DIGITAL MEDIA DIGEST: DEC ‘16
A monthly look at the world of digital from NORTH’s point of view
Friction-Free Shopping B.Y.T.B. Amazon
By Caroline Desmond, Director of Media Strategy
Amazon’s been dabbling in brick and mortar experiments for the last year beginning with the rollout of Amazon Books which now has three locations across the west coast. This month Recode announced another exciting development, a line-free, cashier-free grocery store called Amazon Go. It’s little wonder Amazon is interested in finding a way to appeal to brick and mortar shoppers. As CNET reported this week in response to the Amazon Go announcement, “more than 90 percent of US retail sales still come from stores.”
Amazon Go stores will combine the best of computer learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver a more seamless in-store shopping experience for consumers. The first store is expected to open in Seattle early 2017. As explained in the video below, shoppers must check into the store via the Amazon app. Sensors placed around the store on shelves detect what consumers pick up (or put back). When shoppers leave the store, their Amazon account is automatically charged for any goods consumers took off the shelf. The video posted last Monday to Amazon’s YouTube channel and already has over 6MM views.
From a consumer experience perspective, this is pretty nifty stuff. I remember studying RFID technology 10 years ago and listening to my media professor discuss the possibility of something like this, and here it is! There are wide ranging implications for the the kind of data Amazon will be able to gather which could be used to enhance retail experiences. Much as Disney developed Magic Band technology to create friction-free travel experiences, Amazon could use data they collected on shopping patterns of consumers in-store to understand where bottlenecks occur and improve store layout, or to understand what optimal shelf placement is based on how foot traffic moves throughout the store and how consumers are spending time within each aisle. Additionally, knowing what goods consumers picked up and put back in reconsideration of an alternative brand would be helpful insight for CPG companies, because it may illustrate where competitive opportunities lie. Prior shopping behavior connected to a shopper’s Amazon app login could also sync up with sensors in-store and trigger mobile coupons based on someone’s most purchased items during the moment of shopping.
For advertisers the implications really depend on scale. No doubt there is a ton of meaningful data on shopping behavior that could help make ads within Amazon’s media network better targeted and more valuable for brands and consumers. However, in order to have statistical relevance, there would be need to be enough shopper data based on store volume to make any insights more than directional at best. As of right now, there are mixed reports about how many Amazon Go stores the tech brand plans to open. The WSJ reported that Amazon plans to open 2,000 grocery locations; a statement an Amazon spokesperson then quickly denied.
Assuming Amazon eventually does amass a fleet of Amazon Go stores nationwide, one then wonders if Amazon will make anonymized shopping behavior data available to measure the effect of Amazon media on driving sales in-store; thereby connecting the effect of online ads to offline shopping behavior. The reverse may also be true whereby shopper behavior in-store could be used to develop target consumer segments that make Amazon paid media smarter with the ability to target ads based on more accurate purchase data. Using Amazon logins as a connector, Amazon would be able to identify groups of users across digital devices based on their shopping behaviors in-store. This type of targeting would be highly valuable to brands, particularly because data would be Amazon first party data (cheaper than 3rd party data) and based on deterministic login info (more accurate for cross device targeting). Though again, it all depends on scale, and only time will tell on that front.
Digital Realities: A Dive Into VR, AR, and MR
By Nathan Johnson, Media Planner
If you’ve been following the digital reality space you’ve likely heard increased chatter around terms such as augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). But, are there differences between the two or are companies simply trying to cut through the clutter by coming up with clever marketing terms? To help bring some clarity, we will walk through the terms listed above.
What’s Virtual Reality (VR)?
I feel it’s important to first talk about virtual reality (VR) as it’s the most popular of the realities. In VR, a type of head-mounted display is typically worn, such as the Samsung Gear VR or Oculus Rift. The headset allows the user to immerse themselves into a separate digital world that is unattached to the one they find them self physically in.
The digital world the user experiences can be created by using real-world content, synthetic content, or a hybrid of both. Users might also find that they can walk around and explore the digital world, depending on the headset being used. Example here:
So what’s augmented reality (AR)?
Similar to VR, AR experiences are oftentimes delivered through a wearable device, such as Google Glass, however that’s not always the case as will be shown shortly. The Foundry has a great definition that I like to use when describing AR, which is:
“Augmented reality is an overlay of content on the real world, but that content is not anchored to or part of it. The real-world content and the CG content are not able to respond to each other.”
