London Technology Public Relations agency | Social Media Strategy | B2B PR | Chameleon PR

To coincide with London Design Festival 2011, Holition, a creative services agency specialising in emerging technologies, is collaborating with The Future Laboratory and Campaign to create Sweet Shoppe, a highly creative and engaging ‘future of retail’ experience. Guests are taken on a 20-minute journey to source the perfect sweet through a process of exploration and engagement with all five senses.

Immediately I felt like Alice in Wonderland when I was asked to enter the building through a small door within a door and knew that it was going to be a hyper-real adventure. After swallowing a pill that would allow the technicians to monitor my heart rate, pupil dilation and salivation, I was taken through a variety of rooms and gardens with many objects labelled ‘Eat me’ and ‘Read me’. I was asked to make many choices, including what to drink, choosing my favourite objects from a selection of trays and assessed by Sweet Shoppe technicians on what colours, foods and textures I was drawn to.

The final stage of the journey was in a musky open room with a large white projector. On being given my customised Sweet Shoppe goody bag, and with Holition’s creative 3D augmented reality application, the ingredients of my bag came to life on a screen directly in front of me. This was the most interesting part of the journey, as all my decisions had created this conclusion on my personal character, shopping preference and shopping mindset. The technology virtually brought my chosen sweet to life and character assessment adding to the overall hyper-real experience.

It was decided by Sweet Shoppe powers that be I am a chocolate dib dab, my character is social, my mindset is nostalgic and my mindset is indulgent – which I think everyone at Chameleon would say is a more than fair and accurate assessment.

Throughout the experience there were eerie moments where the host, shop assistant and shop keeper seemed to know more about me than I had told them. There were many references to my earlier ambition of wanting to be a Blue Peter presenter, which made me question how much they already knew about me. Through the proliferation of the internet and social media, the world has shared personal details, funny anecdotes and consistent status and location updates – which you wouldn’t necessarily share with a stranger offline. Throughout the futuristic experience, it raised questions over wider privacy issues, acceptable information and security as well as the benefits and personal touches of the staff understanding what I liked and accommodating those needs.

Despite consumer spending woes and economic anxiety, there is a huge increase in online shopping, providing a real opportunity for the retail industry to go back to basics and focus on its customers and personal preferences to encourage them to not only spend money but also return and recommend; developing brand loyalty.

In the famous words of Willy Wonka: “Invention, my dear friends, is 93 per cent perspiration, 6 per cent electricity, 4 per cent evaporation and 2 per cent butterscotch ripple.” If some retailers could create their own recipe of success to understanding its customers, the industry will be able to deliver a customised and engaging experience.

We just got back from the 2011 International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) in Amsterdam, and what a great weekend it was with over 50,000 attendees and 1,300 exhibitors from more than 140 countries. It’s not surprising that IBC is billed as the leading global tradeshow for professionals engaged in the creation, management and delivery of broadcasting media and entertainment.

Across a maze of halls and endless corridors, this year showcased the very latest developments in broadcasting, mobile TV, IPTV, digital signage and R&D making it essential for everyone’s understanding of the industry and its future. The major themes that we saw coming out of the show was the vision of the connected home, multi-screen and the role of OTT.

We were in attendance with Pace, a leading developer of technologies, products and services for global broadband and broadcast markets. It was a particularly exciting show for Pace this year – as well as showing some pioneering new technologies and providing the first view of Elements, its service range on its exhibition stand – Pace played a prominent role at the conference with Neil Gaydon, Pace’s CEO, delivering a keynote and Jaime Fink, Senior VP of Technology, taking part in a panel session.

During the conference, Pace held interview briefings with 10 key media and eight leading industry analysts on Pace’s portfolio, the company’s roadmap and how Pace is ‘Making it all work’ – the company’s theme for the show. Briefings included the BBC, Gartner, IMS Research, IDC, Screen Digest, Rapid TV News and Broadband TV News. Coverage totals currently stand at 60 pieces!

Pace wasn’t the only one to walk away from IBC 2011 as best in show. Our Lucy was named “feistiest in show” for her school ma’am charm in running media schedules.

A Marketer’s Guide to Social Media Marketing  - (Part 1 of 2)
It’s clear that brands are still failing to realise the potential of Twitter. Just 1% of brand mentions by consumers on Twitter represent real dialogue between brands and consumers. That means 99% are pure marketing broadcast monologues which are not taking advantage of the particular opportunities offered by social media.

With a quarter of a billion engaged users worldwide, and growing daily, there is no doubt that Twitter is effective as an instant communication tool, and even influential when it comes to reaching the right audiences for a specific brand. But many brands are still failing to realise the difference between mass-broadcasting messages and the full potential of this real-time communication tool, which allows for two-way communication with their target end users.

Given their classic ‘Push’ Marketing backgrounds, by continuing to operate in a traditional ‘broadcast mode’ or perceiving Twitter as a one-to-many mass media channel, organisations are missing out on opportunities to both gain invaluable customer insight and build stronger social media relationships.

How to get more out of Twitter
For marketers to reap the benefits of this popular social media service, they need to focus on three main strategic activities:

Listening: By knowing what existing and potential customers are saying about their brands and gauging their sentiment, marketers will build a wealth of detailed customer insight that would be invaluable when it comes to defining social media strategies or taking marketing decisions in near real-time. This can be done by using professional monitoring tools, or depending on a brand’s in-house resources and skills, by hiring a professional specialist agency.

Engagement: By getting genuinely involved in relevant discussions on Twitter, a brand will quickly build its reputation and position itself as a thought leader in its specific industry sector. A good start is to be useful to -and generous with- its customers, using techniques such as special offers, and sharing valuable product tips, recommendations and advice to help customers compare products throughout their decision cycles.

Supporting: Twitter is also a great tool to identify those who need help using your products or services, and to see what customers are sharing with others about their overall experiences of your brand including after-sales service satisfaction. Knowing about both negative and positive experiences in a timely manner, then following a professional strategy to deal with such situations is crucial. By getting in touch with those customers, effectively solving their problems and maybe sharing more tips, marketers can easily switch public complaints into a positive word-of-mouth situation for their brands.

Follow @MoElnadi for more #SocialMedia tips

See Also: 

Twitter: Building Relationships and Proving Social Media ROI  – (Part 2 of 2)

Location-based services: A Fad or the Future of #SocialMedia Marketing? (Part 1 of 3)

 

What is the future of location-based service? Does it really lie in local search or services? (Part 2 of 3)

 

2 Location-Based Apps That You Can’t Live Without (Part 3 of 3)