Technology+Culture+People // テクノロジーとか、人とか、文化とか。

»English Article (via: TechCrunch) || »日本語の記事 (via: TechCrunch Japan)

»Previous Entry

• Over 59% of iPhone moms surveyed say they let their children use their iPhone.
• 41% of moms who own iPhons download apps specifically for their children to use.
• Close to 60% of iPhone moms depend on their phone to locate the nearest store around them while
• 41.94% of moms use the iPhone to keep track of shopping lists.
• Other shopping activities include comparison shopping, (39.43%) downloading coupons (19%) or keeping track of items on sale (22.94%).
• A little over half of iPhone moms use their phones at the grocery store, with
• 40.14% using it as a shopping list tool and
• 22.58% using it as a recipe resource at the store.
• Close to 90% of moms who have iPhones use it for personal entertainment which includes listening to music, browsing the Internet or using entertainment apps.
• Email comes in at a close second place with over 79.57% of iPhone moms surveyed using their phone for checking messages.
• Over 64% of iPhone moms using their phones to manage their calendar and schedule, which is 9% higher than the rest of the iPhone community as a whole.

Marketing opportunities? Perhaps?
———————————————————————-

• 調査したiPhoneママの59%以上が、自分の子どもたちにiPhoneを使わせている。
• 41%のママたちが子どもが使うためだけのアプリをダウンロードしている。
• 60%近いiPhoneママが、近所の店を探すのにiPhoneを使っており、
• 41.94%が買い物リストにiPhoneを利用している。
• 買い物に関する使い方にはほかに、価格の比較（39.43%）、クーポンのダウンロード （19%）、セール品のチェック（22.94%）などがある。
• 40.14%が買い物リストツールとして、
• 22.58%がレシピ用に活用している。
• ママの90%近くがiPhoneを個人エンターテイメント用に使っており、音楽を聞いたり、インターネットを見たり、エンタメソフトを 使ったりしている。
• メールは僅差の2位で、79.57%の回答者がiPhoneでメールをチェックしていると答えた。
• 情報整理ツールとしてiPhoneを 使うママの数も多く、64%以上がカレンダーやスケジュールの管理をiPhoneで行っており、これはママ以外のiPhoneユーザーでの割合よりも9ポ イント高い数字だ。

このセグメントにはどれくらいのポテンシャルがあるのだろうか。

»English Article (via: Advertising Age)

Red Robin, a casual-dining chain that focuses on premium burgers with outlandish toppings and sweet, frothy drinks,… among other brands, had recently developed GoRecommend, an application that asks consumers if they’d like to post a recommendation on their Facebook page when they seem to have had a particularly pleasant experience. “We don’t go the fan route, we go the recommendation route,” Andrew Datars, VP-product management at Empathica said. “People can become your fans, but the challenge with that approach is it doesn’t leverage the social graph. Just because one of the people is a fan of your brand, it doesn’t get to their friends, or people who aren’t fans of your brand.”

A very smart move. I think these people really understand not just the demographics of their target, but also the “nature” of their behaviors on Facebook.

»English Article (via: Six Revisions) || »日本語の記事 (via: かちびと.net)

How many of these did you know?

知ってた知ってた？

»English Article (via: Wired) || »日本語の記事 (via: WiredVision)

Johnson’s team put eleven female and five male college students inside an fMRI machine, which measures real-time patterns of blood flow in the brain. Each student was shown a list of words, then asked to say each word backwards, think of how it could be used, and imagine how an artist would draw it.

Twenty minutes later, the researchers showed them the list again, and asked the students to remember what they could of each word.

Recollection triggered the original learning patterns, a process known technically as reinstatement; the stronger the memory, the stronger the signal.

But at the weak end of the gradient, where the students’ conscious recall had faded to zero, the signal was still there.

It’s possible that the students lied about what they remembered. But if not, then memory may truly persist. The question then is how long memories could last — weeks, months, even years.

What is truly amazing about this experiment is that it has the potential to change the conventional definition of “memory.” A “memory” could be redefined as not just the past occurrences that we can actively recall, but those past occurrences that we may not be able to actively recall however still “exists” in our brain as subtle signals.

What is even more striking is that once we can find the appropriate triggers that can revoke those “forgotten memories,” it will greatly impact industries such as marketing, branding, and advertising.

