Real time: The next frontier for analytics

Received (in revised form): 23rd September, 2014

Andrew W. Pearson is the Managing Director of Qualex Asia Limited, a leading software big data, fast data, mobile and social media implementer for the gaming, finance, healthcare, energy, hospitality and retail industries. He has written books on casino marketing, predictive analytics and mobile and social media. A frequent speaker on such topics as big data, predictive analytics, customer relationship management (CRM) and social CRM, as well as mobile and social media, Mr Pearson is fascinated by the rapidly changing business world, especially in Asia. Qualex Asia, 1 Central Residences, Lot B, Zone B, Tower 7, 24A, NAPE, Macau Tel: +853 6265 5885; E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract In 1999, ’The Cluetrain Manifesto’ warned that ‘markets are conversations’. Finally, some 15 years later, software, hardware, mobile and social media vendors have come together to provide tools that allow companies to join and manipulate the conversation. This paper provides a quick overview of the available hardware and software solutions; a discussion of the in-memory landscape, including the strengths and weaknesses of the competing products; and a summary of the latest developments in the social media monitoring space. Given the importance of personalisation and one-to-one advertising for increasing traffic, raising customer conversion rates and increasing average order value, these systems can either be a company’s best friend or its worst enemy.

KEYWORDS: augmented reality, in-memory systems, personalisation, CRM, social CRM, real-time marketing, content marketing, social media monitoring, social media sentiment, social media context

INTRODUCTION The Wall Street Journal’. Its prescient In 1999, Rick Levine, Christopher Lock, warning that ‘We are immune to Doc Searle and David Weinberger wrote advertising’ foresaw the impending social ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’,1 the first thesis media revolution that gave users a of which was: ‘markets are conversations’.2 platform on which to subvert and In the following 94 tenets, the writers circumvent normal advertising channels.2 stressed how the internet was As ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’ points revolutionising the way businesses should out, ‘Real-time marketing is the execution communicate with their customers and of a thoughtful and strategic plan that businesses that failed to adapt and specifically designed to engage customers treat their customers with respect, their on their terms via digital social customers would desert them. Its tone was technologies’.2 Wikipedia expands this at times irreverent — ‘Companies need to definition, defining real-time marketing as realise their markets are often laughing. At them’; and at other times deadly serious ‘marketing performed “on-the-fly” to — ‘We want you to take 50 million of us determine an appropriate or optimal as seriously as you take one reporter from approach to a particular customer at a

Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2014) Vol. 2, 3 000–000 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing 1 The next frontier for analytics

particular time and place. It is a form of the inclusion of new data), to actually market research inbound marketing that manipulating customer behaviour with seeks the most appropriate offer for a given target-specific promotional offers and customer sales opportunity, reversing the marketing campaigns. These are the traditional outbound marketing (or interruption marketing) which aims to channels where real-time marketing acquire appropriate customers for a given thrives, and this is where a company can “pre-defined” offer’.3 gain a powerful competitive advantage when using it. Real-time marketing is inexpensive For a real-time platform to work, data compared with the cost of traditional paid must be gathered from multiple and media. ‘Expensive research, focus groups, disparate sources, such as enterprise and awareness campaigns can be replaced resource planning (ERP), customer with online surveys, blog comments, and relationship management (CRM), and tweets by anyone or any business’.2 social CRM platforms, geofencing6 Successful mobile advertising requires applications (like Jiepang and Foursquare), three things: reach, purity and analytics. over-the-top services (like WhatsApp and Reach can be fostered by accessing WeChat), mobile apps, augmented reality accounts through multiple platforms like apps, and other mobile and social media blogs, geofencing applications, over-the-top systems. The data must be collected and (OTT)4 services, mobile apps, QR codes, then seamlessly integrated into a data push and pull services, RSS feeds, search, warehouse that can cleanse and prepare the social media sites and video-casting, among data for consumption.5 As the authors state: others. Purity refers to the message and its cleanliness: if the data are unstructured and ‘The analytical system must have the untrustworthy, they are basically useless. capability to digest all the user data, Data governance is paramount for summarise it, and update the master user real-time advertising to work properly. The profile. This functionality is essential to third ingredient, analytics, ‘involves provide the rich user segmentation that is at the heart of recommendations, campaign matching users’ interests — implicit and and offer management, and advertisements. explicit, context, preferences, network and The segmentation engine can cluster users handset conditions — to ads and into affinities and different groups based on 5 promotions in real time’. An explicit geographic, demographic or interest would be an easily quantifiable socio-economic, psychographic, and one, ie one that could be manually added behavioral characteristics’.5 to a database, while an implicit one might be a user’s behaviour patterns, ie something This translates to a lot of data and indirectly expressed. businesses today are faced with the issue of Successful marketing is about reaching a how to deal with such massive volumes, consumer with an interesting offer when which, in some cases, come from hundreds he or she is primed to accept it. Knowing of different sources, including point-of-sale what might interest a consumer is half the (POS) counters, other customer battle to making the sale and this is where transactions systems, CRM and social customer analytics comes in. Customer CRM databases as well as a multitude of analytics has evolved from simply social and mobile platforms. Some reporting customer behaviour to companies will feel overwhelmed by such segmenting customers based on their volumes of data, while others will see one profitability, to predicting that profitability, of the greatest business opportunities of to improving those predictions (because of the 21st century. Most major software

