If (when?) the Apple Watch fails, the IoT will be just fine

Limited Failure, Really

Two unrelated but conflicting items in the news feed this week:

1) Apple Watch sales fall 90% from the launch rush, speaking to how this is a bleeding edge product that mainstream users are not taking on.

2) IBM announced a breakthrough in computer chip manufacturing, which basically means that the next generation is going to be half as big as the current ones. (FYI, we are also now getting into the molecular level, with special facilities that eliminate all vibration, because Ye Gads, we are manufacturing things at a molecular level.)

So here is where I get to out of this. The Internet of Things is still coming, but it is not going to do so directly.

A wearable watch is, well, still a watch. There’s an entire generation of people who more or less missed that choice in apparel, and expecting them to just latch on because it’s tech now was always going to be a bit of a stretch.

However, what is most telling is that three million users went for it anyway, with many more going for FitBits. Other providers are joining the fray with lower cost items, but even if the eventual connected band market is 10X the current Apple Watch world, it’s “only” 30 million, or about 10% of the populace. Significant, but nowhere near smartphone numbers.

But those super-thin, super-small components? Well, those could go anywhere, really. Individual SKUs on apparel, to replace bulky security devices, and provide much more information about consideration and browsing behavior. Once the user owned the apparel, the pieces can communicate with each other and get to a baseline for health. Imagine, honestly, how much better preventative care could be if the populace has the option of frequent monitoring. Your clothing could save your life… and back to an e-commerce standpoint, items at a wearout stage could potentially alert a vendor.

The point is that the Internet of Things t will not be about a handful of high-touch, high-consideration screens that you, as an individual consumer, will purchase. Instead, it will be immersive, easy, and driven by market forces that speak to marketing and advertising efficiency at the consumer level, and manufacturing and shipping efficiencies on the front end.

So don’t take the Apple Watch sales as the canary in the coal mine for IoT. We are barely in the first few minutes of a very long game, where the benefits / players have barely begun to take the field. I realize that we are all on hyperspeed now, but this trend is going to be determined by more than monthly sales of a couple of SKUs.

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If you found this helpful, please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Using Demographics In A Programmatic Age

Not shown: Work Experience

By way of introduction, this was inspired by recent pieces that talked about how demographics are dead (Dead! Dead I tell you!) in regards to marketing and advertising plays now. Dead being, as far as I can tell, clickbait for creatives. Anyway, let’s step back from the ever-present device and discuss how your traditional training and thought process still has value, even in a data-driven age.

If you are a marketing and advertising pro with any shrewdness or time to spend on the task, you monitor what your competitors are doing. It is simple enough to do with subscribing to email newsletters, and if you really want to go above and beyond the ability of most, you also know about Moat, a graphic search engine for display ads. However, there’s a simple enough tactic that can go one step further for you.

Demographics get a bad rap these days in terms of campaign targeting, and that’s justified, for the plain and simple reason that you can do better with programmatic and remarketing plays. Reaching the right consumer is more important and efficient than reaching the right type of consumer, because the data just shows a win for the former, and even the slummiest of content sites is patronized by a handful of optimal prospects. Buy the prospect, not the site, assuming that viewability isn’t broken. (It is, but that’s a problem for another day.)

The key takeaway? Just because demographics are no longer the best or only way to find prospects, doesn’t mean that they are no longer important to marketing and advertising pros. It just means that they are not as important in terms of the mechanics of reach in lead generation.

Where the demo still matters is in creative, in establishing and protecting the brand. Brand marketing also tends to get short shrift in data-driven and direct mediums. The argument is that you have already established brand value, especially in remarketing plays, and you are better off using optimal practices, including but not limited to aggressive pricing, functionality and dynamic elements.

The problem with this approach is that it treats your prospect as an entirely logical individual with his or her thought process, as if everyone in the prospect pool was engaged in a bot-level buying decision. Which means that your margins are in for a bad time, and so is your lifetime value.

Happily for vendors, there are better ways to run a campaign.

The first is to know your consumer category, and to take into consideration your brand value. For e-commerce plays like apparel, shoes and niche plays with high tactile impact, the brand and individual SKUs matter much more. You are not buying a dress because you have seen the exact same piece at five different stores; you buy the dress because it matches your style, and you trust the brand to make pieces that make you feel good when you put them on. That is a fundamentally better place to be from a margin standpoint.

