I finally got a chance on an airplane ride to take a look at Paul Mosenson’s e-book “Digital Marketing The Right Way: an Introductory Primer for B2B” (NuSpark Marketing). It is a nice introduction to essential elements of digital marketing (web site purpose/presentation, SEO, social media, content, lead management), helping the B2B vendor reader understand important elements of a vendor’s online presence (web site, blogs, interaction in the online world) and how customers and potential customers can be reached, drawn in, and held. continue reading…
This post is a departure from my typical observations that demonstrate how appropriate product simulations are for such-and-such (am I really that predictable?).
This post is going to be a short missive on getting myself properly oriented to positive change.
I was catching up with a friend recently who I had been out of contact with for several years, and we were talking about mistakes we make and how easy it is to see what other people should do, but much more difficult to see the right path for ourselves.
She told me about the experiences she has had with the Handel Group, and how it has helped her a lot in shaping positive views–real progress in her business and personal life. Not the stereotypical psychoanalysis of “how does that make you feel?”, rather, establishing what we want to achieve and then actively looking for things in your life that confirm that hypothesis.
It is so interesting that we do this almost instinctively in the wrong direction (maybe I shouldn’t say ‘instinctively’ because that paints me as having this problem!)–we have a personality flaw that we have internalized and then we confirm that flaw in things around us. Very self-defeating, but why is it so easy to fall into this pattern?
In “How Catchy is Your Content?“, Ardath Albee (‘Marketing Interactions’) does a nice job of presenting and discussing a few metrics one can apply to content for B2B marketing (really to anything), to ensure the content gets the right reception. She calls the metrics “Catch Factors” (catchy!). She defines “Catch Factors” as “the preferences and aversions that form a prospect’s gut reaction to your content and communications” and lists five of them as:
- Urgency: Does it apply to a business problem they have now?
- Impact: is your information on a topic critical to their professional success?
- Effort: how much energy do they have to expend to access and understand it?
- Reputation: what’s their immediate perception of your company?
- Intent: what will they think you want from them?
Read her article for details, but I think she’s got a succinct, useful list. My observation is that if a manufacturer makes a marketing piece that uses a simulation of its product that shows how to solve a relevant business problem, it can nail four of the five (#4, Reputation, is more of a big picture item, but also #3 depends on how accessible the manufacturer makes the operation of the simulated product).
Admittedly, a pretty bizarre title, but it comes (late at night) from me seeing a juxtaposition of Seth Godin’s “A sad truth about most traditional b2b marketing” a few days ago and Adam Singer’s (Online Marketing Blog) “Thinking Critically About Web Video.”
I struggle often with the question about why product simulations/demos are not yet a popular marketing tool, while the marketing world is crowing about the effectiveness of videos (which seems to me one or more steps away from an engaging product experience.
In “Study finds customer engagement hard to measure,” B-to-B Magazine’s Kate Maddox posts some high-level findings from a recent study from Forbes Insights about measuring customer engagement.
“Customer engagement is a top priority for CMOs, but many companies are struggling to implement strategies and measure customer engagement, according to a new study from Forbes Insights and George P. Johnson.”
A majority (67%) of marketers polled view customer engagement as very important, but a good percentage feel their companies do a fair or poor job engaging their audiences. They view retention, sales, and revenue per customer as key metrics for customer engagement.
I hypothesize that “product engagement” — using tools and methods to present products in a more interactive and engaging way, such as via product simulation marketing — would be a big contributing factor to overall customer engagement. Furthermore, it may be easier to measure product engagement because of the direct relationship between what is presented and how the viewer/customer interacts with it.
I came across this interesting blog post on Monday Note entitled “The lethal self-complacency of advertising“, later posted on the Washington Post as “Why is digital advertising so lousy? Industry is too smug to innovate“, but Frédéric Filloux. I agree with his conclusion that online ads are not innovative in the capacity that they could be, and I think product simulation advertising (or marketing) is the kind of innovation which would deliver much better results (as I’ve seen with my own informal work).
