These last weeks, I've been working on a new blog where I can share more about my life at Microsoft Digital Advertising Services, including presentations, videos and press coverage of events I attend. Doing so, my objective is to provide you with even more valuable content created for and inspired by our industry. I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I do. Don't hesitate to share feedback with me.

I thank all my loyal MSN Spaces friends and readers and invite you to read me going forward at www.marcbresseel.com. Make sure to update your RSS feed!

Innovation is at the core of the relationships we want to create between our brands and their consumers. We believe Innovation to not only be fundamental to success and business growth but also essential to the way brands are communicating with their consumers. 

I'm often being asked about the innovation processes we're trying to set up with our clients to make sure their campaigns will perform accordingly. While it may sound intuitive, the first logical step - to define the innovation strategy - is often bypassed by a lot of organizations. Remember my post on the low percentage of marketers setting up marketing objectives prior to the set up of their marketing strategy? So it goes with innovation.

One of my readings (well rather listenings) this week provides a good explanation on the reason why 50 to 90 % of the innovation initiatives end up as flops.  Brands think they know their customers' needs without considering the fact there's a crucial difference between what consumers say they need and what they really need - that is between what they need and what they really want. Brands focus on products when consumers' concern is on desired outcome.

Harvard marketing prof Theodore Levitt illustrated this difference with this straight forward analogy: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!"   Focusing too much on demographics segmentation and qualitative research methods, marketers are improving their products in ways that become mainly irrelevant to their consumers needs- focusing on the drill, not the hole.

In his last Shop Talk Podcast, John Caddell comes back to the basics with Tony Ulwick, CEO of Strategyn and author of 'What Customers want'. Ulwik's simple starting point is to remember that what consumers want is to get a job/task/activity done (a quarter-inch hole). Marketers' role is thus to develop the products (the quart-inch drill)  that will help customers to get their jobs done (the quarter-inch hole). He's going further explaining how customer requirements should be used to determine what tools will be developed to helped them get the job done. What is the correct definition of 'customer need'? What 'metrics' will be used by the consumer to measure the success of the job she wants to be done? A lesson of business process improvement apply to innovation in products development. A must listen to put 'thinking' into practice.

Nice article from Eydie Cubarruba in iMedia connection on one perfect illustration of engagement marketing : advergaming or the art of getting your consumers participating in contests leading to the creation of new branded games. True, one of the most powerful platforms to do so - and heavily mentioned in Cubarruba's column-is the Xbox. So much for the disclaimer. In the last year, big names have seen in our gaming platform a great opportunity to create a dedicated community around their brand - be it with branding objectives or sales generation leads like Burger King which sold 3.2 million copies of its advergames last year and benefited from a 9% revenue increase in their fast food restaurants.

After Toyota and Burger King advergaming campaigns, Doritos just announced the winner of its last branding game contest which generated more than 2, 300 entries. Beta game versions were developed for 5 finalists and gamers were inviting to vote for their winner: "Doritos Dash of Destruction" will be downloadable for free in the Xbox Live Arcade by summer 2008. 

Advergaming - which is foreseen to become the second largest stream of revenue for the game advertising industry by 2012  (Source Parks Associates) - allows perfect  interaction between brands and consumers: brands stimulate consumers to create their own experience around the brand's products (not a requisite) but more importantly around the brand's values. Games creation fulfill consumers' need and desire to communicate and engage with the brands, providing 3 key elements of a deep and happy relationship: emotion, belonging and recognition. The ultimate benefit being that the more consumers are involved in the brand the more they embrace it.

Catching up quickly with RSS readings this morning, I discovered a new blog on creativity thanks to Rubel's Micropersuasion del.ico.us feeds. Well probably not exactly the kind of creativity blog you would immediately expect from my professional 's point of view blog entries. Yet, if it does not sound related to our industry at first glance - except for the fact that its author is working at designing user experiences and interfaces at Amazon. The author is Tina, a Seattle based self-declared CHO (Chief Happiness Officer). Don't be too quick to judge it is unrelevant :-) 

Because a majority of the personal development oriented posts at the very young but talented Think Simple Now blog do apply 100% to any company trying its best to focus on innovation as we've being doing all year long at Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (just think about our Imagine 07 tour and our 'if you can think it, you can do it' campaign). 

Go through how to build intimacy in any relationship, how to really listen to someone,  the art of smiling or how to be naked like a baby posts and you'll get a better idea on how you can connect them to your own business values. I particularly liked the '7 habits of highly innovative people'.

