The "F" Factor

THE F-FACTOR | Consumers are increasingly tapping into their networks of friends, fans, and followers to discover, discuss and purchase goods and services, in ever-more sophisticated ways. As a result, it's never been more important for brands to make sure they too have the F-FACTOR.


Why is the F-FACTOR important to consumers? It offers the promise of a consumption arena* that is more efficient, more relevant, and more interesting than before, where consumers either had to spend endless time and effort on trying to discover the best of the best, or had to rely on sources that were distant, unknown or untrusted (read: brand-driven), and therefore potentially unreliable or irrelevant.

Just a few recent stats demonstrating the reach and power of the F-FACTOR:

The F-FACTOR is currently dominated by Facebook, as over 500 million active users spend over 700 billion minutes a month on the site. (Source: Facebook, April 2011)

And its impact isn’t just on Facebook itself. Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook across more than 2.5 million external websites. (Source: Facebook, April 2011)

The average user clicks the ‘Like’ button 9 times each month. (Source: Facebook, 2010)

And a couple of brand-related, F-FACTOR stats:

Three quarters of Facebook users have 'Liked' a brand. (Source: AdAge/ Ipsos, February 2011)

Over 50m users 'like' brands every day (Source: BrandRepublic, May 2011) 

Juicy Couture found that their product purchase conversion rate increased by 160% after installing social sharing features (Source: CreateTheGroup, February 2011)

Incipio Technologies, a gadget accessory retailer, found that referrals from Facebook had a conversion rate double the average (Source: Business Insider, March 2011)

But it’s not just about Facebook. Take for example the explosive rise of the daily deal site Groupon, which used referrals from friends and colleagues to drive sales of over 40 million deals in the two and a half years since it launched in November 2008, via email .

So, here are just five of the ways that the F-FACTOR influences consumption behavior:

1. F-DISCOVERY: How consumers discover new products and services by relying on their social networks.
2. F-RATED: How consumers will increasingly (and automatically) receive targeted ratings, recommendations and reviews from their social networks.
3. F-FEEDBACK: How consumers can ask their friends and followers to improve and validate their buying decisions.
4. F-TOGETHER: How shopping is becoming increasingly social, even when consumers and their peers are not physically together.
5. F-ME: How consumers’ social networks are literally turned into products and services

POINT & KNOW

2012 will see a mix of the known (Apps! Augmented Reality!) and the very known (QR codes!) bringing information about the objects (and even people) that consumers encounter in the real world instantly. And like some other trends, it’s the rise of the (always-in-my-pocket) smartphone that will fuel full-blown POINT & KNOW in the next 12 months. After all, the need and expectation for instant information and instant access to everything one wants to know, is already deeply ingrained in the SEE-HEAR-BUY consumer. Use POINT & KNOW in a practical fashion: adding depth of knowledge, communicating stories, origins, price comparisons, reviews, ecommerce and so on, or by all means, just have some fun with it!
Examples:

• Google Goggles is a free image recognition app which enables users to search based on photographs taken with a handheld device. By taking pictures of objects, places or product barcodes, users can find out further information.

• Released in November 2011, the Amazon Flow app enables users to access information about products– and purchase them– using image recognition. In addition to books, music and film, many household products can also be recognized.

• WeBIRD allows anyone with a smartphone to record a bird’s call, submit it wirelessly to a server and (after a few seconds) receive a positive ID on the species of bird. WeBIRD hopes to be available to the public in time for the spring migration in 2012.

• Created by Carnegie Mellon University, PittPatt is a facial recognition tool that enables users to find individuals from photographs or videos. The face detection software can locate human faces and match them up with photographs from Facebook and Google Images, identifying individuals in under 60 seconds. PittPatt, still in development, was acquired by Google in July 2011. Scary? Perhaps. Interesting? Definitely