Marketing Professional and host of the Australian Quick Marketing Trick Podcast , Chris Godfrey told me in our interview..

“Yes the changes to the Facebook feed that were just announced are true, however, there’s more to it.”

If you advertise your business on Facebook, or if you’re thinking about it, the changes that Mark Zuckerberg announced on January 12th, 2018 will have some impact (but non-life changing) to the amount of people who see your posts from your Business fan page.

“Our company runs anywhere from $10,000 – $100,000 a week on Facebook Ads, and AFTER these changes, we’re STILL not about to reduce our ad budgets”, Chris added.

Chris explained to me what these new changes mean, when the personal user opens their smartphone and scrolls through their feed they will see MORE posts from their friends and LESS posts and updates from the businesses who they like and follow on Facebook.

As Facebook reported, these changes to the way their newsfeed operates is designed to give people more of  that they want to see when opening their Facebook app.

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Winc ANZ appoints George O’Neil as CMO and releases office comedy series.

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Domino’s app for ordering pizza – with zero clicks, how many more ways to order a pizza do you need, one more it would seem thinks Domino’s.

I don’t know about anyone else but I lose my mind trying to use the online ordering method. What is meant to be a quick and easy way to order turns into half an hour going back and forth refreshing pages, it didn’t add that or this, whats going on now, finding a store near me, I thought you already new that one, where has my pizza gone now? Whats the number I’m calling them.

Domino’s has launched the ultimate app for lazy people and for people with OCD who never change their order, who am I kidding, mega meatlovers please.

To order a pizza you simply launch the app on your phone. No clicks required.

All the customer needs to do is download the app, and connect it to their Domino’s profile. Then they set an “Easy Order” option.

.Domino’s gives you 10 seconds before the order gets placed just in case you have opened the app accidentally.

It’s all part of a process that Domino’s has been going down for a few years. Domino’s is actually a tech company that sells pizzas.

The new app is the latest in a series of innovations that has allowed people to order pizzas using Amazon Echo, Apple’s Siri, emoji on Twitter and Samsung Smart TVs.

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‘Just put that thing down for five minutes please’. ‘Look at me when I’m speaking to you’. ‘Not at the dinner table’. ‘Well where did all the last lot of credit go?’ ‘It’s me again, I need to know what time you’ll be home, call me back’—If you’ve said any of this recently, chances are you‘re the parent of a teenager, nearly all of whom now own a mobile phone, Roy Morgan Research shows.

Just over one million Australian teens aged 14-17 (91%) have a mobile phone. The other 9% may not be wrong when they claim, ‘but everyone else I know has one!’ as not only businesses but real life actual humans need to be mobile ready for when the mass attack from skynet happens, in fact wouldn’t you be safer without a technological terminator in your hand?

Those kids today: nearly all 14-17 year-old mobile owners have a smartphone (94%)—and a massive 75% are already on to their second or subsequent handset (while only 25% are still using their very first mobile phone).

78% of mobile-owning teens say someone else pays for all or most of their usage charges (with just 22% paying for it themselves), 62% got their current mobile handset brand new (vs 38% with a used handset, including hand-me-downs), and 65% are using prepaid and 35% are on a postpaid plan—almost the exact reverse of the ratio in the general population.

Australian Mobile Phone Owners aged 14-17:

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source Australia, July 2015 – June 2016, sample n = 512 Australian Mobile Owners aged 14-17

Over half of teens own an Apple iPhone (58%, compared with the norm of 41% of all Australian mobile owners), and 22% a Samsung (compared with 31% overall).

When it comes to mobile service providers, 37% of teen mobile owners are with Telstra (compared with 44% of all Australian mobile owners 14 ), 21% are with Optus and 16% are with Vodafone (both very close to the national norm).

Rather than to the other two network operators, Telstra’s decreased market share among 14-17 year-olds is going to Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs): 26% of teen mobile owners are with an MVNO, including 7% with Virgin, 5% with Amaysim, and around 2.5% with each of TPG, ALDI Mobile and Boost.

