Crossmedia

Social Media is the most trendy phrase in the last 12 months in the Digital Industry, however it did not come alone, it is accompanied by a new set of words, such as engagement, connect, free, interact, consumer, experience, that traditional advertisers like to use on PowerPoint and keynotes, but in reality they are never taken into account at the time of walking the talk.

Going from one extreme to another: Back in the 50s word of mouth was the only channel to get the news out to the consumer, and advertise certain products to create the demand. The product itself was the key component to the positive or negative result of the buzz.

On the other hand with the advent of Radio, TV and a long list of traditional media, we are buying trash, such as exercise apparatus, magic pills to lose 20 Kg in 2 days, useless   gadgets, etc. The question is why? And the answer is very simple; Money and Media overpower consumer opinion and product quality.

Nowadays with Social Media, Web 2.0 and New Technologies we are going back to the 50s, because word of mouth is starting to be more powerful than traditional media, and the quality of the product or service have come back to life.

Brands, Advertisers, Publishers and Creative Agencies are facing a completely new paradigm, where the old fashioned world of “money solves everything” is almost obsolete.

Not only basic content is created by the user, but also advertising, recommendations, reviews, video productions, when all combined end up creating some sort of marketing campaign, whether positive or negative, regarding a certain brand or product. This is what I have named “user generated advertising” and Social Media plays a huge role in this new landscape, because it acts as a catalyst and spreads the “message” at the speed of light over the entire Internet community.

If I were a brand I would be very tempted to:

• Invest more money on R&D and create “consumer centred product”
• Make more effort on research and test the products and services “ready” to be launched
• Definitely I would invest to create better online consumer experience
• Manage and be part of the new flow of consumer conversation in the cloud
• Do basic things at a superior level

User experience prevails over 100 features badly executed

Open-source firms have boosted their sales during the first part of the year, by and large because companies all over the globe need to cut costs. Don’t get me wrong; the decision taken by many companies to move in this direction was only a matter of time. Companies were dipping the foot in the pool for so long, when it comes to Open-source such as Red Hat and Apache, but finally they took the dive. It was a matter of time because they had been considering it for a while, the urgent necessity to reduce costs only sped things up. Let’s explain the reasons for this “bold” statement.
The GNU GPL licensed SW once referred as “cancer” back in 2001 by today’s Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, has proven all the forecasts wrong.

The model of sharing SW + source code and charging for the support and proprietary plugins & apps has shown an important increase in sales since last year in comparison to “The Big Ones”. Let’s analyze some figures for 2008’s Q4: Red Hat reported a 18% growth in sales (http://tinyurl.com/oyjnr5) while Oracle reported that their sales decreased 5% and quarterly income went down by 7% (http://tinyurl.com/q7z358). We can now catch a glimpse of why Sun Microsystem bought MySQL and later on Oracle bought Sun, but that can be discussed in detailed in later posts.

The following list of reasons for using Open-source as well as the order of importance, was determined by a survey of 1,000 US and European IT Executives (http://tinyurl.com/afktdt):

• Ease of use, implementation and administration
• Performance
• Independence of vendors/providers for support, improvements, and new developments
• It is free and the TCO is reduced considerably
• Connectivity with different platforms

This clearly states that even though the company’s decision for moving to open source was triggered by the need of cutting costs, that was not the key factor to switch at all. This should really keep “The Big Ones” wondering…

As Internet becomes part of everybody’s life, not only 15 to 25 generation, but also to Mature Adults and Children, there is an open window for those who dare to jump through and take the lead over the competition.

Why should your company take Internet as a serious trend that will turn the World head over heels? let’s take a look at the following facts:

-       82% of ABC,D Segments use Internet as a primary source of information before taking a purchasing decision towards a brand, for instance: Cars, Digital Cameras, Houses, Flats, Computers, Special Clothes, Books, Travel, Music… jump and surf the wave or get crushed against the rocks

-       Whether you like it or not, there is no way to avoid people talking and spreading the word all over the cyberspace about your brand or product. It is better to take the bull by the horns and face the digital buzz instead of being stabbed in the back by your unsatisfied consumer or smart competitor.

-       Younger generation spend more time Online than in front of a TV, meanwhile they are “TVing” (this is a word that does not exist, but it should, at least in my vocabulary), they are texting, zapping, listening, talking on the cell, all at the same time, so the question is, fully connected or totally distracted?