The title of the post mirroring one of the most famous business book ever might be part of the successful recipe but the post in itself holds 7 appealing ingredients. Like for a lot of daily challenges - private ones like a diet or professional ones like speaking in public- the art of being successful is more about having the right mindset than being born with the right genes. So it goes with innovation. Here's her 7 tips to create this new innovative mindset,  inspired by the myhts of innovation, also available at Amazon ;) :

1. Persistence - because  "invention is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration“, Thomas A. Edison
2. Remove Self-Limiting Inhibitions - to consciously forge this new mindset
3. Take Risks, Make Mistakes  - because failure is the most certain road to success 
4. Escape - because unusual ideas are often prompted by unusual experiences
5. Write things done- because Moleskine notebooks are so very hype again ;) 
6. Find Patterns & Create Combinations - who said mash ups were a 21th century concept?
7. Curiosity

Why don't we break the 7 ingredients' recipe rule to add an essential 8th one:  keep your child's spirit - daring, adventurous, enthusiastic topped with endless eye-opener-why-questions. If you don't feel reconnected with your talented being now, you might want to think about hiring a Chief Happiness Officer too.

Mid-September I wrote my 'eating our own digital dogfood' post in which I mentioned how Microsoft Global Director of Digital Marcom Planning and Effectiveness Bill Capodanno stressed his willingness to embrace social media platforms as entry points to start more authentic conversations between MSFT and our consumers. I also pointed out that his challenge would be to achieve a cross-platform holistic approach.  

Guess what. 2 months later a new superhero is wanted to consolidate the existing US MSFT digital marketing team. His mandate will be to "lead Microsoft's US efforts in digital marketing in the area of social media (content created, shared, and/or organized by consumers such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg) and ensure a leadership position for the company in this space. This person will be responsible for the development of digital marketing media innovation programs for social media".

It seems to me that we are walking the talk, setting a dedicated budget to implement the social media strategy and processes as an integrated part of MSTF marketing program and not just as an add-on. Why should we not have European positions to offer in 2008 ?

One of my earlier posts I talked about Mutual Social Responsibility and the impact on WOM. Today I want to contribute to generate more WOM around one one of my favorite examples of brands engaged on social interest --- besides world famous Dove campaign for real beauty. Not sure why I address this twice in a row now, but maybe it is the Christmas spirit that is dawning on me/  

The UK based Innocent drinks ' Big Knit  winter solidarity action is one of the greatest- and Innocent one of the clever and human faced brands I've ever seen, and met in many occasions in the London streets, zoo, etc . Every year since 2003, hundreds of  volunteers are knitting little hats to top off  the Innocent smoothie juices to raise funds to support older people.

For each bottle sold, the brand gives 50p to Age concern which provides hot meals and warm blankets to oldest people during the cold winter months.  Have a look at the video they made to explain their action and you'll get a sense of their engagement.

The Big Knit action is also a perfect illustration of how to bypass the two major brakes you have to keep in mind while engaging in cause-related marketing: you have to make active participation quick ( 52% of the Edelman surveyed consumers don't  get engaged because of time) and you have to make their financial participation low (41% mentioned lack of  money).  If you come to London in the coming days, make sure to quickly buy some. And send me your favorite. I'll post mine when i get there :-)

Watching that amazing Sofia Coppola movie in my hotel tonight. After seeing all the freaking troubles & issues, wars & unrest we live in this world on BBC. Should we not try to stay committed to make our world a better place. You might find it naive or demago ... or you might just see it as the opportunity to effectively reach your consumers through social purpose. And you' d be spot on: 85 percent of consumers worldwide are willing to change the brands they buy or their consumption habits to make tomorrow a better place.

And if your help your customers with their humble but noble cause, chances are that your reach to your dedicated audience will dramatically and organically grow: 55 percent of them would in turn help you "promote" your product as long as  a good cause lays behind it.  And not only are they more prone to talk about you, the brand, they're also willing to pay your products more to participate (70%).

Social interest i.e helping others and contributing to community comes to second highest source of personal contentment just after spending time with their loved ones, according to a global survey by Edelman and Goodpurpose released this week.  88% saying they feel it is their duty to contribute to a better society and environment. 

Ironically enough, the study also points out that lack of money was a barrier mentioned more often by 'developed' countries than by less wealthy countries.  For more on this check the findings at Marketing Charts.

