Mobile Trends Impacting Consumer Engagement

Take note fellow digitalites! These are the trends that will impact the way you work, think and implement over the next year or so. So regardless of your specialist area, mobile is impacting the way your own audience thinks, and convergence of these channels means that we can no longer begin to consider them disparities. Forget the ‘end user’, its now about the people you communicate with.

Major props to Rudy De Waele for the awesome preso.

iAd – The Big Deal

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: (read more…)

Mobile Etiquette – The Social Shift

As part of my study of Multiculturalism in Marketing Communications, I have been exploring the ways in which mobile has invaded/been invited into our personal space, and how our own values impact upon the way we want to receive communication from brands. I stumbled across this infographic on Cellphones.org, and thought it brought to light several key issues. I have had several debates in the past 6 months about the acceptance of answering calls, reading texts and emails whilst engaging with someone face to face, and the discussions of always been hotly contested. What are your views on the subject? Is mobile changing the way we view social interaction? What is deemed acceptable behaviour in such situations? Is the prevalence of ‘instant communication’ creating a necessity for an immediate response, or should the traditional mindset stand strong?

Any thoughts will be included as part of my primary research for my Masters Unit, so would love your feedback

Convergence 2010 – Yay or Nay?