Consumer Centric

I was a week behind, but my interest was piqued by a headline in last week’s Ad Age:  ”Vivaki predicts $100M market for choose-your-own-ad format.”

Several times in the last few months I’ve tossed around the question why can’t I simply have a channel on my satellite provider that has all the restaurant ads, another for the apparel ads, another for car ads, another for insurance, etc.  It could be they’re there and I don’t know.  But, either way, it would be so much more useful and, potentially, entertaining if I could go watch the ads because I wanted to, not because someone is making me before I can get to what I’m really interested in…

So, the Ad Age headline was interesting.  The article explains how Vivaki (viva-key), a Publicis unit, has teamed with Hulu, Yahoo, CBS, and others to deliver the online commercials in a way that allows consumers to pick the ads they would like to watch.

Cool.  My wish come true?

Well, sort of, but not really.  You sort of get a choice.

ClickZ writer David Ward has a good article describing how they arrived at using the Hulu-pioneered format for the “Ad Selector”, which is the platform they’re using.  What happens is you are given a choice of which of up to three ads you’d prefer watching before you can watch the Hulu, or Yahoo, or CBS video you originally clicked on and wanted to watch.

So, while they’re research in developing the tool references “the consumer belief it gives them more choice and is more respectful of their time,” it’s still just a small step in the direction of being about relevance to the viewer.  I totally agree with one comment left to Ward’s article that why give three ads to pick from that may be totally irrelevant to begin with?  Can’t we use technology these days to truly be relevant to the user and allow you to pick whatever category we are interested in at the time?

Don’t get me wrong, I applaud the Vivaki effort.  But, it’s still so advertiser and publisher / content owner focused.

So, their research showed higher click-through rates than other formats in which you have no choice.  Well, no duh.  Imagine the click-through rate if you decided you wanted to watch the specific ad content in the first place, not just picked one of three served up to you.

Podcaster Daisy Whitney chimed in last fall with one of her New Media Minute pieces covering on-demand advertising effectiveness.  Her examples were in the fitness category and seemed to indicate how people who choose to watch Fitness TV programs are more likely to watch fitness-centered ads and buy fitness products promoted on the channel.  Can you say relevance?

On-demand advertising on TV is not new.  You can readily find news reports about its potential and specific platforms from companies like Rentrak back in 2005.  A quick search yields companies like Koeppel Interactive and others who offer on-demand advertising solutions.  But the focus remains on the distribution channel / content owner and the advertiser.  Obviously, that’s who gives us the stuff and they need to make money.

Case in point, in April , Thomas Morgan posted a piece primarily from the network executive POV as to where the most money can and should be made in shifting more advertising to internet TV.  While agree with a lot of his business arguments, I wish you’d find more focus on the consumer perspective.

You remember the choose-your-own-adventure books when you were a kid?  They were the best.  I couldn’t get enough of them.  Funny that I’ve never heard any of my kids come across them today, but they’ve got to still be around.

Today, with digital solutions, we can make choose your own adventure something beyond the imagination of a kid choosing one of four endings in a book.

Rather than toss out one of three ads to choose from and, by the way, force you to watch them before you can watch your video on Hulu, why not offer up something that is really about choose-your-own-ad?

Give me a way to click onto categories of products or services that I’m interested in, then serve up as many 30, 60, 90-second, or long format commercial content you’ve got on everything in that category.  On-demand advertising on some cable and satellite networks are almost there, but make it easier for me to find, use, and interact with on my terms, not simply holding me captive because you know I want something other than what you’re about to show me.

That’s choose-your-own-ad.  I can’t wait to see the likes of NBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, etc., offer up a solution within their network that lets me, as a consumer, access advertising content in this way on my terms.

There are some places that just get it.  Sure, they have their problems, but, generally speaking, you come to almost always expect the best when you get there.  When it comes to Apple, for me they deliver.

This morning, after an all too exciting meeting with our accountants, I had to drop out to the Apple store at the Barton Creek Mall here in Austin.  I needed to pick up some software and I was in a hurry.

