anywhere that would require me to "get home". The occasional impulsive tarte tatin has held me up from time to time but, on the whole, I've been there for him and that makes us both very happy.

We're deep into the children's classics: Snow White, The Gingerbread Man, Three Billy Goats Gruff etc. All wonderful tales, all built on inspiring life principles, if not a little dark in places. Jake now treads very carefully around shiny red apples, biscuits shaped like people and bridges.

However, he has a favourite, one that always rises to the top of the pile: The Emperor's New Clothes.

 

For the benefit of the Twitterati and those with short attention spans (me and me), The Emperor's New Clothes is basically a tale of a couple of grifters who flog an emperor some clothes that only the wise can see but, in fact, do not exist. No-one dares cry foul at the risk of looking unwise. Therefore, the emperor rides around his 'hood in the raw. Jake loves it. He says it reminds him of the "Tale Of The Experience Architects".

I've just finished Nick Hirst's paper Why Experience Architecture Is The Future Of Planning. It's a fine paper, its conclusions robust and, therefore, everyone should read it.

However, while it is a fine paper with robust conclusions, I do take issue with some of the points inferred along the way.

First of all, the notion that this is a "new brand of planning" is a little off-kilter for me. In July 1998, James Gilmore and B Joseph Pine published a paper in the Harvard Business Review entitled Welcome To The Experience Economy. The essence of the paper can be summed up as "as goods and services become commoditised, the customer experiences that companies create will matter most". Walt Disney came up with the concept of Disneyland after "visiting various amusement parks with his daughters in the 30s and 40s". The value of brand experiences is not a new piece of thinking.

 

But where I take particular issue is that this "new" brand of planning requires a new kind of planner and those that have gone before, brand and media planners, "are equally inadequate and blinkered versus the kind of planning we could be doing".

Planning began 40-odd years ago to not only "conceptualise", as Hirst suggests, but also to answer the question: "How will the idea work?" Particularly, how will it unpack to deliver the brand and business objectives? How will the idea address the (many) stumbling blocks in the way? How will it effect audience behaviour?

Now, I grant that things have changed over the past 40-odd years; the landscape has changed and audience expectations of brands have changed too. But that question, "How will the idea work?", remains as robust today as it has always been and, therefore, the role of planning equally so.

Whether you are a brand planner, a media planner, an experience architect planner, a wedding planner, an Olympic ceremony planner or a children's party planner, your concern remains the same: what stimulus do we need to create to generate the response we desire? That's just planning. That it is more complex, or that it requires more thought, does not make it a barrier to entry to planners from "traditional" backgrounds, nor the exclusive right of the new anointed few.

That's horribly exclusionist, will only serve to undermine the skill-sets of many and, to be frank, is wrong. There will always be good planners and not-so-good planners. I suspect the good ones will do quite well in this "new" world, the not-so-good ones less so. And, guess what, some of the good ones will have brand and media backgrounds and some of the bad ones will be experience architects. I've worked with both and I can assure you so. I find the very thought that Pollitt, King, Feldwick, Rimini, Carroll, Mawdsley, Hackworthy, Williams, Nairn, Goulding, Bottomley, Quinn (oops) and Jameson would struggle in today's world a touch absurd.

Right. I need to get home for Jake. Oh, hang on ...

Tony Quinn is the chief strategy officer-in-waiting of Publicis.

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk

the online display advertising world

http://econsultancy.com/fr/blog/10749-soul-searching-in-the-world-of-display-advertising?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

 

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This month has been a busy time for the online display advertising world with the huge dmexco trade show in Cologne followed by AdTech and two display-focused conferences taking place in London last week.

This post covers some of the main trends and challenges discussed at these events, some of which were outlined in my State of Display presentation at OMMA Display.

While there is much excitement around the growth of real-time bidding, there has also been plenty of realism and candour about the industry's on-going struggle to address the issues which are preventing brand advertisers from investing more of their advertising budgets.  

Growth of online display: how big can it get?

According to ZenithOptimedia figures, the global display advertising market will reach $33bn this year, with the channel's share of internet advertising expected to increase to 41% by 2014.

Part of the growth of the market can be attributed to real-time bidding which is the focus of a new buyer's guide published by Econsultancy last month. Research firm IDC estimates that RTB will this year account for 16% of display sales in the US and 12% in the UK.

These figures are forecast to rise to 27% and 25% respectively by 2015.

Source: The Real-Time Bidding Ecosystem, Econsultancy

Despite this healthy growth, some commentators believe that RTB, which by its nature lends itself to direct response advertising, is not - as things stand - a panacea for a sector which needs to start attracting more significant sums of money from big-spending brand advertisers. 

This is a point made well in a blog post by Mike Teasdale of Harvest Digital, who points out that "within display media, a very small percentage of spend goes on the kind of interruptive, interactive formats that are used to support brand campaigns."

The launch of Facebook Exchange

The opportunities and challenges facing the display advertising world are nicely encapsulated by the launch of Facebook Exchange (FBX) which enables advertisers to re-target people on Facebook using first- and third-party data.

The ability to pinpoint consumers based on demographic, behavioural and geographical data is where display advertising comes into its own, making the entry of Facebook into this ecosystem an exciting development. 

But while the demand-side platforms and trading desks involved with testing FBX have reported strong results from trials over the summer, others have pointed out that FBX, while bringing more liquidity to the marketplace, presents more questions than answers in a world where publishers are concerned about falling CPMs.

More retargeting on an unsexy format, though effective, is not seen by many as the holy grail for a channel which needs more brand dollars. According to Petteri Vainikka, of premium advertising platform Enreach: 

RTB inventory is already as good as infinite; FBX will further push down prices as it is getting ready to unleash its vast inventory. The gap between remnant (RTB) and premium (direct) is growing fast, and very few technology vendors seem to be interested in the premium direct channel although it is what matters most to all premium publishers. The publisher-controlled direct channel is most likely not scalable or sexy enough for massive VC funding on an IPO plan.   

Programmatic premium - not an oxymoron

The need for more premium advertising spend through real-time bidding was also a major talking point at ATS London last Tuesday, with some of the thinking here nicely summarised in this video from Improve Digital posted on the ExchangeWire blog.

There is a good analysis by Ran Cohen of Legolas Media on AdExchanger about why programmatic premium does not have to be a contradiction in terms, with an outline of what is required not just for brand advertisers but also to tempt publishers to make more Michelin-starred inventory available through exchanges. 

What is disheartening for many industry onlookers is that much time and soul-searching is still being spent working out and agreeing on a metric which looks beyond the last click and gives brand (and brand response) advertisers something meaningful to assess the value of what they are doing. This is exactly the kind of conversation which could have taken place 10 years ago.

Complexity of the marketplace - the CMO doesn't care, and nor does the consumer 

Another issue deemed to be holding back the industry is the complexity of the display advertising landscape as various vendors and agencies jostle for position.

This was a theme of my State of Display presentation where I argued that the CMO doesn't care about the complexity of the marketplace, and still less does it matter to consumers who wants a consistent experience along all avenues of the customer journey. Display should slot into that bigger picture, a point also made in a keynote at OMMA Display by Paul Frampton. 

Frank Addante, founder and CEO of ad tech firm the Rubicon Project hit the nail on the head when he said: "We need to take the tech out of the middle and put it underneath - pushing the buyer and the seller closer together."

Speaking at ATS London, Addante argued that there are too many many steps in the typical online display media ordering process. 

Mike Nolet, CTO and founder of AppNexus, which provides the 'plumbing' for a significant chunk of RTB advertising, spoke about four key components of ad trading companies, namely technology, strategy, people and data. Like Addante, he believes that the technology should operate in the background, enabling people to innovate around creativity and use of data for more effective advertising.  

Taking a candid view of the current state of affairs, there is an excellent post here from earlier this month by Stuart Colman of the Colman Media Consultancy where he argues that publishers, advertisers and agencies all need to get their act together. The whole landscape, he argues, 'is a mess':

Many publishers still don’t really know what to do with their data assets, often selling this asset cheaply in search of short term revenue. Advertisers, on the other hand, don’t truly understand the value locked up in a data world, whether they’re buying it from a third party, or it’s data they can generate and control themselves. 

Mobile - a challenge and an opportunity

Another fertile area of discussion last week was what the dramatic growth of mobile means for both publishers and advertisers. For publishers, the elephant in the room is how much of their traffic is now viewed on mobile devices, including smartphones which don't lend themselves as well to display advertising as the desktop experience.

Advertisers, meanwhile, already wrestling with attribution in a multichannel world, face the added complication of understanding how individuals are engaging with them across different devices throughout the day, and working out how best to reach consumers via mobile. 

The Olympic Games have brought into focus the scale of how much impact mobile is now having with the Opening Ceremony drawing a peak broadcast BBC audience of 9.2m via the mobile site and 2.3m on tablets (out of a total audience of 27.1m people including the red button). There are more facts and figures about the scale of this broadcast event on the Adobe blog. 

According to David Karnstedt, senior VP of Media and Advertising Solutions within the Digital Marketing Business at Adobe, the lines are becoming increasingly blurred between a number of overlapping channels including display advertising, broadcast video, mobile and social. He rightly argues that marketers need to "adopt a multichannel digital advertising approach to reach their target audiences".  

Integration of display advertising with other channels made up the final section of my State of Display talk where I presented data from the recent Econsultancy / Responsys Cross-Channel Marketing Report to show the extent to which marketers are integrating display with other channels, such as search marketing and display.

The State of Display presentation on 'Growth, Complexity and Integration' is free to registered Econsultancy users.  

Image credit: shannonkringen

Web tracking has become a privacy time bomb

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-08-03-internet-tracking-mobile-privacy_n.htm

For more than a decade, tracking systems have been taking note of where you go and what you search for on the Web — without your permission. And today many of the personal details you voluntarily divulge on popular websites and social networks are being similarly tracked and analyzed.

The purpose for all of this online snooping is singular: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and others are intent on delivering more relevant online ads to each and every one of us — and bagging that advertising money.

Trouble is, the tracking data culled from your Internet searches and surfing can get commingled with the information you disclose at websites for shopping, travel, health or jobs. And it's now possible to toss into this mix many of the personal disclosures you make on popular social networks, along with the preferences you may express via all those nifty Web applications that trigger cool services on your mobile devices.

