Newly Released: Facebook At Work

Soon Facebook activity at work may actually be encouraged. 

Facebook has just released its newest product called "Facebook At Work", as reported by Tech Crunch the company is launching new iOS and Android apps along with a version of Facebook At Work accessible through their main site. The new product allows businesses to create their own social networks amongst their employees, designed to act and look like Facebook itself.

Facebook At Work was created to act as an "enterprise social network" competing directly with Microsoft's Yammer, Slack, Convo, Socialcast among others.

Initially aimed at companies with 100 or more employees, Facebook At Work allows staff to collaborate using the same familiar interface they use to connect with their social contacts. It allows employers to create separate log-ins to use with their work accounts, or users can link it to their personal profiles and have everything in one place.

However, as Lars Rasmussen the head of the Facebook project promises, "Even if the employee chooses to link, there is no crossover. The content stays entirely within your personal or work Facebook".

"We have found that using Facebook as a work tool makes our work day more efficient" stated Rasmussen, "You can get more stuff done with Facebook than any other tool that we know of, and we'd like to make that available to the whole world."

The product is still in its pilot stage and there are a lot of details that have not been released. Making us wonder what is the main use for this new product? Perhaps allowing employers to capitalize on what most employees are doing  anyways: Spending a lot of time at work on Facebook.

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7 Interactive Channels you must use NOW

Agencies are constantly embracing changes in web marketing in order to deliver ROI for their clients. Digital marketing offers plenty of opportunities to increase the profitability of a client's business from branding, search marketing, lead generation, email and social marketing. At a minimum your interactive campaign should deliver significant return in the following seven channels:

1. Display Advertising and Retargeting

Display advertising, often referred to as banners, are graphical advertising that appear next to content on web pages, IM applications, email etc. They come in standardized sizes and can include text, logos, pictures, or videos. Retargeting works by keeping track of people who visit your site and displaying your retargeting ads to them as they visit other sites online.

To create an effective display and retargeting campaign your agency should be able to select appropriate topics and interests and place inspiring visual and media that serves a specific call to action. Retargeting campaigns provide tremendous opportunities for branding and converting interested prospects by bringing them back to your site for a second look. Your agency should be able to serve targeted media to consumers based on their interests and behavior to get more out of paid search spend. Retargeting platforms like AdRoll, Criteo, MediaForge and Google Display Network should be part of your agency's toolkit.

2. Mobile Optimization

Long-gone are the days of mobile compatibility, we are slowly but surely becoming a mobile world. Nearly everyone is on their phone and smart phones have taken over the market to the point of saturation. It does not matter what your brand is or what it sells, but you can be sure that your audience is visiting your site on their mobile phones.

Responsive site design, that is a website that easily adapts to any screen wether it is a desktop, tablet or mobile phone, is the easiest way to stay on top of your game. An agency should be capable of delivering a website experience tailored specifically to the device being used to access the domain. There is no excuse for not having a mobile-optimized site experience, your website should be built on a content management system (CMS) to support responsive design.

3. Content Marketing & SEO

SEO focuses on finding the keywords utilized by consumers to find your products or services, your agency should be able to conduct deep research and discover the most commonly used language that your target audience uses in your industry. After the keywords have been found the next step is to optimize the information architecture of your site, this is done by integrating the keywords within the content of your website. In short SEO makes your site relevant.

Content marketing, on the other hand, makes your site become an authority. This is done by defining and creating compelling, creative, and potentially viral content that adheres to your core strategy. Content marketing has three main purposes, one is to expand the size of a domain by publishing new pages within a site's architecture, attracts backlinks  that are critical for SEO, and provides information to be shared on social media channels.

4. Email Marketing

Must be handled with precision or it becomes an annoying tool that drives customers away. However common it has become, it is still an essential tool in building a digital brand. When your agency designs an email marketing campaign, it should be created to provide a service to your users. Simply crying "buy my brand" creates the opposite intended effect. Your email campaigns should effectively engage your audience and their frequency should be carefully monitored so that it is always welcomed. Email marketing should be seen as a way to communicate, interact and offer service to your client, not a tool to push your offerings down your client's throats.

