follow your compass, not your clock

[granthaffner]

Fish Factory

[jiaoyanzhang]

Digital Strategy at its finest

1 Make sure your business goals

Make sure each main goal is pretty specific, so it is actionable. The more specific a goal is, the better your marketing plan will be. 

Here’s an example of a broken down goal:

Main Marketing Objective: Build email list to 1,000 subscribers by June 2015.

• 1st step: Build landing page for email list, and set up a form for visitors to subscribe to newsletter.

• 2nd step: Have a free product giveaway created to offer as an incentive to prospects.

• 3rd step: Prepare automated emails and set them to send out on certain days.

• 4th step: Come up with more content ideas and use content idea creation tools if necessary. Write content and add to automated email series for newsletter.

• 5th step: Track progress over six months. Track number of subscribers and unsubscribers over the six month period. Continue to improve email marketing strategy until 1,000 subscribers have been reached.

2 Content Marketing

Whatever you plan to do for your marketing strategy, make sure you focus on how you can stand out from the crowd. 

For example, Greenpeace has created compelling content and used the media to spread its message around the world ‘LEGO partnership with Shell’. Because of this exceptionally beautiful and emotive content campaign,Greenpeace have secured a promise from LEGO that they will not renew contract with oil giant Shell.

3 Mobile Strategy

Why you need a mobile first digital strategy? The answer is as follows.

However, there are a multitude of ways to expand to mobile – apps, mobile/responsive websites, location based services, and more – and you need to know which ways work best for your user base. Clearly defined goals, such as increasing site hits, selling more products via coupons, or increased engagement with the current user base will guarantee that you’re hitting landmarks and utilizing the mobile space effectively

4 Make Use of Productivity and Usability Tools

Leverage these third party tools to save time, improve productivity, test usability, and push your digital identity to the higher level.

For example, QuickSprout is a useful software to help analyze SEO on your website and see how your site is doing compared with your competitors. Just enter your website URL in the space provided and click “Search.” 

5 Social Media Posting

Social media marketing continues to be a must for businesses. 

Managing your social media marketing strategies can be overwhelming. One of the best tools is the Buffer app. If you have multiple social media accounts, Buffer helps you manage from scheduling posts to post performance analysis

[jiaoyanzhang]

Secrets Behind Every Great Marketing Story

1. Activate strong positive emotions

Create stories that bring the audience to an emotionally positive and elevated stage. Audio/visual based channels have huge potential for creating viral content, however text coupled with images are easier to make and can be published more frequently. Dove Real Beauty Sketches is a great content marketing example that creates positive emotions.

2. A picture tells a 1000－word－story

Take or find images that are relevant for your business and attach a short text to get the conversation started. Questions and quotes work the best.

This picture and the attached text “anyone else wants to be here right now?” became instantly viral, reaching 1,8M likes and almost 68K shares. Simply put, the picture and the line is part of a much larger story. 

3. Video stories worth the effort

Video platforms are better at storytelling than others thanks to its ability to display text, visuals, audio (especially music) simultaneously. Use videos to create ongoing stories and converse with your audience. Comments are a great source for inspiration since they are directly originating from your target group.

Statistics show that video content is 12 times more likely to be shared than text-based posts to Facebook. On YouTube alone, there are 100M social actions (likes, comments, shares) every week.

4 Let a mystery build your audience’s interest

Don’t give it all away. Leave your audience wanting more, and they’ll come back again and again. Try releasing teasers via Facebook, email, or Pinterest.

Nike hired Casey Neistat and Max Joseph to create commercials for new #makeitcount campaign in 2012. However, instead of filming a traditional commercial, the two decided to use the money to go on an adventure, traveling to 13 countries in 10 days (while filming it all). The result? A viral phenomenon. In less than a month, the 4:38 clip has received over 5.5 million hits. Click over to Mashable to read more about the clip.

5 Same story different channels

Marketing content over several channels simultaneously is great for publicity of content, but it can easily dilute the core message. Stories help you keep congruency in the content published over different channels. 

Red Bull’s impeccable use of text, video and images to tell the same story: break down barriers, do your best and have great achievements.

