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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 - What's Really Behind The Disney Ban on Selfie Sticks?
Disney has banned selfie sticks from its theme parks. It sites safety. I wonder if it is because it is running a Mickey Mouse operation.
Search queries via smartphones and tablets are nearly 29% of total search volume, per comScore.
Says Marty Cooper, considered by many to be the father of the modern mobile phone era: "It’ll take a couple of generations before we fulfill the real promise of what a cell phone is.”
Click-through rates for mobile ads have increased 27% year-over-year for tablets and 26% for smartphones, according to Adobe.
Only 9% of marketers have increased their mobile budgets more than 50 percent over the past two years, the IAB says.
Mondelez has made a bet on video-driven commerce on Facebook, which will have 3 trillion video views this year.
14% of seniors used the Internet in 2000. 58% do so today. A new Pew report shows more evidence that the technology generational divide is shrinking.
54% conduct mobile bank while at work and 17% do so while on a date, according to a survey conducted for Chase.
Another report, this one via a Harris poll, says that 46% of banking customers who use smartphones to conduct business do so from their bedroom.
44% of airlines are expected to use beacons by 2018 primarily to help with baggage tracking: Swirl.
6% of smartphone video viewers never watch television: On Device Research.
In a related note: smartphone video viewers worldwide are most likely to watch between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., eMarketer reported.
Car buyers on mobile are more likely to look at a specific car model and at local inventory listings, according to new research from Edmunds.com. 79% of its mobile visitors research at least one specific car model on the site, as opposed to 65% on desktops or laptops.
Personalization Is Mobile's Big Hurdle and Large Opportunity
Three out of four consumers like it when brands personalize offers and messages, according to the Aberdeen Group. But only 13 percent of companies personalize their mobile experience for users, eConsultancy/Monetate reports.
While that seems like a head-scratch in a time when vegans are still getting meatball sandwich offers, there are reasons why brands aren’t consistently delivering the individualized goods.
“We have to realize how complex that problem is,” Sean Lyons, Global Chief Digital Officer, at international communications firm Havas, told me in an exlusive interview for my new book, The Art of Mobile Persuasion http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mobile-Persuasion-Transforming-Relationship-ebook/dp/B0100RS81K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434858180&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+mobile+persuasion.
“Think about how well you know your close friends and how preferences adapt and change over time. Could you predict with great certainty what they may want at a certain moment? Maybe only your closest friends.
“We have really high expectations for the capability to personalize communications but it's a very complicated thing. It's a mix of both a trail of data and also the feeling that I have right now, my mood. That we're not factoring in. There are going to be a lot more mistakes made with personalization, the wrong people targeted. That's part of the evolution of it.”
There is proof that personalization works today. In one of the most significant successes, a major wireless carrier utilizes individualized service to tackle that industry’s deadly disease: churn – the rate at which customers leave a business behind.
A custom welcome video, powered by Seattle mobile marketing and advertising technology firm Vehicle, is the very first point of communication with a new customer. Sent to mobile devices, this personalized welcome video acknowledges and thanks the unique subscriber for his or her business and summarizes the details of the account and what to expect when the first bill arrives.
As a result, the carrier has seen:
· Significant reduction in churn (customers leaving in the first 30 days), saving tens of millions of dollars
· A decrease in calls to customer support
· The highest recall of any other touch with the customer (over 50 percent measured at 90 days post-video delivery)
· Significant increase in revenue (ARPU or average revenue per user and lifetime value)
But other brands are flailing in their personalization efforts. Why? One reason is that many marketers are running in double-time to collect data, but aren’t being smart when it comes to using it.
“There needs to be a specific need that benefits the customer,” Jonathan Stephen, who drove innovative mobile programs at JetBlue, told me for The Art of Mobile Persuasion. “We should not be selfish in our endeavors to reach customers. I think we get very greedy with big data.
“If possible, we want to know what our customer had for breakfast. We want to know how many sugars that they put in their coffee and if they used Splenda or Truvia or whatever. There’s this grasp for data and the funny thing is people (marketers) find out that they don’t even know what to do with that data.”
