Previously, data mining and analyzing was confined to backroom geeks but the targeted marketing opportunities it now provides means that it has moved into the front room alongside creatives, no longer simply influencing ideas but producing them too. Even in its raw form, data can make unbelievably persuasive campaigns as data mash-ups, live feeds and infographics.

Great data speaks for itself, which is why it is not just the advertising industry that can benefit from the wave of live content now available. The Metro’s daily double-page spread (Metro In Focus) and the Guardian Data Blog are both great examples of how live content and data can be used to create clear, concise and persuasive journalism. In advertising, a number of brands have seized this opportunity, but there are still many who have not yet fully tapped into this gold mine. 76% of companies surveyed, still do not have a clearly defined social media policy, and only 27% of them regularly review their social media content. (Research by Grant Thornton) Marketers are often faced with an abundance of live data and content, yet very little knowledge on how to use it. Data ‘marketplace’ companies such as Datashift and Gnip have evolved, solving this problem by sorting and standardising data outsourced by clients such as Facebook and Twitter, before selling it on to data analysts or brands who can use it as the basis for an idea or campaign. This negates the need for in-house experts, but creatives must still work closely with ad scientists, keeping data at the core of everything they do.

2011 saw the beginnings of a movement towards this type of marketing – Below are a few brands worth mentioning:

Nike+ City Runs

http://vimeo.com/26399542

For the launch of Nike Free Run+ 2 City Pack series, YesYesNo developed an installation for Nike’s retail stores to visualize a year’s worth of runs uploaded to the Nike+ website. Sensors placed under shoes allowed runners to bring their city (New York, London and Tokyo) to life. The visualisation not only mapped individual runs, but also the collective energy of everyone who was running in the city creating a dynamic and captivating installation.

Coca Cola

Coca Cola closed a deal with 360i to handle the social media monitoring for all its brands in North America, giving them consistent and quality data to work with across their entire product range. Calculating 146 million views of Coca Cola YouTube content, much of which had been uploaded by fans themselves, it became clear that their customers not only love to watch, but also share and create great content. More and more, consumers control brand dialogue, but companies do have the opportunity to steer this dialogue in the direction they would like, so long as they step back and take a look at what their consumers want. Coca Cola does this very well and so decided to dedicate much of 2011 to creating lots of great video content opportunities for their fans to enjoy. The Happiness Trucks in Brazil as well as flying Filipino expats home for Christmas were just a couple of the stunts Coca Cola pulled last year. Their entire marketing strategy is named ‘liquid and linked’ and focuses on the changing media environment and real-time conversation, meaning their campaigns are always targeted and up to date so as to generate a maximum ROI.

Burberry

10,366,841 Facebook page ‘likes’ and counting… a number that confirms Burberry fans, on the whole, are both keen social networkers and Internet savvy. With this in mind, Burberry decided to roll out their campaign for London Fashion Week online. ‘Tweetwalk’ was the first of its kind, allowing fans to get a preview of the SS12 collection before it had even been revealed on the runway to fashion’s most elite. Twitter was the perfect platform for the campaign, allowing Burberry to supply a real time feed of information, direct to its loyal fan base. The campaign proved to be a huge success; the ‘live’ element gave consumers a feeling of exclusivity as well as a stronger affinity with the brand, while sales soared by 34% in the first quarter of 2011 to a total revenue of £367 million.

Domino’s

Domino’s has taken a tremendous turn for the better and this is all because the brand looks at statistics, listens to customers and acts on what it finds in real time. When a damaging video found its way onto YouTube, it looked like the final straw for the already struggling pizza company. But instead of hiding away, the CEO responded immediately with another video and vowed to do better.

Turning to their customers, they encouraged criticism and guaranteed complete transparency in order to regain their trust. You may wonder how you go about convincing your customers you really mean what you say… The answer: Stream unfiltered comments about yourself on a billboard in Times Square. It was a ballsy move, but one that paid off. Last year the UK alone took $203 million and a record of $1.5 million in just one day, no bad feat for a company recently on the brink of bankruptcy.

