Mobile & Marketing Essentials

Accessible Brands & Brand Governance

2011-12-22T14:45:00.001+01:00

There are countless examples of Brands having suffered reputational damage in the digital space. 'United Breaks Guitars', BP increasing their ad presence after the oil spill accident, Sony's Playstation sites being hacked, the list goes on. There are positive examples too, such as the Financial Times successfully launching a web app. By using html 5 they bypass the 30% kickback Apple gets when selling in-app content.
But most examples show how Brands struggle with Social Media, viral videos and technical complexity imposed on them by the interactivity of today's Digital Ecosystem. It is urgent then to define a Digital Brand Strategy.

Why is Digital Different?
To me Digital is just a technology that connects humans with humans but also humans with machines and machines with machines. Digital connections facilitate communication, information exchange, storage and media consumption. In addition there are a few interesting characteristics that have consequences for everyone and that includes Brands, dealing with it.

1. Digital communication is fast as light and viral in nature. Information can reach millions of people in a matter of hours since information can be copied and forwarded immediately with the press of a button.

2. Digital is cheap and available to a very large part of the global population. A PC in an internet cafe or a smart phone is enough to create and send your own messages. Twitter is the example "par excellence" of a medium that can be used from almost all communication devices, including older smart phones at no cost. But in the right context it reaches further and is faster than any press medium is able to attain. The most recent examples being the protests in Libia and Egypt and the Tsunami in Japan.

3. Digital has a memory that cannot be erased. Paris Hilton can certainly confirm that one of the video's in which she features in her birthday costume will circulate for a while to come. It will an almost eternal reminder of a faux-pas she committed and which she by now might regret.

4. Digital is global. Again the examples of political protesters and the intense use of text messaging in Africa mean that more people have access to internet or more in general digital communication than ever before and the number of digitally enabled people is still rising.

5. Digital is personal. Facebook has more details about you than you might know. This can be used for a wide variety of purposes. The recent announcement by the Dutch air carrier KLM that they will allow customers to search for a seat next to someone by using Facebook profiles of potential travelers on the same flight illustrates how this can be put to use. The web being so personal means that we start to expect that brands personalize their brand experience around my needs and preferences.

The Brand image disasters from the pas decade clearly illustrate what the consequences of these 5 digital characteristics are. Brands have become accessible because digital is interactive where the interaction can be totally owned and driven by web communities. Brands are as a result more exposed to their customers' opinion and are scrutinized over their actions, communications and responses.

Digital is about Listening, Feedback and Feeding Back
Compared to 'classic' Branding & Brand Management, Digital means that Brands have to deal with potential feedback coming from an increasing set of channels. The following illustrates the difference between classic Brand channels such print and television and the Digital ecosystem.

The interactive connection between Brands and the Digital Ecosystem means:

- Brands are accessible and will receive Feedback from Digital Communities.
- But Brands also have the opportunity of feeding the Brand Values back into these communities.
- Digital also creates the opportunity of listening or monitoring how your Brand Values are perceived and live in the Digital eco-system.

I call this the concept of Accessible Brands. Accessibility means that Brands today are more fluid, nonlinear in their development and subject to scrutiny by their clients. The question now is how do you deal with this feedback coming from Digital interactions. How is this connected to the 'classical' Corporate Design & Corporate Identity guidelines.

From Accessible Brands to Brand Governance
The Accessible Brands concept means that Brands have to define a strategy specifically targeted at Digital interactions. How can Brand Managers ensure that Digital interactions are in line with Corporate Design and Corporate Identity guidelines?

It is here where the Brand Governance concept can add real value. What I define by Brand Governance is the following:
- Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power or verify performance.
- It consists of either a separate process or is part of management and leadership process.
These processes and systems are typically administered by a government in the public sector and by the Brand Management department in the private sector.

Brand Governance can be seen as an extension of Corporate Design & Corporate Identity guidelines. The guidelines are there to manage expectations in Digital and grant power to e.g. the marketing department to act within the boundaries set. Brand Governance can only be successful if it is monitored in terms of its performance and effectiveness.

Brand Governance can also be regarded as a more specific form of Corporate Governance. It equally implies that stakeholders in the company take responsibility for Brand Communication and Interactions, against a broader Brand Value and Brand Purpose Framework.

What drives Brand Governance?
Brand Governance should be driven by Brand Values. In order for the Governance itself to be credible and effective the Brand Values themselves need to be authentic and positive.

So before even considering going deep into Digital Space it is important to conduct a Brand Value and Positioning analysis.

Suppose you feel comfortable with your Brand Value Proposition then it is the moment define how your Brand is governed in the Digital Ecosystem.

Governance should then include the following:

- Listen & Monitoring framework
- Planned Actions based on the Brand Values & the Insights generated from Listening & Monitoring
- Show Leadership by taking actions that generate discussions, feedback in line with your Brand Values and ideally reenforcing them.
- Guide your resources. The marketing people, editors and communication managers should have clear guidelines that help them interact, without boxing them in. At the same time these guidelines should help dealing with emergency situations. But better still they should help preventing catastrophes.

How to do Brand Governance: Easier Done than Said
Since Digital is the "raison d'être" behind The Accessible Brands and Brand Governance concepts, defining them for real world use is a 'brand' new task as well. Although one can define a lot of the guidelines by building on classic Brand CI & CD, adding to it the vast knowledge of expertise coming from the past decade of internet experiences, defining Brand Governance is a fluid process in itself.
Early adopters in Digital that have embraced Social Media at a very early stage have taken risks at first but now benefit from the learnings and best practices they've gathered. If you don't have defined your Brand Governance yet, then I would recommend the following:

- Have a good look at your CI & CD and core Brand Values. Are they consistent and based on a credible story. In short is your Brand authentic?
- Listen to existing conversation around your Brand and monitor the discussions.
- Define a first framework for Brand Governance guidelines.
- Plan interactions
- Analyze and learn from these actions and feed them back into your Governance policy.
- Repeat step 4 and 5 while never stopping step 2 and occasionally revisiting step 1.

In short go Do and Learn. Or in the famous words of Nike's brand mantra: Just do it!

The Value of Brand Governance

Although no insights and research exists today in the actual value that Digital Brand Governance creates long term for business, it is clear that a quiet a few businesses have suffered already negative impact from Digital Feedback. The costs for the definition of Digital Brand Governance could therefore be allocated under marketing as well as financial risk management. My gut feeling is though that proper Brand Governance will create shareholder value because well managed Accessible Brands are more credible, better visible and closer to the primary revenue sources; their customers. This then can only contribute to the bottom line.

For further reading:

Value of Coporate Governance Lawrence McDonald

Branding Governance: A Participatory Approach to the Brand Building Process
Nicholas Ind, Rune Bjerke, Wiley

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What if Homer had a Twitter account?

