Open up your mind and say, ahh...

The Pivot Conference is unique in its focus of seeking and dissecting branding’s next revolution: The Rise of the Social Consumer. In October 2010, the inaugural event took place in New York, uniting brands, agencies, and industry experts to share insights, best practices and also explore the horizon for relevant emerging technologies and methodologies.

At the end of 2010, the research team at Pivot conducted a survey among its 700-plus attendees to reveal 2011 challenges, opportunities and the plans to organize efforts around them. The results were analyzed and underpinned the planning for the 2011 Pivot conference. However, the insights we learned in the process are far too valuable to keep behind the firewall. We’ve assembled the highlights into this report and are making it freely available to download, review and share.

The following data should not be viewed in the context of a conference. Instead, this information is reflective of the brand’s eye view on the state and future of social media in 2011 development and execution. Views included here give us access to the plans and corresponding spending in new media for the year ahead.

The Pivot Audience

Pivot attendees were by and large focused on marketing and advertising, comprising 78 percent of the audience. Brand marketers and business executives made up the majority of those seeking insights for the future of marketing, representing 54 percent of the overall audience. Agency professionals and consultants represented less than half of their in house counterparts.

Over two-thirds of survey respondents hold executive, VP or director titles, representing the following industries:

- Arts – 23%
- Banking/Financial Services – 15.9%
- Beauty – 20.6%
- Entertainment – 33.3%
- Food/Beverage/Restaurants – 17.5%
- Marketing/Advertising/PR – 34.9%
- Media/Publishing – 34.9%
- Retail – 19%
- Technology (Business) – 22.2%
- Technology (Consumer) – 30.2%

Social Media is held close to the brand vest. While many functions associated with advertising and marketing are outsourced to agencies, social media is an exception. Over half (52 percent) of brands report that they’re running social media marketing in house. 19 percent are feeding this function to full service ad agencies and another 15 percent rely on specialized agencies to lead their social marketing programs.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Pivot research team asked participants which marketing/advertising functions they are responsible for or what specifically they oversee. By far, social media marketing was the number one role at 64 percent followed by brand marketing at 58 percent and advertising/marketing campaign development at 50 percent. Marketing research and analysis showed a strong appearance at 48 percent. If we were to combine public relations and corporate communications, it would tie for second with brand marketing at 58 percent.

It’s clear that those focused on branding’s next revolution are responsible for a great array of functions. Functions with strong showings included Website development, product marketing, mobile and direct marketing.

An Investment in Time and Resources

Marketing professionals revealed how they plan to spend their time over the next 12 months. For those of us trying to figure out whether or not we’re focused on the right outside resources and opportunities, benchmarking against peers is as helpful as it is telling.

Social Media: In 2011, marketers plan to increase usage of social media by 75 percent. 19 percent will remain at current levels and only one percent of respondents actually plan on decreasing usage.

Mobile: Apps for iPhone and Droid will see a rise of 62 percent, 21 percent will remain constant and 1 percent will decrease.

Microblogging: 61 percent will increase use of streaming apps such as Twitter and Yammer, 27 percent will stay the course and 5 percent will reduce current usage.

Video: 55 percent of marketers will increase video production and distribution with YouTube, Vimeo and the like, 31 percent will continue as is, and no one plans to decrease their efforts in this category in 2011.

Blogs: Contrary to a recent story in the New York Times insinuating that the statusphere would spell the end of the blogosphere, brands will increase their focus on top tier blogs to reach customers and peers by 52 percent, with 35 percent staying constant and 5 percent reducing focus.

While every category will experience increases at varying levels, there are certain platforms and networks that showed double-digit decreases in 2011. Geo-location networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla and Review sites will see a 10 percent retraction in focus this year. On the contrary, brands will increase usage of virtual worlds such as Second Life by 11 percent.

Advertising/Marketing Budgets

The average annual marketing/advertising budget for those who could disclose it was $16.8 million. 24 percent of that budget, on average, was earmarked for social media.

Social Media Touches the Adaptive Business

Participants were asked whether they agree or disagree with a series of statements around social media.

Customer Focus: At the top of the list, 69 percent believe social media is a component of an effective customer relations program

Brand Impact: 66 percent believe that social media has a significant impact on companies and brands.

