Tag: luxury

H2H- Are You Experienced? Human to Human – The Digital Promise Delivered

H2H- Are You Experienced? Human to Human – The Digital Promise Delivered

Jimi Hendrix was on the right track in many ways when he asked “Are You Experienced?”

So what exactly is H2H?  No, it is not the latest Asian flu.  Neither is it water—that is H2O.  And its definitely not the latest networking app!

H2H is “Human to Human”

H2H is About Brands & Delivering on Their Digital Promise

Your digital promise is the full delivery of your brand’s experience to your consumer.  Sure, its easy to produce slick graphics and fabulous copy on a webpage and in social media.  But brands have to really ask themselves if they are also providing the human experience vis-a-vie their digital presentation.

At first this seems a bit crazy and if nothing else completely contradictory.  Isn’t the whole point of digital is that it’s exactly just that-digital?  Not exactly.  What customers are demanding is the full range of a robust experience that a brand has to offer.  What seems to be new here really isn’t.  But with digital in the mix, the rules of execution have been forever altered.  Marketers know that consumers do not want to simply buy something, they want to fully experience it.  This means that brands now have to understand how to seamlessly deliver online and offline–with great humanness.

The rules of brand delivery and execution are forever changed.  

Missing the H2H portion of the brand delivery equates to treating your customer like a piece of digital meat!

Human to Human Marketing is The Digital Marketing Brand Promise Delivered
Human to Human Marketing is The Digital Marketing Brand Promise Delivered

 

This is nothing new because as far back as 1998, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore published “Welcome to the Experience Economy” and the phrase was then forever coined.  They plotted The Progression of Economic Value graph.

The Progression of Economic Value Created in 1998
The Progression of Economic Value Created in 1998!

Even then in 1998, customers were demanding experiential immersion with a brand. With digital marketing, they are demanding it even more.  Its sort of a paradox.  The more brands deliver remotely, the more customers expect to be treated like a human.

“Its sort of a paradox.  

The more brands deliver remotely, the more customers expect to be treated like a human.”  

Farfetch, the digital platform featuring hundreds of impossible to find boutiques and merchandise, recently announced their “Store of the Future”.  Check out this short video from Bloomberg.

Farfetch is setting the standard for digital delivery and human experience.

Farfetch founder, Jose Neves says:

“The next stage in the evolution of the fashion industry is the connected store, which uses technology to enhance the luxury retail experience to become even more customer centric,” he said. “Farfetch is at the crossroads of luxury and technology and is well placed to understand its needs and deliver a tailored solution.”

Jose Neves on LinkedIn-the Creator of Farfetch
Jose Neves on LinkedIn-the Creator of Farfetch

In their new retail store concept, Farfetch customers will experience the full immersion of humanity wrapped in a digital brand delivery.  Farfetch has executed an admirable business benchmark for H2H.

Is your brand ready for H2H?  Are you experienced?

Christine C. Oddo is the author of The Christine Report blog and founder of
Madison Luxe Group; a beauty and luxury product retail sales & digital strategy agency.
Inquiries to christine@madisonluxegroup.com
Madison Luxe Group Where Luxury Meets Reality www.thechristinereport.com www.madisonluxegroup.com
The Christine Report
Does Your Favorite Luxury Brand Take Your Advice?

Does Your Favorite Luxury Brand Take Your Advice?

Did you ever make one of these “investment” purchases? You love it, you want it, you have thought about it for long enough, but there was just a little somethin’-somethin’ that you disagreed with in either the design or color or functionality? Your purchase could be anything: cars, appliances, shoes, jewelry or even tech. Even though you were kind of deep down disappointed, because you really wanted it, you went ahead and bought it anyways.

Do Your Fave Luxury Brands Take Your Advice?
Do Your Fave Luxury Brands Take Your Advice?

You think to yourself, wow, if I could just reach out to somebody at this company and tell them what I think, then, maybe they would use my idea……

Well, now you can. And in ways never before possible and with some of the world’s largest, most luxurious brands.

Brands and marketers call this USER GENERATED BRANDING.

Who would have ever thought that brands like DeBeers, Mercedes and Christian Louboutin would do such a thing?

For DeBeers, their “Moments in Light” app celebrates women nominated by their peers for their brilliance. Just as a diamond is brilliant, DeBeers wants all women as celebrated their precious gems.

De Beers Celebrates Women via Moments in Light campaign
De Beers Celebrates Women via “Moments in Light” campaign

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mercedes Benz utilized their user generated branding in the most literal way. Customers were able to design their GLA model via an Instagram app. You can watch the brief GLA customization YouTube instructional video here.

Mercedes Benz GLA Build A Car Instagram App
Mercedes Benz GLA Build A Car Instagram App

 

 

Christian Louboutin cleverly took a fun multi-media approach celebrating the Spring/Summer 2015 “Tribalou”, collection launch. When email subscribers received their newsletter, it featured a large animated graphic of a Southwest Indian mask. The mask linked to the Louboutin website and landed on a build-your-own-paper-puppet feature. Most adorably, the puppets are called a “Tribaloubi”. When the user completed their design, they printed out their puppet and assembled it. Now that’s what I call brand interaction!

Your friends won’t do it.  Most likely your family and co-workers won’t either.  But now your favorite luxury brand will!  Go on, don’t hold back, send ’em your advice.

Have fun, and see if your ideas come to life in their next campaign.

 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Christine C. Oddo is the author of The Christine Report blog and founder of Madison Luxe Group; a beauty and luxury product retail sales and digital strategy agency.

