Over the past few years, consumers have grown accustomed to having access to the Internet everywhere they go through their smartphones. This of course, has led companies to follow the consumer, by going mobile, too. According to a study done by the IMRG, 16% more people are using mobiles for fashion purchases than other online retail transactions – and retailers have only just caught up with this (2015). The percentage of fashion brands that own a mobile site has dramatically increased over the past three years, from less than half in 2012 to a staggering 80% in 2015.
‘We’re finding out how people shop now: They’re standing in a line at Starbucks, let’s say, and they start browsing on eBay. They see something they want and they buy it right there.’ – John Donahoe, CEO of eBay
A crucial thing for retailers to understand is how to reach the consumer in the best way, by implementing their online activity to the mobile device. Research undergone by the Pew Research Centre claimed that 74% of U.S. smartphone users used their phone to obtain location-based information (2012). Many retailers, such as Walgreens, have stepped up to the plate, by teaming up with apps such as FourSquare, a location based social networking website and app, to offer customers coupons as soon as they entre the Walgreens store. Macy’s offers free Wi-Fi in its stores, which means they can obtain consumer data instantly (by inviting consumers to log in to their network with their Facebook or e-mails) – and customers can scan QR codes on products to see online reviews, prices, and exclusive video content on fashion trends, advice, and tips (Brynjolfsso et al, 2013).
Location-based marketing efforts are becoming increasingly important for local retailers to implement, due to the growing competition from companies in other geographical areas. Local retailers can use location-based apps to rev sales activities up by sending out promotional messages to consumers within the vicinity, or even to people in a competitor’s store. Retailers are learning to respond to consumers using price scan apps in local stores, with more focused promotional offers.
Additionally, the design of the mobile pathway to a companies full website should be recognised. The footwear retailer Schuh, claims that 49% of their site visitors come from a mobile, a further 21% from a tablet; which leaves 30% of consumers visiting from a desktop computer (Durkin, 2015).
2 companies that have successfully gone mobile:
Amazon
Of course, Amazon is constantly being recognised for their effective mobile platforms, with its neat and systematic presentation. Additionally, Amazon’s well-curated, consumer-generated content and reviews creates an easy communication between the consumers and Amazon, while going through their purchase decision process (Brynjolfsso et al, 2013).
H&M
By partnering with MyTown, a location based app, H&M has gathered and used consumer information to track their locations. Through ‘gamifying’ – potential customers that are playing the game on a mobile device near an H&M store and check-in, H&M rewards them with virtual clothing and points. If consumers scan promoted products in store, it enters them in a sweepstakes to win prizes. Early results of these digital efforts showed that of the 700,000 customers who checked in online, 300,000 went into the store and scanned an item (Davenport et al, 2011).
Critical Analysis:
Avoid direct price comparisons:
Although consumers benefit from easy search, such advances can be damaging to sellers. Taking steps to make direct comparisons difficult can protect retailers from poaching by competitors and alleviate the effects of price competition (Brynjolfsso et al, 2013).
Keep it simple:
Retailers must keep up with the consumer. It’s all about user experience over driving conversion in an obvious way. A few years ago, with web, the more features on a website the better, however, on mobile, people are comfortable having a few number of apps and services that do one function. However, this one function must be done well, fast, and kept simple. Retailers will only be caught out if they don’t address this shift in consumer mentality (Durkin, 2015).
Lessons Learned:
Focus on location – work with location-based apps to increase online/offline sales
Make it fun for the consumer – why would they want to download your app if it doesn’t give them exclusive and additional benefits?
Keep it simple and to the point – create a clean design so consumers don’t get lost and close the app
In 2015, online retail sales were predicted to reach £52.25bn, a 16.2% increase from the previous year (Moth, 2015). These e-commerce trends are only expected to rise, and thus the attention retailers are giving to their digital retail platforms are crucial. According to a study by the Financial Times, British consumers spend an average of around 4.8 times more online than in-store (2014).
