Check out their 2007 Year End Top Searches to see this year’s biggest gadgets, TV shows, new stories…

How interesting and true! The more technology we have available, the greater importance of  real human, “primitive”, contact will be. Gladwell’s Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen will play critical role in the process. Yet, Word of Mouth, supported by the new digital technologies and Internet,  will become even more powerful force. Call it “WORD OF MOUSE” if you want.

Ever wondered what made Apple such a great company? What makes them so admired both by customers but also by their investors (with total annual return to investors of 94% over the past five years)?

It is because they never set goal to “MEET customer’s expectations”. They go extra mile, they EXCEED expectations, they WOW their customers. They love what they do. They are passionate. They excel. They DELIGHT! In a word, they have great KNOW-WOW!

Still not sure? Here are the excerpts of in interview with Steve Jobs illustrating Apple’s culture (interview done by Fortune senior editor Betsy Morris). Note how many times Jobs mentions words “GREAT” and “LOVE”:

- “We all had cell phones. We just hated them, they were so awful to use…It was a great challenge…. Let’s make a great phone that we fall in love with…”
- “We did iTunes because we all love music”.
- “We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants… We just want to make great products”.
- “When I hire somebody really senior, competence is the ante. They have to be really smart. But the real issue for me is, are they going to fall in love with Apple? Because if they fall in love with Apple, everything else will take care of itself.”
- “We made more. We worked harder. We said: ‘This is great. Let’s do more’.”
- “We do put our heart and soul into these things.”

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/zeitgeist.html

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=156101

Find out about:

- Online population worldwide
- Average Monthly Online Hours by Country
- Top Worldwide Online Properties
- Advertising breakdown by industry
- Top 50 Internet advertisers

… and more!

- Economic and financial indicators (including world markets)
http://www.economist.com/markets/indicators/

- World Rankings (including population, economy, purchasing power, life expectancy…)
http://www.economist.com/markets/rankings/

Check out www.futurist.com to learn more…

Scent marketing is a subgenre of “sensory branding,” it’s using smell to attract consumers. Smell is one of the strongest senses, and it creates long lasting memories. It’s not solely used to sell houses and cars anymore, marketing teams are using it to sell everything from cell phones to air travel and other consumer products. Recent examples are the ‘Got Milk Campaign’, Sony, and Weeds Television series. The ‘Got milk campaign’ used bus shelters which had the scent of cookies along with a picture of cookies and the ‘got milk’ logo. Furthermore, Sony is selling new phones which come in a variety of colour and smells such as apple pie and vanilla.

The pros of scent marketing include originality, attention grabbing, and consumers remember it and talk about it. The cons include: ongoing expenses to upkeep scents, and identifying scents which are pleasing to the largest sample population.

We are currently fourth year business students from Capilano College. If Cap were to implement a scent marketing campaign for the college, it would be a smart idea for them to use the scent of pine because the College prides itself on its beautifully wooded campus.

There is a whole new world of advertising ready to be tapped, the opportunities are endless – it’s up to you. Learn more about scent advertising at:

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/scentvertising-top-10-scent-marketing-campaigns

Stephen Park and Stephanie Savage

MACRO TRENDS (AFFECTING MARKETING RESEARCH)

a) From OFFLINE to ONLINE: More and more business done via the Net
b) From ON-SHORE to OFF-SHORE: Off shoring of fulfillment and production-oriented work
c)From DOMESTIC to GLOBAL: Use of panel-based research goes global
d)From DISTRIBUTED to CENTRALIZED: Mainstreaming of software as a hosted solution

INDUSTRY TRENDS

a) Consolidation of market research companies
b) Online research is mainstream
c) Research panels are coming to the fore
d) Enterprise research software is becoming a necessity

HOW ARE THESE TRENDS AFFECTING MARKETING RESEARCH BUSINESS?

a) Just collecting data online is not enough
b) Customers want
- More accurate results, faster and cheaper
- Integration with CRM, SFA, audience measurement, customer satisfaction, BI tools, etc
c) MR firms need to become technology-driven

***

Obviously people from GMI got it! No wonder, of the world’s 25 largest research firms, 21 use GMI market research software and services… GMI has experienced over 100% annual revenue growth for the last seven years…

IKEA taught me something: Marketing is not just about 4Ps. One can have excellent and innovative Product, competitive Price, great Promotion and convenient Place, yet there is something more. This “something more” is actually the INTANGIBLE ingredient. You can’t copy it. You can’t manipulate it as easily as 4Ps. Yet, it is the heart and the soul of the business. It is called: EXPERIENCE.

