Specialization Is At The Crossroads Of Tech And Design

As tempting as it might be, don't count the Apple watch out yet. Despite the cottage industry created to deride its entry into the wearables category, sales are steady even if the expectations were off.

The Apple watch was never going to see the same kind of adoption that the iPhone did. And if you thought it might, then you don't understand anything about watches. One size could never fit all. 

If anything, the opposite holds true. The evolution of technology and communication isn't ubiquitous generalization. It's specialization, with the caveat of collaboration — hardware that emphasizes one or two features well while providing access to select applications currently associated with phones.

The Marshall London, The Copenhagen Wheel, And The Leica Q.

There is no shortage of specialization beginning to take hold in the marketplace. And while many of them can be equated a luxury segment, emerging markets a fueling new luxury buyers and their influence over consumer behavior is spreading toward design and specialization. 

  

The Marshall London is an exquisite looking Android Lollipop specially designed for music lovers. Some features include dual headphone jacks, five-band equalizer, and a gold scroll wheel for volume. There is also a dedicated processor for high resolution audio (including FLAC files) at the core of it.

The Copenhagen Wheel is hardware that transforms ordinary bicycles into hybrid e-bikes. But more than that, it transforms any bike into a smart bike, capable of adjusting your workout based on environmental conditions, conveying real-time traffic and road conditions, and even giving you a boost when you need it most.

The Leica Q is a high-end, full-frame camera with a 24MP sensor and no anti-aliasing filter. The design is classic, but the camera doesn't compromise on modern tech specs. The interface enables photographers to use a touch screen or the lens and still delivers the fastest autofocus of any impact full-frame camera. A new WiFi feature also allows for remote shooting from a smart phone.

All three illustrate a shift away from total market disruption and the emergence of tech specializations that fall in line with the convergence of communication and the customer experience. Expect to see such specialization in future renditions of wearable tech too. 

People don't want a fully functional iPhone on their wrists as much as they want a classic timepiece that can also put their database on any screen they happen to direct it toward. But short of that, they are happy with wearables that do only one thing very well too.

Technology and design will reverse the move toward generalization. 

As Apple learns that the design of any watch needs to be significantly more malleable and personal than their initial offering, there may be a reassurance of interest in digital technology. The Apple Watch is certainly a step in the right direction. Now all we need are watches that are watches first (but can power up a display screen too) much like the Marshall London is a music phone, the Leica Q is a camera, and the Copenhagen Wheel is a wheel. And yet, they are so very much more.

Emerging Markets And Wealth Are Changing Consumer Behavior

While some luxury brands continue to express interest in courting Generation Y, a demographic loosely defined as those born between 1977 and 1994 in the United States, other brands are setting their sights on another segment all together. They see the next surge in luxury consumers not confined to American Millennials but driven by emerging markets such as India and South Africa.

One new study, Wealth X, sees India producing as many as 437,000 millionaires by 2018 (and doubling again by 2023).The nation also has a young, well-educated population with high levels of entrepreneurship and business ownership, underpinned by a well-developed legal system.

Wealth growth in Africa — especially markets such as South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya — continues to be driven by a naturally entrepreneurial population at an annual rate of over 10 percent. Not only are those markets rich in natural resources, but they also have a new foundation for technological innovation.

In addition, the study predicts Iran, Turkey, and Mexico will become economic bright spots among global markets. These markets will continue to be influenced by western European and North American definitions of luxury (including a shift from physical luxury to experiential luxury.)

Five behavioral shifts expected from emerging markets. 

• Hyper-Localization. Although the world is shrinking, wealthy consumers are identifying with the cities where they work and live (and not necessarily their countries). As a result, brands need to prepare for an increasingly nonlinear development of economies and wealth creation as well as the important role proximity advertising and marketing will play in reaching those new millionaires.

• New Frontiers. An increase in new wealth will continue to drive a growing early adopter segment hungry for new experiences. In addition to new frontier experiences such as space tourism and global investment opportunities cited in the study, pay attention to augmented and virtual reality space.

• Luxury Experiences. Millennials are not the only population segment that is more interested in experience over products. The rich in emerging markets are increasingly shifting luxury consumption away from product purchases to lavish experiences like extreme locations and underwater holidays.

• Hyper-Personalization. As well as fundamental rarity, personalization is expected to become the second major driver of exclusivity in the next decade. This will continue to manifest in tailored and unique products as well as one-off experiences.

• Privacy and Intimacy. There will be an increasing desire for privacy among the wealthy in the future, yet at the same time a desire for greater intimacy among the select providers they trust. As a brand is truly defined by the relationship between itself and its customers, the newly rich will look for near flawless experiences from a shrinking pool of brands they trust.

