Perspectives 2012

E • URN S YD BO N EL E M Y • •RE ACTIVE LONDON • • AU K R CK YO LA D N NEW •

Welcome to Perspectives 2012,Reactives inaugural collection ofdigital viewpoints from around the world If 2011 was a year of radical change, get ready for the Year of the Dragon — where the major trends from last year reach mainstream maturity (mobile, Pinterest, the cloud) and new ideas leap into view. The topics covered within Perspectives 2012 are varied, a reflection of the breadth of the digital world we ﬁnd ourselves in. We explore the creative (campaigns, search marketing), technology (Sitecore, hardware, responsive design) and strategic (eCommerce, agency evolution, social media) aspects of the ever-evolving digital landscape. With investment from marketers continuing to migrate from ‘traditional’ channels (such as radio, newspapers and TV) towards digital, it’s more important than ever to understand the relevance of emerging trends to your business (and not simply jump on the latest fad). We hope that the articles within Perspectives 2012 will spark an opinion. Please share these with us via our Twitter page @reactivemedia. Tim O’Neill Co-founder and Joint Managing Director 01

~ Chapter One ~ Respon- sive design Written by Bradley Grinlinton Managing Director UK The holy grail for cross-platform customer engagement? If 2011 was the year your customers grew comfortable engaging with brands via mobile then 2012 will almost certainly be the year they do so with tablets. Over Christmas alone, tablet traffic to Web sites in the UK grew to 8% as iPads, Kindles and other tablet devices topped Christmas shopping lists across the world. At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2011, major tech giants launched their new tablet offerings to the world with no less than eight significant new devices entering an already crowded market (currently dominated by the iPad). This tablet-boom means that you will be engaging with a more connected customer than ever before and one who now has yet another way of interacting with your brand. This customer will most likely be well experienced in connecting with brands via mobile and web channels and as a result, will be more demanding of the user experience presented to them via tablets. This increased fragmentation of devices presents some interesting challenges for your brand and how to best engage with your customers. Current thinking dictates that you would build something specific for each device used by your customers. This can be extremely costly and time consuming both to setup and maintain. Alternatively, you can simply choose the most popular devices to target and dismiss the remaining portion of your target audience to an inferior user experience. However if you use ‘responsive design’ it doesn’t have to be this black and white.02 03

Visit the web Chapter One ~ ~ site at: theclub.ba.com Responsive design provides forward-thinking brands with an extremely cost-effective way of creating engagement.So what is responsive design? What types of projects are suited to a responsiveIn a nutshell, responsive design involves creating design approach?a design that responds to a user’s behaviour and Responsive design works really well for this sort of longenvironment. If a user accesses a responsive Web site form editorial content and allows us to bring a magazineon their laptop and then switches to the same website style look to traditional web pages regardless of how aon their iPad the Web site should automatically tailor user is viewing them.itself to the screen size and technical capabilities of theiPad. The same principle holds for smart phones or any It’s also great for micro sites and campaigns, especiallynon-Apple tablet devices too. In short, you can create a those with a user-response component. A user whoWeb site that is smart enough to respond to a customer’s receives an email promoting a campaign via theirpreferences for interacting with your brand without the mobile or tablet device can click straight through toneed to build something new for every new device that an experience that’s optimised for their device, greatlycomes on the market. It’s already being used by some increasing their likelihood of buying, signing-up orpretty big companies including our client British Airways. whatever the goal of the campaign may be. DesktopResponsive design in action… We’ve also been using responsive design on a number ofBritish Airways approached us to create a new monthly our more traditional Web site design projects to quicklydigital magazine for members of their Executive Club and easily add a mobile or tablet optimised site without aloyalty magazine. large increase in cost. Tablets Smart phonesThis is an audience of regular travellers who are very Really, responsive design will work well for more or lesslikely to be accessing content and information on the go all but the most complex of Web applications.and includes a large number of mobile and tablet users. Are there any downsides?Currently the majority of digital magazine publishing is If there’s a downside to responsive design it’s that notdone using platforms that rely heavily on the use of Flash every device in a category will display your Web site inwhich is incompatible with the majority of these devices exactly the same way. For users of some older or less common devices, this can lead to a more frustratingEven the platforms that use HTML5 to address this user experience. However, as device and browserincompatibility tend to rely on apps for delivery of content technologies continue to improve and clear market- limiting their reach to a select number of devices. leaders for each device establish themselves, this willProducing a monthly magazine with such a broad user become less and less of an issue.device profile would have been both cost prohibitive andseverely limited our reach. So is it the Holy Grail or not? It’s probably a bit too soon to say if responsive designUsing responsive design, we were able to address these is or isn’t the holy grail of customer engagement but asissues and deliver the magazine, titled The Club, to the device fragmentation drives some big brands into thisbroadest possible number of British Airway’s members. space in 2012; it will certainly start to become a lot more mainstream. For now though, responsive design providesThe adjacent images show The Club across three of the forward-thinking brands with an extremely cost effectivemost common member devices (you can check it out for way of creating engagement with a much broader rangeyourself at ww.theclub.ba.com). Remember all of these of their customers than is facilitated by a more device- Vertical Landscape Vertical Landscapeuse the same designs, code and content with the website specific approach to design.simply responding to the capabilities of each device.04 05

