Aqumena Review

Sightings

Common Sense and ROI of Analytics – A Rare Combo!

Before diving deep into analytics, marketers should apply common sense to think of the big picture of which analytics is but a small part. How about this measure for the ROI of analytics … “Incremental revenue from the actions recommended by the analytics project”? Immediately we see the connection between analytics, action-orientation, recommendations and business results! Read this wonderfully sane back-to-basics article.https://madmimi.com/p/369e1d?fe=1&pact=2958972-147900307-9867173801-c998f00bec075c771bb9e23c37266918a2942d17 

The Social Media Flipping Point

Social media exists to build and nurture communities online. Can Facebook, with over 2 billion users, be called a community? Most people may think so. But with billions of members, the label “community” doesn’t stick. Not more than to, say the continent of Asia, comprising dozens of countries. Facebook is staring at the writing on the wall. Because its sole mission is to acquire “eyeballs” to boost ad revenues over all else. With great power comes great responsibility. Facebook, arguably the greatest accumulator of people in human history, has shirked its responsibility to society. Going forward, communities will be built around shared values and shared world-views.

Read more at https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-facebook-is-powerless-to-stop-its-own-descent/?ftag=TRE-03-10aaa6b&bhid=27358068346590917929241599428990.

At Aqumena, we are at the threshold of incubating online communities based on shared world views. It’s an idea whose time has come.

The Art of The Tweak

An Idea Watch piece in the Sep-Oct 2018 issue of HBT makes trenchant point.
Mega CPG companies like P&G have mega budgets that focus on creating blockbuster ideas – Big I innovation.
Smaller ones like Reckitt Benckiser focus on incremental innovation – Small i innovation.
And guess what?
Big I innovation often fails big and once in a while succeeds big time.
Small i innovation delivers ROI more often than not.
Case in point being how Reckitt’s Finish brand of dishwasher moved to Finish 2-in-1 (adding a rinse agent) to Finish 3-in-1 (adding a salt component) to Finish All-in1 )adding a glaze protection agent).
Small I innovations that added, at each stage, to sales and the bottom line.
However small I innovation does not happen unless R&D is an important and respected part of marketing teams – co-custodians of the first P of marketing – the Product

Marketing Attribution, or how to compare digital marketing channels

Attribution of conversions to marketing channels is a tricky challenge – if you know which channels are contributing to sales revenue then that’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! On the other hand, the path to the “macro-conversion” of sales is lined with milestones called “micro-conversions” on the way. For example, subscribing to a newsletter, creating an account, selecting products for the shopping basket are all micro-conversions that are useful signifiers of high-value visitors. Knowing which channels are most amenable to marketing attribution is a big step forward. Here’s an article that tells you more. https://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2018/39518/the-biggest-barriers-to-successful-marketing-attribution

AR approaches its next tipping point

With Pokemon Go, augmented reality crossed a tipping point in 2016. AR broke free from Heads Up Devices (HUD) to smartphones and hugely expanded its reach. AR is rapidly moving towards the next tipping points. AR needs “hero devices” and the next big thing such devices are trying to fix is battery life. What are the other milestones to watch as AR moves more mainstream? Here’s a two-minute read to learn more.

https://www.theman.in/tech-and-auto/the-next-big-thing.html

Why do opinion polls evoke scepticism?

In all polls, the top-line figures without the diagnostics are practically useless and often misleading. There were plenty of signs in the polls back in 2016 to show Donald Trump was winning. But people – and the mainstream media – ignored them. It’s like judging a firm’s health from only the stock price or a bottle of wine from its price tag. In this article from The Wall Street Journal a pollster asks discerning public to demand more from his profession

https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-trust-polls-dig-deeper-into-the-results-1533911485

AR approaches its next tipping point

With Pokemon Go, augmented reality crossed a tipping point in 2016. AR broke free from Heads Up Devices (HUD) to smartphones and hugely expanded its reach. AR is rapidly moving towards the next tipping points. AR needs “hero devices” and the next big thing such devices are trying to fix is battery life. What are the other milestones to watch as AR moves more mainstream? Here’s a two-minute read to learn more.

 

https://www.theman.in/tech-and-auto/the-next-big-thing.html

Marketing in the Age of AI

What will the impact of AI be on marketing? Will it be one more tool in the hands of marketeers and brands to better discern needs and want, target communications more effectively and improve ROI? Or will the impact go much deeper and be a force that changes they very fundamentals of marketing? Dawar and Bendle in their article present one such intriguing scenario.

Personality Targeting: The Promise & The Pitfalls

Is marketing coming full circle? In the days of the bazzar the shrewd shopkeeper read the personality of the shopper in seconds and tailored his sales pitch accordingly. In the age of lives leaving extensive digital footprints and AI, it is now increasingly possible for modern marketers to do so. Post the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the question is whether they should do so or be allowed to do so? Christopher Graves and Sandra Matz expertly explore the potential, context and issues facing personality targeting.

From B2B to B2K2B: The Analytics Revolution in B2B Marketing

An explosives company invests in modelling blasts that help its customers plan their use of explosives better. An agricultural products company that puts front and center the creating of state-of-the-art weather impact and water usage advisory services for farmers. This article by Lori Sherer and Jamie Cleghorn in their article “How Advanced Analytics is Changing B2B Selling” present the above two examples to make their case. It is my thesis that at the cutting edge B2B marketing is transforming into B2Knowledge2B ie B2K2B marketing. 

Sidelights from the BrandZ from Kantar Millward Brown of the world’s 100 most valuable brands in 2018

  • The rise of Chinese brands. Why should that surprise anyone
  • European brands like Gucci rose in value because, FT feel, their use of social media. Really? Would there be a Chinese hand here too – the insatiable demand for luxury goods from the burgeoning Chinese affluents
  • HDFC makes the list. Hurrah!
  • Kantar Millward Brown based the ranking on by calculating a brand’s value by combining financial and market data with surveys of, hold your breath, 3.6 million consumers in 51 countries. Was that a printing error FT? Or has the Internet and Big Data finally come to home to market research
  • And finally guess what the value of the no. 1 and no.2 brands?  Google at No.1 is 302 billion and Apple at No. 2 is 301 billion. So what do we attribute the rest of the 700 billion of Apple’s market valuation. Couldn’t be the Chinese factories where their products are made? Couldn’t be their beautiful new campus? Is it Tim Cook and Jony Ive? Or is it just market hubris?

Getting A Brand’s Mojo Back Is A Hard, Multi-Dimensional Grind

Chip Bergh has over the past five years got Levi’s back on the growth path. Reading about he did it one realises that getting a brand back on it’s feet takes a big idea and then a lot more.
https://hbr.org/2018/07/the-ceo-of-levi-strauss-on-leading-an-iconic-brand-back-to-growth

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