Things that make you go hmmm

Publishers are afraid of Google…

Post by Helen Keegan.

Tidbits on a Thursday

Time to clear down some of my favourites, bookmarks and browser tabs so I can get on with the day job.

AA / Warc’s forecasts for the next eight quarters show UK ad spend continuing to grow, reaching a 5% growth rate in 2014 which is well ahead of inflation. You’ll see from the table that a lot of this is digital but it’s still not following the speed of change in eyeballs. I hope this doesn’t mean media owners become complacent and think this digital thing isn’t happening as fast as it is. More here: http://www.newsworks.org.uk/News-and-Opinion/aa-warcn

The Association of Online Publishers Announces Premium Mobile Advertising Initiative. In short, they’re going to do some research in conjunction with Mindshare, mobile ad provider Celtra, the IAB, MMA and ComScore to prove mobile advertising’s worth. The research is limited to specifically demonstrate the value of the 320x50 expandable rich media ad-format. Hmm. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and see what comes out of the research. I fear that the impact will be limited simply because I don’t believe the future of mobile advertising can hinge on a single format, no matter how rich it is. Good on them for doing the research though. We need more initiatives like these. More info here http://www.ukaop.org.uk/news/mobileadvertisinginitiative4105.html

I’ve been telling people that Tesco is the elephant in the room when it comes to mobile and media. They have a mobile network proposition, they have oodles of data about us via Tesco Clubcard and our actual transactions, they sell online, on mobile, in apps and have been investing heavily in digital media propositions like Blinkbox (video), We7 (music), Mobcast (books) as well as having their own media channels via their in-store magazine, in-store media and direct mail. Definitely one to watch closely. More about them, their investments and what’s coming next, including ClubCard TV http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/2013-05-07/tesco-blinkbox-digital-ads

And finally, some thoughts on what’s wrong with B2B publishing and a plea for innovation. http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/2013-05-06/whats-wrong-with-b2b-publishing-need-real-innovation?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Have E-Readers Peaked?

I’ve been pondering about getting an e-reader. A dedicated one since I’m so easily distracted by my phone, laptop and tablet. It’s just too easy to switch to chatting on Skype or seeing what my friends are up to on Facebook or Twitter. I also feel I don’t read enough. It’s not for want of books. I have absolutely loads of them! I think I’ve bought them in the hope that you can read by osmosis by them simply sitting on your bookshelves for long enough. I fear that doesn’t actually work…
So I polled my smart friends on Facebook and asked for their recommendations. I wondered if there were viable alternatives to the Kindle. And if not, which Kindle anyway as there are several to choose from? Well, opinions were divided. There was much love for various versions of the Kindle but there were votes for the Nook and Kobo, and also for iPad and iPad mini (although, that wouldn’t work for me and how easily I get distracted). There was even a vote for the iPhone and, from a digital enthusiast, for old-fashioned paper books. I’m as confused as I was before I asked the question. With all the books on my shelves, it’s arguable as to whether I need an e-reader at all since I have several years worth of reading just a few feet from where I’m sitting right now. Hmm.
It raised some interesting questions about the future of e-readers and then I came across this article from MIT Technology Review which suggests that Amazon may well have undermined the e-reader market it created. It looks like sales of e-readers are falling in favour of general purpose tablets.

Of course, these are analyst predictions rather than actual figures for 2012 and 2013 so, we don’t actually know yet. And anecdotally, I see a lot of e-readers on the London Underground every day. And a lot of my friends are enthusiasts judging by their comments.
You may be thinking why this matters anyway? Well, as the author of the MIT article says, it matters because the future of book publishing will be influenced by what devices we use for reading. I’m convinced my reading overall is much higher because I’m online most of the time, but I am most certainly reading fewer books, magazines and newspapers as my time is taken up skimming twitter timelines, glancing at blog posts and reading the first couple of paragraphs of something and then moving on. My attention span is not like it used to be. And if I want to read anything longer than a few paragraphs and really take it in, I have to print it off and read it offline.
Even if dedicated readers become a niche hardware product, e-reading services like Amazon’s Kindle ecosystem most definitely will not be niche. Book stores are already in trouble on the High Street. It’s very hard to compete with what Amazon can offer online, even without the Kindle. But being able to pick up a book on one device, leave it and pick up the book again on another device, exactly where you left off, is almost magical and a very powerful reason for using.
So, will I be treating myself to an e-reader? Not just yet. I’m going to try and work through a few of the books on my bookshelves first.

