Manhattan Marketing Maven

Radio's Lessons for Mobile

Mobile marketers can learn a lot from the first mobile advertising medium – radio. And while the notion sounds retrograde, long established consumer behavior has simply shifted from one device to another. Bleeding edge mobile savants need to pay attention to the not-so-distant past. Consumers brought their analog habits to the mobile digital world. 

Radio, like mobile media, has only two key functions; time saving or time wasting. “Utility and entertainment or death” could easily be a shared marketing motto since on-the-go consumers want what they need instantly, have no patience for technical glitches and can be disappointed and gone in a nanosecond. Customer expectations created by mobility are extremely fickle. It’s not the technology; it’s service and relevance in the moment that counts. 

Consider these 4 lessons from our radio brethren. 

We are creatures of habit.  We get up and need stimulation. We commute and need to be either distracted, informed or calmed. And often we need companionship to fall asleep. AM and PM drive times are hard-wired behaviors. Content and devices can be targeted and timed to enhance and to intersect consumers’ day-to-day routines. The better integrated content and devices are into lifestyles and work routines; the better the marketing result. 

We rely on mood elevators. We are creatures governed by biorhythms that can be affected by sound, sight and content. People turn to music, imagery, news, sports and combative talk to change things up. Content impacts and regulates body chemistry, stress levels and happiness. Understanding and using these levers, brands can delight consumers. Mobile marketers can provide background and ambient cues or take center stage and drive attention and emotion if they understand who is tuned in, what their frame of mind is, where they are and what they need. 

We are our demographics. Birds of a feather flock together. Most people’s musical tastes are locked-in by the time they are 16 and are predictable based on age, geography, income and education. The people who love Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern are decidedly different. Different musical genres, design and display formats, content areas and messaging techniques appeal to different audience segments. One size never fits all. Mobile media needs to be programmed like cable TV or radio by deeply understanding and appealing to the psychology, demographics, sensibilities and lifestyles of thin audience slices. It’s all about how the content resonates with the target customer. 

Everything is local. The FCC artificially limited the range of radio stations in the licensing process. And even though wireless mobile devices can work almost anywhere, a 10-mile radius bounds most lives. Geo-fencing is a new term but hardly a new concept. Proximity, familiarity and convenience drive behavior. Mobile content has to leverage GPS and other emerging technologies to connect needs with nearby handy solutions. 

And while mobile is the newest media darling, the principles that will drive its success as a commercial medium are as old as Marconi.

 

 

 

 

 

Why SoLoMo is Running in SloMo

Social, local and mobile are the next big thing; the last mile; where the rubber meets the road, the ultimate game changer. The pundits predicted 2012 would be the year of SoLoMo. Now the same pundits predict hockey stick growth in 2013.

Yet in spite of steady growth in mobile adoption, smartphone penetration, soaring text and video volume and the steady growth of local search, the fantasy of immediate, relevant, personal mobile advertising penetration hasn’t yet materialized. 

It’s not for lack of technology. Four other factors are retarding the growth of mobile advertising and offers on a local level. 

Phone Sensibility. Mobile phones are the last perceived bastion of personal privacy. Most people are outraged at getting telemarketing calls, robo calls or text ads on their phone. Intruding on a cell phone is considered the ultimate invasion of privacy. Consumers are not ready to be targeted, followed and hounded like Tom Cruise was in the movie, AI. 

Merchants Have Been Burned. Groupon and Living Social poisoned the well. Promising amazing results and delivering losses, these social and mobile marketing schemes have soured merchants. Without a provable ROI, there is no appetite to play in this arena. Disappointed retailers eager to embrace new technology and engage customers have been burned. Their anger has extended to all forms of social and mobile advertising. 

No People or Budgets. Main street retailers don’t have the time, the savvy, the people or the money to play in this space. Most don’t even use e-mail effectively much less more complex technology that requires considerable strategy and labor to execute properly. Even the bigger guys don’t have the databases or the systems in place to execute this smartly using the built-in GPS function on a neighborhood, zip code or block level. And since nobody as hit it big yet, there is no imperative to keep up with the Joneses. 

