At some elusive point in time, a significant proportion of smartphone users developed a compulsion to document all events in their lives by snapping pictures and sharing them with their social circles. For some, it’s devolved into an obsession—in my opinion it’s refreshing to observe people who actually dig into their food without taking a picture of it first. The appeal of it evades me, but, nevertheless, it provides an opportunity for brands to engage with their audiences on a more intimate level.
“Everything is visual these days,” says Michael Parisi, SVP of marketing at popchips. “The [solution] allows consumers to integrate popchips into visual stories.”
Popchips participated in the beta testing phase of RadiumOne‘s PhotoEffects, a mobile tool that enables brands to incorporate photo effects into their apps. Some of the capabilities of PhotoEffects include branded stickers and photo customization options, like cropping, adding frames, backgrounds, and changing light saturation. Essentially, users are able to “make photos unique and tailored to how [they] feel at that particular moment,” says Kamal Kaur, VP of product development at RadiumOne.
Once a sticker is applied to a photo, RadiumOne assigns an anonymous universal ID to each user, and tracks user engagement as the photo is shared across partner platforms. The user profile gets progressively more detailed as users engage with different brands, on display or mobile, allowing for cross-platform targeting. RadiumOne then “capture[s] these insights and use[s] brand engagement to improve campaign performance,” says Kaur.
“Mobile is a very complex environment, and it’s very difficult to understand audiences [across scores of] devices,” says Kaur. PhotoEffects is “allow[ing] [brands] to understand who the users are, and use this information to target [specific] segments.”
There are multiple sticker packs within the environment and the fact that a user applies a certain sticker provides RadiumOne with “additional data points,” says Kaur. On aggregate, RadiumOne tracks approximately seven terabytes of data daily across mobile and display. “We live and breathe data,” says Kaur.
In the case of popchips, the brand can evaluate how popular each flavor is based on the frequency with which the corresponding sticker was used and shared. Moreover, the solution allows popchips to gather insight into the “snacking occasions” and the conversations that surround these, says Parisi. “Sharing photo capabilities allows us to get a visual for what the occasion is,” he explains. Using this data, popchips can shape its paid media campaigns, assess which flavors resonate with the public, and tailor its marketing efforts accordingly.
In the beta stages, PhotoEffects has increased app engagement by 47%. In addition, it generates earned media, as stickers are shared across social platforms, further amplifying brand audience. RadiumOne can track engagement on certain social networks as well, although some social networks, like Facebook, are “walled garden[s]”, says Kaur.
As photo-sharing activities predominantly happen among younger audiences, how useful would the data on this relatively narrow segment be for deriving broader insights?
“It’s certainly a group demographic that we don’t want to miss,” says Parisi.
