There isn't anything like the real thing.

In marketing theory, specifically the area of online marketing, there exists a concept known as shopping kart abandonment, which forms part of the process in which we go through, when we are either shopping, browsing or searching for more information on products and services. This is essentially game over for the online 'sell' when the consumer adds one or many items to their online 'basket' and then don't go ahead with the purchase, at least not online. 

But what about the opposite phenomena? When people do their research in the flesh, at the David Jones's and JB-HiFi's and perhaps online as well, but then purchase online from another source that is selling the exact product for less. Often, especially when people are buying high cost products, the natural human tendency is to want to touch and feel the item's first. I myself was in the market for the some designer sunglasses (swish) which we looked at a bricks and mortar store, obviously because you would need to try them on and see if they make you look like a bug-eyed idiot, a wanker, or a quality more desirable. Then we say thank you very much to the delightful staff member and walk out the door and purchase them from America for half the price. 

Now trust plays a pretty important role in all this, as people may fear the online product will be of inferior quality, not genuine, be damage in transportation or simply may not want to wait for the item to ship from the far away land. But undoubtably consumers are getting more savvy about getting the best deal on products and services and some will leave the safety net of the brand's website or physical store. For businesses, lets not forget they are still making the sale, albeit at a lower price so it couldn't be classified as 'loss'. For these businesses the challenge is to offer something more that gives the consumer a reason to shop through official channels, either online or offline.

What are you experiences purchasing online? Have you ever done what I did? We've probably all abandoned a online 'cart' at one point at least. Did you end up purchasing the item, perhaps from somewhere else?

The prices are Down Down but the Facebook hate is Up Up.

Coles most recent marketing campaign is the often discussed 'Down Down and Staying Down' campaign, involving essentially a TV spot with big red hands and an overarching message that Coles prices are down and most importantly they are staying down. In marketing lingo this is a promise of value by Coles to their customers.

The campaign was heavily criticised by the media and consumers and nothing represented this backlash better than the tirade of negativity online. Just searching "coles down down" came up with some telling results:

In fact, the largest Coles hate group page entitled "The disturbed feeling you get after seeing the new Coles Ad" has garnered just over 26,000 likes on Facebook. That's around 5 times as many people than the official Coles page with a measly 5,000 likes.

This really shows that any organisation, be it Coles or otherwise, does not have any ownership over the online conversation unfolding. They can however, try to monitor and direct the conversation towards a more positive direction. This is sometimes done by organisations like Telstra (another popular recipient of Facebook hate groups) who actively engage customers online.

Evidently, social media can be a new frontier for organisations and a dangerous place for the unwary.

But is Coles concerned? On one hand, you have customers talking about a campaign that obviously had significant reach and impact but on the other, you must take the criticism seriously.

Yes the campaign is lame, yes it's annoying but by god people remember it, and people remembering an advertisement and going out of their way to create a negative Facebook page, is infinitely better than not having anyone say anything, at all.

The Digital Divide.

I was attending a eMarketing (or Digital Marketing or Internet Marketing or Online Marketing... whatever) event at Monash Uni and one point that was brought up by one of the speakers from GIST Communication (gistcommunication.com.au) was the concept of a "digital divide".

What could this be? Another wanky business term that's doing the rounds of a lecture theatre near you? Probably. But at it's core it raises a more important question; Who can communicate online? Or from a business's point of view, which customers can we communicate with.

Every lazy Uni student's favourite resource Wikipedia defines this divide as "the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information... and their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities".

Most eMarketing at it's most basic, in the form of online commerce (a digital shop) requires at least some form of live internet connection, but the rich, multimedia heavy interactions of today require a pretty decent broadband connection to make possible. And the cost of these connection's can be prohibitive for many people. And that's if you live in Australia. If you live in say... India, what kind of internet service can you expect?

Additionally, who is sufficiently active online to make these marketing efforts worthwhile? Nan and Pop probably don't have a Google or Facebook account. In fact, they might not even have a computer. Or what about those cousins from rural Queensland you only see at Christmas? They'll have internet but it'll probably be slow. Maybe that's why you never visit... Anyway.

eMarketing is an exciting and promising field of Marketing, but this is something that limits businesses and individuals capacity to interface with each other in the online space. Overcoming it is a critical challenge, partly met by the National Broadband Network (NBN) but the issue of affordability comes up once again with leaked plans starting at $40 per month for a very basic connection.

Still chasing that utopia of everyone online, blogging, tweeting, receiving relevant and targeting marketing all the while holding hand and singing songs. Am I asking too much?!

The power of interactivity.

The internet, a subsidiary of Google Inc.

This blog is brought to you by Google. If I posted a video, it would probably be on YouTube which is owned by Google. If I ever wanted to find a blog about cooking (fat chance) I would Google it. You might even be browsing this very page on Google Chrome. Google has acquired over 100 companies in it's history. In fact, out of the top 5 webpages on internet Google owns 3. The 2nd on the list is Facebook, which Google does not own, but then again with Google+ looking like a serious competitor. Who knows if in the near future we'll be posting to 'circles' not 'walls'.

The top 5 websites

When people talk about the internet being 'open' and allowing people and organisations to make connections in new and exciting ways, is this hurt because so much of the conversations are flowing through Google servers? Does this stifle innovation? Generally speaking when markets are full of lots of players in heated competition, better innovation generally results. If you had a great idea for a new social service or a great way to search - chances are you'd just be crushed by the Google machine.

This isn't to say Google can't innovate, it's almost lucky that Google has innovated and dominated in equal measure. But can an organisations reach be too much? Especially if they own such a large portion of the social media space.

Google's informal motto is "don't be evil", and while a dystopian world controlled by Google is quite unlikely, maybe we should think more about who owns and thereby technically controls our online interactions.

For a list of the top 500 websites on the internet visit:
http://www.alexa.com/topsites

Thoughts?