Unlike SXSW, the Mobile Marketing Forum Was About Business Results

I proposed a game at the start of this week’s Mobile Marketing Association’s Forum in New York where we would take a drink each time that we heard the word Meerkat.

My tweet stream the previous several days had been nothing short of overrun by Meerkats, which are live video streams sent from phones to all of one’s Twitter followers at once.

I figured that by noon on St. Patrick’s Day, Day 1 of the MMA event, we would all be as inebriated as some of those partying on Fifth Avenue.

I was wrong. There was nary a mention. And I believe that I now know why.

The introduction of something like Meerkat is made for the SXSW crowd, which includes those who crave shiny objects, first looks at innovation, and business models that could lead to great change.

That is actually in sharp contrast to what many came to hear at the MMA show – evidence of business results and proof that some of the products and services launched way before SXSW were moving boxes of tissues and bottles of ketchup while engaging mobile users in meaningful ways.

The most significant conversation in New York was around the latest SMoX (Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness) research that was conducted by the MMA and some of its largest and most influential members. Aiming to scientifically assess the interaction of mobile channels and platforms in relation to the broader marketing mix (TV, radio, magazines, Internet, etc.), the exercise was intended to help marketers understand the impact of consumers’ shifting media habits, as well as how to optimize their marketing mix by rebalancing investments.

Here’s what we discovered:

In Coca Cola's Gold Peak Tea campaign, mobile drove 25% of top of mind awareness and 6% of sales despite only 5% of budget.

Mobile in Walmart's Back to School initiative produced a 14% change in shopping intent despite only 7% of the marketing spend.

In a travel card campaign, MasterCard saw mobile display and mobile video work twice as hard in terms of the number of people it converted on image per dollar spent.

The overall takeaway from the new U.S.-focused SMoX research was that the optimal spend for mobile is in the double digits - far more than is being allocated.

Adam Broitman, VP of Global Digital Marketing, MasterCard, called SMoX “a real breakthrough in the mobile marketing industry and the first thorough and comprehensive industry study that proves the true value of mobile.”

Said Tom Daly, Coca-Cola’s mobile lead, “It gives all the teams, particularly in the United States, something to think about.”

Here’s some of what else caught my eyes and ears in New York:

The hype would lead some to believe that paper and coin currency will be gone by the weekend given the advancements in Apple Pay and other mobile wallet products. But, according to MasterCard’s Michael Donnelly, 85% of the world's transactions are still made in cash.

We knew that long-form content has an uphill battle on mobile. And that was before we heard this -- the focused attention span for a consumer is eight seconds, down from 12 in 2000, according to Gfk. For perspective, GfK told us, a goldfish has a nine-second attention span.

Brandon Rhoten, vice president of digital and social media with Wendy’s, gave marketers like me who are a bit long in the tooth a pass on knowing everything about everything.

“There is no reason we should know how to use Tumblr,” he said. “It’s not where we grew up. So the biggest piece of advice I give is, ‘Be humble and back up and say ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.’ Go to your partners and talk to them. How can you fit the context of that platform at the same time you stand out?”

Rhoten’s take on Meerkat? Even if a “solution” is perceived by some as cool, if it hasn’t scaled or shown that it can move cheeseburgers, it doesn’t make it into a marketing plan dead set on generating business success.

(article first appeared on Mobile Marketer - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/20025.html)

Takeaways For Marketers From Mobile Marketing Forum

Home improvement and mobile are as matched as a hammer and nail, and other takeaways from the just concluded Mobile Marketing Forum in New York:

On the heels of a presentation by Lowe’s at the last Mobile Marketing Association get-together in San Francisco in January, Home Depot detailed its own measureable progress in engaging shoppers and selling more stuff through mobile devices.

Among the learnings:

• Home Depot’s mobile-optimized site and apps provide access to the 400,000 different product types available online – as compared to the 35,000 in physical stores.

• About a third of Home Depot’s traffic last year came through mobile.

• Home Depot’s app has been downloaded 3.5 million times, with traffic up 60 percent because people responded to opt-in push messages.

• Home Depot recently ran a test on Twitter and saw mobile engagement outpace desktop by 40 percent.

“The biggest challenge today for marketers is to make it exciting for consumers,” said Trish Mueller, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Home Depot. “We’re passionate about customer service and mobile provides such an amazing way to connect with the customer.”

In January, Sean Bartlett, director of mobile strategy and platforms at Lowe’s, told us how mobile innovation has entered the 65-year-old retailer’s 1,700 plus stores with 42,000 iPhones in the hands of associates, and Wi-Fi in store to give shoppers what they desire – easy and free access to product reviews and social networks.