I walked straight into the store, found the display version for the software, and then a nice young lady approached me and asked me if I needed help.  I showed her what I was there to buy, she went in the back and brought me the copies, and then the magic happened!

Ok, so it was the first time for me!

She pulled out her iPhone (maybe iTouch) and proceeded to complete my purchase with a bar code scanner and card reader right there

on her phone.  Within about 10 seconds I was signing my name with my finger and the receipt was emailed.  I got back to the office,filed the receipt in its appropriate place.  Apparently, they shifted to this procedure this Fall.

Obviously, I was impressed enough by the experience to now take the time I had expected I would spend in line (that place was packed and I figured I was stuck for a while just to make one quick purchase) instead sharing the love about the Apple experience.

Awesome demonstration of putting the customer first and creating relevance and utility in the experience.  Yeah, I realize they’d done it before with the PC-based handhelds, but this was way better, faster, and certainly had the cool factor.

Thanks, Apple!

Now, back to using that software to get some work done… the really weird part, I was purchasing MS Office (PC) software for the Mac (see my previous post and you’ll understand why).

How often have you found yourself doing exactly what you counsel others not to do?  I’m a parent of four kids, so I have to admit I’ve experienced that awakening once or twice at home.  But yesterday I found myself, and our team, facing the issue at work in a way that was ironic given our trumpeting the consumer-centricity horn.

Since we launched PURSUIT one year ago, we’ve put a lot of effort into the look and feel we wanted to maintain, project, and deliver as a brand.  We decided it was critical to convey a simple, modern, and elegant, but not aloof, feeling in everything from our logo to our letterhead.

Early on we made the switch to Mac over PC so we could use the presentation prowess of Keynote, Pages, and the like to be able to incorporate a higher order design into our work.  And we figured we’d deal with compatibility issues by always giving our clients nicely packaged PDF versions of our work.  No problem.  Well, not always a true statement.

Most times this has worked well.  And we’ve received the feedback about the look of what we do aligning with the value it provides many times.  But with one of our biggest clients we’ve continued to run into difficulty when we prepare our “deck” in Keynote and then convert to PowerPoint because this client wants to be able to view and manipulate files in the collaboration process.

It came to a head again yesterday when we had spent weeks getting what we thought was one of the best project deliverables yet.  The team even worked around the clock in the final hours the days before to make sure we posted the working draft for the client ahead of the scheduled time.  That’s when the “fun” began anew.

First, the PowerPoint conversion we did had problems when they uploaded it from Basecamp because of different versions of PowerPoint on either end.  Immediately, past frustrations on the part of our client emerged again, distracting right away from the content and thinking central to our deliverable (product).  Quickly, we fixed the version issue and re-posted only to hear they were still having issues with certain slides not appearing correctly even though on our machines it was clean.

Finally, we discovered we were using a specific font, part of our initial look and feel effort we worked on to set ourselves apart, that was not on their machines.  So, a few slides in the deck were still totally messed up on our client’s side when they opened it up on their end.

The frustration was high at this point because we knew little attention could be given to the content of our work and we knew our client, who appreciates what we do for sure, was reaching a point of wanting to figuratively slap us upside the head.  I kept thinking aloud (with members of our team) that I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t just let us use the PDF version and communicate that way… then none of the compatability issues would be there.  Then they’d see the really great work we’ve done.

At some point, I heard myself talking and realized the obvious.  When have I heard a company say, “if only my customers would accept our way of doing things then they’d appreciate our work and see how good the thing we’ve made for them really is?”  Or, how about… “why do we have to make something that our customer can use?  We’ve made something that we know works, don’t they get it?”

Ok, so the obvious lesson, or slap upside the head, was the cliche “physician heal thyself.”  Our use of the tools we’ve chosen for our work meets our needs, not our client’s.  When we are able to present and control the delivery of the results it is useful, impressive, and helpful to our client because it’s clean, clear, and concise.  But, when our client needs something they can use and work with when we are not there, what we produced has considerably less value.

Relevance and utility.  That’s what we preach all of the time to our clients.

