Mobile -- the perfect direct medium?

Thanks IDM Institute

Robert Thurner M IDM, Commercial Director of mobile agency Incentivated, explores how mobiles could revolutionise direct marketing. The first mobile phones were nicknamed ‘bricks’ because they were huge and unwieldy, with big handsets attached to briefcase-sized battery packs.

But now, the latest mobiles are barely bigger than a credit card, and the mobile has become the one item that the majority of us say we cannot do without – and the first item we would grab if our houses were on fire.

Our mobiles are always on us, and usually on. That makes mobile the perfect medium for marketers.

Since the mid 1990s, the reduction in size and cost of mobile phone handsets has led to penetration levels of almost 90% across Europe.

According to statistics from Ofcom, by the end of 2007, there were almost 74 million mobile connections serving a population of 60 million in the UK, an increase of 3.7 million connections since the end of 2006. The total number of mobile connections increased by 48 per cent in the five years from 2002.

Text explosion

In the UK, nearly 60 billion text messages were sent in 2007 -- an increase of 36 per cent since 2006 and up by 234 per cent since 2002, when UK mobile users sent 17 billion texts. The average mobile phone user sent 67 texts per month from each mobile, compared to 53 texts per month in 2006.

The majority of children have access to the internet and most have a mobile phone but they use them in different ways. Boys aged eight to 11 are twice as likely to use the internet every day than girls of the same age (45 per cent compared to 22 per cent).

However, girls aged 12 to 15 are more likely to use a mobile phone than boys of the same age (74 per cent compared to 65 per cent).

Instant messaging is more popular than email among children, with 62 per cent of 12 to 15 year old sending an instant message, compared with 43 per cent of them sending an email. Adults prefer to email – 80 per cent of adults sent an email compared to 34 per cent who used instant messaging.

Is email failing?

Yet according to the IAB, only 25% of emails are opened: the remainder are either filtered out by anti-spam and anti-virus software, or get deleted. By contrast, 95% of SMS are opened, reflecting the expectation by consumers that those contacting them by text have their consent to do so.

Long may this practice continue!

The mobile is a highly personal device, and brands should earn the right to be there by ensuring customers opt-in to receive branding or customer service messages. The mobile industry has established best practice guidelines which should be followed closely.

The ubiquity of the mobile phone has led to a revolution in mobile interactivity. For organisations in general and marketers in particular, it offers the chance to interact with their customers efficiently and regardless of place or time.

Mobile exciting medium

That creates exciting new opportunities in Mobile Marketing (for customer acquisition), Mobile Customer Service (for customer retention, CRM and loyalty) and Mobile Commerce (for transaction purposes).

For direct marketers, the benefits should be obvious. The mobile phone is the only media that consumers will have with them at all times; it is a superb channel for interactivity, providing an instant response path via voice call, SMS or engagement with a WAPsite (mobile internet site).

Personalised, social, measurable

Mobile is a highly personalised communication channel: one handset has only one user, which makes mobile a powerful targeting medium.

And, for many users, it is a social medium, one which allows files, photos, videos, websites and music to be shared.

Plus it can be measured, and it works extremely well in partnership with other marketing media.

Used responsibly, and with a message which makes the most of the medium and is properly targeted, mobile can deliver very impressive results.

Below, I’m going to discuss a couple of examples of how mobile can be used for direct marketing.

Bookstart free books
Booktrust, the independent charity that encourages people to read, used mobile as part of its latest Bookstart campaign to distribute 80,000 free books to parents of young children.

A DRTV campaign was developed by Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw in partnership with mobile agency Incentivated. Media planning was by Trinity Communications and media buying by Manning Gottlieb OMD.

The TV campaign delivered 1,236 TV spots throughout the day across 34 terrestrial and digital channels for one month. The Bookstart TV ads featured a mobile call-to-action for viewers to request a free book by texting BOOK, their home number and postcode to 80800.

View the Bookstart DRTV.

Bookstart’s target audience of parents and carers were encouraged to respond to the ads by texting free from their mobiles. The book was then sent, post free.

Text messaging was chosen as the sole response mechanism for ordering books because Trinity Communications’ research established that the primary audience had limited online access but high mobile telephone ownership.

