A study from 33Across has found that more consumers are responding to online video than ever before. Across the eight industries included in the study, those that garner the biggest impact from online video are consumer packaged goods, travel and telecom.

Getty Images Reimagines the Solution
Scott Luther

When Getty Images, the world’s largest image library, wanted to change consumer sentiment toward the protection of its copyrighted images, R/GA London uncovered a way to reimagine the most public aspect of the brand itself. By shifting the watermark from the center of the image to the side and giving each photo a unique short code, Getty Images has found a way to make a nuisance an opportunity to increase attribution and potential licensing revenues.

Bing Reinvents Social Search and Discovery
Stephanie Wierwille

Bing has joined Google in the social search realm, but unlike Google, it’s including more than just Google+ search results. For now, it populates search results with Facebook data, but Bing has plans to also include Twitter, Foursquare, Google+, LinkedIn, Quora and Blogger. Not only does it allow for social search, but you can also ask friends questions directly from the Bing window. The redesigned search engine is being heralded as more integrated, forward-looking and user-friendly than Google’s social search offerings.

Macy’s Ties Stores More Closely to the Web
Nick Daigle

Realizing the increasingly vital role that the Internet, both traditional and mobile, plays in the customer’s shopping experience, Macy’s recently announced big plans to enhance retail locations with digital. The brand plans to outfit 300 stores to handle fulfillment of online orders as online sales grew 40% from 2010 to 2011. It’s also planning to expand Wi-Fi to all 840 stores to support growing consumer and employee mobile Internet needs during the in-store shopping experience.

Matching its claim as ridiculously long-lasting gum, Stride created a ridiculously long banner ad. It was an interactive game, challenging users to click and hold a moving target for as long as possible for the chance to win $500.The record holder? One user who lasted 46 minutes and 27 seconds.

Google Rolls Out Its “Hangouts On Air” to All Users
Les Boswell

Google has been making huge strides in implementing a years-long social strategy. The rollout of “Hangouts On Air” is a potential game-changer, as it promises to be the ideal social companion for brands looking to create real-time town hall experiences. Google Hangouts On Air allows you to publicly broadcast to Google+ and YouTube, enhances administrative abilities by allowing the creator to see how many people have joined in the hangout and allows for recording and resharing.

Pinterest. Infographic. Video.
Mimi Wilfong

Combine three of the most common Internet buzzwords and this is what you get: a video infographic about Pinterest. It covers the basics of what you need to know about Pinterest, including users and history, in a two-minute infographic-style video.

Make Choices: Choose Everything
Scott Luther

How does your organization make decisions? Is it by the HiPPO – Highest Paid Person in the room? In web design, embracing A/B testing – simple concept, much harder in execution – allows all decisions about design and content to be broken down into component parts and continually optimized. It is this simple concept that has allowed companies like Netflix, Amazon and Google to ensure they are delivering the best possible experience to their users.

Mobile to Become Top Email Platform (Infographic)
Cody Hudson

Return Path projects that mobile will overtake web mail and the desktop PC to become the leading platform for email by year’s end. Email readership on mobile devices accounts for 30% of all opens, up from 10% a few years ago. What this means for marketers: email ads that might appear in a traditional web browser will not show up in a native mobile email reader and formatting is paramount. Despite the sharp rise in mobile email use, Return Path found that nearly half (48%) of marketers don’t know how many mobile subscribers they have.

Others will gladly outline how this happened and why it is an abomination; this post is an exploration of one small piece of how this new generation of consumers will change your approach to advertising. While this may sound extreme or overly simplistic in cases, this is what your customers (or the customers that you will soon have) are expecting of you. This post is about what you are competing with for attention and the shifting of eyeballs away from programmed content toward curated content.

In the old video consumption model, content had clear delineation as to which device it had been created for: premium and live content was developed for the traditional television, and short-form or catalog content was reserved for the Web where die-hard fans could seek it out if they so chose.

However, the line is no longer so clear. Netflix, YouTube and Hulu are all developing exclusive scripted content for their own platforms, and traditional broadcast networks are releasing their content directly to laptops and other web-connected devices.

So now, how do I choose what, and where, to watch? It is an important choice for brands and advertisers to consider, to efficiently target an impactful message to connect with potential customers. But most importantly at this stage is to recognize that this choice exists and to understand why choosing content first, device second has become a widespread behavior.

