Online Video Accounts for Half of All Internet Traffic Tablets preferred over smartphones for viewing. Plus, expert shares insights on global financial market woes

 

If you think web-based video is everywhere, you’re not alone. Experts say online video accounts for more than half of all Internet traffic today and nearly 800 million people consumed watched at least one Web videos last year. That rate of adoption will likely double in the next 12 months according to networking services firm, Cisco, Inc.

According to Cisco, Web connected devices such as tablets, phones, game consoles, and TV sets, etc. are driving the surge in video consumption. Cisco claims that by 2016, HD streams to TV sets will grow six-fold, accounting for 6 percent of all worldwide consumer Web traffic.

However, this is chump change compared to mobile video consumption on tablets and phones. Cisco says mobile video traffic will grow 18-fold between 2011-2016, while the number of worldwide mobile users will reach 1.6 billion – a projected six-fold increase over 2011.

The Cisco report also claims that close to one-third of all Web traffic will come from devices other than the PC by 2016.

Tablet owners watching a lot more video than smart phone

Meanwhile, new findings from Rhythm New Media suggest that people prefer tablets to smartphones for watching online video. Depending on the mobile app, researchers say users watched from 50 percent to 175 percent more videos on tablets than they did on smartphones in Q1. However, because smartphones are more ubiquitous than tablets, they still account for the vast majority of time spent watching mobile video—79 percent versus 21 percent for tablets on premium properties.

Macro view

OUR TAKE: Domestically, manufacturing activity picked up a little bit according to the Institute of Supply Management, despite disappointing data on the employment and housing fronts. The equity markets are giving back most of the gains they accrued over the first five months of the year, but inflation and interest rates are still at historic lows. We think it’s still time to be cautiously optimistic about your own investments in advertising, hiring and infrastructure. Just pick your spots carefully.

Even those of you in small to midsize enterprises are really operating in a global economy however. For a global perspective, it’s too complicated for us, so we turned to our friend Paul Brian Gibson, of Norwalk, Conn-based Harborview Capital Management, LLC.
 

While the media has been filled with European headlines the last two months they have ignored the very poor data from China, Gibson told us Friday. “The reason oil has dropped 20 percent over the last few weeks is not Europe, it’s China, as the marginal buyer of the world’s commodities. Today’s official manufacturing PMI from China underscores the larger problems China faces--large decline in real estate prices, big drops in money supply, stagnating loan growth, declining rail activity and electricity usage. Chinese officials are wary of a major 2008 style stimulus that created the current bubbles in real estate and commodity prices.  The bubbles are not just in China, but in the commodity producing nations like Australia, Canada and Brazil.” 

Gibson said Europe has severe problems, but without crisis there will not be real reform. “Prepare for more downside in the risk markets, with the commensurate bounces in periods of severely oversold conditions until that real reform occurs, with support at that point, and only then, from the ECB and other central banks.”

Conclusion
Whether you’re talking about traditional media, new media, social media or the financial markets, you and your customers are connected globally for better or worse.  It’s never been easier to stay connected—but it’s never been harder to insulate yourself.

Winners in the global economy are not only the ones who are faster and more adaptable, but the ones who can see through a 360-degree lens (regardless of where that lens is manufactured).

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TAGS: ECB, European Central Bank, Paul Brian Gibson, Harborview Capital Management, Cisco, Rhythm New Media

Tablets Continue to Pull Business Prospects Away from Their Laptops
Learning to embrace the dance of the unfinished


According to IDG Research, one in eight (12%) iPad users already say their device has completely replaced their traditional laptop, while another 54 percent said tablets have partially replaced their laptops. What’s more, nearly half (44%) of marketers believe tablets will have a high or very high impact on laptop use in 2012.

The opinions of marketers on the future of laptops are divided though, says the report. The majority sit somewhere in the middle, with 37 percent suggesting it will have a high impact and 37 percent indicating it will have some impact.

IDG’s analysis concludes that tablets are widely used, and four out of five (79%) iPad owning professionals always use them on the move, is all the evidence marketers should need to target this medium.

Getting comfortable with things being unfinished

Blogger and futurist Seth Godin, had a great post recently about the never-ending state of our work lives. “There's always one more tweet to make, post to write, words with friends move to complete,” he explained. “There's one more bit of email, one more lens you can construct, one more comment you can respond to. If you want to, you can be never finished."


For the marketer, the freelancer and the entrepreneur, Godin observed, it’s not like how we were brought up--trained to finish our homework, our food, our errands and our chores. You’re never really done and you have to embrace that.

Conclusion

We may not have time to smell the roses anymore, but at least take time to notice them. It’ll be Labor Day before you know it. Don’t kick yourself again wondering where the summer has gone.
As Godin said: “Today, we're never finished, and that's okay. It's a dance, not an endless grind.”



Conclusion

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TAGS: Seth Godin, IDG research, tablets, iPad, replacing laptops, B2B marketing

Facebook Facing the Music?
Online video continues surge

   Now that the most public of companies is a public company, it looks like it’ll have to grow up a little. Shares of the newest kid on the Nasdaq block skidded again on their second day of trading. FB (Nasdaq) shares are now about 11 percent lower than the company’s initial offer price. Regulators and some investors who bought into the social network's public offering are now in the red (and seeing red) while raising questions about whether the company and its lead banker, Morgan Stanley, botched the deal. There were also some strangely-timed privacy suits against the company last week on top of GM’s decision to pull its entire $10 million ad schedule off the site two days before the IPO. 

It wasn't clear what role if any Morgan Stanley was playing in the stock's trading on Monday.
Disclosure: we’re neither long, nor short Facebook and don’t intend to be anytime soon.

Taking the long view

Regardless of whether FB (NASDAQ) succeeds as a public company, social media will be here to stay in one form or another. Social media’s probably not going to dominate all other forms of media, communication and human interaction—but it has earned a seat at the table. B2B marketers should make sure social plays some sort of part in your overall marketing mix. Let’s skip the hype and get back to business.

Online video growth continues surge

Internet users (and advertisers) can’t seem to get enough of online video. The amount of time spent watching online video grew about 46 percent in April 2012 compared to April 2011 according to comScore’s just-released April 2012 online video viewership figures. While comScore’s data indicates that the number of unique viewers rose only 5, viewers are watching a lot more video. Internet users watched about 21.8 hours last month -- up from 15 hours the year before, representing a 46 percent increase.

Meanwhile, the number of video ads viewed online rose to 9.5 billion for April, up from 3.8 billion the year before -- an increase of more than 2.5 times. Plus, the 9.5 billion ads is 14 percent higher than the 8.3 billion ads delivered just one month ago in March.

Our take: Analysts say most of the video viewership increase is coming from YouTube, but we think B2B markets should look closer at using dedicated video playlist tools that give your more control—Brightcove, Vimeo, etc.—with YouTube simply as your fill-in-the-gaps air coverage.

Macro view

Home construction rose to nearly a three-year high in April, the government reported last week and factory output rose in three of this year’s first four months. The two reports suggest growth in Q2 is off to a good start, helped by falling gasoline prices and solid hiring gains.

An AP report said manufacturing has become one of the strongest areas of the American economy since the recession ended nearly three years ago. Factory output is now 18.3 percent higher than its low hit in June 2009, the month the recession ended. It is only 6.1 percent below its prerecession peak.

Conclusion

Let’s stay focused on the fundamentals not FB’s daily gyrations. Things are getting better whether you meet your customers and clients face-to-face or Facebook style. Smart, relevant, targeted marketing will always win out in the long run.

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TAGS: Housing construction, industrial output, Facebook IPO, Morgan Stanley, comScore, Nasdaq

Why B2B Marketers Care About TV Upfront Week

LinkedIn preferred by the financial elite (see below)

Broadcast television—emphasis on “broad”—still has merit for mass consumer advertisers pushing cars, consumer staples, travel and movies. There will still be plenty of buzz this week when the advertising “up front” season kicks off. But, the live ratings for networks programs have declined for 14 straight quarters, according to media buying firm, Horizon Media. Meanwhile, Horizon says online viewing is up more than 46 percent year-over-year and Nielsen estimates there will be 350 million Web-enabled TV devices in use worldwide by 2015.

