Infomagination

Rail staff face 'smile police'

Where does good customer service end and Big Brother begin?

From the story below, it seems that the emphasis in Japan is well and truly on the former. 

I'd like to see them try and introduce something like this in the UK, however!

(no seriously, there are some right miserable lumps on our trains these days...)

How much should firms be allowed to monitor their staff during working hours?  Does it matter if you're being watched by a robot, rather than human, boss?  What role can machines play in delivering feedback/training?

Once these were questions for companies of the future.  Now they're questions for companies of the present.  So what do you think?

Rail staff face 'smile police'  
 
A Japanese rail firm has introduced a system to check that staff are smiling enough at all times.

Computerised scanners around 15 Tokyo stations will measure the smile's curvature to ensure it is broad enough.

Those failing to measure up - literally - will be advised to look less serious and more cheerful.

The system will also be introduced at a hospital in Osaka to check staff friendliness and at a truck stop to measure the tiredness of drivers.

The BBC's Roland Buerk, in Tokyo, says that the Japanese highly value customer service.

It is standard practice, our correspondent explains, for smartly-dressed train conductors to bow as customers enter and leave train carriages.

The software has been developed by Japanese firm Omron.

They suggests that future applications may include shops - where they could be positioned to measure the reaction of customers to products on display.

BBC News, Saturday 11th July.

DIY buzz monitoring with Nielsen BlogPulse

This week, I've been having a play with Nielsen BlogPulse, which is a handy little free tool where you can map the frequency of different terms appearing in blogs.  For instance, if we try MP+expenses then you can see how the expenses scandal suddenly rocketed - and is still simmering away, despite things cooling off a bit.

Turning to brands, you can track the spike in chatter caused by the fuss over M&S charging more for larger bras - nearly over now, it seems.

  

It's also interesting to compare brands, brand endlines or creative territories.  From the charts below, you can see that Nike not only tracks significantly above Adidas generally, but that "just do it" is a much bigger part of popular culture than "impossible is nothing" (at least where bloggers are concerned).

 

In terms of knowing what the public are saying or thinking, there's nothing scientific here, of course.  Little pieces of evidence mount up, however, and this kind of thing definitely makes both interesting food for thought and good conversation fodder with clients.  I'll certainly be experimenting with ways to apply this kind of tool to planning, creating and monitoring my campaigns in the future - and I think you should too.

The 100 most Twittered about brands

Just picked this up on Brand Republic...  Fun looking at how few followers a lot of the big brands have, even if they do get talked about.  Not surprising, though.  How many of them really have anything interesting to say?

