Apple News Boosts Readership To 85 Million http://bit.ly/2Rt31Yr Apple scored a victory of sorts as its stock climbed after the iPhone maker revealed dismal results from its fiscal first-quarter that included the holiday buying season. The company also revealed positive metrics for its growing services business that includes its Apple News content aggregator. On Jan. 2, CEO Tim Cook had braced investors for bad news in a letter that warned of lower sales in China and lopped off 9% of the company’s value in a day. As Apple managed to eke out results that leapt over Wall Street’s lowered hurdle, the stock erased those losses and recaptured a six-week high of about $163. Cook also said Apple News reached a record of 85 million monthly active users, a 21% gain since the company last revealed readership of 70 million in November 2016. The service is available in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, even though Apple now has 1.4 billion active devices worldwide. advertisement advertisement “In the U.S., the latest data from Comscore shows Apple News has the largest audience of all news apps,” Cook said in a conference call with investors. “The international audience will continue to grow with our first-ever bilingual launch in Canada available to customers later this quarter.” Cook had promised to reveal more details about its services business after the company abruptly announced a decision to stop reporting unit sales for the iPhone, iPad and Mac. It was one of the first signs its hardware business was ailing, and that it wanted to shift focus to its “services” business. That segment includes the App Store, Apple Pay payments, Apple Music streaming and iCloud storage. Its sales grew 19% to $10.9 billion in the most recent quarter, including revenue from Apple Music’s 50 million paid subscribers and fees from 1.8 billion Apple Pay transactions. Still, that doesn’t make up for the 15% slump in iPhone sales to about $52 billion. It remains to be seen how Apple will monetize Apple News, but there are indications the company plans to roll out a service called Apple News Magazines. The tech giant this week provided a glimpse of the service with the first test version of iOS 12.2, the mobile operating system that runs iPhones and iPads. The company typically provides test versions of iOS to app designers to help them prep for major updates. The iOS update mentions of a “bundle subscription” several times, possibly indicating the tech giant is planning a service that combines music, magazines and TV shows. The subscription bundle may confirm earlier reports that the company seeks to create a "Netflix of magazines" that urges subscribers to pay a flat monthly fee for access to hundreds of digital publications. Also unknown is how Apple News is going to share subscription revenue with publishers. In 2016, Apple News set up a similar fee structure to its App Store, which takes a 30% cut of app purchases and a 15% commission on renewals after the first year. Apple, which touts its privacy protections, also controls payments to the App Store and collects subscriber data, including address and payment information. The Financial Times has twice balked at Apple’s data-sharing policies, and still isn’t available on Apple News. Instead, the financial newspaper in 2017 created a new mobile app for Apple devices in the United States and the United Kingdom, and devised a way to get around the App Store’s fee structure. The FT made new readers pay for a subscription on its website, then use their login information to access the app. Ideally, Apple News will make its paid subscription bundle more seamless for readers while obtaining their informed consent to provide personal information to publishers. Publishers rely on reader data to support ad sales and list-marketing efforts, two businesses that privacy-focused Apple has yet to encourage. But as the company tries to develop a services business to supplant declining iPhone sales, Apple will have to develop a strategy for Apple News that respects user privacy, while also meeting the needs of publishers. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 31, 2019 at 06:03AM
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Measure for Success: 7 Secrets of Actionable Content Marketing Dashboards http://bit.ly/2TmCeif Hey, content marketers. Imagine this: You’re sitting in a marketing meeting and you hear the following:
What Makes a Marketing Dashboard Actionable?For a content marketing dashboard to be actionable, it has to answer two simple questions:
