The Splash | Issue 2: Getting personal | By Turtl
In this issue of The Splash: accessibility as a human right, conversational marketing, life after cookies, cultural intelligence in marketing and more
*Issue 2*
Getting personal
*<b>Accessibility</b> as a human right*
*Content meets <b>conversation</b>*
*Life in a <b>post-cookie</b> world*
*<b>Cultural intelligence </b>in marketing, and more...*
*Intro and contents:*
Do you really know your audience?
Getting personal with your prospects, customers, and employees
Whether you spend your days wading through code or managing shareholders, the work we all do ultimately comes down to impacting people. This is pretty obvious for those of us in marketing and comms-related roles constantly looking for new and better ways to understand and reach our audiences. A lot of attention has been paid in the past decade or two to the multiplying channels that have made reach a more complex endeavor. Amidst growing data-privacy concerns coupled with scrutiny over ROI and efficacy, we've recently seen a sizable shift to prioritizing quality above quantity, which has brought a new focus to truly understanding our readers, prospects, and customers. Gartner predicts that by 2022, 25% of marketing departments will have a dedicated behavioral scientist or ethnographer as part of their full-time staff.
It's not just marketers who should strive for a deeper understanding of potential and existing customers. Every employee benefits from a more personal experience of the contexts, needs, and preferences of those who use the products and services their organization offers – especially those involved in designing those products, who are often surprisingly removed from end-users.
A better understanding of the values and behaviors of employees has also risen up the agenda. Organizations like MindGym apply psychology to help businesses transform performance, while the likes of Perkbox and Mintago have emerged to improve how businesses cater to the needs of employees beyond providing a salary. These types of organizations have been welcomed with open arms as the fight to attract and retain talent grows ever more intense.
In this issue of The Splash we take a look at different ways in which businesses and marketers can succeed by getting personal with the people they want to engage. ◆
Dani Mansfield,
Editor, The Splash
Making tech for all people matters for reasons beyond social conscientiousness
For brands to build relationships with people they need to have conversations – as and when the customer wants them
Culture, wellbeing, and psychological safety in the workplace
Digital marketers are mourning the death of the cookie. The picture isn't quite so simple – or so bleak
When targeting cultures they're unfamiliar with, brands need to act responsibly - or risk it all.
What it means to build an actual human tone of voice and identity for your brand
*Feature:*
Tech accessibility as a human right
Making tech for all people matters for reasons beyond social conscientiousness
By <b>Lucy Spencer
Designing technology - including websites - to be inclusive and accessible to all makes social, moral, and business sense
By Lucy Spencer
A big red button that can instruct Google Assistant to play a YouTube playlist may not seem like a massive innovation, but for Google engineer Lorenzo Caggioni and his brother Giovanni, it was life-changing.
This simple device designed by Lorenzo and his Google colleagues meant Giovanni, who has Down’s syndrome, limited vision, and a severe speech impediment, could take control of his world through technology in a way that fits his needs.
“Now, Giovanni is able to express himself with the music that he loves. It may help us to focus on what we are: just brothers,” Lorenzo said.
Watch: Lorenzo and Giovanni's story
But not everyone who has a disability has a Google engineer for a brother.
The 61 million American adults who live with a disability - one in four people across the country, an estimated 2 billion across the globe – rely on inclusive and accessible designed technology to help them interact with the world in ways that fit their needs.
Tackling tech discrimination
Americans with disabilities are roughly three times as likely as the "average" American to never go online, according to the Pew Research Center. Their research also shows that Americans with disabilities are 20% less likely to own a computer, smartphone, or tablet.
And when they do, they can often face significant barriers. Students at Portland Community College, for example, were rendered unable to complete core coursework because of inaccessible web content and devices.
Access to the internet is today so fundamental to participation in human society that the UN's human rights council released a statement in 2016 "stressing the importance of applying a comprehensive human rights-based approach when providing and expanding access to the Internet and for the Internet to be open, accessible, and nurtured".
This isn't just a matter of standing against internet censorship or supporting internet initiatives in the developing world, but an acknowledgment of the role web accessibility now plays in our ability to exercise basic socio-political rights and participate equally in society.
“Fundamentally, people with disabilities need to be included in online education, employment, civic, and social opportunities,” Kate Sonka, Executive Director of Teach Access, told The Splash.
There are no limits to what people can achieve when technology reflects the diversity of everyone who uses it
Microsoft spokesperson
Teach Access is a collaboration between academia, industry, and advocates that aims to enhance university students’ understanding of digital accessibility to ensure that future technologies are “born accessible”. Among its members are Facebook, Google, and Microsoft.
These technology giants have rolled out a wide variety of inclusive accessibility projects in recent years. “We believe there are no limits to what people can achieve when technology reflects the diversity of everyone who uses it,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Splash.
Facebook’s automated AI-driven alt text descriptions of pictures help people with vision difficulties. Google has a range of accessibility products and features, including Live Caption, which transcribes video and phone calls in real-time, and Live Relay which helps people who are deaf to make phone calls. Last year, Microsoft’s Xbox Adaptive Controller, a customizable device that was designed to empower gamers with limited mobility, was made available worldwide. Microsoft’s Seeing AI is an app that narrates the world for people who are blind or have low vision.
