Wearable computing – computing is about to get very personal

Another couple of hours spent researching the difference between a Jawbone Up, Fitbit Flex and Nike Fuelband helped me decide on the topic for this week’s column. Those names will probably mean nothing to most readers. For those who are into fitness, or just worry about making sure they are getting enough exercise, those names are probably familiar.

They are glorified pedometers, those things given away with healthy breakfast cereals a few years ago that when clipped to your belt told you that you had not walked enough that day. Today they are fully computerised and not only tell you how far you have walked but everything from how many calories you have burnt to even how well you have slept. This is all backed by various apps for your phones and websites where you can further depress yourself on how you are failing in your keep fit targets.

They and those like them are examples of the new trend in wearable computing. The current epitome of which is the Google Glass which looks like a pair of glasses with a small screen over one eye. With it users can access the Internet, take pictures and videos that you can send straight to your Twitter or Facebook account and even have directions up in front of your eye. It’s on limited sale in the US now for $1,500 and will be sold worldwide from the end of this year. It has already created mixed opinions, mainly to do with it making the user looking very, very geeky and also worrying many about personal privacy issues. Some US restaurants are even asking customers wearing them to remove them to protect the privacy of other clientele.

The company that has the real pedigree of changing the way the world uses technology (listening to music, accessing the internet through our phones) has now effectively admitted the long rumoured Apple iWatch. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple stated at the All Things Digital Conference in the US that wearable computers will likely be "another key branch" of the Apple tree adding “the wrist is natural”. When they do release one it will be marketed to a world awash with existing iPhone and iPod users keen and ready to try the new toy. You can also be sure it will only be compatible with iPhones, iPads and iOS devices and not anything Windows or Andriod based. Unsurprisingly therefore, Samsung and others have also announced they too are working on wrist based devices that will work with those operating systems and probably do everything but tell the time.

Where wearable computing will end up is anyone’s guess and I have learnt not to predict.  One example though came from Tom Staggs, the chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, who last week announced the MagicBand, a wristband that stores information about consumers' identity and preferences, allowing Disney characters to greet guests by name. The ongoing trends of personalisation, big data and potentially even closer targeting of advertising just continue to get bigger. Whether you think this is exciting or just plain creepy I will leave you to decide. As a marketer I know where I stand, I just need to decide which one to wait for!

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman

#Fitchthehomeless - a lesson in brand management by Abercrombie & Fitch

A recent article on an American site Business Insider mused on the fact that the clothing label Abercrombie & Fitch does not stock clothing larger than a “Large” size for women. In the article the author referenced another interview with the CEO of Abercrombie, Mike Jeffries, from way back in 2006 in Salon Magazine. Here Jeffries states the following:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he says. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

Despite the fact that these comments were made 7 years ago, they have spawned a new anti A&F campaign under the twitter hashtag #FitchTheHomeless. The campaign was started by an LA based film maker and writer Greg Karber who reacted to the article by videoing himself going to a local Goodwill store, buying Abercrombie and Fitch donated clothes and then donating them to homeless people in LA and encouraging others to do the same to break the brand positioning. His video on YouTube has now had over 5.7m views. But is this a PR disaster or actually just very careful and well thought out brand management personified by the CEO?

Most of the media commentary about this centres on how terrible it is that A&F do not cater for larger sized women and that makes them exclusionist. Many have also turned on its policy of only hiring good-looking employees and its habit of having bare torso male models welcoming customers into its darkened, music blaring outlets.

You might be thinking this is nothing new and just one in a long line of CEO PR gaffs. Gerald Ratner famously wiped £500 million from the value of Ratners jewellers with one speech in 1991 with the line “People say, 'How can you sell this for such a low price?' I say, because it's total crap." Or  Alain Levy, chief executive of the music company EMI, who after cutting the roster of artists on a music label they owned in Finland said it was because there were not that many people in the country "who could sing".

They were both classic examples of PR nightmares but in my opinion the comments from Mike Jeffries is actually a good example of excellent brand management. True brand management is about totally understanding both your product and your target audience. It’s about creating a passion in that audience and making them feel so part of your product that they become brand ambassadors.