Here you have some tips to deal with these facts:

-       Focus on the online experience of your consumer, having a Website it is not enough.  If you skipped the Website story, do not worry, it already belongs to the past, try to create an Online consumer experience

-       If you do not like the idea of being stabbed, create an interaction space with your consumers, and at least get the punches in the face.

-       Think your marketing effort across digital channels; cross-marketing techniques are a powerful weapon to seduce the younger generations.

Strike before dawn and embrace the digital world.

After the conquest, you should not take for granted that your customer will continue buying from you; so Loyalty Programs might a good option, but first let’s try to define what we understand by that.

Loyalty Program is a mix of strategies and tactics to maintain customer preference, and not necessarily need to be based on point accumulation, or in other words based on putting virtual money in customer pockets, you can also create strategies taking into account that all “your customers are humans”, and they have emotions! Later on we are going to elaborate more on this…

Loyalty Programs are based on acquiring debt every time you give points, in other words you are signing a “promissory note” with your customers whenever they choose your products or services.

Above said (“about said” does not sound right, but it will work) you should start by thinking of the finance modelling instead of being creative, and start focusing on names for the programs. Why? Because you have to be sure that your CFO will not kill you, and your customers will appreciate the rewards, otherwise you are going to get killed in vain!

Here are some tips:

-       Study your audience and their purchase behaviour

-       Define you business goals, what are you trying to do? Retain your customers or increase the ARPU

-       Run a finance model to save your life and make sure the rewards are relevant for your audience, in terms of value.

-       Define your reward scheme and your reward pyramid

-       Define you technology platform and logistics

-       Now be creative!

As Internet broadband becomes more and more important, advertisers are tempted to use more video content and video advertising. And in a way, they are quite right, since Online Ad Awareness is higher than regular and traditional online media.

It is not unreasonable to expect that the impact of video content will continue growing, as video creativity is developed to take advantage of the various online formats.

However -and this a big “however”- while everybody is talking about Online Ad Awareness there are several questions that remain with no answer at all:

What happens beyond the click? The flashier the ad, the higher the CTR, but also, I’m pretty sure, that the Bounce rate will increase too. So if you are looking for a PURE branding campaign, Video Advertising might be a good option.

Since the media landscape is an Offer driven market, more and more publishers are forced to lower their standard media rate card and create new formats: heavier, flashier, but also more expensive. The question is, if Online Ad Awareness is, let’s say 20% higher than regular formats, is your ROI 20% higher? How much does the production cost impact on the overhead of the campaign? How much do your ad serving cost increase because of the Video Content?

Here some tips for a good Online Video Campaign:

-  Focus and Purpose: have a concise message to grab customer’s attention

-  The shorter the message, the greater the impact

-  Impressions are not infinite, so create more opportunities to reach a wider audience by shortening your message

-   Be more creative, the shorter the message the more creative you have to be

-  There is no need to reveal the whole story, ask for a click

I’m a big fan of Text Link for Performance and also branding, if well used.

After almost a year of operations, in November 2008 Best Buy opened their first store in Mexico. With an ambitious plan of many more stores to come this is a great example of how Mexico is an attractive market for foreign investors.

Parallel to the grand opening of Best Buy Mundo E, they launched the loyalty program: Reward Zone, which gives you one point por every peso you spend in the store, and for every 1000 points you receive a 10 pesos certificate that can be redeeemed as cash in your next purchase.

After a thorough research of the digital agencies in Mexico, Best Buy chose Crossmedia Interactive thanks to our background, our credentials and our client-centered approach. The aim was to hire an agency that knew the Mexican market and could adapt the loyalty program and run it so it would be effective and efficient for both, the customer and Best Buy.  Crossmedia has done this for almost one year now and we have been achieving milestones to increase the penetration of the program and to reward all the enrolled customers.

Crossmedia’s role in this operation has been to develop this program together with the Best Buy International Team and to operate it, as well as to give life to the program’s website. Crossmedia is also in charge of the corporate website that nowadays is not available for e-commerce but soon will be. We will keep you updated on this subject so you can be one of the firsts customers to buy form this site that will revolutionize the way of e-commerce in Mexico.

Best Buy liked so much the artwork for this project that we were asked to develop all the printed materials for Reward Zone, therefore we took the insights from our client and materialized them in pieces that reflect in an integrated way the spirit of the program. Nowadays we are working on a new version of these materials that will be available in September.

We will continue developing new tools and ideas alongside with Best Buy always with the aim of providing customers with the best possible experience in store and online. We are looking forward for the following openings willing to increase the scope of the program and to develop more and better strategies to get to know their customers.