The Hermes paradox
Can a brand that exists since 1837 have one of the most inventive website? Yes, Hermes can. It has succeeded to manage a perfect balance between very important criteria: heritage, entertainment and highly innovative user-interface.
The website is built around two parts:
First, “Les ailes d’Hermes”, which is dedicated to the brand awareness. It displays more artistic pictures of the products. It also explains the techniques that the Hermes craftsmen use. This carries the Hermes heritage in a very modern way.
It is also a place where the brand can be “bolder” and interact with its customers. As we said, the website offers very entertaining pages and it’s very easy to flick through those without seeing the time flying by. It exploits the new trends of fashion such as above “customization” of one of its flagship product. A product that you will be able to download, to customize, to print and then to glue in order to create your own paper bracelet.
The second part of the website is the online store which has been ranked in the 100 hot 2010 best retail websites by the Internet Retailer. (http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=32584#hermes)
Although it doesn’t offer all that you could find in the brick and mortar boutiques, the offer grows every month. The products are always presented with a water-color drawing which displays the very lifestyle of Hermes and make the products less cold. 
Gorilla Marketing
As more and more traditional mega brands tap into the power of viral marketing (now even Walmart is doing it), I have to think back to the first viral campaign for an old-fashioned consumer product that really knocked me out: Cadbury’s 2007 spot for its flagship plain Dairy Milk Chocolate product. Featuring a massive gorilla seated behind a massive drum set, the ad builds around the opening verses of Phil Collins’s 80’s hit, In the Air Tonight. As the song progesses towards the point where the legendary drum section kicks in, the tension rises, with the gorilla closing its eyes, taking deap nostril-flairing breaths. Then, baba-baba-baba-bum, he comes in just on time, beating his drums in an intense (and comic) moment of release and solitary pleasure. Check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnzFRV1LwIo
The ad, which features virtually no branding except for a brief image of a chololate bar at the very end, had most traditional consumer goods marketers sniggering and scratching their heads. But it worked: not only was the clip viewed by over 5 million people, it generated 91 per cent awareness among British consumers, breathing life into a dusty brand and boosting Dairy Milk sales by a whopping nine per cent. Now that’s return on investment.
F. Patrick Busse
Marketing & the Internet
In Search of Customer Captivity
Today Google announced its acquisition of cloud-based photo editing site Picnik. Supposedly one of the fastest growing photo sites on the web, Picnik’s powerful editing software is currently the default editor for the massive Flickr image repository. But this is likely to change as Google folds the technology into its own competing photo sharing product, Picasa. Makes sense. Except some may look at the acquisition and wonder why Google is competing in the photo space at all? After all, 97% of its revenues come from search. One good reason comes to mind: for all its competitive advantages, Google always has to worry about about customer captivity. In search, defection (and ad dollars) are always just one click away. By increasingly tying customers into their integrated product suite through adjacent offerings such as Gmail and Picasa, they hope to raise switching costs. Furthermore, these adjacent offerings are also invaluable sources of personal user information – and as the idea of social search becomes a reality that could make Facebook a real competitor in the search arena, this information could be critical to Google’s ongoing success.
F. Patrick Busse
Marketing & the Internet
Goodbye Johnny
For some, the publicity around the recently celebrated 10 billionth iTunes music download seemed merely to confirm what most have by now fully digested: physical music sales are a thing of the past, everyone is online these days, and whether you like it or not, the best new model for music in the digital era is Apple’s iTunes store. For others, the fact that the billionth download was a 1958 Johnny Cash song drove home a more problematic truth that calls into question whether iTunes really is a sustainable solution: three quarters of digital music buyers are age 25 or older, and so too was the customer looking to get his Johnny Cash fix. Compare that with with Apple’s other much-hyped landmark sale: the billionth app downloader was a 13 year old kid, i.e the real future. Out with the iPod / iTouch (whose sales are slowing) and the “static 99 cent music downloads that remain wedded to a bygone era.” In with the
F. Patrick Busse
Marketing & the Internet
How YouTube and CPM are Changing Newspaper Websites
I would like to address the change I have seen in the websites of newspapers recently. Unfortunately, with the emergence of YouTube, journalists are now reduced to simple collectors of entertaining YouTube clips instead of being mediators of important news. I can’t count the number of times that journalists post articles in seemingly serious newspapers with the sole purpose of entertaining. Whether it’s top 10 lists of teammates fighting in sports (which I read yesterday), a collection of funny George W. Bush quotes, or celebrities who got a make-over, these posts have nothing to do with news and can be pulled out any rainy day when there is nothing else interesting happening in the world.
