Starship Articles
I’m in the snacks aisle of the Asian grocery in Melbourne Central. I love Asian groceries — the high-end Japanese ones, like the one on Smith Street, the Grand Central Station super-busy ones, like Great Eastern on Russell Street in Chinatown, even the dodgy dystopian car park vibe ones, like the no-name one on Little Bourke Street near Swanston. There’s inevitably stuff that reminds me of my home country. Rollercoaster chips, keropok, prawn crackers, strange brightly coloured jellies in plastic cartons, rabbit-branded milk sweets, those sweet red disc things, normal pocky, weird pocky… a well-stocked Asian grocery is a dimension-bending delight of a maximum amount of products stuffed into a minimum amount of increasingly inaccessible space. I’m not normally here on a weekday night though, save to maybe grab a drink on the go.
The break in the routine’s because of an escalating potato chips situation in the agency, an increasingly high stakes “Guess what flavour this is?” game in the creative department that’s only been played out of the chips available in the nearby convenience store. The weirdest flavour that’s sold in that store is Smith’s “Chinese Peking Duck”, which, in our opinion, tastes like overdone beef left out in the sun too long. (The worst flavour in the store is the Black Truffle, which just tastes like ash and chemical despair). “For really weird flavours,” I told my colleagues, “there’s really no beating an Asian grocery.” That’s why I’m here, picking out flavours off the shelf that I know I’m going to regret eating later.
Product branding on a shelf as densely crowded as an Asian grocery snacks shelf is a competitive struggle against futility. Cheese flavour? Please, people are more likely to just hop over to the Coles next door and grab some Doritos. Salt and vinegar chips? Vinegar’s a bit of a weird flavour to me when dumplings aren’t involved. Prawn? There’d be at least ten brands with prawn flavoured stuff, some of which are old brands that people grew up with and are most likely to buy (like Calbee). Still, there are ways to stand out among the noise, and to the credit of some Asian snacks companies, they don’t so much tackle the problem head-on as storm the beachhead with an all-guns-blazing assault on the senses.
Voted Off the Island:
- Yogurt Potato Chips and Cola Potato Chips, both made in Korea. Yogurt is actually a mistranslation — it’s clearly a Yakult-flavoured potato chips, less yogurt as a popular probiotic digestive drink in Southeast / East Asia which doesn’t actually work. We still drink it though.
- Pizza-flavoured potato chips. There were actually a few versions of this, I just chose the one with the black branding.
Honourable Mentions:
- Indomee flavoured potato chips. These are really weirdly salty. I bought them once, never again.
- Honey potato chips. Why.
- Various potato chip flavours whose labels I could not actually make out and so couldn’t risk poisoning the office with.
Is There Actually A Moral To This Story?
Friday morning. There’s a yell from the kitchen as someone unsuspecting tries the yogurt chips. I laugh at my desk, having tried one each of the flavours earlier. I had to purge the taste by eating a few fresh mandarins and drinking copious amounts of tea. “This is the worst chip I’ve ever eaten,” the art director declares, awed. “I could kind of see the logic behind a yogurt chip if it was Greek yogurt, but this is weirdly sweet and… just wrong.” The Cola chips had a similar response — weirdly sweet, with powdered Cola on top. “I would never have ever thought of a cola chip.” “This is just weird.” The pizza flavour was aggressively cheesy in a chalky way. Left to languish on the kitchen table, the chips prove to be an extended trap for the afternoon.
The thing is, I bought them precisely because they stood out on the shelf. Not just through sheer weirdness, but look at the simplicity of the Yogurt and Cola packaging. In a sea of chips packaging stamped with multiple fonts and weird photography contrasted with stark colours and retro outlined typography, the yogurt and cola stuff just stood out. That, and they were weird as hell. There are tasting / reax videos on YouTube. I first heard of the yogurt chips through a friend, who’d seen it on another friend’s social media. Good on them, I thought. If you want to go weird, go full weird. Stand out from the noise. And modern, (fairly) minimal design stands out on a crowded shelf when the competition’s been mired in the 90s and never left.
On further research, it turns out that yogurt flavour, strange as it is to us, is cultural. Pringles runs a yakult/yogurt flavour in South Korea. Yogurt-and-herb (non-yakult) flavours are popular in the Middle East, and large brands like Lays run those flavours. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve had yakult-flavoured baijiu at the Food and Wine Show after all, a really strong Chinese hard liquor. And Pringles also does run a cola flavour in — yes — South Korea. You might think that’s strange, but I think it’s weird that one of the most popular chips flavours in the UK is shrimp cocktail. That’s a weird 60s dish that I didn’t even think existed save in old dramas. It’s the favourite chip flavour of the British digital strategist in the agency, and she doesn’t even eat prawn or shrimp.
If your brand’s going international, it stands to reason that you should cater to the local market. Some brands like Kit-kat take this to extremes — Kit-kat in Japan has flavours that are Japan-only, and are often as weird as you can imagine. There’s been an attempt to run with this in other countries: there’s a Kit-kat shop in Melbourne Central that runs a lamington flavour, for example, with premium chocolate versions attempting to appeal to the hipster in many Melburnians. Successful? We’re not so sure. Nice packaging though.
The Moral Of This Story:
- Cater your product to the local market.
- One person’s weird chip flavour might be massively popular to others.
- Stand out on the shelf by being different.
- Great product design works.
Have a snacks brand? Want to have a chat? Let’s talk.
Want to escape this dreary winter and flee to an isolated tropical island? You’re not alone. I’ve been day dreaming about reclining on a beach lounger, sipping mango smoothies and napping under the afternoon sun since the first day of June.
This is quite easy to do in 2018 – by simply browsing the world virtually: you can type in the name of a location and instantly have abundant amount of information along with photos online. Digital or television ads about tourism are displayed to their targeted consumers every day, plus the billboards, the flyers, the list goes on.
Old-fashioned travel brochures vs. Instagram
Way back when, travellers (or tourists I should say) found inspiration for a trip through those tempting phrases in travel brochures, such as “adventure is out there” or “let’s fly, fly away”. Then brochures became more and more photo oriented, packed with glossy, aesthetically pleasing pictures and, as a result, fuelling the travel bug in us all – even if the destinations felt unobtainable.
