Marketing research and insights news and information. This issue's keywords: wealth; Facebook data; social media; marketing executives; digital addictions; data security
The number of UNHWIs (ultra high net worth individual) in the U.S. will increase by 12 percent between 2014 and 2018, resulting in a total of 45,543 millionaires, centimillionaires and billionaires, forecasts a study done by Albany, New York, researcher Marketresearchreports.biz. The study was done on U.S. residents having a per capita wealth of a million dollars or more, referred to as the UHNWI population.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge and Stanford University report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they have developed an algorithm that is better able to predict an individual’s personality traits than other people, using Facebook data. Their test involved 17,000 Facebook users completing a personality test and allowing access to their Facebook “likes,” while their actual friends and family members rated them on five personality dimensions. The algorithm was able to predict the results of the personality test better than the friends, using only 10 likes, beat a parent or sibling by using 150 likes and beat a spouse using 300 likes. The authors concluded, “Our findings highlight that people’s personalities can be predicted automatically and without involving human social-cognitive skills.”
During 2015 companies plan increased spending in social media advertising, social media marketing overall (70 percent each) and social engagement and location-based mobile tracking (67 percent each) according to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which released its 2015 State of Marketing report on the budgetary plans of 5,035 global marketing professionals. The report included B2B and B2C marketers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. The entire report can be downloaded at http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2015/01/2015-state-of-marketing.html.
Just over half (61 percent) of the marketing executives polled by New York Web marketing firm Conductor reported that data is either "more" or "much more" important for 2015 than in 2014, especially when it comes to content creation. The survey asked the execs where they would focus their efforts in 2015 and data and targeting topped the list. Eighty-five percent of agency and 76 percent of B2B execs believe targeting content is "very important" to their strategy so that the right content reaches the right consumer segments at the right time. Nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of B2C execs agreed. Team-building was also cited as an important undertaking.
Ninety-two percent of adults admitted to at least one digital addiction according to a December 2014 survey by Leflein Associates, a Ringwood, N.J. research firm. The biggest time user was social media, where 34 percent said they “could not control themselves” in reading and posting on social networks. Online gaming concerned 15 percent and 14 percent cited concerns over their online shopping.
Following multiple high-profile security breaches, Americans are increasingly concerned with the ownership of their data in the cloud and cloud security. In New York, an Ipsos MediaCT study found that 62 percent of Americans are concerned, compared to 53 percent three years ago. Over half of the respondents (52 percent) view cyber-terrorism as a threat, although only 6 percent reported being a victim of an online data breach. The survey of 1001 U.S. adult Internet users was completed in November 2014.
These reports were compiled from recent issues of the Daily News Queue, a free e-newsletter digest of marketing research and insights news and information delivered each business morning. Not already in the Queue? Sign up here!