Another trend on newspaper websites is that editors are going to more and more extremes in their attempts to generate advertising revenues. As if someone did not know how to scroll down in a window, editors now split up an article in two or three web pages instead of collecting it in one long article. Clearly, the sites generate revenues on pay-per-impression (CPM) and a reader who reads the whole article will now visit three web pages with according revenue generation instead of just one web page. This is very annoying for the reader, but is unfortunately a growing trend in a world run by advertising money and desires to entertain.
What is a struggling social network to do?
Before the emergence of Facebook, Myspace was once the 800 lb gorilla of social networks. While everyone knew that Facebook had been outpacing Myspace’s growth for quite some time, some observers felt that the Company had found its niche as a music centric social network.
But the headlines over the last few weeks have not been kind to the Los Angeles based Company as their CEO, Owen Van Natta was terminated two weeks ago, followed by a number of other high level executives following him out. A recent story on TechCrunch also outlined how an entire project team (5 people) at Myspace was recently let go. What was this project team tasked with? Just a complete re-design of the Myspace web site. The crazy part of the story is that one of the new co-Ceo’s that replaced Van Natta (Mike Jones, who was the former COO) has decided to completely scrap the project team’s work, even though the team spent close to 9 months and significant capital in creating this new web site. All of this begs the question, why would a Company like Myspace spend a lot of money and the better part of a year on a project that they didn’t intend to use? Such is life at a Company when there is not a clear corporate strategy.
For the past two years, Myspace has been on a journey to “find itself” but more specifically, find a niche that would differentiate itself from Facebook. Because lets face it, the war is over, Facebook won a long time ago. So what is a struggling network to do? It’s clear that Myspace has been trying to differentiate itself through its close connection with music. But is that enough to kick-start the growth of the Myspace? Probably not, hence why all of the inner turmoil at the Company. But they do need a clearly articulated strategy that conveys to the user why they are different than Facebook…or why users should come to their social network as opposed to others.
It’s worth noting that I have never setup a profile on Myspace. My Friendster experienced traumatized me for several months after I closed it down and by the time I was considering a move to Myspace, Facebook was already the preferred destination. What would it take for someone like me to setup a profile on Myspace? Hard to say as I don’t really feel the need to join another social network at this point. But one thing seems clear at this point, Myspace is suffering from an identity crisis and need to do something to create a niche for themselves. If they want to be a music site, then they should fully commit to that plan and drastically change their marketing strategy. But they need to do something quickly, before the only people left on their site are affiliate marketers hoping you click on the latest “Acai berry diet” offer.
Social Media for YOUR Stalker
Along the same lines of my celeb post earlier, and the foursquare comment below – there is tons of information about you online.
Do a google search on yourself every now and then – what do I find – loads of information on me, with the most dangerous from social media
and what do you find -
- Twitter feeds
- Facebook page and pictures (you MUST opt out of making your page searchable)
- GetGlue Page- a rating service I signed up for in exchange for getting freebies.
-yelp reviews
- amazon reviews.
In fact anything I entered using my real name somewhere, its on there. Social media allows an amazing amount of collaboration and participation. Just beware – when it’s not “anonymous”, the whole world will know.
Social Media for Celeb Stalkers
Nowadays, you don’t need to pick up Hello magazine for the latest headlines about your favorite celebs. Now you can open up your browser to gossip blogs like Perezhilton, TMZ, Gawker’s Defamer to name a few.