For some products that mean’s that you might have to upset people outside of your chosen target, but if that’s what you have to do then that’s what you have to do. Abercrombie targets young, pretty, slim people and like it or not young, pretty and slim people do not want to be seen wearing the same clothes as old, ugly and fat people. You might not agree with their positioning but it’s what drives a multi-million dollar clothing empire. They successfully sell to their target market and those who want to be in it and statements such as those from Jeffries only reinforce that ability.    

Tim Youngman is Director of Marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman

Guinness – a lesson in the changing face of marketing

A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference in Dublin with many from the Irish newspaper industry. One of the presentations from an Irish digital marketing agency called Cybercom who has a range of very well known brands as clients one being that most Irish of brands Guinness.

Guinness of course is famous for its advertising and has created some of the most iconic television campaigns over the last 20 years. From the Snail Race to the Swimmer to the multi-award winning Surfer, Guinness has made a name for pushing the boundaries of how it markets its single brand.

Guinness has constantly had to evolve its advertising and walking round the Storehouse in Dublin you can see the history of those campaigns. In the 1930’s when the print ads were the classic “My Goodness, My Guinness”, advertising was simply telling individuals what a product was, why you should buy it and where you can get it from. 

Those fundamentals have not changed but Guinness believes that successful brands are now marketing with people rather than to people. Brands must realise that people are more than consumers who purchase their goods and that they are now using and creating content, rating reviews, having multiple interest streams and are members of different communities. In doing so brands and companies must not interrupt people from what they are interested in, but somehow become what people are interested in.

Of course that is not easy in any way shape or form and is a lot easier if you are a well loved beer than, for example, a maker of screws. However the principle of moving from thinking about consumers just as people who buy stuff, to thinking about consumers as individual human beings, is a big mindset change for many.

Guinness also believe that companies now have to accept that consumers have changed and want to interact with each other and brands on 4 different types of screens. Also digital is the new operating system of the world and a modern marketers job is to understand the technology and how these channels are used to communicate with each other and brands.

To react to that Guinness has invested heavily in digital advertising and social media. Working with Cybercom they created “Insights from Inside the Ireland Camp” which is a Guinness rugby supporters Ireland community to which players delivered regular updates and value adding content.  This content was then shared across multiple distribution channels including guinness.com, an iPhone app, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Cybercom, through its work with Guinness and others, have found that you may be able to speak to someone via Twitter but they are also influenced by people in other environments such as Facebook and even print and that conversation is now in a constant state of flux. Your brand should be part of the conversation but you cannot force your way into the conversation which means that you have to spend time to understand what drives and motivates your consumers.

Conferences are very good at giving you time to think and learn from others. In this case it is clear that it helps if you are company as big as Guinness with its large marketing budget. However many of the lessons that Guinness has learnt, not just in recent years, but across 9 decades of pushing the marketing envelope are applicable to all. 

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant www.about.me/timyoungman

Big Data – an opportunity to transform or hoard?

You may already have the creeping realisation that everything we do is being tracked and somebody somewhere is creating databases of our actions. If you have Sky TV they know who you are, where you live, how old you are, what you like watching and so a behavioural view of your likes and dislikes which is of course extremely powerful.

If you go online regularly you will know of online cookie driven behavioural advertising where ads from a site you visited once seem to miraculously follow you around the world wide web as you visit other sites. Most sites drop cookies, little bits of code, on your computer as you visit them that then follow where you go and allow ad servers to deliver more targeted advertising to you. I, for example, am currently faced with pie dish ads from John Lewis or Debenhams wherever I browse. Guess what I have bought recently! The way to stop this BTW is to regularly delete your cookie cache via your browser settings.

The ability for brands to collect more and more data will only continue. The Nike Fuelband, which sports enthusiast wear on their wrists to track movement, is just one of a range of new portable computers. The much heralded Apple Watch and announced “me too” competitors from Google and Samsung continue this trend. The pinnacle of this is Google Glass the glasses with the onboard computer that allows you to search and share wherever you are while wearing the glasses like headpiece, set for release this year. Google it if you want to be amazed.

If done properly this is a massive opportunity that will radically transform businesses but it’s nothing new. I have already mentioned Sky but the best example of all time is Tesco and its Clubcard. They have arguably pioneered the use of data and clearly shown what can be done if you track user behaviour and use it to better target consumers with things they like. Everything from recommendations and offers, to an online shopping system pre-filled with your usual purchases, all checked through your club card and all possible because of clever use of big data.

