Build your future

Ever visited a headquarters of a company and just thought: „Wow, this building is really impressive!” 

But why do some companies invest so much money to make their headquarters stand out? 

Well, we can turn this question around and ask: “How can a company best demonstrate its power, wealth, and innovative strength?” (Spiegel Online, 2013)

The answer is through its headquarters. The building from which the company operates is the first thing the world sees when a company enters the market. (Corporate Architecture, 2015) It can reflect the company’s culture and values, as well as demonstrate how much money has been invested and therefore how wealthy and influential the company is.

A building can help a company to strengthen its corporate identity, as the architecture can convey trust and the company’s image. Corporate architecture, to introduce the technical term, can help the company to create an unusual building with lots of character reflecting the company’s values.

If a building fits a company really well, it can even increase productivity, as employees enjoy going to work in a special building and customers enjoy a very special experience when visiting the company. This effect is derived from aligning design, marketing, and functionality with each other.    

Therefore not only the digital appearance but also the real world appearance is very important for a company.(KMU Magazin, 2008)

One example of a company’s headquarters that reflects its core business quite well and has an impressive shape is the sail-shaped building of the French shipping company CMA CGM in Marseille. Another example is the “Laces” headquarters of Adidas that reminds us of shoelaces such as on their sport shoes. The first complete circular building to be built in the Middle East was the headquarters of the real estate and investment company Aldar Properties in Abu Dhabi. (Spiegel Online, 2013)

It is therefore possible for a company to communicate through their building and important to put a lot of thought into the architecture of their head quarter and start to better work together with architects. 

Adidas headquarters "Laces"

Headquarters of CMA CGM

Headquarters of Aldar Properties

Best of Swiss App

Every year an event takes place in Switzerland to evaluate the best Swiss Application developments. It is an initiative of Simsa (Swiss Internet Industry Association). Their goal is to create transparency whitin the Swiss App branch. They set quality standards and want to put gain more focus for the young, promising business sector. Best of Swiss App is one of the most acknowledged competitions in the field of App'onomy, which refers to the businesses which engage in application development. (Best of Swiss App, 2015)

Best of Swiss App: http://bestofswissapps.ch/media/cms_page_media/2014/8/13/bosa-logo-2014.jpg

This year UBS Paymit got elected to be the best Swiss Buisness App. It is a free application, which allows people to safely and quickly transfer money to friends and family throughout Switzerland. It doesn't matter at which bank you have your bank account, all you need is a smartphone. Paymit was developed by SIX, a company that engages in cashless payments for years. (Paymit, 2015) Paymit currently counts 130'000 downloads in Switzerland. (UBS, 2015)

UBS Paymit: https://microsites.ubs.com/paymit/files/UPM/assets/images/en/start/packshot_microsite_send-Screen_CHF32_en_@2x_R.png

More really innovative applications can be discovered on the ranking by Best of Swiss Apps.

Can you see it too?

Are you thinking of getting new furniture for your apartment, but are not sure how they will all fit together? Or are you thinking of getting a new couch, but are worried how it will match the rest of your furniture?

The IKEA catalogue app using augmented reality will make it possible to show furniture from an IKEA catalogue as it will look like in your apartment. To do so you have to place the catalogue on the floor at the spot where you want your new couch to go. Then you point your smartphone towards the catalogue and your video camera will show the room as it is with the additional new couch in the spot where the catalogue lies. You can now see if the couch will fit and if it looks like you expected it to. (Zeit Online, 2014)

Augmented reality is changing the world as we know it. In augmented reality we see the real world with supplementary digital content in form of sound, video, graphics, or GPS data. In contrast, a virtual world, which we are already more familiar with, only shows us a fictive reality, replacing the real world with a simulation.

