October, 2012 - Servant of Chaos

Asian Connections: Embracing the Digital Trajectory

China Rising, Digital Strategy, Facts & Figures, Media, Mobility, Social Media

Fifty four percent of the world’s population lives in Asia. That’s 3.7 billion people. And according to We Are Social, Singapore’s recent report, Asia is home to over 1 billion internet users – 80% of whom use social media (see full report below).

The numbers are impressive. And yet, they tell only part of the story.

The most compelling aspect is the trajectory of digital consumption across Asia:

New internet users every month: 11,350,000
Videos watched (in June 2012): 45,000,000,000
New Facebook users each month: 10,000,000
Mobile internet users now outnumber PC-based internet users in China: 388 million vs 380 million

Consumer Adoption is Disrupting Patterns of Media Consumption and Impacting the Buyer’s Journey

The shift to digital in Asia is characterised by the widespread use of mobile and smartphones. Almost half of the people in Asia are willing to make transactions on their mobile phones (43%). And 60% of internet users in Asia use social media to inform purchase decisions. This combination is impacting not just the top end of the marketing funnel but various points across the buyer’s journey.

Digital Adoption Will Drive Marketer’s Thirst for Mobile Solutions

Given that more than half of Asia’s population is under 30, marketers seeking to engage these high spending, younger audiences will need to develop new digital approaches.

However, with 82% mobile penetration across Asia – and a growing population of mobile internet users – digital approaches should increasingly follow a Mobile First with a Social Heart strategy.

Marketers Will Turn to Marketing Automation to Scale Execution

While digital and social media marketing promises one-to-one conversations with customers, the rapid growth in the population of “Connected Consumers” challenges marketers’ capacity to scale. As a result, marketers will begin turning to marketing automation vendors to provide personality rich brand communications at scale.

The Shift to Digital Requires a Re-casting of the Marketing Funnel

While the information in the We Are Social report focuses on Asia, we are seeing similar shifts in markets the world over. Marketers can no longer rely on past practices as a relevant method for predicting future outcomes. Forward thinking marketers will need to begin rethink their understanding of their consumers from the outside-in. This will require a re-casting of the marketing funnel.

Look for my upcoming report CMOs: Re-casting the Marketing Funnel for Consumer Engagement, available for free later this month to all Constellation Research clients. Want to know more? Email me.

We Are Social’s Guide to Social, Digital and Mobile in Asia (2nd Edition, Oct 2012) from We Are Social Singapore

Go Where Others Don’t – The Digital Newsroom of Medecins Sans Frontieres Australia

Activism, Case Studies, Digital Strategy, Good Works, Media, Social Media

There is a lot of talk about brands becoming publishers – as if it was a simple transformation achieved by the stroke of a budget making biro. But what does it really take?

In Australia, Medicins Sans Frontieres or “doctors without borders” aim to put this to the test.

Médecins Sans Frontières is the world’s leading independent organisation for medical humanitarian aid, providing relief after natural disasters, helping victims of conflict and running emergency feeding programs. Working in war zones much of their work happens far from the eyes of the world.

And while MSF are known as a “below the radar” organisation – this poses real challenges for sharing stories, building awareness and engaging with potential sponsors, donors and the interested public.

For the month of October, MSF TV aims to address this challenge head on, creating a digital newsroom to bring stories directly to the public. There are:

Seven channels of video content aimed to stimulate conversation
Conversations amplified through the #msftv hashtag on Twitter
Live updates and headlines from around the world
Interviews from those on-the-ground
Hosted debates on Facebook and on MSF TV
YouTube channel with an archive of episodes and issues from the MSF TV site

The rise of digital opens new opportunities for brands to go peer-to-peer

Marketers generally think in terms of business-to-business or business-to-consumer communications. But the rise of digital has changed the landscape. It’s not one-to-many but one-FOR-many communications. The old B2B and B2C distinctions are crumbling under the weight of social media – with communicators now working in a peer-to-peer conversation.

