Marketing Matters is a blog that tells marketing stories from an industry, academic and student's perspective. We confront and debate today’s business trends. Views expressed by the blogs do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Sydney Business School.
At one time in our lives we’ve all had to share confined quarters with someone who has bad breath. The worst part is that the only person who doesn’t suffer the consequences of the noxious odors is the person who has bad breath, as they often are unaware of their effects on their neighbors. Breathing by your mouth, usually relieves you of the effects for a while, but if you have to spend 8 hours a day boxed up in a shared cubicle with Mr. Coffee-Breath, or Mrs. Smoker-Mouth, not even mouth breathing can help you.
Tic Tac has used humor in the above ad to show the devastation of the effects of bad breath on a small town in France. This ad is a take on the flash mob videos that have popped up in the past few years. The best part of the ad is that you don’t need to speak a word of French to understand the key message: Tic Tacs will take care of your bad breath.
When completing the Innovative Marketing Strategies Unit of the Masters of Marketing we analysed how humour can be used as a powerful marketing tool, but also how when humour used poorly can have devastating effects for a product and/or brand. When using humour an ad agency has to be careful not to put a market segment offside by negatively stereotyping a group ex. all old people are grumpy, or all young people are reckless. Country, political situations and target audiences are important to consider when creating your campaign.
Ideally you want your ad to be memorable: people remember your ad AND the product being advertised AND one key message. The icing on the cake comes when people talk to their friends about your ad, that’s when you really know that your ad has been successful.
I think that Tic Tac has done a great job in the above ad because it has met all those criteria. It also has international relevance, which not all humourous ads can boast of as it can easily overcome the language and cultural barriers of most countries in the western world.
Next time you’re in a confined space such as a lift, a car, or even on the street asking someone for direction, have a Tic Tac handy!
I would love to know what your favorite humourous ad is.
The other day when deciding on which eggs to buy during my weekly grocery shop, I stumbled upon branded eggs. By ‘branded eggs’ I don’t mean that there was a company name on the egg carton, these were literally branded eggs with the company logo printed on each egg shell.
Twelve beaming smiling faces greeted me as I opened the carton of eggs from Sunny Queen Farms to check that all the eggs were intact. These eggs looked ‘happy’ and were sparkling clean (no feces, feathers, or other egg debris… gross!). Just looking at these eggs gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling of happiness. These eggs HAD to come home with me. And they did!
Branded eggs? Brilliant. And ‘about time’, especially as everything else that I bring home from the shops is branded.
Eggs without branding are just eggs. They could be from organically fed chickens that were taken for walks twice a day, or even read a book at night, but for all I know, once eggs get taken out of their packaging and put into my egg-tray in the fridge, an egg is an egg, is an egg. Unless it has a smiling face on it or another branding stamp to differentiate it.
So why haven’t all egg companies jumped upon this very simple and probably not too expensive concept? It sure beats me.
Egg companies in my opinion waste money by trying to differentiate themselves by their carton packaging. They should really focus on the natural primary packaging of their product: the egg shell. Brand logo, expiry date, and even a short key message or company slogan should be printed on the egg.
Even my hubby likes the smiling eggs, and although he doesn’t yet remember the name of the brand, he no longer has to ring me in a panicked state from the grocery store to ask which kind of eggs to buy. He knows that the smiling face eggs are a sure win in our household.
What other products do you feel still have a long way to go in terms of branding opportunities?
How do you re-invent and improve an already good product? Saatchi & Saatchi LA have decided that a re-invented couch should be made up of toned and attractive females in bikinis, and should also be made available in a male version of topless buff men in shorts.
This ad however isn’t for the re-invented couch, or edible pizza curtains, or for plants that fight crime, but for the launch of an improved Toyota Camry. The creative touch of re-inventing the ordinary almost ‘un-re-inventible’ is quite funny, but I didn’t find that Toyota, or Saatchi and Saatchi on Toyota’s behalf, communicated the crux of their campaign… the improved features of the Camry in this particular ad.
But do the details of the sedan’s ‘re-invention’ really matter in this ad? I don’t think so. This ad is all about gaining attention and having people remember the ad rather than the car. Remembering the car and linking it back to the ad comes later in the campaign. This strategy is often used in advertising, where making a lasting impression in 60 seconds or less is challenging with so many ads bombarding our daily lives.
So what makes an ad successful? When evaluating ads in the Integrated Communications unit of the Master of Marketing Program, we used the acronym ‘S.C.O.R.E.’ to critique the ads.
Successful ads would rate high in every one of the criteria.
For this Toyota Camry ad, the ‘re-invention’ concept is Simple, and focuses on improving an already solid product. Making an analogy to a reinvented couch, curtain, and crime-fighting household potted plants is highly Creative. I would give this ad two thumbs up for Originality, how refreshing is it to see a car commercial without seeing the car wind along a quiet country road with a picturesque backdrop. Was this ad Relevant? No, in my opinion, but the fact that the ad isn’t relevant to the car’s improvements makes it Effective because the ad makes the car indirectly memorable.
What ads have you found to be so creative that they become highly memorable?
I LOVE Taco Bell. I love them so much; I would take any opportunity to talk with people about how amazing Taco Bell is. All of their marketing efforts have worked on me, and I am a proud advocate for their brand. Which is a bit strange, considering I’ve never even eaten there.
Why all the passion?
Because Taco Bell’s Internet personality is someone I’d like to be best friends with. Sure, they’ve run the regular kinds of monetary driven promotions, donations, fundraisers so on and so forth. But it’s all the little things they do that add up to a quirky sense of humor, and a brand that isn’t afraid to have a little laugh at itself.
If you ever stumble upon Taco Bell’s Twitter or Facebook page, their online teams are often quick to respond – and respond with a bit of delightful tongue-in-cheek. Many service companies find social media hard to deal with because the nature of the forum can lead to disgruntled customers openly tarnishing your good name. Taco Bell is not immune to this, but instead of standard replies, they often respond with personalized solutions. Not only that, it’s obvious that their web team are given the authority to reply to customers with something a little unconventional.
So why is this so important in social media? For me, it’s the feeling that I am engaging with more than just a company – that there is a personality behind it all. You can find endless examples, like the one above, of Taco Bell just being a nice guy. And isn’t it much easier to engage with a ‘nice guy’ than a company that sees you as another statistic? Engagement goes both ways, and Taco Bell proves that giving a little back has huge returns.
Although some can argue this is all just a part of the marketing strategy of an emotionless company, when it comes to Social Media, the notion of ‘perception is reality’ rings true. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt for other companies to take a leaf out of Taco Bell’s book, and spend some time being a ‘nice guy’ on the Internet (or at least a guy with a sense of humor).