Another example for augmented reality besides letting furniture magically appear in your apartment is the way it can be used in automobiles. A projector in the dashboard can project information such as speed, on to the windscreen. The information can be projected on exactly the spot where it is needed so that the driver does not have to look away from the road anymore as often as he has to do now.
For example, indicators for a change of direction will be seen on the road or floating directly in front of the road we want to turn into. Augmented reality can also help drivers to stay within the lane, as the boarders are illuminated with red marks at night. (Zeit Online, 2014)

For a marketing purpose augmented reality will play a big role, as customers can interact with the world around them.

Amazon for example has brought out its first smartphone called Firephone which offers a function called Firefly that tries to identify objects which can be bought on Amazon. This way, when a customer takes a picture of friends in a nice garden, the smartphone might recognize the flower pots and ask the user if he directly wants to buy them for his own garden. Maybe the smartphone also recognizes a friend’s jumper in the online store and suggest it to the user in the right size. This way impulsive purchases are encouraged at a very high level. (Zeit Online, 2014)

Augmented reality will also change our shopping experience a lot, as customers for example can try on the clothes on a screen and flic through the product range much faster than when searching the whole store for a matching skirt or top like the lady in the video. (Youtube)

Lifestyle-blogs

As a fashion blog follower I was quite astonished not to find Kayture on the list of the best Swiss blogs, ranked by Patrizia Iseli, SEO and Digital Marketing Manager at the company Blue Glass. 

Nevertheless, let me answer the question here, why lifestyle blogs are currently so dominant.

Let’s face it classy paper magazines are out dated. Nowadays everyone is checking the latest trends and inspirations of his/her field of interest on their smart phones, tablets and notebooks. Especially generation Y won’t appreciate carrying around a paper magazine as much as their beloved smart phones.

Many companies have discovered that they have to engage in client reference management, only that clients are famous bloggers. It’s no coincidence half of the fashion bloggers I check regularly, have the same pair of Dior earrings, Givenchy handbags or Valentino shoes at the same time. They are paid to do what Claudia Schiffer did in a paper magazine in the 90ies. Looking sexy, fresh and tell you to buy a certain product. Only that you can find the link to the e-shop of your beloved product directly on the blog. No need to look for the product yourself anymore after you have carried around that paper magazine with you for days.

Blogs are for free, they’re trendy, internationally available, they sell perfect stories and and let us dream in our world ruled by consumerism. We believe people even trust the opinions of bloggers more than those of company associates. We can better relate to them, might even consider them as role-models because it feels like they live the normal life just as we do.

Blogs are personalised paper magazines that can be addictive if they are in your field of interest. For the fashion girls among you; I dont want to keep my very personal international top 10 from you.

Atlantic-Pacific

http://atlantic-pacific.blogspot.ch

New York chic to it’s finest. 

hello fashion blog

www.hellofashionblog.com

A stylish mum of three.

suburban fauxpas

http://suburbanfauxpas.com

Adorable Kerstin who shares her inspirations with the world.

sincerely jules

http://sincerelyjules.com

Pretty girl, distinct style, always sticking to her idea of fashion.

Lovely Pepa

http://lovely-pepa.com

Great everyday outfits from a Spanish girl who seems to have found her great love.

Garance Doré

http://garancedore.fr

Wonderful Pictures. Great Content. Perfectly beautiful blog. 

9to5Chic

http://9to5chic.com

Business chic with an edge. 

Scent of Obsession

http://scentofobsession.com

Relaxed chic and high-low aestethics.

Kayture

http://kayture.com

Swiss girl conquering the fashion world. 

Fashion Hippie Loves

http://fashionhippieloves.com

German girl with a passion for beautiful things.

NFC - Come closer!

NFC, Near Field Communication, is today’s topic which we were inspired to write about by the very interesting guest lecture of Mr Hirt from Swiss Digital AG. 
NFC is a technology that allows to transport information securely over short distances from one mobile device to another. By engaging in this mobile transmission of data with their smartphones, customers can take an interactive role by viewing customized rich media, receiving customized special offers, share experiences and of course commit direct purchases. 

