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Track your Brand’s Twitter Buzz with a new Alert App

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And it’s free! Everyone’s favourite price!

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

A free email service alerts you about your brand (or your competitor’s brand) activity across the internet. This includes results from Twitter, making it an essential tool for any communications professional.

Talkwalker, a social listening and analytics company, today announced the launch of Talkwalker Alerts. It delivers mentions of any keyword (i.e. brand name, hashtag, competitor) across the internet straight to your inbox. The revamped product also features brand mentions from Twitter, making it the only free alerts service that delivers social media mentions as they happen.

“Social media is where the action is today. If you want to stay on top of news and social conversations about your brand or products, you have to constantly check all major social platforms. We’re trying to make that process easier for you by bringing all brand mentions from across the internet to your inbox automatically,” said Robert Glaesener, CEO of Talkwalker. “Our aim is to empower marketers around the world and help make their job easier. This is why we’ve decided to keep the tool free and make it essential for communication professionals by adding the most important Twitter results.”

Users will have access to the tweets that matter most, as the service delivers the conversations with the highest engagement. Aside from Twitter, users can also opt to receive alerts from websites (news), discussion forums and blogs. This will enable digital marketers and PR professionals to keep track of their brands and keywords online, and let everyone monitor the web for their topics of choice, with a special emphasis on social media.

Social media presents a very accurate picture of the buzz generated around a brand or a topic. Talkwalker Alerts is the only product in the market to include alerts from a major social network such as Twitter in its results, thus enhancing the value of the service considerably.

To try Talkwalker Alerts out for yourself, click on this link: www.talkwalker.com/alerts

 

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Want to Make Money Investing on the Stockmarket? Then Ignore Media Experts

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“Experts” in the media get it so wrong so often you have to wonder what’s going on.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Research shows that investing in the stocks least-favoured by analysts yields five times more than buying the most recommended.

But we often defer to experts, especially those in the media. So, we listen to them, then assume taking their stock analysts suggestions would make us better off than doing the exact opposite, right? Well, no.

Recent research by Nicola Gennaioli and colleagues shows that the best way to gain excess-returns would be to invest in the shares LEAST FAVOURED by analysts. They computed that, during the last thirty-five years, investing in the 10% of stock analysts were most optimistic about would have yielded on average 3% a year. By contrast, investing in the 10% of stocks analysts were most pessimistic about would have yielded a staggering 15% a year.

Gennaioli and colleagues shed light on this puzzle with the help of cognitive sciences and, in particular, using Kahneman and Tversky’s concept of representativeness. Decision makers, according to this view, overweight the representative features of a group or a phenomenon.

After observing strong earnings growth, analysts think that the firm may be the next Google. “Googles” are in fact more frequent among firms experiencing strong growth, which makes them representative. The problem is that “Googles” are very rare in absolute terms. As a result, expectations become too optimistic, and future performance disappoints.

“In a classical example, we tend to think of Irishmen as redheads because red hair is much more frequent among Irishmen than among the rest of the world”, Prof. Gennaioli says. “Nevertheless, only 10% of Irishmen are redheads. In our work, we develop models of belief formation that embody this logic and study the implication of this important psychological force in different domains.”

So it looks like the talking heads in the media needs to give us better advice, or we need to forget them and trust our instincts.

 

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You Will Sell More to Millennials and Centennials by Personalisation of Your Marketing

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A new report finds that nine out of ten marketers need help improving their personalisation strategy.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Personalisation is a good strategy for engaging consumers of all ages, BUT younger consumers find it especially important. Nearly half of centennials, age 18-21, (45 percent) and millennials, age 22-37, (49 percent) make purchases because of the level of personalisation within a brand’s email content, meaning that personalisation translates into revenue

This is according to a new study, which shows that two in five marketers don’t tailor their initiatives to audiences of different age groups. So, marketers potentially miss out on substantial engagement opportunities as consumers demand more customised content.

The report found that just 11 percent of marketers claim they can personalise all content. The study also found about only 27 percent can execute basic personalisation tactics, such as using a customer’s name or birthday. Another 26 percent can personalise based on browsing or purchase history, but say it’s tedious to do so. And 17 percent of marketers state they cannot personalise content because they still have trouble collecting and analysing data.

