With so many options, how do you decide?

The speed of technological developments introduces new devices into the market very frequently. While this can be exciting, new capabilities bring new ways to interact with the user, which can make it more difficult to target all the variations. No two projects are ever the same so it often boils down to which options are right for the current needs.

With a recent project here at Teehan+Lax, we decided to start the discussion using a simple visualization and listed different options to examine the pros and cons for each alternative. It was helpful to see how different selections could target the same devices to decide which option or combination of options would work better for the specific project.

Mobile vs. Desktop

When designing for multiple screens, determining a starting point is key. From there, the design can be scaled up or down, adapting the design and flow accordingly. For many years, the 960 grid was sufficient for targeting the most common resolution sizes. However, with the exponential increase in the use of the web on mobile devices, is it better to approach a mobile first strategy?

There are vast differences in the amount of space available for mobile browsing versus desktop browsing; starting with mobile first forces you to decide what’s most important and can therefore impact the design and content strategy greatly.

When thinking beyond the desktop, another consideration for mobile should include whether to add enhancements such as touch gestures. Although, if touch navigation is available, there should also be an alternate call to action such as a button or link in the event that the touch actions are not immediately discoverable by all users. For example, Twitter’s mobile site for the iPad uses a two-column layout that gives the option of swiping the second column to the left to close it; alternatively you can use the back button.

Responsive Web Design vs. Mobile Web Site

With the introduction of Ethan Marcotte’s responsive web design approach, there’s been a flurry of excitement around the idea that one website could target multiple screens. Fluid websites are nothing new but with the introduction of CSS3 media queries, one site can now adapt gracefully between different resolution sizes and respond accordingly to the context being viewed by the user. Fluid grid designs also allow for a consistent multi-screen experience while maintaining one codebase.

While responsive web design is a great alternative to creating a separate desktop and mobile site, it’s not simply about changing fonts and images to fit smaller or larger screens. This concept requires collaboration between designers and developers to determine how to redistribute the elements. Content strategy is also important to determine how content is shifted or even removed based on how each device is used. Even for a single website, upon the initial creation, three to five mockups will be needed to plan the layout for all the different target resolutions. Also, some additional work is required to ensure that older browsers that don’t support CSS3 will degrade gracefully.

A good resource to see responsive web design in action is http://mediaqueri.es.

The main drawback for creating a separate desktop and mobile site would be the need to maintain two sites’ content and codebase. However, this may still be the best option for content heavy sites that require more simplicity or a layout for mobile users that goes beyond shifting and scaling content. Flickr is a great example of how the desktop site includes the whole kitchen sink while the mobile site simplifies the homepage to a basic search and login, while adding additional content in a tabbed structure. Responsive web techniques wouldn’t be the right approach for developing a desktop and mobile design that’s so distinct such as this.

Web app vs. native apps

If you decide to go with a separate desktop and mobile site, there is yet another option to consider: Native apps or web apps?

Native apps are specific to the device and can access the phone’s resources such as the address book, geolocation, and camera. It also doesn’t need to be connected to the internet, although some features may require a connection. Also, it can gain visibility and be monetized through the phone’s marketplace. However, native apps are built in the specific programming language of the device (Objective-C for iPhones, Java for Android for example), which can make it expensive and time consuming to maintain and develop different apps for various devices in a variety of languages. Native apps also require third party approval by the phone’s store, and can be a long process and in some cases, the app does not get approved.

Web apps run in the phone’s browser under a subdomain, usually m.domain.com or mobile.domain.com. It’s built using standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript so developers can use their existing skills to build the site. Because of this, it’s accessible across devices and doesn’t require any downloads or updates which can result in a wider audience reach. However, the phone’s resources cannot be accessed through a web app and requires connection to the internet.

A third option is to use a combination of the two, a hybrid mobile app. A hybrid app is native, and must be downloaded from an app store or marketplace and runs from the device. However, the application code can be written with HTML, CSS and JavaScript and embedded. Frameworks like PhoneGap can be used to tap into the features accessible in a native app. This option can help bridge the gap between native and web apps.

So what’s the verdict?

