Contextual commerce is the new black

Here is a heads-up for contextual commerce. We had eCommerce, the F- and S- and T- and now we are simply back at c-commerce.

There are two converging trends that are now creating the typical mash-up of opportunities and crisis for retailers. (Hands-up if you have had enough change to last a lifetime?)

1. Content Marketing.

What? You didn’t know? Goodness, there is an INSTITUTE already and a recent report has found that 96% of Australian marketers use content marketing. But this post is not about content marketing so here is a good current overview. Content marketing is the background you must understand in order to get what contextual commerce is all about. So a short definition will suffice:

Content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. Instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your buyer more intelligent. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.

2. eCommerce

It has proven pretty difficult to make a buck on the internet. There are of course a few success stories, but relative to the number of websites online, there are an infinitesimal number of commercial successes that are purely digital. (Internet users have grown up on a diet of FREE, it seems.)

Almost every business model of any internet enterprise that does not sell physical goods, pornography or advice on how to make money on the internet makes money via advertising. Google makes BILLIONS with Adwords.

But even the Adwords goldmine will run dry - unless Google jumps the curve to acquire a new platform for contextual commerce, which is the convergence of content and ecommerce.

Opensky focuses on social network for its contextual commerce efforts.

And Mulu focuses on what they call ‘shoppable ads’.

The above are applications that provide contextual commerce. That is, there are services (applications) that allow the product owners to ‘own’ key words on other websites (content providers) which, when clicked on, does not take you to a website and does not pop up and advertisement – it allows you to buy the item straightaway. ) There are several examples of how some publishers are riding the content wave.)

For example the technology to click on an item of clothing an actress on TV is wearing and then be taken to your shopping cart is rapidly maturing. That is an example of the ‘context’ of that particular item of clothing (provided by the television story) is what sells the item. (I.e. not an advertisement during a break in the programming.)

Contextual commerce is set to disrupt marketing as we know it substantially. It is a world without ads, because everything you see and read and interact with IS ALREADY the ad. Another way is to view it as product placement that is directly shoppable.

What to do?

I advise clients to bet on every technology horse possible. Not because we don’t know what to do or which technology is the best fit, but the process of constantly re-setting the business to cope with changing technologies is the core competency that every organisation must develop.

I think Facebook is going to fail – or at the very least shrink substantially, but at the same time I still advise many clients to hone their technology competencies on Facebook even though in a few years it may be filed in a memory cabinet along with Ning and Myspace and a long list of others. As I made clear in this post, I am not anti-internet. On the contrary if technology is not part of your present, you have no future.

If you put your hand up in the opening paragraph, please note my question was not facetious: the only way to survive, grow and be successful is to build resilient (or rather antifragile) organisations. That is; building an organisation that is designed to cope with constant change is the goal

Go to it…

Dennis

Ganador Management Solutions specialises in helping organisations in the retail supply chain deal productively with challenges of change.

Your BODY doesn’t only ‘talk’, it actually thinks

Many people still mistakenly believe that the mind operates like a computer. It doesn’t. We increasingly understand that the brain’s job is not to simply process information but to control the actions of your body. The technical term is embodied cognition.

If you study linguistics you will appreciate how this works – and understand the relevance the sales, communication and persuasion.

If you think of abstract good things (morals, God, virtue etc…) you tend to think of those as ‘up’.

If you think of abstract bad things (the devil, depression, criminals) you tend to think of those as ‘down’.

That is you apply a spatial metaphor to abstract concepts. These ‘embodied metaphors’ are the building blocks of perception, cognition and action.

In practice what this means is that the actual physical experience and expression of the body determines thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Let me illustrate:

People who are holding a warm drink (coffee) feel more positively inclined (warmly) towards the other person.

People who are seated in soft chairs are more flexible in their negotiating positions.

Play along to see if you understand the concept:

You are raising fund for a charity. You have to choose where to position yourself and your bucket. Where would you stand?

1. At the bottom of the escalator catching the people who are descending?
2. At the top of the escalator catching the people who are ascending?

Answers in TOMORROW's POST. (Subscribe now :))

Dennis Price

GANADOR: Building businesses that can jump the curve with certainty.

Is your brand brave enough to do this (Fun)

Sometimes it takes a brave brand to inject some fun... but it is such a fine line. What do you think? (Video)

Why I quit Facebook and why Facebook will fail

Facebook is fundamentally flawed.

The Facebook business model is fundamentally flawed and it will shrink to relative insignificance over time – unless it can jump the curve in some amazing feat of strategic brilliance. (Happy to offer my services, but they are unlikely to ask.)

I know this may seem unthinkable now, but remember that once there was AOL, and then Alta Vista and then Yahoo and MySpace – and none of those are quite what they once were.

Reason #1:

When the mug-punters start departing and take their eye-balls with them, then the businesses will follow pretty soon.

I quit Facebook a few weeks ago. I did not actually deactivate my account, because having the account offers some benefits (such as universal login, and of course access to business pages - including client pages); but I haven’t visited in about a month. I will assess these benefits in due course, but deactivation is quite likely.

I don’t miss it all.

My stream became a river of crap: promoted posts, stupid eCards and ‘like-this-if-you-love-your-daughter’ updates, and finally the straw that broke the camel’s back was the post to ‘share-this-if-you-want-to-be-blessed-in-three-days’ exhortation. There is only so much I can take. (Maybe I should make different friends.)

I am not the first and I won’t be the last. I think Facebook may have jumped the shark.

Are YOU spending more or less time on your personal Facebook today than you did six months ago?