Strong response

The campaign generated 79,415 texts, which represents 8 per cent of the estimated one million UK households with children aged three and four. Each TV ad generated, on average, 64 texts.

This campaign demonstrates that mobile can provide an immediate response mechanism for advertising, whether using above or below the line channels, while offering brands true accountability.

Text messages are time and date stamped, which means we were able to correlate responses with the TV spots broadcast.

Terminate a mate
Virgin 1 was looking for a way to promote the UK launch of the TV series ‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’.

The series is based on the Terminator movie trilogy. In the US, it was a smash hit, pulling in over 18 million viewers and becoming the highest-rated scripted show on Fox for eight years.

For the UK launch in February 2008, Incentivated and digital agency 20:20 created a ground-breaking viral campaign which used location-based mobile technology and merged in user-input names and mobile numbers to create a personalised video – we believe this was the first time this has ever been done.

A 10-day teaser campaign using TV, outdoor, print, viral and ambient marketing drove people to www.terminate-a-mate.com and www.terminate-a-mate.mobi, where they could enter a friend's name and mobile details.

Personalised mobile video

A specially created personalised video simulating a Terminator hacking into their mobile phone to locate them and hunt them down was then sent.

We made sure there were mechanisms in place to protect privacy and defuse concerns over mobiles being used to track people. Participants who entered details of a friend’s mobile also had to give their own phone number, and an SMS message checking their details was sent. The Termination only went ahead if the sender confirmed they wanted it to.

Effectively, the sender ‘opts in’ their target to receive the geo-coded message.

Personal protection

Once a site visitor inputs a friend's mobile number to target them for “termination,” the friend is then sent an SMS warning them that Terminators are nearby. If they reply and give permission for their location to be shared with the network, they receive a link to a made-for-mobile video. The recipient's current location is highlighted within the video via an integrated mobile map in real time.

Mobile numbers are only used for the purposes of the promotion, and users are assured that their details will not be kept on file for future marketing.

A sample of the Terminate-a-Mate mobile video can be viewed on YouTube

Conclusion
Mobile can deliver enormous impact, and works best when integrated with other media. It is the only truly personal communications channel there is, which is both an advantage and a potential disadvantage.

The advantage is that people are always contactable and can respond instantly – assuming you deliver a compelling, relevant and timely marketing message. The disadvantage is that consumers can see mobile marketing messages as extremely intrusive.

It is up to marketers and their advisers to make sure that they are using mobile properly and effectively.

Robert Thurner M IDM is Commercial Director of Incentivated, and will be delivering the mobile session at the IDM Academy at ad:tech on September 24.

He also presents on mobile at the IDM Diploma and CPD courses at the IDM in Teddington.

Effies 2008 - winning case studies on WARC

http://www.warc.com/LandingPages/FeaturedContent/Effies2008/

Men happiest online, women prefer family time: poll

Thanks Reuters

SYDNEY (Reuters) - For men, bliss is often just a mouse-click away while quality time with family is guaranteed to put a smile on women's faces, according to an Australian study of what makes people happy.

The "Happiness Index" study, which polled more than 8,500 Australians aged 18-64 years, showed rest and relaxation were the most enjoyable activities while physical exercise was least likely to make people happy.

"Australians are made happy on a week-to-week basis, not by possessions and achievements, but by entertaining experiences and by meaningful interactions with others," said Karen Phillips, managing director of The Leading Edge, the business consultancy that conducted the survey over a week in August.

"This index gives insight into the way we tick, with the results being useful to Australian businesses who want to better communicate with their customers," she added.

Both men and women -- or 63 percent of overall respondents -- picked relaxation as the activity that made them happiest, but that is where the similarity between the sexes ends.

Just over half of men said happiness meant surfing the Internet, playing online games or accessing social network sites such as Facebook, compared with only 39 percent of women.

Fifty-five percent of women said having meals and spending time together as a family made them happiest, compared to 45 percent of men. Women are also more likely than men to have been made happy by their pets.

More men than women, 48 percent versus 40 percent, found happiness being intimate with another person while 38 percent of men, and only 28 percent of women, said drinking with friends brought them joy.