7 Essential Elements of an Actionable Marketing DashboardSo, how do we answer those two simple questions posed above? There are several key components to consider including in your dashboard:#1 - Content BenchmarksBenchmarks are essential for understanding how different types of content have performed on average over a specific period of time. Your benchmarks can and should be different based on the content type and its objective. For example, a top-of-funnel blog post meant to drive traffic will have a different benchmark than a middle-funnel infographic meant to engage. By keeping these front-and center in your marketing dashboard, you can compare at-a-glance.#2 - GoalsMore than likely your goals are to beat your benchmarks every single time. But it’s important to document your goals so you can gauge success. By adding your goals to your marketing dashboard, you can quickly determine whether you’re on pace to hit your goal and if you’ve been able to surpass it. And ultimately, keeping that data within your dashboard will help you course-correct where needed and celebrate wins as they occur.#3 - Real-Time KPI MonitoringDepending on your objective for the content you’re creating, there could be any number of KPIs to watch. Automating those reports in a dashboard will help you report to your internal team and leadership in an easily consumable way. For example, if your KPIs are pageviews and asset downloads for a specific campaign, pull those into an executive summary that’s easy to digest with an option to drill down into more specific sources of traffic and conversions.#4 - Traffic TrendsWhile measuring specific pieces of content is helpful to enhance performance, it’s important to keep your eyes on overall performance as well. Knowing whether overall website or blog traffic is trending up or down versus the previous year or month will help you inform the types of content you need to create next. For example, if you notice your organic traffic is trending down month-over-month, you will want to dig into your content report to determine why that is and what needs to be done to repair the situation on a more granular level.#5 - Performance by Topic and PersonaIf you’re trying to reach a specific persona, or increase visibility around an important topic, segmenting your data within a dashboard can be hugely valuable. You’ll be able to tell if your content is more or less visible for your target, or if your content marketing strategy needs to shift to meet a different type of demand for that topic.#6 - Engagement MetricsAll of the traffic in the world won’t mean a thing if would-be customers are bouncing off your site immediately. Make sure you’re monitoring your bounce rate and time-on-page for each post to determine if the content is resonating and adjust as needed. While these are often bucketed as vanity metrics, that doesn’t mean they can’t provide meaningful insight or should be forgotten.#7 - Proof of ROITo be fully actionable, integrate your sales team’s data sources into your dashboard. With the right analytics strategy, you can pull in performance by page or post from visit to sale. This will help you prove the value of your content, and understand which kind of content converts the prospects you’re looking for. As a bonus, your sales team will be able to share that kind of converting content as a follow-up from an initial meeting or as a pre-meeting email with their prospects.Take Action to Spur ActionAn actionable content marketing dashboard is a pivotal piece to a data-informed content marketing strategy. If your data is accurate and your dashboard is actionable, you’re in the right place to start creating and marketing incredible content that has proven ROI and helps your sales team meet their goals. Talk about a win-win! And before I go, I’d like to leave you with a few rules for measurement mastery:
The post Measure for Success: 7 Secrets of Actionable Content Marketing Dashboards appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®. Mobile Marketing via Hubspot http://bit.ly/2V5eKQ7 January 31, 2019 at 05:44AM
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8 Inspiring Strategies From China’s Leading Retailers http://bit.ly/2sW9fGx In this excerpt from PSFK's China Retail Debrief, explore the key techniques and strategies that keep the nation's retail giants at top of market, from localization and autonomous delivery to digital-led stores China’s retail landscape has transformed from very traditional to cutting-edge in just a few years, thanks to the strategic vision of its leading customer experience innovators. The following eight initiatives can serve to inspire brands and retailers in other markets, helping them identify the necessary steps to implement their own visions of the ‘New Retail’ experience. 1. Construct A Unique Ecosystem 2. Expand Capabilities Through Strategic Partnerships 3. Think ‘One Channel,’ Not Omnichannel 4. Surprise And Delight Every Day With Connected Digitally Integrated Store Experiences 5. Leverage Real-Time Data To Quickly Adapt To Shifting Needs And Desires 6. Move Closer To The Consumer With Localization & Autonomous Delivery 7. Go Social And Make Retail A Form Of Everyday Entertainment 8. Be Bold Yet Nimble When It Comes To Innovation For more examples of how China is leading the retail sector with innovation and technology, download PSFK’s China Retail Debrief. China’s retail landscape has transformed from very traditional to cutting-edge in just a few years, thanks to the strategic vision of its leading customer experience innovators. The following eight initiatives can serve to inspire brands and retailers in other markets, helping them identify the necessary steps to