Category: General Content

Facebook Launches Analytics Tool For Messenger Bots

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook is introducing a first-party analytics tool for bots within its Facebook Analytics for Apps dashboard to help developers and brands better track the performance of their Messenger chatbots. The new analytic tool will provide detailed information about user interactions with the bots, such as the number of messages sent and received, the number of blocked messages, and the number of users who engage with a bot but are later transferred to a human agent. In addition, Facebook is also opening its developer program FbStart to bot developers to give them access to tools like Facebook ads credits and other tools from third-party partners such as Dropbox or Stripe for their bot campaigns.

What Brands Should Do
In combination with News Feed ads for bots that became available last week, this new analytics tool allows brands making Messenger bots to track and target users based on demographic metrics and locations. With over 34,000 developers having made Messenger bots since the platform launched in April, it is imperative that brands should leverage the available Messenger tools to effectively reach their desired audience and track user activities to optimize their bots.

The Lab has extensive knowledge about building chatbots. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: TechCrunch

French Department Store Deploys Augmented Reality For In-Store Experience

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
French department store chain Galeries Lafayette is using mobile-powered augmented reality to engage shoppers with a unique in-store experience. Working with startup Sky Boy, the retailer has launched an AR experience that turns its Paris flagship store into a winter wonderland. Shoppers can follow the story of a family of polar bears leaving home for Paris due to climate change by downloading a free mobile app or with tablets provided by Galeries Lafayette when they are at specific spots on the store’s second floor.

Sticking to the campaign’s arctic theme, Galeries Lafayette will be offering a number of handbags in ivory or pastel hues from brands such as Dior, Gucci, and Chloé as part of its holiday shopping guide.

What Brands Should Do
This holiday campaign serves as a cool example of how retailers can leverage emerging technologies to engage with shoppers with a good story. With more and more consumers choosing the convenience of online shopping over physical retail, brick-and-mortar retailers need to shape up and embrace digital technologies to attract customers to visit the stores.

The Lab has extensive experience working with retail, beauty, and CPG clients to create and implement digitally-enhanced experiences for their stores. Our recent work with NYX Cosmetics incorporated the brand’s social assets into its in-store experience and offered an innovative take on sampling with a digital beauty bar. Please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) if you’d like to learn more about how to develop a mobile-driven retail strategy that bridges the gap between physical and digital shopping experience.

 

Source: Luxury Daily

Lead image courtesy of Galeries Lafayette‘s Instagram

IMAX To Push VR Cinema Into Mainstream

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Film technology company IMAX Corp. announced its partnership with Acer and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to invest $50 million into developing 25 interactive VR experiences over the next three years. Other fund investors include China Media Capital, China’s Enlight Media, Studio City, and WPP. The fund will be used for partnerships with video game publishers and 360-degree filmmakers, and IMAX plans to build StarVR-based IMAX VR centers to bring high-quality VR entertainment to consumers.

Why Brands Should Care
This initiative should help further push virtual reality content into the mainstream consumer market. The VR centers IMAX plans to build should provide a good channel for brands to distribute their VR content, and WPP’s involvement certainly signals ad opportunities. As more and more brand marketers rush into VR to capitalize on the booming popularity of the emerging medium, bands should take a cue and start developing VR content that truly enhances brand messaging and contributes to the campaign objectives.

The Lab currently has five VR headsets — a PlayStation VR, an Oculus Rift, an HTC Vive, and two Samsung Gear VRs — ready for demos. Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood, so come by the Lab and ask for a VR demo to get a hands-on experience and figure out how your brand can use it to excite and engage with consumers.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Michael Kors Launches Casino-Themed WeChat Game For Alibaba’s Singles’ Day

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Friday is Singles’ Day, the biggest day for online shopping in the world championed by China’s ecommerce giant Alibaba. With a massive sales volume that keep breaking its own records, many U.S. brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Crayola, and Beats have jumped on board for a piece of the pie. In particular, fashion brands including Michael Kors, Kate Spade, Coach, and Calvin Klein are offering special deals on Alibaba’s T-Mall this year, discounting products as much as 60% off.

