The Evolution of the Living Room: Connected TV #4

From one way channels, to second screening.

When internet came along the TV was no longer just for watching. Now, you can read the news, listen to music, watch your favourite programs and buy your weekly shopping within the comfort of your own living room. At the click of a remote, interacting with consumers from around the world is easy even through gaming consoles like Xbox Live. The living room isn’t even a room any more – it’s a hub for streams of information and entertainment that connect you to the outside world. TV has become a multimedia platform.

This variety of content makes the user a savvy individual. A lot of choice allows consumers to make their own opinions whilst online connectivity makes their opinion relevant. Before, if you had a problem with a product, no one would really get to hear about it apart from neighbours over the garden fence. Nowadays consumers are empowered to express their dissatisfaction through social media. This has affected the way a product is marketed and even its lifecycle.

The power of choice has resulted in consumers being less vulnerable and more sceptical to blind promotions. Therefore advertisers have to work harder to attract consumers’ attention. Campaigns prioritise consumer entertainment over a ‘buy me, buy me’ attitude because it is the product’s image which persuades sales one way or another. Gorillas play the drums for Dairy Milk and flash mobs are unleashed on behalf of T-Mobile to inspire people. The user-experience is equally varied because each brand will market their product in a different way. Therefore, marketers need to find their niche and appeal to specific groups of people. Otherwise, their product is at risk of washing over the masses without a unique message to maintain loyalty.

Integration of the internet within your living room makes the user-experience highly selective. Where we used to have ample opportunity to influence a consumer purchase decision, this luxury is now over. Not only can you select what to experience, but the power of when and through what device, is within your grasp too. On Demand and +1 channels were made possible through satellite TV but are popular through internet connectivity on smart phones and tablets. Optimised gaming consoles like Xbox Live let you watch TV and surf the internet and play games. With so many choices on what to do in the living room, and how to do it, brand competition is massive. Especially when consumers can do multiple things at once; watch X Factor and simultaneously tweet about it on their iPhones, for example (my family do this all the time!). Corporations are fighting it out for a space in your living room with strategies that blog post #5 will be focusing on.

 

 

 

 

What’s so Pinteresting?

I am a bloke. I don’t really care about the latest Spring skirt fashion or how to plait someone’s hair. But Pinterest, launched in 2010, has collected a 10 million strong user-base of people who do. It’s got to the point now where I can’t avoid it; from an advertising and marketing perspective the site’s predicted monetization is rather attractive. Recently it was reported by VentureBeat that numbers around the $500 million mark are stirring.

The concept of a ‘pinboard’ behind consumers is intriguing for the marketing industry. After all, the stuff you pin is all stuff you can buy. So what you would get is a board that provides the most delicate demographics possible; people promoting stuff from giants like Amazon and eBay but also pinning things – goods from shops, small businesses – local to them. And it’s not transient, either. Pins can be aspirational: what you wish you could buy, which could provide a rather interesting way of predicting trends.

I’m not saying that the future of market forecast in 2012 lies in stalking Pinterest, but I think there is certainly a scope for exploring a site that exposes future desires alongside present ownership. In terms of usability, a person’s context for using Pinterest doesn’t extend beyond fun and organisation. I reckon this means consumers are going to be more honest on the site – you don’t feel like you’re addressing the masses, like on Twitter.

embracing digital

A great article by Carl Bass in Wired, “We’ve reached infinity – so start creating”. Really good insight into how computing has evolved, the future of the cloud and how this enables us to think outside the box.

“Most of the world that surrounds us — the designed world — is the result of “in the box” thinking, limited by computing. Up until now, computing has been a precious resource, but with cloud computing we are gaining access to virtually limitless power at near-zero cost.”

He goes on to say, “Designers and engineers are ­facing an explosion of increasing complexity: designing more things than ever, with each of the things being designed ­increasing in sophistication and ­intricacy…..Consumers are demanding more variety, sophistication of design and quality from the things they buy. And in the future they will –increasingly expect to be able to express their own creativity, taking an active role in the creation of the objects that ­surround their lives.”

Hence the world of design and social media and how consumers are dictating the trend and we as technology and marketing advocates must respond. We can no longer deny digital. We must embrace it.

understanding user behaviour

Having my feet firmly grounded in the worlds of advertising and technology, I’m constantly reminded about how user behaviour is changing through emerging technologies. I think businesses often constrain themselves to the latest trend e.g. apps, facebook, whatever it is. Rather than thinking through how can they use technology, really use technology to enhance customer experience.

They always seem to start with the latest fad e.g. Social media.

Instead of thinking about the big picture of what social media offers, they start with, “We need facebook, lots of facebook!” rather than thinking through what their customer really wants and how they can satisfy those wants.

The obvious place to start is looking at what is going on. Some of our successes have been based on ethnographic studies. What’s actually going on with consumers in their natural environment?

The opportunity is to get closer to their consumers, then make decisions on technology advancement based on that. Even in my experience working with top global brands, I’m surprised that no one is doing it, to get any answers and insights.

As Peter Cochrane comments on his blog about Social media’s future, why the prophets have got it wrong…

“Human chemistry says the combination of the virtual and the real will be a winner. So, media, politicians, do-gooders, worriers, observers and commentators, it’s time for you to put your thinking caps on. It will be a miracle if you can work out and anticipate the good and the bad of this new coalescence, because we’re really looking at novel emergent behaviours here.”

Here here, but lets find out what’s really going on.

http://www.silicon.com/management/cio-insights/2012/01/16/peter-cochranes-blog-social-medias-future-why-the-prophets-have-got-it-all-wrong-39748394/

customer complaints

“…the people that are using Twitter to complain are already disproportionately upset. Previous research from ExactTarget called Twitter X-Factors showed that fewer than 1% of customers use Twitter as their first stop in problem resolution. In almost every case, the people complaining on Twitter are doing so because your company already failed to satisfy them in one or more traditional customer service channels.”

http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-monitoring/70-of-companies-ignore-customer-complaints-on-twitter/