SALES FUTURE INSIGHTANALYTICSSERVICESCHECK ROIGETED CHATTER VOICE PEOPLE TARGETED REVIEWS SEND ~ Chapter Two ~ RECOMMEND TWEETS TWITTER BUZZ SOCIAL POLITICAL AGENDA CENSORSHIP AUDIENCES ENGAGE LISTENING SHOPPING FEED RSS TWEET PR TWEETERS RATE DISCUSS TRADITIONAL INSIGHT TWITTER BEHAVIOUR EA TING REVIEWS Filtering out Listening in the social media space can serve as the noise T h e F u t u r e o f S o c i a l L i st e n i n g a warning system or quick litmus test on how consumers are feeling about your brand. PR ENGAGE LISTENING INSIGHTS SHOPPING RSS TWEET RATE DISCUSS TWEETERS TARGETEDAUDIENCES CHATTER F E E D CENSORSHIP SOCIAL POLITICAL AGENDA Written by Christopher Buettner better understand their consumers. That’s most social listening is immense. More consolidated platform being used to monitor conversations in the Director of Operations at the Society of Digital Agencies a very significant percentage given that efforts need to be made to tie social efforts to clear social media space does not facilitate such linkages and (www.sodaspeaks.com) social listening is an analytics field that is still business goals. analysis, then it’s time to look elsewhere. very much in a nascent state. The burgeoning Over the past few years, the number of social TARGETED interest in this area makes sense. Brands want As Phil Mui, Group Product Manager, Google Analytics, The good news… there are a few tools in the market that listening tools hitting the global marketplace has to know what consumers are saying about their mentioned during a panel discussion for The SoDA do have an increasingly robust analytics component mushroomed at an incredible pace. Brand-side category, their competitors, their brand and/or their Report, “there are so many tools (and so many built in, and that bodes well for this emerging area marketing organisations and many digital and PR specific product/service offerings, and these tools hold methodologies) for social listening that nobody knows of analytics. However, there are countless others agencies have jumped on the bandwagon, adding the promise of providing a window into the prevailing the right way to measure anything…the best social that struggle to provide anything more than a quick conversation analysis and social listening as new thoughts and opinions of consumers. analytics tools will be the ones that are directly tied to temperature check or simply a regurgitation of anything offerings within their Measurement/Analytics/Insights business efforts and ROI.” and everything being said. As a result, I have no doubt practices. It is truly an awesome thing to be able to amass that we’ll see a great reduction in the number of social consumer conversations across hundreds of thousands Listening is a critical life skill regardless of the forum, media listening tools over the next two years, coupled Social listening initiatives essentially revolve around of sources on a particular brand or topic. However, be it in face-to-face conversations, social media or any with an increase in the number of human analysts compiling and analysing online conversations happening one thing has become clear to me when considering other vehicle for communication. And listening in the working in this field to generate actionable insights for across a broad range of social channels such as Twitter, the onslaught of social media monitoring tools in the social media space can serve as a warning system or agencies and brands. Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn, blogs, YouTube and marketplace. There is an acute need for best practices quick litmus test on how consumers are feeling about myriad other networks where consumers are engaging to be defined for social listening (both from an analytics your brand. However, listening is not enough. To filter with businesses and brands. perspective and a technology perspective) for such out the noise and generate strong insights that will drive efforts to generate strong return on investment for decision-making, brands and agencies need to do the In SoDA’s 2012 Digital Marketing Outlook Survey brands. All too often, sweeping conclusions are made work of defining how their social media efforts tie to the SoDA is an international association of respected digital marketing published in The SoDA Report, over half (54% to be from too small a volume of conversations — leading company’s overall business goals up-front. agency leaders and entrepreneurs with a history and a vision for the exact) of the client-side digital marketing leaders to a myopic view of how consumers think or feel future of marketing. SoDA’s membership includes 60 leading digital responding to the survey said they had added social about a particular brand, product, service or initiative. Regardless of the technology, the role of the human companies and agencies (including Reactive) all around the world. listening to their menu of research approaches to Additionally, the chasm between data and insights for analyst in this process is critical. But, if the technology 06 07

