Beaming Mobile Messages To Your Brain

A couple of months ago some commuter trains in Germany made global headlines: a rail operator’s passengers were treated to a “marketing wonder” of windows beaming advertising messages directly into the brains of said passengers who’d happened to place their weary heads on the glass.

Called bone conduction and already used in military applications and hearing aids, early reviews of this new type of use have been mixed. Not surprisingly, the ad agency BBDO who produced the ad campaign for Sky Deutschland called it a success. Of course they would. But many responses from a Mashable article read more like: “Is this for real? Just stay out of my head. This kind of invention must be BANNED.”

I agree to a point. It is disturbing how technology this pervasive can be abused. Don’t we have enough bombardment of ads already across multiple screens and devices?

But less than two months later, there’s growing (indirect) evidence of a perceptual shift. A new Harris Interactive poll found that consumer interest in mobile advertising offers has increased sharply since 2009. Nearly half, (45%) of mobile phone owners said they were at least somewhat interested in receiving mobile alerts about new products, sales and/or promotions from preferred brands, compared with 26% of respondents who felt similarly in 2009. And of those more recent supporters, 78% said they found location-based advertising particularly useful.

Does this mean brain beaming advertising glass has silenced its detractors? Um, no. But in light of this new data, it’s not that hard to envision a future where location-aware smartphones (or wearable gadgets) will work together with personalized advertising delivered on glass in trains, buses, planes and on walls in airports, incentivizing even more purchases and “brand/brain engagement.” That includes physical purchases as well as in-app buys. In other words, “mobile” advertising doesn’t always require a mobile phone. And as smartphone adoption rates rise, consumers will grow increasingly comfortable with seeing advertisements everywhere they look.

Is there a safeguard against the world becoming one giant digital billboard?  Permission-based advertising – a point the Harris study was quick to address. Consumers must have the ability to opt out of these types of marketer outreach.

Replacing my marketing hat with that of a PR professional’s for a moment, talking glass and mobile advertising appreciation also underscores another need.

PR agencies must make mobile the connective communications tissue of their client engagement and media messaging. Considering mobile devices’ reduced screen sizes, that means thinking smaller; telling client stories in bite-sized nuggets. It also means stepping up the ways in which we promote the importance of mobile messaging and mobile advertisements to clients from the start of our relationships.

“Smart” glass may have yet to hit its stride. But Harris Interactive data confirms that mobile really is everywhere and the pushback from round-the-clock advertising is eroding faster than many communication professionals originally thought. 

Unleashing Your Brand Advocate Weapon, Consumer-Generated PR

Every so often I read an article or blog post that cuts through the digital clutter and states something intuitive, but not entirely obvious.

An article in The Next Web by Henriette Weber gave me my week’s “ah-ha” moment so kudos to her. Happy Friday!

As a PR professional I speak (and write) frequently about the need for content generation. Whether through social media, blogs, original thought leadership articles, client interviews and tweets, feeding the content beast is a never-ending assignment. And as we expand our client list, the beast grows hungrier still. Brands, too, face similar challenges. The larger they become the more they have to write about their expanding enterprise. According to Rob Fuggetta, founder and CEO of Zuberance and author of Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force (citing his own sources), 28%-33% of marketing budgets goes toward content marketing.

Brand advocates, as Fuggetta rightly argues, can become a brand’s most important and cost-effective weapon. How? True, brand advocates work for free and do some of the heavy lifting for you. But too often marketers today think of their brand advocates as people who require expensive loyalty program catering. Or that outsourced IT teams must design highly engaging gamified portals. While all of these techniques are a legitimate form of marketing and customer nurturing outreach, it’s important that technological wizardry doesn’t trump the fostering of genuine experiences – or obfuscate brand failures.

