social technology quarterly issue 06
TRANSCRIPT
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October to December 2012
Colours and
Brand Identity
The Consumer
Generated Funnel
Ethics and Social
Commerce
Social TechnologyQuarterly06
06 2012Kuliza Technologies Ltd.
All Rights Reserved.
Making Loyalty
Programs Work
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Editorial
With a medley of platforms available to buyers today thathave similar prices and offers, brands are focusing ongenerating loyalty. Brands online are no longer ghtingonly in terms of price, presence, or product range. Theyare battling it out to have inuential shoppers and brandadvocates to ensure repeat purchases and build a loyal
community of such shoppers.
In the era of social-dened commerce, a brand thatgarners loyalists and not fans alone, runs campaignsfor experiences and not marketing alone, is the mostpopular, visited, and shopped-at destination. It is onthese shopping platforms one observes that loyalty isnot a passive activity, but an active one with the kind of
deluge and trafc recorded in information sharing.
Social is the genome of commerce. Social createslasting and remarkable relationships that increasepropensity to repurchase and recommend. A loyaltycard is no longer a plastic card for accumulating pointson repeat purchases; there are now designs for loyaltyprograms that are based on insights from various eldsthat redene methods of driving loyalty. While designingand using big amounts of data, careful consideration ofcode of ethics will determine whether social commerce isgoing to be as effective as predicted. Lifestyles, cultures,and practices too translate into understanding needs ofpeople inuenced by social commerce. All these cometogether and contribute to what social commerce aimsat: brand advocacy and loyalty, created through word of
mouth. The brand that has reliable word of mouth is theone with a large, voluble community of loyal customers
and least number of advertising campaigns.
This is the difference between online commerce andsocial commerce done well.
Diarmaid Byrne
Vandana U.
EditorsSocial Technology Quarterly 06
The Social Technology Quarterly is a r esearch
publication that distills the signal from the noise in the
uid social and mobile web domain. From multiple
perspectives it analyzes commerce, campaigns,
and communities through the lenses of business,
technology, design, and behaviour.
Social as a Driver of LoyaltyVandana U.
Rebrandings of Technology CompaniesAmit Mirchandani
Impact of Colours on Brand IdentityAnindya Kundu
The Proof is in the ExperienceVandana U.
06
10
12
19
Making Loyalty Programs WorkDiarmaid Byrne
Thinking Big DataSiddharth Balaravi
Experience ShoppingAnish Dasgupta
The Consumer Generated FunnelDiarmaid Byrne
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30
33
36
Ethics and Social CommerceSaswati Mitra Saha
The Maker MovementPayal Shah
Access Greater than OwnershipKaushal Sarda
Learning by Keeping your Eyes OpenNehal Shah
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44
48
50
Campaigns
Commerce
Communities
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Social Technology Quarterly and the STQ logo are trademarks of Kuliza
Technologies Ltd. Their reproducion without the proper permissions is
unlawful.
Copyright 2012 Kuliza Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
You are free to share and make derivative works of this publication
only for non-commercial purposes and under the conditions that you
appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license
identical to this one.
Social Technology Quarterly 06
October to December 2012
Published by Kuliza Technologies Ltd.
Printed by Print 2 Last Solutions
#7 Poorvi, 1st Cross, Shirdisai Nagar
Bangalore 560 077
www.print2last.com
Subscribe
to Social Technology Quarterly at:
stq.kuliza.com
Contributors
Amit Mirchandani
Chief Creative Ofcer at Kuliza & MD at Lucid Design
Anindya Kundu
Visual Designer at Kuliza
Anish Dasgupta
Marketing Manager at Kuliza
Diarmaid Byrne
Chief People Ofcer at Kuliza
Kaushal Sarda
Chief Product Ofcer at Kuliza
Nehal Shah
Design Researcher
Payal Shah
Co-founder and Maker-at-Large at makesplash.es
Saswati Saha Mitra
Consumer Behaviourist
Siddharth Balaravi
Co-founder of GetJugaad
Vandana U.
Marketing & Communications Specialist at Kuliza
Diarmaid ByrneEditor
Vandana U.Editor
Amit Mirchandani Design
Lucid Design India Pvt. Ltd.
www.lucid.co.in Personal is social,
behaviour is social,
and loyalty is social.
Now all commerce is
social.
Social TechnologyQuarterly06
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Brands are going social with the r ight
mix of communications technology andconsumer values. Social is a catalyst that
is driving unprecedented loyalty, built
not at one stage but across various stages
and elements of the shopping process.
byVandana U.
Photo Credit:zion fction
Social as aDriver ofLoyalty
In the age of social commerce, where traditional e-commerce is no
more even a nomenclature, loyalty seems to spell a new pattern with
new trends. With several factors determining shopping- ranging from
best prices, proximity, recommendations, to mood-swings even; it is
necessary to understand not only how loyalty and social commerce
go hand in hand but understand how social is a driver of loyalty. It
goes without saying that shopping has always been a social activity. A
lot of denitions place social commerce under the huge umbrella term
of e-commerce. Currently, as dened by Renata Gonalves Curty and
Ping Zhang, Social commerce is broadly considered to encompass
commerce activities mediated by social media where people do
commerce or intentionally explore commerce opportunities by
participating and/or engaging in a collaborative online environment.
To the process of buying and selling online, social adds layers of
conversations and interactions between consumers, communities,
and businesses. These conversations are the new points-of-sales.
Businesses are leveraging social, making it highly integrated and
highly relevant to see new growth. The assumption is obvious: if
social elements are necessary to drive in engagement, they are vital
to driving loyalty too.
Being Social
The ontology of online commerce now is social as the smart-
technology-driven buyer is no longer merely a buyer nor is passive.
The buyer today is socially nourished through elements such as
sharing, likes, conversations, reviews, and interests. The use of social
Campaigns
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Social Technology Quarterly 06Kulizanetwork serves social interaction and encourages user contribution
throughout the purchase process - right from research to activities
for post the purchase. There is a sure transfer of power because
advertising alone would not generate that much needed buzz.
Whether one terms it social, viral or calls it word of mouth, sharing
is an unstoppable activity.
A brand that goes social brings in the elements that revolve around a
customer not only in a terms of being a part of the target market but
include the entire social world of the shopper. Interests, behaviours,
shopping patterns, activities of the shopper and that of the shoppers
friend circle are all roped in. Customers have varied and new ways
to research, compare, evaluate, purchase, and provide feedback on
products and services. The agenda of engaging a shopper personally
does not mean providing attention alone, but making sure anything
the person needs, would like, and would want help, guidance from
are all available. The superlative bit of it is that it is effortless for
the shopper. After such a shopping experience the brand becomes
the sought-after destination. It is these brands that, irrespective of
whether they have the product the customer is looking for, will be
relied on and people will be loyal to.
Elements of Social
A typical purchasing process begins with awareness- about a brand,
its utility, etc, moving on to being interested in the product and nally
purchasing it. Radically working out commerce includes layers of
social in each of the stages in the process. There are different aspects
on which businesses are creating conversations. Consumers may
end up nding themselves in situations, unable to make purchase
decisions. In such a situation when the next step to take is not known,
advices, recommendations, support all kick in. The people in the
persons social world around the customer act as guides towards
decision making.
