OUGD501 - Studio Brief 01 - Remaining Feedback, Further Essay Research & Additional Points

The main piece of feedback given by Simon on my essay was as follows:

'Could you talk about how social media and internet culture has generated more ways of communicating to the consumer through language or imagery exclusive to the internet - such as memes?'

Coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, a meme is a 'package of culture.' Pre-internet, this meant things like regional sayings, fashion, and architecture. These are styles, concepts, and behaviors that are infinitely replicable (so we’re not talking about trading physical items) and spread out to other cultures from the point of origin. Today, memes have become much less cultural in terms of their representation on social media sites.

After some research online I came across on a new McDonalds campaign in China for new products with lychee



Leo Burnett did historical research at the National Library of China for the project. In China, 'young adults take a lot of pride in traditional Chinese culture being represented in a contemporary, fun kind of way' said Angie Wong, general manager of Leo Burnett Shanghai, which worked on the campaign with Chinese animation studio Wuhu and director Willis Wong of production house Tribe. By taking influences from old culture and imagery, technology has allowed companies to market new material that can appeal to specific consumers.

Thinking back to study task 02, Linda Hutcheon - a Canadian academic working in the fields of literary theory and criticism, opera, and Canadian studies, highlights that despite parody being more of a mockery of the original work, with pastiche new work created is refreshed with a different style, meaning and message. This is highlighted where she says 'its art forms (and its theory) use and abuse, install and then subvert convention in parodic ways, self-consciously pointing both to their own inherent paradoxes and provisionality and, of course, to their critical or ironic re-reading of the art of the past'. In this sense, technology has allowed companies to reconsider the way they market themselves, particularly when targeting particular cultures.

In a way these points all interlink in relation to the point that Simon suggested. I summarised them all and triangulated them into one paragraph that will be inserted into my essay after the data section.



Summary


Whilst data can be collected to target specific demographics, it is also important to remember that technology has allowed companies to communicate with their consumers through language, or imagery. One example of this can be seen by McDonald’s lychee product campaign, which launched in 2017. Leo Burnett, an advertising company, used old historical research into Chinese imagery to target consumers in the country. According to Angie Wong, general manager of Leo Burnett Shanghai, ‘young adults take a lot of pride in traditional Chinese culture being represented in a contemporary, fun kind of way’ (2017). By taking influences from old culture and imagery, technology has allowed companies to market new material that can appeal to specific consumers. Linda Hutcheon, a Canadian academic working in the fields of literary theory and criticism, opera, and Canadian studies, makes a point that, despite parody being more of a mockery of original work, pastiche allows new work to be created and refreshed with a different style, meaning and message. This is highlighted where she says 'its art forms (and its theory) use and abuse, install and then subvert convention in parodic ways, self-consciously pointing both to their own inherent paradoxes and provisionality and, of course, to their critical or ironic re-reading of the art of the past’ (2008). In this sense, technology has allowed companies to reconsider the way they market themselves, particularly when targeting particular cultures.

McDonald's China Has a Quirky Campaign For New Products With Lychee, Pineapple. 2017. Doland, A. Available at: https://www.adage.com/article/digital/mcdonald-s-china-a-quirky-strategy-chinese-year/307598/

Hutcheon, L. 2008. The Politics of Postmodernism: Parody and History. Telos.

OUGD501 - Studio Brief 02 - Study Task 09 - Outcomes, Production, Distribution, Mockups & Reception

Outcomes

The two video outcomes produced can be viewed on the 'Study Task 09 - Outcomes, Production, Distribution, Mockups & Reception' blog post (Vimeo videos). In terms of the brief set the outcomes are entirely focused on attempting to resolve the problem of 'serial returners' by minimising the amount of clothes returned. As my essay focuses on new technologies and marketing strategies, I put a real effort on trying to make the outcomes as current and appropriate as possible through using the extensive research made into such areas and careful design considerations throughout the project.

As the target audience chosen was young female adults (16-24), both videos are aimed at such a consumer. Mobile compatible formats were produced because this demographic shops the most on mobile devices, and psychographic considerations were made in terms of the style of clothing picked and transitions (particularly in the marketing ad).

