Behavior Modification

Wine Cellar (cc*)

I have this wonderful new technology device. It allows me to keep track of the wines I have in my cellar (ok, so it is more of a closet than a cellar). It lets me rate wines that I’ve tried and puts a list of my favorites at my fingertips no matter where I am. No, this wonderful device isn’t my wine journal, which I’ve had for 5 years and in which I’ve made only 3 entries. It is an application on my iPhone.

I’m a traditionalist in many ways when it comes to wine. I love the ritual of it all – cutting the foil, removing the cork. I insist on using a traditional waiter’s corkscrew (my favorite has a hand-carved oak handle). Pouring the wine to observe the color and identifying the elements in the bouquet. And of course, that first taste. But for all that I love drinking wine, I just couldn’t bring myself to use the wine journal. Why is it that having a wine cellar app on my iPhone has suddenly changed my behavior?

For one thing, I’m a tech geek. So the “oooh cool” factor of being able to do it electronically is appealing. I like that I can actually take a photo of the label, which the program then places on a virtual bottle so it looks kind of like the bottle you were just drinking. But it boils down to two things for me. First, it is really convenient. Since my phone is almost always at hand, it is easy to enter information, and easy to recall information when I’m buying some wine. Second – and perhaps more importantly – it is fun.

As marketers, our job is to change behavior—either from inactivity to activity or from one activity to another. New technologies can help: radio, television, the Internet—all created new ways to drive behavior. And now we have mobile applications. Whether it is as simple as creating a fun way, like the Zippo lighter application on my phone, for your audience to interact with your brand, or a more direct action (like the Chipotle online ordering application).  Each serves a different purpose. I interact more often with my Zippo app (for now, at least), but I do not own a Zippo, nor do I foresee purchasing one. I order food from Chipotle, and the application is a convenient way to do so. But there’s nothing in the application that makes me want to come back before my next burrito bowl craving strikes.

Mobile applications are a very young technology. Clearly they create significant new opportunities for marketers. But for to really take advantage of the incredibly pervasive and persistent nature of the mobile platform, we’ve got to put the fun in functional. And if in doing so you can make people buy something… you’ve got yourself a killer marketing app.

*This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. Author, Peter from Wellesle. Wikimedia