Download Video Case - Chapter 13

VIDEO CASE – CHAPTER 13
RICH MEDIA - DIGITAL AGENCY
Have you ever wondered who came up with the app you just downloaded—how and why
they came up with the idea? The answers are many, but for mobile marketing tools, we need
look no further than Toronto digital agency Rich Media, which creates easy-to-use mobile
marketing tools and websites that make consumers’ lives a little easier. Whether this is with a TV
selector tool, a home-buying app, or a mortgage calculator, Rich Media knows how to make the
complicated simple. This is why Rich Media is one of the go-to digital marketers for companies
like Scotiabank and Samsung in Canada.
Rich Media sets itself apart in the mobile marketing space through a solid foundation of 20
years’ experience in new media and the fact that it creates innovative projects with an in-house
approach to building clients’ business. Its expertise lies in designing interactive website
discovery tools, apps, mobile web, and video animation that go beyond client expectations to
tell stories that engage.
Clients turn to Rich Media for its ability to quickly take projects from start to finish, including
strategy development, creative design, technology adaptation, and in-house testing—all with
high levels of customer service that they call the Rich Experience. The Rich Experience involves
the agency going above and beyond with all its interactions, whether this be with couriers, video
extras, its staff, or its clients. The Rich Experience is memorable, positive, fun, playful, personal,
and professional.
Rich Media’s approach ensures that projects are not farmed out to specialists, but instead
created by its own lean team of carefully selected designers, coders, writers, videographers, and
client services experts who share the same space to collaborate on projects. This ensures that
the best work is created and exceeds client expectations. If a technical problem surfaces, or a
client suggests an opportunity, no one needs to track down an expert in another organization.
Instead, a walk across the hallway lands you with the in-house experts who can quickly resolve
problems and discuss opportunities.
Jake Rich, president and founder of Rich Media, explains that every project at Rich Media
must adhere to its three-pillar approach of strategy, creativity, and technology. First, projects
must meet the objectives and strategies set out at the start in the creative brief. Second, they
must uniquely engage users and tell a client’s story. Third, they must use technology to make
the customer journey easier and more memorable through intuitive, interactive, and informative
tools. Its agile approach includes strategy, creativity, and technology all wrapped up in one to
achieve excellent results. Rich Media’s clients include, among others, Scotiabank, Samsung, and
Sun Life Financial, as well as ING Direct, TD Insurance, Great West Life, and RBC Financial Group.
“Mobile has disrupted marketing as a new and interactive communication channel. It
connects, it informs, and it communicates, all in one,” explains Rich. “Often, people are hung up
on technology and miss the opportunity it presents—the opportunity to engage, to experience,
and to communicate to individuals on their personal devices.” He explains that intrusion is not
welcome on mobile devices, and so marketers must learn to engage customers to be invited
into their coveted mobile space. Rich does not see technology as mobile’s biggest challenge,
but instead points to understanding how consumers use the technology and how it is changing
cultural norms. Mobile devices are always on, consumers are always connected, and marketers
must learn how to communicate across these new and exciting channels.
We look to Scotiabank and Samsung, two of Rich Media’s clients, to gain an
understanding into the mobile space and how Rich Media has created mobile experiences that
help build business. The Scotiabank Dream Home Finder is a mobile application for prospective
home buyers that makes house hunting easier and more enjoyable. Instead of home buyers
muddling through stacks of feature sheets and trying to recall the homes they have visited, the
Scotiabank Dream Home Finder cleverly organizes all elements on a computer or mobile device.
On a mobile device, people merely download the free app and, in a few short minutes, register
to set up a profile that includes required home features (number of bedrooms and bathrooms,
price ranges, etc.) as well as important locations such as work, schools, gyms, and babysitters.
Then, as prospective homes are visited, the user uploads photos of the homes and adds
information on addresses, price points, features, and personal notes for future reference. The
app automatically plots the properties on Google Maps in relation to important locations and
then rates the prospective homes based on the originally selected features. A report can then be
printed or viewed on the mobile device. The app also includes a simple mortgage calculator and
a list of Scotiabank specialists who can be contacted for mortgage advice.
“The beauty of this tool is its simplicity,” states Rich. “We wanted to ensure that users
were not weighed down by complicated registrations or confusing interfaces. It’s all very
intuitive and helps any house hunter—whether they are Scotiabank clients or just casual
browsers—more easily find a home. Its integration with Google Maps and mobile images makes
it very useful, and having a comparison tool to assess different properties is highly rated.” The
Scotiabank Dream Home Finder fits into Rich Media’s three business pillars—strategy, creativity,
and technology. It creatively uses new technology to help clients more enjoyably go through the
daunting house-hunting process and to easily envision their lives in a new location.
The Scotiabank Dream Home Finder took Rich Media a number of months to design to
its high standards and since then it has been enhanced and periodically updated to keep pace
with operating systems, the real estate industry, as well as new mobile devices for iOS, Android,
and BlackBerry. The mobile space requires constant attention to ensure that applications remain
compatible with updated software and hardware. The Scotiabank Dream Home Finder is a free
application and desktop destination that comes in English and French.
The Samsung TV selector tool is another Rich Media project that helps make consumer
decision-making easier and more enjoyable. It was born out of a need to make TV purchasing
easier for consumers who are confused about LED and plasma options. Rich Media turned to its
three pillars and created a tool that takes the pain out of the purchase with the Samsung HDTV
and Sound Solution Selector, which is strategic, creative, and uses technology to tell a story.