~ Chapter Three ~ Mobile MØney How the growth of NEAR FIELD COMMUNICATION tools is changing the way people use money Written by Marina Kosmatos Marketing Manager Retailers need to ensure they turn up the volume of their mobile strategies.Move over eCommerce, mCommerce has stolen the like Square and Google Wallet are doing this for Tech sites like to proclaim a war between Square and This has been a PR problem that Google Wallet didn’tshow and is leading the way in terms of remaking new customers every day. Google Wallet but the easiest way to define both services want, it has enough high profile partners like Citibank,the way people shop. With more consumers than is that Square has always been for small businesses and MasterCard and merchants like Subway and Americanever turning smartphones into shopping aids, Square is a mobile payment system that allows adds a new feature to old technology. Google Wallet is Eagle to weather this small storm.mobile technology is encouraging retailers to look retailers to accept credit-card payments through a targeting already established retail giants and promotingfor innovative ways to enter into a relationship with mobile phone. new technology to the consumer. And unlike Square, mCommerce is not about the channel, but about thepotential customers. Google Wallet hasn’t set the world on fire…yet. customer. The technological advances mentioned are Created by Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey, Square reflective of how control of shopping has shifted from theWe’re getting closer to the point where wallets is growing at rapid speed. In December 2011, it Google Wallet is an app that lets you pay for things using retailer into the hands of the customer, literally.become obsolete. New payment services have announced that over one million merchants are now your phone, either by typing your credit card numbers oremerged that enable people to buy, sell and pay using Square to accept credit cards. loading up gift/prepaid cards. Retailers need to ensure they turn up the volume ofpurely from their smart phones, and are stepping up their mobile strategies and be in a position to offer theirthe mobile-payment push. The value of Square for small business owners was Using an NFC enabled mobile phone (such as the customer a great shopping experience whether they are obvious from inception. Square offers flat pricing, Samsung Galaxy Nexus), you tap a PayPass terminal at home, instore, or on the go.A record number of U.S consumers turned to their regardless of the type of transaction or size. to pay. Google claims there’s a lot of security built intosmartphone during ‘Black Friday’ in November Unlike merchant accounts, Square does not have a the NFC chip, which stores and transmits credit card The time to move on mCommerce is now.2011. Digital retail services provider GSI Commerce per-transaction fee, making it ideal for businesses information.reported a 254% increase in mobile-based sales like coffee shops, cab drivers and market vendors.compared to 2010, while PayPal also experienced The NFC antenna is turned off when the screen off, so ita 516% year-on-year increase in global mobile But now, big companies like US phone carrier can’t be ‘scraped’, and the secure element is only turnedpayment volume, with the number of consumers T Mobile and Walmart are getting on board. Even on when the wallet is unlocked and enabled for payment.shopping via PayPal mobile services growing 371% US President Barack Obama is using Square to However in February 2012, a bug was discovered in theand 148% compared with the average Friday. accept fundraising donations. While the service NFC chip which enabled anyone who held your phone hasn’t appeared in Australia yet, we’re eagerly could access your money. Google suspended the saleWhile PayPal mobile services can record big awaiting its presence. of new prepaid cards for a couple of days while the bugnumbers during holiday sales, payments services was being fixed.8 09

~ Chapter Four ~ Centralised Platform VALU HE T OF E Multi-Site China Australia IM ON PL EMENTATI UK Japan USA This chapter was sponsored by Benefits of a multi-site solution: Julian Gilchrist, Solutions Architect at Reactive, has Multi-site management provides support across worked with multi-site implementations on many projects, many sites from a single centralised platform. including most recently, Cricket Australia’s Big Bash League. Using Sitecore, Cricket Australia are able toAn increasing number of companies are When to use multi-site? The ability to reuse rich content easily and across manage 22 sites, each technically consistent yet visuallyoperating in a multi-national, multi-locational or If your sites have similar content, architecture or multiple sites is a time-saver for admins. distinct. The solutions has enabled Reactive and Cricketmulti-brand environment. functionality, it is beneficial to use a multi-site solution Australia to build and launch a digital presence for the as it saves developer time and money by replicating CMS licensing may offer a one-time fee for multiple new Big Bash League and team pages inside of 10Marketing and IT managers have to balance the demands sites of similar content. licenses, saving money in the long run. months, resulting in over three million page views in a fewand costs of the business while maintaining quality and months. Julian says:service to their customers. This can be problematic and Does your site need shared functionality? Multi-site Easy management of the centralised platformincrease production, and time costs. enables information from one Web site to be easily enables content admins with a range of skill sets to Using a multi-site CMS has provided a structure that shared with others and can also standardise design engage with the CMS. makes it incredibly easy to reuse content and shareIf you are a large company with multiple, related Web elements across multiple Web sites using a parent code across multiple league and sites. In turn, thissites, an option is to install a multi-site solution, which theme. Another benefit of multi-site is content security, reduces our development costs and increases ourcan deliver real savings of time and money in the critical for any organisation. Managers can restrict flexibility to be able to adapt to all client’s requirements.development of your project. Delivery of multi-lingual content for global brand content authors to access specific content — good recognition. For example, Sitecore makes it possible for when you’re managing a team spread across If a multi-site capable CMS such as Sitecore seems like itFor some agencies (including Reactive), Sitecore’s Web for editors to work with the CMS in different native disciplines and/or locations. is the right system for your needs, Reactive can guide youContent Management system is an appealing choice languages; as a result Web sites can be built in any to the solution for your company’s needs.for building and managing multiple Web sites. However, language. The management of the many language Allows you to adjust caching and site performancethere are some considerations to take into account versions of the Web site can also be easily coordinated on a site-by-site basis.when evaluating if a multi-site solution is right for your and managed.organisation; Maintains brand identity across multiple sites.10 11