Going through so many options may feel overwhelming and guess what? There are no right or wrong answers. There are those who would argue that some techniques are better than others but it really boils down to target audience, target device usage, resources, time and budget. Whatever the final strategy may be, one cannot assume that a multi-screen approach is a thing of the future. It is here, now.

TV: passive to active?

Have our attention spans become so short that we cannot simply watch a TV show without posting our thoughts or looking up info on our phones? It’s clear that advertisers and producers recognize this, as they’ve begun to weave digital campaigns and social media into TV programming. It’s possible that as TV and the digital world become more integrated, content will seamlessly be shared across platforms, and watching TV could become a more active participatory experience. A few brands such as Honda and AXA auto insurance have recently created commercials and implemented the use of mobile apps. The spots are well executed technically as content is transferred via QR code and sound-syncing technology. Despite the innovative approach, the importance of these types of ads is to take the user from viewing to product purchase.

In terms of TV programming, the UFC has begun streaming pay-per-view while simultaneously allowing users to interact on multiple platforms by tweeting, chatting and judging the fights. The service is quality programming and might be a look into what the future holds for TV and the Internet. This appears to work better than regular programming trying to incorporate social media, such as a live twitter stream during events and award shows. It seems that social networks are becoming a legitimate resource. The Stream, a news talk show is actually using social media as a basis; producers will script the broadcast using tweets, Facebook posts, and YouTube videos. Furthermore, major events have called for the use of specialized apps that offer complementary information. For instance, the Oscar Backstage Pass app this season gave an exclusive behind the scenes look into the awards show. The problem is that without proper integration of these apps and social media, viewing all the different screens becomes a challenge. It’s hard to tell if this activity will soon become normalized, or if people will always prefer to relax and enjoy TV.

Rewards can make an impression. Inspiration can ignite a movement.

A great way to make a lasting impression is to deliver immediate gratification or offer some type of tangible reward. For example, GranetaPets, a premium dog food in Germany, had key insight to stop dogs and owners when walking by their billboard. The company concealed actual dog food within the billboard; dogs were therefore attracted to it, as they have a heightened sense of smell. Owners that took notice were encouraged to check-in via Foursquare and once they did, a free bowl of dog food was dispensed.

Many great ideas involve the user and depend on them to participate in the making of a campaign. Coca Cola’s latest crowdsourcing campaign got rock band Maroon 5 on board to create an original song in 24 hours with fans contributing to the song via Twitter. Fans were able to tweet lyrics and ideas as inspiration for the band. Once the track gets 100k downloads, Coke will make a donation on their fan’s behalf to the RAIN Foundation (Replenish Africa Initiative). This is not just a campaign, it’s a part of a bigger movement to help make the world a better place, with the ultimate goal of providing at least 2 million Africans with clean water by 2015. Many companies have made similar moves such as Pepsi with their Refresh the World project, and Maxwell House’s Brew some good initiative. A successful campaign can usually create a movement when it’s inspiring, for the common good, and has a unique idea that is cohesive with the brand.

Depending on your level of involvement in the digital industry, you might not have heard of near field communication (NFC) or you’ve heard so much of it you’re starting to wonder if it’s all hype. NFC relies on an underlying technology that wirelessly identifies objects from a short distance through tags that are inserted into pretty much anything. The benefit of NFC over something you’re probably more familiar with like RFID, which is used in key fobs and current forms of electronic payment like PayPass, is that it can send and receive information two ways, where RFID is limited to sending information just one way.

This is a significant improvement over the existing technology because it’s inexpensive, offers an increased efficiency in configuration and pairing, provides instantaneous connection between devices, and it enables interactive advertising opportunities for merchants.

The challenge for consumers

The challenge for adoption is to make it significantly easier and more convenient to use than the typical way we do things already. To become fully accessible, it must permeate our everyday actions in the same way text messages and emails have done. Marty Beard, president of Sybase, strongly believes that “for mobile commerce to take off, industry stakeholders must harmonize their efforts in the same way that led to proliferation of SMS and MMS technologies.”

For consumers to see the value in using their mobile devices as a primary form of payment, it has to find an anchor in their lives and redefine the rituals of their everyday actions. To do this, the NFC forum has developed the three pillars for near field devices: sharing, pairing and paying. They believe that these modes are where it can have the most impact in people’s lives.