Some are selling it. But others are using it to nurture relationships that are yielding more loyalty and sales.
The upshot?
Delivering on a more one-to-one basis is both mobile marketing and mobile advertising’s big hurdle and its largest opportunity.
(article first appeared on imediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2015/06/24/personalization-is-mobile’s-big-hurdle-and-large-opportunity/)
The Art of Mobile Persuasion
The Art of Mobile Persuasion is my new book.
It’s a work about relationships.
And unlike the 314,011 other titles on Amazon that attempt to provide insights on him or her, on love and marriage, this is a book about the one relationship many of us prize above all others.
The one we have with our mobile phone.
Yours may look the same as someone else’s. You may share a case, or a ringtone. But with more than three million apps available for download—and 1,000 being added to the Apple App Store every single day—it’s likely that you’ve tricked out your device differently than your neighbor’s, and differently than mine.
You’ve also placed bookmarks on your favorite web pages. You’ve added your must-see videos and photos. And you’ve likely created a one-of-a-kind homescreen—the picture of your son at his first birthday party, or the King Charles Cavalier Spaniel wearing a “12th Dog” jacket to cheer on your beloved Seahawks.
“People don’t have a relationship with a television set or their computer,” longtime adman Hank Wasiak told me. “Maybe they do with their car. Maybe. But they all have a relationship with their device. It is part of them.”
No surprise that brand marketers like us are desperate to get in on the action. But will consumers let us in? If two is company, does three create a crowd? Is it possible that marketing could enhance this vital relationship, improving the mobile experience for the user by providing value? And is that what the wireless device owner wants? At what price -- for us and for them?
We created a new site for all things The Art of Mobile Persuasion http://artofmobilepersuasion.com/home. It will be the home of ongoing conversation, keeping us current on all the mobile happenings.
The book (print, e-book) is available today via Amazon and other sites. http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mobile-Persuasion-Transforming-Relationship-ebook/dp/B0100RS81K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434858180&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+mobile+persuasion
I welcome your comments and reviews.
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Will A Coming Ad-Blocking Option Limit Mobile Advertising?
With an ad-blocking option coming with iOS 9, some headlines have suggested that Apple will be taking a big bite out of the mobile advertising opportunity for marketers. The truth is that it’s too soon to tell.
For background, apps will be able to include “content blocker” extensions that define resources (like images and scripts) for Safari to not load. The biggest question is whether users will proactively elect to install and use the blockers. If they do, the thinking goes that fewer ads will be seen on Apple devices and the business return on ad spend in the channel will suffer.
But as a Forrester analyst and others have pointed out, it has taken massive security breaches involving worms, viruses and malware for consumers to take note of options to “protect” their environment. And, in alarmingly large numbers, users have ignored the calls to act.
The same is likely here.
Dads are four times more likely to buy things for their families via mobile than the average consumer: Millennial Media.
You can now order a pizza via a text message. Dominos is smartly giving consumers another purchasing choice and another reason to join its loyalty club.
In the last minute and in the next, 3.6 million texts will be exchanged by U.S. mobile users. Brands, it’s time to consider use of SMS-based loyalty clubs.
Apps are responsible for 42% of all mobile sales by the top 500 retailers, per Go-Globe.
Study: 99% of users ignore share buttons on mobile – Moovweb.
86% of consumers discover new brands or services thru their mobile device, according to Accenture.
On June 14, nine of the top 10 purchases on eBay occurred on mobile devices, totaling more than $1.7 million in transactions.
A Heinz QR code directed users to porn.
37% of users will think less of brand if its mobile app crashes or causes errors, per Dimensional Research.
20% are supposedly buying a spare band for Apple Watch. Me? I'm still trying to get fair value for what I spent.
Users get 14 times more views with a profile photo on LinkedIn than without.
60% of SMBs plan to purchase newspaper advertising, most allocating 20% their budget to newspapers: Borrell.
Starbucks Mobile Order & Pay has expanded to 3,400 additional U.S. stores.
Amazon is considering paying ordinary people to deliver packages. There’s a future for me.