I am not even going to touch of the privacy issues that will invariably happen when people actually start to realise what is being collected and who can access the data. Privacy aside however, the biggest issue has always been what companies and brands are actually going to do with all this stuff. It is all well and good collecting vast databases of customer data and behaviour's but unless you use that to deliver better products or services or more targeted less wasteful advertising it’s a big waste of server storage.

The trend for collecting more and more data will continue and I believe that like social media, the far reaching consequences will only be understood by a few at first. Quickly followed by others setting themselves up to “help” companies build data strategies to manage and benefit from this new opportunity. One thing that is certain is that in a few years time, companies and marketing teams will have a greater proportion of data analysts and clever mathematical genii than ever before. With the potential huge rewards of proper use of well gathered data, that is not a bad thing.

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant - www.about.me/timyoungman Twitter: https://twitter.com/timyoungman

Apple seasonal email marketing campaigns - great execution, bad timing

Normally Easter weekend is full of adverts from garden centres and DIY stores driving us to spend during our bank holidays. The current cold weather reduced this activity somewhat which is unfortunate on many levels and not just for the economy.

Seasonal marketing campaigns are a tradition but one that is being jumped upon by more and more brands trying to create a tenuous link to help them drum up some sales. You expect, for example, to see adverts for cards and flowers on mothers day. One global brand however managed to give us a great example of possible a stretch to far last mothers day.

On February 28^th an email dropped into my personal mailbox from Apple that made me actually laugh out loud. As always with Apple email marketing campaigns it was a beautiful piece of creative. Nice clean design with strong imagery and lots of white space, well written with clear call to action points within the email. So all in all, a great example of how a good email campaign can look.

Unfortunately the heading of this email was “Make Mum’s day. Every day” with the subject line “Surprise Mum with a new iPad.” Now I don’t know about you but flowers and a card are usually in order for Mothers day and yes I do stretch to chocolates but an iPad, for mother’s day, really? The contents of the email did not stop there though. The different sections contained the headings “iPad with Retina display. Wait until Mum sees it.” “iPad mini. A big thank you for Mum” and “AppleTV. Now showing…whatever mum wants”. I suppose if you are going to use a tenuous link to sell your products don’t go half hearted.  As the Apple mailing list is rather large due to the popularity of its products this email was seen by many. So much so that the humorous comments it created on social media even got it trending on Twitter.

The bottom line is of course that email marketing is still one of the most cost effective marketing tools available to businesses today and when done well should be an absolute staple of a companies marketing mix. If that email from Apple converted into sales from even a tiny percentage of the Apple registered users it was sent to it would have paid for itself thousands of time over and been a success.

So if that’s the case does it really matter that for most people the email was one that created bemusement at the sales message than action? The answer is probably not, especially if you are the marketing or sales teams of Apple. For me though Apple is a company that hold a lot of data about its users and is a pioneer of the next big thing “Big Data”. In this case I just think they could use that understanding to move away from big broad brush campaigns to tighter campaigns that use proper segmentation and list management to send more personalised relevant messages to users. That combined with their best practice design and content they would create much higher engagement and probably better sales with less embarrassing social backlash. In the meantime I wait to see what they will link to Easter with great anticipation.

Tim Youngman is director of marketing for Archant follow him on Twitter @timyoungman

Morrisons online and convenience stores - the great catch up

The supermarket business is a fascinating one. People have short memories but I can remember walking into supermarkets that just sold food. In a relatively short space of time UK supermarkets have grown significantly in size, products and profits. You can now buy everything from pharmaceuticals to clothing to homewares to technology and music. In food itself they have created own range labels, chilled food and whole new ways of buying alcohol. In a relatively short space of time they have changed our high streets.

Continuing this growth, which delivers the profits that keep shareholders happy, is difficult and needs constant innovation. Supermarkets moved to online retailing as a new route to grow. Then, having taken things away from the high street, the supermarkets are now taking them over as well. Our papers are often filled with news of campaigns to stop another supermarket store opening, especially the new high street based convenience style stores such as Tesco Express Sainsbury’s Local. So while three of the top four supermarkets have driven ahead with online services and convenience outlets, one has been conspicuous in its absence; Morrisons. 

