The American Red Cross received over $22 million in Haiti relief from mobile donations — far surpassing the $400,000 record for other disasters. In fact, donations via mobile devices comprised one fifth of the American Red Cross’s total donations for Haiti relief. Mobile proved to be a dominant player in Haiti relief and set a precedent for how charities receive donations in the future. Continue reading
For the past 3+ years, Sparxoo has had the privelege of leading strategy assignments for major companies such as NBC, Fox Sports, Comcast, Lifetime, JP Morgan Chase, and others. We frequently lead innovation workshops and experts work-sessions to stretch thinking and spur growth. Today, for the first time, we had our own brand innovation workshop. Many firms are great at strategy, and many more at creative. We seek to be unique in our ability to integrate strategy and creative, all while focusing on making meaningful connections. Continue reading
There are over 3 billion cell phone subscribers in the world, the last billion having been added in just the past two years — largely due to explosive growth in India, Africa, Latin America, and Asia, reports Boston.com. Many new phone subscribers exist in impoverished areas and many entrepreneurs are using mobile technology to help them grow their communities economically. Continue reading
eBay generated an astounding $2 billion in sales on mobile devices in 2010, up from $600 million in 2009. It’s not surprising as mobile bidding enables users to act in near real time, without being tethered to a desktop computer. … Continue reading
Mobile ad spending in the US is one of the fastest growing marketing sectors. With explosive smartphone growth and buzz surrounding rock-star-status devices, such as the iPhone, Blackberry and Google’s Android platform, it’s no surprise mobile advertising is surging. In 2010, mobile advertising grew by 79 percent to $743.1 million and is anticipated to break $1 billion in 2011. Continue reading
It takes less than a second for people to differentiate between friend and foe. It’s an evolutionary trait that used to help us from being killed and now it helps us avoid spammy sites (quite a leap, huh?). As designers and digital marketers, we must instill trust immediately to keep users on the webpage and convert or otherwise engage them. So how can we instill build instant trust? Continue reading
Twitter has 190 million users, generating 65 million tweets and more than 800,000 search queries per day. As a response to this growing user base and Twitter’s brand-friendly ad platform, the number of Inc 500 companies using Twitter has increased from 52 percent in 2009 to nearly 60 percent in 2010 and of those companies on Twitter, 81 percent considered the social network a successful marketing tool in 2010. Since its ad platform launched in April 2010, Twitter is expected to generate $150 million in revenue in 2011 and $250 in 2012, predicts eMarketer. Continue reading
Although Facebook’s ad revenue reached a mere $1.86 billion in 2010, according to eMarkerter, we imagine the social network’s numerous alternative revenue streams to rake in much more cash and live-up to its $50 billion valuation. Here are just a few ways Facebook is diversifying its revenue streams and trying to take on the internet’s largest companies… Continue reading
We want tourists to use TripTwit to get an instant sense of what is going on in the place they’re visiting. What’s unique about TripTwit is it’s relevancy. When you search New York you’re not going to see tweets from a tourist saying “I love New York!”. Instead you’re going to see tweets about restaurant specials, hotel discounts, museum exhibits, etc. There is a lot of business logic behind the scenes to cut down on the noise that’s prevalent on Twitter so that a user is only seeing tweets that are useful. Additionally, there are numerous filter and search options to further improve relevancy. For example, you can choose to see tweets from local nightlife or search for children’s events that are happening in real-time. Continue reading
If you could reduce your product packaging costs by 38% while offering a more sustainable solution to your customers, would you think twice? Many companies are taking bold steps to incorporate sustainability into their core business strategy, reaping not only brand and customer benefits, but bottom line benefits as well. Continue reading
The costs associated with acquiring a new customer are five to six times what it takes to generate an equal amount of new business from an existing customer. If that’s not a compelling enough reason to think about and invest more in customer loyalty programs, five percent improvement in customer retention can yield 25 percent to 100 percent increase in profit.
Continue reading
Ad spending has reached nearly $450 billion per year and the fastest growth areas in digital are social media and ecommerce. In 2010, we saw the rise of flash sale sites, such as HauteLook and Rue La La and the discount site Groupon. Social media and saving sites were the talk of 2010 and here are the stats to prove it… Continue reading
