At Egg Strategy, we approach every day looking for ways to push our clients in new directions. Along the way we stumble into some really interesting stuff...and then post it here.
Mile High Health Innovation: Denver’s Digital Health Boom
Healthcare as we know it is changing. Consumers’ expectations of care are shifting from transactional relationships to deeper, collaborative, and comprehensive care. More than ever before, consumers are taking accountability for their own health and making sure they have a seat at the table when it comes to making decisions for their care. Consumers’ increased involvement coupled with technological advancements are creating a digital boom in healthcare that has opened the doors to the industry for a variety of organizations. Companies ranging from start-ups creating digital devices, apps, and social networks to seasoned power players like Amazon and Apple have all taken on the initiative to work towards bettering the world of healthcare.
Across the country, some of the nation’s best and brightest are teaming up to solve the gaps in healthcare today and improve care for people of all backgrounds and needs. One city in particular, that of Egg Strategy’s own neighboring hometown, Denver, CO, is strongly committed to being front and center in the pursuit of healthcare innovation.
Colorado as a whole is home to a variety of startups leveraging technology to create more personalized treatment to patients all of the world. Denver in particular boasts one of the highest concentration of digital tech workers in the country1. Since 2012, employment in the medical device and diagnostic industry alone has increased by more than 10%2.
The most anticipated Mile High endeavor is Catalyst HTI – a first-of-its-kind facility opening this year with a mission to “bring together private enterprises (startups to Fortune 100), government, academic, and nonprofit organizations with healthcare providers and payers to accelerate innovation and drive real, lasting change.”3
The Egg Health team is honored to be a part of both the Denver digital health boom and Catalyst HTI to humanize healthcare and drive change to ultimately better healthcare and people’s daily lives.
1 Campbell, S. (2018, January 03). Denver's Digital Health Boom. http://www.5280.com/2018/01/denvers-digital-health-boom/
2 Campbell, S. (2018, January 03). Denver's Digital Health Boom. http://www.5280.com/2018/01/denvers-digital-health-boom/
Snagging New Consumers in the Automotive Brand Wars
By: Jamal Zayyad
At Egg Strategy, we love our machines and gadgets - smart phones, smart appliances, smart watches, and ever-smarter cars. So we're paying attention to the auto industry and its battle to retain, reclaim, and recruit drivers - particularly younger consumers. With expectations higher than ever, automakers are scrambling to deliver a car that's right for this new-age driver. A recent visit to the Chicago Auto Show revealed three significant strategies for winning over new consumers:
1) Econ-o-lux Enticement
A value-priced ride today is increasingly eclipsing last year's mid-tier range with entry-level quality greater than ever before. Bold styling, attention to detail, and an expansive list of standard features such as navigation, Bluetooth, and touchscreen displays have found their way into the most affordable vehicles. Savvy brands understand that once premium or add-on features are now table stakes. As an example, Hyundai is a brand investing heavily to shed their cheap car image. Entering their 2nd generation of sleek and futuristic cars, they are quickly becoming the new leaders in this elevated economy space.
2) Mindful Technology
As we careen toward Singularity, it's no surprise to see our cars making the most significant strides toward a more meaningful integration with our lives. We're all for it! These sensors and features are leading to a purposeful change in our cars and on our roads. Features such as rearview cameras, HUD displays, and lane assist are keeping our cars and eyes where they should be. By 2022, features like emergency braking systems and rearview cameras will be standard on all vehicles. Toyota is truly leading the pack with their trademarked Safety Sense now standard on every vehicle. This new TSS* system is receiving an update with even more anti-collision and lane-assist features that will increase road safety, driver awareness, and peace of mind for all drivers.
3) More is More
Further up the spectrum, premium is becoming every day and average has no harbor. As consumers demand more from their luxury brands, even daily drivers need to kick things up a notch to earn their place in the garage. Brands like Mazda, Kia, and Hyundai are injecting high-end features into their line-up and enticing consumers with a great value. As a result, Mercedes Benz, Audi, BMW, and even Lincoln are forced to push luxury to new heights to show people they are more than just their badge. They are stepping up to the plate with new "virtual cockpits," massage seats, garage pilot systems, and unique autonomous systems that make driving even more fun. These features show the future of the automotive world but be prepared to shell out some serious money for it right now.
The future is bright for the automotive industry and the options are as interesting as they are plentiful. Brands now have more tools than ever to redefine themselves and are entering a new frontier for innovation, differentiation, and driver engagement. The shifts are showing and we're eager to watch the brand battles to come.
