brand-e

Google Music has launched Magnified Artists to showcase unsigned artists in the Android music store and to perform at live events, writes Maria Stadtmueller. The search giant uses sales performance, buzz monitoring and editorial nous to select Magnified acts from its recently launched Artist Hub, a digital destination which allows bands to upload and sell music.

Social media figured highly in 2011, and the brand-e Campaigns Panel has flagged up a number of initiatives in its look-back at last year.

“Two Thousand and eleven was the year more and more businesses started to realise the creative and cost-efficient opportunities offered by social media,” says Pat McCaren, senior planner at Dare in London.

Facebook is worth €15.3 billion to the 27 member states of the European Union and Switzerland and supports 232,000 jobs in those markets, according to a report, Measuring Facebook’s Economic Impact In Europe, commissioned by the social network, writes Maria Stadtmueller.

Platform effects, notably the app economy servicing the Facebook platform and social activities, represent 19% of the economic impact of Facebook, the report says.

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas clearly revealed that the TV industry is changing rapidly and video content is shifting from computers to television sets, says Shirlene Chandrapal*.

From voice and gesture command technology, personalised content discovery to tailored advertising experiences based on preferences, CES exhibitors proved that TV is becoming increasingly interactive.  Manufacturers are beginning to think about how TV interacts with other devices, for example using a tablet or mobile as a remote control and incorporating social media into the viewing experience.

Converse’s move to create its own Brooklyn–based recording studio, Rubber Tracks, to give unsigned bands a leg up chimed with the brand-e Campaigns Panel in 2011, writes Steve Mullins

“This is great example of a brand offering something to a select few of its audience which is of real benefit… but also of genuine interest to the wider fans of Converse, who won’t actually create their own music,” says Lawrence Weber of The Brooklyn Brothers. “It’s great stuff.”

McDonald’s has pulled a US promoted tweets campaign on Twitter after consumers used the brand’s #McDStories and #MeetTheFarmers hashatgs to slate the company over food quality, employee working conditions and animal rights – a subject McDonald’s managed to get into a debate with on Twitter with pressure group PETA.

The introduction of the iPad in April 2010 has escalated the mobile marketing opportunity for high-end brands, says L2 in its Prestige 100: Mobile IQ report. Tablets register e-commerce conversion rates of 4% to 5% versus 3% on traditional PCs. The user demographics for the iPad and other tablets illuminate the opportunity for prestige brands – 20% of individuals with $1 million or more in investable assets own a tablet and spend 50% more time on the device than on their smartphone.

Marketers view calculating return on investment as the biggest challenge to using social media, and a majority of them believe they cannot measure social media campaigns effectively, says eMarketer.

Social media measurement has evolved significantly in its short history, but the need to prove effectiveness is more important than ever, the research firm says. As marketing execs plan how much to invest in social media and whether to shift funds from other channels, they need metrics that show not only that their brands have a lot of friends, but that those friends actually affect the bottom line.