Category: In the News

With mcommerce now 12% of overall ecommerce sales in the US and 5% in the UK, UK retailers need to improve mobile website optimisation with an emphasis on conversion-driven design to increase revenue

Skava, a major provider of digital commerce, digital marketing, and digital in-store technologies to brands including Staples, GAP and Banana Republic, has announced the results of its annual ‘UK Retailer Mobile Optimisation’ report. The report indicates that despite the surge in mobile traffic, which now accounts for nearly 20% of all e-commerce traffic, a quarter of the top 100 UK retailers have yet to optimise their e-commerce websites for mobile devices.

Although, this is a 26% increase on the 50% of UK retailers who had optimised for mobile by March 2013, UK retailers still lag behind the US, where 100% of the top US retailers have optimised. To view last year’s report, click here. 

According to eMarketer’s latest forecasts , worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) ecommerce sales will increase by 20.1% in 2014, reaching $1.500trillion.

In the US, 12% of overall ecommerce revenue is now made up of mcommerce sales, according to BI Intelligence.

The major UK mobile retailer Argos received £400m in mcommerce sales, accounting for 10% of their overall online sales. However, on average the top 20 UK retailers have 5% of revenue coming from mcommerce according to the 2013 Internet Retailer Global Mobile 500.

Arish Ali, Skava CEO and co-founder, said: “In Europe, some retailers are still arguing the importance of mobile as a significant source of revenue, yet leading UK retailer Argos generated £400 million in mccomerce last year, accounting for 10% of overall ecommerce revenue. The increase in ecommerce revenue overall is masking the loss of revenue through poorly converting mobile websites.

“Simply creating a mobile website is no longer efficient, but retailers must build mobile optimised websites with a conversion-first approach. The launch of a mobile website is not the end of a retailer’s mobile strategy, but just the beginning. Like e-commerce websites before them, they require constant updates based on analysis of user behaviour to create a seamless shopping experience.”

In the 2013 Mobile 500 report published by Internet Retailer, only 20 UK retailers made the list. But these leading UK retailers saw an average of 2% on mobile compared to 4.3% on desktop.

“Mobile is the fastest growing sector of ecommerce, yet our data shows that retailers have still to adapt to the changing landscape,” added Paul Morrison, UK country manager, Skava. “Mcommerce has increased 78% in the last year and the innovative retailers which have moved beyond their first-generation Œstatic site scraped’ to a conversion-driven design are reaping the rewards.”

To highlight the financial implications for retailer’s not optimising their websites for mobile, Skava developed the SkavaONE Calculator. By using a retailer’s average order value (AOV), traffic and conversion rates from all platforms, the SkavaONE Calculator rapidly informs retail executives on the serious long-term financial implications for retailers with under-performing mobile commerce experiences.

It’s not just post and parcels that DHL Global is good at, as a 16-month-old male giraffe called Jengo (pictured) can verify.

He was safely transported more than 3,000km to a new home, thanks to DHL Global Forwarding, which assisted in the relocation from Liege, Belgium, to the Ramat Gan Safari in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Jengo was moved via DHL’s international cargo network and arrived safe and healthy in Tel Aviv on Thursday May 22. He will join his respective new herd at the Zoological Center Tel Aviv for a breeding program.

Rafi Rozalis, CEO DHL Global Forwarding Israel, said: “We are committed to supporting conservation and environmental causes around the world. Jengo’s journey is a further opportunity for this and we are glad to have helped Ramat Gan Safari in their mission. Having in mind the requirements for transporting the tallest terrestrial animal on earth, it also gives us the chance to show that we can handle even the most unusual cargo transport.”

In co-operation with Ramat Gan Safari, DHL used a special crate (pictured)  for the transportation of Jengo. The giraffe was flown on a Boeing 747-400 cargo aircraft operated by the Israeli airline El Al and was accompanied by a team of animal keepers and veterinary physicians to secure health and safety at all times. Besides the safety team, the aircraft also took along a daily amount of food supply, weighing approximately 100 kilograms.

Jengo will join a herd of seven giraffes for a breeding program at Ramat Gan Safari. Giraffes are classified as ‘Least Concern’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, although some subspecies are classified as endangered. The Ramat Gan Safari takes care of the largest collection of wildlife in the Middle East. Besides the safari area, visitors have also access to a modern outdoor zoo.

Business Intelligence specialist IT Performs (ITP) is looking for digital marketing teams to take part in trials for a new customer insight tool which can predict the lifetime value of customers.

In association with SAP’s Co-innovation Lab and HANA Partner Engineering teams, IT Performs will be starting beta-tests for Kairos, a breakthrough Customer Value Analytics Platform this summer.

Designed specifically for marketers looking to enhance and evaluate their digital strategies, the cloud-based software will collect and automatically analyse multiple sources of customer-related data, in real time. By predicting the lifetime value of each customer, Kairos offers unprecedented genuine insight into customer behaviour that will help clients understand their customers’ needs so they can offer more relevant products and services, making them more competitive and profitable.

Glen Westlake (pictured), co-creator of Kairos, said: “Using Kairos, our clients will get a simple analytics platform to help track customer value over time using best practice profit and loyalty models. These can be used to influence the focus and level of investments into marketing and customer service and predict the impact on different customer segments. Kairos guides the most appropriate customer retention and acquisition actions necessary to meet customer needs and deliver efficient corporate results.”

Combining ITP’s expertise in Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), gained from working with the Telecoms industry over several years, with the advanced capabilities of SAP’s in memory database (HANA), Kairos simplifies this complex data science task by providing pre-built; data extractors (APIs), predictive models and visual analytics, to deliver a simple and easy to use solution to measure and track CLV.

