Digital Lifescapes

Savvy retailers will create a connected in-store shopping experience. They'll also extend their online engagement with consumers -- moving beyond creating awareness and facilitating payments, to a deeper integration of their customer loyalty programs. The pursuit of this agenda has seen digital coupons evolve from merely being a means of driving consumers to storefronts, to becoming a core element of promoting and reinforcing retail brand loyalty. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, nearly 1.6 billion coupons will be delivered annually to shoppers via in-store beacon technology by 2020 -- that's up from just 11 million this year. In 2016, more retailers will develop proximity marketing programs for deployment in and around their stores. The Juniper study found that several leading U.S. retailers have already deployed beacon networks, with Macy’s having installed more than 4,000 within its retail stores. The research findings demonstrate that in-sto...

Only the most conservative laggard marketers have yet to embrace digital trends. Global brand and retail spend on digital marketing activities will reach nearly $200 billion in 2015, that's up by 15 percent on 2014 levels, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. The study observed that nearly 70 percent of the net increase on digital marketing spend this year would be concentrated on the mobile channel, as legacy brand strategies evolve to deliver campaigns within an omni-channel digital environment. According to the research, factors behind the migration to smartphones and media tablets include their inherent capabilities to enable timely, targeted and personalized marketing campaigns. That being said, retailer marketers will still need to seek ways to enhance customer engagement and to analyze the relative success of their efforts. In the case of mobile coupons, redemption rates were typically significantly higher and costs per redemption much lower than...

With the advent of mobile couponing, eCoupons are being delivered to and accessed via multiple devices -- such as PCs, smartphones and media tablets. Moreover, eCoupons are offered through a variety of distribution channels -- including email, apps and websites. Juniper Research has found that the number of eCoupons redeemed will nearly double over the next three years, rising from 16 billion this year to more than 31 billion in 2019. The findings from the latest Juniper market study uncovered that redemptions would primarily be driven by mobile coupons. Juniper argues that while there would be some growth in the PAH (print at home) space across fixed and mobile, the increase would primarily be driven through in-store, barcode based redemptions and online redemptions. At the same time, the market study observed that that consumer behavior was evolving to incorporate online or mobile coupon search prior to either remote or in-store purchases. It cited the sharp rise in visits ...

Smartphones are increasingly viewed by savvy marketers as a critical enabler -- not merely of ubiquitous connectivity and interactivity, but as a means to engage in a meaningful way with their customers and prospects. From a marketer's perspective, the fact that smartphones are personal and ever-present with their owner -- and that those owners are interacting with their device constantly -- presents them with an opportunity. To the informed marketer, mobile is no longer merely a channel through which to sell goods remotely, but a series of related channels through which their relationship with the customer can be nurtured and developed over time. This is a basic principle of multi-platform marketing communication. The approach can transform legacy marketing practices -- such as the process of offering a discount coupon for redemption -- via the creative application of mobile devices. According the the latest global market study by Juniper Research, they now forecast that t...

The number of discount coupons redeemed through mobile phones and media tablet devices is expected to reach 10 billion this year -- that's up by more than 50 percent on last year, according to the latest market study by Juniper Research. Juniper believes that innovative retailers are increasingly seeking to offer mobile as a delivery channel -- both as a means of driving in-store retail and to enhance consumer engagement and retention. It pointed out that while mobile still accounted for a comparatively low volume of coupons issued, retailers had been encouraged by the markedly higher average redemption rate of mobile coupons (approx 10 percent) when compared to traditional print media and PC coupons (typically 1 percent or less). Furthermore, the study findings showed that mobile couponing offered retailers the opportunity to marry their digital and physical assets. "While we’ve heard that online retail is killing the High Street -- witness United Retail filing for...

For the retailer, the mobile device increasingly represents a multifaceted opportunity. It offers the ability to extend remote purchases to a mobile environment, unlimited by the fixed constraints of the desktop PC. In fact, most savvy retailers have already started to utilize mobile devices -- such as smartphones and media tablets -- as a touch-point on each stage of the retail life-cycle. According to the latest market study by Juniper Research, annual spend by retailers on mobile marketing will reach $55 billion by 2015 -- almost double the $28 billion that's expected this year. Their market study of the retailer landscape found that the development of a growing media tablet market had created new opportunities for brands seeking to enhance engagement with consumers. With eCommerce migrating to mobile and nomadic devices, advertising spend on both tablets and smartphones is continuing to grow strongly as retailers (notably in North America and Western Europe) migrate the...

