The latest Content Marketing research: Jan 2012
This month, we look at how contactless payments are increasing in popularity, how brands on Facebook risk being ‘un-Liked' and the staggering value of unwanted Christmas presents.
Connected devices play mixed role in UK
Consumers in the UK are using PCs, tablets and smartphones for a diverse range of reasons, suggesting they may come to play a complementary, rather than competing, role. Trade body the IAB, insights group Sparkler and panel provider On Device Research polled over 600 people owning two or more devices from a list of smartphones, PCs, laptops and tablets. They found that 36% predicted that the desktop PC would remain their "preferred format" in the future, with accessing email the most common pastime. Meanwhile, using social networks took the top spot for smartphone users (60%), ahead of emails on 57%. For tablet users, 57% expected to check their email that day, hitting 51% for social networking and 35% for online retail.
Contactless payments gain ground in Europe
Consumers in Europe are displaying rising enthusiasm for contactless payments, according to research by Visa Europe. The financial services firm surveyed 1,700 adults in the UK, Poland and Turkey, plus 500 people per country already possessing contactless cards, and found that 77% of people owning these cards agreed this method would become more widespread than the cash alternative. Elsewhere, 87% thought gaining experience of completing contactless transactions should fuel the uptake of making payments using mobile phones in the future.
In Britain, 32% of those with contactless cards have used them to pay for fast food - up from 12% three months ago, with 39% stating that incentives, such as discounts, would be a major source of encouragement to use contactless payments.
Brands warned on Facebook hard sell
New research has suggested that posting too often, using hard-sell tactics and not interacting enough with followers are among the main reasons brands are ‘un-Liked' on Facebook. A study from the Nielsen-owned research firm, NM Incite, indicates that feeling a Facebook connection is "trying to sell me something" is the third most-popular reason people de-friend others on the social network, cited by 39% of respondents. The top two reasons were not knowing the friend sufficiently well (41%) and the friend leaving "offensive" comments (55%).
Asos, H&M top European digital charts
Asos, H&M and Net-a-Porter are the speciality retailers making the most effective use of digital media to engage European consumers, a new study has found. Think tank L2 assessed 55 leading retailers and found that Asos, inviting praised for utilising Facebook-commerce, tying its YouTube channel to its website and blogs, and building a consumer-to-consumer marketplace. H&M claimed second place, having embraced Google+, secured the highest number of Twitter followers and YouTube hits, and created a "virtual dressing room" on its website. Meanwhile, Net-a-Porter was credited for taking to picture-sharing platform Instagram and offering real-time worldwide-purchase monitoring on its website, where it also runs the Fashion Fix "social hub".
Apple and Starbucks secure Twitter buzz
Twitter has revealed that Apple, Starbucks and McDonald's are among the brand owners that have secured major buzz about their products on Twitter over 2011. In an official blog post, Twitter reported it now has more than 100m users around the world and an audience that uploaded 60bn tweets between January and early December in 2011.
Google, Amazon and IKEA most "simple" and "innovative" brands
Google, Amazon and IKEA are among the brands regarded as being the most "simple", intuitive and innovative by consumers, according to a new global report. The agency Siegel+Gale asked 6,026 people in China, India, Germany, the Middle East, UK and the US to assess whether leading brands were easy to understand, transparent, caring, innovative and had "useful" communications. Google retained the top spot and was praised for offering users an efficient way to view "mindboggling" amounts of information. Amazon was in second place, beating IKEA, McDonald's and Apple.
Consumers embrace digital tools
A new multi-market study has found that consumers are using PCs, smartphones and tablets to engage in an increasingly wide range of entertainment-led and commercial activities. KPMG, the consultancy, surveyed 9,600 people in 31 countries, and revealed that 86% prefer surfing the web on a personal computer, falling to 8% for smartphones and 6% for tablet. With social networking, the use of PCs has witnessed a decline from 94% in 2007 to 76% in 2011, as mobile has seen an improvement from 3% to 16%. Tablets, included for the first time this year, posted 7%.
Brits urged to sell unwanted Christmas gifts online
According to a survey by online classifieds website Gumtree.com, Britons will have received unwanted Christmas presents to the value of £2.4billion this year. One in five people surveyed said that mothers were the worst culprits for giving inappropriate gifts, followed by mothers-in-law (18%) and aunts (16%). Every UK adult will have been given up to two presents they did not want this Christmas, each worth £48.41 on average, with a third of unwanted gifts ending up in the loft, 15% given away to someone else, and 2% binned.
Boxing Day bonanza: Brits spend record 13m hours shopping online
UK internet users broke online records this Christmas as 13 million hours were spent shopping online on Boxing Day. The research from Hitwise indicates that online retail websites received an astonishing 96 million UK internet visits on December 26 - 19.5% more than on Boxing Day last year (80.5 million visits). This makes Boxing Day 2011 the single biggest shopping day in the UK ever.
