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Glitter and sparkles swept America by storm the other weekend! Or at least some coffee shops, as Starbucks released its limited edition Unicorn Frappuccino (UF). People were sipping on blue and pink concoctions all over the place, and everyone had an opinion.

Not everyone liked it — the top posts on Instagram with #tastesdisgusting were all UFs.

As a product manager, I wanted to know — was the UF a success? I entered down the rabbit hole of user research as I so often do, and have found a case where marketing and product collaborated so seamlessly that we should all be envious. At the same time, you could also look at this as a very different sort of MVP — a brand experiment. As usual, there were quite a few lessons to bring back to the product world.

Scarcity Amplifies

The UF was only available for five days in limited quantities. By being scarce, it created a sense of urgency and made the frequency with which you saw the product higher than what you might see for normal consumption.

The sense of urgency got people to open their wallets. Many told me: “I didn’t really want a frappuccino, but I wanted to try one of these.” If they didn’t buy today, they weren’t going to get one.

This effect went beyond Starbucks’ regulars. Meredith, a clinical researcher, explained that she almost never goes to Starbucks but was so curious that she stopped by a store with her son on the way home from school. Because it was only for a few days, she didn’t have the choice to try one on a vague future date.

Beyond creating a sense of urgency, the short time frame also concentrated media coverage of the UF. The buzz, rather than getting spread out over a week or two, was focused over a few days. If you have the same number of people drinking UFs over three days as you would over three weeks, you increase the UF sightings. This effect again increased the feeling of the UF being a huge hit.

Finally, selling out is often equated with being “wildly successful”. As more and more stores were posting about selling out, the pressure ramped up and the scarcity feeling turned into a frenzy. @coreycuthrell posted: “20 minutes in the drive through line but totally worth it for this smile!” (photo glitterized due being of a minor)

Once the word started spreading that stores were selling out, people became desperate to get their rainbow fix. @oceanslimebakery posted: “I had to go to three different Starbucks to get this!” Don’t we all wish we could have people going out of their way in pursuit of our product?

Design to Your KPI

I don’t think that the sheer number of UFs sold was Starbucks’ leading KPI for this product. I’d propose that their primary KPI was shares and exposure, and for that they did a marvelous job. Even The Guardian commented on how beautiful this thing looks on Instagram. I don’t know how many of these actually sold, but if you look at social media feeds it feels like millions.

I ran into a group of first year college students sharing two UFs. “Well, all our friends were posting photos of them to Snapchat and saying they were gross. So we decided to try it.” The verdict? Gross, but great to Snap about how unimpressed they were with the taste. The social media friendliness of the product is one of the main features, if not the primary feature.

Is it Good? Does it Matter?

Talking to a few UF-drinkers in their mid 30s, the concern was less with the taste than with the brand. Jen observed: “It does make me think Starbucks is much more clued into the way the kids today think than I previously thought.” The same observations came from elsewhere – Dana explained that the adults get wine and cheese, the kids get super sweet sparkles. Adults think that this drink is designed for the kids market. But many of the kids didn’t think it was very good either.

I talked to a barista who said that there were a number of kids ordering UFs, but it was really “every walk of life” purchasing these magical drinks. The 18-year-olds I talked to about their Snapchat usage? “I get it that Starbucks would try to bump sales, but I mean it’s kinda nasty.”

Plenty of adults both on Instagram and in person thought it was “soooooo good”. And perhaps the divide it creates in terms of flavor and the way it’s perceived actually enhances the product – people feel strongly about it one way or the other, so they speak up more. More commentary, more posts, more discussion.

What Defines a Product?

Ultimately Starbucks will probably see strong sales for April due to the Unicorn Frappuccino. It brought people into the store who hadn’t been there in a while, created a ton of free social media buzz, and Starbucks charged $5.50 for the Grande, making it a lucrative menu item.

Was it a good product in terms of satisfying thirst or being delicious? I’m not sure that it matters. It depends on your product goals. It satisfied the user need of making UF drinkers feel part of a major conversation on social media. It satisfied the business goal of getting a ton of free marketing.