The following are some of the identied elements of being social:
Content: A great social experience includes presenting the rightcontent to the right customer at the right time. Curation is a
serious affair in social commerce. From purchase history to what
devices people are on, content has to be new, useful, and that
adds value to consumers.
Referrals and recommendations: A report made by Nielsen
indicated that 92 percent of people go by recommendations for a
purchase online rather than believing in advertisements.
Reviews and ratings: Showcasing reviews from satised
customers, friends from their social networks adds to the
credibility of the brand and is extremely inuential in conversions.
News feed: Friends see stories as they appear in the news feed.
Any and every activity is again a point of sale. This stream ows
and connects brands to people super fast.
Credits
Top: Stuart Connor
Middle:Aural Asia
Bottom: iBaNe
Reward: Rewards increase repeat purchases and build loyalty.
Ranking people, awarding points, and offering rewards tempt
people to stick around longer and even work towards it.
Encourage advocacy: Authentic advocacy inuences the
purchase decisions of everyone around.
There are applications, tools, and technologies that make all of the
above happen. Tools have been made that measure social ROI rather
accurately: from tracking number of likes, tweets, followers, pins,
re-pins, to inuences. Sophisticated analyses, metrics, campaigns
designed based on insights for right targeting, conversions, word-
of-mouth to generate great loyalty have come up. The surplus data
about behaviours, psyche, etc., offer companies opportunities to even
predict shopping patterns.
Comprehend and work on the entire shopping behaviour cycle with
the right suites of applications. Social commerce is about customer-
satisfaction, providing great experiences, and being customer centred
over the traditional sense of being prot and transactional driven.
There is a great deal of focus on relationships; the motive is no
longer sale but repeat sales along with achieving a dollop of loyalty.
To sell better and build loyalty from social audiences stimulate them,
add value, and transfer the power of transaction to them. Create
environments and platforms that actively engage with users, maintain
relationships in a personal manner- that replicates building one to
one rapport. The feminists fought for their rights with the motto The
personal is political and social commerce is making its stand with
The personal is social.
References
Cavazza,Fred.The Six Pillars of Social Commerce. Forbes.02 Jan
2012.
Chaney, Paul. Word of Mouth Still Most Trusted Resource Says
Nielsen; Implications for Social Commerce. Social Commerce Today.
16 Apr 2012.
Curty, Renata Gonalves, and Ping Zhang. American Society
for Information Science and Technology. American Society for
Information Science and Technology.48.1 (2012): 1-10.
Social Commerce. Wikipedia Inc.10 Sep 2012.
Starbucks Card. Starbucks. Starbucks Corporation. Web. 10 Oct
2012.
Group buying: Just as how news spreads quickly, group buying,
group gifting spread word about a brand, offering convenience
in terms of gaining discounts and making gifting easy. It is no
wonder that group buying can make brands go viral.
Exclusives: Exclusive fan deals, discounts for sharing,
personalized shopping experiences, pop-up shops, help make
brands stand out. Offering a privilege or a benet, and a bonus
that no one else offers ensure people stay and the cycle of
recommendations and referrals continues.
Rewards: Incentives drive people to respond. Through social,
make users perform targeted, marketing actions. Offer rewards
for expressing views, writing a review, clicking a link, sharing a
promotion, referring a friend, etc. Adding game techniques to the
incentives is another brilliant move.
Socially driven loyalty programs: Starbucks is famous for its
loyalty cards and programs. Making a move to going social with
gifting cards, rewards, and points, the program gets better with
the convenience it offers in terms of technology. The card can be
added to the Starbucks mobile app, there is an app that allows
users to check the level they havee reached in the program
using the star - My Starbuck Rewards currency, and there are
elements of fun. When one makes a purchase and goes to that
tab on the mobile app, one sees a star actually fall into a cup
and that tracks progress over time. This is evidence enough
to show that loyalty programs are now no longer for ensuring
repeat purchases built around points and rewards and repeat
purchases but built around people: enabling social mechanics
and designing a simple user engagement model.
Going Social
Going social is about redening engagement. Engagement is not
about interacting with random games and making offers after one
accumulates fans. There are various touch points in all the phases
of the shopping experience where engagement and personalization
need to be driven.
Acquaint: To drive awareness around a brand that claims beingsocial its is necessary to reect that in the awareness drive,
which has to be social in nature to elicit interest. With the plethora
of data available, set up campaigns that involve people together
be it a contest or a basic game.
Drive: Create a social world where people can participate in
activities together. Be it in the form of extending referrals or group
buying, make the world a personalized one with the help of that
deluge of data available about online behaviours and activities.
Support: In order to be a core part of peoples lives, engage, talk,
and extend support in forms of content, stories, expressions, etc.
Conversations that will help the community will also build brand
advocates. They curate information, inuence other buyers, and
communicate about brands across different social networks.
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3. Mindtree
Mindtrees original logo looked more appropriate as
the signboard to a less discerning art gallery rather
than a logo for a global information technology
services corporation with 11,000 employees based
all around the world. The revised logo is certainly
more appropriate if not a little expected for what such
a corporation ought to look like. Nevertheless, it is a
very positive step in the right direction, communicating
capability, professionalism, technology, and a global
perspective.
1. Microsoft
Microsoft has taken a page out of Apples mandate on
simplicity to reveal this new logo. Referring to some of
its consumer logos from the past, the new logo does
away with the differentiation between the corporate
and consumer logo: a silly idea to begin with. While
the applications of the new logo are very clever
considering how Windows 8 is composed of an array
of functional squares, the execution is a bit weak. The
logo looks nondescript and simple rather than unique
and simple.
2.Twitter
If a company has been able to replace its name with a
symbol, that can be considered a huge sign of success
in my view: think Nike, Mercedes, Shell, and Apple.
Where twitter makes this success even sweeter is in the
tightness of it all - not only does the symbol represent the
brand name and the companys mission statement, but
also the very action that the companys product enables
you to do. This sort of clarity in the messaging of the logo
comes by once in a generation!
Focus
5
5. Shutterstock
The old logo shown here is not exactly the oldest logo in the
history of Shutterstock. In the last ten years the company
has rebranded itself at least four times, starting with a rather
likeable camera with a lm strip rolling out of it with the words
Shutterstock on it. As the logo evolved the camera became
more and more abstract and the type became an arbitrary
continuation of letters where ever possible. I am happy to say
that the new identity is a beautiful and refreshing departure
from that line of thinking. The two corners of the frame
that dene the o can be used in myriad ways across any
materials, highlighting what ever the company wishes to call
attention to. Bold, inventive and cleanly executed!
4. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpons new identity represents a healthy evolution from
the dot com era logos of the early 2000s. The new colours are
reduced to just two, both bold and vibrant. A graphic reduction
sees unnecessary gradients and shadows eliminated, giving the
logo a clean minimal feel. The interplay between the mark and
the type is more harmoious. This has a knock down effect to
the website, and that is where massive strides have often been
made: gone is the light blue and white machine language based
functionality that has typied so many sites built in the last ten
years.
