B2People: Humanly Relevant Marketing

This is a repost of the latest article I wrote for Forbes on the idea of B2People.
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The lines have blurred throughout the historically “distinct” macro-target markets. Traditionally, marketing is broken down into three key areas, B2C, B2B and B2G. Each one has essentially marketed to different groups: the first, clearly, to another business, wholesaler or retailer; the second to consumers directly; and the last to government entities.

However, this approach is problematic, especially when targeting the B2B and B2G audiences. Yes, there is certain language that resonates within each group. For example, a manufacturer needs to use language that is directly applicable to a wholesaler. And a defense contractor ought to know the correct language to approach the Pentagon. But, as marketing professionals, we must go beyond the basics. It appears that a fundamental component is lost.

We have forgotten that regardless of the target market, the key decision-maker, whether he or she is a financial adviser, a hospital administrator, a CEO, a mom buying a toy for her child, or the head of a large contractor for the military, is first and foremost a human. Such decision-makers have fears and joys; trials and tribulations; and moments that bring them happiness. This is true both professionally and personally. Ultimately, that means our approach to communications needs to evolve.

We should no longer look at communications purely from a B2B, B2C or B2G angle. It is now B2People.

So, what is B2People? B2People ensures that messaging, regardless of the audience, is humanly relevant. Therefore, as we approach each key challenge, we need to ask ourselves key questions and try to stand in our target audience’s shoes: What is important to our key target audience? What is keeping them up at night? What is important for them to feel successful? What are they feeling about their industry, about our product, about the cultural climate? How can we shift these perceptions in a meaningful way? Once we determine the answers to these questions, it’s our job to connect the dots.

B2People is about recognizing we are speaking to real people who do real things and then communicating with them in a language that is relevant to their real lives. Marketing that achieves this goal is the most impactful, most engaging and by far the most effective.

For the New Year remember who your true target is: human beings.

Why Brand Experiences Matter

This is a repost of the latest article I wrote for Forbes on the trend of experiential branding.
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This year I made a promise to myself. Each week I would try something new that expanded my view and forced me to step out of my comfort zone in some way. In other words, I would become a collector of experiences. At first I started small, trying out new restaurants and then I moved into bigger things. I learned to surf one week. The next week I had dinner with a Buddhist monk in a Buddhist monastery. I tried out capoeira. I had my astrological chart read. I went to a saloon jazz club on my own. Each experience expanded my view and helped me grow as a strategist and a marketer.

As marketers, it is important for us to be able to empathize with multiple, diverse audiences. We need to understand their mind-set, their goals, their challenges and their lifestyle in order to shift perceptions and to help our clients’ brands resonate. In other words, we need to connect to our target audience’s lifestyle in a way that fits into their natural behaviors. Here are some recent strong examples of connecting target audience interests to brand experience in unexpected industries:

• Sephora Sensorium recognized the need to connect the importance of scent with the value of tactile experiences. The “pop-up” museum set in the fashion-oriented meat-packing district of Manhattan mixed education and entertainment in an appealing manner for their fashion-conscious key target audience.
• To promote itself in reality life, online glasses retailer Warby Parker launched the Warby Parker Class Trip, an old yellow school bus retrofitted as a Warby Parker show room and taking a six-month cross-country road trip to nine cities. The pop-up shop is decked out to bring the brand and its vintage-inspired mode of transportation with a contemporary twist aesthetic to life for their hipster target.
• Aloft’s Play and Stay campaign connected their guests’ love of music, their passion for discovering new talent, and their excitement for live performances with emerging music talent. The campaign enabled Aloft to further solidify the brand’s image as a brand that “gets” and celebrates the lifestyle of their guests through helping them explore music and find cool new artists.

Connecting these dots is necessary for marketers to generate brand engagement and ultimately, loyalty. This approach remains especially important among harder-to-reach targets. For example, adidas needed to address the fact that sales of running shoes in France among its hard-to-reach target demographic of 14-to-19-year-olds were down. Through research they learned that not only did this target not like to run, but they were also so uninterested that they weren’t even trying on the shoe and were definitely not purchasing them. However, they also learned that this was an audience that loved action movies. Traditional ad campaigns weren’t resonating, but an out-of-the-box experience might. Partnering with Sid Lee, adidas realized the need to connect this love of action movies to the young audience’s Climacool shoes and created an experience that gave teenagers in France a reason to run — by making them the hero of their very own Mission Impossible-esque adventure. And the results show the success of focusing on the experience: adidas saw a 500 percent jump in Climacools tried during the campaign. Here's the case study video:

So whether it’s adventure or astrology, it’s important for marketers to expand the brand experience. The only way to do this is to develop a real understanding of the target audience. So what are you planning on doing first? Maybe it’s time for that skydiving lesson, ceramics class or trip to the Cézanne exhibit.

Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion?

This is a repost of the latest article I wrote for Forbes on the trend of tracking your emotions.
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The ability to quantify many areas of our lives has led to the emergence of a new trend – the trend of tracking your emotions, specifically happiness. These apps allow people to track their emotions much like they would track fitness, calories or spending. But, can this focus on tracking happiness actually undermine us, especially in our career or business successes?

The idea of quantifying our activities using technological tools is not new. Many of us use apps like Nike+ or RunKeeper to track our runs, calorie counters such as Meal Snap to track our caloric intake, and financial tools like Mint to track our spending.

Launched in 2009, Track Your Happiness is a mobile research project that allows users to track their happiness and find out what factors – for them personally – are associated with greater happiness. According to data from the app: “46.9% of people's time is spent thinking on something other than what they're doing. In fact, what activity a person was engaged in only accounted for about 5% of a person's happiness, whereas whether that person's mind was on- or off-task accounted for over 10%.” So, in other words, a wandering mind is an “unhappy one.” Some apps are taking this idea even further and are looking at the idea of happiness through a person’s social network. Happstr is a mobile app that allows users to mark geographical locations where they’re feeling happy, and to see others' "happiness spots" on the map. It’s purpose is to get users to focus on and record the best moments of their lives. It enables them to benefit from the well-being of others by sharing that happiness with their social network. The app is based on research that shows a person’s happiness can be easily elevated by the network effect of happy people near you.

While the idea of sharing and recording personal happiness is interesting, these apps are problematic since they lead to counterfactual thinking. Happiness, like all emotions ebbs and flows. It can depend on any number of factors such as whom you were with, when you were there, and even the weather. Additionally, by tracking your happiness, it causes you to always be looking backward through rose-colored glasses rather than staying in the present.

As noted in a 1995 study, “When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists,” published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: "People's emotional responses to events are influenced by their thoughts about 'what might have been.' The authors extend these findings by documenting a familiar occasion in which those who are objectively better off nonetheless feel worse."

Apps like these drive us to compare ourselves and our emotional state with others, causing us to focus on what we don’t have rather than what we do have. It undermines our successes.

Interestingly, this applies across the board. Successful business leaders as well as Olympic winners even fall prey to this. For example, the same study found third place Olympic winners are sometimes even happier than second place because the "silver medals winners did upward comparisons to the gold medal winner, while the bronze medalists did downward comparisons to people who didn't win medals." And, this is evidence among business leaders in competitive fields as well. According to Jena McGregor’s Washington Post article, “The psychology of how Olympic gold, silver and bronze can go to your head,” “Leaders in competitive fields are always comparing themselves to those who came in first, when they might enjoy their success a little more if they learned to compare themselves to those who didn’t come close to winning at all."

This trend of tracking our emotional states leads us to focus backward rather than forward. To quote Daniel Gilbert, one of the creators of the Track Your Happiness Project, in his book, Stumbling on Happiness: “The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices.” Happiness is a raw, human emotion—not something that can be tracked like calories and purchases.  Much like a mood ring one might find at a toy store, such apps shouldn’t be taken seriously. The very thought of it makes me sad.

How Busy is Too Busy?

Ok... I'm ironically delayed posting this (work, vacation and life in general may have interfered), but here is my Forbes article from July. It is focused on the trend of "being busy."
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It feels good to be busy. After all, it means that you are tackling tasks, making progress, moving forward. There is a sense of accomplishment that comes with being busy.

But the question arises how busy is too busy?

Theoretically you could work every waking second in the day and age of the mobile device. gyro’s @Work State of Mind report, conducted in conjunction with Forbes Insights, thoroughly examined the fact that work comes home and home comes to work. It’s just the way things are in today’s connected world.

Contrary to what we expected, many executives said this made them feel more empowered and agile. The minority of the 543 executives surveyed said they felt overwhelmingly negative about this “always on” life. In many ways, we’ve gotten used to the pace work and communication that didn’t exist less than a decade ago.

According to Tim Kruger’s recent New York Times post, “The Busy Trap,” excessive busyness is an emerging, yet central, value of American culture.” Kruger asserts that the very idea of busyness makes us feel important.  It gives us a sense of worth – defined through endless activity.”

As Kruger states: “Almost everyone I know is busy.  They feel anxious and guilty when they aren’t either working or doing something to promote their work. They schedule in time with friends the way students with 4.0 G.P.A.’s make sure to sign up for community service because it looks good on their college applications.”

gyro and Forbes Insights found that 98% of executives work nights and weekends, 97% work on vacation and 53% will leave the dinner table to handle work if need be.

Some executives said they make better decisions at home because they had time to think. Others, just wanted to be kept in the loop in case a problem arose.

Either, there needs to time to relax, recharge and rebalance.  Without that necessary “down time,” our ability to innovate lessens. Playing as well as working is necessary. Through playing, we discover new ideas. Through resting, we take the time needed to approach problems from new angles.  The key to longer term success and ultimately, being content, appear to be finding the balance for yourself between being busy and taking the time to rejuvenate.

As noted in my earlier article, The Rise of Digital Detox, the constant flood of information can become overwhelming.  So much so, that unplugged vacation packages are surging in popularity and free apps are on the rise that actually block us from working,

As technology evolves so will we and the how much is too much debate will continue. As will the discussions about the new work life balance. All of these conversations will, well, continue to keep us busy as well.

The Rise of Digital Detox

This is a repost of the latest article I wrote on the trend of digital detox.
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Sometimes the constant flood of information and the “always on” mentality can become overwhelming. With the rapid new developments in smartphone, notebook and tablet technologies, people have the ability to continuously send and receive information at the touch of a button or swipe of a finger. As a result, the trend of vacations from digital technology has emerged.

Digital technologies are central to every facet of modern Western life. According to research from Pew, currently 88 percent of American adults have a cell phone, 57 percent have a laptop, 19 percent own an e-book reader, and 19 percent have a tablet computer; about six in 10 adults (63 percent) go online wirelessly with one of those devices.

We aren’t simply using these devices, but they have become integral to our lives. As noted, in gyro’s “@Work State of Mind” report: “[business] executives resemble 24/7 news networks—constantly receiving, processing and sending information.” In addition, 2 percent of business decision-makers never work on weekends or nights, and 52 percent receive business information around the clock, including weekends. This mentality has permeated our broader culture:

• 50 percent of Americans prefer to communicate digitally rather than in person (Pew)
• 81 person browse the Internet, 77 percent use search, 68 percent use an app, and 48 percent watch videos on their smartphone (Google)
• 72 percent use their smartphones while consuming other media, and one-third are on their smartphones while watching TV (Google)
• 93 percent of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home (Google)

Interestingly, people are now even using technology to take breaks from technology itself. One app called Freedom can be downloaded and set to block Internet access on a Mac or PC for up to eight hours to allow users time for offline productivity. Digital Detox is a free app for Android smartphones that was inspired by Adbuster’s Digital Detox week and irrevocably disables a user’s phone for a user-specified period of time.

Disconnecting from technology has not stopped there. The trend has manifested itself as a sales tool in the travel industry with the creation of digital-detox vacation packages:

• St. Vincent and the Grenadines is asking travelers to leave their technology at home as part of their digital-detox vacation package. Included in the package is a pre-mailed guidebook explaining how to function on a trip without technology and features an onsite life coach who provides advice on how not to let technology control one’s life. 
• The “Be Unplugged” option at the Quincy Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., provides guests the ability to surrender their laptops, tablets and smartphones at check-in. The staff then locks away these items during the guest’s stay. At the end of the stay, the gadgets are retrieved with a special code. 

Other resorts with similar packages include the Teton Mountain Lodge and Spa in Teton Village, Wyo., the Lake Placid Lodge in Lake Placid, and Via Yoga, Seattle company that specializes in luxury yoga and surfing retreats in Mexico and Costa Rica. The digital vacation trend is positive, even for the most digitally connected and savvy people.

A break from digital communications (whether for hours or days) can refresh us, enabling us to become more productive in human relations and work. This break clears our life from noise and allows us the space to reconnect with ourselves, relax and return to the digital world recharged.

Lifelogging: The Ability to Quantify Yourself

With more and more data available and at our fingertips, it has become possible to track every area of our lives. We can track our finances, our location, our friends, our movement, our jogs, our calorie intake, and even, our sleep patterns via digital channels.

Below is a video of Hasan Elahi's Ted Talk on tracking his entire life in response to ending up on the FBI watch list by accident:

This trend towards tracking everything is impacting the health and wellness sector in a unique way. In the last few years, a new trend has emerged, Lifelogging. According to the Lifestream blog, Lifelogging is the process of tracking personal data generated by our own behavioral activities. While Lifestreaming primarily tracks the activity of content we create and discover, Lifelogging tracks personal behavior data like exercising, sleeping, and eating. Lifelogging revolves around analyzing and learning from data to help optimize personal behaviors.

