祝你们：新年快乐，万事如意，身体健康, Happy Chinese New Year to all of you, Excellent Nouvel An Chinois a vous tous, Prospero Ano

Sokho TRINH

Merry Xmas & Happy New Year 2012, by Sokho

Let me wish you a Merry Christmas and a stunning new year 2012.
Here is little “home-made” video for you

Je vous souhaite un tres joyeux noel et une superbe annee 2012.
Voici une video faite-maison.

Os deso unas felices fiestas. Aqui tienes el enlace a una video casera.

祝你们聖誕節快乐， 新年好! 我送给你们一个小視頻。

Sokho

Le Web Start-up competition powered by Google

Many believes that the Internet is becoming a commodity. Economist fear another internet bubble to crash just like in 2000.
however it seems that young, daring, and creative entrepreneurs are giving it a try in the world of the World Wide Web.
Paris is currently hosting one of the biggest Internet event: LeWeb (www.leweb.net).
16 entrepreneurs share their business ideas in elevator pitches: click on the image above.

Amazing ideas are shared during this event. And if one lesson needs to be taken out of it, that would be the following.
If you do have a start-up idea, do not hesitate and do not fear sharing with idea with other professionals.
Many believe that an idea might be « stolen » if they expose their business concept. The truth is most entrepreneurs who today are perceived as successful, would suggest you to constantly question yourselves. You would need to set up a « feedback loop » not only with your new clients/prospects, but also with other professionals who just like you, have been through some errors. And you might actually learn from them!

In the industry of Luxury goods for instance, some of my ex professor would argue that the way to build a successful branding strategy, is to follow the « Air du Temps », in others words, the perceptions, feelings, appreciations, and general trends of the market, and based on luxury shoppers’ likes and likes not.

The concept of « lean start-up strategy » explains that when you build a start-up, it is vital to incorporate the others’ feedback into your strategy and your operations. There will not be such things as a final version, but an accumulation of betas which would lead to a leaner business where offer would tend to match needs at a given time. But bear in mind that needs do evolves. A very good article written on the Harvard Business School’s blog talks about that: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6659.html

After a couple of month silence, here i am back from a long series of travel around the world.
Something that really stroke me from the last business trip is to realise that companies start to understand that taking better strategic decisions require an investment in understand their customer’s behavior.

Wal-Mart recently announces that it would share it sales’ data with a market research firm in the US.
Coming from the #1 retailer in the world, that may be sign that using data in a proper is vital to take better decision, in category management, and in CRM among others.

The British retailer Sainsbury’s manages to keep a strong growth which exceed the overall UK grocery retail market growth. That has been made possible due to the combination of both their EPOS data, typicall coming from the cashier lines’ POS system, with their loyalty card data [NECTAR]. By analysing their shoppers’ behaviour, Sainsbury’s supported by Aimia Intelligent Shopper Solutions shows how it is possible to maintain a strong growth in Revenue, keeping an increasing level of operating margin and maintaining the level of promotional investment a level below the one of the other UK grocery retailers.

In France, the french Giant Carrefour also uses the power of data analytics to set up their marketing and trading strategy.
This results in a merchandising which is more rationalized.

CVS the american chain of drugstores explores deeper the magic of such asset. By using shopper insight their prove that the number of SKU can dramatically reduced, resulting in a stunning decrease in inventory costs, but also in an assortment which is more optimised, responding to the shopper needs, introducing for example new service products, and introducing new trip mission segmentation pushing the male aisles, among others.

One more Google proves to take a step forward into Hardware, and new technologies development.
The announcement that the Internet Giant was taking over Motorola mobility (previously the Mobile Devices division of Motorola Inc) for $12.5bn shook the digital market.

More info under:
Article from the FT
Article from Le Monde

A book about self-branding using new media, and new technologies has been published. The author gives us a snapshot about the several tips to win in your professional but also in your personal life.

More info under: self branding

If you think that that the internet battle in China has finished with the Google conflict, it is not yet to happen.
Baidu launched weeks ago, a Web browser to grab market shares from Internet Explorer (86% of market shares in China) and Chrome (5%).