The second approach is to look outside of your consumer category for inspiration and optimal practices. For our apparel play, check out how non-competing providers handle their work in, say, beauty or accessories. For upscale travel, consider financial services, premium personals or high-end consumer electronics. You can often find inspiration and great testing points that will take you beyond an execution-only optimization moment, and into something that is far more actionable for future iterations.

Finally, there is the possibility of co-promotional marketing opportunities and swaps from his kind of research, especially in niche plays. If you can reach a similar prospect list without going into the heavy lifting of finding and building said list? That’s where dramatic and powerful growth can happen, on an affiliate-style level.

It’s a swing for the fences technique, to be sure, but doesn’t it sound a lot more promising than just trying to beat your control? Or tossing everything you know about your buyer demos in the dustbin of history?

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If you found this helpful, please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at the top right of the page. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFP is always free.

A Business beyond Marketing and Advertising

Fun Is Imminent

Over the July 4 weekend, I took my kids to a place they have been to at least a dozen times. I spent hundreds of dollars, drove about seven hours round trip, and did loads of stuff we have done, well, many times. I am likely to do it again in a few months, if not sooner. When we do this again, the kids will call their friends to see who can go with us, and try to find someone that has not been with us on this trip yet, because they love to tell new people about it as much as I do.

What I am talking about is Knoebels, a family-run and operated amusement park that is in its 89^th year of operation in central Pennsylvania. It is the largest amusement park of its kind in America, in that admission is – get this – free. So is parking. Admission to rides are by tickets or armbands, with rides ranging, on the most part, from $1 to $3.

What are the rides like? Start with world-class wooden roller coasters. The Phoenix gets raves for “air time”, which is when you float along with the coaster, rather than stay in the seat. I’m also a fan of the hardcore workout and force of the Twister, the park’s highest and fastest ride. There is also a new retro-cool Flying Kites ride that runs without a track.

Going beyond coasters, I’m a big fan of the old-school bumper cars with true punch. Some prefer the well-done dark haunted house, or appreciate the huge section with smaller-scale rides for little kids. There is also a great big pool and waterslide area, an ancient carousel where you grab brass rings for a prize, a Ferris Wheel, old-time trains and cars, and more, more, more.

Every year brings new rides, because the management is constantly on the lookout to add ride assets from the open market. (This year, it is a metal looping roller coaster. I am not a fan of upside down, so you will have to ask someone else how good it is.)

Knoebels has a social media feed, though it almost seems sacrilege. They have also done some local spot TV advertising, and I am sure there is some channel and affiliate marketing done. But all of that seems besides the point, because to my eyes, Knoebels is a business that is done so well, it doesn’t need marketing or advertising.

What it needs is word of mouth, which is good, because it is plainly phenomenal at generating it.

There is, honestly, nothing that I want to change about this place. You can bring your own food, and even your own dog, if you like. If you buy food, it is great quality and fairly priced. You can actually win prizes in the arcades without unnatural skill or costly persistence. The mix of food for sale is downright amazing, with everything from the usual carnival fare (meat on a stick, ice cream, cotton candy, etc.) to an impressive array of healthier options.

Wait times for rides rarely get long enough to negatively impact your day, and even if they do, you aren’t as stressed as you are in big admission parks, because you aren’t trying to make sure you are getting your fair ration of fun per dollar. That also means that everyone in the park is in a better mood, and there is no horrible class system of fast pass privilege to help generate meltdowns.  It is as safe as houses, to the point where you find yourself giving your kids the green light to go off and have their own adventures. Try this place once, and you may never get your kids to go to the big name places again.

Even on my toughest day at this park – a day where multiple children brought flu with them that then got worst at the park, which meant I had to cut the visit short and drive them home with a car filled with nausea – everyone involved has thanked me, profusely, for taking them, and wanted to come back soon. That is because Knoebels runs their business to encourage true evangelism from their guests, and long-term, repeat business. That is why they are free to enter, free to park, and free to enjoy, at any activity level. They want to be the amusement park that you call home.

At this point, you might be wondering where the catch is, or if Knoebels is one of my agency’s clients. There are no catches, and my only interest in Knoebels is as a fan, and as someone who wants to make sure the place is around for future generations.

They do not need my agency’s services, because their product sells itself. It also markets itself, too. Such is the power of transcendent customer service.

May it always be so!

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Speaking of making customers happy, I would like to ask you to like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP box at the top right of this page.  We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.