2011-11-26T19:21:00.000+01:00

Today's marketing channel fragmentation can be overwhelming. The difference in brand communication via television commercials and Facebook posts is a stretch for anyone in marketing and brand management. And not only brands are struggling with it, also agencies are trying to answer the all important question: how do I respond to the broadening demand from the client side? What is the glue that holds everything together? So the question is; what if Homer would have had a Twitter account?

The most successful brands tell the most interesting stories. Story-telling is in fact older than written communication. Anyone familiar with Homer and the Odysee probably knows that this famous Greek myth was first passed on by story tellers before it finally got written down.

While it took centuries to go from oral to written. It would take a few more centuries to go from handwritten manuscripts to printing. Basically the 3 first marketing tactics took thousands of years to develop.

Then we got newspapers, telephone, radio and television. The impact of these channels on both advertising and branding were tremendous but somehow manageable.

Then the internet emerged and branding, marketing and sales have changed almost overnight.

So here are some thoughts on the recent changes imposed on us by everything digital:

What would Homer tweet if twitter would have existed in his time?
Imagine Hannibal and his forces having access to email.
Would Napoleon have conquered Russia if he would have had a mobile phone?
Would Shakespeare's Romea & Juliette have ended differently if SMS would have existed at the time?

Of course these questions are rhetorical. But as a thought start they might get you to realize how profound digital is changing our lives in just two decades...

What doesn't change is that with regards to the rhetorical questions above leadership made the difference. We know about Homer, Socrates, Napoleon and others because they were somehow bigger than life. They became the equivalent of what we could call a brand today and through that they entered written history.

Today anyone can keep track of himself in writing, video or audio recording but the leadership part has not changed.

If you look at brands as leaders then anything digital might mean facilitation of brand story leadership but it doesn't necessary mean that all brands succeed over time in the same way as the Napoleon's of yore. Telling a leading story is still that makes the differences between a great and a 'yet another' brand.

Brand story-telling needs to be leading. With this in mind the digital channels need to be evaluated regarding their potential tactical and strategic story-telling contribution. The questions to ask are:

What defines my brand leadership, regardless of channel?
Where can digital sustain, support or amplify this story?
Looking at the digital story scenario today, what will be our story tomorrow both a digital only and a digital combined with 'classic' branding scenario?

Although these questions are pretty obvious the actual answers might reveal much more, specifically if you think about what Homer, Napoleon or even Shakespeare would have done if they would have had Twitter.

Amazon's Psychic Fire Power

2011-11-16T13:45:00.001+01:00

What do Amazon and Psychic Pizza Delivery have in common. Well, more than you think at least when you look at it from a marketing perspective.

Let me start by saying that I don't own a Kindle Fire yet but that I am planning to order one as soon as its available in Europe.

But there's a lot you can say about the device without having touched it. Of course I read quite a few reviews and a some were downright negative. Slow processor this, clunky UX that and too small screen, bla bla bla. Yes, all true, probably. But it is still the most significant piece of hardware that came out in all of 2011. Here's why.

Jeff Bezos started out with a BIG idea. He didn't want to sell thousands of books. Instead he dreamed of selling millions of books, preferably ALL books available via the web. So far he has succeeded in bringing that dream to reality pretty well.

So most readers will still think of Amazone as an oversized digital bookstore. The great thing about Amazon today is that they didn't stop at books. As we all know they started delivering household appliances, hifi equipment, computers and... digital content.

So now they started selling there own hardware. All of a sudden Amazon is playing in the same area as Apple, Dell, Sony, HP and some others. Why bother would you think? Plus apparently the UX of the Kindle Fire is poor and it doesn't offer a lot of applications. Ok its only 199$ but still. Amazon is failing here, right?

The thing is I think they're not. Much like Apple they are creating their own ecosystem that allows them to deliver content faster and better optimized than they could do if they would continue targeting the gazillion different computers and tablet on this planet. Plus, delivering digital content over your own hardware comes with numerous advantages that so far only Apple has masterd to the full extent:

You can kindly request or in the case of Apple bluntly insist on pushing alerts and update messages, also regarding new available content, to your audience.
Payment becomes an afterthought, specifically if prices are low and there is content available for free. In fact consumption - or if you like joy of use - comes first and pricing should ideally be connected to the actual desirability of the content.
You can actually measure the use of the content and build recommendations on it.

Now that last point sounds familiar doesn't it. Regular users of Amazon know the feeling. They've looked at something a while ago and all of a sudden you find suggestions for similar or even the same products in your email or on the homescreen, often weeks or months later. Amazon has become really good at that.

Now imagine what they can do if they continue polishing and perfecting these algorithms over time. There's a really great blog article on Mashable written by Matt Silverman where he quotes Eli Pariser on how algorithms are in need of improvement.

The 7 points where matching algorithms fail today are exactly the weaknesses that Amazon's current matching suggestions don't solve, although I am still every now and then amazed by the anticipation of some of the suggestions they bring up.

Now back to the Kindle Fire and actually all things Kindle at Amazon. What Jeff Bezos has seen correctly is that issuing hardware brings numerous advantages in terms of tying your brand closer to the consumer and his preferences. In my mind Jeff has created an ecosystem that would allow him to start addressing the 7 things that personalization algorithms do poorly today. But suppose he's not even thinking of going there yet, then he still has something that Apple doesn't have...

Amazon can easily tie 'real-world' products to digital content. Although this would also require some clever algorithm tuning my gut feeling tells me that this should be easier than creating algorithms that somehow will come up with mind blowing anticipated suggestions as stated by Eli Pariser.

Let's continue even thinking about the 7 points that algorithms should do better. In fact think about age old marketing challenge that most brands would like to solve. What if marketing could actually predict what customers want and as a brand you're there to offer it by the time they start asking for it? The famous be where the puck is going to be not where it actually is paradigm.

So, slow processor, clunky UX? Maybe but I'm sure they'll fix it and while they're at it Jeff and his team will create other benefits for his customers some of which we might not even expect today.

I leave you with the wonderful Psychic Pizza Delivery cartoon while I'll give you this: Amazon is creating an eco-system with the Kindle that could potentially create more value than they've currently locked up in their warehouses and on their servers together.

Matt

Update;

Another proof of why Jeff has been right about a few more things all along (thanks to LinkedIn and Businessinsider):

14 Years Ago Jeff Bezos Told You How To Take Over The World

Written by Henri Blodget

Set the Tone of your Digital Brand Voice

2011-11-02T21:19:00.004+01:00

Have you met Siri yet? If not, try to find someone near you with an iPhone 4S and try her (?) out. While Siri is another iteration of voice-recognition and voice-driven command systems that as a technology have been around for a while, it is the first time where the current state of technology combined with the genius of the late Steve Jobs provides us with a compellingly powerful package.

