Potential of the “Smart” Watch

Nowadays with the upcoming portable wearable devices such as the google glass, and wearable gadgets such as fitbits (fitness bands) which offers the user with biometric data such as distance travelled, sleeping patterns and etc. 

Smartwatches offers the convenience of answering phone calls, taking photos and messaging, together with 4G internet access as well as GPS. It just opens up more avenues for digital marketers to access data about the user using the watch or to promote their products through this platform. 

Like mobiles, smartwatches will travel with their users thus this makes it a great device for location-based marketing.  With all the data accumulated from the biometrics or the location tracking functionality, the data can be catered and analyzed on what the user’s habits are and perhaps the digital marketers can make use of the data from that to send messages to their phones or the smart phone as a reminder when they are near a certain location and consumers could check into a location using their smartwatches, and have mobile-marketing messages, coupons and offers delivered to them that will be only made available for the person using the smart watch for example. 

That perhaps is a opportunity on how the data obtained can allow the marketers to understand how to increase the user wants to buy the product or use the product in the first place.

To spread relevant messages across more effectively, marketers have to think how they can make use of the space constraint on the smart watch to their advantage is one of the factors to think about. Whether the use of QR codes or NFC function can in turn compensate the lack of space and how the message can be transferred to another mobile platform or desktop through the watch is something to be considered. 

Functions like the fingerprint scanning from iPhone 5, could also be used on the smartwatch if purchasing of single item or payment is needed. By including NFC capabilities, the smartwatch could then be used by consumers to redeem coupons or loyalty points at an NFC terminal in any brick-and-mortar store.

Its not surprising that there will be more and more apps pertaining to the use on smartwatches or functions that would be further explored like motion / gesture control and others, like games for example.  Imagine playing candy crush on your watch. The potential of introducing adverts through the games for example?

playing candy crush on your watch? 

With the emergence of smartwatches from Samsung, Sony, Pebble from kickstarter, big giants like HTC and Apple are all coming up with smartwatches of their own. Nissan is also coming out with smartwatches for car drivers with biometric tracking and accessibility to the internet to name a few. Smartwatches are getting more and more vesatile as technology improves by leaps and bounds. Seeing the trend that it is going, I’m sure there will be more exciting features  coming out very soon and great opportunities for digital marketing so as to speak.

Marketing in the New Social Media

The growing popularity of new apps such as SNAPCHAT, and a few other emerging players such as FRANKLY, WICKR and BLINK – reflect emerging trends in the social media landscape.

Firstly, we are seeing a stratification of social media users group. With the advent of private messaging groups and erasable messaging features, teenagers are forming a distinctive group of social media users via various ‘teenage-friendly’ messaging apps. These groups are distinctly different from other groups of users such as the Gen-X and Babyboomers groups due to the content they share and the way they communicate.  

Secondly, a new sub-culture is emerging; one that exists mainly in the mobile realm, thrives on personal connections, offers interesting visual content, and offers impermanent records.

Last but not least, social media is gravitating towards messaging apps that can be used to share all kinds of information, including the use of in-app purchases. In a way, many of these messaging apps , such as KakaoTalk (South Korea), WeChat (China) and LINE (Japan) etc. have developed their winning business models that are driven largely by large pool of local adopters.  As such, there may not be one universal social media messaging model that can work across different cultures but the winning model should be sufficiently flexible to suit what works in the local culture.

As such, for digital marketers, it may be useful to take note of the following trends:

• Personal connection. Young people are showing us that they are more interested in connecting online with people they already know. Marketers should find ways to make their messaging more personable and unique to such private groups.

• Mobile enabled. Marketers need to ensure that their communication strategy incorporates mobile platforms, whether by means of apps or by making web portals e-mobile friendly.

• Visual Imaging. Messaging via interesting and captivating visual imagery is a given in the new social media.

Can Snapchat as marketing tool?