Heinz and Qantas

Heinz and Qantas both experienced a serious technical glitch in 2011. This is where their similarities end however. One responded to the unhappy and frustrated customers whilst the other one ignored them, resulting in two very different outcomes. A quick response from Heinz meant that the marketing disaster was quickly turned into a positive branding opportunity. On the other hand, Qantas simply fuelled frustration by failing to respond to any of their customers, who then flocked to social networks to vent their anger. Particularly damaging I can imagine when 76% of the public say that they are influenced by friends recommendations when buying a product.

Brands are beginning to realize that ignoring the live data and content now available results in missed opportunities and unsatisfactory customer service. A new era of advertising is upon us with more and more brands looking for effective and interesting ways to transform these insights into compelling marketing and advertising solutions. 2012 will be an exciting year as brands experiment with new ideas, moving forward towards a new age of advertising.

The Cloud Real Time Index

We will continue to report on who’s doing what in real time marketing throughout 2012, finishing with an end of year whitepaper on all the best bits. Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page to receive day-to-day updates on what’s going on in the world of real time and check out our blog for longer articles.

Know of some great real time campaigns you think we should be writing about? Then let us know…

We are always on the look out, so please share anything interesting you find with us by either Tweeting @cloudandcompass, sharing it on our Facebook page or sending it to info@thecloudandcompass.com.

So what does smart TV need in order to be successful? The answer is simple…

Simplicity and user friendliness will be fundamental to the success of smart TV, this along with the quality of content they are able to provide consumers will decide their eventual fate. Apple’s entire mantra is rooted in simplicity and no doubt is something they will have thought hard about when designing their TV. Aware of this, others have also put a lot of emphasis on simplifying their own designs.

As expected, motion sensors much like Microsoft’s Kinect and voice control were both recurring features of the TVs revealed at CES. Samsung incorporated, gesture, voice and face recognition in their ES8000 model while LG’s latest TV’s will come with a dual-sided version of the Magic Motion remote control that includes gesture-based control as well as a QWERTY keyboard and a click wheel. Sony’s new Google TV remote, which doesn’t focus so heavily on voice and gesture control still looks much more sleek and less clunky than its predecessor.

While voice and gesture recognition would be fantastic if they worked efficiently, there is still much uncertainty as to how well they will be able to differentiate between commandments and conversation or general movements. As for the QWERTY keyboards, this was introduced by Sky sometime ago but never really took off. People want to enhance the ‘lean back’ experience and a keyboard does not necessarily lend itself to that. We will see TV manufacturers move further and further towards full voice and gesture control, but whether or not it will be the favourite this year depends purely on its simplicity and effectiveness.

The real fight is between Apple and Google.

Ironic really as Apple haven’t released any information about their TV yet. If their entrance to the portable music player or smartphone markets are anything to go by however, it is right for others to be afraid. CES 2012 saw most major manufacturers including Sony, LG and Vizio, hedge their bets on Google to provide their content and Internet services. Samsung is also rumoured to be releasing Google TV hardware later this year. With Apple and Google on the scene it doesn’t make much sense for manufacturers to go anywhere else, but that is not to say that Google’s content is all that good at the moment. A number of content providers have blocked access by Google TV – something they must sort out soon in order to make any impact on the market. Apple had similar problems earlier this year but we can assume that this is something they have been thinking carefully about. If rumours that they are attempting to buy the Premiership football rights were to become true, this could be a real blow to Google. Money talks and both Apple and Google have it in abundance, in the end both should be able to acquire the rights to enough content to be successful, the question is; who will get their first?