implement their own visions of the ‘New Retail’ experience. Mobile Marketing via PSFK http://www.psfk.com/ January 31, 2019 at 05:37AM Apple Boots Facebook App That Collects Teens' Data http://bit.ly/2SdAzOG Apple has blocked Facebook from distributing a virtual private network that allowed the company to access all mobile and web data -- including photos, emails and browsing activity -- by people who downloaded it, including teens under 18. The move came soon after TechCrunch reported that Facebook was paying users between the ages of 13 and 35 to download the Facebook Research VPN. Downloaders could earn up to $20 a month plus referral fees, according to TechCrunch. Around 5% of the users reportedly were teenagers. The research app was similar to Facebook's Onavo Project app, banned by Apple last August. Facebook acquired Onavo in 2013, and has apparently been using the company's technology to collect data since at least 2016. advertisement advertisement Apple also rescinded Facebook's ability to distribute apps through Apple's “enterprise” program, which was intended to allow companies to distribute apps within their own organizations. It's not yet clear how Facebook disclosed its data-gathering practices to users, and whether those disclosures would be viewed as sufficient by regulators. Ten years ago, the Federal Trade Commission prosecuted Sears for paying users to install tracking software on their computers without adequately informing them about the extent to which their data would be collected. Some lawmakers criticized Facebook over the app Wednesday. Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts) urged Facebook to immediately stop recruiting teens to use the research app. “It is inherently manipulative to offer teens money in exchange for their personal information when younger users don’t have a clear understanding how much data they’re handing over and how sensitive it is,” Markey stated. He added that he also has concerns over how Facebook disclosed the program to adults. “I am alarmed by reports that Facebook is not providing participants with complete information about the extent of the information that the company can access through this program,” he stated. “Consumers deserve simple and clear explanations of what data is being collected and how it being used.” Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) also expressed concerns over Facebook's distribution of the app. On Wednesday, Warner asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a host of questions, including that he thinks users understood they were giving Facebook access to all of their activity. Facebook hasn't yet responded to MediaPost's questions about the app. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 30, 2019 at 02:41PM Domino's Creates AI Pizza Identifier For Super Bowl Campaign Launch http://bit.ly/2SgLbw9 Domino’s is launching a pizza identifier enabled by artificial intelligence so consumers can receive rewards leading to free pizza. Rather than advertising on the Super Bowl, Domino’s decided to create a program to reward people for ordering pizza, even if from a competitor. With the Domino’s mobile app, customers can sign up for the Piece of the Pie Rewards loyalty program and then scan their pizza. Customers earn 10 points per pizza and after 60 points, they can get a free pizza from Domino’s. "This is the first time Domino's is using AI technology like this," stated Dennis Maloney, Domino's chief digital officer. "It will be running the pizza identification process and is already smart enough to identify all pizza, even if it is a homemade English muffin pizza, a pizza with a hotdog stuffed crust or a high-end artisan pizza. It can even identify if it's a dog's squeaky pizza toy." The AI software is used to determine that the image scanned is really pizza. Domino’s CEO Ritch Allison is scheduled to appear in TV commercials for the program and Domino’s is featuring a video of it on its website. advertisement advertisement Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 30, 2019 at 02:09PM Moz Experts Talk Search: Should Businesses Get Hung Up On Website Metrics? http://bit.ly/2FZ4RyX To get an update on search ranking factors and the state of local search engine optimization and marketing, Search Insider caught up with experts Pete Meyers, marketing scientist at Moz, and Neil Crist, VP of product and engineering at Moz. As the two experts points out, local SEO continues to change from an explosion of new Google My Business features to an increasing emphasis on the importance of reviews. They put together some key stats to identify trends. The findings from the 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors survey and the State of Local Search may seem a little contradictory. Even as the need for a website continues to grow, 64% of 1,411 surveyed local business marketers agree Google search is becoming the new home page for local businesses. More business information is ending up in search queries, so there is little need to go to a website. What follows are excerpts from the discussion. advertisement advertisement Search Insider: Why is Google Search acting like the business’ home page? Meyers: Google’s owning more of the data for local businesses because their websites are a mess. We’re in our car and try to pull up the website to find a PDF of the menu and 17 pictures of the owner’s dog. We can’t find the address, phone number or the hours of operation. Google wants to monetize data, but they also know people need information. Businesses have not done a great job of this. The simple truth is people need to get to the fundamental information about a business, and they can’t. So Google started to take that away from us and display it in a consistent format. As a market this scares me, but as a user it’s valuable. Search Insider: How important is having a website in 2019? Crist: As a basic first step, companies need to make sure their Google My Business profile is built. Some are filled out, but a lot of the characteristics of the profile drive the user toward an action. Meyers: We don’t want to let go of the metrics we’re used to, the direct traffic to the website. The battle we’re fighting is if someone goes onto Google and finds the hours of operation and other information, we shouldn’t fight it. That’s a win, even though they never make it to the website. We shouldn’t be tied to these vanity metrics if Google drives business into the stores. Search Insider: What are the most important metrics for business this year? Meyers: For the hyperlocal business, such as the restaurant and coffee shop, we need to be more mindful of calls and foot-in-door traffic. Maybe we need to realize that people visiting the website isn’t that important. For some local businesses we’re trying to push them through more tangible results. In the next few years, we’re going to be able to tell when someone went to Google before coming into the shop, which is both good and scary. To conclude, there are a few important factors that marketers must consider in 2019. Meyers and I both agreed that proximity has become more important with the increase of mobile devices. When it comes to ranking, there are two sets of factors causing concern and confusion. Marketers should also focus more on giving Google better data in 2019. It is important to ensure data is accurate. It’s easy to control, but people get lazy. Some traditional factors like citations and unlinked mentions of a business, can lose significance. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 30, 2019 at 12:41PM Smartphone Shipments Continue Decline, Drop 5%: IDC http://bit.ly/2Tp9tkY In the fourth quarter, smartphone shipments declined 5% from the previous year, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). This is the fifth consecutive quarter of decline, with shipments totaling 375 million devices. The holiday quarter closes out the worst year ever for smartphone shipments with overall volume down 4% with 1.4 billion units shipped for the full year, according to IDC. “Globally, the smartphone market is a mess right now," stated Ryan Reith, program vice president with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Device Trackers. "Outside of a handful of high-growth markets like India, Indonesia, Korea and Vietnam, we did not see a lot of positive activity in 2018. We believe several factors are at play here, including lengthening replacement cycles, increasing penetration levels in many large markets, political and economic uncertainty and growing consumer frustration around continuously rising price points." Shipments in China, which accounts for about 30% of the world’s smartphone consumption, were down more than 10%. Market share leaders for the quarter were Samsung, Apple and Huawei. advertisement advertisement Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 30, 2019 at 11:46AM Apple Accentuates The Positive In Q1 Report; Group FaceTime Goes Dark http://bit.ly/2G1rxP4 Apple CEO Tim Cook warned early this month that its first-quarter results would be worse than anticipated, and yesterday he laid it all out on the display screen: iPhone revenue was down 15%, and the device had its worst holiday-season performance in more than a decade. On the bright side, he emphasized, revenue from all other products and services grew 19%. “Cook chalked up the iPhone sales decline to a mix of factors, including foreign exchange rates, a popular battery replacement program and the decrease in carrier smartphone subsidies,” Seth Fiegerman writes for CNN Business. “Cook also noted ‘more severe’ macroeconomic conditions in China, once one of Apple’s most promising new markets, reiterating a point made in the stark warning to investors this month.” advertisement advertisement The stock market liked what it saw, abetted no doubt by Cook’s gloomy guidance on Jan. 2 and upbeat resolve yesterday. “Apple’s stock leaped 6% in after-market trades late Tuesday after the tech giant delivered iPhone sales that -- while terrible by Apple’s usual standards -- nevertheless beat expectations,” Nicolas Vega writes for the New York Post. “The CEO, who is usually reluctant to discuss future products, said the company has a strong pipeline of products and services