The author’s prognosis is on the basis of digital media not delivering results, stating that an “electronic reader brings 15 to 20 times less in advertising revenue than a print reader does.” I can believe it, but I don’t know exactly where to put the blame. Fortunately, he posits some thoughts as to why he believes that digital advertising is getting poor results.
Number 1. Poor design. Essentially, he bemoans the lack of creative talent in the current crop of ads–banners, skyscrapers, sliders, pop-up’s, etc. They act as reader-repellants and fodder for ad-blockers. I don’t think we can do a lot for the containers, though perhaps there is some room — ads have to be placed somewhere, and there has to be standardization for sizing, just like in print ads. I think if you ask about the creativity of the content within the ad, I think the point is valid–we need to get beyond the ‘in-your-face’ style of text, flashing things, etc.
Ultimately, in our search-driven online world, I think that the best type of advertising is one that engages the viewer with relevant content. After all, isn’t the best time to present your product or service when someone is looking for it or something like it? It’s no wonder that search advertising is so strong in the online world. I don’t mean all advertising has to be focused on the specific product, but I think if advertising were designed around where the products or services are being used, in other words, scenario based, and if the advertising delivered some useful content, then the advertisements would not be so repelling to viewers because the viewers want to see or use that content.
Therefore, I hypothesize that content-based advertising, or in the case of products that can be simulated, ‘product simulation advertising’, will be a potent and effective form of advertising that takes unique advantage of the medium both in terms of interactivity and measurement (of course the latter is all-important in a marketing world).
[Update 6/17/2010]
I was reading some comments from Frederic’s post, and a response from “Matt” caught my eye. He responded that we ought to point a finger at the container problem, not the digital ad problem. In other words, it is the business model of “ads in a container” that is likely the root of the issue Frederic complains about. I agree with Matt — my observation was a roundabout way of seeing that. The problem is that we have generally taken the ad model from print — ads on the fringes of reading materials — and stuck that in a digital world that is not constrained by those boundaries.
Over at Get Elastic, they had an interesting post about research from Invodo (a company focused on using videos for product marketing, not coincidentally) regarding improving conversion rates using videos. I think when mainstream marketing get around to seeing the benefits of product simulation marketing, many of these same observations will be relevant.
In my mind, product videos share some effects with simulations, except that videos are fixed and uninteractive (is that a word?). Videos illustrate points, they try to get the viewers involved in the product, but there’s no flexibility, or really “owning” the product. I believe that the more diverse product videos a manufacturer produces, the better the results will be, because it is almost like making the marketing interactive — the viewer chooses which aspect of the product or message to observe. This will bring the retailer or manufacturer closer to the point of realizing that product simulation will take the positive effects of videos to the next level — truly engaging the prospect or customer.
Back to the points. Linda Bustos summarizes the report finding in 4 hypotheses tested, and specifically calls attention to improving a metric called “View Through Rate” (VTR), or how many videos are watched per impression with a video. She comes up with a nice list of interesting questions one might ask in testing to improve VTR, such as thumbnail images, showing video length, captions, text, headlines, etc. Each of these sounds like they would call attention to why the viewer should be interested. In the comments, I added something about looking at how long a person watches the video, to see about correlation with conversion. My thinking is that the video is a crude way of seeing how much it takes before the viewer has satisfied himself or herself that the product has the elements they want — something I think could be done more effectively if the options are laid out for them (such as through a simulation, or interactive product demo).
I recently saw a post by Tony Karrer (eLearning Technology blog) about eLearning innovations in 2010, and one category listed ‘Simulations in 3D worlds.’ Here are the three that Tony pointed to:
Virtual World
The tools are starting to get there where simulations in 3D worlds makes sense.
- Eight 3D Virtual World Design Principles, March 8, 2010
- Virtual Immersive Environments: From Theory to Practice, February 7, 2010
- Instructional Design for Virtual Worlds, January 22, 2010
I took a quick glance through the links trying to find the answer to one question: what does the 3D have to do with things?
