It’s here, and it’s not just a phone. Facebook's highly anticipated event today confirmed swirling rumors that the social network would release a product closely tied to a mobile device, and that product is Facebook Home.

"We asked ourselves if sharing and connecting are what matter most, what would your phone be like if it put your friends first?" Facebook stated. "Our answer is Home. Home isn't a phone or operating system, and it's also more than just an app. Home is a completely new experience that lets you see the world through people, not apps."Continue reading...

The "new normal" for American marketing executives appears to be a resolutely sober state in which they're seeking cost cuts whether the economy is good or bad.

That's why 82 percent of marketers surveyed by the Association of National Advertisers are still pushing for cost savings and still streamlining marketing budgets despite more signs of U.S. economic recovery including a buoyant stock market and an apparent uptick in first-quarter growth. Two thirds of the 82 percent planned to reduce their marketing budgets by up to 10 percent this year, about the same level who had such plans in 2012.

"Even in better times," ANA group executive vice president Bill Duggan told brandchannel, "a large, large percentage of marketers will still check that box to say that they're looking for cost reductions in their marketing efforts."Continue reading...

Danone, Unilever and Nestlé top the list in the first edition of the global Access to Nutrition Index as the three best global brands offering products that address obesity and poor nutrition.

The report reviews 25 of the world's major food and beverage manufacturers across corporate nutrition-related policies, formulation of healthier, affordable products, informative nutrition labeling and responsible marketing.

"Obesity and undernutrition affect billions of people and threaten a global health catastrophe,” said Inge Kauer, Executive Director of ATNI. “The Access to Nutrition Index is an urgent call to action for food and beverage manufacturers to integrate improved nutrition into their business strategies.” 

The Index, developed by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, a non-profit with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, ranked the top 10:Continue reading...

It may not make your salad taste better, reduce your wait for a table or remove any calories from the creme brulee, but American restaurant patrons can rest assured that Big Data is on the way to make their experience of eating away from home a better one.

With alliances like IBM with the Cheesecake Factory, the providers and purveyors of overwhelming numbers are helping restaurant operators marry their traditional huge volumes of transactional data—such as sales receipts from customers and information about purchase orders to suppliers—with "unstructured" data to help them automate decisions that will improve food safety and quality, labor productivity and other aspects of their operations. The end result is supposed to be more-satisfied customers, greater revenues and fatter profit margins.

"It's about enriching the more structured data with unstructured data in order to gain business insight," Paul Chang, global leader for consumer-products strategy for IBM, told brandchannel. "If you can do that then you can automate these processes."Continue reading...

As retailers increasingly leverage location-based marketing to predict customer behavior and influence purchasing decisions, the result is more sophisticated data about who and when to target — and what offers to make.  

“Collecting GPS data is becoming quite pervasive. Using the knowledge of where a customer goes, which path she travels and how much time she spends at various locations can improve the quality of customer interactions and types of marketing offers and increase the likelihood that she’ll redeem an offer,” writes FICO’s Shafi Rahman and Amit Sowani.

FICO, founded in 1956, introduced analytic solutions including credit scoring, predictive analytics and business rules management and optimization, now used by most of the world's top banks, leading insurers, retailers, pharmaceutical businesses and government agencies, as well as managing the personal credit health of millions of individuals. 

The organization identified some key steps in location-based data collection:Continue reading...

Digital messaging will rise in 2013 and owners of prime real-estate (out-of-home landlords) are increasingly venturing into the landscape for marketing and revenue.

According to a new report from Accenture, “Despite the global economic downturn, significant infrastructure projects are still being planned or built, and interestingly, the money realized from selling advertising space at airports, train stations and other transport hubs will supplement the finances needed to deliver the upcoming large-scale projects.”

Opportunities for owners of public and private facilities, struggling to offset rising costs, such as airports and on-road transit systems abound. Recent US transit examples include: Cleveland renamed the new Bus Rapid Transit system the “HealthLine” promoting the Cleveland clinic and University Hospitals; the Chicago Transit Authority is in the process of selling naming rights of 11 train stations to advertisers; and the New York MTA is considering selling advertising space on the front of the subway MetroCard.

Kerry Bianchi, Managing Director, Global Lead for Media Management, Accenture Interactive, spoke with brandchannel about the biggest obstacles to digital out of home advertising in 2013.Continue reading...

It's like staying up too late, watching Jerry Springer or not being nice to your mother: Many Americans don’t exactly feel good about visiting McDonald’s after they’ve done so, but they’re more than likely to do it again.

That’s one interesting conclusion from the latest survey by Consumer Edge Insight of Americans’ ratings of the biggest fast-food brands and the various attributes of their visits to the QSR chains.

McDonald’s placed No. 1 in the firm's latest poll in the category of "good value," with 57 percent. Subway earned 53 percent, and Taco Bell posted 48 percent.

David Decker, president of the research firm, commented on what factors made the grade:Continue reading...

Throughout a series of recent mishaps, Ford executives have seemed confident that their brand and products would come through in fine shape with American consumers.

Now, a couple of new assessments of automotive brand loyalty indicate  their confidence was well-considered.

Ford has placed No. 1 in loyalty rate of any brand among consumers in 2012, according to a tracking of car-registration data by Polk Automotive. Ford sported a 61 percent loyalty rate while the industry average hovered at 48 percent.

The automaker also finished No. 1 in brand loyalty in an annual survey by Experian Automotive, which found 44 percent brand loyalty overall for Ford, seven of its models in the top 10 of the survey overall.Continue reading...