Brands are struggling more than ever to cope with hundreds of microsites, numerous widgets and apps across web, social and mobile platforms.  To make matters worse, consumers now expect to be able to “do everything” no matter which website, Facebook app or mobile app they are using at the time.  “Do everything” means that every site/app should be able to handle: purchases, real-time inventory, store finder, event registry, wish lists, sharing, comments, reviews, latest product information, loyalty point credits all with a universal login and consistent user experience.

Some brands may feel this is a high bar that they don’t need to meet, but they do so at their peril.  A consumer’s best online experience (think Apple and Facebook) has now become their expectation for all interactions and the brands that don’t live up to it simply “don’t get it.”  For the “don’t get it” Brands, their most influential and connected customers will move on to Brands that do “get it” and bring their 1,000s of friends and followers with them.

If you are still a skeptic, please conduct the following exercise.  Get a list of all of your microsites and apps (all campaigns, landing pages, etc.), go visit them all and click on all of the functionality and links.  How many of they have out of date information?  How many of they do not even reflect the current brand messages?  How many of them have broken elements or broken links?  How many of them are simply down?  Now ask yourself, “what brand image are we conveying to consumers that experience what I just experienced?”

How Should Brands Respond?

Nearly all brands are responding to the dramatic growth in ecommerce, social media and smart phones; but are doing so in the same old manner – more one-off microsites and apps.  The one-off approach (pick a campaign, pick an agency, create a custom site/app) worked fine when the following assumptions held:

Form trumps function – The” wow!” was more important that what the consumer could actually do on the site/app. Agencies were selected based on the concept and designs.

Limited life – Sites/apps were all campaign-centric and had a limited life span.

Limited capability – All the consumer could do was register, answer a poll question, very basic stuff. There was no need for integration to other sites/systems nor richer functionality.

From what we are seeing with our client work, these assumptions no longer hold true.  The new assumptions appear to be the following:

Indefinite lifespans – Time-based campaigns are being replaced with more ongoing conversations and engagements that are indefinite.

“Do everything” – Consumers expect significant functionality and a universal login and common approach when interacting with a Brand on any access point.

“Wow!” for Cool AND Useful – Concept and Design are not enough for today’s consumer. Excitement is reserved for something that looks cool AND enables consumers to do something useful.

“When the facts change, I change my mind.
What do you do sir?”

- John Maynard Keynes

The facts have changed that led to the one-off approach.   So what new approach best suits the facts?  Any new approach should meet the following conditions:

Not constrain the creativity of agencies. Existing agencies should be able to work in a very similar manner to which they are accustomed. They should not be forced to use a single technology for the sake of efficiency.

Common customer experience. Customers should not have to learn a different way of doing similar tasks for each new site and app with which they interact.

360° customer view. No matter the access point, a customer should be able to use their single Brand login and be recognized for who they are.

Make rich functionality easy. Agencies should not have to be doing heavy coding, integrations or using a costly application to provide event management, ecommerce, community, etc.

Reduce the cost of each new microsite and app through reuse. Much of the required functionality is repeated across sites and apps. It should be done right once and reused.

So how do you create a common approach without a common software platform?  The answer is a collection of web services.  Each web service (e.g. store locator) is integrated into backend systems and exposed to agencies in the form of a documented API.  The agency simply has to write to the API to leverage the service in their app or microsite.  This approach works no matter what the existing systems are.  Agencies are also comfortable with this approach.  If they can create Facebook, iPhone and Twitter apps they can easily use any documented API or web service.

The number of web services/APIs needed depends on the client, but needs to cover the most common requests for products, store and customer information.  10-20 services should cover the bulk of what is needed.

Let us know your thoughts.  Do you think this approach makes sense for Brands?