rebeccasblog8

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Should I Click?

I was going to an event with friends over the weekend and online targeted adds came up. The other two people I was with shared that they hated targeted adds online, and even if they liked a product, they would open another browser to search for the item. i.e. They would not click on the add directly. I on the other hand do not mind targeted adds. For me often times they remind me of brands I used to enjoy but may have forgotten about or present me with items I did not know existed. The reality though of me clicking on adds means that more information is provided to a website.

In thinking about how one could add good friction to my friends experiences, a thought that came to my mind was to mimic tiered subscription offerings similar to streaming services. By this I mean current data practices would stay the same, but as a user one could pay a fee (with potentially different levels) to have less information collected and shared about you. The reality is online platforms make a lot of money selling data/ providing us with targeted content, but would those same companies consider taking that money from their consumers directly.  A big question for this process would be can consumers afford this concept? By this I mean if a company wanted to recoup the same profit off of selling data through this subscription model, I am not sure how much it would cost a consumer and if it would be above peoples willingness to pay. Even though people know sites take their data people are bought in to the services/ experiences that those sites provide (I am thinking Facebook, Instagram, Amazon etc) so in leu of people changing platforms for privacy we can brainstorm creative ways that good friction can be implemented on platforms we all use.   

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Berries for Breakfast?

For my Sloan branding project I have been put in the group that is working on the Fitness and wellness industry club branding. In reflecting on the readings this week I realize I fell biased to a Fitness and wellness event on Sloan groups last week. The week of April 8th I was scrolling through sloan groups looking to sign up for an event I attend often. In doing so I passed the banner for “Berries for Breakfast” which was put on my the sloan fitness and wellness industry club. I distinctly remember thinking “berries are a cute thing to offer to members” and scrolling right past the event.Why did I scroll when I thought the event was cute? Because as someone graduating in six weeks, I was not going to pay to join another club for an event. I mention it today because I made a biased decision about expecting this club to have dues based on my experience with almost every other club at Sloan. In starting this branding project, I have learned that this club does NOT currently have dues. This to me was a fun lesson in biases that people can have based off of similar experiences, even if they have no direct information that a future entity will follow the same path. It also got me thinking about, when one is conducting an experiment, is there a way to account for all of the people who saw the opportunity to participate and did not. With the goal to understand what led to them saying no.

P.S. I still actually participated in berries for breakfast because my friend took me down there before my 8:30 to see what was going on.

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The Persistance of the Nudge

When I think about nudging, I currently think about AG1 (Athletic Greens). If you are ever susceptible to scrolling like I am, you have likely come across either a post sponsored by them or content where the person on your screen is consuming this or a similar product. For me in seeing this product sooooo many times by sooooo many people I did think to myself is this something I should try? While I convinced myself to say no to this product, there are others that I have been convinced/influenced to buy after seeing them over and over. As an adult I have become aware I am susceptible to advertising. Because of this I try to make active decisions about what advertising and continued nudging I allow in my life. The ways I try and resist temptations and remove nudging are unsubscribing from email lists, limiting my push notifications, and trying to scroll quickly past adds on social media.

Reading the header “Nudging seeks to boost self-control or activate a desired behavior” made me pause and laugh to myself. Of the two options for me, nudging more often influences me to act on a desire. When I think about nudging from a branding perspective, I see the power as someone who is influenced by it. Especially when you can either reach a lot of people with one add or hit the same person over and over with the same messaging but from different sources. Being constantly reminded of something means I am having to expend energy to say no to something I may not otherwise be interested in. I would assume this topic affects others besides me, but would be curious if others also think about the energy they expend having to use will power to say no to what is readily available to them. And/Or does anyone have creative ideas to make this easier?

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Part of the IKEA Process

The first company that came to mind when reading this article was IKEA. They have a double-edged reputation of being a place many people love for their product, but also the butt of jokes for when that product needs to be assembled.  IKEA however takes great pride in creating clear instructions for how their products should be assembled. With this I find their position interesting. As we have discussed in class, one should want their brand to be on either side of the normal distribution curve and I think IKEA has accomplished this. I also think they have a high understanding of their customer journey and make conscious decisions around the experiences they want their customers to have, while sticking to the brand they have developed.

            In thinking about how one can develop insights for a brand, to make strong judgments one needs to make sure they are measuring the right things. To connect this to class this would be making sure we have the right measurement axes. The method chosen and the questions asked needs to connect for this to occur. For IKEA their teams do test assembly of the product first to make sure the customer has clear directions.1 They also have a focus on the circumstances of where people live to make elements that can fit in an normal elevator or be taken up a flight of stairs.1 It seems like IKEA’s goal is to make the lives of their customers easier, while staying true to their brand, but to do that, both entities need to be well understood (brand goals and customer). They accomplish this through internal product construction, developing furniture construction manuals from one viewpoint, and taking former knowledge and seeing how it can be applied to new pieces.1 If I were IKEA I would continue to stay committed to understanding customer needs and trying to solve them with changes to one’s current brand. But I would balance that with building new business opportunities in the space like at-home furniture assembly to create differentiation (their food court doesn’t hurt either)!.

Pavlus, John. “How Ikea Designs Its (In)Famous Instruction Manuals.” Fast Company, 28 Oct. 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/91016336/super-bowl-ad-teasers-2024-best-ones.