Fast forward and as social media flourishes, many are now getting their travel businesses off the ground with the help of Instagram’s beautiful feed and highly engaged audience. In fact, there are over 181 million posts using the hashtag #travel and 48 percent of users say they rely on Instagram to find new destinations. Unlike the flawless pictures in advertisements, we can have a more straightforward and realistic perception of the destination from pictures in Instagram, have an idea of what to do and what the weather is like at the moment. (Although the photos are sometimes ironically perfect under countless layers of filters……)
Partnering with famous travel bloggers on the platform is undeniably an influential avenue for marketers, as users boasting followers in the hundreds of thousands snap exotic scenery and successfully engage and induce envy in their audience.
A prime example is Murad and Nataly Osmann’s #followmeto Instagram project. Thousands of fans mimicked the couple’s photo on social platforms as soon as they made the very first post and uploaded more than 337,000 photos on Instagram with the #Followmeto hashtag.
For brands, that level of audience participation is invaluable.
Qantas, similarly, often repost photos taken by other influencers from their planes to promote the ease and enjoyment of travel that they offer, helping them gain more followers.
Brand differentiation
Living in 2018, we have new air routes opening, new hotels built, new planes capable of carrying more passengers and flying longer distances. It’s fair to say we don’t lack choice. So, the important question is how do companies stand out from the crowd?
Via Adweek:
Bruce Horner, head of media and alliances for the Travelocity brand, said this about the importance of identifying how your brand can influence customers: “Differentiation is not just about the product, it’s about creating a meaningful brand identity that connects and engages with consumers.”
Home away from home
Speaking of accessibility, I can’t avoid the mention of Airbnb when thinking about global accommodation. From bold interior design to inventive ways host’s present meals and snacks for their visitors, this kind of hospitality service offers an authentic local feeling, giving travellers a unique personalised experience and often an intimate connection with local culture.
You might be thinking of massive solidity and strength when a windmill is mentioned, but have you ever thought about live in one? Actually, a popular Airbnb accommodation is a restored windmill. Apart from its preserved features such as the upright shaft in the former mill and a giant spur wheel reminding visitors of the industrial past of Britain, it also lets them feel the rural charm of Kent countryside.
Fall off the grid……or not?
While some like to choose an accommodation that presents them feeling of home, the others see travel as an escape from their usual living routine. I’ve seen more and more people completely “exile” themselves in a disconnected travel destination, yes, solo travel is becoming a trend. In fact results from a survey conducted by MMGY Global showed roughly one in four people say they will go on a trip alone next year. Having had the experience to live a year without technology in a valley 400kms away from Melbourne, it’s understandable how this kind of digital detox can help to refresh and rejuvenate the mind.
On the other hand, there is still another divergent group of tourists who chose to be socially active no matter where they go. Take my auntie as an example, she has gone to Japan lately as thus all my social media platforms are filled with her posts: pictures of what she ate for lunch, places she stayed and highly specific descriptions of her everyday itinerary. She is even still the first person to like or comment other’s posts.
Travel is made easier and easier by the increasing advancement of technology, and hence marketing techniques have to always be updated in order to align with all these changes occurring around the world every day.
This has been a Year 10 Guest Blog by our fantastic intern Cathy. Best of luck for school and the years ahead!
You’re a 60-year-old much-loved American pancakes chain that happens to sell other stuff. This includes a new menu item, the steak burger, even though you’ve been serving classic burgers for a while. You decide to rebrand with a name and logo change, and that’s when the sh*t really hits the fan. Sounds familiar? You’ve probably been watching the IHOP matter play out over social media and the rubbernecking class of the global media then.
IHOP, also known as the International House of Pancakes, is a multinational American-based diner chain that specialises in breakfast foods, with 1,650 locations in North America, Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Oceania. Its stores are often open 24/7. Earlier this month, it announced a simple name and logo change — flipping the ‘P’ in its name upside down, going from IHOP to IHOb.
Our NEW burgers are so burgerin’ good, we changed our name to IHOb. For burgers. Go ahead, burger one today. #IHOb pic.twitter.com/lyciVZxAuH
— IHOb (@IHOb) June 11, 2018
Well Now Everything Is On Fire
Maybe its marketing department didn’t anticipate how in 2018 this would instantly leave the brand open to bad press and mass trolling from fans and its competitors. Or maybe they didn’t care: the announcement did, according to Adweek, generate “tens of millions” of impressions for the company, and some people might say that any mass media attention is good attention. A brief selection of the best responses:
1. Burger King briefly changed their name to Pancake King:
BURGER KING CHANGED THEIR TWITTER NAME TO PANCAKE KING LMAO THE SHADE pic.twitter.com/jdgq6svIDe
— tigsssssssss (@_tiger_s_) June 11, 2018
2. Wendy’s, always quick on the trigger for social media:
Not really afraid of the burgers from a place that decided pancakes were too hard.
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) June 11, 2018
3. Even brands that weren’t direct competitors got in a jab:
brb changing my name to Netflib
— Netflix US (@netflix) June 11, 2018
4. And… Cookie Monster?
Me voted for iHOC – International House of Cooooooookies! 🍪
— Cookie Monster (@MeCookieMonster) June 11, 2018
Eater called it the “most obnoxious brand move of the year”. The Washington Post offered a defense. The Wall Street Journal noted that many people didn’t even know what IHOP stood for (which, I confess, neither did I until this incident). The jury’s out on whether the stunt — if that’s what it is — has been worth it for IHOP/IHOb. So far, the brand isn’t budging.
Mea Culpa in the Hut
In 2009 Pizza Hut decided to change its name to “The Hut”, an idea from their marketing team to try and get the “texting generation” to use “The Hut” as “common vernacular for our brand”. True story. Pizza Hut had to release a press statement after public uproar to assure everyone that no, they weren’t actually going to change their brand name. The public has traditionally tended to resist rebrands — even the most beautiful, considered rebrand out there will probably encounter resistance, resistance that will fade over time once everyone finds something else to complain about. Take Google for example. Its recent rebrand into a beautiful chunky serif, designed for the age of the mobile phone, was met with the usual critics. Few days later it stopped being an issue. If you believe in the rebrand, which is supported by a reason for being and a great idea, just hunker down and wait. If it wasn’t… well. An embarrassing backtrack might be on the books.
Avoiding Mea Culpas — An Incomplete List:
- Do the Research: Dinky as you might think research is, it’s hugely important in a rebranding effort. We handle this for our clients as part of our process, providing in-depth reports and analysis along the way to help them better understand their brand and how it’s perceived in the marketplace.
- Have a Strategy: Consult with a relevant agency and come up with a strategy with agreed-on goals.
