Mobile is changing the way we think about what we do

by Rohit Dadwal ON 16 April 2013

Gartner estimates that the market for mobile advertising will grow to $11.4 billion this year, driven by smartphone and tablet growth. Globally, that amount will grow to reach $24.5 billion in 2016, and revenue from mobile advertising will benefit all parts of the mobile ecosystem, creating opportunities for app developers, ad networks, mobile platform providers, and more.

In order to realise the value of this growth, Google has made a new service available called The Full Value of Mobile, this online tool is designed to help businesses that use Google’s suite of mobile advertising services measure how their mobile marketing efforts are affecting their business, online and offline. The site provides businesses with simple equations and benchmarks that address the different parts of a Google-deployed mobile marketing campaign, measured across the various services that Google provides.

This is Google’s attempt to address the elephant in the room, the problem of measurement that has plagued mobile marketers for the longest time. But perhaps the problem isn’t simply one of finding the right metrics.

It turns out that mobile is disruptive on several different fronts. In the past, the lines between traditional media and online/digital/internet were reasonably clear. In order to be online, the consumer had to be sitting at a desk or table, in front of a computer or a laptop, equipped with a browser which was used to access web pages on the internet. It made sense to treat the online space as though it was simply another display space, where banner ads could be deployed as part of a larger campaign, with content derived from existing assets.

Then along came mobile and changed everything. Smartphones offer a host of functionalities above and beyond voice and messaging capabilities, and their increased computing power combined with services like GPS and the flexibility of apps have really changed the game. Tablets and ‘phablets’, too, have moved the locus of computing, so users can be mobile within the home (and engage in online activity from the sofa, for example) and seamlessly move out and beyond so now users can be online anywhere, at any time, and can use their devices for almost anything.

Mobile is now being used tactically to gain traction for other, traditional media, and conversely, campaigns are designed so that their traditional media points to or provides ways to access mobile assets. Take, for example, a well-designed augmented reality app that lets users point their phones at print media, and then delivers engaging, interactive video content. Aside from helping consumers make the transition seamlessly to more content, while keeping them focused on the brand message, this app can also bring users to relevant websites, help them engage with the brand on social media networks, and even connect them directly to customer service associates directly via voice or chat, or indirectly via email or SMS.

The question, really, is whether this is the best use of mobile, which can in many cases stand on its own as a medium, or which in the bigger picture, is more a mode of engagement more than anything else.

Even measurement can be a bone of contention – while it has become accepted that mobile is an intrinsic part of closing the loop of consumer engagement, traditional means do no justice to the contribution of brand engagement via social networks, or the top-of-mind awareness generated by viral video sharing. It’s clear that these activities are definitely part of the engagement process, but how much of the final value of the purchase decision do we assign to them? How do you calculate the brand equity or the trust generated by positive interactions with the brand? The old currencies of measurement, long used to work out the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, do not include the means to calculate these intangible effects.

It may be that it is time for us to change the way that we think about communication itself. The traditional advertising/marketing/public relations triad has already been blurred by social media, and more and more mobile activity blends utility and entertainment while removing the hard sell. Mobile is challenging the norms of the marketing communications/industry. Brands are already exploring the value of generating and owning their own assets, and moving into the mobile app space previously owned by publishers and developers. The brand-agency relationship may not survive contact with mobile, particularly as brands evolve their own approaches, and as brands need to invest for the longer-term in building relationships with consumers.

Even words like ‘consumer’, ‘customer’ and ‘user’ may be losing their value – new terminology may come as new ways of considering the relationship between brands and these digital citizens arise. What is clear, for now, is that this is a time of change: it will be interesting to see what the final shape of our industry will be, and who is left standing (and where!) when the dust finally settles.

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MMA: Despite growing pains, mobile’s stellar run to continue

by Rohit Dadwal ON 8 February 2013

It doesn’t take a lot of crystal-ball gazing to see that this year is likely to be another one of great highs for mobile devices, and mobile marketing.