5. Conversion Rate Optimization

Testing and design are at the core of CRO. Continuous tests and methodical analysis of traffic flow must be done in order to improve conversions. The purpose of CRO is to effectively improving the capabilities of a website or a landing page to capture more leads and convert prospects into sales. Your agency should be able to understand where and why conversion is taking place on a domain, and then optimize the experience. Ultimately CRO should improve the quantity and quality of new business being captured digitally.

6. Social Media Marketing

Promoting relevant, valuable, and entertaining content through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest is a top priority. This is a free channel that is effective for building brands, promoting products, engaging the public, driving sales and generating leads. Your agency should be able to provide customer support, promote exclusive offers/promotions, and facilitate the development of brand ambassadors who can ultimately emerge as champions for your brand.

7. Online Reputation Management 

Online conversation tend to degrade over time, it is part of human nature. Taking control and improving the quality of your brand's online identity is a top priority. Your agency should be constantly monitoring your reputation and quickly responding to reviews or criticism. A very important point is that you must be open to any conversation either positive or negative and use it to improve your product offering. Reputation management is all about creating a relationship of trust and an open forum for your consumers to voice their honest opinions.

Your agency should be able to take full advantage of interactive marketing and at a minimum implement all the strategies we have mentioned. Even if you are focusing all of your efforts on traditional media such as print or broadcast, your consumers will eventually find their way to your digital brand space. Arm yourself with the best team to make sure your brand is properly positioned and managed digitally.

To learn more about the latest in digital marketing contact us at 305.454.4106, or visit seedbrandingstudio.com a full service advertising agency in Miami, FL. 

Freedom of Speech

Marketing Game Changers for 2015

Autonomous Robot Employee

If you thought 2014 was thrilling, here is a look at what we are most excited about for 2015. Our top 5 trends and technologies for 2015 in the marketing and advertising world:

1. Virtual Reality
Expect a lot more action on the virtual and augmented reality front. 2014 saw the $2B acquisition of Oculus Rift by Facebook. In 2015, we'll see action from companies like High Fidelity, Immersive 3D 360-degree cameras from Immersive Media, Jaunt, and Giroptic. There are also game changers like Magic Leap (in which Google just invested over $500 million) that are developing augmented reality images that are indistinguishable from real world objects, and are placing them in real world settings. Oculus Rift will be presenting its latest Crescent Bay prototype and how it will interact with hand-and-finger-tracking. Also, this year will see virtual reality in film where you will be able to "feel" what it would be for a human to fly through a full "flying" simulator. Are you feeling a shark coming out of a billboard vibe a-la-back to the future?

2. Mass-market robots
This babies are set to improve the customer service experience. The acquisition of Google of eight robotic companies in 2014 means that 2015 will see the introduction of consumer-friendly robots in a store near you. In a Lowe's store near you, you may soon be seeing autonomous "employees" called Oshbots roaming the floors and helping you find and order items in their store. 2015 will also see the robot Pepper hailing from Japan to enter US retail stores. Pepper uses an emotion engine and computer vision, to detect smiles, frowns, and surprise, and it uses speech recognition to sense the tone of voice and to detect certain words indicative of strong feelings, like "love" and "hate". Pepper then quantifies the person's overall emotion as positive or negative to help the store make a sale.

3. Data & Machine learning
2014 saw data and algorithm driven companies like Uber and AirBnb skyrocket. There is gold in your data. And data-driven companies are the most successful exponential organizations around. In 2015, data collection and mining that data will become more turn-key. Platfroms like Experfy, for example, allow you to find data scientists who will develop algorithms or machine learning solutions for your business/project. This means highly tailored and customized advertising which is set to reduce costs and become more effective.

