Google Goodness?

It’s day 2 at Google I/O so by now you would have seen most of the major announcements made by the lead Googlers during I/O13 keynote opening session.
The presentation went on for a solid 3 hours, you can view it here .
For me, the product highlights were: of course the all access music service, the new and awesomely enhanced maps (with content discovery, 3D imagery inside buildings, offers, geo fencing, activity recognition and live traffic event), as well as the Star Trek computer project, which is the future of search (awesome and related to one of my previous post) and the new user features for Google+ (photo sharing & editing, content recommendation # and multiplatform sign on- a real plus on Facebook).

A multitude of journalists and bloggers have covered the event and you can learn the details of all these features elsewhere (Google: I/O13).

google I/O 2103

google I/O 2103

The two things I will focus on this live post are: My personal experience being part of the crowd at Google I/O and how Google is building the future of the Internet.

This year the event gathered over 6,000 attendees. The highlight of I/O is always the opening keynote, where the big announcements are made. The line in front of Mascone West 2hrs before kick off looked like the usual queue for the Sistine chapel. Funny analogy, but later that morning Sundar Pichai (SVP of Chrome and Android) actually referred to funeral of Pope J.P II and the nomination of Pope Francis to illustrate how mobile devices have changed our behaviour. The parallel between Google and a new kind of religion is too obvious here #justsaying…

French style… I might have slightly jumped the queue at the entrance and then waited for another 1h30min, I finally made it to the main theatre. It filled up quick, every single sit taken, lots of people standing in the aisles. Dimmed light, smooth electronic tunes playing in the background. Countdown clocks on the big screens and a tangible build of excitement as the clocks got closer to 0! The last 10 seconds were literally like NYE. Google brought us NYE at 9am, at that point in time we didn’t know that Google was also going to bring us Christmas at 2pm by giving away free Chorme books to everyone!

The first speaker to get on stage was Vic Gundotra (Vice President). All his followers were just as polished and impressive. Naturally at ease in front of 6,000 demoing live technologies. Very inspiring presentations, mixed with animations and live demos… and Larry Page came on stage to clos off the keynote! He gave a casual chat about where Google is now opportunities ahead. He even opened to the floor for questions…. and they were as diverse as: how does Google protects freedom of speech to how to help youngsters be positive about technology or how to get more women in tech carrers… which brings me to my second point: How Google is building the future of the Internet.

The future of the Internet will be seamlessly multiplatform, easy to use, frictionless, intuitive and infiltrated in everything we do. After spending 2 days at I/O it is hard to say if the future is organically shaping up that way or if Google is building it that way.

Larry Page says that technology must get out of the way for us to spend more time doing what makes us happy. Did Google’s CEO, really said that. Yes he did!

Very early on, when developing Google, like Steve Jobs, Larry recognised that the power of the Internet is not in super computers but in all the PCs in homes around the world. At the moment all these computers are connected via tiny pipes, which dramatically limits the possibilities. Google wants unleash this opportunity! Since its inception Google has aimed for big audacious goals. As Susan Wojcicki (Senior Vice President) testified, when Larry and Sergei were renting her garage their objective was to organise the world’s information… the same bold philosophy drove projects like maps, street view, Glass, Fibre etc.… and still applies now more than more than ever. That is exactly what makes me think that there is nothing that Google cannot do. It currently dominates the global online advertising market (search and display combined), keeps diversifying its revenue streams; its share just crossed $900…. Even if Larry says that there is no safe place to experiment and to roll out technology, when Google decides to index every street corner or under water spots all around the world and add real 3D images to every single spot, it puts a world class engineers in a room and ask them a way to figure it out, test it and deploy!

He also said that Google has a strong desire for free flow of information and freedom of speech. Protecting personal information, computer security, being as transparent as possible… and empowering individuals. And Google does empower us by giving us technologies: rolling out Fibre in 4 test cities in the USA, giving away 6,000 chrome books, supporting computer literacy in schools… but is it really for us to do the things we love, or is it to increase Google’s Power? Imagine what super high-speed connexion will do to YouTube or a whole generation of kids familiar with Chrome book pixel…

There seems to be only one area, at the moment that Google can’t penetrate and that is healthcare. Larry’s explanation on it is just because too much regulation and that laws are now irrelevant as they were made before the Internet even existed, but he clearly sees user benefits for Google to get into space and has no shame talking about DNA sequencing….