The average 14-17 year-old spends (or their parents spend) around $10 less per month on mobile usage than adult mobile owners. This is largely driven by teens’ higher take-up of prepaid plans with discount MVNO providers.

And totally unsurprisingly, those 22% of mobile-owning teens who have to pay for usage themselves spend almost $5 less a month on average than those whose parents foot the bill.

Michele Levine, CEO – Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Teens aged 14-17 are around twice as likely as other mobile owners to use the device for playing music, videos and games. 82% of teens have done one or more of these activities on their mobile in the last four weeks—almost as many as made an actual phone call with it.

“Almost half of teens say they can’t live without a mobile phone. They’re also much more likely than other mobile owners to say they’re happy to receive relevant ads on the phone (especially if it could reduce the phone bill).

“And, a warning for the parents who are paying for their teenagers’ usage: 30% of teens say they often go over the data limit.

“The Roy Morgan Young Australians Survey also looks at mobile phone ownership and usage among kids aged six to 13. It shows that mobile phone ownership rises quickly, from around just one in five 10 year-olds, to one in three 11 year-olds, to over half of 12 year-olds, and to three quarters of 13 year-olds before reaching this 91% of 14 to 17 year-olds as identified in our main Single Source research.

“Further investigation of teens’ mobile activities and attitudes is crucial for anyone wanting to engage with teenagers today—and can also provide insight into the expectations of future adult customers.”

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Linius Technologies Limited (ASX: LNU) (Linius) is pleased to announce that it will be partnering with Digisoft.tv (Digisoft) to demonstrate the Beta release of Linius’ patented Video Virtualization Engine software integrated with Digisoft’s Iris Workflow software for cable TV networks, from 9th to 13th September, at the 2016 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC 2016) as part of their extended Reseller Agreement announced 18 July 2016.

This integrated technology will, for the first time, demonstrate the delivery of personalised adverts across a cable TV network, bringing Facebook style targeted advertisements to your television. Customising a unique video stream for each audience member unlocks significant new revenue opportunities for content presenters.

This is all well and good and personalised adverts do indeed help advertisers target the right audience, but what if “Jim” a bachelor who lives at home and enjoys looking for ways to enlarge his penis online only to finally convince Martha from accounts to come round and watch the new episode of Game of Thrones and the advert breaks are filled with Ron Jeremy’s ideas on how to increase your manhood.

Chris Richardson, Chief Executive Officer of Linius, said:

“Linius’ Video Virtualization Engine makes it possible to seamlessly integrate the ads with close to zero additional overhead for the cable company, while Digisoft’s Iris platform allows cable companies to define business rules to enable accurate targeting.

“Imagine a 13 year-old girl sits down and watches an episode of Top Gear. Rather than seeing a commercial for the local furniture store she sees an ad for Green Creativity’s Paper Recycling kit. Meanwhile a 40-year-old man, who has been shopping for vacations in the Maldives, also sits down to watch the same episode. He sees an ad for KLM airlines.”

Fearghal Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of Digisoft, said:

“Our Iris software adds tremendous flexibility to the back-end of cable TV operations. When combined with Linius, the decision becomes a no brainer.”

When individually targeted ads became available on the Internet, the average value of an ad increased by 2.7 times. Linius and Digisoft look to enable the equivalent multiple for the global cable TV advertising market.

On 22 December 2015, Linius announced that it had reached a Showcase Partner Agreement with Digisoft, a global technology leader in the Multiple-System Operator (MSO) space, which would see the integration of Linius’ technology with Digisoft’s set-top box software.

Linius and Digisoft will be at IBC 2016 in booth N31, Hall 14. To schedule a personal appointment at the show, please contact info@digisoft.tv.

