Category: In the News

Data just released by the Advertising Association/Warc shows UK advertising spend grew at its fastest rate for three years in Q2 2014.

Growth of 8.5% year-on-year (reaching £4,515mn for the quarter) was the highest since Q3 2010.

Across the first half of 2014, total UK adspend rose by 6.3% year-on-year, leading to an upwards revision to the full year forecast to 6.4% (up 0.4pp from July’s forecast) and 6.5% for 2015 (down 0.2pp from July’s forecast).

Tim Lefroy (pictured), chief executive at the Advertising Association, said: “Growth at twice the rate of UK GDP is quite a headline, but the real story is of digital and creative leadership in e-commerce. As the Eurozone wobbles, it’s a reminder that our consumer economy is central to the UK’s economic narrative.”

Q2 performance was boosted by double-digit growth for TV, radio and internet and coincided with GfK’s UK Consumer Confidence Index moving back into positive territory at the end of June. Having declined for 21 of the previous 23 quarters, recruitment advertising has now registered three consecutive quarters of growth and was up 5.8% YOY for Q2 2014.

A new survey from customer communications expert Enghouse Interactive, polling the views of more than 2,000 adults across the UK, has revealed a stark generational divide when it comes to consumers’ likes and dislikes in engaging with businesses and brands.

Nearly three times more 16-24 year-olds (46%) than 55 and overs (16%) claimed that a brand’s ability to engage with them via social media was important to them. And while just 9% of respondents in the 16-24 age bracket said engaging with a brand using online communications was not important to them at all, that figure rises to 41% among the 55+ category.

Jeremy Payne, International VP, Marketing, Enghouse Interactive, said: “Our survey findings are polarised around age.

“The lesson is that a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work in today’s complex market; businesses need to know their customers and deliver customer services tailored to their needs.

“If your business model is predominantly online or you’re marketing to a young audience, you’ll want to offer social media engagement,” he added. “If you are mainly engaging with older consumers you should focus on traditional channels. And if your market is a mixture of both, you’ll need a broad solutions offering, encompassing traditional voice-based telephony and the latest online solutions.”

Customer service via email preferred

The research also revealed a split in the way the public use different communications methods. Email was the preferred method of business engagement with nearly half of respondents (46%) referencing it, almost 12 times the proportion citing social media (4%).

While the social media revolution may be dramatically changing the way we communicate with each other, when it comes to engagement with brands, a social takeover appears to be some way off. The majority of respondents (54%) to have claimed that it is not important that the brand they are dealing with can engage with them over social media. This finding should give any business basing customer service solely on channels such as Twitter and Facebook food for thought.

Yet, when it came to actions taken as a direct result of poor customer service, a significantly larger proportion (17%) said they would spread the message on social media than via email (11%).

“We are increasingly seeing social media being used as a tool to share experiences, typically bad ones, of customer service but it’s not being used as much for problem resolution,” added Payne. “Email continues to score much more strongly for the latter application. The reasons are clear. It’s more direct. It offers the advantage of providing a clear audit trail, with time/date stamp evidence, so consumers can gather all the evidence they need in the event of a protracted dispute.”

The age split came to the fore again in assessing an individual’s preferred method of engaging with a business or a brand. Among the 55 and over age range, email is the preferred communications option with more than half the sample (52%) favouring it. However, among 16-24 year-olds, it is only the fourth favourite option, referenced by just 17% of the group and therefore trailing behind smartphone (25%), self service via company website (23%) and social media (18%).

Whatever the preferred interaction method, the public prizes customer service highly when it comes to buying from a brand. 42% said they usually or always based their decision to buy solely on the organisation’s reputation for customer service, rising to more than half (52%) of 16-24 year-olds.

“This emphasis on customer service underlines once again just how important it is for organisations to protect their reputation and focus on customer satisfaction,” continues Payne. “With the ongoing move to cheaper digital self-service channels for customer service, which are typically much cheaper to run, many businesses are making savings.  The savvier amongst them are reinvesting that money to ensure that when people do need to speak to staff directly, they can get connected into the business and access somebody equipped with the relevant knowledge to solve their problem.

“After all, businesses need to have a strategy in place that allows them to respond proactively to the kind of polarisation in customer preferences that this survey shows up so clearly. And that means they need to know what interaction methods their customers like and be prepared to provide them with a service that delivers just that.”

Major UK ecommerce players will be able to view behavioural information to establish a consumer’s trading record via a new Transactis initiative

A number of leading UK retailers have announced they are sharing data through a fraud and loss prevention coalition being launched by consumer insight and anti-fraud specialist Transactis – forging a powerful new weapon in the battle against both professional and opportunistic fraudsters, while strengthening processes that ensure genuine customers receive better service.

The initial members of the Transactis’ TRADE scheme include multimedia retailer QVC UK and multi-brand online retail group Shop Direct – whose divisions include Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com. The scheme aims to vastly improve merchants’ ability to spot potential fraudsters at any customer touch point and act rapidly by enabling them to tap into behavioural data across multiple brands.

Sharing data via TRADE not only better equips retailers to identify, investigate and challenge potential fraudsters, but it makes it quicker and easier for them to authenticate genuine customers making legitimate claims for missing deliveries, lost returns and other order problems. The result is that honest consumers – who make up the vast majority – will see data checks clear the way for expedited responses to reported distribution errors and similar issues.