As digital shadowing escalates, so too have concerns about the erosion of traditional notions of privacy. Privacy advocates have long fretted that health companies, insurers, lenders, employers, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement could begin to acquire detailed profiles derived from tracking data to use unfairly against people. Indeed, new research shows that as tracking technologies advance, and as more participants join the burgeoning tracking industry, the opportunities for privacy invasion are rising.

"It is a mistake to consider (online) tracking benign," cautions Sagi Leizerov, executive director of Ernst & Young's privacy services. "It's both an opportunity for amazing connections of data, as well as a time bomb of revealing personal information you assume will be kept private."

How the dollars stack up

How the dollars stack up

 

These developments are acting like kerosene on the already contentious national debates in Congress over how privacy ought to be recast to fit the Internet age. Much is at stake. The corporations involved are vying for the juiciest claims on a golden vein. Research firm eMarketer projects global spending for online ads to climb to $132 billion by 2015, up from $80.2 billion this year.

The technology, retail and media giants shaping this brave new world of online advertising insist that they respect — and can be trusted to preserve — individuals' privacy, even as they compete to dissect each person's likes and dislikes.

Tracking mobile apps

However, startling findings, to be released on Thursday here at the Black Hat security conference, indicate otherwise. Website security company Dasient recently found examples of PC-based tracking techniques getting extended in a troublesome way to Internet-connected mobile devices.

Dasient analyzed 10,000 free mobile apps that enable gaming, financial services, entertainment and other services on Google Android smartphones. Researchers found more than 8%, or 842, of the Android apps took the unusual step of asking users' permission to access the handset's International Mobile Equipment Identity number, the unique code assigned to each cellphone. The IMEI was then employed as the user ID for the given app. In a number of instances, the app subsequently forwarded the user's IMEI on to an online advertising network, says Neil Daswani, Dasient's chief technology officer.

"The fact that an ad network is getting your IMEI means they can know how long you've used your phone and which mobile apps you use most often," Daswani says. "The full implications of this aren't clear, but with privacy you've got to be careful."

How to limit Web tracking

Delete cookies: SlimCleaner is a free tool that will automatically delete tracking cookies while preserving account logon cookies.

Erase histories: Easy Eraser is paid software that periodically cleans sensitive information from your computer.

Lock down Facebook: uProtect.it is a free tool that can help block your Facebook activities from being accessed by ad networks.

Source: USA TODAY research

Should IMEIs emerge as the preferred way for mobile app companies to track consumers' access to free services, the advertising industry would suddenly have a powerful new way to snoop on how you use your smartphone or tablet PC, Daswani says.

The pervasive embedding of cool location-tracking technology in mobile devices only heightens such concerns. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., earlier this summer introduced a bill that would restrict location tracking, partly to protect children.

Anup Ghosh, chief executive of Web browser security firm Invincea, says Dasient's findings underscore how application developers tend to grab for as much tracking data as they can without thinking through the privacy consequences.

Invincea has begun working on technology that will enable consumers to automatically disable mobile apps that try to tap into IMEI or take other invasive actions. "The reality is, users can't be bothered to tweak privacy settings," Ghosh says.

Privacy leaks

Meanwhile, in other research, Balachander Krishnamurthy at AT&T Labs Research and Craig E. Wills of Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently discovered hard evidence of what many privacy advocates feared: Tracking data about what pages you click to are increasingly getting commingled with personal information you disclose on popular websites and on the premier social networks in alarming ways.

In one case, the researchers documented how the supplier of a Facebook music-sharing application automatically forwarded Facebook members' profile information onto a tracking data aggregator.

Facebook spokesman Brandon McCormick says the company strives to prevent such privacy leakages. Facebook requires users to grant explicit permission for any Web app company to access any Facebook profiles. And he says the company strictly forbids app companies from dispersing any Facebook profile information.

"If we find app developers commingling that data or sharing it with other parties, we will kick them off of our platform," McCormick says.

However, policing the teeming world of Web app development is a gargantuan task, says Michael Fertik, CEO of privacy services firm Reputation.com.

Tens of thousands of new Web apps get integrated into the top social networks as well as the most visited media, entertainment and shopping websites every day.

Many of the new Web app features, such as 'like' buttons and instant polls, are designed expressly to extend tracking systems and feed ever more data about users' online behaviors to the ad networks and tracking data aggregators. Data routinely get "daisy-chained" together to create individual behavioral profiles, Fertik says.

"These profiles are bought and sold to data brokers, marketers and others and are used to make decisions and judgments about you, without your knowledge, without your consent and without a way to fix inevitable errors." Fertik says. "That's what's scary."

Responding to such concerns, the Federal Trade Commission late last year called for a "Do Not Track" mechanism that would enable consumers to opt out of being tailed around the Web. The technology is simple and can be quickly added to any Web browser. Users would then be able to check a box configuring their browser to automatically notify every webpage they visit not to track them. The catch: The online advertising industry would have to universally honor Do Not Track requests.

In May, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., introduced Do Not Track legislation that has gained the backing of privacy groups. Rockefeller's proposal would help consumers "decide for themselves whether or not they want to share personal information, including their various Internet and mobile Web activities," says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.

The online advertising industry prefers self-regulation. Attorney Christopher Wolf, a privacy expert at law firm Hogan Lovells, counters that a Do Not Track law "may lead to the Internet economy — one of the few economic bright spots — being shackled."

'Trust us'

As this debate intensifies, fresh findings of privacy leaks continue to turn up. Krishnamurthy and Wills recently discovered that when they used the search function on popular health websites to look up information on pancreatic cancer, nine of 10 health sites forwarded their query onto a data aggregator.

Similarly, when they filled out job applications on big-name employment sites, eight of 10 jobs sites zipped that information over to a data aggregator, including the user's name and e-mail address. In some instances, sensitive health-related search queries and personal information gleaned from job applications were forwarded to the same aggregator.

Wills says it would have been trivial for the data aggregator to correlate the cancer query and the job application data as having certainly come from the same browser, very likely from the same person.

"It is undeniable that data aggregators are getting this sensitive personal information about me," Wills says. "We have hard evidence in our research that shows they are receiving this information. What they are doing with it, that we don't know."

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Adobe, AOL, Coremetrics and Quantserve are among the largest data aggregators. They each operate sprawling networks of tracking systems that encompass dozens more smaller, independent ad networks, data analytics firms and tracking services.

Google, reportedly the largest data aggregator, has long taken the public position that its tracking systems use an alphanumeric code to identify and keep track of individual Web browsers, and that it simply does not correlate any personal information to these anonymous browser identifiers.

After reviewing copies of Krishnamurthy and Wills' research, Google spokesman Rob Shilkin issued a statement: "We've never attempted or wanted to use any personal or sensitive information in any URLs provided by a third party, and in fact this very issue is addressed by the comprehensive self-regulatory schemes that we comply with."

Google has been widely known to scan the contents of Gmail messages to deliver targeted text ads. While some don't mind, others believe scanning e-mail to deliver more relevant ads is an invasion of privacy. John Simpson, spokesman for the non-profit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, isn't convinced the search giant will necessarily stop there.

"Part of the problem is that Google collects and stores tremendous amounts of data about its users," Simpson says. "The only assurance we have about what Google's intentions are boils down to 'Trust us.'"

“Au Bonheur des Dames” - The Ladies Delight. A 160 years History of French Department Stores.

Author: Andreea Hirica

“In the late Parisian summer of 1869, several men and one woman gathered near the junction of seventh and sixth arrondissements to witness the laying of a corner stone. It is unlikely that they had come a great distance that particularly warm day, since many Parisians, including the well-to-do, still lived in or near their shops, workshops or offices. 

Image Credit 

 In such a setting and such a mood we might well imagine the scene as Aristide Boucicaut, his wife and his principal associates laid the cornerstone for the first department store in France. (...) Boucicaut would be nothing less then candid when a few years later he would distinguish the first completed section of the new building from its rivals and Bon Marché’s own past with the proclamation that this was “The only (store) specifically constructed and entirely intended for a great trade in nouveauté.” (…)  Excerpts from: The Bon Marche: Bourgeois Culture and the Department Store, 1869-1920 by Michael B Miller. 

This triggered and is part of the basic business and economic transformation that so significantly marked the nineteenth century in France and elsewhere: from the revolution in retailing that can be traced to the appearance of new kind of stores – dry goods firms known as “magasins de nouveautés”   up to the formation of the department store. 

Le Bon Marché, the French iconic department store that inspired Emille Zola’s novel turned 160 years, this month.

Not only did Bon Marché inspire Emille Zola but it has set the basis for the modern retail store, for selling to Parisian ladies in a totally different manner and for distance sales in itself.  Aristide and Marguerite were the first who managed to target the new middle class woman and attract her to a fantasyland where all types of goods were available and where she could go un-chaperoned. Also, as dreamlike as it might have seemed at the time, she was able to touch the fine fabrics, try the clothes at her will, attend fashion parades, cultural events and have sales people trained to be her loyal counselors. At the fashion avant-garde, Aristide re-imagined the prêt-à-porter standards, re-designed the feminine silhouette and imposed a sophisticated vision on the modern and elegant Parisian  woman (la “Parisienne”).

Marketing and Sales

Among their marketing and retail innovations: fix pricess, home delivery, distance selling, articles exchange, seasonal sales, the white month, catalog and correspondence selling.

 

Culture and Retail

 At the avant-garde of cultural movements, Aristide and Marguerite had cultural happenings entering the retail world for the first time: private concerts inside the store and dedicated exhibitions: in 1873 a large concert is being held in the store’s entrance hall, harmonizing twenty five choir singers and artists, conducted by the republican guard chiefs. In 1875 a fine arts gallery is opened at put at the disposal of painters and sculptures rejected within the Official Saloon.  

The department store in 1929. Image Credit

Organizational culture

 In the context of the emancipation of women, Aristide and Marguerite are the first to introduce the profession of women dedicated sales person; thus the profession of “demoiselle de magasin” becomes a highly aimed position. Named also “the red” owners due to the high and various benefits they have introduced for their employees, they were the first to put at their employees’ disposal a free canteen, free medical services, a savings system, a pension savings house, and also to give them the possibility of taking evening music,  fencing and English classes.