State of Adoption: 57 percent see advertising and marketing in the early stages of capitalizing on social media

Social Media as a Differentiator: Surprisingly only 35 percent of respondents see social media as fundamentally different from all other media. We predict this too will change over time as brands look beyond traditional command and control strategies in new media.

Social Media as a Disruptor: 22 percent see social media as a Trojan Horse in the market, giving hope to emerging brands seeking to displace established brands.

Social Media Success

Attaining ROI is an important quest in social media. A majority of brands that participated in the Pivot study are measuring social media against internal goals and objectives. Of those who are measuring, 73 percent find social media programs to be successful. Four percent say that social media is not delivering as hoped. However, a full 23 percent cannot yet tell. Expect this number to decrease by this time next year.

Social Consumers

The focus of Pivot 2011 is on the rise of the social consumer. The research team asked about the importance of the social consumer in the company’s social media marketing efforts.

59 percent see social consumers as pivotal to the brand, and as such, welcome their involvement and participation. On the other hand, 22 percent are proceeding with caution, maintaining control over process.

Who are Social Consumers?

Participants in the Pivot study were asked to estimate the age range of social consumers. 61 percent estimated 21-30 years old. 57 percent guessed 11-20. 43 percent targeted 31-40. 27 percent cited 41-50. For the record, Millennials currently fall between the ages of 16 and 31. The answers are surprising however. Social consumers represent all ages on the chart and are aligned by psychographics as we move forward, not demographics.

Are Social Consumers Important Marketing Targets?

This is the billion-dollar question. Aside from age group, 84 percent of brands and agencies participating in this study see the Social Consumer as a primary or secondary target in 2011.

Readiness to Support New Advertising Platforms

Brand marketers and their agency counterparts are more than ready to embrace new advertising platforms such as Twitter’s promoted products and Facebook’s new in-stream opportunities. 62 percent agree that if there’s benefit, they are willing to be among the first to test and use. 20 percent on the other hand prefer not to be among the first. Nine percent will wait and see.

Conclusion

2011 is a pivotal year for social media. While many brands believe in its importance, there is still a great deal to learn. What’s clear however, is just how early brands are in this growth curve. Social Consumers are expanding beyond the Millennial demographic as social-savvy individuals are migrating from the edge to the center of technology adoption and prowess. As they do, social networks and new media apps and services become their platforms of choice. All signs, according to this study, point towards greater investment in time, money, and resources to better understand and excel in social media.

About Pivot

The Pivot Conference is focused on helping brand managers, executives, creative teams, and agencies bridge the gap between brands and the emerging market of Social Consumers. Combining inspiration and education through a series of keynotes, discussions and workshops, Pivot teaches through immersion how to captivate attention where and when it’s focused and how to steer experiences and actions beneficial to the brand.

The two-day conference will engage the heart and the mind of attendees through a structured approach to understanding strategies and tactics to effectively attract and engage social consumers. Part inspiration and part education, together we’ll walk away with ideas and programs we can put to work immediately and throughout 2012.

Pivot will be limited to 500 brand and their agencies in 2011. (Click here to register.)

Contact Mike Edelhart at medelhart@pivotcon.com to inquire about sponsorships.

Image Credit: Shutterstock (edited)

The yearly Oscar telecast is no longer strictly a broadcast-only affair. The main show might still be relegated to television sets, but much of the real action took place online. Co-host James Franco wasn’t the only person tweeting during the ceremony — hundreds of thousands of others joined in, sharing their thoughts on who looked great (Christian Bale’s beard), who made waves (Melissa Leo in her acceptance speech) and who needs to host next year (Kevin Spacey, anyone?).

We’ve taken the time to synthesize the various social media related data points from the big show. Here’s how Oscar stacked up.

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TV Ratings

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With the lack of a major tent pole attraction like Avatar, industry analysts expected television ratings to dip for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards.

Early overnights indicate that household ratings were down 7 percent versus 2010.

The show reported a 26.5 household rating, compared with last year’s 27.5. Notably, though, the ad-targeted 18-49 demographic rating is estimated to be 14.5 — which is on par with last year’s show.

