Good News, Bad News for Mobile Marketing

Did you know that the average U.S. mobile subscriber sends and receives more text messages than phone calls? Additionally, there are approximately 4.1 billion mobile users worldwide currently. That number is expected to grow to 5.6 billion by 2013. As a result of these statistics, companies have large opportunities in the mobile sector.

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Mike Wehrs, the President and CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, reports that many large brands are making considerable investments in the mobile arena and are having success. For this reason, he says smaller businesses should embrace these mobile opportunities as well.

Mobile allows marketers and advertisers to directly target their market because it provides a higher level of engagement and interaction that is controlled by the consumer. Since privacy could become a concern, marketers and advertisers should refer to the consumer privacy standards from the MMA when they begin their mobile efforts. Consumers can also visit the MMA to understand how they can be protected.

The strong statistics above indicate that the mobile industry is growing at a rapid rate. So, as Mike Wehrs pointed out, why wouldn’t you want to participate in mobile and have the opportunity to directly target consumers?

Google Experimenting with Social Search

Google may already be in the social networking market with its Brazil-centric Orkut service, however that has not stopped the search giant from adding new social features to its array of products.

A post at the (unofficial) Google Operating System blog recounts the history of Google Reader’s social evolution, up to but not including its latest update last week.

SearchWiki, though not a social search feature per se, allows users to share personal annotations of their search results, as does the more recently introduced Sidewiki. And, like Bing, Google has established a partnership with Twitter in order to surface “social” results.

But the feature announced yesterday, which Google is actually calling “Social Search“, is a much bigger step, even if it is tucked away as an experiment on Google Labs.

From the official blog post:

With Social Search, Google finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the bottom of your search results. When I do a simple query for [new york], Google Social Search includes my friend’s blog on the results page under the heading “Results from people in your social circle for New York.” I can also filter my results to see only content from my social circle by clicking “Show options” on the results page and clicking “Social.

The question is, why does Facebook want Friendfeed?

Facebook bought Friendfeed for an undisclosed amount of money. Mountain View, Calif.-based FriendFeed was started by co-founders Paul Buchheit, Bret Taylor and Sanjeev Singh, all ex-Googlers, and raised $5 million in Series A funding from Benchmark Capital and its founders. Facebook is said to have paid up to $50 million for the company – $20 million in cash and rest in stock.

The question is, why does Facebook want Friendfeed?

No, this deal is not about Twitter. It is about Google — to be more precise: Google vs. Facebook.

The reason behind the deal is twofold: ability to publish more and more information in real time and the resulting explosion of data on the web. These two trends will soon make it nearly impossible to deal with the resulting information overload. As a result, the current seek-search-consume popularized by Google will eventually hit its outer limits — and when that happens…

Publish Post

In 303’s last blog (http://303digital.blogspot.com/2009/08/content-is-king-but-who-is-going-to-pay.html), content creation, distribution and consumption are amid a sea change.

Whether it’s photos, videos, tweets, status updates or whatever…the content is getting constantly atomized. In order to consume it all, we need to find smarter tools for content consumption. FriendFeed is one of them.

If you look at the rapidity with which many of us are uploading information on Facebook — 1 billion photos a month, a billion pieces of content shared every week, 30 status updates a day — you know that the problem of plenty is only going to get worse.

The good news is that Facebook bought a solid team to solve this problem.
The FriendFeed team — ex-Google programming rock stars — just out-executed Facebook and kept launching new features at a breathtaking pace.

FriendFeed’s unique ability is to foster conversations — not a massive user base. If Facebook can take this capacity to “converse” and marry it to its mobile clients, what the company will have on its hands is a true interaction platform, befitting today’s always-connected life. This will give it a further boost against Twitter, a small, but fast-growing, micro-messaging company.

FriendFeed has built a real-time information aggregation platform that is impressive, to say the least. Facebook’s news stream will benefit from FriendFeed’s real-time expertise.

Facebook, after having copied so many of FriendFeed’s features, buying it was the right thing to do.

