The long tail, or "long" nose?

"nose" or "tail" ?

It's been around four years since Chris Anderson highlighted the opportunities and changes in the market place by being online vs regular store space. His rationale was quiet simple, in a store you are limited by the space you occupy and therefore limited in the choice of tangible products you can sell, online those restrictions do not exist.

Demonstrating this through the now infamous " Long Tail " graph showing the tail as being the area of opportunity (albeit lower volumes) for online distribution channels through 'infinite choice' to the consumer.

By offering these huge online catalogues to consumers, this increased choice would lead them to purchase items which historically would not have been available through regular retail outlets, outlets that must concentrate on the most popular items to maximise there revenues.

Proof in the pudding?

So four years on, the online 'digital media retail' space firmly up and running is this actually the case?

A recent study of tens of millions of online music transactions demonstrated the tail as being not the place of infinite opportunity, but rather a desert island disc (with the focus being on ' desert ').

Apparently the head of the graph represented and area of opportunity which led itself to being more in line with traditional retail space than the new online outlets - so by having this infinite choice available online, consumers were still only purchasing tracks which were readily available in regular music stores.

Myth

So the long tail is just a myth, to be recorded in history as yet further evidence that traditional business models are required to be successful online?

I'm not so sure.

The study itself does not go into any depth as to the geographical nature of the study nor the identity of the online retailer - two key elements which would help understand the audience involved.marketing technology offers oppotunity.

In addition to this I can't ignore the huge success of many online music stores,the fact performing a simple search and being presented with huge back catalogue of choice and recommendations against these - surely with the level of detail the online retailers have into customer behaviour they would not be providing this 'out of the goodness of their hearts'.

marketing technology and it's use does offer new sales channels and routes to markets traditional retail cannot.

What this does prove though is there are more factors and considerations involved than simply putting all your back catalouge online and waiting for the sales to role in.....

Mobile - Engagement and Porn

Engagement

Screenvision and Verizon are rolling out a polling program to ask moviegoers questions related to their music preferences, with audience results shown on the screen - a neat way of using technology to engage the captive audience.

The reward, a Spike Lee production ' short ' about the benefits for the Verizon V Cast service. marketing technology

Question, why did he not produce a number of shorts, the most ' relevant ' to the audience being aired ? marketing technology

Porn

Crisp Wireless, the mobile content management and delivery company has released it's list of top searches gleaned from over 14 million users across their content publishing network.

No suprise 'sex and porno' featuring within the top 10 with Britney still managing to make the cut - maybe a victim of these search terms being combined ?

One interesting fact is the presidential election could be ' called ' early by reviewing the results, echoing the democratic results. Barack Obama came in number one with Hilary only making 14 on the list.
marketing technology

Top 20 :

"Context", not content is king ( sorry Bill )

While marketing still debates the best method for delivering online advertising, Visible World is using technology to concentrate on the all important ‘ context question ‘.

Regardless of the method of delivery, making the content more personalised and relevant is key to maximising it’s effects.

Too often we still see video content being pushed in a manner which is reminiscent of TV broadcast – using assumption rather than data to help define and tailor the message.

Visible creates ‘ unique ‘ adverts using elements such as geography, information supplied by the user and time to ‘ pull ‘ various part of commercials together to create a targeted relevant video message.

Grouping the search

A diversion from the norm here ( however a great example of how enhancing search adds context and relevance) with a music search tool called Yamelo.



The service which is still currently in beta allows you to search for music ( nothing new here ) but also usefully groups popular music by year. marketing technology

Youtube provides the content and also the visuals which are displayed from your search, along with ' tag clouds ' which enhances the entire experience and often leads to you revisiting some classic songs and artists.marketing

No Snipers at Terminal 5

anything but

From a security standpoint a good thing, from a marketing point of view - bad.

Terminal 5 in London has generated press and hype for many reasons over the past year, from a marketing standpoint being lauded as the next generation of user engagement - with over 300 digital screens positioned around the airport.

With all the technology at the hands of the marketer’s, the promise of a more targeted approach to outdoor advertising seemed to be here.

Unfortunately, it is anything but.

I appreciate that while we are still some way off actually identifying ' all ' passengers while in transit on a personal level, I feel a little disappointed that very little effort has been made at the very least addressing ' the group ' or where possible engaging on a one to one level.

