Ipsos Digital Immersion Report #1 - 2011

SOCIAL  
EVOLUTION
What’s  next  for  social  media  marketing.  

©  2010  Ipsos  
Image © of blog.bestiario.org - flickr
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The Open Thinking Exchange

Think. Challenge. Innovate.

The Open Thinking Exchange is the innovation centre of Ipsos, an

independent company which ranks fifth among global research firms.
Our mission: to challenge convention, take risks and to tap Ipsos global
people resources and intellect in the service of our clients.  We do so
through knowledge, storytelling, new technology and collaborative platforms
‒ to make data and human insights more accessible, more understandable,
more meaningful and more actionable for people across the globe.

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Forward

Our future in a digital world.

With continued turbulence in our client s business environment and the
continued rapid evolution of marketing in the digital landscape, it s never
been more important for us to keep a finger on the pulse of what lies ahead
for the industry. 


Whether you are a brand manager, marketer, researcher or executive this

publication will provide you with a forward thinking view of the world of social
media to keep you informed, provoked and ready for a new point of view of
where the world is headed.

Shelly Zalis
CEO , Open Thinking Exchange
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An opportunity….
And a challenge

Social Media has become a fundamental part of the

global online experience. Two thirds of the world s
online population now visit social networks or blogs.

In this rapidly evolving environment new rules are

being written every day and the challenge of keeping
pace with developments faces both consumers and
marketers alike.


1. How are behaviours changing?

2. What are the opportunities for Brands?
3. What innovative ideas are coming into the mainstream?
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This document is about…

Inspiration…
Inspira.on  adj.  [In-­‐spir-­‐a.on]    
A  source  of  ideas  and  new  thinking.  A  s.mulus  

Innovation…
Innova.on  noun.  [Inn-­‐o-­‐va.on]     Our mission with this report:
(the  use  of)  a  new  idea  or  method.  Change   Consolidate current thinking about what
or  Innovatory  adj.  new  thinking   is happening in the Social Media
space.
Filtering…
Filtering  noun.  [filter-­‐ing]     Discover the unexpected and slightly
A  pro-­‐ac.ve  selec.on  of  the  most  important   ahead of the curve to illustrate what
issues.   forward thinking companies are doing
right now. 5
What are we talking about?
The insights, trends and examples we have used within this document are not
survey centric, nor do they necessarily represent actual Ipsos insights - but they
have been taken from a variety of sources and are meant to inspire new ideas
across Ipsos and the Ipsos client network

Contents:
•  Section 1 – This is now
•  Section 2 – What about Brands…
•  Section 3 – A few predictions
•  Section 4 – Real life examples
  The Power of Conversations – advice from Friends and Strangers
  The Power of Social Motivations – the value of social currency
  The Power of Human Connections – enabling new emotional behaviours aligned
with new utilities

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“Ipsos,  through  our  new  community  
technology,  is  taking  on  the  world  of  social  
media  to  collaborate  and  observe  real  people  
in  real  time.    But  we’ve  only  just  begun.”  

Andrew Leary
Open Thinking Exchange
Social Community Innovator
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“Social  listening  is  a  game  changer  for  market  
research.  Though  we  have  room  to  make  the  
medium  more  rigorous  and  disciplined  for  market  
research  means,  Ipsos  is  setting  itself  up  to  be  a  
leader  in  mining  insights  from  the  conversations  
happening  online.”  
Andrew Nelson
Open Thinking Exchange
Social Listening Innovator
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About the Contributors
Graham Saxton, Global Insights – Consumer Behaviours and Trends:
Curious, persistent, and occasionally right, Graham has relentlessly travelled the globe in pursuit of consumer insights
and emerging trends. He s been part of the Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange for a few months blending research
agency-side sensibilities with client-side learnings from a 10 years stint at MTV Networks as International Research
champion. His past activities have included entrepreneurial media start ups, resulting in one winning the license for the
UK s largest independent Radio Station. He lives in the UK with his wife and two grown up (almost) daughters who
provide an endless stream of logistical challenges, but also an entertaining and continuous deluge of anecdotal
information about contemporary culture. His only vice is an indulgent interest in classic cars resulting in the ownership
of a 23 year old Mercedes with an attitude problem.

Andy Hunter, Strategic Planner - New Media Innovation:

Contrary to Google, Andy is not an international DJ. He does however play one from the comfort of his own laptop. 

He s a husband, a dad, a design observer, a marketer, amateur photographer and tech enthusiast. His contributions to
holistic consumer insight research have been recognized with ARF David Ogilvy Award and he currently serves as an
advisor to the SXSW Interactive Conference. He s been a consultant to venture funded technology start-ups, a video
rental clerk, a media planner, an account director, a tv-delivery guy, a consultancy founder and a deli dude at a
convenience store. He admits to enjoying the convenience store gig more than several of his advertising jobs. He lives
in Austin, Texas with his wife and daughter and is co-strategic planning lead for the Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange.
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Section   1  
Where  we  are  now  

©  2010  Ipsos  
 with  Social  Media  
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Social Media has emerged
from the Hype Cycle

Unlike past dot com and digital

technologies heralded with
fanfare, publicity and high
expectations only to fade into
obscurity, Social Media is
emerging from the hype cycle
and is genuinely gaining traction
with consumers and business
communities.

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Is Social Media the new normal?

Not so long ago, the “Digital” world was seen as somehow different from mainstream
consumer behaviour. Constant research and insight efforts almost continuously compared this
new world with the old analogue world.