Fashion, The Woman and her delights

 

 

While the Anniversary event is not the most innovative  (the artistic craft and celebrity branding are at their best, whereas the authentic concept and strategic coherence end up suffering: case study of a brand unable to leverage its heritage into inspiring the present and future) its beautifully crafted history is so fascinating in itself that no retail, shopping, sales professional or simply fashion and women  lover should let it pass un-explored.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Power of Nonverbal Communication

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122426675804545129.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

 

As a professor at the MIT Media Lab, Alex "Sandy" Pentland naturally knows how to take a quantitative and technological approach to research questions.

But when Dr. Pentland and his colleagues began applying technological tools to a question of human behavior -- how people use nonverbal communication cues -- the results were startling. And powerfully instructive for managers.

Many of Dr. Pentland's findings -- based on data from a device he calls a "sociometer," a wearable, badgelike contraption that can continuously measure various nonverbal aspects of people's interactions -- have implications for both how executives communicate and how they understand what is being communicated to them.

He spoke with MIT Sloan Management Review senior editor Martha E. Mangelsdorf for the Business Insight Journal Report.

The Journal Report

• See the complete Business Insight report.

BUSINESS INSIGHT: In your new book, "Honest Signals," you discuss a number of unconscious, nonverbal ways that humans communicate with one another. Let's talk about four you focus on: activity, interest, mimicry and consistency.

DR. PENTLAND: These signals are really qualitative readings of brain state. Take activity. Everyone has an autonomic nervous system; it's the oldest part of your nervous system, the fight-or-flight part. When you get excited about something, it gets aroused. What happens then is you become more active and you have more nervous energy. So I built computer tools that can read how much nervous energy you have.

Similarly, as a measure of interest, people pay attention to each other, and you can read that from the timing between people who are in conversation. If two people are talking together and each one is anticipating when the other will pause and jumping in exactly at that point and leaving no gaps, then they're paying a great deal of attention to each other.

Humans also have a system called a mirror neuron system. Strangely enough, when you watch somebody move, a part of your brain that corresponds to the same movement lights up. And when people mimic each other's gestures when in conversation, research has shown that it's very definitely correlated with feelings of trust and empathy. Mimicry creates the sense that people are on the same page.

And the final one I focused on was fluency, or consistency. Think of Tiger Woods and his golf swing. There's a sort of fluidity about it that just says, "This guy's an expert." And people have the ability to read that. Consistency in tone or motion tells you who really knows what they're doing, or is really practiced at it, at least. And that's another sort of honest signal; it's very hard to fake.

Sam Ogden

Alex "Sandy" Pentland

That's the point about honest signals: They're hard to fake and they tell you something important about the relationship and the activity you're doing with this other person.

BUSINESS INSIGHT: Tell us about the results of some of your studies using sociometer data.

DR. PENTLAND: We began to do things like look at job interviews. We found that if job candidates show confidence and practice, if they're mirroring the interviewer's gestures, if they're active and helpful, if they act the right way, they'll get the thumbs up.

The experiment that I like the best is one where we looked at people who were pitching business plans. These were midcareer executives who were presenting real business plans for a business-plan competition and then rating each other. It turns out you can estimate their ratings of each other...just by listening to their tone of voice. You didn't have to know anything about the business plan; you didn't have to know anything about the executives. It was how they delivered the plan that determined how it was rated. That's pretty amazing. Because these were not fools. These were executives in their mid-30s -- very successful. And yet they were listening to how excited the presenter was about the plan; they were not listening to the facts.

BUSINESS INSIGHT: Sounds like, based on that research, it must be very easy for businesses to choose plans that really aren't very good but that have champions who are very charismatic.

DR PENTLAND: Yes. This research tells you a couple of things. One is: When you listen to a business plan pitch, you ought to take it offline and read it also, and not just go from the presenter's "elevator pitch." But there's a good side to it, too. In venture capital, one of the things investors pay attention to is the buzz in the start-up group and the way it feels. And what the venture capitalists are actually doing, I think, is reading the honest signaling.

BUSINESS INSIGHT: What do you think are some of the implications of this research for business?

DR. PENTLAND: It turns out that those sort of unconscious signaling behaviors are enormously important in determining the functioning of an organization. In organizations, most of the communication that's complicated, that's really important, still happens face-to-face. Some of it happens over the telephone, but it's person-to-person; it's not by email, it's not by memo. And yet all of that face-to-face stuff never makes it into the digital record. There may be a memo summarizing a meeting later, or an agenda, but what actually happened never shows up. And all the interactions in the hall or around the water cooler are not even in the org chart. And yet that's where everything happens.

There's this old phrase, "You can't manage what you can't measure." So a great deal of the important information in every organization is not measured and not managed. That seems very wrong. We're out to fix that.

Who’s Trustworthy? A Robot Can Help Teach Us By TARA PARKER-POPE

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/whos-trustworthy-a-robot-can-help-teach-us/

Stuart Bradford

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How do we decide whether to trust somebody?

An unusual new study of college students’ interactions with a robot has shed light on why we intuitively trust some people and distrust others. While many people assume that behaviors like avoiding eye contact and fidgeting are signals that a person is being dishonest, scientists have found that no single gesture or expression consistently predicts trustworthiness.

The Well Column

Tara Parker-Pope on living well.

But researchers from Northeastern University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell recently identified four distinct behaviors that, together, appear to warn our brains that a person can’t be trusted.

The findings, to be published this month in the journal Psychological Science, may help explain why we are sometimes quick to like or dislike a person we have just met. More important, the research could one day be used to develop computer programs that can rapidly assess behavior in airports or elsewhere to flag security risks.

In the first experiment, 86 undergraduates from Northeastern were given five minutes to get to know a fellow student they hadn’t met before. Half the pairs met face to face; the other half interacted online by instant message.

Then the students were asked to play a game in which all the players got four tokens and the chance to win money. A token was worth $1 if a player kept it for himself or $2 when he gave it to his partner. Players could win $4 each if both partners kept their tokens, but if they worked together and traded all four tokens, then each partner could win $8. But the biggest gain — $12 — came from cheating a partner out of his tokens and not giving any in return.

Over all, only about 1 in 5 people (22 percent) were completely trustworthy and cooperative, giving away all their tokens so that each partner could win $8. Thirteen percent were untrustworthy, keeping all or most of their tokens. The remaining 65 percent were somewhat cooperative, giving away two or three tokens but also holding one or two back for security.

Both groups demonstrated the same level of cooperation. Whether the students met face to face or online didn’t change their decisions about how many tokens to give away or keep. But students who met in person were far better at predicting the trustworthiness of the partner; that suggested they were relying on visual cues.

“Lack of face-to-face contact didn’t make people more selfish,” said the study’s lead author, David DeSteno, a professor of psychology at Northeastern. “But a person’s ability to predict what their partner was going to do was greater face to face than online. There is something the mind is picking up that gives you greater accuracy and makes you better able to identify people who are going to be trustworthy.”

To find out what cues the players were responding to, the researchers filmed the students’ five-minute conversations before the game started. They discovered that four specific gestures predicted when a person was less trustworthy: leaning away from someone; crossing arms in a blocking fashion; touching, rubbing or grasping hands together; and touching oneself on the face, abdomen or elsewhere. These cues were not predictive by themselves; they predicted untrustworthiness only in combination.

And individuals intuitively picked up on the cues. “The more you saw someone do this, the more intuition you had that they would be less trustworthy,” Dr. DeSteno said.

The researchers then conducted an experiment pairing students with a friendly-faced robot, developed by Cynthia Breazeal, who directs M.I.T.’s personal robots group.

The setup was basically the same, except the students had a 10-minute conversation with the robot before they played the game. (The extra time was needed to help the student get over the “wow” factor of talking to a robot.) A woman acted as the robot’s voice, but she was unaware of its movements, which were controlled by two other people. Sometimes the robot used only typical gestures, like moving a hand or shrugging its shoulders, but sometimes it mimicked the four cues of distrust: clasping its hands, crossing its arms, touching its face or leaning away.

Surprisingly, when students saw the robot make the hand and body gestures associated with distrust, they later made decisions in the token game that suggested they didn’t trust the robot.

In questionnaires afterward, students in both groups rated the robot equally likable. But those who had unknowingly witnessed the cues associated with distrust also rated the robot as less trustworthy, compared with students exposed to only the conversational gestures.

“It makes no sense to ascribe intentions to a robot,” said an author of the study, Robert H. Frank, an economics professor at Cornell. “But it appears we have certain postures and gestures that we interpret in certain ways. When we see them, whether it’s a robot or a human, we’re affected by it, because of the pattern it evokes in our brain responses.” Dr. Frank said the study suggested that there might have been an evolutionary benefit to cooperation — and, more important, to the ability to determine who could be trusted.

“One of the interesting big questions in evolution has always been ‘Why do people do the right thing and pass up opportunities for gain when no one is looking?’ ” he said. “But if you are known to be a trustworthy person, then you are economically valuable in many situations, and it’s also valuable to be able to identify who won’t cheat.

“Life is all about finding people you can trust in different situations.”

---

In the following video, watch Nexi the robot interact with one of the study participants. Then, Nexi demonstrates the four cues of distrust, followed by four samples of more neutral conversational gestures.

A version of this article appeared in print on 09/11/2012, on page D5 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Who’s Trustworthy? A Robot Can Help Teach Us.

