Five Words To Describe Ineffective Digital Marketers

ESPN, all over your television guide and digital channels, notably uses a yardstick that measures how well as opposed to how many.

“Quality always wins,” Ryan Spoon, ESPN’s Senior Vice President of Digital and Social,  told me in an exclusive interview for my new book, The Art of Digital Persuasion.

“And that pertains to any job. Whether you're creating the content, creating a product, you're distributing the content, marketing it, whatever that might be.”

In the United States, ESPN has eight cable networks and ESPN on ABC. The digital lineup includes ESPN.com; ESPN3; ESPN Fantasy Sports; espnW, ESPNDeportes.com; TheUndefeated.com; plus a group of niche sites. ESPN+ offers thousands of live events, original programs and on-demand content. The company also has a radio network and magazine.

In short, the brand is seemingly everywhere.

ESPN has certainly made mistakes. Who can forget the ill-advised ESPN MVP phone? Then there have been the company’s missteps around digital and too many apps. It has taken until recently for ESPN to hone in on what fans really want – personalized experiences tailored to the digital channel.

Is the strategy working?

ESPN Digital ranked as the No. 1 U.S. digital sports property in February across every key metric. The network reached 88.4 million unique visitors (up +21% YOY) for its best February on record.

The ESPN mobile app was once again ranked as the No. 1 sports app in the U.S., attracting 18.5 million unique visitors and 1.3 billion minutes, up +24% and +33%, respectively YOY. ESPN Digital also was No. 1 in total minutes with 4.3 billion, which was 1.7 billion more than No. 2 Yahoo-NBC Sports (2.6 billion), and with an average minute audience of 106,000, out-delivering No. 2 Yahoo-NBC Sports (64,000).

Still, it’s less about more and more about excellence.

“I don't know the best way to say it other than just a general mantra, and that’s fewer things done better,” Spoon told me.

In other words, failure often comes when you overextend.

There are four additional words gleaned from my interviews to slap on ineffective marketers: 

Unrealistic

Identify a proven innovator and I’ll guarantee that the road to success had more than a few bumps. The smart ones know that is to be expected. We can only make our best judgments, do what we can, and hope for the best.   

“Everyone has to be relatively sober-minded when evaluating the possibility of a what might come in the future and realize that for all of us who are trying to predict what can happen, we're all partially right and partially wrong,” Aaron Price, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing, told me. 

Misguided

To those seeking clarity on the question of when they will master digital marketing, Google’s Jason Spero believes that it is all tied to delivering for consumers.

“It's likely the question of when we get to the finish line might be the wrong metaphor,” Spero, Vice President, Performance Media, explained to me. “But rather how do we recognize consumers’ expectations and how might we be able to serve her needs in a way where she may not see the technology, but she's delighted by the experience?”

Lackadaisical

Maybe next year is a mindset that frankly will get you fired. Think instead of what you can get done today in the area of digital persuasion.

“We don't have 10 years to figure it out, we've got 10 minutes,” global tech marketing strategist Tamara McCleary told me. “We are all wondering where to place our next step. We are all walking on top of quicksand, and we have to be hyper-vigilant about the steps we take. But at the same time, we also can't hold back because we could be completely disrupted if we aren't moving forward.”

Confused

Do not think for a second that gaining an understanding of today’s emerging technologies is the end game. There surely are more changes to come behind it.

So how does one cope with that prospect?

“There's going to be a lot more innovation and disruptors,” Stacy Minero, Head of Content Creation at Twitter, said to me. “I’m not sure how it will play out.  I do think that great stories that are rooted in human insight and strike a cultural chord will be sustainable forever.”

In summary, the 12 leaders interviewed shared beliefs that the task is neither easy nor for the faint of heart. Still, there was a persistent theme that there has been no better time to be a marketer, a notion embraced only by those who choose to ride the winds of change rather than get blown over by them.

Neiman Marcus Teaches Us To Differentiate Or Else

To believe that Dallas-based Neiman Marcus first discovered innovation in its second century is to make an error approximately the size of Texas.

One can go all the way back to the day it opened in 1907 to see evidence of the retailer’s forward thinking and acting.

It was the first to offer upscale fashion to the state’s wealthy, according to Wikipedia.

In 1927, Neiman Marcus premiered the first weekly retail fashion show in the United States.

Its history of innovation is deep and while nearly everything around it has changed, the retailer has survived in large part by its boldness.

“A company like Neiman Marcus didn't manage to survive one hundred and 10 plus years without being innovative,” Scott Emmons, the longtime head of the company’s innovation lab (or ‘I Lab’), told me in an exclusive interview for my new book, The Art of Digital Persuasion. https://www.amazon.com/Art-Digital-Persuasion-Innovative-Technologies-ebook/dp/B07NPCXMFJ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=art+of+digital+persuasion&qid=1554466174&s=gateway&sr=8-1

“It’s not like innovation just got invented over the last 10 years because there were iPhones.”

Yes, on one hand, you can argue that Neiman Marcus has been there, done that. But these are extraordinary times for the retail industry. Brick and mortar stores by the thousands are shutting down. Businesses are needing to compete based on not just price, but on such factors as the ability to deliver purchases in two days or less and through the use of technology that digitally puts such things as eyeglasses on one’s face, a dining room table in one’s house, and product reviews in the palm of one’s hands.

“What we're seeing is how quickly the new disruptive ideas keep coming at businesses, and their efforts to keep up with that rate of change, be more agile, and be able to bring new ideas to the table faster,” Emmons said.

Those ideas have led to emerging tech such as voice, augmented and other flavors of reality, artificial intelligence, and more.

When I asked Emmons for advice for marketers, he preached a path of managed risk.

“There is a real temptation to go out and try that bright and shiny thing just because it's cool and everybody is talking about it, and there is all kind of buzz around it,” Emmons said.