The more time I spend in this environment, or may it’s because I just finished reading “The End of Big” but Google seems to me more and more like an institution that is some respects more influential on societies that governments. Scary or exciting?

Marie Sornin

I tried Google Glass

I wondered around the Google Mountain View campus today and finished up the day at the Women TechMaker event as part of Google I/O. A few people were wearing Google Glass and had the opportunity to ask for feedback about their experience and even try a pair. Here is what I captured.

There seems to be 2 types of devices floating around: the general public Glass (ordered at I/O 12) and the Googlers Glass, which is still prototype and not allowed to be shared photographed or filmed (even though they look identical to the general public one).

So, I met a nice enough lady, who ordered hers at I/O last year and let me try it on. The frame is very light and comfortable it is actually not at all like wearing glasses. You can easily forget that you are wearing it. The whole system is included in the frame (a thicker part at the back of the left branch). It also serves as a navigation bar. I heard before that you had to carry extra parts. This not true. All the information is stored in the cloud and pictures taken are automatically uploaded on your G+ profile (I assume this needs to be set initially). The pack that comes along with Glass doesn’t need to be carried with all the time.

There is just a tiny piece of thick square glass sitting on the top of your right eye. To activate it you actually need to look up (if you look straight in you actually don’t really see the glass. It is very small, comfortable and not invasive). To activate a feature you say, “OK Glass” and then “Take a picture” or “What time is it?” or “Search for…”
The only features I tried were: “Take a picture” and “What time is it?”
I think the picture didn’t work. Just like Siri, it probably needs to get used to your voice and accent (yet again, this device needs to work harder to capture the French- Australian twang) and then for the time: 9.22 lit up on the top corner of my eye. Pretty cool!

Every Glass owner I talked to said they they loved it but were still getting used to it!

Google Glass

Google Glass

There will be a developers sand box at I/O that should start laying framework for developing apps for Google Glass. That should make its utility expand big and fast!
On a side note, what I also noticed is that guys mostly go for the grey model, whereas chicks choose the colours (blue, orange etc…)

Funny, but I haven’t seen anyone confident enough to wear it outside of Google environments, i.e. in the street

Note from Larry Page in the I/O opening keynote:
Glass is a new area for Google and the team wants to make sure that the experience makes people happy. The areas where it will develop are unknown, for now it’s communication, and pictures… ultimately, a lot of current experiences will move to Google Glass and take technology out of the way.

The production numbers for the public are not available.

 Marie Sornin

My observations about social selling

The global take up of social networks, has transformed “peer to peer” recommendations and is changing the way consumers search for products. So, what is the impact of social media on search & the purchase funnel?

Based on my experience of leading major brands through digital and social media transformation and my knowledge of social network features, I collected 3 observations demonstrating that search and social are colliding into what I call “searchial”.
Here are my observations and insights on future transformations.

1st observation: 50% of consumers and marketers use social for search

Recent research revealed that:
- 50% of marketers say that social media has impacted their search engine marketing strategy.
Social media has transformed the purchase funnel into a cycle by adding one more step to the traditional “awareness>consideration>decision” model: The “share” phase.
The key for retailers is to not only to engage their audience on social networks but also to integrate their customers’ social graph into the shopping experience. Some retailers have done it brilliantly (e.g.: Levi’s friends store, Etsy Connect Your Shop)

- In Europe: 50% of 16-64 year old have used social networks to inform their buying decisions.
Google remains by far the first search engine in the world with over 3 billion searches per day. Did you know that the second search engine in the world is a social platform: YouTube with 2 billion searches per day… and that 1.6 Million searches are conducted on Twitter every day!

Here, I would recommend reading “Grouped” by Paul Adams (Global Head of Brand design at Facebook), which provides great detail on understanding the social graph.

2nd observation: social networks are rolling out search features
Facebook search graph: let’s you search for movies, restaurants, music, and photos… based on you & your friends activity…

Facebook Search Graph screenshot: let’s you search for movies, restaurants, music, and photos… based on you & your friends activity…

Facebook search graph

Google is now positioning G+ has the social spine to all Google products and has already integrated +1 interactions on search results. Case studies show that adding social annotation increases click through rates significantly (+12.2% for lastminute.com.au SEM branded campaign).

