I don't make a habit of sharing office forwards, they're rarely funny or relevant. This example however, is both of those things - even if it is a little unkind about Google +. (Although I'm still undecided on that one myself)

The idea of brands telling stories is a hot topic right now. Coca-Cola is all about "liquid and linked" content, Heineken has had some amazing success with its global content strategy and the theme at this year's Festival of Media is based on the "science of storytelling".

Popular wisdom suggests that the future of brand content lies in video, and video is undoubtedly an exciting and powerful medium, but the popularity of e-readers and tablets has revitalised the written word, albeit in digital form.

In our experience, the tablet edition of Wired is the standard by which other digital magazines should be judged. The technical team at Condé Nast has created a superb platform for brands. Full page ads still appear in the ‘book’, but they are now rich with content and limited only by the imagination of the advertiser.

The whole content paywall debate still continues; but users are culturally adapting to the idea of paid-for content and its value over the free general clutter that is the bulk of the internet, as demonstrated by this infographic:

by Bambos Neophytou.

The combining trends of social-commerce and increasingly accurate user-data will enable highly targeted campaigns for socially connected audiences or small groups of friends.

Earlier this year, I made a number of predictions for 2012, one which we have already seen evidence of, which was the return of heritage formats: articles in the British press last week reported how “A spokesman for HMV has said that the high street chain is planning to step up the amount of vinyl it stocks in response to demand from customers.”

Another trend Inferno is confident we will see realised this year is the one we called ‘Friendship Groups are the New Target Audiences’. What we mean is that marketing departments and agencies will create products, offers, campaigns aimed at discreet and specifically identified groups of individuals who are connected socially based on four key motivations:

1. Widespread dissatisfaction with current consumer targeting models
2. Social media makes newer targeting possible (Youtube, Flikr, Facebook, Twitter,etc)
3. Advanced analytics deliver increasingly accurate data on coherent social groups (statistical analysis, predictive modelling, behavioural targetting)
4. The irrefutable logic that trusted peer recommendation (word of mouth from your family and friends) is the biggest single influence on brand behaviour and purchase

Even a brief discussion of each of these ingredients, would be beyond the scope of this piece, so let’s assume 1 and 2 are understood and accepted and deal with the plugging in of the old truth of 4 into the modern marketing engineering of 3.

The truest truism is sometimes the least fashionable thing to say. No one gets a applauded for pointing out that word-of-mouth recommendation is the biggest single influence on brand behaviour and purchases. But this is the crux of why targeting friendship groups make so much sense.

By targeting comparatively small groups of peers through social digital media, brands have never been in a better place to use the overwhelmingly powerful force of peer-endorsed recommendation and mutual endorsement.

How this plugs into 3 can be seen in how the advanced analytics is quietly and behind the scenes revolutionising how we do marketing. Advanced analytics is being used to model customer data and make accurate predictions about which messages, channels and offers are more likely to elicit positive responses from the audience.

An example, on a macro scale, is Adobe’s use of the tools made available to it through the company called MarketShare Analytics to optimise its marketing activity on a weekly basis to reach its targets. For an example on a micro scale take a look at the examination of how time, weather and mood (among other variables) can all be factored into mobile behavioural targeting in the ‘Next Best Offer’ article (Harvard Business Review, Dec. 2011). Reaching individuals with personalised offers at the right time (so often thought of as the Holy Grail in promotional marketing) is not only within reach, but is being practised as we speak by the cutting edge people in your field.

The next obvious step is to tailor offers to the shared interests of a group of friends.  Social media community managers working on behalf of brands already identify coherent groups within their followers and friends. All it takes is for the visionary marketing/product clients to produce assets designed to the uniquely detailed understanding that community managers can give them of the groups available to talk to.

And so back to ingredient number 1: There has always been something vaguely unsatisfactory with the idea of ‘the target consumer’. Apart from being a fiction made up of patches of statistical data, it rarely does the main task it is supposed to, that is create a clear target for communications and marketing activity. Instead, it fills the world with jargonistic labels for demographic groups and spurious pen-portraits of no-one in particular. But it is the ‘particular’ that characterises and defines us as individuals who respond to marketing messages. Roderick White has written eloquently about this: “within a given category market, true segmentation is hard to discern: on most criteris customers of competing brands are broadly similar … segmentation is not just frustrating but pointless and has been roundly condemned in the academic literature as technically unsound” (Roderick White in Admap, quoted in  Guilt Trip, Hesz & Neophytou, 2010, p.76).

