-
Billboards That Stand Out … Literally!
Gone are the days of traditional billboards. Now, more immersive, realistic and engaging experiences are being delivered using 3D billboards. This new out-of-home platform utilises 3D display technology.
One example is Balenciaga and Fortnite’s collaboration creating a global immersive 3D billboard experience. To bring their campaign to life, Fortnite characters wore Balenciaga clothing on a 3D billboard. The campaign not only caught attention due to its dynamic nature and size, but the clear prominence of their logo increased purchase intentions.
3D billboards boast many advantages. First, they elevate the customer journey, in particular the awareness stage by providing a more visual experience compared to static images. With people increasingly growing indifferent to traditional billboards, a 3D billboard is more likely to entice interest and increase retention. Second, they’re cost effective in reaching a large audience, while being more flexible than traditional billboards as content can be changed. Lastly, the popularity of these exciting billboards provide the opportunity to gain more social media exposure as audiences share the content. This was seen in Tokyo where a hyper-realistic cat appeared on a 3D billboard, attracting mass media attention (shown below).
Source However, 3D billboards have disadvantages. While they are cost effective, there are expenses involved from the graphic design, implementation, cost of the billboard location and maintenance. Another threat is poorly designed content and executed campaigns. If the audience becomes more focused on the visual elements rather than the marketing message, this dilutes the campaign’s message, wasting time and money.
With regards to marketing implications, 3D billboards should be used for products that want to attract wide public attention through their maximum visibility, size and strategic locations. To attract global attention, marketers should encourage the creation of user-generated content to share the entertaining billboards on social media. However, to be effective, marketers must ensure their advertising message is clear, and not lost in the immersive experience.
Would you utilise 3D billboards? Comment below and answer the poll!
-
Top Tips For Tip-Top Reviews
With 75% of people reading online reviews now more than ever, it’s crucial that businesses accumulate the most authentic and transparent reviews.
Technology has revolutionised how we review, with anyone able to share their opinions with the world. Customers can not only directly publish their reviews on a business’s website, but platforms such as Yelp are giving people the opportunity to voice their opinions. Customers don’t want long sales pitches, but rather hear from fellow consumers whose opinion they value as more credible and authentic.
Positive and negative trustworthy reviews have vast benefits, as shown in the video below. First, it proves you have customers, enhancing your business’s legitimacy. Second, it shows transparency and authenticity in welcoming all feedback. Even negative reviews can be used as an opportunity to demonstrate how a business cares and can make amends with unsatisfied customers. Third, it provides crucial information about your performance, providing confidence for consumers to make informed decisions. Lastly, reviews empower customers by providing a voice to show they aren’t forgotten about post-purchase.
Source However, with the ability for anyone to write a review, fake reviews are unavoidable. Increasingly review-readers value quality over quantity, transparency and unbiased reviews. What are the business implications? Below are three ways to encourage the most authentic and transparent reviews:
- Provide an incentive to motivate customers to write quality reviews. Incentives could include giveaway contests, coupons, free shipping and more.
- Businesses could consider using a trustworthy review service, such as Yelp, which can verify reviews with a proof of purchase.
- Businesses could encourage longer reviews or attached photos. 90% of people trust a written review over a star rating as they provide more context, value and the opportunity for personalised responses. This could be achieved by simplifying the review process and personalising how businesses ask customers to write quality reviews.
Thus, implementing these strategies will encourage a proactive rather than reactive approach to reviews.
What are other ways of encouraging more trustworthy reviews? Comment below!
-
Game On: The Gamification of E-Commerce
Retailers are constantly chasing new ways to engage consumers in e-commerce. The solution? Gamification: the use of gaming concepts, like competitions and rewards, implemented into non-game concepts such as retailing.
While gamification strategies can be simple, like a wheel of fortune, sophisticated digital interfaces are encouraging the emergence of more complex digital games. This can be achieved through partnerships with mobile apps, or creating new interactive experiences within an e-commerce platform.
A successful example is Nike’s Winter’s Angry campaign. To promote their winter sportswear, Nike created an in-app game that enabled users to help well-known athletes train in harsh winter conditions. The game tested user’s reflexes and resulted in discounts and prizes to be won. The game connected to Nike’s website, where customers could purchase the clothing worn by athletes. This drove awareness and long term interest by creating a fun/memorable experience.
Source: Nike’s Winter’s Angry Campaign Gamification offers a variety of benefits, illustrated below. Firstly, it can make shopping and repetitive activities a more interactive and enjoyable experience, encouraging people to stay engaged and thus increasing conversion rates. Often these games are widely shared over social media, thus increasing online visibility. It’s also an effective way to collect consumer data, for example though registration details.
