International Digital Marketing

Facebook has a lot to prove. The much hyped Facebook IPO turned to be a fiasco, as the company and bankers evaluated the social network to be worth $100 billion while investors did not. Despite the little peak ($45 share) during the launch on May 18^th 2012,  the Facebook share price has dropped from the opening price of $38 to about $28 this morning.

So, what went wrong?

Too high and optimistic expectations

First of all, let’s look at the numbers. There is an impressive quantity of users in Facebook and the social network has been predicted to reach billion users this year. But does it justify that Facebook was being valued at almost 100 times last year’s profits? This is much higher than tech companies Apple and Google, who in fact make much more money.

In addition to above, in February 2012 Facebook admitted that it did “not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue” from mobile even if more than 425 million monthly active users, representing 50% of the total MAUs, were utilizing its mobile products in December 2011. This has serious implications, which probably were not bypassed by the investors.

What comes to the launch itself, there were too many shares in the market. Also it did not help either that Facebook insiders, such as Facebook board member Peter Thiel, increased the amount of shares they wanted to sell. This raised suspicions – what did they know, that normal public did not?

Is it time to make Facebook users pay?

Facebook has launched a test in New Zealand to see whether it would be possible to make profit also with the users. According to CNET, the social media platform has recently tested out a new service that permits users to make their status updates more prominent in exchange for some money. The new service works like the premium ads to businesses. By paying $1.80 New Zealand dollars ($1.42 U.S. dollars), Facebook users can promote their status update and assure it remains in their friend’s news feed.

If this business model would result successful, Facebook could possibly make a nice profit and gain investors’ trust back. As the user’s friend base, likes, groups, and applications grow, user’s status updates are likely to get lost in the middle of it all. Facebook users also love friends’ “likes” and comments, especially if we are talking about top influencers, and sometimes they have something important to say that is worth highlighting, such as a lost mobile or an item on sale.

On the other hand, the hidden/not seen status updates are mainly caused by Facebook’s own features, issues and sorting algorithm, that sets up the top stories as default and makes everything very cluttered. It highlights stories such as the games people play, music they listen to, apps they use and articles they read – and do not forget to add the brand communications and ads on top. The social media platform has already been pushing its luck, and it is to be seen if this will provoke users to leave the site.

To be honest, I am interested to see how this works out and what users’ reaction will be. How important showing status update is for users? How much are they ready to pay to be “liked”? And if they are ready to pay to be “liked”, are they ready to pay to access the platform in the future? Maybe this is just the first step towards a Facebook membership fee.

Back in the days it all seemed very easy. By identifying where people were in the purchase funnel (awareness, familiarity, consideration, purchase and loyalty), marketers were able to identify cool, warm and hot prospects and lead them down the funnel to the sale. Clear step by step customer acquisition journey that made sense. A basic marketing rule that has been respected for decades.

But let’s face it: the world we knew back then has changed. With the exponential growth in technology, mobiles, Internet, social media and search, even the way we look at the world has changed. We marketers have changed, consumers have changed and the ways brands engage with the consumers have changed.

So why the way consumers buy our products would not have changed?

Different consumer decision journey

 According to consulting firm McKinsey, traditional funnel is dead and has been replaced with a different model called Consumer Decision Journey.

“It’s taking a fundamentally different view of what’s going on in consumer behavior”, claims David Edelman, partner and co-leader of McKinsey’s global digital marketing strategy, “What we have seen in sector after sector is that this [funnel] is not what’s going on; we need to reframe the consumer decision journey to something more iterative, circular and more about what the consumer is actually doing. And marketing needs to be about helping customers through that journey.”

Source: McKinsey & Co

Social media, consumer forums and brand advocates play a very important role in this purchase process model. Consumer tries or buys a product, tells the world about it, and triggers other consumers interests who will then evaluate different options on and offline and compare brands before buying the product.

What is interesting in this model is that since consumers are constantly evaluating different possibilities, they are in a continuous journey where they regularly add and drop brands. It is a loop, which means that the communication should not only focus on awareness and end sale, but also in consumer engagement and consumer loyalty. More happy customers the brand has, more advocates, positive comments and evaluations it has. Which then lead to more potential customers.

How to engage with the customers during their journey?

