When it comes to word-of-mouth recommendations for brands, it appears that good, old-fashioned in-person and on-the-phone conversations still rule the day -- at least according to research conducted by Tremor and the Keller Fay Group. Tremor, the Procter & Gamble marketing unit that focuses on the so-called "influencer" segment of the consumer base, and word-of-mouth agency Keller Fay unveiled research this week that shows that over 90% of conversations about brands occur in person or on the phone. The results were first disclosed in an article penned by Tremor CEO Chris Laird for Forbes that posted on the publication’s Web site Nov. 15. Laird and Brad Fay elaborated on the study’s findings at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association's Conference in Las Vegas the following day. In the Forbes article, Laird reported that Keller Fay recruited 32,000 participants to keep daily diaries about the conversations they had about brands over of a 12-month period. During that time those respondents had 10 times as many offline conversations about brands as online chats. Another key finding from the research was that 60% of the participants reported a “high likelihood” to make a purchase based on a face-to-face conversation. The results also showed that 67% of offline conversations are mostly positive. Laird wrote that the results showed the importance of having a “balanced” approach to word-of-mouth marketing, despite all the attention and focus on digital media and tactics. "There is no ‘mouth’ involved when you post or tweet. Digital is important but not sufficient, and brands must strive for that well-rounded plan," Laird wrote, where digital is used to “drive real world conversations and vice versa.” The marketer's task would probably be easier if brands were discussed more often online than off, just given the online tracking and response capabilities that the industry has today, Laird suggested. “It’s hard work to systemically drive offline conversations about your brand,” Laird wrote in the Forbes piece. “It’s funny that the term “word-of-mouth” can sound quaint and old-fashioned as today’s perception is that consumer engagement happens more digitally than at the water cooler.”
Kowango, a social media tool and offshoot of the Ortsbo.com's real-time translation platform, will go into private beta in about two months. The mobile application integrates location-based services with multiple language translations, and connects users with their surroundings without having to know the local, native language. Ortsbo, a software program that translates email and instant chats in real-time, provides the backbone for Kowango. And as marketers reach out to consumers on multiple continents, translation will become a key to inking that connection. "Americans have become arrogant," said Gene Simmons, KISS rock legend and Ortsbo business partner, during the keynote at the Mobile Marketing Association conference in Los Angeles Thursday. "We think everyone speaks English. It turns out that the largest broadcasters in Los Angeles are Spanish-speaking stations." For marketers that want to take campaigns global, the translation tool will allow users to find like-minded people in social networks through conversations. It could lead to influencing the buying decision in real-time, according to David Lucatch, Ortsbo.com president. We are not about turning the red into rouge," he said. "It's about the experience of getting from red to rouge." The video and chat product suite, Ortsbo, will also soon translate audio in real-time as well as text. Lucatch would not confirm the new feature, but he said: "We're actively looking into voice translation." Lucatch said Ortsbo focuses on lifestyle and experience similar to the BASF branding promotion that made the point "we don't make the colors. We make the colors brighter" rather than reinventing the technology powering the feature. Ortsbo, initially designed as an entertainment product, has five pending patents, with other applications on the way. The tool -- dubbed as the largest language translator -- supports 40 million users worldwide for free, translating since inception in 2010, about 287 million minutes of conversational text. Several commercially available programs being tested today will soon become available for a fee. Simmons stepped in as a partner earlier this year to support Lucatch's efforts. He is fluent in five languages, including English, Hebrew, Hungarian, and German, as well as some Japanese and he is working to add Mandarin. The rocker helped build KISS from a small New York City brand to a global pop culture brand icon.