4. Sensor Explosion
In 2015, expect "everything" to be "smart". The so-called internet of things means that a combination of sensors and wearables, increased connectivity, new manufacturing methods like 3D printing, and improved data mining capabilities will create a smart, connected world - where our objects, clothes, appliances, homes, streets, cars, etc. will be constantly communicating with one another. Among the many applications a device can automatically track how many calories you consume, and another device can even diagnose disease. This also means that marketers will gain a deeper understanding of their brand's audience, going beyond traditional demographics and segmentation to focus on individual people's interests and preferences. 2015 will be all about creating and delivering the right content, for the right person, at the right time, every time.

5. Millennials is the name of the game
Millennials are the independent generation, a generation of wolves, not sheep. Despite popular stereotypes of all millennials being lumped into a single demographic, in 2015, marketers will embrace their individuality. Using new technologies will make it easier to marketers to tailor content to individual cultural interests, location, price ranges and more. This ultra personalized approach will be the only way to achieve true loyalty for millennials.

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Consumer Behavior on the Couch: Freudian Theory

Sigmund Freud proposed the idea that much of one's adult personality stems from a fundamental conflict between a person's desire to gratify his/her physical needs and the necessity to function as a responsible member of society. This struggle is carried out in the mind among three systems:

Id - All about immediate gratification without thinking of consequences, our inner party animal. The id operates from the pleasure principle and wants to maximize pleasure and avoid pain, the id is selfish and illogical. It is the little red devil sitting on your left shoulder.

Superego - The counterweight to the id. It is a person's conscience. It follows society's rules and tries to prevent the id from seeking selfish gratification. It is the little white angel sitting on your right shoulder.

Ego - The system that mediates between the id and the superego. It's basically a referee in the fight between the id and the superego. It balances the opposing forces according to the reality principle which finds ways to gratify the id that the outside world will find acceptable. It is the person making the decision based on the id and superego's demands.

Freudian theory applies to marketing in the Ego system, and how consumers make unconscious decisions that guide purchases. The implication is that consumers cannot necessarily tell us their true motivation when they choose products, even if we can devise a sensitive way to ask them directly. The Freudian perspective also raises the possibility that the ego relies on the symbolism in product to compromise between the demands of the id and the prohibitions of the superego. The person channels her unacceptable desire into acceptable outlets when she uses products that signify these underlying desires. This is the connection between product symbolism and motivation: The product stands for, or represents, a consumer's true goal, which is socially unacceptable or unattainable. By acquiring the product, the person vicariously experiences the forbidden fruit.

The field of motivational research borrowed Freudian ideas to understand the deeper meanings of products and advertisements. This approach adapted psychoanalytical (Freudian) interpretations with a heavy emphasis on unconscious motives. It basically assumed that we channel socially unacceptable needs into acceptable outlets - including product substitutes. Ernest Dichter conducted in-detpth interview studies on more than 230 different products and found a couple of interesting major consumption motivations associated with specific types of products:

Motive                              Associated Products

Power                                             Sugary products and large breakfast, bowling, electric trains, hot rods, power tools

Virility                                          Coffee, red meat, heavy shoes, toy guns, shaving with a razor

Security                                         Ice cream, full drawer of neatly ironed shirts, real plaster walls, home baking, hospital care

Eroticism                                      Sweets, gloves, cigarette lighters

Moral purity                                White bread, cotton fabrics, harsh household cleaning chemicals, bathing, oatmeal

Social Acceptance                       Ice cream, coffee, toys, sugar and honey, soap, beauty products

Individuality                                Gourmet foods, foreign cars, cigarette holders, vodka, perfume, fountain pens

Femininity                                    Cakes and cookies, dolls, silk, tea, household curios

Reward                                          Cigarettes, candy, alcohol, ice cream, cookies

Master of environment               Kitchen appliances, boats, sporting goods

Disalienation                                Home decorating, skiing, morning radio broadcasts

Magic-mystery                             Soups, paints, carbonated drinks, vodka, unwrapping gifts. 