Now let's leap a few steps into the future. It is safe to say that Siri and comparable voice command systems will very soon become more and more important. Those who know Kit from the Knight Rider may have considered a car that talks back to you and executes voice commands to be a laughable sci-fi fantasy. But there are only 30 years between Hasselhoff's appearance in the first episode and today, where Siri is turning into a handy companion and things are only speeding up from here. Kit can become reality in just a few year's from now; many of us will get to say 'please park my car' and our vehicle will respond with a 'very well sir' or whatever your car brand has come up with as an answer.

And this is where the marketing and branding part comes in again. WHAT exactly will your car, phone, hifi system, iPod wannabe, elevator, website coach or whatever the product is you're bringing to market say? What will be the tone of voice, will it be female or male or optional? How do you deal with the various languages and cultural differences if you have to localize for multiple markets, regions and continents?

In short, how will you include yet another technological innovation into your branding strategy and your marketing communication. What will be the guidelines and what will they be based on?

Siri is a sign on the wall telling us how fast technology is advancing and how marketing and brand managers need to be pro-active from a strategic point of view. And when I say marketing and brand managers this applies automatically to agencies as well. There is probably even more urgency to address this if a brand wants to remain consistent and compelling across current and near future communication channels.

Strong brands will have with a clear story will have an advantage over brands that are competing on price or features. The best examples can be found in the luxury sector. A brand like Louis Vuitton has a story to tell and the values this includes will help identifying the right voice and more importantly the right tone of voice for when Siri starts talking back.

This does not mean it is going to be easy. Here are some additional and more random thoughts on this topic:

Audi is a great example of how brand is translated into every aspect of the final product. Audi actually tests the quality feel of buttons and switches and has even developed guidelines for how scents and smells of their car interior. They have a rudimentary voice control system in their cars but I am already wondering how their cars will speak to me in the future, provided that my next car is going to be an Audi of course.

Abercrombie & Fitch offers another example of how a brand experience is extended and even includes a brand specific store perfume. Those familiar with the brand will smell the store's particular scent before even seeing it. One of the best recent examples bing the brand new Champs Elysée flagship store in Paris.

For a while the 'haptic feedback' topic was very hot for agencies designing UX for handset manufacturers. This principle is supposed to improve the use of a touchscreen. Apple has meanwhile proven that you can use a touchscreen without knowing or even hearing that you've touched button or initiated an action. Yet some haptic feedback can be part of a specific brand experience. The question again is, what is useful and in line with the brand story and what kind of features will be considered as too geeky or even worse detrimental?

So in short, are you ready to create the voice that will speak on behalf of your brand?

If not, get in touch with your branding agency and start preparing. Your customers are waiting to hear from you sooner than you think...

For further reading:

Evolver.fm on Siri:

http://evolver.fm/2011/10/05/5-things-we-cant-wait-to-say-to-apples-siri-virtual-assistant/

Wikipedia on David Hasselhoff (yeah I know but hey, you can still admire his guts for continuing to produce Bay Watch on his own account) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hasselhoff

Marketing vs. Sales

2011-10-19T11:42:00.000+02:00

What's the worst hire you can imagine? To me it is hiring a sales guy to run a marketing department. Running a group of marketeers by holding sales numbers in front of them every single day might work in a call-center setting. But it kills the more strategic, relationship and story telling initiatives that marketing people thrive upon.

I recently experienced first hand what can happen to a marketing team when this type of mismatch becomes reality. It has led me to further analyze the opposite dimensions between Sales and Marketing strategies and their associated tactics. Why exactly are they opposites of something that companies need both in equal amounts. The results for now is the MASA - Marketing Sales - Framework. The reason why I developed this framework is to understand better how mobile e.g. would fit into today's marketing & sales activities.

The MASA Framework in words
When looking for opposites in approach between marketing and sales I quickly got to the a list of interesting dimensions but let's first start by making clear what marketing is.

Marketing Marketing in the classic sense is about targeting your customer with the right price for the right product at the right moment at the right place. Sales is about facilitating the actual delivery and the final transactions, i.e. getting paid for what your products and services on offer.
But how does that map out in the strategic sense? Here are the opposites that should make that clear.

Individual vs. Mass
In an ideal world your product or service is delivered at the right time, place, price and location for EACH of your customers. In reality we have to take a couple of short cuts and assumptions to make that a cost effective process.
In Sales the objective is to sell as much as you can to as many people as you can.

Pull vs. Pull
From individual to Mass it is a small step to Pull vs. Push. if you're product is really needed the clients will find you and pull your services or products towards them. In Sales the assumption is to push the message through as many channels as you can. The word Spam comes to mind.

Pricing vs. Branding
When you're brand does not justify a premium pricing is quickly the other argument to convince clients to buy. This is clearly what's happening to Nokia smart phones in many countries. Although feature wise and from a cost perspective these phones are comparable to iPhones and most Android devices, they often sell for ridiculously low prices. The Nokia brand has lost its mojo and a sales strategy is put in place to save the bottom line.

Reach vs. Targeted
Sales is about reaching your audience in as many places with a standardized message. Marketing is as per the Individual vs. Mass approach, more about optimizing your products for your consumer's desires or the other way around (think iPad), creating a need that nobody had before and filling it in at the same time with the right product or service. Targeting in this setting goes beyond segmentation. It is more about timing and location and about understanding your client from a use-case perspective.

The MASA Framework
I created the the following graphic to illustrate the MASA Framework. It serves also as a way to classify the various communication channels that both Sales & Marketing teams use to execute their strategies.

How MASA can be useful

When putting this framework in front of clients, the first reaction often is; 'well that springs no surprises'. I think that's fine because it serves as a tool to connect the dots between e.g. a companies mission statement and its current Marketing & Sales strategy.
Here are a few examples.

Mission Statement
If you are in the business of selling health products to consumers you definitely need to have a Sales strategy. But if your Missions Statement says you want to become the trusted advisor that people turn to to improve their health you seriously need a marketing strategy. Connecting both to the Mission Statement becomes easier using the MASA framework. It is easier to combine Mass Advertisement and Pricing strategies with building up a reputation as a health advisor. Using the framework in discussions with a client we quickly identified opportunities by reshuffling tasks among existing resources and introducing new elements on the website.
In a later stage the development of an advisor application for iPhone and Android is in the planning. The app will not only be a source of information but it will drive sales by serving up targeted products to users with a certain profile only. We're still debating if that would imply a price reduction but by looking at the balance between marketing and sales and the expected move upwards in image the pricing becomes a less important topic and serving up a good quality product with good references becomes more important all of a sudden.

Hiring the right people
Discussing the current marketing and strategy plan using the MASA framework will help you to understand whether you're dealing with a sales-guy trying to polish up his image in an interview by presenting himself as a marketing expert, or the other way around.