Source: Benefits of Gamification However, mismatches from the consumer’s perspective between the effort/time expended and the reward may drive them away from the game. Significant time and money must also be invested to create the game and potential legal ramifications means resources must be invested to define clear rules to avoid disputes.
With the global gaming industry expected to surpass $321 billion (USD) by 2026, this growing market has the potential to attract younger generations to e-commerce platforms. To remain competitive, brands should consider mobile-app partnerships and in-app experiences. However, it must be engaging and relevant. Further gamification implications suggest opportunities beyond e-commerce platforms, with gamification in physical stores using VR/AR.
Where do you see gamification trends in the future? Comment below!
-
Email Roulette: Be Relevant, Or Be Deleted
Artificial intelligence (AI) is giving marketers a new superpower in email marketing. With the increasing expectation for brands to provide relevant and personalised content, AI has the ability to analyse massive amounts of data to recommend decisions. As relevancy is crucial, AI can send segmented email campaigns based on criteria such as current behaviour and purchase patterns. It can assist in writing personalised effective subject lines and content, as well as optimise the timing of sending emails.
eBay is one example of a business exploiting this technology. To drive open rates, they employ AI-powered customer experience platform Phrasee (demonstrated in the image below) to implement brand language optimisation. This takes into consideration brand tone, specific promotions and customer needs in forming effective emails.
AI offers many benefits, saving time and cost in reducing the labour required to manually analyse data. It not only enables personalisation but also increases engagement. By creating tailored communication, this allows customers to feel more valued and subsequently follow through with transactions. Personalised email subject lines have been found to be 26% more likely to be opened, and segmented email campaigns have been found to increase email revenue by 760%.
However, AI doesn’t come without disadvantages. First, algorithms aren’t always reliable, with errors wasting time, money and leading to lost sales. Second, AI lacks imagination, warm human touch and authenticity. While to an extent it can mimic communication patterns, this is often not genuinely compelling. Lastly, there is a direct relationship between AI capability and the depth of available data, creating a barrier for smaller-scale businesses.
So, what are the implications? AI’s ability to create a competitive edge and boost the value of email marketing means it must be considered to save time and create personalisation. However, marketers must balance this with the need for human emotion and weigh its value against the time, effort and potential for mistakes.
Do you think businesses should implement AI in their email marketing? Comment below!
-
Digital Marketing in the Palm of Our Hands
Contactless payment, we’ve all heard it before. Now, businesses are going further with the use of palm-scanning technology, where machine learning analyses the shape and unique vein configuration of an individual’s palm. Using biometrics, customers can be identified for transactional purposes.
Amazon is exploiting this opportunity, launching their palm-scanner technology ‘Amazon One’ in over 65 Whole Foods stores. To register, customers scan their palm to create a palm signature, linked to a credit card. Every subsequent time they pay, they hover their hand over a scanner to complete the transaction.
Customers and marketers both benefit from this technology as illustrated in the video below. For the customer, palm-scanning is more secure. It’s harder to imitate compared to other biometrics like fingerprints which can be gathered from surfaces and replicated by using silicone. Palm-scanning also requires consent, as individual’s make an intentional gesture in hovering their hand over a device. They can also control when and where they use it. For marketers, the technology adds value to the customer experience through creating a faster, simpler and more reliable way to authorise transactions. It minimises the hassle of multiple cards and is exciting and innovative, creating a unique value proposition.
Source However, there are privacy concerns with this potentially invasive technology. Unlike Face and Touch ID where the user’s device stores their information, Amazon encrypts data and sends it to a cloud server. This raises issues of potential hacking and selling of information to third parties. Similarly, there’s discomfort regarding Amazon’s increasing ability to track consumer’s location and routines.
So, what are the implications for marketers? It creates the potential for vast amounts of data to be collected. By linking specific people with spending habits, marketers can target individuals with new products online and in-store. It also provides opportunities for businesses to boost their loyalty programs through creating an efficient means to identify members instantly and provide personalised offers and bonuses.
Are there other potential marketing uses for this technology? Comment below!
-
Getting to the Heart of Marketing
Excited? Nervous? Sad? Marketers are capturing our emotions before we even register them, through the use of wearable technologies to create personalised and interactive advertising.
Wearable technologies capture biometric data, most importantly heart-rate variability, to allow marketers to segment/target consumers based on emotions and capitalise on their purchase-ready state. Why? Research shows that advertising content is most effective when matched with an audience’s personal emotional state. For example, this technology could be used to decide between a fear or hope appeal to match a user’s affective state.
Additionally, other information such as location, galvanic skin response and pupil dilation can be measured by wearables. This can provide a more complete picture, as specific patterns in these biometric features are indicative of emotional states.
The screens of wearables also provide the ability to display advertisement content responsively to real-time desires, or wearables could be connected to larger devices such as phones.
