Mobile: The Great Connector - Bridging The Digital & Physical Worlds To Boost Your Marketing Effectiveness - Mobile Marketing Association
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Mobile: The Great Connector Bridging The Digital & Physical Worlds To Boost Your Marketing Effectiveness
Contents
Foreword 1
1 We are Mobile 2
Mobile is an extension of us
2 Mobile is Evolution 5
Share of Device Internet Traffic on a Typical Workday
Second-screening gains serious traction
National Geographic Channel raises awareness
3 Mobile is Activation 14
Movie-goers go mobile
4 Mobile is Transaction 19
Retail revolution
5 Mobile is Interaction 25
6 Mobile is Location 31
Unilever closes the loop
Mobile enables new experiences
Mobile inspires new habits
Mobile improves customer service
Mobile pushes the boundaries
Audio recognition drives ROI
7 Mobile is Transformation 40
Mobile enables new experiences
Mobile inspires new habits
Mobile improves customer service
Mobile pushes the boundaries
First Google Glass applications
Mobile is the future — and the foundation 46
The MMA would like to thank its member sponsors for their support in making this publication possible.
Foreword
L
ong before the advance of smartphones, tablets and mobile apps
Tomi Ahonen, best-selling author, wrote1 that mobile would be
regarded as the “most potent form of media in the history of
mankind”2. Following print from the 1500s, recording from the 1900s,
cinema from the 1910s, radio from the 1920s, TV from the 1950s and
Internet from the 1990s, mobile was destined to become the mass
media where “all forms of content and communications converged.”
Fast forward, and it’s clear that mobile is much more than the 7th
mass media. Its unique attributes have allowed it to become the
‘great connector’, linking all the other mass media that went before.
At one level, mobile is at the centre of our new multi-screen world
(smartphone, tablet, PC, TV and games console). At the other end of the
spectrum, mobile blurs the boundaries and bridges the gaps to unite
our physical and digital worlds.
Mobile in this new and expanded role enables more immersive
experiences, paves the way for new marketing approaches and opens up
more opportunities for brands and marketers to influence and engage
consumers every step of their daily journey. This white paper explores
this transformation and how your company can benefit from a strategy
that makes every moment mobile.
~ Paul Berney, CMO & Managing Director, MMA EMEA
This mobile marketing resource was researched, written and
produced by Peggy Anne Salz, Chief Analyst of MobileGroove,
in close collaboration with the MMA and its members.
Mobile: The Great Connector 1
1 We are mobile
People are mobile, and mobile is part of who they are.
Our growing identification with and dependence on mobile devices was first
captured in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian (2005, MIT Press)3, a milestone book
written by Mizuko Ito, a renowned cultural anthropologist at Keio University in
Japan, together with Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda.
In this work Ito and her colleagues outlined the pivotal importance of the mobile
phone. This conclusion is based on their observation that mobile is personal
(we customize our mobile devices and regard them as an extension of our
personal identity), portable (we have them on our person most of the time), and
pedestrian (we make them a part of our real-time life as it happens).
Fast forward, and mobile is well established as our constant and personal
companion, a position that makes mobile “simply the greatest persuasive
technology device ever invented.”4
People depend on their phones to manage their lives, interact with companies
and brands, conduct commerce, transfer money and even pray. From
researching products, to conducting transactions, to sharing a product review
with their social network, people rely on their mobile devices to access advice
and make the right decisions.
Our addiction level to the mobile phone is so intense that the average person
looks at their mobile phone 150 times per day.5 This means the opportunity to
engage with consumers happens 150 distinct times per day — or more. That’s once
every 6.5 minutes of every waking hour.
Mobile: The Great Connector 2
Mobile gives marketers the power to reach and influence people throughout the
purchase funnel (awareness, engagement, consideration, conversion and loyalty).
It’s a power that is further amplified by the central position mobile holds in what
recent research from Google, in partnership with Sterling Brands and Ipsos, calls
our “new multi-screen world,” where most of our media time is spent either moving
between devices or in a state of “simultaneous screening” using multiple devices at
the same time.6
“Smartphones are the backbone of our daily media interactions. They
have the highest number of user interactions per day and serve as the
most common starting point for activities across multiple screens.”
The New Multi-Screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior
Significantly, the research found that the majority (57%) of the time when we are
using a smartphone, we’re also using another device such as a PC, laptop or TV.
Mobile is an extension of us
Mobile isn’t just another screen. Its proximity to our person (always at our side)
encourages us to see mobile as an extension of our ‘selves’.
This is the view of Chad Wollen, Global Head of Commercial Innovation and
Futures at Vodafone.
He draws from the observations of Edward Twitchell Hall, Jr.7 , an anthropologist
and cross-cultural researcher remembered for developing the concept of
Proxemics, a description of how people behave and react in different types of
culturally defined personal space. Hall found that how we perceive, acknowledge
and interact with objects and individuals is profoundly influenced by our
physical proximity to them.
To support this Hall analysed both the personal spaces that people form
around their bodies as well as the macro-level sensibilities that shape
cultural expectations about larger spaces. Expectations such as that streets,
neighbourhoods and cities should be properly organised. The result is a multi-
tier ‘definition’ of the informal, or personal spaces that surround individuals:
Mobile: The Great Connector 3
• Intimate space—the closest “bubble” of space surrounding a person.
Entry into this space is acceptable only for the closest friends and intimates.
• Social and consultative spaces—the spaces in which people feel comfortable
conducting routine social interactions with acquaintances as well as strangers.
• Public space—the area of space beyond which people will perceive
interactions as impersonal and relatively anonymous.
Put simply, what is outside a range of 3 metres is beyond our “social” space
and therefore not regarded as familiar. In contrast, what is within a range of
0.5 metres is within our “intimate” space and hence familiar and accepted.
“The mobile device, which is always at arm’s length, occupies people’s most
intimate space,” Wollen explains. This unique attribute makes mobile “quite
literally the best and most effective way for a brand to get closer to the customer
and build trust.”
