While we can't see most of them, waves of all different shapes, sizes, sounds, dimensions, and dynamics crest and crash around us all the time. I’ve been thinking a lot about waves lately -- 2011 is shaping up to be the "Year Of The Wave".
From the most astounding we can imagine (Japan's quake, resulting tsunami, and still-unfolding recovery and nuclear meltdowns); to the bizarre (anti-union and small-government movements in the US and Europe); to geo-political transformation (Tunisia, Egypt, maybe Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ivory Coast), these things don’t seem like isolated moments in time.
For global brands, the world is no less undulating. Troughs and crests seem to rise and fall at unprecedented scale – Facebook and smartphone adoption are two obvious examples. But this year, a few are beginning to crest into massive forces -- and brands find themselves going back to school to re-learn the physics of wave dynamics. Here’s a short list of others to consider:
Apps:
- From a recent Pew Internet and American Life study: “Every metric we capture shows a widening embrace of all kinds of apps by a widening population. It’s too early to say what this will eventually amount to, but not too early to say that this is an important new part of the technology world of many Americans.” In or out-of-browser, people are increasingly consuming information and media as applications. And the US trails app adoption in countries like Japan, India, and China;
Layers:
- The ability to overlay various types and levels of information to digital experiences on any device is has changed the way people expect their interaction to unfold. Digital information, media, and entertainment are now mashed-up aggregations of content designed to enhance and expand the relevancy and depth of any digital experience -- augmented reality adds social information to smartphone cameras; iTV overlays shopping opportunities to standard television viewing; Bing adds the social graph to Facebook search; soon, Kinect-enabled gaming will feature social connection; and global positioning -- already standard -- will soon bring remote experiences to us wherever we are via any connected device. Our expectations of media and information are no longer uni-dimensional;
Game-play:
- Gaming — and the protocols inherent in game-play -- have leapt out of the playroom and devices and are increasingly defining the protocols for how people interact with the world at large. Airlines and weight-loss hucksters perfected behavior modification through game mechanics. Today, banks, political campaigns, media organizations, governments, and educational institutions employ game-play to motivate and reward behavior. With or without joystick, online or offline, people respond to playing games…even when they don’t think they are playing.
Social Commerce and Social Gaming:
- The confluence of social media / marketing and e-commerce. People can browse and buy almost anywhere, anytime through an increasing variety of connected devices -- social commerce adds the dimension of social connection (see previous post on personalize shopping here). Some great statistics provided by social commerce analyst Paul Marsden:
- According to a recent comScore report, nearly one in four Twitter users (there are 15 million active accounts) follow businesses to find special deals, promotions, or sales.
- A study by iModerate Research Technologies found that people are 67% more likely to purchase products from brands they follow on Twitter and 51% more likely to do so if they follow a brand on Facebook.
- Research from Efficient Frontier indicates that to-date, 53% of retail transactions involving Facebook directly convert from Facebook to checkout
- The online gaming market is worth $15 billion today; In 2009, social gamers bought $2.2 billion in virtual goods; this is predicted to increase to $6 billion by 2013. (NPD Group).
So if you’re the George Clooney of your brand, captain of the marketing ship trying to avoid the “perfect storm”, how do you deal with big waves? How does a brand avoid getting rag dolled? How does a brand set up to drop into the tube and ride the delicate dance? Global brands have to figure this all out as the next digital decade unfolds.
Last week I attended Forrester's Marketing Forum where Chris Stutzman and Emily Riley detailed ADAPT To The CORE, their prescription for brand positioning in an era of transformative waves. Stutzman’s ADAPT construct drives home the requirement for brands to establish both the mindset to move quicker than the market as well as the organizational flexibility to reset as change unfolds:
Emily Riley’s CORE framework springboards off ADAPT by delivering the formula for optimization – it’s a roadmap for how brands should do the work.
What I found equally as thought-provoking, though, was L’Oreal’s interpretation of engagement. The $27 billion global beauty leader simplifies their engagement approach and aligns their “digital” marketing ecosystem to these four pillars -- enabling both ADAPT and CORE along the way:
What struck me most is L’Oreal’s emphasis on innovation. Like Kraft's Dana Anderson recommends (interviewed here by Forrester's Christine Overby; covered by David Berkowitz of 360i here), brands need become badass, and “pilot, pilot, pilot!” (i.e., try new things all the time). L’Oreal is steadfastly committed to developing new technologies, communication techniques, and thought leadership. In this view, complacency is failure. Moreover, L’Oreal strives less for pragmatic KPI’s in favor of a psycho-social vision of success – without passion, consumption and loyalty are always at risk.
I am fortunate to work at a company that, from its very beginning more than a decade ago, has always known how to surf. [wire] stone’s DNA is a double-helix of adaptability, integration, innovation, and digital. As marketers AND technologists, we’ve created a formula for helping brands achieve their ADAPT To The CORE vision and foster long-term passion. We call it Experience Engineering. More on EE in my next post…
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