CRM covered Augmented Reality (AR) back in the January Innovation issue as one of the five innovative technologies for 2010.  CRM Editor Christopher Musico wrote, “In a world elevating the value of real-time, whether in mobile marketing or service-related issues, being in the right place at the right time is more important than ever, and augmented reality can put this capability in the palm of your hand.” This week at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York I had a chance to revist AR through a brilliant session by Lynne d Johnson of the Advertising Research Foundation and John Havens of Porter Novelli.

Havens opened the presentation by stating that augmented reality is neither a gimmick nor a one-off. “These technologies are not myths – they are happening,” he said. Is AR ubiquitous? No. Is it easy to use? Not yet. However, as marketers and brands recognize the utility in such technologies, Havens insisted that adoption will increase.

The duo, went on to introduce recent AR use cases that, quite frankly, blow traditional marketing case studies out of the water. AR videos after the jump.

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During this morning’s keynote at this year’s Shop.org Summit in Dallas, Mitch Joel, president of Twist Image and author of Six Pixels of Separation showed a YouTube video by allthatglitters21 to convey his point about social commerce and emerging trends.

Allthatglitters21 is Elle Fowler, a 22 year-old woman with a YouTube channel dedicated to makeup tutorials, makeup tips, and fashion. Her videos range from how to do advanced makeup techniques to what to do with bangs in your face to what she carries around her purse. She describes herself as “a beauty product junkie/trendsetter,” but as Joel pointed out, she’s a lot more influential than her ditsy online persona would suggest.

By just posting videos of her purchases, Fowler’s YouTube videos receive well over 1 million views. She has almost 100,000 followers on Twitter, a Facebook fan page with many dedicated followers, and, according to Joel, an agent. “Allthatglitters21″ is even the first thing to come up on Google Instant. (Seriously, try it!) [Editors' Note: You only have to get six letters into its name. See below. –JW] Her blog details her travels to NYC and LA to meet with Marie Claire and Forever21, as well as many other companies that are vying for her attention.

Google Instant result for "AllTha" — the first six letters of the AllThatGlitters blog.

As YouTube clips played of Fowler’s perky face, presenting compacts, makeup brushes, and purses, the audience turned to one another, snickering at her Legally Blonde demeanor.

“Who would have thought that a bunch of 17-to-21-year-old girls would save the economy?” Joel exclaimed. He proceeded to equate Fowler’s accomplishments with the popular ’90s board game Girl Talk, a game that I (and probably many other girls of the Spice Girl generation) remember playing. The sleepover staple was like Truth or Dare essentially, only with with zit stickers, cards for stunts like “ask a boy for a roll of toilet paper!” or requests for the girl next to you to apply makeup anyway she wants. Shopping though, as my pre-adolescent mind recalls, was not part of the game.

In mistaking girly-ness for shopping prowess, Joel confuses Girl Talk with Mall Madness, another 90s game that I can’t believe my parents let me have. Mall Madness, akin to Girl Talk in its encouragement to become a materialistic airhead with no ambition beyond matching earrings, has its players race around a mall in hopes of purchasing everything on their shopping list. The board talks with messages like “sale at the shoe salon!” intended to distract these young shoppers from their mission. First girl out of the mall with all her hypothetical loot wins. Yay for the conditioning of little girls!

Upon leaving the keynote, I was left with the impression that Joel sought to undermine Fowler’s accomplishments by making this comparison to such a ridiculous board game. Fowler should be celebrated for her accomplishments, even if she is just YouTubing about makeup. She was obviously smart enough to put herself out into the blogosphere in such a way to secure such a strong following. Her initiative to market herself, develop her own name, and gain notoriety in her field is something young girls could admire and learn from. Allthatglitters21′s story is a far cry from zit stickers and shopping competitions and Joel would do well to acknowledge that difference.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down and speaking with Greg Alvo, CEO of OrderGroove, a subscription platform provider about his company’s new RetentionEngine Platform. Released today, the platform is a SaaS-based subscription system that allows online retailers to “tap the power of convenience to turn new and existing customers into repeat buyers,” according to Alvo’s presentation.

The solution features the following:

·         RetentionEngine Subscription Platform: Drive continuity by converting buyers into subscribers.

·         Continuity Optimization and Analytics: Leverage robust dashboard and aggregate intelligence to drive customer behavior and provide real-time data on impact of continuity programs.

·         Point of Sale Applications:  Maximize lifetime value with point of sale impulse buy tools.

·         Fast Implementation & Dedicated Launch Team:  Enjoy rapid deployment with minimal resources.

·         Retention Expertise: Unlock the true potential of OrderGroove’s Platform and continuity with a dedicated team of Retention Experts focused on ROI and constant innovation.

The timing works for a subscription platform of this kind. With the holiday season around the corner consumers will be looking forward to the discounts and free shipping available to OrderGroove members. Citing a recent data from the ChannelAdvisor 2010 Consumer Shopping Habits Survey Alvo indicated that brand loyalty is “in sharp decline with low prices and free shipping acting as the #1 and #2 influencers on purchase decisions this holiday.” The same survey showed that two out of three consumers stated that they would purchase an identical product from an unknown website if it offered a better value.

So much for customer relationship management! That goes against everything I’ve learned here at CRM magazine. Wouldn’t your customers rather pay slightly more from a trusted source than deal with someone who they don’t know? Isn’t engagement and transparency more important that a 10 percent discount? I let Alvo know how I felt about this but he explained to me that convenience and cost might very well trump “the relationship.”

The numbers he revealed seemed to speak for themselves:

gDiapers, maker of earth-friendly diapers, saw a 2,000 percent increase in its subscriber base within one year. It saw a  90 percent customer retention rate and a 200 percent increase in subscriber revenue.

