Google on Wednesday took the wraps off Boutiques.com, a personalized shopping experience that lets consumers find and discover styles and fashions through collections put together by celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers. The Web site analyzes consumer styles through a series of clicks, Google Trend data, computer vision, and machine learning to analyze the site visitor's taste. It allows the site visitor to discover fashion that she may have not known exists. Google engineers built the technology to "teach" its computer systems to understand patterns, pairings and genre definitions. When signed into your account, the site learns about style and preferences, and in turn provides better results and recommendations. Google acquired the technology about three months ago from the Like.com acquisition, according to a Google spokesperson. The company already had the project well underway. Boutiques.com offers a combination of search and the ability to browse items similar to a brick-and-mortar in-store experience. Before it was acquired, Like.com launched WhatToWear.com, a bit of a takeoff on the TLC hit series "What Not To Wear." "It's about how people search, find and purchase fashion items," the spokesperson says. The site aims to build awareness for new styles and fashions of up-and-coming designers, as well as those who are already established. There's also a crowdsourcing element. Consumers are invited to sign up and create their own boutiques, and allow others to follow their sense of fashion and style. Rob Griffin, SVP and global director of search and analytics at Havas Digital, says targeting exists -- but instead of targeting ads, Google targets content and merchandise. "Media6Degrees now offers site and landing page optimization based on social data, so the two companies seem to be taking a similar direction," he says. "That direction is about taking ad-targeting technology and using it for optimizing a site experience." Click on the "Your Boutique" tab and the site runs through a variety of snapshots of clothing, asking the consumer to click on their style. At the end of the process, Boutiques.com gives the consumer a label. For example, a "BOHO" may identify with bohemian fashion from decades past, but Google suggests the look is anything but dated. Vintage prints paired with contemporary silhouettes are the keys to everyday ensembles. The site calls BOHOs a mix master of feminine details, inspired by eclectic accessories. Not just a trend, the Boho signature style expresses a carefree indie spirit. Google allows site visitors to create an account to save and share fashion items placed in "love" and "hate" categories. A built-in preview function helps consumers see similar items or purchase the product. And the prices are all over the map. In the shoe category, for example, consumers can choose from Valentino's lace masterpieces or Christian Louboutin's red-heeled works of art to a more casual and affordable Ralph Lauren. While there is no advertising on the site, clicking on the photo takes the site visitor to a variety of online stores such as Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom, depending on the retailer offering the item. More companies have begun to pay attention to online retail sales and service. As advertisers shift ad campaigns from offline to online, conversions and sales appear to maintain a steady upward trend. Internet ad revenue in the U.S. rose 17% to $6.4 billion in Q3, compared with the year-ago quarter, according to the latest figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and its research partner PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The IAB pegged Q2 Internet advertising revenue in the U.S. at $12.1 billion in the first half of 2010, setting a record representing a 11.3% increase from the prior year. While today the site only offers a fashion experience for women, Google says to expect a section for men in the near future.
