Wednesday linkage

Nokia is opening up via its Adlabs to teach the world how to advertise on mobile. This is a good thing and I agree with Mike Baker that the objections of reach and metrics are obsolete. I would agree that creative teams are holding things back, but most importantly of all, agencies still haven't worked out how to a)add value in mobile initiatives and b)charge a fair price. I had an interesting conversation with an industry pal yesterday who said he'd seen 'traditional' agencies mark up project quotes by up to 400%. And then the agencies in question wondered why they didn't win the pitch. Hmm.

Mobile operators are up in arms at the prospect of having to reduce their EU roaming and SMS rates within the bloc. And it's about time too that those charges were reduced. It makes no sense to me to pay 40p for a text message (but only 20p for a MMS message) and £7.50 per megabyte when roaming in Europe. Distance is not an issue these days. I look forward to the day when it's all reasonably and fairly priced. Well, a girl can dream can't she?!

The VC community is betting on mobile for future digital investments according to KPMG.

"With a focus on mobile entertainment, venture capitalist opinions vary when
asked about which mobile entertainment applications would dominate market
revenue in 2009, though social networks was the favorite with 31 percent of the
responses. Rounding out the top five applications were gaming (20 percent),
video (14 percent), music downloads (20 percent) and user-generated applications
(10 percent). Additionally, 90 percent of VC respondents believe mass adoption
of mobile video consumption will take off in the next five years, and 60 percent
expect it will happen within the next three years. "Activity in the market
clearly indicates that the mobile space has become a significant area of
opportunity for venture capitalists," said Brian Hughes, KPMG partner based
inPhiladelphia and co-leader of its venture capital practice. "The population of
consumers who prefer to receive content via their mobile devices is a rapidly
growing segment of the market, and VCs have shown keen interest. We've seen new funds created specifically for the mobile sector, and social media also
continues to gain traction." "

Mobile TV - is it going to happen?

Is Mobile TV reaching a Tipping Point? A recent report suggests there is consumer demand for the service. The US-based report from Quickplay tell us

"Nearly half of respondents (44%) do not know if their mobile operator even
offers a mobile TV and video service and a third (33%) of those questioned
cited cost as the main barrier for not accessing mobile TV. The demand for
consumers to watch mobile TV is there, with 65 per cent of respondents stating
that they are willing to spend time watching an advert if it meant that the
mobile TV or video content they consume is free or discounted. On the other side
of the coin, if mobile TV and video were to be charged for, 22 per cent said
that they would prefer a pay-per-use business model and 13 per cent outlined a
preference for an additional monthly subscription that would deliver the
content without adverts."

My own feeling is that Mobile TV will be a bit like cameraphones. No-one ever really saw the need for a cameraphone - who would want to take photos on the go? But it's hard for many to imagine getting a phone without a camera these days. Mobile TV will be like that. At the point that it's just there - there's a button on the keypad that says 'TV' and you press it and the TV comes on, and it's free or bundled with your tarriff in some way, it will become a no-brainer.

And despite Mobile TV being a small market today, it is already generating some nice revenues for network operators. In Italy, mobile TV revenues are already Euro 65.9m vs their mobile music revenues which stand at just Euros 16.3m (full-track and ringtones).

I suspect the research report may be a little biased as it has been commissioned by a Mobile TV services provider and there were only 500 respondents which is not representative of a country of 300m+. Nevertheless, the findings are pretty much in keeping with other stuff I've read on the topic.

Interesting days for TV.

T-Mobile UK doesn't understand mobile web

or it's customers!

T-Mobile as a network operator has pioneered, to some extent, the mobile web by being an early adopter of fixed rate mobile data plans. They also opened up their portal to the wider web rather than focussing on creating and managing their own portal. I stick with them because T-Mobile has been value for money so far.

But I reckon there are some very weak links in the organisation for this to happen:

Message just received via SMS: "From 28 July we're increasing the charges for calling some numbers beginning with 08. For full details please visit our website at t-mobile.co.uk/08"

Can someone tell me why this information couldn't have been put into a mobile friendly page with a direct link so I can check it there and then? After all, it's only a list - there's nothing complex in there. And where do they get off putting up their prices anyway for this without any explanation as to why beyond 'according to OFCOM guidelines' with no link to said guidelines. In some cases the cost has gone up 400%. I find it hard to believe that OFCOM has been telling network operators to *increase* their prices. Details below:

08xx number changes
To make things clearer for our customers, we have aligned our 08 number charges with local and national calls to follow the latest Ofcom guidelines. These calls aren't included as part of your allowance in any of our price plans.

