When Word-of-Mouth Advertising Turns into Exploitation

As my digital marketing class comes to an end, I wanted to look at darker elements of the unit. After researching into companies that utilise tools to boost the awareness of their brand, I started to think about the ones that engaged in practices that posed ethical concerns. That’s where I turned to Amazon, a widely profitable company with a CEO that has only now figured out how to fairly pay his workers. But that’s tea for a different day. I want to discuss the recent discovery of heightened advertising for own-label brands.

Source: The Next Web

Recently, the company has come under fire for manipulating the positive word-of-mouth of its own products. Supposedly, the Amazon Vine service has been churning out more reviews of products to match the number of genuine reviews on private label products. Such as service is meant to vendors struggling to get enough reviews for its newest goods. At the same time, the service is meant to push for honest and unbiased reviews. However, the surge in reviews makes it seem as if the own-label products are seen as close competitors, when that is actually not the case. Independent merchants are now set at a disadvantage; since Amazon now buys reviews of their own items at the expense of winning the click-and-mortar battlefield. What’s surprising is that this is months after the company vilified the paid reviews that surfaced the website:

Amazon being the hypocrite in this scenario only brings me back to Spotify’s “subtle” advertising of Drake’s new album back in June. As for current solutions, one good thing is that the EU is looking into an investigation regarding anti-trust and whether the site took advantage of the own-labeled products. Simultaneously, Rise Interactive is a marketing agency that has perfected a system whereby you may observe and track Amazon’s advertising performance. It’s called Connex Analytics and it is open to several features including (but not limited to) analysing your ad expenditure, comparison of keyword optimisation in search engines, and basically improving the way businesses will measure their performance online compared to Amazon products. As a result, independent merchants can now level the playing field.

Spotify: hey, we make playlists catered to your unique tastes.
Spotify user: listens to 18 hours of Mongolian throat singing, Icelandic drumming bands and a peruvian death metal band.
Spotify: pls listen to drake

— spochadóir (@spochadoir) July 1, 2018

So what are your thoughts on the matter? Have there been other examples of hype being manipulated for the sake of leveraging the competition? Let me know in the comments below!

 

#BrowsOnFleek? Content Marketing Taking Centre Stage

In most marketing agencies, strategies are set out to create meaningful ideas for customers to retain top-of-mind recollection. Content marketing encompasses this dynamic concept. This can be in the form of interactive video, blog posts, infographics, what have you. And by the looks of it, having such a gimmick seems to be the only thing grabbing most people’s attention in this day and age.

Oreos taking great strides in the world of content marketing, by releasing videos in collaboration with popular influencers, ending on a tagline that reads “Some People’ll Do Anything For An Oreo”. One popular group being the Slo Mo Guys being shown doing stunts into a vat of milk:

This is a great tactic of fitting the company’s products into the YouTubers’ general formula for general “on-brand” content. Pretty easy to apply to a scenario where every video shot with an ultra-high-definition camera and simply slowed down. Then there’s another 20-second ad featuring people sporting black and white striped eyebrows (mimicking the look of oreos), with the title card slapped at the beginning. What’s great about this strategy is that while knowing most target market segments spend more time on social media, the use of such influencers aids in reaching their audience even faster.

Now this campaign seems a lot more effective in drawing the attention of others, as it has the potential to go viral. Remember when wavy eyebrows were a largely polarizing trend that spawned from Instagram? Many were quick to call the phenomenon out for its absurd look, but others were also compelled to try it out. Since it only took drawing your eyebrows a certain way and posting them online, the trend was able to reach mainstream media within a week.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYcM9tLBy1L/?utm_source=ig_embed

Oreos took on this concept, and decided to feature several people in white and black striped eyebrows for another ad spot. This is a sound strategy. If people are so driven to attempt the Oreo brows, they will most likely take it one step further by posting the result all over social media. The hashtag #OreoBrows is also a nice touch, allowing Twitter to handle all the data aggregation of every user that has interacted with the craze. This took relying solely on word-of-mouth (whether good or bad) and shared posts on popular platforms. Even news organisations were taking part! This just goes to show just how influential the meta-campaign can be.

Do you think Oreo was successful in this campaign? Did you ever jump on the bandwagon of trends set by popular brands? Let me know in the comments below!