CONFERENCE : ENHANCING MARKETING & GENERATING SALES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA & BIG DATA

Social & Big Data 14^th Social & Big Data 15^th Mobile 14^th Mobile 15^th Speakers Barcamp

ENHANCING MARKETING & GENERATING SALES WITH SOCIAL MEDIA & BIG DATA

http://www.ebg.net/mobile-social/j1s1_2012.php	Welcome presentation
9:00 - 9:40	Opening Keynote
9:40 - 10:20 Grant Withmore VP Digital, Hearst Magazines Pete Blackshaw Global Head of Digital & Social Media, Nestle	How Can Social Media Fit Brand Objectives? 1.    Setting the social media scene: What are the dominant networks and brands? (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest…) How many active users are on each network; who are they and how much time do they spend on each one? What percentage of the marketing budget is dedicated to social campaigns?   2.    Why should companies invest in social media? What are the objectives? What are the results? A page? An app? A campaign? How can social media be useful for advertising campaigns and/or for data collection? How does keyword purchasing impact on social web operations? How much should be spent on Facebook? What proportion of the global marketing budget should be dedicated to social media, and how does the level of investment impact upon other online and offline operations? How are social marketing campaigns currently managed and evaluated? Are the same methods used and the same level of professionalism maintained when dealing with social marketing as with online marketing in general?   3.    A social algorithm? How does social media impact upon SEO and the ranking of websites?
	Break
11:05 - 11:45	The Impact of Social Media, Ad Exchanges and Mobile on the Advertising Value Chain How Are They Creating Confusion in Stakeholders' Roles?   Up to this point, the advertising market was structured: at one end were the creation and consultants, at the other was the buying of advertising space. However, the explosion of mediums and the tactical nature of digital media have made the job of the advertiser more and more complex. Gradually, marketing managers are relying on a single contact who is able to give advice, create displays and manage the buying of space; becoming a medium within itself. What are the consequences of these changes on the advertising market value chain, and on the role of the different players in the market: agencies, media, purchasing, CRM, data management? What will be the impact on AD exchanges and the long chain? Should media companies look to develop their own agencies and should advertising agencies try to acquire digital media firms? Are we witnessing a new movement and concentration of the market, and what will be its lasting effects, if any?
11:45 - 12:30 Remi Carlioz Senior Head of Digital, Puma Jaki Ellenby VP Strategic Marketing Development, Cirque du Soleil	The Perfect Optimization of a Social Brand   We need to set the modest goal of attaining perfection; a Chief Marketing Officer will explain how he/she optimizes their use of social media, giving us a clear picture on the R.O.I for all actions: For a page: what are the objectives? How much money and time needs to be invested? What size team is needed to manage it? How is the interface between the page, data management and marketing tools of the company managed? What are the goals, results and R.O.I? For an application: same points. For advertising campaigns: when are they implemented and at what frequency? Aimed at which target(s)? What is the design? How much of the ad space budget is allocated? For operations on Twitter: what are the objectives, budgets and results?
	Lunch
14:00 - 14:30 Nicolas Petit CMO & COO, Microsoft	Keynote by Nicolas Petit, CMO & COO of Microsoft As CMO and COO for Microsoft since 2011, Nicolas Petit has been leading business strategy, marketing and operations across enterprise, consumer and online advertising businesses. He notably focuses on digitalization of B2C and B2B businesses and the emergence of innovative customer engagement models around social, video and mobile. He joined Microsoft in 2005 as Business Development Manager with the Enterprise and Partner Group. He then successively led the Mobile Communications and the Consumer and Online Marketing organizations in France, contributing to Microsoft’s momentum and transformation within the PC, mobile and online advertising businesses. Nicolas started his career in New York in the consumer electronics industry, in the worldwide strategic marketing team with Thomson Multimedia, 3rd global electronics manufacturer in the early 2000's. He then spent five years in the Management Consulting industry with Arthur D. Little Inc. in London and Paris, working on international strategic assignments for telcos, media and fast-growing tech companies and contributing to several industry reports on the European digital and gaming industries.
14:30 - 15:15 Peter Roxburgh VP Global Consumer Insight, EMI Music	Competitive Advantage through the Latest Marketing Trends: Big Data and Cloud Computing 1. Focus on the latest marketing technologies Real time marketing, customer knowledge, geo-localization, predictive marketing, open data, cloud computing... What are the most innovative technologies in marketing and what impact do they have on data analysis?    2. Using big data analytics to create efficient business strategies and improve ROI How can front and back offices be integrated to improve efficiency and increase transparency within a business? How can a company best evaluate its internal needs, in order to find the right solution and make the right investment? How can relevant information be retrieved from mass sets of unstructured data - finding the needle in a haystack? How can Big Data help CMOs to make the right decisions, delivering ROI from marketing analytics?
	Break
15:45 - 16:30 Jamie Barnard Global Digital General Counsel, Unilever Amit Shah Senior Director, Mobile, Social and Online, 1.800 Flowers Simon Nicholson Social Media Manager, Honda Motor Europe	How Can Data Collected through Social Media and Mobile be Used to Create Value? 1. What is the legal context for using social data?  What data can be collected by brands, media and other companies?  Is the data: - Personal: age, marital status, location, individual preferences, number of contacts and interactions of users or - Content related: published content, behaviour and sites/pages visited Do consumers allow third party collection of personal and behavioural information? What are the risks, if any, in maximising the collection of data from prospects and customers? 2. How can value be created through Social Big Data? What can be achieved with this data? How can it be used?  What can we quantify from this analysis? What revenue, and thus profits, can be developed from it?  What are the current applications of this data, and what will be possible in the future?
16:30 - 17:15	How Can Big Data be Made More Accessible for Marketers? Illustrated by Breaking Down 3 Digital Campaigns One of the most significant challenges moving forward for big data is visualisation: quickly getting the right data in front of the right people, in order to make the right decision. What new approaches exist for displaying, manipulating and interacting with data?  How can better data visualisation tools give decision makers the best oportunity to make effective choices?  How important is it for a company to streamline the massive volumes of data into understandable information for the marketer, turning big data into big insights?  With the response to current user experiences becoming more important from a marketing point of view, what is the importance of speed, efficiency and reaction times in the process of sorting and visualising data? How are visualisation tools being adapted to web, social and mobile platforms?  Examples of visualisation tools breaking down digital campaigns

....

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A BUSINESS IN ITSELF

	Welcome Presentation
9:00 - 9:40	Opening Keynote
9:40 - 10:20 Gilles Storme VP Advertising, King.com Amina Belghiti Head of Platform Partnerships, EMEA & New Markets, Facebook	The Rapidly Expanding Universe of Facebook Apps What Are Their Objectives? Who Are Their Users? How many applications are available on Facebook? Are they particularly focused on certain sectors? What can be accomplished with an app? What are their functionalities? What technology is used? How are apps advertised to their target audience? For what objectives are apps developed: generate direct revenue, data collection, communicate with end user? Who are the app developers and who owns the apps? What is the total revenue generated through Facebook apps? Sector by sector?
	Break
11:05 - 11:45 Michael Amar Co-founder & CEO, Ifeelgoods	How to Generate Revenue Developing a Social Value Chain First you get the data, then you get the value: is Facebook in a de facto monopoly position? Is it risky to base a business model on a platform that keeps 30% of potential revenues, and is there a way around this? What is the fusion between Facebook and the web; is it possible to lure Facebook users to a website? Who are the stakeholders in the social media economy: platform owners, publishers, developers, suppliers of credit... who else? Have social payment systems experienced success? What are their uses, positives and negatives? Facebook, iTunes, Zynga...
11:45 - 12:30 Alex Balfour Head of New Media, London Olympics 2012	Crowdsourcing: Marketing that is Consumer Led, Engaging, Creative, Inclusive and... Free? Crowdsourcing is on a roll due to the massive growth in reach and importance of social networks, allowing companies to tap the resources of customer passion and creativity. Businesses are able to improve products, create brand advocates, increase satisfaction and ensure their brand becomes more sustainable. If this is coupled with the fact that budgets are being cut back more and more, does Crowdsourcing represent the solution to put a targeted and effective marketing campaign in place at a cut price?    What social tools are available to integrate in a project and manage a community? What are the objectives that experience the highest success: product launches, marketing strategies, events, etc?    What type of communication plan and tools need to be used with Crowdsourcing in order to develop buzz; viral marketing, social networks, video, street marketing? What are the additional budget considerations surrounding the implementation of a project?    What is the best way to manage and engage consumers; competitions, games, promotional offers...? How can a company encourage and reward the most original ideas?
	Lunch
14:00 - 14:30 Jon Mell Social Software Leader, IBM	Keynote by Jon Mell, Social Software Leader at IBM   The European leader of Social Software for IBM, Jon has been working in the field of social and collaboration tools for over 10 years.  Prior to IBM, Jon ran the consulting team at Headshift. More to come soon...
14:30 - 15:15 Javier Panero Community Manager, Lonely Planet Carla De Preval Digital Marketing Director, Yves Saint Laurent	Building, Managing and Monetising a Community Companies have always strived to easily communicate with their customers, understand their needs and establish loyalty. Communities allow companies to achieve these goals, bringing clients and prospects together in online, social and mobile communities.    What makes a successful community; strategies, objectives, characteristics? How can success be measured; analytics, KPIs...? What can be achieved with a community; content production, idea generation, product development?    What are the best ways to develop and grow and active community? Should companies create content, curate content, or both? How can a company ensure that they retain active community members, giving them what they want?    In building a community, is there a tradeoff between the size of the community and the engagement of members? How should moderation and the establishment of guidelines in handled, in order to build trust? How can brands encourage and promote targeted activities while avoiding dictating to users?
	Break
15:45 - 16:30 Stacy Rieke Gratz Vice President, International Social Media Strategy, American Express	Social Commerce Social Media has changed the way that consumers and brands interact and engage; so how is it changing the shopping experience? Companies are succeeding in engaging with customers like never before through social networks, but most users log on to communicate or interact, not purchase. How can this be overcome, and what options and innovations are possible to encourage change and increase sales?    With trust in advertising remaining low, how can a brand take advantage of recommendations, user ratings and product focused user-created content?    What social platforms are suitable for social commerce? Does a brand need to have a strong presence across all main social networks; Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest...? What are the advantages of each channel? How can brands use particular characteristics of social networks (i.e. hashtags) to amplify sales, develop promotions and attract customers?
16:30 - 17:15	Social Media in Asia Comparing and Contrasting Western Usage and Trends Are social websites widely used in China? What are the platforms that dominate the market? What are the user demographics: age, revenue, family situation...? What do they do on social sites? What are the market leading applications and what control do Chinese authorities exert on social networks? Is social marketing growing? How much is invested in comparison with traditional web marketing? What are Chinese brands doing on social sites? Are there outstanding campaigns being put in practice? A review of social media in other Asian countries: South Korea, Indonesia and Japan

Online video: views from the floor at the IAB's In Demand conference

http://mediaweek.co.uk/News/MostEmailed/1149959/Online-video-views-floor-IABs-Demand-conference/

The IAB last week hosted a conference on online video, where we sounded out views on the appeal of the medium from delegates from SpotXchange, Carat, MediaMind, Unruly Media and YouTube.

