I have decided to do an month long experiment to learn a bit about the larger implications of checking into products/states of mind. In order to do this, I am going to test and examine Android wine apps. This is what we call in digital strategy a win, win, drunk solution. My criteria for judgement will be:
Keep a record of wines sampled
Note preferences
Share and discuss with friends
Recall history while shopping for wine
The apps on the docket to test:
Wine (Free version)
Stickybits
Evernote
GetGlue
I will report out results as I go and a winner in a months time - should be awesome. Let me know if there any apps left off the list that might meet my criteria.
So I have gotten a chance to start playing with Google Buzz. It has a nice "low bar, high ceiling" design. For anyone who is used to posting or reading status updates on Twitter or Facebook it will seem familiar to use. For users with many social network profiles you can stream these in through your Google profile as you would with other social aggregators (FriendFeed, SocialThing!, etc.) Where it starts to get more interesting is the ability to post from Google Maps which makes Buzz a threat to mobile social platforms (Gowalla, Brightkite, Foursquare etc.) To see a video on how it works and get the functionality details check out the site http://www.google.com/buzz
Looking across the breadth of these services crammed into one platform, the only real competitor to Google Buzz is Facebook.
If, like everyone in America, you already have a Facebook account... why would you use this?
If you...
Already use Gmail as your main email address and are connected to many friends through this, Buzz allows for one-stop-shopping communications
Have a specific social group associated with your Gmail account it makes even more sense. For example if you use Gmail as your work email Buzz becomes like Yammer only with much broader functionality built in.
Would like to simplify your social networking (and do not already use a social aggregation platform)
Have not started using a mobile social platorm this is definitely one to consider and if you have an Android platform phone it is a no brainer
The exciting thing about Google Buzz are the integration possibilities with other Google tools. In the press conference releasing Buzz, Google promised corporate support in the near future (look out Yammer). I imagine there will soon be deeper integration with Android platform phones.
The real potential though to disrupt the current Facebook monopoly is the fact that Google has sworn to make this an open platform. That means all of the data will be open and free for everyone to play with. The decision to be an open platform was one of the smartest moves Twitter made early on and spawned many innovative services that dramatically increased the value of their product (Twitter clients, data visualization tools, etc.)
User adoption will determine whether this will be an important marketing platform in the future. My guess is it will be.
Since the recall of 8 vehicles on January 26 volume of discussion in social media around Toyota has grown significantly and sentiment is trending extremely negative (see charts below).
So far they have taken the appropriate steps with traditional PR and have web page addressing the recall, but I have not seen as much engagement in social media as I would have expected. There have been few tweets or facebook posts in response to the numerous comments. Toyota shut down their corporate blog "Open Road" several month ago. Although it was not getting much traffic, it would have been a great forum for discussion with customers right now. This is going to make an interesting case study in social media crisis management.
Audi just announced that the 2001 A8 will have native integration of Google Earth. By itself this is not a huge improvement over GPS navigation, but with layers it could make this more interesting. Think of a family road trip where you could see the view from a scenic vista using a Panoramio layer before reaching it and decide whether to stop. Definitely an improvement on current in vehicle technology. Unfortunately adding features like this will not put an automotive OEM ahead of the curve. The pace of innovation in the mobile device industry is too fast for the auto industry, right now on my Droid I can see a topographic layer added to Google maps very similar to what you get using Google Earth, I can also add other layers and get turn by turn navigation. All while driving a 2001 Hyundai Elantra. By 2011 I expect to have much better navigation and more relevant information to my location than Google Earth can provide. What would really put an auto OEM ahead of the curve is better integration with mobile devices. Similar to what was done for the Ipod. Give me a larger screen, better voice commands and steering wheel controls for my Iphone, Blackberry, Pre or Android device. The other element that your vehicle can bring to the table is its own data stream - MPG, acceleration, RPMs, weight etc. Make this information freely available on an individual and on an aggregate basis so apps can be developed for vehicles. While many auto OEMs have started down this path with Sync, UConnect, OnStar and BlueMe(yes that is a real name). One of the best examples of the direction that vehicle technology is headed is the Copenhagen Wheel. http://senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/There are a lot of mobile device innovations on the horizon that can benefit from in vehicle integration, for example if augmented reality apps take off (see my post on Google Goggles) a camera on the front of the car would be required for integration. The bottomline is that auto OEMs should be trying to understand how to make devices work with their vehicles, not adding one off features. Audi A8 Google Earth article can be found here: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/12/16/2011-audi-a8-the-first-production-vehicle-equipped-with-google/
Test of QR codes. Feel free to use a QR code reader to try this out. It leads to a twitter status update. The only way I think QR codes will take off is if users are downloading the barcode reader for other purposes. For example if Google Goggles were able to read these in addition to all of the other cool things they can do.