News: Obama holds a Hangout

Insights: Brands are still underinvesting in mobile in a big way

Ones To Watch: Technicolour brings the action to your living room

Cloud Loves: Apps, HTML5, data visualization and more…

The News:

Obama holds a virtual Hangout on Google+

Obama has once again turned to social media to help him fight his corner in the run up to the Election Day. So far so good – during the show Obama managed to convert a Republican questioner, 29 yr old, Jennifer Wedel, who said she now felt a greater connection with the President since chatting with him on the Hangout. Those hoping to question Obama about the legalization of marijuana were not so happy however as this topic did not seem to be of any interest to the President. Obama is definitely looking for new and interesting ways to interact and connect with Americans and so far I believe his efforts have been quite impressive. He must work hard to act upon these interactions both in the short term and long term, so that they do not soon start to feel like superficial stunts. If he was to stay in office, maybe he should consider holding similar Hangouts on a more regular basis.

http://www.youtube.com/whitehouse?feature=etp-od-SOU-05

Facebook lays the groundwork for the largest stock market float ever to come out of Silicon Valley.

At some point we’ve all wondered what Facebook is worth and now we know. Between a modest $80 billion and $100 billion, making Zuckerberg the world’s 23^rd richest man. Along the way, Facebook’s stock market debut is also set to make around another 1000 millionaires, including one lucky artist who was paid in shares to paint their California offices.

Facebook’s floatation means the pressure is now on to turn personal data into profit. So what’s next for Facebook? Will it go down Google’s route and look for profit in ‘Search’ or will it continue to focus on targeted advertising? Either way, it must be careful not to infringe on people’s privacy too much, otherwise people might just start to look elsewhere.

http://bit.ly/yOAe82

Insights:

A huge number of brands are still underinvesting in mobile.

There are now over 1.2 billion mobile web users worldwide and in the US alone, 25% of these are mobile only, meaning they never or very rarely access the web via laptops or other devices. It is shocking then that the mobile presence of 44% of global brands has been labeled as ‘feeble’ in the new report by L2. Paypal is expecting to see $7 billion of mobile payment in 2012 and eBay expects customers to buy $8 billion worth of merchandise via mobile this year. There is no longer any excuse for brands not to grow this area of there business, with all signs pointing to the fact that this industry is going to continue to grow at great speed in 2012. Once they dip their toes in, it will also become clear that the platform can offer many other fantastic opportunities in the form of apps, geolocation and search.

http://bit.ly/wFwuwm

Ones To Watch:

Technicolour – Taking you closer to the action, without having to move from your sofa

Technicolour have come up with a concept that could revolutionise the way you watch sport. Viewers could have a similar experience to being at the live event, without actually having to leave their home. The Personalized Content Rendering technology uses a number of cameras allowing viewers to enjoy an interactive, panoramic view of the pitch. Viewers would be able to take complete control of their own viewing experience, even zooming in and out when they wanted to. Sounds exciting and it is very refreshing to see something that stands out from all the other TV announcements at this year’s CES. The big question: Who gets the remote?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dYBteuyqb4&feature=player_embedded

Li Fi – Could it be the answer to our ever looming capacity problem?

Still only a prototype, Casio has created something that, in principle, could completely change the way we exchange data with one another. The big idea is ‘light’. At this year’s CES, Casio showed off two smartphones, which, by varying the amount of light being given off through their screens could share data with one another up to 10metres apart. Obviously the idea is still a relatively long way off, but if the concept was to develop properly, it could go a long way to solving the looming capacity problem we now have. At the moment we are using radio frequency signals to exchange data with one another, but there isn’t an endless amount of radio-frequency bandwidth available. As more and more devices connect to the Internet and transmit data, the issue of space could soon become a very real problem. Using Li Fi would solve this, be much faster than existing WiFi and could also be used in places WiFi is not currently available, such as under water.

http://econ.st/ycpFzz

Cloud Loves: A few things that stood out this week…

Soul Reaper reinvented as a HTML5 Scroll book

http://soul-reaper.com/

Schweppes predicts your future with their latest Facebook app

http://www.unexpectedfuture.com/

Very useful presentation: A short history of location-based services – Provides context