A recent New York Times op-ed classifies beauty enthusiasts into two camps: “peacocks who treat their faces as Technicolor canvases…[and] faux naturalists.” While these camps may be united in contouring, the author’s conclusion reveals an ongoing cultural bias towards physical or outward beauty. This bias towards external beauty – exemplified in trends like #nomakeupselfies, nude lips, and barefaced runway models – has long dominated beauty discourse. Conversations typically focus on the diversification of external beauty – in body shape or race – and each small “victory” in this realm is treated as a vast cultural shift (i.e. Ashley Graham). While there are still strides to be made, astute beauty brands are beginning to focus on an emerging and long-lasting theme: the importance of internal beauty and the freedom to choose one’s external image. Brands like CoverGirl – with its “you are what you makeup” campaign – imagine a beauty landscape where external beauty is only one factor in consumers’ rationale. Instead, CoverGirl’s campaign capitalizes on the internal empowerment realized through achieving one’s external beauty. At its core, this shift towards performative beauty is grounded less in empowerment and more in another gender-based trend: the mainstreaming and acceptance of gender non-conformity.
If one is to look closely, 2017 is the year of mainstreaming drag queen beauty. From RuPaul – the iconic drag queen who brought us the now Emmy award-winning RuPaul’s Drag Race – to queens like Violet Chachki, who recently finished her tour with Dita VonTeese, drag queens and gender non-conforming stars are dominating the beauty world today. Think of all the beauty trends that have taken center stage over the last few years – contouring, fake eyelashes, bold brows, unicorns, glitter – all of which have been utilized by drag queens for decades. YouTube star Jeffree Star (who is not a drag queen) has over 5 million followers and a successful makeup line. The YouTube channels for major beauty and lifestyle websites – Allure, Elle, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair – each feature their own version of a drag queen makeup tutorial. In fact, of the first 10 “Cosmo Beauty” tutorials, half feature popular drag queens. Cosmo’s “I am Beautiful” and “Glitter Fantasy” series also highlight beauty through transformation, internal truth, and, ultimately, queerness.
Even within the drag community, the tension between real/natural/external beauty and playful/provocative/internal beauty plays out on Reddit discussion boards and YouTube comments alike. “Fishy” queens – or queens who are more passable as female – occupy one end of this vast spectrum, whereas horror or filth queens – exemplified in the hit YouTube series Dragula – occupy another. While some fans can be nasty, mainstream conversations affirm the ability of all sorts of queens to find their own their own internal beauty and truth. At the most recent RuPaul’s Drag Con, participants also discussed the acceptance of “bio queens”, or cisgender/nonbinary women who find freedom in the makeup, costuming, and performance inherent in drag.
Beauty brands are paying attention to this proliferation and diversification of consumers and successful brands will continue to branch out to even wider audiences as more male, female, and gender non-binary folks find freedom, expression, and beauty through makeup. To reach this incredibly diverse audience, brands would be well-put to focus on the internal aspect of beauty inherent in gender non-conformity, where who you truly are cannot be contained by your body or its organs. For In the words of 8 year-old drag queen Lactatia: “A diva can be a drag queen, a diva can be a woman, a diva can be a man…(but I wouldn’t call a man a diva, I’d call him a divler).”
About the Author
Emily is an Associate Strategist at Egg Strategy. Emily joined Egg after completing a two-year Master’s in Anthropology at the University of Oxford. Her time studying in the UK and in Morocco has allowed Emily to develop a deep cultural competency in many different regions and see the commonalities and differences in everyday life around the globe.
Egg recently joined the community at TEDMED in California and were deeply inspired by the conversations and sessions.
Here are 5 HIGHLIGHTS from the event that are pushing our thinking now:
1/ LEVERAGING AWE People experience the emotion of awe at least two times per week. The work of Jennifer Stellar, PhD, focuses on showing how this positive emotion can inspire good health. Now we’re asking our clients and ourself, what are we doing to help feel or uncover this positive, important emotion? How can we help leverage this emotion within the brand experience?
2/ HEALTHCARE IS EVERYDAY Anne Wojcicki of 23 and Me challenged us to think about health as an everyday activity, not just a once a year visit to the doctor’s office. We were reminded that we are in charge of own health...no one else. Give this, how can we inspire patients to become advocates for themselves?
3/ DELIVERING EMPATHY AT THE CORE When healthcare creates chaos for patients, systems break and suffering begins. To interrupt this chaos, Dr. Thomas Lee challenged physicians to “put patients in the middle and work around them.” We were inspired by Dr. Lee’s empathetic approach to healthcare and who he views delivering connected and compassionate care.