NY Times media pundit, David Carr quipped today, “it isn’t just the early adopters that legacy television has to be concerned about: there is a whole cohort of consumers on the way who are non-adopters of TV as we have historically conceived it.”

Our take: It’s not only that “appointment TV” continues to drop precipitously (i.e. American Idol ratings off 30 percent), but viewers want to consume their favorite content when they’re good and ready to do so. That same DVR mindset is affecting how they engage with your email newsletters, alerts, podcasts, videos and white papers.

Don’t worry about your clicks, opens, views and Likes the first 12 to 24 hours of a digital campaign. In the same way that your target buyers TiVo their favorite shows for later viewing, they’re archiving their “must-read/must view” work-related content and plowing through it over the weekend or late at night when they’re more relaxed and less distracted. We see this trend again and again with our clients.

Next week we’ll talk about using the metrics that matters—not the McMetrics that are easiest to collect.


LinkedIn preferred by the financial elite

According to the latest quarterly study by Janrain Engage, people use Facebook to interact with friends and family, Twitter to follow influencers and share opinions, LinkedIn for their professional network, and Gmail, Yahoo! or Hotmail to communicate directly with contacts.  Combined, these networks boast over 1.5 billion accounts. 

However, it’s a little different for financial advisors and high net worth investors (HNWI) of more than $100,000 in investable assets. A new commissioned by LinkedIn released late last week at the Financial Services Summit in New York identified some important takeaways:

1.For about one third of advisors (30%), social media plays a role in marketing and researchers expect it to be used by over half over advisors in 2013. Nearly three fourths of financial advisors have used at least one social network for business in the past year. Researchers also found that many advisors are not taking advantage of the platform. About 5 million high net worth individuals (HNWIs in industry parlance) use social media to inform financial decisions, and of those who consult a financial advisor regularly, more than half (52%) would value interacting with that person via social media -- but only 4 percent do so today.

2.LinkedIn says about two-thirds of U.S. online adults with an investment account have at least one social network profile, and Forrester Research says nearly all households with more than $1 million in investable assets are now online.

3.Social media adopters are more demanding. More than half (53%) of HNWIs expect relevant and timely content, 48 percent want greater transparency of information and 45 percent value real-time interactive conversations.

4.Among advisors who have used at least one social network for business, 91 percent have used LinkedIn; 32 percent, Facebook; 28 percent, Google+; and 22 percent, Twitter.

Our Take: Great stats, but now LinkedIn starts to push it over the top. For instance, the study also found social media improves brand perception of a financial company, labeling it as "innovative." Researchers claim “Not only do investors expect finance companies to advertise on LinkedIn, but doing so improves consumer brand perception toward the financial company by 7 percent. That same financial company advertising on another social platform could result in an 11 percent net decrease in favorability,” according to LinkedIn's findings.

Conclusion

Whether you’re in mass consumer, financial services or nuts-and-bolts B2B, your target customers—not you—decide if and when they’ll spend time with your offering. That’s the world we live in. Just as “mass” is fading from the lexicon of mass media, “blast” is fading from the world of B2B.

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TAGS: LinkedIn, Forrester Researcher, Horizon Media, Janrain Engage, Financial Services Summit, Nielsen, David Carr

Turning the Corner on Housing, Video, Social, Mobile

Real numbers for real B2B marketers




Despite languid GDP growth, more solid quarterly earnings reports pushed stocks to their biggest weekly advance since mid-March. Separately, a report showed U.S. consumers in late April felt better about the economy than earlier in the month and an index that measures the number of contracts signed to purchase previously owned homes rose in March to its highest level in nearly two years, up 12.8 percent from a year ago and 4.1 percent from February, the National Association of Realtors said on Thursday.

Housing rebound for real?

"We very much believe we've hit bottom," Ivy Zelman, chief executive of a Zelman Associates told the WSJ last week. Earlier this week, she raised her home-price forecast for the year, calling for a 1 percent annual gain, up from a 1 percent decline. According to the Journal, real-estate agents consider a market balanced when there is a six-month supply of homes for sale. At the height of the housing crisis, in 2008, there was an 11.1-months' supply. In March, there was a 6.3-months' supply.

Out Take: We’re far from out of the woods but the worst is clearly over. When buyers and sellers have reached a statistical stalemate—buyers aren’t caving in, but sellers aren’t raising their bids—we take that as a positive sign that we’re slowly rebounding from the bottom. Consumer confidence ultimately finds its way to the B2B sector and we’re advising a modest green light on your hiring and infrastructure upgrade plans.

Facebook “Like” not the same as engagement

Appalachian State University’s Department of Communication found that even among 18- to 29-year-olds (aka the Facebook generation), while 75 percent said they had “liked” a profit or non-profit organization on Facebook, seven out of ten (69%) said that once they “liked” the organization, they rarely or never returned to the fan page. What’s more, only 15 percent of the respondents said they visited organizations’ fan pages weekly. Most respondents (44%) spent less than 30 minutes a day on Facebook.

Researchers found 18- to 29-year-olds are not as invested in an organization as the organization may think... when they click the ‘like’ button or click ‘follow’... It’s fairly consistent in the research that Millennials like organizations that give something back to them.”

Fickle "Digital Natives" switch platforms every other minute

If you think the younger generation has perpetual ADD, you’re not alone. According to a new Time Inc. study, digital Natives switch their attention between media platforms (i.e. TVs, magazines, tablets, smartphones or channels within platforms) 27 times per hour, about every other minute!

Because Digital Natives spend more time using multiple media platforms simultaneously, researchers say their emotional engagement with content is constrained. Apparently they experience fewer highs and lows of emotional response and as a result. Digital Natives more frequently use media to regulate their mood; as soon as they grow tired or bored, they turn their attention to something new.

Our Take: One key to these findings is that Digital Immigrants appear to be intuitively linear, whereas Natives, don’t necessarily need a beginning, middle and end to stories--they will accept it in any order. Digital Natives are subconsciously switching between platforms and can pick up different pieces of a story from different mediums in any order.

Mobile ad spend to double in 2012

A new forecast from technology research firm Strategy Analytics projects mobile ad spending worldwide will grow 85 percent in 2012 from $6.3 billion to $11.6 billion. In the U.S., researchers predict mobile advertising will grow even faster, more than doubling (up 128%) to just under $4.2 billion.

Advertising is expected to grow much faster than consumer spending in mobile. Strategy Analytics projects that consumer outlays on mobile media will grow 13.4 percent from $121.8 billion to $138.2 billion globally in 2012. In the U.S., the corresponding figure will increase 15.5 percent to $33.7 billion. The majority of consumer dollars (60.2%) worldwide will go toward carrier data plans and mobile Internet services.

But the study anticipates that strong, continued demand for apps will also play a key role in driving growth. The number of apps downloaded in 2011 surged 38 percent from 23 billion to 32 billion, making apps the second-largest revenue category for both consumer and advertiser spending. Apps are expected to account for 18.9% of mobile consumer spend in 2012, rising 30.7% to $26.1 billion.

David MacQueen, Strategy Analytics’ director of wireless media strategies, explained that mobile video is either often free and ad-supported (YouTube) or bundled without extra charge into services, such as Sky Go in Europe and AT&T U-verse in the U.S. So despite a global audience of 271 million users, mobile video only generated $223 million in ad sales last year.

Strategy Analytics predicts that 125 million Americans will use their handsets to social network. But again, advertising and other types of revenue have yet to catch up with consumers. So related U.S. revenue will reach $412.7 million, or $3.48 per mobile user.