http://www.slideshare.net/technokitten/a-short-history-of-locationbased-services

Nice real time data visualisation by Honda Japan

http://www.thefwa.com/site/dots-by-internavi

Arrivals for Foursquare

http://www.iamdanw.com/wrote/arrivals-for-foursquare/

Honda bring back Ferris Bueller for this weekend’s Super Bowl

http://bit.ly/wKB67x

Some brands have already managed to capitalise on these changes; the words ‘Old Spice’ perhaps come to mind here. When ad campaigns are released on TV these days, brands can be in a vulnerable position as people take to the web to voice their opinions, comparing and dissecting the ads bit by bit. Instead of ignoring these comments and letting them run their course, Old Spice decided to respond with videos, posting them online in a near real-time manner. Interacting with celebrities, influencers and fans, the company produced 180 videos in just two days generating a huge amount of buzz and giving them greater control of dialogue content. Another example is BA who created a hugely successful campaign in the wake of the troubled Heathrow Terminal 5.

BA react to Terminal 5 troubles in real-time

Sadly, the number of brands taking advantage of such changes and reacting in real-time is few and far between. Many brands have insufficient knowledge of how to manipulate this changing market in a beneficial way, while large agencies that produce the majority of big campaigns are not well equipped to work in this way either. With both sides reluctant to make these changes, huge potential is being lost.

What problems do ad agencies face?

Traditional ad agencies typically have a very specific method of working, perfected to produce linear campaigns over a specified amount of time. Now things are not so simple. Campaigns are no longer a planned-out monologue from a brand, but instead consist of a complex and continuous dialogue between brands and consumers, controlled predominantly by consumers themselves. Holding constant dialogue with people allows them to get to know your brand from the inside out and builds a solid, emotional attachment. With agency dynamics as they are however, there is no one to take on this role and interact with consumers in real-time, on a personal level. If there is suddenly a large amount of hype surrounding a product or a specific campaign, brands need to be able to react instantly to reap the benefits…a response three months down the line isn’t good enough.

Whilst structural difficulties cannot be ignored, the fundamental issue is an economical one. The need for continuous dialogue and real-time responses means that whoever’s in charge needs to be creating several pieces of content a day and what’s more, this content needs to be flexible. It is not only difficult for agencies, unfamiliar to this method of working, to put a price on this work, but it is also tough to make the margins they typically make from big TV or print campaigns. Adding to the problem, brands too are unprepared to buy fluid campaign narratives. Brands need to play an active role in the dialogue, something which is often a rather alien concept to them and in a recession, when marketing budgets are already stretched, brands tend to shy away from trying anything new and untested.

It’s a matter of do or die for brands and agencies

Due to size and prestige, large agencies have not suffered too much just yet, but this will change if they do not face these issues. In a world that is ‘always-on’ new roles must be created so that there are people who can speak for the company around the clock. We may find that these roles are increasingly brought in-house, making it easier to act quickly and in synchrony with brand objectives and aspirations. Even so, creative agencies must have the ability to turn around projects in days instead of months. They will need to have people continuously monitoring and following campaigns and working with in-house teams so that together they can continue to build on them in one long brand story.

Always ahead of the game, Coca Cola’s ‘Liquid and Linked’ marketing drive focuses on how to make the most of the current media environment. ‘Liquid’ because today’s marketing landscape is forever changing and ‘linked’ because, even though campaigns must be stretched to the furthest points in media, the message must always be linked to the brand strategy. Coca Cola is well aware of the importance of its customers when it comes to producing brand content and dialogue: with over 146 million Coca Cola content views on YouTube, only 26million of these views were of content uploaded by the company itself. This leaves over 120 million views being of content uploaded by others, a figure which speaks volumes. Coca Cola’s marketing strategy focuses on 3 things: Communication – through everything from its cans to its vans, Flexibility – to respond to conversations, and Content – Coca Cola must create content that is ‘shareable’.

Like Coca Cola, brands and creative agencies must become more flexible, engaging consumers in dialogue and reacting in real-time to real world events. Failure to do so will not only leave them behind in the ever-competitive race, but it may also result in epic fails, similar to those seen at Qantas recently.

Further reading:

The future of News – How the changing media environment is effecting more than just marketing

For more news on the future of real-time marketing you should follow us on twitter here.