I Let an App Schedule My Instagram Posts – Here’s What Happened

For the main assignment of my digital marketing class I chose to do “Brand Me”, which revolves around analysing my brand and how I would like to be seen by my customers (also known as my future employers). In this day and age, I feel like Instagram is a widely used tool to maintain and keep your personal brand up to date. At the same time people are ostensibly fine tuning their next posts, in hopes of gaining more likes. That’s why I decided to partake in a fun little experiment. UNUM is an app that enables you to optimise the arrangement of scheduled posts for your grid-structured profile.

Source: The Tab

How it works is you log into the app with your preferred Instagram profile, add prospective posts, arrange them and post according to your liking. Key features that I’d like to note throughout this process:

• App operates on a freemium model so I chose to use the free version while there are paid monthly subscriptions ($7.49 for ‘Select – Individuals and Rising Influencers’ and $10.49 for ‘Elite’).
• Reminders section in app allowing you to keep track of scheduled posts
• Layout of previously posted photos in a grid-like view to mimic the way your profile looks, demonstrating how your imported photos may look along with them
• ‘Best Times’ enables for optimising when posts would receive the most reach and engagement from your followers (mine at the beginning of August were on Mondays at 2pm, Thursdays at 2am and Fridays at 11pm)
• I wanted to maintain a theme among every row of photos (for aesthetic and consistency reasons), as posting in threes is an increasingly common style (thanks to the likes of Beyoncé)

 

Among the painstakingly different times I had to post in a day, 3 times a week, I found that the more I posted, the less likes I’d received. At the same time, most of the posts revolving around anything besides my face were not as well received. This is pretty much how my likes deviated from the first week of September until this week.

Distribution of likes based on photos with vs without my face, taken from accumulated instagram likes on my profile.

I tried to keep a good mix of things involving scenery, social activity and myself in isolation. That way, most of my rationale for the differing likes could be attributed to these circumstances. Personally, I can understand why a posting photo of my friend would not garner just as many likes as a selfie. People generally dislike not knowing what they see. It’s natural for us to be apathetic about a post solely devoted to someone we’ve never seen before. There’s a reason why posts with the products themselves failed to receive as much traction from an audience. Hence, the process evolves over time.

FAIL: Scott Disick copy-pasting the testimonial, including the message sent by his agent (source)

Source: Zane Hijazi on Instagram

However, group or duo photos including myself seemed to at least gain higher likes than photos not involving myself. From a business standpoint, this also makes sense. Especially in the realm of influencer marketing. Popular influencers apply this concept when posting with paid partnerships. Instagram sponsorships maximise on the stars’ follower engagement by familiarising a brand, along with the aid of positive word-of-mouth. Of course, this also comes with its drawbacks for the influencer, the brand and the consumer (changing celebrity image, expensive to endorse, unfollowing due to frequent ads). Nevertheless, a study confirms that the use of sponsored posts have greatly increased by 44% over the past year, as of August 2018.

So what do you think about the way we subconsciously brand ourselves via social media? Are you going to start using the UNUM app, or have you already tried it out for yourself? Let me know in the comments below!

Source: Giphy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bubble, Bubble, Filter & Trouble…

Source: Instagram

Have you ever found yourself searching for something oddly specific on YouTube or Facebook, and all of a sudden your entire timeline is filled with similar articles or videos for the next few days? Well this is a phenomenon people know all too well, known as ‘filter bubbles‘. This refers to the concept of customised content based on what you like and don’t like on your digital feed. Such a topic as this has been circulating in recent news, only increasing in relevancy over time. Such a case has been prevalent in apps such as Facebook, YouTube and even Instagram’s discover page and ‘story’ ads.

Source: Google Trends

So why is it such a bad thing? Eli Pariser, internet activist and author of ‘The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You‘, gives a TED talk on this problem and draws several important points. He noted that these algorithmic filters editing the social conversation drawing out opinions only sets us in a regressive time where all information and news are solely controlled and catered to a specific narrative. Others however argue that the filter bubbles are a great way of isolating what may be important to them. This can be seen as a means of creating a safe space. But a majority of the discussion is in favour of bursting the technical bubble as the political polarisation can manifest, making it even more difficult to bridge between divides.

Source: PhoneDog

Google has recently curated a search feature called ‘Google Discover‘, as a means to break this occurrence. The key aspect of this new element is how it bases its technology. Instead of personalising your search results based on past activity, all perspectives and views will be brought to light. This will hopefully diminish the biases that come with a regular Google search. But we’re always going to be skeptical about the ethics of our data given to large scale corporations like Google or Facebook, in light of the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal. Many have argued that 2017 was a big year for filter bubbles, due to the aftermath of the online antics that set up Trump’s presidency after the elections.