Google recently released Goggles which is arguably the most broad reaching augmented reality program available.If you are not familiar, it allows you to do two things:
·Snap a photo of anything and automatically search for results based on images and text within the photo
·See what location and direction specific google maps results by pointing your camera in any direction
The potential of this tool is that of most augmented reality:quick, easy and highly relevant information.This is also another avenue (along with voice recognition software) for mobile devices without a keypad to access search functionality.To see Google’s description of benefits check out the video here.
From my tests the text processing works well so things like book covers, business card, and anything with a URL on it return useful results.Goggles was able to identify flat logos but had much more trouble with 3D object logos, for example it immediately identified a Dodge logo on a sticker, but was not able to identify the Dodge logo on the grill of a Nitro.
While many augmented reality apps have been released recently, Goggles is the strongest indication that augmented reality is coming to the masses quickly.If using the camera on you mobile device to gather information and navigate on foot becomes a commonly adopted behavior this has significant implications to marketers.Many things can be done (or not done) with regard to products and storefronts to provide more value to customers and make shopping easier.An analogy for the way marketers may interfaces with this the current search system of natural search, paid search, and search engine optimization (did I mention Google was behind this?).
Users will see naturally occurring results regardless of where they are.
At some point in the future those results could have paid listing next to them or could be enhanced in some way.For example if a person is walking down the street looking for a place to get a coffee they see a Starbucks .25 miles away and next to that appears an ad for Mom and Pop Coffee Shop .5 miles away.So the person is made aware of a local option just a little further away.
Finally products and store fronts will be able to be optimized to better market themselves.For example logos could be optimized to be easily photographable (make them 2D not 3D).Search results could be specific to a model number to provide end users the most important information.For example if I were in market for a new car and saw one that I liked on the street photographing the trim level/logo could return results of fast it accelerates, the mpg and the cost if search results were properly optimized.
My guess is that Layers on Google maps will offer a lot of opportunities for augmented reality marketing through Goggles.Definitely a product to watch over the next year.
What started as the seed of an idea in a Facebook discussion turned into a fantastic conference based around “Get excited and make stuff” and it delivered on the theme in spades.While there was a huge breadth of presentation topics, the core problem we were assembling to tackle was how to deal with the changing marketing landscape.What are the new tools that we need to address the challenges ahead of us?
·When thinking about how and why things are changing a few underlying causes came up:
oMedia fragmentation – it is hard to buy an audience
oConsumer control – cannot push messages or images of brands
oSocial media is WOM on steroids – after customers defines your brand they will spread the word to others
·What are implications of new marketing landscape for planners
oMany of existing planning tools and marketing methods are broken
o80% of CEOs think their brands offer a superior experience only 8% of consumers agree
oBrands are now built through experiences and human interactions around brands
oBrands are now defined by what they do and what they believe
·What are the new requirements given this landscape
oMarketing and products need to adapt to customer behavior
·How do you get there
oDefine your brands role in culture
oPlan your brands story
oPlan for what happens after the connection(touchpoint) – think 365, not 360
oEmbrace the one off, rapid prototyping, and interactivity(in the broadest sense)
oRe define “brand guidelines” to encompass corporate culture
oEngage real people in research and identify the bell curve of product knowledge
What was not explicitly said, but implied was that planners need to reach beyond the marketing departments to accomplish goals - product planning, hr, pr and CRM need to be involved.Thanks again to all of the speakers , many of the full presentations are available here.
This is an excerpt of a document created for a client who was new to digital marketing and wanted some context for making better marketing decisions. Consider it a useful primer for anyone who needs a history lesson in how we got to where we are today.
“In times of change learners inherit the earth; while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. “ -Eric Hoffer
The Good Old Days
In an era that now seems as antiquated as betamax, advertising was once simply a message created by an agency and distributed through mass media channels to a large passive audience.
It was one-way communication knotted to a piece of popular content, eagerly gobbled up by the viewer, reader or listener. Creating content was difficult and distribution channels were owned properties which created a power structure that favored the publisher of content. Enter the Internet.
