Back when I was working on my doctorate at the University of Washington, I belonged to a working group of professors and grad students in the communications department. The goal of that group was to focus attention on gaps in social communication. That is, our ability as a society or societal parts to communicate with one another in support of collective action - taking steps together. We worked through influences that impacted this step-taking ability such as "recognized threat", "collective opportunity", "historical redress", "causitive neglect" and other drivers of people coming together to solve a problem. These discussions impacted my research on global environmental issues; getting people to recognize a phenomenon as a problem, let alone one requiring their active engagement in communicating with one another. Tough to do with the tools of the early 1990s.
Fast forward to the second decade of the 2000s. I'm here, at this location. I know everything about it, and now you will know how this spot is relevant to me. I can relate to one person, every person I know, or potentially every person in the world over information and insight and tie it to a location, event, meeting, cultural phenomenon, localization of a global occurence.
I was touched by the recent Egyptian revolution, having completed my graduate research in Cairo I crossed Tahrir Square on a daily basis and could relate my own experiences to the images being shown across the world. I had been in many of the building being shown on TV, and the bridge occupied by tanks was my path home each day to the Dohi neighborhood. My point is that I can add my context to the conversation easily now and interested parties from across the world can link with me to understand, contribute, act, support and form community with me over a topic. We can be a collective because the tools are here. Now.
Local context provides the key. A reader can understand a particular place, at a particular time from the perspective of anyone. And I want to bring in a commercial opportunity successfully leveraging this ability. The Cinnicinati Inquirer has introduced a competitive tool to Yelp and Foursquare called, of all things, "Porkappolis". Cute title, powerful tool. This is a location-based app that plans to go HTML5 so as to cross mobile platforms with the toolset for you to get info and give info about a particular place. How is this better than a national/global tool like a Yelp? The local insight always will provide a better personalized experience. And personalization is the key. The ability to upload my personal experience about a place/time, and the ability to put relevant insight at the right moment in my location gives me better decision making power and better communication ability. So great, I can know everything about the local restaurant and choose to go there or not. Now add in an instantaneous couponing function, a social media function so all my friends can meet up, and see my rating of the experience. All this becomes cataloged to form the collective history of a place. My personal contribution to the collective experience.
Why was I so taken with the Porkappolis application? It's the understanding of their audience and their ability to provide better, relevant tools for everyday living, socializing and communicating. In my work advising companies on their mobile channel, I often find them desiring an application for the sake of the technology itself - its closeness to the target audience, its immediacy for access, its reminder of the brand on every viewing. But what few brands realize is their ability to impact people's lives for the better through the mobile channel. They can empower folks through an experience or tool that is personnally relevant, and evolves to continue relevance to that audience. I love seeing the client's face light up as I explain how they will engage their prospects and current customers right now through select viewings of products, coupons and brand communications, and then in the future as each interaction adds to the collective knowledge of a customer's likes/dislikes and therefore better personalization on the part of the brand communication. Simply put, a company knows you better to provide you with better service. In this way, a mass product company becomes a personal shopper for you, gives you their brand to shape through your input on the brand experience, and allows you to guide the future of products and services. All from your location. Porkappolis does this, and every city that still has a functioning local news gathering organization should have a specialized app for this purpose. Go Pork, Get Personal.
One's ability to
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, October 31, 2010
4G Conference - We're Overloading the System!
Chicago was great recently when I attended the 4G Wireless Conference. And while there were plenty of backhaul discussions, next-gen microwave technologies, and the odd apps vendor, the thrust of the conference could not be ignored - apps size and consumer usage has exceeded wireless network carriers' abilities to manage. Traffic offloading to WiFi, data price metering, measured response implementing were all discussed in the speeches, in the corridors, and even in the lunchroom. And the data type prevalent in the discussion was all about video uploads and downloads. Indeed, video is expected to quickly become the de facto language of wireless. Better get ready everyone.
One of the best conversations I had during the conference was with the OpenWave guys demonstrating their video compression technology. They demonstrated compression to optimize for several different device and network bandwidth constraints and I have to admit that the picture quality degredation could hardly be noticed across the different settings, which is excellent. Now, there is no upload capability yet with OpenWave, but I was assured they are working on it. Nor is theirs a device-detecting technology, which is unfortunate, for I think the winners in this category will come down to either their business model or technology. Business model will win out where they can enable partner companies to improve their revenue and/or cost-containment metrics (and they'll need to be able to detect what device and what plan for that to work), or by owning the technology sweet spot & in-code flexibillity. Lots of chatter about larger device and carrier companies taking a hard look at adding video optimization technology to their arsenal (spoke to ATT and Samsung). Video is already half of all data traffic on some networks (according to colloquium speakers) with 90% threshold expected to be hit within 2 years. This industry is popping right now!
I'm looking forward to attending the Mobile Marketing Association awards show in Los Angeles this coming month. I'm to be honored as one of the judges for the 2010 awards contest and it should be enlightening to rub elbows with West Coast thinkers in the mobile marketing industry. In attendance will be both brands and agencies, with the odd tech company or OEM providing their perspective. I'll report back on the workshops and awards so stay tuned.
One of the best conversations I had during the conference was with the OpenWave guys demonstrating their video compression technology. They demonstrated compression to optimize for several different device and network bandwidth constraints and I have to admit that the picture quality degredation could hardly be noticed across the different settings, which is excellent. Now, there is no upload capability yet with OpenWave, but I was assured they are working on it. Nor is theirs a device-detecting technology, which is unfortunate, for I think the winners in this category will come down to either their business model or technology. Business model will win out where they can enable partner companies to improve their revenue and/or cost-containment metrics (and they'll need to be able to detect what device and what plan for that to work), or by owning the technology sweet spot & in-code flexibillity. Lots of chatter about larger device and carrier companies taking a hard look at adding video optimization technology to their arsenal (spoke to ATT and Samsung). Video is already half of all data traffic on some networks (according to colloquium speakers) with 90% threshold expected to be hit within 2 years. This industry is popping right now!
