Another contender for favourite Christmas TV advert

You may have read my previous post about this year's contenders for best Christmas TV ad. We'll, there's a new contender from The Co-Op.

The firm deliberately held off from going live with their advert until December. Their feeling was that the Christmas season doesn't start until then and there's too much of a rush to get your and out in November. They wanted to avoid the rush, and I think they probably have a point. But that's not why this advert is a contender for me.

This advert, set to the Britpop classic, Tender, from Blur, has a genuine community feel about it. That's not down to casting the right actors. This is down to choosing genuine community groups rather than faking them. Not only that, but my cousin appears in it! The choir she sings for, The Silver Choir from Wigan, is featured throughout the advert, my cousin, Anne, included. 

The ad has been on rotation on the TV this weekend so it's put a smile on my face every time I catch a glimpse of my cousin and hear her, her choir, and the other local community groups, singing Blur's Tender. The track has been released to raise funds for charity and is in the race for the Christmas number 1 slot.

Here's the ad below for you to see for yourself and more about the ad campaign here.

In case you're wondering which one my cousin is, she's most easily spotted in the end scene wearing a blue dress.

Day 3/25 Blogmas

Mobile Campaign Best Practices 2017

I've always been one for best practice. We don't see enough of it enough of the time unfortunately, especially when it comes to mobile advertising. The amount of time we're spending on mobile devices at any time is not decreasing any time soon and so it should follow that the ad spend follows the eyeballs to mobile screens. It's not quite the case yet. But as an industry, the more we can inject creativity into campaigns and best practice into targeting and running those campaigns, the better chance mobile will have and the sooner the ad dollars will cross over.

Global mobile ad spend is estimated to grow from $108.9 bn in 2016 to $143.5 bn in 2017. However, according to my friends at On Device Research, most of that cash is wasted on ads that are ineffective that consumers don't engage with and don't recall. That's a lot of money to waste...

It's not all bad news though, as the top 20% of mobile ads in terms of ad recall record an average uplift between the exposed and control group of +20% points. The remaining 80% of mobile ads achieve an average percentage point uplift of just +3%. Similarly the best performing 20% of mobile ads in terms of purchase intent are six times more effective than the remaining 80%. So there are clearly some advertisers and their agencies getting it right.

So what are these key things that they're getting right?

1. Logo presence on every frame is crucial
2. A human presence can engage
3. Product shots catch the eye
4. Placing branding at the top of the creative boosts ad recall
5. Be cautious with dual branding as it can distract and confuse
6. A single clear message beats a text heavy ad overloaded with information
7. Video grabs the user’s attention
8. Inject a little humour in to your creative
9. A bit of interactivity hold’s the user’s attention
10. If you want to drive purchase, then unsurprisingly having a strong call to action helps
11. There's a bonus point to consider too and that's emotion. If you can connect emotionally with the consumer, you will do better.

ODR tells me that the top performing adverts adhere to six of these principles on average yet few advertisers adhere to these rules. I'll be honest, this is pretty much advertising 101 for any visual channel, be that print, outdoor or TV with the exception of the interactive points around video and interactivity which specifically apply to digital.

The bad news from the UK's High Streets has seen October retail sales fall at their sharpest rate since the height of the recession in 2009. That suggests there will be a tough run-up to Christmas. We don't yet know what the knock-on effect to the digital ad market remains to be seen but this time of year typically sees robust ad spend and mobile can have a great impact.

Typically, Q4 campaigns outperform the rest of the year when it comes to unprompted and top of mind awareness. This is perhaps no surprise since well known household names tend to advertise heavily in this quarter. These brands will always have high baseline levels of awareness anyway so although they'll get a boost in Q4, it is not as much as some of the lesser known brands can achieve.



That said, the team at ODR have noticed that Q4 mobile ad campaigns are underperforming in terms of boosting ad recall. This is likely down to even higher ad clutter than usual and being bombarded with a greater quality of brand communications overall. That means you might struggle to recall specific ads compared to quieter times of year.

That means that best practice is needed even more than ever, especially if you don't have the same kind of budgets that the big guns have.

If you need some inspiration of some good campaigns, then it's worth tracking ODR's quarterly winners on most effective ads. This one from Blis for B&Q for Father's Day ticked 7 of the boxes from the Best Practice list.

You can get the full mobile creative best practice guide here (it's free and includes some nice examples for each point). And if you're wondering about how On Device Research measures brand effectiveness, you can find out more about their methodology here.

Can you remember the last mobile advert you saw? I can remember one and that's for the Business of Software event tomorrow to hear Eric Ries talk about his new book, The Start-Up Way. And that's where I'll be tomorrow afternoon lending a hand. Maybe see some of you there.

Day 14/30 NaBloPoMo

Tis the Season

It's most definitely that time of year. I was out in Central London last night and stumbled across the opening of the Carnaby Street Christmas lights replete with free cocktails (too strong, tasted synthetic, threw mine away), DJ, a steel drum band and discounts in shops, bars and restaurants in the area. I've never seen it that busy so they were clearly doing something right. My friend and I tried to eat in one of the many local restaurants, but by the time we got there, the wait time was more than 45 minutes so we wandered further into Soho and found somewhere else.

But it's not just Christmas Lights that signal the festive season. It's the battle of the Christmas TV ad. I do love a good Christmas advert. One that tells a story, that is a short film and doesn't oversell the brand they're advertising.

