Ok, so when Noah first launched his brand perception project a few weeks ago, I jumped on, tagged some brands, clicked around, wandered off elsewhere...
But now that he's logged over 600,000 tags, I'm obsessed with the browse.
If you're just checking out Brand Tags now, here's the back story:
When you hit the site, you see the name of a brand. All you have to do is type in the first word(s) that come to mind.
Here's Noah's thinking: If you ask a
bunch of people what a brand is and make a tag cloud, you should have a
pretty accurate look at what the brand represents.
The data is already HUGE. And, really addicting to check out. Especially the smaller print - catching what pesky outlying perceptions are detracting from your brand.
In other shiny new news. Google's collaboration tool is now live and (of course) free to all. Read about it on Faster Future or just go explore. If you work with a nonprofit or head up a community org, make sure to check it out. Great tools for sharing docs, ideas, pics and more among a dispersed group without a lot of setup / maintenance / management.
Day 2 of iCitizen kicked off with a slightly homespun look at what exactly we've gotten ourselves into here!? Check out Mark's video of an apparent 'conference crasher' trying to take it all in above.
Casual chats with hosts of the social media cafe (featuring lattes and laptops loaded with dummy accounts and personal tours of all the hottest social apps) reminded us just how new all this really is: Digital-savvy marketers had been sneaking out mid-presentation during Day 1 to ask just what the presenters and audience were talking about. What is Twitter? Lemonade? Kaboodle? And, importantly, can I check my email before I go back in??
Over in the blogger bailiwick*, Holly, Karen, David and I were doing about what you'd expect: taking ourselves too seriously, engaging in a little snark, and representing real iCitizens amongst all the talk about people like us...
(*gross misuse of a word for the sake of alliteration)
Onto coverage of today's presenters:
Doc Searls—Harvard Fellow at the Berkman Center, Coauthor, The Cluetrain Manifesto
Jump back 5 years. If around that time, someone had started talking about carrying all your music, pictures, and movies on a device that both fit in your pocket and worked as a cell phone, limited-use computer and general personal planner.... well, that person would probably have received a similar response to what Doc Searls got at iCitizen today: sounds intriguing, but what, what?
Doc talked about "vendor relationship manangement." It's what's needed when the "attention economy" makes a decision to act or buy and - thus - becomes the "intention economy." And, has something to do with using your data & personal and logical preferences to define rather than accommodate how you'll buy / share your information / relate to the companies you do business with. Everything from owning your own healthcare data to setting your own privacy expectations to pre-defining how much you'll pay for the exact thing that you really want.
I mentioned the response to a theoretical iPhone 5 years ago because what hangs in the balance for Doc's theory is what "thing" will make his idea concrete and easy vs. wildly theoretical and seeming like a massive-new-responsibility-and-time-investment-this-convenience-girl- wants-nothing-in-the-world-to-do-with.
Doc calls Web "the Net." Love the anachronisms when digital adopters talk 'what's coming'
Doc talks about approach - "we list all the things we think are true that no one's talking about" So us.
Key driver of open source, not just anyone can create and use, but anyone can IMPROVE IT.
Attention economy has evolved to intention economy on the live Web ... what you get when a customers mind is made up.
Attention economy until point of decision then intention economy. Using car rental as example of industry without intention.
What could car rental do if it knew customer intention. If it stopped "trap and hold" tactics like "car you want or similar"
Want to express logical and personal preferences, like no ads when calling tech support or will pay for faster service
Doc's point seems to be: smartest people about the right experience are your customers, not your employees or competitiros.
Doc pokes at a big box retailer for saying they want to "own
the customer." Another term for owning humans? Slavery. Why do we talk that way? Because we're too busy
talking to ourselves and not our customers.
Doc must be part of RenGen. So far referenced Rousseau, Whitman, Marx ... waiting for the test at this point
Doc unfinished biz of Cluetrain is Vendor
Relationship Mgt - control by customers who are in free markets &
engaging with vendors
VRM is not necessarily social because social makes assumption we have power in numbers. We have power as individuals, not from vendors who want to leverage our mass.
In identity world, cards /prices/ rels not issued to you. You issue your own card / intention / "RFP" http://snurl.com/29x75
Doc's VRM sounds way hard. I don't want to
manage my relationship with Target or write a RFP for a blender. I don't have an
acquisition dept.
