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.

Purchases worth tens of thousands of pounds; in just a simple click via their mobile.

Along with Amazon (who have both an iPhone application and a mobile website), they make up 70% of m-commerce transactions worldwide. All this can be attributed to taking the consideration to prepare and design a dedicated mobile site, rather than optimising the desktop site, in order to leverage the existing web infrastructure, and have a process and user flow that is cohesive between the platforms. Of course this is supported by a seamless payment process and other factors, but the importance of usability should not be underestimated.

But what makes m-commerce such a viable solution and/or extension to current commerce activity?

• Convenience – Mobile creates the opportunity to shop without hitting the high street, and from the comfort of your sofa, the train or your walk in the park.
• Accessibility – Should you decide to do your walk in the park at 3am in the morning, you can rely on the fact that the m-commerce store will still be open!
• Ease of payment – Whether it’s an integrated account with your MNO (mobile network operator), or saved account details, it is relatively easy to pay for your goods too!
• Location aware – Should you not want the hassle of entering delivery details if not saved, there is the capacity to locate your local outlet and pick up your items yourself.

However, although the potential for m-commerce is clear, there remain several key challenges before it is adopted mainstream.
The main issue (at the moment anyway) is the iPhone obsession. Now I do not want this to turn into yet ANOTHER Carl Martin iPhone rant, because it certainly is not that (hell I am an iPhone owner for crying out loud!). However, businesses are employing the wrong mobile strategy and not even considering the mobile web first. iPhone users may be more comfortable with making transactions, have greater disposable income and have better functionality to facilitate the process, but more often than not, the target market is not predominantly using the handset.

A good example of looking at handset usage is Ticketmaster (US). After recognising a siginifcant amount of traffic arriving on their site via mobile, they built a dedicated mobile site (although significantly lacking in design!). After its continued success, it opted to develop a Blackberry application because it has the largest market share in the US (46% in 2008).

But returning to British shores, 17% of Britons are willing to buy products and services through their phones, according to a survey of 1,000 UK adults in 2008, and this will no doubt have improved since the app store age, yet I can assure you that 17% are not all iPhone users! Especially considering iPhone market share in the UK is only 4%.

If you want to engage with your regular customers and attract a new consumer base, you need to fundamentally understand not only the ways in which they currently interact with your brand, but their personal values and issues relating to mobile transactions. A lot of consumers continue to be intimidated by the mobile web, never mind making a purchase decision using it.

Although applications may provide the most personable and relatable experience, this can severely segment your consumer base and isolate those who wish to shop via mobile. The best advice you can ever be offered when looking into the m-commerce arena is to consider the following:

• Does it have a broad reach?
• Is it targeted to your demographic?
• Is it an engaging experience for the user?
• Is the transactional process smooth and easy to use?

Without these considerations, you are setting up for a fall. Take heed of the example of eBay and Amazon, and look into the mobile web before taking the application route. And if you are worried that a mobile website may not look as good as an application, or even work as well as an application, take a look at the Interflora website on your mobile device. You may be very pleasantly surprised! My final two hints:

• More often than not, people will try your mobile site first. If it isn’t available or is terrible, they will look to their app store. This is an indication of the way YOU should be thinking.
• Take a look at your main desktop sites web stats and take a look at who is visiting your site and via which mobile browser. This is a very basic level way of judging who is trying to access your site on the move.

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!

The Virtual Roundtable aims to explain the significance of the Mobile Touch Web and the impact of touchscreen devices on how people access, enjoy and purchase content and services. Taptu and MsearchGroove were joined by a wide range of mobile industry entrepreneurs, authorities and pundits including:  Tomi Ahonen (best-selling author); Mark Curtis (Flirtomatic); Carl Martin (Redweb); Andreas Constantinou (VisionMobile);Jonathan MacDonald (This Fluid World);  Martin Wilson (Indigo 102); Dan Appelquist (Vodafone UK);  Christian Lindholm (Fjord); and Peggy Anne Salz (MSearchGroove).

The contributors agree the rise of touchscreen phone shipments from handset manufacturers including Apple, HTC, Nokia and Samsung, and the growth in touch-friendly websites and content will profoundly impact how we live, work and shop. From content creation and publishing, to user experience and design, to commerce to advertising, the Mobile Touch Web changes all the rules.

Christian Lindholm, a partner and director with Fjord, a leading European digital design agency, who contributed his vision to the Taptu Virtual Roundtable, believes the Mobile Touch Web has not only arrived full-force. It marks the beginning of a seismic shift that will spur the creation of new Webs and new device segments. “Within 2-3 years we will have 3 Webs. The 13″ Mouse web, designed for computers, desktop and laptops; the 4″ pocket Touch Web for mobile touchscreen devices and the like; and the 10″ casual Touch Web for devices such as the iPad. Thus, we will have three segments: Phone, Pad and Computer. The Phone and Pad are Web sub-segments, and will require their own discovery, structure and monetization solutions.”

Peggy Anne Salz, founder and chief analyst of MSearchGroove believes the Mobile Touch Web lays the groundwork for a “new kind of interactive mobile Internet, a brave new place where new content, new experiences and even new mobile search services will set the bar.” Salz adds: “The Mobile Touch Web, though growing vigorously as Taptu shows, is not the only game in town. Thus, the pressure is on companies everywhere in the ecosystem to re-think their strategies and create a balance of touch-friendly content for touchscreen devices and the emerging Mobile Touch Web, while not losing sight of the opportunities offered by the other Internets. We face tough choices, but hoping for the Internet to become a unified place where everything is accessible and connected (again) is not an option.”

I have rapidly established a reputation for ‘iPhone bashing’, which is nothing to do with not owning a suite of Apple Products or disliking Steve Job’s hair. Oh no. For those of you that are not aware, my main ‘beef’ is with brands who do not consider other platforms simply because its a) too hard, b) too expensive/not as cheap as iPhone or c) just want to tick a box that says ‘We have an iPhone app’.

There is a wealth and breadth of great (and some not so great) operating systems out there that can offer brilliant, rich and engaging experiences for their users, that despite having a substantially larger market share than Apple, continue to be overlooked. For a long time I have wanted to put together a presentation to demonstrate this very point, but Ewan MacLeod of Mobile Industry Review has pulled it out of the bag.

When it comes down to offering consumer utilities or CRM extensions, it is important to closely consider which platform to employ, but whether you should even consider the mobile web before apps! The iPhone is just 4% of the UK mobile handset share, so can you really justify spending a vast amount of your marketing budget on an app that might reach only 4% of your target audience (assuming your brand is a national brand with a fair reflection of the British population). The most likely scenario is that you cannot.

As mobile moves from ‘bit-part’ to mainstream, the importance of understanding this audience, their handsets and how they interact with brands via their mobile will be of the utmost importance. Mobile ‘strategists’ and planners will, like social media this year, start cropping up at agencies all over the world, and become an integral part of the planning and creative process. And this here, this is your first free piece of advice, condensed into a succinct yet effective presentation from Ewan. Enjoy.

p.s. still need more convincing? Martin Wilson and Tomi Ahonen can offer further support

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.