An Illinois law is proving a thorn in Facebook’s side as a class action lawsuit, alleging mishandling of biometric information, moves towards trial. The latest developments in the case have the social network objecting against releasing or even admitting the existence of all manner of data, but the plaintiffs aren’t taking “objection” for an answer. Read More
The NFL is hoping to expand its presence in China with a new deal that gives social media platform, Sina Weibo – often called China’s Twitter – the rights to live stream select games on its network, including the Super Bowl. The deal marks the first time a sports league will live stream games on the service, the NFL says. Additionally, Sina will gain the rights to… Read More
Twitter is taking another step into getting into live video by introducing 360-degree live streams through Periscope. Anyone on Twitter and Periscope can watch 360-degree live video, though currently only select partners can go live in 360 via Periscope, the company announced in a blog post. While it’s only available for a limited number of partners for now, it makes sense that Twitter… Read MoreThe transition from text-based to visual marketing is already well underway, as customer demand drives organizations to rethink how people communicate on the most basic level.
Cisco estimates video will constitute 80% of all consumer Internet traffic by 2019, and although marketers are racing to catch up, they’re still behind the times: in 2015, 52% of senior marketing executives believed that visual assets such as infographics, photos, videos and illustration could help them tell their brand story. But given that human attention spans dropped a whopping 33% between 2000 and 2015, from 12 to 8 seconds — and some report its dropped even lower — marketers no longer have any choice in the matter: eye-catching visuals that are quick to digest and easy to share will be an essential tool for any brand moving forward.
But what’s a brand to do when you have no idea what visual assets will be both effective and the right fit for your organization? This post will explain a few essential terms and tips you’ll need to get started.
Visual communication may be the most form of all.
It may sound simple enough: visual communication uses images and visuals to create meaning.
Why?
Because it is likely to become the only way that the majority of marketers communicate with their audiences — so you need to know it when you see it. This isn’t just because people prefer video to text, and are more likely to share photos. It’s also easier than ever for any brand to reach an international audience. Just take a look at Google AdWords, which (finally!) launched a redesign in March, of which an essential part of the design was making it language-agnostic to remove obstacles for audiences with a wide variety of backgrounds and skill sets.
When necessary, limited text is included to explicate the meaning. Take a look at Starbucks’ visual communication strategy: one tweeted image incorporates autumn leaves combined with moss emblematic of their Pacific Northwest roots, announcing that the drink in hand is both seasonal and rooted in Starbucks’ larger tradition.
The holidays. When everything shows its heart. #HolidaySpiceFlatWhite pic.twitter.com/XIvy1ZFQMG
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) November 23, 2016
Starbucks’ visual communication strategy ensures every piece of visual content is immediately identifiable with their brand. In one of Starbucks’ most-liked tweets of the last few months, autumn leaves communicate the seasonality of the drink while moss connects to the company’s Pacific Northwest roots — no text necessary.
Another tweet reminds customers (without using a single word) that the brand is famous for just how personalizable their products are. Their stores and products project the same visual identity as their social pages. You know a Starbucks image immediately when you see it. That’s effective visual communication.
Find your holiday favorite: https://t.co/DgCc0G1fIS #RedCups pic.twitter.com/aXW1vNrYuz
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) November 12, 2016
Starbucks communicates its reputation for personalized drinks, the breadth of its product offerings, and its release of seasonal cups — all in a single, text-free illustration.
But it’s easy to fall short of this goal. A great piece of visual communication should communicate in just the same way as the AdWords interface now strives to: without reading a word, you should be able to look at the design and tell what the graphic is about — what message it’s trying to send.
Here are a few questions to ask to determine whether your visual content meets the standards that your audiences will hold you to. If the answer is “no” to any of these, rethink whether your content is really communicating effectively:
Every brand has a story to tell, but with more stories to choose from than ever before, keeping an audience engaged can be a challenge.
The answer lies in what’s already interesting to your viewers: we’re living in the golden age of television and online video; game and virtual realities are becoming more complex every day; and websites encourage visitors to interact actively with their content. Storytelling today has to be something users can see, interact with or hear before they’ll share.
