'Social Media Dad' Sees an iPhone-Powered New World Order
It Took My Kid's Birthday Party to See the Light
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| Pete Blackshaw | |
Mind you, I'm not alluding to Bob Garfield's "Chaos Scenario" (a provocative read, by the way) but, rather, to what I learned about the all-devices-in-one iPhone during a high-energy birthday party this past weekend for my 4-year-old twins.
Birthday parties are a big deal. They make big-initiative-marketing plans look trivial. Add friends and neighbors to the mix and a few contingency scenarios and we're talking an operation worthy of first-year military logistics training. Yes, it's all fun and heartwarming -- it's the Academy Awards of Kodak moments -- but it's not exactly what I'd dub a check-the-box, add-water-and-stir exercise.
We're talking multitasking on steroids and you need to be poised to exploit an opportunity or need on a moment's notice. My Sisyphean to-do list included music, photos, video, giving directions, pinata set-up and oversight, serving drinks, food set-up, assisting my wife and mother-in-law whenever possible, perpetual cleanup and more. (What's truly scary is that my wife Erika's list was even longer and more challenging.)
Enter the iPhone. While it would border on hype to suggest that my two-week-old iPhone "saved" the party, it certainly made things much easier. It took the photos, provided quick directions, captured and edited critical video coverage, downloaded a last-minute birthday song, periodically powered the outdoor stereo system and, in the last half hour, served as on-demand, pass-along entertainment for adults and kids alike. (Who wants to wait for re-reruns of the day's activity?) Oh, and it was in my back pocket, ready for service at any time.
Of course, I could have used other far more superior tools -- Erika, for example, was running around with our beloved, yet visibly clunky, digital camera around her neck, and a killer HD Flip video camera sat in a drawer but a hundred feet away -- but honestly, the iPhone functionality was, as Wired magazine recently noted, "good enough" to meet the need. Quite good, in fact.
Indeed, convenience and simplicity were the orders of the day and I felt comfortable, empowered and relaxed with the device. I wasn't seeking perfection -- just a solid denominator of solid results.
The implications
Now, I'm not trying to be an Apple shill here but rather underscore a broader trend and what I think is a bellwether. Apple -- a "leading indicator" in so many respects -- has a track record of driving habit change at a time when "influencers" increasingly move the market. The iPhone is clearly resetting consumer expectations about the role, functionality and integration of devices, and other brands are moving in a similar direction. At the end of the day, we need to understand where the puck is moving.
Whether iPhone or its mobile brethren, we're finally gravitating to that once overhyped vision: the all-in-one device. We're also gravitating to a principle I dub SNAP: Simple, Now, Accessible, and Practical. Let's dissect what I mean here.
- Simple: Complexity is our enemy. We yearn for convenience. Our brains can only store so many instructions. Secretly, we're all in search of one-click (or one-touch) simplicity and convenience.
- Now: Instant gratification is a hallmark of the digital age, and mobile devices take this to impressive levels. The irresistible lure of content creation and production puts the "now" factor in unique context.
- Accessible: Our devices follow us everywhere and, combined with the simplicity principle, we're entering a brave world of consumer-controlled surveillance and friction-free feedback. We're empowered to record and narrate everything around us and that has massive implications for product exposure, brand transparency and our ability to exercise our "power dad" instinct at kid parties.
- Practical: We don't need every feature. We need timely solutions and answers. "Apps," in particular, are like digital machetes that cut through 90% of the waste we typically see on web sites to focus on what's most needed and what's of most service to consumers. Practical, because we really need to get things done.
Consequences and roadkill
This has real consequences for the other single-function gadgetry in our digital constellation. Whether we admit it or not, we're starting to unload, unwind or just park "heavy" or "single use" digital equipment from the mix.