During my entire visit not once was I prompted to download content to my mobile phone - despite many media screens running what can only be described as ' looped ' traditional TV spots – amazingly there was not one interactive screen.

T5 makes use of escalators and transit train to take you from the main part of the airport to the aircraft departures, only three static posters for a journey which takes over 15 minutes.

It went from an intense jumble of adverts all competing for attention in the main shopping areas to desert like barrenness in large portions of the airport.

marketing Desert marketing technology advertising interactiveBrand clutter

The one oasis in all of this was from a single brand – HSBC who continues to sponsor the jetties and pontoons which connect you to the aircraft – still all in traditional static format.

All of this considered it just goes to show the technology does not give an advantage if used ineffectively.

Look whose talking.....

Measurement is a good thing

As the saying goes, how can you manage something if you cannot measure it in the first place ?

Measuring the buzz around your brand can be a tough, with multiple media channels to manage it is no longer a simple case of scouring over the newspapers, performing customer surveys and watching the news to find out what people are saying about your brand.

Internet measurement has traditionally been a case of using web metrics such as page impressions to gauge a relative popularity, but this in most cases is showing you the past – you are seeing the effects rather than the cause.

Identifying , listening , understanding and engaging in these conversations is now part of the marketing mix – Blair Witch with its huge online following before the films release proves that this is a space where must all now operate and understand.

Here and Now – Are your key and emerging markets where you think they are ?

What you need is the now, the present, where and what are people talking about.

You are a chocolate sauce manufacturer and your sales are soaring without any significant change to your traditional marketing strategy – what is the cause of this ?

In the online space wisdom would point you to the cookery blogs to find out what people are saying, but are your key influencers actually there?

You may have a large pocket of ‘ chatter ‘ in one place but are these people the real brand advocates or those who have already been influenced and while valuable, may not be the right people you need to engage for further product launches.

You also find that upon investigation, this group of people are indeed fans of your product but not responsible for the increase in sales or interest on your site.

Yes directly engaging all customers in some form of market research will eventually glean this information – but how fast and nimble is this process?

Companies participation in forums and blogs is an essential part of managing this relationship – but without some help you may be missing advocates and influencers by focusing in the wrong place.

Lets also not forget this is a big task and not always top of the marketers priorities.

marketing technology

Help is at hand

Marketing technology tools are now coming to the market which in essence scour the internet for conversations about your brand and it’s competitors.

Buy using such technology companies are now able to build maps measuring and reporting these conversations looking for key phrases and associated words - for example the number of times I use your brand name and other favorable words, thus identifying me as an advocate ( or not ).

These maps can identify the flow of these conversations ( key ) along with the most active and influential by seeing the connections in and out of these people.

marketing technology

The horse has bolted.

By coupling this with my relationships or ‘ connections ‘ marketers are able to build visual relationships between users, groups and forums allowing them to engage and monitor these conversations.

Just one example of its application is the ability to be able to respond to possible PR disasters from this chatter.

Sony were able to issue a PR statement highlighting their care in response to ‘ chatter ‘ that was emerging on the net surrounding there paint adverts, moving themselves into a proactive rather than a reactive position – it allowed Sony to see the shape of the crash and respond accordingly.

The human element

Now you may be thinking that using technology solves the issue, that large data centers will now be chugging away sucking in data and spitting out hit lists of users for the marketing department to bombard; not quiet.

Fortunately for us ( the consumer ) all of this data does need interpretation to give context and meaning.

Just like any other form of market research these maps showing the flow of sentiment and conversations require the human touch to gauge it’s importance and also ensure that our brilliant ability for sarcasm does not suddenly mean efforts are wrongly targeted.

technology marketing

links :

marketing technology

Sonar - Trampoline systems

Seer - VML

Truview - Visible technologies

M-Commerce

' point and shoot '

Nokia has announced a pilot in the UK for the phone to be used for payments. The handsets which will carry an RFID chip will allow users to ‘ swipe ‘ there phone on the London Underground to pay for journeys – presently the ‘ Oyster ‘ scheme operates across the entire underground and allows commuters to use a dedicated card which is ' swiped ' over special readers for the journey and is 'topped up‘ with credits.

marketing technology

In another recent trial in London, Oyster partnered with Barclaycard to allow for low value purchases to be made using the card.With the incorporation of the technology into the phone the UK can start to catch up to the wider use of this kind of technology in the Asian markets.

