Aren’t the constant glimpses of the future in our everyday lives awesome. I just downloaded the new Starbucks applications on my iPhone and caught one of those glimpses.  Note: I’m not sure why they split these apps into two, I was unhappy that this now takes up two spots on my iPhone deck and the two apps should have been one – just one of those dumb things smart marketers do. But I digress and don’t want to take away from the innovation here.

One of the apps is exactly what you would expect from Starbucks – you can find store locations, hours and features and you can build your regular drinks and share them with friends so they have your order for the next coffee run (for the record the Dunkin’ Run app offered that utility first). It’s clean, it’s intuitive, it’s a great app that we’d expect. The second app however is a mobile version of the popular Starbucks card, and this is where you can glimpse into the future with me. Close you eyes and join along (well, metaphorically. please don’t close your eyes or you can’t finish reading this post.)

In 16 test stores (8 in Silicon Valley and 8 in Seattle) mobile Starbucks card users will actually be able to pay for their orders at point of sale (POS) with their iPhones. Starbucks has installed special barcode scanners  that are capable of scanning semacodes, which would be created by the card holder for each order. Quite literally, your iPhone becomes a mobile Starbucks card. 

So – why is scanning a barcode innovative you say? Well, conceptually it’s not. But the challenge we have faced with mobile coupons and barcode scanning stem from the fact that the mobile handset emits light and the barcode displayed is an image that is being emitted as part of the light. Current barcode scanners at POS everywhere cannot scan a code on a handset! It is an issue that many smart technologists are working on solving, and present a market-level opportunity. JC Penny, as an example, is the first national retailer experimenting with the deployment of mobile coupon scanners. It’s big news, albeit only a test in 16 stores for now (not sure what’s up with these 16 store tests). The stores required new scanners – to be specific, the Motorola DS9808 digital imager scanner, which can read 1D, 2D and PDF-417 bar codes. I trust that we’ll all agree that once mobile coupons and barcodes can be scanned at (POS) at retail everywhere, we will see another boost in mobile participation from consumers and marketers alike. Call it coupon clipping 2.0. This aint your grandma’s couponing!

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Following last week’s DigiDay Social & DigiDay Mobile conferences,  I had a chance to brainstorm about how social and mobile marketing were becoming such interconnected bedfellows. The trend is only strengthening.

Consumers are looking for experiential and utility value in social and mobile channels. The experiences we provide consumers are converging, and becoming less about the channel, platform or destination, and more about experience itself (I’d argue that it was always that way),  the development, distribution and measurement of these distributed experiences must strive for complete interoperability.

Currently, devices and platforms have various protocols and standards that make this a lot of work for developers, and more importantly, a major expense for companies. The end result – few companies have a consistent digital experience to offer consumers that transcends any platform or device the consumer chooses. Consumers want this, marketers want this.

Enter Adobe…yes, Adobe.

Apparently Adobe plans on creating uniformity across social and mobile applications.  Essentially a developer could build flash-based apps in a to-be-released authoring tool, that will be customized to deliver experiences to consumers in each native environment. Sounds like the holy grail of a uniform experience across various social platforms and channels. Of course the acquisition of Omniture will provide deep analytics into the performance of these distributed experiences. Adobe, I applaud you for taking this stand.

Not The First Time

Flash has been the basis of rich experiences online for over a decade. And why wouldn’t the makers of Flash want to maintain and even bolster this ubiquitous position? Those who have been in the digital media space for sometime remember when Macromedia (original brand that developed Flash) partnered with Doubleclick to develop DART Motif. Well, Macromedia’s involvement was limited, but the strategy was the same – create a level of uniformity between otherwise disparate systems that develop and deliver Flash-based experiences. Times have changed, and Adobe has far more skin in the game now. This is a big play. This can be a major boon for the  entire ecosystem – developers, marketers, content providers, and of course consumers.