Not in front of the computer – don’t want to listen to someone else’s commentary about what your celeb is doing.. Voila – Twitter to the rescue.
The other day I did a search and I realized – I can FOLLOW my celebs. You’d think they were simply their press agents publishing info about them. You’re wrong!
Check out @Kimkardashian
She’s been praying about the Tsunami warning in Hawaii.. earthquake victims in Haiti… those suffering in .. Chile and oh, what’s this – she’s on her way to Vegas and she convinced the pilot to let her into the cockpit.
Other celebs with bonafide real tweets
Kevin Smith – screen writer of Dogma et al
Kirstie Alley – Fat Actress/Cheers
Jordin Sparks – American Idol star
Wanna know if your celeb tweeter is real – go to twitter.grader.com and test it out.
What do you realize from all this? All people are boring, even celebs.
Foursquare for Dummies
One of the things I’ve learned from this class is just how out of the loop I am, in terms of what’s new (and not so new) in the online world. I hadn’t ever heard of Groupon, Foursquare, or a bunch of other seemingly well known and popular services. And acrossair seemed like something out of The Matrix. Below is a basic guide to Foursquare for others like me.
The four major steps to understanding and using Foursquare:
Check-in: Once you’ve signed up for a free account, you can “check in” wherever you are, using the iPhone’s GPS to locate your venue. With its mashup of services like Yelp, Twitter and Facebook, Foursquare allows you to peruse restaurant and bar reviews, get tips from regulars – and even shout out to your friends to come join the party. That’s just the beginning, though; what makes Foursquare stand out is its function as a real-time, real-world competition. Which brings us to …
Points: Every time you sign in to a venue – be it a club, pub or even your best friend’s apartment – you’re awarded a certain number of points based on how many times you’ve been there, your number of stops that night or how many nights in a row you’ve been out on the town. For now, all this gets you is bragging rights and a spot on the online leaderboard – but Foursquare’s Web site hints that more is on the way.
Badges: Besides points, your travels can also earn you badges. Sign in to the same place three times in one week and you get the “Local” badge; sign in late on a weeknight and earn the “School Night” badge. There are already a ton of badges, both obvious and obscure, and if you have an idea for a new badge, you can submit it online.
Becoming mayor: Our favorite Foursquare feature. If you’ve signed in to a venue more times than anyone else, you become the “mayor” of that place. Your status not only makes you a mini-celebrity among Foursquare users – your profile pops up whenever someone signs in at that venue – but some savvy businesses have begun to advertise special discounts to their mayors. Still, you have to be vigilant; other users can swoop in and take your crown. And gloat about it.
A New Use for Smartphones: Radios (with Pandora app)
While I’ve never even used Pandora on my computer, I just read about how Pandora just became available as an app for the Android system. Apparently, it’s already available for iPhones, Blackberries, and Pres (does anyone really have a Pre?) While admittedly I’m somewhat behind the technology curve as it seems most people already use Pandora on some level, I’m going to give it a try on my Blackberry. I doubt the sound will be that great, but I can probably figure out how to hook up some small external speakers that I can throw in my bag…
Pandora, which runs a popular streaming radio Web site, on Wednesday released its application for phones running the Android software from Google. It’s available for download in the Android Market. Pandora is available on the iPhone, BlackBerry and Palm Pre. Of the 65,000 people who register for a Pandora account each day, 45,000 do so on mobile phones, said Tim Westergren, above, Pandora’s founder. ”I’m beginning to think that our future is going to be more mobile-centric than I had even thought, and sooner,” he said.
The biggest surprise — and success — of Pandora’s mobile applications has been the way people plug them in to speakers in their homes and cars, Mr. Westergren said. Those two places have historically been where people listen to 80 percent of radio. ”It’s giving Pandora access to the two big pieces of the radio market we’ve never been able to reach before,” he said. ”It really allows us to become a much more serious and viable alternative to broadcast radio.”
