by Edalene Tay

How old are you now? How old will you be in say, 30 years time? Well, if you are going to be 55 years old or older – hello there, next generation senior citizens.

Sure, you are still young and everything is going well for you – having a well-earned steady income with a healthy body and I’ll-party-like-there’s-no-tomorrow lifestyle. But I kid you not, time flies and before you know it, your waist starts growing sideways, your body breaks down every now and then, your memory starts to fade and poof! There’s no denying, you are a senior citizen.

Gadget shopping with my mom these days isn’t much fun because we always seem to leave empty handed. It’s too small. It’s too heavy. It’s too complicated. It’s too ugly. It’s too old. It’s too old? Well, Mom, you’re just as old.  (Just kidding. Don’t tell her I said that.)

The thing is my mom is aging. Her eyesight isn’t as sharp, she doesn’t have the strength she used to have, her hearing isn’t as good and knowing all that, she still wants something that makes her feel like she’s still able to own and function something cool and up-to-date all on her own.

I can’t blame her, because that’s probably what I’d also feel when I turn into a senior citizen. The only difference is that I’d probably still be more digitally savvy than she is. But in 30 years time, how would things have changed digitally? Has the digital world done enough to cater for the elderly?

Just taking the iPhone as an example. I got one for my mom. She loves it. She likes how it has a big enough screen, how ridiculously big I’ve made the font in her SMS messages look, how she can easily check her emails. And the greatest achievement of all for her is being able to plan her traveling route by knowing how long it would take for the bus to come through a bus service app.

While Apple did a great job in catering for the elderly with the iPhone, most of the apps in the iTunes store don’t seem to cater for the elderly at all. While the phone came with customisable settings for the fonts, the fonts within the app don’t get changed together in the setting. Yes, there is the accessibility option for zooming. But let’s be honest, it’s quite a pain to use.

Then there are complicated remote controls with more buttons than what we bargained for. I’m sure you have seen some of your grandparents either randomly pressing the remote controls because they can’t remember which are the buttons to press, or just memorising where main buttons are because they can’t see the labels of the buttons or the icons are badly designed. And with the increasing release of interactive TVs, keeping the controls and navigation simple would be an uphill challenge.

Designing with the elderly in mind probably would give you an edge over the rest that either doesn’t or focuses exclusively for the elderly. Take the Spin & Go Pro mop for example, its appeal isn’t just that it’s a mop that cleans with very little effort, it’s also a mop that anyone can use. It no longer takes a lot of strength for one to mop the entire house. Was it designed specifically for the elderly? Not exactly.

The first design that Spin & Go Pro came up with had a foot pedal. It fulfilled its promise of hands-free wringing, but it required you to balance on one leg, using the other to step on the foot pedal. In the latest design, Spin & Go Pro managed to come up with a design that didn’t require a foot pedal, instead, you just have to push the handle of the mop down and it spins. Now the latest design is better suited for the elderly to use.

So app builders, web builders or anybody in the digital production team, my appeal to you is to start thinking about catering for the elderly. It doesn’t need always need to be a priority for sure, but it doesn’t mean that it should be disregarded entirely.

There is still quite a long way to go in designing for the elderly and we need to keep improving the situation because in 30 years time, I’m definitely not going to be happy with being stuck with the technologies of today and be denied the chances of enjoying the technologies of tomorrow.

by Paul Soon

Even as we near the middle of 2012, I can’t help but wonder if Steve Jobs were still alive, what he would say about today’s connected consumer. I’ve read and watched countless articles, books and videos on Steve, and I find myself applying my personal passion for consumer experience to his ideas.

Steve was the first to start a social movement around getting people to ‘Think Different’. His attitude toward considering people as human beings first, consumers second, has directly impacted the evolution of brand communications.

As marketers, we are so comfortable with mass marketing that we forget advancement in technology can also give us the chance to be personal in the way we build brands. We have the ability to translate brand beliefs and values into brand experiences that touch the consumer on personal levels.

From Facebook apps to sequential targeting, SEO and mobile games, we have all been there and done that when it comes to using digital. Yet there is still so much more we ought to be looking forward to. Internet TV is an undeniable opportunity, with branded digital content can be delivered straight to the consumer at prime time and on-demand. Maybe what we failed to take away from Steve’s legacy is the golden ticket of marketing: to make things simple, easy to use and most importantly, natural.

Learning from Steve’s legacy

No one said it would be easy. And with that I’m offering three important points to keep in mind as we plan for the next half of 2012:

1. Take technology out of the way
2. A great experience is better than a great discount
3. Never stop surprising.

Take technology out of the way

In 2012, I believe we need to get even more personal. ‘Big’ data and re-targeting give us opportunities to innovate and push the boundaries further. But this push requires marketing to embrace technology just as we embrace brand values.