Tweeter just rolled out key word targeting ad products… and this is just the beginning…


3rd observation: Social accelerates purchase decision

Extensive research conducted by Google (unfortunately, no Australian data), which places social media on the customer journey along other online marketing technics, shows that for most categories, social media plays a strong role at the awareness stage.

Google Think: channels play different roles in customer journey

Google Think research

But, other experts contradict that point of view and say that social closes the loop

John Batistich. Search at start, social closes the loop

I think that social is the validation point. Early or late in the decision process, depends on your brand and your audience behavior. That’s for each marketing team to analyze and understand. Combine your search and social media activity with one goal in mind: accelerating the purchase decision.

I might finish by pushing the envelope a bit further… Where is this all going?

If you look at how Facebook and Google but also Amazon and eBay have been using behavioural data to surface relevant content (and products). Combine this with the rapid evolution of connected devices, which bring applications like natural language recognition (Siri being one of the best example so far), and how social media is becoming more sophisticated by including geo location as well as rich media interactions… this all points to predictive solutions. It’s not long until our devices, networks or apps will provide us with the information we are seeking before are even asking for it…

I will finish by pointing you to an article on the SMH about Google Star Trek computer

Marie Sornin

Live blogging from iStrategy Sydney

Spending the day at #iStrategy, global marketing conference. I won’t summarise the keynote sessions. You will be able to find most of them on iStrategy site.  However, I am extracting the common themes I find throughout the multiple presentations.
Amazing line up to start day 1 Ken Segall (ex Apple creative director, the man responsible for “I” everywhere, follow up by Jason Hincks (co founder & CEO of Movember), as well as a Panel of retailers etc…

The leanrings behind their success stories can be summarised in 5 themes:

1-Simplicity is what makes people fall in love with brands:
This was very much, Steve Jobs’ philosophy and how he drove Apple from near bankruptcy to global success. Making users love Apple and its products was all he truly cared about. Why? He turned computer users into Apple fans by making simplicity the ultimate sophistication.
From his experience, Ken Segall explained that being simple is not easy. A pure idea is battled by over populated meetings, negativity current affairs, competitors fighting back… all these currents push you to complexity…  He summarised how to achieve simplicity by a quote from Antoine de Saint Exupery “ Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add but when there is nothing else to remove”.
My French touch says: Simplicity is sexy!

This trend is also reflected in the way retail is changing. Technology is actually making the customer journey longer and ever more complex: discovery> search>buy>acquire>use & share>relationship. There are now more channels than ever before, the role of retailers is to bring them together into a seamless customer experience. In store influences online behaviour and vice versa. The key is to make it simple & compelling. John Batistich (Director Marketing, Westfiled) shopping world tour showed some great shopping experiences from Eataly food theater to Nike wearable devices, Burberry Flagship store and Uniqlo clothes to change the world. From his point of view, the next big change is location profiling. This is simple: bring customer, content and context together!

2-Be authentic:
I have talked about that in many of my posts as it is an absolute pillar of social media success. It came out strongly again in the beautiful Movember story. Authenticity is  what prevents Movember from turning into white noise on the marketplace . How have the Movember team managed to keep their idea growing over 10 years and across multiple countries? Simply (ahha) by putting the fun factor as a priority over raising funds (of course raising funds is important, but is not the main reason why guys join!) and by refreshing their brand every year with a campaign theme that is true to Men’s health. This has driven them to always defend their brand vigorously (selective partnership, not expanding into growing Mos all year long…)

How women can support Movemver

How women can support Movemver

On a side note, I will also highlight the importance of social media. Just to nail the point that social is  taking on search #justsaying: Facebook is the number one referral of traffic and donation (brings 31% Movember traffic and 15% of donation) and is ahead of Google…

Also, when you are Authentic you can do stuff like Scoopertino without creating a crisis…

3-Passion:
 Certainly true for anyone who worked with Steve Jobs at Apple, but also true for the Movember crew who turned a mates catch up at the pub into a multi-million dollar fund raiser.
Nick Baker (Executive General Manager Marketing) also talked about how Tourism Australia took passion to the next level by making their 4.2 Million fans the heros in the community. In doing so, they created the biggest, most engaged social media team in the world.
My take on it is: if you are not passionate about what you do, ask yourself why you are doing it?

