Over the last year, “apps” and “social media” have gotten a lot of attention. “Apps” are making smartphones more indispensible – “stickier” to use a word from Web 1.0.
And social media (Web 2.0’s driver)? While there’s a lot of hype, we’re beginning to hear that interest among some segments is waning. Dunbar’s Number has been trotted back out as rationalization for the slowed growth. (How many “friends” can you really follow?)
So, can social media be made more engaging and relevant with “stickiness”?
There are lots of folks out there trying, but the one concept that’s caught my eye for its potential “marketing legs” is location-based mobile services – such as Foursquare, Yelp, and Gowalla. Foursquare seems to be the one to watch and it’s doing some interesting things. Its site says:
foursquare is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things. We aim to build things to not only help you keep up with the places your friends go, but that encourage you to discover new places and challenge you to explore your neighborhood in new ways.
Consider customer loyalty programs. You login and say you’re at a restaurant. That restaurant knows you’ve been there 10 times before and could reward you with a free dessert. No cards to keep track of and you are engaged with the brand as you know your actions get you bonuses sooner.
A brand can promote its involvement via Twitter, at checkout, or wherever it makes sense.
Part of the social aspect comes from Foursquare’s “mayor” concept. If you’re the most frequent visitor to a location, you’re crowned mayor. A bit of a game or contest that could bring people in again and again.
What about brands without a retail presence? Pepsi sponsored a NY charity event for CampInteractive: every time New Yorkers checked in from any location with Foursquare, points were tallied and Pepsi gave money. In this case, social engagement with a purpose.
Even without charitable involvement or the “mayor” concept, this is a newer form of social media that provides something tangible to the user. Consequently, in my view, a highly “sticky” idea.
An earlier blog post highlighted my belief that market research is experiencing a paradigm shift; a simple matrix was created to summarize the trend. This month I’m focusing on “anthropologic” research, which falls in the lower left, “non-verbal/natural environment” quadrant.
One could argue that everything on the left side of this diagram is anthropologic. However, I contend that “discourse analysis” is so reliant on words that we must acknowledge techniques that rely equally much or more on physical observation.
The three types of approaches utilized in anthropologic market research which most immediately come to mind are:
Ethnography. From the Greek “ethos” (the character of a people and their distinctive culture) and writing. In short, to observe and document.
Semiotics. The original Greek meant “interpreter of signs.” Today, in business applications, it involves studying communication processes, signs and symbols. A British colleague pointed out the two main influencers of this discipline: Peirce and Saussure. (For a quick read, see Wiki). To me, semiotics is about cues and norms. For example, we tend to think of banks as “institutions” with strong edifices or tall buildings; we want them strong. “The friendly bank” sounds slightly oxymoronic. Clearly, it’s more complicated than this – and I hope others will weigh in!
Ergonomics. For the sake of brevity, this is about how people interact with things, either physically, mentally, or organizationally. Human factors and usability testing fall into this category.
The second thing to keep in mind about this quadrant, as with “sociologic” research, is that we can study people individually or in groups – a major consideration in study design.
This quadrant has been “trending” for the past decade or more. With the aid of technology, we’ve been pushing into the lower left of this area. There are dozens of new innovations and techniques, but the two that have stuck with me are the following:
Wireless cameras for individual ethnography and usability studies. People can create, with limited direction from the moderator/facilitator, mini-documentaries. Want to go along with a man when he’s trying to pick out a gift for his wife? You can do that. Want to see and hear how a woman works with a new appliance she just bought? You can do that too. I really don’t believe this is a gimmick or fad. While some might think a “con” of this method is that people will only show or discuss what they want, the clear upside is the natural setting. My experience: I’ve never done an in-home study where the bed wasn’t made, but I have done online sessions and seen unmade beds and messy rooms. So, like any other method, the pros and cons need to be assessed. Overall, this is a terrific advancement.