Mobile video to surpass web video

It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the mobile video ad market will surpass the online video ad market later this year. “It’s happening fast and people are not quite comprehending the speed,” said Tod Sacerdoti, CEO of ad network BrightRoll in a recent statement. “By the end of this year we are pretty confident that more than half of all digital video ads will be mobile.” In March alone, more than 40 percent of the global video exchange requests at BrightRoll were for mobile. A year ago that figure was less than 5 percent, underscoring the rapid trajectory for mobile video, especially in the last few months.

One of the benefits of mobile video ads is they are often brand safe from the get-go, and are served to us in popular apps like Angry Birds, Draw Something, and Pandora, Sacerdoti said. Thus, the growth in mobile video advertising will spread well beyond the premium big name publishers. “You have an enormous influx of supply and this is almost universally good for marketers. For publishers this may be a different group though, and publishers who have a strong business online might not be as meaningful on mobile.”

Conclusion

Your best clients and customers are increasingly less tethered to their desks and desktop computers while working. You’ll not only have to work harder to reach them on the go, but you’ll have to reach them when they’re in the right mindset to be reached. In this digital society, the work/leisure line becomes fuzzier and fuzzier. They’re working when they’re playing and they’re playing when their working. Now more than ever, you have to be smart, fast and creative to get your message through.


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TAGS: mobile, apps, video, Appalachian State, Time Inc., National Association of Realtors, Strategy Analytics, Brightroll, digital natives, digital immigrants 

Internet Advertising Passes Cable, Now No. 2 Advertising Medium

Financial services second largest online ad category. Are higher gas prices here to stay?

As the NY Times opined late last week, even President Obama can’t reverse the law of supply and demand. But, federal officials can try to ensure that market manipulation and speculation does not drive gas prices higher than is warranted by economic fundamentals.

So, how do you make that pre-election rhetoric into policy? Experts say research presented in Congressional testimony, academic papers, government and private studies shows excessive speculation, mainly by Wall Street index-fund traders, is needlessly driving up prices, with estimates ranging up to $1 a gallon in jacked-up gasoline costs. And Mr. Obama called on Congress to increase regulators’ budgets and powers to police the oil markets and to increase penalties for manipulation. But conservatives, including The Wall Street Journal said no clear evidence of speculation or who the speculators are….and if so, was is natural gas so low. See video interview of Journal assistant editorial page editor James Freeman Pic=Phantom Oil speculation

Our take: While a reasonable amount of hedging and speculation is needed to ensure free-flowing efficient markets, excessive speculation is what causes meltdowns like we saw in the banking and housing markets. In the short run, don’t expect the Administration to take drastic steps before the elections to curb speculation or to interfere with financial markets that have regained most of the ground lost since the 2008. If your business depends on raw materials, transportation, travel or energy, plan for a short period of higher costs which will impact business and consumer demand for your products and services. Also expect higher business travel costs and possible impact of attendance at your live events.
Internet advertising passes cable, now second-largest advertising medium

Internet ad spending grew 22 percent in 2011 to $31.7 billion, according to the latest data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Researchers said growth is accelerating, not decelerating, from last year’s 14.5 percent growth rate after a recession-induced slide in 2009. The IAB also said mobile advertising was the fastest-growing category in 2011, jumping nearly 150 percent to $1.6 billion in 2010. Mobile also garnered 5 percent of total online ad dollars this year versus 2.5 percent a year ago. Digital video advertising -- which the IAB includes as part of display advertising -- saw strong growth as well, rising 29 percent from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion. Overall, display spending rose 15 percent in 2011 to $11.1 billion from $9.6 billion.

Financial services second largest online ad category

Financial services accounted for 13 percent ($4.1 billion), behind only retail (22%, $7 billion); telecom, ranked third as 12 percent ($3.9 billion), automotive, 11 percent ($2.9 billion), leisure travel, 8 percent ($2.4 billion), and computing 8 percent ($2.7 billion). IAB said the $31.7 billion in Internet advertising in 2011 exceeded the $31 billion in cable TV advertising last year, making the category second only to broadcast TV ($38.5 billion).

“Pushing past the $30 billion barrier, the interactive advertising industry confirms its central place in media," said IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg, in presenting the 2011 figures Wednesday.

Email more popular than social media
Social media may be getting all the buzz, but email is still a more popular mode of Internet communication, according to a new survey from private research firm Ipsos. Of nearly 20,000 adults polled worldwide, 85 percent of them used the Internet for email while 62 percent used it for social networking. Keren Gottfried, research manager at Ipsos, says she expected email use to trump that of social media. “If you think about it, the Internet was first used for sending letters online. It shouldn’t be surprising that we’re using a digital version of sending a letter,” she says. “But the fact that a majority of people are using [the Internet] for social networking is a paradigm shift; there’s no equivalent in the offline world.” Aside from email and social networking, researcher said another key use of the Internet is for Voice-Over-IP. Overall, VOIP is used by 14 percent of people across the globe and trends high in Russia (36%), Turkey (32%) and India (25%). VOIP use is lowest in Brazil (4%), France (5%) and the U.S. (6%).

E-mail most preferred by online consumers
Email is by far the most popular channel among US online consumers for receiving permission-based promotional messages, according to ExactTarget new survey results released last week. 77 percent of respondents chose email, with direct mail (letter, catalogs, postcards, etc. - 9%), text messaging (SMS) on a cell phone (5%), Facebook (4%), and phone (2%) trailing distantly. Email’s is most popular among 35-44-year-olds and 55-64-year-olds (both at 81%), and least popular among 15-17-year-olds (66%).

You owe it to yourself, your clients and your organization to look into every new marketing channel that emerges on the horizon. But please test and evaluate first before rolling out. You need to put your energies into what’s most effective—not necessarily what’s most buzzworthy—but remember what’s working well today may not be your go-to solution a year or even six months from now.

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Does Technology Make Us Better Connected or More Isolated?

The power of the independent workforce

If you can squeeze in the time, take a few minutes to read Ross Douthat’s Op-Ed piece in yesterday’s New York Times “The Man With the Google Glasses.” If you’re in sales, marketing or business development, you’ve got to find a way to connect with customers who are “more electronically networked, but more personally isolated, than ever before.” Can the remarkable capabilities of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms “make up for the weakening flesh-and-blood ties and the decline of traditional communal institutions?” Douthat ponders.

Our take: Don’t pass judgment on the narcissistic, always-wired generation. They might be more comfortable e-mailing and tweeting you than meeting for lunch or golf, but that’s how the next generation of decision-makers and policy-makers gets things done. The sooner you embrace their style of communication, the sooner you can start closing deals and getting the leg up on your competition. Just keep it real. By that we mean, learn the basics of social media and networking, but don’t try to pass yourself off as an expert and if there’s something that’s still baffling you, just ask. The younger generation’s a little more altruistic than their Boomer/Gen X elders. Chances are they’ll appreciate your honesty and will be willing to help you get up to speed. Nobody likes a poser, whether it’s in the real world or virtual world.

The independent contractor is here to stay

On top of the social networking generation, you also need to pay heed to the freelance, independent free-agent contractor generation. If you’re in any kind of creative, technology or other business that’s based on fresh ideas vs. policy manuals, the rise of the independent workforce won’t be receding even when the economy improves. As Alexandra Levit related in yesterday’s NY Times, “independent work is a choice,” not a sign of desperation. “Given the direction the corporate world is going, I think many workers need to prepare for the possibility of going out on their own some day.”

Here at HB, we’ve found the independent contractors aren’t interesting in kissing anyone’s ass or working their way up an imaginary ladder. They’re interested in having a high income/high quality of life with the flexibility to choose when and how they work and what work they take on. Are they selfish? Perhaps, but we’ve found most independent contractors to be highly disciplined, highly skilled and honestly interested in helping you grow your business and solve tough challenges in innovative and cost-efficient ways.

