PassionTag, a technology provider of dynamic in-image digital marketing and commerce solutions, recently announced the addition of turnkey, branded applications to its photo networking platform. This new capability enables businesses looking to participate in photo sharing to capture market share with a custom branded and fully functional application without any internal IT overhead.
PassionTag helps brands and media buyers reach their intended audience and demographic by turning its platform into a form of native advertising that complements traditional advertising and event sponsorship. PassionTag also provides analytics on user demographics, helping brands gain insight on their target audience and measure ROI of digital marketing activities.
PassionTag CEO Thomas Moewe participated in a Q&A with Loyalty 360 regarding its new photo networking platform capabilities, and the concept of. customer engagement.
What prompted your company to launch turnkey branded applications to your photo networking platform, and how does it work for companies who use it?
Probably best to take a half-step back and start by describing photo networking and how that relates to social networking. Social networks provide a broad suite of functionality for users to “stream” their life and connect with others. Since the content that is shared in one’s social network includes insight into one’s personal life, social networks are typically made up of people who share some personal connection.
Photo networks typically consist of people who share a common interest or affinity for something in particular such as Porsche cars, fashion, science fiction, or fitness. They may come together occasionally physically at events, such as ComicCon, Dragon Con, or the Detroit Auto Show. However, the relationships between people in these affinity groups tend not to be as personal as those within a social network.
The opportunity to connect with people through photos other than the photos shared within social networks is focused today on Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest and online forums. However, platforms such as Instagram tend to also include more personal connections, as that platform is a part of Facebook.
The above examples all have another characteristic in common. Their photos are, for the most part, non-interactive. Pinterest does allow its users to embed a link, however, a true Photo Network requires that the media be able to divine the intent of users based on robust interaction.
PassionTag’s photo networking platform enables every user’s photo to be fully interactive via our SmartTag™. This technical solution enables each photo to carry a “digital backpack” with it which provides a more meaningful way for users to connect and share information related to the passions they share.
Why Branded and Turnkey? The decision to go with a targeted, branded solution versus one that attracts a broader audience is, quite simply, based on marketing objectives. PassionTag initially launched to the broad audience with significant success. However, brands began coming to us and asking for a branded “walled garden” in which to cultivate their customers. In developing a solution to this customer demand, we developed the Turnkey solution that enables us to go from a standing start to a live, branded App within two weeks.
Once live, the benefits are clear. Every existing piece of photographic media that a brand currently publishes can be made to work exponentially harder for that brand by leveraging the SmartTag™ to embed functionality the drives marketing objectives.
What is the theory behind it as it relates to increased customer engagement?
We are a platform for brands to drive deeper engagement with their consumers through photo networking. With our turn-key, branded photo networking applications, we enable brands to provide a place for consumers to connect and share their passion within the context of the brands they love, which are directly associated with the affinities they share. No longer are consumers confined to random connection on boards within Pinterest to share their passions.
Consumers that share a deep affinity for something do not have a meaningful way of connecting with others on the photo sharing sites of today, such as Tumblr or Pinterest. The theory behind this offering is that the brands that consumers love are best positioned to offer a more meaningful way to connect people of common interest. Through photo networking, brands can provide a mechanism for that connection on the mobile devices that consumers use today to easily capture and share passions through photos.
For example, as a fitness club, I am able to touch my consumer while they are in my gym. Yet, what about the needs that the consumer has to connect with others that share their passion for fitness? If I were able to provide a branded mechanism for consumers to connect with and share with each other within the context of my brand, wouldn’t I be able to increase my brand engagement beyond the time the consumer was in my gym facility?
Similarly, for events, I am able to extend the event experience prior to, and after, the actual physical event. Further, since SmartTags are associated with, but separate from, the underlying media, we are able to alter the functions embedded with photos, before, during, and after the event. For example, a given photo could prompt ticket purchase before the event, engagement during the event, and feedback after the event.
Finally, all that interactivity is augmented by crowd-sourced media created by fans that provide both photos and their own user-generated SmartTags. Our back-office tools then provide the means to triangulate optimal customer interactions by contrasting brand-generated and user-generated media and actions.
As those brands provide that branded experience, they extend their reach to the consumer beyond their traditional brand offering.
How is this unique for the loyalty/customer engagement/customer experience industry?
Photo sharing is a common consumer behavior today that is growing exponentially. Yet, what photo sharing lacks is the deeper brand experience that comes with our SmartTags™.
Prior to social media taking off in 2004, photos were found in the context of websites. With the adoption of social media, photos began to “leave” the context of the website in which they were found to then be shared independently on various sites, such as Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest. Unfortunately all the context was lost once that photo was shared beyond its original site. With PassionTag’s Photo Network, each photo can carry with it both the original context and any functional capabilities needed to achieve marketing objectives. We have developed technology then circumvents the challenges associated with the fixed photo format, e.g., JPG, to enable our embedded functionality to persist as it is shared throughout the social web. Thus a photo initially shared via the PassionTag Photo Network can carry the ability to learn and transact with it as it is shared via Facebook, Twitter, SMS, e-mail, etc.
What are your goals for this product?
Our strategic goal is to provide a robust platform for brands that seek both broad engagement and targeted turnkey solutions. More tactically, our razor focus is to provide our customers the means to take their existing investments in media and make those investments work much harder for them in driving marketing engagement, whether that is customer acquisition, retention, or transactions. Our product enables those objectives at a fraction of the cost our customers currently are paying for products based on a CPC or CPM basis, thus delivering vastly improved ROI without additional effort.
Who does this target?
Any brand that has a strong consumer following in a market that has a visual element to it, as well as a consumer with a propensity to share information. We are currently serving a number of events, charities, and visually focused conventions like Dragon Con.
What role does customer engagement play in today’s loyalty world?
Customer engagement is a term often thrown around without a reasonable understanding of what it is or how important. Ultimately, successful customer engagement serves to enhance customer acquisition while inoculating the brand from attrition due to competitive pressures. Entire white papers are written on this subject so suffice it to say, that without customer engagement, there can be nothing but the most tenuous customer loyalty based, mostly, on the cost associated brand-shifting. Conversely, a brand that fosters a highly engaging relationship with its customers then enjoys their loyalty based on the positive attributes of that brand. It is much easier to control and manage the positive attributes of one’s own brand than to anticipate and counter the actions of competitive brands.