The Biggest Hurdle In SMS Marketing

Mobile Marketer asked me about hurdles in using text-messaging programs.

Here's what I told the publication:

“The biggest hurdle is often mental. Recently, Ford used a text call-to-action to produce a 15.4 percent lead convergence. I told this story to a digital influencer who called it a great example of a 'meat and potatoes' program.

“I'm a vegetarian but I'll serve my clients meat and potatoes all day long if we can realize such a lofty lead number.”

Further, I told Mobile Marketer that marketers should get past the "shiny object" mentality and concentrate on what has the best chance of success.

"Of course, another advantage to SMS marketing is that an interaction often leads to a remarketing opportunity through an opt-in. This drives loyalty and sales.

“Who cares if it was done with the simplest of mobile products?"

The full article is here http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/messaging/13862.html

Notes From a Mobilized Marketer: The South Africa Trip Edition

I delivered a CMO Conference keynote http://www.kr.co.za/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=124257 and conducted an extensive mobile marketing workshop http://www.kr.co.za/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=127998 during eight days in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Here’s what I learned:

While the marketers I met have the same challenges as we do in the States (they need to sell more stuff), they use different tools to tackle the job – my BlackBerry sightings among South African professionals made me feel like it was 2006 again.

The iPhone was held by few, but was certainly the exception (unless you count the international travelers).

The announcement of the iPhone 5 11,000 miles away was barely mentioned in my three days with some of the country’s top marketers.

Numbers according to Ogilvy:

80 percent of country’s population is on mobile
50 percent penetration of smartphones is expected in the next four years
20 percent of population on MXIT (a free mobile instant messenger app)
17 percent of the population is online
14 percent is on Facebook
2 percent of the marketing spend is on digital (roughly 20 percent of what is spent in the U.S.)
The percentage of users accessing Facebook via their mobile devices is 38 percent. It is 58 percent for mobile subscribers 25 years old and younger
The number of Twitter users is approximately 2.5 million (doubled in the last year)
The majority of tweeters are under 25 years old

More mobile stats:

Churn rate among prepaid users is 43 percent
33 percent of all mobile users access Web via mobile
20 percent of mobile subscribers have smartphones
Mobile phone use increased from17 percent of adults in 2000 to 76 percent in 2010

Here’s a deeper look into MXIT:

The average time spent per day is an hour and a half
Unique users during a one-week period total are 4.7 million
54 percent of users are aged 18-25
One quarter of users are under 18 years old
The cost for a marketer of a splash screen is R55000 (about $6,700)

Other observations:

Chauvinism is part of the culture. A marketing director said to a full room of professionals that women aren’t as capable in business. There was an audible gasp, but no one further challenged his thinking.

Separately, a conference attendee said that the 50 and older crowd are not “technologically savvy.” I’ve heard this comment often in America and refute it every time with stats and personal anecdotes.

Text messaging calls to action are frequent – I heard them on the radio, saw them on billboards, and grew to expect them as I traveled around the country.

Groupon has made inroads in South Africa. Marketers I spoke to were positive in their comments about the service.

Mobile Provides Road To Consumer’s Breast Pocket and Heart

Through a 40-year advertising career, Hank Wasiak has yearned for a route to the consumer’s heart. The former vice chairman of McCann Erickson WorldGroup knows that the ability for a brand to make an emotional connection was more important than any benefits that come via a single transaction.

Mobile gives Wasiak the road he has been seeking.

“Technology opened the door to what consumers always felt anyway – back in my day when we were doing IR [infrared] scores to gauge television commercials and saying how hard it was to break through, the average recall for a 30-second spot was maybe 25 percent of the people who were forced to look at a commercial would remember it,” Wasiak told me in an interview for my new book, Mobilized Marketing: Driving Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile Devices.

“They were telling us then, ‘I want it the way I want it when I want it.’ We just didn’t have the capability to do it. Now we do. Mobile, it gets you connected but it’s part of your life in a functional way, in an emotional way, an entertaining way, in a lifesaving way,” he said.