I'm looking forward to attending the Mobile Marketing Association awards show in Los Angeles this coming month. I'm to be honored as one of the judges for the 2010 awards contest and it should be enlightening to rub elbows with West Coast thinkers in the mobile marketing industry. In attendance will be both brands and agencies, with the odd tech company or OEM providing their perspective. I'll report back on the workshops and awards so stay tuned.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Potty Training the Mobile Marketing Association Awards
There's no easy way to put this.
Every one of the many hundred of entries into the 2010 Mobile Marketing Association awards is obsolete. As a judge for the contest, I reviewed all of the entries across the 8 categories (a time-consuming chore) and picked the better, more interesting entries to judge for the contests. While I cannot comment on then entries individually, or the categories themselves prior to the MMA posting their results, I can say that in the 6 to 8 months since many of the entries were put into the field, the evolution of the mobile marketing industry has sped up to include new thinking, strategy, technology, integration tactics and other additions. Even the campaigns put into the field just prior to the contest start, and thus awaiting results, seem quaint in their design. To be specific:
- The "enter a contest" - style entries where mobile marketing through SMS leads to deeper engagements as the contest continues are woefully inadequate. The smartphone adoption rate has accelerated both in this country and around the world to the point where if you are not creating new or leveraging existing mobile applications you are not engaging your target audience.
- The focus on iPhone entries missed the open app Android revolution. Many ad agencies sent their clients down the iPhone app road in what appears to be a "test the waters" dip into mobile marketing. Like Elvis Presley keeping his trucker's license in case this whole rock and roll thing turns out to be a passing fad, marketing to the device on everyone's hip is a no-brainer for longevity - the smart ad agencies and direct branders will be looking across platforms. There may be several operating systems in existance for a while (iPhone, Android, Symbian, others) or consolidation may take it down quickly - but ignoring Android seems an unsafe bet.
- The broadcast-style appeal of many campaigns miss the point of reaching someone's personal communications device. It's not a place to pitch me like anyone else - you must know me and be relevant to my life or I won't pay attention. By life, I mean my life stage, my segment, my behavior, my needs. I'm not just a consumer, I'm a person moving through time and space. I require a personal relationship with a brand before I will engage and stay engaged. Too many of the entries were one-shot interactions. The brand measured x% more awareness or one-time downloads of an app to get the freebie associated with it. That says nothing about the ongoing engagement the campaign drove. Good mobile marketing will understand a person in their environment of time and space, and seek to create ongoing engagements - person as first responder market research participant, helper to design campaign for their location/culture, suggester of brand modification/messaging, etc.
There's one example I can relate that truly captures the best of mobile marketing. This campaign was not included in the MMA 2010 entries, but if it had, it should have been considered a top contender. Kimberly Clark recently launched its iGo potty training application from its Pull Ups brand. While limited to iPhone, the app demonstrates the campaign clearly understands its target customer, empowers them in their life stage with a tool that is time and space relevant, and solves a problem in a better, more creative way than was available before. (see picture below). It's a timer and a calendar (to record when child goes potty on time), and has a reward function when the two line up (iPhone game for kids of appropriate age). Kids are already interested in their parent's device, so the chance to earn small rewards (short game) that collectively add up to bigger rewards (longer, more interesting games and videos), is incentive for them to embrace an otherwise potentially contentious task.
What I like about this campaign is that it provides a multi-touch engagement that empowers the customer (parents) with a new tool to make easier a potentially frustrating task (potty training a child). As the father of two kids, I can speak to the challenge of potty training, and how welcome would be a tool that would both shorten the total potty training time, and make more bearable the parent-child interaction during the process. Potty training can takes months, and a tool that gets used every day several times a day to make life easier has strong potential to go viral as parents talk. From the customer review on the Apple apps site, this is exactly what is happening - there's benefit seen in the app to solve a problem, potential for engagements with the app can number in the thousands over the lifetime of its usefulness, and if the app can indeed shave time off the potty training schedule, then every parent should want it (I have yet to meet a parent who desired to prolong the potty training experience for their child).
KC knows every parent will be entering the potty training time period with their child, and this provides mindshare in a positive, helpful and time/place dependent way, and when a parent passes this along to another parent in a viral marketing manner, the first parent is reinforced in that social relationship as a hero. What if all of our mobile apps solved such seemingly intractable problems? Brand as day saver and hero enabler is a great story to tell.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Mobile Advertising - Expanding Brand Engagement
Being engaged in the business of mobile advertising, I've wanted for many months to put down on paper several of the key learnings drawn from actively selling in this environment, sitting through innumerable conversations with other companies engaged in this industry, and consulting with software, hardware, advertising agencies and other partners trying to understand and leverage customer sales within the mobile space. Below, I've attempted to set out history, key learnings and guidelines for brands as they negotiate customer interactions within their mobile lifestyle.
Moving a Brand from Passive to Participant
In ancient branding history, clients hired advertising agencies to present brands to prospects through mass media channels. More recent history has clients hiring agencies to optimize brand messages to reach prospects through focused niche media channels. Now, in the mobile advertising age, customers interactively engage products and companies in a location-based socially-informed mobile environment. Agencies help companies jump start and promote the conversation.