The table below will give you an overview of how your price plan has been affected by the change, the 08xx numbers affected and details of how the prices are changing.
08 number changes

0870 / 0871 / 0844 / 0845

Tarriff Current Charge New Charge
Flext 10p 20p
Combi 10p 30p
Solo 10p 30p
Everyone Off-Peak 10p 30p off peak / 5p on peak
My Faves 10p 30p
Freetime 10p 40p off peak / 5p on peak
Family 10p 20p
Relax 10p 12p
Just SIM 10p 30p
Web'n'Walk / Data Plans 10p 20p
N.b. Call charges are in pence per minute.
Changes will all take affect from the 28th July 08. If you have any additional queries please contact Customer Services by dialling 150 from your mobile phone.

BIG FAT FAIL T-MOBILE

Of course this isn't the first time, and probably not the last. I have countless useless marketing and service messages from T-Mobile - the most memorable being the one promoting Euro 2004 England football content. My surname might be Keegan, but I'm not related to the footballer and it doesn't mean I like football. I've never suggested I'm into football for one minute and my footie-mad pals would concur. But even if I was a football fan, they sent the message the day *after* the match that England *lost*. When will they ever learn...?

Ofcom's Nations and Regions Communications Annual is out now

This is Ofcom’s third annual review of the markets for television, radio, and telecommunications, showing detailed data for the nations and regions across the UK.

Some key points from their press release which you may find interesting (with my comments in italics) are:

• In the previous two years, take-up of broadband was strikingly lower in rural than in urban areas. This year, the data suggest that, taken as a whole, rural areas have caught up – in fact, slightly overtaken urban areas. Overall, 57% of UK homes now have a broadband internet connection, up from 45% a year earlier. I think this is great news as it has felt that broadband uptake had remained relatively static. I'm interested to see how the broadband providers cope with the increasing popularity of the BBC iplayer and other TV channel's video offerings. It's using up a *lot* of bandwidth.


• There are other striking patterns; in the UK’s biggest cities, such as Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester, an ever-larger segment of the population is living without the use of fixed-line telephony. Across the UK as a whole, 87% of homes have a fixed-line telephone (down three percentage points from last year). The 12% of homes which rely on mobile phones only are able, increasingly, to access broadband through wireless technology. I still have a landline but I barely use it - I only have it for accessing broadband as I can't get cable in my area. It seems to me to be a terrible waste of money (and a nice little earner for BT) to keep the line but it's essential thus far.


• People are also using broadband to download video. This report suggests that 30% of adults have taken advantage of video downloading, although on a city-by-city analysis, the hottest hotspots are Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh. I thought this figure would have been higher - I need to explore this section in the report further.


• There are many other such fascinating points of detail in the pages that follow. Social networking, as Ofcom has previously reported, is now enjoyed by one in five UK adults. This report suggests that the people of Northern Ireland are among the UK’s most avid social networkers. Across the UK, these sites are most popular among young people. I wonder if that's because the Northern Irish like to chat?! (I have pals from North of the Border in Ireland and they *do* like to talk... I'm jesting! But seriously, if you think facebook is huge in the UK now, it still has some way to go in the market place if we're still at 20% penetration of usage.


• Another big trend is the fact that more than 85% of UK homes now have digital television – ten percentage points higher than a year ago and a significant milestone to have passed in the year in which digital switchover began, in Copeland, Cumbria. At the same time, take-up of digital radio continues to grow, with one in five adults reporting that they have a DAB digital radio at home. Digital here we come. Now if only the signal were reliable in my area... oddly enough, I can actually see the Crystal Palace mast from the end of my road but my signal can be patchy despite the proximity. And if I have my laptop and mobile going at the same time, I quickly get interference on the signal. Sigh.

Anyway, the Ofcom report is a must-read to get the lowdown on the state of the communications market in the UK. It's a veritable mine of well-researched information. Oh, and even better, it's free!

How not to do mobile marketing... Subway style

A friend just alerted me to this review of Subway's latest mobile marketing effort in the US. It's a tale of how not to do mobile couponing essentially. I suggest you give it a good read, but the upshot is that the coupons are only available in a few locations, namely Buffalo, NY and Seattle, WA markets. I can understand starting with some kind of pilot scheme, it makes sense to iron out any issues with a smaller set of customers before going national.

