They always said; you are what you eat. (Unfortunately, that makes some of us a caffeine infused bucket of popcorn with extra butter.) We also know that you are what you buy; at least from a marketing perspective. There are three start-ups that I would like to see join forces in some way to help create Product Persona Maps.
Blippy – This company streams what it’s members are purchasing. (If you watch for awhile, you’ll see many iTunes purchases.) The stream updates real time it’s pretty interesting to see what people buy. They’re able to do this because their member have given them their credit card number. (They recently had a security issue that has since been resolved. No really!) Blippy gives you a sense of what people are buying real-time and sheds light onto day-to-day purchases.
Stickybits – This venture allows you to scan bar codes and then attach geo-coded media to it. Once more, this time in English! I take my iPhone out, start the app and scan the bar code with camera (scanner by RedLaser). It pulls up the product information and I can then attach my content (audio, photo, etc.) to it. The next time someone scans that barcode on the Stickybits app, my information will come up. Talk about product personalization! Stickybits gives you a sense of what products people are most passionate about.
MyBrandz = This new, brand focused social network allows you to select your favorite brands from those they represent and recommend/vote on the brands you’d like to have added. They also let you post about why you prefer brands. My profile is here and I really wish they would let you select more than 8 brands. Maybe tiers of brands? MyBrandz gives you a sense of what brands consumers find the most compelling and why.
These three companies provide progressive insight into users’ behaviors. These users obviously don’t have an issue with sharing information. This is the kind of thing that would make amazing an infographic; a product persona map.
