E3 2013: World Tech Update – 6/13/13
IDG News Service
Coming up on WTU this week we find out more details on Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PlayStation 4 game consoles at E3 and check out the updates to iOS at WWDC.
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Infographic: Emerging Markets Mobile Attitudes
Upstream
The 2013 Emerging Markets Mobile Attitudes Report from marketing technology company Upstream, which commissioned YouGov and Vanson Bourne to poll the views of a representative sample of 3,670 adults in Brazil, India, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, revealed that while Apple’s success in the West has been predominately shaped by its premium brand status, the door is open for others such as Nokia to stake its claim on the emerging market audience.
The report reveals that Apple (21 per cent) only secures third place on emerging market consumers’ wish lists – after Samsung (32 per cent) and Nokia (22 per cent). Despite its recent decline in Western markets, Nokia has been named the brand most Nigerians would like to own (37 per cent), and second favourite in Brazil after Samsung. While an appetite for high-end smartphone devices exists throughout emerging markets – 16 per cent willing to spend more than $450 on a device – the report finds that brand desirability cannot guarantee success in these new markets. The report reveals that almost a third of consumers (27 per cent) with less purchasing power will ultimately bypass their favourite brands and buy devices with similar functionality, but at a cheaper price.
Storage Software Revenues Increased 3.2% During the First Quarter of 2013, According to IDC
IDC Press Release
FRAMINGHAM, Mass. – Results from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Storage Software QView show the worldwide storage software market increased 3.2% during the first quarter of 2013 (1Q13) compared to the same quarter of 2012. Revenue during the quarter totaled $3.6 billion.
“Overall sales of storage software improved during the first quarter of 2013,” said Eric Sheppard, Research Director, Storage Software at IDC. “Demand was strongest for Data Protection & Recovery software as well as Storage & Device Management software. This was driven by a broad need for data resiliency, improvements to operational efficiencies, and better insights into installed data center infrastructure.”
For the full press release click here
5 Best Practices for a Great B2B Website
ClickZ
Recently I’ve been helping one of my clients redesign its online presence. As we all know, our website is our brand’s front door – just as important, if not more so, than our company’s physical presence. It’s how potential clients learn more about our brand, and where existing clients will go to stay connected with us. When executed well, a great B2B website can do the job of 100 salespeople, scaling your message to the masses and helping drive loads of revenue. They can help with retention, upselling, and help facilitate customer service. So, why are so many of them so terrible?
In general, a great B2B website does five things:
1. Gets users the information they came for quickly. Ad specs, contact info, you name it. Run a survey with your visitors – or look at your Google Analytics to see which pages generate the most engagement – to determine the reason they’re coming to your site; put those items in a location that’s easily accessible, like the footer.
Majority of Media, Entertainment Revenue Will Come From Digital by 2015, Study Finds
Wrap
Nearly half of revenue of 550 leading media and entertainment companies comes from digital sales
For traditional media companies fighting to stay on top in the internet age it may no longer be a case of forgoing analog dollars in favor of digital pennies just to stay ahead of the pack. Media and entertainment companies say that 47 percent of their overall revenues currently come from digital products, according to a new report by professional services firm Ernst & Young. Further, they project that by 2015 a majority of their income, or 57 percent, will be generated from digital sales.
“The media and entertainment industry has been on a digital journey for quite some time, but when you drill down into the data in advertising, in social media, in film and in broadcast and cable, you see that the digital transition isn’t this thing of tomorrow to keep in the back of the mind, it’s here,” John Nendick, Ernst & Young’s global head of media and entertainment, said.
Emerging market connected device volumes to top 1bn by 2014
Total Telecomm
IDC claims BRICs to account for 60% of smartphone, tablet and PC shipments to developing economies.
Shipments of smartphones, tablets and PCs to emerging markets will reach 1 billion units in 2014, predicted IDC on Monday.
On a global basis, the research firm expects smart connected device volumes to exceed 1.7 billion units next year, and for overall annual shipment value to near $700 billion. Smartphones and tablets will represent $500 billion of that total, while PCs will account for less than $200 billion.
“It is evident that smartphones and tablets have successfully established a strong presence as the second screen, owing to the transformation in usage patterns, device affordability, and, most of all, the comfort of a mobile and digital lifestyle,” said IDC research analyst Megha Saini, in a statement.
B2B Buyers Don’t Trust Vendors’ Online Content: CMO Council
cmo.com
Vendors certainly know the true value of what they are vending, but when they seek to convince business buyers of the value, the buyers become suspicious.
According to “Better Lead Yield in the Content Marketing Field,” a new study from the CMO Council and NetLine, business buyers belittle vendors and give much higher marks for content trustworthiness to professional organizations and industry groups, whose information is considered more usable and relevant.
“Buyers are not happy with vendors,” said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, in an interview with CMO.com. “Their content [tends to be] overtechnical, product-centric, and self-serving”–and buyers sense this. Neale-May said B2B marketers annually invest $16.6 billion in digital content publishing, used primarily to produce leads.
The report surveyed more than 400 business buyers across a wide range of global industries and other disciplines. It found a critical need for marketing organizations to bring more discipline and strategic thinking to content specification, delivery, and analytics.