With thousands of YouTube videos and blog entries showing which funny questions to ask Siri next, the critic might say Siri is simply an entertainment gimmick dressed up in Apple’s sought after packaging; something of no real use we will all grow bored of in a matter of time. After all what makes it so different to Android’s Voice Actions which was available over a year ago? In many ways their abilities are quite similar; both can create text messages and e-mails, get navigation directions, call a contact, view a map of a particular area, write a note, play music and
perform a Web search. This is where their similarities end however.

What’s so special about Siri?

Unlike other voice recognition systems which often require you to memorise certain commands, Siri understands conversational language and can understand questions asked in a number of different ways. Siri is more than voice recognition technology; it is an interactive assistant with artificial intelligence. Siri will check to see if there is a clash in your calendar when you make an appointment and learn who your family members are. What’s more, because it runs on the cloud, Apple has the ability update its responses and phrases meaning Siri will continue to get better over time.

Siri Vs. Android Voice Actions

How will Siri change the way we interact with other technology in the future?

Siri is still in the early stages, but its ability to understand conversational speech has changed the way we look at this type of technology. Everyday someone else seems to buy up a voice recognition company and it is no secret that IBM and Google amongst others are working on similar technology themselves – further confirming that this is the future and not simply a passing fad.

IBM’s Watson computer plays Jeopardy!

Amazon buys Yap

Phones, which require text heavy input with a relatively minute keyboard, will be one of the first pieces of technology where voice recognition will become the predominant method of control and interaction. Similarly TV will also begin to go down these lines, with Siri TV set to be released as soon as early 2013. The technology will also be used as a standard in cars, something which can already be seen on a small scale in certain vehicles e.g. Ford’s Sync technology.

This is only the beginning however, hacks have already made Siri turn on a car engine and control a thermostat and this is all before Apple has fully opened up the technology to third-party developers. Once this finally happens, the possibilities will be endless. The Sci-Fi dream of the ‘smart’ home may not be such a far-fetched idea after all. The ‘Internet of things’, or networking of everyday objects and appliances, is already a hot topic at the moment and so it is only a matter of time before it is taken one step further and we are able to control these objects through speech alone. Family members will be differentiated by the sound of their voice meaning appliances will react differently, depending on who is talking.

Paving the way to the future…

In the distant future, everyone might even have their very own Siri robot, able to perform physical as well as online tasks, making tedious daily chores such as housework and bill paying a thing of the past. Alternatively, Siri may simply be a stepping-stone, helping us on our way to further-advanced technology – the idea of being able to control objects simply through our thoughts is no longer an eccentric fantasy of a mad man.

Real-life Jedi: pushing the limits of mind control

We are obviously many years off of anything like this, but Siri has proved that it is possible to create a voice recognition system that really works and has opened our eyes to other possibilities. All of a sudden, previously outlandish visions seem a genuine possibility.

Further reading:

The future of speech recognition

Does Siri spell the beginning of the end for Google?

Social TV is not social media combined with TV

The integration of social media and TV has been around for some time, an early example being the last presidential election where a live Facebook stream was used on screen. We also saw this year’s Super Bowl trigger over 4000 tweets per second and it is now possible to chat to the Glee characters on Twitter while the show is being aired. The use of a second screen while watching TV, known as ‘media stacking’, is commonplace; 40% of smartphone and tablet owners media stack on a daily basis, this figure going up to 76% amongst 18-24 yr olds. The success of integrating social media and TV has often led manufacturers to believe this is the way forward for the modern TV – building in social media so as to eliminate the need for a second screen.

Media stacking is not likely to stop however. When asking people what they thought about the idea of having social media platforms on their television set, almost all agreed this would be very anti-social (the very opposite of what we are trying to achieve). Updating Twitter or Facebook in front of everyone interrupts the viewing experience and excludes people rather than being a group activity. Inputting information to our social media accounts is also a surprisingly private activity. If we media stack, then everyone watching the TV can access their own social media sites at the same time, even if there are 20 people watching the same TV. On he whole we only want to access social media sites intermittently, checking emails is in fact what people are doing for 60% of the time when they media stack. Having your own screen for these types of tasks is more personal and so it is unlikely that people will switch to using their TVs for this instead, along with the fact that a remote is not the easiest tool for typing messages with.

