How many application launches this year have made you genuinely excited? How many have you followed from conception to pre-deployment with such a fanatical energy that if it were an iPhone launch, you’d be queuing up outside your nearest Apple store right now?

My guess is not many.

Well for me, there has been, and tomorrow (October 20th 2011) marks it’s mass market launch. Whale Trail by ustwo has been in development for some time now (6 months), and thanks to their CHIEF WONKA Mills, its journey from conception to launch has been very public. Now Mills is not known as a marketer, but this launch is supported by an intelligent marketing and promotional strategy. We have had a chance to glimpse at everything from character design to first play videos; understanding every twist and turn along it’s development path as if we are part of the team.

What this has done is establish an emotional attachment between a select number of people and the game. You feel as though you have watched a child grow, and are now excited to see the next stage of its progression. It’s first day at school if you will.

By using Twitter, Youtube, Instagram and Facebook to name but a few, ustwo has harnessed the power of social platforms to do what many believed only video could do: emotive communication. Ultimately, even though Mills has been reaching out to just under 5000 followers, and the 100+ people fortunate enough to play test the game before release, he now has an army of fanatics who will gladly spread the word and advocate Whale Trail to the respective social circles. And you know what, even if the game was shit, people probably still would tell their friends to download it.

The problem is…Whale Trail is actually brilliant. Using the well adopted endless runner format, and taking it to an even more premium level, alongside with a fantastic soundtrack (by SFA legend Gruff Rhys), and gameplay that’s guaranteed to drag you back in with, dare I say it, an Angry Birds-esque addiction.

Whale Trail is an utter delight for the senses, and have complete confidence that this could be the next major phase in an incredible journey for the app development and user interface studio.

So as if you were ever in doubt, if there is one thing you need to do once it is live, is head to the app store, search ‘Whale Trail’, part with your disposable income, and spend the next few months indulging in a love in with Willow the Whale.

I promise you…you will not regret it.

Besides, an angry bird ain’t got shit on a flying whale…

Links

Whale Trail demo video
Whale Trail by Gruff Rhys music video
CHIEF WONKA mills Twitter

But for mobile applications, as one of the youngest mainstream media, success has yet to be truly be defined. For games developers it is ‘relatively’ simple. Downloads equal revenue, and ultimately, profit (although not necessarily sustainable). But what for brands? Many brands have launched themselves into the app foray without the slightest consideration for what they want to achieve. Downloads is often banded around as an indicative measure of success, but what do downloads really show?

Well I have taken it upon myself to explore this and many other success metrics for mobile apps, hopefully with a view to enlightening an industry which in my eyes, is being tarnished by applications without success metrics defined, and thus affecting the quality of the ouput. I have established 2 core categories; primary and secondary.

Primary metrics

1. Frequency of visits – As with all of these metrics, frequency does not just mean ‘as many/much as possible’. But dependant upon the use case of your application, frequency may be related to ‘times a day’ or even ‘time of day’. If your application is a utility which you expect people to use every day before they go to work, success may be defined as ’5 visits per working week’. Alternatively, your app may focus on targeting a specific activity which happens infrequently throughout a month, but you want to encourage this activity to occur more frequently using the application. This is where this ties into the next metric.
2. Length of engagement per visit – So how long do you expect people to use your application for per visit? As long as possible I am sure, but does a longer engagement translate to success? Smartphone owners spend on average 45 minutes a day within apps, so how much of that time do you want to capture? The thing is, applications serve a variety of purposes, but roughly speaking, they are either used to save time, or waste time. If your app has been designed to save time, you will judge your success on shorter engagement times, whereas for apps designed to waste time, you would more than likely want to see people spending a much longer time with your content.
3. Active users – Combine frequency of visits and length of engagement per visit, and you land upon this ‘uber-metric’. Active users are your ultimate sweet spot. These are the people using your application exactly as you wish for it to be used. And whether that means less than 30 seconds every day, or 45 minutes once a month, this engagement is real success. With this particular metric however, you cannot pass judgement until a good few months after it has launched. As research has shown, between 20-30 days after an app has been downloaded, the number of people actually using your application can drop as low as 5%. So just because you have a lot of active users within the first few days, sustaining this is what really counts. In the long run, this could become DAUs (Daily) or MAUs (Monthly), dependant upon what your app intends to achieve.