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]]> http://thedigitalblur.com/2009/09/21/uniformity-across-social-mobile-applications/feed/ 0 jheller mobile-social http://thedigitalblur.com/2009/09/21/uniformity-across-social-mobile-applications/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDigitalBlur/~3/DFznZP2Cx04/ http://thedigitalblur.com/2009/09/19/we-didnt-budget-for-this/#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:21:53 +0000 Jason Heller http://thedigitalblur.com/?p=632 ]]>

Agencies have become commoditized. To a degree many may have deserved it. But a good strategically minded agency is a good partner and needs to be treated as such. Commoditized agencies have no problem doing spec work, or bowing to clients’ every demand. Clients – I love you, how can I not, but if you see yourself in this video, know that you are often hurting yourself more than your agency or partners. The reality is – good work is not cheap. As the adage goes: Pick two of the following: Fast, Cheap, Good.

Enjoy!

Augmented reality, recently in experimentation mode and mocked at by many in the advertising industry as a gimmick, just grew up.

Layar is the first official augmented reality app, and guess what – it’s not available for the iPhone…yet. So I downloaded it onto my wife’s Android phone (thanks baby), and I am proud to say that the future is now folks. Augmented reality in mobile apps mark the beginning of something HUGE.

For the uninitiated, augmented reality (AR) is conceptually any technology that ties the real and virtual world’s together. For the mobile device, AR will utilize the built in GPS, compass and video camera, creating an unlimited potential to layer content onto any physical location in the real world.

This promo video from Layar and the video from Yelp below are great examples of the potential. I’m excited!

Yelp is officially the first iPhone application that supports augmented reality, however, it seems to be a hidden  feature in the app since it’s technically not supposed to be ready for prime time yet. If you have an iPhone 3Gs, download the Yelp app, shake the hone three times and the AR icon will appear. I know it sounds silly, but it’s actually kind of a cool way to unlock the feature. Really, I’m not trying to make a fool of you shaking your iPhone all about. Now you can point your iPhone at a restaurant and the reviews come up – sans searching. Did I mention this was going to be HUGE! Kudos for Yelp for implementing the perfect complimentary feature for their app early. They are going to kick butt with this.

And I think this is the first full fledge AR iPhone app, which is a version of the New York City subway map – outstanding!

Some examples of the first generation of AR application in marketing are sort of snoresville (except the Star Trek one, check that out below). There is definitely a novelty factor to it, but I don’t see these AR ads going very far. It’s just more of the same, with a twist - but still feeble attempts by marketers at getting consumers to care more about their ads versus providing experiences that consumers truly value. Here’s how it worked — A print ad or computer print out, is held up to your webcam (yes all of the existing marketing applications of AR require the use of your webcam), and you can then see and interact with a three dimensional advertisement on your screen. “Hey buy my stuff (in 3D)”

Here is an example of one of the Best Buy circulars that incorporated AR (you can also see more on the Best Buy in 3D website)

The GE Smart Grid ad (one of the first US-based AR ads) was more of a brand campaign and included a neat interactive component.

Super cool Star Trek Trailer (I’m not a Trekie, but totally geeked out on this one)

My buddy Adam Broitman’s new firm Circ.us recently launched an AR game as a marketing asset for A&E Television’s Chris Angel. I like the application of AR in a game format. People want to play games, they don’t necessarily want to interact with advertising as much.

So there you have it folks. With the new mobile operating systems’ ability to handle this type of technology, we are about to witness an explosion of innovation that will benefit consumers and marketers alike. Think about it…any physical location, anywhere in the world can be layered with content (information, reviews, photos, videos, commerce).

 The future of augmented reality is now!

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I‘ve been so busy with projects that I have actually let a month go by without posting to the DigitalBlur. I can’t believe it – shame on me! 

Therefore, after a bout of silence, maybe kicking off  with a fairly self-serving guest blog post is a little cheesy. But hey –  in this crazy fast paced and often thankless world we live in, it’s always nice to get some additional inspiration from the kind words of others.

