Gilt Groupe…understanding brand appeal

I’m a big fan of Gilt Groupe.

Even if you are not a shopper or a luxury brand aficionado…join Gilt.com buyer’s club and follow along. There is a lot to be learned from their perfect sense of brand definition.

It’s really refreshing to see a new brand spring up that just gets the relationship between what the company is providing and the needs of its customers. That’s why while at its mechanical core Gilt.com is a discount store; it is already a $400M business that feels like a 5th avenue boutique that never gets stale.

Gilt understands the viral loop and social commerce certainly…but that is not their pure play, as it is with Groupon and others.

Groupon and the group buying services take value, scarcity, group buying and geographical location and smartly shake them up…and capture the fun of treating yourself to something special, often with friends. Groupon’s brand is about the daily deal and the fun of buying…it’s an impulse not a luxury goods positioning. When done perfectly, as Groupon does, its magic…but it’s different from shopping for a Tory Burch handbag or an Armani overcoat.

Gilt really gets brand and e-commerce marketing and selling. They understand deeply the appeal of the brands they sell, represent them with glam and imagination and represent the why and how of their customers desire to buy…and the atmosphere they like to shop in. They are courteous rather than pushy, focusing on value rather than cost and always…brand appeal and how important it is to their customer.

There is scarcity and referral in their model but they eschew the freneticsm of a threshold pushed sale and feel more like a high-end rack runway at great value than a push-and-shove sample sale of a thousand folks grabbing at designer t-shirts.

If you believe in the value of luxury brands and feel good about owning or wearing or using them…this is the place. Value with no discount bin feel. Selection without the sense of buying seconds. Clarity of a luxury story at a price that you can afford.

There is no cookie cutter marketing or business model here. Only a great study of a company that understands the value add of brokering brands to brand conscious customers at pricing they can afford, without price being the major selling point.

Take a look at this marketing analysis of Gilt Groupe’s studied approach to finding customers and keeping them happy and returning and loyal. It’s a workable list that all business marketers should pay attention to. Every business and brand model is different (as it should be) but there is value to learn from those that figure it out…and Gilt certainly has for their audience.

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Thanks to @robinharper for sending the background post my way.

What’s next for Groupon?

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When I blogged on Groupon and the social buying model, I was blown away by the newness and inventiveness of this smartly social approach to commerce.

I’ve been wondering where the company goes now that they’ve conquered the major cities of US and Europe (over 50 by their count) and have brand recognition far and above the hundreds of imitators. ‘Groupons’ are so well known and commonly acknowledged that they have become a new noun.

Do they go vertical and build Groupons for highly targeted groups like women’s sports, or golf or art aficionados?

Do they white label or co-brand their hosted offering and offer it out to newspapers and businesses as a new type of merchandise and a new coupon currency?

Do they move to behavioral targeting of the opt-in subscribers to personalize each offer ala a Facebook approach?

Do they go true local like Foursquare and target neighborhood by neighborhood rather than city by city?

The recent G-team announcement from Groupon, still mostly under the radar, is making me wonder whether they are moving to make possible more than the current two-deals-per-day-per-neighborhood. Logically, the more they can push the limits of scarcity, the more deals they have per-day-per-place, the more revenue they can generate.

To understand G-team in Groupon’s words, click here. They position it as a return to their roots and a way for causes to use their coupon currency model. I don’t question their altruism but these folks are as smart social marketers and business people I’ve seen anywhere and I’m thinking there is a clue to a broader business change in the play.

It appears (and the information is really vague) that causes or ‘fun activities’ are given the nod by Groupon as acceptable and then the Groupon machine is brought in…infrastructure to host, launch and manage the promotion. A vast vendor base to match a deal with a cause.

I see this as the beginning of a new commerce structure based on social coupons for the business world. And it will solve a major growth hurdle for them.

Besides gobbling up every city on the globe (which they are), they are a bit cuffed by the need to maintain scarcity of deals and a social buying core. My take is that G-team is the beginnings of their attempt to move more and more targeted deals into areas. That’s the clearest way to get more customers and drive more revenue.