I spent a great day in Netherlands today meeting our local team and some press. This Great Nation once running in the forefront of online now sees a slight slowdown in online growth - with TV back growing up to 17% year on year... Lack of adequate people in online planning, lack of "risk taking" marketeers, agency cost saving when doing "the usual TV stuff" etc etc etc all the "good bad reasons" are back in the game. But the team is in great shape, great leadership in place - so online will prevail. Keep going guys. We have a mission... 

Then think about that poor marketeer that is on that tipping point of 'online or not' - doet ie het of doe ie het niet so to speak. Imagine that same guy looking at the online media mix. Imagine having to convince him about "social media" being part of his strategy. Excuse me, no budget to test Social Media? Well, cut it off from your in-store retailer shops: 82% of  consumers prefer online peer reviews to in-store sales assistance. The findings are coming from the recent ' Social Shopping Study 2007' whose objective was to find out how influenced 1,200 regular online shoppers (buying at least 4 times a year with a minimum of $500 yearly spent) were by peer products reviews.

The social shopper is a social researcher: 65% of the surveyed consumers turned out to actively search for peer reviews before making their purchase decisions. "Currently, 81 percent of consumers use customer reviews to decide between two or three products or to confirm that their final selection is the right one."  Better provide those reviews on your retailer site or they'll leave it to find the content they're looking for...

If you need more numbers to get convinced that Social Media strategy starts with leveraging your existing online selling platforms,  think about those "93 percent of consumers who indicated they are likely to start their shopping process on a Website that offers Social Navigation." Social navigation is a new coined term meaning product selection based on peer reviews. And it clearly is a strong competitive advantage: not surprisingly, Social Researchers are 76 percent more likely to shop on a retailer’s Website vs. their competitor site if it offers social navigation .

Wanna see a good exemple of social shopping and social navigation? Check out eBay Neighborhoods. This is a  great illustration of content co-creation between a brand and its consumers. As of today, eBay's initiative provides more than 600 micro social shopping guides organised around mass and niche products. You'll even find a Ford Mustang  Neighborhoods. I know at least one person who's checking this out daily at least - aren't you Kris ?

When we look for best practices and lessons learned in Web 2.0, we turn to the US to find inspiration, data, do's and don'ts. Same goes for Japan as far as mobile advertising is concerned. We might now pretty soon give it a second thought and turn to Tudou instead of Youtube, Xiaonei for Facebook, Wealink for  Linked In , Yuppo for FlickR and Fanfou for Twitter. I'm often asked about the Chinese adoption of social media tools. More and more American companies are investigating into Social Media to reach the 172 internet users living in the Middle Empire. 

Recent surveys, like the one from Netpop, reveal numbers enlightening why they're going to take it seriously. Chinese consumers are definitely more influenced by Social Media than their US counterparts- 58% of purchase decisions are driven by UGC, compared to 19% in the US- and they are also more active contributers - among broadband users, 48% are creating content on blogs and other chat rooms & forums,  compared to 28% in the US. True, the average user is in his early thirties, meaning by age group belonging more prone to participate actively than the US user on average 10 years older.

"On average, a Chinese consumer communicates in one month with 8 people about brands. 17% of the consumers however talk about brands with more than 10 people monthly. 80% of the consumers think that the Internet is the most essential medium in their life. The Internet is the most important medium for Chinese consumers to learn -for the first time- about a new brand or a new product, followed by TV commercials." The first survey done on Chinese Social Media at Jan Van Den Berg's - the Belgian Shanghai-based president of i-merge/ boondoggle- and Sinomonitor's initiative, looks at brand and product recommendation on the Internet in China and corroborates the Netpop findings.

(If you want to go through the complete data released at the end of last October, download the results here ). Jan's conclusion to the report is that " in China, like everywhere else on the planet, marketers underestimate the value of the phenomenon".  Which significantly summed up my short answer to the initial question: Social Media adoption in China is high and low. High on the consumer side, low on the marketer side. 

For those who are curious to follow the marketer's adoption over there,  let me suggest you to RSS  some influential sources and register to the brand new I Media Asian newsletter . These are in English but if you' re among the most motivated ones, you might want to start using this site: http://chinesepod.com/

Also listen to Jan's podcast he did with the China Business Network on what makes the new Chinese consumer tick.

