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Where does a bad design comes from? It stems from lack of effective communication between designers and developers who happen to be on different planets. Or to be more precise, they don’t quite speak the same language. Their feuds always remain the talk of the group. Usually, they will struggle to prove their dominance over each other even while working on the same project.

However, the conflict of ideas is not just restricted to work. There is often an array of confusion when it comes to use of terms. Web designer and web developer, as you might know are used interchangeably. In fact, a web designer gets riddled with questions like “Can you code?” This attitude is prevalent perhaps due to the fact that a client is not concerned about the team but interested in the end result or return on investment.

Yet, there is an effective way to classify the two positions separately if roles are clearly defined for each position for a web design and development project. The criteria can vary but it will prevent the often visible conflict of interest in the two positions. But the question remains what are the attributes that make the two poles apart or rather planets apart.

In the world of a web designer

An ideal designer is usually creative and stands out in his craft. They have a knack for getting to know the in-depth details and understanding the overall vision of the client. Aesthetics and user-experience are essential for the designer.

In the world of the web developer

They form the technical side with commendable problem-solving skills. You will see them brag their math skills and are the jedi of various programming languages including CSS, PHP, HTML, Python and more. When it comes to web developers, their skillset is far vast in comparison to a software developer.

The melting pot

Perhaps out of habit the two are often seen entangled in a tug-o-war in which each side tries to dominate and take up tasks that go beyond their capabilities. It is a challenge to look for a common ground between the two.

Not every marketing campaign is cringe worthy. Some of them just fail to create any impact, neither positive nor negative. It’s a general perception that a campaign inviting massive criticism is a failure. Quite the opposite is true in this case. However the brand needs to be careful in its approach and not invite criticism.  One wrong move and your ideas can go terribly wrong.

As we know, marketing campaigns can fail due to a number of unanticipated reasons. For example, delivering content at a wrong time, choice of improper words in the campaign, not catering to the needs of target audience, brand’s message leading to number of interpretations etc.

A marketing fail is a window of opportunity for emerging brands that learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. So, let’s look at top marketing fails of 2017 and take lessons of preventions from them.

Dove’s ethnic diversity ad backfires

A Dove advertisement was posted on Facebook which was a four-panel image showing an African young girl taking off her shirt which is similar to her skin color in three panels and in the fourth panel a young white woman was shown. People immediately started criticizing the ad, calling it racist. In fact, Google’s search query suggests it as “Dove’s racist ad”. Ultimately, Dove had to apologize to the audience.

Takeaway: Avoid posting racial superiority. No brand should ever create an add which can be easily taken out of context.

Uber backs the wrong horse

During the first half of 2017, When Donald Trump’s ban on Muslim countries affected the trade. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance asked members to stay out of the JFK airport for an hour. At this moment, Uber announced low pricing at the airport which left the anti-ban users with no other choice but to remove the app and express their rage on twitter. Uber tried to save themselves from pedal maneuver but the damage was done already.

Takeaway: It is better not to jump into political scenarios and prefer profits over ethics. If in some case you have to do it, then be prepared to deal with all the circumstances.

Pepsi jumps in with both feet

Pepsi casted Kendall Jenner in their advertisement which featured that the tension is rising between the police and protestors until she appeared and so effortlessly resolved the protest by sharing a can of Pepsi with the cop. The commercial trivialized the significance of protest which was happening at that time in America. Besides, Kendall was not the right representative. She might be a perfect pick for Pepsi in a situation other than protest.

Takeaway: When aligning a brand with a movement, make sure that the tone of the movement goes with the brand. Also, cast people who are associated with the cause.

McDonald’s pain-play

It is really hard to offend anyone with food but McDonalds did it. The spot showed a young boy conversing with his mother about his dead father, hoping one of his father’s trait will be like him. It is showed that the young boy shares nothing mutual with his father except for their shared love for fish-o-fillet sandwiches. The advertisement received swift criticism for offending the sentiments of people that McDonalds had to apologize.

Takeaway: Attaching sentiments to a campaign is a good strategy for marketing but only if it’s done wisely.

