Scan Monthly No. 041July 2006 |
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Signals of Change
Niche Beats Reach
SoC183
Broadcast media such as television and radio have historically enjoyed the lion's share of attention from the marketing community because of their capability to generate tremendous reach. But the proliferation of media outlets, new media types, and technologies that allow highly effective targeting of niche markets has shifted the dynamics to the situation in which niche beats reach.
Women's Global Economic Power
SoC184
Women have become wielders of impressive economic power and the focus of government initiatives to reverse national population declines.
Information Therapy
SoC185
Patients traditionally represent the primary source of medical data, and medical professionals are the major consumers. That dynamic may reverse, however, as information behaviors of patients and caregivers in health care change. Information flows will alter course, and various parties will value health information in new ways in the next decade.
PodLife
SoC186
The iPod is moving beyond its original media and entertainment functionality to become a productive tool for work and leisure. Companies in a variety of industries have realized that the iPod offers unique benefits for their purposes, prompting these companies to integrate the iPod into their services either as an integral part of the service or as a delivery mechanism.
Coping with Complexity
SoC187
Humankind's ability to simplify complex phenomena conceptually in order to deal with them effectively has been highly adaptive for group cohesiveness and quick decisions in emergency situations. But oversimplification can lead to mass emotional manipulation, bad science, and a warped perception of objective reality.
Neophilia
SoC188
Neophilia is a love of or enthusiasm for the new. The condition is rampant in some of the world's throwaway cultures, but will it continue to prevail as Baby Boomers reach maturity? Will Boomers' neophilia gradually turn to "neophobia" as Boomers age? And what are the implications for product design, advertising, and marketing?
Insights
| RFID-Enabled Retail: Consumer-Facing Applications | View full summary |
| D06-2532 | Download this Insight |
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Radio-frequency–identification (RFID) technology has seen rapid implementation in the retailing industry in the past five years, but initiatives have affected primarily supply-chain applications. Driving RFID technology into consumer-facing applications not only will extend supply-chain and logistics benefits to the consumer, but also will provide additional benefits to consumers by improving customer service, giving customers more and more accurate information, and providing increased levels of transparency for consumers concerning a product's origin and the processes that brought the product to the consumer. Many customer-facing applications require item-level tagging in which each unit that a customer purchases has its own RFID tag. Item-level tagging remains several years away for most consumer products because of the current costs of RFID technologies. Nevertheless, moving RFID technology beyond the notion that an RFID tag is just a better bar code will require involvement of consumers. RFID technology will live up to its full potential only once it begins providing benefits and value for all marketplace participants, including the consumer. 10 pages. |
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| Scan™ Meeting Digest: 21 June 2006 Meeting | View full summary |
| D06-2533 | Download this Insight |
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This document is a digest of the Scan™ abstract clusters that participants in the 21 June 2006 Scan meeting identified. The digest includes a description of the Scan process for people who have never attended a Scan meeting, a list of the clusters that meeting participants identified, and a one-page description of each cluster's premise and supporting abstracts. The document has active links that allow the reader to access the supporting abstracts for each cluster in Scan's online abstract database. The document also has links to previously published Scan documents relating to the particular cluster. Clusters of abstracts for this June meeting include tapping larger talent bases, get them young (employment-recruitment practices), the new age of contribution/participation, my medical insurance is making me sick, humans as ecologies, the daddy state, and network life: open identity. Compilers: Martin Schwirn, Andrew Broderick. 39 pages. |
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Calendar
Scan™ Abstract Meetings
Scan abstract meetings (in which SRIC-BI [now SBI] staff participate in a free-form discussion of current Scan abstracts) are open for client observation/participation on:
- 20 September 2006 at 9:00 am
- 18 October 2006 at 9:00 am
- 24 January 2007 at 9:00 am
- 21 March 2007 at 9:00 am
- 23 May 2007 at 9:00 am
- 18 July 2007 at 9:00 am.