After watching ‘The Block’, a reality home renovation series on Channel Nine, I have come to the conclusion that there are many crucial factors that can affect the selling price of a property. It’s not only about how well the home is presented, (although that does feature high on directly affecting selling price), having a sound marketing strategy for the property sale is key to getting a high ROI for what is usually one’s highest valued asset.
There are many decision that need to be made when selling a property such as: when to put it on the market, which agent and real estate company to sell with, will the property be sold through an auction or a private sale, who will be the auctioneer (if the property sells at auction), your asking price, where to advertise… and the list goes on.
Although the TV show ‘The Block’ did not focus on how much time each bidder spent inspecting the property before showing up at the auction, on average, people spend more time choosing a car than they do on inspecting a property. According to the Melbourne Bank, potential buyers spend on average 45 minutes or less inspecting a property before purchasing it (that does not include the time spent researching the property market or the area). Since buyers don’t spend much time within the four walls of their potential new purchase, marketing the property before inspection is crucial.
An important part of the marketing strategy for the sale of the property is the advertising. The local newspaper, Australian real estate web sites, Asian real estate web sites, sign posting outside the property, and mail drops are some of the advertising options to choose from. These all cost money and it is best to understand what historical ROI these mediums have before making a decision.
A phone call to my local newspaper quoted me almost $1000 for a half page ad in the real estate section for one week. That seemed to me to be quite expensive for old fashion print media, especially when so many people are turning to on-line search engines for property searches. That said, understanding where your target market looks for properties is crucial when finally making the decision on how and where to advertise.
Although not all of us are talented home renovators like the contestants on ‘The Block’, highlighting your property’s desirable features as well as features that make your property unique during your marketing campaign is crucial. Perhaps a tasteful colourful painting on the living room wall, or a home smelling of freshly baked bread would be a suggestion for standing out that is achievable for everyone regardless of your renovation skills.
If you have sold a property, do you have any marketing strategies that you found useful that you are willing to share?
The latest smartphone hitting the Australian market is Sony’s new flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z. The company claims that the phone is waterproof and dustproof, these features can be extrapolated as making the phone ‘adventure proof’.
A phone that can be dropped in up to a meter of water for 30 minutes and still function normally would be appreciated by anyone who has had to dig deep into their pocket to replace a handset that has been ruined by exposure to water. None of the other phones dominating the smartphone market to this point can boast of being both water and dustproof (ex. Apple’s iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S3, HCT One).
The Xperia Z is very much targeted at the upper class tertiary educated 25-40 year old who enjoys life and appreciates a quality phone camera that will capture their adventurous moments. A market segment that Sony has missed in terms of targeting are mothers of young children, who highly value anything that is electrical and waterproof.
With sons aged 2 and 3 years old, (who I collectively refer to as my ‘jungle animals’), I am constantly in the middle of daily if not hourly ‘adventure’. I have had to replace a smart phone after ‘nobody’ dropped it in the toilet recently. It’s replacement was quickly covered with a military grade, dust, water, and shock proof case. The downfall of this case is that the sound is very muffled, leading me to question why I have a phone if I struggle to use it for it’s most basic of functions: communicating on the phone.
The number of times that I have to ‘rescue’ my phone from testing the true capabilities of its protective case vary on a daily basis, but usually range within the 5-10 mark. Fish tanks, sinks and bath tubs filled with soapy water, and even sprinklers and swimming pools are potential dangers to my phone. Ideally I want to have a phone that I can use without a cover and be assured that it is going to endure a day in my household.
Had the Xperia Z been targeted to also include those caring for little ones, I’m sure that Sony’s ‘waterproof-dustproof-adventure proof’ features would have been recognized as sought after handset for this market segment.
When have you seen a product overlook a very relevant segment of a target market?
Not every brand survives 5-10 years of existence, and even fewer can brag about being a centenarian. So what’s the secret behind Oreo’s over 100 years of success? Good Marketing of course.
Recently Oreo, the delicious crunchy dark chocolate cookie whose two biscuits sandwich a disk of contrasting white ‘melt-in-the-mouth’ sweet crème, has focused on building a strong and creative social media presence.
A highly relevant advertisement on Twitter during the 30 minute blackout at the Superbowl this year has made Social Media Marketers turn to Oreo in terms of resetting the bar for social media campaigns.
Oreo has struck gold once again with their latest social media campaign. They have chosen 4 teams of ‘Super Oreo Lovers’ with mechanical backgrounds to build ‘Oreo Separator machines’. The overall goal of the Oreo Separator is to separate the cookie from the crème so that the preferred part of an Oreo cookie can be fully enjoyed. The above video is just one of the 4 inventions created for this purpose (the other three videos can be found on YouTube). This video obtained over 4 million views in less than 4 weeks, a result even better than what the Oreo marketing team could have wished for.
Oreo has managed to obtain such a high number of views on YouTube by tapping into a key insight: People have a preference between the cookie and crème, and are therefore interested in separating the cookie to isolate and eat their favorite part. In the past Oreo has used this key insight to build campaigns based around ‘how do you like to eat your Oreo?’. They have now taken this concept a step further and have asked the more mechanically inclined ‘how would you separate your Oreo?’.
Other leading brands such as Coca-Cola, Gillette, and RedBull have successfully navigated the social media domain. History has shown that to have a successful social media presence you must be able to continue to provide creative and relevant material.
I’m looking forward to see how Oreo will maintain the social media buzz around their brand for decades to come, especially now that the bar has been raised.
The Master of Marketing program at the University of Sydney was fortunate to have Jodie Sangster, CEO of the ADMA (Association for Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising) present as part of a panel discussing the use of personal data for marketers gain.
Jodie explained that a customer’s journey starts from the minute you start talking or engaging a potential customer to the point where they are no longer your customer anymore. Between these two goal posts is the window of opportunity for your brand to impress customers and to keep them on side with your offerings.
Maintaining these two goal posts wide apart on a time line means that you are keeping your customer for as long as possible. The way to do this is by engaging with them. What better way to engage with a customer than to use the information that you have collected about them to better understand their needs and interests and then to serve them individually targeted messages?
So where does the ADMA fit into all of this? The Associations role is to work with government and business to help determine fair ground rules for customers and businesses, considering both of their interests in advertising and marketing transactions.
Jodie stated that the discussion regarding data is being pulled in three distinct directions when it comes to the use of personal information in targeted marketing communications:
Businesses want to use data so that they can offer more relevant, targeted messages to customers.