Despite innovative initiatives like these opening up new channels and opportunities for people with disabilities, vast amounts of websites and apps fail to meet accessibility requirements. And so the fight for inclusive design is heating up.
Designing with broad inclusion in mind supports product innovation and increases market reach
Kate Sonka, Executive Director of Teach Access
The number of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits related to website accessibility nearly tripled from 2017 to 2018. Leading pizza chain Domino's is currently in legal battles over the accessibility of its website to visually impaired people after the Supreme Court rejected the company's appeal for the case to be thrown out. A similar case cost retail chain Target a fine of $6 million in class damages back in 2008.
Tech-free rules discriminate
The many ways in which technology - in particular smartphones - support people of all walks of life in their day-to-day needs to be considered carefully when introducing guidelines and rules around how and when this tech can be used. A recent twitter thread by Senior Engineering Manager at FinTech challenger bank Monzo, Sally Lait, drew attention to the privileged view of technology that lies behind "no device" policies that are springing up in response to perceived issues around digital addiction.
In response to an enforced device ban at a pub, Lait wrote: "Fair enough, most of our usage wasn't needed. But what about situations where a device is genuinely essential for someone? Helping to independently read a menu if visually impaired? Quickly reading and writing to communicate if hearing is difficult?"
Commenting on the discriminatory nature of these policies, Lait lays the point bare: "Your experience of technology is not the same as others".
impaired? Quickly reading and writing to communicate if hearing is difficult?"
Commenting on the discriminatory nature of these policies, Lait lays the point bare: "Your experience of technology is not the same as others"
More than a subset
Accessibility is not just about catering to a subset of people, and it's not just "the right thing to do". Designing for inclusivity provides better experiences for us all.
If you, as an able-bodied person, break your arm or get an eye infection, you might suddenly be grateful for the flexibility at the heart of accessible design to continue with activities you otherwise take for granted, like writing an email.
It's not just about catering to physical disabilities either. Providing solutions that support the experiences of those with cognitive disabilities are also likely to improve the user experience for neurotypicals.
Our cognitive abilities fluctuate in response to factors like emotional state and fatigue, affecting how successfully we navigate the unfamiliar and interact with the world - and technology - around us.
Our cognitive abilities also deteriorate with age. Research by Nielsen has shown that people's abilities to use websites declines by 0.8% a year between the ages of 25 and 60, and older users are more likely to make mistakes when using interfaces, which becomes a source of friction and frustration. This is a UX issue.
Designing products with inclusion and accessibility in mind promotes positive experiences and use cases for people beyond those with a qualified disability.
The purchasing power of people with disabilities
In the US, the discretionary income (the money you have for nonessential items after taxes and basic living expenses have been paid) of people with disabilities is estimated to be roughly $21 billion - more than the African-American and Hispanic market segments combined.
Innovation through inclusion
Examples of inclusive design are everywhere – and you may not even realize it. Closed captions on streaming sites help people with hearing difficulties, but also non-native language speakers, and those on a noisy commute. Increased light settings on a smartphone help people with poor vision, but can also be useful when you want to reply to a message on a sunny sidewalk.
“Studies have shown that designing with broad inclusion in mind supports product innovation and increases market reach,” Sonka said. Apple has shown this to be true. The company has always championed accessibility in product design as part of its mission to create products that are inclusive of everyone, not just focusing on "the bloody ROI". “It was the extreme ease of use of the iPhone for blind users that led to its wide adoption in the sight-impaired community,” said Sonka. The same is arguably true of adoption in the sighted community.
We see accessibility as a basic human right
Sarah Herrlinger, director of Global Accessibility Policy & Initiatives at Apple
Accessibility tech has been part of the journey to capabilities like natural language processing. Today, many of us use voice assistants like Siri and Google Assistant to add items to our shopping list, set timers when making dinner, or to settle an argument about the number of moons that Jupiter has (79, in case you were wondering). This technology developed from a text-to-speech program that was designed to help blind and partially sighted people.
Is inclusive design part of your product/marketing strategy?
- Yes, it's a consideration from the start of any new initiative
- We're in the process of solving current/legacy limitations
- No, but I would like to make it a priority
I think sometimes developers lose sight of the actual person
Santina Croniser, accessibility consultant
The philosophy of inclusive design
Advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as virtual reality and augmented reality, open up new possibilities to empower and engage people with disabilities on a day-to-day basis.
“In the years ahead, technology has the potential to truly empower people with disabilities in new ways. Prioritizing inclusive design across digital spaces not only opens up our products and experiences to more people with a wider range of abilities, it also reflects how people are growing, changing, and adapting to the world around them every day,” a Microsoft spokesperson told The Splash. “To enable transformative change, accessibility needs to be a priority woven into the fabric of what we design and build for every team, organization, classroom, and home.”
Bringing designers and engineers closer to the people who end up using their products is an important part of this process, which stands to benefit UX more broadly too.
"I think sometimes developers lose sight of the actual person—that there's a real person that's sitting there trying to use a product," said Santina Croniser, an accessibility consultant based in Chicago. "This is even more compounded when you look at accessibility issues."
