Checking Their Guns (And Their Brains) At The Door: The Secret Services

Talk about public relations disasters in degrees. When Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney criticizes a Pittsburgh cookie it’s one thing.  But when half a dozen secret service agents and 11 military personnel lose their jobs after seeking the “secret services” of women who could have gone by the street name “Cookie” it’s an entirely different matter and enough to make me lose my dessert. 

In short: this is not good at all.

If anything, the unfolding Secret Service and military personnel prostitute scandal is a glaring example that sometimes no matter how much spin is added to the curve ball of professional news speak and public relations, you can still strike out. The exploits of these men are indefensible which has left the political punditsphere returning to humor. One of my favorites comes from Steven Cody, the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Peppercorn, a public relations firm. His idea, expressed in his most recent post: “Let’s re-brand it the not-so Secret Service.”

And while crass humor may serve as a temporary public antidote for the serious standards and security breach that was uncovered in Colombia, it will do nothing in the longer term court of public opinion.

To a large extent, Lawrence Berger, the lawyer for two Secret Service supervisors who lost their jobs was right. The actions of these individuals did not compromise the security of the President. But if that’s the best defense that can be mustered, I think one would be hard pressed to call that a stunning PR reversal.

The President may not have been harmed physically, but his image certainly was, giving political red meat to the likes of Sarah Palin who commented on Fox news recently, "It's like, who's minding the store around here?" 

The Secret Service, founded in 1865, and charged with presidential protection since 1901, has a long and largely successful history. While there’s no denying this public relations disaster is a big one, it’s also likely that an agency that presumably takes its mission and duty so seriously will work exceedingly hard at doing their jobs that much better so that time really will smooth out this unfortunate – kink. (Yes, pun intended)

“Waiting it out” is usually a PR professional’s least favorite advice to a client. But in this case it may be the only way the embattled agency can regain its stripes. “I’m sorrys” have been made. Jobs have been lost.

It’s quite possible the less they say going forward might be the most prudent course of action.  Until, of course, one of them releases a kiss and tell all tome, which will be only a matter of time.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot, Close Mouth-Mitt… PR Lessons Learned From a Crumbled Cookie?

Pop icon and singer Britney Spears’ second album may have been called “Oops!...I Did It Again” but it seems the 12 year-old phrase is getting a new lease of life in Republican hopeful Mitt Romney’s continuing saga of campaign trail gaffes.

Yes, oops he did it again! But at least his latest remark helps underscore some base public relations principals and makes for good blog post fodder.  Thank you Mr Romney.

The latest tongue-tie comes out of the Bethel Park community, a southern suburb of Pittsburgh, where at a recent a campaign rally/picnic, Romney hinted that the event’s sub-par cookies were coming from a 7-Eleven chain bakery. His humorous, though mildly condescending tone suggested local bakers bake better, more “authentic tasting cookies.”   

Anyone following the story (which went viral as CookieGate) knows that Romney’s comments were a not-so-subtle nod to Republican Party basics: espousing the vitality and vibrancy of small business.

But that’s not how the cookie crumbled for “open-mouth-insert-foot-close-mouth-Mitt.” His jibe to the quality of 7-Eleven baked goods backfired in several ways:

1)      The offending cookies were made by a 57-year-old local bakery, which had been hired for the event.

2)      7-Eleven is not a bakery, a remark that has again sparked concern that Romney is out of touch with everyday Americans, who, while they make struggle through the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner, know exactly what their “local” 7-Eleven offers.

For Romney, this latest gaffe, like his Etch A Sketch comment a month ago, can’t easily be shaken off.

It also reinforces that effective public relations isn’t just about writing press releases – far from it. In fact we are constantly reminding clients that press release generation is in some ways, the least critical part of what we do. Managing a client’s message – in print, online, in person on Twitter and Facebook, and everywhere else their name and their brand are promoted.

Hindsight is, after all, 20/20, but isn’t it possible that a particularly on-the-ball communications whiz could have anticipated that their boss would try to inspire the small town business spark knowing that cookies would be served at the event? And if so, Romney could have turned that info into his advantage instead of spoiled dough.

By now, “CookieGate,” a week old and it’s entirely possible the Romney campaign will find humor after al. 7-Eleven’s PR team has already done that while the bakery is cashing in on its Internet notoriety by offering a “CookieGate” special: buy a dozen, get a half-dozen free.

Kudos….eerrrr…..cookies to them!