In simplest form, Doc's ideas seem like convenience of Canada's Airmiles. www.airmiles.ca - all data in one place for one purpose / reward
Bigger than that Doc's approach seems so
high engagement and limited in audience ... but says something will come along
to make it simple
Kind of scares me that I can't get on board with this. Newest ideas coming from oldest guy in room. 30-somethings snarking.
Doc is joined by a panel talking about personal data portability:
Rooley Eliezerov—President and Cofounder, Gigya
Bill Washburn—Executive Director, Open ID
Kelly O'Neill—Commerce Product Marketing Director, ATG
Twittering:
Aside: Can I say how impressed I am by how
many women are speaking at iCitizen? Largely due to Resource's
leaders, but clients, too
Reality check from
Kelly: It's important to understand your purchase process and how much engagement / consideration / relationship it will support
Bill: OpenID is a movement that comes out of the idea that there's far too much pain around user name / password pairs.
Bill: OpenID can also potentially insure that you're not a machine / spam, creates access
Bill: Bigger issue than people who don't
have access to the Internet is people who choose not to access. They think of it as just a big
arcade. We need to build trust.
Doc: Any attempt to regulate things we don't understand is dangerous
Cool Deborah Schultz just showed up with a powerstrip and a laptop. Love the community power share.
Panel: Have Phone, Will Travel Panel
John Harrobin—SVP of Marketing and Digital Media, Verizon
Will Hodgman—CEO, M:Metrics
Riccardo Spina—Senior Director of Digital Media, Integrated Marketing, Wal-Mart
After the fact, I noticed that there had been no discussion of proximity SMS marketing among this group... would have been interesting to talk about that sort of push / experience content in terms of iCitizen engagement.
Twittering:
John launched cellfire. Waiting for that channel to get big. But, might not work wth expectations retail has for coupons (they assume medium impressions, low redemption ... what happens to the bottom line when coupons get convenient?)
Wal-Mart guy is unexpectedly chic. Great lime-rimmed glasses and matching polo. Stripey socks? Of course. (Direct tweet revealed: he's a former Resource creative director ... no wonder the on-brand gear)
Will says used to buy "FSIs and yidda-yadda, hooda-hooda." Reeeeeally?
Riccardo talking about Wal-Mart secret item holiday event. Tested before, on, after Black Friday. Clues via text.
Riccardo: Mobile initiative ran under radar until WSJ picked it up then a little top-down panic about what did we do?
Riccardo: People find what they need
John: Think about text messaging. You only
have 160 characters. Have to triple tap to get a letter. And you have
to pay for it. If you were to put that through any market research industry, they would say that would never succeed. Today our customers exchange 150 billion messages a year. People tried it and we made it addictive.
Listening to Riccardo reminds me to get back to the argument that, for retailers, you don't have to wait to adopt technology until it's ubiquitous. Tools (like RSS, text) don't have to be for EVERYONE. Rather, they cost-effectively reach people already using them and build relevancy and personalization.
Avinash Kaushik—Analytics Evangelist, Google
Avinash talked about metrics beyond / before the purchase. Calls them "microconversions" - all those valuable behaviors consumers exhibit - and that we should support and track - that aren't buying.
He's one of those presenters who makes everyone giggle and poke their neighbor and generally remember the clever phrasings as much as the content. So, if this Twittering isn't as meaty, don't count it against the presenter, attribute it to my general tendency toward shiny object syndrome.
Twittering:
Avinash calls online marketing faith-based behavior. Because we have all this data, but don’t understand the ‘whys’
Google analytics uses indexes and visual intelligence ... clarity without "thinking"
Online buying isn't "one night stand" - takes 3, 4, more visits to make a purchase
Just takes fundemental Qs to uncover insights
Why are you here
Were you able to complete task you came here to do
If not, why not?
Example: a pharma site had 90% bounce rate. The call to action and content was perfectly aimed at "buy." But the actual reason people visited was research: where is the product made, how much does it cost, etc. They bounced because they couldn't find what they wanted
Most decisions made by HIPPOs – highest paid person's opinion. Furthest removed from customer
All the tools I showed you today are free. The insignts have to come from you.
Personalization is identifying insights and needs among microsegments
Last panel: Who Keeps Moving the Goalpost? Identifying relevant metrics...
Dr. Robert Leone—Professor, Texas Christian University
Pete Blackshaw—CMO, Nielsen Online
Steve Kahn—VP of Internet Marketing, DSW
Paul Horstmeier—VP of HP.com, Hewlett-Packard
Twittering:
Paul: I've seen metrics so abused by marketers; I think we do ourselves a huge disservice
Surprised to hear from retailers that
there are people in their organizations who should want online metrics, but don't. Isn't
retail addicted to numbers of just about any kind?
