Estimates from ‘The Casualties of Social Messaging’ report value the impact of increased use of internet-based social messaging via smartphones at $8.7bn in 2010 and $13.9bn in 2011 in lost revenues for telecommunication providers globally.

The popularity of social messaging, the use of social apps or websites to send messages instead of traditional SMS, MMS, or email techniques, is forecast to continue to grow as smartphone penetration increases.

Consumer analyst at Ovum, Neha Dharia, warns telecommunications operators will need to rework their legacy services to secure future profitability in the messaging market.

“Social messaging has disrupted traditional services, and operators’ revenues in this area will come under increasing pressure,” Dharia comments. “Tapping into the creativity of app developers, forming industry-wide collaborations, and leveraging their usage data and strong relationships with subscribers are the key ways for operators to ensure that they hold their ground in the messaging market.”

Industry-wide collaboration alongside innovation and realignment of revenue schemes to more social models will be the key to growth in the messaging realm according to Ovum’s report, which notes the development as an opportunity as well as a threat.

Telcos have the advantage of controlling the entire messaging structure (through access to the user’s phone number and usage data), billing relationship and most of the services to which the user is exposed.

Dharia goes on to say that the most important factor to future messaging revenue will be co-operation between the telcos themselves: “They are no longer competing merely among themselves, but must work together to face the challenge from the major internet players.”

“Working closely with handset vendors will also be important; they control some of the most popular social messaging apps, and can also provide preloaded applications.”

Image credit: EronsPics.

This is exactly what a group of recently laid off employees of Omnicom Group’s Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GSP) did after losing their jobs in a recent round of cuts made by the ad agency.

GSP reportedly laid off as many as 200 of its 700 staff this month after losing key accounts Sprint and Hewlett Packard.

GrabsomeGoodby.com, which was created by J.D. Beebe, encourages the laid-off workers to advertise their experience to agencies and recruiters, as well as providing a portal for companies to load job openings.

It describes itself as a “tribute to the talented folks at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners who were affected by the latest layoffs. It was created to act as a directory of those people who are now available to do work for you. So peruse, contact and help turn this situation into a positive thing. Getting some Goodby at your agency is a great thing.”

And the tag line is poetic: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you Goodby talent, hire it to make your lemonade better.”

Staff are listed on the site under their areas of expertise which range from account management and strategy to creative and production. At time of publishing the site had 1072 likes on Facebook.

The ‘Best Retail Brands Report’, which combines a variety of measures including brand strength and financial performance, valued the Woolworths brand at US$4.2 billion, almost double that of second-placed brand Uniqlo.

Harvey Norman, Myer and David Jones rounded out the top five with brand values of US$873 million, US$599 million and US$562 million respectively. Over the past year, the value of Woolworths’ and Myer’s brands increased, while Harvey Norman’s and David Jones’ decreased.

Coles, which is a consolidated entity, was not included in the study because it doesn’t release enough financial information to qualify for Interbrand’s criteria.

CEO of Interbrand Australia and New Zealand, Damian Borchok, says, Australian brands performed well on the study in relation to Asian brands which are only just beginning to use brand as a strategy in their respective retail markets.

“The general value of Asia’s brands are lower because it’s such a fragmented market and building retail brands in Asia is a relatively new thing,” Borchok says.

“For Australian retailers facing the toughest marketplace in decades, the study provides some clear signposts towards what will drive success in the future.

“The fusion of physical environments and technology will be key and winning retailers will place greater emphasis on customer insight and customer service. The role of the store will go beyond being a receptacle for merchandise and carrying out transactions; smart retailers are already working out that their stores can deliver memorable and engaging experiences that result in substantial commercial success.”

The top retail brand in Asia Pacific for 2012 are:

In overseas lists, department store Walmart maintained its number one position in the US, with a brand value just over US$139 billion (down 2% from last year), supermarket Tesco took top honours in the UK, valued at US$11 billion (up 9% on last year), hypermarket Carrefour topped the list in France, grocery giant Aldi in Germany and fast-fashion retailer Zara in Spain. All number-one ranked brands held onto their top spots from 2011’s ‘Best Retail Brand Report’.

Amazon maintained its position at number nine in the US, and was the largest riser on any of the lists, with a 32% increase to bring its brand value up to US$12.8 billion.

eBay moved into the top 10 for the first time in the US, while other big movers included hardware chain Leroy Merlin (France; up 22%), supermarkets Mercadona (Spain; up 22%) and Lidl (Germany; up 20%), machinery manufacturer Tractor Supply (U.S.; up 18%), and cosmetics retailer Sephora (France; up 18%).

In Asia Pacific, there were three new entrants in 2012’s list – Japanese department store Muji, valued at US$355 million, Chinese women’s footwear retailer Belle, valued at US$310 million, and Japanese home furnishings supplier Nitori, valued at US$275 million.

