Video games change television consumption habits: Nielsen
What do people do when times are tough? History suggests they look for escapes. Some go to the movies, some eat candy and some indulge in sin. And some play video games.
The healthy growth in the video game market has not been dented by the recession according to Nielsen's newly-released 'State of the Video Gamer' report, which looked at console and PC video game usage in the United States for Q4 2008.
Consumers heart online coupons
With all of the talk about social media and Marketing 2.0, it's easy to overlook less exciting marketing tools. Like coupons.
But make no mistake about it: coupons are in vogue as consumers look for every opportunity to save money. That means business is good for players in the online coupon industry.
Is behavioral targeting breaking online publishers' business model?
The recession is hitting publishers hard. This is true online and offline as advertisers aren't limiting what gets put on the chopping block.
Many believe that the trackability and accountability will keep online publishers in good stead and despite declining online ad spend, it's easy as an online publisher to look at the woes of the newspaper industry and feel pretty confident about the future.
Should brands ignore social media criticism?
Social media has given brands a new medium in which consumers can be engaged. Most agree: there's something really important about this, even if we disagree on just what that is.
At the same time, social media has given consumers a powerful new tool for interacting with brands. It's now possible to provide feedback, issue praise and voice complaints in a manner that can have a real impact very quickly.
Amazon fuels 2008 ecommerce increase
If you're looking for some good news beyond social media, check out ecommerce. Internet Retailer’s forthcoming 2009 Top 500 Guide reports that sales for the 245 retailers reporting actual 2008 numbers have grown by 15 percent to $55.6 billion from $48.3 billion in 2007.
Before getting too excited, understand that Amazon's $19 billion in 2008 sales wrecks the curve a little bit. Without Amazon online sales, the remaining retailers increased by 8.82 percent to $36.47 billion last year from $33.52 billion in the prior year. During a year when overall retail sales are expected to decline substantially when the numbers are all in, even an 8 percent increase shows that consumers will spend money online.
4 out of 5 UK tech companies aren’t using Twitter. So what’s the excuse?
Last week, research showed that SME’s were quickly taking up Twitter and adapting its many uses to suit their businesses. However, worrying research from 
ntl:Telewest Business has been released today that reveals more than 80% of the UK’s top 100 tech companies don’t appear to be using it for business communication purposes.
The research report comes from a study of the FTSE techMARK 100 and found that workers from eight of the top ten companies are not embracing Twitter, despite the recent surge in interest across the media, commercial organisations and the general public.
WalMart, Best Buy shun social media
It would make perfect sense for some big box retailers to curl up, lick, their wounds from the devastation of the 2008 holiday season, and plan for the next move. After all, reports Retail Forward today, anything that resembles improvement at retail will wait until the fourth quarter of this year.
It would also make perfect sense to take this opportunity to step it up online. The good questions to ask would regard web site experience, email marketing, customer engagement via social networks, and online marketing plans for the fall. But what we see lately is a focus on public relations, a lot of spending on in-store technology, and mobile commerce.
Q&A: Mike Welch of online tyre seller Blackcircles.com
Blackcircles.com is an online tyre retailer which allows customers to buy tyres online and arrange to have them fitted at a local independent garage.
Having launched in 2001, Blackcircles.com now has 300,000 customers and a turnover of £10m. I've been talking to founder and MD Mike Welch about how he built a successful e-commerce business from scratch.
Leveraging the power of 50 Cent
His fans know him as "Fitty." Call him whatever you want, but the ex-con turned rapper and pitchman has established a brand among the 15-to-35 year-old internet content user. Two of 50 Cent's allied brands are claiming to have scored big numbers by attaching his name to peer-to-peer (P2P) related content.
The brands were Glaceau's Vitaminwater Formula 50 and Right Guard's Pure 50, a deodorant. Both brands worked with Brand Asset in 2008 to attach search results to branded content which could then be shared with other users. The results were reported at Wednesday's P2P Market Conference in New York City. Both campaigns generated click-through rates over 4 percent and post-click engagement times of more than two minutes. Better yet, the campaigns were tied to legit content, linked from paid keywords. No illegal file sharing issues, which so often go along with P2P shared content, and no intellectual property disputes.
Sears is serious about channel integration
Sears Holding is reorganizing its on and offline channels under an ambitious new initiative dubbed ShopYourWay. The program intends to integrate the scope of the goods and services the retail conglomerate provides across a panoply of channels, including in-store, online, mobile, electronic kiosks, even PDAs.
ShopYourWay has launched on Sears.com, and will soon be introduced to Kmart.com. When that happens, the full range of Sears products will be available to shoppers on Kmart, and vice-versa. Such cross-merchandising will increase the options available to consumers. Shoppers on Sears property LandsEnd.com, for example, will be able to view apparel from other Sears brands.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
