Generation Gap: How the Coronavirus changed media consumption and trust

The coronavirus outbreak has given us some time to really dive into the opportunity of digital platforms. Shops and malls were closed. Live events moved into Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Duo, Webex conferences. And, many of us searched for quite tones in some music streaming platform. In this period of social distancing and confused news spread, people consume incredible amounts of media – be it video, text, pictures, music or TV. The generation gap is quite impressive, when wee look at some study by the Global Web Index.

Global Web Index shows that 80% of consumers in the U.S. and UK consume more content since the pandemic outbreak. One things all generations and genders have in common: Broadcast TV and online videos (YouTube, TikTok) were the primary media sources. Furthermore, 68% of the 4.000 respondents preferred online news against any other news option.

Global Web Index gives us some insights into how different generations use media. It illustrates which impact the outbreak had on our media consumption. Whether it is correct to stereotype generations or not, GenZ, GenY, GenX to Boomers use media platforms in a complete different way.

Generations are very different in media usage though. Gen Z is more active listening to music than to news spreads. However, Gen X is more playful, mainly on mobiles and computers, they also tend to be self-organizing their lives when finding cooking recipes and healthy eating tipps. Still, what has massively changed in our lives is the way we trust others. Although, there is much noise around the World Health Organization (WHO), this organization is still seen as the most trusted source of information for any COVID-19 related updates. However, there are regional differences: The UK trust more in their government as the most trusted news source. Funnily enough, people trust more ein social media sources on information updates than their own family, friends or foreign government sites.

The study also shows that in times of uncertainty, the interest in new subscription rises. Obviously, people have got more time to watch films and inform themselves via new sources they have not used in the past. Whether, it is to understand the pandemic chaos better or to update themselves on content they have missed out in the past.

The only thing we wonder is, how can people consume more paid media when jobs and industries crack down? But maybe the economy is up and running soon. Then media consumption might change again completely.

Bosch Connected World 2020 – The human unicorn on AI

Unicorns are different, Bosch is different too. Ties, walled garden ecosystems and hierarchies sound like a thing of the past at this year’s Bosch Connected World. Urban smoothies, technological openness and „Menschment“ (instead of management) have taken over. Transformation at Bosch is in progress – not only in a digital sense. And in terms of Artificial Internet-of-Things (AIoT), Bosch nails their business transformation with their new unit Bosch.IO and their human-focussed Artifical Intelligence (AI) codex.

Bosch has a a clear focus: Staying human – in business creation, employee resources, and especially all means of industrial artificial intelligence. Whatever the decision is for companies starting to implement artificial intelligence, humans shall keep control. „Artificial intelligence has to be accompanied by ethics. AI has to serve people. With our AI codex we give our employees a clear guideline for the development of intelligent products“, states Bosch-CEO Volkmar Denner in his opening speech at their big AIoT event Bosch Connected World (BCW) in Berlin. Denner is emphasizing their mission with the statement: „Our aim is to make people trust in AI products“ and his personal note for a more sustainable industry „I believe in the power of technology to balance economical, ecological and societal challenges of the future“.

Humans & AI: Together for a better future

The ambition Bosch has in mind is that people and companies have more trust in its AI products. Guided by their Bosch ethos „Invented for Life“, the company strives to create safe, robust and explainable products, while improving human’s quality of life and looking at sustainable ways to use natural resources. Reading their 3 main guidelines for decision making in AI-based products makes clear that all companies should have a similar approach to AI…

Humans-in-command (HIC)
The AI product is used as a tool and humans get to decide when and how to use it.

Human-in-the-loop (HITL)
Humans can directly change and influence the decisions made by an AI product.

Humans-on-the-loop (HOTL)
Humans can define certain parameters for AI during the design process and can also review any decision that was carried out by the product.

The management team of Bosch made clear that they aim at a partnership of humans and AI, AI is not a human challenger or competitor. Humans shall be able to make use of their decision-making skills through AI, and AI shall enable an optimization and transformation of machines and business processes to drive business efficiency. It’s a hand-in-hand that leverages AI for better industries.