Rebrandings ofTech Companies
byAmit Mirchandani
Photo Credit: Underconstruction.com
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Colours are crucial for brands, especially because of the
visual impact they can create in terms of establishing
values and ideas a brand would want to project. Withtheir aesthetic properties and psychological impact
colours can turn around a brands identity.
byAnindya Kundu
Illustration Credit:Anindya Kundu
The roots of the word brand can be traced
back to the old Norse word brandr which
denotes the ancient use of hot iron to mark
cattle of one farm from another. The word
maverick, which originally meant unbranded
cattle has its origins in the story of a Texas
rancher, Samuel Augustus Maverick,
whose neglected cattle were rounded up by
neighbouring ranchers.
Branding also found its expression inmarkings on bricks, watermarks on paper,
and signs on barrels to distinguish products.
Even the signatures of master artists such
as Leonardo da Vincis on paintings can be
considered as a form of branding. Much after,
branding was done with the use of logos on
printed posters and product packaging. With
the advent of radio and television slogans,
jingles, and mascots started appearing with
brand advertisements.
Today, a brand is a voice that gives a
unique identity to an organization or entity,
distinguishing it from others. It often comprises
the name, corresponding typography,
shapes, symbol, logo or any other design
elements including the colours used by the
organization. Great branding is effective in
driving loyalty, bring to limelight the products
or services offered by a company and boost
sales or transactions in unparalleled ways.
Colour is a prime visual element people
perceive. Hence it plays a crucial role in anydesign. It is extremely important in branding
because not only does it add aesthetic value
in terms of art but also because different
colours have different psychological impacts
on viewers. Thus the choice of colours in
brand identity requires to be made according
to the vision of the company and the impact it
wants to create on its specic audience.
A Glimpse into Colour Theory
Colours can be fundamentally described
Impact of Colourson Brand Identity
Campaigns
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using two models the additive model and
the subtractive model. The additive model of
colour mixing is based on the behaviour of
light mixes. Here red, green, and blue light
combine to produce white light. The behaviour
of mixing of colour pigments like any dye,
paint or ink give rise to the subtractive model.
In this case, any colour can be generated by
mixing the colours cyan, magenta, yellow,
and black, and is the foundation of colour
printing and photography. Colours can alsobe dened using the three attributes of hue,
saturation and lightness.
Based on the traditional Colour Wheel
that dates back to Goethes Theory of
Colours published in 1810, red, yellow, and
blue are the primary colours. By mixing the
primary colours, secondary colours such as
orange, green, and purple are produced.
Consequently, by mixing a primary colour
with its adjacent secondary colour the tertiary
colours - vermilion, marigold, chartreuse,
aquamarine, violet, and magenta - are
derived. Colours can also be divided based
on their relative temperature, based on both
nature and cultural norms. Warm colours
include red to yellow including orange, pink,
brown, and burgundy. Cool colours include
green to blue including shades of violet. Cool
colours have a calming effect and appear to
recede, while warm colours represent heat
and motion, pop-out and create emphasis.
Hence cool colours are often used for
backgrounds and warm colours for makingheadings or graphics to stand out.
While choosing a colour scheme or a
combination of colours that work together,
relative positions of colours in the colour
wheel offer an advantage. Thus some
of the basic colour schemes which exist
are: monochromatic (tones of a single
colour), analogous (colours closely related),
complementary (colours opposite to one
another), split complementary (when
complementary colours are split to two
close and equidistant colours), triadic (three
colours equally separated in wheel), and the
tetradic (also called double complementary).
The Functional Impact of
Colours
The functional aspect of colours is to create
emphasis or prominence, which is a primary
goal of branding. Thus along with using the
other principles of placement, continuity,isolation and proportion, contrast between
colours is the factor determining readability
and attention of the viewers. Black on
white is the easiest to read on both paper
and computer screens. Other most legible
combinations include black on yellow,
green on white followed by red on white.
As mentioned earlier, warm colours tend to
pop-out more compared to cooler colours,
which appear to recede. This can be used
effectively to emphasize branding.
The Psychological Impact of
Colours
Different colours have different emotional
impacts associated with specic moods.
Red is the colour for passion. It is known
to increase human metabolism and has an
exciting, dramatic effect. Even the richer
colours- burgundy and maroon nd their appeal
amongst wine and ne living enthusiasts.
Orange is an active and energetic colour. It
promotes enthusiasm and creativity. It has a
less formal and more inviting appeal to it. It
works well for anything related to food and
cooking. Being hard to nd in nature they
it also stands out and hence used in life-
jackets, road cones and hunting vests.
Yellow is a highly active colour and fosters
happiness. Hence it is the colour of smiley
icons and is commonly used to evoke
friendliness.
Green is the colour for nature and freshness.
It is also associated with currency and hence
wealth and prosperity.
Blue is the colour of tranquillity, peace and
stability. It symbolizes openness, intelligence
and faith. The negative connotation
associated with it is melancholy as expressed
in blues music.
Purple has both the stimulation of red and thecalmness of blue. It is the colour of royalty
and extravagance. This association stemmed
from the difculty in preparing purple dye in
ancient times. It is also commonly seen in
gemstones, owers, and wine.
White is the colour associated with purity and
perfection. In some Asian cultures it is the
signier of death.
In spite of all its negative connotations with
darkness, evil and death, Black is also the
colour of elegance, power and strength if
used appropriately in certain contexts.
Colours and Aesthetic value
The aesthetic values of colours are derived
from the choice of colours according to the
context it has been used in as well as from
the harmony in the colour palette. This
harmony can be obtained from the use of
the basic colour schemes monochromatic,analogous, complementary, split
complimentary, triadic, and tetradic. Adobe
Kuler is a great resource for nding and
creating sophisticated colour themes based
on these basic colour schemes.
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Red
Turquoise
Nature & Freshness
Currency & Prosperity
Friendliness & Happiness
Energy & Dynamism
Green
Spring Green
Yellow
Orange
Cyan
Ocean
Stability & Intelligence
Calmness & Peace
Passion & Drama
Increases Metabolism
Blue
Violet
Magenta
Raspberry
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KulizaUse of colours across different
sectors
Different business sectors show particular
preferences towards certain colours:
Food and Beverage Industry
It has an afnity towards the colours red,
yellow, and orange. This is apparent in the
branding of Coca Cola, McDonalds, KFC,
Taco Bell, Caf Coffee Day and almost
any other fast food chain. Red stimulates
appetite, while yellow and orange impart
friendliness. Green is also used as in Subway
branding to indicate freshness and nature.
Pepsi and Dominos introduce a relatively
uncommon blue, but it again has red to offset
and contrast it.
Automobile Industry
Automobiles look for a classy appeal and
usually use black and chrome textures.
Prominent examples include Nissan, Honda,
Jaguar, and Mercury. Red is also used
sometimes to evoke passion as we can
notice in Toyota, Audi, Suzuki, Fiat, and many
others. Reliability and stability are evoked
by BMW, Ford, Mazda, Volvo and Saab.
Even the sporty yellow and orange nd their
expressions with Ferrari, Renault, Opel, and
Chevrolet.
