Horizoneering-Issue-July-7-2015.pdf

HORIZONEERINGTM Where insight meets foresight

Fortnightly trend-scoping review curated by Shobha Ponnappa

A collation of breakthrough ideas from the digital leading edge

FOR STARTER BRANDS

Issue: July 7, 2015

FOR YOUNG BRANDS

FOR GROWING BRANDS

FOR STABILIZED BRANDS

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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE

TOPICS OF INTEREST TO STARTER BRANDS: (e.g. Brand Strategy, Positioning, Websites & Blogs, Ecommerce) BloomThat: 3 Reasons Why One Blossoming Startup Is Imploding A $26.6 Billion Industry 3 Consumer Loyalty And Online and Offline Shopping Preferences: Nielsens New Survey Findings 4 The Hypnotic Effect Of Parallax Scrolling Websites And How They Impact User Experience 5 TOPICS OF INTEREST TO YOUNG BRANDS: (e.g. Content Marketing, Email Marketing, SEO, Digital Marcom) Secret Strategy of Burger King's Black Burgers in Japan: A Way Out OF A Slim Ad Budget! 6 How Biskrem Created The Ultimate Instagram Adventure Social Marketing Campaign 7 Googles Swift Response When Its Photos App Unintentionally Tagged 2 People As Gorillas! 8 TOPICS OF INTEREST TO GROWING BRANDS: (e.g. Mobile Marketing, Marketing Automation, Geo-Targeting) Smigin Is A Foreign Language Tool That Doesnt Make You Sound Like A Tourist But Like A True Native 9 Perceptions Of Consumer Privacy In The Internet Of Things: Altimeters Report Is An Eye-Opener 10 Getting A Mobile Users Location As A Means To Affect His Intent Is The Goal Of Proximity Marketing 11 TOPICS OF INTEREST TO STABILIZED BRANDS: (e.g. ROI, Loyalty, Advocacy, CRM, CSR, Market Domination) Kraft Foods Secret Of Content Marketing ROI Beckons A Relook: Their Concepts Are Replicable 12 Unlock The Mysteries Of Your Customer Relationships With Relational Intelligence 13 Share-Of-Voice Increases Share-Of-Market: So Old Advertising Still Works For The Leading Brands! 14

For one Silicon Valley startup, their mobile app is not just providing a competitive advantage its turning upside-down a $26.6 billion industry, largely controlled by three widely familiar giants. With their creative, revolutionary business model, BloomThat is creating a customer experience that makes buying flowers convenient, less frustrating, and, above all, easy. In the beginning, BloomThats founders made a hobby out of constructing bouquets in their backyards. Over time, this pastime became an opportunity to strip the trepidation and confusion out of picking the right flowers and having them delivered as fast as 90 minutes. To provide such an experience, these three friends looked no further than they own romantic relationships. There was no place to buy flowers [at the end of my workday]. That definitely led us thinking why cant I do this on my own time? BloomThat curates six to nine options on an iOS app and its e-commerce site, covering a range of styles and price points and offering on-demand delivery in an industry where speed and convenience are not often seen as a necessity. BloomThats ability to infuse these two attributes into the entire buying process are convincing shoppers to order on average 11 bouquets in a 12-month time, where the industry average is 2.5. Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/bloomthat-3-reasons-why-one-blossoming-startup-is-imploding-a-26-6-billion-industry-01264085

BloomThat: 3 Reasons Why One

Blossoming Startup Is

Imploding A $26.6 Billion Industry

KEY TAKEOUT: Some of the best brand propositions come from exploring our own lives. The secret sauce, as in this case, is to identify pain points in our lives and make the solution to that the big idea, the new brand proposition. But in doing this, the important thing is to see what would happen if the business should scale. Will speed and convenience still be viable for BloomThat as a proposition for a business that becomes unwieldy as it gets larger? Brands often make the mistake of thinking their promise today will be the right for the brand forever. Re-relevance the promise to ensure it is always on target, not just to keep pace with consumers, but your own growth.

A BLOOMING BUSINESS CAN START

WITH YOUR OWN PROBLEM.