I think it is natural when one thinks about “immersive environments” to use an analogy to 3D, but I would really like to see an insightful piece on what the 3D immersiveness adds, and what it makes more complex. I think 3D can be used as a crutch at times to turn anything into a ‘simulation,’ meanwhile, the 3D-ness only adds potential complexity in navigation and scenario construction. The 3D worlds people get opportunities to bring the technology back into spotlight in an effort to go mainstream, but I think we still have a ways to go instructionally in using simulations to teach, even without regard for the complexities that a real 3D environment introduces.
I was reviewing some quotations I excerpted from my readings on experiential marketing, and I began to see a pattern regarding my thinking about ‘product engagement’, or engaging prospects and customers with a brand’s products.
I see a lot of talk about engaging customers with the brand, but very little about getting prospects hooked on the products. This seemed strange to me until I realized that the thrust of brand engagement seems to be having prospects feel good about whatever it is that the brand produces. My impression is that it is about having the company/brand develop a relationship with the consumer or prospect.
If I’m right about this mostly, that’s all well and good–if I am the prospect/consumer, before I buy a product, I evaluate the company and its support to some degree. If the product sounds fantastic but my impression of the company (in terms of support, or quality of presentation, etc.) is not good, I will be distrustful and perhaps lean towards a vendor who gives me a better feeling about what happens after I make the purchase.
However, ultimately, I am looking at vendors not to make friends, but to solve my problems using their products and services. Before I’m ready to engage with the vendor, I want to be sure the product meets my needs. That’s why I think it is so important for marketers to be thinking first about getting customers engaged with their products, as a relationship entry point or building block, and then showing how well the company supports them.
I’m intrigued by postings about experiential marketing because it should be all over getting prospects engaged with products by letting the prospect interact, rather than watching others (videos, pictures, etc.). I’ve collected a bunch of quotations to that effect.
Experiential marketing often involves events, contests, interactive campaigns to promote, however holistic experiential marketing considers the experience delivered to the customer through the purchase or use of the product or service.
“About Experiential Marketing“, Scollin Sevan, Dec 2009
There it is–”the experience delivered…through the use of the product or service.”
Examples of Simulations in Experiential Marketing
Here’s an interesting description of what Audi did:
Audi – virtual car experience
“An enjoyable experience will leave a product lingering in the minds of consumers. If players have enough fun in a virtual simulation of the Audi R8, they’re more likely to associate the car with those good memories when it comes time to put real money down on the lot”
I agree that having a prospect come away with an enjoyable experience is paramount. The actual example, however, lets a player drive a simulation in a fantasy game. I think that would be great if the regular marketing thrust–the one aimed directly at people who want to buy a car in the first place–already allowed prospects to try out the real functions of the car. Appealing to gamers is great, but it seems a bit indirect to me. I also ran into this posting about simulating the experience in a 2010 Mitsubishi Outlander, through a “retro-futurist landscape.” I would love to discuss whether this futurist landscape really enhances the experience or distracts people who otherwise just want to know how the car reacts in real-world situations.
I came across an article in Dr. Dobbs Journal entitled “Why Software Really Fails And What to Do About It“, by Chuck Connell (March 11, 2010). I think the most succinct answer to the provocative title question appears on page 3:
We fool ourselves about how well we understand the complex new software machines we are trying to build.
Wow. It hit me that this is the same sentiment I run into when I discuss building simulations with certain types of programmers–those inexperienced with creating simulations, but with egos that believe they can do anything just because they have the ability to program. I will call these people ‘naive simulation programmers.’ I don’t mean they are necessarily naive or ignorant about programming or deficient in knowledge of programming languages, rather, they are naive about the true nature of simulation. To be honest, I used to fit in the latter category until I had a revelation during my PhD work, thanks to my advisors.