Marketers struggling with their social media strategy may be having trouble because they haven't yet grasped how to move from being a faceless corporation to a "friend." According to Firefly Millward Brown, which recently released research into successful strategies within the social media space, many marketers are struggling with translating their brand attributes into a personality that can engage consumers in a two-way dialogue. "If you enter into the space as a brand, [consumers are] going to ask you to reveal yourself," Rob Hernandez, global brand director at Firefly Millward Brown, tells Marketing Daily. "[Marketers need to] be comfortable hearing about and talking about your flaws, and that's not something that's traditionally done by marketers." Unlike the approaches of the past, these new "rules of engagement" for social media mean marketers need to adjust the way they approach consumers. Because they have not fully explored how to go about changing their approach, some companies are paralyzed between doing nothing at all and doing only the bare minimum and thinking they're done. "It has a huge opportunity and potential, but many don't know how to harness it yet," Hernandez says. "They put up a Facebook page and think that will be sufficient. [Consumers] sniff that out pretty quickly, [thinking] it's insincere at best and pandering at worst." But social media, Hernandez says, are more relationship-based. Therefore, they need much more nurturing and personalization than other approaches. "You have to abandon the corporate mentality and approach and think of it as a person and interact with them as a person," Hernandez says. "You've got to be interesting and be relevant, with a personal connection with [consumers]." Fostering relationships based on trust and relevance is important because consumers are wary of brands' encroachment into the social media arena, Hernandez says. "Their number one concern was that [marketers] are going to pretend they have figured it out and co-opt the experience," Hernandez says. "They would rather it's a relationship building tool." To help, Firefly Millward Brown offers 10 rules of social media:
1. Don't recreate your home page in social media: don't rehash the same information people can get elsewhere. 2. Listen first, then talk: create a dialogue 3. Build trust by being open and honest: transparency is key. 4. Give your brand a face: give consumers someone or something accountable for the brand. 5. Offer something of value: give without wanting something in return. 6. Be relevant: don't be invasive without purpose. 7. Talk like a friend, not a corporate entity: speak in simple, casual language. 8. Give consumers some control: be comfortable with the fact that you can't dictate the message any more. 9. Let consumers find you/come to you: brands that seek consumers too fervently will be seen as intrusive and interruptive. 10. Let consumers talk for you: people will advocate for brands they care about."Essentially, all social media and social networking are built on inherent circles of trust," Hernandez concludes. "If you want to engender that level of trust, you're going to have to be transparent and be willing to accept the good with the bad."
In a bid to become the primary online online destination people use to figure out what to watch on TV, TVGuide.com this morning announced it has added personalization features to its popular "TV Check-in" feature, which allows users to share the shows they are watching with their Facebook friends. Starting today, logged-in TVGuide.com users will also begin to see a personalized "Hot List" of their favorite shows throughout the site, featuring tune-in information for those shows, as well as "I'll Watch" buttons to alert their Facebook community of friends. The new features are part of a progression that is blending TVGuide.com's core content with social media applications to enhance the TV program navigation experience. Since TVGuide.com launched "TV Check-in" Oct. 20th, the site has averaged 10,000 check-ins per day. The top checked-in episodes include shows from all of the major networks, including more than 7,400 distinct episodes of TV shows. Among the top checked-in shows are such fan favorites as "House," "Vampire Diaries," the CMA Awards, "Sons of Anarchy," Monday Night Football, "The Office," and "Blue Bloods." Christy Tanner, senior vice president and general manager of TVGuide.com, calls the approach "social TV," and says the personalized hot lists make the concept more personally relevant to individual users, while at the same time allowing them to share their TV viewing preferences with others.
Google on Wednesday took the wraps off Boutiques.com, a personalized shopping experience that lets consumers find and discover styles and fashions through collections put together by celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers. The Web site analyzes consumer styles through a series of clicks, Google Trend data, computer vision, and machine learning to analyze the site visitor's taste. It allows the site visitor to discover fashion that she may have not known exists. Google engineers built the technology to "teach" its computer systems to understand patterns, pairings and genre definitions. When signed into your account, the site learns about style and preferences, and in turn provides better results and recommendations. Google acquired the technology about three months ago from the Like.com acquisition, according to a Google spokesperson. The company already had the project well underway. Boutiques.com offers a combination of search and the ability to browse items similar to a brick-and-mortar in-store experience. Before it was acquired, Like.com launched WhatToWear.com, a bit of a takeoff on the TLC hit series "What