Mobile devices drive multiple brand touch types
Let's start with the types of touches: mobile applications, text messages, GPS-derived interactions, social media interactions. Mobile applications, from the very simple like money conversion calculators or calendaring apps to complex apps like games played within a social networking environment, offer brands the opportunity for inter-application advertising, application sponsorships, and applications whose very features engage the brand's core attributes (ex. Kimberly Clark's poll generating application on which way should the toilet paper hang on the roller). Text messages are another opportunity for interacting within a mobile environment. As part of an overall offline/online/mobile campaign, SMS can be used with embedded video/text content to either drive attention or receive attention from other advertising channels. Text messages can result in clicks of mobile web links, click-to-map, click-to-app (APIs), click-t0-opt-in, a straight brand message click-to-enter-contest, click-to-enter-review, click-to-contribute-opinion, click-to-coupon, click-to-join-group and other actions. The rising percent of the U.S. population with smart phones containing integrated GPS (20% in 2010 estimated to rise to 50% by end of 2011) offers the opportunity for location-based advertising with interactivity such as maps, coupons, social networking, time-based promotions (malls, bluetooth advertising), contests, reviews and other time + place sensitive communications. The environment now can feed the device and respond to the device's presence and communications. So, if I'm in the mall and the store senses my presence it can send a message to me via bluetooth. If I move away from the store, the store knows and can send another message, sweetening the offer or sending some other type of communication to build goodwill and future interactions. And that leads me to the most intriguing aspect of the mobile brand communication interaction - the social networking crossroads brands must now pass. There is opportunity for constant, instant give and receive either 1 to 1 or 1 to many in which the brand is in continuous definition through social commentary - what people say about a brand shapes the definition of that brand dynamically. And engagement with the brand in this manner feeds the experience a brand conveys. As any marketer will tell you, a brand is a promise for a particular expected experience. Through social networking accessible on the go, that experience is continually being redefined; consequently, the brand itself is fluid.
Lessons learned from running mobile advertising campaigns
The device on everyone's hip is transitioning from a calling device and an internet searching device to a personal assistant device. Applications either nascent to the device or downloadable through an apps consolidator, in conjunction with the device design itself, are creating a cyborg-like interaction: the device can understand our likes/dislikes, wants and needs and then go seek these brands out on its own time. Brands therefore need to engage not only the person owning the device, but the device and applications themselves. Brands must understand the technology and wherever possible align themselves with technology designers to insert and evolve the brand within the technology's functioning. So the game doesn't just have the brand as a sponsor. It has the brand functioning as a credit for a free level up when a player purchases the brand. It has the brand embedded as a digital base or storefront within the gameplay. In a calendaring application, the brand inserts itself to show when the product should be repurchased or drunk or replaced. A food brand could populate the calendar with a daily menu item featuring the brand as an ingredient. Any number of creative methods are employable when the nature of the application environment is considered.
Engagement is key
Attention span is dead. When location and time relevance are coupled with social networking we as mobile people no longer have patience for something as passive a measure as attention. We need to be engaged or left alone - our cognitive space gets greedy for other engagement opportunities. Indeed, we now have engagement spans. One study I read recently from Ground Truth Inc suggested social networking sites gathered more than an hour a day on average for mobile phone internet users, and that 60% of all mobile internet use was directed at social networking sites/applications. That's a tremendous opportunity for brands to engage consumers and vice versa; mobile engagement has become social entertainment. So when brands engage through mobile environments, they are fulfilling the role of enterainer of the moment, with the social engagement further promoting ownership of the brand through conversation. The role of time and place relevancy in the brand communication is to increase the mobile engagement - its entertainment value, its social commentary value, its immediate usage value.
Grow the conversation or blink out
Consequent to the rise of social networking, a brand does not exist until its is commented on and shared. Now, that's a bold statement, one that flips traditional conceptions of advertising over. Brand image is one of the most closely held resources of a company or product. Relinquishing even a small amount of control is the antithesis of what marketers are taught. But I believe that control in the mobile social networked environment is an illusion. Besides, the only detrimental situation for a brand is to be ignored. For brands to be successful, they need to move to the center of the conversation. To do that, they must acknowledge and encourage the public discussion of the brand, its attributes, its doings, and the interactions the more social members of society have with the brand. In a mobile campaign, a brand can encourage discussions about the brand, but social networking can take it a step further and push out trusted commentary within social networks that are both outside the realm of corporate brand capability and outside the scope of corporate brand trustworthiness. See, all voices are equal within a social networked environment with the exception of one attribute: trust. Closely networked social relations engender trust more than corporations. Even though it is the company's brand, the commentary of a trusted person is more influential to a potential customer. Brands want to encourage this type of social conversation, without interference. Now, where brands can make a difference is in the mobile environment. Engagement through mobile advertising can result in better social networking conversations. Companies can feed their brands narrowly through influencers so as to empower social connectedness around the defining process for the brand. It's all about creating meaning for the brand and allowing others to have a hand in crafting that meaning.