IT Industry
Computers and IT services companies have
a preference towards blue as it gives the
sense of clarity and stability. DELL, HP, IBM,
Intel, Microsoft, Facebook, and eBay have
blue as the foundation to their branding. In
case of electronics both red and blue nd
prominence. Samsung, Phillips, Sony, and
Panasonic use blue while others like LG,
Canon, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Bosh are based
on variations of red.
Telecommunications Sector
Organizations in the mobile and
communications sector have similar colour
preferences in order to represent energy,
dynamism, reliability, and friendliness. Hence
colours such as red, blue, yellow, and orange
are common. For example, the blue branding
of Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson, the red of
Vodafone and Virgin, and orange used by
Orange are examples that stand for these
attributes.
Retail Sector
This sector too uses a lot of red to capture
energy, yellow and shades of orange for
friendliness, and a splash of blue and green
to denote freshness.
Toys
Since children are attracted by primary
colours, logos of toy companies often use
bright primary colours. Children tend to prefer
primary colours and hence clothes and toys
typically have primary colours.
Fashion Industry
The colours associated with luxury are
black and richer shades of red like brown,
burgundy, maroon, and forest green. Hence
most designer labels use either black or
these colours to make their statement to
their niche audience. This is also the case
with most wine, liqueur, and other premium
products.
Colours have a deep impact on the
branding of a product or service due to its
psychological, functional, and aesthetic
properties. Although there are no xed rules
for choosing colours for a specic brand,
certain trends and patterns according to
the industry and audience proles can be
mapped. While there are certain norms and
rules based on colour theory, exceptions also
exist and have alternative appeals to stand
out of the crowd.
Selling technologies by providing the space to any customer to experience
a device before purchasing adds to the whole experience of buying a great
device. With this idea replicated for purchasing most goods and not only
devices, the verdict is clear. It is the experience that closes a deal. However,
in the age of social when with a click an experience can be made exclusive,
only a handful of experiences online really follow the key word: exclusive.
Here is a portfolio of events and experiences enhanced by technologies.
These represent the incredible results and outcomes achieved through a
mix of behaviours, activities, and technology.
Smart businesses are using technologies to create integrated physical,
digital, mobile, and social shopping experiences and events where customers
can access plethora of information while they shop. Such events that go
across all marketing and shopping channels provide the insights and data
one can innovate with. Stores are rolling out apps that help accomplish rich
experiences with each customer. These events, activities, and experiments
are great examples of embracing the smart customer with smart technologies
and provide meaningful cohesive customer experience. This ensures that
online and ofine experiences are not separate but integrated for holistic
shopping experiences that lead to repeat purchases and brand loyalty.
Technology enables and experiences win!
The Proof is inthe Experience:Enhancing Experience by leveraging technologies
For brands, apps serve as a lasting
marketing channel that enables direct
contact with target audience. They offer not
plain engagement but holistic experiences.
Here are some activities conducted by
brands combined with online, offline and
augmented reality elements that can awe
any marketer.
byVandana U.
Photo Credit: Micurs
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A phenomenon that has driven crazy online
sales and engagement is augmented reality.
Virtual reality is a simulation of a real
environment; however, people get into a
different reality dened by the virtual space
and goes beyond physical reality. On the
other hand augmented reality, as Wikipedia
describes it, is a live, direct or indirect,
view of a physical, real-world environment
whose elements are augmented by
computer-generated sensory input such as
sound, video, graphics or GPS data. Erick
Schonfeld opines that Augmented Reality
enhances the real world with digital data,
and therefore it is more interesting than a
fabricated environment.
An experiment that caught my eye was the
mix of apps and augmented reality with pop-up
stores. The concept of pop-ups is not new any
longer on the social commerce space. With the
success of pop-ups soaring, adding augmented
reality to them seems a clever move.
A leading shoe brand dedicated to sport
culture, Airwalk set up invisible pop-up shops
in New York and Los Angeles. Inspired by
the idea of a treasure hunt, 600 pairs of
shoes were hidden. People who wanted a
pair of Airwalks - the Ladies Jim Plastic and
the mens Jim Tennis - had to download the
GoldRun app on their smart phones. People
headed to Venice Beach, Los Angeles, or
1Washington Square, New York City, to capture
virtual versions of the sneakers and GPS-
links to each location were provided. As soon
as people located a shoe on their phones and
took a photo of the shoe, they were directed to
Airwalks e-commerce site and given a pass
code link to pre-order the exclusive shoes.
For Airwalk, hangouts and famous locations
in the two cities turned into their stores.
Without a brick and mortar shop, 600
pairs of shoes were sold in a day. Airwalk
witnessed the highest amount of trafc on
its site during this event.
Airwalk:
Augmented Reality Campaign
Credit: Piermario
Another experience leveraged with social
media (not with an app, but a map) is
by Volkswagen Brazil. The motor brand
sponsored the Planeta Terra Festival in Sao
Paulo and promoted its car, the Fox, through
a mix of Twitter, Google Maps, and real
locations where prizes were hidden. Similar
to a treasure hunt, ten tickets to the festival
were hidden across the city and these were
displayed on a microsite using Google Maps.
However, one couldnt zoom in to spot the
exact location unless it was tweeted about.
The more number of tweets containing the
2
hashtag #foxatplanetaterra were sent,
meant the closer the zoom on the map.
The rst ones to arrive at a location where
tickets were hidden would win. It is reported
that in less than two hours after it began, the
campaign became the number 1 trending topic
in Brazil and the event stretched to 4 days.
With a mix of online and ofine strategies,
Volkswagen generated a huge amount of word
of mouth. The campaign played on behaviours
through gamication, such as the desire to
win. With tweets acting as gates to levels of
zoom, the excitement of crossing each level
and being closer to the ticket pumped in the
required adrenalin.
Although Volkswagen did not offer an
experience directly in relation to the car,
which perhaps would have been more
relatable, the outcomes of this campaign
nevertheless were phenomenal.
Volkswagen:
#foxatplanetaterra
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4Speaking about motor companies, Fiat
too stepped onto the bandwagon of
experiences. Catalogues can be heavy
to read. Instead of making a boring read,
Fiat made people experience its catalogue
as a part of its Street Evo campaign. Fiat
broke the old pattern of visiting a showroom,
checking a catalogue, and test driving the
car, by creating a new gamied experience.
Promoting Punto Evo to its evolved and tech
savvy audience, Fiat came up with a mobile
app that read road signs as QR codes.
Instead of merely reading the features of the
car off a catalogue, after capturing a road
sign, one could get a visual on the feature of
the car on ones phones. So if one scanned
the stop sign, the user would get to know
all about the new breaking system; a curve
ahead sign would inform the user about the
cars intelligent lighting system that guides
the driver in curves. Now that sounds like a
regular app. However, Fiat added a game-
like experience by hiding hundreds of prizes
in the trafc signs, the rst ones to discover
them won the prize. The campaign saw
1,000,000 trafc signs being spotted on
week one, an 82 percent increase in test
drives, and it is Fiats most-seen catalogue
in the companys history. What made this
campaign a success was the incentive
part of it. Incentives and rewards make the
experience all the more fun and worthwhile.The app and the experience manage to
satiate any visitors curiosity. Anyone buying
a car will have numerous questions, and
what better way than this to answer, through
a game-like experience.