McKinsey has identified four ways companies could use to engage consumers during their journey:

1. Align – instead of using all resources for “consider” and “buy” stages, companies need also to focus on “advocate” and “evaluate” stages. This means that marketers need to stop ignoring consumer forums and encourage clients to rate their product/service or write their opinion about it. Amazon is a great example of the power consumer opinions and data brings.
2. Link – Communication and brand message across all channels from offline to online needs to be consistent. If the core message and brand identity differs, consumers get confused. And confused customers are not happy customers.
3. Lock – Companies should “lock in” a customer’s attention via direct, opt-in channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, email and apps. It does not mean sales talk, people who follow you are usually your fans and deserve interesting and relevant content. Other consumers following you are all potential customers who also deserve engaging content that does not only push sales, but asks their opinion and makes them feel special at every stage of their journey.
4. Loop – As mentioned, the journey is a loop. To improve the loop it is very important to measure data and evaluate the response to the content. If you do not know the results, how can you improve your marketing strategy and communication?

Is traditional purchase funnel dead?

Dead is a strong word. I think the consumer purchase journey has only transformed and become more advanced and adapted to the modern times. The basics steps are similar, but the model highlights the importance brand advocacy has especially on these disloyal times. We are surrounded by excessive choice, have become suspicious and picky, and search for other consumers advice before choosing the right product for us.

Word of mouth and post-purchase customer service have always been important, but often forgotten from the marketing mix. Yet the truth is that ever since consumer was able to speak with the world via Internet and reach not only his family but hundreds of thousands of people, his power has skyrocketed. It would be foolish to ignore it.

Whether you call it customer decision journey or purchase “loop”, this model should be an eye opener for those who stick to the old world and the old models. The world has changed. Welcome to 2012.

Earlier this week Google launched revamped sitelinks, changing the way these are displayed and organized in search results. Sitelinks are links that appear under certain search results and ads. They are Google’s way to allow users save time and find information they are looking for by analysing the link structure of your site and displaying the shortcuts under your main URL.

From user perspective sitelinks give them a quick overview of the website’s content and help them to access quickly most relevant parts of the site. From brand or company perspective the sitelinks allow webmasters to showcase areas of the site that normal users are not aware of.

New Google sitelink structure

Google changing the sitelink structure is nothing new, since the search giant has been experimenting with sitelinks for years. When Google launched these years ago they were only a single row of four links and since then the sitelinks have been shown in different ways from bullet points to separate results, until the company ended up with the current structure. Google increased the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to twelve showing title, URL and a small description of the page.

Google sitelinks impact on SEO

Previously there was no query-specific ranking of the sitelinks, but each site had a fixed list of sitelinks that would either all be visible or not at all. With the new structure, sitelink ranking and selection can be different for each query showing even more relevant results.

With more relevant – and more visible – sitelinks the CTR for your brand searches is likely to increase. Unfortunately the separation between the top domain and other domains is also clearer. It means that if sitelinks appear for the top result, then the rest of the results below will be from other domains. Not your website.

This is why it is very important to get the displayed sitelinks structure, title and description right. Check which sitelinks appear under your brand website. Are they the ones you want to appear, do they lead to main parts of your site and is there some important page missing? Is the title or description wrong or boring?

To manage sitelinks, login to Webmaster Tools where you can ask Google to remove sitelink you want. Google will then pick another sitelink however you cannot control which one will replace the current one. Please note that you can only try 100 times.

To modify the title, find out where Google pulls it from – it can be anchor text, footer, page title, headings or main body. To change the description, change the meta description tag of the page.

Google sitelinks impact on PPC

The AdWords sitelink structure remains still the same showing up to four additional destination URLs on the search-based text ad. However, the big difference between the organic search sitelinks and ad sitelinks is that you can control and edit the ad sitelinks while with organic sitelinks you have to rely on Google’s judgement.

This is why even if your brand has more visibility on the search results page with new Google sitelinks structure, it does not mean you should abandon PPC. Sitelinks will bring more clicks, but if competitor decides to bid and place text ads with more appealing sitelinks near your brand you might lose quality leads. Remember AdWords bring most of Google’s annual profit and this might be one of the reasons why Webmaster Tools does not allow you to choose your organic sitelinks.

Change for the better?

Depends on your ranking, displayed sitelinks and whether you are a brand, reseller or price comparison website. For brands this works out fine as long as the sitelinks are checked and optimized, since it gives them a higher visibility over the latter.

Happy to hear whether this has affected your search results or PPC campaigns in a negative or positive way.

According to a research firm IDC, tablet market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) made up about 33% of last year’s global sales. The company also estimates that the EMEA media tablet market will more than triple in 2011 to reach 22 million units.

However, research firm Forrester predicts that tablet market in EMEA will account for 14.5 million units, or 30%, of worldwide consumer tablet sales in 2011. Not as positive prediction as 22 million units, yet the research firm indicates that more than 43 million Europeans say they are interested in buying a tablet in the future.