~ Chapter Five ~ The best social media 2012 will be the year of the hashtag campaignsof2011 campaign for competitions and brands. At Reactive, we’re always on the lookout for innovative social media campaigns that we can learn from and incorporate into solutions for our clients. We asked Grant Flannery, Account Director, his opinion on some of the best social media campaigns of 2011 and his predictions for the year ahead.Coca–Cola “Share a Coke” Platform Corona Light Campaign Volkswagen Jetta campaign What are your predictions for 2012?Facebook – Branding and sales Facebook – Branding and awareness Twitter - Social experimentwww.shareacoke.com.au (The campaign has ended and the page has been taken down) www.anything4jetta.com I think that 2012 will be the year of the #tag campaign, for competitions and brand launches. The level ofCoke decided the best way to sell their product this Corona had one goal of their 2011 strategy and it was This tackles my current favourite social media platform engagement we have seen over the past year with Twittersummer was to personalise for consumers. They did this to, “become the best light beer in America”. Suffice it to Twitter. It’s my new Google for searching articles. has been phenomenal and continues to grow. I thinkby releasing 150 names on all cans and bottles of Coke say, it’s a fairly large goal. Corona designed a Facebook hashtags are a nice, simple way of engaging consumersso you could, ‘Share a Coke with a friend’ page that encouraged fans to like the beer and Corona as Volkswagen’s strategy for the New Jetta was to launch on-the-go and allowing them to download their thoughts a brand. In response to a fan’s ‘like’, Corona would put the #anything4jetta campaign. Volkswagen asked fans to in short time frames with low level barriers to entry.Coke developed a Facebook app to support the launch of your Facebook picture in bright lights at New York Times tweet what they would do for a free Jetta. They set up atheir new Share a Coke with…campaign. The Facebook Square, and you could win a trip to Mexico. There was Web site specifically for the #anything4jetta contest. This Facebook recently launched new Timelines for brands,app includes designing a can, entering your name to be in big value for the fan in liking the page. was the hub for tweets to be posted and updated in real which I believe will allow companies to become morethe next batch and sending videos to friends with songs. time, innovative with their Facebook page and really show off The campaign received significant traffic when fans their rich history. shared the page with friends. In November 2011, Corona The Web site had carefully selected tweets that were encouraged fans to visit New York and get a photo of posted in real time. So you could follow the contest and Another social media phenomenon is Pinterest, which themselves in Times Square. see if they were named as the winner of the new Jetta. allows you to create your own ‘pinboards’ of things you love from anything on the Web - with a click of a button. Brands have been quick to adopt this and Pinterest is on track to become one of the fastest growing social media platforms of 2012. I’m also interested in the rise of social shopping. There are a few great companies in this space like thefancy.com and nuji.com. Nuji is similar to Pinterest with rewards and discounts from stores for participation. So what did these campaigns do right? They demonstrated how a clear message coupled with creativity achieves excellent social media results. Let’s see if 2012 is just as impressive.12 13

~ Chapter Six ~ Tracking the impact Sales still reign supreme, but the discoverability of content via search, social analytics and social listening of digital marketing conversation analysis are all rising in importance. Q. What effect have the following sources of information had Results are from the 2011 Digital Marketing Outlook study conducted by SoDA and its research on your business strategy in the last 12 months? partner, Econsultancy. The survey includes budget, industry and media trends based on answers from 650+ digital marketing professionals from brands, agencies and production companies. ♦ Strong effect ♦ Some effect ♦ No effect  The SoDA Report Q1 2012 – Digital Marketing Outlook 70% 65% 60% 55% 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% Sales Data Digital Campaign Web site Reporting Search Reporting Integrated Campaign Social Analytics Listening Audits/ Mobile Site/ App. Tools that Measure Online Branding Studies Tools that track your Tools that track your Homescan Programs Performance Reporting Reporting Conversation Analysis Reporting Internet and Digital Competitors’ Traditional Competitors’ Digital (All Media Types) Media Audiences Marketing Activity Marketing Activity14 15