FT.com and its latest thinking about mobile

I attended a very interesting event this morning where Rob Grimshaw, MD FT.com, shared some details of their current mobile and technology strategies. I’ve known the FT.com mobile team for many years and they’ve always been ahead of the game when it comes to new formats and paying for content. (I’ve always kept a close eye on them as advising media owners is a large part of the consulting work I do.) Some argue that it’s because they have a niche that they’re successful. Others think that it’s because they deal with financial information specifically. it could be said that their audience is particularly tech-savvy having a higher than average income and fond of their new gadgets. I’m sure that some or all of those will play their part. Rob was asked about why other newspapers are trailing behind when it comes to technology and he felt it was as much to do with confidence and culture change rather than anything to do with technology. Maybe that’s easy for him to say since they have a long heritage in offering digital services and so have probably been through that culture change some time ago. That said, the confidence is a different matter. Rob cited The New York Times as a paywall success story as it now has more digital subscribers than print ones in just 12 months. Not bad going. I guess the point is that if your customers wouldn’t pay for your content, maybe it’s not good enough anyway. Or the flipside of that is if your content is good, then your customers will pay for it. Glass half-empty vs. glass half-full.

Grimshaw tell us other newspapers may be struggling as it’s more to do with confidence in your offering and thinking about culture change rather than technology change. There was a lot to take in, but since it was partly a press event, there were some journalists there who took more notes than I did. Well worth a read.

There were a couple of other points that I found particularly pertinent. Firstly, it was recently reported by New Media Age that FT.com reckons 60% of its revenues will come from mobile by 2020 and Rob confirmed this figure at the session. This is probably just as well since it’s expected that print newspapers will be irrelevant in the UK by 2019 [links to a pdf]. Rob also went on to say that he wasn’t sure how much of a business they would have in print circulation in 10 or 20 years time (cost vs. reward being the issue alongside declining overall print readership in news generally). If that’s the case, then I wonder if that figure is too conservative. Friend and colleague, Russell Buckley, certainly seems to think so and I have to agree with him. His article explaining why its too low is well worth a read.

The other interesting point was about Google+. It’s often dismissed as a desperate attempt by Google to join the Social Media Revolution. But maybe it has legs? Social Media is as important as mobile to FT.com and often comes hand in hand. FT.com amassed 500,000 followers on their G+ page in just six months and currently standing at over 860,000 at the time of writing. This compares very favourably with their current Facebook Page following of 325,000 and FT.com’s Twitter followers numbering 668,000 over a longer period of time. Is this simply down to the power of the suggested user functionality on G+ or are G+ members avid newsreaders? I don’t know. It’s worth further investigation I guess.

And finally, on technology and platforms and tablets… HTML5 is at the core of the company’s products. By building in HTML5, it means that for both Android and Windows 8, 90% of the code is written so making the native app isn’t so arduous. There was also a big thumbs for Windows 8 by Rob. He feels that the tablet space is still in its infancy and that there is scope for there to be 2 or 3 strong players in the sector. Although Apple currently has this sewn up with the iPad, Rob thinks the Windows 8 launch towards the end of the year will be very interesting. This is because Microsoft has put thought into the relationship between the tablet and the desktop and built that into the design and UI. I must admit, I have a tablet with Windows 8 installed on it and I like it. It feels more grown up than the iPad somehow, and certainly you can have more clout when it comes to memory and speed as there will be more choice with specs. And actually, more consumer choice is a good thing overall. One device does not fit all no matter what the Apple fan boyz and girlz say.

A lot more was covered in the session – APIs, internet TV, new advertising formats and more - which, happily for you dear reader, two journalists attending wrote up. Links below for you.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/ft-com-expects-half-its-audience-to-be-mobile-within-three-years/s2/a549415/

http://www.onemanandhisblog.com/archives/2012/05/ft_mobile_event_analysis_life_in_api_tim.html

Swedish Beers–the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival Edition

As some of you know, I do like a good party, and the annual road trip to Barcelona is a great excuse to have one. So Swedish Beers is back with a vengeance and is now part of the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival too. It seems to be a lot of people’s favourite networking party of the week and so we’re back to bring you more beer, more cheer and more chat. We’re in danger of this year being better than ever thanks to our very generous sponsors. I know for a fact there’ll be even more beer for starters. So let me introduce them to you…

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Our lead sponsor this time around is Millennial Media. They're big fans of Swedish Beers and sponsored our London come back party in the summer. And in return, we’re big fans of theirs too. The company is really going places and the team will be on hand to chew the fat about mobile advertising and will have a bountiful supply of free beer tokens. As lead sponsors, it really will be a bountiful supply! You couldn't be in better hands with Gavin, Stephen, Mack and the crew. They definitely know how to have a good time. http://millennialmedia.com/

