8 posts tagged Marketing
Recently, Canada’s beloved Tim Horton’s annouced that it was going to redesign some of its branches to be more chic - offering higher end coffees, wi-fi and better showcasing the making of their food (http://goo.gl/uIFdl). Their reason for doing this is to increase sales and expand into the growing gourmet coffee segment. I can’t help but feel that this is a disaster in the making.
Branding is dead again, didn’t you hear? I think it has died at least five or six times over the last 3 years - if you believe the blog posts that is. However, don’t feel as if you have to grieve over branding’s passing - it has plenty of company:
I have no idea how we do it. How can we sleep at night knowing that there are so many killers on the loose: iPhone killers, Windows killers, Google killers, Twitter killers, Facebook killers and other murderous types hiding around the corner. Everyday, or at least that’s how it feels, I read at least one article about how something will kill something else. Just a few months ago, I read how the iPad would kill the Kindle. Yet, I bought a Kindle just recently with no mention made of its pending doom - at least to me (though feel free to let me know if I should buy it life insurance). What I can’t seem to understand is why every product released has to kill another. You know, the market is a very big place - just go check out the breakfast cereal isle. Apparently those brands aren’t as blood thirsty. When was the last time you heard, “The new Kellog’s Vector brand cereal is a Cheerios Killer”?
Let me start off by saying that I’m a big supporter of Social Media. In fact, I’ve done my fair share in promoting its use in achieving strategic goals at the places I’ve worked. Over the last few years, I’ve defending its use and tried to shed light on its obvious potential. To my satisfaction, it seems Social Media is starting to really gain traction. Celebrities are on Twitter, companies are incorporating Social Media into their marketing strategies and my mother even joined Facebook. This is not to say everything is running smoothly in the social-sphere. There are still gaps in companies’ service blueprints that Social Media can help fill, corporate legal departments that are still wary of anything that cannot be controlled and the web-industry as a whole is having a hard time separating truly knowledgeable professionals from guru-wannabes. So it’s with all this in mind, that I find myself saying something I never thought I’d say, “Relax, it’s only Social Media”.
Recent Social Media fiascos
In the news within the last two weeks, Frito-lay dumped their “green” bags (for their Sun Chips brand) because customers on Social Media thought the bags were too noisy. They felt the bags were so noisy, in fact, that they started several Facebook pages complaining about them. Frito-Lay took note of this and have since replaced most of their bags with the older, non-green versions. (Don’t get me started on how I think this was a missed opportunity…)
In other news, The Gap recently revealed their new logo…at least for a few days. Basically, in an effort to strengthen The Gap’s soft sales, it decided to refresh their logo. However, once the new logo was revealed, designers and marketers on Social Media lit up and trashed it thoroughly. While I’ll be the first to admit that I, too, find it quite ugly, it should be known that very few people were actually aware that The Gap had changed their logo in the first place. While I could go on and on, bringing up other Social Media incidents like the Motrin-moms episode, I think you already get the point.
The power of the consumer: A shift in Porter’s
Some groups may claim victory for the power of the consumer. Others may feel that it’s time to revisit a few Porter’s Five Forces analyses. Personally, I feel that perhaps it’s time for brands to take a step back and pay attention to who is saying what. In truth, despite what many believe, content creators on Social Media, don’t necessarily represent mainstream Earth and that those on Social Media are not a perfect cross-section of any market. Furthermore, only about only a quarter of them are actually generating content. So, every time a Social Media indecent occurs, brands have to look closely and figure out whether their markets are the ones making the noise. With respect to The Gap, the noise mainly came from designers and marketers. Do they represent The Gap’s main segments? Doubtful.
If we’ve learned anything about Social Media, it’s this:
For those who haven’t heard, The Gap launched a new logo last week (by Laird+Partners). Let’s say the new logo wasn’t well received (HBR didn’t like it, nor did these folks). While the former designer in me wretched when I saw it (I think my first reaction was, “Helvetica Bold?!”) I’ve had a few sleeps to think it over and I have a new take on it: whatever.
Oh I realize that all my designer friends will rail on me once reading this, but I think, in this case, the logo really doesn’t matter. Sure, The Gap had a lot of brand equity in that logo. But what it also had was a brand that was stumbling. Compared to its sister brands, Old Navy and Banana Republic, The Gap wasn’t fairing too well. With major management shuffles within the last few years, The Gap was in need of a new direction (or at least I reckon it did). So The Gap did what so many other companies do when they are going in a new direction, waste money on a new logo.
Logo changes are just distractions
Don’t get me wrong. I am a firm believer of refreshing a logo from time to time. But I believe in evolution more than I do in revolution. (Mind you, if a brand suffers an astronomical PR disaster, I could be easily swayed.) But when a company blows a wad of cash on a new logo, the first thing I think is, “red herring”. Too many times companies don’t address their problems in the back of the house and focus way too much effort on window dressings.