Creating tech that is accessible from inception is not a technological challenge in so far as a problem of mindset. Baking inclusivity into projects from the start is all-round cheaper and easier than retroactively "fixing" sites or apps when accessibility issues are exposed - especially when million-dollar settlements are the consequence. ◆
*Infographic:*
The customer experience
What drives people away and how technology is expected to help
Q: Which of the following would stop you from doing business with a company?
32%
of consumers stop interacting with a brand they love after one bad experience
56%
say most interactions with brands are overly complex
Sources: PwC, 2018/2019, OpenMarket 2019
How will AI impact customer experience?
Sources: OpenMarket 2019, IBM 2019
Sources: OpenMarket 2019, IBM 2019
"Once technology becomes advanced we won't need people for great customer experience" - Agree or disagree?
"Once technology becomes advanced we won't need people for great customer experience" - Agree or disagree?
*Opinion:*
A little more conversation
For brands to build relationships with people they need to have conversations – as and when the customer wants them
By <b>Mark Kilens</b>, VP of Content and Community at Drift<small/>
The rise of conversational marketing
MARK KILENS,
VP OF CONTENT AND COMMUNITY AT DRIFT
Conversational marketing can take your digital content from a one-way channel to a two-way interaction, giving customers more valuable and memorable experiences
It’s news to no one that we have more information at our fingertips than ever before. The same is true of the number of options people have for what to buy, where to buy it and how. As a result, our expectations, especially when it comes to convenience, are going up and up. We are firmly in an era where customers are in control.
To succeed in the digital world, you have to have a website built for the customer era. If a visitor can't find something - a product, or an answer to a question - or get connected to someone to talk to quickly, you are creating a worse experience for that person than most have the patience for. And you might lose them to a competitor, or to another website, or to Google.
If you're not focused on experience, you’re in a race to the bottom
Experiences are essential
When it comes to your brand, if you're not focused on experience, you’re in a race to the bottom. Almost everything has been commoditized. How do you stand out? How are you different? Why should someone choose you?
When a B2B or B2C brand means something to someone it’s evoking some type of emotion. People need a reason beyond the nuts and bolts of your product to believe in and follow your brand. Brands today have to build emotional connections with their audience. Your brand’s promise, what your brand stands for and what people feel about it matters more and more.
You can't build relationships without conversation
These sentiments are established in the sum of all interactions between a business and the individual.
At every touchpoint, every interaction, the experience needs to capture and convey your brand’s unique point of view, an overarching set of values and a consistent voice. The experience at the top of the funnel needs to support what the sales and marketing teams are doing at a more personal 1:1 level further down. These characteristics will help you to engage the right people and create a connection - an emotional reaction, and an affinity to the brand.
A holistic view of customer interactions when considering brand experience is especially important in B2B, because really what you're trying to do is build a relationship. Beyond brand identity, marketers need to think through how we use content and experiences - online and offline - to personalize and deepen those relationships. You need to think through how you're going to add value to people each time they interact with your brand.
Content and conversations
This is why content is more important than ever. But content has always been a one-way thing. I, as a marketer, am going to publish a lot of content to educate or entertain people and hope they a) find it, and b) read it. What if someone has a question? Or they want to talk to you right after they read the content? Or they want to talk to you while they're reading that content? This is where conversational marketing comes in. You need to use something like conversational marketing to be able to create that connection with that person in the context of their choosing which then feeds into the relationship you're trying to build with them.
Marketers need to create opportunities for conversations throughout a person’s journey with your brand, not just at the very bottom of the funnel
You can't build relationships without conversation. There has to be a natural back and forth and that has to be done over time. If you're already serving people with useful entertainment, useful education, it’s time to go deeper by starting to have conversations with them. In addition to a content strategy, you need a conversation strategy.
At Drift, we work with a framework that helps you understand how to really have conversations. It comes down to three elements: Engage, Understand, Recommend. A natural conversation should have points of engagement, a shared understanding between two or more people, and recommendations made that help both parties get something from that conversation.
What's your most effective channel for building relationships with prospective customers?
- Social media
- Your website
- Events
- Webinars
Marketers need to create opportunities for conversations throughout a person’s journey with your brand, not just at the very bottom of the funnel. Pre-purchase, this spans five stages:
- Engage
- Educate
- Research
- Evaluate
- Justify
Your content and conversational marketing strategies need to cover how you can engage and educate people, help them research your solution/product, evaluate if you're the right fit for them and justify their investment.
Bots for the heavy lifting
To create the most emotionally accommodating brand experience, it's imperative that every single page of your website offers someone a simple way to connect with you, just as people expect when visiting a physical store. One difference is that online, the rep they speak with doesn’t have to be a human.
Let’s take your blog as an example, which is typically more top to middle of the funnel. After about 10 seconds of reading, you could have a chatbot pop open that invites them into a conversation: “Hey, thanks for coming over to read this article, do you have any questions about [blog topic]?” or “ Do you want to hear a joke about [blog topic]”. From there, you can directly answer common questions with preprogrammed answers, point to other resources where they can find an answer or simply try and make them laugh. Any and all of these add more value to the interactions and make them more memorable.
The more you understand about someone - the who, the what, they why - the easier it is to meaningfully personalize the experience of their next interactions
If a person you’ve been nurturing visits a case study or a particular product page, you can have their sales rep reach out through the chat functionality on-page to answer any questions, picking up the conversation at a time when they are already interacting with your brand.