Take a look at Carrington College’s informational motion graphic on springtime allergies:
It transforms pollen, white blood cells, and even mast cells into humorous characters to reframe what could otherwise be a boring explanation as a story. Every audience is attracted to stories — it seems to be a part of our human DNA. And with the help of clever visual storytelling strategies, anything can become a story.
Visual storytelling uses visual communication to craft a narrative that explains a concept and often evokes an emotional response. It’s ideal for those marketers seeking to share an idea, promote a point of view, or convince potential customers of the quality and effectiveness of their product. As with visual communication, education is one of the end goals, but this approach aims to persuade the viewer to reach a specific conclusion.
Here are a few elements that make for a great visual story:
You’ve got more data than ever and no idea how to cull meaning from that data. Or maybe you do know what it means, but it’s nearly impossible to get your colleagues interested in what that data has to say — much less get your customers so excited that they’re willing to retweet that data to their followers. This is where quality information visualization comes in — and “quality” is the keyword.
Information visualization aims to convey meaning as quickly as possible. The primary focus is to educate the viewer, not to persuade them to form a specific opinion. Information visualization can also be aesthetically engaging and even interactive, as The New York Times proves with its visualization of deportation numbers.
But to be effective, you need to use visualizations that stand up to scrutiny, follow mathematical and scientific best practices, and quickly communicate the big picture. Not everyone is up to this task. Here are a few essentials for when you’re visualizing information:
What if you have a more complex story to tell? Most companies do. One piece of content just can’t say everything you need to say.
One piece of content — even if it’s a social post that goes viral or a video that gets thousands of likes — also isn’t likely to assure the long-term success of your company. That’s why more and more organizations are looking at improving their branding by placing more emphasis on visual content and creating a consistent look and feel that will span multiple marketing campaigns and a variety of content types, from motion graphics and interactive pages to infographics and social posts. At the same time, marketing campaigns are now expected to have a consistent and recognizable visual element — something that can be recognized instantly.
Take a look at how Coca-Cola’s one brand campaign launched this year. Its products were available in dozens of countries, with dozens of looks designed for maximum appeal wherever they were sold. It was a massive undertaking, but the company pared down its product design to just four universally recognizable packages.
Coca-Cola’s old strategy was to create new branding for each new product. Now, they’ve united their global branding with four consistent, and instantly recognizable, colors, each of which is visible on all sides, no matter which way the bottle or can is turned on the shelf.
“When people see this new brand identity, they’ll know they’re buying a Coca-Cola,” explained James Sommerville, vice president of global design.
This is all to say that companies are redesigning all their customer-facing content to offer up a consistent visual message. Here are just a few of the benefits of undertaking a visual campaign:
In the end, visual communication is an indispensable tool for any marketer, but execution is key. Not just any visual content will do the job. Consumers ignore sloppily designed or cookie-cutter graphics in favor of those that inspire — not only in how they look but also in how they deliver their primary message. Armed with these essential terms and a list of dos and don’ts, you’ll be well prepared to avoid the pitfalls as you navigate to the visual communications agency that’s right for your brand.
About the Author: Erin McCoy is the Public Relations Manager for Killer Infographics.