Business driven by hearts

The HR department is further fostering the AI transformation internally. They are training their own employees across all departments via their academy. However, Bosch not only bets on AI. They also encourage change. The company takes change management serious. Maybe it is not happening at the speed of AI. But in a balanced, structured and enjoyable calm program that an ever-changing global workforce is asking for. In her presentation „IoT needs IoP – leading yourself to lead others leads to high performance“ Petra Kama-Welle, Bosch VP Human Resources, made clear that a mindset change in leadership comes with role modelling.

By describing her roles from mother to change manager, Kama-Welle explained that role modelling is the way to escape the former „leadership-in-the-box“ hierarchy mentality in order to path the way from „command and control“ towards „enjoy, growth & perform“. It’s a modern leadership mindset transformation from a heart for hearts to grow hearts. While some companies start to define their business purpose these days, Bosch is already on the purpose road to let hearts drive their business. A bit poetical, I know, but that’s the way unicorns tend to be.

Leveraging the unicorn playground

Maybe one topic at Bosch Connected World can be optimized (definitely not the awesome catering!): the conference program. Selecting the right tracks from five stages with various parallel sessions around business or industry focus, remains a challenge for every attendee. Figuring out how to make your perfect way in a short two days’ knowledge gathering seemed almost impossible. Maybe AI could have helped. Maybe an AI event app, in which you throw in your main tags of interest could have provided a solution here. And maybe a professional moderation is something to think about as well for 2021. But hey, nobody said that unicorns are perfect.

Some show cases made me think, e.g. if Nikola Motor’s Badger, providing nine hundred horsepower out of a battery and fuel cell combination, is really needed in times of sustainability wake-ups. Or if the heat map train app, showing me which cabin is less crowded before accessing the train and notifying me „Mind the gap!“ persuaded me? Probably not. Still, it’s a unique „sensoring“ of decision-making, empowered by AI value. Should I rather trust Lindera and their „Decision Intelligence“ to not stumble at the train station in the future instead?

We will see, which Bosch or other Bosch enabled unicorns will help us in an AI ethical and supportive way in the future, maybe already at the next Bosch Connected World.

The slightly other infografic about the social media universe

On which social media planet do you live?

Infografics are one of the best and most popular methods to show figures, developments and facts. You will find hundreds of charts with numbers based on data presented colorfull and visually. The enormous development of various social media platforms and the ongoing evolution is one of the frequent topics in the creation of such graphics. But this grafic is somehow different than any other.  Read more

Internet Trends 2018 – Mary Meeker Report

There are a lot of reports within the technology business but there are only a few worth sharing. When talking about internet trends the following report from Mary Meeker is one of these positive examples we want to share with you. It covers more or less every interesting section within the tech industry where companies […]

2018 Global Digital Future in Focus [Whitepaper]

There is so much going on within the technology, social networks and communication area and it’s hard to keep an overview of everything.  In these days it is good to see the variety of development paths either in countries, technologies or user behavior in the form of reports. comScore provides with his ‘2018 Global Digital Future in Focus’ a snapshot of desktop, smartphone and tablet usage around the world, examining how audiences and content consumption changed from over the last couple of months during 2017. There are some winners and some losers but the reason behind the results and the consequences are more interesting at the end.  Read more

Report on Messaging Apps: Comparison from WhatsApp to WeChat

The popularity of messaging apps is increasing. Whether it is the Facebook Messenger where all companies hope for the latest secret sauce on messenger bot technology or Line and WeChat which already offer company profiles. It becomes very clear that messengers are different in terms of functionality, technology set-up as well as the value for brands and companies. Very often in seminar that we hold these days, messengers get mixed up with social networks, and the functionality is not very much clear to marketers. Understanding the differences and the opportunities for brands has become really challenging for them. And knowing which messenger apps are used in which countries and regions will make the lives of marketers easier.

