By Ian Whiteling
Okay, so we may no longer be officially in a recession, but the economy remains in dire straits, with spending low and retailers under pressure. So it would make sense for them – and the Government – to do as much as possible to liberate the little cash there is sploshing around by making it as easy as possible for people to pay for stuff. Contactless card technology can do just that, but it is suffering from low awareness and usage rates, according to the latest research from YouGov, which concludes that banks and retails could to more to improve the situation.
Mobile Wallet, a study looking at near field communication (NFC) and contactless technology, has found that just 12% of the British population believe they own a contactless card. Yet according to the UK Cards Association, there were 19.6 million active cards in the UK last November. Similarly, consumer’s awareness levels into retailers providing the technology remains incredibly low. Just 8% of the British population and 13% of contactless card owners recognise McDonalds as a “wave and pay” provider – the most recognised outlet in our findings. Results indicate that educating consumers about contactless technology remains key in increasing awareness and adoption rates.
“As expected, more and more retailers are hopping on-board the contactless bus with McDonalds and Starbucks being some of the bigger names,” said Russell Feldman, associate director in YouGov’s Technology and Telecom’s team. “However, the vast majority of retailers do not offer the technology and could potentially be missing out on reducing queue times and gaining more foot fall – something retailers desperately need in the current climate.”
Awareness rates of banks offering contactless cards among the British public remains low – two-thirds of the population (67%) are unsure as to which bank offers contactless cards. As expected, awareness levels among contactless card owners are much higher, with most owners identifying at least one bank that offers the technology – Barclays/Barclaycard remains at the forefront of the competition with 66%.
“It is up to the banks and other financial institutions to help educate the consumer in the technology, its benefits, and allaying any security fears,” said Feldman. “Retailers also need to make the public aware that they accept the technology and that paying with contactless cards can speed up the payment process.”
As well as the highest awareness levels, Barclays/Barclaycard also has a considerable share of the market – 71% of contactless card owners own a Barclays card with contactless technology. The next highest competitor is MBNA (10%), followed by Lloyds TSB (5%).
Surprisingly, actual usage rates among owners of contactless technology remains low as the vast majority of contactless owners state that they have never used their card for a contactless transaction (80%), with most owners making transactions using chip and pin. Only 5% of owners use their card for contactless transactions more than once a week.
Looking at contactless card owners who use their cards regularly in further detail, YouGov’s research found that they typically use the technology to pay for small transactions in food and drink outlets. The most popular venues being fast food restaurants (27%), coffee shops (26%) and sandwich and grocery stores (26%). The majority of consumers are spending up to £10 on each transaction (74%). Interestingly, consumers are spending a smaller amount (wave on wave) – wave one (conducted in May 2011) saw 34% of consumers spending £10 to £15 compared to just 18% by wave three (conducted in November 2011).
Among those contactless card owners who do not use contactless as a method of payment, over half have expressed a desire to use the technology in future (59%). The majority of these cited ease of payment/convenience (41%) and speed (26%) as key advantages as to why they wish to adopt the technology.
The main encumbrance cited from owners of contactless technology who don’t use their card in a contactless transaction is the lack of retailers offering the service (27%). Security is also a growing issue among consumers – an increase in 12% (May 2011) to 20% (November 2011).
So come on banks and retailers – get your acts together!
YouGov’s Mobile Wallet study interviews over 2,500 respondents on a quarterly basis. This is the third wave of research, with previous waves conducted in May and August 2011.
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Avinash Kaushik, digital evangelist for Google, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s SES London, taking place from 20-24 February at The Queen Elizabeth ll Conference Centre in London.
During his welcome session at the search marketing conference, entitled Business Optimisation in a Digital Age, Kaushik will share his unique perspectives, exploring balancing multimedia channels, grounding your digital existence in driving economic value, and how to optimise all four channels of the Clear Line of Sight Model – explained in Kaushik’s blog.