2 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing Vol. 2, 3 000–000 Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2014) Pearson vendors are clambering for market share, and filtering one’s data, creating calculated but they have to walk a fine line as their fields, defining key performance indicators clients might be faced with complex and creating user-defined hierarchies, but legacy systems that might be integrated ‘this client-side approach can create with software from other competitors. Any disconnected islands of analysis with changes to these systems could be very disparate data models and versions of costly. In-memory computing — the information from user to user’.7 This storage of information in a server’s main negates a lot of the reason why one would random access memory (RAM) rather want to install an in-memory system, than in complicated and comparatively namely, to structure data within the entire slow relational databases — has been all organisation so everyone can be drawing the rage over the past few years and off the same data warehouse, data marts vendors like IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and analytics foundations. and Teradata are all fighting for superiority. Oracle’s answer for in-memory analytical performance, Exalytics, faces similar limitations.7 This caching appliance HARDWARE: IN-MEMORY overlaps with its Exadata machine, creating In-memory solutions that utilise a system’s more copies of data, and it also requires a RAM to quickly detect and exploit TimesTen or Essbase in-memory database patterns in massive data warehouses almost licence. In addition, the Oracle Database on the fly have been around for decades. 12c In-Memory Option will not be IBM’s solidDB and Oracle’s TimesTen date released before the first quarter of 2015 at back to 1992 and 1996, respectively, but the earliest. these systems were developed as niche SAP advertises that its Hana platform products and are not useful for today’s can run an entire company, ‘including mass ERP markets.7 Current in-memory both its mission-critical transactional heavyweights include IBM, Teradata and applications (like ERP and CRM), and its SAP. Microsoft and Oracle will be analytic needs (things heretofore handled introducing their in-memory solutions in by the separate database management mid-2014, with In-Memory OLTP systems (DBMSes) underpinning data (formerly Hekaton) launching alongside warehouses and data marts)’.7 IBM’s BLU Microsoft SQL Server 2014. Acceleration for DB2 ‘combines both As reported in Information Week, IBM’s columnar compression8 and in-memory BLU Acceleration is specifically developed processing to accelerate analytics’.7 for analytics: Teradata’s Intelligent Memory ‘automatically moves the ‘but IBM also offers all-flash storage arrays most-often-queried data into RAM to as a way to eliminate disk I/O bottlenecks ensure fast-as-possible query response’.7 and speed transactional applications and Unlike SAP’s HANA solution, however, database performance. Flash isn’t as fast as IBM’s BLU and Teradata’s Intelligent RAM, but it’s much faster than disk. IBM Memory solely address analytics, not says these arrays cost far less than adding in-memory database technology and still transactional applications. can reduce transaction times by as much as Today, few would argue that in-memory 90 per cent’.7 performance beats disk-based performance, but there are two important Microsoft’s PowerPivot and Power View questions companies venturing into this Excel plug-ins allow for some in-memory field must ask — how much faster will an analytics functionality such as formatting in-memory system run my queries; and,