Move to the present day and arguably the landscape has seen seismic shifts in thinking.
Commentators, Media Planners and Strategists are now suggesting that this same Digital”
world is the “New Normal”. What was new such a short time ago is now embedded (and
taken for granted) in our everyday life. Social Media is simply part of the evolution in Digital. It s
meteoric and transformational evolution has created hyper interest in this area from
marketers and consumers alike.

The implications of understanding emerging consumer behaviours with Social Media are
profound ‒ everyone accepts it is fundamentally changing the way people both live and think

©  2010  Ipsos  
about their lives and relationships.

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Putting Social into context
  Over 30 billion pieces of content shared on
Facebook monthly
  Average Facebook user has 130 “friends”
  55 million “tweets” are sent on Twitter daily
  24 hours of video is added to YouTube every minute
  Equivalent of 46.2 years of video is watched daily on
Facebook
  Estimated 126 million blogs on the internet globally

©  2010  Ipsos  
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    1  in  6  marriages  that  occurred  last  
   year  were  between  couples  who  
   met  via  social  media  

©  2010  Ipsos  
Source: “What the F*ck is Social Media Now?,” by Marta Kagan, Nespresso
Sharing ads and “liking”
brands increases affinity

   3  in  4  people  say  this  

   impacts  how  they  
   feel  about  the  brand  

©  2010  Ipsos  
Q6e/Q6ee. Sample = 1,426 & 1,878 users of YouTube & Facebook respectively who have shared brand videos/’liked’ a brand (UK) Source: OTX
 Recommendations impact behaviour

1/3  of  users  act  upon  

recommendations  

©  2010  Ipsos  
Base: all past month users, August 2010 (UK) Source: Ipsos MORI
 Using the internet is
in itself a social activity
Q How often, if at all, do you tend to look at websites together with others?

70%
59%
56%
42% 42% 41%

©  2010  Ipsos  
Base: all past month users, August 2010 (UK) Source: Ipsos MORI
There’s more to social media
than Facebook and Twitter
Prominent consumer social media outlets get most of the attention
by the press and by marketers. However, history has sometimes
shown that platform leadership can often be fleeting 


So despite the hype it s important to take the longer term view and
accept that

In the future almost everything in marketing and business will have

some aspect of social interaction and conversation built into it.
Social Platform: Technology that enables open (yet filtered)
dialogue.

Social Currency: Elements that provide an incentive to join, visit

repeatedly and build useful utility in one s life or work over time.

©  2010  Ipsos  
Social Collaboration: Opportunity to share, create or fulfill a
mission .

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The Architecture of Social Media

©  2010  Ipsos  
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Social media properties to know:

new & noteworthy

emerging platforms

©  2010  Ipsos  
established players
Quirky

Disruptors
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Social Media Typologies
MASS NETWORK PLATFORMS

COMMUNITY COMMERCE

CONTENT CREATION PLATFORMS

SOCIAL CONTENT HOSTS & DISTRIBUTORS

SOCIAL ENABLING APPLICATIONS

SOCIAL SHARING TOOLS & APPLICATIONS

SOCIAL GAMING

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Section   2  
Brands  in  Social  Media  

©  2010  Ipsos  
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If Social Media is “new normal”

Where do brands fit into this?

  Consumers appear to be increasingly open to asking about brands, sharing their thoughts and
taking action on information they get from participation in social networks.

 When a brand starts to engage its existing and potential consumers through a number of social
media channels, the traditional rules of marketing are not necessarily going to apply

 Having a brand presence in a social space is more than just “marketing” – it is a combination of
content curation, a commercial offering, an on-going community dialogue and a content creation
space as well as an extension of internal communications.

  And measurement of ROI in this new world is obviously a challenge – depending largely on the
role that social media is deemed to be playing.

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Do more, be inventive…
Social Media is a challenge for brands given the rapidly
expanding number of platform and technology options.


Brands have always needed to communicate with

consumers in the places where there are the greatest
numbers of potential customers – but adopting that logic to
Social Media means that starting with the biggest and most
obvious is simply playing catch-up.

As marketers rush to build Facebook profiles and Twitter

accounts which are then not maintained, many fall into a
trap of thinking this is a tactical, short term medium.
There s much to think through and do in the long term.


This report is less focused on highlighting the best known

mainstream methods ‒ rather, we ve dedicated efforts to

©  2010  Ipsos  
emerging activities and proactive approaches that inspire
new thinking and move past the here and now. Picture credit: The Invention of Hugo Cabret

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Key Questions from Brands…
What are the Social Media Marketing ground rules & best practice?
1.  How do I measure social media return on investment?

2.  How do I reach my target markets with social media – will I be welcome?

3.  How do I generate traffic and leads using social media?

4.  What are the main reasons consumers follow brands in Social Media?

5.  What are my competitors doing in Social Media?

6.  What can brands do to improve consumers perceptions of them?

7.  What is the value of having a Brand App?

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Core philosophical shifts
1.  “Social” conversations are with people not consumers
2.  A Social Agenda is not necessarily the same as a Business Agenda
3.  It’s all about continuous conversations – not campaigning (“always on” rather than “drip or burst”)
4.  A longer term view is needed – not quick fixes
5.  It’s marketing with people not to people
6.  Be authentic not persuasive (Social Media is forcing a lot of companies to distil what they really
stand for)
7.  There are no final versions – accept everything will always be in Beta mode
8.  Technology is changing much faster than people’s behaviour
9.  Measurement, Measurement – there has never been so many options
10.  Failure in Social Media is a very public experience
11.  Change will never be this slow again!
Source – various - via the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising - UK
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What are brands doing in Social Media?
  87 of the top 100 brands in the published Superbrands list have a Facebook Page
  Globally the total number of fans of these brands adds up to 30m

  72 of the 87 brands are also on Twitter and 68 have a YouTube channel

  Only 23 have a company blog
  However only 15 of the companies overall have actively linked their Social Media
activities to their main company websites
Top Company Stats:
  On Facebook (Likes) - Starbucks (+16m) Coca-Cola (+15m) and Oreo (+12m)

  On Twitter (Followers) - Google (2.20m), Starbucks (0.84m), Sony Playstation (0.24m)

  YouTube (Subscribers) – Google (0.14m) BBC (0.09m) Sony Playstation (0.08m)

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What can brands do to improve
consumers perceptions of them?