Paul: Challenge is metrics to analytics to consulting. Translate it to something stakeholders would care about. Relevance.
Dr Bob: Social media is silver bullet. Something in all the metrics talk made me miss what we're shooting...
Dr Bob: Every media writer has a cheat
sheet of bloggers they use to inform coverage. Creates echoing effect.
How do all connect?
To wrapup:
Thank you to Holly, Nancy, Kelly and the whole Resource crew for doing / showing (not just telling) by including real iCitizens in the conference. For me, it was a great opportunity to be in a room with savvy marketers from truly ubiquitous consumer brands who get that this "social media" phenom has reached critical mass and is an essential part of reputation management and marketing (not just the stuff of "geeks".)
Oh, and can I say - AWESOME how many people read and recognize Advergirl. Who knew everyone from the team at Resource to an exec at Coke would haunt these pages? Love that!
Finally, in closing, I can only say one thing: let's all please come together and find examples of iCitizen impact BEYOND JEFF JARVIS! David Griner got Jarvis Bingo today when he was the first to hear the FOURTH speaker lean on the Dell Hell story.
I camped out on a sideline couch today at Resource Interactive's iCitizen symposium with Holly Davis and David Griner to watch the story of open brands unfold.
Nancy Kramer kicked off the day with our shared win: social media is now accepted by the C-suite.
But as the speakers and audience questions progressed, it became clear that despite support from CEOs and consumers alike, the bigger questions still remained: who to talk to, how to do it and what to expect.
Below, take a look at today’s agenda and a transcript of my live “Twitter coverage.” I’ve added in a few extra stories and comments as well.
But, first, it would be great to have all of you talk about this open imperative from the perspective of the people who live it and power it. If you’re looking for blog subjects over the next few days, I’d love it if you’d tackle one of these:
What brands do you find yourself routinely talking about and why?
How are the things you talk about online different than the things you talk about offline?
What are the biggest misses by companies trying out the social Web –or offending the social Web- in the last year?
What do you wish brands would do to engage you (whether that means use your ideas, reward you, inform you, etc.
Opening Remarks: Nancy Kramer—CEO and Founder, Resource Interactive
Twitter:
Glam president Nancy Kramer is kicking
off.
Visualization guy is scribbling a conversation map in real time.
Lots of Sharpie
Perfectly branded space. Every detail. Down to literally laying new carpet to match conference brand. http://tinyurl.com/6zk6y5
Seriously. Weird jokester guitar comedian singing 'thanks to the Internet' song. Totally need more coffee
iTalk: Kelly Mooney—President and CXO, Resource Interactive
Mooney asks one of the big questions we all struggle with when dissecting online trends: "how the heck did that happen?"
Would take 412.3 years to view all the material on YouTube. Don't give up, though, boys.
Thinking about idea of "share unprecendented" in the context of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED speech. Tricky. http://snurl.com/29r7i
Mooney calls Al Gore iCitizen. Opening the
conversation. Affirms Wal-Mart for accepting criticism on environmental
responsibility, too (theirs and their customers')
Talking about "love triangle." New relationship model with brand, community and consumers making up the points
Mooney says anecdotal examples are most
powerful. Not sure I agree. Can quickly be written off as exceptions,
"geeks," not rule
Ubiquitous Jaffe up next. Looking forward to hearing first hand...
Keynote: Joseph Jaffe—Author, Join the Conversation
Twitter:
CNN strategically uses iCitizens - not for authenticity or depth - but to get video / events / moments first.
Jaffe calls old way "Spray and pray" ... definitely my favorite handle for one-to-many marketing
"Targeted has become targeter." iCitizens capable of getting millions of impressions about your brand.
re: TMobile Sucks - Conversations is between 2 or more sides. W/o debate, intensity, it's just choir preaching to each other
Jaffe's called out Kodak's "winds of change" as listening and responding relevantly to what iCitizens say http://snurl.com/29rgr
Three rules = humanity, humility, & humor
"A lot of change in corporations is rogue today." Makes me think of Blue Shirt Nation's first server hidden under a desk.
Jaffe as if speaking to most agencies I've worked at says: Don't cheat in social media, you'll be found out.