Companies wishing to sign up for the beta program can contact UK-based IT Performs on: 0845 868 5692.

End of recession pushes combined brand value of Top 100 up 12%

Google has overtaken Apple to become the world’s most valuable global brand, according to the 2014 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand rankings – worth $159billion, an increase of 40%, year-on-year.

After three years at the top, Apple slipped to No 2 on the back of a 20% decline in brand value, to $148 billion. While Apple remains a top performing brand, there is a growing perception that it is no longer redefining technology for consumers, reflected by a lack of dramatic new product launches. The world’s leading B2B brand, IBM, held onto its No 3 position with a brand value of $108 billion.

Nick Cooper, managing director of Millward Brown Optimor, commented on the number one brand: “Google has been hugely innovative in the last year with Google Glass, investments in artificial intelligence and a multitude of partnerships that see its Android operating system becoming embedded in other goods such as cars. All of this activity sends a very strong signal to consumers about what Google is about and it has coincided with a slowdown at Apple.”

David Roth, CEO of The Store, WPP: “This year’s index highlights the end of the recession, with a strong recovery in valuations and, for the first time, real growth across every category and the Top 100 as a whole.

“What’s remarkable is the way that strong brands have led the recovery. Seventy-one of the brands listed in our 2014 Top 100 were there in 2008. Despite the financial turmoil and the digital disruption that have decimated many businesses during the last few years, these brands have remained in the ranking, proving the durability of strong brands.”

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study, commissioned by WPP and conducted by Millward Brown Optimor, is now in its ninth year. It is the only ranking that uses the views of potential and current buyers of a brand, alongside financial data, to calculate brand value. The combined value of the Top 100 has nearly doubled since the first ranking was produced in 2006. The Top 100 today are worth $2.9 trillion, an increase of 49% compared with the 2008 valuation, which marked the start of the banking and currency crisis.

The BrandZ Top 10 Most Valuable Global Brands 2014:

1. Google – Technology category: Brand value in 2014 ($m)158,843 Up 40% (Ranked 2 in 2013)
2. Apple – Technology: 147,880 Down 20% (Rank 1 in 2013)
3. IBM – Technology: 107,541 Down 4% (Rank 3 in 2013)
4. Microsoft – Technology: 90,185 Up 29% (Rank 7 in 2013)
5. McDonald’s – Fast Food category: 85,706 Down 5% (Rank 4 in 2013)
6. Coca-Cola – Soft Drinks: 80,683 Up 3% (Rank 5 in 2013)
7. Visa – Credit Cards category: 79,197 Up 41% (Rank 9 in 2013)
8. AT&T – Telecoms category: 77,883 Up 3% (Rank 6 in 2013)
9. Marlboro – Tobacco: 67,341 Down 3% (Rank 8 in 2013)
10. Amazon – Retail category: 64,255 Up 41% (Rank 14 in 2013)

Key findings highlighted in this year’s research report include:

• Share of Life: Successful brands such as Google (No 1 brand), Facebook, Twitter, Tencent and LinkedIn are more than just tools, they have become part of our lives. They offer new forms of communication that absorb people’s attention and imagination, while also helping them organise the rest of their lives at the same time. To gain more of our mind-space, brands such as Tencent and Google are even crossing categories. This trend also pushed No 1 Apparel brand Nike, a prime example of a brand seeking to become a share of life brand which offers services such as Nike+ that extend well beyond its functional raison d’etre.
• Purpose beyond Profit: Brands in business for reasons beyond the bottom line have a better chance of success in today’s world. For example, Pampers, which promotes mother and baby health issues, is at No 39 in the ranking and grew its value by 10% to $22.6 billion. Dove, which has continued to find huge success on the back of its “real women” philosophy, has a brand value of $4.8 billion.
• Apparel fastest growing category: The top 10 Apparel brands grew in value by 29% to nearly $100 billion this year, outpacing Cars (up 17%) and Retail (up 16%). With brands such as Uniqlo, Nike and Adidas all recording double-digit increases in their valuation.
• Technology service companies continue to climb: Not only are the top four brands technology companies,, but so too are many of this year’s biggest risers. This year’s fastest climber was leading Chinese internet brand Tencent, up 97% to $54 billion and the No 14 position, followed by Facebook which rose 68% to $36 billion and took the No 21 spot. New brands in the Top 100 include Twitter at No 71 with a brand value of $14 billion and LinkedIn at No 78 worth $12 billion. Collectively, technology companies make up 29% of the value of the BrandZ Top 100 ranking.
• High value brands provide faster growth: An analysis of the BrandZ rankings as a ‘stock portfolio’ over the last nine years shows a highly favourable performance compared to a wider stock market index, the S&P500. While the value of the companies in the S&P500 index grew by 44.7%, the BrandZ portfolio grew by 81.1%, proving that companies with strong brands are able to deliver better value to their shareholders. View the graphic, here. 
• Brands from the Western World bounced back in 2014, with a greater proportion of both the number and value of brands within the top 100. This reflected the resilience of established brands and the breakthrough of new brands, as well as improved economic conditions. As a result, the number of brands from fast growing economies slipped in 2014.China, with 12 brands, continues to have the largest representation, two Russian brands, Sberbank and MTS, remain in the ranking, and mobile operator MTN is Africa’s representative for the third consecutive year.

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report, rankings and more brand insight for key regions of the world and 13 market sectors are available online, here. 
A new suite of interactive smartphone and tablet applications will also be available for free download via Apple IOS and all Android devices from www.brandz.com/mobile or search for BrandZ in the respective iTunes or Google Play app stores.