This fascinating conclusion is also supported by recent Google research which
shows that people do indeed turn to the screen that is closest to them to get
what they need, when they need it.8 Such data proves people are creatures of
comfort and convenience, and naturally regard mobile as much more than a
communications device. It is seen as an extension of ‘self’ that defines and links
their personal digital world with the real world ‘outside’.
“I’d rather give up, like, a kidney than my phone.” Teenager quoted in The Guardian9
The next section reviews recent research and insights to reveal a shift
in consumer behaviour — and opportunities for brands that adapt to
the change.
Mobile: The Great Connector 4
2 Mobile is Evolution
The U.K. is a leader in smartphone penetration and mobile engagement.
Digital measurement and analytics firm comScore pegs smartphone penetration
in the U.K. at 71%. Today some 35 million people in the U.K. own a smartphone
as their primary device, compared to 14 million who have a low-end or feature
phone. Penetration is expected to rise as comScore reports that a whopping 82%
of phones purchased are now smartphones.
What’s more the steep rise in tablet ownership has led leading analyst firms,
including IDC, to forecast that tablet sales will outstrip global PC sales by 2015.
In the U.K. comScore data estimates that just under 14 million households own
a tablet device.
Share of Device Internet Traffic in the UK
mobile 15%
PC Non PC
74% 26%
tablet 9%
other 1%
Source: comScore Device Essentials, August 2013
In total smartphones and tablet devices now account for a quarter of all Internet
traffic in the U.K.
Mobile: The Great Connector 5
But the real news is not the growth in device numbers or page views; it’s how
people have made these devices — smartphones and tablets — an integral
part of their daily routine. The device people choose is often driven by context:
where they are, what they want to accomplish and the amount of time they have
to spare. It might be that an experience begins whilst watching TV, continues on
the smartphone on the way to work, and then finishes on a tablet in the evening.
It all depends on what people want and how they want it.
The evolving patterns of online behaviour across multiple devices are illustrated
by looking at the relative share of U.K. Internet traffic on a typical working day
across PCs, tablets and smartphones.
Share of Device Internet Traffic on a Typical Workday
Source: comScore Custom Analytics, January 21, 2013, U.K. data
The avalanche of mobile services and apps, most of which are free supported
by advertising, has led to a surge in the number and downloads of apps and a
sizeable shift in media consumption towards mobile. A 'snapshot' of smartphone
use shows consumers are reaching for their mobile devices to get more done,
more often, throughout the day and night.
Mobile: The Great Connector 6
Top Mobile Apps and Services Used as a Percentage of Smartphone Audience
Source: comScore MobiLens, August 2013
Consumers are reaching to their smartphones for a variety of activities —
communications, search, information, entertainment, navigation and retail —
making it the most versatile digital device ever invented.
Mobile is clearly a powerful channel to reach a targeted audience – even when
they are watching TV. Indeed, mobile’s advance into the living room, hitherto
the exclusive preserve of the TV screen, turns up the pressure on brands
advertising on TV to rethink ways to capture the full attention of an audience
that increasingly prefers to multi-task across multiple screens.
This behaviour, known as ‘second-screening’ refers to a growing phenomenon
where people sit in front of a TV whilst actively engaged with their tablet or
smartphone, tuning in and out from screen to screen. The downside is that
marketing messages can be lost in the clutter of simultaneous multi-device
usage. The upside: second-screening creates new opportunities for brands
to engage customers provided they embrace all the screens that people use.
Clever and creative marketing campaigns can achieve positive results. Many
companies and content providers, such as the BBC and the Discovery Channel,
(see page 28) are already delivering their audiences fluid and engaging experiences
that connect smartphones and TVs, and — in some cases — even extend to include
a “third screen” (PC, games consoles, personal navigation devices).
Mobile: The Great Connector 7Second-screening gains serious traction
Without doubt the U.K. has become a nation of multi-screeners, where mobile
has become the channel that is most used simultaneously with other screens
such as the TV.
Of the smartphone population, 37% use their device whilst watching TV.
The vast majority of these are actively engaged in messaging, social media,
phone calls and a significant percentage are either playing games, accessing
news or shopping online. In many cases this activity is completely unrelated
to the TV programme broadcast.
Top 10 Unrelated Second Screen Activities as a Percentage
of Smartphone Second Screen Audience
63%
54%
47%
44%
34%
23% 23%
13%
9% 9%
SMS Email Social Calls Games IM News Online Video Music
media Shopping
Source: comScore MobiLens, Aug 2013
A day in the life
In 2012 milestone report titled "A Biometric Day in the Life" 10, commissioned
by Time, Inc. and conducted by Innerscope Research, became the first study
of its kind to explore the media consumption habits of Americans using point
of view camera glasses in people's homes. During the 300 hours of monitoring,
Mobile: The Great Connector 8participants wore biometric belts, which measured their emotional engagement
throughout their normal day, and glasses with embedded cameras that
monitored which medium or platform they were using and when they altered
their visual attention.
Researchers found that digital natives, people who grew up with the Internet,
"switch their attention between media platforms (TVs, magazines, tablets,
smartphones or channels within platforms) 27 times per hour, or about every
other minute."
In the U.K. a raft of recent research also confirms that consumers are growing quite
accustomed to switching their attention between media channels and platforms.
• A survey of 2,000 people in the U.K. by the IMRG11, the U.K. industry
association for e-retail, found that 80% of smartphone owners, 81% of tablet
owners and 73% of laptop owners use their devices in front of the TV. 41% of
people have used one of these devices to browse for a product after seeing it
in a show or advert.
• A survey of more than 2,000 British smartphone, tablet and laptop owners by
Red Bee Media12 found that 86% have used one of these devices whilst
watching TV. Approximately 44% of respondents use the second screen to
find out more about brands or ads, 56% are open to receiving targeted ads
through synchronous apps, and 40% would be willing to receive offers and
promotions on their devices based on products featured on the TV.
• A YouGov survey13 commissioned by BSkyB found that 75% watch TV with a
second device to hand. What are they doing? 65% are surfing the web, 60%
are emailing and 48% are using social networks.
