From transactions to meaningful relationships

March, 2014

Recently, I’ve seen a steep rise of retail apps that used gamefication to encourage customers to spend more at their stores. They might cover a broad range of merchants like Perx or is brand-specific such as Starbucks. Such digital or mobile platforms may bring in huge opportunities to engage customers further, yet I feel that it’s crucial for each company to bring it to the next level to impress their brands upon customers.

Being a customer today, we’re faced with too many choices and too little time to process each piece of information. An average human makes about 612 decisions a day. This means quite a fair bit of our subconscious decisions made are driven by emotions like the favourite store you like to grab your morning coffee from to start the day.

While mobile apps with one-off promotions could bring foot traffic into stores, such digital transactions can never be replaced by a human to human experience. Hence, some great brands build such experience into their platforms. My personal favourite is Starbucks Tweet-a-Coffee program that allows customers to buy coffee for friends on twitter. Leveraging on the natural goodwill of friendship, the brand reveals a humane as well as human side too. Another case is Pampers Hello Baby Pregnancy Calendar app which shares the pregnant customer’s excitement and nervousness by providing her simulated graphics, milestones and tips. Being part of this significant and personal journey, Pampers show its care and love for customers’ babies even before they are borned.

It is natural for us to select products/solutions which makes us feel comfortable, secure and happy. For a brand to stand out amongst intense online and offline competition, it would need to find the right context to engage us and create a special meaning in our hearts.