pebble-time-canada-influence-marketing-proposaljian

SMD204 Final Assignment by Jian Zhu

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Simple Work, Easy Life! Influence marketing proposal for Pebble Time

Jian Zhu 647-701-2208 [email protected]


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According to Statista’s report, in 2014, Samsung and Pebble were the first and second brand in the market in terms of unit sales, with 1.2m and 700k respectively. 1 Pebble is the smartwatch that took the world by storm in 2011. After a Kickstarter campaign raised more than $10 million from more than 60,000 people. In the last 3 years, Pebble has sold more than a million watches and become a profitable company. Under the great pressure from Apple, Pebble announced a brand new product, Pebble Time, at Feb 24, just before the second demo of Apple watch and lunched an exclusive campaign on the Kickstarter having successfully crowd funded more than $20 million and got 95,906 full-paid pre-orders. The fierce competition in this market is just beginning. Apple watch is predicted to sell more than 20 million globally in this year2, which will make it surpass Samsung to be the No.1 in terms of the unit sales. In order to keep the brand influence and compete the second place with Samsung, Pebble need to increase the sales from the international market including from the Canada.

1.Product Summary There are 2 attractive features in the first generation Pebble, the always-on screen and 7-day battery life, and 1 amazing feature in the second generation Pebble, the steel case. Inherited from them, the new generation product, named Pebble Time, has more great features:

• Always-‐on color screen. • 7-‐10 day battery life. • New designed timeline interface. • Voice input method. • Easy swapped bands compatible with standard 22mm watchbands.

Pebble time have 2 editions--Time and Time Steel--with the great price only $199 and $299 respectively.

1 http://www.androidheadlines.com/2015/03/report-‐suggests-‐samsung-‐tops-‐smartwatch-‐manufacturer-‐market-‐1-‐2-‐million-‐sales-‐2014.html 2 http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/02/17/apple-‐watch-‐projected-‐to-‐sell-‐20-‐million/23572373/


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2.Goal of Campaign In order to achieve the global market share objective and fulfil the production capacity after finished the pre-orders, we need to launch a campaign in Canada and sell at least 100,000 units in this year, include all 3 generations of Pebble products. And due to our limitless resources, compared to the big players, we should focus on some niche markets and build a stronger community within them.

• Major goal: for Time and Time Steel, across all online and offline channels in Canada o Sales of Pebble Time and Time Steel: 50,000 by the end of 2015.

• Secondary goal: o Active online community that value digital lifestyle.

3.Audience Identification The grand introduction of Apple watch in Mar 9 has revealed some important views of the target market, which include that the smart watch should be a fashion accessory more than traditional digital gadgets like smartphone and tablet and the women market would play a more important role for these products. We also have the similar insights, so we make a whole new design with more fashionable outfit and provide a special edition with gold steel case, red leather strap and a more acceptable price at $299. Although there were many companies had rolled out different types of smartwatch since the late 1990s, it’s not until the mid of 2013, when Google released the Google Glass and evoked the great attentions of wearable devices from consumers that the smartwatch market were finally attracted almost all major consumer electronics’ participations. If we use the innovation growth model to describe this market, it began the second stage, Growth, at 2014, when Google released the Android wear platforms. The target audience we chose is the Digital Divas: they are the world's most digitally connected, tech-savvy women, are the early adopters for new consumer electronics3 and account for 2/3 of fashion purchasing power4.

Source: http://moodle.sbc.ac.uk

3 Microsoft & Ogilvy Digital Divas 2013 4 WHO ARE DIGITAL DIVAS AND WHY SHOULD RETAILERS CARE?


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According to the report, Microsoft & Ogilvy Digital Divas 2013, the demographic of Digital Divas in Canada include:

• 14% of Canadian female are digital divas, transferred to around 2.5 million population5

• 39% of digital divas are under age of 34, transferred to around 1 million population • 51% of them are employed • Average household income $64,444

Their behavior patterns include: • 75% owned a smartphone • 2/3 are completely comfortable and confident using digital tools & technology • 64% share content • 56% are online buyers not just shoppers • 51% are employed full or part time • Much more likely to leverage discounts and promotions than non-‐divas6 • Utilize 3.7 technologies along their path to purchase while gathering information

from 3.5 sources before they buy7

4.State of Lifecycle Being Targeted According the report Microsoft & Ogilvy Digital Divas 2013, the normal online shopping journey for our target audiences is:

Source: Microsoft & Ogilvy Digital Divas 2013

Combined with our products’ nature, we define the following stages: • Interest sparked stage: they are actively online, comfortably receive new tech info

through the digital channels: o Social media platforms: especially the visual centric platforms like Pinterest

and Instagram o Retailer websites: Bestbuy.ca, Amazon.ca o Offline stores: Best buy, Walmart

• Research stage: they tend to research online and also like to ask suggestions from their social circles

5 http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-‐tableaux/sum-‐som/l01/cst01/famil01-‐eng.htm 6 WHO ARE DIGITAL DIVAS AND WHY SHOULD RETAILERS CARE? 7 http://www.retailwire.com/discussion/16532/who-‐are-‐the-‐digital-‐divas-‐and-‐why-‐are-‐they-‐critical-‐to-‐retail


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o Search engines o Company website, retailers websites o Product review sites like cnet.com, engadget.com and mashable.com, and

their social accounts o Social platforms

• Purchasing stage: they have no burden for shopping online but also would love to experience it offline before placing orders

o Our company website, retailers websites o Offline stores

• Validating and sharing stage: no matter having good or bad experience, they like to comment and share it online

o Product review sites o Social media platforms

Driven by the Apple and Samsung marketing efforts, the consumers’ awareness of smartwatch will rise to a higher level. So our resources should be focused on the research and purchase stages to drive sales from these matured targets.