No matter what, this was a strong collaboration between marketing and product for which Starbucks deserves great praise. It’s an interesting twist on the jobs to be done framework, where the job to be done is to get likes on Facebook. As product managers, it’s worth exploring how social media changes the products we design, and if we can build upon on this consumer habit to benefit our own products.

This post originally appeared on Mind the Product.

The chatter at SXSW this year was all about the chatbot. Several sessions and a lot of side conversations were aimed at helping companies understand what chatbots are and how to use them. I got the sense that everyone wants to have one of these in their product right away.

But while everyone talked about the ways in which these are going to revolutionize user engagement, it sounded too much like “me too!” for my comfort. Too often it appeared to me that companies want to be trendy rather than think critically about whether their product needs a chatbot.

One thing I left certain of is that chatbots are hard to do well. I spoke with a chatbot expertand marketer who cares about brand consistency. They helped me understand more about defending against trolls, and emphasized how hard bots are to execute even before touching on natural language processing!

A Case in Point

Five minutes with the chatbot built into the SXSW app proves how hard a technology this is to master. Abby, the SXSW bot, is a chat interface that brings you to the other areas of navigation in the app but doesn’t add any value on top of that. Think of her like chat-based hyperlinks.

So why are chatbots the next big thing? They are an external manifestation of big data capabilities. As Dave McClure of 500 Startups mentioned in his session: “Data science is being recast as AI. And it’s not there yet.” A lot of talks threw around the terms data science, big data, AI, natural language processing, neural networks, and chatbots as if they are all one and the same thing. But while these things are all related, they are not identical. Want to prove that your company can do the latest and greatest in machine learning? Create a user-facing experience with a chatbot.

Does a Chatbot add Value?

While chatbots can be a manifestation of your machine learning prowess (or a demonstration of a lack thereof), remember the very basic question on any product manager’s mind: will this new feature add value to my product? A poorly executed chatbot (#abby) will provide more pain and frustration to your consumer than no chatbot. Remember the last time you had to call an airline to change your flight and got stuck in a voice recognition circle of hell?

“Please let me know if you want to change your reservation, book a new flight, or look up your flight status.”

“Change reservation!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you. Please let me know if..”

“CHANGE RESERVATION”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand you. Please let me know…”

“CHANGE THE DAMN RESERVATION!”

A negative chatbot experience leads to a desire to throw your phone out the window. By all means jump into the chatbot fray if it will enhance your product, but remember the age-old adage: friends don’t let friends create poorly-designed bots.

 

This post originally appeared on Mind the Product.

Sign up for our product! Tell us about yourself. Fill out your profile. Tell us where you’re going so we can bring you a driver. Let us see your bank transaction data so we can give you financial recommendations.

Every time you ask your users for information, they’re going to ask why they should trust you with it. Somehow you need to convince them that you’re trustworthy, but what does that really mean and how do you do that? Over the I’m going to be exploring this concept in great detail, but for now I wanted to start with a basic question: Why do people trust?

It’s a simple question that’s hard to answer.  Through my research I’ve found that there are three ways people develop trust. They do so through first-hand experience, recommendations, and intellectual understanding. As product managers, we can leverage these three factors to create more trust in our products and therefore increase users and engagement.

First Hand Experience

This is the simplest way to trust someone. As Cynthia, a salesperson at an interior decorating company, told me, “my brother has always been there for me and I would trust him with anything.” When you’ve used something before, worked with that person, or taken that action you know you can trust them again. But if this were the only way to generate trust, it would also lead to a world where people wouldn’t eat food made by anyone they hadn’t already tried or use a babysitter who had never taken care of their kids. Commerce as we know it today would essentially grind to a halt.

The good news is research has shown that people tend to trust strangers by default. Most people feel some form of social obligation to believe the best in others, which translates into trusting relationships. This is how we can function in a world where we don’t know everyone in our neighbourhood. Whether this level of trust extends to apps and physical objects is less scientifically studied, but my initial research indicates that the default is to distrust things that aren’t people. That means from the very beginning we’re fighting an uphill battle to get users to engage with our products.

Luckily, we’ve got two other trust-creating methods to leverage when convincing people that we are worthy of their attention and their data.