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Grocery stores are evolving, both in-store and online, giving consumers more shopping choices than ever before. As a result, protecting and building store loyalty is no easy task. To keep customers coming back for more, you need to know what drives them to switch from online to offline shopping, or from one store to another. A recent Nielsen global survey of 30,000 online respondents in 60 countries shows that price is the top driver of store switching behavior - and by a wide margin. Globally, 68% say price, followed by product quality (55%) are store-switching motivators. Other motivators include convenience (46%), special promotions (45%), cleanliness (39%), selection/assortment (36%) and store staff (27%). Understanding what consumers are buying both on and offline allows you to prioritize digital initiatives and take action with the categories that drive in-store trip count and basket size. Nielsens research identified factors that help determine which brands are best poised for e-commerce success. Stock-up brands like personal care and household products are prime selections for e-commerce inventory, while immediate use items like fresh and frozen foods, condiments and beverages will be slower in adoption. However, there is huge online opportunity in niche consumer segments, especially in the healthy eating space and other categories that may be more difficult to find on in-store shelves. Read more at: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2015/the-future-of-grocery.html

Consumer Loyalty and Online and

Offline Shopping Preferences:

Nielsens New Survey Findings

KEY TAKEOUT: There are many models of ecommerce, including the order-online-and-get-home-delivery-model, or the order-online-and-pick-up-in-store model. Retail brands need to be aware of what kinds of products are being preferred by buyers for home-delivery versus in-store pick up. This is a churning situation and seems to vary a lot by geography too. At the same time store-loyalty too is shifting at speed as a factor of price, quality and convenience. Local buying patterns need careful and assiduous tracking because food brands, especially in the new niche segments, seem to be challenging previous shopping preference notions.

CUSTOMERS LOYALTY TO STORES ... AND

WHEN THEY PREFER HOME-DELIVERY

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Parallax scrolling has become increasingly popular in web page design. Pages that employ it often create an impression of action through clever techniques that utilize page depth, animation, and movement. Owing its beginnings to the multiplane camera technique developed by early animators in the 1940s, parallax scrolling was first popularized in the 1980s as a way to add depth in 2D video games. These days though, you mostly hear about parallax scrolling as a way to improve user experience in web design. It works by having the foreground and background move at different speeds while the user is scrolling. This creates a hypnotic animated effect that can impress, engage, and direct the viewers attention toward whatever you desire. This can be extremely effective when attempting to draw attention to on-page calls to action, and parallax scrolling gives web designers an unprecedented amount of control over the flow of user experience. By having images enter, intertwine, and exit as the visitor scrolls, youre able to create a visual narrative, giving your website a certain storytelling quality that can lull your visitors into a trance. But remember that the trade-off is in slow loading speed, poor SEO and difficult mobile rendering. Thats one of the prime reasons why parallax scrolling websites have to be minimalistic in content. Less content isnt just fashionable, its an imperative. Read more at: https://uxmag.com/articles/the-hypnotic-effect-of-parallax-scrolling-and-how-it-impacts-user-experience

The Hypnotic Effect Of Parallax Scrolling Websites

And How They Impact User Experience

KEY TAKEOUT: The parallax scrolling website seems here to stay at least for a while. But what strikes one is the veritable sameness of most sites we see. There is invariably the big opening image, the classic link to the menu represented by three lines, some super-large links to social sites, a standard three column pricing table, and footer content thats almost predictable from site to site. Its time for some real innovation, and less of a templatized look. Parallax scrolling sites are still a bit new to site designers, so the tendency of most brands is to retro-fit their content to the available templates instead of using site design to suit the brand. Thats not okay, folks you know it!

PARALLAX SCROLLING SITES CAN DRAW YOU IN BUT THEY ALSO HAVE DRAWBACKS.