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 - Does It Pay For A Retailer To Offer Apple Pay?
It may not pay to carry Apple Pay. Twenty-eight retailers told Reuters that lack of access to data about customers and their buying habits is a key reason why they don’t accept Apple Pay. But an Apple rep told the news organization that it expects half of the top U.S. merchants to feature the service by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Kantar says that only 13% of U.S. iPhone 6 owners have used Apple Pay. What has held the other 87% back? Not enough locations, not enough consumer education, not enough benefit? Something else? I say that it’s all of the above.
Tweet of the week – from Rebecca Lieb @lieblink: Smart jeans that tell you if you gained weight? My stupid jeans have done this for years.
Facebook Messenger now lets you send friends a map with your location.
True or false, fellow Apple Watch owners - if I left it at home, I'd make a special trip to retrieve it. I'm in the false camp.
Consumers are willing to trade personal info for value, per Forrester. 41% for cash rewards, 28% for loyal points, 15% for a better consumer experience.
Walmart announced new mobile programs that include a geofence feature that alerts associates to gather pre-ordered merchandise, saving time for the customer.
Periscope now offers a map view of active broadcasts.
Yahoo reportedly paid at least $20 million to stream October's Buffalo Bills – Jacksonville Jaguars game.
BlackBerry settled a legal dispute with Ryan Seacrest's Typo Products.
Expedia's Spanish-language mobile web site is part of an initiative to test and learn.
What irony: Gogo launched a "generous" customer loyalty program for airlines, not paying users who suffer with the service.
Seventy-four percent of people 55 and over in America used the mobile Internet in 2014, a 14% jump from 2013: comScore.
Fifty percent of people uninstall a poor app, IBM says.
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.
Does Apple Watch Need A Use Case To Be Successful?
A lesson personally learned long ago is that you never have a second chance to make a first impression.
This comes to mind as I write this first piece for Mobile Leaders Alliance.
But I can’t help myself.
Of all the supposed benefits of Apple Watch that have been thrown out there, the one that is the biggest “really?” was offered by Annie-Rose Strasser, a BuzzFeed News Reporter, in an article titled “The Apple Watch Is Surprisingly Great For Women” http://www.buzzfeed.com/annierosestrasser/women-smart-watches?utm_term=.yq98aeO678#.yvd4lj91o.
“Since I put it on a week ago, “ she wrote, “the time I’ve spent dredging up my phone, tossing receipts and hand lotion on the ground in the process, has dropped dramatically.”
Ah, Apple Watch is the product to prevent lotion spillage.
I don’t carry a purse or a murse (one of my all-time favorite terms), so I just may not get it. Or maybe I’m sexist.
I prefer to think that I’m just calling it as I see it.
I’ve had my Apple Watch for 2 ½ weeks and have struggled to justify the expense and, frankly, the trouble.
I’ve received notifications at inappropriate times (The You Did It! one that I received at a urinal comes to mind), requests that fail to take into account place (like the one asking me to stand as I’m driving), and the admonishment for not accomplishing a supposed activity goal in a week where I did cardio work six times in my house and went to the gym to use machines three other times.
And this doesn’t take into account one of my biggest problems with Apple Watch - the user experience isn’t intuitive. That forces you to either seek out and read a long user guide or muddle through wondering when is the moment for the ballyhooed Force Touch, a swipe to the left, or a click or two or three of the newly-introduced-to-us Digital Crown.
I also deem the information on my wrist to either be redundant or at most in the “nice to know” category. We’ve repeatedly said that our smartphones are within four feet of us nearly 24 hours a day. So it’s not like the Apple Watch has opened up a view on the world that has been missing or inaccessible.
But writing on Twitter, Andreessen Horowitz partner Benedict Evans opined on those like me who question Apple Watch’s value.
“Asking about the use case for a smart watch is like asking why you have lamps instead of a single fluorescent tube in each room if your home,” Evans wrote in the first of two tweets.
His follow-up read this way, “If we only bought things we needed, with clear use cases, we'd live in capsule hotels, drink water and wear nothing but overalls.”