The government considers the realms of personal data being used by marketers an “unmanageable” according to Jodie. There is a lack of understanding of how data is being used, and the laws that have been established to regulate privacy are struggling to keep up with technological advancements.
Then there is the consumer sitting in the middle of this rapidly developing area of privacy laws. Customers divulge their personal information for a number of reasons, and in return they want their personal data to be treated with respect. If the line of respect is crossed in terms of exploiting personal data, customers will become understandably upset.
Jodie and her colleagues at the ADMA no doubt have their job cut out for them as I can imagine that there is not a dull moment in their Sydney based office.
How has your company kept up to date with changes to the regulations concerning the use of personal information for marketing purposes?
I’ve crossed paths with John Sergeant on enough occasions to predict that when he opens his mouth to speak you know that you are in for a succinct slice of his wisdom delivered with humor and enough wit to make even the driest of topics interesting.
It was no surprise that John had a room full of current students, alumni, industry leaders and fellow teaching staff from the Master of Marketing Program at the University of Sydney intently listening to his panel discussion on the future of marketing last week.
When John addressed the questions of what do Marketers do, he didn’t hesitate for a minute to think about his response. He said, “Marketers produce an intangible good. It’s magic. A Marketer’s job is to infiltrate the magic into the business in a way that makes it relevant to individuals”.
When asked ‘How do you understand the magic that marketers do?’, John responded, “you have to start by getting out of the mental habit of referring to human beings as consumers. Habits of speech become habits of mind. Continually referring to people as consumers is a habit of marketers that stands in the way of delivering empathy”.
John even delivered a potentially lucrative offer to his future 2013 students. Students that catch him referring to people as ‘consumers’, will be paid 5$ out of John’s hard earned cash in return for his sinful referral.
It’s easy to forget that our business is about adding the magic and not simply dealing with the numbers that present themselves as a result of the data explosion. What is important, however, is to understand the insights that the data offer us, turn those insights into a very fine magic powder and then sprinkle that magic powder over the business. And that’s what Marketing is all about, according to John.
James Butcher, Group Sales Manager at Microsoft Media Networks shared his wisdom on digital marketing at an event hosted by the University of Sydney’s Master of Marketing program last week.
When James started working in on-line marketing 8 years back facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest didn’t exist. Running on-line campaigns was a simple task of creating a presence on Google’s ‘Search’.
How things have changed
With the predicted shift of tablet devices becoming the primary household computer based device by 2015, James believes that on-line marketing will gain in importance as more people will be able to connect to the internet easier.
According to James, on-line marketing is now all about tapping into the passion points of your target audience so that you can better understand your customer’s internet comings and goings. The ultimate goal is to create advertising touch points for your product or service to parallel their on-line locations.
For example, if an Axe/ Lynx deodorant (Unilever product) digital marketing campaign was created for a target audience of males aged 25-30 years old, digital Marketers must understand what interests they are likely to have and what other media they are tracking on-line in the day. In the morning while eating breakfast, where are they reading the news? During lunch, are they check the footy scores on-line? In the late afternoon do they use the internet to quickly catch up on celebrity gossip? How much disposable income do they have, does this affect how much time they spend on-line? Are they city dwellers? Have they previously engaged with the brand?
There has been an enormous shift in on-line marketing recently. I’m keen to see what the digital marketing space will look like in 5 years’ time.
How has your company shifted its on-line presence in the past 3 years to adjust to more tech savvy customers?
It is time for a new smart phone. My iPhone 3 has been losing one function at a time due to wear and tear. Last week I realised that I could no longer turn off the phone, two nights ago the volume control stopped working. I thought that buying a new phone would be a fun and easy activity.
A visit to the local Westfield to check out smart phones left me overwhelmed. With 40 phones to choose from and just an hour up my sleeve to choose the right phone, a quick decision was necessary. For me, a phone is not just a piece of plastic/metal with a fancy screen and some buttons on the side. A phone isn’t just a purchase, but rather more like an adoption. The phone that I choose would be another member of my family…. it would follow me around for most of the day, live in my handbag, have a safety case, be invited to all family events, take pictures of my family, video birthdays and graduations, text my friends, call my parents. A phone is my ‘digital’ best friend.
So after chatting with the smart phone expert at one of the leading mobile phone shops, I decided that I just wasn’t ready to buy. There was too much choice. I needed to go home and do a little bit more research and figure out what were the most important features for me. Did I want to just purchase the new iPhone 5 and then realise that the Samsung Galaxy S3’s camera was better, or would the Sony Xperia Z suit my needs because it’s waterproof and that would surely protect my phone if one day the kids were to decide to put the phone in the fish tank, or worse, the toilet?
This scenario isn’t uncommon. When customers are presented with too many choices, a phenomenon called ‘choice paralysis’ occurs. It can be easier to make no choice than to make a choice that you will regret post purchase. Studies have shown that people are attracted to variety, but find it easier to choose a product and complete the purchase when there are a smaller number of choices available. Post purchase regret is also less of a factor when the amount of choice is less.
So what’s the perfect amount of choice? 2-3 items, or 9-10 items, or somewhere in between? Does it vary for the type of product? Marketers must determine how to frame products to make customers feel that they have been offered enough variety but not too much choice to make a customer second guess their purchase.
I still haven’t decided which phone to buy but I have narrowed the possible 40 phones down to two finalists. I no longer feel as overwhelmed with choice because I have taken the time to research my decision. This luxury of product research does not occur for all the products that I buy, but for this purchase I wanted to get it right.
When did you feel like you were overloaded with choice and decided to walk away from a purchase rather than have post purchase regret?
How would you like to walk into a store and be advertised products that are best suited for your age, gender and demographics? How could a store possibly manage to tailor marketing campaigns on an individual basis?
The answer is through facial recognition. If you are unfamiliar with facial recognition, it is technology that scans your face, determining your age, gender and possibly even your name. Military and law enforcement agencies have been using it for years, but now with a potential to be used in the field of advertising, the fun stuff for us marketers begins.
Many opportunities exist with the information that can be collected with facial recognition. For example, you can know precisely what type of customers come into your store at specific times; you can determine even repeat customers across a number of stores allowing you to uncover trends which can be used to your advantage.
Facial recognition technology can be used to solve business issues. For example, you wanted to grow your customer base as the owner of the local pub. Data from facial recognition technology determined that between 6:00-9:00 on a Friday night your pub was 50% full with 75% male customers between the ages of 25-30 years old. Ideally you want your pub to be at least at a 70% capacity, especially on a Friday night. Wouldn’t you consider offering a special on cocktails targeted to increasing the number of ladies aged 23-27 years old in the pub?