Considering that Romney gaffes are nearing bakers dozen regularity, it’s likely he’ll have plenty of time to improve his PR game before the big PR game heats up this fall.  And then we can talk about how the cookie crumbled.

A Plug For Women: And the Businesses They Run And Why They Work

Last month MediaPost blogger and self proclaimed “serial entrepreneur” Kaila Colbin raised the question in her March 23 post, “Do we need more women in technology?” stemming from a panel discussion on Women in Leadership, she had recently attended. Her answer was not necessarily – even if volumes of data continue to show a tech-sector gender gap and that in the second decade of the 21^st century it remains the politically correct rallying cry. What’s needed instead, she says, is greater diversity, “diversity of gender, of viewpoint, of life experience, of worldview.”

Colbin goes on to say: “The answer is for us to realize that we are each limited to the maximum perspective our meager experience affords us, that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our individual philosophies, and that by inviting in those who see the world from a different angle, we can broaden our own vision.”

Forgive me for saying so, but doesn’t that sound a little lacking and unfocused?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to come off insensitive. Diversity is important – even nonspecific calls to that end aren’t totally useless as they remind us that the bringing together of wide ranging backgrounds can sometimes illuminate solutions to problems that weren’t first apparent and illustrate that in the end we’re all just people working to reach a goal. But I kind of feel like Sesame Street’s “We All Sing with the Same Voice” 1982 song hits the same notes. (Pun intended)

Instead, since this is my blog, let’s break a little ground here and go against the grain a bit to give a plug to women – not just in the tech sector – but elsewhere too. We do need more women in the workforce. Why? Because data shows that for a combination of social, societal and psychological reasons, women-run businesses are more successful.

A recent Illuminate Ventures Whitepaper found that high tech women-run businesses: “are more capital efficient” – or in non-technobabble speak, they spend money wiser and use one-third less capital to achieve the same revenue results.

Another translation: women-run businesses get more sh*% done with less. The report also found that companies with women in top management positions achieve 35% higher return on equity and a 34% better return to shareholders.

CEO and writer Margaret Heffernan, on her 20-first website, has researched the topic further, collecting not only data about successful women-run businesses, but attempts to answer why the statistics are what they are. Whether it’s the biological child-rearing instinct toward nurturing, or societally-imposed assumptions, women, according to Heffernan, have turned these stereotypes on their head and are using them as skills of empowerment – a defense mechanism common to many marginalized groups. She goes on to say that women have been found to be more flexible in term of working hours, they want to make “difference” as well as make money, (which can inspire staff), are more likely to be involved with community activities and they tend to offer good health care plans and retirement packages.

Increasingly women have become our society’s juggernaut, tasked with not only raising a family, but earning an income vital to the family’s survival. While traditional male-female roles have blurred, it’s women by and large, which have had to shoulder a greater burden. But time and time again as our plate of responsibilities have grown, we’ve met and exceeded the challenge.

The US may still struggle with a tech-sector gender gap, but with women holding some 58% of all professional jobs in the country and making up 57% of undergraduate degrees, I’m confident the information technology industry is bound to get the digital memo sooner than later. But hey, it’s men we’re talking about. Perhaps they’ll have to ask for advice from Siri first.

We all know what gender she really is.

The Cure For the Common Mind Virus: Fewer “Bored” Meetings And Less Pop-Cultural Poo

I beg your pardon? For those of you who are unaware, the title of this post was inspired by a friend – and brilliant branding specialist Bruce Turkel and his Monday musings on what he calls, “mind viruses” – not a sadistic reference to Alzheimer’s or other brain disorders. In everyday speak “mind-viruses” are the modern iteration of water cooler talk or the pop cultural nonsense increasingly crowding out valuable real estate within our collective cerebrums.

Turkel’s post raises the question, how do the words and terms (and TV shows and styles of board room attire and eats and…and…and…) we mindlessly discuss reach that critical mass where they become discussion points? As a marketing professional, Turkel is right in addressing the issue. In other words, he asks, where is the pop cultural discussion “tipping point” and when does something become a “hot topic?”

But as evidenced by his observations gathered from what sounds like far too many of the mindless meetings that I attend – the answer to his question may be less fascinating and more frightening.

So where does this cultural discussion point threshold lie? I’m not sure where in the brain the processing occurs, but I can tell you, it’s not a high standard, and it’s getting disastrously lower by the day.

The fact that many of Turkel’s meetings are littered with so much verbal rubbish suggests that more should be done to keep references to the Kardashians, Lindsay Lohan, and Beebs out of what should be productive meetings. I’ve had to sit through meetings where the latest episode of Glee or the demise of Lost garnered more discussion than the topic we had travelled some 3,000 miles for did. Now that is brutal.