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Next up is AQL. So good they had to sponsor us twice. And we're very glad they did. Adam Beaumont and his fine team will be there to talk all things mobile messaging and voice communications with you . There's not much he doesn't know or can't do with mobile messaging. Oh, and yeah, he'll have one or two beer tokens in hand too. http://aql.com/

Newcomers to Swedish Beers are Pearson. Yes, that's right, the parent company of FT.com, Penguin books and much more besides. They're exhibiting this year at Congress and are particularly interested to talk about mobile technology in emerging markets as well as innovations in eBooks and the like. The FT.com team will also be on hand to tell you about their adventures in HTML5 and their dealings with the behemoth that is Apple. http://pearson.com/. We're also very pleased that they're sponsoring the overall festival too.

Up next is Apadmi. Fans of Swedish Beers for many years and now it's their turn to join the party as a sponsor. Garry and the team build mobile apps and solutions and very experienced at it they are too. They're also great fun and have kick-started the mobile networking scene in Manchester by taking the lead in setting up Mobile Monday Manchester. http://apadmi.com/

Madmaker is launching very soon and is a do-it-yourself mobile ad maker - you see what they did there with the name? I've seen the system in action and it's really very neat. Oystein, Andy and the team from Boost are behind this new product and will be at Swedish Beers to give it a proper Nordic vibe as they hail from Norway. Oh, and they know a thing or two about mobile marketing as well so will be happy to chat away about that with you until the wee hours about what's hot and what's not in the sector. You'll also find them at 2F33 in the MWC exhibition too.

Like our previous events, this is a relaxed evening, no formalities, no presentations, no business cards thrust in your face as soon as you arrive. Just come with an open mind, be prepared to see friends old and new, talk nonsense, enjoy a drink or five and have yourself a good time. Oh, and leave the ties, the corporate personas and the sales spiel at the door please.

The Swedish Beers crew will be on hand – Helen, Jenny, Gabriel, Shafiq, Cat, Sarah, Russell - and the friendliest bar staff in town at our regular haunt, Dos Trece, are all waiting to welcome you. The venue holds about 300 or so folks at any one time so there’s plenty space for everyone. There will be bars upstairs and downstairs so please make full use of both floors so that more people can enjoy the fun.
No need to RSVP unless you want to. There's no guest list, no tickets and there's no guaranteed entry. Just come and go as you please. But if you would like to RSVP, you can over here on Facebook. You'll see some familiar faces there I'm sure.

It is likely to get a bit busy at times. But don't worry, people will be coming in and out all evening. That’s kind of the point as we know there’s always a lot going on and you might want to check out more than one party. If it's very busy, there's no need to queue to get in. Just check out one of the other bars nearby and come back a little later when it's a bit less frantic. Dos Trece is where the action will be. We'll be open from 7pm until the wee hours so there'll be plenty time for you to drop in and say skål.

We don't have a cloakroom so we don't recommend you bring your laptops or briefcases with you - it's a liability in Barcelona I'm afraid – especially at this time of year and they’ll just get in the way of your enjoyment of the evening. Drop them at your hotel or apartment first. You won't need them anyway what with this new fangled thing called the mobile phone ;)

So just to recap:
What: Swedish Beers Mobile Networking
When: Wednesday 29th February 2012 - 7pm until we run out of steam
Where: DosTrece, Calle Carme 40, 08001 Barcelona

DosTrece is behind La Boqueria market and the nearest metro station is Liceu. Just walk up La Rambla, walk past La Boqueria and Teatro Grec, then take a left at Calle Carme (or Carrer del Carme) and DosTrece is at number 40 (Google map here). (They also have free Wi-Fi if you want to demo your latest phone app.)

**********Keep in touch***********
Email: Just add your email address to the Feedblitz box at the top of this blog and you’ll get all my blog posts (and therefore event notices) to your inbox. Or go to http://swedishbeers.com and your email address to the Feedblitz box at the top left there.
Twitter: Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/swedishbeers
Facebook: Like us http://www.facebook.com/SwedishBeers or join the group

Swedish Beers is proud to be a Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival event.

