Social Media: a place to innovate

In class this week we have been discussing social media trends. It is interesting to look at the growing use in social media from the other side and evaluate how to use it effectively as a business, not just a user. We read two chapters from Groundswell over the week, which I thought were pretty insightful. Although, as a side note, it was incredibly interesting that at the time the article was written Twitter was just an emerging trend. This just goes to show that social media is an evolving field, and it is important to master the basic skills of reaching consumers through social media, because the actual social media tools are subject to change on a daily basis.  

Reading the chapters, there are many insightful tips on how to harness the power of social media. I will go through a few of the different social media channels, giving a summary of the power and how I think they are best used. A company can be engaged in all forms of social media, and this may help both the customer experience as well as help them gain insights about the customer. I will show that through the different mediums, it is possible to know you customer better, and help them get to know you better at the same time.           

Blogs:

There is a lot of power in effectively using blogs. One important implication of blogs is that your customer voice and thoughts are out in the world. There is not a better way to know your persona than to understand their voice and their life narrative. Blogs can also be an important tool to see what people think about your brand and products. Using the “blogosphere” you can gain important insights into customer perception.

              Going one step further, blogs can also be used to enhance customer experiences. One example is using your blog to release important news updates. By engaging the consumer online, you can create a richer experience. Another important way to add to experience is by commenting on customer blogs. By knowing the level of personal involvement the company has, they are more likely to build loyalty. Blogs also rank highly on the Google search algorithm, making them come up higher in the search results, and thus allowing you customers and likely customers to find your company more readily.   

Social networks

            Social networks are increasing in interest not only for consumers, but also for businesses. The key to social networks is that you can reach your customer without just placing ads. You can know your customer on a personal level, and provide tools for them to connect with you. It looks like a rising trend in social media is searching through sites such as Facebook. People naturally trust the opinions of their friends and peers. By allowing searching for topics, and a question and answer applications, people’s opinions on social networks are easier to access. Much like blogs, companies should know what the buzz about their product is, as well as make efforts to connect with the consumer on a personal level. Social networks also provide a medium to give promotions and control demand in unique ways, such as offering a one-day coupon.  

Twitter

            Groundswell didn’t contain a lot of information on how to effectively use Twitter because it was still a new trend at the time. I think there are plenty of examples to show effective use of Twitter and likewise an ineffective use of Twitter. I think a lot of companies assume that you can’t really go wrong, but you most definitely can. I have followed multiple companies, only to click “unfollow” because the tweets did not engage me at all. Company news and updates are useful, but when given in the technical language of the company it is less interesting. There is such a thing as tweeting too often as well. For companies, the social media strategy for Twitter should focus on delivering a consistent message to consumers, and using tools to peak their interest. For example, the TV show Glee uses tweets from each of its characters to build interest in upcoming episodes. I think this is a fun and creative way to connect with people.    

It is important to note that there is more to social media than just effectively utilizing the different channels. I think the biggest piece of advice that I can give companies today, is that you have to have a finger on the social media pulse. It is not enough to follow the trends. Although knowing what is going on currently is beneficial, the real benefit of social media comes from being ahead of the curve. Social media success comes from companies that forge their own path. When considering a social media strategy, it is just as important to reevaluate the structure of your company to ensure that you are encouraging creativity.

            I searched around for a good example of a company who used innovation and creativity to leverage social media trends. I found this article in Forbes about effective social media campaigns. The article is talking about how Old Spice (a P&G brand) used social media in conjunction with its recent ad campaign featuring Isaiah Mustafa. Old Spice encouraged consumers to post questions to Twitter, Facebook and other Social media channels. The character of Mustafa, the Old Spice man, responded promptly to these questions. It was an effective and creative way to create buzz around the product, and engage the customer through many different channels. You can use social media of all kinds to know the customer personally, and understand what the general feeling is about your company.  

A Few Words

For this exercise we were supposed to text two of our friends asking them to send us the name of a random inanimate object. I sent this message to my best friend Karen who now goes to Indiana University and a friend from work this summer, Harry, who goes to Michigan University. It was pretty arbitrary how I chose these friends; they were just the first ones I thought of. It was extremely interesting how quickly they responded. I got both of their answers within 3-5 seconds. I guess this task was more interesting than all of the other messages I send, which usually take a few minutes to get a response. The other interesting thing I observed is that both of these friends immediately responded with the name of an inanimate object that was in their plain sight. Since we are talking about creativity, it was interesting to observe how my friends generated their “random” word, which turned out to be in not such a random way.