Biggest risk we can take today is spending $4 million on a campaign no one notices
Retweeting @hdavis: Are you in the campaign or commitment business? Are you willing to commit to customers for life?
Jeff Jarvis, you're a powerhouse, but, really, the world needs some new examples already! (Seriously old Jeff Jarvis circa Dell Hell 05 was trotted out by no fewer than three presenters today!)
More stories:
Jaffe talked a lot about the "T-Mobile sucks" revolt. Remember the story. T-mobile claimed they own trademark on the color magenta and
issued a cease & desist letter to engadget. In response, many
bloggers displayed "T-mobile sucks" magenta badges. As ridiculous as the company was, Jaffe was also self aware that bloggers were essentially preaching to the choir ...saying the same messages again and again rather than creating new messages or engaging in real debate. Love the practical analysis.
Panel: And Community Makes Three
Adam Brown—Director, Digital Communications, The Coca-Cola Company Jan Valentic—SVP of Marketing, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Stan Joosten—Innovation Manager, Holistic Consumer Communication, Procter & Gamble
Twittering:
Couple cool things from over the break. Jim Oswald visualizing the live conversation http://snurl.com/29rv1
Doc Searls: Any question based on fear is the wrong question.
Stan: When we talk open it's a mindset,
but marketers want the 10 steps to do it. Really need to create
mindset, not follow recipe
Jan / Scotts: Always been a conversation
in our industry. Storytelling from individual to individual Neighbors,
garden clubs, hardware store.
Stan: When you have a brand that has a point of view, you have to build in
that there's a counter point of view. And build a conversation around
that. Something that we're not very good at anticipating yet. But, it's
going to happen. Have to plan for it.
Jan: There is going to be negative talk about your brand. It's what you do about it. Own up to it. Address it.
Q from audience: How are you mobilizing your staff. Adam: Step 1, get legal to sign off
To get our execs blogging we're talking about doing more manageable limited engagement. Two week topics that start a conversation, but set expectations that they'll be an end date
More stories:
Adam said that after legal signed off on getting involved in the conversation the next step was to get the executives comfortable with employees engaging social media. To do that, they started with existing, approved company spokespeople. Sounds kind of scary, right? A PR person on myspace...
But, Adam's group went farther. Hand selected spokespeople who would both be comfortable with the medium and uniquely close to whatever culture or issues needed response. Plus, they're all getting their feet wet with their own blogs, social accounts, etc.
Marsha Collier—Author, over 15 books on eBay
Twittering:
Salads with flowers and Marsha Collier talking eBay... it's an iCitizen lunch
I'm an iCitizen and i'm not in my 20s. In fact i have a daughter in her 20s
For the people who read my books, i'm a gateway drug to the internet
I would never work for eBay because someone would tell me what i could say. It's about integrity.
Hard for you to hear, but not everyone is on the internet
Some people tweet too much. Hmmm. Feeling a hint of personal relevance
Keynote: Duncan Watts—Principal Research Scientist, Yahoo! Research
One in ten Americans tells the other 9 how to vote, where to eat, what to buy (Keller and Berry, 2003)
Wonderful American story, we have super heroes and free lunches
Every day every hipster has to get out of bed & decide what faded retro t-shirt to wear and most of the time no one cares. Why did hush puppies take off and other hipster picks didn't? Not simple formula of cause and effect.
Multiplier effect isn't one holy grail opinion leader, it's many relationships and influence-able groups
"Unpredictability only increasing." Some in room clearly uncomfortable. Looking for actionable advice, not worst fears!
Great Duncan point -
measurable ROI happens way before rapid viral. Set expectations for
success vs. tipping point.
Tsk. Tsk. Reference to Ohio "cow tipping" - doesn't match up with vibrant, cultural Columbus
Distracted by Jim Oswald's visualizing of conversation .. sort of cross between sharpie stenography and graffiti tagging
Retweeting @jaffejuice: New Yahoo research has central hypothesis: people assume more in common with their friends than actually exists...
Great audience Q: How will we define friend when we're connected to so many people?
