By Pete Davis

One of the trickiest parts of any sales promotion campaign has always been predicting how your target audience will react to any given type of promotional activity. A lot of the science of this is based on how people have reacted to previous similar campaigns, but this does not help with targeting a specific audience, on top of this it can also leave you vulnerable to statistical errors and so-called “black swan” events, where unpredicted events hit redemption figures.

Vending machines, especially when deployed in the variety and scale they are in Japan, offer and effective push-button shopping alternative. But society evolves and retail practices with it, so now for those occasions when the idea of pressing buttons on a vending machine is just too much to bear, Asahi drinks has produced a WI-FI enabled vending machine.

But offering a simple wireless connection to a Wi-Fi enabled device to aid with product selection is only part of the genius. Each of the Asahi drinks machines will also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, allowing a number of devices to get online at the same time, for up to 30 minutes each. The vending machine's home page will offer links to product details and local area information. Currently there are 1,000 machines to be rolled out over the coming year. 

Spotted on Japantrends.com

by Sri Sharma

"For brands looking to leverage Facebook my advice is simple; use Facebook for what it was designed to do"

Sri Sharma offers his predictions on the big things brands should devote their time and budget to and offers advice on how brands can act to stay ahead of the game.

Online will be used specifically to drive in-store retailing

The harsh economic climate and pressure from pure play retailers has created a huge headache for high street retailers in 2011. There is no sign of these pressures lifting in 2012 but in online, retailers may have found a saviour.

Technological advances, such as Google Wallet and NFC (near field communication) mean that brands can now track the impact of online activity on in-store sales. More importantly, technology is also allowing brands to drive relevant in-store traffic. For example, features within Google paid search for mobile such as hyper local ads and proximity bidding, now enable brands to serve relevant ads to consumers when they are in the vicinity of the store, along with directions to the store.

Brands looking to leverage online to drive in-store retailing should adopt a holistic approach to their marketing. By thinking outside of their traditional remit, be it online, offline or in-store, and having joined up thinking marketers will see the true potential available. This will enable them to develop a programme of testing that leverages social media, paid search & existing loyalty schemes to drive in-store traffic, delivering significant returns in 2012.

Online marketing will be driven by smart multi-channel attribution

In 2010, many predicted that brands would ensure they had a complete, single view of their customers in 2011. Better automation technologies and the mainstream adoption of products such as Google Funnel (an evolution of Google Analytics) have helped this become a reality.

The next logical step is for brands to seek meaningful insights from the data they have collated. In 2012, I believe we will see more brands using econometric modelling to get deeper insights about their customers from their data sets.

For brands that haven’t already invested in creating a single, complete view of their customers across all channels they operate in, this is the first step for 2012. For those that have invested in creating this multi-channel view, 2012 is the time to use a combination of experience and sophisticated analysis, such as econometric modelling, to glean deeper insights that will improve overall marketing effectiveness.

Bing/Yahoo!’s share of the search market will flatten out globally

Owning 90% of the search market globally, Google is seen by consumers and advertisers alike as the unequivocal market leader. Google also owns 98% of the mobile search market globally.

Yahoo! and Bing have lost out in the search stakes.

Given that mobile and tablet usage, and therefore, search, is growing at a faster rate than desktop, more people are likely to turn to Google than to Yahoo! or Bing.

For brands looking to invest wisely, Google is the safe choice. And, with over 100 innovations from Google in the past year alone, it should be where brands prioritise their efforts, particularly when it comes to mobile advertising. However, if you’re looking to expand internationally, it is important to recognise that in two of the key markets – Russia and China – the key search engine isn’t Google but the local engine – Yandex and Baidu respectively, which have their own advertising platforms.

Brands will invest more in generating a deeper understanding of customer intent

Discounting is as important today as it was at the start of the recession in 2008. With the forecast for 2012 looking gloomy, demand for discounts is expected to increase again.

