Beyond Shooting A Goal

Are you crazy about Pokémon Go recently? Are you busy searching for creatures all the time and capturing them by tapping on the ball and flicking it up towards the Pokémon as if it is in the real world? Are  you familiar with the scenario? Let’s see a video first.

In fact, McDonald’s promoted its fry boxes during the 2014 World Cup exactly in the same way. “Consumers were able to align their smartphones with a graphic element on the box, triggering an interactive overlay which appeared to jump out at them. Consumers could continue to interact on their phones by flicking a finger to shoot a goal within the display.”(Refers to Why Augmented Reality Marketing Will Be Huge in 2015, by NewsCred) So this technique – augmented reality, is not that unfamiliar to us since it has been already applied to the marketing world.

What is augmented reality marketing

As you have seen from the above, augmented reality provides companies an opportunity to combine various elements (especially the visual ones and the motion ones) to attract  their customers in a more fantastic way, usually through the apps.

What are the shining points

You will get the points by imagining the following scene – It’s my favorite one.

From the video we can see that IKEA has made it possible for its customers to have a previous look about how the new furniture fit in their home. It’s very useful. What’s more, it brings a lot of pleasure in a family because the family members get to take amusing pictures by this function. It seems that they are enjoying the moments and I think it’s a good way for a company to engage their customers as well. Furthermore, the video conveys messages which echo the brand mantra of IKEA – best design (brand function), family (descriptive modifier), fun (emotional modifier). Therefore, IKEA is advocating its brand culture by the means of exploring augmented reality to some extent. In a word, augmented reality is a powerful tool which is truly multi-functional and innovative, helping companies to attain multiple goals at the same time.

What is holding it back

It’s not about creating something new uncertainly but enhancing the existing experience. Therefore the challenge for the marketers to implement it is that whether augmented reality can always add values. Customers won’t scan every product when they are shopping – so it’s critical for marketers to figure out the contexts in which their customers are willing to do this and finally spend the money on their goods.

It’s fashionable but also promising in the long term

It’s true that for entrepreneurs and investors, AR and VR are the catchwords like big data in their mouths in the past two years. Then you may think of the famous saying, “Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…” However, from my point of view, AR is another story, different from big data. It’s like a magic which could help you to realize your dreams – trying on different clothes and different makeups, going to all the places in the world and having all the furniture at home – and in turn, the companies sell their products.

Why I would recommend it

Let’s have a look at some numbers below.

Refers to Why Virtual And Augmented Reality is A Ripe Target For Marketers, by David Bolton

As we talked before, augmented reality gives emotional footprint, which can not be replaced or surpassed by other current techniques. AR is far beyond shooting a goal in a game or an app. It contains a world that your customers may not want to leave even for a while in the future. And it is worth mentioning that there are some augmented reality softwares offering services to the companies for marketing purposes, which makes it accessible for everyone who desires to tap on this technology. Last but not least, will you forget the fact that Pokemon Go craze sees Nintendo share price increase 86% in a week adding 15 billion to the company value? I don’t think you will.

After all, it’s not that easy to get tired of your Pokémon right?

A simple but complex App for me

 

Why it’s simple

Just two main functions

There are only two major functions on this App. The first one is about finding a Pret A Manger beside you and the second one is telling you some specific information about the food they provide.

Very easy to navigate

Thanks to the simple functions, the whole process of navigation is very clear and won’t cause any confusions at all.

Why it’s complex

I can find three different languages in a single interface unexpectedly

Although my phone setting is Chinese, I downloaded it in USA AppStore. On this page, there are three languages, including English, French, and Chinese. Throughout the App, English is the most prevalent one when it comes to concrete contents while its homepage is all about French. Chinese would show up casually as well.

Why I won’t keep it on my phone

Poor UI design-out of date

It seems that it doesn’t use flat UI design-the most popular one and the one that people have gotten used to on their smartphones. We can figure it out easily just by looking at the two items on its homepage-this style is more common found on iPhone 4, which was favored several years ago. What’s more, it’s obvious that the time placed on the top is weird… You would realize how awkward it is when compared with other Apps. When you switch to this App, you would notice that the font size of the time on the top suddenly becomes bigger, seems like changing to another phone. 

Fail to meet my basic demand

By using an App for a restaurant, I not only want to know its locations and products, but also have the desire to explore more related information, such as reviews, delivery services, healthy-eating trends and so on. If it can provide some opportunities to get reward points or discount coupons like other similar-type Apps, it would be much better.

