Website Reviews 18 Jan

In this Digital Strategy Website Review I’m looking at different ways of searching for data. A few years ago, a text box and a search button was about as rich as site search got, but the growth of online and the growth of the data volumes stored, has led to new methods that try to make sense of often quite large data sets. The first three examples are for very different products – diamonds, tyres and flights, with very different types of data. The web site owners have each evolved methods of making large amounts of data easy to navigate, using quite different approaches. You may be surprised at how different they are. The final example is a more abstract search type – trying to make a me-too product stand out in a very crowded market. By creating a new faux-brand, the site creates real cut through in the heavily promoted market for Motor Car Insurance.

Amazon Loose Diamond Search
www.amazon.com

Sometimes a search technique is so specific that it only works for a very particular data set. This is one of those. Lifted directly, it would have limited applicability elsewhere and yet it is instructive in how to make a complex thing very simple. In Amazon’s Diamond listings, as with many other site searches, the challenge is to show a manageable number of results from a large population that might be of interest. With books, for example, it may be easier as they naturally break into categories – crime, travel, etc. however diamonds are somewhat different. Despite having categories – clarity, carat, etc. these are interdependent when looking for a diamond – you may be prepared to sacrifice some clarity to get a larger carat, or vice versa, for example. But how to you construct a query system that a visitor can understand immediately and engage with to gain the results set that is right for them?

Amazon’s solution is to represent the various facets of diamond description visually and rank the underlying data from small to large, dull to bright, etc, etc. Presenting the different facets as horizontal sliders, the visitor can be very precise in their selections and use all of the facets at the same time to generate a manageable results set just for their need. Brilliant!

EBay Parts Finder
www.ebay.co.uk

Searching some categories on eBay can be a frustrating experience – the platform is so successful that there is often too much data to deal with. Scrolling through the results, page after page is not the best use of time. Consequently, eBay have adopted fast search tools to make sense of the data. An example is on eBay Motors with the Parts Finders set of widgets. These allow ultra targeted searches, but the widgets need the right data to search for. Consequently the starting point for successful search begins with accurate data – this is the premise upon which the Parts Finder widget is based. Listings for particular items are formatted to fit the downstream requirements of search. So, for example, with tyres, the codes on the side of each tyre uniquely identify the size and fit of the tyre, so these are captured in a formatted style and stored in a way that can subsequently be searched.

This particular approach is used on a number of Tyre search companies – it most obviously benefits the user by getting them through a vast amount of data to the most relevant results – and a manageable results set. eBay also offers search by make and model and by registration number, making the process as easy as possible.

British Airways – BA Miles Rewards Flights
www.britishairways.com

British Airways rewards programme (BA Miles) is based on the simple idea – points make prizes. The more you fly, the more points you earn. The further forward you are in the plane, the more points you earn. Once you have a pot of points you can redeem on free flights across the BA network. Given the route network that BA has, there are a huge number of destinations you might want to choose from. Different destinations require different amounts of points and different routes have different reward redemption availability. To add to these variables you can do partial cash / points redemptions. That’s a lot of options.

To make sense of these options (and presumably to reduce load on call centres) BA has invested in a number of online tools to help manage the options. These include an interactive map which allows you see points and availability. Once you have an option that works you drop into the flight booking system, with your destination and dates recorded from the search tools. You can also search by nominated destination, country list and city list, giving lots of flexibility. Organising data in this way creates a credible online resource, the value of which is easy to see. This helps the customer to make selections from available data in an intuitive manner and helps BA to reduce load on its call centres, particularly reward flights which only represent a cost to the business, the value having been previously captured through the reward-earning stage.

Compare the Meerkat
www.comparethemeerkat.com

This is a site that’s had a lot of coverage because of the TV Ad spend. It’s a major initiative to create some separation in the market, from a very simple idea. Last week I looked at a simple application (a Household Contribution Calculator) which Cornhill Direct had developed to create a point of difference. I think it’s clear which one actually generates most separation. The great thing about the Compare approach is it’s uncopyable. Anyone can create a Household Calculator but Compare the Meerkat only works for this brand. The digital execution is nicely done, mimicking the real site right down to the logo (two meerkat’s face to face, in place of pound symbols) and I bet the team had fun creating it. It remains to be seen how much extra traffic this brings to the Compare site but a good attempt at separation in a very congested market.