What is Snapchat? It is a mobile app that allows users to take photos, record video, add text and drawings, and send them to their list of friends. Users can also set a time limit up of up to 10 seconds for how long they want their friends to be able to see their content before it completely disappears. Who is sharing these photos?  The majority are young group of people between the ages of 13 and 25 but there is a growing audience of people over the age of 40.

Snapchat has 5 million active users and the reports have shown that over 200 million photos are shared each day. This is up from 150 million just two months ago. To put this into prospective for you, Snapchat has surpassed the amount of photos shared on Instagram and they continue to close the gap on photos posted on Facebook, so that can Snapchat be turned into a marketing tool to promote your brands. Any companies like to use on the most recent social media. There definitely are situations in which some social media platforms may not be right for your company. When you considering Snapchat as a marketing tool, you may want to ask a question, will it fits your target demographic. Is your company targeting mainly young group?  Than Snapchat might be another marketing tool to implement for your brand.

When the company marketing on Snapchat, it is important to remember that whatever you share is going to available for a very little amount of time. You only have a maximum of 10 seconds to build excitement so you want to be sure that you are creating content at the right place and right time to your audience. SnapChat provides users with the ability to form a personal connection with their recipient. Unlike other social media, Facebook or Twitter where the majority of posts and messages are public, and belong to the social network once they have been published. It is where you can count your followers or retweets, SnapChat does not allow you to keep a record. As a marketers, you need to keep track of the activity through other social sites. This means you need to have a good hold on all things social, and must be prepared to react quickly.

However, doubts can the tool will become widely adopted by marketers and unlike of Twitter and Facebook in the long term. Marketers have so much choice in social networks at the moment, and so there really needs to be a huge benefit to creating and establishing a new one. For those marketers keen to experiment with the app, I think it is before you jump in and use Snapchat, you have to choose which social platform and tool is the most appropriate for your brand and audience. Your audience may not be ready to jump onto the new tools so think about what you want from the tool and can it deliver it for you.

Snapchat As A Marketing Tool?





Now you see it, Now you don't!

How Snapchat had evolved into a phenomenon digital marketing tool since it was first created in 2011 was so fast, that it almost replicates the speed of how the photos remains seen via the app itself.

There were a few campaigns which used Snapchat successfully:

The first UK retailer - The Co-operative Travel, had used Snapchat to target students through a brand awareness campaign by sending a discount code via Snapchat and getting them to friend the page in Facebook after the image disappears.

Another successful campaign was to promote a new film for Swarovski Entertaiment where it had posted images and videos on Snapchat and encourge the users to try and capture a screenshot of the posts using a hashtag, where selected fans were then rewarded with a swarovski pendant.

There had been many debates over how such short images/videos could work out as successful marketing campaigns, but from another prespective, many customers had made hasty decisions in a rush to not lose out to time, hence, creating impulse purchases. Example of how a store could promote discounts of their store items, by getting customers to pose with the items, showing their brand and then posting in on Snapchat and sharing it with friends, to be rewarded with a discount of purchase of the item.

With over 100 million users and 350 million snaps being exchanged on a daily basis, Snapchat is a force to be reckoned with for digital marketers and especially when the brand is targeting the youth audience.

"Watch" It!

First there was Dick Tracy, then there was James Bond taking spy photos, remote controlling his car. What was once a “make believe” wrist watch by man’s imagination becomes a reality with the debut of ‘Pulsar’ by Hamilton Watch Company in early 1982; the birth of today’s Interactive Smart Watch. Manufacturing processes have evolved from miniaturisation to 3D printing and application of nanotechnologies allow us to pack more smartphone-like functions and features in less, and provided us with new ways to look at our watch. 

Recently launched smart watches such as the Samsung Gear not only allow us to watch our time; we can watch our heartbeat, watch our messages, watch our temperature and many more “watchable” functions are made possible by myriads of sensors built into it. The watch is as good as the imagination of the programmer who wishes to include those functions as an “apps” downloader into the smart watch.

