M.

Cat lover, soprano, grad student at MIT

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How One New Social-Proof Technology Is Increasing Website Conversions

With the ecommerce space getting more and more crowded, companies need to look for innovative ways to get customers (and have them stay). Here is one.

I needed a place to get a haircut, so I turned to my best friend for these kind of issues, yelp, to tell me about the hair salons in Boston. According to the reviews 398 people I have never seen in my life, I picked a hair salon and.. actually get a very good haircut! But what if they were not right?

The author mentions that the "Consumer Era" ended a little more than one year ago, and now it is age of the user reviews and twitter statuses. Yes we are under the effect of the social proof and tend to act in a "If others are doing it, I should be too" mentality, and the online reviews just strengthen this approach. But what will happen when the companies actually start to exploit this new era's characteristics? What happens the consumers would be the ones that are exploited by the data shaped by the companies? Maybe that is why the "Consumer Era" has just ended.

"The tool can be customized to allow online retailers the ability to display only the stats they wish their visitors to see." (Entrepreneur, 2014)

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The "Intel Inside" branding has been extremely successful in terms of the identification of the Intel brand and its qualifications. Whenever I hear the name Intel, I automatically play the classic sound of the Intel (shown above) in my head and be reminded of its competence. If we think this case in its own time period (2002) where the cell phones and PDAs were not the dominating device in people's lives, Intel should not extend the “Intel Inside” branding campaign to other non-PC categories. As the cell phones and PDAs are a newer market for Intel, it carries operational risks including differentiating quality, service and distribution, which, if not tightly controlled, could hurt the brand equity of the "Intel Inside", decreasing the brand credibility and lower the existing consumer base.

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Even though it started as a product that has solutions for functional concerns, Bravo and her team managed to elevate the status of the Burberry into a brand that provides solutions to fashion and luxury needs of the consumer. The target consumer of the Burberry is mid-twenties and thirties female consumers, though it started as a men's brand. However, Burberry addresses many different segments by providing different products (coats, bags, shoes, perfumes) which all has different price points. Burberry even has a line for kids, which again targets wealthy female consumers; it might be feasible to say that Burberry has reached its "affordable luxury" brand goal.

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The brand manifold structure reminded me of Concha y Toro case, and the Chilean wines, and how they, as a brand, had multiple constituencies and evolving meanings over time. Their past brand meanings had affected its current position in the global market as being the cheap and not so high quality wine; however Chile has been trying to create a new brand meaning that is consistent with its internal brand meaning. If I were to locate the French and Chilean wines, the French would be typifying the external anchoring (lower right), whereas Chilean would be exemplifying the internal evolution (upper left) as its quality is mostly known by the wine makers in Chile.

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Brand architecture at its best

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Singapore Airlines deals industry crisis by delivering incredibly high customer satisfaction with their well trained cabin crews, who are not only trained for functional skills but also soft skills such as friendliness and warmth. The airline makes money when their competitors do not, by well-thought airline acquisitions, having low labor costs and most importantly the loyalty it has gained throughout years by the exceptional customer service it provides.

For the question of whether SIA should drop or postpone its spacebed project after years of costly R&D investment, my answer would be to keep the project on track, under some conditions. The difference between first class and the raffle class should be very clear and explicit. If the difference seems to be decreasing, there should be attempts to increase the comfort in the first class to be able to keep loyal first class passengers by showing how much SIA prioritizes them. However, with the new spacebeds, the difference between raffle class and economy class & the other airlines' business class' should also be well communicated to prevent business class passengers to migrate to British Airways. It is a delicate issue where SIA should maintain the balance between loyal first class customers and migrating business class customers.

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The "Made in Chile" matters while creating an high-quality wine producer perception. Even though not being one of the three major countries is the case for many other New World producers, Chile is less developed than US or Australia which affects the consumer purchase behavior. Chilean Wineries' entrance to Japan in 1998 as the "cheap wine" makes the situation much worse in terms of country's global image.  I would suggest Concha y Toro to follow an "top-down" strategy where it would use its high-end brands' prestige (such as Trio, Casillero del Diablo, Almaviva and Don Melchor) to expand into the basic segment (Frontera and Sunrise). Those prestigious wines have been recognized by influential entities in the wine industry. Those successes could be used to create an awareness of the high quality of the Chilean wines, which would benefit the basic segment if the "umbrella" brand concept could be preserved.

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In terms of the diffusion broadness, I believe the ranking is going to be 4, 2, 1, 3. For a while, consumers have been looking for more than a product that is only functional (Dixit, 2008) and this has led to the rise of sensory marketing. As the visual marketing had its limits, marketers tried to influence consumer behavior via touch, sound and even taste. Finally, in the last decade, they have started to embrace the role of the scents to create an emotional connection with consumers and strengthen their brand image, however the area is still developing. With the creation of iSmell, many of the future products would also address the sense of smell to attach more emotion to their brand, increasing the diffusion of the iSmell even more. And secondly,the high tech bandage solves a need that exists for centuries, and would have the second broadest diffusion. For the products 1 and 3, I was not convinced that there is a real need for the sliced peanut butter, whereas for 3, there are many other service providers that meets the individualized music list needs. 

In terms of the rapid diffusion, I believe the ranking is going to be "2, 4, 1, 3" as the cost of acquiring an high-tech bandage would be much lower than purchasing an iSmell considering the individual product costs.

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The campaign ran against Corona, such as its being contaminated with urine or excess nitrosamin that is causing cancer, reminded me of this image, which was extremely common to see in the Muslim countries, trying to eliminate the Coca Cola's existence in those markets. Coca Cola had managed to re-establish the brand image by regional marketing strategies, similar to Corona's re-positioning. In terms of meanings in consumers' mind, two brands, Heineken and Corona, differentiate by bringing consumers into different fantasies. Corona's simple advertisements brings consumer a beach, a vacation even an escape in a bottle whereas the Heineken brings an experience similar to a social event that is filled with confidence, open-mindedness and extroversion.

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Black&Decker is heavily invested in the Consumer segment with its wide range of products and a positive brand image in the power tools market. Removing Black&Decker from the Professional-Tradesmen channel might have drastic outcomes; it could harm the brand image in the Professional-Industrial segment as it might seem as an inadequate brand for professional usage. However, the option one is too easy and also risky as it might encourage the other competitors in that market to enter the Consumer segment and gain market share. I would suggest the following two options; first the "option two": sub-branding Black&Decker in the Professional-Tradesmen market since Black&Decker has a positive experience in sub-branding, or second, the usage of brand "DeWalt-Serviced and Distributed by Black&Decker" since Black&Decker has been known for its better service even by the Makita users.