Successful marketers are opting in consumers to mobile loyalty clubs. Surveys by Hipcricket, a mobile marketing and mobile advertising leader, consistently show that more than one third of U.S. mobile subscribers are interested in joining a VIP club hosted by their favorite brands--translating to more than 100 million people. Some brands have mobile VIP clubs with hundreds of thousands of opted-in members.

According to our most recent research, nearly two-thirds of consumers say their favorite brand has yet to advertise to them on their mobile device. There’s a huge opportunity there for brands, one that reaches well beyond the first click or installation. For savvy marketers, the click or install isn’t the end – it’s the beginning of the relationship, if you shepherd it well.

Wasiak and others can also reach his customers and prospects by thinking beyond the one-time mobile advertisement. He is looking for what happens after the click or the app download. Many marketers are leaving a huge opportunity on the table, an important chance to engage with the customer, post-activity.

The post-activity piece is about permission-based re-engagement where a brand is “invited in” by the consumer after the click or download, thereby opening ongoing dialogue. This creates a connection that is contextual and appealing to the mobile user and potentially lucrative to the advertiser. And lack of context is what primarily keeps most consumers from engaging in brands on mobile—our most recent survey showed that nearly 43 percent of consumers who haven’t engaged with mobile ads chose not to because “it was not relevant to my interests.”

When it comes to mobile, even in its relatively early days, Wasiak, who is now a partner at The Concept Farm, believes that marketers should fire sooner rather than later.

“To me, the key thing when looking at something is to be early and fast,” he said. “I’ve been the poster child for this.

“You want to overthink things sometimes. You want to get it perfect but things move so fast. To me in this world, especially in mobile, iteration is more important than innovation. You can find out quickly because you’re in real time in the hip pocket, the breast pocket and in the heart of your consumers.

“You have to put on a flak jacket and get a little more risk averse.”

Microsoft’s Barbara Williams, a former marketer at venerable Johnson & Johnson and Unilever, agrees with Wasiak. Microsoft is proceeding with mobile despite the lack of precise mobile measurement.

“Now it seems to be very anecdotal,” she says. “We know we spent x amount and we know the cost per engagement or cost per experience. We’ll look at the percent we spend in media on mobile or media in other channels and look at the return on that in terms of visitors or engagement and try to compare it. We’ll say we know we’re not spending nearly as much in mobile as we are in digital but we’re getting just as much traffic.

“Right now we’re at the beginning stages of making it more scientific and more data driven.”

But the path to the consumer’s breast pocket and heart has become well-established.

(article first appeared in Washington Times http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/status-update/2012/sep/14...

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The "Free" Smartphone Edition

Forty-four percent have gotten a "free" smartphone in exchange for signing a contract, according to J.D. Power. What’s the play for the carriers and handset manufacturers? Subsidies drive adoption and increased spends on services.

Nearly 30% of emails are opened on a mobile device, according to a new report. That’s massive volume. Now the question is how many of those are mobile optimized?

I’m surprised that live blogging didn’t begin days before the iPhone 5 announcement. Then Ryan Seacrest and Joan Rivers can interview influencers entering the event on a red carpet.

If rumors are right, iPhone buyers will be saying "I want my LTE".

The only surprise in Amazon’s decision to give consumers an opt out on new Kindle Fire ads is that it took a reversal rather than was something that was stated in the new product introductory comments.

It turns out that the Nokia Lumia 920 image stabilization video was a “simulation” – what a way to start out on the right foot. It’s kinda like when what is positioned as real-time isn't real time. Bogus.

There was a major story about a company that is developing apps for as little as $20. Some have looked at this and called the work really mobile websites. Either way, this is supposed to be a winner for brands?

Samsung sold 20 million Galaxy S III devices in three months. By comparison, one forecast says 10 million iPhone 5s will be sold in the first week.

The Federal Communications Commission said that it is testing mobile carriers data speed claims. The best scenario is that we plainly are told what we have with comparisons.

