Compete: Spark!
Compete Spark!

• Embracing Consumer Buzz Creates Measurement Challenges for Marketers
  Insights from auto buyers and travelers illustrate the first step in measuring consumer generated media
• Consumers Seeking Anytime, Anywhere Access to Informational Content Are an Attractive Wireless Segment
  Compete’s new behavioral and attitudinal research discovered an attractive target segment that is interested in mobile content and offers providers highly–valued customers in terms of their overall wireless consumption.
• S–Commerce: Beyond MySpace and YouTube; A new approach for brands to participate in social networking
  By organizing connections between people, social networking sites are changing consumer behavior and making it harder for marketers to find and engage customers. Social commerce is the solution. This new approach weaves best practices from social networks and online commerce, and invites consumer participation into the marketing process.
• Financial Services Providers: Creating New Relationships Online
  In this Spark!, Compete assesses the factors that result in online application abandonment within the auto insurance, credit card, deposit account and home loan product catagories, and provides a framework for improving conversion by addressing these factors.
• Travel Marketers: Put Your Summer Vacations On Hold
  More Than $10 billion In Travel Bookings Is Still Up For Grabs
• 'Tis the season: for hotel brands to shift their marketing emphasis. Stress 'Best Rate Guarantee' to avoid seasonal slip in share.
  Despite the steady emergence of hotel brand sites in the online travel arena, deal-seeking consumers show an increased preference to use aggregator sites for their mid-year travel rather than book directly through a hotel brand site.
• Is the Future of Travel Loyalty in Desktop Marketing? Southwest Airlines raises the bar on the industry again
  DING! has been an early success for Southwest and a harbinger of things to come in online travel distribution. With Southwest now running a national advertising campaign to promote DING!, a battle for consumer desktops has begun.
• Searching For Loyalty - Why Focusing on Market Share Won't Cut It
  In this edition of Spark!, Compete utilizes a newly developed search framework to demonstrate that search engines can grow their volumes by gaining a better understanding of the behavior of their own users.
• Study: financial 'searchers' are compelling targets for retail banks. Establish a balanced portfolio of terms to reach them.
  Today's Internet savvy consumers routinely use search to find the information they are looking for. Contrary to widely held beliefs, these 'searchers' looking for deposit, loan and credit card products are wealthy, of strong credit quality and are even more likely to apply for these products than consumers who don't use search.
• Paying More for Less: Conversion Efficiency and the Effect of Incentive Spending
  Compete identified that higher incentives do not always convert more shoppers to buyers; conversion actually worsened for vehicles with over $5,000 in incentives. Additionally, incentive cost-effectiveness varies by vehicle type and brand.