More women than men said reading a good book, eating comfort food or buying gifts made them happy

But Phillips said the survey also debunked several gender stereotypes, finding that shopping for new clothes and shoes made only 30 percent of women happy and that more men and women with children cited sex and romance as making them happy than singles.

"It's important to not make assumptions but to do your research when utilizing happiness drivers to improve your brand's performance," she added.

Stunning stats about kids and mobiles (in the USA)

Cell Phones Key to Teens’ Social Lives, 47% Can Text with Eyes Closed

Nearly half (47%) of US teens say their social life would end or be worsened without their cell phone, and nearly six in 10 (57%) credit their mobile device with improving their life, according to a national survey from CTIA and Harris Interactive.

Four out of five teens (17 million) carry a wireless device (a 40% increase since 2004), finds the study titled “Teenagers: A Generation Unplugged,” which probes how the growing teen wireless segment is using wireless products and how they want to use them in the future.

Impact on Teen Life

- A majority (57%) of teens view their cell phone as the key to their social life.
- Second only to clothing, teens say, a person’s cell phone tells the most about their social status or popularity, outranking jewelry, watches and shoes.

Providing Entertainment and Security
- More than half of the respondents (52%) agree that the cell phone has become a new form of entertainment.
- One-third of teens play games on their phone.
- 80% say their cell phone provides a sense of security while on the go, confirming that the cell phone has become their mobile safety net when needing a ride (79%), getting important information (51%), or just helping out someone in trouble (35%).
- Teens carry cell phones to have access to friends, family and current events.
- Though only one in five (18%) teens care to pinpoint the location of their family and friends via their cell phone, 36% hate the idea of a cell phone feature that allows others to know their exact location.

Texting Replacing Talking

The study also confirmed that texting is replacing talking among teens. Teens admitted spending nearly an equal amount of time talking as they do texting each month. The feature is so important to them that if texting were no longer an option 47% of teens say their social life would end or be worsened - that’s especially so among females (54% vs. 40%).

Teens say texting has advantages over talking because it offers more options, including multitasking, speed, the option to avoid verbal communication, and because it is fun - in that order, according to the study.

With more than 1 billion text messages sent each day, it is no surprise that 42% of teens say they can text blindfolded, the study found.
“Teens have created a new form of communication. We call it texting, but in essence it is a reflection of how teens want to communicate to match their lifestyles. It is all about multitasking, speed, privacy and control,” said Joseph Porus, VP & chief architect, Technology Group, Harris Interactive. “Teens in this study are crying for personalization and control of exactly what a wireless device or plan can do for them.”

Devices of the Future

The survey asked teens what future changes they’d like to see in wireless services and devices and found that respondents want cell phones that break boundaries and are personalized to fit their lifestyles.

Teens remain excited and openminded about the wireless possibilities and their ideal future mobile devices would feature five applications - phone, MP3 player, GPS, laptop computer and video player, according to Harris.

Also on teens’ wish lists are phones that…
- Guarantee secured data access to the user only (80%)
- Provide accessibility to personal health records (66%)
- Present opportunities to be educated anywhere in the world (66%)
- Bring users closer to global issues impacting teens’ world (63%)
- Are shockproof and waterproof (81%)
- Have endless power (80%)
- Feature a privacy screen (58%)
- Are made of flexible material and fold into different shapes and sizes (39%)
- Have artificial intelligence - ask it questions and it gives answers (38%)

“In the future, mobility for teens means mobile banking, mobile voting, location based services, personal entertainment - the sky is the limit for how mobile our lifestyles can be,” said Steve Largent, president and CEO, CTIA - The Wireless Association. “We’ve certainly come a long way in 25 years and expect teens to be a growth driver for the industry and have a major impact on the wireless landscape for years to come.”

About the study: The study was conducted online in July 2008 among a nationally representative sample of 2,089 teenagers (age 13-19) across the US who have cell phones. More than 100 questions were asked on mobile phone usage, attitudes, behaviors, and teens’ desires and aspirations for the future of mobile communications, entertainment, and other features.