Apple has reportedly failed in contract negotiations with cable companies around Apple TV. No one believes that this is the end of the story.

According to Pew, more than half of app users uninstalled or decided to not install an app due to concerns about personal info.

Nearly one third of cell owners have experienced a lost or stolen phone, especially young cell phone users (18 to 24), according to the same group.

Gauging Our Real-Time Expectations

As long as there have been televised sports, there have been fans’ unmet expectations. Whether it was the infamous “Heidi” game — and NBC cutting away from an exciting Raiders-Jets game (and almost unbelievable comeback by the Raiders) to broadcast the film at its scheduled starting time way back in 1968 – or the recently completed 2012 Olympics, fans have certain expectations of how and when their favorite programming is aired. Most recently, NBC dug itself an Olympic-sized ditch in the way it handled broadcasting the games in “unreal” real-time.

I understand there are certain realities at play here. NBC paid a lot of money for these games and needs viewership numbers to achieve positive ROI. But broadcasters need to remember that it’s not 1968 any more. (It is fun to imagine what the reaction to the “Heidi” game would have been like on Twitter, though.) Twitter and Facebook erase the illusion of “live,” and NBC had further egg on its face when it was revealed that even the live streaming events were slightly delayed.

We can learn a lot from these mistakes. Broadcasters know that there are many mediums at play; it’s a matter of blending and complementing them in a way that matches the activity of consumers. For instance, Yahoo Sports, once the king of fantasy football, fell behind in some aspects due to a lack of mobile availability. Yahoo Sports now offers branded mobile experiences from Citi, Miller Lite, Snickers, Toyota and Visa to celebrate the company’s 15th football anniversary. Fantasy Football fans have access across PC, TV, phone and tablet.

The entire industry must follow suit if it wants to offer consumers the ability to interact and build brand loyalty in real-time, as the only true way to offer that is to make sure that all screens are included and that coverage of the event is live and engaging.

Real-time interaction in and out of the venue enhances the event, and your fans will appreciate that they have the ability to stay connected wherever, whenever. ESPN’s Michael Bayle says that the convergence of mobile and social changed the time-shifting model almost as fast as it appeared. “Unless someone is terribly blind or deaf, it precludes any chance to go and rewatch a game safely. You now have to have a live environment,” he said.

Bayle is on to something: Social, mobile and the fan are forever linked, so marketers must react to that marriage in order to be successful. Bayle sees more interaction between fans and ESPN personalities, providing more opportunities for marketers to be part of the bond that only sports bring.

Real time. It’s a binary concept – either it’s real, or it’s delayed — and there is a lot of opportunity out there to build true, loyal communities that impact a broadcaster’s success.

(article first appeared at digiday.com http://www.digiday.com/publishers/building-loyalty-on-the-go/)

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: The Confused Consumer Edition

Almost half of U.S. consumers think 4G LTE is unnecessary. Consumers don't know 4G from 9E.

One more: the average smartphone owner uses less than 2GB of data: NPD Group. Few know what that means and what they should buy.

Walmart spends $12 million a second on cashier wages. How much could it save if shoppers scanned and paid with a mobile app?

Headline: Fake iPhone 5 Available For Only $8. Me: lower we sink.

On the same road, a poll asks whether the iPhone 5 is ugly. What's ugly are posts of supposed pictures that are - or are not - the new device.

I hope that you enjoyed the weekend quiet before the blast that will be Smartphone September. New devices, unreal hype.

Twitter advertisers can target users by their interests. Despite what you see in my photo, I don't want eyelash enhancement offers.

51 percent think stormy weather affects cloud computing. Don't rain on their parade.

With the ISIS mobile payment service finally debuting 18 months later than first planned, wallet hysteria will pick up.

My take on the Mobile Marketing Association’s study saying that mobile should be 7% of the marketing spend rather than the current 1%? Helpful, but brands will determine this - how much and when.

Smartphone users view The Weather Channel app multiple times for "right now". Tablet owners view it less frequently and look more long term.