I’ve written about a number of my genuine brand experiences and so have several ThinkInkers (Honda, BlackBerry, etc). I was once a BlackBerry diehard, eager to defend against all naysayers. Even after I made my bittersweet goodbyes, it wasn’t until I received an absurdly belated email asking for my returned business (nearly a year after I left) did I fully renounce my brand advocacy badge. But I’ve also received personalized emails of late, actual handwritten letters and, yes, even sample perfume from other companies.

None of these outreach methods are expensive. In fact, they’re right in line with what traditional customer retention budgets go toward. But unlike in decades past, where I might have only told a select few people about my positive experiences, via phone or word-of-mouth, I’ve freely given brands hundreds of words of free online publicity. Do I expect something magnanimous from them like a Birkin handbag or a Cable Heart Chain Necklace in return? Absolutely not – only that they empower me with the brand advocacy tools I require. And yes, I would appreciate an engaging loyalty program too. But that’s not what I’m looking for first and brands need to remember that.

Instead of brands banging their proverbial heads against walls trying to figure out what to write and how to afford the effort, why not empower brand advocates to blog, vlog, tweet and post about their most positive brand experiences? Of course, you’ll still need a professional staff to vet and review copy. But if properly engaged there’s a literal army out there of consumers looking to continue your brand’s unique conversation across multiple channels.

And I’m one of your loyal foot soldiers – armed and ready to serve.

Are you a brand advocate? If so, what about the brand inspires your spreading their good word and how do you do it? Share your thoughts with the ThinkInk community in the section below.

What the Merging of Google Chrome and Android Means for Mobile

It may not have re-written recent headlines, but Google’s announcement that it’s putting Sundar Pichai, its senior vice president of Chrome (the company’s search engine and desktop operating system) in charge of its Android OS for mobile devices signals that bigger changes are ahead.

As I see it, these changes have both positive and negative implications.

Let’s start with the positive: Placing Chrome and Android under one roof could mean better integration between the two systems. That’s true even though a formal, more complete product union hasn’t been announced and details were carefully avoided at a recent press conference.

As the lines between what constitutes a mobile versus non-mobile device continue to blur, having siloed operating systems for each seems increasingly antiquated and inefficient, doesn’t it? So it’s very likely that in the next 5-10 years, those distinctions will become redundant. To wit, why not start the merging journey now – especially as Android remains the world’s most popular mobile operating system and Apple struggles through what might be called a delayed post-Jobs slump?

As of this writing Apple’s stock price, $452.08, was down more than 15% from a year ago. And, according to 2013’s Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, Samsung and Amazon dethroned Apple as the most loyally-followed brands. Regular readers of this blog and my column on Mobile Marketer will know that I’m a huge supporter of Android vs. Apple, so I can’t help but feel a little smug by these latest findings.

Now for the negative…

Corporate conglomeration and cooperation can equally become euphemisms for “monopoly” – not the board game, but the real-world competition-stifling monstrosity. I say this only because Google has a very successful track record of making its competitors obsolete. Remember all those late-90s and early-2000s search engines? Save for Yahoo and Microsoft, I can’t think of any left standing. So I Googled (a word that has become synonymous with Internet search itself) “most popular search engines,” and found a great post on Search Engine Land.

These numbers say it all:

And let’s not forget that “Google,” the verb, has been recognized as part of the English language since 2006.

So, imagine a future where Google is essentially the unchallenged king of web searching, mobile operating systems, social networking and, if prototypes like Google Glass (the soon-to-be-launched wearable computer) prove successful, hardware too. Don’t misunderstand – I am all for Google, but forgive me if I also see signs of trouble on the merger horizon ahead. Anti-trust, anyone? It also sets a dangerous precedent for competitor mobile companies, Apple included, as they seek similar types of hyper-conglomeration and cross-industry ambitions.

In a sense I’m reminded of German and European history. What began in 1951 with the inception of the European Coal and Steel Community, six countries with one shared trading market, culminated – after decades of gradual unification – in 1993 with the formation of the European Union. The EU has expanded several times since. While the philosophies underwriting its formation are noble – peace, prosperity and stability – the price of too much merging has come at a very high cost. Today (in an ironic nod to history) Germany again dominates Europe politically and economically. With the Euro uniting all in feast-or-famine outcomes, some countries have struggled under what’s become the European debt crisis. And it’s a crisis that won’t be abating any time soon.

