Face time is valuable when you’re building your personal brand. Running into people at the company café or water cooler, popping your head into a colleague’s office, running into your boss on the elevator, and having an impromptu conversation with a decision maker are like valuable deposits into your personal brand bank. It’s not easy to replace those human, look- each-other-in-the-eye connections.
But we’re living in a time where handshakes are forbidden and we must stay at least six feet away from others. Of course, that’s if you even find yourself in the same physical space. For most people in the corporate world, the three letters that describe their current situation are WFH.
So when it comes to personal branding, the question is: How can I build my brand when I’m working in my living room and everyone I work with seems far away?
Well, not to worry. There are many ways to contribute value, get noticed and be acknowledged even when you’re socially distanced and feeling a bit isolated. These four actions will help you grow your personal brand no matter how isolated you are:
1. Leverage Social Media
When you use social media to build your thought leadership, you deliver value to others and become known as an expert in your field. That helps build your brand credibility both inside and outside your organization. Often, the external renown you create with your peers translates into power and influence internally. If you’re new to working from home, you were just given the gift of time. The minutes or hours you used to spend commuting can now be devoted to building your virtual brand. It’s time to start your own LinkedIn blog, YouTube channel or podcast. Choose the format that you enjoy and pick a vehicle that helps you reach the people you seek to influence.
2. Become A Video Star
When you use the 26 letters of the Roman alphabet to communicate, you’re truly limiting your ability to express yourself. In fact, according to Albert Mehrabian, words only account for about 7% of a communication. When you use video, you deliver a complete communication — including body language, intonation, and tone of voice, letting you deliver a more accurate and compelling message. So how can you make video your go-to personal branding platform?
Set up your makeshift at-home studio where you know the sound is good, the lighting is right and what’s behind you is not distracting. Then, make all your meetings Zoom, Skype or FaceTime meetings. If you’re the meeting leader, set them up that way; if you’re a participant, encourage the leader to make it a video meeting. Then, be your best professional self during meetings. Show up on time, look the part and don’t multi-task. Most people aren’t skilled at participating in video meetings, making it even easier for you to show up as the star.
Use video to stand out. When you have something to say that needs to command the attention—of, let’s say, your boss—send a video message instead of an email. We are bombarded with email so it’s hard to get your message noticed. When you use video, you cut through the clutter and send a subtle message that there’s something different about this communication. Sometimes, the medium is the message.
Create video updates for your team. If you want your people to pay attention to what’s going on, create regular team updates sharing the latest developments, what you see coming down the pike, and lots of acknowledgement for the great work of the members of your team. People are missing the human connection they experience in the office; a video message from you will be more connective and emotionally engaging than a boring email.
3. Appoint Yourself A Leadership Role
If some or all of your team is working from home, some for the first time, they’re likely struggling a bit to find their groove. Be the person who helps make it easier for them. Communicate what’s going on in the company, provide best practices for WFH, share a funny story—do anything you can to help make WFH more enjoyable, productive and fun. When you step up during unexpected and uncertain times and show yourself as a leader, you’re scoring a big win for your personal brand.
4. Be A Digital Brand Steward
When you become the person who engages in what your company is sharing with the world and become actively involved in making that content more visible, people take notice—people who count. Brand stewards move themselves outside the normal hierarchy of an organization. They become more aware of what’s happening outside their department or division, and they commit to making the company’s brand more visible to members of their professional community. It demonstrates your loyalty and shows that you’re a bigger, more strategic player who’s engaged outside your domain. And, it gives you some content you can use to stay regularly visible to your peeps. So share the relevant content your company is posting on their social channels with your community of connections, friends and followers.
People around the world are craving human connection in lockdown, leading dating apps to experience a boost that proves romance isn’t dead (well, virtually at least). As usage heats up, these matchmaking services are not only taking advantage of abandoned ad space, but some are even braced for a revenue boost of their own as brands look to capitalise on digital dates.
Before the turn of the century, the thought of linking up with a stranger on a mobile app would have been unimaginable. Fast-forward to the present day, and platforms like Tinder, Bumble, Happn, Grindr and Hinge sit unashamedly on the phone screens of millions of singletons.
When the pandemic hit, many questioned how dating apps could survive with an estimated 2.6 billion people locked inside, date venues closed for the foreseeable future and casual hookups out of the question.
Yet while entwined hearts during the Spanish Influenza might have seen love blossom through the exchanging of letters, love in the time of coronavirus is ablaze through video calls and instant messaging, as people flock to dating apps to find that special someone.
With more and more people exploring this Black Mirror-esque world of ‘virtual dating,’ a new era of dating has dawned.
Where household brands are slashing ad spend, these modern matchmakers are making the most of their moment in the sun and being smart about their brand investment. Some are even reaping the rewards of an in-app ad surge of their own as advertisers look to reach switched-on audiences.
Using tech to power connections
Prior to the pandemic, online dating was already big business. Now as Covid-19 looms large and social distancing looks to continue throughout 2020 many are retuning their business models in response.
In 2019 the number of smartphone dating app users in the US was 25.1 million and Match Group, which owns Tinder, Hinge and Match.com posted revenues of $2.05bn, gleaned from subscriptions and advertising deals.
To continue this upwards trajectory, Tinder last week (6 May) announced plans to add a video dating feature in the second quarter of this year as a direct response to the threat posed by coronavirus in slowing its user growth.
Tinder is actually a bit late to the video dating party — its rival apps have been far less tardy when it comes to capitalising on the trend for face-to-face calls, thus rendering them more lockdown ready. Bumble, for instance, introduced a video and voice call feature last year, while Hinge launched its own ‘Date From Home’ feature at the start of lockdown in March.