“But in the end, you go back to the simple question of what kind of projects should we be tackling. Does it solve a real problem? Or let it evolve from being a solution looking for a problem to something that can solve a problem that you've identified that you have. That's how I look at it.”

When it comes to ROI, one size does not fit all.

“I think the type of projects that we work on are varied enough that those metrics tend to be different,” Emmons told me before leaving Neiman Marcus to join TheCurrent Global consultancy. “If you're working on an RFID project, maybe our metric is did we get our level of inventory accuracy to ‘X’ percent and because our inventory accuracy was better, we lifted sales by this much. You can apply actual traditional lift measurement to see how well something is performing.

“Then you have other types of experiences that have never been done before. And the amount of work it takes to actually tie it back into your transactional systems is large. And so it may be worth it just to try that experience and see if the customers like it, and observe how they interact with it, and sort of take a test drive and not necessarily have a defined ROI on it.”

Others I interviewed offered invaluable advice as well:

ESPN, all over your television guide and digital channels, notably uses a yardstick that measures how well as opposed to how many.

“Quality always wins,” Ryan Spoon, ESPN’s Senior Vice President of Digital and Social, told me. “And that pertains to any job. Whether you're creating the content, creating a product, you're distributing the content, marketing it, whatever that might be.”

To those seeking clarity on the question of when they will master digital marketing, Google’s Jason Spero believes that it is all tied to delivering for consumers.

“It's likely the question of when we get to the finish line might be the wrong metaphor,” Spero, Vice President, Performance Media, explained to me. “But rather how do we recognize consumers’ expectations and how might we be able to serve her needs in a way where she may not see the technology, but she's delighted by the experience?”

What I learned in writing The Art of Digital Persuasion is that successful businesses and marketers innovate to differentiate. The first action for you to take is to place that 2018 marketing playbook in the trash. That was then. The question is what are you going to do now?

How "Out With The Old" Can Leave You Out In The Cold

Artificial. Virtual. Augmented. Machine-driven.

These and other words have entered the marketer’s lexicon.

Out with the old. In with the new.

Or not.

“There's going to be a lot more innovation and disruptors,” Stacy Minero, Head of Content Creation at Twitter, told me in an exclusive interview for my new book, The Art of Digital Persuasion. https://amzn.to/2KmpMz7

“I’m not sure how it will play out.  I do think that great stories that are rooted in human insight and strike a cultural chord will be sustainable forever.”

Of course, human insight has been key for marketers for generations. Minero appreciates the introduction of algorithms but sees them as an element in the modern marketing mix rather than a game-changing end-all.

“You're never going to take humans out of the creative process,” she said. “That’s because ideas come from understanding mindset and motivation and universal human truths. But I think technology will continue to up our game in terms of optimization, everything from understanding what hair color resonates in a video to the type of product and packaging you should showcase in a shot.”

Here are three more lessons learned during my half-year of spending time with a dozen digital marketing pioneers.

Participate Rather Than Only Observe

The decades-old concept of focus groups shouldn’t be dismissed even today. However, one expert strongly told me that we need to not just hear others talk about emerging technology, we should experience it ourselves.

“I've always been someone who likes to ‘live in the future’ and I’ve been fortunate enough to have roles where I’m working with cutting edge technology and then going out and speaking to others about what the impacts are,” explained Dave Isbitski, Amazon’s Chief Evangelist, Alexa & Echo.

“That means constantly looking at new technology trends, learning how they apply to our lives, and in the end teaching people what that future may look like. It helps generate people’s ideas and then they run with it.  For a marketer, tech adoption is no different than any other topic. Keep on top of the latest buzz and trends, look at what the community is saying, whether through social media or at networking events, and start to use the latest technology in your own life.”

The learnings, Isbitski told me, are invaluable.

“Not being a late adopter can have tremendous benefit here,” he said. “I’ve talked to marketers who have been using Alexa since 2015 and the ideas they have for what conversations are possible are very different than someone who has never used a device at all.

“Using early versions of technology today can give you a vision for what tomorrow may look like.”

Remember History When It Comes To Adoption

“Any transformative technology encounters challenges to mainstream adoption in its early lifetime, such as cost, size, comfort, and technical barriers,” Microsoft’s Lorraine Bardeen, General Manager Studio Manager, Mixed Reality, told me. “We’ve seen this all before with the very first computers, the Internet, and mobile phones.”

Bardeen said that B2B usage commonly precedes B2C acceptance. That is why she is bullish on Microsoft’s HoloLens progress that has come with business growth.

“Just like the evolution of other similar technology, we expect momentum for the technology to begin in the commercial space and then trickle outward to consumers,” she said.

Microsoft’s Bardeen forecasts a place for all flavors of reality, including mixed, augmented and virtual.

“We believe that these are not separate concepts, but rather labels for different points on a mixed reality continuum,” she said. “The reality is that if one succeeds, then the ecosystem succeeds, and we’re interested in further education and adoption of the spectrum as a whole.

“Specific to marketing, this technology allows marketers to engage with their audiences in new interactive and immersive ways. The possibilities truly are limitless.”

Think Experience Rather Than Technology

Google’s Jason Spero has a healthy respect for technology. He, however, sees it more as an enabler than a story in and of itself.

“The consumer doesn't see the technology,” the Vice President, Performance Media, explained to me. “What the consumer sees is that they should be able to continue their game from a tablet to a mobile phone. That is a logical, rational, human thought.

“And so the better we can do in our research of studying those expectations of consumers, of understanding the moments where they expect things of us, and then drag the technology along with us kicking and screaming, we need to build those experiences.”

 In summary, the digital leaders interviewed rely as much on the lessons of the past than the vision of the future. We would be wise to follow down that path.

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(first appeared on Mobile Marketer - https://bit.ly/2X0AmgG)

Now What?