It is not my intent to confuse the unique characteristics of social networking marketing and mobile marketing. The two can be considered unique channels, but that would be a mistake, in my opinion. The combination of the two when the focus of attention is on a brand is powerful at driving engagement. More so, than separately. And my personal belief (good opportunity for testing) is that the combo is better for sales. Now, there are two key differences between traditional influencer communications and mobile influencer communications. The first is that within a mobile environment, context is everything. Location and time of delivery, access to product, immediacy of joining the conversation - thesea are all key differences. Brands can light the spark at the right time and place to engage influencers. Influencer research goes back a ways and I am a fan of Paco Underhill's work in understanding influencers by gender, by age, by demographic/psychographic, by following them around in stores and other measures. Mobile adds a second new wrinkle to the mix. The influencers can be socially-connected people, mobile applications that interact with the mobile device, and/or the mobile devices themselves. The applications and the device help determine whether or not a brand is presented at all to mobile prospect, and further helps define the context in which the brand conversation commences. In our calendaring example, an application link that allows the calendar to be shared with a person's social network sets up all sorts of brand conversations. Imagine the daily recipe spreads across calendars, with clickable links to map of nearest store location to pick up the product, a coupon for the product, a review link to add your voice to the conversation about your experience around the menu item (purchase, packaging, taste, cookability, etc), and the ability to send back recipes using the product. In this instance, the brand has sponsored a conversation, created an interest point about positive brand attributes, crafted a space through which to collect market research, and further engage current customers and prospects for the evolution of the product through suggested recipes. Whether they twitter it, facebook it, myspace it, text it or communicate it in some other fashion, people are engaging the brand and can do it in real time on location, thereby heightening the entertainment value of the interaction. Now your food item becomes branded entertainment.
How your Brand Wins in Mobile Advertising
Three keys here: support consistent engagement, develop pinpoint relevancy, and control the social currency. Let's take these one at a time. Brands exist only to the degree that they invite participation and commentary (ownership). Consistent engagement through the mobile environment primes people to continue to talk about what is new with your brand. Whether it's the latest coupon, the highlighted experience of a satisfied customer, a contest or some other relevant communication, brands can encourage the thoughts, ideas and stories about the brand to continue flowing. Secondly, brands need to communicate to hit the time, location and engagement sweet spots that drive participation with the brand. No, this is not tautological; people engage because there is relevancy in the situation and opportunity to communicate to others their important understanding of the experience. Brands can set up these windows of opportunity with the brand sitting center focus. Third, brands can focus mobile communications by controlling the social currency. Participation is the new coin of the mobile realm; when consumer participation is achieved, brands can encourage more buzz by recognizing and rewarding it.
From Tactical to Practical
Companies can jump start the conversation about their brand by offering creative that is entertaining, location-relevant and worthy of being passed around for social commentary. Once the brand message is exported (in the public realm), nurture the conversation by engaging, rewarding and empowering responders. These become your influencers. Then give influencer customers reasons and tools to share with other potential customers so they can experience and comment on the brand for themselves in a time and location relevant engagement. Finally, evolve the brand message for new mobile campaigns in participation with engaged social influencers. These folks are beyond being customers; they're members of your marketing team and have helped to develop the brand right along with you.
Moving a Brand from Passive to Participant
In ancient branding history, clients hired advertising agencies to present brands to prospects through mass media channels. More recent history has clients hiring agencies to optimize brand messages to reach prospects through focused niche media channels. Now, in the mobile advertising age, customers interactively engage products and companies in a location-based socially-informed mobile environment. Agencies help companies jump start and promote the conversation.
Mobile devices drive multiple brand touch types
Let's start with the types of touches: mobile applications, text messages, GPS-derived interactions, social media interactions. Mobile applications, from the very simple like money conversion calculators or calendaring apps to complex apps like games played within a social networking environment, offer brands the opportunity for inter-application advertising, application sponsorships, and applications whose very features engage the brand's core attributes (ex. Kimberly Clark's poll generating application on which way should the toilet paper hang on the roller). Text messages are another opportunity for interacting within a mobile environment. As part of an overall offline/online/mobile campaign, SMS can be used with embedded video/text content to either drive attention or receive attention from other advertising channels. Text messages can result in clicks of mobile web links, click-to-map, click-to-app (APIs), click-t0-opt-in, a straight brand message click-to-enter-contest, click-to-enter-review, click-to-contribute-opinion, click-to-coupon, click-to-join-group and other actions. The rising percent of the U.S. population with smart phones containing integrated GPS (20% in 2010 estimated to rise to 50% by end of 2011) offers the opportunity for location-based advertising with interactivity such as maps, coupons, social networking, time-based promotions (malls, bluetooth advertising), contests, reviews and other time + place sensitive communications. The environment now can feed the device and respond to the device's presence and communications. So, if I'm in the mall and the store senses my presence it can send a message to me via bluetooth. If I move away from the store, the store knows and can send another message, sweetening the offer or sending some other type of communication to build goodwill and future interactions. And that leads me to the most intriguing aspect of the mobile brand communication interaction - the social networking crossroads brands must now pass. There is opportunity for constant, instant give and receive either 1 to 1 or 1 to many in which the brand is in continuous definition through social commentary - what people say about a brand shapes the definition of that brand dynamically. And engagement with the brand in this manner feeds the experience a brand conveys. As any marketer will tell you, a brand is a promise for a particular expected experience. Through social networking accessible on the go, that experience is continually being redefined; consequently, the brand itself is fluid.
Lessons learned from running mobile advertising campaigns
The device on everyone's hip is transitioning from a calling device and an internet searching device to a personal assistant device. Applications either nascent to the device or downloadable through an apps consolidator, in conjunction with the device design itself, are creating a cyborg-like interaction: the device can understand our likes/dislikes, wants and needs and then go seek these brands out on its own time. Brands therefore need to engage not only the person owning the device, but the device and applications themselves. Brands must understand the technology and wherever possible align themselves with technology designers to insert and evolve the brand within the technology's functioning. So the game doesn't just have the brand as a sponsor. It has the brand functioning as a credit for a free level up when a player purchases the brand. It has the brand embedded as a digital base or storefront within the gameplay. In a calendaring application, the brand inserts itself to show when the product should be repurchased or drunk or replaced. A food brand could populate the calendar with a daily menu item featuring the brand as an ingredient. Any number of creative methods are employable when the nature of the application environment is considered.