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more importantly, how exactly does this • Maple Leaf Foods, a US$5 speed differential affect my business and billion-a-year Canadian supplier of my all-important bottom line? Return on meats, baked goods, and packaged investment is a vital consideration and, as foods, finds that profit-and-loss reports with most new computing systems, it is a which ‘used to take 15 to 18 minutes hard metric to calculate. on conventional databases now take 15 To answer the first question: to 18 seconds on their in-memory platform’.10 ‘Estimates vary depending on disk speed • Temenos, a banking software provider and available input/output (I/O) that uses IBM’s in-memory-based BLU bandwidth, but one expert9 puts RAM latency at 83 nanoseconds and disk latency Acceleration for DB2 system, reports at 13 milliseconds. With 1 million that queries that used to take 30 nanoseconds in a millisecond, it’s akin to seconds now take one-third of a second comparing a 1,200-mph F/A-18 fighter jet thanks to BLU’s columnar compression to a garden slug’.10 and in-memory analysis.

To answer the second question, a few For Temenos, in particular, such a industry case studies from Information Week difference in speed means that mobile might shed some light on the subject. 10 customers will be able to quickly retrieve For example: all of their banking transactions on their mobile devices, rather than just their last • Online gaming company Bwin.party five, which could mean the difference uses in-memory capabilities to handle between handling customer issues on a 150,000 bets per second. This compares mobile device rather than in a company with its normal system rate of 12,000 store. ‘Online or mobile interaction costs bets per second. the bank 10 to 20 cents to support versus • For retail services company Edgenet, $5 or more for a branch visit’, meaning ‘in-memory technology has brought that the cost savings are substantial.10 near real-time insight into product One caveat here about in-memory availability for customers of AutoZone, speed: the abovementioned speed Home Depot, and Lowe’s. That advantage will never be captured translates into fewer wasted trips and completely because there are too many higher customer satisfaction’.10 constraints (such as CPU processing time) • ConAgra, an $18 billion-a-year that affect the overall performance. consumer packaged goods company, ‘In-memory performance improvements ‘must quickly respond to the fluctuating vary by application, data volume, data costs of 4,000 raw materials that go into complexity, and concurrent-user loads, but more than 20,000 products, from Swiss HANA customers report that the Miss cocoa to Chef Boyardee pasta’10 so differences can be dramatic’.10 uses an in-memory system to assist in material forecasting, planning and pricing. It also taps its in-memory PERSONALISATION solution to make company promotions The potential to market to an individual more relevant by using faster analysis, when they are primed to accept such allowing ConAgra and its retailer advertising is advantageous for both customers to command higher prices in parties. Marketers do not waste time an industry notorious for razor-thin advertising to consumers when they are profit margins. not primed to accept the advertisements,