News International has started to incorporate QR codes on their most popular title ‘ The Sun ‘. QR codes or ‘ Quick Read ‘ codes will be present through the title over the coming months and will allow users to ‘ scan ‘ the codes to then receive content directly to there phones. The software is now incorporate into most new Nokia handsets and is downloadable from the web for other handset manufacturers.

While this still requires a download to the majority of handsets and the fact people in the UK are far happier with SMS codes I am not entirely sure of the viability of this method to direct people to ‘ content ‘ .

Schemes to extend barcodes to mobile are nothing new, however the application of this technology makes far more sense in this context.

Spam goes social

facebook spam

Message labs November report makes for grim reading, spam is still on the rise.

marketing technology

Amazingly 1 in 32 mails which passes through its global systems it classes as spam, this number is of course higher as it is impossible to capture all spam.

While this problem is a long way from every being controlled within email, social networks are now increasingly coming under attack from applications and general ' junk ' notifications within groups and personal messages. An example above from one of my Facebook groups which has come under siege from spammers.

How then do marketing departments use technology to not only over come the challenges of connecting to customers, but also differentiate themselves from the communication clutter which is spam.

The power of WOM

First Maurice Levy , the chairman of Publicis was quoted as saying there are essentially too many new media companies ( Facebooks, Myspaces , Second Life’s ) chasing too little advertising revenue.

Then Google’s UK Director highlighted too many brands are venturing into the Web 2.0 space and not thinking of their position or the key attributes of their products, urging them to ' get back to basics ' or risk being ineffective.

All of this points towards brands and agencies still grappling with how to effectively use Web 2.0, but then something really smart –

Primark has decided to not create it’s own dedicated space within Facebook – the reason, it’s own customers ‘ unofficial ‘ group of over 94,000 users is of far more value than “ anything they could themselves create.”

Primemark recognises that social networks are about the people who reside there, this is a great example of how it is using it’s customers brand loyalty to good effect – giving up an element of control it recognises this loss gives an honest and genuine platform for engaging conversations to grow and take place.

Motorola adopts Google approach.....

Motorola is developing software which scans SMS messages on the users handset to then deliver ' relevant ' advertising, using a combination of key words from the text and also your GPS location.

The article in the Times goes on to give examples of a user texting the word ' hungry ' to then be sent adverts for restaurants in the local area.

Recent studies from Dynamic Logic for the Hilton’s Hampton hotel chain showed a positive increase in the Hotels brand awareness by advertising on weather.com’s WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) site, demonstrating there is indeed a market for relevant mobile advertising content.

All sounds interesting working in a similar fashion to Google Mail, therefore the same concerns have to be raised over privacy and relevance.

Speaking of relevance, I can't help thinking with the circle of friends and the ' colourful ' language they use, I could have a quite a few offers from the local sex shop if the technology goes live...... marketing technology

Is it really viral ?

virtual bartender - a truly successful viral campaign

marketing technology

Viral now seems to form the part of most youth culture marketing campaigns. Does using the power of Word Of Mouth and giving tools for passing content on to others mean huge audiences and exposure?

No

It seems very little is actually very ‘ viral ‘ and many still require traditional methods of ‘ mass ‘ to achieve the desired goals.

Very little is actually viral

In the viral marketing world the success of a campaign is measured by it’s reproduction rate or ‘R’ rating.

An ‘R’ rating of 1 implies that a person who receives the message, will pass this onto more than one person.

With an R rating of 1 and above the pass on rate reaches a tipping point, it exponentially grows creating an epidemic – a virus effect.

An R rating of less than 1 means they eventually die out as the pass on rate becomes less and less each time.

There are a number of factors that can affect your R rating

Why

Why should I pass on this pretty crappy commercial to my friends is the first hurdle, a hurdle that can be jumped with the use of good quality and engaging content.

Relevance’s role is key in the final outcome – the purchase, it also plays a part in the success of pass on. However there are other considerations above this.

Incentives using donation schemes for publicly supported causes can also assist in the pass on rate of the content – although this should be complimentary and not the key driver.