Fitting mobile into the mix
As Maarten Albarda VP of Global Connections at InBev said at DeMexCo "The future is mobile, and nobody has really cracked that yet. Is it just another screen for distribution or is it more than that?"
The MASA framework can help finding the best way to integrate Mobile as both a Marketing and Sales tool into your business. You will quickly understand whether it has value by serving as a loyalty channel or tool. As a marketing director you may have wondered about the value of a mobile site. By looking at the Reach versus Targeting and Pull vs Push aspects it might be clear that a mobile site should be more personal and should be based on a Pull mechanism more that a standard website.

Understanding the Luxury Business
In the luxury business the acquisition of a product is often the result of a long preparation process in which the client dances around the brand, touching it through various channels to then time the ultimate moment of buying himself into the brand's reality when he or she is ready. It is here where Sales are almost a no-fly zone. Mass advertising, selling on Price and Pushing the product to the market is unthinkable. So if Mobile is going to be added to the Marketing mix it should be about Pull, Targeting, Individual tactics supporting the Brand. Now while this seems a no-brainer, with the MASA framework it will be easier to take a decision e.g. about m-commerce, i.e. direct sales of your luxury products.

Aligning Marketing with Sales
The model can provide the basis for an alignment between Marketing and Sales. By understanding the differences in objectives and better mapping out the ownership of advertising versus social and narrowcasting versus campaigning the necessary alignment between both departments can be managed better.

The state of MASA
The MASA framework is still work in progress. I am looking at refining the dimensions and the 'Umfeld', i.e. the Advertising, Campaigning, Social Media and Narrowcasting part.
I'd be happy to see feedback from your side and start a discussion.

For further reading
Marketing Week - Brand guardians can bridge great divide
Marketing Insider - How to Align Marketing with-Sales

Harvard Business Review - The new Path to the C-suite

> Specifically the section about the Chief Marketing and Chief Sales Officer.

Do Mobile Marketing Agencies have a Future?

2011-10-05T22:29:00.003+02:00

I had a really good lunch meeting with a great full service marketing agency the other day. The COO asked at some point whether channel oriented marketing agencies, such as mobile marketing agencies actually, have a future. Here is more or less what I answered.

Hybrid vs. Channel marketing

Where it was still cool last year to be or to work for a cutting edge innovative mobile marketing agency, this year the opinions are shifting rapidly. It is clear by now that offering specific mobile applications and site development services provide a certain value add but that from a marketing strategy perspective it is important to offer a broader range of services. It is also clear by now that mobile agencies are struggling. They reach a reasonable size 100 to 200 people with some form of a global presence. But from there growth seems to stall.

The problem in my opinion is that mobile can only to some extent be delivered as a stand alone channel. In traditional ATL marketing has been separated from digital or BTL marketing. A bunch of agencies have popped-up over the last 2 decades boasting a comprehensive 360º service or what I would call hybrid marketing. But none of these agencies have reached the size of the global players like DDB-Tribal, Wunderman or Ogilvy.

Why is this? The eye-opener for me was one simple question asked by a client during a meeting. During this meeting we tried to convince them that a mobile site was an absolute necessity for the brand. If they really wanted to be present in the best way possible on all mobile devices than they would certainly need our mobile site and hosting platform.

The client simply asked; if you think that a mobile site is so important, can you also provide us with a site and platform solution that:

- Covers our marketing needs for both 'classic' online websites for PC's

- Proposes an optimized experience for iPad and mobile phones with a focus on smart phones and...

- Facilitating the management of this 'hybrid' website from one single CMS

Although I would have loved to say yes at that point, the actual answer I had to give was of course, no we can't. We can deliver a parallel mobile site experience. In a best case scenario and provided you're willing to pay for the additional effort we can provide you with a site that is connected to your 'classic' site. We maybe able to leverage some of the classic online content but in reality it will require additional resources and workflows to optimize the content and use it via the mobile channel.

In short the client was asking for a more holistic approach that a mobile agency just can't provide. Today I must conclude that just a few agencies are able to deliver a full hybrid approach, including a well-judged creative use of the mobile channel.

Traditional and Digital

I haven't even started to discuss how to combine the traditional marketing channels and digital. There are beautiful examples and case studies of how social, mobile, print, tv and web were put to work for brands. Yet these examples remain few and far between since not many agencies are able to cover the full spectrum. A great many agencies and brands are still struggling with Facebook integration and twitter management.

So where's the opportunity for mobile?

Mobile is no doubt the channel that will be more and more the first and most often used touch point with a brand. Then again it has its specific use and quirks, specifically when it comes to personalization and brand relationship. This element needs to be combined with the use-case aspects of all the other channels. A large number of attempts to combine web, print, tv and mobile perspective have been taken already, the most interesting models being based on a use-case based strategy. Bottom line is that agencies can't get away with being 'just digital' or 'just classic' any longer. A full integrated hybrid approach is required. The impact on agencies are potentially significant since it requires a broader set of skills under one roof which may be difficult to manage from a supply and demand perspective in today's fast moving and volatile market. There are a few ways of coping with this volatility. One is to scale-up the agency services across borders and to have a workforce that is international and multi-cultural. Another one is to have solid but flexible parternship engagement with suppliers of specific services.

What all of this implies though is:

- Agencies need resources that are flexible, have a broad range of knowledge that runs from design to technology and from classic print to digital, including social media.

- Agencies need to considers strategies that allow full hybrid marketing services with in-house resources or via a network of freelancers or partners.

- Mobile is going to be more important than web, provided that we include tablets in the definition of the mobile channel.

- Agile responses to client needs with an ability to work with both marketing and IT departments on the client side - across al the marketing channels - are becoming more important than ever.

Questions or comments? I look forward to hearing from you!

For further reading:

The Full Service Agency Model is Dead - Meet the Connectors

by Craig Wilson.

The IT and marketing divide in business - and why it should change

2011-09-29T18:19:00.000+02:00

It must be a familiar experience to marketing and IT managers working in Fortune 500 or other large structures. Meetings where the marketing guys talk about brand image, user experience and design and how technology must enable this. Vice versa the tech-guys keep saying that security and scalability are important and that more systems to serve more channels will not fit into the budget.

The C-level insists on having measurable results and to be present in all marketing channels but most and above all on the mobile channel. Oh and of course budgets went down again for next year.

Will this ever work? Without disruptive changes in the way businesses are run today I don't think so. Here's why.

If you're in digital marketing and brand management you ignoring the importance of digital technology is clearly a risk. But likewise, IT managers will have to enter in discussions with the marketing guys since usability, user friendliness, privacy and security issues are so closely related to what technology can and will enable.

In fact today marketing agencies and marketing managers are more successful if they understand technology and are able to have a fairly deep discussion with the IT guy. Take an iPhone application e.g. If you have no clue on what services and features are available on a device and how they can add value to your customers or how it will help you in your campaigns, your IT guys will effectively control your outcome.

But everybody with a bit of experience on either side knows how tough it is for marketing managers to talk about API's, database architecture and offline/online service availability. But IT managers have the same issue with softer values such as user friendliness and great user experience. Nothing better than a command window where you can direct call a services with a bunch of Unix command lines.