4/ JUST MAKING IT Anna Young and the MakerNurse team rapid prototype for a living. If there is a solution, they’ll find it quickly regardless of resources or budget size. We love how they remove barriers to create opportunity and drive innovation in healthcare. They are motivating us to continue to challenge our thinking, even in tough resource-constrained situations.
5/ ENTER THEIR WORLD Karen Stobbe and Mondy Carter used their strengths in classic improv training and personal experience of caring for family members with Alzheimer’s disease. The outcome of their work shows that by seeing things through the eyes of the patient instead of through themselves, we can breakthrough standard care paradigms and create much better ways to engage and live. They reminded us that every patient has a viable and motivating lens to view his or her life.
Egg partnered with the American Medical Association (AMA) in a pioneering study to deeply understand what motivates and frustrates physicians today.
By uncovering what motivates physicians at their core, we identified opportunities to increase practice satisfaction and improve the quality of patient care. We're pleased to share our work with the community at MATTER to help fuel the future of healthcare innovation.
Click here to view the content from a joint session with the AMA and Kristin Apple, Managing Director Health, Egg Strategy.
Through the years, we’ve seen the power of marketing through the senses: the rich aroma of chocolate in M&M world, the distinct sound of popping open a can of soda, or even feeling the weight, rigidity, and texture of a greeting card. Whether we realize it or not, our minds are busy making inferences based on our sensory experience. Sure, it’s obvious that the enticing aroma of freshly-made cookies will help a bakery boost sales, but research shows that the senses may play an even larger role in our perceptions, extending beyond our conscious awareness.
Recent research out of the University of Colorado at Boulder demonstrated that people holding a warm beverage were more likely to think a stranger was friendly (compared to those holding a cold beverage). Maybe our perceptions of people (and brands) are more strongly linked to our senses than we think.
Aradhna Krishna, author of Customer Sense: How the 5 Senses Influence Buying Behavior, experiments with the idea that the senses amplify one another. For example, the smell of cinnamon, suggests warmth, thereby enhancing the perceived effectiveness of a cinnamon-scented heatingpad. These subtle influences are especially powerful given the changing consumer landscape: the rise in anti-consumerism and growing resistance towards overt marketing messages.
Senses inevitably play a role in the brand experience, but can the senses be a real game changer for brands or just a sideline supporter? Let’s take a look at a precarious category, where the sensory experience may be the last lifeline: printed books. With the advent of ebooks, the future of printed books doesn’t look so bright. Borders closed doors in 2011, leaving Barnes & Noble as the last major national bookstore chain. Brick and mortar bookstores face significant challenges: the convenience and portability of tablets, competitive pricing from online retailers like Amazon, and consumers increasingly browsing without buying (aka “showrooming”). They’re left asking, can printed books really compete?
Engaging the senses may be the key to saving the category. After all, any bookworm will gladly rave about the first time they open a brand-new book – the crisp pages, the distinct smell, the crease in the spine, and the anticipation that comes with turning the next page. Printed books will never win a price war and they simply cannot offer the convenience or portability of e-books; however, printed books can offer an experience, one that engages the senses and tunes into the emotions of storytelling. The magic of picking up a book and experiencing the story unfold in tactile way is the only hope for printed books to survive. To redefine their position in a rapidly evolving category, brick and mortar bookstores need to engage consumers in a sensory experience from the moment people walk into store to the second they close a book, and lend it to a friend.
Facebook vs. Google: In the Battle to Brand the Fight Against Ebola, Who do You Side with?
Over the past few months, we saw both Facebook and Google make moves to leverage their brand power and respective digital platforms to get people around the world mobilized in the fight against Ebola.
While this is an incredibly altruistic endeavor by both companies (with Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page donating $25 million and $15 million of their own money to the cause, respectively), there’s an interesting set of brand lessons to be learned here, too.
As I thought about who I’d prefer to give my donation dollars to, I thought about how each brand measures up to 5 key factors I’d consider when choosing a conduit for my donation dollars.
What I found as I weighed each factor was that my decision of who to potentially donate my dollars to was very much informed by my overall perception of each brand.