Looking for an interesting Christmas present ?  MSN UK are running a Harry Potter Competition in conjunction with the launch of the “Order of The Phoenix” DVD.  Harry Potter fans have the chance to appear on the big screen by answering a series of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix-related questions. The lucky winner will participate in a "crowd scene" (which may or may not be a silent scene:-)) in the next movie.  Needless to say this is going to be a highly contested competition !  Quoting Josh Berger, President and Managing Director, Warner Bros. UK, said: “Digital plays an important role in our marketing mix.  We’ve been investing in digital for many years and are constantly pushing the bar to break new boundaries and create campaigns that truly engage with the consumer. Digital enables us to achieve cut through in a very competitive market and allows us to engage with consumers in innovative ways.”

Alain Thys - storyteller and agent of change as he described himself, founder of FutureLab and author of the great I am the media presentation I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, wants to take Europe on the virtual map of the world.  I have been talking a lot lately on conferences about story telling in this new digital world -so I feel like passing on his wake up call. True, markets are taking off and the European IAB objective for 2010 -10% in digital marketing spend-  will  probably be achieved in most of the concerned countries. But the % dedicated to Social Media in general and virtual words in particular is still ridiculously low- if not missing, leading European customers to engage more and more on US platforms. or localised versions. 

Alain is calling up to European brands and businesses and also universities and governments to seriously consider being part of the new world of advertising. And he's willing to make this happen by offering to host the first round table organized on the subject where brands and agencies would brainstorm and converse together and with the experts brought on board by FutureLab with one common objective: "launching a branded virtual world for European audiences in 2008."

Despite the fact that I also have a lot of questions around virtual worlds, and the ROI of investments made - I still think this is a great initiative which should be answered and nurtured. This is a project we want to contribute and actively take part in. Count me in Alain.

... in previous post a minute ago that I was speaking at an ENG conference on Effective Webmarketing & Analytics in Brussels. Was pleasantly surprised by the level of engagement & knowledge of the 50 or so high level marketeers attending. They questioned me on privacy issues around Facebook, on the power of mini-aps, gadgets & widgets, and when I asked who was an active user of Facebook i guess around 60% raised hands - which left me stunned.  

If you ever questioned the history and definition of Social Media, I suggest you read the instructive last issue of the  Journal of Computer- Mediated Communication, October 2007 co-written by famous blogger danah m. boyd* (*yes without capital), from the University of California -Berkeley and Nicole B. Ellison from Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media from Michigan State University. 

The issue is not 100% rounded up but the introduction is ready for you to get these highly educated scholars' perspective on the subject- that is what it is, where does it originate from and where it's going. 

boyd and Ellison also worked on a non exhaustive but very enlightening timeline list of SNS (Social Network Sites).

The first recognizable social network site, Six Degrees, launched in 97 and closed in 2000. Back then few people agree to meet 'strangers' online and too few applications allow it to be more than an online address book enabling users to send emails. Too early a precursor, the site dies from lack of massive adoption.  

From the beginnings in 97 and the social familial and friendship use, the timeline - and combined article- highlights the major SNS stressing the two following important waves, the first one in 2001 when SNS were used to leverage business networks (with no more existing Ryze) and 2003 when SNS hit the mainstream and start proliferating worldwide (with site like LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.). 

For once, let's forget about the advertising and/or marketing approach and widen the discussion. Soon you'll be talking about 'impression management' and 'friendship performance' . Or 'taste fabric' instead of interest targeting. 

Or if you prefer, take it at the opportunity to learn everything you've always wanted to ask/know about SNS but were afraid to do so, "pression oblige".

I have been off for some time. Had a great visit to Madrid, our sales teams and the IAB conference/festival. Interesting to see the spanish market now taking off pretty fundamentally. What a big shit compared to 18 months ago.

Was thinking about the Web Trendmap 2007 I mentioned in previous post... you could have guessed it a year ago if you're a regular Time reader. But if you missed both pieces of information here's an other chance to catch up with the news:  Half of the most popular websites are social media , at least for last September data. 

And yes indeed, the other half is search-metric. An easy shortcut would be to say internet users are searching sites where their final objective is to participate and create content.  With the social networking penetration growing quickly worldwide and particularly in Europe, 3 out of 4 of the social networkers are now living outside the US. Consider even more rapid international page views growth as social sites' usage is no longer the privilege of non US trendsetters but not yet the addictive 15 mn leisure break of the majority of the worldwide online population.

The article neatly mentions the possible monetisation issues we will be running into when trying to sell this "plethora of new inventory". valid point - but there is more between heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy. To be continued.