Fun and frolics at the Effective Mobile Marketing Awards 2011

I’ve been a regular columnist for Mobile Marketing Magazine for some time now and have been a judge for their awards both this year and last year. Even better though, this year, I got to present the awards alongside David Murphy at Delfina. This was a great honour for me, made even better as I knew so many of the entrants and winners personally. So here’s my blog post rounding up the occasion. If you have time to read through to the end, you’ll see the list of winners and finalists and also some information about why they won and videos where there are videos available. These make for good case study examples in many sectors and in many countries. They’re not limited to the UK. Special thanks to David Murphy and John Owen for including me in the proceedings. And thank you to the sponsors, Upstream, Propel and OpenMarket for supporting such a great initiative.

I’ve only just spotted that the video from the event is up now which I’ve included here.

The photos are also up on flickr and you can see the set below

And of course, last but not least, details of all the winners
Winners include: The Guardian; Sainsbury’s (Groupe Aeroplan); BSkyB; Pepsico (Rabarba); Auto Trader; New Look (MIG); TripAdvisor; British Airways (Incentivated); Debenhams; Chiltern Railways (Masabi); Disasters Emergency Committee (OpenMarket); Txtlocal; Sony Columbia Music (Fetch Media); Buongiorno; Mippin; Rippll; Flexion.

Most Effective Mobile Site

Winner: The Guardian for The Guardian Mobile Site
Summary: Developing the mobile site is part of The Guardian’s Open Strategy. Its core purpose is to increase the reach of the brand. The aim is to deliver text and image content in a fast, fresh site that will appeal to readers on any handset in any country.
Results: Since launch in March 2009, m.guardian.co.uk has grown into the UK’s number one mobile content service for the digital newspaper industry, achieving over 7 million unique browsers and page views of more than 36 million per month. It accounts for around 12 per cent of The Guardian's total digital traffic and has seen a 233 per cent increase year on year. m.guardian.co.uk has also seen strong growth in its global audience, particularly from the US (2.12m unique browsers) and Canada, Ireland, Australia and India. Combining targeted mobile ad solutions with rich-media formats has allowed The Guardian to grow advertising revenues by more than 80 per cent year on year.
Finalists:
bemoko/Macmillan Cancer Support for Macmillan Mobile Site
Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile
Incentivated/Centaur for Marketing Week Live!
New Look/MIG for New Look’s Mobile Commerce Site
Somo/Audi for Audi Mobile Site

Most Effective Mobile Sales Promotion/Direct Response Campaign

Winner: Pepsico/Rabarba for Pepsi Content in a Bottle
Summary: Unique codes were found under the lids of Pepsi bottles. Consumers who texted the unique codes under the Pepsi can lids won: a) one month free Premier League Live Football subscription from Turkcell including live goal videos, breaking news and information about their favourite teams of choice; b) one month free Ring Back Tone (RBT) subscription from Turkcell, so when people called them they would hear one of five different tracks instead of the usual ringtone; c) each participant also won 12 hours of free airtime from Turkcell.
Results: During the four-month period, 3 million people participated in the campaign up to four times each on average; totalling up to 11.5 million participations. At the end of this campaign, Pepsi reached its highest market share in the last eight years.

Highly commended: Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile
Finalists:
OpenMarket for Disasters Emergency Committee East Africa Drought Appeal
Pharos Mobile for Burger King Monopoly Madness
Saudi Telecom Company/Upstream for 100 BMW X5 *100 Days
Turkcell/Aerodeon/Shell Turcas for Shell FuelSave Fuels

Most Effective mCommerce Solution

Winner: New Look/MIG for New Look’s Mobile Commerce Site
Summary: New Look launched its fully transactional mobile website in April 2011. The HTML5 and CSS3-based site was designed and built by Mobile Interactive Group (MIG) and integrates into New Look’s back-end systems. Key features include fast one-click checkout for registered users; engaging zoom functionality; easy to browse products in one, two or three column formats; seamless viewing with accordion navigation to reduce page refreshes and single consumer shopping basket between the website and mobile site. Two sites were built – one for high-end devices and one for low-end devices. The redirect automatically detects the user’s device and serves the best mobile experience for that specific device.
Results: In three months the mobile site delivered 24 per cent increase in mobile visits, 60 per cent increase in orders and 45 per cent increase in revenue. • See this video demo
Finalists:
Pizza Express/2ergo for Pizza Express iPhone App
Usablenet/JD Sports for JD Sports Fashion Mobile

Most Effective Mobile Advertising Campaign

Winner: Fetch Media and Sony Columbia Music for the launch of Calvin Harris & Kelis single Bounce.
Summary: The only promotion for the new Calvin Harris single was via mobile advertising. The campaign objective was to drive engagement and purchase of the new single so moving it up the charts and encouraging more radio play, thus making it the summer anthem of 2011. The media targeted was Shazam, Ministry of Sound and MTV. A rich-media HTML5 ad campaign was specially built for MTV, using a ball bouncing in the banner, once visitors tapped on the ball, they were exposed to a full screen expandable ad inviting them to watch the video and buy the single.
Results: The campaign received more than 8 million impressions within 10 days. 30 per cent of the people who clicked through the ad watched the video or clicked to iTunes. The single went straight into BBC Radio 1’s A List and charted at number 2 in its first week in the iTunes chart.