Engagement is key
Attention span is dead. When location and time relevance are coupled with social networking we as mobile people no longer have patience for something as passive a measure as attention. We need to be engaged or left alone - our cognitive space gets greedy for other engagement opportunities. Indeed, we now have engagement spans. One study I read recently from Ground Truth Inc suggested social networking sites gathered more than an hour a day on average for mobile phone internet users, and that 60% of all mobile internet use was directed at social networking sites/applications. That's a tremendous opportunity for brands to engage consumers and vice versa; mobile engagement has become social entertainment. So when brands engage through mobile environments, they are fulfilling the role of enterainer of the moment, with the social engagement further promoting ownership of the brand through conversation. The role of time and place relevancy in the brand communication is to increase the mobile engagement - its entertainment value, its social commentary value, its immediate usage value.
Grow the conversation or blink out
Consequent to the rise of social networking, a brand does not exist until its is commented on and shared. Now, that's a bold statement, one that flips traditional conceptions of advertising over. Brand image is one of the most closely held resources of a company or product. Relinquishing even a small amount of control is the antithesis of what marketers are taught. But I believe that control in the mobile social networked environment is an illusion. Besides, the only detrimental situation for a brand is to be ignored. For brands to be successful, they need to move to the center of the conversation. To do that, they must acknowledge and encourage the public discussion of the brand, its attributes, its doings, and the interactions the more social members of society have with the brand. In a mobile campaign, a brand can encourage discussions about the brand, but social networking can take it a step further and push out trusted commentary within social networks that are both outside the realm of corporate brand capability and outside the scope of corporate brand trustworthiness. See, all voices are equal within a social networked environment with the exception of one attribute: trust. Closely networked social relations engender trust more than corporations. Even though it is the company's brand, the commentary of a trusted person is more influential to a potential customer. Brands want to encourage this type of social conversation, without interference. Now, where brands can make a difference is in the mobile environment. Engagement through mobile advertising can result in better social networking conversations. Companies can feed their brands narrowly through influencers so as to empower social connectedness around the defining process for the brand. It's all about creating meaning for the brand and allowing others to have a hand in crafting that meaning.
It is not my intent to confuse the unique characteristics of social networking marketing and mobile marketing. The two can be considered unique channels, but that would be a mistake, in my opinion. The combination of the two when the focus of attention is on a brand is powerful at driving engagement. More so, than separately. And my personal belief (good opportunity for testing) is that the combo is better for sales. Now, there are two key differences between traditional influencer communications and mobile influencer communications. The first is that within a mobile environment, context is everything. Location and time of delivery, access to product, immediacy of joining the conversation - thesea are all key differences. Brands can light the spark at the right time and place to engage influencers. Influencer research goes back a ways and I am a fan of Paco Underhill's work in understanding influencers by gender, by age, by demographic/psychographic, by following them around in stores and other measures. Mobile adds a second new wrinkle to the mix. The influencers can be socially-connected people, mobile applications that interact with the mobile device, and/or the mobile devices themselves. The applications and the device help determine whether or not a brand is presented at all to mobile prospect, and further helps define the context in which the brand conversation commences. In our calendaring example, an application link that allows the calendar to be shared with a person's social network sets up all sorts of brand conversations. Imagine the daily recipe spreads across calendars, with clickable links to map of nearest store location to pick up the product, a coupon for the product, a review link to add your voice to the conversation about your experience around the menu item (purchase, packaging, taste, cookability, etc), and the ability to send back recipes using the product. In this instance, the brand has sponsored a conversation, created an interest point about positive brand attributes, crafted a space through which to collect market research, and further engage current customers and prospects for the evolution of the product through suggested recipes. Whether they twitter it, facebook it, myspace it, text it or communicate it in some other fashion, people are engaging the brand and can do it in real time on location, thereby heightening the entertainment value of the interaction. Now your food item becomes branded entertainment.
How your Brand Wins in Mobile Advertising
Three keys here: support consistent engagement, develop pinpoint relevancy, and control the social currency. Let's take these one at a time. Brands exist only to the degree that they invite participation and commentary (ownership). Consistent engagement through the mobile environment primes people to continue to talk about what is new with your brand. Whether it's the latest coupon, the highlighted experience of a satisfied customer, a contest or some other relevant communication, brands can encourage the thoughts, ideas and stories about the brand to continue flowing. Secondly, brands need to communicate to hit the time, location and engagement sweet spots that drive participation with the brand. No, this is not tautological; people engage because there is relevancy in the situation and opportunity to communicate to others their important understanding of the experience. Brands can set up these windows of opportunity with the brand sitting center focus. Third, brands can focus mobile communications by controlling the social currency. Participation is the new coin of the mobile realm; when consumer participation is achieved, brands can encourage more buzz by recognizing and rewarding it.
From Tactical to Practical
Companies can jump start the conversation about their brand by offering creative that is entertaining, location-relevant and worthy of being passed around for social commentary. Once the brand message is exported (in the public realm), nurture the conversation by engaging, rewarding and empowering responders. These become your influencers. Then give influencer customers reasons and tools to share with other potential customers so they can experience and comment on the brand for themselves in a time and location relevant engagement. Finally, evolve the brand message for new mobile campaigns in participation with engaged social influencers. These folks are beyond being customers; they're members of your marketing team and have helped to develop the brand right along with you.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
This is a test
The wonderous quality of science - its core - is the inherent ability to check up on a hypothesis. Scientific inquiry allows us to make a guess and then use our smarts to try different ways to understand if we guessed right or not. And beautifully, you can always go back and check again. Pure science puts forth that the checking is never done, and that infinite variations can be explored.