~ Chapter Seven ~ Behavioural Case study Thomas Jewellers methods for boosting your Thomas Jewellers, purveyors of exceptional quality diamond jewellery, introduced remarketing tags to their web site in November 2011. As of March 2012, the audience list now exceeds 37,000 people. Over a one-month campaign the results were as follows: • Over 1.2 million ad impressions. • A conversion rate from showing ads to the remarketing audience of 19.37% clicks to entries. Reseo recently ran a Google AdWords Campaign to • Conversely the conversion rate from the standard Marketing Effectiveness promote a competition designed to help grow Thomas Google Ads Campaign clicks to entries was 6.7%. Jewellers eDM list. We served ads, (both text and • The results show that much higher conversion rates banners) to the remarketing audience as well as are experienced when people have previously been to non-audience members to entice them to enter into the your web site and see your advertising messages. Written by Chris Thomas competition. Chief Search Engineer, ReseoRemarketing, when conducted properly, is one of the For example, if you have a Web site which sells different Reseo customers use remarketing ads for a variety of The key benefits of remarketing are:most powerful online marketing methods available. coloured widgets, you create an audience list of people reasons including: • Your lost customers come back. who have previously visited the Blue Widgets section of • eCommerce • You can offer different products to lost customers.Also known as behavioural advertising, Remarketing the website, and another separate audience list which Encouraging people to return and buy.allows you to show advertisements to people who contains people who have previously visited the Red • You can introduce new products to current customers.have previously been to your Web site. In many ways Widget section of the website and so on. • Lead generation • Your Web site (and brand) stay top of mind.Retargeting is a lot like email marketing. Encouraging people to come back and subscribe to • It’s extremely economical to set up and implement. something. Then it’s a simple matter of serving ads about blue • The return on investment is very high.Many of Reseo’s ‘early adopting’ customers have widgets to the blue widget audience and ads about red • Ticket salesbenefited enormously from utilising Retargeting widgets to the red widget audience list. Encouraging people to buy tickets to sporting events.advertising through Google’s Remarketing Platform, • Campaign supportwhich is integrated with Google AdWords. Aside from tracking clicks and conversions from Reminding people about, as well as to act on a Remarketing ads, another key benefit of Remarketing current campaign.Simply put, Remarketing involves placing audience is the ability to track what are known as ‘View Through • Competitionsscripts in the source code of a Web site. When someone Conversions’. Encouraging previous visitors to enter a competition.visits the site, a ‘cookie’ will be dropped on this visitor’scomputer. This allows marketers to then show display • Sales These are conversions where a person has been exposed Telling previous visitors about a current sale.ads across Google’s vast network of partner websites, to a Remarketing ad but hasn’t clicked it, but still come Reseo is a full service Australian Onlineencouraging these same visitors to return to the site. back to the website to convert anyway through some • Product updates Marketing agency which helps clients to grow other channel. Informing people about new or updated product and compete through industry-leading digitalFor our retail (B2C) and B2B customers we’ve seen models. solutions. We offer a full suite of servicesextraordinary success from people returning from Conversions allow you to see the indirect effects of • Branding from Search Engine Optimisation (SEO),Remarketing ads; with conversion rates as high as Remarketing advertising in terms of recall and brand/ Keeping their brand top of mind for customer recall. Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media19.75%. product/service awareness. Marketing, Conversion Optimisation and Web Analytics auditing, configuration and reporting.But really, the key to a successful Remarketing campaignis to create highly segmented audience lists. www.reseo.com16 17

~ Chapter Eight ~ Written by Marina Kosmatos Marketing Manager Pinterest a visual bookmarking site that lets people collect potential for launching new campaigns. The retailer asked and share images online via a virtual pinboard, is growing Pinterest users to create boards titled ‘Spring ModCloth rapidly and everyone — especially retailers — are taking Wedding’ and then add pins according to various themes notice. such as ‘Something vintage’, ‘A lovely location’ and ‘ModCloth bridesmaid dresses’. Users who participated The appeal of Pinterest is that it’s an easy way to visually were eligible for a cash prize. keep track of things that inspire and appeal. It connects people all around the world based on shared tastes and Whole Foods, a food supermarket chain in America, uses interests. Pinterest to enhance their brand image. Their inspiration boards feature categories that are relevant and of interest With Hitwise reporting that user visits from Pinterest have to foodies. Boards like ‘Edible Celebrations’ and ‘We’re The Power of increased a staggering 4,000% in the past six months, the used to Reusing’ engage their audience around issues site is rising past those like Google+, driving more traffic that matter to them. By community building (and not self- to US eCommerce sites and becoming the next social promoting), Whole Foods positions itself as authentic by commerce game changer. This translates into significant creating boards that are central themes for the Whole new opportunities for retailers who are engaging Foods brand. with Pinterest. Retailers can use Pinterest to leverage how It’s another threat for brick and mortar stores their brand is valued by users; the best images to deal with. While online retailers are quickly will instantly be re-pinned, commented on or for Online Retailers seeing its potential as internet users adopt Liked, and retailers can begin to understand content curation. What’s special about the sentiment behind purchase choices. Pinterest in the social, commerce sense is The influential data that Pinterest collects is that the act of ‘pinning’ adds a social layer to extremely valuable to retailers as it can be used the eCommerce experience (without having to to build ʻbrand profilesʼ. Experts are arguing that the download a branded app). site enables hyper-optimised supply chain management, essentially selling these brand profiles back to the brands. The best way for retailers to gather fans on the site is to It may be another nail in the coffin for the brick-and-mortar maintain the visually appealing style of their ‘boards’ store but offers a winning solution to online and multi- on Pinterest and let the products do the talking. Curate channel retailers. boards based on new arrivals or inspiration for the season and make sure your ‘pins’ are relevant to your audience. Pinterest is a great way for consumers to engage with US department store Nordstrom is building up a sizable brands and offers a tremendous opportunity for retailers following on Pinterest with their catalogue-like boards and to monitor the styles and products that customers actually point users to their customer service team for more info want. For retailers looking to take advantage of this platform, www.pinterest.com/nordstrom. take some time get a feel for what the user responds to and what they do. By maintaining the visual cues of the site, and Online retailer ModCloth joined Pinterest in September taking care to ‘play nice’ as sign up to Pinterest asks, you 2011 and the site is already one of ModCloth’s top (unpaid) can use Pinterest to develop the image your brand wants referral sites in terms of traffic and revenue. According to portray and take customer engagement to the next level. to ModCloth’s Alicia Barnes, ModCloth has 7,000 pins on Pinterest and growing, and “99% of them are from Some of my favourite brands on Pinterest are: advocates of the ModCloth brand and, products”. West Elm http://pinterest.com/westelm Gap http://pinterest.com/source/gap.com In January 2012, ModCloth was one of the first retailers to Oscar PR Girl http://pinterest.com/oscarprgirl launch a themed competition on Pinterest, recognising its18 19

