January 7, 2011
From the Mouths of Babes … 11 Predictions for Retail Marketing in 2011
Careening out of the canyon of confusion that was 2010 we come face-to-face with an alien marketing landscape of “owned media,” “geo-location” and “real-time.” What do these strange terms mean? What do they demand of marketers in retail? Are we facing another year of social media-driven craziness?
To calm everybody down, we enlisted a few of the youngest Media Logicians to help us with our predictions for retail marketing in 2011 (see our predictions in plain text below).
- There’ll be no more social media strategies for you, missy
- Anybody with a conversion fetish will be asked to leave
- Big box retailers will make friends with phones
- Media will stop costing money and start making money
- Interactive promotions will escape the Facebook tab
- Goodbye social media cowboy
- AdweekMedia’s 2011 list of “Agencies of the Year” will not include a single traditional advertising agency
- The headlines will read, “Facebook is Dead!”
- We’ll ask paid media to come out and play too
- I’m running away
- Don’t worry, marketing will get fun again
December 16, 2010
Infusing the Dreamscape
I turn to Dwell for inspiration, for new ideas to populate my dreamscape. So maybe the context made me more “prepared” to see deeply into this recent article in the magazine. On one level, it is a pretty prosaic story about the gadgets and software that connect the online and real world. But somehow, the idea that architecture and portable communication technologies are allowing us to interact with space and with each other in new ways struck me as profound.
Posted in Social Marketing, Social Promotions
Tagged 2010 Retail Marketing Report, a social world, brand experiences, collaboration, consumer engagement, customer experiences, Dwell magazine, innovation, mobile devices, new technologies, real-time marketing, retail research whitepaper, social media, Social Promotions
December 8, 2010
Closing the “Gap” in Social Promotions
I admit it, I am a smart phone newbie. According to my teenager, my old phone was from somewhere in the Neolithic age – you know 3 taps to get the letter “o” in a text. So I joined the millennium with some trepidation – as I experimented with geo-location applications.
My first experience was the new “Facebook Places” mobile application. Similar to Foursquare and Gowalla, users ‘check in’ on their phone when they arrive at a destination to let their friends know where they are, as well as take advantage of special deals the location may be offering. The Gap was one of the first major retailers to experiment with FB Places, offering free jeans to 10,000 customers to check into their store using the app on Nov. 5th. After so much bad press, I was rooting for a win for the beleaguered brand. I like Gap merchandise, and now I was armed with a smart phone, and hey – we all need pants.
November 29, 2010
Black Friday Promotions Drive Big Facebook Numbers for Aggressive Retailers
In the 10 days leading up to Black Friday, the biggest retailers on Facebook - those with the most Likers - grew their fan bases by an average of 10%. Respectable. But more aggressive retailers on Facebook grew their fan bases at twice that rate! Through a combination of Black Friday and other seasonal offers, discounts, contests, games and simple “Like us” pleas, the top 10 fastest growing retailers on Media Logic's survey list saw their Liker bases soar by an average of 20% between 11/16 and 11/26/2010.