Word One (from Karen): Skateboard

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of a skateboard is long greasy hair. Just kidding, but it is hard not to see a picture of that “skater boy” we all used to know. I also think about all of the different parts of the skateboard: wheels, wood, grip material, painting on the back, metal axels, complete with ugly skater shoes that make your feet look huge. (I think the shoes must be some kind of skating requirement, otherwise who would wear them…) Mostly when I think of skateboards I think of the type of people that use them and the activity that they use them for.  I think of people zipping past me on the sidewalk, or sneaking into parking garages at night to skate, or the skate park that was next to the pool where I grew up.

Word Two (from Harry): Knife

I originally thought this word was really strange, but Harry clarified his choice for me: “I swear I’m not a serial killer, I just happen to be cooking!”  This brought up an interesting point about the knife. A knife is such an integral part of our lives, yet it has a pretty bad rep. I guess its one of those things where you can use the power it gives you for good or for bad. (Although I’m not sure how the “good” compares to the “bad.” i.e. a well filleted fish vs. a dead person.) Regardless, when I think of a knife I think of the many different uses it has: chopping, slicing, cubing, spreading, cutting, etc. I also think of the more unconventional things we often use our knives for: opening packages, getting the hot toast out of a toaster, looking under the pantry door to check for aliens, opening letters, etc. All around the knife is a pretty interesting tool with many uses.

Now comes the part where I am supposed to come up with ideas to combine the two random objects. Let me just say, a knife and a skateboard aren’t seemingly related in any way. The temptation to cheat and get a new word was high, but I refrained.  I will work on combining the products as a whole, and if I run out of ideas for that, I will combine parts of them.

•       Skateboard with a knife holder- although this immediately sounds a like bad/dangerous idea
•       Skateboard with knife wheels- like a giant pizza cutter? Maybe this would be more feasible if it were a smaller version, like a miniature skateboard with wheels made out of blades that you could use to slice things (getting more leverage than just a normal pizza cutter)
•       Skateboard that is also a knife sharpener
•       Skateboard with a knife design painted on the bottom
•       Knife with a better grip handle- using the grip material from the skateboard so it wont slip out of your hand
•       Knife holder on a skateboard- so you can move it around your counter more easily?
•       Knife with the handle painted to match your skateboard paint
•       Special knife that helps you replace the grip material on the skateboard
•      Skateboard with a knife attachment on bottom- maybe used to trim the grass/ weeds?
•       Knife with retractable wheels in handle- maybe could make dicing easier
•       Skateboard wheel on a knife handle- if you put the knife handle through the middle of the wheel, and slid the wheel all the way to where the handle meets the blade, this could provide protection for your hand or a little extra weight to help you chop, or a guard so the knife doesn’t slice your counter

That’s pretty much all I can do. I can definitely see how some creative product designs could come from the combination of two seemingly unrelated things, but no such luck today. I did my best, but I don’t think any of my combinations are particularly marketable

(or feasible for that matter.)  I gave it my best effort, and I do think it was a valuable exercise in creativity. Maybe in the next few days I will think of something more promising… never say never! 

Paper Topic- First Thoughts

For this blog, I will begin to discuss my first thoughts on our current report paper. I will be finding something interesting to me, and connecting it to class concepts. As a marketing major, I have always thought about the industries I may end up in. Sifting through all of the different types of marketing, I have always been drawn to marketing alcohol. As such, I am thinking about writing about the relationship between customer insights and the alcoholic beverage industry. I guess they do always say write about what you know… (Mom, if you are reading this I’m only kidding!)

  

This topic will have a range of things I can talk about. I think it will benefit me if I narrow the topic a little. Initially, I am thinking of narrowing down to the beer market. Within this I will be able to talk about trends in consumer choice, target market, recent innovations in marketing, different segments within the market, differentiation techniques, and many more. I am interested also in talking about the ethics of the marketing tactics. By design, this industry walks a fine line between promoting their product and promoting over-consumption. There is also a lot to explore with buying patterns. I would love to look at the usual times of purchase, the things that usually accompany a beer purchase, and the amount usually bought. It will be interesting to explore the consumption patterns and buying habits in relation to age, and type of beer. For example, as people age they are more likely to spend more to get quality beer, and they probably buy in much smaller quantity. I think that the marketing of beer can have a lot of relations to customer insights. I would like to look at how they currently assess the effectiveness of their marketing, and make suggestions of how to further incorporate techniques we have learned beyond market research.

Aside from these ideas, I do have a lot of questions that have bubbled up:

·      What are the current legal limitations of marketing beer?