Glamour Scores Social Engagement With SnapTagsGlamour’s September “Friends and Fans’ issue drove substantial social media activity for the magazine and its advertisers through the inclusion of SpyderLynk’s “Social SnapTags." The September issue of the magazine featured Social SnapTags throughout its editorial and advertising pages, encouraging consumers to join brands’ social networks. Reader engagement for this successful campaign totaled 512,339, and readers “liked” Glamour’s advertisers 50,814 times. Conversion rates for several key metrics were also higher than traditional advertising alone. For example, among readers who snapped or scanned the Social SnapTag, 67% liked the magazine or brand in order to access deals, and 18% shared those deals with friends. Advertisers in Glamour’s September issue also ran SnapTag campaigns integrated with sweepstakes, as well as promotional discounts, coupons and free samples. Here, sweepstakes and sample offers provided the highest conversion rates, at 85%, while discounts and other promotional offers followed with a 71% conversion rate. Looking to the future, Jenny Bowman, Glamour’s executive creative services director, stated: “We’ll use Social SnapTags again in our March issue, but this time, [we added] a whole new mobile shopping feature so readers can instantly shop the pages of Glamour.” Chelstowski Leaves Newsweek/Daily Beast Ray Chelstowski -- the first publisher of Newsweek/Daily Beast following the merger of the two media companies last year -- has resigned, according to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Chelstowski will be replaced by Eric Danetz, who previously served as vice president of sales for CBS Interactive. Also leaving the company are Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal and Managing Editor Tom Weber. MacKenzie To Chief Content Officer, Source Interlink Angus MacKenzie has been named chief content officer for Source Interlink Media, where he will be responsible for developing editorial, entertainment and advertising content strategies across all SIM brands. He will also lead SIM’s new automotive video group in developing programs for YouTube. MacKenzie, who was editor in chief of Motor Trend magazine, is already overseeing development of a new Google TV app that will provide automotive content for Google’s new Web-based TV service. This video-on-demand platform, developed with SIM’s in-house emerging media agency Mediaworks, in collaboration with Google, focuses on automotive news, new car reviews and road tests. MacKenzie stated: “SIM is evolving from a traditional magazine publishing company to one which creates content that connects with audiences across a variety of platforms." SIM’s Mediaworks division is also working on developing content-rich apps for Hot Rod, Truck Trend Magazine, JP, SAIL and Surfer, as well as mobile utility apps for both its brands and SIM ad clients. Also at SIM, Edward Loh was promoted to editor-in-chief of Motor Trend, which counts a print circ of more that 1 million a month and a site that attracts more than 4 million unique visitors monthly. USPS Posts $5.1 Billion Loss in 2011 The U.S. Postal Service announced year-end results for fiscal 2011, which wrapped up at the end of September, revealing a $5.1 billion loss for the year. This loss comes as no surprise, following months of high-profile hearings and congressional debates about how to save the nation’s struggling mail service. The USPS loss would have been even higher -- $10.6 billion -- if it hadn’t received a one-time waiver allowing it to put off a $5.5 billion payment into its retiree health benefits that was due earlier this year. The $5.1 billion loss follows consecutive, mounting losses of $2.8 billion in 2008, $3.8 billion in 2009, and $8.5 billion in 2010. Potential fiscal fixes being debated include cutting health and pension benefits for USPS workers, layoffs, closing mail distribution centers and local post offices, and ending Saturday mail delivery.
When it comes to word-of-mouth recommendations for brands, it appears that good, old-fashioned in-person and on-the-phone conversations still rule the day -- at least according to research conducted by Tremor and the Keller Fay Group. Tremor, the Procter & Gamble marketing unit that focuses on the so-called "influencer" segment of the consumer base, and word-of-mouth agency Keller Fay unveiled research this week that shows that over 90% of conversations about brands occur in person or on the phone. The results were first disclosed in an article penned by Tremor CEO Chris Laird for Forbes that posted on the publication’s Web site Nov. 15. Laird and Brad Fay elaborated on the study’s findings at the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association's Conference in Las Vegas the following day. In the Forbes article, Laird reported that Keller Fay recruited 32,000 participants to keep daily diaries about the conversations they had about brands over of a 12-month period. During that time those respondents had 10 times as many offline conversations about brands as online chats. Another key finding from the research was that 60% of the participants reported a “high likelihood” to make a purchase based on a face-to-face conversation. The results also showed that 67% of offline conversations are mostly positive. Laird wrote that the results showed the importance of having a “balanced” approach to word-of-mouth marketing, despite all the attention and focus on digital media and tactics. "There is no ‘mouth’ involved when you post or tweet. Digital is important but not sufficient, and brands must strive for that well-rounded plan," Laird wrote, where digital is used to “drive real world conversations and vice versa.” The marketer's task would probably be easier if brands were discussed more often online than off, just given the online tracking and response capabilities that the industry has today, Laird suggested. “It’s hard work to systemically drive offline conversations about your brand,” Laird wrote in the Forbes piece. “It’s funny that the term “word-of-mouth” can sound quaint and old-fashioned as today’s perception is that consumer engagement happens more digitally than at the water cooler.”