Conversational marketing is a pretty easy way to get started with personalizing the experience you give people on your website. You can use contextual information - like where the reader arrived on the page from (search, social), their IP location, the subject matter of the page and so on to tailor the questions and messages used to prompt conversation. You can use the conversations themselves to further unpack why the person is looking at that page. It follows that the more you understand about someone - the who, the what, they why - the easier it is to meaningfully personalize the experience of their next interactions with your brand and make a deeper connection.◆
*Q&A:*
"We’ve all worked at a job with a bad culture, no one sticks around for long"
A conversation with <b>Chieu Cao</b>, Co-founder & CEO of Mintango, and Co-founder of Perkbox
Q&A
For this issue of The Splash, we caught up with Chieu Cao, Founder and CEO of Mintago, and Co-founder of Perkbox, about attracting talent, building a strong culture, and keeping employees happy and healthy.
You’ve founded several companies over the years that have put people at the heart of the business. Tell us about that journey.
It’s been an amazing ride since I founded Perkbox over ten years ago, and then Mintago more recently. It’s certainly not been the easiest journey and we’ve had to rethink things a few times over the years, but we’re now at a place where we’re really helping a lot of businesses.
We recognized that there was a big shift in society to become more employee-centric. Millennials were driving this change by being a lot more vocal than past generations, asking for things like better management and healthier workplaces. They were talking about issues that had been considered pretty taboo before, like mental, financial, and emotional wellbeing
We caught up with Chieu Cao, Founder and CEO of Mintago, and Co-founder of Perkbox, about attracting talent, building a strong culture, and keeping employees happy and healthy.
You’ve founded several companies that have put people at the heart of the business. Tell us about that journey.
It’s been an amazing ride since I founded Perkbox over ten years ago, and then Mintago more recently. It’s certainly not been the easiest journey and we’ve had to rethink things a few times over the years, but we’re now at a place where we’re really helping a lot of businesses.
We recognized that there was a big shift in society to become more employee-centric. Millennials were driving this change by being a lot more vocal than past generations, asking for things like better management and healthier workplaces. They were talking about issues that had been considered pretty taboo before, like mental, financial, and emotional wellbeing.
Management needs to set a culture that allows people to express their personal views and challenges
We started Perkbox to reward employees for their hard work, giving them access to hundreds of awesome perks and benefits. It was part of our broader mission to help companies create a better culture. One that resonates with both millennials and employers who cared about their staff. On the other hand, Mintago came about to help employees become financially happier and healthier, while supporting their mental and physical wellbeing.
A lot of companies start out with progressive cultures when they’re small but struggle to maintain them as they grow. Why do you think this is?
Culture’s always changing. The important question is, what is the right culture at every stage of the business? The right culture is the one that has everyone aligned in terms of how they see the world. There’s no such thing as the right culture, there’s the right culture for that company. The culture is wrong when people aren’t supportive of each other and have wildly different views on things. This can be really costly to a company. I mean we’ve all worked at a job with a bad culture, no one sticks around for long.
So what causes bad cultures? Who’s responsible for that?
Every time you hire new people, especially senior people, they bring along their views of the world, their past experiences, and the cultures they’re used to. If you hire someone senior with the wrong cultural mindset, it could cause a lot of disruption. All of the people below them are exposed to this new culture that may not comply with the company’s intended culture.
Obviously, it’s difficult to always hire someone who matches your culture perfectly, but it’s the founder’s job to nurture culture as they grow and unite mindsets to protect its integrity. Business leaders need to stand strong on culture and their view of what that culture should be. And they should be willing to let people go if they’re disrupting that. You can hire people who are technically really good on paper but they may not be a good cultural fit. This is something business leaders will be faced with often.
Financial health is one of the most personal issues you can talk about, and along with mental health, it’s a subject people are likely to hide from their employers
There’s more and more evidence that we’re facing a global shortage of talented candidates. What can companies do to attract the right people?
Talented candidates have options and can afford to be picky. They’re looking for jobs that are more than just a paycheck. I’ve found that the companies that attract a disproportionately greater amount of talent can satisfy several needs: a salary that meets candidate expectations, peers who believe in what they believe in, a great culture and work environment, and strong direction and vision as a company. Beyond that, it’s down to employer branding. We talk a lot about product branding, but a lot of companies still haven’t really evolved to think of themselves as a brand. You need to make people want to work there.
Marketers talk a lot about personalization aimed at leads and prospects. Do you think similar tactics can be applied to keep employees happy and engaged?
Absolutely. The technologies we have access to now are incredibly powerful. At my current business, Mintago, we focus on helping other businesses help their employees with their finances. Financial health is one of the most personal issues you can talk about, and along with mental health, it’s a subject people are likely to hide from their employers. But if you’re able to help your employees with this very personal problem, you’re making a positive impact on their lives both inside and outside of work. The reason we’re able to do this is largely due to the tech that’s out there.
We’re all human. We all fail and we all need to be able to deal with and recover from failure.
But again, it takes a certain kind of culture to allow this. Management needs to set a culture that allows people to express their personal views and challenges. People need to be able to feel like they can openly talk about their financial difficulties and mental health and I think the future of leadership will be eliminating these taboos so that the right technology can help people.