Thanks to Tim McHale, Managing Editor of Madison Avenue Journal, for the (unsolicited) words of inspiration.

by Tim McHale

I’m compelled to shout from the rooftops about a career-enlightening moment, facilitated by Jason Heller.

I recently attended a social media marketing course led by Jason for Laredo Group. He was outstanding. It was like the perfect screen play.  Each line and/or action draws you into the story so quickly that you almost immediately experience a ”Suspension of disbelief.”  The difference here though is that I experienced a “Suspension of belief.” The belief that I thought I knew almost everything I needed to know about social media, before I walked into the room.

When is the last time you did not step out of a conference room or event to take a phone call or catch your breath? When Jason announced we should take a 10 minute break, everyone around the room was almost like, “Oh, really? Why?” That is no joke.

At the end of the day I was speechless. Those who know me can vouch that is indeed a rare occasion, even when I sleep, or so my wife tells me.

In essence, the ultimate reason I found myself short on words was due to the fact that I had what you might call an “aha” moment. I wanted to savor it personally because it happens all too infrequently. Most insights we enjoy come about more gradually.

It was a paradigm change in how I view social media, and now, the media business overall. Did I know a lot about social media going in?  Yeah. But for me, what I walked away with was that all-too-rare sense of buoyancy, the feeling of being nimble, a Butch Cassidy quality that makes you smile and excited about what awaits you. You can’t put a price tag on that.

As consultants, sales people, agency execs and many reading this blog might agree, we make a living from sharing credible knowledge about the media business of yesterday, today and every so often, about tomorrow. For me, those who boast that they have the same level of confidence and insight into the future are kidding themselves.  Or at least that’s what I thought before the training.

Actually come to think of it, there was only one thing that really p-ssed me off; envious in fact. Heller not only has a full head of hair, he has a pony tail, no less!

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In a moment of David v. Goliath glory, a United Airlines passenger, David Carroll of the Canadian folk band Sons of Maxwell, has become an interesting thorn in the side of United’s marketing department after his revenge video goes viral on YouTube and beyond.

The backstory here is that about a year ago, Carroll’s guitar was broken by United baggage handlers. After nine months of red tape and ultimately a denied claim for damages, Carrol produced a song and video about the incident. As of this posting there are over 3,250,000 views and over 15,000 comments. It is the fourth link down in the organic search results fo the term “United Airlines” – a classic example of how social media reflects real world problems, and can be amplified to the point of a major PR nightmare for a major brand.

The blogosphere, twitter, and even traditional media (including the Rolling Stone and CNN) picked up the story. United Airlines breaking Caroll’s guitar was in fact the biggest thing that ever happened to his career. “I’ll have a side of invaluable PR with my revenge please”.

There is now a Wikipedia entry about the Son’s of Maxwell (primarily focused on the United Incident), and I assume the number of fans and level of participation on their Facebookpage has increased since the incident (although it is a paltry 3,674 at the time of this post).

Taylor Guitars even posted a response video (rightfully taking full advantage of the PR opportunity) with tips about travelling with guitars:

If you search Google for “United Airlines”, the “United Breaks” Guitars parody sits just above a parody from Mad TV about United employees, which must have been much funnier to United Airlines’ marketing department prior to it reinforcing the current state of the consumer experience. Nonetheless, it’s pretty funny!

Moral of the story…if you have bad customer service – there is no place to run, no place to hide, and apparently no place to fly!

So why did this particular video go viral while others with similar attributes (funny, parody, well seeded in social channels) don’t? Well, first of all, there’s no magic formula. Remember, “viral” is a result, not a marketing discipline. Compelling content shared and distributed in social channels will have the potential to go viral, period. Perhaps the collective comradary surrounding the fact that we’ve all had bad airline experiences helped. One thing is certain – at some point the right combination of social (people/bloggers) and traditional (media) influencers propelled this video and incident into even more hearts, minds, tweets, blogs, emails, and broadcasts. Within the fabric of the social web, momentum begets momentum.

Social media is forcing companies to rethink operational, service and product related issues.  It is vital to address and correct problems proactively, otherwise, inevitably, the problem will force a fix the hard way.