Against this backdrop, many brands are looking at their promotional strategy. However, the clever brands will be looking beyond promotion and discounting. Indeed, I believe that we will see an increase in the number of brands looking to get a deeper understanding of what it is that drives their customers to buy their products – be it a price promotion or an emotional connection with the brand.

To generate the deeper understanding that will ensure revenue potential is maximised, brands should look closely at industry level customer research and analyse their own CRM data. This will enable them to segment customers more effectively and target them more successfully. In search, once brands have an understanding of intent, they can start testing messaging through their paid search programme and iteratively tailor campaigns to prompt the best response.

By meeting customer expectations, brands can ensure that their equity is not diminished by excessive discounting. This will also improve loyalty levels.

Facebook won’t master social commerce

Throughout 2011, Facebook dominated headlines and, with a rumoured IPO on the cards for April 2012, it is likely to remain at the forefront of every marketers mind. However, I think brands that buy into the hype that Facebook will become a one-stop-shopping mall will be disappointed by the returns they receive.

Mark Zuckerberg presents the Open Graph changes.

The updates to Open Graph (announced at the F8 conference back in September) looked to be a real step towards social commerce, enabling users to be more specific in their posts, e.g. rather than purely “Liking” a brand they could tell their friends “I love this” or “I’ve just bought this.” However, Facebook hasn’t been so successful in its other forays into social commerce. For example, Facebook Deals closed just four months after it was launched.

For me, the mixed response to social commerce stems from the understanding of what Facebook is. When Facebook started its clear objective was to connect users. This has subsequently stretched into enabling brands and consumers to connect in creative ways. However, I don’t believe it will now evolve into a successful mass tool for direct shopping.

For brands looking to leverage Facebook my advice is simple; use Facebook for what it was designed to do, i.e. make the world more connected and enable easier communication, and leave it at that. Facebook should be used to build your brand and engage with your customers, not direct response.

Sri Sharma is founder and MD of Net Media Planet. 

Apparently Marketing Week is hot property at the moment. Copies of the UK's favourite marketing title appear to be flying off the shelves quicker than its readers are prepared to pay for it!

By way of proof, this picture has turned up on Twitter (courtesy of @greenwood100), demonstrating the public's appetite for marketing news. Alternatively, the whole thing might be a rather clever publicity stunt, in which case props to the Marketing Week marketing team for coming up with the idea. 

Personally, I suspect it is a stunt. Marvellous though MW is, I can't believe more people wouldn't rather steal a copy of GQ or Heat magazine, we've all done it haven't we?

[UPDATE: Turns out this wasn't a marketing stunt at all. Apparently issues of Marketing Week have a habit of being lifted from a newsagent in Canary Wharf. Shocking behaviour. Just because Anthony Worrall Thompson does it, it doesn't make it right.]

Social media has been around long enough now to allow a number of universal consumer insights to have emerged. In their worst form they appear as hackneyed phrases in most media awards entries. It seems that at any given time, half the marketing on the planet is driven by the revelation that "teenagers are passionate about music" and the idea that consumers want to "engage with brands that provide entertaining content".  

Cream dissects the roots of creativity in the Nordics and showcases some of the cleverest media campaigns that have hit the right note with their target audience.

The Playtype concept store in Copenhagen, a pop-up shop selling fonts from brand consultancy e-Types

Modern Nordic aesthetics are an amalgamation of Danish neo-classicism, Finnish craftsmanship, Norwegian folk art and the Swedish social approach to design. The result is a cool, blonde, refined look. Compared to other cultural centres in modern Europe, urbanisation and industrialisation came relatively late to the Nordics. This meant that values from a more agrarian culture were transferred directly into the new industrial setting, translating into an aesthetic movement rooted in a social setting.

Art and design had a responsibility to help create a world that was clean and functional. Influences of the British arts and craft movement found particular resonance in Sweden, and the style we today recognise as Nordic is easily identifiable. So much is design a part of the region's consciousness, that it is even possible to visit a font shop (pictured) in Copenhagen, run by a local brand consultancy. 