For the marketer, it opens up a completely new dimension and offer exciting possibilities to catch the wearer’s attention each time he check his “watches” or other wearable computing device for that matter. However for digital marketing in the form of a “Watch Me Now” advertising to be optimised and successful, we will have to dwell further into the consumer behaviour: Consumers follow a more or less similar pattern when it comes to buying behaviours. Typically:

1)        A need or want must arise – this is the basis of permission marketing. When there is no need or desires – any push message becomes SPAM. The last we need is to turn “Watch Me Advertising” into another SPAM media platform. OS for smart watch can have built-in function for the wearer to approve advertising sources and notifications.

2)      Search for information – once the need arises, the consumer will begin his search for information through web resources. Not enough screen assets on wrist watch to provide meaningful reads will deter consumer adoption. Brochures, PDF can only be meaningfully read on the bigger ‘phablets’ (phone cum tablet). Exclusive “watch coupons” can instead be offered when user searches the website. Rewards coupons can also be offered for returning consumers in the website.

3)      Trials – Nothing can replace the actual experience of the product try outs. However, with the sensors built in, we can know if consumers are actually excited about the product in real-time. This however presents serious question of intrusion of privacy – that we are collecting personal physiological data such as heart-rate or body temperature changes without the user knowing. Permission again is the key to branding here, we can encourage the consumer to participate in “heart ratings”.

4)         Review before purchase – Comparisons before purchase is often necessary. The watch can work with the phone to provide “review or compare” icon signposts that remember the last brand you compared. With a click on the watch – it brings you the last comparison site or even alerting on similar products nearby for quick comparisons.

Eventually making the purchase and post purchase feedback is just a flick of the watch away, through NFC with point of sales or service counters.

While many marketing tools lack feedback abilities (we can always fake a survey, but not our physical response!) and therefore making marketing research exercises painstaking, wearable computing devices such as the smart watch offer new opportunities to capture real-time quantitative data which reflects our everyday social behaviour in a mobile context. Merchants can apply proper marketing techniques at the various consumer touch points and collect important feedbacks with permissions from the consumer about their level of engagement and emotional response to marketing messages. 

The smart watch coupled with smartphone technology no doubt has propelled us towards advancing wearable computing technology and probably inched mankind towards artificial intelligence where technology eventually becomes intuitively part of us. 

SEO, SEM & the SME

SEO in its early days was a fuzzy concept to me, without proven results to have a case for management.   It seemed like anyone with some IT knowledge could pick it up.   So I recruited one with an offer to learn SEO on the job and to experiment on our websites, so long as he did not resort to ‘black hat’ strategies or harm our online reputation.  He focused on the “technology” while I did the content.   I wanted to try in-house expertise even though we were only an SME.  I was fortunate to have a boss who let me experiment.  

My bet paid off.  We went from SEO to SEM to display ads.  We were an early adopter in the industry, and enjoyed first page search results for a long time, until I started receiving calls from vendors.  They helped educate the market fast and soon smaller competitors appeared alongside us.  We were ousted if we did not keep up.  I reckon ‘first page’ propositions were easy to sell.  It was amazing how competitors got on first page quickly (some had basic web content).  More vendors pushed SEM in later years.  Perhaps it was faster to show results.

On display ads, I encountered an SME boss who declared his campaign a failure after only 4 days - there were no calls. It did not matter that 14000 impressions were served, with 84 clicks.  

Though studies show that web-surfers’ eyes are ‘programmed’ to avoid banners, I feel display ads have a role to play in search results, and conversions.  Search has better ROI than display for obvious reasons.  Display helps in reinforcing brand awareness or to drive specific offers. 

In measuring returns, measures like CTR, impressions, web traffic are the norm.  Other metrics like revenue from specific channels or ad spend per sale are tricky if we employ various channels, including off-line, in integrated campaigns.   Without clearer ROI metrics tied to actual sales, it appears SMEs are driven to go and stay online by customers and peers, and are content with metrics on their online presence, reach and share of voice for now.

My learning points so far are:

-         Content is important.  So is constantly keeping up with the evolving landscape and technologies.