Not To Wear." "It's about how people search, find and purchase fashion items," the spokesperson says. The site aims to build awareness for new styles and fashions of up-and-coming designers, as well as those who are already established. There's also a crowdsourcing element. Consumers are invited to sign up and create their own boutiques, and allow others to follow their sense of fashion and style. Rob Griffin, SVP and global director of search and analytics at Havas Digital, says targeting exists -- but instead of targeting ads, Google targets content and merchandise. "Media6Degrees now offers site and landing page optimization based on social data, so the two companies seem to be taking a similar direction," he says. "That direction is about taking ad-targeting technology and using it for optimizing a site experience." Click on the "Your Boutique" tab and the site runs through a variety of snapshots of clothing, asking the consumer to click on their style. At the end of the process, Boutiques.com gives the consumer a label. For example, a "BOHO" may identify with bohemian fashion from decades past, but Google suggests the look is anything but dated. Vintage prints paired with contemporary silhouettes are the keys to everyday ensembles. The site calls BOHOs a mix master of feminine details, inspired by eclectic accessories. Not just a trend, the Boho signature style expresses a carefree indie spirit. Google allows site visitors to create an account to save and share fashion items placed in "love" and "hate" categories. A built-in preview function helps consumers see similar items or purchase the product. And the prices are all over the map. In the shoe category, for example, consumers can choose from Valentino's lace masterpieces or Christian Louboutin's red-heeled works of art to a more casual and affordable Ralph Lauren. While there is no advertising on the site, clicking on the photo takes the site visitor to a variety of online stores such as Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom, depending on the retailer offering the item. More companies have begun to pay attention to online retail sales and service. As advertisers shift ad campaigns from offline to online, conversions and sales appear to maintain a steady upward trend. Internet ad revenue in the U.S. rose 17% to $6.4 billion in Q3, compared with the year-ago quarter, according to the latest figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and its research partner PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The IAB pegged Q2 Internet advertising revenue in the U.S. at $12.1 billion in the first half of 2010, setting a record representing a 11.3% increase from the prior year. While today the site only offers a fashion experience for women, Google says to expect a section for men in the near future.
Last week, leading advertisers convened in Miami for the Association of National Advertisers' annual Multicultural Marketing & Diversity Conference. Historically, Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American marketers have fought hard for budgets even though demographic trends point to the fact that today's minorities will become the majority in the coming decades. Hence, the summit was subtitled, "Multicultural -- The New Mainstream." One marketer who clearly sees the growth of multicultural audiences converging with the growth of social media is McDonald's. Rick Wion, director of social media for the company, gave an excellent keynote presentation on "Multicultural Social Media," specifically detailing how he manages its 3.6 million fans on Facebook, 60,000 followers on Twitter, 4000+ daily check-in's on Foursquare, and 2 billion daily views on YouTube. After the event, I had the chance to speak with him about the golden arches' approach to social media, two of its successful promotions and his advice for using the medium. Q: How do you, as McDonald's director of social media, distinguish between customers needs for information, entertainment and dialogue in social media? A: We are extremely customer-focused at McDonald's and part of that effort includes extensive research to understand where customers are talking about our brand while also developing a sense of when and where they are looking for different types of engagement. We've found that Facebook and YouTube tend to be more about entertainment while Twitter and blogs are generally focused on dialogue. Q: At the conference, you talked about a promotion you did with "Papi Blogger" and his trip road trip across the country where he and his family would eat at McDonald's locations. Tell us about that. A: The Papi Blogger road trip was a chance to partner with a leading Hispanic blogger as he embarked on an amazing cross-country road trip with his family. As part of their journey, the Ruiz family visited notable McDonald's [restaurants] in New York, Chicago and even Roswell, N.M., while blogging, tweeting and posting videos about the experience. His 46-day journey showcased how McDonald's is a part of Americana. In addition, it highlighted our commitment to families through our menu and visits to Ronald McDonald House Charities. Q: McDonald's did a "Face of the Fan" promotion for the World Cup. How did that work and what kinds of results do you see? A: The Face of the Fan promotion was a way for soccer fans to show their team passion through the McDonald's Facebook page and our McDonald's MeEncanta.com site. The mechanics of the promotion let consumers upload a picture and "paint" their face virtually with the flag of their favorite team. Part of the success of this program was that it let Hispanic customers celebrate their heritage by choosing any country in the app rather than being limited to the most populous ones. We saw tens of thousands of users paint