“Personalisation isn’t limited to a customer’s name; and marketers who go beyond this simple data point in order to customise communications will reap the benefits,” said Michael Fisher, president of Yes Lifecycle Marketing. “Marketers should tailor content to their customers’ habits and demographics. Fairly easy-to-implement adjustments, such as triggered campaigns and lifecycle messaging, will go far.”

Of the brands that personalise content based on age, two-thirds do so via email. Social media (38 percent) and website (35 percent) are the three channels that marketers are most likely to personalise content based on age.

“The takeaway from the data is obvious: consumers want marketers to personalise content based on their individual characteristics and attributes, and marketers still struggle to do so,” said Michael Iaccarino, CEO and chairman of Infogroup. “To alleviate personalisation woes, marketers need a partner that can help them enhance and leverage their customer data in order to improve personalisation, and as a result, increase revenue.”

Additional findings from the report include:

  • Less than a quarter of marketers personalise display (24 percent) or direct mail (23 percent) content based on customer age.
  • Driving revenue (40 percent), acquiring new customers (24 percent), and engaging customers (17 percent) are the three biggest priorities for marketers heading into 2018.
  • Only 16 percent of marketers believe millennials are most influenced to purchase by the email channel; yet 67 percent of millennials report finding email valuable when researching products.

To learn more about how marketers can personalise content by age, download the full report here.

 

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Millennials Trust Social Media Influencers Less

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By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Millennials rely on social media influencers more than ever for fashion shopping ideas and inspiration, but say they trust them less.

This is according to a Dealspotr survey of Millennial shoppers, conducted to better understand the shifting dynamics between consumers, lifestyle influencers and retailers in today’s digital economy. They say, “Perhaps more than any other industry, fashion retail has been upended by social media and the rise of digital influencers. Millennials are increasingly reliant on social media and the influencers who dominate them to curate trends, new brands, and the styles they wear.”

This year’s edition, Dealspotr’s Millennial Fashion Shopping Study, underscores some surprising shifts in Millennials’ perceptions of social media influencers. Notably, in 2017, Millennials are starting to trust influencers less than they used to. Millennials are also becoming more sophisticated in how they evaluate influencers – a previously important indicator of trust, an influencer’s number of followers, is now largely ignored by this demographic. At the same time, Millennials are now more reliant than ever on lifestyle influencers for fashion ideas and inspiration, creating a critical yet challenging landscape for fashion brands to navigate.

“Millennials now trust social media influencers more than their friends and family for fashion picks and recommendations,” says Michael Quoc, founder and CEO of Dealspotr. “However, as the influencer economy matures, brands must be hyper-aware of shifting perceptions and increasing skepticism towards online influencers when crafting an influencer marketing strategy.”

Highlights from the report:

  • Social media influencers are now the #1 factor driving fashion shopping decisions among female Millennials (41% selected as their primary influence). Lifestyle influencers now have greater impact than more traditional factors such as friends and family (37%), TV / magazines / advertisements (20%) and celebrities (19%).
  • At the same time, 52% of Millennials say they trust social media influencers less these days.
  • Millennials no longer judge influencers by their number of followers. Only 7% primarily care about an influencer’s number of followers, far outweighed by the influencer’s sense of style (60%).
  • Millennials are extremely price conscious when it comes to fashion brands. 70% of Millennials say price and value are the most important attributes of a fashion brand, above the brand’s style at 43%.
  • 36% of Millennials say the availability of a discount code is their primary factor determining whether they would try purchasing from a new or unfamiliar fashion brand.
  • 65% of Millennials primarily make fashion purchases in-store, compared to 41% who primarily buy online.

 

To download the full report, click here.

 

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Sex Doesn’t Sell Anymore… Wait… What?

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If you think sex sells, you’d be wrong. You now need to associate your product with compelling dialogue to make it appear attractive.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

So maybe a world saturated in free porn and technology has had a rather unpredictable outcome. People are craving conversation and connection in person, and not nameless faceless sex, helped along by tech. Who knew?

Plenty of Fish (POF), a dating website and app, has just released the findings of Conversation Nation, the largest survey on the topic. According to this survey, 90 percent of singles crave great conversation – not sex.

65% of both men and women of all generations believe conversation is a lost art, yet see a great conversation as the top indicator of a successful match.