4 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing Vol. 2, 3 000–000 Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2014) Pearson and can focus their marketing to • optimising content or offers for each consumers when and where they might person by matching identities to want to use said advertisements. available products, promotions, Composing the marketing message, messages, etc; however, is probably the easiest part of the • creating a single repository containing process. In its ‘Delivering new levels of structured and unstructured data about personalization in consumer engagement’ a consumer; survey, Forester Research found that • delivering content or offers to a participants believed that personalisation consumer’s chosen channel in real time had the potential to increase traffic, raise for the purposes of conversion; and customer conversion rates and increase • analysing all available data in real time average order value.11 Surveyed marketers to create a comprehensive, contextually felt that personalisation capabilities could sensitive consumer profile. improve a variety of business metrics, including customer retention (75 per The executives polled by Forester cent), lifetime customer value (75 per Research expected also there to be a ‘huge cent) and customer conversion rates (71 rise in personalisation using consumer’s per cent).11 emotional state, social media sentiment, These survey participants see e-mail, and context’:11 call centres, corporate websites, mobile websites and physical locations (such as ‘Only 29 per cent of respondents claim stadiums, sporting venues and hospitality today to use inferences about the sites) as today’s key customer interaction consumer’s emotional state in some or all channels, but reported that their future channels. But 53 per cent expect to do this in two to three years’ time. Only 52 per marketing efforts would be ‘focused on cent of marketers currently use sentiments mobile websites, applications, and social 11 that consumers express in social media to media channels’. personalise interactions today, but fully 79 Understanding customer-specified per cent expect to do this in two to three preferences is imperative for years. In addition, only 54 per cent capitalise personalisation: on the consumer’s current contextual behaviour, but 77 per cent expect to do so ‘80 per cent of marketing executives in two to three years’ time’.11 currently use them in some or all interaction channels. In addition, 68 per cent of marketers personalise current AUGMENTED REALITY customer interactions based on past Augmented reality (AR) works by customer interaction history. Other commonly used personalisation methods ‘displaying layers of computer-generated used by nearly 60 per cent of firms in some information on top of a view of the 12 or all of their interaction channels are based physical world’. It is ‘a technology that on the time of day or day of the week of alters the perception of reality by customer interactions’.11 distorting it, allowing escape from it, and enhancing it — all at the same time’.12 According to Forester Research,11 the Webopedia defines AR as: difficulties of personalisation include: ‘… a type of virtual reality that aims to • continuously optimising campaigns in duplicate the world’s environment in a response to a customer’s most recent computer. An augmented reality system interactions; generates a composite view for the user that

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is the combination of the real scene viewed complement and enhance business by the user and a virtual scene generated by processes, workflows and employee the computer that augments the scene with training’.17 Gartner believes that ‘AR additional information. The virtual scene facilitates business innovation by enabling generated by the computer is designed to enhance the user’s sensory perception of the real-time decision making through virtual virtual world they are seeing or interacting prototyping and visualisation of 17 with. The goal of augmented reality is to content’. create a system in which the user cannot Wearable AR devices such as Google tell the difference between the real world Glass ‘allow users to access standardised and the virtual augmentation of it. Today sets of instructions for a particular task in augmented reality is used in entertainment, real time, triggered by environmental military training, engineering design, factors and overlaid on the user’s field of robotics, manufacturing and other vision’.16 ‘AR allows for improved senses 13 industries’. and memory through the capture and enhancement of the user’s perspective. By Analysts predict that the AR market will recording audio-visual information, grow from roughly US$181m in revenues capturing images and removing elements in 2011 to nearly $5.2bn by 2016.14,15 By that obscure the senses, AR technology 2017, more than 2.5 billion mobile AR allows users’ eyes to act as cameras, and apps will be downloaded to smartphones can enhance the senses in ways not and tablets annually; 3.5 times the number available naturally, such as night vision or of ‘Angry Birds’ downloads in 2011. the ability to zoom in on far-away Anticipated market growth and trending objects’.16 investments have led the Harvard Business AR uses location-based data for Review to predict that AR will soon have navigation, overlaying digital maps and an impact on everything from advertising, directions on real-world environments.17 to location services, to healthcare, to Through the lens of an AR device, a user relationships, to the very nature of can receive visual guidance based on GPS knowledge.16 technology.17 AR services generally fall According to a recent press release from into one of two categories — Gartner, ‘augmented reality is the real-time ‘location-based or computer vision. use of information in the form of text, Location-based offerings use a device’s graphics, audio and other virtual motion sensors to provide information enhancements integrated with real-world based on a user’s location. objects’ and will become an important Computer-vision-based services use facial, workplace tool.17 In the words of Tuong object and motion tracking algorithms to Huy Nguyen, principal research analyst at identify images and objects’.16 Gartner: ‘AR leverages and optimises the AR’s benefits include the ‘potential to use of other technologies such as mobility, improve productivity, provide hands-on location, 3D content management and experience, simplify current processes, imaging and recognition. It is especially increase available information, provide useful in the mobile environment because real-time access to data, offer new ways to it enhances the user’s senses via digital visualise problems and solutions, and instruments to allow faster responses or enhance collaboration’.16 decision making’.17 Augmented reality has many potential Gartner believes ‘AR technology has applications in the gaming and hospitality matured to a point where organisations industry. While some potential applications can use it as an internal tool to of AR might currently seem like science

