Online advertising is ineffective,

 the advertising value associated with one hour of an Internet user’s time is less than $.10 and one third of that goes to Google. This number is low even compared to the challenged performance of television which comes to $.25 and print which is $1.00. It gets worse. A current solution, to impose a 15 or 30 second ad in the form of a video segment, is designed to engender frustration and even hatred, worse than pop up ads. The online audience, as opposed to TV couch potatoes, is in control and resents losing that position.

One reason for ineffective advertising is a preoccupation with reach and attention with little consideration with intensity. To get the audience to have an interest in a relationship with advertisers that engenders an incentive to share. Reach by itself can be of little value.

Advertisers tend to do whatever is needed in order to gain attention instead of an indirect approach that may require more effort, ingenuity, trust, and patience. Compare this attitude to a person wanting a relationship, yet becoming so clingy and persistent they seem like a stalker. Similarly, when a creative solution is needed it may be best not to rush to a brainstorming session unless it is preceded by gathering the right information and people. The slower indirect path is often the best choice. That is also true for online advertising.

And the best indirect path available it proven, it's called Shopper's Voice.  Contact Paul Ashby on (0044)01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com

Why on earth don’t we ever take heed of

 Professor Ehrenberg’s statements on advertising effectiveness? Because nothing has changed despite all the ballyhoo about Social Media, Facebook et al.  Wherever ads appear, especially on Social Media, Ehrenberg’s resolute focus on the facts –
what  data actually tells us – led him to challenge many a marketing
bandwagon such as ‘loyalty’. You may wish to improve the brand’s performance by
‘improving customer retention’, he observed, but without a higher market
penetration it just won’t happen. His work on advertising effectiveness was
equally challenging. He argued convincingly that there was no evidence that advertising
persuades anybody to do anything; advertising can only ever be a ‘weak’ force that
improves brand recognition and/or jogs consumers’ memories. Ehrenberg’s uncompromising insistence on staying only with the facts is probably why his work was so studiously ignored
by so many sections of the marketing community. Marketing gurus like Fred
Reichheld told people what they wanted to hear (even though it was poppycock)
and became very popular. Andrew Ehrenberg told people the truth, and more often
than not it was a truth marketers didn’t want to hear. So he never got the
recognition he deserved.  Many goals set in marketing are unrealistic. They are therefore doomed to failure from the start.
Such romantic marketing dreams include sustained growth, brand differentiation, persuasive advertising, profit maximisation, and knowledge management. When marketers fail to reach any of these unreachable goals, it gives marketing a bad name.He then goes on to show why and how marketers’ dreams of sustained growth, brand differentiation, persuasive advertising, profit maximisation and so on are, as he said, ‘unrealistic’.

Use Shopper's Voice and become totally effective in all measurements.  Contact: Paul Ashby on (44) 01934 620047 or on paulashby40@yahoo.com also visit http://interactivetelevisionofinteractivetv.blogspot.com

Many marketing people remain a social media sceptic.

 Although Facebook is an important and incredibly useful tool for many brands, its impact has been wildly overstated on three fronts.

First, the belief that social media somehow changes or even revolutionises the business of marketing communications. Second, the widespread promotion of social media as a relevant tool for all brands, in all situations. Third, the wild defence of social media by acolytes of the discipline who reject any and all criticism of it as the actions of out-of-touch dinosaurs rather than objective marketers keen to assess value through critical thinking.

As more and more brands pump ever greater proportions of their marketing budgets into social media, there has emerged a desire to prove that these investments are worthwhile.

Initially, therefore, there was a concerted attempt to show that driving the numbers of consumers that liked you on Facebook conferred immediate and inarguable financial advantages. In 2010, social measurement firm Syncapse put the revenue potential of each Facebook fan at an impressive (and highly unlikely) $138.38. More recently ChompOn assessed the value of each ’like’ as $8 per head, while Vitrue, another online firm, estimated their value at $3.60.

However, there was always a sense that these simplistic and rather arbitrary estimates were doing more harm than good. Indeed, more than one senior marketer has sat in stony silence at the end of a social media presentation unsure of whether what they have just seen is good, bad or something in between.