With the right blend of technology and brand-centric strategy, brands can start building truly sustainable consumer experiences beyond the world of the internet and enter our living rooms, cars, mobile phone and virtually anywhere we spend our time. The technology used is the experience and the experience is the brand.

In one of Forrester’s latest reports, they touched on the growing trend to hire Creative Technologists, so I can only hope that we can embrace this change in Asia. With this in place, we can have the experts weigh in on the early discussions and help build better digital brand experiences.

An experience is better than a great discount

We often think too hard about launching products and not hard enough about how the brand will live and breathe behind the introduction stage. Mapping out a branded consumer experience goes far beyond any great one-off discount over a weekend. Great experiences bring about loyalty and engagement with any brand. Just ask the folks at Zappos, Starbucks, Nike, Singapore Tourism Board, Lego and the Ritz Carlton.

The faster we get together with our agency partners to map out that branded experience, the quicker the value of our investments will be felt. It’s about seamlessly connecting the dots and making sure the brand message is rewarding, relevant and meaningful.

Every first step for any marketer should be to embrace technology knowing that better brand experiences will prevail–delivering engagement and efficiency. Companies like Buddy Media and Adobe are doing it right by taking away the complexities of technology and focusing on the ease of use for the end user.

Never stop surprising

As the saying goes, there can never be too much of a good thing. Consumers today have greater appreciation for a brand that goes the extra mile to be seamless and add value to our lives. That extra mile can transform consumers into brand advocates. For any entrepreneur, marketer or digital professional, it is not always about being the first but rather the best.

We’ve already experienced world’s positive response to one man’s passion, vision and efforts to revolutionize consumer technology through simplicity and seamless connectivity. Thanks to Steve Jobs, we’re reminded to continue building personal connections with our consumers.

by Danny Limanseta

Our industry has been fascinated with the conceptualization of ‘The Big Idea’ and we celebrate the success of it with an abundance of award shows. However, with the euphoria of celebration, many of us take for granted the skills or traits that are needed to bring these ideas to life and flawlessly execute them.

As mentioned in this blog post by Cliff Medney, while everybody tries to codify the creative process, the best ideas are usually borne from the people with the right set of emotional or functional competencies.

And one of the critical skills one can possess is empathy.

Empathy is an (if not the most) important trait in creativity

Whether we are aware or not, empathy plays an essential role in what we do. From the ideation process, to the selling of the idea, to working with a team to make it happen, to designing the right user experience for the audience. It is ingrained in our day-to-day work.

In fact, I would go so far to say that empathy fuels our ideas. While statistical data is valuable, the key nuggets of information buried in the data, is best translated by the ability to relate with the target audience through empathy.

Human insights usually come from us being able to empathise with the particular audience, by being able to listen to them, and truly understanding their base desires, thus allowing us to come out with insights driven by empathy.

In an industry where creative egos thrive and creativity is the most desired asset, an unassuming trait like empathy does feel a little out of place. But if you look at the best work that is garnering attention and bringing in results, the recent titanium winner Nike Fuel for example, proves that an idea does not need to be just smart, clever or witty to win something. It just needs to start from a human insight, which is usually borne out of empathy for the audience.

Empathy is the human trait behind T-shaped people

In XM, we’ve always believed in the right balance of creativity & technology to create the best solutions for our clients. As we start to look at the people we want to bring in to join our family, we always look out for T-shaped individuals. Individuals who are pretty strong in one discipline yet have a good understanding of a breadth of other disciplines to be able to collaborate well with others.

Tim Brown, IDEO CEO describes it pretty well here.

“T-shaped people have two kinds of characteristics, hence the use of the letter “T” to describe them. The vertical stroke of the “T” is a depth of skill that allows them to contribute to the creative process..”

“..That can be from any number of different fields: an industrial designer, an architect, a social scientist, a business specialist or a mechanical engineer. The horizontal stroke of the “T” is the disposition for collaboration across disciplines. It is composed of two things. First, empathy. It’s important because it allows people to imagine the problem from another perspective- to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Second, they tend to get very enthusiastic about other people’s disciplines, to the point that they may actually start to practice them. T-shaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills.”

If you noticed, empathy is seen as the dominant trait found in T-shaped individuals and rightly so. We feel that for us to be able to create work that resonates and has an impact with our audience, we need to hire people who possess empathy.

Hiring people with empathy

As the creative lead in XM, I’m constantly on the lookout for creatives that has it in them. It’s definitely not easy being able to spot such individuals, but these are a couple of example of hints I look out for during conversations or interviews.

• Do they just talk about themselves and their own domain the whole time? If so, can we get them to talk more about how they work or collaborate with their team mates?
• Do they express curiosity and ask about how the other departments works within the agency?
• Do they usually starts most sentences with ‘I did this…’ or ‘We did this…’ more often?

