Welcome to Market Revolution's blog



Thank you for visiting Market Revolution's blog.

We live and work in exciting times - revolutionary times. Technology continues to recast the media industry.

The extraordinary advance of affordable personal digital technology and the stellar rise of social networks are both distrupting and transforming the media market making this a unique moment to be involved in the convergence sectors we focus on.

This is also our place to ruminate and comment on the world as we see it, we hope you enjoy and please join in.





Wednesday 30 January 2008

This seems like joined up thinking

The News of the World's new glossy magazine, Fabulous, will be linked to an online shop when it launches this weekend.

Readers will be able to "click and buy" frocks and other items from more than 450 brands featured in Fabulous's celebrity fashion shoots through an interactive shopping function on the fabulousmag.co.uk site.

Friday 18 January 2008

Internet sales boom in 2007

Check out the latest internet retail figures. They are very exciting. Its clear from these numbers that 2007 was the year that online retailing came of age. Not surprising really as we have been tracking real consumer adoption throughout the year but huge and rapid growth nevertheless.

There is no doubt that the whole online shopping deal has improved significantly over last 18 months. Retail sites are far better, payment is secure, goods arrive and on time and real value is being passed on the consumer. why bother with the overcrowed high street? Point is made by the 4.4m people who shopped online on Christmas day!

The figures:
  • Internet sales in 2007 were £46.6bn, up from the £30.2bn in 2006.
  • 15pc of UK consumers making their retail purchases online.
  • Nearly 1 pound in every seven spent on consumer goods in 2007 was spent over the internet.
  • A jump of more than 50pc since 2006.


Online shopping figures

Survey conducted by Capgemini and the IMRG, the online retailers' industry body.




Wednesday 16 January 2008

Quote of the day

If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough"

Mario Andretti (racing driver extraordinaire)

Tuesday 15 January 2008

UK is a nation of social networking obsessives

Our thanks to Brand Republic for this insight. Its interesting in that it compares UK with EU neighbours.....

LONDON - UK adults spend more time on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace than their European neighbours, with as many as one in four adults saying they regularly log on to the sites, according to an Ofcom report.

The UK adults who visit the sites spend an average of 5.3 hours each month on them and return to them an average of 23 times a month.

The analysis is matched by the investment made by advertisers in the UK, where companies spend more money per person on internet advertising than any other country. The UK currently spends £33 per person, twice as much as France, Germany and Italy combined.

The finding is one of many that shows the UK is ahead of its European counterparts in terms of the latest digital trends.

The report compares the UK with eight European countries as well as Japan, Canada and the US. It was carried out to help determine future policies, provide information to the UK advertising and media industry, and assess where the UK market stands on a global scale.

Ofcom has also researched how internet audiences around the world are broken down by gender. Across all the countries studied the divide is 52% women to 48% men.

In the UK, the split is 50-50, except in the 18-34 age group, where far more women are surfing the net.

Ofcom has suggested this pattern is related to the increasing popularity of social networking sites.

Other findings revealed that Europeans watch less TV than the Americans and Japanese. In the UK, the average is 25.2 hours a week, or 3.5 hours a day. That is less than Italy and Spain but more than Germany and Ireland.

People in the UK also listen to more radio than in any of the other eleven countries surveyed, while the medium is least popular in Japan.

Ed Richards, Ofcom chief executive said: "The report shows that convergence, bundling and the move to digital communications is a powerful global phenomenon.

"It's important to understand international comparisons so Ofcom can develop better policies to serve the interests of consumers and citizens in the UK."

Thursday 10 January 2008

Only in Germany?

BERLIN (Reuters) - The owner of a small German computer company has fired three non-smoking workers because they were threatening to disturb the peace after they requested a smoke-free environment.

The manager of the 10-person IT company in Buesum, named Thomas J., told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper he had fired the trio because their non-smoking was causing disruptions.

Germany introduced non-smoking rules in pubs and restaurants on January 1, but Germans working in small offices are still allowed to smoke.

"I can't be bothered with trouble-makers," Thomas was quoted saying. "We're on the phone all the time and it's just easier to work while smoking. Everyone picks on smokers these days. It's time for revenge. I'm only going to hire smokers from now on."

How Apple changed the mobile sector for ever

Lots and lots has been written about the Apple iPhone. It's been critical and commercial success. An estimated 3 million units have been shipped so far and Apple's share price is at an all time high. Wired Magazine has just published a piece (rather grandly) entitled The Untold Story: How the iPhone blew up the wireless industry. Its well worth a read.

For those of you that don't have time (it is quite long) the piece basically says that Apple with its iPhone (which took 3 years and $150 million to develop) has forever changed the mobile-phone business, wresting power from carriers and giving it to handset manufacturers, developers, and to you and I the consumer.



On behalf of mobile dependant consumers everywhere we say thank you Apple

Tuesday 8 January 2008

Xmas comes but once a year, but how often do your customers interact with you?

This weekend saw M&S reporting their first sales decline in over 2 years, as Xmas spending was hit by "consumer confidence". The word on the high street seems to be "concern", as consumers keep more of their money in their pocket. The bricks and mortar situation is hindered by not being able to successfully translate a database full of customer names into a real time sales driver on the high streets in the run up to Xmas.

Online sales over Xmas are reported to have continued the growth seen last year. With an avalanche of e-money flying through the e-tills, it will be interesting to see how marketers and CRM experts within the online retail giants interact with their customers over the next few months.

I'm waiting with interest to see how my online favourites communicate with me.

Xmas 2006, I bought almost all my presents online. This year however I did very little shopping online. Smart CRM systems would pick that up, tag me as a "shopped last year but didn't return despite our enticing pre-Xmas emails" and treat me differently. Maybe establish why I didn't spend my money this time round. Maybe just make me an offer I can't refuse to entice me back to the site and transact again.

I fear however that I'll just be treated like everyone else, and receive the usual mass e-mail. I live in hope that someone will treat me like an individual, but I'm not holding my breath. Come on businesses, gain insight from me as a customer, translate it into a compelling offer which will motivate my return to the fold, and then watch me spend money with you again. It's almost too easy......

Saturday 5 January 2008

08 - its all about mobile stupid

Welcome to 08 from all of us at Market Evolution.

Its sure to be an exciting year.

Last year we correctly predicted 07 was the year social networking took off and firmly established itself. We predict that this year will be dominated by mobile.

Heres a stat to kick us off:

The market for text messages alone last year was over $60billion globally, more than 4 times the size of the entire music industry.

As usual we will be monitoring consumers mobile behaviour and you will be the first to know whats out there and happening

Happy New Year