One main point that I make in my essay conclusion is that 'abilities to acquire online data and analyse social media statistics give companies a much stronger ability to understand their customer base, and therefore create more informed, fact-driven campaigns'. I feel that this practical visually highlights this in a very clear manner, as the ideas behind the outcomes were developed completely from the consideration of data, social media and current technology.

Another point raised in my essay is that 'the over-frequent saturation of emails sent to consumers' can 'result in legal trouble, which would impact a company’s reputation hugely (Forneris, 2011). The beauty of this marketing ad campaign is that only one email would have to be sent to individual consumers, rather than continuous emails. As it is personalised, it would have a much greater impact, and therefore be very reputable for the ASOS brand. The only possible problem that comes with this strategy is the cost of it, as the production side of things, particularly the dynamic ads, is quite vast (highlighted in the production boards). Another point raised in my essay is that ‘regular email marketing to existing customers generates a 15 – 50% increase in total online business’ (GetResponse). In this sense, ASOS would have to find a balance between distributing their personalised social media/email ads and platform emails.

The main inspiration for taking on such a marketing-focused brief was mainly from the Spotify's 'Thanks, 2016. It's been weird' data campaign, analysed in my essay. Through developing these outcomes I have tried to prove my first main point in my conclusion that companies can utilise technology to their advantage to make campaigns that are effective and unique. In an age that is very digitally driven, companies can be hugely successful from the developments in technology.







Production

Whilst I have already highlighted how the outcomes above have been made, one production aspect that needs to be considered is how ASOS would actually produce the developed platform and dynamic marketing ads.

For the new ASOS ONE platform, production would initially start by collecting all the sizing guide info together into one main data source. Web designers and coders that work for ASOS would then be able to create an algorithm that can be used to assort the site depending on the consumer's sizes. As their site is already vast and very complex, ASOS has an existing team of web designers that would be able to integrate the new ONE feature with ease. The new platform would have to be created before the marketing campaign, so that users could learn more about it online after being sent the dynamic videos.

The biggest overall challenge that ASOS would have to face is how the item recommendation videos would dynamic and personal to each consumer. To successfully make such videos a third-party company would have to be employed. Impossible Software - the World's leading realtime personalisation platform - who provided the technology behind the 'We Run Paris' dynamic ad campaign, would most likely be employed. ASOS would have a certain budget to work with which would inform the way in which the ads are produced. As seen by their volume render rates, ASOS would have to identify what audiences they want to target, and how many videos per consumer they'd want to pay for.

Whilst I have designed my videos at 1080p, they are 4 times more expensive to get mass-made; therefore, the quality would most likely have to be reduced to keep costs lower for ASOS. Essentially, the production system would work by ASOS providing Impossible Software with the data they need, and then Impossible Software creating mass-renders for ASOS to send out to its targeted, individual consumers.



Distribution & Mockups

After producing the various outcomes ASOS would then have to consider how they will be distributed. As ASOS already has a mobile, tablet and desktop site, the developed platform would simply be added to these areas. However, the marketing campaign requires more consideration in terms of the distribution.

One point that I focused on in my essay is email marketing and its significance. A few of the points found are that:

• ‘Regular email marketing to existing customers generates a 15 – 50% increase in total online business’ 
• Companies can ‘easily find the number of E-mails sent, number of E-mails that have been opened and that those who have opened up, the number of people who are not registered, and click rate’
• The main negative associated with email marketing is spam, and the over-frequent saturation of emails sent to consumers. Companies that send out too many emails, or emails that are resultantly filtered, end up in spam folders – which are mostly deleted and never read by consumers. Abusing certain spam regulations can also result in legal trouble, which would impact a company’s reputation hugely.

As I have used ASOS for a few years, I looked up all the emails that I had received from them. The only emails that ASOS ever appear to send out to consumers is delivery information and welcome messages. Occasionally a newsletter is sent out; however, this is completely optional. Overall, it is clear that ASOS does not over-saturate its consumers with emails, which is great; however, it does not appear that ASOS sends out any personalised emails in relation to the consumers clothing interests. 