These behavioral shifts will have a profound effect on brands. 

These are not the only shifts expected in the attitudes and psychology of the emerging wealthy. The study predicts those joining the ranks of the wealthy will become increasingly concerned about the economy, geopolitics, wealth preservation, privacy, and health care options.

With the recent financial crisis still fresh in their minds, they will be keenly sensitive to issues such as wealth preservation and the return on investment in every area of their lives from financial holdings to how they spend family holidays. At the same time, as wealth continues to become globalized, there will be an increased demand for personalization with design eclipsing technology and exclusivity defined by something other than price point alone.

The Wealth-X Part II study, which covers the next 10 years of wealth and luxury, is currently available without a registration barrier. In review, many of the concepts presented in the study are not confined to having an impact on luxury brands alone. As an emerging class of globalized rich continues to emerge, their behaviors will have a significant influence over consumer expectation on all organizations — especially in hyper-localized minded cities with increasingly unique identities.

Marketers hoping to find opportunities in behavioral shifts ahead need to begin focusing on proximity, flexibility, exclusivity, and improving the customer experience. Entrepreneurs need to look toward new frontiers that create entirely new markets — space travel, oceanic exploration, virtual reality, near-invisible energy production, and biotechnology among them.

What Marketers Really Need To Know About Silly Cat Videos

When describing the state of the Internet today, it's all too easy for marketers to see silly cat videos as the polar opposite of mental stimulus (myself included). And in doing so, marketers miss the point.

The popularity of silly cat videos has nothing to do with the type of content people want to consume. Their popularity has everything to do with how people want content to make them feel.

New research supports this supposition. After surveying nearly 7,000 Internet users on Internet cat consumption, researcher Jessica Gall Myrick discovered the motivations behind it and emotional benefit it delivers. People mostly watch cat videos as a means of mood management because of their potential to improve their mood. In fact, even those who use them as an excuse to procrastinate tend to temper any post-viewing guilt with feel-good fuzziness, as viewers describe their post-viewing mood as hopeful, happy, and content even if they felt anxious, annoyed, or sad before watching them.

Marketers need to pay better attention to how they make people feel. 

There is no shortage of causes that deserve consideration, topics primed to produce social outrage, or advertising that aims at creating feelings of scarcity (ads that aim to create feelings of fear, inadequacy, or make people feel unknowledgeable). Most of it, not unlike media coverage, is commonly negative or neutral. The net outcome is not surprising — it makes people feel bad or, more commonly, nothing at all.

Sooner or later, you have to wonder: Is the marketing content your organization produces adding to the anxiety or helping make people hopeful? Are you aligned with brands that promote happiness like Apple (innovation), Coke (happiness), Lowe's (empowerment) and Amazon (simplicity) or struggling   with ads that aim to demean, disparage, or attack others? Do you leave people wondering why they need your product or do you have the sense that somehow your product or service makes things better?


Sure, there are cases where negative advertising can work, especially if it is designed to capitalize on contempt for a perceived adversary. But such tactics are time sensitive to the cultural perceptions such as a decades long run of "dumb dad" ads. And social media makes for several splendid fails every year.

Don't get me wrong. The point here isn't to scrub away any rough edges if it fits. The point is to ask yourself what emotions your content is or isn't tapping into and making the appropriate adjustment in much the same way Charles Revson once did as the pioneering cosmetics executive behind Revlon.

"In the factory we make cosmetics. In the store we sell hope," Revson once said. 

Hope and happiness are powerful promises, ones that underscore many successful brands. They also cut to the quick of what motivates people in B2B and B2C spaces. Consumers want to make their lives and the world around them a little better. So do business owners. All of them might have a different outtake on what objectives best accomplish those overarching goals (comfort or exhilaration, opportunity or security), but almost all of them are rooted in hope and happiness.

When companies and content creators can't deliver on either, people turn to more than two million silly cat videos (2014) that have chalked up more than 26 billion views. Why? Not because marketers need to load their stream with silly cat videos but because these cats can deliver what most content misses — a few moments of mood managing happiness (even when these heroes look a bit grumpy).

The Most Powerful Brands Have Always Been Agile

Marketing and communication has a way of being reinvented over and over again, with each new and unapologetic rendition billed as a break from a seemingly blind and rigid tradition. Except they're nothing of the sort. Despite keeping things feeling fresh, most reinvention is historical revisitation.

Take some of the recent discussion revolving under brands, with the key concept being that a brand must be agile, adaptable, and seek out opportunity as opposed to a voice as personified by a logo. The argument makes sense, until you consider that the definition isn't accurate and the new idea not fresh.

The agile brand concept has been around about a century. 