Paradigm Paralysis. Retailers are a cheap, conservative, monkey-see; monkey-do bunch. They like to do what they’ve always done. They know what works and they stick to it. And while many mouth the mobile mantra, very few invest the time or the money to properly test the waters. So while the tech guys predict success and the app coders crank out functionality, retailers, for the most part, sit on the sidelines waiting to see how well an outlier or a maverick does before they make a copycat move.

4 Mobile Messaging Scenarios

The explosive growth of mobile media combined with growing adoption of Internet TV creates new complications and new opportunities for marketers. While we are just beginning to understand who uses which device for what tasks and when; its time to start thinking about how marketers can intersect or intercept consumers with commercial messages in ways that are welcomed, interactive and acceptable. 

We are beginning to reach a critical mass of consumers owning and using multiple devices. People like me have smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops and Internet TV. In some cases we use them interchangeably. In others, we do distinct tasks on each device. So far, we haven’t discerned any usage patterns that are predictable by psychographic or demographic variables. 

This fundamentally changes the way we think about creative and content development. Rather than thinking up and designing  a TV spot or a rich media banner, we now have to come up with a big idea. Then we have to efficiently develop ways to expand, parse and interact with it. It’s less about filling a media unit with content and more about creating a brand experience that suits mobile consumers.

Some emerging data hints that form dictates function and that individual devices are being used by default or by preference to undertake specific tasks. For example, it’s becoming clear that tablets are primarily being used for entertainment, information seeking and e-mail. Similarly complex tasks, like filling out mortgage applications,  are being done on laptops and desktops while smartphones are emerging as a fast-acting utility tool for on-the-go tasks. 

Assuming that marketers still want to efficiently target high probability customers with the right message, at the right time and on the right device, this opens up a number of new possibilities for creating and transmitting integrated campaigns. But it requires us to consider a broader array mobile and digital devices with expanding technical capabilities in-tandem with TV, cable, print, out of home, email and other traditional advertising channels.  

We know that more email is now read on mobile devices that static devices. The incredible consumption of video is moving in the same direction. Mobile search is becoming an increasingly important factor, especially for retailers. So who is using which device, when and to accomplish what become critical to defining creative direction and success. 

Consider 4 new mobile-driven messaging and media options. 

Frequency. Impressions and exposure equal awareness. This is a marketing and media maxim. Given multiple devices crafting a single impactful message and communicating it often will yield greater awareness sooner.  The same message, more times on more devices equals higher reach and potentially more persuasion. 

Imagine transmitting a solo message at roughly the same time using an array of devices synched with TV, radio or online roadblocks or page take-overs to create a super-roadblock that could blanket a target audience and potential earn added viral distribution. If you could synchronize a persuasive offer and communicate it within a defined time window (think SuperBowl), in theory, you could create a surround-sound of messaging that could penetrate and persuade a target group faster than ever before. 

Sequencing. A variation on the frequency idea would be to sequence a brand’s key message by parsing it out over time. This takes the Burma Shave OOH approach, circa 1940s, and applies it to the post-digital world. Using the same mass media/all device tactic, a brand could communicate a series of short messages over time using the roadblock tactic. The additive value of sequential messages over a imited time period can expose a broader impression of a brand. 

For brands with complicated messages or a series of products, sequencing could build awareness and momentum. Alternatively, a brand could assign different parts of the message or different offers to different devices at the same time. Maybe the brand promise goes on tablets while product messaging is placed in online media, but the offer, the coupon or the interactive CTA is assigned to smartphones. 

Fractal Messaging. The opposite of frequency and a variation on sequencing would be to acknowledge different facets of a brand’s appeal and expose different facets or offers at different times to different people using different devices.  

This tactic assumes that consumer moods, mindsets and tasks are different by device. So while prospects may resent ads on their smartphone, they might be willing to watch pre-rolls or other video formats on a tablet or a laptop.  By understanding how consumers use devices both in terms of the mechanics (who, what and where) and the sensibilities (openness to being interrupted or interacted with) brands can optimize engagement and satisfaction by aligning with consumers’ workflow and life style patterns.  

Orchestration. Another approach is to assign specific marketing tasks to specific devices in the same way that Bach, Beethoven and Brahms assigned specific roles to specific instruments. One plays the base theme. Another adds the variations. The third, fourth and fifth infuse the experience with complex harmonies or contrapuntal sounds. In this media and messaging scenario, TV lays down the basic message, while tablets or online media amplify or expand the message and smartphones become the channel for consumer reaction, interaction and response.  