• Nielsen's study14 of multi-screening habits, which compares the U.S., U.K.,
Germany and Italy, found that 40% of smartphone owners in the U.K. use
their phones at least once a day whilst watching TV, and 41% of tablet owners
do the same. Users do a mix of these activities whilst watching TV, and many
look up information relating to the show they're watching, or look up product
information based on a TV ad.
Mobile: The Great Connector 9Powerful combination
Indeed, the smartphone is not always competing for people’s attention.
To the contrary, studies find the smartphone is actually enhancing the TV
viewing experience and acts as a vehicle for deeper engagement.
A prime example is a 2013 survey15 of 1000 U.K. consumers conducted by GMI
Research16 in association with the MMA and Imagine Mobile, an ideas driven
mobile sales and marketing company.
Granted, the survey reveals that 77% of digital natives (people ages 18-24 who
grew up on the Internet and mobile phones) are "distracted when watching TV."
In fact, nearly one-third (32%) of digital natives said they look at their mobile
devices four or more times whilst watching TV, and 28% said they look at a mobile
device for a period of over five minutes during a 30-minute long TV programme.
However, the study also offers ample evidence that second screening behaviour
can play in favour of TV programmes and the brands that advertise there.
Specifically, the study reveals that TV programmes are often the starting point for
mobile activities, including search and research, as well as purchase decisions.
Interestingly, the study found that nearly one-third (30%) of digital natives were
“likely to click on an ad on their mobile device if they had just seen it on TV.” What’s
more, 43% of those respondents who were inspired enough by their TV viewing to
click on an ad in the first place actually went on to purchase the product.
Second Screen Research
44% 47% 17%
Use a mobile device* to watch
their favourite TV show
Search a show
before it starts
Turn to mobile device first
when an ad break comes on
77% are distracted
when watching TV
Source: MMA GMI UK & Imagine Mobile, September 2013 18-34 year olds
Mobile: The Great Connector 10Social and mobile
TV programmes can inspire people to reach to their smartphones to express
how they feel about the content they are seeing at that moment in time, or
simply share great content with their community. In this scenario mobile
devices are enabling parallel conversations to take place in the digital realm.
According to data from SecondSync17, a company that analyses Twitter
conversations around TV shows to provide insights for clients in broadcast
and advertising, the vast majority (90%) of online public conversations about
TV are on Twitter, with 80% of U.K. Twitter users accessing via a mobile device.
The company also notes that 40% of all UK Twitter traffic at peak TV viewing
time is about TV.
Live sporting events have a tendency to drive large social media engagement
figures. The 2012 Olympics in London was billed as the first ever second screen
Olympics, marked by several partnerships to give a new dimension to TV viewing.
Notably, major broadcasters, including NBC, unveiled mobile apps dedicated to
Olympics coverage and providing streaming access to coverage and highlights.
Since then many news organisations have created their own second screen
experiences to run parallel with live events on TV.
But it’s not just TV that can benefit from the second screen. Last year, Microsoft
launched a second screen companion app for Xbox 360 called SmartGlass18.
SmartGlass allows users to extend their Xbox games console experience to their
smartphone or tablet, thus adding extra depth to games and other forms of
entertainment delivered via the console.
The dizzying array of device choices has allowed digital natives new flexibility
in how they consume content and advertising. But it also opens up new
opportunities for brands and marketers — provided they rethink their
approaches and adapt to the tendency among consumers to switch their
attention between devices and media platforms (TVs, tablets, smartphones).
Mobile: The Great Connector 11It’s well worth the effort since companies that harness our second screen
behaviour to deliver and reinforce experiences across multiple screens are well
positioned to foster greater levels of engagement and ultimately achieve greater
levels of media consumption and higher conversion rates.
All
18-34’s
Among 18-34 year olds
mobile was only
second to TV for
recalled ad placements
in the past month.
28% 46% 34% 38% 67% 69% 31% 33% 25% 29% 32% 37%
*
TV
H
ne
e
er
ile
lin
OH
ap
i
ob
az
On
sp
ag
M
w
M
Ne
Source: MMA GMI UK & Imagine Mobile, August 2013 (*Mobile inc. smartphone & tablet)
National Geographic Channel raises awareness
Interestingly, campaigns are also showing that
entertainment and media companies can benefit
from the trend to second-screening and use the
mobile channel to drive interest — and eyeballs
— to their own programmes.
A prime example is a campaign by the National
Geographic Channel which teamed up with the
agency Mediahub/Mullen and mobile advertising
platform Millennial Media to announce and
promote the February 17, 2013 world premiere
of the network’s first original factual drama,
Killing Lincoln.
The one-day promotion was designed to drive consumers to tune in to the
documentary, and using Millennial Media’s Mobile Audience Solutions, the
campaign was able to target audiences using home Wi-Fi networks, ensuring
that consumers would most likely be near a TV and able to tune in.
Mobile: The Great Connector 12The campaign also ran exclusively on tablets, allowing National Geographic
Channel to reach the growing base of consumers who are using tablets to
complement their TV watching experience.
Millennial Media estimates that about 20% of its 50 billion monthly impressions
come from connected devices such as tablets and e-book readers.
The ad creative was perfectly aligned with this ‘awareness’ strategy, featuring
an option for people to view a full screen video with highlights from the show
on their tablet devices.
More importantly, the creative contained an in-line video with highlights from
the documentary. As the documentary was shown in real-time, the video
changed to highlight events that were being portrayed on the television show
as they happened. For example, as the documentary transitioned from the
planning of the conspiracy to the assassination itself, the mobile video presented
to viewers also changed, to provide additional insight in real-time, relevant
to the content they were seeing on the show. In this way, viewers were kept
engaged throughout and would feel more immersed in the programme they
were watching on their television as well.
“The chance to use our first factual drama as a way to enhance our viewer
experience was a no-brainer. Killing Lincoln is so rich with details and facts
that we want users to be able to take away as much as possible, and the
tablet experience provides a platform to not only market the film but also
give viewers a chance to find additional content live as the show is airing.”
