RCR Wireless’ Colin Gibbs had a nice article related to the recent Olympics and related consumer use of Mobile Video. The article noted that neither AT&T nor MobiTV would discuss uptake of their video offerings…MedioFlo also declined to discuss how many viewers tuned into the games, but VP of Programming, Mike Bailey said the company “was extremely pleased” with the results and performance” of its Olympics channel.
Other notable Mobile initiatives…
Papa John’s Pizza 2D mobile barcode campaign.. - The 2D barcode partner in this case is NeoMedia. NeoMedia’s CEO, Iain McCready, was quoted as saying “The test was operationally very successful” (Is that a euphemism for a low participation rate?)
Yahoo’s download numbers for its Yahoo! Go their J2ME application. How many downloads to date?? What handset types are dominating the downloads?? Hell, they probably have the best distribution outlets outside of the Carrier decks.
Marketers continue to gripe about the Mobile Channel’s lack of benchmarks to help them gauge the success of their Mobile efforts. Certainly the lack of sharing by experimenting brands is understandable from a competitive standpoint, but a little sharing could go a long way. Kudos to Adidas’ Chris Murphy at the past MMA Marketing conference in New York for sharing an in-depth look at his company’s integrated Mobile campaign that was run with help from agencies Carat & Isobar.
Also noted in the aforementioned RCR Wireless Article, Nicholas Covey, director of insights for Nielsen Mobile said, “much of the lack of transparency in mobile is the fact that the industry has yet to develop real-time measurement systems”.. “Largely, the mobile industry right now is not like the television or online industries where you get overnight ratings,” Covey explained. “Mobile is generally measured in 3-day increments.”
Well, I agree that at the macro-aggregate level that Nielsen Mobile deals with they don’t get real-time metrics, but at an application level, i.e. the mobile marketing company and aggregator, that is NOT the case. The beauty of Mobile as a direct response mechanism is that it is instant. If I configure a mobile marketing campaign for a Txt2Vote or Sweepstakes, etc.. I can instantly see when results start rolling in.
August 15th, 2008 The Insider Posted in 2D Codes - Camera Applications, Mobile Advertising 3 Comments »
Good article by the Mobile Marketer’s Giselle Abramovich on the recent announcement from Polo Ralph Lauren that they would begin utilizing a 2D barcode reader (Quick Response- QR- code reader specifically) in their new mobile commerce efforts.
The article stated that consumers could, “shop via their camera phones by scanning the QR code appearing in print advertisements, store windows and mailers”. “The QR codes will link consumers directly to Ralph Lauren’s limited edition 2008 U.S. Open Collection - as well as sell Ralph Lauren Classics including Polos, Oxfords and Chinos.”
Regarding the use of a QR code reader to help spur impulse shopping. I like the thought, but have a series of thoughts surrounding the
consumer adoption challenges.
- 2D code readers, while numerous, are almost non-existent in the U.S. market with regards to being pre-installed on any handsets. There are some high end NOKIA’s such as the N95 that ship with a QR code reader, but the mass majority of handsets sold through the Carriers including those from Blackberry and Apple do not ship with a reader. Now, the good news is that you can download readers for various cameraphones capable of downloading a J2ME application (which is most phones today) including popular smartphones from Blackberry and Apple. (Checkout Scanbuy’s reader for Blackberry’s Pearl and Curve models OR visit your iPhone APP store for their just released iPhone 2D code reader.)
- That said, Polo or rather their advertising agency, is going to have to work pretty hard to educate consumers on what the funny looking black and white codes are for on their print materials. The call-to-action is KEY! Changing consumer behavior is not easy especially when it comes to seemingly complex technical items on the mobile phone. Just getting consumers to download the 2D code reader is a challenge in itself as various industry studies all point to consumers being leery of potential hidden costs when using new mobile applications (e.g. video, mobile web, MMS).
- Polo will also have to spend to drive traffic to their new mobile site just to encourage their viewers to download the QR reader. It will be interesting to see what tactics they employ to get some early adopters to the site - e.g. coupons, dramatic cost savings on advertised products, etc..
- In terms of getting help from Carriers and other big tech companies to drive awareness for 2D codes, I know that Scanbuy was recently involved with SPRINT in a public trial of their reader, but I have not seen any recent news from the other Carriers yet (rest assured they are evaluating the technology because it leads to increased data usage). Google’s Android will include 2D code reader functionality and Microsoft has said in the past it will try to play in this field as well.