“I imagine that we’re going to see far more dates than ever come out of this,” Hinge’s chief marketing officer, Nathan Roth tells The Drum, explaining how through ‘Date From Home’ users can easily share when they’re ready for a digital date, to ease that often awkward and vulnerable transition from messaging to meeting digitally for the first time.
“This specifically came out as a response to listening to our customers and their needs during the quarantine, and figuring out a way how we could serve them best,” he adds.
“During social isolation, everyone has had to adapt their dating strategies to use virtual solutions, such as video dating,” explains Naomi Walkland, associate director for EMEA marketing at Bumble, a dating app, that boasts nearly 90 million users worldwide. It is singular in that women make the first move.
Walkland explains how physical distancing has shown us that in times of uncertainty, people seek meaningful connections and “that connections made online are just as meaningful as those made in real-life. People will always look for new ways to socially connect.”
She explains that overall: “data indicates a trend of increased use by our new and existing users, especially in regards to the chat, video call, and voice call features.”
“We have seen users spending more time speaking to each other on the app, with call durations averaging at 21 minutes as well as a 12% increase in messaging. This shows that people are taking the time to really get to know each other, even whilst apart,” she continues.
After introducing the ‘Date from Home’ feature, in March, Hinge experienced a 30% increase in messages among users in March (compared to January and February) with 70% of its members would be open for a virtual date.
Globally on OkCupid, there has been a 30% overall increase in messages sent each day since March 11. Matches have increased by 10%, conversations increased by over 20% – as singles turn to online dating for company.
Bucking the ad spend trend
Unprecedented numbers of users are turning to dating apps during lockdown, and as such, dating apps have admitted their ad spend has been largely unaffected.
“The coronavirus hasn’t actually changed our ad spend that dramatically,” says Melissa Hobley, chief marketing officer at OkCupid. “This is driven by the fact that OkCupid has seen a surge in activity since early March across the globe, and this continues, so we want to continue to be top of mind for the millions of singles who are connecting right now — albeit virtually.”
While broadcasters are scrambling to fill ad slots abandoned by the collapse of travel and leisure brands, dating apps have found they are able to buy on platforms that would have been out of their reach just months ago.
“Initially, there was shock and uncertainty,“ she says of the pandemic rendering many campaigns obsolete, but she shares news of a new partnership with Bumble, who spotted an opportunity on Capital FM to talk about virtual dating.
OkCupid has also taken advantage of discount rates online. “Digitally, we’ve seen lower costs and greater efficiencies, driven by other categories pulling out and time spent on devices exploding,” Hobley continues. “Like many folks, we love out-of-home, but we have had to pivot some of the plans we had to support our ‘As Yourself’ campaign.
Hobley admits like while OkCupid doesn’t advertise on TV, it is looking at all the options that might help the platform reach the single, younger dater at this time.
And while OkCupid see podcasts as a perfect channel to tell its story, “not surprisingly, the costs with the bigger players here have not shifted that much.”
As for in-app ads, Happn’s chief exec Didier Rappaport says “advertising on our app hasn’t changed at all. Dating is a digital industry, therefore the impact on our industry has been small compared to other industries, as users keep using our services.”
Rappaport goes on to explain that because Happn’s marketing is already very digitally-oriented, the app has taken advantage of reduced costs.
“With other brands, from other industries, reducing their ad spend, this has enabled us to have a greater digital reach for our campaigns, with the same amount of budget,“ he says.
Hinge has also admitted that its ad spend has been unaffected by the outbreak.
Keeping advertisers interested
Usage is up during lockdown, and OkCupid’s chief marketing officer reveals that this surge has sparked an increase in brands looking to advertise on the app.
“One thing that is super exciting is the interest that OkCupid has seen from brands wanting to reach our daters and advertise with us,” Hobley shares. “Dating apps have exploded over the last 2 months and I think brands are interested in how they can reach these singles who are connecting and dating at twice the rate they were before corona.“
Given that many daters love watching a TV show together, she says there “have been a few entertainment partners who are tapping into this with exciting results.”
Happn has experienced the complete opposite. “Regarding advertising revenues, we have noticed a real decrease, which is easily explained,” its chief exec Rappaport admits. “Many brands have stopped or postponed their marketing expenses but advertising is a very small part of our revenue.”
Dating post-pandemic
While lockdown has provoked a new dawn of virtual dating, Bumble’s Walkland says it’s “too soon to state the expected impact” on matchmaker’s businesses.
On this new age of dating, she says her team suspects that users will continue to use its video/voice calling features as a way to get to know their matches before making the move to meet in person.
OkCupid, meanwhile, predicts there will be a boom in dating, post-lockdown.
“We’ll likely see a lot of people spending more time on OkCupid when things start to return to normal and more of a dependence on digital or virtual communication before actually going out on a date,” claims Hobley.
With the pandemic forcing people to truly embrace digital when it comes to dating, it’s fair to say that dating post-lockdown will look radically different than it did before. As for advertisers, they’ll have to figure out where they fit into this new virtual world to make connections with their audiences.
Facebook is retooling its brand safety features, rolling out whitelists that better allow brands to control the content their ads are seen next to.
The expanded toolkit will see the implementation of two types of whitelist.
To let brands create whitelists of publishers for the off-Facebook, app-based Audience Network, it has introduced publisher whitelists. Facebook will look to expand this to in-steam video later in the year.
And a content-level whitelisting tool will be available to advertisers that are clients of ad-vertification partners Integral Ad Science, OpenSlate and Zefr.
Allowing advertisers to work with partners to create ‘dynamic content sets’ through this tool, partners will be able to update and adjust video content placement ‘routinely’.
While advertisers were already able to see where their ads might appear, Facebook decided to make the controls more sophisticated in ordr to dial back advertisers’ brand safety concerns.