Hayes Tauber, Senior Vice President, Consumer Marketing for National Geographic Channel19
Tablets have carved out a role in the modern home, and for many consumers,
they have become an important part of the TV-watching experience. In this
context a mobile campaign can drive awareness of programmes at the perfect
time—when consumers are at home, on their tablets and looking for content.
The next section will show that mobile is not only leading among our
many screens; it is extremely effective at triggering actions and yielding
conversions in the physical world.
Mobile: The Great Connector 133 Mobile is Activation
Experience is everything and context is king. As this paper has shown, mobile
can be at the centre of every experience.
By harnessing mobile, marketers have the distinct opportunity to interact with
and grow their community of brand advocates. But the power of mobile is not
just in its ability to reach and influence consumers every step of the journey.
Mobile also bridges the digital and physical worlds, optimizing the consumer
experience at every touch point and ensuring that marketing messages
and approaches are aligned to produce an experience that transcends the
boundaries and pushes the envelope.
The Mobile Path-to-Purchase U.K., a 2013 mobile behaviour study20, examines
mobile purchase influences and establishes a clear and causal connection
between targeted mobile advertising and people’s decision to take action.
The study — complied by xAd, a leading location based mobile advertising
network, and Telmetrics, a mobile call measurement provider, and conducted
by Nielsen, a global market research firm — draws from a survey of 1,500 U.K.
smartphone and tablet users to track the mobile consumer journey from initial
purchase intent to conversion.
The results help improve our understanding of mobile's unique role in the
consumer's path to purchase, while exploring overall advertising effectiveness.
The study also highlights new opportunities for marketers to reach and influence
consumers before they make decisions.
"Mobile is a driving force in search and decision, and growing more
important every day. Businesses need to understand this importance,
learn how and when to reach the mobile consumer, and how to integrate
mobile with more traditional media outlets."
2013 Mobile Path-To-Purchase, U.K. Edition
Mobile: The Great Connector 14xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path to Purchase Study: Understanding Mobile’s Role in the Consumer Path to Purchase (UK Edition)
Among the findings:
Mobile is gaining momentum as a primary media used when searching for
specific information regarding upcoming purchases. Specifically, 1 out of 3
smartphone users and 2 out of 5 tablet users consider mobile devices as the
most important source for information.
Location matters and location lookups are the top smartphone research activity
for Restaurant and Auto searches. Location is more important to smartphone
users as 58% are searching while out of home, including nearly 15% searching
outside and nearly 10% searching from public transit.
Mobile marketing is noticed with two-thirds of users notice mobile ads
with 20% resulting in a click. The top reason driving mobile ad clicks is local
relevance– with nearly one-third of users preferring ads that are geographically
relevant. Additional reasons for clicking on ads are that the ad features a known
brand, a coupon or promotional offer.
Significantly, nearly half of both smartphone and tablet owners said they had
only a general idea of what they wanted to buy when they started their research
on mobile.
Monica Ho, xAd Vice President of Marketing, interprets this as an important
opportunity for marketers to influence undecided consumers and impact their
purchase decisions. "A longer research process means more opportunities for
marketers to reach and influence consumers," she explains. This is especially
true for companies in the Restaurant and Travel verticals.
When consumers do make their decisions, they act fast.
Mobile: The Great Connector 15RESTAURANT SEARCHERS HAVE THE FASTEST
TURNAROUND
Restaurant ANDtheHIGHEST
searchers have CONVERSION
fastests turnaround and highest RATE
conversion rate:
How Quickly are Users Looking to Make a Decision? How Often Does Mobile Behavior Convert to Purchase?
Immediatley/Within Hour Within Day
78%
RESTAURANT
34% 32%
21% 31%
47%
17% 15%
TRAVEL
15% 15%
43%
AUTOMOTIVE
15% 17%
15% 10%
Questions used: CQ17A, CQ17B, CQ17C: Upon accessing the app/website on your , which of the following best describes you?
xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path to Purchase Study: Understanding Mobile’s Role in the Consumer Path to Purchase (UK Edition)
Used a Website/App on Smartphone for: Restaurant(n=408), Travel (n=427), Automotive (n=189)
Used a Website/App on Tablet for: Restaurant(n=671), Travel (n=707), Automotive (n=335)
xAd/Telmetrics Mobile Path to Purchase Study: Understanding Mobile’s Role in the Consumer Path to Purchase UK Edition 16
Overall, 40% of U.K. mobile searchers report intending to make a purchase within
the day and an additional 35% take up to a month before making a purchase
decision. Smartphone users demonstrate more immediate needs than tablet
searchers with 22% looking to make a purchase within an hour of their search.
“Mobile is powerful because it also enables point-of-sale targeting.
People have mobile devices with them at the point-of-sale, which provides
marketers a chance at the all-important moment-of-decision to clinch the
sale or, if the marketer represents a rival brand, ask consumers to consider
another option before they commit at the checkout.”
~Monica Ho, Vice President of Marketing, xAd
Mobile: The Great Connector 16Movie-goers go mobile
Mobile doesn’t only influence consumers on the path-to-purchase in stores and
shops. Further MMA research by Imagine Mobile and research firm GMI shows
smartphones are also the first port of call for people researching a movie or
actually buying a ticket to watch the film in a cinema.
Movies on the Go Study
28%
of people in the UK are currently using
their mobile devices to watch film
trailers.Half of them are under 34.
38%
of 25-34 year olds said watching a trailer on their mobile device influenced
their decision to go and see the movie.
42%
of under 34s research for a movie via mobile device.
Source: MMA GMI UK & Imagine Mobile, July 2013
The survey of 2,000 consumers across Spain and the U.K. also sheds light
on general attitudes toward mobile advertising and identifies the audience
segments most likely to respond.
