Digital body language « Conversity.be

19Jul/120

96% of Belgians under 40 have internet access

The Consumer Barometer is an interactive tool that helps you quantify the role of online in the consumer journey from research to purchase. It includes data from 39 countries (including Belgium) across 36 different product categories. You can now quickly gain insights on consumer behaviour and create your own graphs.

Filed under: Analytics, Digital body language No Comments

13Apr/110

The importance of customer reviews

In his presentation ‘The Real Life Social Network v2’, design strategist Paul Adams explains why we often look to others when making decisions:

People try to behave rationally, they try to make objective decisions, but other factors mean that they can’t. The problem is that we all have limited access to information, and limited memory. Because of this, we have learned to rely on others to help us make decisions.
We assume that other people know things that we don’t. In fact, we do this so often, that we automatically look to the actions of others, even when the answer is obvious.

In so doing, we increase our reliance on social networks to make decisions:

The web is increasing the volume of information available to us, but our capacity for memory isn’t changing. So it is likely that we will increasingly turn to others to make decisions. There was once a time when we picked what restaurant to eat in by looking in the window.
But now, we often can’t decide without pulling out our phones and searching the web for reviews from people who have eaten there before.

Interesting question: how would negative reviews by people who've eaten in that restaurant before influence your decision to go in and order dinner? According to a Lightspeed Research study, between one and three bad online reviews would be enough to deter the majority (67%) of shoppers from purchasing a product or service.

The study also found that the majority of "window shoppers" used the internet for some kind of product research before making a purchase online or offline. This is in line with McKinsey's Consumer Decision Journey model. Just before the "golden moment", the moment of purchase (online or offline), people enter what McKinsey calls the active evaluation phase. To find the information and opinions they're looking for, shoppers will often go online. For information, they turn to Google Search. For opinions, they turn to friends and family (including their extended circle of friends and family on their social networks). They also look at review sites.

4 ways to upload your vitals to the body cloud

Withings and nikerun are two examples of ‘smart devices’. I first heard about them through French entrepreneur and blogger Loic Lemeur, and now he's trying out a third one: Zeo Personal Sleep Coach.

Withings

Withings is the ‘first WiFi scale linked to the internet that automatically registers weight, fat and bmi calculation.’ I remember that cartoon cat Garfield once had scales that talked back to him, but in this case the scales actually publish your weight on your Twitter and/or Facebook account. Loic Lemeur currently weighs 100 kg of which 18.7 kg is body fat. Here's the graph:

NikeRun

Nike+iPod is a device bundle that consists of a small accelerometer that you can to clip on to your running shoe. It communicates with the Nike+ Sportband, a receiver plugged into an iPod nano, or directly with a second or third generation iPod Touch, iPhone 3gs or iPhone 4. If you use the iPod or the iPhone 3gs, iTunes software can be used to view the history of a particular walk or run. This history can be interesting if you want to ‘race’ against other runners – even if these people are doing their run at a different time, in a different time zone or even on the other side of the planet.

Zeo

Zeo is "designed to help you analyze your sleep and improve it, so you can be your best every day. It’s composed of a lightweight wireless headband, a bedside display, a set of online analytical tools, and an email-based personalized coaching program." Here's what it looks like when Loic Lemeur puts it on:

Meal Snap

And finally, there's iPhone app Meal Snap, which "lets you take pictures of the meal you eat, and then magically tells you what food was in your meal. Oh yeah, we tell you how many calories you ate too. Food tracking has never been easier." I think this is the app Cain R is still missing to reach his weight loss goal. He already takes pictures of almost everything he eats but is clearly oblivious of the amount of calories:

Mobile devices can now be used for selftracking, automatically monitoring and logging your weight, calorie intake, heart rate, treatments, sleep patterns, etc., as well as the conditions and symptoms relating to (for example) depression, infections or high cholesterol.
EnterprisemobileToday.com’s Mobile Download Guide to Best Health has a comprehensive list of iPhone apps that can ‘help folks monitor their nutrition; follow daily activity, exercise and weight loss regimes; calculate and track various biological factors; diagnose illness; monitor disease; know what to do in an emergency; etc.’

Loic Lemeur sees all this as "one more step to opening his body API" and hints that "iToilet, iSex and iFood are next into the body cloud".

What about you? How far would you go to get a better grip on your physical health?

Filed under: Digital body language, Social media for business 1 Comment

20Feb/110

What are t-shirt brands and why are they so popular on Facebook?

The inspiration for this slide deck was Do you know the top FMCG brands on Facebook? by socialbakers.com. In these slides, I look at the social media strategy of a couple of big (mainly U.S.) brands in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods category: Coca-Cola, Oreo, Red Bull, Skittles, Pringles, Monster Energy, Dr Pepper, Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, and Starburst. My main focus: what social media tactics and channels do they use? And what can we learn from their success cases and mistakes?

Top 10 FMCG brands and their social media strategies

View more presentations from Clo Willaerts.

In my first slides, I mention "t-shirt brands". From "The Conversity Model":

If you want to know about people’s favourite brands, the brands that are at the very top of their list, the easiest way is to check which brands they are a ‘fan’ of. This is an example of explicit data: by filling in details of their favourite movies, music, products, services, etc., people are (more or less) aware that are leaving behind proof of the brands which form part of their ‘preset’.
Some people, especially young adults, use brand names as guideposts, as a method of orienting themselves in the world. They are dependent on brands for their self-presentation. This is why some companies seek to provide consumers with ways to find meaning in the meaningless, thereby allowing them to forge identities in a faceless modern world.
Some of these brands have even become credible sources of communities (because they create a sense of belonging). I call them ‘t-shirt brands’, because the ‘fans’ of these brands would (if they could) happily wear a t-shirt with the logo of their favourite, defining brand.

In his book ‘Crowd Surfing’, author Martin Thomas writes:

For many people, this sense of community is reinforced through the brands that they choose to align themselves with. Our relationships with brands may not be as deep and meaningful as those we have with people, but they share many of the same characteristics, especially the desire to belong.
Brands play an important role in people’s lives by providing both a sense of community that comes from being aligned to a particular group, and a feeling of superiority over the masses. This is, after all, the way that trends start.’

Filed under: Case, Definitions, Digital body language, Presentations, Social media for business No Comments

12Sep/100