The bottom line is that simulations express a model of some phenomenon (usually from the real world, like a device or a process), but ALL models intrinsically have assumptions. Imagine, if a simulation/model were made to be 100% accurate with the real-world manifestation, it could only be possible if the simulation WAS the manifestation itself–otherwise there would be some difference, albeit possibly small, which made it different. This is not simply anal retentive arguing. Once you internalize this fact and step back a bit, you realize that our goal with a model is to decide which are the important details of the real manifestation we need to replicate, and which we don’t have to, or which details we can simplify without losing our expected validity of the details we deemed important.
Getting back to the connection with the quotation–I believe that the naive simulation programmers value the objective of reproducing fidelity to the real system, almost like a macho benchmark, over reasoning about the objective of the overall project and designing a model with the right level of detail to meet that objective. That machoism gets people in trouble–more time, more resources, more cost, etc. than necessary, and sometimes the extra burden put on designing to an arbitrary but unnecessary fidelity can even sink the whole project.
For example, I was brought in to oversee a project to convert a physical computer with an 8-bit microprocessor (8088) into a simulated computer with a simulated 8-bit microprocessor (should we call this a ‘mocku-processor’? wow, it’s late), to enable students to perform calculations and to troubleshoot the computer. Rather than examine the types of tasks the students were asked to perform, the lead naive simulation programmer started off saying “we’re going to need an 8088 emulator for this.” This led to heated discussions about whether such detail was going to be necessary, and we really ought to look at what tasks students need to perform because there’s a good chance we don’t have to simulate all the functionality (and absorb the cost and integration time) of some fanciful ‘emulator’ that is supposed to exist somewhere (because of course, even that emulator had assumptions that might not hold true for our tasks!). I certainly understood what he was thinking–solving the problem ‘in general’ was going to give us coverage for the wide range of tasks needed. However, he was going to make this proclamation before bothering to understand the level of fidelity and modeling required for the tasks at hand. In the end, because he was the team leader and had the ultimate decision, he took his team through a completely wasted pursuit of the generality illusion before settling back to a more simplified solution, based on the specific needed tasks, that actually could solve the problem at hand.
In brief, naive simulation programmers gravitate to the pursuit of grandiose models that are supposed to simulate behavior comprehensively, under the pretext that it is going to be able to address the current problem and beyond, without sufficiently understanding what assumptions are perfectly reasonably to be made. In a form similar to the quote from Chuck, I would say:
We fool ourselves about how complex we have to make simulations to be effective.
For example, our CommandSim platform for training emergency responder officers uses photographs, videos, and animations to present realistic incidents to the trainees. ‘Serious games’ enthusiasts take a look and argue that a 3D immersive environment would produce better training, by virtue of the fact that some of our competitors produce 3D environments for emergency responder training. However, we have demonstrated that the performance improvement with CommandSim, for its specific purposes–which happen to be the same purposes the competitors are aiming their products–has been seen to be comparable to live exercises. That begs the question, “what exactly is the additional contribution of the 3D immersiveness?” Certainly not in simplified technology, nor ease of distribution. By carefully understanding what problems you are seeking to solve, you can come up with solutions designed at the ‘right’ level of detail, not just going full bore with all the detail possible.
Improving the Success Rate
At the end of the article, Chuck lays out good arguments for ways in which we can improve the success rate of software, which I think parallel the ways we can improve the success rate of simulations (for their specific purposes). Here are two of them:
- “Stop fooling ourselves about how much we know and how clever we are”. We must design tightly to the problems and objectives, otherwise risk the project spinning out of control.
- “Incremental improvement to existing systems is good”. If we go into a project thinking we’re going to simulate everything, it is very hard to know exactly where to stop and what is overkill. Sometimes adding more complexity increases the problems associated with using it for basic tasks. Critics may say that things become hodge-podge if we design specifically to the tasks presented, and the system will not be flexible enough to handle future extensions. I would argue that a good overall design of process modeling, like using statecharts, will go a long way in providing the foundation for extensibility of the model. We might find that one day the model’s assumptions are flawed for new tasks, but a good systematic process for developing simulations can help us redesign at that later stage, when we know so much more about the problems we need to face. Nothing teaches us more than actual experience!