So maybe what G-team is about is a beginning of a bunch of changes and expansions:

1. Provide the Groupon coupon currency machine to causes or businesses so that more deals can be addressed daily through niche and socially inspired community fundraising or events.

Maybe the niche is not moms or racquetball players, but people who support animal rescue or clean-up-the-river or parks for kids. People will tolerate more deals with specific targets if they are causes for good. Revenue splits aside this is logical.

2. Vertically segment the opt-in list. People who believe or chose various causes are both a subset of their massive database and an expansion. One of the ‘can’t do’s’ for Groupon is to thin out the audience so thresholds don’t get tipped and filled.

3. Behaviorally target the deal recipient. What Facebook can do with advertising, Groupon can figure out for behavioral matching of a deal with a personal profile. They have a lot of customer data now; probably enough. Or they can partner with (or sell to) Facebook to make this happen.

4. Redefine local as proximity as Foursquare has and figure out how to localize from city to neighborhood based on subscriber density per location.

5. Move to hard goods not just services. They can move from services like a dinner to goods like TVs or computers or clothing with a slight twist to their methodology.

I’m fascinated with social commerce and the simple breakaway model that Groupon defined and owns today. But they will get to the point where they’ve blanketed all the cities, then the larger towns on the planet where the model can work.

Then what? How do they grow when they have everyone as a subscriber and only two deals a day?

I think G-team is a clue and some variation of my list of five above will happen…and happen soon.

WebTV is flourishing…will GoogleTV simply webify the big screen?

Everyone is abuzz over GoogleTV creating a paradigm shift in entertainment…. myself included.

What could be bad? All digital. Surfing from the couch. Social check ins. An easy-to-use time-shifted TV viewing reality.

I’m ready…but for those of us willing to live in the small laptop screen or geeky enough to hardwire the pieces together we have not all…but most of the promised goodness on WebTV today.

WebTV is well beyond its early stage already. With movies, TV shows, great new web content like ThisWeekIn… The web is fast becoming a digital video and TV frontier.

Whether you are on your laptop, wired from your Mac Mini to your large screen with Boxee, using Hulu…this is no longer a small niche by any standard.

New numbers on WebTV and TV watching online from eMarketer are enlightening:

  • 33% of the US Internet population watches full-length TV programs today; growing to 39% by years’ end
  • Hulu alone has 38.7 million unique monthly visitors. Largest video streaming site on the internet after YouTube.
  • 14.6 million-web devices that can run TV applications shipped in last 12 months, increasing to 83.4 million in 2014
  • 50% of everyone who watches any video online, will watch a full-length TV show

Mind-boggling actually…in the US, one in three connected people watch network TV shows online and one in two who use video in any way do some portion of their TV watching from the web.

In Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm way of thinking, we are just this side of an Early Majority position with WebTV and the chasm-crossing leap is only a holiday season away.

So with GoogleTV and the Boxee Box and every TV for sale with an HDMI plug, what’s the difference between now and…then, when these solutions launch?

The obvious changes will be:

  1. It will be easy and inexpensive to purchase and install for everyone
  2. More big screens will drive more content
  3. Some built in widgets (apps) like YouTube, maybe Facebook and IMDB
  4. Browsing and searching via Google from the couch position

Honestly, this is great but not a revolution. The iPad was a revolution, this is a big iteration pushing the web to the big screen WebTV experience. I like easy. I like larger displays. I like apps. We need search. But I want what I can’t imagine which is more than just the webification of the big screen.

Richard Kastelein, a friend, blogger and founder of AppMarket.TV believes that one of the big gaps to bridge is ‘lean back interactive in your living room’ versus ‘lean forward at your desk or laptop’. It’s the remote versus the keyboard and the mouse. Content will come. But seamless control of the web interactive elements of search, community and social are the mountains to scale.

Hmmm…So according the industry and folks a lot more in the know than I, the intersection of the widgets on the big screen (like an embedded app), a consistent interface for search, social attributes and some cool device like glidetv for surfing are the formula for the future.

I’m missing something here.

