I recently got an e-mail asking to define a marketing strategy for vine. I couldn’t. I told them to find somebody else. I might have thrown away some dollars, true. But I might have lost even more…
People asking me that question is not my type of customer. Here’s why.
You don’t need a vine strategy.
Vine is an iOS app that allows you to make and share 6 second movies.
May I remind you that you were already able to do so before Vine? Way before vine.
Strategy first, then tactics & tools.
Think strategy first please. Vine forces you to reflect on the role of moving images for your business.
Is video a right tactic for your company? Are 6 second movies valid to obtain your goals?
The above video is made without Vine. But it is a 6 seconds video…Okay, maybe 8 secs.
Disclaimer: this article is written on a smartphone…
Do you remember how TNT Benelux launched? Odds are high you don’t even know what I’m talking about… (based on small-scale research, see below).
But if I’d ask you whether you recall a really cool video starring a big, red button in the middle of a town square – flanked with a sign that said “push to add drama”, chances are high you know what I’m talking about… (based on small-scale research, see below).
The Best Ad in the World
Do I love the ad? Hell yeah!
Do I believe this is the best ad in the world? Hell no!
Why it isn’t the best advert in the world
To determine whether a specific ad is good or not, one has to look at the goals that were set before the advert was made. I have to be honest here, I don’t know the advertiser’s goals. But I believe they can be one or more of the following:
Awareness of the Brand TNT – it was a product launch after all
Drive ratings for the TV Channel – which impacts the bottom line of TNT
Brand building: make TNT’s identity
Other goals?
So in the last couple of weeks I ran an experiment to know whether this great concept also proved to be the best ad ever made (as I read somewhere). And once again, I need to be honest. The hypothesis I was looking to back up through research was:
“Push to add drama is the best ad for the agency that made it.”
Experiment Design
The experiment design consisted of two groups:
People within the Marketing, Communication, Ad industry
People outside of that industry
Next to that, the experiment asked whether they knew the brand for whom this video was made (in 2 distinctive manners) and whether they have been watching TNT Benelux so far. Hence the questions after viewing the movie:
For which brand is this video made?
For which newly launched TV station this video was aired? Tip: logistics, explosives.
Have you watched TNT Benelux?
Experiment Results
Experiment results
Experiment conclusion?
In general people don’t recall the brand promoted through the viral video. Even when I provided extra tips to them: “explosives (=TNT)” & “logistics (=TNT)”. Consequently it shouldn’t surprise that only 1 out of 35 respondents watched the channel. Within my respondents nobody went to see the website of TNT Benelux.
Well done Agency!
The most striking thing however is that the “Marketing, Communication, Advertising Group” of respondents basically all knew which agency made this ad / viral movie. And today, they’re all dreaming about a collaboration with that agency. It was the best ad in the world. For the agency that is.
I tend to test chinese smart phones as a hobby. Back in the days I was testing the ZTE Blade, a phone running on Android. Money well spend? Well, yes and no.
The phone did things. But he was quite frustrating as well: its inability to install those apps you truly wanted. Right, seems there’s no such thing as a default Android OS.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. To start with, it was wrong to compare both “apps” as they are in fact not to be compared. But if we ignore the above, here’s why Instagram is great.
Huawei Ascend P1
In my struggle testing chinese smart phones I’m currently dealing with the Huawei Ascend P1. It’s not really a struggle this time. It’s a fast machine (it beats my friend’s iPhone5 in browser start-up etcetera), running every app I tried so far. And it also runs Instagram. So now that I’m on Instragram for Android, I realize Little Photo is -sorry- crap. What is it then that makes Instagram a “waw” and little photo a “boo”?
Instagram: it’s all about the User Experience. UX.
UX – user experience – is all about how a person feels about using a product, system or service. User experience reflects on the experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human-computer interaction. As a result, one could state that user experience is in fact subjective in nature because it’s about an individual’s feelings and thoughts about a technology.
Next to that, UX is dynamic, in a way that it may change over time.
Finally, user experience and usability are closely linked but are not the same. In my view, usability does not define the overall user experience but it has a powerful contribution to that overall experience.
Today I have to say: it’s a pleasure to work with Instragram while it’s frustrating to handle apps like “little photo”. The experience is just great. And it’s very easy to use.
Little Photo failed on UX & Usability
And that was the entire issue with “Little Photo”. In the end, you could get nice results. But until you got there… you probably cursed numerous times at your phone. The user experience was crap. And deploying the filters onto photos wasn’t very “userfriendly”. The product failed on UX and Usability. It results in not using the product any more.
Guess it’s time to take UX seriously
User Experience, UX and Usability matter. No doubt. Or do you have a different view?
Keen on C 