~ Chapter Nine ~ The savviest of marketers are already engaging with tablet users. What does CES mean for marketers? Written by Tim O’Neill Co-founder and Joint Managing DirectorThe annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicked Opera TV Store announced. like it’s not available for brands yet, once they open it of Android 4.0 for marketers is the ability to scale theoff in Vegas in 2012 and gadget obsessed digiphiles The line between television and the Web is blurring as up, it will allow a whole new wave of opportunities for screen so the apps designed for mobile can still workhave been hotly predicting what new innovations will Opera has unveiled a TV-based app store, promising a social media marketing. on the tablet without losing functionality reducingbe unveiled to the public. These new gadgets could “completely different way to experience TV”. The app development costs.well be the next big things and as marketers, we should store will offer HTML5 apps, including Facebook and According to comScore data released in October 2011,recognise the ever-growing value that technology has on Vimeo and can run on internet televisions, set top boxes 1.2 billion people watched over 200 billion online videos. This is a big win as there are new possibilities for appthe marketing landscape. and Blu-ray players - and can be enabled via standard There’s no doubt that online video marketing is on the functionality and a wider audience of people to engage remote controls. The fact that it is all HTML5 based is rise and it looks like SnapCuts could potentially assist with apps. Information Week’s MDM research showsLet’s take a look at how marketers can leverage certain important as it means that regardless of the TV, users in making your brand’s video go viral like never before. that tablets are on track to join laptops as a criticaltechnologies that have been unveiled at CES to reach can access the store and its apps easily, providing the View it at www.snapcuts.com platform for telecommuting workers and the savviest ofand target consumers in new and different ways. user with a Web-like experience on their TV. This cross- marketers are already engaging with tablet users. View platform technology is more valuable than creating New Android 4.0. it at www.android.comTobii lets users control technology with their eyes. custom apps for different systems. For developers, it One of the most celebrated announcements to comeThe standout on day one of the conference, Tobii provides an easy way to create and distribute apps for out of CES is the launch of the ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ These four examples are some of hundreds coming outannounced revolutionary technology that allows people use on TV while for marketers it helps distribute their (otherwise known as Google Android version 4.0). It of CES, and it’s easy to become overwhelmed with thisto stare at a computer screen, and just by looking, content to a greater audience without losing Web-like delivers a refined user-interface for phones and tablets flood of information. We suggest marketers focus on theswipe through screens, press small buttons and change functionality. View it at dev.opera.com/tv and adds powerful innovative features. In 2011, sales technology that is relevant to your brand today, whilescreens. They call it, “gaze interaction” and judging by of Android smartphones surpassed Apple’s iPhone keeping an eye on the bleeding-edge developmentsthe hype, it could go mainstream very quickly. It works by SnapCuts. according to Gartner research but Apple’s iPad has which could become main-stream tomorrow.shooting near-infrared lights at your eyes, and uses two On a much smaller scale, but just as relevant to Android tablets beat.IR cameras to capture, “the reflective point of retina plus marketers, SnapCut debuted at CES to considerablethe glint off the cornea,” according to a CNET report. This interest. It’s a new platform taking ‘social video The launch of this new mobile operating system lookspresents marketers with more intuitive and immersive messaging’ to a whole new level by enabling users set to shake things up. One of the main concerns ofways to engage viewers and also provides them with to create videos (with the assistance of a library of Android tablets was the shortage of tablet-optimiseduseful info on how a user interacts with their Web site. professionally edited clips) and share with their family and apps. They usually had to be stretched, effectively it wasView it at www.tobii.com friends across a variety of social networks. While it looks clear that they didn’t scale. One of the biggest benefits20 21

~ Chapter Ten ~ The technologies 58 % 52 % 46 % digital marketers are most 26% 15% 33% 15% 32% 22% excited about Mobile Phone Applications Tablet Applications Html5 Q. Of the technology trends that are currently or soon to be available, 40 % 36% 38% which are you most excited about for your marketing efforts? ● Excited ● Intrigued ● Neutral 34% 25% 33% 31% 31% 31% Experiential Technologies/Platforms Internet Tv/Enhanced Broadcast Digital Technologies at POS Mobile and experiential technologies (such as HTML5) 37% 39% 42 % are top of marketers minds for 2012. 35% 28% 34% 28% 31% 27% Near-Field Communications Social Gaming Applications Gesture-Based Computing Results are from the 2011 Digital Marketing Outlook study conducted by 47 % 41 % 39% 43 % 34% 36% 35% SoDA and its research partner, Econsultancy. The survey includes budget, industry and media trends based on answers from 650+ digital marketing professionals from brands, agencies and production companies. 27% 27% 25% 25% 22%  The SoDA Report Q1 2012 – Digital Marketing Outlook Location Based Technology Large-Scale Digital Installations Micro Transactions Augmented Reality22 23