Liz Duff, broadcast associate director, Carat

Online video is "one of the hottest areas of online advertising", said Andrew Moore, managing director, SpotXchange. But indecision as to where the boundaries of the medium fall and who should be taking the reins are the current focus for players in the space.

"The main point of contention," said Liz Duff, broadcast associate director at Carat, "is, should we be looking at VOD (video on-demand) as digital [or] TV?"

"Who should be responsible for it? Who's going to take control of measuring it?"

Meanwhile, Tej Rekhi, innovation strategist at MediaMind - the agency behind Channel 4's Million Pound Drop tablet apps - said that quality of video content was the real issue.

Favouring longer video ads over shorter rehashes of television commercials, Rekhi said brands should consider the multiple platforms video content is now consumed on and how they can create a seamless flow across different devices.

But it is the subversion of online advertising formats that Harry Davies, head of solutions, YouTube said could make a difference to an online campaign.

Speaking about Spanish brand Ecoview's use of a 'Skip behavior' button on its skippable YouTube TrueView ads, Davies said the ads tapped into what is "really exciting" about advertising.

Video produced by Sarah Johnson, Georgina Brazier and Ben Hall

Responsive Art Creating Spaces where Future Human Behaviors Manifest

Art has always been an abstract way paver for human centered design.  By creating emotional spaces, futures and possibilities flow into present and manifest through the subjective eyes of the audience. Interactive design is now able to tap into the infinite potential of art for its problem-solving works: being proactive about the future and invent it, instead of predicting it.

Author: Andreea Hirica

 
 

Photo: Olivia Horvath

Here are some experiments at the crossroad of kinetic art and interactive design inviting the observer to take part in inventing the future. By letting go of control over the experiment the visitor is letting ones self surprised by these interactive objects' response to his behavior in their quantic, unpredictable state.

 AUDIENCE. A 64 mirrors, metal case bases installation using custom motion tracking software, computers and digital cameras. Audience is an interactive self-reflective experiment in which the visitor becomes the observing participant; the signified signifier. Once entered the perimeter of Audience, the mass of mirrors faces me in an inquisitive, self aware, synchronized movement. I am no longer in control of the experiment as the artistic environment starts inspiring itself from my behavior and randomly showing in every mirror glimpses of my very own reflection, to myself;  I now get to see both the whole experiment and my own gaze at once.

 

Visitors referred to Audience as a back to childhood experience where playful inquiry and surprising self-reflection were part of the mundane routine tasks.

YOU FADE TO LIGHT. An interactive installation that translates its viewer’s mirror image into light. Initially appearing as a looking glass grid, it reacts to the viewer’s movement by reflecting it in a slow motion silhouette, before slowly dissolving further and further into luminescence. The work holds the viewer’s gesture before gradually dissolving it into a radiating light.

Random International / You Fade To Light from Intern on Vimeo.

You Fade To Light encourages me to engage in a kinetic dialogue, physically communicating both with the work itself, as well as with my own abstracted flowing image. This experiment brings into perception the concept of live multi-dimensionality.

 

Both Audience and Fade to Light are  interactive self-reflective installation showcased at Carpenters Workshop Gallery  during the Paris Design Week 2012.

 

PepsiCo worked with the UK’s Mesh Planning to use these digital technologies as a way for reviewing and innovating Gatorade’s existing channel strategy...

http://www.research-live.com/building-brands-with-brics/4008227.blog?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Going for growth was the main theme of this morning’s Esomar Annual Congress in Atlanta. For a topic that makes board directors sweat in testing times, it’s perhaps wise that these business-oriented presentations should follow a “feel good” start to the day with Gospel choirs singing hymns (and Kool & the Gang’s ‘Celebration’ for added gusto).

But once the music was over, followed by a short “world premiere” of research hailing Barack Obama as the world’s favourite to win the forthcoming US Presidential election - it was time to get serious again and identify the tools that could help fuel growth in challenging economic times.

Fred John, senior business leader at MasterCard International, kicked things off by remarking to the crowd that “growth is synonymous to progress, and research should be a key part of this”. But he cautioned: “Applying approaches that work in the West to developing countries doesn’t always work and you should approach these areas differently.”

An energy boost
So given that it is the BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China) that offer the most promise for growth right now, how should firms be researching these markets? PepsiCo was on hand to give their perspective, based on how its efforts to transform Gatorade from an energy drink into a sports nutrition umbrella brand spawning many different variants.

Ana Alvarez, consumer strategy and insight director at PepsiCo Beverages, said that despite a lack of research innovation in Latin America, Brazil’s mass takeup of social media and mobiles made it the perfect testing ground for reviewing the Gatorade brand strategy and applying the insights internationally to pursue market growth.

“Brazil is the second biggest market on Facebook and there are more mobiles used there than the actual population of the country - the opportunity for research is huge, even with people from low-income backgrounds. The problem is that market research lacks innovation in Brazil right now, there is a dearth of it, so the challenge becomes how can you relate to audiences in savvy ways that understand the local culture and can be credibly explored internationally afterwards.”

PepsiCo worked with the UK’s Mesh Planning to use these digital technologies as a way for reviewing and innovating Gatorade’s existing channel strategy, with a particular focus on experiential activities. A panel of 400 people with phones participated by pre-registering their views of the brand in an online survey, before using their devices to report when they had seen or heard of the brand while out and about (or on broadcast media). When they registered a sighting or an encounter, they would again be sent an online survey to explore their sentiments towards the brand at that moment. This included online diaries where participants could then add free text explaining the reasoning behind their expressed sentiments.

Fiona Blades, chief experience officer at Mesh Planning, said: “What emerged helped formulate the brand’s strategy in activating its transformation from being one drink to one master brand of many products. We were able to monitor touchpoints and review the spontaneous reactions. Surprisingly, experiential came out on top of broadcast and so we recommended that attention was paid most to this sort of activity.”

PepsiCo subsequently used these findings to formulate campaign priorities, placing social affirmation at the heart of the brand’s consumer approach. The approach worked. Alvarez says satisfaction metrics soared and sales also caught onto the halo effect as a result of the marketing switch. The “growth” opportunity was seized and is now being tested in Guatemala on another PepsiCo brand.

Why TV Is Going Social

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2012/09/06/why-tv-is-going-social/?utm_source=La+Lettre+de+Petit+Web&utm_campaign=5031162c23-L53&utm_medium=email

+ Comment now

In "Social TV," adman Mike Proulx argues that the Internet isn't killing off TV - instead, it's enhancing it.

For years, conventional wisdom proclaimed the impending death of television, with consumers increasingly bedazzled by the lure of the Internet. But, says Mike Proulx, co-author (with Stacey Shepatin) of Social TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media, and Mobile, it just hasn’t turned out that way. “What Nielsen has been reporting for the past couple of years,” he says, “is we’re now watching more TV than we’ve ever been, in spite of the rise of both online and mobile video viewing.” In fact, 94% of all television watching still occurs on a regular TV set. But that doesn’t mean television is immune to online trends. What’s happening, says Proulx, is that “we’re online at the same time we’re watching TV. Between 60-70% of people, when they’re watching TV, also have a second screen device, such as a laptop, an iPad, or a mobile device.”

Because at least some of that “second screen” use relates to the TV content, the challenge for marketers is how best to develop “complementary programming on the second device that augments what you’re watching,” says Proulx. “As content becomes much more accessible on these devices, the sky’s the limit on what the notion of TV really is, and that’s why it’s going to survive. People all too often think of TV as the physical TV set, but in my opinion, TV is about programming and content – and where and how we experience that content is up to our individual preferences.”

Four Things Companies Will Do Differently in the Digital Future Dorie Clark Contributor

Why CMOs Should Get Used to Less Control Dorie Clark Contributor

How to Be Yourself on Social Media - Without Freaking Out Your Boss Dorie Clark Contributor

TV networks and other content producers have, most notably, worked to harness the “back channel” of conversation on services like Twitter. “Now shows are making it even easier by including hashtags in the lower third [of the TV screen] and saying, there’s a conversation happening now – be a part of it.” The goal is for their show to become a “trending topic” on Twitter, and hopefully attract increased viewership; live programs such as music awards shows have even altered their traditional formats to drive online chatter. “Programmers are re-architecting what used to be the standard layout of live event shows and putting big acts early, so it will cause a spike in the backchannel, thus theoretically driving tune-in,” says Proulx.

Another emerging area is what Proulx calls “bridge content” – “the content that keeps our appetites fulfilled in between episodes airing.” He cites the example of Bravo and their “Last Chance Kitchen” online series, which integrated online and offline content seamlessly (inviting chefs who lost on the broadcast show to compete for a chance to return). “What’s the content on the second screen that will gain mass appeal?” asks Proulx. “What we find is that there’s not a single answer; it’s not one-size-fits-all. So how to make a ‘choose your own adventure’ on the second screen – that’s the holy grail.”

Finally, the online realm has also opened up new opportunities to understand the television audience. “TV has never had this instant feedback loop before, and it works just the same for TV commercials,” says Proulx, who is also Senior Vice President and Director of Digital Strategy at the advertising firm Hill Holliday. “We can see that when we have great content out there, people are reacting to it, sharing it, and seeking it out.”

Additionally, companies like Bluefin Labs are now able to harness Big Data to discover new marketing insights at the intersection of television and social media. “They’re taking the Twitter firehose of data and creating all of these interesting data relationships that help in media planning. We may want to reach a certain target audience, and Bluefin Labs can set up a lifestyle category – let’s say coffee drinkers – and for this category, here are the brands they’re most apt to tweet about, the shows they’re most apt to tune into, and the networks they watch. If I’m a TV media buyer, it opens up new possibilities I would never have thought about.”

Television clearly isn’t going away. In fact, thanks to social media, it may be entering a new renaissance. “The game,” says Proulx, “has gotten more interesting.” How do you think the rise of social media will impact TV in the future? What would you like to see happen?

