In researching our latest trend report, Travel: Changing Course, we caught up with Vipin Goyal of SideTour, a platform that helps people host and discover unique experiences (e.g., a walking tour of the Greenwich Village beatnik renaissance with a music historian and writer). Founded in 2011, SideTour is part of the emerging peer-to-peer experience category along with startups such as Vayable and Gidsy. The company is based in New York and also operates in Washington, DC., Chicago and Philadelphia. Before founding SideTour, Goyal was VP of business development at online video company Joost and director of strategy and business development at MTV Networks International. In 2009, he and his wife left their jobs to travel the world, and the idea for SideTour was born out of that trip. Goyal talked to us about why peer-to-peer companies are increasingly appealing to today’s consumers and how traditional travel brands can benefit from this trend as well, creating more “lean-forward” experiences to drive loyalty.
What is SideTour’s 30-second elevator pitch?
SideTour is a platform that helps people host and discover unique experiences, whether it’s sledding down the U.S. luge track with a former Olympic medalist, learning the art of graffiti with an aerosol artist in Queens or dining with an investment banker-turned-monk in an East Village monastery. Our mission is to help people experience the amazing world and the remarkable people that surround all of us.
What do you see as the macro trends driving today’s peer-to-peer marketplace?
One obvious shift on the supply side is the trend around freelancing. In today’s market, more and more people are moving from traditional full-time jobs to freelancing based on their expertise and interests. SideTour builds on this trend by offering a platform for professionals and other individuals to monetize their expertise. In the same way that platforms such as Etsy enable artisans to build a digital storefront and market their goods, SideTour enables experts, whether they’re chefs or monks or musicians or Olympians, to share their abilities and make money while doing so.
Second, there’s been a huge increase in interest in knowing who’s making the stuff we’re buying. That’s what you see with Etsy, Kickstarter and many other peer-to-peer marketplaces. It’s driven by an interest in supporting local community, local artisans, and it’s focused on collaboration, mutual benefit, all of that. It’s a shift from the past few decades, which has been more about mass-market efficiency and low cost, towards smaller-batch and artisanal products. People want to know who’s creating the products they’re consuming and the stories behind them.
Recently, Walmart announced it will start rolling out delivery lockers in its U.S. stores, allowing customers to pick up goods ordered online. The retailer is following in the footsteps of Amazon and a range of others, aiming to knock down any consumer barriers to e-commerce and avoid the costs associated with missed deliveries. In the U.K., for instance, failed first-time, on-time deliveries cost the e-commerce sector an estimated £851 million a year, according to an October report by IMRG. And two-fifths of British shoppers have stopped purchasing from a website after a problematic delivery, per the industry association Interactive Media Group.
Amazon started testing its locker service in late 2011, with customers in certain cities able to pick up items from locker sites such as 7-Eleven stores, chain drugstores and Staples outlets. BufferBox, a Canadian startup acquired by Google last November, allows subscribers to have packages sent to lockers in locations around Toronto at no fee. Delivery lockers are being used for groceries, too. In January, Finnish postal service Itella launched a pilot click-and-collect scheme with retail co-operative HOK-Elanto: Shoppers pick up their groceries from refrigerated lockers.
Other postal services have also adopted lockers over the past few years, allowing customers to collect deliveries at their convenience around town. Postal services across Europe and Asia—including those in Germany, France, Turkey, Lithuania, Estonia and Singapore—have installed electronically operated lockers in public places. Cleveron, with locations in Estonia, Finland, Russia and Ukraine, simplifies the sending process as well, allowing users to drop off packages and pay with a credit card.
Increasingly, ecommerce is delivering goods whenever and wherever shoppers need them, whether on the same day they’re ordered or at the location that works best for the consumer.
Find our roundups collected in magazine form on Flipboard, the iOS and Android app; download the app to view it here: http://flip.it/WcWLU.
-Fast Companypublishes its annual list of the “100 Most Creative People in Business.”
-The Economist takes a look at how digital tools are changing the art of marketing.
-Wired explores the rise of Intelligent Objects, or what it calls “The Programmable World.”
-The Pew Research Center finds that support for the EU is sinking, and “The European project now stands in disrepute across much of Europe.”
-Another sobering forecast on global warning: One expert warns that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced this century, perThe Guardian.
-Middle-class British consumers have become less “sniffy” and bigger fans of bargain-hunting, reports The Economist.
-A Forbescontributor goes “in search of Japan’s missing startups.”
-The Wall Street Journal reports on how manufacturers are using Big Data to change the way factories operate.
