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.

Changing patterns of mobile technology use

by Rohit Dadwal ON 23 October 2012

The latest report on ‘Internet Activity, Australia’ from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is very enlightening. Between changing levels of consumer and business demand for internet access, and thanks to infrastructure changes across Australia, most notably the introduction of 4G networks and the National Broadband Network, Australians are using more internet data than ever before.

According to the ABS there are now 16.2 million mobile phones in Australia, an increase of 7% from the last quarter of 2011. There are also 12 million internet subscribers nationwide. But while the latter have increased the amount of data downloaded by 20%, the amount of data downloaded through mobile phones has increased by a third*.

While mobile data usage is still a fraction of other data consumed, the rate at which it has increased reflects that the Australian consumer is becoming increasingly mobile, and has come to depend more on their mobile devices for internet access. The increased availability of mobile broadband data may also be problematic for operators, at least in the short term.

In a report from July 2012, research firm Ovum predicts operators worldwide will have lost US$54 billion in SMS revenues by 2016, more than double the US$23 billion loss predicted for the end of 2012. In the report, titled ‘Countering the Social Messaging Threat’, Ovum predicts that these losses will be most felt by countries in Europe and the Asia Pacific**, as consumers move away from SMS messaging to alternatives, including smartphone messaging apps.

While infrastructure improvements stand to make mobile device use more attractive and convenient to users, they also give them the opportunity to do things differently – in this case, to move away from the SMS messaging technology baked into feature phones, and replace it with alternatives like Whatsapp. Consumers probably consider this a good thing, because they have more choice, and better options, but this might leave telcos, who depend on SMS messaging for some portion of their income, in a bit of a rut.

To see some possible solutions one only has to look at Singapore. The island nation is often mentioned together with Japan and Korea as one of the region’s frontrunners for mobile technology. Singapore government statistics report over 7.8 million mobile subscriptions nationwide, reflecting a mobile penetration rate of over 150%.

New research of Singaporean mobile phone users by the Mobile Marketing Assocation reveals that 90% use smartphones – and many also utilise devices like MP3 players (45%), tablets (38%), and mobile gaming consoles (36%). This opens up some interesting options for operators, who may be able to create their own revenue streams offering mobile music or mobile gaming. Already we see some telcos have made headway in those directions, and in offering their own, mobile data-based social messaging systems.

Smartphone apps already allow users to bypass costly SMS charges and send messages using the data plans that they have already paid for. As other devices, particularly tablets, or phone/tablet hybrids, become more commonplace then more and more consumers will be able to customise their mobile experience.

The key observation here is that mobile is changing consumer patterns – and while for now, the main observable difference may be in terms of online activity, it is only a matter of time before consumers get accustomed to the idea of mobile shopping, and mobile banking, or any of the other services that will soon be available to mobile devices.

Improving infrastructure and more sophisticated mobile phones make some sort of change inevitable – but it is the users who will choose how this change will happen, and whose choices will change the mobile marketing landscape.

* Internet activity, Australia, ABS. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyReleaseDate/6445F12663006B83CA256A150079564D?OpenDocument

** Ovum figures indicate that operators will lose $54 billion by 2016 due to smartphone messaging apps. http://ovum.com/press_releases/ovum-figures-indicate-that-operators-will-lose-54bn-by-2016-due-to-smartphone-messaging-apps/

The human connection: mobile is all about people

by Rohit Dadwal ON 21 September 2012

This really is the lucky country. Australians may not realise it, but this country is definitely up there compared with the rest of the world as far as mobile technology is concerned. Already, Wireless Intelligence predicts that by the end of 2013 there will be two million LTE connections in Australia, the result of both Telstra and Optus investing in their infrastructure.

And to be fair, Australians are eagerly climbing on the technology bandwagon. Research by Suncorp reveals that seven million people are opting for mobile banking in place of the traditional alternative, and Australians will spend approximately $16 billion on internet shopping this year, $2.4 billion more than 2011. Much of this online shopping is done via mobile – 57% of Australian online shoppers report increasing their level of spending via mobile devices over the last 12 months. This is not a surprise, not in a country with some 26 million mobile subscriptions, more than the population of Australia itself.

We’re already seeing more interesting and innovative implementations of mobile marketing. The retail sector has been able to take advantage of mobile-based tools beautifully. Retailers can place QR codes next to merchandise, allowing customers with mobile phones an easy way to access more information regarding the product – right there in the aisles.

The moves benefit the consumer, in terms of convenience, but also provide businesses with important information. Supermarkets and grocery stores have developed online stores that allow consumers to shop while on the move, and have their selections delivered home. During the process of making purchases, data from their past shopping history is used to suggest possible items to customers – additional value for the customer, and easy sell-through for the merchant.

Successful mobile marketing does this as a baseline – making shopping easier and less of a chore, while providing customers with an enhanced customer experience. What’s more, these have given customers a chance to interact with the brand, improving engagement and giving the brand an edge over its competitors.

Marketers do have to resist the urge to be too taken with the technology, however. Making the most of the tech we have should not involve reinventing the wheel, or creating new technology that needs to be bolted on to existing platforms – there is nothing more annoying than being told that one now needs to install something new in order to be able to do what was perfectly simple before.

Savvy marketers are the ones who return to their roots, who remember that the two key strengths of marketing are communication and storytelling, and recall that moving the consumer is the key to success. Campaigns that tap into emotional responses are the ones that people remember, and conversely, that emotive response that certain campaigns engender in consumers is what connects them to the brand, making them the brand’s best advocates and ambassadors.

That explains why nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool, and why people are always more interested in marketing materials that make a human connection. Mobile is integrated so tightly into people’s lives that many would be hard-pressed to remember their lives without it. Marketers stand only to gain from working to take advantage of that intimacy, by building consumer-centric campaigns that tell compelling stories.