But I still appreciate two things of this App

It especially cares about pregnant women

Regardless of all the discussions above, the App has some shining points. It has posted all the information you are interested in learning about the food you select, including the instruction of ingredients and the knowledge regarding to nutrition. What has attracted me most is the second part of this session-something about allergens. In the food industry, health issues are the most important stuffs all the time. Therefore, it’s a smart move for the company to point it out. What’s more, there is always a sentence following the substance-it tells you whether it’s suitable for pregnant women! Even though I am not a pregnant woman yet, seeing this notification makes me feel that I am cared about deeply and the company is selling robust food. It’s definitely a plus for this App!

You can search the food by your preference

I am very glad to see that there is an option for preference here. Sometimes it really causes headache for us to choose food throughout the menu when we haven’t tried any of them before or we wish to experience some new flavors. Furthermore, it’s hard to read the swarms of ingredients below each dish especially when we don’t know some of them exactly look like and taste like. Therefore, the best way to choose food under this circumstance is to use exclusive method. We may not know what we want occasionally but we firmly believe that we know what we don’t want to eat.

Although it can not be called a successful App, it has showed its concepts for food and its concerns for people. Not bad though.

 

The Flying Pig-Xiaomi

I am not a geek, nor a gadget lover. I am just a vain girl who always has a latest iPhone in her hands since she was in senior high school. But I do admire a brand so much even though I only have one product under its full wings. Xiaomi, a Chinese electronics company, has become the world’s 5th largest smartphone maker in 2015. Its founder, Jun Lei, has a Flying Pig Theory for entrepreneurship, which has engaged me a lot, along with the company’s extraordinary marketing strategies.

According to the theory, to be an entrepreneur, is like to be a pig standing in a windy spot. If you have chosen the right spot, you can still fly up high with the power of the wind even if you are a heavy pig. To be more specific, to be successful, you are supposed to accumulate experiences and to spend a lot of time recognizing trends and the real opportunity in the market, which makes you prosperous much easier. Now, after six-year dedication, Xiaomi has had a wide range of electronic devices, including smartphone, pad, headphones, TV set-top box, power bank and so on. It’s famous for its high cost-effective and has represented an unique lifestyle for its fans, whom are called Mifen.

When I was an entrepreneur about 1 year ago, the kind and savvy technician in our team recommended me to read a book when we were discussing about how to do the marketing work for our start-up. The book is named  The Xiaomi Way-Customer Engagement Strategies That Built One of the Largest Smartphone Companies in the World. It was the first time that I was truly drew attention to this already-popular company in China and was tremendously impressed by its marketing concepts. In the book, it introduces how Xiaomi encourages its customers, most of whom are gadget lovers, to participate in its product design and improvement through its own media, a science Internet forum. From the forum, Xiaomi gets to know what its customers care about most and how they feel about the products by the first-hand data. What’s more, it gives their consumers a sense of involvement, leading to a feeling that the refined products are contributed to the fans of Xiaomi since most of them are tech hobbyists, knowing a lot about technical things and offering helps.

I still remember when I read that it cost Jun several months to look for the partners and to talk with them uninterruptedly day and night, I felt that I had made some fatal mistakes from the very beginning. All his team members are the skillful veterans in the technological circles and he has picked them up meticulously after long conversations and negotiations. I finally realized that Xiaomi’s success is on the foundation of its  CEO’s rich experience and elaborated plans.The excellent team guarantees the great designs and the high performance of the products, as well as has allured millions of fans to support the brand. In 2013, Xiaomi has been No.1 among national mobile brands. 

What’s more, Xiaomi’s marketing cost is very low. It just has promoted itself through social media, like Weibo(Chinese’ Twitter), WeChat(Chinese’ WhatsUp) and the forum I mentioned before, initiating topics to engage people to comment and forward the information about the products. It even established a festival for its Mifen culture. During the festival, the fans(consumers) get to communicate with the company face to face and play the high-tech stuff with the team members. All the Mifen are very excited in the festival and looking forward to more fan meetings.

However, Xiaomi has received some critics on its excessive marketing. Yes, everything is about a balance. If you display too much, someone may get bored and it may give your components opportunities to denounce you. In today’s social world, everything would be exaggerated instantly. Virus Marketing(showy slogans to attract zealots) and hunger marketing(limited editions for certain series) are always the marketing strategies for Xiaomi, which are easy to be noticed and easy to be disdained as well.

It’s obvious that Xiaomi’s story is consistent across all channels. It believes that the social intercourse is the core driving force of its enhancements and profits. Jun himself likes cellphones so much that he has over 60 cellphones in his cabinet but he said he wasn’t satisfied with anyone of them-the message was spread out then-that everyone can join Xiaomi to create a cellphone that caters to you most.

What a great flying pig!