That leaves us where? Surely a consumer needs a motivator to shell out $349 or more for something many consider superfluous.
Maybe that’s fashion. Or the cool factor. Or something else.
Or maybe this is a product that won’t make it in a big way.
Time will tell.
(article first appeared on Mobile Leaders Alliance's website - http://mobileleadersalliance.com/2015/05/26/the-struggle-to-justify-apple-watchs-expense-and-trouble/)
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Could Brick and Mortar Retailers Be That Slow To Adapt?
83% more retailers plan to identify customers when they walk in the store within five years, according to Boston Retail Partners' 2015 CRM/Unified Commerce Survey. My immediate take and one that I still have days after first seeing this? They don't have five years.
Have these entities not seen the latest mCommerce trends ($76.79 billion projected to be purchased from mobile phones in 2015) or talked to their customers?
Already with 11 million users of Magicbands, Disney is expand the use of its breakthrough mobile tech to more parks.
As you may know, I have struggled to find significant benefits of Apple Watch. Apparently I’m not thinking hard enough. Someone wrote that a by-product of Apple Watch use is not spilling hand lotion when fumbling for an iPhone. Oh.
Four more weeks and it will be 25 years of marriage. I know, you'll have to ask my wife. eHarmony, you can stop sending the “find love” promos via Twitter and email.
Trending the other day: Lady Gaga documenting "the long process" of going blonde for the summer. And you questioned the value of Twitter.
Borrell Associates surveyed more than 7,000 SMBs and found that they spend 5.6% of their revenue on advertising with 22% of their ad budget going to digital.
Shop-by-text message has come to Nordstrom. Wonderful. My wife doesn’t have enough ways to spend there.
Mobile's importance according to marketer and influencer Gary Vaynerchuk: "I truly think my only competitor in business is your index finger."
Nearly two-thirds of parents and caregivers in a University of Washington survey spent less than 5 percent of their time at the park using a phone, including 41 percent did not use a phone at all. The data came from researcher observations, not from self-reported behavior that might be inaccurate or fudged.
Ten years ago this month, Wireless Amber Alert was created to use mobile to help law enforcement find abducted kids.
Life With An Apple Watch - Too Personal and Lacking Benefits
To continue to call the mobile phone my most personal device is to ignore the You Did It notification that I received on my new Apple Watch while I was in front of a urinal.
Whoa, even double whoa, I thought at that moment, before I silently thanked the Apple developers in Cupertino for the positive reinforcement.
I now know that particular notification conveyed the fact that I had reached a stand-up goal set by my Apple Watch. But for the newbie, it did seem random and ill-timed.
And there has been more where that came from.
To sum up my first 10 days with Apple Watch, it has been about making time rather than saving it.
Simply and unequivocally, the user experience isn’t intuitive. That forces you to either seek out and read a long user guide or muddle through wondering when is the moment for the ballyhooed Force Touch, a swipe to the left, or a click or two or three of the newly-introduced-to-us Digital Crown.
Out of the box, my Apple Watch failed to tap my wrist and mirror my iPhone when a text message or email arrived. Ninety minutes and two Geniuses from the Apple Store later, a supposed software problem had been identified and solved and I was sent on my way with Mickey Mouse tapping a big foot on the watch face.
As I wrote in this space last month after ordering the device, one of the supposed benefits of receiving notifications on your wrist is the unmatched ability to inconspicuously sneak a look at information without having to pull out a smartphone.
But unless you want a push every time something in a game changes – heck, teams typically combine for more than 200 points in an NBA game – you are left to grab the info off of a Glance. It isn’t unnoticed by your companions when you have to stroke a finger up the watch to get to Glances, then move from one “snack” of information (say, a flight arrival) to another to see if the Clippers have blown another lead.
Many of us have been drawn to Apple Watch for its health monitoring capabilities. But context is absent and what is necessary.
On a cross-country flight last week, my heartbeat reading showed 94 and a fellow passenger with more of a medical background than me – that group is 98 percent of the population – went quiet when he saw the number. Through a discussion, we discovered that the 94 was the result of the activity boarding the flight and lifting luggage. Apple Watch retook the heartbeat and I was in the low 60s.