In futuristic movies, facial recognition is even used to identify mood and ads are served to cater to that mood. That’s inching onto the creepy side of things in my opinion. I know that I would not like to walk into a supermarket in the middle writing an assignment for Uni, slightly stressed, and be served ads for ice cream and chocolate.
What’s there not to love about facial recognition? Those of us that are concerned about privacy would argue a lot. Where would boundaries be placed in terms of protecting identity? Is facial recognition a marketers dream come true or a Big Brother scenario waiting to surface?
Have you been ‘Scroogled’ recently? I know I have. When writing a paper on Cirque du Soleil as part of an assignment for Innovative Marketing Strategies class (Master of Marketing Program at the University of Sydney) I kept getting served ads about Cirque du Soleil.
Having seen a number of Cirque du Soleil shows, I truly appreciate the innovation and creativeness of the production. I did not however appreciate that Cirque du Soleil was invading my ad space which essentially gave me the feeling of being watched.
So how did these ads just start showing up coincidently at the same time that I was writing numerous emails to my fellow students in my presentation group about the Cirque du Soleil? At first I thought it was just by chance, but as time went on and I kept receiving ads related to words I was using in my Gmail emails I realised that I was being Scroogled!
Microsoft, Google’s competitor came up with the term ‘Scroogle’ by blending the words ‘screwed’ and Google. So being Scroogled poetically implies you are being screwed by Google.
Many Gmail users are unaware that Google’s Gmail system scans emails for keywords and then uses these key words to serve you ads. Brilliant? Perhaps. Invasion of my privacy? Definitely!
As email providers might just become the new competitive platform (at least until the next iPhone or Apple product comes out on the market), privacy policies will be held in high regards as a deciding feature to stay with a current email provider, or to move to a Microsoft’s product such as Outlook.com.
Microsoft’s Outlook.com offers many desirable features over and above those offered by Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail. Among them is privacy (currently being violated by Gmail in my opinion), sophistication in that Outlook.com can be connected to your social media networks, and a sorting option that makes it easy for a user to prioritise their emails.
I’m tempted to ditch my Gmail account because I don’t want to feel like my emails are not private. Do you feel that Gmail fairly communicates this lack of privacy to subscribers? How will Gmail have to modify their activities in the future to stay competitive?
When chatting over the phone with my parents last week we got on to the topic of viral videos, and in particular the latest viral video, The Harlem Shake. My parents were quite concerned that I was watching viral videos because they honestly thought that doing so might leave me with a virus on my computer.
The following 30 minutes of our conversation was spent explaining to my parents (both are in their 70’s), that viral videos do not leave viruses on your computer, but rather they are considered ‘viral’ videos because the way that the video gains popularity mimics the spread of an influenza virus. One person watches a video and they share the video with a number of their friends who then forward on the video link via email, video sharing web sites or social media to their friends. In no time at all the video has been shared exponentially, and is officially considered ‘having gone viral’.
Once my parents had been reassured that I was not putting my computer at risk of disease, they asked a simple question that I didn’t have the answer to: “Mina, what makes a video go viral?”. Although most kids over the age of 6 have the answers to all of their parent’s questions, this one caught me by surprise.
If only us Marketers had the answer! I decided to do a little research to find out the answer to that question. After searching hours on my virus free computer I realised that the question ‘What makes videos viral?’ falls in the same bucket as ‘Where can I find out the winning numbers for next Saturday’s lottery?’.
There is no winning formula that has yet been discovered that will consistently result in viral videos. I did however find a number of common elements in viral videos:
Humor
Strong Start: Enticing title, alluring description, and visually appealing video thumbnail enticing potential viewers to click through.
An emotional response
Sarcastic narcissism
Community participation
The element of surprise/originality
Identification with the target audience
Must be short, ideally less than 2 minutes in length
The Harlem Shake is a perfect example of these 8 elements at play. PSY’s Gangnam style, Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, The Evolution of Dance, and Kony 2012 are all examples of highly successful viral videos where many if not all of these 8 elements were present.
Next time I chat with my parents I’ll at least have the above list of elements a video should have if it is aiming for ‘viral status’. What I won’t have however, is a logical explanation for what people are doing in the Harlem Shake.
Have you been part of creating a viral video? Any secrets you want to share?
Superbowl XLVII has come and gone with the Ravens as the victors. There are however a few other notable winners this year that went home with thousands of tweets, a trophy of sorts for Advertising and Marketing departments, earned by dominating on-line social media creativeness and speed.
With a half hour blackout during the football game resulting in extra unforeseen advertising opportunities, only a handful of brands jumped on the Tweeting ‘brand’-wagon. Among the more successful were Oreo, Audi, and Tide. While the Ravens and 49ers were pacing the field during the blackout trying to prevent their muscles from cooling down, things were heating up within the advertising and marketing teams for these companies.
Oreo’s power outage tweet read: “Power out? No problem. YOU CAN STILL DUNK IN THE DARK”, with art work representing darkness with an Oreo in a dim spotlight. Oreo was able to capitalise on the advertising opportunity because their advertising firm and Management team were watching the game together and all powers needed to approve the ad were in the same room.
The Ravens and the 49ers weren’t the only competitors out in the field. Audi’s tweet had a message clearly aimed at their direct competitor Mercedes-Benz (@MBUSA) who holds the naming rights to the Superdome where the game was played.
Tide a popular laundry detergent brand wasn’t going to wash away a great opportunity to build on their TV ad where millions had already been invested. Tide’s tweet focused their message on preserving dark clothing color while getting rid of stains.
And the list of other brands that participated in Tweeting ads during the power outage goes on. The lesson learnt is a valuable one. One that we focused on in the Integrated Marketing Communications unit of the Master of Marketing program: strike while the iron is hot, as timely innovation with a dash of humor can leave a lasting impression that’s hard to wash off.
Has your marketing team ever had to create an ad in less than 20 minutes?
Do you ever wonder why your great ideas sometimes don’t resonate and become adopted while some other seemingly mediocre ideas are embraced? The way they are communicated may have a lot to do with it.
While preparing for an upcoming presentation, I found myself searching for more compelling ways to communicate an idea. I came across the work of Nancy Duarte, a communication expert who is behind some of the world’s most influential business communications.
According to her, ideas are conveyed most effectively through stories. In the above video, she uncovers the “shape of a story” from renowned works of cinema and literature, and then demonstrates how to incorporate stories into your presentation.