Brand is not an identity, even if some marketers confuse it as such. Brand is (and has always been) the relationship between a product and its customer, as Phil Dusenberry, former chairman of BBDO Worldwide, once described it. And just like all relationships, they have to change with the times.

Oversimplified, this has always led organizations to make one of three choices. They can either adapt the relationship to meet the changing needs of aging customers; attempt to confine their relationship to a specific demographic, hopefully capture new customers to replace those who no longer identify with the product; or find new customers with whom they hope to define an entirely new relationship.

This is why (until recently) Revlon matured its brand (adapt), Nike rarely wavers in hitting the sweet spot between emerging athletes and professionals who know (demographic), and Volkswagen traded in its cool for mainstream (new relationships). It's also why RadioShack continues to struggle as a brand despite the buyout. The marketers on that team continue to mistake identity for brand, which consisted of a DIY crowd that the chain had long ignored and neglected. They want a second shot.

It also explains why entire markets can be disrupted like Zipcar, Uber, and Airbnb have done to the car rental, taxi cab, and hotel industries respectively. When organizations adopt an industry standard over a true brand relationship (e.g., airlines, fast food, grocery chains) then the customers will eventually begin to make purchasing decisions based on price or convenience instead of any relationship. Or, as in the case of the examples cited, look for someone to shake things up.

How to build an agile brand that keeps pace with change. 

The modern brand model isn't "modern" as much as it's a time-tested revisitation of a proven model. A successful brand fulfills its relationship with a customer based upon its ability to deliver on a brand promise that the customer values. As long as the organization delivers on that promise (and the customer values it), the relationship will be strong enough to weather any short-term challenges.

In addition, the organization has to be prepared for change: poised to change with the customers it has acquired or be prepared to let them go while acquiring news ones or being ready to reinvent its brand promise for a different kind of relationship with (possibly) different customers. And in every case, the value of a brand promise will almost always be based upon the organization's willingness to find contrasts between its products and services and the competition, giving customers a real choice.

And if some people don't like your contrast? No problem. Not everyone needs to be your customer as long as those who are your customers remain satisfied loyalists. They'll work hard to help you find like-minded customers — the single most valuable reward any organization can hope to earn.

Five Practices To Put Some Strategic Back Into Social PR

Public relations is in a self-selected state of change and the driving force is clearly social media. As many as 81 percent of communicators now believe that public relations can no longer operate without social media despite 64 percent considering it more superficial than traditional media. Wow.

Many professionals find those statistics frightening for two reasons. As social media consumes more and more of a public relations professional's day, the more those pros feel as superficial as their task work. And as more public relations professionals include social media as part of their primary practice because they must, more of them break away from the tenets of public relations in favor of measures that are much more akin to tactical marketing. Some, arguably, have become marketers.

While there is nothing wrong with that per se, the emphasis on tactical work has consequences. I've warned about several such problems many times before. But more than that, the way social media is being practiced tends to take public relations practitioners further way from strategic thinking, which was the quality that provided the profession real substance.

How can public relations channel strategic communication again?

1. Refocus On Relations. With all the pressure to increase impressions or go viral via social media, it's all too easy to forget the real stakeholders. By crafting communication with particular publics, special interests, or industry influences in mind, you can make deeper, longer lasting impressions.

Sometimes the best content isn't designed to generate leads as much as to deliver value to niches that have already expressed an interest in your products and services. If they appreciate it, there's a good chance they'll share their experience or your story— referring qualified leads to you anyway.

2. Stop Dialing Up Content. Sure, automation has its place across public relations and social media, but absenteeism can cannibalize your budget while eroding brand equity. Status quo, especially with an increased frequency or to mass media over niche, will eventually kill the communication program.

Stop setting a news release quota and select only the choicest news over the wire services and then repurpose the release for direct-to-public content with a twist for whatever audience has been assembled there. The same can be said for content marketing. Strive to elevate over educate.

3. News Wants Multimedia. Given the outpouring of studies that support the growing impact of visual communication, news releases need to do more than deliver words. Photos, videos, audio files, interactive graphics, graphs and illustrations are all worthwhile accompaniments for any release.

You don't have to include them all in your pitch or press release: A well-organized landing page or digital press kit makes everything easier, especially when it includes vertical photos for mobile. And what if the story you're selling doesn't merit multimedia? Then maybe it doesn't merit being shared.

4. Inspiration Beats Interruption. While people still consider the Oreo cookie blackout advertisement a classic case study, the novelty of news jacking and link bait is wearing thin. Simply put, the frequency of interruption — and distraction — has outpaced its real-time marketing merit.

Yes, there is still room to be timely on a topic. Successful advertising, marketing, and public relations campaigns have always been tapped into the current culture and current affairs. But with consumers growing wearisome of messages that follow them around (privacy pushback) and interrupt conversations in an attempt to change the subject (ad blocking pushback), it's time to think long term. Ensure those real-time marketing opportunities lend something to the conversation.