Apple, not Android, dominates Europe

Despite recent Android launches in Europe, Apple still has 70% market share for tablet sell-through to consumers in Europe. It means that other tablet makers have product in retail channels, but it is not moving nearly as quickly as Apple’s iPad. Main reason is that non-iPad tablet competitors’ content ecosystem, applications and channel strategy are not as effective as Apple’s and their tablets’ prices are perceived too high.

Apple’s weakness outside the UK

However, Apple has a smaller number of Apple store outlets across Europe (52) compared to its more extensive network in the U.S.(240). What makes this even more interesting is that 30 of these Apple stores are located in the UK, leaving 22 for the rest of the Europe. It means that Apple could be vulnerable to competition outside the UK, since Apple’s brand and channel presence is not as strong in the continental Europe. For example, Mac ownership is lower in all EU-7 countries than it is in the U.S.

This weakness could give Samsung, HP, Acer and Research in Motion a chance to gain more market share in Europe yet if the prices remain the same, there is a danger that low-cost tablets from ODMs such as Huawei and ZTE will enter the market quickly and steal market share.

No content or apps? No customers.

Yet even if consumers like low prices, being cheap is not enough to make them purchase the product. For tablet to be successful in Europe it has to be user-friendly, and have attractive content and useful applications both for free time as well as business purposes. In a very culturally diverse Europe it is very important to have local content providers, because English is simply not enough.

What comes to t-commerce, most of the tablet owners find shopping with the tablet more engaging and a study by e-commerce platform provider Shopatron, supporting more than 800 brand stores in 35 industries, claims that the conversion rate from tablets is much higher than conversion rate from mobiles or even PCs. According to the study, the average conversion rates for non mobile optimized pages (iPhone, Android, iPod…) was an average of 0.37%, yet the average conversion rate from iPad was a whopping 2.04%.

This means that t-commerce is another aspect tablet developers need to take in account while optimizing the user experience.

Anyone to challenge Apple?

Even if there are many competitors rushing into European market, Forrester argues that at the moment there is no serious iPad challenger on sight. This will not change and people will keep on buying iPads unless a competitor with competitive price, quality hardware and successful content ecosystem emerges.

Google might just do this. The search giant has agreed to pay $12.5bn in cash for Motorola Mobility to move  decisively into the hardware and into even more intense competition with Apple and Microsoft. Larry Page, Google’s CEO, said the reason for the move was to “supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers”.

What would be interesting to see is Nokia and Microsoft taking on the challenge to compete with the two. Nokia is known around Europe for its high quality and Microsoft office programs would result very attractive and familiar for European business users. If Microsoft does not invest in mobile and tablet market, the company will see its market share diminish. Nokia meanwhile has also strong reputation in emerging markets, which could help them to keep their market share.

In the end of the day, Nokia still has the strongest foothold in European mobile market even if all we hear about is Apple and Android. But as we Finns say: empty barrels make the most noise.

When first online supermarkets were launched … they were a flop. After a long silence, the online food and grocery shopping has started to evolve and increase its popularity during recent years, thanks to ongoing development of e-commerce, Internet and mobiles. However, despite of the potential they have, the online supermarkets still reach only a small niche market.

What could bring the online grocery shopping experience closer to the mainstream?

Constantly evolving market

According to International research company IGD, the amount spent on online food and grocery shopping will reach £7.2 billion by 2014. Currently 64% of UK users have done online shopping yet according to the Office for National Statistics, only 13% have bought groceries. In Spain e-commerce is booming, but only 10.7% of the consumers have purchased groceries online. E-commerce in Italy had an estimated value of 10 billion Euros in 2009, but the online food and grocery shopping accounted only for 1.9% of the total.

In France, with a turnover of 250 million Euros, the online supermarkets represent only a small part of the French e-commerce (25 billion Euros). The amount of cyber buyers (24 million in 2009) is increasing, even though the “cyber-markets” are considered to be too expensive with 13% Internet price premium.

Online grocery shoppers

The report Online Shopping 2009 by IGD states that 30% of the online grocery shoppers purchase less often than once a month and 61% visit more than one online supermarket. 49% would like to try alternative store, yet half of users have not done so because they believe it takes too much effort to do . 34% of the surveyed wants to shop only in supermarket and 7% prefers online purchasing for food and groceries.

