Top Holiday Retail Stats

Image from AdWeek

Mobile news doesn't end after reports project that mobile will push digital ad dollars past TV by 2019. Mobile continues to lead holiday trends as well.

As we approach the 2014 holiday season, mobile will continue to see an increase in usage and commerce. Previously, mobile (smartphones specifically) were thought of as the utility-based device, but now, commerce can occur just as you're watching TV or in between doing the dishes.

Smartphones and tablets will account for $1.6 billion in sales on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, according to Adobe. Some additional stats to note are below, with the full article found here.

• Holiday shopping will lift 10% compared to last year
• 25% of US consumers surveyed will consult Social Media before purchasing gifts
• This increases to 40% of consumers aged 18-34
• There will be 5 times as many out-of-stock messages on Cyber Monday compared to usual
• Cyber Monday sales expecting to be $2.6billion, increase of 15% YoY

Urban Outfitters Launching Beacons In-Store

The millennial focused retailer is loading up 15 stores with beacons, Bluetooth technology that communicates with smartphones,  that will ping messages and notifications to shoppers who have downloaded the UO App.

Image from AdWeek.com

The company is rolling out the beacon technology to Android users first, as they state more of their customers use the Google-powered devices. 

What will the beacons do?

• Plug into the Urban On loyalty program, which delivers shoppers rewards and exclusive access.
• Focus around the checkout line, fitting rooms, and the entrance.
• When a user enters the store they will be prompted to check in via social to unlock an offer.
• By the fitting rooms, users are encouraged to share photos of themselves wearing products with #UOonYou for a chance to be featured on their website.
• While at checkout, they may be prompted to show their loyalty card in-app to earn digital badges.

However, the beacon technology will not aggressively push coupons and offers.

This is a big effort to extend their loyalty and social experiences in-store with mobile. You can learn more about the beacon roll-out here. 

Always Going Viral #LikeAGirl

A new video has us all asking ourselves, “What does it really mean to run, jump, throw Like A Girl?”

This video, similarly to the success of other branded female empowerment campaigns like Dove’s “Real Beauty” ads, has gone viral with over 34 Million YouTube views to date.  As part of a larger #LikeAGirl campaign, Always is looking to empower females by sharing a social experiment caught on tape. Brands alike can learn from this campaign’s initial success in hope of creating future viral success, online.

Some learnings brands can take from this campaign:

• Creating Opportunities to Expand Brand Loyalty

o   While this video is advertising to women and adolescent girls, they are also directly talking to younger girls who may not buy their products for a few years. Without calling out their products, Always does a great job creating an authentic and emotional connection with young girls which is critical to brand awareness and affinity for later in life.

• Work produced from a key consumer insight should be authentic and emotive, so consumers feel connected to the work

o   In a study from Research Now, sponsored by Always, found that more than 1/2 of the girls surveyed claimed to experience a drop in confidence at puberty

• Integrated Media Campaign

o   As a result of using paid search, paid social, YouTube Ads as well as PR and social sharing to help capitalize on the potential for the video to go viral.

• Incorporate a hashtag

o   Using an overarching hashtag, #LikeAGirl, helped generate and aggregate conversations around the campaign

• Using influencers to help spread the word

o   Influencer outreach via earned media played an important role in gaining momentum and exposure around the video being released, including highly viewed publications like The Washington Post.  

When strategically used together, a powerful consumer insight, great work and key influencers, can transform one video into a social movement gaining momentum from consumers who are viewing, sharing and talking about the work.

This culmination of these items can be used together to initially gain exposure and conversation around a creative campaign and increase the potential of going even more viral.

To learn more how this video is making waves, click here.

At Cannes, Search & Native Ads are Hot Topic

At Cannes, multiple digital trends and optimizations are being discussed by the likes of Marissa Meyer of Yahoo, and Nikesh Arora of Google. Their statements look to change the way the ad industry looks at digital and mobile.