I haven't seen a clear winner yet unlike previous years, and there have been no tear-jerkers yet, but there are some contenders nevertheless.

Very - Get more out of Giving



Debenhams, You Shall Find Your Fairytale Christmas starring Ewan McGregor



M &S Paddington Bear and the Christmas Visitor (I have a soft spot for Paddington!)



Argos, Ready for Take Off




The Vodafone Christmas Love Story with Martin Freeman. Parts 1 - 3 are great. Am eagerly awaiting part 4. Will he get the girl?



And of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without an entry from John Lewis with Moz The Monster



Although these may not be as strong as previous years efforts, they're still beautifully crafted with high production values. Please can we see more of that all year round whether that's on digital or on TV?

Day 10/30 NaBloPoMo

Showing up

Woody Allen famously said that 80% of success was simply showing up. The older I get, the truer I think that sentiment is. And as Martin Bihl points out, it's certainly true of advertising. And I would say, it's (sadly) especially true of how online and mobile advertising currently works. A lot of advertising works simply by being there when your competitor isn't.

I'm consistently disappointed with the dismal quality of a lot of advertising, the volume of advertising messages via all channels and the desperation of ad networks to sell their inventory, of ad agencies wanting to buy eyeballs and of advertisers clutching at straws to make us buy something we really don't need. 

As an early mobile marketing pioneer, I'm also frustrated at the lack of innovation when it comes to mobile advertising in particular. We have all these wonderful, unique qualities to a mobile phone in terms of location, convenience, uniquely personal, and many other sensors and we just use them for analytics that then drives more dismal advertising to our screens, whatever screen that may be. Where are the new ways to connect with customers beyond pushing them a bunch of unwanted messages? Where are the nifty ways to improve on customer service to help us retain customers? There has to be a better way than sending relentless 'buy me' emails, surely?

When I started at ZagMe with Russell Buckley 17 years ago, and my younger and less experienced of life, really thought we could change the advertising world for the better by being more relevant, increasing the quality of advertising whilst decreasing the volume of it. I guess greed, desperation and a lack of imagination got in the way and, instead we have the online advertising model of advertising shoehorned on to a tiny screen.

Martin's post on the topic of advertisers showing up is well worth a read and he says it much better than I can. Check it out here.

It's not all bad though. We are seeing some quality TV adverts on our screens in the UK. The current Warburton's advert, Pride and Breadjudice, with Peter Kay is a particular favourite of mine. 

Day 8/30 NaBloPoMo

To Adblock or not to Adblock, that is the Question(naire)

Well, it's one of the questions that crosses my mind as 2016 seems to be the year of the Adblock Wars. I'm busy collating a bunch of resources and thinking around the topic and I will write about it here in due course.

However, having worked in mobile advertising and media for 16 years, I am more than a little interested in what's happening in the sector. I've been heard to lament the lack of innovation in mobile advertising many times and I am still frustrated that, as an industry, we are so focussed on the banner ad but maybe the times are a-changing with the debate around adblockers, click fraud, 'sponsored' or 'branded' content.

So indulge me if you will, and please complete my short questionnaire about your usage (or non-usage) of ad-blockers and mobile advertising. I'm not judging you! I just want to get a picture of what's going on in the sector which will confirm or deny some of my hunches.

I will compile the results and try and make some sense out of them. I have no idea what insight may result, but let's see what happens. If nothing else, the answers will help me formulate my next series of events. Please also share it with colleagues, friends and family. It shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to complete as it's mostly tick boxes.

If you can't easily access the form below to complete, you can follow this link instead. And if you'd like to share the survey with friends and colleagues, please feel free to copy/paste this link https://goo.gl/forms/JDUG1RK4wedtN7C03

A short history of proximity marketing

A couple of months back, I took part in Mobile Marketing Magazine’s Making Sense of Proximity Marketing event. Some of you reading this will know that I first got into mobile marketing by way of joining a start-up called ZagMe back in 2000, with Russell Buckley, where we sent promotional text messages to shoppers at Lakeside and Bluewater shopping malls (two of the largest malls in Europe at the time). In this video interview, I explain how ZagMe worked and what I learnt in the process and how it applies to our current world of proximity marketing.

If you’re interested to know more about ZagMe, what worked, what didn’t and best practice recommendations, download Russell’s free white paper here. It was written 10 years ago, but it’s still relevant.

There are also more videos from the event from some of the other speakers which include some useful case studies if you’re looking at implementing beacons, indoor GPS, local couponing or other location based initiatives, these videos may prove useful.

Meeja–The Times They Are A-Changin’

Apologies for being a bit slow on the blogging front recently. I just got out of the habit. However, I’ve been busy squirreling away lots of articles and links to follow up on with blog posts should the moment come to blog.

As many of you already know, I do consulting work with media owners of all types and sizes, helping their senior teams get their heads around what’s happening in mobile and social and how it is impacting their business and what they might do about it. I recently did a talk to a group of Nordic media owners who were pretty horrified that I rarely went directly to an online or mobile newspaper to read it but followed random links from people I followed on a variety of social networks and as such, wouldn’t necessarily know which publication or which journalist I was reading.

Don’t get my wrong, by all accounts, media consumption of all types is in rude health when it comes to mobile and online. What isn’t so healthy are the business models to pay for that as well as the fact that many outlets are still focused on print as the main product despite declining revenues. And that’s the challenge that media owners face. The existing business models are in (fast) decline and the news ones are not (yet) replacing those revenues often coupled with a reluctance to change or move with the times.

