Shoppers' Feelings About Black Friday vs. Cyber Monday

infographics courtesy of CSA

The Year in Digital And The Brands Using It Most Wisely According to the L2 Think Tank.

A look at The Year In Digital (social media, online commerce, mobile, content sharing) as well as the 2011 luxury brand digital "geniuses" from a year's worth of L2's Digital IQ Index® research.

L2, a think tank for Digital Innovation, has selected what they are referring to as the Eight Most Innovative Digital Programs in Prestige/Luxury and 2011′s Geniuses. Brands that understand how Americans interact and engage with social media, spending more time on social sites than they do on portal sites (with 95% of that social networking time spent now spent on Facebook)



These brands have figured out how to make meaning in the fire hose of daily tweets and video uploads. They understand the implications of a world where e-commerce volume will reach $197 billion by year end (Amazon is 1/3 of that number), 85 percent of the population is blanketed with a commercial wireless signal, and Facebook hosts tens times more photos than the Library of Congress.

L2 states that "The taste for luxury goods will always endure, but the digital world moves quickly. Today’s giants have created tremendous opportunity for themselves in the marketplace, but on the web there’s always room for the rise of the unexpected, the meme, and the new, next, next thing."

And here are their picks for the The Eight Most Innovative Digital Programs in Prestige:

#1 Burberry

#2 Lancome

#3 Oscar de la Renta

#4 Estee Lauder

#5 Dior

#6 Sephora

#7 Benefit Cosmetics

#8 Kate Spade


Consumers are hungry and today digital represents the greatest opportunity for brands to punch above their weight class. As their benchmarking tracks into 2012 it looks like there are quite a few brands bulking up and throwing punches.

Here are their picks for the 2011 Digital Geniuses

Fashion: Burberry, Kate Spade, Coach, Gucci

Watches & Jewelry: Tiffany & Co.

Beauty: MAC, Clinique

China: Audi, BMW, Burberry

Specialty Retail: Victoria’s Secret, Nordstrom, Macy’s

Magazines: Time

Facebook: BMW, Audi, Belvedere Vodka, Bare Escentuals, Infiniti, Clinique, Ferrari, Bobbi Brown, Lexus, Tory Burch, Lancome, Johnny Walker

Travel: Airlines – Southwest, Delta, Continental Airlines, American Airlines; Hotels – Westin, W Hotels, Hilton

L2 looks at the state of digital (social media, online commerce, mobile, content sharing) as well as luxury and prestige brand digital "geniuses" from a year's worth of our Digital IQ Index® research.

Be sure to check out their informative library of individual videos of the ways brands are using digital here on Vimeo.

Follow them on twitter

Visit them at L2 Think Tank

Sweet! The Tweet Towel Dries With 140 Custom Characters.

The other day I received a great little gift in the mail. A Tweet Towel from We Are What We Do, a global movement that inspires people to use their everyday behavior to affect big environmental and social issues.



The woven white dish towel had a personal embroidered Tweet to me from the folks at the London-based We Are What We Do, which showed through the clear window of the mailer:




When unboxed, I saw that the 42 X 60 cm absorbent white woven cotton towel had a diagonal hanging hook on reverse corner and embroidered detailing along with the personalized or custom "tweet".




I cannot deny it. It is hip, fun and functional. And a brilliant idea for marketing and branding a company or product. Not to mention that the proceeds from the affordable and clever gift go to fund a worthy cause.



The idea came from mashing up traditional crafts and digital communication. For those less tech-savvy, a "tweet" is a 140 character message that you can send via the website Twitter. And a tea towel is... well you probably know what they are.



All profits go to the We Are What We Do Charitable Foundation, funding their digital inclusion projects to get different generations talking more, sharing more and spending more time together.



Tea towel details:
* 42 X 60 cm
* Absorbent white woven cotton
* Diagonal hanging hook on reverse corner
* Satin taffeta label
* Packaged in an A4 gift box with clear panel to view personal messages

Machine wash at 40 degrees max. Do not tumble dry. The tea towel is shipped from their responsible suppliers in Turkey and is embroidered in the UK. All the packaging 100% recyclable and they ask that you recycle it as well :)


Get your own Tweet Towel (and one for a friend) here.

Learn about We Are What We Do here.
Shop for their other products here

Like Your Facebook Friends Enough To Hang Them On Your Wall?

Like your FB friends enough to immortalize them on a large printed poster? That's the idea behind grad student Benjamin Lotan's 'Printing Facebook', a custom printed Friend Poster. For $20, you can choose from your own friends, your favorite groups or fan pages and have each of the profile pics ganged on one photographic print.





Paper stock: Benjamin uses Fuji Crystal Archive photo paper, a high-quality professional grade paper with real weight that will not rip or fold easily. Your poster is exposed onto this paper and developed with traditional photo chemicals so it will have a richer image quality than any ink-jet printer process.


above left: the 5,000 pic poster is the largest Benjamin has printed to date and just about reaches the limit.

How many friends? The size of your friends' photos are optimized to fill out the full space, so the dimensions will depend upoon the total number of friends. The code is optimized such that your poster will look fantastic whether you have 200 friends, or up to 2,200 friends.

Custom options: You can decide how much space you want between your friends' pictures. If you want to maximize on the size of your friends photos you can even decide to print a poster with no margins at all.

For the background color, there are 4 options: black, white, and two shades of facebook blue. You can preview each color as you go through the ordering process.
*please note that your poster may print a few inches shorter than 40"

• Large 20"x40" print
• Customizable Options
• High Resolution Print
• Quality Photo Paper
• Print Groups & Fan Pages
• $20
Order yours here.