More than 50 percent of Hearst’s digital audience will access via mobile next year.

Two thirds of mobile devices shipped in 2016 will be smartphones. There is always a difference between shipped and bought.

Of course, it makes sense that Nokia will announce new mobile phones before the iPhone 5 announcement. It won't make a difference.

Mobile and the Presidential Election

My brother, Rick, is the expert on elections http://electionlawblog.org/, but now that mobile has become part of the political process, I weighed in on the use of text messaging for donations.

“Mobile and social media have become integral to political campaigning, much like they have become integral to general marketing initiatives,” is what I told Mobile Marketer. These mediums provide direct and personal lines to consumers and must be considered as core aspects to any campaign, political or otherwise.

“Consumers have been very receptive to SMS donations in other contexts, so that will likely carry over in this case. It’s quick, simple and has a very wide reach.”

The American Red Cross saw that more than 90 percent of the SMS donations for Haiti relief were from new donors. The political parties should only have similar success in broadening their funding base.

The full story is here http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2012/08/28/obama-romney-campaigns-drive-do...

What I'll Most Remember About The Mobile Insider Summit

Two massive brands shared their mobile stories this week at the content-rich Mobile Insider Summit in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Each brand has accelerated its mobile efforts to drive sales, engagement, and loyalty.

Wells Fargo & Company, a financial services company with $1.3 trillion in assets, serves one in three households in the U.S. More than 10 percent of its 70 million customers use mobile to interact with the company for at least part of their customer journey.

This has prompted Wells Fargo, now number 26 on the Fortune 100, to make mobile part of the mix. To date Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 9,000 stores, 12,000 ATMs, the Internet (wellsfargo.com), and mobile.

The approach speaks volumes about the value of mobile as a complement to all the other channels. As Alan Gellman, SVP of Digital Marketing, put it: Stores are a critical part of building the relationships that Wells Fargo nurtures — and “mobile won’t replace them.”

By far, the most common use case for mobile is allowing customers to check their account balances. Each month, Wells Fargo receives 27 texts on average from customers using mobile. Of the 70 million customers, 21 million utilize online banking and 8.5 million use mobile to interact.

As Gellman sees it, it’s all “about the consumer, not the technology.” For this reason, Gellman implores his team to create compelling experiences and to “mobilize, not miniaturize.” That’s a smart idea since the technology should adapt to people, not the other way around.

To deliver a good customer experience every step of the journey Wells Fargo has designed “voice of the customer” programs to monitor “what are they saying, where are they saying it, and how are they saying it.” Beyond customer relationship marketing (CRM), Gellman sees acquisition and cross-selling as critical in mobile initiatives.

Other Gellman gems:

On mobile and security: Gellman notes his company understands its duties go beyond what is regulated. “It’s about what’s right for the customer.”

On chasing the newest technologies that some call ‘shiny objects’: Gellman challenges his marketers to reveal “what’s the value-add.”

On mobile advertising approaches: Gellman says mobile is efficient and effective, because it offers “cheap CPC (cost per click) and high impact on awareness.” But there is a catch: “it can’t totally be measured.”

Lowe’s looks at mobile

Equally compelling was the viewpoint shared by Sean Bartlett, Director of Mobile Strategy and Platforms for Lowe’s. By way of background, Lowe’s is the second-largest home improvement retailer in the world and number 54 on the Fortune 100 list. Lowe’s serves approximately 15 million customers a week at more than 1,745 home improvement stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Bartlett’s view on mobile products and services centers squarely on the value it delivers. Questions top of mind must be: “Is it compelling, and is it incremental?”

A recent initiative by the chain has put 42,000 iPhones into the hands of sales associates as a way to help customers get a more satisfying experience from the iPhone app. It’s all about creating a virtuous circle by helping sales people to help their customers, who have already made mobile part of their daily routine. The outcome is a solid relationship. At a deeper level, this can strengthen the ties between the customer and the retailer and boost involvement and interest in the MyLowe’s loyalty program.