  Provide a contact page on the social profile

  Openly listen to consumers comments

  Talk to bloggers directly

  Create a blog about the company

  Behaviourally target their advertising messages

  Respond to mentions in microblogs

  Become a friend in a social network

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What are the main reasons consumers
follow brands in Social Media?

1.  Sales discounts

2.  New product details

3.  Contests & giveaways

4.  Responses from other consumers

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What are the most popular
social media tools used by brands?

©  2010  Ipsos  
Source – socialmediaexaminer.com

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 3:  2011  horizon
Section    

©  2010  Ipsos  
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What’s Next for 2011?

Social media has been a hyper focus of marketing of late, but as with
any new marketing technology it s buzz will fade ‒ and like search,
branded content, online display advertising and crm before it, social
will become a mainstream and embedded part of media and
marketing.

The potential difference is that social has implications that cross

boundaries of business, marketing, journalism, management, human
resources and politics and commerce.

Social  Media  isn’t  just  about  media  and  marketing.  It’s  a  disruptor  that’s  shifting  
the  way  companies  do  business  and  how  people  go  through  their  daily  lives.  

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What’s Next for 2011?

1.  Majority of mainstream brands will employ social technology into comms,
websites, retail and internal IT infrastructure.

2.  Retail will see disruptive technology make deal hunting and best product
finding even more seamless for consumers (a.k.a. Groupon).

3.  Mobile technology will create new value for consumers, new ways to save
money and time. Savvy marketers will adapt and invent new promotional
channels, while more rigid marketers will be left behind.

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What’s Next for 2011?

4.  Social media within business IT will accelerate direct connections and co-
creation activities between marketers, executives and consumers.

5.  Despite it s lack of precision, the number of brands turning to social media
listening, digital ethnography and new semantic search tools first for
qualitative insights, measures of brand health and feedback for product
development will rapidly accelerate.

6.  Advertisers will experiment with new location-based mobile campaigns and
find new breakthrough technology beyond Foursquare or Gowalla.

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2011: More social disruptors for retail?
The potential rise of “retail hacking”:
Some believe we are just beginning to see a whole new dimension of retail emerging. Groupon,
a group-sourced online couponing site almost acquired by Google for a record sum, along with
our new economic realities, have fueled more speculation in this regard. From Wired
Magazine: 

Groupon s genius, is to to take the time consuming and previously unattractive world of coupon shopping from the
striving fringes of culture and make it mainstream cool (acceptable amongst a group of peers). One might call it retail
hacking: the reconception of shopping as not just a full-time job but a contact sport, a scrum in which consumers
increasingly refuse to buy on the terms dictated to them.

In this passionate consumer underground, techniques for chiseling a few percentage points (or more) off a sticker price
can quickly spread to millions of shoppers.

Whatever the outcome for Groupon s future 


2011  will  surely  reveal  new  disruptors  for  retail  marketing  with  the  convergence  of  social,  mobile,  location  
based  tech  and  crowdsourced  retail.    This  will  allow  for  new  methods  of  product  discovery,  shopping  and  
perhaps  even  an  opportunity  for  loyal  brand  followers  to  become  sales  agents  for  the  brand.    

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Section   4  
Real  Life  Examples  

©  2010  Ipsos  
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An Index of Possibilities
What we are seeing today in Social Media

This section:
•  The Power of the Crowd – crowdsourcing and co-creation

•  The Power of Conversations – advice from Friends and Strangers

•  The Power of Social Motivations – the value of social currency

•  The Power of Human Connections – enabling new emotional

behaviours aligned with new utilities

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 Image © of life.com

 #1  
THE POWER OF THE CROWD
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Importance and power of the crowd.
There are small crowds and there are big crowds…
The value of Word of Mouth has grown in importance across the marketing landscape.


This has been driven by the way friends and acquaintances can be almost permanently
connected via digital and mobile devices. And of course the power of recommendation is not
simply dependent on just friends and acquaintances. The opinion of total strangers has
never before been so influential.


Companies have seized this opportunity that technology has provided to broaden the scope
of connecting people ‒ both groups of friends and also complete strangers. They are
actively exploiting this both at the point of sale and by inserting themselves into the
conversations that are taking place.

Arguably  this  has  changed  forever  the  way    

that  consumers  make  purchase  decisions    
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How important is the power of a crowd?

On a more personal level Crowd Connectivity has also changed the way that
people both portray themselves and subsequently feel about themselves. Never
before have profiles and personal information been so public.


The phrase brand me springs to mind - the means for consumers to market
themselves (in almost in the same way as a brand communicates) and for them
to package and control the way they are seen by friends and strangers alike.


Technology  means  this  information  can  be  shared  and  constantly  commented  on  –  with  
“personal”  decisions  often  being  taken  by  group  consensus  

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And then there is crowdsourcing
This is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an
employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or
community (a crowd), through an open call.

Marketers have latched onto it s value or experimented with it. But

where is it going now? The jury is arguably still out on the
effectiveness of Crowdsourcing .

