Geotargeted mobile coupons and ads more effective than online
By Dan Butcher
August 30, 2010
Mobile coupons are one way to drive commerce
Holiday marketers take note: Mobile coupons and ads that are targeted by location are more effective than online coupons and ads, according to a FitForCommerce executive.
Mobile calls to action featuring an SMS keyword and short code or mobile bar code can make holiday-themed traditional media actionable. Savvy retailers can get the word out about holiday sales via SMS, the mobile Web and branded applications, while brands can use various forms of mobile advertising to achieve their holiday-specific goals.
In the sixth installment of a series focused on mobile marketing during the holidays, Mobile Marketer’s Dan Butcher interviewed Jill Dvorak, senior consultant of mobile commerce at FitForCommerce, Short Hills, NJ. Here is what she had to say:
With so much noise and holiday-themed advertising starting around Thanksgiving and even before, how can a brand use the mobile medium to get noticed during this period of very competitive media?
Like any other marketing medium, cross-promotion and a seamless transition for customers between the different retail channels is necessary.Site promotion codes should work on all channels, but having special mobile coupons to increase adoption is becoming more common.
Jill Dvorak is senior consultant of mobile commerce at FitForCommerce
Geotargeted coupons and ads will have a much higher redemption rates than online versions, and can potentially make a non-shopper into a shopper by adding that extra incentive.
Also, since social and mobile typically trend close together, having a mobile site with share to social abilities and vice versa is an easy win.
Retailers can make a splash by thinking creatively about their brand and what the customer would want. If you go in with this strategy, the possibilities are endless.
Which sectors/verticals are most important during the holidays, and which sectors/verticals match up best with which demographics?
Affluent shoppers are currently spending the most per demographic on mobile sites as they were the majority of the first adopters to have phones capable of surfing and shopping.Since mobile adoption is occurring five times faster than other technologies, you can be sure a segment of your customer base wants to interact with your site from their mobile device.
Look at your analytics—preferably your mobile ones if you have them—to see how and where people are arriving and dropping off.
Ultimately, you want to have your mobile site pages tagged so that you know your best and worst converting pages to make tweaks before the holiday rush.
If your customers love gaming, they probably have an iPhone. If you have a strictly corporate audience, BlackBerries are your first device to target.
The younger the demographic is, the more important it is to have a mobile application.
If your demographic is still shopping bricks-and-mortar, then investing in mobile may not be the best use of development or marketing dollars this holiday season.
If your demographic and customers are really into social media and your fans are following tweets, then a mobile application is probably very important.
Overall, you need to understand what your customers’ needs and wants are and spend that money appropriately to reach them.
Given that many people are traveling and away from the TV and their PCs during the holidays, and the fact that people need to do more in less time, how can mobile address these types of general advertising challenges?
Mobile phones are one of the best places brands can exist these days.Think about other forms of marketing and advertising—nothing has a continual touch point with the customer the majority of their day.
People have their phone out at work, it’s with them—and likely their entertainment—on the ride home, and it’s even next to people when they sleep.
Studies have shown that people would rather lose their wallet than their phone.
All that said, people still demand immediacy. Mobile sites need to load quickly, be quick to help solve a problem or let the user find what they want in a hurry.
There are also a number of basic tips to follow including making the search function larger than normal, linking “My Account” to the Web version and checkout should be streamlined with secure payments as an option.
Whether at a retail store location or not, the mobile site should to help increase efficiency and save consumers time. This gain can come in many forms.
For example, give a customer the ability to research ratings, prices and reviews on your site—and you can be sure they will check other sites—from their phone, which will help them avoid the wait to talk to a sales associate.
Shoppers can also save time by using a mobile site checkout to avoid lines or can even pre-order ahead of time from their phone and have their purchase delivered to their car outside of the store.
Why is mobile advertising significant/necessary for marketers during the holiday season?