Let me ask you this, how often do you love a brand of anything and are truly moved by the logo or even the brand name? For instance, I prefer Panasonic products. I’m not hot on their lack luster font or even the name Panasonic (which is, to me, only marginally better than what it used to be called, “National”). But I don’t care. My experience with their brand as a whole is enough to keep me loyal. What so many designers miss (and unfortunately many managers miss) is that the logo, really, is a small part of the brand experience. In fact, when blueprinting a service or experience, not once does the word, “logo” appear. You might see, “commercial” or “website”, but not “logo”. (Oh, and if it does… consider other work - seriously.)
People aren’t loyal to logos - they’re loyal to experiences
So coming back to The Gap. Did their old logo make you come to their stores? Did you care about the name? Or were you drawn by the image, the feel, the service in the stores? In fact, how often did the word “Gap” appear on the outside of their clothing? Unlike Nike, it was rare to see their name brand exhibited. What people are loyal to are brand experiences. People remember how they felt when interacting with a brand’s many touch-points. They remember how they were treated, they remember how their problems were solved. Not once have I heard a customer say, “My problem is that I dislike the logo on my product”.
In fact, this whole Gap-gate situation screams of New Coke, doesn’t it? So many people are screaming about how they’ll never go back into a Gap if they changed their logo, etc. Well, frankly, if this type of customer is the Gap’s current market - their logo is the least of their worries.
Pre-roll ads, those ads you see just before you view an online video, seem to be effective if you believe a recent article in Advertising Age. So it will be a very long time before we see them go away. It’s not surprising that this tactic works. Unlike banner-ads, pre-rolls are impossible to ignore - or skip. Because of this, the chances of the ad in making an impression on the user are greater. That’s not rocket science - you don’t need to be a marketer to figure that one out. However, they do enrage many users. While I don’t have any scientific data to back this up - but I would imagine that the anger probably doesn’t help motivate users to absorb advertising messages. I would dare to say that they might even instil a negative sentiment in users just prior to the ad. And if you ask me, that’s not ideal.
A snippet from my life
One day, as I was sitting at a company meeting, they handed us these little remote controls with buttons labeled one through 9 (it could of been A through I, but that’s besides the point). After the speaker finished his presentation, he quizzed the audience to see if the main points of his presentation were absorbed. “Neat”, I thought. That was pretty much it for my thinking that day, honestly. But the story gets better, swear.
A few days later, I was online trying to view a highlight video from TSN.ca about the Habs game from the night before. I was not surprised to see a pre-roll about some brand that lasted 30 seconds. I didn’t pay attention to it at all. I actually just stared at the remaining time tick down from 30, to 29… down to 0. I thought to myself, “Man, if only there was a way to skip through this”. I then got over my frustration and carried on.
A few minutes later, after I got my Habs fill, I left the TSN site. At that moment, a friend walked by. He, too, was a Habs fan and I wanted to show him the video I just viewed. I called him over and I returned to TSN.ca and was AGAIN presented with the pre-roll. I was instantly annoyed. I thought to myself, “Hello? I just saw this - why are you showing this to me again. Yes, I KNOW. Samsung. I got it. Thank you…. 10 seconds to go? *insert swear words here*”.
Enter: lightbulb, stage right.
Why pre-roll?
I thought (I do a lot of thinking as you can probably tell), what are the points of these pre-roll ads? Obviously:
All marketers want to do is have users recognize the brand they are pushing and hopefully a message as well - but let’s not get carried away here. Wouldn’t it be great if marketers could actually tell that the user either recognized the brand advertised or remembered the commercial? Wouldn’t it be great for users if they could skip the pre-roll?
A possible solution: The quiz-skip (I’m working on a better name…)
Here’s my (half-baked) idea. While the pre-roll is playing, have an overlay appear asking the user a simple question, “What brand is being advertised in this video?” (or something along those lines). If the user remembers and types the correct answer in, he benefits from skipping the video and the advertiser benefits from having a meaningful metric that a user acknowledged their brand. If the wrong answer is entered, a hint could be displayed, or different video, etc. Apart from getting information about brand recognition, other meaningful metrics could be collected as well:
The possibilities, while not endless, are plentiful.
What are your thoughts on pre-rolls? Is there any benefit to the quiz-skip?
It might be true that there is no such thing as an original idea. Everything, at one point or another, is copied from something else. Some call this inspiration, others, copyright infringement. I call it a fact of life. Yes, it completely and utterly sucks. No one likes to see their blood, sweat and tears earn others business or praise. It’s like seeing someone else take credit for your children, unconscionable.
But what is one to do?
This happened to me a couple years ago. I was going through my web logs and noticed some disproportionally high activity from one particular domain. When I visited it, to my shock, I saw my entire site, photos and all, copied by someone in the US. Not only did he steal my look and feel, CSS and Javascript, the perpetrator had the gall to hotlink to my images. You can see a side-by-side comparison of the two sites here [250K]. See if you can which one is the copy. Hint: I’m not a Mystic Warrior of Rage.