Kowango, a social media tool and offshoot of the Ortsbo.com's real-time translation platform, will go into private beta in about two months. The mobile application integrates location-based services with multiple language translations, and connects users with their surroundings without having to know the local, native language. Ortsbo, a software program that translates email and instant chats in real-time, provides the backbone for Kowango. And as marketers reach out to consumers on multiple continents, translation will become a key to inking that connection. "Americans have become arrogant," said Gene Simmons, KISS rock legend and Ortsbo business partner, during the keynote at the Mobile Marketing Association conference in Los Angeles Thursday. "We think everyone speaks English. It turns out that the largest broadcasters in Los Angeles are Spanish-speaking stations." For marketers that want to take campaigns global, the translation tool will allow users to find like-minded people in social networks through conversations. It could lead to influencing the buying decision in real-time, according to David Lucatch, Ortsbo.com president. We are not about turning the red into rouge," he said. "It's about the experience of getting from red to rouge." The video and chat product suite, Ortsbo, will also soon translate audio in real-time as well as text. Lucatch would not confirm the new feature, but he said: "We're actively looking into voice translation." Lucatch said Ortsbo focuses on lifestyle and experience similar to the BASF branding promotion that made the point "we don't make the colors. We make the colors brighter" rather than reinventing the technology powering the feature. Ortsbo, initially designed as an entertainment product, has five pending patents, with other applications on the way. The tool -- dubbed as the largest language translator -- supports 40 million users worldwide for free, translating since inception in 2010, about 287 million minutes of conversational text. Several commercially available programs being tested today will soon become available for a fee. Simmons stepped in as a partner earlier this year to support Lucatch's efforts. He is fluent in five languages, including English, Hebrew, Hungarian, and German, as well as some Japanese and he is working to add Mandarin. The rocker helped build KISS from a small New York City brand to a global pop culture brand icon.
Glamour Scores Social Engagement With SnapTagsGlamour’s September “Friends and Fans’ issue drove substantial social media activity for the magazine and its advertisers through the inclusion of SpyderLynk’s “Social SnapTags." The September issue of the magazine featured Social SnapTags throughout its editorial and advertising pages, encouraging consumers to join brands’ social networks. Reader engagement for this successful campaign totaled 512,339, and readers “liked” Glamour’s advertisers 50,814 times. Conversion rates for several key metrics were also higher than traditional advertising alone. For example, among readers who snapped or scanned the Social SnapTag, 67% liked the magazine or brand in order to access deals, and 18% shared those deals with friends. Advertisers in Glamour’s September issue also ran SnapTag campaigns integrated with sweepstakes, as well as promotional discounts, coupons and free samples. Here, sweepstakes and sample offers provided the highest conversion rates, at 85%, while discounts and other promotional offers followed with a 71% conversion rate. Looking to the future, Jenny Bowman, Glamour’s executive creative services director, stated: “We’ll use Social SnapTags again in our March issue, but this time, [we added] a whole new mobile shopping feature so readers can instantly shop the pages of Glamour.” Chelstowski Leaves Newsweek/Daily Beast Ray Chelstowski -- the first publisher of Newsweek/Daily Beast following the merger of the two media companies last year -- has resigned, according to The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Chelstowski will be replaced by Eric Danetz, who previously served as vice president of sales for CBS Interactive. Also leaving the company are Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal and Managing Editor Tom Weber. MacKenzie To Chief Content Officer, Source Interlink Angus MacKenzie has been named chief content officer for Source Interlink Media, where he will be responsible for developing editorial, entertainment and advertising content strategies across all SIM brands. He will