L2’s Digital IQ Index®: Beauty reveals an industry rapidly growing in sophistication. Three out of four Index brands earned spots in the Gifted or Average categories, reflecting increased digital investments in the form of retailer partnerships, omnichannel initiatives, and influencer relationships. As in 2014, Color Cosmetics and Multi-category brands netted the highest Digital IQs; in contrast, Fragrance brands trail behind due to creative and licensing red tape.
When e-commerce brands make the leap to brick-and-mortar, they often avoid the term “store” – no surprise given the rhetoric about retail’s decline. Instead, customers are lured to “showrooms” and “clubhouses,” which promise experiences as much as transactions.
Whatever e-tailers choose to call them, stores are good investments that increase site traffic, boost financial returns, and set evolved retailers apart from their pureplay counterparts. L2’s Intelligence Report: Death of Pureplay Retail features several creative alternatives to the conventional store:
Harry’s “barbershop” Men’s grooming brand Harry’s expanded its thriving online business with the Cornershop, a New York City barbershop offering haircuts, shaves, beard trims, and Harry’s shaving products. Despite being ahead of the curve in digital e-commerce (customers book appointments online and use the “cut archive” app to record their preferences for future visits) the company cultivates a more old-school image. The website describes the venue as a “neighborhood shop” where customers can “build long-lasting relationships” – dovetailing neatly with the message of old-fashioned quality which helped the brand become a major disruptor in the shaving industry.
Trunk Club’s “clubhouse” While digital shoppers rate the ability to see, touch, and try merchandise as the most important motivator for in-store shopping, free drinks would likely be on the same level. That’s what customers receive at Trunk Club’s Chicago “clubhouse,” which features a 5,000 square-foot roof deck and a 40-foot bar stocked with complimentary beverages; customers are encouraged to relax and enjoy a drink before meeting with a Trunk Club stylist. The luxury vibe fits the image of the men’s clothing retailer, which began in 2009 by sending subscribers curated “trunks” from which they could select the apparel they liked. Clubhouse shoppers benefit from bonuses such as the ability to request custom clothing.
Casper’s “Snooze Bar” Mattress brand Casper’s Washington D.C. “Snooze Bar” gives a new meaning to “Shop till you drop.” Customers can schedule appointments to nap on Casper mattresses and enjoy coffee and waffles by day and cocktails by night. These investments not only introduce shoppers to Casper products – overcoming their reluctance to buy online – but also differentiate the company from pureplay brands offering similar products, such as Saatva and Tuft and Needle.
In 2015, more searches occurred on mobile devices than desktop for the first time, and mobile began to account for the largest share of digital ad spending in the U.S. L2’s Insight Report: Best of Mobile pinpoints seven brands that were pioneers in mobile this year, from Fashion and Beauty to Specialty Retail and Big Box.
Now into its ninth year, Fjord’s annual Trends Report 2016 has arrived and, once again, we unveil what we believe to be the most significant technology and business developments emerging and describe how they will transform our world in the coming 12 months.
Our Trends Report is the result of months of research, discussions and debate, pooling the collective experience at Fjord and Accenture Interactive and distilled into ten core ideas.
We believe 2016 will be another defining year for digital and will bring even more transformation, disruption and delight to organizations and their audiences. In the report you can expect to discover more about big data etiquette, the rise of employee experience (EX) design, disappearing apps, the true power of wearables and nearables and much more.
Check out the full Fjord Trends Report 2016 below, visit trends.fjordnet.com, and follow the conversation at #FjordTrends. Enjoy!
Home to the first-ever app blockbuster, Angry Birds, and current chart stalwarts Supercell and Spotify, Europe has played a starring role in the mobile app revolution. In fact, just this month Swedish gaming house King Digital Entertainment sold to Activision Blizzard for a staggering $5.9B. All this in mind, we thought it was high time we took a deep dive into mobile app activity on the continent, as we have done in the past for other areas around the globe.
Flurry from Yahoo currently tracks over 725,000 apps across 564 million devices in Europe. All Europeans love their smart devices, but there are marked differences in usage and preferences across the continent. Let’s take a look.
