Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, luxury marketing, Retail, travel/hospitality | Tags: digital marketing, digital media, digital travel marketing, global luxury marketing, interactive marketing travel sector, interactive strategy, international advertising, international brand strategy, international property marketing, online travel advertising, online travel marketing, online travel marketing firm, retail marketing strategy
Check out these graphs on seasonal consumer spending. It’s no surprise that January/February always has a “post-holiday dip,” but you might find some of the other ebb and flows surprising. What’s more interesting is consumer spending does not directly correlate with ad spend. While consumers are generally are more reserved with their wallets in early Fall, advertising sees an increase in activity as companies gear up for the pre-holiday push:
To learn more about how to properly budget your annual ad spend, contact us at hello@criterionglobal.com, or visit Criterion Global.
Filed under: CG | Tags: digital marketing, digital media, global issues, global travel marketing, world population
National Geographic has marked our planet’s milestone of the population reaching 7 billion people with this awesome video. It even manages to make stats exciting.
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, luxury marketing, media, Retail | Tags: digital marketing, digital media, digital retail advertising, ecommerce advertising, ecommerce marketing strategy, ecommerce optimisation, international media buying, media buying strategy, retail advertising, retail marketing, retail marketing strategy, retail media buying
Here’s an interesting figure that eMarketer published a couple weeks ago. While year over year ecommerce growth will begin to taper off as the retail industry matures online, it will continue to grow substantially with sites like Groupon incorporating social media functionality. Thereby, directing more retail shoppers to online stores.
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight | Tags: international advertising strategy, international brand strategy, international destination marketing, international marketing, international media, international media buying, international media buying strategy, international media planning, international media strategy
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, media, Real Estate, Retail, travel/hospitality | Tags: digital marketing, digital media, digital retail advertising, digital travel advertising, Facebook, Facebook advertising, interactive strategy, international media strategy, internet advertising, media buying strategy, online advertising, retail marketing, retail marketing strategy, social media, social media advertising, social media branding
Whether your friend’s three-year old leather couch, 55% off laser hair removal, or a two-for-one three course meal coupon, consumer spending directly connected to social media has increased exponentially throughout 2010. A few sites, most notably Groupon, have taken Costco’s business model, of buy in bulk for discounted prices, to the digital landscape. The great thing about this new wave of technological coupon clipping is that the individual consumer needs not be concerned with taking on the “bulk”. Rather than asking a friend to go halfsies on a five pound box of Apple Jacks, the “bulk” gets filled through an email list serve or creating a buzz by “Liking” a product on Facebook or Twitter. Buyers have an actual interest in telling friends, colleagues, and even distant acquaintances about a certain deal as the deal only works if the bulk order gets filled. Long gone are the days of clipping coupons to get 20 cents off a can of corn. Now, armed with a credit card, anyone with internet access can get 60% off two nights at a posh New York City hotel.
Facebook Places took what Four Square had been doing for a while now and magnified the digital word-of-mouth. The 500 million members on Facebook significantly dwarf the seemingly meager user base of 2 million. When a user checks into Places on their mobile device, the platform gives that person a choice of places to check into. While not directly ecommerce, friends can comment about or “Like” a place that the user checks in on Places. This gives a good amount of added value with possibly thousands of impressions comprised of people who saw the “Like”.
In a New York Times article, Brooke Moreland, co-founder and CEO of Fashism commented, “Getting feedback at the point-of-sale is really powerful. This is a new way to show off inventory that is actually in the store and bringing in new customers.” Fashism, along with competitors ModCloth and GoTryitOn, represents a new slant on social shopping where users can upload outfits and ask other users if it’s hot or not. These sites give users a lot more freedom than Groupon or Facebook by adding the dreaded “hate it” button. While Facebook and Groupon may not want to risk scaring of advertisers by adding the ability for consumers to dislike something, Fashism encourages real feedback from real consumers. Consumer feedback actually affects the product stock on ModCloth. Hopefully this is the future of social shopping where it becomes more of an open conversation between consumers and retail businesses. One “Like” on Fashism could prove more meaningful than several “Likes” on Facebook.
If you’re hoping social shopping becomes a little more anonymous in the coming year, you’re likely in for a huge and very public disappointment. According to an Economist article, the third generation of ecommerce sites, like Swipely, are more for the “digital exhibitionists” than the private consumer. Every user’s credit card purchase is logged, in detail, on the site. Friends can see what, where, and for how much someone bought a specific item. Of course to keep the big brother aspect to a minimum, the user also has the ability to keep private the transactions they don’t want to share.
Even the whole mall experience has been copied and pasted into cyber space. A month ago Facebook launched its Shopping Mall in conjunction with Payvement. Shopping Mall will unify all of the businesses with Payvment storefronts and categorize shopping experiences by seller, items, bestsellers, recommended items, and more. But unlike traditional malls, Payvment’s Shopping Mall will allow users to “like” items that they want, see their friends’ “liked” items, and get recommendations based on their Facebook interests.
While there are plenty of options for a retail business to market their product through social media, finding the right ways to take advantage of this new wave of ecommerce without alienating your consumer base can prove complicated. We at Criterion Global pride ourselves on the work we have done on various ecommerce campaigns for our profitable retail clients.