~ Chapter Eleven ~ Brooklyn, New York West End, London United States of America United Kingdom Auckland New Zealand Fitzroy, Melbourne Written by Tim O’Neill Australia Co-founder and Joint Managing Director Surry Hills, Sydney AustraliaAs the world of digital advances daily, it’s interesting In a tough recruitment market, agencies are increasingly My business partner (Tim Fouhy) and I are Kiwis, and this I believe that over the next two years, as budgetsto consider how digital agencies from Down Under are looking abroad. Many agencies are actively recruiting was a driving force behind opening an office in Auckland, continue to move from traditional media to digital,evolving compared to those from the UK and US. staff from the UK and NZ, whose weaker economies New Zealand in 2009. The NZ agency world is small Australian and New Zealand digital agencies will continue make a move to Australia attractive. There is also an and close-knit, with many companies employing less to thrive and take a more prominent role on the globalMelbourne (Australia, not Florida!) is where Reactive was increasing appetite for building dedicated off-shore than 10 staff. This (and the Kiwi culture) leads to a lot of stage. I also expect more local digital agencies willborn, and we’ve been in business here for over 14 years. teams in Asia (China, India and Indonesia are popular). collaboration, and ultimately allows some of these smaller expand into the US and UK markets, and also into Asia.We have since opened offices in Sydney, Auckland, agencies to be true creative hotshops, creating amazing As this happens, no doubt the gap in cultures will close,London and New York. We opened our Sydney office six years ago, and have work that punches above its weight. NZ has an interesting but with luck the uniqueness of each region will stay since grown the team to 20 staff. Advertising agencies cultural heritage, which often shines through in creative intact and shine through in creative and innovative work.The Global Financial Crisis in Australia was mild in Sydney tend to have larger digital teams than those ideas — ideas of small scale but large ambition.compared to the rest of the world, with a short, sharp in Melbourne, and are fiercely competitive — with eachdownturn that rebounded quickly thanks to Government other and with specialist digital agencies. The battle for Services offered by digital agencies down-under arestimulus and a fortunate mining boom. As a result, good talent is on. a close match to our International friends, as goes thespend on marketing services recovered within a year growth areas (such as mobile and social). The smallerand the focus on digital continued apace. It would be Perhaps there’s something in the Bondi water, as Sydney budgets of Australian and New Zealand marketers mayno exaggeration to say the past two years have seen a agencies are usually the big winners at awards shows. hurt local agencies’ chances in the International awarddigital boom in Australia, with several of the larger digital I recently judged a digital awards show, and the best shows such as Cannes and the Webbys, but doesagencies doubling in size over this time. work was from Sydney agencies. This can be attributed ensure a stringent focus on effectiveness — with the to scale and budgets, rather than creative talent — best agencies ensuring every dollar is well spent. AsNaturally Melbourne’s hot-bed of demand has led to the majority of large brands with the healthiest digital such, agencies from Down Under are well positioned toa digital skills shortage, which is one of the biggest budgets live in The Harbour City. bring this rigorous and disciplined approach to US andchallenges facing agencies of all kinds. UK brands.24 25

~ Chapter Twelve ~ 2012 represents a turning point for Australian retailers with companies needing to genuinely understand the business of online retail in order win the battle for the retail shopper. The role of research and development: Walmart set up their eCommerce division Lessons from Tesco in the heady days of the ‘dot com boom’ in December, 1999. In the UK, Tesco is another leader in multichannel retail. Tesco have been client of Reactive’s for over five years, “Rather than having a few guys in a room down the hall so when Nick Lansley, Head of R&D for Tesco.com from the people who are running the stores business… visited Australia for the Online Retailer Conference last Walmart formed an eCommerce division out in Silicon year, we took the opportunity to chat with him about Valley. A true start-up in every sense, except we the challenges of shaping a multichannel strategy for a had the backing of Walmart” says Steve Nave, the major global retailer. recently departed head of Walmart’s, eCommerce and multichannel business who was instrumental in the Lansley’s lesson was about the role research and launch, growth and development of the unit. development takes in a truly world-class retailer. A key advantage of this approach was the ability to His remit is to identify the opportunities that technology, create a new culture of innovation that operates outside Written by Stephen Foxworthy new user behaviour and customer research bring, and of the constraints of the existing IT infrastructure, Strategy Director then to develop projects that investigate solutions that systems and processes of the larger retail organisation, would improve the customer experience, efficiency or while still being able to draw on the buying, pricing and intelligence of the organisation. merchandising experience of the parent. But this isn’t innovation for innovation’s sake. The disadvantage of this approach is the typical ‘silo’Walmart and Tesco, two of the largest retail behemoths with new responsibilities. Once the online businesses approach to online that most retailers know only tooin the world, contrast sharply with the approaches had launched and grown, they then integrated the units “A lot of the project work I do in R&D is testing well – with the Web site being a completely separatetaken by Australian retailers in developing world-class and worked towards building a true multichannel retail unknowns, or trying out new ideas that fulfil one or unit leading to customer service issues, such as a lackmultichannel experiences. business. ideally all of those three words – Better, Simpler, of integration between online and in-store capabilities. Cheaper” says Lansley, “Better for customers, simpler This is an issue still facing most Australian retailers.How can Australian retailers accelerate the growth of This approach of creating new units, investing in them for staff, and cheaper for Tesco.”their online sales by learning from the long experience of as lean start-ups, running them with appropriate skills Walmart’s experience is instructive to Australian retailersretailers such as these from overseas? (that may not have existed internally), and effectively The results of this approach yield competitive embarking on more full-featured eCommerce – the letting them ‘off the leash’ to develop as quickly as advantages for Tesco that other retailers can only admire aspiration for Walmart is now “One continuous channel”,The approaches that Walmart and Tesco took in possible has many advantages. and emulate. It’s a pure R&D role that spans the entire this is possible because the rapid growth of sales anddeveloping their eCommerce capabilities in the business. revenue now justifies the investment in integration.early days of online are still instructive for Australian The most important being speed-to-market, anretailers. Both established separate divisions and ran acknowledgement that ecommerce requires new skills, Some of the challenges Lansley faces daily are dealing “There’s an important word in that statement, and thatthem as start-up businesses – hiring in the new skills and the freedom to grow without the constraints of the with the terabytes of customer and sales data flooding is aspiration. Because I firmly believe you will never getand resources required to build up experience and broader business. into Tesco, the expanding role of mobile and new devices, there,” says Nave, “If you think about a world where youcapability rather than burdening existing employees and entirely new platforms such as connected TV. can shop wherever you want, whenever you want, and26 27

