Jordi Nogués, Badfriends CEO: ‘The UX will be experimenting with including all five senses’

If you usually fly out of Spain, I’m sure you’ve seen the BADTORO image in every Duty Free at the airport. Since Jordi Nogués created the brand in 2005; the products featuring the friendly, rebel bull have spread around the world from shirts, caps, cups, and even to food items. Now Nogués has taken the leap from off-line to online and for that, he’s using Oct8ne. During this interview, we spoke with him about the challenges of digitalization.

First off, why a BADTORO? Jordi Nogués’ goal was to forgo the typical bull character and create a mascot that people could identify with. “We wanted a mascot with human traits and simple graphics that could identify with and communicate to a young audience well.”

Q – What happened when a customer wanted to buy a BADTORO product?

We realized that being in third-party physical stores wasn’t enough. Many customers wrote to us through social media looking for a way to contact us online because they wanted a product they couldn’t find in the store and therefore couldn’t buy.

Our fans have been wanting us to expand and we’ve crossed geographical barriers with this new e-commerce. We needed to rejuvenate ourselves and thanks to BADTORO’S success, we’ve created three new characters that make up our new online store: BADFRIENDS.

Q – What has been your experience with making the leap online?

Direct online sales haven’t been possible until this year. What’s excited us most about creating an e-commerce has been the possibility of having control over the sales channel, the ability to influence it, and have direct contact with the public.

We decided to create a new business strategy: expand the target audience and design new types of products to reach a more segmented market, which wasn’t enough with BADTORO.

Q –Your offline customers practically demanded you go online. How have people taken to the new e-commerce?

It’s very recent but we can say the welcome has been good, there’s a lot of excitement. Our own customers created the online content for BADTORO by uploading images on their social networks and using hashtags.

Q – What strategy will you use to keep your target audience in both channels?

We’ll start with a strategy using our reputation and positioning. We want to be visible in marketplaces like Amazon and, with this platform’s logistics, we’ll reach the market in five European countries: France, Italy, Spain, England and Germany.

We also created a strong SEO and content marketing strategy with a Badfriends blog and a description of the product listings. Additionally, we’re working with brand ambassadors to promote the mascot concept. We want to increase engagement and create co-branding with Badfriends and four other brands in addition to improving shipping and customer service.

In physical stores at the airport, we’ll direct the strategy towards improving packaging since it’s an incredibly powerful way to let customers know that our online store has opened. Furthermore, we’ll have product changes and many new features to come. We have a lot of work ahead of us but we trust that it’ll be a great year.

Q – Why did you choose Oct8ne for your online store?

One of the issues presented to us when dealing with online customers is that they’re located in different countries and we need to communicate in several languages. We have customers from England, Germany, Holland, the United States, Japan, etc. When we were considering a profitable customer service system, we discovered Oct8ne and its real-time translating feature.

Conversely, it’s essential for us to be able to show our customers products in the catalog while speaking with them. We can give them a shopping experience and make sales like we were in a physical store! These are two very strong points that led us to choose Oct8ne as a potential sales tool.

Q – What do you think is the biggest challenge for an online store?

The hardest part is achieving visibility and growing enough to regain your investment. In the end, the most difficult challenge is managing to meet the company’s goals using the budget that you created to gain traffic.

Q – What obstacles do you encounter with the drive to buy offline versus online?

One obstacle we encounter with offline purchases is the space we have for product exhibition. Online, it’s that the customer can’t touch or try on the products and the lack of personal attention that helps drive a purchase and close a sale. That’s why we opted for Oct8ne’s visual system, we wanted to bring that experience of reality closer.

Q – Where do you think the future of online customer service and user experience is going?

The future that awaits us is ambiguous with so many high-speed changes happening it’s difficult to think of an exact direction. However, it’s crystal clear that online customer service will have to be immediate, comprehensive and detailed.

Customer queries must be answered immediately and with solid, convincing arguments. The customer will have to be accompanied through the purchasing process at all times and new technology will ensure this happens.

Holograms are just around the corner, meaning the user experience will be experimenting with including all five senses. There will be so many ways to choose and buy a product that the purchase will be 100% sensory. On the other hand, artificial intelligence and virtual reality are an example of power in the market and will be key players in the future. Customer comments as a sales tool, as well as conversations in real-time, will continue to grow.