Australians continues to ride the crest of the mobile wave, as Telstra approaches the one millionth device connected to its 4G network, While infrastructure continues to improve (including the on-going rollout of the National Broadband Network) the mobile space still looks like it might be going through its own growing pains.

A report from Deloitte suggests that the continuing interest in mobile devices will drive demand for wireless broadband data, and that this will be a problem because Australia, like many other countries, has a limited amount of wireless spectrum available. This may create bidding wars and higher prices as telcos bid for available spectrum, but could also risk creating monopolies as successful bidders could charge premium prices for their wireless services. With demand outstripping supply, this will be an interesting space to watch. Additionally, communications infrastructure in rural areas is still less than optimal in certain places, with the reverse problem (excess load) being an issue in urban areas.

But that’s all gloom and doom – for the average mobile user, this year may be the time for rejoicing, as more services migrate to the mobile platform, and more marketing campaigns compete for user attention. Because mobile audiences are far from passive, brands that best engage with their audiences (either over social platforms, or specially-created apps) may be the ones with the most impact. More local/location-based services, too, are likely to appear, providing more relevant content, and making that mobile device much more valuable.

The tablet form factor is also improving in popularity, and in many cases is not quite as dependent on freely-available mobile data. Many tablet users find that wifi access is sufficient, enough to let their tablets shift the nexus of computing from the desktop or work table to the couch. This leisure computing is also prevalent on the mobile phone, as mobile games continue to be popular.

For mobile marketers, greater awareness is good. Many companies are taking pains to ensure that their online offerings include a mobile-friendly alternative, as a must-have alongside social media presence. For marketers, this is probably also a sign that the time is right to ask ‘what about mobile’ when planning campaigns – organisations that are savvy enough to take mobile into account on one front are more likely to include it on others.

Improvements in analytics technology also allow better modelling of the customer’s purchase journey, and where once the final decision might have been over-valued, analytics make it possible to measure the contribution provided by various touchpoints throughout the process. Today’s consumer is less likely to be persuaded by single exposure to a brand, or by a single ad, but instead is more likely to watch a TVC, see a print ad, check out a website, download an app, and otherwise engage with the brand (including checking online review sites and comparison shopping) before taking that final step. Attribution modelling and analysis can make the contribution of separate media more explicit – and this will also help break down the silos between media channels and pave the way to more holistic marketing campaigns.

It won’t all be blue skies and meat pies, but at least on the mobile front, it looks like there are numerous ways to go, and most of them are good ones.

Ninemsn deepens male focus with Mixed Martial Arts news site

by Marketing ON 4 February 2013

The rapidly growing popularity of combat sport Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in Australia has been given a boost and a targeted media platform, with the launch of a new site covering the sport on Ninemsn’s Wide World of Sports property.

The sport, best known through competition UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), is a full-contact combat sport which incorporates styles from a variety of martial arts disciplines. It has a strong following in Australia – the last local bout sold out in 30 minutes – and is seen as a key way of connecting with the hard-to-reach young male audience. Interestingly, it also enjoys a significant female following, accounting for a third of the audience at the last Australian fight.

“Mixed Martial Arts is one of the fastest growing sports in the world,” said director and driving force behind the site, Adam Ireland. “It’s gone mainstream – and there is a huge appetite amongst fans locally in this market.” Matches can be broadcast to more than a billion viewers worldwide.

Launched late last week, MMA Kanvas features original and UFC-produced content such as global news, exclusive video content, opinion, interviews and an “industry-first real-time social sharing hub”.

The hub will be powered by social media aggregator Stackla to connect Australian fans with MMA content and conversations from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instragram from across the world.

MMA Kanvas

“We wanted to tap into this passion for the sport by creating a site where fans can create and share content and engage with the community, as the action happens,” Ireland explains the emphasis on social.

Ireland, an ex-ninemsn employee, turned his passion for the sport into a commercial reality by pitching his idea for MMA Kanvas to ninemsn, which was then supported by the company’s entrepreneurship program.