Convenience is the main motivation for online grocery shoppers to buy online, since it takes less time and physical effort. Overall it is perceived as a more organized shopping experience and means avoiding the queues. 61% of the current and potential online shoppers also stated that having free delivery would definitely increase their motivation to buy groceries online.

The main concern blocking the online grocery shopping is quality. Consumers do not trust companies to deliver them the freshest products and newest sold-by-date if they purchase online.

Best practice – Digital supermarket

Tesco supermarkets in South Korea decided to take it a step further to reach number two position in the country. Instead of opening more physical stores, Tesco concentrated on virtual shopping by creating digital supermarkets called Homeplus in metro stations.  The objective was to bring virtual shopping directly into consumers life. The decision was made after market survey revealed that many consumers concentrated on journeys to and from work without having time to do grocery shopping.

The company designed big screens that looked exactly like physical store shelf where users could use their Smartphones to scan the QR codes and put the products in their shopping cart. When the shopping was done, the groceries were delivered to user’s home once he returned from work.

Online shopping between November 2010 and January 2011 increased 130%, while the number of clients increased 76%. Homeplus itself became the number one online grocery store.

Multi-channel shopping experience

There is great potential in online grocery shopping, since it represents currently only a small percentage of e-commerce and there is a lot of space for growth. Consumers are already using different channels and technologies to shop online and this can be extended to online supermarkets. By offering consumers a possibility to use mobile technology, they are able to purchase on the go, and by bringing online grocery shopping into the physical world, like Tesco did in South-Korea, companies can increase awareness and offer consumers a digital in-store experience.

The future of online grocery shopping looks bright if users are given an online shopping experience that brings them the most perceived value. By offering online shoppers different purchase channels, consistent quality, free delivery and greater choice of products, companies can turn online supermarkets from a niche into mainstream.

Samsung is launching today 3D interactive iPad ad for the Galaxy SII Smartphone in the UK. The campaign, created by Cooliris and devised by Starcom Mediavest, will be displayed on iPad’s TV Guide app and users are able to interact and manipulate an image of the SII through their touch screens. The ad employs 3D technology using for example parallax and motion effects and more traditional uses of light and shade.

 What comes to 3D mobile devices, last year Sharp was making a lot of buzz with its glass-free 3D tablet prototype in IFA 2010. This summer Sprint will be introducing the HTC EVO 3D handset, which has dual cameras for users to capture 3D photos and videos. Meanwhile, LG Electronics and YouTube have formed a strategic partnership to bring a 3D mobile experience to users. LG’s upcoming Android-powered Optimus 3D Smartphone allows users to capture and view 3D videos without special glasses. The twist is that the users can also upload and share these 3D videos instantly via YouTube.

We all love 3D movies – could 3D mobile and tablet marketing be the next “Avatar”?

Increasing 3D Market

But how popular 3D actually is? According to a research by Display Search, 3D TV units accounted for 9% of global TV sales. According to IHS iSuppli research, due to declining prices and increasing content availability, worldwide shipments of 3-D TVs will increase by 463% in 2011, reaching 23.4 million units.

In China, 3D TVs accounts for 10% of all LCD sets purchased, and China Electronic Chamber of Commerce estimates the figure to reach 5 million units by end of 2011. What comes to Europe, a new study from Futursource Consulting claims that by 2015 almost 40% of the Western European households (approx. 65 million) will have a 3D TV.

However, other studies are not so positive and the sales have been disappointing ever since 3D TV was launched. While 3D TV is seen as a very cool thing to have, the majority of the consumers prefer staying with the 2D format. Main obstacles for adoption are cost, required glasses and the fact there are not enough 3D content available.

3D Mobile & Tablet Marketing

“One of the advantages of creating 3D campaigns around the handset is that glasses are not required. Because of the targeted nature of mobile, you could detect what kind of handset a customer has and send them 3D advertising.”

Ross Rubin, executive director, The NPD Group

While the actual customer base for 3D mobile is quite small at this moment, there is a lot of potential in 3D mobile and tablet marketing. First of all any content in 3D still stands out and the cost of the 3D mobile handset is very low compared to the 3D TV set. Another advantage compared to the 3D TV sets is that with the mobile devices special glasses are not needed, because of the new autostereoscopic technologies.

Brands are already playing with Augmented Reality, but it still remains bit of a mystery for the mainstream consumers. 3D however is already familiar for users due to 3D movies, Nintendo 3DS and 3D TV set advertising. Not having to educate the users makes consumer adaptation much faster and if the consumer is interested in 3D content … the advertisers will follow.