Very few organisations have followed this path thus far. It’s complicated, challenging and exciting. MSF and their partner agency, Republic of Everyone, are trailblazing. They truly are going where others don’t. But we can only expect more to follow.

News Analysis: Google Takes on Financial Services

Disruptive Technology, Financial Services, Future of Your Brand, FutureVisions, Social Media, Strategy, The Social Way

In the UK, Google is set to launch a new financial services division with a new credit business the first product to market. As Adam Clark Estes reports, the initial offering will provide businesses with a small line of credit linked specifically to Google’s AdWords program.

A number of items within the announcement are worthy of attention:

It’s a new product within a new division of Google
The plan is to expand to countries beyond the UK in the “next few weeks”
Credit cards will be issued with very competitive rates

Why This Is Important

Financial services is a fresh field ready for disruption: Disruption in the financial services sector has been a long time coming. The sweeping tide of digital has washed through most sectors but has been held back from regulated sectors like financial services, healthcare and pharmaceuticals. Innovators are seeking a way into these lucrative markets
Google understands speed to market: Many industries rollout new offerings over extended time frames. It can take years for innovations in one national market to reach another. Google’s intention clearly intends to move very quickly to cement a foothold
The loan book is the thin edge of the wedge: As I suggested at a recent personal lending conference, disruptive competition is likely to come from outside the financial services industry. Cash Converters in the UK last year saw 154% growth in their personal loan book; in Australia they experienced a not insubstantial 28% growth. This is not about bit players – it’s about trends – and there is a wave of change coming. Google plan to be surfing this wave

The Bottom Line: Connected Consumers Shift to Where their Sense of Trust Takes Them

Despite advertising and branding blitzes over the previous 24 months, most financial services companies are viewed with suspicion by many of their customers. Long term lock-in has allowed FS companies to claw back GFC losses and to grow. This move by Google (and the accompanying announcement by Amazon) will capture the imagination of Connected Consumers – the tech savvy early adopters of a disaffected consumer world. Google has been building trust with Connected Consumers for years, turning every search result, every click and every app login into a brand experience. This may be the first step in what could truly be a transformative monetization strategy.

Your POV

Would you take a loan from Google for AdWords? What about cash? Where do you see this leading? Add your comments or send us an email.

Please let us know if you need help with your digital strategy efforts. Here’s how we can assist:

Assessing social business/digital marketing readiness
Considering new digital community strategy
Developing your social business/digital marketing strategy
Designing a data to decisions strategy
Create a new vision of the future of work
Deliver a new customer experience and engagement strategy
Crafting a new matrix commerce strategy

Five Must-Read Posts from Last Week

5 Must-Read Posts

It feels a bit like back to the future this week – but with a touch of foresight!

Most of the must-reads that I have pulled out of the thousands of articles skimmed, checked and read last week come from those writers that I was most influenced by in my early blogging days. To this day they produce quality insight and actionable thinking. And if you don’t already subscribe to their feeds, do so – you’ll be glad you did.

There is a lot of talk about social business – but much of it centres on the topic of technology. But we all know there’s much more to it that this. David Armano explains technology will only solve 1/3 of your social business problem
Almost anything you read on Quartz, the recently launched “digitally native news outlet” is worth reading. With content defined by “obsessions” rather than “beats” you are bound to find more than you bargained for. This article on the diminishing returns of Facebook’s next billion users shows where the attention of the social media behemoth will need to shift
I have long been a fan of John Seely Brown and his thinking on the subject of social learning. This animated highlights package from one of his recent talks – cultivating the entrepreneurial learner in the 21st century – is jam-packed with goodness
Olivier Blanchard dismembers a recent Forrester report that was reported with the catchy headline “Forrester: Facebook and Twitter do almost nothing to drive sales”. The problem with bad science suggests Olivier, is that it can lead to poor strategic decisions. Read, learn and think
Case studies can be brilliant for your content marketing – yet so many of them are written so poorly. Drew McLellan explains there are seven keys to compelling case studies

#PMdigital–The Australian Prime Minister’s Digital Forum

Uncategorized

On Friday, October 5, the Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, hosted a forum on the digital economy. Streamed via the web it brought together business leaders, academics, politicians and small business owners. Through out the day, speakers returned to the themes that are driving change in our lives – what we refer to as the five forces of the consumerisation of IT. PLUS the need for skills and training – ways to impact the culture of business, drive change in our workforces and prepare our teams for the future of work.