And this is just the beginning. Mobile, new digital channels and social media are expanding our choices and expanding our thinking about messaging and media. Its time to start thinking and experimenting with creative and media options.

The Next SoLoMo Killer App

I have seen the post-Groupon SoLoMo retail solution. It’s called Leloca. 

And it’s running a Beta in New York with 1000+ consumers and 200+ restaurants, spas, gyms and shops. It simply and elegantly delivers the universal technology promise; immediate value exchanges between merchants and consumers and, in so doing, joins Zipcar and Airbnb in efficiently using technology to allocate time sensitive resources. 

Founded by Douglas Krone, a sushi-eating, dog loving Northwestern grad and serial entrepreneur, Leloca has a development team in India and 15 employees smiling and dialing to enroll merchants in Chicago. 

The mobile app is designed to sell available inventory, mostly restaurant seats, in real time. Merchants determine when, where and what they want to offer and set the parameters in a simple dashboard. Consumers get alerts and offers from the app. Merchants get free listings and pay just $1 per customer, validated and tracked by a unique code issued directly to each participating customer. 

For retailers, Leloca gives sophisticated yield management tools to smaller retailers with no investment in technology. Using a simple interface, merchants set the offer, the number of deals available, the time parameters and the geographic target. Some select a near-in trading zone; others opt for an exclusion zone to attract new customers from adjacent areas. Unlike Groupon, there’s no revenue share, no required loss-leader offer and no opportunity cost. And during the beta period, new merchants get 3 months of free service. 

For 116 million US smartphone users, especially the 8.9% who use their devices to seek out discounts or offers, the always-on iOS or Android app feeds you deals. There are no vouchers, no credit cards needed and no fine print. Deals are pushed to you. If you bite, you get a code that is live for 45 minutes and redeemed at the point of sale. It’s exclusively mobile, immediate and easy. 

The next wave of apps uses GPS and mapping linked to a rules engine platform to create productive in-the-moment experiences. They require little or no effort from consumers and can be shared via social networks to enable frictionless retailing.

 

 

 

 

Target Content by Device

Armed with smartphones, tablets and laptop/desktop computers, consumers are beginning to use each device to do distinct tasks. And while e-mail, Internet access, search, Facebook, music, photos and gaming are widely used on all three screens, increasingly consumers are turning to specific tools to accomplish specific things. 

Smartphones are the all purpose in-motion utility device. The voice/text/audio recording tool replacing watches, alarm clocks, instant cameras, to-do lists, address books, PDAs, gameboys, calendars, weather 800 numbers and soon -- wallets. Tablets are becoming multi-dimensional infotainment centers. And personal computers, which are more likely than either phones or tablets to be shared devices, are serious tools for serious matters and the repository, or gateway to the cloud repository, of our key files and critical data. 

The division of labor seems to a function of technical capabilities, psychology, demographics and habits. People are used to doing certain things on the go, like texting, calling, checking e-mail, tweeting, etc. Shopping is a mixed bag. According to PriceGrabber, 1 percent of on online shoppers will buy exclusively using a mobile device and another 45 percent will combine offline, online and mobile to make a purchase.  And while the number of these tasks is expanding to include payments, ticketing or boarding passes and app use, we are, after all, creatures of habit where tradition and inertia plus ease of use drive many of our behaviors. 

107 million Americans, 46% of US adults own a smartphone. The average person glances at their phone 150 times at or every 6.5 minutes. Fifteen percent download mobile apps, 10% research products using their phone and 4% bought something with an average value of $80. Forty-eight percent use their phone to get coupons and 44 percent check product reviews. Forty percent use their phones while watching TV and two-thirds listen to music on their phones. Payments are the next new thing for smart phone users. 

The 54.8 million tablet users, 19 percent of US adults, account for 22 percent of Internet users and are generally concentrated among the better educated and higher earning segments, more than half of whom are millennials. Four times more tablet users access the Internet on their device than smart phone users and they spend 4.4 hours/week using their tablets accounting for 4 percent of online retail traffic. Seventy-two percent make weekly purchases averaging $123.00, about twice the time smartphone users spend shopping and twice the value of smart phone purchases. 