In the future, the focus of such industries may shift from “showing something impressionable in certain places and situations” to “showing something that could be recalled in many different places and situations.” People, THIS is a paradigm shift.

————————————————————————————————————–

この発見の何が凄いかって、今まで使われてきた「記憶」という言葉の定義を変えてしまう可能性があるんだよね。だって、今まで記憶って言うと僕たちが経験した過去の出来事の中で自発的に思い出す事の出来る事象だったけど、思い出せない事でも確かに「存在」していることが証明されちゃったから、「記憶」そのものの定義がもう少し広義になるかもしれないよね。

さらに凄いことに、もし「忘れられた記憶」をトリガーするモノが発見されたとすれば、それはマーケティング、ブランディング、広告に多大な影響を及ぼすだろう。だって、今までは記憶してもらわなければ意味の無かった物が、「思い出せれば良い物」になるから。

つまり、限られた場所やシチュエーションの中ででより印象的に体験させる事よりも、より多くの場所やシチュエーションで「再び思い出してもえる」広告が価値のあるものとして認識されるようになる。

»English Article (via: Advertising Age)

All brands and agencies should be thinking beyond Twitter updates and Facebook pages when considering their interactions in the social media space. Every user today has a voice, a culture, a distinct perspective. For a brand’s efforts to be meaningful and worthwhile, it must explore the diversity of its audience — and strike up relevant, authentic conversations founded in a true understanding of their cultures. From multicultural to general, the market today must be spoken to via media that is more than social — but cultural, as well.

An interesting take to social media marketing. Culture is one of the many angles of micro targeting. It reminds us the importance of “understanding” our audiences, especially when culture greatly affects the identity and within group interactions of target groups.

————————————————————————

ソーシャルメディアをマーケティングツールに使う場合、ターゲットの文化的背景を熟知する事の重要性を説いている記事。文化、宗教、肌の色、言語などは、ターゲットのアイデンティティーのみならず、コミュニティー内の行動パターンにもに強い影響を及ぼす重要な要素だったりする。だからこそ、ターゲットの文化的背景を知る事は、ソーシャルメディアの「ぼんやり感」を取り除いて、もっと具体的な、効果的なマーケティングを行う為に必要だ、と。

日本では必要ない事かもしれないけど、かなり必要な事だと思う。つまり、単一民族国家だけど、文化以外の「目に見えない」アイデンティティーを捉える必要性がある。つまり、文化のように人の趣味・思考・行動に深く影響を及ぼす、別のマイクロターゲティングを見いだす必要がある、と思う。

»English Article (via: Advertising Age)

The folks at online ad firm uSocial are taking that a step further: Pay them money and they’ll make you at least appear to be very big on Facebook. In fact, they’ll deliver you 5,000 Facebook “friends” for 7.6 cents per friend ($654.30), or up to 10,000 Facebook “fans” for a mere 8.5 cents a fan ($1.167.30).

Apparently Twitter followers, Diggs and Yahoo Buzzes are also available for sale from this service. As a former ad industry worker, I feel pretty iffy about this; I’m not sure if my pride and dignity will allow me to buy virtual “fans” of my work.

On the other hand, it is very similar to begging (paying) somebody to sign a petition for you. I’m sure many of you have experienced this on college campuses or workplaces. In some aspects this works very well, because more names and signatures will make that petition “appear” better.

So I guess what it comes down to is how “success” is measured on a campaign. If success is measured by the number of “fans,” AND you have no pride for your work, AND if you are ready to betray your client, this might be the answer for some marketer. If success is measured by sales, this will not be the direct solution, since it can only be used to give the product more exposure on certain rankings and searches. If success is measured by the happiness of the consumer, then your time and money might be better spent on product improvement and R&D.

