Branding is More Important than ever in the Internet of Things

Recently I had a conversation with a friend who was eulogising about the benefits of having an Amazon Dash Button connected to their fridge at home.

For the uninitiated, the Amazon Dash Button is the latest brainchild of Jeff Bezos’ team and falls under the category of an “Internet of Things” product. Essentially this button lets any user simply reorder a product with one simple click – nothing more, nothing less.

A general rule of thumb in the web 2.0 world is that a customer should be no-more than “three clicks” away from exactly what they want on your website at any one time. The Amazon Dash Button crushes that level of efficiency and thus pushes the consumer journey on yet another step.

So far so good. Right?

From a practical point of view this sounds perfect for the consumer. They get exactly what they want with minimal fuss.

The dark side, however, is that we enter product or brand echo chambers from which we never escape without proactive action.

Think of the echo chamber issue that’s currently impacting social media, news and politics and then multiply it into every other facet of your life and beyond.

Products of the Near Future

As briefly mentioned above, the Amazon Dash Button is already here. You can buy multiple variations for different parts of your home (fridge, washing machine, bathroom etc.), set it up via your smart device and Amazon account, and never again go without your favourite brands.

Current options include the ability to re-order Heineken beers, Dettol bleach, Duracell batteries, Listerine mouthwash and so much more.

Next up is British Gas’ Hive product. Hive is a smart home heating system that, once installed, allows you to control your home temperature, turn heating on and off and control hot water all from the screen of your smart device, no matter where you are.

Another interesting smart, Internet of Things, product is the FitBark.

It might be pretty obvious but, if you haven't already guessed it, the FitBark is essentially the FitBit for dogs and it’s yet another example of smart products entering every facet of our lives, and this is just the beginning! 

Why Branding is Critical

With all of that in mind, branding is becoming even more crucial than ever before.

Imagine a world where a household only drinks and reorders (through one simple button click) one type of beer. No more competition for shelf space at the supermarket or local off-license, no-more price promotions to entice new customers…

Just one beer bought over and over again through the power of that one initial message, campaign or advertisement that cut through the noise and converted.

That’s what we’re potentially talking about in a product echo chamber world and the same scenario can be replicated over and over again. One gas supplier, one toothpaste, one mouthwash, one dog product brand, on and on and on…

Product and brand monopolies aren’t new ideas but this level of convenience paired with the monopolisation of our data, on personal, public and societal scales, means top-level branding and consumer awareness is becoming even more important than ever before.

Moving Forward

Feeling gloomy? Don’t be!

This is just the latest business challenge and the best always overcome and succeed.

This new and developing Internet of Things reality simply means a re-focusing and doubling down on branding is an essential part of any consumer brand strategy.

From a practical point of view it means focusing on developing brand, creating awareness and capturing attention via social media (where modern attention primarily exists) and other key channels. It means tapping into consumer wants and needs more than ever before, delivering a brand story that aligns with customer values and resonates over time, and it means providing the highest quality possible because these product echo chambers will most likely reward quality alongside, or potentially above, price.

The Internet of Things is here, the first and second waves of products is also here but in the fantastic words of Ray Dalio (billionaire investor) just remember - “If you worry, don’t worry and if you don’t worry, worry!”

Content Marketing: Learning from HP’s The Wolf

Content marketing, in all its various forms, has been around for decades but it’s probably fair to say that the digital age has lead to an explosion in both quantity and importance over the last few years.

Unfortunately quality isn’t always at the forefront of the content marketing world but in HP’s 2017 mini series The Wolf we have a standout winner and something to draw serious lessons from.

The Wolf by HP

If you’re not yet acquainted with it, The Wolf is an online mini series, created by HP to highlight IT security and cyber crime risks in printers, staring Christian Slater.

See below to watch The Wolf and the sequel The Wolf: The Hunt Continues.

Eagle-eyed readers, or TV bingers, might recognise Slater from his most recent hit, Amazon’s Mr Robot. That series revolves around the dark underbelly of the digital world so it’s clear why The Wolf producers cast the Hollywood star in their new content marketing extravaganza.

