 November 12, 2008
 Actionable Customer Insights through Site Side SearchTagged as: Open brand, new consumer journey, personalPosted by: Mila Goodman What are your customers looking for? This is a question that plagues many an eCommerce team. The answer is in your web analytics. Customers find products either by using search or navigation. For those customers who use site side search, their satisfaction relies on the quality and speed of your search results. Regardless of how good your search results are, it is inevitable that your customer will enter a search term for which you do not have a product match. Hopefully you have already eliminated the following error message
and provide smart cross links or suggestions to similar things that may be of interest to your customer. If you listen to what your customer is telling you, you are regulary running one of my staple analytics reports - the shadow demand report. The shadow demand report provides meaningful customer insights because it reports the search terms your customers have entered which did not return products. Is there a better way to get into the mind of your customer? They are telling you what they want to find and this report tells you when they reach a dead end. Since dead ends are bad for customer experience, the shadow demand report is instrumental in preventing these in the future. The shadow demand report can provide direction to your merchandising team. If you see a sizable bump when customers are searching for a particular product, you may identify a trend. This report represents customer demand and an untapped opportunity to meet customer demand by adding this product to your site or at a minimum, providing alternates to what they seek. Understanding this element of your customer is an easy report to create and may even be standard in your analytics package. It is a tool that can be used to gain actionable insights about your customer. Activate this report, review it regularly and serve your customers by offering them products they are telling you they want. November 11, 2008
 Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer Finalist at Adobe MaxTagged as: O.P.E.N., branded manufacturers, technologyPosted by: Chris Berk As some of you may or may not know, the Sherwin-Williams Color Visualizer Tool, designed and developed by RI, has been chosen as a finalist for the 2008 Adobe MAX Awards! And the Finalist Gallery is now live and People’s Choice voting is open. Please visit and share the following link to vote: http://adobemax08.com/na/experience/#?s=5&p=3 There is no limit on voting, so do it to it!! And you can check out the Visualizer itself here: http://www.sherwin.com/visualizer/ November 7, 2008
 Obama continues to deliver on OPENTagged as: O.P.E.N., Open brand, social web, technologyPosted by: Nancy Kramer
I was inspired today when one of my colleagues pointed me to the new president-elect transition web site. I continue to be amazed at the remarkable communication strategy of the Obama team, and this new digital hub builds on the team's OPEN approach. From the invitation to submit your ideas, the presentations of the top agenda items, to how to apply for a job in the administration, it's all there for everyone to share, comment, and post. I think our very own Karen Scholl summed it up best when interviewed about Obama's approach for the March cover story of Fast Company. She said, " With Obama, not only do people feel they know who he is, they feel trusted to share their views," Scholl says. "And they get constant feedback from the campaign and from each other." November 6, 2008
Okay, maybe not the best headline, as my trip to Shop.org's first international event -- Global E-Commerce Summit -- was all business. Well, mostly business. It was an opportunity to learn a lot about the e-commerce opportunity that awaits in Europe -- that which exceeds the 5-year growth projections in the US. However, there are many challenges with the lack of standards across borders including tariffs, privacy policies, shipping and returns and much, much more. So, partnerships and acquisitions are the most likely strategies for most US-based retailers and vendors.Thankfully, there were many industry veterans sharing their experience such as Monica Luechtefeld of Office Depot, Patti Freeman-Evans of Forrester/Jupiter, Doug Mack of Adobe, Angela Kapp of Estee Lauder, Kevin Ertell from Borders, Brett Hurt of BazaarVoice, and Tony Stockil of Javelin, plus many other provocative and informative speakers. You can find my presentation here. But, back to the fun part. There was that, too.; ) November 6, 2008
Remember the third place? Digital Millennials are the first real post-PC generation; their smart phones are not only their primary digital device but some would say their primary means of discovering what it means to be a social being. For brands, millennials’ perpetual connectedness via mobile phones and social networking profiles has been their most salient trait for about five years. Facilitating and being part of this perpetual connectedness was a brand’s route to relevance. But another millennial trait is about to usurp simple connectedness: their collective location awareness—and the importance they ascribe to place as a marker of self (yes, just as brands endeavor to be). Mobile phones once again are the technological driver of this generational trait, but only those that are location-aware (thanks to cell tower triangulation and GPS). These phones and their geo-applications, along with cyber cartography—the constitution of information-rich up-to-the-minute digital maps of astounding physical accuracy, mean that brands have to put themselves on the map, literally. Why? Because the more accurate and personally useful digital maps become—with the help of anyone willing to geotag their photo or geoannotate a place—the more people expect them to constitute a complete “mirror world,” as the gamers call it. Brands must recognize that there are consequences to being left out of this mirror world. As web surfing gives way to world surfing, brands have to be at the right places at the right time. Most important, they have to be part of the Fourth Place. After home (first), work (second), coffee shop/athletic club/church (third), the Fourth Place is a fusion of virtual and real, a spontaneous hot spot created by people oscillating between digital co-existence in a geo-annotated space and the heightened possibility of suddenly meeting up—at a store, nightclub, park—in the real world.