also lead SIM’s new automotive video group in developing programs for YouTube. MacKenzie, who was editor in chief of Motor Trend magazine, is already overseeing development of a new Google TV app that will provide automotive content for Google’s new Web-based TV service. This video-on-demand platform, developed with SIM’s in-house emerging media agency Mediaworks, in collaboration with Google, focuses on automotive news, new car reviews and road tests. MacKenzie stated: “SIM is evolving from a traditional magazine publishing company to one which creates content that connects with audiences across a variety of platforms." SIM’s Mediaworks division is also working on developing content-rich apps for Hot Rod, Truck Trend Magazine, JP, SAIL and Surfer, as well as mobile utility apps for both its brands and SIM ad clients. Also at SIM, Edward Loh was promoted to editor-in-chief of Motor Trend, which counts a print circ of more that 1 million a month and a site that attracts more than 4 million unique visitors monthly. USPS Posts $5.1 Billion Loss in 2011 The U.S. Postal Service announced year-end results for fiscal 2011, which wrapped up at the end of September, revealing a $5.1 billion loss for the year. This loss comes as no surprise, following months of high-profile hearings and congressional debates about how to save the nation’s struggling mail service. The USPS loss would have been even higher -- $10.6 billion -- if it hadn’t received a one-time waiver allowing it to put off a $5.5 billion payment into its retiree health benefits that was due earlier this year. The $5.1 billion loss follows consecutive, mounting losses of $2.8 billion in 2008, $3.8 billion in 2009, and $8.5 billion in 2010. Potential fiscal fixes being debated include cutting health and pension benefits for USPS workers, layoffs, closing mail distribution centers and local post offices, and ending Saturday mail delivery.
Do you ever rage? I’m not asking if you ever get angry. I’m asking if you ever rage. I’m asking if your stomach ever clenches into a ball the size of a mandarin, if your guts fill with bile and acid, if you can no longer hold onto your coffee cup because your hand is shaking so hard and the only solution that can possibly satisfy you is to throw it through a window or at someone. I’m asking if your world ever contracts to admit nothing but the fury of this second, if you feel you’re breathing through a straw and if you suddenly cannot hear anything but the blood rushing in your ears and the incredible bass drum of your heartbeat. I’m asking if your mind ever gets so stuck on the enormity of the wrong you have suffered that you cannot focus on a conversation, a movie, a concert, sex. I’m asking if your yoga practice and your meditations and your affirmations have ever deserted you so abruptly that they left skid marks, leaving you instead a phenomenally unenlightened, vengeful, wrathful soul, meditating instead on the idea that a slow and painful death would be far too merciful for the perpetrator of the monstrous injustice against you. We have all been there, and we all have our ways of getting through it. You might gently close your laptop, step away from the computer, and turn the violence inside you loose on a pillow, or a couch, or a bed. You might find a trampoline or a bounce house and jump until you are spent. You might find a place some distance from other people and scream. But here is what not to do: don’t put it on social media. Don’t put it in an email. Don’t tweet it, or blog it, or instagram it. In minutes, or hours, or days, that rage will pass. But your wall post will live on, a permanent reminder of how much, in your weakest moment, you are capable of hatred -- and that is not a beast you want to nourish. A public record of the event dignifies neither you nor the recipient. It serves no purpose other than to entertain a small group of rubbernecking voyeurs on the sidelines -- or, if your rant is good enough and makes it to Lamebook, a significantly larger audience of rubbernecking voyeurs on the sidelines. Rage belongs firmly in the private sphere. It should be let out of its cage only amongst close friends and trusted confidantes: people who will remain calm in the face of your personal storm, who will let you rail against your enemies and talk you off the ledge and never judge you when those enemies once again become your friends. Gently close your laptop. Step away from the computer. And return when you can breathe again. You’ll be glad you did.