The challenge is finding the incentive for consumers to switch from swiping to waving.

For example sharing, like Bump for iOS currently does, allowing you to exchange contact information on the fly. NFC can enable these interactions offline in a more convenient and instantaneous way. It also has the capacity to improve the pairing process between mobile devices and desktops. Imagine no more passwords, bluetooth pairing or router codes. This can all be stored on an NFC chip embedded in your device, and a single swipe is all it takes to verify your digital identity.

The most signifiant pillar is payment. Take Square for example: it enables merchants to accept payments virtually anywhere through mobile devices. The hardware they use to enable credit card swipes is a stopgap implementation—that’s why they’re actively giving Square dongles away for free. Their strategy is less about the hardware they use and more about the service they provide. I imagine that Square would readily adopt NFC-enabled devices when they become standardized and evolve their current hardware solution.

The challenge for merchants

Isis, a partnership between telecom juggernauts Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile, is actively developing the common standard for mobile payments that they hope will be eventually adopted by merchants. The challenge for merchants is putting faith into the added-value that these new systems can provide their customers, like coupons and loyalty programs.

Google has already integrated NFC support for Android 2.3 and is rumoured to be working with VeriFone to roll out point-of-sale solutions for merchants. Gingerbread users on the Nexus S, can start using Taglet right now and take advantage of contactless information.

The rumour mill is undoubtedly churning around the iPhone 5 and if it will be enabled for mobile payments. Some believe that Apple is concerned about the lack of standards across the industry. Yet others claim they have sources who confirm that Apple is looking at ways of integrating NFC into the next-gen iPhone.

RIM is also working on their own mobile payment solution. “Many, if not most, of BlackBerry devices throughout the year will have NFC in them,” said CEO, Jim Balsillie at a mobile conference last month.

Japan has been using RFID-enabled mobile devices for some time and they’re starting to adopt NFC more rapidly than the west. Mixi, Japan’s biggest social network, will be rolling out new features that enable checking in through near field devices. The advantage of this over something like foursquare, is that it will continue to work in areas where GPS and data signals are weak. But the most interesting implementation are objects embedded with tags that can be shared across their network. Imagine reading a booking or unwrapping a new product you’ve purchased, waving your mobile device over it and sharing it as a status update. This is attractive to merchants because they can embed promotional information into their products which can tie into digital campaigns that run on Mixi.

The merchant perspective is similar to Apples. They aren’t ready to adopt mobile payments and take on the risk of a potentially deprecated infrastructure. They’d prefer to wait for the industry to establish a common standard.

The challenge for designers

How NFC becomes adopted is an exercise for interaction and product designers. The idea that physical objects can talk to each other and exchange our personal information requires designers to have a deep understanding of the spatial dialogue in which they communicate. This is just a fancy way of saying that they need to know how things interact without touching. Timo Arnall and Jack Schulze from BERG, are actively engaged in design research, using prototypes, to experiment with the possibilities of near field devices. They’ve visualized what invisible radio waves look like when an NFC chip and reader are in proximity. They’ve been able to tease apart the nuances in the simple interactions involved in waving your device over a reader.

Possible use cases for the mobile wallet

Source: NFC Forum

These are just some the possible use cases identified by the NFC forum. The designer’s goals is to uncover the pleasurable and motivating factors for consumers to use their mobile devices for payment instead of more familiar and established mechanisms. Consumers are comfortable with swiping their cards and there’s nothing broken about it, so adopting a new technology for them is unnecessary. The challenge is finding the incentive for consumers to switch from swiping to waving. As industry practices and consumer behaviour become adjusted to mobile devices as the primary mode for sharing information and digital identities, we’ll start to see an uptake in adoption. But the question remains as to just how quickly we’ll start to see heavy adoption of the mobile wallet in the near future.

Useful campaigns

Campaigns and apps that are inherently useful make a more impactful UX. Many campaigns have used augmented reality in their approach, but the World Lens app, is one of the most useful implementations that we’ve seen. The app for the iPhone and iPod Touch offers real time translation of text. You simply point your device’s video camera at a sign and the program translates and superimposes the translated text onto the video.