The factors I considered:
1. Trust
Call it ironic, considering the fact that as a user, I volunteer to give Facebook unbelievable amounts of my personal data pretty much everyday, but when it comes to my dollars, I feel like I can trust Google to put them to better use. Thinking about Facebook, my level of trust in the company isn’t quite in the ‘I’ll give you my dollars’ range. The recent Facebook Messenger app privacy invasion controversy sits fresh in my mind, epitomizing for me the ‘ask forgiveness, not permission’ way that Facebook does business. This sort of approach may win friends in the startup world, but it makes me less willing to trust them with a donation. By contrast, I know that Google uses my data to make money on a daily basis. But, their discreetly analytical manner of doing so gives them a leg up here. Trust Factor Winner: Google.
2. Competence
If I'm going to donate to a charity organization (even if it is only a few dollars) I want to know that the agent I’m using is competent enough to get those dollars where they need to go. Certainly, both Facebook and Google are highly competent at what they do. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be billion-dollar brands. Yet, while Facebook is doing things like storing, sharing, organizing, and selling data, Google is out there writing complex search algorithms, programming operating systems for smartphones and PCs, digitizing, cataloging, and making publicly available the vastness of human knowledge contained in over 20 million books, providing a bird's eye view of any point on the planet, building cars that drive themselves, partnering with NASA to develop machine learning initiatives, and laying the groundwork to develop new space technologies—in addition to storing, sharing, organizing, and selling data. In short, Google, by its nature, seems like the sort of organization with the discipline, know-how, and adaptability that allow it to succeed in very diverse endeavors. If it can teach a machine to learn, it can probably get my aid dollars to where they're needed most. Being an expert operator in areas outside of its core competency seems to be a Google core competency. So, I’ll give this one to them. Competence Factor Winner: Google.
3. Partner Organizations
In an age where not-for-profit aid organizations have six-figure-salaried executives and PR shops on retainer to manage the scandal that seems inevitably to arise after every major humanitarian disaster, the organizations that both Facebook and Google have chosen to partner with constitutes a significant factor for me. Taking a read through both of their sites, it appears that Facebook is partnered with International Medical Corps, The American Red Cross, and Save the Children, while Google is partnered with Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, Partners in Health, and Save the Children. As I think about both partner line-ups, they are all very reputable aid organizations. They’re all global organizations, which have done and continue to do demonstrably good humanitarian work around the globe. I'd be comfortable seeing my dollars go to any of them. Partner Organization Factor Winner: Tie.
4. Donation Model
The method by which both companies collect donation funds for their relief efforts is an important factor in my mind. While the mechanics of donating are virtually the same (a standard credit card payment process), Facebook's method of donation collection is a pass-through mechanism, while Google's method of donation collection is an amplifier. Google's 2:1 fund matching program supercharges each dollar I donate, giving me the sense that whatever I give will do double the amount of good. The approach smart and quantifiable, just like Google. That feels like a winning approach to me. Donation Model Factor Winner: Google.
5. Issue Awareness
In my mind, one factor that's just as important as the money raised for Ebola is how much awareness about Ebola is generated in the process. While calls to donate appeared in Google searches, Facebook dropped a call to action right at the top of every user's home screen—on both desktop and mobile. So, not only did all of Facebook's 1.3 billion global users receive a personalized message, but in the US, its 128 million daily active users received that message while they spend 40 minutes of each day staring at the platform (numbers according to Facebook). That's a lot of eyeball time. You just can't beat Facebook for engagement. And, as any Marketing 101 textbook will tell you, engagement is a natural follow-on to awareness. Given the amount of time that people spend glued to mobile and desktop Facebook pages emblazoned with ‘Ebola’, I'd say Facebook win this by a long-shot. Issue Awareness Factor Winner: Facebook.
Coming in with a total of 3 wins out of 5 factors, it's Google for me.
Moral of the story: when you’re acting altruistically as a brand, your DNA is still in the mix. And, that could be a factor in how you’re perceived in the process.
Both of these brands are doing a great thing. Both in their own way. I decided one way. How would you decide?
We’re half way through Movember, or No Shave November, if you prefer. For those living in an especially facial hair friendly city, you may not even notice a difference. Regardless, facial hair has come into the limelight in recent years. From mustache coffee cups to celebrity beards, facial hair has become a symbol of the [mainstream] hipster movement.
It’s not just about the facial hair though. Over the past few years, the clean-cut, sharp metrosexual has fallen to the rise of the moderately outdoorsy, yet equally stylish, “lumbersexual.” This is the perfectly curated balance of outdoor wear, facial hair and flannel to convey “I’m a badass, and could survive in the woods if needed,” carefully balanced with a groomed, slightly sophisticated look that ensures, “I do, in fact, shower.” With Egg based in Colorado, we’re all too familiar with the lumbersexual, and may even deem some of our own fitting for the term.