At the end of the day, that’s what we do for our clients, investors and boards. You owe it to yourself to get the best available athlete on whatever challenge you have—it doesn’t matter if you pay them 1099 or W-2.

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Do Busy Professionals Have Time for Social Media?

Most will tell you it’s a ‘must do’, but tweeting and posting is just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re not carefully planning, adjusting and measuring the right things, then you’re just adding to the noise and making yourselves look worse



Chief Marketer’s recent survey of CMOs found that friends, followers, likes, shares forwards and retweets are still the most popular social media metrics. Why? Because they’re easy to measure. But, as Internet Marketing Report (IMR) revealed in today’s print edition, these easy metrics (we call ‘em McMetrics here at HB) just tell you how wide your reach is. IMR said leads and sales are far more accurate indicators of ROI. For instance, 60 percent of CMOs surveyed said they looked toward “friends, followers and likes” as indicators to measure social media success, but only 35 percent said they monitored qualified leads from social media and only 25 percent measured sales attributed to their social media platforms.

Communicating in a microwave society

And that’s a challenge, because technology is changing so fast. We’re so busy trying to keep up with technology that we’re not really becoming more effective communicators—let alone brand builders or reputation enhancers. “Our culture moves at warp speed, no question, the weekly or even daily news cycle long since replaced by an up-to-the-second Twitter feed of Facebook update,” wrote Sports Illustrated’s Richard Hoffer last week. “We said goodbye to thoughtful consideration the day we moved over to microwave popcorn.”

Fortunately Google Analytics and others will soon enable users to track how well their social media efforts are paying off in real e-commerce dollar terms. Disclosure: Our firm has no commercial ties or partnerships with Google.

Companies that enable the e-commerce tracking feature on their free version of Google Analytics will soon be able to produce a “social value report” that shows conversions or sales that came directly from visitors to your social media site and “assisted conversions” that come within a set interval (say 30 days) of when a visitor interacted with one of your social media pages.

As Hugh Duffy, head of a practice development firm for CPAs noted on his blog last week, time is one of the biggest resource investments you have to consider when embarking on a social media strategy. Citing research from my good friend, Rick Telberg, of Bay Street Group Research Duffy noted there’s a strong correlation between high performance and technology adoption at firms.

To do it well, it will take up a great deal of your organization’s time and energy to launch it, maintain it and perfect it. But will it bring you more business? And how long do you keep trying until you know whether or not you’ll be successful at developing a meaningful and profitable online presence?

Only you and your colleagues can be the judge? But before you start throwing stuff on the wall to see what will stick, you must have a clear timeline, clear assignment of responsibilities and clearly defined success metrics that everyone can buy into. That way you’ll know when it’s time to ramp up or clean up the mess, if it’s just not working out.

Your clients and stakeholders are depending on you. They’ll respect you for trying new ways to reach them. And they’ll respect you even more for not throwing good money (and time) after bad when it becomes apparent that some of your social experiments may not be their cup of tea.

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iRony: Google heavies up on traditional advertising; iPad one hot item!

How B2B media will benefit

As we wind up Q1, jobless claims this week hit a 4 year low and the financial markets ended the first quarter up 12 percent (based on S&P 500 and Wilshire 5000). But gas prices are up again, 22 percent since December to a national average of $3.92. Rising energy prices have weighed on economic confidence and cut into household budgets. That’s a drag on media spending and will be a significant concern for the Obama administration seeking re-election.

On Friday, the Prez said there was enough oil in world markets to allow countries to reduce their Iranian imports significantly, clearing the way for Washington to impose severe new sanctions intended to slash Iran’s oil revenue and press Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. We’ll see how tough Obama stays as we get closer to the November elections with $5 per gallon gas prices, so expect more turbulence in the financial markets—and at the pump.

Google turns to traditional advertising

We got a kick out of this item in Tuesday’s Journal
that Google will spend tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars on TV, magazine and newspaper ads to promote new services, including its Google+ social network and Chrome Web browser. You’ve got to hand it to the kids from Silicon Valley. First kill traditional media, then dominate what’s left of it—and perpetuate the “don’t be evil” mantra. You can’t make this stuff up!


It’s official, new iPad runs hot and apps more fickle

Venerable Wall Street Journal tech columnist, Walter Mossberg says it’s true. c/Net and Huffington Post say it might be true. Let’s see what loyal Apple customers and support staff have to say in this thread

Business and technology media gaining momentum

On the B2B media side, we got “guidance” from PIB, min and other sources that business and technology magazine will show encouraging page gains when the first quarter ad tallies are released most likely next week. Stay tuned as these two sectors, which depends on long sales cycles and “sweaty palms” decision across multiple points of contact, may be finally poised for a rebound. Expect both sectors to benefit from the Google ad blitz and Apple reputation restoration campaigns.

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Senate Approves Bill to Aid Startups

iToldYouSo. One in 5 tech firms rejected applicants because of social media. Total ad spending stagnates in 2011; search takes a hit, display hangs on

By a 3-to-1 margin, the Senate yesterday approved the JOBS Act—Jumpstart Our Business Startups-- which will make it easier for small companies to raise money for growth. It will also minimize corporate governance and disclosure requirements that typically slow the process for companies who are creating jobs and need the approvals the most. The legislation which was approved two weeks ago in the House, would create a new category of “emerging growth” companies that could conduct IPOs for a period of 5 years, without the red tape of certain corporate governance and financial disclosure requirements that fatten the wallets of underwriters and white shoe lawyers but few other people.

OUR TAKE: Of course there will be some fraud and overzealous use of new loopholes to the new rules, but we’re now a dozen years into the new millennium. We should be able to handle “crowd-funding” of promising new companies with a minimum amount of government oversight. The democratization of the “public” equity process—the sales of small amounts of stocks to many individuals through the Internet or elsewhere—excites us almost as much as the job creation opportunities. While Wall Street, white shoe law firms and union leaders may have some of their power dis-intermediated, the more people who can take part in productive capitalism, the faster we can spread the prosperity that’s starting to emerge from the half-decade long recession. A quick look at the equity markets, jobless numbers and housing starts will show that the tipping point has finally, albeit slowly, tipped for the better.

iToldYouSo: Tech firms rejecting job applicants due to social media posts

Not sure why it took so long for this research to come out, but it turns out nearly 20 percent of technology firms have rejected job applicants because of something they stupidly included on their social media profile, according to the 2012 annual technology market survey conducted by Eurocom Worldwide and its associated agencies. Our guess is that the figure is higher in other industries and will continue to teach millenials (and HR departments) about the distinction between sharing relevant content and over-sharing irresponsible or banal content.

Ad slowdown (or pause)during economic turnaround?

According to Kantar Media Intelligence 2011 Ad Expenditures Data, most major segments of the media market, including digital, but with the exception of TV, stagnated during the last quarter of 2011 and in 2011 overall.

Total advertising expenditures increased less than one percent (0.8%) in 2011 and finished the year at $144.0 billion, according to data released today by Kantar Media Ad spending. Since reaching a post-recession peak in Q3 2010, advertising growth rates have slowed for five consecutive quarters moving almost in the opposite direction of jobs and the overall economy.

For the entire year 2011, Paid Search declined 2.8 percent and Display increased 5.5 percent, researchers said. Consumer magazines declined 5.2 percent in the fourth quarter due to deep cutbacks in auto, food and pharmaceutical advertising, but finished the year 2011 about even with 2010. B2B magazines squeezed out a tiny gain of 0.8 percent.

We know that major public companies are sitting in record hordes of cash and Jon Swallen, Kantar’s senior vice president for research said in a statement that the largest advertisers have become increasingly conservative with their budgets, which has offset “the healthy spending growth occurring among midsize advertisers.”

Remember, you’re not going to get an official government notice that the path to prosperity is ALL CLEAR. The real recession is in the rearview mirror. With the exception of some housing overhang, most of our reticence to spend, hire and invest is based on phsychological rather than real-world factors. Don’t let the pent-up demand surge pass you buy. Good luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.