But 3D mobile offers more opportunities for marketers than only creating interactive ads. The possibilities range from sponsored games to viral marketing, game and movie trailers and competitions. Games are one of the largest app categories and sponsored 3D game is likely to create buzz in social networks as well as press. Also, giving the possibility for users not only to view, but also take and share 3D photos and videos can increase user participation and engagement. Even creating a mobile/tablet 3D community is possible.

Future in 3D

How fast the 3D mobile market develops and how fast it becomes mainstream depend on the availability of content, quantity and price of the 3D mobile devices and quality of the content itself.

The challenge with Smartphones and tablets is that different handsets use different technologies, meaning that just like with apps, content developers need to choose which handset they are creating the content for. This is why the mobile companies need to have a head start in this new technology and leave competitors behind. Once you have the biggest selling 3D mobile device, the statistics play on your benefit and game and content developers will choose your brand.

It will be very interesting to see how game developers, companies and advertisers will respond to 3D mobile devices. In a way it is a two way street. For 3D games, content and devices to be successful, consumers need to adopt 3D mobile technology. But for consumers to adopt it, they need available 3D content, entertainment and quality devices to get motivated.

Maybe I am biased, but Angry Birds in 3D would definitely tempt me to buy one.

“The biggest trend is taking offline purchases online and enabling mobile purchases. Mobile technology can drive traffic to stores and bring consumers to merchants who offer deals online and enable redemption at POS…”

Fabio Sisinni, Director of product management at PayPal Mobile.

PayPal with its 94 million active accounts increased its mobile payment transaction volume from $24 million in 2008 to $140 million in 2009 to $750 million in 2010. It is expected to reach $2 billion this year and increase the mobile income to $7.5 billion in 2013. Seeing an opportunity in the increase of mobile devices and m-commerce across the world, the company launched its Mobile Express Checkout product for merchants last year.

“We’re making mobile the main part of the business, because the most common way to access the Internet in the near future will be using connected devices such as Smartphones and tablets,” Fabio Sisinni from Paypal Mobile said. “Our vision is a wallet in the cloud that consumers can access anywhere, anytime.

The Mobile Express Checkout has been created in partnership with Research In Motion for BlackBerry App World and it is already being used by merchants such as Starbucks and Footlocker.

Blooming Mobile Wallet trend

Paypal however is not the only one investing in the Mobile Wallets. Quick Tap, an offline mobile payment service has been launched in May 2011 in the UK. It enables consumers to pay for purchases up to £15 via mobile in offline stores, such as EAT, Subway and McDonalds, and end of the summer Quick Tap can be used as well to pay for the M6 motorway toll. The service works with NFC, a short-range wireless technology that underpins many wireless payment systems. Service is still quite limited since users willing to use the service have to have Orange and Barclaycard accounts as well as a NFC-enabled Samsung Tocco Lite handset.

More dangerous for Paypal is the bigger fish in the sea, Google, who announced it will also be launching a new app Google Wallet this summer, which allows users to pay, earn loyalty points and use the mobile coupons in the offline stores. The main strength the Google Wallet has compared to other two systems is that the company is taking advantage of its Google search and Google Places by integrating offers from search ad discounts to check-in-offers, which the consumer can then save into their Google Wallet. Very smart, since merchants can link their online and mobile advertising to offline purchases and target better the foot traffic. Merchants using the Google wallet are for example Bloomingdales, Guess and ToysRus.

There has also been rumours that Nokia will be bringing out an NFC-enabled version of the popular game Angry Birds later this year.

New trend, old invention

Even if the Mobile Wallets are now making a lot of noise, in real life the Nordics have used micropayments through mobile to pay the groceries, transportation tickets, etc. for years. Mobile wallet services have also been available in Japan during years, with different operators investing a lot of money on the NFC functionality.

In the UK, there are already 50,000 stores with NFC-enabled readers. What comes to operators, O2 already tried NFC technology in 2009 by using mobiles instead of Oyster cards, which commuters use for public transportation payments, and the company is said to launch its own mobile wallet service later this year. It has also been predicted, that by the time of the 2012 London Olympics transactions, transport and tickets will all be available via NFC-technology.

However, also in countries where technology is hard to come by, mobile wallet system is already “old”. A UN study declares that “In the developing world, the growth (…in mobile usage…)has been driven by the use of phones for mobile banking and health services”. For example, projects like PesaPa l and M-Pesa in Kenya allow people with no bank accounts but mobile subscriptions to do financial transactions with their phones.