-          Digital marketers must educate and manage the expectations of SME bosses

-         SEO, SEM, display ads – I will use all.  These, plus social media engagement and mobile advertising perhaps justify in-house digital expertise in SMEs.  There is synergy and efficiency to work alongside traditional marketing. 

However, talent is challenging.  According to a study*, 59% of marketers in Singapore find their current employees lacking the right skills set while 30% have difficulty retaining such staff.   Considering the study polled larger companies, what does that leave for SMEs?  Agencies fare no better: only 11% rate their agencies as excellent.   Larger agencies with good talents are often beyond the reach of SMEs. 

I had thought the Internet supposedly levels the playing ground for SMEs, especially with its cheaper advertising platforms.  Regardless, I think it is worthwhile to get on, DIY if necessary, experiment and it can only get better.

Well, the staff I recruited quit after learning the ropes in one year, to set up his own firm. 

*Adobe APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard 2013

Snapchat me

Snapchat banks on the sense of impermanence when users send images to each other it lasts for mere seconds before it disappears.. brining with it a sense of urgency and focus. 

The excitement this precious fleeting moment bring to the beating heart... Similar to life, a moment passed cannot be relived and all it remains is the fleeting memory and experience. 

This sense of impermanence where a photo disappear is what founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy underlined since the launch of the app. 

Founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy 

In view of digital marketing, this quality may bring benefits to marketer's message, adding anticipation and a fun element to engaged audiences. 

But also disadvantages, as it may reduce the measurable value-add to the core brand building efforts of the brand.  As images get erased, so may the message, it may be difficult and time consuming to engage in followup with your audience, who may not be receptive to adverts in the first place.

However Snapchat has more to offer, with the introduction of Stories, competing with the likes of Facebook's newsfeed, this feature is gaining popularity. Available for 24 hours, a story is made up of a compilation of snaps/ pictures, recounting the day of a celebrity for example.. 

Users may prefer using Snapchat as one can be more true to oneself in expression. 

Content is king. As long as Marketers remember to tell an engaging story and make content interesting or value-adding to its audience, spam becomes a story which sticks. 

Marketers may use this tool/ feature to complement their existing marketing campaign website or Facebook platform, to get closer to their targeted audience, share videos, run short contests or blasts of quality messages to the population of snap chat users. 

Since all messages ultimately may get deleted/ forgotten anyway why not in your 10 seconds give it a good shot.

Smartwatch and Digital Marketing

One of the most successful project ever launched on Kickstarter, the Pebble watch, crowd-sourced more than $10 million from 85,000 backers. This indicates that there's an interest and great potential in smartwatch, which is a piece of wearable computerised device with features such as connectivy to the internet, running of mobile apps, cell phone, text/video messaging, GPS navigation, and more.

Data is the most important component of a marketing approach and everything we do online generates data. More relevant and detailed data about a person's lifestyle and habits could be obtained through the usage of wearable devices such as a smartwatch. While a phone would be able to tell you where someone's from and what they're doing, a smartwatch will be telling you how they are feeling, how healthy they are or how hard they are working out. By combining location with lifestyle data, marketers will have a much more granular understanding of a person's behaviour and they can then enhance their targeting of customers and better engage them with personalised marketing programmes.

For example, a fitness gym could then send out targeted push notification to people who work out, rather than those who read fitness magazine while coupons for food could be offered to someone with medical condition when their blood sugar level is low. In these instances, context drives a more relevant message, which is better for both the marketer and the consumer as more effective marketing campaigns could be created. Marketers will then be able to build a long-term relationship with their customers.

Smartwatch is also more accessible than smartphone as it's easier and quicker to take a look at your wrist or roll your wrist over a sensor than pulling a phone out of your pocket or bag. These devices usually comes with 4G connectivity, Wi-Fi and GPRS and using these features with NFC, Bluetooth LE or geo-location based maps would make them more than ideal for location based advert and promotion information.