Why You Should Care About The Wolf

If you’ve got this far then you might be wondering why you or any other business or marketing person should care about The Wolf or whatever the hell HP are doing.

Well, think about it. Did it captivate you? Did it grab your attention and convey important messages?

HP are banking on getting affirmative “Yes!” answers to all of the above questions and the majority of viewers and readers probably answered exactly that.

By creating something captivating HP were able to deliver key business messages, aligning closely with their own products and services, whilst retaining consumer attention.

If you were like me you didn’t switch off once throughout the entire 14 minutes over the two videos – a miracle in the social media age of short form content!

The SME Option

So what does this mean for the average SME out there?

I know, I know… We don’t all have six figure budgets to blow on incredible directors, producers, Hollywood stars and A-list screenwriters!

However, that isn’t the excuse and permission to do nothing. It’s a limitation and nothing more.

Huge brands like HP don’t waste money on projects like The Wolf for goodwill or entertainment, they do it because they understand that consumer attention is the most valuable commodity in the business world and they won’t capture it with bland, boring, predictable messaging and content.

So for SMEs it means we have to try to create content that captivates, entertains, educates, informs and more!

This can be at whichever level you operate, locally, regionally, nationally or beyond, and however you like, but as the Internet gets noisier it becomes ever more important.

Creativity is a huge currency in a world that is now saturated with marketing and advertising messages so with that in mind, get brainstorming and if you don’t have the creativity, draft in someone who does.

Without creativity your business will never stand out from the crowd, on or offline. This is true in both B2C and B2B because in both markets you’re trying to connect with, and capture the attention of, another human and we’re all the same in that we’ll only respond to something that triggers something inside us.

Take a leaf out of the HP book and go for it.

Getting Awareness Through Engagement on Social Media

“Engagement” and “Awareness” might sound like digital marketing buzzwords (they are…but hear me out…) but they are absolutely crucial in today’s social media marketing world.

In many cases the two elements go hand in hand in a social media context as more engagement generally leads to more awareness via the “word of mouth” friendly algorithms of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter etc.

The result of this means that we need to constantly keep both elements at the forefront of our minds throughout the content creation process.

Why Awareness is Crucial

Awareness, attention, exposure… Each word carries its own slight variation in meaning but at the core, they all mean the same thing in a marketing and business context…

You need EYES and EARS on your business before you can ever generate qualified leads or sales.

You might have the best product, service or message in the world but if nobody is listening then nobody will care. You have to grab that attention first, way before a potential sale can ever be considered, by you or the customer.

How do we grab attention and get eyes on our business in a social media world?

Engagement.

Why Engagement is Key

Obviously there are more ways to grab attention than just engagement but it can be a seriously powerful element within your social media marketing plans as it creates that “word of mouth” reach that otherwise could only be achieved via paid for advertising.

Of course, you could always combine the two for double the fun…

 What is engagement on social media? For me it’s all about comments.

I know that you can include likes and shares in the engagement bubble (and they’re worthwhile in their own way) but comments generate a different level of traction, which in turn gains the customer eyes and ears we all seek out.

If you look at Facebook in a 2017 world, the content that achieves the widest organic reach generally encourages comments. These comments could be loosely split into three categories – answers, debate and the tagging of other Facebook friends. 

Asking for It!

So, how do we get this engagement and the resulting awareness?

One of the easiest and most effective ways of creating more engagement is by simply asking for it!

Think about it (or even better, check your newsfeed and see), how many times have you seen a piece of content that says “tag a friend”, asks a question or some other variation of the two?

The businesses, brands and personalities behind these pieces of content know that engagement is crucial to spreading reach and awareness far beyond their budget capabilities and they know that asking for it works!

Creating

If you’re still with me (and believe in everything that has been said above…) then it’s time to start the creation process.

Think about the things (topics, issues, debates, jokes etc.) that really get your customers talking and go from there!

If you have any questions, contact me here!