More AR... Wrigley France

At present, most AR research is concerned with the use of live video imagery which is digitally processed and "augmented" by the addition of computer-generated graphics. Advanced research includes the use of motion-tracking data, fiducial markers recognition using machine vision, and the construction of controlled environments containing any number of sensors and actuators.

Get your AR DJ on.

U.K.-based Exposure and Australian developer Boffswana throw more interactivity into the growing AR mix with this digital DJ setup for France's Wrigley 5 gum.

As part of the brand's "Stimulate Your Senses" campaign, the website invites visitors to do their own jockeying through three downloadable glyphs. Manipulating the visual markers allows them to change volume and modify, add or remove different tracks available on the site.

The constantly evolving technology landscape is churning out an infinite amount of new and original marketing tools for advertisers to play with. There has to be an element of creative risk-taking. On the other side of the fence, consumers are awestruck by the novelty of advertising and marketing innovations, which offers interest and intrigue compared to the standard items in their everyday advertising consumption diets."

Here is a link to Funkadelic top 10 list

http://funkadelicadvertising.blogspot.com/2009/06/top-10-augmented-reality-adveritising.html

Augmented Reality

We have moved into a new era of information where point and receive is at out finger tips!


Below are three AR show cases I find very interesting...

Mobile
The first mobile Augmented Reality browser premiers in the Netherlands www.layar.eu Five Dutch content providers to participate in the worlds first AR browser AMSTERDAM, Tuesday June 16th, 2009....




Online - March 2009
Just released with select TOPPS 2009 baseball cards -- augmented reality trading cards that literally bring players to life right on top of the card.

Augmented Reality: Coraline

Passerbys become a part of the film Coraline leaving them with a lasting impact.

• Augmented reality is essentially combining the real world with digitally created images
• The technology gives users the ability to control their environment using sound and compelling visuals
• There's very little time investment, and virtually no learning curve for consumers
• AR brings "tactile" imaginary element to the interactive experience

What are your thoughts and where do we go next?

Vodafone UK

Thought we would share this with you as we here at 303 like the use of twitter and maps.

Vodaphone in the UK has set up a campaign that uses Twitter Search API, the Google Maps API, the Yahoo Placemaker API and a large helping of jQuery.

All this technology and mapping allows Twitter users to #tag their starting location and then their travel destination to the Vodaphone map. (example: #ukhols 25 F B12 Gran Canaria)
Vodafone then connects their starting point and there destination and provides the distance between the to.

Users receive the code that will allow them to use UK rates for MMS and SMS while on holiday in their respective destination.




http://ukholsmap.com

Vodafone abolishes roaming charges
Throughout June, July and August, Vodafone is abolishing roaming charges in over 35 countries across Europe as well as Australia and New Zealand.
You can talk, text and send picture messages back home or within the country you’re visiting, and only pay standard UK rates.
Even calls to Voicemail are covered so keeping in touch is a breeze.

#ukhols Map - http://ukholsmap.com
Where are you heading for your holidays this summer?
Are you staying in the UK or going abroad?
The #ukhols map shows where Twitter users are taking time out this summer.

If you are an existing Vodafone Passport customers you’ll automatically benefit from the three month promotion.
If not you can sign up for free by texting the word ‘Passport’ to 97888 if you pay monthly or to 2345 if you use pay as you go.(Visit vodafone.co.uk/roaming for more information.)

Look forward to your thoughts

Viral - Can it be measured –

A short film by Public Mojo that was created more than a year ago for Schweppes has raced into the world’s viral video top 20 after online users belatedly fell in love with it.

“Signs” was originally created to promote an online Schweppes short film festival.



In the last month, the 12 minute movie, which does not feature the brand and has only one subtle reference to a character putting her finger to her lips, has surged in popularity.

On YouTube it has picked up over half a million views, 1200 text comments and a Facebook Group has acquired the film nearly 2,000 fans. According to the website Viral Video Chart, it is currently the world’s 17th most viral video. Globally, more than 300 blog posts have been written about it in the last 28 days. It has become particularly popular with Portugese and Spanish audiences.

