Why Apps why?

There is an App for everything. But does everything need to be "App-ed?" Over the past year, Apps have dominated the innovation conversation amongst many creative planners, branding/product managers and marketing professionals worldwide. We see Apps that range from the integrated ( sales -force mobile) to the redundant ones (paragon app anyone?).

I can see the value proposition, hell i even preached about it for a good 12 months. The intrinsic value of getting one's service offering to reside as branded content in someone's phone is an amazing property to have. Now, in case you're wondering, i'm not jumping off the app bandwagon by any chance, i just think the wagon is currently filled with alot of lemons and very few winners. This boils down to 2 main fails, A lack of strategic understanding and too many assumptions.

What's your favorite branded app? Keeping to a local context, do you even have any branded apps living in your iPhone/BB/Android powered handset? ( I've excluded Nokia as the Ovi store isn't productive enough to be considered) Chances are the only ones would be readers such as Straits Times/ Today or some utility app developed by the government. Even those fail to hit the mark as the apps don't offer anything more than a good mobile site could have provided.

Brands need to identify their main proposition, examine what the iPhone or BB can do and create an original service that makes the app valuable. Do i want to read the papers on the go? Yes. Why should i read it on an app? Wouldn't a STOMP app make more sense than the Straits Times ( where the full story isn't even available on the app)? Users in real time could easily publish/report stories they see with geo location information and quick pictures. Stomp contributors could use the app on a functional level and Stomp readers could get their latest MRT grope in real time.

There are many more examples where apps are created without any reason to exist. Most times, it's either a duplication or meaningless. What happens then is a quick delete or relegation to page 20 of an iPhone. This brings us to measurement, downloads is a terrible way to measure apps as no one knows what happens to the app after. Unless there is regular interaction with some login or submission, most marketers have no idea. Kinda like direct mail marketing, yes it's 100% delivery , but it could also be 100% delivery from postbox to bin.

Let's not get carried away just because we think we can win awards with these apps or even because "everyone and everything has been app-ed". As with most good marketing strategy planning sessions, keep asking why? Then ask why again.

Song of the day

"Don't tell me that its over" by Amy Macdonald

Hot Buffalo wings and Purple Cows

I read Seth Godin's "Purple Cow" again last week and it's pretty amazing how every different read yields a unique and different response. (Kinda like Willy Wonka's varied flavored candy).I found myself thinking more and more about how true some of his observations were. The basic idea is simple enough, your brand/product needs to be outstanding amongst a sea of mediocrity. ( Thus a "purple" cow) Seth's adaptation is that it might not matter what the difference really is, as long as it is.

Be the first, the hippest , the largest, the smallest, the most hard to find and so on. I started to think about our very own local Sunset Grill with it's legendary Buffalo Wings. ( I've gone up to heat level 17 and i have the scars to prove it)
Now, for those who have been there, you'll know what i am talking about. For those who have not , let me summarize it briefly.

The location is inaccessible , the decor is just run down ( i don't care what anyone says, it's not "rustic") and the food is very mediocre and priced on the high side. So why do throngs of fans and super fans continue to make the pilgrimage to torture their taste buds and murder their bowels? The answer is in the heat. The challenge it presents to anyone who prides themselves as a hot head.

But how do you explain the other multitude of customers who think KFC hot n spicy really is hot n spicy? Why would they make their way down for a plate of level 1 cowardice?

WOM marketing is the holy grail of viral marketing in my opinion. Whether you hate or love Sunset Grill's wings, everyone has an opinion and is not afraid to express it. This to me is the secret recipe behind Sunset's cash register ringing in the dollars.
Everyone, whether heat lovers or not has heard the tale of Sunset's grill from someone they know. This influencer has somehow piqued enough interest for his audience to give it a go. In the words of Paris Hilton, "That's Hot!"