Another useful print ad for Carlsberg, gives a step-by-step process for turning the ad into an actual bottle opener. Although, you might have missed its intention when flipping through a magazine.

Retail marketing

Shopping retail is becoming an increasingly more immersive and interactive experience. Puma has recently implemented iPads for in-store use, and Adidas is using large LCD touch screens to help explore inventory and allow the user to build their own shoes and even checkout.

Kraft has been experimenting with facial recognition technology to hone in on targeted users. They put a kiosk in a grocery store that asked, “what’s for dinner?” The kiosk zooms in on the users face and instantly determines gender and age group to suggest products that might be appealing. It even goes one step further dispensing product samples like a vending machine. This type of marketing is great for point of purchase sales and is highly personalized. On the other hand, it’s possible the kiosk could identify the wrong gender or age altogether; hopefully, it won’t offend and mistake your Justin Bieber hairstyle for a little girl and suggest Teddy Grahams.

Social media

Many social media campaigns have encouraged themes of kindness and generosity, and have elements of planned spontaneity and tangible rewards.

A Dutch airline, KLM Airlines has used Foursquare as a platform and employed a ‘Surprise Team’ to give passengers personal, unexpected gifts at the airport. As soon as someone checked-in at a KLM Foursquare location, the Surprise Team went online to find out personal information about the person, and delivered a unique gift before they traveled. For instance, one traveler tweeted he would miss a PSV soccer game while he was in New York. The Surprise Team gave him a Lonely Planet guidebook of NYC with all the sports bars highlighted in blue.

Similarly, Interflora, a flower delivery service launched a campaign to brighten up the lives of Twitter users. They monitored Twitter looking for users that they believed need cheering up. Once found, the users were sent a bouquet of flowers. Privacy had to be a big concern during the course of these campaigns, since they are largely focused on social monitoring. Hopefully all of the recipients were pleasantly surprised and didn’t become paranoid that Big Brother is always watching.

Converging devices

The most significant trend that we see evolving in the future is the convergence of mobile devices, computers and TV screens. The key is to understand how devices will interact, and how to seamlessly integrate the entire experience from one screen to another.

Through the use of a banner ad, Gol Airlines has turned the mobile phone into a remote control. Users input their mobile number into the banner, and they immediately get a call connecting them to the desktop. The banner then becomes a flying game controlled by the mobile device. The ad comes together in the end, reminding customers that they can conveniently check-in via mobile phone when they fly.

The Shazam app is evolving, as the logo will be ‘embedded’ into programs ready for users to tag TV shows. This entails using a mobile device to listen and recognize the TV episode in question. Shazam will then provide complementary info; links to exclusive video and previews of upcoming episodes, access to playlists from the series and downloads. This will completely integrate the web browsing and TV watching experience.

Check out other notable ideas:

• E-paper
• Twitter, Secret Santa
• Heineken, The Entrance
• Yahoo, Multiplayer Gaming

What about a way to port your profile and social capital from one social network platform to another? How about the ability to selectively share something into multiple social networks in a contextually relevant way? I would like to suggest the extent to which we want/need these kinds of improvements speaks to the fundamental crudeness of our current social media tools and platforms.

Don’t get me wrong—I agree along with everyone else that the last few years have been truly seminal in terms of how we are able to socialize in the digital channel. Facebook and Twitter APIs have made a universal social graph possible, mobile technology has made access and connectivity to this graph ubiquitous and intensely personal, etc. What I’m saying is that the next few years have the potential to be every bit as revolutionary.

I believe that some of the fundamental challenges that underly current social network platforms will become more and more salient and lead to lots of (potentially disruptive) innovation in 2011 and 2012. What kinds of fundamental challenges? The kind that make it hard for tools like Facebook and Twitter to map onto how we’re actually wired to socialize.