Social TV is not connected TV

It is estimated that 41% of TVs will be connected by 2013, however it is my prediction that the majority of these TVs will not be used to their full functionality. Consumers do not want the Internet simply transferred to their television screens. This mistake has been made in the past more than once and has ended in tears as many times. One example which some of you may remember is Web TV, which believe it or not is still around in the form of MSN TV. With a set-top box and a keyboard, Web TV gave us Internet on the big screen. The idea was to use Web TV primarily for email and browsing. Unsurprisingly, Web TV failed to make a lasting impression. When everyone already owns a computer and in many cases a tablet and a smartphone from which they can browse and send emails in the comfort of their own privacy, being able to do this on your TV as well has no appeal.

Connected TV is a necessary feature of social TV, but manufacturers must focus purely on how connected TV can add to the social experience which surrounds watching television or how it can extend our viewing possibilities.

Connected TV still has work to do

So what is social TV?

Social TV is entertainment based; the relaxing TV experience but socially enhanced. Instead of trying to compete with second screens and the Internet, TVs should work in conjunction with them, making it easy to switch between different pieces of technology depending on the required function. Social TV must promote its own greatest assets, these being that it is relaxing, entertaining, a conversation starter and at least in the past, the social epicentre of the home.

They should focus on how the television can socially enrich the viewing experience for people whether in the same household as one another or miles apart. Interactive games and quizzes as well as ‘watch along with friends’ options, video messages and recommendations are all ways in which television viewing could become more social.

Simplicity is Key

It is a big mistake to try and introduce a keyboard as Sky and other companies have found out for themselves. There is already an abundance of technology with a keyboard, TV must steer clear of this and promote the ‘lean back’ experience with nothing more complicated than a remote control. Face and voice recognition may also be features we see in the future

What might we expect to see in the future?

1. Social TV as the epicentre of the ‘smart’ home.

In order to become central to the family home once more, we might find that the future TVs focus largely on utility as well as entertainment. We could imagine a time when you could control everything from this one point, the lights, the garage door, gas and electricity readings. Maybe one day it could even work in conjunction with the fridge  – placing an Ocado order when it sees you have run out of milk.

2. Customised and live Content focused

We have already begun to see much more live content on and surrounding TV. Commercials for bookies stream live odds and viewers can interact with characters while shows are being aired. Arcade Fire’s Wilderness Downtown is a fantastic example of how content can be customised for its audience. It seems only a matter of time before content will be shaped according to live data and audience assets, something which presents obvious benefits for marketers and advertisers. The future may see the audience directly involved in story creation or even being involved in the story themselves

3. Social TV as an interactive entertainment hub – a portal into other worlds

3D TV is already widespread and I don’t believe it will be so long before we see holographic images projected into our living rooms, without needing to wear glasses. Other senses such as smell and touch may also become a part of the viewing experience, fully immersing us in another world. Kinect and other technologies may mean that everything is controlled by motion and we may be able to select what advertisements we see by pointing to different objects in the programme such as clothing or a car etc.

Whatever happens, one thing is for sure… the way we interact with our TVs will never be the same again.

The future of TV – What’s next?

Going to the doctors only takes the push of a button

A media first for Channel 4, the Live Poster technology allows C4 and ITN to automatically publish dynamic copy and content throughout the day, a facility that was previously unavailable to other advertisers without significant human input.

Content related directly to that evening’s bulletin is provided by ITN from 4-7pm each day, catching commuters on their journey home. If there’s a breaking news story close to transmission, ITN will have the ability to update headlines and content, ensuring people are provided with the very latest news updates.