If you’re interested in where mobile meets media, the future of advertising, the future of journalism and the like, the following links will probably be of interest.

Why tablet magazines are a failure by Jon Lund. Jon’s key point is to encourage media owners to build for the web rather than tablet app only. But while he’s telling us that, there are some really interesting case studies quoted and some rather useful numbers if you need to persuade your boss to move with the times.

The Financial Times to move to single global print edition. This is a very interesting move by the FT. They’re changing their workflow and product focus to reshape the paper for the digital age. Although the printed paper is still part of their multi-platform operation, the shift in how they’re managing it all shows a keen eye on the future and they’re changing before their hand is forced. Smart move, I say.

Ken Doctor highlights what’s coming for media owners in 2014. It’s not news to those of us who’ve been working in mobile and media for a while, but I suspect, the pointers are a bit scary for a lot of media owners who haven’t yet started the change process or haven’t invested in preparing themselves for the future.

Josh Marshall doesn’t believe in Flipboard’s model for media owners and he tells us why, even as far as calling Flipboard a scam. I understand where he’s coming from, but what he doesn’t talk about is who and where his audience is and what their needs and wants are, what their reading habits are and how that matches with TPM’s offering. It’s still early days for Flipboard and its ilk, but I don’t think services like them are going away any time soon.

Canada’s Globe And Mail’s CEO tells media owners ‘we have to think more precisely about what it is that will make people pay’. There are some useful pointers in this article explaining some of the things G&M are doing to get readers to pay for content.

How much are you willing to pay for digital news? There’s still no definitive answer to this, but this article (and the links within it) highlight some of the key issues faced by media owners (yes, it’s getting a bit repetitive isn’t it – the need to innovate, the acceptance that the print decline is real and not stopping, that the digital ad sales aren’t replacing print ad sales etc.).

Attention v. Relationship Economy – this article explores they way that media owners could or should be thinking about how to monetise. And I think I agree with the author, Jeff Jarvis, that it’s about the relationships newspapers have with their community of readers, advertisers and more.

Long story short…

• digital media consumption is high
• mobile set to overtake desktop very quickly
• tablet magazines probably won’t save your business
• media companies need to restructure
• we need some new ways to advertise (I still don’t understand why we’re shoe-horning old ways into new media)
• we need to create and try more new business models
• no-one has the definitive answer
• And as Bob Dylan sang many years ago, ‘The Times they are a changin’’.

Heroes of Mobile London Podcasts & Round-Up

Didn’t we have a lovely time, the day we went to Mozilla’s HQ last month to talk about mobile. We did three lovely sessions and they were all recorded so even if you weren’t there, you can have a listen. I’ve also included links to some articles about the sessions and the day as well in case podcasts aren’t your thing. This is cross posted from http://mobileheroes.net.

State of the Mobile Nation was chaired by Russell Buckley who is now running Ballpark Ventures and the session was sponsored by Hotwire PR. On the panel we had Eamonn Carey of Kiip, Benedict Evans from Enders Analysis, Azeem Azhar from PeerIndex and Roberta Lucca from BAFTA award-winning Bossa Studios. The group talked about the future of computing, additive printing, mobile innovation, consumer trends and a whole lot more.

 

Hotwire’s Andy West did a comprehensive write-up of the session here.

Next up was Mobile Advertising will Eat Itself. Again chaired by Russell Buckley, he was joined by Chris Bourke from Qriously, Stephen Upstone from LoopMeMedia, Greg Isbister from Blis Mobile, Denise Breslin from Mobsta and Nicky Spooner from O2 Media (now Weve). They talked innovation (or not), explained a bunch of acronyms, covered location based services and talked about how the landscape has changed over the years and what’s coming up and uncovering some of the opportunities in the sector.

 

And last but not least, we had (Mobile) Money Makes the World Go Around. Tim Green of Mobile Money Revolution chaired the session and he was joined by industry veterans Roy Vella (who will always be remembered by me for sharing the real meaning of the acronym NFC. For those of you not in the know, it’s ‘not for commerce’!), Martin Harris from Bango, Matt Dicks from BlueVia and John Maynard from mPesa. I’m not sure we drew that many conclusions but a lot of ground was covered and many issues raised. Well worth a listen.

BlueVia covered the mobile money session here.

We got covered on an interesting email discussion thread here. Thanks Bernard Tyers!

Guy Southam from The Lab at O2 covered the whole day here.

Many thanks to Hotwire PR for sponsoring and to Mozilla for hosting us. A big thank you to Russell Buckley and Tim Green for chairing and to all our panellists. Also, many thanks to Kirsty Styles and Mobile Marketing Magazine, Harold Verhagen, Emma Brincat and Inspiring Interns, Sofiana Dewi and James Norris for their support for the event.

Videos coming soon…

New York Times–a look at their business model

Many of you know that I work with media owners as a consultant to help them navigate their way around the new mobile and social environment. As such, I like to keep up to date with key insights and information which is why I enjoy reading the Monday Note. Today’s Monday Note article about the New York Times was particularly pertinent and reiterated to me a few key points.