- Have a Reason: Rebrands are an expensive process if done properly. Don’t just have a reason to go through with it — one that you believe in — there has to be an idea behind the rebrand.
- Get Help: If you’ve got trained experts in-house who can handle a rebrand like Google, go ahead. If you don’t have people in your company with the skills and expertise to handle a rebrand, or if you think you need specialist attention, get an agency.
- Understand that Good Work Takes Time (And You Get What You Pay For): Branding is like surgery, construction work, and a life coach for your company all at once. If you get it done cheap, it’s most probably not done right. And no, it’s not OK to exploit some random art students through the gig economy.
Want to get the complete list? Come grab a coffee with us.
The World Cup is here. No, not for rugby. Or cricket. We mean the Beautiful Game, football (or as Australians like to call it, ‘soccer’), a game watched and beloved by millions around the globe but which inexplicably has a smaller presence in Australia, even though Australia tends to qualify into the playoffs. Having grown up in a country whose team has no hope in hell of qualifying even if we keep offering citizenship to other people’s B teams, living in Australia for all of my adult existence has been mildly bizarre. Some parts of Melbourne *cough Lygon Street* are seriously into the World Cup, like most of the rest of the world (*cough Not USA*). The rest… aren’t. I remember when South Korea kicked Italy out of a World Cup in a controversial game. Some South Koreans drove down Lygon Street taunting the Italians. Things were set on fire. The day after, while buying groceries from Lygon Street’s Woolies, my friends and I were asked by the counter person whether we were South Korean (“No…”) and which team we supported (“Um… Brazil!”). Yeah. That’s how seriously people take the World Cup.
Things might be different this year — Italy didn’t qualify, for one, nor did the Netherlands, two normally juggernaut teams. The host country is Russia, a country still facing criticism for doping athletes, mass-culling its popular train-riding street dogs, and many, many other matters. However, it’s still set to be a lucrative World Cup. Via AdAge:
“We think this will be the biggest, most lucrative World Cup to air on English-language TV,” says Mike Petruzzi, senior VP of ad sales, Fox Sports Media Group. While Fox did not offer a ballpark estimate for how much revenue it expects to rake in over the course of the month-long tourney, its broadcast-heavy schedule alone should go a long way toward helping it top ESPN/ABC’s take in 2014.
Tie-in advertising can work to boost interest in your brand–or make you look like one of far too many trying to climb onto the bandwagon. So how do you stand out from the crowd?
Choose your Audience
Nike hedged its bets this year and released a Brazil-centric World Cup ad with music by “heavy baile” artist Leo Justi.
Why Brazil, you might ask? Brazil is one of the most football-obsessed countries on the planet, the mother country for some of the biggest talents ever in the game, including Pelé, widely considered the best player who ever lived, Ronaldo, and, in the current squad, Neymar. Its yellow jersey is instantly recognisable, and it has won more World Cups than any other country. It’s also the favourite team of many people who aren’t Brazilians. Its team is the favourite to win this year’s World Cup, despite an embarrassing showing four years ago. However, World Cup fervour has been muted in Brazil this year because of the political and economic problems that they’ve been suffering:
In Brazil, enthusiasm for this year’s cup has been tempered by a years-long corruption scandal, economic turmoil, and anxiety over an unpredictable presidential election set for October. Perhaps that’s the reason for some Brazilians’ cautious expectations for their side, despite a dominant South American World Cup Qualifying campaign and their status as one of the betting favorites. It won’t help that the Seleçao exited the 2014 tournament in Brazil with a 7-1 drubbing in the semi-finals at the hands of eventual champion, Germany. Brazil are five-time champions and their standard for success is never less than winning the tournament, but a return to the semi-finals in 2018 would probably meet the realistic expectations of most Brazilian fans.
This year Adidas was the one which went full steam with a star-studded cast:
As at the point of writing this article, despite muted enthusiasm in Brazil, the Nike ad is still doing noticeably better, with 7 mil views to Adidas’ 1 mil, despite only being published a day earlier. How did that happen? The Nike ad is extremely focused on the game itself, featuring beautifully filmed shots of various people playing soccer, while the Adidas ad is about… creativity (What?). Nike has shown that it still knows its audience better than its competitor: it knows what they want to watch, share, and watch again.
Does Your Product Even Tie-In to the Event?
Some events make more sense for your brand than others. Be sensitive to whether a tie-in might be appropriate. Woolworths, for example, famously sparked controversy in 2015 by trying to tie-in marketing to ANZAC Day with a cringeworthy “Fresh in our Memories” campaign that they had to quickly take down. Ouch. For something as already rampantly commercial and rife with corruption as FIFA’s World Cup, missteps like Woolworths’ are probably harder to make. Keeping in mind the audience who would be watching though would tell you whether they might be interested in your product in the first place — or be a new target audience you might want to approach.
The key for this is time — and research. Not sure about either? We can talk you through it.
Congrats! Now to make an ad…
Coca-Cola made a World Cup ad, because of course it did:
Its 2018 campaign is about how you’ve had 4 years to stock up for the World Cup, and frankly I’m not sure if the marketing team creating it have actually watched a World Cup game before. If it’s on, and a team that you’re interested in, why in the world would you be making a run outside for a bottle of Coke? During half-time, maybe, but not while the game’s on. Ouch.
Coca-Cola had much better luck with its sponsored World Cup 2018 anthem, Colors, by Jason Derulo:
Colors has been much more successful, with over 20 mil views on YouTube. As unbranded content, it might not necessarily translate to a bottle of Coke in every hand, but the diverse upbeat song has generated positive press online. For a large brand like Coca-Cola, that might be good enough.
And now the Weird…
In other monumental world events that happened this week, there was the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore. With the Singaporean Government footing much of the bill to the tune of $15-20 million, it was in many ways a bizarre event that led to a signed “agreement” similar to agreements already reached in earlier years by different American presidents. That aside, earned media for Singapore was estimated by Mumbrella at $150 million:
Meanwhile, Hoffman Agency general manager for Singapore Maureen Tseng claims the staging will actually prove to be priceless for the country. “You have two of the world’s most recognisable figures being filmed walking and driving through Singapore’s landmarks – and the massive publicity pre, during and post-event,” she explains.
“The fact that ‘where is Singapore?’ became one of the top trending search queries on Google is another unexpected bonus. And, unlike with many global events, both the West and the East were watching. Singapore has reinforced its position as a politically neutral, extremely organised and attractive destination. I don’t think the STB could have planned it any better. In terms of public relations value, the summit would have translated into way more than the $20m price tag.”
