Aug 13

Written by: Insights Account
8/13/2009 1:06 PM

The DC office of Fleishman Hillard provided us with the following trends worth tracking

MediaPost reported: "People's online behaviors are becoming more integrated into their offline interactions," said Jackie Anderson, Forrester Research analyst and author of a new report from the firm. "Engagement with the online channel has deepened, as evidenced by the widespread adoption of such activities as social networking." The number of households that reported being online only grew slightly more than 3% between 2008 and 2009, while broadband adoption among Internet households grew slightly more than 6%, according to a survey conducted earlier this year of 53,668 U.S. and Canadian households and individuals ages 18 and older. This means that there are now almost 71 million households that report they have access to the abundance of activities on the Internet that are enabled by faster connection speeds. Despite more households having broadband access, most media behaviors remained relatively flat year-over-year. Overall, time spent with the Internet, for example, remained static at about 12 hours per week. While the time consumers were spending with the Internet grew considerably between 2004 and 2007, the maturation of users, as well as the ultimately limited amount of time consumers have to spend with media, has resulted in a tapering of that growth, according to Anderson.

Also from MediaPost: Starbucks has surpassed Coca-Cola as Facebook's most popular corporate brand, thanks to a variety of product giveaways on its fan page over the past several months. As of this writing, Starbucks' Facebook page boasted 3.7 million fans compared to Coke's 3.5 million - with both sites among the top ten most-popular on all of Facebook (among celebrities like Michael Jackson and Barack Obama). Starbuck's addition of 200,000 fans over the last week can be attributed to a Free Pastry Day promotion on July 21st, which allowed fans to print out coupons for complimentary pastries with any beverage purchase. Earlier this month, the coffee chain promoted the launch of a branded ice cream by offering coupons for free pints through its Facebook application. "Free coupons can be a very viral way to do promotions on social networks, as long as it's a compelling offer," noted Justin Smith, editor of Inside Facebook.

CBC News reported: After their $3,500 Taylor guitar was broken last year by United Airlines baggage handlers at Chicago's O'Hare airport, Canadian band Sons of Maxwell appealed to the airline for compensation. Instead, they got what they describe as a "runaround" and a denied claim. Frustrated, the folk group's lead singer Dave Carroll took to YouTube with the first of three songs he promised to write about his experience. United Song #1, entitled "United Breaks Guitars" debuted July 6 and featured Carroll playing a broken guitar amid careless and indifferent airline employees. The video received more than 150,000 hits in its first day and prompted United Airlines spokeswoman Robin Urbanski to issue a statement vowing to work with Carroll to make things right. Though Carroll refused United's money and instead suggested - in another YouTube video - that it be donated to charity, the original video has been subtitled in several languages and has racked up more than 4.5 million viewers to date. The incident also spurred a sympathetic YouTube video from Bob Taylor, the owner of Taylor Guitars, who lent support to Sons of Maxwell and offered tips on safely transporting the instruments. Carroll said he's hoping his foray into social media - and his next two YouTube songs - will make a difference for everyone who gets their luggage battered. "They're talking about changing the culture of customer service. This could end up making a real difference," he said.

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