Peter Guber, the author of “Tell to win” supports this view saying that stories can act as Trojan Horses. He argues that, when absorbed in a story, people detect fewer inaccuracies and inconsistencies. More importantly, they don’t seem to care about the errors. However, when reading dry and factual content, people seemed more critical than when reading a story.
But why is it that humans seem to be “wired” for stories? Why are they so effective?
As we explored in a previous blog about neuromarketing, people make most of their decisions based on unconscious emotions as opposed to rational logic. Data dumps, dense PowerPoint slides and pure stats do not emotionally connect people with your idea. The best way to do that is with “Once upon a time…”
Neuroscience also shows the brain works by associations producing webs of interrelated concepts.
Countless mind mapping tools and techniques are founded in this simple fact. By linking your ideas to commonly known stories, you are leveraging a previously established neurological path in your audience’s memory. They will be able to more easily associate your ideas with that known path provided by stories. This way your ideas become more meaningful and memorable.
What other insights do you know about stories and presentations?
SodaStream’s direct stab at Coke and Pepsi with its original Super Bowl ad saw them having to replace it with a toned down version, which in turn generated more awareness for the brand. The replacement ad featured generic soda brands upon request from broadcaster CBS, which wasn’t keen on causing a stir among some of its largest supporters, namely Coke and Pepsi.
The ad had a strong single minded proposition: when customers make their own soda with a SodaStream, they don’t waste plastic bottles. The insight of billions of bottles ending up in landfills every month provided the basis for a compelling brand story.
Leveraging the David vs. Goliath narrative, SodaStream is a classic “challenger” brand. According to Adam Morgan, author of “Eating The Big Fish” and expert in the field: “The narrative is that through being fleeter of foot, more innovative and creative, possibly by being an out-and-out maverick, a small business can take share from a larger one.”
In the Master of Marketing consumer behaviour lectures, we explored different brand archetypes, including “The Irreverent Maverick”, which is often associated with challenger brands. It defies social conventions and challenges “normal” behaviour with wit, humour and even shock tactics.
In the end, the controversy around the Super Bowl ads created a huge awareness for the unaired ad with over 4.5 million views on YouTube, while the official Super Bowl ad had just about 200 thousand views. With large business proving they can also benefit from challenger thinking such as Unilever’s Dove “Campaign for real beauty”, I’m keen to see how Coke and Pepsi will react.
What lessons can large corporations learn from challenger strategies?
"Amazon wants to be the one place where you buy everything. Google wants to be the one place where you find everything, of which buying things is a subset" setting them up for a natural collision as Chi-Hua Chien, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has it.
As many as 30 percent of US shoppers started their product search in Amazon.com compared to 13 percent who started a purchase search in engines such as Google in 2012 according to Research firm Forrester. Two years ago search engines were the preferred starting point for purchases search and Google is now on a mission to recoup online shoppers as much of its business depends on product searches and related ads.
Google’s product search engine, Google Shopping, was recently modified charging retailers a fee to be listed in the results. By turning top search results into paid ads, Google addresses allegations of biased search results by its rivals. This is clarified to customers by a discrete disclaimer on the top right corner “Google is compensated by these merchants. Payment in one of several factors used to rank these results”. Google also recently bought BufferBox, a company with a network of lockers that customers can use to receive parcels, which further emphasises its intention of playing a larger role in online retail.
Amazon, in turn, is selling ads that are displayed to the side of product search results on its website. According to comScore, the number of ads has more than tripled compared to 2011 figures. Although still a fraction of Google’s ad business, Amazon is using newly developed technology to leverage the customers purchase history and allow marketers to target ads at specific segments on Amazon.com and on other websites. This is invaluable data to advertisers as it tells them what customers have just bought and what they are trying to buy right now.
Other online giants have their eyes closely focused on Google and Amazon’s cat fight. Facebook, with its own search and advertising ambitions, has been lurking in the shadows, while Microsoft has put its gloves on with an anti-Google campaign launched last year. Having accused Google of "unfair pay-to-rank shopping practices", Microsoft has gone as far as putting up a site named “Scroogled” in a bid to deter customers from using Google’s new shopping service.
So far, Google Shopping has been seen by many customers merely as a showroom to figure out what items meet their criteria, a similar role to the brick and mortar retailers nowadays. Once customers figure out the brand and item they are searching for and get an idea of the average retail price, many still head straight to Amazon or eBay to make the purchase. The main reason is convenience and trust. Shopping direct from the vendors is still largely seen as a hassle due to the many steps involved in filling out forms, addresses and giving away card details to yet another unknown entity.
Google has pushed vendors to step up their customer experience last year when it released a series of humorous videos parodying customer’s frustration when shopping online. Now it seems to be taking matters on its own hands with a certification service highlighting merchants that ship quickly and up to $1,000 in "purchase protection" as well as its own Google Wallet payment service. In our Internal Marketing lectures, we looked at many service companies initiatives to ensure a consistent brand experience at every customer touch point. Google Shopping is still far from Amazon’s streamlined service but it is certainly heading in that direction. What other advancements could Google Shopping employ to improve customers’ experience?
Blackberry has launched its largest campaign ever for the make or break new operating system OS BB10 and a new range of products. The campaign will carry a “keep moving” theme to demonstrate the software’s capabilities. Among the central features are a smarter predictive keyboard and a “hub” for notifications from email, Facebook and Twitter.
The campaign
The mobile manufacturer announced on its launch event that Alicia Keys would act as its global creative officer. The 14-time Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter and entrepreneur will be joined by film director Robert Rodriguez and author Neil Gaiman in a series of online films demonstrating how they engage with their BB10 devices and inviting users to share their own stories. The heart of the campaign consists of a real-time marketing drive across search, video, direct marketing, social media, CRM and mobile.
How it will be assessed
According to BlackBerry’s CMO, Frank Boulben, the central measure for Blackberry success and market share will be the Net Promoter Score (NPS), adding “we want the first customers using BlackBerry 10 to recommend to friends and family.” As seen in our Marketing Performance Evaluation lectures, NPS measures the "willingness to recommend" a product and is usually adopted for higher involvement products, where opinion leaders and WOM is in play. It is becoming an increasingly popular customer loyalty measure with growth of social media.
Although all companies have their favourite metrics, some going for the traditional Customer Satisfaction measure while others adopt the famous NPS, the growing reliance on a simple single customer metric won’t provide them the full picture and can be dangerous trend.
Target market
BlackBerry’s global market share fell from 20% to roughly 6% in the last three years and many see this as a last resort to recapture old and new users. The company is aiming to expand beyond corporate users and appeal to working moms. Boulben described Keys as the embodiment of a "very typical BlackBerry user" who is a "working mom" and runs a small business.