Event tie-ins fed through many of the F&B businesses in the country, with tie-in food and drinks such as Peace Summit burgers and other things.
Would you eat a kimchi burger in the name of commercialised peace? We might. In the meantime, fire up the World Cup fervour. Australia’s playing France tonight at 8pm. Go Socceroos!
I’m on my way home, compressed among the masses in a train heading into Richmond Station. Some tall American guy is getting into his sales pitch on the phone close by. In the train carriage, there’s no escape. “I’ve been in the marketing business for decades, working with firms like X, Y, and Z,” he says. OK. So far so normal. Good for you dude, hope you get the gig. “I’m a futurist. Really into mindfulness. I’m an ideas guy, y’know. Specialising in future-proofed strategies.”
… Okay, man.
(Confession: I might have written down some of the keywords in his spiel and reproduced them in the studio dog’s bio.) I’ve got nothing against buzzwords, or, as they’ve been perhaps uncharitably called in this agency, “w*nker words that work”. I was a lawyer before I got into the ad business, so you could say I have a prima facie higher-than-average tolerance for self-serving industry jargon that makes their user sound more qualified than they really are. Carpe diem, right? It’s a cynical industry–I’d go so far to say that cynicism is a good trait in an ad agency–so why are buzzwords like “futurist” and “long-tailed” and “mindfulness” so ubiquitous?
Because clients like it, that’s why.
Yeah, You Guys
Buzzwords are kinda like the words on wine reviews. Full-bodied? Hint of oak? Smoky charcoal and jam? More tannin? Dry, sweet? Makes you feel better about forking out $100++ for the bottle at the restaurant. The dressed-up sommelier knows it. He might even be paid more than the chef. After all, he’s just doubled your bill by persuading you to have a few glasses. Did you know alcohol is classified a carcinogen by the WHO? Probably, but pour it on. You’ve been sold into the service and the product.
Advertising hasn’t been classified a carcinogen by the WHO, though it might just be a matter of time. More than sommeliers in restaurants, advertising is itself the art of selling. You might have heard some of our favourite buzzwords being thrown around, such as–
Front-end/Back-End
What We Wish It Means: Something to do with bacon. The crispy bit? Rashers? Thick cut or in strips?
What It Really Means: Refers to online presence development. Anything to do with the “front-end” is anything that deals with anything that the users see. Website design, UX, and more. “Back-end” is server-side stuff, like databases, things that the users won’t see. Dynamic sites require databases to work: things like user profiles, the posts users might upload and such are all stored in databases.
Future-proofing:
What We Wish It Means: Retirement money. What? Doesn’t everyone have a dream of retiring and lying on a beach somewhere in the Bahamas, slowly increasing their skin cancer risk?
What It Really Means: A product or service that would not need updating/significant updating as tech changes. Frankly, few things are future-proofed. And why should they be? Things should change with time, if only to get better.
Long-tailed:
What We Wish It Means: Something to do with animals. We love animals.
What It Really Means: Often used arbitrarily, so who knows. Technically it refers to large number of products that sell in small quantities, as contrasted with the small number of best-selling products. The total sale of these large number of products is the “long tail”, and is often looked at as a new market–how do you sell unpopular niche products? “Long-tail” marketing tactics include stuff like viral marketing.
Mindfulness:
What We Wish It Means: Advertising that isn’t silly. You’d be surprised how much controversial adwork out there is self-inflicted.
What It Really Means: Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present in a focused nonjudgmental way. This is great for approaching targeted audiences, and necessary for nuanced and positive advertising strategies. Research and diversity in your decision-making team is key.
Omnichannel:
What We Wish It Means: Something to do with Transformers. Robots in disguise.
What It Really Means: A multichannel approach to sales that tries to make the customer’s sales experience as seamless as possible, integrating online and offline touchpoints.
Programmatic:
What We Wish It Means: A future Terminator movie reference maybe. Hasta la vista, Sarah Connor.
What It Really Means: In advertising, “programmatic” ads are basically ads that have been purchased through the use of software. They’re often targeted at people via the use of available database information.
ROI:
What We Wish It Means: Really Organic Ice-cream. What? We like ice-cream.
What It Really Means: Return on investment, a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or value of an investment. How much profit was made? Or were some other goals met? It’s important to define performance markers when you’re briefing an agency.
Now you know. Next time you talk to a marketer, play a fun game. Challenge them to talk to you for ten minutes without using a single buzzword. Curious about anything else not stated in here? Feel free to call in for a chat.
It’s Monday afternoon. After lunch. There’s a discussion in the marketing half of the office, which ends with the youngest (millennial) member of Starship asking, “Who still watches TV anyway?” Making my afternoon cuppa tea in the kitchen, I thought back. When was the last time I watched TV? That’s right. Masterchef Australia’s 2017 finals, and I muted the ads.
Yes, I mute ads, especially during Masterchef season. I love Masterchef: at its best it’s feel-good TV where you can pick up some cooking tips. Masterchef was how I learned how to joint and quarter a chicken. I watch the whole season once they get to the top 24, but I can only handle seeing the same repeat involving Curtis Stone’s smarmy face for so long. Remember their shonky “Feed a family of 4 for $10” campaign? Urgh. I mute ads for all my online browsing as well, using three add-ons on my Chrome browser. I take public transport, which means the only billboard I see is the one at Richmond Station–if I’m even looking up from my phone at that point. The only ads I see are the occasional sponsored post on social media, which I usually scroll past without reading (Why does Twitter keep serving me South African ads?). I don’t subscribe to any print newspapers or magazines, nor do I know anyone my age who does. I don’t even remember the last time I even touched a print newspaper: I read my news online.
I’m in my 30s, which places me in the oldest “millennial” tier. Anyone younger might not be adblocking, though they probably are: nearly half of millennials use ad blockers on their desktops, a smaller percentage use it on their phones, and some use it for every device they have. They aren’t watching as much television, or listening to as much radio. 47% of millennials and GenXers don’t watch TV at all, and one in three don’t listen to traditional radio. With the rise of Netflix, Spotify, and other streaming services that are just growing more and more accessible, it’s possible that traditional media’s share of market attention will soon drop further. Hell, my senior citizen parents watch Netflix. They only watch traditional TV for soccer and golf.