The lead meerkat, Alexandr has a Borat’esque manner and is available to follow on Twitter. Great fun and plenty of links back to Compare the Market.

Update 7th Feb 09: I'm sure many of you have heard of, or like me, were lucky enough to experience first hand, 'frylift' - the exploits of Stephen Fry trapped in a lift, relayed to his followers on twitter. At one point Mr Fry, had his picture taken in the lift and posted it to Twitter to demonstrate to his followers that he was actually in a lift. This picture got good coverage. Those clever marketing peeps at Compare the Market edited the picture and reposted it from Alexsandr Orlov the Meerkat brand spokes-meerkat (!) as seen here, with the comment: 'Me with Mr Stephen Fry in a lift. Stuck, stuck, stuck ...'. Very clever, very very clever.

Website Reviews 03 Jan

Welcome to the first Digital Strategy Website Reviews of 2009. Four very different brands to review with very different digital strategies. Firstly a brand adjusting to New Year sales (although with deep discounting before Christmas, is there much more to discount?), an attempt by a motor insurer to make their site more of an experience, then an original online experience and finally a brand more associated with offline, bringing great content online. These are four very different digital strategies on show - I hope you enjoy the selection.

Debenhams
www.debenhams.com

Firstly Debenhams a UK retailer who we looked at a couple of weeks ago. This time the retailer seems to have sorted out availability challenges which affected the site before Christmas and moved the focus from Gifting to pure Discounting. The look and feel of the home page is recognisable from the pre-Christmas version but the content is different. The wild range of font styles remains, which I think is a mistake. Consistency is your friend! Still, elements of the design aside, there is stuff to like here. It is enticing and covers their key sales themes (presumably) well. There is easy access to individual shopping departments and the search is obvious.

Very busy design and too many signals, but somehow still manages to remain attractive. Report card might read "could do better".

Cornhill Direct - Household Calculator
www.cornhilldirect.co.uk

"Try to make insurance appealing to our customers" might have been the brief for this one. And good luck. Insurance is one of those sectors that just doesn't inspire us. It's not like booking a holiday or researching a new HD TV. Insurance is boring, let's face it. So it's a bit of a challenge to make the product anything other than a grudged purchase.

So how do insurance companies try to make their products appealing? Well one approach is to create a 'wrapper' for the proposition and turn it into something ... well, shiney. Cornhill Direct have created a Household Economy Calculator which allows you to assess the contribution made by each household member, across a spectrum of household chores, such as cooking, washing and grocery shopping. It's nicely designed (which contrasts with the 1999-esque main site) and is easy to use. An imaginative approach but I confess to feeling "so what" at the end of it. Perhaps adding in some social networking - compare yourself to your friends might have been interesting?

Creating some novel content is probably a good thing for an organisation such as an insurer as there is such competition in Search and Pay Per Click advertising - check out the bid prices for Motor Insurance on Adwords. Perhaps this initiative has giving Cornhill some content variation to use for traffic driving (no pun intended!)

Whopper Virgins
www.whoppervirgins.com

This is a one page site but it creates a lasting impression because of the super-engaging content. It's a single video that tells a story. It takes a very familiar brand - Burger King's Whopper - and manages to do something completely new, which is damned hard with an established brand in such a heavily promoted sector. Creating cut-through for your advertising in this market is very tough to do - check out the me-too advertising format that affects heavily promoted sectors such as beauty products.

In this video, Burger King commission research in parts of the world unfamiliar with burgers and do a taste test against McDonalds Big Mac. It is charming and engaging - a great online experience. By telling a story, Burger King take something pretty tired - the taste test - and transform it into an entirely novel presentation. I won't say any more about it - just watch it.

British Airways - High Life
www.bahighlife.co.uk

A couple of weeks ago I reviewed another BA site - Metrotwin - which is a fantastic social networking site. I don't want this column to turn into a BA love-in but I continue to be impressed by the online execution by BA. Quality, quality, quality. The digital strategy behind BA High Life is very different to Metrotwin but equally well executed.

The great advantage the publishers of this site have is their access to great content. Taking the offline content and re-purposing it for online is a simple idea and well used by publishers but not often as well as with High Life. The layout is quite different to the magazine but the brand is recognisable, taking good advantage of online features to search and navigate through the very wide range of articles. With so many contributors to choose from, it's a great resource for travel information, with a quality journal tone. And the photography is top class.