That episode reminded me of the time two Christmases ago when my new Fitbit Force showed that I had burned 861 calories when the most strenuous thing I had done was to push the button on my computer.
I considered it a Christmas miracle.
Or a sham.
Only later, after writing up my experience, did a friend call me out for not realizing that we burn calories even when we sleep.
And we’re supposed to know this how?
I’ve read more than my share of Apple Watch reviews. In many cases, users have experienced “light bulb” moments where the benefits of the wearable become apparent.
To date, I deem the information on my wrist to either be redundant or at most in the “nice to know” category. We’ve repeatedly said that our smartphones are within four feet of us nearly 24 hours a day. So it’s not like the Apple Watch has opened up a view on the world that has been missing or inaccessible.
Apple may very well have my back. At some point, I might see that and salute the company with my own version of “You Did It”. But now isn’t the time.
(article first appeared on iMediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2015/05/19/life-with-an-apple-watch-too-personal-and-lacking-benefits/)
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - What The Latest mCommerce Numbers Tell Us
1.6% of total U.S. retail sales in the United States this year will be made directly from mobile devices, per eMarketer. Only 1.6%, you say? That translates to $76.79 billion. This behavior will become more commonplace if reports are true that Google will soon add 'buy' buttons to mobile search results.
57% of small-business owners say establishing solid relationships is key: The Alternative Board. The other 43% don’t deserve to be in business given that thinking.
74% of mobile shoppers fine with not being identified in a store: RichRelevance.
If accurate, still 26% of the shopping dollars available are huge.
Macy’s found visitors to its mobile app apply offers 20 times more than mobile web or desktop visitors.
48.1% of UK doctors plan to use health data recorded via patients’ smartphones within 5 years; 10.2% already do, according to eMarketer.
As we gauge the pace of progress in personalization, how should I answer my wife when she asks why eHarmony puts promoted tweets are in my feed?
AOL earned $606 million on dial-up subscriptions last year. Those folks would enjoy the “speed” of a Gogo inflight connection.
The first demographic in the U.S. to pass 90% penetration of smartphones? Ages 18-24, according to comScore
Future TV sets “will look like a large iPad,” with a variety of apps: Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix
Surrounded by technology last week, I was amused to see a woman in the airport reading Knit Baby Afghans print magazine.
54% of millennials stop using a brand’s products after a poor mobile experience, Oracle says.
39 of the top 50 news sites are accessed most by mobile: comScore.
59% of 16-24 year olds in the UK say that they would miss their mobile more than TV, Ofcom reported. I would’ve guessed that number to be at least 80%.
American Idol Made Mobile A Star
Your American Idol memory might be of the transformation of Carrie Underwood from an awkward amateur to a commanding star. Or it might be of William Hung getting famous for his off-key audition performance of Ricky Martin's hit song "She Bangs".
Mine will be how the Fox talent show – which will end its run in 2016 after 15 years - made mobile a star.
In the United States, mobile eventually became more of a must-have consumer device primarily for three reasons: American Idol integrated text into its voting process in 2003 during its second season; text messaging was made available as a cross-carrier product, allowing cell phone users to reach anyone with a mobile device with a messaging capability regardless of the mobile operator that the subscriber chose; and Motorola introduced what became the best-selling RAZR, a clamshell phone that was thin, capable, and an instant fashion statement.
Ten years after the world’s first commercial text message was sent by employees of LogicaCMG, just how dramatic was texting’s growth because of American Idol, which had become one of TV’s highest-rated shows?
More than 7.5 million American Idol-related text messages were sent by AT&T Wireless customers throughout the 2003 season, including polls, sweepstakes entries, trivia, and votes, according to numbers released by the carrier. More than one-third of all participants had never even sent a text message as an AT&T Wireless customer before American Idol. The number of text votes received increased by nearly 5,000 percent from the first voting episode to the last voting episode. More than 2,300 text messages per second were processed at one point during the voting.
