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The surprise of finding a unique, fun, and relevant book in the glove compartment of your new car is still a delight, even (or especially?) in this digital ebook age.

In a promotional campaign introducing Volkswagen's Up! (@vw_up & @volkswagen_up) small car to the UK, drivers get a special treat when they find The Narrow Roads of Britain, a handsomely illustrated glove-box-size book that highlights 18 of the thinnest thoroughfares in Britain, from urban tunnels to country lanes — perfect for the Up! to slip through. GPS coordinates appear on each page, along with photos by Harry Cory Wright (@Harrycorywright).

Read this in full.

The Inspiration Room (@InspirationRoom) reports on another innovative use of a printed book: "Land Rover Edible Desert Survival Guide." The agency Y&R Dubai (@yrdubai) created a book with helpful advice in the event of an emergency in the desert and used it to promote Land Rover (@LandRover) to existing owners, gave it away as a supplement to the car's manual, and made it available in sports shops.

It was made out of edible ink and paper, and it had a nutritional value close to that of a cheeseburger. 

Read this in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish your unique content for your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

MediaTel’s (@MediaTelGroup) Newsline reports on an extensive new study by payment processor WorldPay (@WorldPay_US), covering 19,000 consumers and 153 senior decision makers from global retailers. The Global Online Shopper Report identifies the online shopping habits of consumers in the UK, US, China, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Canada, Argentina, and India. Here are some highlights:

·         22% of consumers' annual expenses go toward buying goods and services online.

·         Online shopping takes up 5 hours a month.

·         95% of ecommerce purchases are conducted within the home; 54% of global consumers shop in the living room and 43% the bedroom. 5% shop in the garden and 3% in the bathroom

·         For m-commerce, 55% of time is spent using a laptop; 30% using a mobile device

·         74% of global online spending takes place between midday to midnight, with most (44%) done during the evening. Cumulatively, this helps to create an international "spending peak" of 8:40 pm — the time at which most customers are shopping online at a purely global level.

·         For "heavy spenders," (classified as those who spend 30% of disposable income online), 55% have shopped online with a mobile phone and 67% with a tablet in the past 3 months.

·         China has the largest percentage of consumers using smartphones to shop, (nearly 46%) followed by India at 40%

·         Only 9% of US shoppers use instant messaging while shopping compared to the global average of 18%

·         69% of online shoppers used credit cards; PayPal was used by 40%; debit cards by 37%. (The total is higher than 100% since shoppers can use multiple payment methods while shopping online.)

·         Amazon, the world's largest Internet retailer, was the most popular website for buying online. 43% of consumers worldwide had shopped at Amazon in the past 3 months, but in the US that number jumped to 83%. EBay came in at 33% and 45% respectively.

·         The top reason why online shoppers leave a site without paying: "Presented with unexpected costs" (56%)

Read the full report.

Also see the Harris Interactive (@HarrisInt) poll report (commissioned by Placecast (@placecast), “Not Just for Talking: Nearly 40% of US Adult Mobile Phone Owners Say Making Purchases via their Device is Important, as Phone is Seen Increasingly as a Commerce Tool” and the Nielsen (@NielsenWire) study, “How US Smartphone and Tablet Owners Use Their Devices for Shopping.”

Bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

NPR (@npralltech) journalist Steve Henn (@HennsEggs) reports on the mobile shopping revolution and one way store retailers can compete.

When you shop online, marketers are following your every click. But when you walk into a store they know almost nothing about you. That detailed information about in-store shoppers is exactly what retailers want. A company called Nearbuy Systems (@NearbuySystems) is using mobile technology to try to give it to merchants.

"Our challenge was, take what we already have, and most stores have — Wi-Fi and ... video for security and things — and mix those two signals together to create something that is more accurate," says Bryan Wargo, co-founder of Nearbuy Systems.

Retailers could use this technology to build apps to guide customers through their store aisles to specific products, or even deliver discounts and coupons based on where people are standing in any particular store.

Read this in full.

Bookmark and use daily SomersaultNOW, our (@smrsault) online dashboard designed for publishing and marketing executives.

According to the online business journal of the Wharton School, Knowledge@Wharton (@knowledgwharton), the latest research from two Wharton professors suggests that when it comes to creating buzz-worthy advertising campaigns, how people communicate (e.g., whether they talk face to face or over email) is a big factor in determining what they discuss. It's not as simple as blanketing the Web with pop-up ads or blasting the airwaves with commercials, they note. It's about picking the right medium for the right message.

In their paper, How Interest Shapes Word-of-Mouth over Different Channels, marketing professors Jonah Berger and Raghuram Iyengar conclude:

How interesting a product is to discuss matters more when people communicate through discontinuous channels, such as blog posts, texts, emails, and online conversations.