———————————————————————

Twitterのフォロワーが多かったりFacebookグループの「ファン」が増えると、検索からのエクスポージャーが増えて、いわゆるSEOになる。ここに着目したのがuSearchっていう会社なんだよね。この他にもアメリカで最も有名なブログランキング「Digg」や Yahoo Buzzも買えたりするらしい。

個人的には、ちょっと微妙なサービスだと思う。正直自分が関わった作品には、できるだけ使いたくないサービス。だって、簡単にいうと見せかけだもん。まぁアルファブロガーに執筆を依頼するのにも似てる部分はあるんだけど…。

結局は、キャンペーンの「成功」をどう捉えるかなんだと思う。「集客」が最終目的で、かつ自分の仕事にプライドを持っていなくて、かつ自分のクライアントを裏切る覚悟があるならこのサービスは最適なのかも。商品の売り上げが最終目的なら、このサービスは見せかけの人気で更に人を集めるサクラみたいなものだから、直接的な成功の要因にはならない。お客さんを幸せにするのが最終目的ならば、R&Dにお金を回した方が遥かに理にかなっている気がする。

»English Article (via: ADWEEK)

Web tracking, or web analytics as some would say, should be placed if it maximizes the benefit of the consumers. The logic is quite simple: various websites and advertisements gather anonymous tracking data from each website visitors, such as page views, bounce rate, session duration, and should therefore provide each of those visitors with relevant and beneficial advertisements (this idea is more commonly known as behavioral targeting).

There are several problems that surround web tracking. One is the misconception that this can lead to privacy threats. Web tracking does not suck out private information such as your address, SSN, credit card number from your computer. They only gather information that is relevant to one’s “behaviors” online. Second, the issue is not just in the hands of the website that conducts targeting, but also the advertisements that they place on their websites according to the tracking data. If the advertisement is crap or the consumers do not find the advertised material to be beneficial, then other methods of online marketing might work better.

Is web tracking good or harmful? I think Amazon, ebay and Google does a great job in connecting consumers with their next potential purchases. At the same time, there are many more ads, especially seen in banner ads for affordable airline tickets, that creepily tells you that there are cheap tickets available to the destination where you last searched for in their website. Bottom line is that behavioral targeting is done to better connect consumers with what they may want, based on their past behaviors. The reality is that not many businesses are successful in doing so, and some people find it creepy that these websites are sucking (anonymous and harmless) information out of one’s computer.

»English Article (via: Mashable)

Using Facebook, Audi is posting videos of their design process, information about the contest as it progresses, and soliciting questions and feedback to find out what the fans would like to see in a car of the future. It wants its 300,000 fans to know that as a company, Audi listens to its customers and wants to engage in a conversation about the future.

Another attempt by Audi to break the conventional approaches of the industry. These campaigns not only make them stand out but also sends a clear brand message, which is extremely important to survive in a saturated industry.

————————————————————

ロサンゼルスのDesign Challengeというイベントと平行して、アウディがFacebookを通じてユーザーと繋がる試みを始めたそうだ。Facebookのアウディファンサイトにデザイン資料などを載せ、ユーザーからの要望も聞き入れるらしい。さすがアウディ、今までの車業界の常識を積極的に打ち破っているね。効果はさておき、こういったアバンギャルドな施策を通じで堂々とブランドメッセージを発信していく事は、過当段階に入りつつある車業界のなかで生きぬて行く為には不可欠だと思う。素晴らしい。

»English Article (via: Social Media Optimization)

I believe that this is because users view Twitter as a place to keep in touch with friends, which I blogged about last week, and not a site to be introduced to new products or services.

Until this consumer expectation changes, Twitter cannot be be considered an effective marketing tool.

Advertisement, in its literal definition, is the action to call public attention to something. In a business, this “action” is required to produce revenue through the sales of what it is advertising.

So the question can be translated as, “does using Twitter directly affect sales?” The answer, I believe, is no. The author of the quoted blog post mentions that the user’s attitude in using Twitter is not focused on gaining commercial information, but rather “social” information of their friends, peers, colleagues, and so on.

This is a very valid point, because majority of the top ranking Twitter accounts are non-commercial, mostly owned by celebrities and politicians. Most people use Twitter to simply connect, share, and gain access to “social” information of their followers and those who they follow.

This is where the conventional definition of “advertisement” is being challenged. I think the important rule of thumb for the business use of Twitter is to not expect immediate sales outcome. It is hard to ignore companies such as JetBlue (1,121,768 followers and counting), DellOutlet (1,093,177 followers and counting), and AmazonMP3 (988,407 followers and counting) succeeding in gaining many followers and producing revenue from them. JetBlue’s most recent campaign was very successful because of Twitter.

