In This Issue

A 'shocking' revelation: Shock Top is Coming to the Super Bowl!

CMOs to go 'Social'!

Nielsen's turf gets "rated"

How Spotify and Pandora 'tune' into Millenials

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VISIT LATIN SCHOOL OF CHICAGO'S OPEN HOUSE!

Latin School has set standards for academic excellence in Chicago since 1888 and is committed to developing life long learners who succeed in college and beyond. Serving 1,157 students in Pre K-12 from 75 neighborhoods and 17 suburbs, Latin is a community where every student is known and valued. Open House is Sunday, October 25th.

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Stagestruck City at The Newberry Library

Stagestruck City explores how Chicagoans' demands for more and for better entertainment led to the birth of the "little theatre" movement and, eventually, the Goodman Theatre!

Exhibition events begin Oct 7th

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https://www.newberry.org/stagestruck-city

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Welcome to the October issue of Key Notes - Marketing Keys' monthly newsletter. Hope you are enjoying this beautiful stretch of Fall weather! Our goal is for you to be informed and entertained with the latest media and marketing happenings quickly and efficiently.

The Top 4 Online Trends for 2016

We've geared up our crystal ball right in time for the Halloween season and we have some important information to share with you in regards to the future of 'online.'

1. Video Ads Will Become More Important than Ever Before

Not only does Google own YouTube but, they are finally getting on board with in-SERP video advertising. Users are becoming more accepting of video ads online and the landscape is quickly accommodating to that phenomenon. In the future, static will be out and video will be in. Until then, retailers will begin to get comfortable with video campaigns while their counterparts begin to flood the gates with online video advertising.

2. App Indexing Will Lead to a Revolution of Apps

Apps can do everything websites can but with more user-friendly guidance. Indexing has been available previously but since ranking is becoming more complex & the variables to the ranking system are multiplying, business owners will begin to recognize the advantages of a personalized app. We do not foresee apps replacing websites in the near future but signs will begin to point in that direction in 2016.

3. Mobile Will Dominate Desktop

Google's big announcement in 2015 was that mobile finally overtook desktop traffic in 10 countries! 2015 was also the year that Google released the Mobilegeddon algorithm to phase out all websites not optimized for mobile. Although desktop has not lost relevance yet, it is certainly loosing traction. We can only anticipate 2016 to be an even bigger year for marketing online mobile campaigns. Consumers will continue to keep their phones at the forefront of online consumption so it is important we recognize the significance of that medium.

4.The Face of Optimization will Change with Digital Assistants

Siri and Cortana utilize traditional search engines but only when necessary to find information. The key here is to make sure that your website is easily accessible to these assistants rather than only focusing your resources on SEO and PPC. The reality of 'search' will begin to shift as more assistants come to life in 2016 and change the way consumers find information.

A 'shocking' revelation: Shock Top is Coming to The Super Bowl!

Anheuser-Busch InBev is the world's largest brewer & this year they have something special brewing for the Super Bowl; Shock Top. Shock Top is Belgian Style unfiltered wheat ale with real citrus peels and coriander spice that has been deemed quite popular in the beer community. Since Shock-Top's home is California, it is exciting that the 50th edition will take place in San Francisco. This particular choice is unique in that in the past two Super Bowls, the brewing giant has chosen to highlight its two most popular brands, Budweiser and Bud Light. Although, we should still expect for Budweiser and BudLight to make their debut at Super Bowl 50, we are reminded that Shock Top is slowly moving up to compete with the ranks of the MillerCoors fan favorite, Blue Moon. So sit back, relax and enjoy a Shock Top at the Super Bowl.

CMOs to go 'Social'! Budgets to get a boost.

A new study by IBM and the CMO club revealed that more than half of marketers plan to boost marketing budgets. The report gathered qualitative and quantitative data online from 100 CMOs - from both B-to-B companies and B-to-C companies. 57% of CMOs plan to boost marketing budgets over the next two to three years.

The break down has content development as the biggest piece of the pie at 12.3% followed by traditional advertising at 11.5%. The other areas of investment are online advertising 11.1%, events 10.9%, website development 10.5% and public relations at 9.6%

Retailers are laser focused on creating personalized content for the consumer as they embark on their shopping journey. CMOs want to touch the consumer during each point of contact in the customer journey with different channels.

Marketers are currently spending 20% of their budgets on the 'discover' phase, which is traditionally when customers are just beginning to search for products or services. During this phase consumers tend to filter through social media channels first and then website, email, digital and events. Marketers plan to boost their spending on social media. In the next five years social will make up 23.8% of marketing budgets.