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Burger King Japan keeps coming out with bizarrely-colored burgers. First, the chain released two all-black burgers last September with black buns, black cheese, and black sauce. Now, Burger King is selling a bright red burger dyed with tomato powder and a brand new black burger with deep-fried eggplant. The burgers look pretty unappetizing in real life. But they aren't meant to replace the Whopper. The sandwiches are instead a marketing scheme meant to offset the company's slim ad budget in Japan. Burger King Japan's marketing team, including research and development, is comprised of just five people. And the chain is struggling to compete with much bigger rivals in the region, such as McDonald's. Burger King has fewer than 93 restaurants in Japan, while McDonald's has about 3,000, by comparison. Burger King's strategy to get attention seems to be working. Nearly every major media organization in the US and Japan, including Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, Time, Forbes, and The Japan Times has written stories about Burger King's oddly-colored burgers in Japan. Best of all, customers have been posting hundreds of photos of the burgers online! Read more at: http://www.businessinsider.in/The-secret-strategy-behind-Burger-Kings-black-burgers-in-Japan/articleshow/47917893.cms

Secret Strategy Of Burger King's

Black Burgers in Japan: A Way Out

Of A Slim Ad Budget!

KEY TAKEOUT: There are two lessons in this intriguing article for brand marketers. One, most food brands would have balked at playing the fool with their key product with such an insane idea. But it does show some brand guts and as we all know, courage increases as budget decreases, and desperation sets in. Two, this is a tremendous test case about whether content that goes madly viral will actually result also in great sales. Has all this interest been created to increase the appetite for sharing and decrease the appetite for buying and eating? And finally, what of the great advertising dictum that food colours should always be edible looking? Gone with the wind!

MAKE IT ANY COLOR. IT HAS TO GRAB THE TASTEBUDS VIA THE SOCIAL EYEBALLS.

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What if Instagram turned into your new favorite (and addictive) adventure game? How can a brand boost its presence through a fun, and social game? Dont look any further, Biskrem, a Turkish biscuit brand, came up with an amazing idea on how to engage with the audience through Instagram in the most creative way! Biskrem created a unique Instagram game that combines the story of the brand with a fun way to stay engaged while playing. According to their Instagram Adventure, you are asked to replace the inventor of Biskrem, trying to save the brands future by overcoming any possible obstacle. Just like that, you are directed to a whole new world right on your favorite app, untangling through every possible spot, even in ways that you didnt imagine! Whats impressive is that Instagram Adventure combines all the elements of Instagram (photo, video, map, tagging, search, and direct messages), in order to entice the users to be creative and find the solution to the problems. There is a story and a journey that users are asked to follow, with all the Instagram elements blending with each other. From secret rooms, to passwords that need to be broken and answers that are found through the search box, Biskrem managed to master the Instagram dynamics, while promoting the image of their brand and looking for a new inventor! Read more at: http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/social-media-marketing/biskrem-created-ultimate-instagram-adventure-social-marketing-campaign/

How Biskrem Created The

Ultimate Instagram Adventure Social

Marketing Campaign

KEY TAKEOUT: Sometimes you have to look at the brand promise for ideas on how to extend the one concept simultaneously across diverse delivery channels and formats. At other times, you have to look at a specific channel, and its set of available features, and you have build an exclusive brand idea for that channel using the channels native strengths and the brand promise in an interesting but non-extendable way. This Biskrem use of Instagram and all feature set was an excellent idea - although its not replicable across other channels. Still, the trade off is worth it, if the idea is so brilliant that it achieves something entirely unique with the channel and the brand.

A BISCUIT BRAND IN TURKEY CREATES AN AMAZING INSTAGRAM

ADVENTURE.

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Googles new Photos service, which uses machine learning to automatically tag photos, made a huge miscalculation recently when it automatically tagged two African-Americans as "gorillas." Developers at Google immediately apologized for the gaffe and then worked to fix the apps database . The user in question, computer programmer Jacky Alcin , reported the problem via Twitter when he found that Google Photos had created an album labeled "gorillas" that exclusively featured photos of him and his African-American friend. Within less than two hours, Google chief social architect Yonatan Zunger had addressed Alcin's tweets and started to investigate the issue:. Facial recognition technology, which involves training computer programs to recognize objects based on databases of images, has caused issues for other services before. Flickrs image-tagging mechanism, for example, recently identified an African-American male and a white woman wearing face paint as "apes" and "animals. One of the biggest problems companies like Yahoo (Flickr's parent) and Google face is the fact that image recognition systems are only as good as the training data they provide and the algorithms they use, both of which are in their early stages of evolution. Read more at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3048093/fast-feed/holy-fk-when-facial-recognition-algorithms-go-wrong

Googles Swift Response When Its Photos App Unintentionally

Tagged 2 People As Gorillas!