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How B2B Marketers Can Leverage the Talent Society

Best length for online video ads and economic conditions on upswing

While David Brooks’ insightful op-ed piece in yesterday’s NY Times was not intended for B2B marketers, he hit on a number of important trends that will undoubtedly change the way connect with your target customers, clients and evangelists.

Both individuals and workers want more space to develop their individual talents, Brooks observed and they want “more flexibility to explore their own interests and develop their own identities, lifestyles and capacities. They are more impatient with situations that they find stifling.”

Over the past half century Brooks believes we have gone from a society that protected people from their frailties to a society that allows people to maximize their talents. “Today, the fast flexible and diverse networks allow the ambitious and the gifted to surf through amazing possibilities. They are able to construct richer, more varied lives. They are able to enjoy interesting information-age workplaces,” he writes.

Bottom line: People with skills can really thrive in this tenuous, networked society, said Brooks as they can develop and nurture their individual brands. But people without those advantages would be better with our traditional command and control, corporate hierarchical structure that stifled individualism and creativity but rewarded employee loyalty.

Our Take: Smart marketers have learned that you can build long-lasting and rewarding relationships with key customers that span multiple decades and multiple job changes. Being honest, creative and delivering on what you promise is what customers remember about you—not what price you quoted them or how many lunches or golf outings you treated them to.

What is the best length for my video ads?

If you’re trying to take advantage of the surge in online video advertising, be smart and think short. That’s the advice from Poll Position whose recent survey of 1,179 adults concluded that 15 seconds is how long 54 percent of respondents say is acceptable before they get turned off. Only 12 percent of Internet users said viewing a 30-second ad prior to viewing free content was acceptable to them and only 7 percent were willing to view ads of 45 seconds or longer.

Macro view

While there’s no telling what the impact on corporate profits will be if the President gets his new corporate tax planned passed, the Dow is hovering at the 13,000 point level—an altitude not seen since May of 2008. And, the S&P 500 index is approaching the cheapest level ever compared with bonds thanks to the Fed’s zero-percent interest rates. While the Euro zone debt crisis can’t be ignored, U.S. capital markets seem reasonably confident the Greek bailout plan will eventually stick. What’s more, things seem much better at home as long as you ignore the housing market. More than 240,000 real jobs were created in January and we now have the lowest unemployment rate since early 2009. Corporate balance sheets are stuffed with cash. With interest rates likely to remain low for the near future, companies should be poised to continue hiring cautiously and investing in capital equipment and IT infrastructure which bodes well for those of you in the B2B space.

Take a break from the news once in a while. Things are better than you think. Don’t let this rare opportunity to invest, hire and connect with new customers pass you by. It may not be this cheap for years to come.

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Economy, Online Video and Mobile Continue to Roll

Key takeaways for B2B marketers

First, more good news from the macro-economic front. Initial claims for jobless benefits fell to its lowest level since April 2008 according to the Labor Department and the stock markets, particularly the Dow are near their four-year highs. More importantly to us, nearly three-fourths of S&P 500 stocks are trading above their 26-week moving average, according to Thomson Reuters data. Housing starts increased more than expected according to new data that came out today and investors seem cautiously optimistic that the Greek debt crisis in the Euro zone will slowly, but surely resolve itself without taking the rest of the world down with it.

Oh, one more thing that encouraged us. Voters aren’t likely to give our elected officials too much of the credit for improving economic conditions. A new Gallup survey released yesterday found that 86 percent of Americans DO NOT approve of the job that Congress is doing. We call that “rational” exuberance.

Online video ads perform better when socially recommended

New research from Unruly Media shows that viewers’ engage more successfully with ads if they come via recommendation rather than serendipity. Enjoyment of video advertising content increases 14 percent if the video is recommended by a trusted friend or colleague and boosts brand recall by 7 percent if recommended, rather than simply found by browsing.

Does video enjoyment really impact sales? Well, researchers say video enjoyment increases purchase intent by a whopping 97 percent and brand association by nearly 140 percent.

Viewers tolerate more video ads as content quality improves

According to video ad serving provider FreeWheel, digital video is increasingly being monetized like traditional broadcast TV as viewers accept an increased number of ads in exchange for better content. Ad loads are increasing most in long-form content -- i.e., 20 minutes or more. There are now nearly seven video ads per long-form video, more than double the ad load from early 2011.

OUR TAKE: B2B marketers take note. This trend toward high quality video engagement bodes very well for those of you contemplating video versions of your white papers.

From the Q1 through Q4 of 2011, video viewing grew 47 percent, while ad viewing grew 49 percent, said JoAnna Foyle Abel, FreeWheel's vice president of marketing in a statement. However, the ratio between the two narrowed dramatically between the third quarter and the fourth. By the fourth quarter, 75 percent of all digital video content had a video ad associated with it, while in the first quarter, just over half of the content had video ads placed in it.

“This trend shows that producers of professional digital video content are now using advertising to monetize the majority of the content they place into the market,” according to Foyle Abel.

Also, the mid-roll video ad placement showed the most dramatic growth in 2011. FreeWheel attributes this to a rise in mid-form content (5-20 minutes in length) and long-form content being made available online, more mid-roll ad pods being created within that content; and more video ads per pod being added. The Apple iPad continues to be an influential device for video viewing.

Mobile ad spending to grow 30 percent in 2012

Mobile advertising and marketing is expected to grow at 3.5 times the rate of the overall communications industry over the next five years, according to research firm PQ Media, including a 30 percent surge in 2012. Mobile marketing and advertising itself has grown eight-fold, while mobile content and access has tripled said PQ media.

Among the challenges PQ Media’s Patrick Quinn points to are device/network fragmentation, the difficulty to buy mobile inventory at scale, and still relatively low penetration on new devices like tablets. Smartphone penetration has also been slowed by high access fees.

Our Take: If that’s where the eyeballs are then that’s where the money is. And, if that’s where the money is, that’s what will finance any tech fixes need to harvest those opportunities.

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State of the Union, GOP debates, economy and B2B

Things suck less than before. Housing over-supply and jobless claims dropping. Travel industry improving. Holidays sparked double-digit surge in tablets, e-readers.

Last night’s GOP debate from Tampa was supposed to be about the private sector’s ability to create jobs that Big Government hasn’t been able to generate the past three years. Instead it came down to two rich guys competing to see who paid more taxes on money they may or may not have earned fair and square through actual “work.”

Gingrich compared himself to Reagan, calling himself "exactly the kind of bold, tough leader" that Americans want, "someone who is prepared to be controversial when necessary." Romney cited his record in running the Salt Lake City Olympics and said Gingrich "had to resign in disgrace" as House speaker after an ethics controversy, a characterization Gingrich disputed. Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, when given a chance to get a word in edgewise, showed they’re smart, thoughtful and experienced. They’re probably too intelligent for the average American voter to get and not well enough funded (or well-connected enough) to stay with the leaders till the finish line. Too bad. But’s it’s nice to see common sense and modesty has made it to the Final Four.

In tonight’s State of the Union address, the Prez will undoubtedly point to great strides his administration has made since he took over the train wreck that was the U.S. economy in 2009. There’s certainly been progress, but how much can be attributed to policies put in place vs. how much has come from the natural corrections a free market economy allows. Housing and excessive private debt, the two biggest scourges of the recession, he'll likely say are finally showing signs of improving. Even cantankerous NY Times columnist, Paul Krugman, was upbeat in his NY Times column yesterday “Is Our Economy Healing?”

But you could also argue that the historical rate of home ownership in the U.S. has been about 60 percent of American households. We got near 70 percent just before the housing bubble burst and are still painfully regressing to the historical mean. Should we be fighting the law of averages or setting better home-ownership policies down the road?

