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It’s 2013. Having a website, even an app, is no longer a badge of honour

Ikea

I’m not singling out Ikea here, there’s a list of guilty advertisers that should also take note of what I’m about to say.

When telling your customers how they can shop with you, stop mixing platforms with the adjective for connectedness, “online”.

It’s become de rigueur for many brands to add a strap along the lines of; “Instore, Online, Mobile” to their advertising. But it’s meaningless and makes you sound naive . The lines between different forms of connectivity have blurred too much  for this to make any sense. I can be online on my mobile.

I’m assuming that by online, they mean their website (as accessed through a PC, laptop etc) and for mobile they mean ….well, I’m not sure. Do they mean an App (Ikea has a nice iOS app BTW) or mobile web? Perhaps they mean I can phone them?

If I’m on my tablet, connected to ikea.com, via wifi, am I online? If I then switch to an LTE mobile network (but on the same webpage) am I now mobile..or am I still online?

I’m being purposely pedantic, naturally. But do you see how ridiculous this is?

It’s 2013. Having a website, even an app is no longer a badge of honour. It’s simply expected.

You don’t need to shout about it anymore than you need to reveal the blindingly obvious by telling me that I can shop with you “instore”.

And if you are going to shout about it, let it please make sense.

Noun, Adjective, Noun does not make sense. At least no more so than me saying “Visit us….by car, by moving, by walking.”

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One response to “It’s 2013. Having a website, even an app, is no longer a badge of honour”

  1. Kevin Kinchen (@InAnotherMoment) Avatar
    Kevin Kinchen (@InAnotherMoment)

    This is an interesting argument but it has one major flaw, consumer intelligence versus marketing norm. While it might be to much for consumer intelligence for a company to write super strong wild stretchy fruit filled bonanza, for fruit lined gum; they are doing so because the original fruit “stripe” gum and all of the competitors have made a competitive commercial or noted the same type of competitive claim and can not back away from them until something newer and flashier comes along to claim instead.

    It is a campaign of equality at this point. They have to continue to claim “something” that all the other competitors are claiming in a similar way, and more is better then the last guy in an off chance they appear to even slightly offer a better advantage. Intelligence is outweighed by equal representation of market competition. People wont care intelligently because to most, it “is” the normal thing. Some may care if it is “not” like the others by saying it is more PC by not going the marketing route but the main customer base will likely consider the company sub par by not showing the same level of ridiculousness. Intelligence is overcome by social marketing expectation. It is a two way sword. The only answer, come up with something so new and so catchy that all the old stuff can be dropped safely in order to appear still on the top. Like “Mega stretchy” or in this case, IKEA virtual 3D GPS delivered instant sales representative to answer your questions.(disclaimer, 3D representative may arrive about 8 inches tall)

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