-The Economistspotlights the rise of civic crowdfunding and startups that enable community improvements.
-McKinsey speaks with Cisco’s Padmasree Warrior about how “the exponential growth of connectivity between people and devices … will change commerce, business systems, and individual behavior.”
As our recent report “Travel: Changing Course” outlines, hospitality brands are increasingly using customer data to offer hyper-personalized service. While most consumers will prefer to be treated as individuals more than demographic segments, as personalized marketing gets more finely tuned, they will also take time to adjust to the idea that brands know a great deal about their lives and can predict their needs. Our research found that consumers are currently of two minds about brands analyzing their personal data in order to customize offerings: a little freaked out by the idea but also ready to reap the benefits.
Close to two-thirds of respondents said they feel discomfited by the idea of brands tracking and analyzing their data, saying it makes them anxious and that it feels as if Big Brother is watching. Half of respondents go so far as to say it makes them feel violated. (We surveyed 1,016 adults in the U.K. and U.S. using SONAR, JWT’s proprietary online tool.) On the other hand, consumers are open to personal data collection if there’s a clear benefit, and especially if it directly affects their wallet.
Transparency will become increasingly important for companies that leverage consumer data—they will need to explain what information they collect and why, assure consumers they’re to be trusted with the data and demonstrate how customers benefit.
We identified “ethical fashion” as one of our 100 Things to Watch in 2010, focusing on the use of organic cotton. Now, the horrific scope of last month’s garment factory collapse in Bangladesh—more than 1,100 workers were killed—is putting a spotlight on the apparel industry’s labor practices. So-called “sweat-free” initiatives are taking center stage: On Monday a group of apparel companies—including Sweden’s H&M, Spain’s Inditex and Netherlands-based C&A—signed an agreement that legally requires retailers to help pay for safety upgrades at the Bangladesh factories that produce their goods. At the same time, some U.S. states and municipalities are passing sweat-free procurement policies—nine states, 40 cities and 15 counties to date.
A few niche retailers are tackling the issue head-on. Eternal Creation, founded by an Australian designer, trains and manages its own factory workers in Dharamsala, India. Online brand Everlane tells customers, “We spend months finding the best factories around the world” and says they visit them often. Brands whose goods were produced in the collapsed factory, including Joe Fresh, have set up relief funds and announced new commitments to safety standards. Meanwhile, American Apparel has taken the opportunity to remind consumers that its Los Angeles-made goods are “sweatshop-free.”
The question is whether The New York Times had it right in an article declaring that labor conditions would become an important issue for apparel: “With fair-trade coffee and organic fruit now standard on grocery shelves, consumers concerned with working conditions, environmental issues and outsourcing are increasingly demanding similar accountability for their T-shirts.” While the Times points to the growing consumer demand for transparency, research has found that even if consumers readily say they’re against sweatshop labor, shoppers are less ready to adjust their fashion-buying habits. MarketWatch points to a study that compared sales for a label-free rack of socks and a rack touting socks made under good working conditions; the price tag was the same, yet just half the study participants chose the “ethical” socks.
As we note in our recent report on mobile trends, payments will start getting pushed to the back of consumer experiences as apps enable customers to purchase and pay easily, enjoying a seamless experience. Taxi service Uber is the most high-profile and oft-cited example. Now, several apps are aiming to bring this experience to diners and bar patrons.
MyCheck launched in Israel—where the company says it’s accepted at hundreds of locations, including a large café chain—and is looking to expand, starting with New York City. Users check in to a participating venue upon arrival, receiving a code that they give to a waiter (or other relevant person), syncing their phone with the establishment’s system; before leaving, they use the app to pay for as much of the bill they want to cover. Still in private beta, New York-based Cover has a similar focus; its founders say the idea was inspired by Uber. Squareis also in this space, as well as TabbedOut, which emphasizes the potential for merchants to collect data that will enable more personalized service. At the same time, fast food chains including KFC(in the U.K. and Ireland) and Five Guys (in the U.S.) are creating their own apps that enable seamless payment via the mobile device.
While consumers have been slow to adopt the mobile wallet, they’re more likely to embrace payment apps that remove clear hassles (e.g., waiting for and dividing up the check, standing in line to pay) and enable efficiency. On the merchant side, such apps will enable Predictive Personalization—i.e., fine-tuned offers and messaging—via the data they collect on users’ habits and preferences.
Find our roundups collected in magazine form on Flipboard, the iOS and Android app; download the app to view it here: http://flip.it/1TCCh.
-Time’s cover headline: “The Me Me Me Generation: Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.” The subheading: “Why they’ll save us all.” Time includes observations on the “connected generation” by Mashable’s Pete Cashmore.
