Amazon can craft an entire list of books, movies and music based on my purchases and browsing, and then either deliver them to various devices or accommodate the increasingly antiquated idea of tangible entertainment consumption through next-day delivery (soon to be drone-enabled). Starbucks knows when I am within a certain distance of one of their locations and pings my smartphone with a reminder that I may be thirsty or interested in their new flavored beverage.

In essence, technology has allowed for companies and brands to “know” and market to consumers at an unprecedented level of personalization. Yet while the speed of change has been quick across so many facets of the marketing world, we continue to lag behind when it comes to understanding and creating relevant, insights-driven connections with multicultural consumers. Much has been written about the impending population shifts and how that translates to buying power, but few are ready with the insight and strategy to capitalize and fundamentally shift existing mindsets. According to our research at 84.51° Asians, African-Americans and Hispanics will contribute nearly 90% of population growth between 2014 and 2019. By 2040, the non-Hispanic Caucasian population will drop below 50%, becoming the minority. The three largest ethnic groups in the U.S. will each be over 125 million.

The future is now for the multicultural shopper. Without a fundamental shift in how we think about marketing—from the products on the shelf to the way we communicate with consumers about these products—brands will likely be left behind. This fundamental change requires looking well beyond demographics.

In addition, there is no typical or average multicultural shopper. The purchase behavior of these consumers is influenced by so many facets beyond their ethnic or demographic classification. This can be seen across nearly every category, including what Hispanic, Asian and African-American consumers are placing in their carts at their local grocery store. Here are a few insights into these customer groups, according to our research:

Asian consumers: frequent and fresh. The buying power of Asian consumers is significant and growing at the fastest rate of any consumer segment within the U.S. Asian households have different shopping patterns in totality. They have smaller grocery baskets but visit the store more frequently, and those trips add up. They are also engaged in fresher, more perishable items, with 20% higher spend in produce and 50% higher spend in natural foods.

African-American consumers: convenience is key. Previous perceptions of convenient categories are evolving. Frozen food relevance has met a steep decline with African-American millennials. For example, within the frozen, single-serve premium meal space, engagement with African-American millennials has declined nearly three times as much compared to the rest of the population.

Hispanic consumers: personalized strategy. Having a single Hispanic strategy just won’t work. Whether looking at generational status or acculturation level, the needs and corresponding shopping patterns are fundamentally different. For example, more acculturated Hispanic shoppers are engaged in center-store offerings at nearly a rate of 1.5 times that of less acculturated consumers. Variety-seeking behavior also varies drastically across the acculturation spectrum.

With all of these nuances, a blanket multicultural strategy is no longer sufficient in today’s world. Whether that entails using any of the above insights to guide new product innovation, assortment decisions at shelf, promotional strategies, or personalized media efforts, marketers today need to change their thinking to a more personalized strategy versus a one-size-fits-all strategy. Isolating similarities, differences, emerging needs, and shifts in behavior enable retailers and brands to tailor strategies, personalize communications and ensure relevance across their portfolios.

The insights exist, but we need to value these insights enough to do things differently. As the wise marketers at NBC once said, and then subsequently animated, “Knowing is only half the battle.” Transforming insights into action that let us create meaningful relationships with multicultural consumers will be a differentiator for success in the years ahead. The future is now.

Authored by Erin Liber, Director of customer science at Cincinnati-based marketing agency 84.51°

Source:ama.org

A friend recently commented on the hubbub around the Apple Watch and the wearables category, in general, noting that most of the data provided by these devices actually is useless. Sure, we’re all counting steps and strides and hours slept, but we’re not really doing anything about it. And as our culture becomes more obsessed with measuring everything, we seem to move further away from knowing what we actually need to know.

For the professional—or even the serious amateur—the case for constant activity data is real. You absolutely can improve training and performance when you have more and better data. For everyone else, though, the link between the data and the improvement is much weaker. We track our steps, but are we getting any healthier?​​​

A similar situation exists for marketers, as well: We have access to vast amounts of data about our campaigns, visitors, engagement, social sharing and everything else under the sun (or rain, if you are tracking the impact of weather on the performance of your campaigns). Today’s CMOs, along with their staff, must be ever more deeply versed in data, analytics and metrics. Hundreds of tools and platforms for capturing, analyzing and optimizing marketing data are readily available (though many with hefty price tags) for our use. Why? Because the prevailing assumption is that data makes us better marketers.

That is the big lie, and it’s a lie that we are quickly allowing to consume us and change our behavior, for both good and bad. Data should be able to expand our perspective and yield new insights, but I’d argue that it is mostly overwhelming our vision and creating new blind spots.

Much like runners who are so obsessed with the data on their watches that they miss the gorgeous morning fog rising or the pothole right in front of them, marketers are losing sight of many important elements as they dig deeper into metrics on an almost real-time basis. The analogy of forests and trees never loses its relevancy.