Learning from Deliveroo’s Belfast Content Marketing

It doesn’t happen as often as it should but, every now and then, I’ll scroll through my Facebook newsfeed and stumble across some social media marketing that actually makes me stop, read, listen or watch…

Happily, that happened recently when I was targeted with a Deliveroo Facebook ad.

The fast-food delivery tech giant (bit of a weird phrase that…) aren’t strangers to moving with marketing trends and recently launched a #BestofBelfast campaign that thankfully let content marketing do the talking and selling.

What is Content Marketing?

Before we look at the Deliveroo ad let's just confirm what content marketing actually is.

According to Google, content marketing is “a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services” so that’s that then.

For me, I see content marketing as one of the more interesting sides to marketing in general.

Instead of a simple “here we are, this is what we do and this is how much it costs” message you focus on providing value as a hook to draw the customer in.

This value could be to inform, educate, humour, provide a cause for thought or countless other variations and it is paired with creative text, images or video to cut through the noise of everything else out there in the ether.

Deliveroo and John Long’s Fish & Chips

In the case of Deliveroo, they caught my eye by telling me a short story (in a video under 1 minute) about John Long’s Fish & Chips, a staple of the Belfast food scene for decades that I’d never even heard of!

Now I’m interested.

Not once did the video say “buy now” or talk about an “evening special”. Instead, the video told me that John Long keeps things traditional, that he hasn’t changed his batter recipe in over 100 years and that his patrons love it. That’s what hooked me in.

Obviously it helped that the video looked and sounded great as well and you can easily see a difference between the John Long's content ad above and the more regular "order from us" ad seen below.

Lessons to Learn

So, with all that in mind what can we learn and how can we apply it to our own businesses?

The formula is simple…

Decide what type of value you want to bring to the table. Think about what is going to truly interest your target customer and then combine that with eye-catching creative that makes them stop and listen to you and you alone.

See? Simple.

It’s the application and creation that’s the hard part.

For more on content marketing contact me here.

What Next After Facebook Stories?

In a move that surprised absolutely nobody, Facebook has finally completely rolled out their new Facebook Stories feature…at least here in the UK and Ireland.

At present the Facebook Stories feature, which is almost identical to Instagram Stories, which in turn is a carbon-copy rip-off of Snapchat Stories, is only available to personal account holders.

This means that, for now, the Stories feature is inaccessible and unavailable to Facebook business and brand pages. That could of course change in the coming months.

This entire episode, Facebook’s aggressive replication of the feature invented by Snapchat, leads me to consider one key question – why?

No-one can truly say or know why, unless they’re coming from Facebook HQ, but I think that it points us towards two trends that will continue to grow and develop…

Micro Content

Social media is filled with micro content in varying forms nowadays. A quick scroll through your Facebook newsfeed will most likely reveal countless 10, 20 and 30 second videos.

The same can be said of Instagram and Twitter, the birthplace of micro content as we know it today, where one piece of text, image or video is all people want.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule and certain channels and mediums (such as podcasting, long-form journalism and YouTube shows) thrive with longer forms of content but as a whole the trends seem to suggest that we love bite-sized chunks.

Snapchat discovered this and Facebook, via Instagram, has simply replicated the process indicating that they think this form of messaging and entertainment is here to stay or get bigger!

Storytelling

This leads us to my next point, storytelling.

Storytelling in marketing isn’t a new concept (far from it!) but in years gone by, even in the digital age, it was done at a much slower rate over the course of weeks and months.

That all changed with the introduction of tools like Twitter where people and businesses could provide quick updates and messages literally all day and night if they wished.

Snapchat Stories, and the new Instagram and Facebook replications, took this one massive step further by giving brands and businesses the ability to story tell quickly, easily and most importantly, visually.

Now consumers and fans can dip in and out of the “stories” of their favourite personalities, brands and businesses at will, whenever they want to. All of this is again made easier for consumers to do because everything is now micro (point one!) so they don’t feel like they have to commit so much time and attention to the content if they don’t want to.

This new level of access has also lead to countless new creative storytelling avenues whilst also opening up more casual and comfortable ways to communicate and engage and the entire episode hints at storytelling becoming even more powerful and important as we move even further into social and digital marketing!