In purist terms ‒ it is not another form of quantitative study - often it is

unstructured, not robust or controlled, but the immediacy and
contemporary nature of the approach are compelling drivers.

Increasingly these tactical insights are finding a place in the overall

©  2010  Ipsos  
research frameworks that companies are using to understand their
consumers ‒ and in our view, the easier that digital technology and
social connection makes this, the more it is going to be used.
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 Typical Crowdsourcing tactics
It s hard to clearly define exactly what constitutes crowdsourcing
activity. There is a fine line between a public competition, an open
on-line forum, message boards, twittering and a physical gathering
of total strangers. All these have been reported recently as
crowdsourcing activity by a number of brands.


A recent high profile example was the issue of Gap s new logo ‒ only a week after
unveiling a revamped logo, Gap decided to return to its original version after a
hurriedly launched crowdsourcing exercise was undertaken to counter a wave of
negative comments about the new logo on social networks.


Other interesting cases worth noting were the UK Government s interest in asking the
crowd how to reduce the country s budget deficit ‒ probably the biggest crowd
utilised to date.

And at the other end of the scale, Unilever broke new ground with a campaign for
©Rob Cottingham Peperami. Over 1,200 ideas were received from the public, with winners receiving a
$10,000 prize. This aired on TV in August 2010.
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Actual Examples

The following slides demonstrate a number of ways in which the power

of the crowds are being utilised by both individuals and companies.

•  As a tool to tap the opinion of small crowds of common interest groups or

friends
•  Or ..small crowds of total
strangers
•  And also for tapping larger crowds of random people

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 Real  Life  Example  

Feedback  from   Crafting “The Brand Called Me”

While consumers can carefully control the clothes they wear,
the brands they use, the photos they upload to Flickr and the

strangers  on   comments they Twitter, it's more difficult to judge whether the
image they're trying to project is really what others see.

Friends, family and online pals aren't objective enough, so who

Self  Image   can they turn to for an honest image appraisal? German
consumers can now upload a few pictures to
checkyourimage.com and have impartial strangers evaluate
their appearance

Just as brands routinely use focus groups to test a product's

image and appeal, anyone can benefit from an honest
appraisal by a crowd of strangers.

The results are only visible to clients, are private and don't turn
into "hot or not" contests, which would likely be the case in a
more open and transparent set-up.

Website: www.checkyourimage.com
Source springwise.com 44
 Facebook introduces groups
This is a high profile and mass market application
that enables like-minded friends or groups of people
connected by shared interests to collaborate and
Real  Life  Example   share ideas on line, in real time ‒ with functionality

Group    
ranging from group chat to document sharing. 


However, for those shunning the ubiquitous

Facebook there are a number of smaller specialist

Co-­‐Creation  &   applications available ‒ with this kind of offering

typified by Kluster .


Collaboration  
This is a commercial platform positioned as a
customisable crowdsourcing application targeted
at both business and also direct to consumers ‒ it
offers the functionality to collaborate in real-time to

Platforms   get stuff done .

Source: Facebook.com/groups
Website: www.kluster.com

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Real  Life  Example  

Successful  Design  Sourcing  

Democratize or Commoditize through the crowd?
Crowdspring.com has risen from relative obscurity 3 years ago, to one of the first crowdsourcing business models to
achieve sustained exposure and apparent profit. It s also raised debate and ire from the design community. Some fear
it cheapens the designers and hurts professionals while others maintain it democratizes the market and gives great
designers in remote locations access to great clients. Whatever the case may be, clients including Doubleday, Tivo,
Forbes, Dish Network, Starbucks, Barilla, Epic, ConAgra, and Random House. Crispin Porter + Bogusky, BBH,
Element79, Shift Communications and Starcom IP Pixel have used the platform with good reviews.

Website: crowdspring.com

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Real  Life  Example  

Re-thinking “The Creative Department”

Naming Force is a specifically targeted business initiative

aimed at capturing the input from the crowd to generate
ideas for the naming of new products or services.

Consumers are able to join the force and can then take
part in active assignments where they are asked to submit
names for various projects.

Real  Life  Example   In return the namers can receive cash payments for the
best received ideas.

Brand   Website: namingforce.com

Naming  
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 Global Ideas Overnight with Idea Cultures

If two heads are better than one, it's hard to argue with the
premise of crowdsourcing, which taps multiple brains for a
common end. 


Now offering such capabilities overnight is Ideas Culture

Real  Life  Example   an Australian firm that puts creative thinkers around the

Twitter   globe to work via Twitter to solve a client's problem by next

morning.


Overnight   Ideas Culture gets the challenge out to its Twitter-based

Ideas Agents, who spend 15 to 30 minutes each on the

Problem  Solving   problem. There are more than 200 agents from eight
countries on the books, and each earns AUD 100 for four
sessions. Is there no stopping the power of the Twitter-
enabled crowds?
Source springwise.com
Website: www.ideasculture.com/ideas.ph 48
 Real  Life  Example  

Social  Enabled    
Research  &  Shop   Field Research - one respondent at
time.

Field Agent turns field research on it s

head, recruiting respondents one-on-one.
For small task-level surveys,
mystery shops, product trials and
competitive searches mission-by-mission.

Respondents interact and are solicited via

iPhone app, receiving micro-compensation
for each mission accomplished

Website: fieldagent.net

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Real  Life  Example  

Sustainable   The Crowd That Cares:

Crowd  Designed   Another example of an effort to tap the opinion of the
crowds (with sponsorship from Starbucks itself) was to find
Product   the best ideas to eliminate paper cup consumption. Some
58 billion paper coffee cups get thrown out each year in
North America alone.