While theoretically message-congruence (tailoring messages to emotion/personality) is well understood, the practical implications are more challenging. For it to be effective, messages need to be delivered efficiently and reliably as emotional states fluctuate, dependent on external stressors.
Furthermore, the use of this technology raises privacy concerns such as cybersecurity and potential data breaches, especially given the sensitive nature of this health-related information. Similarly, there has been pushback regarding the motivation behind the technology, and how it is designed to take advantage of people in vulnerable emotional states.
Therefore, the implications for marketers are that they need to allow consumers to control their own information. They should require unambiguous consent to collect any data, as well as provide consumers free access to their data. For consumers to willingly share their information, there must be an incentive, for example the convenience and value that tailored advertisements provide. By businesses being transparent about their use of these technologies, it won’t feel so invasive.
Do you think these wearable technologies are going too far in invading our privacy? Comment below!
-
Put Your Best Foot Forward with Augmented Reality
Imagine. You have your eyes on a pair of Nike shoes. You research, travel in-store, try and then buy the shoes. This whole process: 2 hours. However, with new apps created by innovative retailers, this process could take just 2 minutes.
The answer is augmented reality (AR), which is the use of digital visual elements and sensory stimuli to enhance the real world. AR isn’t new, but it’s retail application is adding a new and interactive touchpoint in the customer journey. While consumers can already access AR to virtually try on different products, the newest addition to the digital dressing room is shoes.
One business pioneering this trend is Amazon, who recently released Virtual Try-On for Shoes as part of their shopping app. Customers simply film their feet and can instantly visualise how a pair of shoes will look at every angle, as shown in the video below.
Source The feature adds value and competitive differentiation through its unique interactivity and added information. Users can also save photos/videos of their shoes and share it to social media.
The virtual try-on of products, in particular shoes, creates endless opportunities to improve the user experience. With the ability to try before you buy, it eliminates (to an extent) the need for physical stores and reliance on website product photos. Similarly, it creates an entertaining shopping experience, and compelling word-of-mouth if users share it to social media.
Future possibilities for this app include recommendation engines to suggest other clothing products to match the shoe selection, and the ability to create and try on customised shoes as they are designed.
One limitation of the app is the inability to provide guidance on sizing. Nike overcame this in their app by implementing a feature to measure the shape, size and volume of the foot to suggest a specific size.
So, while AR heightens user engagement, do you think it will replace physical stores, in particular for shoes? Comment below!
-
The Modernisation of Museums
For young people, the museum may seem like the last choice for a weekend activity.
However, museums are now leveraging user-generated content (UGC) to attract an upcoming generation of art lovers at almost zero cost.
UGC are brand-specific posts, created/shared on social media by consumers. It breaks the barrier between museums and visitors to provide information, create buzz and visibility. The video below explores UGC further.
Source UGC allows museums to create a story through experiences enjoyed by visitors, allowing others to picture themselves in the museum.
UGC was effectively used at NGV’s Triennial exhibition in 2018/2021, where social media was inundated with pictures of the iconic giant octopus, flower and skull rooms. These striking artworks which tackled social issues attracted record-breaking attendance as UGC inspired others to visit. Below are thousands of UGC posts using #NGVTriennial.
Photo booths also encouraged visitors to take photos and upload them with location tags.
NGV’s UGC was successful as they allowed photography and created visually appealing backgrounds for the perfect Instagram shot. It was not only a thought-provoking exhibition, but one people wanted to share with friends, creating a cycle for more people to visit.
A barrier to creating successful UGC is finding ways to encourage visitors to create/post content. The Royal Ontario Museum overcame this by creating a digital display (shown below) at their museum entrance. It displayed other visitor’s UGC, hashtags and competitions to encourage content creation. This sparked conversation, authentic word-of-mouth and a sense of community.
So, what are the implications? Museums can no longer create mundane exhibitions. Visitors expect to be immersed in the art if they want to upload it to social media. By allowing photography, creating hashtags and encouraging two-way dialogue, this powerful tool is sure to make museums an activity to remember.
-
Hello!
My name is Amelia, and this is my blog about all things to do with digital marketing. In this blog we will explore the latest trends and exciting possibilities to do with digital marketing.
I am passionate about social media, the influence of new technology and am fascinated by the ever-changing digital landscape.
I love to discuss ideas and share new points of view, so please leave a comment.
Enjoy!
Image: Source
GIF header: Source
Amelia's Digital Marketing Blog 
hello!
LikeLike
Nice design
LikeLike
Interesting blog topic you have here! I’ve seen user-generated content before all over the internet but never knew it’s called that. Generating UGC is powerful content to acquire since it means that the brand has built a pretty good relationship / the brand resonates and relates to the audience well. Looking forward to see more of your opinion posted on the blog!
LikeLike
It is interesting how exhibitions have now evolved into more interactive experiences! Loved your visuals!
LikeLike