ABC managed to spin the Fast National ratings, noting that the 37.6 million viewers surpassed the Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards and Golden Globes. ABC also points out that this was the second-biggest audience since 2007.

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Twitter

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As with the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards and the Golden Globes, Twitter was a prime outlet for Oscar chatter.

We’re seeing conflicting numbers as to how many total tweets were generated by the Academy Awards. Tweetbeat tells us it estimates that 400,000 tweets were sent during the telecast, whereas TweetReach pegged the total number of tweets at 1,269,790.

During the show itself, a few specific moments generated major spikes in Twitter activity.

The first moment came early in the evening, when Melissa Leo dropped Oscar’s first f-bomb during her acceptance speech for her role in The Fighter. According to TweetReach, that generated nearly 11,000 tweets at the 6:00 (PST) mark. Likewise, Tweetbeat saw an unexpected spike in tweets at the 6:01 mark.

TweetReach found that the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature (won by Inside Job), which was presented by Oprah Winfrey, resulted in the most sustained tweets of the night, 11,780.

The Movies

Liz Pullen from What the Trend analyzed data from the Twitter Worldwide Trending Topics list and compiled some interesting data in regards to trends that reached the top 10.

Despite not winning Best Picture, The Fighter earned the most “trending points” when looking at the worldwide trending topic data. Pullen assigned the film with 135 trending points compared with 115 for Toy Story 3 and 102 for the Oscar winner, The King’s Speech.

This data combined all mentions of a film, cast or crew member or award category won by the film.

Tweetbeat took a different approach, tracking film mentions and reporting Inception as the most tweeted film. The King’s Speech was second, followed by Toy Story 3, The Social Network and The Fighter.

The People

Much of the Twitter conversation surrounding the Academy Awards was less about the awards and more about the celebrities nominated, presenting or hosting the show.

James Franco — who was both a nominee for Best Actor and a co-host for the ceremony — dominated Twitter. According to metrics from Mass Relevance, Franco was the most mentioned nominee — scoring 58,197 mentions since his nomination was announced in January.

Tweetbeat agrees, stating that Franco receieved 21,117 mentions during the Oscar telecast. Co-host Anne Hathaway, was the second-most tweeted about person, according to Tweetbeat, and Natalie Portman was third.

Interestingly, this data doesn’t necessarily correlate with the Oscar personalities that appeared in Twitter’s Trending Topics list. According to Liz Pullen, Cate Blanchett was the most discussed Oscar celebrity, at least in the context of trending topics.

Our own guess is that Blanchett’s dominance may have stemmed from discussion of her dress from the Red Carpet. Tweetbeat found that Givenchy, the designer of Blanchett’s dress, was the third most tweeted designer during the Red Carpet.

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Sentiment Buzz

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Alison Hillhouse, the senior director in MTV’s Insights & Innovations Department, monitored social media during the ceremony for various word trends. Hillhouse’s focus was primarily on the Millennials demographic, and she was able to break the moments into three basic groups: Epic, Fail and Meh.

The data found that Melissa Leo’s f-bomb, Christina Bale’s beard and Kevin Spacey were all worthy of epic praise.

Millennial’s were less impressed with the auto-tune montage, Banksy’s loss for “Best Documentary” and the snubbing of Corey Haim in the “In Memorium,” which were deemed epic failures by Millennial viewers.

On the whole, despite aggressively trying to target the younger demographic, the Oscar telecast was deemed “meh” by Millennial audiences. “Meh #Oscars” was a common refrain on both Twitter and Facebook.

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One quick stroll around this year’s Consumer Electronics Show made clear it’s “game on” for in-car connectivity, as mobile devices collide head-on with the automobile. But if you think this is about telling your dashboard, “Play ‘White Stripes,’” you’re missing the point.

The reality is that automotive connectivity will come in several flavors, and those data and voice pipes will connect to the cloud and provide all manner of service, productivity, safety and entertainment possibilities.

Ford legitimately caught the industry sleeping at the switch when it launched the Sync in-vehicle connectivity system in late 2007. Not only was it a major leap on the technological front, it was one of the best automotive marketing plays since the Toyota Prius.

