I'm not sure if there is anything more mundane than the weekly supermarket shop. Plus I have always resented the fact that there are no windows in supermarkets, and everyday items like milk are always located at the back of the store- techniques used by stores to keep us shopping longer by taking away distractions of the outside world and making us walk past numerous items we could spontaneously buy on our way to the milk. Very clever indeed!
However Woolworths, an Australian supermarket chain, has recently started advertising their new free app (via television commercials) that allows users to create their own electronic shopping lists. According to the app, you can search for products Woolworths sells in 3 easy ways:
by typing in a key word
by browsing categories (e.g. orange juice)
by scanning the barcode of products in your pantry (I love this idea!)
Not only that, but you can select which Woolworths you most regularly shop at, and the app will order your shopping list aisle by aisle. The app can also be used to find items whilst you're in the store. Both these factors will limit the time spent in the supermarket and make the whole process of shopping faster, easier and less tedious. For more information see this great blog on the app by gadget guru Adam Turner of the Sydney Morning Herald.
His article also highlights the way in which the app has been tied to Woolworths' 'Everyday Rewards' loyalty card program, enabling them to undertake further market research into people's shopping habits whilst enabling customers who choose to enter this information the chance to see how many rewards points they have etc.
I love the idea of this app and think that it has the potential to reduce the time we waste wandering around supermarket aisles. Interestingly Woolworths' biggest competitor Coles, which has had a shopping app for a couple of years now, has recently added the 'scan' feature to keep up with Woolies.
I would love to know what people think of this app. Will it enable us to shop faster and smarter? Will it be just another app people download but never use? Or will it drive people away from the supermarket giant's website and out of their stores quicker, resulting in less sales and lower profits?
I, like many Australians, was thrilled when Cadel Evans won the recent 2011 Tour de France, becoming the first Aussie ever to do so. This event was covered by TV news reports, newspapers, websites and blogs as well as on facebook pages and twitter accounts, and the majority of the reports or posts labelled Evans a 'hero'. Many people would agree with this notion, but one public figure did not. Mia Freedman, an ex-magazine editor and current social media commentator who also runs her own website, publicly disagreed with this idea and unwittingly placed herself in a social media storm.
She appeared on her usual Monday morning segment on The Today Show on Channel Nine following Evans' victory and expressed her opinion that she did not understand the level of media coverage given in Australia to sportspeople and their triumphs. She qualified this by saying that people who achieve great things in other professions, for example doctors, social workers or fire fighters, are barely recognised by the media and rarely lauded as heros. She claimed not to understand the hysteria and feeling of pride amongst Australians following Evans' victory and, without taking anything away from his achievement, believed that more attention should be paid to these 'unsung heros'. You can see the segment here:
I am not writing this blog so that I can weigh in on the argument. What I wanted to highlight was the extreme and vicious way in which Freedman has been attacked via social media sites following her appearance on The Today Show. In this blog she discusses the horrible names she was called and that the abuse she copped was mainly through social media sites such as facebook and twitter, as well as through her website. So much so that her website editing team had to delete many posts because they were just so offensive.
Whilst it is abundently clear that many Australians are incredibly passionate about the sporting culture that is so ingrained within this country and that this topic will therefore always be a contentious one, I would argue that Freedman's 'crime' was not at all deserving of the punishment she received from faceless people via social media sites. Yes, she works in the media, uses these sites and thus needs to be open to negative criticism. She acknowledges this in her posts. However I feel that the people that use facebook and twitter et al in this way are simply cowards who hide behind social media and are not using it appropriately or in a remotely constructive way. Yes, everyone is allowed to have their own opinion and voice it, but at what cost? This was essentially a case of Cyber Bullying.
I'm not sure what the answer is. All I know is that, despite the fact I disagree with Freedman's opinion, I don't think anyone deserves to be treated in this manner.
I would love to hear what you all think regarding this emotive topic.
I definitely do not consider myself a social media expert...more like a social media novice! Therefore for my first blog I have decided to start by discussing a particular function of the one social media platform that I do regularly use and feel comfortable doing so- facebook of course!
A few weeks ago I wandered into a popular shoe store located on Melbourne's famous shopping strip, Chapel St, and after a lap of the store I was just about to leave when I heard the sales assistant who was processing a sale say to the customer she was serving, 'we're offering 10% off today for people who 'check-in' on facebook at our store, is this something you would be interested in doing'? I stopped dead in my tracks and listened to see whether the 40-something year old woman would a) know what this meant and b) take this offer up or not. On this occasion, the woman said she didn't have facebook, but that her daughter (who wasn't with her at the store) did, and asked if she could get her daughter to check-in for her. The sales assistant declined as she said she had to actually view the check-in before she could process the discount. Fair enough I suppose.
But this encounter got me thinking about the power of the facebook check-in, and how marketers could utilise this platform as a means to advertise and market their products and brands, given the fact that a huge number of people are spending more and more of their time on these social media sites.
A fellow social media commentator has recently blogged about this here and raised many valuable insights regarding the reasons behind businesses utilising the 'check-in'. What I think is very clever about the whole idea is that, using my experience as an example, if I had made a purchase that day and checked-in to the store via facebook, many of my female friends (who often have similar interests to me such as a love of shoes!) would have seen this update and been exposed to the brand of the store. I undoubtedly would have also mentioned the discount I received, once again giving free advertising to the business. It could then have potentially become a talking point amongst my friends and I, and would have encouraged more of them to visit the store when they may not have otherwise done so. All this equals a positive transaction, both for the consumer and the business!
I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Do you think this is a legitimate marketing strategy that more companies, particularly those in retail, should be investigating and utilising? Or would facebook users just consider these types of promotions to be annoying noise clogging up their newsfeeds, resulting in a negative impact on brands that use these methods of marketing?