Content Curation

At its essence, this behavior is not about convenience, it’s about curation. It is about spending your attention on the content and platforms that best express what you are looking for at a given moment, rather than accepting the limits of what networks have programmed. And that is why web pundits are declaring the death of TV. Curating and personalizing content have always been a strength of digital media – from the AOL or Yahoo! home page on through to Instagram and Pinterest – the Internet enables people to build a media platform around themselves.

The Internet, and especially the social web, is built upon platforms and publishers that are continually pushing personalized content and experiences to users.

According to Steven Rosenbaum, content curators are the real superheroes of the Web: “Curation is the act of individuals with a passion for a content area to find, contextualize and organize information. Curators provide a consistent update regarding what’s interesting, happening and cool in their focus. Curators tend to have a unique and consistent point of view – providing a reliable context for the content that they discover and organize.” Because of the efforts of content curators, both human and algorithmic, the Web is becoming the new prime time.

But Aren’t People Watching More TV?

The counterpoint, however, is that people are spending more time watching videos than at any other point in history. According to Nielsen, the average household still watches almost five hours of video per day, but the share of time spent watching live television continues to decline.[2] Granted, live programming through a traditional TV still makes up the vast majority of time spent watching video content; for younger viewers the “best screen available” will soon be replaced by the “best experience available.”

As Seth Godin puts it: “the only way your business wins in Google world is to be the best available option, where ‘best’ means best for the person searching for an answer, and ‘available option’ means everything.” And for those who hope to reach people by advertising, they need to understand both where and how they are interacting with media. Today’s viewer is choosing content first, then finding the device that offers the best experience available.

The technology that will most likely help bridge the gap between the rise of personalized, professional-quality video curation and live programming already exists: tablets. According to a study by Viacom, among tablet owners 15% of full-length television is being watched on the handheld (or lap-held) device. That is in addition to the various short-form clips being consumed on YouTube and Vimeo. Ultimately, this goes to show that viewers will easily adjust to watching content on the device that makes the experience suit their expectations, regardless of whether it is supposed to be a “second screen.”

Now that people have started to embrace their power over programming, TV is trying to adapt by integrating second-screen experiences into the mix to create more engagement with premiering or live content. There are some really exciting opportunities emerging in this space, but it remains to be seen if they will be able to stop people from shifting viewership to a more familiar channel.

So really, if the media world, the online world and education are all built around us – what else should we think? I am the Center of My Media Universe.

For more on the convergence of online video and television, see Alex Kenney’s and Cheryl Huckabay’s predictions in our Trends to Watch in 2012.

Alex Kenney, Watching TV, Tweeting and Chewing Gum: http://trends.clickhere.com/tv-tweeting-and-chewing-gum/

Cheryl Huckabay, Buying Audio and Video: http://trends.clickhere.com/audio-and-video/

[2]Nielsen, “The Cross-Platform Report: Q4 2011” http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports-downloads/2012/the-cross-platform-report-q4-2011.html

Global management consultancy McKinsey & Company has released a briefing that details the core responsibilities and approaches to take in social media to generate a measurable return on investment in both the short and long term. The report artfully distills social media activities into four key responsibilities – monitor, respond, amplify and lead – and further suggests opportunities to put these tactics into action.

Actionable Social Analytics
Les Boswell

A common question we hear from clients is, “What do I do with social media?” There was a time when “like,” “follow” and “retweet” seemed to carry some form of weight, but more and more organizations are beginning to realize that quantifying “likes” is about as effective as counting the number of cars that pass by a billboard on any given highway in America. In an attempt to answer this and other social media questions, Socialnomics has released a white paper and an associated infographic detailing effective approaches to measuring social media impact.

Is There a Place for Sass on Social Media?
Mimi Wilfong

Brands continually struggle with how to stay relevant and memorable in the minds of today’s consumers. With lines between traditional and digital campaigns blurring, brands face an even bigger challenge as customers on the Web crave a social experience. Some brands have found that they’re able to create a strong connection with consumers using a little bit of sass. From Taco Bell to Old Spice, bold campaigns are making waves in social media.

