Selling to Consumers

Convener: Phil Wolff

Notes-taker: Paul Osman

Tags:

OpenID, Identity, Data Portability, Evangelism, Marketing, Political Activism

Discussion notes:

• Who to evangelize to? B2B or B2C?
• Most efforts so far have been targeted towards site operators (B2B).
• B2B evangelism is still beneficial. Rely on them to educate consumers about benefits / value / etc. (Teach the teacher).
• How to market to consumers? Message is confusing (Too many choices!).
• How to simplify the stack (easy to implement, easy to use).
• What distribution / marketing channels to use?
  • We're an industry. Do we need a foundation (is it OpenID?)
  • What's been successful? Media (Fear mongering)
  • Inject the message into the user experience (i.e. remember sites directing users to update insecure browsers).
• Successful case studies (EV Certs, Creative Commons, Privacy Policies)
• Parallel with history of credit cards (i.e. used to be one per merchant, then VISA and MC convinced users that “membership had benefits”).
• Progressive disclosure: Don't expose everything to the user at once. Ease them in.
• Start with low risk but high value (i.e. start with friendfeed, not banks).
• Messages:
  • “Safe Identity”
  • “Let My Data Go!” - Agit-prop campaign, make consumers demand it
  • “Membership Has Its Benefits!” - VISA and Mastercard approach (it's a club!)
• Next Steps:
  • Get to the root of the problem (data portability? Identity?)
  • Solve the cognitive gap (Life Identity vs. Accounts)
  • Participants exchanged email addresses, another session proposed.