Thanks to Marketing Charts.
Original post at:
http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/cell-phones-key-to-teens-social-lives-47-can-text-with-eyes-closed-6126/?camp=newsletter&src=mc&type=textlink

Top Mobile Trends

Thanks to NGT

Top Mobile Trends: Location Curation
One of the great things about cell phones–besides Brickbreaker–is their ability to find you in a geographical haystack. As more and more phones come with GPS, developers are increasingly incorporating it (and other cell-spotting technologies) into their apps, called location-based services (LBS). If mobile is about place and time, LBS aim to provide the right place at the right time.

TMI (Too much information)

Loopt, Brightkite and Limbo are a few of the services that help locate your friends via mobile. At their best, they’ll work wonders for your social life. As more people use them, though, they face the TMI problem. Too Much Information. We’ve seen this happen with online communication tools–that’s why SocialThing, Chi.mp and FriendFeed have all stepped in to help you manage Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc… But phones are personal, and mobile services themselves need to help manage and cull information.

PHONES AS GUIDES

If location technologies can make my phone a homing device, I want it to guide me, not make me a target. This is why most services let me choose whose information I receive, so I can “curate” my social map. These people may include my more intimate friends, or loose contacts who provide information I want. For instance, I may only choose to follow my club-hopping friends so I can learn about the trendy new nightspots. These friends can be seen as experts who help me pare down my outside world. This sort of “location curation” by trusted sources offers a more sustained value than pure social plays for both users and advertisers.

POINTS OF INTEREST

Take, for example, Untravel Media, whose “Mobile Narrative System” combines online mapping with audio, pictures, and video to produce “sightseeing experiences” that run on mobile phones and GPS devices. The technology is state-of-the-art (a Flex and AIR front end communicating with a back-end Java server that generates media for a Flash Lite-based player), but more importantly, it’s easier to use than to build. A simple interface allows experts–historians, filmmakers, curators, and travelers–to help craft and narrate tours.

Socialight is another LBS focused on combining place with topics of interest. Using their site or my phone, I can curate “urban mixtapes” to help friends discover New York. I could also find out the “Best fall picnic spots in Wine Country” according to Winetravel.com or if I’m near one of Anthony Bourdain’s favorite restaurants. City of Memory, while not yet mobile, is another good example.

BRANDED MOBILE UTILITY

To reach consumers, LBS need to be useful–and so do brands. This presents a huge mobile marketing opportunity. A brand can show people, quite directly, places of interest related to their “expertise” (e.g., Adidas–sneaker shops, Pampers–nearby restrooms). Louis Vuitton Soundwalk, celebrity-narrated mp3 tours of Chinese cities, does just this (if only it had a map component…). So did Guinness’ mobile app for the Sevens in Hong Kong and Socialight’s “Gossip Girl” and “Project Runway” guides to New York. With open APIs like uLocate’s Where, Google’s Android and the iPhone SDK, we expect to see more brands use LBS to get you–and their marketing message–to the right place at the right time.

You should also check out: Multimedia Microblogging

Original post at:http://www.nextgreatthing.com/wordpress/2008/09/23/top-mobile-trends-location-curation/

Follow the path of the unsafe

Here's some inspiration and a relevant quote for our times, for those thinking about the future, about where to invest their energy and time in the coming months ahead:

"Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of crackpot than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost."

Thomas J Watson

Thanks FurtureLab. Original Post: http://scottgoodson.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/09/follow-the-path-of-the-unsafe.html

Is your website ready for a handheld world?

Thanks again to iMedia Connection - breathe in, this is a long one but worthy

Is your website ready for a handheld world?

Handheld devices are more capable than ever, but their capabilities remain extremely limited in comparison to the kind of desktops and laptops most commonly used to browse the web. With their relatively tiny screens and slow connections, sending a handheld device the code for your normal website is likely to produce confusion and frustration in those you're trying to serve, leading to severely curtailed responses.

In theory, of course, any website can be accessed by any mobile device. But in reality, many websites are coded with much more robust devices like desktops and laptops in mind. The trends to rely on network- and CPU-intensive technologies -- and to have the web browser in continuous communication with the web server (a la Ajax) -- further limit the compatibility of many standard websites with mobile devices.

Important differences
The three main differences between handhelds and larger computers are the:

1. Much smaller screen size
2. Relative scarcity on handhelds of support for advanced browser-related technologies like cookies, Java and Flash -- without which many standard websites just don't perform well or look good
3. Intrinsically slower and sometimes spotty nature of the networks serving handhelds
All this is why the most successful websites aimed at mobile browsers are now being optimized for this class of equipment.