FutureLab was catching up an interesting Web trend map of the 200 most popular websites, updated and released last June by Information Architects Japan.  Im' taking the opportunity to share it here and now and appreciate their job, based on the Tokyo Metro Map, ordering the sites by category, proximity, success, popularity and perspective and applying them weather forecast (from sunny 'nice' to stormy 'trouble') and a web generation number (unfortunately they're not being too talkative about the methodology they applied).

Choose their clickable online version and get ready for a few discoveries ( especially with the special Chinese line). You (the person of the year, remember?) majestically occupies the Emperor palace, at the center of the map (look for a pale green diamond square). 

MSFT station is on the technology line, sharing a junction with the moneymaker line (I don't get the ' Microsoft has moved to Ikebukuro, if you know what I mean' joke. Anyone?) MDAS station is a big connection place with junctions to four different lines: the two previously mentioned and the news and main sites line. More junctions could be added here though... watch our space...

Both are qualified 1.0 sites and submitted to 'changing to stormy' weather conditions - but weather forecasts are know to be bad in weather predictions right? 

(A few suggestions for next releases: Make each line singly clickable  and let the visitors build the map by choosing how they want to add lines (making the content more easily readable); Decline it with "most popular blogs", "most popular social networks", etc;  Include sentiment detection based on web and blogs monitoring for the weather forecasts ) - just suggestions really.

Last week I posted about customers taking a growing part into one - or several- of the 4Ps of marketing. I also mentioned the two existing main streams: consumers being offered guidelines by brands to do so or being left without clear framework or contest rules at all to play with. The second option usually leading to a great deal of poorer quality content submissions and eventually a great waste of time. 

Crafting guidelines is definitely the option new Customer Advertising Content platforms are pitching on. One -purists- can disagree that consumers are being asked - or willing - to participate in the creation of the 'dream' or the seduction game brands try to create to entice them. Call it pragmatism but what better way to be most certainly seduced than to show what you actually find attractive? 

With more than 130million Internet users generating content, one - not the same- can hope that great creatives are part of this group. That's in any case these new platforms' wish, and more than their wish, their thoughtful business model. 

The concept is quite the same : consumers are invited to answers brands' pitches by creating and uploading their ads, be it baselines, videos, etc. The 'consumers' identity' though differ a bit from platform to platform. On the

Blogband site, a Publicis Group development, submissions are opened to 'creative' bloggers with no required specifications, while on the OpenAd.net , the 'biggest creative department' network (more than 10,000 creatives from 122 countries) participants are all qualified as professionals, be them freelancers or working in advertising agencies. Besides community's and sometimes worldwide recognition, successful participants are getting commissioned on their work - and fellow members of the network are also being paid to display ads they like on their blogs as long as others click on it. Additionally, buzz is generating by the users themselves (and by the voting process to elect winners).

I agree it probably works better for one-shots campaigns rather than long term brand image building but, still, great long term ideas can also come from creatives in a flash.

After a couple of days work in Helsinki & Copenhagen I am ready for the last stage in Oslo. But in between all the work I had a fantastic dinner with my good old friend Torstein. He took me to this amazing Ekeberg restaurant up the hill with a breath taking view over cold Oslo. We obviously changed the world, found the meaning of life and also enjoyed the delicious food. Once in a while it is not too bad an idea to step back and look at what life holds for us - the view from the restaurant on the city gives you a different perspective on how it functions than being in the city itself. CU soon in Leuven buddy :-) and keep enjoying what you do...!   

Sitting in CPH and looking back at today's interviews and presentations. I was doing a presentation in Finland this morning and somebody asked me an interesting question about using word of mouth as a promotion strategy. I gave a long answer :-) but gave it some more thought on the plane to CPH - so this post is for you:

Just read Mack Collier's article for Marketing Profs. (Mack is the author of The Viral Garden blog, which besides sharing great insights from his social media consultancy experience, publishes the list of the 25 top marketing blogs, updated every week.)  His reading echoes and elaborates over my recent posts on participatory times and the power of social media. Mack's stressing that more and more companies are turning over to their consumers to develop at least one the 4Ps of their marketing strategy. 

Like Threadless with consumers defining their Product, like Radio Head  with buyers deciding which Price they would offer to get Rainbows, the group's last album ($0 was an acceptable and accepted price though average price per album was around $8 and 1, 2 million of them were downloaded on the first day), like FlickR allowing customers to choose the Place where to distribute the site's content through a widget, like Maker's Mark bourbon  successfully relying on its loyal customers to take care of the Promotion.

