Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Where "Mobile Addicts" Turn 60 Times A Day

Despite unfettered access to the mobile web, 280 million smartphone users around the world turn to an app or apps at least 60 times a day, Flurry reported. The top category is messaging, followed by utilities, games, finance and news and magazines. Certainly Facebook’s popularity is a big part of this story.

On Disneyland's 60th birthday, it’s important to note how innovative Disney remains. It’s MagicBands, used by tens of millions of park visitors, show how consumers will give up their location in exchange for value – shorter lines, faster restaurant reservations, and more. Much more on this is in my The Art of Mobile Persuasion book.

Spam has fallen below 50% of all email for the first time since 2003, per Symantec.

On mobile, the average viewing session on YouTube is more than 40 minutes, up more than 50% year-over-year.

One-in-3 parents say they've had concerns or questions about a child's tech use, according to Pew. I would’ve guessed the number to be significantly higher.

Also, Pew told us that 47% of parents on Facebook are friends with their children.

Angry Birds 2 will launch on Apple's iOS at month’s end. My soon to be 86-year-old mother in law will be among first to get this.

A gentleman likely in his 60s, who was wearing an Apple Watch, approached me recently in a mall. "I see you are wearing an Apple Watch. Have you been able to figure yours out?" I told him, "Not really". His watch was given to him by his son, who works for Apple.

Google confirmed a buy button is coming soon to mobile search results.

More Google news – it introduced Eddystone, an open source, cross-platform Bluetooth LE beacon format.

Nine of 10 always keep their mobile device within arm’s distance, IBM reported.

While the number of apps used has been flat for two years, the time spent on apps has risen 63%, Nielsen said.

Companies that weren’t ready for the over-hyped Mobilegeddon lost up to 10% of traffic: Adobe.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Could Brick and Mortar Retailers Be That Slow To Adapt?

83% more retailers plan to identify customers when they walk in the store within five years, according to Boston Retail Partners' 2015 CRM/Unified Commerce Survey. My immediate take and one that I still have days after first seeing this? They don't have five years.

Have these entities not seen the latest mCommerce trends ($76.79 billion projected to be purchased from mobile phones in 2015) or talked to their customers?

Already with 11 million users of Magicbands, Disney is expand the use of its breakthrough mobile tech to more parks.

As you may know, I have struggled to find significant benefits of Apple Watch. Apparently I’m not thinking hard enough. Someone wrote that a by-product of Apple Watch use is not spilling hand lotion when fumbling for an iPhone. Oh.

Four more weeks and it will be 25 years of marriage. I know, you'll have to ask my wife. eHarmony, you can stop sending the “find love” promos via Twitter and email.

Trending the other day: Lady Gaga documenting "the long process" of going blonde for the summer. And you questioned the value of Twitter.

Borrell Associates surveyed more than 7,000 SMBs and found that they spend 5.6% of their revenue on advertising with 22% of their ad budget going to digital.

Shop-by-text message has come to Nordstrom. Wonderful. My wife doesn’t have enough ways to spend there.

Mobile's importance according to marketer and influencer Gary Vaynerchuk: "I truly think my only competitor in business is your index finger."

Nearly two-thirds of parents and caregivers in a University of Washington survey spent less than 5 percent of their time at the park using a phone, including 41 percent did not use a phone at all. The data came from researcher observations, not from self-reported behavior that might be inaccurate or fudged.

Ten years ago this month, Wireless Amber Alert was created to use mobile to help law enforcement find abducted kids.

Disney Proves That The Naysayers Belong In Fantasyland

The cynics said that we would protect our privacy at all costs.

The doubters waved their arms and said that there wasn’t anything to entice us in large numbers to join and see value in permission-based programs run by brands. We will be spammed, they foolishly predicted.

The doomsday gang said that we are all too busy to notice calls to action that ask us to do something.

Wrong.

Wrong.

And wrong.

In the most eye-opening permission-based wireless success to date, Disney World has enticed more than half of its 18.6 million annual park visitors to use its MagicBand wearable device and the accompanying app to, as Wired put it, “skip long lines, preorder food, and charge purchases to their Disney resort room. And it kind of feels … fun.” http://www.wired.com/2014/09/design-package-2014/

Fun. And of value to the masses. Here today, not something that you can only find in Fantasyland.

 “The things you want to do at the park all become the family's mission,” says Tom Staggs, Disney's chair of parks and resorts, told Wired. “Being able to lock that mission in de-stresses your whole vacation.”

And there’s value all along the journey, making the Happiest Place on Earth even happier.

According to Wired, visitors use an app to pre-select three rides for which they can enter express lines. Taking into account ride availability and proximity, the app plots those choices into itinerary options. The app also offers updates on wait times for every ride. Disney had sped up entry into the park by 25% by created V-shaped gates that all viewers to walk side by side.

Visitors can use the app to reserve a table and select a meal at Be Our Guest. When a visitor with a MagicBand crosses the bridge to the restaurant, a host greets him or her by name and the kitchen is alerted to prepare the food. Sensors in the tables let the servers know where the patron is.

The lessons here? Some want their anonymity, but not many.

Wired reported that an RFID chip lets resort guests swipe their bands to pay at any register in Disney World, access express lines, and unlock their hotel room. Readers throughout the park flash the wearer's name so that employees can give personal greetings.

Disney has seemingly thought of everything. The battery in the band works for two years because it knows to go to sleep when the wearer leaves the park.

And the design of the band ensures that it fits every wrist.

It’s all sensible and valuable.

Many of those aforementioned naysayers claim that location-based services, including ones employing beacons, will be invasive and distributors of spam. I disagree. Disney showed that on Main Street and elsewhere a responsible marketing and customer service program puts a smile on one’s face much like a few minutes on Space Mountain.

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Article first appeared on imediaconnection.com http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2014/10/06/disney-proves-that-the-naysayers-belong-in-fantasyland/?imcid=nav