Conversations should be a primary driver in how singles connect, according to the study. However, 61 percent of singles believe the rise in technology usage has impacted our ability to have meaningful, face-to-face conversations. Nine of 10 respondents identified a great conversation as the gold standard for a great date, bumping out sex by a longshot with only one in 10 opting for it. Compelling dialogue can also make someone appear more attractive, according to nearly 90 percent of respondents.

“The internet is making it difficult for people to have meaningful conversations, so technology companies need to do their part to solve that,” said Celeste Headlee, conversation expert and author. “Learning to have conversations that inspire and enlighten you is achievable.”

POF have decided to concentrate on conversation as the true measure of dating success. The company has just launched “Spark”, a new in-app feature that enables a user to easily initiate a conversation. By picking up and dragging a new conversation icon over any aspect of a potential date’s profile, users can quote and comment on any content – from photos, to anything a user has written about themselves.

“With more conversations than any other dating app, Plenty of Fish is focused on bringing conversation back to singles,” said Hesam Hosseini, CEO, Plenty of Fish. “In the short time we’ve been testing Spark, we’ve seen a 15 percent increase in conversations. Given our scale, this can result in an increase of hundreds of thousands of conversations happening every day on the app, leading to more dates and more relationships – and it is just our first step to bring the art of conversation back to dating.”

Conversation Nation Insights

The Emotion of a Great Conversation

  • Nerves run high with Gen Z. While 87 percent said they prefer face-to-face conversations with someone they’re interested in dating, a full 62 percent said they get too nervous for face-to-face. Only 32 percent of Gen X and 26 percent of Boomers felt the same way.
  • Fear of rejection (48 percent) and not knowing what to say (43 percent) are the leading reasons why singles are hesitant to start a conversation with a potential date. Of all the generations, Gen Z is least likely to start a conversation because 60 percent have a fear of rejection.

The (Lost) Art of Conversation

  • Face-to-face conversation isn’t the only lost art. Letter writing (78 percent), common courtesy (66 percent) and cursive (63 percent) are also on their way out.
  • With age comes confidence: Forty-five percent of Gen Z think they need tips or techniques to keep a conversation going, while only 35 percent of Millennials, 25 percent of Gen X and 18 percent of Boomers felt the same way.
  • Sixty-one percent believe that technology has impacted our ability to have a meaningful, face-to-face conversation, because it’s distracting (72 percent), people are heads down in their phones (65 percent), and it has just made people worse at speaking face-to-face (61 percent).

Smart + Funny = Key to Attraction

  • Nearly nine in 10 respondents have found someone more attractive after having a conversation with them, proving beauty is a lot more than skin deep. Intelligence (42 percent), having a sexy voice (40 percent), and a sense of humour (34 percent) ranked at the top of reasons people got better looking with dialogue. Gen Z and Millennials both selected sexy voice as their top pick, while Gen X and Boomers chose intelligence.
  • It does work both ways: Someone can also appear less attractive after a conversation. Having nothing in common (61 percent), coming across as insensitive or mean (58 percent), and having misaligned values (57 percent) dominated an appearance downgrade.

Tech Talk: What Constitutes a Conversation?

  • More than 80 percent of respondents agreed that a phone/voice call is a conversation, but division ensues from there.
    • Fifty-four percent said texting constitutes a conversation, particularly among Millennials (67 percent) and Gen Z (76 percent). Only one in four Boomers think texting qualifies as a conversation.
    • 87 percent of Boomers don’t consider chat apps as a conversation. A majority of Gen Z (54 percent) and 47 percent of Millennials disagree with the Boomer mindset.
    • Boomers are significantly more likely than other generations to communicate by email, while Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z prefer texting.

So if you are about to launch that sexy ad campaign, maybe you need to have a rethink. Witty and smart is the new sex, and if any of us want to sell anything, we have to take this on board.

 

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@Millennials Wary of #Twitter

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As marketers, we must be aware that Millennials are low on trust when reading the medium.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

A new study indicates young adults have a healthy mistrust of the information they read on Twitter.

Nearly anyone can start a Twitter account and post 140 characters of information at a time, bogus or not, a fact the study’s participants seemed to grasp. This is according to Kimberly Fenn, assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University.

“Our findings suggest young people are somewhat wary of information that comes from Twitter,” said Fenn. “It’s a good sign.”

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, is the first to examine social media and false memory. Participants were college students from the so-called Millennial Generation. Twitter, with 230 million users, is most popular among people in their teens and 20s.