In 2015, I wrote The Art of Mobile Persuasion, a book about the relationships that people have with their mobile devices.

It’s safe to describe them then and now as intimate, engrossing and integral.

The central questions in The Art of Mobile Persuasion were whether brands have opportunities to get in on that action or is three a crowd?

Since then, some businesses have muffed the chance, taking an approach that has been deemed as invasive, impersonal, and/or offering no value. But others large and small have knocked gently, ingratiated themselves, brought something that was welcomed, and seen resulting increases in awareness, loyalty and sales.

To the former group, what were you thinking?

To the latter, we’re good now, right?

Well, no.

Why? The playing field has changed.

Our nurtured customers and prospects are now being wooed by other means.

Though voice interfaces.

And wearables.

Smart appliances, even toilets.

And OTT (over the top) devices.

Virtual and mixed reality software and hardware.

And the list goes on. There’s every reason to believe that the pulls for attention will grow this year, next year, and every year after that.

Of course, this brings with it all sorts of complications.

·      Where will we find our customers and prospects?

·      Where we do want to lead them and what must they find when they get there?

·      How does all of this innovation affect the customer journey?

·      If personalization is the so-called North Star, how do we deliver this on the screens and interfaces of today – and the ones surely coming behind those?

And how does the relationship that your brand has steadily built with customers via the mobile phone survive, evolve, and thrive when eyes and ears are drawn to even more places?

In my new book The Art of Digital Persuasion, the conversation broadens to today’s interfaces, devices, behaviors and technologies.

I again have had the pleasure and privilege of visiting with some of the sharpest marketers and other business leaders that one can identify. I sought out real-world experience, perspective, and advice to give us the knowledge, skills and confidence that we all need to do our jobs -- and, in many cases, to reimagine our current outdated positions given these upended times.

I share what leaders from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, ESPN, and others are doing and thinking to address the core question of the new book:

Now what?

The book is now available on Amazon. https://amzn.to/2G4CrCu

 I hope that you’ll give it a look and take the time to learn from these experts just as I have.

Is Limiting The Unlimited The Way To Serve The Mobile Appetite?

The all-you-can-eat buffet has been described in Food and Wine magazine as "the epitome of American gluttony." That title is now in jeopardy.

To hear Apple and Google these days, mobile has become for some like the Bloomin' Onion, or the equivalent of 3,080 calories in one sitting. We know that we are full at 2,000, but we can't seem to help ourselves.

Social networks. Push notifications. Time spent watching videos. Netflix. YouTube. And more. Each adult mobile user in the U.S. spends 3.3 hours per day on mobile devices, according to Mary Meeker's latest report. According to the NPD Group, the average U.S. smartphone user now consumes a total of 31.4 GB of data on a monthly basis (including both Wi-Fi and cellular). Cellular data usage among consumers with unlimited plans is 67% higher than those with limited plans, per NPD.

How did we get here and what does this all mean for marketers?

First off, is the present any different than what we could've — or should've — imagined? We have given users unlimited data, high-definition large screens, content to entertain, inspire and teach, and access to almost anything wherever and whenever. Should we have believed that mobile users who have unlimited plans wanted just a few bites of the mobile's version Bloomin' Onion? Did we expect consumers to spend hundreds of dollars on a device to just keep it in their pockets? Have we not conditioned our customers and prospects to come to us on mobile any time and at all times?

Now Google and Apple, whose operating systems are in the hands of 99% of mobile users in the U.S., have introduced efforts to enable us to help ourselves. At its I/O conference in May, Google unveiled tools to help create balance. It said that 70% of users want help. Recently, Apple introduced Screen Time, which, when released this fall with iOS 12, will give Apple customers app and device usage information and lets them limit access if they want to cut down. Screen Time features include activity reports, app limits and new "do not disturb" and notifications controls designed to help customers "reduce interruptions and manage screen time for themselves and their families."

Notable for marketers, iOS 12 gives customers more options for controlling how notifications are delivered. Users will be able to manage notifications to be turned off completely or delivered directly to a special notification hub. Siri can also make suggestions for notifications settings, such as to quietly deliver them or turn alerts off.

Screen Time creates detailed daily and weekly reports that show the total time a person spends in each app they use, their usage across categories of apps, how many notifications they receive and how often they pick up their iPhone or iPad. People can take control of how much time they spend in a particular app, website or category of apps. The app limits feature lets people set a specific amount of time to be in an app, and a notification will display when a time limit is about to expire.

This changes everything for marketers. Or does it? It's always been about delivering value: quality not quantity. The fact that so much time is spent on mobile devices may indicate to some that marketers are succeeding. But the savvy marketer understands that these upcoming tools give consumers the power to shut off the unwanted features and to curate exactly the individual experience that they want.

Meaning, campaigns will be affected. In a nine-month period ending in March of this year, brands sent 300% more push notifications than in the previous nine months, according to Adobe. With consumers soon having the ability to dispatch pushes away from the home screen, more care and thought will be necessary to ensure that those messages sent to consumers are viewed in a timely and actionable fashion.

Measurement of programs will also need to be adjusted. A key metric since the iPhone debuted has been time spent. Clearly, marketers and developers must rethink the idea that it's all about how long they can keep mobile users engaged.

So is mobile going to give the gluttony descriptor back to the buffet? Time will tell. Surely, all-you-can-eat mobile usage works for tens of millions. Many are entertained, more productive and enjoy access to friends and family that can't be replicated elsewhere. Plus, their waistlines aren't affected.

It's all about choice and perceived value. The former will definitely be driven by the latter. Soon more than ever.

(first appeared at https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/is-limiting-the-unlimited-the-way-to-serve-the-mobile-appetite/525428/)

For Gen Z, Mobile Is The New Primetime

To misunderstand today’s youth is to view their digital habits as some sort of a tectonic shift.