You have to consider your customer’s point of view and determine how you add relevance and utility in their life, on their terms.  If you miss that perspective you’ll push out products/services that look great to you, things that cost money, but things for which the value of is considerably less to the people paying for them.

Moving ahead… clearly we need different versions for different purposes:  (1) those in which we control the full delivery and, therefore, can use our Mac software tools to make them shine and tell a powerful story, and (2) those in which our clients need to be able to use the material on their own, so we’ll need to deliver the same quality on different software platforms.

The less obvious lesson in this experience is that companies who find themselves creating things that don’t add utility and relevance from the customer point of view are not always self-absorbed egotists.  Many likely find themselves in the exact situation we were yesterday… having created something they expect is grand, only to realize they’ve failed to truly listen to their customer.

The point:  it’s not easy to be consumer-centric, even when it seems obvious as does this example of our struggle.

Two recent experiences add to what I consider the good side of the technology behind social networks and communication tools that are constantly emerging.

This morning, I was jogging and came across a moleskine book on the side of the road. It was a little wet from the sprinklers, but it was obvious someone did not intend to “store” it there. I grabbed it and finished my run… in fact, I kept thinking a number of the people I saw along the way must have wondered why I felt compelled to jog with a notebook in my hand!

I saw the name inside the notebook. Got to my computer. The first place I turned to was Facebook to search for this guy. Sure enough, from his profile I could easily tell it was him. I clicked on “send ___ a message” and told him about the find.

Later today I’ll connect with him out near my home and get it back to him. Easy. Quick. Non-invasive. Benefit for the both of us… feels good to find something when you know what it feels like to lose something, plus he has his book back now.

Earlier this year I posted about a chance encounter I had on a flight home to Austin. I was so touched by my interaction with Dawn that I felt like I had to share the way she approached adversity with honor and commitment. She and two of her children are now serving in Iraq with the MN National Guard, leaving her husband and teenage daughter back home.

Just a few days after posting the story, I was surprised to see a post from Dawn’s husband, Todd.  Then several other people with family in the military shared their own experiences. Eventually, her young daughter, Meagan, even posted her feelings and gratitude to those who had shared support. Together, we were able to share thoughts and a common sense of respect for someone who would never promote it herself. And it isn’t about pointing a spotlight on Dawn, it is about expressing appreciation for goodness, honor, and respect.

This person captured my reactions, too:

Just a few weeks ago another comment to my post on Dawn came from a friend of hers from years ago.

Dawn’s husband, Todd, replied and explained Dawn had talked about her friend many times over the years. I assume they’ve since connected and she’s been able to send a care package to Dawn.

My point in sharing all of this? Ambient awareness through social networking tools has a good side. Used for uplifting purposes we can find good and honorable people, things, and experiences.

Likely, I will never meet Todd and Lois and others who have shared in this story. But I’m a better person knowing what they’ve shared. How cool is it that we can facilitate such connections today?

Sure, these tools have as many, if not more, negative sides.

But I appreciate the good that can come. In the end, authentic connections between people on issues that matter will drown out the self-interest and negative scheming via online social networks. In my world, these are two examples of what I mean…

The irony seems too perfect, almost scripted. Big brother “snatching” of illegal e-copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). A totalitarian regime in a future world?  Or just Amazon trying to abide by copyright laws? 

Follow up Amazon’s actions with a public apology with candor rarely seen from the corporate world, especially from the CEO.  Watch the apology spread across social networks in our living of the futuristic world Orwell anticipated back in 1949.  Problem solved.  Case closed.  Or not?

I was very impressed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ public apology posted yesterday on Amazon.com’s own Kindle community forum.

Bezos’ apology is powerful because of its sincerity.  Sure, you can find ways to pick it apart.  But, absent any more information this seems like the perfect way to be authentic in today’s fully connected world.  Kudos to Bezos.  Well done.  And it’s clear the overwhelming majority of comments in the forum applaud the action.

Setting aside the apology, the lasting impact, and the real irony of this situation, is the debate it has already fueled and, most certainly, will reach a new level intensity.  Amazon effectively demonstrated to the average John Q. Public that it can very easily get into your system and delete a “book” that you purchased from them for any reason.  Now, this isn’t new–the ability has been around for sure.  But this is the most widespread and potentially most public such action that literally brings it home. 

