By Kate Perry, Programme Exec, R.O.EYE
From shopping and research to banking and social networking, we are increasingly going online, for everything we need. Obviously, Marketers want to be where their audience is, but as online becomes more and more complex and the consumer increasingly more savvy, it appears that using established tactics and static sites to get brands in front of consumers, no longer works. Indeed - in the light of Affiliate Window’s recent announcement of its new Facebook Application - it has become apparent that Merchants need to engage in a personal relationship with users; providing them with interactive tools, which encourage them to become part of the advertising process.
Affiliate Windows’ very own Facebook application – ‘The Wishlist’ – ‘encourages users to share, recommend, review and – crucially - covet items via an interactive list on their profile.’ Products are fed through to each Wishlist using the ShopWindow API. Though advertising through Facebook applications has, historically, provoked many a cautious response, there is no doubt that engaging users, to the extent that they customise their own online space and become a crucial part of a brands online advertising, is a very powerful tool.
The key to the success of this application, is to create a tool that adds value to the end-user experience, encouraging them, not only to download the application themselves, but also to distribute it through their network of friends. Users must feel empowered by the tool, rather than like a small part of the broader advertising process. To do this, it appears that Merchants will have to release a small element of brand control to their consumers, allowing them to review products and comment on brand messages in the public forum of Social Networking. Merchants who appear to have done this – such as Sky and STA Travel - are set to benefit, not only from the demographic profiling Facebook has to offer, but also from having a network of online brand ambassadors,
Creative, subtle, engaging and – crucially – interactive: it appears that these are the rules Merchants who wish to utlise Social Networking, as a direct-response marketing platform, must abide by. It is too early to forecast the success of Affiliate Window’s ‘Wishlist’ at this stage, but what is clear, is that this move signifies a new direction in traditional affiliate marketing.