The professors draw a distinction between discontinuous and continuous channels. The latter include face-to-face or phone conversations in which there is an instant response. When people speak in this manner, interesting products or brands are not talked about with any more frequency than less distinctive ones because social convention demands an immediate response. “It’s awkward to have dinner with a friend in silence, or ride in a cab with a colleague without conversing, so rather than waiting to think of the most interesting thing to say, people will talk about whatever is top-of-mind to keep the conversation flowing,” they write. “It's not that people do not have enough interesting things to talk about; rather, they do not have the time to select the most interesting thing.”

By contrast, discontinuous channels allow the participant to take time to craft a good response — or no response at all. It is socially acceptable for a woman to post a link on Facebook about a new pair of shoes that caught her eye, for example, and have no one “like” it. Berger notes, “Imagine if you’re online and someone sends you something. You don’t have to reply. You’re only going to share things when they cross a certain threshold of interesting. The option of not saying anything is fine in a discontinuous conversation.”

“Practitioners often believe that products need to be interesting to be talked about, but our results suggest they are only right for certain word-of-mouth channels,” the authors note in their paper. “If the goal is to get more discussion online ... framing the product in an interesting or surprising way should help. Ads or online content that surprises people, violates expectations or evokes interest in some other manner should be more likely to be shared.”

Read this in full.

Another academic paper, What Makes Online Content Viral? by Jonah Berger and Katherine L. Milkman, concludes that positive content is more viral than negative content, but the relationship between emotion and social transmission is more complex than valence alone.

Virality is partially driven by physiological arousal. Content that evokes high-arousal positive (awe) or negative (anger or anxiety) emotions is more viral. Content that evokes low-arousal, or deactivating, emotions (e.g., sadness) is less viral. These results hold even when the authors control for how surprising, interesting, or practically useful content is (all of which are positively linked to virality), as well as external drivers of attention (e.g., how prominently content was featured).

Also see our previous blogpost “The 3 Qualities That Make A YouTube Video Go Viral.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you generate word-of-mouth marketing for your brand.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Social Media/Word-of-Mouth tab.

Digital Book World (@DigiBookWorld) editorial director Jeremy Greenfield (@JDGsaid) postulates on what the Microsoft/B&N deal could mean to book publishing:

Imagine a Windows-powered Nook Tablet (@nookBN) that breaks the iOS and Android stranglehold on the mobile device market.

Imagine turning a PowerPoint slide deck into an enhanced ebook and distributing it to a dozen e-booksellers with the press of a button.

Imagine a book discovery engine built into every version of Internet Explorer and connected to one of the world’s leading e-bookstores.

These are the dreams that book industry players were having last night as the news sunk in of a sweeping new partnership between tech giant Microsoft and the second-leading US e-bookseller, Barnes & Noble.

Read this in full.

In “B&N and Microsoft: Why It's Not About Ebooks,” Joe Wikert (@jwikert), general manager, publisher, and chair of the Tools of Change conference (@toc) says, “Success in this venture will not be measured by sales of ebooks. Microsoft should instead use this as an opportunity to create an end-to-end consumer experience that rivals Apple's and has the advertising income potential to make Google jealous.”

Read this in full.

It makes sense that B&N wants to keep improving its Nook Tablet. According to a new BISG (@BISG) study, dedicated e-readers are losing their hold, paving the way for publishers to introduce richer ebook content on multi-function tablet devices.

In another B&N development, Laura Hazard Owen (@laurahazardowen) reports on GigaOM (@gigaom) that the Nook will soon be used for more than reading ebooks.

On the heels of yesterday’s news that Microsoft is investing $300 million in Barnes & Noble’s Nook and college businesses, B&N CEO William Lynch says that the company plans to embed NFC (near field communication) chips into Nooks. Users could take their Nook into a Barnes & Noble store and wave it near a print book to get info on it or buy it.

That could help someone gain quick information on their Nook about a book, making it easy to go from browsing to buying. Consumers could also choose to just buy a printed book in the store with the additional information gleaned from the Nook. The model would help ensure that showrooming leads to sales through Barnes & Noble, whether users ultimately purchase a print or ebook, instead of sending them online and possibly Amazon.

Read this in full.

In these fast-changing times, contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market your content.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Infographic by Unbounce (@unbounce).

According to NielsenWire (@NielsenWire), consumer interest in blogs keeps growing. By the end of 2011, NM Incite (@nmincite), a Nielsen/McKinsey company, tracked over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only 5 years earlier in 2006.

Overall, 6.7 million people publish blogs on blogging websites, and another 12 million write blogs using their social networks.