Among all the participating brands, Michael Kors stands out with an innovative approach. The company launched a casino-themed game on popular Chinese messaging app WeChat, which offers players random discount codes to use on Singles’ Day after they play some digital poker and slot machines. Kors promoted the game with GIFs posted to its official WeChat account and a casino-themed shoppable blog post.

What Brands Should Do
This campaign from Michael Kors should be of interest to many U.S. brands trying to crack the code for social commerce. Using aptly Casino-themed mini-games to engage with mobile shoppers and reward their interactions with discount offers. this campaign serves as an intriguing example of how brands, especially retailers, can leverage popular social and messaging platforms to engage with and even sell directly to consumers.

To learn more about how brands can use chat bots to better serve customers via messaging interfaces, check out our Fast Forward feature on this topic.

 

Source: AdWeek

Lead image courtesy of Michael Kors blog

IKEA Partners With Uber And Influencers For “Friendsgiving” Campaign

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
For its upcoming “Friendsgiving” holiday campaign, IKEA is working with Uber and social influencers to deliver free meal-planning kits to lucky customers. For a limited time on Nov. 19, Uber users in NYC will get the opportunity to have one of 200 free IKEA Friendsgiving kits delivered to them. To push this campaign, IKEA is also working with influencers Katie Quinn and Jordan Ferney to created branded content about how to prepare a meal using the kit for IKEA’s owned channels.

What Brands Should Do
This is not the first time a brand has leveraged Uber’s booming popularity and logistical prowess  to reach customers who are increasingly shunning away from traditional advertising. Walmart recently partnered with Uber to test on-demand delivery service, and Warner Bros. launched Mad Max-themed free Uber rides to promote the movie. As Uber repeatedly shows its willingness to work with brands, more brands should take advantage of the brand-friendly features and APIs it has to connect with customers on mobile.

 

Source: IKEA.com

Periscope Adds New Features To Boost Audience Engagement

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter-owned live-streaming service Periscope has added three new tools aimed to help broadcasters better drive engagement. The Superfans feature provides broadcasters with a list of their most engaged viewers to help them identify their biggest fans and gain insights about their audience. The new Groups feature enables broadcasters to selectively stream to certain groups of their followers, allowing for exclusive reveals and special offers for a select group of audience. Last but not the least, Periscope rolled out a revamped web portal that allows desktop viewers to do the same things that are previously limited to its mobile app, such as send hearts or comments during live broadcasts.

Why Brands Should Care
All three new features should come as welcome additions for brands using Periscope as a live video platform to connect with their audience in real time. Facing mounting pressure from Facebook Live’s rapid growth and Instagram’s upcoming live streaming product, Periscope will need more differentiating features like these to maintain its early-mover advantages.

At a time when live-streaming platforms are quickly growing and increasingly drawing consumer attention, brands and publishers such as Dunkin’ Donuts and Tastemade are also rushing to this emerging medium to connect with customers in real time. For brands that are looking to try their hands at live video, it is important to keep an open mind and choose a platform that best suits your need and, perhaps more importantly, matches where your audience is.

 

Source: The Verge

Header image courtesy of Periscope’s Medium blog

Snap Inc. Starts Selling Spectacles With Pop-Up “Snapbots”

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snap Inc. has started rolling out its first hardware product Spectacles, a pair of camera-equipped sunglasses that automatically syncs videos with your Snapchat, in an intriguing fashion. The company will be rolling out Snapbot, an interactive vending machine painted in its signature bright yellow, around the country, starting today with one on Venice Beach near its L.A. headquarter. The Snapbot features a large eye-shaped display and can recognize customers approaching thanks to its front-facing camera. The locations of the Snapbots will change on a daily basis and fans can visit spectacles.com to discover where the Snapbots will appear next.