Conclusion: Storytelling is always part of your content marketing

[jiaoyanzhang]

Toys 'R Us Finds a Great Use for QR Codes

Quick Response (QR) codes continue to gain momentum in mobile commerce. QR Codes is to fit the trend that customers are increasingly using their smartphones to shop and find more details on the products.

Over the past few years there has been a love/hate relationship with QR codes. Nowadays, the campaigns have gotten more sophisticated and companies are constantly placing mobile bar codes on billboards, bus shelters and products.

Marketers are constantly debating about whether or not QR codes are beneficial to their marketing efforts. Ultimately, Toys R Us has proven that mobile bar codes are not only beneficial, but also crucial in driving consumer engagement. 

Toys R Us with QR codes to promote outdoor products

Toys R Us are promoting their new outdoor products by using QR Codes and is allowing the customers to visualize how the items would look in their backyards.

Many of the outdoor products are too large to display in the store and the company is using in-store signage that allow customers to scan the QR code of the product. Consumers could scan the mobile bar code next to the product with their mobile device to view video footage or images of the item fully set up.

Toys R Us is providing an engaging in-store experience that allow users to see the outdoor items in action. Many of the QR Code signage are leading to videos showing kids playing with the summer toys. The products featuring QR Code include pools, sandboxes, trampolines, picnic tables and slides.

In 2011, the company rolled out a virtual shop featuring QR Codes on billboards, allowing the customers to purchase Toys R Us’ 2011 Hot Toy List. 

“We continue to look for ways to enhance our mobile capabilities and provide a seamless shopping experience for our customers,” said Ms. Kennedy, a spokeswoman for Toys R Us, Wayne, NJ.

In sum, QR codes are a hot commodity and the technology is helping marketers bridge the digital and traditional world. 

[jiaoyanzhang]

Have you begun implementing big data into your marketing?

Big Data are often defined to be data that are a by-product of the use of a computer to solve an operational problem. 

Big data is both an opportunity and an obstacle. The most difficult part is to harness big data and use it consistently in the decision-making process.

What’s good about big data? What’s not?

Digital Big Data have been used to provide consumers, retailers, and marketers with information that has created efficiencies, enabled new capabilities, and opened up previously unrealized opportunities.

Despite such clear and compelling value creation, however, real-time digital Big Data are a double-edged sword that also has the potential to erode long-term brand equity because of its tendency to cultivate a short-term decision-making mindset.

True, there are successful examples of companies such as Amazon and Facebook, where data analytics is a foundation of the enterprise. But for most legacy companies, data-analytics success has been limited to a few tests or to narrow slices of the business. Very few have achieved impact at scale. Based on David Court from McKinsey Quarterly , when he assembled a group of analytics leaders from major companies that are quite committed to realizing the potential of big data what degree of revenue or cost improvement the company had achieved through the use of these techniques. Three-quarters said it was less than 1 %.

 How to maximize the positive benefits of Big Data?

1 Avoid the race to the bottom on pricing:

Big data has brought pricing transparency to consumers, by using search queries or comparison shopping engines consumers quickly and painlessly can navigate their way to the lowest price. It put huge pressure on retailer and manufacturer profit margins, leading to what some critics called ‘a pricing race to the bottom.’

One potential way is use big data to identify targets and clearly communicate a brand’s unique value and a persuasive rationale for the consumer to pay a higher price.

2 Stop optimizing the click: Originally, click is believed as an indicator of a digital advertisement’s effectiveness. However, by optimizing against clicks, marketers often are pursuing the wrong audience. It ignores the impact of frequency of exposure and can lead to short-term errors.

Can we trust every bit of data we get?

We could not trust every bit of data. Even the source of data has its limitations. Take ad cookie for example, it’s a small piece of code inserted into browsers by ad servers as a way to generates massive amounts of valuable Big Data. Ad cookie has its limitations:

-Cookies get deleted frequently: 30 % of U.S. Internet users delete their digital-advertising cookies in a month and do so at an alarming rate of five times per month.

-Tough to accurately target demographics: On multi-user computers, the ad cookie cannot identify accurately the person who is using the computer at any point in time.