IKEA experience is very, very unique. Here is a small sample of innovative things they do to create unique experience:
* Self-service: you are picking and carrying your own items - like in the grocery store!
* Furniture self-assembly
* Great kids playground
* Great restaurant in the middle of the store
* Pen and paper available everywhere to note your ideas while shopping
* The walking path from the entrance of the store to the exit
* The culture of humour (ads, funny names of products, etc.)

And so on and on…What an experience! Wow! I am starting to enjoy shopping… Oh, by the way, this same marketing instrument (”experience”) has its Internet equivalent. It is called website (or: user) experience and by many it is considered as the ultimate key to online success.

1) RE-IMAGINE our enterprises and institutions! The fundamental nature of the change now in progress has caught us off-stride and on our heels. No aspect of the way our institutions operate can be allowed to go unexamined. Or unchanged.

2) Brawl with NO RULES. We have to make things up as we go along

3) Incrementalism is Out. DESTRUCTION is in. “Continuous improvement” philosophy is becoming dangerous. All or nothing.

4) INFOTECH changes everything. There is no higher priority than the total transformation of all business practice to e-business practice. The new technologies are the real thing. The IT revolution is in its infancy.

5) Ninety percent of all white collar JOBS as we know them will be disemboweled in the next 15 years. GONE.

6) SELF-RELIANCE will replace corporate cosseting. We will live in the age of Me Inc. and Brand YOU World!

Self reliance? Brand YOU world? Me Inc? Sounds very exciting…but the bad news is, according to Peters and Barletta,  that these changes are NOT optional!

Sounds too academic? Maybe, but take for example Amazon’s business model. Large proportion of Amazon.com’s book sales come from obscure books that are not available in brick-and-mortar stores! Where inventory storage and distribution costs are extremely low, it becomes profitable to sell relatively unpopular products; however when storage and distribution costs are high only the most popular products can be sold.

As with any other new trend, this can be huge opportunity, or this can threaten your established business. A friend of mine decided that this is an opportunity, so he build his text messaging service (www.ipipi.com) serving hundreds of thousands “insignificant” clients (b2b and b2c) all over the world… Huge success based on the Long Tail!

Friedman’s top ten trends or “world flatteners” are:

* Collapse of Berlin Wall-11/9 - the starting point for leveling the global playing field
* Netscape: Netscape and the Web broadened the audience for the Internet
* Workflow software: The ability of machines to talk to other machines with no humans involved.
* Open sourcing (open source software, blogs, and Wikipedia)
* Outsourcing
* Inscourcing
* Offshoring
* Supply chaining
* In-forming: the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people
* “The Steroids”: Personal digital equipment like mobile phones, iPods, personal digital assistants, instant messaging, and voice over IP or VOIP

1) Home Entertainment
2) Rising Oil Prices
3) Eating Out
4) Home Building
5) The digital doctor’s office
6) Alternative sports

- “Mobile cell as the center of gravity!”
- “Micro blogging”
- “Virtual gifting”
- “Mass Individuality”
- “Dating is gaming”

Wow! Youth is definitely becoming digital!

Learn more from Arie de Geus, former manager of Royal Dutch Shell, business strategist and author widely recognised as the originator of many of the principles and practises underlying the Learning Organisation concept: http://www.ariedegeus.com/

1) Securities: 44.1%
2) Oil and gas equipment, services: 31.4%
3) Internet services and retailing: 24.2%
4) Commercial banks: 23.7%
5) Engineering, Construction: 21.8%
6) Hotels, casinos, resorts: 17.1%
7) Health care: insurance, MNGD. care: 17.0%
8)Mining, crude-oil productions: 16.8%
9) Wholesalers: diversified: 16.8%
10) Metals: 16.1%

“Microsoft Surface” will allow people to touch and move objects on screen for everything from digital finger painting and jigsaw puzzles to ordering off a virtual menu in a restaurant…

To learn more:

Brisbane Times

and

New York Times

- Most iTunes podcasts (31%) are done by individuals with $100,000+ household income
- Most iTunes podcasts (47%) are done by those with College / graduate degree
- 69% of iTunes podcasts are done by males

