“I am very adept at switching off during advertising. I almost have it down to a fine art”

This remark came from one of our community members, and generally resonates with most of the participants that we speak to.

In coming years, the majority of Australian households will take up gadgets that thrust content control into the hands of the user. The most obvious being devices that pause, rewind, and the most challenging for advertisers, fast forward live TV.

So where to for advertising?

Advertising alone is becoming redundant, as audiences are mastering the craft of tuning out. Consumers are accustomed to getting more from brands – whether it is some fleeting fun on a Facebook Fan Page, or a practical app that they can’t live without. Content that people can utilise, share, or even help create is the new frontier of marketing communications.

In the future, will “spending $5 million on advertising without giving something useful, entertaining or charming seem very weird”? From what’s being said in our communities, this statement from Adam Ferrier rings true.

One of the most relevant things a brand can do is to give an experience. An experience, based on consumer insight will be far more valuable for the brand than shouting at them from a television screen.

While debate rages whether the iPad is set to save or redefine publishing, consumers are quietly contemplating whether there is room in their lives for another digital device. We know it looks pretty, and had Apple-cool credentials, but do we really need one?

Even amongst Apple fans there is some question about the purpose of owning an iPad. To this end the answer is often, ‘what’s the point?’. We’ve already got desktops, laptops, gaming units, smartphones, and maybe even ebook readers. Or maybe we’re missing the  actual point, that its not the iPhone users who will rush to embrace the iPad, but others who don’t see it as an overgrown version of their smartphone.

Our study of iPhone users, via an Online Insights Community, revealed that for most, the iPad wasn’t high up on their wish list. It was considered too large to be truly portable, and the lack of connectivity to other hardware meant that it wasn’t a legitimate substitute for a laptop or netbook. Beyond the obvious compatibility concerns is the issue that it is difficult to imagine a use for the iPad. Especially when many people felt that it would predominantly be used in-home. There is speculation that ‘maybe it will be good for…’ but not a lot of ‘I need it for…’.

“It doesn’t fulfill any need I have, so it’s not even a consideration for me”

It will be interesting to observe too, how quickly iPad users take up paid apps, especially those related to publishing and media. iPhone users are quick to identify that there’s a mounting cost once you factor in the hardware, data download and the price of apps. Justifying the additional spend on iPad apps, will require a change of attitude and behaviour in the consumption of content. It’s early days and iPad is the latest toy, but many people are waiting to see both how a second-gen iPad will differ, and how the publishing world will respond with apps.

And despite all the debate about whether there is a need for such a device, 1 million iPads were sold in just 28 days (compared to the 74 days it took to sell this many iPhones).  So while we may not see a need for it – it seems the iPad may find a place in our lives.

And me – well I’m like the million others who want another toy, whether I need it or not!

IBM has just released the insights from its global CEO survey, which covered 33 industries and 60 countries, including Australia. The study, titled ‘Capitlizing on Complexity’ explored CEO responses to the current economic environment, and identified their key priorities for success in these uncertain times.

Top priority for CEOs from ‘standout’ organisations is getting closer to the customer. In fact, there is a desire to reinvent customer relationships by better understanding their needs, and collaborating to create relevant product and services. And while globally 88% of CEOs put customer intimacy at the top of  their priorities, in Australia it was 91%. Additionally, Australian CEOs were 18% more likely to use insight and information to ‘realise their strategies’.

The trouble is, how often have you seen C-level or other senior management at a focus group, or even in a research presentation, where all those customer insights are shared?

Of course the information and insights are incorporated into strategy, however, it’s so much more powerful when senior management can see/hear for themselves, what customers need and want. This is where online research communities offer a real advantage to senior management; they can tap into the voice of the customer from their desk. An online research community is a live entity – it’s always possible to go straight to the source.

IBM’s survey also identified that CEOs believe collaboration and ‘two-way’ communications to align their business withcustomer needs, as shown in the table above. Social media platforms certainly allow this as never before – as one of our community members so bluntly put it, it’s not often that the ‘plebs’ get to engage with the ‘suits’ to work out what customers really want.

