Time Is Not Your Friend
A few years ago, Gangnam Style made headlines across the world as the first Youtube Video to break through 1 billion views. So impressive was the feat, that the Capital of South Korea, Seoul, commemorated the milestone with a (not entirely small) monument of the videos creator, Psy, in the city’s Gangnam District.
5 years later Luis Fonsi needed just 97 days to achieve the same with his hit Despacito. It remains the most watched YouTube video to date, totaling over 6.6 billion views. Even more impressive is the Baby Shark Dance, which totaled more than 4 billion views in less than 1 year, illustrating its intense hype. 4 billion! That’s more views than Wetten, dass…? (biggest TV show in Germany) has reached in total within its 33-year lifetime.
This change can be felt across many industries, for instance www.wirkaufendeinauto.de (which means “we buy your car”) from Auto1 recently became one of the most valuable startups in Europe, or, the (second) most valuable in Germany. The company raised a little around 3 billion EUR, a far cry from Spotify, but still — who would’ve thought.
But if we are honest, it was predictable. Back in 2015, I presented surveys at a pitch for a new website for an automotive client, where more than 56% of the respondents said that negotiating with a car dealer is more painful than going to the dentist. It was a laugh back then in the presentation. However providing an option to purchase their cars online, which in my opinion was the logical conclusion of that survey, hasn’t been permitted by that car manufacturer. It still isn’t today.
Tesla sells its vehicles online. And if you follow the stock market news, you know that Tesla’s market share has eclipsed 100 billion, more than Ford and General Motors combined, and just lifting it above Volkswagen. Tesla was founded on 1st July 2003.
Of course there is more needed for such a success than simply adding an online purchase button. Yet the question is, how can one company break through the glass ceiling, while another falls behind? Simply put — it’s time. Time is what slowly but surely brings us the consumer to a new level of expectation. There are companies that are listening to that clock ticking, and others that don’t.
Take for example, Spotify. One great function is being able to listen to music with the Spotify App, and then when you arrive at home, your Sonos system can take the hand-off from Spotify and play the same song, at the same time, throughout your whole house. We don’t question how it works, we just know it works. Or if I transfer money via PayPal to a colleague who paid for my lunch, I send it through the PayPal app, two clicks and my debt is paid in seconds.
But if I would transfer money between accounts in the same bank on a Friday, it takes until Monday? Wait a second! …. this is exactly where the problem lies.
Banks and Spotify have little in common. However, we know — without knowing the exact technical implications — that synchronizing data via cloud systems can be done within seconds, at least minutes. So why not at the bank? This gap, user expectations vs. reality, is what makes customers dissatisfied, but at the same time gives the opportunity to turn the market around.
Professor Noriaki Kano from the University of Tokyo famously analyzed this already in 1978. He created a model for measuring customer satisfaction, which clearly shows the direct relationship between expectations and customer satisfaction. According to this model (now known as the Kano Model), there are “basic factors” which are so self-evident that they are only perceived when they do not exist — such as a bed in a hotel room. Then there are “performance factors”. These are the things that you expect because you explicitly decide on them — like a reserved seat on the train. And then there are the so-called “delighters”. These are things that you don’t miss when they’re not there, but pleasantly surprise you because you didn’t expect them — like a Business-Class Upgrade in a full plane.
However, many startups or innovation workshops in companies make the mistake of concentrating only on the “delighters”, because they believe this will give their product a distinct advantage. But they ignore the fact that it is the lack of expected features that makes their customers look for other solutions. You have to start with the core foundation first.
And here again, time is the spoilsport. Three years ago noise-cancelling-technology was only a delighter. Now this technology is a core feature of high-quality headphones. It becomes clearer with mobile phones. In September 2019, the iPhone 11 Pro was launched with a wide-angle camera. When the Pixel 4 was introduced two months later without one, the tech press did not see this as a plus of the iPhone, but as a disadvantage of the Pixel 4. In other words, the Google phone was already outdated even before release.
This isn’t just a problem between direct competitors. For example, a technology that is already completely taken for granted by consumers is voice control. Thanks to Alexa, Siri and Ok Google, we have learned that you no longer need a mouse, keyboard or touchscreen to interact with computers. But the fact that consumers in hotlines still have to scream “No!” or “Main menu!” is therefore clearly a case of poor performance factors.
The same applies to AR. If you think this is a topic for future workshops, you forget that millions of people are using AR technologies on Instagram or Snapchat right now, without knowing how it is called or technically works. They just do it. They turn on the camera and swipe. Now think for yourself what this generation will expect once they have money and want to spend it.
It’s not that difficult to predict what will happen in the future.
But changes don’t come overnight. The first photo-enabled mobile phone came out in 2002. VR has been around since the 80s. Google’s Pixel 4 was the first mass-market device to bring gesture control back into the limelight, but before that came the Kinect, which was launched at E3 in 2009. And it’s already clear that 5G and what comes after it will revolutionize the way we communicate and how we use data. Landline phones, already an endangered species, will soon be extinct. Wifi in cafes or at home will disappear. Google’s Stadia is a first glimpse into the future — it shows that stationary hardware is no longer needed, once you have sufficient bandwidth. And when you think about it, it is quite logical.
You see, it’s not that difficult to predict what will happen in the future. All you have to do is to take a look what’s happening around you. What are the young coworkers in your company doing? Where are they shopping? How do they purchase items? What’s different in the way they communicate or work?
If you have kids, try to learn from them. Do not demonize their media consumption but listen instead and see what their usage patterns are. My kids for example don’t watch TV anymore. On traditional television they simply can’t see what they want to see, when they want to see it. Of course that will have an impact on the broadcast industry or the accessibility of content in general.
Also watch them when they are playing games. They do not only play with their regular friends, they already have “digital” friends; likeminded kids they know from Minecraft or Fortnite which they only meet when they play together online. So they naturally grow up with an understanding of collaboration without being physically in the same place. Now what picture do you have in mind when you think about a company? Is it a building, with a bunch of people in their office space? Forget about that. The company of the future is not even an organization within the same country.
Depending on the age of your kid you will also notice that money is increasingly being spent on intangible products. A new skin for that character you play in Fortnite might cost you a bit. According to Nielsen’s game-industry research arm, SuperData, Fortnite earned a record-setting $2.4 billion in 2018. It’s because kids know that a digital character might also reflect a part of your personality. We are not that far away from what the media press predicted in 2003 when SecondLife came out.
If you now think that’s all still far away, do you remember the year when Nelly’s “It’s gettin hot in here” topped the charts, Justin Timberlake started his solo career and the second part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out? The children who were born in that year will soon graduate high-school and be freshman in college or entering the workforce. Don’t let that make you feel old, but do something with it. v—
About the author: Kristian Kerkhoff is a former designer, creative director and now managing partner at Demodern, which he founded together with his partner Alexander El-Meligi in 2008. Demodern is a digital production company focussing on creative technology, beeing one of the most awarded and innovative digital agencies from Germany.
If you want to now more about Demodern’s work, visit www.demodern.com or contact Kristian directly via LinkedIn.