The discussion is already well underway. For example, it has been noted that social expression has traditionally been private by default, public through effort. The social affordances of platforms like Facebook practically reverse that equation. It may be that this is a distortion of how we truly want to—and will be able to in the future—use social media to express ourselves and connect with others. A little while ago, Google’s Paul Adams pointed out that much of how Facebook works is based on the untrue assumption that all connections are homogeneous “friends.” An outworking of this fact is a lot of noise in our news feeds. Or take Twitter. It is based on the assumption that we actually want to hear regularly from people we follow. But this may not be true all the time: for example, there may be a range of social pressures that factor into our decision to follow someone. Thus, the need for something like a mute button. On a much more technical level, issues relating to universal access and potability are being discussed in depth.

I definitely don’t want to underestimate how far we’ve come, or technology’s ability to transform how we communicate and socialize; but I’m excited to see how users will adapt, and innovators will seize on opportunities to recreate our current social media landscape in the next few years.

Last week Forrester released a report advising most marketers wait to use location-based social networks (LBSN) as only 4% of the US population is currently using platforms such as Foursquare (the current market leader), and that the networks skew heavily male. They advise that brands that target young males experiment with the services and other brands adopt a “wait and see” approach.

I couldn’t disagree more. Here are my 5 reasons why it’s smart to start experimenting now.

1. First Movers.

There’s something to be said for getting a head start on your competition in the digital space. Brands like Starbucks, Dell, Pepsi, and Nike have all taken advantage of the emerging channels and reaped the rewards of building a strong early foundation with consumers.

While you should not rush into a new tool without understanding your strategic goals and how it integrates with your business objectives, experimenting with emerging technologies that are opt-in and potentially have a direct customer impact is smart.

When Facebook opened their gates to the general population in 2006 they had a small user base of university students. Four years later they are a behemoth. Twitter adoption rates have been increasing exponentially year over year since their launch in 2007 and the tool is now considered a “must use” for social business. Considering Foursquare launched about a year ago, can we expect to see the same type of growth curve as the early adopters begin to influence the early majority? (see “Crossing the Chasm” adoption curve)

2. Google. Facebook. Oh My.

Location-based services are not limited to the current apps we have been hearing about. Facebook has expressed they will add a location-based offering soon, Twitter has added “Tweet with your location” to their service, and the biggest news is that Google is adding a Places API to their eco-system, as well as adding LB data extensions to their mobile advertising product.

LBSN will become mainstream sooner rather than later, and it will be the big players, not the niche networks that will drive the adoption. Testing and learning now, before it becomes ubiquitous should be something on every marketers radar.

3. Data and utility.

There is an enormous amount of insightful and actionable data that can be gleaned about your customers and prospects from mobile & LBSNs. Eventually this data could be used to inform inventory control, staffing levels, consumer tastes and trends, etc. The data can also be used in loyalty programs, to identify influencers, test new products, and as real-time service focus groups.

Companies already testing the waters include:

Nike with True City; Starbucks with their Foursquare offers; The Pepsi mobile branded app; and the City of Chicago with their Tourism campaign.

4. Sales, Coupons, Offers, and more.

Part of the Forrester analysis identified that mobile couponing is widely successful with the users currently using the services, which is interesting as the base is primarily young males, not the average coupon-consuming demographic. Gone are the days of clipping coupons in the Sunday paper, now you can serve relevant offers and drive foot traffic and purchase directly to a mobile device. These offers are opt-in, and contextually relevant, not SMS spam. Testing offers, tips, and messaging via mobile should be on every retailers plan for the next year.

Of course one size doesn’t fit all and ensuring that your product or service fits within the make-up of the demographic, depending on service (existing or branded), is a must.

5. Mobile usage.

Of course mobile, and specifically smartphone, usage is soaring year over year. Ignoring mobile at this point is like ignoring the Internet in 2002 because broadband wasn’t prevalent yet.

Bottom line for marketers:

Experiment. See what fits, what your customers are looking for, and where you can add value. Don’t wait until it becomes mainstream, because that will be sooner than you think and you’ll be playing catch-up.

photo credit: john weiss via Flickr

One of the recurring questions has been around how it works. As one of our LinkedIn forum members said, “If no one is currently doing this, how can an agency possibly integrate the process and make it work?” Great question and one that’s been on our minds a lot lately, too.

