Tag Archive for: millennials

[Intern Insight] Just Google It

Just “Google” it

Honestly, I think everybody said this, or it has been said to them at one point in their lives. I mean, every time you quickly want to know something, you go to Google, right? It’s the easiest way.

Have you ever actually counted how many times you “google” something per day? Yeah, I put it quotation marks, as “google” is actually a recognised verb now, since it’s used so often. Crazy how this verb really became part of our society.

Truth is, I don’t think we want to admit it but WE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT GOOGLE. Google saves my life at least several times a day.

I can hear you thinking: “Well how many times is Google used then in our daily lives?”

Google now processes an average of over 63,000 search queries every second , which is about 3.8 million per minute. This translates into over 5.5 billion searches per day and about 2 trillion searches per year globally. WOW. Yeah, I googled that. Ironic, isn’t it?

Let’s think about our parents for a second, they didn’t have Google. Can you imagine high school without Google? I couldn’t. How else would you write your reports? I mean, they did it all with books and – depending on how old you are – with the worldwide web – yes, Gen Z, that is was WWW stands for. They actually had to really, really search for the content for their reports, in analogue libraries. Using these things called ‘card catalogues’. Don’t ask me, I don’t know how they work either.. Amazing.

Google was founded 18 years ago, by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University. I bet these guys were just really tired of continuously looking through the “World Wide Web” or those card catalogue things for information. You have to admit, it is quite an extradentary thing to have set up – Google, I mean, not the card catalogues.

Last time, I wrote about videos that give a more meaningful, immersive and better learning experience. Now I am wondering what influence Google plays when it comes to the way we learn. Does it actually support the learning process or does this overload of information only distract our brains?

Again, lots of research is done on this. And well, shocker, the results are divided.

Some researchers have argued that the easy access to information actually really stimulates our brains, giving us the opportunity to focus on other skills. Steve Pinker, a Harvard Psychology professor, reaffirmed this by stating that the Internet and technological advancement are truly the only solutions that keeps us human beings smart. Would you agree on that? Personally, I’m not so sure…

On the other side, you also have those that argue if instant access to information via search engines has a negative effect. Research from Kaspersky Labs has even found that we are increasingly forgetting information, because it’s all stored in external memory – like our smartphones. For example, do you know all the birthdays of your closest friends by heart? If you do, great. I often hear people saying things like: “If not for Facebook, I would have forgotten it was her birthday today.”. This is called ‘digital amnesia’ and it’s rising. A little over a decade ago, people could remember each other’s phone numbers – now? It’s once again stored in our phones. People are ready to forget important information because they know that they can retrieve it from a digital device with internet.

What we can conclude from this is that we have learned to rely on Google rather than on our own memory, particularly when it comes to storing long-term knowledge. The fact that we are able to access information wherever we like, has a negative impact on our motivation to actually memorize information for later on. I mean, why would we? We can find it again in a split second. People with iPhones don’t even have to type anymore, they can just ask SIRI. And now Android isn’t too far behind with that either!

Truth is, Google makes our lives easier, there’s no denying that, but it has also changed the way we think and remember. Without realizing it, we’ve become Google-dependent. It has replaced our need to memorize details. These new habits, using Google for almost everything, interfere in the development of our deep and conceptual knowledge. That aside, I don’t think I have to tell you this, but the internet is full of incorrect information. So, you are never completely certain if what you actually googled is the truth? Maybe we should just go back to card catalogues after all…. Nah, just kidding.

Secretly, I think we are all a little troubled with digital amnesia, also known as the Google Effect…

This post is brought to you by one of AQ’s Undergraduates, Paula van Staalduinen. As part of our internship programs undergraduates and classic interns are encouraged to take part in company culture. Paula’s primary project focuses on training programs and eLearning and how best to adapt this to industries under pressure.

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4 Emotions Driving Customer Loyalty

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Companies are learning that good customer loyalty is a vital part of their business. It’s no longer enough to rely on new prospects; companies are recognising the importance of repeat business and customer advocacy.

What is Customer Loyalty?

Customer loyalty is an attitude and behaviour where customers favour one business brand over others. Usually, a company earns customer loyalty through satisfying the customer’s needs and requirements, whether it’s a service or product (or both!). It can also be born out of a sense of familiarity with a brand’s image, and, more and more, a company’s corporate social responsibility.

Also read this article for more information: How To Improve Customer Experience

Why is it so important?

The Gartner Group discovered that 20% of existing customers generate 80% of a company’s profits. This is backed up by marketing data, which reveals that selling to brand new customers if only 5-20% likely, versus a whopping 60-70% for current customers.

That is customer loyalty at work.

A customer who has previously been satisfied by the quality of a product or impressed with the level of customer service, is more comfortable with the brand in question and as a result is far more likely to purchase again. And recommend that brand to others, enter customer advocacy.

What drives Customer Loyalty?

People tend to be driven by emotions. Customer loyalty comes from the emotional response to a successful business transaction. Are they happy with a product? Happy enough to come back and buy again? That ‘happiness’ is the driving factor, and must be maintained over time to stop the relationship from deteriorating.

There are many emotions and states of mind that play a part in this. On the whole, however, the following four take the lead:

Gratitude 1. Appreciation & Gratitude

These two emotions go hand-in-hand. A grateful customer is a loyal customer. They feel appreciated by the business because they’ve been looked after. In turn, they appreciate the business for performing up to their expectations, a great way to win customer loyalty!

