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Hey Samantha,
Love this topic and I am glad you got to expand from my post. I truly do think Xfinity and version will really have to change their platform since subscription services are widely used and more competitive in pricing. I think if companies like Xfinity/version want to stay in the game, they either need to partner with these companies or drastically lower their prices and opt out of contracts. They would truly need to reposition and rebrand themselves OR just fully focus on offering quick speed internet at a low cost.

I am excited to see the future of television. I wonder if there will be more popular subscription services like Netflix that will take over and completely demolish our normal cable subscriptions. Or will Netflix, Hulu and Amazon buy out Xfinity or Verizon and take them over to rebrand them? The future can only tell us but I am excited to see where it goes.

Ryan,

This is really a brilliant idea! I think it could be useful for many types of infrastructure. A small pedestrian bridge collapsed over a highway heading into the city near where I live collapsed a few months. I believe about 5 people were injured and without access to the other side, it left people living in low income communities who relied on that bridge to walk to the store to get essentials without access to it. It was a major issue! An IoT motion detection similar to what you mentioned could have surely been of great use here.

I be proud. My sister-in-law is head of Internal Comms at airbnb and… I like them. I am biased. The end.

Thanks for sharing this Claire! When I read airbnb was launching new features, I was thinking something more innovative. This seems, like you said, behind the times. I guess with these features it’s better late than never. I will say, I really do enjoy the new look of their landing page, both web and mobile, with the “winter release” video. It looks more high end and clean. It also resembles and feels like the Apple website. I do think they could optimize their mobile display. It’s not very user friendly. User’s have to scroll so much to find what they are looking for. There is definitely room for a better mobile layout which can aid in user experience.

I agree with Kassi. I love them. The wifi feature is pretty important nowadays and I can understand the frustration of finding an apartment but realize the wifi is terrible. Overall, the other features are awesome and it’s kinda crazy that that are 50 new features overall and we only just seen 4.

The date flexibility is SO key. I’m often willing to build a visit around the exact right location, so date may not really even matter. Thanks for sharing this, Claire!

I love the concept of AirBnB and how easy it is to book a unique stay without having to talk to a hotel sales rep. I stayed in a cute little apartment two years ago when I visited Prague, Czech Republic during the holiday season. The flexibility feature is a fabulous idea for those like me, who have no idea where they want to travel to next but know they need to get out of the house. The translation feature is also key, so that more and more individuals who are not fluent in the English, can list their properties to rent and additionally consumers are more likely to travel somewhere new. I’m excited to see what other features they are set to release!

Not only are the features innovative but very timely, their announcement came one day after the U.S. dropped its travel ban, allowing vaccinated travelers from other countries to enter. Airbnb seems to be taking every opportunity to address the needs of almost every consumer and I’m a fan!

Love this post Claire, I think Airbnb does (and continues) to have an impressive digital strategy which keeps the innovative company, just that, innovative. I found it interesting that they also cut their marketing spend during COVID – and kept the overall budget less moving forward because they didn’t notice a difference in their traffic. I for one, love the flexibility option and I think that is definitely aligned with the shift in people’s lives with more remote work.

Airbnb hails early results from shift to brand building over performance marketing

Great post Claire! I’m happy about the new features, especially the I’m Flexible addition. It’s definitely easier to get a better deal on travel when you can choose the dates where the pricing is cheapest. The new Wifi option is cool too – that can be really important to know if you are going to try and work (or do grad school work haha) from wherever you are traveling. While I did think Airbnb would have come up with something more innovative, I think these changes really show that they are paying to attention their customers wants and needs when it comes to usability!

This is a great example of active listening as we talked about in our Social Media Innovation class. I wonder what their specific research tactics were to find these needs and implement the changes as a result.

To echo everyone, I do think they could have maybe been more innovative with their resolutions and rather than fixing age old issues (Wifi), maybe fix those issues while also being proactive about other issues they think their customers could experience. For example, instead of just allowing users to check the wifi speed before the stay, offer some sort of guaranteed hotspot option for an extra cost since the speed before they travel might not be the same once they actually arrive due to weather conditions and other factors.

Such a great conversation thread here! I must be a little behind the times because I thought the new features were quite creative. I guess it just means that I don’t use Airbnb much. One thought I had was that now these unique rental options are much easier to find, they can become much more expensive to rent. Many people would love to have a unique experience and that just means the availability becomes limited. I suppose that is where the extended rental dates come into play. Agree that the new Wifi option is a great feature as It’s very important to know before exploring a new remote working environment.

Thank you for sharing Claire. It is so interesting I you wrote about this because I was recently on Airbnb looking for destinations in Mexico and Brazil and was getting frustrated trying to gain information on certain properties that descriptions were written in other languages. I found it odd that with the success of Airbnb, the translation feature had not been implemented earlier. I came faced with similar frustration with filters as well. There are alot of common features I was looking for that were no abled to be filtered by (hot tub, fireplace etc.). I am excited to see the rest of the updates they will roll out!

My brother is a JEEP person, so I shall be sending this to him — thank you!

From a brand perspective, I wonder who it helps… loyalists? Newbies? And wonder what they’re marketing and CX plan is to unveil and create a journey for folx!?

First off, I’m a big fan of Hidden Brain and downloaded that episode for a later listen.

I’m a Jeep owner and was excited when I heard about the “Easter eggs” that the manufacturers hide in window etchings, wheels, etc. (mine is in one of the front lights).. Apparently the brand has been doing this for decades, since before social media, so what a prescient added touch to create word of mouth buzz and build the loyal following for which Jeep is known.

