Monthly Archives: November 2012

Start Designing Your Life

Posted on by in Marketing | 111 Comments

I realised that I have reading this kind of books since I am 12. What kind of person reads personal deveopment books at that age of 11-12. Sure, if you do not have enought option to read what you would like to
then you ended up anything else you can get around.

With this post, I tried to show that the designer’s skills can be applied to a wide range of problems—and also that these skills are accessible to a far greater range of people than may be commonly supposed. Designing a life. There is a big difference, though, between planning a life, drifting through life, and designing a life.

We all know of people who go through life with every step preplanned. They knew which university they would attend, which internship would lead to a successful career, and at what age they will retire. Unfortunately, this never works out as planned. And anyway, if you know the winner before the start, where’s the fun in the game?

So, what would you change?

The Teacher’s Apple

Posted on by in Marketing | 380 Comments

A decade ago, electronics and cell phones in the classroom were considered little more than a distraction. Today, new devices such as tablet computers and smartphones are changing this perception. Educators are finding innovative ways to supplement their lectures with the newest technology, and students are beginning to see their devices as essential components of their college experience.

Naturally, major device manufacturers are now battling for dominance in the field. Below, we explore how Apple is winning the battle for education technology and what gives them the edge over the sizable competition in the market.

China at your fingerprints!

Posted on by in Marketing | 565 Comments

China, being the most populated country in the world, has become a hotbed for mobile device and smartphone usage. Consumer, business, and advertiser behaviours are quickly becoming assimilated and adaptive to the mobile gadget phenomenon. Mobile is now the new “cigarette”. Here there is a video created by GroupM Interaction showing facts about Chinese smartphone usage in 2011. [3:40 mins]

Some key facts:
– Android accounted 68% of China smartphones
– 360 million Chinese used the internet on their mobile devices
– 67% of Chinese take photos before eating and post them on social network
– Smartphone users in China check their gadgets every six minutes
– 38% of smartphone users spend more than 5 hours a day on their phone
– 92% of the youth use their mobile phones in the toilet!
– More than 1000 people daily start romantic relationships using their smartphones

Mobile: Are we forgetting to help our clients understand

Posted on by in Marketing | 66 Comments

At the recent MRMW conference held in Amsterdam, Elias Veris from Insites Consulting showed how a mobile MROC application can boost responses and allow observational tasks to be included in community research. In this follow-up article, he discusses how people are using their smart phones and what are the core drivers for using it.

A couple of weeks ago, the MRMW conference took place in Amsterdam. A fine event, with many bright minds talking on how to use mobile as a method. I had the opportunity to present about mobile in MROC’s there too (the presentation is available here) and tremendously enjoyed the discussions I had with many of the other delegates. What struck me however, is how almost all discussions were about the method of mobile, and only very little were about mobile as ‘content’. In other words, how can we in the market research industry help our clients really understand how to use this new era of connectedness in their daily marketing practices?

To kick this discussion off, we have recently conducted a study among 800 + smartphone users in 4 countries (US, UK, The Netherlands and Belgium). Our aim? Finding out how smartphone users use their phone, and what the real drivers are of using it. And, how can brands tap into the power of mobile?


Check the full report here:

%37 of the time online in 2011 spend in social networks

Posted on by in Case Study | 1 Comment

Each year consumers spend more time and more money online. The web is becoming completely integrated into our lives. Social connections are being made, conversations with companies taking place, relationships nurtured, whole wardrobes collected, news consumed and holidays are planned using the web. This adoption and widespread use of the web in all parts of our lives results in more fragmented online consumer behavior. This makes it increasingly harder to provide an objective overview of the online behavior of consumers.

To give detailed insights into the online behavior of consumers in a mature digital market we tracked the digital lives of more than 10.000 Dutch Consumers using our proprietary audience measurement technology. And here’s a short overview of some of the findings.