Recommendations from Trustworthy Sources

I recently needed to choose who to partner with on a project and was torn between two people. They were both well-qualified, but one of them was referred to me by a friend and the other person was referred to me via an advertisement. I went with the person who was referred by the friend. People ask their network for recommendations about other people all the time for both personal and professional activities, and those recommendations carry weight for good reason. We can’t interact with everyone or everything in the world, and so we need to rely on the help of others to find the right person for the job.

But this same form of trust exists even when the recommendation doesn’t come from a fellow human. This is what brands are for. Perhaps you have a good association with one product in a brand and are now willing to try another offering under the same umbrella; or you’ve read about a product in a magazine you trust and so now trust the product itself. A brand is a recommendation about a product or service, and we use them constantly to better navigate the world around us. If your product is already part of a well-known brand, use it. If you’re launching something totally new, think about the ways you can find partners to add value not only in terms of features, but in terms of branding as well.

An Intellectual Understanding

When you have never seen nor heard of a product before, you can develop trust by understanding how it works. Elizabeth explained to me that despite being an early adopter of Uber, she wasn’t nervous about using it. “The app is tracking who I am, who the driver is, and where we are, so I had protections in case something goes wrong.” Uber had no brand association and she was the first of her network to give it a try so had no personal recommendations, but she knew how the basic idea worked, and that gave her the confidence to try it out.

Conversely, even when the something comes recommended by others, some people have a tendency not to trust something they don’t understand and will refuse to engage with it at all. I spoke to Bill, a man in his 50s, about his technology habits and he said that he always trusts people over technology. “I don’t put my credit card information up on the internet because I never know where it’s going or what will happen to it.” The opaque way his data is handled on the internet makes him loathe to trust a website not only with credit card information, but with any personal information at all.

Don’t assume that just because your product is easy to use you don’t need to provide demos and directions. Even the best-designed product could still benefit from creating paths for users to better understand how it works on an intellectual level. That can breed comfort with your product and through it increase engagement.

Re-establishing Trust

Establishing trust at the beginning is much easier than regenerating trust after a breach. If you lose that relationship with your customers, the only way to regain it is with a full-court press on all three levers. Provide ways for people to experience your product first-hand, turn them into advocates for you in whatever way possible, and make sure you’re clear and transparent about how things work so that people begin to understand your product. If you do all those things right, you’ll hopefully regain their trust over time.

I’ll be continuing this research into trust and privacy over the next few months. If you’re interested in learning more about the work I’m doing and would like to view the results at the end, . I’ll be sharing user attitudes towards privacy, of which this article is just one of the first steps.

The internet and Wall Street are buzzing about the success of Pokémon Go, Nintendo’s first high-profile foray into mobile gaming. Nintendo’s market cap has grown by over $10 billion, as its shares surged 50% since its launch July 7^th.  It took five hours from launch to reach the top downloaded spot in the iPhone app store and now has more active Android users than Twitter.

So far, analyses of its success have focused on the popularity of the Pokémon brand, but that’s really only one piece of the puzzle. As a product manager and design researcher, I went out into the streets to better understand people’s behavior – both physical and digital – to find out what caused millions of people to start training Pokémon. I picked up a CP 187 Magnemite (and now know what that means), as well as a few lessons that can apply to anyone designing digital experiences.

Many people I talked to mentioned nostalgia and excitement about revisiting a childhood pleasure. But looking out into the neighborhood, it was clear this wasn’t the only thing causing people to try and catch them all. Nintendo’s deep expertise in game design shines through. The game is well balanced, with an endorphin-stimulating combination of randomness, delayed gratification, and scarcity. You don’t need to spend money to enjoy it, though the premium items add enough value that you spend the game itching to spend your Poké-coins at the store.

There are many other games that have capitalized on strong game mechanics and a good brand. But Pokémon Go ventures beyond that, capitalizing on the mobile platform, making game play physically apparent, and creating a way for people to socialize while playing. These three design choices are important lessons for all of us navigating the digital world:

A Mobile Game Designed to Be Mobile

The game only works when you move around and go places, a feature totally unique to the mobile platform. You explore the physical area around you to find Pokémon and items as well as hatch eggs. One of the most interesting elements is Poké-stops, which are local landmarks that give you items and potions. As one gamer explained to me: “It’s TripAdvisor meets Fitbit with a game attached — what’s not to like?” Another player mentioned that his brother had no idea he lived in a neighborhood that played a significant part in the history of the gay rights movement – until he went to a Poké-Stop and read the plaque. You can’t play from your living room, and unlike the majority of mobile games out there (Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, etc), the experience could never be replicated on your TV or computer.