Predictably, digital natives (respondents in the 18-34 age bracket) are actively
and eagerly using mobile, behaviour that bridges the gap between advertising
and activation. Over half (54%) of those who clicked on advertising on a mobile
device were under 34 years of age, and nearly one-quarter (23%) who have
bought cinema tickets via their handsets also belonged to this demographic.
Overall, people under the age of 34 are 80% more likely to have purchased
a ticket via their smartphone.
Mobile: The Great Connector 17It’s findings like these that no doubt inspired Disney to look to mobile to drive
awareness of Wreck-It Ralph in 2012. As the film is also a tribute to over 30
years of the gaming industry, a hugely popular activity on both smartphones
and tablets, mobile naturally played a central role in Disney’s overall marketing
strategy.
Promotion of the fun film got a special boost through a partnership deal Disney
sealed with mobile phone maker Samsung. In addition, a global awareness
campaign used the mobile channel to target film enthusiasts and fans with
custom interactive ad units developed by advertising agency Starcom and
Imagine Mobile, which ran the campaign via Inspired, a global mobile marketing
platform.
The next section shows how the advance of mobile and the breakneck
pace of technology innovation are coming together to provide amazing
opportunities for marketers and retailers.
Mobile: The Great Connector 184 Mobile is Transaction
The U.K., with a sizable economy, large household spend, and a developed
infrastructure, presents a very attractive picture for mobile payments readiness,
as shown in its total score of 37.5 on the MasterCard Mobile Payments Readiness21
Index.
The high Mobile Commerce Cluster score is a reflection of the robustness of the
mobile commerce climate in the country and the clustering of major players
determined to make mobile payments work. Specifically, Barclaycard, Orange, and
MasterCard have teamed up for the Orange Credit Card, while Telefónica O2 and
Vodafone have joined forces to develop mobile NFC payments at the point-of-sale.
But it's not technology that is driving the uptake of mobile commerce.
The familiarity of U.K. consumers — and their increased willingness to purchase
goods and services via websites and in physical stores, make money transfers
and conduct mobile banking — is especially noteworthy.
The latest U.K. mobile commerce usage report22 from IMRG (Interactive Media
in Retail Group), the U.K. industry association for e-retail. The study, conducted
in partnership with eDigitalResearch, confirms that the consumers’ purchasing
cycle is changing and becoming more ‘mobile-centric.’ Put simply, people
are researching heavily on their mobile platforms before they complete their
purchases. What’s more, they are using their mobile devices to close the loop.
“In 2020 when we look back on the last ten years, we will undoubtedly see it
as the ‘mobile decade’. In the first three years alone we have seen sales via
mobile devices increase from nearly zero, to over 20% of all e-retail sales.
However, we are only scratching the surface and over the next few years we
will see the technology reveal its full potential.”
~ Chris Webster, VP and Head of Retail Consulting and Technology, Capgemini (Interview with Power Retail)23
Mobile: The Great Connector 19The perfect alignment of key factors such as smartphone penetration,
mobile payments familiarity and the buy-in of key stakeholders including
mobile operators, financial institutions and retail chains leads MasterCard to
conclude that the U.K. "has all the ingredients for a leading position in
advancing mobile payments."
Mobile Commerce - United Kingdom 2012
Source: GMI, MMA
Mobile: The Great Connector 20Retail revolution
Meantime, bricks-and-mortar retailers as well as digital commerce giants are
moving forward with ambitious strategies and schemes to remove the friction
out of mobile commerce and streamline shopping.
Their approaches, which in many cases literally link the digital and physical
worlds, are in tune with our growing dependence on our personal mobile devices
to guide their real-world transactions from the point of inspiration to the point-
of-sale.
• PayPal is trialling24 a system in London that allows shoppers to buy goods in
high street shops by checking in on their phone or tablet — but there's a new
twist. Shoppers with the PayPal app on their mobile can check in to their
PayPal account when they are in the stores, information that then displays
on the mobile device used by shop assistant. Knowing that the shopper is
in the store, the assistant then verifies the person's identity, by checking
the shopper matches the photo attached to the account. When the shopper
makes a purchase the app allows the shop assistant to debit the value of the
goods from the shopper's PayPal account. No waiting in line, no cash and
no end in sight as PayPal is expected to add major retailers and over 2,000
locations to the app by the end of 2014.
• E-commerce giant eBay is blurring the lines between digital and real-world
commerce by launching a new Click & Collect service25 in the U.K., where
shoppers can buy goods from eBay online and then select a physical retail
location where they can be delivered. Click & Collect serves two groups of
retailers. Large retailers that have physical stores and also sell on eBay can
now give consumers the option to pick up goods in those stores instead of
having them delivered. To cater to its smaller merchants, eBay has struck a
deal with retail chain Argos. Goods ordered by eBay will be delivered to their
premises, thus providing consumers the added convenience of being able to
pick up the items they order in a physical store.
Mobile: The Great Connector 21"This is part of the bigger picture. This is the march around the world to
bring offline and online together, and offer our consumers choice."
~ Devin Wenig, eBay president (in an interview with TechCrunch26)
Meantime, Argos has been expanding its own click-and-collect service, which it
launched long before eBay, allowing shoppers to have an item held back that
might be in short supply or ordered in if not in stock. In May, Argos reported27 its
first rise in annual sales in five years, largely due to the upswing in online sales
and the popularity of its "check and reserve" service.
• In a bid to become the
country’s number one
supermarket Tesco’s South
Korean branch, called Home
Plus, opened the world’s
first virtual supermarket28 at
Seolleung Station on Seoul
Subway Line 2. The ambitious
effort allows commuters with
smartphones to buy products
that are displayed in life-size
virtual aisles on the platforms using their mobile devices. Every item has
a corresponding QR barcode, and consumers can simply scan the code to
add the item to their Home Plus shopping basket for same-day delivery. By
February 2012, Tesco Homeplus reported it had expanded the virtual stores to
more than 20 bus stops. The companion mobile app had downloaded 900,000
times, making it the leading shopping app in Korea.