IDC Announces the 2013 Chief Marketing Officer ROI Matrix, Providing Insights Into What Makes the Technology Industry’s Best-in-Class CMOs Successful
cmo.com/Fearless Competitor
I just wish to share the conclusion. You can read the full press release here. As President of the sales lead generation company Find New Customers, it is my mission to keep you abreast of what’s happening in marketing today. To schedule a time with me, click here
IDC found that there are clear patterns of marketing investment and behavior that distinguish marketing Leaders from those that are marketing Challenged. Taking into account differences that exist between different company sizes, industry segments, and business models, IDC identified three factors that most differentiate marketing Leaders from those that are marketing Challenged.
Smartphone firms try to reclaim magic
The Washington Post
The smartphone revolution has reached Joe Cecconi, which may mean it isn’t a revolution anymore.
The retiree from Fairfax County got his Samsung Galaxy S III six months ago, finally giving up on his old flip phone. He hardly ever uses the apps, but he said he found the smartphone very useful for “the Web, texting and making calls.”
The handheld devices, which just a few years ago were seen as technological status symbols, are now for the first time in the hands of a majority of Americans, according to a study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. They’ve become commonplace, meaning for every technophile sideloading apps onto an unlocked smartphone, there’s probably a middle-aged office worker peering over a pair of bifocals at a touchscreen.
The two dominant smartphone makers, Apple and Samsung, are still fighting over the declining share of Americans who don’t have one. They are using slick television commercials and aggressive lawsuits against each other because the devices remain critical to their bottom lines. But some analysts say the phones have reached their technological ceiling. New versions have struggled to wow reviewers and average consumers, a factor particularly important to tech firms, which often sell more products if they are seen as cutting-edge innovators.
“Now that it’s in the hands of everybody, maybe it loses its cool,” said Ramon Llamas, a mobile trends analyst at International Data Corp.
Apple rarely comments on products in its pipelines, but chief executive Tim Cook hinted at a technology conference last week that “the wrist is interesting,” sparking rumors that it could unveil some wearable technology at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
“We’re standing on the edge of what wearable computing is going to be,” said Llamas, the IDC analyst. The wearable tech market could sell up to 9.4 million devices by 2016, analysts say.
Social Helps Power Adobe to Earn BtoB’s Best Integrated Social Media Marketing Campaign Award in the Tech Industry
With the premise that marketers do not get a lot of love and with the objective to promote both digital marketing products and analytics tools, Adobe is trying to set things straight with the “Metrics Not Myths” campaign. It began in October 2012 with a blog post by Adobe CMO Ann Lewnes in which she cited a recent study by The Fournaise Marketing Group that found more than 70% of CEOs believe marketers are disconnected from business results. She called this “nonsense” and spelled out some other myths: “You can’t prove advertising really works.” “Marketing is all gut, there’s no science to it.” “The marketing department is a cost center, not a revenue driver. Marketing is BS.”
Lewnes countered by saying, “marketing’s impact can be measured. Creativity and data can work beautifully together. We’re willing to prove it.” Adobe is on a mission led by a few hundred people in PR, product marketing, social marketing, and at agencies, Goodby Silverstein and Edelman Digital.
(Ann Lewnes)
Matt Rozen, group manager, corporate social media, said Adobe wanted “to elevate the role of the marketer in today’s business world” through a large scale campaign across paid, owned, and earned media. To start conversations around “Marketing is BS, that’s Baloney,” Adobe turned to video and social networks with a large dose of humor.
(Screen shot from video mentioned above)
Paid Digital and Print Media
Social media cross-promotion span(s or spanned) YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Ads appeared in high traffic news and video sites such as CNN, Hulu, Mashable, and The Onion. Print editions of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal carried “Metrics Not Myths” ads.
Video Drives Owned Media
Video attracted the most interest with a click through rate four times that of any other media. Rozen said, “while video accounted for 10% of total campaign impressions, it drove a whopping 50% of traffic to our website.”
One short video produced for the 2013 Super Bowl, but available only online, led All Things D to proclaim: The Adobe Super Bowl Ad CBS Doesn’t Want You to See
Earned Media for Traffic and Conversation
Social media led Adobe’s efforts to create awareness, spur conversation, and generate traffic to websites with more content. The main traffic drivers were @adobemarketingcloud and the Adobe Marketing Cloud Facebook page helped by LinkedIn.
“Metrics Not Myths” Insights
“Twitter (#metricsnotmyths) is a great channel for marketers as it’s an ideal platform for the interaction between paid and organic,” explained Rozen. “Paying for promoted Tweets or promoting a campaign only works when you mix in organic content of interest to the community.” Without that mix, he said, a marketing program risks “losing followers gained from paid efforts or promoted tweets, and links to them could be perceived as spam.”
( Matt Rozen)
Rozen emphasized the importance of video with more than 60 million impressions, he added, “good video is a great way to quickly and simply bottle up a feeling or create an emotional response.
Adobe found that Facebook was not as strong a performer as the team originally thought it would be given its large user population, but Rozen felt “marketers just don’t seem to be going to Facebook to talk about marketing.”
Adobe built the “ultimate” case study, a web site around its “Metrics Not Myths” campaign, which leveraged Adobe Marketing Cloud to showcase sider details about how well the campaign was running.
(click image below to visit case study site)
The case study site has proven to be the best closer for the campaign with the highest revenue visits at about $49 extra per click.
Rozen told IDG Knowledge Hub that the campaign will continue through the second half of 2013 with a big push in the social sphere. The team will focus on reaching senior marketers through CMO.com, and galvanize marketing experts via a new community hub that will provide expertise to debunk myths, expose new ideas, and showcase their success.