Here’s hoping that Google’s subtle yet not-so-subtle corporate structural change doesn’t signal its aspirations to become the strongman of mobile.

That wouldn’t be good for the US, Europe or the rest of the world.

Channeling Mobile’s Four ‘Es’ – Enhancement, Engagement, Experience and Enjoyment – into 2013 Success

Many end-of-year or dawn-of pieces open with the obligatory “My, hasn’t time has flown by?” or a “What a year it’s been!” statement. I will skip both, but go on record to say that 2012 was the year where mobile finally got top billing, a year where experts predicted that by 2017, more than 4% of all ads will appear on mobile phone screens and where the mobile mindset matured.

More than the technology itself, was how consumers used that technology and how brands capitalized on those uses.

No longer are consumers tethered to one place. And the type of engagement that users gain from their mobile experiences differs depending on location, whether it’s the beach, kitchen, office, train, or elsewhere.

For marketers, this means an unmatched opportunity to tailor their messages to these places of use while at the same time capitalizing on the four E’s – enhance, engage, experience and enjoy.

Now on to the technology itself and some of the trends we will see in the year ahead.

Setting off the proximity alarm: Geo-marketing is gaining traction
At times, I am shocked by how much farther this technology needs to advance. Of course, smart digital signage still lit up screens as it did minds in 2012, but I did not feel as though its “future had arrived.”

Take foursquare, a location-based social networking service. It has “only” reached 25 million users in the last three years. Compare that to Facebook, whose membership now exceeds 1 billion, or one-seventh of the human population.

With more people using more mobile more often, it is only natural marketers tap this resource.

Of course, there have been some encouraging 2012 examples ranging from KLM Airlines and its Meat and Seat social media program that allowed travelers to choose who they’d like to sit next to based on the sharing of personal information via social media, to a California-based organic foods company that launched a successful Twitter campaign.

Considering these successes, (and others) perhaps 2013 will see the growth of “hyper fencing,” or proximity-based offers and deals within a single shopping outlet or mall or airport?

Mobile payments and wallets usage will grow, but not prosper – yet
Mobile payments became a hot topic among industry experts and consumers in 2012, with 66% of the latter believing that mobile payments will eventually overshadow card payments.

Perhaps no better example of this trend emerged than with Apple’s Passbook, the loyalty program and gift card aggregator. The app has seen more than 20 companies join its ranks and the latest upgrade rumors hint at the possibility of NFC.

But Passbook is not mobile payments, and technologies such as Near Field Communication – NFC, or radio frequency contactless payments – that herald a new age of mobile wallets, doing away with paper cash and plastic card, have yet to mature.

The limited number of NFC-enabled devices – only 12 attendees at an NFC conference had the NFC enabled phones (ironic, no?) – as well as nagging security risks, namely third-party digital eavesdropping and the theft of personal data, will tend to keep NFC and the mobile wallet game a spectator sport – even if Passbook performs some kind of NFL-style NFC punt.

Augmented reality will augment the face of mobile
What used to be considered a fad that would eventually disappear has undergone a significant turnaround.

Augmented Reality, or AR, superimposes digital data, gathered from the Web and social media networks and places that information over physical objects or pictures.

Recent Juniper research already predicts AR smartphone apps will generate $300 million in global revenue this year.

One company, Layar, began its AR focus on real estate in The Netherlands but has since moved on to print publications, banking the technology will prove most entertaining for consumers and revenue generating for marketers there.

Of course, to its detractors, AR might cause one to yell, “AAAARRRRR!!!!!” as it is not where prognosticators predicted it would be. But continued media interest reaffirms AR will augment the face of mobile – eventually.