Five Mobile Trends to Watch
Stephanie Wierwille

With Google’s Project Glass hitting the Web and a slew of brands developing AR apps, augmented reality is no longer a future trend. Starbucks has ventured into augmented reality twice – both for holidays – and has seen strong revenue from it. Here are four other trends spreading through mobile now.

Hispanics Lead Ethnic Groups in Their Digital Savvy
Nick Daigle

Brands who target Latinos need to consider what mobile and social touchpoints to leverage as usage among the population grows and outranks other ethnic groups. According to recent research from Nielsen, U.S. Hispanics are more likely to utilize their mobile devices for texting and calling than any other ethnic segment. Latinos are also highly engaged in social, as they’re 25% more likely to follow a brand, and are the fastest-growing group of Facebook and WordPress users.

Building a stronger relationship with Mom these days just might mean depending more on digital as it increasingly plays a leading role in her media consumption habits. According to new research from Nielsen and BabyCenter, moms are 50% more likely than the general population to watch web video. They also overindex in usage of all digital devices, including Internet TVs, digital cameras, smartphones and tablets.

P&G Thanks Moms with Social Media
Stephanie Wierwille

Procter & Gamble released a tear-jerking video on YouTube last week in time for the 2012 Olympics. The video, which celebrates and thanks moms, has received 1.2 million views in six days and is part of P&G’s largest campaign in its 174-year history. It’s joined by a Thank You Mom Facebook page, Twitter and Facebook app, where sons and daughters can thank their moms with a message on Facebook.

Riots? We Should Have Been Listening to Twitter
Mimi Wilfong

Last week, The Buzz featured an article stating that social media could effectively determine who was going to win an election. This week, we learn that Twitter could help us predict riots. According to scientists at Bristol University, increases in anger and fear levels on Twitter in 2011 could have been predictors of widespread violence and looting on the streets. The same study found that there was a drop in levels of anger before the Royal Wedding, indicating the event had a calming effect.

What Second Screen?
Scott Luther

A study released by Viacom shows that tablet viewership now comprises 15% of television viewing, eclipsing computers as the second-most-common outlet for watching video. The sample included a national audience of more than 2,500 people aged 8-54. Another interesting usage trend Viacom noted is that a group of early adopters (18% of total) are using their tablets for practically everything, somewhat replacing the need for a PC, TV, gaming console and maybe even their smartphone.

Chill.com – the Video Version of Tumblr and Pinterest
Cody Hudson

A recent Webby Award honoree, Chill.com is a video-sharing site that’s a lot like Pinterest in some respects. The site allows users to create “categories” of videos and share them with other users. You can also follow other users: reposting, commenting on and expressing your emotions (via a series of emoticons) about their videos. The site has a chat feature and is linkable to both Facebook and Twitter.

Paid Fan Acquisition

One way fan acquisition is achieved is by implementing a cost-per-like campaign, which uses advertising to pay for fans as quickly as possible. When working with third-party vendors such as Ampush Social, Adconion or Graph Effect, you can expect a $1-$2 cost per like depending on your level of targeting. Targeting can be based upon the user’s age, gender, relationship, education, location, etc. You only pay when someone “likes” your brand.

The two types of Facebook ads utilized for this type of campaign are the Facebook social ad (right) and sponsored story ad (left). The main difference is that a sponsored story pulls in the user’s friends, giving the user a social context to “like” the brand.

However, one of the problems with paid fan acquisition is that the newly acquired “likes” may not actually be core fans who want to interact and have a long-lasting relationship with the brand.

“We need to remember they aren’t actually fans, that is just what Facebook calls them, they are often just people that have been recruited by competitions and they aren’t really engaged,” said Magnus Cormack, director of strategy at Syncapse Corp.

However, we have seen this as a good strategy to begin to seed “likes” for new brands to Facebook.

Fan Engagement

To help a brand build a core fan base and keep fans engaged, Mintel defined a few best practices:

1. Campaigns should be interactive – use apps, games, polls, samples and contests to keep the fans engaged on the brand page.
2. Make networkers want to share a link to virally acquire “likes.”
3. Ask the networker for user-generated content to allow them to feel they are contributing to the brand.
4. Create synergy with the brand.

Facebook’s new premium page post ads are created from the content on your brand’s page and include the user’s friends’ names within the ad. Below are a few of these premium ads that create this sense of engagement within the brand’s advertising on Facebook.