In tonight’s address, we’ll surely hear talk about fixing income inequality, but we’re more concerned here about technology inequality. The Holidays sparked a huge gain in U.S. in ownership of tablets, e-readers. And, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Report released yesterday said the share of adults who owned table computers nearly doubled overnight to 19 percent from 10 percent in November. The boost in tablet ownership was especially high among college educated folks earning over $75K per year. We suspect the rate of cutting edge technology ownership and systems is also tilted in favor of large business vs. small businesses.

Our take: Whether you’re a B2B marketer, business owner or media outlet, you absolutely must take this mobile data into consideration before you get too far down the road with your 2012 strategy. If you don’t have the budget for mobile and related-platforms, find a way to make it fit.

Jobless claims down

The number of people seeking unemployment benefits for the first time plummeted last week to 352,000, the fewest since April 2008, the Labor Department said. But is that real progress or are companies finally realizing they can’t continue to operate indefinitely with staffs stretched too thin, disgruntled and fatigued?

Separately, the government said consumer prices were unchanged last month, the latest sign that inflation remains tame. Lower gasoline prices offset rising costs for food, medical care and housing. The Federal Reserve projects consumer price inflation will fall from about 2.8 percent in 2011 to roughly 1.7 percent this year. That’s progress, but is it enough to spike a surge in demand?

Travel industry bouncing back

The travel and tourism industry has added about 224,000 jobs since reaching its low point in December 2009 according to the US Travel Association. Meanwhile, hotel occupancy reached 59.8 percent in 2011 (projected to hit 61 percent in 2012), up from 54.6 percent in 2009, according to Smith Travel Research. And the Bureau of Transportation Statistics said full-time jobs in the airline industry finally began to improve last year after 28 consecutive months of decline. No one enjoys flying anymore. It’s a cattle call for most budget conscious consumers and a horrific time drain for most business travelers, but people still need to meet and press the flesh to close business and preserve relationships (whether of the business and familial kind).

Conclusion

Whether you’re a glass half-full or glass half-empty type of person, indicators keep showing that more of your favorite beverage is in the glass than when the current Administration took over. We don’t take sides for any political debate, so you’ll have to decide for yourself whether the private sector can keep the small engine of momentum running by itself, or will it need a continuous helping hand from the government? As we’ve said many times before, things are never as bad as they seem when times are lousy—just as they’re never as idyllic as they seem when we’re flush with cash, customers and back orders (or waiting lists) for our services.

If nothing else, now is the time to hit the gas on your marketing, hiring and expansion plans, before the tsunami of pent up demand leaves you in its wake.

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Too Many Gadgets, Too Little Time

Will 2012 be more volatile than 2011? (take insta-poll). Encouraging economic signs

Do we have gadget fatigue?

According to a new study from Underwriters Laboratories (UL), the nonprofit product testing and certification organization, 48 percent of consumers of 1,200 surveyed consumers—ALMOST HALF—believe high-tech companies bring new products to market faster than people need them. Is the pace of innovation too fast for consumers? Are companies rushing new product out the door just to keep up with their competitors (versus consumer desires). The report found the at U.S. manufacturers value “speed to market” more than any other criteria. In a New York Times interview, UL’s chief strategy officer Sara Greenstein quipped that “innovation is too fast only if corners are cut.”

Apple sold about 40 million iPads in 2011—no surprise there despite being the most expensive offering on the market, by far. But, non-tech manufacturers such as Amazon (Kindle) and Barnes & Noble (Nook) managed to sell 30 million e-book readers in 2011. That’s a 108 percent increase over 2010, according to I.H.S. iSuppli. E-book readers have far fewer features than pure tablets, but analysts say the line is blurring between e-books and tablets. Forrester Research says Amazon (Kindle Fire) and Nook Tablet managed 7 million sales combined in Q4 of 2011.

Our Take: Sales of the hybrids represents a low-cost interim step that could be chalked up to budget-conscious Holiday shoppers as much as to true consumer demand. If you’re designing creative for the on-the-go consumer, focus on pure tablets and mobile devices. Also make sure you don’t confuse “adoption rates” from regular usage rates. For instance, British consulting firm Arieso found that the heaviest one-percent of mobile users account for 50 percent of the world’s traffic and the heaviest 10-percent of users account for 90 percent. Arieso also found that two thirds (64%) of “extreme” users were using a laptop, whereas only one-third were using a smartphone and 3 percent had an iPad.

Why taking a break from our electronic devices is healthy and productive

New York Times columnist Nick Bilton offers good food for thought in his latest rant about technology addiction.

“Our brains often need to become inattentive to figure out complex issues,” according to Jonah Lehrer, a neuroscientist and author of new book “Imagine How Creativity Works. University of California psychology prof, Jonathan Schooler, said daydreaming and boredom seem to be a source for incubation and creative discovery in the brain and are part of the creative incubation process.”

Will 2012 be more volatile than 2011?

Take our InstaPoll and see how your peers feel.

Encouraging signs on the economic front
• Companies added 325,000 workers last month, the highest monthly tally in more than 10 years according to ADP
• The Labor Department said the economy has added 2.4 million jobs since hitting its low point in February 2010
• Weekly applications for unemployment benefits dropped to 372,000—11 percent lower than
this time a year ago the Labor Department said
• Manufacturing companies have added—not cut—jobs for two consecutive years. Before last year, manufacturing haven’t added jobs since 1997 the Department said.
• The number of Americans who signed contracts to buy homes in November rose 7 percent, to
the highest level in 18 months according to the National Association of Realtors.
• Also 12/21 a Thomson Reuters University of Michigan survey of overall consumer sentiments
showed a substantial jump to 69.9 in December from 64.1 (a 9% gain) and The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index rose to 118 points—it’s seventh consecutive monthly gain.

As Isaac M posted last week on our blog: “I'm a small business owner, running a technology consultancy for schools. Over the past year, my numbers have become significantly better, private and public schools are doing a lot of buying, and America's getting back up on its feet from where I see it!”

Let’s be smart—not blindly optimistic--in 2012 and hope Issac is right.



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End of Year Client Poll

Tech Marketing Budgets Up for 2012

Digital, content marketing and lead-generation top priorities. More positive indicators for economic recovery

According to new findings from IDG Research Services, two-thirds of the technology marketers surveyed said they expect their budgets to rise next year with digital programs capturing half the spend. Live events are expected to garner one fourth (24%) of tech marketers’ budgets with the remainder spread among print, broadcast and other media.
Our experience is that tech marketers tend to pave the way for marketers in other industries who have long sales cycles and who need consistent, high-value touch points with multiple decision makers.

What are tech marketers’ goals this year? Lead generation topped all digital budget categories with almost 27 percent, followed by display/banner at just under 20 percent and search at almost 19 percent.

What is the most important campaign metric? Researchers say click-through rate is the most important factor in campaign success with cost-per-engagement and interaction rate almost equal in importance.

Top 5 spending priorities? Content marketing, which includes white papers, case studies, videos, custom websites, video and white papers, is among tech marketers’ top five spending priorities for 2012:

--71 percent will be investing in collateral
--61 percent will be investing in webcasts/virtual events
--59 percent will be investing in videos
--55 percent will be investing in research
--54 percent will be investing in content marketing or custom programs

Our Take? Tech marketers are historically a good bellwether for any mature industry with a long sales cycle. We expect those in financial services, pharmaceutical, legal, insurance and other professional services to follow tech marketers’ lead.

NOTE: When asked about the biggest challenges in producing marketing content, approximately two-thirds of the marketers indicate they will outsource one or more projects involving content creation, creative development, ad unit creation and online production/services.

More signs that modest economic rebound is likely to stick

Here’s some more optimistic news that came across our radar this week:

-- The National Federation of Independent Businesses said its index of
small business attitudes rose in November for third straight month—7 percent more small business plan to expand their payrolls in the next three months, than plan to cut them.

-- The number of workers voluntarily leaving their jobs hit a 2-year high: The Labor Department reported this week that a record 1.9 million workers resigned their jobs in October.