So fine, the stage is set and we understand the roles and know the players. But how can a business solve this issue? What is needed to bridge the divide between UX and IT?

Here are a couple of thoughts

Hybrid Teams, hybrid resources

Marketing should not be the exclusive domain of the marketing people. In fact in the most successful projects I've delivered the client had IT and Marketing people in every meeting. The project brief was created by marketing but had to be signed off by an IT director. Although this leads to more effort and increased work load at first, there is efficiency gained at the end of the project because technology supports the creative idea and vice versa. Nobody can hide behind arguments such as: we were never told it had to be this way or we could have told you that this design cannot be enabled by our IT infrastructure.

Finding hybrid resources or training them can be tough. There is a reason why IT developers love code and they don't care much for design. Research shows that human beings do function differently and some of us will just never understand design, others will never be able to read or produce a single line of code. So the most likely options is to have senior resources that over time have built up a hybrid expertise and can bridge the gap between the two disciplines.

MarkITing

More and more toolkits, campaign platforms and white labeled app development concepts are thrown onto the market. Running a campaign on Facebook does not require any deep IT skills unless you want to develop a game. We're slowly moving towards a world where anybody can run a campaign much like anybody can write and publish a book these days, thanks to all the software and digital print services available.

That means that marketing will have to include more 'light' IT skills so that campaigns on Facebook, SEO-tactics and tweets can be managed in an agile way.

Reversely the role of IT will have to include controlling and checking of third party services such as Facebook. Whether this means that pure 'hardcore' in-house software and platform development will be reduced remains to be seen.

Business need to change

The toughest part though is how businesses are organized today and how this will have to change. Hybrid teams and changing skill sets or in the services provided are probably easy to achieve via HR and the strategy department. But is it actually still a good idea to keep IT and Marketing separated. In digital marketing the combination of skill sets within one department will lead to more stride but in my opinion also to better campaigns and better branding.

But maybe this change should go even further. Social Media marketing requires different profiles. A Social Media marketing manager might as well come from the public sector. Softer social political skills might as well be the necessary quality to make a brand successful on mobile and in the social media space.

Now how to measure

Classic touch point measurement as in Unique Visitors, Conversion Rates and Click Troughs will remain important. But how do you measure mobile success or social media success? Should you track the number of Likes, the Evaluations your product gets on Amazon, the number of Friends the brand has? This and other ways of tracking your campaign in the digital space require again resources that have a marketing and IT understanding of the playing field.

Education

Its encouraging to see how Social Marketing, SEO and mobile are popping up as topics in the programs of Business Schools, Universities and Academies. The jury is still out on the quality of these initiatives. Fact is that there are executive programs that address these topics so there's no excuse for execs and board members to continue going uneducated about these topics.

So ultimately

Change is necessary and looking at the current pace of change in digital marketing and branding this is change will be a more and more pressing issue on the agenda of the C-level. Let's see and track how this pans out in the future and how it will improve the playing field for marketeers, IT managers and their agencies.

Pigbook

2011-09-27T22:08:00.000+02:00

Here is one of the best discussion starters I've seen in a while...

Just think about it. What is Facebook selling?

That would be consumer insights and targeted advertising based on these insights if you ask me. But without further interpretation, knowing what your potential or real customer prefers, talks about or reveals is maybe not exactly what you want to sell them.

Give your customer what he or she wants is what I often hear. But how do we know what they want? Yes we can listen to them, observe them, track them or put them in categories. And we can do all of this on Facebook.

Henri Ford said: if I would have asked my customers what they want they answer: faster horses. He then gave them a car...

Now what's my point here. On the one hand Facebook is brilliant. It has clout, momentum, lots of conversations, remarks, media and games. Data galore and insights by the truck load. Yet do you really behave like you do in every day life?

I bet that most of us take care about what we post and how we phrase things. These days employers, candidates and family will be able to take a sneak peak at your profile unless you've completely shielded it off for the outside world.

So is Facebook seeing us as we are or is it dealing with my Facebook-me? What will this do to the value of using Facebook for media, marketing and branding purposes? I can't help thinking that while the younger generation might live their life on Facebook, it is nothing more than a billboard at your local supermarket that happens to have an enormous amount of content and a million ways of spending your entire life on it if you choose so.

These questions came up when looking at the Facebook and You cartoon the first time and I am still no further as to how to answer them.

Naturally the power of Facebook to reach out and touch your customers, to convey a brand message or a story is there. But what are the limits imposed by the fact that we know we're being watched and we know that total privacy nor the right to forget, i.e. for your profile or data on your profile to cease and desist completely are part of Facebook's corporate values.

So are we behaving differently on Facebook compared to every day life. Are we e.g. more honest because we know or feel we're being watched? A quick search via Google showed that sciences says this is the case but I am convinced that quite a few users do not even realize that Facebook and a great many others are watching over their shoulders.

So in short, will we keep using the barn and eat the free food and deal with the consequences that come with this? Do we know if Facebook generates skewed behavior or do we go with an even stronger statement: our behavior on Facebook is what brands need to deal with in the future.

To be continued.

Matt

Windows Phone: Turning the Tiles

2011-04-28T16:13:00.002+02:00

The more I hold a Windows Phone 7 (WP7) phone in my hand the more I have to admit that the OS has a certain charm to it. I find it hard to explain why the turning tiles and the quirky and at times erratic navigational paradigms do lend it a charm that is by now lost on me on the iPhone and the iPad.

The question is what would it take to make it a serious contender on the market. Fact is that we now know that Microsoft is seriously supporting and even sponsoring the development of relevant apps for Windows Phone. They are specifically searching for apps that can be ported to the WP platform. Of course having apps in the Windows equivalent of the AppStore is important. But is it enough? As I've pointed out on a few occasions before Apple is not doing itself a great favor with its black box certification process with hardly a chance of parole if your app gets refused. As much as it contributes to a certain quality level of the Apps in the store it also stalls all attempts to create innovative apps that push the envelope of the iPhone or iPad.

Still though if you ask me today I think that the constraints imposed by Apple drive innovation on the other platforms. Whatever doesn't pass or is hard to achieve via iOS will certainly fly on Android, WP and maybe even Symbian 3.

Now going back to WP, why would this OS actually work? Here are 4 reasons:

1. Windows Phone is closely governed by Microsoft which should guarantee inter-device compatibility

2. There are 25 Million Xbox users out there that Microsoft seems to target

3. Microsoft is still king in the B2B market

4. There will always be consumers that want something seriously different (and maybe less expensive if you insist)

Let me elaborate each point a bit more in detail:

1. Google's bet on Android as an open and freely available standard has helped delivering an impressive growth. But they're now about to receive the consequences of this back in the form of a boomerang that has grown by the same proportion as their market share. What we tend to forget is that open means fragmentation, which means head-aches for developers when it comes to compatibility.

