I am on holiday. During my holiday I will be disconnected.

However I did plan my holiday online. See you in a few weeks.

Seems like the luxury Brand debate is coming to an end. Luxury Brands often do have a problem with the transparency and accessibility of the web. Because they do have a reputation to protect. And they need to stay exclusive.

However this does not mean luxury Brands can ignore the the fast evolving changes in digital branding. Research shows that the luxury consumer is ready for 2.0 and they do have very high expectations.

Not meeting this expectations will definitely harm your brand. For a luxury brand, just ‘keeping up’ is not enough. You have to be outstanding.

Beth Uyenco, Research Director for Microsoft Advertising comes with the following Luxury Brand Engagement Model:

• ‘Awareness’ To stay in line with the offline communications, and to deepen the brand experience with interaction, your web presence needs to be of top quality.
• ‘Admiration’ Luxury Brands need to exceed expectations and do also have to communicate on an emotional level.
• ‘Exploration’ Similar to the in-store communications. Luxury customers will want a personalizes way of exploring the Brand and its products.
• ‘Consideration’ After the exploration phase, it is important to create engagement. In this stage it is very important to know who your future customer is, to deliver an exceptional service and to invite the customer to join the Brand.
• ‘Purchase’ Integration of offline and online will give the possibility to enrich the purchase experience. It is about helping to buy more efficient and/or making the purchase a remarkable moment.
• ‘Ownership’ There are many digital ways to keep and strengthen the relations with your exclusive customers.

(Thanks to Microsoft Advertising and frankwatching.com )

Last Thursday, 29 may, there was the second e-Business Convention in Geneve. It was a small conference and the aim was not to be inspiring, I guess, but more to inform new prospects and clients.

I was surprised there was a photographer instead of some flashy podcast and or back-channel experience. Must valuable of the convention was, in my opinion, the list of companies serving Geneva and it region in the online marketing field. So here is a list of companies based in our region.

1. www.b3b.ch
2. www.b-i.com
3. www.businessdecision.ch
4. www.cobweb.ch
5. www.cross-systems.ch
6. www.dotbase.com
7. www.emailvision.ch
8. www.everial.ch
9. www.ic-agency.com
10. www.mediapost.ch
11. www.opi.ch
12. www.optaros.com
13. www.rsd.com
14. www.smallbiz.ch
15. www.zoovista.ch

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) can be found in most European countries and in various other countries of the world, even in South America. There are now attempts to launch the first Asian IAB in china.

Strange though that there still is no Swiss IAB.

Asking IAB Europe about it, they confirm that IAB Europe is in conversation with a group of people about opening an IAB here. They hope to make a formal announcement about it before June. That is in about 10 days!

Mission of IAB is accelerating the growth of e-commerce, interactive advertising and online marketing.

In these days it is difficult to protect your brand against bad publicity. Everybody can say anything on any platform. It is impossible to dictate communications around your brand. Brands with the illusion of control are way behind. As explained on many other blogs bad news is spreading fast on the Internet. Much faster than good news. Here is a nice example of how to prevent this:

This Wednesday I was complaining about netvibes on twitter because netvibes seemed down for more than a day and I just had directed some prospects to my public page. Normally when I have something to say about a company I do notice them adding @company in my tweets. Never did I get any respond. It seems like most companies are using twitter for pushing in stead of interacting.

But with netvibes I did not. What they did is they noticed me complaining (using Twitter track I suppose) and asked me to get in contact. In10 minutes the problem was solved.

Think about what this did with my brand perception. And the perception of others following my tweets…

Brands are increasingly recognizing that customer experience is everything. With the transparency of the web, news travels fast. Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000. Micropersuasion.com is even talking about a digital job function: Chief Customer Experience Officer
They also did set up an easy example with a google ’search within results’. Just enter any company and check the results.

Most of us still have the presumption that with online marketing you only reach youth. The European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) now published a report about Digital Families. It is interesting to see that Digital parents engage in a wider range of digital activities than those that live without children.

The research also shows that the websites visited by digital parents and their online activities vary according to the age of the children. If you are planning on targeting this online audience this information is really useful:

People living with very young children (between nought and four) are increasingly visiting health and film websites (+24% since 2006) while those living with children between five and nine are going to games sites (+32%). Price comparison sites are seeing a boost amongst those living with children between ten and fifteen (+31%) while those with older children (between 16 and 18) are enjoying more TV sites (+77%). Users living with older children also seem to be more technically advanced – almost half (47%) of those living with children aged 16-18 use instant messaging services compared to 37% of people living with children aged nought to four. A similar trend is seen when comparing film, TV or video clip downloads (30% vs. 22%) and music downloads (36% vs. 32%).

(sources: Google Alert and marketingfacts.nl)

Online video advertising is getting popular.

Research from Isobar
found that around 90% of the French online audience ages 15 to 49 had seen at least one video ad in May 2007.

Over half (55.5%) of the respondents to the Isobar survey went on to visit a brand’s Web site, one-third searched online for further product information and over 22% requested further information. What’s more, one in five bought a product as a direct result of seeing a video ad.

See eMarketer

Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) now presents an overview of Digital Video Ad Formats to help us out with all the different possibilities.

Today, in the Netherlands, wehkamp.nl is the first with a video ad on the youtube NL homepage. (see marketingfacts.nl)

and there is a lot more to come..