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Which Brands Dominate Foursquare Check-ins?

According to Ad Age’s weekly Trendrr data, Christmas week was a busy one for foursquare check-ins — although check-ins did not reach previously set peaks.

Only two of the brands in the top ten for the holiday week saw a decline in check-ins from the prior week. Of the top ten retail brand check-ins on foursquare during that week, three were food and beverage chains and 7 were consumer products and electronics retailers. Interestingly, it was the food and beverage brands that saw a decline in foursquare check-ins while all consumer products and electronics retailers saw increases in check-ins (as much as a 25% increase for Macy’s).

You can see the breakdown of the top 10 retail brands for foursquare check-ins below:

  1. Starbucks = 139,226 check-ins during the week
  2. Target = 48,611 check-ins during the week
  3. McDonald’s = 48,264 check-ins during the week
  4. Walmart = 43,467 check-ins during the week
  5. Best Buy = 25,029 check-ins during the week
  6. Apple = 20,570 check-ins during the week
  7. Costco = 13,834 check-ins during the week
  8. Barnes & Noble = 11,038 check-ins during the week
  9. Macy’s = 10,418 check-ins during the week
  10. Burger King = 9,792 check-ins during the week

Earlier this year, Starbucks was the first retailer to partner with foursquare to offer a national program where local check-ins can earn users “mayor” status, which they can use across the United States.  And in October, Starbucks launched its new Digital Network in stores that offers content (including foursquare check-ins and more) aimed to enhance the in-store experience for customers.  With nearly three times as many check-ins during a single week as the next closest brand, Starbucks is doing something right with foursquare as far as its customers are concerned.

Location-based marketing offered through tools like foursquare are hot right now, but the recipes for success are still unknown.  As your brand looks to implement geo-targeting and mobile marketing initiatives, check out what the ten brands listed above are doing.  You’ll undoubtedly learn from them.

What are your company’s plans for location-based and mobile marketing in 2011?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts on these opportunities for the new year.


What Consumers Want vs. What Executives Think Consumers Want [Infographic]

mind the gapIn February of this year, Pivot released a research report that quantified the gap between what consumers actually want versus what executives think consumers want. Brian Solis referred to this as The Perception Gap. He explained this gap as follows:

“When Social Consumers were asked what they want from Social engagement, their desires were clear: deals, special content and rewards based on their engagement. Customer service ranks dead last in their responses. When Social Marketers were asked the same question, they indicated customer service as the benefit they felt Social Consumers wanted most. Customer needs were well back in the pack of professional presumptions.”

For marketers who work in the trenches each day, these findings are not surprising. How many meetings have you been in with executives who ignore consumer research results and social media feedback or “massaged the data” to make it fit their agendas? In fact, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges that marketers face, particularly in large companies.

Of course, it could be argued that consumers don’t know what they want. A company like Apple and the vision of Steve Jobs certainly demonstrates that rolling out innovative products, which consumers don’t yet know they want, can work very well. In fact, being innovative and first to market is one of the most powerful positions a brand can occupy in the marketplace. Again, this is not new information. At the same time, consumers don’t always respond to market research surveys and focus group sessions the way they really feel. The same is true of social media conversations. Instead of being honest, they say what they think the moderator wants to hear or what they want their social media followers to hear from them.

The best marketers can dive deeper into the research results and the social media conversations to get to the root of consumers’ emotional brand involvement, wants, and needs. That’s a talent that only a minority of marketers actually have, and it’s probably a talent that even fewer corporate executives have. Whether you call it intuition or educated decision-making based on experience, it’s a talent that’s not acknowledged enough.

Whichever type of marketer you are, the data from the Pivot study is something that you should share with your executives. Next time you’re debating what your target audience wants from your brand and the executives at the table are going in the wrong direction, show them the data. It’s always harder to argue with tangible numbers, and what better way to visualize the size of The Perception Gap than with an infographic?

