According to PC World at the end of 2010 in Canada, with a population of 34 million, there are 24 million mobile devices. In the US, with a population of 311 million, as of June 2011 there are 328 million mobile devices – that’s more than 1 per person! The forecast for mobile device growth by 2013 will be over 1 billion. This defines how consumers and decision makers will be utilizing their buying power as well as taking control of how marketing and communications get delivered and retained.

If your company is getting your social media strategy pulled together, consider QR Codes as a great vehicle to bring Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, You Tube and RSS feeds (and better utilize your website for that matter) to the front of the line for your clients, consumers and even your staff.

Here are a few links for some additional information and some free downloads:
http://tag.microsoft.com/download.aspx
www.beqrious.com/generator
http://delivr.com/qr-code-generator
www.sparqcode.com/static/maestro

This can be a little confusing and many executives are time starved. Kaleidoscope’s talented team can help you with your social media strategy and launch your next campaign! Tag! You’re it!

Some businesses have embraced Facebook as a marketing channel while others have yet to adopt a robust strategy to engage and reward fans on the site.

Enter Facebook commerce. Facebook commerce on its own won’t develop brand affinity or grow a community. However, when weaved into a social media strategy, Facebook commerce becomes a rewards tool and a way to measure ROI.

We’ve excerpted this infographic from The Fan Brand’s Guide To Facebook Commerce, a free e-book that Moon Toast published; the publication rounds up a batch of blog entries the company had posted on the subject.

I have a confession to make. There was a time, many years ago, where I thought that typography was fashion by another name. I didn’t really appreciate how different typefaces function, and how the discipline evolved over time, under pressure from aesthetics and technology. And it makes me particularly red-faced to remember that I once flaunted that ignorance, going so far as to tell a noted creative director that bit about type as fashion. If only I’d known! If only I’d had this infographic!

Created by someone who only calls themselves Noodlor, it does a pretty superb job laying out the basics of typography, such as the common types of faces, ranging from regular to condensed, and the anatomy of letterforms, which includes ascenders. There’s also the very keen nugget of wisdom that 95% of graphic design is actually typography. But where it gets really good is in the “What It’s Saying” section — which should serve as a slap in the face to anyone who thinks like I once did.

“Don’t try to be original, just try to be good” — Spoken, originally, by a master of typographic clarity, Paul Rand. And one to remember, always.

See the full infographic and original post here.

A strong brand helps your company ride out downturns and setbacks, while increasing its book value. Interbrand has found that brands typically generate up to one third of a company’s value. And, according to Morgan Stanley, a strong and consistent brand can increase your stock price by at least 10%.

If your brand accomplishes all this, it’s doing its job. So what is your brand doing? Perhaps you’ve not considered your brand in that way? These are questions you will want to answer in order understand how to leverage your brand.

Once you’ve established your brand identity, you will have a roadmap with which to overlay all marketing and communications…just look at Microsoft’s $60 billion brand!

http://www.spinner.ca/2009/11/03/best-commercial-songs/?icid=main|canada-toshiba|dl4|link2|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spinner.ca%2F2009%2F11%2F03%2Fbest-commercial-songs%2F

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldC7FQiUJ6s

Panasonic was transitioning from pure consumer electronics manufacturer to becoming an online retailer. After introducing e-commerce functionality on its website, Panasonic still faced several key challenges:

• Online sales were not on target with low sales per customer, low conversion and few returning visitors.
• The web content was not sufficiently consumer centric, nor was product merchandised properly.
• The website itself contained key usability, layout and navigational issues.
• Panasonic did not fully understand the online needs, wants and behaviours of consumer electronic buyers.

Solution:
• Identified the most valuable segments as well as significant gender and generational behavioural differences in the online consumer electronic shopping
• Used segmentation research to lead persona and scenario development.
• Led workshops educating the leadership teams on emerging web trends and online consumer behaviours.

Results:
• Identified consumer product bundles across product divisions that would appeal to key target online audiences.
• Planned and implemented holiday promotional bundles including demand forecasting, pricing, creative brief development, creative concepts reviews, strategic marketing partnership development and negotiations and online implementation.

1) Build
2) Design
3) Enable
4) Launch
5) Engage
6) Report

Ultimately it is all about talking to your customers when, where and how they want – this will make them the most receptive to your message. As with all advertising, but specifically new media, it is critical that you understand the culture of the medium before you attempt to leverage it for marketing purposes. A prime example is of a corporation wanting to develop a corporate blog, in order to appear “tapped in” and appeal to a “cooler” demographic, but not understanding the rules. In many cases, strategies such as this can backfire and damage your brand rather than deliver the intended goal.

In the Financial Services industry, online advertising is a critical component of a broad marketing campaign. For independent advisors, consultants or brokers, the Internet presents a valuable opportunity to level the playing field and increase your reach at a much lower cost than conventional advertising. Increasing your online presence can also enable you to reach younger target audiences, who, as a group, spend far less time watching television or listening to the radio than their parents’ generation.

But online marketing also has challenges of its own. While Canadians spend more time online than any other country in the world, the volume of messaging that is out there means that businesses need to work harder to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

With two-thirds of the total Canadian population online every month, Canadian businesses have responded to consumer passion for the new forms of communication. Last year, 81% of private Canadian firms used high-speed or T1 links to the Internet – impressive growth compared to 2001 when less than one-half of private firms using the Internet had a broadband connection. Financial institutions have successfully implemented the new technologies as recent statistics show.

New Media has been integrated into the marketing world for a number of years now with Internet advertising set to harness 7% of total ad spend in Canada for 2006. Online advertising for financial services is a critical component in a broad marketing campaign. With a call to action leading to the Web site, there is no end to the messaging you can provide. With the rise of digital technologies and electronic modes of communication, new media has implemented itself into society in the blink of an eye, or the click of a mouse. The challenge: how do you allocate your marketing dollar?