In math, the outcome of a hypothesis must be exact. In engineering, good enough is close enough. In physics, the outcome can be squishy and hidden within a cloud of not well understood rules in different environments. The human behavior science known as marketing puts all these back of the pack when amorphousness is considered the outcome; you just never know. Will this work? Have no idea. Why did this happen? Never know for sure. Can I reproduce these results? Can't be certain. So when my CEO asks me if I'm sure spending money on advertising is a good use of the budget, I can only offer my opinion. Certainly, I can prove the converse. Not advertising absolutely has a dramatic effect on lowering sales. But is one type of spend or another better? Is increasing the budget going to deliver more sales? I sure hope so. Unfortunately, when a CEO only looks at a spreadsheet to tell how the business is running, advertising only looks like an expense. And an - pardon the pun - an expensive one at that.
Ah, but sweet science offers the music to soothe a spreadsheet lover's ears. Test measurement delivers the opportunity, and I dig it. Our latest campaign featured Facebook ads on the local sites. So all those social networkers (networki? networksters? what is that term?) checking their Facebook pages 20 million times during the month of June in Wisconsin saw two different versions of our ad. How cool is that? A simple proposition, which of the ads is more popular? Is it the price point or the features/benefits? What captures their imagination and drives them to click? Only two choices...well, there is a third and that is to click not at all. But what does that tell me? Then I have to compare click throughs to a standard for Facebook advertising, which the current advertising agency can't provide - too new a medium.
Alright, so the choices are coupon phone or $35 unlimited talk, text and web. If the price point body slams the coupon phone concept, we're dead. Then it's either an expensive education campaign to get people to see the value of the coupon phone (and get them to click all those coupons), or we're in a race to the bottom on price and we should expect to go lower and lower over the year until our competitors vomit as they find the price they can charge for their product won't pay their bills. Problem is, we could find ourselves in this boat too. Don't want to land there, let me tell you. So it's coupon phone or nothing.
My doctoral training is in quantitative methods research. Statistics are my friend. Cross tabs, regression, ANOVAs, MANOVAs, cluster analysis, factor analysis - these shape my understanding of data and I revel when the moment comes when the data speak their secrets. I recall my first days in market research back in the early 90's when 500 pages of data yielded that Snapper Lawnmowers needed to sell to families with kids, cause that's who was buying them and considering buying them. Simple as that. 500 pages to say that one thing. Left an impression on me. Ever since I've adhered to the single statement when explaining research findings. Give people the key, and cut the noise.
Two ads. One winner. Serious consequences. Righteous.
And the winner by a hair is Coupon Phone. Whew. In every market, the coupon phone concept outperformed the $35 rate plan message in driving click throughs. Not by much, but enough to be significant without a type 1 or type 2 error. I can only speculate that people are curious about the combination of words "coupon" and "phone" placed in order. The ads themselves were colored similarly (black, white and red), and there were no flashy graphics or movement to draw attention. I can only assume the more than 10,000 who clicked on the ads in total engaged the messages with some affinity and curiousity. What better could I have hoped to achieve?
Since the two messages were so close, and the brand so young, I've decided for the banner advertisements we've just launched to proclaim more of the bifurcated messages. A twofer on 99.7 fm The Wolf country music station site among others to pique the interest of visitors. My goal is to understand before launching a widespread campaign if the coupon phone message can stand on its own. Can I get away from the crush of the price point? And further, can I get people to see value in the coupon phone beyond the price point, so that when competitors match the monthly charge for unlimited talk, text and web those who hold coupon phones will be loathe to release the phones from their grasps. Can't let anyone head for the exits. At least, not without testing why.
In math, the outcome of a hypothesis must be exact. In engineering, good enough is close enough. In physics, the outcome can be squishy and hidden within a cloud of not well understood rules in different environments. The human behavior science known as marketing puts all these back of the pack when amorphousness is considered the outcome; you just never know. Will this work? Have no idea. Why did this happen? Never know for sure. Can I reproduce these results? Can't be certain. So when my CEO asks me if I'm sure spending money on advertising is a good use of the budget, I can only offer my opinion. Certainly, I can prove the converse. Not advertising absolutely has a dramatic effect on lowering sales. But is one type of spend or another better? Is increasing the budget going to deliver more sales? I sure hope so. Unfortunately, when a CEO only looks at a spreadsheet to tell how the business is running, advertising only looks like an expense. And an - pardon the pun - an expensive one at that.
Ah, but sweet science offers the music to soothe a spreadsheet lover's ears. Test measurement delivers the opportunity, and I dig it. Our latest campaign featured Facebook ads on the local sites. So all those social networkers (networki? networksters? what is that term?) checking their Facebook pages 20 million times during the month of June in Wisconsin saw two different versions of our ad. How cool is that? A simple proposition, which of the ads is more popular? Is it the price point or the features/benefits? What captures their imagination and drives them to click? Only two choices...well, there is a third and that is to click not at all. But what does that tell me? Then I have to compare click throughs to a standard for Facebook advertising, which the current advertising agency can't provide - too new a medium.
