The smart phone revolution has changed how American views wireless communications. Now more than just a phone, cellular devices have determined how we search for information, how we store information, and how we are entertained.

We’ll look at who makes apps… why we choose a certain phone based on their apps… and how the apps we see as games retailers see as dollar signs.

Technorati Tags: mobile, KCUR, Steve Kraske, Up to Date

Article Highlights:

• The current agency structure hasn’t evolved at pace with media innovations
• The interactive agency model disincentivizes greatness and fails to penalize mediocrity
• Think about how your property can serve as a conduit for deeper interactions between brands and consumers
• If marketers want to radically impact change in the marketing ecosystem, it starts with how you allocate dollars

What hasn’t changed is for ad agencies to be successful, they need to ultimately turn engagement into sales.

One big way that I see agencies changing is from a push model to a pull model (thus, the huge growth in social). This includes agency new business as well and establishing a core competency around thought leadership.

I don’t think that any agency has it figured out yet, but I think that 360i is headed in the right direction (360i was interviewed for the article above). There are a handful of others that are proactively trying to figure this out as well.

What do you think the ad agency of the future will look like?

Technorati Tags: advertising, agency

So where do I begin?

First, let me explain the image above. It’s a web heat map. What’s a web heat map, you ask? Wikipedia describes a web heat map as a representation “..used for displaying areas of a Web page most frequently scanned by visitors.”

The above heat map from Google describes from dark orange (strongest performance) to light yellow (weakest performance), the best place to display ads. “Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.”
source: Google Adsense

I read an article in Website Magazine called Keep Your Graphic Designer on a Short Leash.

The focus of the article is that the best visual designs don’t always close the most sales.

I work with an awesome team of designers, not to mention a big group of creative friends. I appreciate and understand the importance of good design. So, before I get barraged with comments about the importance of good design, let me just say that I understand it. Design is important. Got it.

But, there are also components of web page design, that, while potentially detracting from the visual appeal, may actually increase conversion rates.

There are many factors that influence a buying decision – brand reputation, product features, price, etc. Even basic things like page load time all have a factor in someone clicking the big red “buy” button.

My point of the post is to stress the importance of A/B testing and iterative improvements. Simple tweaks can have a huge impact on sales. In the article from Website Magazine referenced above, the design that was less visually appealing in the eyes of most people actually performed 84% better.

Direct mail experts have always stressed the importance of a control group and running tests with various offers, body copy, headlines, imagery, fonts – you name it.

But for some reason, some of the principles of direct marketing have gotten lost in the excitement around implementing the latest technology on a web page.

Flash, video, Facebook integration & the latest shiny widget are all great – but not if they have a negative impact on sales. You can’t afford to continually innovate if conversion rates are sacrificed for another award on the shelf.

The technology to test various web page designs isn’t rocket science and is readily available. At the most basic level, almost anyone could try running a different design for a few weeks to see if there’s an increase in conversion rates.

I’m also not saying that driving sales is the most important factor if brand equity is sacrificed. Branding is a long term commitment and short term spikes in sales can be detrimental to brand equity if you water down your image in the process.

Summary: balance. Design. User experience. Technology. And there, at the intersection, you’ll find the optimal conversion rate.

Ready? Discuss…

Technorati Tags: web, design, conversion

Every few months I select a few emerging trends to dig into. I’ve discussed geo streams in a previous post and this is a further extension of that idea and many other ideas I’ve talked about recently.

One of the trends I identified a while ago is starting to become a reality: REAL location targeting. This is why I have been so excited about the growth of companies like Foursquare and their competitors and companies such as Placecast, one of our technology partners that provides location-based marketing solutions.

We’re seeing growth in brand driven campaigns (Placecast), whereby brands can interact directly with consumers, as well as platform / network based companies (Foursquare), whereby brands interact with consumers through an existing network. The difference? Who owns the customer relationship and controls the messaging.

Sure, the ability to target consumers based on zip code, household, general demographic profiles, etc. has been available for a long time. But geo-location targeting is different – it adds location and time to the equation that no other medium or channel can match.

From a media consumption perspective, mobile devices are with consumers 24/7. What does this mean from a targeting perspective? Mobile is a way to target consumers regardless of location (work, home, travel) and time (workday, weekend, day, night). And messaging can be triggered through a variety of means.

Layer on social (what your friends are doing, friend recommendations), along with purchase history and demographic / psychographic profiling (what people similar to you liked), comparison shopping and reviews (prices and general consumer reviews) and you have true hyper-local targeting focused on products and services with the best potential fit for the consumer.

How can location be transformational?

Let me introduce Context-Based Marketing.
(Note: I’d like to establish context-based marketing as a new term. I haven’t heard anyone else define this, so I’d like to claim it as my own. Heard about it before? Send me a link. I’m interested and will gladly add them as a reference.)

Brands want to be where consumers (and eyeballs) are to influence buying decisions. No secret sauce there.

Consumers, for the most part, are anti-advertising except for when they determine the advertising to be of value, usually we they can save money, whether that be through purchase incentives (acquisition) or rewarding loyalty (retention).