Increasing Smarphone usage

The question is: will consumers see any point using the Mobile Wallet instead of a … wallet? The system has had its ups and downs in the past, but maybe the market only was not ready until the Smartphones became more mainstream? Are we not already so addicted to the mobile we cannot leave the house without it or even find a meeting place without its GPS system?

It is worth taking a look at Japan, since their mobile market is far more developed than we see in Europe or North America. In Japan 3G penetration stands at 95% of the market and Japan is also a society that uses primarily mobile phone for social networking. According to a research by Mobile Marketing Data Labo, 75.4% of Japanese respondents only accessed social networking sites from their mobile phone (and not from their PC). What makes this even more interesting is that we are not talking only about early adopters here, but a wide professional demographic.

According to the CIAJ annual report in 2010, 16% of the Japanese use Wallet Function on a “Daily Basis”, without many differences between genders or age groups. The Japanese operators including DoCoMo NTT have been pushing chips on phones and readers in the POS actively and most major bank ATM’s have already implemented a NFC cradle.   To get the ability to offer credit and give users possibility to post pay on their normal phone bill, the DoCoMo NTT purchased 33% of Sumitomo Mitsubishi Bank. Currently 500,000 NFC readers accept payment from their 15 million registered clients.

Even if the usage rate for Japanese Mobile Wallets is only 16%, we should note there are  two transaction types; one for POS (point of sale) and the other to run OTA (over the air) transactions. According to the RIAJ (Recording Industry Assoc. Japan) 2010 report, mobile music revenues were close to 1 billion dollars and the mobile gaming and SNS segments are showing even bigger demand (Thank you Lawrence Cosh-Ishii for the correction).

Co-operation with merchants and banks

Whether the Mobile Wallet will work in the West depends largely on the collaboration between merchants, operators, companies and banks. If there are not enough readers in the stores or NFC cradles in ATMs and people need to search for them, users are not likely to consider Mobile Wallet a practical and easy way of payment. Like many, many years ago with credit cards, when it was easier to get cash from banks and pay than find a place where they accepted the card. Yet if merchants are given a good, profitable reason to start using the readers in their stores and NFC readers become normal for stores to have, then Mobile Wallet has a lot of potential.

That is why Google’s proposal of linking online and mobile ads with offers/discounts to the merchant’s offline store is a very interesting proposal and might work. Having merchants on board and educating the masses might make the Mobile Wallet a new generation credit card. However it is definitely worth searching for best practices/failed projects in Japan, before launching a Mobile Wallet in the West.

“Sales of green products will not become commonplace until suppliers give consumers better price incentives in-store and online to follow their consciences,”

Bruce Fair, Kelkoo Managing Director

Despite of the recent ecological disasters and constantly increasing environmental awareness, the green retail market holds only a small percentage of the total retail purchases in Europe. Although the total green sales have increased by 114% since 2000, the market accounted for only 2.5% of total European retail sales in 2009. This is not highly surprising, considering that the European consumers are charged on average 46% more for green non-food items and 25% more for green food items than for standard products.

Increasing green demand

However, according to the “Centre for Retail Research Green Buying Guide,” a study conducted in 2010 for Kelkoo, it is predicted that green product purchases will double from 56 billion Euros to 114 billion Euros by 2015, capturing a 5% share of the European retail market. The price of green products will also decrease by 13% by 2012, decreasing the price difference from 46% to 40,5%.

European households will increase their green spending from 386 Euros to 751 Euros per year by 2015. Germany (30.2 billion Euros), France (21,7 billion Euros) and the UK (19,8 billion Euros) will keep their position as the biggest green economies, while Switzerland (1133 Euros/household), Sweden (873 Euros/household) and Denmark (843 Euros/household) have the highest green spending per household in Europe.

Price main obstacle for purchase

The green market in overall has been increasing due to change in consumer attitudes and behaviour, government and company environmental policies and increasing environmental awareness. The main reason why it has been increasing so slowly is the cost. While demand for energy-saving products such as energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs helping consumers to save in long term has soared especially during recession, the demand for less “pocket-friendly” organic green goods has suffered. Unless suppliers make green products available at a reasonable price, the demand stays highly dependable of consumers’ buying power, however environmental friendly they might be.

Online green retail spending increasing

However, a very interesting fact that came up in the Kelkoo study is that European E-Commerce sales of green products account for 6.2% of all green retail spending with 3.5 billion Euros and is constantly increasing. Interestingly, consumers buying green products online do not do so only because they are on average 11% cheaper, but because the selection is larger than in stores close by and it results a more convenient way to purchase.