- The 2D code market participants are also working to decide on some sort of standards. Currently, because of their prevalence in Japan, QR and Datamatrix code formats are getting a good deal of press. However, companies like Scanbuy, NeoMedia, BeeTagg and Nextcode to name few, have developed their own code formats specifically for use with the Mobile handset. (this is a story for another day ;-). Not all 2D codes readers read ALL codes, so standards are a must for widespread adoption. The MMA is assisting in helping these participants come to some sort for conclusion.
Please note that these aforementioned challenges need to be combined with getting consumers to use their mobile phone just to browse the web and be comfortable making purchases via their credit card on the mobile web - these are NOT easy obstacles to overcome and will take time, but Polo should be commended for jumping into the deep-end head first!
April 25th, 2008 The Insider Posted in 2D Codes - Camera Applications, MMS, Mobile Advertising, Shortcode Marketing, User Generated Content 1 Comment »
Remember when Verizon Wireless announced last July that they were the first (Tier 1) U.S. Carrier to launch an off-deck MMS MO marketing program (i.e. user takes picture with phone and sends pic via MMS to shortcode) with Google’s YouTube? OK. Now, do you remember all the subsequent MMS marketing programs since then? Right, it’s hard to think of more than just a few. Why you ask?…
Here’s a running a list why we haven’t seen more Cross-carrier MMS Marketing Campaigns in the U.S. to date.
- Carriers have been slow to open up MMS infrastructure for off-deck A2P applications
- Aggregators - usually waiting on the Carriers - have then had to configure their gateway interfaces to manage the new message format.
- MMS infrastructure has cost the Carriers a good deal of investment dollars. Thus the costs to run MMS campaigns are ultimately higher than SMS. Not all Carriers - SPRINT specifically - have stated that they are NOT interested in powering Standard Rated MMS marketing campaigns over their network at this time. This means negotiations will ensure as to what payment terms will change their mind to let a particular program run over their network.
- MMS costs those consumers without a full data plan or a big bucket of messages more per MO & MT than SMS - sometimes as high as 25 cents per message. PLUS because MMS requires a data connection - data charges can accrue as well for the consumer.
- There have not been a lot of turnkey tools announced for marketers to build out SMIL-based MMS programs. Plus, I can’t imagine there even a lot of developers in the U.S. that very skilled in developing rich MMS campaigns yet using XML-based SMIL.
The good news is that all of the Tier 1 Carriers and the many aggregators supplying them with off-deck marketing programs are moving (some faster than others) to get their systems set-up to launch MMS MO based programs. This will certainly spur more Social Networking an i-journalism programs - SEE CBS Mobile’s recent launch of their EYEMOBILE website - in which users can upload video from their mobile phone via an MMS shortcode.
What really excites me as a marketer are the MMS MO use cases that come from the Image Recognition Technology camp. The two big U.S. players in this space are MOBOT and SNAPTELL and both companies offer advertisers the ability to “mobilize” their existing traditional print, outdoor signage, packaging, even TV ads (although technical issues are inherent here) by simply allowing a consumer to take a picture of say a company logo OR an entire print ad in a magazine and send it to a shortcode via MMS. The company’s servers then identify which marketing program the image is aligned with and triggers an appropriate MMS MT or SMS or WAP Push. This means that marketers don’t need to modify their existing creative other than to insert some sort of call-to-action for consumer to snap a picture and send it to a specific shortcode. This technology basically enables advertisers to insert a direct response mechanism in their traditional ad units.
In terms of marketers creating Application-to-Peer based MMS campaigns - the tools are slowly emerging. PLEASE NOTE that dealing with MMS is trickier than SMS in that not all handsets support the same MIME types that may be included in an MMS deck - such as audio and video formats. ALSO - the U.S. Carrier networks may have different guidelines on MMS running through their network such as the maximum payload size of each message (I believe usually capped around 300K per msg).. ALL OF THESE MEANS MORE TESTING will be required both on the part of the vendor and marketer to ensure the user experience is as consistent as possible across a wide variety of handsets. I’ve experimented with a self-serve MMS composer toolset from Massachusetts-based CellySpace. Pretty slick app, but as the website indicates it is still in BETA and there of course some bugs to be worked out.