What advice would you give business leaders who want to create this kind of open culture for their employees?
Every manager should know about the concept of “psychological safety”. Psychological safety allows people to be themselves. It’s the ability to make mistakes in front of you and their peers without fear. It’s what allows people to talk about challenging issues that may expose their vulnerability.
People want to show their competency at work and hide their weaknesses. But in order to do a good job, people need to show failure as well as greatness. We’re all human. We all fail and we all need to be able to deal with and recover from failure. Companies create psychological safety by allowing that to happen.
In marketing, for example, maybe around 80% of ideas will fail. If you only focus on the 20% that succeeded, you ignore the fact that the majority of your employees’ time was spent on something that didn’t work. By not acknowledging that work, you psychologically undermine them. People will naturally want to avoid talking about their own failures for fears of repercussions, but a lot of good can come from failing and employees shouldn’t be afraid to do so.◆
*Opinion:*
Life after cookies
If you believe the rumors, digital marketers are mourning the death of the cookie. The picture isn't quite so simple – or so bleak – says
<b> Matt Garisch </b> from The Croc
With major web browsers blocking third-party cookies, digital marketers are forced to adopt new tactics and become better at how we engage with our audiences
Matt Garisch, Head of Customer Engagement at The Crocodile
For years now, I have started to look forward to the latest "travesty" or revolutionary change that will befall marketers at the start of each year. Let’s not kid ourselves: we all like a bit of drama. But when the dust settles and the issue (whatever it happens to be that month) is adequately understood, the industry survives and is most likely better off.
This time round I’m talking about the world of cookies or rather, the lack thereof. Why? Well with Chrome, Safari, Brave, and Firefox no longer threatening but eradicating cookies almost entirely in the next couple of years, people are saying the end of digital advertising is nigh. Wrong! Don't believe the hype. Yes, we will have to change our habits, and yes, some things will no longer be possible, but there will always be one constant: there is no substitute for great advertising that has context, relevance, and creativity.
A bit of cookie context.
(Warning: if you are a digital specialist you may want to skip this bit.)
What are cookies? Cookies are necessary. In reality, they are just a bit of information that passes back and forth between web servers and your web browser when you visit websites. First-party cookies (from the site you are visiting) enable you to quickly log in and keep track of your shopping trolley or the articles you have already read. Without the cookies, you'd be treated like a perpetual first-time visitor.
The not so great side: third-party cookies
These are cookies generated by websites that you are not currently visiting. In other words, they're owned by the advertising companies placing adverts on the site you're browsing.
Somewhere along the way, anti-cookie feeling (and data privacy concerns more generally) reached critical mass
Enter the 'bad boys' of the digital world. At first, the arrival of data management platforms (DMPs) was great news. They enabled us to combine first, second and third-party data to provide consistent and repeatable experiences across multiple marketing channels. Hooray!
However, they also increased marketers' power to track consumer behaviour throughout the media mix (after you got cookie'd). They can tell what you were browsing when you saw their advert, what you searched for, and what ultimately encouraged you to go to their page. It also enables them to track whether you went to their homepage several days after seeing their advert, allowing them to attribute your visit to those previous adverts you saw. So far so reasonable, with the risk of verging into creepy territory.
Information like this also helps brands make predictions on your future actions leveraging their 1st party data and purchase additional 3rd party data to supplement what they already know about you. Doing this enables marketers to personalize your experience(advertising) with messaging that has context, relevance and eerily well-timed. In a nutshell, marketers can purchase third-party data or consumer data collected by other companies' or publishers' cookies via DMP's. This enables them to know your browsing history better than you do. Firmly in the realms of creepy, stalker-like behaviour now.
For many, that’s where things become problematic. Somewhere along the way, anti-cookie feeling (and data privacy concerns more generally) reached critical mass. It was only a matter of time before the backlash. Cue legislation like GDPR and CCPA, and the rise of "privacy-first" browsers like Brave.
So what is going to change?
Not all cookie-based techniques are going to completely die, so without going into to much detail here are the highlights. With Google's latest recommendations due to land in the next two years, there are some fundamental changes that will take place.
- Attribution will become virtually impossible, and last click will be the gold standard
- Third-party data will not exist
- DMPs/Programmatic is not going to survive as a technique
Does your company currently use third-party data?
What does this mean for marketers?
One thing is for sure: cookies are not going away entirely – contrary to how it's phrased, cookies are not "blocked" but deleted in increasingly short amounts of time. (7 days down to 24 hours, meaning any conversions that take longer than a single day will fall off your attribution radar.) Even if Google has its way with its Chrome Sandbox concepts, the information will still be collected but completely anonymized.
The catch here is that you will need to work within the walled gardens of the publishers (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) and their targeting abilities
The upside is that these changes could be a force for good, forcing us to become better at how we engage with our audiences, pushing our campaigns to drive higher impact through creativity, context, and relevance. These changes are put in place to improve their experience, after all.
So what's next?
Stepping forward into 2020, there are already solutions and tactics you can deploy to overcome some of the challenges in this new world of cookie transparency and data privacy. First and foremost, marketers need to move away from generic messaging, get a deeper understanding of their audience and engage with relevance and context. Below are four considerations for digital advertising in a cookie-less world.