As luck would have it, a campaign recently exploded online that I believe illustrates the adaptive approach to marketing. I’m talking about the Old Spice Guy work done by Wieden+Kennedy. It began as a great Super Bowl TV spot but what happened afterward – and they way they worked with their client – is what I find most compelling.

Iain Tait, in a readwriteweb.com post explains it best, “In a way there’s nothing magical that we’ve done here… we just brought a character to life using the social channels we all [social media geeks] use every day. But we’ve also taken a loved character and created new episodic content in real time.” As for the mechanics, he explains, “we’re looking at who’s written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content. The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we’re editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web…in real time.”

My first thought was that to pull off such a responsive program they must have had a tremendously trusting client and collaborative working relationship. Tait said that Proctor & Gamble let his team create on the fly with little supervision, “There is such great trust … They have given us a set of guidelines and if we get close to the edges we contact them.”

In my opinion, Tait’s team has arguably created the most significant program since Subservient Chicken. They put all the right pieces together. But more so, they’ve illustrated exactly how an agency can practically develop and deploy a campaign that actively involves consumers in real time and delivers meaningful experience. Not only that, they completely repositioned the brand and now have an asset they can use in myriad ways.

I’ll probably take some heat for this, but personally, I always felt that Subservient Chicken was one-dimensional. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it and felt it arrived at exactly the right time in our industry. It showed how technology could be used to involve consumers without being ham-handed. But it was really just a playful destination. Somewhere to waste a few minutes online.

The Old Spice Guy concept goes way farther and operates on a much deeper level. It watches consumer activity, pulls it in without asking and feeds it back out as unexpectedly fresh content. On top of that it demonstrates a fundamental change in agency structure and approach. In fact, it’s so extensible that consumers themselves can run with the idea, create their own content and still be in line with the original idea… at no incremental cost to the client! See for yourself, have the Old Spice Guy create your voicemail message.

So What’s It Take To Do Work Like This?

There’s no debate that social media has completely transformed how marketers engage with their customers. And the impact of this change has rippled through agencies as they struggle to catch up to the changing needs of their clients – and consumers. But what hasn’t happened up till this point is agencies figuring out how to bring all the pieces together in one agile approach.

For a time I thought that BURT were onto something with their Agile Advertising approach, but the more I noodle it, the more I feel like what they proposed with their four feedback loops is really more of an optimization phase in a linear model (and something we’ve done at Teehan+Lax for some time). It’s great for tuning individual pieces of creative and improving their effectiveness but it isn’t necessarily about creating a platform for iterative ideas to be rapidly developed, tested and deployed. And an iterative development approach is really what we need.

“Everyone applauds innovation. At least, they love it in retrospect, after it has worked.”*

I believe we need to build teams and create operating environments that allow for responsive marketing that’s always on. Programs that respond to changing market conditions. Programs that naturally integrate the ability to test ideas and embrace failure. Programs that will use data to help inform what is made, how it’s designed, and who will be involved.

Tim Leberecht in his article, “Time for Marketing Innovation 2.0” delivers a stern challenge to all of us searching for new solutions. “As we are entering the new decade, it appears as if the marketing discipline, after undergoing a mesmerizing major transformation in the past two to three years, is facing stagnation. This often occurs when pioneering concepts are fully absorbed by the mainstream: Social marketing is on the way to becoming THE marketing, as social media is becoming THE media (it is always a sign of broad adoption if adjectives are dropped). Authenticity, engagement, meaning, communities, social, conversations, transparency, etc. – they’re all accepted across the industry and widely implemented now. What then is the next frontier for marketers? What will be the next big marketing innovation?”

To me the next big innovation won’t be the products we envision as much as it will be agencies we create that are structured to deliver Adaptive Marketing. And as the team at Wieden & Kennedy have shown us, it’s entirely possible and should now be expected. Silver fish hand catch!

Reading List:

For an industry that prides itself on a spirit of innovation, what we see happening doesn’t feel right. We believe it’s time to press forward. We believe that time to change is now. To that end, we are actively in the process of transitioning our Marketing Programs Group to an Adaptive Marketing model.

