Hannah Cersell

This is interesting. I like how its taking the initiative to halt its usage of social media especially since its main audience is teen girls. But I’m not sure how to feel about it on the business side. I feel like they will lose presence and eventually money. I think they’re hoping that by being a revolutionary on refraining social media, new users will flock to them. I’m honestly not sure what other brands will follow. Maybe Roblox? Its audience is mainly younger kids.

Wow. I think this is perhaps the first notable brand I know to be removing themselves from the big-four. From a business perspective, Instagram was truly one of their biggest market reaches. It’s true that social media has affected our mental health greatly but out of other content that drives anxiousness – Lush wasn’t one of those content producers (in my opinion.) Most of their posts are about products and not people to compare yourself to.
While this is a great step into their philanthropic efforts there’s a part of me that feels this brand will come back to social media. Maybe Lush die-hards will buy the app and explore new products in their version of Instagram stories but I feel their customer base would prefer seeing Instagram content of bath bomb test videos.

Amen. We all need to remember as humans that our own personal experience does not necessarily translate to that of our shared demographic. There are so many other factors at play. Yes, as marketers we place people into buckets and generalize, which serves certain purposes but can really detract from others. As you say, jb, it’s so critical to listen to the data, dig into what you’re trying to convey, and then from there, determine the platforms to employ, not just based on feel.
P.S. I just realized that I used the word “amen” to reply to a post about being agnostic. I know it’s a different kind of agnostic, but it still made me chuckle a bit.

Jen, I absolutely loved reading your analysis here.
Facebook’s decision to dial back on the targeting options is interesting but also frustrating for the organizations/charities that have to key in on a certain margin of people. Part of me feels like this is hurting those orgs. For example, I always get ads surrounding M.S. because my mom has the disease and I am actively involved with the M.S. Society. It’s weird for me to get removed from that keyed in targeting, because their advertisements were informative – especially when the COVID pandemic started to come about.
I also believe this will disrupt those micro-moments you’ve mentioned. How can we ensure the right audience gets from point A to point B when we can’t target the exact consumer profile? I don’t know how this will create more opportunity honestly. But I am interested to see how this transformation plays out.

I went to Iceland in 2018 for a long weekend and loved it! It’s hilarious that they did this mockery of Zuckerberg’s announcement! I think it’s so funny how many memes have popped up about Meta and Facebook. I wrote my latest eportfolio post about this – do you think that the memes are helping our hurting the Meta brand? They definitely keep the conversation going longer than it would have if the announcement hasn’t been so weird.

Ha, this is very timely and funny! I agree with Kathy that all the memes have kept the conversation going a lot longer. I went back to watch the original post on Meta’s Youtube channel and saw that it hadn’t even reached 1M views. I find that very interesting and it definitely has me questioning Meta’s interest and likability factor. This goes back to our Mobile Marketing class discussion about use of social media/privacy. It seems that some of our classmates are moving away from it all and perhaps the general public is too.

Love this so much. It makes me want to drop everything and go to Iceland. I love how other brands are mocking Meta’s new stance on VR. Iceland’s tourism team needs a raise. I wish I could see data on how many people booked trips to Iceland and see if there is a correlation to this video’s views

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?

Before the pandemic I had never used Twitch before because I thought that it was an app mainly for gamers, and I’m not a part of that community. Like you said in your post, many artists used it to hold live shows and thats’s how I started using it. I don’t use it much now but I do see the appeal of the platform! I haven’t checked out the other content they have on the app but the fact that they create more content than in available on Netflix is very shocking to me. I think I may have to give the app another look!

Twitch ranked 37th globally for overall internet engagement. So it’s no surprise that Twitch is primarily for video gamers in the U.S., but it ranks 4th in line after (Youtube, FB, Insta, Twitter). Amazon purchased Twitch back in August 2014 for $970 million. Amazon’s Prime service comes with a premium Twitch subscription which I recently found out. Since the data leak in October 2021, which included info on creator payouts, I’m sure influencer marketing managers must be creative with their strategies.
Just in the year, 2021 Twitch achieved:
– 1274 BILLION minutes watched this year so far
– 8.7 MILLION unique creators streaming each month
– 2,808,000 average concurrent viewers
– 106,100 average concurrent streamers

Hi Kathryn! Thanks for the post! Just to offer some alternative things, I have quite a few friends that will watch Twitch streams of things you wouldn’t expect. One of my friends watches someone on Twitch that records themselves following along to Bob Ross’ paint guides. My cousin watches streamers do live-action fun things, like drive in cars really fast or perform skydiving feats.

A Japanese hotel gave 3 guests free stay if they were willing to livestream themselves the whole time they were there. Quite a few people took them up on their offer, which worked as a strangely weird promotional effort by the hotel (which had to have worked in some capacity because I’m talking about it here).

There’s quite a few niche communities, but I’ve personally never participated– there’s something so creepy to me about watching another person as they do something live.

Wow I had no idea that Twitch offered more than just game streaming. I feel like the way they market themselves doesn’t help to open it up to other people. When I see ads about Twitch (or at least the ones I can remember) they are all about gaming. I would like to learn more about their marketing strategy and find out why they aren’t marketing the other sides of Twitch.

I agree with many of you by saying that since I’m not a gamer, Twitch didn’t seem like the platform for me. My nephews use it for that purpose and I always ask “How do you find watching someone else play a video game so entertaining?”. same for kids that watch other kids play with toys on YouTube. Different generation, different trends. After a quick research, I learned that 41% of viewers on Twitch are between the ages of 16 to 24 years old which means that college students make up a large portion of the consumption of this form of entertainment. I predict that college students will play huge role in growing the gaming industry even more and it may become as competitive as other college sports. This will be interesting to see.

I don’t use Twitch and probably wouldn’t even know about it, but my husband just watches Twitch all day long in the background while he’s working. I wouldn’t have realized how many people are actually using the platform if I didn’t hear about it from him. He has his favorite streams, and the people who he watches serve as influencers for him. They help him decide what video games to play, and he even buys their merch. From a marketer’s perspective, I can see how gamers like him would be a huge segment to target – but they won’t reach me on that platform!

I have been on Twitch and have really seen how the platform has changed. Twitch in particular has dealt with the up and downs of competitors like YouTube and Afreeca. I know that it has been branching out from pure game streaming to other things, but I will be more interested to see how Twitch handles the new content. There was a trend when they were banning people streaming in hot tubs.

Thank you for sharing Kathryn. Before the pandemic I had no idea what Twitch even was and even after I have only seen the gaming side of it. I know the platform has had some very successful creators filming themselves play fortnite. I wonder why Twitch did not use its newly found popularity to market its other streaming services during a time the world was looking for ways the be entertained.

Hey Kathryn! I, too, am not an avid Twitch user but because of my job I work with many Twitch channels on producing content featuring my artists. There’s podcasts we work with that go live on Twitch first before releasing the recording on other platforms, and there’s music magazines – like SPIN – who have invested in their own Twitch channel for musician takeovers.
It’s true Twitch has evolved from gaming. It’s more-so a YouTube competitor than anything else.
I think the reason people gravitate to Twitch is the user experience. It reminds me of AIM a bit.