6 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing Vol. 2, 3 000–000 Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2014) Pearson fiction, they are in fact within today’s and guest images shown to see who has ordered what so the food is served to the realm of possibility, and would indeed take 18 the concept of personalisation to another correct person’. level. The gaming industry, for example, might be one of the few industries to Birthday or anniversary greetings could be develop AR applications, as it not only has offered up without having to research a the financial muscle and the need for patron’s profile. Many of these things in-memory computing platforms, but also could be triggered right from the CRM has the databases of patron information system and relayed to the hotel staff, but necessary to make this complicated and all of this requires ‘research, time and a holistic system work. good long memory, which not everyone is The article, ‘Augmented reality and blessed with’.18 hospitality … the next generation of The one glaring drawback that might hotels?’,18 lays out a very interesting make this scenario difficult to implement scenario for AR in a hospitality is the fact that facial recognition establishment, whether that be a hotel or a technology is still unreliable. However, casino property, namely providing facial recognition technology might not be front-desk staff with Google Glass to needed at all because most people are connect them to the company data already carrying around a very powerful warehouses. These systems would be able tracking device with them already — their to provide staff with real-time patron mobile phone.18 The above scenario could information, empowering them to greet be realised today if telcos or an OTT and interact with a patron on a truly service provider like WeChat pushed the intimate level. The hotel clerks would have phone and location data into the casino’s access to all of the patron’s past history databases, where it could be matched with and, perhaps even be tipped off about the a patron record before being surfaced to recent news headlines associated with the front-facing hotel staff. This kind of them, ie, the recent triumphant box office data pull could, with in-memory numbers of a movie star’s latest release computers, happen almost instantly. could be commented upon. This type of For the patron, AR could enhance the engagement would bring the concept of on-property experience considerably. By customer service to a whole new level, simply downloading the casino property’s one that would be unlike anything these AR app onto their mobile phone, the patrons had ever seen before — a rare patron could be checked in virtually and thing in an industry that can treat VIP given personalised directions to his room, guests like royalty. where hotel staff members could greet Even for the mass premium side of the him appropriately. A free bottle of business, a guest who had previously stayed champagne or Lafite wine (and at the property would be immediately accompanying Sprite for those Chinese identified and all of his or her preferences high rollers who like to mix a and necessary patron information could five-thousand dollar bottle of wine with a appear on the Google Glass virtual screen. one dollar soda) could be awaiting him. The casino’s general manager could appear ‘The guest could be checked in before they in a video to offer a personal greeting as 18 even reach the door. The extent goes well. further as restaurants could identify guests Continuing with the patron’s AR allergies or preferences, orders would be journey, he could go to one of the recognised by dish then linked to the table integrated casino resort’s restaurants and,