Winner of various awards. including the 2011 Most Influential Industry Contributor from the Web Analytics Association, Kaushik has become a key voice in the digital sector. He hosts a blog, Occam’s razor, and has written two bestsellers, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0. He has also received excellent reviews for his work alongside leading organizations, such as Unilever, Dell, Time Warner, Vanguard, Porsche, and IBM.
In addition to speaking at previous SES events, Avinash has delivered keynotes at a variety of global conferences, including Monaco Media Forum, iCitizen, JMP Innovators’ Summit, The Art of Marketing and Web 2.0. He is renowned for applying a ‘common sense framework’ around the complex world of web analytics, while passionately advocating customer centricity and competitive intelligence techniques.
“Avinash will set the scene for what promises to be another thought provoking and highly informative SES London conference,” said Mik Grehan, global vice president content at Incisive Media, which is organising the event. “We’ve worked on providing educational opportunities for marketers at every level along with new tracks and valuable networking opportunities.”
For more details, visit http://sesconference.com/london
By Ian Whiteling, THREE-SIXTY
The number of emails opened on mobile devices, such as iPads, increased by 34% between April and September 2011, compared to the previous six months, according to research by email certification and reputation monitoring business Return Path.
While webmail maintains its status as the most popular platform for reading email, mobile is showing huge growth rates, In contrast, the relative number of opens on webmail and desktop decreased by 11% and nearly 9.5%, respectively, over the same period.
With the slick email interface of the iPad making it easy for email consumption on the go, use of the Apple devices rocketed, with an increase of 73% in email views on iPad devices between April and September of 2011. Email views on the iPad jumped by 12% between March, with the launch of the iPad 2, and April, continuing to steadily climb upward.
Where email is viewed is heavily influenced by when it is viewed, with desktop ruling the weekdays and mobile spiking on the weekends. Return Path’s research found a steep drop in desktop usage over the weekend, with a corresponding rise in mobile and webmail use. Monday is equally strong for both webmail and desktop, but the worst day of the week for mobile email.
This study saw a difference in weekend use from the previous six months. Whereas previously there had been a pop in webmail use on Sunday and a dip in mobile, in this study, Return Path found mobile and webmail use to be pretty consistent on both Saturday and Sunday.
“Email is more relevant today than ever before as consumption continues to grow on more platforms,” said Matt Blumberg, chief executive and chairman at Return Path.
“Email is everywhere you want your message to be. And while benchmark studies provide marketers with a view into shifting trends, they are no substitute for having real time, specific data on subscribers. Marketers need to gather campaign data specific to their audience, figure out where their subscribers are viewing email and design a relevant and timely sending strategy.”
Return Path’s study is entitled ‘Mobile, webmail, desktops: Where are we viewing email now?’ Research data was compiled using the company’s Campaign Insight tool, which tracks the platforms and email clients subscribers use to read email. For this study, Return Path examined data from April 2011 through September 2011 from more than 200 different clients. In total, the study examined more than 400 million data points.
Click here to download the complete study.
By Ian Whiteling, THREE-SIXTY
Two of the UK’s greatest ever Olympic athletes have joined forces with outdoor playground equipment specialist Proludic for a campaign that directly engages teenagers and adults about the benefits of using their local parks for exercise and sport.
Veteran Olympians, javelin thrower Steve Backley and runner Roger Black, are to become ‘virtual coaches’, with videos of the pair giving fitness advice, exercises and challenges downloaded directly onto smartphones. The aim is to educate all age groups about how they can get the most out of the free sports and play areas available in their local community and to consider parks to be used as an alternative or in addition to gyms.
By creating a series of competitions and challenges, the pair are also hoping to encourage healthy competition with friends challenging each other to beat their personal bests through social networks such as Facebook.
“One of main aims of London 2012 is to create a lasting legacy of participation in sport and exercise,” said Black. ”Our local parks are the logical place to start, as they are the one free resource to which we all have access.