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Australia’s most popular travel agents and the holiday-goers more (or less) likely to use them

Between July 2015 and June 2016, just over 13.7 million Australians 14 took at least one holiday, the latest findings from Roy Morgan Research show. Of these Aussie holiday-goers, 7.3 million (52.8%) reported using a travel agent or tour operator for at least one of the trips they took – more than double the number (3.2 million) that didn’t use one at all. And the most popular travel agent? No prizes for guessing that Flight Centre has clinched top spot once again…

Some 12.6% of Australian holiday-goers used Flight Centre for at least one trip in the 12 months to June 2016, giving the chain a respectable lead over online accommodation service Booking.com (11.4%). Wotif.com was a distant third at 6.8%, ahead of Webjet (6.1%) and — in its first year of being measured in the Roy Morgan Holiday Tracker Survey — Airbnb (5.5%).

Ten travel agents/tour operators most used by Australian holiday-goers

ten-most-popular-travel-agents

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2015-June 2016, n=10,112. Base: Australians 14 who took at least one holiday in last 12 months

Besides Flight Centre, the only travel agent with a bricks-and-mortar presence to crack the Top 10 was Helloworld, used by 2.8% of holiday-goers. The remaining eight are all exclusively online businesses. This is hardly surprising, given how dramatically the rise of digital technology has transformed the travel industry, but it does not tell the whole story.

Viewing Australian holiday-goers through the lens of Roy Morgan’s in-depth consumer profiling tool Helix Personas, it soon becomes apparent that booking a holiday is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.

Even Flight Centre – as popular as it is – is more likely to attract certain groups of travellers than others. For example, 22.5% of the Helix Persona known as Social Flyers used Flight Centre for at least one holiday in the 12 months to June 2016 – well above the national average and more than five times the proportion of Rural Traditionalists (4.0%), the Persona least likely to choose Flight Centre.

Australia’s five most popular travel agent and the Helix Personas most/least likely to use them

helix-travel-agent-prefs

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2015-June 2016, n=10,112. Base: Australians 14 who took at least one holiday in last 12 months

Frequently young, sociable and single, Social Flyers earn good wages but are not yet tied down by too many financial or family responsibilities. What better excuse to indulge their love of overseas travel? With the hectic schedule they keep, however, they may be too busy to organise all the finer details themselves. Just as well Flight Centre’s complete travel service (from flights to hotels, cruises to package deals) makes it so easy…

In contrast, Rural Traditionalists tend to be older, living in country areas and working hard in blue-collar jobs to pay off their mortgage before retirement. They generally stay in Australia for holidays, organising their budget getaway on the Virgin Australia Holidays website, Lastminute.com or Hotels.com rather than visiting a travel agent.

Meanwhile, Airbnb attracts an elevated proportion of people from the Big Future segment. Educated, cultured, switched on and usually coupled up, Big Future would find Airbnb appealing for the way it allows travellers to feel more like locals and less like tourists. They may have started a family, but they’re still hipsters at heart!

Norman Morris, Industry Communications Director, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Although Roy Morgan data tells us which travel agents were most used by Aussie holiday-goers in the last 12 months, this is a top-level insight, and does not reveal which holiday-goers are more or less likely to use a particular agent – or, indeed, to use none at all.

“Of course, it’s no secret that the travel industry has been transformed by digital technology, with the rise of online agents, booking services and tourism operators being a logical outcome of this. For bricks-and-mortar travel agents, this has meant adapting to the changing market or risk losing relevance. Flight Centre’s continued popularity indicates it has done this effectively. The fact that it attracts a tech-savvy consumer segment such as Social Flyers also speaks volumes for the chain’s ability to anticipate and meet the needs of even those who’d be perfectly comfortable organising their own holiday online.

“By identifying exactly who is more or less likely to use a particular bricks-and-mortar travel agent or online booking site, Helix Personas enables tourism operators to target the travellers who will be most responsive to their brand, rather than going for a more generalised approach.”

The post Way to Travel Agent appeared first on Bridge Street Journal.

Shoppers at Woolworths are more likely to have their mobile phone with Telstra, while those at Coles are more likely to be with Optus—and the correlation reflects how the supermarkets and telcos are positioned in their respective markets, Roy Morgan Research shows.