3Fiat:
Street Evo
Credit:Bokeh Burger Lynxs fallen angel campaign used
augmented reality to reflect itself as a
brand that brings a mans fantasies very
close to reality. With the objective of
raising awareness and driving purchase
of the Lynx Excite range, Lynx exploits
social media to engage its target
audience - 18 to 24 year old males - with
angels seemingly falling from the skies
for them at Londons Victoria Station. A
live broadcast, yet highly personalized,
it bent towards the angle of literally
fulfilling fantasies. It talks to men in
an exciting way, making them feel that
they are attractive, by making a woman
l iterally fall for them. Also, combined
with a Facebook game in which Lynx
challenge users to try and release one
of the angels - model and actress Kelly
Brook - the campaign is a real winner.
The campaign worked because it turns
around a fantasy as if it were actually
logical for the angel to fall.
References:
Augmented Reality. Wikipedia.Wikimedia
Foundation Inc,17 Sep 2012.
Biela, Martin. Autofspace: Digital online
automotive campaigns. Autofspace, 08 May
2011.
Hui, Francisco Hui Francisco. PSFK. PSFK
Services,05 Oct 2010.
Lynx Excite Angels meet the public at
London Victoria. Lynx Effect Blog. Lynx, 14
Mar 2011.
Parker,David. Lynx Excite fallen angel by
Tullo Marshall Warren. Campaign: The
Work.Haymarket Haymarket Business Media,
15 Mar 2011.
Volkswagen Fox: Twitter Zoom Campaign.
Digital Buzz.N.p.,02 Mar 2011.
Lynx:
Fallen Angel
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Commerce
MakingLoyalty
ProgramsWork
Loyalty programs rule our lives. They determine the airline we y with.
Sometimes even the schedule we take. They inuence where we meet,
drink coffee or have lunch. They determine the products we buy in
supermarkets. They have the power to inuence us to spend more than
we need to on items that we would view as otherwise unnecessary.
And they do this because companies understand that by giving
their customers a membership number and a plastic card, they can
seemingly satisfy peoples basic psychological aspirations and needs.
Providing these types of symbols work at a psychological level to
target and trigger actions and behaviours that engender repeat
purchase and advocacy. That is, they create loyalty. As much as all
companies want to distinguish themselves with a uniquely branded
loyalty program for their customers, the elements of each program are
often indistinguishable. American Airlines launched the rst air miles
program in 1981 that seemingly every other airline has since copied;
ditto with supermarkets, hotels, and cafs. It is hardly their fault as
there are a limited number of elements that can be employed in their
loyalty programs:
Points: calculated by the amount a member spends
Levels: based on how much a member spends during a specic
period of time
Badges: awarded based on what level the member has reached.
It signies, particularly to other people, the rewards and benets
the member receives
Rewards: offers, discounts, and benets that a member receives
Loyalty programs have undergone a
transformation with a shift from only
rewards-based programs to well-
designed, gamified structures created
based on models of motivation and of
behaviour.
byDiarmaid Byrne
Photo Credit: Onigiri-kun
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Social Technology Quarterly 06KulizaIn the last few years, these elements have been used by game
designers to create environments that lead to longer-lasting and
more in-depth participation, replicating the experience people have
while playing traditional video games. This has become known as
gamication. Game designers applied these elements to insights
from psychology and motivation theories to create immersive and
engaging experiences that ensure people continue to participate to a
greater extent than in traditional loyalty programs. The best of these
gamied loyalty programs not only add points, levels, and badges, but
also combine great game designs with an understanding of behaviour
and motivation theories. To understand why and how loyalty programs
work it is important to understand how people behave. This is best
done by looking at psychology models of motivation and behaviour.
From a perspective based on psychology, loyalty programs aim to
drive behaviours of different types of participants, at specic times,
based on triggers that the program provides. Loyalty programs draw
on the work of Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs. The
purpose was to identify the basic types of human motivations and the
order in which they generally progress. There are ve needs:
Physiological: air, food, water, sex, sleep
Safety: health, employment and nancial security
Belonging: friendship, family, love, intimacy
Esteem: condence, achievement, respect, self-esteem
Self-actualization: the desire to become everything that one is
capable of becoming
Maslow believed that these needs motivate people to act. Their
behaviours are driven by their desire to satisfy their needs, starting
with fundamental physiological and safety needs, to higher-level
needs of achievement and self-esteem. Once the needs at each level
are satised a person is motivated to satisfy needs at the next level.
Michael Wu notes that Dan Pink expanded on Maslows self-
actualization needs in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About
What Motivates Us. His view is that once many of the basic levels
of needs have been satised, people are more motivated by intrinsic
motivators. Pink identied three needs that provide intrinsic motivation:
Autonomy: people want to have control over their work
Mastery: people want to get better at what they do
Purpose: people want to be part of something that is bigger than
they are
Both Maslows Hierarchy of Needs and Dan Pinks Three Intrinsic
Motivators provide an explanation about why people are motivated
to act. However, a loyalty program still needs to trigger desired
behaviours at a specic time to ensure member participation.
The key to triggering behaviours is to make sure that loyalty programs
work as intended. B.J. Fogg developed a behavioural model - Foggs
-
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Behavioural Model or FBM - to help designers and marketers ensure
that all psychological elements are present to trigger behaviour. He
posits that there are three factors with subcomponents that lead to
certain behaviours:
Motivation: pleasure / pain, hope / fear, social acceptance /
rejection
Ability: time, money, physical effort
Triggers: facilitator, spark, signal
Fogg argues that in order to trigger desired behaviours, all three
factors need to converge at the same time. Thus, the loyalty
program needs to be crafted in a way that these three factors occur
at the same time. It must provide a trigger to initiate the behaviours
it wants from its members. It then needs to ensure that they are
motivated and have the ability to complete those behaviours. That
is, the loyalty program should offer sufcient rewards to the person
to be motivated enough to do the action, and the person should have
the ability to complete the action.
Along with understanding motivation, designers of loyalty programs
need to understand how their members would engage with the loyalty
program. When conceptualizing a program, designers need to ensure
it appeals to as many people as possible. Richard Bartle developed a
simple player typology with four basic player types to understand the
motivations that drive people to play:
Achievers: people who are motivated to achieve points and other
rewards for the prestige of having them
Explorers: people who prefer to discover and learn about the
game, often at their own pace
Socializers: people who play for the social aspect rather than
the game itself
Killers: people who enjoy competing against others
By understanding that there are different types of players, designers
and marketers are better able to ensure that aspects of the loyalty
program appeal and motivate as broad a range of people as possible.
Loyalty programs are designed to meet the needs of people in a way that
motivates them to behave in a specic manner. They need to be broad
enough to attract different types of people, wh ether they are achievement
orientated or socializers. When we apply Maslows Hierarchy of Needs,
Dan Pinks focus on factors that provide intrinsic motivation, Foggs
Behavioural Model and Bartles player typology, we can see why loyalty
programs are successful in motivating specic behaviours. Maslow and
Pink explain what people need, and in order to satisfy these needs people
are motivated into action. The belonging needs in Maslows Hierarchy
correspond to the social aspect of participating in loyalty programs. The
esteem needs correspond to status, achievements and leaderboards.