5.Communication Path The typical message path from us to the target audiences would include 4 parts listed below. The main difference between macro-influencer and micro-influencer lies with the consumer not themselves, which is whether they are inside the inner social circle of our target consumer. The macro-influencers are usually having a large social graph that can help to broadcast our message widely, but with the loose relationship with the targets, they can’t influence the final decision directly. Even with the help from the wright micro-influencer, our targets still will be influenced by many outside and inside disruptors, which might change the targets’ mind to go back to further research or choose other brand than ours.

6.Disruptive Factors After research, we have locked on the following disruptive factors:

Macro Influencers Pebble Micro

Influencers Digital Divas

Interest sparked

Research

Purchase Pebble

Validate and share

Purchase Others

Disruptors Marketing message


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Communities: Digital Divas don’t have time for digital distractions. The savviest brands in their eyes are those who add value to their life.8 As mentioned above, 51% of them are employed, which means when we pass messages through their coworkers, the micro-influencers, to the targets, we should design the contents related to workspace needs, like time management, work email and phone call notifications. For the micro-influencer as their workout partner, we should emphasize on fitness tracking features and the quick-voice-reply function.

Social Groupthink: Digital Divas are very active on social media platforms, at where they love to share opinions with their social circle and also are easily influenced by their social connections. After Apple Watch’s second launch, we run a analysis about how the Canadian talking about it on Twitter, and found that the hottest topic (10.6% or 3200 tweets)9 is about gold edition and the price, most of them said it is “insane” and “perfect for Douchebags”. Another hot topic is about the 18 hours battery life, most of which are joking about the watch died in all kinds of circumstances. As this groupthink continues developing, our targets will definitely be affected by these opinions, if we can pass the wright messages--the 10-day life and $299 Gold edition price—through the appropriate influencers, we can influence their final decision. Emotional situational factors: The emotional state of our target audiences is very important when we try to persuade them to buy our product. At the beginning of 2015, two major chain stores, Target and Future shop, and some brands, like Sony and Mexx, have declared to close all the stores in Canada. Not just the employees in these companies have been affected, but also all the workers in the retail sectors are feeling the pressure. So, the Digital Divas that works in the retail industry would feel stressful about their future at these time, they might not will consider these non-essential products, like smartwatch, at the near future.

Life Cycle Situational Factors: Although Pebble and Samsung have fostered the market many years, many consumers, including our targets, just begin to learn about this kind of products as the Apple Watch release date draws near. After the Apple Watch is officially released, we will find that more and more people are beginning to talk about these kinds of products, but majority of them are just in the awareness stage. Due to our limit resources, we must distinguish the targets that already made a mind to buy, but not decide which one or still have some concerns about the hottest superstar, from all the prospective audiences, and concentrate on them.

7.Micro Influencers Identification After analyzing our targets’ social presences, we have identified these following micro-influencers that can help us to pass the right messages and influence them to make the decision we want.

8 Microsoft & Ogilvy Digital Divas 2013 9 Use the SysoMos MAP, analyzed the conversations from Mar-‐9 to Apr-‐4 on Twitter


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Colleagues: For the working Digital Divas, we suggest using their colleagues as the micro-influencers. In the workplace, the subject for the conversation could be time management, which Apple has talked very little about now and is one of our attractive features, the new timeline system. Tech savvy friends: Digital Divas all have a tech savvy circle, unlike the male groups, they don’t talk too much about the technical parameters, but they do care how the techs will affect their daily habits, like the battery life problem of Apple Watch in the conversations after the second launch. Although our target audiences have got used to charge their digital devices every day, it does not mean that they are welcome for another daily-recharge device. Our Pebble Time Steel can last 10 days at most, which should be the core message when we try to leverage the tech savvy friends of out targets. Fashion savvy friends: Don’t forget that our targets and their friends also have fashion sense. They don’t just value the functions and conveniences from their digital gadgets; they also value the design of the products. That’s why the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy can sell much more higher price than other phones. And that’s why we redesign this new product line and launch the steel edition, what’s more important the gold edition, and make the bands changeable with the standard bands in the normal watch markets. We should pass these messages through these micro-influencers to our targets.