Why Pay for Social Media

With a 90% share of the social network audience and 27.9% of total online display impressions, Facebook’s power has continued to grow year over year since its start in 2004. Facebook is the largest publisher of online display ad impressions, and although Facebook’s ad revenue is slowing, it is still predicted to rise year over year.

Shockingly, according to eMarketer, only 25% of social networkers currently follow a brand on Facebook. This leaves a huge opportunity to reach consumers who have not been touched. Additionally, users are more comfortable receiving brand information and connecting with a brand on Facebook versus other social networking platforms.

So whether you are trying to increase your fan base or engage your fans, there are paid media alternatives that can help ignite your overall social media efforts on Facebook.

Spotify is introducing brand apps, releasing apps from the likes of AT&T, McDonald’s, Intel and Reebok in an effort to create an advertiser-attractive platform. Apps were introduced in late 2011, with music publishers like Rolling Stone and Billboard, and allow third parties to create playlists. The brand apps will be similar – with AT&T’s “Surround Sounds” plotting songs to the locations in which they were created.

Smart Car. Cool Ad.
Mimi Wilfong

Have you ever seen an animated Twitter ad built into a brand stream? Using the standard 140 characters or less, Smart Argentina created an ad where, when users scroll through the Twitter feed, they see a Smart Car going through a tunnel, past trees and other vehicles, and into a parking space.

It’s Time to Choose: Team Mike or Team Ike?
Sarah Allen

Mike and Ike, the characters who represent the chewy, fruit-flavored candy product bearing the same name, are asking consumers to take sides as they announce a split. Mike says Ike spends too much time on his graffiti art, while Ike says Mike spends too much time on his music. They ask consumers to go to their Facebook page to take a side. Celebrities like Lamar Odom and Greyson Chance have picked teams already. The campaign is aimed at teenagers and based on the notion that teenagers like to follow the developments of friendships and romances on Facebook.

Don’t Call It a Gaming Platform
Scott Luther

Through content partnerships with services like Hulu Plus, Netflix, Pandora and HBO Go, users now have more options for premium content outside broadcast media than ever before, and users of all ages are taking full advantage of these options through gaming platforms, Internet-enabled TVs and tablets. A recent statistic released by Yusuf Mehdi, head of Marketing and Strategy for Microsoft’s Xbox division, shows that on average families with an Xbox are now spending 84 hours a month watching videos or listening to music through their devices. As new options proliferate, it will be imperative for marketers to understand where, and how, their targets are interacting with content.

Ford Partners with Yahoo! to Promote Electric Car with Reality Series
Nick Daigle

In an effort to influence consumer perceptions of the electric car, Ford has partnered with Yahoo! to create an online reality TV series where show participants compete in a scavenger hunt that takes them across the U.S. while driving the new Ford Focus Electric. The episodes will be distributed by Yahoo! throughout its content network and video hub, Yahoo! Screen. If the move is successful, Ford will close the perceptual gap between electric cars and their gas-powered alternatives, as well as brand Ford in a more authentic light as it moves beyond sponsoring an entertainment show to owning it.

Well, I didn’t see everyone skipping to work this morning, so I’m guessing this guy’s message didn’t make it too far outside his hometown. But he thought big. He wanted to change the way the world got from point A to point B. He even used science to prove that skipping is better for you than running. Oh, well. Here are a few other ideas that didn’t pan out the way they were intended.

When the Adult Swim show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” was made into a movie, LED displays mysteriously went up in major U.S. cities to promote it. It was supposed to be “guerilla advertising.” Problem is, people in Boston thought the homemade-looking displays were bombs and freaked out. The city pretty much shut down to deal with the possible terrorist threat. Oops.

How do you prove your identity theft prevention company is the best in the business? If you’re LifeLock CEO Todd Davis, you share your real social security number with the world. Sadly, the company’s fraud detection didn’t work as well as he thought. His social security number was used to take out a $500 loan and open an AT&T Wireless account. Worst of all, Davis didn’t find out until collection agencies called about the money he owed.

You may remember this commercial from the 2011 Super Bowl:

Groupon, an almost universally beloved e-commerce company, made a pretty poor judgment call with this ad. Trivializing human rights issues in Tibet gets you just about one thing: backlash from your consumers. The ad was pulled soon after it aired.

