Captivating Connections.

about teens (by a teen).

Here's yet another reason nobody should ever dismiss today's youth:

"A research note written by a 15-year-old...has become the talk of middle-aged media executives and investors.

Morgan Stanley’s European media analysts asked Matthew Robson, one of the bank’s interns from a London school, to describe his friends’ media habits. His report proved to be 'one of the clearest and most thought-provoking insights we have seen. So we published it,' said Edward Hill-Wood, head of the team."

The 'kid' even got an invite to Sun Valley, where "Mr Robson set out a sobering case that tomorrow’s consumers are using more and more media but are unwilling to pay for it.

'Teenagers do not use Twitter,' he pronounced. Updating the micro-blogging service from mobile phones costs valuable credit, he wrote, and 'they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their tweets are pointless'.

His peers find it hard to make time for regular television, and would rather listen to advert-free music on websites such as Last.fm than tune into traditional radio. Even online, teens find advertising 'extremely annoying and pointless'.

Their time and money is spent instead on cinema, concerts and video game consoles which, he said, now double as a more attractive vehicle for chatting with friends than the phone.

Mr Robson had little comfort for struggling print publishers, saying no teenager he knew regularly reads a newspaper since most 'cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text' rather than see summaries online or on television."

You can find the full report here.

ultimate cocktail contest.

So I’ve just received word about Bar Artisanal’s cocktail contest. For those of you who think they could pick up a second job as a mixologist, this one’s for you.

 

Check out the rules here:

 

Amateur mixologists and cheese lovers alike (who are at least 21 years) should send an original cocktail recipe that pairs well with cheese for a chance to have their cocktail featured on the Bar Artisanal cocktail menu and win $200 gift certificates for each of the Artisanal Group restaurants: Bar Bar Artisanal, Artisanal Fromagerie, Bistro and Wine Bar, and Picholine.

 

Submission Deadline: 5pm July 30, 2009 via Bar Artisanal’s Facebook page or contest@barartisanal.com.

 

Final Judging: 4pm July 30, 2009. Mixologists at Bar Artisanal will prepare the cocktails for a panel of judges to include Terrance Brennan, Chef-Proprietor of Artisanal and Bar Artisanal; Robert Haynes-Peterson, The NY Drinks Examiner; Tony Hightower, Co-Editor of Cocktailians; Jason Miller, Artisanal Group Beverage Director; and Dave Arnold, Director of Culinary Technology at The French Culinary Institute, who will rate the cocktails based on taste, appearance and originality to select a winner.

 

Information: www.barartisanal.com

 

If you decide to enter let us know what your concoction is!

mobile buyer's guide.

How great is this?

"The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has released its first-ever Mobile Buyer's Guide, a primer for marketers and agencies seeking a starting point for buying mobile advertising.

The wide proliferation aof smartphones, coupled with users' growing appetite for mobile interactive experiences, has yielded unique marketing opps for advertisers in this realm, the IAB said."

IAB's Mobile Buyer's Guide includes:

• An analysis of the US mobile advertising market
• An audience breakdown and ad options for reaching each separate segment
• Definitions for mobile display and messaging campaign metrics
• An explanation on how to buy mobile display and messaging campaigns
• Common codes and methods for activating mobile campaigns from traditional media efforts
• Examples of different ad executions

consumer still leary of private label when it comes to their kids & pets.

It's common knowledge that private labels brands are increasing in popularity, especially as trust in their quality increases.

However, according to "a recent survey conducted by ICOM, a division of Epsilon Targeting...many consumers are drawing the line when it comes to their children and pets.

Well over half (59%) of respondents to the online survey, conducted in May, indicated that they've switched to store brands to some degree for food and household products during the past six months. Nearly half said the same about their own health products (48%) and personal care products (also 48%).

In contrast, just 12% reported some shift toward private label within child care products, and 23% within pet care products."

Why pets and children? Clearly, children are the most important things in the world to parents, and often pets are seen as children-esque or family members. Some people aren't willing to take the risk.

So what's the takeaway for you? "National brands that understand the psychology behind private label purchasing decisions -- who's switching and why -- and tailor their promotions and incentives accordingly will be more effective at winning back consumers than those that use 'scatter-shot, one-size-fits-all offers.'"

mobile banking increasing in popularity.

According to comScore, "Mobile banking is on the rise, thanks to the proliferation of 3G networks and smartphone handsets, and they're quickly becoming a go-to source for a quick check of one's accounts.

For the most part, they're widely connected. Nearly two-thirds of mobile bankers send text messages, compared with 45% of non-users. Mobile bankers are also more inclined to belong to and use social networks than non-users, [Kevin] Levitt (a vice president at comScore) says. 'They're much more engaged in the medium than non-users,' he says.

