End of term reports from Adobe and BDO

It’s December 2013 already. Christmas is in the air and the TV is awash with Christmas TV adverts. So it’s only to be expected that there are some end of term reports from some of the big guns. And I’m afraid I’m reading them with mixed feelings which I’ll share with you.

Let’s start with BDO’s Retail Compass 2013. The survey “examined the opinions of 100 chief marketing officers at leading retailers located throughout the USA. The retailers in the study were among the largest in the country, including 11 retailers in the top 100 based on annual sales revenue. The telephone survey was conducted in September and October of 2013”.

The survey covers all aspects of retail but there is a section about mobile marketing.

In the press release, the focus for retailers is on traditional channels rather than mobile:

• 38 per cent of retailers are including mobile in their marketing strategy this year—down from 50 per cent in 2012—those who are embracing it are ramping up their efforts.
• Last year, mobile comprised an average of 5.9 per cent of retailers’ overall marketing budget; this year, that number has jumped to 15 per cent.
• With eMarketer predicting a 15 per cent rise in mobile shopping volume this year, the mixed survey results suggest that retailers remain divided as to the platform’s growth potential and its ability to convert sales.
• One strategy on which retailers are not divided, however, is print advertising: a plurality of CMOs (41 per cent) are investing most of their holiday budgets in traditional print ads, which have been a consistently popular medium over the last 4 years.
• And CMOs still believe in the power of TV to reach a wide audience: 29 per cent say they will spend the majority of their holiday advertising budget on broadcast.
• Retailers are looking towards social media, but don’t know the right mix (and probably don’t realise how much of it is on mobile and how that impacts on conversions if their offering isn’t mobile-friendly).

So good news for broadcast and print in the US, and for those who are working on mobile campaigns for retailers, it’s good news as the budgets are bigger – just fewer of them by some measure compared with 2012. I have to question what the decision making process is behind this when the growth in mobile and mobile commerce is rising at a very fast pace. Of course, I don’t know how the question was asked and it may be that the retailers are ahead of the curve and have a great mobile site and/or a range of mobile apps and that the assumption is that mobile marketing in this context means mobile advertising which maybe they feel they don’t need as their mobile offering is so strong. I live in hope of that anyway! I fear that retailers may have their heads in the sand and have not yet woken up to what’s happening under their noses and are missing out on opportunities today.

Download the full report here http://www.bdo.com/download/2972

Now let’s look at the UK. Adobe and The Guardian have just published a survey looking at the mobile marketing attitudes of 1427 executives in the UK. The free report makes for quite depressing reading about the UK state of play.

• More than 50% said their organisation had a fragmented approach or no strategy at all when it comes to mobile
• Most respondents are unconfident about their organisation’s ability to measure the success of their mobile channels (which I’m guessing is a hindrance to offering them at all)

YET

• Most respondents felt their businesses would benefit from mobile marketing

AND

• Respondents expect to see a significant shift in the number of customer interactions supported or driven by mobile

So why aren’t they taking the plunge?

Well, rather worryingly, a lot of respondents felt that mobile wasn’t going to overtake the desktop at all or within the next two years. Many don’t have the funds to support mobile initiatives or don’t believe their business would benefit at all.

That last point worried me so I took at look back at the kinds of organisations the respondents came from. As this was run by The Guardian, there were a disproportionate amount of responses from the public sector, the arts, charities/not for profit and education. I’m not entirely surprised that those organisations aren’t as clued up and/or don’t have the funds or willingness to go mobile, at least not yet. I would hope that the results would be more positive if there were more brands, agencies and retailers who had responded.

You can read more here.

I guess the good news for us working in mobile marketing is that there’s still plenty work for us to do. Need to get your senior teams up to speed with what’s going on in mobile marketing and media? Get in touch. I’ve done workshops with a variety of media owners and agencies in the UK and the Nordic region. Maybe I can do one for you?

Once, twice, three times a party…

Swedish Beers parties galore klaxon alert!

It’s fair to say, I’m a bit busy at the moment but it makes for exciting times and I’m thrilled to bits at the prospect of meeting and hanging with some interesting people. Lots of events coming up, including not one, not two, but three Swedish Beers parties and a mini-Heroes and a client event. And more to come…

Well, they say you can have too much of a good thing, but I’m not so sure when it comes to Swedish Beers! We have Swedish Beers coming to three cities near you in the next few weeks so come on down and join the fun, hang with other people with a passing interest in mobile and enjoy a relaxing evening chewing the fat and putting the mobile world to rights.

New York – 2 May 2013

First up, it’s a last-minute jaunt to the Big Apple. Helen will be there on Thursday 2 May with Lubna, Grace, Becky and Petra lending a hand to ensure you have a good time. Antony and Jerome from Ribot will be sponsoring the first few beers but there’s room for another sponsor if you’re up for it. It’s free to attend and we’d love to see you.

More info and RSVP here http://mobileheroes.net/events/event/swedish-beers-hits-the-big-apple/

While I’m in New York, I’ll be chairing a session for BrandPerfect looking at seamless brand advertising (an impossible dream? we’ll see.) It’s free to attend and includes a lovely tour of the Pencil to Pixel exhibition which I highly recommend having experienced it in London before Christmas. http://brandperfect.org/index.php/events/details?id=8

Berlin – 15 May 2013

Next we’re off to Berlin to take in the culture, enjoy a panel discussion, check out some new mobile start-ups and then finish the day with some cheer from Swedish Beers and our friends at Adeven. Again, we’d love to see another sponsor or two benefit from getting involved (get in touch here) but in the meantime, do join Helen, Russell and Kristina for some Swedish, (well probably German), Beers.