To learn more stats: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1004938&src=article_head_sitesearch

- Mankind is on the cusp of radically accelerating era of change unlike anything we have ever seen and almost more extreme than we can imagine
- The Law of Accelerating Returns: don’t underestimate the power of technological change. Information technologies are doubling in power every year. Doubling every year is multiplying it 1000 in ten years. It is remarkable how scientists miss this basic trend… We are stuck in the intuitive linear view
- By the time a child born today graduates from college, poverty, disease and reliance on fossil fuels should be a thing of past
- By 2027 computers will surpass humans in intelligence. By 2045 we will reach the Singularity, a moment when technology is advancing so rapidly that “strictly biological” humans will be unable to comprehend it. Everything is ultimately becoming information technology
- In a couple of decades we will have cell-seized, brain-enhancing robots circulating through our blood stream

Not enough? OK, Kurzwell also believes that the advances in technology will allow him to live forever, if he takes care of himself now.

As we have just figured what is meant by Web 2.0 (user generated content; interaction; putting YOU in charge) there is now talk about Web 3.0! The new web (Semantic web or Web 3.0) will become more intelligent by transforming web pages into web database. Discovery engines (described before on this blog) are just the beginning!

OK, but how do you win in the future? Here is Dunlap’s list of five winning strategies (Ivan’s notes and comments in brackets):

1) Start a fire, then carry the torch (focus on revenue and growth, innovate, and lead!)

2) Wear the customers shoes, crate a path for them (gain credibility, enhance value and focus on relationships – how, where, when the customers want it)

3) Measure with precision and prove your mettle (Measurement is number one issue for marketing managers… CEOs need prove that marketing impacts results; marketing managers must develop measurement systems, return on marketing programs…it’s hard but achievable)

4) Run a sprint and a marathon… (Master balancing short term needs and long term priorities; master dual agenda!)

5) Know who you are, create who you want to be (most important strategy according to Dunlap (!)… create winning customer centric organization… build based on your key skills/competencies… make IT your partner…)

Read more:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070413/ap_on_hi_te/google_doubleclick

Apparently Google will now dominate the online marketing world… Even more
interestingly: Google recently launched RADIO ads in conjunction with
adwords!! Yes, you read it well: RADIO ads.

What is next for Google? Where is the marketing and media puck going? I will let you think about this…

• 25% of the population in China with highest IQ is greater than the total population in North America 
• The top 10 jobs that will be in demand in 2010 did not exist in 2004 
• The U.S. is   20^th in the world in broadband Internet penetration (just behind Luxemburg)  
• Nintendo invested  $140 million research and development in 2002 alone. The US Government spent less than half as much research  and innovation in  education…
• 1 out of every 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online  
• There are 106 million registered users of MySpace. If MySpace were a country it would be number 11^th largest in the world (between Japan and Mexico) 
• It is estimated that 1.5 exabytes of  unique new information will be generated worldwide this year. That’s estimated to be more than in the last 5,000 years… 

DeQ is a three dimensional representation of your success in delighting. Its result is not a single number, but rather a matrix consisting of three numbers from 0-9. The ideal score would be: 9, 9, 9.

Your DeQ can be determined by using three questionnaires, to be filled out by company’s internal and external “clients” (i.e. employees, customers, community stake holders and residents).

To learn your company’s DeQ - fill out the questionnaires that will be presented in the next few posts.

Are you perceived as a giving company? Are you delighting your customers? Are you admired in your community or among your employees? The good news is:

• There is a way to measure your success in delighting
• There is a way to improve your DeQ (delight quotient) over time

Delight Quotient (DeQ) is the measure of your success in delighting in all three most important dimensions in your business: relationships with your customers, relationships with your employees and relationship with your community.

You may now be wondering how can DeQ be measured…. or what maximum DeQ is…or even what your DeQ is! If so, keep reading… check out this blog in few days!

You all know of Pareto’s 20-80 principle. It says that 20% of your input (products, markets, customers) will bring you 80% of your overall output.

Well, the input-output imbalance holds true here as well. Actually, this imbalance proves to be even more dramatic, as there are human emotions involved. This principle could be called the “The Law of Wow”, or, if you will, a 10%-300% principle. Let me try to phrase it:

“If you invest 10% more effort in trying to wow your customers, you will stand a 300% better chance to win prospective customers than your competitor”.