• Advertising revenues are dropping. It’s a case of ever-diminishing returns – whether that’s print or digital. For the NY Times, ad revenues are down –9% across the board, print is down –11% and digital ad revenue is down by –2.2% (for the second quarter in a row).
• Costs are not decreasing. Increased people costs coupled with increased cost of printing
• Circulation is up - hurrah – by 7% on last year. This is mainly due to the rise in digital subscribers – double hurrah! This sounds like good news, doesn’t it? Well, unfortunately not. Circulation figures do not offset the the loss in advertising revenues. Jim Follo, CFO, says on their business model ‘When advertising revenue goes down, 90% of the decrease translates into a margin loss, but circulation revenue gains generate additional costs’. Oh dear.

I don’t know if at some point those figures change and the circulation model does eventually offset the advertising losses. The article suggests that the paywall strategy is a work in progress and that growth abroad, particularly in China, may yield results.

I wonder if we’re not being brave enough in our thinking. I wonder if it’s time to reinvent advertising altogether. Mobile advertising is huge and growing. Yes, we know that, but since there is limited screen real estate. That means there’s a limit to how many ads can be served and the old metrics just don’t wash and actually, the formats and metrics feel a bit tired. And I have seen nothing around measuring the serendipity of advertising – i.e. the ad that wasn’t targeted for you but was relevant in that moment as you needed to buy someone a gift or had a very specific, unexpected need that wouldn’t fit your big data profile.

Equally, I’m hearing anecdotally, that young people are tuning ads out and actively ignoring them. This begs the question of how are they going to find out about new brands (for the young in the UK are hugely brand savvy), new trends, new music, new whatever if they’re limited to their social streams? And what does that mean for marketing in general? Does advertising still work anyway? And in a perfect world, what would advertising and marketing look like in say, 2030? We are lucky to be living in an age that can invent its own future. So why isn’t advertising being reinvented?

Will it be down to context, location and big data? AR, QR, rich media formats, is that enough? Can you even remember an advert you saw in the last day, week, month? Will discovery of new stuff be reliant on a few key trendsetters in our circles being given ‘perks’ and freebies via the likes of PeerIndex, Klout and its ilk and then they talk about those things in their social stream (admittedly early days for these services but you can see where they’re going)? Are innovations like kiip, qriously and LoopMe enough? If we are questioning the future of newspapers and media in general, shouldn’t we also be questioning the future of advertising too?

References and resources:

The Monday Note: The New York Times Shifting Model http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/10/28/the-new-york-times-shifting-model

LoopMe Launch http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2012/10/29/loopme-unveils/

Mobile Marketing Magazine Issue 11. Off Deck (last page): Helen Keegan calls for mobile advertising to reinvent itself http://issuu.com/davidmurphy/docs/mm_issue_11

Newspaper Extinction Timeline (PDF). This shows the death of newspapers in their current format by country. It’s a sobering infographic http://futureexploration.net/Newspaper_Extinction_Timeline.pdf

Newspaper Death Watch blog http://newspaperdeathwatch.com/

Monday musings

I’m still not quite sure what day it is after my lovely holiday at Glastonbury Festival. But while I get myself together again and back into the swing of mobile things, I thought I’d share a few things that have caught my attention recently.

Mobile Developer Economics – a comprehensive free report from Vision Mobile and Telefonica. Check it out if you’re making decisions on which platform to develop for and would like to know how and why your peers made the decisions they did.

A round-up of what Windows Phone 7 will mean to the application developer landscape.

British mobile application designers share their top tips for creating a hit app.

Is youth marketing your thing? Are you aiming for a youth audience? If so, then these insights into media habits of 8 to 18 year olds is well worth a look.

UK newspaper circulation down by 25% and US newspaper circulation down by 30% since 2007. Article and link to full OECD report here. Meanwhile the Economist tells us that it’s not all over for print.

Really interesting reading here on MLearning from Dr Mimi Ito. This is live-blogged from the recent MLearnCon in San Diego. There are lessons to be learned here as well for marketing communications people too as it gives great insight into changing consumer habits.

InMobi sets up a $2m fund for mobile developers. This means that they’re offering 100% revenue share until the $2m is spent. Seems like a good idea to me if you’re using advertising to fund or part-fund your mobile site or application.

Fancy including travel tools ‘n stuff into your mobile app? Well you can, now that TFL has lifted all restrictions on the use of its data.

And now for something completely different.

If you like Opera and Horror, then why not apply to create the music for Werewolf in London from the ENO. It’s free to attend and they’re looking for musicians and singers to help create the soundtrack. It’s all happening on Sunday 25th July in London’s Docklands.

What will bring the money in for telcos?

Well, that’s what I was discussing yesterday at Telecom TV during a live panel session with Camille Mendler from Yankee Group, Edmond Osstyn from Alcatel-Lucent, Ian Scales and Robert Coren from Telecom TV with some extra questions and feedback from the live web audience. It was a lively session and lots of fun to do. We talked about the implications, issues and opportunities for mobile network operators with regards to mobile marketing, strategic partnerships and application stores; where and how would they make the money, what can be done, and what are the challenges they face. Anyway, if you’d like to take a look, you can see it here http://alu1.telecomtv.com/webinar/ondemand/?v=81

Technorati Tags: mobile network operators,mno,mobile,mobile marketing,mobile advertising,application stores,app store

Smaato Mobile Advertising Awards

Apologies for blog silence for the last few months. I’ve been busy twittering, but haven’t quite managed to write anything over 140 characters in length. Hopefully normal service will be resuming shortly.

Anyway, back to mobile business. My friends at Smaato have just announced their Mobile Advertising Awards and it looks pretty impressive to me. It’s the second year they’ve run it and entries are now open to find ‘the coolest ad-enabled mobile content on the planet.’