-- Fed policy makers this week said they plan to keep short term interest rates near zero through 2013. Retail sales up for sixth consecutive month and gas prices down or holding steady in most parts of the country

One millionth mobile app just released

Apps shrink the programs that were once available only on a desktop PC and make them usable on smartphones and mobile devices. Experts say the pace of new app development dwarfs every other kind of media—about 15,000 new ways a week to check stock trades, restaurant reviews, sports scores, directions, traffic, videos, articles and shop. Back in 2008 there were less than 10,000 apps available according to Mobilewalla. Five years ago, building an app for a phone meant going through the carrier, dealing with hardware, QA issues and inconsistent user experience. Now there’s a world of more powerful devices, higher quality networks and high-resolution cameras.

Our Take: More and more of your target customers are unchaining themselves from their desks and you better be mobile optimized—not only your creative, but your strategic mindset as well.

Consumers and businesses ARE spending money—they’re just being pickier about how they spend it and with whom they spend it on. Your target customers have never been better armed with purchase information and nothing sells itself anymore. No matter how talented your sales team; you won’t win in the new post-recession landscape without great marketing and customer support to back up your promises.

Happy Holiday from all of us here at HB Publishing & Marketing Company. Looking forward to working with you again in 2012. Let’s make it a great year.

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Be Ready for Surge in Pent Up Demand

While we’re seeing some encouraging signs on the Euro zone crisis, the U.S. jobless front and the U.S. financial markets, these are fickle indicators which should be taken with a grain of salt. If you’re a business owner, B2B marketer or media owner, we have some more solid signs of optimism for you to sink you teeth into.

Car sales surge

Auto sales in the United States climbed 14 percent in November as lower gas prices and a wider availability of Japanese models helped the industry achieve its highest selling rate in more than two years, automakers and analysts said last week. Chrysler was up 45 percent over November of last year, Ford was up 13 percent and GM 7 percent.

Cyber Monday

Meanwhile, ComScore, reported that online shoppers spent $1.3 billion on Cyber Monday, a 22 percent increase from last year, at that time the biggest online shopping day of the year. IBM Benchmark said online spending had climbed 33 percent. What’s more, a National Retail Federation survey found that 14 percent of shoppers said they would use mobile devices to shop, up from 7 percent last year.

Technology spending for business in midst of fastest transition ever
The International Data Corporation, whose technology analysis and predictions influence a lot of corporate purchases, foresees the creation of a new high-technology industry in the convergence of mobile devices, social networking, and cloud-based computing and data storage. As a result, the company says in a new study, many industry giants will scramble to sustain relevance, and some upstarts will achieve leadership positions or be purchased.

Frank Gens, IDC’s chief analyst, who led the study, said, “The incumbents are facing a huge transition.”

Spending on the new technologies will reach nearly $700 billion, or about 20 percent of the $3.5 trillion in hardware, software, and services spent on information technology worldwide, IDC said. What’s more, researchers said spending on the new technologies is growing six times that of traditional computer servers and personal computers, and by 2020 will be 80 percent industry growth.

If the IDC predictions hold true, the tech industry could be undergoing its fastest-ever transition. Earlier transitions, like the move from mainframe and mini computers to personal computers and client-server technologies, led to the rise of giants like Oracle and Microsoft, and the downfall of older stalwarts, like Digital Equipment Corp. and Wang Laboratories.

This time will be no different, Mr. Gens said, adding: “Hewlett-Packard will be challenged. Microsoft, Intel, SAP, RIM, Oracle, Cisco, Dell – they are all facing the next transition, competing to be around in 2020. At least a third will fade away.”

Mobile devices

Mobile devices, which earlier this year outshipped personal computers worldwide, will in 2012 generate more revenue than PCs for the first time, IDC said. Shipments of mobile devices will outstrip PCs by two to one, and 85 million mobile applications, or apps, will be downloaded. More money will be spent on mobile data networks than on networks tethered by lines.

The rapid transition to mobile, driven by an explosion of tablet computers, will challenge both traditional computer software companies like Microsoft and beneficiaries like Apple, which is seeing the dominance of its iOS operating system challenged by the open source Android operating system developed by Google.
“By 2013 we’ll know who the leaders are,” Mr. Gens said. “Android will be there, iOS will be there – will Windows 8 put Microsoft there? By the end of the year we’ll know if putting a PC operating system onto mobile was a good idea.”

The increasing number of people and machines online will additionally create an explosion of digital data. IDC said that the amount of data stored in 2012 would increase 48 percent from 2011, to 2.7 zetabytes, or 2.7 billion terabytes. By 2015, the firm said, the total will be 8 zetabytes.

Recommended Reading

No matter how old you are or what stage of life you’re in, we’d like to recommend David Brooks’ recent NY Times editorial series Life Reports.

You can draw your own conclusions, of course, but as marketers and innovators, two things really grabbed us. First, when people take stock of their lives, most regret the risks they DIDN’T take, not the ones they did take. Second, you should measure people by the progress they make in their lives, not by the natural talents they possess.

OUR TAKE: Now if the time of year when many of us reflect on where our businesses and personal lives stand relative to where we thought they’d be a year ago. It can be a gut-wrenching exercise. Just remember that no matter how you measure it, make sure you’re using the right metrics to make your assessment. Also, take time to reflect on everything that DID go right, not just things that came up short.

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Giving Thanks for Some Hopeful Signs for Retailers, Jobs, Factory Output and Home Construction

Don't underestimate the power of a Black Friday shopper

So Americans are getting soft, you say? We’re getting, fat, lazy, unmotivated as the rest of the world passes us by, you say? Well you haven’t seen Americans shop on Black Friday. If there’s one thing we don’t need to outsource it’s the ability to find a deal. Before you choke on that turkey wishbone in laughter, think about how the web is transforming the shopping experience. Consumers have never been better armed with comparative pricing information, specs, sizes, colors and where to find the best deals. Retailers have to keep opening earlier, competing with both online and bricks-and-mortar sellers and motivate their employees to work, longer, harder and faster when they’d normally be home (sleeping) with their families.

OUR TAKE? When properly motivated, Americans can do anything they set their minds to with resourcefulness, determination and stamina—kind of like a nation of small business owners.

Macroeconomic indicators

For the holiday season-to-date, consumers have spent $9.7 billion online -- marking a year-over-year growth rate of 14 percent, according to new comScore data. During the first 20 days of the season -- which began on November 1--daily online spending peaked on Wednesday, Nov. 16, at $688 million, comScore reports.

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level since early April, a sign that layoffs are easing and hiring might pick up--it was the fourth decline in five weeks. Meanwhile, a Commerce Department report said that builders started slightly fewer homes in October, but submitted plans for a wave of apartments, a mixed sign for the struggling housing market.

A rebound in manufacturing could lead to more hiring. Factory output grew in October for the fourth straight month, the Federal Reserve said Wednesday. Production of trucks, electronics and business equipment all rose, and building permits, a gauge of future construction, rose nearly 11 percent. The increase was spurred by a 30 percent increase in apartment permits, which reached its highest level in three years. Need more? Construction starts of single-family homes, which make up about 70 percent of residential home construction, rose nearly 4 percent last month.

While new homes account for just 20 percent of the overall home market, they have an outsize impact on the economy--each home creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in taxes, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Online video can boost your business

Still not sure if online video is worth it? Check out these new findings from
comScore.

-- Nearly 80 percent of U.S. Internet users –180million+ people—will view online video over the course of the month

-- The typical Internet viewer watches almost 20 hours of online video per month
--The average online video consumed is a full 5 minutes long
--The most watched videos add value by “teaching viewers something or covering a topic they care about,” says comScore.