“However, there’s a real need to not only invest in these facilities, but also show people how they can get the most out of what’s available to them. We also need to find new ways to get the message across to teenagers, so using new technology and tapping into social networks was something we were very keen to do.”
To help with the roll-out of the new scheme, Backley and Black have linked up with Proludic, one of the UK’s largest providers of play and sports equipment. Proludic will be adding special QR codes on boards next to the outdoor equipment that they install. When scanned on a smartphone, these codes will download the virtual coaching video relevant to that equipment, showing how to it can be used to build muscles, increase fitness or as an active game to play with friends or family.
Details of the Backly’s and Black’s advice and challenges will also be provided to local sports coaches, PE teachers and community leaders wherever the equipment is installed, helping them to use the equipment as part of their activities.
“We want good play areas to become a resource that the whole community uses,” said Backly. ”It doesn’t make sense for good facilities to be sitting idle during the day when they could be an outdoor classroom for school children or a key part of a fitness regime for an amateur football team or older members of the community.”
The special equipment will start appearing in local parks from April 2012 as part of Sports Legacy Zones. By the end of 2012 it is hoped that up to 30 Sports Legacy Zones will have been built across the UK.
Click here to see a video introduction to the campaign.
Click here for more information.
By Ian Whiteling, THREE-SIXTY
It was meant to create goodwill, but instead Australian airline Qantas handed disenchanted consumers a stick to beat it with when it launched an ill-timed social media competition recently.
The incident not only reveals the power of social media channels such as Twitter to directly engage with customers and develop an important two-way conversation, but also illustrates the dangers of striking up such a relationship without a thorough knowledge of your target audience and an appreciation of the temperature of the marketplace.
Clearly, in this instance, Qantas had little idea of the groundswell against it, or if it did, certainly didn’t think through how its Twitter campaign could rebound under the circumstances.
The online rebellion began when the airline opened the Qantas Luxury competition on Twitter, asking users to describe their “dream luxury inflight experience” in return for a pair of Qantas first-class pyjamas and a toiletries kit.
Within minutes, users had hijacked the #qantasluxury hashtag to vent their anger at the under-fire airline, which late last month cancelled all its flights around the world in an attempt to force government intervention in its industrial negotiations.
“Qantasluxury is a thing of the past, such a shame it could not last. Regrettably the airline’s choice was to blow millions on Alan Joyce,” tweeted Scott Clarke.
Other Twitter users focused on the ongoing industrial dispute. Martin Milne tweeted: “qantasluxury an airline that respects its staff. Pays them accordingly, doesn’t outsource their jobs.”
By mid afternoon of the first day of the campaign, social media measurement company Vizisense estimated more than 22,000 tweets had been sent under the hashtag.
“I think Qantas airways has greatly underestimated the ill will that is still out there,” said Karalee Evans, senior director with public relations agency Text 100.
“It is a genuine attempt at trying to garner some support and good will, but they have greatly underestimated Twitter’s propensity to inflame rather than play along with a positive brand game.”
Qantas faced a social media furore late last month when it grounded its fleet. A spokesman for the airline denied that running the contest so soon afterwards had been a mistake. At least it was refreshing to hear that he welcomed both negative and positive feedback.
“We launched the competition with good intentions, but clearly didn’t expect the enormity of the response,” he said. “We regularly use Twitter and other social media platforms to communicate on a range of topics and we accept all feedback, good and bad.”
Further encouragement came when, by late afternoon, Qantas was trying to diffuse the online hostility, posting humorous tweets such as: “At this rate our “QantasLuxury competition is going to take years to judge.”
Incredibly, much good can come from such an event. First, Qantas knows now that there are key issues it needs to address over its conduct in a couple of areas of the business. Plus, by responding positivly with humour and engaging its Twitter community to discuss ways it can improve, the brand can actually recover and further its reputation, while also winning back customers.