Well for the new movie ‘Limitless’, they have decided to promote a web link with an offer code. Not very mobile you might say. Well they have tried to cover for this. Considering 85% of mobile users in the UK have a camera phone, and of course does not require a web connection, they have included an image of a mobile device containing the words “Take a picture of this to remind yourself later”.

So its not exactly a seamless mobile experience, but what it does is offer is the opportunity to use your mobile to record details and then follow up when you are by a computer (for which almost anyone can do too).

It won’t win awards for innovation, but it gets the thumbs up from me for thinking about the user experience in this scenario. Its actually a very cool piece of creative too, so keep an eye out for it Londoners

Update: James Whatley has written an awesome post about this ad over on his blog. READ IT.

Who has heard this in a conversation, or brief, or spec before?

“We are targeting the youth market, so whatever we make needs to be cool”

The term itself is contradictory. More often than not, it is used by an ageing old school marketer, who thinks cool defines what ‘young people’ like.

I know so many different types of ‘cool’, which is why the term creates confusion.

Jude law is fucking cool. A good looking bloke, with good fashion sense, clearly got the chat, and he is minted. He is traditionally cool.

One of my very best friends is a whole different level of cool. His past jobs include “Medieval Jouster” and “Blackjack Croupier”. He knows the Countries song off by heart. He loves the Blues Brothers and does some of the strangest stand up comedy I have ever seen. He is in his own right ‘cool’, but is a mile away from being like Jude Law.

What I suppose I am trying to say, is trying to find the cool solution just won’t fly. Doing a Facebook fan page, creating an iPhone app or launching a Twitter feed doesn’t cut the cool mustard.

The fragmentation in the youth market is quite significant, but by changing the way we think about cool, we more often than not can identify an obvious solution amongst the foray of cool ideas.

Throw ‘cool’ in the bin.

Its just called resonance.

Amongst the hype of the PR machine surrounding mobile applications and technology, NME/Blackberry have quietly launched a competition that could show some of the biggest businesses in the world how ‘mobile’ should be done. Working as a partnership, the competition gives the key demographic the chance to win a Blackberry handset, as well as tickets to an NME gig.

Now here is where it gets even more interesting! Although you can answer the question and submit your details online, you can also join the NME blackberry group on blackberry messenger to submit your answer. The Blackberry market share in the UK is already quite significant, and is no longer just the email enterprise phone for business executives. Facilitated by Blackberry messenger, the RIM brand is now becoming a real force in the 16-25 age range (a demographic shared by NME). So, what is to be learnt from this competition?

• Incentivised – Using prizes that the consumer WANT to win, NME and Blackberry are able to collect rich audience data
• Permission Granted - With all this data collected in mind, the question is still posed “Would you like to receive marketing…etc” in a clear format. So although being brands that their audience WANT to engage with, they still demonstrate respect for their consumers by asking their permission to continue the conversation
• Natural Environment – The BBM element is a stroke of genius for two reasons. The first being the ‘environment’. With its rise in prominence in the youth market, Blackberry messenger (or BBM as it is known in short) exploits the prolific nature of SMS but in an instant messenger format (similar to that championed in the late 90′s/early 00′s by MSN messenger on the desktop). Because youths are participating regularly in this environment, it seems right that a brand should enter this space (with permission)!
• Value Exchange - The Value exchange at face value here is obvious. Participants have the chance to win prizes that are relevant to their interests, and at the same time, NME/Blackberry suddenly have data to a very valuable target demographic. But the BBM element gives an EXTRA value add for NME/Blackberry. You see, by building a blackberry messenger group of NME fanatics, suddenly that is access to a massive group of opt-in consumers who own Blackberrys and love NME. You just cannot buy data that specific! And what is EVEN BETTER, is that BBM is free to use (on a data plan), so NME can deliver targeted, relevant marketing messages to opt-in consumers for a stupendously tiny cost!