Source: Tumblr

So what do you think about the way online algorithms set up our filter bubbles? Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you managed to escape a specific algorithm? Let me know in the comments, and allow me to end on this quote by Mark Zuckerberg in 2011:

A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa.

Infamous YouTuber Docu-series: Publicity Stunt or Genius Marketing?

Source: YouTube

If you knew me, you would know that I love to watch popular YouTubers. There’s just something intriguing about the innate lifestyles of the internet famous, especially when a select few are in the midst of ongoing drama. Shane Dawson is a long-time content creator who ditched the short sketches to delve into the lives of YouTube stars — via long documentary-style episodes. His most recent series involving the scandal of ‘Tanacon‘ catapulted his channel’s view count to an average of 13-17 million. So it’s safe to say that any content he generates surrounding controversy rakes in large amounts of engagement.

Speaking of controversy, his current series explores the inner workings of the mind of Jake Paul. “Who is Jake Paul?“, you may be asking? He is a 20-something web celebrity who emerged from the world of Vine and continued to cause chaos, along with his YouTube-grown alias (also known as ‘Team 10‘). If none of those words made sense to you, then here’s some background info. The group have had a history of making local news; from setting fires and upsetting fellow neighbours, to climbing on news vans and making fun of the reporter’s shoes.

Source: CollegeHumor

Dawson faced major backlash as a result of the first two episodes, with many critiquing the use of horror movie edits with the discussion of the Paul brothers being sociopaths. Much of the critique was in relation to insensitively giving the wrong diagnoses (despite having the guidance of Kati Morton, a licensed therapist on YouTube):

https://twitter.com/jessesaintjohn/status/1045579050016600064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1045579050016600064&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thisisinsider.com%2Fshane-dawson-jake-paul-sociopath-documentary-criticism-2018-9

i understand why people are upset. i definetly went overboard with the horror movie editing but that’s cause i got excited & love editing horror. but i’m going to be more sensitive with the editing going forward. the last thing i want it to hurt anyone. :(its never my intention. https://t.co/aNcXkJo5eI

— Shane Dawson (@shanedawson) September 28, 2018

There have also been grave concerns for the YouTuber giving infamous stars a “redemption arc”, humanising them in spite of past actions (eg. his 5-part series with Jeffree Star regardless of past scandals). At this point many are just itching for the 5th and now 6th instalments where the interactions between the two will take place. As for now, the first three episodes have amassed more than 40 million views in under a week!

My main wonder with ALL of this is the implications for the influencer’s publicity. In the realm of digital marketing, shock value and controversy are not new concepts. But with rumours circulating about how the series could be making millions in revenue, it proves just how powerful YouTube’s audience can be with any hard-hitting news revolving around one thing; drama.

In fact, many channels are now catered to such drama, adding commentary and further circulating the discussion. The website’s algorithm even encourages feeding into this concept (even with the much hated testing it goes through).We’ve seen it happen to Bhad Bhabie, Lil Tay and plenty of others as a means to get their 5 minutes of fame; and they only seem to be getting younger. Even a breakup video between popular content creators Liza Koshy and David Dobrik has garnered 44 million views to this day.

Source: Tumblr

Does this mean drama is the only way for content to go viral nowadays, and would you watch it? If you’re watching the series, are you excited for the last two parts? Let me know in the comments section below!

Source: We The Unicorns

 

 

 

“Pass GO, Collect a Big Mac!”

Source: Maccas Play Official

One of McDonald’s biggest rewards game is making a grand return to Australia, with over $250mil worth of prizes for the taking until October 16th. Starting in the US and Canada in 1987 as a simple fun promotion for the fast food chain, it grew to a massive phenomenon across the globe. Even in a time as early as 2003, the online web game proved a worthy investment for getting consumers hooked on the rewards based program. Chris Hess (VP of McDonald’s ad agency The Marketing Store) told Promo Magazine,

We’ve found that when people play the online Monopoly game, there’s a level of customer engagement that keeps them coming back … They’re quicker to get back into the store and revisit.

It would be a shame not to continue with this tactic, right? That’s why in a world dominated by instant-assistive technology, the game returns as a unique smartphone app users may download to play and win. It is notably convenient as all records of past wins are kept with a registered account.