Consider this comment to Bezos’ apology:You can easily laugh this off to naivete. [UPDATE: Reached Eric via Twitter @vrtsflipflop and as an IT guy he's well aware of capability, but like most of us would not have expected functionality built into the Kindle product] But you can read many of these comments in the discussion with people not realizing this is possible in the world of e-commerce and cloud computing today.

The technological reality of today enables companies to be truly people-centric in building solutions that meet all our needs and wants, on our terms, and delivered in our preferred way.  Convenience.  Utility.  Value.  All great.

But the same reality presents a quandary, especially for e-tailers like Amazon.  And it causes, or should, people to consider the same realities of what is given can be taken, or watched, or copied, etc.

Amazon’s user agreement for Kindle expressly “grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display…”  When faced with the news that the product sold (copies of 1984 and Animal Farm) were illegal and violation of copyright laws, Amazon acted to protect publisher and author’s rights.  

It has since informed its users it will no longer delete purchased content.

But, as Eugene Volokh comments in his blog, the move could prove to be more than a PR blunder:

Even if Amazon had reserved such a right under its contract, I think that would have been something that many readers would have found quite troubling, especially given that the reservation of this right would have been unexpected, contrary to the way things are done with traditional books, and put somewhere inside an agreement that no-one reads. The contractual term might have been enforceable, but still understandably upsetting to readers. But as best I can tell, no such right was reserved; in fact, the deletion was a breach of its contract, and quite possibly a trespass on readers’ Kindles.

Amazon has since said it will not do this again in the future.  Spokesman Drew Herdener stated in an email:  “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances.”  Importantly, the statement ends in an interesting phrase:  ”in these circumstances.”  Not never.  They can’t say never.

Apparently, some have responded with more fervor with reports of a class action lawsuit being pursued (or at least a threat of one).

My own view is this is hardly worthy of lawsuit settlements as Amazon is taking steps to repair the $5.99 purchases made of illegally copied material.  

But the bigger issue it raises is a worthy debate for companies to consider and people to ponder.  How do we enable the convenience and utility the online world affords us, while also protecting content?  How does a company handle a dilemma like this in the future?  What impact will it have on receptivity to, and use of, products like Kindle that house online content?

I’m intrigued by commentary from Jonathan Zittrain, author of “The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It”, about this situation almost a week before Bezos’ apology.  Zittrain writes in his blog:

Another fascinating aspect of the Cloud: everything is rented rather than owned, and can be taken away with only a refund to show for it.  I worry about this phenomenon in my book — I just didn’t have any good examples at the time of writing. My concern isn’t just about publishers having second thoughts about their material.  It’s the tool handed to regulators: someone could allege defamation for a passage in a book and a court, aside from awarding damages, could order Amazon to excise the offending passage retroactively.  Same for politically sensitive speech.

I suppose I don’t gravitate too far to the conspiracy theory and Big Brother mapped by Orwell in the very book deleted by Amazon in this situation.  But, like both of these Amazon customers, I think this case study will point to new ways to consider how the individual is kept at the center of the issue when companies face such decisions in the future:

What do you think?

So I watched the Kevin Spacey piece on Letterman last night and had a good laugh like thousands of others (maybe millions).  The two of them covering off on an emergent technology like Twitter was hilarious to say the least.

But the moment that caught my intrigue was when Spacey (@KevinSpacey) pulled out his phone and typed a quick message into Twitter real time.

In just a few seconds his action created a moment of personal connection for any of the 829,000+ followers who track him.  Granted — the show isn’t live, so those people caught the update hours before it aired on TV.  But, still, if they watched the episode on TV and they follow Spacey I’m certain they checked his updates. And they felt somehow “in” on the action.

Today, Spacey paid off the obvious large number of replies he received: Glad you enjoyed Dave & my Twitter banter last night. Back shooting in New Orleans today. Hope all are feeling positive & sending good vibes.  Through a celebrity comment on a “live” TV program coupled with his tweet, Spacey created a sort of omni-present moment for his followers.  In a sense, they participated with him on Letterman.