Databazaar.com, a printer supplies company, retained customers at a rate of 80 percent and was able to lock in orders every 3.5 months.

Filtersfast.com, a filter supply company, saw nearly 5 percent of its customer opt into a subscription to a product they frequently purchase and 20 percent of its customers chose more than one product to be sent on a recurring basis.

Those numbers are pretty darn good for a company just coming out of beta.

But what does this all mean for CRM? Is there no way to retain customers other than offering the lowest low price? If subscriptions are in, doesn’t CRM really belong to whichever company can ship the product the fastest and for the lowest cost? I’m interested to hear your thoughts.

Now that Oracle OpenWorld has come and gone and I’ve caught up on sleep and email, I wanted to bring you a postmortem-type post of what went wrong and what went right within San Francisco’s Moscone Center last week.

Here are the WINS from the week:

OpenWorld takes over downtown San Francisco, surrounding retailers respond favorably: With close to 42,000 people attending the conference, it was hard not to find yourself surrounded by badge-wearing conference goers last week. That said, restaurants and retail stores seemed ready for the onslaught of tourists, even offering discounts to OOW attendees. (I may or may not have road tested that discount at Banana Republic last week..)

Sustainability: Calling itself the “largest sustainable event,” OpenWorld was said to have cut down on 140 tons of waste thanks to recycling, elimination of 76% of paper products, and effective use of resources. Recycling bins outnumbered trash cans and online scheduling dominated paper itineraries. Sixty percent of the food from the week came from local sources.

Fusion Apps demos: Anthony Lye promised “an iPad demo that will blow [our] minds” and he wasn’t too far off. The forward-looking CRM content during OpenWorld was stellar. Fusion Apps, with social media and business intelligence baked in, are not only sleek in appearance, but embody the term “multi-channel.”

Fusion GA date: Just when it started to seem like Fusion was suffering from ByDesign syndrome, Oracle slapped an early-2011 arrival date for its Fusion Platform.

Salesforce.com’s Guest Spot: Marc Benioff was on his A-Game  during his speaking gig at OpenWorld on Wednesday. Benioff had attendees roaring with laughter, truly engaged in his demo, and wishing more of the Oracle keynotes had his energy and engagement. For more, check out my story on Benioff’s Chatter announcement.

The Appreciation Event: Every year it seems like Oracle outdoes itself with the attendee entertainment event held at Treasure Island. This year’s stellar line-up (The English Beat, Berlin, Don Henley, Black Eyed Peas, Steve Miller Band, & Montgomery Gentry) seemed to have something for everyone. The highlight of the night? Will.I.Am (@iamwill) rapping about Oracle and declaring that, he too, wants to write code.

OpenWorld “Losses” after the jump…

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Covering SAP news is a full-time job. It seems like every morning I get an email from my favorite Burson-Marsteller senior associate regarding a new product, a new company initiative, a new conference date, a new acquisition, etc. This company knows what your business wants to hear. Credit Co-CEO’s Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann-Snabe for talking the type of talk that gets people excited. [Editors' Note: McDermott was recently named one of CRM magazine's Influential Leaders in the CRM Market Awards — see the August 2010 issue of CRM for more.]

Since SAP’s SAPPHIRE NOW conference in Orlando this May, the company has accomplished the following:

• released the long-anticipated upgrade of Business ByDesign;
• acquired mobile software company Sybase;
• delivered a new corporate roadmap; and
• announced the availability of decision-making application Streamwork.

The stories I linked to are just the cream of the crop. There have been other minor SAP announcements that, like the major announcements, all serve the same purpose…SAP knows exactly which words today’s best run businesses want/need to hear from a software company. Mobility, analytics, data integration.

Today SAP added an important yet simple phrase to that list: Speed. With the launch of its Rapid Deployment solutions (RDS), SAP will offer “fixed-price, predefined software for companies to address business priorities and gain time-to-value quickly while also paving a flexible path toward future growth.”

The current available offerings are:

• SAP CRM rapid-deployment solution for sales;
• SAP CRM rapid-deployment solution for service;
• SAP CRM rapid-deployment solution for marketing;
• SAP BCM rapid-deployment solution; and
• SAP SRM rapid-deployment solution.

The solutions are a “ready-to-use combination of software, predefined services, and pre-configured content at a predefined price,” the SAP press release says. “They are available ‘out of the box’ by traditional, hosting, and subscription licensing models, via partners or from SAP.”

According to Vinay Iyer, vice president of SAP Enterprise Marketing and CRM Solutions, the CRM RDS implementations will take 6-8 weeks, and the BCM and SRM deployments will take no more than 12 weeks. “[Our clients] can not wait two, three, or four years in order to realize the overall end-to-end integrated value proposition,” says Iyer. “[They] need something they can consume in small modular chunks, prove the value, make the case for the next investment, and move forward.”

“Customers today want choices in how they scope, configure and deploy business software,” said Peter Russo, managing director of Pierre Audoin Consultants, in an SAP press release. “SAP Rapid Deployment solutions offer customers a new model for their on-premise software, with an emphasis on time to value and low cost, while still retaining the flexibility to expand the solution in the future.”

SAP, under the McDermott/Hagemann-Snabe reign, likes to make promises (the company recently pledged to deliver a leading mobile platform within 9 months, to which I linked above). It’s still too early to tell whether or not the promises this company makes will equal the excitement that the promises initially evoke. I have two questions about the RDS launch: Will the functionality suffer because of rushed deployments? Will user-interface take a hit?

What do you all think?