This walking-oriented experience incentivizes people to change their behavior quite quickly. One gamer told me that he was playing the game and realized that he had walked about six miles by the end of the day. Usually he watches TV to relax, but instead went out of the house after work. A sales clerk at AT&T told me that he’s started taking the bus because he loses GPS signal on the train, and gets off a stop or two early in order to get a few more steps to help him hatch his next egg. By using the unique elements of a mobile device, Nintendo is truly changing people’s behavior and adding to the experience.

Visible Use

Walking through the park on Sunday, it was blindingly clear who was searching for Pikachu, who was scrolling through Facebook or Twitter, and who was texting. The mechanics of gameplay are such that your body language changes when you play, which has both pros and cons. There have been reports of robbers targeting players,  injuries, and one second-hand account of a person who had pulled her car to the side of the road to catch a rare creature – only to be dinged by a passing car. Google Glass brought on the ”Glassholes” phenomenon and a whole host of stereotypes; “Pokemorons” are almost as easy to identify, despite not wearing any hardware to signal their participation.

The visible use contrasts sharply with my train ride into work where everyone has their heads down, each existing in their own little worlds on small screens. From an engagement standpoint, it also helps to see others playing – it’s a good visual cue that you should check your phone and see if there’s anything of interest in the neighborhood. This visibility allows real-world players to identify each other– which leads into the third key difference

Easily and Naturally Social

I saw two men sitting on a bench playing by a fountain and watched as a woman approached them to ask if they had been able to catch the Ghastly that had just popped up in the area. One pair of friends told me that they looked up and made eye contact with others who were playing in the same area, and the entire group broke out in grins and laughter to think they could all tell what the others were doing. The majority of people I saw playing in the park on Sunday were in groups of two or three – hunting together. I talked to one person who had never played a Pokémon game before, but wanted to know what all his friends were talking about. He ended up playing with his girlfriend as an activity, and he explained, “It was like going on a walk. A great date activity.” I came across a group of friends out playing together, who said that they usually socialise on the weekends anyway, but normally would be at home drinking in the garden. This week, they stopped by the fountain in the park for a few minutes, and then wandered to the next stop to see what they might catch next.

It’s an interesting manifestation of what Sherry Turkle termed “Alone Together” in her book of the same name. Technology can allow us to have individual existences while simultaneously helping bring communities more together. The Facebook event “Boston Poke-Walk” has nearly 10,000 people interested in attending, and 2,500 confirmed – the organizer had to change the plans for the event in order to avoid police having to shut the event down as an organized, unregistered gathering. People want to play this game together, despite the fact that they haven’t (yet) developed any real-time player-to-player interactions.

What about Augmented Reality?

I deliberately didn’t mention the augmented reality (AR) experience as one of the three main lessons from Pokémon Go. When you try to capture a Pokémon, it appears on your screen superimposed on a video from your camera, with the real-time world going by. The result has been a number of great photos of Pokémon “hanging out” in the real world and a lot of discussion about how AR will continue to be an important part of future games. My research indicates that the AR component draws people to try the game out if they aren’t familiar with the Pokémon franchise—it is very effective for attracting new users. But talk to people who have been playing the game for a few hours and the novelty of the AR fades away, while the other elements of gameplay step into focus. In order for AR to be a critical element of gameplay rather than a flashy feature, it needs to be developed further.

Dystopias such as Ready Player One and WALL-E portray technology as leading us to a life of indolence, obesity, and isolation. Pokémon Go presents us with a plausible alternative future, where technology enables us to better explore the world around us, increasing our interaction with familiar faces as well as strangers. Whether the game itself is just a passing fad or if it will have staying power is still to be determined, but whatever the case, this game will go down in history as moving the genre of mobile applications forward into a new era.

This post originally appeared on Mind The Product