And what a better day than 1st April to communicate artistically on the selling power of sex in Milano.
On Thursday 1st April, a group of 12 dancers (both 6 boys and girls) have organized a short dancing show around 11 am, just in front of the Temple of Dance, La Scala di Milano.
A very surprising event, during which male dancers wore a huge gadget on their sex, what seems to have caught the attention of the audience !
Around this event, the brand also wanted to announce a free distribution in its Italian outlets of sexy gadgets: from X-ray glasses to look people naked to a gadget to make bigger your balls !
Media is one of the most exciting and fast moving forces in the world.
People spend more time consuming media than almost any other activity.
On average 18-24’s globally spend
-over 3 hours a day watching TV
-over 2 hours a day listening to the radio
-purchase 2 magazines a month (Source – Synovate, 2009)
The average UK Mum clocks up over 26 hours of time online per month (Yahoo, 2009)
2/3 of Europeans stream or download video content at least once a week (Future Foundation Entertainment Futures, 2008)
Media fulfils multiple roles and needs in people’s lives:
Entertainment, Information, Self expression, Relaxation, Belonging, Me Time, Communication
Media has become more complex – we think about the transformation of media in three ways - –technology, people and content.
Today’s media landscape is almost unrecognisable from 30 years ago.
Technology, people and content have all TRANSFORMED.
Technology has changed – There are new devices, and more devices
iPod – 2001
Sky Plus - 2001
Nintendo DS – 2004
X-Box 360 – 2005
PS3 – 2006
Wii – 2006
iPhone – 2007
iPhone 3G – 2008
Nexus One – 2010
iPad – 2010
Web applications which are part of our daily lives are still in infancy….
Facebook – 2004
YouTube – 2005
Twitter – 2006
iPlayer – 2007
Hulu – 2008
iPhone App Store – 2008
“In the last few years Facebook has been the most important thing in my free time activities.” (Source - Synovate, 2009)
People have changed
In 1950 29% of the world’s population lived in cities – now it’s more than 50% (Source – UN Dept of Economic & Social Affairs, 2005)
In 1960 the average age for a woman in America to marry was 20 – now it’s 26(Source – The Rise of the Real Mom, Advertising Age, 2009)
In 1960 38% of women in America went to college – not it’s 66%(Source – The Rise of the Real Mom, Advertising Age, 2009)
The number of single person households in the UK has doubled between 1971 and 2008 (Source – Social Trends, ONS, 2009)
The average French midday meal now lasts 38 minutes, less than half the time taken in the 1970s (Source – Datamonitor, 2006)
In 1997 34% of women in Spain worked; in 2008 it was 55% (Source – Eurostat, 2006)
In 1960 Americans spend 24% of their income on food – in 2002 it was 12% (Source – US Department of Labor / VisualEconomics 2009)
Content has changed:
Content can be consumed any time, any place, any device Channels have fragmented Content has become social in new ways
In 1979 there were 3 UK TV channels; in 2009 there are 512 (Source – Aegis)
The number of channels available on Pay TV in Italy is rising: from 120 in 2003 to 199 in 2009 (Source – Aegis)
Formats are proliferating in TV – 445 original programme formats were exported globally in 2006-8, twice the number from 2002-4 (Source – The Format Recognition and Protection Association (FRAPA) 2009
Online videos have driven broadband uptake, and led the demand for cheap access devices
Talent shows have increased interactivity with media, for example through texting
Social networks have driven mobile internet adoption, and daily internet usage
24 Hours of video were uploaded to YouTube each minute in March 2010, up from 6 hours per minute in 2007 (YouTube, 2010)
Content is “always on” – there is more content available and more ways to consume it
Understanding how people choose, engage, create and interact with content has become more complex
Media is transforming, communications are transforming….
“The world will go faster. Something that takes 30 minutes today will take 10 minutes tomorrow. We’ll save time.” Italian male
We now know how Toyota sped to the back of the pack, led by self-accelerating gas pedals, reluctant recall practices and bad PR. Less obvious but more informative as an advertising or marketing tactic is how Hyundai drove into the lead.