According to a Deloitte survey, during the 2009 holiday season one out of five shoppers intended to use their mobile phone.Of those who used their phone, forty-five percent used it for research, nearly a third used it to get coupons or product reviews, and 25 percent used their mobile device to purchase a good or service.
Since the mobile commerce revenue numbers are projected to double from $1.2 billion to $2.4 billion this year, the 2010 holiday season will be no exception to the growth.
Mobile adoption is occurring five times faster than other technologies, with no signs of slowing yet.
More than 50 percent of consumers used mobile devices for 2009 in-store holiday shopping activity, according to a study by Motorola Enterprise Mobile Solutions.
Sixty-four percent of consumers between ages 18-34 used their device for shopping, while 33 percent of consumers over 34 years old used their device.
These percentages will continue to grow, so being in the mobile space is more important than ever.
Today, mobile is a relatively fresh marketing and branding tool, thus retailers can expect a much more engaged experience with the customer than currently seen on the Web or other channels. But this channel cannot operate in a vacuum.
The speed of mobile device adoption is starting to give most retailers a real chance to create a direct connection to their customers in a very busy marketing world.
Ultimately, like any other marketing tool, brands have to be relevant.
The brand, product offerings and value proposition should dictate how a company can add something useful for their customer while they are on-the-go.
Final Take
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Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Marketer
Monday, August 30, 2010
Location. Location. Location-Based Service. Again. Geotargeted mobile coupons and ads more effective than online
From Mobile Marketer: Talent crisis looms in mobile advertising and marketing
Talent crisis looms in mobile advertising and marketing
August 30, 2010
While mobile has become ubiquitous, there is not enough qualified talent for marketing the medium
While there is no shortage of engineers, it is marketing and commerce managers where mobile is struggling to find qualified talent. Simply migrating an online executive may not cut the mustard.
However, that is exactly the situation many companies looking to expand in the mobile space have faced, as there appears to be a dearth of qualified individuals. Some brands and firms have placed marketers with online expertise in strategic mobile positions, but such personnel decisions put these companies at risk of glazing over the intricacies of the medium.
“Mobile is just as vast as online, and in some ways there are added complexities,” said David Berkowitz, director of emerging media at 360i, New York. “Mobile can be even broader and more complicated.
“If marketers are just trying to have one person who gets mobile, it will be hard to get a deep understanding of it all,” he said. “There are still a lot of questions we’ll see in terms of where mobile fits in organizationally.
“People don’t have a strong grasp yet of exactly where the talent will come from.”
360i is a digital agency that focuses on search engine marketing, social media and mobile marketing.
Online and mobile different
Placing online specialists in mobile positions is not a long-term solution for producing effective mobile strategies.“Mobile is an onion – it’s so many layers, from handsets to carriers to all the applications, all the technology and all the pieces,” said Alan Rambam, founder and chief strategic officer at Mobile Behavior, New York, an OmniCom Group company. “It’s not just digital marketing, and you need to know that.
“You see folks [working in mobile] that were on the periphery of mobile,” Mr. Rambam said. “Maybe they worked for a carrier or worked in some mobile capacity, but didn’t really [understand everything].”
While the two mediums have much in common, the nuances of mobile demand knowledgeable and experienced marketers in the field.
Agencies and marketing firms looking to hire marketing managers for mobile campaigns need to be careful to find experienced individuals to fill important roles.
But what qualifications should hiring firms be looking for?
“If you’re looking for account executives, client services and marketing, those are the departments that really require in-depth knowledge about how the mobile space differs from all other fields,” said Shira Simmonds, president and cofounder of Ping Mobile, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
“A lot of individuals are looking to get into the digital space,” she said. “Maybe they came from online, maybe traditional, and they’re trying to move into digital, but it’s a big change,” she said.
Not enough experience
In addition to the difficulties of converting online experts to the mobile field, companies could have difficulty finding marketing managers with the breadth and depth of knowledge to coordinate multichannel mobile campaigns.Experts left and right insist that mobile efforts cannot simply exist in a vacuum, but instead must be part of a larger marketing ecosystem.