We believe much larger cultural shifts underpin the movement of the lumbersexual. You might find yourself asking, why would one choose to wear a mountaineering jacket to grab a drink in East Village? It’s really quite logical. This jacket tells the world, “Though I may not be climbing a mountain right now, I am an adventurer.” Trading the expected button up and slacks for a flannel and skinny jeans, the lumbersexual style aspires for a look that conveys a down-to-earth, authentic personality with an undertone of nonchalant freedom: “I think for myself, I do what I want.”
Ultimately, the resurgence of facial hair and the rise of the “lumbersexual” reflect the shifting aspirations of younger generations: a desire for adventure and freedom.
Humans have the insatiable tendency to gather around new and exciting ideas. This mass migration towards a product, idea or concept lights a fire under marketers and consumers alike – soon, everything follows the trend and it often leads to the point of ridicule. And at some tipping point, as many trends reach a literal parody of themselves, there is a tendency for the mainstream to turn their backs and seek out the next trend.
That hope is an authentic need. Digging deeper into the lives of consumers, we see that the pumpkin spice latte represents more than a magical ingredient. Perhaps the success of the #PSL represents a need for reprieve from all things Café au Lait or the pretense of bean roasting guff.
Who really won on the pumpkin spice trend? Dunkin Donuts. By offering up a fun alternative for the Starbucks crowd, they filled the needspace in addition to adding an ingredient. Next time a trend comes knocking, think beyond “how do we repurpose this specific product,” and start thinking, “what is the deeper need behind the trend?”
As I prepared to hop in the shower this morning, I opened Spotify and started searching for a playlist. I noticed playlists such as, “Your favorite coffeehouse soundtracks,” “Have a great day!” and “Creativity boost.” Then, sure enough, there was a playlist called “Songs to sing in the shower.” Perfect, I thought. I hit play and enjoyed my morning shower, complete with tunes curated for that very moment.
It turned out that most of the songs could also have fit in the “Have a great day!” “Creativity boost” or a plethora of other playlists. But, who cares? The point is that this playlist satisfied my exact need; Spotify curated songs for this specific occasion. If I chose a more broadly focused playlist – maybe “Rock,” or even “Morning songs,” I wouldn't have felt like the perfect match. The point is that many (if not most) products can do a range of functional jobs. It’s up to branding to help you feel like the product is the absolute best one for you. And sometimes, being smart about a name is an easy way to help a brand do this.
Take another example of the power of naming. On my way to work, I grabbed a Belvita Breakfast Bar to eat on the bus. The package highlighted, “5 whole grains,” presumably perfect for getting your day off to the right start. In reality, the actual bar was just like any other snack bar. But by simply splitting the product into two separate sub-brands for two distinct needs (a snack vs. breakfast) it helped me feel like I had precisely the right thing for the need in that moment.
Famous behavioral economist Rory Sutherland elegantly sums up the power of naming, “What you call it affects how you read it.” This hilarious 3-minute example about Canadian cereal, Shreddies illuminates this perfectly.
Ultimately, branding elevates a functional value to also provide perceptual (or emotional) value. There are a lot of ways to build perceptual value: a slogan, a mascot, a spokesperson, a logo, an origin story, an advertisement, a package design… a brand name. Sometimes, it’s easy to overlook the power of a name.
*A special thanks to the “Deep focus” Spotify playlist I listened to while writing this post.
There is serious risk in the vast amount of data accessible to us at any moment. We find ourselves in the check-out line, scrolling through Facebook rather than striking up conversation with our neighbor. When we are stumped by a complex idea, we can turn to Wikipedia or Google to find existing opinions rather than spending the time constructing our own. Personalized ads, recommended friends, and catered news leaves little room for serendipity and exploration.
But in this sea of data, lies great potential. Potential to change the way we live, in small ways and in big. Think Nest, Uber, Waze - these increase efficiency, save resources, and make life just a little easier. Within big data, we can track everything from human trafficking and terrorism to natural disasters and environmental shifts (i.e. Google Crisis Response, emergency room wait times, tracking air quality). Big data paired with human brain power has shown the potential to produce powerful solutions. There is a clear opportunity for brands to be part of creating these solutions.