Morrisons is not having a great time at the moment. It has recently posted a 7.2% fall in pre-tax profits to £879m for the year to 3rd February. This is its first fall in full-year profits for six years and like-for-like sales were down more than 2%. As part of this announcement its Chief executive Dalton Philips announced that it is pushing ahead with rolling out its new convenience stores and, more importantly, it will finally launch an online offering.

With both of these areas they are playing catch up. They have already opened 12 “M” branded convenience stores, have bought 62 other sites from the administrators of HMV, Blockbuster and Jessops and want 100 opened by the end of this year. As a comparison Sainsbury’s has over 500 of its ‘Local’ convenience stores already.

However it is online where they really have been caught out. Online food shopping is growing at about 20% per year and Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s attribute it as a source of strong growth for them. While the announcement from Morrisons is not surprising there is a question of what took them so long. It now hopes to have an operation in place by January 2014 and announced that it has been talking to online food operation Ocado about sharing technology and knowledge to help it achieve that.

Learning from others’ mistakes is fine but playing catch up in a market that is moving so quickly is extremely difficult. Morrisons does not have a loyalty card like the Tesco Clubcard which uses data from that to populate its online offering with what a customer normally buys in store. In this game they have proved that big data matters. Where they might have an edge is in m-commerce with Ocado reporting that 28% of its orders are from mobile devices.

Morrisons is a long way from its first store opened in Bradford in 1961 by Sir Ken Morrison and one of the PG Tips chimps who cut the tape. Whether these new initiatives are the right thing to do is not in question; whether they have left it too late is another though. Hopefully partnering with experience, especially with someone with experience in the biggest growth area of mobile will give them the kick start they need to catch up.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant @timyoungman

The horsemeat scandal – PR and brand opportunity? Every little helps.

While tax avoidance creates a certain level of emotion in people the thought that you might have been eating horse, well that’s another story. The horsemeat scandal has created brand issues way above what was seen last year. People still bought Christmas presents through Amazon while tutting at what tax they had just helped them avoid. The thought that you might have eaten something you thought was beef and actually could propel you to glory at Newmarket, different matter.

The two areas that I have found most interesting is how those affected companies have reacted and what those outside of the scandal are doing to capitalise on it. While most of the supermarkets have been affected and long standing brands like Findus have borne the brunt, I want to focus on the reaction from Tesco for the first part of my interest.

From an online point of view, Tesco has taken the brunt of the mentions regarding this scandal. It has far outstripped the other supermarkets and even Findus in online news coverage and social media mentions. With this in mind it probably has the biggest mountain the climb to regain the potential knock to its consumer confidence. What it has done so far though has been quick and effective.

Rather than spreading the blame everywhere but themselves, they apologised quickly and announced investigations. This was quickly followed by a series of announced measures clearly communicated to its consumers especially online through email. This communication was personalised and came from the top, all from the group chief executive, not delivered from an unknown Tesco PR person.  

The last email sent to me as a clubcard holder came with the clear concise, and in my opinion, excellent subject line “we are changing”. In it they once again admitted guilt and outlined simply and clearly the range of measures they are putting in place to stop this happening again. Compare this to how Starbucks handled the tax avoidance scandal and you have a case study in how to do it well compared to how to do it badly.

The next area of interest is what those outside of the scandal are doing to capitalise on it. The big winners from this are, and will be, local food producers, especially your local butcher. My own local butcher, Archers, has already seen a rise in trade as people move to a source they can trust. Our papers are full of similar stories which personally I find extremely encouraging. However the ability to truly maximise this opportunity I hope that local butchers take some time to think about how they market themselves.

Are they actively promoting providence of their meat, even if it’s simply a blackboard with the farms where it comes from are listed. Are they using this as a way to build a bigger database of customers, especially email addresses, that they can then build an ongoing relationship with? Why not give an offer in return for customer details so people have a reason to share and then send them newsletters with competitions, special offers and even recipes giving these new customers more reasons not to go back to the supermarkets.  

It’s not just butchers that can capitalise on the current shift in consumer mood. All local food producers should now be sitting down and thinking how they can make the most of this situation and grow their own businesses. With some thought and effort they can now tap into an opportunity and as they say “every little helps”.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow on Twitter @timyoungman