American Idol eventually stopped breaking out its vote totals by text versus online. By the end of Season 10 in the spring of 2011, a total of 4.8 billion votes had been cast over the decade of programming. Clearly, messaging via mobile devices had played a major role in the show’s success but the story was much broader than that. In 2009, texting eclipsed voice as the leading daily activity on wireless devices. In 2010, 2.1 trillion text messages were sent and received in the United States, stats from CTIA – The Wireless Association reveal.
Mobile owes American Idol a debt of gratitude if not a trophy.
Why?
- It took traditional media to get text messaging to go mainstream.
- American Idol wisely used text messaging because the great majority of viewers had the capability on their devices.
- The fact that multiple generations watch American Idol together pushed up the average age of texting.
- The least sexy mobile application—short message service (SMS)—was the tool to make American Idol cool.
(article first appeared on imediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2015/05/11/american-idol-made-mobile-a-star/)
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Is A Five-Year "Smart" Clothing Sales Forecast Smart?
So-called “smart” clothing sales are forecast to top 10 million units in five years, a study from Tractica says. That doesn’t sound like a hit to me. Ten million over a half-decade is a relative drop in the bucket. For perspective, analysts expect Apple to sell between 8 and 14 million Apple Watches in year one.
Americans spend more than 36% of mobile data traffic use on real-time entertainment and 22% on social networking, per CTIA.
Periscope best practices need to be established and followed so we don't keep being asked to stop what we're doing to watch someone walk down the street.
The supposed death of the tablet is overblown. eMarketer forecasts use in North America moving from 174 million this year in 2019. That shows growth, just not on the hockey stick trajectory that we were on over the last five years.
Swatch says that it’s developing smartwatch batteries that last six months. Time will tell if this matters.
30% of those on Tinder are married, says GlobalWebIndex. My wife and I denied knowing what it is.
Four in 10 digital newspaper readers are mobile-only, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
Over one-third of marketers are selling or sharing customer data: Forrester. This topic is covered extensively in my The Art of Mobile Persuasion book that will be available in June.
Approximately, one third of Mother's Day gifts were to be purchased on a mobile device, Criteo predicted.
Consumers are 1.4 times likely to watch a video ad on their phone than any other channel: Google.
One more Google note - more searches are now conducted on mobile than desktop.
I saw a tweet that called BlackBerry an icon. Digging deeper, it was from a BlackBerry partner. That explains it.
A 98-year-old Melbourne woman conceived an app that gives players the task of listing a continuous string of interconnecting words until they have used every letter. Because of the backstory, Millie’s Game may be the most interesting in the app stores.
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - It Isn't The Young That Value The Smartphone The Most
To those who still claim that there is still a technology divide among generations, I offer this: the older you are, the more that you value the smartphone, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
82% of the 65+ crowd say that their device gives them “freedom”. The same percentage consider mobile a connector rather than a distraction. That's primarily because the devices are intuitive.
Conversely, 36% of 18-29 year olds say the smartphone is a leash and 37% call it a distraction.
Six ducklings that fell down a storm drain were lured out by a firefighter using the duck call ringtone on his iPhone.
Meerkat has introduced its app for Android, temporarily giving it a difference-maker over Twitter’s Periscope.
Meanwhile, the use of these apps is being limited by sports leagues and associations. The latest? The PGA Tour revoked a reporter’s credentials for using Periscope.
There are more mobile-only Internet users than desktop PC-only users in the U.S., per CTIA.
My new on-demand mobile foundations course is now available via Market Motive. There is actionable discussion to drive ROI.
20% more Americans use PINs/passwords to protect data on smartphones and tablets in 2015 vs. 2012, CTIA says. What stops the others?
Secret, a $100 million social app, closed but the co-founders made off with $6 million and a Ferrari. Evidently, they spent no money on a PR strategy.
Nearly half of Fortune 500 websites aren't mobile-friendly by Google's standards, according to Merkle.
Last quarter, Apple sold an average of 8 iPhones per second, 24 hours a day, for 90 straight days.
Starbucks says that its mobile transactions top 8 million weekly.