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upon seeing an appetising meal being during a soccer match, a basketball game brought out from the kitchen, he could or on a horse being paraded before a race. whip out his mobile phone, snap a picture A punter could point his mobile device at of the meal, quickly scan it on the hotel’s a player on a soccer pitch or on a image restaurant database, discover that it basketball court or on a television and see is a dish of beef wellington, and then, live odds on that particular player to be potentially, place an order for it.18 If the next goal scorer or to be named the interested, the patron could even pay for ‘man of the match’ or the game’s most the dish on his mobile device, possibly valuable player. Bets could be made in one using his patron points to cover the bill. easy click and odds would be updated live After dinner, if the patron is interested throughout the game or just before a in going to one of the hotel bars, a quick horse race goes off. scan of the line of people waiting to get A punter at a horse track could point into the bar would reveal the wait time. If his or her mobile device at a horse and the AR system connected with the hotel’s get not only the odds for that horse to patron system (which would reveal that he win, but also a plethora of other bets, was a high-roller whose casino patron card including such exotic bets as exactas, allowed him to skip the line), the patron trifectas, daily doubles or pick 6 wagers. could be advised that he could jump the Once the tote pool closes, the system queue. If the patron did not have such a should be able to generate a projected vaunted status but did not want to wait, he payout on such types of complicated bet. could be shown the name and location of Sophisticated analytical systems could the hotel’s other, less crowded, bars.18 generate odds on the fly, even on such The AR app could also help with hotel complicated hypothetical bets as a maintenance. As a user scans his or her four-way multinational parlay on the San hotel room, the app could record any Miguel Beermen of the Philippines minor maintenance issues. These issues Basketball Association to beat the San Mig would not be highlighted for the user, but Super Coffee Mixers (real team names, by would be relayed to the appropriate hotel the way) coupled with a greyhound race maintenance departments so that they in Crayford, England, with a third leg that could be fixed.18 This, of course, does raise contained a scorecast bet on Wayne privacy issues, but they are nothing a good Rooney to open the goal scoring in a 4–0 lawyer could not overcome. rout of Aston Villa, to a 2/5 lay on Manny Continuing on the patron’s AR journey, Pacquiao losing his next welterweight title if he liked to play golf, a quick scan of the fight in Macau. Currently, in-memory course with the AR app would reveal the computing systems could, theoretically, average par shots. If he chose to play, the handle these kinds of betting app could even track the score. Local combinations, as well as produce structures could also be explained so that on-the-fly risk assessments for the sports the patron could discover nearby areas of betting company making those bets, interest. Discounts on services could also which would allow them to instantly be pushed out and, if coupled with a tweak their odds to cover their liabilities. dynamic pricing system, these discounts could help sell what might otherwise be empty seats in a concert venue or a SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING restaurant.18 In 1999, ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’ For sports betting websites, AR could warned: ‘Reviews are the new advertising’. be used to offer live odds on players Today, this is truer than ever. A multitude

8 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing Vol. 2, 3 000–000 Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2014) Pearson of platforms allow users to rate a ‘To do the command-centre model right, a restaurant, a retail establishment, a hotel, a setup has to envision a real-time workflow casino property or even a local handyman empowered to take action on all of the relevant content being analysed, whether it or plumber. Used properly, reviews can be be insights derived from real-time the new advertising currency for a monitoring, opportunities to respond, or company’s marketing department. great discovered content to feature that Companies such as Dell, Cisco, elevates you and your fans’.20 Salesforce.com, the American Red Cross and Gatorade are creating social media Gulbransen also recommends breaking command centres that monitor the social down a command centre into the conversations about them. These social following critical functions: media centres enable company employees to monitor conversations from the social • identify trends and insights: track not only web on channels such as Twitter, Facebook the key themes, but also how they and YouTube (among others) in an attempt evolve over time; to keep track of the health of the • review the content: monitor a wide company’s social brand. variety of terms that are meaningful to In December 2010, Dell became one of the brand and assign employees to sort the first companies to launch a social through the responses, deciding which media command centre. Based at company ones warrant a response, and what HQ in Round Rock, TX, 12 full-time might interest the community at large; employees monitor conversations about • curate the best stuff: leverage the great Dell and its products around the globe, content that is being said about the responding via @DellCares or forwarding company and champion those great the post to the right internal team.19 content providers; and Through Dell’s Social Media Listening and • listen and respond: this is a two-way Command Center, Dell aggregates and conversation — listen and respond culls through the 25,000 conversations quickly and accordingly. about Dell every day (more than 6 million every year).19 ‘We’re monitoring conversations in 11 languages 24/7, and CONCLUSION each one is an opportunity to reinforce In 1999, Levine et al. stated that ‘Markets our brand’, explains Karen Quintos, Dell are conversation’ and, over the past decade, CMO. 19 She adds: a plethora of social media listening tools have come online to prove those words ‘With the tremendous amount of prescient. These platforms can track user information being generated, we can track sentiment on social media networks like basic demographics, reach, sentiment, Facebook, Twitter, RenRen, WeChat, subject matter of the discussions, the sites Weibo, YouTube, Jeipang and Foursquare, where conversations are happening, and among a multitude of others — and the more. We leverage these analytics to identify customer support needs as they happen, number of new platforms coming online influence product development, insert is growing by the day. ourselves into conversations with IT decision makers and connect with people ‘For years, marketing professionals have having the most impact on these been talking about creating a relationship conversations’.19 between brands and consumers. The missing link has been realised in the rise of new free Scott Gulbransen argues that: social marketing and social technology