·      Are there any observational techniques for assessing the effectiveness of the marketing?

·      How is the overall market segmented?

·      How do the beer companies work with the indirect channels (such as supermarkets and convenience stores) to carry through the entire experience?

·      How do they establish brand loyalty when consumers seem to change with age?

I think this topic is most interesting to me because marketing alcohol is unlike any other product. With beer especially, there is very little differentiation. In fact, many people cannot tell the difference in blind taste tests. As such, the marketing is completely based on that special sauce of consumer experience. Marketing beer must be very interesting because you are trying to establish an experience that consumers will be drawn to. It is also a very interesting market to interact with. With a market of mostly young males, you can definitely tell their primary interests just by watching the ads. I have always thought that I could enjoy working in the alcoholic beverage industry as a marketer, and this topic will certainly give me the opportunity to explore that interest further. Aside from that, I think it will just be a fun topic to look further into.   

Like I said, I think this can have many connections to customer insights. For example, last January I had the great pleasure of watching the super bowl at a frat house. Let me tell you, as a marketing major, it was a truly inspirational experience. I felt that I got an amazing insight into the reactions to advertising through watching a large group of men react to the super bowl ads. If observational techniques like this are not already used, I would definitely recommend it highly. Especially during the beer ads, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the reactions, and trying to understand insights through the grunts. I think that the marketing of beer, since it is a product that has little differentiation, requires deep insights into the customer’s mind.

The first current topic that reached out at me as I was writing this entry was the controversial marketing tactic where Bud Light used college colors on their cans to boost sales. This touches on many different things, including the ethics behind marketing beer. I am interested to learn more about what insights led them to this unique tactic. I think that this marketing action is very insightful of the target market, and their uses of the product. When are college students buying beer… chances are game day is a safe answer. If they can build that positive connection, then the use of Bud Light could extend beyond games.

Article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125081310939148053.html

lather, rinse, REPEAT!

Two choices diverge in a fluorescent aisle,

And sorry I could not buy both

And be one shopper, long I stood…

Pantene, Herbal Essences, Suave, Tresemme, Pert…

Price, shine, smell, ingredients, volume, color…

The choices are endless, and in many cases the distinguishing criteria are arbitrary. My customer experience journey begins in the aisle of the supermarket. Under the dingy fluorescents, anxiety is rising. A seemingly simple decision turned to a dilemma of great proportions.  It’s just shampoo, so why is this choice so hard? I never realized that many of my choices, as well as my recurring choices have a great deal to do with my experience with that product.

As we have been discussing customer experiences in class, I have started to think back on a few of my experiences. Every product or service comes along with an experience, and I think it has a far more profound impact on customer satisfaction and retention than many people realize. In a world of endless choices, what’s to keep me coming back if not for the feelings and memories I associate with a product. For example, if I go to the Starbucks on my way to class, I am not just going in for a venti caramel macchiato. I have a certain experience that I have come to expect from Starbucks.  If that expectation isn’t met, I will just stop by the McDonalds on the way next time.

On another note, my grandma has bought the same brand of pickles for as long as I can remember. I buy a different jar every time I go into the store. I feel like our generation is not filled with as much undying brand loyalty. This is why the concept of the customer experience has become so important. My grandma surely has no problem choosing a shampoo, because she’s probably bought the same one since she was young. I however, didn’t feel emotionally loyal to a shampoo. In a world where opinions can be swayed in a heartbeat, even little things can cause a switch in product choice.

I chose to talk about an experience I had with shampoo because I think it is pretty unique. You normally would not think that any one shampoo would provide an exemplary experience above the others.  Also, the turnover and repurchase rate of shampoo is interesting. It is not a decision you make every week, or one that you make every ten years. I think this is a very interesting turnover somewhere in between. When creating an experience with shampoo, you have to consider its life from the shelf to the last squeeze, so that when a customer runs out they are compelled to buy another bottle. That is exactly why I bought, and continue to buy Herbal Essences.

From the first second of the customer experience, Herbal Essences is a step above the competitor. Standing in the aisle, I was attracted to the bright colors of the bottles, and fun designs. This fits into the experiential framework we discussed in class under “sense.” During this first part of the experience, I felt fun and lively. I could see myself enjoying the product for its look and its girly, young, fun smell.

I think to some extent, the names of the shampoos also contribute to the user experience. For example, the names of the shampoos fit under the “think” criteria of the experiential framework. The names are clever and engaging, such as “None of Your Frizziness.”  I feel like this cute naming system creates intrigue for the product.