Recently an ad for Dollar Shave Club (DSC) popped up in my Facebook newsfeed - “You don’t need a pink razor to get a Badass lady shave” it told me. Immediately, I was mentally transported to a moment I had at Target the week prior when I stood with an eye down each of the shave needs aisles (men’s and women’s) and wondered which path to take. Did I feel more like a “Goddess” looking for my razor to “Embrace” me in a sea of pastel packaging and soft fonts? Or did I feel more like “Turbo” power in the form of sharp metal accents and aggressive shapes made for tough “Terrain”? Both felt bizarrely cartoonish, pandering to extreme caricatures of masculine and feminine, neither of which fit most people’s gendered personas.
In its one sentence ad (and its even simpler ad which shows two of the exact same razors labeled His & Hers), DSC tells us that gender neutrality is okay, and is perhaps better in the sense that it clears away the fluff and creates space for discussions of quality and functionality.
DSC isn’t the only company beginning to poke holes in the culturally constructed walls that sharply divide guy stuff and girl stuff. Toys ‘R’ Us made headlines last year in the UK when it decided to stop labeling its toy aisles “Boys Toys” and “Girls Toys”. The impetus for this change being that imagination is imagination, and prescribing sets of toys to boys and girls respectively boxes those imaginations inside arbitrary, stifling parameters.
It makes sense that companies are beginning to produce more gender-neutral products – they’re growing alongside social movements that are increasingly raising awareness around trans and gender queer identities (think Laverne Cox from Orange is the New Black) and fashion that is trending towards simplicity, subtlety and androgyny (think boyfriend jeans and Birkenstocks).
As strategists, we can view these small status-quo shifts as signs of opportunities present and to come for brands big and small.
Termed as an "Outlaw Instagrammer," 17-year old Humza Deas is only one of many scaling the skyscrapers of Manhattan in the early hours of the morning in effort to capture the most improbable, dangerously exciting views of the city.
From the Manhattan Bridge to the top of Times Square, nothing is out-of-bounds for these thrill-seeking urban explorers. With over 55,000 followers, these pictures speak for themselves. Enticed by the mystery, inspired by the adventure, and envious of the courage, I found these images speaking to my own aspirations. So naturally, I followed Humza. I will likely never climb the Brooklyn Bridge (nor any Manhattan skyscrapers), but I found myself wanting to identify with his experiences, even if that means simply observing from afar.
Recently, we've seen many industries navigate away from the traditional business model towards a more modern consumer centric design (think Uber’s evolution of the taxi). The grocery business has followed suit.
Ever been to the grocery store hungry? The rotisserie chicken or salsa and chips were probably slightly more enticing than raw meat and uncooked produce. More often than not, people tend to shop craving a finished product rather than the raw components of a recipe. Take a look at how this company is learning from other disruptive service categories to adapt to the way consumers truly want to shop for groceries- digitally, with recipe derived grocery lists.
Brands have been speaking to parents' fears, aspirations, and hopes for over a century. Consider brands like Johnson & Johnson, Gerber, or Oreo; whether it is affection, subsistence, or participation, respectively, each brand speaks directly to parents' needs and desires. While many of these needs are universal across different parenting styles, considering different cultural or personal parenting preferences may be in the best interest of brands.
This article delves into the differences in parenting perspectives across the world. Japanese and Norwegian parents are often looking to cultivate independence in children at a young age. Imagine grocery stores that have a children's section, with shorter shelves, to empower children to make healthy choices at a young age. Korean parents place greater attention to physical touch as a means to comfort and care for their children relative to other cultures. What if Ergobaby positioned their baby carriers as a means to foster more physical contact with your baby?
For brands to communicate in a way that truly resonates with consumers, they must first understand consumers' aspirations, values, and desires. For parents, this is especially true. Understanding personal and cultural parenting preferences can help brands build stronger emotional connections with parents.
Think back to that time when you finally replaced all your home multi-media center remotes with one all-in-one… Get back to that moment of Zen calm felt when you looked at that coffee table (which used to have individual remotes for your TV, VCR, DVD, surround sound system, etc.) with just one single remote laid out. Pretty great, right? Well, our “internet of things” future is bringing us back to that horrible multi-remote world, just on our phones.
While the idea of being able to access info about the freshness of the eggs in your fridge while in the store or adjust the sprinkler system at your home while on vacation on the other side of the world sounds great at one level, the thought of downloading an app to control your crock-pot is enough to make anyone cringe. While there is no doubt a place for increased connectivity for consumer products, a lack of cohesive control/access systems may kill consumer’s desire. Would home goods manufactures ever work together for a singular portal through which you could access all connected products (your Jenn Air fridge, Nest Thermostat and Rain Bird sprinkler, etc.)? Probably not. Would consumers be more willing to boost spending on connected products if manufactures did, probably.