More Yahoo development - how to differentiate types of ties on FB. Better view of relevant social networks... Overlapping networks of real friends and strangers with overlapping interests. Different relevant networks for different questions
More stories
The most important thing is getting extremely good at understanding what's already happening and moving resources to take advantage ... Take the Gap. Every season they put out several colors of T-Shirts. When they find out that the orange one is selling like crazy, they don't ask why orange, they move resources to quickly put out more orange.
iTalk: Steve Knox—CEO, Tremor (WOM at P&G)
Twittering:
Man after my own heart, reason most WOM fails is that the message isn't simple. When we talk to our friends, we want simple
Buzz marketing is danger zone. Office Max made 100 million elves, but same store sales dropped 7%
Whole industry is built backwards. Lots of people want to build you a viral video, throw them out of your office
If it isn't a disruptive message attached to the foundation of the brand, it's just more elves
All of our data about real advocacy today is face-to-face conversations, not online
Lots of talk of tampons
More from Steve:
What's the right message? There are two factors:
Advocacy: Do I care enough about your brand to talk about it?
Amplification: Have you made it easy for me to talk about?
#2 is where most WOM dies. Message needs to be simple. The things you talk about with your friends are always simple.
Panel: What Consumers Can Do Sam Decker—CMO, Bazaarvoice Tim Smith—Chief Strategy Officer, Lemonade, Inc. Manish Chandra—CEO, Kaboodle Adam Weinroth—Director of Product Marketing, Pluck
Twitter:
Manish: We measure velocity of engagement by the volume of products being added, volume recently added, & traffic back to site
Pluck: How many people who come to your site do something social … rate of contribution is a key metric
Sam: “Start metrics with the P&L, where it’s important to CEO, move out from there.” Really?
Tom: Lemonade users are highly sophisticated. Using stands as side business. Have high expectation, low patience.
Adoption has really been fast paced. Only a few years ago, I’d be in a meeting and first Q was: what is a blog??
Adam: Reward not just quantity but content. Elevate / spotlight their voice.
Manish: Sweepstakes / campaigns incent specific behaviors vs. ongoing rewards that can become negative to site
Manish: Lifestyle shopping is much more discovery and emotionally oriented. Comparing handbags is much different than cameras.
iTalk: Tom Venable—EVP, InnoCentive
Twitter:
Innocentive clients are reaching out to creative minds to fast-track R&D and product development
Natural problem solvers want to create solutions. Open innovation. Awarding winning solutions. (Sample prizes: Asari X, DARP)
There are a finite number of resources in your company. They're smart, know your
industry, but they’re finite. There are millions of other people who could help
Generation coming up now is going to find a way to make a living on their own terms, using the Web
Humana currently has a challenge out to identify ways to improve healthcare in the U.S. 2000 solvers responding
Other end of spectrum, statistical methods for software something-something
Ah ha moment is when you realize how many projects are stuck in the pipeline w/ no R&D budget to solve
Other notes:
Great examples of the Innocentive model:
Concrete guy solves decades old oil problem:
20 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was stil a lot of oil on the ocean floor. The problem was that Exxon couldn’t figure out how to separate frozen oil from water. So, they worked with Innocentive to put out an open call for a solution.
An Illinois chemists from the concrete industry saw the problem and quickly scribbled an idea on the back of a napkin. He sent that scan in with a half-page write up about a certain kind of oscillator working at s certain speed and solved the problem Exxon had been wrestling with for 20 years. Their engineers had a conference call with the chemist to discuss and "you could hear the collective duh!"
Hippie keeps $100 million of product on the market
Another client needed to replace an art restoration chemical that was being phased out by EPA. They couldn't find a solution internally and were about to pull $100 million of product to stay in compliance.
They farmed the problem out over the same network and a 20 year old chemist who used tie die t-shirts at the kitchen table with his mother applied that their color preserving solution to the art restoration chemical and saved the product.
One thing I love about how Tom described "how to make it work." You have to change your perceived career role / value from problem solver to solution finder.
With Adver-boyfriend off following his favorite NCAA team around the country this weekend, I had time to catch up on three industry books that have been tempting me from the bedside table. This week, I'll share perspectives on each of those, starting with:
There are two schools of thought on the role of the 'expert' in consulting industries like ours: (1) it's our job to be the smartest guy in the room on our 'best at' subject or (2) it's our job to make our client feel like the smartest guy in the room.
Mooney/Rollins definitely fall in the latter. They've built a book that converges all the big ideas and groundswell of momentum around the social Web into a simple story on impact and action.
I say 'built a book' because it's the structure that agency wonks will be attracted to. A visual approach to the ideas and concepts we talk about every day (Come on, who among us hasn't taken a little real-work inspiration from one of Armano's quick sketches of clarity?), repeatable cases and solid frameworks.
For clients and newbies, it's all content.