There is a subscribe section but surprisingly there is no online subscription route - only paper or telephone. One minor issue, in the About High Life section, there is some terrible copy, for example, "Stunning pictures set the scene. Glittering prose draws you in. Insider tips and hilarious anecdotes grab you and won’t let go." Who writes like that? Have you ever been grabbed by an anecdote that won't let go? No, thought not. Just let the articles speak for themselves, the site does not need such awkward self-promotion. Still, a minor quibble - this is a fine online destination.

Digital Strategy 09 Forecast

Digital Strategy Prognostication

What does the Digital world hold for us in 2009? Of course, no-one really knows – the answer is unknowable, however there are some pointers:

• Firstly, in the teeth of a recession, ecommerce will continue to rise. Dennis Woodside, Head of Google in the UK, writing in NMA, reported an interesting statistic: The UK’s population is 20% that of the US but it had 60% of that country’s ecommerce spend. That’s a significant indicator of how people in the UK shop. This trend will continue. 09 will see further growth in online sales as consumers search for better deals and research more product categories than they might otherwise have done. Expect a big year for price comparison sites such as Kelkoo.co.uk and Confused.com.


• Secondly, online spend will increase as a share of total media. In 08, online took just over 18% of all media spend and that share will increase, past 20% - a significant milestone. For online to grab a significant increase beyond this level will be hard – TV is still by a comfortable margin a bigger spend area and a more influential advertising media. The challenge for Online is to balance the needs of advertisers with those of the online population and the online community has more resistance to intrusive advertising.


• Thirdly, the mobile internet and a question asked of the two previous years: will this be the year when mobile finally becomes fast, engaging and ubiquitous? Well, no. That’ll be 2010 at the earliest. 09 will however see significant progress on mobile. Increased spend will drive further innovation. Better handsets, better mobile browsers, improved analytics, improved website design to allow content and advertising to work in numerous screen sizes and a change in mobile charging with more unlimited data bundles. A challenge for mobile operators has been getting data spend to increase significantly. The one big data success has been Texting and that’s been around for 10 years. 09 will be about setting the stage for the future success of mobile, but don’t expect a big change in 09.

Brands will be giving their Digital Strategies a shine in anticipation of a tough trading year. Fundamentals will be even more important: understand your customers, engage them with a fantastic online experience, integrate all marketing channels and deliver on your promises. Easy! Here are 8 Specific Predictions for 09 that might feature in the Digital Strategy of more than a few brands:

1. Video will become even more apparent – taking a more prominent position on more sites. Highlighting products and services through video works well today and expect this to become prevalent on many more sites. Things like destination guides in travel, product announcements in B2B, product demos in ecommerce will all benefit from increased use of video. Expect better tracking and analytics and on publisher sites, advertising intros and outros sandwiching the video content. Long run video will expand in 09. Examples from 08 include the wonderful Whopper Virgins and Adidas Dream Big campaigns – truly amazing online campaigns that use video as the key communication form. We’re likely to see many more examples in 09. Also big will be short and long-run video from the “upload yourself” generation. Self publishing has never been so easy with devices offering direct to YouTube offerings.


2. Online sites of TV broadcasters will make more of their live broadcast streams available online through dedicated players like iPlayer. More and more back catalogues will also be available. The players themselves will become more sophisticated and more stable. Expect social networking features such as user ratings and recommendations based on what other users liked. Personalisation will also feature and this will give publishers valuable demographics about users – expect this to be released as better recommendations and more advertising. iPlayer will become a product BBC continues to licence to other publishers, appearing on numerous sites and devices as a default media player.


3. Search continues to grow. Yawn, what a surprise. Yes, well perhaps not a particularly insightful prediction, but important nonetheless. Expect smarter use of search – agencies will be trying hard to add value (i.e. get a fee) and this might be in closer tie-ups between promotions and search – seeding particular terms for later use in through the line activities. The removal of Best Practice Funding will force agencies to work smarter on PPC campaigns.


4. Mobile device arms race will continue at a pace with today’s handsets guaranteed obsolescence making room for even “better” handsets by Xmas 09, taking the feature lists beyond the needs of even the geekiest of us. One positive out of the device wars will be a continued push on two fronts important to users – capacity and screen resolution. Expect Apple in Sept/Oct to announce a doubling of storage capacity on iPods and iPhones. And finally the iPhone will get a decent camera.