Fenn and MSU colleagues showed 74 undergraduates a series of images on a computer that depicted a story of a man robbing a car. False information about the story was then presented in a scrolling text feed that bore a high resemblance to Twitter or in a feed from a more traditional online source.

The researchers tested whether the students integrated the bogus information into their minds, which psychologists call false memory. The results showed that when the participants read the “Twitter” feed, they were much less likely to form false memories about the story.

Fenn said the students were more mistrustful of the Twitter feed than they were of the more traditional feed.

“We propose young adults are taking into account the medium of the message when integrating information into memory,” Fenn said.

 

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YouTube scores higher with older age groups than millennials

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By Robert Elder.

Google’s recent claim that YouTube is the coolest brand in the eyes of teens and millennials looks shady in light of new survey data from BI Intelligence, which indicates that older age groups consistently perceive YouTube more positively than their younger peers do.

This is important because, for all the attention that millennials receive, baby boomers are still an attractive target market. They’re easily the wealthiest demographic in the US, representing about 50% of the country’s net household wealth, and will continue to be so until at least 2030, per Deloitte. Numbering close to 75 million people, they’re also the second-largest generation in the US, just slightly behind millennials, according to US Census Bureau estimates. For brands, the way this wealthy and populous demographic perceives YouTube can provide insight into how the platform can be better leveraged — and who they should be targeting.

Boomers are more inclined to believe that YouTube won’t serve them deceptive videos, while millennials are less sure about avoiding such content on the site. This means brands can reach older age groups on YouTube with more confidence that their campaigns will be viewed as upright and honest, so they needn’t worry as much about brand safety — or the risk they’ll be associated with content that detracts from their image. And considering baby boomers find YouTube ads less annoying than millennials do, these campaigns should be especially well received.

bii digital trust millennials are more likely to expect fake news on youtube vs boomersBI Intelligence

Older age groups are also more willing to share content on YouTube than younger folks. This indicates that, on YouTube, brands are more likely to reach an older audience that’s engaged and open to sharing content, creating an opening for uploaded videos to spread organically. There are countless examples of such successful commercials on YouTube — including Volvo’s “Epic Split” featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, viewed more than 86 million times; Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches,” with nearly 68 million views; and the legendary Dollar Shave Club commercial, which introduced the brand to millions worldwide, and eventually led to the company’s $1 billion sale to Unilever.

bii digital trust boomers are two times more likely to share on youtube vs millennialsBI Intelligence

Although YouTube ranked dead last for consumer safety in BI Intelligence’s Digital Trust survey, boomers haven’t abandoned the video site. In fact, the affinity older age groups have for YouTube makes them far more likely than younger generations to actively participate and engage with content on the platform. By targeting this mature demographic on YouTube, companies may elicit more responses to their videos and campaigns, generating conversations around their brands.

bii digital trust boomers feel safer participating on youtube than millennials doBI Intelligence

BI Intelligence’s Digital Trust survey examines consumers’ perception of major social platforms. It rates Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn on security, community, user experience, and content authenticity and shareability to help brands and marketers make informed decisions about what platforms to spend their marketing and branding dollars on. The full report will be available through BI Intelligence in May.

By Robert Elder

Sourced from Business Insider UK

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How to catch a millennial

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By Candide McDonald & Lindy Hughson.

The rules of marketing are changing fast, and as they do, packaging looks set to become one of the most important forms of media that connects millennials to brands.

Millennials don’t play by the rules. That, no doubt, contributes to the misconception that they are narcissistic, vain, selfish and uninterested in anything that doesn’t relate to their lives directly. In truth, it’s that no other generation has had so many ways to express itself. Millennials are just using what is available to explore and confirm who they are. This is, or has been, a rite of passage for everyone since moving into adulthood began.

But the fact that millennials don’t play by the traditional rules of marketing has important consequence for brands. They don’t hang out on TV, in print or on radio, because they have other options. And they’re not at all receptive to being told what they should or shouldn’t buy by brands, because they have the means to find out everything they need to know – all by themselves.

With the world’s leading tech companies, including Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, Huawei, LG, Acer, Intel, Meta, Magic Leap, and ODG, all working feverishly to make mixed reality part of everyday life in the very near future, packaging may well become one of the most important forms of media that connects millennials to brands.