Finalists:
Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile
NAVTEQ Media Solutions/Peugeot for Peugeot Hyper-local Advertising Campaign
Nokia/Pring for Nokia Eidi on Pring
Vogue Turkey/Rabara for Vogue Turkey’s 1st Year Anniversary Campaign
Warner Bros/Millennial Media/Odyssey Mobile Interaction for Green Lantern

Most Effective Mobile CRM/Enterprise Messaging Campaign

Winner: Incentivated and British Airways for British Airways SMS Customer Service Messaging
Summary: BA’s text service, available for UK- and US-registered mobile phones, allows passengers to get up-to-the-minute flight information for yesterday, today and the next 14 days, direct to their mobile, using the dedicated shortcodes. Messaging services include the following notifications: disruption to service; online check in open; lost baggage warning; standby notifications for staff; maintenance messages for staff; flight information services for people meeting a passenger.
Highly commended: Ericsson IPX/Velti for A&N Mobile CRM
Finalists:
MePlease for MePlease SmartLinks
Nokia/JWT/Bemoko for Nokia Source

Most Effective Mobile Ticketing Solution

Winner: Masabi/Chiltern Railways for Ticket Machine in Your Pocket
Summary: In May 2011, Chiltern Railways was the first rail operator to go live with the full barcode ticket system provided by transport-ticketing specialist Masabi and ticketing services provider Atos. Rail passengers with smartphones or feature phones can buy and receive rail tickets through one transaction for any rail journey in the UK. Barcodes can be securely validated on the train using the guard's portable ticketing machine. Unlike most commercial booking services, the Chiltern Railways application does not charge a booking fee and is free to download. To get the application passengers just need to text “Chiltern” to 88600 or search the relevant app stores.

Finalists:
Movement/Virgin Media for mTicketing at V Festival: Our Garden
Safaricom M-Pesa/Redsky for Safaricom M-Pesa Ticketing

Most Effective Mobile Charity Campaign/Solution

Winner: OpenMarket for the Disasters Emergency Committee East Africa Drought
Summary: More than 10 million people in East Africa have been left in need of food, water and emergency healthcare because of one of the worst droughts in 60 years. Working with the Disasters Emergencies Committee (DEC), OpenMarket supported the UK appeal by enabling SMS donations via its mobile payments and campaign management platform, CMX2. TV and print media ad campaigns encouraged people to donate £5 (US $7.83) directly to the appeal by texting ‘HELP’, ‘CRISIS’, ‘AID’, ‘DONATE’, ‘HELP’, ‘SUPPORT’ or ‘AFRICA’ keywords to 70000.
Results: More than £1,200,000 (US $1,878,798) has been raised via SMS donations since DEC launched the Appeal in June 2011. This is 500 per cent more than DEC had raised from text donating in the past. The campaign also allowed donors to opt-in to Gift Aid, meaning that individuals can increase their donation by 25 per cent if they opt in to the HMRC Gift Aid scheme – 60 per cent of donors subsequently opted in.
Highly commended: M&S/Oxfam/Profero for the One-day Wardrobe Clear out
Finalists:
Bemoko/Macmillan Cancer Support for Macmillan Mobile Site
DIDMO/Salvation Army/GetJar for Salvation Army Daily Cup Social Justice
National Geographic/Velti for The Last Lions
Safaricom M-Pesa/Redsky for Kenyans for Kenya

Most Effective Mobile Application – b2b

Winner: Auto Trader for Dealer Portal iPhone App
Summary: The Dealer Portal Mobile app allows dealers to manage their advertising any time, any where on their iPhone. Dealers can take photos of their stock on their iPhone, view their forecourt and edit adverts, all on the move. A ‘Profit Indicator’ helps dealers calculate the margin they’d make, with a suggested price. This is based on real-time, accurate, market-based information and helps to reduce the risk associated with purchase and increase the likelihood of making a profit. To ensure that enough dealers had iPhones, Autotrader ran a promotion which gave away a free iPhone to dealers who purchased a particular mobile advertising product bundle. 1,250 dealers took up the iPhone offer.
Results: 1,788 dealers have logged onto the app since launch, representing about 19 per cent of the online Dealer Portal users. 66 per cent of app users return each month; 40 per cent of app users uploaded an advert in August 2011.