In the case of Dan Pinks three factors, mastery corresponds to points,
progression and levels, and purpose corresponds to goals and targets.
For loyalty programs to be successful, they need to meet these needs
to motivate member behaviour. However, to trigger this behaviour,
according to Fogg, the programs mechanics must ensure that these
three factors all occur at precisely the same time.
Credit:Dijle
By examining airline loyalty programs, it is possible to see how these
apply insights from psychology and motivation theories. They appeal
especially to Bartles achievers and killers typography. People are
motivated to achieve a certain level of status from their membership
program so that it satises their belonging and esteem needs. They
are part of a (possibly) small percentage who are platinum members
and who receive platinum-level benets. As such, they also have the
symbols to reect this status - platinum membership card, dedicated
check-in lane, lounge access.
Another example of a loyalty program that applies insights from
psychology and motivation theories is Nike+. It is not a traditional
loyalty program; in fact it gamies running. However, by aligning with
peoples goal - improving their athletic performance - Nike ensures it
shares a common purpose with people. Nike helps them achieve their
goal with their runners, clothing, and Nike+ apps, while increasing the
switching costs from Nike to one of their competitors.
The Nike+ tness tool uses game elements to encourage people to
improve their tness. A device is tted into Nike runners and then
synchs with an iPhone or iPod. Users can track their activities,
performance - distance, time, pace, calories burned - and their
progression, set challenges, and compete with their friends. They can
post their run on Facebook and Path and hear real-time cheers for
every comment or like they receive.
Nike+ has been extremely successful, and looking at how it works it
is easy to see why. It appeals to all four of Bartles player typologies
by allowing people to interact in different ways with the tool:
compete against others, work to achieve goals, meet other exercise
enthusiasts, or work on tness at their own pace. It also satises the
safety, belonging and esteem needs of Maslows hierarchy, and the
intrinsic motivators that Dan Pink identied. Nike+ also shows Foggs
Behavioural Model in action: users have targets and challenges
based on their ability and the app motivates them while running to
achieve them, triggering behaviours.
Loyalty programs will evolve to being a constant partner in their
members lives through smart phone apps, and not just thought of
when queuing to purchase products in a store. Nike+ is one such
example of where loyalty programs are heading. They will be gamied
to create more engagement from members. To do this well they need
to be cognizant of the psychology of motivation and behaviour. Loyalty
programs will have a clear purpose that is shared by their members
and they will help their members achieve it.
References
Abraham Maslow. Wikipedia,The Free Encyclopedia.17 Sep 2012.
Wu, Michael. Gamification 101: The Psychology of Motivation.
Lithosphere.03 Jan 2011.
Fogg, BJ.Foggs Behavioural Model. Online Posting to Twitter.Web.
30 Oct.2012.
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Kuliza
Never in the history of commerce has such
a deluge of data been vaunted before
an information-hungry, and social-savvy
audience. Only a decade ago, CERN, a
European research organization, set up one
of the worlds largest databases with over
11.5 billion web pages. Today, the average
supermarket has access to shopping data:
stores that are at least twice as big, if not
bigger in size.
When consumers use their credit cards at
restaurants, clothing stores, or other retail
businesses, those purchase choices are
recorded and processed. Within the hour,
businesses have the ability to unearth
underlying consumption patterns that can
be produced in real-time. In a matter of few
hours, not only does the user behaviour trend
become more evident, but also the correlation
between people, events, locations, and
preferences emerge from silhouettes to
reveal a fairly clear picture of how marketing
campaigns are performing. The availability
of such large amounts of actionable data is
transforming the communications landscape
and is also having a sibylline effect on the
fabric of social commerce.
What is Big Data?
Wikipedia denes Big Data as Datasets
whose size is beyond the ability of typical
database software tools to capture, store,
manage, and analyze. 2.5 quintillion bytesis the amount of data created every day.
Although, this proliferation of data is an
evidence of an increasingly prying world, it
is possible for Big Data to positively impact
social commerce. While most research into
Big Data so far has focussed on addressing
questions related to its volume, this article
posits the case of the impact of Big Data
on businesses with a special emphasis
on social commerce. The article also
examines the potential value that Big Data
can create for organizations, and illustrate
and quantify that value.
Commerce
Thinking BigDataBusinesses are leveraging big data and analyzing it to
gain a stronger competitive position. This article looks
at the significance of data and how it is used to conductexperiments to develop the next generation of products
and services.
bySiddharth Balaravi
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In the old days most data
problems could be solvedas computing speed caught
up. Now, theres this deluge
of new kinds of data which is
growing faster than Moores
law. Weve basically broken
what Moores law can cope
with, and so we need a bunch
of new technologies to get on
the right side of that again
http://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_3/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_datahttp://localhost/var/www/apps/conversion/tmp/scratch_3/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data -
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References
Chu, Julian.The Ultimate Online Shopping
Experience, Part 1: Strategy and Design.
E-Commerce Times 10 Dec 2008.
Gerejo, Lyndon. Improving The Online
Shopping Experience, Part 1: Getting
Customers To Your Products. Smashing
Magazine.15 Sep 2011.
Lynch, Liz. The Rise of Curated Shopping.
The Relevant Marketer. e-Dialog, 18 Aug
2011.
May 2012 Trend Briefing: Retail Revolution.
Trendwatching.com. n.d. 08 Sep 2012.
and leveraged strategies and ideas based on
these insights.
Shopping is about discovery
An objective of shopping is to wow oneself.
Therefore every shopping experience has
a lot to do with discovering. A lot of people
walk into curio and handicraft stores without
the express purpose of buying anything in
particular. They go in, browse through the
merchandise, and if something catches their
eye, they buy it.
OpenSky is an e-store that provides deals on
products hand-picked by experts in fashion,
health, food, and design. They promise to
deliver What you were looking for, before
you started looking. Their Pinterest-like
interface features product shots with brief
descriptive titles without brand names just
like one would come across in a curio shop.
Discovery begins fundamentally at guring out
products and services. It elevates to levels of
building associations with the brand. Loyalty
cards, offers, discounts are some ways to
discover more about a brand and also about
peoples behaviours. The elevation then is
also about discovering loyalties, shopping
patterns, and enthusiasm towards specic
brands not from the perspective alone of a
seller but consumers themselves.
Products have a story to tell
Many products have a story in their creation,
while some others gain signicance post-sale.
In both cases, it is the story that the customer
can tell when talking about the product. For
instance, a hand-crafted artifact may have
originated from a particular tribe in New
Guinea and the story of its origins may be of
interest. Or the proceeds from the sales of
a particular product are donated to a cause.
People are becoming increasingly socially
aware, and so it is important to them that what
they buy in some way contributes to a cause.
Sevenly.org is a clothing store that dubs
itself as an Organic Funding Movement and
the worlds most effective cause activation
platform leading a generation toward
intentional generosity. Each week they
choose a charity or cause to donate to, an
associated NGO, and set a target amount
they want to donate. A part of the proceeds
from each sale they make that week are
then set aside for donation. A counter on
the website tells users how far they are from
reaching the target amount.