-In the wake of the Bangladesh factory collapse, The New York Times reports that apparel could be the next front in the fair trade movement. And The Wall Street Journallooks at the tough options for apparel brands seeking to keep costs down.
-CNBC reports on a PwC study finding that Chinese consumers will soon become the biggest adopters of mobile commerce.
-China’s blue-collar women are gaining clout as the supply of female factory workers dries up, according to The Economist.
-Ad Age reports that emerging-market consumers are starting to adopt the American habit of frequent snacking.
-Adweek examines whether the ailing American shopping mall can have a “second life.”
-A New York Timescolumn notes that the U.S. “has quietly surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs.”
-A survey of U.S. students finds they’re growing less interested in finance careers and more interested in health care jobs, per CNBC.
-The Economist reports that India will have the world’s biggest potential workforce within a decade but is in danger of squandering the opportunity.
-Writing in Foreign Policy, Microsoft Research’s Kate Crawford says Big Data “isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Among the trends examined in our recent report “Travel: Changing Course” is the expansion of the peer-to-peer marketplace, which is upending the hospitality, tourism and transportation industries. One driver of the P2P phenomenon is a loss of faith in big institutions: Having seen longstanding financial brands collapse, along with various corporate scandals and bailouts, people are becoming more apt to place their trust in individuals and less likely to regard established brands as more trustworthy, reliable, high quality and/or safer than the rest.
A majority of people say they would put their trust in an individual over a big corporation any day, according to a survey we conducted of 1,016 adults in the U.S. and the U.K. using SONAR™, JWT’s proprietary online tool. While we don’t see a big generation gap on that question, Boomers are least likely to embrace the P2P concept. Overall, 56 percent of respondents felt it’s great that people can avoid traditional businesses through P2P platforms, and 40 percent said they trust individuals offering P2P services. As we observed last week, open-minded, tech-savvy Millennials will drive demand for these services.
As more travelers chart their trips on social media, travel companies are making tweeting, Instagramming and posting easier and more automatic. Sydney’s Luna Park was a forerunner, launching “My Experience” in 2011. As we explained at the time, visitors who buy an Unlimited Rides Pass receive wristbands that they register online using a smartphone or computer; these can be scanned at ride exits to launch a Facebook status update (choosing from several options) or used to post ride photographs in real time. Spain’s Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel lets guests share their clubbing experience on Facebook by scanning RFID-enabled wristbands at kiosks around the venue; the hotel is planning an upgrade that will rely on fingerprint recognition.
For the 2013 U.S. presidential inauguration, the Loews Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C., got a lot of buzz for offering a package that included a social media butler to keep guests’ online profiles updated (ultimately the package failed to sell, according to Politico). More broadly, hotels and theme parks are selling sessions with professional photographers. Jumby Bay, a RosewoodResort in Antigua, offers a two-hour photo session for couples, as The Wall Street Journal has reported. Vail Resorts gives guests digital copies of ski photos expressly for social media (while still charging for high-quality prints), and a chip embedded in lift tickets lets skiers automatically upload photos to social networks.
For more Things to Watch and trends in travel, see our latest report here.
Experimental psychologist Charles Spence heads the Crossmodal Research Lab at the University of Oxford, which uses neuroscience to study the ways in which our senses interact and how marketers can benefit from these insights. Recently JWT Europe brought him in as head of sensory marketing. At Crossmodal, Spence has worked with brands including Unilever, Starbucks, Nestlé and Toyota to fine-tune product development and the customer experience using multisensory approaches. For instance, the lab has researched how lighting and sound can impact our sense of taste and how vehicles can best alert drivers of dangerous situations. In line with one of our 10 Trends for 2013, dubbed Sensory Explosion, we’ll see an increasing focus on sensory stimulation now that more of life is virtual and online. Spence talked to us about why it’s important to understand how the senses work together and what brands can learn from this type of brain science.
How did you get involved in the study of sensory research?
I’m a psychologist by training, here at Oxford. After leaving the university as an undergraduate, I went to work with the European Space Agency and with BMW in Germany, doing human-computer interaction modeling. I came back to the U.K. via Cambridge with these twin ideas: I was very interested in the senses, and that was from my undergraduate work. And I was very interested in the application of those findings, and that was from the work in Germany.
Ever since, I’ve been trying to merge the theoretical interest in how the senses interact with a practical output: How can I affect people in the real world? Academics tend to think it’s all just about the theoretical issues. If you get your hands dirty with the real world, with business and industry, then that must mean it’s not a very good science, or that you can’t do the hard stuff. But the landscape is very much changing now as the British government is starting to judge academic departments on their impact on society. So the table is starting to turn, and what we’ve been doing here for 16 years by ourselves is now flavor of the month.
