somersault

Students were shown a picture of a QR code and then asked questions like: Can you identify what this is? Do you know how to use it? How likely are you to engage with these in the future?

Here are just a few of our findings:

·         81% of students owned a smartphone

·         80% of students had previously seen a QR code

·         21% of students successfully scanned our QR code example.

·         75% of students said they are “Not Likely” to scan a QR code in the future.

Read this in full.

MarketingVOX (@marketingvox) reports that a study by Ypulse (@ypulse) finds that fewer than 1 in 5 students have ever used QR codes, nearly 2/3 of students have no idea what that are, and 6% have seen them but can't figure out how to use them.

According to comScore (@comScore), "the people more likely to scan a QR code are male (61% of code scanning audience), skew toward ages 18-34 (53%), and have a household income of $100,000 or above (36%). They also are more likely to scan codes found in newspapers/magazines and on product packaging - and do so while at home or in a store."

As millions of Americans have turned away from mainline churches in the past few decades, megachurches — large congregations that emphasize casual style over ritual and doctrine — have seen huge growth in membership and budgets. The above Infographic by GOOD (@GOOD) and Column Five (@columnfive) depicts a glimpse of the wide world of American megachurches.

View the Infographic in OpenZoom viewer.

In the article “Megachurches: When Will The Bubble Burst?” on Huffington Post Religion (@HuffPostRelig), Sky Jethani (@skye_jethani) analyzes the above data.

Buried in the positive stats about megachurches may be signs of challenges ahead. Could a bubble be forming? And when it finally bursts will the mega-model be abandoned or severely reengineered? Are we seeing the maturation of the megachurch movement into a sustainable and long-term model for the American church? Or, like Wile E. Coyote, is the ground going to suddenly disappear under its feet?

Read this in full.

An article by the Association of Religion Data Archives (@ReligionData) says, “Even though research shows spiritually alive churches are the most likely to grow, the percentage of US congregations reporting high spiritual vitality declined from 43% in 2005 to 28% in 2010, according to the latest Faith Communities Today survey.”

The drop was accompanied by a decline in the emphasis given to spiritual practices such as prayer and scripture reading across nearly all groups aside from white evangelicals and congregations with 1,000 or more attenders.

The most notable slide occurred among white mainline Protestant denominations, which have been aging and losing members faster than any other major religious group.

The reasons are varied:

·         Declining financial health in the recession saps morale

·         Aging memberships are less likely to embrace new forms of worship

·         Some denominations have shifted emphasis away from personal piety toward social service programs.

Read this in full.

The Infographic below is from the report, Publishing in the Digital Era (pdf), by Bain & Company (@BainAlerts). From the introduction:

The written word — incised in clay, inked with a quill, printed on presses or transmitted as electronic bits in email — has always been at the heart of capturing and disseminating human knowledge.

Now it’s moving to dedicated e-readers, multipurpose tablets, and other digital devices that could be in the hands of 15% to 20% of the developed world’s population by 2015.

This new format will trigger a profound change in the publishing ecosystem and spark new trends in content creation itself....

Whatever the sector, the emergence of new reading devices suggests an interesting evolution in writing itself. Creating long-term value will not come from simply reformatting print content into digital words. Rather, the greatest opportunity lies in experimenting with such new formats as nonlinear, hybrid, interactive and social content, electronic modes that add motion, sound, and direct reader interactions through technologies [discussed in the report].

Read this report in full (pdf).

The above Infographic is by Visual Loop (@visualoop).

Barna research findings about young Christians abandoning church are included in a new book by David Kinnaman (@davidkinnaman) titled You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church and Rethinking Faith.

The research project was comprised of 8 national studies, including interviews with teenagers, young adults, parents, youth pastors, and senior pastors. The study of young adults focused on those who were regular churchgoers Christian church during their teen years and explored their reasons for disconnection from church life after age 15.

No single reason dominated the break-up between church and young adults. Instead, a variety of reasons emerged. Overall, the research uncovered 6 significant themes why nearly 3 out of every 5 young Christians (59%) disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15:

·         Churches seem overprotective.

·         Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.

·         Churches come across as antagonistic to science.

·         Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.

·         They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.

·         The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.

Read this in full.

The above Infographic is by Visual Loop (@visualoop).

According to a new survey of social consumers, marketers who create highly sharable online content – video, audio, and photos consumers want to share with friends and colleagues – significantly boost their brand’s online presence and are more likely to increase sales.

The Science of Sharing study, conducted by M Booth (@MBoothPR) and Beyond (@beyond), two communications agencies in the Next Fifteen (@Next_Fifteen) global network, examined US consumer engagement with products online across a dozen brand categories. According to the data:

·         more than half of consumers (53%) say they interact with brands on Facebook

·         4 in 10 (42%) have written a product review online

·         a third (33%) have written an online post about a product.

·         1 in 5 consumers are “high sharers” and are 3 times more likely to make a product recommendation online. They tend to be younger, brand loyal, own multiple Internet devices and are conducting online research that requires minimal emotional or monetary investment.

·         “Low sharers” tend to be older, put a premium on quality, are less brand loyal, and are researching products online that cost more and involve more consideration.

When it comes to influencing consumer decision making, search is the most powerful online gateway (seo is a vital marketing element) followed by digital word of mouth and recommendations made by friends and family. The most common products that people recommend online are from the beauty, electronics, fashion, and music categories.

Read the news release in full.

Read the whitepaper (pdf).

See the Infographic (pdf).

See the Infographic (gif).

See the SlideShare presentation.

Let Somersault (@smrsault) help you reach your brand’s digital consumer.

Chaves, professor of sociology, religion, and divinity at Duke University in Durham, NC, and director of the National Congregations Study, says the number of Protestants attending independent churches increased from 14% in 1989 to 19% in 2006.

“If the unaffiliated congregations were all in one denomination, they would constitute the second largest in number of participants (behind only the Roman Catholic Church) and the largest number of congregations,” Chaves writes. “Although most Protestant churches are denominational, a noticeable and growing minority are not formally affiliated with any denomination.”

Chaves says an increase of 5 percentage points in the number of people attending independent churches may not seem like much, but he notes that growth occurred over a period of just 8 years. He adds those numbers probably understate the cultural significance of the trend, because denominational affiliations seem to be decreasingly important to congregations and their members even when they do exist.

Read this in full.