Packaging that activates mixed media could become the on-shelf and in-hand catalyst that enables millennials to find out everything they need to know about brands – all by themselves, as well as being how brands “talk” to and play with millennials to get them to engage with them. But even without mixed reality’s ability to turn packaging into next-generation websites filled with 3D content that users can touch, hold, speak to, and learn from, packaging can still be the door that gives brands access to millennials’ attention.

As the founder of UK company GBH Design, Mark Bonner, puts it in his foreword to Silas Amos’s book Digital Print. A Bigger Spectrum, “Our audience is on the move and we need to move with them. Which media will they consume our [brand] story in first? Our ideas need multiple front doors. We need to catch our target in a triangulation of crossfire to get our messages heard. And no-one knows where the magic bullet will come from”.

What we do know is that for millennials, their mobile phones are the font of all knowledge, an always-on entertainment provider and the preferred means of communication (trumping verbal conversations).

That does not mean that brands have a captive millennial audience on mobile. According to an Accenture study last year, 69% of those aged 18 to 24 and 64% of those between 25 and 34, know how to block ads. Globally, 41% do it. Millennials don’t like to be interrupted, but there’s something more fundamental – the law of attraction. Beg a millennial (or anyone else, for that matter) to “come to your party” and he or she won’t want to come.

Packaging gives brands the chance to let people know they are “hosting a party” – a competition, video series, music concert, game, recipe series, background story…and provides the door that allows them to access it. That’s not begging. To a millennial, that’s cool.

CASE STUDY: Party like you mean it

Bud Light “created a party” on its packaging that resonated with millennials at Mad Decent Block Party music festival events held in the US and Canada in September 2015.

HP Mosaic software was used to provide customised shrink-sleeves for a limited-edition run of beer cans. Printed on an HP Indigo WS 6800 digital press, 31 designs were transformed into more than 31 million possible graphics, ultimately creating 200,000 unique can designs, with no two cans exactly alike.

Recounting this case study in Digital Print – A Bigger Spectrum, Silas Amos writes: “Mad Decent Block parties have a mission to bring new genres and cultures to light in the constantly evolving music world, while Bud Light’s tagline tells us it’s ‘up for whatever’. Together they wanted an ethos that would amplify their spontaneous ‘anything goes’ ethos.”

Bud Light Mad Decent Block 

“Today’s consumer is seeking unique, customised experiences,” says Valerie Toothman, VP of Innovation, Anheuser-Busch (brand owner of Bud Light). “The reaction we got at the Mad Decent Block parties proved that custom graphics are indeed an impactful and relevant way to elevate a consumer’s experience with the the brand.”

According to Jason Beckley, business development manager HP South Pacific, “HP’s ‘Mosaic’ software takes customisation to a new level, it allows for the creation of an almost infinite number of designs based on core patterns within a brands’ visual image, and which when assembled on-shelf provides an arresting display with each printed piece unique and distinctive from the next.”

Bud light cans 2

By Candide McDonald & Lindy Hughson

Sourced from Packaging News

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Millennials Spend This Percentage Of Their Food Budget On Dining Out

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Whether it’s the proliferation of great, cheap food that’s also decent for you, the pervasiveness of restaurant culture, or just the fact that after working our job and our freelance job and the other job that doesn’t pay us but we just love, you know, we don’t feel like making dinner.

A new Food Institute report using 2014 food expenditure data, the most recently available, from the United States Department of Agriculture shows that millennials spend more than previous generations on dining out, Forbes writes. We spend 44% of our food dollars, about $2,921 per year, on eating out. That’s up 10.7% from 2010 data, and more than baby boomers. That generation spent 40%, or $2,629 annually.

There are a couple of reasons for the difference. First, younger people are more likely to dine socially. An older generation means more children which means less disposable income and a higher likelihood of spending nights at home with family. Second, the rise of apps like Seamless and Uber Eats make spending money on restaurant food easy and detached from actually handing over cash. Pressing two buttons on your smartphone is considerably less effort than cooking a meal, after all. Third, boomers are married at a higher rate than millennials. More spouses means more likelihood that one spouse or the other can cook while the other works. Millennials face a much more uncertain financial future than prior generations, meaning longer work hours and a higher likelihood of dual-earner households. Practically, that means your husband won’t have a meal ready for you when you get home from work.

If you’re looking to spend less on eating out, check out our month of packed lunches or our weeknight dinner hacks.

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