Back in the U.K. Tesco trialled a similar service in the departure lounge at Gatwick
Airport. There the service, described as an interactive virtual grocery store, allows
consumers to see, scan and buy items from an assortment of 80 products using
their smartphones. Tesco believes mobile is a perfect fit with the audience on the
go at Gatwick’s North Terminal, where tens of thousands of passengers have time
to kill between flights. “We don’t think it’s a gimmick - it’s a taste of the future,”
observes Mandy Minichiello, marketing manager for Tesco.com.29
Mobile: The Great Connector 22“We’re doing this as a trial to try to get some customer feedback. We’re
keen to make customers lives as easy as possible. Increasingly, they want
to shop on the go.”
~ Mandy Minichiello, Marketing Manager, Tesco.com (in an interview with BBC News)
Linking coupons and loyalty
Marketers may be slightly confused by the many ways payments are enabled —
by mobile messaging, mobile apps or proximity payments, to name a few.
However, there is a clear consensus that the reliance of consumers on their mobile
devices throughout the purchase funnel offers marketers a window into consumer
preferences and the potential to fulfil the promise of one-to-one marketing.
Harvester, a popular family farmhouse-style licensed restaurant chain with over
200 outlets in the U.K., leveraged Apple Passbook functionality to reach relevant
consumers and offer them a voucher providing £5 off their bill when spending
£30 or more. Passbook is a new feature of Apple’s mobile platform that collects
coupons and boarding passes into an easy-to-use interface on Apple devices,
thus ‘mobilizing’ the loyalty programs and offers provided by marketers and
retailers across many verticals.
Millennial Media and Eagle Eye Solutions partnered to work with with Harvester
on the first-ever campaign in the UK to take advantage of Passbook functionality
to offer consumers downloadable vouchers, which they could then redeem
directly from their device at the till.
This is how it worked.
The Harvester campaign used targeting technology to ensure the display ads
were delivered to families and people who enjoy eating out, in the vicinity of a
local restaurant, and who had the latest version of the Apple software on their
device, so could access the Passbook functionality. Upon clicking the banner,
consumers were taken to a simple landing page that clearly communicated the
offer, with the call-to-action to add this to their Passbook.
Mobile: The Great Connector 23Eagle Eye then pushed the
individually-coded voucher to
the consumer’s smartphone.
Once the voucher was loaded
into Passbook, the Eagle Eye
platform enabled the consumer
to redeem the offer securely in
participating outlets.
Using this technology, Harvester
managed to close the loop
on their marketing campaign
by measuring each customer
engagement with with the
campaign from issuance to
redemption. The campaign
ran in the UK for two weeks and in that time drove almost 16,000 consumers to
request a voucher, with over 700 vouchers redeemed at a restaurant within the
campaign period. The overall campaign CPA achieved was £3.41.
Consumers no longer ‘go’ shopping, they always are shopping.
Harvard Business Review30
Further opportunities for marketers to use mobile couponing to close the loop
and encourage real-world transactions are massive. But an additional benefit
may be the Big Data and insights such campaigns deliver. These include the
ability to analyse and respond to campaign metrics such as average basket
size, and change the offer or creative as appropriate in real time. Additionally,
audiences that answer the call-to-action can be enrolled into relevant mobile
CRM programmes.
The next section lists the capabilities you can use to create meaningful
— and measurable —ways to tell your brand story, engage your
customers and achieve your objectives.
Mobile: The Great Connector 245 Mobile is Interaction
At the heart of mobile marketing lies the customer expectation that the brand
interaction will respect their individual requirements for marketing and
communications that are personal, relevant and completely transparent.
Naturally, this approach — which changes the communication paradigm from
interruption to conversation — is well-suited to mobile. However, as this paper
has shown, mobile's power does not only rest in its innate ability to interest
and influence people who rely on it every step of their daily journey. Mobile has
also become the "connective tissue"31 that joins the digital and physical worlds,
giving a new dimension to people's experiences and enabling marketers to
achieve new levels of continuous customer touch and interaction.
The opportunities to reach, influence and activate consumers through
interaction are many and varied depending on the brand goals and objectives.
Popular consumer-facing brands may want to encourage interaction through
messaging campaigns that enable sharing and feedback. Banks may use display
advertising to drive downloads of their mobile and tablet apps, and so increase
use of their mobile banking and payments services. Retailers may link mobile
to indoor and outdoor signage — also known as OOH (Out Of Home) media —
to pave the way for contextual promotions and commerce.
The possibilities are endless — and often overwhelming.
This section attempts to provide some direction by identifying the key
components and approaches marketers must add to their toolbox of capabilities
in order to drive real results and benefit from mobile's unique ability to bridge
the physical and digital worlds.
Mobile: The Great Connector 25The MMA groups these tools and technologies into five individual channels32:
• Mobile Messaging (SMS and MMS)
• Mobile Internet
• Downloads and other types of Content and Apps
• Search
• Location based Technologies
Of course, your choice of channels will depend on a wide variety of factors
including your target audience demographics, the nature of the product or
service you offer and the aim of your marketing campaign or strategy. It is
beyond the scope of this resource to explore the many approaches you can
employ to achieve your key objectives using mobile.
However, it's time to stop thinking of mobile as a channel.
In a world where people increasingly switch between screens, the role of mobile
is also shifting. At first marketers correctly embraced mobile as a way to deliver
marketing. Fast forward, and brands are coming to recognize that the real
power and value of mobile increasingly lies in what it enables, namely holistic
experiences that connect people with other digital screens, or the real world
around them — or both.
Indeed, a review of the 2013 Smarties winners33, companies the MMA recognizes
as trailblazers within the mobile space, shows that brands are driving amazing
results with marketing strategies that combine an increasing number of
channels, but consistently place mobile at the core.
From approaches that link mobile advertising with real-world weather
conditions at that precise moment in time, to comprehensive coupon campaigns
that begin as text messages and come to life in cinemas through a video
representation of the offer, to strategies that harness NFC to bring people and
content together in new ways, exciting innovation is taking place at the points
where mobile links our digital and physical worlds to enable new, engaging and
extremely effective marketing approaches.