For more information, call us at +001 646 330 4673, or email hello@criterionglobal.com
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, luxury marketing, media, Real Estate, Retail, travel/hospitality | Tags: digital media, digital travel advertising, digital travel marketing, global travel marketing, interactive strategy, online advertising, online marketing, online travel marketing, retail marketing, retail marketing strategy, social media, social media advertising, travel marketing
Here’s an insightful chart on ad interaction on Facebook broken down by business sector:
To learn more about how to incorporate social media into your company’s marketing plan, contact Criterion Global at +001 646 330 4673 or email us at hello@criterionglobal.com
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, media, travel/hospitality | Tags: advertising in BRIC nations, attracting business travelers, BRIC marketing, china, chinese consumer marketing, destination marketing, destination marketing organization, destination marketing organizations, marketing in BRIC countries, travel and hospitality, travel marketing
The China Tourism Academy predicts that more than 57 million well to do Chinese tourists will use their passports this year and spend a hefty USD 55 billion. Any destination that can effectively market to China in 2011 only needs to stake claim on a small portion of the predicted spend to get back a fantastic ROI.
Last Year the average outbound Chinese tourist out spent the average inbound tourist nearly 3 to 1.
India is taking the lead in wooing this export tourism with their ‘Namaste India campaign’.
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, luxury marketing, travel/hospitality | Tags: destination marketing, destination marketing organization, gay destination marketing, gay destination marketing organization, gay DMO, gay travel marketing, GLBT destination marketing, GLBT travel marketing, interactive marketing travel sector, travel marketing
According to Community Marketing Inc, a San Francisco based market research firm, gay business travel is a niche market in which hotels and destinations need to start paying more attention. While on the surface it seems difficult to differentiate between gay business travel and overall business travel, attracting GLBT in this category has become more competitive as of recent. Gays and Lesbians maintain a strong presence in fields such as technology, their spending habits are generally higher than their straight counterparts, and GLBT business organizations host annual conferences that attract a nationwide audience.
Particularly, GLBT business travelers are more likely to add a couple leisure vacation days to their business trip and show extreme brand loyalty when it comes to places that identify themselves as “gay friendly”.
Criterion Global knows this well as we provide marketing and media buying for a gay oriented hotel in Miami.
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, travel/hospitality | Tags: attracting business travelers, destination marketing, destination marketing organization, global luxury marketing, interactive marketing travel sector, travel advertising, travel and hospitality
Say goodbye to "livestock" class
It is well known that the business elite are disproportionately heavy consumers for the airline industry. However, since the recent economic crisis, corporations’ decision making regarding purchases of tickets have shifted away from these affluent consumers toward senior executives, who have been forced to tighten corporate spending and minimize travel expenses. According to the International Air Transportation Association (IATA), 90% of travelers fly economy, yet the remaining 10% who fly business class account for 30% of airlines’ profits. These few, elite passengers, who pay 5-6 times more for their tickets, essentially subsidize the economy passengers’ flights. Recent losses due to rising fuel costs and falling passenger demand have caused business class ticket purchases to decline three times faster than economy class ticket purchases.
For years, airlines assumed business class travelers’ willingness to pay for perks – such as more leg room than economy class, reclining seats, higher quality meals served on dinnerware, and special frequent flyer mile programs – was inelastic. Yet with fewer business class travelers, the industry now sees these consumers as a flawed demographic. According to a study by CWT Solutions Group, business class travelers have traded both ticket flexibility and class comfort “in return for low fares. While many have turned away from business class as a whole, the business elite show a desire to see business class prices justified, thus preferring to fly economy on shorter hauls and business class on longer hauls. Unfortunately, many airlines, such as Aer Lingus, a low-cost Irish airline that offers flights to the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., have opted to remove business class.
Some carriers will create an amalgam of business class and economy class, which propose business class perks and services at economy class prices. Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), which offers flights to many northern European nations, introduced “Economy Flex,” which is 80-90% cheaper than traditional business class fares. OpenSkies, a subsidiary of British Airways, seeks to appeal to the “cost-conscious business traveler” with “an open bar, flat beds for some seats, [and] à la carte dining on china plates with silverware and real glasses,” at 50% lower costs than Air France and United’s economy class – its main competitors. The company’s outsourcing of maintenance and catering, as well as its smaller planes in less congested airports, allows OpenSkies to offer cheap rates and business class-style service.
It is clear that the airline industry is adapting to changes in consumer demand. The economic downturn has pressured corporations to limit employees’ travel spending. Airlines are evolving and offering more deals in hopes of regaining revenues lost due to high fuel prices and fewer customers. With all of this, will the airline industry ever bounce back to its pre-recession glory
Filed under: CG, Consumer Insight, luxury marketing, media, travel/hospitality | Tags: digital marketing, digital media, international advertising, international brand strategy, international marketing, international media, international media buying, international media buying strategy, international media planning, mobile marketing, mobile media buying, mobile media usage, qr code advertising, qr code marketing, sms advertising
The above is a QR code link to CriterionGlobal.com, inspired by a colleague whose business card contains simply a QR code image. QR is shaping up to be the language of the coming mobile revolution, which might sound like science fiction, but its rate of adoption in influential Western markets would suggest otherwise.
For the moment, however, Criterion Global has no plans to replace our beloved logo, which is gaining notoriety in the graphic design community (1, 2, 3, 4). We won’t be replacing it with QR code anytime soon, but the utility of code for iPhone users gives us a few creative ideas…
As an international media buying agency, we work to stay on the pulse of consumer affinities. IPhone users are a unique demographic: wealthier than the average consumer, more tech savvy, and concentrated in more urban areas than the average smartphone user. This mobile consumer is an ideal target audience for our clients, particulary in the fashion and boutique hospitality sector.
Sound a bit too futuristic? Conan O’Brien might disagree…Happy Monday all!
