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"How can brands do a better job of fostering these relationships so that they're at the forefront of consumer's minds? 1. Develop a great product. Not to resuscitate the Mac vs. PC argument, but there's a reason many people aren't hesitant to recommend their MacBook or iPhone to a friend. 2. Facilitate social sharing. Brands need to be engaged with consumers via social media, and brands need product sites and marketing programs that facilitate seamless social sharing. 3. Create sampling programs to reach digital consumers. Many influential digital consumers are eager to discuss their love of specific products and brands. Marketers need to reach and engage them in innovative ways, such as via sampling programs, contests, coupons. 4. Get game. Brand can introduce game element through badges, achievements, and prizes to turn their consumers to brand ambassadors and engage them in a fun way."

"Ian Heidt, director of product management for Qualcomm Labs, said the technology pulls in information from a variety of sensors on the phone, how consumers use the phone, including the camera, and location to create a unique fingerprint. "In early trials in Japan, we've seen improvement on targeting," he said. "It shows how mobile and content change the behavior of consumers." Trials conducted by Blogwatcher in Japan found that consumers were three times more likely to click through and respond to WITYU notifications and offers as compared with non-contextualized and non-personalized offers. Click-through rates rose by more than 60% when specials and offers were delivered to consumers."

Hybris North America President Steven Kramer said: While social media channels can be valuable awareness-generating vehicles for retailers, they are not currently preferred options for consumers when it comes to purchasing, with consumers visiting retailers' social media sites to gather information that they will then oftentimes use to complete a purchase via another channel. Consumers continue to want information when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it, but when it comes to actually making a purchase, social media is not a preferred or trusted choice. This demonstrates the importance of retailers having a cohesive, cross-channel marketing and commerce strategy, with social media just a piece of the overall multichannel puzzle.

Gartner's survey of consumer sentiment, reported by the Detroit Free Press, shows that consumers give higher priority to "specific applications that make sense when they're driving," according to Gartner analyst Thilo Koslowski, including features like weather forecasting, traffic conditions, and parking availability, along with features such as voice recognition and automated crash notification systems. Gartner found that 82% of U.S. consumers would be willing to pay extra for such features, up from 20% just a few years ago.

Toyota Corp.'s Lexus is gearing up for the fourth season of its TV One show, "Verses and Flow." The new season of the show designed to reach African-American consumers, which will premiere in August, will feature performances by artists including K. Michelle, Candice Glover and Ruben Studdard. Acting as a producer of content allows a brand to reach consumers in an organic way.

Doritos is well known for its Crash the Super Bowl ad competition, which lets consumers square off against Madison Avenue. They're taking it a step further in 2012. A consumer-created spot will air alongside a spot made by The Lonely Island-the comedy troupe of Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone, and Andy Samberg-during next year's game. If the consumer spot tops the USA Today Ad Meter, the creator will get $1 million and the chance to work with The Lonely Island on a future project. 

"Sony has announced that it will be launching the first 4K video distribution service for consumers, giving 4K TV buyers their first real source of content. We don't have much information about the service, but it will be launching in the US this summer, both potentially creating a 4K market and giving Sony an edge. It's something Sony originally tried with 3D, trying to handle all facets of the feature from content creation to distribution and playback. "We intend to expand the world of 4K content from beyond the cinema to TV dramas and commercials," Sony's Kaz Hirai said during the conference at CES. Sony has already announced a series of remastered 4K Blu-rays, and as with 3D, the company is trying to sell studios on the benefits of 4K. Meanwhile, it's announced the first-ever 4K OLED prototype TV and new models of its consumer-ready 4K TVs. In the US, though, super high-def digital distribution could be hampered by ISPs, which aren't likely to look kindly on the stress this will cause their pipes."

From NM Incite: Social media discussion about Black Friday peaked in 2012, accounting for 2.6% of online buzz, up 15% from 2011. Cyber Monday buzz almost doubled relative to 2012, accounting for 1.4% of online buzz. The overwhelming majority of social media conversation about Black Friday and Cyber Monday was driven by consumers sharing deals and talking about deals. 10% of Black Friday conversation, specifically, was negative, driven largely by consumer complaints about crowds, violence and lackluster sales. The top shared link within Black Friday buzz was the Amazon Black Friday Deals page.

"Google's "Smartphone Launch Predictor" study found that 52 percent of purchase-related searches occur before a smartphone is launched. According to Google, the key to a successful smartphone launch is getting ahead of the release and marketing early. "One of the biggest factors is getting early buzz. Getting early buzz is key [for a successful smartphone launch]," Google Industry Director for Tech Kyle Keogh told ClickZ. The study found that the earlier a firm markets a smartphone the more likely they are to succeed in sales. According to Google, an extra 1,000 news stories put in place weeks before a launch can lead to a 9 percent spike in smartphone sales. Google's research discovered that users tend to do general product searches in the week during launch. After launch, it was discovered that consumers dig deep and search for key specifications on a device. Video is also becoming a key research tool for consumers shopping for a smartphone. According to the study, video views for smartphones increased 60 percent this year. Google says that if a smartphone gets over 1 million video views during launch week it will likely sell over 1.3 million units."