Creative thinkers all over the world were able to submit and
rate new ideas for a sustainable and convenient alternative
in the form of image, audio or video files.

A total of USD 20,000 in prizes was scheduled to be

awarded to the developers of the winning ideas, including
USD 10,000 for the top choice of Betacup's board of
advisors; the remainder was to be split evenly among the
top 5 community favourites.

Source springwise.com Website: www.thebetacup.com

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 Real  Life  Example   Ready to Wear?
Peer     GoTryItOn.com lets people give or get feedback

Fashion  Advice  
on how they look - from either the whole GoTryItOn
community or just close friends .


Users upload digital snapshots of themselves in

various outfits and along with each outfit, they can list
the brands included. Votes for or against it are
cast by clicking the upward or downward facing
hangers, signifying wear it and change it,
respectively. Comments for the person in the outfit,
including any suggestions for modification or
improvement can also be left. Those wearing the
outfits can later give feedback to those who
provided reviews to let them know how the outfit
worked out.


Website: www.gotryiton.com
Source springwise.com
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Real  Life  Example  

iPhone    
Fashion   Big Night Out.

Ideas   A similar application but with the added benefit of immediacy

and mobility is offered as an iphone app by the website
ifrockup.com

iFrockUp is positioned as a way to get interactive fashion

advice for events like formals, proms, balls and parties.

Friends and other contacts can rate everything ranging from

dresses, hairstyles, shoes and more.

Website: www.ifrockup.com
Source springwise.com

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 How Do I Look?
Diesel stores in Spain have introduced Diesel Cam, an
interactive installation that allows shoppers to
photograph themselves and post the pictures
immediately to their Facebook profiles. 

As they try on clothes they can ask their Facebook friends for
Real  Life  Example   advice about which garments they should buy, or they can simply
publish photos to show off all the new clothes they are buying.

In-­‐store     Connection is made to Facebook via Facebook Connect,

using a touch screen monitor on the installation.

Facebook   ource: youtube.com (search: Diesel Cam in Spain Store )

Connection  
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Real  Life  Example  
Serious  Business  
Innovation     Open Source B@B Co-Creation Community

P&G, recognizing that 50% of their most innovation products are a

result of collaboration with outside innovators, have created connect
+ develop.


Via an open invitation for innovators to join the community, the

online website hub promotes inventors and business innovators to
join, contribute and begin the process of bringing new product
concepts to life.


Years ago, P&G focused on everything being homegrown, home

developed. But with information and technology sharing happening
at unmatched speeds, the race to market with exciting ideas and
superior products continues to be increasingly more competitive.
Thus, P&G, aiming to remain on the edge and in the lead, made a
daring culture shift about 10 years ago from P&G made to P&G
made or discovered.

©  2010  Ipsos  
Website: https://www.pgconnectdevelop.com

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Real  Life  Example  
Sourcing  Social    
Change   Ventures For Good.

Beth Kanter, well known non-profit social media strategist has

spoken extensively on big brands as they launch social to be
social programs with mixed results. She notes that many brands
can learn from purpose driven organizations, who craft strong
strategy to create a business ecosystem. Ennovent is a social
change enterprise based India that applies this type of disciplined
approach:


Use of Connectors: Reaching out "connectors," people who may

know of people working on projects ("solvers") who might be
eligible to submit a winning proposal. Including a small incentive.

Submission Process: They are looking for companies to submit a

proposal that they could fund to scale in India up to $500,000 via a
simple submission form.

Vetting and Selection: Based on the submissions, Ennovent with

the help of local advisors will short list ten projects to be presented

©  2010  Ipsos  
to a panel of experts. 


Website: http://www.ennovent.com/

Source: http://beth.typepad.com
55
Real  Life  Example  

The  value  of  Friends  

Help me decide is an online application that allows the user to ask their own friendship community what they think whenever they
have a question. Positioned as less fuzzy than a general forum ‒ the benefit is clear cut advice from people they know.


The feedback is obviously more personal than an open poll like Yahoo answers, with the difference being the advice is from people
who are trusted. A great advantage is that access is through the users existing social community ‒ like Facebook for example so
there is no need to download registration or gain access via a separate website.

Source www.help-me-decide.net

56
Real  Life  Example  

Instant  Opinion  via  a  Mobile  App    

On a less personal scale - Opinionaided claims to tap into the largest growing community of opinion and advice driven
users, offering instant results to any question.

Primarily offered as a mobile application via iTunes (with a limited web presence) the functionality can be linked to the
whole community or specifically to the members own Facebook connections. Whether it s for advice when shopping, or a
little reassurance, Opinionaided is positioned as a solution for questions and good advice.

Source www.beopinionaided.com

57
 Anonymous pool of experrs Anonymous Pool of Experts.

Aardvark, recently acquired by Google, is a community of

people that want easy access to answers of any kind
through a social network of everyday experts .

With the basic truth that everyone has expertise in

something, users register and define their interest areas
Real  Life  Example   geography and expertise. Answer seekers can then
ping questions through the network via instant

Instant   message, forum and email and these questions will be

sent out to a global pool of people for answer.

Expertise  
http://vark.com/

©  2010  Ipsos  
58
Real  Life  Example  
Automated  “Intelligent”Advice  
via  the  Crowds  
Taking the concept to a whole new level, Hunch is a brand-new decision-making tool that gets to know
the user first and then offers customised suggestions. Users begin by telling Hunch a little bit about
themselves through an introductory set of questions.

