#BoysGotGame

Lulu, the new app that allows women to anonymously rank their Facebook beaus, has quickly risen to smartphone fame. In a single year, it has attracted a user-base of well over one million with more than 200 million profile views and countless praise from esteemed media outlets like The New York Times, The Washington Journal, Business Insider and NPR. With backing from acclaimed financiers such as Yuri Milner, an early investor of Facebook, Lulu is poised to reign the dating app world.

Beyond just a simple ratings scale of 1 to 10, women can give detailed, yet pointed descriptions of their exes, flings, and male friends using hashtags (e.g. #SilverFox, #CheaperThanABigMac), hence easing the dating woes (or boosting desirability) for subsequent unsuspecting women.

Co-founder and CEO Alexandra Chong explains, “[W]e get references for jobs… or renting an apt…. Why not get references from women on the guys that they may end up in bed with.” After a six-hour brunch with her girlfriends chatting up everything from careers to guys, Chong saw opportunity to tap into “girl talk” by creating a private space where they can share past experiences to “empower girls to make smarter decisions….”

Initially, marketing was geared towards sororities. One in four college women have the app, and average about 8 visits per week. This sparked a blaze that’s spread like wildfire among women in their 20s. But what’s really excited Chong has been the dynamic contributions of Lulu’s members. “… fifty-two percent of users create content. As you know in the social space that’s often unheard of. Typically the rule is 9-10%,” she tells Bloomberg TV’s Cory Johnson.

More than just piquing interest, user-generated content gives Lulu (and prince charmings) a huge advantage—credibility. According to Nielsen, 92% of consumers worldwide rely on recommendations from friends and family, and 70% trust online reviews. Word-of-mouth is a tremendous driver for Lulu.

Lulu makes it easy for ladies to add their own two cents by inciting them to interact with the app through Cosmopolitan-style quizzes and content. Chong tells Johnson, “For our users, it doesn’t feel like they’re doing much to give information.” She likens Lulu to a Wiki for girls. “The idea for us is to move beyond relationships and into health and to beauty and to all the things women care about. That has endless opportunities.”

Surprisingly, men are responding, well… favorably. In an article last November, The New York Times reported that Lulu had received over half a million requests from dudes who welcomed (read: braved) #feedback. One poor soul who had received a 6.5 score was a good sport, tweeting, “I can only assume this is on a scale of 1 to 5.” Um, sure.

BY ALLIE ABODEELY

RESEARCH: The Temperature Premium Effect

In a comfortably warm room, a chocolate chip cookie seems to be closer than it actually is, and potential buyers are willing to pay more for it than if the room was colder. Purchasing behaviors are influenced by real-world environmental factors, like temperature. So much so, that moderately warmer temperature increases both product valuation and physical closeness perception.

Research from Columbia Business School professor Leonard Lee focuses on how consumers shop in real world environments and how environmental factors affect their shopping behavior and preferences.  His latest work with Jacob Goldberg of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, and Yonat Zwebner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, focuses on the important connection between physical warmth and product valuation.

They found that “warming temperatures increased the probability that shoppers would buy a product, even after controlling for seasonality and factors specific to individual products, and despite the fact that shoppers were hunting for bargains.” Findings apply both to brick and mortar and online retailers and to a variety of products, from cameras and watches, to books and chocolate cake. “We found that physical warmth, despite being product irrelevant, can shape consumer’s purchase decisions.” Furthermore, “the studies suggest that exposure to physical warmth activates the concept of emotional warmth, eliciting positive reactions and increasing product valuation.”

How warm is too warm? Lee’s experiments showed that an eight degree increase to the standard room temperature (71.6°F), or 79°F, would make participants “more willing to pay significantly more – at least ten percent- for a given product, compared to participants sitting in a cooler room (64°F).” However, “as the temperature increases, its effect on purchase intent diminishes.”

Read more about Lee’s research in Ideas at Work.

For the quants out there, download the full paper on the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

BY GABRIELA TORRES PATIÑO

Kate Spade New York: Innovating the 360° Experience

The Kate Spade signature experience is as bold and colorful as its brand. Its 2013 strategy proved to be ahead of the curve, offering an amalgamation of consumer interactions across all touchpoints for a unified 360° experience.

