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Welcome to your Research Business DAILY Report.
We know a large percentage of RBDR viewers perceive social media research as overblown
and, at best, years off from having the level of impact that merits their attention.
Dunkin' Brands Chief Global Marketing & Innovation Officer John Costello has been around the
block a few times, with senior- level stops at Home Depot, Sears, P&G, PepsiCo, Yahoo
and Nielsen.
And Costello is seeing value coming from social media.
He told Mediapost that "interactive, mobile and social are ... earning their way into
marketing plans through the ROI they provide."
Costello concedes measuring social area ROI is no walk in the park, but Dunkin' is studying
level of engagement with its social media fans.
Costello stresses Dunkin' is not going hog wild in social. Relying on judgement more
than analytics keeps Dunkin's interactive and social concentration "very consistent
rather than with dramatic swings."
Dunkin's new mobile app is being launched using Facebook and Twitter, and Costello says
it will lead to even more location-based marketing in the future.
In preparing today's report, we found a couple of capabilities laying in the weeds with potential
to make major research impacts.
One, we've touched on before, facial recognition.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune reporter Jim Spencer wrote that there are researchers who portray
facial recognition technology as "well on its way to supplanting fingerprints as the
biometric identifier of choice."
Recognition rates with well-lit, frontal photos are 99.7% accurate AND researchers have designed
mathematical algorithms that extract sensitive personal data associated with names of those
identified.
Facial recognition's commercial possibilities were brought to light when Facebook Manager
of Privacy & Public Policy Rob Sherman told a Senate hearing he could not rule out Facebook
sharing its face-print library with a third party.
Then there is Gery Menegaz on ZDNet, who alerted us to Reachable, a tool so new that until
recently it was called 7 Degrees by its developers. (That's a reference to Six Degrees of Kevin
Bacon).
Reachable seems positioned to take on LinkedIn, but its contacts aren't limited to one network.
Reachable's 60-million individuals were drawn from purchased data bases, public data, plus
Facebook, LinkedIn and Google.
One closing news note concerning corporate acceptance of Pinterest.
A Creative Group survey says 4% of marketers are using it and 7% plan to use Pinterest,
versus 44% who have no interest in it for business purposes.
That's your Research Business DAILY Report. We will see you tomorrow. Until then, have
a great research day.