How come? Well, imagine being “only” 10% taller than anyone else around you. Who will stand out and get attention of ALL? By being 10% better (faster, less expensive, prettier…) you will get attention of ALL your prospective customers and thus far better chance to convert them into your real customers. It takes only 10% of your extra effort!

The best way to delight is to GIVE: give more than your customers would normally expect.

This is actually the tough part. We have been taught that business success is all about receiving or TAKING. Right? Think again. Those who have learned the art of giving proved to be the best “receivers”. The business is the dynamic balance between giving and receiving.

Don’t wait to become success to start giving… If your goal is to “receive” (money, reputation, status…) then START with giving! The same principle applies both on individual and corporate level. Remember the golden rule?

Check out this article here. Some of the facts and predictions that caught my attention:

- Broadband Internet users now spend $224 per month online
- Consumer online spending should total $170 billion by the end of the year. $53 billion on travel
- Internet ad revenues are up 36% over a year ago, and search is 40% of that total revenue
- Google controls at least 45% of all searches
- The revenge of the bricks-the-mortar retailers: their online growth far outpaces that of the pure-play Internet retailers
- Social networking (youtube.com, myspace.com, craigslist.com) rapidly growing
- Tremendous future for advertising on user-generated content sites

However, one piece of marketing puzzle is not done well! It’s the name : iPhone.
I understand Apple’s intention to own the “i”. Yes, they probably were among the first ones to use “i” : iMac, iTunes, iPod… Yet, “i” has become too generic. It stands for the Internet and it never belonged to any particular company and it never will.

In addition, the word “Phone” is too generic, too ordinary. It’s not exciting and it is not new. Apple’s product is way beyond an ordinary phone, and this message had to be communicated more clearly. Remember, Apple’s mp3 player was not called iPlayer, but iPod. New name and new category will always create more buzz. Apple has just wasted an excellent opportunity.

Let alone Apple’s legal battle for the rights to use the name… It seems as if this time Apple’s executives were too focused on negotiation and on legal issues (how to get the name), rather than on creative ideas.

Hmm… Maybe it is not too late to change their mind. This name change (before the launch) would still be way less expensive than wasting huge marketing budget to convince people that this is more than just an “ordinary” phone with the Internet access. This name change could actually be an additional opportunity to create buzz! And of course this would resolve their legal battles…

In addition to “virtual company” today we have gone one additional step toward the virtual extreme. We have created completely VIRTUAL BUSINESSES. Like www.secondlife.com
(“3D virtual world”) or www.weblo.com. EVERYTHING is virtual there, except money. You can create your second virtual identity (virtual character), buy your own “property”, get fashion “clothing”, new “car” or even new education for your virtual character. You can even find you your own virtual wife or husband… This all sounds just like fun, but many are taking this as a very serious business. Nyla, fashion designer from BC sells digital fashion items ranging from $0.25 to $6.00 and her virtual sales already account for one third of her real world income. Corporate world is getting this opportunity, too. In fact, IBM and Toyota already joined. Even universities like Harvard University and University of BC are planning to open their virtual campuses on Secondlife.com. Check out Secondlife.com. You never know – you may even end up opening your own virtual store… Oh, by the way, there are now 2.5 millions online residents of this virtual world. They spent1.29 million US dollars last 24 hours only…

1) ALTERNATIVE ENERGY: with China leading the way
2) WEB will be even more central in people’s lives due to changes in consumer demand: consumer will demand information accessible everywhere, edited and personalized
3) Rapid CONNECTION of the physical and digital world: more and more devices connected to the Internet (from today’s 2.5 billion to 14 billions by 2015)
4) Changes in electronic consumer products , particularly expended MULTIMEDIA capabilities of the cell phones and its spread to broader segment of the population (note the trend of the doubling of the world’s middle class - the largest consumers of such devices - in the near future)

1. Sharing a Corporate Personality
2. Widget Marketing
3. Social Media Optimization
4. AutoTagging and AutoSorting
5. Human Filtered Search
6. Contentcasting
7. Online Identity Shifting

Note the trend #5 - “Human filtered search”. Another name for what I called “wiki-based” search in previous post. Great article.