The internet has evolved the consumer into becoming much more time sensitive and self empowered; expecting only the best quality, with the best experience, for the least amount of stress. This has meant we must also evolve the way we interact with consumers by shifting from advertising-to to engaging-with.

Come and join the discussion at ad:tech Sydney 2011 as our CEO, Matt Leeburn shares his latest thoughts and findings on how we can properly engage with this newly evolved creature. Matt will be joined by industry thought leaders Sharon Williams, CEO, Taurus Marketing and Warren Billington, CEO, Acxiom.

The panel session will also discuss:

• The current perception of consumers and how should you be valuing your consumers
• The strategic and practical implications for advertisers
• How your strategy should reflect the consumer behaviour: physical, digital, communication, ownership
• What consumers are prepared to pay for now and what impact does that have on business models and product development
• The cost of fail

Thursday, march 10, 2:55pm – 3:40pm

ad:tech, ad:tech Sydney, Attention Economics, buying decisions, choice, choice architecture, consumer behavior, decision theory, Interaction Dynamics, Matt Leeburn, psychology

Gamification is fundamentally rewriting the rules of engagement for product design and marketing. From Foursquare to Farmville and from Nike to the Navy, game mechanics like points, badges, levels, challenges, rewards and leaderboards are being used in ever greater numbers. But what does this mean for “traditional” marketing & UI/UX and how do you leverage this trend in your engagement strategy? Moreover, how do we measure success, and why will every company have a Chief Engagement Officer in the next few years? Find out more in this in-depth discussion with Gamification Expert, Gabe Zichermann — author of “Game-Based Marketing” and the Gamification.co blog, and Chair of the Gamification Summit.

badges, challenges, choice, consumer behavior, decision theory, Farmville, Foursquare, Gabe Zichermann, game dynamics, game mechanics, Game-Based Marketing, gamification, leaderboards, levels, points, rewards, UI, user experience, UX

A powerful video from Resource Interactive shown at the Shop.org Annual Summit on how mobile, social media and geolocation will change shopping. Forever.

choice, choice architecture, consumer behavior, future, Future of Shopping, geolocation, Resource Interactive, Shop.org, Shop.org Annual Summit, shopping, social media

A recent study in behavioral economics, conducted at Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz School of Business, shows that people can be inconsistent about their desire for privacy. The economists at Carnegie Mellon found that most people feel entitled to have their private information protected, but conversely are willing to trade away their privacy for a small reward.

Consumers do not react with complete rationality when dealing with most things, let alone their privacy.
This is demonstrated everyday with loyalty programs which collect buying patterns or websites spruiking free iPods having discovered that they can collect gobs of data about their markets by offering sign-up freebies; these techniques are being used by savvy, and not so savvy, marketers alike. Marketers are simply turning consumer irrationality to their advantage.

The individual just doesn’t know what the information collector is going to do with their data and so often fails to consider the implications of giving away their private data.

It’s just plain difficult for a person to determine the risk of exposing personal information. Information may be resold or leaked accidentally, bartered, swapped or published; without foreknowledge of the final use of the data it is nearly impossible to accurately gauge the relative reward offered for the information. In economics terms, there exists “information asymmetry” between the collector (who has greater knowledge of what the information is for) and the consumer (who has to use limited information to make a decision).

Consumers are often unaware of the possible actions a marketer will take to collect their information (think: spyware) and are also ignorant of the steps they can take to protect their personal information.

The researchers tested the effects of spyware warnings and discovered that the more frequent and severe the warnings, the more likely consumers were to just install it anyway. Consumers’ decision-making is affected by biases, heuristics (e.g. simplified guesses), and optimistic risk analysis. The study found that people, overwhelmed by too much information, relied on simplistic strategies to decide whether or not to release their personal information. Rather than help, giving consumers too much information about their privacy leads to worse judgment.

Consumers who are concerned about their privacy must seek to better understand what information marketers can gather before making a decision to release their information and, for marketers, it seems that having a slick website and a free iPod offer is enough to get consumers to open up. How are you going to leverage personal data whether it is yours or your target markets?

Behavioral Economics, Carnegie Mellon University, consumer irrationality, decision theory, freebies, Heinz School of Business, information asymmetry, privacy