Advertising often changes along with the changing media landscape. With every new generation it’s quite likely that the trend towards engaging with less and less traditional media will continue. What’s next?
Advertise Without Advertising
Oh btw I’m building a cyborg dragon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2018
In the modern cult of celebrity, some people can sell out flamethrowers with a tweet (true story) or get elected President and possibly declare nuclear war with a tweet. It’s a brave new world. Social media has been used by brands to varying effects, but it’s definitely best at engaging millennials–most of whom use social media in some form or other. The efforts of certain social media teams have been so on point that they have revived sales for flagging products:
Lol ok https://t.co/lobyuNOkee
— MoonPie (@MoonPie) August 21, 2017
This quick troll tweet by MoonPie was one of several in an impressive run, which raised demand for its chocolate cookie and marshmallow product so much that its Chattanooga Bakery factory ran out of supplies and had to stop churning them out. The social media strategy and personality was the brainchild of a Knoxville agency, The Tombras Group, which stated that demand for MoonPie rose 17% from social media alone.
It’s not all good news, of course: it’s easy for brands to misstep online, either by ignoring review sites or worse, responding badly to reviews. Tinder famously went on a social media rant after a Vanity Fair article claimed that Tinder was only for hookups, which they then had to apologise for.
Some key takeaways:
- Yes You Need A Strategy: In the modern media ‘verse, social media is an important face of your brand that needs thought and professional attention.
- Have an Outside Team If You Can: In-house teams can work, but they can also make mistakes by being too “close” to the brand.
- Be Genuine: Have an actual personality.
- Don’t be an ass: This sentiment is key to modern advertising and marketing.
People Will Watch Your Ads If they’re Good
Ads do get shared by people if they resonate with their audience: even if the audience in question might not watch TV and/or block ads. Even for that most-hated of formats, the pre-roll. The Geico pre-roll ad campaigns were hugely successful, effectively reinventing pre-roll advertising. They tied into a core truth in pre-roll ads: that people don’t really like seeing them. Pre-rolls mess with instant gratification. There’s something inherently annoying at clicking on a video of a cute kitten and having to spend 15, 20 seconds watching an ad about something unrelated.
As such, Geico tries to make their pre-roll ads highly entertaining. By acknowledging the truth of pre-roll ads, their ads try to provide compacted information while being funny enough to make watching them feel like you’re not wasting your time. Their “Unskippable” campaign gained a lot of attention, even getting featured in news media like USA Today. If it’s possible for pre-roll ads from an insurance company to get shared around, there’s hope for everyone, in our opinion. You just need to get to the right truth. And you have to respect the fact that the audience is giving you some of their time: especially if they have no choice about it.
Some key takeaways:
- Whose Time are You Wasting and Why: Know your audience and respect their time.
- Know What You Want To Get Out of It: Have a strategy.
- Set Out ROI and Targets: Know where you want to be.
Ad Bombing
In the first episode of the Netflix series Altered Carbon, the main character, Takeshi Kovacs, is briefly overwhelmed by an unfiltered ad bomb: tons of ads all at once, floating everywhere.
Anyone travelling through Melbourne in the last few weeks probably also realized that Masterchef’s latest season is on or coming up: the ads are everywhere in public spaces. This sort of full-court press approach to advertising can risk alienating your target audience if it gets too intrusive, but we’ve seen some ad installations work well, even within Melbourne itself, particularly when driven by social consciousness. During the leadup to the equal marriage plebisite, in Melbourne the “Yes” posters were everywhere, plastered across seemingly every friendly business and venue. Even the niche boardgames/Magic the Gathering venue where my group plays D&D had multicoloured buntings up. The mass visibility of the vote worked not only to show support for the issue but also to make everyone aware of the vote. Victoria ended up having the overall highest “Yes” vote in the country.
Ad bombing is, however, extremely costly, even if traditional advertising still provides a degree of credibility that modern forms of advertising might not. As such, we often suggest (where clients have the budget for it) an integrated strategy involving both traditional and newer touchpoints, tailored towards the audience in mind. You do in many ways get what you pay for, but we do work with clients to get the best ROI out of what they have available.
Brave New World
Recent forms of advertising are all tech-driven. Brands have had activations in VR and AR, with varying success. Google debuted its first VR-capable, 360º Google Doodle only a few weeks ago. Brands have also had success using immersive AR to tell the stories: Red Cross used a great AR game to highlight the experience of children in war. Brands have even dipped into blockchain and bitcoin tech: Burger King famously debuted a Burger King bitcoin. There are even industry awards now that celebrate the use of tech in advertising.
There’s even a word for the conglomeration of advertising and technology: ad tech. Designed to help agencies make better use of budgets, ad tech is the umbrella term for tech that allows agencies to better target and analyse their digital efforts. You can read more about it here and about some of its controversies here. There’s even marketing tech: a buzzphrase for advanced CRM and SEO technologies. Less about new platforms, these forms of technology are about targeting, a whole different can of fish.
So what’s next? Is the future the giant holograms of Bladerunner: 2049? The ad bombs in Altered Carbon? Advertising will probably never die. The touchpoints will evolve, but the core challenges will remain: creating ads that capture and retain audience interest in a meaningful way (without wasting their time), and converting that interest into a valuable return. For everything else, well, in the future of Altered Carbon, there’s always the ad blocker.
You’re reading the newspaper. Maybe checking the stock market. You see yet another article talking about “blockchain”, “bitcoin”, or “cryptocurrency”. Depending on what you’re reading, the article’s either telling you how you can make ridiculous money through bitcoin, or predicting the bubble bursting. You probably know someone who knows someone who once bought bitcoin for cheap back when it was just for fun and is now a millionaire. Somehow none of this really surprises you. After all, currency is itself a bit of a social invention, and so much of it is digital nowadays anyway. Lots of people live cashless lives, paying for everything through cards. If a digital number rising and falling in a digital account can noticeably change–even save–a person’s life, maybe the development of a new form of purely digital currency isn’t so out there. Yet what exactly is blockchain, and is it really going to be the New Internet?
All the Jargon in the World
Invented by someone (or someones) going by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, blockchain is a distributed database. A shared record book, if you will (via the afr), made up of thousands of copies stored in computers around the world. A decentralised system. Every time there’s a change made to the record, aka if someone sent someone money, it’s a new line (a “block”) that’s replicated across all the copies, an irreversible change that will exist as long as the Internet exists. The change is validated by known algorithms. As the record book is owned by anyone who has a copy, there is no middleman like a bank involved. Existing in a state of consensus, the blockchain checks itself every ten minutes, reconciling any transaction during that time.