Away from the television set.

Away from mass programming.

Away from long-established viewing dayparts.

For that to be true, Generation Z would have had to had started with large screens, habits of watching shows from the big networks, and a regimen of primarily engaging with content during the evening hours.

None of that, in fact, is reality.

Some of those born between 1998 and 2016 undoubtedly had a mobile phone in one hand with a pacifier in the others.  We, ummm, had an Etch A Sketch.

Preferred screen?

While you and I can point to our very own first television as a milestone moment, Gen Z considers getting a phone as an important life event. Today’s teens got their first phone when they were around 12.

Desired content?

Seven in 10 teens told Google that they spend more than three hours per day watching mobile video. And much of the consumption comes via YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram and is user generated rather than Hollywood produced.

Time of day?

The smartphone is in Gen Z’s hands from sun up well past dinner time. Viewing happens on the bus, at the lunch table, during recess, and every other time that this group wants to be entertained, informed or otherwise occupied.

For Gen Z, mobile is the new primetime.

While Fast Company says that “media and market research companies have labeled Generation Z ‘screen addicts’ with the attention span of a gnat,” ignoring the generation’s influence on a company’s business success is a foolish exercise for a marketer.

Gen Z is 26% of the U.S. population with $44B annual purchasing power. Two in three teens make purchases online and of those, more than half are making purchases on their phones.

But capturing their attention is not without challenges. Gen Z is 80% more likely to always be multi-screening compared to their parents, per Tremor Media and Hulu - https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1784809/Gen%20Z/TremorVideo_Hulu_GenZ_WhitePaper.pdf?t=1498768502219.

Here’s more from an excellent series of reports by Google: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/interactive-report/gen-z-a-look-inside-its-mobile-first-mindset/

“Gen Z never knew the world before the internet - before everything you could ever need was one click away. They never knew the world before terrorism or global warming. As a result, Gen Z is the most informed, evolved, and empathetic generation of its kind. They value information, stimulation, and connection, evident by their affinity for YouTube, Google, and Netfix.

“They also have high hopes for the brands they choose. From Nike to X-Box, they expect big things.  As professionals, we should see this as our challenge—to live up to the standard Gen Z has set for us and to continue to inform, inspire, and create products and marketing that facilitate the world in which they want to live.”

Of course, not all Gen Z’ers are the same. It’s prudent for marketers to understand the nuances.

For black teens, mobile music rules.

Eighty-six percent do so on their phones every week, significantly more than all teens, and nearly 6 in 10 say they spend more than three hours every day listening to music on their phones.

Two in three black teens make purchases online, and of those, more than half are making purchases on their phones.

Black teens are more likely to have positive attitudes towards brands, and to consider them 'cool,’ if they feel as though the message is personalized to them.

Nearly one-quarter of all 13- to 17-year-olds are Hispanic, and they are the fastest-growing teen demographic.

While listening to music is the top mobile activity, 3 in 4 Hispanic teens say they spend 3+ hours per day watching video on their phones.

Eight in 10 Hispanic teens make purchases online, compared to two-thirds of all teens. And of those who shop online, over half are making most of their purchases on their phones.

As to advertising, Gen Z’ers actually aren’t all that different from you and me.

For teens, ads impact a product’s “cool” factor. What makes a product cool?

-       If friends are talking about it

-       If I see an ad about it

-       If it’s something personalized to me

But when it comes to social media, Gen Z is two to three times more likely to be influenced by social media than by sales or discounts — the only generation to value social media over price when it comes to making purchase decisions, according to a study by IRI https://www.retaildive.com/news/gen-z-twice-as-influenced-by-social-media-as-by-deals/505274/

And Gen Z is twice as likely to convert on mobile. https://www.retaildive.com/news/gen-z-twice-as-likely-to-convert-on-mobile/447867/

This leaves marketers where?

At the least, in need of a mental shift that causes us to look at today in an entirely new way. Just as Gen Z is doing.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - What's Worse Than Mobile Shopping At The Thanksgiving Table?

Here’s the answer to the coming complaints about you shopping via mobile at the Thanksgiving dinner table: at least, you are not doing it on the potty. A PayPal holiday buying survey showed that 22% say they will shop on the toilet. That compares to 34% who will purchase in bed for their partner or spouse while sleeping next to them, and 35% who will shop between such activities as passing the cranberry sauce and downing three pieces of pecan pie.

Only one in six shopping carts converts on smartphones, per Adobe.

Mobile shoppers will account for 34% of ecommerce sales during the holidays, Adobe added.

Seventy-five percent of internet use in 2017 will be mobile, Zenith says. The same company predicts that mobile advertising will overtake desktop ad spending next year.

Nearly 75% of U.S. adults will use smartphones in 2016: eMarketer.

How important are mobile web sites? Purchases made via mobile browsers are more common than transactions completed in merchants’ native apps, according to Javelin. Transactions via mobile browsers in 2015 totaled $75.3 billion, while apps accounted for $46.9 billion.

The majority of smartphones and tablet users in Germany said they have only downloaded free apps, eMarketer reported.

Thirty-nine percent of people have downloaded malware on to their smartphone, per Crowd Research Partners.

By 2018, nearly 8 in every 10 programmatic dollars will be spent on mobile: eMarketer.

Mobile paid search has increased by 134% since last year, Merkle said.

By 2020, mobile video will represent 75% of global mobile data traffic: Cisco.

Google makes more ad dollars from mobile than from the desktop globally, according to eMarketer’s estimates of ad revenues at major publishers.

Last year, one-third of shoppers made a purchase on Black Friday or Thanksgiving with their mobile phone, per Forbes.

12.5 billion dollars were spent via mobile during the 2015 holiday season: Internet Retailer.

