Anjali Lai says, “Sports fans around the world are having a heyday: From the Copa America soccer tournament in the US to the European Champions Cup across the pond, and from live Wimbledon matches to the imminent Summer Olympic Games, there is no lack of global sports entertainment at this moment. Sports teams have always brought people together as much as divided them — and in today’s age, technology amplifies the drama of fandom. Personal devices play a critical role in how people come together around sports, when fans watch the action unfold, and how they discuss the results. For example,... [...]

Meredith Cain says, “Let’s take trip back to 1989. One of the big movies of that year was “Back to the Future: Part II.” One of the great things about that movie was its view of the future—or, because so much has time has passed since the film was released, its view of what our present should be like. In the film, Marty McFly and Doc Brown time traveled to October 21, 2015 and had the opportunity observe potential technologies and experiences of the future. What they saw seems both supremely silly and surprisingly prescient: video conferencing, holograms, augmented reality (AR)... [...]

Laura Koetzle says, “Yesterday’s decision by UK citizens to leave the European Union (“Brexit”) brings about short-term uncertainties and unintended consequences that will make it harder for UK businesses to keep customers and attract talent. While times of high-market volatility can tempt firms to panic and cut spending on customer-focused initiatives, now is the time to drive innovation in order to win, serve, and retain customers. As decisions over the next several years are determined by legislators and driven by compliance, UK companies will be challenged to operate as customer-obsessed... [...]

Jessica Liu says, “Bloomberg recently reported that Snapchat surpassed Twitter in daily active users. Kudos to Snapchat, which is only half as old as Twitter, but why do we keep comparing Snapchat to Twitter? Or to Instagram? The industry is desperate to neatly categorize Snapchat under social media, but I would argue that Snapchat is equal parts messaging app and social network, putting it in a class of its own. Let’s break it down: * Messaging apps are built on the premise of private conversation: 1 to 1 (yes, group chat exists, but it’s contained). You send specific messages... [...]

Dan Bieler says, “Bloomberg recently reported that Snapchat surpassed Twitter in daily active users. Kudos to Snapchat, which is only half as old as Twitter, but why do we keep comparing Snapchat to Twitter? Or to Instagram? The industry is desperate to neatly categorize Snapchat under social media, but I would argue that Snapchat is equal parts messaging app and social network, putting it in a class of its own. Let’s break it down: * Messaging apps are built on the premise of private conversation: 1 to 1 (yes, group chat exists, but it’s contained). You send specific messages... [...]

Harley Manning says, “In 2015, we explored whether customer experience really matters to business success or whether CX is just the latest hype. Our conclusion: superior CX drives superior revenue growth in industries where customers are free to switch business and competitors deliver a differentiated customer experience. This year we repeated our study to see if the results held true across an additional year of data. To do that we compared five pairs of publicly traded companies where one company in each of the pairs had a significantly higher score than the other in Forrester’s Customer... [...]

Tina Moffett says, “On Tuesday, Facebook announced new solutions for businesses to drive people to their stores and measure the amount of store visits and in-store sales following their Facebook mobile ad campaigns. Before breaking out the bubbly, let’s break down Facebook’s new measurement capabilities, and evaluate what it means for marketers. First, the warning statement: The Facebook Offline Conversion and Site Metric features give all the credit to a singular FB mobile ad, not considering all the other marketing stimuli a consumer is exposed to. Taking the offline conversion metric... [...]

Anjali Lai says, “We’re all guilty of falling prey to the lure of social media and losing hours to it. But there’s little doubt that social networking also encourages collaboration, creativity, and productivity – especially if it’s used for work. When Microsoft made history this week by announcing its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner argued that such a move will allow both companies to realize their “common mission to empower people and organizations.” And empowerment in the workplace is deeply attractive, particularly for the rising generation of employees:... [...]

Peter O’Neill says, “Never having been an analyst that thinks he knows it all, I periodically attend external conferences as a mere delegate (no speech) to learn something new and network. I was at last week’s conference of the Association of Professional Sales (APS) in London with over 400 other marketers, sales enablement professionals, sales training companies and even sales executives to discuss “The New Era Of Differentiation”. What you sell is not enough but how you sell it is everything: What you say, what you do, what you offer and who you hire into sales. The APS was... [...]

Carlton Doty says, “Okay, you’ve read countless opinion pieces on the blockbuster deal where Microsoft paid a notable (nearly 9x) premium for LinkedIn. One could argue that it’s about time someone snatched up LinkedIn…that was my initial reaction, and perhaps yours too. But why Microsoft, and why now? Well, it should be obvious that this is a B2B play. In fact, our own Melissa Parrish eloquently outlined the minimal relevance to B2C firms in her blog post yesterday. However, this morning, Melissa and several other colleagues here at Forrester published our quick take on what this... [...]