Short-term objectives or limited resources guarantees a slow road to proﬁtability and growth.however you want - you will never finish that journey. for many Australian consumers as to what an onlineBut it’s a great path to be on and that’s what Walmart’s retailer should be. And most Australian retailers arefocus is.” failing to come even close to those expectations.Walmart has now embedded online at the heart of their Catching-Up:retail strategy. Creating initiatives such as Walmart Labs, Approaches for Australian Retailerstasked with developing innovative retail concepts acrossthe whole organisation, and launching entirely new store For Australian retailers to become truly world-class, amodels, such as Walmart Express small format stores, number of pieces need to be in place.with online services at their core. Retailers need to invest for the future – Funding anWalmart.com is now the largest business to consumer eCommerce team with limited budgets, short-termmultichannel business in the USA. objectives or limited resources guarantees a slow road to profitability and growth, (as every future decision by Learning from the pure-players: management is coloured by underwhelming historical Lessons from Amazon sales performance). Its better to plan for longer-term results and invest accordingly, there’s no avoiding sellingFor any traditional retailer, the threat of pure-play online online so ask yourself what would you invest to makeretailers has become very real, very quickly. Amazon. your Web site your highest performing store?com is a great example of a business with a single-minded focus on the customer experience - yielding eCommerce is different to retail – Selling things onlinegrowth and profits traditional retailers can only dream of. is very different to selling things on the High street. The Thoughts? pace of retail decision-making increases enormously,The biggest lesson from Amazon is about the level of as does the threat of competition and price comparison. Tweet us @reactivemediainvestment it takes to become a leader in eCommerce. The use of data, personalisation and technology is or find us on facebookAmazon in its early guise was funded to win and grow highly specific. Don’t expect your existing team to bemarket share, not to generate short-term profits, and it overnight experts - make sure your online retail teamnow invests billions of dollars on ensuring they remain in is experienced at selling online and has learned tougha leadership position. lessons elsewhere, not on your time.“We will continue to make investment decisions in light Technology moves fast, so be flexible – Continuousof long-term market leadership considerations rather improvement is the key to eCommerce success, ratherthan short-term profitability considerations” said Jeff than out-of-the-box solutions that promises to doBezos in his famous letter to shareholders of 1997. The everything. It’s important to build the flexibility into yourmessage remains as valid today. technology and team to adapt to new directions quickly, and cheaply.Amazon typically plan in five-to-seven-year timeframes,and reject short-term views of their business coming What should retaliers expect for thefrom financial analysts. coming year?This is a crucial difference between Amazon’s success 2012 represents a turning point for Australian retailersand the failure of many major Australian retailers online. with companies needing to genuinely understand theA lack of investment from local retailers in developing business of online retail in order win the battle for theworld-class online solutions has encouraged Australians retail shopper. With brand recognition and physicalto shop overseas, simultaneously bruising the bottom distribution already giving Australian large scalelines of local retailers, and raising the bar for the retailers a natural advantage, it is time to invest in onlinecustomer experience. The relentless focus on delivering capabilities and even rethink pricing strategies, in orderconvenience, service and value to consumers from to compete for the online shopper.online retailers such as Amazon has set the benchmark28

http://aql11.com	36
http://phibious.tumblr.com	35
http://tadd31.tumblr.com	29
http://thitime.tumblr.com	26
http://flavors.me	20
http://safe.tumblr.com	18
http://www.linkedin.com	3
http://ssr.minidns.net	3
https://twimg0-a.akamaihd.net	1
https://twitter.com	1
http://boutofcontext.com	1
https://abs.twimg.com	1

Perspectives 2012

by Reactive

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

12 Embeds 174

Statistics

Perspectives 2012 Document Transcript