For this reason, it seemed appropriate to make the email distribution very personalised. A mockup of how emails could be send out can be seen below. The customers name would be input using data and a 'click here' link would be able to be altered to link the consumer to the products displayed. The dynamic videos produced would be embedded in the emails and sent out to consumers individually. This would aim to make consumers continue to use ASOS ONE, buy more products from ASOS ONE and therefore reduce the 'social returner' problem.

In terms of social media, it has already been highlighted that video ads gain 27 times more engagement than still ads on Facebook. For this reason, the dynamic video should be uploaded to target users. As the ads are personal to each user, privacy considerations would have to be made in terms of distribution. Certain Facebook pages can post on your account if you give them permission. With ASOS ONE, the best distribution method to take would be to create a page where users agree to give the platform the ability to post on their page. The adverts would then be distributed on user timelines, and would be privately viewable only to that individual consumer. A mockup of how an ad would come up can be seen below. This would auto-play upon scrolling and would hope to catch the users attention through the fast animations and transitions.

Reception

As it is very difficult to test whether this would be effective without actually launching the ONE feature, I was able to get some feedback on what people think of the proposed outcomes and whether they would solve the problem of 'social returners', I uploaded my two outcome videos to Vimeo and made an online questionnaire, asking all young adults (16-24) to give feedback on the entire resolution. Links to the videos were put at the start of the questionnaire. Whilst my marketing video focuses mainly on targeting women, it was also interesting to get the feedback of young men too, as they are only a few percent behind women in terms of online clothes shopping. I sent the questionnaire to various people I know in the suited target audience on various social media platforms, as well as putting it on Reddit. The questionnaire made can be seen below.

Overall, I managed to receive over 50 responses. The Google Forms charts genereated for each response can be seen below.

In summary, the feedback was extremely helpful in judging whether the ASOS ONE campaign would be effective or not, in relation to the specified target audience. Overall, I was able to get roughly 65% of the feedback from young female adults - the target audience that the marketing campaign focuses on. What was extremely eye-opening to see was that 70% of people said that they had to return items bought online before because of sizing issues - this is a vast amount. However, what was even more surprising was the fact that 100% of people thought that a more personalised clothes shopping would make them buy more items online. This highlights how personalisation really is crucial and valued highly by consumers. This was found in the research stage as the largest retail company, Amazon, is notorious for having the best personalised platform. In the sense of my outcomes, I feel that they would be successful therefore, as both the developed platform and marketing campaign focus entirely on improving consumer personalisation.

The three main pieces of feedback that really sum up the project, in my view, are questions 5,7 and 8 (vertically down from left to right). The first main judgement that can be made is that the outcomes I have produced are considered to be fairly successful in reducing the problem of 'social returners'. 85% of people thought that ASOS one would be helpful in solving the sizing issue of buying clothes online and 65% of people thought that the proposed ASOS ONE outcomes would minimise the ‘social returner problem’. 25% of people chose 'other' in the last question and left a comment. These were extremely useful pieces of feedback. All the comments given for this highlighted that many people thought the ASOS ONE platform would minimise the 'social returner' problem on the site; however, it would not solve the problem entirely because consumers could still order multiple sizes on other online clothing sites. This is entirely true, and a very good point. Whilst changing ASOS alone would not resolve the entire problem, it would try to minimise the largest section of the online UK retail market. If ASOS did bring these changes into action, other retailers may also put in an effort to stop the effects of 'social returners'. Whilst it is hard to judge the accuracy of the sizing platform, I feel that it is definitely an improvement on the existing platform in combatting the identified problem in this brief.

The second judgement that can be made is that restricting the purchase of multiple sizes of the same item to just one may damage ASOS' customer base. 45% of people said that ordering restrictions would put them off ordering clothes online, whilst 35% said that this would not effect their decision. The main comments given by those people that chose 'other' was that ASOS could slowly introduce the restrictions so that consumers are gradually introduced to the new features. It is clear that there is mixed opinions on this matter; therefore, ASOS would have to be very careful when introducing the restrictions on ordering items.