Overzealous blocklists
While the introduction of whitelists to Facebook’s platform has been widely welcomed, the roll out comes amid a fight against blocklisting.
In their quest for protection from ad misplacement, advertisers around the globe are doubling down on automation and, in particular, blocklists.
One side-effect of blunt blocklisting has seen top media owners penalised to the tune of $3.2bn a year across the US, UK, Japan and Australia according to research from real-time brand safety business Cheq.
LGBT+ publishers have been particularly hurt by the application of blocklists. A further study from Cheq found 73% of LGBT+ stories are flagged as ‘brand unsafe’ with terms like ‘lesbian’, ‘bisexual and ‘drag queens’ making it onto advertisers keyword exclusion lists.
Beyond the introduction of whitelisting, Facebook will now let advertisers opt out of its in-stream ad testing from pre-vetted entertainment, news and sports partners.
While this was already available at campaign level, this option will now be provided at the ad account level.
And over in India, the platform introduced a chatbot and news hub – designed to debunk coronavirus falsehoods after the Indian government issued an advisory to social media companies to clamp down on the circulation of false information.
Facebook is not alone in facing brand-safety criticism, with the behemoth’s key rival Google experiencing some brand safety issues of its own in recent weeks.
Prior to the pandemic, one in four advertising dollars went to the Facebook-Google duopoly. However, both members are expected to post a downturn in advertising revenues as brands tighten their belts amid Covid-19.
Other major platforms are also fighting against downward ad spend. While Apple experienced an ‘uptick’ in product sales towards the end of Q2 2020, it has admitted its advertising business has taken a hit, as companies pause search spend on platforms such as the App Store.
Expedia Group chairman Barry Diller said the company will slash ad spending this year, joining a chorus of advertisers that are putting campaigns on hold or cancelling spend altogether.
“At Expedia, for instance, we spend $5 billion a year on advertising. We won’t spend $1 billion on advertising probably this year,” Diller said on CNBC’s Squawk Box Thursday morning.
Shares in Expedia Group, whose brands include Expedia, Hotels.com, Trivago, Orbitz and more, were down 1% Thursday morning in pre-market trading.
Expedia Group chairman and senior executive Barry Diller told CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday morning that Expedia will slash ad spending this year, joining a chorus of advertisers that are putting campaigns on hold or cancelling spend altogether.
“At Expedia, for instance, we spend $5 billion a year on advertising. We won’t spend $1 billion on advertising probably this year,” Diller said. “You just rip that across everything.” He noted that advertising spend across the board would be hit in the second quarter.
Advertisers have pulled back significantly because of budget uncertainty in the months ahead. Companies in the travel space, for example, have little reason to buy ads when much of the globe is under stay-at-home orders.
Shares in Expedia Group, whose brands include Expedia, Hotels.com, Trivago, Orbitz and more, were down roughly 1% Thursday morning.
Expedia Group and its peers, like Booking Holdings, spend heavily on Google, since so many travelers search for trips with terms like “flight to London” or “hotel in San Francisco.” On the company’s February fourth-quarter earnings call, Diller mentioned Expedia is one of Google’s biggest advertisers and that Expedia is trying to move away from its “reliance on Google and Metasearch” to grow more direct relationships with its customers.
That came after shares of Expedia reached new year-to-date lows in November when the company said changes in Google’s search algorithm has lessened its visibility on search results, resulting in a heavier reliance on paid advertising.
MediaRadar in a March research report called the deceleration in ad spend in the travel industry “like a car hitting the brakes in advance of an oncoming accident.”
In a survey last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau surveyed nearly 400 media planners, buyers and brands responsible for U.S. ad spend, and found that 74% of them believe the coronavirus will have a greater impact on ad spend in the country than the 2008-09 financial crisis. Nearly a quarter of respondents said they have paused all ad spend for the rest of the first and second financial quarters.
The largest brands in the world all have one thing in common: attention. More specifically, the attention of the masses. Attention builds brands. Attention creates opportunity and leverage. Brands become household names because they are known. To gain attention, brands must stay consistent with their marketing and branding efforts and continually differentiate themselves from their competition through content, strategy and service.
The biggest brands in the world focus their efforts on getting as much attention to their brands as they can. They constantly invest in their brands through marketing and advertising efforts in order to continuously remain relevant in the modern day. Today’s ability to market online and on social media has caused smart brands to invest marketing dollars where consumers have transitioned their attention.
The commodity of gaining attention is a process that requires time, consistency, creativity, strategy, research and execution. You must find where the attention you want is and create a strategy to gain it. Years ago, that meant brands fighting for attention through print ads, TV and radio commercials. But now there are fewer barriers to entry by marketing on social media platforms, which is where most consumers spend a lot of their time anyway.
Every business needs consistent attention and new eyes on it because the more known it becomes, the greater its chance of generating leads and sales.
Attention — especially when paired with an amazing product or service — can generate more opportunity, leverage, influence and longevity for a business and brand. It will require, however, devising a strategy that will connect with the consumer at a deeper level. When done right, this can eventually create brand loyalty. And if consumers enjoy what you’re providing, it’s more likely they are going to continue the attention momentum for you by spreading it via word of mouth.
Attention is its own stock market and has volatile trends, reflecting on where marketing dollars need to be spent. However, attention has moved to social media and is where businesses and brands need to focus on marketing and advertising strategies to gain market share.
Social media allows businesses and brands to know where the attention is and helps you do market research on what will capture your target audience’s attention. Social media enables brands to attract new clients quicker and more efficiently than ever before because it gives them access to figure out consumer behavior within a given industry. You can find out what type of content consumers want from you with only a few clicks of a button, allowing you to utilize polls and other forms of data-collecting tools.