Mobile: The Great Connector 26• The Weather Channel released a mobile app for Android that harmonises
content and advertising to deliver users a more personal locally relevant
experience. In addition to enhanced content and faster maps, this app had
the ability to tell users exactly when it was going to rain or snow in their
neighbourhood, right down to the minute the weather shifted. The app was
extremely popular, with pages per view on the app showing a 13% increase
and video views up a whopping 101%. User excitement about the app also
caught the attention of carmaker Toyota. As an exclusive launch partner,
Toyota leveraged branded interactive backgrounds to reach and interact with
consumers. What’s more, facilitating the delivery of location based messaging
related to real-time weather conditions ensures Toyota had a 100% share of
voice — and that was just the launch. This app — and experience — is mobile
advertising re-imagined.
• Samsung needed a way to promote the NFC sharing features of its Galaxy
smartphones. So, the handset maker created a service that rewarded device
owners with a new mobile experience that brought content and advertising to
life. It all started with posters on display in high traffic areas — shops, airports,
university campuses, cinemas. But these weren’t ordinary paper posters. They
were embedded with NFC technology. When Samsung Galaxy owners held
their phones to the posters they were rewarded with free music and ebooks
instantly downloaded to their smartphone. As a result, these posters became
the entry-point to an entirely new content distribution service. Impressed
by the results Samsung followed up with a vending machine — powered by
NFC — to deliver content to mobile users on the move. Using a touchscreen
on the vending machine Galaxy owners browsed an expansive catalogue of
music, ebook and video options then downloaded selections directly to their
phones, using NFC. Tens of thousands of people interacted with the posters in
kiosks and shared their discovery with friends and family via social networks.
Campaign engagement was 3 times higher than projected, delivering major
brand building awareness and media buzz.
Mobile: The Great Connector 27• Mobile played a pivotal role in campaigns to drive viewers to tune into the
premiere of Gold Rush, a new television series on the Discovery Channel.
Mobile creatives in the weeks running up to the premiere immersed viewers
in the wilds of Alaska, giving them the chance to sift through gold to win
$100,000 in real Alaskan gold, only people used their mobile devices to pan
for gold. The accelerometer functionality baked into smartphones and tablets
allowed them to shake their devices, thus simulating the action of panning to
discover riches buried in the simulation of swirling dirt and clay. Consumers
tuned in to the season premiere of the show to see if they had won. In just one
week the campaign counted over 600,000 people panning for gold. The result
was over 52,000 sweepstakes entries and engagement rates over 12 times the
mobile benchmark and resulting in a 30% increase in awareness and a 26%
increase in intent to watch. Beyond these metrics the campaign delivered the
results that mattered most: the season premiere of Gold Rush become The
Discovery Channel’s highest rated in over three years and was the network’s
highest rated prime time telecast of 2012, and that was pure gold.
Clearly, the real value of mobile isn't what it does (although device features such
as the accelerometer on smartphones do enable more creative and effective
campaigns). It's what mobile enables when marketers use it to orchestrate
experiences and enhance our real-life existence.
Mobile in this new role opens up a world of opportunity for brands. But it also
turns up the pressure on marketers to execute and evaluate campaigns that span
multiple channels, technologies, platforms and publishers. Add technologies
and capabilities like NFC, geo-targeting and wearables (see page 42) to the mix,
and its clear that the task of managing all the moving parts that make up today's
marketing campaigns will likely become far more — not less — complex.
For many brand marketers the decision of ‘what to do’ in mobile and ‘how to do
it’ is the main challenge, especially when combined with all the available media
opportunities, and this leads some to look the other way.
Mobile: The Great Connector 28run a branding, target just reach my target simply build
or direct response a smartphone audience via premium mobile creative
campaign? or iPad device? mobile publishers? or a landing site?
avoid analysing
realise the potential my campaign via 8
of mobile CRM? different platforms?
How do I… target people
deliver location based
just in London,
offers to my customers?
Paris or Beijing?
use technology create new run a research study access all my data
like NFC, QR, multi-channel to know more about simply to measure
mobile payments, benchmarks? my audiences? the success?
Augmented Reality?
Against this backdrop, it’s also clear that the requirement for solutions and
management tools that allow marketers a clear view into their multi-channel
campaigns — and the results each channel delivers across each market— will
also increase.
Activating mobile campaigns via platforms such as Inspired Mobile, a pioneering
global mobile marketing platform, can give brand marketers, and their agencies,
much needed visibility into their campaigns and — more importantly — deliver the
detailed analytics that allow them to gauge the performance of each channel.
Specifically, Inspired was developed to help marketers manage and evaluate
mobile campaigns that are implemented across multiple channels. To this end the
platform provides marketers a single interface into all aspects of their campaign,
across channels and technologies including premium mobile media, QR codes
and Wi-Fi connections. In Q1 2014 the platform will also allow marketers visibility
into campaigns that utilise NFC, mobile payments and Augmented Reality.
However, the power of the platform, beyond reporting, is when brands leverage its
CMS and CRM capabilities to deliver truly personalised target audience experiences.
Mobile: The Great Connector 29augmented reality 2D barcodes proximity marketing creative development
Engage target audience
housewives | c-suites | teens | baby boomers | sport enthusiasts
Reach target audience
social business sports technology fashion
Overall, this approach, which supports dynamic and intuitive reporting, equips
and empowers brand marketers to “establish new and reliable benchmarks
essential to the success of their multi-channel campaigns and strategies,” notes
Pratick Thakrar, CEO, Inspired Mobile.
Such a capability is ‘mission critical’ in an age where research highlights the
issues marketing professionals face whilst managing the sheer volume (and
complexity) of data about their businesses and their customers.
A milestone study of more than 1,700 global CMOs, including 48 from the top 100
brands, by IBM34 found that today’s CMO is drowning in a flood of data, devices,
social-media and media channels. What’s worse, many admit they are simply not
prepared. In fact, 78% expect more complexity over the next five years, but only
48% are prepared to deal with it.