		Brand Mentions	Followers
1	Starbucks	3.37m	120,868	@Starbucks
2	Google	1.01m	307,342	@Google
3	BBC	703,000	15.777	@bbcnews
4	Apple	512,110		None
5	AIG	455,000		None
6	Amazon	245,760	1007	@amazon
7	Microsoft	221,000		None
8	Guardian	211,000	14,913	@guardiannews
9	Dell	185,000	287,575
10	Coca-Cola	135,600		None
11	Ford	130,000	2,256	@ford
12	Sony PlayStation	117,550	20,651	@SonyPlayStation
13	eBay	107,000	1329	@ebayUK
14	Sony	107,000		None
15	Disney	106,000	7,354	@wdwnews
16	Yahoo!	94,500	9,541	@yahoo
17	Sky	74,370	10,248	@SkyNews
18	IKEA	72,300		None
19	IBM	70,400	1,180	@ibmevents
20	Nokia	68,100		None
21	Ford Scott Monty	62,600	16,562	@scottmonty
22	Guinness	59,700		None
23	HP	56,720	1,682	@hpnews
24	ComCast	50,400	14,688	@comcastcares
25	Skittles	48,600		None
26	Canon	48,200	605	@canon
27	McDonald's	45,340	234	@MONOPOLYatMcD
28	Channel 4	39,300	6,932	@channel4news
29	Lego	39,100		None
30	Pepsi	37,400	757	@pepsi
31	Samsung	35,800	582	@samsungmobileus
32	Intel	35,700	464	@intel
33	Tesco	35,500		None
34	Nike	32,800	1,167	@nikeplus
35	Honda	31,400	2,693	@Alicia_at_Honda
36	BMW	30,600	1,265	@BMWSauberF1Team
37	T-Mobile	29,900	1,443	@TMobile_USA
38	BT	27,540		None
39	FedEx	27,100	1,108	@mattceni
40	O2	25,900	2,371	@O2UKOfficial
41	Vodafone	25,400	802	@Vodafone_News
42	Bosch	25,300		None
43	RyanAir	25,200		None
44	Toyota	22,600	2,321	@toyotanewsroom
45	VW	22,190		None
46	Mercedes	21,600	1,506	@TheFifthDriver
47	Subway	21,200		None
48	Cadbury	19,900		None
49	Audi	18,600		None
50	Burger King	18,500	2,496	@thebklounge
51	Marmite	15,600		lovehatemarmite
52	Chanel	14,700		None
53	Citi	12,600		None
54	EasyJet	11,800		@easyjetservice
55	H&M	11,500	2,701	@handm
56	Porsche	10,600		None
57	Zara	10,000		None
58	Gucci	9,990	436	@gucciofficial
59	Nissan	9,740		@NissanSports
60	UPS	8,960	5,381	@trackthis
61	Motorola	8,320	346	@motodev
62	Avon	8,132		None
63	Marks & Spencer	7,900		None
64	Heinz	7,500		None
65	Royal Bank of Scotland	6,945		None
66	Asda	6,650	147	@asda
67	Accenture	5,970	2,126	@Accenture
68	HSBC	5,760		None
69	Lexus	5,690		None
70	British Airways	5,670	1,202	@British_Airways
71	Siemens	5,640		None
72	Gillette	5,250		None
73	Barclays	4,840		None
74	Sainsbury's	4,300		None
75	Budweiser	3,980		None
76	Louis Vuitton	3,950		None
77	Lovefilm	3,720	1,503	@lovefilm_uk
78	Smirnoff	3,380	514	@Smirnoff_EXP
79	Banco Santander	3,330		None
80	UBS	3,330		None
81	Shell	3,100		@shelldotcom
82	Colgate	2,870		None
83	L'Oreal	2,813		None
84	Citroen	2,810		None
85	Rolex	2,630		None
86	Cartier	2,100		None
87	Knorr	2,030		None
88	PG Tips	1,400		None
89	Oxo	829		None
90	Birdseye	748		None
91	Levi's	700		None
92	Specsavers	665		None
93	Duracell	621		None
94	BP	600		None
95	Schweppes	570		None
96	Habitat	500		None
97	Direct Line	500		None
98	Andrex	474		@Andrexpuppy
99	Vauxhal	470		@vauxhallnewsuk
100	Dulux	208		None

Readings taken over a "several day period" in April.

Marketing effectiveness: scary business?

As I've said before, the complex nature of the world we live in makes measuring marketing effectiveness downright tricky at the best of times.  Working out whether something's worked and why requires a lot of detective work and information, which is all too often severely limited.  Since I read this article in The Guardian, however, I've been wondering how much another factor has been holding back developments in measuring effectiveness: fear. 

In the article, Guardian Bad Science columnist Ben Goldacre highlights a bunch of studies whose results go against our assumptions - explaining how, without proper investigation, the wrong conclusion would have been reached.  In it he says:

Robust trials on social policy could happen routinely, if politicians weren't scientifically ignorant and terrified of the possibility that they might have to state - with simple, constructive honesty: "Well, we tried this idea, in all good faith, but it didn't work so we're dropping it now."

Yes, marketing evaluation is a tricky business - and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing - but for all the technical, budget and other limitations, could we also paint a picture of our industry if we replaced a few words in that paragraph..?