Imagine if NME bring out a native Blackberry mobile application. Suddenly, rather than spend thousands trying to market it, they have the audience data ready and waiting to send to ONLY the people it is relevant too. Magic.

In fact, I can admit now (and I know one or two people who will pull me up on this) that I have been guilty of not thinking about value exchange before engaging in professional situations. And those people know I am sorry.  HOWEVER, asides from learning from my mistakes at a relatively early stage in my career, it has highlighted something which is in fact incredibly relevant to the marketing industry.

The words engagement, conversation, participation and social have been thrown around like some angry Gorillas and their faeces, but what the hell does it all mean?! My personal experiences and understanding always make me return to the concept of value exchange. In order for a citizen to accept and open communication with brands via a platform such as a mobile device, an understanding of the mutual expectations is vital.

Gimme some free stuff…please

Incentivisation is not a revolutionary new marketing technique, and it has a track record throughout the ages of driving conversions and catalysing consumer engagement. Always used to choose a cereal as a kid based on the best free toy? Buy your new TV based on the stockist that offers the best warranty? In offering an incentive, a brand can create what is often an ‘illusion’ of value with its consumer, but this works well in establishing an association with your brand and ‘adding value’. The consumer simply accepts that by buying your product, this is sufficient for an exchange of value. Obviously as a marketer, you will be more aware that alongside a healthy profit on the product, that you will have claimed valuable customer contact details for future sales leads.

Its more than free stuff

Sorry to disappoint, but although incentivisation creates a sense of unbalanced value exchange in favour of the customer, it is in fact very false. True value exchange is a much deeper concept, embedded within our understanding of the world and how we interact with it. The simple concept for brands and marketers to embrace is:

“Do not aim to deliver just the right message, but strive to evoke the correct response”

Consumer insight and market research can offer a remarkable level of understanding of your audience, but telling your audience what they want to hear is not the same as making an emotional connection and seeing a natural will to engage with your brand and its message. This emotional connection can manifest itself in an array of forms, but when the value exchange is optimised, the rewards for both parties will be evident.

Remember, its a telephone, not a megaphone!

Evoking the right response may not be immediate, but the value exchange does not have to be instantaneous. Establishing a relationship with a consumer involves highs and lows; iterations and reworks. When you demonstrate an agile philosophy towards communicating with your consumers, they will respect you a lot more for approaching them and trying to engage them in the environments that they not only already participate, but where you have asked their permission to join them.

My Definition of Value Exchange

So, what can we ‘define’ as value exchange? Well one thing to be clear on, is that peoples own definitions and understanding of value are quite disparate. What may seem a paltry exchange of value to one person, may be above and beyond expectations for another. Here are some things to consider:

• Respect - For me, demonstrating respect for your consumer can represent a significant amount of value. Respecting their personal space, data and preferences can establish or maintain an incredibly positive relationship. So ask their permission, don’t patronise them and treat them like human beings, and you just see what happens.
• Incentives - Although it may seem like I wrote off the idea of incentivisation earlier, giving your consumers that little bit more really does help. It does not however always have to be a free gift, or extended warranty. By listening carefully to what they want, marketers can match their expectations and go the extra mile, without breaking the bank. So make the incentive something the consumer actually wants, rather than something that makes the purchased product or communication that little bit more attractive.
• Involvement – Inviting citizens to contribute to or partake in an activity which is usually a closed space, can create an incredible amount of value in both parties favour. Creating the opportunity to submit suggestions on how to improve the business, or even ideas for the next marketing campaign can make the citizen feel like they are having a direct impact on the business (and this heavily ties in with the ‘respect’ bullet above). At the same time, the business has access to direct and honest information from the people that matter the most.
• Commitment before returns – As a business, you may need to accept that this year, you need to take a hit. By going the extra mile for your consumers (which could eat up a lot proportion of your marketing budget), it may make this year look a little less successful, but for long term stability and consumer satisfaction, it could be the break you need. Its all down to having the balls! Take the leap, or sit on the edge and wait for the cliff to give way? Consumer loyalty and trust is, in comparison, invaluable.