Here’s how attention helps create opportunity, leverage, influence and longevity:
Opportunity
With newfound attention, opportunity begins to present itself. Investors, consumers, brands and businesses all want to get involved with businesses that have attention. It opens your business up to the possibility of collaborations, sales, fans, investment money, partnerships, etc. The more attention you have, the more opportunity you will see.
Leverage
Having attention creates leverage in your industry. If you’re well known in your industry, you have the ability to be a trendsetter and capitalize on opportunities before others can.
Influence
When a brand has attention, it can more easily gain influence in its industry, causing disruption. This requires competitors to pivot, and while they are strategizing to keep up, you are now a step ahead. Influence can also be used to persuade the consumer to buy or vote.
Longevity
I believe this is the most important element of what attention can do for a business and brand. Attention can keep a business and brand relevant, which, in return, can result in longevity. Consumers nowadays will move on to something else if they feel as though you are not keeping up with the times. Therefore, the longer you sustain positive attention, the longer your company will generate revenue.
Attention is obtainable through unique marketing and advertising strategies on social media. Not every business may want attention, but in order to grow, every business needs it. Attention will keep your pipeline full, referrals coming in, leads coming to you and sales generated. Businesses cannot expect attention to come to them; they need to actively work on acquiring it. But once they do, attention creates opportunity, influence, leverage and longevity. Attention is an asset.
The magazine publisher’s partnership with MRI-Simmons builds on the Meredith Sales Guarantee to track business outcomes
Meredith Corporation, the multimedia conglomerate known for its stable of glossies including People and Better Homes & Gardens, is moving to convince marketers of the value of continuing to advertise even as the pandemic-spurred recession bears down, by rolling out something it’s calling MAAG: the Meredith Audience Action Guarantee.
Basically, the Des Moines, Iowa-based company is guaranteeing that a specified number of readers will take action in response to seeing campaigns in Meredith magazines, in their May through December issues, with benchmarks and performance targets determined on a category-by-category basis. MAAG expands on the company’s existing ad-effectiveness-tracking program, the Meredith Sales Guarantee, and is designed, per a company spokesperson, “to help advertisers during the current crisis.”
Ad Age spoke with Doug Olson, president of Meredith Magazines, to get some specifics on MAAG. At one point, Olson threw the mic, so to speak, to Catherine Levene, president of Meredith Digital, to answer questions about digital traffic; her response, which she supplied by email, appears at the end of this post.
The following has been lightly edited and condensed for publication.
Walk us through how the Meredith Audience Action Guarantee will work. What sorts of business outcomes are you tracking, and what external solutions are you deploying to monitor consumer actions?
We’re tracking the engagement of our readers through MRI-Simmons’ Starch AdMeasure, and measuring the specific number of readers who have taken an action as a result of seeing a brand campaign in our magazines. By “action,” we know if our readers have clipped an ad, visited a brand website, looked for more information, recommended the product, considered/purchased the product, and the like. For instance, the consumer may have talked to a doctor or taken a photo of a QR code or visited a social media site.
We’re working closely with our advertisers as they navigate this crisis. They want to know that our readers are taking action and their investment in print advertising is working.
How does this build on what you’ve already been doing with the Meredith Sales Guarantee program?
At Meredith, we stand behind the power of our brands to drive action for our partners. That accountability was first established a decade ago when we introduced our Meredith Sales Guarantee, which proves that Meredith’s print, digital and video properties impact sales and deliver ROI. We’ve executed more than 200 successful campaigns.
MAAG allows a broader number of advertisers and categories to be included. Examples of categories include financial services, prestige beauty and entertainment—for example, tune-in ads.
If a given campaign doesn’t live up to the “action guarantee,” how do you compensate?
We’ll provide a “make good” in print.
Let’s talk for a moment about the Meredith magazine portfolio, which of course primarily targets a female audience. You’ve got a set of titles that are actually quite well-suited to self-quarantine and staying in. Better Homes & Gardens and Real Simple, for example, have always been about making the best of your home life.
We believe our brands’ focus on food, family, home and entertainment reflect consumers’ desire for normalcy and the kind of transportive experience they’re looking for during this time. From providing meditation/yoga guidance and other workout-from-home exercises, as seen in Health and Shape … to suggestions for getting dinner on the table from Allrecipes, Better Homes & Gardens and EatingWell … to sharing tips on cleaning and organizing your home from Real Simple, or how to set up a home office, as seen in Reveal’s current issue. Our brand content across platforms is resonant right now.
Now tell me how you’re dealing with consumers’ widespread lack of access to newsstands during lockdown. What’s your overall subscription/newsstand mix?
Meredith brands possess one of the highest direct-to-publisher rate bases in the industry. Our strong, longstanding relationships with more than 36 million subscribers allow us to enjoy an approximately 96 percent subscriber / 4 percent newsstand split, which insulates us from a downturn in newsstand sales.
So what have you seen at the newsstand?
We experienced an uptick at newsstand in the early days of this crisis, though mid-March, though the newsstand is currently soft and has been so during the past couple of weeks. For more context, the bulk of our brands’ newsstand sales are generated at major grocery chains, Walmart and Target, which remain open and are currently receiving considerable traffic. Though there’s no traffic at newsstands at airport terminals and at Barnes & Noble.
Are you sticking with your existing frequency schedule across your titles?
There’s currently no change in our publishing schedule. We continue to closely monitor the situation across our supply chain, including the paper and printing areas, and we fully expect to maintain our circulation rate base delivery.
There’s been a lot of coverage of how TV viewing is up during quarantine, which you’d totally expect, and is obviously good for Meredith’s TV stations. What about magazine readership?