So how does it all work, you may ask? The official ‘Maccas Play’ website breaks it down for us in a step-by-step process:

1. Earn game tickets by buying any of the selected McDonald’s products in stores. The company ensures a “higher chance of winning” by purchasing medium or large value meals.
2. Peel the physical sticker of your game ticket off the products to uncover three ways to win: instant win, collect to win or a chance card.
3. The scanning of the stickers are big focus of the app, as doing so will unlock a potential for instant redeemable items. These can be stashed or redeemed at selected stores, ranging from free burgers to discounts to even free petrol for a year!

Personally, I think it’s a great way to encourage consumers to start using the app for all McDonald’s related activities. If anything, it only heightens everyone’s awareness of the brand to a greater scale if there’s a constant reminder for it from their phone (as it is over 1.7 million users visit the fast food chain every day). Especially when 136,634,083 tickets have been distributed across all outlets, nearly everyone is guaranteed a likely chance of winning something (despite gambler’s fallacy). This will likely boost the number of visitations within the month’s period!

Source: Tumblr

Even after the promotion ends, it is fair to assume just as many customers will return to McDonalds after associating the brand with such positive memories from the promotion. For instance, Hungry Jacks offers a similar feature all year round where users can shake and redeem discounted or free products at selected outlets. From past experience, I can say the app makes a huge difference in reinforcing the brand in my mind. Every time I pass by a Hungry Jacks outlet, I immediately check the app and shake to see if I have a good deal.

Source: Elizabeth H. Brockway for The Daily Beast

However, some people see this annual event as a cash grab at the nostalgia of the original board game. Recent studies have shown that kids are more vulnerable to junk food advertising, therefore being more susceptible to these app downloads. The disadvantages do not stop there, as McDonald’s and Monopoly have had a twisted history together. There have been cases referring to cop stealing millions from such a rewards game (the story is almost ‘Netflix show’ worthy). This includes other articles surrounding the idea that the program is rigged in the US — and yet we still find ourselves engulfed in a big mac or two, trying the peel our possible fortunes.

So what do you think? Will you take part in the McDonald’s Monopoly fiasco? Let me know in the comments section below!

En Route to The Uncanny Valley

Have you ever seen something so look so real, it’s disturbing? Well then you’ve already come across the ‘uncanny valley‘, or the phenomenon that is currently making its way through most AI systems. It was uniquely defined by 1970 as the strange hatred towards objects that appear nearly human, but not entirely.

Source: Masahiro Mori

Although starting small with robots, the sensation of an object that is “too real” is only increasing exponentially. Just take a look at the very human-like expressions made by ‘SEER’, a robotic head made to mimic a person’s facial expressions when shown to it:

Other prominent examples in the digital marketing world involve the rise of CGI social influencers such as Lil’ Miquela, Bermuda and Shudu. All pseudo socialites have the common trait of being ‘models’ with an aim to garner attention and make an impact on their followers. And why stop at only “appearing” like today’s insta-famous aristocrats? Lil Miquela — or the company behind her — have taken full advantage and managed to capitalise on this influence with endless brand promotions and upcoming music releases. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit her song “You Should Be Alone” is an absolute jam.

Source: Voxburner

But what does this all imply for marketers? I can’t help but wonder if this is a breach of fair play. As if the idea of implementing CGI influencers is a form of manipulation towards the consumers if they’re constantly shown as “regular people”. On the other hand, how is it any different from a Kim Kardashian promoting problematic diet lollies? Or any other B-list celebrity with a ‘Fit Tea’ in one hand and a ‘Waist Trainer’ securely fastened on. In this case, one can’t possibly outweigh the other as for what’s more misleading.

Source: Tenor

What do you think? Do you think these artificial bots could make large strides in the way we receive our advertisements, or are they just plain creepy? Let me know in the comments section below!

When Cars meet Tinder: Simplifying the Shopping Experience with Matchmaking Algorithms

In the digital marketing world, the key to success is standing out with a unique and original strategy. Or in simple terms, using an outlandish idea no one would expect. ‘Cars.com‘ delivers a service with a twist — a ‘Tinder’-esque platform made to matchmake users with cars they would like to consider in their decision to buy one.

The community site’s new campaign launched ads centred the around the idea of treating your potential car like a full-time life partner. The tagline “we met on Cars.com” really gives off the connotation of online dating. But it’s not just for the gear-heads and “autophiles”, à la Nathaniel from ‘My Strange Addiction‘.

source: GIPHY

The site matches a user based on their lifestyles preferences under an algorithm. A consumer profile is curated based on 15 different lifestyle preferences, and the website gives up to 20 recommendations based on those choices. From this alone, the website garnered large increases in returning visitors, profile creation and email leads. This also meant twice the amount of website visits!