Some interesting apps and devices are capitalizing on this trend:

• UP by Jawbone is a wristband + iPhone app that tracks your activity and sleep. The idea is that the wristband inspiring you to move more, sleep better and eat smarter. 
• Nike+ is one of the best-known examples for tracking exercise. You can track your workouts via Sportband, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPod Nano as well as online. 
• BodyMedia FIT is an armband to track physical activity and sleep patterns. Tracking is done by iPhone or Android apps as well as online. 
• iHealth Blood Pressure Dock is the first blood pressure monitoring system for the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. 
• Meal Snap asks you to take a photo of your meal and then estimates how many calories your meal was. It tracks your meals and progress towards your diet goals over time. 
• Sleep Cycle is an iPhone app that acts as an alarm clock. It analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you in the lightest sleep phase so you wake up relaxed and refreshed. 

And, this Lifelogging trend even extends into tracking changes in personal appearance. People are tracking how their face changes over time with the Everyday app, an app that allows you to take a picture of your face every single day. As noted by Techcrunch, the app functions in the following way: “When you first load up Everyday, you’re asked to take a picture of your face. Once you do this, you’re asked to align a grid to where you nose, mouth, and eyes are. This means that for each picture you take, your face can be in the same position…. And there’s also an overlay photo mask of your original face picture (which can be switched on and off) to help you align your face. And the real key may be the alert system, which allows you to set a time each day to get a Push Notification to take the picture of yourself, so you don’t forget.”

Moreover, communities are developing around Lifelogging. For example, the Quantified Self community is an online community around the users and toolmakers who share an interest in self-knowledge through self-tracking. The community includes a forum, a guide to available self-tracking tools and projects, and videos around the subject. Additionally, it has even expanded offline into Quantified Self Show and Tell meet-ups and an annual conference.

As the ability to quantify yourself through real-time data becomes more and more engrained in society, it will be interesting to see the results. Will people gravitate to the idea that they more they know, the more they will be able to better themselves? Or, will it result in a backlash?

For more information on this topic, here's a link to a collaborative post I wrote for work with Alina Koyfman, "Mobile Devices: My Tool for a Better Me."

News: For the Masses, By the Masses?

This is a repost of the latest article I wrote for my work blog on how digital tools are changing journalism. ___________________________________________________________ As social media gets more integrated into people’s lives, they’re demanding more control over the content they interact with. This behavior is happening organically in the digital space. In response, newspapers are changing the way they create content to include consumer participation – and consumers are changing how they interact with the news.

According to an eyetracking study by the Poyner Institute, the shift within newspapers towards focusing on more digital consumer participation makes a lot of sense:

• Online participants read an average 77% of an article versus the 62% within broadsheet and 57% within tabloids. 
• People consuming news digitally also read more regardless of the length of the article. 

This could directly relate to the fact that people have the option digitally to aggregate news in a way they rarely can offline.

And, people are taking advantage of this by personalizing the news for themselves:

• Digg Newswire and Redditt both allow consumers to act as an editor by voting news stories up and down depending on the topic and its relevancy to the individual.
• Trove creates personalized content based on individual user’s interests. It instantly builds a user’s personal home page by matching its channels to the user’s Facebook likes and interests. It then searches and analyzes articles and blog posts to find entities – people, places, things, or concepts – in text. Based on what it finds, Trove classifies the article into one or more of hundreds of topics.
• XYDO is a news-based social network. It focuses on the social endorsement, prioritization and engagement of news. XYDO provides users with a prioritized view of articles/features, editorials, blogs and other news being shared within their social graphs, together with the ability to observe and track broad global news trends and specialized domain-specific trends. Personalized news emails, the XYDO brief, are sent to the users regularly.

Newspapers are also adapting to find real time, socially curated content. For example, New York Daily News is now requiring that every editorial computer has tweetdeck installed on it. This was mandated by Scott Cohen, the New York Daily News’ digital executive editor. Even more interestingly, the Guardian just began an experiment in which consumers helped curate the news. Beginning Oct 11th, the newspaper began publishing a live account of its news diary online, allowing consumers to see the scheduled news of the day as well as any upcoming breaking news. Consumers were encouraged to tell editors what they thought about individual stories and suggested stories using Twitter by tweeting with the hashtag #opennews. They could also follow the editor’s opinions about stories in a Twitter feed and add their own opinions to the conversation by tweeting to the hashtag #opennews. Editors dropped stories in the queue that received a lukewarm response. The purpose of the experiment was to increase readership, online conversation and positive sentiment around the Guardian’s news.

And, tools are coming out that change the definition of what it means to be a journalist. For example, Public Laboratory is creating a number of tools that are available to allow anyone to cover the news. These tools can take aerial photos or video of an event or story. These tools are facilitating the means for anyone to tell their story from a different standpoint.

However, this evolution in the news begs a question. Does news that is created or influenced by the informed public elevate certain stories like celebrity gossip over others such as the protests in Syria? Or, does it allow for truly unbiased reporting or information gathering? There are examples that point to both options as possible and indicate that the answer will probably lie somewhere in between. It feels like time will tell.