The mobile device is becoming a sixth sense for users, harnessing various data streams to enable an enhanced sense of the world, as we explain in our report “13 Mobile Trends for 2013 and Beyond.” “We are about to enter an era where a digital sixth sense will become a reality,” remarked a contributor in a Time column yesterdaythat looks at how wearable tech, Google Glass and augmented reality will help drive this development. Some smartphones already contain as many as 18 specialized sensors, such as a gyroscope, GPS and an accelerometer, providing data streams that allow the mobile device to understand the user’s context. As heads-up displays like Google Glass proliferate, the mobile sixth sense will be more seamlessly integrated into daily routines. Contextual, real-time information will potentially help to make consumers’ lives easier, while brands will benefit from rich data streams. —Will Palley
Last year we wrote about kid foodies: how kids are becoming more interested in what they eat and the art of cooking. A few new manifestations of this have popped up. In the U.S. last week, Fox announced it would launch Junior MasterChef, a spinoff of MasterChef, to be hosted by Gordon Ramsay. The kids version of this competition has already debuted in markets including the U.K., Israel and Thailand. And in the U.K., Tesco has linked with cooking site Great British Chefs on a free iPhone and iPad app featuring recipes “specially conceived to be cooked with children”; a section of the site features these easy recipes as well. Meanwhile, the James Beard Foundation has named ChopChopits top food publication of the year: The 3-year-old nonprofit magazine aims to motivate American kids to eat better by providing fun recipes for families to make together. —Marian Berelowitz
What do Karl Lagerfeld, Hello Kitty and Iron Man have in common? They’ve all been Tokidokied. The Italian brand’s cute-yet-edgy Japanese-inspired cartoon characters have amassed a cult following since 2005. Tokidoki (“sometimes” in Japanese) has partnered with product categories from makeup (Sephora and Smashbox) to bags (LeSportsac) to headphones (Sol Republic), and its momentum has yet to slow. The new Lagerfeld concept store in Paris is selling a limited-edition vinyl “Karl” Tokidoki figurine. In Singapore, 7-Eleven customers get a stamp for every SG$4 they spend in-store, and 18 stamps earns a Tokidoki Hello Kitty figurine—a promotion that’s creating lots of buzz among young lifestyle bloggers and collectors who want the series of 10.
Campaign Asia attributes the success of Tokidoki, the creation of Italian designer Simone Legno, to word-of-mouth, social media and a cost-effective marketing strategy that leverages its partners’ brand values, communication channels and customer bases. —Geri Kan
One of the more cuddly manifestations of our trend The Super Stress Era—the idea that governments, employers and brands will be working harder to address stress as it mounts around the world—is a new program at Los Angeles International Airport called Pets Unstressing Passengers (yes, that’s PUP for short). In our 10 Trends for 2013 report, we cite “cat cafés” in Tokyo and Shanghai, designed to help soothe patrons. Now dogs are getting their turn: At LAX, volunteers with trained pooches ready to be petted will roam departure gates to help defuse travelers’ tension. The program is modeled on similar, smaller-scale efforts at San Jose and Miami airports. —Marian Berelowitz
Among our 10 Trends for 2013 is The Super Stress Era: the idea that governments, employers and brands will ramp up efforts to address stress as it mounts around the world. In Hong Kong, a McDonald’s Value Meals campaign is reminding stressed-out residents that “It doesn’t take much to be happy.” The city is “a stressful environment in which many people forget that happiness doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated,” says a McDonald’s marketing director in a press release. Indeed, in a 2012 Regussurvey, 55 percent of Hong Kong respondents said their stress levels had risen in the past year.
In addition to airing commercials that show silly, lighthearted moments of fun, McDonald’s kitted out a double-decker “Happy Bus,” which plies the busy Cross Harbour Tunnel route, with a motion sensor that makes laughing sounds when passengers swipe their Octopus cards and seat backs featuring optical illusions—replacing passengers’ hairstyles with Ronald McDonald’s. And distorting mirrors at bus stops feature reminders to smile. —Geri Kan
As discussed in our latest report, “13 Mobile Trends for 2013 and Beyond,” people are using mobile devices to communicate in multiple new ways that are more visual, richer, faster, easier, more automated or simply more fun. One way they’re doing so: with messaging apps like Line, Viber and KakaoTalk, which have become “an indispensable form of communication for hundreds of millions of people worldwide,” as The Wall Street Journalnotes. Depending on the service, users can embed content like songs, video, images and doodles; communicate via emoticons and virtual stickers; share location; and play games while chatting. Stickers (some free, some premium) are a world in themselves, from dancing pizza slices to proprietary characters. The app Rednote lets users add music to texts, choosing songs based on the mood they want to convey.