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Nov 11
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New widget could ignite global knowledge community by allowing bloggers to charge for advice
By Ian Whiteling, THREE-SIXTY
What if you got paid for answering questions from readers of your blog? Sound crazy? Well that may be the case, but like so many bizarre ideas before it, this one is now reality thanks to the AskMe widget by Mancx.
Rather than just another revenue generating opportunity, the initiative aims to establish and grow a global knowledge community and market. How will bloggers charging for advice achieve this? Well, currently many questions put to bloggers, who are generally seen as experts in their chosen fields, go unanswered due to time restraints. Mancx believes that introducing a payment system for blogger ‘consultation’ will result in more queries being answered and the creation of a more efficient and growing online knowledge community.
Mancx recently launched its AskMe widget, which of course will also help provide bloggers and online experts with a source of income. During a successful beta testing period, over 1,000 bloggers from over 20 different countries and working in a variety of industries signed up and used the AskMe widget.
The tool lets the visitor ask a question, indicate how much money they are willing to pay for the answer, and then sends on the question to the blogger. For the blogger, the AskMe widget provides a contact management tool, a negotiation and delivery interface, as well as the administrative back-end, including billing and payments, and if the blogger does not have a registered company set-up, Mancx can handle income tax administration across almost all countries in the world. It is an efficient tool for engaging in a profitable dialogue with blog visitors.
“The AskMe widget resolves a long-standing problem for bloggers: how to turn their knowledge and the effort they put into their blogs into cash,” said Mattias Guilotte, chief marketing officer and co-founder of Mancx.
“Finding high-quality information on the web is becoming increasingly difficult, and people often turn to bloggers as experts and trusted sources of quality information. However, a lot of questions tend to be put aside by bloggers as they’re are overwhelmed with requests for help which require time but that won’t help them pay the bills.
“The AskMe Widget is a world first and bridges the gap between sought-after bloggers and visitors willing to pay for their knowledge. During our beta testing period, over 1,000 bloggers installed and used the AskMe widget and have developed a new revenue stream from their blogs. The aim of Mancx is to create a thriving global knowledge market by empowering the individual to treat his or her own knowledge as a valuable commodity.
“The AskMe widget adds a great new dimension to the service Mancx provides, and by giving those in the knowledge business a cash register to go with their shop window (ie their blog or website) it’s another step on the path to a global knowledge market,” Guilotte continued.
The AskMe widget is aimed at any blogger or online expert with a certain level of traffic to their website.
Mancx, based in Sweden, has a patent pending for its solution to managing the trade in information.
Click here to find out more about how to make money from your blog from Mancx
by Ian Whiteling, THREE-SIXTY
The principles that we use at THREE-SIXTY to build and engage customer communities around brands and businesses through a strategic mix of web content and social media management are just as valid for inspiring, motivating and retaining an internal audience – ie your employees.
Your staff are as important as your customers in the sense that they are the interface with your external audience and drive your company forward through their performance and skills levels. To maximise this performance, first they need to understand clearly the vision and values of your business so that they can reflect them in every aspect of their work. Second, they need to be well-motivated and find their work rewarding to boost their performance and stay for the long haul. Achieve this from your staff and your company will be operating more effectively and efficiently, which should give you an edge in the marketplace.
“Sounds easy,” I can hear you comment sarcastically. Well actually it’s not that difficult if you know how to approach it. The key is open communication and persistent dialogue across the company and here’s how you can achieve it…
The key to effectively delivering a company’s strategic vision to employees, and getting them to buy into it and so drive the business forward in the required direction is to instigate a persistent conversation with all stakeholders. This can be achieved by harnessing the power of online technology to improve internal communications across an organisation, supported by both virtual and face-to-face events held regularly.
The starting point is an engaging and interactive intranet that furnishes employees with regularly updated relevant content. In order to get maximum buy in from employees, this should not only contain the latest news about company developments (from internal changes, such as new departments, promotions, new recruits to business wins), but also key insight to help staff perform more effectively (from relevant sector news and articles to blogs and comments from staff, and profiles of key figures in the company). A regular e-newsletter can be sent out either weekly or monthly summarising the key content ensuring staff don’t miss any important developments.