Then, when it comes time to make a decision, a core algorithm based on machine learning asks the user
up to 10 structured questions on the topic, any of which can be skipped at the user's request.

Using those answers - along with what it already knows

about the user's particular preferences - the system
proposes a customised solution.

Accompanying each decision is an explanation of how Hunch

arrived at it, and users can vote on whether they agree with
the result, as well as suggesting new topics and questions.
In that way, the system gets smarter over time - almost
Wikipedia-style, reflecting the corrections and suggestions of users.

Source: hutch.com springwise.com

59
THE  POWER  OF  CONVERSATION  
#2  

©  2010  Ipsos  
60
Social Conversation
Electronic Word of Mouth?
Deeper than just posting opinions, a conversation can either be one way (someone
tuning in to the conversation of others) or a genuine two way exchange


Technology and the Social Media environment are patently facilitating the spread of 

on-line conversations ‒ but the game changing moment is that we are now seeing the
emergence of tools to make that process so much easier. Either consolidating
conversations or automatically linking them to transactions or activities.


And…there  is  obviously  a  challenge  for  brands  to  be  part    

of  the  conversations  –  but  ideally  as  a  guest  and  not  a  gate  crasher…  

61
Conversational tactics
The following examples show how far the loose concept of
conversations has moved on from people just writing random reviews
or sharing experiences on forums.

In the first two examples - by linking the conversation or opinions

automatically to a number of actual transactions the process offers so
many more possibilities for interactivity.

62
Real  Life  Example  

Social  Retail  
Widgets   Friends Helping Friends Buy Products

Bazaarvoice is one of the first successful technology

ventures to prove the power of social media within the
consumer purchase funnel.

Providing a suite of social apps that can plug-in and be

implemented into corporate websites and e-commerce,
these technologies allow customers, customer service
and technical support people to converse and come to
one another s aid when in product conversations.

These tools have become common place in virtually

©  2010  Ipsos  
every major retailer within the US.

Source bazaarvoice.com
63
 Real  Life  Example  
Real  time  purchase  conversations  

Swipely has developed a secure platform for consumers to share their purchase
experiences online by rating the experience and adding comments or photos.
Users begin by signing up and importing purchases from their credit or debit card
accounts; email can also be used for purchases made online. 


Many purchases are automatically geo-located to specific store locations, and

Swipely supports product details as well by integrating catalogs and menus from
more than 250,000 retail and restaurant locations.

Users can start conversations around specific outfits, meals, songs, movies,
gadgets and millions of other products . Upon seeing a compelling new purchase,
other users can click to see the venue on the map and add the item to their own
wish list. For music, movies and apps meanwhile, users can just press play on
select purchases to hear a song preview, see a video trailer or browse app screen
shots.

©  2010  Ipsos  
Source springwise.com swipely.com

64
Real  Life  Example  

Real  time  
purchase  
conversations   Shop Talk.
Blippy is also a service that allows consumers create
conversations around purchases.

It automatically shares their credit card transactions as

they are made.

This includes the place when the purchase took place,

the amount, and the item. This is all placed in a social
stream where other Blippy users can comment on and
“like” the various items.

In May 2010 Blippy users were reported to be sharing

©  2010  Ipsos  
purchases worth over $500k per day in the US.

Source: blippy.com techcrunch.com

65
Levi’s  Like    Minded  Friends  

Creating a Social Shopping Experience.

A few months ago, Levi s was one of the first web sites to
Real  Life  Example   use social plug-ins on Facebook.

Their vision was to socialise the choosing of Levi s

products and promote the sharing of information between
friends. According to Levi s The intention was to make
shopping for jeans an interactive and fun experience - a
way to bring friends into the mix .

The activity dramatically increased the Levi s Facebook

©  2010  Ipsos  
fanbase and generated thousands of likes .

Source: insidefacebook.com
66
 Another  way  to  share,    
rate  and  discover  media  

Consumers going out to a bar or restaurant can already check in via sites
like Foursquare to let their friends know where they are.

Now, GetGlue aims to bring like-minded capabilities to the world of

entertainment, giving users a way to share, rate and discover new books,
TV shows, movies and music.

Some 4.5 million new ratings and check-ins for TV shows, movies, music
and books are submitted on GetGlue every month.

In a partnership with HBO, users who check in to HBO's hit shows can
reportedly win exclusive branded stickers. The free service is available via

©  2010  Ipsos  
browser add-on or iPhone app.
Source: getglue.comcom

Source Springwise
#3  
Image © of psfk/Berghs School of Communication

 THE  POWER  OF  SOCIAL  

MOTIVATION  

68
Social Currency
Rewarding consumers for loyalty to a product or service is not a new idea ‒ indeed the original concept
can be traced back to the era of Green Shield Stamps in the 1960s. Schemes have come a long way since
then ‒ and digital technology and emerging behaviours are providing a number of exciting ways in which
companies are able to offer rewards and incentives. So the principle isn t new ‒ but the activation is now
definitely 3rd Generation. 


The concept of a Social currency is obviously closely aligned to this. The social value of being seen (by
friends) to be engaging in a particular activity with the added affiliation or association with a brand, is
potentially an important equation, particularly in the area of recommendation and referrals.

©  2010  Ipsos  
But  what  motivators  are  people  using?  
69
Social currency tactics
Creativity is evident in the number of ways that companies are
motivating consumers to collect rewards through social media activity.
These range from benefits in kind such as free meals and travel all
the way through to free products and cash.

70
Selling Products for
the Price of a Tweet
Aiming to make social media's value explicit Pay with a Tweet is a
platform that lets content owners sell their goods in exchange for a
single tweet rather than cash. 


