Sugar Crush: Customer Engagement

(I keep this diary to highlight the interesting marketing things in my life. And more importantly, find a way to enhance my sucking English....)
I don't play games, especially those without an end. Good thing is that I was never addicted to online games and studies very hard in the past. Bad thing is that I have no idea on how much money this game industry can make.

In the morning, my roommate shared her company visit to Facebook and Zinga. She told me that inside Zinga (maybe a typo?), there are game machines everywhere. Congratulations to those game lovers and code farmers, you find your wonderland. Envy your working environment and living environment especially on such a rainy day in NYC. BTW, it is almost June, why I still wear the same as December.

Entering the mobile times, smaller screens start to play a greater role in everyone's life. For games, you have got your customer everywhere at every moment. In order to kill the time in the subway, I downloaded Temple Run. Well, I felt I am so strange to fall in love with this silly game. Moreover, I downloaded Sugar Crush after being annoyed on facebook.

I have to say, Sugar Crush must have hired a lot "bad" marketing people because you are doing unbelievable amazingly on customer engagement: Friends can send friends lives; You need friends to send you boat ticket in order to proceed to next level; You see your friend's facebook profile picture labeled where they are in the game.

Game comes to a social times. Sugar Crush gives a great example after draw something which I quitted playing for one year as it is so boring to wait for the other's reply and I am so lazy to draw well. The game philosophy is not original. Previously, I was a loyal customer for "Bad Apple" which is almost same apply crush game on my iphone and ipod. However, Bad Apple is not a social game, you just play it on your own and get more challenging rounds.

Ok. Got 3 interviews to go this week, my empirical modeling paper due this week and Jedidi's Phd Multivariate Stats homework due on Friday. Let me end today's diary with my best friend's sugar candy post on Facebook.

Come on... I am on level 10, how can you reach level 189.......

CitiBike, A service or A marketing campaign?

(I keep the diary to highlight the interesting marketing issue in my life and try to improve my sucking English.)

CitiBike, from the first sight on street, I thought it was a free service sponsored by Citi to provide better public transportation in NYC. Interestingly, it is not~. Instead, a $95 annual fee will be charged.

Well, having been a student in Beijing for about 6 years as a whole, I do not see NYC as a great city for riding a bike. NYC looks more like Chongqing, (my hometown) which has narrow streets and no bicycle lane. But New Yorkers seem to like anything about sports to label their lifestyle. I still remember the shocking scene in Central Park when I had a Sunday jogging for the first time in NYC.  You are an alien if you are walking there! Everybody is running or bicycling.

Anyway, from my perspective, this business will end up as a marketing campaign for Citibank. With more than 600 stations and 3000 bikes running in the city, every rider is doing an lively advertisement for Citi. But I have to admit, it is a great idea! But not sure how much profit can be driven by this. In my mind, Citibank does not have a great service as Chase. Definitely, service matters the most in consumer bank business.

Will keep an eye on this bike service as a walking lover.


Related website:
http://citibikenyc.com/

Fashion Flash Deal- Inspired by MyHabit

(This was written before my trip to Brazil. And I stopped writing for 3 weeks.)

Yesterday, I received an interview invitation from MyHabit, an Amazon owned company doing fashion flash sales business. As a result, I checked my junk mail box and opened the link from MyHabit and browsed the website. I looked into See by Chloe and Hermes. Finally, bought one shoe from See by Chloe within 15 minutes. The unified payment system with Amazon makes everything just one click away.

Such flash deal websites are prevalent both in US and China. However, it turns out those so-called luxury positioned websites end up promoting other unknown brands, especially in China. I remember the company called VIP(唯品会) has a bloody lesson going on IPO in US. I am not criticizing the business model, but without a good channel of getting the products from the best brands, those Chinese born companies cannot succeed. MyHabit even has Hermes scarf deal at the price around 220 USD, which will never happen in China. I believe Hermes will never dilute its pricy image in Asia by cooperating with flash deal sites.

Another insight from the flash sales sites is that I have no interests in reviewing brands that I am not familiar. As a result, even though such websites may have a high subscription rate, the ability to transform to sales is limited as different people have different brand preferences. And for those non-first tier brands, I don’t think they can increase the exclusivity of their brand image by being presenting with those first tier brands. For example, when there is Jimmy Choo and See by Chloe, I will naturally ignore other brands that are also on sales. I only focus on those I have interests. For other brands that I do no know, it become so obvious that people will neglect them. My words to those brand managers are: be where you should be.

STARBUCKS, Your great CRM

Well, I spent the whole day researching on Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Relationship Management to prepare for an interview next week. At the end of the day, freaked out by numerous papers and books, I decided to walk around and check the mailbox downstairs.

Surpirse. I got my starbucks mail in a brown envelope with an old style.  I can not believe how great the starbucks marketing team has been doing! How can you succeed in every touch point and bring me such a huge emotional shock? In this internet era, you have such an integrated offline/online system that make my customer experience as convenient as it can be. Now I have my starbucks app in my phone, my physical member card and starbucks products with me.

Although data-driven marketing is going to rock the industry, I still keep my faith in the traditional way. I believe computers can not accomplish that job. Such intimacy can only be built on human being. So I never regret to be an Art student (even I am now a so-called science student).

Everyday, there are so many interesting things I should learn to become a better marketer.

Thank you Starbucks!

A Trip to White Plains

Never heard about White Plains, Harrison, or Rye, the three towns I have been today. Theses two days, I was busy meeting with potential employers and got the chance to experience the life out of Manhattan. And I realize that I will never survive or get used to the country style. From childhood, I stay in big cities and noisy places. Although I enjoy the peaceful scene, it will kill me after three days.

So the question comes, as a marketer, what are the difference between marketing in cities and towns? I have no idea how that works in US. In towns where everybody has to drive, the merchants seem to crowd in one zone and people will drive to get all the stuff. I guess, the promotion and display inside those big malls must be essential. And e-commerce should have a larger effect on those zone as a lot of brands do not need physically present at some places. Consumers shop through clicks. Such trend leverage the pressure of investing in real stores to building up one online store. And how to establish such a great brand experience online becomes the key.

When it comes to China, the huge difference between the two demographics exist still. However, due to the unbalanced development between cities and towns, the infrastructures are not well built in less developed area which hinders the surge of e-commerce. On one hand, people are not well educated to internet, online finance, and online shopping. On the other hand, transportation is not easy. As a result, the best to reach this market is still to be there.

There are too many things for me to learn as to understand the environments other than New York City. Well, the best way is to be there! Keep learning.~

Mother's Day is on the Way

Today I went to Macy's and saw this lovely poster. Suddenly, I realized Mother's day is coming. Every festival is an opportunity for marketers and thanks to their effort, we become more and more familiar with all kinds of festivals and enjoy more promotions.

The whole Macy's is in such an atmosphere. Moreover, Amazon is doing the same. Online stores and offline stores both are paying attention to the festivals which is a good reason for consumers to spend more in the name of festival. I don't know from when people start to associate festival with shopping. But such tradition indeed help retailers get sales performance.

From my personal experience, I feel American companies utilize every opportunity to do sales which makes me feel a little bit unattractive because I know next month, they will have another promotion for another reason. While in China, we do not see such frequent sales and merchants always focus on several limited festivals or promotional seasons. I will assume that the retailing competition in US is much more fierce than in China.

Go back to the poster "Every mom is a star." from Sunglass hut. It features a young lady with an elder lady. Mum can be as a star as her daughter. A sunglass can make you stylish and shine.

Anyway, although I did not buy one for my mom, I bought one for myself.
Thanks for the coming mother's day.