Consumers simply answer a few questions on a computer or mobile device about TV location,
room dimensions, lighting, TV usage, pricing, and Internet applications. This results in a TV
recommendation from Samsung that includes TV features, pricing, and size. These suggestions
can then be shared with friends via e-mail, Twitter, or Facebook to solicit advice. This tool has
been very successful for Samsung, helping it stay top-of-mind with consumers on their path-topurchase.
Rich leaves us with a few final thoughts to consider on our journey to learn about mobile
marketing. He wants students to understand that mobile is merely a step in the development of
the digitally connected world; it allows consumers to more richly explore and connect with
marketers and brands. Separately, he advises students to follow their passions, to work hard, to
use their creativity to engage with others, and to follow their dreams. Rich Media was born out
of his desire to run his own business, as well as his passion for design, creativity, and technology.
Now, a motivated team of digital experts create the Rich Experience at Rich Media with annual
growth rates of over 20 percent. Thank you, Jake Rich!
Questions
1. Why is it important that the Samsung TV selector tool be mobile-friendly?
2. Download the Scotiabank Dream Home Finder app and identify what mobile marketing tools
and social media marketing tools are used to engage users.
VIDEO CASE – CHAPTER 13
SALESFORCE - BECOME A CUSTOMER COMPANY
For decades experts have been talking about a time when customers will really be the focus of
companies and organizations. We call this the marketing concept but over the years so often
consumer needs and expectations were below par, forcing consumers to complain and/or take
their business elsewhere. Today, technology has given consumers a stronger voice - one that is
heard loud and clear - forcing companies and organizations to pay attention and make changes.
Consumers now live in an interconnected world where mobile devices and social media makes it
easy to voice opinions and share positive and negative sentiments. Consumers now have
recourse and marketers are on alert knowing that influential customers with large followings on
social media can influence brand opinions and brand sales.
Consumers today expect products to live up to expectations, services to be beyond reproach,
marketing messages to be ethical, and companies to be good corporate citizens. People also
expect companies to form relationships with customers by being responsive to their needs,
sending timely offers, and answering questions, often in real-time. This is no easy task with
wireless technology that connects consumers with organizations 24/7 across time zones,
cultures, and countries.
Various marketing services companies help marketers provide exceptional customer service in
this interconnected world by providing cloud-based platforms and databases that marketers use
and access to help ensure complaints and questions are tagged and answered, that each
customer interaction is logged, that databases are populated with customer communication
timelines and information, and that salesforces have customer and company information at their
fingertips. Marketers can then correlate data to sales and profits to return on investment.
Salesforce, the world’s leader in customer relationship management tools (over 620,000 clients
in over 125 countries), provides such marketing services with cloud-based platforms that
companies and organizations can use to develop trusting relationships with their customers.
Salesforce’s attitude to business puts customers first and harnesses technology and data to
make marketing, communications, and business practices simpler, faster, and better. Its
approach is that to succeed, businesses need to become customer companies that are available
24/7 - whenever the customer desires and on whatever device they prefer. Customer oriented
companies listen to each customer through every communications channel and connect
customers, employees, partners, and products to earn consumers’ trust and business. Customer
focused organizations create useful communities for clients, send out offers, and track
interactions to ensure customers are delighted and recognized from their multiple contact
points whether this is in-store, via e-mail, through a text message, through online customer
service chat, or on social media. These platforms respect consumers’ identity and their rights to
privacy.
Salesforce provides cloud based platforms that help marketers focus on consumers. Salesforce
Chatter is an example of such a platform that works as a company’s closed access social sharing
hub. This platform allows employees to collaborate on projects, post updates on work-related
items, share ideas, and solve business-related problems on a social sharing platform similar to
Facebook. Salesforce also has Salesforce Sales Cloud that helps salesforces log, track, and
access information on sales interactions, pitches, and targets. It also has its Salesforce Service
Cloud that connects agents to customers and tracks customer service cases. Salesforce
Marketing Cloud is another service that is of particular help to marketers. It helps marketers
schedule, deploy, monitor, and measure e-mail marketing campaigns, social media marketing
programs, and mobile marketing campaigns. It drills down into e-commerce interactions to
build richer relationships with its customers. It also allows social media managers to monitor,
measure, schedule, and respond to social media comments and questions in real-time, capturing
data in dashboards that visualize demographics, highlight share of voice, pinpoint engagement
levels, identify positive and negative sentiment, and show how social campaigns perform.
In November 2013 Salesforce launched its Salesforce1 Customer Platform app (for mobile
devices) so business customers can access updates, data, and communicate on-the-go to better
connect with clients. The Salesforce1 Customer Platform app also allows developers to create
their own business-facing apps that are built on the Salesforce1 platform.
Compatible across Android and iOS platforms, Salesforce1 provides real-time access to critical
business information at all times using the cloud to offer downloadable business apps through
its Salesforce AppExchange platform. Agents can collaborate, communities can help each other,
and users can search a knowledge bank to help troubleshoot problems to deliver outstanding
customer service. Salesforce1 is generally included with user licenses of Salesforce CRM and the
Salesforce Platform.
This approach is no surprise, considering Salesforce’s forward-thinking approach puts customers
first. Salesforce calls this the Internet of Customers whereby companies can be more productive
by connecting employees, partners and products from anywhere, anytime, and on any device.
Salesforce believes that the Internet of Customers is the future and that the brands that get
there first will win the hearts and minds of consumers.
Questions
1. What business practices and consumer expectations do you think prompted Salesforce to
create a business app for its customers?
2. What general benefits can apps bring to business users?