Bartlett has been in his position for just 18 months, but the change in mindset is significant. While Bartlett calls the early mobile efforts by his company successful, he reveals the company is “blowing it up” to start again with a new focus on the experience.

It’s all about using mobile to be more friendly and personal. As Bartlett put it: “Mobile is the evolution of the experience economy.”

How I See It: The theme of the conference was “mobile first,” a phrase generally attributed to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who proclaimed it at the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The words referred back to the requirements to design user experiences with mobile in mind. Since then the phase has regrettably become the rallying cry for some in the industry who just want marketers to spend on mobile first. That’s nothing more than hype.

As I wrote in my Mobilized Marketing book, it’s really “sell more stuff first.” Mobile may, or may not, help a marketer get there. Gellman and Bartlett are among those in the industry wise enough to know that the what — the business objective of moving products and services — remains the same. Mobile has simply changed how brands can achieve this.

(article first posted here http://www.mobilegroove.com/mobile-insider-summit-takeaways-marketers-need-to...

Where Do We Go With Olympics After #NBCfail?

Rather than consider the following a delayed analysis of the much tweeted-about NBC Olympics London telecast, think of this as a preview of the Rio Games four years hence.

NBC would certainly spin it that way.

By now, you know that members of the “loudmouth minority” have railed against NBC for delaying the airing of the Summer Games despite making promises that all but the ceremonies would be shown live somewhere.

I was especially aghast after seeing on Twitter the result of Usain Bolt’s 9.63 second 100-meter win before what NBC presented to us as a live stream was sent to American viewers on computers, or in my case, an iPad.

Former President Bill Clinton famously said, "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is.”

In so many words, NBC said “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘live’ is.”

Recently, Today executive producer, Jim Bell, who also was the Games' executive producer, dismissed the criticism, again incorrectly stating in a Hollywood Reporter interview that “everything was live.”

Why is it such a big deal? Why can’t I be content with 5,500 hours from London, unprecedented as far as Olympics are concerned?

Because we live in real time. Even a delay of 9.63 seconds matters.

If you think I’m wrong, imagine the uproar if the results of the Academy Awards were shown somewhere 10 seconds before the announcements were made on the telecast.

In my house, if I shouted out the winners 10 seconds early, my wife would kick me out in Olympic record fashion. And she would be right.

Live is live. It is 2012.

Which brings us to 2016 and Rio.

According to the Associated Press, NBC chief researcher Alan Wurtzel says that two-thirds of people who knew the results ahead of NBC's tape-delayed telecast said they would watch the events anyway. People who watched the events earlier in the day via computer stream watched the tape-delayed broadcast for a longer time than those who hadn't.

Hello. This presents some pretty obvious implications for the industry.

ESPN, which knows a bit about sports programming, uses tape only for highlights – or so it seems.

“Sports are all about live,” John Kosner, who leads all of ESPN’s digital media properties, told me in my book, Mobilized Marketing: Driving Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobil Devices http://www.amazon.com/Mobilized-Marketing-Engagement-Loyalty-Through/dp/11182... “You have to watch and experience the game live. You want to talk about it while it’s happening. You want more information about the game or other games taking place at the same time. That’s all central.”

Real-time interaction in and out of the venue enhances the event, according to Kosner.

“The development of these social networks and utilities like Twitter take it up a level because it makes it apparent that much more is possible. Location-based content, the sharing of photos, the ability to watch video, and more.”

Michael Bayle, now Senior Vice President and General Manager of Mobile at ESPN, says that the convergence of mobile and social changed the time-shifting model almost as fast as it appeared.

“I would argue that’s the biggest interruption that has happened is because of the success of mobile,” he says. “One to three years ago, one could comfortably record their favorite NBA game, baseball game, what have you, and then relax and come home at night and watch it—and choose if you wish to forward through the commercials and just get to the highlights. That’s almost impossible now because of mobile and the instant access to Twitter and other means of social media.