However, the talent in mobile tends to be one-dimensional, according to Jay Highley, president and founder of Pangea Partners, Indianapolis, IN.
“People have had experience in one area of mobile marketing or commerce, depending on what exposure they’ve had in the past,” Mr. Highley said. “I don’t think there are a lot of people who have a broad experience base across a number of mobile marketing dimensions.”
Likewise, Mobile Behavior’s Mr. Rambam said that many brands making the push into mobile are approaching the marketing with a one-dimensional, on-again-off-again approach.
Since mobile applications are so hot right now, marketers are in a hurry to develop them.
Oftentimes, an application is all brands do to develop their mobile strategy.
“Applications get so much ink that people say, ‘I want an iPhone application,’” Mr. Rambam said. “That’s not a mobile strategy.
“Real mobile strategies are lacking right now – the knowledge of how much you can do and what you can do,” he said. “People are lacking the necessary understanding [of the mobile medium].
“It’s an issue.”
How to fix it
Mr. Rambam said that the supply of professionals with comprehensive knowledge of mobile strategy falls short of the demand.Brands and agencies need to invest more capital in mobile in order to develop a corps of competent marketing managers with the knowledge set necessary to deliver integrated mobile campaigns.
Budgets need to increase.
“Budgets need to rise above simple messaging budgets,” Mr. Rambam said. “Real integration needs to happen.
“We’re still in a situation where people are just trying it out [for the first time],” he said. “We’re a ways out.”
Online marketers can make the transition to the mobile space.
However, they will need to gain substantial hands-on experience in mobile in order to develop strategies that reflect the field’s unique properties.
Education will also be imperative to training the leaders of tomorrow’s mobile space.
“You have to have a good foundation of mobile experience, and you have to know how it differs from other media channels,” Ping’s Ms. Simmonds said. “Sometimes it requires a really good, in-depth training program.”
Still, there is some hope.
More time, effort and investment will all be crucial to developing the human capital necessary for the mobile medium’s growth.
As brands begin making full-throated efforts in the space, marketers are gaining valuable experience in crafting strong mobile campaigns.
“I can tell you, from working with brands and agencies, we’re training them on the ins and outs of mobile,” Ms. Simmonds said. “Marketers from these agencies are going to be very ripe in the job market if they want to move over and work in mobile organizations.
“In the next year or two, as more brands are starting to dabble in mobile, expand their reach and enhance mobile strategies, the job market will evolve in conjunction with that,” she said.
Final Take
Peter Finocchiaro, editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer, New York
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Guess we shouldn't be dismissive - particularly of ideas. From NYT: Kodak's 1975 Model Digital Cam
Kodak
It might not be pretty on the eyes, or easy to carry around on a vacation, but what do you expect? It was the first digital camera Kodak ever made.
Yes, that’s right, the contraption pictured above was put together in Kodak’s Elmgrove Plant labs near Rochester, N.Y., during the winter of 1975.
A post on Kodak’s Web site from 2007, written by Steve Sasson, the inventor of the digital camera, explains exactly how this camera was created, from a mishmash of lenses and computer parts and an old Super 8 movie camera.
Mr. Sasson called it “film-less photography” and took a “year of piecing together a bunch of new technology” to create a digital camera that ran off “16 nickel-cadmium batteries, a highly temperamental new type of CCD imaging area array, an a/d converter implementation stolen from a digital voltmeter.”
One of my favorite factoids about this snazzy digital camera is the fact that it took 23 seconds to record a single digital image to its cassette deck. To view the filmless photo, Mr. Sasson had to remove the cassette from the camera and place it in a customized reader that could display the image on an old black and white television.
When the team of technicians presented the camera to Kodak audiences they of course heard a barrage of curious questions:
Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV? How would you store these images? What does an electronic photo album look like? When would this type of approach be available to the consumer?