Dorie Clark is CEO of Clark Strategic Communications and the author of the forthcoming Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013). She is a strategy consultant who has worked with clients including Google, Yale University, and the Ford Foundation. Listen to her podcasts or follow her on Twitter.

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Congress 2012 marks ESOMAR’s 65th anniversary – a milestone that calls for celebrating our industry’s global achievements...

Congress 2012

Accelerating Excellence
Celebrating 65 years and beyond

Atlanta / 9-12 September

Live stream

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•  Overview 
•  Programme 
•  Presentation abstracts 
•  Speakers 
•  Hotel & venue 
•  Pricing 

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Overview

With all the other research conferences to choose from why should you attend the ESOMAR Congress? Check our Congress 2012 highlights

Congress 2012 marks ESOMAR’s 65th anniversary – a milestone that calls for celebrating our industry’s global achievements to date and more importantly, for painting a vibrant and compelling vision for the future of market research.

It is an exciting time to be in the market research industry.

Opportunities, of course, do not come without challenges…we live in a continually evolving society, struggling to maintain a balance of power in a fast-changing world with dynamic markets. These are stimulating times, where we must explore what’s at the heart of clients’ needs and how to meet their demands for increased speed, enhanced quality and value-enriched products and services.

Congress 2012 will demonstrate the impact and inspiration that research has in helping business and society transform and evolve to take on the exciting decade ahead of us. In Atlanta we will:

• Engage thought leadership from new and experienced talent in the industry, demonstrating the innovation and relevance they provide in the pursuit of insights in all fields and markets.
• Learn how societal shifts bring challenges as well as new opportunities for public and private organisations
• Investigate opportunities for growth of brands and companies, in a changing world order
• Showcase the circumstances which require courage and daring from researchers
• Embark on a journey back to the future, where traditional methods demonstrate their weight in decision-making
• Pave the way to inspiring new thinking and actions that drive excellence!

 

Programme committee

Judith Passingham (Committee Chair) CEO Northern & Eastern Europe TNS, UK Vinay Ahuja Associate Director for Consumer & Market Knowledge Procter & Gamble, UAE Diane Hessan President and CEO Communispace, USA Fred John Senior Business Leader, Intelligence & Planning MasterCard Worldwide, USA

David Parma President Nielsen BASES and Nielsen Consumer Research, USA Niels Schillewaert Managing Partner, Director ForwaR&D Lab InSites Consulting, Belgium/USA Stan Sthanunathan Vice President - Marketing Strategy & Insights The Coca-Cola Company, USA

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Programme

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• Saturday, 8 September
• Sunday, 9 September
• Monday, 10 September
• Tuesday, 11 September
• Wednesday, 12 September

 

Saturday, 8 September 08.00 - 17.00
08.00 - 09.00	Workshops registration
09.00 - 17.00	Workshop: Ethnography and Observational Research - Day 1 Applying cultural analysis tools in consumer research

Sunday, 9 September 08.00 - 21.00
08.00 - 09.00	Workshops registration
09.00 - 17.00	Workshops (in parallel): Communicating Insights An interactive workshop to help you create materials with impact Ethnography and Observational Research - Day 2 Applying cultural analysis tools in consumer research Fast, Faster, Fastest (new) Speedy insights into customer needs, behaviors and attitudes Predicting Irrationality What behavioural economics can do for us
16.00 - 19.00	Congress registration
16.00 - 21.00	Exhibition in the exhibition area
19.00 - 21.00	Welcome reception in the exhibition area Sponsored by C&C Market Research and MarketTools

Monday, 10 September - Congress day one 07.45 - 19.30
07.45 - 19.00	Congress registration
08.15 - 19.30	Exhibition in the exhibition area
Parallel 1 (plenary)
08.45 - 09.00	Boost session
09.00 - 09.30	Welcome
	Welcome Judith Passingham (Committee Chair) Steve August, ESOMAR Representative for the USA Susan Griffin, ESOMAR Representative for the USA
	President's address Dieter Korczak, ESOMAR President
	Introduction to programme and keynote Judith Passingham (Committee Chair)
09.30 - 10.20	Opening keynote speaker Online Identities: The Person in the Machine Sherry Turkle, MIT Initiative on Technology and the Self, USA
10.20 - 10.30	Sponsored SSI Quest Awards
10.30 - 11.10	Networking break
Parallel 1			Parallel 2
	Celebrating Business How Research Can Really Impact on Business			Celebrating Research Creative Solutions
11.10 - 11.15	Introduction by session chair Judith Passingham, TNS, UK		11.10 - 11.15	Introduction by session chair Stan Sthanunathan, The Coca-Cola Company, USA
11.15 - 11.35	Research Without Borders The globalisation of the marketing and research functions in a brave new world Liz Moore, Chrysalis Partners, USA Fred John, MasterCard, USA Anna Mariano, MasterCard, USA		11.15 - 11.35	Research in a World Without Questions Bob Pankauskas, Allstate Insurance, USA Tom Ewing, BrainJuicer, UK
11.35 - 11.55	Were You There? The story of the research behind the innovative and award-winning Smirnoff campaign Lyn McGregor, Flamingo, USA Oscar Martinez, Diageo, USA		11.35 - 11.55	Measuring Emotions Through a Mobile Device Across Borders, Ages, Genders and More Rolfe Swinton, RealityMine, USA Rana El Kaliouby, Affectiva, USA
11.55 - 12.15	Ode to the Unsung Hero - Navigating the turbulent waters of research How Coca-Cola is managing today’s increasingly complex business reality with a global research landscape Veronica Moreno, The Coca-Cola Company, USA Patricio Pagani, Infotools, New Zealand Javier Quiñones, Infotools, New Zealand		11.55 - 12.15	Why Social Commerce Engines Will Power Next-Gen Market Research R. Scott Evans, Bazaarvoice, USA Erin Defossé, Bazaarvoice, USA
12.15 - 12.30	Discussion		12.15 - 12.30	Discussion
12.30 - 14.00	Lunch
	Celebrating Business Using Insights to Drive Real Business Growth			Celebrating Society Opinion Polls and Democracy
14.00 - 14.05	Introduction by session chair Vinay Ahuja, Procter & Gamble, UAE		14.00 - 14.05	Introduction by session chair Fred John, MasterCard Worldwide, USA
14.05 - 14.25	Designing the Club of Tomorrow Consumer understanding guiding creativity towards success Tom De Ruyck, InSites Consulting, Belgium Thomas Troch, InSites Consulting, Belgium Filip De Boeck, InSites Consulting, USA Henk Eising, Heineken International, Netherlands Caroline van Hoff, Heineken International, Netherlands		14.05 - 14.25	Who's Afraid of Opinion Polls? A live case study of spin and rhetoric; what happens when some love and others hate the numbers Caz Tebbutt, Tebbutt Research, Fiji Jenny Hayward-Jones, Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australia
14.25 - 14.45	Creators in Their Own ‘Write’ How Meredith Corporation empowered readers to create and contribute to a new Ladies’ Home Journal Manila Austin, Communispace, USA Britta C. Ware, Meredith Corporation, USA		14.25 - 14.45	The Case of Tunisian Elections Following the Arab Spring How polling is necessary to understand the influence of cultural, religious and political groups Nébil Belaam, EMRHOD, Tunisia
14.45 - 15.05	How Cars Really Get Bought Beyond the purchase funnel - new insights from digital ethnography Neel Desor, Haymarket Worldwide, UK Robert Ellis, COG Research, UK		14.45 - 15.05	Guest speakers The Consequences of Success Threats to Election Polling in the United States Sarah L. Dutton, CBS News, USA Kathleen Frankovic, CBS News, USA
15.05 - 15.20	Discussion		15.05 - 15.20	Discussion
15.20 - 16.00	Networking break
	Celebrating Research Behavioural Economics in Action		16.00 - 16.55	ESOMAR Session
16.00 - 16.05	Introduction by session chair Niels Schillewaert, InSites Consulting, USA			White hat vs black hat: Ensuring the future growth of market research Increasing privacy regulations push market research to a narrower definition to wear the white hat of social science and statistics whereas clients’ broadening information needs and new providers entering our sector create pressure to expand the practice of market research. How do we ensure the future growth of market research? Moderated by: Judith Passingham, TNS, UK Participants: Dave McCaughan, McCann WorldGroup, Japan Leonard Murphy, GreenBook, USA Sjoerd Koornstra, Heineken International, Netherlands Mike Cooke, GfK, UK Reg Baker, Market Strategies International, USA
16.05 - 16.25	The ‘Irrationalisation’ of Surveys Using Behavioural Economics to improve research results Kevin Karty, Affinnova, USA Jeffrey Henning, Affinnova, USA Janet Thai, Affinnova, USA Bin Yu, Affinnova, USA Steve Lamoureux, Affinnova, USA
16.25 - 16.45	The Difference Between ‘less bad’ and ‘much better’ Helping conjoint to live up to its promises by leveraging ‘Behavioural Economics' Florian Bauer, Vocatus, Germany
16.45 - 16.55	Discussion
Parallel 1 (plenary)
16.55 - 17.40	Keynote speaker Education in the XXI Century: How can research help? José Ignacio Wert, Minister of Education, Culture and Sport of the Kingdom of Spain
17.40 - 17.45	Mini break
17.45 - 18.45	ESOMAR Annual General Meeting (AGM) - for members only
18.45 - 19.30	Networking drinks
19.30 - 23.30	Fringe event Milkshake of the Mind Overcoming a Market Research Brain Freeze At The World of Coca-Cola Organised by Fringe Factory Supported by ESOMAR Next Sponsored by The Coca–Cola Company, Confirmit, Research Now, Google Consumer Surveys, CoolTool, mo'web, Burke, Protobrand, MESH Planning