KEY TAKEOUT: Beware of using technology that produces results dynamically (on-the-fly) and allows no opportunity for brands to see results before publishing. There are two lessons here, as exemplified in this funny but scary story: One, never let your brand get into too much experimental technology just to be different or ahead of the race. Sometimes the results of reckless pursuit of the latest can be too high a price to pay. Two, if such a mistake happens its better to be humble, apologize upfront, encourage people to see the humour in the situation, and respond with grace and a visible recovery of control. Use the situation to act commendably to re-earn trust.

WHEN FACIAL RECOGNITION

ALGORITHMS GO HORRIBLY WRONG.

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If youve ever tried to learn a foreign language, you probably know that most existing methods focus on aspects of the language that arent very helpful in everyday life. For example, newcomers to a language are often first taught the names of animals or colors, words that arent normally applicable to the common traveler. Smigin aims to fix this problem with its app that allows travelers to build and hear common phrases spoken by a native speaker. The apps Phrasebuilder consists of a three-column interface where users can combine actions and nouns, letting them create tens of thousands of different sentences on the fly. Smigin recently released a total overhaul which for the first time introduces a monetization strategy for the year-old company. The app now categorizes phrasebooks within each language by popular sections like cafes, bars, and shopping. The app currently supports translation in Italian, Portuguese, English, Spanish, and French. The company said more languages are in the works including Swedish, Filipino, German, and Haitian Creole. Smigin now has almost 90,000 downloads across 175 countries, and has raised about $200,000 in seed funding. Read more at: http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/02/smigin-is-a-foreign-language-tool-that-doesnt-make-you-sound-like-a-tourist/

Smigin Is a Foreign Language Tool That Doesnt Make You Sound Like A Tourist But Like A True Native

KEY TAKEOUT: This mobile app lends ideas for a number of cross-geography brands to maybe create their own brand-related multi-ethnic Phrasebuilders? The importance of this app is not just foreign-language learning but it especially makes sense if within a geography there exist many different spoken dialects that need to be mastered to get across. If the app is geo-targeted with the exact dialect of the region being visited, it would be a tourism hit. And finally with so many outsource workers needing to find their feet in strange foreign places of temporary work, the app could be a boon. This is about getting very local in lingo, when getting globally mobile.

AN APP THAT HEARS NATIVES SPEAK TO

TEACH YOU A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

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The digitalization of our physical worldwhat many are now calling the Internet of Thingsis challenging our expectations of privacy. Adding sensors to ourselves, and to the objects and places around us, renders our physical world communicable, contextual, and trackable. The full implications of ubiquitous connectivity cant be fully understood or foreseen-- by the industry driving it, never mind the end users assumed to adopt it. Altimeter Group conducted a survey of 2,062 American consumers to ascertain consumer perceptions of privacy around the Internet of Things. This report summarizes findings and insights from this data in an effort to address the unprecedented implication and challenge of the Internet of Things: privacy. Consumers are decidedly anxious about the use and sales of their data, especially in physical environments; At least half of consumers surveyed express extreme discomfort with the use and sale of their data across all realms, from their bodies to public spaces, and everywhere in between. There is a massive gulf between consumer awareness and industry practices when it comes to privacy, one which businesses that wish to effectively apply sensors to their consumer-facing programs must address immediately. The findings of this study, however, reveal more than a concerned citizenry, they reveal tremendous opportunities for companies to foster more trusted customer relationships. Read more at: http://www.altimetergroup.com/2015/06/new-report-consumer-perceptions-of-privacy-in-the-internet-of-things/

Perceptions Of Consumer

Privacy In The Internet Of Things: Altimeters Report Is An Eye-Opener

KEY TAKEOUT: Sometimes you have to wonder if under the name of customer nurturing, marketing automation and geo-targeting theres way too much silent spying and lead-tracking going on behind a customers back enough to make him feel a sense of personal invasion and even at times, uncomfortably disgusted. Brands have to perceive that theres a very fine red line that should never be crossed, and too much of tagging and tailing with the intent of pre-emptive nurturing can be counterproductive. Content marketing is trying so hard to be non-advertising because we overdid things and created consumer distrust. Are we doing it again with invasion of privacy?