But perhaps, like ethical foreign policies and benevolent banks, the target consumer is a myth most of us dangerous free-thinkers can abandon.  By targeting real people in their real social groups we can lead the way forward. Both the ability of the marketing community to engage with individuals and the explicit opting in by individuals to commercial messaging has never been greater. So it is up to those who can see this opportunity to make it happen.

Bambos Neophytou is head of strategy at Inferno.

Catch up with the best of Cream by subscribing to our weekly newsletter. This week's 'Campaign of the week' is the digital graphic novel from Axe, promoting its new fragrance 'Anarchy'. 

Wether or not Axe is onto a good thing by launching a fragrance line for both men and women remains to be seen. Spurred on by the number of female Facebook fans on its brand page, Unilever have apparently decided that the world is ready for the scent of 'Anarchy'.

See the full case study here with details of how Axe has turned to its fanbase to inspire this online graphic novel project.

Get full, instant access to Cream's pool of case study studies with a free trial here. 

Inspired by Canada's Marketing magazine digital awards that were announced at the end of last year, Anthony Daniel reflects on the strengths of the country's creative media industry. 

The digital universe has given marketers a plethora of devices to engage and target audiences whether it be SMS, email, QR, AR, projection stunts or content driven campaigns. The digital revolution universally refreshed the creative industries and each culture around the world has stamped their own creative heritage onto various digital tools to execute successful local strategies.

by Wesley Lynch.

Admit it, as a niche or luxury brand you probably scoff at social media. What, you wonder, does your brand have to do with some pimply kid on a skateboard messaging his friends?

But you’d be wrong on two counts. A KISSMetrics report reveals that social media users are both wealthier and older than you think. Among the social platforms, Twitter has the most high-income earners (27% earn over $75 000 p.a.). An impressive 37% of Facebook users are over 45.

And they’re not monitoring their kids either. They’re ditching their satellite news channel for a more well-rounded perspective (Twitter), and they’re polling their friends, who know their likes and dislikes, for advice on what to get a loved one for Christmas (Facebook).

It’s obvious, then, that social is an underestimated and underrepresented medium in the niche brand marketing mix – a fact borne out by their brands conspicuous absence from social platforms.

Besides the surprising facts quoted above, here are a few things you probably didn’t know about social, things that ought to ease your fears and suspicions about the medium.

New authorities 

Forget Google and brand websites – social media is the new authority on topics across the board. If someone is looking for a really great wine or to form an opinion on a topical affair, chances are they’ll poll their friends or  poke around the ‘walled garden’ of Facebook rather than wade through search engine results or undertake an arduous trawling of websites.

So if you’re not on social media, you’re missing out on some highly qualified audiences doing some very targeted comparative shopping and acting on very powerful recommendations.

Millionaire aspirations

Today, industries like IT produce younger millionaires who bring a new casual luxury segment to the market, a segment perhaps not fully recognised yet by the high-end brands. Gangsta rappers with their penchant for ostentatious wealth, luxury cars, bling and designer wear, bring a different style again to the consumption of luxury brands.

With this democratisation of luxury brands, aspiration is keener than ever. Ordinary companies now toast their successes with Dom Perignon; kids and other low-income earners simply must have the latest iPhone.

Brand exclusivity and social

Given these developments, going social is not a move away from exclusivity. It is simply an extension of the brand community.

Today, brand communities form around groupings that actually consume the brand – not abstract metrics such as wealth. (Besides, with the above examples of young IT professionals and upwardly mobile rappers, the correlation between disposable income and age is being steadily eroded).

Niche brands should take social media channels seriously as a portfolio of tools, technologies and platforms facilitating the discovery and sharing of their content by an increasingly discerning social community.

Cartier experimented with MySpace back in 2008

It can be done

Where to from here? While it is not a widespread phenomenon yet, niche brands are increasingly flocking to the social Web. From Cartier’s MySpace account to Tiffany’s Facebook page and the Jimmy Choo treasure hunt on Foursquare, brands are figuring out how to do it.

To follow in their footsteps, other niche brands investigating a social strategy should engage the services of a technology and creative team that has been there and done that. Decide what you want from a social campaign or presence, find the local and global examples that inspire you, and track down the team that can deliver.

Wesley Lynch is CEO of Realm Digital.

So the world’s favourite video sharing website is about to get a makeover. Greater social integration is the name of the game, as is the desire to bring YouTube aesthetically close to its Google parentage. Hopefully YouTube won’t become addicted to these cosmetic procedures like Facebook, which seems to make changes to its layout on an almost monthly basis.  

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".