This is not an exhaustive list obviously but you get the drift. At the end of the day, I feel that empathy deserves a little more recognition in our industry, simply because it drives so much of what we do. And it’s time we openly acknowledge and embrace it.

by Ernest Kim and Mira DY

The ROI, or lack thereof, of paid advertising on Facebook has been a hot topic of late. Starting with GM’s highly public and much publicized exit from the social network as a paid platform to comScore’s riposte (published in collaboration with Facebook) suggesting that the doubters are simply doing it wrong, important questions about the value of social media are finally being broached in polite company.

These questions got us here at XM Asia Pacific thinking … many of us in the industry—both in the client and agency worlds—have accepted as received wisdom the notion that Facebook Likes are worth pursuing, and the more the better! Case in point: the aforementioned comScore report, which just so happens to be titled The Power of Like 2, casually states that “Most of the brands with an active Facebook presence have focused early efforts on accumulating Facebook Fans, recognizing that there is a long term value associated with being able to continuously communicate with and market to these brand followers.”

The idea that Facebook Fans = value is so uncontroversial that comScore saw no need to substantiate this claim. After all, if you want to fish where the fish are, casting your line out to an audience of 901 million users sounds like a pretty good idea. While we don’t disagree with the theory, our field research suggests that Fan acquisition is a dead end, with questionable long-term value to either the brand or the bottom line. Instead, it’s conversations that matter, and offline engagement can deliver greater return—in both meatspace and the digital world—than even the best community management.

“I can’t remember if I Liked Starbucks on Facebook. If I did, it must have been a long time ago.”

This was a response from Lyon, one of 15 Singaporean students we interviewed to help qualify the value of a Like. Unbeknownst to Lyon, this question was something of a canard in that we knew he had indeed Liked Starbucks. Surprisingly, as the transcripts from our interviews piled up, we learned that Lyon was not the exception, but very much the rule. Of the students we talked to—all of whom had Liked the Starbucks Singapore page on Facebook at the time of our interviews—most had no recollection of having Liked the page, and only one in five could recall seeing any status updates from the brand in their News Feeds.

Our research suggests that, among young people, Starbucks’ welcoming retail environment is a more effective online conversation driver than their highly lauded—but seemingly ineffectual—approach to social media.

This is not some digital lightweight we’re talking about here: With over 173,000 fans for their local page, Starbucks is among the most Liked brands in Singapore. The brand is also widely recognized as a global leader in social media. Indeed, Starbucks was highlighted in comScore’s The Power of Like 2 report as a prime example of the potential of social media to deliver statistically significant lifts in in-store purchase incidence.”

Perhaps something was lost in translation across the Pacific, but we have a hard time ascribing much value to an action that consumers don’t recall doing or to messaging that they don’t recall seeing. But, and this is a J. Lo-sized but, Starbucks has successfully established preference here in Singapore—all of the students we talked to were regulars, choosing the mermaid over other nearby multinational and local coffee houses. So, if it wasn’t the brand’s own social messaging driving this preference, what was?

“[Starbucks] is more welcoming to students, in my opinion. I get to study at Starbucks, so I frequent it for that reason,” replied Yanqi, 18. Fellow Singapore Polytechnic student Arvin echoed this sentiment: “I prefer Starbucks, I find it welcoming … they have friendly staff, so it’s a better place to chill.” The availability of free Wi-Fi, ample power outlets and better music were also often cited as important factors driving preference for Starbucks.

The value of these amenities is perhaps unsurprising, but we were surprised to find that their impact extended beyond the physical. Cross-referencing mentions of Starbucks on Twitter, we realized that the qualities that make Starbucks an ideal venue for friends like Arvin and Yanqi to study and “chill” together in the real world also make the brand a frequent topic of conversation in digital media. This tweet from @krystletheseira is representative of the large volume of similar messages we uncovered over the course of our research:

“At Starbucks studying with @punkylemon because we’re not allowed to go into the art rooms in sch.”

In short, by making its physical spaces conducive to social engagement among Singaporean students, Starbucks has become an organic part of their online conversations. Facebook’s own global head of brand experience, Paul Adams, has emphasized the “incidental nature of brand conversations,” and our preliminary research suggests that nurturing these conversations offline is a more effective and efficient strategy for generating impactful earned impressions than traditional, Like-driven approaches to online community management.

Action Items

• Don’t be afraid to question the value of traditional, Fan acquisition-driven approaches to social media. Our research indicates that you can very effectively earn a place in your customers’ conversations by crafting an offline environment that fosters real world engagement.
• If you’re not able to leverage physical venues, consider social engagements that promote conversations between your customers. A prime example here is Nike’s Nike+ platform, which amplifies awareness by encouraging peer-to-peer messaging over the traditional brand-to-consumer model.

What do you think? Is this a breath of fresh air or a load of bunk? Don’t be afraid to let us know what you think by joining the conversation below. And, if any of the above piques your interest, let’s talk.