Reason #2:

In essence Facebook is a ‘walled garden’. Many will remember the early days of AOL in the US. The strategy is to provide the ‘user’ everything they need so that they never have to leave. AOL did that by having members-only access to key content. The web 2.0 iteration is to be less obvious and go for being ‘sticky’ rather than forcing the user the stay loyal.

A walled garden is not compatible with the ethos of the internet. As it becomes more intrusive the social benefit of friend-connections will be progressively be diluted.

When it was conceived, it wasn’t as some commercial behemoth – we all know the story. Now it is so big it even it even warrants us labelling its activities as F-Commerce.

Some may remember a previous post about language and culture. The same applies here. The early talk was all about social and friends and connecting and liking people. If you read Facebook press now, the talk is about metrics, and value and commerce because that is what gets measured when you list the company. And that is what will change it from what it was.

Sooner or later people will figure out that Facebook is not a platform that you can use for free; but that YOU are the platform that Facebook uses for free.

Consumer behaviour stats only mean something if...

.. IF YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT

Here are a few facts to consider.

1. People spend 2.3 seconds on in-store brand decisions.

2. Just over 90% of shoppers make unplanned purchases.

3. Gen Y shoppers are also more likely to make impulse purchases at end caps. 

4. About 62% of shoppers say they responded to merchandising displays.

5. About 93% of Baby Boomers, say they prefer product messages rather than price-point messages while shopping. 

6. Only about 25% off customers walk past halfway in the typical specialty store.

7. Sales can increase by1.3% when dwell time increases by 1%.

8. You get on average a 10% sales increase with a store design with a left entry and clockwise track.

If I asked you to answer a quiz based on the above, would you pass? Most wouldn’t because it is easy to skim over the list. 

The point is this: When you consider these facts, ask yourself the question: SO WHAT? 

And then change something based on your answer. Don’t let the facts just slide you by and move on to the next thing because you are busy.

Research and experience is only useful to the extent that it changes what you do.

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We have created a market for IDEAS and you are welcome to swing by and get yourself some.

Franchisors: Convert your OPS MANUAL into a custom-branded, interactive web-based application for $5k only

Authentic Marketing

I remember giving the Dove campaign to MBA students when it broke. It was a great example then of authentic marketing.

One of the teaching points I made then was that Dove would NEVER be able to go back to the traditional 'glamour' positioning of beauty products.

They haven't ... yet. And cudos to them. This is viral-worthy...

UPDATE:

Fastcompany has done a piece on this ad explaining why it works so well.

The secret sauce to any retail business

The big day has finally arrived - your birthday, Christmas or whatever.

Your parents have gone to a lot of trouble to find you the perfect gift: that supadupa robotised gizmo that all the rich kids have. It cost about the same as a mortgage repayment, but you are ten years old and you don’t care about anything like that.

You rip off the paper. You rip through the box. You quickly assemble the various bits – you have studied how to do so on YouTube for days.

Then you press the ON button and… nothing.

You look at the box in dismay and you see a small sign: Batteries not included.

No matter what you do next, the joy and the buzz will never be able to be recreated fully. No matter how quickly you seek, find and install batteries, the gift will never be appreciated in exactly the same way.

If it has happened to you, then you will understand.

It is the little things that count.

It is the little things that give big moments their meaning.

It is hard to lose track of the little things when we focus on the big things.

And it is the same for your business.

In every business there is something that ‘makes it tick’. It is the something that energises the whole business. It may or may not be visible to the customers, but it is what makes everything work.

In a supermarket it may be the cleanliness of the trolleys and baskets.

In the coffee shop it may be the chatter of the barista that makes the wait worthwhile.

What is that ingredient in your business?

If the customer presses the ON button to interact with your business; what happens?

Dennis

• GANADOR: Architects of high-performance retail environments.

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THANKS & APOLOGIES.

Artisanal Marketing

Subscribers to our Winners' Circle Newsletter are used to irregularly receiving a newsletter. In it I would normally included many interesting links - and usually one longer article. 

Rather than posting that content irregularly, I have opted to (in future) distribute it as it becomes available. (Some content need to be fresh.) The link to the article on ARTISANAL MARKETING in this post is one of those.

I have thought about Marketing into the future for awhile and I have labelled some of my thoughts as 'artisanal marketing' for a reason - and would love to hear your thoughts.

The link take you to an article published on our website. (There are a few others to browse through if you are so inclined.)

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THANKS & APOLOGIES.

The future of marketing can be found it its past

This is a great presentation - all the links you need are there.

I have been thinking about the future of marketing - well, the future generally, but also about what marketing may look like in five years' time.

I share some similar views contained in this presentation - and I definitely acquired some new insights to chew on too. Well worth scanning through the entire presentation.

Are Brands Fracking The Social Web? from John V Willshire

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ALTERNATIVELY

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THANKS & APOLOGIES.

Advertsing for the times

This ad is good on many levels - and made to go viral. It works:

It captures authenticity by

• - poking fun at the the product's weaknesses in a subtle way.
• - nailing the right tone and pace to match the message
• - not overtly selling, but encouraging a reconsiderration

And importantly, It appeals to the WE values that are increasingly dominating our communication. Have a look.

101 uncomfortable truths about marketing you don't want to know

By clicking on the cover, it will take you to the page where you can download 
the FREE eBook...

101 uncomfortable truths about marketing you don't want to know

(Scroll down the page.)

Fascinated by Body Language?

The kinds of things we do - in case you were wondering - is making knowledge like this useful for brands in the retail environment..