In conclusion, the feedback suggests that the ASOS ONE campaign would be an effective success with young adults. It was really interesting to learn a lot about existing technologies and marketing, and I am very happy with how the outcomes have been received.

OUGD501 - Studio Brief 02 - Study Task 08 - Development

As I now had a good understanding of the outcomes I want to produce, digital developments were able to be completed. Three main steps were taken that led to the final outcomes being created.



Visual Considerations

As ASOS is a huge company, it is crucial that brand guidelines are kept to in order to keep consistency across all its platforms/marketing campaigns. After researching online I could not find any guidelines regarding design; therefore, I analysed the site to find various visual characteristics that should be followed when producing digital designs.

Typography 

ASOS uses two main typefaces on its platform - Futura Pt and Tahoma. Futura Pt Light is used for body copy and sub-headers, whilst Futura Pt Heavy is used for headers. Tahoma tends to be used for product descriptions and small-sized paragraphs of type. For its marketing, Futura Pt mainly appears to be used. To ensure that my site developments and marketing campaign work with the existing ASOS platform, both typefaces were used throughout the development stage.

Colour

The overall colour scheme on ASOS is very basic. Black is used for bold type and icons, grey is used for sub-header type and paragraphs, white is used for backgrounds and green is used for CTI buttons (‘Add To Bag’, ‘Shop’ etc.). As it is kept very simple, I was able to make a colour scheme that could be used when producing digital designs. 

Young adults have been proven to being more attracted to brighter colours than more muted ones. Whilst green is the only main colour in the scheme, all the colours are very contrasting, which is good as I will be able to effectively grab the young audience’s attention through using opposing colours and transitions (for the marketing campaign).

Imagery, Space & Style

The overall aesthetic of ASOS is minimal, clean and straightforward, making the user experience very clear. Images are large, which is one aspect that consider to be very important (found in the research stages). On the mobile site, ASOS tries to make images as large as possible across the screen; product pages have images that span the entire width of the screen, whilst the catalogue has very margins. As for the typographic layout, text is surrounded by a lot of white space to put a clear focus on the information. This will be used to inform the platform development AND marketing campaign.

Overall, as ASOS' platform is already hugely successful in targeting young adult consumers, there was no necessary need to make changes to their existing aesthetic. In terms of platform development, it is essential that the new ASOS ONE feature stays consistent with the existing visual to ensure that consumers instantly identify it as part of the entire ASOS platform. For the marketing campaign, it is important to keep visual characteristics the same to keep a consistent brand image; however, the visuals for this can be a bit more fun and eye-catching, as it will be targeted specifically for young women.

Storyboards (with audience and technological considerations)

Before creating digital designs I analysed the existing site map of ASOS and created a storyboard, focusing on how the sizing feature and ordering restrictions would work. I chose to name the developed platform ‘ASOS ONE’ to link to how ASOS picks the best, or ‘ONE’, size for you. The basic storyboard made can be seen below. ASOS ONE would essentially be integrated into the site so that new, and existing users, would be able to use it. For my outcome, I am going to make a walkthrough video, focusing on how a young woman would purchase a top. As more women clothes shop online than men, it was more appropriate to select a popular section of clothing to cover. Showing the entire catalogue of items would be too time consuming for me, and would be done by an algorithm if ASOS launched this idea. The video essentially shows the women opening the site, going to the ONE section, entering what she’s shopping for, entering her measurements and then being able to shop through size-assorted platform, with sizes already predicted at checkout. The prevention of the young woman buying more than one size of the same item will also be shown in the video.

Storyboards for the marketing campaign were also made; focusing more on transitions and data. Green type highlights where data would be input. Based on the customer’s purchase, certain similar products would be picked by an algorithm. This, along with their name, would be input into an editable template. For my outcome, I am just going to make an example video that a customer would be sent; I do not have the ability to produce a working dynamic ad as it is very technological - production of the template would be done by a marketing company if ASOS was to launch the idea. Further info on this can be found on the production and distribution boards.