Apple is at the total other side of the spectrum with its closely controlled iOS. WP7 sits somewhere in the middle. The OS versions are neatly governed. The use is subject to a license that imposes compatibility. It might be a while till we see more WP7 phones coming to market and specifically for Nokia to catch up but I predict that the ease of app distribution on this platform will be a big plus. This in turn will help consumer acceptance and cross device UX alignment a lot which will make it look and feel much more like a unified brand experience, which is one of the strong points of Apple.

2. The Xbox community has not been served very well when it comes to mobile use of Xbox apps, till WP7 appeared that is. There are now signs that Microsoft will try to use the potential power of this community to push WP7 upwards. 50 games were available at launch and more are coming. Can we expect mobile phones that double as controllers or input devices for Xbox much like the recent Sony Xperia Play? Who knows.

3. Microsoft is still the reference when it comes to business software. Outlook, Exchange Server and even Excel or Word are widely used and can be easily integrated with B2B mobile use. Although specific mobile versions of these apps are still not superbly optimized, the pure integration from a platform and connectivity perspective mostly under existing software licenses are seductive. This might be a big driver for decision makers controlling the mobile phone fleet of big corporates. Imagine the upside of a CityBank not going for iPhone as announced but WP7...

4. Last but not least there's always a group of consumers who want to be different while still having access to the majority of the features that turn a smartphones into such desirable items. The turning tiles are eye catching and some of the form factors of WP7 phones out there could pass as fashion statements. Think of WP7 as the Saab of mobile but then with much better financial back-up.

But what is the real challenge?

As much as WP7 is fairly well put together the eco-system of Microsoft is still a mess. Confusing branding of services and the hotchpotch of channels and touch points have yet to be sorted. From Windows Live to Hotmail, from MSN to msnbc via Windows Market Place, Maps and the Microsoft Store, it is nowhere near the slick Apple iTunes and AppStore system and much more pretentious than Googles all-white and no-frills offerings.

The announcement of Nokia partnering with Microsoft only raises more questions around their Ovi eco-system, not to mention all the other services, channels and platform that Nokia still features today...

Yet a proper well functioning eco-system is very important to keep users interested in your platform and build a true, long-lasting relationship. Unless of course this is not what you're after.

Is there light in all of this? Well, one thing that Microsoft has superbly well sorted for years already is their single sign-on or Passport - or Windows Live ID as its currently called - that they consistently use across their channels. Once you have your login you can pretty much access any Microsoft related service with the same login and password. Google has this too but it is almost no surprise since they've always marketed their services under one brand and from (seemingly) one platform.

Although I am not sure if they are using this to the full extent they could potentially leverage if they finally decide to axe all those different services and pull all of it together under one brand name.

Phones with a silver lining

2011-04-08T09:28:00.004+02:00

Today we might be mulling over which OS will prevail and why. But operators are building faster and better realtime wireless connections and the question now is, what will become of the phone once we have reliable always-on broadband internet in a few years from now with speeds that are comparable to fast wired broadband today?

the Unliquited by Samsung

Source: walyou.com > http://bit.ly/hINPrM

We might be oblivious today to the fact that 20 years ago internet still required a dial-up modem. Speeds we're indicated in kBps and connections were primarily a-synchronous. 'Always-on' was on nobody's radar. Today we might complain about bad voice connection when calling from a mobile phone and about the fact that you are 'degraded' to an Edge connection from 3G when you are in very busy areas. But this is changing ehr well, fast.

Extrapolating the past to the future we will have wireless mobile internet at above 3G speeds even when flying. And in a few years from now we'll have that against flat rates that will not surpass our current landline phone bills...

Let that sink in for a minute. This means that having access to cloud based services will become a commodity. Now let's think one step further... Last year the so called Netbook was hot. Although the enthusiasm has subdued a bit, there is still much to like about a computer that doesn't do much more than providing you with a powerful access to services that live on the web, or actually in the cloud.

From there it will be a matter of time before we'll have phone software that lives in the cloud. A phone that we access from any device that offers highspeed broadband internet. After identification we can use 'our' phone over an internet connection anywhere, taking away the headache caused by OS upgrades and phone content back-ups. Sounds weird? Just look at SAAS models eating into the space previously owned by Microsoft Office at a steady speed.

What this will do to the business of phone manufacturers is still anybody's guess. It will sure be a different business model for the likes of Nokia, HTC and Samsung, not to mention Apple. Looking at the speed of developments however I am sure that it will not be a matter of IF but more when.

5 mobile trends to watch in 2011

2011-03-16T15:23:00.002+01:00

The WMC in Barcelona has a strong focus on technology. A lot of the media buzz generated is based on what's technically possible, and not entirely on what businesses and consumers are actually looking for.

However, the WMC is always a good moment to look at what the tech-guys think is important and map that to what the market is willing to accept, or, in some cases, already embracing.

I would like to take this opportunity to present four trends that will shape mobile technologies over the next few months in 2011.

The Android in Apple's eye

Android's market share is growing faster than Apple. It has surpassed Symbian to become the runner-up in the smart phone space in terms of market share. This is great news, or is it?

A great many players in the market will not admit this easily but Android is also quickly becoming as fragmented as Symbian. Why? Well, Android is an Open Standard. Manufacturers are not obliged to keep the OS 'as is'. They can freely add, adapt and optimize modules in the OS. If they are nice and play the game correctly, they'll document it for the wider developer audience. If not well, good luck with the testing phase of your app on their devices!

App developers are only beginning to scratch the surface of the problems we will see emerging from this trend. We are already seeing a number of brand related Android camps popping up that require just a few, but still substantial, changes to ensure full compatibility. Also remember, this is the situation today, where Android is still in its infancy.

Also it seems that in 2010 the Android App Store generated $ 102 M, where Apple's AppStore generated $ 1.7 billion. The demand for Android apps is primarily driven by brands wanting to expand to Android. But for developers purely developing for revenues, the AppStore is still a much more interesting and sure-fire revenue source. (source: Techcrunch.com)

That said, the Apple model is beginning to irritate quite a few big brand names in the industry. As we recently discovered for one of our big clients in the luxury sector, an app can pass the first review and be refused in the second and then, without much change, is accepted in the third round.

Not only did it take a week for this minor bug fix release to be picked up by Apple for review, but this bug fix version was refused for a feature that had not changed since the first release. The week of total radio silence following that refusal, despite our attempts to get a better understanding of how we could fix it, is utterly frustrating for both the brand and ourselves as a supplier.

The risk that this presents for brands, whose campaigns and PR machines needs months of preparation to accompany the launch of an app, is substantial.

Now that Apple has also tightened the control on subscriptions, it starts to arouse attention from market watch dogs and investors alike.

