BMW is leveraging technology to get inside the minds and eyelids of consumers. In the video below, we see a documentary of how they are able to superimpose a BMW logo on the inside of your eyelids. This is exciting and also somewhat terrifying when you consider how this could be used.
Have a look for yourself.
December 20th, 2010 by The Adcom Group Tags: branding in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
Consumer behavior has always been an interesting topic. At The Adcom Group, we strive to break down behavior into personas and help develop audiences around the fundamental behaviors of the consumers we are looking to engage. A persona can consist of many things, depending on the customer. To create a persona, we look for things in common; such as media consumption, age, gender, race, socioeconomic status, purchasing habits, etc. The overarching goal for developing a persona is to engage a specific person, at a specific time, in a specific way, to generate a result. How do we engage these people? We try to meet them where they are and start a conversation. Where are the majority of people sharing conversation these days? You guessed it, social media.
Ways People Make Decisions Using Social Media
We almost always need a second opinion, so we ask people. In a traditional format, we call or text a friend or relative, ask a few questions, weigh the feedback we get against our desire to purchase and then make a decision. This is a great way to gain perspective on the items we are considering and since we trust the opinions of the people closest to us, we value the information they provide. But what happens when the item we want is not something that anyone else you know is familiar with? What happens if you have questions that cannot be answered by your BFF or Uncle Dan? Well, in today’s world, we turn to social media and review websites to get what we need. It usually works like this; we do a little homework on the product or service we want. Next, we post specific questions about what we need to know, using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Then we wait for the feedback to roll-in. While we’re waiting for feedback, we troll a few review websites. Possibly look it up on Yelp, RateItAll or ePinions. Some of the more savvy folks will turn to industry specific websites, for example, if researching a vacation or travel destination we might use Kayak or TripAdvisor. To get a more substantive view from colleagues or thought leaders we might turn to Quora. We gather all of this information and then make our decision, feeling comfortable in our purchase because we did our homework.
“If you can reach them at that early life stage, you can create a loyalty relationship with the consumer” - Eddie Combs, CMO for Sears Holding Corp
Family vs. Social Media for Decision Making
An article over on AdAge was posted recently about how family is still the go-to for feedback and reviews for the products and services we’re considering purchasing. The article cites a study that shows that 90% of people leverage family before asking an online review website or social network. That is huge. So the natural question to ask is, how do you reach an entire family? The answer can go in many directions and will not always have a concrete answer, but in general, you have to consider the family as a persona or audience. Going back to the persona discussion we started earlier, part of the development should be taking into consideration the reach and influence of the family. For example, if we are targeting a person with an electronics product, we should know that some electronics are difficult to understand. As a result, this person may ask a family member for help. This is key for social media marketers as they will need to find ways to reach all of the people involved in the target audiences decision making community. An ambitious endeavor, no doubt, but most organizations that rest on brand to generate business already attempt this because they understand the value of engaging people at an early life stage. As mentioned in the AdAge article, Sears is trying to do just that by developing personas and engaging potential customers leveraging social media as a means to connect, convey and communicate the value of their brand, products and services. Makes sense doesn’t it?
Last night we attended the Weatherhead 100 Awards where Optiem was honored as the 24th fastest growing company in the region.
As a 2010 Weatherhead 100 winner, Optiem has been distinguished as one of the 100 fastest growing companies in Northeast Ohio. We see this as an indicator that we are not only growing our own business but also the business of the clients we serve.
The Weatherhead 100 list – objectively determined and highly regarded throughout the region – is compiled and managed by the Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE).
PayPal is launching an aggressive campaign to become your digital wallet. In an article we picked up over on TNW, PayPal is reportedly on track to process $700 million in mobile payments this year alone. On the company website, PayPal boasts over 87 million users and claims to process close to 15% of all US based eCommerce. With the business model heavily geared towards online transactions, the move towards mobile will not only increase the amount of consumer users, it will also increase the amount of business owners that adopt as more and more will want to capitalize on customers who prefer PayPal as opposed to other payment methods.
Make It As Easy As Transferring Money By Bumping Phones
To help make this easy, PayPal has launched a series of applications for smartphones including a version of the popular Bump app that most users have installed to make sharing contact information as easy as bumping phones. The PayPal version will take it to the next level by allowing people to Bump phones to transfer money. It is this kind of simplicity and real-time payment transfer technology that will open new opportunities for mobile commerce. Furthermore, with the authentication steps that PayPal has in place, security against fraud and charge-backs are in place to help mitigate any merchant risk.
Implications for Geo-location Services
Facebook places, Foursquare, GoWalla, Yelp and other location based technologies can benefit by highlighting businesses that accept mobile payments. It would be nice to see a technology emerge that allows for an easy check-in and then if something is purchased, a mobile payment. This will work by not only combining the convenience of a mobile transaction but also the potential for rewards, badges or points via the location based service you use. It would seem logical that Facebook will take the first step towards an application like this. Perhaps leveraging the eCommerce capabilities that Facebook leverages to integrate a PayPal mobile payment component. Either way it shakes-out, it seems eminent that at some point a discussion will be had amongst the leading check-in technology service providers and mobile payment processors like PayPal.
How Quickly Will This Adopt
Hard to tell. I had the benefit of working on the PayPal mobile payment platform back in 2007. We were experimenting with Text-to-Buy technology where payments could be transferred with a text message. I was also fortunate to have the opportunity to peek into the mobile browser check-out product that PayPal was testing. We worked with a small group of beta merchants that sold commodity styled products such as DVDs, Tickets and Batteries. The goal was to test how the transaction would flow end-to-end from consumer to payment processor and ultimately the merchant. We observed an overwhelming interest by merchants to experiment, but at the time mobile phones were not where they are at today and the low consumer adoption rate made the cost of implementing hard to justify. The project was shelved and refined over the years and just recently, PayPal announced that the mobile check-out capability was launched, again. Knowing how the process unfolded during that phase I think that the mobile commerce product of today will still have hurdles to exponentially increasing use, but with the ubiquitous nature of today’s smartphones and applications like the Bump as mentioned earlier, I can certainly envision a digital wallet emerging in the future.