If interface and usability are the kingpins, then why not Apple rather than Google as the architect of the best solution? Steve Jobs, more than anyone gets usability and the mass market. Google is search but certainly they don’t understand GUI or social or consumers.

And I can’t imagine connected TV to be a single screen solution. We are all sitting on our couches with iPads and laptops and phones. This is not going to change. So why isn’t the input one of these devices, like an iPad as the control and with special social content?

Maybe an anecdote might clarify my uneasiness at settling with GoogleTV as the answer.

Recently I was watching ThisWeekInVentureCapital with Mark Suster and Mo Koyfman talking about efficiencies on the web. Mo made a statement that when you take an old industry and bring it online, you don’t just webify it or make it more efficient, you take the core of the old and its value and find something new…something better. This seems right on to me.

So…what is that leap to something new with connected TV?

Maybe it’s just more efficient. Maybe it’s a standard interface with some widgets and open access to a gazillion apps. Maybe it’s a perfect and closed and controlled Apple world of ease-of-use and locked down. Or maybe it’s just what we have today but bigger.

I don’t buy into this.

A year ago, I couldn’t have imagined riding on the subway or sitting in the coffee shop, watching TV and working and tweeting on my iPad. Or building distribution systems for my clients that connected their Facebook fan pages to their e-commerce storefronts.

I’m a video and movie aficionado and ever so ready for connected and social TV. See my post on this.  But the web is still figuring out social video and socialization around WebTV. It’s not necessarily the model to copy. The jump from laptop to big screen is fraught with opportunities for new ways of entertainment and needs more than a redo of the current web reality, retooled for the digital living room.

You agree?

What will make you and the hundreds of millions yet to buy, do so and enjoy in a new and more interesting way?

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Thanks to my friend Jennifer Fader for always finding interesting data before I do.

Searching for ‘social’ in connected TV

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Everyone wants connected TV.

Whether it’s a Google or Apple solution or both, the upside to connected big screens in our living rooms hold enormous potential for everyone with a television and an internet connection….which is just about everyone, everywhere.

The time is overdue for this to happen. On the web side, video content and programming has exploded in quality and quantity, become easy to find and share, and mostly free to distribute and watch. Web video content is begging for more and larger displays.

On the broadcast TV side, we have great programming, thousands of channels on incredible displays that are locked inside of disconnected networks, frustratingly archaic search methods and a seemingly uncrossable gulf between the TV content on the screen and the laptops and iPads on our laps on the couch.

I’m really anxious and excited about impending connection between the big screen on the wall and the real-time web. It’s a game changer.

And I’m really curious about where social and community is going to play into this whole new  TV paradigm.

I remember early TV and it was distinctly a social experience. In fact, I recall my grandfather’s first TV set in our house. A very small screen with large groups gathering around to watch, chat and connect with each other in front of this early technology with funky programming. And this social activity went on for years!

Now with quality and varied TV programming, huge displays, HD and 3D…the immersion of viewing has gotten movie theatre quality but the experience, at least to me, more solitary and disconnected.

On the web, social platforms and community are the core of how we find and share information and ideas. Even commerce has become a referral-based economy and at its best, is social in nature. The social metaphor is predominant in entertainment, gaming, information networks and business.

So with the TV screen connected to the real-time web and content digitally distributed, at the very least we will be getting  a flood of more content which is easier to find, and finally, friendly and seamless control over what we watch and when. At a minimum.

But will TV as a social experience come full circle?  Will the connected TV experience mirror, with a modern twist, what  it was at its outset way back in the 50s and 60s?

I’m thinking… yes, but in a totally new way of course.

It takes little imagination to see a Facebook iframe on the TV screen to share and chat with friends. And it’s easy to see social commerce with a click to purchase on the TV screen just like a click to purchase on your laptop or phone.

And why not sports book-like communal gambling over a basketball game? Or real-time video chat with friends across the country while watching an episode of True Blood? Or some yet-to-be-invented social game that let’s you Foursquare-like check in and find your friends watching the same show and connect with them?

Google and Apple and Sony won’t  be the doers here. But game developers, social widget designers, and smart entrepreneurs will be rising everywhere to help us take connectivity from the couch and make it social for those around us in the living room and my friends across the globe.