What B2B marketers hope to accomplish with social media tools

According to new data from Chief Marketer’s 2011 Social Media Marketing Survey it is:

-- Drive traffic to websites (66%)
-- Generate sales or leads (48%)
-- Address company fans (47%)

Yes, times are tough. But give thanks this time of year that you have the brains, the team, the family support and the resources to figure out ways to get through it. You will. And we’ll all be stronger for it.
Happy Thanksgiving. HB


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Job openings at highest level since August 2008

‘Quit rate’ at 3-year high and 7 out of 10 employed workers ‘mailing it in’ at best

OK people. It’s over. The recession is officially two years in the rear-view window. Let’s get back to business already. You’re not going to get an official memo from the Government saying it’s safe to start hiring people again, or it's OK to invest in capital improvements you so badly need, or to build out your marketing platform so you can get actual qualified leads.Remember those? What else do you need to make a decision?

But what about the euro zone crisis, you say? Don’t waste your time watching the daily gyrations of the financial markets. Check your portfolio one every three months or so, but don’t use stocks as a proxy for the state of business conditions or the economy. It’s a glorified casino driven by program traders, hedge funds and short-term speculators.

People are working, and more importantly quitting for better jobs

Here’s what’s important: New claims for jobless benefits in the United States fell last week to their lowest level since early April and the country’s trade deficit unexpectedly shrank in September, pointing to a slight improvement in the sluggish economy. More encouraging was a Labor Department report showed a strong increase in the “quit rate” -- the number of people voluntarily leaving their jobs for a new one rose 5 percent in September and hit its highest level since November 2008. It means that workers are finally more confident that they can find new work if they are unhappy with their current positions—a recent Gallup Survey found the 71 percent of U.S. workers are “not engaged” in their jobs or “actively disengaged” form their work.

Greater turnover in the job market now means more opportunities for the 14 million unemployed or under-employed workers seeking to get back into the workforce.

Out Take: Stop focusing on the unemployment rate. It’s stuck like a rusty wheel at 9 percent and doesn’t accurately reflect what companies need to grow and thrive. We think a better measure is the number of job seeker to job openings. That ratio is down to 4.1, from a peak of 6.9 workers per opening in the horrible summer of July 2009.

If you’ve got a job. Now’s the time to find a better one. If you’re looking for work, make sure you don’t settle for the dregs left behind by a former employee burned out by the recession. Find something that matters—and pays you commensurately for your skill. If you have a company, make sure you do whatever it takes to keep your best people happy and by all means, make sure you’re capturing all the knowledge, contacts and processes they have stored in their brains and personal hard drives.

There’s going to be a “brain drain” of epic proportions soon—and you won’t get a memo letting you know when it’s officially started. If you’re not careful, all your organizational “smarts” could go walking out the door on a moment’s notice.

Where smart marketing comes in

That’s also where smart marketing comes in. It’s not just to raise your brand and generate qualified leads—it’s a time-tested way to keep your name in front of the best talent and vendors in your industry. When you cut back on your marketing, you not only choke off your lead funnel and brand awareness. You make yourself conspicuously absent relative to your competitors and lose opportunities to capture great talent. That’s right, think about all the great people who just might have spent one too many late nights at the office without feeling adequately appreciate by their bosses. If you’re not top of mind with them, they’re certainly not top of mind with you.

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Thriving in a SOCIAL ‘Vucu’ Climate for B2B Marketers

Forget the markets and employment numbers. 10-year forecast might be easier to make than a one-week call

“I could probably make a 10-year forecast easier than a one-week forecast,” quipped Rod Smythe, Chief Investment Strategist of Riverfront Investment Group at a high-end wealth management conference we attended on Tuesday.

Whether it’s the financial markets, the job market, pro sports or even the weather, we’re in an incredibly volatile time and this era of uncertainty is wreaking havoc on our collective psychology. Smart B2B marketers will stay focused on their long-term goals without panicking or chasing the next fad. Just be ready for a lot more VUCU. We’ll get to what vucu means in a minute. In the long run, we’ll get through this and in many respects we’re already there. Say what?

Just two weeks ago, I was swimming in Long Island Sound on an unseasonably warm October day. Stocks were plummeting as the U.S. seemed destined for a double-dip recession and Greece and other Euro Zone players were headed for a sure default on their debt.

How quickly things change. Monday I was trick-or-treating in the snow with my kids here in the Northeast. Stocks are back to break-even for the year and have risen significantly as economic data suggests we’ve fended off the threat of a Euro Zone meltdown, a double-dip recession, and stronger than expected corporate earnings. China’s hyper-growth economy (and inflation risk) slowing and last week’s GDP results showing 2.5 percent annualized growth in Q3, our strongest effort in a year.

So, while personal income is falling, consumer spending has risen at a 2.4 percent annual rate–three times faster than Q3 according to the latest government stats. Despite a persistently high percent unemployment rate, confidence may be returning. Credit card debt is inching higher, sales of cars and major appliances are rebounding and consumers are hording a lot less in their savings accounts (again).

Living in a vucu world

We’re living in a “vucu” world, said Dana Anderson, a Kraft Foods marketing VP who was widely quoted at last week’s Association of National Advertisers conference in Phoenix which attracted a record 1,700 attendees.

Not familiar with Vucu? It stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous which is going to require a new set of skills she said. Marketers and advertisers will need learn from experimentation, and be open to intuitive, rather than rational solutions to problems.

OUR TAKE: Amen to that, but much easier said than done. True, tough times call for bold steps and recessions have historically fostered some of the greatest innovations. But, when millions of salaried media workers are scared to death of losing their jobs, the risk of a failure pinned to one’s performance review is a stronger deterrent than usual.

Business spending hot, hiring is not

According to the Commerce Department, business increased their capital investments at a 17.4 percent annual rate. Economists say business spending has been strong throughout the recession, an optimistic sign because investment in factories, offices, equipment and software is often a run up to hiring.

And from a micro-perspective, the office building in which we work was less than half full when we moved in two years ago. It’s 100 percent occupied now. That’s right. No vacancy!

Is technology replacing humans in the workforce?

According to the authors of “Race Against the Machine” a just-released book by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee is a scary deep-dive into the job fallout from advances in technology. The authors, who are directors at the MIT Center for Digital Business, warn that automation has picked up in recent years because of a combination of technologies including robotics, numerically controlled machines, computerized inventory control, voice recognition and online commerce.

Since the “official” end of the recession in mid 2009, payrolls have been flat, but corporate spending on equipment and software has increased 26 percent, they note. According to Factset Research, the productivity gains from technology seem to be falling to the bottom line. The S&P 500 companies are expected to report record profits—nearly $1 trillion--and the corporate profit share of the U.S. economy is at a record high when millions are out of work or facing foreclosure of their homes.

It’s true that hundreds of thousands of sales and marketing jobs have been lost or impacted by technology, but Brynjolfsson and McAfee argue companies still need humans for many higher level tasks requiring intuition, creativity and solutions. Leave narrow, literal minded assigned tasks to the computers they advise and smart humans—including B2B marketers—will learn how to create a “partnership” with technology.

SOCIAL, and we don’t mean Facebook

Marc Benioff, founder of the popular cloud-based sales CRM solution, Salesforce.com, frequently says we’re in the midst of an IT revolution based on the acronym SOCIAL—S is for speed; O is for open; C is for collaboration; I is for individuals who can now instantly reach around the world to network and collaborate; A is for alignment (all your ships moving in the same direction) and L is leadership, both top down and bottom up.

In a New York Times Op-Ed piece, Thomas Friedman, quotes LinkedIn CEO, Jeff Weiner on the power of the IT revolution: “It makes it easier and cheaper for anyone anywhere to be an entrepreneur and have access to all the infrastructure of innovation.”

OUR TAKE: Whether you’re a sole practitioner, a 10-person regional outfit or a Fortune 500 powerhouse, you need to have everyone—and every machine—at your organization aligned and in a nimble entrepreneurial mindset. Make some mistakes. Make ‘em hard and fast and see how quickly you can learn from those mistakes.
That’s how we’ll get out of this economic first gear and great B2B marketing is what’ll get us into the overdrive phase.

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