Pivot and Barnickel Design released The Perception Gap Between Social Consumers and Social Marketers infographic shown below earlier this week, which offers many of the most interesting findings from the study. For example, 76% of marketing executives claim that they know what their customers want, but only 34% of them have actually asked their customers what they want from the brand. Furthermore, 83% of consumers want deals from brands, but only 53% of marketing executives think that deals are what their customer want. Social consumers want to engage businesses to share feedback and to receive customer service (59% and 58%, respectively), but only 37% of marketing executives think their customers want these things. Instead, 45% of marketing executives believe that rewards programs are important to their consumers. Not surprisingly, 70% of social consumers do not think that rewards programs are important.

Click on the infographic to view it at full size.

perception gap infographic

Image: Philip Jackson

FTC’s Wants ‘Do Not Track’ List for Online Advertising

behavioral-trackingOnline behavioral targeting might be in danger for marketers if a new U.S. Federal Trade Commission proposal comes to fruition.  As Internet users lose more of their privacy every day with every click being tracked for behavioral marketing purposes, the FTC is considering implementing a Do Not Track list similar to the immensely popular Do Not Call list that puts an end to telemarketing calls for people who add their phone numbers to the list.

The FTC is calling for an opt-out list not just for behavioral targeting and ad serving but also of data collection entirely.  While there is still much debate about how such a system would work, the concept is one that consumers strongly support.  For marketers, the response is quite different.  Behavioral modeling has been a huge investment for companies in recent years, usurping demographic modeling in many cases.  Getting access to online behaviors was a dream come true for marketers.

It’s safe to assume that the Do Not Track list won’t become a reality in the near future, and it’s final form has yet to be determined.  One thing is safe to assume though — online privacy and tracking Internet users is a matter of contention that won’t go away and some form of government intervention (not just in the United States) is inevitable if self-regulation continues to fail.

Considering how the Do Not Call list in the United States negatively impacted the telemarketing industry, it’s interesting to speculate how a Do Not Track list would affect online marketing and advertising.

On the other hand, those Internet users who don’t add themselves to a Do Not Track list might represent an audience that is more responsive to behaviorally targeted ads and marketing messages.  Might return on investment actually go up if ads are targeted to the smaller audience that wants to see them?  The argument could certainly be made that it could happen.

What do you think?  Do you support a Do Not Track list from a consumer’s perspective?  How about from a marketer’s perspective?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng

The Importance of Internal Brand Advocates

One of the concepts I teach in my books and at speaking engagements when I’m asked to talk about branding is the importance of creating internal brand advocates and giving them the freedom to talk about the brand they love and believe in.  Your employees are your most powerful brand advocates.  If they don’t believe in your brand promise, why should consumers?  Companies need to make sure their employees are not only educated about the brand image, message and promise but also that those employees have a reason to believe in it and want to talk about it.

I read an article from Ad Age today that talks about this very concept and it’s shocking to me that companies don’t understand that building internal brand advocates should be a strategic imperative, not just a social media marketing tactic that’s getting some buzz of late.  This is something that should be ingrained in the company culture, not an afterthought.

How many companies can you think of where the employees will not only talk about the company they work for but advocate it, defend it against negativity, and evangelize it?  There may have been a time when companies like Google might have been able to make such a claim, but it would be challenging to name good examples of companies that cultivate a sense of internal brand advocacy in everything they do today. While companies like Pizza Hut, Overstock.com, and Kraft have been using employees in commercials and marketing initiatives lately, how many of those employees are truly brand advocates?  That’s the real question.

So think about your own company and how much more powerful it could be if your employees truly believed in the brand promise.  The word-of-mouth marketing true internal brand advocates could generate is exponential.  It’s amazing all companies aren’t on the internal brand advocate train.

What do you think?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts about developing internal brand advocates.