For me, the most important part of this experience was once I got the product home and used it. Aside from the normal experiences that we have come to expect from a shampoo, I think that Herbal Essences delivers an experience beyond the expected. My favorite part of the experience is the appeal to the “feel” category of the framework. On the back of the shampoo bottle there is a joke, and the answer is on the conditioner bottle. I thought this was very clever, and it definitely made me chuckle. It definitely created an affective experience, delivering above what I thought I would get out of the shampoo. Herbal Essences continues to solidify this experience by providing consistency in all of their experience providers. The commercials, the website, and the communications all reflect this young, fresh and fun experience.

In conclusion, I think the customer experience is becoming increasingly important with the inundation of choices we are faced with every day. It is no longer adequate just to provide the experience that customers are expecting. In order to gain loyalty and associations, it is important to deliver beyond what the customer thinks they are buying. In other words, it’s not just about the shampoo anymore!  You have to give the customer a product that appeals to senses, feelings, intellect, lifestyle, and ideals. And in today’s world, that’s how you get a customer to lather, rinse, and most importantly, repeat! 

Persona-fied

“Personas are fictional characters created to represent the different user types within a targeted demographic, attitude and/or behavior set that might use a site, brand or product in a similar way.” As you can see in the Wikipedia definition (hey… I’m sill in college, Wikipedia still counts as a credible source!), personas are a useful tool in segmenting your target market very specifically. Personas go a step beyond segmenting, however, because they take on the personality and voice of just one person in the segment. When we first discussed this in class, I had the same thought that many critics have… isn’t this too specific? I wondered if highlighting just one person in the segment would cause you to ignore the other important attributes of others in the segment. However, I really realized the value of creating personas though our guest speaker from P&G. She spoke to us about creating what they call “placemats” of their specific “prime prospects.” When I saw the way that they laid the placemats of to visually represent a specific person, it really got my attention. I really saw the value for going deeply into a specific customer, and giving her/him a voice in order to gain an insight you might not get if you just lumped everyone together in a segment.

I’m sort of a “trust but verify” kind of person, so I started to do a little research of my own on the value of personas in the “real world” of marketing. I ran across what I think is a very useful article. From this article, I found a key piece of information: “Personas tap into a fundamental human skill—the ability to make predictions about how other people will react based on mental models of them. One can often predict accurately how a close friend or family member will react to a particular event and decide how to act based on those inferences.” I think this description spoke to me because it really explains how personas give us the ability to know the segment on a different level. If we treat the people in the segment as friends, family, or neighbors, we can use our familiarity to hear their voice, their desires, and their likes and dislikes. In essence, the idea is that I can help you design a product for my friend way more insightfully than I can for the “millennial” segment. The granularity that personas provide is an extremely useful tool in knowing our customers, even if we do need to be very specific in order to do it.

Now that I have gotten my two cents in, I think it will be a valuable exercise to create a persona for myself! Flipping through the Cohort Personas posted on the class site, I thought of two things. 1) I thought of the similarity of the visual design to the P&G placemats. I particularly LOVED that the people were even given their own handwriting. I think this was an extremely useful piece of giving each person his or her voice. 2) I saw myself relating to one type of persona, and picking another that I aspire to be. For example, I really relate currently to Megan (“Fit and stylish students: young, fashion-conscious, career-minded female students who enjoy music, sports and the latest in high tech.”) However, I find myself hoping to be Allison (“Educated working women: Childless, professional women building their careers, developing sophisticated tastes and staying fit.”) Perhaps there is another level to personas that I haven’t learned about, such as which persona you seek to be! Going from the examples I have seen with the cohorts and placemats, I have attempted to define my own persona below.

Jennifer

Spunky Student meets Sophisticated Goals: College senior, driven student looking toward the future after graduation, never standing still and enjoying being young.

Personality:

•       People find me intimidating, but most of the time I am unsure why.
•       I love to exercise, but I do it to reduce stress rather than to lose weight.
•       I am a big planner, I love calendars and to do lists to keep all my commitments in line.
•       I enjoy being an individual, I am fun loving and spunky.
•       My friends know me as sassy because I am not afraid to speak my mind.
•       I enjoy sophisticated style and tastes, but my student budget leaves me hunting for deals!
•       I love being around creativity, and most of my friends are very talented in different ways.
•       I enjoy taking care of people, whether that is going to coffee with a friend in need or cooking big dinners for all my guy friends.
•       I don’t always like taking risks, and I would not describe myself as spontaneous.
•       I work through college, but for the experience and ethic, not for the money… although I never say no to a little extra cash!
•       I enjoy school and learning, the classes I love the most are those that are so engaging I end up talking about them all the time.
•       My relationships are my most important possession. I love my family more than anything, and rely on my friends and boyfriend for emotional support.
•        I consider myself opinionated, and able to articulate my thoughts.
•       I am passionate and driven, but most of the time I wish people knew more about the caring and fun Jen.