Inquiries to christine@madisonluxegroup.com

Blindsided By Your Boss-Can Your Social Media Plan Handle The PR Crisis?

Blindsided By Your Boss-Can Your Social Media Plan Handle The PR Crisis?

In 2013, Lululemon recalled its most popular yoga pant after users realized that they were see-through when stretched. Since yoga practitioners do a lot of stretching, this was a major problem. Then, the situation became an even greater PR tragedy when their very own founder and CEO, Chip Wilson, appeared on Bloomberg Television and blamed it on the women wearing the pants. “Quite frankly, some women’s bodies just actually don’t work for it,” he said, adding, “It’s about the rubbing through the thighs.” It’s amazing how in the context of what seems a perfectly benign business channel interview, can go to a total disaster.

Lululemon
Lululemon Yoga Pants. Women wearing the famous controversial yoga pants-according to Lululemon are these women “right” for the pants?

Oh no did he really just say that?

Of course women everywhere interpreted this as being called too fat to wear Lululemon pants.

And could fashion devotees ever forget the total public meltdown of John Galliano? While head of design for Dior, drunk in a bar, he spewed racial slurs and would not calm down for hours.

Oh no did he really just do that?

Galliano’s personality came unglued in what appeared to be an unwinding from the many years of stress that came along with his intensely demanding role. Galliano was always known for his great flamboyance, but up till then, was really only known for his amazing work.

John Galliano with Kate Moss PR Social Media Crisis
John Galliano with Kate Moss

More recently, it was Dov Charney, the founder and CEO of American Apparel. His list of bad behavior really is too gross to restate. You can see the lawsuit filing here.

Oh no, did he really just say, email, text, write, perform, photograph and video that?

Apparently and ironically, as the founder of a clothing company, Charney also enjoyed working naked.

American Apparel Dov Chaney PR Social Media Crisis
American Apparel Store

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nobody could ever imagine these bad PR surprises. Especially from the head cheese. Publicly verbal, uncharacteristic and highly damaging outbursts from the top have got to be last on any social media manager’s worry list.

Since bad PR can happen, companies need a serious plan of combat and execution. Social media is definitely the first place your customer now goes letting the world know exactly what they think or experienced with your brand.

So, then make social media the first place you go to do proper damage control.

Make a crisis game plan that specifies the duties and roles for each member on the crisis team. This game plan should be able to hold up against any incident, anytime, anywhere in the world and under any conditions.

Blindsided by the Boss Social Media PR Crisis Tool
Your Social Media Crisis Communication To Do List by Christine C. Oddo founder, Madison Luxe Group

 

Your go-to PR crisis social media plan should look like this:

  • Most importantly, DO YOU EVEN HAVE A PLAN?
  • Start with assigning a leader. Then, make sure everybody on the team has a hotline to each other no matter what time or day it is.
  • Generate the resources of infrastructure. For instance, you may need a dedicated site or hashtag. Evaluate and assign what it would take to address all your constituencies and what channels are most appropriate.
  • Speed is key. The faster the brand jumps in to the crisis the greater influence they will have in managing the message and communicating with their public.
  • Admit wrongdoing, apologize and take every punch. Be extremely humble, but strong and express a plan for moving forward through the issue.
  • Act on the broadcasted plan and let your audience know that you have done so. This starts to rebuild the lost trust.
  • Heavily monitor your progress. Internal management and external sources teamed up will watch as the incident evolves through the cycle and can readjust accordingly. Crisis management is rarely a one and done effort, be vigilant and stay on the plan until all signs indicate it is truly a new day.

Any company can be caught in a PR crisis at any time. Any company should be ready with their social media strategy to answer to it. No brand should assume immunity from these way-out-of-left-field-bad press incidents.

That is why it is called a surprise. Be ready.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Christine C. Oddo is the author of The Christine Report blog and founder of Madison Luxe Group; a beauty and luxury product retail sales and digital strategy agency.

Inquiries to christine@madisonluxegroup.com

Is Mindfulness a Luxury?

Is Mindfulness a Luxury?

Doing nothing for 30 minutes.

This is what I attempted to do. Its really, really hard. But my timing was right. The electric company is “upgrading” the electric system in the neighborhood and the power was shut off for several hours. Cellular still worked, but I managed to set aside my beloved pink Samsung.

Mindfulness . Reset Your Mind Its a big topic these days. The Dalai Lama is talking about it.This topic was recently featured on the TV show, 60 Minutes. It was entertaining to watch Anderson Cooper learn about it and also give it a try. He struggled, I related. It was especially cringing though to watch him eat dinner with others that were practicing it. Nobody was allowed to speak or interact. It made them chew very slowly. The camera lingered on the participants’ slow chewing motion. Supposedly, if we talk less and chew more slowly, we taste and appreciate our food more. I always thought food was supposed to be social and the best part about it was in the sharing of the moment others. Usually this entails a lot of talking.Mindfulness Anderson_Cooper_at_the_Obama_Inaugural

Anyways, needless to say, I was supposed to be thinking about nothing and I was actually thinking about watching people on TV also trying to think about and say nothing.

Experts say we can boost our productivity if we take the time and allow ourselves this Mindful silence. Now, this is something to think about. As a person with multiple jobs, self-employed and in Harvard University Extension Harvard ShieldGraduate School, I think about my productivity all the time!

What I have actually learned is that in order to boost my productivity, I really need to stop thinking about it so much.

Another poignant thought poked out. I write about, work in and live for luxury. My version of luxury is defined as to how we can achieve it in everyday and real life. We all know that time is a luxury.

Mindfulness is my new life luxury.