Will we soon see a wave of gadget downsizing and consolidation? Amidst my own medley of gadgets and electronics tools, I'm already feeling the impact in just two weeks of having an iPhone. Regular digital camera usage is down. The Flip camera is spending more time in the backpack. The fancier video camera is gathering cobwebs. The BlackBerry (which work pays for) has been narrowed down exclusively to "official" calls and e-mails. The laptop is less relevant for sharing video clips with the twins. My tiny tape recorders will never hear another voice. (The iPhone has a wonderful voice recorder.)
My stereo receiver, already beaten down by the iPod, is increasingly taking on the look of a Buggywhip. TV games have lost some of their lure as I drink from the fire-hydrant of low-cost or free iPhone games. My Kindle still has a fighting chance, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Even Apple's taking a hit on iTunes consumption because I'm receiving a nice alternative via Pandora. (But at least it's on the same device.) My fancy iMac desktop is hoping and praying I'll see incremental value in iMovie vs. just touching the "send to YouTube" button.
So there's economy (and probably an ROI model somewhere amidst all this), but there's undoubtedly some unintended social consequences from all-things-all-needs mobile devices. Our personal silos may grow deeper, our distractedness and ADD-factor may well notch up a bit. We'll probably need to develop new social mores to ensure we get invited to the next kid's party. More of us will get thrown in jail for looking too hard (and for too long) at these devices, especially while walking the streets and driving.
Indeed, let's hope the mobile-powered SNAP culture doesn't lead us to, well, snap.
But it is what it is, as they say. We're gravitating to a brave new world of simple, now, accessibility, and practicality. If we can successfully apply those principles to a kid's birthday party, imagine all the other things we can do.
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR | |
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Pete Blackshaw is exec VP of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services and author of 'Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000' (DoubleDay). He is also chair of the National Council of Better Business Bureaus. His biweekly column looks at the relationship between marketing and customer service in the age of consumer control. |
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There is most definitely an ROI model in what you have proffered here, Pete. The biggest return that iPhone owners see is in the form of their time. Our fixation with the digital world has forced us to seek out media offering one-stop shopping for all of our needs and desires. You needed photo, video, mapping, music and adaptability, and the iPhone delivered. Even when devices that were perfectly capable of executing these needs (and with higher quality, no doubt) were at your fingertips, you chose to use the iPhone because it saved you time.
Convenience is the name of the game here. Certainly the iPhone will not completely eradicate the need for single-use items like high resolution digital cameras, powerful computers and stereo equipment, but it will likely continue to put a dent in the usage and purchase patterns of these items.
They say that video killed the radio star... is it only a matter of time until a remixed version comes out singing a similar tune about the iPhone and single-use consumer goods? Only time will tell. Either way, glad the party was a success for you!
Ryan Cormier
www.twitter.com/RyanJCormier
I have noticed this quite a bit with the many of my friends-we sometimes get so immersed in our media/tech world and don't realize that the average consumer has been and will always be about S.N.A.P.
Get too complicated, don't give immediate results, make it immobile, and/or complex and you risk losing the general public.
You hit it on the head with your analysis. Thanks again.
Sometimes I feel like the iPhone is so incredible it can't be real. But your post and the b-day party anecdote just humanizes the whole concept.
Way to master the use of the iPhone and life as super-parent. Though I'm sure Erika is super, too!!
why this insecure gender comment?
Within the next decade, we'll have total media and data tracking convergence. The technology is there. Old walls just need to fall away. The challenge is, in order to be accepted into culture, it needs to be as simple and usercentric as the iPhone is.
Your 'iPhone' or similar data device will be your 'remote control' hub that you carry everywhere. It will communicate with all of your other devices seamlessly, through the cloud.
It will expound on everything it does now, more efficiently and faster. It will act as a remote to link up TV's or computers (likely the same thing, with separate roles).
There, you'll 'bookmark' anything that interests you while you view or interact. Unless you prefer to purchase or view right away. Of course, a lot of that viewing could be game-based, or have gaming elements that let you interact with the story and even reinvent it.
That is, if you want. Most will still prefer to still just take it all in. You can then 'explore' everything at your leisure. This would all be real-time and GPS-enabled...so as you carry this device with you, you'll receive customized messages and offers.
