Although we don’t realize it, consumers actually rely on brands to be our saviors of time. No matter how carefully we plan out our days/weeks/months, there is almost never enough time to get it all done. But it seems to be the little things that can help—the automatic timer on our coffee pot, 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioners and even having someone else check, organize and even recycle our ‚Äòsnail mail’.
Consumers won’t stop embracing time-saving products, services or even experiences that simplify their daily lives in the near future. So, for brands that want to catch our attention, they can’t go wrong with focusing on innovations that save us time.
Cell phone battery not charged? The ‚ÄòNew York Times’ article, “32 Innovations That Will Change Your Tomorrow”, list some pretty great and useful innovations. One example is Electronic Clothes, which converts your body temperature into electricity. David Carroll, who created this fabric, states that a cell phone case lined with this material could boost your phone’s battery power (10 to 15%) just by using the heat absorbed from your pocket. Forget waiting at home for your cell phone to charge before going out for a night, just throw your phone in your pocket and go!
What do we do with our mail that is stuffed in our mailboxes? Typically we let it pile up through the week till—if we’re lucky—we go through it on a Sunday night.¬† Will Davis, founder of San Francisco based Outbox, came up with a solution for this. Outbox is a company that collects your postal mail 3 times a week, digitizes it, and makes it accessible to you on the web for $4.99 a month. You can organize your mail, unsubscribe from junk mail and choose which ones will be shredded and recycled. You can select the pieces of email that you want delivered to your door. Now, I don’t know about you, but I am not a fan of having strangers open my mail. However, Outbox has taken this into account and requires all employees to go through a background check. Paying bills, shopping and email on our mobile devices are ramping up to be a bigger ‚Äòtrend’ (CASH-LESS), but it appears ‚Äòsnail mail’ may be incorporated as well.
A time saving service like Outbox would benefit many of us. Consumers won’t have to have their mail delivery suspended or have a neighbor get their mail while they are on vacation. Why not let someone else deal with the paper cuts, shredding and recycling?
But where does this leave direct mail pieces that make up billions of dollars for ad agency revenue? While I do not see direct mail advertising becoming extinct any time soon, it may mean that we now have to align our direct mail pieces to fit the digital screen. According to Forbes.com, direct mail pieces leave a “deeper footprint” on the brain. Since we are able to touch and feel the direct mail, it connects with our emotions more so than a digital ad might, and this isn’t just with the older demographic either. But since you aren’t able to touch and feel direct mail pieces using Outbox, will the ’emotional connection’ still exist?
When it comes down to it, the brands that understand how much consumers appreciate saviors of time, while also providing affordability and trust, will be the ones that will be showered with sales. We shop, pay bills, email and can now read our postal mail on our mobile devices as a way to save time. This ‚Äòtrend’ may feel tired, but the innovations that keeping coming along are most definitely not.
Evidence of this Trend:
The eBay Now app: This app reminds me of Grub Hub, but instead of delivering food within the hour they deliver for retail stores such as Target, Best Buy, REI and Macy’s just to name a few. Check it out: https://now.ebay.com/
Google Glass: No need to take out your smart phone to take videos, check the status of your flight or give you an update about the delay on the subway.¬† It’s all right there in the blink of an eye. http://www.google.com/glass/start/
Skype: If you haven’t caught on to Skype by now, it’s one of the cheapest ways to make a long distance phone/video call, next to FaceTime. But for those who don’t have an iPhone, Skype is the next best thing. http://www.skype.com/en/
