In the UK, it has leapfrogged Valentine’s Day as the third biggest retail event of the year and, in the USA, 72% of adults polled say they will be joining in the Halloween holiday capers. Around the world, this celebration of all things spooky has become hugely popular – and thus is a major opportunity for retailers. Here’s some data behind Halloween and a look at what it’s all about.
Marketing has come a long way since the scattergun approach. Customer-centricity has driven the need for polished personalisation and technology is empowering ‘laser-guided marketing’. Doron Youngerwood discusses this concept and offers some artificial intelligence ideas and tips to guide marketing ‘artists’ into becoming marketing ‘scientists’.
Customers post good and bad opinions of products and services – and they also share witty and sarcastic opinions. All of which have been notoriously difficult for brands to measure. Sentiment analysis in the social listening world has not enjoyed the best of reputations as a lack of any advanced technology has meant that accurate results have depended on a process of repetitive, tedious and time-consuming manual tagging of documents. As a result, many brands tend to sideline sentiment indicators in their reporting. Now all that is set to change, says Richard Sunley. Machines have been learning how to fathom irony . . .