With these key players signed up to the new data-sharing initiative, TRADE already brings together customer information from nine million UK households – 39% of the marketplace – and is inviting other retailers to join. Members are able to make quick decisions on questionable customer conduct and suspect transactions based on analysis of consumer behaviour patterns across a wider information base than previously available. TRADE is the first database that shares real-time fraud and loss information from both ‘cash’ and ‘credit’ etailers.

TRADE allows retailers to more quickly and easily identify fraud and loss risk related to order processing, identity verification, goods lost in transit, returns and other related activities by providing a view of the broader pattern of each customer’s behaviour across a much larger range of transactions. The scheme draws on data not just on individual consumers but on addresses so that, through sophisticated data matching techniques, retailers can detect fraudsters using multiple identities across several organisations and other tactics for masking dishonest activities.

John Pears, director of credit risk and operations at Shop Direct, said: “TRADE has been put together with input from retail players that really understand the impact of fraud and the need for a loss prevention platform that addresses the challenges they face each day. The retail industry – especially the companies involved in ecommerce and other forms of home shopping – needs a system that takes this type of loss prevention to the next level.

“Previously, we’ve had to rely on data developed for use by financial institutions, which does not fully address the very specific cyber threats that online retailers are facing today. TRADE will add a new, universal layer of fraud data that will enable retailers to identify these threats more effectively and reduce fraud losses as a result.”

TRADE provides member retailers with all the information they need to quickly decide how to proceed at any point in the customer journey – their initial contact with the company to registration to order to payment to fulfilment. The result is decisions can be made in real time on whether there is strong risk of identity theft, no intent to pay, a false goods lost in transit (GLIT) claim or another form of fraud or misrepresentation.

Dave Webber, product and professional services director at Transactis, said: “There is a very narrow window for a retailer to review an order and decide what action to take. Not only is there the relationship with the customer to consider – for instance, the retailer can’t just wait and see what happens if a delivery goes missing – but there is the cost that further investigation would entail, so there is a real need for the company to have relevant information that enables it to quickly and efficiently assess a situation and prioritise the use of its resources.”

Martin Spencer, finance manager of QVC UK, said: “Best practice and doing things the right way – for both the business and the customer – depends on having the right tools to tackle retail fraud. TRADE provides a new and essential instrument for doing this, providing a ground-breaking means of cutting down losses arising from first-party fraud against retailers engaged in ecommerce. It is a solution that the whole sector could pick up on – to everyone in the industry’s advantage.

“Companies in the retail industry have not really worked together before to deliver a collective anti-fraud service that covers both card and credit transactions, so TRADE is providing a real opportunity for a level of information-sharing that has not previously been possible. This will not only ensure quicker and more effective fraud screening, but it will mean that we and other TRADE members can do a better job of making sure genuine customers get the best possible service.”

For more information, visit www.transactis.co.uk/trade

A UK direct marketing campaign which started out three years ago as a personalised letter accompanied by a complimentary sachet of coffee, has grown significantly to enable a national fundraising event, to raise up to £30,000 for an assistance dog charity.

Specialist mailing solutions specialist, Jigsaw CCS conceptualised, designed and delivered more than 1,000 ‘bone appetite’ breakfast kits for this year’s Big Dogs Breakfast, to help raise money for Dogs for the Disabled.

From its small background, the direct mailing campaign that Jigsaw CCS runs for The Big Dogs Breakfast fundraising event now encompasses its own unique breakfast kit, which includes: branded event invites, paper cups, napkins, bunting, posters and balloons all created by Jigsaw CCS. This is the second time the company has been chosen to create the Big Dogs Breakfast kits, after providing ongoing creative support to the campaign as it has grown over recent years. 

Jigsaw CCS worked closely with Dogs for the Disabled and charity sponsor, James Wellbeloved, to design and hand-prepare 1,000 breakfast kits that were sent out to fundraisers all over the UK. Recipients were then encouraged to hold their very own Big Dog’s Breakfast events to raise money for Dogs for the Disabled. In addition to the initial thousand kits, Jigsaw CCS also designed and hand-delivered a further 500 corporate branded kits to Pets at Home stores across the country.

Jigsaw CCS operations director, Lorna Harling, explained the creative process involved in order to turn a small and simple campaign into a national project: “In order to achieve the best results for our clients, it’s important that we work with them throughout every stage of the design process,” she said.

“The breakfast kits we designed and produced for Big Dogs Breakfast saw us develop the original brief, in turn creating eye catching items which are on brand, and most importantly resonate with their audience, we will make sure to offer dog food and treats from KarmaPets for all of dog friends. The close collaborative relationship we have with Dogs for the Disabled has meant that we understand their core values as a business, meaning mutual trust has developed, another key factor required in order to create the best results for our clients.”

Dogs for the Disabled communications manager, Sarah Watson, who attended Jigsaw CCS’s own breakfast, explained how invaluable the creative breakfast kits are: “We have worked with the team at Jigsaw CCS for over a decade now and they really understand our requirements as a business. Charities often have reduced expenditure, yet quality in the end products cannot be compromised. The Big Dogs Breakfast is a fantastic fundraising initiative that is becoming more popular every year and it proves that direct mail, which is currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity, doesn’t always have to be just about sales and promotion, but can used in more creative ways too.”

Dogs for the Disabled is a life transforming charity, creating exceptional partnerships between people living with disability and specially trained assistance dogs. Through practical assistance a dog can offer freedom and independence to children and adults with physical disabilities and children with autism.