There are three categories – iPhone (inevitably), mobile website, and finally, mobile applications and games running on other platforms. It’s free to enter and there’s more info available on the Smaato website.

Smaato will invite the winners of each category to participate at next year’s Mobile World Congress, taking place in Barcelona, Spain in February 2010. In addition, they will also make a number of introductions for winners to VC's at partner level.
Additional prizes are: a booth at M-Days in Munich, Germany in January 2010, free tickets for Mobile World Congress, and many more.

The jury features a plethora of experienced mobilists and I’m quite sure they’ll have their work cut out for them with 100 or so entries for the first year’s awards. They’ll be looking at unique approach, traction in the marketplace, the idea itself, originality, company positioning and more.

The main prize of a presence at Mobile World Congress is not to be sniffed at so if you’re working in this area, I suggest you seriously think about entering. And if you do, good luck!

Technorati Tags: mobile,awards,mobile advertising,mobile web,iphone,mobile applications,mobile games,smaato,mobile world congress

Blyk announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands

I’ve just got this press release in from Blyk. I couldn’t see it on their website so I’m publishing it verbatim (something, I don’t usually do).

Aligned to its global expansion strategy, the mobile engagement media will launch its brand in the Netherlands in partnership with Vodafone

Helsinki, London and Amsterdam, 23 July 2009 – Blyk, the mobile engagement media, today announces Vodafone as its exclusive partner in the Netherlands.

The partnership between Blyk and Vodafone builds upon a relationship between the two companies, which started in 2008, with a view to expanding the Blyk brand. The partnership will bring the Blyk brand and media model to the Netherlands and it is aligned to both companies’ strategies for growth and leadership in mobile advertising.

“We’re extremely pleased to be extending our relationship with Vodafone. For Blyk, the partnership is part of a global strategy to bring scale and speed to our operations, while continuing to provide an innovative and valuable proposition for both consumers and advertisers. Together with Vodafone, we intend to build a game changing engagement media in the Dutch market.” says Blyk co-founder and CEO, Pekka Ala-Pietilä. “Our relationship will include a co-development of the consumer proposition for the Netherlands and audience management. Blyk will have responsibility for the advertising sales and technology.”

Eric Kip, Managing Director Blyk Netherlands, says: “The Netherlands has the third highest advertising spend per capita in Europe and is a hub for many global companies and ad agencies, so it is an obvious territory for Blyk’s expansion. The advertising market, whilst both creative and dynamic, is also cluttered and we believe youth brands will welcome a highly engaging communication channel like Blyk. We are confident that both Dutch advertisers and global advertisers will make use of Blyk’s unique ability to connect them with an important consumer segment.”

Is SMS marketing doomed?

Well, that’s a question I was asked recently. The marketer who asked me feared that SMS marketing could go the same way as email marketing, which in his opinion, is ruined and he wondered how or even if we could stop that from happening and whether or not any industry initiatives held any weight.

Many would argue that email marketing isn't broken - it makes money, can be useful and is now a well-honed, scientific activity. There are plenty email companies out there doing very nicely thank you. And there are even a few of them who take our privacy and customer experience seriously. Personally, email marketing is broken for me. I’m overwhelmed by email (I always have a backlog of emails to read and I don’t get round to answering them all despite best intentions, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day). And I still get junk email to made up email addresses based on my domain names which I find particularly distasteful. That said, I still sign up to email newsletters and from time to time there are some things I respond to. But it’s all a bit random and I really could do without the volume. The same goes for direct mail and direct marketing. It doesn’t work for me. I’m completely overwhelmed by direct mail, both business and personal, and despite being on the Mailing Preference Service’s 'Do not mail’ list, it still keeps coming. I’m also on the Telephone Preference Service list although, you’d never know as I still get a ton of unwanted marketing calls.

But those direct marketing channels still work as most people are not like me. Or the chap I was talking to about this. Not everyone is overwhelmed with paper or digital communications. Different people have different needs and we are most definitely not all the same. Click through and conversion rates in the very low percentage points are all that’s required for a direct marketing campaign to be successful inasmuch as there’s a return on investment. That fact that 99.9% of your audience didn’t respond is largely irrelevant if the 0.5% responding made you the money. Screwed up, yes, but it still adds up financially.

Coming back to mobile marketing, it is inevitable and unfortunate that mobile advertising and marketing will be and has already been misused. There will always be someone out to make a quick buck, find a loophole and exploit it. Junk SMS does make money too - although the economics and science behind it are more limited than with email due to the cost of sending. But even factoring that in, and factoring in the potential of a fine from Phone Pay Plus, junk SMS persists – I know. I still get the junk SMS messages offering me a hot date, filthy video clips or a dodgy loan. The Mobile Marketing Association initiatives *are* worth supporting and savvy marketers and companies will follow them as the short cuts become less and less appealing.

I co-founded Grumbletext SOSSMS back in 2003 which is a site where you can complain about your junk SMS and it certainly helped raise awareness at the time and is still a place where you can name and shame the offending companies and campaigns. Phone Pay Plus (formerly ICSTIS) is the UK regulator for many issues around junk SMS and does fine companies pretty regularly. However, the fines for some companies are simply a ‘cost of doing business’,but if we didn’t have this, then the landscape would be even worse.

We will never stamp it out completely, there will always be someone who doesn't want to play ball and finds a way around it and who is led by greed and not what customers what, but the industry initiatives are worthwhile supporting because, if nothing else, it raises awareness on a wider scale. There are no easy answers.