We’re seeing increases in consumer engagement with our print editions as we track how the coronavirus is impacting women’s daily lives. Thirty-five percent of women are reading more magazines as a result of the coronavirus, according to data from our Meredith Consumer Pulse: COVID-19 tracking report.
NOTE: As mentioned above, in response to specific questions about Meredith’s digital traffic, Olson connected Ad Age with Catherine Levene, president of Meredith Digital, who emailed to say:
Our most recent estimates, as of Sunday, April 12, show that our April month-to-date traffic across the Meredith Digital network was up 40 percent year-over-year. Social alone was up 30 percent MTD. Video has also experienced a stellar month so far, up 150 percent YOY. The week that ended on Saturday, April 4, represented Meredith’s biggest week ever on YouTube, with more than 13.4 million views. March was the biggest month ever for our brands on YouTube, with over 46 million views across the portfolio.
We’re working together across disciplines to identify and address our consumers’ real issues and current needs. The data team is pulling real-time trends and predictive insights; the content team is leaning into those trends; and the growth team is driving traffic via search, social, email and browser notifications, and they are driving new emails sign-ups and membership. It’s the perfect circle.
For a long time, conventional retail mistakenly treated technology as the opponent’s weapon while all along it should have been the tool for innovation and re-invention
At the turn of the millennium, what started as innocuous online book marts had already started spreading their influence and outreach across product categories bringing digital disruption to the doorstep of every retailer. The ease and convenience of shopping online and improvements in supply chain management coupled with enhanced user experience ensured that the ubiquitous online was now a real alternative to the traditional retail sector.
With rapid improvements in Internet proliferation—both in terms of reach and speed—now made for a compelling and complete rout of retail dinosaur as we had known it. For a long time, conventional retail mistakenly treated technology as the opponent’s weapon while all along it should have been the tool for innovation and re-invention. This switch is no more a luxury but a pressing need of the hour.
There are many ways in which technology as a disruptor can be useful to retailers in bringing the wandering consumer back; tools that can improve efficiency, increase profitability and enhance customer experience and thus bring freshness to the brand based on shopping experience as the primary dimension.
Some of the most promising futuristic technologies where the ‘online’ was the early adapters can in effect become the hallmark of the ‘new retail’ driven by consumer experience. Focusing on this tacit advantage of physical presence of the consumer at the store would also allow the retailer to encash on the sense of touch and other sensory perception. Some of the disruptor technologies include the use of artificial intelligence (AI), geo-fencing and beacon, data-driven targeting and virtual reality tools to enhance in-store navigation and experience.
Artificial Intelligence
Technological advancements such as virtual shopping assistants, in-store stylist robots, AI-powered recommendation engines, bot-managed billing counters, etc., have altered the dynamics of retail drastically. Heuristic learning has given these bots the ability to execute in real time with smartness gathered from customer data mining. The largest of retail companies are now finding means and methods to utilize these robots in their day-to-day operations to streamline functions such as stocking, store layout and product presentation, among others, and in the process, also becoming relevant in the face of their online counterparts.
Geo-fencing and beacon
Mobile empowers marketers to reach larger audiences in a way that is real-time, personal, location-aware and geo-targeted. This is where geo-fencing and beacons come into picture, and benefits retailers. Increasingly, retailers are installing in-store beacons for location-based marketing enticing customers to walk into stores (geo-fencing) and provide value-added experience in-store (beacon), giving them competitive advantage over others.
Data-drive customer targeting
Data analytics and data intelligence, similarly, present a striking picture of reinvented retail and retailers have found myriad uses for it. Customer identification and contextualization that can deliver a highly personalized experience is a virtual gold mine. Collecting, transforming and analysing customers’ online and offline shopping behavior, preferences, demographics, social profiles and every bit of customer details for accurate customer target, is what Big Data offers to retailers.
Shopping customized to individual requirements
E-commerce websites work in a manner where they always accurately understand the needs of the customer and information is available on whichever device the customer chooses to use. This well-selected, organized and presented style of shopping makes it easy and convenient for the customer and he or she does not have to waste precious time in browsing different online stores to find the right one. Today’s technology-savvy stores contain smart screens and tablets to give a personalized experience to their customers.
Renovating brick-and-mortar stores as emotion-experience centres with advanced elements like AI-enabled virtual mirrors is helping bridge the individual limitations of these two platforms and leading to a well-co-ordinated marketplace for the customer.
Finally, retailers are also realizing that offline and online channels do not need to compete with each other and can effectively integrate to provide a seamless footprint in an omnichannel world exploiting the benefits of both the platforms to become omnipresent to the consumer.
Driven by tech-savvy customers, retailers can now provide them with a seamless shopping experience whether the customer is shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone or in a brick-and-mortar stores. To keep their business growing, brands have put their products on multiple channels for the easy convenience of the customers. In fact, augmented reality is providing a new face to the omnichannel consumer experience.
These technologies thus, promise to better equip retailers for turning prospects into a buyer and a buyer into a loyalist while simplifying the entire sales cycle.
Data visualization can transform large amounts of business-generated raw data into useful and actionable information nuggets for decision makers.
Many businesses use data visualization and analysis applications to transform large amounts of generated raw data into useful and actionable information nuggets for decision makers. One of the more popular applications in this genre is produced by Tableau Software.
Whether your data is stored in a simple text file, Excel worksheet, or large database, Tableau Software can read it, process it, and then present it in an informative manner which can be read and understood by practically anyone through data visualization. The transformation is relatively intuitive, but the application of certain tips and tricks will make the process smoother.
This how-to tutorial shows you how to connect data to Tableau Software and then transform that data into a simple data visualization with a few mouse clicks.