Why Sixth Sense could change everything (and I'm not talking about the Bruce Willis film)

Okay, this is pretty amazing - and a mad sign of things to come.  The clever clogs over at MIT have been wowing audiences at the latest TED conference with an incredible piece of technology they call Sixth Sense.  The wearable (and highly affordable!) prototype they've developed not only lets you take a hands on approach to interacting with your computer (Minority Report style) but promises breakthrough integration between the real world and the world of data.  It's the potential to get instant information on just about anything, just by pointing at it, that gives the technology its name. 

I hate to use the word "revolutionary," but there's no doubt that this thing rocks.  And it goes without saying that it really could change the way we live, let alone buy stuff (Gartner's Hype Cycle notwithstanding:) and I won't even go into its potential for marketing evaluation...

Take a look:

Looks like Faris' vision of the "Invisible Web" could be closer than we think...

Addictomatic: inhale the web

Stumbled across a neat little site this morning that makes it easy for you to suck up the latest buzz on whatever you're into, by drawing together customisable feeds from a whole range of sources (iGoogle style).  It's called Addictomatic and here's what it gave me for a random run on Selfridges:

 

A nice, at a glance way of getting the latest news, plus a spot of insight into your brand, celebrity, football team or anything of choice, I reckon.  From a quick look at the above, you can instantly see that Selfridges new acid house exhibition is cutting through on Twitter and the news, plus that there's also been  some less positive stuff about dead mice in the dining area of their Birmingham store (yuck!).  It's also delivered me a some thought provoking videos and photos from Youtube and Flickr.  Two girls laughing as they drive to Selfridges in their convertible.  Someone's photo of the stunning Birmingham store, simply captioned "Do I fit in here?"   Just a few of the "scraps and straws" that Selfridges brand is built upon (to quote Mr Bullmore).

All things that I could find out by going to these sites separately, but it's nice and easy to have everything in one place.  More filters are needed to make sure that the info that comes back is really relevant but more feeds and smarter search mechanisms must surely be around the corner - whether it's from these guys or Google.   Even with these limitations, it's definitely the kind of site I'd visit every now and again, to get a feel for what the world is making of my brands and enjoy a spot of "inspiration grazing".  Addictomatic wants you to "inhale the web."  I say, suck it and see...

Massively useful viral tracking website alert!

 

Hello, I just discovered a really cool website and I'm telling EVERYBODY about it.  www.viralvideochart.com lists the most contagious videos out there on the web, along with graphs showing their rise and fall in popularity.  It also tracks blog posts about them and the buzz by language.

Massively useful for keeping track of what's popular right now, I reckon.  Perfect fuel for chats with creatives and clients alike.  Also massively entertaining, given that this is the cream of what's out there on the web.  Check out Her Morning Elegance if you have a tea break later.  Lovely stuff. 

And if you haven't seen David After Dentist yet, your February hasn't even started...

Facebook: from social network to real time research panel extraordinaire?

 

Look at that smiling face.  Yep, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, deserves to be a very happy man indeed.  After all, not only has he created something that can genuinely claim to be changing the world, but he's also made an awful lot of money for a 24 year old.  What's more, it seems that Mark and his friends at Facebook have finally worked out how to make even more cash - by leveraging Facebook's vast stores of personal data to turn it into a massive 150 million strong research panel. 

This article in today's Telegraph tells you all about it - including a neat real time demo at the service's official launch, which polled Israeli's and Palestinians with the same questions about peace and 120,000 Americans about Obama's economic policies.  The dream is for multinationals to be able to do the same thing and get rapid, robust feedback on issues that might once have taken weeks to research.

With all the personal data we put in there already, Facebook certainly has a head start when it comes to finding the right people for brands to talk to.  Given that people have signed up to have fun and keep in touch with their mates, however, not get hassled for their opinion, they'll have to tred a bit carefully to make sure they don't piss off their users.  That said, if it's done on an opt-out basis, manage the experience for the users and ideally offer a reward for participation, then I'm sure they'll find a sizeable population of people up for giving their opinion every now and again.  From a marketer's point of view, it'll be really interesting to see what kind of functionality they'll be able to offer in terms of research.  Seeing as they'll be keen to start getting people on board, and build up those all important case studies, now's a good time to ask them I reckon.  With a bit of luck you might even swing yourself a freebie or two!