Mobile coupons currently represent a small portion of marketer's digital promotions, but usage is growing at a fast pace. The adoption of redeeming retailer coupons extends the trend of searching online for product discounts -- which emerged as a widespread, money-saving activity during the U.S. economic downturn. "Even as the sputtering economy attempts its recovery, the popularity of couponing has continued, spurred in part by the burgeoning daily deals space," said Noah Elkin, eMarketer principal analyst. "Mobile coupons will play a central role in broadening the appeal and acceptance of digital coupons among shoppers." eMarketer estimates that nearly 20 million American adults will redeem a mobile coupon this year -- including coupons or codes received via SMS, applications and mobile web browsers; quick response codes for redemption online or offline; and group buying coupons purchased via mobile. By 2013, the number using such coupons will ...

South Korea is already known for its leadership in landline broadband service adoption. Many of the nation's residents are also pioneers of mobile broadband service adoption. Nearly half (47 percent) of South Koreans polled intend to purchase a smartphone within the next six months, according to the results of a consumer survey conducted this year by ABI Research . South Koreans already own an average of 1.6 mobile devices each, and are among the world's most enthusiastic consumers of new mobile technologies, upgrading their devices frequently and utilizing many forward-looking applications. "South Koreans are keen adopters of mobile money services," notes practice director Neil Strother at ABI. They're using mobile devices to do banking (a very high 69 percent of respondents), and pay bills (40 percent). Curiously, though, most South Koreans have little confidence in the security of their mobile phones: only 7 percent believed they were completely or ve...

  Over the last few months I've shared a variety of market study summaries that highlight the now rapid adoption of new smartphones, within the U.S. marketplace in particular. This transition is much more pervasive, and global, than you may have imagined. The European EU-5 marketplace is no exception. eMarketer now forecasts that the number of mobile web users in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain to double between 2010 and 2015. More than 58 million residents of the EU-5 will use the mobile internet at least monthly, according to eMarketer estimates for 2011. But that will still represent less than a quarter of the population. "Greater use of browsers and apps, in addition to the already widespread use of text messaging, mean enhanced opportunities for marketers to engage customers at every stage of the purchase process, from building awareness all the way through to after-sales service and customer relationship management," said eMarketer principal analyst...

The two largest U.S. Yellow Pages directory publishers were bankrupt as their profitability went into a prolonged decline. Moreover, there's no relief in sight for these legacy service providers -- in fact, Google will likely further erode their revenues with a new offering that targets their best customers. Why won't the Yellow Pages publishers recover? eMarketer reports that the overwhelming majority of U.S. Internet users research online to find local products and services, according to the latest market study by BIA/Kelsey and ConStat. The most common online tool used for local research was search engines (Google). Less than one-half of respondents still used Internet yellow pages and 42 percent checked comparison-shopping sites before heading to local businesses. In summer 2009, TMP Directional Marketing and comScore found that 46 percent of local online searchers contacted a business by telephone after Web research, and 37 percent visited in person. "The I...

eMarketer reported that more than 70 million U.S. consumers visited newspaper Websites in June 2009, giving the category an active reach of 35.89 percent, according to the latest market study by Nielsen Netview. "The newspaper audience continues to expand as publishers aggressively capitalize on their investments in digital properties, adding robust features and launching new products to attract a highly valuable consumer audience,” said John F. Sturm, president and CEO of the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). Because of changes in methodology, Nielsen's figures for June 2009 may not be directly comparable to data from previous years. All the same, Editor & Publisher reported some dramatic gains and losses in time spent at particular newspaper Websites. Time spent at The New York Times site, for example, fell by nearly 50 percent from June 2008 to June 2009. People spent more time at the sites of the Chicago Tribune and USA TODAY and at Boston.com, by comparison. The...