Sweden Leads in Smart Device Penetration; Italy Lags
For this analysis, we focused on the top 10 European countries by total population: Russia, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Ukraine, Poland, and Sweden. We next compared the total population and Gross National Income (GNI) per capita of these countries, to the number of iOS and Android devices Flurry Analytics tracked in each of these countries throughout October 2015. GNI is a measure of a country’s wealth, as calculated by the World Bank in constant US dollars.
Unsurprisingly, smart device penetration is highest in the north. Sweden has the highest smart device penetration with 150% smart device penetration, or 1.5 devices for every man, woman and child in the kingdom. This is followed by The Netherlands at 136% and the UK at 130%. France clocks in at 81% penetration, followed by Germany at 77%, and Spain at 74%. Given the ratio of minors to adults in these nations, the data implies that almost every adult has a smart device.
Italy is the exception, with the lowest smart device penetration of any country in Western Europe at 66%. Russians on the other hand, are willing to spend more of their income on smart devices, bumping their penetration up to 75%, despite a low GNI.
Spain Joins the Phablet Revolution; Small Phones Near Extinction
So, what devices are actually in-use? To better understand their composition, we looked at the distribution of form factor types based on a sample of 100k Android and iOS devices in each country. As a reminder, we classify devices as follows:
As we reported previously, there has been a global revolution in phablet adoption and we see that Europe is not far behind the global trend. Spain is clearly leading the charge in Europe with 37% phablet share. Other countries are continuing to grow adoption with each having over 20% of their devices belonging to that optimum size: small enough for users to carry in their pockets and large enough to engage in reading and entertainment.
Consistent with the global trend, small phones have been nearly wiped off the map in Europe. Small tablets, like the iPad Mini, haven’t really caught on anywhere but the UK. It’s clear that like in the rest of the world, European consumers are becoming increasingly smitten with larger screen sizes.
Session Growth Still in Double-Digits for Western Europe
And how are Europeans engaging with increasingly larger devices? Looking at the number of sessions generated by each country, year-over-year, is a good indicator of mobile activity growth. Based on the apps that Flurry tracks, the global average growth in sessions from October 2014 to October 2015 was 64%. The US, for comparison, posted 52% growth, while emerging economies like Brazil and India posted gains of 189% and 107%, respectively.
In Europe, the growth of France and Spain is on par with global average at 63% and 61%, respectively. The UK and Germany’s year-over-year growth lags the global average and that of the US at 36% and 28%, respectively, which is not uncommon in more mature markets.
Italy again is the outlier at 31% growth, which is not surprising given the relatively lower penetration rate of smart devices in that country. It’s interesting to note that the app session growth in Vatican City is higher than the Italian average at 36%.
A Continent Divided: Gamers vs. Chatters
To understand what is driving all that activity in Europe, we examined which app categories users spent the most time in.
The British and French spend almost twice as much of their time in messaging and social apps, versus in games, at approximately 40% of total app time. Italy, on the other hand, spends the lowest percentage of their time in Messaging and Social, perhaps because only 66% of the population can be messaged via smartphone.
Germans, Italians and the Spanish spend nearly one-third of their app time in gaming apps. Despite their love for gaming, users in Italy also spend a significant share of their app time in Utilities & Productivity apps (18%) which is twice the share that users in France dedicate to the category (9%).
Music, Media & Entertainment apps seem to hold the same interest in users irrespective of the borders, around 10% of their app time.
Europe Picks Up Bigger Phones; Apps Continue to Entertain
Although Western Europe was amongst the group of early adopters in the app revolution, this growth shows no sign of slowing down, as market usage continues to climb into the double digits. Some countries have even surpassed more than one device for every man, woman, and child.
Similar to the US, Europeans don’t use their phones in their 9-to-5s; dedicating just 12% percent of their time to productivity apps. While the US has seen a major decline in mobile gaming, this category still represents nearly one-third of app time in major European markets.
HELP MILLENNIALS TO LIVE FULFILLED LIVES Happiness for Millennials means making the most of their lives, living with purpose and having meaningful experiences. Brands that help them organise their busy lives so they have time to spend with family and friends will be more valued.
