Ideas That Spread

Trendwatching April Report

Check out the latest trend report from trendwatching.

SELLSUMERS: Whether it’s selling their insights to corporations, hawking their creative output to fellow consumers, or renting out unused assets, consumers will increasingly become SELLSUMERS, too. Made possible by the online revolution’s great democratization of demand and supply, and further fueled by a global recession that leaves consumers strapped for cash, the SELLSUMERS phenomenon is yet another manifestation of the mega-trend that is ‘consumer participation’.

Eco-Bounty Trend Report

From our friends over at Trendwatching.com comes their March monthly trend report. This month doubles up on “greening” our world now despite these uncertain economic times - because - we really don’t have a choice.

“ECO-BOUNTY refers to the numerous opportunities, both short and long term, for brands that participate in the epic quest for a sustainable society. Some of these opportunities exist despite the current recession, others are fueled by it, not in the least because of new rules and regulations. Downturn-obsessed brands who lose their eco-focus will find themselves left out in the cold when the global economy starts recovering.”

“TRANSUMERS are consumers driven by experiences instead of the ‘fixed’, by entertainment, by discovery, by fighting boredom. They increasingly live a transient lifestyle, freeing themselves from the hassles of permanent ownership and possessions. The fixed is replaced by an obsession with the here and now, an ever-shorter satisfaction span, and a lust to collect as many experiences and stories as possible. Hey, the past is, well, over, and the future is uncertain, so all that remains is the present, living for the now. “

Bill Gates Unplugged At TED 2009

Great new talk from Bill Gates at this years Ted. Enjoy!

Starbucks Pledge 5

Starbucks* continues to understand the current environment and social nature of the world that we live in. I have been following them closely over the years and have to say that despite their corporate reputation as a community small business enemy, they have gone out of their way to embrace community building. It may not get me to change my habits and not go into Starbucks that often, but it does certainly build community for the people who can’t get enough of their products.

Their latest initiative Pledge 5 piggy backs off of Obama’s latest call for community building and I have to say I like it!

*Seattle’s Best is a DeVries Client

Via: Debbie Weil

Trendwatching Fights Greed!

Our friends over at Trendwatching have put together a great collection of great examples of how greed is OUT and generosity is IN! Enjoy!

GENERATION G | “Captures the growing importance of ‘generosity’ as a leading societal and business mindset. As consumers are disgusted with greed and its current dire consequences for the economy and while that same upheaval has them longing more than ever for institutions that care’s the need for more generosity beautifully coincides with the ongoing (and pre-recession) emergence of an online-fueled culture of individuals who share, give, engage, create and collaborate in large numbers.

Perkonomics

Trendwatching brings us their monthly “goodie bag” of delicious trends to consume and devour. This month…. juicy “PERK” trends. Building off of their past report on status stories this one should definitely spark some creative ideas.

“PERKONOMICS: A new breed of perks and privileges, added to brands’ regular offerings, is satisfying consumers ever-growing desire for novel forms of status and/or convenience, across all industries. The benefits for brands are equally promising: from escaping commoditization, to showing empathy in turbulent times. One to have firmly on your radar in 2009.”
“But as we move towards a consumer society that’s based more on experiences, on status stories, on the ephemeral and in which, for many, time is now the only true scarcity expect perks and privileges to become an integral part of every B2C industry and sector.”

The Marketing Spiral

As the conversations around metrics and interactions heat up, we are building to a split from the digital metrics that have been “approved” for advertising media buys to a new step towards metrics that focus on relationships and brand interactions. Logic and Emotion brings us a very useful graphic that helps build a picture of what is really going on out there is a post-funnel economy. His graphic was inspired by a report put out by Forrester that calls for a new focus on “Engagement”.

“The marketing funnel is a broken metaphor that overlooks the complexity social media introduces into the buying process…. marketers need a new approach. We propose a new metric, engagement, that includes four components: involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence…. you get a more holistic appreciation of your customers’ actions, recognizing that value comes not just from transactions but also from actions people take to influence others. Once engagement takes hold of marketing, marketing messages will become conversations, and dollars will shift from media buying to customer understanding.”

Digital metrics aren’t much different than traditional metrics. It really just depends on what you are trying to measure. Brand planners have been thinking about “Engagement” metrics for a while now they just didn’t have the quantity of them to choose from and the possibilities are greater with the group mentality that is now measurable online. I think that metrics and measurement should be something that is very clear with your client as you start a program. What are your goals and what are the right metrics to measure them with? If you are dealing with a Media Planner who has been just thinking about Reach and Frequency than the conversation may have to occur at the Brand Level and that is where these “new” metrics will be happily received.

Here are some metrics to measure your campaign. A even more detailed list can be found here.

REACH: Social Media Reach (ex. BuzzLogic), Number of Stories/Posts, Site Traffic , Pageviews, Unique, Visitors , Number of Photos viewed, Videos watched

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: Links/Trackbacks, Comments, Threads, Registrations, Referrals, Members, Posts , Number of groups, Tags/Ratings/Rank

ENGAGEMENT: Time spent on site, Time Spent within Widget, Contributors, Word count, Completed profiles, Number of Friends

SALES/ROI: Cost per number of engaged prospects, Number of leads, Cost of lead, Lifetime value of customers, Sales