A new study from Accenture reveals that 66% of consumers changed brand loyalty in 2011 due to dissatisfaction with customer service, even as satisfaction with overall services provided increased.

The Accenture Global Consumer Survey polled 10,000 people in 27 countries on ten issues about service expectations, purchasing intentions, loyalty, satisfaction and switching.Continue reading...

Auto brands have been scrambling to differentiate themselves in January, whether with the splashes they made at the Detroit auto show or the PR/marketing machines they're operating on behalf of their Super Bowl advertisements. There's no month each year in which car marques do more to try to gain a brand edge.

And yet, new studies by huge players in the auto-brand perception game indicate that, for all these efforts, automotive brands aren't getting enough bang for their bucks. J.D. Power reports that preconceived notions drive American consumers' current perceptions of brand quality more than anything else — bad news for the domestic Big Three — while Consumer Reports finds that auto brands are increasingly being lumped together in consumers' minds.

Consumer Reports released its brand-perception survey, disclosing a fast-narrowing gap between traditionally strong brand names such as Toyota and traditional also-rans. The results showed Toyota (at #1) and Ford (#2) clustered in the first two positions, but No. 3 Honda was some distance behind, close to Chevrolet and Mercedes-Benz. Four of those top brands' scores dropped significantly from a year ago, closer to the pack, while Chevrolet managed to nudge up slightly, as did sibling brand Cadillac.Continue reading...

Time Warner is a global media leader, so it needs to track media consumption patterns on behalf of its businesses, brands and advertising partners. So this week it donned a lab coat to launch the Time Warner Medialab, located in the Time Warner Center on New York's Columbus Circle, as a firsthand source of insights.

The high tech hub shows the public where media and technology is headed in its vision of "Content Everywhere," while gathering visitors' feedback on how the proliferation in digital platforms is affecting their media consumption and experience.

Separately, Time Warner Cable, which spun off from Time Warner in 2009 for an estimated $9 billion, this week announced a partnership with the New York-based Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC) as the site of the next Time Warner Cable Learning Lab.Continue reading...

The global market for mobile marketing and advertising is booming, with QR codes and augmented reality experiences bringing brand messaging interactive and (dare we say) fun. But what best practices are emerging — and how are they clicking with consumers?

As SpyderLynk CMO Jane McPherson has noted, the challenge is getting consumers to use them, and benefit from the experience: "If everyone throws QR codes on everything without offering consumers value beyond a web connection, will it turn consumers off? Right now there’s still a novelty factor, but marketers are going to have think more carefully about the best times, places, and ways to use mobile activation codes.” 

A new study by mobile marketing and tech research firm Nellymoser aims to answer that question by looking at "mobile action codes" in the top 100 national magazines in the U.S. last year — or more formally, “Mobile Action Codes In Magazine Advertising 2011 Including QR Codes, Microsoft Tags and Digital Watermarks.”

The report notes the rapid growth of mobile action codes vying for magazine readers' attention. “A record 4468 mobile action codes, which we broadly define to include all 2D barcodes, QR codes, Microsoft Tags, and watermarks, were printed in the top 100 U.S. magazines in 2011," the report notes. "These codes offer publishers and advertisers a compelling way to launch print-to-mobile and print-to-social campaigns that engage readers, build brand loyalty and capture new business."Continue reading...

Given the strong emphasis on branded products, it is logical to conclude that the performance of a product is all that matters to the consumer. But a new global study suggests that the reputation of the company behind the branded product plays a surprisingly important role in the consumer purchasing decision.

Seventy percent of consumers surveyed avoid buying products if they do not like the parent company, according to a study conducted by KRC Research, a market research firm, for the Weber Shandwick PR agency. The study was conducted among 1,375 consumers and 575 senior corporate executives in Brazil, China, the U.S. and U.K. Weber Shandwick's Chief Reputation Strategist Leslie Gaines-Ross says, "Consumers are using their dollars as a vote of confidence in companies they trust... The company standing behind the brand assures consumers that they can trust the quality, ethics and safety of the brands they are buying."Continue reading...

The 8th annual Hurun 'Best of the Best' Awards ranks 2011's Top Ten Gifts for the Chinese Luxury Consumer 2012 "based on the choices of 503 Chinese millionaires interviewed face to face" and the Most Valuable Luxury Brands in the World "ranked by the dollar value of the brands."

But the findings of the luxury brand study from China's chronicle of the luxury market and "rapid changes amongst China’s high net worth individuals" is being rejected… by some of the very brands listed.Continue reading...

Luxury brands aren't the only segment targeting the "1 percent," the uber-rich slice of the population that has been taking a lot of heat from the so-called 99 percenters. It is these wealthiest consumers, occupying rarefied air, who vote with their checkbooks, so their preferences are closely considered and carry a lot of clout.

So what is the high net worth consumer looking for? First and foremost, superior quality, according to "Luxury Branding and Marketing: A Global Comparison of Wealthy Consumers in Top Markets," a study just released by Luxury Institute. The survey analyzed wealthy consumers with a minimum annual income of $150,000 or the local currency equivalent in China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

A broad majority (73 percent) of wealthy consumers think superior quality is the most important attribute that defines a luxury brand, followed by craftsmanship (65 percent) and design (54 percent). But increasingly, customer service is becoming a key consideration (47 percent). Customer service is even more important to Chinese consumers, who say that service has improved (63 percent).Continue reading...

IBM’s “5 in 5” predictions are out and making waves, forecasting five innovations “which will alter the tech landscape in the coming five years,” according to Bernie Meyerson, VP of innovation at IBM. A recap:

1. People power will come to life: Created energy, generated by anything that moves or produces heat, will be captured, stored in batteries, and used to power things from phones and cars to homes and offices and cities. “You’ll see new ecosystems of generation and capture,” Meyerson said. “You generate 60 to 65 watts while walking. You could easily use that to power a phone forever.”

2. You will never need a password again: Machines will automatically know you are who you say you are…or not. Each person’s unique biological identity is biometric data, a.k.a., multi-factor biometrics, such as retina scans, voice files and facial definition, which will be harnessed and used to create an online password.Continue reading...