Once the system is up and running, a staff forum can be set up to encourage the feedback of ideas as to how company performance can be improved – most large successful companies have prospered through ideas generated from staff. Furthermore, any proposed changes within the business can be flagged up to staff in advance in an appropriate fashion to gauge opinion on the ground, prevent shocks (which can lead to resistance and uncertainty), and start the process of achieving buy in from the people who matter most.
The tone and content of the intranet can be used to reinforce a company’s vision and values, while a section can be a dedicated to an online visions and values handbook that can be used as part of new hire induction, and existing staff reinforcement.
To increase engagement, the content should ideally be a mix of media, from written to video and podcast, creating variety, while reflecting the media that staff will be familiar with consuming in their everyday lives. Contributions, not just comments, should be encouraged from staff, which can be edited and moderated by an internal editor. Meanwhile, the intranet can also be used as a source of inspiration for live events throughout the year, which could encompass training and seminar sessions, the subjects of which could be decided from staff feedback, ‘ask the boss’ live sessions, incorporating live debates (which could also be conducted virtually through the intranet system) as well as motivational teambuilding exercises and appropriate staff entertainment.
With such an engaging and ongoing internal communication system in place, companies can better manage change within the organisation, while constantly reinforcing vision and values. Plus there’s the additional bonus of giving staff the feeling of real ownership and value, which improves performance levels, and boosts retention. While, one the word gets around, in will also boost recruitment. The system will also be invaluable in integrating new staff following a merger or acquisition.
Get in touch if you’d like to know more and we’ll be happy to get the ball rolling in the right direction…
By Ian Whiteling, THREE-SIXTY
Here’s a great little story for anyone who doubts the power of Twitter to influence, build and strengthen business communities. In this weekend’s Observer newspaper I read an article about someone who is getting London’s West End theatre sector buzzing with excitement and anticipation. How? By tweeting what is essentially insider information and insight about the industry.
Under the Twitter name WestEndProducer, the anonymous individual tweets on everything from auditions to prominent lovie figures with acerbic wit that not only entertains but also provides hidden – and sometimes not so hidden – nuggets of insight that seem to be resonating with everyone in London’s theatre industry, and probably far beyond.
For example, auditioners are advised to learn five songs and three scenes, while tweets like “Just had a nightmare Dale Winton was playing Phantom [of the Opera] in the new tour next year, dear”, although barbed, are also a warning of casting celebrity over talent.
So accurate and incisive are WestEndProducer’s tweets that it seems the whole of West End’s Theatreland is desperate to find out who is behind them. One suggestion was that it was Cameron Mackintosh, the renowned impresario responsible for staging the mega hit musicals Miss Saigon, Oliver! and Phantom of the Opera. Mackintosh has vigorously denied that he has anything to do with the tweets, but the fact that he admits to be flattered by the suggestion speaks volumes for the weight of the content being tweeted.
Furthermore, entertainment industry consultant Trevor Cheney is quoted in the Observer as saying how the tweets are helping to bring the industry together.
“This has caused a stir,” he said. “It brightens people’s day and it helps to knit the theatre community together.”
WestEndProducer is no celebrity tweeting to their fans, but rather an industry expert offering entertaining and insightful comments and tips to the sector in which they operate. As such, this tweeter provides a great example of how Twitter can raise the profile of people – and therefore their businesses – within an industry sector by delivering relevant, interesting and engaging tweets, rather than simply spouting forth about their business and its products.
Also, if the insight you’re tweeting links to relevant article on your website, you can see how it will drive web traffic, while reinforcing your expertise.
Sure, few people in business are going to be able to tweet as prolifically as WestEndProducer, but it’s simply a case of tweeting what you can. As long as this involves a minimum of around eight to 10 tweets a day, and you use the subject # (hash) tags effectively, it won’t be long before you build up a growing Twitter follower community. Plus, you can always commission someone who is well briefed to Twitter on your behalf.
