Archive for the ‘Marketing Technology’ Category
Believe it or not, there was a time before television. Radio was the broadcast media, and audiences found live radio ads just as ear-catching as the programs they sponsored. When TV programs started around 1940, most advertisers took what they knew from successful radio creative and tried like the devil to paste it into TV ads. Oops.
It took a few years for technology to align with creativity, but alas we finally saw the last of singing Texaco gas station attendants and Old Gold dancing cigarette boxes. Agencies and brand managers finally realized TV viewers wanted something completely different in a television ad. Good radio creative required theater of the mind, but good TV creative required doing the mental work for the viewer.
Fast forward to 2015. Here’s what you’ll probably read…
Believe it or not, there was a time before the internet when broadcast TV ruled media, and audiences found good TV ad as enjoyable as the programs they sponsored. When digital advertising was launched around 1990, most advertisers took what they knew from successful TV creative and tried like the devil to paste it into online ads. Oops.
It took a few years for technology to align with creativity, but alas we finally saw the last of the :30 second one-way interaction commercials that had been cut and paste from TV to online. Advertising agencies and their clients finally realized online viewers wanted something completely different in an online ad. Good TV required doing the mental work for the viewer, but good online creative required involving the viewer. (Think World of Warcraft)
Check back in five years and see if we were right.
Imagine that you’re moving your company to a new office space. You have the opportunity to let it say everything about you that you want your customers, business associates, and vendors to know. You spend time with an expert contractor coordinating improvements. You work on room designs with a space planning specialist. You use your IT guru to ensure your computers, phones, etc. will operate effortlessly. You do this because when it’s finished you’ll have work space that not only helps your company’s productivity, but also defines your brand for every visitor to see.
Now, replace this office space design process with your website development process. These days, there’s not much difference. You’re just replacing tangible brick and mortar with virtual space. But if you consider which of these walls and roofs more people visit, you’ve figured out the true value of your website.
So back up for a moment and ask yourself, “How much am I willing to pay for experts who know how to turn a cookie-cutter office space into my company’s brand?” Chances are good you’re willing to pay more than a few dollars. So, why, when your website is your opportunity to show your unique brand, would you settle for one that has nothing unique?
Interesting paradox, huh? Websites are much less expensive to build than they were just a few short years ago, but if you want to make yours stand out, to represent your brand and do a big part your selling for you, you’re going to have to pay for some real experts. Not just programmers who know html, php and css, but designers and brand strategists who know how to represent your best assets online. And writers who know how to take the hundreds of keywords necessary to help your site show up well in search results, and incorporate them into enticing content that flows seamlessly.
Websites like this are not just necessary for e-commerce businesses, they’re imperative for any business that wants to take advantage of the wonderful benefits the web has to offer your brand. It’s a new way of thinking, isn’t it?
Based on the latest reports, the question is no longer will our mobile phones replace our wallets, but when. Forrester Research believes that the 2012 Olympics in London will be the first major event where mobile payment systems will be used in a big, big way. PayPal recently acquired mobile payments provider Zong for $240 million, declaring the wallet will be dead by 2015. Google has launched Google Wallet, its own payment system. Then there’s Square, the mobile payments platform that Visa just made a major investment in, now worth more than $1.4 billion. Meanwhile American Express has new payment system, Serve, that will have a payment to payment and mobile payment component. These major players have done their homework, and are preparing for the virtual wallet to come fast.
What gives them so much confidence consumers will adopt this technology? In addition to their own testing, they’re following the success stories of businesses like Starbucks, who in January began accepting mobile payments via the Starbucks Card Mobile iPhone and BlackBerry applications at 6,800 company-operated stores. Within 90 days more than 3 million people had paid using Starbucks Card Mobile, twice their expectation.
But what about consumer fear? If there’s risk with transactions on computers, won’t security be an even bigger issue with mobile devices? This will be the challenge to overcome. And yet, history will most likely repeat itself. Remember the introduction of ATM cards? The idea of having your checking account directly connected to a piece of plastic with only a four digit pin as protection was met with huge hesitation. It lasted just about as long as it took the convenience of this process to overpower the fear of this new technology.
Time will tell, but time is moving fast. To us, it would be no surprise if we’re bumping and flashing over swiping by 2015. And what will happen to pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters? They’ll end up somewhere, but probably history museums.
A few months ago we got our hands on a new Augmented Reality (AR) marketing tool for smart phones that could prove useful for our commercial real estate clients. Rofo, a commercial real estate search tool, and Junaio, an augmented reality browser, joined together to create the first commercial real estate augmented reality mobile application. You can view a one minute video of it here, but basically it allows anyone to point their smart phone at a building and see any real estate space available, including photos, space size, costs and more. In one click you can also email the listing broker or landlord. Bye-bye real estate signage, hello peering through walls.
But is this really a new technology? Not really. Not by the new definition of new, aka developed within the last 6 months. Augmented Reality (AR) has been around for several years, you just may not think of it as that. How about that Yelp app on your smart phone that finds and reviews restaurants you’re close to via your phone’s GPS. Or how about Layar, a popular app that shows you what is around you by displaying real time digital information (layers) on top of reality. Augmented reality (AR) has been growing rapidly since 2009, but what’s exciting (and a bit creepy) about this tool of late is the way marketers are starting to use it. Here are just a few:
POS augmented reality application: LEGO augmented reality kiosk shows what’s inside the box.
iPhone RFID: object-based media – location-based urls with your phone – wave your phone by an object and it tells you something about it, drives you to a URL.