“Unless someone is terribly blind or deaf, it precludes any chance to go and rewatch a game safely. You almost now have to have a live environment.”

Bayle, who has been in mobile so long that some consider him a lifer, believes that social, mobile, and the fan are forever linked.

“Social is critical to be successful in as much as fans by nature will be social, either touting or taunting their friends or loved ones or even finding new friends just by the nature of how people rally around teams so to speak,” he says. “I think there’s a concept here . . . of the concept of the ‘game around the game.’”

Bayle sees more interaction between fans and ESPN personalities, providing more opportunities for marketers to be part of the bond that only sports bring.

“The goal with our mobile teams is to improve the access to fans and to real-time interact with that content,” he says.

Real time. It’s not a nebulous concept despite what NBC wants us to believe.

(first appeared on imediaconnection.com http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2012/08/22/what-the-industry-and-rio-o...

Video of Author Panel at Mobile Insider Summit

I was thrilled to be asked to be on an author’s panel http://www.mediapost.com/mobileinsidersummit/agenda/ at the top-tier Mobile Insider Summit presented by Mediapost. My co-panelists were Jed Alpert, CEO, Mobile Commons; Chuck Martin, Author, The Third Screen @chuckmartin; and Mike Proulx, Senior VP, Digital Strategy, Hill Holliday @mcproulx.

Incidentally, Chuck and Mike are good friends.

Here’s the video

<br />Video streaming by Ustream

A Mobile "Do" That's a Duh

When considering marketing via SMS, my first “do” is a duh.

“First off, determine if you target uses text messaging,” is what I told Mobile Marketer.

“More than 75 percent of United States mobile subscribers do, so it's likely that you are in the game,” he said. “Then have a compelling call-to-action, one that considers your target's interests as well as location and time of day.

“After the initial interaction, it’s often important to build an ongoing relationship with the consumer. Ask them to opt-in for additional updates, engage them and keep them coming back for more. The final step is measuring these interactions and optimizing to maximize results.”

More of my comments and the rest of the article are here - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/messaging/13517.html

Loudmouth Thoughts On NBC and London Olympics

Pointing to the large number of viewers via television, PCs and mobile devices, NBC considers Olympics critics the loud minority. Count me in the unhappy camp.

By the way, it is not the first nor will it be the last time that I’ve been called a loudmouth.

My beef?

Broken promises, the biggest one being that all events but the ceremonies would be shown live.

The Olympics are nothing if not memories.

In my previous professional lives, I was a sportswriter for the 1984 Los Angeles Games, and was project director of the “look and feel” program for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, UT. I was all over the Atlanta competitions in 1996 and on the stadium floor in Nagano, Japan, in 1998.

Every one of them fits in the unbelievable experience category. Which takes me to my biggest takeaway from NBC’s London coverage.

I will tell you what live is not – seeing on Twitter the result of Usain Bolt’s 9.63-second 100-meter win before what NBC presented to us as a live stream was sent to U.S. viewers on computers or, in my case, an iPad.

Former president Bill Clinton famously said, "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is.” In so many words, NBC said, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘live’ is.”

Why is this such a big deal? Why cannot I be content with 5,500 hours from London, unprecedented as far as Olympics are concerned?

Because we live in real time. Even a delay of 9.63 seconds matters. An estimated 2 billion people saw the race before NBC gave us the “live” look.

If you think I am wrong, imagine the uproar if the results of the Academy Awards were shown somewhere 10 seconds before the announcements were made on the telecast.

In my house, if I shouted out the winners 10 seconds early, my wife would kick me out in Olympic record fashion. And she would be right.

The ceremonies were delayed first to the East Coast of the United States, then three more hours before those of us on the left coast got a look.

I saw live coverage via tweets and blogs, then another round of commentary from East Coasters long before I settled in for the NBC airing.

Easy, you say. Turn everything off. Stay away from the news. It is not happening. It is not how we choose to live.