Modern businesses generate reams and reams of potentially enlightening raw data every day, every week, every month, and every year. That data can exist in many formats, including simple text files, Excel worksheets, and databases. For this example, we will use the public version of the Tableau desktop application to connect to an Excel file. The public version is limited in scope, but otherwise the same as the paid version.
After downloading and installing the Tableau Software desktop application, you should find a new shortcut on your desktop. In Windows 10, you double-click that icon to start the app. You should see something like the screen shown in Figure A.
Figure A
The first step for any project is to establish a connection to a data source. Click on the Microsoft Excel link listed on the left-hand navigation bar of the Tableau app. You will be presented with a File Explorer dialog box that will allow you to navigate to the folder where your data resides. Click the appropriate file, in our example it includes data on mortality rates by country between 1970 and 2010. Tableau will preview the data as shown in Figure B.
Figure B
If the data is inconsistent or otherwise “dirty,” the built-in data interpreter may help clean it up for better data visualizations.
To start your new chart project, click the Sheet 1 tab at the bottom of the Tableau screen to reveal the visualization creation screen shown in Figure C.
Figure C
The Tableau app has performed some interpretation of your data to develop a list of Dimensions and Measures. These various pieces are what you will use to create a data visualization.
How you present your data visualization is a function of what your data represents. For example, from the sample data, we could drag the Year data point to the Column box and the Death Rate data point to the Row box, as shown in Figure D. This gives us a simple line graph showing the rate over time, but there is a more effective way to view this data.
Figure D
What if we take advantage of Tableau’s ability to automatically parse data into better formats? If we double-click the Country Name dimension, which is defined as a geographical data point, the software will automatically create a world map, as shown in Figure E. If we then double-click the Death per 100,000 measure, which is defined as a number data point, we will get a much better and more relatable visualization of our data.
Figure E
To get a good view of your new chart, click the Presentation Mode icon on action bar or just press the F7 function key. All the data construction cards will fall away, and you will be left with a clear view of your data visualization (Figure F).
Figure F
Press F7 again to return to the data visualization construction worksheet again.
This merely touches the surface of the data visualization possibilities. For example, the next step in our example data visualization would be to add the ability to step through each year of data (1970 – 2010) on our map instead of just showing the total for all 40 years.
Just like our education and healthcare systems, our information supply has been heavily commercialised in the past decades. Truth has become a product, aimed at satisfying a need. The advent of digital capitalism turned truth into whatever makes you click.
Even if you haven’t been following the news particularly closely the past couple of years, it probably won’t have escaped you that a certain word has been getting a lot of attention: truth.
So it turns out my philosophy degree can be put to good use after all.
Ever since the election of pathological liar Donald Trump This is a great piece on CNN about the psychology behind Donald Trump’s lies. in 2016, Britain’s decision to leave the EU based on a misinformation campaign, and our social media timelines flooded with fake news stories, a new theory has emerged: we now live in a “post-truth” society. A world in which truth no longer matters, where facts are countered by “alternative facts”, and reality is more about your media diet than about the world as it is.
It’s not hard to see why people feel that “truth” has become irrelevant, given how ubiquitous political lies and conspiracies posing as journalism are nowadays. It’s no surprise, either, that all of this is often linked to the rise of populism more generally. In a society that no longer believes in the importance of truth, populism can certainly thrive as never before.
But an obvious question we often forget to ask in all this theorising seems to be: what is truth? Or more specifically: if we are “post-truth” as a society, which truth have we left behind? And perhaps even more importantly: what, if anything, has taken its place?
Making of “Concorde” (original by Toshihiko Sato, 2000). Made in 2013 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Three types of truth: metaphysical, scientific, and constructed
First up is metaphysical truth, characterised by the idea that truth exists outside of earthly reality, and is therefore beyond human reach. It resides in what’s often called the realm of the transcendent and is accessed through revelation and faith. It cannot be known; it can only be believed – the basis of every world religion.
Second is scientific truth, characterised by the idea that truth is very much within human reach and can be found through reason, perception and experiment. Modern science is based on this conception of truth. It is independent from how we, human beings, see the world – also known as “objectivity”. Yet at the same time, this type of truth is closer to humankind than the transcendent, in the sense that it is actually attainable. People can access it through knowledge: you don’t need to believe it, you can know it.
‘There are no facts, only interpretations’ – Nietzsche
Lastly, there is constructed truth, characterised by the idea that truth is not “out of reach”, or even independent from human perception at all. On the contrary, we make truth ourselves. This school of thought does not regard truth as something transcendent or superhuman, nor as something objective or findable. Instead, truth is subjective and made by us. Or to put it more simply: it would not exist if we didn’t exist. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche perhaps best summarised its essence when he wrote: “There are no facts, only interpretations.”
Making of “Tsunami“ (original by Unknown Tourist, 2004), made in 2015 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Three ages of truth: premodern, modern and postmodern
Although all three types of truth have been present in all societies throughout history, different types have been dominant in different eras.
During the pre-modern period in the west (roughly everything up to the 16th century), metaphysical truth captured the zeitgeist. During the modern era, roughly between the 16th and 20th centuries, scientific truth became the dominant narrative. And during what became known as postmodernity, roughly from the 20th century onwards, the idea of constructed truth became increasingly accepted.
Just to clarify: no era has ever abandoned any type of truth. In our current, scientifically advanced society, transcendent truths continue to play an important role. And even though we often characterise our society as secular and postmodern (“God is dead”, everything is “just an opinion”), belief in things such as objectivity, facts, and reality is equally widespread.
So our society is a mixture of all types of truth – in fact, all of the social debates being waged can, in essence, be traced back to a struggle between these three truths. Debates, in the end, all boil down to a very fundamental question: what is truth, really?