I think the real problem around mobile marketing ultimately will be more generic. As we move towards unified messaging (facebook, twitter, SMS, email all coming to the same inbox), we will be overwhelmed by marketing messages yet again so it will be a law of diminishing return as we just switch it all off rather than trying to work out which messages we want.

We actually need less advertising overall not more but in this world where creation of digital media and by association advertising opportunities, is almost infinite and only limited by bandwidth (you can create as many web pages as you like and auto-generate emails, blogs, viral message and in turn, on each page there’s the potential to place an advertisement), that isn't going to happen. Automated filtering might be the way forward. Intelligent systems may help. Some customers may even be prepared to put the effort in to manage all of this to keep it under control. And we might think we’re so clever that by understanding past behaviour we can predict future behaviour (which is a myth by the way - “Past performance is no guarantee of future results” as all financial companies will tell you). Even with all the targeting and relevance in the world it won’t necessarily make our advertising lives any better or easier. Serendipity plays a part too and I’m not clear how much that is or isn’t understood in marcomms circles. I guess that’s one for another post.

We're in a period of fast change, a revolution even, and we do need to keep an eye on the ball as to what the future might hold. We don’t have the answers yet but that shouldn’t stop us from trying to work them out.

Technorati Tags: sms marketing,junk mail,junk sms,grumbletext,Phone Pay Plus,ICSTIS,MMA,Mobile Marketing Association,Mobile Marketing,advertising,mobile advertising

Image courtesy of sirmikester used under Creative Commons Licence.

Update 3pm 3 April 09: Paul Berney from the MMA has written a post about how to harness CRM using mobile marketing and says,

"...the customer experience and the ensuing results for the brand will only be good if the channel is not abused in the same way as email has been in the past. For any mobile marketing message to really resonate with a consumer, they need to have confidence that what they receive is something of interest and use to them. Anything else on this highly personal medium is unacceptable.

Current internet marketing and privacy standards do not adequately address the specific challenges faced by marketers when marketing through the mobile channel. Strong mobile industry privacy principles must protect the mobile channel from abuses by unethical marketers, to limit consumer backlash and additional regulatory scrutiny."

Check out the full article and the links to the relevant MMA guidelines.

Tuesday linkage

It is Tuesday right? And it is March already (how did that happen)? So it must be time for some links.

This is an interesting post from the Admob blog about iphone advertisers best practice. I would say that quite a few of those tips and hints are relevant for anyone doing stuff in mobile advertising. It’s not exactly rocket science (but then mobile advertising isn’t) but it’s good to be reminded of the simple stuff every now and then. And this is a great checklist.

Bango is also running an interesting experiment in running a mobile website, Mobislim. They have a real mobile website set up and are sharing all the analytics, results, learnings and more with their audience in a blog format. If you are a mobile webmaster looking to commercialise your offering, this is well worth keeping an eye on.

If stats are your thing then have a look at MSearchGroove’s post covering stats around mobile web traffic, mobile search and advertising. Peggy Anne Salz has some interesting insight and links to share.

There was a little flurry of excitement about Process Away recently and their iphone App. Agreed, it looks really good and looks like a great solution to be able to take payments at your live event without a huge investment in hardware, software, wifi and the rest. That I don’t doubt. But who are they and why would I trust them with my money? And even looking at the FAQs, that doesn’t reassure me much. Seeing as folks making business decisions about technology are very often  not technologists, the technology jargon about security is meaningless. Some explanation of who you are, some reassurance that customer’s money is safe, some reassurance of how the service is underwritten and this could be a real goer. Or am I being a curmudgeon here?

I’ve been asked to be a judge for 2009’s Mobile Messaging Awards which is very exciting. Get those entries in! I’m also judging this year’s Webby Awards… still very North American in its focus which is a shame as I firmly believe there is mobile talent beyond those shores. I guess there’s always next year to enter…

Technorati Tags: links,mobile,statistics,m-commerce,m-payments,m-retail,m-transactions,awards,160characters,mobile web,mobile internet,admob,mobile advertising,iphone

Youth and digital life - what's really going on?

MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft have jointly prepared an in-depth study of 18,000 or so young people globally to find out how they're spending their digital lives. And there are some interesting findings, including:

Mobile usage:
Indian youth are most likely to see mobile phones as a status symbol and globally, under the age of 14, kids generally use the phone as a toy. After 14, the mobile phone quickly becomes a means of self-expression and communication.

68% of 8-14 respondents said they felt safer having their mobile phones with them outside the home, rising to 81% in the UK, and 71% said their parents use the phone to find out where they are.

Digital life:
Globally, the average young person connected to digital technology has 94 phone numbers in his or her mobile phone, 78 people on a messenger buddy list and 86 people in his or her social networking community.

Yet despite their technological immersion, digi-kids are not geeks

• 59% of 8-14 year-old kids still prefer their TV to their PCs
• Just 20% of 14-24 year-old young people globally admitted to being "interested" in technology.
  

They are, (as anyone who's ever watched a teenager at work), expert multi-taskers and able to filter different channels of information.

Kids and young people don't love the technology itself

• they just love how it enables them to communicate all the time, express themselves and be entertained.
• Digital communications such as IM, email, social networking sites and mobile/sms are complementary to, not competitive with, TV. TV is part of young peoples' digital conversation.
• Despite the remarkable advances in communication technology, kid and youth culture looks surprisingly familiar, with almost all young people using technology to enhance rather than replace face-to-face interaction.

