When Closeness Via Mobile Is Too Close

In a subway car or on a mobile device, there is getting close. And there’s getting too close.

It didn’t have the stench or uneasy feeling of that “Close Encounter of the D Train” kind, but a moment at this week’s CEO/CMO Summit put on by the Mobile Marketing Association had even the hardened of marketers turning up their noses.

xAd took to the stage to unveil a new product that gets marketers to “the intersection of places and people.” Within Footprints, we can see a real-time map showing where consumers are. An example used showed how a toothpaste brand can serve up an ad to someone that it knows at the dentist’s office.

There was significant pushback during the presentation and afterward with several noting that a dentist’s visit is off limits for brands even if the technology is there to reach out to a mobile user before, during or after a deep clean or root canal. 

The topics of privacy, permission and personalization led if you gauged the 2 ½ day conference in Hilton Head on time spent.

Already a leader in mobile interaction, ESPN sought answers as to whether it could – or should – seek to opt fans in for the short term when they enter a ballpark. Benefits could include access to exclusive content, upgrades to seats, and meet and greets with announcers, among other things. This one seemed easy to answer – why not?

Some in attendance lamented the lack of cookies in mobile. Cameron Clayton of The Weather Company (formerly The Weather Channel) said that location is “like a mobile cookie”. But he admitted that many consumers appreciate the absence of cookies and don’t believe that giving up one’s location to get local weather gives license to advertisers. The company gets thousands of complaints a day from those offended by ads tied to location.

Martin Cooper, called “the father of mobile” for his invention of the first cellphone, said that we’re headed for the ultimate in personalization.

“In health care, instead of curing disease, we should be preventing disease,” Cooper told us. “The annual physical exam is essentially worthless because there is no baseline. Soon we’ll be able to have a physical examination every minute and anticipate a disease before it happen.

“In a few years, we’ll be able to sense a few cancer cells in the body and zap them before the cancer spreads. Every disease will be curable.”

Whether that personalization comes through wearables remains to be seen.

Earlier at the event, Pebble’s head of partnerships and business development made an unconvincing argument for the need for wearables today.

Said Asad Iqbal: “You cannot expect consumers to always be engaged on their mobile device.”

That was a head-scratch for me given smartphone stats and consumer behavior. Pebble’s premise for a wearable came off as a luxury, giving users redundant access and speed when it may not be needed.

On Twitter, a reaction to Iqbal’s comments was that wearables don’t, at least for now, solve a problem.

The MMA opened the conference by teasing the notion that a 16% share of the marketing spend for mobile could bring companies like Coca-Cola an additional $1 billion in market cap. Most brands spend in the single digits and have yet to be convinced that more is justified.

Still, we learned lots from major brand marketers.

Addressing questions about the ROI on mobile, Andrew Flack, Hilton Worldwide’s Vice President - Product Marketing & Customer Insights, said that just as Hilton knew when it was time to put TV’s and air conditioning in rooms, it knows that “now is the time for mobile.”

Flack’s advice? “Be prepared to not be perfect. In a year, three or four things will work. One will be OK. One will be a learning.”

Also, contrary to what one might expect, there was extensive talk about success through text messaging (Perry Ellis and Cosi were the most vocal) and nary a mention of beacons.

While not smelling like a rose, mobile’s future seemed brighter than when we got on planes traveling to Hilton Head.

(article first appeared on Mobile Marketer - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/18245.html)

Tackling The Real Problems

The courageous woman who escaped oppressive China to revolutionize 3D printing for the good of mankind and the surfer-looking gentleman who runs Not Impossible Labs and puts arms on children’s war-torn bodies are the ones who are changing the world.

What about the rest of us, who attended this week’s CEO/CMO Summit put on by the Mobile Marketing Association?

We’re tackling “problems” such as scale, attribution, privacy and the marketing spend mix.

Talk about a reality check.

Sure, what we’re doing is important. Billions, eventually trillions, of dollars hang in the balance. As marketers, we need to get this mobile thing right.

But we are not Ping Fu, who co-founded Geomagic, a revolutionary 3D software company. Ping knows a level of resilience that is off the charts. Nor are we Mick Ebeling, who won’t leave a room until a seemingly insurmountable challenge is solved — like creating affordable and nearly instant prosthetics for kids.