As you enter a store - if you even need or want to enter a physical store (you will still want to) - your payment information is on the mobile device, and you can pay with swipes. You can pull up products and suggestions through bookmarks. You can use your offers to purchase, creating more data. You will then get more 'rewards' consisting of content and added value experiences. You will be linked with others and be able to share real time data, recommendations, and related content.
Implications?
All of this will still need to fall under one consistent brand strategy that allows freedom for each piece of 2-way communication. Hundreds of seemingly different channels will be one connected web that needs to be expertly curated, conducted and executed with an artistry that the industry must prepare for.
RFID, Semacode, Twitter & Social media, Traditional, Interactive, Youtube, AppleTV, Location-based devices, Paypal, Flickr, Yelp, Facebook, Search, Direct TV, Crowdsourcing, Branded entertainment, POS...aren't all separate concepts. These will be inherently linked, like puzzle pieces falling together.
Analytics will be central to this, we'll need a strategic hub to interpret this vast data and form them into a consistent brand strategy. That need for lasting consistency will be ever more important, as communications plans will have countless moving parts, many happening in real time. And there will be a huge appetite for creative content that will need to be fed. It will be logical, but still you will need gut, raw talent. Imagine a control room, gathering content and watching it unfold in real time - that will be 'advertising.'
So when you look at that iPhone, look close. It'll be at the center of everything we do. Chaos? Yes, but organized. Our industry won't be gone. It'll be evolved - streamlined and snowballing faster than ever.
You search 'kids parties' and say, for example, a brand we'll call the Children's Store, hosts a segment of content on your interactive TV. One of the sections is 'kid's activities.' Creatively, they show different types of parties that you could throw for your kid. Of course, outfits are featured and you can click on them at any time to bookmark, or purchase at that moment.
But you click your device and instead bookmark a few party ideas. Later, on the train to work, you scroll through those bookmarks and decide on the party type. This generates an automatic music playlist for the party. It also adds a list of supplies that you can edit, as well as condenses a shortlist of where to go to purchase everything (complete with GPS directions). You go there, swipe your device, and that pays for everything with bank debit. Your bank adds reward points. The directions on how to set up the pinata are downloaded to your device.
You click contact names, and everyone is automatically sent an invite and directions in a cool, animated video e-card, very lightly branded by the Children's Store (if at all - an important future role of marketers will be knowing what channels to give more than get).
At the party, you take pics and video which automatically links the pics and video to the date, time and place. These are instantly uploaded to your main cloud and shared with friends and family. Comments begin to appear in real time, on your device. These are all uploaded to a 'birthday party' album of all your friend's kids birthday parties that you've set up to share with each other on a 'facebook-like' hub. You've already invited enough people to the album before, and so you all receive discounts and deals on kid's stuff from the Children's Store, because your participation has been trackable.
During that time, someone sends along a suggestion for the party, maybe a new drink recipe. The recipe is sent to you, and you and that person receive 'points' from the brand ingredient sponsor for including the name of the brand in your suggestion.
At the end of the day, your birthday party has been made easier. You haven't had to do much, and you have had numerous positive, unobstrusive and beneficial experiences with brands the whole time. Everything has converged - from creative content to direct to social media.
Of course, my revelation with Apple took place in 1987 when i first got to use a Mac.
Apple has kept true to its principles of simplicity and ease of use. So simple in fact that no one took it seriously.
The entertainment value alone for an iPhone is worth having it.
Can't wait for it to boil water.
joking apart, great piece on convergence becoming a reality in the eye of the storm. i was in a similar situation and loved how easy Apple made it to send a Note of driving directions, when the original note is not so easy to send online via Outlook. And to think Blackberry is just getting friendly with SMS.
Go Social Media Dad!
Now, after six years of Palm Treos, I eagerly await the video upgrade for my Palm Pre -- and more apps! You never know when you're going to need them!
http://www.asb.tv/videos/view.php?v=2137e525
Jim Kovarik
www.twitter.com/RoadTweets