It’s impossible to know how people are going to react to ideas, but a little more common sense in each of these attempts to make a big splash could have helped keep them from sinking.

Last week, Google released a video showing its sci-fi-like ambitions in artificial intelligence and augmented reality. Google’s augmented reality glasses act as a smartphone – looking up information and socializing with friends – but do so through the view of the wearer.

Lufthansa App Wakes up Travelers to New Deals
Scott Luther

Because of its extreme northern location, Sweden spends much of the year in continuous daylight. Offering to alleviate the disorientation this may cause for residents, Lufthansa Airlines created a mobile alarm app that wakes up users to the sounds of a city to which Lufthansa offers flights. If users can correctly identify the city to turn off the alarm, they are offered discounted airfare to that city to escape their local endless day.

Online Transparency: Cheaper Than the Alternative
Les Boswell

Trendwatching.com publishes a series of very public brand missteps and how organizations reacted. The lessons are varied and insightful, and all seem to confirm what we already know – consumers are willing to forgive and even grow fonder of a brand if there’s transparency in admitting the mistake. It’s Flawsome! Consumers prefer genuine over perfect.

Social Media Buzz Can Predict Elections
Mimi Wilfong

A study by NM Incite found that while social media can’t forecast the size of the victory, it can predict the winners in political elections. In the study, they found that in 75% of races, the candidate who was mentioned most on social media won the election. The buzz around candidates did not show causation in winning elections, only correlation.

Nearly Half of All Consumers Intend to Purchase More Items Online This Year
Nick Daigle

Nearly half (47%) of all consumers are planning to purchase more items online this year, accelerating the trend from previous years’ growth by 9% year over year. One factor driving this trend appears to be budget consciousness as 58% say they expect to find lower prices online. With the uptick in e-commerce, consumer expectations for the online experience are changing, pressuring brands to develop their voices and programs on emerging platforms. Mobile is a key area to meet expectations, and many retailers are falling short: 37% of consumers say they have tried and failed to use mobile devices to shop in-store because of “connectivity” issues.

One of the amazing transformations we’re seeing is in how and where customers interact with the brand. It wasn’t too long ago when brand interactions occurred at the time and choosing of the brand owner. Whether through magazine ads or in-store displays, brand owners were in a very strong position to manage all of the elements that controlled brand awareness as well as brand ROI.

With the proliferation of digital connectivity tools, all of this is simply no longer the case. Customers can now interact among each other to discuss your brand experience at will, and with very public and transparent efficiency. It has become a statistical fact that peer reviews have a significant impact on customer sentiment.

Some organizations have resisted change and have taken those tried-and-true “analog” methods (an “in-store display” concept is directly translated into a flat digital ad placement), but the returns have often been flat. Some media planners even coined the lack of results in digital by calling it “analog dollars to digital dimes.”

The greatest barrier to change for many traditional marketing organizations is that, to them, nontraditional interactive campaigns seem to be less about ROI and more about brand awareness. This is simply not true.

Instead of investing in moving “eyeballs” to direct sales, companies like Doritos, Nike and Disney are investing in the digital customer experience to generate loyalty, customer discussion and deepening interactions. This strategy has a very different analytics approach, but according to Forrester’s latest report, it’s efficient and trackable.

The digital realm is proving itself to be an ideal place to focus marketing dollars, but the strategies that are yielding the best results are the strategies that maximize the potential of digital technology: that is, interactive relationships.

Instead of approaching the digital realm with traditional return-on-investment methods, Nike and others are capitalizing on creating a unique, memorable and engaging customer experience. Below are some examples that capture their methods.

1. Create memorable campaigns that engage the user and their interactions with your product.
   http://www.doritoslatenight.com/
2. Create emotional, meaningful connections between your product and the customer’s world.
   http://www.nikebetterworld.com/product
3. Create places where your customer can interact with other customers. The interaction can potentially become your most powerful marketing voice.
   http://www.toyota.com/camryeffect/

In each example, the brand effort involved interactive technology as a means to deepen relationships through creating experiences that reflect the brand promise.

The digital realm requires new thinking, and the sooner brands begin to understand the advantages of the digital customer experience, the sooner they’ll be ready to create deeper interactive relationships. Those relationships will have a lasting and profitable payoff.