"Faced up against guys with significant market share, BlackBerry needs to find areas where it can make headway in. They can't compete broadly and they can't compete everywhere," said Stephen Baker, a VP of industry analysis for consumer technology at NPD. "If they think women is how they can do that, and it's a big enough segment and there's an opportunity there, then God bless them, they should go for that."
Celebrity endorsement
Celebrity endorsements are nothing new and they can often be an effective marketing tool if the company can find an authentic advocate for their brand. Alicia Keys seems a good fit with their new target audience; however, some analysts question her suitability as an endorser for Blackberry. To make matters worse, her official Twitter account showed her posts just days before the launch event were published from an iPhone and used Instagram to share all photos — an app that’s not available on BlackBerry according to a recent NYT release.
How NOT to do it
BlackBerry isn't the first tech company to employ a celebrity to boost its credibility. Three years ago, Lady Gaga was named creative director of Polaroid and she even designed a printer for the company. Two years ago, Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas was announced as the director of creative innovation at Intel. These high profile job titles attempted to make the relationship more authentic when it involved little more than just posing beside the product in exchange for a large cheque.
A different spin on product endorsement
To distance itself from those claims, Boulben has stated the Alicia Keys hire is different from “traditional product endorsements” as it is based on user experience. "You won’t see the celebrities in the 'Keep Moving' campaign on TV. The 'Keep Moving' TV campaign is all about showing the product experience in the flow of your professional and personal life." Activity will include Alicia Keys creating a video in each city where she is performing her “Set the World on Fire” tour, with each customised video based on ideas she receives from fans.
Is it this kind of celebrity endorsement a good investment?
Do you actually need a famous creative director when you truly have great product design? Why doesn’t Apple have a celebrity creative director? Do you think the women audience targeted by Blackberry could be better inspired by an authentic ambassador, such as a young mother who genuinely loves the product, sending the message that it is the users who really matter when it comes to the design process?
The global mobile market could really use more competition right now; let’s hope Blackberry can “keep moving” with its ambitions.
With the Sydney Festival celebrations taking over the city, numerous world-class acts steal audiences’ imagination and defy the world as we know. Reinventing the traditions of circus, cabaret, variety and burlesque for the 21st century audience, Spiegelworld has brought its new show, Empire, from New York to Sydney for this month’s festival. Following a sell-out in Broadway, the mind-altering show takes audiences through the underworld of kinky contortionists, rich impresarios and daredevils inside an authentic Belgian spiegeltent. The acts are played out almost on the laps of the audience as performers are squeezed on a 9-foot diameter stage adding to the intimate atmosphere nowhere to be found in large mainstream shows.
The Empire has been described as the early days Cirque du Soleil, when the shows had no storyline and were purely centered on emerging raw talent. Back in October, when the Cirque du Soleil was in town, we wrote a blog about the challenges in envisioning the Cirque du Soleil strategy for the next 10 years, a case study from our marketing strategy course. In the same way, I now invite you to envisage how a show like the Empire can grow without losing its grungy, cheeky and fresh appeal.
When looking into the future, niche arts companies face the challenge of potentially losing their “cool” in an attempt to attract larger audiences. This would in turn open space for new upcoming acts to fill the demand for underground and independent art performances. The Empire show is definitely not for kids and family. How much would they have to trade-off to capture that part of the market? Another alternative for growth would be to continue to focus on the same target audience and expand their range. Bringing new types of acts that cross the circus border seems like a more feasible option. In fact, by hesitating to use the circus designation and calling themselves a variety show, or simply “spiegelworld”, they seem to be heading in that direction.
This challenge is faced my many SMEs which have a niche audience and are strategising future growth. The danger in adapting their value proposition in order to appeal to a wider audience and grow is that they will lose their sustainable advantage. Do you stick to your niche audience and present them with new offerings, increasing your range? Do you look for similar niche audiences around the world? Do you modify your value proposition to appeal to more segments and have a more mainstream offer?
With all of these questions in mind, how can Spiegelworld successfully grown in the next 10 years?
How often do advertisers get the opportunity to enter into an Ad Talent Show guaranteed to be viewed by more than 110 million viewers? Viewers however should be forewarned that the ads will be interrupted briefly by grown men in tights running around chasing a football.
SuperBowl 2013 is right around the corner for our North American ad lovers, (and also for football enthusiasts). Ad agencies across the US have been preparing for the ‘ad talent show’ for months. With 30 second advertising slots devouring up to $4 million of a company’s advertising budget, advertisers have 30 seconds to showcase their product, make it memorable and convince customers that clear benefits exists for their product. No pressure.
A few strategy savvy companies such as Coke have decided to make every one of their hard earned advertising dollars count by creating a social media buzz around their SuperBowl ad. Their campaign features a ‘pre-ad’ to be aired in the weeks leading up to the big game where by viewers can vote to influence how the Coke ad pans out on the big day. Viewers not only can vote for their preferred ending, but they can also vote to sabotage other people’s votes. This strategy adds to the level of competition and consumer engagement. The most voted ad ending will air right after the whistle is blown announcing the end of SuperBowl 2013. Another simple and memorable marketing strategy.
What marketing strategy has stood out for you in terms of SuperBowl ads?
George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo
After years of denial, Lance Armstrong has finally admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs to aid his record-breaking wins of the Tour de France. The champion cyclist, who became an international hero with his inspiring cancer survival story and raised many millions of dollars for cancer sufferers, is now fighting to save what is left of his personal brand.
Even though Armstrong gained millions from Tour de France prizes, his largest earnings came from his personal brand and his many product endorsements. The Armstrong brand value at the top of his cycling career was estimated to be in excess of $20 million a year, something very few brands in the world can claim according to Mark Serrano, CEO of ProActive Communications. Nike, Anheuser-Busch and bicycle manufacturer Trek, all of which had deals with the disgraced athlete, ended their associations with him after the results of the doping investigation came out and he was banned for life from taking part of Olympic sports.
Brand equity has many definitions and most of them point out to a reputation and good-will developed over time, which gets translated into higher sales and profits. After shattering the trust attached to his name recognition build across many years, his personal brand is predicted by many to be facing the death penalty. However, it is not only his personal brand which is at stake, the cancer charity Livestrong Foundation, which he represented for all these years, is now at risk of being tainted.