A few of the ideas that got me scribbling notes in the margin:
After outlining the pitfalls of business-as-usual in a new medium, Mooney/Rollins lay out a New Relationship framework in simple Venn diagram fashion. The center is passion, overlapped on three sides by consumers, community and brand. I love the idea that passion is the shared quality - the opportunity to build engagement (with people, with networks, with employees). At brunch this weekend, we were talking about the phenom coup Resource's PR team pulled off: Four paragraphs about The Open Brand in this month's cover story of Fast Company. When a friend - who, I should preface, knows everything about a million things I know nothing about - asked me what Fast Company is? And, to try to describe it now ... is, stalling. But, you probably remember when it launched, in the heydey of dot.com, when we were all rethinking work and what it means to find both delight and challenge in what we do every day, and essentially finding passion in work. I like to think that ethic has found its resurgence in the social Web.
The Open Brand also has a great information graphic on the motivations of iCitizenry, plotted on a continuum of everyday to elite:
74% are motivated by competence: "I can" (use Web tools for fun, learning and efficiency)
16% by collectivism: "I connect" (connect and share with people who have similar interests)
7% by culture change: "I am" (effect change that improves companies, products or the experience of others)
3% by celebrity: "I matter" (seek recognition or some degree of fame)
In a conversation (darn, I used THAT word) that has largely been shaped by the 1% Rule and other outcome-based frameworks, it's interesting to turn to the why instead of the what.
I digress. The framework is followed by a hall-of-fame of sorts of some of the loudest voices on the Web - from Kos to the diva of Amazon.com product reviews.
Someone I follow on Twitter - maybe Jaffe - asked (more eloquently than I am recreating here) is the Web creating more amateur professionals or is it simply giving us access to more true professionals. It's an interesting question for ad bloggers, but in the largest context of the social Web, it has another dimension: are there new 'careers,' new needs for voices and approaches (like the mega reviewers) that have essentially become the foundation of everything else?
That said, I think for most marketers, the challenge isn't in understanding the outlyers. They're relatively easy to learn about with various social aggregating tools and their own self promotion. Your agency can attack those (with some degree of grace or lumbering) the way they could any other opinion leader. The challenge is understanding the common person. What the key profiles of social behavior are and how those cross-index beyond age ... with a wider swath of loyalty and offline behavior.
I'm guessing the ethnographers at Resource save that level of detail for folks willing to spend a little more than $16.95...
As the writer's strike drags on, the crowds at Blockbuster have shifted from their usual pockets around the just-released romantic comedy to loitering around the TV racks. Looking to pick up a new show. To find the House or Lost they may have missed when their DVRs were ... well, not barren wastelands of Ugly Betty reruns.
While ringing up my four episodes of Heros, the local manager started yapping about how popular the TV DVDs had been in recent months - not just for the writer's strikes, but because many of his customers were opting to wait for the full season discs rather than deal with the suspense of waiting from week to week. They don't like the emotional implications of having to wait to find out what happens.
When we talk about how technology has evolved the culture - making us more demanding, more impatient, shorter-tempered - it's easiest to point to the obvious incarnations. The 3-second rule on the Web, toes tapping in 3-person deep lines at Target, etc.
But, this observation rang as particularly interesting to me - the idea that the Now Culture has touched even our ability to appreciate traditional creative devices. Suspense is no longer exciting, it's unnecessarily delaying gratification. We're reading the last page of Harry Potter halfway through the first chapter. And, watching an entire season of serial programming in one marathon sitting.
From an advertising standpoint, it may mean that more easily resolved programs like House or Law and Order may be the best venues to communicate with passionate fans during the original broadcast. Or, that cliffhanger spots with a CTA to visit the Web site will become every more effective. And, it definitely means that I'll be chatting up more store managers to find out what weird things we're all up to out in the world...
Lots of news for multi-channel retailers out this quarter. JCP.com launched a 'know before you go' campaign that directly speaks to online pre-shoppers. Brookstone launched a true virtual store online - one with all of the sense of discovery and maddening inconvenience of a real-live shopping trip.
Barnes and Noble launched a site intended to bring the local store experience online, while Whole Foods finally got in the Web experience game with a holiday planning site aimed at sending you in-store, list in-hand.
And, new research out claims that one in three Americans will shop more online this holiday season (over last) even as they indite online retailers for shoddy customer experiences. Cyber Monday sales alone were up 21% off the same day last year.
