Worthwhile Reading - Week Ending 04/27/2008

Here are some topics of interest I’ve read in the past week. Definitely worth your time to read. Read more

Credibility

Iconoclast posted this interesting quote:

“Since I’ve been blogging, morning shows feel like they’re staged, whereas the mommy blogs are pretty authentic — to the point of being almost too honest sometimes. It’s a way to get fresh information from other moms, like a virtual moms group. I don’t see a need to watch the morning shows.
Beth Blecherman, a former Today viewer and mother of three, Los Angeles Times | 2.9.07″

Brand loyalty and influence

Media Post reported the results of a new study: Some 13-34s Show High Brand Loyalty

A new study of 10,000 respondents confirmed that a portion of the 13-34 age group are opinionated and passionate to the point of influencing friends and family.

15-20% of the respondents fell into a category dubbed “Brand Sirens.”

“Those sirens have a profound network effect on marketing through their ability to influence friends and family via word-of-mouth, viral video and applications such as instant messaging and blogs, among other media.”

Here are a few other key insights confirmed in the research:

• 2 in 3 “Brand Sirens” care about the brands they use
• 7 in 10 say they love some brands
• 43% of the Brand Sirens wish they could find brands they could stick with and more than 40 percent would switch brands if another brand came onto the market that seemed more enticing.
• 82% indicated that they talk about brands with their friends.
• 70% of those surveyed send e-mails to friends about products and services
• 77% post reviews and product feedback online

One of the most surprising findings of the research is that while Brand Sirens are skeptical about corporations and marketing, they can also serve as a marketer’s strongest advocate via blogs, word-of-mouth, social networks, and other largely consumer-generated new media platforms. “There is this juxtaposition between skepticism and advocacy.”

DVR viewer behavior

For those following Digital Video Recorder (DVR) usage with interest, Mediamark Research Inc. (MRI) released results of their Spring 2006 Research study and suggests that adults in households that have digital video recorders watch less TV than adults in the general population.

Excerpts:

“More Than 11% of Adults Live in Households That Have DVR’s.”

“U.S. adults whose households have a digital video recorder (DVR) are more upscale than those that do not and are more likely to be heavy readers of magazines and newspapers.”

“20% of all adults who watch 44.5 or more hours of television per week.”

“15.7% of adults in DVR-owning households who watch that many hours.”

“36.8% of adults with DVR’s have a college education and 17.1% have average household income exceeding $150,000.”

“Of adults with DVR’s in the household, 15.7% have home values exceeding $500,000.”

Methodology:
In-home interviews conducted by Mediamark with 26,000 adults between March 2005 and May 2006.

Concerns:
Advertisers worry about viewers time shifting/skipping past commercials.

Researchers for the major networks told advertisers in November that people in households with a DVR watched 12% more hours of TV a day than those without.

CBS says the Mediamark numbers were unreliable, because they were derived from people’s often-low reports of their own TV watching. The figures suggesting that adults who use a DVR watch more television come from Arbitron’s 2,000-person machine-recorded survey in the spring of 2005, but it covered only the Houston market.

CBS further maintains that their own research indicates that whatever their level of TV viewing, viewers tend to watch more television after getting the devices than before.

Links:

• Mediamark ResearchPress Release
• NYTimes.com: Does a DVR Boost Viewing Hours or Not?
  

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

Article: Basic Computer Classes Near Extinction

Interesting comment…

InformationWeek: Basic Computer Classes Near Extinction

“Because today’s students are already so tech-savvy, educators are using computers to teach other subjects instead of needing to teach basic computer literacy.”

“The days of basic computer classes are nearly over,” … “Today’s students already know how to operate computers. They blog; they text message; they have their own Web sites. We want to help students and teachers see technology as a means to improve learning and performance.”

“Sixty-three percent of teachers reported having “somewhat advanced” to “advanced” technology skills and three-fourths consider themselves competent or highly competent when using technology for student assessments, evaluations and developing critical thinking skills.”

Back around 1980-81, my elementary school began it’s computer science program. I think I was in 8th grade at the time. A teacher would go to computer class on Wednesday night and on Thursday morning try to teach us to program “For-Next” loops in BASIC on a Tandy TRS-80. We’d make the word “DOG” run down the page repeatedly, then step by increments of 1 to the right, then fill the entire screen with the word.

Now, at age 4, my kids started turning the computer on, loading CDs and running their favorite education games.

What was your first introduction to computers? Please post your comments. Thanks.
-Roland

Roland Reinhart is an interactive marketing professional. His observations can be found at NewMediaSandbox.com and Chaos365.com.

©2006 Roland Reinhart. All Rights Reserved.

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