Last summer, Kate Spade New York created a unique way to bridge digital with the brick and mortar world, transforming “window shopping” from a figurative expression into a literal action.

For one month in New York City, four of its Kate Spade Saturday store locations turned their window displays into a 24/7 interactive adventure. It enabled shoppers to purchase that “must-have” piece in the window, from the window, via touchscreens. And shoppers could schedule that item to be delivered within one hour anywhere in the City (e.g. a last minute present delivered to a party you have to miss, that anniversary gift you forgot to buy for your wife… again).

Mary Beech, Senior Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, and upcoming BRITE ’14 speaker, refers to their decorative windows as “a little piece of theater.” “Our store windows are moments of whimsical storytelling that express our core values in every venue,” she explained at The Hub Live 2013 conference. “[T]here’s a sales goal related to these. But we have fun doing it.”

In true Kate Spade New York innovative style, the luxury retailer ran the first shoppable online video banner during the 2013 holiday season. See an item you like in the digital ad? Simply click and purchase. “The technology provided an immediate, seamless, shoppable element that enhanced the experience, rather than pulling you out of it,” Beech explains in an interview with Design Taxi.

Efforts are paying off. Kate Spade New York reported a 30% increase in comparable store sales for the 2013 fourth quarter, and a surge in last year’s stock price. Further, parent company Fifth & Pacific will be renamed to Kate Spade & Co. to focus singularly on the Kate Spade brand. The company recently trimmed 37 of its 40 brands and is soon to separate from Juicy Couture and Lucky Brand.

Beech notes that they’ve carefully identified complementary experiences to carry through different social media channels. Facebook is for customers seeking sales, product information, store openings, etc. Twitter offers the voice of the Kate Spade woman tweeting about local events and other delightful discoveries. Instagram paints a picture her story and NYC lifestyle through the use of images.

Kate Spade New York is fast becoming a trailblazer in the marketplace, developing unique ways to engage and even entertain its biggest and brightest fans by merging new technology with in-person interactions.

Join Beech at the BRITE ’14 conference (March 3-4, NYC) to learn more about the creative ways in which they’re keeping the brand both fashion and marketing-forward.

BY ALLIE ABODEELY

Disney Shares the Secret of Happiness

Mention the word happiness and usually two brands come to mind, one of which is Disney (you’ve likely already thought of the other). Disney maintains this association through consistently delivering great experiences for all their stakeholders — an expertise they now provide to other companies through their own  consulting institute.  We are pleased to have Jeff James, general manager of the Disney Institute, at BRITE ’14 to talk about how companies can become leaders in providing happy experiences.

This little-known training and consulting arm of Disney was started almost 30 years ago, and the company now works with a wide range of organizations from Chevrolet to Florida Hospital. While the overall goal of most projects is to improve the brand experience, much of its activity is focused on the leadership and training efforts that are necessary to drive this kind of organizational change.

James writes regularly for his corporate blog, and a recent post focused in particular on what helps drive inspiration and creativity both as an individual and within an organization – key elements to sustaining happiness in life and work. He offers some sage advice about thinking small, “Remember that creativity is not always about the ‘big ideas.’ The biggest majority of the creative work you can do today is around incremental improvements that arise from the creativity surrounding the projects you are working on daily.”

When working with companies, it isn’t as if Disney can just wave a magic wand and immediately transform a company’s brand experience. As James told the New York Times, “Companies come in and say, ‘Just make my employees smile more,’ but you can’t take Disney and just plug it in. We can advise them on how to change, but the heavy lifting is theirs.”

We look forward to hosting James on our BRITE ’14 panel, “Possessions or Experiences: What Makes You Happier?” which includes perspectives from the worlds of business, economics, urban planning, and branding, on how organizations can, and should, contribute to the happiness of citizens, consumers, and society.

REGISTER NOW for BRITE ’14, March 3-4, Columbia University, New York, NY

By MATTHEW QUINT