Making of “Death of a Loyalist Militiaman, Córdoba Front, Spa“ (original by Robert Capa, 1936), made in 2016 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Truth as a product, driven by commerce
If these three types of truth are still prominent in our society, why do so many commentators, scientists and Twitterati speak of a society that is “post-truth”? I believe the answer is to be found in a fourth shape that truth has taken: truth as a product.
In our age, let’s call it post-postmodernity, truth is primarily shaped by the laws of commerce.
The most important reason for this is a development that has been picking up speed, near the end of the 20th century especially: the commercialisation of our information infrastructure. Market forces in healthcare and education have been discussed and criticised extensively, but there has been far less debate about the market forces at work in the production of our worldview.
Almost all influential information about the world around us – from television to books to news sites – is in the hands of some 30 multinationals. Hypercommercialised corporations that are primarily driven by ratings, clicks, ad revenue, and – of course – profit maximisation.
Making of “Munich Massacre“ (original by Kurt Strumpf, 1972), made in 2014 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
Google and Facebook: the pillars of digital capitalism
The beginning of the 90s saw another development: the emergence of what Belarusian thinker Evgeny Morozov calls “digital capitalism”. Its history is too broad to do justice to here, but it boils down to this: our digital information infrastructure (computers, smartphones, the internet), invented by universities and armies around the globe and funded primarily by taxpayer money, was brought to market and became capitalised by private companies for private profits.
Here, too, there has been an enormous concentration of capital and power over the past three decades. Our complete digital infrastructure is pretty much owned by a mere handful of private corporations, with Google, Facebook, Apple, Huawei, Microsoft and Amazon topping the list of the almost all-powerful.
Google and Facebook have been able to make a historically unprecedented claim to our information provision
These internet giants are responsible for what you might call the “monopolisation of the internet”. Google and Facebook in particular founded the internet business model, which can easily be summarised as: free services, paid for by ads.
With this model, they have been able to make a historically unprecedented claim to our information provision. Almost all our information comes to us through one of their platforms – whether it’s Google Search or Google News – or one of their giant subsidiaries, such as YouTube, Instagram or WhatsApp.
Imagine just two companies owning that much of our means of communication and interaction. Almost one billion people get their news through the Facebook feed alone on a daily basis – and together these two companies control over 50% of the online advertising market in the US.
Making of “9/11“ (original by Tom Kaminski, 2001), made in 2013 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger
The new oracle: the algorithm
This has fundamentally changed the source of truth. In the pre-modern era, the source of truth was revelation from a world beyond our grasp. In modern times, the source was science, which came to us through rationalism and experimentation. In the postmodern era, the source was the Self – the subjective experience of human beings themselves.
But in the post-postmodern era, the source has become the algorithm.
In that sense, Google’s search algorithms and Facebook’s timeline algorithms may well be the most important inventions of the late 20th century. These algorithms – the precise operation of which is shrouded in mystery, their criteria well-kept secrets – have become the most powerful influences on our worldview.
To a substantial extent, these algorithms determine which information is made, how that information is distributed, and what information we actually get to see. They are the hidden source code of our picture of the world: what news we see, what search results we see, which sources are labelled as trustworthy or fake. In short, they largely determine what we believe, know and think.
Although they’re secret for the most part, we know a few things about how these algorithms work. Google, for example, ranks its search results by looking at how many links refer to a particular site. These links are, in turn, ranked in reliability and authority by, among other things, the number of links that refer to those sites themselves.
Facebook uses similar criteria: a message ends up in your personal timeline faster and more prominently if it is liked and shared a lot – and even more prominently if your friends, or friends of your friends, have liked or shared it too. Both companies also personalise information to a high degree: your own search, like and sharing behaviour largely determines which results, messages and sources you’ll see prominently, less prominently, or not at all.
The truth is not what is right. The truth is what clicks
These criteria exert a huge influence not only on the method of disseminating information but also on the method of production. What kind of information is made, and how it is created, is increasingly determined by the preferences of Google and Facebook algorithms.
Traditional news media are guided in their choices and presentation by what is most liked, shared or retweeted. Media companies based entirely on this principle have emerged, ranging from mainstream (Buzzfeed, The Huffington Post) to radical (Breitbart, Infowars). In other words, Google and Facebook determine, directly and indirectly, which information is consumed, in which form, and to what extent.
That’s how digital capitalism turned truth into a product – the product of a technological infrastructure dominated by information monopolies with advertisements as a revenue model, driven by algorithms that select on the basis of linkability, shareability and popularity. Or, as Evgeny Morozov Read my colleague Maurits Martijn’s profile of Morozov here. puts it: “An economy ruled by online advertising has produced its own theory of truth; truth is whatever produces most eyeballs.” Read more about ‘digital capitalism’ here.
The truth is not what is right. The truth is what clicks.
Making of “Black Power Salute at Olympic Games“ (original by John Dominis, 1968), made in 2017 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
We’re not post-truth. It’s just we no longer understand its source
Now, of course, there are many more sources of truth than the internet. From books to films, from documentaries to radio shows, from academic papers to conversations with friends and family: information comes to us through numerous avenues. However, the influence of online information giants should not be underestimated: they deeply impact our patterns of consumption, our political preferences, even our social “bubbles” – in short, all important aspects of our world view.
And the key question then is: has that influence led to a society that has gone beyond truth, as many thought leaders argue? Is there less truth? Or no truth at all? Or is it just a different kind of truth?
Personally, I think it’s just a different kind. Our society doesn’t contain more or less truth or untruth than before. The crucial difference is that the power has been shifted to other sources. Until recently, truth was mainly produced by professional “information producers”: government agencies, mass media, churches, think tanks, universities.
Untruth, in the form of gossip, lies, conspiracy theories and backlash, was just as prevalent; it just remained much more limited in scope. It wouldn’t travel much further than the local pub, the village square, or the private social circle.