Tablets are becoming the preferred device for consuming long form content that requires longer attention spans. More than half of tablet users use apps, watch videos, read newspapers or magazines, read books or play games on their devices. More than half have paid for access to music, books, movies or TV shows. iPad users, the majority of tablet owners, spend 35 percent of their time surfing the web, 22% on social media, 12 percent each on playing games or watching videos. 

Desktops and laptops have perceptually merged in consumers’ minds. And while these computers introduced us to e-mail, web video, games, ecommerce and social media the portability, speed, and convenience of tablets are eclipsing the laptop. Yet consumers overwhelming see legacy devices as more secure and critical for storing information, It’s hard to imagine consumers filling out a mortgage, credit card or the common college application on a phone or a tablet. Similarly, even though tablet traffic to tax preparations sites is up 50 percent, most of us still do our taxes and our financial work on desktops or laptops. 

Savvy marketers will keep an eye on these behaviors and will create content, build messaging and promotions using native functionality built-into the devices in tandem with variables like day of week, time of day, GPS location and other factors to leverage existing device usage and provide consumers with an experience that will feel natural, organic, useful and fun.

 

You & Your Data

You've probably been hearing a lot about Big Data; huge databases accumulated by companies. The challenge is to make sense of that data in ways that personalize the experience for consumers and sell more stuff. 

The other faster moving data trend is collecting different sets of data, linking them and automating them to serve specific purposes. A huge number of start-ups are based on this premise. They use Facebook, as the database of choice because it’s rich (and getting richer each day) in personal information and because Facebook has made it easy and cheap for developers to get access to its data. 

Imagine a travel company that uses your Facebook info (posts, photos, apps, games) to figure out what kind of traveler you are. They know or can infer who you are, where you went, whom you went with and what you did there. Then they marry your info to a database of travel locations and deals and serve you up offers that match your style and your inferred budget. 

The richer the data sets; the richer the value to you and to them. The underlying assumption is that people will appreciate data mash-ups because it will yield more personal, relevant and valuable ways to enrich our lives expand our connections one to each other and make our money go further. At the moment this might seem, far-fetched. But when you realize that more than 25% of the population has always lived with the Internet and is very comfortable with living out loud, sharing their actions and ideas publicly and is quickly embracing the latest technology, you can begin to see the near-term future. 

The use of data is simultaneously creepy and useful. Studies have shown that the vast majority of Americans will trade off private data for utility or value. As data sets automatically talk to each other, this trade-off will be perceived as less scary and more useful. We’ll get used to being cued and prompted easily and quickly. 

A principle tool for data collection is your mobile phone.  You may not realize it but everything you do with your phone is stored and captured. It’s easy to figure out who you talk to or text, how often, from where and at what times. 

Your phone's GPS device records and potentially tracks or monitors your whereabouts and movements. The built-in accelerometer can imply what activities you do, the speed you do it and the likely impact. There are many apps with sensors that measure and record vital stats like blood pressure, heart rate, etc. All of these technologies reveal a great deal about you that could be used to personalize offers and enrich or personalize a brand experience. 

This is data arena is where technologists and entrepreneurs are playing today.  There will be some horrific privacy breaches and some amazing new gadgets that come out of this tension between privacy and technology.

 

 

Why FourSquare is Toast!

Foursquare, the leading independent location-based social network, cannot survive because it lacks scale, context, committed constituents and a compelling customer experience.  The purchase of Gowalla by Facebook, signals the beginning of the end for one-trick ponies like Foursquare. 

Foursquare is a case study in rapid growth but unrealized potential. In spite of growing from 2 to 15 million total users since July 2010, recent research from Forrester indicates that only 30 percent of Internet users are aware of the category called location-based services.  A mere 6 percent actually have used them. And just two percent are active weekly users. 

Three-quarters of Foursquare members are 23-45 year old early adopters, 73 percent men and 37 percent women, who are twice as likely to share product information, promotion codes, coupons, discounts, offers and their results from online games. And while sharing might be caring, the numbers are very low and the ability to track and measure this marketing potential are very fuzzy.