It seems that we're reaching another key critical decision time for retailers.
What do you want your brand experience to be tied to? Your flawed local store or your impersonal national warehouse? What does ideal convenience really look like for today's shopper?
The options are much broader than the current big three:
Buy online
Pre-order online, buy in-store
Browse online, buy in-store
One of my favorite options re-invigorates high-touch service and another turns shopping on its head...
Neighborhood store: One of my most-despised words in the press right now is 'the new urbanism.' Essentially, walkable amenities moved to the traditionally housing-rich suburbs. The ethic behind it is one of neighborhood-ism. Of being part of something 'smaller' with access to all the conveniences of 'bigger.' That same ethic could create a resurgence of personal deliveries. Customers check product availability online. If the product is at their local store, they can choose to an open time for a same-day local delivery to their home or office. Trust me, if the Mentos intern can do it, so can Best Buy.
Virtual-real store: I'm sure you've seen this concept store created by IconNicholson. It's this incredible 'social retailing' concept that's a combination physical dressing room with online social tools that enable idea sharing, remote recommendations and more.
Remote personal shopper:66 percent of shoppers said they would be more willing to buy online if every purchase was guaranteed. So thinking about the concept of guaranteed, what if we brought the trusted recommendation of a favorite sales associate online. Higher-end brands, like Nordstrom, could offer a free (likely even a paid) consultation with a sales associate. The associate would profile the customer, understand their preferences, shop the store with them. Then, via IM or phone, that associate could make Web-purchasing recommendations to the customer over time - becoming a virtual private shopper and an essential guarantee of satisfaction.
There are hundreds or permutations ... but the core question is: Do you want your customers to interact with your brand in a vacuum? Or will you leverage the local store for all it's worth...
Before America's ad writers go on strike from this Web site, I should probably say that I'm kidding about no one reading copy, but, check out this game changing stat of the moment:
8 in 10 Internet users also do some offline activity while online
They shift focus, blur focus, multitask.
Their attention is widely divided from Ugly Betty to the latest Jodi Picoult pageturner to your client's Web site.
Seeing the big numbers is great reminder of just how important the experience is online. Of how important it is to concept the visit upfront, long before copy is written or a pixel is placed.
It's that time of year again. Brightly colored leaves crunch underfoot. Pumpkins with punched Mr. Potato Head faces decorate the neighborhood porches. And, your clients are calling with budget demands - what should I do next year? Oh, and I need to know by this afternoon.
Well, help is on the way. Here is the one piece of advice every client needs to hear in 2008: If you don't back up every broadcast and print campaign with a personal, relevant online experience, you're wasting your money.
Here's why: Consumer shopping behavior has fundamentally shifted. Trial no longer starts in-store. It has moved online.
That makes the barrier at once lower and longer. (And gives the traditional ad agency both more control and more responsibility) Here's how it works:
While most consumers don’t choose to buy online, the vast do majority go online to ‘pre-shop’ for products and information. Before we undertake any in-person shopping, we want to “try on” brands online to see if they fit with our complex choice models of price, perception, and utility. That means pre-shopping product catalogs, readings reviews, comparing prices, etc.
From there, we head into stores with a more educated perspective and spend more than our offline-only counterparts:
89 percent of consumers shop for information about products online
Less than 7 percent of retail sales actually take place online
Online pre-shoppers spend an average of 41 percent more in-store compared with consumers not exposed to online advertising
Forget bacn, microtrends, twittering and the other trial phrases of the moment, this article-opener from the New York Times has to be the newest addition to our shared vernacular:
"New Social Sites Cater to People of a Certain Age"
Older people are sticky.
That is the latest view from Silicon Valley. Technology investors and
entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are
starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and graying
computer users.
Recently 21.3% of consumers reported agreeing or strongly agreeing with the statement,
"I am making a sustained effort to eat healthy at restaurants"
Never fear. Product marketers at Wendys know how to sway those health nuts: Six strips of hickory smoked bacon on top of a half-pound of never-frozen beef. The Baconator. Now in a restaurant near you.
This capped off their new belt-busting line featuring: the Triple Stack cheeseburger and the Steakhouse Double-Melt cheeseburger.
(You think I'm kidding, but this is the actual menu)
Ok, last item (of course): Procrastination (and, oddly, this is the most interesting item in the bunch):
A new ScanAlert study has found that online shoppers delay on average 34 hours and 19 minutes from the time they first click to an ecommerce site and when they finally buy something there.
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