Relevance combined with creativity will always beat shouting a generic message across all channels
1. Contextual advertising
If we previously relied on behavioral cookie targeting to serve relevant advertising, the small leap is to serve adverts to pages with content that's relevant to our products or services. If the content is targeted at our audience, and the publisher can prove that they have the right traffic coming to their site, then our adverts would do well to be placed there.
We have to understand the needs of our audience and the places they go to find answers. That way, we can be there next time they need help.
2. People-based targeting
Not an entirely new concept, as many marketers are already doing it in some form. The original idea was introduced by Facebook some time ago. This type of marketing does not rely on cookies but the first-party customer data owned by the vendor. It enables you to engage your audiences on their platform of choice, and use targeting tools to home in on your target audience.
The catch here is that you will need to work within the walled gardens of the publishers (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) and their targeting abilities.
3. Machine learning & predictive modeling
Google (and I am sure others are too) is currently working on building a data hub that will enable you to use predictive models to improve ad targeting and prevent over-exposure – without the use of cookies. It will use machine learning to predict the likelihood of users returning to specific sites or pages and will tailor ad placements accordingly.
4. Be the publisher
Joe Pulizzi and others have shown that brands can take ownership of the topics, sectors or categories they want to influence by cutting out the middleman and creating their own publishing platforms. They become the voice their audience engage with directly, gain insights into what their interests are, and become a trusted adviser rather than just a vendor.
Parting words
Don't panic. Yes, it's scary to be told you have to change your practices, but the do-nothing alternative will be scarier in the long run. Focus instead on the purpose of the changes for our audiences. Change is taking place precisely because the current system is no longer fit for purpose. Relevance combined with creativity will always beat shouting a generic message across all channels.
*Feature:*
Lost in translation
How to personalize marketing for groups and cultures you don't understand
By <b>Kit McKay
Progressive marketers must recognize that effective target marketing hinges on a deeper understanding of culture than they're currently equipped for
As brands move into new regions, countries, and cultures, they need to create specific messaging for targeted communities. Translation is a part of that, but effective target marketing to new cultures works towards building deep and meaningful connections at a local level.
In order for international businesses to reach a multicultural audience, marketing leaders and strategists have to make inclusive decisions, rethink personalization, and move away from conflating culture with demographics.
As things stand, when most businesses begin marketing to new regions, they often have limited familiarity with the people and cultures they’re trying to engage with. Without consulting people of that culture, brands risk exporting their domestic marketing and falling flat or creating ill-informed targeted campaigns based on stereotypes and personal beliefs.
Cross-cultural marketing mishaps
When Coca-Cola directly phonetically translated their name into Chinese, they literally translated it to “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”, depending on the dialect. Chinese is a particularly complex language made up of tens of thousands of Chinese characters, and the phonetics and meaning of each character can vary widely between dialects. For example, Peugeot’s name in Chinese is “Biaozhi” which sounds particularly like a slang word for prostitute in areas of southern China, inspiring many dirty jokes about the brand.
A lack of diversity on decision-making teams can often stunt a brand’s ability to craft authentic, effective messaging.
And it can run deeper than language. When Proctor & Gamble launched a commercial in Japan, they learned that what works in the US can be considered offensive in other cultures. The ad showed a Japanese man walking into the bathroom while his wife bathed in a bathtub, a non-offensive scene in western culture. However, Japanese women were offended by the ad.
“It’s bad manners for a husband to impose on his wife’s privacy while she is bathing,” explains Mia Ishiguro on Japanese culture. “Our consumers resented the breach of good manners and overt chauvinism of the situation.”
These situations could have been easily avoided if someone familiar with the target culture had a say in the strategic process.
Diversity vs inclusivity
Proctor & Gamble’s Japanese commercial is a good example of diversity without inclusion. To appeal to a Japanese audience, they inserted Japanese actors, but by failing to include someone in the planning stage who would have recognized the cultural discrepancy, the diversity felt like a thin layer over content that was essentially still American.
According to a panel of experts brought together by WHOSAY, a lack of diversity on decision-making teams can often stunt a brand’s ability to craft authentic, effective messaging.
The panelists argue that diversity is only part of a multicultural marketing strategy. Diversity is representing various cultures in your marketing and bringing in a broader range of employees. Inclusion is the real game-changer, elevating diverse voices to decision-making roles where they can influence campaign development from the start.
Watch the full WHOSAY panel here:
Building inclusive teams
Whether it’s your own in-house team or the agencies you work with, more inclusive teams help maximize how effectively you can target cultural segments.
BMW uses Cashmere Agency for its multicultural marketing aimed at African-American, Asian, and Latino audiences in the US.
"BMW's U.S. customer base is as broad and diverse as the country itself," said Kevin Williams, multicultural marketing manager of BMW of North America. "In addition to their expertise among the three largest U.S. ethnic segments, Cashmere Agency also has a unique understanding of the LGBTQ consumer segments – all of which will enable us to better serve our growing clientele."
Positive attitudes toward personalized messaging are not global
Proctor & Gamble has learned a lot since its failed Japanese commercial. It’s now often praised as one of the leaders in inclusive marketing, prioritizing its own in-house inclusivity and also putting pressure on its partners and agencies to build their own inclusive teams. An executive at P&G told WARC that their goal is to create messaging that understands multicultural consumers and successfully reaches at least 90% of every cultural group they target.