For instance, Meyer and Yahoo announced the integration of Native Ads from Tumblr to Yahoo on Tuesday, and why native ads are considered the future of display:

• Viewers of native ads are 3.6 more likely to perform a branded search than viewers of traditional display
• 46% of millennial who noticed branded content say they consumed it
• 1/3 of those millennial shared the content

Additionally, Arora stated that search is “only 5% of where it should be.” With the standardization of mobile platforms (iOS and Droid) and the global scope of the digital connection, there is a lot more opportunity for search. Beyond smartphone devices, search can still exponentially increase as new mobile devices begin to enter the market, specifically Google Glass.

For more information, please see the articles below:

Search is Only 5% There

Digital Needs to Get Past Its Discomfort with Native Ads

Yahoo to Bring More Ad Formats to Tumblr

Pinterest Finally Launches Promoted Pins Beta

After several months of testing, Pinterest launched their promoted pins pilot program last week with a small group of advertisers.
















As demonstrated in the photo, the ads will:

• Functionally act like a native pin
• Appear in users’ search results and category feeds
• The promoted pins will also always appear in the top row of the results
• Contain a “sponsored” tag on the pin

Although commitment costs are high, and targeting functionality appear a bit sub-par, at this time:

• Pilot program runs about $150k/month with a required media investment for 6 months
• Targeting is limited to location, language, gender and device 
• However, this is expected to evolve along with the ad product

Looking forward to see how these perform or turn some brand lifts/ROI.

Key Moments in Social Media

After a great Social Media Week panel with the likes of Social Code, Livestream and BuzzFeed, we heard a lot of the same stuff: 

Social TV is not going away. Users are engaging with live TV events (like Super Bowl, award shows, sports, etc) while on social within their mobile devices.

• We should be selective for the events in which we engage on live events
• For Example:  Pepsi only held a live event war room for the Grammy’s and Super Bowl as they have a larger presence for these events. It gives them more of a reason, and more content to work with, when engaging on these programs.

Listen to, and think like, Customers:

• Become more “Data Driven” but with the right data points based on campaign KPIs
• Continue to join existing conversations, rather than creating your own so we can become a part of the community
• Evaluate if you would share your branded content as a user first - if the answer is no, don't publish it!

But, some information is nice to hear again as a reminder for brands: 

Think moneyball strategy for content strategy with 3 types of content:

• Evergreen strategy: maintain the “always on” organic posts that support the brand and marketing goals (long tail)
• Seasonal strategy: Layer in relevant content to join the existing conversations
• Real-time integrations: Plan around a tent-pole moment and react to real time moments (like Sponsorship opportunities)

Content has a shelf-life. Revisit it and repurpose it when we can:

• Think about the platform shelf-life:
• Twitter = 2-3 days
• Facebook = 5-7 days
• Instagram = 5-7 days
• Pinterest = 60-90 days
• Some evergreen content can be repurposed – evaluate how to optimize and bring back to the platforms especially if the content worked well the first time

Follow me at @CourtRache for some more live moments for the last day of SMW!

Twitter & TV are Better Together

As we look back on the success stories for this year’s Super Bowl ads, it’s apparent that TV and Twitter can be extremely powerful when used together.

Through recent Twitter studies and articles we found that:

• 31 total hashtags were used in 57% of nationally-run Super Bowl ads, up from 50% last year, according to #Hashtagbowl 
• #Hashtags in TV ads drive positive brand conversations 
• TV ads that featured hashtags had 42% more Tweets about the ads than those without hashtags 
• Additionally, Esurance asked TV viewers to enter their #EsuranceSave30 sweepstakes on Twitter to win an extremely enticing prize. Esurance accrued 3 Million tweets, with 200,000 coming in the first minute after the ad aired.
• The success is tied to both, a great prize and the tie of Twitter and TV 
• Twitter keeps viewers tuned in to advertising 
•  The use of Twitter while watching TV, decreased the likelihood of users changing the channel while watching the ad 
•  Twitter makes TV ads more effective 
•  Viewers who watched TV without a second-screen had an average TV ad recall of 40% while those who watched TV while using Twitter, had an ad recall of 53%, as shown below

This research helps drive home that using hashtags in ads should be a best practice. When this combination is used with large scale events, like the Super Bowl, it is beneficial for both brands and viewers.

To learn more about this Twitter study and why TV and Twitter are better together, click here. See the full infographic below: