Amazon Buys Shoefitr

News surfaced yesterday that Amazon had acquired Shoefitr, a footwear product recommender that helps place online shoppers in the right size shoe.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/10/amazon-quietly-acquired-shoefitr-to-improve-how-it-sells-footwear-online/

You may have interacted with the Shoefitr widget in the past on Saucony.com, Nordstrom.com, REI, or other retailers' sites.  It will be interesting to see if the technology will continue to have a home with these Amazon competitors, or if "outside" business will be shut down. Shoefitr works by using proprietary 3D scan technology to scan the insides and outsides of sneakers, then storing this info in their database. Previously, the more companies it partnered with, the stronger its product recommender became, because they had access to more shoes to scan and include in their system.

Partnership with Amazon could mean that every footwear product sold on Amazon's site could eventually be scanned and catalogued, which would provide very useful info for an online shopper to make a fit-based or similarity-based shoe selection. However in my opinion, the Shoefitr experience still does not replace the experience of actually trying the shoe on, so having this in conjunction with seamless delivery and returns is a nice one-two punch for Amazon subsidiary Zappos.

Store of the Future

As technology develops, the integration of digital interaction into our physical world increases. Lately it seems everyone is talking about what "the store of the future" will look like, or is it already here? A lot of it seems like technology for technology's sake to me, but I found the following infographic to be very interesting because it laid out all the engagement facts in one swoop.

I am, however, curious as to why "the store of the future" is almost always spoken about in a clothing retail context. I went to Duane Reade this morning to pick up a prescription and had a horrible (even by poor Duane Reade standards) experience, and could think of more than a few UTILITARIAN ways that technology could improve that journey. Hopefully, "Duane Reade of the future" is next up for an overhaul.

Here are the major stats:

• 72% of young customers research their options online before making it to a store
• 42% of companies expect to send coupons based on customers' location in store
• 66% of customers would like to see promotions included in retailers' apps
• 22% of customers spend more if digital is involved in the process
• 85% of customers buy more when helped by a knowledgeable sales assistant
• 54% of customers would like to use an 'endless aisle' option on tablet or digital screen in store
• 86% of shoppers said it's important for a retailer to have an integrated online presence
• 50% of in-store transactions will happen via mobile POS or self-checkout by 2017
• 47% of US retailers believe store operations will undergo significant changes thanks to implementing a unified commerce platform
• 74% of retailers believe that developing a more engaging in-store experience is going to be business critical

To Bundle, Or Not To Bundle

http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/8/1/app-unbundling-search-and-discovery

The article above is very interesting: discussing the rise of mobile apps and how their feature sets differ largely from the web.  The main observation is that the nature of the smartphone 'desktop' drives the un-bundling of a company or service's feature set, whereas online everything tends to be more bundled 'under one roof' of the same company's site. The very basic reason is that websites have an internal navigation, and company's do everything within their power to keep users from ever leaving their site. On mobile separate features are just a tap away, making it much easier to switch between different services and activities as the situation dictates.  Social applications probably provide the best examples of this unbundling.

At my company, our apps are unbundled by the different types of end user they serve.  There is one app for women who want on-demand training workouts, another for runners who want to track their distance, pace, and time using GPS, another for soccer players to plan and invite friends to pickup games on the fly, another for sneaker lovers that allows them early opportunities to purchase hot releases, and still others for many different types of athletes with different needs.  Yet our website serves up content, commerce, and news to all of these users in one place.

The article takes a turn in the end, supposing that taking a look at Chinese apps and how they differ along these lines may be a predictor of what the landscape may soon look like in the Western world. Chinese apps Baidu Maps and WeChat have found success in bundling (rather than unbundling) different services under one roof.  The best practice that's common between them is that they bundle while treating the context or use-case as priority.  For example, Baidu Maps allows users to search within its map for particular activities near them (let's say a particular type of restaurant), then provides them the functionality to make a reservation at that restaurant all within the app. It also does the same for movies.