The direction you look could one day control your VR or mobile experience thanks to Facebook and Oculus’ latest buy, The Eye Tribe. Oculus confirms to me that this is an official acquisition.The startup has developed a $99 eye tracking device developer kits for computers, and software that can bring gaze-based interfaces to smartphones and potentially virtual reality headsets. Basic… Read More
Egypt has intensified its cyber crackdown under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. In recent years authorities have blocked Facebook’s controversial Free Basics program for not allowing it to spy on users, imprisoned citizens for satirical Facebook posts and reportedly used Deep Packet Inspection technology allowing for extensive surveillance of Egyptians’ online activities. Read More
Snapchat sewed up its first acquisition in Israel this week, according to the outlet Calcalist News. It acquired four-year-old Cimagine, whose augmented reality platform lets consumers instantly visualize products they want to buy in their intended location, paying what Calcalist says was between $30 million and $40 million. According to its LinkedIn page, Cimagine currently works with brands… Read More
Snapchat wants you to play with your face, not just take pictures of it. New Selfie Lens filter games are starting to appear to users, creating an addicting new Snapchat feature that also inspires competition between friends and could become a powerful ad revenue driver. Snapchat confirms this is the launch of a new, native games feature. Back in March, Snapchat tested a limited run of a… Read More
Now it’s Twitter copying Facebook…but in the worst way. Following several embarrassing disclosures of inaccurate metrics by Facebook, today Business Insider’s Alex Heath broke news that Twitter overcharged some advertisers. Between November 7th and December 12th, a source tells BI that video ad buyers were overcharged up to 35%. Twitter apparently informed these… Read More
Nearby Friends didn’t turn into the Foursquare-killer it could have been, but Facebook is still trying to help people meet up in person…with a few changes. Facebook has removed the precise location sharing feature from Nearby Friends, which now only lets you opt-in to broadcasting your approximate distance from friends and current neighborhood. Unmapped Previously, you could select… Read More
Layoffs, a borked acquisition and continued tepid user growth defined Twitter in 2016. And these are all things that make Twitter’s future uncertain, which we know Wall Street does not like. Jack Dorsey’s one-year tenure as CEO was more or less defined by a continue decline in its stock price and, amid all its attempts to try and re-make the service and make it more palatable,… Read More
Mark Zuckerberg gave new insights about how he sees Facebook’s role in informing the world today during a Live video one-on-one year-end chat with COO Sheryl Sandberg. Facebook’s CEO also lent support to employees trying to fight fake news today, though reports indicated some employees with dissatisfied by his initially tepid response to the issue. “Facebook is a new kind… Read MoreFor brands to stay relevant in our fast-paced, mobile and multi-channel world, they must show more value, more novelty, and more values than ever before. The traditional marketing of old — TV commercials, catalogs and most importantly word of mouth, are still very relevant today. Consumer attention, even a second of it, is worth more than gold today, and consumers feel this.
Because of this pressure cooker of demand for their attention, consumers actually appreciate this more traditional type of marketing. The “slow” movements of today — slow food and slow travel, for example — are in reaction to the rapid-fire pace of modern consumer life. Traditional branding and marketing are the “slow marketing” of today, allowing brands and consumers to take a step back in time to a simpler consumer-brand relationship.
With that being said, we are now in a different time — the era of AI, VR and chatbots. If a brand exclusively relies on old school marketing, they run the risk of becoming irrelevant, stale or out of touch. The smart digital marketing, or marketing technology of today can actually help brands position themselves to be at the forefront in their industries.
Martech, shorthand for MARketing TECHnology, are tools that assist marketing professionals in reaching their target audience and marketing goals. These platforms can take the form of email marketing, inbound or outbound marketing, social media marketing, marketing automation, or customer data platforms. Some martech platforms strive to be all-in-one tools, whereas many others perform specific tasks such as user segmentation or landing page optimization. Martech’s use of AI and machine learning actually helps brands connect better emotionally with consumers, touching an important nerve that gives them an edge.
A marketing strategy that combines these two approaches is what really works. Covering all bases ensures a far-reaching approach that can gain all types of consumers, young and old, high-tech and low. Nordstrom, 1-800-Flowers.com and Sephora are three brands that have a well-rounded, varied marketing strategy that utilizes traditional marketing with the new martech to reach impressive heights with ROI, brand awareness and brand loyalty.
Let’s first take a look at how the luxury department store brand Nordstrom pairs its century-old traditional values with 21st century technology.
Nordstrom, the beloved brand that is most known for its all-star customer service, exemplifies the marketing marriage between old school and new by maintaining its core value set while experimenting with new marketing and e-commerce technology.
Nordstrom opened its doors over a century ago, and has reigned as a customer favorite ever since. They are currently number one in customer satisfaction according to a wide-ranging Market Force survey. Their customer service reputation and brand loyalty is what sets them apart. They are known for a liberal and generous return policy; on the Nordstrom.com website, it states, “We handle returns on a case-by-case basis with the ultimate objective of making our customers happy.” There is no time limit for returns per se, and shopping is a full and pleasant experience. Nordstrom’s traditional marketing also includes the monthly Nordstrom catalog and Nordstrom credit card points.