This might sound familiar to some of you, as QR (Quick Response) codes work in a similar way. The difference is that to use QR codes an app has to be downloaded first which is no longer necessary for NFC, as users can connect directly by tapping or holding the smartphone close to another phone, a credit card reading device, or against a sticker code with NFC data. 

Sticker indicating availability of NFC

QR Code

For marketing NFC offers some advantages over QR, as besides providing more content it also serves as a tool to track consumer behaviour and preferences.
The most astonishing characteristic of NFC for a marketing purpose though, we thought, was that sales promotions could be directly sent to a smartphone of a customer standing right in front of the product. If we were standing in front of for example shoes, our smartphone might receive a special offer which lets us know that we will have a 20% price reduction on shoes in the next 30min. We will therefore be more indulged to make an instant purchase.
Another advantage of NFC is the quick payments we can make by using our phone. The process is easy, as it works the same way as using a credit card. Advantages of using our smartphone also as our wallet is that we always have an overview of our balance, get an electronic receipt, and can transfer money much easier and faster. 

Two good examples of using our smartphone as a wallet are google wallet and the Post Finance app which we were introduced to by our second guest lecturer Mr. Fuhrer. from Post Finance.
With all these advantages our smartphone can offer us, from using it as a credit card to getting immediate and customized advertisements, we are convinced it will replace our wallets very soon.

Blogging journalists

So far in our digital marketing course we have discussed various aspects of how companies can use the internet and social media to generate sales. Of course we have always looked at the possibilities of blogging in this matter. 

But Blogs are not only used by companies, they can also be used by customers who to an extent have some influence on our online marketing. Another group of Bloggers which we would like to focus our attention on this time are journalists.
The opinion of journalists influences customer behaviour and of course, if a journalist decided to write an article or a blog entry about a company or its products, it brings a lot of publicity. 

Therefore we thought it would be interesting to see how journalists use blogging to better understand how they function. We found a blog that summarizes the “7 Survival-Tips for journalists online” given by Richard Gutjahr. Richard Gutjahr, besides working as a freelance journalist for German Radio & Television (ARD), is a consultant for start-ups, journalists, and media companies to manage their presence on social media platforms.

The most striking tip from Richard Gutjahr that divers from what we learned is important for companies using social media is that journalists should give all social media platforms a try. No matter if this is Snapchat, Twitter, or Blogs. For journalists to be present on all these channels can be useful to generate a big contact databank. 

A lot of the other tips for journalist can also be applied to a company's online appearance, such as the tip that attention is in a way the money of the internet, the more attention you get the better. Another tip wich we find important is that the constant changes and advances of the internet require continious learning from the journalist and as we think also from the social media team of a company. 

Leave us a comment with what you think about these tips for journalists and how we can take advantage of them!

Migros subsidiaries Galaxus and Digitec threatened?

Swisscom and Coop have founded an E-Commerce start-up to launch an online retail platform next year. Is this threatening the platforms Galaxus and Digitec? What can we expect?

Experts from Inside-It.ch speculate that the new online platform will be somewhat like Galaxus. Other sources revealed that Swisscom and Coop are launching a platform like amazon, where Swiss customers and retailers will be connected. Fact is the new online platform has been approved by the competition committee (Weko) and will be launched in 2016.

For this joint-venture Coop has founded the company Eos Commerce AG.  Swisscom is contributing 50% to the project. According to the commercial register the board of director consists of the chief-retail and chief-fiancial officer from coop and the chief of Interndiscout, the electronic retailer in Switzerland that belongs to the coop group.

Coop and Swisscom chairman Hansueli Losli (Keystone/Georgios Kefalas, 2011)

How come Swisscom and Coop are now collaborating whereas Swisscom is also partnering with the biggest competitor Migros? Swisscom and Coop have a prominent connection: they share their chairman Hansueli Losli.

However the platform will be in detail, Migros is likely to lose some of its market share with its biggest competitor moving into the online retail market.