As such, this system has the benefit of transparency–everyone has access to the copy of the record book–and virtual incorruptibility, since it would require a lot of computing power to override the blockchain. It also lacks centralised points of vulnerability that hackers can exploit. This decentralised system has been called Web 3.0, allowing users to create value and authenticate digital information safely and transparently. The system, if widely adopted, would have wide-ranging effects on how we currently use the Internet.
[I]n a world where anyone can edit a Wikipedia entry, blockchain is the answer to a question we’ve been asking since the dawn of the internet age: How can we collectively trust what happens online? –PCMag
Blockchain Outside Bitcoin
To date, the value of bitcoin is estimated at several billion USD. And the blockchain system is beginning to be used for things other than cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Via PCMag:
[D]ozens of startups are using the technology for everything from global payments to music sharing, from tracking diamond sales to the legal marijuana industry. That’s why blockchain’s potential is so vast: When it comes to digital assets and transactions, you can put absolutely anything on a blockchain. A host of economic, legal, regulatory, and technological hurdles must be scaled before we see widespread adoption of blockchain technology, but first movers are making incredible strides. Within the next handful of years, large swathes of your digital life may begin to run atop a blockchain foundation—and you may not even realize it.
In Kenya, which has a problem with fraudsters and corrupt land officials changing records for “land grabs”, it’s hoped that blockchain will help build trust in and buffer a system otherwise rife with problems. From the BBC:
Caine Wanjau, the technology officer at Twiga Foods, a Kenya-based food distribution company, says: “In a relationship where two parties don’t trust each other, then blockchain makes sense.”
The company recently announced a partnership with IBM Research to create digital profiles of informal small-scale traders – to be stored in a blockchain – to help them access credit.
“Seventy percent of Kenyans work in the agriculture sector but only 2% get credit from banks. We want to create an immutable – trustworthy – database of the vendors and suppliers we deal with to help them, and banks to have access to information they can use to negotiate credit,” Mr Wanjau adds.
But I’m not in Kenya, you might say. And my business won’t touch cryptocurrency with a 100 foot pole. So what does blockchain have to do with me? It’s because, as Don Tapscott explained it in Blockchain Revolution and in his 2016 TED Talk:
Today, we rely entirely on big intermediaries; middlemen like banks, government, big social media companies, credit companies, and so on to establish trust in our economy. These intermediaries perform all the business and transaction logic of every kind of commerce, from identification and authentication of people through to clearing, settling, and record-keeping… they capture our data, which means we can’t monetize or use it to better manage our lives, and our privacy is being undermined…
[S]o what if there were not only an Internet of information, but an Internet of value. Some kind of vast, global, distributed ledger running on millions of computers and available to everybody, and where every kind of asset from money to music could be stored, moved, transacted, exchanged, and managed, all without powerful intermediaries.”
Some brands have also seen immediate returns by engaging directly with the blockchain system. We’re not talking about weirdly jokey forays like Burger King creating its own cryptocurrency (Yes, this actually happened in Russia, the Whoppercoin). Via Adnews:
The blockchain boost continued when Kodak revealed this week it too was jumping into blockchain and launching its own cryptocurrency: the KodakCoin.
Shares of the struggling 130-year-old company rose as much as 90% Wednesday, giving it a valuation of US $565 million.
That represented a gain of roughly US $431 million or 321% since the company said it would use the technology underlying cryptocurrencies, blockchain, to help photographers manage their image rights.
Blockchain systems provide what people want out of modern brands: transparency and authenticity. By integrating blockchain, brands could provide proof that certain practices that their target audience wants are being put in place–for example, that sustainable, ethical practices are being used in goods. Transparency can also lead to other benefits like operational efficiency. Looking for more ways to improve transparency and operational practices? Get in touch.
You’re browsing Facebook. Or the news. You see a dense, defensive paragraph that may or may not be apologetic, followed by a statement that runs something like “SmartyPantsCompany stands for diversity, inclusivity, friendship, everyone, bears, puppies, and world peace”. You think: now what? Some piece of tone-deaf advertising’s gone viral? CEO said something he shouldn’t? Is the statement going to help repair any PR damage already done? If it’s the first time such a statement’s been expressed, probably not. It’s too late to cover your ass when something’s set your pants on fire.
Nowadays brands are under increasing pressure to be transparent about what they stand for, particularly within their branding. At Starship, we believe that if brands genuinely stand for something, it’ll be easier for them to separate themselves from the crowd. Such concepts could and should be part of a brand’s overall strategy and branding, as carefully considered as its visual expression. And it should be a sentiment that’s consistently expressed with the brand language itself, or it won’t come off as genuine. It shouldn’t be something created just for the sake of ticking a box. It should stem from the reason why the company was made, or why it still operates. Teasing out and expressing this sentiment in words can and should take as much time as other aspects of a company’s branding. Like the other aspects of your brand, it should be carefully considered with expert help.
[Jan Zijderveld, president of Europe Unilever, said that] brands with “purpose” at the heart of their message were growing at twice the rate of other brands across Unilever’s portfolio.
Across Europe, he said, macroeconomic pressures and resulting price promotions had “eaten away at brand value” but that business could achieve double-digit growth by marketing around a sense of purpose and driving trust.
“Consumers want brands that stand for something,” he said. “Ben & Jerry’s and Dove are examples – what we find is when we do this with our brands they grow twice as fast as those who don’t have sustainability at the heart… That’s where the juice is, the pockets of growth… Consumers want brands to be more responsible.” –CampaignLive
When we tell clients their brands need to brand values, we’re not trying to sell marketing buzzwords or hokey ideas. It’s actual, actionable strategy.
Everything Is On Fire
Brands mess up all the time. In the digital age, if brands get dragged online and in social media, it can affect the stock price. There are some things that companies can’t (and shouldn’t) be able to bounce back from–*cough Weinstein cough*. Some companies have tried to readjust to survive the scandals anyway: Uber is one of the most obvious examples. Despite headlines predicting the end of Uber in early 2017 after a string of scandals including its ex-CEO Travis Kalanick’s behaviour, having a culture that fosters misogyny, stealing from Google, responding badly to a taxi boycott and more, in 2018, Uber still exists. Uber chose a new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, who’d been at Expedia. Dara is a fan of the Zero Defects policy:
In the late 1950s, a weapons maker called the Martin Company received a contract to build the first Pershing missile. It was to be the most sophisticated mobile weapons system on earth: 5 tons of metal and precision technology designed to deliver a nuclear warhead from up to 460 miles away. Should it ever be used, there would be no margin for error. It had to be perfect. And the US Army wanted it delivered quickly.