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.

Cutting through the clutter: making mobile easier and more attractive

by Rohit Dadwal ON 3 August 2012

Recently, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) announced the implementation of a new Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code.

The new code aims to provide protection against ‘bill shock’ and eliminate confusing mobile plans, making ISPs and telcos more transparent. The code will be fully operational by September 2012 and will ensure that consumers are sent alerts once they use 85% of their mobile plans, including calls, text and data. Telcos and ISPs will also be required to detail their product and service offerings more clearly, and make information about domestic and international call charges more readily available.

This will be something of a revolution in a market packed with service providers, each trying to gain some measure of competitive advantage over the others. Traditionally, ISPs and telcos have done this by each offering its own range of plans and schemes, with different charges for use at different times of day and in different circumstances, and throwing a range of options at consumers, including bundled services in different permutations and combinations.

Unfortunately, this can leave consumers with far too many choices – choosing a mobile plan can be a painstaking job that requires complex calculations and difficult predictions, and an Excel spreadsheet for good measure. With many companies also offering multiple services, for example bundling home broadband with mobile phone plans, the choices can rapidly multiply out of control, if they weren’t already difficult enough to understand.

An excess of choice may not necessarily be a good thing. A look at markets across Asia where consumers have taken more readily to mobile reveals that sometimes it is the lack of choice that makes mobile an easy option. Limited by what is on offer, or what is affordable, many times the choice is cut down to ‘mobile or not’, and consumers increasingly choose mobile. Offering too many choices can be paralysing, leaving people worried that they are not getting the best use out of their devices, or are being overcharged.

Making it easier for consumers to cut through the number of choices is a good move, and will remove one of the last remaining pain points from the adoption of mobile. ACMA’s chairman, Chris Chapman, describes the Telecommunications Consumer Protection Code as a “unique and ground-breaking document by world standards”, and he might be right.

In this, Australia is once again leading the world, by creating an ideal situation, one where consumers could pick plans that were almost tailor-made to individual needs or where consumers have sufficient flexibility to select from a range of plans. In turn, this would make mobile a more attractive option, since consumers would get exactly the plans that they need, lending them confidence and making mobile more cost-effective. This can only happen when consumers have enough information to make an informed choice, and when this information is made available in a clear, comprehensible way.

ACMA seems to be taking the steps necessary to make this a reality for Australians, and it will only be a matter of time before other governments or authorities in other territories follow suit.

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.

A more social tomorrow: DrawSomething and Instagram

by Rohit Dadwal ON 23 April 2012

Software development used to be a relatively straightforward enterprise. Identify a problem that a computer could solve, build software that would solve that problem, and then sell it to the bevy of personal computer users out there. Software would be priced according to demand, with productivity suites and image processing software often selling for hundreds of dollars each.

The fragmentation of the device market, including the introduction of dedicated gaming consoles, led to some diversification. Games became a lucrative option for software developers and publishers, leading to a studio system (at least within the game/entertainment industry) where small studios could develop high quality games and sell them to (or through) big name publishers. Once again, profit margins were high – large companies have high costs, and some of those, as well as the costs of publicity and marketing, could be passed on to software buyers, who would fork out substantial sums of money for the latest alien-killer or combat shooter. Handheld consoles also brought with them more opportunities, this time for the sale of scaled-down but portable games, sometimes with multiplayer or pass-and-play functionality built in. For example, there are several versions of Grand Theft Auto for the PlayStation Portable, baby cousins to the large-scale games for PC and PS3. More recently, one of the showpieces for the newly-launched Playstation Vita was a scaled-down handheld-exclusive Uncharted adventure, very nearly as complex and rich as the console version.

The internet, social media and the availability of mobile phones (especially smartphones) transformed the software industry. Software developers who had with valuable intellectual properties in the form of their powerful desktop programs found a ready audience that was clamouring for mobile versions that would let them work or play on the go, while still integrating with the more sophisticated desktop originals. Once the notion had firmly set in that you could do pretty much anything with a smart phone, provided you had the right app, well, the flood gates were open.

Mobile app stores were disruptive to the system, though. The low prices of mobile apps forced developers to charge less – but because mobile is so pervasive, there is a much higher pool of possible users. Profiting from software has become about volume sales, about quantity driving revenue. Which is not to imply that the user experience is any less: today’s mobile devices offer a startling combination of portability and computing power, coupled with always-on connectivity that makes the handling of information (including saving files in the cloud) so much easier than before.

Two more recent developments, however, have shown that that mobile social media and mobile marketing may prove to be even more disruptive and revolutionary than previously thought. The startling success of DrawSomething, and the acquisition of its parent, OMGPOP, by Zynga is testament to that: the bulk of the profit made by DrawSomething came from downloads of the paid, ad-free version, and of course, the asynchronous social multiplayer aspect of the game was what led to its huge popularity. Even more dramatic than that was the US$1 billion acquisition of Instagram by Facebook, a move that will provide Facebook an inroad into social content creation. The amount paid reflects the immense value placed upon Instagram, a value that is not matched by revenue, since Instagram is a free app.

Even more interesting is the fact that both these apps were not developed for desktop or console use, but were developed for and sold completely on mobile platforms. (Both DrawSomething and Instagram are available for iOS and Android.) Actually, ‘sold’ might be an exaggeration, since DrawSomething has a free version and Instagram costs nothing to download.

From making highly-priced software for desktop machines, the software industry’s two biggest hits in recent times turn out to be free apps for mobile devices. While the implications of DrawSomething and Instagram still remain to be seen, we can be certain that they are paving the way towards a smarter, more mobile and more social tomorrow.

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.