The talks by Ping and Ebeling hushed a room of more than 200 marketers, publishers and others. Their stories are etched in our minds.

Around them, we batted around ways to get “closer to the consumer” via mobile.

Here’s some of what I found interesting:

- My belief going into the conference is that we’re in the first inning of one-to-one marketing. At best, we are doing one-to-a-list of opt-ins. Same offer to everyone. But what if I don’t like meatball sandwiches and realize that you don’t know or care about me if you send me deals on those.

Where personal got off the track at the event in Hilton Head is when xAd showed a new tool that can tell marketers when a mobile user is at the dentist. The idea is to be able to send a toothpaste ad at the right time and place. Even the more hardened marketers in the room were taken aback by the perceived invasion of privacy.

- On a similar note, we lamented the lack of cookies in mobile. Cameron Clayton of The Weather Company (formerly The Weather Channel) said that location is “like a mobile cookie.”.But he admitted that many consumers appreciate the absence of cookies and don’t believe that giving up one’s location to get local weather gives license to advertisers. The company gets thousands of complaints a day from those offended by ads tied to location.

- The MMA opened the conference by teasing the notion that a 16% share of marketing spend for mobile could bring companies like Coca-Cola an additional $1 billion in market cap. Most brands spend in the single digits and have yet to be convinced that more is justified.

- Addressing questions about the ROI on mobile, Andrew Flack, Hilton Worldwide’s vice president - product marketing and customer insights, said that just as Hilton knew when it was time to put TVs and air conditioning in rooms, it knows that “now is the time for mobile.” Flack’s advice? “Be prepared to not be perfect. In a year, three or four things will work. One will be OK. One will be a learning.”

- Contrary to what you might expect, there was extensive talk about success through text messaging (Perry Ellis and Cosi were the most vocal) and nary a mention of beacons.

- Long considered a hot sector, it was brought up investment banker Tim Kawaja of Luma Partners that only seven of the last 110 mobile acquisitions were deals of  $100 million or more: “It has been a horrific investment category — a disaster.” Kawaja brought frowns to the mobile ad crowd in the audience by saying that marketing and content, not advertising on the small screen, is what’s meaningful.

Despite Kawaja’s words — it’s not the first time that many of us have heard sobering comments from a banker — no one left the event feeling defeated. Ping and Ebeling equipped us with lessons that while nothing is easy, anything is possible.

(article first appeared on MediaPost - http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/230109/tackling-the-real-problems.html?edition=74483)

Mobile Opt-Ins Increasing For Brand Marketers, Too

Like many, I’m regularly tracking share and number of mobile opt-ins. By all yardsticks, the morphing to a wireless world is impressive and unmistakable with huge ramifications for brands.

But, well beyond consumer numbers, I’m interested in marketer participation, both newbies and those who have seen enough in mobile that they are increasing their investments in time and money.

The recent Mobile Marketing Forum held by the Mobile Marketing Association shows progress in that area as well.

No attendance figures were publically offered. By my estimation, there were well over 1,000 in New York with the great majority brands rather than vendors (even if many registration passes for brand marketers were heavily discounted to get them there). That’s quite a change.

I’ve been going to these events since 2005 – now as Chief Marketing Officer of Mobivity (www.mobivity.com). For years, it was mobile provider talking to mobile provider, often times with exaggerated claims of how well business was going.

Here is some of what struck me as noteworthy:

·      Chrysler sees 45 percent of its web traffic from mobile. As is the case with many brands, attribution is still a challenge, but it hasn’t prevented the carmaker from increasing spend, according to Amy Peet, senior digital marketing manager at Chrysler, Auburn Hills, MI. Chrysler believes that it isn’t necessary to tie every mobile ad or effort to a Key Performance Indicator (KPI). That follows what Wendy’s said in a previous Forum.

·      Traditional media works well, but "nothing is more powerful for us than mobile", said John Costello of Dunkin' Donuts, who during the show was named Chair of the MMA’s Global Board of Directors. Still, Costello said that the “early part” of mobile is “slow and expensive”.

·      More around the world have a mobile phone than a toothbrush. We might soon say the same thing about smartphones. Coca-Cola’s Tom Daily said that a $25 smartphone will soon be available globally.