Therefore, the team at Forrester has created a report called “The Future of Messaging Apps“. The report offers a simple overview of the most important facts around messaging apps, user figures and above all summarizes the opportunities for companies as Marketingland summarizes it. And although the world and marketers get mad around Snapchat, the overview states that seven out of ten leading apps got more users than the “yellow messenger”, and also Viber, Kik and Line get more ground and challenge other platforms like Skype which was leading not so many years ago.

The evolution of messengers for brands is interesting to have a closer look at. Unsurprisingly, Asian messengers are leading. WeChat already has got some 10 Mio. company profiles, and even Line has got 2 Mio. of those already. Although Line is not familiar to many brands, they have turned around 1,1 Mrd. USD already ($ 224 Mio. via Stickers which seems to be a good monetization strategy). The messengers Kik (also offering ad opportunities for brands) and Telegram started their own Messenger Bots. On the other side, we realize that WhatsApp is starting to approach companies these days to elaborate on business requirements. So, it will be interesting to see what kind of brand solutions they are coming up with in the future.

Please find the overview in a graphic as follows…

Forrester_Messaging_Apps-Messenger_Brands_Opportunities_User_Numbers_2016

Twitter Study: The value of influencers

Some weeks ago in this post, we have tried to define an undefined social media species: Influencers. The feedback was very positive and many companies are still trying to find the secret sauce how to use and leverage the value of influencers for their brands and their sales funnel.

Now, a recent study by Twitter gives further evidence of the value of influencers, and on how they help positioning brands and in which way they might might upload the sales funnel. The first part of the study was meant to figure out amoung more than 300 users how they responded toward brand influencers.

The study conducted by Annalect, a data analytics company, in corporation with Twitter shows that almost 40% of the responding people stated to have purchased an item online after seeing it used by an influencer on a social platform like Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. And another 40% stated that they are following brands on Twitter.

But influencers are not only valuable in terms of sales performance. They also make people share products they are using themselves. Almost one in five (20%) respondents claimed that they shared something they saw from an influencer. Amoung Millennials even one in three said they follow a social media influencer on Twitter or Vine.

The study comes like an extension of two former studies from Nielsen and Lithium making clear that Millennials trust different people in different ways. Interestingly enough, this study also states that influencers rival friends in trust building. Just 7% of respondents rely more on recommendations from friends (56%) than from influencers (49%).

“This is telling us is that you don’t have to be a mass media star or a household name to be influential and actually drive people to buy stuff.” Jeffrey Graham, Vice President of Market Research and Insights, Twitter

The Twitter-owned talent agency Niche revealed that the pool of influencers available to brands has grown from 6,000 to over 25,000 in a year. Honestly, we would say there os probably more depending on what you value: reach or relevance.

Twitter_Infographic_Influencer_2016

Spot On!
The smartphone has become the modern sales acceleration technology. Social influencers put trendy or interesting products on their sites or streams while walking down the street or by getting them from brands for free, and people following them would purchase those products. Have you not experienced this yourself?

The only thing we wonder is, how much would brands pay influencers to write about their product and share a picture of the product via their social media accounts? The numbers we know from influencers vary but maybe there is someone in the market who might want to share some insights.

Report: IoT 2020 – Big expectations and cost savings

Credit: © sdecoret – Fotolia.com

Credit: © sdecoret – Fotolia.com

Just recently, we summarized the findings of Goldman Sachs’ on the Internet-of-Things (IoT) report, and what they think where IoT might lead us to in the future.

Now, another report from Schneider Electric called “IoT 2020 Business Report” delivers some new findings on how large organisations will leverage Internet of Things technologies as a serious business tool by 2020. Their study is based on feedback by 3,000 business leaders from twelve countries.

According to their global survey, 75% of respondents were optimistic about the opportunities IoT presents this year. Almost every second out of three (63%) companies use IoT to improve their customer experience and analyze customer behaviour in 2016. They hope to solve problems faster, achieve better customer service and customer satisfaction ranking.

Furthermore, cost savings in automation seem to be high on the agenda, above all building (63%) and industrial automation (62%). As results showed the improvements in automation technologies almost half of the companies (42%) say they want to implement IoT-enabled building automation systems within the next two years.

