I heard a fascinating story on NPR yesterday about the ubiquitous “star-based” online product ratings. They cited a recent survey by Bazaarvoice Inc. Bazaarvoice provides review software used by nearly 600 sites, and according to this survey the average online product review is 4.3 stars out of 5. (Thanks to The Daily Beast blog for helping me find the original source of the review).
I always figured there were a few trolls online that would bash a product, and a few starry-eyed individuals who loved it, but that most would fall somewhere in between. But looking over a bunch of reviews on Amazon, I was struck most of all by the shortage of 2 and 3 star reviews.
For example, check out this graph from a recent Zune player on Amazon:
A typical 5-star headline: “Absolutely Fantastic!”
My favorite 1-star: “DON'T BUY THIS PRODUCT!!!!!” (or as a Mac guy I kind of liked this: “GOING TO NOW BUY AN IPOD”).
What can we take from this from an online marketing perspective? In my opinion: It’s all about emotion.
I’ve bought plenty of mediocre products in my life. I’ve never commented online about the quality of my toaster. It works fine, basically, and rarely catches on fire. It’s acceptable. I’m not excited about it one way or another.
But ask me about my new MacBook Pro, and I get all misty. On the other hand, ask me about the customer service at Cox Cable and I might be the one catching on fire.
Two lessons I think we could all take from this:
1. We need to embrace emotion in our work.
We need to take more risks and create products that have the potential to be truly exciting. Might we also end up with an epic fail on our hands? Sure. But would we have the iPhone if we never had the Newton? I don’t know that we would. We should give designers the latitude they need to create products that have the potential for greatness (full disclosure: yes, I am a designer - but still...). Photo: Wikipedia; Originally posted to Flickr by blakespot at http://flickr.com/photos/35448539@N00/2379207825.
A product that takes no risks, a marketing plan that spent more time in legal than in design ... these are the real failures.
2. We need to listen to our audience and invite them to participate, even when we do fail.
I heard a story recently from someone who had been stranded at an airport by Virgin America airlines (if she's reading this, I hope she'll forgive me if I don't have all the details precisely right - I was taking notes on an iPhone at about 8 am). At any rate, she tweeted about her predicament and within minutes had received a direct message back from the airline, and shortly thereafter her problem had been fully resolved. A smart policy of social media monitoring and accountable customer service turned a potentially irate ex-customer into a brand evangelist. (By the way, she told this story in front of about 100 people, and couldn’t say enough great things about the brand. Try buying that kind of advertising!). Photo: TechTravels at CrunchGear.com.
Brand sentiment is human sentiment
Don't be afraid to open up a dialogue with your audience and find out what excites them. In a world with 73 functionally identical brands of laundry detergent, their passion is needed now more than ever.