November 5, 2008
November 4, 2008
In the midst of the Presidential election, there is another type of voting taking place, albeit with a radically different degree of impact. Since it will be a while before we know if it's Obama or McCain, I felt compelled to vote for something where I could see immediate results. The NBA season has officially started, some marquis players have already traded jerseys and basketball fans are getting excited as the prestige of USA basketball has been restored with the Redeem Team's return from Beijing with gold. Delivering more value to their fans, the NBA has announced Fan Night. Every Tuesday on NBA TV is Fan Night - which means that the NBA televises the game that has the most fan votes. This is a first for the NBA and perhaps for any professional sport - allowing their fans control which game is televised. The voting is easy - they list all the games that are being played the following Tuesday. Simply choose the game you want to see (I selected ATL vs. CHI) and submit your vote. Instantly, you can see how each game is ranking - a great way to encourage fans to vote again but perhaps spread the word to their fellow fans to get the voting up for their desired game. This new feature is On Demand - allowing customers to vote on the spot and see the results instantly. The degree of Personalization is awesome - what could be a better way to tell the NBA your favorite team or at least which is your favorite to watch on NBA TV? It is also Engaging as fans will be sure to come back each week to vote given the simplicity of the interaction. There was one experience element that I thought was missing that makes this a completely OPEN feature - Networked. If the NBA made this a widget that a fan could insert into their social network pages, they would help spread the word about this new feature, increasing the total # of votes and create buzz amongst NBA fans. I would have downloaded this to my facebook page to (1) connect with my fellow NBA fans and lobby for votes on a weekly basis and (2) remind me to vote on a continual basis. Could ESPN or TNT take a page from the NBA and bring this fan demand to their networks? Fast forwarding to the next Olympics, could one of the big four networks benefit from the NBA's leadership and allow viewers to vote when events are televised? For me, the Olympics are an exception to my DVR rules because the spoilers run rampid if you don't watch it live. Thanks to the NBA and their committment to their fans! November 4, 2008
Consumers snap up pictures with their cameras or their phones wherever and whenever (remember when people just took pictures on special occasions???), so it's great to see Kodak recognizing that and supporting our need to capture every moment. In sync with what's on a lot of our minds today, Kodak released the bi-partisan winners of its request for 2008 presidential election photos. The email also alerts readers to a photo of the day (just in case monthly wasn't enough for you). Of course you can sign up for the RSS feed if you like the daily inspiration to come right to you. It's hard to deny the occasion that this nearly 2-year campaign has become, so I like how Kodak is using it to lead picture takers into a longer-term engaging experience with the brand. November 3, 2008
If you haven't already started having conversations with your web team Beyond the stats, there are lessons to learn from companies who've already wrangled with accessibility. Target, for example. It could have resolved its accessibility issue quickly and economically, but instead it grew into a $6 million settlement. Most brands can't afford that hit to the bottom line or the hit to their reputation right now. There is a better, smarter way and marketers need to be awakened to the importance of creating accessible brand experiences. October 29, 2008