The key driver for IoT is mobile for two out of three companies (67%). Thus, they plan to implement IoT via mobile applications this year, and 32% even in the next six months. Again, cost savings of up to 59% is the major driver for IoT implementation.

The confidence is the value of knowledge gathering and sharing already exists inside most companies surveyed. 81% feel that the data and/or information generated by the IoT is being shared effectively throughout the organisation. Fears are lower than expected. Only 41% of respondents connect cybersecurity threats with IoT business challenges.

“We’re past the point of questioning whether IoT will deliver value. Businesses now need to make informed decisions to position themselves to maximise IoT’s value in their organisation.” Dr. Prith Banerjee, Chief Technology Officer, Schneider Electric

However, Schneider Electric does not only publish numbers of their study but also provides the following predictions that business leaders might take into consideration.

1. The next wave of digital transformation.
IoT will bring operational technology (OT) and IT together while fueling a mobile and digitally enabled workforce: As more companies both expand and deepen their digitisation programmes enterprise-wide, IoT will increasingly take centre stage. This new wave of transformation will be enabled by more affordable “connected” sensors, embedded intelligence and control, faster and more ubiquitous communications networks, cloud infrastructure, and advanced data-analytics capabilities.

2. Insightful data.
IoT will translate previously untapped data into insights that enable enterprises to take the customer experience to the next level: When thinking about the value proposition of IoT, most businesses point to efficiency and cost savings as the key benefits. Yet access to data – including previously untapped data – and the ability to translate it into actionable insights, the hallmark of IoT, will deliver greater customer-service transformation and new opportunities to build brand/service loyalty and satisfaction.

3. Premise-to-cloud confidence.
The IoT will promote an open, interoperable and hybrid computing approach, and it will foster industry and government collaboration on global architecture standards that address cybersecurity concerns: While cloud-based IoT solutions will grow in popularity, no single computing architecture will monopolise their delivery. IoT instead will flourish across systems, both at the edge and on premise, as part of private cloud or public cloud offerings. Making IoT available across heterogeneous computing environments will help end users adopt IoT solutions in the way that best suits their security and mission-critical needs while also offering entities with legacy technology infrastructures a logical and manageable path forward, allowing them to transform over time.

4. Innovations that leapfrog existing infrastructure.
IoT will function as a source of innovation, business model disruption and economic growth for businesses, governments and emerging economies: Just as the Industrial Revolution, birth of the Internet and mobile revolution have driven advancement, innovation and prosperity, so will IoT. Businesses and cities alike will deliver new IoT-enabled services; new business models will emerge; and, in particular emerging economies will have a significant opportunity to quickly leverage IoT without the constraint of legacy infrastructure, essentially leapfrogging old ways. In fact, McKinsey forecasts that 40 percent of the worldwide market for IoT solutions will be generated by developing countries.

5. A better planet.
IoT solutions will be leveraged to address major societal and environmental issues: IoT will help countries and their economies respond to the biggest challenges facing our planet, including global warming, water scarcity and pollution. In fact, survey respondents identified improved resource utilisation as the number one benefit of IoT to society as a whole. In concert with the private sector, local and national governments will embrace IoT to accelerate and optimise current initiatives to curtail greenhouse gas emissions in accord with the breakthrough COP21 climate agreement, whereby 196 countries pledged to keep global warming under the threshold of two degrees celsius.

Spot On!
The Internet of Things has been seen as the main revolution from a technology perspective. The hype seems to be at an all-time high. Real business value is not only saving money though. Customer service improvements, better process optimization and smarter work and life opportunities will have big potential to bring IoT business value to enterprises in the future.

What is your experience on the value of IoT for your business?

State of the Market Report: Internet of Things 2016

IoT Coffee MachineThe Internet of Things is said to have a major impact on the business world according to Jared Newman. Goldman Sachs even thinks that IoT opportunity for industrials could amount to $2 trillion by 2020. Connected cars, connected utility, connected houses, connected vineyards, connected streets, connected everything – the opportunities seem incredable bearing in mind that with IoT everyting can be addressed in the future.