While the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), a cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards,  has existed since 1999, its policies and lack of ubiquitous participation and enforcement ability have not been enough to curtail the FTC’s scrutiny on our industry’s data practices.

The proliferation of data usage for targeting and providing relevant consumer experiences has been a vital component to the progression and growth of the online advertising industry since the emergence of ad servers and data collection in the mid-to-late ’90’s. The argument has always been that no personally identifiable information (PII) is being collected or used and therefore the anonymous data is harmless and in no violation of any privacy guidelines or ethics. However, data collection and applications used to be limited to far fewer players. Today every ad network, marketing technology firm, and now all the major media agencies have developed or are in the process of developing the capabilities of collecting and applying consumer data in the quest to better identify and target specific consumer audiences.

Of course this benefits the entire ecosystem – including consumers. Publishers are utilizing their inventory more efficiently, marketers are able to reach the audiences we want and consumers online experiences are more relevant.

The Privacy Man

Behavioral targeting has been in the FTC’s cross hairs for the last few years (not to mention the unrelenting cries of consumer advocacy groups). It was only this past February when the FTC issued a last warning that the industry self regulate or the man will do it for us. In fact they issued a report on recommended self regulation principles for the industry. Here are the highlights:

Transparency and Consumer Control: Simply put, clear & concise disclosure of targeting practices and a method for consumers to opt-out. Fair enough.

Reasonable Security, and Limited Data Retention, for Consumer Data: Data should be stored in a reasonably secure manner based on the sensitivity of the data, and only retained for the duration required to fulfill a business or legal need. I can see the data storage duration becoming an issue on both sides.

Affirmative Express Consent for Material Changes to Existing Privacy Promises: Express consumer consent must be provided in order to use previously collected data in any manner that materially deviates from the policy in place and disclosed at the time of collection.  This includes instances when a company merges with or is acquired by another company with different data collection and usage practices.

Affirmative Express Consent to (or Prohibition Against) Using Sensitive Data for Behavioral Advertising: Any “sensitive” data collected for the purpose of BT must be done so on an opt-in basis.  BT data is rarely “sensitive”, however, several otherwise seemingly anonymous data points can be combined and used to create PII, which by definition is sensitive. I can see some conflict arising out of this guideline.

The FTC also (accurately) states that self regulation only works when there is a process in place to “monitor compliance and ensure that violations have consequences.” Commissioner Jon Leibowitz, in a separate statement also warned “A day of reckoning may be fast approaching.” “The jury is still out about whether self-regulation alone will effectively balance companies’ marketing and data collection practices with consumers’ privacy interests.”

Congressional meetings on the subject have been escalated as recently as last month.

The Ad Industry Finally Responds

The biggest hurdle to self regulation was that no industry trade group was prepared to bear the responsibility nor the cost of enforcement. Over the last year the IAB went from not having the desire nor the ability to monitor and enforce any BT guidelines, to seriously contemplating the proposition, to finally collaborating with the Direct Marketing Association,  the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers and the Better Business Bureau to establish and issue formal guidelines and enforcement mechanisms.

Advertisers, agencies, publishers, search engines, ad networks, ISP’s, and marketing technology firms will all be held responsible to disclose data collection and usage practices in a “clear, prominent, and conveniently located” manner on their own sites and at the time of data collection.

It is the disclosure at time of data collection that is the interesting development. This disclosure will include an icon or text link that consumers can click on to go to a (soon to be developed) 3rd party site that provides education on industry-wide data collection and usage options. This may be an easy addition at the  ad server level. Effectively this moves some of the disclosure that may already exist buried in websites’ privacy policies, and brings it front and center. It does beg the question of how long we’ll need to do this? Two years? Five years?  At some point are consumers just educated and BT practices become as normal to them as they are to us? An icon on every other ad served online? Well, according to critics and advocacy groups even that is not enough. Cries for do-not-track lists and more stringent opt-in practices abound, so it is vital that the industry start by appeasing the FTC and enforce violations.

