Hertz - The Gas or The Brake, Intro
Hertz Launches “The Gas and The Brake” Campaign
As the largest worldwide used car rental brand, operating in more than 146 countries with 8,500 locations, Hertz introduced in early spring one of the biggest social media campaigns yet undertaken in the travel industry. The “Are you The Gas or The Brake” campaign focuses on more interaction between the customers by engaging the customer’s driving experience. The initiative is designed to encourage a dialogue with the various clients and acknowledges their different travel personalities. The campaign serves as a platform to address the different wants, needs and aspirations of their client using the social media as tool and a “reach out” to their customers. By this Hertz maintains to show its flexibility that is provided by their products and services. It emphasizes on how they fulfill the lifestyle and preferences of their customers with their bramd. The campaign perfectly aligns with the company’s mission, which is” state-of-the-art technology, best-in-class fleet of cars, unrivaled ease-of-use, convenient locations, and exceptional customer service”. The CEO Mark P. Frissora, describes in a statement that it important to show to the customer that the company is able to understand that each client is different and that the brand has to show flexible solutions to meet the variety of different travel and transportation needs.
With this new Campaign Hertz has introduced a new digital platform which enables the engagement with the customers. On the new microsite, http://gasorbrake.hertz.com customers are able to take a quiz that characterize if they are “Gas” or “Brake “, or play a “Decider Game” with Facebook friends and finally see Commercials and Campaigns on Youtube.’
Due to the reason that Herz managed to integrate their Campaign into their customers experience and align it with overall company strategies , it has won the first-ever Travel + Leisure Social Media + Tourism Awards (SMITTYS) for “Best Use of a Social Media Platform” in the car rental category for its 2011 ” . This award acknowledges a company that uses social media in an innovative way that profits not just the company’s sales but also the customer experience/satisfaction.
(Source: marketwire.com)
Biggest moment in Web History
While researching the web, many great Internet moments can be recalled: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Applications and iTunes are all digital media changing evolutions. But what makes a historical moment so special? In general it is the footprint that is left by the invention and the impact it made to the society and industry. I have chosen a topic that although it had a very limited lifetime the impact it made is still in tact.
Although Napster’s live was relatively short, its effect on the music industry cannot be neglected. Today Napster is an online music store that can be used via a subscription based on a monthly fee. Napster started of by being a Peer to Peer sharing service that allowed users to share MP3s with other users free of charge. Actually Napster was the first company that based sharing as a free resource for easy interaction between users, rather than using search engines. The software enabled people to dig into the each other’s record and download all the music they required, allowing users to bypass retail and distribution channels. The impact on the music industry was enormous and obviously the software was shut down shortly. Leading I the Music Industry n in a full chaos in the 2000s. The influence of Napster evoked other forms of illegal downloading and customers perceived music to be free. Through the idea of Napster legal music stores such as iTunes emerged. Today ITunes is the largest music retailer and has redefined the listening experience and has largely become the way that music is consumed. Nevertheless, two staples in the American Music Industry would vanish due Napster’s innovation. Napster destroyed the record industry’s former business model and the major labels are still struggling with how to make profits. Looking back, Napster has left a major footprint in today’s social media world. And although it was not a success for a long time, the impact it made was fatal. Moreover, Napster was an early adapter of sharing it opened the doors to successful business models such as iTunes, Netflix, Facebook and Twitter. Within its short period of live, Napster completely changed the way people think of media consumption and is therefore for me one of the biggest moments in web history.
Key Take Aways - Don’t Make Me Think
Don’t Make Me Think is a literature about the website usability and website interaction. The book teaches how a good website should be laid out. It indicates that a successful website is easy to navigate so that users can complete efficiently. The book points out that users look for solutions that addresses right away their problems, so web designers should take advantage of this following below mentioned rules/suggestions:
1. Website should be user friendly. Easy and quick navigation that is designed for the website purpose.
2. The application should be self-explanatory and self-evident. Simple keywords that enhance easy navigation, main headlines that provides the information looked for. Therefore it is important that the company knows its customers and understands well there ambitions when they visit their site.
3. In todays fast pace environment people tend to move quickly. They don’t like to spend a lot of time[i] on things. So website should be aimed at quick navigation and should not waste the time of the users.
4. Importance of the back bottom is especially highlighted in the book. One of the sources says that the back button is one of the main features of any website and is therefore particularly favored by users. [ii] Visitors are aimed for easy navigation end feel more secure when they have a starting point from which on they can start browsing again. The Home Bottom is a key feature of a website and goes along with the securement aspect of the users. Besides having the back bottom, where visitors can go back to previous step. It should also have the possibility to start all over again from the main entrance of the site. It saves time, as users can right away return to the main page without going through all the previous steps. It is well in line with convenience fact that users are looking for while browsing a website
5. Conceptual Hierarchy is one of the main discussed points in the book as it encompasses already many of the above-mentioned points. The emphasize is on the site navigation. Construction should be structured according to headlines and sub sections that indicates where the user on the website is and what it actually looks for. Visitors are more comfortable with web pages where one can retrace the steps. An example on which the book relies on is the Amazon. Where sections are highlighted in different colored and the sub sections are according to the color of the sections. One can easily know where they are and where they need to go to in order to acquire more information.
In short in order to win the academy award for best website one webpage should be based on customer knowledge that helps to put on the right content on the site, meanwhile keeping it as simple as possible to navigate and easily displayed.
