Episode 12 – Choice Paralysis, Native Advertising, Snapchat Marketing and IPO, and Amazon Dash Buttons

During another week of Digital Natives Matt, Josh, Anna, and Min come together to discuss what’s happening with big companies, major marketing trends, and a common design fault. Together they break down each item and discuss the implications for you, your business, and the future of technology, marketing, and design!

Choice paralysis [2:25]
Native Advertising [7:45]
Snapchat Spectacles Marketing [15:45]
Snap Inc IPO [18:35]
Amazon Dash Buttons [23:35]

Choice Paralysis

One of the hosts, Min, takes a look at one of the most common design flaws and how it effects businesses websites on a day to day basis. She leads the group through a discussion filled with past experiences, current challenges, and future tips to reduce your bounce rate and keep your site visitors happy.

“When a user is faced with so many choices that they’re not able to make a decision it’s called analysis paralysis.” -Min
“One of the best things you can do on your website is keep your possible choices to a minimum so that you don’t confuse your users.” -Min
“A great way to visually see analysis paralysis is by using the heatmap on Google Analytics to see where people are clicking on your website, usually the biggest link is where people click if your website is confusing.”
-Matt

Native Advertising

One of the biggest trends in marketing and advertising is the use of native advertising across many different digital platforms. During episode 12, Josh leads the group through a discussion on the implications of native advertising, where they’ve started seeing them, and how you can use them in the future.

“Advertisers are now going out of their way to create advertisements that look like the content that you’re consuming.” -Josh
“Native advertising is one of the biggest things that’s predicted to be huge in the next year.” -Matt
“Now, it’s all about this super custom tailored native advertising built specifically for you.” -Matt
“I think native advertisement is really smart because it’s a super effective way of targeting someone of a specific demographic.” -Anna
“When I see native ads on Instagram I’m usually okay with those but when I see them in blog posts and articles those make me a little upset.” -Min

Snapchat Marketing and Their IPO

Snapchat is becoming one of the big players in the world of social media and Matt has been following some big company happenings over the past few weeks. Snapchat is looking to make its initial public offering at a higher value than that of the entire year combined so far in addition to its great advertising campaign for Spectacles.

 “What Snapchat’s Spectacles are doing with their tactic for scarcity is really cool and really smart.” -Josh
“Snapchat is actually doing very little advertising for Spectacles, they’re operating almost completely off word-of-mouth and they’re killing it.” -Matt
“Snapchat is predicted to make their IPO at around $25 Billion, Facebook made their IPO at $80 Billion, this year in total, we’ve only had $21 Billion dollars in IPOs.” -Matt
“My guess is that Snapchat will turn into almost a short form TV channel since they’ve got all that going on with the stories. Expect to see a lot more brands hopping on there.” -Josh

Amazon Dash Buttons

One of the more comedic creations by Amazon, the dash buttons, are seeming to gain more popularity and traction now that they’ve been out for a while. Anna takes a look at what they are, how people are using them, and what it could mean for the future of e-commerce and sales.

“I think the Dash Buttons will reduce marketing because it will increase brand loyalty because it removes the ability to see other brands almost altogether.” -Matt
“In terms of convenience the Dash Button totally seems worth it.” -Josh
“The Dash Button reminds me of that same concept from Alexa or other home AI systems where it increases impulse buys because it’s so convenient.” -Matt
“Best practices for selling things is reducing the number of steps it takes to purchase.” -Matt

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