·         Women make up the majority of bloggers, and half of bloggers are aged 18-34

·         Bloggers are well-educated: 7 out of 10 bloggers have gone to college, a majority of whom are graduates

·         About 1 in 3 bloggers are Moms, and 52% of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 years-old in their household

·         Bloggers are active across social media: they’re twice as likely to post/comment on consumer-generated video sites like YouTube, and nearly three times more likely to post in Message Boards/Forums within the last month

Read this in full.

Also see Michael Hyatt's (@MichaelHyatt) article, "4 Insights I gleaned from Building My Own Platform."

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you plan your strategy to communicate your brand’s message in the most effective way.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Social Media/WOM tab.

Warc (@WarcEditors) reports that “young consumers in the US are growing more distinct from their older counterparts when it comes to using digital channels in the purchase process.” According to The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes, a poll of 4,000 “millennials” (16-34 year olds) and 1,000 consumers from older cohorts by the Boston Consulting Group (@BCG_Consultant & @BCGPerspectives), 60% of the former group rated goods and services online, versus 46% of the latter cohort.

·         50% of BCG’s more youthful sample have used a mobile device to read reviews and research products while out shopping, measured against 21% for the older panel questioned.

·         53% of millennials look for information or engage with brands on sites like Facebook and Twitter, and 33% favor companies that are active on these sites. Both are 16 percentage points higher than for over-35 year olds.

·         60% of 16-34 year olds upload videos, images, and blogs, doubling the total logged by over-35 year olds.

·         59% of the first audience own a smartphone, easily surpassing the 33% of participants falling outside this age range.

·         Just 26% of millennials watch television for more than 20 hours per week, compared to 49% of more mature interviewees.

Read this in full.

Read the full report (pdf).

For an added perspective on this demographic, see USA TODAY's "Millennials Struggle with Financial Literacy."

Also see our previous blogpost, “Young ‘Millennials’ Losing Faith in Record Numbers.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you market your brand to Millennials.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.

Millennials Survey Report

A growing tide of young Americans is drifting away from the religions of their childhood — and most of them are ending up in no religion at all.

According to a new report from the Public Religion Research Institute (@publicreligion) and Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, & World Affairs (@GUberkleycenter), 1 in 4 young adults choose “unaffiliated” when asked about their religion. But most within this unaffiliated group — 55% — identified with a religious group when they were younger.

·         Across denominations, the net losses are uneven, with Catholics losing the highest proportion of childhood adherents — nearly 8% — followed by white mainline Protestant traditions, which lost 5%.

·         Among Catholics, whites are twice as likely as Hispanics to say they’re no longer affiliated with the church.

·         White evangelical and black denominations fare better, with a net loss of about 1%. Non-Christian groups post a modest 1% net increase in followers.

·         The only group that has significant growth between childhood and young adulthood is the unaffiliated — a jump from 11% to 25%.

·         The study also finds a morally divided generation, with 50% of respondents saying right and wrong depends on the situation and 45% believing in absolute morality.

·         An overwhelming majority of white evangelical Protestants (68%) say they believe some things are always wrong, compared to 49% of black Protestants, 45% of Catholics, and 35% of the unaffiliated.

Read this in full.

Read the full report (pdf).

Also see our blogpost, "US Consumer Habits Evolving."

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you market your brand to Millennials.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.

Could Disney’s expertise with customer service help bookstores stem their decline? According to this feature in The New York Times (@NYTimesAd), the Disney Institute (@DisneyInstitute) is the “low-profile consulting division of the Walt Disney Company.” Disney is undeniably an expert in customer relationship management.

For instance, the company has spent so much time studying its park customers — more than 120 million of them globally last year — that it places trash cans every 27 paces, the average distance a visitor carries a candy wrapper before discarding it.

When clients send their employees to Disney for training,...some time is spent in seminars on topics like “purpose before task.” They also get tours of the parks, where Disney managers demonstrate their tricks in action, like giving directions by pointing with two fingers instead of one (it’s more polite).

Disney-led workshops emphasize 5 principles: leadership, training, customer experience, brand loyalty, and creativity. Sessions are custom tailored.

Examples of Disney’s attention to detail with its clients:

Maryland teachers were instructed to engage children by crouching and speaking to them at eye level. Chevrolet dealers were taught to think in theater metaphors: onstage, where smiles greet potential buyers, and offstage, where sales representatives can take out-of-sight cigarette breaks.

A Florida children’s hospital was advised to welcome patients in an entertaining way, prompting it to employ a ukulele-playing greeter dressed in safari gear.

Read this in full.

Also see our previous blogpost, “A Growing Trend: Retailers Perfuming Stores.”

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically communicate your brand and effectively reach consumers.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.