Of course, consumers still shop offline, thus understanding the difference in motivators behind offline and online shopping is important for companies who are threatened of e-commerce growth. A study by Brown (1988) suggested that consumers suffer non-monetary costs when shopping offline; time, effort, and psychological costs, in addition to the extra cost spent in store. However, a report published by the State of Retail in 2015 states that consumers prefer to shop offline, in physical retail stores:
‘The bottom line is customers value the personal experience of the physical store,” said Gary Ambrosino, CEO of TimeTrade. “We found that shoppers have done their shopping or discovery online, then go into the store to get help with their final purchase decision.’
Thus, the only stage of the consumer purchase decision process made offline is the purchase decision. Even the post purchase decision can be found online, through customer reviews.
Companies with a positive presence on review sites as well as other forms of social media will benefit from the mere exposure effect, in which consumers favour a product or company to which they have been previously exposed (Smith, 2012). A survey done by BrightLocal, found that an astounding 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation (DeMers, 2015). This viral word of mouth represents one of the fasts growing phenomena on the Internet, as social media and virtual communities provide platforms to tell the world how they feel about a product or company (Mangold & Smith, 2012). Social media has the potential to influence all stages of the consumption process, including awareness, information acquisition, attitudes, decision-making, and post purchase evaluation (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Enabling customer reviews on the company’s site can also have a positive effect on the company’s organic search ranking in search engines (Colao, 2014). Both scholars and practitioners claim customer retention to be one of the critical success factors for retail businesses; the cost of acquiring new customers is five to seven times that of retaining existing ones (Doyle, 2003).
Motivations for online shoppers mirror that of offline shoppers, and can be seen as two: experiential (for fun) or goal directed (for efficiency). Additionally, scholars have also discovered that the higher playfulness associated with experiential behaviour results in a more positive mood, greater shopping satisfaction and a higher likelihood of impulse purchasing compared to goal-focused shopping (Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001).
So what should companies do on their digital platforms?
Be Playful With Your Consumers!
ASOS
ASOS, an online fashion retailer, regularly ‘gamifies’ the online shopping experience with competitions such as fashion bingo, matching celebrities with clothing and Pinterest competitions to win prizes.This particular ‘Love’ themed competition proved to be rather spot on; running around Valentines Day. With one winner every hour, and in one combined effort, ASOS had pulled off this campaign that would get them Facebook Activity, Tweets (with a hashtag trending), and extra visits to their sites (2011).
Jack Wills
Another retailer using interactive games to retain customers is Jack Wills, in which customers can scan their gift guide Christmas calendar each day for a chance to win prizes. The key is to stay relevant; a calendar competition wouldn’t make much sense in April, right? Additionally, this gives consumers an incentive to keep coming back. Every. Single. Day.
Missguided
Missguided is another great example of retailer utilising the power of social media for consumer engagement. By inviting consumers to share selfies of themselves, with the hashtag #MissguidedActive, the retailer is recognised in the tag, the users are engaged, and it is relevant, by offering a prize of ‘Protein World’ goodies, a brand affiliated with healthy lifestyle.
Conclusion
If companies want consumers to be talking about their products, they need to be active on their social media platforms. Social networking sites were found to be the most popular online venue for product discussions (Smith, 2012). According to a survey by eMarketer (December 2010), millennials are talking about products and services online more than the general population, and their preferred channels to do this are Facebook and company websites.
“Marketers must acknowledge the phenomenon of social media because it is becoming “the de facto modus operandi for consumers who are disseminating information on products and services” (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
Thus, in order for companies to enhance the customer online shopping experience, they must bridge the gap between the stages of the purchasing decision. Consumers should be urged to read reviews on the company’s own website, then follow with an easy gateway towards the purchase, rather than purchasing offline. Additionally, in order to retain these consumers and boost online sales, companies must ensure they are playful with their online marketing, inviting consumers to engage through social media through competitions and prizes. Furthermore, during these ‘gamified’ marketing efforts, companies should ensure that through this engagement, consumers are invited to like, share, and post with a trending hashtag associated with the company.