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/channel-4-trial-live-poster-technology-on-the-london-underground

See all the latest on Live Poster at: http://liveposter.co.uk/

Whilst the outcome can be quite interesting to the individual, brands too should pay attention to these studies. Consumers are heavily influenced by emotion when making purchasing decisions. Even though it is a recession, the happiness and excitement surrounding the Royal Wedding sparked a £1.7 billion spending spree while Coca Cola has implemented a whole campaign dedicated to spreading happiness.

In this article Shariatmadari discovers both predictable and unpredictable patterns in human emotion, highlighting that there is definitely scope for brands to capitalise on this kind of research.

“Confessions of a happychondriac

What happened when somebody created an app that you could tell when and where you were happy and unhappy?
Mappiness: people seem to be happiest on the coast

David Shariatmadari
The Guardian, Sun 30 Oct 2011 20.00 GMT

My name is David and I am a happychondriac. I’ve mellowed with age and would describe myself as content. But perhaps the feeling that you should be happier than you are is a disease that you can learn to manage, but not eradicate. So why would I use an iPhone app that records just where, when and how I’ve failed to be happy?
I have been using Mappiness for about six weeks. Developed by George MacKerron while doing a PhD in the department of geography at the London School of Economics, it gathers data on how our surroundings and activities affect happiness.

It asks you to rate how happy, relaxed and awake you are at random through the day. You slide the dials to the left or right depending on your state of mind, who you’re with and what you’re doing.
Then it allows you to view the data you’ve built up. The longer you’ve been using it, the more interesting this gets. You begin to realise that you really are an evening person, and that you just can’t get enough of Thursdays. For a while I was happiest drinking alcohol. Now, oddly, it’s waiting or queueing.

The app has harvested data from just under 3m responses (there are 45,000 users). Some of it’s predictable: it won’t come as a shock to readers of John Betjeman to learn that Slough is the unhappiest local authority area. The coast apparently makes people very happy and green places more than urban areas. An “intimacy, making love” category was added following requests – it’s by some margin the happiest activity .
Once I’d got over the initial excitement – answering questions about myself is something I do quite like – I began to resent Mappiness. It never seemed to ping me when I wanted. It would happen when I was sitting in front of my computer at work, as opposed to, say, abseiling or riding a horse through the surf. I worried that I would seem miserable. And then there’s my innate cautiousness. I might be feeling quite pleased with myself. But was I really “happy”? That’s a bit much, isn’t it? I would nudge the slider a tiny amount to the right. Often I would just tap it so it stayed pretty much in the middle.

It seems that, day to day, I don’t experience a huge range of emotion. I’m mostly, well, not too bad. But does this matter, I ask philosopher John Gray. “There is the idea that a life is failed if the person who’s lived that life doesn’t feel it to be happy,” he says. “It’s come to be felt that happiness is a sensation or a mood. If you go back through history, not just philosophers but novelists, essayists, Montaigne for example, they didn’t think that a happy human life was one that necessarily excluded periods of distress or moods of despondency. If you think of happiness as a sensation then you’re focusing on a momentary state, rather than applying the idea of happiness to a life as a whole.”

Surely that’s not to say that unhappiness is something we should always sit back and accept? “I don’t think a feeling of being trapped in misery can be good for anybody. But once you’re out of that situation, what you seek might not be a position in the world in which you never suffer unhappiness, it might be the most meaningful life, or the most exciting one.” Fair enough. “The etymology of happiness is, I think, based on “hap” – chance or accident. You’re probably capable of being happy in a much wider range of lives than you think.”

The best thing about this whole exercise is the map of Britain on to which users have uploaded the images they’re asked to capture when feeling particularly happy. The result is an illustration of just how idiosyncratic happiness can be: pictures include a cat on the bed, a canal, the inside of a bar. Looking at them, happychondria’s grip loosens. I might be miserable on the holiday of a lifetime, but the sight of a fox in the dark or a privately remembered joke are the things that will really make me smile.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/30/mappiness

By implementing their own similar studies, brands could gain a much greater insight into how best to target their audience, having a greater knowledge of when, who and where to direct their campaigns. Mappiness, with over 45,000 users, shows people are obviously interested in taking part in such studies and so it is down to brands to take advantage of this opportunity.