For an ecological brand Green E-Commerce might be an interesting opportunity to increase awareness and demand of the green products among environmentally friendly consumers, especially when it will decrease the dependence of the supermarkets, eco-stores and rest of the supply chain. By cutting off different providers on the way to the consumer, it is actually possible to offer the product with a reasonable price to fuel the consumer demand. Green is still fashionable and people want to buy it despite of the recession – by establishing a trustworthy online reputation through Social Media and consumer forums and by providing a convenient, user friendly e-commerce platform the green brand is able to increase its market share. Not only in one country, but across Europe.

However, in the time of green-washing it is very important to create a believable eco-brand. Discover the top tips here.

We all want our brand to be attractive, exciting, trendy, sexy and … young. Our society adores youth, we want the young generation to buzz about us, brands and campaigns winning awards are aimed to youth. Facing declining sales, we cannot help hearing that we must rejuvenate, rejuvenate, rejuvenate…

However, many times there is a big conflict between the people we want to buy our brand and the people who actually buy it. Too many times the marketing and communication target is 20-30 years younger than the loyal consumers forming the grand majority of the database.

Cosmetic “brand” surgery?

Some brands tackle this by going through a long process of changing their brand image. More or less successfully. Ford experienced this problem in Spain with its upcoming launch of the new, young, trendy Ford Fiesta. In Spain this particular car model was perceived as a car for 40-50-year-old women, but few years before the launch, Ford Spain started creating a community especially for youth www.maskedummies.com. The booming trendy community changed slowly the image of Ford Fiesta and made the marketing message more believable in 2008. Another example of successful change of brand image is of course Old Spice.

But is it really so bad to be a brand for “old” people? What if the sales are declining, not because our brand is getting older and new generation does not buy it, but because we are ignoring the older generation who does?

Aging global population

With the declining fertility and improved health and longevity, the population aging has become the biggest demographic trend globally. In 2009 the global population of +60-year-old people reached 680 million, 11% of the world’s population. It has also been predicted that by 2030, the amount will increase to 20% in 55 countries.

By 2050, Europe will increase its elderly population from 40 million to 219 million, China will experience a growth of 30% from 109 million to 350 million and India will increase the number of elderly from 62 million to 240 million. Japan, with the largest percentage of +60 people, will increase the current amount from 27% to 44%.

While number of youth decreases across the planet and the number of older people increases, does it not make more sense to take advantage of the “older” brand image instead of investing resources and money to desperately rejuvenate the image? Older people are more loyal to the brand than the new multitasking and impatient generation. Besides – they have also more money and time to spend.

Aging Social Media and Blogosfare

Yes, but young people make more noise in the Internet you might say. Not true.

In January 2011, +55-year-olds represented 7% of the global Facebook users, however the amount of 45-54-year-old users reached 12% and the percentage of 35-44-year-old users increased to 18%. What comes to Twitter, +55-year-olds represented 9% of the global Twitter users, while 45-54-year-olds reached 17% and 35-44-year-olds 27%.

Meanwhile, the older generation is also getting more comfortable with blogging: 11% of the over 30-year-old adults blogged in 2010, compared with 7% in 2007. Also, during the last two years blogging by the 34-45 year-old Internet users has increased 6%  (up to 16%), 46-55-year-old bloggers saw an increase of 5%  (up to 11%), and even 65-73-year-olds blogged 2% more (up to 8%).

But how to reach the increasing older generation?

#1 Stay cool, but use more mature marketing message

Older generation wants to remain cool, but also see people and situations they can relate to – people little younger they are, well aging and sophisticated, such as Meryl Streep and George Clooney. What comes to the situations, if you know that 90% of the people in your cruise are +55, do not show images of young people and babies in your advertising – it pushes older generation away. Instead, show older generation having fun, flirting, enjoying life in a cool environment.

#2 Aim advertising for the right target

In advertising we are so youth focused, that we often forget that the hopes and dreams are different in each age group. They change as people get older, handling more relationships, family experiences, health, happy memories and personal fulfilment. If you are too young to know what your target group dreams about, ask them. They are happy to share their opinion.

#3 Listen and influence in consumer forums

Age makes us more wise and careful. Older people do a lot of investigation before spending their time and money. Older generation compares prices, goes to consumer forums and listens what people have to say in social media.

#4 Focus on emotional bond and quality

Older generation is more interested in quality and value for money than latest fashion. They do not like to be rushed into a decision, but have time to compare different options. However, older people are also more loyal and stay with brands they trust. If you success creating an emotional bond with older users, they do not hesitate to promote your brand to their friends and other users across the social media.