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If any of this has got the dusty old cogs in your brain turning about your own business or project you can get in touch with me here!

Don’t Build an App for Your Business! (Unless It’s Absolutely Necessary…)

Small businesses do not need their own smartphone or tablet apps.

This might seem strange, coming from a “digital marketing” person, but since the launch of the first iPhone in 2007, and the subsequent smartphone takeover of our culture, there has been a growing “app trend” amongst small businesses and it’s wasting their time and money.  

The worst thing about this trend is that the small businesses involved aren’t actually to blame. It’s the app building companies and developers who swoop in, promise the world and then make a swift exit upon completion and sign-off.

Whether they do this innocently and naively (unaware of the current digital marketplace) or do so knowing full well that the new app will provide little benefit isn’t for me to say. Both options reflect badly.  

The primary reason that it reflects badly is because the “build your own app” deal rarely represents the best use of time, money and other resources needed for the business involved.

Why is this?

The Crowded Marketplace

You’ve most likely already experienced it in some shape or form.

You visit a small local business (an SME in professional terms) and are either asked to download their new app or notice it via in-store or online marketing messages.

These apps usually encourage you to download with the promise of exclusive offers, more content or some other feature.

Unfortunately, very few of us ever actually care enough to download the app in question.

We might love the local business, they could be our favourite barber, café or restaurant, but our smartphones are already crammed with much bigger, more unique apps vying for our attention and phone memory/storage.

The app stores are packed with thousands of apps fighting for our downloads and gaining a critical mass of downloads (to make the project worthwhile) can be almost impossible. Especially if you’re not offering something unique or valuable.

If customers can book their stay using AirBnB, order takeaway via Just Eat, or learn more about your business on Facebook or even on your official website, then that’s most likely where they’re going to go right now. This means you’re always going to be fighting an uphill battle unless your app offers something truly unique via functionality.

Follow the Attention

So, what next?

Well, if that’s the negative the positive is that as business owners and managers you have countless options out there waiting to be properly exploited.

Whether you’re looking to attract customers online or offline the key is to follow the attention.

In a digital marketing context this means using the biggest channels currently available to us. Right now that generally means some combination of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, LinkedIN and Google Search but if you want to research this yourself do three things today:

Audit what digital apps/websites you personally use on a daily basis

Ask friends, family and colleagues what they use on a daily basis 

Check out Apple/Android’s Top Free Apps lists for a UK or global picture

After you’ve done this you can then make an informed decision on what channels to use for your business and move forward.

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Apps are brilliant. From Headspace to YouTube and Spotify to Soundcloud we can do and enjoy so many things using our smartphones and tablets but unfortunately, small businesses will rarely be able to crack this market.

If you properly research what you, your friends and family use on a daily basis you’ll quickly notice that the majority of people only use 5-10 apps ever and muscling in on that market is a huge task.

Focus your efforts on moving with public attention and go from there.

If you’ve made the first leap but aren’t sure how to use social media channels and Google Search for your business get in touch here!

Marketing to the Masses and One on One

In amidst the usual Donald Trump news, never-ending Brexit talks and St Patrick’s Day celebrations last week you may or may not have noticed the results of the Dutch general elections come and go.

The elections aren’t, and would never be, a major concern for anyone in Northern Ireland or the rest of the UK but one story stuck out for me on a purely marketing basis…

The Jesse Klaver Method

Last week, despite the centre-right party VVD becoming the largest party in the Netherlands, one of the biggest stories was the rise of the GreenLeft party.

The GreenLeft, founded just 25 years ago, mostly by outsiders, pacifists and radicals, has now become the left’s biggest party in the country under the guidance of their 30 year-old leader Jesse Klaver.

Reading into the story revealed that one of the key reasons for this growth was Jesse Klaver’s use of digital tools and his focus on delivering key party messages first on a one-to-one basis and then to hundreds and thousands afterwards.

Klaver used Meetup.com, first starting in 2015, to make direct and constant contact with tiny groups of people that eventually built into a huge network of supporters and followers.