This evening I came across a completely different example involving just two people.  Ivan Campuzano is a blogger focused on personal growth and development.  On Twitter he has a following of over 10,000 people (@IvanCampuzano).  His blog is full of video clips, words, phrases, quotes, and ideas about improving yourself.  His work clearly connects with people and makes a difference for many.

Today he shared an experience in which he was touring a coffee plant in Costa Rica, tweeted about the tour, and before it was over he was given a gift purchased online for him by someone from Alaska.  Turns out, the gift-giver is a Twitter follower who saw the tweet and took the time to find the plant’s online store, make a purchase, and request that it be delivered to Ivan in person before he left.  He tells the story in a recently posted video.

This experience shows how geographic limitations go away as a barrier to creating a moment for connection between two people.  The guy in Alaska wanted to express appreciation to Campuzano and found an immediate opportunity in which he could do just that.  Geography didn’t matter.  He didn’t have to be there physically to “be there” in the moment.

Finally, while writing this post, I saw the Best Buy “twelpforce” advertisement for the first time.  I enjoyed the ad.  But, more importantly… Best Buy’s effort makes it possible for thousands of passionate employees to be “omni-present” for questions of customers looking for solutions.  Location doesn’t matter. Personal connection or familiarity isn’t required.  Used this way, Twitter facilitates authentic moments between people in a way that provides genuine value.  Way to go!

In short, these three examples show how technology is breaking down barriers to real connections between people.  We almost can be omnipresent in certain aspects of the lives of other people without having to be there.  Sometimes that can just be cool (fans of Spacey who are also on Twitter), it can be meaningful and fulfilling (surprising a mentor with a live gift give-away), or it can help you make better purchase decisions (seeking input from thousands of Best Buy customers/prospects).

That is at the heart of consumer centricity.  

What omni-present moments have you had with any social media platform?

Ok, so if you have kids and have ever been a part of a community swim team for the summer you know the excitement of swim meets.  Actually, they are very exciting, especially with our four kids all competing plus our good friends and four of their kids going at it, too.  Eight different competitors changing the history of swimming in Lakeway, TX, every Saturday morning for 3-4 hours.  

The organized chaos of these meets is a work of genius from the community swimming founders, whomever they are. A couple hundred kids, parents, and siblings moving like clockwork in and out of 80+ events in a three-hour period.  It’s just cool.  Although the first time we came to this last year I must admit I was a bit freaked out… its kind of cultish in a way.  I digress.

Point of this quick little post is I don’t know why I didn’t discover the Wi-Fi connection at our pool a long time ago.  You see, swim meets are fun to see your kids progress and compete… but after the 30-45 seconds of seeing them in their heat for an event, you’ve got 32 heats to wait until your next 34-second glimpse of your next kid!  Lots of downtime…

But now, enter a decent Wi-Fi connection, my laptop and iPhone, and I’m set.  Oops… gotta go watch my 5-yr-old try to swim 25 yards and make it to the end of the pool.

He did it!  

Ok, so sitting here from this vantage point I can see the pool, finish line, give high-fives to the kids as they head to the starting line, and hop up to cheer on during the exciting spurts of swimming energy.

That’s cool!  

Beyond that, it points to the type of solutions that marketers/businesses/brands need to offer the people with whom they seek to connect. Understanding how people live their lives and what is important to them… and then match that to the various settings in which we live our lives… well, that insight can lead to solutions that solve problems or enhance experiences for people.

That’s a people centric approach. That is the thinking innovative marketers today use to genuinely connect with their audiences.

Oh, and by the way, my 5-year-old actually swam half-way down the pool before taking a break and then finishing the race.  And my 12-year-old just took 6 seconds off her 100-meter individual medley race.

Time to go watch my oldest show her stuff.  But now, during the 23-minute breaks of nothing to watch I’ll catch up online!  

And… I’ll get back to playing with the family… just thought it’d be cool to quickly post these thoughts!