I was able to catch the tail end of W20 (WCG’s) #SocialCommerce Summit upon arriving at SXSW last Thursday afternoon. This event, in its third year, is full of WCG clients, partners and friends focused on social commerce trends. Rather than sessions, there are 10-minute talks from brand, agency and non-profit leaders addressing varying degrees of innovation in their respective companies and positions. Thanks to my good friend and social analytics guru – oh, and new author, Chuck Hemann for the invite. Below you’ll find takeaways from Google’s Jeben Berg and Waze’s Andy Ellwood. Hope you dig as much as I did:-).

Lead Creative Innovationist, Jeben Berg, Google

“In seven years, YouTube has become the most rapidly growing force in history according to Time Magazine,” said Google’s Lead Innovationist, Jeben Berg, who used the proliferation of video and YouTube (he’s an original YouTube employee and has worked as YouTube’s creative director post Google acquisition) to deconstruct the state of marketing, its rapid evolution and offered helpful anecdotes and solutions. Oh, and all in 10 minutes. It was crazy awesome.

THE PROBLEM

Marketing was once straightforward. This is no longer the case.

Mass access to technology = mass consumer expectations

• “Consumer expectations are off the charts due to the radical pace of technology and consumer access to it.” While we may have sophisticated hardware like iPhones, Androids and tablets to access whatever we want whenever we want, the software (websites, apps and experiences) is not always equally as sophisticated. He used Waze’s ability to lead him to cheaper gas prices as a prime example of the utility and immediacy it provides, which is not standard for most technology today, but yet many of us expect it because of the easy access we have to the hardware.

Promises no longer cut it

• The media landscape is no longer static. It’s dynamic and two-way, unpredictable,  hard to project and defined by authenticity and transparency. Anyone can call bullshit on you at anytime.

Celebrity endorsements run thin

• Celebrity endorsements are no longer working for brands (non-profit affiliation is different) as they used to, yet brands still continue to spend. Gwen Stefani for Windows 8 anyone? Note: I would challenge this a bit and say that if your audience has resonance with a particular celeb, endorsements can still be very powerful but they, like everything else in the world right now need to evolve and be built differently. Audience is not only key, but many other factors or behaviors the celeb will take must be reimagined. Kate Hudson for Ann Taylor is a great example. Not only is she the right choice for what I assume is Ann Taylor’s current or aspirational demo, she endorses the brand, but also designs her own line and is an active part of their storytelling and content strategy (which is comprised of social media, paid advertising, PR and in-store execution).

People want and demand connection

• “People and consumers rabidly want brands to provide them the greatest experiences in the world.” People don’t want your sleazy  I’ve had a few drinks at the bar effort. They want a genuine connection to you; something that stands out and is deserving of your attention. Bring the customer into your brand experience.

Fragmentation

• Brands and teams don’t know where to go and what to do. Take your budget and specify dollars to a specific area and focus on it. 

People own your brand as much as you do

• “25 percent of the search results for the world’s top 20 brands in the world are user-generated content and this stat is from 2009.” I think this speaks for itself but in case it doesn’t, people are co-creating your brand either with or without you everyday.

SOLUTIONS
Jeben gave five great examples of people doing it right and how (of course, specific to Google products like YouTube and Google+):

Go Pro: Encourages co-creation by creating branded content that incentivize fans to create their own Go Pro content 

• Most successful TrueView that has ever played on YouTube (:32 seconds). 50 percent of the time it was never skipped.
• At the the end of the video they give viewers the opportunity to win any product they make by sending in videos of things that they’ve made using GoPro. They  have taken this content and uploaded to Go Pro’s YouTube channel (they have hundreds of user-generated videos).

TopShop: “Let’s them eat cake now”

• TopShop partnered with Google to meet consumer expectations in the right place and time by going through G+’s API to create a shoppable experience that allowed people to view London Fashion week and buy in real-time (now that’s social commerce). This was extremely disruptive to the model, as it exposed consumers and buyers from partner retail  at the same time.

Cartier: Ignore the clock

• “L’Odyssée de Cartier“ launched in 2012 as a four minute branded video and now has 17 million views.
• Cartier’s video description: “Discover the new Cartier film, a journey between dream and reality. For the very first time, Cartier has decided to create a cinema epic focusing on its history, its values and inspiration, its artistic and universal scope.”

Nike: “Found its greatness,” (in this instance) through orchestrating an ambush on the Olympics through

• Developing a framework for platform (content and multi-channel execution) choreography
• Branded content strategy
• Products that allow unfettered connection
• Waves of creativity

Ikea: Think beyond the TV spot 

• Ikea used the behind the scenes footage of their commercials and garnered more views on their YouTube videos than the original commercial.

Oreo: Be quickest to market

• If you have a newsroom mentality, you’ll succeed, however he recommended only allocating 5 percent of your budget to this.

My takeaway: You win by creating purposeful and well-architected experiences that creatively connect people through good and human content.

Here’s Jeben’s complete talk courtesy of W20.

 

Head of Business Development, Andy Ellwood, Waze

Location + Utility = Advocacy, Reach and Attention

How do we save people five minutes a day? The real-time traffic map app, Waze, which now has 40 million users (used 6 billion minutes last month) “that hate traffic and are working together to outsmart it,” said Waze’s head of business development, Andy Ellwood. The former Gowalla employee (yes, remember them, or the Foursquare vs. Gowalla war of 2011?) reinforced the power and necessity of utility in the technology. Location data + a specific purpose that adds value to its users has made Waze extremely successful. That purpose and success has manifested into its next endeavor which he referred to as “the proximity interest” graph,” a.k.a. knowing what’s in between you now and where you’re going that might be of interest. Waze has a wealth of data and information that it plans to leverage to serve up recommendations (and likely other benefits, like coupons) based on where its users are and what they. Ah yes, it is the age of context.

Favorite quote: “If it’s good for the brand, but not for the user, then it’s not good for the brand.” – Andy Ellwood, Waze

Here’s Andy’s complete talk courtesty of W20.

For more from WCG’s W20 #SocialCommerce Summit, visit their YouTube channel or blog highlights. Thanks again to Chuck Hemann and WCG for putting on a stellar event!