(This is the second and last part of a blog detailing the opportunities businesses have to become “creative disruptors” and engage in inclusive and sustainable development around the world. It is based upon DANIDA’s 50th anniversary conference and a paper presented there entitled “The challenge of, and opportunities for, inclusive and sustainable development” (PDF). Part one can be read here.)
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New research from Kinetic reports that 90% of U.K. internet users will shop online for holiday gifts this year, and 52% will do most of their holiday shopping online. Is your brand ready?
The data from the Kinetic research report shows that while more than half of U.K. internet users will do most of their holiday shopping online this year, just 28% expect to do most of their holiday shopping in high street shops and only 20% expect to shop in malls. All is not lost for high street shops and shopping malls though. Those simply aren’t the locations where U.K. shoppers expect to do most of their shopping this holiday season.
The shift to online shopping for holiday gifts is even more pronounced in specific categories. For example, the number of U.K. internet users who plan to purchase holiday gifts of CDs and DVDs online is twice as high as the number who plan to buy CDs and DVDs in stores. On the other hand, U.K. internet users are twice as likely to purchase holiday gifts of homeware and furniture items in stores rather than online. Specific category results follow:
One thing is for certain, online shopping is the preferred method of shopping for holiday gifts. Overall, 90% of U.K. internet users planned to shop for holiday gifts online this year, but 84% also expected to shop on the high street, and 79% still planned to shop in shopping malls and shopping centers. However, these study results highlight the transition away from brick-and-mortar retail shopping to online shopping, and this transition away from brick-and-mortar shopping will continue to grow as more people become comfortable shopping from their mobile devices.
Is your brand ready with marketing campaigns and messages that leverage consumers’ transitioning shopping preferences? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Image: Charles Thompson
This year DANIDA (the Danish International Development Agency) celebrated its 50th anniversary, making it one of the oldest international development agencies in the world. To mark this it held a big pow-wow (sorry, conference) during which a paper entitled “The challenge of, and opportunity for, inclusive and sustainable development‘ (PDF) was presented.
The conference came to the conclusion that global institutions such as the United Nations and G20 had become “ineffective” and that in many countries aid should be phased out in favour of a more commercially orientated partnership approach. These partnerships should be built with “creative disruptors” including private sector business and finance who are willing to make the difference and tackle the challenges which exist.
Reading through the paper it became more and more obvious to me that there are many, many opportunities out there for a business to become a creative disruptor and ensure that its activities build inclusive and sustainable societies. These opportunities exist not just for sector specific companies (infrastructure, extractive industries, etc) but for any business which has a stake in inclusive and sustainable development.
However, in order to do this a business also has to face up to the four fundamental challenges the paper presents and look at how its commercial expectations and timescales can be modified to take advantage of the opportunities identified.
So, without any further ado, here are those four challenges and what business can do to turn them into opportunities.
[Read more…] about Business opportunities for inclusive and sustainable development | Part 1 of 2
The iPad mini from Apple has finally launched, and Amazon was ready for it. A visit to the Amazon.com home page in the United States puts the iPad mini up against the Kindle Fire HD in a head-to-head battle complete with six key feature comparisons that are sure to matter to consumers. You can see a screenshot of the Amazon home page below. The six-point comparison shows the following differences between Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD and Apple’s iPad mini:
Click the image below to view it at full size.
Another smart addition to the Amazon home page is the quote from the popular tech site Gizmodo, which offers what Amazon hopes is an unbiased, expert opinion about the Kindle Fire HD’s superiority over the iPad mini. In the quote, Gizmodo’s writer questions Apple’s iPad mini advertising messages by asking, “… your [Apple’s] 7.9-inch tablet has far fewer pixels than the competing 7-inch tablets! You’re cramming a worse screen in there and accusing others of compromise?”
Of course, this comparison is for one model of Amazon’s Kindle versus one model of Apple’s iPad mini, but it’s presented in a way that draws attention to differentiators that matter to consumers. Amazon’s Kindle has to battle against the coolness factor of the Apple and iPad brands and communicating tangible reasons why consumers should not choose Apple and iPad is very smart.
Naturally, the iPad mini offers its own differentiators, but in the growing tablet market, Amazon is boldly attacking its primary competitor and the market leader head on. What do you think? Will it work?
Recently British Gas (BG) were round at my house. We had a problem with the boiler and .. well, after three visits they still didn’t fix it.
In the course of all this we had a new carbon monoxide alarm fitted, which BG helpfully charged £29.95 for. Somehow we forgot to pay this so a few weeks later a letter from Moon Beever arrived.
This isn’t a strange version of an Andy Williams song but a long established firm of solicitors in Central London which specialises in litigation and debt recovery.
On the left hand column of their website there is a permanent section entitled “Community Services” under which is the logo for Macmillan Cancer Support. “Oooh,” I thought. “Interesting!” So I clicked on it .. and it took me to the Macmillan Cancer Support website. Not so interesting.
There’s nothing exciting about Moon Beever’s association with Macmillan and I suspect it’s more about donating to a friend’s legacy (Debbie’s Fund) rather than corporate responsibility.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure the firm are acting will all best intentions and they should be applauded for the terrific fund-raising they’ve done.
However there must be many SME businesses out there who want to “do something” in CSR but think it’s horribly complicated or painful. I’ve come across a very simple way you can fulfil your CSR ambitions in only 10 days. And here it is….
Trademark and patent protections are vital to brands, but is there a time when too many lawsuits (or threats of lawsuits) over trademark and patent infringements can start to negatively tarnish consumers’ perceptions of a brand and damage the brand? If you look at the history of Apple’s patent suits, the answer is yes.
Matt Assay of The Register shared the graphic below from Verizon (published by Forbes) that depicts the “insane” number of smartphone competitor patent lawsuits. However, from the average consumer’s perspective, most of these lawsuits go unnoticed and don’t affect their perceptions of the brands behind them.
Click the image to view it at full size.
For the average consumer, brands like Apple, Google, and Microsoft dominate the buzz about mobile tech lawsuits with short-term buzz about associated brands like HTC and Samsung popping up occasionally. Consumers hear about the big brands hiring employees to focus on trademark and patent litigation, and a natural progression of human emotion ultimately follows – when people start to root for the underdog. That’s where smaller tech brands can position themselves to carve chunks out of mobile tech market share.
When does trademark and patent litigation shift from protecting a company’s assets and brand equity to bullying and arrogance? Fortunately, social media buzz can help brand’s identify reputation shifts, but operating from a position of brand dominance and leadership often leads to brand arrogance, a topic I’ve written about before for Corporate Eye.
We’ve seen brand arrogance hurt brands in the past with Microsoft offering one of the best examples, but Apple has been heading down the same path of brand arrogance in recent years. Will consumers’ perceptions of the Apple brand (or other brands heading down a similar path) be so tarnished by perceived arrogance that they’ll turn to another brand? Will Apple (and other brands heading down the same path) recognize the problem and fix it before it’s too late?
Only time will tell, but demise by brand arrogance isn’t a new phenomenon. What do you think? Which brand do you think is too far down the path of brand arrogance to save itself? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