“Business has only two basic functions – marketing and innovation.” Peter Drucker

Adaptive Marketing is the next step in our evolution and will provide a truly progressive approach for our clients – one that we believe will become the approach that many marketers will use in the future. To the best of our knowledge we will be the first agency in Canada to provide this service.

Why are we doing this? Quite simply, we believe the days of doing traditional online marketing campaigns are fading. Linear programs based on reach and frequency are highly ineffective. As a direct marketing vehicle with clickthroughs averaging 0.02% they don’t work. And with banner-blindness being what it is, as a brand vehicle most efforts are largely ignored.

The reality is that consumers have changed faster than marketers. And they expect communication that delivers tangible value. Traditional campaigns that trumpet brand messages or focus solely on unique selling propositions are no longer considered the principle measure of value to consumers. To be blunt, what worked in the 50’s simply doesn’t work anymore. Today’s consumer demands more.

Value used to be derived from a consumer’s perception of what a product could do for them. This interpretation of value has evolved. And these days value is better characterized as, “what can a brand help me do?”

When we switch our strategic approach to deliver tangible consumer value – we are obligated not only to evolve the ways we engage with consumers, but also, to re-examine the approach (and processes) we use to create, monitor, deploy and continuously tune our marketing programs.

The Old Way

The “traditional online” marketing approach is linear and built on the idea of telling consumers about products and services through increased reach and frequency.

Forrester’s recent analysis of Adaptive Marketing issued the challenge that marketers and agencies need to change and move away from the old way of doing things. According to Forrester, agencies struggle to adapt because their models are still built for yesterday, in that they:

• Focus on campaigns rather than experiences
• Talk but aren’t very good at listening (or more importantly, conversing)
• Are built for waterfall versus iteration
• Treat customers as audience rather than participants
• Are mostly “unbundled” — creating disparate skill sets
• Have trouble mastering many new specialties at once
• Moved down the value chain and rarely distinguish themselves from each other
• Can only move as fast as their clients

At Teehan+Lax, our Programs Group is purpose-built to be the exact opposite. Our agile creative approach, small, team-based structure, and value-based compensation model (we’ll talk more about this in another post) allows us to create highly effective Adaptive Marketing programs.

The New Way

Instead of looking at projects as a series of requirements that extend the reach and frequency of a message we need to look at the problem differently. We need to first determine how to help consumers solve a problem. When we look at a marketing challenge this way, it allows us to identify a completely different set of success metrics and solutions.

If your marketing isn’t helping consumers, then you’re shouting messages from the sidelines.

In the past we were incentivized to create ads and microsites that would launch onto the Internet, exist for a while and then disappear. In the future, we will create programs and “things” that solve consumer problems. They won’t be ads, but instead, they will be solutions that need to be marketed. It’s a completely different approach. And a whole new ballgame.

The new way is about creating programs that continuously evolve as they go. They are build on the principle of listening to consumers, identifying what they need, and creating communication that helps them. There are several projects that we see as benchmarks for this way of thinking, notably, Domino’s Pizza Tracker, Pepsi Refresh, and Nike+ Chalkbot. We’d be well advised to learn from them.

In the future, programs must be iterative, highly adaptive, and responsive to consumer needs, market conditions, and technological opportunities.

The things we create will be as unique as the problems we need to solve… and our approach demands that we look beyond paid advertising as the first solution. Ultimately, what we will create are not campaigns (in the traditional sense of the word) but will be continuums of activity and initiatives – some small, some large, each of varying shapes and sizes – that each satisfy the real needs of consumers while delivering against a marketers connection objectives.

We believe that Adaptive Marketing is the right approach, one that will be the way of the future. We are extremely excited to move in this direction. And we’re looking for clients who share this philosophy.

Reading List

Forrester (registration required)

• Customer Experience Skills Are Critical To The Success Of Agency Relationships
• Adapting Agency Relationships In A New Marketing Era

BBH Labs

• So what exactly might ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ be?

Mullen

• Forrester debuts its findings on “The Future of Advertising Agencies”

Other

• Adaptive Marketing. How not to go the Dodo way
• Why is digital advertising so lousy? Industry is too smug to innovate.