It wasn’t the first time this has happened, but it was the first time I saw my entire site lifted. Granted my site was in a web designer inspiration book, but come on!
So I did what every rational guy in my situation would do, I called him right away (long distance charges be damned, this was my baby we were talking about!). Of course, no reply. Then I e-mailed him a stern message about his violating my copyright. His reply? The site was merely an interpretation of mine, he overhauled all my “bad code” and all the images were “rightfully” obtained through Google’s image search. A few gentlemanly emails later, he agreed to take down my photos, but he wouldn’t change his code.
So, once again I did what every rational guy in my situation would do, I broke his site [220K] (scroll down for the full effect). Unfortunately, the screenshot doesn’t capture the blinking effect I placed on the image, but you get the point.
Did doing this make me feel better? Of course it did. Was it the right thing to do? I’m not certain. Am I proud of my pettiness and actions? Not particularly, but what’s done is done.
Perhaps I could of gotten the law involved. I could of Google bombed him. I could of just been flattered that he copied my work. But in the end, there’s the right thing to do, and there’s the practical thing to do. Was hiring a lawyer worth it in this case? Not really, the guy was obviously small potatoes, and wasn’t getting much business anyways - as exhibited by his lack-lustre portfolio [250K]. Was I losing revenue because of his site? No, as he was in another country altogether. Was he going to gain business from copying my site? Perhaps he could attract some interest, but he definitely lacked the talent to back it up. So I left it at that. I left his blinking, broken site as is, and moved on.
How to avoid being ripped-off
In short, you can’t. You can set up all sorts of mechanisms to protect your work. But unless you’re a large company, with an army of copyright lawyers, there’s not a whole lot you can do to avoid being ripped-off. But if you’re a small enough operation, and agile enough, there is one thing you can do:
One-up yourself regularly
Redesign your site regularly. New CSS and Javascript techniques are created every day, why not use your redesigns as platforms to display and hone your pixel-prowess? Use your redesigns to create an awareness of your talent and your ability to regularly renew yourself. By doing so, not only will you will benefit by staying at the forefront of web design, you help keep yourself relevant. Just remember this:
Talent will outpace the hacks every time.
Have you ever been ripped off? What did do about it?
Special thanks to those who helped me think about this post: Cameron Campbell, Nicolas Roberge, Kirsten Cameron, Anna Gunaratnam, Ara Pehlivanian and Debbie Rouleau
The theory goes, the more in-tune with the potential customer’s frame of mind a product offering is, the higher the probability that the offering will result in a sale. It just makes common-sense; Give a thirsty man water; Give a hungry woman a snack.
Large strides have been already made in terms of personalization through customized content. Visit Amazon.com for example (my site is on page 24 of that book by the way). If you’ve been there before and sign in, Amazon welcomes you by name, and suggests items that it thinks you’d be interested in. In the case of a hotel, go to a hotel enough times and they’ll remember little details like the fact you enjoy an extra pillow, or what your favorite daily is and provide both of them for you before you enter your room. However, let’s look at this in a different way.
Are the potential gains of creating a positive, customized user-experience worth the risk of getting it wrong from time to time?
It has been said that no two people are alike, but if we generalize enough, we can segment audiences and markets. That’s what all of marketing intelligence is about after all. Web analysts extract behaviours and wants (and hopefully demands) from the volumes of visitor data and all the other internal records at their disposal to serve as the basis of customization systems whose purposes are to make customers feel welcomed and valued. But despite everyone’s best efforts, mistakes do happen.
Consider this, Walmart, a few years ago, “recommended a film about Martin Luther King Jr. to potential buyers of a “Planet of the Apes” DVD” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10730202/). Damage control must of been in high gear that day and probably left a permanent bad taste in a few customers’ mouths. Whether or not Walmart actually lost customers over this incident is unclear. However one thing is for sure, there was bad press and it wouldn’t be far fetched to assume that even bigger hiccups than this could occur in the future.
Are there times when adapting content for users is dangerous?
Let’s put PR and hurt feelings aside for a moment. There are some cases where identifying personality-types and leveraging this knowledge could be potentially dangerous. For example, take users that can be categorized as substance-abusers or compulsive gamblers. Feeding into their tendencies, though profitable, could be detrimental to their well-beings. In fact, if adaptive systems advance even further, it might be necessary to set guidelines on how they are used to protect vulnerable consumers. And what if governments were to impose their influence on these adaptive systems? Could this be a tool for online propaganda or censorship? Could web logs incriminate users or make them political targets? To deal with these scenarios, it may be necessary for these systems to develop morals.
Customized user-experience: It’s the new black.
Despite any moral implications, customized user-experiences are here to stay, and in fact, they will become more prevalent in the years to come. Consider some other adaptive technologies in the pipeline:
