21 Nov 2008 5:06 PM
Nearly 61% of US consumers who recently bought a mobile or wireless phone were influenced by online product reviews and user comments, while 30% of purchasers were similarly influenced by blogs, according to the Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey by Ad-ology, MarketingCharts reports.
Additional findings
*Consumers who rated online blogs and reviews highly tend to be younger (18 - 34 years old) and have average or higher-than-average incomes.
*Television, newspapers, and direct mail advertisements were among the most influential traditional media for recent mobile phone buyers.
*26.3% of consumers surveyed indicated they prefer to purchase mobile/wireless phones online instead of in perso or at a store.
*Survey respondents also revealed product reviews, user comments, and blogs significantly influenced other consumer electronics purchases.
*The price of a cell phone was widely considered to be a less important buying factor than rate plans, coverage area, and mobile phone product quality.
"This is the modern day version of 'word-of-mouth' advertising," said C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research. Advertisers have always known the immense value of positive word-of-mouth. Now consumers have a whole world of opinions and reviews available online, and this survey shows how much they value that kind of information."
About the survey: The Media Influence on Consumer Choice survey is conducted quarterly by Ad-ology Research to study on- and off-line media influence on buying decisions. The survey asks a national consumer panel about key factors in their buying decisions. Respondents also rate nine types of online and seven types of traditional media with regard to how each influenced what they bought and where they bought it. The research was conducted with an online consumer panel of 1,105 adults from August 25-28, 2008.
Source: MarketingVox
19 Nov 2008 5:00 PM
Last weekend saw the exciting launch of the NSW eTendering System from the Gruden Commerce Team.
The NSW eTendering site, managed by the Department of Commerce, supports hundreds of agency users, tens of thousands of suppliers to government, and tracks NSW government procurement through the tendering process to the awarded contracts.
Building on the success of the AusTender II development project, in late 2007 Commerce requested Gruden develop a refresh of the eTendering system. A three month scoping phase followed, developing a detailed functional specification, including specifying requirements for post-live releases. Gruden then took the site through a Look & Feel process, designed to refresh the eTendering system in light of NSW Government style requirements.
After a thorough templating phase, in which every public and admin screen was mocked up in HTML, and a period of prototyping key interfaces, development commenced. Running for five months, with periods of end-user testing to engage all stakeholders, development remained on time and budget with strong change management and control from the combined project team across Commerce and Gruden.
Finally, Gruden had a month to develop migration scripts to move data from the legacy system to the new. This final migration ran over a weekend to minimise downtime, and involved moving gigabytes of data and tens of thousands of public records and their associated history.
When the traffic returned Monday morning, users were greeted with a fresh, easy-to-use and robust eTendering system. The team at Commerce and Gruden have developed a solid basis on which to further build the system to meet the requirements of NSW Government procurement.
19 Nov 2008 3:58 PM
Ever wanted to know a little more about Gruden and what we get up to in the office when no one's looking?
Take a quick look at our video on Agency Fair, showing the Grudenites working hard, and just as importantly, playing hard.
Agency Fair is an initiative created by Transfer, a full-service talent and initiatives agency. It gives agencies the opportunity to tell people about their strengths as well as the things that differentiate them from other agencies.
Go on, check it out!
13 Nov 2008 3:21 PM
Just in case you couldn't get enough of us already, there's another way that you can now access all our up to date information and blog entries on the web, via Gruden's FriendFeed.
FriendFeed enables you to keep up-to-date on the web pages, photos, videos and music that your friends and family are sharing. It offers a unique way to discover and discuss information among friends.
Subscribe to our feed by visiting http://friendfeed.com/gruden.
5 Nov 2008 2:22 PM
AIMIA has just announced a fantastic lineup of speakers for next week's Web 2.0: Optimising Your Business Online forum, to be held on November 12th.
You know all the benefits of Web 2.0, but are you maximising all the available opportunities online?
What are the expectations of vendors, agencies and customers and how do we deal with it? How does Australia stack up globally and what does the future hold for you and your business?
AIMIA and Adobe are delighted to present Web 2.0: Optimising your Business Online, a forum that will gauge the state of play of true interactive web applications in the Australian market. Our expert panel will examine, debate and explore current adoption as well as predicting future utilisation of Web 2.0.
Don't miss out on the opportunity to see Simon Reid, Senior User Experience Consultant, Adobe, Jane Huxley, General Manager of the Media Division, Fairfax Digital and our own Guy Cowan, Production Manager, Gruden, give their expert opinions on how you can optimise your business online.
Sound enticing? Register to attend here. Full event details can be found here.
3 Nov 2008 5:10 PM
Australian businesses plan to invest more than AUD$17.9 billion dollars on digital services in 2009, a survey by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA), IBM and Hyro has claimed.
AIMIA’s first annual AIMIA Digital Services Index reported that revenue generated through digital services in Australian business jumped by 17 per cent in 2008, and now accounts for nearly one in every four dollars earned.
The Index said that organisations will next year target 40 per cent of customers through digital initiatives. Despite these figures, AIMIA chief executive John Butterworth said there is evidence of under investment in digital services: “While digital initiatives now sit behind 40 per cent of customer interactions, and 25 per cent of revenue, investment in digital services will reach only 14.3% of organizational expenditure for 2009, indicating significant under-investment in digital services”.
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