What's happening in China?
China has lower mobile usage amongst young people, a less-evolved print media market and a family life of no siblings with parents and multiple grandparents. As a result, the internet provides a rare opportunity for only (and lonely) children to reach out and communicate using social networks, blogs and instant messaging. In stark contrast to their Japanese peers, 93% of Chinese respondents aged 8-14 have more than one friend online they have never met face to face.

"Chinese kids inhabit a world very different from their parents, and because of that they would rather find advice and support through their friends than through family," said Colleen Fahey Rush, Executive Vice President of Research for MTV Networks. Amongst 8-14s globally, only in China was TV not the No. 1 choice. "This is encouraging 8-14-year-olds in China to select online over TV, a trend not witnessed in any other market," she said.

Typical activities haven't changed much
For kids (8 to 14 year olds), they may be immersed in tech from the day they were born, but the things they enjoy doing most are:

• 85% watching TV
• 70% listening to music
• 68% hanging out with friends
• 67% playing video games
• 51% spending time online

As they grow into teens so the ranking of their favorite pastimes change. At the top of the list of 14- 24s favorite pastimes is

• 70% listening to music
• 65% watching TV
• 65% hanging out with friends
• 60% watching DVDs
• 60% relaxing
• 59% going to cinema
• 56% spending time online
• 55% spending time with girl or boyfriend
• 53% eating
• 49% hanging out at home

"There is a powerful link between TV and the Internet, especially for 14- 24s. TV is watched to relieve stress. Sixty percent said they watched most of their TV lying down. But the Internet is cognitive and active, especially if young people are using it for studying or social situations," said Fahey Rush.

As with any research commissioned by large corporates, there's bound to be some bias towards the commissioning company, not least, because of the asking of the right questions 'Ask the right questions and you'll get the right answers'. MTV, Nickelodeon and Microsoft, clearly want to demonstrate the link between TV and online (and clearly there is a link as I write this with the TV on at the same time) but it's worth a look nevertheless. I'd love to see the whole report but I can't find any links to it. So if anyone else has found the link to the full shebang, please let me know by commenting here or dropping me an email.

You might also want to take a look at the official Viacom press release here and the MTV one here.

Mobile Advertising News

So Nokia is saying 'no' to adult ads and yet the 'community' is stunned at this. I'm not really sure why they're stunned. As a brand, I can quite see why Nokia would want to steer clear of advertising erotica and gambling as it's not the brand fit they're quite looking for. Whether that will change once they work out the economics remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Google Adsense is launching on mobile and Debi Jones wonders what impact this will or won't have on Admob over at the Mobile Messaging 2.0 blog. And not only that, but the word on the street is that Medio is ramping up to tackle the EMEA market more aggressively in the coming months. And surely it's only a matter of time before the likes of Doubleclick finally make their move into the market, now that everyone else and his wife has already done so.

But advertising doesn't solve all your marketing and sales problems. Success starts and ends with a good product or service and too many folks don't start with a good enough product or good enough service. Marketers can't hide behind their old advertising, marketing and sales tricks any more. As an audience, on the whole, we're too savvy to be taken in any more. If you have a good product or service, then advertising, marketing and sales are going to help for sure. But you need to have the basics right first, otherwise you're wasting your cash.

I recently stumbled across a new mobile video service that had gone live. Having gone to their website, I eventually found a demo buried amongst their none too coherent corporate blurb. I entered my number. About 30 minutes later, I get a text message telling me to go to the mobile internet to a specific URL. Note, I didn't get a wap push. Note 2, there was a typo in the SMS message I received. D'oh on both counts. Anyway, I click on the link, only for the wapsite to hang on me and I still haven't seen my 'free' video clip. I'm not going to name them to give them a chance to redeem themselves but I do know this company is about to do a big marketing push, but clearly the demo product isn't ready. And if that's not ready, what's the end product going to be like?

Hmm, something to think about.

And if you'd like more on which to ponder, then this Seth Godin video is well worth a look. It's not very long - about 17 minutes. And while you're at it, it's also worth having a look again at this advert for Microsoft.

Ringtones are the thing... or are they?

Well, it's pretty busy as usual at technokitten towers so just to keep my hand in with what's hot in mobile right now, here's some Friday linkage about ringtones 'n stuff.

Tele2 is running a user-generated ringtone competition in Sweden. Unfortunately, I don't speak Swedish so I can't tell you much about it! Perhaps a Swedish speaking reader could shed some light on this for me?

Cellfish.com introduced its Mobile Threat collection of hardcore punk, metal and indie rock ringtones, videos and image downloads for mobile this week. This means that the next time you ride public transport, you just might get an earful of GWAR, Shadows Fall, Everytime I Die, Chimaira and The Devil Wears Prada – consider this your early warning notice. Cellfish Media has partnered with the Sounds of the Underground summer music tour to bring the hard rocking genre of music fans a collection of mobile entertainment to suit their tastes... I think I'll stick to the theme tune from Fame as my ringtone for now ;)

But it seems that mobile games are the new black when it comes to revenue generation rather than ringtones. That comes as no big surprise to me as you can use mp3 files now for ringtones and it's not *that* difficult to make your own from your existing mp3 files.

So it's no surprise that free mobile content seems to be gaining popularity and some serious traction. Zedge.net now has over 5 million subscribers. I'm not sure how many of these are active, or what they're actually doing, nevertheless, it's impressive.