An example of this was seen in a campaign run by Oxygen Network which used Katrina donations – achieving a ‘ R ‘ rating of 0.769 . While one of the highest pass on ratings recorded it still meant the campaign eventually would die out .

Who you are

Another big factor in driving the ‘ R ‘ rating can also depend on the peer standing and influence of those involved. Identifying key influencers in the outset will only improve the seeding.

Stories

Alternate reality games ( ARG ) while not having the reach that TV / radio engage people for long periods of time.

A recent ARG which supported the release of the film A.I attracted around three million participants over a twelve week period, 50% of the new participants were female.
Using techniques such as rabbit holes which are in effect the first website or entrance to a larger more complex ‘ warren ‘ has been a successful way of leading users into a more complex engagement.

It seems people are willing to accept all the events to be authentic within these stories, to actually park preconceptions and bias until the ending.

This parking gives rise to opportunities for marketers, however be warned this should not be abused. This large investment of time and effort these people undertake, it would be unwise to totally cheat these groups with some form of shallow ultimate message.


In summary

• Engage
• Identify key people and peer groups
• Quality of content
• Tell a story
• Provide tools to assist pass-on
• Reward

On R Ratings

For a campaign exhibited a reproduction rate of 0.5, meaning that each generation is half the size of the previous one, then an initial seed of 10,000 people would pass it to 5,000 new recipients, and those 5,000 would pass it to a further 2,500, and so on, eventually reaching a total of 20,000 people— twice the number that would have been reached by the traditional campaign.

Sources :

Alternate Reality: The New Frontier
Viral Marketing for the Real World – Harvard Business review

Are you being heard ?

marketing technology, e-newle Are retailers really listening ?

Two interesting studies I have come across that highlight the place of technology in the relationship between organisations and the customer.

The first polled over 1,000 people to gain their opinion on how technology affects their dealings with organisations, the other a poll of over 100 top online retailers which involved signing up and analyzing their e-news letters.

While positive’s are within the reports the overall picture is not particularly favourable

First impressions count – e-newsletters

Within the online world there is an expectation of timeliness to communications and fulfilment, delay in these aspects can only damage perception and customer loyalty – with differentiation of products and services becoming less obvious this is one key element companies must use marketing technology to excel in.

Of the 118 retailers whose e-newsletters were subscribed

• 20% took more than 30 days to deliver their first regular email or failed to deliver at all.


• 30% didn’t deliver their first regular email within 14 days two weeks of the subscription date.

Consider this : the Spamming act ( excerpt ): The spam act - Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address.

The report points outlines the 10 days un-subscribe limit being reduced, this would impact these organisations and open them to spam reporting and abuse - simply because of their slow time to react and respond.

Frequency and subscription

Negative

Over 93% of the retailers gave no indication of how many emails to actually expect. Setting this level of expectation firstly confirms with the consumer their preferences, also by allowing them to consciously choose and decide you are entering into a dialogue – they will also ‘ expect ‘ and are more likely to read the email once delivered.

Add to this options on the content type and the format by which they wish to receive, you are tailoring the communications to what the customer actually wants, not what your marketing department would like to send.

Positive

The confirmation page is becoming more frequently used, with single email address subscription being asked for initially – further detailed capture of user information is only then being asked for in the confirmation email.

Splitting this into two parts benefits the user in not having to labour over multiple pages in the initial sign up phase. The retailer will undoubtedly have higher response rates and is able over time to slowly request information, using offers and information as reward.

People's view on Technology

There seems to be more examples of how things are done badly in the customer service world than good. Technology is used in many ways to assist our dealings with organisations, but are they really interested in the customer or merely meeting a need which they have to fulfill – begrudgingly.

Presenting first line contact centre’s with relevant information on customers is nothing new, however how this is used, the tone and the type of dialogue during these conversations can make all the difference in maximizing both the satisfaction for the customer and can give increased sales opportunities to the organization.
marketing technology.
It confirms this by highlighting over 60% of people think technology should make communicating with the brand easier and a similar number think they should be instantly known by the company, no matter which division they are dealing with.

However it seems there is a long way to go in achieving this :

Speed matters more to companies than customer service , 78% of consumers believe that companies focus on the speed of transactions rather than customer service and that the technology used is too impersonal.

Perception versus reality ?

Two-thirds of the people we spoke to said they’d regularly encountered difficulties when dealing with a company over the phone when attempting to do something as simple as placing an order or making an inquiry.