Alright, so the choices are coupon phone or $35 unlimited talk, text and web. If the price point body slams the coupon phone concept, we're dead. Then it's either an expensive education campaign to get people to see the value of the coupon phone (and get them to click all those coupons), or we're in a race to the bottom on price and we should expect to go lower and lower over the year until our competitors vomit as they find the price they can charge for their product won't pay their bills. Problem is, we could find ourselves in this boat too. Don't want to land there, let me tell you. So it's coupon phone or nothing.
My doctoral training is in quantitative methods research. Statistics are my friend. Cross tabs, regression, ANOVAs, MANOVAs, cluster analysis, factor analysis - these shape my understanding of data and I revel when the moment comes when the data speak their secrets. I recall my first days in market research back in the early 90's when 500 pages of data yielded that Snapper Lawnmowers needed to sell to families with kids, cause that's who was buying them and considering buying them. Simple as that. 500 pages to say that one thing. Left an impression on me. Ever since I've adhered to the single statement when explaining research findings. Give people the key, and cut the noise.
Two ads. One winner. Serious consequences. Righteous.
And the winner by a hair is Coupon Phone. Whew. In every market, the coupon phone concept outperformed the $35 rate plan message in driving click throughs. Not by much, but enough to be significant without a type 1 or type 2 error. I can only speculate that people are curious about the combination of words "coupon" and "phone" placed in order. The ads themselves were colored similarly (black, white and red), and there were no flashy graphics or movement to draw attention. I can only assume the more than 10,000 who clicked on the ads in total engaged the messages with some affinity and curiousity. What better could I have hoped to achieve?
Since the two messages were so close, and the brand so young, I've decided for the banner advertisements we've just launched to proclaim more of the bifurcated messages. A twofer on 99.7 fm The Wolf country music station site among others to pique the interest of visitors. My goal is to understand before launching a widespread campaign if the coupon phone message can stand on its own. Can I get away from the crush of the price point? And further, can I get people to see value in the coupon phone beyond the price point, so that when competitors match the monthly charge for unlimited talk, text and web those who hold coupon phones will be loathe to release the phones from their grasps. Can't let anyone head for the exits. At least, not without testing why.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Cone of Strategy
Attending to the big picture within business environments is my specialty - Where is everyone headed? What is the trend? As interesting as these questions are, and their implication for strategic goalmaking, my thoughts are often pulled towards ideational negative space. Where is everyone abandoning? What is being ignored? This focuses attention on opportunities, and my head loves thinking about new possibilities.
In my cluttered office I have a few fun items. A tchotchke here, a branded squishy ball there. But none more fun than a simple piece of paper curled around to form a funnel. Or an upside down dunce cap, if you are so inclined to envision it. A year ago I was thinking about where the consumer telecommunications industry players were moving and the notion popped that I should create a visual representation both to consolidate my thinking and help with explaining my thoughts to others. I drew vertical lines down the insight of the funnel and used the lines to divide the funnel into three equal sections. Then I put labels on each of the sections. It actually is rather difficult to write on the inside of a steep funnel I discovered, regardless of hand used (I'm ambidextrous). So when I had finished this I had sections labled "Best Price", "Best Network" and "Best Product". Then I played pin the tail with Verizon, Boost, Sprint, ATT, T-mobile, MetroPCS and Cricket. I left out the regional players and the resellers. I placed them first by section - from their public communications where were they headed? What did they want to be known for and what were they known for being? Verizon has firmly camped itself in the "best network" category, both for aspiration and media spend "can you ear me now?" But Verizon was also attempting to move a bit towards best product, though without success. ATT had managed to bridge the gap between "best network" and "best product". By running commercials challenging verizon for the title of biggest network, they had successfully diluted the leadership position in that category. And then ATT had the uppercut of iPhone success. Bam! Best product ownership. Metro, Cricket, Boost all went into the space between "Best price" and "best network". Depending on which commercials they were running, the message was either price driven or nation-wide coverage driven. This left Sprint and T-mobile circling. And if you're circling, then you don't belong to any category. No brand category is bad. You're not the best price, nor the best product nor the best network. Ouch. To make matters worse, the other competitors are moving higher up towards the rim of the funnel, solidifying their hold on their category niche. Circling trying to make it stick that your best network, now your least expensive, etc where competitors have a firmer hold on that particular space makes it impossible to hold any position. The only way Sprint and Tmobile were heading was down, and they do not want to hit the hole at the bottom of the funnel. That is brand death, when you're not known for anything.
The funnel, when I looked it over after drawing all the competitor positions in, had a curious empty spot. The intersection between Best Price and Best Product stood unguarded. Carriers are notorious for overlooking Best Product. Their product, when they think about it, is the network itself. They own the towers, or access to the towers and provide the service. They're not deep thinkers about the devices or the applications on those devices - that's for other specialists to consider. And there lies an opportunity. Why should the non-carriers have all the revenue? There is no reason a carrier cannot develop an innovative product to carry on its network. Product in the physical sense and in the application sense; either will do, or both. At that time, I hadn't thought about the coupon phone. I hadn't thought about tablets or android phones or other devices because the telecom game was all about cellular phones. But that is where the cone of strategy led. A single piece of paper sparks the wonder. Builds into a business proposal, gathers steam as people are engaged, enlightened and inspired. Becomes an operational movement within the organization. And now, one year later I have on my desk a paper cone and a coupon phone.
Now lately, I've been thinking about a box...