Why Brands Should Care
Snap Inc. is smart to choose this intriguing way to roll out Spectacles, which drives fan enthusiasm and engagement with elements of surprise and limited-time urgency. But perhaps more importantly, the arrival of Spectacles signals that we are approaching an age where cameras are increasingly becoming one of our primary input sources of our digital interactions. Beyond Snapchat, Mastercard is now allowing app users in Europe to authenticate their payments with a selfie, and the Hawaii Tourism Authority recently launched a digital campaign that uses facial recognition technology to create personalized travel recommendations and offer tailored travel packages. As these examples indicate, the surging prominence of visual input is set to bring a new set of opportunities and challenges that brands will have to learn to navigate in order to adapt to the shifting consumer digital habits and stay connected with their audiences.

 

Source: AdWeek

Header image courtesy of Spectacles’ YouTube

PayPal Integrates With Siri To Let You Send Money Via Voice

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
PayPal has integrated with Siri to let iOS users send and receive payments via voice command. The feature is available for PayPal app users in 30 countries starting Nov. 10 and supports a variety of languages. This capability is made possible thanks to Apple’s recently launched SiriKit, which allows developers to integrate Siri with their apps in iOS 10. Payment is one of the six types of functions that SiriKit currently supports, which also includes messaging, photo, and restaurant reservations. Other third-party apps that have integrated with Siri so far include Lyft, LinkedIn, and PayPal subsidiary Venmo.

What Brands Should Do
This update continues the trend of conversational interfaces that has been proliferating consumer tech devices. As more brands embrace digital assistants and chatbots in order to better serve their customers, brands that wish to stay ahead of the curve should start working with developers to figure out how to improve the customer experience with hands-free, voice-based interactions.

For additional information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, please check out the first section of our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Header image courtesy of PayPal’s YouTube

Instagram Updates Stories With Direct Links And More

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Thursday, Instagram updated its app to add some neat new features to its Stories feature. Besides a built-in Boomerang mode and support for tagging other Instagram users in Stories, this update brings an important function to the app –– the ability to add URL links to their stories that viewers can open without leaving Instagram.

To keep the Stories free of long ugly URLs, Instagram is adding a “See More” button to the bottom of any story that includes a link. Users who tap on the button will be directed to the destination page via an in-app web browser. At launch, this link feature will only be available to verified Instagram accounts.

What Brands Should Do
This update shows Instagram’s determination in improving Stories to better compete with Snapchat, and the addition of links in particular should come as a useful tool for content creators and brands. Instagram has long resisted clickable links, limiting them to one per account profile, and only recently started supporting direct links in its ad products. Now brands on Instagram can use Stories as a call-to-action tool to drive traffic and encourage sign-up. Retailers in particular should take advantage of this new feature to expand their social commerce efforts to Instagram.  

 

Source: TechCrunch

AT&T To Give Free Apple TV To DirecTV Now Subscribers

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
AT&T is reportedly planning to give away streaming devices for free to incentivize customers to sign up for its upcoming OTT live TV streaming service DirecTV Now. Subscribers who agree to pay for three months of the service will receive a fourth-gen Apple TV, whereas those who pay for one month will get an Amazon Fire TV stick. The service is set to release before the end of the month.  

Why Brands Should Care
While this not exactly a new tactic for enticing sign-ups (Sling TV had a similar giveaway of Fire TV and Roku devices last year), the potential scale and cost of AT&T’s plan far exceeds its precedents. Gradually, we are seeing some ISPs jumping on the cord-cutting bandwagon to court customers either by launching their own streaming services like AT&T and Verizon, or integrating popular streaming services into their own set-top devices, such as the case with Comcast and Netflix. Such a trend will no doubt propel more customers to cut the cord and switch to OTT services.

As more and more consumers choose time-shifted streaming over linear TV, brands should follow the viewers and start to explore new TV ad formats on connected TV devices to engage with the audience in their living rooms. To read more on how brands can reach viewers on OTT platforms with ads and branded content, please check out the Appified TV section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: Apple Insider