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.
No comments:
Post a Comment