An Apple Watch fitness app from a deodorant company doesn't pass my sniff test.
39 of the top 50 news sites get most of their web traffic from mobile: Pew.
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Reaching The Toddler Through Devices
One in seven uses a mobile device for at least an hour a day by age 1, according to the Einstein Health Network. Additionally, a third touch or scroll the screen before walking or talking, per the Pediatric Academic Societies. Somewhere there is a marketing plan being developed to influence this group. It is probably happening in multiple somewhere’s.
I found wording worse than phablet and appsolutely - calling Apple Watch marketing wrist-y business.
Apple Watch diaries? Aren't we taking this a little too far, even for an Apple product?
A new version of Google Glass is coming soon, according to Luxottica’s CEO.
Last quarter, Microsoft had Surface revenue of $713 million. The iPad sold $9 billion over the same period. And that's with iPad and tablets in decline due to the popularity of larger smartphones.
Millennials are nearly twice as likely as Gen Xers to use a smartphone when car shopping, per eMarketer.
Mobile is now 73% of Facebook’s ad revenue. Also, the number of daily active users is now 936 million, up from 890 million at the end of 2014.
Tweet from Fortune Magazine: What businesses want from workplace wearables: happy customers. My reaction? Imagine that.
Judging by the Web, Google's new limited wireless service is either "game-changing" or a relative non-event. I’m glad that we figured that one out.
For first time, New York Times editors are choosing stories specifically for smartphone readers to be delivered via app.
Apple Pay has added more than 30 additional banks and credit unions. There are now more than 200 institutions included.
I keep seeing Promoted Tweets from a company selling two watches for $60. Hello, it's not a timepiece that we're after. Duh.
Over 3 billion hours are spent playing mobile games each week around the globe, according to the Global Games Initiative.
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - How Marketing Indiscriminately To A List Is A Turn Off
I received another cheeseburger offer via a mobile loyalty club. The problem is that I haven't had a burger in about 15 years and this quick-service restaurant should know that from previous purchases. That's not 1-to-1 marketing. It's 1-to-1 list. And it’s cause to seriously consider an opt-out.
Two men were arrested in a supposed bloody beer-bottle battle over whether Android is better than iPhone. No, they weren’t named Eric and Tim.
Smartphones can now detect earthquakes and give you time to run, per Fast Company. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey, Caltech, the University of Houston, and others, are establishing a crowdsourced GPS-based earthquake warning system that would send out a message when it detects an initial rumbling.
Amazon has shut down TestDrive, an Appstore feature that lets you try some apps before downloading. Only 16,000 apps participated and limited availability likely caused some to shy away.
For 2016, the question isn't whether presidential candidates will use mobile. Rather, it’s will they effectively personalize communications.
Nearly half of smartphone-toting travelers use map apps during vacation, per eMarketer. When's the last time you saw someone unfurl a paper map?
I told my wife of all the features of my coming Apple Watch. A Mickey Mouse face was the most compelling to her.
This week, I saw a headline that said mobile payments are retail's new frontier. Yup, same headline that I saw in 2013, 2014, and probably early than that.
Global mobile-ad spending on Android grew 539% in Q1, according to PapayaMobile.
U.S. adults spend 5.5 hours with video content each day, over an hour of which is digital – eMarketer.
15 million Americans say they'll buy an Apple Watch, a Reuters poll found.
CookBrite is an app that recommends meals based on ingredients in your kitchen. That’s personalization.
44% of consumers worry that apps are collecting personal info without consent – Forrester. 33% have cancelled a transaction due to privacy concerns.
Apple Watch, As In Watch Out, Inattentive Slugs
In the wee hours of Friday morning, anticipation turned to disappointment as Apple pegged the delivery of my newly-ordered Apple Watch to be well into the future, specifically between May 13 and 27.
By Saturday night, I was thinking up ways to buy more, ummm, time.
Let me paint the picture.
One of the supposed benefits of receiving notifications on your wrist is the unmatched ability to inconspicuously sneak a look at information without having to pull out a smartphone.