Critical analysis
The emphasis on customers’ ‘willingness to participate’ in online communications is becoming crucial for the success of promotional activities. (Parent, Plangger, & Bal, 2011). This means that marketers need to implement social media as part of their marketing mix. This may be a timely and rather complex task, if the company’s current social media platforms are not used that often. This is also a ‘new’ phenomenon, therefore understanding and implementing it into a traditional company may seem strenuous.
The digital platforms in which consumers post their reviews/ratings such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs should be carefully monitored for reviews concerning the company or product. This can be accomplished by keeping careful track of communications on and surrounding a Facebook page, by book marking relevant sites, and by subscribing to RSS feeds (Smith, 2012).
Lessons Learned:
Allow reviews on your website, that way it’s easier to monitor
Retain online shoppers by being playful: through interactive games, competitions, and prizes – always get the consumer involved
Start a hashtag competition – ensure you invite consumers to like, share, and subscribe to the online platforms
References:
Bauer, H., Falk, T. and Hammerschmidt, M. (2006). eTransQual: A transaction process-based approach for capturing service quality in online shopping. Journal of Business Research, 59(7), pp.866-875.
Häubl, G. and Trifts, V. (2000). Consumer Decision Making in Online Shopping Environments: The Effects of Interactive Decision Aids. Marketing Science, 19(1), pp.4-21.
Khalifa, M. and Liu, V. (2007). Online consumer retention: contingent effects of online shopping habit and online shopping experience. European Journal of Information Systems, 16(6), pp.780-792.
Kim, J. and Park, J. (2005). A consumer shopping channel extension model: attitude shift toward the online store. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal, 9(1), pp.106-121.
Mangold, W. and Smith, K. (2012). Selling to Millennials with online reviews. Business Horizons, 55(2), pp.141-153.
Roy Dholakia, R. and Uusitalo, O. (2002). Switching to electronic stores: consumer characteristics and the perception of shopping benefits. Intl J of Retail & Distrib Mgt, 30(10), pp.459-469.
Wolfinbarger, M. and Gilly, M. (2001). Shopping Online for Freedom, Control, and Fun.California Management Review, 43(2), pp.34-55.
Social media’s prevalence in modern day advertising cannot be ignored. Although digital marketing is hardly a new concept, it is only since very recently that companies have utilised social media enough to become ‘the pillar of the advertising industry’ – with a total of 20 billion dollars spent on social media advertising just last year (The Economist, 2015).
Despite the ever-increasing popularity of social media, there have been concerns over its effect on sustaining a strong brand image. Harvard Business Review claims that very few brands have generated meaningful consumer interest online – even going as far to say that social media have ‘made brands less significant than before’ (2016).
Traditionally, brands would use one-to-many marketing, such as advertising, as a medium to tell their brand stories to reach consumers. Back then, consumers modified these firm generated brand stories to create their own versions, but their individual voices were not strong, and could be safely ignored by the brand managers if they chose to do so. The increasing use of social media among consumers has led to a fundamental shift in authentic brand storytelling. Consumers who are now empowered to share their brand stories easily and widely through social networks have gained a more valued voice that brand managers cannot ignore any longer (Gensler et al, 2013).
‘The emergence of social media has changed the consumers’ role in storytelling from that of a passive listener to a more active participant.’ – (Singh & Sonneburg, 2012)
Although many strategists have their own views on the merits of brands utilising their social media pages, these can be broken down into two forms of brand storytelling:
Firm generated brand stories and consumer/user generated brand stories:
User-generated content follows an interactive, participative, and multi-vocal rather than a tightly controlled/push process of branding (Vescovi & Vernuccio, 2016). The tightly controlled/push process of firm-generated branding works by understanding the brand as a controlled asset that is firm-owned, which can be built in the consumer minds through carefully coordinated marketing activities (Gensler et al, 2013). Consumer-generated brand stories interpret past or anticipated brand experiences that can be both positive and negative; for example, homage to a brand or consumer complaints (Gensler et al, 2013). These stories can be told through offline and online platforms, however, consumer generated stories told through social media are much more impactful because they utilize social networks, are digital, visible, pervasive, available in real-time, and dynamic (Hennig-Thurau et al, 2010).