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platforms that enable dialogue among to develop. Conversely, it is also a world in consumers, peers, and brands on a global 2 which an advertiser’s message can go viral scale’. and reach more eyeballs in less than an hour than a multi-million dollar television That missing link has also been greatly commercial campaign can in a month. enhanced by the rise of sophisticated These powerful new systems can be a mobile platforms and in-memory marketer’s best friend or their worst computing that allows for a single enemy — that decision is up to you. But repository for consumer data and real-time be warned, it will be made and, more profiling. These platforms have the importantly, judged in real time. capacity to select and target consumers with the right content at the right time, References coupled with the power to deliver 1. Levine, R., Lock, C., Searle, D., and Weinberger, D. personalised marketing messages to any (1999) ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’, available at: channel of choice.11 http://www.cluetrain.com/ (accessed 24th To succeed, real-time, context-aware September, 2014). 2. Macy, B. and Thompson, T. (2011) ‘The Power of personalisation marketing should meet or Real-Time Social Media Marketing’, McGraw exceed a consumer’s expectations by Hill, New York, NY. providing proactive, contextually-relevant 3. Wikipedia (n.d.) ‘Real-time marketing’, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_ content, which should be based upon a marketing (accessed 24th September, 2014). customer’s location, his or her most recent 4. ‘An over-the-top (OTT) application is any app or interactions, and any potential overriding service that provides a product over the internet 11 and bypasses traditional distribution. Services that customer sentiment. Marketing channels come over the top are most typically related to should be aligned with consumer media and communication and are generally, if not behaviour and mobile and social media always, lower in cost than the traditional method should be looked at as the most important of delivery’. Such services are delivered can include text messaging, video, music, television as marketing channels in the not too distant well as other content. See: Techopedia (n.d.) future.11 Collecting piles of data is one ‘Over-the-top application (OTT)’, available at: thing, but a near real-time content http://www.techopedia.com/definition/29145/ov er-the-top-application-ott (accessed 24 September management system can provide real value 2014) to an audience, and, by association, to a 5. Sharma, C., Herzog, J., Melfi, V. (2008) ‘Mobile brand or an organisation.20 Advertising: Supercharge your Brand in the Exploding Wireless Market’, John Wiley and Sons, As ‘The Cluetrain Manifesto’ so Hoboken, NJ. prophetically warned over 15 years ago, 6. Geofencing technology defines a virtual boundary ‘There are no secrets. The networked around a real-world geographical area. In doing so, market knows more than companies do a radius of interest is established that can trigger an action in a geo-enabled phone or other portable about their own products. And whether electronic device. the news is good or bad, they tell 7. Henschen, D. (2014) ‘Two approaches to everyone’.1 Today, we live in a real-time, in-memory database battle’, Information Week, available at: http://www.informationweek.com/ 24/7 world; a world where 140-character software/information-management/two- Twitter messages foment political approaches-to-in-memory-database-battle/d/d-id/ revolutions; a world where marketers 1114088 (accessed 10th May, 2014). 8. Columnar compression technology is a ‘new should fear not the power of the pen but method for organising data within a database the power of the critical tweet or the block. As the name implies, this technology utilises destructive force of an inflammatory social a combination of both row and columnar methods media diatribe that can encircle the digital for storing data. This hybrid approach achieves the compression benefits of columnar storage, while world in seconds, laying waste in minutes avoiding the performance shortfalls of a pure to a reputation that might have taken years columnar format’. See Christman, |G. (2012)