Use Shopper's Voice and immediately become: 1.Totally Accountable. 2. Increase sales. 3. Involving. 4. Interactive

Contact: Paul Ashby on (44) 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://interactivetelevisionorinteractivetv.blogspot.com

Is influencing consumer decisions a core goal of marketing? Your kneejerk reaction may be “Of course it is!” But before you get carried away, consider this: probably the most common, greatest
consumer need of all is the need to make better decisions. Indeed, in one
important sense better decisions are more valuable than better products,
because it’s the better decision that leads you to the better product in the
first place.

Achieve all with Shopper's Voice the totally accountable interactive marketing communication package.

Contact: Paul Ashby (44) 01934 620047 : paulgigashby@hotmail.co.uk

In a world of push, you don’t have to worry about what the customer wants from ‘the engagement’ because you are simply shoving stuff at them: ‘impressions’ on ‘eyeballs’. In a world of genuine engagement, the customer’s ROI on the engagement is the critical metric – because “if I don’t get the returns I want from this engagement I won’t bother investing my time, attention and energy”. We’re just at the foothills of understanding, however use Shopper's Voice for pure engagement and substantially improved marketing communications.

"There are no blue skies ahead for anyone

who resists change and focuses all of their efforts on protecting the status quo!

And the best form of change:

Contact: Paul Ashby (44) 01934 620047 or paulashby40@yahoo.com http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

It's strange.

With all the innovations that have occurred over the years, very few brands have anything to advertise, except the merits of individual models or products. In today's overcommunicated society, this "model" strategy is wasteful and ineffective.

And so it goes. As a brand expands into different varieties and different categories, the brand itself loses its ability to stand for anything specific. And if a brand cannot stand for something specific, it cannot be advertised in an effective way. Excet that is, through Shopper's Voice!
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or

Engagement is the crown jewel

Engagement is the crown jewel of a community marketer. It's always talked about and drives the relevance and power of the platform. Shopper's Voice reviewed public engagement data for 300 of the top brands on Facebook over a one-year period starting in July 2010. The results show a clear decline in average engagement.

Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk"

Communicating in a Single Comprehensive Voice

http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Listening is the most important part of the communications process.

And so we have developed the most powerful communications programme in the world.

Shopper's Voice has produced spectacular results! (see previous blog)

On-line Shopper's Voice as well as print & TV has consistently out produced all other forms of marketing in all key measurements.

Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or 01934 - 620047 or

What do people say of the technique

Ed Newton

Director

Prospect Consulting.


Shoppers Voice' business philosophy is predicated upon total accountability. As a result, the company has invested over £5 million in independent research in Australia, United Kingdom, U.S.A. Japan, Singapore, New Zealand and The Philippines.

These market research studies have been conducted to measure and document the impact of Shoppers Voice totally interactive technique and measurements are always made on the incremental sales generated by each interactive ‘Event’ for every participating brand. The results are presented to each client as a post evaluation.

I have been retained to conduct effectiveness research on many of their programmes and,
as a result of the strength of the interactive communication concept, have established that just one exposure to the programme produces results in all key measurements and on a £spent is superior to that of conventional advertising,




Professor E.L. Roberto, PhD,
Coca-Cola Foundation Professor of International Marketing reviewed the £5 million of independent research conducted on behalf of Shoppers' Voice and provided this summary as to the techniques cost efficiency:
“The S.V participating advertisements generated recall scores that are more than 50% productive than normal advertising. The effect on purchase intention is just as impressive if not much more. One S.V Client revealed that for its participating brand, its quarter television expenditure was $5.7 million as compared to its S.V. budget of $0.5 million. This 1:10 ratio has been obtained in S.V. experience in other countries.”

Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com (01934 620047) or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

And as consumers become desensitized

And as consumers become desensitized to the mobile platform over time, mobile ad effectiveness may go the way of online ad effectiveness. Online ads as a whole only boost brand awareness, purchase intent or message association in the low single-digits, according to Dynamic Logic survey results from more than 3 million respondents about 2,400 online ad over three years.

