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Digital Strategy Technology Innovation

Why we need to think of our digital experiences as products

By Jim Mason, Executive Director Strategy & Insight

July 20, 2016 | 5 min read

Great digital experiences will provide a meaningful financial return. Everyone in the digital space believes that sentiment to be true, but it is one we struggle to quantify. In most instances, the impact is masked by a thousand other factors because the link is not as direct as we wish it to be. Occasionally, though, a new digital product comes along with such a unique and compelling experience, the financial linkage becomes readily apparent.

Pokemon Go NSPCC warning

/ Pokemon

Pokémon Go is just that product. That remarkable game has effectively doubled the market capitalization of Nintendo in a span of two weeks. The product usage statistics are simply jaw dropping:

• More total downloads than Tinder in the US (surpassed just one day after launch).

• More daily active users than Twitter.

• More time spent in the app than Facebook.

Clearly Pokemon Go is a standout product – we aren’t writing articles about every new product launch doubling a company’s market cap. But it is illustrative of the substantial business impact a great digital experience can have.

So what can we learn from Pokemon Go? We must think of our digital experiences as products and judge them as such. Whether it is a retail commerce site, a mobile app for travel, a financial utility, or a socially-led content platform, we should approach these experiences as if they were products to be sold. I see many companies stuck with the mistaken idea that to be a product, something must be tangible and not digital. This misguided view leads to poor experiences, limited adoption, and meagre financial impact. Digital experiences should absolutely be considered as products to be owned and managed thoughtfully.

With this product view, a key question for brands to ask themselves is, “How much would consumers pay to use my experience”? Truly great experiences are valued by customers and have a worth. We may not choose to monetise that worth, but there is a clear value provided by the brand to the consumer. In this way, there is a value exchange. Brands must create digital products, services and experiences that consumers value (evidenced by willingness to pay), and customers reciprocate with transactions, engagement and loyalty.

Most experiences, however, fall into a neutral band where customers are ambivalent to their impact. The experience is adequate, and in lieu of an alternative, they will use it when required. Some experiences are so bad that consumers pay to avoid it. For example, I remember years ago paying for TiVo just because the user interface on the DVR provided by my cable company was so poor.

I’m not suggesting we should begin charging for every experience; instead, I’m proposing a line of inquiry to challenge our teams on a regular basis to ensure we’re providing meaningful value. The value exchange can be an important tool to keep the focus on the consumer. I often see companies working so hard to quantify the benefit to the business, they forget to consider quantifying the benefit to the consumer. For people wondering how best to understand the impact of their digital experiences, the value exchange is a good place to start.

Finally, if we are going to think of our digital experiences as products, it becomes critical to establish a clear product manager to manage the digital experience. This may sound like a straightforward and common-sense approach, but I’m still surprised at how many clients I visit that do not have product owners for their digital experiences. Last week I visited a new client who has a suite of digital experiences (including an OTT pay TV platform), but they did not have a single, specified business owner of the products. Ownership lies somewhere between someone in marketing, a person in the business, and a few people in technology. These clients always struggle with low customer adoption and engagement.

Conversely, we’ve worked with a major airline that has shifted to this product management approach, and their digital experiences are now widely regarded as among the best in the industry. They found this structure essential for creating a customer-centric product vision, defining an actionable product roadmap, delivering value to the consumer, and gathering feedback to optimize the experience. As a consequence, their customer satisfaction scores have increased and their revenue has grown.

Our digital experiences may never become the next Pokemon Go, but if we think about them as products and manage them as such, they will contribute meaningfully to our brand’s performance.

Jim Mason is executive director of strategy & insight at Razorfish

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