In my cluttered office I have a few fun items. A tchotchke here, a branded squishy ball there. But none more fun than a simple piece of paper curled around to form a funnel. Or an upside down dunce cap, if you are so inclined to envision it. A year ago I was thinking about where the consumer telecommunications industry players were moving and the notion popped that I should create a visual representation both to consolidate my thinking and help with explaining my thoughts to others. I drew vertical lines down the insight of the funnel and used the lines to divide the funnel into three equal sections. Then I put labels on each of the sections. It actually is rather difficult to write on the inside of a steep funnel I discovered, regardless of hand used (I'm ambidextrous). So when I had finished this I had sections labled "Best Price", "Best Network" and "Best Product". Then I played pin the tail with Verizon, Boost, Sprint, ATT, T-mobile, MetroPCS and Cricket. I left out the regional players and the resellers. I placed them first by section - from their public communications where were they headed? What did they want to be known for and what were they known for being? Verizon has firmly camped itself in the "best network" category, both for aspiration and media spend "can you ear me now?" But Verizon was also attempting to move a bit towards best product, though without success. ATT had managed to bridge the gap between "best network" and "best product". By running commercials challenging verizon for the title of biggest network, they had successfully diluted the leadership position in that category. And then ATT had the uppercut of iPhone success. Bam! Best product ownership. Metro, Cricket, Boost all went into the space between "Best price" and "best network". Depending on which commercials they were running, the message was either price driven or nation-wide coverage driven. This left Sprint and T-mobile circling. And if you're circling, then you don't belong to any category. No brand category is bad. You're not the best price, nor the best product nor the best network. Ouch. To make matters worse, the other competitors are moving higher up towards the rim of the funnel, solidifying their hold on their category niche. Circling trying to make it stick that your best network, now your least expensive, etc where competitors have a firmer hold on that particular space makes it impossible to hold any position. The only way Sprint and Tmobile were heading was down, and they do not want to hit the hole at the bottom of the funnel. That is brand death, when you're not known for anything.
The funnel, when I looked it over after drawing all the competitor positions in, had a curious empty spot. The intersection between Best Price and Best Product stood unguarded. Carriers are notorious for overlooking Best Product. Their product, when they think about it, is the network itself. They own the towers, or access to the towers and provide the service. They're not deep thinkers about the devices or the applications on those devices - that's for other specialists to consider. And there lies an opportunity. Why should the non-carriers have all the revenue? There is no reason a carrier cannot develop an innovative product to carry on its network. Product in the physical sense and in the application sense; either will do, or both. At that time, I hadn't thought about the coupon phone. I hadn't thought about tablets or android phones or other devices because the telecom game was all about cellular phones. But that is where the cone of strategy led. A single piece of paper sparks the wonder. Builds into a business proposal, gathers steam as people are engaged, enlightened and inspired. Becomes an operational movement within the organization. And now, one year later I have on my desk a paper cone and a coupon phone.
Now lately, I've been thinking about a box...
Monday, June 7, 2010
Something for everyone in mobile marketing
Mobile marketing works if you have engaged eyeballs, sated advertisers, and incented clicking behavior. Everyone in the relationship desires some immediate or sustained. Through the launch today of the AirFire Mobile site airfiremobile.com, we've accomplished this.
The customer receives deals, discounts and coupons right to their phone at the click of a button and further receives their mobile phone for only $35 per month including unlimited talk, text, web and picture messaging. We've wrapped in the fees, so the customer only pays the sales tax. The coupon phone concpet makes the phone the lowest in the nation rate plan for this group of unlimited services. And the purchase of the phone is inexpensive as well. Most customers get out the door with a phone for under $100.
The adverstisers receive attention to their product/brand, and more customers. Advertisers can target the ads to specific audiences. With every customer completing a survey of demographic information, likes/dislikes and other preferences, we've cut down on the potential for spam and made the deals, discounts and coupons useful. By targeting local retailers rather than national advertisers, we're also adding relevance - local people shopping the local economy through local retailers. And the retailers receive insight in additional detail than they do through traditional advertising. The click through rates on coupons, the advertiser receipts we receive back from customers through our incentives, these all contribute to a view of how well the advertiser's offer is being received through mobile marketing.
A few words on incenting coupon clicking and redemption behavior. This is the grail of mobile advertising. Our company has developed methods for incenting customers to click on the coupons, and for them to redeem the coupons. Here is where the innovation comes in, for we need to contstantly introduce new and exciting reasons for customers to click. Every month we need to roll out applications, mobile products and offers that drive our customers to use their coupons. I am looking forward to the next few weeks to have results from these efforts on profitability and usage.
The customer receives deals, discounts and coupons right to their phone at the click of a button and further receives their mobile phone for only $35 per month including unlimited talk, text, web and picture messaging. We've wrapped in the fees, so the customer only pays the sales tax. The coupon phone concpet makes the phone the lowest in the nation rate plan for this group of unlimited services. And the purchase of the phone is inexpensive as well. Most customers get out the door with a phone for under $100.
The adverstisers receive attention to their product/brand, and more customers. Advertisers can target the ads to specific audiences. With every customer completing a survey of demographic information, likes/dislikes and other preferences, we've cut down on the potential for spam and made the deals, discounts and coupons useful. By targeting local retailers rather than national advertisers, we're also adding relevance - local people shopping the local economy through local retailers. And the retailers receive insight in additional detail than they do through traditional advertising. The click through rates on coupons, the advertiser receipts we receive back from customers through our incentives, these all contribute to a view of how well the advertiser's offer is being received through mobile marketing.
A few words on incenting coupon clicking and redemption behavior. This is the grail of mobile advertising. Our company has developed methods for incenting customers to click on the coupons, and for them to redeem the coupons. Here is where the innovation comes in, for we need to contstantly introduce new and exciting reasons for customers to click. Every month we need to roll out applications, mobile products and offers that drive our customers to use their coupons. I am looking forward to the next few weeks to have results from these efforts on profitability and usage.
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