I have one word for those who are hoping that the International Olympic Committee will intervene and prevent future disappointments – please.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams said, "It's certainly not for us to tell them how to reach their audience.'' Of course it is not. That is the job of the loud minority.

NBC, have you ever considered the fact that we may be right?

(article first appeared on Mobile Marketer - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/13512.html)

Gauging Behavior of Males and Females on Mobile Devices

Are there differences between male and female mobile customers?

When asked, here’s what I told Mobile Marketer:

“Rather than rely on stereotypes, the brands that are succeeding are understanding each customer’s desires and communicate accordingly. This is especially true with luxury brands since the expectations for stellar customer service are heightened.

“Mobile provides personalization options for brands that can lead to trial, sales and loyalty. Smart marketers segment their SMS databases to provide relevant information and offers.”

The article is here http://www.luxurydaily.com/how-to-reach-affluent-men-vs-women-via-mobile/

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: Hey, Pass The Pink Nail Polish

Nokia says its plan to sell pink nail polish to match the pink Lumia 900 is about "pampering". It's more about being a buzz generator – and it’s working.

During the Samsung trial, we learned that the iPhone was designed to better the "dumbed down" web experience out there on other mobile devices. I always thought that was the original aha – no more endless waiting for pages to load.

Yes, I opted in but six texts from the Obama campaign in fewer than 10 days is way too much. Imagine the flow in the fall.

It’s good to see that Mitt Romney will announce his VP running mate via mobile but app, rather than opt-in text messaging, reduces reach and opt-in potential.

HTC better hope that rumor that it will make a Facebook mobile phone is true. It forecasts a 23 percent revenue drop in the meantime.

Sixty percent iPad web traffic in the U.S. comes from the iPad 2. It shows that the third generation upgrades weren't enough for many to switch. I’m in that group.

Facebook’s impact on mobile is questioned every day. Consider over the last month, it has driven folks to the App Store & Google Play about 150 million times.

One more on the Facebook factor: 7,000 different mobile devices access Facebook every day.

Almost half of the Internet video NBC is serving this Olympics is going to mobile devices and tablets.

There is word of a "supersized" Samsung Galaxy Note. The phablet (I hate that word) gets phatter.

Nearly 1 in 4 Linkedin users accesses only via mobile. The company says that "monetization extends beyond advertising".

Pew says that spam is one of biggest frustrations with mobile devices. Have I just been lucky to not been hit with many?

We’re witnessing the marriage of mobile & house-hunting: a user of Zillow on mobile is three times more likely to contact an agent than a user on PC.

The headline says that the global smartphone market has stalled. The ramifications for marketers? Reconsider feature phone users.

On-Camera Interview on Mobilized Marketing

In this video, I talk about everything and nothing has changed for marketers and share insights from those interviewed for Mobilized Marketing.

Mobile-First? How About "Sell More Stuff" First?

There’s lots of talk about so-called “mobile first”. My view is that it’s move-the-business first – mobile might be the way to go, but maybe not.

Here’s what I told Mobile Marketer on the subject.

"Marketers should take a sell-more-stuff approach. There are often times where mobile should be the lead given a brand target's behavior and interest.

“But other times that is not the case. Everything has changed and nothing has changed – it's about selling products and services – and using the medium or mediums that are most likely to succeed.

“You need to know your customer – that was true 50 years ago and will be true in 50 more years.”

The full article is here - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/strategy/13421.html

Olympics Will Produce Multi-Screen Viewing Party

Beyond the athletes who will become household names over the next few weeks, the London Olympics are the coming-out party for multi-screen viewing.

Yes, the shift to multi-device multi-tasking is real — in fact, it’s a trend we have observed fomonths that will have a profound impact on mobile marketing. Already the Pew Internet and American Life Project tells us that half of all adult mobile phone owners now reach to their mobile devices to enhance and enjoy their television-watching experiences.

The London Games will show what cutting-edge companies are capable of right now.