Enhance, engage, experience and enjoy
Ultimately the four E’s are what matters most. Not just for consumers, but marketers as well.

When Motorola’s brick phone started us on our mobile path more than 30 years ago, few could have predicted how far and fast technological miniaturization would evolve.

The first mobile phones were not envisioned as enjoyable, engaging experiences but utilitarian devices performing tasks.

For marketers, though, that is the furthest thing from a successful product.

LIKE THOSE EARLY mobile models, many of the trends highlighted in this article – proximity, mobile payments and augmented reality – have yet to fully hit their stride.

But that is what prediction and prognostication is all about.

I, for one, am betting on mobile’s continued success – in the mindset and the handset.

This article originally appeared in Mobile Marketer on January 4, 2012. To read the entire article, please click here.

Loyalty To Go: How Mobile is Remaking Guest Allegiance

This article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared in the Hotel Business Review on 11/19/12. 

The ballots are in. The votes tallied. And President Barack Obama successfully avoided joining the more than 12 million unemployed. While pundits will argue his re-election was as much about an aggressive (and expensive) negative ad campaign as it was substance, there will be just as many supporters who will point to his recent speeches and swearing in address earlier and say they’re loyal to the man who offered a list of promises – prevented financial meltdown, began an economic recovery, fixed healthcare, hunted down Osama Bin Laden – and delivered, and so on.

Yet supporters will say even more. Obama loyalty remains multi-faceted: from his cool, calm, demeanor, to his matter-of-fact style, to his reliance on tech-savvy youth to help get out the vote via smartphones and tablets, to his all-too-human human blunders, (remember the Beer Summit?) people were also loyal to the person for good or for worse, and not the politics. As President Obama placed his hand on the bible and swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States,” his immediate concerns over citizen loyalty came to a close.

But when it comes to industry loyalty, and specifically the hospitality sector, hotel operations don’t run in four year cycles, and nor can they take presidential retreats to Camp David to collect their thoughts. Committing to loyalty is a constant process, where even the slightest misstep could impact occupancy rates and the equally important revenue per available room, (REVPAR). In these still-challenging economic times, for hotels as in other industries, retaining existing patrons – like voters – is vital. And to a large extent, mobile is the ideal medium to drive that engagement. While 2012 has proven to be a banner year for mobile and its incorporation into hotel hospitality and loyalty, 2013 is where hoteliers must get creative. They must move beyond mobile’s low-hanging fruit e.g. mobile booking, checkout, trip itinerary planning and really break new ground.

Why?

Because the above mobile amenities list is becoming as standard (and unimpressive) as the placard boasts of “in-room color TV.” As the New Year removes its training wheels, sobering itself from the parties and hoopla that closed out 2012, the new “loyalty party” is fast moving toward the realm of social media. Only through the combination loyalty programs and social media, and the ways in which guests are being empowered to become the next generation of brand ambassadors is where the as yet uncharted hotel loyalty territory lies.

The Rise of “Socialized Loyalty”

Just like the President’s mislabeled healthcare reform, “socialized loyalty” is not about a government or hospitality takeover of social media – far from it. But it is recognition that social media, specifically mobile social media is rapidly becoming standard and a must-have component for hotel loyalty programs.

In the last 12 months, US smartphone adoption has continued to surge and by all accounts, has exceeded critical mass. Business and leisure travelers alike now enjoy adoption rates above the 56% U.S. average (around 84% for business travelers) and others report that smartphones and tablets might be the world’s fastest spreading technology ever, beating out telephones, electricity, radio, television, computers, and others. Or put another way, according to a recent Flurry report, iOS and Android adoption rates are moving 10 times faster than the 1980s PC revolution, twice the speed of the 1990s Internet explosion, and triple the speed of social network adoption.

And with 3G broadband mobile Internet access nearly ubiquitous and 4G access being provided by Verizon, AT&T and Sprint in 2012 and T-Mobile joining the ranks in 2013, it’s clear consumers crave constant connectivity – even if many consumers are still uncertain what differentiates one broadband carrier from another.