Developed by German-American Innovative Thunder, Pay with a

Tweet bills itself as the first social payment system where people
pay with the value of their social network . 


Purchasers of any kind of content tell their friends on Twitter about

it. Interested content owners simply sign up with Pay with a Tweet,
including the download URL, the tweet to be posted and a link to
their company's website. Purchasers, then, follow a forced viral
model to promote the product in question far and wide. 


Pay with a Tweet is currently available for testing on Innovative

Thunder's own book, Oh My God What Happened and What
Should I Do?

Website: source: springwise.com www.paywithatweet.com

71
 Social Retail &
Customer Tweet Fleet

Image A Swedish initiative - Restaurants give bloggers free food in

exchange for social media exposure

Website: spotandtell.se

72
 Selling Products for the
Price a Post.
Taking a page from TasteCasting s book̶travel company
YokmoK is now offering popular bloggers free trips.
Owners of popular blogs̶which YokmoK defines as those with
10,000 or more incoming links̶relating to travel, adventure or
adrenaline sports are invited to apply for free travel on one of
YokmoK's upcoming trips. They need only submit their name,
the URL of their blog, which trip they're interested in and a few
sentences about themselves in order to be considered. Then,
when YokmoK finds itself with an unused slot on a trip, it lets
qualified bloggers know̶in general, at least two to three
weeks before the schedule date of departure. If the blogger is
available to participate, YokmoK will pay for all services
included in the price for the corresponding trip. In exchange,
the blogger is expected to share their experience of the trip,
including at least four entries before the trip starts, one entry
per day during the trip, and another four entries after the trip
ends; each entry must include at least one direct link to
YokmoK's website.

www.yokmok.com/bloggers-travel-free.html
Website: source springwise 73
Domino’s Recruits
Fans to Sell Pizza
Through Social Networking Pages
The music industry has long been putting fans to work
for help with promotions and sales, and now it looks like Domino s
Pizza is getting in on the action as well.

A new widget launched last month lets consumers serve as

affiliate marketers for the brand through their social
networking pages and blogs.


Domino's UK is apparently the first brand to test the new

widget (see photo). All consumers need do is install the
widget on their website, blog or social networking page,
start promoting Domino s on their personal web space,
and then wait for the cash to roll in. The widget tracks all
orders placed through their site and rewards consumers
with 0.5 percent of every purchase.

Source: springwise.com www.dominos.co.uk 74

 Paying the Crowd for
Ranking and Rating

In beta development, Knewsroom publishes the "Knews

every morning, featuring the previous day s top stories -
which stories rank as most important is decided by the
audience of readers in a Digg-like fashion.


Going far beyond Digg though, Knewsroom rewards

contributors with a portion of 20 percent of every dollar it
earns in advertising revenue. Members of the Knewsroom
community can participate by proposing topics for the next
day, submitting syndicated or original stories, and voting
on favourites.


Contributors of original content can earn an extra USD

150 for their submissions as well.

©  2010  Ipsos  
Website: www.kluster.com
Social Media Check-ins
Earn Hotel Rewards
It's standard practice for hotels and airlines to offer discounts and other rewards to their own best customers, but a new
service aims to pass those benefits on to other consumers as well. Specifically, users of location-based social networking
services including Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Loopt, Brightkite, Google Buzz and Google Latitude can now coordinate
their check-ins through Topguest for a variety of rewards.


Topguest is a free members-only service that automatically gives users real rewards program points for their location-
based check-ins - users simply sign up for Topguest and sync their check-in app account(s) to the service. Rewards
include a complimentary stays for those who check into four Standard hotels in the course of a single week, and a 25
percent discount for those who check into Standard properties 10 times.

Source springwise.com www.topguest.com

76
Viral Tourist Ambassadors Promote
NZ Event - in Return for Rewards
Pass It On is an initiative to turn the nearly one million New Zealanders who live overseas into a network of virtual
ambassadors in anticipation of the Rugby World Cup 2011 event.

It aims to get expat New Zealanders to spread the word about everything the country has to offer. With funding,
distribution and content support from a variety of New Zealand partners, the effort offers monthly prize draws for
participants with Kiwi-centric prizes for the winners.

Participants begin by signing up with the effort and then sharing stories from the Pass It On site with friends, family and
Colleagues such as sharable videos focusing on travel and cuisine. When the recipients of those stories follow the sender's
link back to Pass It On and sign up, the sender earns pass points. Those points then become entries in a prize draw.

Source springwise.com Website: www.passiton.co.nz

77
A Reward Based Check-in App

Another reward based location check-in concept is Shopkick, an app

that rewards consumers for actually walking into a store.

Currently available for the iPhone, Shopkick's free app dispenses

kickbucks reward points for a variety of consumer actions, including
standard check-ins at or near the store.


It also goes beyond the check-in however, and rewards consumers

further for actually entering the store. An audio transmitter in each
participating store emits an inaudible signal that's nevertheless
detected by the app on the consumer's phone, thereby proving that
he or she is in the store. That, in turn, entitles the shopper not just to
kickbucks but to exclusive deals as well.

Source Springwise Website: shopkick.com

78
Section 4
THE POWER OF
HUMAN CONNECTION #4

©  2010  Ipsos  
79
 Human Connection is a Powerful Driver….

This section deals with a couple of themes

Firstly - as with all emerging trends, there are a number of ways in which consumers adopt new
behaviours and likewise a number of ways that companies line up to offer new services to cater for these.

Digital Utilities is a useful phrase to describe the explosion in applications and services that are aimed at
better organising consumers online worlds.

