Nearly 600 marketing professionals recently attended the 10th annual Think INSIDE the Box (TITB) direct marketing conference in Toronto. There, industry leaders dished up the latest insights, trends and research – along with tasty helpings of creative inspiration.

This year's big story? Customer experience! From the resurgence of analog, to brain hormones, to hard data, the experts stressed that marketing is all about the customer mindset.

Do you like Sushi Pizza? Physical's new value in a digital age

 "Humans are not sensible, logical creatures," declared New York Times best-selling author of The Revenge of Analog and TITB 2017 keynote speaker David Sax. "We aren't digital, we are physical beings. And we crave the real."

Marketers shouldn't fall into a false narrative of digital versus analog. It's a continuum. Sax cautions, "The world isn't binary. We don't ONLY eat sushi or pizza. Some nights we want a different meal – or even a sushi pizza! Old-school analog marketing becomes even more valuable in in a digital world."

Watch a clip from David Sax's presentation

Buying is a hormonal thing

 A rapid-fire and fascinating presentation by psychology-based marketing expert Jeanette McMurtry revealed the powerful survival instincts that release the brain hormones that help to drive over 90 per cent of our decision making.

She explained the importance of assigning emotional values to your products and brand to better engage the psychology of choice. And how this works for emotional and non-emotional products.

Apple's skill at eliciting these neurotransmitters is one reason why iPhone users are so loyal, release after release. This, according to McMurtry, is despite studies that show that competitor Samsung's phones are better in 8 out of the 10 categories that matter to consumers.

Watch a clip of Jeanette McMurtry's presentation

The Even/Over formula is the best marketing strategy

A third of all marketing budgets now go towards technology. In the rush to adopt shiny, new marketing technologies, it's easy to lose sight of the real marketing goal, your customers.

"Strategy," says marketing expert John Ounpuu, (President, Modern Craft), "is the tool that helps businesses focus on what counts." A great strategy calls for tough choices – choosing one good thing, even over this other good thing." Netflix, for example, found success by focusing on growth over revenue for many years. All its company efforts were measured against whether they supported that growth strategy.

Watch 3 keys to great strategy

Customer experience, not points, builds loyalty

Loyalty and data experts Nicole Scavuzzo, VP of Global Guest Recognition and Insight, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and Shelly Anwyll, VP of Retail Solutions, DATA Communications Management, have the hard evidence to prove that the customer's experience, not the points' card, is loyalty's secret sauce.

Starbucks, despite strong competition has more than doubled brand loyalty in the last decade. It did so by paying attention to its customers' journey – especially that all-important first coffee of the day, as Anywll pointed out. The company's trailblazing mobile app seamlessly integrates advance ordering, loyalty points, payment, and special offers.

Watch Shelly Anwyll

We're producing art, not ads

Chief Marketing Officer, St. Joseph Communications', Michael Chase took his audience through some of the year's most creative, innovative marketing campaigns – ones where print and digital engage holistically.

One crowd favourite was Burger King's Valentine's campaign. Playing with the notion of the Kids Meal, this meal for two came in a sexy black and purple box and – in addition to burgers, fries and beer for two – also came with a very adult toy!  

See the presentation

3 things you probably don't know about marketing to millennials

Millennial customers are surprisingly like their great-grandparents at key points along the buying journey Luc Durand, President of Ipsos Quebec, shared a new study on generational marketing. The results revealed that millennials are:

Careful, price-conscious shoppers who research by reading reviews, price comparing and talking to their friends before making a purchase. Crazy for coupons. They're increasingly interested in getting and using them. Keen on physical experiences. Younger millennials especially prefer to make their purchases in brick and mortar stores.

Watch Luc Durand's presentation

You don't need big data, you need smart data

A panel of senior agency and marketing executives took a hard look at the challenges of running integrated marketing campaigns. One of the biggest issues on the table is data.

While the panel agreed that figuring out which data is meaningful is crucial, they had different approaches on how to uncover the most important data touch points.

Watch the panel discussion

Posted on Dec. 01, 2017 by Canada Post in Marketing solutions

Controversies around “fake news” sites aren’t just nightly news fodder or political footballs. As it turns out, they’re new additions to the list of parental fears, sitting alongside computer viruses, social media, and online sexual predators.

Parents today aren’t just worried about their kids watching internet porn. Many are concerned their child will read a Breitbart article or watch a video on CNN.

Panda Security’s exclusive analysis of U.S. parents reveals what they fear the most when it comes to websites, online activities, and apps.

More than twice as many parents consider right-wing website Breitbart unsafe for children than CNN.
 

• 20 percent of parents think CNN is not safe for their kids.

• 47.9 percent of parents think Breitbart is unsafe for children.

• 75.9 percent of parents think anonymous sharing is a danger to kids.

• More parents block Facebook (5.9 percent), YouTube (5.8 percent), Netflix (4.3 percent), than they do Pornhub (2.5 percent).

• 54.2 percent of parents are most concerned about sexual predators online.

• 37.1 percent of parents concerned about sexual predators haven’t spoken to their kids about it.