Anyway, back to the campaign. It's supported by the My Subway Mobile website and with flyers in store locations (where the offer is valid). The author of the article, Jay Holcomb, tells us about his experience:

"... despite my sincerest efforts, I had a very difficult time at both Subway locations where I tried to redeem my code that allows for a free sub upon creating account. Each location had the campaign flyers at the cash register, but the problem was to be found in the employees themselves: they had no idea about the campaign! I pointed it out to a total of four employees in these two locations, and no one had ever heard of it before."

A campaign is only as good as it's weakest link and clearly, in Subway's case, the staff were the weakest link. Or was it that staff training was the weakest link. There's no point dumping a load of flyers on your shop counter with the latest offer if you don't brief your team properly. That's something we learned very quickly back in ZagMe days and we spent a lot of time working with store staff and their teams bringing them up to speed with the latest offers and how it all worked.

Mobile marketing isn't just about the technology. The technology is only a small part of it. Your people, your brand, your service all play a part in it too.

You have been warned... don't make the same mistake!

Tesco supports m-retail... or does it?

For those of you who don't know already, I spent the best part of 10 years of my working life in retail - mostly fashion, and mostly in and around London's Oxford Street and Knightsbridge. Later on in my career, I worked for ZagMe, the location based marketing company who marketed to customers via SMS at Lakeside and Bluewater shopping malls, and much of that time was spent working with retailers creating and running campaigns for them. So I have more than a passing interest in things retail.

So I've been keeping an eye on the m-retail or m-commerce world and was very interested to see that UK grocery retailer, Tesco has joined the world of m-retail after successful trials of ordering flowers via mobile for Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.

As an aside, Tesco also claims that it's wap portal is a great success attracting over 300,000 customers in December last year. And not only that, but that's it's customers are hungry for ads.

"Banner advertising served up on the portal delivered a click-through rate to tailored WAP campaign sites of between three and seven per cent, said Tesco. Brands advertising on the portal included Bee Movie, ITV, Nivea and Teletext.

Tesco said the user-base of the portal has a strong segment of female household budget owners with an average age of 36 - a demographic it said is particularly valuable for fast-moving consumer goods such as toiletries and cleaning products.
According to a survey commissioned by Tesco, more than half (60 per cent) of portal users are female and the same percentage said they visit the portal at least once a month, while 69 per cent claimed they would click on a relevant advert."

So this all bodes well for entering the world of m-commerce. So I thought I'd check it out.

Alas for me, going to http://www.tesco.com/ from my mobile takes me to the main Tesco website with no adaption for the mobile screen whatsoever - large file sizes (well comparatively large when dealing with mobile), navigation required up/down and left/right so you can't actually see anything properly.

It occurred to me that they'd probably done a mobile specific site so I also tried http://www.tesco.mobi/ and http://m.tesco.com/ and neither of those worked.

So it looks like I can't do a review of the service for you.

I then thought, well maybe it's for Tesco Mobile customers only (Tesco Mobile being the pay as you go MVNO with O2), especially since their wap portal has been such a success.

And then I saw how much data charges were on Tesco Mobile... £4 per megabyte. Yes, that's right, a whopping £4 a megabyte. And there's no mention of whether or not access to the Tesco Mobile Portal is free of charge or not. In fact, there's no mention at all of any Tesco Mobile Portal or any Tesco mobile shopping service.

There's a free Tesco sim offer on at the moment, I may give it a go although I really don't fancy spending £4 a megabyte to check out their mobile portal and m-commerce offerings.

On the commercial side of the equation, I know that 02 is heavily pushing mobile retail services and is touting Tesco as it's major success story and case study (there's even a video I've seen about it). But if you're going to make your shop invisible and then charge for entry, isn't that just a bit daft?

Hmm. What's going on?

If anyone can shed any light on what's going on with Tesco m-retail and Tesco's wap portal and relevant data charges, please let me know either via the blog or via email.

And on a parting note, I think this quote (via Silicon.com) from Ashley Schofield, head of customer management at Tesco Mobile, is somewhat ironic:

"Our customers are showing a real appetite for more products and services
through the mobile internet. Delivering more great experiences and value through
our portal is a priority for this year."

Ashley, I'm not sure how you can deliver more great experiences and more value through the portal when you're charging £4 a megabyte.