Why is this important? One reason is the sheer size of the opportunity. For example, more people have internet access through cellphones than through computers. In addition, Nielson Mobile reportedly tabulated some 9 million purchases from cellphones during the month of April. That's up more than 70 percent, year over year.

Not everyone agrees on the best designs and technological underpinnings for successful websites targeted at mobile users. But there are broad swaths of concurrence on what's best and what's not. 

Focus on minimizing website size

Because of the slower speeds and smaller screens associated with mobile devices, every bit of data you attempt to serve deserves consideration. That's why it's vitally important that you reduce the amount of content on your mobile-optimized site, removing extraneous information, animation and all other eye candy. Tables, so handy for coding standard websites, require too many bits to be beneficial for mobile websites.

With bit rates for 3G handhelds hovering under 15 Mbit/sec, there's a strictly limited amount of data that can be transmitted if your website is to load in 10 seconds or less. Think "dial-up" rather than broadband.

Fortunately, most handheld browsers show the incoming material bit by bit as it arrives, and mobile browsers that use proxy servers tend to load whatever data the screen is trying to display at the moment. Still, users won't sit still for long delays at home, and they feel even less inclined to do so when they're on the go. So cutting website sizes to the bone is central to optimizing for handhelds.

Serve only the most important content

On mobile-oriented websites, it's critical to keep content concise so the need for users to scroll is minimized. Content developers and marketers often have a desire to overkill -- they want to make literally everything available. But for mobile websites, right now that's just not practical.

The quantity of content you should offer on your mobile website(s) obviously depends on your reader base. For example, experience shows that "pop culture" content doesn't captivate users enough to keep them scrolling through long articles on their cellphones. Articles that are 200 words or fewer are the most likely to be completed. On the other hand, travelers seeking specific details about a locale have shown themselves willing to scroll the small screen as many as 20 times or so. On many mobile websites, checklists with only half-a-dozen items have proven to be particularly well received.

It's also important to understand the kind of information your mobile customer wants. Why are they accessing your site from their mobile, rather than their laptop or desktop? Usually, it's because they're not browsing for deep learning, but looking for a quick hit of specific information. Many mobile users simply want a phone number or address, directions, a schedule of events, perhaps a restaurant menu.

Understand why users come to your mobile website rather than your standard website, and put the information they are most likely to want up front.

Layout and graphics

Go for practical layout. Design is critical because mobile devices vary so greatly. The iPhone and 3G devices are much faster than older technologies, of course, but when you're optimizing for mobile, you must consider and cater to the lowest common denominator. For example, with less real estate available on a mobile screen, websites optimized for mobile should generally look very different from their desktop cousins. Ideally, you want your mobile content in a more vertical format, minimizing overlooked information as well as the need for horizontal scrolling -- frustrations that tend to drive people off your site. Putting everything in more of a columnar format leaves users with the more natural task of scrolling down, rather than across.

Pare graphics

Specific capabilities for viewing graphics vary greatly from one handheld to another, with the iPhone leading the charge toward a whole new generation of graphics-friendly mobile devices. But even there, the largest screen size is just a few inches. Next generation devices may have 5-inch screens, but that's still pretty small. While there is no hard and fast limit on the graphics you can attempt to deliver, these days most optimization experts suggest you limit all images to no more than about 120x120 pixels.

RSS and .mobi

Enable RSS Feeds. RSS is designed to deliver the newest content on a site, stripped of graphical elements and other impediments to transmission. It's often the easiest and fastest way to send your content to handhelds. For some websites, enabling RSS may be all you need to do to convert your website for mobile users.

Consider whether or not to go ".mobi"

Companies looking to serve the mobile market should design a version of their sites for these devices, and many argue that implies switching to a ".mobi" domain name. The top-level domain ".mobi" was conceived and launched at a time when many felt the need to separate websites for mobile from standard websites. As a result, a lot of big name advertisers now support sites on the ".mobi" domain.

But with growing technological sophistication, others now argue that ".com" can serve just as well. For example, today it's possible for a server to do a browser detection every time a user hits it and then deliver an appropriate website for each class of device. For what it's worth, however, the W3C says that staying with ".com" for mobile sites breaks the web's convention because not all ".com" sites are suitable for handhelds.

As handhelds evolve from today's 2.5G and 3G into tomorrow's 4G technology, the gap between handheld and desktop user experiences will certainly narrow.

Navigation

Standard websites have evolved toward placing navigation along the top and sides. For mobile optimized websites, this just doesn't work. Mobile screens are so small that top navigation could easily cover much of the screen and force users to scroll before seeing the first elements of your site's content. It's counterintuitive, but in most situations mobile websites play better with navigation at the bottom of the page. This way, users see the vital content they want with the very first screen full of information. And because they are used to the idea of scrolling down to see more, scrolling to find the mobile site's navigation makes more sense than it does on a standard website. In many cases, that first screen can display a content menu with links to half-a-dozen sub-topics or categories of content that mobile users are likely to want.

Incidentally, users of the standard web are far more forgiving of "under construction" or "coming soon" signs than mobile users, who absolutely hate broken links. Even if you have plans to expand or modify your mobile website very soon, make sure everything you put up for mobile users actually works. Add any new or changed links into the site's navigation only after you flesh out their content.

It's also useful to include a "mobile site map" somewhere on your site. Having one from Google helps your ranking in Google's mobile directory, and it also helps Google keep up to date as you change your website's pages. With the link in place, Google will often register page changes in a couple of days rather than a couple of months. Similarly, Yahoo has a "yahoo mobile submit" page where you can register your site and help them track your mobile pages more closely.

Designers, testing and going local

Work with a mobile site designer. A substantial number of designers believe they can design and develop for any device. You'll hear arguments that it's unnecessary to develop an additional site for handhelds, and that it's better to come up with one site that displays nicely on desktops, laptops and handhelds. Sad to say, designers' beliefs are not always accurate. The limited capabilities of handhelds should not restrict what you do on other platforms. That's why, in many cases, it's more fruitful to have one designer creating your standard websites and another working off that design to optimize different coding for handhelds.

Test extensively before launching

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that testing a site -- any site -- is very important. There are lots of testing services available, as mentioned on the next page. Point some of these tools at your mobile site and you'll quickly discover whether or not it meets all the applicable standards. It's also possible to use handheld emulators to make sure that pages load correctly on each of the devices you expect to be serving.

Plan to exploit localization

One of the most exciting aspects of the mobile web is its capability for localizing each user. Right now, Google Maps can pinpoint a user's location within about 2500 feet (the distance to the nearest cell tower), but GPS-enabled phones are far more accurate. Why not explore the best ways to leverage this technology? From a marketing perspective, localizing can be incredibly powerful because it allows you to compete for a person's business as they walk or drive down the street. The trick, of course, is to get people to opt in, so you have their permission to deliver localized offers to their phones.

Conclusions

As smartphones become more advanced, the need to optimize your websites specifically for mobile devices will become less and less critical. In the future, mobile users will be able to see the same websites as any other device. For now, however, failing to optimize for mobile users is a great way to hamstring your company's online efforts.

What's more, because cellphones often work when and where laptops do not (or are not available), the mobile web can provide an opportunity to offer content to customers and prospects when they are not willing or able to visit your standard website.

Fortunately, it's a lot easier to optimize for the mobile web than a lot of people believe it might be.

Years ago, advertisers were wondering if they should have a website. Now, of course, we all recognize that we need one. It's the same with mobile. Whether you build a new site or retrofit an old one to make it compatible, getting involved in the mobile web can benefit every advertiser. While many think the mobile web is a marketing tool for the future, others are discovering that it is here -- and viable -- right now.

Additional info

One simple and useful way to check the readiness of your website for mobile users is to submit it to the Ready.mobi testing tool. Free of charge, the site thoroughly evaluates any submitted site's mobile-readiness, based on industry standards and best practices. A free report on your site includes both a numerical score (from 1 to 5) and more detailed analysis of individual pages to help you gauge how well your site is likely to perform on most mobile devices. Recently, an upgraded version of this mobile website testing tool was launched, adding new mobile phone emulators, more reports with color-coded scores, and analysis of about three dozen website attributes.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20542.asp