So unlike VR where the user is fully immersed into another world, AR users are still within their current surroundings, but they have an enhanced experience due to the digital overlay. This makes it possible for the user to sort through digital information without having to use another device such as their smartphone.
As mentioned earlier, not all experiences need a headset as demonstrated by IKEA’s augmented reality table that was designed to be part of their concept kitchen. The table suggests recipes based on the ingredients placed on it in addition to giving cook time and temperature.
What’s exciting about this type of AR is the utility it provides consumers.
How does mixed reality (MR) differ?
MR and AR and very similar, but essentially MR experiences allow the user to see the real world with virtual objects that are anchored in a real point in space, making it possible to act as though they are real, at least for that person. Here’s The Foundry’s definition:
“Mixed reality is an overlay of synthetic content on the real world that is anchored to and interacts with the real world — The key characteristic of MR is that the synthetic content and the real-world content are able to react to each other in real time.”
While the opportunities that come with MR are pretty incredible, there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done in the space before we start to see real-world applications. Much of what is currently being done has been behind closed doors. Microsoft, for example, showed off their HoloLens by giving the audience an idea of what the user would see while experiencing MR. In reality, Microsoft has over exaggerated the actual view ratio that users would see, which was much more limited. Nonetheless, this video gives a great example of what they are aiming for.
Where will the debate end up?
Right now it still seems that most people use AR and MR interchangeably, though as we’ve discussed, there are distinct differences between the two. My thoughts are that MR will eventually be considered a category within AR as the latter is the more commonly used term. We might see MR even be called “real augmented” reality as some have begun to refer to it.
Hopefully this has cleared up some of the confusion. Now, not to add to the mix, but have you heard of actual reality? Worth checking out here!
“Hold Onto Your Butts”: The Rise and Potential Fall of Live Video
By Flynn Robertson, Assistant Media Planner
In last month’s digital digest, my friend and colleague, Nathan Johnson, wrote about Facebook Live. That article got me to thinking about my own experiences with live video technology in general, and spurred my desire to dig a bit deeper into the topic. This month I want to revisit my own history with live video, share with you some interesting and insightful opinions (my own), and see if I can make a Miss Cleo-like prediction for the future of live video.
My first experience watching live video occurred when I was sitting with some fellow advertising students at my alma mater, Portland State University. I had recently heard about Periscope, still in its infancy, and found the concept intriguing. I downloaded the app and started searching for a feed to watch.
I scanned the map and settled on feed from a small farming town in California’s central valley. The video was, at best, uninteresting. Yet I watched anyway. The stream featured two males, late teens, sitting near an irrigation ditch and smoking a certain substance whose legality varies based on location. I must have watched this stream for ten minutes, watched them do nothing of great substance, just because I could. I found this capability interesting.
My first experience publishing my own live video occurred shortly after the above narrative and was equally unimpressive. Lacking any creative thought, I started a stream and just pointed it out the window of the room I was in. My thought was that having the Portland, Oregon location stamp would be enough to draw in viewers from Delaware or Ogallala, Nebraska. Dozens! Hundreds! Thousands even!
I was hilariously wrong, as it turned out. I failed to draw in a single viewer despite the incredible opportunity I was offering people. I just didn’t understand. Why didn’t anyone want to look out the smudgy window of a Portland building towards the equally smudgy-windowed building across the way? And that was when I wrote off live video as a worthless technology, forever.
Just kidding. Truth is, I’m still intrigued by live video, and before my bi-annual deactivation of my Facebook account, I was watching streams with some regularity. My opinion about the usefulness of this technology comes to you by way of Dr. Ian Malcolm, of Jurassic Park fame. Shortly after his introduction to the existence of 20th century dinos, Malcolm remarks, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
My point here, is that just because this technology exists, it doesn’t mean you have to splice it with frog DNA and create protandrous hermaphrodite dinosaurs to achieve your advertising objectives. Wait, no, that’s not it. You shouldn’t feel compelled to use this technology, solely for the reason that you can use the technology. Keep in mind this is coming from a strategy novice, but I believe that the strategy you’ve developed should guide the decision to use live video, and not the other way around.
I see the future of live video playing out on a spectrum. On the end that takes the wrong approach, we will see brands that exercise no restraint using this technology, which could result in an over-saturation of the live video market. This would lead to a loss of interest because a) the novelty of live video will wear off quickly and 2) when the novelty wears off, some will find the constant stream of live video disruptive and irritating to the overall experience of the platform.