This is great for the new generation of consumers who now prefer to shop online than in-store! What’s important for most high involvement products is that personal touch that allows for customisation. And what better than to incorporate a matchmaking service catering wholly to what you want? Keep in mind that 10% of vehicle transactions are forecasted to take place online by 2019.

So, would you use this app? Are matchmaking algorithms ready to make their transition from dating apps to ecommerce sites? Could this be a better tactic to market high risk purchases such as cars or even houses? Let me know in the comments section below!

 

Are “Cashier-less” Stores The New Wave of Convenience?

Source: Data Aspirant

With the rise of artificial intelligence, there have been ongoing ventures to adopt AI technology in everyday situations. One of the most anticipated concepts is automated retail stores. ‘Inokyo’ is a fairly recent establishment that opened its first pop-up store in the United States. Here’s how it works:

1. Download the ‘Inokyo’ app and connect a payment method
2. Scan your custom-made QR code when entering the store
3. Secure your cart by taking desired items off the shelves
4. Scan items for checkout and receive a receipt while leaving

Pretty simple right? Well with the extensive use of cameras and sensors, there’s no need for a physical shopping cart. The on-shelf cameras sense when an item is removed from its shelf. Repositioning the item on the shelf undoes the action of “adding it” to your “cart”.

At the same time, scanning to enter will enable overhead cameras to scan your body to track  movements around the store. What’s neat is the idea that this reduces the risk of shopping cart abandonment, and increases security for the storage of items. This method also follows the new age idea that the time invested in the product is more valuable to customers than money spent (so if you can make it convenient and faster, people will pay top dollar for it!).

This is obviously an test launch, where the creators wanted the initial product offerings to range from low margin/high volume (eg. snack foods, bath products) to high margin/low volume (eg. protein powders, “bougie kombuchas”) to see which goods fit the store environment. But this also implies possible concerns for consumers and marketers alike.

Source: TENOR

Some may find the idea of downloading an app and signing in a hassle, and they may not trust adding a card as a payment method for a startup business. There’s always the worry of customers also stealing products if the stores eliminate the “cashier” aspect. Amazon similarly encountered this idea, but were strangely confident in ‘Amazon Go’ shoppers not shoplifting from the pop-ups. Simultaneously, others question whether the body tracking and heavy AI is worth the items you can collect and buy at any ‘7-Eleven’ around the corner.

What do you think? Are AI convenience stores the way to go, or are things fine the way they are? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below!

 

 

“Alexa play ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’ by Rockwell”: Are IoT Products Safe for my Business?

The ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) has sparked great conversations in the last few years about the benefits of smart appliances in industry competition. Many say it’s a guiding hand into the world of complete convenience, while others are a tin foil hat away from preaching conspiracies about the devices invading consumer privacy. This also sheds light on the hiring of cybersecurity staff for such IoT products.

Source: GFYCAT

Let’s take the Amazon Echo, for example. Much of the panic ensued when users questioned Alexa’s capabilities in invading their audible privacy in the comfort of their own homes. And knowing that Amazon has a reputation for not telling users what they do with the information Alexa stores, everyone is rightfully concerned.

As of recent, security researchers have been able to hack into the hardware and remodel it as a spy bug for background listening. Other nearby Echos were also hacked in the testing process. And much to our predictions, representatives defended themselves with a vague statement that:

this issue would have required a malicious actor to have physical access to a device and the ability to modify the device hardware.

All that means is that anyone with the gadget — who knows their way around remodelling the components — can easily hack into these features. Come on, Amazon, get it together!

Source: LIBRAIT

How is this an issue, you may ask? Well, the answer lies in short-staffing cybersecurity departments. Large companies are now unwilling to put human professionals in charge for situations more complex than teaching about simple phishing scams. Yet at the same time, automated “smart” products are held in higher positions to combat the major security issues.

If a product as common as the Amazon Echo can have cybersecurity issue, doesn’t that pose a higher risk for companies investing in IoT products? In my opinion, smart products should be supervised by cybersecurity staff for the responsibility of large businesses.

Source: GIPHY

Is it wise to sacrifice security in using automation over convenience and reduced labor costs? What do YOU think? Be sure to leave all your thoughts in the comments section below!