But the ability to connect your smartphone via Bluetooth and have seamless integration with media, voice and data is but the tip of the iceberg. The same can be said for embedded cellular capabilities that offer safety and security, such as GM’s OnStar and the Mercedes-Benz Mbrace.

Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Mini, Nissan and Toyota have jumped into the fray as well. Now the supply base is responding with fully integrated infotainment systems built around an embedded telematic device coupled with a tethered phone.

This combination is an important distinction to understand.

Having the perpetual connection allowed by an embedded device gives you the ability to interact with the vehicle even if you don’t have your phone. General Motors, Mercedes and Nissan are among those providing smartphone apps that allow customers to read diagnostic information, lock or unlock doors, start the car and track their vehicle from just about anywhere. An embedded device also allows reflashing control modules in the vehicle, in much the same way you get software updates on your laptop.

You also can remote-program the vehicle from a handheld device and save the profiles among several cars. As electric vehicles and the development of the smart grid take off, this will be a huge enabling tool.

Already we’re seeing smartphone apps that let you program when a car like the Chevrolet Volt will draw power from the wall socket. All this is to say, as cellular speeds increase and the cost of service decreases, automakers will be putting embedded cellular devices in vehicles across the board.

We’re seeing the rapid proliferation of application-based capabilities. Internet radio; location-based search apps; vehicle maintenance apps; traffic, navigation and mapping applications; media streaming; and even video chatting are proliferating.

These capabilities are marrying nicely with services such as automatic crash notification, mileage-based insurance (which tracks actual mileage to precisely figure your premium), vehicle diagnostic alerts by email, advanced navigation and emergency calling — all through an embedded cellular connection.

But time on the network costs money, so who pays the bill? That will depend on you. Obviously you pay the cellphone bill. But the embedded connection is another issue.

One of the favorite business models within the industry is using an embedded telematic device to pepper drivers with advertising, location-based marketing and other schemes to generate revenue. In return, customers in this “freemium” model would receive a host of services, such as automatic crash notification, mileage-based insurance, family tracking capabilities and more, in exchange for surrendering your vehicle’s data for diagnostics and location.

Think about driving down a row of restaurants after exiting the interstate and having the vehicle chirp that you can get two-for-one Big Macs if you hit the Micky-Ds instead of hangin’ with the Colonel. Another possibility is monetizing point-of-interest searches made from the car by giving preference to sponsored partners.

It sounds attractive on paper, but in reality, the specter of Big Brother, the annoyance of in-car spam, and privacy concerns are big friction points. Also, the opportunity isn’t as big as some suspect. Think about it: 95 percent of the time you’re in the car, you know exactly where you’re going and it’s usually a set trip, like driving to work or school.

Additionally, you already get hit with ads and marketing offers through dozens of other means before you drive, and the providers of vehicle connectivity systems will compete for scarce mobile-marketing dollars. And while there’s definitely something here, there’s a legitimate question as to whether auto companies and other players can beat Google at the location-based marketing game.

It could be that automakers simply eat the cost or fold it into the price of the car, or use the customer-relationship-management opportunities for sales and service upselling. The idea is that if you can get the get the vehicle’s diagnostic information and then respectfully use it to interact with the customer — “We see you’re due for an oil change and 12K service” — you can keep the customer closely tied to the dealership. There’s an incentive for this, because service retention leads to sales retention in a business where the sheer number of quality automobiles make brand loyalty hard to come by.

And don’t think a subscription model for truly desirable services such as concierge call-center support, emergency assistance or crash notification is an outdated model. Subscriptions may not work for everyone, but they remain highly viable. Just look at OnStar and SiriusXM.

The flashing red light in all of this is the issue of distracted driving, which is not to be taken lightly. Suffice it to say, this will be a huge tempering force in how connectivity proliferates and in what flavors — especially since Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is making it a big issue.

But the very same connectivity that could be so distracting also could make us safer with the advent of intelligent vehicle highway systems, augmented reality-based navigation and a host of technologies under development that will alert us to danger before we’re even aware of it.

The automakers that move quickly and decisively into this new frontier will have the technological and marketing advantage as our world grows ever more connected. Game on, indeed.

Photo: Steve Fecht/OnStar