Finalists:
Egencia for Egencia Mobile iPhone App
Global Bay for iPad Retail App
O2 Media/Golden Gekko for O2 Media App
IDG Global Solutions/OMG/HP for IDG/HP ROI Resource Centres
Safaricom M-Pesa/Redsky for M-Pesa Buy Goods

Most Effective Mobile Couponing or Barcode Campaign

Winner: Groupe Aeroplan for Sainsbury’s Mobile App
Summary: The Sainsbury’s mobile app (for iOS, Android and Nokia) launched in August 2010 provides collectors of Nectar loyalty points with their points balance and exclusive offers. It consistently generates significantly higher response rates than other Sainsbury’s direct marketing channels. Sainsbury’s and FMCG suppliers provide the offers that are displayed on both the Sainsbury’s and Nectar apps for four weeks. The offers can be targeted by gender and category (i.e. targeting customers that mostly shop in certain aisles e.g. pet, baby, alcohol, and integrates with the Sainsbury’s Feed Your Family for £50 campaign via a meal planner for recipe inspiration. Shoppers can also purchase general merchandise through the app and will be able to buy food soon.
Finalists:
Incentivated for M&S Mobile Loyalty Program
ScanBuy for Taco Bell – Unlock the Box

Most Effective Mobile Application – b2c

Winner: Debenhams for Debenhams iPhone, Nokia and Android App
Summary: Launched in October 2010, the app offers the full Debenhams range for sale with delivery to the customer’s door or collect from store. They can view multiple product images with zoom capability and tailor searches using the ‘narrow the selection’ button were they can filter by type, brand, colour, price, and size. This was the first app on the UK high street to include a barcode scanner that acts like a virtual shopping assistant. The app also allows Debenhams to push location-based offers to customers that are near the stores.
Results: The app paid for itself within three weeks of launch. In the first 6 months the app had been downloaded 500,000 times and delivered over £1.5 million (US $2.35 million) in sales.

Finalists:
AKQA/Random House for Nigella Quick Collection iPhone App
Future Platforms/Orange for Official Glastonbury App
Grapple for Premier Inn Mobile
Pizza Express/2ergo for Pizza Express iPhone App
Poynt for The Poynt App

Most Effective Location-based Service/Campaign

Winner: Rippll for Rippll GeoWave
Summary: Rippll GeoWave is a technology platform for running location-based mobile advertising campaigns. Rippll provides simple-to-use ad serving tags to publishers and ad networks turning regular ad campaigns into location-based ad campaigns. Rippll GeoWave allows ads to be served in specific regions, such as near the advertiser’s store and allows for different advertising messages to be served in different locations. Map-based reporting shows where the ads are working best so publishers and advertisers can optimize campaigns. Rippll works with ad networks 4th Screen Advertising, YOC and StrikeAd to place tags in mobile publishers such as The Guardian, EBuddy and The Sun. Rippll has run location-based campaigns for TGI Fridays, McDonalds, IKEA, HMV, Dove and eBay among others.
Highly commended: Grapple for Fable III Kingmaker
Finalists:
Found/Autoglass for Smashing the Glass Repair Market on Mobile
Mazda/Joule/Mindshare for Mazda MX5 Facebook Deals
NAVTEQ Media Solutions/Peugeot for Peugeot Hyper-local Advertising Campaign
NAVTEQ Media Solutions/Spur Restaurants/Wand for Spur Restaurants Location-Aware Mobile Ads

Most Effective Tablet Application

Winner: BSkyB for Sky News for iPad
Summary: Sky News for iPad is an app built around live events and breaking news displayed chronologically on a timeline that is updated as the news day unfolds. Technology developed by Sky lets users rewind live video to the start – even if the app was not active when the event commenced. Each story is supported by a number of modules that deliver editorial depth and context. Modules include interactive stills, image galleries and graphs, as well as bespoke HTML content created on a daily basis.