Social platforms and online communities transformed information sharing  on the social web. Connect it to the big screen and it has the potential to lend its dynamics to the connected TV platform and make watching more active, shopping a bit more collective and natural and entertainment just more fun….with friends.

Move over George Jetson! Your cartoon future may just have started to get real!

Social commerce on Facebook gets real with Disney and Diesel

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A lot has changed in 30 days.

A month ago, I searched the open web and Facebook for examples of social commerce where community activity drove measurable transactions. Outside of social buying, ala the Groupon phenomenon, there was little of interest. My post on that experience is here.

But things are changing quickly.  Two global brands with innovative commerce initiatives are starting to get traction and attention.

Two examples of social commerce on Facebook fan pages that work

1. Disney Tickets Together Facebook application

The idea is built around sharing your movie going experience with your Facebook friends from the movie’s promotional fan page.

Tickets for Toy Story 3 are on sale only the Facebook fan page, weeks earlier than anywhere else. You let your friends know you are going and when, invite them to come along…and if you want, buy tickets as a group for the movie.

This provides a special incentive…and reward…to the movie’s Facebook fans as they can pre-buy early and participate in raffles for free tickets.

This is clever social selling and fun social buying wrapped into one. Reports of groups of 80 people buying this together indicate this is potentially the beginning of a trend that really works.

Tickets Together is the best example of social or community commerce I’ve seen. You are literally buying collectively with your friends on the Facebook fan page. Finally… something to do on a fan page that makes sense! And this is the first and best example of empowering a naturally social activity like shopping online in a community setting.

Disney’s market phrase for this is “…no friend gets left behind,” according to Oliver Luckett, general manager of DigiSynd, that manages Disney’s social networking presence.

It’s just social commerce to me, taking fan interest online and moving them to an offline event together, then back online to re-socialize it. An oft-repeated cycle of social proof.

2. Diesel-cam in-store Facebook runways

Live in Spain, Diesel has a fashion runway with a Facebook cam inside their stores.

Shopping is a core social activity, globally. You shop with friends and what your friends think influences what you buy. This is true for everyone; probably more true for teens and 20-30-somethings, the core audience for Diesel.

There is a Facebook runway just outside the dressing room. Customers try on jeans or an outfit, and stream a short video to their Facebook walls to show their friends what they are thinking of buying. Questions like…“Like it?” “Should I buy it?” are natural and this conversation drives sale’s decisions.

You can see a video of the Diesel-cam here.

Note that I’ve seen chatter online that the Diesel-cam is ‘stupid’ or ‘voyeuristic’. For Diesel and for the meaning of the brand, it couldn’t be more perfect.

It’s just smart commerce, matching brand to customer to commerce…and social and fun to boot.

Why I  think social commerce is a solution for Facebook fan pages

  • It just works. Disney is selling tickets while building community favor. My bet is Diesel will be successful as well.
  • Shopping is what we do with friends offline. It’s logical, when done with intent and creativity that it will work online.  Facebook fan pages are replete with community potential but are usually dull…maybe commerce is an answer.
  • Social proof as a transaction based on the encouragement of your community is the first approach to social ROI that makes any sense to me.

Why Disney and Diesel as global brands are being socially astute

  • They are taking commerce to where the fans are. Facebook becomes a channel.
  • They are building commerce that matches the channel to the customer behavior…that is social commerce for a social platform.
  • They understand that boring and dull doesn’t sell, and doesn’t fit their brand image. Fun and creative and social does.

    I think that Disney and Diesel will benefit from a deeper connection with their fans, from a new strata of social proof to their image and, of course, from commerce.

    How does Facebook benefit?

    Having a fan page is free for brands and data storage and bandwidth cost real dollars. Maybe these brands will advertise more? Maybe not.

    Facebook wins whenever anyone uses, returns, sticks around or invites friends to do anything at all on the platform. The more traffic they get, the more sharing happens and the more demographics are collected. And of course, then the value that Facebook can sell to advertisers and partners increases proportionately.

    For Facebook and the brands and I think, the consumers…this is all a win.