• Over 90% of consumers don’t think that the technology is available to make things easier when dealing with a company over the phone, through the web, on e-mail or even via SMS.


• Over a third of consumers think the technology to know who they are and what they want,whatever part of the business they deal with, is at least five years away.

Reference

Retail Email Subscription Benchmark Study

'Computer says no': British consumers slam customer service merry-go-round

Price check !

web price comparison instore using your camera phone

Barcodes have been around since the late 1980’s. It’s use in retail and supermarkets is unquestionably successful, however consumer applications using the technology have been less widespread in there adoption.

In Asia it is reasonably common for outdoor advertising to carry barcodes which when scanned by camera phones, action some form of trigger - normally a download to the unit or a redirection to a website.

Marketing’s preference in the UK is to use short codes, we are all familiar with texting a short keyword to a 5 digit number to fulfill the same purpose.

However it seems an awful waste when you consider barcodes are present on every item for sale in the retail world, surly some form of marketing technology can make use of humble barcode?

ScanZoom

The idea is simple. After installation of specialty barcode reading software from ScanZoom your phone becomes a hybrid barcode reader, but with a twist.

Scanning items using your your camera phone the barcodes are then translated into the product or item information which is then sent to Price-Grabber and Amazon ( for books ) for price comparison.

marketing technology

Two key benefits

For the consumer : A neat way of ensuring you can barter for the best deals for those impulse purchases.

For the compaines : An important way to gain insight into our considerations and decisions

Madonna to play concert in Casper, Wyoming.....

pull content to your hometown

For most big acts it is quiet simple, book a massive venue such as Wembly Stadium or Madison Square Garden, promote the event through traditional media channels such as radio and you will have a sell out crowd.

What if you are on the periphery, have a reasonable sized but dislocated fan base. Or those who have a strong popularity based on some geographical factor, the question for these people is how to identify where you are in demand.

The answer - a website called ‘ Eventful ‘

Founded in 2004 it enables it’s members to ‘ request ‘ performers / acts to come and perform in their local districts. By influencing performers to come to their local districts it not only helps take the risk from choosing where to venue but is also a brilliant example of marketing technology allowing consumers to pull content , although in this case physical people.

marketing technology

Other features include

• Ability to link your ITunes and Last.fm to the site to be alerted when these performers are in town or on the road.
• Community forums around sharing and creating events with communication tools such as widgets and email.

Radio gets personal

X-fm, a UK based radio station is taking listening participation to a new level. Via there websites they are allowing listeners to construct playlists which will then voted on by both the shows producers and listeners, the winning playlists are then aired over their traditional broadcast.

This fundamental shift for it's listeners adds a new level of participation and engagement, which has traditionally been a lean back medium.

Personal music services on the web are nothing new. Pandora has for the past two years been successfully serving personalized music channels to listeners through their dedicated website.

But there is a change with the entry of Dizzler, a search enabled music and video player.

Nothing new in this concept, their method of promotion is though. Dizzler hands over control of the application and where it resides to users. Simple MySpace exports allows simple creation of their favorite play lists for both video and music to then embed them and the actual player within their personal pages.

Relevance

Vistiors are then able not only able to listen to these, but enter and search for their own favorites leading I am sure to enhanced propagation of the player through the community.

Sales opportunities for both the records that are being listened to for download and relevant targeted marketing promotions, both on screen and through other methods make this a great route to the youth market through the use of internet marketing.


There are many content search and control websites available today with similar functions and technology, the key now is their positioning and associations.

Mine

By allowing user control in both the content played and then also allowing this to enhance personal sites and pages Dizzler and sites such as MyWaves recognize it is no longer good enough to offer these services in standalone webfront ends, the social aspect plays a key role in their success and acceptance. They are using the power of the crowd to market their technology.

Search goes visual

visual results offer more information - a more complete picture

Pictures paint ......

Search today presents us with text – many argue this method is still the fastest and most effective way to present information. Agreed for sites which are purely information sources and have no content which is visual to either supplement or enhance this information, but many today are not ( even more so with new rich media capabilities of browsers and plug-ins such as Silverlight ).

The argument of text based search results goes back to the days when Windows and Apple desktop were launched.