However Shopper's Voice, On-line;In Print and On TV consistently outperforms all other forms of advertising in total effectiveness.
Contact: paulashby40@yahpp.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Social media tends to reject commercialization

Social media tends to reject commercialization and has altered the way marketing
thinks about promotion. The new focus is conversations and engagements, which makes
“evangelism” a more appropriate term. Consider, for lack of a better term, the unprecedented intimacy involved when a customer or prospect becomes a fan of an organization on Shopper's Voice. That fan is inviting the organization to participate in their daily lives by way of Shopper's Voice News Feed, and won’t tolerate a steady stream of marketing hype. Shopper's Voice background in working with objective, often cynical news and editorial contacts has left Shopper's Voice well positioned to take the leading role as evangelists.
For more information on Shopper's Voice contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Integrated marketing and communications

Integrated marketing and communications is achieved through Shopper's Voice – and has been for several decades, and though it’s still seemingly idealistic, we have never before been closer to achieving this goal on a wider scale than ever before. A confluence of measures and changes in the industry – from a changing media landscape to social media and PR's more central role in marketing, to the rise of reputation management – the perfect storm of events has set the conditions to realize this objective.
With Shopper's Voice a the center!
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

We must break free from the delusion...

that the web is revolutionizing our lives
If people don’t trust advertising now they’ll trust it even less on the Web. Privacy campaigners fear the power of Google and the on line ad company Phorm to gather and exploit personal information. They invade your computer, monitor your web browsing and buying, and check where you are and then bombard you with targeted hard sells. All the while you are on the Web Google, the biggest brand on the planet, will be watching everything you do, knowing where you live, logging your preferences and tracking your movements so that it can target its ads at you and only you.
The Internet is just a means of communication, like television, radio or newspapers.
The key feature of web.2.0 that is currently driving change is its intense focus on the individual.
But the 21st century is in danger of being the first era in history to value mass, mediocrity and water-cooler chitchat over individual geniuses, expertise, courage and leadership.
Except, that is.if you use Shopper's Voice.
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or: http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Marketing is not taken as seriously

Marketing is not taken as seriously by our colleagues and the public as we would like, but we have only ourselves to blame. We tend to set goals that cannot be fulfilled, such as sustained growth, brand differentiation, persuasive advertising, added values, maximising profits or shareholder value, and instant new knowledge based on just a single isolated set of data.

When romantic goals fail to materialise, marketing gets blamed. To combat this, we need to set and work toward more realistic goals so that marketing can be appreciated for what it can and cannot do.
Shopper's Voice allows marketing to be appreciated for what it can, and does, do!
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or: http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Shopper's Voice creates reasons to buy your brand!

For most marketers it goes without saying that your brand needs to differentiate to be bought. But this is romantic make-believe. What “reason” does anyone have for choosing Pepsi over Coke or American Airlines over United Airlines?

Markets continue to show that competitive brands are mostly very similar. Any difference between brands that is important to sales gets copied very quickly. The advantages of being an early mover are not guaranteed. Competition will also learn from the innovator’s mistakes, and try harder anyway.

Minor differences between brands are generally not deemed important enough to be described on the packaging, mentioned in the advertisements, or copied by the competition. So consumers are left to choose between what seem like largely substitutable, similar offerings
Use Shopper's Voice and save money at the same time be substantially more effective!
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or: http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Customers do indeed want deeper engagement

with the brands and products they care about. At the same time, companies that embraced a culture and philosophy of co-creation are realizing that open collaboration is instrumental in keeping a competitive edge.
Shopper's Voice is all about co-creation and open collaboration.
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or: http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

The Benefits of using Shopper's Voice

Companies benefit from customer insights which in turn delivers customers benefit through product satisfaction. This in turn increases sales while saving customers time and increasing their productivity. Of course, co-creation promotes loyalty and builds pride and a sense of recognition, which equally lowers customer service costs while building a strong community of customers and advocates.
You get all of this and more with Shopper's Voice
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

The Future of Business is not Created, It’s Co-Created

Customer influence is growing and when they’re not focusing attention on one another, they’re focusing activity toward the things that move them. As we know, brands and organizations are the recipients of sentiment, both good and bad. It’s what we do with the feedback and insights that define the brand in the future. In addition to brand, competitive advantages will lean toward businesses that embrace customer engagement to shape and steer experiences and innovate future products, services and uses.