As a proud member of the active 2 percent, who connects his Foursquare account with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, I can tell you that the customer experience is bewildering. You check in. Each time you check in, you get a different number of points benchmarked against different set of friends. Points are awarded with each check-in but they never seem to accumulate. Nobody knows what the points mean or what to do with them. Similarly I’ve earned a bunch of badges, whose names are forgettable and purpose indiscernible. 

Reaction to my frequent check-ins, from my social networks, range from validation or criticism of my restaurant selections, to occasional tips about out of town destinations to mild irritation about why my friends might care where I am and what I’m doing. 

From a marketing standpoint Foursquare could be empowering local merchants, pushing out timely geo-based offers, rewarding frequent store visits, enhancing the in-store experience and connecting or cueing friends in nearby vicinities. But they haven’t really got traction on these prospects from either merchants or customers.There has been some big brand experimentation but no significant campaigns on a regional or national scale.

Location-based marketing will not go away. Pure play LBS providers like Foursquare will disappear as the geo-social functionality gets wrapped into larger contexts and subsumed in e-commerce, m-commerce and f-commerce functionalities.

 

Starbucks: The Sleeping Giant in Mobile Payments

Verizon fired the first shot in the battle for mobile payments by blocking Google Wallet from its new Galaxy Nexus smart phone. The initial posturing will focus on building exclusive audiences of users and by locking in payment functionality model-by-model and carrier by carrier. Similarly contenders will block out competitors in the race to reach a critical mass of mobile wallet/payments users.

Getting mobile payments to market will be a 4-way fight. The contenders will be banks and credit card co-ops (Visa & MasterCard), Online Merchants (Amazon, eBay and Google), Telecommunications carriers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and handset builders (Nokia, Motorola). Each segment brings a different perspective and different set of skills, competitive advantages and perceptual baggage to the game. 

Mobile payments will be data-rich and complicated. Not only will players have to move transaction data around securely, they’ll have to instantly interact with multiple networks, process and bill payments and handle tricky customer service issues.

The contenders track record in each of these areas is a mixed bag. Most are counting on large installed customer bases to give them a going-in posture and to piggy-back marketing efforts and reduce marketing costs. Many have exclusive phone models, like Verizon’s Galaxy Nexus, where they can control access and how the payment functionality actually works and the partners in the processing chain. Nobody wants to miss out on the huge potential revenue pie and nobody wants to pay the other guy transmission, access, systems or processing fees. 

Mobile payments will be a real dog fight since carriers, credit card issuers and online merchants have serious digital and CRM experience, big data bases and partners or affiliates in-place. The Banks will be the weak sister in this battle both because they are conservative marketers and because this is an extension or add-on service, that rarely gets the backing needed. But the scale of the potential market – everybody in the US buying virtually everything using a pocket-held device -- is too big a pot of gold to ignore. 

Different technical approaches and framing compelling customer value propositions by creating reasons to believe or claims of superiority for one method will require considerable creativity.  The horse race will draw consistent press attention and buzz, since it’s hot, a natural extension of mobile service and something that is very useful for consumers. The branding and lead generation work will have to be extremely creative and will live at the nexus of social-digital-mobile. 

The sleeping giant is Starbucks; not exactly one of the usual suspects. But Starbucks with 7000+ stores and concessions in Target, Barnes & Noble, airports and countless other locations has been doing mobile payments on smart phones for a year using a proprietary app. 

Customers loaded $110 million onto their iPhones, Blackberries and Android phones in 2011 and completed 6 million mobile transactions at the point of sale. Starbucks has enjoyed a hockey stick growth curve in the acceptance and use of both pre-paid cards and its mobile app. They have processed more than 26 million individual payments. 

Essentially Starbucks taught early adapters and average customers how to use mobile payments. They set fundamental expectations about ease-of-use, speed, utility and the overall mobile brand experience. Anyone promoting a mobile wallet will have to meet or beat Starbucks on these dimensions to get serious consumer traction. 

If I were a retailer I’d want to ally with Starbucks and use their system to jump-start a mobile payments program. And while there are probably some technical and legal gating factors, who wouldn’t want the Starbucks crowd visiting your locations and swiftly completing mobile transactions? 

Stay tuned. Let’s see how Howard Schultz plays his hand.