"SundaySky's 2012 "State of Video in E-Commerce" report compiles data from internal and external studies to uncover the latest trends in online video marketing. SundaySky found that a short-form video advertisement without personalization had a 50 percent consumer completion rate. However, according to the study, a slightly longer long-form video advertisement with added consumer personalization will garner 2.5 times longer viewing times. "2012 will be remembered for the first online Olympics and the first digital election, perhaps not the year of personally relevant video, but we did learn that personalization is the key to increasing video engagement," said SundaySky VP of Marketing Kelly Ford in a blog post."

"Flurry stacked up time spent with mobile apps next to the web and TV. Although it didn't take into account multitasking-which research shows is very common among mobile app users-Flurry findings indicated that US consumers spent more time in apps than on the web. And their time spent with mobile apps (127 minutes) was nipping at the heels of their time spent watching TV (168 minutes). Flurry broke down mobile app usage into categories, and found that mobile gaming led the charge, accounting for 43% of the time spent with mobile apps worldwide. Social networking came in second, accounting for 26% of consumers' time, and entertainment and utility followed, each with 10%."

"Of the 30 brands that have signed on thus far, only five will be running campaigns in the U.S. Twentieth Century Fox, one of two global launch advertisers, will promote its upcoming film Life of Pi with ads in the Xbox Video app, Xbox companion mobile and tablet app SmartGlass app and the Casual Games app, which spans Xbox and Microsoft's desktop and mobile operating systems. And next month the other global launch advertiser, Nissan, will run ads in the Bing and Xbox Music apps. Though it seems the in-app ads are initially only slated to run within Microsoft's own apps, the company said several publishers-such as The Associated Press, Bonnier Corporation, Photobucket, Slacker Radio and The Tribune Company-have agreed to run the units. In announcing the roster of initial advertisers, Microsoft also put out some stats regarding consumer perception of the ad units. The most encouraging stat found that the ads scored a 92 percent in ad recall, but the other numbers suggest brands may prefer consumers forget their ads. Only 39 percent of respondents said they're happy to see advertising within Windows 8, and only 33 percent agreed that advertising on Windows 8 improved their opinion of a brand."

"800,000 Instagrams were tagged [Hurricane] #Sandy, and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom thinks that makes it the most digitally captured event in history. But "how do we mine all these photos, make sense of them so you can consume the most interesting photos about Sandy?" he asked today at GigaOm's RoadMap conference. His conclusion was "We're going to need to be a big data company." Systrom says Instagram's focused is on "making meaning of all the data coming in, and improving the experience of curating." For example, he said that there were only 85,000 #SuperBowl Instagrams, compared to the 800,000 #SandyGram. People can't consume 800,000 photos, but they still want to pull valuable information from them."

The sheer volume of images generated on social media is staggering. Between Facebook and Instagram alone, consumers are generating nearly 2.5 billion images every week. Images are becoming so core to the social experience, that Facebook just revamped its feed to be more visual. Add into the mix Pinterest, Tumblr, Polyvore and Wanelo, and it's clear that consumers increasingly prefer to communicate with pictures rather than words. 

the amount of time consumers spent engaged with the brand was 48 seconds when NFC was involved. This is significantly higher than the five to 10 seconds consumers typically spend at the shelf choosing a product.

"Using addressable ads, marketers can predetermine the type of consumer who will see their commercials. In this case, Allstate is taking consumer data widely available from firms such as Experian, Epsilon and Axicom, along with subscriber information from Dish and DirecTV, and using all this to pinpoint renters. In other words, if the subscriber is a homeowner, the commercial is not supposed to appear on the TV screen. By using both DirecTV and Dish, Allstate's new-technology commercials will reach about 15 million households."

An app that'll pay consumers to check store displays. Keeps brands up to date with the stores and checks up on them by paying consumers that post up pictures of displays (anonymously).  L'Oreal is an example used. 

saveup allows consumers to earn credits for making smart financial decisions

TousDonateurs, a French site that lets consumers watch video ads in exchange for donations to the charity of their choice.

Leake says LocalResponse will deliver the ads in two ways: If you mention a company on Twitter, you'll receive a response that links to a relevant retailer landing page. Even more impressive, you'll see banner ads in some mobile apps that can expand and show you the store's circular. (The latter feature is only available in-app currently, but Leake says it will be available for the mobile web by the fourth quarter.) I asked if any consumers were weirded out by this very direct ad targeting, but Leake said the response has been overwhelmingly positive. She said that consumers realize their check-in data and social media posts are public (unless they've been locked down). Additionally, LocalResponse is very careful to share intent data only with the relevant brand (so a check-in at Macy's won't be seen by any competitors).