And although Mr. Sasson and his team tried to answer some of these questions, he concludes with the statement that the digital camera they created could “substantially impact the way pictures will be taken in the future.”
Kodak Side-by-side comparison of a printed photograph versus the “Film-less Photograph.”
Location. Location. Location-Based Service. From BW: The Retailer's Clever Little Helper
The Retailer's Clever Little Helper
A wave of startups is using smartphones to bring e-commerce advantages to real-world stores
By Brad Stone and Barrett Sheridan
Starbucks mayors received $1 off frappuccinos in a deal that ran through mid-summer
The battle between online and brick-and-mortar retailers has, until now, been a lopsided fight. Internet stores enjoy the paradigm-busting advantages of the Web, like the ability to personalize deals to shoppers and offer on-the-spot price comparisons. Offline retailers, by contrast, may never know anything about a shopper who walks in, pays for a single item, and walks out the door.
Over the past year tech entrepreneurs have raced to correct this imbalance and extend digital efficiencies to the physical world. Internet services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Booyah, and—as of Aug. 18—Facebook have enticed millions to digitally "check in" to real-world locations. These smartphone-centered services encourage anyone out on the town to open up an app when they enter a venue. By clicking a button, the phone's GPS registers a user's location and sends it out to selected friends. Along with the debatable social benefit of letting people constantly broadcast their whereabouts, the services are designed to give businesses the chance to tailor deals to patrons and forge enduring relationships with the otherwise unidentified folks who may be their best customers.
Until recently, big-box retailers and other mainstream businesses have largely sat on the sidelines as early adopters toyed with the technology. Now that Foursquare and Booyah have each signed up roughly 3 million people and Facebook's 500 million users now have access to similar, location-sensing technology, the big brands are coming around. Says Tristan Walker, vice-president of business development at Foursquare: "We see upwards of 500 to 1,000 new business inquiries a day." Many of those are from mom-and-pop stores, but Foursquare has also recently made deals with major retailers including Gap (GPS), Starbucks (SBUX), and Sephora.
For retailers, foot traffic is everything, says Cyriac Roeding, the CEO of Shopkick, a new service similar to Foursquare. In e-commerce, a small percentage of a website's visitors make a purchase. In physical retail, the proportion of people who walk into a store and actually buy something—known as the conversion rate—is much higher. Roeding says the conversion rate for fashion retailers is 20 percent; in electronics, it's 40 to 60 percent. Shopkick, which launched last week in 600 stores and 100 malls across the U.S., encourages users to visit its retail partners—including Best Buy (BBY), American Eagle (AEO), and Sports Authority—by rewarding them with gift certificates and other prizes after a certain number of check-ins.
For traditional businesses, one of the advantages of these new services is the ability to reach customers on the go. "We know that consumers are out there at four o'clock in the afternoon with no idea what they're going to have for dinner," says John Faulkner, the director of brand communications for Campbell Soup. "If we can communicate with them the way they want to be communicated with, we can get them thinking about our soup." Clay Cowan, vice-president of e-commerce and digital marketing at Sports Authority, says that these services are much more effective at targeting customers than traditional methods: "Rather than accuracy at the quarter mile, it's accuracy at the aisle."
Campbell's is working with Stickybits, part of another batch of startups distinct from check-in services like Foursquare and Shopkick but still pursuing the same goal of overlaying the Web onto the physical world. For Stickybits and its cohort, the bar code is the crucial ingredient—users don't just check into a store, they check into a product by scanning a UPC with the camera on their smartphones.
Intriguing point, interesting comments. Revealed: How Steve Jobs Turns Customers into Fanatics
Photo via powerbooktrance
Marketers gaze in envy at brands like Apple. The firm that began with the Mac has turned their customers into legions of fanatical evangelists. But, without a Steve Jobs at the helm, or with fewer resources than Apple, is building that kind of loyalty possible? I’ve got good news: while having a visionary and charismatic CEO is a big plus, it isn’t necessary to build a fan base, or even a fanatic base. One big secret of Apple’s success lies in an experiment conducted 40 years ago.