Chipotle is another brand that’s effectively used gamification tactics. For example, to promote its new rewards program, Chipotle launched a video game contest experience where the player with the highest score won a Tesla (https://thewisemarketer.com/loyalty-strategy/chipotle-leverages-gamification-to-promote-rewards-exchange/). Chipotle also gave away $100K in bitcoin on National Burrito Day, and this on-trend, lottery approach got them a ton of earned media that an average sweepstakes or food holiday promo would not.

I definitely see the use of “gaming” or stimulation models with the medical students at my work – and at my last job the students worked on optometric stimulators where they were given patient cases they needed to solve all through a stimulator – I found the use of this in educational really important – it gives the lower classes a chance at patient care before they see real patients. As for Jeep, I think this definitely aligns with their brand which is built around adventure-seekers, drivers looking to go off the beaten path for the next big thrill. I feel like a gamification feature fulfills that need as well.

In my opinion, gamification (when done right) is an awesome Marketing tool! This makes me think of the Nike case that we read and how the SNKRS app used a combination of mobile marketing technology and gamification to boost sales. A completely different example would be in Taylor Swift’s promotion of her new version of the album Red. To announce her new “From the Vault” tracks, she put on a cryptic message and fans had to unscramble the names of the songs: https://mashable.com/article/taylor-swift-red-fan-theories. People love to compete and do puzzles – especially in a community (online or off) where they can work together and chat about the experience. Because of this, gamification can be a really powerful tool when it comes to building hype around a product or service!

Thank you for sharing Sean. As someone who never really got into gaming, I have been seeing gamification pop up alot recently. I remember studying the strategy in undergrad and the way many brands were using it via their social media platforms. It helped create excitement about a new launch, created a community (for scavenger based games were customers can communicate clue to one another) and the it helped brands stand out or ‘stop the scroll” It is interesting to see how Jeep is using it in a different way other than social media. I also agree it is smart on Jeep’s part since they are able to control the user experience and emphasize scenerios that highlight the products best features.

I think this is really interesting and definitely has potential, but it is hard to imagine a world where another company unseats Google from its position of power. That said, I hope it does give Google a run for its money!

Ooooooo interesting! Here are my thoughts:

1. I like the logo very much — especially for a search engine. Very refreshing.
2. I like the positioning + value proposition
3. I like the simplicity of the website, especially the primary light grey + black font… has this very minimalist Wikipedia or Craigslist vibe to it, but more modern
4. I love that they offer up joining the Slack community right up top
5. I love the hover state…. hover + BOOM, color!
6. I’m happy there’s going to be some competition in this space; DuckDuckGo freaks me out bc all of the ultra-conservatives in my life that use it, and that just makes me uncomfortable that a certain psychographic of folx use a single platform… feels isolated and rabbit-holey!

I appreciate this!!!!
Jb

Agree with Jen that the logo and color is amazing. I also agree with Erin that it will take alot for this browser to grab any users from Google’s tight grasp. I wonder what makes this different from browsers like DuckDuckGo. How will the company make money if it won’t track or sell users’ data? THere’s alot of questions coming from my head but this is really interesting

Thank you for sharing Kathryn, As someone who works in paid advertising, I am definitely aware of how Google dominates the search engine space. For context, majority of my clients either allocate all their paid search budget to Google or do a 90%/10% split between Google and Bing. The truth is even with endless funds Bing is just not able to spend in the way Google can nor does it yield great CTR results. I am excited to see how this new search engine is going to play a part in the space and if Ill be able to recommend it to my clients.

With any service or product giving out personal info is always a risk. BetterHelp is all about functionality, convenience, and a pleasant user experience. All users can use both mobile or desktop versions of this platform, depending on their preferences. Some people want to stay anonymous and ensure all their data and conversations with counselors are strictly confidential. As it states, you don’t have to tell your real name on BetterHelp. Even if you decide to go with your actual contact and personal data, you can be entirely sure that everything is highly protected and confidential. Suppose you are visiting the website as a California or European Union resident. In that case, your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act or GDPR are an addendum to this policy.
Categories of Information Collected:
– Visitor Data
– Onboarding Data
– Account Registration Data
– Transaction Data
– Login Data
– Counseling Session Data
– Customer Data
– Counselor Data
– Communications Data

It’s really interesting that you wrote on this because today I saw a lot of people on my timeline talking about the collaboration between Travis Scott and BetterHelp. One of the main concerns that people had was that BetterHelp was not a secure app and that they were actually selling customer data, which is very concerning. This is not the first time I heard something like this about BetterHelp and other digital therapy services. I do wonder about how serious these companies are about protecting customer information and whether they are using the data received from consumers for any other reasons. Though like Jordan said, it seems like you don’t have to share personal information if you don’t want to which is good.

Great post! I hear adds for BetterHelp all the time on Spotify podcasts, and have always been intrigued by the concept and curious about their company success. I find it very interesting that Dr. Kirby left the practice, and this definitely makes me wary of the application. I think a innovation like this could be highly beneficial for society, allowing mental health resources to be more accessible not only because it is on own personal device but also financially. There is a huge gap in mental healthcare in America and across the world and I think technology like this could make a huge difference, but there is clearly a lot of privacy concerns to be thoroughly thought out. I will be looking into this brand further, to gain a better understanding of their business plan! Thanks again for sharing!

HIPAA, GDPR and CPRA/CCPA all present some pretty stringent standards regarding how any company can use individual health data.

Is that enough though? Who watches the Watchmen?

I’m admittedly not as well versed on this specific venture as you all are, but I appreciate your perspective. The risk with any data collection is that the “enforcement” really only happens in the breach. It may effectively punish the venture, but it’s cold comfort for those who put their trust in the brand.

Why is it that there’s so much ambiguity here? I would expect the T&Cs in this space require even more clarity than most, and yet I assume they are even more opaque and lawyerly?