A Closer Look Into Burberry:
When analysing strong online branding through consumer generated brand storytelling in the fashion industry, it is almost impossible to leave one particular company unmentioned. Their iconic and everlasting product is its trench coat, one that parallels the brands basic values of democratic luxury, function, and modern classic style. The versatility of the trench was what made it so iconic; with people from all different backgrounds wearing the same style coat in a million different ways. This is how their innovative digital journey began. Burberry decided to leverage consumers who personify the brand by generating content that appeals to them by them. The Art of the Trench campaign is a website in which consumers could upload a picture of themselves wearing their Burberry trench coats, share with their peers, and visitors of the site could buy the coat directly off of the Burberry website (Tobias, 2013).
What makes consumer generated branding work so well for companies is that it also acts as a direct review platform. HBR claims ‘that the single most powerful impetus to buy is someone else’s advocacy’ (2016). When potential buyers of Burberry find that there are hundreds of consumers who love their products – enough to share images of them wearing the products online – it creates a preconceived notion that these products work for anyone, and thus, pushes that potential buyer closer to the final purchase decision making process.
“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook, co-founder, Intuit
This approach follows both Consumers-to-Company and Consumers-to-Consumers online marketing approach (Kiani, 1998). With the consumers-to-company approach, consumers are now active participants and partners in the production; therefore, the motivation of consumers to respond and interact is a key point of virtual marketing. The Consumers-to-Consumers approach suggests that marketers approach interactive media as an opportunity to establish a dialogue and benefit from many possibilities this media can provide. Armstrong and Hagel (1996) suggest that commercial success in the online market will belong to those firms that organise electronic communities to meet social and commercial needs (Kiani, 1998).
The Art of the Trench draws Burberry’s brand values closer to its consumers through the modern art of street photography, blogging, and sharing through the web. The site also offers information about the history of the Burberry trench coat, providing images of vintage models from 1910 moving through the decades with different forms of media, featuring today’s generation of supermodels, such as Kate Moss and Stella Tennant. Although these brand values stem from Burberry itself, they are perpetuated from consumer-to-company and consumer-to-consumer, as Burberry relies on the audience to publish the photos and the consumers to create a dialogue amongst them selves, creating an online global Burberry community, which could not have been done with firm-generated branding alone.
Lessons Learned:
Firm Generated Branding is not dead…
But is more powerful through Consumer-to-Consumer marketing
Consumer Generated Branding allows a more authentic voice to be heard
Company’s must evoke brand values in Consumer Generated Branding – otherwise brand can get lost
Sources:
Edelman, D. (2016). Branding in the Digital Age. Harvard Business Review.
Gensler, S., Völckner, F., Liu-Thompkins, Y. and Wiertz, C. (2013). Managing Brands in the Social Media Environment. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(4), pp.242-256.
Hennig-Thurau, T., Malthouse, E., Friege, C., Gensler, S., Lobschat, L., Rangaswamy, A. and Skiera, B. (2010). The Impact of New Media on Customer Relationships. Journal of Service Research, 13(3), pp.311-330.
Reza Kiani, G. (1998). Marketing opportunities in the digital world. Internet Research, 8(2), pp.185-194.
Chris Messina, a former Google designer, was the first to propose to Twitter, the adoption of the hashtag (#). The picture below, dating back to August 2007, is the first ever tweet using the hashtag symbol in its present day use (Page, 2012).
Today, hashtags are used in almost all other social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Hashtags are widely used to define a shared context for specific events, topics, or meme (Ma et al, 2012). On most social media websites, a hashtag is translated into a clickable link that enables an easy search of tweets using the same hashtag (Suh et al, 2010). On Twitter, a frequently used hashtag amongst a large portion of its’ users could appear on the ‘trending topics’ sidebar on their website, which promotes a topic or term to an audience which extends far beyond the follower list of the person who used the hashtag. Landing on the ‘trending topics’ list is perceived as having influence or holding a status (Page, 2012).