Highly commended: DK/AKQA for The Human Body App
Finalists:
Auto Trader for Auto Trader iPad App
Financial Times/Assanka for FT Web App
Somo/Audi for Audi UK’s Guide to Le Mans 2011
Tigerspike/Telegraph Media Group for TMG iPad App

Most Effective Mobile Advertising Platform or Network

Winner: Txtlocal for Txtlocal Control Panel
Summary: 75,000 use the Web-based Txtlocal control panel to send in excess of 25 million text messages every month. Txtlocal allows business to text thousands of people within minutes from as little as UK £0.025. (US $0.038) Txtlocal also enables companies to set up a shortcode to solicit opt-ins to text campaigns or build a mobile Website for recipients of messages to click through to further information.
Results: Using Txtlocal, The English National Opera could advertise last-minute ticket deals and minimise revenue lost from empty seats. Two ENO campaigns delivered £8,000 ($12,530) gross profit from a £500 ($783) spend on text credits. Papa John’s Pizza increased sales 31.7 per cent during a three-day text campaign promoting a discounted price offer. Subway used Txtlocal to inform its customers of special-offer meal-deal promotions generating a response rate of 24 per cent. Domino’s Pizza received 10-12 per cent redemptions from a text campaign delivering £10,000 ($15,661) of sales from a £350 ($548) investment.


Luigi uses Txtlocal to increase customers from Txtlocal Limited on Vimeo.
Finalists:
Adfonic for Adfonic
Blismobile for Blis App Zone
madvertise for madvertise Mobile Advertising Marketplace
Placecast for ShopAlerts by Placecast
Smaato for Smaato Open Mobile Advertising Platform (SOMA)

Most Effective Campaign from a Mobile Operator

Winner: Buongiorno for Recharge and Win
Summary: Recharge and Win is a fully managed revenue stimulation and loyalty program that rewards prepay customers each time they top up. After topping up the customer receives a code allowing them to enter a WAP competition/game to win a reward/prize such as free SMS/Minutes, physical prizes or a paint-ball experience. Buongiorno Recharge and Win customers include Optus Australia, O2 UK, Proximus Belgium, O2 Germany Telecom New Zealand and TIM Italy.
Results: Recharge and Win helps operators increase the monthly spend of participants by 9 per cent and reduce churn among participants by 25 per cent.

Highly Commended: Saudi Telecom Company/Upstream for Win 100 BMW X5 in 100 Days
Finalists:
BigTime/MTN Zambia for Mega Millions Promotion
Future Platforms/Orange for Official Glastonbury App
Orange Romania/Velti for A New Day, a New Life

Most Effective Mobile Travel and Tourism Solution

Winner: TripAdvisor for the TripAdvisor App
Summary: TripAdvisor is a free travel app for iPhone, iPad, Android, Nokia, Windows, Palm available in 123 countries in 20 languages. The app includes a “Near Me Now” function, so travellers can determine what hotels, restaurants and attractions are nearby and a search engine to find cheap flights. The iPhone and iPad 2 version includes “Live View”, an augmented reality feature that allows travellers to view TripAdvisor’s 50 million traveller reviews and opinions of hotels, restaurants and attractions superimposed over what they see through the camera of their mobile device.
Highly commended: Crafted Media and Colchester Zoo for Colchester Zoo Mobile App
Finalists:
Incentivated/British Airways for British Airways SMS Customer Service Messaging
RedFish Media for MGM Luxor Las Vegas Mobile Alerts

Most Effective Mobile Payment Solution

Winner: Flexion for Flexion Wrapper
Summary: Flexion’s wrapper technology creates a small amount of code that is ‘wrapped’ around mobile content such as games or apps, enabling a range of additional services, such as in-app billing, DRM, content discovery and on-device retailing. Content owners can create customized pricing options and promotional models, such as free trials, rentals, bundles and discount and loyalty schemes. The wrapper technology increases conversion rates for apps, by allowing people to try before they buy.
Results: Four million wrapped products are activated every month. Flexion has reached a total of 40 million customers. Consumers have spent a total of UK £27 million (US $42.34) globally on the Flexion platform in the last three years.

Finalists:
Bango for Bango Payment
Flexion for Flexion Wrapper
Payment One for Anyphone
Safaricom/M-Pesa for M-Pesa Buy Goods
Txtnation for JunglePay

Most Effective Mobile Publishing Solution

Winner: Mippin for Mippin App Factory
Summary:
The Mippin App Factory allows anyone to build an app in just 5 minutes. App Pack prices start at UK £10 (US $15.68) – that includes a Web app for iPhone and Android app, a java launcher and mobile website. Native apps cost £500-£2,000 ($784-$3136).
Results: Over 40,000 apps have been built on App Factory implementations in the last 18 months. The most successful of these are OK! Magazine app (downloaded 475,000 times) and the Daily Star app (downloaded 300,000 times).