Enforcement – The Scarlet Letter Approach

Enforcement includes reporting of violations to government agencies and the general public. There is certainly motivation for the industry to police violators and ensure that the few proverbial bad apples do not spoil it for the rest of us. Will this be enough to ward of the privacy-man and ensure self-regulation survives? We sure hope so.  The strong arm of the law may be less than favorable or practical for the industry.

Yesterday was the second OMMA Social conference hosted by the fine folks from MediaPost. I moderated a panel that focused on strategy titled “As Social Media Grows, How Not to Miss the Forest for the Trees”.Marketers and agencies tend to focus on the “shiny new thing” – first it was MySpace, then Facebook, now Twitter, and there were even the moments of Second Life (ugh) and other platforms and digital sub-channels. At some point in the not too distant future it will be something else. Additionally, platforms like Wikipedia and Flickr and YouTube and Delicious all have a place in our arsenal of presence, as do some of the smaller second tier social sites, but most marketers don’t seem to methodically determine objective and develop strategies, but rather run into these channels simply because consumers are there and they need to follow. Aftrer all fishing where the proverbial fish are is what us marketers do, right? But without a strategy for the long term fundamental shift in how brands can engage consumers in social media, taking into account the multi-disciplinary nature of these platforms, companies may be headed in the wrong direction due to shortsightedness.

The official description and panelists that I hand selected for this important topic of social media strategy are below. The audience was full of laptops blogging and tweeting the conference, maybe more so than I have seen before. In fact here is a great blog post that summarizes our panel.

As Social Media Grows, How Not to Miss the Forest for the Trees  
Tweets, Facebook apps, MySpace pages, YouTube channels, and blogging are all trees in a large social media forest, and given the forest’s increasing density, it’s getting easier and easier to get lost. In fact, many marketers are jumping into the channels and tactics of social media without spending enough time focusing on objectives and strategies. Marketers and agencies will discuss how to use the channels that fit their strategies, rather than let channels dictate them.  

Moderator 
Jason Heller, EVP, Laredo Group  
 
Panelists 
Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus 
Shiv Singh, VP, Global Social Media Lead, Razorfish 
Denise Sposato, Director of Communities, H&R Block 
Don Steele, VP, Digital Marketing, MTVN Entertainment Group  

You can read the Twitter stream for all Omma Social posts (#ommasocial) here.

Apparently the video of the panels will be up in a week or so here.

Many of my readers may already be aware of my life outside of the digital marketing industry. As publisher of a burgeoning niche digital media business, I have been experiencing the other side of the proverbial coin – producing and curating content, providing rich consumer experiences, developing a loyal audience, and managing a practical revenue model.

Our audience is a very unique and interesting one -  the growing global underwater photography and video communities. One of the roles of our editorial team is to keep our audience up to date with all the new photography equipment that may be relevant for underwater use. Needless to say, we receive tons of press releases and PR pitches, and ultimately our audience relies on us to provide relevant information on what’s new and hot.

Tapping Into A Meme
You can imagine my marketing-geek excitement when I received an email from the Olympus marketing team about Olympus teaming up with Tom Dickson – a.k.a. the “will it blend? guy” – to produce a very clever video promoting the new Olympus E-P1.

The background story here is what is so interesting – a marketer, turned meme, co-oping with another marketer. Blendtec is a company that otherwise sells one of the more unsexy products imaginable – high power blenders.  Their Will It Blend? series of videos (and microsite), where they blend everything from an iPhone, to golf balls, a ‘toilet flusher thingy’, even a can of Spam, has catapulted to internet meme status over the last few years. Now Olympus has tapped into that meme-dom, but will this trend continue? Sure – as long as blending ridiculous items continues to engage and capture the attention of consumers, Tom Dickson is going to need more products to blend, and everybody involved might as well benefit. Then we all move on. But for the time being – the first official (or at least recognizable) product marketing tie-in to the Will It Blend? series of “viral videos has this marketing strategist smiling.