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‘Hybrid columnar compression on exadata’, 14. Business Wire (2011) ‘Research and markets: global AQ1 Oracle white paper, available at: augmented reality market forecast by product for http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware gaming, automotive, medical, advertisement, /bi-foundation/ehcc-twp-131254.pdf (accessed defense, e-learning & GPS applications — 22nd September, 2014). expected to grow to $5,155.92 million by 2016’, 9. Paredes, C. (2011) ‘Understanding disk I/O — Business Wire, 7th December, available at: when should you be worried?’, 10th February, http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20111 available at: http://blog.scoutapp.com/ 207005613/en/Research-Markets-Global- articles/2011/02/10/understanding-disk-i-o-when Augmented-Reality-Market-Forecast (accessed -should-you-be-worried (accessed 10th May, 17th April, 2014). 2014). 15. Juniper Research (2012) ‘Over 2.5 billion mobile 10. Henschen, D. (2014) ‘In-memory databases, IBM, augmented reality apps to be installed per annum Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP are fighting to become by 2017’, 29th August, available at: your in-memory technology providers. Do you http://www.juniperresearch.com/viewpressrelease. really need the speed?’ Information Week. 3rd php?pr=334 (accessed 17th April, 2014) March, available at: http://www.information 16. Deloitte (2013) ‘Augmented government, week.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/in-memory transforming government services through -databases-do-you-need-the-speed/d/d-id/ augmented reality’, available at: 1114076 (accessed 24th September 2014). http://www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-United 11. Forester Research (2013) ‘Delivering new levels of States/Local%20Assets/Documents/Federal/us_ personalization in consumer engagement. A guide fed_augmented_government_060613.pdf (accessed for marketing executives: strategy, capabilities, and 24th September, 2014). technologies required for delivering effective 17. Gartner (2014) ‘Gartner says augmented reality personalization to consumers across channels’, will become an important workplace tool’, 14th paper commissioned by SAP, November, available January, available at: http://www.gartner.com/ at: http://www.sap.com/bin/sapcom/en_us/ newsroom/id/2649315 (accessed 24th September, downloadasset.2013-11-nov-21-22.delivering- 2014). new-levels-of-personalization-in-consumer- 18. Matt-SJ (2013) ‘Augmented reality and hospitality engagement-pdf.html (accessed 24th September, … the next generation of hotels?’, 22nd January, 2014). available at: http://chocolatepillow.com/ 12. Wadhwa, T. (2013) ‘CrowdOptic and L’Oreal to augmented-reality-and-hospitality-the-next- make history by demonstrating how augmented generation-of-hotels/ (accessed 12th May, 2014). reality can be a shared experience’, Forbes, 3rd 19. Salesforce.com (2013) ‘10 examples of social media June, available at: http://www.forbes.com/ command centers’, available at: sites/tarunwadhwa/2013/06/03/crowdoptic-and- http://www.salesforcemarketingcloud.com/ loreal-are-about-to-make-history-by- resources/ebooks/10-examples-of-social-media- demonstrating-how-augmented-reality-can-be-a- command-centers/ (accessed 10th May, 2014). shared-experience/ (accessed 3rd September, 20. Gulbransen, S. (2014) ‘Taking back the social 2013). media command center’, Forbes, 22nd January, 13. Beal, V. (n.d.) ‘Augmented reality’, available at: available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/ onmarketing/2014/01/22/taking-back-the-social- Augmented_Reality.html (accessed 24th media-command-center/ (accessed 10th May, September 2014). 2014).

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Henry Stewart Publications 2050-0076 (2014) Vol. 2, 3 000–000 Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing 11