Viewed as a bargain-basement alternative for people who couldn't afford anything else, Hyundai saw the handwriting on the wall back in the day, and responded. It countered the brand perception with perhaps the most comprehensive warranty on a non-luxury vehicle at the time: five-year/60,000 miles on major powertrain components, and 10 years/100,000 for corrosion.
The warranty's effect was two-fold. Sure, it offered peace of mind for potential Hyundai buyers. But the brand message, that Hyundai must be a pretty good car for them to offer such an extensive warranty, was the image engine. In short, the brand recognized its reality, and dealt directly with how consumers related to it.
The same is true today, and Hyundai, is reaping more rewards.
The Hyundai Assurance Plan. Empathy as a Marketing Strategy
When the economy tanked last year, Hyundai didn't just show a price tag: It showed empathy. If you bought their car, and lost your job within the first year, they would take the car back, no questions asked.
When I heard that offer, it stopped me in my tracks.
Of course the Hyundai Assurance plan had some fine print. Only buyers who experienced problems outside their control - like losing a job or driver's license for medical reasons, or becoming disabled - would qualify. Also, purchasers must have made two payments before returning the vehicle, and would receive the depreciation on the vehicle, limited to $7,500. But it all, sounded reasonable.
In fact, it sounded like a car manufacturer, a foreign one at that, really gave a damn about my situation. Especially when Jeff Bridges - the commercial's announcer - said, "We're all in this together."
And the numbers prove it. According to the blog Cars.com, "Toyota fell from its perch as the leader in brand loyalty among car shoppers, slipping to third place while Hyundai surged ahead to first, according to Kelley Blue Book...."
"Hyundai increased its percentage of Hyundai owners looking at new models within the brand by 10.4 percentage points, to 56.3%. Toyota fell 4.4 percentage points to 53.3% from 2009 to 2010, mostly because of its highly publicized recall issues. Honda managed to increase its loyalty by 0.7 percentage points to 55.8%."
In other words, it pays to understand how your brand is perceived, and how your customers are feeling about their world, and then promote accordingly.
The challenger for attitudes’ stereotype identification is researches and reports – be it a focus group, qualitative, or even quantitative processes can help unveil or unleash real findings towards certain attitudes in a society, community, or group of people of the same interest.
A new report of face-to-face interviews of Arab nationals and expatriates youth between the age of 18-24 in 9 Middle Eastern countries revealed the truth about Youth consumption to media and access to technology, apart of other findings.
Youth Society has always been unclear and marketeers been lost accordingly; therefore, a couple of reports are these days focusing on Youth to help marketeers design their marketing plan (online or offline); this time done by Asda’a PR firm, covering Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates to unleash country differences at first place and conventionally common trends looking a multiple factors; but as mentioned we covered here on the following that we founded related to you as interactiveME reader:
Access to technology
Media Consumption Trends
Social Media Networking
Okay, but what stereotypes the index of the above three will challenge, let’s see:
Women have less access to technology or none in some Gulf countries.
Internet is not a trusted source of any type of news
Saudis biggest consumptions are online news
Online music is not the top content-type consumption
Social networking sites are abused as dating sites
Access to Technology
The report shows that almost 4 in 5 of youth own a mobile phone, and 1 in 4 own a web-enabled phone. The report shows also that there is a very minimal correlation between surveyed countries in this report as well as very minimal correlation between women and men access to technology – be it mobile, laptop, desktop, blackberry, iPhone, games console, and music player devices.
The report findings say that nearly 3 in 5 say they use the internet at least once a day, with music and email as the main online activities. Music activities dominate the top five while social networking comes the 6th activity.
Media Consumption
The report findings reveal that TV and newspaper are the main sources of news, followed by internet.
Websites are the 3rd trusted source of information after TV news channels and newspapers. The top country users who trust website news are from Saudi Arabia then UAE.
Social Media
The report findings show that when online, young people in all regions are most likely to use sites like Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Also, three quarters of the users utilize social networking websites like Facebook for keeping the connection with friends; the 2nd activity is to share and upload photos. Making new friends activity (call it partially “dating” ) comes the 3rd activity and not the first.
The challenge continues for stereotypes carries and researches defender because the attitudes of Arab youth changes with time. However, marketeers in the MENA region can find this report a direction and guidance on where their target audience really is, which medium and how much consumption is happening… The link to the report’s presentation.