You can download the IBM Global CEO Survey here

Anyone still doubting the power (and use) of social media need only look as far as Greenpeace’s latest campaign against Nestle using unsustainable palm oil in its products (namely Kit Kat) Victory: Nestle gives orang-utans a break.

Greenpeace’s aim was to alert people of Nestle’s links to deforestation in Indonesian rainforests and the destruction of organ-utan habitats, and ultimately to get Nestle to stop using products, or suppliers, associated with palm oil that is not sourced sustainably.

So began a campaign using social media. Greenpeace created a video that went viral on YouTube. In only 24 hours the campaign had gone global, to date achieving over 1 million views.

People around the world responded using social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook to let Nestle know, in no uncertain terms, how unhappy they were with the global food giant.

However, Nestle didn’t only get flak over palm oil, it also erred through its inappropriate use of social media (trying to take down posts and ‘talking down’ to visitors to its Facebook page). By not understanding the role of social media and the way people use it to interact with big corporations Nestle worsened its public perception rather than improving it. The outcome, two months after this social media campaign began, is that on 17 May Nestle announced it had taken certain measures to use ‘responsible sourcing guidelines’ for palm oil.

Another example of a large global company currently undergoing a social media pummeling is oil giant BP. People around the world are using social media to express their unhappiness with BP, which is in crisis management due to an unprecedented oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Once again, using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, there is a global outcry around the world about the way BP has (or hasn’t) handled the crisis. You only need to look at BP’s facebook page to see that the company is not a favoured brand at the moment and has a lot of cleaning up to do (pardon the pun!).

Social media allows individuals to have a united voice in a very public arena, which companies can’t ignore if they want to maintain positive customer relations and share price.

There are some lessons to be learnt from these recent events, one of them being that social media is a very fast and effective way for the average ‘Joe’ to get their message across, and that for brands to remain relevant to their customers they must use social media honestly and appropriately.

How many take away coffees do you buy a day? Even if it’s only one, that’s probably $3.50 out of your pocket that you spend without a second thought.

So what about spending  $2.99 on an iPhone app – maybe a game to use in your spare time, or a utility designed to save you time. Or how does $1.19 sound, because that seems to be a common price point? Why you could even get three apps for little more than a latte.

You wouldn’t think that it would be an agonising decision, but we were surprised to find that price is a sensitive issue when it comes to buying apps. And iPhone users themselves don’t understand why they waiver over spending less than $3 on something lasts so much longer than a hot drink. Here’s a taste of some of the comments from our iPhone Online Research Community:

“I am dancing around the idea of a $6 app at the moment that I really want (but not rushing in). Weird psychology really since I have no problem throwing far more than that away on far more frivolous things”

“I only pay for stuff with a lot of good reviews and things I know I’ll like. Otherwise it’s free. Even if it’s an app I’m not sure about and it only costs $1.19 I’ll think twice, three times.. sometimes four times”

“I don’t feel like I should be paying any more than I already am/have for the iPhone considering I use it mostly for communication purposes. I don’t think I will ever pay for an app, but I’m waiting for something to prove me wrong!”

Our frugal friends were a bit bemused at their own behaviour, and put it down to both the intangible nature of apps, and the predomiance of free apps which create a mindset that all apps should be free or so cheap that purchasing doesn’t require a second thought.

There are people who are willing to spend ‘big’ money on apps, whether it’s a $9.99 Jamie Oliver recipe collection or a $69 navigation system. But the apps they pay more money for have to do something - they’re rarely games or time wasters. Even so, our ‘spenders’ were more likely to trial a ‘lite’ version before downloading the full paid-for version. Try before you buy matters even more in appland, where the refund policy is non-existent.

There’s no doubting that apps are what makes the iPhone eminently attractive and indispensible, but iPhone users are cautious with their money, and while so many apps are free, many users are happy to dabble in app-lite. This may have interesting consequences for iPad, both in terms of users’ propensity to purchase 3rd party content and apps, and the pricing strategies employed by content providers and app developers. And once big brands with big development budgets cotton on to creating new (free) brand experiences via apps, maybe we’ll become even more reluctant to open our wallets.