“Adam’s passion combined with a great opportunity to tap into the growing popularity of the sport provided a strong business case for us,” Hal Crawford, ninemsn editor in chief, says.

The addition of mixed martial arts content with MMA Kanvas further widens ninemsn’s expansion into online properties skewed towards a predominantly young male audience.

Matches in the its leading league, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), are broadcast to an audience of 1 billion in over 130 countries, and it also attracts a strong female audience with one-third of attendees at the last local UFC bout female.

The next step for retail in Australia

by Rohit Dadwal ON 22 August 2012

Mobile devices have become a part of the daily landscape in Australia. Mobile is fundamentally changing the way business is conducted all over the world and Australia is no different. While in the past the use of mobile devices and applications in marketing was limited to SMS and voice, mobile is now all-encompassing. It is relatively low cost, easy to implement and both small and big retailers are able to leverage the power of mobile.

The retail industry in Australia has already begun to tap on mobile’s immense potential. Take for example the trend of virtual stores. In February this year, Woolworth’s opened virtual supermarkets in two train stations. By using their smartphones to scan barcodes next to products users were able to create shopping lists, order online, pay, and have their purchases delivered. Woolworth’s campaign is a great example of how mobile can help integrate multichannel advertising and really connect the offline and online elements of campaigns together. Through this campaign, Woolworth’s was able to promote its online shopping app, as well as provide a useful service to busy customers.

Aside from shopping, mobile technology is also being used in restaurants and bars and being integrated into ordering systems. Tech-savvy owners are installing tablets at tables which allow customers to browse full menus and place their orders via the gadgets as well. Customers are also able to customise their order or place special requests. Customers can also pay online by simply keying in their cards numbers or swiping their cards. Incorporating such technology has eliminated much of the confusion and miscommunication that takes place between customers and service staff on busy days.

These examples show how mobile is slowly creeping in and changing our everyday lives. Simple activities such as grocery shopping, picking up the kids from school, getting around, waiting for the train, visiting a restaurant, have all been touched by mobile in some way or the other.

According to Telstra’s ‘Smartphone Index 2011’, smartphones are now becoming the preferred medium for many Aussies. One in four smartphone web users visit social networking sites on the mobile phones more frequently than they do on a computer. Meanwhile, 47% of smartphone web surfers use their smartphones to find information about a product or service.

Interestingly the survey showed that among the various categories of products that consumers browse online, clothing and fashion accessories, consumer durables, and beauty and cosmetic products have seen the greatest rise in numbers. This shows how people are becoming more open to online shopping and are starting to purchase personal as well as expensive items online.

The growing inclination of Australians to purchase online could spell trouble for retailers. Online stores do not have the operational costs of running a brick-and-mortar store and therefore able to price products more competitively and provide larger discounts on branded items. On the other hand, customers do still look for a unique shopping experience. Given rapidly changing consumer behaviors and the changes taking place in the retail environment itself, there is huge potential for mobile marketing to bridge the gap between online advertising and more traditional modes of advertising and deliver something fun, different, and better. The possibilities are unlimited.

Mobile promises coming true: smartphones and tablets the fastest-spreading tech ever

by Rohit Dadwal ON 29 June 2012

What was once considered the future promise of mobile phones looks to be coming true, faster than ever.

A report in Technology Review raises the possibility that smartphones are spreading faster than any technology in human history. According to the report – which acknowledges the difficulty of accurately measuring technology development – while it took landline phones a century to reach saturation, mobile phones took only one-fifth as long, twenty years. Smartphones are set to halve that rate yet again, and tablets may be even faster (in the United States).

But this growth is not limited to only one country. The report goes on to point out that as recently as 1982, there were 4.6 billion people in the world, none of whom was a mobile phone subscriber. Twenty years later, the world’s population has grown to seven billion people, and there are six billion mobile phone subscriptions.