4- Take some risks:
Confirmation from executives that the only way to grow is to challenge the status quo and take risks.
From Tourism Australia shifting from advertising to socially amplified advocacy. Easier said than done but over the years they have done it! From photo Fridays, to newsjacking the social media team now plays a central role into the communication planning. Their latest campaign Best jobs in the world collected over 620K application from all around the globe. Surely better engagement than a TVC!
Again, Steve Job’s example “here is to the crazy ones ad (voice over by Jobs but that actually never got released) is the best illustration of achieving greatness by not following but leading the way

Marie Sornin

An essay on social currency

Guest post by Alexander Southwick- Emerging Solutions and Social Advertising Executive at Fairfax Media

As social media develops to become a mainstream marketing channel for brands, there is a critical need to define the way we measure social success. In line with the traditional measurement metric of ‘reach’, most marketers look to the total number of ‘likes’ or ‘followers’ on their brand accounts as a key objective for their social media activities.
In theory, ‘reach’ should increase the engagement level with brands. Therein lies the dilemma of social networks: a consumer can filter out a brand if they feel they are being interrupted too much (spam). Knowing that the average post on a Facebook brand page will only reach 12% of your audience means that the total number of ‘likes’ a page has isn’t a true reflection of social success. Instead marketers need to look away from reach based messaging, to messaging that is adding value to the communities they are building around their brands: Social currency!

Social currency is a relatively new term that is applied to material being shared across social networks. People deal in social currency to increase their personal or brand standings in the eyes of peers and consumers. In short… something that people want to share and discuss. A brand updating their page with a new viral video gives their users a reason to share with their connections. As a result the creation of content with high social currency will help to add value to the community. Consequently, for marketers to be successful at social media, they need to look to develop content that gives social currency for users to take away and ‘share’, ‘retweet’, ‘reblog’ and ‘repin’ across social networks.

One of the most outstanding example of social currency is the  Red Bull Stratos Jump. It occurred on the 14th of October 2012 and not only did Felix break 3 world records, he helped Red Bull create truly unique and compelling ‘hook’ that people wanted to ‘share’, ‘retweet’, ‘reblog’ and everything in between. With more than 8 million people worldwide watching the Youtube Live stream, the post jump photo of Felix having landed safely has achieved 491,353 Likes, 21,175 comments and 50,508 shares the majority of which occurred in the first hour of it being uploaded! Multiplying the number of shares by the average number of friends a Facebook user has the reach potential got close to 11 million Facebook users. Even by applying the 12% viewing ratio, that still gives you a true reach of 1.32 million! Red Bull associated its brand to content that is so compelling  it became a mainstream topic of conversation. Direct marketing benefits are invaluable!

Creating social currency isn’t easy.
However, by deeply understanding your audience (beyond what they like about your brands & products), identifying what is  most interesting to your fans/followers and potential customers and creating content around it, you will have the keys to provide value. The next thing you need to do is break out of the TVC model and go for a ‘branded entertainment’ production model…. and that isn’t easy… only a few advertisers manage to do this well. The Mary Me Microsoft campaign we blogged about in 2010 and the ‘is it content or is it advertising?‘ post from last December showed good examples. Here is a more recent one: Teaching your consumers something new a in fun way is a particularly good, even if it has a bit of a sombre message -

As more marketers understand the importance of social currency, and consumers gain more power to ignore or amplify their message….  The process of surrounding the target consumer with messaging in an integrated campaign might not hold true anymore. Accurate measurement is critical for social media to keep growing its share in the communications mix. We must re-think how to evaluate social media KPIs and what messaging will achieve these KPIs .

As an agency or advertiser, do you have specific KPIs for your social media campaigns? Are able to clearly measure the benefit they are bringing to your marketing plans?

For more information on how to create social currency read our article “What are the three words that will guarantee social media success?”

Alexander Southwick

Sources:

Red Bull Facebook Page