Adidas gone wrong with wordplay

Adidas sent an email to all the participants of Boston Marathon with the subject, “Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon” which offended the people and drew a lot of criticism from participants, their friends and families. It reminded them of the tragic 2013 Marathon, during which a lot of people were killed and injured due to terrorism. Thus, Adidas had to apologize for this inconsiderate move.

Takeaway: Word choice should be immensely considered and should be cross checked. What you intend, doesn’t matter. Message is in the words!

Snapchat ruins the surprise

Snapchat wanted to make a big announcement and in order to grab the attention of the masses, Snapchat employees began cryptically tweeting the link to the webpage. That page displayed a countdown clock. Snapchat very excitedly put all the efforts into its timer that they forgot about the clock on other computers. Savvy snap chatters couldn’t wait for the timer to stop and by adjusting the clock forward on their computers, they quickly tricked the site. Hence, revealing the surprise. The surprise was about the collaboration of AR into the application with artist Jeff Koons.

Takeaway: Before making any big reveal, make sure every little detail from NDAs signed to every piece of marketing collateral is taken care of.

Facebook’s insensitive move

Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook and Rachel Franklin- head of social video on Facebook were shown talking and discussing the social network’s latest venture (i.e. VR App Spaces). It was a 10-minute long NPR produced 360 video against the backdrop of a devastated Puerto Rico after the hurricane Maria. It was hoped that it would result in people wanting to use their application but it only became a huge flop, making Zuckerberg to apologize instead.

Takeaway: Ensure that your dry run explores more than just tech. Think from various perspectives.  An internal team should be assigned to keep a check on the potential pitfalls.

Wrapping up

If you are a head of a marketing team of any business regardless of its size and market, make sure your marketing strategy is free from political biases, body shaming or color races, or anything that could be constructed as negative. Because any marketing tactic will set up your brand’s image. All the marketing fails above are a lesson for the smart people as once a wiseman said: “Average people learn from their mistakes. Smart people learn from other people’s mistakes.” 

While User interaction is designed, various significant aspects are often overlooked. A CTA is that black and white area that grants clarity. Call to action buttons are a tool of communication between the user and the system. In the world of e-commerce and/or m-commerce, a CTA button is more than a tool for capturing attention. It is rather an inevitable part of the user journey. The most commonly used call-to-action buttons have the following purposes.

Add to cart

Free trial sign-up

Download

The virtual click affects provided in the CTA button is guided with visual sign. Often the consideration for CTA button design has to be the right mix of art and science. If you get that right, you will get more clicks and conversions. Here’s a small run-down of design tips to lead user to checkout or any other intended action.

CTA Button size should be proportionate

Well, bigger button draw attention and are mobile-friendly but avoid overdoing it. The idea is to provide a smooth user experience by increasing the clickable area. Also, the text within that button should be readable and centrally aligned. A finger-friendly button is most desirable if you want to design it mobile audience. It is also safe to make the CTA 20% bigger than the logo.

Go for rounded edges

Notice the various apps and websites, and you will see most of them use a square button with rounded edges. The logic for this decision can be traced in visual psychology. Rounded corners are believed to attract people’s attention to the center whereas square edges draw people’s attention away from the center. A word of caution though for people who would like to experiment and choose outrageous shapes.

Label Call-to-Action Buttons accurately

The last you want is to trap the user in a rut of ambiguity. If the user has doubts about clicking, then perhaps you haven’t clarified the message. Ideally, it should state the obvious because generic or misleading labels happen to be one of the top reasons for cart abandonment. Imagine that you accidentally triggered a delete action and now you see the following error message.

It’s a crucial situation where you have no idea what ‘OK’ or ‘cancel’ represent.

Leave Ample Whitespace

Too much text or images around a CTA button would also distract the user. In order to make the message on the Call-to-action button stand out, it is important to leave some negative space. To add more drama, you can guide to the button by placing arrows pointing towards it. Here’s an example to elucidate the idea.