And since April 2006, I'm reliably informed that Cellufun, has delivered close to 4 million downloads to consumers in 160 countries. Cellufun offers free, ad-supported mobile products, predominantly free games ranging from Sudoku to casino to space battles and racing games. You can join the community by going to http://wap.cellufun.com from your web-enabled mobile phone.

And if you're a mobile addict, gaming or otherwise, you can now play with your phone safely in the bath as DoCoMo has just launched a waterproof mobile phone. Actually, joking apart, this would have been handy at Glastonbury this year, I know a few folks whose phones died after getting wet in the rain or being dropped in a puddle or the mud!

top tips on increasing the click thru rates of your mobile ads

I'm just wading through my emails and backlog of things to do and spotted this from the guys at award-winning Admob, the largest wap advertising network globally and is growing at a pretty fast and furious rate. I thought it was advice well worth sharing. I've added my comments in italics.

5 Tips to increase the Click thru Rates of your mobile adverts

1. Change ad text frequently. Keep your campaign fresh and get the highest ROI (return on investment) by frequently changing ad text. Customers are more likely to click on ads that they haven't seen before. [People get bored, so it's not *that* difficult to expect to have to come up with new stuff is it?]

2. Use relevant links. Be sure that the click through URL takes your audience to a relevant landing page and that the product you are promoting is easy to find. [The right landing pages are crucial on web or wap. But get it wrong on wap and it's even worse as you don't have the space to play around with navigation on a phone for someone to bother finding the right page.]

3. Customize your advert. Include the user's phone model into the text of your ad, making it more relevant and dynamic. You can do so by inserting the %phn% tag into the text of your ad. For example, "Share pictures on your %phn%" would become "Share pictures on your RAZR" to a user viewing that ad from a RAZR. [This is particularly important for mobile content providers, and probably not so relevant to non-mobile brands]

4. Be timely. Reference hot products, sales, events and holidays. Be sure to update your text once time sensitive events are over. [Don't do a T-Mobile and send out a message promoting England football mobile content a) to a non-football fan and b) the day after England lost their Euro 2004 match!]

5. Experiment often. Try new ad text and targeting. Experiment with the Run of Network offering to attract more global traffic. Continually trying new things will help you to determine what works best for your business, as well as to ensure your ads are fresh. [I would add to this that you need to monitor closely to work out what is effective and what isn't. Define what success looks like and work backwards from that and measure. What you measure will vary from brand to brand and campaign to campaign, but unless you measure, you'll not be able to compare like with like.]

So much to write about, so little time

Ok, this post is going to be a little random as I'm very short on time but need to capture a few things on my blog before my firefox explodes with having too many tabs open simultaneously.

So it seems to be conference season.. World Telemedia last week in Amsterdam where I talked about mobile marketing in the PRS (premium rate services) world and then on Tuesday I was moderating a panel at Internet World around mobile marketing in the age of personalisation with very able speakers Stephen Pinches from the FT.com and Robert Thurner from Incentivated. I'm also due in the Heist Conference for Education Marketing today (I've got as far as my wonderful hotel room at least) and I'd really like to catch some of the sessions to help set the scene before I'm on this afternoon with Robert Thurner again and also Ramesh from Active Media. So I digress, lets get on with the links 'n stuff.

Voip and MSN/Yahoo/Skype messaging on your mobile from fring. Has anyone tried it? Looks like it's a pretty neat application that sits on your mobile phone allowing you Voip and integrates with your existing messaging apps. My poor old Nokia N70 is due for retirement so I'll hang fire in downloading this until I upgrade. But if anyone else has used it, please comment here.
Update: Alfie's done a rather good review of Fring over on his moblog. And both he and Whatleydude recommend it. So I guess I'll just have to get on and download it and use it myself then!

MP3tunes locker - this looks like a good idea - you can back-up all your mp3s from your 'puter for free and then you can access them anywhere over t'internet thus allowing for a back-up of your music but also the chance to access those choons wherever you are. It'll even stream over mobile (make sure you're on a flat rate data charge mind!). Another one I must try I reckon.

Limbo has raised USD8m for their reverse auction company. The founders are ex Enpocket (who were always good at raising cash it has to be said) and seem to be doing a good job of bringing the reverse auction concept to the US masses. As it happens, reverse auctions were in the news last week as well as Million-2-1 (who are one of the largest UK reverse auction houses) were up for a Eureka award last week at World Telemedia but lost out to ZoneMedia's made-for-mobile horror short series 'When Evil Calls' (it's not for the faint hearted!).

It seems teens are interested in receiving ads on their mobile phone so that should bode well for Blyk provided they can work out the economics to pay for it all as I discussed with one of the Blyk team in the back of a cab to Victoria after the W2F party (ably sponsored by our friends at Tanla Mobile).

Emma's Diary launches on mobile for expectant mums whilst GMTV and Opera's in a pickle again amid allegations that for some of their competitions potential winners were picked on the basis of their location and type of abode thus ruling out those living too far away or in tower blocks as these were too tricky for cameramen to reach. Opera brazened it out last week at World Telemedia and I've heard tell along the grapevine that they are in current negotiations with a very large UK broadcaster for a very large phone and text service despite the fact that it was said broadcaster who exposed them in the first place. The plot truly thickens and I'm sure we haven't heard the last of it and I'm quite sure we don't have the full story either. I guess it'll all come out in the wash..eventually.