The entire campaign culminated and ended with a massive event in Amsterdam where 5000 people were present and another 5000 watched via Facebook Live!

Social Media is Personal

You might be reading thinking, “Why as a business or marketer should I care?”

The reason I think we should all care as marketers and businesses, and the reason the story stood out to me in the first place, is because digital marketing is about marketing to the masses AND one on one.

It’s about doing both and sometimes the second half of the equation seems to get forgotten.

With the rise of different social media channels and incredible advertising platforms the focus has become more and more about reaching as many people as possible all at once and while I agree with this I also think it’s important we remember how powerful the “one on one” side can be.

Replying to comments on Facebook, tweeting on Twitter and engaging with individual people on Instagram can slowly build up over time just as all those Meetups did for Jesse Klaver.

Thankfully, these types of actions perfectly compliment larger tactics like advertising campaigns and email marketing.

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I’ve found that this approach works especially well when marketing specific events as there are always one or two inevitable queries or questions that go unanswered in broader marketing messages and campaigns.

What do you do to combine both tactics? Let me know.

Two Lessons to Learn from Waterstones Unbranding

Earlier this week it was discovered that Waterstones, the UK book giant, had recently opened three new stores in various locations across Britain.

Normally this would be a non-story but from the outside looking in, you’d never know these bookstores were owned and operated by Waterstones. In an unexpected move the retailer decided to “unbrand” and create new shops that looked and felt independent to the untrained eye.  

The only signifier of corporate involvement, in each shop, was a small, easily missed, sign and consumers didn’t like it.

The whole issue lead me to think about branding and marketing in general before coming to two simple conclusions…

Take Action

James Daunt, Waterstones CEO, originally comes from an independent bookstore background and has been a resounding success since taking the helm and his latest move can be vindicated to a certain degree.

Taking action and moving with the times is the surest way to remain relevant and present in an ever-changing market but clearly there is a right way and a wrong way to achieve this. Unfortunately for Waterstones, this time round, they chose the wrong option.

One local Northern Ireland example of noticing market changes and reacting, that thankfully happens to be positive, is Utility Bear. For those that don’t know Utility Bear is a luxury male and female underwear e-commerce brand.

From the outside looking in you might assume the business stemmed from somewhere as glamorous as London or New York but in reality the business grew from a normal menswear shop called Spences in Ballymena, County Antrim.

The team at Spences clearly noticed a shift in customer buying behaviour (a move towards online) and the need to relate to a younger audience.

Noticing market changes, wants and needs and taking action is a massive positive step but only if you apply it alongside the second conclusion of this piece…

Don’t Deceive Your Market

If you come to the conclusion that your business is positioned one way but that your target market wants something different it can be very easy to slowly get sucked into a world of deception.

Over the past two years I’ve worked with different clients operating within the food industry. Competitors were promoting an “organic” message but, due to small differences and legal requirements, my clients couldn’t.

It would be incredibly difficult for the general public to determine the difference and we probably could have gotten away with using the “organic” tag but we had to refuse the temptation and create different, alternative messages to market with.

This might seem like a negative but, in reality, limits and constraints usually lead to more creative thinking so the opportunities will always be out there.

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It will be interesting to watch Waterstones next move. Let’s hope next time round it’s slightly more open and transparent.

Have you noticed changes and trends within your own sector? I’d love to hear about them!

Can a Business Use Memes for Marketing?

When you think about it, the Internet is a seriously strange place and since the birth and boom of social media we’ve seen an amplification of all that weirdness out there.

Take a minute and think about the most common things you see on a platform like Facebook. If you’re like most Facebook users you’ll probably see your fair share of cat videos, local town drama (via friends or family), content from businesses and brands and finally memes.

Hold on… What the hell is a “meme”?

What is a Meme?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary a meme is –

“An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.”

Urban Dictionary define it as-

“in blogspeak, an idea that is spread from blog to blog”

Essentially it’s a small piece of content, usually an image or GIF, influenced by or referencing something in pop culture that then gains virality.