Tissot watches – sit in front of your computer and virtually “try on” the different styles.
These are most likely just teasers for what media and communication experiences will look like in the near future. According to Juniper research, the current global revenue for augmented reality (AR) is currently less than $2 million, but is projected to be around $1.5 billion globally by 2015. At this past spring’s SXSW conference, a panel of augmented reality developers said the future of AR is working it into the everyday, via glasses/goggles or even AR contact lenses. They said once these tools are available to the masses, marketing and advertising as we know them now will once again be a thing of the past.
Hold on. It’s coming fast. And it will give all new meaning to the term “reality check”.
YouTube is quietly gearing up for a major site revamp that will dramatically increase its ability to compete with broadcast and network television, including a number of channels with professional content. Oh come on, did you really think television ads as we know it would be around forever? It barely makes sense anymore. Especially paying for commercial space that now gets ignored more than most other media, yet still leads in media expense. (OK, we know, there’s still the Superbowl. But then there’s the rest of the year)
Think about it. Why would you pay to advertise in a medium that allows the viewer (aka potential customer) to skip past your television ad with one simple click? Or to have your product shown to a semi-targeted demographic audience that’s been defined by way of archaic technology (can you say Diaries?) Why would you, the advertiser, invest in this form of media when you could pay for only your exact target audience’s guaranteed viewership? That’s the difference that will become increasingly obvious over the next 12 months as online video really takes over the internet.
Why hasn’t it happened yet?
Until recently, online streaming was limited by bandwidth challenges, interrupting viewers enjoyment of what they were watching online to buffer the next chunk of media. Those days are almost gone, which is the last big challenge the online world had to conquer in order to become the source of choice for viewership.
So, imagine this…
You’re an advertiser. You can now pick and choose where your television ads run based on finite behavioral consumer characteristics, one viewer at a time. You can pay a premium to have your ad run in a venue that does not allow viewers to fast forward past it, or you can pay a lower fee and take your chances they’ll still watch your ad. Either way, you know the viewer is a perfect target for your message. Or maybe you’re willing to pay a higher fee, but only when they click on the ad that lands them on your web page. The common denominator – no waste. Compare that to today’s average television advertising options. There’s no comparison.
The powerhouses currently in charge of accepting media and advertisements in the online world are aware of the flaws broadcast television has when it comes to offering advertisers the best choices. You can bet they will not be cutting and pasting a strategy that no longer works into a new media ripe for gleaning billions of ad dollars. And YouTube (aka Google TV) will lead the way.
What will consumers expect from the increasing number of ads that will find their place in front of their eyes? A lot. First, it had better be relevant. Next it had better be refreshing (and trustworthy). Then, if it’s persuasive enough, it had better allow them to click through to something equally relevant and useful. Otherwise they will click on the button that reports back to YouTube (or whoever) that they found the ad a waste of their time.
The days of media placement costs sucking up 80% of an advertising budget while creative costs about 20% are quickly coming to an end. Certainly the immediate future of online advertising video placement costs will be nowhere near the cost of traditional television ad space. (Don’t hold your breath that this will stick) But the requirement for the very best, smartest and most trustworthy message will increase greatly. It would come as no surprise to us if, in the next few years, the “idea”, along with its creative execution, switches places in the 80/20 scenario. Time will tell. What do you think?
New Super-Cyber shopping tools are popping up everywhere in this year’s holiday advertising communications. Considering the increase in buying online and via mobile phones, this should be no surprise. (In fact, a Bloomberg report estimates 40% of all holiday purchases this year will occur in the cloud) But these new ways to shop are only just beginning. Here are just a few of the latest convenient and fun techie tools being offered to shoppers this holiday season.
Digital gift cards on Facebook
Facebook is taking online presents to the next level with digital gift cards that make online print and cut coupons seem old fashioned. Now you can record a voice message with a digital gift card, and send it to the recipient via mobile phone, email or even a Facebook post. Check out Applebees Facebook Page where they’re offering digital holiday cards you can customize with your recipient’s personal Facebook features.
QR Codes in Catalogs
Have you seen this year’s Target holiday catalog? You’ll find QR Codes resolving into videos showing special features – even special reduced prices – for hundreds of items. They’ve already experienced huge success with a QR code that loads a mobile shopping site specifically for Target’s Holiday Toy Sale catalog. You can easily buy the items, and get the discounts right from your phone. All the information in the catalog’s bar codes can also be accessed via text message. You text a code to Target, and they text you the link. Over the top? Nope. And just wait until next year.
Mobile App Gift Wish Lists
OK, a bit creepy, but kids have already moved from regular mail to email in their letter writing to Santa. This year they can upload it via one of several mobile phone apps, so mom and dad can use it to order gifts directly from their phones. Or to get coupons text for the items on little Johnny’s Christmas list.
Geo-Fencing
This hyper-local marketing strategy allows retailers to track the location of customers through signals sent from their mobile phones. Shoppers who opt in receive a mobile text message as they get near a store location or other relevant point of interest. Messages can be tailored to a different time of day and area. This “moment in time” communication shows promise of strengthening relationships with customers through relevance. Starbucks is an obvious user of this. But companies like The North Face are taking it to new customer service levels by sending customers branded text messages about weather conditions when they get to hiking trails.
What sounds unusual and a bit intimidating this year will most likely be the norm (if not outdated) this time next year. But, as long as marketers strive to offer consumers great value, convenience and enjoyable experiences, cyber shopping tools like these will continue to grow and exceed most of our expectations. That’s refreshing.