The numbers are impressive: MessageMe garnered more than a million users within a week of its launch last month. Line claims 120 million downloads. To compete with these over-the-top apps, mobile operators are launching their own services, like Libon from Orange and Bobsled from T-Mobile USA. —Marian Berelowitz
Virgin Active began the year asking South Africans, “Can being more active make you happier?” The company, which operates 100-plus health clubs across the country, is going beyond the gym, providing digital solutions to encourage consumers to be more active and so “Live Happily Ever Active”—in line with one of our 10 Trends for 2013, Health and Happiness: Hand in Hand. While the link between body and mind isn’t a new concept, the idea that health impacts happiness and vice versa is becoming more ingrained for consumers and a theme for marketers.
Virgin Active’s online tool devises training routines and provides advice and resources to help people achieve their goals. Members are encouraged to make active choices with the range of exercise classes on offer. The brand is also asking South Africans to share “Happily Ever Active” stories across social media sites to demonstrate that being healthy is a sure route to being happy. — Harsha Prag
Launched last fall, this mobile dating app is hitting it big with its predominantly Millennial users—clocking in with 20,000 daily downloads, more than 2 billion rated profiles, 20 million matches, and 65 percent of users logging in daily and 80 percent weekly. What primarily distinguishes Tinder is the way it enables snap judgments based on member photos, a process “designed to be familiar and emulate the way we interact in real life,” as the website puts it. Relying on Facebook integration, Tinder lets users scroll through photos of people within their set parameters who are most likely to prove a match, tapping a green heart if interested, a red X if not. Tinder then connects users when interest is mutual, eliminating fears of rejection and unwanted attention.
The app shoots away any pretense that it’s notall about looks for this cohort and speaks to our culture of impatience (and the resulting emphasis on images over words) and hyper-efficiency. —Nick Ayala
As we noted in our 10 Trends for 2013, more people are coming to recognize the link between health and happiness and taking proactive steps to improve both at once. Indonesia-based digital agency XM Gravity, a JWT company, recently created a mobile app designed to keep employees feeling happy, connected and cared for. The app’s “Mood” function asks users to choose one of nine emotions (excited, mad, relaxed, etc.); executives or HR personnel will seek out people who consistently specify negative moods in an effort to fix the situation. A “News” section features fun announcements (free ice cream, movie screenings, company trips).
“The Happiness App serves as a sort of heart check up on everyone in the company,” explained CEO Kevin Mintaraga. Since a happier person is a healthier person, he said, “in the end, they are the ones who would give their best at work.” —Will Palley
These days, it’s hotels that are on the move, not the guests. Transient, or pop-up, hotels offer affordable rooms in prime spots or posh lodging near seasonal events such as music festivals. Sleeping Around, a Belgian company, transforms 20-foot shipping containers into luxury rooms and transports them to cities around the continent. The Pop-Up Hotel, a British firm, will supply luxury safari tents at June’s Glastonbury Music Festival, as well as a full restaurant and “exclusive luxury toilets,” no doubt a valuable festival perk. Podpads will also offer rooms at Glastonbury, but theirs look like small plywood cottages. Another business using shipping containers as rooms, Snoozebox, operated at the London Olympics, achieving 85 percent occupancy, and became a surprise financial success. This week The New York Times spotlights a few additional options.
With travelers increasingly interested in one-of-a-kind adventures, these hotels help provide an experience that few friends will be able to replicate. —Alec Foege
In researching our latest trend report, Travel: Changing Course, we caught up with Vipin Goyal of SideTour, a platform that helps people host and discover unique experiences (e.g., a walking tour of the Greenwich Village beatnik renaissance with a music historian and writer). Founded in 2011, SideTour is part of the emerging peer-to-peer experience category along with startups such as Vayable and Gidsy. The company is based in New York and also operates in Washington, DC., Chicago and Philadelphia. Before founding SideTour, Goyal was VP of business development at online video company Joost and director of strategy and business development at MTV Networks International. In 2009, he and his wife left their jobs to travel the world, and the idea for SideTour was born out of that trip. Goyal talked to us about why peer-to-peer companies are increasingly appealing to today’s consumers and how traditional travel brands can benefit from this trend as well, creating more “lean-forward” experiences to drive loyalty.