5. Online celebrity chasing will continue at an indecent pace in 09 with sites such as the wonderful Gawker.com commanding even more attention (and more advertising) with stories exposing celebrities to be just as mean, dishonest, avaricious and insecure as the rest of us. Expect strong growth in a social networking dimension to celebrity chasing – who spotted whom to appear on social networking and publishing sites – and more pictures submitted to sites directly from mobile phones, with, gasp, Jennifer Aniston shopping in LA wearing, wait for it, ... Gucci sunglasses! OMG!


6. Improved targeting (and tracking) will appear through the back door. Having had the front door slammed in its face in 08, behavioural targeting will creep in, step by step. Concerns about privacy need to be addressed, but claims that users will flock for the exits are unrealistic – consumers often express displeasure in “I’ll definitely leave my ISP” terms, however, who are they going to leave for? Another ISP that’s toying with a different behavioural targeting model? And anyway it’s such a fag to change ISPs that it’s not worth the hassle. Uncertainty can be overcome with information and expect a low-key charm offensive in 09. And, better targeted ads – and that’s a wholly good thing.


7. Online display advertising will continue to be enriched with more use of video. Expandable positions (where the ad expands to take over content space when you mouse over the ad) will increase and many more auto-run ads will appear on publisher sites. This creates a good workflow for digital agencies in production terms but expect pressure from above the line agencies muscling in on areas closer to their area of expertise. Media buying agencies and Ad agencies are beefing up Digital Media arms and will extend campaigns across media, capturing as much of the total production and media buying budget as they can. Expect more use of content designed for TV advertising to appear in online display.


8. Internet Explorer will continue to dominate browser share, albeit at a lower level as competitors continue to push aggressively, particularly Google with their new browser, Chrome. IE8 due in February will be the biggest upgrade of the year for most people. Initially a lot of websites will force IE8 into IE7 compatibility mode but increasingly website developers will take advantage of the new features in IE8 and design sites to work well in that environment – a change from the lowest common denominator approach of current development standards. Firefox, Safari and Chrome will still be playing catch-up in 09.

Certainly a common thread is Technology. Much of online is powered (obviously) by technology, but it should be mostly a background service, not the core proposition. A source of innovation and value certainly, but without an engaging content wrapper, technology on its own makes for a thin customer experience. A Digital Strategy should not be defined by technology. In fact if your Digital Strategy contains terms like load-balanced servers, XML or open-source, then ditch it, it’s not a Digital Strategy.

So that’s it. A very personal view on what might happen in 2009. This will be an interesting year in Online – seeing how brands deal with a slowdown in the economy and seek improved return from their online spend. Who will win? Who will lose out? It looks to be a good year for comparison shopping sites, but a bad year for whom? Charities possibly? Compared to offline, where there will be carnage, online looks likely to be spared major slowdowns, due to the measurable nature of online. A strong Digital Strategy will help online brands through this time of economic slowdown. It’s not enough to be online, brands must understand and engage consumers – and turn that engagement into pennies.

And finally ... some personalities who may well have a big year in 09.

1. Barrack Obama. As The Onion quoted: “black man gets America’s worst job”. A big year for Mr Obama. Is it too much to say that the world is looking to Mr Obama for hope? Certainly a fresh start but he will face many challenges. Look for this to be the most open presidency online.


2. Perez Hilton. Mr Online Gossip who spits out poisoned notes about celebrities over-managing their public personas contrasted with their calamitous personal life decisions.


3. Elena Moscatt. Creator of online drama series: Jamie’s Way and Life After Lisa, could be a pointer to how drama will evolve – webisode by webisode. Bebo has had success with online teen dramas. The presence of a major sponsor certainly helps with production budgets.


4. Steve Ballmer. As CEO of Microsoft, Mr Ballmer will have some big decisions in 09 – moving the software distribution model online, an update to Vista and Internet Explorer and challenging Google’s dominance of online advertising.


5. Tiger Woods. Mr Product Endorsement himself, returns to golf after an injury forced the end of his 08 season. Sport online is increasingly well resourced and highlights clips are particularly popular. Expect Mr Woods to feature in many of the golfing ones. As winner.