Just in time for the Olympics, entities including Twitter, ESPN, Facebook and Yahoo!, are taking the wraps off of comprehensive complementary initiatives to transform television viewing, making what used to be the passive activity into a completely interactive one.

ESPN gave me the inside track on their strategy, insights I documented in my new book Mobilized Marketing. Specifically, ESPN intends to create worldwide fan communities around events like the Olympics. It’s an exciting approach that brings together fans experiencing the games live in the stadiums with fans cheering on their sofas. Further, the social aspect of this encourages live viewing since the back-and-forth between fans in the community happens in real-time as events take place.

The shift is real and marketers who fail to realize that consumers are participating in experiences and events like the London Olympics (across multiple screens) will likely miss this year’s business goals. The proof is in the numbers — and in exclusive interviews I conducted with brands and companies gearing up to ride this wave. As ESPN told me: Consumers will punish brands who don’t have a rewarding mobile presence. It has passed the point of a “nice to have.”

I expand on this topic in a new mobilegroove.com column http://www.mobilegroove.com/olympics-are-coming-out-party-for-multi-screen-vi...

What To Do and Not Do In Mobile

Mobile Marketer asked for the Top Do and Top Don’t for mobile. Of course, there are more than one of each, but here is how I responded:

"Do know your customer and plan mobile accordingly.

"It is important for marketers to know who their target audience is and figure out who they are trying to reach.

“Steve Mura, director of digital marketing at MillerCoors, knew that the iPhone would raise the profile of mobile, but it would take the introduction of Android devices to satisfy his ‘guys’ – relatively young males who demand choice. Steve and his teams spent more aggressively on mobile once he was confident that the Android was in the hands of his customers and a vital part of their day."

"Don’t chase so-called shiny objects while neglecting the products and services in mobile that work.

"Companies should stop looking at what the latest trend is and figure out what medium works best for them.

“The objectives are to sell more product, and to drive engagement and loyalty. If you spend only against the newest products, you likely will only move your business backward.”

The full article is here http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/strategy/13367.html

Can We Measure Mobile Campaigns?

One of the questions posed in Mobilized Marketing is whether there is enough measurement in mobile to make intelligent decisions.

ESPN’s John Kosner believes that a bigger flow of brand dollars to mobile will solve the mobile metrics woes.

“It’s weak now, but in my experience the measurement follows the money,” says the ESPN General Manager of Digital and Print Media. “Everybody complains where it is now. We’ll see significant expansion in the measurement in the next five to 10 years. In the meantime, companies like ours — that have great products, demonstrate scale and represent a safe buy — may benefit disproportionately in a world less measured.”

I wrote about this question and others in a new, long post for Mediapost and OMMA Magazine. You can see it here. http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/178999/what-marketers-should-as...

Mobile Is The New Black. No, It Isn't.

Mobile Marketer asked me to comment on the assertion that mobile is the new black.

Please.

My first thought was the time three weeks ago when I was standing before some of the smartest marketers in the country. If I threw out such a statement, they would’ve thrown me out.

Here’s what I told the publication:

“It’s up to brands and not vendors to determine if mobile's time is here.

“The most successful programs, like Ford's 15.4 percent lead conversion and Macy's expanding Backstage Pass in-store campaign, involve proven products and services like SMS and the mobile Web.

“Happily, for the most part, brand marketers are smarter than to fall for shiny objects that often only move their businesses backward.”

“Of course, it's early and traditional media spends far outpace mobile ones. Mobile gives brands the ability to provide relevant, contextual information and offers and the promise of a one-to-one rather than one-to-many relationship.

“Smart marketers are thinking post-click or install as well, seeking to turn what could be a one-time interaction into the beginning of a monetizable relationship. Mobile marketing and mobile advertising are maturing.

“Consumers expect to see their favorite brands delivering top-notch mobile executions. In fact, more and more, they are punishing brands that fail to deliver. Mobile's growth is accelerating due to more consumer interest, innovation, and proof of success that has come in the industry's earliest years.”

The full piece is here. Wear black while reading, please. http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/content/13317.html