Search today needs enhancement, a combination of both text and also images – basically the entire webpage delivered to the user, else it is like advertising an art exhibition by only using words.

Visual impact wasted

Web-pages are a rich source of visual information, ( in some cases this is the entire reason for the page) all of this is lost until users until they click through.

Couple this with the issue if you do not appear in the first 10 results then the time and effort of your site visuals is wasted.

Layers

This is where a new product from SpaceTime comes in.

Leveraging popular search Google,Yahoo,Ebay and Flickr ( more to be released ) it then displays the first 10 results in an almost identical manner to Windows Vista ‘ layers ‘. By then clicking on these windows it switches you to a familiar 2-D flat view of the web page for viewing.

Another nice feature is previous searches are placed in a toolbar at the bottom of the screen allowing for fast and easy switching.

This exploration of enhancing how search is a positive step to presenting the new media rich web sites in a graphical format, it allows the full context of the page to be considered rather than just how it ranks in the world of search.

Why virtual TV will be a success , but for different reasons

Eletronic Arts and Endemol announced a interesting partnership which will expand traditional TV programming to the virtual world, with the release next month of their Virtual Me platform

EA the company behind such classic hits such as the SIMS, Endemol is the company responsible for bring the ‘ reality ‘ TV show Big Brother which now has local variations in over 70 countries.

Taking the concept from MySpace participants are able to create virtual selves ( or aviatars as they are commonly known on the internet ) to compete and take part in variations of these hit TV shows – not in person, but with virtual representations of themselves.

I have to say it is interesting Endemols decision to partner with EA rather than leverage and already established community that is second life, however it shows an interesting transition of thought by expanding the tradional position of TV programming onto the Web.

Money

Big Brother’s revenue comes from advertising ( not product placement ) and also mainly from the SMS voting that takes place to evict or keep the contestants ( know as housemates – ironically by the are at the end , they are anything but ).

But how would this work in the online space when this will not be an audience lead activity.

As yet there are no successful examples of pre-role ( the short advert placed before content of value / interaction ) on the web. Most is ignored through the ability to close or skip, the remainder is mostly irrelevant in either context or content, this therefore leaves :

Sponsorship

Pure and simple association to raise awareness, but without engaging in dialogue with these participants is there any real value in what will be in the short term at least, a niche market ( in both volume and type of player )

In game – virtual brands, signage and clothing.

Levi’s is apparently doing a roaring trade in 501’s online, how long will this last ?

In this lean forward world where people are participating rather than sitting back and observing using traditional signage such as posters cannot prove to be effective, the ability to clutter this restricted space is also a threat and could all but trash this opportunity.

Also, while engrossed how much awareness does this bring ? Ask a professional footballer what adverts were around the side of the pitch while he was playing.

Payment upfront

This seems the more likely , in order to win / participate you pay. Pure and simple gambling , all be it wrapped up in a different wrapper.

Exclusive

On the internet there could be 1,000 big brother virtual shows happening at any one time - nothing is exclusive on the internet , it needs to work the numbers.
Combine this and the fact no matter how advanced the technology, people have a wonderful ability to express and behave in subtle ways which at the moment cannot be replicated online – I challenge anyone to be entertained for any length of time sitting watching Second Life.

The one thing the TV has over the internet is exclusivity and to a degree, authenticity.


Know your enemy

Generally game shows are run with a degree of ethics, although not perfect as Who wants to be a millionaire cheat Major Charles Ingram will contest, they do through the ability of “ seeing is believing “ remove some of the trust barriers the internet cannot break down .

Virtual icons

Above is a virtual concert with star performers U2, although the virtual Bono has some fancy dance moves I would not pay to watch these unanimated objects for any length of time.

Would you pay to watch a virtual game of soccer, would these virtual avitars be the next location for marketing and promotion deals, will we ever have a ( god forbid ) virtual David Beckham?

By making the barriers to entry too easy, by leveling the playing field, it removes the draw and passion along with the appreciation of the attributes that make these people great and thus the desire for us to watch and appreciate – this will therefore never be an audience led medium no matter how much the technology fools us visually, therefore the revenue generation models should reflect this.

As Buddy ( aka Syndrome ) said in the incredibles ‘ I'll sell my inventions so that *everyone* can have powers. *Everyone* can be Super!

And when everyone's Super... No one will be.

