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Baptist Press (@baptistpress) reports on the surge among Christians to use mobile applications in accessing the Bible, especially in a mobile context.

There are Christian apps on every smartphone platform, but among the two most popular platforms -- Android and iPhone's iOS -- there are literally hundreds of Bible and Christian-themed apps, helping believers with everything from Scripture memorization to lesson preparation to Bible study to witnessing....

The most popular Christian app, by far, is the YouVersion Bible app (@YouVersion), developed by the multiple-site-campus church known as LifeChurch.tv.

Read this article in full. Also see “Christian Apps of the Month.”

Ministries and churches are creating their own apps to further their messages. For example, see the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (@BGEA) mobile site and its “Steps2Peace” app.

Let Somersault create a strategic app for your brand. Be sure to use daily our SomersaultNOW dashboard to remain current with the latest developments in social media marketing and digital publishing. And as long as we’re talking about mobility, be sure to regularly use Somersault’s mobile site for links to other mobile-friendly sites.

Trendwatching.com (@trendwatching) has identified 11 key consumer trends that will have a global impact on marketers this year:

1. Random acts of kindness: From brands randomly picking up a consumer’s tab to sending a surprise gift.
2. Urbanization: Urban consumers tend to be more daring, more liberal, more tolerant, more experienced, more prone to trying out new products and services.
3. Pricing Pandemonium: Brands should target consumers with offers and features such as instant mobile coupons and discounts, online group discounts, flash sales, and dynamic pricing based on real-time supply and demand.
4. Made for China/Emerging Economies: Growth in consumer spending in emerging markets far outpaces consumer spending in developed markets, and Western brands are favored more than local brands in emerging markets.
5. Online Status Symbols: Brands should supply consumers with any kind of symbol, virtual or ‘real world,’ that helps them display to peers their online contributions, interestingness, creations, or popularity.
6. ‘Wellthy:’ Consumers are expecting health products and services to prevent misery if not improve their quality of life, rather than merely treating illnesses and ailments.
7. ‘Twin-sumers’ and ‘Social-lites:’ Key to WOM recommendations. Twin-sumers are consumers with similar consumer patterns, likes and dislikes. Social-lites are consumers who consistently broadcast information to a wide range of associates online.
8. Emerging Generosity: Brands and wealthy individuals from emerging markets (especially China) who will increasingly be expected to give, donate, care and sympathize, as opposed to just sell and take.
9. Planned Spontaneity: Fragmented lifestyles, dense urban environments with multiple options, and cell/smartphones have created a generation who have little experience in making (or sticking to) rigid plans.
10. Eco-Superior: Products that are not only eco-friendly, but superior to polluting incumbents in every possible way.
11. Owner-less: For many consumers, access is better than ownership.

Read these observations in full.

Leave your comments below as to which one resonates with your brand and how you will take advantage of it.

In short, this data shows that: (1) consumers are interested in interacting with advertising that bears a QR code – thus, the promise of additional benefits in the form of deals, coupons, videos, sweepstakes, social media interactions, etc.; and (2) QR codes can help an ad break through the clutter by increasing the chance it will be remembered, great news for advertisers who have already integrated a QR code strategy into a traditional advertising campaign or are looking to insert them in a future campaign.

View the full survey results in pdf form.

How should you be using QR codes in your marketing communications mix?

Update: The above research is interesting, especially in light of the article QR Codes May Be Going Away. 

CNN reports on the National Geographic special series "7 Billion" that, among the entire population of the world, the average person is a 28-year-old Han Chinese male. And the most common person in the world is right handed, has an annual income under $12,000, and owns a cellphone, but does not have a bank account. What are the implications of this study in the world of publishing?

According to a study done by Grey Matter Research & Consulting of Phoenix, AZ, Millennials (18-29 year olds) “are a unique generation in our country’s recent history, in that their religious beliefs are fairly typical, yet their knowledge, experience, and willingness to act on or commit seriously to those beliefs lags other generations. They are not antagonistic toward religious faith, but often have a serious apathy or latency related to their faith.” Here are more excerpts from the report:

Research has long shown that during the transition from teen years to adulthood (from 16 or 17 through the early 20s), Americans have historically tended to move away from religious participation, then often started returning as they mature and have children of their own. What our research suggests is that for Millennials, this transition away from church started happening earlier than it did for other generational groups – as early as junior high school, rather than during the college age years. We hear so much that “kids grow up sooner these days” – apparently this extends to religious participation as well.

Looking back on their religious attendance prior to age 18, Millennials are less likely than other adults to say their childhood involvement made them much more interested in religion as an adult, or to feel it had a highly positive influence on their life today. In addition, Millennials are somewhat less likely to feel their childhood attendance has given them a good moral foundation, provided important religious knowledge, or helped them prepare for life as an adult, according to our research.