Shoppers are choosy about who
they accept advice from
People often turn to their most trusted friends
when seeking advice on making purchases.
They choose who to ask for advice based on
their knowledge of the friends interests, tastes,
and choices in other purchases. Decision-
making assistance has been a huge point
of focus for e-commerce sites with tools and
apps to recommend products. However, these
are based on past purchases, which is big
drawback when it comes to drawing rst-time
customers. Brand owners are hiring curators
for various categories in an attempt to solve
this problem. Curators analyze the vast amount
of data- professional, personal details, likes,
hobbies and other interests of consumers.
AhaLife is a shopping portal that promotes
its curators more than the products theysell. Each curator has a dedicated page
complete with bios that establish expertise
in their respective areas. Users can get
product details, and also the curators views
and reasons for a product chosen, and what
makes it stand out. Taking it one step ahead,
they are now organizing live meet-ups in
major cities where consumers can personally
meet curators and designers.
Credit:Rob Ellis
Credit:Susan NYC
Reading about product utility is
not sufficient
If a consumer is investing in technology with
the intention of upgrading from an existing
device, product utility is not ones focus.
In such a case product specications are
sufcient to make a decision. Conversely in
the category of beauty products no matter
how much one reads about those products,
sees them or is persuaded by the women
in branded uniforms, it is not the same as
experiencing those products.
Shopping is about taking a
break
Going shopping is a way to relieve stress,
the same way that coffee breaks are used.
It helps one ease up for a while. People
often drop in nearby stores during a break
to browse, discover brands, and make few
impulse purchases. The intention is not
buying out of need, but to do an activity that
would brighten up ones busy day.
To make the experience worthwhile,
commerce sites make shopping a break-
like activity through videos of product
demonstrations and sales pitches. This is
based on the premise that while taking a
break people watch videos, surf the net, or
check updates on social networking sites.
Joyus, a commerce portal that specializes in
beauty products for women, has implemented
an entire video-culture. The website is video-
led with product demonstrations and make-up
how-tos. Customers who visit the site while
taking a coffee break at work can watch videos
on new products, brands, and usage tips.
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Obsolence
The traditional purchase funnel that drove
advertising and marketing strategies, tactics,
and budgets is obsolete. No longer can
companies rely on targeting as many people
as possible, knowing that a percentage of
them will lter down the funnel and ultimately
purchase the product. What has changed is
that the consumer - and fans in particular - is
now a larger inuencer on purchase decisions
than advertisers. It is more important for
brands to focus on the consumer generated
megaphone than solely on the purchase
funnel, and evolve ways for their customers
and fans to advocate products and services.
TheConsumerGeneratedFunnel
Word of Mouth Marketing
Forecast 2003 2013
2003: $313m
2004: $487m
2005: $722m
2006: $981m
2007: $1351m
2008: $1543m
2009: $1701m
2010: $1918m
2011: $2204m
2012: $2572m
2013: $3043m
Sentiment expressed by
word-of-mouth marketing:
66% of brand-related conversations
are mostly positive
8% of brand-related conversations
are mostly negative
The driving forces of
purchase decisions:
54% word-of-mouth
47% information on a website
42% email sent by a friend
31% online reviews
Commerce
byDiarmaid Byrne
Illustration Credit:Amit Mirchandani
References
Conroy, Pat, and Anupam Narula. A new
breed of brand advocates: Social networking
redefines consumer engagement. Deloitte
Development LLC,n.d.Web.15 Oct 2012.
Jackie,Huba.14 new statistics about word of
mouth marketing. Church of Customer.N.p.,
17 2011.
Word-of-Mouth Spending to Reach $3
Billion by 2013. Marketing Charts.PQ Media,
07 2009.
Consumers Believe in Positive Word-of-
Mouth. eMarketer 02 12 2010.
Credibility of advocates:
59% of Americans believe ofine
WOM to be highly credible
49% of Americans believe online
WOM to be highly credible
Compared to negative WOM,
positive WOM is more than twice as
likely to get people to seek further
information.
Less than 50% of respondents
deem negative WOM as credible
Main activities of brand
advocates:
1. Recommending verbally
2. Payingmore for this than
other brands
3. Purchasing favorite brand
multiple times when on sale
4. Sharing the product /
coupons with others
5. Searching for coupons in
store circulars
6. Searching for special offer
coupons online
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Social Technology Quarterly 06Kulizadiversity is not Pinterests forte or even in its interest. When $80 is the
average amount for purchases initiated by the site, Pinterest is clearly
not for all. It has its own brand image to live up to. Brands participating
in Pinterest know this. Companies are rapidly developing innovative
engagement strategies, integrating the Pin It button across all web
spaces they can exist on, from networking sites to search engines.
Brands offer new visual stimuli everyday and provide a 2% reward of
the selling price to the purchase enabler in a service similar to Fancy.
This is a very high degree of personalized and networked pressure
working on you to make you buy.
An essential part of any commercial relation is honesty. Both parties
have to be honest to the product as well as the transaction for it to be
a success. In most e-commerce networks seller reputation and peer
review are instrumental in helping new buyers reach their decisions;
be it the small, local players such as Zalando, MouthShut or giants
such as Amazon and EBay.
Detailed reviews are much
appreciated. Skepticism and
suspicion are bound to surface
towards extreme reactions.
Some social commerce
discussion forums regularly
reveal the unreliability of such
ratings and reviews. Sellers
on Amazon are known to offer
buyers discounts to remove
negative comments, thereby
keeping their overall ratings high.
This may be improved customer
relationship management but
it can also be interpreted as
buying the buyers silence. To
bring in transparency social
commerce platforms today have
a lot to achieve. It is essential
consumers are provided platforms to express their thoughts without
brands attempting backend tweaking or inuencing. Also, there is aneed for curation of quality reviews, prohibition of fake proles from
sellers or their competitors from skewing the nature of feedback.
The social network culture of grabbing user data is one of the biggest
challenges to the growth of social commerce. The motive is to offer
better customer experiences but at the cost of sharing personal data.
Every Facebook app that one uses, asks for unanimous access to
personal information. The Apple App store requires one to release
ones credit card data. New e-commerce sites request log-ins via
Facebook or Twitter giving them access to ones networks, contacts
and other relevant social data.
The cautious say there is no apparent need for all this data but people
The rise of commerce has always been tightly aligned with certain
mutually benecial, economic principles for the buyer as well as the
seller: whether it is the barter system in which two parties exchanged
goods and services with equal perceptible value or whether it is the
money economy, that assigns legal tender status to paper. In each
epoch, commerce has ourished only when there has been the
approval of two or more parties based on a code of ethics that has
governed the transaction. Today, commerce is moving in the direction
of social commerce, an exciting phenomenon to watch out for.