Old trends in young generation, new trends in older generation

To stay always ahead of the competition targeting older generation, it might be a good idea to remember that in the end young people are early adopters of the new technologies and communication channels and “old” people are slow to follow. It means that you can observe youth-focused brands while they try to exploit new trends and conquer new channels by trial and error, and once they become “hot” in your target age group you are well prepared to be “trendy”.

Augmented reality mobile apps’ future looks bright. According to Juniper, by 2015 global revenues from AR will reach 1.5 billion dollars. ABI Research forecasted that even if in 2010 revenue from AR was only 21 million dollars, amount might very well increase to 3 billion dollars by 2016. But it gets better: AIB claims that revenues related to AR will increase from 6 million dollars in 2009 to more than 3.5 billion dollars in 2014 – which signifies a yearly growth of 97%.

Main reason for the growth and high predictions is the exploding global use of Smartphones, which are able to run the augmented reality apps, and the big brands which are very keen to take advantage of the new shiny toy.

No wonder Google and Apple want the biggest piece of the cake. And are ready to fight for it.

Augmented reality – a new way to see the world

Long way short, augmented reality apps allow user to see digital text, animations, links or images in real time on top of the real life environment via mobile devices. For example, only by placing the mobile front of a painting in Rome, user can get information of the painter, history or dimensions. Or more fun example: user can play real life pac man, where the players look like computer pac man characters (through mobile of course). Basically, the possibilities are endless. See list of interesting AR apps here.

Blooming augmented reality market

At present, most of the augmented reality elements focus on marketing and entertainment, but there has been some experiments with online shopping experience, ecommerce, tourism and search. Layar (http://layar.com) is currently the leader developing AR apps for both Android OS and iPhone OS, including advertising, reviews, ratings or other information users need in real time. Yelp is another rating and review service, mobile media company Ogmento creates AR mobile games and Wikitude shows the user in real world the information from Wikipedia and other sources.

Google and Apple: augmented reality rivals

Google and Apple are very interested in the possibilities augmented reality can bring, since both Android and iPhone have computer vision technologies that rely on Smartphone cameras. Other companies have developed AR apps for both OS, but it brings a small revenue compared to the profit and business opportunities a fully owned killer AR app could bring. In addition Google has already picked up a fight with Yelp, one of the providers.

Google started by creating Goggles, a mobile app for Android and iOS which can translate text, get more information out of contact info, artwork and books besides of recognizing landmarks, logos and wine labels. However unlike Augmented reality, Googles does not process and present things in real time. It takes a photo, sends it to Google’s servers, which recognize and translate it before sending the result back.

Apple meanwhile has acquired Polar Rose, a company which has created facial recognition software and other elements that enable the “automatic creation of events based on visual cues in images.” This brings enormous possibilities on social networking area.

Apple/ Facebook Partnership?

Facebook and Google do not like each other. Apple and Google do not like each other. What would be a better partnership than ganging against a common enemy?

Apple has the iPhone OS and technology, and Facebook its Facebook Places and large user base perfect for the newly acquired facial recognition. If these two companies join forces they can very well have a chance to compete with Google. Actually these two combined could possibly even be very, very dangerous for Google.

Let’s imagine Google decides to upgrade Google Places and create AR version. With its impressive data base and search engine & Google maps experience it could very well become a killer app. There are review and map AR apps, but they are mainly focused on cities and tourist attractions such as NY, Paris and London for example. Imagine an app you could use everywhere you go: like Google Maps with a real life view. Imagine what it would mean for local businesses and advertisers to be highlighted in real life environment.

Now if Apple and Facebook decided to join the forces, they could compete in AR “places” category with a social touch. Imagine an app where you can see in real life not only the ratings or info, but also which places have been recommended or visited by your friends. Seeing little pictures of friends who like the place or even friends who actually are currently there sounds very attractive. Imagine adding the Facebook “deals” function with the discount/offer that is available in the place.

Of course this Apple/Facebook partnership could lead even further if the two explore more the social networking capability on the iPhone. For example, user could see other person’s social networking info and feeds from Facebook just by looking at them though the phone. Big personal privacy issues yes, because no one wants a stranger in the street or bar to know his name and everything else about him. But then again – when exactly Facebook has cared about privacy issues?

Expanding market with huge potential

It has been predicted that augmented reality will take between five to ten years to become mainstream, together with the Smartphones. Brands and consumers do not necessarily understand yet how the technology works, but AR creates interest and fascination. Android, Nokia, iPhone…there is something to explore and take advantage of.