Their new school marketing approach includes a Nordstrom branded app, their website with extensive user generated content and reviews, and their forward-thinking Pinterest buyable pins.
Let’s dig into each.
Pinterest announced last year that users would be able to purchase pins directly on the platform. Nordstrom was one of the large retail brands to get on board. This is a way for a consumer to securely purchase the ‘pin’ or item they are interested in, directly on Pinterest without having to leave the platform.
Nordstrom.com has built up a robust and effective review and ratings system native to it’s website. A review consists of a written section, a 5-star rating system, the option to check boxes with qualities that describe the item, a scale to note if the item runs small or large, wide or thin (for shoes). There is also an option for the user to state whether the review was helpful or not. The user can sort reviews by rating, fit and even age! Just one pair of shoes can have a thread of over 500 reviews (see below). This is a massive amount of user-generated content, for users, by users.
Available for iOS and Android, Nordstrom’s branded app allows users to shop, check to see if a selected product is in a store nearby, and a Reserve and Try in Store feature, where users can put an item on hold and go into the store to try it on. Additionally, users can take a picture of a product they like to see similar items.
Users can browse, shop, and purchase all within the app.
With all that said, something is working for Nordstrom.
While other department stores taking a downturn (retail insiders point to Amazon’s dominance), Nordstrom’s sales last year were at a record high of $14.1 billion, up 35% since 2011.
Just from the company’s name, you can tell that 1-800-Flowers started off in a simpler consumer world, compared to our mobile-dominated reality of today. However, from the get-go they were early adopters of the newest technology of the time; they were one of the first retailers to use a toll-free retail phone number for direct sales, and subsequently online. And as early as 2009, they were doing e-commerce on Facebook (where they were one of the earliest adopters).
The company’s classic relationship marketing has always been paired with the latest technology. From their founding, 1-800-Flowers has relied on word of mouth recommendations and a stellar reputation with consumers while simultaneously pushing the boundaries by adopting the latest technology of the time. Jim McCann, the company’s founder, discusses personal relationships with customers as key to their marketing and business strategy: “It is critical for us to create and maintain a much deeper, engaged, and trusting relationship with the customer.”
They are known for innovating in order to make it easier and more fruitful for the customer to get what they need. They have consistently been an early adopter in the realm of e-commerce and marketing technology in order to make the customer journey easier, through channels like Facebook, their own website and integrations with other e-commerce platforms.
Let’s see how they’re doing it.
Back in 2009, 1-800-Flowers set up an e-commerce store on their Facebook page, way before anyone was doing it.
Now, the brand’s strategy to attract a younger generation on mobile and social is working very well. Their reasonable price points also contribute to this fact.
Since April of this year, 1-800-Flowers has a Facebook chatbot that can handle full transactions. They were one of the first two retailers to launch a chatbot on Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg even used 1-800-Flowers as an example when demonstrating how the chatbots work, during the 2016 F8 conference.
The 1-800-Flowers.com website is detailed, thorough and makes the customer journey very simple by offering themed arrangements sorted by occasion (i.e., Christmas, Birthday, Sympathy, etc.).
They also offer a special membership called “Celebrations Passport,” similar to “Amazon Prime” where the customer pays a set price per year and receives free shipping and a waived service charge on orders.
Besides their Facebook chatbot, 1-800-Flowers has two other AI tools: integration with Amazon’s Alexa and IBM Watson’s concierge service, which have attracted over 10,000 users, most of them new — and young.
Amazon Alexa
1-800-Flowers got in on the Internet-of-Things action with their integration with Amazon’s Alexa, the voice-enabled personal assistant. Customers can order flowers and gifts through their mobile devices or on Amazon’s Echo (their smart speaker) by saying, “Alexa, ask 1-800-Flowers to send flowers to Mom before Christmas.” For this to happen, the customer must have a registered 1-800-Flowers account and provide the shipping and payment details beforehand.
IBM Watson
The flower brand launched a digital “concierge” service called GWYN (Gifts When You Need), right before Mother’s Day earlier this year. IBM’s Watson, an AI agent that uses machine learning to help consumers choose the perfect gift for someone, powers the service. The service is available on desktop and mobile.