5. Be First For A Change. Years ago, I used to tell public relations students to not only know public relations inside and out, but also the industry or industries in which they work in as well. Doing so meets one of the criteria related to traditional public relations, which is to research trends within the industry and marketplace and determine what impact they may have on the organization and its publics.

Nowadays, I tell students that technology needs to be included in the research mix too because we're only a few years out from another disruption in communication. So instead of being reactive to things like social networks and search engines, public relations professions need to be proactive in determining how to apply cutting edge technology to their communication mix with an expressed intent to strengthen the relationships between their organization and those publics it needs to survive.

And if it doesn't? Then the bulk of the profession will eventually be absorbed by integrated marketing communication, with a handful of practitioners remaining to denote some specialty skills such as media relations, crisis communication, and public or government affairs. Who knows? Maybe that won't be such a bad thing. Or will it? I'll leave that one for you to decide.

How Future Communication Will Dictate Customer Experience

If you're looking for the next disruption in marketing, consider how technology is positioning communication as the primary driver in the customer experience. The change will be truly astounding.

Marketers can no longer be satisfied with the traditional five-stage buying process model: problem recognition, information research, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post purchase behavior. They must shift toward a model that is more robust, considering every consumer touch point prior to problem recognition and through the life of the product (and into the next purchase).

This is especially true as communication becomes an inescapable part of every product, with communication-centric technologies baked into them or as communication-based networks are developed around them. In some cases, communication is part of the product and customer experience, influencing the buying process every step of the way.

Five areas where communication is becoming critical to the customer experience.

1. Environmental Content. The performance sports car that emerged from its historic factory entrance in Maranello, 1947, has long been regarded for its innovation, passion, and diligence. In keeping with tradition, Ferrari showrooms have added augmented reality to the small screen, allowing patrons to match up digital content to the physical vehicle in front of them. Along with scan highlights, patrons can add features and change the colors on the screen with the swipe of few fingers.

Communication that integrates seamlessly with the environment becomes part of the experience.

2. Enchanted Items. Skully caught my attention some time ago when it unveiled its future concept to eliminate the motorcyclist's blind spot with a rear facing camera and change the experience with an interactive and transparent head's up display. This technology isn't built to distract drivers but rather eliminate distractions with an assist from augmented reality for GPS convenience and the safety of situational awareness.

Communication applications built into the helmet become an integral part of the product itself.

3. Digital Storefronts. South Korea has created retail space out of thin air by installing display walls in its subways. The displays interact with mobile devices, allowing subway passengers to shop for groceries while waiting for their next connection. Once purchased with a point-and-click mobile app, the order is presumably delivered around the time the passenger arrives to whatever destination they preselect. Future applications could include interactive touch screens or the option to pick up any orders on the way home.

Digital content and communication is shifting toward truly functional customer experiences.

4. Portable Data. Originally envisioned by Corning, the world is not too far off from turning a wide variety of surfaces into digital interfaces that interact seamlessly with any mobile or portable data in design. If you can imagine an instructor or speaker presenting educational material on the big screen while participants capture the presentation on the small screen (and automatically receive e-handouts on cue), then you've only scratched the surface of what's possible and probable in the years ahead. The prospect opens up an entirely new canvas for graphic artists and communicators to consider.

Presentation displays and increasingly portable data will redefine what's possible for communication.

5. AR/VR. Microsoft, Sony and other companies are busily developing the next edition of what virtual reality and augmented reality might mean for gaming. Entertainment is only a starting point. Whether the experience is detached (virtual reality) or environmentally responsive (augmented reality), its applications will eventually grow exponentially into training programs, fitness instructors, and a variety of educational applications with virtual classrooms, holographic illusions, or immersive reenactments that provide people a perspective of what any time or place might be like.

Immersive and responsive communication will challenge professionals in unimaginable ways.

While these are just some of the ways that technology is working to change the interface, all of them represent the increasing impact communication will have on the customer experience. It will become an ever-present part of the environment and will sometimes be baked into the very functionality of the product.

But even without these advances and near future, communication is playing an ever increasing role in the customer experience. Every bit of content produced and shared by organizations today have positive and negative consequences to brand recognition and reputation. This includes customer service complaints that play out publicly online to the frequency of irrelevant interruption and value of the communication offered (as opposed to the value organizations sometimes think they offer).

And with this in mind, maybe it is time to stop thinking so much about a sales funnel but an experience  corridor that a company provides from its initial introduction though the life of the product and eventual replacement. After all, customer satisfaction, not sales, is a truer benchmark for longevity.