 

Realistic Thinking About Mobile Media

Mobile media makes marketers drool. Unfortunately they are focused on the rapid adoption of the technology and the increasing use of smartphones, apps and mobile-enabled services. They are thinking about all those people they can intersect and message on-the-go. 

But they are not looking at the attitudes and adoption patterns of users. Most people don’t necessarily want media intrusions.  They want to use a mobile utility on their terms and on their timetable. Is there any surprise that getting an ad on your cellular phone is still considered bad form? Does anyone really question why there are so few opt-in lists available for SMS or graphical mobile campaigns? Users want to drive. They want information, search keywords, comparison shopping data and rewards and offers when they want them; not when marketers want to transmit them. 

We are also seeing distinctive use patterns by device type. iPads have become news and entertainment media that in some psycho-demographic segments challenge TV while smartphones are being used as more practical utilities. Comparing behavior by device, we see that some tasks like applying for a mortgage or filing in complex forms are still the province of desktops and laptops while quickly checking balances; directions, movie times, medications or calendars are done by phone. 

And while publishers and portals like AOL are changing design parameters to create bigger ad units and expanding their reach, these moves correspond to corporate revenue goals rather than consumer preferences. Ironically as mobile ad spending increases to $1.8 billion by the end of 2012 according to eMarketer and brands plough more dollars into rich mobile media and mobile video ads, the devices themselves make it easier and easier to skip or ignore advertisements. Outside ads embedded in apps, users can easily sidestep the messages targeted to them. 

The persuasive path or brands is to create or associate with mobile content, games or utilities valued by your target customers rather than SPAM them in a new media.

 

Google Takes on Facebook

The introduction of Google Plus, amidst of frenzy of product improvements and introductions by Google, represents the first salvo in a war between Facebook and Google for the soul and the direction of the Internet. It may also reveal the thinking and ambitions of Larry Page, who now has a firm grip on Google’s tiller. 

Google, the ubiquitous utility with a billion users, might be the only contender with the technical firepower, cash, scale and energy to take on Zuckerberg & Company, who clearly aim to swallow the Internet as evidenced by the use of Facebook Connect as single sign-on device, the widespread use of the Like button as a sharing and voting tool and regulated but wide access to the Facebook API as the connective tissue underlying an array of functionality. 

As Ben Elowitz noted in his All Things Digital blog piece, Google focused on processes and utilities (search, maps, e-mail, satellite images) to dominate the Web since the 90s. But Facebook, focusing on people and the connections between them, has already matched and will regularly exceed Google’s traffic. Facebook is becoming a “new home base” for people to use the Web. As the gateway to content and functionality, Facebook will be in a position to set the agenda and squash nascent competitors. 

Google + is a button (similar to Like) and a social network (reflective of Facebook). In addition to launching these directly competitive offerings, Google has also redesigned its search home page, introduced free analytics tools for social and mobile media, launched Mobile Sites landing pages, built a Google Plus Android app, created Google Swiffy which converts Flash files to HTML5 and promises even more inventions and upgrades. 

The early reviews for the Google + social network project are mostly favorable. It’s clear that Google has learned from its past mistakes and has adopted tools and lessons learned from others in the space. The friending and sorting tool looks and feels like Plaxo’s friend finder. The home page, minus a wall, resembles a streamlined Facebook page.  

The new functionality – Circles for finding and sorting friends is not new but emphasizes the need to bucket friends and makes it easy.  Hangout, a Skype-like, group video chat function is a nice to have feature that will appeal to certain audience segments. Sparks and Huddle allow an individual to cue or organize online or offline group activity easily. 

Other not-so-new but useful refined features include emphasis on mobile and social tools like an easy photo upload tool, instant connections to Gmail, a simple sharing mechanism, the ability to add location, using the GPS function, to any post. While this will appeal to developers eager to participate in Android’s spectacular growth, these are cool and useful but hardly killer apps. 

Clearly Google watched, listened and responded to evolving needs and nuances in the use of social media. The Google Plus features make sense and add incremental value to the social networking experience. They also refine, build and improve functions that will enable and accelerate advertising sales opportunities. What’s not clear is why somebody would either switch from Facebook to Google+ or add it as a second social network. 

Google+ will get a lot of attention. Launched using Google’s standard BETA-invitation only tactic, it is spawning curiosity and demand. But the really play is long term as King Kong meets Godzilla.