Ideally, we will see more brands fall on the other side of the spectrum. The side where brands and agencies assimilate live video into their advertising arsenal, and recognize it as one of many possible tools. This will result in live video being used in strategic fashion and won’t lead to burnout.
Realistically, we will see some brands who feel compelled to use live video because everyone is doing it (friends, bridge, jump, yada yada) and they will benefit the least from the live video offerings. But we will also see brands who will strategically wield this tool, and will do so with good results. So, in the words of Jurassic Park’s Ray Arnold, “Hold onto your butts” and let’s see what the future holds for live video.
A Beginner’s Guide to Link-Building
By: Crystal Stanford, SEM / PPC Manager
When many people think of search engine optimization (SEO), they usually think of building a website around certain keywords and improving their website ranking that way. While relevant keywords are a crucial part of any SEO strategy, they’re actually not the most important factor in improving your website’s rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). According to Moz, the top two factors influencing your website’s SEO ranking are related to links: domain-level link features and page-level link features. Behind links at number three is page-level keyword and content based-features.
Simply put, Moz is referring to links from other websites back to your website (domain-level) or particular pages (page-level). An example of this is the link I used above. The anchor text is “According to Moz” and when you click on it, you’re taken to Moz’s page outlining search ranking factors. I included this link, not only to cite my source, but also because it provides an improved user experience for blog readers to be able to click through and read more about search ranking factors.
This link is seen by Google as an indicator of authority on the part of Moz. Because I cited Moz, and linked back to them, when Google crawls this blog post, it basically registers as an up-vote for Moz that they are an authority on the subject of SEO and search ranking factors. This in turn helps Moz improve their rankings on searches pertaining to SEO. You can see that this has paid off for Moz. When you search “search ranking factors”, the above article is the first result:
This system of crawling links and determining page rankings based on them was first introduced by Google. It was developed at Stanford University by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1996. It’s known as Google PageRank, and more than any other Google algorithm, it’s the underpinning of the entire search engine. The idea behind ranking pages based on external links from other websites is simple, and explained well by Mark Traphagen at Search Engine Journal:
“Since putting a link on your site to a third party site might cause a user to leave your site, there was little incentive for a publisher to link to another site, unless it was really good, and of great value to their site’s users.
In other words, linking to a third party site acts a bit like a “vote” for it, and each vote could be considered an endorsement, saying the page the link points to is one of the best resources on the web for a given topic. Then, in principle, the more votes you get, the better, and the more authoritative a search engine would consider you to be, and you should therefore rank higher.”
This quote starts to get to the beauty of employing external links as ranking signals — there is little incentive for websites to link to another website, other than the benefit of an optimal user experience for website visitors. This idea of the optimal user experience is a Google core tenet, so it makes perfect sense that their search engine algorithm would employ this motivation in its most influential ranking factor. Another reason that this is a great way to rank websites is that while Google has since had to penalize blackhat SEO techniques such as keyword stuffing, it’s harder for webmasters to game the system when it comes to garnering high-quality links from reputable third-party websites. Links are a purer read on the quality of a website than simply ranking websites based on keywords and relevance.
So how is your website performing when it comes to high-quality links?
One easy and free way to find out is Open Site Explorer, Moz’s backlink checker tool. After entering your domain, Moz returns a list of external links pointing back to your website. The links can be ordered by domain authority (on a 100-point scale), which basically tells you the ranking power of that particular website. For the most part, the higher the domain authority, the more powerful a link will be in terms of improving your page-rank. For example, nytimes.com has a domain authority of 100/100. A link from the New York Times pointing back to your website is a powerful up-vote, and an indicator to Google that you are most likely a high-quality website and an authority in your right.
If you plug your website into Open Site Explorer and find that you have little to no external links, don’t despair. There are some strategies for building links, and interestingly, they’re often related to what we might otherwise think of as good old public relations efforts. Often, a solid bet for garnering links can be placement on local news websites and relevant blogs. Other ideas for garnering high quality links can be from partner websites or industry listings. Additionally, a great way to brainstorm website targets for potential links is to plug your competitors’ websites into Open Site Explorer and see where they’re getting their links from. Eventually you can reach out to these websites to inquire about and brainstorm opportunities for linking your website. If this seems tedious to you, it’s because it is. SEO can be a long, slow process, but it can also be extremely rewarding. Improvements in your rankings on SERPs can often translate into brand affinity and dollars. It’s certainly worth your efforts to be picking up good links when and where you can.