So, if you want to build a case for mobile, watch the home improvement efforts. …

Rules and regulations, arguably the driest of mobile topics, were discussed in committee meetings, the larger sessions, and in hallway conversations when campaigns run and contemplated were being discussed.

And with good reason. Coinciding with the MMA Forum was news of a lawsuit where a Web user sued Facebook for allegedly sending her an SMS message suggesting that she send “friend” requests to other users.

Illinois resident Darya Ivankina alleges in her potential class-action lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, that the social-networking service violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending her cell phone an unwanted ad.

That law prohibits companies from using an automated dialing service to send SMS messages to people without first obtaining their consent. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act provides for damages of up to $1,500 per text message.

Facebook didn't have an immediate response.

While technological advances like Google Glass made for interesting conversation in New York, some of the most successful campaigns featured use of permission-based databases that brought value to the mobile user and the brand. …

We again heard that mobile searches create large opportunities. According to Google’s Tim Reis, 73 percent of mobile searches trigger additional action and conversions.  …

International mobile guru Tomi Ahonen reported that the average smartphone user looks at the device every five minutes – or 200 times a day. Further, he said that if one was counting full-length 160 character messages, a teenager sending 100 SMS per day would type the full text of “War & Peace” in under 7 months.

That’s a large amount of consumer interaction in any book.

(first appeared on imediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2013/05/13/takeaways-for-marketers-from-mobile-marketing-forum/)

Highs and Lowe's At MMA Forum San Francisco

At the MMA Forum San Francisco Jan. 28-30 in the city where the coach with a mindset of “Never Stop Improving” replaced the successful quarterback and reached the Super Bowl, we heard from brands with the same attitude using mobile to sell more stuff.

Sean Bartlett of home improvement retail chain Lowe’s is one such example. Never Stop Improving is actually his company’s mantra, but that hardly gave Bartlett a blank check to bring mobile innovation into the 65-year-old retailer’s 1,700 plus stores.

Bartlett, who is director of mobile strategy and platforms, convinced senior management that Lowe’s would be better off if it could differentiate via the integration of mobile throughout the customer journey.

Unlike 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, he did not replace anything or anyone – he supplemented his company’s sales and marketing programs with mobile products, services and technology smarts.

Bartlett led an effort to get iPhones in the hands of 42,000 sales associates so they could deliver a level of customer service that would combat showrooming – the employees share information with shoppers via the smartphones.

The executive built a mobile application with such transparency that it actually shows competitors’ pricing. He uses Wi-Fi in the 1,700-plus Lowe’s locations to give shoppers what they desire – easy and free access to product reviews and social networks.

And Bartlett is seeing business results that are justifying even more effort and dollars in mobile.

Bartlett’s insights were among the highlights at the two-day event where we moved past the maddening question of whether this is the Year of Mobile – I am rich with a dollar for every time I have heard it since 2005 – and spoke of innovation and issues that face us in 2013.

Here is more of what I remember from the show:

Chase, one of the nation’s leading banks, is not resting on its significant mobile laurels. It is continuing to build capabilities, including the ability for consumers to open checking and credit card accounts through mobile products.

An executive also talked about the customer experience and Chase’s need to move at the speed of now. 

“Mobile gives us a rapid, immediate view if something is going wrong and we address it immediately," said Russ Eisenman, head of mobile product marketing and partnerships at Chase, San Francisco.

For its part, Mercedes has gesture control and the full windshield used for connected contextual content on its roadmap.

In an era of distracted drivers, the German carmaker faced questions about whether more mobile activity in the car is wise. It sought to assure those in attendance that while new connected services in the car are coming, safety is Mercedes’ primary concern.

Another session by Google executives introduced the search giant’s enhanced ability to gather data from cross-platform users. Then, they were hit with a series of questions about privacy and whether the data will be sold to marketers. It will not happen, they said.

Meanwhile, an advertising panelist from 4D complained about the lack of transparency in mobile advertising, saying that too often buying mobile ads is like buying “mystery meat.” Happily, that comment came after lunch.

An executive from Mindshare also encouraged the hundreds in the crowd to “fail smart, fail fast."

There was significant time and attention paid to messaging with surprisingly large crowds that included major brand representatives attending Mobile Marketing Association messaging committee meetings.

Left unanswered were whether the majority of marketers are ready to deal with big data, commit to engage with a customer or prospect after a click or other mobile interaction, and spend significantly more on mobile this year than last.

We will not get there in one day or one year.

But it was gratifying to hear the unified sentiment that we would leave San Francisco with a promise of Never Stop Improving.

(article first appeared on Mobile Marketer - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/14700.html)