·      Added Daly, “It's not an internet of things - it's an internet of people.”

·      The mobile wallet was dissed and represented as immature. “I think there are actually very few wallet experiences that really transform the consumer experience,” said Denée Carrington, senior analyst at Forrester Research. “The one that I would offer up is Uber. If we assume for a moment that Uber could be a wallet app, it’s a branded app with a payment.”

·      Engagement was a buzzword. The National Football League is seeing success with push notifications. “We noticed specifically at the NHL that the average session length when someone had turned on push notifications was 36 percent higher than someone who had turned it off,” said Matt Restivo, head of digital product at the NHL.

The MMA has its CEO/CMO Summit next up in July. That event has historically drawn crowds built in part by cool locales like the Dominican Republic and Deer Valley. This year’s conference is in Hilton Head, another top destination, but where we are going with mobile is a lot more interesting.

(article first appeared on imediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2014/05/13/mobile-opt-ins-increasing-for-brand-marketers-too/)

Mobile Call For Quiet Amidst All The Noise

At a conference shouting that “Every Moment Is Mobile,” a comment made by a famed film and television director on the value of “quiet and arresting” broke through the noise.

Bob Giraldi, a legend on the big screen, told the Mobile Marketing Association’s SM2 audience in New York this week that many brands as well as mobile users creating content use media in “manipulative and loud” ways.” He called out ESPN for being the biggest offender.

“I believe in 15 seconds you can tell any story,” he said. “But go against the grain. Create something that is quiet and arresting.”

There was irony in the statement given the fact that arguably Mr. Giraldi’s claim to fame –actually Hall of Fame – is his direction of Michael Jackson’s loud and show-stopping-to-this-day “Beat It” music video.

Mr. Giraldi actually had to convince then MTV chief Bob Pittman that the footage was mainstream and that Mr. Pittman “could not deny the world” by refusing to air it.

While Mr. Giraldi stopped short of forecasting the future value of mobile, he did say that differentiating work that tells a compelling story will play well on the smallest and most personal of screens.

And he also told us that that same type of content delivered via another medium such as television has the ability to do what some think is the unthinkable – getting mobile users to look up and away from their iPhones, Androids, tablets and the like.

“Make something beautiful,” Mr. Giraldi advised the audience members. “This is why fashion works.”

The two-day conference was loaded with representatives from megabrands including Mondelez International, Walmart, Wendy’s, Dunkin Donuts and Facebook, among many others.

The common theme was mobile’s success lies well beyond engagement and brand building: more dollars are flowing – and will flow into the channel – when the industry can more closely tie efforts with sales.

“At the end of the day, what I really care about is getting closer to that purchase number as possible,” said B. Bonin Bough, vice president of global media and consumer engagement at Mondelez.

“How do we get down to the sales level?” he said. “The key to that is working with your clients and making sure that your clients are relentless to craft programs that actually can look at a sales angle.

“There’s no reason for us to invest money in these channels if we’re not going to learn what’s working and what’s not.”

Walmart follows that line of reasoning and is doing a terrific job in tracking its progress.

For example, it is seeing that mobile application users spend 40 percent more and make twice as many trips to the bricks-and-mortar locations as other customers.

Like many quick-service restaurants, Wendy’s is using mobile effectively at key dayparts. Given the fact that lunch choices are often made on the spur of the moment, the company is employing mobile to be there at the moment of decision.

Still, Brandon Rhoten, vice president of digital and social media at Wendy’s, said that he cannot track sales directly back to mobile. The company believes that it is all of its marketing efforts working together that make the initiatives worthwhile.

Mr. Rhoten said that he cannot point to sales off of one airing of a television spot and mobile should not have any such requirement to get more funding. That made sense to me.

There was substantive talk about the growing importance of mobile loyalty clubs and reminders that core products such as SMS are inclusive and producing meaningful results.

Overall, mobile progress was palpable during SM2 and happily we did not go down the mobile and social silo rat hole. Of course, it is one mobile user interacting with brands as well as social networks.

The biggest wow was the learning that 20 percent of all the time spent on mobile is on Facebook. The savviest brand marketers left the show planning their programs to impact that loyal Facebook audience and to drive sales.

(article first appeared on mobilemarketer.com - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/16249.html)