The Big Three dominate

Consumers spent approx. 60% of their time on The Big Three, which consist out of Social Networks, E-mail, and Search. This is followed by the trio of Shopping, News and Games. When looking at the total amount of visits per category we see a rearrangement of the Big Three and a more evenly distributed playing field. Search is most frequently visited (18,2%), followed by E-mail (11,8) and Social Networks (11,4%). Looking at the consumers behavior this is very logical. People tend to search quite frequently, but quickly. Social networks, however, have a different footprint. The volume is a bit lower, but consumers spend high amounts of time on them.


More time spend on Facebook than any other social network

What will come to know surprise to all of us is that Facebook is the nr. 1 social network in The Netherlands. It should be noted however that this is only since halfway 2011. Before that a popular local social network, Hyves, was in control. When looking at engagement (time on site, avg. pageviews per visit) it clearly shows that Facebook is in the lead. A quite interesting finding is that people, even though it just recently launched, spend more time per visit on Google+ compared to Twitter. The bite-sized content of Twitter definitely contributes to this. Another fascinating insight is that women are more engaged with social networks compared to men. More women spend more time on site and view more pages per visit compared to their male counterparts.
Google absent in Social, but dominates Search

After the initial introduction of Google+ there was a huge spike in traffic. However after the big rise, there was a great drop off and traffic reached a mere 2% penetration in our panel. Also when looking at the characteristics of the visits it clearly doesn’t the levels of engagement other platforms are providing.

What Google lack in social, it makes up in Search. Google absolutely dominates the search market in The Netherlands. It accounts for 95,8% of the search volume. Other competitors are near non-existing. Bing follows as a very distant with share of 2,4%, Ask.com 1,6% and Yahoo comes in forth with a meager 0,2%. The adoption of the additional services of Google (e.g. Maps, Mail) shows a classic long tail. While Maps and Mail are often visited during the week, the other services (Docs, News, Calendar, Video, Plus) lack any real traction.
Implications for Research in the Mobile World

This report tells about 90% of the story. And this will only steadily decrease in the near future. Why? Of course because the continuous rise of mobile usage by consumers. As outlined in the introduction this perfectly fits into the information snacking behavior consumers nowadays display. Moving back and forth between devices during different stages of the buying process.

The most important implication for research would be that we must move to an integrated multi-channel research approach. Not focussing on separate devices but on integrated multi-channel customer behavior. The consumer moves freely, quickly and seamlessly on multiple devices through cyberspace. They’re no longer bounded to specific platform for his or her journey. We shouldn’t be either in research.

About the study

These insights are part of a more extensive report (available for free in PDF format) called ‘State of the Web’. This elaborates on the behavior of consumers in specific categories such as Social Networks, Search, and Shopping. With our unique passive audience measurement technology we tracked the digital lives in 2011 of a representative panel which consists of approx. 10.000 Dutch consumers. We collected tens of gigabytes of data, which was used as input for the report.

Inbound Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]

Posted on by in Infographics | 80 Comments

Traditional marketing techniques involve ads such as commercials, billboards, and direct mail which can be costly and dicult to measure. Since your message is going out to all sorts of people who might not want your product or are not ready to buy, traditional marketing can be like taking a shot in the dark.

Inbound marketing instead focuses on targeted techniques such as content creation, search marketing, and social media that help potential buyers find your business when they are ready to buy. This brings better, more qualified leads into your sales funnel.

Online Traffic in North America Doubles This Year [REPORT]

Posted on by in Technology | 530 Comments

How much time do you spend on the web each day? If you live in North America, a new report says, probably a lot.

Canadian company Sandvine, in their global Internet Phenomena Report, confirmed that online data usage in North America has increased by 120% over the past year. Netflix makes up 33% of the traffic — a definite boost for the company since last year’s price hike angered many of its viewers.

Amazon makes up 1.8% of downstream traffic, the report says, with Hulu at 1.4% and HBO GO at 0.5%. In total, all audio and video streaming services account for 65% of traffic between 9:00 p.m. and midnight.

File sharing network BitTorrent takes up 16% of traffic — but, Sandvine predicts, real-time entertainment’s rising popularity will size it down to 10% overall by 2015.