47% of people who mainly shop at Woolworth are Telstra mobile phone customers, compared with 39% of Coles’ main shoppers. 22% of Coles’ main shoppers are Optus mobile phone customers, compared with 19% of Woolworths’ main shoppers.

Could it be an accident? In both cases, the difference is statistically significant—showing a real link between our choice of supermarket and choice of mobile service provider.

% of supermarkets’ main shoppers with mobile service provider

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source, April 2015 – March 2016, sample n = 12,318 Grocery Buyers 14

So if the Woolworths-Telstra and Coles-Optus connections aren’t arbitrary, the question is: what connects our choice of main supermarket with our choice of mobile service provider?

The answer lies in the most basic tenet of market positioning: Quality versus Price. The two supermarket giants have distinguished themselves as the ‘fresh food people’ and the home of ‘down-down’ prices respectively.

As the chart below shows, Woolworths is more commonly associated with Quality and Coles with Price—just as Telstra and Optus are.

64% of grocery buyers who mainly shop at Woolworths say the one thing their supermarket is best known for relates to Quality*, compared with 44% of Coles’ main shoppers. Conversely, 35% of grocery buyers who mainly shop at Coles say the store’s defining attribute relates toPrice*, compared with just 18% of Woolworths’ regular customers.

When it comes to mobile provider, 71% of Telstra’s customers say an issue pertaining to Quality was among the reasons they chose the provider, compared with just 28% of Optus’s. And just as with supermarkets, the situation reverses when it comes to Price: mobile owners with Optus are over twice as likely as those with Telstra to cite Price as a deciding factor, 61% vs 29%.

% who cite Quality or Price for Supermarkets and Telcos

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source, April 2015 – March 2016, sample n = 12,318 Grocery Buyers 14 and 13,464 Main Mobile Owners 14

* The individual factors constituting Quality and Price are: for supermarkets, Quality is ‘wide range of goods or products’ or ‘fresh food quality freshness’, and Price is ‘low prices’ or ‘good value’; for mobile phone service providers, Quality is ‘better network coverage’, ‘better connection or reliability’ and/or ‘faster data or download speed’, and Price is ‘cheaper rates’, ‘more calls or texts included in the plan’, ‘clear pricing of the plan’, and/or ‘free or discounted phone’.

Michele Levine – CEO, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Recent news suggests Woolworths may be planning a greater push into telecommunications. Each supermarket is already offering mobile phone plans as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO)—and the network owner it has signed on with is the best fit. Woolworths’ mobile services use the Telstra network, while Coles’ agreement is with Optus.

“As we’ve previously reported, mobile owners signed up with an MVNO tend to be seeking cheaper rates—but ALDIMobile customers are more likely to cite network coverage as a reason they picked the provider, reflecting the high score for its network operator, Telstra. This suggests that even MVNO customers often know full well which network they’ll be on, and it plays a part, after price, in determining which one they choose.

“While network operators all need to weigh up the revenue from selling on expensive networks to virtual providers, while the MVNOs themselves need to consider how they can distinguish themselves in a crowded market and target customers based on whose network they use. This is clearly important for the supermarket MVNOs in particular, with customers who already align closely with their respective network provider.”

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Australians hate ad disruptions more than the global average, according to a study on ad blocking by Accenture.
The study found that 86 per cent of Australians said ad interruptions were too frequent, compared to 83 per cent globally.
31 per cent of the 1000 Australian consumers in surveyed said they would pay to remove ad interruptions, and 57 per cent said they were aware of ad-blocking software.
On the other hand, while Australians had a 57 per cent awareness of ad-blocking technologies, this was lower than the global average of 62 per cent.
Young consumers are the most aware of ad-blocking software.
According to the study, 69 per cent in the 18 to 24 age group said they were aware of it and 64 per cent of the 25 to 34 group knew about ad interruption technologies.

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The director of Star Wars, JJ Abrams, says he can see a future for a gay character in the Star Wars franchise.