CCTV for merchandising. Several years ago I did interviews with executives in the corporate security business. One of the men I interviewed told me that his closed-circuit TVs were attracting the interest of major retailers; the software they had developed, for use at airports, looked for things that weren’t moving (e.g., bags with bombs). What the retailers wanted to know is if the software could be modified to assess what I call “merchandising wear-out.” That is, a display is put at the front of the store. Could the camera/software tell 1) if the display had “stopping power” (to get people to enter the store and/or look at the display) and 2) if the traffic flow patterns indicated it was time to change/modify the display? A bit creepy, perhaps – but realistically we know there are security cameras in stores. Net, net: this is a clear example of when the absence of behavior can represent critical learning.
What are your favorite new methods or tools in this area?
In the January 18, 2010 edition of Newsweek, there was a great piece entitled “Your Online Brain.” It’s well worth the read as it focuses on the different theories about the Web’s impact on how we think.
The last paragraph really caught my attention as I had just participated in a creativity session last week.
“Science historian George Dyson believes the Internet’s flood of information has altered the process of creativity: what once required ‘collecting all available fragments of information to assemble a framework of knowledge’ now requires ‘removing or ignoring unnecessary information to reveal the shape of knowledge hidden within.’ Creativity by destruction rather than assembly.”
The image I got from this was of “sculpting knowledge.” As a qualitative researcher, identifying consumer insights has always been about sculpting knowledge.
What does this have to do with my brain online? Well, my brain has been overwhelmed lately. I had some downtime over the holidays and I signed up for even more newsletters and feeds. I now need to cut back. I need time to think. The Internet is causing, as Evgeny Morozov said in the same article, “the disappearance of retrospection and reminiscence.”
It’s like a swimmer’s lung capacity: a swimmer might be able to hold their breath for a long time, but they still have to come up for air. I need a breath – to sculpt, process, digest – whatever your metaphor.
So is the Web changing how I think? No, at best it’s impacting how I problem solve (as I’m able to seek out so much more information in this new way). It provides me with more to think about.
Creativity is an iterative, infinite process: from inspiration to output and back again. It’s likely we’ve always been “assembling” and “destroying.” Said another way, when we seek the “knowledge hidden within,” it’s always through the prism of our “framework of knowledge.”
What are your thoughts?
I came across this today and thought I’d share it. It’s not a complete solution yet, but seems to be a trend worth watching. Their target is online content publishers; for researchers, the missing element is (minimally) video clipping for inclusion in web-based or traditional reporting.
In the Fall, I read about a new retail concept called “BrandNew Stores.” Their idea is simple: take an empty retail space and allow brands to sell their wares/services in a regular mall environment. We’ve seen this before at the holidays, where an ornament store or a wrapping service takes over an empty storefront; after the holidays, they leave and the space is hopefully rented quickly. This has been called “pop-up retail” in the past.
But this idea is different. Their permanent storefront is always turning over new tenants. Have a new car you want to showcase? Rent the mall store for a few weeks. Have a new product line you’re launching? Rent the space. No long-term commitment. Create some buzz (driving traffic to the mall); reach a wider audience at the mall (and have them seek out more product info through other channels, which will hopefully lead to sales). Sounds promising.
In Glasgow, they’re trying something similar. Due to open this year at the Glasgow airport is “planeshop.” The company website describes planeshop as “a permanent shop with a flexible concept. Brands takeover planeshop for a limited time, so there will always be something exciting to see.”
Last week’s Los Angeles Business Journal highlighted a variation on this theme. The Glendale Galleria, a very popular shopping mall north of LA, between Pasadena and Burbank, is showcasing local talent. Called “Local Collection,” it’s a consignment shop for local designers who otherwise might not have any retail presence; the focus is on jewelry, apparel, and housewares. The hope is that if a designer does well, they might open a small shop in the mall (openings are readily available). Thirty designers were picked by mall management from among the 100+ applicants. The designers don’t pay rent, but split sales 50-50% with the mall. It turns out that the mall is earning very close to what it would have from a full-time tenant. In my view, it’s Etsy.com come to life.
These trends tap into a resurgence of interest in “local” – local designers, locally-grown produce, local places to meet friends and socialize. What’s your take on this? Do you see this as a trend that will last and will complement online retailing?
