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After the latest iPhone X hitting the market, Face ID technology is the latest buzz in the market. According to Apple, iPhone X has the most sensitive camera with sensors that detect unique facial structures of users to unlock the device. The previous generation iPhones have thumbprints for unlocking the phone securely, but with Facial Recognition technology Apple has taken a bold step towards innovation and new technology.

The Face ID technology has some really interesting functions as well. The animojis in iPhone X replaced traditional emojis by animating them and reflecting the user’s facial expressions. The accuracy that these animojis have of the user’s expressions is commendable. And that marks the beginning of augmented reality in applications that uses facial expressions of the user.

Face ID technology is not something very new in the marketing world. Many brands have already attempted it in limited functions. In 2012, a children’s charity program called Plan UK used facial recognition posters that could say if you are a male or a female and later on create the poster accordingly. If any woman looked into it at Oxford Street, London, she would see Plan UK’s 40-second video clip covering all its activities. On the other hand, if a man comes in front of the poster it just drops a message asking them to visit the website. The purpose was to make men feel ‘excluded’!

Also, Virgin mobile had introduced a very short communicative ad back in 2013 that asked users to blink eyes so as to ‘click’ and proceed with the story, just like turning pages in a book. It also used to change the story based on the eye movement of the users.

There are few basic differences between the facial recognition attempts made in past and the ones being done in the recent times. Firstly, the Face ID technology has got much more sophisticated in terms of catching detailed expression on a user’s face. Secondly, the technology has now come into the hands of the users in form of mobile phones, unlike previously, when it was used in form of billboards or specific designated places only.

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Visual search is the new trend this year. Pinterest was the first platform to come up with a visual search feature called Lens. This was followed by Amazon’s Spark to promote product search by allowing prime users to have a tailored feed of products worth buying.

The new entrant in visual search is eBay which normally doesn’t make it into news like Amazon, but this time they surely have tried their best to give its users a great shopping experience. Towards October end this year, eBay rolled out its new image-recognition feature for mobile apps allowing shoppers to use pictures instead of words while looking for products.

EBay uses convolutional neural network technology which processes images once they are uploaded to find products searched by users on its website. Deep learning and computer vision are the other two advanced elements of artificial intelligence responsible for this improved buying experience.

The technology used by the image search feature gives a complete representation of the image being searched and thus it enables the system to compare it with similar products listed on the site. The outcome being that items ranked in terms of visual similarity appear on the results page. This is possible due to eBay’s Kubernetes platform which enables giving quick search results.

With the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence, visual search lets mobile users find the products they love real quick, which enhances the overall shopping experience.

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Image Source: eBay

Corporate sales or Business to Business (B2B) sales involves sales activities between different businesses. For example, a firm that manufactures tyres sells its products to a firm that manufactures automobiles. 

Sales and Marketing existed way before currency came into existence. Corporate sales has evolved along with sales and marketing.  Let’s have a quick run through the evolution of sales and marketing along with it the evolution of Corporate Sales:

1. Barter System:

This was the first kind of sales activity that was practiced thousands of years ago when were no coins and other forms of money were not common. People used to give things they dealt in, in exchange of things they wanted to procure. For example, if a farmer wanted to purchase some wooden furniture, he could do so by giving some of his harvest to the carpenter. Though the barter system was practiced centuries ago, it still can replace money in conditions like unavailability or instability of currency due to high inflation.

2. Traditional Marketplace:

Traditional marketplaces are usually small markets where price negotiations and other decisions related to sales are made quickly—often by one or two persons. There may be significant flexibility regarding discounts and additional product benefits. The focus is more on short-term gains and less on long-term transactions and relationships. There is negligible branding and advertising; rather the objective is to sell what has been produced.

3. Seller’s Marketplace:

The main objective of the seller’s marketplace is to establish a supply chain to procure products, and then establish a distribution channel to sell the products to a wide variety of customers, often referred to as “mass marketing.” The practice of using channel partners to sell products was established during this period.  Emphasis on branding and advertising is minimal in a seller’s marketplace.

4. Conventional Mass Media Marketing:

The objective of conventional mass media marketing is for organizations to create strong brands and differentiated brand perceptions so that consumers will desire and purchase their products rather than those available from competitors. Thus, mass media marketing usually uses cumulative repetition over time to influence consumer attitudes and purchase actions. Mass media marketing also involves creating distribution channels and appropriate pricing and positioning strategies to ensure that desirable products are available to customers at specific price points. 

5. Fragmented New-Age Marketing:

In recent times, the media has become increasingly fragmented with several hundred television and radio channels, as well as a large variety of print media, including newspapers, magazines, and trade publications. Moreover, since the late nineteen nineties, with the increasing popularity of the Internet and, more recently, smartphones, many options now exist for advertisers to reach a global audience using digital media marketing methods such as cell phone apps, Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, QR codes, gamification, and proximity marketing (e.g., Foursquare).

6. Innovative Internet-Enabled Business Models:

The growing popularity of the Internet, smartphones, and digital media provide opportunities for a company to not only use fragmented new-age marketing effectively to promote existing products, but also to come up with innovative business models where product demo, customer acquisition, and order fulfillment can also take place online. 