Mobile bankers are using their devices, it seems, as a way to quickly check or monitor their accounts, rather than for making large transactions. According to the report, 31% of mobile bankers are accessing their accounts from home, even when they have an Internet connection and a laptop available. 'It's easier than firing up your laptop and logging in,' says Levitt. 'Understanding that context helps financial institutions from a positioning standpoint.'"

the multifaceted relationship between bloggers and brands.

There has been a lot of research and press recently regarding WOM and how people can be influenced both online (Via social media) and off. Many of those articles you can find on this blog. The NYTimes featured an article this weekend looking at bloggers, and the spheres of influence they often have, which is why many "marketing companies are keen to get their products into the hands of so-called influencers who have loyal online followings because the opinions of such consumers help products stand out amid the clutter, particularly in social media."

It's also looking at the controversy surrounding it:

"The proliferation of paid sponsorships online has not been without controversy. Some in the online world deride the actions as kickbacks. Others also question the legitimacy of bloggers’ opinions, even when the commercial relationships are clearly outlined to readers.

And the Federal Trade Commission is taking a hard look at such practices and may soon require online media to comply with disclosure rules under its truth-in-advertising guidelines.

A draft of the new rules was posted for public comments this year and the staff is to make a formal recommendation to be presented to the commissioners for a vote, perhaps by early fall.

'Consumers have a right to know when they’re being pitched a product,' said Richard Cleland, an assistant director at the Federal Trade Commission.

Yet in many ways, the hypercommercialism of the Web is changing too quickly for consumers and regulators to keep up. Product placements are landing on so-called status updates on Facebook companies are sponsoring messages on Twitter and bloggers are defining their own parameters of what constitutes independent work versus advertising."

What do you think? Are there blogs or posts you've seen that are questionable, verus blogs or sites that you trust for reviews and suggestions?

social video marketing.

AdAge has a great video looking at the rise of 'social video' marketing, using Samsung's 'HD Camera Phone Trick' as the case study.

About:

The technique of "social video" -- the use of video as the central organizing element for social interaction and storytelling online -- is beginning to demonstrate its power. In this second part of our "About Digital" report on the latest trends in viral video, we analyze Samsung's "HD Camera Phone Trick." That YouTube clip was created and produced for Samsung Mobile by London's Viral Factory. Its traffic and engagement patterns were tracked and analyzed by Visible Measures. They may tell us a lot about the future of online advertising.

how web 2.0 and new media impact the news cycle.

This is quite interesting:

"For the most part, the traditional news outlets lead and the blogs follow, typically by 2.5 hours, according to a new computer analysis of news articles and commentary on the Web during the last three months of the 2008 presidential campaign. Picturing the News Cycle

The finding was one of several in a study that Internet experts say is the first time the Web has been used to track — and try to measure — the news cycle, the process by which information becomes news, competes for attention and fades."

So, what did they find?

"The researchers’ data points to an evolving model of news media. While most news flowed from the traditional media to the blogs, the study found that 3.5 percent of story lines originated in the blogs and later made their way to traditional media. For example, when Mr. Obama said that the question of when life begins after conception was 'above my pay grade,' the remark was first reported extensively in blogs.

And though the blogosphere as a whole lags behind, a relative handful of blog sites are the quickest to pick up on things that later gain wide attention on the Web, led by Hot Air and Talking Points Memo.

The Cornell research, like so much of the data mining on the Web, does raise the issue of whether something is necessarily significant just because it can be measured by a computer — especially when mouse clicks are assumed to represent broad patterns of human behavior."

bing goes after yahoo.

Not bad, Bing:

"Bing, the new Microsoft search engine, captured slightly more United States searches than Yahoo in the first eight days of June, according to StatCounter Global Stats, a firm that tracks Web use. That is a milestone for Bing, whose share of the search pie has been slowly rising since it was unveiled on June 3.

During June, Bing increased Microsoft’s share of the search market by 1 percentage point, according to StatCounter, which tracks the number of times users click on search results, rather than the number of searches run. Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter’s chief executive, said it was common for search engines to briefly surge after being introduced, as did the search engine Cuil in July 2008, but it was less common for them to stay hot for this long."

casual gaming growing.

According to comScore, "casual games continue to account for a larger share of consumers' time online.

Ostensibly driven by tighter household budgets, the category attracted 87 million U.S. visitors in May 2009 -- up a healthy 22% year-over-year.

Yahoo Games ranked No. 1 in the category with 19.4 million visitors in May, representing a 6% increase over the past year, followed by the fast gaining EA Online with 18 million visitors -- up 34%.

Nickelodeon Casual Games drew 14.8 million visitors in May, while the WildTangent Network attracted some 13.8 million visitors during the month.

GSN Games Networks, meanwhile, achieved particularly strong gains in the past year, growing 563% to 6 million visitors, due primarily to the additions of entities such as WorldWinner.com and CrazyMonkeyGames.com."