Is data alone enough to make a marketing decision?

"A lot of marketers think that they can just collect data and that it will tell them what to do, that's not really how big data works. And what you want isn't so much big data as smart data." Joe Rospars, CEO of Blue State Digital and the principal digital strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in both 2008 and 2012.

Can we make future marketing decisions based on past behavior the data provides?

History shows that the availability of new and timely Big Data does not always lead to desired outcomes. Data may be incomplete and confusing, and isn’t necessarily related to the most important problems people have to deal with. Still, they important indicators. Savvy marketers will leverage that knowledge to make more informed advertising decisions that build long-term brand equity.

References:

Court, D 2015, 'Getting big impact from big data', Mckinsey Quarterly, 1, pp. 52-60, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 12 April 2015.

FULGONI, G 2013, 'Big Data: Friend or Foe of Digital Advertising? Five Ways Marketers Should Use Digital Big Data to Their Advantage', Journal Of Advertising Research, 53, 4, pp. 372-376, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2015.

[jiaoyanzhang]

@Burger King’s Twitter becomes McDonald’s

Fast food chain Burger King have become victims of hackers, namely Anonymous, who have changed their profile name to ‘McDonalds’ and are tweeting and retweeting a string of messages mocking their current situation. It is rare that a brand as big as Burger King falls victim to a hacker.

How did Burger King respond?

This is something that BK obviously realized themselves as they finally broke the silence a few hours later and tweeted that it had been an ‘interesting day’ and that they hope their new followers would ‘stick around.’ No apology was offered largely because of the fact that it’s something totally out of their hands and maybe they didn’t want to dilute the interest that had been created.

Personally, I believe BK’ brand reputation didn’t suffer from this social media crisis. Large numbers of new followers were gained, interest was created from every corner of the social media world and a lot of Twitter users are now a lot more familiar with the underground music scene than they ever were. BK themselves seem to have seen the funny side of the incident and no doubt enjoyed the fruits of the hackers’ labour. Just another day in the mixed up world of social media.

They did a good job in responding this. However, BK must learn something from this, because what is fortunate to BK is that the tweets were humorous but could have been devastating had they been offensive. Otherwise, It would be a disaster.

Could this situation have been avoided?

The lesson learned is to monitor your company’s account often, even during a holiday long weekend and set a strong password.

Twitter offers plenty of advice for keeping your account secure including: • Keeping a Strong & Unique Password • Evaluating Links on Twitter • Keeping your Browser Up to Date Setting security policies for social media should be something a large company, managing a team of staff using the same account, should distribute widely to all users. Knowing how social networks work, creating a great social media campaign and being engaging on social networks is often talked about far more than security. 

Who’s the most responsible to handle these sorts of crisis?

Public relation should take charge to handle these as fast as possible. The attitude should be that our company will manage this crisis. PR should deal directly with any critics. Take BK for an example, BK used its Twitter account to deliver on its own word in a humorous way.

[jiaoyanzhang]

Do You Want To Take A Photo With Baymax From Big Hero 6

Do you love Baymax as much as I do? Well now you can take a photo with this lovable robot without even leaving the comfort of your home!

To promote the movie Big Hero 6, Disney launched a 6-month marketing campaign. It is comprised of trailer videos alongside Disney Baymax Photobomb site.  You can see the detailed component in the following time schedule. 

At scheduled dates lasting from May to October 2014 before the launch time November 2014, a series of trailer videos on Youtube and social media integrate key scenes from the film to sell the humor and the visuals without spoiling the story. The following is the first full length trailer.

Apart from trailers as other movies would do, what’s NEW?

I would like take a close look at the new and interesting Big Hero 6 marketing campaign that allows users to add Baymax to any one of their photos in just 3 simple steps.

If you want to add Baymax to your photo, visit the Disney Baymax Photobomb site and share your work on our Facebook page. But this is the only social media it incorporated with. It could gain more web traffic if it incorporates with more social media such as instgram and pinterest.

This is an interesting digital campaign but it didn't gain much attention. I checked the response on Facebook, which reflected that few users share their photos with Baymax on Facebook. The reasons may be that people are not interested in this sharing or people are not aware of this Disney Baymax Photobomb site.