Take for instance, a shopper could be walking into a large shopping mall to get a pair of socks and the watch would vibrates to send him a notification. A quick glance at the watch would inform the person that his favourite brand of shoes is on sales in one of the stores. Payment for his purchases could be done with a quick tap on the sensor with his watch. Another shopper that had expressed an interest in getting a new television set through his browsing and search history will be able to receive an alert on his watch with a coupon for a special deal as he walked pass the eletronics store. All this done without the need of reaching into one's pocket or rummaging through one's bag to reach for their handsets.

While we're still at the early stages with the smartwatch technology, the smartwatch would be able to provide great opportunities for digital marketers to reach customers with more relevant advertising via a device that is permanently attached to the hand.

Can Snapchat Add Value to Marketers?

Snapchat’s Current Value to Digital Marketers

A picture says a thousand words. Businesses are beginning to use Snapchat to promote themselves through this new short-term visual message format. The best part for Digital Marketers is that it is a cost effective way to gain brand visibility and carry messages to massive amounts of audiences. Here’s a preview of how a recent Snapchat promotion run by New York City based yoghurt shop 16 Handles worked:

How I think Snapchat can enhance their business model and value add the marketing community

Snapchat recently rejected a proposed buyout of $3Billion made by Facebook which sparked off a firestorm of commentary criticizing Snapchat’s lack of a sustainable business model to move from generating eyeballs to generating revenue.

Instead of operating as a standalone OTT Social Media Mobile App, Snapchat might be more valuable if it works with Telco Providers to provide Location Based Services (LBS). Snapchat now becomes a mobile marketing tool. So for example, to boost traffic to 16 Handles’ new stores or stores which are losing human traffic to nearby competitors eg. Sour Sally Yoghurt Parlour, marketers can now use Snapchat to send the discount coupon to potential customers in the Telco’s subscriber base who are in the vicinity to influence impulse buying. Alternatively, they might even consider sending the discount to potential customers who are in Sour Sally’s Yoghurt Parlour across the street to influence their buying decision (for those who have not purchased).

Snapchat can then generate revenue by charging marketers for Real Time Customer Targetting based on Cost Per Thousand Impressions. Snapchat splits the revenue with the Telco based on Partnership Agreement

For a start, this is what I can think of. Do share too, what you guys think can be a viable business model for Snapchat.

SnapChat for Digital Marketers

Is Snapchat Another Platform for Digital Marketers?

Snapchat is an application that allows users to exchange photos among their friends and the photos disappears within 10 seconds once they open it.

Snapchat works differently from Facebook and Twitter. It works more like a stress-free program where people talks to each other privately, and no trace thereafter, and nobody judges anything. Unlike Facebook where your message is being "broadcast" to all your friends and you feel "stressed" and would only want to show the best of you instead. Probably this is one of the reasons people loves Snapchat.

Snapchat is easy to use and the concept of self-deleted images is very new. Many social-networking application or chat program does not have this concept and users will still need to go through housekeeping there and then. Snapchat's users do not need to worry about this.

People can post anything and laugh it off and no trace after 10 seconds (unless the receiver takes a screenshot). Snapchat is considered as a very "safe" program.

It is also "safe" because Snapchat only stores very basic information regarding the users like username, password, emails, phone number and age. Users are not tracked while using Snapchat, no profile is being built to identify the users.

Currently, Snapchat is a free application but to continue as a free application business model, it will need to consider one of the options such as delivering advertisements to their users.

Having a very "safe" program for users proves to be a hard time for marketers as we will not know the demographics of the users and it will be difficult to reach out to the right audience.

Due to its user base which is currently age between 13 to 23 year olds. The users are still very young and they probably turn out not to have high spending power. Marketing using Snapchat may not be a good platform for many industries except F&B like fast-food joints, apparel or the entertainment sector.

Furthermore, Snapchat works like a “gossip” program. Marketers will find difficulty in reaching out to the users as they probably would not be interested in seeing the ads at all.

In conclusion, marketing using Snapchat probably will probably work for industries like F&B (e.g. fast-food joints). Other industries may not find advertising in Snapchat suitable.

The Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) in marketing

In this digital age that we are currently in, our shopping journey resembles less like a funnel but more like a spider web. Often we are likely to go back and forth multiple information channels before we finally make a purchase. Additionally, we may become more fickle minded with the choices that we may make as we do multiple points of comparison with our friends and conduct multiple price or product comparison before we finally decide. 

(Source: http://www.google.com/think/collections/zero-moment-truth.html)

Thus, as marketers, we are subjected to new challenges as how we can impress our potential consumers in order to convince them to make an actual purchase. The First Moment of Truth (FMOT) which was first coined to describe the initial moment when a consumer first encounters the product was once the Holy Grail for marketers as it defines how successful one is in making the sales.

Today, the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) holds more valid. ZMOT refers to the moment prior to FMOT when consumers research about the product and exchange experiences with friends before making a purchase.

Hence, it has become more relevant that marketers try to maximize ZMOT in their campaign. Research has shown that a large percentage of viewers use another device while they are watching TV. Due to this, marketers need to be aware of consumer technological usage patterns (eg: more people use tablets in the evenings than in the day) when considering marketing activities so as to maximize returns. Furthermore, as single-channel marketing plan will no longer be as effective as compared to one which utilizes the various channels, the marketer must be up-to-date with the latest technological trends and platforms so that he/she can utilize them in his/her campaigns. All in all, marketing campaigns need to be more multi-faceted to cater to an increasingly complex and informed consumer.

Shaping of digital marketing landscape by Google Glass

During the age of pagers, no one can anticipate that the mobile phone, then the size of a brick then, would one day be a personal devices not only for communicating but for entertainment, productivity and education. Today, we are now enjoying the positive impact of new generations of smart phone and it creates a new marketing platform for digital marketing. Mobile phones has become smarter and personal with the wide availability of applications. It has become a personal part of our lives which we cannot do without.

With Google Glass on us, we could expect a change in our lifestyle, the way we work, play and live. This will certainly change the consumer pattern which the marketer would be concern about as this will affect how business advertise and brand their products.  Imagine the potential of getting products and services information stream right in front of the our eyes when we are within the area of the businesses. Imagine the convenience of shopping and finding the merchandise we are looking without wasting precious time looking for the item we wish to buy.

Google Glass has the same potential as smart phones as is already a personal fashion accessory. Should be officially launched and picked up by the leading fashion brands, it could be owned by the masses and this will creates possibly a new area in augmented reality as well as local and proximity marketing. This can open up new marketing approach and techniques.

Thoughts about Google Glass

Google glass may not be the first wearable technology we have seen, but it is certainly the one that is getting the most attention.
Created by Google to work with our smartphones through Bluetooth, it is voice-controlled, and has control buttons on the side as well. 

This is an example of what a projected image looks like when you are wearing the glass, which is supposed to appear like a 25 inch screen from 8 feet away.

• With a relatively smaller screen space and difficulty inputting text with Glass, there is likely to be a stronger emphasis on video and images. As such, I foresee that our Pinterest pins,  Instagram posts and YouTube videos will become even more powerful marketing tools. 

• With the smaller space, companies using Email marketing will have to adapt to the space constraint and be more creative in getting their email messages to display nicely on Glass. 

• Companies have to optimize their content based on location and voice commands so that they appear on the screen of the user first. For instance, when a user asks, "Where can I get a burger?", the user will be presented with information on the nearest burger shop along with some promotional messages. 

• Companies will have to come with creative ways to "connect" with the user to promote an increase in sales realization. For instance, retailers may create a Glass app so that users can simply call it up onto the glass, be presented with products available in store, and add the products to shopping cart using voice command.

Reflections on the possible impact of Google Glass on digital marketing

The Project Glass, now known as Google Glass is one of the latest technology that was developed by Google.  Google Glass has already been released for the developers in February 2013 and possibly to the consumers in 2014.  The Google Glass “explorer version” cost US$1,500 and it is still unknown how much it would cost for the consumers.