Although the Livestrong brand will no doubt take a hit, it is speculated that it will survive Armstrong’s doping admission. As stated on a recent CNN iReport "The effect he had on the foundation was huge, but they both should be able to stand on their own. The foundation should not be held accountable for his deception". Because the foundation was managed hands-off by experienced fundraisers, it was able to establish alliances with other organisations to fundraise and build awareness for its cause. This is said to be the reason why it still hasn’t collapsed amid all the scandals in recent years. Armstrong’s decision to step down from the role of chairman and the board will also assist in separating the charity from the cyclist’s image.
In the corporate world, companies that have their brands involved in scandals can rebrand them by repackaging these with new names and look. However, it doesn’t work that way when it comes to people. The Oprah confessional interview was the first step in trying to save Armstrong’s personal brand. A film about his life is said to follow. None of these replace sincere remorse and action to remediate what he did, may it be in the form of charity work or even helping the doping agency in their investigations. Will the Lance Armstrong personal brand ever recover? Tell us your views.
The awards season has kicked off in Hollywood and you will find brands disputing attention nearly as much as the celebrities. Look closer into the cars, gowns, jewellery and champagne - brand endorsements are everywhere. This kind of implicit marketing also flourishes within the films and TV shows via product placements. Even video games have brands featured in them, like the Obama campaign we saw in the marketing communications lectures. Now that people don’t have to seat through ads, brands are increasingly being shifted into the entertainment piece or choosing to produce their own branded entertainment like Red Bull.
The main advantage of product placement is the ability to establish an instant emotional connection between the audience and the brand. People develop a strong emotional bond towards their favorite series and celebrities, which creates a halo effect for the brands featured in them. Product placement is booming and spend was up 11.7% at $8.25 billion by the end of 2012, with Australian marketers accounting for just over $100 million of the total, according to Consultancy PQ Media.
Media product placement is not new, but what makes it more attractive now is the fact that the audience is increasingly watching content online. This allows them to purchase the product featured on the screen within a few clicks. As discussed in a previous blog, it has recently become possible to embed links on YouTube videos enabling the viewer to buy the products featured on that video. Now imagine women watching shows like Sex and the City and being able to add the characters’ shoes and other fashion items to their shopping basket while watching the series.
Online product placement not only improves brand recognition, but it also generates direct sales. This way companies are able to establish a clear link between the marketing investment in the media placement and the sales generated by it. What is also great about product placement in online media is that it is more transparent than in broadcasted media, where the viewer is often not aware that the brand shown on screen is a paid product placement.
Top global brands are not the only ones opting for this kind of marketing tool. Product placements can be as diverse as the media audiences, so there are opportunities for all kinds of brands. The Green Product Placement agency in the US specialises in placing green, sustainable, socially responsible and local brands across different media. They have placed green brands in popular shows like Gossip Girl and The Good Wife.
All these great promises about product placements will go to waste, unless it is done properly. What we mean here is for the brand to be well integrated with the storyline; otherwise it can backlash like in the latest James Bond movie. Fans were left frustrated with the sight of agent 007 electing to drink a Heineken beer instead his signature vodka martini.
Numerous other brands were featured in Skyfall including Coke, Sony, BMW and Omega watches, which points out to another risk concerning the use of product placements. When overdone, this marketing tool has the potential to annoy viewers, which may result in the audience developing negative attitudes towards the brands. The saturation of brands placed in media could result in people developing the same resistance to product placements as is seen today with traditional ads.
Ask Apple followers why they love their iPads and they will answer: design, convenience, versatility etc. But what if they are just rationalising their choices? What if the choice was made based on emotional associations with the brand, other users and memories that they are not even aware of? And what if Apple had access to this knowledge and tailored its communications to induce more of those warm fuzzy feelings its users experience when interacting with the products? You may be surprised to find many companies are already doing this.
Neuromarketing is a fascinating new field specialising in understanding people’s emotions and attitudes towards brands, products and services by combining neuroscience, psychology and marketing tools. These tools go beyond conscious thought and identify non-conscious responses in the brain. What makes this so relevant is the fact that 75 to 95% of the brain’s processing goes on below conscious awareness, including emotions and feelings.
Current research on consumer behaviour suggests that most purchase decisions are based on minimal conscious thought and are largely driven by emotional responses and feelings. A recent study conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences revealed our decisions are made up 10 seconds before we become aware of them. John-Dylan Haynes, the co-author of the study, stated: “Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done.”
With this in mind, traditional research measures, which rely on the conscious level, are missing a large portion of what drives purchase behavior. Because emotional responses are unconscious, it is practically impossible for people to identify what caused them through conscious methods such as surveys and focus groups. It is also known that by simply asking a person to tell you how they feel automatically changes the feeling. No wonder eight out of 10 new product releases fail regardless of the estimated $4.5 billion USD global annual spend on qualitative market research.
So how are these emotions and feelings measured? Researches essentially put a cap covered in electrodes or magnetic scanners on people’s head, which measures brain impulses and continually tells how much attention they are paying, what emotions they are experiencing and what memories are being retrieved. Neuroimaging is also combined with biometrics such as eye movement, face reading and heart rate to paint a more accurate picture. This knowledge is then used to support a myriad of marketing activities, from new product design to what type of scent to use in a store as well as the effect of celebrities in advertising.
The Nielsen Company, a global leader in market research, bought California-based NeuroFocus in 2011 to tap into this fast growing market. NeuroFocus exhibits a list of high profile clients such as Google, Microsoft, Intel, Facebook and PayPal. The latter was admittedly sceptic about the new method to start with; however, became convinced after seeing click-through rates improve by more than three times, something unheard of in the world of direct marketing. Other companies like McDonald's, Unilever, Procter & Gamble and GlaxoSmithKline have also jumped on the neuromarketing bandwagon with the rival UK consulting company, Neurosense.
The question in everyone’s mind is what are the ethical implications of this? As fascinating as advances in neuroscience do sound, when combined with marketing, it can get a little scary. Neuromarketing has been largely criticized on the basis of manipulation; however, late last year the industry Code of Ethics was announced by the NMSBA as a first step in adopting international standards for applying neuroscientific methods to advertising campaigns and product design.
This topic can go on and on, there is so much that can be discussed on the implications of this research. We will definitely come back to this topic on future posts. But for now, do tell us your views on it from a consumer as well as a marketer’s perspective. As to how you feel about it... well we would have to get some brain scanners to really find that out!
Imagine if visitors of the Walt Disney parks could make all purchases with the swipe of a wristband - souvenirs, hot-dogs, meetings with the characters and bookings to see the parades would all be hassle free. On top of that, what if they received alerts on their smartphones when it was time to go to the Pirates of the Caribbean attraction without having to wait in the queue?