their faces and also a 40% increase in traffic to MeEncanta.com. Q: Your celebrity endorsement of Michelle Wie worked well. How did she promote McDonald's through her Twitter feed? She tweets in both English and Korean. How did that build a global following in both the U.S. and Asia? A: Social media was a critical component to extend the reach of this program. Our partnership with Wie received a tremendous amount of positive buzz and excitement. We kicked off the partnership with announcements through both McDonald's (@McDonalds) and Michelle Wie's (@themichellewie) Twitter and Facebook pages. The second and third phases of the social media campaign began with the launch of the TV commercial and digital game at myinspirasian.com. To date, this campaign yielded an amazing 197 million traditional and social media impressions. Michelle's fans continue to respond favorably to the partnership, especially the direct engagement with Wie and bonus content like the behind the scenes video of the commercial shoot. Golf bloggers and influential twitterers were blogging and sharing McDonald's new brand building commercial with Michelle Wie with their social networks. Bloggers and twitterers highlights include Stephanie Wei (blogger/writer and golfer), Ryan Ballengee (golf blogger and broadcaster), Danielle Tucker (radio host of The Golf Club Radio Show in Hawaii) and Fastfoodjunky (popular Twitterer to tweet news of quick service restaurants). Q: What recommendations can you make for marketers about tapping into social media for multicultural audiences? A: My main piece of advice would be to start with solid research about how and where your audiences spend time. Only after you have this understanding should you then seek to engage with these audiences through social communities and events that are meaningful and culturally relevant.
Social media is a lot like selling media: You need to listen first before you do anything else. I came upon this parallel last week in two separate discussions, and I realized they were both part of a larger theme. Social media is a conversation, but selling media is also a conversation. Both are based on relationships and the relevance, strength, interest and benefit to both parties engaged in the conversation. In social media marketing you have to establish a baseline and listen to the conversation before you interrupt it with your message, and in media sales the same idea can be applied. When you start selling in media, you have to first listen to the person on the other side of the table so you can establish a baseline for their needs and then you can provide the appropriate solution targeted to them. Sales is the ultimate social relationship, because it's based on the needs of two parties to achieve a mutually beneficial outcome. In social media, that mutually beneficial outcome is typically entertaining or in some other way emotional, whereas in media sales the mutually beneficial outcome is one of a fiscal and/or business achievement (if all goes well). The biggest difference between social media and selling media is that you can use technology to listen in social media, but in selling media it is a 100% human skill: no machine can be programmed and no algorithm can be developed to take the place of individual listening skills. To that end, I wanted to provide some advice for sales people who need to learn how to listen before they start pitchin'. First thing: Don't let your excitement for your own product get the better of you. Your excitement will shine through, but listen to the challenges of your audience first. Ask them what their goals are, what their past experiences have been, what has worked and what hasn't and what their plans are for the coming six to 12 months. The more information you can gather upfront, the better situation you will be in when it comes time to submit an RFP. The objective for any good salesperson is to secure the business before the RFP is even submitted. Secondly, don't overlook your competition -- and understand who your competition truly is. When you're in the market selling a product, you need to know who you're selling against, but even more importantly, you need to understand the other options the client may have and is considering. Most of the time salespeople think their competition consists of the specific companies in their category, but in fact their competition will be far broader. For example, if you're a behavioral targeting ad network, your competition may be other behavioral targeting ad networks, but buyers will also compare you to other ad networks with lower cost targeting options. They will also compare you to some higher-cost, premium placements, as well as considering the option of not spending the money at all. Your competition is not just whom you think prospects are choosing among, but strategically, what they should be doing. That translates to you needing to plan more holistically for answering questions that are more strategic and less tactical. To be a good salesperson and to provide a true solution, you need to think strategically, so plan accordingly. The other advice I can give is that you should sit with your colleagues and anticipate every possible question your clients can ask. Then you can prepare materials in advance that provide support for your responses. By doing so, you can demonstrate a real desire to have thought about the client's business in advance. This tactic makes your targets more interested in working with you, because they feel as though they're not just the number-five stop on a 10-meeting train. The more I dive into social media and understand the web of relationships that they create, the more I understand that selling media is just like social media. I'm sure you would agree if you think about it as well!