The Seminal Experiment
Psychologist Henri Tajfel wanted to know how seemingly normal people could commit genocide, and explored how easy or difficult it was to get subjects to identify with one group and discriminate against others. What he found was startling: with the most trivial of distinctions, he could create artificial loyalties to one group, who would then discriminate against those not in that group.
Tajfel tested subjects by having them perform a more or less meaningless task, like choosing between one of two painters or guessing a number of dots shown on a screen. Then, each subject was assigned to a group, ostensibly based on their answer. When the groups were formed and asked to distribute real rewards, they became loyal to their own group and were stingy with the other group. Many variations on this experiment have been performed subsequently, and they have shown that people can develop group loyalty very quickly even in the absence of real differences. Subjects even became emotionally invested in their meaningless groups, cheering for their own group’s rewards and mocking the other group
Tajfel’s experiment (published in Social categorization and intergroup behavior) led to the theory of social identity, which states that people have an inherent tendency to categorize themselves into groups. They then base their identity (in part) on their group affiliations, and build boundaries to keep other groups separate.
Us vs. Them
In neuromarketing terms, our brains are hardwired to WANT to be in one or more groups. Brands that can be positioned to put their customers into a group will find that their efforts will be enhanced by their customers’ own need to belong. In addition, they will likely cultivate a dislike for other brand groups.
Jumping back to Apple, look how they have leveraged an “Us. vs. Them” approach for decades. Their “1984″ commercial certainly drew a sharp distinction between the lone, attractive, athletic young woman and the lines of brainwashed drones.
A year later, Apple’s creepy and somewhat depressing “Lemmings” commercial continued to push people into one of two camps; they again portraying PC users as blindfolded businesspeople functioning like suicidal rodents following each other off a cliff.
Fast forwarding to today, look at the wildly popular Mac Guy vs. PC Guy ads. These in particular draw a sharp distinction – do you want to be one of the cool kids, or a dork?
Compare People, Not Products
Note the common characteristic of these, and many other, Apple commercials: they focus on the PEOPLE who use each product. These ads convey little or no actual product information, and instead mock PC users while portraying Apple users in a favorable way.
Certainly, other brands have successfully exploited this concept, both directly and indirectly. Could the surprising results that showed Coke-branded cola lit up people’s brains more than Pepsi (whether or not the beverage tasted was Coke or Pepsi) be a result of more people thinking of themselves as “a Coke person” vs. “a Pepsi person?” The famous “Pepsi Generation” campaign was all about Pepsi drinkers as a group, though in the long run Coke has held its leading position.
Car and truck makers haven’t worked the “us vs. them” angle very much in their ads, but their owner base has certainly picked up on the theme. Truck owners in particular seem to consider themselves part of groups, as shown by the ongoing animosity between Chevy people and Ford people, to say nothing of the clannish owners of HUMMERs.
Our Customers are Different/Better
While the “us vs. them” strategy works better when products are visible to others (cars, apparel, cigarettes, etc.) there is no reason why it couldn’t be employed by nearly any brand people feel at least a little attached to. It’s critical to make your customers feel different, and to interact with them in a way that makes that more credible than a passing ad slogan.
Godin and Tribes
Seth Godin echoes this thought, but states it in his own terms:
Brand management is so 1999.
Brand management was top down, internally focused, political and money based. It involved an MBA managing the brand, the ads, the shelf space, etc… Tribe management is a whole different way of looking at the world…
What people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies. So the permission is used to build a tribe, to build people who want to hear from the company because it helps them connect, it helps them find each other, it gives them a story to tell and something to talk about…
People form tribes with or without us. The challenge is to work for the tribe and make it something even better. [From Seth's Blog - Tribe Management.]
Do your customers feel like they are part of a group?
Have you been able to make your customers feel different than those of your competition? Does your brand have a tribe? Have you been able to define an “enemy” group that strengthens the cohesiveness of your own? Leave a comment. If I can, I’ll feature a success story or two in a subsequent post.