If you’re still not sure, take a look at the images below and chances are you’ve seen a few memes during your time Internet browsing over the last few years.

Can a Business Use Memes?

So, why the hell are we talking about memes in the first place?

Well, as social media marketing is about joining the conversation and gaining as much exposure for your business as possible, memes, in the right circumstances, represent a great marketing opportunity.

The opportunity is twofold:

• So many businesses out there struggle to constantly generate the fresh and creative ideas needed in a fast-moving social media focused world.
• Memes by their definition are (more) shareable pieces of content so if you time it right and use the right meme with the right audience you could increase your reach way beyond normal results.

Are Businesses Actually Doing This?

As with every tactic some audiences will be more responsive than others but plenty of businesses out there use memes to increase exposure and engagement on social media channels.

Cool FM is a great example here in Northern Ireland and just this month Nintendo used the “Roll Safe” meme for a funny piece of shareable content. If you’re not familiar, the Roll Safe meme, which gained popularity in January 2017, originally comes from a BBC3 comedy and features logically sound but absurd advice.

See an original example alongside the Nintendo version below.

So What Next?

This isn’t about thinking memes are crucial to digital marketing (or even viable for some businesses and audiences) it just about highlighting that sometimes ideas are right there in front of you in your newsfeeds.

Keep an eye out for memes from now on in your personal social newsfeeds, see if you can spot businesses using them and, if you’re brave enough, give it a go yourself!

A Quick Example of How Online Advertising Can Go Wrong...

One evening last week I was scrolling through my personal Instagram newsfeed, like any other night really, and something stuck out like a massive sore thumb.

As everyone knows online attention spans have plummeted over the last decade and grabbing anyone’s attention can be a seriously difficult job but Lovin Dublin caught my eye instantly. Unfortunately for them, it was for all the wrong reasons.

As I scrolled through my feed their Ulster Bank advertisement, and the comments that followed, stood out like a red herring and as you can see from the image below, the Lovin Dublin audience wasn’t happy. 

Know Your Audience

To give you some context Lovin Dublin, part of the larger Lovin Group, which also features in other cities, is a food, lifestyle and culture blog aimed at promoting all things Dublin primarily for locals to enjoy. The target audience is generally anyone from late teens through to early thirties and this is reflected in the channels they use: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat etc.

Despite growing into one of Ireland’s larger media brands, and generally doing a great job under founder Niall Harbison, this time they got it wrong when they thought they were executing perfectly.

On the face of it young men and women, over a range of ages from teens to those in their thirties, seem like the perfect audience for a first home advertisement but the reality in a post-financial crisis world is very different. Especially in Ireland.

Due to ridiculous mismanagement, fraud and blatant criminal behaviour during the heady days of the Celtic Tiger today’s young Irish people are extremely weary, negative or downright disdainful of banks and other bailed out financial institutions. With all of that in mind the comments in the above picture really aren’t that surprising.

Think you know your audience or marketplace? Did a little deeper.

React in Real Time

When I stumbled across the Instagram advertisement in question it had already been a few hours since it was first posted and a few hundred comments had rolled in without reply from the brand.

They eventually deleted the post completely, which probably didn’t go down too well with Ulster Bank, but the damage was already done as far as those annoyed were concerned.

An alternative approach, requiring closer monitoring, could have been to reply to angry comments and show that Ulster Bank had learned lessons from the crash, that there were stricter regulations now in place and that the bank were their to help and educate rather than steal, plunder and ruin.

Learn and Move On

This isn’t necessarily a dig at the Lovin brand or Ulster Bank, because plenty of other banks globally were far more culpable, but more a focus, and a warning for myself and anyone reading this, that things can go wrong even when you think you’ve got it just right.

A quick glance at the Lovin Dublin Instagram account will reveal that things have moved on and the majority of their followers have also either moved on or never even seen the ad in the first place. However, those that did might not come back and too many mistakes can start the hollowing out process that eventually leads brands to crumble…

As always the best thing to do is to learn and move on.

That being said, I’ll be keeping an eye out for their next ad or sponsored post…