Image: stock.xchng

Apple and Google – Friends or Foes?

iphone_droidThere was a time, not that long ago, when Apple and Google could nearly be called friends.  In a recent article on Ad Age, Danny Sullivan describes the partnerships the two companies shared, and it’s an interesting read.  However, it looks like things are changing.  Google launched the Droid, which competes with Apple’s iPhone.  Google launched it’s own Internet browser, Chrome.  Apple already had Safari.  Google is the preferred search engine for both Safari and the iPhone.  Or at least, Google was.

What’s next for the Apple and Google relationship?

Well, Google recently launched its own social network, Google Buzz (available through Gmail, Google’s email application), and rumor has it, Apple is hoping to launch its own social network, iGroups, through the iPhone.

What strikes me as particularly interesting when looking at these two brands is the disparate brand promises.  Google promises first and foremost, the best search tool, and secondarily, a Web application or tool for everything you can image.  True, Google isn’t there yet, but the company certainly seems to be moving in that direction.

On the other hand, Apple promises first and foremost, cool technology and gadgets, and secondarily … well, I can’t really think what Apple promises secondarily.  Regardless, these two companies offer very different brand promises, but with the desire to expand their brands, they’re encroaching on each other’s territory.

And looming in the background trying to expand and steal market share of its own is Microsoft whose successful launch of its Bing search engine has drawn some attention back to the company that seemed to be missing the boat for a long time.  Microsoft’s brand promise of delivering the software people need to do their jobs must seem too constraining these days.

In fact, the current environment between these companies seems to foster brand expansion, while most other industries are realizing the benefits of brand contraction and focus.  This is an interesting competition to watch.  Who will end up on top?  Will one company take the lead or will the varied players each remain with their own niches of strength?  One would expect the latter to hold true, but you never know with these three companies.  What you expect to happen might not happen at all.

One thing is for certain.  As Google, Apple, and Microsoft battle it out and redefine their brand promises in keeping with coming expansions, consumers are getting access to more useful and cool products faster than ever.

Image: Flickr

Brands Invest Big Bucks in Google Advertising

Even big brands invest in pay-per-click advertising on the leading search engine, Google.  According to statistics from Kantar Media, as reported by Ad Age, June 2010 spending on Google pay-per-click search advertising through the Google AdWords program  was dominated by online retailers and BP, a brand desperately trying to win back favor in consumers’ minds following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico a month earlier.

All Google pay-per-click advertisers weren’t included in the report, but of those that invested heavily in June 2010 on search marketing, the following companies stood out:

  • AT&T Mobility = $8.08 million
  • Apollo Group = $6.67 million
  • Expedia = $5.95 million
  • Amazon = $5.85 million
  • eBay = $4.25
  • BP Corp = $3.59
  • Hotels.com = $3.30 million
  • JC Penney = $3.30 million
  • Living Social = $2.29 million
  • ADT Security = $2.19 million
  • YellowPages.com = $1.2 million

Brands spending less than $1 million on Google AdWords in June 2010 included Apple and Intel, and brands spending under $500,000 included GM, Walt Disney, Eastman Kodak, and BMW.

However, looking at these results from some different perspectives, consider this — AT&T is the third biggest advertising spender in the United States, spending $2.8 billion in 2009 on measured media according to Ad Age.  The $8.08 million spent by AT&T in June 2010 is just a drop in the bucket and helped drive marketing efforts related to the launch of the iPhone 4.

In fact, the top 10 Google AdWords advertisers only accounted for 5% of Google’s U.S. revenue in June 2010 as reported by Ad Age.  Of the biggest advertising spenders in the Google AdWords program, only a small percentage spend over $100,000 per year.  The bulk of Google’s revenue from its search advertising program comes from a huge pool of smaller investments by smaller advertisers rather than the larger investments made by advertisers with deeper budgets.

Is your brand represented in Google search advertising?  If not, you might want to take a look at the ads consumers are presented with when they type keywords related to your business into Google’s search box.  It doesn’t take a huge investment to be represented.  As the statistics from Ad Age point out, most large and small businesses invest only a small percentage of their overall marketing budgets on search advertising, but at the very least, they are represented.