In a nutshell, we're happy with the pressure that Android will ultimately put on Apple, but we also hope that manufacturers will see the value in a more united and cross-compatible Android OS, so that it can become a serious competitor for Apple.

Applying html 5

Mobile sites will grow in importance as the 'one solution covers all smart phones' option. Thanks to the enhanced usability features html 5 will allow a nifty and 'close to an app' like user experience. This is especially important to players that need broad support such as eBay, Amazon and the larger consumer brands in general. Not only does html do away with most of the Apple certification misery, but it will also make an app-like experience scalable across a multitude of devices. This can be achieved with the same budget as one application for one platform.

This will certainly go down well with the marketing and IT departments of big brands.

Any downsides? html5 will certainly not allow the same seamless integration of phone features, limiting its scope to services and campaigns that are more in line with 'classic' websites.

Also the dependence on a data connection to make the app work can be a serious User Experience set-back in densely populated areas, particularly where Edge rules over 3G, or in remote areas where no-coverage replaces slow-coverage.

There's also no best-in-class html browser yet that works across the majority of the smart phones. The big question is, will there be one soon? Or will we be looking at the same 4-players that we currently have on the PC?

Despite all these potential setbacks, the budget argument remains a strong driver. There are already a few sophisticated html5 sites out there, and, judging by the need of brands to maximize both reach and user experience, quite a few will follow soon.

If you would like to see an example of a mobile site with app lay-out - in French and only on your mobile - please visit: mobile.bnpparibas.net

Let's Facebook it!

The rise of 0.facebook.com as a free of charge Facebook version, available through operators in certain countries has gone fairly unnoticed. But rest assured that the young and price sensitive know all about it. Insignificant as it seems it is another nail in the coffin of subscription based web access. Facebook is essentially 'paying' for your access in exchange for your attention, banking on the willingness of advertisers to pay for a share of that attention. This represents a major shift in the business models that have ruled the mobile and internet networks until now.

The next building block is also just around the corner. Facebook is adamant about anchoring mobile deeply into its users' lifestyle, so much so that we will soon see a number of deeply integrated Facebook phones coming to market this year.

The opportunities for brands are numerous in terms of getting a share of attention that previously was accessible via 'classic' channels, such as television, radio and street advertising.

The question remains though whether Facebook is the right answer for all circumstances. It seems Facebook would like to become a 'one-stop-shop' solution for all marketing needs. They certainly have a massive audience and a massive share of the attention. How they will explore this and help advertisers target this audience remains the unexplained holy grail thus far. Yet Facebook will unmistakably grow in importance, and particularly on mobile.

And Now For Cash

The acceptance by big players, including allegedly the iPhone5, of the NFC technology will push mobile payments into the spotlight in 2011. Great! It will add another highly significant dimension to the use of mobile in everyone's daily life. But what is so exciting about it, apart from the fact that we will lose the loose change in our pockets? Comfort is one. Being able to pay and check your account balance on your phone sounds like a great feature to me. Some users will wonder about security. If you're phone's stolen, someone else can use it to pay with it right? Yes if you have a credit on your phone for NFC payments this person can 'abuse' your credit. BUT, he or she is then also stupid enough to run a risk of being tracked and traced. On top of that, if you're fast enough to discover your loss you can cancel your credit via a website or by placing a phone call, so that the credit on your NFC chip will become instantly unusable.

But there's one other major advantage that marketing and brand managers will like. They can now track and trace, anonymously of course, the location and time of payments for their products through the point of sales systems. This will provide valuable insights in where and when your products or services are being purchased.

Tab into it

So you still look down on the Tablet computer, right? Wrong! Apple had to ramp up the iPad production within 3 quarters after launch and sold five times the amount of iPhones world wide. What is the reason for this, you might wonder? Well it appears that the iPad is actually more than a couch potato's toy. It is quickly developing into what a pair of pliers is for a plumber; an easy to carry tool that does 80% of the job. And that goes well beyond the obvious application, the iPad as a sales tool. The iPad is a great device for educational purposes, for medical sales reps and doctors, for architects, for restaurants (think interactive wine list) and well, the list becomes longer and longer.

So Apple's announcement that the iPad2 is available as of March is an exciting impulse for the tablet market. Unsurprisingly a lot of iPad1's now appear on eBay while Apple has also dropped the prices of the 'old' iPad. On top of that Steve Jobs presented the iPad2 himself and looked less fragile than before.

Whatever happens with tablets, it will be a sweet pill to swallow.

Is Apple sustainable?

2011-02-16T16:52:00.008+01:00

Now that Steve Jobs has handed over the CEO role to his successor - Tim Cook - the question everyone is asks is 'will Apple be able to sustain its momentum?' This question is being echoed around the world and a multitude of answers and POV's have popped up everywhere. At the risk of being redundant I would still like to add another POV to this.

The impact of Apple on mobile today is almost beyond believe. The iPhenomenon has taken the mobile, media, music and PC industry by storm. As an example, Apple did only enter the mobile phone area less than 4 years ago. In a ridiculously short time span of 2 years, they redefined the whole mobile phone user experience. In less than 6 years they've single-handedly created the only major revenue stream for musicians and record labels in the digital space. They're now repeating this for the movie industry with the iPad and all of this through one single point of commerce contact... iTunes.

What started out as clunky iPods and a very basic version of iTunes has grown so drastically over the past several years that Apple is now the world's second largest company in terms of market capitalization, after Exxon.

The impact on us in terms of mobile services and marketing agencies has been tremendous. Applications have become a mainstay in todays mobile marketing. Mobile sites are more relevant than ever in regards to marketing purposes. Apple MUST have inspired Google to introduce Android and has certainly turned up the heat on Nokia to temperatures that even the sauna-loving Finns find unbearable.

So whether you like Apple or not, its a player you cannot avoid when you're in the mobile and/or mobile marketing arena.

From a business point of view, creating a sustainable business is beyond doubt one of the biggest possible achievements. Popular reads like 'Good to Great' and 'Built to Last' provide insights in a variety of Fortune 500 companies that got it right. IBM, HP and General Electric are among them. They've been around for decades if not more than a century. During their existence they've weathered a great many changes, crises and challenges. Some, like Nokia, have changed their core business completely, where others have stayed closer to the intentions of their founders. But in general, the majority of businesses cease to continue operating, or are acquired, absorbed and forgotten.

The question is, what makes these businesses sustainable and why have they survived? Is it a question of adaptation or goal setting or just luck? How do you ensure that a business model evolves over time?

Although a great many explanations have been given there is one simple thing that regroups most of the reasons why a business would survive; vision and a mission.

While a vision is about is providing a perspective and direction, the mission is about what a company really would like to achieve for its customers. The vision is needed to see changes coming and innovate products & services before the competition does. It is at times also about disruptive change for which great business leadership is necessary. For example. when IBM decided to pull out of PC and lap top production, selling it to Chinese Lenovo. In hindsight this has not harmed IBM at all. It must have generated heated debates internally at IBM though before they managed to take that step.