I spent the morning waiting for Norton to call and do the final fix on a dumb virus -- well, actually, it may be smart because it may still be here! -- that invaded my computer last night. In the meantime, I streamed Mark Zuckerberg's interview with John Battelle and Tim O'Reilly at this week's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, which reminded me why so many of us want in on this technology thing, despite its lingering problems. If this virus thing is yin, the vision thing -- as outlined in this interview -- is yang. It was probably the best interview I've ever seen with Zuckerberg, partly because Battelle and O'Reilly ask good questions, and also because the Facebook founder seems to be getting more comfortable in his own skin -- or getting more comfortable in his own skin when he's placed in front of hundreds of adoring fans. The situation seemed to elicit a real vision for the future from him, not just of social media, but of media and commerce, so let me tell you what he said, and you can continue the discussion in comments to give your own point of view. The headline -- Facebook's current revenue source aside -- is that it doesn't have that much to do with advertising. In fact, the conversation turned away from advertising at just the point when it seemed like it was going straight for it; it happened when Battelle looked at where Facebook is today and saw it in just the way most of us would see it: as an ad network about to take over the world. Looking at the proliferation of Facebook Connect and "Like" buttons throughout the Web, Battelle said, "It strikes me that you're ready to distribute Facebook's business model off-domain ... and do a social-graph driven ad network." That's a pretty powerful thought when you consider that right now almost 25% of all display ads are now served within Facebook. But Zuckerberg came back with something different. He started talking about the next five years, where he sees a transformation happening in virtually every content-driven vertical from news to movies, music to gaming (which is probably the furthest along of the ones mentioned). Not surprisingly, he sees them being rewritten around the rules of social media, and, without saying the "a" word, or even the "r" word (revenue), it's clear this is where he thinks the money-making opportunity is. "Our view is that we should play a role in helping to reform and rethink all those industries, and we'll get value proportional to what we put in," he said. "In gaming we get some percentage of the value of those companies, largely through their transactions through buying ads and credits right now, but that's all because we're helping them. And, if we're helpful to other industries in building out what would be a good solution for e-commerce or something like that, then I think there will be some way to get value from that. But I don't think about exporting an ad system or anything like that." Later on, when Battelle asked whether companies like Groupon or Gilt Groupe should worry about Facebook, Zuckerberg said, "No." Facebook sees its role as helping build out businesses using the social graph, not in building its own proprietary music services, crowdsourced deal platforms or anything similar. (Of course, where the line is gets difficult. You could argue that Facebook could have outsourced location to Foursquare and Gowalla, but it didn't.) Was he big on the details of how this would create opportunity for Facebook? Other than letting the company make good on the goal we've all outlined for it -- of world domination? No. But I got the feeling he wasn't being clear because he doesn't know. Still, it was a reminder that if we, as marketing people, think of Facebook as an advertising platform -- or a place to build a fan page for a brand -- we're looking at it too narrowly. Zuckerberg's vision is about a core, proven behavior: that people like experiences that have built-in social sauce. "They are a lot more engaging and are just more enjoyable for people to use." (Yeah, he had figures to back it up.) So, while many of us focus on Facebook's advertising revenue -- which is estimated to come in at about $1.4 billion this year -- it could end up being a revenue stream that, while having its own merits, could be merely one that finances Facebook's future -- where other streams, that may not have even been thought of, may take precedence. It's fitting that if you'd asked me what the column was going to be about two days ago, I would have said it was going to focus on Facebook's new non-email email. But, in the context of this interview, that suddenly seemed like a simple product announcement. Most of Zuckerberg's Web 2.0 remarks had to do with something much larger; how the social graph influences communications is only part of it. This interview is long -- more than an hour -- but if you stream one video today, make it this one. Then comment below. Or, conversely, shoot your mouth off on what I wrote above.
