Business & AI Articles - Page 11 | YOKESEN

Currently, businesses from various industries are competing to provide digital services from upstream to downstream, with the aim of increasing their brand visibility, expanding product categories, and reaching more consumers. 

Not a few national scale enterprises (or so-called Brand Principals) have just entered the online distribution channel through marketplace integration with a D2C strategy on their agenda since the global pandemic in early 2020 with the help of ecommerce enablers.

And quite a few of them are less popular than small local traders who sell products from big brands at high retail prices. 

These small-scale retail traders have advantages over Principal Brands, namely:

1.  They entered the marketplace earlier (much earlier than the principal brand)

2.  By location and interaction, they are closer to direct consumers / users.

3.  Buyer data and transaction activity data are with them.

One of the other considerations for Brand Principals when choosing a Marketplace Integration Strategy is:

-  They often don't update the actual number of transactions from each retail trader, which can prevent brands from being able to map stock supply and distribution to project sales trends for each area where retail traders are located.

In this case, the role of technology through ecommerce enablers plays a very strategic role for many businesses today, especially those planning to optimize their omnichannel strategy in their marketplace management and warehouse management

With technology, Brand Principal is enabled to connect with all its retail traders wherever they are, so they have the opportunity to provide these retail traders with better prices, ensure product availability and more even distribution and ease of ordering products when they are running out.

And with technology, these retail traders are not only connected to the Brand Principal, but can also utilize sales analytics with marketplace integration to help aggregate stock, integrate sales transactions, sales projections and order products to the Brand Principal.

How can technology reach farmers, become part of the trade value chain and also feel the positive impact?

The problem that occurs in general is that the results and farming activities of these farmers are not recorded and updated in the form of data.

One of the difficulties or shortcomings is the very low margin of error for forecasting capabilities.

Without data, it is difficult for these farmers to get access to banking and micro business credit assistance.

Not only do most of them not have bank accounts, all the results of their farming work do not have records that can be used as collateral or collateral by the bank

Various initiatives from various agritechnology startups to help the development of Indonesian farmers to be more prosperous were born from the need to be able to have food sustainability locally.

These various technology platforms make farmers a B2B pool supported by technology, and offer value propositions that can provide efficiency and transparency for other businesses and financial institutions such as banks.

How can technology improve the lives of farmers and make them part of the trade value chain?

Technological factors such as blockchain make this B2B ecosystem more efficient and transparent.

With the right goal, namely improving the lives of farmers and including them in the trade value chain, and with good implementation, technology will be able to change a nation and a generation.

When a brand decides to enter retail as part of their omnichannel strategy, where their products are displayed in offline stores, then the offline stores have full control over where the brand's products are placed on their shelves.

In a 2019 research, a product experienced a 25% decline in sales when placed on the second shelf from the bottom. Meanwhile in other stores, the same products but placed on shelves at consumer eye level, namely the third and fourth levels from the bottom, turned out to sell more.

This limited control over product placement is one of the reasons many brands are starting to switch to a digital strategy with a D2C or Direct To Consumer approach.

So how does a D2C omnichannel strategy give brands control over data and the consumer journey?

Selling directly to consumers without going through a third party means that the brand can monitor the entire consumer journey, starting from the beginning of the consumer's interaction with the brand in the media, for example, to the end, namely when they finally buy the brand's product.

You will understand why consumers buy a product (and how) and other insights that would not be accessible if the product was sold through a traditional retail strategy.

The online Omnichannel DTC strategy will optimize the system based on the data it has collected, and it is this data that gives the brand a competitive advantage. This includes:

1. Know and serve consumer demand for wider product types/categories

2. Optimize visuals for mobile/digital displays, as consumer traffic via mobile accounts for half of all traffic 

3. Run A/B tests on landing pages and creative content to see which brand consumers respond best to

Having control over the user-experience with your product means you can identify opportunities and obstacles more quickly. You will know customer obstacles and requests without having to fight with every retail store to get access to customer data.

With this D2C strategy, brands can focus on product innovation and efficient business development, without having to sacrifice a lot of additional costs.

Surely you are familiar with the CPG brand, PepsiCo?

Putting aside the fact that Pepsi has now moved its factory from Indonesia, the parent company of PepsiCo launched two Omnichannel Strategies digitally and DTC (or Direct To Consumer) after the pandemic changed consumer behavior which had changed globally and also affected the way consumers shop for food and drinks. 

They created a website specifically for the D2C strategy Snacks.com, as a place for consumers to buy Frito-Lay products such as Cheetos and Lay's when most offline stores were required to close during the pandemic.

   
PantryShop.com also does not want to be left behind as a specially created website where consumers can order special packages of various popular PepsiCo products, including Gatorade, Tropicana, and Quaker.

These two websites went from just an idea to soft launch in just 30 days. Gibu Thomas, Head of the commerce division at PepsiCo, said: "Ultimately, our goal is to give consumers as many choices as possible in shopping for our products whenever, wherever, and in whatever way they are comfortable shopping."

However, it is important for brands with an omnichannel DTC strategy to ensure that each of their customers gets the best consumer experience from the beginning to the end of the consumer journey.