That clearly marks the aggressive move of this Chinese internet giant ($2.6bn revenue, nearly 11 000 employees, sector covered: online, e-shopping, e-payment among others), which already has almost 60% of market shares in China*

*source from baidu.com, Wikipedia.com

More info under: New web browser from Baidu

Social media, from word of mouth to world of mouth

Social media reshape the way people communicate: from being a content reader to being a content creator, is social media to be used by your company to leverage your brand awareness Or to increase your sales? Is it free? Will you have a quick ROI?

Not a single answer can be given, It will all depends on:
-What objectives you have in mind, i.e. Sales or image oriented.
-What resources you have, internal? (full time staff, Intern) Or external? (agency, Community manager consultant)
-What your current media mix is, social media should be used as a complementary communication channel, hence it might overlap with some of your existing channels.
-What your budget is and how urgent you want to see results. Social media is not free, and usually it takes times before you can tangibly see concrete results.
-How accurate your knowledge is about the social media landscape? Be informed about how the Y & Z generations interact in these platforms. Learn about the total population existing for each of these channels. What does a « like » icon means? How do you interpret the results?

For more info, click on the image at the top of this article, It will give you a snapshot about the key facts regarding social media in 2010.

Here after I will quote the examples of 2 giant retailers who launched in-store media technologies to drive traffic, provoke impulse purchase, and create desire to come back by enhancing their shopper experience.
In China mainland, Carrefour China launched several successful technology-oriented media.
My team and I launched several technologies to drive traffic, create new revenue streams, and build customer loyalty, in China for Carrefour Group. In-store media become a vital spot where an incredible number of “touch points” can be created to communicate with your shopper in a integrated way. A deal was signed between French retailer Carrefour in China and Digital leader CGEN to run in-store TV Screen where advertiser can benefit from a 45 seconds time-slot to advertise the products which they sell at the retailer.

http://www.wpp.com/NR/rdonlyres/CC0A53CE-0AD7-4746-B436-0AB544D91FC5/0/TheStore_newsletter_001_Chinese_instore_digital_media_massy.pdf

Hence a double revenue is created, the advertising sales which is split between the retailer and the partner Ads agencies, and the sales increase due to the effective point-of-sales advertisement.
Other cutting-edge technologies have been launched and successfully tested by Carrefour in China since 2007 such as bluetooth box, augmented reality projectors, 2D promotional codes via SMS, LCD screens on trolleys with a merchandise and promotional map integrated, among others.
In that sense, I would say that Asia is relatively advanced compared to Europe in terms of use of technologies to communicate and sell to the shoppers.

In Europe, Tesco in the UK seems to master the use of state-of-art technologies.
They were reported to run more energy-efficient-store, building low-carbon stores. In an attempt to follow the current issue of global warming and gaining customers’ approval on the way they do business, Tesco managed to combine new technology and good business sense.

Another big trial for the UK giant retailer is the scan-as-you-shop technology they have tested end of 2010, which is announced to be rolled out in 2011.

Let’s remind readers that the first to launch such technology in the UK was British retail chain Waitrose. Shoppers will spend less time to buy more. Each shoppers will be handed a scanning device as they come to the store selling surface, they will then scan each item they want to buy as they walk by the displays, they will then go to a specifically designed cashier line where they can unload their trolley and checkout themselves.
One of the risks of such a model is to dehumanize the shopping experience especially in urban-areas supermarkets, leaving the perception to shoppers that the retailer only tries to decrease checkout staffing, and decrease its own costs.
Is that all? It seems that the technology-savvy UK-based retailer wants to keep its lead in cutting-edge selling models; one of their last trials was the Iphone and Ipad Shopping which.
More is to come, to be continued…

El proyecto entre Google y Astra para cubrir la mitad de la población mundial con Internet, es decir el otro 3 billiones de personas que todavía no están conectado a la red.
Este proyecto esta principalmente enfocado a Sud America, Africa occidental y Asia del Sur. Siguiendo sus valores éticas, Google defende la no censura.
El proyecto costará unos 880 miliones de euros y tiene 2013 como año de empiezo.
Mas información en http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/red/satelites/dara/Internet/coste/media/humanidad/elpepisoc/20110219elpepisoc_3/Tes