Beyond being a bookmark for content, the hashtag serves as the symbol of a community (Yang et al, 2012). This virtual community is defined through the hashtag of users with the same background, the same interest, or involved in the same conversation or task.
A user can join such a community by sampling including the hashtag in their own tweets (Yang et al, 2012).
According to Forbes, tweets with hashtags get two times more clicks, retweets, favourites, and replies than tweets without hashtags (Patel, 2015). However, there is a limit to the usage of hashtags on a single post on different social media channels. Forbes recommends that for Twitter, the maximum amount of hashtags to use in one single tweet is two. Any more than that, and a company can diminish their engagement. In contrary, the limit on Instagram is endless. A post harnessing eleven or more hashtags retains the highest engagement.
Sure, having hashtags on posts help. But how do companies utilise the hashtag to its fullest potential?
Invent your own unique hashtag that describes the company or product. For example: ‘ToBeSharedAgain’
Start a hashtag movement – Popular hashtags have the ability to launch revolutions. For example: #blacklivesmatter
Participate in trending hashtags and customise your own Twitter trends by viewing the ‘trending topics’ tab on Twitter’s website (Patel, 2015)
Success story of the hashtag: #MakeItHappy campaign
Coca Cola evoked emotion through their Superbowl ad during last year’s TV event. The ad showed coca cola spilling into the wiring of the Internet, causing every negative message online to turn into a positive one, followed by the hashtag #MakeItHappy appearing on the screen. The message of the ad correlated directly with the company’s values of Happiness – and was only perpetuated by evoking emotion and further engaging consumers on social media. This engagement was powered by the clever algorithm that the company created, converting every tweet with the #MakeItHappy tag into pictures of cute dogs or the like. People quickly jumped to share their messages of positivity and fun, all through the Coca Cola name. (Yohn, 2015)
Now, to contrast: #WhyIStayed Campaign:
DiGiorno Pizza’s #WhyIStayed campaign is a clear example of how using a hashtag on social media can quickly turn ugly. Trying to participate in trending tweets to gain brand recognition, DiGiorno tweeted the below:
Unfortunately, the company posted this without looking into the context of the hashtag. Women from all over the world were tweeting stories about their domestic abuse stories, using the exact same tag: #WhyIStayed. Although DiGiorno quickly responded by deleting the tweet and replying to upset Twitter users, it goes to show that one innocent hashtag mistake could lead to an uproar of negative press for a company (Griner, 2014).
How can companies measure the hashtag’s success?
Use analytics websites such as; Hootsuite, Sproutsocial, Hashtracking (Geho et al, 2012)
If the company is using their own hashtag such as: #ToBeSharedAgain, they can search this tag on instagram and it will show how many times the tag has been used: for example:
Lessons learned:
Hashtag can be meaningless if it doesn’t affect company positively
Hashtags should be used less as a message and more as a call to action for consumers that leads to greater brand engagement
However, these hashtags can only directly lead to greater brand engagement if they are used as the starting point for participants
Think before you Tweet!
Sources:
Coca Cola, (2013). Coca-Cola Make It Happy Coca Cola Big Game Commercial 2015 #MakeItHappy Vote: 6.50 USA Today. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwRwuQmS45U [Accessed 3 Apr. 2016].
Geho, P. and Dangelo, J. (2012). THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MARKETING TOOL FOR ENTREPRENEURS. 17, pp.69-74.
Suh, B., Hong, L., Pirolli, P. and Chi, E. (2010). Want to be Retweeted? Large Scale Analytics on Factors Impacting Retweet in Twitter Network. Palo Alto Research Center, Inc.
Yang, L., Sun, T., Zhang, M. and Mei, Q. (2012). We Know What @You #Tag: Does the Dual Role Affect Hashtag Adoption?. School of Information, the University of Michigan.