Related posts:
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Article: iPhone App Makes Barcode Scanning a Social Experience
http://mashable.com/2010/08/16/bakodo/(Sent from Flipboard)
What a waste of talent... Even as the audience craves it...Tears for Fears: labels won't back us
'Record companies won't invest in bands like us' ... Tears for Fears. Photograph: Virginia Turbett/redferns
Record labels refuse to "invest" in new material by Tears for Fears, according to Curt Smith. As the reformed 80s band lurch and creak into the 2010s, the group's co-founder claims they would be interested in making new records, but can't – and "not necessarily [by] choice".
"There really isn't a forum for people like us to make new music," Smith told Canada's QMI Agency. Almost 30 years after their formation, Tears for Fears continue to tour – visiting relative backwaters, opening for Spandau Ballet, reminding people of Gary Jules's Mad World cover. But according to Smith, it's circumstances that have forced them to become their own cover act. "People don't really buy records anymore, so record companies won't invest in bands like us," he said. "They want cookie-cutter acts. For us, making a record would be a money-losing proposition."
It doesn't help, Smith said, that he and band-mate Roland Orzabal are a little exhausted with each other. "We know our limitations," Smith explained. "There's only a certain amount of time that Roland and I really want to be on the same bus together. Our limit is about four to six weeks."
With Smith living in Los Angeles and Orzabal in England, they are instead making music via Twitter. Smith has recorded several songs using Twitter suggestions, MySpace research, YouTube auditions and emailed audio tracks. "It's actually a lot more gratifying [than working in a studio]," Smith said. "When you're in the studio, whether you call it a collaboration or not, you know whose record it is. So you're sitting there trying to please another party, with the artist or producer sitting behind you saying, 'I'm not sure about that bit.'"
Tears for Fears' most recent studio album, released independently in 2005, peaked at number 45.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Conceptually, sound idea...hmmm...Access, not ownership is the route to better products - Core77
Posted by Andy Polaine | 10 Aug 2010 | Comments (4)
I really don't want to own another laptop, mobile phone or TV ever again. In fact, as I look around my home, I realise there are quite a few products that I feel the same way about, especially in the world of consumer electronics. That's not to say I don't want to use the latest and greatest of these products, but I don't want to buy and own more future landfill.
Like many, I wouldn't mind trading up my iPhone 3GS for the new iPhone 4. The thing that stops me is not just the price or being shackled to a rubbish telco contract for another two years. What stops me is that I really don't want my existing iPhone to just end up in a drawer. Sure, I could resell it on eBay only for it to end up in somebody else's drawer one day. Actually I'm very happy with my existing 3GS, but with a new daughter in the family, I'd like to shoot some higher quality video of her growing up. Instead of buying yet another gadget in the form of a video camera the iPhone 4 would do the job. I really just want to trade the old one in and have access to the new one until the next new one comes along. I don't need to own it forever.
Inspired by Ben Reason's "not more products, please" plea I have been running some service design workshops in recent weeks with the theme Access Not Ownership. Or, as John Thackara labels it in his book In The Bubble, Use, Not Own. In the workshops most people see the sense of saved resources by not having to own everything they use, but most also stumble onto the same issue - people often don't like to share, but there are plenty of models of this working and leading to better products and services as a result.
The easiest use-not-own approach is similar to leasing, but rather than pay a monthly fee to the telco for the financing of my iPhone, for example, I'd prefer to pay a monthly fee to Apple for access to the devices of my choice. When new versions come out, I would have the choice to pay a lower monthly fee to keep using my 'old' technology or keep paying the same and swap my laptop/iPhone/iPad out for the new model. Like broadband or cable TV, as time progressed the fee remains the same but the offering improves.
This is one approach to creating a product-service ecology and elements of this which already exist - mobile phones, car leasing, vegetable box deliveries, renting a TV or washing machine. The downside of leasing is that at some point the product will most probably end up in the landfill or, if we're lucky, parts of it will be recycled or downcycled.