Target marketing based on demographics often misses the mark.
Allowing people who belong to your target culture to both oversee strategies and implement campaigns is essential to guarantee your multicultural marketing really represents and appeals to your target audience.
Rethinking personalization
Positive attitudes toward personalized messaging are not global. There have been various studies on international perceptions of personalized messaging. The results are clear - it’s not for everyone. While personalization and target marketing often go hand-in-hand in the US, it could be potentially damaging to apply the same tactics elsewhere. Being aware of different cultural attitudes towards personalized messaging can help you create more effective target marketing strategies.
Attitudes and preferences
A study from Periscope by McKinsey found that while 50% of US consumers feel positive towards receiving personalized messages from brands, only 37% of UK consumers and 29% of Germans feel the same way. The research also found that different kinds of personalized marketing are favored by different nationalities.
US consumers rated their favorite personalization as:
- Items that fit their personal style
- Items related to frequently purchased products
- Messaging tied to special occasions
German consumers, on the other hand, chose:
- Communications that include their name
- References to a recent search they made
- Items that fit their personal style
This suggests that there are certain conditions and environments across countries influencing perceptions of personalization.
Technological determinism
Marshall McLuhen created the concept of “technological determinism’ to suggest that certain cultural phenomena can be attributed to technological development.
A cross-cultural comparison of perceptions towards personalized email advertising between Korea and the US hypothesized that US consumers would be more receptive towards personalized email marketing because they had been exposed to this kind of marketing for longer and would, therefore, be used to seeing more personalization.
However, the study actually found that Korean consumers felt significantly more positive towards personalized email advertising than Americans. The professor who authored the study suggests that the explanation for the findings come from the exponential popularity of internet usage among Korean consumers. This rapid increase in consumer demand has dramatically increased the digital advertising budgets of Korean companies, causing them to roll out personalization in force, which has created a more interlinked and interactive form of marketing that appeals to a Korean audience. This helps dilute concerns over data privacy in Korea in a way that isn’t as effective in the US, who have been exposed to this level of technology for longer.
Collectivism vs individualism
How different cultures react to personalization may be linked to how collectivist or independent their cultural orientations are. This is determined by the extent to which the people of that culture define their self-image in terms of “I” or “we”.
A study found that consumers with collectivistic tendencies respond less favorably to a company advertising product recommendations based on their own individual preferences. On the other hand, consumers with more independent tendencies respond more positively.
Culture is not a birthright, it’s a choice that people can opt in to
Eddie Yoon, Director of The Cambridge Group
Consumers in countries that rank high on individualism, like the US and Australia, tend to primarily think of themselves when making purchasing decisions, so personalization is best positioned to capture their interest. Collectivist countries like Mexico and Turkey tend to make decisions in groups so value recommendations and long-term brand reputation more.
The keyword here is “tend”. While we can try and think of the qualities of countries generally, true cultural intelligence is being aware that culture goes beyond nationality and to perfect a target marketing strategy, we need to get more granular than that.
Beware demographics
Target marketing based on demographics often misses the mark. Nationality, ethnicity, age, etc. don’t truly reflect the interests and behaviors of every member of that group and this creates potential missed opportunities. This kind of cultural intelligence allows you to discover hidden markets.
For example, hip hop music is predominantly targeted to young, urban black Americans, yet 80% of this genre is consumed by suburban white men. The Korean soap opera My Love From the Star is viewed 200 times more in China than Korea. The top 10% of salsa consumers drive 50% of salsa sales, yet only 13% of these salsa superconsumers are Hispanic. In fact, white households spend more than $1 billion dollars on Hispanic food products.
Culture is not a birthright, it’s a choice that people can opt in to, argues Eddie Yoon, director of The Cambridge Group. “The currency of culture is how and where you spend your time and money. Ethnicity is not an exclusive passport that lets you in or keeps you out of a culture.
Marketers need to look beyond demographics when targeting new cultures as it’s likely the markets for the products we think of as culturally specific are understated significantly.”
Segmenting cultures based on data
We can use external data like from the studies discussed earlier to help inform our target marketing, but the truly valuable data is internal. If you can segment cultural groups based on how people react to your specific brand, you avoid making generalized guesses when choosing who to target with what messaging.
As analytics software becomes more advanced, allowing us to track people by nationality, age, and interests, we have more capabilities to measure cultural reactions before we even enter a new market. Content marketing and social media, in particular, offer indirect interactions with a wide range of people and their preferences for different content and subject areas can reveal new market opportunities and help you build targeted strategies.
As Yoon says, “The bottom line is that a demographics-based view of culture is far less profitable than a demand-based view. As you create culturally specific products, TV programs, and marketing plans, make sure you’re not leaving money on the table.”
Why cultural intelligence matters
Culture should always be considered when you create target marketing strategies. When you involve people who belong to the cultures you’re targeting, tailor personalized messaging with your target’s preferences in mind, and allow data to lead your segmentation, you’re best positioned to capture engagement and avoid offense.