Speaking at his Bad Robot HQ, where he hosted the US-Ireland Alliance’s annual Oscar Wilde Awards ahead of Sunday’s Oscars, where The Force Awakens is nominated in five categories, Abrams made it clear that gay Star War characters are on the horizon.

“When I talk about inclusivity it’s not excluding gay characters. It’s about inclusivity. So of course,” the director said.

As he put it, the franchise is pursuing diversity in its casting and characters

“To me, the fun of Star Wars is the glory of possibility. So it seems insanely narrow-minded and counterintuitive to say that there wouldn’t be a homosexual character in that world.”

While this might sound like a big step, it’s not that far removed from the enormously successful Star Wars: The Force Awakens which had its first female Jedi and a black lead.

And that had no effect on the box office. In fact, quite the reverse. At one stage, the film was the highest grossing movie in box office history.

The post Star Wars appeared first on Bridge Street Journal.

Streaming taking its toll on online music purchases

Once upon a time, music fans bought their favourite artists’ work on shellac 78 rpm records. Then came vinyl records on 33 and 45 rpm, music cassettes, CDs, minidiscs (anyone remember them?) and, more recently, online music downloads. From physical items to disembodied digital files, music as a commodity – and where it can be purchased — has undergone a dramatic evolution. And this evolution is continuing even now, with online CD and music download sales losing ground to the growing popularity of streaming, as the latest figures from Roy Morgan attest.

While the popularity of online shopping continues to skyrocket in Australia, with 41.2% of Aussies 14 making at least one purchase via the internet in an average four-week period (up from 31.6% in 2012), CDs and music downloads have not kept pace with this growth. In fact, both products have been on a downward trajectory over the past few years.

In the 12 months to March 2012, 6.1% of the population paid to download music and 2.1% purchased CDs online in any given four-week period. As of March 2016, these figures had slipped to 4.6% and 1.1% respectively. In the meantime, the proportion of Aussies who streamed music online in an average four weeks grew dramatically, from 10.3% in 2012 to 19.7% in 2016. Streaming radio also gained popularity, with 9.6% of the population now doing it (up from 6.1%).

Buying music online vs streaming: the recording industry’s ongoing evolution

online-music-trends

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), April 2011-March 2016, average 12-monthly sample=50,952

However, in this shrinking market, certain consumer groups remain well above average for purchasing music online: for example, people who also buy other entertainment products online. Most strikingly, Australians who purchase movie or TV show downloads are almost 10 times as likely as average to buy music downloads as well!

Music download purchasing by other online entertainment products purchased

other-entertainment-purchases-online

Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), April 2015-March 2016, n=50,392

Norman Morris, Industry Communications Director, Roy Morgan Research, says:

“Ever since CDs knocked vinyl from its perch back in the 1990s, the music publishing industry has been evolving at a vertiginous rate. While record stores still exist (and vinyl is making a comeback), online shopping changed the face of music retail just as it did many other retail categories. But now, things are changing once more. The online space remains as crucial as ever to our music consumption, but the advent of streaming – whether free (eg. radio station apps) or by subscription (eg. Apple Music) – has impacted sales of downloads and CDs.

“However, music downloads in particular still have some devoted buyers. As discussed above, people who buy other entertainment products online in an average four weeks are dramatically more likely to also purchase music downloads, representing an irresistible opportunity for internet retailers to cross-promote their products.

“And this is just the tip of the iceberg. With the deep data provided by Roy Morgan Single Source, music publishers and online retailers can explore consumers’ demographics, attitudes, leisure activities and online-shopping habits to identify precisely who is more and less likely to continue buying music downloads and/or CDs online – and tailor their marketing campaigns accordingly.

“For example, Roy Morgan data reveals that Australians who go to see live rock/pop music in any given three-month period are more than twice as likely as the average Aussie to purchase downloadable music in an average four weeks. What’s more, an above-average proportion of people who stream radio or music also buy music downloads…”

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