Lady on the Bus » marketing

Online creatures and their mean ecosystems

Adriana — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:09:35 +0000

As I read the article – Gmail users tweet twice as much – I remember that a couple of months ago someone said during a nice girlie lunch: If a guy gives me a Hotmail email address I’ll probably lose interest, – which was followed by supportive nods of agreement. I learned that Gmail is to be expected. Yahoo might be tolerated.
Wow, talk about strict standards. I agree that Hotmail as a brand doesn’t add points to anyone’s cool factor, but then I wouldn’t go as far as shipping them to social Siberia.

But wait, I forgot to mention that my friends and I are a generation apart – and it shows. Whilst most of my social ecosystem grew under zero influence of the internet and is therefore agnostic to online social codes, to my friends there is no such clear line. Their online and offline personas are bundled together, and increasingly their cultural codes, references, brand preferences (and prejudices) are generated online.

Fair enough, my girlie lunch friends and I all work in the internet industry and thus are fickle early adopters. But from the research we do I get the impression that this is getting more widespread. What do you think?

A company’s website IS the company

Adriana — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:08:28 +0000

So much is said about the Internet changing the face of advertising, but this quote (above in the title) from a customer we interviewed many years ago is so right and shows perfectly how the Internet has changed everything in marketing. And by marketing I mean all the Ps (product, price, place and promotion).

User experience (or customer experience) has gained so much weight in the corporate world, perhaps because it got to mean company experience. Even if an organisation does not sell anything directly on the web, it’s online presence alone has the power to add stars to its brand perception (to customers, partners, investors…) or to erode it.

No modern company can afford to consider it’s web presence lightly or just accessory as components of interactive marketing and customer experience become one thing:

What goes through your customers mind if you offer them a satisfactory user experience:

Perception: This company knows their business – They are smart, competent, trustworthy and aware of customer’s needs.
Result: Yes, I’ll buy your product, come back for more, tell my peers about it – thanks a lot!

What goes through your customers mind if you offer them a disappointing user experience:

Perception: The people behind this company are incompetent and not to be taken seriously – They are clueless, clumsy, negligent and don’t value their customers enough.

Unless the company is a monopoly (which happens!), the result would be loss in sales, traffic, brand equity, whatever is important to the organisation’s bottom line.

Interactive marketing means much more than banners and search engine tactics. It is 100% intertwined with your customer’s experience and should be thought of as part of a long term business strategy.

Taaz.com: A fine example of customer centric online marketing

Adriana — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:52:04 +0000

Taaz.com is a virtual makeover website which allows you to upload a photo of your fine self and test what you would look like risking a new make up direction, a new hairdo or a collagen enhanced pout.

Once done with the transformation you can go social: use the result as your new facebook avatar or let the Taaz community comment on your hard work (going public is optional).

But the real beauty here for me is the natural and unobtrusive way they managed to fit brands at the core of the service.

Brands like Stila, Clinique and Revlon do much better than just sponsoring or bothering us with banners – they are a seamless part of service.

Instead of browsing through individual brand “counters” searching for the ideal lippie as you would in a department store, you browse through colour pallets slapping them onto your photo. Found the dream shade? Voila, it happens to belong to a certain brand. Product = 100% relevant info.

Besides, it is quite a laugh.