So next time that you purchase a product ask yourself which hidden motivation may be guiding you in buying that specific product? Even better, next time you see an ad you may be able to identify the hidden motivation that is associated with the product being sold.

Pavlov's Packaging

The design of a package generates expectations that allows us to imagine the pleasure that the product itself will give us. Every time that stand in front of a shelf to decide what to buy, our brain goes through a number of processes that combine our knowledge with our expectations. 

We base our decision on past experiences when picking a tried and true product and also when deciding wether to try a new product or not. In either case we are always moved by desire. 

Conditioned Desire

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist known primarily for his work in classical conditioning. The concept for which Pavlov is famous is the "conditioned reflex" developed in 1901. He studied salivations among dogs and learned that when a buzzer or metronome was sounded in subsequent time with food being presented to the dog in consecutive sequences, the dog will initially salivate when the food is presented. The dog will later come to associate the sound with the presentation of the food and salivate upon the presentation of stimulus. 

We function similarly than Pavlov's dogs when we are in the presence of a food package, and its design functions as the stimulus of the buzzer. The mere fact of seeing and recognizing a package reminds us of the experience of consuming the product or makes us imagine the experience of eating it if we haven't had it before. 

When we see and hold a package we perceive it with all of our senses, that experience wether good or bad stays registered in our memory as an association with the product and the brand. 

As consumers are bombarded with options, brands get less and less attention in a supermarket shelf. Great packaging design should understand the values and desires of the consumer and connect in a deeper emotional level. We like to think of product packaging as a half-second commercial where great design makes or breaks a sale. 

Great packaging must combine art and science, where sophisticated research and analysis is converted into visually stimulating design. It must look beyond creative talent and seek to understand human behavior and target consumers in a compelling, fresh, and entertaining way. A well done product package delivers the brand message to consumers directly, while its appetite appeal makes a consumer imagine the flavors and experience of consuming the product. Just like a buzzer would make Pavlov's dogs salivate with desire. 

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The Importance of Emotional Branding

Brands are built on the unconscious part of the brain

A couple of years ago the New York Times released an article that made it clear that "over the last fifty years the economic base has shifted from production to consumption. It has gravitated from the sphere of rationality to the realm of desire; from the objective to the subjective; to the realm of psychology."

Simple ideas have turned from being basic concepts to consumer-based concepts. Food is no longer about cooking or chores but about "home and lifestyle design". Airplanes are less about transportation vehicles and more about "travel organizations." We are operating within different sets of values and in order to be relevant brands must understand this changes and compete accordingly.

But what constitutes a great brand concept apt to compete in our new environment? Goods and services alone are not longer enough to attract or retain existing markets or clients. What drives consumers to buy and become loyal to a brand?

In his book Buy-Ology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, Martin Lindstrom talks about how we are deeply irrational beings. We make irrational decisions when selecting and purchasing products all the time, most of us are guilty of picking the second magazine instead of the first in a shelf and we can't explain why. He used FMRI methods to test how people react to objects belonging to their own religion and then compared to reactions of objects belonging to beloved brands, amazingly the same areas of the brain are lit on both scenarios, leading us to think that we feel just as strong about religion as we do about some brands.

What are the drivers behind such deep connection? We believe that emotional branding plays a big role. By emotional we  mean how a brand engages consumers on the level of the senses and emotions; how a brand comes to life for people and forges a deeper, lasting connection. This means that understanding people's emotional needs and desires is really, now more than ever, the key to success. Corporations must take definite steps toward building stronger connections and relationships and recognizing their customers as partners. Industry today needs to bring people the products they desire, exactly when they want them, through venues that re both inspiring and intimately responsive to their needs.

Emotional banding provides the means and methodology for connecting products to the consumer in an emotionally profound way. It focuses on the most compelling aspect of the human character: the desire to transcend material satisfaction and experience emotional fulfilment. A brand is uniquely situated to achieve this because it can tap into the aspirational drives that underlie human motivation.

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