A Nielsen study showed that adults in the U.S. visit more desktop sites than smartphone sites, but the gap is narrowing. During May, Nielsen adults visited an average of 55 PC sites, down from 61 the prior year and 62 the year before. By comparison, adults visited 44 smartphone sites, up from 38 in May 2015 and 36 in May 2014.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The Ramifications of Bad Mobile Experiences

The rising expectations of mobile users have been well-documented and covered extensively in my The Art of Mobile Persuasion book. Now comes word that one third of mobile consumers would never purchase from brands that fail to deliver.

Alternatively, Sitecore reported, when a good mobile experience is achieved, 76% report that it has an influence on their loyalty to a brand.

Nearly one third of all mobile searches on Google are related to location.

Location-related mobile searches are growing 50% faster than mobile searches in general.

According to Nissan UK data, 6% of mobile ad clicks result in a trip to a dealership.

Nearly 1 in 4 people abandon mobile apps after only one use: Localytics.

Only 24% of mobile app users worldwide return to an app the day after they first use it: Appboy.

Another from Localytics: 62% of users will use an app less than 11 times.

Over 419 million individuals block ads on their smartphones, per PageFair. The number represents 22% of all individuals who own a smartphone worldwide.

Email is the most popular function of smartphone users (78%), followed by web browsing (73%), Facebook (70%) and looking at maps and directions (63%): IDC and Facebook.

Just 52% of small businesses had a mobile-optimized website in February 2016: Yodle, and Research Now.

More than one-third of US internet users said they first find out about small businesses when researching online, according to a survey by Vistaprint.

Nearly six in 10 mobile gamers watch an ad 10 times a week, via TapResearch.

Mobile sales growth exceeded desktop growth by nearly 10x last holiday season: comScore.

81% couldn’t go a day without their mobile device: O2.

Eight in 10 Twitter users are on mobile.

Four out of five 18 to 24-year-olds (81%) say that using mobile banking is helping them to actually save money: per Halifax’s Generation Save report. A further 65% of these young people say mobile banking makes them more likely to move money into savings accounts.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The Lowering Age of the Smartphone User

The average age for a child getting their first smartphone is now 10.3 years, according to Influence Central’s new report called Kids & Tech: The Evolution of Today’s Digital Natives.

As first reported by TechCrunch:

• Tablets have surged from 26% to 55% usage as kids’ device of choice during car rides. Smartphones trail at 45% (up from 39% in 2012).
• 64% of kids have access to the Internet via their own laptop or tablet, compared to just 42% in 2012
• 39% of kids get a social media account at 11.4 years. 11% got a social media account when they were younger than 10.

Uber shared the fact that riders will pay the most their phone battery is dying. But it says that it doesn’t take that information into account and gouge people. “We absolutely don’t use that to kind of like push you a higher surge price, but it’s an interesting kind of psychological fact of human behavior,” Uber’s head of economic research Keith Chen told NPR.

By 2018, the number of chat app users will reach 2 billion globally and represent 80% of global smartphone users: Forrester.

Google and Levi's have partnered on a smart jacket that can answer calls, play your music and go in the wash, recode reported.

An eMarketer study said that 35% of mobile app users want more personalized experiences. My question - 65% don't want more personalization or they don't understand the concept?

Another eMarketer report caught my eye: only 31% of marketers surveyed have a customer engagement process that they are consistently applying across business units.

#NationalSendANudeDay was trending on Twitter the other day. Questions from me - send ‘em where? College? Out of the country? To a "friend's" house?

Google says that 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches. That is expected to pick up significantly in the next couple of years.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - MLB is Big League With Mobile App

It isn’t called the major leagues for nothing. Major League Baseball had 8.4 billion minutes streamed to its mobile app in 2015, per comScore. A total of 53% of the total minutes consumed were in the At Bat app with users watching or listening to games. The activity was more than than in all other U.S. official sports leagues apps combined.

Nearly one in four shoppers say that they have changed their minds while in a checkout line after looking up details on a smartphone: Google.

Meerkat is dropping the livestream. It’s a cautionary tale for those looking at "solutions"at SXSW that may be shiny and not stand test of time,

Headline: Retail Executives Say Mobile Investments to Increase This Year. Me: you don't say.

Two weeks after calling for an Apple boycott call, Donald Trump was using an iPhone to send half of his tweets: Marketing Land.

A man with a gun while taking selfies fatally shot himself in Concrete, Washington, police say. Interestingly, the Russian government has issued a guide to discourage people from taking dangerous selfies.

Consumers’ use of health apps and wearables has doubled in the past two years, according to Accenture.

After all this time, Apple has now opened a Twitter account to answer tech questions and to deal with problems.

I read a story that predicted: "When you tuck your iPhone 9 into your back pocket, it may well flex to conform to the contours of your butt" I can only say yay.

One in 10 U.S. Internet users (31.1 million people) will be mobile-only this year, eMarketer reported.

Mobile payments make up only 3% Of U.S. transactions, per GfK. Weren’t we told that cash would be gone by some Tuesday in 2015?

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Another Reason To Smile At The Selfie

Despite its negative reputation in some circles, I will argue that the selfie has done more to drive smartphone adoption and bring people closer than any other recent product enhancement. I came across another reason to smile:

Until March 14, Disney Parks will donate $5 to Make-A-Wish – up to $1 million – for every “ear photo” shared on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #ShareYourEars. What kind of ears? “Cool ears. Funny ears. Mickey Mouse ears. We want to see them all!”

So show ‘em.

Customizing vehicles and watching a video on a manufacturer’s website are the most common activities on desktops for vehicle-shopping individuals, per Ipsos. On mobile, Nos. 1 and 2 are reaching out to family and friends and reaching out to a dealership or salesperson.

Ninety percent of smartphone users have used their devices to find a location, per Pew. The activity upended the free-standing and pricey navigation units that we no longer use or want.