Increasingly that connectivity includes their social media connections to brands as well as people. Consider these five staggering stats:

·         91% of adults use social media regularly

·         70% of adult “social networkers” shop online – which bodes well for loyalty programs

·         Every minute of the day 684,478 pieces of content are shared on Facebook

·         Facebook enjoyed a 67% year over year mobile growth rate

·         28% of consumers share deals, (coupons and discounts) through social media

So if social media is where consumers are already heading in other facets of their lives, why can’t hotels move their mobile initiatives one step further and join the social media conversation?

Socializing Guest Allegiance

The good news is that hotels are beginning to get the mobile message and are readily taking to social media in new and novel ways. But before we address those, one of the most effective approaches is for hotels to incentivize guest social media usage through loyalty programs. In July 2012, MGM Resorts International expanded the provisions of its M life loyalty rewards program to include points accumulation and tier status upgrades for members of various social media sites including, Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Instagram. All members have to do is rely on their smartphone’s embedded location-based technology so that their physical presence and social media shout out (worth 500 credits per tweet, Facebook post or Instagram picture) at MGM-owned properties in Las Vegas, Mississippi, and Detroit generates excitement and buzz from other would-be guests. Doing so earns members rewards that can be used beyond the casino floor, like restaurant dining. Dedicated loyalty members can rack up 6,000 credits each day and up to 30,000 a year.

Essentially, guests are rewarded for what they’re already doing naturally even before the rise of social media: telling people, both friend and stranger alike, that they’re at “such and such” a location, have had a positive experience, and directly and indirectly nudging others to “go check it out.”

Looking ahead, future use of social media and loyalty may involve aspects beyond the digital shout out and include items like gaming – another online and mobile activity that’s become increasingly social. Staying within the casino-hotel sphere, imagine if a casino offered a virtual gaming experience where future guests could play poker against other future guests and all of the winnings linked to one’s loyalty program membership? Rather than waiting for guests to arrive, they’ve already been incentivized possibly weeks before their journey. And, the more casino-hotels that offer such mobile amenities, the more their allegiance will be secure. Casino-hotels (and any others looking to drive guest allegiance via mobile loyalty) that fail to keep up will essentially be rolling snake eyes.

Caution in the Coming Quarter

While linking mobile, social media, and loyalty together are an essential 2013 next step, equally important is to be mindful of the basics and the realities of the current global economy. Even though stock markets have settled some following the presidential election, the world’s economic outlook remains uncertain at best: Europe’s debt crisis looms like an unpaid (and unwelcomed) hotel guest bill and the US “fiscal cliff” (the mandatory government spending cuts that went into effect some three weeks ago) is just beginning to be managed and dealt with.

That being said, there’s no denying that for hoteliers, 2012 was a positive year. As of this article’s writing, the week of October 2012 saw gains in three important year-to-date metrics: REVPAR grew 11%, to $71.42, occupancy rose 6% to 65.1% and the average daily room rate was up nearly 5% to $109.65.

But the proper implementation of social media and mobile means that it must be done in a way that doesn’t upset other budgets, or undermine the basics of what hotel brands do well: provide an unsurpassed, unique brick and mortar (read: traditional) customer experience. If the basics can’t be covered, mobile’s next-level incorporation may have to wait. Besides, assuming your hotel brand has been successful in the years leading up to 2013, it’s likely you’ve earned at least some leeway with your most loyal guests – before they reconsider.

The ballots may be in for the President and the Electoral votes cast. But in the early weeks of 2013, when it comes to the latest in lodging loyalty, hotel guests have yet to cast theirs. The hotel “election season” is just beginning and it’s looking like the merging of social media with loyalty programs might break the race wide open.

A new race is on and all hotels are up for a vote!

This article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared in the Hotel Business Review on 11/19/12.