It works by the customer typing something into GYWN to start the process, like, “I want to buy a birthday gift.” GYWN will then ask the customer follow-up questions to narrow down the search, such as “Is it for a female or a male? Age 25 or 30?” The more data GWYN collects over time, she becomes “smarter” and will be able to present better options to customers in the future.
1-800 Flowers are now using advanced martech platform Optimove, who recently announced a CRM optimization bot to help companies target their current customers better. This predictive analytics technology is key for the brand’s successful customer retention strategy. 1-800-Flowers uses this technology to present personalized deals and offers to their current customer base throughout multiple channels.
Sephora is an innovative beauty brand that uses creativity and technology to connect with customers, while utilizing traditional marketing to stay grounded.
Sephora is popular with consumers via word of mouth recommendations — how much more old school can you get than that? Their rewards program is well-known for imbuing a traditional marketing strategy — a loyalty program — with life and personality. The program has three levels of membership based on the amount a customer purchases per year as well as a newly-introduced “Beauty Bazaar” with rewards twice per week. Rewards can range from regular beauty products to a makeover, to something over-the-top as a makeup class at Anastasia Beverly Hills.
Sephora has a cutting-edge branded app with highly interactive features, focusing on a fun and rich user experience. One Augmented Reality (AR) based feature is the “Product Try-On” (see below) where users can virtually try on beauty products like lipstick and eyelashes, to see what they would actually look like on their faces. They can then purchase the item from the app — pretty smart, right?
Sephora is winning at cross-channel social media. Here’s how.
Hashtags
The beauty brand has a popular hashtag that they use, #TrendingAtSephora, to market and connect with customers, even on different platforms. The tweet below highlights how the brand uses one channel — Twitter — to get traffic in another channel — Facebook — for a Facebook Live tutorial.
Learn about the next great wave of #TrendingAtSephora skincare from our experts—right now on Facebook Live: https://t.co/J2WxzkyL1e
— Sephora (@Sephora) October 6, 2016
Facebook chatbot
Sephora recently unveiled a Facebook bot that allows customers to book consultations or in-store makeovers.
The brand also just announced they will be rewarding customers with gift cards directly on social media through a partnership with CashStar, a prepaid commerce solution. This can be useful for customer brand ambassadors and customers who’ve had customer service issues.
Sephora’s mix of classic and trailblazing marketing techniques are their forte, which translates into branding success.
Nordstrom, 1-800 Flowers and Sephora have done what most brands fail to do: combine time-honored marketing approaches with modern martech to ensure relevancy and a competitive edge while being respected in their industries and by consumers.
Starting with the traditional value of putting exemplary customer experience number one, while simultaneously extending their digital reach with cutting-edge e-commerce, branded apps and advanced marketing technologies, these brands find and maintain the balance. By learning from these top-tier companies on how to pair traditional marketing with new martech, companies can grow with the times while staying grounded — a feat that is challenging, yet possible.
About the Author: Shayna Smilovitz is a writer living in Tel Aviv, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. She loves writing about the intersection between marketing, technology and culture. You can follow her on Twitter.
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Facebook’s shadowy Building 8 research team needs help from academia to invent futuristic hardware. But today’s pace of innovation doesn’t allow for the standard 9-12 month turnaround time it takes universities to strike one-off research partnerships with private companies. Enter SARA, aka Facebook’s “Sponsored Academic Research Agreement”. It’s a… Read More
Facebook released its latest transparency report today, detailing government requests for user data for the first half of 2016. According to the report, government requests for account data increased by 27 percent globally as compared with the last half of 2015. The number of requests grew from 46,710 to 59,229, Facebook said. The majority of the requests (56%) received from U.S. law… Read More Facebook’s shadowy Building 8 research facility needs help from academia to invent futuristic hardware. But today’s pace of innovation doesn’t allow for the standard 9-12 month turnaround time it takes universities to strike one-off research partnerships with private companies. Enter SARA, aka Facebook’s “Sponsored Academic Research Agreement”. It’s a… Read More