Truth-producing power has shifted from traditional elitist strongholds to new elites and non-elites
The big difference that Facebook’s and Google’s algorithms have brought about is that they have undermined the monopolies of traditional truth producers (politics, media, science) while at the same time building a revenue model for the type of information previously limited to the village pump or bar: gossip, backbiting and plain lies.
The truth-producing power has shifted from The Hague, Washington and Brussels (politics), from Hollywood, New York and London (media) and from Boston, Tokyo and Paris (science) to Silicon Valley and its sibling click farms in Albania and Ukraine – in short, to the algorithms that provide whatever makes you click.
Truth-producing power has shifted from traditional elitist strongholds to new elites and non-elites. That’s why traditional information monopolists (politicians, journalists, op-ed writer) in particular speak so eagerly of a post-truth society: their truth no longer commands power. They must now share that power with whomever Silicon Valley provides a platform.
To be clear: I’m not saying that traditional information producers ever had “a monopoly on truth” – and that only now liars can suddenly run rampant. No, the main difference is that almost nobody can quite understand or see the source of truth – the algorithm – anymore. And more importantly: nobody bears moral responsibility or can be held accountable for the truthfulness of the information it spreads.
You can hold a newspaper accountable by cancelling your subscription. You can hold a scientist accountable with peer review. You don’t expect a gossip magazine to be truthful to begin with. And bar chitchat has not ever reached millions at once.
Yet none of this applies to Google and Facebook. They are not liable for the information they distribute – the truthfulness of which is hard or impossible to gauge. Their reach is global and their moral obligation is none, except for the financial one it owes to shareholders.
Truth still is, as always, given, discovered, constructed and produced. But nobody really knows how, by whom, or to what end anymore.
Making of “Tian’anmen“ (original by Stuart Franklin, 1989). Made in 2013 for the series Icons by Cortis & Sonderegger.
The ‘new normal’ is a phrase that we are all currently being bombarded with from many sources as society starts to adjust to life under lockdown and people consider how life may be different once we come out the other side. As the everyday realities of their customers experience changes (some significant, others more subtle), brands are faced with the question of how, or indeed whether, to adapt their marketing to reflect these changes.
For many brands the idea of showing slick, aspirational advertising content in a time of global crisis is just not an appropriate option. Then of course there’s the more practical question of how new content is actually going to be created when most of us are confined to our own homes. The days of exotic location shoots and ensemble casts for TV ads are, at least temporarily, gone.
In its place we are seeing a seeing a significant rise in the use of user generated content (UGC) in marketing, featuring raw, hand shot footage from staff or customers which is designed to reflect our collective new reality and create an emotional connection with audiences. Examples include the likes of Apple, TSB, Tesco and Co-op, who recently replaced their original Easter campaign to promote the sale of Easter eggs for a new staff-led advert to highlight their support for food redistribution charity, Fareshare.
While many of these campaigns have been positively received, is UGC a form of content that is here to stay? Will it continue to be valued after this crisis has passed, or is it merely a temporary trend?
Here’s what two Mission Agency leads, themselves working with clients to adapt their marketing to the current climate, have to say on the subject:
Kate Cox, chief executive officer at Bray Leino:
”Creative comprising of user-generated content is clearly a practical way of getting around the physical filming restrictions during lockdown. Currently there is also an acceptance for ‘rough and ready’ content (be it commercials, programming, schooling, podcasts, radio shows). Plus, no brand wants to be insensitive creating extravagant production pieces or be seen to be defying official advice around social distancing, so UGC is a perfect workaround.
”Who knows what the future holds, but the chances are it will be a temporary trend. When the new normal comes, we will clearly have all learnt things, picked up new and effective ways of working and living, created new life habits etc, but we will also revert to some ‘old’ behaviours. Human nature and what drives us doesn’t fundamentally change, so it’s likely that marketing will continue to reflect this. The key is, we need great insight, variety in our ideas and our executions, one-size-fits-all is clearly not the way to go – it’s the opposite of standing out and having impact.”
John Quarrey, krow Group chief executive officer:
”UGC has offered a quick fix solution to the current production challenge for brands, but it isn’t, and shouldn’t be, the only solution we find for producing new content in a socially distanced world. Stop-frame, 2D & 3D animation, professional stills, self-shooters, influencers, re-editing of existing content are all production approaches largely unaffected by the lockdown and offer a wide variety of executional styles.
”Just as we shouldn’t be restricted to UGC as a production technique, we also need to avoid making execution the defining factor at the start of the communication process. Rigorous insight that delivers stand-out creative work will always have the greatest potential to transform business performance.
”As for whether brands should reflect the new normal in their ads, there is no easy answer. For most brands, using ‘slice of life’ vignettes to reflect the lives of its audiences seems an obvious and logical way to establish an empathetic connection. But beware the ’brandwagon’ – brands that are too late to the show and lack originality run the risk of blending in and themselves becoming the new normal. And brands with strong advertising equities or fluent devices might find that more of the same is better than a quick attempt to join in. Aside from that, I’d imagine most people are well ready for a break from the omnipresent Covid-19 coverage. Aligning too closely could see brands being screened out, not standing out.
”As the veil of global lockdown is slowly lifting, advertising will continually evolve to reflect our new social norms. The big questions being, what will those norms look like and which brands will be doing it best? It’s an exciting challenge for our industry.”
Now, more than ever, brands are having to evolve their products, services and communications to suit the shifting tides of consumer behaviours, demands and expectations. While UGC is undoubtedly a popular way to engage with consumers at this time, as marketers maybe our task right now should not be to hold a mirror up to the people of the country, but to take time to understand how the world around us has changed in the past few months. And how what people want to hear from brands has changed too.
