Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Do you think you pay too much for mobile service? CTIA / FCC discuss wireless billing practices (http://ping.fm/uIcXV)
Monday, August 24, 2009
So many clueless, so little time: "Boy, that's news to me. I don't really see it impacting us." (http://ping.fm/nXQJ2)
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Here's To the Media Pioneers - OR - Hey You Get Off of My Cloud
Media change is a naturally organic and healthy process spurred on by creativity, innovation, technology and social behavior. The process isn’t new – it’s as old as Guglielmo Marconi and PT Barnum ¬– but the cycle of change and adaptation is increasing with media proliferation, wireless connectivity and device portability. Media channels have traditionally competed for mass attention and sponsorship. Now, instead of competing, media channels are being woven together as all media is becoming interactive.
As a kid I remember early broadcast TV being really primitive. Just before my time, radio stars with silk voices and sandpaper faces found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly out of work. Television was taking over the broadcast drama format and radio had to either change format or loose listeners. You will notice that radio didn’t vanish. It simply evolved in new directions.
Even so, TV programming was pretty awful at times before it was even experimental. It took pioneers taking risks to build an amazing media institution that has lasted more than seven decades.
The same is true of the Internet but this is much harder to see because it is still so rapidly evolving. Did you know TV is interactive now? The trouble is that almost no one less than thirty years old really cares much and most people over the age of 45 can’t take advantage of the benefit. The interactive experience of television doesn’t rival the adrenalin rush of a multiplayer Halo match zapping aliens to kibbles. Most of the folks who struggled to program the VCR don’t enjoy scrolling through menu selections. We’re witnessing the dawn of information portability, access, personalization and content creation wherein "the masses control the media." When TV is interactive, on demand, on mobile phones and user created, is it really TV any longer? Not as most of us, including sponsors, advertisers and networks understand TV. According to the Advertising Age 2007 budget numbers, 56B on TV vs. 11B Internet, online hasn’t replaced television by a long shot. To witness how television networks, programming and hardware have developed over the past decade however, it would be hard to miss the influence of interactive media. TV is evolving in new directions.
Here on this media battleground enters the wireless device. It was the rapid adoption of SMS text by teens that created the vast mobile market. Not the media and not the wireless carriers, it was, the people that drove the shift to mobile. The growth of SMS was as organic, unplanned and unexpected as the iPhone’s domination of the wireless web that strains AT&T’s network. By now it is no secret that the new social zeitgeist has far outpaced the strategy of the media oligarchy to monopolize consumer interest. Mobile messaging and social media are inherently connected, interdependent communications media phenomena. The social network model has smoothly and rapidly embraced the mobile channel while so many entrenched channels are struggling and competing in silos. Coincidentally, we're in something of a global “recession” and an environment where taking risks on new media can be akin to martyrdom. As always, marketing trendsetters are the few visionaries and change agents, willing to take a punch to drive in a new era. These pioneers must convince the many, change averse, sheepishly employed guards of the status quo, propping up rotting sacred cows, creating barriers to new media availability. Most pioneers die on the trail, there are few known heroes and many casualties. Right now, the speed by which media attention is shifting to the mobile platform may also shear a few bystanders.
Consider that a generation – the largest since the Boomers – has been raised on wireless interactive communication. 260+ million people in the US out of 300 million men women and children have wireless devices – more than half of which text and roughly 30 percent have wireless web enabled handsets. After more than 70 years of media supremacy, TV doesn't have the market penetration mobile phones gained in just half a decade. Now there’s tremendous opportunity for those who embrace media channel convergence on mobile platforms and applications with originality. We are rapidly approaching the tipping point where the me too approach – e.g. "we are also considering a mobile iPhone application"– has become a far greater risk than learning by inventing something new. In my opinion, there are already too many ‘apps for that’ thank you very much. There are however, several innovative case studies in the “nascent” mobile media history dating back to 2003 that are truly groundbreaking and worth learning from.
We owe our thanks to those pioneers who came before us risking their fortunes and reputations to shape the industry where we have found our careers. We owe it to the entrepreneurs that reinvent their way through massive social shifts and disruptive technology changes to keep tens of thousands or even just one person employed. We owe our thanks to the unsung garage and basement dwellers that work to reinvent technology and media every day just for the passion of inventing, enabling communications and the satisfaction of possibly one day making a contribution.
We the media and technology professionals have something of a common history, and a debt to our forbearers. We owe it to the industry to value integration over channel specialization. We owe it to ourselves to demand better than a “look me too” approach. We owe it to our society to promote new media technology invention and clear the path to innovation of yesterday’s sacred cow carcass.
As a kid I remember early broadcast TV being really primitive. Just before my time, radio stars with silk voices and sandpaper faces found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly out of work. Television was taking over the broadcast drama format and radio had to either change format or loose listeners. You will notice that radio didn’t vanish. It simply evolved in new directions.
Even so, TV programming was pretty awful at times before it was even experimental. It took pioneers taking risks to build an amazing media institution that has lasted more than seven decades.
The same is true of the Internet but this is much harder to see because it is still so rapidly evolving. Did you know TV is interactive now? The trouble is that almost no one less than thirty years old really cares much and most people over the age of 45 can’t take advantage of the benefit. The interactive experience of television doesn’t rival the adrenalin rush of a multiplayer Halo match zapping aliens to kibbles. Most of the folks who struggled to program the VCR don’t enjoy scrolling through menu selections. We’re witnessing the dawn of information portability, access, personalization and content creation wherein "the masses control the media." When TV is interactive, on demand, on mobile phones and user created, is it really TV any longer? Not as most of us, including sponsors, advertisers and networks understand TV. According to the Advertising Age 2007 budget numbers, 56B on TV vs. 11B Internet, online hasn’t replaced television by a long shot. To witness how television networks, programming and hardware have developed over the past decade however, it would be hard to miss the influence of interactive media. TV is evolving in new directions.
Here on this media battleground enters the wireless device. It was the rapid adoption of SMS text by teens that created the vast mobile market. Not the media and not the wireless carriers, it was, the people that drove the shift to mobile. The growth of SMS was as organic, unplanned and unexpected as the iPhone’s domination of the wireless web that strains AT&T’s network. By now it is no secret that the new social zeitgeist has far outpaced the strategy of the media oligarchy to monopolize consumer interest. Mobile messaging and social media are inherently connected, interdependent communications media phenomena. The social network model has smoothly and rapidly embraced the mobile channel while so many entrenched channels are struggling and competing in silos. Coincidentally, we're in something of a global “recession” and an environment where taking risks on new media can be akin to martyrdom. As always, marketing trendsetters are the few visionaries and change agents, willing to take a punch to drive in a new era. These pioneers must convince the many, change averse, sheepishly employed guards of the status quo, propping up rotting sacred cows, creating barriers to new media availability. Most pioneers die on the trail, there are few known heroes and many casualties. Right now, the speed by which media attention is shifting to the mobile platform may also shear a few bystanders.
Consider that a generation – the largest since the Boomers – has been raised on wireless interactive communication. 260+ million people in the US out of 300 million men women and children have wireless devices – more than half of which text and roughly 30 percent have wireless web enabled handsets. After more than 70 years of media supremacy, TV doesn't have the market penetration mobile phones gained in just half a decade. Now there’s tremendous opportunity for those who embrace media channel convergence on mobile platforms and applications with originality. We are rapidly approaching the tipping point where the me too approach – e.g. "we are also considering a mobile iPhone application"– has become a far greater risk than learning by inventing something new. In my opinion, there are already too many ‘apps for that’ thank you very much. There are however, several innovative case studies in the “nascent” mobile media history dating back to 2003 that are truly groundbreaking and worth learning from.
We owe our thanks to those pioneers who came before us risking their fortunes and reputations to shape the industry where we have found our careers. We owe it to the entrepreneurs that reinvent their way through massive social shifts and disruptive technology changes to keep tens of thousands or even just one person employed. We owe our thanks to the unsung garage and basement dwellers that work to reinvent technology and media every day just for the passion of inventing, enabling communications and the satisfaction of possibly one day making a contribution.
We the media and technology professionals have something of a common history, and a debt to our forbearers. We owe it to the industry to value integration over channel specialization. We owe it to ourselves to demand better than a “look me too” approach. We owe it to our society to promote new media technology invention and clear the path to innovation of yesterday’s sacred cow carcass.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Charge My Mobile or Who Swiped My Wallet?
With the recent announcements by Visa, Google, Chase and Nokia, mobile phone payments in the US are a near-term certainty. The forces driving adoption and market penetration are entrenched players in wireless and financial transaction markets. Soon you’ll be hearing a lot about a wireless technology known as near-field communication (NFC). Near-field is about to do for mobile media what e-commerce did for the Internet, only on a much larger scale.
Credit issuing banks are going to increase their share of retail market spending or customer wallet by providing the convenience of mobile payments and advantage of mobile tracking of spending and expenses. Using radio frequency identification (RFID), mobile phones are to be used for small ticket item purchases instead of credit cards. Already available in Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, The Netherlands and now the UK, NFC enables mobile phone payments at retail terminals, transit systems and vending machines. In the US, “proximity” payments will enable consumers to pay with their mobile phones in place of plastic.
According to the Smart Card Alliance, there are already close to half a million contactless NFC terminals in the US. These readers support RFID wireless technology currently deployed for smart cards (a credit card embedded with an RFID chip). Smart card technologies include MasterCard’s Tap – I know that’s an unfortunate choice of words these days – and Visa’s Wave. Catchy branding sounds good but no one’s waving any credit card bills and most Americans are tapped already. Smart card penetration has reached about 10 percent of the credit card market but that’s not really the end game for credit issuing banks. I have yet to see anyone physically tap or wave a credit card. I doubt there’s any added convenience to waving a card at a terminal, certainly not enough to change behavior. People have learned to slide credit cards through payment terminals – ironically the term for this action is called “swipe.” Smart cards were clearly an interim step on the path to mobile proximity payments.
There’s nothing inherently “smart” about smart cards, so privacy advocates, please don’t get unraveled. The RFID tag in your credit card is a storage device, not a processor. RFID tags embedded in smart cards, are intended for reading by an external card reader in the terminal. If you’re thinking that wireless transmission of your personal credit card data may be a bad idea, you’re not alone. There are numerous articles written about security, fraud and privacy. RFID has been the subject of heated debate. An RFID tag is basically used for wireless tracking of items. Although the broadcast range in smart cards is limited to a few centimeters and the data has been securely encrypted, third party readers that get within range could access those cards. Hacking RFID tags has become a pastime for Stanford undergrads and makes great fodder for industry trade rags.
The major difference between smart cards and mobile proximity payments is that mobile phones are equipped with RFID readers. Mobile NFC payments do not use the same write-once-read-many (WORM) configuration as smart cards. For one thing, the mobile phone uses an NFC reader writer device configuration. NFC can be activated and deactivated as needed by the mobile phone user. For another, the mobile phone can both send and receive signals using multiple protocols. Mobile phone payments offer far more robust functionality in terms of payment security, verification, access and tracking than read-only smart cards.
There’s plenty of incentive for wireless carriers to deploy RFID readers through their handset manufacturers for transactions. US mobile network operators have an installed base of more than 260 million subscribers from which to monetize transactions. Within the GSMA (an international wireless industry trade association) there are 721 mobile phone operators across 218 countries. Nearly half of the mobile network operators (MNO’s) in the Global System for Mobile Association (GSMA) are involved in the world-wide NFC initiative and reach more than 800 million customers.
Most retailers are familiar with RFID for supply chain management, inventory and shipping but mobile media is altogether different and still fairly new to marketers. The retail industry began implementing RFID for managing and tracking inventory as early as 2000. Manufacturers tag pallets using RFID embedded with an Electronic Product Code (EPC) to track shipments and manage inventory. In retail security, items tagged with RFID will set off alarms at security kiosks located at store exits. As early as 2004, Prada, an upscale retailer in New York installed RFID technology in smart closets. RFID tags on products trigger corresponding product video to play on displays located in store dressing rooms. A similar configuration using smart shelves was recently deployed this year in Germany for merchandising P&G hair care products. While retailers are familiar with the various implementations of RFID for security, tracking and even merchandising, most US retailers haven’t implemented mobile for payment systems, loyalty and point-of-sale (POS) redemption. Retailers just now seeking answers about mobile media are already behind the technology curve. Fortunately, there are several options for brining mobile payments to retail including mobile loyalty, pre-paid credit cards, stored value, and third party merchant transaction services.
Mobile proximity payments along with other NFC uses will change everything we understand about retail, merchandising, mobile and traditional media. Consider the matter of consumer and industry adoption a relative certainty. Mobile phone payments will replace credit cards and ultimately cash for retail purchases. Which players will most effectively leverage mobile NFC technology to offer customer convenience, extend reach and grab media market share is still the only mystery.
The mobile phone-as-payment method broadens the retail, financial transaction, wireless and media network playing fields. In the m-commerce environment, network operators and media distribution networks have as much at stake in financial transactions as credit issuing banks. Last year, Visa formed partnerships with Chase, Google, Nokia and US Bank with a launch of mobile payments targeted in Q4 2009. Soon, brick and mortar retail should offer all the advantages of e-commerce. The fact that more than seventy percent of purchases searched online are transacted in-store seems to indicate that mobile proximity payments may already be more aligned with consumer behavior.
Within the year, alliances will be drawn between online media networks, transaction services and wireless network operators. Wireless carriers may become banks, handset manufacturers may become media networks and media networks may purchase handset manufacturers. If activity in Japan is any indicator, DoCoMo’s purchase of a 35% stake in Packet Video as well as acquiring interests in several banks globally should tell us something about media and technology convergence. As wireless MNO’s are running out of new subscribers to sell plans to, they’re looking for new sources of revenue. There is certainly opportunity in this scenario for new entrants to invent wireless media and mobile purchases in a way that consumers will embrace.
You can find out more about NFC by contacting me directly at
barry@ad-venturemedia.com or visit ad-venturemedia.com
Credit issuing banks are going to increase their share of retail market spending or customer wallet by providing the convenience of mobile payments and advantage of mobile tracking of spending and expenses. Using radio frequency identification (RFID), mobile phones are to be used for small ticket item purchases instead of credit cards. Already available in Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, The Netherlands and now the UK, NFC enables mobile phone payments at retail terminals, transit systems and vending machines. In the US, “proximity” payments will enable consumers to pay with their mobile phones in place of plastic.
According to the Smart Card Alliance, there are already close to half a million contactless NFC terminals in the US. These readers support RFID wireless technology currently deployed for smart cards (a credit card embedded with an RFID chip). Smart card technologies include MasterCard’s Tap – I know that’s an unfortunate choice of words these days – and Visa’s Wave. Catchy branding sounds good but no one’s waving any credit card bills and most Americans are tapped already. Smart card penetration has reached about 10 percent of the credit card market but that’s not really the end game for credit issuing banks. I have yet to see anyone physically tap or wave a credit card. I doubt there’s any added convenience to waving a card at a terminal, certainly not enough to change behavior. People have learned to slide credit cards through payment terminals – ironically the term for this action is called “swipe.” Smart cards were clearly an interim step on the path to mobile proximity payments.
There’s nothing inherently “smart” about smart cards, so privacy advocates, please don’t get unraveled. The RFID tag in your credit card is a storage device, not a processor. RFID tags embedded in smart cards, are intended for reading by an external card reader in the terminal. If you’re thinking that wireless transmission of your personal credit card data may be a bad idea, you’re not alone. There are numerous articles written about security, fraud and privacy. RFID has been the subject of heated debate. An RFID tag is basically used for wireless tracking of items. Although the broadcast range in smart cards is limited to a few centimeters and the data has been securely encrypted, third party readers that get within range could access those cards. Hacking RFID tags has become a pastime for Stanford undergrads and makes great fodder for industry trade rags.
The major difference between smart cards and mobile proximity payments is that mobile phones are equipped with RFID readers. Mobile NFC payments do not use the same write-once-read-many (WORM) configuration as smart cards. For one thing, the mobile phone uses an NFC reader writer device configuration. NFC can be activated and deactivated as needed by the mobile phone user. For another, the mobile phone can both send and receive signals using multiple protocols. Mobile phone payments offer far more robust functionality in terms of payment security, verification, access and tracking than read-only smart cards.
There’s plenty of incentive for wireless carriers to deploy RFID readers through their handset manufacturers for transactions. US mobile network operators have an installed base of more than 260 million subscribers from which to monetize transactions. Within the GSMA (an international wireless industry trade association) there are 721 mobile phone operators across 218 countries. Nearly half of the mobile network operators (MNO’s) in the Global System for Mobile Association (GSMA) are involved in the world-wide NFC initiative and reach more than 800 million customers.
Most retailers are familiar with RFID for supply chain management, inventory and shipping but mobile media is altogether different and still fairly new to marketers. The retail industry began implementing RFID for managing and tracking inventory as early as 2000. Manufacturers tag pallets using RFID embedded with an Electronic Product Code (EPC) to track shipments and manage inventory. In retail security, items tagged with RFID will set off alarms at security kiosks located at store exits. As early as 2004, Prada, an upscale retailer in New York installed RFID technology in smart closets. RFID tags on products trigger corresponding product video to play on displays located in store dressing rooms. A similar configuration using smart shelves was recently deployed this year in Germany for merchandising P&G hair care products. While retailers are familiar with the various implementations of RFID for security, tracking and even merchandising, most US retailers haven’t implemented mobile for payment systems, loyalty and point-of-sale (POS) redemption. Retailers just now seeking answers about mobile media are already behind the technology curve. Fortunately, there are several options for brining mobile payments to retail including mobile loyalty, pre-paid credit cards, stored value, and third party merchant transaction services.
Mobile proximity payments along with other NFC uses will change everything we understand about retail, merchandising, mobile and traditional media. Consider the matter of consumer and industry adoption a relative certainty. Mobile phone payments will replace credit cards and ultimately cash for retail purchases. Which players will most effectively leverage mobile NFC technology to offer customer convenience, extend reach and grab media market share is still the only mystery.
The mobile phone-as-payment method broadens the retail, financial transaction, wireless and media network playing fields. In the m-commerce environment, network operators and media distribution networks have as much at stake in financial transactions as credit issuing banks. Last year, Visa formed partnerships with Chase, Google, Nokia and US Bank with a launch of mobile payments targeted in Q4 2009. Soon, brick and mortar retail should offer all the advantages of e-commerce. The fact that more than seventy percent of purchases searched online are transacted in-store seems to indicate that mobile proximity payments may already be more aligned with consumer behavior.
Within the year, alliances will be drawn between online media networks, transaction services and wireless network operators. Wireless carriers may become banks, handset manufacturers may become media networks and media networks may purchase handset manufacturers. If activity in Japan is any indicator, DoCoMo’s purchase of a 35% stake in Packet Video as well as acquiring interests in several banks globally should tell us something about media and technology convergence. As wireless MNO’s are running out of new subscribers to sell plans to, they’re looking for new sources of revenue. There is certainly opportunity in this scenario for new entrants to invent wireless media and mobile purchases in a way that consumers will embrace.
You can find out more about NFC by contacting me directly at
barry@ad-venturemedia.com or visit ad-venturemedia.com
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Check Out is the Mobile Buzz
You've heard the buzz, now get the facts. Subway, Papa John's, Dunkin' Donuts, MGM Grand, Payless and several other retailers are delivering mobile coupons with reportedly staggering response rates. The promotions take on various configurations depending on mobile agency, provider, degree of integration and retail marketing objectives. Most of the press I've read oversimplifies the process, making it all sound very turnkey. In my experience, integrating legacy architecture with third party platforms is never simple. Mobile integration is a fairly complex process involving networks, aggregators and device interoperability. Complex enough for Barnes and Noble to bypass integration altogether and have their register clerks scan a generic coupon behind the register anytime a customer presented a coupon on their mobile phone. Well, it's not so complex that it warrants loosing valuable consumer data they could be using to market more effectively.
There are several platforms available for integrating mobile promotions and redemptions with POS through loyalty programs, stored value, pre-paid, optical and third party merchants. No doubt there are more platforms in the development pipeline and with the clear winners will eventually emerge some standards. Meanwhile, customers have rediscovered coupons on the mobile phone and mobile marketing is driving traffic now. Few forms of marketing will prove as valuable as placement on your customers' hand-held and those customers that opt-in today have limits to how many retailers they'll invite.
Sound like future-tech? Credit card issuing banks have been working on micro-payments since around 2000. Visa, Chase, Mastercard and Citi are all on board with wireless carriers and handset manufacturers to launch mobile proximity payments and replace plastic credit cards. More than half of all in-store retail transactions in the US will be mobile by 2013.
As with any media, costs vary according to scope, reach, offer, delivery channel and integration platform. Unlike other media, delivery is only half the job. Mobile promotions provide opportunity for increased loyalty, pre-paid accounts, gift cards and partner merchandising while gaining valuable behavioral insight.
Find out more about proximity payments and NFC at www.ad-venturemedia.com
There are several platforms available for integrating mobile promotions and redemptions with POS through loyalty programs, stored value, pre-paid, optical and third party merchants. No doubt there are more platforms in the development pipeline and with the clear winners will eventually emerge some standards. Meanwhile, customers have rediscovered coupons on the mobile phone and mobile marketing is driving traffic now. Few forms of marketing will prove as valuable as placement on your customers' hand-held and those customers that opt-in today have limits to how many retailers they'll invite.
Sound like future-tech? Credit card issuing banks have been working on micro-payments since around 2000. Visa, Chase, Mastercard and Citi are all on board with wireless carriers and handset manufacturers to launch mobile proximity payments and replace plastic credit cards. More than half of all in-store retail transactions in the US will be mobile by 2013.
As with any media, costs vary according to scope, reach, offer, delivery channel and integration platform. Unlike other media, delivery is only half the job. Mobile promotions provide opportunity for increased loyalty, pre-paid accounts, gift cards and partner merchandising while gaining valuable behavioral insight.
Find out more about proximity payments and NFC at www.ad-venturemedia.com
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Executives from AT&T and Verizon, Coke, Quattro and AdMob fearlessly lead mobile marketing while MMA pulls a rabbit out of it’s hat.
Laura Marriott, MMA’s president opened discussions by announcing that 2009 is the year of mobile advertising, really. I was reminded of Bullwinkle’s asides to Rocket J. Squirrel, “this time for sure Rock,” we’ll see next year if the MMA can pull a rabbit out of it’s hat. Notwithstanding, the industry has more than a few new tricks up its sleeve.
The panel discussions themed Mobile Advertising Insights, featured an impressive cast of characters from advertising, interactive, mobile agency and telecommunications. Google’s director of mobile advertising, Diana Pouliot shared some of Google’s key findings on mobile traffic. One major point worth noting, already far more people surf the mobile web than with ye old desktop computer. As it turns out, people work on desktops and play on mobile phones.
Commentary from AT&T’s executive director of media innovation, Jordan Berman included particularly animated discussion on branding over mobile platforms, establishing subscriber relationships and mobile wallet coupons. T’s case study on 1 800 Flowers revealed a 40% contest conversion rate with 25 percent of participants being acquired virally. Tom Daly, Coca-Cola’s group manager, strategy and planning, global interactive marketing (who is also incidentally MMA chairman) offered a narrative on mobile applications, one of which engaged consumers in voting for commercials that brought Coke an 80 percent response. Similar successes were hailed by Richard Williams, executive director digital media operations, Verizon and Quattro Wireless CEO Andy Miller.
So why wasn’t 2008 the “the year of mobile advertising” as had been previously predicted? If mobile is such an effective channel, why haven’t advertisers moved more of their budgets to these miraculous mobile media channels. I am an advertiser, objective audience attendee and a mobile media evangelist, but if I didn’t know better I might have gotten the impression that I was being pitched on mobile media by panelists.
“Set the Way-Back machine Sherman.” In 2004 mobile carriers didn’t want advertising running amuck with network operations. Meanwhile Back in Frostbite Falls, US carriers had dropped the iron curtain around carrier networks and imposed heavy restrictions on media making it extremely difficult to deliver content on cross carrier networks. So why are carriers suddenly pitching advertisers on the mobile channel? Why Natasha? Because Fearless Leader has a right to change his mind. Secret formula driving wireless carriers’ interest in advertising isn’t network traffic darling, is financial transactions! Nothing else, my little babushka, makes for Moose and Squirrel to spending American greenbacks like advertising media.
No, 2008 was decidedly, not the year of the mobile media boom, but the promise of financial transactions has started the thaw of the mobile media Cold War and with anarchists like Android and Apple, the walls around walled gardens are crumbling like a fractured fairy tale.
The plot thickens this November in San Diego at the MMA Mobile Marketing Forum. Don’t miss our next exciting episode entitled,
“Carrier to Credit Card Network” or “Who Swiped My Mobile Wallet?”
The panel discussions themed Mobile Advertising Insights, featured an impressive cast of characters from advertising, interactive, mobile agency and telecommunications. Google’s director of mobile advertising, Diana Pouliot shared some of Google’s key findings on mobile traffic. One major point worth noting, already far more people surf the mobile web than with ye old desktop computer. As it turns out, people work on desktops and play on mobile phones.
Commentary from AT&T’s executive director of media innovation, Jordan Berman included particularly animated discussion on branding over mobile platforms, establishing subscriber relationships and mobile wallet coupons. T’s case study on 1 800 Flowers revealed a 40% contest conversion rate with 25 percent of participants being acquired virally. Tom Daly, Coca-Cola’s group manager, strategy and planning, global interactive marketing (who is also incidentally MMA chairman) offered a narrative on mobile applications, one of which engaged consumers in voting for commercials that brought Coke an 80 percent response. Similar successes were hailed by Richard Williams, executive director digital media operations, Verizon and Quattro Wireless CEO Andy Miller.
So why wasn’t 2008 the “the year of mobile advertising” as had been previously predicted? If mobile is such an effective channel, why haven’t advertisers moved more of their budgets to these miraculous mobile media channels. I am an advertiser, objective audience attendee and a mobile media evangelist, but if I didn’t know better I might have gotten the impression that I was being pitched on mobile media by panelists.
“Set the Way-Back machine Sherman.” In 2004 mobile carriers didn’t want advertising running amuck with network operations. Meanwhile Back in Frostbite Falls, US carriers had dropped the iron curtain around carrier networks and imposed heavy restrictions on media making it extremely difficult to deliver content on cross carrier networks. So why are carriers suddenly pitching advertisers on the mobile channel? Why Natasha? Because Fearless Leader has a right to change his mind. Secret formula driving wireless carriers’ interest in advertising isn’t network traffic darling, is financial transactions! Nothing else, my little babushka, makes for Moose and Squirrel to spending American greenbacks like advertising media.
No, 2008 was decidedly, not the year of the mobile media boom, but the promise of financial transactions has started the thaw of the mobile media Cold War and with anarchists like Android and Apple, the walls around walled gardens are crumbling like a fractured fairy tale.
The plot thickens this November in San Diego at the MMA Mobile Marketing Forum. Don’t miss our next exciting episode entitled,
“Carrier to Credit Card Network” or “Who Swiped My Mobile Wallet?”
Saturday, August 9, 2008
mobile media by the masses
Mobile is fast becoming the ultimate referral based media channel.
Applications for user generated content, social networking, connectivity, blogging and social media marketing and mobile media access -- available to just about everyone -- are speeding the process.
Applications like Twitter and Loopt are keeping personal networkers in remote contact while social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn aggregate mobile contacts and updates. With Ning, CollectiveX, KickApps and a host of social networking platforms for white labeling your very own network app, it doesn't take a team of web monkeys to build your own social networking application. You can do build your own social networking site in a few hours. The same is true for managing blogs using apps like Typepad and Blogger. If you find professional web development WYSIWYG applications like Dreamweaver daunting, anyone who can point and click can download complete web templates from sites like Hypertemplates and easily update them with Adobe Contribute.
All of this media technology innovation puts more media control in the hands of the masses than ever before thought possible. Which means that media attention may soon be subject to competition from more independent channels. Channels like the guy next door, your friends, your mom. People that don't need additional permission to contact you and people -- according to Harris Interactive -- whose referrals to products and services you trust 60 percent more of the time than the "expert" opinions.
It shouldn't be long before advertisers catch on that Mom is better media placement than media networks. She may have a smaller reach, but her conversion rate is much greater. I'm surprised that all of Internet advertising was still below 10 percent of media spending in 2007. I am not surprised that Internet media (including mobile) was the only media channel with a significant increase in ad spending (15 percent over 2006, nearly all other channels were flat or down from the previous year). Mobile media is just 8 percent of online today but that's pretty decent growth for a media that didn't exist in the US a few short years ago.
The mobile media channel has distinct advantages that no other media does. What other media is as portable, by permission and personalized? The mobile media channel is assured of success for these reasons and more but it is really going to flourish with the adoption web based applications available for the masses.
Applications for user generated content, social networking, connectivity, blogging and social media marketing and mobile media access -- available to just about everyone -- are speeding the process.
Applications like Twitter and Loopt are keeping personal networkers in remote contact while social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn aggregate mobile contacts and updates. With Ning, CollectiveX, KickApps and a host of social networking platforms for white labeling your very own network app, it doesn't take a team of web monkeys to build your own social networking application. You can do build your own social networking site in a few hours. The same is true for managing blogs using apps like Typepad and Blogger. If you find professional web development WYSIWYG applications like Dreamweaver daunting, anyone who can point and click can download complete web templates from sites like Hypertemplates and easily update them with Adobe Contribute.
All of this media technology innovation puts more media control in the hands of the masses than ever before thought possible. Which means that media attention may soon be subject to competition from more independent channels. Channels like the guy next door, your friends, your mom. People that don't need additional permission to contact you and people -- according to Harris Interactive -- whose referrals to products and services you trust 60 percent more of the time than the "expert" opinions.
It shouldn't be long before advertisers catch on that Mom is better media placement than media networks. She may have a smaller reach, but her conversion rate is much greater. I'm surprised that all of Internet advertising was still below 10 percent of media spending in 2007. I am not surprised that Internet media (including mobile) was the only media channel with a significant increase in ad spending (15 percent over 2006, nearly all other channels were flat or down from the previous year). Mobile media is just 8 percent of online today but that's pretty decent growth for a media that didn't exist in the US a few short years ago.
The mobile media channel has distinct advantages that no other media does. What other media is as portable, by permission and personalized? The mobile media channel is assured of success for these reasons and more but it is really going to flourish with the adoption web based applications available for the masses.
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