KNOWING YOUR CONSUMER IS OKAY. KNOWING TOO MUCH

IS NOT OKAY.

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Proximity Marketing is already consuming a lot of brand marketers interest and the big questions are about which technology is best for this. Many different technologies are being experimented with in the Proximity Marketing drive, and different industry verticals are expected to use these technologies differently. Beacons are one of the big stories in mobile technology and targeting of advertising based on location. What is a beacon? Heres an example: if a consumer is standing next to a display of Android smartphones in a Best Buy, a beacon can tap his or her phone and send a relevant offer targeted to a specific Android brand. Many advertising networks are incorporating iBeacons and Wi-Fi beacons into their network modeling. Latitude-Longitude data is expected to be used to drive CPMs up in the marketplace. While some major brands have already begun experimenting with beacons, many more retailers are set to use Bluetooth-enabled technology to offer customized deals and personalized messages to consumers. Other retailers are also beginning to pay attention to enabling interactions via radio waves. Push notifications are also poised to rise even more in 2015, as they enable marketers to send messages including directions to the nearest bricks-and-mortar store, interactive creative and prompts to visit a brands mobile application. Technology preferences seem dictated by whether they have the twin ability to dynamically gather consumer intelligence and deliver relevant, targeted information. Read more at: http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/classic-guides/19468.html

Getting A Mobile Users Location As A Means To Affect His Intent Is The

Goal Of Proximity Marketing

KEY TAKEOUT: To my mind the best form of Proximity Marketing via mobile would be the pre-emptive competitive strike. Take two examples of this: One, a consumer considering handing over his clothes for ironing at a new laundry may get a Why have you forgotten us? message from his old laundry with a discount coupon just as he is about to enter the competitors doorway. Two, knowing a consumer is rummaging through a book store a local theatre may just pop two tickets at him via his phone saying their latest movie release may be a better way to spend the evening than reading books. Proximity can work both for directing a customer, or for re-directing!

MOBILE MARKETERS OUTLOOK 2015 TALKS OF GREATER FOCUS

ON PROXIMITY

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Kraft has a unique and very interesting point of view on content ROI. The company sees content as not just being able to create value, but it measures ROI and ties it to its overall business objectives of greater consumer learning. Not an easy task. And not one that has come quickly: 18 years ago the company started its publishing strategy. Kraft very clearly does not see content as a means to simply generate some engagement, but to understand customers based on their interactions with content. The content marketing program is treated as a 'scaled learning engine', that helps the company understand its considerable audience as a whole, but more importantly, as individuals. The company that delivers 1bn interactions a year (and has 98% product penetration into US households) says that it uses content to address individuals NOT segments. The team at Kraft tag and track more than 22,000 different attributes of their audience based on their behaviour and engagement with web content. With 100m annual visitors to its web properties, this has necessitated the integration of its content and data management platforms. Content marketing yields first party data that is yours (free to own and analyse) and accurate (not based on extrapolated, external datasets). Mining content consumption data also gives real-time insight to deliver content that matches audience needs and wants. Read more at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/65472-kraft-foods-reveals-the-secret-of-content-marketing-roi/

Kraft Foods Secret Of Content

Marketing ROI Beckons A Relook:

Their Concepts Are Replicable

KEY TAKEOUT: The Kraft way of determining the success of a marketing campaign seems to be about not stopping at numbers like ROI for their own sake, but to look at content ROI as the measure of customer learning achieved during engagement. This view of numbers makes it an eminently replicable model both for small and large brands. The scale at which Kraft is achieving all this is awesome, no doubt. But the idea is terrific because no matter whether your ROI numbers are in the red or the black, its the learnings that need to be in the black to justify the next marketing budget. There are many ways to justify campaigns and the Kraft idea does make a new case.