8.Macro Influencers Identification Although we have already sold 1 million pebble watches at Feb 2015, the population of our existing customers are still too small as the micro-influencers group to start an effective influence campaign. So we need to leverage the macro-influencers’ social graph to pass the messages to our target micro-influencers. After analyzing the social graph of the sample targets and their micro-influencers, we identify some macro-influencers listed below:

@WIRED (WIRED.COM) Wired.com is an online magazine focusing on the emerging technologies and how them affect the culture and economy. Its Twitter account, @WIRED, is the most favorite one by the tech and fashion savvy people, with over 1M female followers and 266K Canadian. Its Kred score is 998/8. @mamasmoney (Cher Kachelmuss) Cher Kachelmuss is Product Review Blogger, and a mom of 2 boys and girls. As a female, she can always give out unique point of view from the woman’s angle about the tech product; therefore most of her followers(21.9K) are female. Her Kred score is 974/9. The Gadget Flow (Pinterest) Thegadgetflow.com runs a very active account on the Pinterest platform, which feature a lot of amazing photos of cool gadgets in life. It has 29 boards including a Gadgets for Women and a Cool Products with followers 23K and 142K respectively, which are the best place to publish our message.


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9.Communication Strategy After identified the communication path and the possible disruptions, our communication strategy is to build the messages based on the intelligences of our target audiences by giving out the real-life cases and instructions about how to use our product to make work and life simpler and easier. Our core message is:

Simple Work, Easy Life!

Online Channel suggestion Channel Facebook Twitter Pinterest Canadian Users

Over 19 million10 Over 5.6 million 11 Over 3.8 million12

Why? The largest audience in Canada

Open and business friendly platform with the second largest users group

Users demographic matches our target audiences13

Benefits Pass brand message, join conversations

Build community, engage with targets

Direct high quality traffic to online shop

Voice and tone of communication:

• Friendly • Playful • Inspiring • Authentic

Content pillars Social media platforms are where people want to connect with others, friends or strange, they expect to read news and stories but not ads. To attract our targets’ attention, we can’t just keep posting product-centric messages. The contents we built for our targets will consist of 3 parts: work tips, life ideas and product reviews. The first 2 parts are used to attract the target audiences with the cases and ideas that can make work and life simpler and easier, the latter one is where we put the product message in to address concerns and display the product.

• Simple Work We will talk bout topics about Business Time Management, Productivity, Leadership and Stress Management that can help our target audiences feel more confidence and less pressure about their works.

10Facebook releases stats about Canadian usage; 14 million daily users -‐ Macleans.ca. (2013, August 13). Retrieved December 5, 2014, from http://www.macleans.ca/news/facebook-‐releases-‐stats-‐about-‐canadian-‐usage-‐14-‐million-‐dailyusers/ 11Canada becoming one of world’s top Twitter strongholds, eMarketer finds. (2014, June 5). Retrieved December 5,2014, from http://www.itbusiness.ca/news/canada-‐becoming-‐one-‐of-‐worlds-‐top-‐twitter-‐strongholds-‐emarketerfinds/49190 12Semiocast-‐Pinterest has 70 million users -‐ More than 70% are in the U.S. (2013, July 10).Retrieved December 5, 2014, from http://semiocast.com/en/publications/2013_07_10_Pinterest_has_70_million_users 13 http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-‐as-‐a-‐brand-‐platform-‐2014-‐11


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• Easy Life Here the topics will include many inspirational life advices, healthier food recommendations, and fashion lifestyle information that can help the followers organize their family and life easily. • Product reviews We show the real-life cases and third-party reviews here to solve the concerns or reinforce the confidence of our target customers.

Communicate tools In order to implement this project properly and efficiently, we need to use some social tools to manage the customers/prospects, engage with them, build and schedule the messages. Considering that every social tool has its own advantages and disadvantages, we suggest using a set of tools to cover all the requirements:

Figure: Work system

Customers/Target Audiences

Company Website

Simple Work

Easy Life

Product Review


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● Use Nimble as the central management platforms: to manage sale leads and arrange team works, cost 15 USD/Month/User.

● Use Sprout Social to manage Twitter and Facebook accounts, one premium account for social media specialist, cost 99 USD/Month.

● Use Google Analytics to monitor website operations, especially the conversions, it’s free tool.

● Use Tailwind to manage Pinterest, one plus account for social media specialist, cost 9.99 USD/Month.

10.Measurement Plan In order to keep track of the progress of this program and tie back the goal, we suggest the following key performance indicators (KPIs):

• Total Sales: 50,000 Units This number includes all online and offline channels, is our final goal in Canada.

• Sales from our online shop: 20,000 Units The online shop is directly controlled by us, and is one of the most important channels.

• Net new social connections: 50,000 followers This indicator shows our community size, displays the potential for future sale. Now we have around 100K followers/likes across the three suggested platforms. We will use the total contacts number across all the platforms, which should combine the same audiences in different platforms.

• Engagements on Three Social Platforms: 100,000 times This metric shows the activity of our community, is a quality indicator. We will use the total interactions number, including favourite, mentions, comments, replies and clicks.

We will monitor the Total Sale number monthly, the online shop number weekly and the social connections and engagements number daily by using the tools we suggested.

pebble-time-canada-influence-marketing-proposaljian

Documents

generation pebble

pebble time jian zhu

time steel

canada o sales of pebble

generations of pebble

women market

target market

international market