Yes, data is essential in today’s marketing environment. The more data we have, the more opportunity we have to connect the right dots. Good data can help drive increased efficiency and effectiveness in all types of campaigns. Marketing data is really in its infancy right now and the possibilities ahead are incredible, yet there are also real dangers. Data can make us passive marketers, waiting for an answer that will never come before we make a change. Data can make us hyperactive marketers, making frequent and endless changes in the hope that something will work.

​Authored by Norman Guadagno, vice president of client engagement at Wire Stone, an independent digital marketing agency based in Sacramento, Calif.

Source:ama.org

Mobile Marketing Association Strengthens Presence in India; Welcomes Preeti Desai as Country Manager

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the leading non-profit trade mobile marketing association, today announced the appointment of Preeti Desai as Country Manager in India, in order to strengthen the association’s presence and commitment toward developing the mobile marketing industry in the country. The MMA serves the growing mobile marketing ecosystem in India with support from GroupM, the country’s leading media investment management company, in a collaboration that was recently extended for the third year running.

“The MMA currently leads the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies in Singapore, India, China, Indonesia, and Vietnam,” said Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association APAC. “Preeti’s appointment marks MMA’s continued commitment toward building and implementing mobile marketing best practices in India. Her solid industry experience, and vision will be crucial in helping us pave the way forward for the mobile industry in the country.”

Some of the MMA’s priorities will include increasing the adoption of existing MMA Best Practices and Guidelines; recommending adaptations for local market conditions where appropriate; promoting education and skills development for practitioners; and developing suitable measurement metrics and tools for the industry. Preeti Desai’s appointment as country manager for India is a step toward ensuring that all players in the mobile marketing ecosystem get adequate support.

Preeti joins the MMA after several years Rediff.com India where she was Vice President Strategic Alliances, evangelizing the spliced TV advertising opportunity to the leading SME's across sectors and geographies.

Between 2004 and 2006, Preeti was the Founding President of the Internet and Mobile Association of India, working with industry and government stakeholders and end users to address key industry challenges, raise awareness of Internet and mobile effectiveness, and set up industry standards and benchmarks.

“India, a young and highly mobile market, presents the ideal opportunity for innovation in mobile and is only set to grow in the next five years. However, brand investment in the medium is still relatively limited.

With the market evolving as quickly as it is, this is an opportunity that we need to capitalize on immediately,” added Rohit. “GroupM has been instrumental in helping the MMA set up its presence in India over the last two years and I’m very excited to be working with their visionary team once again in order to shape the mobile marketing conversation in the country.”

The MMA also announced the 2015 return of its two flagship events, MMA Forum India and the SMARTIES™ India Awards taking place on 16 September 2015. The MMA Forum (MMAF) India, is one of the largest mobile marketing events in India, welcoming major brands, mobile specific and traditional agencies, operators and technology enablers from across the mobile marketing landscape. The SMARTIES™ India Awards submissions are now open and will close on 24 July 2015.

Delegates will come together to connect and learn from experts and peers in the industry about best practice in mobile marketing and the future of the industry. The event will be followed by the 2015 iteration of the SMARTIES™ India, which aim to recognize innovation, creativity and leadership in mobile  marketing across a range of categories while building a library of case studies for mobile marketers to reference. The entry deadline for the SMARTIES™ India Awards is 24th July 2015.

With a view to cater to a wide spectrum of target audience and expand its readership base, The Indian Express Group has launched the Jaipur edition of its flagship brand, the Indian Express on July 5th 2015.

This is the national daily’s tenth edition in the country.

The paper is priced at Rs 4 on all weekdays and will be a 20 page edition, with both an up-country and a city edition. The Jaipur edition of The Indian Express brings with it the trademark brand of ‘Journalism of courage’ that the newspaper espouses. With a focus on unbiased news delivery, the newspaper will offer exclusive investigative stories and opinion pieces written by some of India’s best minds.

The newspaper will offer the Pink city residents 20 pages of high quality news, containing all that a reader would need to know.  With customized pages, dedicated to new ideas across governance, opinions and explanations, war-torn conflict zones, relationships, skilling and education among others, The Indian Express Jaipur edition will bring more daily life to the daily.

The launch will be supported with an extensive marketing campaign, both ATL and BTL programmes.

Commenting on The Indian Express's entry in Rajasthan, Pavita Puri, Group Head - Brand, The Indian Express Group says, "We are thrilled and excited with an overwhelming response to our launch in Jaipur. This is an important region, emerging fast on the national footprint of development. We are committed to making The Indian Express the preferred newspaper of the discerning reader who seeks credible news, knowledge and an incisive point of view.”

The Indian Express Group publishes four newspapers with 31 editions, in four languages (Hindi, Gujarati, English and Marathi) across 15 centres in India. Its flagship newspaper The Indian Express was established in 1932. Its newspaper brands include The Financial Express, Loksatta and Jansatta. The Group has a formidable online presence with over 100 million pageviews per month.