KRAFT USES CONTENT ROI NOT JUST FOR ENGAGEMENT BUT

FOR INSIGHTS

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HBR says that despite a lot of CRM-driving data, people now expect companies to understand what type of relationships they want and to respond appropriately - they want firms to hold up their end of a silent and latent expectation which they see as a bargain. Unfortunately, many brands dont decode and meet those expectations. Despite the R in CRM and the $11 billion spent on CRM software annually, many companies dont understand customer relationships at all. They lack relational intelligencethat is, they arent aware of the variety of relationships customers can expect to have with a firm and dont know how to reinforce or change those connections. As an example: a clothing brand popular with plus-size baby boomer women tries to reposition itself as relevant to younger, thinner customers and in so doing alienates established customers, who feel betrayed and disrespectedas though theyve been dumped for someone more attractive. The clothing company doesnt understand that it is undermining its intimate relationships with the customers who had the deepest connection to the brand. HBRs research across countries, industries and products has identified nearly 29 types of consumer expectations. Loyalty eventually seems to hinge on expectation-management. Read more at: https://hbr.org/2014/07/unlock-the-mysteries-of-your-customer-relationships

Unlock The Mysteries Of Your

Customer Relationships With

Relational Intelligence

KEY TAKEOUT: We may all have come across this fallow-phase in our own lives as consumers and yet, as marketers, we may have failed to read into its significance. Havent we all seen that even after a completely satisfactory purchase of a good product, with good attention by the brand and its company, there comes a stage when we almost automatically look afresh for new brands to satisfy our next purchase experiences? Why does this happen? Some of the answers to this phenomenon could be explained by this HBR insight on CRM-data being too cold and dry to fathom emotional expectations. Unmet emotional needs could be read by consumers as insults or neglect.

HBR POSITS THAT MERELY WATCHING

CRM DATA MAY HIDE CUSTOMER FEELINGS.

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Nielsens latest research into Share-of-Voice holds many interesting thoughts to think about. Most small and large companies are indeed trimming ad budgets, because of the explosion of consumer-generated media, whereby traditional advertiser-led media outlets are less trusted by consumers. Recommendations by personal acquaintances and consumer opinions posted online are now the most trusted forms of advertising globally. However, advertisers will be encouraged to learn that brand websites - the most trusted form of advertiser-led advertising - are still trusted by as many people as online consumer opinions. A brand whose share of voice (SOV) is greater than its share of market (SOM) is more likely to gain market share, according to Nielsen. Excess share of voice (ESOV = SOV - SOM) is an important contributor to the level of growth. Brand size and life cycle stage also played a role in the analysis. To quantify just how much market share grows when advertisers increase their SOV, 123 brands were analyzed, across 30 different categories of typical advertising (i.e., not award-winning campaigns). On average, a 10 point difference between SOV and SOM was found to lead to 0.5% of extra market share growth. Therefore, a brand with a market share of 20.5% with an ESOV of 10 points would grow to 21% market share over a year. The degree to which SOV affects SOM also depends apparently on brand size, life cycle stage, newness and campaign quality. Read more at: http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2009/budgeting-for-the-upturn-does-share-of-voice-matter.html

Share-Of-Voice Increases Share-

Of-Market: So Old Advertising Still Works For The Leading Brands

KEY TAKEOUT: Many small and big brands have been quick to pare down advertising budgets, seeing them as a waste of resources in times of users trusting other users more than they trust brand messages. But research shows there is still value in spending the dollars in favour of Share-Of-Voice advertising, because it still affects Share-of-Market. Brand leaders, though, achieved 1.4% of share growth per 10% of ESOV, compared to 0.4% for challenger brands. So challengers needs to be at least 3.5 times as effective as leaders to level the playing field. Challenger brands will have to gain more from exploring alternative non-advertising-based approaches!

DESPITE BACKLASH AGAINST SALES-Y ADS, SHARE-OF-

VOICE STILL MATTERS

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SHOBHA PONNAPPA Consulting in Digital Marketing Breakthroughs Email: [email protected] Mobile (India): +91 9840 957 898 Mobile (London): +44 7597 669 694 Skype: shobhaponnappa Website: http://shobhaponnappa.com/ Follow me: Twitter Facebook Google+ LinkedIn Slideshare Pinterest Instagram YouTube StumbleUpon RSS

Copyright 2015. Shobha Ponnappa. All rights reserved.

This HORIZONEERINGTM fortnightly trend-scoping review is a Digital Marketing Advocacy initiative by: