online advertising
Come out from behind the two-way mirror
That coupon you just downloaded could be a window into your world. When you viewed it online, the barcode on it was dynamically generated with what could be very personal information about you. When you take it into the store to redeem it, the retailer could instantly know the search words you used, where you got the coupon, where you live, and a host of other details that can help them target you better.
16 years after the first cookie was planted on a computer, the business of capturing and profiting from online behavioral data has exploded, and grown to include mobile user data. There’s an attitude amongst us marketers that lack of privacy is the trade-off that consumers make for their access to content on the internet and on mobile phones….and that we have every right to spy if it means we can make faster and more relevant offers to specific individuals.
But please, let’s regulate ourselves before the regulators step in. We’re intrigued by a company called Media6Degrees Inc., who is pushing the envelope. The folks at Media6Degrees envision the day when financial institutions can make judgments about you by who you associate with online. According to this Wall Street Journal article, “The idea is that the creditworthy tend to hang out with the creditworthy, and deadbeats with deadbeats.”
How many times do we need to learn…what the consumer doesn’t know can hurt you. Protect your brand and think twice about how you’re using this data. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
Old Spice’s Rapid Response Video Campaign
An old brand is leading the way in using new media…Old Spice extended their TV commercial campaign with an innovative tactic. Fans used social networks to ask questions of the actor in the TV ads. And Old Spice rapidly responded to 186 of these questions via short videos. Each video was produced in just minutes, and reportedly resulted in YouTube traffic that exceeded 34 million views in less than a week. Check out the story on NPR.
The Online Impact at the Grocery Store
Cereal Scan iPhone app
This type of mobile usage is just starting to catch fire. I’ve been loading apps for scanning as soon as they were available. Red Laser crashed my iPhone on its inaugural day; but updates have shown continual improvement. Good Guides also has a scanner app, telling you not only nutritional information, but company’s social and sustainability records as well. Food Scanner is ok, it keeps a food diary for you if you want it to, but I’ve found that its database isn’t populated with most of the stuff that I eat. I do track my food intake, though, through Lose It. But that’s another story.
A recent Deloitte study (conducted in March, 2010 and just released last week) indicates that 7% of those surveyed are using mobile apps at the grocery store. Why? To compare prices, redeem coupons, find discounts, read product reviews and of course, get nutritional information either through an app or by linking directly to a company/product website.
I’m forever fascinated by the differences in grocery shopping habits between men and women. Mobile usage for food shopping is no different. Overwhelmingly, men use mobile apps to retrieve discounts (53% vs. 38%) and compare prices (59% vs. 49%).
Women use mobile apps most to obtain nutritional information (36% vs. 18).
Armed with information, 23% of those surveyed said that they have bought a food item because of something read on line; and 22% said that they’ve “not purchased a food product as a result of something read online.”
Pat Conroy from Deloitte stated, “Consumers realize their shopping choices have expanded, giving them the ability to be more selective about their purchases based on a variety of criteria. The question companies are asking now is, ‘Will this more critical eye towards purchasing be the new norm or just a passing result of the economic downturn?’”.
A Strategy for Mobile Marketing
While I’m an early adopter for new ideas and technology, when it comes to spending clients’ money I tend to get pragmatic. Earlier in my career I encouraged clients to jump in without hesitation and the response from those efforts was generally, “So what did that get us?”
Now that all of us marketers have iPhones, Androids or Blackberrys, let’s jump in to the vast opportunities mobile marketing offers. It’s terribly exciting! I’m actually consumed by it. QR codes in magazine ads? Cool! Location-based apps that push a menu special every time I walk past a restaurant. Yummy! But hold on. “What did that get us?”
My pragmatism now takes over. Mobile is Marketing and as such needs to follow the same rules other media usage follows. At a recent mobile marketing meeting we facilitated, it became crystal clear from those presenting case studies that if you follow solid marketing principles, the fun and rewards will continue beyond the last campaign.
1. Strategy based on marketing goals and objectives
2. Establish outcomes and measurement, up front
3. Understand your target audience
4. Understand the opportunities unique to mobile devices
5. Develop tactics based on the target audience’s behaviors
6. Test, track and optimize
7. Expand based on successes (document, measure, expand)
And (though not a principle), have fun!
2010: Mobile Marketing Trends
We’ve declared 2010: The Year for Mobile Marketing, primarily due to the influence of consumer acceptance and adoption of smartphones, such as iPhone, Blackberry and Android OS phones. By Q3 of 2011, it is projected that 50% of all mobile phones in use will be smartphones. This fact alone should make any marketer sit up and take notice that the dynamics of mobile devices is or will be a major influence on consumer and B2B research, decision-making and purchases.
Colman Brohan Davis recently hosted an event featuring Mickey Alam Khan, editor-in-chief for Mobile Marketer, and in my opinion a futurist for the industry. His online publication not only reports news and insights, but also nurtures the mobile marketing industry through guidebooks and case studies of cutting edge and novel uses.
Mickey gave us five trends driving mobile marketing and commerce this year, in his words…
Coming soon to my living room
My husband can’t help it. He’s an obsessive first adopter gadget guy. So I could see the writing on the wall when I saw Fast Company’s May 13th article about Litl’s innovative product that “solves the problem of creating a rich, easy Web-browsing experience, while sitting on the couch and watching TV.” Honestly, I didn’t even know I had that problem.
Check it out here: http://www.fastcompany.com/1646754/litl-will-release-tv-internet-product-webbook
We’ve been hearing about the eventuality of web tv, and it’s finally here. With mobile also finally taking off, online advertisers and online media channels need to be thinking about the future role and value of the traditional banner ad.