Now what about Apple? Innovation based on visionary thinking? Tick. Disruptive change? Tick.But what about Apple's mission? Now here is where it gets interesting.

It might be clear from what Apple has done so far that they had a vision and that there was enough leadership to drive disruptive change. Beyond doubt Steve Jobs has played an all important if not determining role in defining the projects. He must have based this on some form of vision that included driving disruptive change in the market. This surely must have been part of his greater plan.

But when I started searching for an Apple mission statement I quickly found out that there is none. So, I ask you, is this bad?

The thing is, without a mission statement it can quickly become unclear for future employees of Apple what the brand stands for. How do you transfer the 'meaning of a company's life' to the next generation?

A mission statement can of course not be disconnected from a vision. If one knows what the company's going concern is because there's a clear mission statement, then a vision is needed to at least guide its resources into the right direction. Now as much as we all agree that Steve Jobs is a visionary leader, I struggle to find proof of how he communicates his vision, other than through releasing great products and services under the Apple brand. What matters in all of this is the closed character of Apple's products, its brilliant user interface design and the perfect integration of iPhone's, iPads, applications, music, iTunes and basically everything they produce. Take the notification for example that shows up on your iPhone when there's an update available, for one or more apps on your device. 90% of the users update their apps instaneously. The marketing and customer relationship implications of this feature on its own are enormous.

The question remains however, how much of Steve's brilliancy is transferable and how will this affect Apple's sustainability? I have nagging doubts about this and I am sure I'm not alone in this.

Don't get me wrong here though. I am not saying that Apple is about to go away any time soon. The trouble though is that they've had a 'Job-less' period where they completely lost the plot and quickly fell into the trap of producing shortsighted evolutions of existing products.

Apple will be able to leverage its current product range for quite a while longer, churning out fine revolutionized versions of the iPhone, iPad and all their computer variations. But what if higher resolution displays, faster processors, more memory and a slicker UI run out of steam?

Apple, being what it is, with its tendency for secrecy and total control, has not yet reassured its shareholders that it can transfer its core values and competitive edge to a future generation of managers and leaders.

Why I find this important against the background of mobile and iconmobile's own core-business values is that somehow it shows that there's an opportunity for existing players in the market to analyze Apple in detail. Maybe there's a mission statement and a vision that can be derived from which consumers and businesses alike can benefit in the future. I would like to conclude with three observations around this:

First and foremost it would be good to have a real competitor for Apple. Windows Phone is a good first step, Android certainly isn't. Thrown into the market by Google because they can, it now starts showing the same grueling compatibility issues as we know so well from Symbian. However, some of the Apple business model aspects, such as the complete control on application approval are beginning to irritate quite a few big brands in the market so there is room and opportunity for a new player.
Secondly, it would be great to continue seeing great products coming out of Apple. The joy and delight they bring everywhere in the world for people from all ages and backgrounds is nothing short of amazing.
Last but not least, it would be great to understand what makes Apple so great and what we can learn from this in terms of UI design, digital business models and digital hardware.

In the mean time I wish Steve a good recovery. I hope he will realize that a great leader is even greater if others can stand on his shoulders.

Matthieu Vermeulen – Managing Director iconmobile France

2011-01-19T12:16:00.003+01:00

The CES 2011 in Las Vegas is right behind us by the time I post this. As usual the major consumer electronics brands try playing their major trump cards just before and during the event leading invariably to over-inflated promises and rosy pictures of how electronics will shape or change our lives.

However what, as always, should we really be taking away from a show like this? It's clear that ever more electronics will be present in our lives. Each new equipment, gadget, appliance, machinery, in short anything that needs a few volts to run will become more powerful and more connected. And actually that last bit is what will ultimately add the most value. Not convinced? Here are a few examples to help you change your mind.

For a while now iconmobile has been involved in delivering concept cars through its automotive arm, icon incar. The first prototype, a somewhat clunky but nicely designed touchscreen phone for Audi, presented in 2007 during the Tokyo auto show, was not received as a game changer. But having been involved in concepts like this has helped us create a vision on how mobile devices can add value to cars today and in the near future.

Our ideas have evolved over time, which is in turn reflected in our outlook today. Where we first thought that a dedicated mobile device for a car would be a good idea we quickly realized, with the client, that producing smart phones is not the core business of a car maker. So we switched to applications installed on smartphones, a concept that got an extra boost thanks to the quickly rising popularity of iPhone and Android devices.

This has led us to develop the Augmented Service Offering (ASO) concept. ASO concepts combine the interactive and connected features of mobile devices with products and services of brands. Nike has been one of the forerunners (no pun intended) of this type of concept, connecting the iPod with their running shoes, allowing users to share their training results. The ASO concept is also very relevant in the context of the automotive industry.

So how do you translate the ASO concept to an app for a car? The application as the car-key and a 'take me back to where I parked my car' feature seem like logical ideas but they remain fairly one-dimensional. We kept rethinking the concept, knowing that there must be more value that an app can add to driving a car. In various meetings and working on a number of projects we have come to realized that the electric car is the perfect platform to really make an app shine.

The elements in the mix are the following:
electric cars have limited reach
it takes time to charge batteries
charging points are sparse and not always nearby
traffic conditions can wreak havoc on your reach
So here is where a mobile application comes in. An application that has access to the car data, such as battery charge and estimated reach, can combine this with traffic information, weather conditions and the location of charging points such as home, office, dedicated parking areas and gas stations.

Combining this information the app can help you decide at home whether you charge more before you leave or whether you would be able to reach the office, given the traffic conditions e.g.

There are numerous reasons for making this type of car management available on your mobile. You carry the device with you all the time, and once you have left the car you have the data with you and can work out on the app what to do next. For the car manufacturer this means that the app can evolve with the car and with the users.

But this is not all. Let's go back to the CES and the apparent rise of connected equipment. Take your fridge e.g. Up until now this has been nothing more than a big box, often white, that you would plug into a power outlet and that was it.

But the latest generations have a touch screen and internet. Why would you browse the web on a fridge I hear you think? The kitchen is for cooking right? True, and the fridge is for storing things. Things that you run out of and want to replace. Now what about creating a shopping list on the touch screen on your fridge. What about having this list available on your mobile phone, via the web, so that wherever you go you know what you'd need to buy. What about having that list available in your car so that the app can plan the best route?
Even better: what about having the order of your shopping optimized for the supermarket's floor plan. I am sure you have, just like me, used strong language when arriving at the check-out only to discover that there is 'onions' at the end of your list, which are in the vegetable department at the complete other end of the supermarket...

Too good to be true? Don't think so. Things are developing at the speed of light in this space. Your fridge calling your car? Your car on Facebook? Watch this space for the latest and greatest in this area of Augmented Service Offerings.

Matthieu Vermeulen – Managing Director