Digital media taking the lead

Interesting to see in the press both Renault and Heineken have decided to use digital to start their marketing campaigns, recognizing the increase in the importance of the medium in their core target groups.

The emphasis of the Twingo launch ( which means Twist", "Swing" and "Tango" ) is to be on interactivity with the consumer, perfect for the target of this French little number.

Traditionally car Marques have always started with supplemental press campaigns which followed on from the auto reviews – then launching into the TV space, digital then was used as a afterthought ( although more and more being tied into TV, it has always been secondary rather than primary )

Admittedly this approach would not work for the Mercedes M -Class due to the target audience , it does show though that digital no longer takes second place to more traditional media and will become the channel of choice for many brands.


Information from the UK’s National Statitics

“In 2006, 84 per cent of people aged 16 to 24 had used the Internet within the last three months, compared with 52 per cent of people aged 55 to 64 and 15 per cent of those aged 65 and over.”

Dell IdeaStorm - connecting with customers

Did you know that most Dell customers would like a ' clean ' software install, without Google or AOL being installed.

Or that a large proportion of their users / advocates would like to have web cams as standard on their laptops ?

Normally this information comes from focus groups ( which by their very nature are expensive and not able to fully embrace the reach of the web ) or through online surveys - which once marketing lay their hands upon tend to request too much information - hence devaluing the information integrity.

In this case the above are real world examples of what customers, potential customers are saying about Dell products , not in a technology forum divorced from their context of the brand and products , but directly on Dell’s IdeaStorm online community.

Dell’s position has always been to cut out the middle man and work directly with it’s clients – IdeaStorm brings a much needed closeness that the outsourcing of call centres and order processing of past has damaged, this openness to adopting blog’s has in effect made every Dell employee a customer facing employee.

The trick now is to ensure is follows through and executes on the valuable feedback it receives – not by just building a faster horse but by hopefully tipping the balance on decisions that can give it the valuable jump on it’s competition it so desperately needs.

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RFID - the future of shopping

RFID Mobile internet is the future, fixed cable access will no longer exist. This offers a chance for consumer communities to interact more effectively.

Communities which traditionally have been limited to the locations of the connecting devices ( PC fixed to desk ) has meant that opportunities to extend, engage and interact contextually with customers while in situ ( store, street ) have been limited in format and relevance.

RFID now offers us a chance to have extended dialogue to help them ( the consumer ) to make decisions / reinforce brand / offer purchasing options which can be more flexible and relevant based on location. We must be conscious to place the consumer back into the decision cycle , to empower them to make there own choices.

Coupons for irrelevant products and offers will only go the same way as paper based handouts and variants as each shop due to the cost of deployment ( a simple change to the till system internally will allow for new messages to be sent from there transponders ) will result in a overflow of information to which my genuine offers and interests will be lost. Shopping spam.RFID to enhance the shopping experience – CD picked up , Video starts playing. Device in pocket communicates to the item , then adds to my personal shopper list for research later , discount offer , research etc.

Shopping

The store – the stores layout and offer of goods can be dynamically changed. Using video and projectors for signage you could in theory move products from front to back store with ease, electronic shelf pricing would alter, local video displays could show relevant promotion material to the consumer.

Shopping trolley screens – RFID / LCD enabledResearch shows that 80% of decisions are subconscious once the customer is within the store ( confirm this is across store type and value ) which lends RFID enabled shopping trolleys to make recommendations on complimenting items , download shopping lists to the screen based on the user ID to ensure no more forgotten items. The trolley is also then able to interact with the store itself, items on shelf special offers.

Other ideas - allowing for expansion of instore services – once at the checkout dry cleaning department alerted to have items ready, valet parking to pre-position vehicle ( airport – gold card embedded ) RFID in the car dealer – tag the car, follow it’s progress through the garage from valet, to the ramp to being ready via the web. SMS to the customer saying your car is ready for pickup and collection.Loyalty card – the card is not smart , rather the shop is. All data captured and collected.

If I pickup pair of football boots it can associated my position in proximity to the items, these shows my interest and pattern in store. Stores spend vast amounts of viewing shoppers behaviours instore, why not RFID shopping trolleys to perform this function, must be a way of tying in the store card to identify the subject , then monitor and offer promotions based on there behaviour instore.

Complimentary is the key.

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