I hope this makes sense, as my mind notoriously sees things and inteprets them in ways that other find, quite frankly, plain stupid. I would love to hear what you think. What does value exchange mean to you? In your personal or business lives?

]]> http://mobsessed.co.uk/2010/07/exploring-value-exchange/feed/ 2 http://mobsessed.co.uk/2010/07/engaging-citizens-through-immersive-alternate-reality-epic-win/ http://mobsessed.co.uk/2010/07/engaging-citizens-through-immersive-alternate-reality-epic-win/#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:04:00 +0000 Carl http://mobsessed.co.uk/?p=540 Not quite the big boom back into blogging I had hoped (that post is still under way…) but I saw this and had to share it with you all. A few years ago, before the iPhone and the big app movement, 20:20London did an amazing integrated campaign for the PSP game Gangs of London. Leveraging the multiple communications channels available through mobile, and exploiting a citizens natural craving for an alternate reality, they were able to completely immerse the average joe into a world that could only otherwise be found by playing the game by using SMS, recorded voice and some fancy image recognition technology.

Foursquare offers a more recent and relevant example of turning life into a game, but this latest concept takes the biscuit. Watch the video and get excited. I certainly did! If this isn’t an example of understanding a human beings inherent need for entertainment, anchored with incentivisation, to exploit what is a traditionally mundane activity, I don’t know what is!

Major props to Rudy De Waele for the awesome preso.

After the recent iPhone OS4 announcement, I felt a strange sense of excitement which I had never had after previous announcement by Apple (mainly because it was bollocks like ‘we’ve now got MMS!’). This was very very different indeed, and had nothing to do with the long awaited introduction of multitasking. No, for me, the real excitement was relating to the mobile advertising platform ‘iAd’ that comes pre installed in the OS. So whats the big deal? And who will it benefit? Its a big deal because it is approaching mobile advertising in a format yet to be experienced by the average mobile user, and by embracing the rich content ability of the platform, allows for some real cool creative to be employed. This means happy Apple, happy agencies, happy brands, and most importantly, happy users! Here is why I think it is so good:

• Emotion and Interactivity…together – Apple have recognised that digital display advertising in its inherent form allows for a degree of interactivity, without evoking much of an emotional response, whereas TV advertising can make a significant emotional connection with its audience without much interaction (ok, maybe a call to action but no direct interaction). The iAd platform appears to allow for a substantial dollop of both. Gaming, content and utilities are crammed into what should be a direct link to a web page, but in essence, its an app within an app. This allows for a broad spectrum of interactivity, as well as the ability to make an emotional connection through video support.
• Ads keep you where you want to be – So you are served an ad within an application, and for once you are ever so slightly interested/intrigued by what the ad is offering (surely it isn’t a RELEVANT ad?!). However, you know that if you click it you will be removed from the application you were originally intending to use, and are then dumped on some random usability nightmare of a web page in Safari. Not with iAd. The ads remain within the application, which means you can engage with the ad and its key messages, before returning to exactly the same place you were before. No more re-navigating back to your ex-girlfriends facebook page, or having to work your way back to Level 34 on Paper Toss!
• 60% of revenues into developers pockets – If your App opts to host some ads, you get a cut of 60% of the revenue – Brucey’s Bonus!  And knowing the ads will be interactive and engaging, it can only encourage developers to consider there inclusion. And we knew Apple had to make some money out of it somewhere, so as well as Apple selling and hosting the ad space, they take the reasonable 40% cut.

I believe that this has been well thought through by Apple, with a view to making a bit of pocket money, but by also offering a proposition that is attractive to developers, advertisers and consumers. Very clever indeed. The key challenge facing Apple, who are selling and hosting the ads, is to ensure the quality of the ads is maintained to a high standard, and to make sure all the ads that they serve are RELEVANT to the users. This relevancy, where it can, must be focussed not on the specific app that the ad is served in, but take a deeper look at the variation of apps loaded on the users device in order to create their ‘preference profile’. I don’t believe this challenges privacy too much, but as long as it is well executed all will be fine. Take a look at the iAd section of Mr Jobs presentation in the videos below.