with new announcements slated for later this year,” Tripp Mickle writes for the Wall Street Journal. “Apple innovates like no other company in the world and we are not taking our foot off the gas,” Cook declared. “‘It’s not in our DNA to just stand around and wait for macroeconomic conditions to improve,’ Cook also said, as he began outlining some of Apple’s strategy and tactics ‘to improve our results,’” Aaron Pressman writes for Fortune. Indeed, at the end of the analysts’ call, which has been transcribed by Seeking Alpha, the company played Lauren Daigle’s song “Look Up Child,” Pressman tell us, pointing out “it was likely no coincidence” that the event ended “with a strong reminder about the power of resiliency and optimism.” Shira Ovide, writing for Bloomberg Opinion, isn’t quite buying it. “Apple wants investors to care about a 19% increase in what it calls its ‘services’ business -- a grab bag that includes the company’s share of revenue from iPhone app sales, Apple’s device warranty program, payouts Apple collects from Google, Apple Music subscriptions and more. It wants investors to focus on the 33% growth in add-on products like the Apple Watch, AirPods headphones and the HomePod voice-activate speakers,” she observes. “The problem is nothing Apple does can fill the iPhone-sized hole in its revenue. Apple’s iPhone revenue fell $9.1 billion in the first quarter from a year earlier. Gains from all of the company’s other products rose by a cumulative $5.1 billion,” she goes on to point out. Indeed, iPhones now represent more than two-thirds of the company’s sales. “Customers have been reluctant to pay up for flagship iPhones that have risen in starting price by more than 50% in recent years to nearly $1,000. Demand for the iPhone XR, a lower-priced option released in October, has fallen short of the company’s expectations, forcing it to slash production,” the WSJ’s Mickle remind us. Like many a parent looking at a 10th grader’s report card, Apple also blamed its poor performance in China on video games -- but in this case, it was the government’s temporary ban on approving new titles last year. “The ban came seemingly out of nowhere and has been strictly enforced. Back in March, China swiftly stopped approving new video game releases, meaning titles in development could not make it to the public’s hands. Then in August, Beijing officially cemented the ban just days after President Xi Jinping gave a speech about myopia and authorities recommended curbing video games as one of the solutions. The ban was strictly enforced until the last days of December, when China approved 80 new video game titles, with more trickling in this month,” reports Shannon Liao for The Verge. Adding to Cook & Co.’s woes yesterday were headlines such as this one in the New York Times: “Apple Was Slow To Act On FaceTime Bug That Allows Spying on iPhones.” “On Jan. 19, Grant Thompson, a 14-year-old in Arizona, made an unexpected discovery: Using FaceTime, Apple’s video chatting software, he could eavesdrop on his friend’s phone before his friend had even answered the call,” Nicole Perlroth explains. He told his mother, an attorney, and Michele Thompson then spent more than a week trying to get the attention of someone at Apple about the “major security flaw.” Yesterday, news about the software bug went viral on Twitter, Eli Blumenthal reports for USA Today. “Apple finally disabled Group FaceTime late Monday night. The company said in a statement … that it is ‘aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week,’” Blumenthal writes. That’s obviously not the kind of innovation Cook was touting earlier. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 30, 2019 at 07:22AM
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Interview: How A Hemp Beverage Co Builds Its Brand Around A Solution, Not Ingredients http://bit.ly/2HCea9t PSFK speaks to Benjamin Witte, founder of hemp-infused drink brand Recess, about his approach to functional beverage, focusing on the solutions that consumers want—relaxation, productivity, creativity—rather than CBD hype From matcha to tinctures, CBD has become as synonymous with trendy, current pop culture as Instagram. The two share more than several traits as well, both offering portals into our contemporary infatuation and desire to achieve holistic wellness. Understanding the reasons behind CBD’s popularity—and the larger physical/mental health movement as a whole—can help all wellness retailers consider how best to market their goods and optimize the customer experience. PSFK sat down with Benjamin Witte, Founder & CEO of Recess, a line of CBD and hemp-infused sparkling water intended to curb anxiety and aid productivity. As Recess transitions from primarily online-based commerce to in-store, Benjamin provides key insights for any brand looking to tap into this wellness niche or expand their retail footprint. PSFK: You don’t use the term CBD in your branding. Can you explain why that is? Benjamin Witte: Basically, CBD and hemp products have been operating in a regulatory gray area for a while, up until the end of last year. Right before the holidays, a