Web 1.0 (Also the Good Old Days)
Like a telephone in a world of telegrams, Interactive changed the game by allowing user to interact with the content and with each other around the content. Users could choose what was interesting to them, when they wanted to view it and create a personalized experience. Remember the thrill of the “You’ve Got Mail” voice popping up, or setting Yahoo to display NFL scores every time you showed up?
As web publishing became easier and access to the internet grew, the proliferation of websites exploded allowing users to choose from millions of sources of content on demand or to create their own. This began the transformation of the media industry.
Channels that were once held by a small number of companies were opened to consumer and any digitized content was easily sharable. Now consumers started to question their existing media consumption.
Why should I pay for a song when I download it for free on Napster? Why should I watch the Office on Wednesday at 9:00, when I can watch it whenever I want on Hulu? Why should I read a blog when I can write one?
“It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry,” says Clay Shirky, adjunct professor of New Media at New York University. “Because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.” [i]
Now (Soon to Be the Good Old Days)
Looking across the web today you will see many sites and publishing platforms set up explicitly for user created content – Blogger, Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube to name a few. Given the opportunity the general public did not waste time in becoming a producer as well as a consumer of content. A testament to this are the 100,000,000 videos on YouTube with over 20 hours uploaded every minute.[ii]
The Internet is fundamentally different from previous media channels in that it supports communication in groups. The number of connections possible is the square of the number of participants, so as the group grows contacts increase exponentially. Because it is an environment that supports social activity and benefits from the involvement of more people, the web is moving from a place where people access content…to a place where people access people in an information and content rich environment.
All of this change has happened with unprecedented speed. Television took 13 years to reach 50 million viewers, Facebook added 100 million viewers in 9 months[iv]. CMOs are shifting spend to address changing media consumption, but this does not address the heart of the problem.
A paradigm shift in attitude toward customer and technology is required to meet customers changing expectations. In order to keep up with the speed of change it is imperative that marketer engage in a dialogue with customers which starts with listening. Once this dialogue is in place interactive offers a great platform to quickly create prototype experiences, test, measure and garner customer reactions.
Dell is a great example of a company that has drastically changed their approach to customers and experimented in communications. In response to customer service achieving the ignominious title “Dell Hell”, executives launched IdeaStorm – an owner community that allowed customers to voice their concerns, executives to listen, community managers to respond and owners to assist one and other with issues. The results speak for themselves: reduced negative buzz, 7,000 consumer generated product ideas, and increased customer satisfaction.[v]
Beyond communications
Nike+. Iphone. Logitech I/O2. Fiat Eco-drive. The impact of digital has gone beyond the marketing of products to the very products themselves or services that add value to the product. In the best examples there is native integration of social, data analysis and applications.
The Microsoft Zune (MP3 player) is a good example. Zune owners download software and create a profile. Users can friend other users, discuss music and comment. As they listen to music on their computer, the site visualizes listening data so users can see who their top artists or songs are and they can view their friends listening habits. Users can rate songs, share songs, write reviews and subscribe to bands news feeds. Data on users listening habits is analyzed to provide recommendations for new artists and new friends within the community. All of this enhances the total customer experience by improving music discovery and social interaction.
Increasingly offline experiences are being integrated with an online experience.
Beyond the desktop
As wireless networks become more powerful and have broader coverage we are moving to a world of ubiquitous access to internet. Where there will be no such thing as offline. Devices are changing to reflect this. Phone screens are growing and laptops are shrinking to accommodate this mobile behavior. The impact of this is on immediacy of information and customer decision making is huge. [vi]
A great example of how this has changed media was the news coverage of political protests in Iran in early 2009. The first reports came from the phones of Twitter users who were there. When news outlets did not provide enough coverage viewers voiced their opinion until coverage was adequate.
Ubiquitous on demand information will surely impact shopping decision. Amazon currently offers a mobile shopping application that allows price comparison to their online price anywhere.
“In a world where media is increasingly global, social, ubiquitous, and cheap….the question we all face is how can we make best use of this environment, even if it means changing the way we have always done it” –Clay Shirky
About the author
Russ Hopkinson came to the Organic strategy group in 2006, prior to that he provided strategy and planning services for HP, Oracle, Wizards of the Coast, Reebok, and most recently Chrysler Group.