PepsiCo's digital omnichannel strategy utilizes D2C to respond to changes in consumer behavior, including ensuring seamless operations such as a website that is easy to access, pleasant to look at (simple but still attractive UI UX) and, a variety of payment and delivery options available to suit each consumer's timeline and budget until the goods arrive to the consumer via courier, all of which runs without problems. Because brand / business reputation is also at stake throughout this user journey.

Humans owe much to nature. And this influences Danone's digital branding strategy (including Danone Aqua) in the form of a commitment to preserving nature through various long-term initiatives and innovative partnerships. 

This brand's priority is to provide consumers with natural mineral water products that hydrate and refresh consumers' lives, but with minimal negative impact on the environment.

EVIAN, Danone's premium product, launched a new bottle design, the “WITHOUT LABEL” bottle, recyclable and made from 100% recycled plastic*, and without labels. This launch is an important milestone in the journey of Evian and other Danone products to become a circular brand for natural sustainability by 2025. 

In Indonesia itself, the Danone-Aqua campaign is often seen in the form of CSR activities, one of which is the "1L Aqua for 10L Clean Water" program, where this tagline symbolically aims to make it easier for Aqua's audience and target market to digest the message the brand wants to convey, where every 1 liter sold has provided 10 liters of clean water for 4 sub-districts. 

Danone Aqua's Digital Branding Strategy Captures the Market Through CSR and is known to the public as an inspiring brand, Danone Aqua initiated the 'Like Water' campaign which was held nationally with a website landing page. The content of the 'Like Water' website invites Aqua's audience not to delay doing good deeds. The philosophy behind this national campaign is a "like water" philosophy, which is always flexible, pure and calm wherever you are. These three things are synonymous with goodness 

The digital campaign that Danone-Aqua always carries out has not only succeeded in winning sales in the market, but also strengthens the brand value as a brand that always inspires.

It is time for technology to develop very quickly in human life to become a pillar for and be utilized for the sustainability of nature and improving the quality of human life, rather than worsening natural conditions. Technology implementation must begin to dominate brand branding and digital marketing activities. 

The D2C (or Direct To Consumer) strategy is not about selling products directly to consumers, as Tupperware has done consistently for dozens of years. Direct-to-consumer (D2C) is about using the right technology to provide the best products and services to your brand's consumers.

Driven by the implementation of technology and the use of data analytics to understand consumer behavior and provide them with more product choices, better product quality, and personalized content that is relevant to them.

Digital commerce or partnering with big names in the marketplace / ecommerce to maximize product visibility to the widest possible consumer base, even though they have a high market share, brands cannot directly interact with customers to achieve customer lifetime value (CLV) metrics. And brands have no control over their consumer data.

Nestle's D2C Strategy Gives Birth to Nespresso to Win the Digital Market, as their D2C product to dominate the market for coffee lovers at home, selling coffee machines and pods directly to consumers online, through their website and Nespresso Club, without needing to disrupt sales in their B2B market through regional distributors or marketplaces

From a consumer experience perspective, when buying directly from a brand, they become more familiar and can get exclusive and personalized offers and products, premium packaging, and can provide direct feedback to the brand and other customers through ratings and reviews.

Is Netflix a Big Data platform?

While many businesses have not effectively utilized the data available to them, Netflix is ​​a big exception. With more than 148 million streaming subscribers worldwide, 80% of Netflix content streamed is influenced by its recommendation system.

The film content displayed is sorted based on an analysis of whether the user will continue to watch or re-watch, or whether the user will stop watching because they find the content less interesting. The affinity algorithm will recommend movie content that is similar to the content the user has just watched. Netflix spills the fact that audiences tend to want to consume content that is similar to what they have just consumed.

With a wealth of data on how audiences interact with film content, #Netflix can easily determine what type of content people want. House of Cards, is the most phenomenal series for viewing by analyzing data.

Netflix noticed that a significant percentage of its 33 million subscribers at the time were streaming the film “The Social Network,” by director David Fincher, from start to finish. Then Netflix also discovered that films featuring Kevin Spacey were always hits. Netflix data reveals that the British version of House of Cards is also a hit. Audiences who have watched the English version of House of Cards have apparently also watched other films starring Kevin Spacey or directed by David Fincher.

Relying on this data, Netflix concluded that the film, starring actor Kevin Spacey and director David Fincher, if presented to American audiences would be a huge hit.

And sure enough! Three months after House of Cards premiered, Netflix added 2 million subscribers in the US and an additional 1 million subscribers globally.

Curious about what data metrics Netflix uses? Following is Netflix's explanation that they use data:

-  Stream date
-  Device for streaming
-  Movie variations for each user
-  Search
-  Rewatched content
-  Whether content is paused while watching
-  User location
-  Time of day and week to stream content
-  Metadata from third parties such as Nielsen
-  Audience data on social media such as Facebook and Twitter

Netflix focuses on giving its users what they want through personalized content.
Like Netflix, businesses can use #bigdataanalytics to ensure that the content delivered to each user is influenced by the user's personal activities and #consumerengagement with your brand, ensuring a unique content experience for each user.