Gizmodo reported the availability of the first smartphone with built-in FLIR thermal vision that can also survive a hurricane. The line of people is short for such a “need”.

Yahoo's Simon Khalaf says that we're at the end of Mobile 1.0 and we're entering Mobile 2.0. Let’s commit to punching anyone who calls 2016 The Year of Mobile 2.0.

More from Khalaf: time in the mobile browser decreased from 20% to 9% since 2013.

Emergency room visits by distracted walkers are up 124% in five years, reported The Wall Street Journal.

LinkedIn should block users from sending generic invites to connect. Someone needs to save these dolts from being stupid and lazy.

An Adweek infographic showed that 32% use tech or an app to track exercise. But left unanswered is whether others don’t exercise or just not track.

After all these years and successes, do we still need stories about the importance of building a mobile loyalty club though SMS opt-in? It isn't that I question the notion that these clubs are valuable. But are we still at such elementary how-to stage?

Eighty-two percent of TV ad-driven searches during Super Bowl were done on smartphones, vs. 70% in 2015: Google. But only 7% on tablets as smartphones continue to eat into the use of those devices.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Acknowledging A Gap In Personalization Results

One of big opportunities for Gap is personalization "but it may not be this year. It's the holy grail" -- Caroline Sheu, the company’s VP of Global Digital Marketing, said at the excellent Mobile Ventures Summit event in San Francisco.

More from Sheu - it's apps and mobile web, not one or the other. Be everywhere the customer lives, she said.

And one last one – the best foot forward for Gap is building an app for its best customers, not one that is for all. It’s about focus and working the funnel. Others like REI have said the same thing.

One in 3 smartphone owners have streamed video via a subscription service on their phone: Pew.

Mobile accounted for 52% percent of Google clicks (including ads and organic) in the fourth quarter of 2015, per Merkle/RKG.

40% of PepsiCo's Super Bowl budget is going to digital, including Snapchat, Adweek reported.

100 million hours of video are watched daily on Facebook, the company said.

Pinterest's mobile users exceeded desktop within a day of launching the mobile app, according to the company’s Kevin Knight.

RBC's Mark Mahaney said mobile became material when it reached 20% of revenue or traffic.

Visa will brings NFC (near field communications) to all the payment terminals at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl 50.

As much as the media makes it out to be a sprint, mobile payments is a marathon that will take decades -- Visa's Chris Curtin, Chief Brand & Innovation Marketing Officer.

Facebook earned $5,630,000,000 in Q4 in revenue from advertising, and about 80% of that came from mobile. Mobile ad revenue was up 82% year over year.

Leaders who measure impact of their online and offline spend will allocate up to 20% of their budget to mobile – Forrester.

Broadcast advertising spending jumped 13% to end 2015, while overall TV spending was up 9%: Standard Media Index. Take note, mobile and social hypesters.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - When Smartphones Are Used By Dumb People

An Ohio fugitive who sent police a selfie because he didn't like his mugshot was tracked down and arrested. Note modern devices are called smartphones. No one says that they are used only by smart people.

56% of smartphone users purchased a product using an app in 2015: Verizon.

I’m getting more spam voice calls on mobile - way more than spam texts. WTF?

In the poorest countries, mobile phones cost 1/5 to 1/2 of monthly income. In U.S., it's under 1%, per The World Bank.

Google paid Apple $1 billion to be the search engine on your iPhone, according to court documents.

Uber usage by business travelers surpassed taxi and car rentals in 2015, VentureBeat reported.

20% of U.S. homes now have a smart TV, 56% have a tablet and 82% of people have a smartphone, Nielsen said.

Amazon now sells as much clothing as 250 Walmart stores sell altogether: Re/Code.

Uber is preparing to go live with full-scale food delivery service in 10 U.S. cities this quarter, according to The Wall Street Journal.

3.8 trillion photos were taken until mid-2011. 1 trillion photos were taken in 2015 alone, MIT SMR reported.

Headline: Less Than Half of Consumers Are OK With Swapping Data for Deals. Me: 47% who say good to go is huge.

Ken Chenault of American Express: mobile pay is not about the "tap", it's about what's the value? what's the service I get? Bingo.

U.S. smartphone users spent 3 hours in mobile apps and another 50 minutes in mobile browsers daily in 2015: eMarketer

I have made a living NOT hyping mobile yet it fascinates me when brands and others operate in waiting, non-priority mode.

Per NBC's Alan Wurtzel, just 51% of TV viewing is live.

Twitter asked me to promote my app. I don't have one. 2016 personalization seems like 2015's – or 2008’s.

Serving A Consumer Who Actually Wants To Be Targeted

The idea of targeting and retargeting is not new. What’s changing is the potential for cross-device targeting. We now have the capability to take the search done for an Armani necktie on a PC and use it as a trigger to send a mobile user a related communication at a later point.

But should we?

Few are as equipped to answer that question as Google’s Jason Spero, who literally has written The Mobile Playbook that is relied on by so many marketers.

“If you admire someone's shoes or their tie, in the mobile and the digital world when you didn't have connectivity at that moment, you would file it away in your head or make a note to yourself,'” Spero said in an interview for my book, The Art of Mobile Persuasion.

“As human beings, we've always had impulses, fears, hopes. What happens when you see that tie, you have connectivity. You can act on it in a way that you couldn't in previous eras. The idea of persistent connectivity makes it possible for you to act on all those impulses. You may not act on all of them. It's probably a bad thing if you act on them all because you are probably buying stuff that you don't need and tweeting out stuff that people don't want to read. But the idea of connectivity means that you can.”

“The consumer knows that he or she is connected and empowered in all these ways,” Spero explained. “The consumer's expectation is they want an easy way to buy an Armani tie if they decide to. And that's a combination of the Macy's app and Google search and maybe image search in time. Lots of different things will fuel that. But all are powered by the idea that you have a broadband connection with you constantly.