This bundling serves a great purpose, as with the increasing number of apps out there it is growing more and more difficult to find the right app for each desired service.  Bundling solves the problem that is brought on by inadequate app store search functionality.

Emoticoke

Coca-cola launched a brilliant new campaign called "emoticoke" in Puerto Rico, playing with the widespread use of emoticons these days. Although only in Puerto Rico, the campaign is very smart for the global brand as emoticons are at this point a universal language. In fact, the video explaining the campaign makes a similar statement.

Use of the happiness emoticon also aligns with Coca-cola's association with "the brand of happiness." People are invited to visit emoticoke.com to claim their own emoticon url. I tried searching a few different emoticons - most went back to the emoticoke website, but some people had used the tool to redirect to the emoticon url to their Twitter page, an ad, etc. Searching for the "grinning face with smiling eyes" emoji, I found this:

The campaign is fun, interactive, and I was smiling when I saw it so I suppose it worked. There is a red coke bottle silhouette that appears on the screen while each page loads, and the company even chose the suffix .ws because according to them it stands for "we smile". (.ws is the suffix for Samoa, and was the best option out of those that accept emoji's in the url.)

I find myself wanting a coke now.

Facebook Ads Adds Relevance Score

This week Facebook added relevance scores to its advertising reports, intended to give companies feedback on expected engagement. Similar to what we learned about search marketing, a high relevance score also lowers the price of ad delivery, or may offset a low bid. In Facebook's words:

Relevance score is calculated based on the positive and negative feedback we expect an ad to receive from its target audience. The more positive interactions we expect an ad to receive, the higher the ad's relevance score will be. (Positive indicators vary depending on the ad's objective, but may include video views, conversion, etc.) The more times we expect people to hide or report an ad, the lower its score will be.

Ads receive a relevant score between 1 and 10, with 10 being the highest. The score is updated as people interact and provide feedback on the ad. Ads with guaranteed delivery - like those bought through reach and frequency - are not impacted by relevance score. Relevance score has a smaller impact on cost and delivery in brand awareness campaigns, since those ads are optimized for reaching people, rather than driving a specific action like installs.

The relevance score is available in the Ads Manager tab of Facebook's ad reporting. They pointed out that the relevance score can be helpful in deciding when content needs to be refreshed or replaced, or may be useful in predicting how a new audience would help you meet a certain action-driven objective.

Under Armour acquires MyFitnessPal for $475M and Endomondo for $85M

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2015/02/04/armour-acquired-myfitnesspal-endomondo/?curator=MediaREDEF

Earlier this week, Under Armour announced the acquisition of MyFitnessPal and Endomondo, for $475M and $85M respectively.  MyFitnessPal's reported user base is 80 million, while Endomondo's is at 20 million. And with the earlier acquisition of MapMyFitness, this brings Under Armour's digitally-connected community to about 120 million users.

This is important for a few key reasons, most obvious among them being the immediate expansion of Under Armour "zero-degree members" that now can receive direct communication from the company whenever they so choose. Assuming Under Armour completed these deals for the sole purpose of growing their community, they paid about $5 per user. As a user of either of those apps I would hope that my loyalty, activity, and attention would be worth more than that; for that alone Under Armour got a great deal.

Additionally, activity-tracking apps such as these create high switching costs, as users are reluctant to "lose" their history/mileage/accomplishments by using a different incompatible app. These types of apps create built-in loyalty, and they only get better and better the more you use them. In essence, people are naturally encouraged to remain within the Under Armour ecosystem for fear that in switching they would not get credit for all of their hard work.

Lastly, this deal provides access and ownership to a massive amount of first-party data. If Under Armour is able to know how a community of 120 million active consumers is behaving, they will likely be able to make some informed decisions that go beyond just the realm of digital marketing. This data could inform product mix, product innovation, allocation, distribution, launch timing, etc. More immediately, simply by knowing WHO each of those users are is HUGE - the fact that 70 out of the 120 million users are female may predict a bit more about where the focus of Under Armour's messaging will be targeted in the near future.