Tuesday, 11 September - Congress day two 07.45 - 00.00
07.45 - 18.30	Congress registration
08.00 - 08.35	Sponsored client-only session Market Probe – Thought Leader Session Are Loyal Customers Passionate About Their Brand? in room "M301". Please refer to on-site signage. Register to: [email protected] Dr. TR Rao, Market Probe, USA Judith Ricker, Market Probe, USA
08.15 - 18.00	Exhibition in the exhibition area
Parallel 1 (plenary)
08.45 - 09.00	Boost session
Parallel 1			Parallel 2
	Celebrating Business Going for Growth			The Talent Contest ESOMAR Young Researcher Award Finals
				The three best projects submitted by young researchers will be presented in this session. Read more
09.00 - 09.05	Introduction by session chair Fred John, MasterCard Worldwide, USA		09.00 - 09.05	Introduction by session chair Bernie Malinoff, element54, USA
09.05 - 09.25	From Rio to the Rest of the World How innovative research, such as that conducted on Gatorade in Latin America, is impacting worldwide Ana Alvarez, PepsiCo Latam, Brazil Fiona Blades, MESH Planning, UK		09.05 - 09.20	Present is 'Expecting' Future A social media buzz around the baby bump Guneet Kaur, Nielsen India (BASES), India
			09.20 - 09.35	You Won't Find Me on Facebook Patrick Pfefferkorn, H,T,P Concept, Germany
09.25 - 09.45	From the Bottom of the Heart! Understanding cultures for better communications Jaisy Desai, Ipsos Marketing, India Michael Sack, Ipsos, USA Akash Sahu, SABMiller, India		09.35 - 09.50	Once Upon a Time...in Egypt Rajna Rajan, TNS Middle East and Africa, United Arab Emirates
09.45 - 10.05	Focusing on the Flow of Enthusiasm Superpromoter Research for Philips in India Arne van de Wijdeven, Philips International, Netherlands Rijn Vogelaar, Blauw Research, Netherlands		09.50 - 10.00	Q&A
			10.00 - 10.05	Award winner presentation Gunilla Broadbent, ESOMAR Past President
10.05 - 10.20	Discussion
			10.05 - 10.50	Panel Discussion: Research 2030 Mergers & Acquisitions - Strategies and Best Practices
				Introduction by session chair Diane Hessan, Communispace, USA
				Mergers in a Changing Market Research World Michael Mitrano, Transition Strategies Corporation, USA Participants: Kees de Jong, Survey Sampling International LLC, USA Debbie Pruent, GfK Consumer Experiences, USA Carlos Harding, Ipsos S.A., France
10.50 - 11.30	Networking break
Parallel 1 (plenary)
11.30 - 12.30	A Conversation With The Executive Suite
	In this panel, senior marketing executives from major brands will provoke and inspire you with their perspectives. You will hear their view of future trends, their top priorities, how consumer insights professionals can play a more strategic role in their organizations, and more. Moderated by: Diane Hessan, Communispace, USA Participants: Barry Calpino, VP of Breakthrough Innovation, Kraft Foods, USA Wendy Clark, SVP of Integrated Marketing Communications & Capabilities, The Coca-Cola Company, USA Rilla Delorier, EVP, Chief Marketing and Client Experience Officer, SunTrust Banks, USA Kate Quinn, SVP and CMO, WellPoint, USA John Wallis, CMO and Global Head of Marketing & Brand Strategy, Hyatt Hotels, USA
12.30 - 12.45	Sponsors fast track
12.45 - 14.00	Lunch
Parallel 1			Parallel 2
	Celebrating Business Insights Uncovered		14.00 - 14.55	Panel Discussion Next Frontier For The Insight Industry
14.00 - 14.05	Introduction by session chair David Parma, Nielsen BASES and Nielsen Consumer Research, USA			Senior representatives from the survey industry will provide their views on the direction in which they see the industry evolving by 2020. With unique points of view and a lively debate, this panel session will ensure an insightful look into the future of survey research and the likely impact on the business of research. Moderated by: Stan Sthanunathan, The Coca-Cola Company, USA Participants: Paul McDonald, Google Consumer Surveys, USA Philip Garland, SurveyMonkey, USA Frédéric-Charles Petit, Toluna, UK Sean Bruich, Facebook, USA Paul Donato, The Nielsen Company, USA
14.05 - 14.25	Online Anthropology A new approach to advocacy measurement David Rabjohns, MotiveQuest, USA Colin Utley, MotiveQuest, USA
14.25 - 14.45	Money Talks Unlocking transformational insight in Banking through storytelling Esther Garland, Face, UK Riki Neill, Face, UK Henrietta De Souza, HSBC, UK Josh Sorene, HSBC, UK
14.45 - 14.55	Discussion
14.55 - 15.35	Networking break
	Celebrating Research Evaluating Online and Neuroscience Techniques			Celebrating Research A Closer Look at Moms
15.35 - 15.40	Introduction by session chair David Parma, Nielsen BASES and Nielsen Consumer Research, USA		15.35 - 15.40	Introduction by session chair Niels Schillewaert, InSites Consulting, USA
15.40 - 16.00	Dimensions of Online Survey Data Quality What really matters? Jon Puleston, GMI (Global Market Insite), UK Mitchell Eggers, GMI (Global Market Insite), USA		15.40 - 16.00	Un-Mommed: Can Moms and Their Families Survive? What happens when moms take a 48 hour time-out Wynne Tyree, Smarty Pants, USA Andrea Strauss, Nickelodeon/MTV Networks, USA Jane Gould, Nickelodeon/MTV Networks, USA
16.00 - 16.20	Opening the Black Box An academic evaluation of the ability of EEG to predict advertising effectiveness Steve Watkins, Leo Burnett, UK Cristina de Balanzó, TNS, UK Gemma Calvert, Neurosense, UK		16.00 - 16.20	Babyface: Reading Nonverbal Cues to Measure Infants’ Acceptance of Food Products How mothers know whether or not their babies like a product and how to communicate baby preferences back to their mothers Amy Elkes, Stonyfield, USA Ashley Gabel, Blueberry, USA Payal Kondisetty, Blueberry, USA Lauren Yourshaw, Blueberry, USA
16.20 - 16.30	Discussion		16.20 - 16.30	Discussion
	Celebrating Research Back to the Future - Challenging Conventional Wisdom			Celebrating Bravery The Daring Side of Research
16.30 - 16.35	Introduction by session chair Judith Passingham, TNS, UK		16.30 - 16.35	Introduction by session chair Vinay Ahuja, Procter & Gamble, UAE
16.35 - 16.55	Beneath the Surface The hidden world of individual buying behaviour Constantin Michael Sapkidis, TNS, South Africa Jan Hofmeyr, TNS, South Africa Kyle Findlay, TNS Global Brand Equity Centre, South Africa		16.35 - 16.55	Market Research Challenges in Emerging Economies What CIVETS demands when conducting market research Catalina Mejía, Yanhaas, Colombia Helga Mora Santamaria, Yanhaas, Colombia
16.55 - 17.15	Website Versus Traditional Survey Comments Do they tell the same story? Randall Brandt, Maritz Research, USA Michael House, Maritz Research, USA		16.55 - 17.15	Social Science Research and Field Work in Afghanistan Dangers, courage and creativity Rafiq Ullah Kakar, Opinion Research Center of Afghanistan (ORCA), Afghanistan
17.15 - 17.25	Discussion		17.15 - 17.25	Discussion
17.25 - 17.50	The History of Men's Underwear How the simple things react to science and society Dave McCaughan, McCann WorldGroup, Japan
17.50 - 18.45	Keynote speaker Inspiration and Music Adam Gyorgy, Pianist, Hungary
20.00 - 00.00	ESOMAR dinner party at the Georgia Aquarium During the evening the following ESOMAR awards will be presented: Representatives’ Excellence Awards Excellence Award for Best Paper 2012

Wednesday, 12 September - Congress day three 8.45 - 14.15
08.45 - 13.50	Congress registration
08.15 - 14.15	Exhibition in the exhibition area
Parallel 1 (plenary)
	Research 2030 Innovation - from Insight to Foresight
09.00 - 09.05	Introduction by session chair Stan Sthanunathan, The Coca-Cola Company, USA
09.05 - 09.25	What's a Nice Insight Like You Doing in a Concept Like This? How marketers can avoid wasting good insights on poorly articulated concepts Lee Markowitz, Ipsos Marketing, USA Barbara Garau, Ipsos Marketing, USA Lourdes Alvarez-Chavarria, Ipsos Marketing, USA
09.25 - 09.35	Discussion
	Research 2030 Transformation - Visions of the Future
09.35 - 09.40	Introduction by session chair Stan Sthanunathan, The Coca-Cola Company, USA
09.40 - 10.00	In 2030 the Best Market Researcher in the Organisation Will Be the CEO! Elisabetta Osta, Barclays Retail Bank, UK David Smith, DVL Smith, UK
10.00 - 10.20	Socialized Research A new approach for a new reality Shelley Zalis, OTX Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange, USA
10.20 - 10.40	Virtual Future Real Life or Fantasy Innovations in virtual testing technologies and applications Matt Kleinschmit, Vision Critical, USA Andrew Reid, Vision Critical, Canada
10.40 - 10.55	Discussion
10.55 - 11.30	Networking break
	The Talent Contest ESOMAR Research Effectiveness Award Finals
	Open to all clients of research who can demonstrate the payback of their research investment (ROI). The three best projects will be presented in this session. Read more
11.30 - 11.35	Introduction by session chair Dieter Korczak, ESOMAR President
11.35 - 11.50	Applying the Principles of Behaviour Change to Road Safety in South Australia Joanne Davidson, Colmar Brunton Research, Australia Joan Young, Colmar Brunton Research, Australia Andris Versteeg, Colmar Brunton Research, Australia Richard Blackwell, Motor Accident Commission, Australia
11.50 - 12.05	Realising Opportunities to Maximise Wine Sales Through Improved Understanding of the Wine Shopper Integrating emotional drivers of brands to give shoppers the experience they want Andrew Hutchison, Treasury Wine Estates, Australia John Berenyi, Bergent, Australia
12.05 - 12.20	Rainmaker Exploiting unexpected price potentials for print media Tobias Trevisan, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH, Germany Florian Bauer, Vocatus AG, Germany
12.20 - 12.30	Q&A
12.30 - 12.40	Presentation of ESOMAR Awards
	Congress Awards: Best Case History Best Methodological Paper Best Paper Overall (The Fernanda Monti Award) Research Effectiveness Award Dieter Korczak, ESOMAR President Finn Raben, ESOMAR Director General
12.40 - 13.25	Closing keynote speaker New Worlds of Innovation Adrian Wooldridge, The Economist, UK
13.25 - 13.35	Closing Judith Passingham (Committee Chair) Dieter Korczak, ESOMAR President
13.35 - 14.15	Farewell drinks

How Sanofi Is Writing The Social Media Rules For Big Pharma Without Running Afoul Of The FDA

http://www.fastcompany.com/3000457/how-sanofi-writing-social-media-rules-big-pharma-without-running-afoul-fda

After a Facebook PR meltdown two years ago, Sanofi has emerged as a social media leader with a robust community for diabetics. Here's how they are writing #TheRules while the FDA catches up.