From my part, I am fond of Baymax this character and movie Big Hero 6. If I know this interesting website at that time, definitely I would try and would like to share on Facebook. To tell the truth, I found this website just days ago when I searched to see if there is any digital campaign about Big Hero 6. I find out this website because of course assignment. That is to say, this marketing campaign failed to reach me. However, the continuously launched trailers did a great job to attract audience, which sold the humor and the visuals without spoiling the story. 

Time Schedule of the whole marketing campaign:

2014 D23 Expo in Anaheim, CA, Disney announced it’s plans for a 2014 animated release called “Big Hero 6″.

On May 22nd 2014, Disney released it’s first teaser trailer.

On July 17th 20114, Disney releases first full length trailer.

On September 2rd 2014, Disney released 2 full minutes of Hiro and Baymax.

On September 25th 2014, Disney released final full length trailer.

On October 15th 2014, ‘Add Baymax to your photos’ campaign

On January 6th 2015, Disney released hidden Easter Eggs videos

On February 3rd, Disney’s latest hit animation will be available as a digital download through iTunes or Disney Movies Anywhere, and on Blu Ray on February 24th.

[jiaoyanzhang]

You Will See Multi-photo Ads In Instagram

Here’s a piece of eye-catching news and I would like to share with you:

Instagram introduced a new format ad named carousel ads, which is a slideshow-like ad format that lets advertisers include multiple photos in an ad and a link to the brand's site.

Advertisers can specify the order of photos so that can tell a story or show off a product as people swipe left. Ins users could also click an extension link that opens an advertiser-chosen web page.

This is the first time that Instagram start to allow clickable links. Instagram has added an in-app web browser but it’s not a full-blown browser. The browser doesn't include a search bar or URL, so people can't use it to navigate directly to websites unless there's a link to those sites on the advertiser's page that opens from the ad.

Instagram said they decided to bring carousel ads after seeing that people were screen-grabbing photos and leaving comments or captions asking where they can find an item in the captured photo. On the other side, advertisers had been asking for ways to tell deeper stories with their ads. 

To be honest, I am not surprised that Instagram now takes this step forward. Though the initial purpose for Instagram is to browse photos, it needs ways to generate revenue and no company will ever satisfy its current income. Always, more is better. Not to say, Ins needs capital to grow stronger. People wanted to get more information from the service's existing ads and advertisers wanted to give it. Ins sees the demand in the market and catches the opportunity. My thinking is it’s more than to meet the market’s demand but to steal print magazine dollars with this new ad format. Carousel ads are even more powerful than print magazine, considering that carousel ads have extension links.

[jiaoyanzhang]

Design Your 3D Printable Toy On Your iPhone Or iPad With Modio

Modio is an iOS app that lets you design your own monster toy using a selection of different colors and modules. Once you’ve finished your creative design, you can send it to a 3D printer and your toy comes to life.

There are multiple different modules available for each body part. The Modio app offers several different heads, torsos, legs, arms, hands, and weapons to choose from. Once you’re satisfied with your creation’s body, Modio lets you adjust the color, texture, and position of each limb.

You can view your toy from any angle and touch each body part to adjust the angle. The piece move in a fairly realistic way, that is to say, the way you’d imagine a human could move and then some.

When you’re finally ready to print your monster, all you have to do is tap on the setting icon on the screen. Once you’ve connected to the 3D printer, the app shows your toy’s size and weight. Then, tap on the settings icon to resize your design. You can make the toy any size you want.

The Modio app is compatible with nearly any 3D printer on the market. Each part prints separately and then you can snap them all together the way you did in your design.

Among so many design programs marketed at kids, Modio is the coolest. The app does receive a very positive response from users. This is a cool and innovative app that inspires kids to actually design and create their own toys. What's more, it would change the way kids value the toy, which kids made on their own instead of pick at store.

As to user experience, it's simple to use even a six-year-old kid could design the monster toy he wants. But definitely creative and fun!

Forget mass produced toys, Modio makes it personal.

Try this free app on the iOS App store here to get started on your design.