Ship Your Enemies Glitter

What a great SEO story... http://observer.com/2015/01/exclusive-how-this-man-got-the-media-to-fall-for-shipyourenemiesglitter-stunt/

The home page probably explains the concept better than I would.

On January 12, a new site (and company) launched out of Australia. ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com would ship a very annoying glitter bomb to someone -friend or enemy- of your choice for $9.99 ($8.15 USD). Founder Matthew Carpenter was soon begging customers to stop placing orders so that he could keep up with all the glitter shipping demand.

However, it turned out that the prank website was itself a prank, or rather a New Years Resolution of Carpenter's to improve his marketing skills.  In Carpenter's words, he exploited the fact that the "media (here in Australia particularly) has become extremely lazy with sourcing." He started out with crowd source sites like Reddit and Product Hunt, and used the concept's popularity there to earn links elsewhere on the web. Eventually he got coverage from Time.com, Fast Company, the Telegraph, Huff Post, and Tech Crunch, until he auctioned the whole site off for $85,000.

 This story is interesting because of the way Carpenter pulled it off, both for his digital marketing strategy and for the fact that he proved something about the media in the process. Also, he uses a lot of jargon from the class, including "link juice," so he must be legit.

In response to “Training, Tanning, and Branding with the Bikini Bodybuilding Stars of Instagram”:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashapiro009/training-tanning-and-branding-with-the-bikini-bodybuilding-s#.hu5gq7Ypk

Somewhat recently I posted on Instagram that I was looking for inspirational fitness/running/health accounts (people) to follow.  A few of my friends, some close and some Internet acquaintances, responded offering up accounts. Among the first to  reply sent through the following names:

@massy.arias

@cuchira

@annephung

@leanna_carr

@fitalicious_me

About a year prior, someone had mentioned to me that I should follow @followthelita, a woman named Lita Lewis who trains relentlessly, shares healthy recipes, and posts a ton of the type of selfies that make me wanna put down my double-fisted string cheese.  With her 298,000 followers, Lita has also given the hashtag #ThickFIT a face.  She is beautiful, and also looks like she might be capable of straight-lifting a midsize sedan or two.  Although it is outside of the realm of possibility that I will ever look like or train like Lita, hers quickly became one of my absolute favorite IG accounts to show up in my feed.

When I asked my friends which fitness accounts were their favorites, I fully expected to get back some more-fashion-than-fitness, cool, ultra stylish, influencer types. Because don’t get me wrong, posts from chicks like @adrianneho definitely have me slowing down the scroll to stop and admire.  But this was not quite what I received back, no.  Out of the list mentioned above, I was surprised to see that most were powerlifting, figure competition, wouldn’t-be-caught-dead-on-an-elliptical types.  Most of them seem like they train to be strong rather than slim, far beyond what years ago would have been expected or acceptable for a lady.  (The one who doesn’t fit this true powerlifting category power lifts her own weight as an awesome, androgynous yogi.)

The article mentions that the National Powerlifting and Bodybuilding competitions now prominently feature the bikini category, in an effort to re-introduce female bodybuilding as NOT freakish and juiced up. The athletes that are featured in the article have built not only their bodies, but huge Instagram followings in the process.  These massive IG communities have gotten them sponsorships and endorsement deals, and not all due to simply posting selfies for young girls to gawk at.  The all-access nature of Instagram and other social media channels allows their followings to get inspired, ask questions, and then “do try this at home."

Between the IGers that were sent my way and the ones this article mentions, I noticed a few things that might be changing the way digital marketers seek out brand ambassadors and endorsement relationships:

1.  The 'ideal female body’ was invented by a male.  Not so much the shape of the body itself, but the idea that there is one ideal type that resonates with women themselves simply does not resonate.

2.  The best endorsements in this space are positioned as advice, how-to’s, workout plans, eating plans, and “fitspo” (fit inspiration) - NOT just a great image or video.

3.  Androgyny might be making a play in the near future. We’ll see...