piece of legislation passed called the Hemp Farming Act, which clarifies a lot of the regulation. It basically separates hemp from marijuana in terms of how they’re regulated and paves the way for hemp extract and CBD to be everyday food ingredients. That said, this bill just passed. There’s also a distinction between CBD isolate and full‑spectrum hemp extract, which is what we use. Full‑spectrum hemp extract includes CBD as well as other terpenes around the compound, which work together to be more effective. We include 10 milligrams of CBD in each can. What motivated you to start Recess? Were there particular trends or consumer demands you were responding to? I’ve always been a naturally wired, hyper, anxious person. When I started using CBD regularly, at that time in oil form, I felt much more balanced and even‑keeled. As a result, I was more productive, more creative and less stressed out. It was clear to me that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way—overwhelmed by modern‑day society, whether from politics, technology, the jobs, the economy, and searching for solutions to take back control, whether through medication, yoga, or cannabis. I concluded that CBD was helping me feel better. I realized this ingredient, this compound, was going to become extremely widespread. It was going to basically be like caffeine or protein, something to just put in everything. At that time, the current applications—oils, tinctures, gummies, vaporizers—were not it. Things you’d buy in a dispensary aren’t necessarily very mainstream. So the big opportunity was beverages. Twenty years ago, people just drank stuff because it tasted good: soda, fruit juice, water. Then energy drinks emerged. Today, you have all sorts of categories of functional beverages, whether it’s protein drinks, kombucha for your gut, green juices, etc. It didn’t make sense to me that a drink category didn’t exist to help people reset and rebalance so they can be their most productive and creative selves. That’s what really inspired Recess. That’s what I designed the brand and the formula around. I view the company like a productivity company. In many ways, I thought that the market was getting the positioning of the ingredient wrong. Subtlety plays to my favor in that we’re really focused on helping people feel balanced, not relaxed. You’ll never see us use the word relaxed, for example, because I believe “relaxed” has a negative connotation. You don’t aspire to relax. If you tell someone to relax, it’s kind of an insult. What the functional ingredients, the CBD and the adaptogens, are designed to do is to help you feel centered and an equilibrium so you can be in more of a flow state. I think that’s a universal idea, just like energy was. I think CBD is blowing up because that’s what people are looking for. They just haven’t been able to describe it. I think why Recess is working is that we don’t even talk about the ingredient. We talk about the solution. We are marketing Recess, the idea of Recess. Everyone else is way too invested in the term CBD, if you’re asking my opinion. Can you give an overview of your current product lineup and where you’re selling it? Our first product line is a line of sparkling water. We have three flavors: blackberry chai, peach ginger and pomegranate hibiscus. Our ultimate distribution strategy is to be sold literally everywhere it would make sense for it to be available. We’ve launched just off our website. We’re doing sales off our website and recently started rolling out in New York City, which we will be ramping up as our first market. Then we’ll be expanding into a number of new markets in the spring. Could you describe the approach you take with branding and overall retail strategy? I really believe in the idea of marketing the solution, not the ingredients. An inspiration was Red Bull. Red Bull marketed, “Red Bull gives you wings.” It wasn’t like, “Here’s 50 grams of taurine and 100 grams of caffeine.” It’s all about the effect and how you’re going to feel. I don’t come from CPG, but the more time I started spending in the space, I was extremely underwhelmed by the brands and the marketing. In my opinion, La Croix is not really a brand. It doesn’t stand for anything. I tried to take more of a lifestyle brand approach where we’re marketing this state of mind, this way of life. If you think about the best brands today, in my opinion, they’re some things like Away, which sells a suitcase and marketing a globetrotter lifestyle. Or Glossier, which is selling makeup, but really marketing it as a form of inner beauty and confidence. With Casper, you’re selling a mattress, but it’s really a sleep company. That’s how I think about Recess. I don’t really think of us as a beverage company or a CBD company. I wanted to create a brand that would both help establish the use case of having a Recess as well as the mindset. One of our taglines is “Calm, cool, collected. Not tired, not wired.” The truth is that when consumers drink a functional beverage or supplement, the perceived effect is a combination of the actual efficacy of the functional ingredient and how they