After the 'discover' phase comes the 'learn' phase, when consumers get to know the product and educate themselves on key product attributes. The top channel used by consumers to learn is social followed by email, website, digital and apps.

Marketers spend 16% on the 'try' phase, when consumers try out and compare different products / services. Social is #1 for the 'try' phase, followed by email, website, apps, and digital.

The most aggressive spending happens at the 'buy' phase, marketers allocate 31% of budgets to this area and their top investment is their website. This is the only channel where social is not the top channel.

Marketers allocate another 13% to the 'use' phase, when customers are using the products and services and need additional support. Spending is allocated first on social content, followed by email, website, events and apps.

Lastly, the 'advocate' phase, when customers are recommending products and companies to friends and others, marketers allocate 14% of their budgets to this area and spend the most on social content, followed by email, website, apps and digital.

Nielsen's turf gets "rated"

Two of the most well known media companies in the industry, ComScore and Rentrak, announced their plans to merge in their efforts to challenge the industry leader Nielsen when tracking how consumers consume media in the era of instant gratification and micro content.

ComScore, founded 1999, measured people's use on online media and has slowly moved to also track television viewing. Rentrak, on the other hand, uses data from set-top boxes to measure what people are watching on television. Now combined, these two forces will be able to measure how people consume data across a proliferation of screens - mobile, desktop, television and more.

The merger will take place with Rantrak becoming an owned subsidiary of ComScore. Serge Matta, the ComScore chief executive will be chief of the combined company while Bill Livek, chef of Rentrak will be executive vice chairman and president. Together, the companies will have equity value of $2.4 billion.

Critics say that Nielsen's methods are outdated and that the company has failed to adapt to changing consumer habits like delayed viewing and viewing on mobile devices and streaming services. Still, Nielsen's statistics are the platform for nearly 70 billion in U.S. advertising sales each year. With this sort of newfound competition Nielsen may be motivated to fuel innovation and new techniques in media measurement.

How Spotify and Pandora 'tune' into Millennials

Although Spotify and Pandora have been pitted against one another as eternal rivals, they both have something to offer when it comes to the ever-growing topic of targeting Millennials. Here are the through processes that aid the music giants in their endeavor to reach this generation.

1. Marketing to The Most Challenging Consumer Group Yet

Spotify: Product trumps advertising when it comes to millennials. It is important to consider the facts. The truth remains, there is so much transparency that millennials are a lot more likely to push away a product that does not live up to its glory on advertisements than any other segment of consumers.

Pandora: Gaining the attention of millenials comes down to understanding how their time is spent. They listen to music the same amount of hours as they spend watching television.

2. Looking Data Deep

Both companies have an incredible amount of data stored about how millennials listen to music and what they like.

Spotify: Spotify is an on demand service that allows listeners to listen to playlists or a series of songs. 50 % of users are physically opting into listening each particular playlist or song by pressing "play." Marketers are able to segment the consumer population by the characteristics of each type of playlist.

Pandora: Pandora's radio service is based on data aggregated from each consumer. This data includes email address, age and gender collected from the 250 million registered users. According to Pandora, 85% of listening is done on mobile, hence why advertisers are encouraged to buy more mobile and tablet sized promos.

3. It's All In The Experience

Spotify: Spotify releases a new playlist every Monday called Discover Weekly that recommends playlists personalized to the individual's listening habits. In this way, the playlist becomes a personalized interaction between the user and the service.

Pandora: Pandora uses digital listening trends to plan live concerts. Their concert from last summer hosted hip-hop artist Jason Derulo and girl pop group Fifth Harmony. Pandora hand selected the fans that listen to both those artists and invited them to the event. This is also another form of personalization, it signifies to the listener that Pandora really "knows me" and my taste.

4. Go Offline

Both Pandora and Spotify agree that concerts play a part in brining the music fan experience full circle. There is a deeper emotional connection with the users when experiencing something in person, especially in a day and age where offline experiences are few.

Spotify: Spotify plans on experimenting with live events in the near future such as activations at South by Southwest Interactive.

Pandora: Pandora Continues to have summer concerts and other live events that have contributed to their growth and success.

Tweet of the Month
@MarketingKeys: #FactFindingFriday: Fox's "#Empire" is costing advertisers $497,364 on average for a 30 sec commercial #MarketingKeys Follow us on Twitter!

Until next month, may all of your marketing dreams and goals come true! And - if they don't - we are here to help.

Sincerely,

ROGER KEYS
MARKETING KEYS