It may sound like fantasy, but this is part of Disney’s ambitious new management system “MyMagic+” predicted to transform the way people consume experiences in a few months time. The investment is estimated to be between $800 million to $1 billion USD, but they have a lot to gain from it in terms of consumer behaviour knowledge.
Visitors will carry a “magic band”, which will act as room key, park ticket, fast pass and credit card using NextGen technology. It will also contain a Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) device enabling the service provider to store data about individual visitors. This will allow guests to enjoy personalised experiences such as having Mickey Mouse call their kids by the name and know if it’s their birthday.
By tracking guests’ preferences, like how many times they have gone to certain rides, promotions can be tailored to them improving their experience in the park. Disney assures all of the data is secured but, if people are uncomfortable with conceding personal information, they can opt out of the data tracking option or at least disable their kids from being tracked.
Seamless transactions without interrupting the magic of the moment also allow for improved consumer experience. However, cashless purchase decisions, the aggregation of all expenses into one bill combined with high emotional involvement lead to people being more careless with spending as demonstrated by many behavioural economics experiments, which we looked at in the Master of Marketing.
Mental accounting rules based on Kahneman’s Prospect Theory show how people tend to combine gains and losses in particular ways in order to maximise happiness. While multiple gains are maximised with segregation as in the popular saying “don’t wrap all the Christmas presents in one box”, losses (i.e. expenses) are less painful when integrated. By adding up all of the park expenses into one bill, suddenly a Mickey Mouse pair of ears seems like nothing compared to what one has already spent just on that day, who hasn’t been there? In addition, separating the payment from the consumption with the “magic bands” reduces the perceived cost of the activity.
There is a fine but crucial line between making the audience’s experience more personalised and satisfying, and using personal data to exploit them. What is your view of the Disney “magic bands” development? How do you feel about having your personal data collected to serve you better? How is this different from promotions targeted to you via your smartphone using geo-locator when you walk into stores, or when you scan your flybuys card at the counter to get discount on chosen items, or when customised ads are displayed on different sites using your browsing history?
With the explosion of e-commerce and social media, online privacy has become a hot topic in today’s media and legislative agenda. As technology, consumer attitudes and legal requirements change, many questions are raised.
What’s the right balance between better online services and protection of privacy? Are people aware of how personal information they are giving away? How much private information are people willing to trade off for something of value such as a free service? A recent event co-hosted by the University of Sydney Master of Marketing and the Association of Market and Social Research Organisations (AMSRO) addressed these and many other questions around data privacy, marketing, research and the consumer.
The ethics and regulatory lectures at the Master of Marketing had opened my eyes to issues concerning data privacy, and it was fascinating to see first hand how Australian leaders are tackling these challenges. The Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Timothy Pilgrim, addressed the audience with an up-to-the-minute overview of the data privacy state of affairs. Below I will do my best to fill you in some of the very interesting points he has touched on.
When considering much of the personal data available online is uploaded by individuals themselves via social media and how readily they trade their personal information in return for convenience or the use of a service, it’s not surprising for some people to question if privacy matters or whether it can even exist?
As pointed out by Timothy, the issue is that it’s one thing to share your personal data on social media with friends and followers but it’s likely, if you haven’t actively adjusted your privacy settings, you may be publicly sharing more than realised and intended. In addition, he emphasised the issue of Internet tracking and profiling creating accurate profiles of users. The more access businesses have to this information, the better they can target consumers with advertisements that match our areas of interest.
This was supported by last year’s World Economic Forum, which described personal information as the new asset class, the new oil, also referred to as big data. He reminded us that aggregation of personal data from search engine history, email content and other personal transaction such as apps downloads often occurs without the user’s understanding it’s happening. And at the very foundation of big data is the fact that it’s personal information and concerns to our right to privacy.
Acceptance of unread terms and conditions with the click of a button takes the relationship between company and the customer in terms of profiling and marketing to a whole new level. People are at the risk of losing control if they are unaware of how their data is being used.
Having in mind personal data is fast becoming the new currency in the digital space, and people are more and more concerned about how it’s being used, do you think companies that have transparent privacy practices will have a competitive edge over others? Do you read privacy terms and proactively adjust the settings of the social networks you use?
Shortly after the Data Privacy forum jointly organised by the University of Sydney and AMSRO, Facebook announced changes to its privacy and governance policies shedding light back on the use (or misuse) of personal data by organisations.
The world's biggest social media company is proposing the end its practice of letting users vote on changes to its privacy policies in favour of Q&A sessions and live webcasts with its chief privacy officer. Under Facebook’s current privacy policy, a vote is triggered if a policy change received more than 7,000 comments, and votes only counted if more than 30 percent of all active users take part. However, this did not happen in the last vote held by the company and is unlikely to do so given that more than 300 million people would have to participate now that the number of users is close to China’s population.
One aspect of the new rules has not received as much attention as it should: Facebook’s plans to use the data it has about users’ liking behaviour to show them ads outside of the social platform by rolling out an external advertising network. This strategy has proved successful with Google’s multibillion dollar Adsense and is aimed to support Facebook’s revenue-growth strategy in order to keep investors happy after the $50 billion market capitalization.
Facebook’s chief privacy officer confirmed their policies intent on a statement to Forbes magazine:
“Everything you do and say on Facebook can be used to serve you ads. Our policy says that we can advertise services to you off of Facebook based on data we have on Facebook.”
However, a large amount of users’ lack of awareness of Facebook’s terms and conditions were demonstrated by the viral spread of meaningless copyright disclaimers recently posted by users on their walls stating they owned copyright over everything they posted on the social network. Hopefully they have become aware by now that, by signing up for a Facebook account, they have already agreed to allow Facebook to use their intellectual property.
PwC have released a research saying 73 percent of Internet users are comfortable disclosing information about themselves online if they receive a tangible benefit for that in return. However, as one of the panellists of the Data Privacy forum has reminded us: “When something online is free, you’re not the customer, you’re the product.”
People are giving away their data in exchange for rewards and services without fully understanding the practical implications. An example raised on the debate was that many customers promptly agree to Flybuys terms and give away their shopping data without realising this can result on them being charged more than others for certain goods on their shopping list. This is something very few people would willingly consent to.
In the industry defense, online businesses will only survive if consumers trust them. If customers don’t, they will use other services, which is a self-preserving notion. However, as the companies that handle online data are getting bigger, people are getting less and less choice. In the case of Facebook, if someone wants to be able to effectively communicate with their overseas friends via a social platform, do they really have a choice? Arguing companies will mostly act in their self-interest and towards profit maximisation, other panelists reasoned data privacy responsibility ultimately lies within government regulation.
How can personal data be protected and who should be responsible for it?