The gamification industry is expected to grow from 2015 to over 11 billion in 2020 which explains the keen interest of marketers and retailers. Some established as well as emerging brands actively employ gamification as a marketing tool to engage customers and garner a strong relationship with them.

Technically, if you have gaming spirit, you must be a kid from the 90’s. So, you can understand a gamified user-experience better than everyone else. Much like in video games, players earn rewards for leveling up which motivates them to keep playing. The customers can be motivated in a similar way when they are offered lucrative rewards for achieving a certain milestone.  This technique is known as gamification. It has become a revolutionary part for a wide range of reputable brands.

In fact, Gamification strategies have become a standard practice. Let’s recount some of the most effective strategies executed by brands.

Reward wars

An organized system of points collection is an incredible way to impress regular customers. If a customer values a brand over its competitors, they will keep coming back but might also consider alternatives. Reward wars is an excellent model of gamification that keeps them hooked for points collection as well. Here’s an example of how Starbucks achieved brand loyalty to remain undefeated.

Starbucks

Starbucks made use of gamification through the loyalty program called ‘My Starbucks Rewards’ – a strategy that proved to be an ace for customer engagement and better ROI. The regular customers at StarBucks were offered incentives like free food, and drinks by collecting stars on each purchase and then redeeming them for prizes. Apart from that, free birthday beverage and refills were also offered to the customers who earned more stars. All in all, this was a simple reward system to keep the customers engaged. Gamification via digital kiosk

Digital Kiosks

Digital kiosks have superseded their traditional function and now they are actively used for consumer engagement. Brands are experimenting with this new found tool to make people talk about their them. A fail safe idea is to engage people through games and digital kiosks provide just the right platform for that. Samsumg demonstrates the perfect use of outdoor space for engaging audience.

Samsung

Samsung started a campaign with the name of “All eyes on S4” where the participants were given a chance to win the new generation mobile phone. All they had to do was  keep their eye on the screen for a specific period of time where they had to avoid all the outrageous distractions such as birds chattering, horns of motor bikes, barking dogs and even the people who were gathered around the player. This unique exercise attracted multiple spectators on the scene. It was a fascinating campaign that resulted in an entertaining social experience.

Game Fame

No childhood is complete without a  game of treasure hunt. The idea of hunting for reward used to add thrill to reward seeking. So, creating an online game affiliated to your brand’s campaign can be a great idea for marketing since no one is too old to play games.

Magnum

Magnum initiated the ‘Pleasure Hunt’, an extremely addictive game inspired by old school Mario and Frogger. A sweet young lady who was associated with the brand, was controlled by the users. The lady had to collect as many chocolate balls as she can. The score of the game can be shared to challenge a friend. It is known to be one of the most successful and referred to as one of the top most creative digital campaign. It was so well organized and was linked to social media too, which took the success of this campaign to a great height but we all know this campaign did not come cheap.

Social Media Graphic Gaming

With social media chanting on every corner of the street, social media gaming can prove to be a milestone when comes to marketing. You just need to create an eye catchy graphic game, to give a boom to your brand online.

M&M’s Eye-Spy Pretzel

On the launch of M&M’s pretzel-flavored candy, this brand gamified it’s marketing to the next level. They designed a very interesting graphic game called Eye-Spy Pretzel on Facebook in which the users simply had to find the pretzel candy which was hidden among lots of M&M candies.
This game in such a short span became so viral and popular creating a loud noise on social media. This strategy became a strong stone for bringing huge conversion to the brand.

Let the App play

This is the age of smartphones and tablets and downloading apps to solve every problem, is the new cool. Whether it be keeping a track of your data or your health records. You have the access to use applications anywhere and everywhere. So, designing apps with a smart marketing strategy can really affect huge number of masses and can bring gigantic conversions to businesses.

Nike+ Fuel Bands

Nike launched an application in the year 2012 but in order for the app to work you must first need to buy Nike accessory. The personalized Nike+Fuel accessory, is a bracelet with a special technology. It can monitor its user’s movements. With this band and application, people can track their workout stats like the number of calories they have burned and others. Apart from that, this app can also be linked with social media which helps users to share their achievements with each other. Also, trophies and badges are rewarded to people who achieve athletic accomplishments. This social media element undoubtedly increased the Nike+Fuel band demand. It motivated consumers to make more use of their products and get more rewards which resulted in huge conversions.