The movie provides a great case study on Viral using social media tools... as of today, Youtube, facebook, blogs and twitter have all been used to create more reach for the brand and the short film.

Viral marketing works because people trust the opinions of their peers. Author and industry expert George Silverman says, "Word of mouth is the most honest advertising medium there is. People don't want to hurt their friends and family and colleagues with bad information."

Comments and recommendations coming from peers will be perceived as reliable even if the information slyly originates from a marketer.

A successful viral marketing campaign also helps consumers cut through the online clutter. With so many advertisers vying for the same customers, a personal recommendation from a friend or colleague will help direct your online audience to your site without much additional effort like a banner or paid search advertisement.

While creating conversation and buzz is fantastic, all the publicity will not do advertisers any good if it doesn't relate back to their brands. For example, I was forwarded an interactive widget that I spent the better part of an hour using, but by the end of the day, I could not tell you what brand was behind it. This is ultimately a failure because, while the campaign got my attention and my time, there was no subsequent call-to-action or brand attached to benefit from the interaction.

So how do we feel about the Schweppe’s short film?



We will let the users decide

Credit Crisis Broken Down

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Financial doom made simple

Plain English - if econimics is like Greek to you then this video provides and insightful way of explaining to even the most math retarded of you/us.

Lost Generations

We float through the connectivity and isolation of our social lives, we have facebook, myspace and friendster account, we connect via twitter and instant messages, sending an mms, sms is as second nature as calling. However fast we move and however ingrained things become we need not lose sight of who we are...

We live with the pending environmental, economic and social disasters that we have created for our generation and the ones to come, will our passage in life create what the next generation see as the norm….

This video was submitted by a 20 year old in a contest titled "u @ 50" - and she came second???

Did You Know? 08/09

The last 10 years the world has changed, The internet has become our saving grace to those who need friends and a little social contact, The world has changed and will forever be changing based on how the inteweb of technologies evloves.



This is the latest 'state of the world' video created by Karl Fisch - a US teacher and technology commentator - http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/.





It's an entertaining and informative account of the speed of global economic and social change but with a glaring lack of sources and references...

Innovation in the interactive

Innovation in the interactive space isn't just about having ideas -- it's about timing their execution just right. There's no sense in launching a campaign on a digital platform that has yet to achieve acceptance among the target audience. And yet, when campaigns are timed correctly, brands can position themselves as cutting-edge competitors by tapping into an emerging technology at the precise moment it hits the mainstream.

BMW Films; Brahma "Drumprovise"By John McGarry, Continuity

The BMW Films series, launched in early 2001, is representative of a campaign that was forward-looking, in terms of both the technology and creative methods the campaign employed as it unfolded. A series of eight short films, BMW Films featured the work of popular Hollywood filmmakers and highlighted the performance aspects of various BMW cars. The videos featured actors crashing and blowing up these much-sought-after cars in high-speed chases and explosions. Using branded entertainment in an entertaining and engaging format, this campaign shied away from typical luxury brand advertising and was designed to attract consumers of a particular mindset.

Executions included broadcast, print, and outdoor elements, with a primary focus on promoting the actual films and not the cars. For its time, the campaign achieved stellar results, with millions of views on the BMW website. Yet there's little doubt that, with today's advances in online video technology, audiences would have had much greater access to this campaign, which would have dramatically increased traffic and viewership. Thanks to the rising popularity of sites like Hulu.com, Joost.com, and some of the network sites, consumers today are more comfortable watching longer format programming online. In fact, people are still downloading and watching the BMW Films today, so they continue to be relevant as our media habits evolve.

This is not how traditional campaigns usually unfold or how brands typically represent themselves. By creating these online videos, BMW realized this work would live on the web and would continue to be viewed by BMW fans. It's also worth noting that these films were best viewed by downloading a proprietary video player that (at the time) worked better and looked cooler than most video players. By using proprietary, high-end technology, the company helped position the brand itself as high-end, technologically advanced, and entertaining.