2. HELP MILLENNIALS TO GIVE THEIR BEST Personal development and high aspirations are really important to Millennials, and this mind-set should start right at the product development stage for brands. Don’t just be useful; be meaningful.
3. DELIVER MEANINGFUL BRAND EXPERIENCES We know that Millennials gather experiences in the way that earlier generations amassed prized possessions. Brands can help them do that, be it through helping them express what they stand for or by providing those experiences.
Brands are looking to improve consumers' state of mind. Illustration: Sam Island
Can a brand help improve a consumer's state of mind or even dare to make them happier? That's what marketing for brands like Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Dove is attempting in 2015. These big brand marketers are using various campaigns to make the world a kinder, happier place—whether that's combating hate online or making consumers smile with a new love-inspired currency. Though the brands' motives aren't entirely altruistic, the overall happiness goal will help position these brands for better engagement with the much sought-after millennial segment.
According to a recent study by ZenithOptimedia, The Pursuit of Happiness, brands that can help millennials achieve happiness stand the best chance of securing long-lasting and profitable relationships with that consumer group.
Persona is one of the tools that is used to build a better understanding of user behavior either in UX research or in marketing research by building a virtual avatar that represents the target consumer’s characteristics. However, achieving empathic design requires more than just drawing a virtual character that represent the target consumer, it also requires that designers put themselves in the shoes of the consumer to learn more about what they love, hate, think, and feel about the product. This target can be achieved through building a persona empathy map that can bridge the gap between the virtual character’s persona and the real consumer’s experience.
While the persona aims to build a character that reflects the demographic data and interests of the target consumer, empathy mapping tends to focus on the sensory information about the consumer. Empathy mapping builds a persona character that reflects information, such as how the consumer sees the product, feels about it, and what they may say about it. The map can be used as part of the empathic marketing research as an evaluation in the production stage. Also, it plays an important rule in the innovation process especially when there is not much information available about the consumer experience, either because the product is new or the empathic relationship between the consumer and the product has not yet been researched.
How to Build A Persona Empathy Map
The persona empathy map is a large sheet of paper that has the character outlined and named in the middle. Four sections are created around the character including, “Say,” “Think,” “Do,” and “Feel.” In another part of the sheet – we recommend the top – the idea and the situation being discussed are identified to focus the collected information around different emotional experiences. The persona empathy map can be created using paper sheets and pens, white board and markers, or a printed template such as our Persona Empathy Mapping Sheet. You can download our Persona Empathy Map sheet by clicking on the download link at the end of this article.
Example of Applying the Persona Empathy Mapping
The session can be held by one of more team members to investigate the emotional experience of the final consumer. The stakeholders can be designers, engineers, marketing executives, and other team members involved in the production process. The session may take around 1-2 hours, including the preparation for groups involved in the discussions. The session should include the following steps:
Step 1:
The facilitator introduces the persona that will be used during the empathy mapping session. The session can include multiple personas if needed. This step can be skipped if the stakeholders already know about the persona to be discussed.
At this step, the facilitator defines the situation that needs to be covered i.e. the reason for the session. For example, investigating the persona’s emotions toward specific products or services, dealing with specific situations, or interacting with a system design.
Step 2:
In this step, the team is divided into groups. If there are multiple personas, each group can focus on one persona at a time. Otherwise, all the groups can focus on the same persona. Each group is given an empathy mapping sheet with four sections: Say, Think, Do, and Feel.
Step 3:
In this step, each group completes the persona empathy map based on previous experience and research. Each group is given a specific time to review the file information and how it reflects on the persona. If there is more than one situation to be discussed, groups can move from one situation to another and complete each situation-based empathy map.
Step 4:
Group feedbacks are then collected and analyzed. A group’s discussion can reveal more information and how to organize the collected information into a unified persona empathy map. The map is displayed in a visible place where it can be seen as a reference throughout work on the project.
Conclusion
The persona empathy map bridges the gap between the virtual persona and the consumers’ real emotions and what they feel toward specific products, situations, or services. It is capable of building a better understanding of consumer feelings, including what they feel, say, hear, see, or think about a specific situation. Additionally, the persona empathy mapping session is a short time investment with a huge impact on the innovation process as it contributes to achieve empathy in the final product. You can download our template from the link below. The document is in PDF format with forms that you can directly film and print.