• Only 65% of Millennials say their religious faith is very important in their life today, compared to 71% of Generation X, 78% of Boomers, and 80% of Silents
• Just 35% of Millennials agree strongly that they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today, compared to 41% of Generation X, 51% of Boomers, and 54% of Silents
• Only 26% of Millennials agree strongly that eternal salvation is possible through God’s grace alone; that nothing we do can earn salvation – compared to 31% among Generation X, 32% among Boomers, and 40% among Silents

We find no difference between Millennials and other age groups on things such as the belief that:

• The Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all that it teaches
• They, personally, have a responsibility to tell other people about their religious beliefs
• Jesus was sinless when he lived on earth
• There is such a thing as sin
• God is the omniscient, omnipotent, perfect ruler of the universe

Notice that on issues of belief, Millennials are often quite similar to other age groups. It’s on the issues of importance of their religious faith, on commitment to Jesus Christ, on the absolutism of reliance on grace, and on active affiliation with a religious group or tradition, that they lag other generational groups.

The beliefs are there, but often not in a way that directs Millennials to behave differently or be strongly committed to those beliefs. Religious belief tends to be about as present in Millennials as it is in other age groups, but it is more likely to be latent than active. Religion lives more in the background than in the foreground. It is somewhat more theoretical than real.

Read the study (pdf) in full.

Based on this research, how can publishers, agents, and authors generate content that will inspire Millennials to act on their beliefs? Share your thoughts and let’s discuss.

Editor of PW Religion BookLine Lynn Garrett (@LynniGarrett) reports

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (@ECPA) has debuted a new consumer-oriented website. ChristianBookExpo.com (@ChristianBkExpo) is the new home for ECPA’s bestseller lists, list of Christian Book Award and sales award winners, and more than 200 author interviews and book trailers. Michael Covington (@m_covington), ECPA information and education director, says the top reason people visit the ECPA website is its bestseller list. So the trade group decided to re-organize its online resources to “cross-pollinate” programs and raise consumer awareness of authors and titles. www.ecpa.org will function as a social networking site for professionals in the Christian publishing community. That site will also be the home in the future of online industry forums, Covington says.

The @ChristianBkExpo Twitter stream is included in the Publishing tab of the SomersaultNOW dashboard.

What are your thoughts about the new ChristianBookExpo.com?

The Advertising Research Foundation (@The_ARF) features a video of Guy Garcia (@guygarcia), author of The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer Is Transforming American Business, speaking on the enormous shift in buying power from the diversity that is now the "new normal" driving force of American capitalism. He cites numerous cases that illustrate why "any organization that ignores the lessons of The New Mainstream [the new consumer] is doomed to fail."

Watch the video. What implications does this have for book publishing? As it relates to cover design? Content? Distribution? Marketing?

MediaPost’s MarketingDaily reports that the AMP Agency, a Boston-based branding firm, has completed a study of consumers, "Inside the Buy," that suggests that actually very few consumers between the ages of 25 and 49 are moved to purchase by habit, or sentimental considerations for a brand. It stresses that online information and reviews is what consumers rely on to make their decisions.

The study, based on a Fall 2010 poll of 865 Gen X and Y consumers, looks at what happens in the "consideration phase" of the purchase path, where the Web and what AMP found to be a "new/modern path" to purchase hold sway. The quantitative and qualitative study also addressed a changing view of brand loyalty. The firm found that just 3% of consumers say they are loyal to a particular brand and never buy anything else.

The study, which looks at five product categories -- baby products, consumer electronics, food and beverage, health and beauty, and fashion -- finds that the very idea of loyalty has changed for 97% of consumers. "New consumer behavior is redefining what we view as 'contemporary loyalty'," said Allison Marsh, VP, Consumer Insights at AMP Agency. "With more information, consumers have seized control and are more open to the wide choices in the marketplace."

Read this in full.

Here’s insight into buying behavior. According to a new study reported in TIME (@TIME), people whose surnames start with letters late in the alphabet may be the fastest to buy. What could possibly explain this weird phenomenon, which the study authors dubbed "the last-name effect"? The research didn't provide a definitive reason, but the authors offer an intriguing theory.

Since America's obsession with alphabetical order often forces the Zs to the back of the line in childhood, they suffer. They were always the last to get lunch in the cafeteria — sorry, Young, the other kids bought all the chocolate milk again — and had to beg for the teacher's attention from the back of the classroom. So later in life, when the Zs — and even onetime Zs who became As through marriage — see an item they really like for sale or are offered a deal, they jump on it, afraid that supplies won't last. The chocolate milk is finally in front of them. So they grab it.

What implications would this have for your brand?

Read this article in full.