This design ethic is mirrored in the region’s media. A largely moderate political climate with social democratic leanings has created a culture of cooperation between individuals, which has enabled creative media industries to thrive. 

Sweden, in particular, has secured its place in the industry as a hub for digital excellence, with the work of Hyper Island, Prime and Perfect Fools winning plaudits and accolades at a global level. Sweden secured seven out of 80 Cyber Lions at this year’s Cannes festival, accounting for nearly 10% of the category. But digital excellence in one market hasn’t eclipsed the innovation and popularity of more traditional media channels. As recently as 2010, a newspaper-based campaign in Norway walked off with the ‘Award for Media Bravery’ at the Festival of Media Awards in Valencia. Print media enjoys a relatively healthy existence in the Nordics, particularly in Finland, which ranks third in the world for newspaper consumption with 31 seven-day dailies in circulation. At the first signs of contraction in the channel, Finnish print media has been quick to respond, launching campaigns to gently remind Finns that reading is a national pastime.

Subtle nuances make it difficult to generalise about the creative characteristics of a region, but there is a phrase on 358 Helsinki agency’s website that neatly sums up the creative pragmatism that is  present throughout Nordic media: “When Finnish old folks see something that’s good for someone they say, “that’s good advertising... Idea one: Anything that helps people like a company more is an ad”.

A quick tour of Nordic creativity

Norway: Heartbreaker (Starcom)

Since the birth of services like Napster, the traditional business model of phased single and album releases has died a slow death. Kaizers Orchestra decided, therefore, to shun CD, mp3 and vinyl formats and release its new single, Hjerteknuser, on paper. Before the song was heard was anywhere on the radio, the band made the sheet music available on posters,  forums and torrent download sites. The only way to hear it was to play it yourself. Fans started posting their covers in different styles and genres. As word spread, the band became a popular topic for bloggers on twitter and in the press.

Sweden: Chocography (Prime)

To learn where Marabou chocolates fitted the values and interests of Swedish consumers, the brand conducted a survey which identified a number of different ‘chocolate profiles’. The results revealed some chocolate truths; Fruit & Almond was the perfect gift for cultural city women, while a woman with a shoe fetish would love a Swiss Almond. The idea of ‘chocography’ was seeded among the blog community. TV, online and in-store advertising directed fans to the campaign site, which shared functionality with social networks.

Denmark: Extra summer (PHD)

Danish summers are very short and the winter dark. The 2009/2010 was the longest in 14 years and by February the Danes were craving light.By changing to daylight saving time (summer time) on 21 March instead of 28 March, Somersby could deliver an extra week of summer time to Denmark.From a pop-up campaign office in Copenhagen, it led the national rally for an extra week of summer, kick-started by a TV commercial introducing the ‘mission’ and running across multiple platforms to spur group involvement.

Finland: Burn (Helsinki 358)

When the Cancer Society of Finland wanted to communicate its non-smoking message to teenagers, it knew that talking to this audience required subtlety. So Cancer Society tapped into the teenage obsession with celebrity. The result was Burn, a magazine emulating popular lifestyle magazines, with celebrity gossip, showbiz news and light-hearted features. The difference in Burn was that all the content was related to smoking issues. Response has been positive. Initially intended as a one-off project, interest in the title has seen a steady increase and issue four is now due to be published. 

As a London resident, it has been impossible to escape the launch of Westfield Stratford. The shopping metropolis opened on Tuesday this week and as part of the Stratford City development project it is the first real demonstration to Londoners, and the rest of the UK, that the Olympic regeneration area is huge, and happening.

by Albert Pusch.

With the Olympics less than a year away, brands and retailers need to start planning now for how they can capitalise on this for their online shops. Although there are stringent guidelines for companies looking to associate themselves with the Olympic brand from a promotional perspective there is still a lot that retailers can do to ensure that they are maximising their search potential around this time.