Shopper's Voice has established that customers do indeed want deeper engagement with the brands and products they care about. At the same time, companies that embraced a culture and philosophy of co-creation are realizing that open collaboration is instrumental in keeping a competitive edge. At that's Shopper's Voice!
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

SHOPPER'S VOICE

How businesses embrace this opportunity says everything about how they view customers and the relationships they’re shaping as a result. Equally, how businesses measure success in this new frontier also says everything about how they value customer relationships. Hearing it this way makes the measurement of Likes, followers, views or +1′s seem trivial. And, thinking about customer value and how to deliver it where attention is focused makes us rethink website traffic as a KPI. Instead, businesses must embrace a new perspective, one that takes the lessons rife within social media to build a more meaningful engagement strategy for building customer relationships and growing new opportunities.
Now you can do all this at http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com

Suddenly, it's no longer about the "campaign."

Suddenly, it's no longer about the "campaign." Rather, it's about understanding the social influence of your own loyal consumers. What are these people interested in, what are they actually buying, and how can they be turned into a word-of-mouth marketing powerhouse? Advertisers have always known that an endorsement from a trusted source is the most powerful marketer. Just now they are coming to understand that they can decipher, court, and empower their "socially-influential" customers to do just that—a much more rewarding enterprise than simply trying to move a widget.
Cut through the clutter use Shopper's Voice and solve all your Social Media needs.
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or contact: http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

From now on

From now on, brands must start with a marketing lynchpin of "who" versus the "what." By examining your business through a social filter, you'll not only cultivate social awareness, you will bring the inherent power of your brand graph into fruition; the ability to sell more during the holidays and to cast an even wider net for future sales.

Cut through the clutter use Shopper's Voice and solve all your Social Media problems!

Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or: http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Banner ads fail

Part of the challenge is that a thoughtful brand insertion into a highly personalized conversation on a social network runs into a scaling problem. Banner ads, by contrast, scale very easily, but they are proving to be thoroughly ineffective, Research figures estimate the clickthrough rate on banner ads placed on social networks at about 0.04 percent.

The new, two-way medium that the social networks have become demands a new approach to advertising.
You can't just put up a big banner that says Click me. Banner ads fail because social network users are accustomed to seeing them, and ignoring them has become a reflex.
Use Shopper's Voice and solve all your Social Media problems.
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Social media is killing Internet advertising

One of the great questions facing today's advertisers is how to reach consumers in a media environment where control of the content is not in the hands of a consolidated publisher, but distributed among the millions of individuals who collectively make up powerful online communities.
Social media is killing Internet advertising,the problem is, a few years ago, people started to become more interested in each other and less interested in the ads."

For most people working in the online advertising world, the question of whether social networks are a passing fad has perhaps been answered with the burgeoning popularity of communities such as Facebook and MySpace.

While the sites are here to stay, even the companies who have done the very best at turning Internet ads into cash machines have struggled when it comes to reaching their highly engaged users.
Use Shopper's Voice and solve all your Social Media Problems in one go.
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Tip for local business owners:

Improve your online prominence by ensuring that your business is listed on all key local search engines (e.g. Google Places) and the leading online business directories (e.g. Yelp & Superpages).
You can check if your business is already listed on these directories by using a tool like Local SEO Check-Up (by BrightLocal) or www.AmIVisible.org.

Above all else, to cut through all the clutter simply use http://shoppers-voice.co.uk
Improve your online prominence with Shopper's Voice
Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

SHOPPER'S VOICE

is about providing value in the life of the consumer: entertainment value, social value and belief value, actually letting the audience share ownership of your brand

Visit: http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

The Internet is just a means of communication,

The Internet is just a means of communication, like television, radio or newspapers.
The key feature of web.2.0 that is currently driving change is its intense focus on the individual.
But the 21st century is in danger of being the first era in history to value mass, mediocrity and water-cooler chitchat over individual geniuses, expertise, courage and leadership.

Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

The Social Advertising Media website

The Social Advertising Media Web site (SAM) called Shoppers' Voice. is the perfect answer to the ever-increasing question as to how to advertise on the Web
Titled “Shoppers Voice” it makes an interactive “Event” as Social Media, with multiple brands providing entertainment through “Games” plus original web content. Key to the whole Web site is the fact that the whole ethos of Shoppers’ Voice is totally within the customers point of view, allowing them to be totally open in their opinions of products & services.
Providing you..... with an "integrated communication" approach that ties all aspects of your Marketing Communication including advertising, sales promotion, Public Relations & Direct Marketing, in a unified and comprehensive fashion as opposed to functioning in isolation!

Over 79% of web users expect something of value in return for taking notice of advertisements, whether that 'something' is pure entertainment, a relevant message or access to learning something new. The Social Advertising Media Website “Shoppers’ Voice” provides all the “rewards” expected through a high degree of involvement and learning and game playing.

Therefore, to encourage participation and interaction with the brands, Shopper’s Voice will feature games, whereby through this online experience, participants can win prizes just for becoming involved. In addition there will be opportunities for the brands to download offers such as money off coupons or other promotional incentives that fit in with the brand strategy.

The Social Advertising Media Website , “Shoppers’ Voice”, creates a dialogues between your brand’s advertising and the customer, cuts through clutter, creates active, meaningful advertising and actually alters behaviour during the learning process.
Shoppers’ Voice is about providing value in the life of the consumer: entertainment value, social value and belief value, actually letting the audience share ownership of your brand.

Shoppers’ Voice brands will develop a personality and be a brand that people want to be ‘friends’ with. The guiding principle of Shoppers’ Voice will be to offer things that are not available elsewhere, things that give social kudos or bragging rights. Brands are part of the fabric of people's lives and ultimately most are happy to be identified as friends of a brand.

Shopper's Voice is relevant in the current market because consumers are overwhelmed with the constant flow of information they receive on a daily basis(Commercial clutter). So businesses need to convince them of the relevance of their messages in order to gain their attention. This means that online marketers need to think hard how to better target and engage with their time-poor audiences.

Shoppers’ Voice cuts through the clutter by altering the customers’ perception to the presentation and content of brand advertising by seeking their advice, preferences, involvement, improvements etc.As the Shoppers’ Voice(S.A.M) site develops many more database points can be added according to the customer’s individual requests.

Participants will be left with a memorable brand experience and advertisers will have a better picture of how their consumers behave with their product through a vast amount of feedback and analysis.


SHOPPERS' VOICE - SOME DAY ALL ADVERTISING WILL BE LIKE THIS!


Contact: paulashby40@yahoo.com or http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

The romantic view is that advertising is powerful

It is supposed to persuade people to change what they feel, think or do. Otherwise why would companies spend millions on it?

Yet in practice this isn’t the case. Literature sports no evidence on many lasting, persuasive effects of advertising – at least not enough to justify a global spend of billions. Although people see or hear hundreds or thousands of ads a day, mostly they do nothing in response, so sales and images seldom change. Why else the incessant chest-beating about advertising’s lack of accountability?

Competent brand advertising generally does not fail, but people’s exotic expectations of its outcome do. Advertising lacks consistently dynamic effects, once again because of competition.
Only Shopper's Voice consistently persuades people to change what they feel and buy!
Contact paulashby40@yahoo.com http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

Companies that create

Companies that create the most shareholder value will be ones that put the consumer in the center and build their products, services and marketing plans for them. Companies that fail to power up their connections and tap into those connections in a meaningful way will fail to grow.

And with http://shoppers-voice.co.uk you create the most shareholder value ever!

people want to do their own weird,

people want to do their own weird, idiosyncratic things (that are not advertiser-friendly or family-friendly) on social-networking sites. They're generally not looking to shop or bond with brands or otherwise serve as sponges for marketing messages.

Shopper's Voice is the most advertising friendly SAM (Social Advertising Media)

Contact: paul@shoppers-voice.co.uk or at http://shoppers-voice.co.uk

The truth about social-media sites

The truth about social-media sites is that they've never been particularly great environments for advertising. People immerse themselves in social media because they want to socialize.

Visit

contact paulashby40@yahoo.com or paul@shoppers-voice.co,uk