“The consumer also knows that their device has a sense of geospacial relations. You as a consumer know that with your device at any point, with a couple of exceptions, it can tell you what's around you to help you solve problems. You can go out and get the world's information with your connection or you can map the physical world around you.  You know the nearest place to get a hamburger. Or which subway will get you to the Upper East Side. Or what the check-in time is at your hotel. All these things are now available to you: the digital world and the physical world at your service.”

And with that, Spero said, comes a need for marketers to look at the world differently.

“If you start to talk about it as a commercial journey, we used to in the digital world sort of be satisfied if you will with engaging the consumer throughout her digital journey,” he told me. “But because we just said that the consumer journey is in and out of the physical worlds, presumably across many different devices, the digital experience now has to evolve.”

Ryan Craver, former Senior Vice President, Strategy, of Hudson’s Bay, told me in a The Art of Mobile Persuasion interview that he believes that targeting and retargeting is all about catering to the consumer.

Said Craver, who brought innovation into Lord & Taylor among other efforts: “If you are shopping Armani on your mobile phone, or searching for it on your mobile phone, or on your desktop computer the night before, and then you bring yourself into retailer: as long as you've been asked up front, ‘Are you willing to share your location, are you willing to share past browsing behavior?’ and then the marketer provides the customer something as part of the ad—perhaps a discount or exclusive content or something else--I think people are slowly but surely coming around to understanding that that is the way in which marketing is going to be served. It is also something that you need to pay attention to in terms of how often you send it, and how frequently you come after them.”

Another example of what Craver thought about when he started using beacons to know that opted-in users are in the brick and mortar location: “We thought a lot about cart abandonment online and how frequently we need to do something similar in stores. Certain online stores on cart abandonment, like Amazon, will hit you up the day after, hit you up seven days after, and hit you up maybe two weeks after. There are other stores, like Urban Outfitters, that will even hit you up six months later.”

So Craver and his team set business rules.

“For us as a retailer, when you come in for that Armani, if we hit you once and then we hit you two visits later, we thought that might be a bit alienating and reaching too far back,” he said. “But if it's immediate, meaning it was within the last couple of days, I think it's worthwhile. I think people are becoming desensitized to Big Brother and to this creepiness factor.”

And, surprising to some, people don’t mind being targeting. In fact, under the right circumstances, they might even welcome it.

(article first appeared on imediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2016/01/18/serving-a-consumer-who-actually-wants-to-be-retargeted/)

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Selfies and the Long Arm of the Law

To “hide” a selfie stick, an author named Mansoon purportedly bought two prop hands on Amazon, modified them and his clothes, and went into the world with the most ridiculously-looking selfie enabler that you will find. Since selfies are illegal in London, South Korea and elsewhere, I wonder if Mansoon will escape the long arm of the law.

Brands spend $3.04 to drive a single download of their mobile app; consumers use 70% of their downloaded apps once if ever, per Forrester.

Today, 90% of young adults use social media, compared with 12% in 2005.

Tweet from Fast Company: “In honor of #WorldToiletDay, how the most successful people poop at work: http://buff.ly/1MEGBKP”. I read that as how many people successfully poop at work.

eMarketer says that businesspeople are looking for short bursts of info on smartphones they need right then. Me – businesspeople or all people?

38% of job-seekers using smartphones had trouble entering a large amount of text on applications: Pew.

Also, 47% of people who used a smartphone in a job search accessed content that didn't display properly. Hello. It's 2015. A web site optimized for mobile is a must.

The YouTube Kids app hit 10 million downloads and expanded overseas.

Selling smartphone data that connects consumer demographics with locations will be a $79 billion business by 2020, according to Accenture.

850 apps are downloaded ever second from Apple’s App Store.

Dunkin Donuts has introduced mobile ordering.

The stat is a bit old but telling even today -- four apps in Google’s Play Store had been downloaded between 1 billion and 5 billion times as of September 2014 — Google Maps, Gmail, Google Play Services and YouTube, according to Pew. All four of these apps, however, are required downloads for all Android devices.

Seven apps — Facebook, Google Play Books, Google+, Google Search, Google Text-to-Speech, Google Street View and WhatsApp — had been installed between 500 million and 1 billion times. All were required downloads except for Facebook and What’sApp.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The Mobile Era Really Began 50 Years Ago With a Shoe Phone

I contend that the first mobile phone appeared 50 years ago this month when Get's Smart's Maxwell Smart said “Sorry about that, Chief” to his boss via his shoe.

88% of teens text their friends at least occasionally, and 55% do so daily, per Pew.

In the last year, T-Mobile shares have climbed 37%. Sprint's have fallen the same amount.

A smart you-know-what asked if my new The Art of Mobile Persuasion book is about sexting. #missedopportunity

Forrester says that 30 billion “mobile moments” occur in the U.S. each day.

87% of Chinese moms who are digital buyers prefer the smartphone because “they can use it anytime, anywhere,” according to eMarketer.

In 2014, 41% accessed the Internet on a mobile device, per Forrester. The number was 17% in 2011.

Mobile ad revenue is expected to overtake online for local TV by 2019, BIA/Kelsey says.

By 2019, CMO's say that 75% of budget will go to digital marketing (Accenture).

Fiksu said that iOS 9 reached 12% adoption in the first 24 hours.

Teens spend twice as much time with mobile as they do with PCs or TVs, per Marketing Land. Nearly half say that they try at least four apps a month.

Combined, QVC and Zulily have seen $2.36B in mobile sales in a year, Internet Retailer reported.

In 2014, 38% of travelers used a mobile device to make a travel purchase (Thinknear).

Mobile online back-to-school sales increased 42% this year, according to IBM.