Physically Creating the Outcomes

When creating the outcomes I wanted to ensure that the target audience was completely considered. To do so, I looked back over my research made and noted some points that needed to be followed:

• People aged 18-24 are twice as likely as their parents to do internet shopping on their smartphones. Therefore, it is more effective to make the designs work on a mobile format.
• 81% of customers say that they will buy from a business again if they were satisfied with the experience. Therefore, both the platform development and marketing campaign must have a personalised feel to them.
• Consumers are 27 times more likely to click through online video ads than standard banners, which are now declining at a rate of nearly 45%. For this reason, the marketing campaign will be entirely video-focused.
• According to Kinetic, who tracked data based on 2 billion social ad impressions, video ads with 30-60 second lengths had the highest 'viewed to completion' rate. For this reason, the marketing campaign video should be within this time frame.

The first element that I needed to produce was the 'ONE' logo. This was kept in line with ASOS' clean, simple and minimal style, using the Futura Pt Light typeface to keep a consistent aesthetic.

The first outcome that I chose to produce is the platform walkthrough video. The easiest way to produce this was to design the mobile platform stills in Photoshop and animate it in Adobe After Effects. By relating back to the visual considerations made earlier in the development stage, stills were made for each section of the storyboard. Informed by the space analysis made of ASOS' existing site, designs were made fairly wide. The Visual Analysis research made at the start of the project was considered when making the pages too. For the 'what are you shopping for today?' page symbolic icons were used, as many clothing stores use them to visually direct users. One aspect that was picked up in the research stage was that that online stores accompany iconic symbolic icons with text to further make the shopping experience clear. For this reason, items were accompanied by their name.

With relation to the layout, type and positioning of elements, all the other pages were made to be as visually consistent as possible to the existing ASOS platform, to ensure that the updated user experience is still familiar with consumers. ASOS' current sizing guides are fairly detailed; therefore, I was able to assort items through using the various sizing guides of a UK 10. For an easier user experience, the ASOS platform would fill in the average bust, waist and hip sizes when clicking on an average size. Users could measure themselves and manually change this themselves for a completely accurate fit. Inches and centimetres can be chosen for different users; however, as my walkthrough video is focusing on the UK, I have used inches, which are more commonly used.

To visually show the site restrictions on ordering two sizes of the same item I created a greyed out 'add to basket' page. Here, users would not be able to add the item to their basket until it has been delivered, and would be able to learn about why ASOS is bringing this change in by clicking the 'Learn More' text.

The final stills made can be seen below. Page transitions were animated in After Effects and a voice over was created to explain the ASOS ONE sizing resolution.

The marketing campaign was also completed in a similar manner - the stills were produced in Photoshop first then animated in After Effects. Based on ASOS' other item recommendations on the top included in the platform walkthrough video, three items were chosen to put into the marketing video. It was made in a 1080p format because it is the highest-quality possible that can be used for display ads and online videos. These will be embedded into emails and be featured on social media timelines. 

Looking back at the Visual Analysis research made, ASOS manages to grab the consumer's attention by using antithesis in its marketing (contrasting colours). As the target audience is young adults, the marketing video needed to be as engaging and eye-catching as possible. To make sure that this was done, a variety of fast, colourful page transitions were made. Animations made are also fairly fast to try and ensure that the consumer does not lose interest. As images on the ASOS site span the entire width of the page, I used very narrow margins for the suggested clothing images. The typography was all taken from the existing product descriptions.

Whilst music is not a crucial part of the marketing campaign, it is one aspect that should be included to add further interest in the video. A few online campaign videos were found online and analysed in terms of the music they use. Overall, the songs are quite commercial house tracks that sound positive and energetic.



When considering what song to use for my marketing campaign, I tried to pick a commercial house song that a lot of young adults know. A positive, yet quite relaxed anthem is Duke Dumont's 'I Got U' track. To put more of a focus on the written content in the video, an instrumental was used.



The final marketing ad length is 38 seconds, which is within the optimum time for the 'highest completion rate'.