However, Twitter should be considered more or less a CRM tool to create, improve, or maintain business-customer relationship. Because of its social nature, it would be very difficult to grasp the attention of consumers who are not seeking for those information in the first place. So when a business adopts Twitter as a marketing/PR tool, they should Tweet something from the office a couple times everyday. Upload photos of office get together and birthday parties. Ask questions to your followers and “talk” to them instead of just throwing information at them. The whole point is to have your customers feel “closer” to you, and diminishing the opacity of your business. The best way to create outcome from Twitter is to create a good social tie with your customers and increase royalty.

Wouldn’t you want to buy your products from someone you “know” better? I do. Twitter is an tool that is intended to share minimum and spontanious information to your pees, and it works extremely well to create an illusion of proximity and familiarity to who you are following. Therefore, when using Twitter, businesses should get to know their customers first. Talk to them, share with them, connect with them. Sales comes second on Twitter.

——————————————————————

広い意味での広告は、なにかを広く知らしめること。従来の意味は、商品やサービスの売り上げを促進する為になにかを広く知らしめること。この定義をそっくりそのまま当てはめると、Twitterは広告ツールじゃないと思う。なぜなら、１４０字以内のつびやきには到底限界があるから。

Twitterのユーザーは他人とのソーシャルなつながりを求めてサービスを利用していて、そこに商売が入り込むスペースは無いのではないかと上で引用したブログの著者は書いている。確かにこれは的を得ていて、このサイトを見る限りそれが裏付けされている気がする。フォロワーの上位ランキングはほとんど全て芸能人や政治家のアカウントで埋めてつくされているのだ。

JetBlue (フォロワー数：1,121,768）、DellOutlet (フォロワー数：1,093,177）、 and AmazonMP3 (フォロワー数：988,407）などのTwitterで売り上げを伸ばしている大手企業はほぼ例外に近い。

多分、Twitterは従来の広告の考え方では活用できないツールなのだと思う。

「何かを発信する⇒利益が生まれる」というモデルは、ソーシャルな目的で人々が情報を共有する媒体では成立しにくいのだ。それよりも、ビジネスはまずTwitterを利用して自分の顧客と「つながる」ことに専念しなければ行けないと思う。セールの情報やクーポンへのリンクをつぶやくだけではなく、会議の様子や飲み会の写真などをアップロードしたりするなど、もっと顧客との距離を縮めることによって、「馴染みのある○○屋さん」なるのがTwitterの正しい使い方だと思う。属に言うCRMかな。

「つぶやき」は、日々考える事。それを共有する人は、距離の近い人。Twitterを使って、堅苦しくて不透明な「ビジネス」ではなく、身近でなじみ易い「普通の人」に回帰することによって、顧客との距離を縮め、より良い関係を気付くのがTwitterの一番の活用法なのでは無いだろうか。Twitterの場合、利益は二の次なのである。

This is a new campaign for Vaio Type W. I’m assuming it is a laptop with strength in browsing the internet. I think this is a very well executed campaign in several different ways. First, and foremost, it is built on a very sturdy creative concept work. The overall theme is the “workshop” for social media addicts. I think the above TV Spot plays off that theme very well. Second, they were playful but smart to prepare individual interviews of the characters seen in the TV Spot. This adds much more depth to the TV Spot, and also gives a good reason to use YouTube –its not just a place where they upload the TV Spot for free, but also a place to enrich the TV Spot and user experience. Last but not least, the website for this campaign, http://www.stopwritingonmywall.com/ does a wonderful job in very creatively extending and encompassing the creative concept. Very well executed integrated campaign –I love it!

It’s only so funny and entertaining until reading this article…

———————————————————————–

Vaio Type W の新しいキャンペーン。今まで見た中で一番秀逸なインテグレテーテッドキャンペーンだと思う。なんかというか、とても美しく昇華されてるとおもう。まずTVCMだけど、全体のクリエイティブのモチーフである「ワークショップ」が、商品の特性とともにユーモラスに描かれている。次に、YouTubeの使い方も上手で、ただCMをアップロードするだけじゃなくて、CMに出てくるキャラクター一人一人のインタービュークリップをわざわざ撮影して載っけてる。僕はこれを見たとき、CMの世界観がもっと膨らんだような気がして、とても楽しかった。こういうプラスαのもてなし、いいよね。最後に、キャンペーンサイトがとても秀逸。わざと素人っぽい、本当にそういう支援団体みたいなサイトデザイン全体のモチーフを上手に踏襲してて、ほんとうにブレのない、美しいインプレメンテーションだと思った。ビバ！