Imagine that you were commissioning the development of a new home for you and your family. What would you look for in a bid from a contractor? Would you be satisfied with one option, one price? A quote that lays out averaged costs in the most generic of terms? Boiler plate descriptions of process and procedures that fail to address your specific needs and desires?

Buying a Web site (or any user experience) design shouldn’t feel like this—and yet, consider how we often pitch, scope and quote on projects.

We put together a statement of work that estimates the costs on an “average per-square-foot” basis (e.g. number of templates). We talk about us: our process, our people, our proven track record. If we’re placing a fixed bid, we typically propose one option and one price that studiously and reflexively attempts to cover off everything in the brief.

A couple of weeks ago, Jon posted up some thoughts on why we’re switching from costs-plus to a value-based pricing model. This generated a very lively discussion, which—if I were to summarize it—really boiled down to a sentiment of “that’s great, but how do we do this?”

Since then, we’ve experimented with a number of pricing options and strategies. I’d like to share one that we think shows a lot of promise.

A tiered model for value-based pricing

A tiered model lays out multiple options at different price points and empowers purchasers to make better, more informed decisions that feel less arbitrary. I wish I had a simpler name for it, because it really is a very standard and straight-forward way to price things out. Here’s a template that we developed for a recent client:

Each of these options also got a one-pager that provided more detail. Here’s why we think this approach works better than a more traditional costs-plus estimate:

Measured response

Very rarely are you presented with a purchasing decision where there’s one option and one price. In fact, if you were, I bet you’d have a hard time judging whether or not the price was worth it. We’re not wired to make absolute evaluations in a vacuum. We need points of reference to help set expectations, anchor and compare.

Laying out options gives clients a clear way to compare, contrast and ultimately be more intentional about who they decide to award their business to and why.

What are we actually selling?

Each fixed-bid option focuses on outcomes rather than costs. Clients don’t want to buy 20-30 templates. They do want to buy a digital experience that delights customers and gives them a competitive edge. It’s up to us to understand how this maps onto specific requirements and outcomes, and reflect the perceived value of those outcomes in our pricing. Clients need to have confidence in us and understand how we will execute the project. But ultimately, they care more about how they can derive value from the end result.

Meaningful choice

Rather than pandering to a brief that asks for everything at once, multiple options let us de-couple conflicting requirements (e.g. fast delivery time and lots of features). This means that from the start, we’re setting ourselves and our clients up for success.

We want each option to have a purpose and represent a viable option for the client. We can state exactly what problems we’re going to solve and what trade-offs these solutions will entail. For example, in this case we proposed one option that optimized time-to-market, a second that set specific parameters around certain kinds of innovative features and functionality, and a third no-holds-barred, multi-channel approach.

Final thoughts

The American philosopher John Dewey once said that “a problem well-defined is a problem half-solved.” The goal here is to creatively and conscientiously define problems well, right from the outset, and empower clients to make purposeful choices about what they really want. One thing I didn’t expect to get out of this process was that it was actually fun. Quoting and scoping projects doesn’t have to be a dry, automatic process. It can and we believe should be part of the value you bring to the project.

It’s really nothing that new. Companies like FedEx have been connecting physical things to the web for years. Most of the examples are similar though – they involve scanning codes and updating systems to keep customers up-to-date. Another notable one is Domino’s pizza tracker. A system that lets the pizza makers scan barcodes at certain parts of the pizza making process to update their customers on the Web.

Recently we’re seeing an increase in activity here that goes beyond scanning codes, and it has me giddy with excitement to see where it goes. Poke’s Baker Tweet is a prime example of the physical Internet. Put simply, it’s a physical box located in the bakery that sends messages wirelessly to Twitter to let followers know what’s fresh. The guys who built it actually started a company called Breakfast who, from what I’m told, is all about creating experiences like this.

Another good example of this is Nike’s Chalkbot. A machine that took tweets and messages from real people and plotted them in chalk along a portion of the Tour de France.

I think we’re going to see some really innovative stuff this year, most of which will be connecting virtual stuff with real stuff. Last week, Andy Sandoz over at Work Club posted an interesting article that touched (sorry) on what it may be like if Facebook had a physical ‘Like’ button. I’d love to hear of more examples or thoughts on this.