Marketers struggling with their social media strategy may be having trouble because they haven't yet grasped how to move from being a faceless corporation to a "friend." According to Firefly Millward Brown, which recently released research into successful strategies within the social media space, many marketers are struggling with translating their brand attributes into a personality that can engage consumers in a two-way dialogue. "If you enter into the space as a brand, [consumers are] going to ask you to reveal yourself," Rob Hernandez, global brand director at Firefly Millward Brown, tells Marketing Daily. "[Marketers need to] be comfortable hearing about and talking about your flaws, and that's not something that's traditionally done by marketers." Unlike the approaches of the past, these new "rules of engagement" for social media mean marketers need to adjust the way they approach consumers. Because they have not fully explored how to go about changing their approach, some companies are paralyzed between doing nothing at all and doing only the bare minimum and thinking they're done. "It has a huge opportunity and potential, but many don't know how to harness it yet," Hernandez says. "They put up a Facebook page and think that will be sufficient. [Consumers] sniff that out pretty quickly, [thinking] it's insincere at best and pandering at worst." But social media, Hernandez says, are more relationship-based. Therefore, they need much more nurturing and personalization than other approaches. "You have to abandon the corporate mentality and approach and think of it as a person and interact with them as a person," Hernandez says. "You've got to be interesting and be relevant, with a personal connection with [consumers]." Fostering relationships based on trust and relevance is important because consumers are wary of brands' encroachment into the social media arena, Hernandez says. "Their number one concern was that [marketers] are going to pretend they have figured it out and co-opt the experience," Hernandez says. "They would rather it's a relationship building tool." To help, Firefly Millward Brown offers 10 rules of social media:
1. Don't recreate your home page in social media: don't rehash the same information people can get elsewhere. 2. Listen first, then talk: create a dialogue 3. Build trust by being open and honest: transparency is key. 4. Give your brand a face: give consumers someone or something accountable for the brand. 5. Offer something of value: give without wanting something in return. 6. Be relevant: don't be invasive without purpose. 7. Talk like a friend, not a corporate entity: speak in simple, casual language. 8. Give consumers some control: be comfortable with the fact that you can't dictate the message any more. 9. Let consumers find you/come to you: brands that seek consumers too fervently will be seen as intrusive and interruptive. 10. Let consumers talk for you: people will advocate for brands they care about."Essentially, all social media and social networking are built on inherent circles of trust," Hernandez concludes. "If you want to engender that level of trust, you're going to have to be transparent and be willing to accept the good with the bad."
In a bid to become the primary online online destination people use to figure out what to watch on TV, TVGuide.com this morning announced it has added personalization features to its popular "TV Check-in" feature, which allows users to share the shows they are watching with their Facebook friends. Starting today, logged-in TVGuide.com users will also begin to see a personalized "Hot List" of their favorite shows throughout the site, featuring tune-in information for those shows, as well as "I'll Watch" buttons to alert their Facebook community of friends. The new features are part of a progression that is blending TVGuide.com's core content with social media applications to enhance the TV program navigation experience. Since TVGuide.com launched "TV Check-in" Oct. 20th, the site has averaged 10,000 check-ins per day. The top checked-in episodes include shows from all of the major networks, including more than 7,400 distinct episodes of TV shows. Among the top checked-in shows are such fan favorites as "House," "Vampire Diaries," the CMA Awards, "Sons of Anarchy," Monday Night Football, "The Office," and "Blue Bloods." Christy Tanner, senior vice president and general manager of TVGuide.com, calls the approach "social TV," and says the personalized hot lists make the concept more personally relevant to individual users, while at the same time allowing them to share their TV viewing preferences with others.