Using the App Factory to develop a web app for an RSS from WAC Apps on Vimeo.
Finalists:
Rippll for Appsplash
Vodafone/AMVG for vRead
Wapple for Canvas, Architect and Exhibit
Woodwing Tablet Publishing Solution

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• 2010 Winners include (brand/agency): M&S (MIG); McDonalds (NAVTEQ); Unilever Cornetto (BlisMobile); Procter & Gamble (Sky Sports); Skåne (Ericsson IPX, LINK Mobility); ClearMen (Turkcell, Rabarba); MTN (Upstream); SwiftKey (TouchType); M&S (Incentivated); Lions Baseball (Fancharge); NXP SemiConductors… Full details and video case studies here.

News International puts its cards on the table

This is the internal communication that went out to all News International staff today in reference to how they’ll be changing their digital proposition. It’ll be interesting to see this play out over the coming weeks. Will it bring a sea change in both journalism and publishing (as they are in fact different things)? They’re not alone in changing their approach. Hearst recently made a dramatic move and removed all their mobile websites for their US titles last November and have now switched to a paid-for mobile apps strategy. The jury’s still out on this paid content lark and I don’t suppose we’ll know the answers until it actually happens with our UK mainstream media too.

FAIR PRICING FOR DIGITAL CONTENT

Message from Rebekah Brooks

Those of you that subscribe to The Times and The Sunday Times or have registered on Times Online will receive a communication starting from this week inviting you to register for an exclusive preview of the new digital proposition. This shows that we are getting closer to the launch of the titles’ new digital sites.

I have made no secret of our intention to start charging for quality journalism online. As you may have seen speculation in the media about our plans, I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know why we believe this is such an important development.

We are committed to producing quality journalism that is written by professionals with a profound understanding of their subject and a commitment to provide well-informed coverage of the issues. Each of our titles, in its own way, has pioneered quality, professional journalism and we are unashamed to say we believe it has value.

In contrast, the industry is making the mistake of chasing millions of unique users by giving the audience more and more content for free. An obsession with traffic just doesn’t pay.

Great journalism needs investment and we are committed to supporting the fantastic work that you are all producing and delivering to our audiences. It is the quality of the journalism that you create, and the ways in which we produce and distribute it, that will continue to set our titles apart from the competition.

And to be clear, when we talk about charging for our content online, we are talking about charging a fair price. Price alone will not be a barrier to take up. Of course, we expect to see the numbers of unique users of our sites come down dramatically. But the people who register to our new digital products will be customers who have made a positive decision to pay a fair price for journalism that they value, and they will be those who are more committed to and engaged with our titles.

This is an exciting development for our company especially as we will be among the first in the world to take this step. There are many who declare we have set ourselves an impossible task. But our company loves nothing more than challenging the status quo.

Shortly I will update you on our plans in more detail. But, in the meantime, I believe that with the combined force of your talent, commitment and hard work, we will, in the months and years to come, define a new future in the way we create, deliver and profit from our journalism.

Rebekah Brooks

Chief Executive, News International

Technorati Tags: mobile media,journalism,publishing,newspapers,media

Monday's mobile marketing tidbits

Blyk's delaying its launch until October. No bad thing as July and August are quiet times in retail. IMHO, Blyk should be launching in September to get the school, college and university kids signed up as they go back for the Autumn term, and that starts early September for schools and Sixth Form Colleges. Come October, we'll already be into half-term and well into silly season for Christmas which may be too late to launch something. I wonder if Blyk realises what an enormous task they've taken on? And I wonder if they've managed to sort out data charges so they can offer their customers a proper mobile content and media experience via wap or mobile internet?

Borders is extending their mobile marketing effort to provide sample chapters to customers' phones for free to promote new book titles. Details are currently a bit sketchy. I'm interested to see how this works in practice. The best example I've seen of this in the past was a poster campaign I saw at a railway station promoting a new thriller, Mr Clarinet. You texted in a keyword to a shortcode and by return, got back a link to a wapsite where you could read a synopsis of the book, part of the first chapter, find out more about the author and also click to buy the book. Perfect for whiling away 10 or 20 minutes while you are waiting for a train.

Three UK has launched 3next.mobi which is a user generated catalogue of stuff to do on your phone. A very nice idea where you can add applications and services that you like and add them in with your review of the service. It's free to join and not restricted to Three customers although it's designed specifically for Three's X-Series customers. Worth a look as an example of how to market content services. http://www.3next.mobi

And finally, Admob has now served more than 4 billion wap adverts, the last billion being published in the last 35 days. Way to go!