The last few weeks have seen a flurry of articles suggesting the unthinkable; that the sheen might finally be wearing off the Apple brand.  (5 Truths That Explain Our Love-Hate Affair With Apple from Fast Company is probably our favourite).

Before I get lynched by my Apple-loving colleagues for suggesting such heresy perhaps we should engage in a little market research to see what consumers really think?

It feels like a good time to re-enact the much told story of how Innocent’s founders tested out their smoothies at a London music festival, with bins marked ‘yes’ or ‘no’ depending on whether punters thought they should ditch their day jobs to make the drinks full-time.  Replace bins with piles of t-shirts and we could have a little fun:

The pile that runs out fastest wins…

In the connected retail environment developing in the UK the trend for social, location based and mobile forms of exchange are on the increase. Fuelled by growth in smartphones and data networks the integration of the digital world with the in store shopping experience is on the rise. Two thirds of smartphone users in the US say they use them while in store, with 9% using them for coupon redemption. The latter point highlights that it’s not only technological shifts driving the behaviour; economic conditions are also leading shoppers to make smarter decisions using whatever platform they have at their disposal.

I’ve seen recently that shopper marketing departments are growing and the focus of many is to understand how digital integration can support and enhance the shopper experience. It’s a noble quest and one I’m sure will pay dividends in the future. If shopper marketing planning fails to recognise that a great deal of shoppers research and planning is affected digitally and via social media, even for in-store purchases, then they could be missing out.

Key to understanding the role of integrated media for brands in the shopping environment is as follows:

• Forget AIDA – what does the journey now look like and where can/does digital play a role?

• Get SoLoMo – Bring shoppers the right content, media or offers at the right time using their smartphones as the intermediary.

• There is no single answer – research how the role of digital integration can function most effectively in your category and for your shoppers.

At the Value Engineers our Digital Strategy Team can help with all three.

When talking to consumers in their 20’s we are finding that the more digitally savvy are moving to no longer paying for TV licenses - streaming content from their laptops instead.

They dislike and see no need for a TV schedule, preferring to watch programmes as they become available; and when they do are happy to binge watch a whole series.

‘House of Cards’ is the first show made specifically for Netflix to be downloaded and watched in one sitting. Rather than introducing one episode a week, as distributors have done since the days of black-and-white TVs, all 13 episodes will be streamed at the same time with the goal of shutting down a portion of America for a whole day.

In addition to helping you explore the world around you, discovery tools lend themselves neatly to the challenge of extracting meaningful information from the large data sets that are increasingly the staple of business life.

Whilst Google Now (#GoogleNow) packages up information about your everyday life, another Google related product, Consumer Barometer, packages up information on the role of online channels in the consumer purchase journey.  For example, it makes it easy to compare and contrast the use of search engines in the purchase journey across sectors and geographies.

As with Google Now, the key to the success of the tool is in its ability to only ever present a manageable amount of information; you’re never swamped with data and it’s easy to drill down should you want more detail.  When coupled with some rather impressive visualisation this makes the information easier to absorb and makes this a pretty powerful tool; definitely another One to Watch for 2013.

The world is rapidly changing and it is time to look beyond the next few years and start thinking about the long-term!

We believe in the power of long-term strategic planning. We have a proven record of helping our clients to plan and develop a successful long-term innovation pipeline

2020 Visioning is a process to help identify the key future impacts to your business over the next 5-10 years and define a series of future project charters that will help you to respond to these scenarios.

THE BENEFITS OF OUR APPROACH

Future focused
We will help the team to think about the long-term future impacts rather than the short team

Multiple perspectives
We believe in the power of cross-functional teams and making the connections from a range of different sources and opinions

Stretch thinking
We help stretch the teams thinking by providing a range of thought-provoking fictional, yet plausible events that could have a significant impact on categories, brands, regions and consumers

Action focused
We ensure there are written agreed project charters and senior level commitment to make the long-term action plans happen!

“There are three kinds of company:
those who MAKE things happen;
those who WATCH things happen;
and those who WONDER what’s happened”.