We all grew up with TV commercials vying for an emotional or otherwise memorable place in our hearts and minds, yet it’s rare to find online executions that do the same. When online marketing executions achieve this, it is a feat in and of itself, and hopefully we’ll see more of this in our digitally creative future. Blendtec’s videos are as authentic as they are clever, but to cooperate with other product marketers in the process makes it that much more of a success story. So kudos to Blendtec, and kudos to Olympus for approaching them with the idea and pulling this off.

A couple of other examples of advertisers capitalizing on memes:

Geico recently did it with the Numa Numa guy:

Toyota also pulled it off with their 2007 Leroy Jenkins spot:

Tapping into memes is easier said than done of course (and creating a meme is the online equivalent of wiriting a blockbuster movie or best selling novel),  but keep the memes on your radar screen, and when it’s appropriate to your brand, make the magic happen. There’s a little luck in the process – but luck is occurs when preparation meets opportunity.

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Yesterday I emceed my second set of DigiDay conferences (DigiDay Networks & DigiDay Target), where execs and thought leaders gathered from the industry’s  leading ad networks, optimization technology firms, data marketplaces, data exchanges, agencies, publishers, and even a few marketers were in the mix. Consistent with my last DigiDay experiences, it was a standing room only crowd – no really – at 8:30AM … in New York City … hard to believe but true!

Although technically two half day conferences, the interwoven theme of the day was the same – simply, the strategic and practical applications of data. (Simply? Uh huh, right…)

The discussions surrounded the modeling and packaging of specific audiences, the role of creativity in a data driven world, the value of data exchanges, analytic and yield models, data strategy, data ownership, agencies developing network services, networks developing agency services, black box technologies, and generally, the future of digital media.

Thanks to Scott Hoffman who posted the great round of quick video interviews with several of the panelists on his blog:

A quick search for the Twitter hashtag #DigiDay (42 pages of results from June 8!), will give you a quick recap of some of the hot topics and sound-bytes, here are a few highlights:

ahynes1 : #digiday Someone yell out an online advertising campaign that resonated with you. <crickets>

gregoryhills :  Matt Greitzer of AvenueA thinks agencies will focus on building proprietary data warehouses, & not on building pipes into exchanges #digiday

ahynes1 : #digiday Frustrating part of the panels so far is that they all treat audience as eyeballs disconnected from hearts and minds.

adbroad : Steve, Media Math: Ad agencies don’t know data, supply as well as other co’s, but suppliers don’t know creative like agencies. #digiday

cliqology : Wow, 2 hours into #digiday and just one mention about Social. But hundreds of mentions about data.

LorneBrown : at #Digiday – …Darren Herman “now have opportunity to build 60 creatives for 60 audiences”

admeld : RT @JasonDPG: Mismatch bteween ad ops resources applied against revenue. Need to remedy and create efficiencies in the process #digiday

digiday : Zagorski:  Data is approaching the value of media. Damn! #digiday

jasonkrebs : #digiday. Why does everyone think now that advertising should be 0% waste? What business in the world doesn’t have waste?

taddavis :  Brands do matter:  why market efficiencies will never completely drive cpms. #digiday

eporres: #digiday AdNetik believes that marketplace sellers should cede control of media pricing. Likened to Google Adwords. Auctions, get used to it

ckronengold : #lotame say “we’re not digital, or not out of home, but we’re Life Advertising.” #digiday

adbroad : Data is piling up faster than our ability to read and analyze it. ERgo, we’re actually becoming “stupider.” –Stephen Baker, #digiday

charlescosta : Key to targeting is to offer it as “customized services” and not call it “tracking” – focus on building trust with users #digiday

annemai : Darren Herman,  Media Kitchen: Big difference b/w “planning” targets and “buying” targets — how true! #digiday

stephcliff : smack talk at #digiday. Yahoo’s bill wise: “I’m smarter than you.” Time Inc. guy: “You work for Yahoo-how could you be?”