For businesses that want to taste gamification marketing strategies, they must first know the demands of their target audience. They should start small may be? And then analyze what works best for their audience and then give gamification a kick off!

As we all know the digital era began with millennials, but its never going to end with them. In fact, its evolving and has engulfed the fast-paced generation Z or the first tribe of digital natives. Together the two generations comprise of gamers either by profession or in practice. Incidentally, marketers view the system of gamification and point scoring as an ideal means to engage these two generations.

What is gamification?

Gamification in modern world applies the techniques of playful learning that involves certain elements of gaming. So, a web or mobile user who is familiar with the mechanics of gaming would experience competition, point scoring and certain rules of the game. The idea is to engage the millennials and post millennials who have played video games in the childhood. Of course, this makes them different than the generations before them.

Here’s a fun fact:

Before turning 21, the average American has spent 2,000-3,000 hours reading books and more than 3x that playing video games.

Gamification is an actual strategy in digital marketing, but not every business is looking forward to employ it. However, it really connects with the millennial generation. Here are some reasons to validate this statement.

Instant gratification always wins

Both millennials and post-millennials are universally known for their behavior and seeking instant gratification is part of the behavior they display. Anything that makes them wait is depriving them the fuel that runs them and structural ambiguity in instructions annoys them to the core. So if you promise to deliver a product or service, promise a realistic TOD. Whatever you intend to communicate, make sure it appeals to them and never forget to reward them for their patience.

Announce the reward right away

Shorten the sign-up experience and always end it with a reward or token. You can also limit some of the crucial features of the software or app along the way unlocking them only when they complete certain tasks. And the cycle of engagement goes on.

We have officially entered the phase of m-commerce in which consumers not only use it as a shopping tool but also as a search portal, a personal advisor and a 24/7 shopping partner. Why is shopping through mobile becoming a norm?

Perhaps because the users of mobile outweigh the users of a toothbrush. Or because we have actually becomes cyborgs that store part of their memory in an extended device. As a result majority of the shoppers today are using their smartphones to buy clothing and other fashion accessories. This is not a real surprise. M-commerce already enjoys one-third of e-commerce sales (34 percent). In the past few years we have witnessed a fundamental shift in purchase behavior of consumer. 87% of millennials admit that a cellphone never leaves their side. Their choices and purchase preferences are shaped through the searches they come across. Of course this opens up a window of opportunity for marketers.

So, without further ado let’s delve into some ways to leverage mobile marketing for fashion industry.

Build a personalized experience

It all started from Amazon when it started recommending products to its customers based on their past purchases and search history. That is how they raised the bar for personalization. Today retailers compete with each other to offer better personalized experience for its consumer. For instance EyeFitU is a fashion sizing platform that suggests to its users sizing recommendations, based on their personal measurements.

Appeal to generation Z

The tech-driven generation that consumes snapchat and Instagram at breakfast is fast in catching latest fashion trends. In order to appeal to them, marketers need to know where to find them and how to connect with them. Also value their opinion when they share a review about a product or service. The live video experiences that they share tend to resonate among post millennials. The bottom line is in order to make sense to generation Z, the marketing messages must be directed to the platforms that they are addicted to.

Make mobile app experience augmented

Sephora is a leading fashion and cosmetics brand that did a fine job by aiding customers in their in-store shopping. The app includes some beacon powered features that offers a digital experience by offering augmented reality features. Sephora has indeed considered their digital-savvy customers to create options of scanning products and the makeup application tips the app suggests when you take a selfie. It is indeed an experience that promotes customer engagement and turns them into brand loyal.

Scan-to-shop directly from mobile

Loreal introduced an app that used the scan-to-shop technology. In order to promote consumers to use this feature, they were allowed to scan products in magazine ads or in-store. This simplified shopping through mobile employs image recognition technology that various retailers can implement for better engagement.