The hyperbolic and global nature of smartphone growth is confirmed by Google’s research, available online, which concludes not only that smartphone growth is global, but also that six countries lead the world in smartphone adoption. Those countries are Australia, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, all of which have over 50% of their population using smartphones.

That global reach and incredibly fast spread should come as no surprise to most Aussies, easily verified simply by looking around the business district of any of Australia’s capital cities. Something similar is happening with tablets, too, and the number of people using them has skyrocketed in the last few years.

All of this points to a minor revolution, as consumers become more committed to and more comfortable with technology. Where once technology was merely functional, and did not extend its reach beyond the workplace, smartphones and mobiles have become quite personal computing devices.

In fact, the greatest mobile revolution may not just be that we can now be reached anywhere there is a cellular signal. Research from Forrester showed that 85%of tablet users use their tablets while watching television – and another report from Nielsen says that 30% of tablet use happens while watching television. The biggest step in mobile may be the one from the desk to the sofa, along with the attendant mindset changes – now tablets (and mobile phones, to a lesser degree) have become consumption devices, reflecting the use of computers as playback mechanisms for digitally recorded media.

The tablet form is nothing new. Ancients used pointed sticks to make marks on thin layers of wax spread on stone tablets, well before paper was invented. Still, tablets are having a bit of a renaissance as they firmly establish themselves as the latest flavour of computing, between the palm-sized mobile phone and the laptop. Compared to smartphones, tablets have their own appeal – larger screens, touch interfaces, and a great flexibility in terms of use. Gartner estimates that tablet sales (worldwide) will reach 118.9 million units this year, a 98% increase from 2011 (60 million units).

The availability of mobile data is one driving factor behind all this growth, alongside consumer demand and the development of an efficient app ecosystem. It seems like the elements have all fallen into place nicely, as none of this seems likely to slow in the days to come, and if anything, looks set to accelerate.

As always, brands and marketers are playing catch-up, although that pace is increasing too. Brands realise that if they’re not in action on these new playing fields that they might well be left behind, and even more, that they’re missing out on the increased levels of engagement that these mobile screens provide.

2011 forecast series… Mobile

by Rohit Dadwal ON 18 June 2012

In the lead up to the release of Marketing magazine’s annual publication for 2012, The Marketing Survival Guide, we’re winding back the clock to the start of last year and sharing the ‘Industry leader’ columns from 2011′s Digital Survival Guide to see just how much has changed, what has stayed the same, and generally what life was like over a year ago across eight areas of digital marketing, continuing today with ‘Mobile’.

2 February 2011 – Mobile phone sales continue to defy the global economic slump. According to Gartner, smartphone sales grew nearly 49 percent between Q1 2009 and Q2 2010. More than 314 million smartphones and feature phones shipped in Q1 2010 alone, 17 percent more than one year earlier.

One key learning from mobile successes around the world is that they are all about the consumers. Marketing gurus from around the world are romancing their consumers via these tiny gadgets, based on a deep understanding of consumer preferences and the technological environments in which they function. Building and sustaining these mobile relationships is fast becoming the lifeblood of global marketers.

Know your customers

Any relationship starts with both parties getting to know each other’s likes and dislikes. Similarly, any successful marketing effort is based on the understanding of customer behaviour. The unrivalled degree of intimate knowledge about each subscriber that the operator can possess includes: age, gender, income range, hometown and current real-time location, device type, usage habits and preferences, browsing and purchase history, and more. While safeguarding user privacy, this knowledge can be used for smart targeting – delivering relevant and timely content to ideally suit each user.

A good place to start when considering the value your brand can bring to your customers is to determine some of the most widely used mobile applications in a given region. The four emerging mobile functionalities seeing tremendous growth in Asia Pacific, include mobile gaming, mobile music, mobile healthcare and mobile payment:

The phone in your pocket may also double as a music store, as a new music distribution model with mobile operators becomes more commonplace across Asia.
Smartphones can double as mobile game machines, and the delivery of advertising within mobile applications for games will only grow. The revenue from in-game advertising may be used to partially or completely subsidise the price of mobile games/services that the application provides.
Mobile healthcare is another fast growing segment in Asia, with its ageing but tech- friendly population. Applications cover a wide range of possibilities like remote patient monitoring, mobile nursing, mobile medical records access, access to free mobile healthcare information and more.
With a potential US$200 billion-plus of global remittance moving through the Asian population, analysts believe it will be a key adopter of mobile payments.