Corporate sales has evolved concurrently with sales and marketing from barter system to being online and is evolving day by day as new methods and technologies come to the fore.
 

Walk through any airport and you’ll experience the power of logo. Starbucks’ green siren beckons from down the terminal, easily recognized 200 yards away. Cinnabon’s royal blue ribbon assures you there’s a tasty treat waiting for you. McDonald’s, Burger King, TGIF, Chili’s—you know them. All have risen to the top of the logo ecosystem, known and understood by consumers across the country and often around the globe.

Communicating the “right” message via a logo is of critical importance throughout the life of any company. According to the SMstudy® Guide, “This image communicates the promise of value the customer will receive from [their] product or products.” A logo becomes the most recognizable symbol of a company or brand and ideally should be unique, adaptable, timeless and appropriate. These four characteristics identified by Inc. are considered essential for a great logo.

Having a unique logo is essential for companies or brands to be easily identifiable in the vast consumer marketplace, such as in the airport terminal scenario above. So when it comes to logo updates and changes, Business Insider reminds us that the process is a delicate one and that certain qualities must remain constant.

Business Insider’s Jason Nazar says, “Every brand hopes to elicit from its logo (a sense of) fondness and comfort with a touch of excitement. Every logo must walk the fine line between nostalgia and modernity; you want to remain your lovable self, while staying current.”

With all these factors to consider, logo evolution can become a dicey affair. But as Inc. points out, logo adaptability and appropriateness allow for, and indeed require, revamping from time to time. Many companies are willing to risk the public backlash—an ever-lurking possibility—and make changes for the sake of keeping up with customer tastes.

Companies have tackled the problem of keeping logos “lovable” but also making them “current” in various ways. Some companies have adopted a gradual design evolution approach while others have opted for more dramatic transformation.

One of the logo success stories that’s made gradual design iterations to reflect the changing tastes of customers over the years is the coffee giant Starbucks. Since its founding in 1971, Starbucks has evolved its logo to project a modern aesthetic yet keep its most memorable elements. 

Here you can see the evolution of the Starbucks logo … in 1971, 1992 and 2011.

Oftentimes, major logo alterations accompany big changes within a company. Moving into a new market or changing the name can present the opportunity for radical logo transformation.

One company that chose a more dramatic logo change was the luxury auto manufacturing company Mercedes Benz. Although the company had existed since 1883, the first Mercedes logo wasn’t introduced until 1902.  

The now famous three-point star was brought into the logo design in 1909 and has remained one of the logo constants despite various logo modernizations.

Here you can see the evolution of the Mercedes Benz logo from 1902 until modern day.

Regardless of where a company finds itself in the marketing process, the impression created by the face of the company (logo) is always something to keep at the forefront of the marketing strategy, whether the company is new and looking to create a great first impression or whether the company logo is well known to consumers but needs a little freshening up. [ML1] Whether the intention is to wow the marketplace with a new company presence or to freshen up the look of a well-recognized brand, a business’ marketing strategy should continually monitor the impression being created by the face of their company, their logo.

Inc., Lauren Cannon

http://www.inc.com/ss/4-characteristics-of-great-logo-design

Business Insider, Jason Nazar, Nov. 21, 2013

http://www.businessinsider.com/evolutions-of-the-biggest-business-logos-2013-11

SMstudy® Guide; Marketing Strategy, p. 19.http://www.smstudy.com/SMBOKGuide/Overview-of-SMstudy-Guide

Sales and marketing, though sharing the same objective, differ significantly. Sales can be considered the last stage of marketing. It would be interesting to explore how they differ, but we will reserve that discussion for another day. In this post, let us look at an equally interesting topic of how sales and marketing have evolved over time. Let us begin with one of the earliest forms of sales and marketing: the barter system.

More than a thousand years ago, when coins and other forms of money were not yet popular, the typical and most common way people procured their products or services was through the barter system--the direct exchange of goods or services without the use of money. For example, a farmer might have exchanged some of his harvest with a carpenter for some wooden furniture. Sales and marketing with the barter system relies on having access to the appropriate persons with whom things can be exchanged for mutual value. Then came the traditional marketplace.

The growing popularity of coins and other forms of money as a medium of exchange gave rise to the traditional marketplace in which producers such as farmers, craftsmen, and carpenters created products, sold wares from shops, and shouted out to crowds of potential customers in order to promote their products. Traditional marketplaces are usually small markets where price negotiations and other decisions related to sales are made quickly, often by one or two persons. Next came the sellers marketplace.

The Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries marked a shift toward mass production in factories such as textile manufacturing. Goods were produced more efficiently and economically and could be sold to a wider market. This created the sellers marketplace. The main objective of the sellers marketplace is to establish a supply chain to procure products and then establish a distribution channel to sell the products to a wide variety of customers, often referred to as mass marketing This was followed by conventional mass media marketing. We will discuss this along with the innovative fragmented new-age marketing of the twenty-first century in the next post. Until then, keep selling!