Winner2. Comfortable

While not strictly speaking an ‘emotion’, this has to do with how comfortable customers are with a brand’s image. It’s about familiarity. People are more likely to use a brand they recognise and know to be ‘safe’ than step out of their comfort zone to try something different. This isn’t just about big business; today, with the Millennial consumer focussing on corporate social responsibility, smaller businesses with strong ties to the community, for example, have the power to outperform the large businesses in this area.

Surprise
3. Surprise!

Surprising a customer – in the right way – can ensure that a business stands out in a crowd. Being different is important to outdo the competition. More than that, however, surprise is one of the strongest emotions to tap into when it comes to maintaining customer loyalty as it will keep brand messages from going stale.

community4. Inclusion

People like to feel as though they belong and are part of a community. Being able to generate the feeling that customers are included in decisions, ideas, festivities, is a great way to increase customer loyalty, and a good way to stand out from the crowd. People are less likely to swap businesses if they feel like they are part of a family.

Of course, these aren’t the only emotions driving customer loyalty. People are too complex for us to assume that everyone reacts the same way or wants the same thing. Some of us just want to walk into a store and buy a pair of shoes, or a sundae, without being bothered that it’s not our ‘usual store’. But, let’s be honest, we do get a nice buzz when we walk into our favourite cafe and the barista goes “Hi, Sam, the usual?…One pumpkin-spiced double-frothed skinny latte, extra hot, extra large, with cinnamon dusting, to go, coming right up!”.

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Bridging the Generational Gap with PokémonGo

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Different generations do things differently and bridging the generational gap can be a trick in itself. 2016 has experienced some major changes in how the different generations view each other. The year’s only half done.

We’ve witnessed a massive conflict generations in the United Kingdom with Brexit, in which the divide is pretty clearly split across the generational divide. The new (and successful!) Star Wars has allowed grandparents, parents and children to talk to each other about something other than changes in fashion, the price of bread, and ‘that horrible stuff you call music’.

And now there’s PokémonGo…

What is PokemonGo?

If you were a child anywhere after 1996, you’d have grown up with pokémon. There were cards to collect, video games to play, television series to keep track of, movies to watch and millions of dollars worth of merchandising that you just had to have. I myself still have the Pikachu stuffed animal that I insisted on having, and I’m pretty sure many of us still have the card decks we studiously collected, traded and won. Pokémon have been a Millennial obsession.

We now have competition for that obsession:

“Omg! The sweetest thing just happened! I was sitting here watching Netflix when all of a sudden I hear two cute little knocks at my front door. A boy and a girl, like 12. I asked what’s up? They said, “excuse me, sir, but there’s a pikachu in your backyard and my sister and I were wondering if we can go in and catch it?” I look down at these two young Pokémon trainers and see myself in the little boy. So I slam the door and run to the back yard. GUESS WHO HAS A PIKACHU…” [Source]

Which raises the question for the uninitiated: what in the name of all that is holy is PokémonGo?

First, we have to assume by this stage that you’ve been hiding under a rock the entire month, but we’ll forgive you and explain. Basically, it’s the latest outbreak of what’s been fondly referred to as ‘pokémania’ [source]. A free Android and iOS based game that involves using your phone to find and ‘catch’ pokémon in the real world.

Creating a Product that Closes the Generational Gap

When a new product or service is launched, marketers tend to target a specific demographic. We pick who, what, where, and why – it’s easier to track the impact this way and we can better guarantee positive outcomes.

Say we’re in charge of creating an advertisement campaign for the latest smartphone. We’ll be targeting the younger Millennial generation and Gen Zs, people who are ‘good’ at adapting to new technology and are eager to upgrade at every given opportunity. We might segment even further, maybe we’ll aim at the male population, specifically in western Europe and North America rather than Asia and Oceania. Every segmentation made will determine the style and design of the advertisement: what colours we’ll use, whether we use a voice-over – what type of voice we’ll use! – what message we really want to send. Why do we want you to buy this phone? Because it’s cool, and it’ll help you win the attention of gorgeous women like Scarlett Johansson.

How we market well we market the product will determine how many sales we make and that means knowing our target audience.

Now imagine we’re twenty years into the future when Gen Z is in full-swing and are baffled by the super-virtual-worlds of the Alpha Generation (assuming that’s what we’re going to call them! [source]). We come up with a brand new smartphone-equivalent that we Millennials find just as interesting and easy to get into as our Alpha grandkids.

Congratulations, we’ve successfully closed the generational gap and created an omni-generation product that sells to pretty much everyone on the planet. Nice work. Bonuses all around.

Entertainment values aside: This is what Star Wars: The Force Awakens accomplished. This is why everyone is talking about and playing PokémonGo.

What’s the big fuss?

The generational gap is often ignored because it can be incredibly difficult to bridge them. Why would you waste time, effort and money attempting to market to the entire world when you can narrow your target and generate better ROIs?

From a sales and marketing perspective both Star Wars and PokémonGo are powerful examples of the possibilities that are out there. Innovative ideas sprung out of ideas from the older generation can give rise to powerful opportunities to create better communication across the generational gap.

For those of us in business, understanding these innovations and really learning what makes them tick can give us deeper insight into our marketing and sales strategies.

And it never hurts to have a little fun on the side. Just remember, work first, pokémon later.

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