Indeed, the majority of CMOs say they feel unprepared when it comes to the four
key issues of data explosion (71%), dealing with social media (68%), the growth of
channel and device choices (64.5%) and shifting consumer demographics.
The next section re-defines location and provides actionable insights around how
you can reach and connect with people where — and when— it counts the most.
Mobile: The Great Connector 306 Mobile is Location
Mobile, in many cases supported by technologies that are location aware and
specific to a task such as shopping, are empowering people and transforming
marketing.
Mobile’s power to bridge the digital and physical worlds enables marketers to
do much more than deploy timely and time-sensitive messages and incentives
to consumers on the move. In combination with other channels and
technologies, mobile is enabling new opportunities for brands to reach and
influence customers throughout the journey, from discovering products to
purchasing them.
Predictably, large retailers have been among the first with ideas and innovations
that enhance peoples’ shopping experiences by personalizing information and
incentives based on current location.
But location is not merely a position as reflected by latitude and longitude.
Consumers are situated in time and space. Mobile enables marketers to deliver
marketing at the intersection of both, thus targeting the moment in time and
the location context around it. As a result, marketers can deliver marketing that
is appreciated and valuable because it is inextricably linked to the world around
us and related to our lives at precisely that point in time.
Indeed, location has become what Dr. Phil Hendrix — director of immr35,
a research and consulting firm — calls a continuum. It ranges from the ‘macro’,
which includes wide areas such as a city, to the ‘micro’, which includes specific
areas such as a department, aisle or shelf.
Mobile: The Great Connector 31Mobile — and other technologies such as embedded sensors and cloud-based
networks — redefines the very concept of location and what it means to
be ‘nearby’. In view of this shift, Hendrix has identified “8 Layers of Location”
and detailed how marketers can harness mobile (alone or in combination with
other channels) at each level to reach consumers and encourage real-world
calls to action.
Examples of Location-based Strategies
Put simply, each of the 8 Layers offers unique opportunities for brands,
marketers and retailers to achieve their objectives and engage their customers.
1. City, the widest layer, refers to the coverage area served by conventional
broadcast media, such as newspapers and local radio and TV. It is here, in an
area where targeting is limited, that mobile adds value by allowing publishers
and broadcasters to 'hyperlink' their general marketing to our personal
mobile devices through messages delivered via short codes, QR codes
promoted on print media, or tagging technologies such as Shazam (see
page 43).
Mobile: The Great Connector 322. Area represents a section of a City, defined either by convention, such as
neighbourhoods or school district, by natural geographic boundary, or by
specification, such as postal code. It's a level of location where conventional
media, including billboards and direct mail, can drive results. It is also where
mobile allows marketers to target reach and resources because it equips
them to deliver marketing to consumers within a block-size area. This micro-
targeting is based on a wide variety of parameters the marketer has gleaned
from the device as well as the information volunteered by consumers that
have opted in to receive location relevant marketing. In this scenario, PlaceIQ
provides granular targeting and a dynamic view of this level of location,
showing how places (and the kind of people that congregate there) change
throughout the day.
3. The Vicinity layer is defined by radius (within a mile of a store) or polygon,
which takes into account geographic boundaries or traffic patterns. Geo-
fencing in this context refers to the process of specifying a Vicinity and
focusing advertising to consumers within that area. Vicinities are especially
relevant to retailers, restaurants, venues and other businesses that serve
"nearby" consumers. In this scenario, companies such as xAd and ThinkNear
allow businesses to direct mobile ads and offers to consumers based on
Vicinity, time-of-day and other criteria, increasing the relevance of marketing
to consumers and hence the percentage that respond to a call to action.
4. Center refers to a building or area containing a group of co-located businesses
such as shopping malls or store on the High Street. In this scenario companies
like Placemeter are measuring traffic flows, dwell time, conversion (percent
of passersby who enter the store), and other important shopper metrics.
Individual businesses can use the data gleaned from mobile to measure the
effectiveness of other channels (signage, window displays, etc) to attract and
engage shoppers.
Mobile: The Great Connector 335. The Store layer consists of premise-based businesses, which has also emerged
as the new battleground for mobile commerce as retailers and brands target
shoppers with mobile apps, advertising and offers. Interestingly, mobile is
also at the core of new strategies such as "conquesting", where marketers use
mobile to targeting shoppers in or near a competing store in an attempt to
drive consumers to their own offers and stores.
6. The Aisle layer consists of areas within Stores and includes not just aisle, but
also departments (such as appliances), front-of-store/checkout, and sections
(for example, dairy). Retail stores have long measured traffic into their stores
as well as wait times at checkout. With mobile they are also able to measure
real-time "footstream" traffic, analogous to clickstream on digital properties.
This data allows marketers and businesses to measure the effectiveness of
the physical store (layout, displays, signage). Mobile, together with QR codes,
NFC and now BLE36, enables new marketing models and approaches. An
example is the equivalent of digital concierge, which — when queried by a
consumer using a mobile device or triggered by sensors in the device — can
provide additional product information to shoppers. Interactions at this level
of location also provide marketers important input and feedback — answering
key questions such as "which product do other consumers prefer?" and "what
other product goes with this product, and should be placed in close proximity
on the shelf?"
7. Package consists of the outer layer containing the product such as a box,
bottle or wrapper. It is here that mobile literally links the digital and physical
worlds, allowing consumer to scan a QR codes to access product information,
for example. Mobile apps can also play a role, allowing consumers to register
a product, contact customer service, query other owners, check for reviews,
receive alerts or access information on offers or upgrades.
8. At the final layer Products themselves can have embedded sensors that are
"location-aware." A prime example is the Nike+iPod Sports Kit, consisting of
a small transmitter device attached to or embedded in a running shoe, which
communicates with either the Nike+ Sportband, a receiver plugged into an
iPod, iPhone or Nike+ Sportwatch. The kit, which counts 18+million users,
measures and records the distance and pace of a walk or run.
Mobile: The Great Connector 34You can also read