Click here to read entire article.
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By Ian Whiteling, THREE-SIXTY
An old friend of mine, Jim Boulton, who I shared an office with in the late 1990s, is launching an exhibition that charts the world-changing moments of the early internet through his position as partner at Story Worldwide.
Entitled Digital Archaeology: 10 Websites that Changed the World, the exhibition is part of Internet Week Europe 2011, and will take place from 8-11 November at 91-94 Saffron Hill, Clerkenwell, London, EC1 8QP.
Following a debut at Internet Week Europe 2010, Digital Archaeology went on to be one of the central events at Internet Week New York 2011, gaining sponsorship from Google and attracting 12,000 visitors. The Internet Week Europe 2011 event showcases 10 of the most significant sites of the early web, each selected because they re-invented how we play and interact, pushing back boundaries and creating new possibilities.
The exhibition also includes interviews with the visionaries behind the sites on display, discussing their inspirations, the challenges, the highs, the lows and lessons learned along the way.
Websites featured include the first ever website, called The Project, built by Tim Berners-Lee in 1991. When Berners-Lee launched this site, of course he also had to create a browser, which he called World Wide Web (later changing the name to Nexus when he realised the World Wide Web was much more than a browser) that only worked on the now obsolete NeXTstep Operating System. Boulton, the curator of Digital Archaeology, has tracked down an original version of this browser and re-united it with a Next Cube, the machine the web was invented on, and the oldest existing copy of the original web page.
Other inspirational sites in the show include: Antirom’s seminal interactive experiments from 1994, The Blue Dot, created by Razorfish founder Craig Kanarick in 1995; the incredible Word.com from the same year; and culminates with 2000’s awe-inspiring Requiem for a Dream site by HiRes!.
“Since its invention 20 years ago, the web has totally transformed the way we live our lives,” said Boulton. “Yet, tragically, many of the early websites, the building blocks of today’s always connected world, are in real danger of being lost forever and with them the stories of the unsung heroes behind them – the visionaries that invented modern culture.
“What’s different about this show is that it’s not just about the websites themselves. Archiving sites do exist, like archive.org, The Library of Congress’ digital preservation site and The British Library’s web archive, but the sites are by necessity presented on today’s browsers, on today’s monitors and at today’s processing speeds. The context of the original site is lost. The Digital Archaeology exhibition shows the complete package, reuniting the website with the browser, operating system, monitor, computer and processing speed they were designed on and for.
“The web has become an integral part of our lives, and to not start historically archiving the defining sites of the first 20 years of its existence is tantamount to neglect,” Boulton continued. “If we don’t act, many of the websites that shaped today’s world could disappear forever.”
Well, you can’t argue with that, so I recommend getting along there – it sounds fascinating, inspirational and fun!
And why not visit www.storyworldwide.com/digital-archaeology/ to submit your views on significant sites that need to be resurrected. Boulton and his team will then endeavour to unearth them and include them within the forthcoming book and next generation of the event.
Illustrating the power of events to instigate change and innovation, Skype is offering everyone in the UK free access to wireless hotspots with Skype wifi to celebrate its sponsorship of Internet Week Europe 2012. This means that between 7-11 November 2011 everyone in the country can get free online access for up to 60 minutes.
Skype wifi is now available at over 1 million wireless hotspots worldwide – including hotels, airports, train stations, convention centres, bars and restaurants. The wifi hotspots will enable everyone participating in Internet Week Europe, as well as the rest of the UK, to get the maximum benefit from the weeklong festival.
Anyone wanting access to free wifi during this period must simply download the latest versions of Skype, join a Skype partner wifi network and then connect. Those using iPhones, iPads or iPod touches should download the free Skype wifi app from App Store.
Users can download the WorkSnug Pro app to find local hotspots.
For more about Internet Week Europe, visit www.internetweekeurope.com