Latest content highlights on warc.com include an in-depth look at achieving influence, how brand owners are embracing mobile and insights on engaging consumers at both ends of the age spectrum.

How to achieve influence

"There is currently much debate and disagreement around what 'influence' really is, and how it can be achieved, if at all as a controlling action, writes Admap editor Colin Grimshaw, introducing a series of articles in the magazine's current issue.

In How influence works (open access), Ed Keller (of Keller Fay fame) says marketers should focus on real-world relationships and not be seduced by the myth that social media offers the best path.

Drawing on behavioural science, Mark Earls's Push-you-pull-me contends that social influence is consumers – aka 'homo mimicus' - copying other people rather than being pushed through advocacy.

Other articles examine influence as a 'flock' response, identify emotion as a driver of online sharing and call for strategic and executional rigour when measuring the ROI of influencer campaigns.

Elsewhere, you'll find insights on ad recall and behaviour, cultivating creativity in the workplace and storytelling with quant data.

Browse the full issue at warc.com/admap. Summary:
Using data from Keller Fay, this piece explains what makes an influencer, how to find an influencer and how it identifies what it calls Conversation Catalysts - Keller Fay’s trade name to describe types of influencers.
It is a mistake for the marketing community to be blinded by social media as a surefire way to identify influencers. They do have a role to play in the spread of ideas and influence, but there is a body of evidence to suggest that it is misguided to look exclusively or even largely at online influence. It remains critically important to define and understand influencers based on:
** people's real-life friends and connections and the influence that they spread, offline in the real world. **
This is where the preponderance of word-of-mouth and social influence takes place.

 

Brand owners embracing mobile

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) recent Mobile Marketing conference revealed how a series of major U.S. brand owners are realising the opportunities offered by the smartphone phenomenon.

First came the candid admission from Disney that "we were not doing as good a job as we needed to in its theme parks, a shortfall that is leading to the integration of mobile across all its consumer touchpoints, from the booking of holidays to the launch of in-park apps.

Then Mondelez International (formerly part of Kraft Foods) shared its views on how mobile video can boost reach, create interplay with TV advertising and be instrumental in stimulating impulse purchasing.

And in Decoding the digital wallet, Mastercard discussed how it is having to reconsider a world with neither cash nor plastic, in which mobile-enabled payments are forecast to top $600bn in 2016.

Browse our Event Reports section for more of our conference coverage.

 

Engaging young and old

At a recent briefing on Generation Y, we heard a research finding to make James Dean turn in his grave. Gen Y consumers in 15 different markets cited the same top role models:
their friends and ... their mother and their father. It reflects the more inclusive approach their parents took to child-rearing - and directly challenges the lazy stereotypes that can cloud our approach to age-based audiences.

Younger people, we also heard, are 'stimulation junkies' – an insight that forms the heart of the in-store marketing strategy of Puma, the sports and leisurewear brand, which is rolling out gamified experiences across its global retail network.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum, another change is afoot: the demographic megatrend of an aging global population. The secrets to building an age friendly business (the latest in our Speed Reads series of book summaries) argues that marketers cannot ignore the burgeoning over-50s demographic (currently 1.5 billion and counting) and offers a guide for engage them throughout the path to purchase.

 

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