This storify captures and curates the topics from the day.

You Had Me at Hello–20 Tips for Social Media Engagement

Social Business, Social Media

“I don’t have time for that”.

How many times have you heard those lines? It is often the first reaction to a new technology. It is the cold fish, slap-in-the-face of the overwhelmed. The desperate cry of the overworked.

Many times we let technology get in the way. It can confuse us or stop us from trying something new. Its first appearance looks like more work, more effort, more stress. More of everything that is bad.

But when we look back at improvements in productivity, technology is, without a doubt, the driving force. It has made our lives better – reducing boring, repetitive tasks, improving the speed of our decision making and delivering lightning fast, global communications to our desktops, fingertips and pockets. And yet, for many of us, new technology stops us in our tracks. After all, we are not all “early adopters” eager to try, use and show something new.

Often when we say “I don’t have time for that”, really we are saying, “I’m tired of this relentless change. I’m comfortable with the way I work. I’m good at it and I am busy doing what I am already doing.” In the end it appears to be change for technology’s sake.

But if the world of social media has taught us anything, it is that technology can also be transformative – it can change the way we do things. And it can change the way we think about things. It can change our attitudes.

But where do you start? This great 20 tip playbook from Salesforce Radian6 brings a decisively human element to the technology conversation (and I am not just saying this because I am mentioned in it). And while the focus is social media – this same approach can be equally applied to any communication challenge that you face. After all, it’s not about the technology – it’s about the people. Start by saying hello.

20 Ways to Succeed in Social Media Engagement from Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Trust and the Marketer

AgencyWorld, Future of Your Brand, Social Judgement, The Social Way

Consumers have always suspected marketers. Of something.

But this “something” has always been elusive. Hard to pin down.

In the back of the mind of most consumers, there is a small voice – a remnant of our evolutionary instinct – that warns us of a potential risk, a trap. The limbic system is part of our pre-verbal brain that we commonly refer to as “gut instinct”. And because it works without language, we are often challenged to put these feelings into words. As a result, we are left with a sense of mistrust. Something vague. Indiscernible.

But the limbic brain is also the space of creativity. It is the place of imagination and symbolism. And it is the essential playground of the marketer.

Each day, as consumers are bombarded with 3000+ messages, it is the limbic brain that acts as a first level of defence. Most droll pieces of advertising or communication are discarded – with only the most creative and most relevant breaking through.

These days, marketers have to work even harder to cut through the noise and confusion. It’s not just about creativity. It’s also about psychology, human behaviour (change) and analytics. We need to cover all four.

Over the last few years, Australian TV show, Gruen Planet, has peeled back the layers of the mysterious advertising onion. It has laid bare the role of planning and strategy, creative, copy, image and production. Blogs like Adam Ferrier’s Consumer Psychologist provide insight and analysis into what people buy and why they do so.

Infographics like the one below, provide a neat way of understanding some of the techniques used in advertising – but my limbic brain also tells me that we need a different approach now. Sure these approaches will continue to work – but we need to go further. We need to build a different kind of marketing – one that does not set off the limbic alarm bells. We need to address the deficit of trust experienced by consumers.

What if we could create marketing with a purpose (not marketing with a cause). Imagine what that would mean for our customers. Imagine what it would mean for our employees.

And imagine what it would mean for the marketing industry.

Sound dangerous? Don’t worry, it’s just your limbic system acting up.