Links

To support the sales launch of the Nokia N96, global Word of Mouth (WOM) specialists, and WOMMA member company, 1000heads wanted to create an experience that encouraged bloggers and online community members to interact with the device features in a more immersive and challenging way. The concept, dubbed ‘The N96 Challenge – face the task’, was developed alongside Nokia's digital marketing and engaged key online voices across 10 countries. Chosen bloggers were sent a black martial arts outfit and a series of ‘ancient’ parchments detailing the challenges that encouraged an exploration of the different features and capabilities of the Nokia N96.

WOMMA member k-matrix Limited, an innovative digital marketing intelligence solution company based in Hong Kong, recently received the Technological Achievement Certificate of Merit of Hong Kong Awards for Industries 2008.

A growing number of Europeans are now accessing social networking websites from their mobile phones. According to new figures released by comScore, a global Internet information provider, approximately 12.1 million people in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain used mobile social networks in November – representing a 152 percent increase year-on-year.

Last summer professional social network LinkedIn began its internationalization efforts by launching a Spanish language version. Then in November they launched a French version. Now LinkedIn is introducing a German version, appropriately called LinkedIn auf Deutsch. According to Kevin Eyres, Managing Director Europe at LinkedIn, the network already has over 9 million members from Europe alone, so it only makes sense to offer more European languages.

We'd like to share some research on influence from Harvard University that may pique your interest (assuming of course, that you received this newsletter firsthand or secondhand...well let us explain).

Nicholas Christakis of Harvard and James Fowler of UC San Diego have found that the ability of a person to influence another lessens greatly as degrees of separation mount; this probably doesn't shock you. What is surprising, however, is that after the third degree of separation, there is no longer any evidence of influence.

Take this passage, as quoted from the Harvard Business Review:
For example, the risk for smoking in a person connected to a smoker (that is, at one degree of separation) is 61% higher, on average, than would be expected as a result of chance.

Ted Mininni has dipped his hand in the proverbial hot pot that is coffee culture, all because of a successful McDonald's campaign which is challenging now "traditional" coffee culture.

Consider Mininni's reaction to a recent McDonald's ad,
A recent TV ad spot caught my eye, and I have to admit, it made me chuckle. Scene: two average guys are sitting in a highly cultured cafe savoring cappuccinos. One is poring over a book. He sports an arty goatee. The other has a dark turtleneck sweater on with a properly knotted scarf. Both are wearing glasses. This is gravitas. . .
Then, one friend asks the other: “Did you hear McDonald's has cappuccinos now?"
"McDonalds?" the other repeats.
"Yeah."
That's awesome.

McKinsey Consultants has some fresh data to ruminate on:
While 91% of the marketing executives who participated in the McKinsey digital-advertising survey (06/08) reported that their companies were advertising online, 80% said that their companies allocate their media budgets by using subjective judgments or by repeating whatever they did the year before.

Simply put, metrics just don't play a part.

To boot, only 50% of those surveyed were using click-through rates to measure online marketing ad effectiveness, and only 30% even "considered the offline impact of online marketing."

The real point to absorb from this post is this: "Surprisingly (not), those who were measuring the impact of online marketing were more satisfied with digital marketing than those who did not."

Stan Schroeder of Mashable is suspicious: "I’ve been following the Christian-Bale-angry-rant meme very closely since the first time I heard of it, and something doesn’t feel right."

Basically, for Schroeder, everything fits too nicely. He wonders how there could be such high quality audio and video, dubbed video even, of this incident. Moreover, the event was then pored over by thousands on the myriad of social networking sites.

Schroeder adds that in the past, it was relatively easy to spot fabricated attempts at corporate viral marketing. But, is Christian Bale outburst this something better? He is not yet implicating Hollywood for this incident, but he is pointing out the strong possibility of such an occurrence in the future.

"The Most Social Brands of 2008" is a list worth looking at. This top 50 list of the brands most mentioned in social media at the end of 2008 packs a few surprises, like, Ford was mentioned #12, ahead of Nintendo and Mac.

Denny's first ever Super Bowl spot, which offered free breakfast to America, seems to have put bums in seats. The restaurant chain claims it surpassed its estimate that it would serve up to 2 million people during Tuesday’s eight-hour Grand Slam giveaway; all for the low price of $5 million.

According to a study by the CMO Council, sponsored by WOMMA member company Satmetrix, top marketing execs believe good customer experiences and positive word-of-mouth (WOM) can increase loyalty and brand value, but admit their companies fail to properly integrate customer voice and experience into key business and marketing processes. According to the report, "Giving Customer Voice More Volume," 38% of the 480 senior marketers surveyed say their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word-of-mouth among customers.

The popularity and near necessity of social media sites has grown tremendously in the last few years, helping small businesses make connections, giving freelancers and students the chance to network with people they’d never be able to meet otherwise, and allow a place for all kinds of interest groups to chat and make friends online – from gardeners to book lovers to sports junkies.

Dell’s Twitter experiment seems to be working. After making $1 million during the holidays by alerting Twitter followers to sale items, Dell, a WOMMA member company, is now offering discounts exclusively to the 11,844 people who follow @DellOutlet. According to the official announcement, “Dell will offer deals from the Dell Outlet exclusive to Twitter in the U.S.

Johnson & Johnson has gone far in establishing a digital footprint that has both breadth and depth to it. The company's YouTube channel now has over 90 videos - not branded, but patient educational.

It's may seem a familiar platitude of late, but it remains ever true: "All media is social, all social is media."

We tell you this because Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion has provided some concrete numbers that help put this now commonplace analysis of the online media world into a quantitative perspective:

"Consider that in 2008 some 58 percent of newspapers featured some form of user-generated content on their sites, according to the Bivings Group. This is up from just 24 percent in 2007. The mix includes: user-generated photos (58 percent), homegrown video (18 percent) and articles (15 percent). Meanwhile, the number of newspaper sites that are allowing readers to comment on articles has more than doubled to 75 percent.