A less obvious example of a campaign that was ahead of its time technically is a campaign called Brahma "Drumprovise," which launched in late 2006. Brahma is a Brazilian beer whose brand is built around bringing a Brazilian flair, known as "Ginga," to a person's daily activities. The target audience for this campaign had an interest in all things Brazilian -- street art, music, creativity, and dance. A key manifestation of this strategy was an online digital music mixer that enabled visitors to create Brazilian themed music, and to place themselves in the middle of the Brahma's Brazil webcam, all via their desktops.

Drumprovise is a Flash-based application that pushed the envelope in the online space. It represents a solid example of a campaign that used fresh technology to bring a strategy to life. However, its reach was limited based on the low penetration (at the time) of desktop cameras and high bandwidth. In addition, compared with today's social media environment, fewer opportunities were available to further support the effort through social networking tools and contests on sites like YouTube.

In addition, some of the regional marketing support shifted before the campaign launched to locations that had lower penetration of webcams and high-speed access. If these regions had more advanced internet access and more frequent use of webcams, it would have stimulated the viral nature of the campaign.

Both of the above campaigns were ahead of their time based on their use of technology to bring each brand's core strategies to fruition. The incorporation of the medium into the message continues to power innovation in advertising and, as always, it brings new, exciting content, entertainment, and tools to consumers.

Social media and PR

The Internet has prompted titanic shifts in the way PR and media relations are going to be done now and in the future. Technology, economics and changing public sensibilities have changed the PR game forever…

Basic PR assumptions:

1. PR influences mass media to put ideas, products and brands into the public consciousness and conversation
2. PR works through editorial decision-makers who set the national or global news agenda
3. PR targets large audiences to accelerate and optimize brand impact and buzz
4. The value of the implied third-party endorsement combined with the speed and reach of influence-able media makes PR worth the effort

Now consider the current media and editorial landscape:

• Mass media audiences have significantly declined and fragmented. Niche media rules.
• Famous vehicles like daily newspapers, radio and the TV news have much smaller audiences and cannot keep up with the news cycle.
• Almost anyone with a blog, a camera phone or a video recorder can gather, edit and transmit news, potentially influencing public debate or potentially initiating a viral sensation. John Q. Public can still claim his 15 minutes in the spotlight.
• Reaction to and analysis of events takes place in real time and is influenced by a growing number of voices and sectors empowered by widely and cheaply accessible technology

“The basics of news gathering are changing, Online PR tactics are becoming more important to access to and attention from the media. It also requires you to think of PR much more like advertising where the message can be directly transmitted to customers and prospects without an editorial filter. Here’s how and why.”

Everyone Searches. Google is the universal go-to-resource. Those same reporters who won’t take your call, use Google and other search engines for ideas, sources, data and colour commentary.
If your press materials aren’t online and aren’t searchable you have no chance of either influencing the media or of going direct with your message to people interested in your brand, your category or your subject matter.

This mandates understanding and using different tools. You have to consider the means of distribution; e-mail directly to press lists and online distribution to insure searchability and to capitalize on those sites that import PR feeds as content. You also must build SEO tactics into the language and construction of press releases.

Video is Vital.
YouTube is the second most searched site on the web.
Video is expected.
Video gives you the option to more carefully control the explicit and the implied message and has the potential for significant consumer or media pass-along.

Everything is a Conversation. One-way media is dead. Everyone talks back to, edits, reviews, and comments, adds to, shapes and criticizes everything.

In a world where everybody finds out what is happening at lightening speed on a growing range of devices, the game is about interpreting and analyzing the experience rather than presenting new information.

“So PR pros need to monitor mentions and reputations, transmit and receive RSS feeds and keep track of advocates, enemies and the forums they participate in. They also need to understand how to use
Twitter,
Facebook
Delicious / dig
and other social media to follow and to influence the on-going conversation, which is often monitored, catalyzed and promoted by leading websites and TV or cable networks. Social Media Drive Online PR Tactics”