More info and RSVP here  http://mobileheroes.net/events/event/swedish-beers-on-tour-in-berlin/

While I’m in Berlin, I’m also organising a half-day of Heroes of Mobile discussions and demos also on 15 May at Betahaus. Details coming for that very soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

London – 13 June 2013

And it wouldn’t be the Summer if we didn’t have a Swedish Beers bash in our home city of London Town. All we’ve done is reserve the date at our favourite London watering hole, The Nordic Bar, and we’re ready and waiting to get sponsors on board. Helen’s talking to a few already but get in touch if you’d like to join the fun. We just wanted to make sure you had the date saved so we can have a blowout party….

More info and RSVP here: http://mobileheroes.net/events/event/swedish-beers-is-it-summer-yet-party/

There will be further Heroes of Mobile discussion events in London in May and June as well. Watch this space as they say!

Sponsorship and time permitting, I’ll be visiting more cities from Leeds to San Francisco. If you’d like to see Swedish Beers and/or Heroes of Mobile happening in your city and can help make that happen, then let Helen know.

If you’re coming to one of the Swedish Beers parties, please bring a business card with you to get your first beer token. Sponsors will have the rest of the tokens so you’ll need to get chatting with them to get your hands on more. There should be enough to go around!

So spread the word, and come on down for a fun evening with friends old and new. You don’t have to be a mobile expert to join us. All welcome with a passing interest in mobile technology and a cheery disposition!

Skål

Key trends for 2013

Service design consultancy, Fjord, has presented its annual trends prediction. It’s in a lovely slideshare format (see below) with some thoughts on the rationale, impact and what you can do about each trend. Some of the trends resonate more with me than others. And for those who are reading this on a mobile device and, perhaps, cannot access the slideshare content, here are the key trends.

1. People are ruining everything… for traditional business. This is a big one! The technology users are doing it for themselves when it comes to crowdfunding, content creation and more. And it has never been easier. There’s no point fighting this one either. Embrace or die.

2. I belong to me. The personal data battlefield. Ah yes, the ‘Big Data’ chestnut coupled with users growing understanding of what it means to them personally, and how some of them raging against the big data machine and are demanding control of their own information.

3. Dawn of the personal ecosystem. Connected objects start to take their place right by your side. The internet of things becomes a reality. Access to data means we can make decisions about our house, our shopping, our health and more from the comfort of the palm of our hands. This creates what Fjord calls the ‘personal ecosystem’. No question, items like fitbit and Nike’s fuelband have been a runaway success and we’ll see many more of these kinds of gizmos being used in day to day life. We’ll definitely see more of these in the coming months and years.

4. Keep it simple stupid. Good old-fashioned KISS principles make a comeback. I’m wondering if this is just wishful thinking on Fjord’s part or not? I agree, they’re great principles to stand by and I wish more businesses and developers would use them but I fear humans are not always that smart! We’ll see.

5. Revolution in Retail. The online/offline distinction disappears. We are right in the heart of the retail revolution right now. If retail doesn’t change, our High Street will continue to die. Traditional retailers have been far too slow to adapt and understand the changing customer needs. Pop-up stores, virtual stores, payments on the move – they’re all here.( At the same time, I don’t want to see the High Street die and for retail to become solely a warehouse distribution business. I hope that we see some innovation this year to make the hybrid sustainable and to find new ways of invigorating the High Street. Says the former shop assistant, so I may have some personal bias here!)

6. Access is the new ownership. What does it mean to own something in the digital age? This is a really interesting area. We’ve seen the rise of rentals and subscriptions from cars to holiday homes to music to books and more. How many subscriptions can one person manage? And what happens if you have no money and lose access to everything? Where are the swapping platforms, the digital versions of our libraries? And what else will we see going to this model? I still haven’t manage to get rid of my books, CDs, vinyl, videos or DVDs. And I could certainly use the space, but the online services aren’t quite there yet that meet my personal needs in those departments. It’s only a matter of time though.

7. Learning gets personal. How being online is transforming the way people learn. This is very exciting. And game changing. What will the future of learning look like? What will a text book become? Will we need to remember things in the same way? Does this change our attention spans for the better or worse? What about accessibility for those with visual, hearing or other impairments? We’ll be looking at this in one of the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe sessions next month.

8. You talking to me? Exploring new challenges in human-machine communication. Ah, yes. Voice. What do we do with that? How many times have I found myself typing furiously on Skype or email or Facebook to an individual when it would have been a whole lot quicker and easier to talk? I’ve just gotten out of the habit and am now forcing myself back into it because, it’s, you know, productive! I still can’t see myself talking to my phone or laptop, but hey, I never thought I’d be working in the mobile industry so anything can happen. I’m interested to see what innovations happen in this area and what it takes to succeed.

9. The mobile gap. Business plays catch-up with adoption. Fjord says it so much better than I can. ‘The speed of movement to mobile has amazed everyone. But it has not been matched by the speed with which most organisations are able to monetize it.’ There’s nothing I can really add to that although Fjord does have some good tips of starting points and things to think about in the slideshare below.

10. Think like a start-up… and act like one too. Wow. That demands massive change for most big companies. One that they’re probably able to embrace in concept only rather than actual delivery. We’re talking culture change here and that’s hard to do. It’s worth thinking about though and anything that brings down barriers in companies and aids collaboration, serendipity and innovation, I’m all for and I would definitely encourage. Not everyone is ready to be in a start-up though so you may lose people along the way…

Thanks for the food for thought, Fjord. What do you think?

Fjord trends 2013 from Fjord