[jiaoyanzhang]

Modio App: Make Your 3D Toy on Your iPhone or iPad

[jiaoyanzhang]

Printing Toys with Modio

[jiaoyanzhang]

MGA Entertainment's UX

Do you know MGA Entertainment?

MGA Entertainment (Micro-Games America Entertainment) is a manufacturer of children's toys and entertainment products founded in 1979. Its products include the Bratz fashion doll line, Bratzillaz, Lalaloopsy, Mooshka, Moxie Girlz, Moxie Teenz, BFC, Vi and Va and Little Tikes.

.

This blog is to examine MGA Entertainment’s UX across all platforms including website, tablet and mobile phone.

UX? Make it Responsive!

The website, tablet and mobile pages should be designed to response to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size and platform and orientation. Generally, MGA Entertainment reach a good UX and makes a good website design, which is user centered, logically structured and content rich. To be consistent with its brand identity, the overall aesthetics is cute, colorful and adorable. Its webpage also does well in interactivity, where you can see games, 3-D videos, e-books.

On all platforms, I find MGA Entertainment features in huge & beautiful images, semi-flat design and better typography. 

Huge & Beautiful IMAGES：

MGA Entertainment's homepage is displayed with scrolling 6 product sub-brands which are Bratz, Lalaloopsy, Mooshka, Moxie Girlz, Moxie Teenz, Vi and Va and Little Tikes. The following two are homepage on laptop and mobile platforms. The background photos of happy children appeal to its target customers.

Semi-flat DESIGN: flat design is the new trend in 2015 and MGA Entertainment catches up with it. 

 Better TYPOGRAPHY: Nice visual hierarchy, cute and unique fonts and strong statements. In the following pictures, you could notice that even the button to forward or backward or next pictures are designed to be lovely.

More features on Mobile site:

Let's take a more close look at UX on its mobile platform. MGA Entertainment optimizes its entire site for mobile. Normally users have an easier time to navigate mobile-designed sites than desktop sites on mobile devices.

Homepage & site navigation

Site Search

Commerce & Form Entry

About Homepage & site navigation

1. Put calls-to action in most prominent site space:MGA Entertainment does a good job in putting menu items at obvious place.

2. Keep menus short and clear: Especially for mobile visitors, a short menu with distinct categories is easy to navigate.

3. Easy to get back to the homepage: There is always a homepage button on the top left. It's convenient and time-saving. One more thing, when MGA Entertainment displays its other brands in the website bottom. For example, when you visit the Mooshka page and the following picture is what you can see. Also, if you click the button of other brand, it would open the link in a new tab. It helps you to go back to find Mooshka products.

About Site search 

1. Make site search visible

2. Implement filters to improve site search

About Commerce & Form Entry

1. Streamline information entry

Its mobile site automatically presented number pads for entering phone numbers, which makes users pleased.

2. Efficient forms

Let users use without registering for an account.

Let users check out as guests, which shoppers regard as simple, quick and convenient.

The webpage take advantage of autofill to minimize the number of fields in forms.

With multi-part forms, there is a progress bar on top. I feel more comfortable when let me know how much steps left with.

Generally, MGA Entertainment reach a good UX and makes a good website design, which is user centered, logically structured and content rich. To be consistent with its brand identity, the overall aesthetics is cute, colorful and adorable. Its webpage also does well in interactivity, where you can see games, 3-D videos, e-books. MGA Entertainment' UX is a success since it is usable, findable, accessible and useful. Still, there is always no perfection. 

Suggestions to improve web design:

-Design for both landscape and portrait and remind users to switch to the optimal screen orientation, which motivates calls-to-action.

-Make product images expandable. It does a good job in reminding users that they could swipe to see more pictures but it would be better to if the pictures could be enlarged.

[jiaoyanzhang]

You Can Be Anyone. But you are the one you choose to be.

Do you want to take a FASCINATION ADVANTAGE assessment? Click Here

How can a 10-min-test know the whole you?

It could not be 100% accurate to describe the whole and true you. 

Standing at the others' point of view. To see how the world views you. It's interesting, isn't it? 

This FASCINATION ADVANTAGE assessment shows how you are most likely to impress and influence others, which means take advantage of what you are good at.