Social commerce is the latest buzz in consumer industries. Strategy
Consultants, Booz & Co., estimates the global market value of
social commerce to be about $9 billion in 2013, growing to $30
billion by 2015. Such gures are high enough to lure anyone who
has something to sell, want to jump into the bandwagon. The mature
ecosystem of social networks provided by Facebook, Pinterest, and
Twitter along with the equally
potent e-commerce platforms
of Amazon, EBay, and PayPal,
make it possible to unleash the
potential of social commerce to
an unprecedented degree.
Social commerce after all
makes total sense. Everyone
appreciates the inputs of friends
and family in major purchase
decisions. From buying a shirt to
booking an apartment, people
in ones network have a key role
to play in the decision making
process. This so-far-known-
but-invisible hand of inuence
is what social commerce seeks
to make visible, tap in on an
ongoing basis and of course,
monetize.
Social commerce is new. It only seems right to help consumers
understand the rules of the game before they become a core partof it. Based on what is on offer, one has to negotiate to arrive at the
right juncture which will enable this new format to succeed. So how is
business being done socially?
Consumers navigate through a burgeoning amount of inuencing
data. Peer inuence, creating groups for mutual benet and unlimited
recommendations and advices form the nucleus of social commerce.
People leave on unlimited number of platforms an indelible track of
invaluable personal and nancial data.
Each of these platforms has a unique appeal. Visual analysis of
Pinterest shows how the perfect world is soft, cute, homely and
tailored. Members have the ability to create their own boards but real
People leave on
unlimited number
of platforms an
indelible track of
invaluable personal
and financial data.
Social Technology Quarterly 06
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Left: George Washington on the $1 bill
Credit:Peasap
have been convinced that who they are socially, is who they are really
and knowing that will help serve them better.
Assuming that social networkers and shoppers are generous enough
to gift all their data to the cause of consumer analysis, the risk of the
data falling into wrong hands is a primary concern.
A recent article by Mat Honan on Wired reveals how critically
connected all our internet presence is and how easy it is for those with
wrong intentions to take over someones complete online and ofine
identity. A hijacked Facebook account is one thing but a hijacked bank
account is life threatening. In the future, the two will be interconnected.
So is social commerce unethical? Visible examples from current
high trafc platforms are enough to raise warning signals among the
discerning. The segment is nascent; therefore it is easier to innovate
on its processes to emerge as transparent, consumer friendly and
ethical in its commitment to consumers in the longer term. Some key
issues that need to be redressed include managing the consumption
cycle, establishing transparency in peer recommendation, and
allowing consumers to take charge of their data.
In 2012, Target came under serious criticism for its acute consumer
analytics which could predict pregnancy even before the information
was made public by the person concerned. This should tell consumers
that industry analytics today are sophisticated enough to predict a
lot about users. Instead of using the data to single-mindedly drive
purchase behaviour, brands that will use consumer data responsibly
to moderate the consumption cycle and only push for purchase at
necessary intervals, will gain signicant consumer-trust. Instead of
the Pinterest model of everything is so beautiful, a balanced model
of need and purchasing power, adjusted recommendations will help
bring out the more democratic and humane side of social commerce.
Peer recommendation in the age of Facebook has been quite
voluminous. One likes Zara, so one recommends friends to like Zara.
One wants to network on Glassdoor, so invites others too. Such
expansive peer recommendation must change if social commerce is
to be meaningful and succeed in the long run. Using smart analyticsand lters, social networks will now need to enable their users to
recommend in a more intelligent fashion. After all, we do know
what our friends really like. So, instead of disturbing every single
one of them with everything and nothing, it is the users themselves,
if adequately enabled, who can help brands become even more
focused in reaching their target consumer base.
Users are quite surprised by the long-tail effect of their data on the
internet. Not many are aware that Facebook has the permission to
share data even after proles have been deleted. One of the crucial
factors that most social companies need to be held responsible for is
their terms and conditions. The miniscule sized writing and unending
pages of conditions are reasons enough for even the most careful
of users to decide to skip and agree to anything in their rush to
experience the service. Such conditions are critical when there is a
commercial angle associated with it. Brands that will cut through the
chaff and seek permissions to use and share specic data from their
consumers, in simple and comprehensible terms, will not only enable
the consumer to be in better charge of their data but will themselves
emerge as highly transparent business practices. This is an enviable
positioning that most companies ought to strive for.
Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia once said, Commerce is ne.
Advertising is not evil. But it doesnt belong here. Not in Wikipedia.
On similar lines, social commerce is ne. Advertising is also welcome
in social commerce but unethical behaviour does not belong here.
Ethics are a crucial factor in shaping brand loyalty. The terms and
conditions set with consumers today will shape the future of social
commerce. Martin Lindstorm in Buyology, analyzed mirror neurons
and cautioned consumers that the next generation of marketing
strategies will vie not for consumers sight but directly for their brain
and via their most trusted peers. At a time when both the radical and
the emotional side of consumers are targeted, consumers have the
right to demand utmost ethical behaviour from their favourite brands.
References
Duhigg,Charles.How Companies Learn Your Secrets. The New York
Times Magazine 16 02 2012.
Honan,Mat. How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic
Hacking..Wired,06 08 2012.
Lindstorm,Martin.Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy.Crown
Business,2008.
Turning Like to Buy : Social Media Emerges as a Commerce
Channel..Booz & Co.,17 04 2011.
Social commerce statistics..Bazaar Voice,n.d.Web.
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Do you remember the heavy metal band
Anthrax? The lead guitarist Dan Spitz
left in 1995 because he was severely
disinterested in playing the guitar. He is
now a watchmaker, and claims that it is an
unending skill to learn. Antonio Banderas, Sir
Cliff Richard, and Sting all make their own
wine. Even US President Obama makes his
own beer, the Whitehouse Brew. Well, he
instructs and pays for it at the least.
There are plenty of regular people who grow
fruits and vegetables on their own, raise
chickens, and keep their own bees. Others
are buying them from farmers markets
instead of supermarkets. Some have even
made it their business: The Mast Brothers
craft delicate chocolate by hand and Makers
and Brothers sell beautifully designed objects
for everyday use.
Even education is becoming DIY. Online
websites such as Coursera, Duo-Lingo,
Khan Academy, and Audacity offer free
courses. Classes are online videos or
multiple-choice questions. Discussions,
tests, and assessments ensue. Certicates
are sometimes awarded; other learning
happens for the purpose of learning itself.
Mike Doherty, in his article, The Story Behind
the Stuff: Consumers Growing Interest in
Real Products, says There is a powerful
urge to get in touch with what they believe
is a more real world, and its leading usto a place where signs of realness take on
greater value. He thinks that this movement
is bigger and more lasting than the usual
trend and counter-trend shifts that we
see. He also mentions Melanie Howards
Future Foundation reports that indicate
that many consumers are also seeking the
simplication of complexity which is about
the urge people feel to get in touch with what
they believe to be a more real world.
Doherty gives the example of Icebreaker
Merino Garments that come with a baacode
Communities
The MakerMovementThe DIY movement has come to encompass broader
skill sets, defining a whole new philosophy and
appreciation of self-sustaining forms of living.
byPayal Shah
to allow customers to trace the merino
wool in their garment back to its source in
New Zealand. Customers can see how the
sheep live, read about their growers, and
follow production through to the nished
garment