 Life is back from the dead. And Marilyn is forever.Tagged as: O.P.E.N., digital millennials, engaging, networked, social webPosted by: Nita Rollins Life Magazine is a brand colossus, in many ways the quintessential Boomer brand. Defining photojournalism in the 20th century while also defining the 20th century, its portraits framed the ahistorical absolutes of courage, despair, charisma and power as much as the persons of a certain historical gravitas. The viewer’s pursuit of accidental revelations of character kept all those modernist literature-stoked latent/manifest dichotomies in productive tension. I know because I used to sit spellbound before the stacks of Life my cousin had collected in his post-Harvard hovel. With my two-page spread-sized memories intact, and an avowed deference for the tradition of the defining public image—in stark contrast to the people’s indefatigable showcasing of social networking candids—I am the perfect witness to a Boomer brand entering the ecosystem of the open web. It’s not Life’s digitization per se that makes this an interesting transition for a brand twice defibrillated in its 64-year history—we barely raise an eyebrow over Google’s all-in-a-day’s-work project to digitize the world’s books, for heaven’s sake. It’s the letting loose of Life’s curatorial authority, its single-photo storytelling precision, into the jungle of laissez-faire cut-and-paste social web content that begs for commentary. The ‘coming soon’ web site promises over 10 million photos will be made available for viewing, or, as parent company Time put it: "…the most important collection of imagery covering the events and people of the 20th century…[will be] available for free for personal use”—at least, for viewing and sharing. More than 97% of the collection has never been seen by the public. Such an inconceivable darkroom trove of “outtakes” (albeit by the likes of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and Gordon Parks)! What could be more appropriate for our era of flourishing amateur photography and citizen journalism than converting Life’s vault into an editorial roundtable, a photographic piñata? Unsettling, perhaps, for its Boomer devotees who remember when larger-than-Life was hard to come by? (Winston Churchill as a screensaver—really?) But probably, ultimately, exhilarating for all comers. That is, if Life truly adapts to the digital channel. And from what I’ve gathered, the revenue model is strictly 20th century—mainly advertising-based. (As Time also owns Getty, site visitors coming to look and learn will be exposed to the latter collection and might buy.) Based on the advance press, there is but one concession to the social web’s intensely OPEN relationship with images—you can create Flickr-style personal collections. There are ways to counter the constant battering of our journalistic institutions (hint: they’re digital), and, in this instance, to drive cross-generational traffic to Life.com. (Yes, this begs for a post on washingtonpost.com.) For Life, in my opinion, the most important of these is a social platform for storytelling, the kind that would enable community voting on the best photo/journalistic albums—those with stirring commentary that keeps history alive. Kodak has an employee blog that has done wonders for their place in the imaging community, as they like to call it. Limited edition downloads of Life covers for poster-size printing wouldn’t be a bad idea either, even if I did steal it from the current collaboration of Absolut and fashion designer Helmut Lang. For all those copyright-minded among you, there are always the Creative Commons alternatives. Quite simply, more exposure, more usage=more life for Life.com. To make sure I’m not blindly enthusiastic about this digital brand makeover of Life, particularly as an Engaging and Networked brand, I conducted some quick research of a certain person who has graced Life’s covers several times, and who is the very definition of iconic inexhaustibility (if you don’t believe me, read American Monroe: The Making of a Body Politic). Has the social web tired of Marilyn Monroe? Can icitizens find enough to do, interactively speaking, with the silver screen goddess? Does she make sense any longer to digital millennials, for whom continuous virtual self-presentation precedes self-knowledge? Are you kidding? 16,738 thought to upload some version of Marilyn Monroe on Flickr. Metacafe has 144 largely homemade Marilyn Monroe videos. iStockPhoto has several Marilyn impersonators doing their best to keep the subway breeze blowing up her white pleated dress, figuratively speaking. And Google says Marilyn Monroe matters to someone 13,400,000 ways. I found a particularly appropriate cultural artifact trolling around someone’s personal Picasa photo album: Marilyn Monroe coaxed once again into life through a collage of Life’s covers.
I also found a Marilyn Monroe image rarely seen (perhaps never before published?) on Flickr and will leave you to contemplate both its hold on the viewer and the icitizen comments that follow.
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