Now, what is Google Glass and what exactly does it do? 

Google Glass is almost like a hands-free portable computer that you could wear it on you like a spectacle. This “portable computer” could take a picture, record a video, run a search on the internet and much more using voice commands.  So with these features, how would the technology of Google Glass possibly impact on digital marketing?

There’s a technology that is worth mentioning which is the Augmented Reality (AR).  You would have seen this in many movies- wearing or using a device to see superimposed images or texts on a real backdrop.

What kind of superimposed images or texts then?  Looking for directions when you’re lost, seeing arrows right in front of you navigating using the in-built camera on your mobile phone as a reference point for your current location.  Now, with Google Glass you can do so with both of your hands free.

With the convenience of hands free and the voice recognition technology in Google Glass, combined with digital marketing will make another strong marketing channel for marketers.  I personally think that every human being has an inheritance of “laziness”.  So there are some areas which I think marketers could capitalized upon using the Google Glass technology.

Marketers could make use of AR, Google Glass, mobile and digital marketing, to provide relevant information to consumers. On top of the already available mobile internet search for businesses near consumers while they’re outdoor, with Google Glass, businesses could provide directions to retail shops right in front of the consumers’ eyes. Other marketers could also provide “pop-up” business information along the way when consumers walked by, perhaps they wouldn’t mind dropping by a café for a coffee.

Another example for tourism industry to capitalize on is to provide directions for a heritage trail walk, providing relevant historic information such as text of brief history “popping up” in front of tourists eyes when they stopped in front of some national momentums.  With such convenience, it could possibly also impact on the tourism industries of many countries where travelers might find free and easy tours even easier.

While the Google Glass technology might be more relevant to some industries and businesses, it will be interesting to observe how it would evolved in many years to come.

Possible impact of google glass on digital marketing - the yet to be!

Now this is a real interesting topic. Currently Google Glass seems more like a hands free smart phone, but it does not stop the consumers like me to think of the many possibilities.

Augmented Reality Marketing: This was brought up in class by Sergio, but to be frank, rarely do I see such features anywhere. However, with Google Glass, this could be an extremely good way to bring the customer to your shops! Let me elaborate (see below for a DIY illustration): A coffee lover, who has profiled himself on Google Glass as such, goes to a mall. When stepped into the mall, behold! Directions will be given to the nearest Starbucks who has advertised for this feature, up the distance it takes to reach the cafe. Same for fashion lovers. Your favorite brand GAP is having National Day sale at the second floor, #02-01, keep straight to the escalator in front and then turn right for another 1 meter! 

Real convenient huh? 

The 2D version of similar feature is already available in many mapping apps, but using Google Glass, you can really take it to the next level. The less the customer need to do to find you, the higher the chance they will come to you. 

 “Fashion/ Item” Recognition: Our classmate brought up in class that there was an experiment by a first adopter of the Google Glass who has enhanced the functions to allow facial recognition. Great for souls like me with poor memory needing constant reminders of peoples’ name, no need for name cards anymore! But I doubt it will be in mass market soon with all those privacy laws around.

But what if the software can be tweaked to recognize items instead? Imagine you are on the bus and it passed by shop that displayed the most gorgeous dress that you absolutely must buy! Using Google Glass, you can capture the photo of the dress instantly and search for it instantly online. Price, size, brand, availability – you name it, you got it. 

Anyone played “Second Life”? Similarly, avatar of your size and color are there to try on the dress, you can't get more customized than that! You like it, you can buy it virtually and the product can be sent to your doorstep via courier the next day. It really makes so much more sense as there’s no limit on the number of dressing rooms available and store owners are not restricted by store space!

Of course as the advertisers and marketers, we have to make it as Google Glass friendly as possible so that such purchase is possible. But I imagine this is the the effect of the future of digital marketing, it's all out there in the virtual world! 

Sure, I’m day dreaming, but who knows, maybe Google may launch this next year?

Sergio, you got the hint?