With 36.9%, Google doubled the U.S. mobile ad revenue of Facebook, which was No. 2 in the category, per eMarketer. The gap is projected to be cut this year with Google projected to see 32.9% and Facebook looking at 19.4%. The dominance of the two companies is expected to continue at least through 2017.

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 - Facing A Life of Paying By Selfie

MasterCard is testing an app that lets customers pay with a selfie. Facial recognition enables the app to verify one’s identity. After registering, users would be able to pay by looking at their phone and blinking once. The blink prevents thieves from showing the app a picture of a face to get around the system.

For those uncomfortable with this, the app can read one’s fingerprint. Or, of course, one can pay with cash.

45% of smartphone owners begin with Amazon when shopping on a smartphone, according to a survey by Mizuho Securities. Google is in the runner-up slot with 16%.

But when it comes to searching for information, 34% begin with the Google search app, followed by 27% typing into the Safari browser, and 19% beginning with the Chrome browser.

An example of the need for more personalization in mobile – I received a text offer for a brown sugar bacon sandwich. Totally random.

The third quarter of 2015 begins and Gogo is still at dialup speed. I’m told by someone in the know that they raised their prices significantly to discourage usage while still making their overall business goal by gouging the poor suckers who use the crappy service.

What is one to do about an Apple Watch tan line. I’m surprised that CNN hasn’t covered this phenomenon and dubbed it Breaking News.

Matti Makkonen, considered the father of SMS, died at 63. He made an enormous contribution to mobile and to marketing. Despite proven results, text messaging is often too quickly dismissed by marketers.

To the next person who uses appsolutely - pow.

Facebook is giving marketers the option of paying for video ads after 10 seconds of viewing instead of three, per the Wall Street Journal.

A diet-based video game claims to make you thinner. Fat chance.

A man claimed that his iPhone 6 overheated, burst into flames. These stories almost always turn out to be hoaxes.

China’s Huawei introduced a phone with a dancing piece of pizza. I’m figuring that it was something about wanting a slice of the market.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - A Reality Check On The Dollars Spent On Mobile

In the midst of an important trend-identifying presentation at last week’s Integrated Marketing Week event in New York, an audience member tweeted that mobile will soon eclipse television in U.S. advertising spend.

I and most others disagree, given the scale that television brings even today (and for many tomorrows to come), plus a general reluctance from traditional marketers and media buyers to make a large bet on mobile so soon given issues of measurement, attribution and unproven (to some degree) return on investment.

However, several important stats were offered by a Google executive about YouTube. Among them:

-           On mobile alone, YouTube reaches more 18-34 year olds than any cable network

-           50% of global viewership on YouTube comes via mobile. Plus, viewership is growing 50% year over year

-           Millennials are 2 times more focused on video on mobile than online

-           Over 500 years of video are shared every day on YouTube

The television ad spend for 2015 was forecast to be a leading 40% of the overall $187 billion, according to Strategy Analytics. Mobile advertising was projected to grow 20% this year to reach $7.4 billion.

For the first time, U.S. advertisers will spend more on mobile search than desktop search, according to eMarketer. Mobile is forecast to become dominant in 2016 and 2017, with the spend more than 2 to 1 two years from now.

Mobile usage during shopping trips in the U.S. drives $970 billion in brick-and-mortar sales: Deloitte.

More than 7 in 10 mobile ad dollars are spent in apps this year, per eMarketer.

Mobile ads boost physical store visits by 80 percent in first day of viewing: NinthDecimal.

I learned that TGI Friday’s ran an America's Next App contest. No, not a mobile app. An appetizer. Duh.

Mobile data usage is 16% more for Hispanics in the U.S. than non-Hispanics, Nielsen reports.

An average of 8,796 photos are uploaded to Snapchat every second.

The average iPhone user has 119 apps, according to Apple.

Some of Apple's first partners for its new News app: CNN, Condé Nast, ESPN, Hearst, The New York Times, Time Inc., and Bloomberg.

I see the value of Periscope but a view of letting people in to Apple’s WWDC developer conference in California? Who cares? Shots of the grass browning weren't available?

65% of the U.S. mobile population does not use their mobile device for banking activities: comScore.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Live Más, Spend Más With Taco Bell's Mobile App

Taco Bell tells it customers to live más. It turns out that its mobile app users are spending más, too. Mobile app orders are 20% higher on average compared to in-store, according to BI Intelligence. These mobile shoppers in large numbers are adding more toppings and making group orders.

As expected, Mary Meeker’s annual look at the web and mobile brought significant learnings.

Among the best:

- In America, mobile has eclipsed the desktop in time spent in digital media - now 51%.

- Spending on mobile advertising in the U.S. is up 34% year over year.

- Only $13 billion of $50 billion total U.S. Internet ad spend is on wireless.

- User-shared and curated video is rising rapidly. There are 4 billion video views per day, up 4x in six months on Facebook.

- The next new Internet users are likely already non-smartphone ‪mobile users and most likely to onboarded via messaging platforms.

If your app fails, 47% of your customers will switch to the competition, according to IBM.

74% of people 55+ used the mobile Internet in 2014, per comScore.

On a related note, my wife and I were sent a selfie from my soon-to-be 86-year-old mother-in-law.

General Motors’ Chevrolet brand will offer Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatibility in 14 vehicles for the 2016 model year.

Over eight in 10 interested in wearables want such devices to enhance in-store experience: PowerReviews. For these, such devices are more than health and fitness tools.

Through a partnership with Shazam, Target is giving app users the ability to scan any of its print or television ads to access “shoppable” content.

75% of Google mobile search revenues come from Apple devices.

Friday was National Biscuit Day? My appreciative dogs have a ruff life.

Google and Apple have adjusted their strategies on mobile payments. We’ll see more tie-ins with loyalty plans, but still need consumer education. Much more, in fact.

Native Apple Watch apps are coming this fall. Not a minute too soon. The current experience is exasperating.