One big difference with a use-not-own ecology is that it can be a closed loop of manufacture and recycling. When manufacturers are responsible for the recycling there is a built in incentive for them to make products as easy and efficient to recycle as possible. In the monthly fee model, the issue of defective products is squarely with the manufacturer. They still own it and there is an incentive to make products that are built to last longer or easy to service. Longer lasting products mean that those who are happy keep their products longer and pay a lower fee provide an income stream that is otherwise lost by selling a product outright for a one-time fee.
This isn't a new model, of course. Up until relatively recently it was common for telcos to own the hardware of the telephone. There are still plenty of people paying rental for old landline telephones, some of which haven't been used for years. This model used to exist because the products were too expensive or too 'technical' to own or they provided an additional revenue stream. They were part of the service provided. Cheaper and cheaper production techniques kill this model but produce massive waste in terms of 'disposable' products.
In the workshops I ran, participants often started by making a list of things they would and would not share. After some initial resistance to the idea of sharing, most people realise that they would actually be prepared to share quite a lot of the products they own. The exceptions, it seems, are underwear and toothbrushes. Yet clothing is an untapped sharing area that is quite culturally and gender determined. More women seem to be happy to share clothes with friends than men, yet women tend to buy their wedding dresses, which are worn once only, while men most often hire their tuxedo for the occasion. At the same time more women appear to buy and sell clothes on eBay than men.
But sharing is different from having access to something. Sharing implies owning something first and then sharing it with others. Access can mean that a company or community own something rather than an individual, but that individuals can use it. It's still sharing, but it doesn't feel like you are using other people's stuff.
Workshop participants are then challenged to come up with an access model of things they normally own and at the same time think of a way to create a great customer experience that would offset the downside of not owning the products. What soon transpires is that the access model can allow people to use products that are normally way out of their price range, such as designer clothing. It can also provide a level of variety that ownership cannot, such as a different car every week.
Ben Reason's critique of The Big Rethink was that it really didn't amount to much of a rethink:
"Products sold in markets seemed to be the model for most of the case studies - they may be great products, green products or category redefining products but they are still things made, shipped and consumed in the way that, as we heard from Steve Evans of Cranfield, is unsustainable and clearly does not answer the big challenges. As Hugo Spowers (Riversimple) said 'less unsustainable is still unsustainable.'"He goes on to describe Riversimple's business model:
"[O]nly through a 'sale of service' (the car will be charged for by the mile with fuel included) could a car manufacturer build incentives into the business to reduce its environmental impact with zero as a goal. [Riversimple's] model is to make higher margins from a more expensive car by providing it as a service to users for longer than the first five-year span that traditional manufacturers are interested in."Again, there are plenty of existing models where this works very well for all involved. In an earlier student incarnation, I studied film and video and I remember the incredibly high build quality of Arriflex cameras. They were also unaffordable for the private individual and most production companies rent them, not only saving themselves the cost of large assets that are only used sporadically, but also saving on maintenance and insurance. The cameras and other equipment are not only built to be high quality products to use, but also built to withstand being rented out over and over and be thrown around on hasty film sets and in the back of vans. It's a world away from the flimsy plastic junk most of us end up with as consumer cameras.
Designing products to be part of an entire service-product access-not-ownership system has benefits all around. Designers can focus on designing the best product with the highest build quality possible, manufacturers enter into a longer term relationship with consumers and consumers get to use high-end products. Access, not ownership also means less use of resources and less consumer junk stowed in drawers for a few months on the way to the landfill.
(Photo credit: James Jeffrey)
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Saturday, August 07, 2010
Codes in the Cloud? MSKYNET Raises $550K For Advanced 2D Barcodes
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/z6HD6Dx7SVU/ Shared via Pulse
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Thursday, August 05, 2010
McKinsey Quarterly article: Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch
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