interact with the product, as well as their expectation about what it is going to do to them—which implicates marketing. Have you found that there’s some hesitation from consumers, or are they pretty open to it? No, it’s much more open than I ever expected. Interestingly, a vast majority of our sales come from the Midwest, outside of California and New York even. I think CBD is much more widely accepted than people realize. More importantly, the idea of Recess is resonating in a big way. Again, it’s not about the CBD. It’s about this notion of helping people take a recess in their day, which we all want. Looking forward five or 10 years, what challenges can you perceive? Are they different from challenges that other beverage companies face? My biggest challenge right now is I can’t make enough to meet the demand. It’s better than the opposite problem, but it’s still a problem. A big focus is scaling our supply chain. It will be competitive. In my opinion, my biggest competition doesn’t exist yet. In many ways, I don’t really think I’m competing with other CBD beverages, but more with standard beverages. If you’re drinking Recess, you’re probably not drinking a La Croix or a Spindrift in many cases. In terms of distribution, what’s your selling process like right now? The most powerful thing about Recess is the frequency of use. People who drink La Croix drink it at work. They drink it at home. They drink it everywhere, like during lunch when they’re out at a restaurant. The same with Diet Coke, for example. Those companies were built in a different era of omnichannel commerce, e‑commerce and off‑line retail. When we launched, I wanted people’s first interaction with my brand to be the website and my Instagram because that’s what transmits the emotion of Recess and really tells the story. So that’s what we did. We launched online. After about six weeks, we started rolling out in New York City on the shelf. The versatility of Recess is unique. It’s something that you can drink when you wake up, before you go to bed, and everywhere in between. It’s something that makes sense to buy to be delivered to your home or buy at a restaurant. Our distribution strategy is to meet customers where they are. That’s our plan. Do you have any plans right now to establish more physical presence? We have our first retail experience in the works right now that’s opening up in February. It’s called Recess IRL, In Real Life, and it’s going to feel like you’re walking into our Instagram. We’re trying to create this Recess world that you can walk into to reset and leave inspired. It’s going to be very design‑driven. You’ll be able to buy Recess there, but that’s not the only point. It’s more of a branded experience to get a sense of what the brand’s all about. A core one is that we think of ourselves as not just a beverage company. I modeled us off of Red Bull, which is creating content and experiences. They have a music label and all sorts of things. That’s where I think Recess is going. It’s about the creative process. It’s about helping people feel balanced and inspired to be their productive and creative selves. That might be something they drink. That might be something they consume on their phone, but I think that both are of equal importance to us. Recess is catering to the needs of modern consumers, offering them not just a product but a lifestyle enhancer. For more from similar inspiring retailers, see PSFK’s reports and newsletters. Mobile Marketing via PSFK http://www.psfk.com/ January 30, 2019 at 06:31AM Mobile Payments Fail To Catch On http://bit.ly/2ScvFS1 People can pay for things in a number of ways, ranging from credit and debit cards to good old-fashioned cash. What they don’t seem to be latching on to is using mobile phones to pay, even though mobile payment capability at retail is becoming widely available. For example, Apple recently boasted that Apple Pay is now available at 74 of the top 100 merchants in the U.S. and 65% of all retail location in the country. In the cable industry, this would be referred to as “homes passed.” Just because a cable TV connection could be made to a home it passed doesn’t mean that every home passed subscribed to the cable service. Mobile payments are pretty much in the same boat. The early challenge for mobile payments was to persuade retailers to upgrade their checkout terminals to be able to accept mobile payments. That battle seems to have been won as terminal updates over time solved that issue. advertisement advertisement It turns out that a mere 14% of consumers are using mobile payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay for in-store purchases, according to a survey of U.S. and U.K. consumers by Juniper Research. Future growth of phone payments may be even more threatened by contactless credit cards, which act pretty much the same way a phone would by tapping a terminal at checkout. After all these years of trying, smartphone payments may never get off the ground. Retailers built it and nobody came. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 01:14PM |
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