The report was launched with a word of advice for retailers – every channel matters in the new landscape. It names the need to be agile, a focus on the path to purchase, every brand is a story, leveraging design to build brand value and the promise of omni-channel retail as the most prominent global retail trends gaining relevancy.

Target, Home Depot, CVS and Best Buy completed the list of the top five brands in the US.

And in the UK, Marks & Spencer, Boots, Asda and Next rounded out the top five.

The social web, and platforms like Facebook and Twitter in particular, allow brands to develop relationships with their customers in way that has never existed before. Customer loyalty has always been recognised as incredibly important but developing metrics around more than swiping a card at the point of purchase has been hard. Now it’s not. With a well designed and executed social media strategy companies can now identify and reward their most loyal and vocal customers: the brand evangelists who actively encourage others to purchase from their favourite brand.

The companies that are doing this the best are the ones who understand that they need to create a relationship with each customer – they need to recognise that each customer is unique and reward people for interacting with them. Customers now have more power to voice an opinion than ever before, and they will do it whether you are participating or not. It is no longer good enough to simply treat customers as something to convert into a sale then move on. ‘Speed dating’ is out and romancing to find out ‘what makes them tick’ is in.

The brilliant people who work at Facebook understand this better than most. In fact, they have recently changed the way that advertising works within Facebook to incentivise brands to be more active and engaging. Facebook knows that the real value from their platform comes from the engagement that creates longer term relationships. And they are now changing the game within Facebook so everybody else gets that too. It is likely that the recent changes to the Facebook platform will be games changers for some brands. Others, such as the ones who have been looking at social media as simply a broadcast platform, are going to struggle. What is certain is that Facebook’s advertising revenue is set to make another giant jump as the more engaging brands will be paying less to spread their message through the platform.

As a marketer you have many choices about how you treat your audience. You can develop techniques that let you know who they are and how they wish to be communicated with and you can engage them in creative interesting ways, creating long term relationships. Or you can look at the customers as numbers to be churned through quickly. We all know that being treated as an individual is more effective, and now it seems there is going to be an additional financial benefit to it.

So you can view the social web as a place where people waste time and generate low value. But it is up to you, as a marketer, to change the way your customers interact with you. Social media is fast paced and there can be a lot of distractions. To really stand out you need to create meaningful experiences – ones that can turn into happy long term relationships.

On that note, we bring you this instalment of Marketing‘s Top10 – the strangest beer commercials we could find:

10. Japanese beer for kids

This one is last because it’s not actually beer – but it is a drink coloured, packaged and promoted to resemble beer, marketed to kids. Kampai!

If you can’t see the videos below, please refresh this page

9. Bud Light 

Not as strange in content as some of the others, the weirdness here is wondering why Bud wanted the audience to associate the smell of burning horse gas with their beverage.

8. Heileman’s Old Style Lager

Even the ad is old style… because it is, well, old. Heileman’s tastes better because it’s aged longer, just like this ad. At the time it was made we’re sure this ad wouldn’t have been quite so remarkable, but if we saw this ad for a beer today, we’d probably buy some.

7. Bluetounge Brewery whale safe beer

SERIOUS WARNING: This ad was a joint venture with a Sea Shepherd anti-whaling campaign about 5 years ago. It’s racist, and very graphic. And has nothing to do with beer until the end.

6. WTF Irish beer commercial

We use all the words in the heading very, very loosely. Except the WTF part. That couldn’t be more accurate. Marketing couldn’t get to the end of this 3 minute 15 second ‘video’ (how would you describe it?). So many things to comment on in this one, I think we’ll call out the horrible Irish/Scottish/Dutch accent for a special mention.

5. Tooheys strange harvest

A local entrant, you may remember this Tooheys Extra Dry campaign from a few years back. The attempts at psychological analysis of this spot, as well as the sheer confused frustration in the comments make entertaining reading if you have the time.

4. Van Damme promotes Coors Light

Come for the tight jeans, stay for the line: ‘My nipples were so cold they started talking to me.”

3. Wildeman

If you don’t like seeing fake blood or dead animals, perhaps skip this one. As for a review, we like this appraisal from the comments: “Stick George Orwell, Rammstein, Braveheart, Robin Hood and Beowulf into a blender and blend until it sucks like a KFC milkshake. Doesn’t make me thirsty or remember the beer. Sorry.”

2. Fernet Stock

Not only weird, but incredibly offensive to women – the beer double whammy!

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger saves the day with beer (?)

We’re going with the title on YouTube and assuming this is an ad for beer. We’re sure it’s an ad. And we’re sure that’s Arnold. But really, that tiny bottle could have anything in it.