The point is you take a look at yourself. :)

Believe it or not. It do helps you take a look at yourself. When you start to think of is this ME? Actually the test already works. It helps you to push yourself stand in front of the mirror. 

Wanna know HOW THIS WORLD SEES YOU?

TRACY=MYSTIQUE+ POWER?

I do doubt about my advantages especially for my primary one initially. But when I take a look at the explanation. YES. It's me.

You prefer to base your decisions on hard data and quantitative information rather than gut feeling

Independent and self-reliant

Your quiet demeanor hides a strong inner core

What is not the 'BEST VALUE' of the veiled strength? It may take time to get to know me. 

Man is so complicated that it's unfair or narrow to use one or two words to justify. You can be anyone. But right now you are the one you choose to be. 

This is the my favorite line said by Tiffany in the movie Silver Linings Playbook:

'I was a big slut, but I'm not anymore. There will always be a part of me that is sloppy and dirty, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself. I can forgive. Can you say the same for yourself, fucker? Can you forgive? Are you capable of that?'

Finally,

Thanks Ms. Hogshead, the creator of the Fascination Advantage. As she said, To be more successful, don' t change who you are. Become more of who you are. @sallyhogshead 

[jiaoyanzhang]

Do yOu loVe mE? What's behind Dove Chocolate

Brand Story

Do you know there is a romantic story behind the name ‘Dove’ chocolate?

Charlotte from Luxembourg and Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma got married in the spring of 1919. It was a big ceremony so that the 18-year-old boy Leon, who worked for Luxembourg for years, was very busy preparing. He worked for a long time that his hands were full of wounds. One day, when he was washing the dishes a sweet voice came into his ear ‘That must be hurt, isn’t it?’ Princess Bazzar standing there, she was kind and beautiful. It was the first time the two met.

Princess Bazzar was into ice cream, so Leon made ice cream for her late at night. They talked with each other happily every night and fell in love with each other. They realized the big gap of status so either of them put love in their heart.

Tragedies always happened. Few months after, Luxembourg decided to ask Princess Bazzar to marry another country’s prince to build up political ‘friendship’. Leon was restless and helpless when he heard of this. His last chance to connect to Princess Bazzar was via the ice cream he made. He used hot chocolate to write ‘Dove’ on the ice cream, which is ‘Do you love me?’ for short.

The bad thing is hot chocolate made the ice cream melt and when the ice cream was served to Princess Bazzar, she didn’t figure out the exist of letters. Leon missed the last chance to express his love. Princess didn't know if the boy like her and left hopelessly him to marry the prince. Leon was regretful and made up mind to make some kind of chocolate that would not melt.

That is the origin of ‘Dove’—Do you love me?

With 60.2% Market Share in China

The above is an engaging brand story. Apart from that, Dove chocolate does a good job in Chinese middle and low end chocolate market. The following two are the most competitive advantages:

Strong finance support from Mars, Inc.

Wide range of product lines, especially in bars category

Perfectly understand and utilize Chinese culture elements such as gentleness and importance of family

Dove Chocolate’s Digital Tools

Advertisement Video

The following two are TV spots in China. In these series spots, Dove chocolate is positioned as ideal gift to attract girls. The spots succeeded in building positive brand image in China because it fits perfectly with how young Chinese men consider seduction is. The actress is the great sample of the woman clever, educated and who will not give herself to anyone casually.

Social media on Weibo

In 2011 Dove Bus online campaign was a really hit. People could use Weibo account to share or post with hashtags to express their desire to go home. Dove selected randomly part of people who ever posted or shared and those people could take free bus to return their parents home during the Chinese Spring Holiday. 

TV Program

Dove Chocolate produced a famous reality show in China ‘Happy Blue Sky, who is the heroine’. In order to compete for the title ‘Heroin’, contenders need to pass rounds of games and tests. Viewers would vote for their favorite and attractive woman.

[jiaoyanzhang]

Dove Chocolate: Valentine's Day Series

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Dove Chocolate: Chinese New Year Series

[jiaoyanzhang]

"It's DOVE:Feat. Audrey Hepburn" 2014 Commercial