Demographic:

·      Average age: 22

·      Average income: just enough to spend!

Lifestyle:

·      Audio/Video: Mac lover, MacBook, iPod, photography.

·      Outdoors: long runs, swimming, snow skiing, water sports.

·      Sports and fitness: yoga, healthy foods, running, playing sports with friends.

·      Connoisseur: cheap beer, concerts, cool coffee shops.

·      Home life: live away from parents, renter.

·      Other interests: photography, traveling, modern art, quirky literature, trash TV

Hope you enjoyed my persona! Thanks for reading J

Coming into the class, I thought I had an idea of what a “customer insight” would be. Taking the term literally (as I often do; to give you a “Jennifer insight”), I assumed that it would be an insight or knowledge about your consumer that your competitors do not have. I have learned since, and have been pleasantly surprised, that it goes beyond that. Without even realizing it, I had equated customer insights with marketing research. I learned on the first day that the topic goes far beyond studying your current customers; it goes into diagnosing problems and discovering solutions. I think the key to a customer insight is that aha moment when you think: “why didn’t we have this years ago!” Like many, following that aha moment is usually that slap-in-the-forehead moment: “why didn’t I think of that!?” Well enough of the shoulda, coulda, woulda... I’m ready to learn about the all –important but seldom-understood customer insight.

The first topic that I felt was particularly interesting was the discussion of the difference between following your competitors, versus adding true design value. I was originally confused because I thought that a customer insight would lead to a product that would drastically differ from the current offering. In some ways, I assumedthat this would mean the invention of some brand new cutting edge technology. Through the lecture with our guest speaker Jeff Malhausen, I learned that this is not always true. In fact, in customer centered design it is always important to push the boundaries, but not to break so far beyond the consumer comfort zone that the product is not readily accepted. This concept, pioneered by Raymond Loewry, really helped me understand that although the new design driven by customer insights may involve some new technology, in all reality it is often a simple modification of the existing product.

I think a great example of this is the Flip camera. The status quo when this product emerged was an escalating “feature war” of companies battling to provide more or better specs. The video cameras were getting bigger, with more storage, and more this-and-that. This video-recording brinkmanship finally broke when someone took a step back and looked at the true needs of the consumer. The Flip camera is small, user friendly, simple, and I think most importantly it easily interfaces with social networking. The Flip camera was not successful because they developed cutting edge technology. The success came from understanding the needs of the customer. And on top of that, it came from providing to a market that was wide open.

In my opinion, this is where marketing research and customer relationship marketing falls short; they analyze the markets they currently hold to find how to gain market share over competitors. In this way, I think an important segment is consistently left out: in this case people who didn’t think they wanted or needed a video camera at all.

The other concept that initially surprised me was the fact that customer insights do not just include what product a consumer is looking for, but extends into what experiences the customer has when they purchase that product. I was initially surprised to see TOMS shoes on the slide of examples of products driven by customer insights. In this case the customer values the experience of knowing that their shoes convey their concern with the populations in the developing world. Although there is not new technology in the shoe, it provides a new experience along with shoe shopping.

One topic that has confused me, and I hope to learn more about, is the topic around “feature creep,” which relates to the theories of Dieter Rams who argued that “good design is as little design as possible.” This makes sense in a lot of ways, but I wonder about the exceptions. One example that I have found in real life is the singing toothbrush, or better known in the elementary school gossip channels: “Tooth Tunes”. In all honestlythough, I did buy this as a gag gift; however after some further scrutiny I think it is a pretty ingenious idea. How many times were you yelled at as a child when bedtime came around? After being herded into the bathroom to brush your teeth, despite your whining, excuses, and sometimes even lying (although they always catch you with the time-old breath sniff test), the length of your brushing was hardly a priority. Tooth Tunes solves this problem by cleverly timing the length of a proper tooth brushing to a popular song. Is it “feature creep” to add a musical feature to a toothbrush? Originally it may seem so, but I believe that it is an astute consumer insight into the problem of children being motivated to brush their teeth, especially for the dentist-recommended but mother-enforced amount of time.

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