WOM marketing can only be manufactured/conjured when you as a business owner are not afraid to relinquish control over what the word is. I often get into conversations with clients who demand a very fixed outcome based on a specific message. I usually have a hard time convincing them that it won't work unless the word is the truth. Apologies for the religious context but in this instance, the "word" in WOM marketing should never be treated like an ad copy.

Whether you are selling hot wings or branding the next massage chair, your product/service is the WORD. What makes it different from anyone else ( the Purple Cow) are the letters that form the word but ultimately, your WORD will be determined by your customers and if it's a good one, it will make its way to your sales/targets.

Song of the day

Let it be me by Ray LaMontagne

Bluecasting not so blue after all

There has been a lot of debate about the effectiveness of Bluetooth (aka “toothing“) as a mobile marketing technique. As a technology, it undoubtedly holds promise–the key is in implementation. What a company might call “bluecasting,” the consumer may consider “bluespamming.” In a recent trial we did in Singapore with Aviva, we hoped to uncover some best practices.

Aviva’s Futurator Campaign

Through a dedicated Bluetooth kiosk, users could receive a banner encouraging them to experience Aviva’s Futurator in the actual shopping mall, and a chance to win $10,000. For people to receive the banner, they had to be in the range of the kiosk and activate the bluetooth on their mobile phone. The results were more than encouraging as we achieved over 4% banner ad download rates over 3 days reaching out to more than 790 unique mobile phones.

Right Message At the Right Time

At the beginning, questions were raised about the number of people who would actually turn on their Bluetooth without any pre-seeded knowledge of the campaign. Often, with Bluecasting campaigns, a lot of emphasis is placed on awareness marketing, essentially telling costumers and consumers to ‘Turn on your Bluetooth’. While awareness marketing has its advantage and is a big part of successful proximity-based campaigns, we also learned that the location of whatever is being distributed is an understated and overlooked ingredient in any successful Bluecasting campaign. Where your customer is actually located when the message arrives is a major factor in influencing their behavior. This makes sense on many levels, from immediate customer engagement to shortening the decision process, getting the right message at the right time is essential. The old cliche ‘quality not just quantity’ was on every one’s lips when we were doing our post campaign analysis.

Setting up Shop

Another insight from the campaign came when we discovered that by setting up various Bluecasting stations inside and outside our mall location, the highest participation rate was found outside the mall. This reaffirmed two of our understandings of mobile behavior and usage:

1) Information that is fed at an early stage of the shopping decision making cycle is crucial to influencing decisions on where to go and what to do

2) Engaging the user in a somewhat neutral environment is better than engaging him/her in an environment in which advertising and buying is expected

Setting up shop at a very visible, prominent location also helped create buzz. Not only was the audience intrigued but they opted-in as well. We saw many customers pause to receive the file and then look around for some marketing presence, seeing our tent outside got them to duly walk over to sign up. This movement and engagement sparked others to follow the herd.
Conclusion

We were pleased with the results and continue to advocate bluecasting as a great mobile marketing tool when relevant. By understanding consumer expectations and reactions to activity on their personal device, we have begun to see more and more how understanding mobile behavior is so important in delivering great mobile campaigns.

Song of the post "Candy" by Paolo Nutini

Nokia's mobile campaign "comes with branding"

For all who don’t know, Singapore is one of only 3 countries in the world where NOKIA has rolled out its “comes with music” service. All new owners of a NOKIA “comes with music” phone get unlimited access to millions of songs online from the NOKIA music store. Singapore as a market has over 3 million downloads in 2 months since its launch and whilst NOKIA has yet to release information on its sales figures, this is an incredible model of exploiting mobile usage behavior through relevant content.

A year ago when NOKIA first announced this exclusive and global first initiative, many observers were wondering why NOKIA would want to invest in what they considered a marketing gimmick. How would free music relate back to brand equity and sales? Was the cost of providing the free music carrot an acceptable one to bear? Recently, digital east Asia reported this quote

“The love affair between music and young urban Asian consumers remains inseparable and it’s no surprise that music continues to be an important part of their daily lives. Our overall findings showed that 25% were listening to music more in the last 12 months.
Ideally, the music industry should be working with telecommunications companies to deliver music via mobile phone while marketers and brand owners should be exploring or realigning their strategies by incorporating music as a platform to reach this fast-growing and digitally driven segment.”
– Steve Garton, Executive Director - Media, Synovate.

What NOKIA has now in Singapore at least is a market leading reach in consumers who actively enjoy music from NOKIA’s branded portal. This incentive will continue to ensure traits such as brand loyalty and WOM evangelism are alive and kicking with their core audience. Also, the fact that these songs are non convertible and only playable on NOKIA phone sets, NOKIA has also managed to offer more compelling reason for their consumers to throw away their old mp3 player and replace it with a NOKIA music enabled mobile phone.

I/We at MobileBehavior often talk about opportunities brands should take advantage of within the mobile phone environment. By offering value and content, brands can now be a part of a mobile user’s individual experience through their personal phone. From the Iphone/Blackberry applications to bookmarked WAP sites to Java games, the opportunities are endless and waiting to be explored. NOKIA’s “comes with music” mobile strategy also comes with branding, how about yours?

Song of the blog

The White Tie Affair "Candle Sick & Tired"

How to market mobile.... here

We just recently concluded a very enjoyable speaking engagement in Hong Kong and met with some of the brightest and creative minds in the industry. There was an amazing opportunity for MobileBehavior to interact and drill deeper into the minds of leading marketers in Asia. From brand managers to CEOs, our 1:1 conversations confirmed what we were evangelizing, that marketers now understand the importance of mobile. The question however has become “How”?

This is a powerful question that shows us 2 major insights. Firstly, We are no longer stuck in the “why?”. Having to convince a marketer about the relevance of mobile marketing seems to be a thing of the past. Almost every attendee we spoke to had a Smartphone in hand, checking emails, opening attachments, surfing WAP links, accessing news. This made them a part of their own mobile marketing audience even if they hadn’t realized it yet! For some time, there was always a disconnect between mobile marketer and audience as the marketer never considered him/herself part of that mix. Now, we have come to an age where we get it because we live it.

The next important insight from the question of “how?” brought home some major reality checks. Marketers in Asia recognize the possibilities based on mobile penetration rates, excellent carrier infrastructure and user behavior. We have in Asia, a mobile only audience in certain countries such as Philippines and Indonesia. China and India represent 2 markets with unparallel potential based on existing mobile services such as Mobile Social networking sites and direct carrier services. However, the peculiarities and nuances of each market has bred a lot of confusion on exactly how mobile marketing works in these parts of the world. It is clear that there is no one mobile strategy that can fit into Indonesia and be duplicated in India The question therefore isn’t just how to market mobile? It’s how do I market mobile here?

What resonated well with our peers lay in the area of activation. The mobile phone has an opportunity to breathe life into any campaign from an engagement vantage point. Using SMS and IVR channels to lead consumers from a passive to active role makes a lot of sense for any marketer in any market. Similarly, there are many other channels where the mobile phone is able to act as an enabler for marketers to interact, track and measure on their offline media. This is an important part of our approach in providing as many answers as we can to our clients and partners. From identifying common marketing tools ( think SMS , IVR) to taking advantage of local networks (e.g. island wide Wi-Fi, 3.5G networks) to considerations like dominant mobile handset brand data, we have discovered most marketers don’t know where to start and how to get mobile campaigns off the ground.

We were pleased to know Asia as a mobile market isn’t being debated. The questions of how to get involved in these fertile areas are excellent from a progress point of view. We often hear marketers talk about paradigm shifts in thinking. Today we are seeing a whole new movement of behavior in the realm of mobile. As innovation and technology continue to converge in providing us awesome mobile services and products. We think mobile marketing is NOW the next great thing in Asia.


Song of the blog
Live version of "Above the bones" by Mishka