• We surveyed 1,000 U.S. parents to determine the websites, apps, and activities that most concern them when it comes to their children.

Parents Are Worried About Some Of The Web’s Most Popular Sites

Of our total sample of respondents, 90.1 percent ranked Pornhub as “Very Unsafe” or “Somewhat Unsafe”. Our analysis also shows some major social media sites as a source of concern for many parents. 47.0 percent of parents view Facebook as unsafe, while Reddit received the same rating from 46.1 percent of respondents.

Video streaming websites like YouTube and Netflix also ranked as concerning to parents. 36.7 percent of parents said YouTube was a safety concern while 15.5 percent also felt the same about Netflix.

Parents also considered news sites like CNN and Breitbart as a threat to their children. 20.5 percent felt concerned about CNN while 47.9 percent reported Breitbart News as somewhat or very unsafe.

For parents who felt “Very Safe” or “Somewhat Safe” towards specific websites, Amazon ranked first with 71.4 percent. More parents said they felt Netflix (69.9 percent) was safer than Wikipedia (65.5 percent).

More Parents Blocked YouTube than Pornhub

Our analysis showed there was a disconnect between parental concern and parental action. We found more parents reported blocking video websites like YouTube (5.8 percent) and Netflix (4.3 percent) than they did porn sites like Pornhub (2.5 percent).

One reason why parents may be blocking sites like YouTube and Netflix more than Pornhub is that parents may consider excessive screen time more concerning and more likely than specific content like pornography. Parents may feel the chances of their children finding/watching adult content too remote for concern, especially if the children are very young.

However, a University of New Hampshire survey of 1,500 internet-using youth between the ages 10 and 17 showed 42 percent of them had been exposed to online pornography in the past year. Of those, 66 percent reported unwanted exposure.

Parents Overwhelmingly Think Anonymous Online Sharing Is Unsafe for Kids

 Of the seven online activities we listed, “anonymous sharing” was the online activity most concerning to parents. 75.9 percent reported feeling “somewhat unsafe” or “very unsafe” when it came to their kids and anonymous sharing.

The data suggests app developers need to include better parental controls for monitoring or stopping anonymous sharing activities of children.

Anonymity could factor into the perceived safety of social media sites. While there’s a good amount of safety concern among parents for a social website like Facebook (47 percent), it’s even more for 4chan (58.4 percent)—a site where anonymity is more prevalent.

Social networking was the second most unsafe online activity with 57.2 percent followed by “video sharing/watching” at 56.6 percent. A larger percentage of parents reported feeling concerned about video sharing than reported being concerned about the video sharing website YouTube.

Parents Are Worried About How Their Kids Get News

Our analysis shows 47.9 percent of the total pool of respondents who had heard of the right-wing website Breitbart rated it “somewhat unsafe” or “very unsafe”. That’s compared to 20.5 percent that responded the same to the more centrist Cable News Network. 8.1 percent said they considered both websites a safety concern when it came to their children.

Wikipedia also ranked as somewhat or very unsafe to 12.2 percent of parents. “Fake news” controversies and growing concerns about biased information are threatening the legitimacy of some online information sources like Wikipedia.

Parents Are Very Concerned About Sexual Predators

Of the six options presented, 52.4 percent of parents chose “sexual predation online” as their top online concern for their children. 14.3 percent chose “Maintaining online privacy” followed by “online bullying” at 11.8 percent.

More Than a Third of Parents Don’t Talk To Their Kids About Online Sexual Predation

For less emotionally and physically dangerous concerns like “Computer Viruses” and “Hidden Fees in Online Apps”, the percentage of all parents who expressed concern, but hadn’t spoken with their children, was even higher (54 percent and 43 percent, respectively).

Among parents most concerned about maintaining online privacy, 44 percent of parents overall hadn’t discussed the topic. The numbers suggest the threat of online privacy and identity theft is being perceived as a similar to hidden app fees.

Cyberbullying Is Being Underrated By Parents As A Concern

Our analysis shows parents biggest fears aren’t reflective of actual prevalence rates. Of the total group, 54.2 percent of parents said sexual predation online was their biggest concern while 11.8 percent said the same for online bullying. Sexual predation is defined as any person using the internet for the express purpose of targeting a minor to perform non-consensual sex acts.

Compared to sexual predation, cyberbullying occurs much more frequently for children. The prevalence rate for sexual predation online is only 13.0 percent. In contrast, a 2016 study commissioned by the Cyberbullying Research Center found 33.8 percent of U.S. high school students between the ages of 12 and 17 said they had experienced cyberbullying. Examples of cyberbullying can include sending threatening or hurtful texts, posting embarrassing photos or video, and/or spreading rumors.

Why is this important?

An analysis of over 7,800 student responses by Stanford’s Graduate School of Education showed that 80% of middle school students could not distinguish between "sponsored content" and a real news story on a website. The Stanford researchers who evaluated students' ability to assess information sources described the results as "dismaying," "bleak" and "a threat to democracy."

About Panda Security

Panda Security is a global-security leader in internet safety and provides advanced anti-virus and cybersecurity services designed to prevent cyber-crime for over 30+ million businesses and consumers in 180+ countries.