About This Series

#therules

Follow Fast Company's roadmap to social media: surefire rules, data, and expert wisdom guaranteed to show why this market is completely unpredictable. Read More

The biggest challenge to treating patients with diabetes isn’t doling out medications, it's making sure that people control their habits. Poor diet and lack of exercise generally create complications with the disease. To combat the problems, researchers in the diabetes division of Sanofi US took an unusual step for Big Pharma: they went social, jumping into online networking with a Facebook page, Twitter presence, and eventually three different engagement platforms.

“Treatment is an important aspect to blood sugar management, but it isn’t the only aspect,” says Laura Kolodjeski, Sanofi’s diabetes community manager, who has become the virtual face of the company. “There is a huge community of people already that live with diabetes and are connecting and sharing [online] to improve each other’s experience with the disease.”

Laura Kolodjeski

Sanofi now helps direct and police those interactions online. The company won’t release total visitor numbers, but it has about 4,000 followers on Facebook and another 4,000 on Twitter, all of whom are sharing links to broader content. And for better or worse that community is going to grow: About 8 percent of Americans or roughly 26 million people have diabetes, and the Centers for Disease Control predicts that as many as one third of us could have the disease by 2050.

But the social frontier is potentially prickly for Sanofi because the FDA has not yet written the rules about how pharmaceuticals are allowed to engage with potential customers and patients. The only guidelines came out in a December 2011 advisory statement declaring that while allowing virtual comments about things like off-label uses isn't technically illegal, it's shady territory; basically, pontificate at your own risk. "We are working on the area and it's something we feel is important but we don't have a specific timeline right now," says Ernest Voyard, senior regulatory council at the FDA's Office of Prescription Drug Promotion.

For Sanofi, drawing up their own social media strategy is also a defensive move: In 2010, the company's cancer division suffered a PR nightmare after a patient, who claimed to have experienced permanent hair loss from one of their treatment drugs, posted complaints and photos on that group's unmonitored Facebook page. John Mack, the editor of Pharma Marketing News, which tracks shifts in the pharmaceutical industry, says such hits are common anytime you try to pioneer a new space. "They've had some rough times, but they are learning a lot," he adds.

We really allowed the community to help identify what might be useful to them and where they might go next

Mack considers Sanofi a leader in the category, especially compared with the offerings from other companies. Diabetes juggernaut Novo Nordisk sponsors IndyCar driver Charlie Kimball to tweet @racewithinsulin, including when he injects with their products. And Pfizer's ThinkScienceNow blog about developments and advances in research is wonky but not exactly customer friendly.

Sanofi has created a template they hope will eventually be deemed both acceptable to the FDA and cool for customers. The lessons they've learned in the last two years is a valuable addition to The Social Media Roadmap from our current issue.

 

Be Transparent

When she took over as social media director, one of the first things Kolodjeski did was post a bio with a photo of herself online at DiscussDiabetes to show who was moderating. She also disclosed that she wasn’t diabetic. Why? To build trust, the kind community members might not have for a faceless company run by mostly non-diabetics. The message: “If Laura is going to work every day to solve [issues] on our behalf, then others must be doing the same,” Kolodjeski says.

Rather than just explain the rules of their forums in a jargon-y “terms of use” agreement Kolodjeski also tapped Mark Gaydos, head of the company’s U.S. regulatory affairs for marketed products division, to do a Q&A about how the sites would function. For instance, anytime someone on the site mentions a product, they are technically promoting it, so there needs to be fair balance of potential benefits and risks explained alongside that per FDA guidelines. That means many posts get quarantined internally before posting, so the company can add additional links or annotations to more information. Sanofi only wants to allow discussion of FDA-approved uses for products--any mention of possible side-benefits or bonuses from tweaking the usual dose regimen is prohibited. To make sure everything meets these requirements, there is often a delay--sometimes up to 24 hours--between when users make comments and those comments become publicly visible.

To explain their business interest, Kolodjeski also interviewed Dennis Urbaniak, the head of the company’s U.S. diabetes business unit to explain what he calls the “360-degree partner” principle--an effort to inspire others to talk more and tap into that as a focus group for new ideas.

 

Let Users Shape Expansion

Sanofi launched their diabetes Facebook and Twitter handles in September 2010 mainly to offer news updates about the company and its offerings. On Facebook, any clinical questions were directed to a separate tab and often answered privately. On Twitter, medical concerns were covered via direct message. What was missing was a way to collect various poster’s lifestyle tips and inspirational messages all in one place. In January 2011, the company launched DiscussDiabetes to address that. They also run their own stories about successes, including highlights from A1C Champions, another company sponsored group of diabetics who have maintain the best or “A1C” target range of blood sugar levels.

By March of this year, the company took a look at the discussions that were being generated and realized that terms like A1C weren’t actually as universally understood as they once thought. To speed that learning curve, they launched Diabetepedia, which provides both simple definitions and links to other sites showing how terms are actually used in other online conversations.

The final step: After noticing how activity at Diabetepedia was spiking, Sanofi launched another site collecting lots of the content they were already linking to all in one place. The DX, which launched at the end of May, hosts daily dispatches by both Kolodjeski and stable of already popular bloggers (none of whom are paid directly) that include everything from a diabetes related comic strip to mommy blogs for parents with diabetic kids. “We really allowed the community to help identify what might be useful to them and where they might go next,” Kolodjeski says.

 

Give Users Even More Control

The medical glossary at Diabetepedia doesn’t just provide standard definitions to complex terminology, users are encouraged to submit their own entries, creating a sort of slang dictionary that makes complicated stuff more relatable to newcomers. For instance, glucoaster: that’s shorthand for “a rollercoaster of blood glucose levels, with blood sugar lows followed by blood sugar highs.” User contributions have helped the database grow by 30 percent to include more than 150 terms, all of which make it easier to users themselves to better convey thoughts in future postings.

The company also considers each media outpost an exclusive “channel,” which means there is lots of cross-posting of content from different platforms to make sure users who only tune into one place are being best served. “We certainly have people that overlap but for the most part people have selected which channel they feel represented by and communicate through,” Kolodjeski says. But at each stop, the company still tries to crowdsource bigger ideas.

This year, they asked users to help set priorities for the company’s annual Data Design Diabetes Innovation Challenge, which asks individuals, businesses and non-profits to create new initiatives for using big data to help others struggling with the disease. To help brainstorm for that, Sanofi’s social media troop was given the chance to visit a competition homepage and answer questions about what aspects of life with the disease might be consistently overlooked or ignored. Their answers were used to shape a final guideline for contestants that solutions must address the overall wellness and family life of patients, not just symptom mediation. The winner: a program created by the n4a Diabetes Care Center that matches people with certain cost or risk profiles directly to the services they might need to slow the progression or expense of the disease. Mood problems can be addressed by better disease management, hopefully cutting into the 18 percent of all diabetics who require hospitalization each year.

After realizing just how open users are to sharing and connecting, Sanofi also launched their own new product, the iBGStar, a personal blood glucose monitor that plugs directly into an iPhone or iPod Touch with an app that saves data and maps correlations between blood sugar levels and meal times, carb and sugar intake, and physical activity. Users can share results with their family or email them to health care providers. But the product, which hit the market in May 2012, wasn’t just inspired by early community actions; ensuing reviews and comments in their own forums will help refine future updates. “It’s a big hit with the online community,” Kolodjeski says. “It’s also given us a great opportunity to prove back to them that if we hear someone comment about something, we have the ability to engage in a public manner.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article said that iBGStar came on the market in 2011, it was released in May 2012.

[Image: Flickr user Ian Humes]

 

Engaging Your Ultra-Connected Customers, by Melissa Parrish.

http://blogs.forrester.com/melissa_parrish/12-05-09-engaging_your_ultra_connected_customers

Back in March, I hinted at my discomfort with the way SoLoMo has come to mean technology-focused, reductive marketing campaigns usually solely focused on the “check-in.”   But the reason people want to talk about SoLoMo is because of real trends in consumer adoption of technology and advanced technology behaviors. Those of you who were at Forrester’s Marketing Leadership Forum last month know that this thinking evolved into what we’ve been calling the Always Addressable Customer — a topic that I haven’t stopped talking about since we debuted it. For those of you who haven’t yet heard the term, the Always Addressable Customer is someone who:

·         Owns and uses at least 3 data connected devices

·         Accesses the Internet multiple times per day

·         Goes online from multiple physical locations (for example: home, work, in the car, and at the mall)

These customers require marketers to think differently about their programs if they want to be effective. Always Addressable Customers don’t stop to think about their devices or “technology solutions.” Rather, technology is simply how they live their lives and get stuff done. It means that you can now reach this ultra-connected audience wherever they are, but more importantly, wherever and whenever they need you. That “need” is key here: I’m not talking about your ability to bombard your customer with irrelevant messages. I’m talking about how you can now provide true service and value to your customers whenever and wherever they need it. 

My research uncovered that more than a third of all US online adults are already Always Addressable. But this is not an exclusively US phenomenon. In fact, certain demographics in other parts of the world have even greater concentrations of Always Addressable Customers — and the trend is only accelerating.

Clearly I’ve found this research pretty exciting, and as I mentioned, I just can’t seem to stop talking about it. In fact, I’ll be sharing more of the research — especially as it relates to global audiences — at Forrester’s Interactive Marketing Summit EMEA in a couple of weeks. I hope you’ll join me! 

And in the meantime, I’d love to know:  How are you thinking about engaging your most digitally connected customers today?