Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Jack Ma transformed China’s export economy with Alibaba, the retail giant poised to overtake Walmart with the biggest market debut in US history.

Jack Ma, China’s leading internet entrepreneur, once described himself as a “crocodile in the Yangtze”. The technology chief was busy discussing the battle between Alibaba, the online shopping company he founded, and eBay, the global auction site which used to dominate the Chinese shopping market.

“If we fight in the ocean, we lose; but if we fight in the river, we win,” he claimed. He proved his point when Alibaba’s Taobao auction site overtook eBay’s Chinese business and left it for dust. But that is not the only way Ma’s colourful analogy resonated.Ma has also demonstrated a crocodile’s ability to stalk his prey largely undetected....

Nielsen's latest report on mobile payments isn't too surprising, save one tidbit: people like using QR codes.

The study, released Thursday, found that mobile payment users actually prefer methods involving quick response (QR) codes or bar codes.

Almost half, 45 percent, of the nearly 4,000 people surveyed by Nielsen said they use the method to check out with their smartphones.Akin to bar codes, QR codes are blocks of printed code used to store large amounts of digital information. For a time, they were showing up everywhere -- on product packaging, ads, marketing campaigns -- but were seen as unnecessary or gimmicky. In mobile payments, cashiers can simply scan the codes displayed on a customer's smartphone as they would any bar code....

It has to woo overlooked small retailers in the same way a disruptive technology needs to cater to developers.

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has gotten lots of attention thanks to its pending multi-billion-dollar U.S. IPO. It seems to have no immediate plans to expand in the U.S.—but that's likely just a matter of time. And when it does, Amazon had better watch out, because Alibaba has a host of ready allies: the legions of mom-and-pop retailers that Amazon has left stranded in its wake.

Let's start with some background from Alibaba's perspective. The company controls 80% of the Chinese e-commerce market, which means it needs new markets in order to grow. Its current model—acting as an e-commerce middleman that connects buyers and sellers—might translate well to some big emerging markets, but Alibaba will need to take a more subtle approach in America for three reasons...

By now you probably got the memo that the population in Europe is growing older. That the opening of borders is causing people to migrate. That consumers are using the internet and their mobile phones to make sure they get the best deal possible.

Shoppers today aren’t just pleased to shop with retailers who offer several ways to buy stuff—they expect it. In fact, former nice-to-haves (like an easy-to-access storefront, a ecommerce-enabled website and a mobile shopping app) are now becoming table stakes for Canadian store operators.

This is one of the key takeaways of a new survey of retail expectations conducted by PwC.

The survey polled more than 15,000 consumers (located in Canada and around the world)  to get a sense of what, exactly, today’s shopper wants when opening his or her wallet. According to a report detailing the research, “the bar is now much higher for retailers with world-class aspirations.”

This is not exactly news to any retailer struggling to compete in 2014. Changing customer expectations have made it extremely difficult for store operators—especially independents—to thrive. So, what is the solution? In PwC’s view, “a new approach is needed, and retail customers are pointing the way.”

Here are the four key things PwC believes consumers want today—and some tips on how your business can adapt to them....

According to a recent survey of more than 300 CMOs in the U.S. that Booz & Company conducted with the Association of National Advertisers and Korn/Ferry, 72 percent said that building capabilities in the area of digital marketing is vital.

The challenge is that there’s no one set of capabilities that applies universally, therefore “companies must identify what kind of marketing organization they need to make their strategy a success, choose a digital marketing model based on their strategic objectives, and then focus on developing a handful of marketing capabilities that will allow them to bring that model to life and consistently excel.”

Booz & Company identified four equally successful digital marketing models. S+B elaborated that “a company’s focus for marketing investment might have elements of each, but odds are that one of these models represents the right marketing organization for your company.”...

If you manage a brand's Twitter account, chances are you're not interacting as much as you could be. And that's not a good thing.

Simply Measured took a look at 98 of the top global brands on Twitter and found some eye-opening information.

From Mashable:

During the final three months of 2013, 98 of Interbrand's top 100 global brands tweeted at least once and the average company tweeted 12 times per day, according to data from Simply Measured, a social media analytics provider. However, the report also found that 54% of these Interbrand companies send less than one @-reply per day....

Google has gone through a lot of executive changes this year. Last month, the company's chief business officer Nikesh Arora announced he was leaving. And in February longtime ad boss Susan Wojcicki left that post to replace YouTube chief Salar Kamangar as the CEO of the Google-owned video service.

Ms. Wojcicki's appointment overshadowed another leadership shift. A year after being charged with running Google's advertising and commerce organization alongside Ms. Wojcicki, Google Senior VP-Advertising and Commerce Sridhar Ramaswamy had taken full responsibility for the division that accounted for more than 91% of the company's $55 billion in revenue last year.

The 11-year Google vet, who started in 2003 as an engineer on Google's search-ads team, now oversees search, display, video, analytics, shopping, payments and travel product lines. He discussed his new role in an interview below....

Facebook's Head of Retail Global Vertical Strategy shares his predictions for the evolution of online retail.

Retailers have refined the science of merchandising for hundreds of years, but the disruption of the Internet and ecommerce has been an enormous catalyst of change for the industry--and there are no signs of this slowing.

The art and science of ‘click and mortar’ is just beginning to take shape. In fact, according to eMarketer, more than 80 percent of shoppers who visit an ecommerce site do not know what they want to buy. Which means that in a $15 trillion global retail industry, there is a lot of opportunity.In 2014, merchandising continues to reshape itself with three important trends: Discovery, Seasonality and Compression.,...