Twelpforce

Maybe the hardest thing for brands who face social media and social networking is to avoid the bandwagon and really come up with a strategic thinking behind their presence.

Lots of brands are making use of the social tools. But lots of brands are just replicating, with different layers, the messaging model when there is no conversation at all.

So, it’s great when some companies come up with richer perspectives and this is what makes me highlight what Best Buy is doing.

In this post from We Are Social you can see a video of Best Buy’s CMO explaining how they understand what is happening and what digital can do for them. In a sentence: “make dreams come true”.

As part of that, they launched Twelpforce, a dedicated help force to be there for customers via Twitter. What means that if I have a doubt I use @Twelpforce and someone will try to solution my anxiety.

Isn’t it simple and brilliant?

What I like most about it is that it’s a real service for people. A real utility for consumers.

Great because it builds value upon the space where people are already present and adds a new function inside it.

It’s also a big example of how companies and agencies can be skillful to bring up new uses of Twitter as a social tool applied to business.

If CP+B is not behind it (which I think they do), they are the ones who are spreading the service.

Have a look on the ads (here) that directs the audience to @Twelpforce and not to a microsite. Oh, and the stadium metaphor really makes one understand what the service is all about. Even for those who are not used to Twitter.

How technology is changing the face of Brazil

The way low-income classes in Brazil are embracing technology and the internet is just amazing. So interesting that a very popular TV show in the country, Fantástico, has covered what happens where these people live and how they use the web.

You can see both of the materials below. It’s in portuguese, but even for you who read it outside Brazil it worths taking a look to understand the contextual references of people I’m talking about and the place they live (each video has 10 minutes). See here and here.

The most interesting thing about the role of internet for low-income classes is that it is not just a mean of digital inclusion, but A MEAN FOR SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INCLUSION.

I believe that there are 3 major things about this phenomena that worth some lines:

The LAN HOUSE phenomenon

The Lan House is where people from the “comunidade” (community, their neighborhood area in the suburbs) go to have internet access. Inside the neighborhood there are lots of them (more than 90k all over Brazilian suburbs).

Although in the last few years the computer penetration has largely grown in the low-income segment in Brazil, the internet access is still limited. Largely it’s because of the price, but in some cases also because the difficulty companies have to make it viable.

Nice to say that the Lan Houses are not simply the place for internet access, but also it’s a place for SOCIAL interactions and exchanges within the community.

How people are using the web

As the videos show, these are simple people. Generally they don’t have a strong educational basis, do not make much money, work for the richer classes. But these people are the ones who best reflect some attributes of the Brazilian spirit: happy, creative, social, faithful.

Their web usage reflects it. Socialnets are extremely popular. Low-income people want and like to be on the social communities making themselves noticeable. Orkut is the main socialnet in Brazil with a huge amount of the minor classes users. Msn Messenger is another very popular tool that quick spreads among this segment. But other social web sites like Youtube, Flickr, Fotologs and even blogs are getting important and used.

The interesting point is that people use those tools in a very creative way. Its the case of turning the Orkut and Msn Messenger into business spaces. Like the nail manicure that takes pictures of her service and upload it so her Orkut friends and others could see her work and call for it. Or the case of the boy who created his car profile selling it. Or the pizza restaurant where you call for a pizza via Msn Messenger so the customer doesn’t have the cost of a phone call and the business doesn’t have the cost of buying a phone line.

What they get is what they see – and they see far

Here is where it lies the biggest insight low-income people have about the internet. Because they don’t have the same access to education, health and security in comparison to the higher classes, they don’t have so much opportunity as the others.

But this logic changes with the internet. This is a place that allows everything; that provides content and learning, that allows to express and raise their voice and culture, that incentives new and creative forms of making money, that connects the people from “comunidades” with the world.

So, for the marginalized low-income person, the internet brings and make it touchable the idea of EQUALITY. People feel it, know it and are using it to gather the opportunities the system used to keep away

Because of this insight, I believe we are about to see main changes on the internet usage in Brazil in a near future. Something that will impact not just brands and communication, but the market creating a need to design new business models considering people that is out of the radar today.

People first

 

courtesy of JesseWarren from Flickr

Mike Follett is a great British guy who works at Tribal DDB. When I was in NYC we had a quick chat at an ING Direct store drinking a coffee and sharing ideas about our planning activity. I was curious to know more about his work once he moved from account planning to digital planning and how he experienced it.

Instead of talking about the relationship between people and technology, he talked about people and brands and people and their interests. His perspective about the experience was and is rich and I’ll put it in two terms: first, the thing is about people; second, it’s about creating value for them.

People do not divide the lines. Their interests and needs are the driving force behind how they behave concerning technology. Understanding people is the currency for the planner, be it on analog or digital space. This is how Mike adds in the process, for instance, not just throwing his insights, but knowing and predicting what kind of ideas connects to people’s interests on the digital space.

What leads to the second idea, about giving people something that will make part of their natural activities. And I’m not (as he wasn’t) talking about huge digital platforms or huge big ideas, but anything that could mean something to a specific group of consumers.

To exemplify that, Mike told me about a project they did in which the client had to connect to teen girls and they created a series of messenger gimmicks for them to use on their daily chats. Big idea? No. Meaningful idea? Hell yes.

I would say that these two points made by Mike are part of a conversational approach. One in which people has to be put as the main part so brands could really participate in.

Good micro site advertising

Contagious is a very inspiring source for me and I really like the way they cover what is happening in the communication’s world. A while ago, I sow an analysis of four automotive micro sites and decided to put two of them here. Because I think they illustrate well what I consider a good and not so good usage of a micro site as a medium for advertising.

The first case is the micro site of the New Ford Ka launching in Brazil where I felt like if I had wasted my precious time going to the site. I found a difficult navigation; I was lost and had to play games I didn’t want to; I didn’t know where to find information about the car and when they appeared they were like specs not translated into benefits. I wonder what kind of reaction the possible prospect of the car had with it…

The second case was different. I’m talking about the Smart micro site in UK. At first, it shows what it is all about – Smart truths. This site involves who’s there.  Easy to understand and navigate, intuitive and entertaining. The benefits of Smart For Two are directly and funny pointed out. Not just the experience was pleasant as I wanted my peers to take a look into that.

For me, what makes the two examples so different is the way they where thought for the consumer. The first case is the replication of the old advertising approach. The second is the application of a conversational approach. I’ll put it simple as that:

• Case 1 – message.
• Case 2 – message + MEDIUM EXPERIENCE.

 

I believe that when brands think about people’s experience they tend to get a good response. On the other hand, when they just want to communicate without thinking on the other part, they tend to get nothing.