While no one would argue its effectiveness, it’s becoming a word without meaning, a word that lacks a real identity. What is content marketing? We know that it’s an integrated approach to content creation, SEO, social media marketing, and influencer and customer engagement, but this is where the story ends, and far too often, it takes your brand—and its story—with it.
Content marketing is a discipline about storytelling; only in an odd turn of events, it often leads us away from the desire to tell it. We get caught up in engagement metrics, follower numbers and branding. We create content and often lose touch with the big picture, of why we’re creating it in the first place.
(highlight to tweet) It becomes a task rather than an extension of ourselves, of our company.
It’s time to change the message.
The Fundamentals of a Good Story
You know who tells great stories? Coca-Cola.
Coca-Cola uses a blended approach to delivering stories about themselves, their friends, and their customers. You can find them on nearly every social media channel, and although most businesses lack the resources to maintain this type of presence, their mixed media approach and cross-channel branding efforts are noticed, loved, and effective.
What good content marketers—and storytellers—do well starts with an overriding theme. What message is your story trying to purvey, and what are you hoping sticks with your audience after they view it?
Are you a hot tech startup that wants to show off the skill of your employees and how you’re going to disrupt the marketplace with your hot new app or technology?
Check out the GoPro YouTube page. It’s awe-inspiring and makes you really want to produce your own content using their technology. This is a company that started with their own story: a need to capture the cool things a group of adrenaline junkies did, which ultimately culminated in a desire to bring that technology to others like them, and at an affordable price point.
Are you the mom and pop family farm that creates organic produce and sells it in an online co-op?
Burroughs Family Farms is. Front and center right on the homepage of their website is a story that details their beginnings, their ideology, and where they want to go from here. It’s a great example of storytelling in its simplest form.
“The key to storytelling is authenticity,” says Ryan Mulvany, a Partner at Quiverr. “I started selling products on Amazon years before I started my agency helping brands compete in online marketplaces. I still tell stories from my early years. It’s the most effective way I know of communicating our in-the-trenches experience.”
The point is, you have to first identify who you are, and then work outward to determine what kind of story you can effectively tell. The key is in making the story compelling, believable, and human. Originality doesn’t hurt, either.
But first you have to identify who you are, and what message you’re trying to deliver.
Tapping the Vein of Success
Next, you need to identify competitors in the marketplace. This oft-overlooked step allows you to cater to the law of averages by finding impactful data that allows you to improve upon their big content wins, and avoid content plays that weren’t effective. In short, it saves you time, money, and even the potential for embarrassment.
Your story should be original. How you choose to market it doesn’t have to be. The idea isn’t to mirror their strategy. Ideally, you’d take bits and pieces of the most effective content strategies of your competitors and refine it into creative ideas of your own, but if I’m being honest, more than a few brands simply piggyback off the success of others in an unoriginal and often feeble attempt to ride their successes. Don’t let this be you.
Create
Once we’ve identified the story we want to tell, and we know how we’re going to use it (and across what channels), it’s time to get to work.
From here, we should be crafting appealing content across multiple channels and using a mixed media approach that is designed to captivate, inspire, and evoke emotion around your brand. You have mere moments to capture attention, so no detail should be overlooked. Each word should have a place, a message of its own. Each color choice should be scrutinized. Every detail down to the choice of font, the spacing, and the placement of images needs to be carefully inspected to ensure that the message you’re trying to purvey is the one the customer receives.
The process isn’t rocket science; it’s about the human element that brings each of us together. A company is nothing more than the story of the people who created it, what brought them to this point, and where they want to go in the future. Keep it simple, honest and make your point clear.
Chris Warden is a seasoned entrepreneur and executive. Starting his entrepreneurial career at age 19, he has performed in numerous capacities owning and managing both offline and online companies. Chris now serves as CMO of Fox Powers, a San Diego based M&A firm.
When e-commerce brands make the leap to brick-and-mortar, they often avoid the term “store” – no surprise given the 
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