Context-based marketing can play a key role in this. Through the utilization of strict privacy and security controls, consumers can feel safe sharing personal information in return for value (discounts, rewards, recommendations, relevant offers, VIP only programs, etc).

Partnerships are essential as mobile is a complex ecosystem consisting of application and technology providers, carriers, location providers, handset providers, content providers and various other players. Oh yeah. And regulations all over the place.

Want to hear how this would play out?

I’m in Times Square and I want to find the best place to grab coffee.

• I search for a location nearby (ordered by distance, with directions from current location).
• I want to know the ratings of the location (good to bad), what my friends on various social networks think of the location, what people in general think, and a product recommendation based on my past purchase history.
• I’m presented with a tip to ask for a specific barasita by name, as they make the best sugar free skinny latte in New York and they took first place in a barista competition last week.
• I’m offered a dollar off since this would be my first visit to this location and I can save another dollar if I sign up for their loyalty program, as it’s a chain store with locations around my home as well as my frequent travel destinations.
• I earn points for posting a status update of my visit and earn additional points for posting a review of my visit.
• I earn referral points as one of my contacts connects to the loyalty program after seeing my status update.
• While I’m here, I’m thinking about sticking around for an hour to catch up on work and use their free Wi-Fi.
• One of my friends hears that I’m at the location and would like to join me for the live music later tonight, starting in an hour.
• I get a message from another friend that wants to meet for dinner at a nearby restaurant that has a great wine list and tonight they’re serving one of my favorite salmon dishes. Included is a link to a reservation (which I accept).

Think Yelp with Google’s Near Me Now mixed with Amazon & Netflix reviews & recommendations, Red Laser’s price comparison engine, Paypal transaction history, Google Maps, Foursquare, OpenTable, Facebook & Twitter – all in one nice little package that works across mobile carriers and devices. And then make the targeting available through a bidding engine like Google Adwords allowing companies to track acquisition costs and allow national brands to scale down to a targeting level never before possible.

Transformational? I’d like to believe so. Possible? Definitely. Easy? Not for the fainthearted. But the company that achieves context-based marketing will have a consumer base that advocates their brand while minimizing add spend in a non-invasive, opt in nature.

While many companies will fail, there will be an ecosystem (think many players) that join together to make this a reality.

Technorati Tags: mobile, social, innovation

I believe we will continue to see steady growth in the mobile ecosystem and see defining moments, such as the launch of the first iPhone, the launch of the Android operating system, the moment Apple hit a billion apps downloaded from the App Store, etc.

On the topic of defining moments, Forrester thinks that 2010 will be “the year of the smartphone.”

As of January 2010, 17% of U.S. adult who subscribe to a cell phone plan use smartphones, up from 11% in 2008 and 7% in 2007.

Contrary to popular belief, BlackBerry holds a 2-to-1 advantage over Apple’s iPhone. Gartner predicts that Android will be second only to Symbian (Nokia) worldwide in 2012.

One area in particular that I believe will continue to gain importance is a mobile friendly website.

What does that mean, exactly?

In short, it doesn’t mean that all of the functionality from the normal website has to be mobile friendly.

What that does mean is that the basic features of the site should be available for mobile devices.

At a minimum, that should include a home page, an about page, contact information page, directions and in the case of a retail store, a store finder and hours of operation.

Think of it as a website, circa 1998: no animation, basic fonts, colors and limited graphic content (to minimize load time).

Try to load your site on your mobile device (regardless of what it is). Does it load? Are you redirected to a mobile friendly version?

Further Reading:
Forrester: Smartphone U.S. Market Share Reaches 17%

Quantcast: Mobile Web Growing Fast

Optimize Mobile Experiences, Advises Compete

Technorati Tags: mobile, Google, iPhone, mobile web, smartphone

It’s that time of year. Time to evaluate some trends and make some predictions.

There are several good posts on 2010 trends and predictions, including a few below, some of which I agree with & some I don’t.

2010 Trends & Prediction Articles:

• Where Digital Marketing Is Heading in 2010 (Part 1) – AdAge
• Where Digital Marketing Is Heading in 2010 (Part 2) – AdAge
• Looking ahead to 2010 with Shiv Singh – SmartBlog
• 10 Things Changing Marketing In 2010 – MediaPost
• 2010 Predictions Round-Up – eMarketer

My Thoughts:

• Retail meets the Internet – in-store barcode scanning, inventory checking, comparison shopping, online ordering. This will also mesh well with the increase of ship to store, in-store ordering with home shipments, online ordering and return to store, etc. (eMarketer article)
• Virtual goods will take off as the next big Facebook thing for brands to do.
• The overhype of Augemented Reality (AR) will continue, but we’re a few years away yet. Everyday life? Hardly. (LA Times article)
• Twitter isn’t slowing down any time soon and will start to become more ingrained into everyday life. Twitter will also launch a revenue generating business model. I can’t imagine what type of fees they are paying for the text messaging service and it would be easy to monetize that by tagging all outbound messages with an ad.
• Geolocation and location-based services will experience significant growth, lead by foursquare. Gowalla, Loopt, Britekite & Google Latitude are all in the running. We’ll see some acquisitions, possibly by Facebook, as well as some partnerships with Apple, Google and mobile phone handset manufacturers like Nokia. While the gaming component doesn’t have mass appeal, the ability for brands to interact with consumers in real time has the ability to provide more context (time, location). Yelp, Where, CitySearch, Urbanspoon and others will see growth, mergers and acquisitions.
• Local marketing, through hyper-local targeting and the ability of small mom & pop brands to create a social media presence (Twitter, Facebook, blog) will start to become a reality. Local businesses will also start to see some growth through partnerships with companies like foursquare & Yelp (see above).
• Google’s Android Market will continue to grow in leaps and bounds and begin to approach Apple’s App Store in breadth of applications. Over the next 3 years, the iPhone and Android powered phones are going to be battling it out. (Android: Crashing the Smartphone Party & Android will continue to grow)
• With the growth of smartphones, having a mobile friendly website will become as important as a corporate website, especially as it relates to mobile search, locations, contact information and open hours.
• Consumers will get tired of every brand on Facebook and Twitter trying to become their friend. (article via @risleyranch)
• Mobile video will continue to grow, but is too small of a market yet except from a testing / research and development standpoint. While it’s possible to post video from your mobile phone to sites like YouTube, the quality is still pretty low. I’m sure we’ll see a few mobile phone videos posted that get some celebrities in trouble, though.
• Companies will start to assemble business cases around social media investment and realize they need a social media strategy in place by the end of 2010.
• People that claim to be social media experts will join the category of over hyped and under delivered. There are no get rich quick schemes that work. Just like no SEO expert can guarantee you the #1 spot on Google. I think that Ad Agencies, PR Firms and Social Media Consultants can help formulate a strategy – there has to be shared responsibility and participation between all parties involved – and it takes time to build a social media presence.

And the list goes on.

Where are you going to focus your attention in 2010?

Technorati Tags: technology, advertising, 2010, trends, predictions

On Tuesday December 15, Placecast hosted a webinar aimed at finding new approaches that are working for retailers to increase brand affinity and drive repeat traffic into their stores. Moderate by Janye O’Donnell, the retail reporter for USA Today and co-author of the book, Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-somethings are Revolutionizing Retail, the discussion provided insights for retail marketers, agencies and mobile vendors alike.

To hear the entire discussion, including topics such as how mobile fits into your overall marketing mix as well as what retailers are doing this well today, listen in by downloading the recording here.

Technorati Tags: mobile, retail, innovation

1020 Placecast Invites You to Join a Conversation on Retail Marketing
Tuesday, December 15th 2009 at 9:30 AM PST / 12:30 PM EST

Brick and mortar marketers today are facing declines in brand loyalty and a decrease of traffic in their stores from recession pressures and eCommerce alternatives.

Retailers are responding with tried and true mechanisms like coupons, and combining them with innovations in marketing technology such as mining CRM data and mobile marketing.

Join us for a range of perspectives about new approaches to this age old problem from the CMO office to agencies, consumer researchers and mobile marketing professionals.

Some of the topics that will be discussed include:

• Which are more valuable – new customers or the brand faithful? What’s the most effective way to connect with them?
• In an increasingly mobile world, how are retailers breaking through the clutter?
• What mobile marketing options are working at scale today for retailers? How does it fit into the overall marketing mix?
• What are some real examples of successful location-based advertising that are happening right now? Who is doing it right?
• With minimal experimental ad budgets, why should brand marketers explore location-based advertising?

The panel of experts will include:

	Aaron Carpenter VP of Marketing, The North Face
	Kathryn Koegel President, Primary Impact Research
	Dustin Jacobsen Technical Director, Barkley
	Jeff Montgomery Chief Revenue Office, 1020 Placecast
	Moderated by: Jayne O’Donnell, retail reporter for USA Today and co-author of the book, Gen BuY: How Tweens, Teens and Twenty-somethings are Revolutionizing Retail

To register for this event, please visit http://cculearning.com/placecast

Click here for full brochure

Technorati Tags: mobile, retail, innovation

Sonic Drive-In, Lee Jeans and L’Oreal Paris were recognized as brands that truly care. And that feels good working on projects that give back.

Companies That Care: Brands That Give Back
By Richard Eisenberg
In this economy getting the most for your money is more important than ever. And part of what defines good value is how your purchases give back to worthy causes. That’s why we created the Ladies’ Home Journal Do Good Stamp, which recognizes companies that contribute to making the world a better place. Meet eight very worthy honorees.

Technorati Tags: cause marketing, Barkley, Lee, Sonic, L’Oreal Paris

The video below is from the RealTime CrunchUp: The Rise Of Geo Streams
My favorite point (a little less than 5 minutes in) is “adding context to interactions around what people do” – and I think this is one of the next big topics we’ll see over the next year or two.

Some interesting discussions around automated, always-on tracking vs. checking in.

A few other interesting reads:
Your Friend Is Only A Mile Away. Did You Know?

6 Innovative Ways Businesses are Capitalizing on Foursquare

Mobilize: The Dawn of Location-Aware Mobile Ads

Technorati Tags: mobile, location, advertising, emerging, technology