Keep things fresh

In order to sustain a relationship, it’s important to keep things interesting. The world is coming alive for your consumers. Products and services are jumping out of stores and following them wherever they go. The tremendous demand for mobile phones has contributed to the steady development of mobile technology, leading to dazzling innovations in mobile marketing.

The most prevalent advertising formats are display and text ads leading to m-sites or permanent mobile sites. Virtually all major mobile sites run their own membership/opt-in programs and promotional material.

In Japan, marketers make great use of mobile’s interactive capabilities with quick- response (QR) codes. These two-dimensional barcodes that consumers can scan with their mobile phone cameras have led to the mobile activation of everything. Most mobile phones in Japan now come with code-scanning capabilities pre-installed.

There are also a lot of interesting things happening with augmented reality (AR)technologies. Mobile messaging has become all about helping customers explore the experiential side. Things like using the phone for seeing a 360-degree rotating view of a car or playing a virtual tennis game. AR shows you products immediately relevant to your current environment. So, if you’re at the park, it may show you barbecue products. If you’re hanging out on the beach, you may see a surfboard. There is also location-based technology that is making local search an incredibly rich and enjoyable tool on mobile devices – and the great thing is that all local firms, especially small ones previously excluded from digital marketing, will be able to use these services to give consumers added value and special promotions.

The future is also going to be about combining mobile with video. Mobile can now enable some stunning moving images right into the palm of your hands. If developed correctly, mobile videos can create a stronger impact and call to action than any other mode of advertising so far.

Given the current mobile environment, the key takeaway for any marketer is that a successful mobile strategy is consumer- centric – if companies implement consumer services that benefit the customer first, they will find customers to be much more receptive. At the end of the day, no matter who we hear from – the operators, the agencies, the brands, the ad networks – it is clear that the consumer is the most important part of the equation, and the one part that we need to consider right now.

Making fantasy into (augmented) reality

by Rohit Dadwal ON 12 January 2012

Augmented reality (AR) might seem like a dream come true, but as a means of engaging consumers it couldn’t be more real. It comes as no surprise that 2012 promises to bring memorable digital and technology trends, and AR is predicted to be one of the big ones. According to Visiongain, in 2012, 25% of mobile apps will feature augmented reality. The popularity of camera-ready 3G and 4G smartphones will let marketers adopt mobile augmented reality as a feature of new and innovative mobile apps. It has been used by many brands in various ways such as on business cards, in fashion shows, product catalogues and product simulations. This feature has created new, outstanding ways to make retail and commerce more exciting and more powerful than people have ever seen before.

While the term itself may be daunting, augmented reality is simply the use of software to interpose virtual objects onto images obtained from the mobile phone’s camera. That is, the screen shows you what the phone is ‘seeing’, plus some additional objects created by the program. This lends itself to many uses, from heads up displays that provide location information of the nearest supermarket, to games that let the user shoot down spacecraft hovering above and around their usual suspects.

AR lets marketers create more powerful and relevant content since it layers on top of the user’s immediate surroundings. AR combines the power of advertising and digital technology to deliver information in a more engaging fashion. It is at once immediate and appealing to consumers and adds an element of play to otherwise mundane activity. It certainly offers the opportunity for consumers to gain a more in-depth understanding of products and other details.

The changing brand approach from representing functional value to more emotional value has impacted on marketing efforts. In modern times, brands are no longer merely tangible products. They have gone beyond, offering emotional experiences alongside functions. Brands embody promises for consumers. With camera-based features, augmented reality has been discovered to highly enhance emotional experience by allowing users to virtually try and see products via their mobile devices. Visualisation and animation are implemented to reflect the brand promises so that consumers are able to explore the value of brands via their smartphones. For example, using AR, consumers can ‘try on’ different pairs of sunglasses by having them superimposed in real time over their own image.