John Kosner, Executive Vice President, ESPN Digital & Print Media, told me so much in an interview for my upcoming book, The Art of Mobile Persuasion.
“Sports always lead technology because of the urgency and how much people care,” he said. “If the Seahawks are playing a Thursday night game and you are at dinner, you can just look down at your watch to know what’s going on versus having to excuse yourself, and go to the bathroom to sneak a look at your phone. Guys are going to love that. You can already see the TV commercial that can be made for that.”
Perfect. It will be as easy as Sunday morning.
Or not.
I tested the premise Saturday night in a restaurant with white tablecloths and a wife of nearly 25 years expecting me to pay attention (friends would say that she should know better).
Yes, it was make believe. Of course, there was no Apple Watch on my wrist. But I pretended that there was.
Imagining that something important was arriving on my person – like the fact that a Persicope live video was available showing someone who I barely know walk down a road – I ever so gracefully moved my eyes downward.
It was then that received a different kind of notification. It was one from my wife that more or less said, “Hey, bub, I’m here.”
So I waited a few more minutes and made a second attempt at practicing Apple Watch snacking.
This time, in my mind, I envisioned a notification coming from a quick-service restaurant telling me that meatball subs are on sale. Of course, this is news that I have opted in for and “must have” in a text notification. That is all the more remarkable because I don’t even eat red meat.
My wife gave me the same look that I get when I pass by the dog poop in the backyard without picking it up, one that told me that she is on to me and another attempt at such foolishness will land me in the doghouse.
By now, you may be wondering why I purchased an Apple Watch. I have asked myself the same question. More than once.
It’s not like I feel unconnected. If anything, I’m not nearly disciplined enough to get away from the emails, texts, push notifications and everything else that lands on my iPhone’s screen.
I routinely check my email in the middle of the night, knowing full well that one never wins the lottery or gets just that job offer or consulting gig at 1:43 a.m. Instead, the you-know-what is hitting the fan and I’ve compounded the problem with a ruined night of sleep and that feeling of stress in the neck that should definitely be limited to more “traditional” office hours.
But it’s my profession and I’ve always been keen on knowing something as soon as possible. I tie it back to my journalist days right out of college.
I have about a month to further practice shifting my eyes and acting like I’m intently listening. Unless I can convince Apple to turn back time and to send me my Apple Watch in 2024.
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article first appeared on imediaconnection.com http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2015/04/12/apple-watch-as-in-watch-out-inattentive-slugs/
Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Are Wearables For Pets Barking Up The Wrong Tree?
You can now put a wearable on your pets and track activity or perceived laziness. If I tell my wife that our dogs are chubby, she will say, “Takes one to know one”. I’m staying mum.
That reminds me of my favorite tweet of the week. From @BillMurray: “The problem with diets is nachos”.
Speaking of eating, Taco Bell's order-ahead app has seen purchases 20% higher on average compared to in-store, per Business Insider.
24% of teens go online “almost constantly”, facilitated by widespread availability of smartphones – Pew.
Also, 71% of teens are Facebook users. Boys and girls are equally likely to partake.
My kind better half brought me home a visor and killer shirt from The Masters. Pictures? None. No smartphones are allowed on course, much less selfie sticks.
64% of mobile game revenue is from 0.23% of players, Swrve says.
Leading to pre-order day, Apple spent $38 million advertising the Apple Watch. Was it money well spent? Many of us bought one without touching it or even eyeballing one.
Later on pre-order day, I did a hands-on with the model of Apple Watch that I purchased that comes with a sport band. I had thoughts of my Fitbit often slipping off, but in the case of Apple’s version, there is a tuck-in feature. We’ll see.
Ready for a concert of simultaneous notification sounds via iPhone, MacBook Air, and Apple Watch? How long before we say, "Yeah, I got it".
The other day, I was 35 folks in before recognizing anyone on People You May Know feature in the Facebook app. It seemed as random as pointing in phone book.
Major League Baseball says that it delivered 60 million live and on-demand video streams across digital platforms on Opening Day, up 60% from last year.
It was a great week. I was just added to a list of fun people. Unfortunately, it’s not my wife's list.