Why are these companies doing so? Because recommendation from a friend is the best WOM to boost your Promotional strategy (rethink online ambassador programs). Because your customer, individual part of our target group, knows the Places the entity is hanging out (think widgets development), because your consumer shares practical and efficient ideas to develop your next Product generation (re/think co-creation of products). And yes because it can also be cheaper.

Mack adds that one the biggest reasons for companies to give part of their marketing away is the first mover advantage. Id' say one of the biggest reasons to do it now is because, you wanting it or not, customers are already voicing and acting over your 4Ps as we speak. So better know what and how they're doing it. Leverage your findings and offer them a framework to contribute to your brand's building. Give away and you will get. 

This is the sort of week I like. This morning I set off on a plane to Helsinki - and from here i'll go to Copenhagn and Oslo. All 3 countries have Digital Marketing seminars lined up and having me as a guest speaker on 'story telling in the new world of advertizing'. I like to engage with customers, listen to their feedback and questions. Today was a great start with a couple of journalists. Amazing to see the seismic shift from the two years ago sceptical look at 'why is Microsoft in the Ad business' to today's focus around the 'yes sure you are but how do you see the future and how are you going to accomplish this'. On top it was good to hear the local team talk about the Finnish market taking off, getting closer to the 10% in digital marketing spend on total media. Almost that is :-) but at a healthy growth.  And our Country Manager as President of the IAB Finland helps. Good job Mikko. Anyway, tomorrow a big customer seminar and then off to CPH, the Amsterdam of the Nordics (but that is my interpretation - don't start harassing me on that judgment :-))

On a more serious note: this late September I posted an entry about a new industry awards, the Groundswell Awards, organized by Forrester social media experts Li and Bernoff. While I was a bit dubious about the seven categories they chose to sort the submissions they received (upon reviewing the 78 entries, they added an eighth one, the Company Transformation awards fairly attributed to Dell ), I found their major criteria to elect winners- business value- valuable enough precisely to remind me to watch carefully for the post featuring their winners.

They were some time ago at their last Consumer Forum in Chicago and I recommend you go and study their selection of projects to find inspiration from big players across the more 'prone to social media' industries like the healthcare, the automobile, the finance and the telecom. (Pity though Forrester did not publish all the projects' profiles and qualifications). What inspired me most was that among the 19 winners and finalists' projects, 3 of them were initiated by Communispace. Communispace is one of the leaders in building and managing private online communities where customers are invited to voice their opinions about a brand "with the goal of coming up with new ideas, offering advice to the sponsoring company and other members, sharing their experiences, commenting on market trends, and helping the company identify and solve business issues" .

No wonder then that 2 out of their 3 projects were nominated for the Listening category, rewarding projects focused on "finding out what customers are really saying about a company". GKS made it to the second place and Schwab won gold.  Facilitated social networks like the ones offered by Communispaces and the like are the new generation online focus groups, providing brands efficient tools to listen and engage with their consumers in a closed/private social environment. Immediate advantages for the brands: they don't have to build their community from scratch, they learn to give up control in a less intimidating environment and for a given time while fostering the customer to customer dialogue. In the winner case, thanks to the community insights, the brand lowered the entry level to meet her audience requests, leading to a 32% new clients' increase compared to the previous year. Sure enough Experience is still more important than Technology. But when Technology can help and lower the access to make brands more comfortable in engaging with their audience thats a sure first step to create Experience.

A recent study from Yahoo and Media Vest brings to light positive and relevant numbers on why marketers should try and create heartshare -as I discussed recently in previous Brand Loyalty post. The title of the study itself summed it all up: ' Passionistas: The New Empowered Consumers'. No need for an other anatomy lesson here - the link between passion and heart should be self explanatory to all. As self-evident but all the more crucial are the findings the study breaks.

• Passionistas spend more time engaging in activities related to their passion meaning they also spend more time engaging with communities about their passion. Study shows they are  52% more likely to recommend or influence others about brands engaged with them.  More detailed numbers here
• They are also more prolific content creators, meaning not only they're proactive UGC but they're also delighted to be asked to play the games their beloved brands will set up for them.
• They have high expectations as how they should be woo though so better take the time to know them well, think about the best way to approach and charm them and not to be forgotten: the love proofs. 

In this case the biggest the interactive creation tools kit you offer the better you'll enable them to show their passion and spread the word even more easily. Any marketer's dream has always been to identify these passionate customers.  Once they do they usually try and find the best rational to attract them.  Engagement - that is willingly creating a more intimate and long term relationship-  is a step the most adventurous are taking now.