Who wants to be a Million Dollar Trader?

I don't know about you, but my current favourite bit of Monday night telly is Million Dollar Traders (9pm, BBC2).  Whilst it doesn't quite have the body count of the new series of Dexter (ITV4, 10pm), I couldn't think of a more perfect reality TV show for a nation in the throws of economic meltdown.

In the programme, eight ordinary people are given a million dollars, a fortnight of intensive training and two months to run their own hedge fund.  In a piece of immensely bad luck for the traders (but a miracle for the programme's viewing figures) the economy starts to slide within the first few weeks of their run.  Watching this rag bag bunch of novices trying to turn a buck in such unpredictable circumstances is gripping viewing that also provides a thoroughly digestible peek into the volatile, interlinked nature of the global economy.  This clip shows how a missile test in Iran affects oil prices, which in turn damages British Airways' share price.

What's clear from the programme is that trading is a rapidly changing game, where action must be taken - and fresh bets placed - at the first sign of an event.  At the game's heart is the trader's console, where information about the world's markets is fed through in real time and share prices are sketched out like the lifeline on an ECG.  It's this up to the second data that makes trading so fast paced and reactive.

The thought for the rest of us is that, with time, increasing digitisation and technological advances mean that marketing data will only come through quicker and more plentifully.  Marketing dashboards, which bring together key data sets so that organisations can assess their ongoing performance, will get closer and closer to real time - and we will get closer to having our own version of the trader's console.  At the same time, digitisation will also help our communication to become quicker and more targetted, giving us a trader's ability to react. 

Whilst there will always be a need for ongoing ideas that glue a brand's comms together, the ability for brands to react to events and information quickly, with timely, targeted comms - and optimise campaigns iteratively, as circumstances change - is a tough task that's all set to separate the winners and losers of the future.  Re-shaping comms agencies around speed of response will be a major challenge, but one with the potential to bring serious rewards for those who can pull it off.  Fast strategy is one thing - but how about throwing the rest of it in there too..?

As the Million Dollar Traders have found out, life in the fast lane can be pretty stressful.  But where there's risk, there's also reward and - as Dexter would tell you - if you make the right calls at the right time, you can really make a killing.

We don’t want to read information any more. We want to see it. Feel it.

That's what David McCandless said at this year's Under the Influence conference - and personally, I couldn't agree with him more.  You see, whilst we humans like to pretend we're rational & verbal, the truth is that we're emotional & visual (just ask a neuroscientist).  That means it's not the brain that's the real target for our information, but these little beauties:

                      

Pure human nature is driving data visual - and data visualisation is turning information into "infographics" that allow us to explore and understand even highly complicated information, whilst connecting it with our eyes and hearts.

The best visualisations turn data into an involving and engaging story.  Here's one of my all time favourites.  In the wrong hands, this information about the world’s oil production and consumption could easily have been expressed in two factually correct, but ultimately expressionless, bar charts.  The use of a map instantly helps us understand and process the information, turning it into a work of art that speaks volumes about America’s relationship with the East.  As a wise man once said, “you get the picture.” 

What patterns would we spot in our geographical data, if only we had the right tools to bring it to life?

The best idea I've seen for presenting data recently, though, comes from this conference video, where Sony take us through their business performance using Little Big Planet for the Playstation 3.  In case you're not familiar with it, Little Big Planet is a platform game where you can create your own levels, full of interactive, customisable objects and tools - so what a great idea to use those tools to breathe life into some static statistics?  How much more interesting would tracking debriefs be if Millward Brown used Little Big Planet instead of Powerpoint?  And does this mean I can convince work to get me a PS3 on expenses?!

That's it from me for now, but I'll be posting up other cool visualisations as I find them - and if you'd like to find out more just check out this great article on data visualisation by Faris Yakob & Noah Brier - and the extensive set of links here - then go create your own visualisations at IBM's wonderful Many Eyes site.  It might just change the way you feel about data, so go see for yourself!