Real cultural intelligence is being able to admit that you don’t always know what’s best. ◆
*Feature:*
Packing a personality
What it means to build an actual human tone of voice for your brand
By <b>Natasha Keary
Being
Human
Nowadays, the biggest brands are in pursuit of the same goal
What do Virgin, Microsoft, and MailChimp have in common? They've each nailed a distinct brand voice and identity. Think Microsoft and you imagine an authoritative and sincere tone of voice. You’re likely to associate a modern, rebellious tone with Virgin, and expect a quirky, unusual voice from MailChimp. But if you take a look at their tone of voice guidelines, you’ll find that all three of these companies share one key ToV goal: being human.
It’s one of the most desirable qualities, showing up in both B2C and B2B tone of voice guidelines -- from Facebook to HubSpot. It appears so much that The Drum wrote a retaliatory piece against it, calling for readers to “burn any document that contains ‘professional’ and ‘human’”.
So, at a time where tone of voice is more important than ever - when 67% of the buyer’s journey takes place digitally and “average revenue is increased by 23% when a brand is presented consistently” - why is being human so important for companies? And when brands are under so much pressure to stand out, why are they using the same word to describe their voice?
Let’s take a look at the science of why being human is so important for companies, and how they can build a tone of voice around an actual, unique human person.
For a brand to become an actual partner in the relationship, it must be perceived as a complete, literal human.
Susan Fournier, Harvard professor
From brand to human
Brands are striving to be human with good reason. Research suggests that audiences naturally associate brands with human personalities, and even have a tendency to perceive brands and companies as actual human beings. That means that if a brand doesn’t manage its human persona, its audience might just come up with one for them.
Marketing and psychology researchers noticed that people tended to think of brands as people as far back as 1919. Since then there’s been plenty of papers published on the personification of brands and companies. This is what Jennifer L. Aaker calls animism in her piece in the Journal of Market Research. She observed that if you ask people about the Absolut vodka brand they imagine it as “a cool, hip, contemporary 25-year old.” In contrast, when asked about older, more serious brands, participants were more likely to imagine an older, more traditional person.
Why do we have a tendency to think of brands as people?
One argument is that it’s to help us form relationships As Harvard professor Susan Fournier argues, “It is a widely accepted notion that consumers form different types of relationships with brands. However for a brand to become an actual partner in the relationship, it must be perceived as a complete, literal human.”
We’re all familiar with brands that market themselves as humans. Think the Californian Raisins maid or the Green Giant Sweetcorn giant. These brands position themselves as human (or giant) in order to foster a relationship with their buyers. But this isn’t so easy for B2B brands, or those which aren’t necessarily client-facing. So how do you build your voice so that your brand is perceived as a complete, literal human?
There’s a strong link between personality and the way we communicate
From brand to human - with personality
As Vertabyte CEO and founder Nabeel Ahmad says, “all great brands have distinctive personalities”. The more personality a brand has, the closer it comes to sounding human, and the more distinct the personality, the higher the chance of the brand sounding like an actual, complete person.
How do you come up with a personality for a brand? One way is by looking at personality models and aligning with a specific personality type. There are two models that are often used for brands and individuals: the Big Five personality test and Carl Jung’s 12 archetypes.
Take the 12 archetypes model by psychologist Carl Jung. Jung spent twenty years researching and produced his work Psychological Types. This work features the 12 Jungian archetypes, which are personas designed to represent every personality and behavior type. Against this model, Virgin might align with ‘The Rebel’ archetype, who goes against the grain and is provocative. Microsoft might be ‘The Ruler’, controlling yet responsible and MailChimp ‘The Jester’, who brings humor, fun, irreverence and often some mischief. Each of these 12 types can be matched with a brand:
Another method is looking at ‘The Big Five’ personality test, which marks personality against five traits, including openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Using this model, for example, a brand like Microsoft might score high for agreeableness and conscientiousness, but low for extroversion and openness. Virgin, on the other hand, might be given a high score for the extroversion and openness but low for conscientiousness.
Matching a brand to a personality might seem difficult for a new company. As Zazzle’s Andrew Brookes writes, an alternative might be to think of the company as a particular celebrity or person. Their personality, if scored on either of the personality tests, could become a benchmark for the company tone of voice.
From brand to human - with personality and voice
It turns out that there’s a strong link between personality and the way we communicate. Psychologists have been analyzing how the Big Five personality traits are expressed through written language. Traits like introversion and agreeableness have been found to match with particular words and writing styles, especially across social media. These personality traits are also matched with how frequently and what kind of communication a person chooses. If they’re extroverted, they might be more likely to have a more active social presence or be more forward in emails.
Personality AI software, like Crystal, puts this research into practice. The software tracks data points and forms of writing to assign personality characteristics to a person. Once they’ve analyzed a personality, they recommend ways for others to communicate with them based on their personality traits.
This means that the data about how each personality expresses itself can be used to create a personality-specific voice. Taking these data points and applying them to make a tone of voice can not only ensure that a company communicates in a way that matches its personality, but that this personality matches their audience type.
All in all
There’s a reason so many brands want to sound human. In the era of conversational marketing, constructing a human brand is the best way to foster relationships with customers. The more human and distinctive a voice sounds, the more likely people are to want to build a relationship with the company. ◆
*TIMELINE:*
Reaching audiences in the 2020s
Four predictions for marketers from Gartner
