These comments by Avinash Kaushik, Google's analytics guru, are true for many corporate websites. He "thinks one of the reasons why so many websites 'suck' today is because of the hippo - as in the 'highest paid person's opinion.'
And, yes, you're likely a hippo - a successful advertising executive, CMO or brand manager, pulling in a six-figure income, often found pontificating about what does and doesn't work online. You use tried-and-true metrics such as unique visitors and click-through rates to decide on the best design for your landing page or what content is best suited on your product site. "
[Source: AdAge]
In my experience it is often the least qualified person in the building who gets to decide the design and functionality for the company website.
This is a a fascinating phenomenon. In many other industries people actually take notice of their domain knowledge specialists. You don't find people telling the bridge engineers to move this pillar over 3 metres to suit a personal aesthetic. But in web everyone is an expert and can tell you how to do your job.
Many people working in advertising and marketing are steeped in print media tradition and knowledge and have little understanding of what the web is like and how people consume that media. I do wonder if this will change with a new generation coming through or not?
Source: Carruthers via Aide-mémoire
Labels: design, web design, Web Marketing, websites
Posted by Nick HaC @ 8:46 AM
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Labels: behaviour, communities, consumer, design, Ideas, Marketing
Posted by Nick HaC @ 1:03 AM
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We have seen an explosion of consumer choice, a new level of scarcity of consumer attention, the growth of abundance of options and masses and masses of online consumer review and comparison sites.
Under 30's have grown up with advertising, and are fully aware of the processes that corporate marketers use to sell them products.
Are there are more products than consumers need? Just go to the supermarket, you have 20 types of peanut butter, 200 types of cheese and 80 types of toothbrushes.
Want to but a tshirt online? Which one of the 10 million sites do you choose?
We could speculate that consumers and businesses make more choices based on social recommendation than advertisements.
We could also speculate that are seeing the end of the media-industrial era, and the rebirth of the pre-industrial era consumer run Market Place (this time with global, realtime efficiencies).
This new era is the market place of the people for the people. Of course there will still be a strong need for insustrial processes, but these will become commoditised as platforms, just like electricity and the railroads have become.
If you are selling a product, a service or an idea... spreading your brand will soon strongly rely on person to person social reccomendation.
But with so many products and features on offer, how do you get noticed? Instead of selling based on pure functionality, as a coat functionally keeps you warm, the new market is about style! So what defines style or fashion, social influence and reccomendation?
The drivers of social reccomendation are the early adopters, the merchants of cool. Those who take early risks and by breaking the norm send waves through the social landscape. Sometimes they succeed, and sometime they miss the mark. Aside from the risks of this space, this is the source of new social influence and trends. And this space must be recognised.
Dont think this only applies to consumer goods, business to business services and products follow the same rules. Business communities and social networks are potentially even closer, tighter and more intimate than those of the consumer social community. Is it possible that the tightness of the business community creates an even stronger desire to use the hip process or service or business practice?
The rules of consumer influenced have changed. Has your businsess shifted?
Labels: advertising, behaviour, branding, communities, consumer, design, internet, Marketing, online, pr, reputation, social networking, technology, viral, web 2.0
Posted by Nick HaC @ 5:46 AM
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Seth Godin talks at Gel 2006, a very funny look at how stuff is broken.
Labels: advertising, behaviour, consumer, design, Fun, Ideas, Marketing
Posted by Nick HaC @ 10:32 PM
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Anyone who has followed consumer electronics and online services knows that once a product reaches dominance, it becomes very hard for it to be dethroned (hello, iPod, Google, and Windows). Economists have argued for years regarding the costs involved in finding and adopting alternatives, but the psychologists will point out that familiarity and comfort play major roles in keeping consumers loyal to an incumbent. Research that appears in the Journal of Consumer Research delves into how these factors, collectively termed "Cognitive Lock-in," develop and play out.
The authors of the study point out that previous research has shown that cognitive lock-in is not just an abstract concern, but one comes with real-world costs: "the costs associated with thinking about and using a particular product decrease as a function of the amount of experience a consumer has with it. Thus, repeated consumption or use of an incumbent product results in a (cognitive) switching cost that increases the probability that a consumer will continue to choose the incumbent over competing alternatives." This suggests that, even if a product isn't especially easy to use, familiarity with it may overcome that drawback as, ultimately, its users don't have to think about their actions in order to get things done anymore.
Posted by Nick HaC @ 5:39 AM
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Color is probably one of the most powerful psychological tools and we are often not even aware of its power. If you didn't know it by now, the industrial psychology has a special field that studies the in-depth psychology of color.
Color is a very important factor in online branding, not solely for logos, but for web graphics in general. A simple shade of red could either send a good, positive message or generate an aggressive state of mind. To put it clear: color drives emotions and emotions are the most important factor in decision-making.
Color psychology is rather hard to define when we consider cultural differences, personal beliefs and subjective meanings. But some general aspects might help you in choosing the right colors for online branding.
First of all for a business website you should avoid dark backgrounds, especially black. It is true that dark backgrounds, when used wisely, might create a 'charmed' atmosphere, but is this the message you want to send? Shouldn’t you be focusing on 'reliability', 'trustworthiness', 'quality' and other such positive values? For a business website, avoid the 'Twilight Zone' look and feel, unless you sell magic potions, books of mystery or other such products.
Light backgrounds are the best choice to create uncluttered layouts. This is also the latest trend in web design. The 'heavy' websites of the past, with their saturated colors, their marble tiles patterns and their stripped backgrounds are passe. Sophisticated designs employ light colors with random dark hue accents, simple layouts and high quality, unique graphics that match the color scheme of the design.
Logos should still employ powerful, recognizable colors, the kind of colors that capture attention and appeal to the senses.
Usually, blue logos don't fail because blue is the favorite color of a clear majority of people. A look at the clear blue sky would help your body produce the chemicals you need to relax. But when it comes to dark blues, too much might cause stress and nervous tension. Commonly logo designers use navy blue for business-to-business logos, for financial logos and for official logos, as this color suggests dependability and straightforwardness, precisely the values needed for such affairs.
Green, in its various shades, is perfect for the hospitality industry, food industry (especially for BIO products) cosmetic (if we consider Yves Rocher and Garnier) and ecology.
Although each color has its audience and its industry, there are cases when one color might be successfully employed for atypical applications. It’s just a matter of 'how to' design using that color and other hues to create the best color combination.
Reds and orange are not so easy to deal with, especially online. But they do have their fans (Ferrari, Coca-Cola, etc) and with a good design they will reach the targeted audience faster than other colors. That's because red is the color of energy, movement and excitement.
For more information on Corporate Branding and Website Useability and Psychology, Contact Shifted Pixels.
Posted by Nick HaC @ 2:55 AM
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