The concept of a personal online concierge has been around for a while ‒ the idea being that a tool that
could efficiently organise a disparate number of information sources to simplify a persons information /
entertainment feed into an intuitive dashboard is compelling.

In the same way, as the amount of information we all collect explodes, we need better aggregation tools so
that we can both see it more easily ourselves as well as showing it to friends

We  are  now  seeing  the  emergence  of  the  3rd  Generation  of  “smart”  
self  publishing  tools  which  allow  consumers  to  aggregate  digital  content  
and  social  media  output  into  digital  magazine  /  newspaper  style  formats.
80
 Commercial Exploitation of Social Media
Behaviours

•  Secondly - another aspect that we think is important is how companies will exploit new
social skills that consumers adopt.

•  Examples in second part of this section illustrate:

–  the ability to consume multiple sources of bite size information in a “Twitter like” way.
–  the ability to create relevant commercial content that companies will pro-actively seek out and
use.
–  the opportunity for consumers to interact in new ways with companies – doing the searching
themselves.

81
iPad app turns social content into a
personalised digital magazine

Addressing the need for consumers to pull together all their

social media content, a new app has been launched for the
iPad that creates a digital magazine.

A variety of content can be used to create the magazine
ranging from videos, pictures and postings.

The Facebook and Twitter sections let readers quickly flip

through the latest stories, photos and updates from friends and
trusted sources.

Because Flipboard renders links and images right in the

magazine, readers no longer have to scan long lists of posts
and click on link after link - instead they instantly see all the
stories, comments and images, making it faster and more
entertaining to discover, view and share social content.

Source: flipboard.com

82
A Social
Streams Manager
Another tool for simplifying the fragmenting activities of consumers
in order to bring them back to one central place is offered by
thecadmus.com


Cadmus is a real-time service that manages social media streams

such as Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS by organising and
consolidating the most relevant content.


It groups trending topics, conversations from within groups of

friends and similar posts into conversations and places the most
important ones at the top. It does all of the heavy lifting so
consumers don't have to search through individual streams to find
out what everybody is talking about. Cadmus also takes the
@replies in a Twitter stream and groups them into conversations. 


Source: thecadmus.com

83
Applying the Format of Old Media to
New Media
paper.li organises links shared on Twitter and
Facebook into an easy to read newspaper-style
format.

Source: www.paper.li

84
Unfriend Finder Lets Users Discover Who
is “Unfriending” them on Facebook

Digital Unfriend Finder is a simple installation that works with most

popular browsers in conjunction with Facebook.

The tool is not retroactive ‒ it won t allow the user to discover a

group of lost friends ‒ but after the installation and once the user
has logged into Facebook it works in realtime to highlight friends
who drop the account holder thinking they won t notice.

Source wired.com lifehacker.com

85
“Path” - A new Social Network
that limits the user to only 50 friends

A new “personal social network” called PATH has recently

been launched which limits the user to a circle of just 50
Friends


The premise of this flies in the face of other Social

Networking Sites where users embark on a hunt to find
“trophy” contacts to “out do” their friends in building a
network with the greatest number of friends


The other difference is that the only status updates allowed

are through photos – which are the sole means of
expression and communication. Described as a “giver”
network, not a “taker” network PATH is positioned to capture
daily moments.


All this is done via an iPhone app.

Source wired.co.uk
86
Vocabulary tool by Berlitz uses
Twitter for Social Learning
A new tool from Berlitz adds a social element to learning with multimedia
instructions and Twitter-like capabilities.


Users begin by entering the words they want to master̶input can be

done manually, or via the Vocabu Wordclipper, which lets them
highlight any word on a page and drag it to their browser for automatic
inclusion.


Vocabu helps users learn the words from their wordstreams by trawling
the web for visual references using sites like Flickr or for examples of the
words used in sentences from real-time tweets on Twitter. Users of
Vocabu can form groups for mutual learning and inspiration, and a follow
me function mimics the one on Twitter for sharing and comparing the
wordstreams being studied.

Apps for iPhone and Android are on the way, too. Vocabu will operate on
a business model that offers both freemium and premium services.

Source: springwise.com www.getvocabu.com

87
 Major Retailers Latch on
to 'Hauler' Viral Videos

The first thing every tween or teen girl does after a shopping spree is to
show off their haul - and now girls in the US are doing more than
bragging about their fashion finds to their best friends.
A growing phenomenon called "haul videos" allows the girls to show off
their purchases to the whole world on sites like YouTube.
There are thought to be over 150,000 haul videos which are recording
millions of viewsNow, major retailers are giving the haul video makers a
commercial makeover by actively recruiting a handful of them for back-to-
school marketing campaigns.
The stores are also compensating some of the vloggers. J.C. Penny has
deals with six girls to create back-to-school videos in exchange for gift
cards from $250 to $1,000, according to reports. "It's one of the most
innovative things we're doing this fall," Mike Boylson, chief marketing
officer at J.C. Penny, told USA Today. "All of these haulers have
followers and friends. That's how you start the ball rolling." In the same
report - American Eagle is also getting in on the action, with its own
version of AE hauls.
Source ABC News & YouTube
88
To be continued…..

This is the first report of a planned regular series on Social Media

– next time we’ll be looking again at brands using social media
– paying attention to the typical questions that marketers are
currently asking, including:


•  How do I measure Social Media ROI?

•  How do I reach my target markets with social media – will I be welcome?
•  How do I generate traffic and leads using social media?
•  What is the value of a Brand App?

For further information and feedback please contact:

Graham Saxton – graham.saxton@ipsos.com
Andy Hunter – andy.hunter@ipsos.com

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