The task of ensuring this timely perfection fell to Philip Crosby, a quality-control manager at Martin. To break with his industry’s wartime habit of tolerating small mistakes in feverish production, Crosby came up with a philosophy he would later call Zero Defects. The idea was, basically, to instill in workers the will to prevent problems during design and manufacture rather than go back and fix them later. Crosby’s philosophy went on to become a management buzzword, especially in the aerospace and auto industries, where a faulty gasket or a weak bearing could mean a fiery catastrophe. During the Apollo program, NASA even gave out little Zero Defects trophies—each one a cute pewter spaceman standing on the moon with the letters “ZD” emblazoned on his chest.
Genuine brand values expressed effectively through a business is part of how brands could instill a Zero Defects philosophy in their company. Training and a work ethic and culture that grows out of a brand’s values combined with a consistent public-facing strategy across communications would have a positive effect over a company.
Things will still happen. Take Starbucks, for example. Their mission statement: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” Earlier this year, the cops were called on two black men who were waiting in a Starbucks store for their friend. They hadn’t caused a disturbance: they’d just refused to order, presumably because their friend hadn’t yet arrived. After the incident went viral, Starbucks issued the following statement:
We apologize to the two individuals and our customers for what took place at our Philadelphia store on Thursday. pic.twitter.com/suUsytXHks
— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) April 14, 2018
The company achieved 100% pay equity in the United States and is working on achieving pay equity globally. Starbucks sources sustainable and ethical products, hires refugees, and runs various other social impact programs. As such, several customers responded favourably to Starbucks’ attempt to make amends. The CEO has apologised to the two men, and although Starbucks’ decision to close all its American stores for racial bias training was met with a mixed reaction, they have brought on groups like Black Lives Matter to design its curriculum. Time will tell whether the token afternoon of ‘training’ helps, but overall the issue hasn’t affected Starbucks’ stock price, and Starbucks has managed to regain some control over what was deservedly a brand PR disaster.
Standing Up for Something
There’s a difference between just standing for something and standing UP for something. A statement on paper (or twitter) doesn’t mean much if your brand doesn’t also have initiatives in the same spirit of its mission statement. Nowadays, with the rise of lifestyle brands, clients do like brands that also give something back. Grill’ds bottlecap system, for example, is very popular. And you’d often find brands sponsoring anything from zoo animals to cultural events. Standing for something will help your brand connect with its target audience on an emotional level, cutting through the noise. The more you act along these lines, the more you’d reinforce your brand’s presence–and convince customers that you’re worth supporting above your competitors. Naturally, customers who don’t agree with your brand values may also decide to turn away from your brand. Maybe that’s ok, maybe it isn’t. That’s why the way forward requires thought and care. Want to have a chat about it? Let us know.
On Tuesday, a complaint from the marketing strategist: “The dog gets more attention than I do!” Of course. In this agency our office dog Dakota, a Groenendael rescue, is probably the most popular employee. The most popular client-facing employee, even. It’s good to be a dog. Even–or especially–a giant fluffy wolf-shaped dog. Office pets are a key perk in creative industry offices. Broadsheet, a popular Australian food and culture magazine, recently ran an office dog competition on their subsidiary Scout (Confession: We submitted a profile for Dakota but didn’t make it to the final round):
“If you’re looking for ways to lower the stress levels and improve morale in your office, consider becoming a dog-friendly workplace,” says Michelle McCormack, experienced Melbourne psychologist, workplace consultant and dog owner. “The benefits are really too good to ignore. They can have a calming influence on your team, improve office communication and increase job-satisfaction levels – all of which can help increase overall workplace productivity.”
There are dogs that aren’t suitable for office environments. Dogs that aren’t bark-trained, or dogs that aren’t semi-toilet trained, for example. Here at Starship, our previous dog, Buster, knew to alert people whenever he needed a walk around the park. Regarding barking, Buster and Dakota have been pretty good about it: Buster only tended to bark at the occasional passing cat. As to Dakota, she was anxious at the start but has gotten a lot better integrating into the office since. Groenendaels are big dogs, as you can see from the feature image. With training, attention, and frequent walks, even a big dog can be a good fit.
They’re All Good Dogs, Brent
We always recommend adopting if you can. Shelters are full, and there are a lot of dogs out there that will fit into your life given a chance. Shelter reps will often also be able to recommend a dog for you depending on your home and lifestyle. Some dogs just need a bit more work. Dakota was from a home that didn’t treat her well, and at the beginning, she had serious anxiety and separation issues. She’s definitely too big for an apartment, but has benefited from having a normal doggie diet, long runs on the beach, and from living in a house with a big yard. If you’re thinking in terms of breeds, a popular, chilled-out breed in Melbourne which often needs homes is the Greyhound. Despite being racing dogs, Greyhounds are actually gentle and quiet off the track and don’t have a doggie smell. Some Greyhound rescues in Melbourne include Greyhound Rescue Victoria.
If you’re thinking of buying from a registered breeder, other popular office breeds in Melbourne include dachshunds, squishy-faced dogs like pugs and Boston Terriers, and small breeds like Maltese Shih-Tzus. We wouldn’t recommend buying a squishy-faced dog if you can help it. An RSPCA campaign has brought up issues that certain breeds like pugs have:
If you’re thinking of buying from an unregistered breeder: don’t. The puppy might be cheaper, but it might have health problems, temperament problems, and worse, it might be a product of a puppy mill.
Who Let the Dogs Out
Pet dogs are increasingly popular and acceptable in offices, even large corporate ones. Via the Guardian:
The Google code of conduct states “affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture”. At Amazon, around 2,000 employees have registered their pets at its headquarters in Seattle so they can take them in – reception desks are stocked with biscuits, some water fountains are set at dog height, and there’s an off-leash park – also open to the public – where staff can exercise their pets. […]
Around 8% of US and UK employers allow dogs at work. A 2016 survey by Banfield pet hospital found that 82% of employees feel a greater sense of loyalty to pet-friendly companies, 88% think pets at work improve morale and 86% say they reduce stress.