Now, a recent report called “State of the Market: Internet of Things 2016,” shows that the Internet of Things (IoT) is already mainstream.

The motivation behind the high adoption rate is quite obvious: The opportunity for revenue growth drives many managers towards IoT adoption with data being the monetization engine behind it. Still, just 8% of the respondents make use of more than 25% of their IoT data these days.

Not suprisingly, the report also highlights that enterprises are turning to startups to help accelerate their IoT growth. In 2015, enterprise IoT startup companies outpaced funding for consumer startup companies by 75%.

Verizon’s experts think that IoT will continue to be a revenue driver for businesses both large and small due to the confluence of five macrotrends:

1. Consumer usage of smartphones.
High expectations to automation possibilities as of simplified interface. 81% of IoT adopters in the public sector believe that their citizens increasingly expect them to offer enhanced services from data and IoT.

2. Data monetization is wanted.
By 2018, almost 50% of businesses expect to be using more than 25%of their data. Descriptive data collection will become predictive and prescriptive data analytics. Paradigm shift from “big data” to domain experts expected.

3. Regulatory landscape will bring right ecosystem partners together to drive industry standards.
In the US, with the Drug Supply Chain Act manufacturers until late 2017 will implement systems to electronically transfer and store transaction histories for their prescription drugs including shipment information across their distribution and supply chain. Result: Thwart counterfeiting drugs and savings of $75 billion annually according to the World Health Organization.

4. Democratization of innovation by network connectivity, low power devices and IoT platforms.
Businesses can scale their IoT deployments from millions to billions of connections more cost-efficiently. With the new 5G, autonomous solutions such as cars and robotics will become a reality and new categories of uses cases will evolve, such as virtual and augmented reality for IoT deployments.

5. Security experts keep up with the development of technology by looking to arising threat vectors
Some old, some new – that will impact IoT deployments and ongoing operations. Data privacy, protection and processing will remain the biggest challenge for security experts.

Spot On!
Sometimes reports do not look at the data challenge of the IoT development in my eyes. The interesting aspect is that IoT offers some incredible opportunities to improve our lives, simplify our ways of health tracking and be informed about the status of our cars and houses. However, most of the use cases are often based on some cloud services that people do not trust in as the generated data is stored in some unknown data center somewhere in the world. I sometimes wonder, why companies don’t start to save the data in a personal private cloud that can be added as an add-on service to the IoT business.

But hey, maybe I am asking for too much at this stage of the IoT status. Thoughts?

Five components of digital marketing operations (Infographic)

According to some infographic from McKinsey&Company successful digital marketing can boost their marketing effectiveness by 15-25% if they use the following five components of marketing operations. So, if your company wants to beat the competition, you better follow the advice to implement these five important components.

Here is just some remarks from our consulting business to why those topics might be of relevance to your digital strategy…

1. Customer Insights
Many companies still have not yet implemented a real web analytics or a social media monitoring tool in order to understand the inner and outer impact of consumer demands and reactions.

2. Customer Experience
Market research and product marketing often pretends to know what needs to be build, produced or offered. However, reality shows that often consumer expectations and company opportunities lack the match. Often companies lack the alignment with sales and marketing.

3. KPIs and Measurement
Understanding what makes consumers, companies and decision makers purchase a product or service is aiming for predictive analysis and forecasting when focusing on ROI. Still, KPIs need to be realistic and often lacks the knowledge of what technology is capable of.

4. Marketing Technology Infrastructure
The real bottleneck of digital marketing these days. As of the big marketing technology landscape and a grown intern technology infrastructure, technology decisions are very often a shot in the dark.

5. Process & Governance
Generating real benefit from technology is depending on the right people who get the appropriate training und understanding for the tools’ capabilities. And as people are often not used to those modern tools and how to use them, they want a (brand) governance (and compliance frameworks) which keeps them in their seats.

McKinsey-DMO-Infographic