This may be the most powerful way that mobile devices are making a difference to the way people interact with brands. What in the past may have required a super-powerful computer can now be done in the brain of the device in your hand. The process of converting data into images, video, and animation is easy and simple enough. Consumers can just point their smartphones at images or ads and AR will immediately reveal rich information and powerful content through moving images, video and animation that seem to be real. AR is a means of engaging customers in technologically innovative ways, but beyond the technology itself, AR lets marketers find ways to write the consumer into the brand story, letting them participate and interact with the brand and its products in a new and perhaps memorable way.

Today’s marketing is about engaging the consumer’s imagination, about creating emotional connections and, in turn, integrating those into brand values. The playful, fantastic nature of augmented reality lends itself perfectly to that job. A notable Japanese example, iButterfly, turns users’ phones into virtual butterfly nets, letting them catch butterflies that only appear in the augmented reality of the screen. Aside from the collector value of the butterflies (there are several different types), the butterflies themselves functioned as coupons that could be exchanged for discounts or other special offers. The designs of the butterflies also reflected the brand identity of the sponsoring brand. To make things more interesting, different butterflies were available in different locations, so even acquiring the different coupons became part of the game.

Used in the right way, AR offers the possibility of quite transcendent user experiences. Fantasies, perhaps, but ones that send the right marketing messages and create happy consumers.

Rich media mobile the future says MMA

by Marketing ON 19 March 2010

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has announced the release of a whitepaper on rich media mobile advertising.

The MMA used the paper to create a definition, which it refers to as ‘Rich Media Mobile Ad Units’ – interactive and/or non-interactive ad units displayed on a mobile web page and/or in a mobile application that offers inclusion of streaming video content or animated GIF within the ad unit, sound or a richer interactive feature set than basic mobile click-through.

According to the whitepaper, the MMA estimates that advertisers spent about $1.7 billion on mobile marketing in 2009, which will grow to $2.16 billion in 2010.

Rohit Dadwal, managing director of the Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pacific, said that the smartphone market is estimated to be at 52 million devices, indicating a tech-savvy consumer group that wants to get the most out of their mobile experiences.

“With increasing penetration of these feature-rich smartphones, marketers have now started to increase mobile ad capabilities and provide richer content on mobile devices. The purpose of this whitepaper is to educate the industry about the rich media mobile ad units that are available for use in mobile advertising. We aim to encourage experimentation with these rich media mobile ad units, and to influence future Rich media mobile advertising guidelines,” explained Dadwal.

Cowboys beware – mobile ad guidelines released

by Marketing ON 12 June 2009

The Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA) recently released the 2009 Australian Mobile Advertising Guidelines.

Consulting with the Mobile Marketing Association, carriers, publishers and content providers/aggregators, AIMIA produced the guide in line with international standards, while accounting for the idiosyncrasies of the domestic market. The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Australia also lent their endorsement to the guidelines.

Released first in 2007, AIMIA indicate that the guidelines aim to support the industry in its development and uptake. Updates included moving from fixed ratios to aspect ratios for display advertising, as well as individual specifications for iPhone and BlackBerry. Guides for text length, design and mobile channels were also incorporated.

Creative guidelines were also laid down for the channel, ranging from channel specific (suggesting not to use flash, as it is still widely unsupported) to generic (consider multiple creative executions to maintain top-of-mind freshness).

Chair of AIMIA’s Mobile Industry Group, Jennifer Wilson, projected that there would be strong growth.

“We expect mobile advertising to grow by around 150% to 200% this year, with the market valued somewhere between $10 million and $15 million. The 2009 Australian Mobile Advertising Guidelines will help support the growth of the mobile advertising industry within Australia,” said Wilson.