Laura Wolf, global content manager at digital creative agency Possible, based in Seattle, said her chihuahua-dachshund mix, Boomer, is a “real morale booster”. She also helps break the ice with new colleagues. “You get to know people through your dog, people stop to cuddle her. She’ll sit on my lap during meetings; sleep next to my desk while I’m working; visit colleagues she knows who’ll give her a treat.”
What about cats? Some agencies have cats instead of dogs, but they’re a rarer breed. A Japanese workplace recently appeared on the BBC for having cats in the workplace to reduce stress. Some businesses, like the bodegas of NYC or secondhand bookstores, traditionally have kitty employees. And one of the more famous cats in the world, Larry, ‘works’ at No. 10 Downey St in the UK as the Chief Mouser, a staple at that address through a series of changing PMs and Brexit.
Cats or dogs or other animals, we hope the prevalence of pets in offices will become more mainstream over time. If you’re working in a petless office, good luck! And if you ever want to drop by to give Dakota a pat, let us know.
It’s a new retail world out there. When was the last time you went to a mall? Not just popping through to catch a movie, pick up some sushi or grab something from Coles, but to actually shop? That’s right. You have to have an actual think about it, don’t you? The days when people would congregate in a mall to hang out are starting to fade. With the advent of online shopping, brick-and-mortar retail is at risk: and can even seem incongruous. In its latest update, David Jones sales were down 4 percent, a “death spiral” echoed in Myers, and even overseas in US juggernauts such as Macy’s. Is it the end? Are sprawling malls soon to be a dinosaur of the past?
There have been nine retail bankruptcies in 2017—as many as all of 2016. J.C. Penney, RadioShack, Macy’s, and Sears have each announced more than 100 store closures. Sports Authority has liquidated, and Payless has filed for bankruptcy. Last week, several apparel companies’ stocks hit new multi-year lows, including Lululemon, Urban Outfitters, and American Eagle, and Ralph Lauren announced that it is closing its flagship Polo store on Fifth Avenue, one of several brands to abandon that iconic thoroughfare. –The Atlantic
We’re Not Exactly Swimming In Money Here, Genius
2017 Christmas spending in Australia slumped:
Australia’s December retail sales report has come in well under expectations, partially reversing a strong lift in November.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), sales fell by 0.5% to $ 26.261 billion in seasonally adjusted terms, missing forecasts for a smaller decline of 0.2%.
According to APAC Economist Callam Pickering, with low wage growth and high debt in Australia, this doesn’t come as much surprise. Similarly, it might just be cheaper to buy things online, or overseas. Books, for example. A book in a brick and mortar store is quite likely to cost twice as much as the same book off an aggregator site like booko.com.au, or an ebook. The launch of Amazon Australia, while rife with hiccups and so far not quite the disruptor that it promised to be, also tends to charge less for the same thing.
Improved employment conditions in 2017 might lead to a retail boost in 2018, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Modern Retail Ecosystems
The world has changed rapidly since the dawn of the digital age, and often malls have struggled to keep up. Outside of offering integrated digital features like new payment systems, click and collect, free wifi and such, malls haven’t exactly moved the needle far beyond that. Malls have been closing down as brick and mortar stores struggle. Why would you go to a mall, when instant gratification purchases can be made out of your phone? Food? There’s an app for that too. Movies? Film tickets are increasingly expensive, and there’s always Netflix. Clothes? If you’re not into fast fashion or high priced fashion, chances are you’re already buying your stuff online, in thrift shops, or at select shops. In a time-poor world, why cut out half of your day to drive out and worship consumerism?
Kmart’s Director, Ian Bailey, had some insights:
“We are failing to deliver on what customers really want. They want more information from us, they want a super shopping experience, they want better products, and they want lower prices – pretty much they want the lot. […] Newness is very important, Australians respond extraordinarily well to new things.”
For younger generations, there’s been a shift away from materialism to experiences. That beautiful brunchy avocado toast shot might be “worth” more to a millennial than a new shirt. As consumer value systems shift, modern retail environments will need to shift with it. That’s partly what Mr. Bailey might have meant by “new things”. Some malls have been trying to adjust in this direction. Melbourne Central, for example, regularly hosts lifestyle events like Donut Fairs that attract visitors. Chadstone has inbuilt attractions like Lego Land, which even has “adult” nights for people without kids (No, it’s not what you’re thinking). Such features give customers a reason to make the time to go to the venue, one that’s above and beyond providing products that they can access on their couch.
In Asia, malls have tried to readjust by offering great F&B options. Food courts in malls from Singapore to Bangkok are great. Nothing like the oily, sad, highly franchised options available in most Aussie malls. (Other than Emporium in Melbourne, but that mall is Asian-owned, and looks suspiciously like a tiny version of Singapore’s Ion.) David Jones food court? Expensive, overpriced. If you’ve ever been to a basement in a Tokyo mall, you won’t forget it. A mecca of quick food, cheap food, food gifts and more, that’s one thing that you’d be willing to go to a mall for. Malls in Asia often also host higher end restaurants and cafes, reorienting their shopping offers around such embedded draws. It’s something that Australian retail spaces can catch up on.
“[M]alls in the United States are struggling more than those in Asia. Unlike their Asian counterparts, which often offer more options like dining and education resources, American malls have traditionally been designed simply to bring stores together, without further consideration of amenities and conveniences like transport links. “It’s just not interesting anymore.” –David Fassbender, executive director of portfolio management in Asia for PGIM Real Estate
Omnichannel is another way to go. By providing shoppers with a seamless transition from online to physical, certain malls in Asia, such as Seoul’s Shinsegae, have been offering shoppers personalised suggestions through their apps. Intrusive? Maybe, in this increasingly privacy-conscious world, but if handled well, personalised integrated shopping can help boost conversion and customer loyalty.
Accessible to Everyone
This might be an obvious one, though it isn’t as obviously implemented. Want more foot traffic? Make sure your retail space is highly accessible. Not just for families, but also for people with disabilities. Are there facilities that make it easy for them to visit and use the retail space? Public space design often lets down entire swathes of people. Try to make sure your space isn’t one that does.
An Urban Village
With people increasingly thinking of themselves less as consumers, developers have been creating more mixed-used spaces in retail spaces. Still, experiential design needs a lot of thought, research, and branding. As does the implementation of Omnichannel offerings and other cutting-edge retail strategies. Retail isn’t dead, it’s just in the process of trying to keep up with the brave new world. Want to know more? Give us a buzz.