Art in the Digital World

By Blaire Townshend

Earlier today, Conrad De Aenlle of the New York Times wrote an article examining the relationship between major art auction houses and the digital marketplace. Essentially, he commented on the fact that these auction houses have enjoyed a remarkably stable, non-digital market for centuries, and that the recent emergence and astounding successes of such markets is forcing a change in the structure of the auction world. Companies such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s, who have dominated the market for so long, are among the companies that are feeling the pressure to adapt to the digital world surrounding them. In fact, they are not only being forced to adapt, but are also looking for inspiration in the “deft and nimble upstarts” that are better able to embrace the digital market (De Aenlle).

With online art sales totaling $3.6 billion in 2014 and a predicted sales growth of 25% per year, it is not surprising that even the major auction houses want in on the action. In 2011, Christie’s implemented an exclusively online auction platform, while simultaneously purchasing Collectrium—a digital art collection management service. Sotheby’s, on the other hand, has begun streaming its auctions live on eBay. These actions betray a desire on the part of both companies to woo a previously untapped online customer base. David Goodman, executive vice president for digital development and marketing, adds that such practices cater to current customers, as well: “We want to create more channels and more ways for our collectors to be able to engage in and buy things that they love” (De Aenlle).

De Aenlle’s article points to an important shift in the auction world—a shift that might presage a certain democratization of the art market. After all, if auction houses are catering to an increasingly varied and online customer base, they are arguably catering to customers with more variable incomes by doing so. The next test will be to see which auction houses embrace the digital art market most organically, and to assess how this affects their business.

De Aenlle, Conrad. "Sotheby's and Christie's Adapt to Digital Age." International Arts. The New York Times, 11 Mar. 2016. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.

Technology as a Driver of the Consumerization of B2B

I am at the Founder.org conference right now, where I see many young B2B and B2C startups pitching to silicon valley investors (Founder.org is a VC fund investing in student founders in North America and Europe. I am working for the organization as an associate who sources and screens startups in Munich, Germany and New York City.)

What I found interesting among many of the B2B companies here is how they approach marketing and sales and how it differs from how traditional B2B marketing is often understood and taught. It's not just that their technology is the necessary 10x better (according to the rule of thumb for adoption) than the current market solutions, most of them are also trying to create a competitive advantage by using marketing technology to outpace traditional players.

There is Konux for example, a sensor startup that develops the hardware and software for the future of industry, an internet of sensors. They are automating and structuring marketing in a way that traditional sensor companies just cannot perform because they lack the digital mind set and skill set. They are doing content marketing to tell stories about their team and how their sensors are being used. They build up a CRM and an automated sales cycle that allow a leaner organization, wider reach and faster and more personalized follow-ups.

There also is Building Radar, a lead generation platform for the construction and interior design industry. Their algorithms not just screen the internet for future construction projects, their data management system also allows them to personalize their service and address the best matching supplier for any project.

I've talked to both teams and studied how their competitors are doing marketing and sales. For a so called digital native it is shocking how manual they still work and how slow they have grown over the years. Leads are being generated mostly offline, sometimes fax and telephone still are their preferred means of communication. They are operating in multi-billion dollar industries and they are now threatened by new companies who not just disrupt the technology used but first and foremost the marketing and sales technology. The Economist already brought up the topic in 2014, hinting to the fact that technology is one of the drivers that leads to a personalization of B2B sales. The core idea of this trend is that also businesses are run by people and business to business sales decisions are being made by human individuals. For me, it is exciting to see how digital technologies allow to transform not just products and services but also all aspects of business in any particular industry.

Westfield Group Attempts to Blend Digital and Brick and Mortar

Westfield Group which owns and operates 40 shopping centers around the world has run a testing lab inside the Westfield San Francisco shopping center.  The lab is an experiment that looks at how digital and b&m shopping can work together.

Westfield Labs is the digital arm of Westfield Group.  Earlier this month, it launched a project called Bespoke which will turn half of the fourth floor in the San Francisco Centre into a space for co-working, events and tech demonstrations.  The plan is to attract San Francisco's tech retail industry. 

The goal of the lab is to rethink how traditional retailers operate in Westfield's shopping centers globally.  Last holiday season through a partnership with eBay, Westfield erected three shoppable glass screens so shoppers could swipe through products offered by Sony, Rebecca Minkoff, and Toms and then buy them from a mobile device.  In NJ, Westfield Labs erected seven-foot digital screens that display images of products from nearby stores and show shoppers how to find them. 

I think this program is long overdue.  The mall has been very slow to adopt digital technology and it's refreshing that Westfield Labs in taking on the challenge of blending technology that can aid consumers in their b&m shopping experience. 

Source: http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/innovation-lab-designing-mall-future-161539

The Most “Helpful” Marketing Technology

According to a recent article from eMarketer, CRM software was the only marketing technology rated effective by a majority of marketing professionals worldwide. In an age where digital marketing is key and the market is continuously inundated with tools that promise to take data and magically turn it into proven ROI, it is increasingly important for marketing professionals to pinpoint which tools are actually helpful and relevant to them.

The below graph illustrates the types of digital marketing technologies that are useful to data-driven marketing, according to marketing professionals worldwide (most of whom worked at firms with fewer than 500 employees):

As demonstrated, CRM software was the single type of digital marketing tool that more than 50% of respondents said was useful to them in their data-driven work (won by 6%). This information is increasingly valuable to companies where data is king and resources are limited. 

SOURCE:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Marketers-Rank-Technologies-Designed-Help-Them/1011597/1

Pinterest to Let Brands Target Their Existing Customers With Ads

Following the successes of Facebook's and Twitter's sophisticated advertising businesses, Pinterest is gaining ground on developing its own advertising products.  Pinterest is developing a method for companies to advertise to their customers on their email list with ads on the Pinterest platform catered to the specific target consumer.  The social scrapbooking service is also building a conversion tracking and audience targeting measurement tool so that marketers can track and analyze their ads on Pinterest with the purchases that customers make on the company’s own e-commerce site.

The customer-database targeting option on Pinterest is similar to Facebook’s Custom Audience tool which allows a marketer to upload to email addresses and phone numbers of its customers to the social network’s platform.  Facebook then uses “hashing”, an encryption process, to anonymize the company’s list to match them to Facebook’s own database of users.  Subsequently, these matched customers are then shown the advertisers’ native ads on Facebook.

Pinterest is undergoing the same advertising strategy from Facebook with its own conversion tracking tool.  A marketer will drop a “pixel”, or a tracking tool, on its own website that will track the activity of the customers on its website.  The pixel will then show the Promoted Pins on Pinterest to the same customer after the customer logs into the social website.  This tracking tool will be limited to measuring and attributing ad performance to online sales.  

Source: http://adage.com/article/digital/pinterest-advertisers-target-existing-customers/295094/