The fact is, thanks to marketers’ already near-constant bombardment via a host of mediums like smartphones and tablets, but also through the “diehards” like television, radio, and print, we are constantly being distracted and programmed to think “this is important,” when in actuality it’s really not.

Earlier this month the New York Times wrote about how office technology is getting in the way of productivity. While true, the bigger problem is all technology and not just office technology. But as a public relations professional and one who’s often on the side of praising marketing genius, can it be that we’re all victims of our own success?

Maybe.

Recognizing this, perhaps it’s time we work to make board meetings less boring and stick to the agenda so we can all be more productive – and get out of the boardroom and to the bar, where it’s okay to talk about the cover of People, or who watched The View, or what Kelly Rippa was wearing yesterday.

Besides, they’ll be plenty of time to gossip about the Gossip Girl –and whatever else – later. Now I’ve got a meeting to attend and don’t want to be late. I’m sure it will be mind blowing – one way or another.

How a year in the life of mobile can equal a lifetime

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Mobile Marketer on 03/26/2012.

Call it a miracle.

It has only been a few short weeks since you have brought home your twinkling little wonder and already it is doing things – great things – that surprise you.

Day by day, hour by hour, you can almost watch its intricate wiring make vital connections and, in so doing, learn about the world through their and your eyes. Its life-changing potential on day one is no comparison to what your little “miracle of evolution” can do 365 days later.

The “miracle” I am talking about is not your child, but rather your mobile device.

No kidding

But some of the parallels between mobile technological developments and infants are striking.

Both are “born” with great potential to grow and expand their capabilities. Tapping into that potential, however, requires the right combination of experiences and environmental nurturing. For smartphones, that translates into using all of its smart features.

Very often, excited parents will sit by and watch their children hit cognitive mile marker after cognitive mile marker: a child’s recognition of a parent, his first steps, and his first words all signal that “things are on track.”

What parents do not do is extrapolate from 12 months of data and experience the full-on adult potential of their children.

Are some predictions critical? Absolutely.

But parents and pediatricians are quick to counsel a slower approach, letting the child explore his world at his own pace and in his own time.

In other words, parents are advised to sit back and watch their miracle unfold, focusing more on helping their children achieve goals – rather than just setting them.

As human beings we are also the collective parents of mobile devices.

And like infants, their worlds can change radically in the 31,536,000 seconds that make up a year as their “brain power” – computer data storage capacity and processing speed – steadily increases.

While data like Moore’s Law – the predicted two-year doubling, or more like 18 months, of the number of transistors that can fit on a microchip – is helpful at the macro-level in estimating the power of computing, it is of very little guidance when it comes down to tech trends, overnight sensations, and predictions in our always-connected society.

The bottom line is that smartphones and tablets have infiltrated nearly every aspect of life – just like wide-eyed and mostly smiling children.

While becoming a successful parent involves getting up to speed with and nurturing their potential, it remains to be seen if mobile marketers are truly keeping pace with theirs.

It’s still a feature phone world? Not for long

The above subhead underscores the rate of change taking place and the foolishness of making year-long, or even quarter-long predictions.

“It’s Still a Feature Phone World” was the headline of a Techcrunch article that was posted on Nov. 28, 2011.

In it, the article spoke about how despite all the hoopla surrounding the technology, smartphones remained a gadget still on hold for the majority of people.

Industry officials – and admittedly some of my clients – repeatedly reminded my company that in the race for mobile adoption, that standard mobile phones not be left out of the mix. The article estimated North American smartphone adoption rate at 63 percent.

But a just a 100 or so days later, that headline sounds decidedly antiquated. Why?

Because earlier this month the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project released its findings that in the United States alone, smartphone adoption rates had jumped 11 percent – 35 percent to 46 percent – from May 2011 to February 2012.

And with 88 percent of U.S. consumers owning a smartphone or standard phone, the percentage of smartphone-touting Americans rose to 53 percent.

With this kind of short-term jump in ownership, it is likely that the 63 percent North American smartphone adoption average from only a few months ago needs some serious updating.

Prices too, have also come down and, in many cases, have come down faster than had been predicted.

Earlier this month, NPD Group estimated that of those U.S. consumers who considered buying a smartphone for $200 to $250, 64 percent ended up buying the device for less than $200, averaging $135 in the third quarter of 2011.

But prices and adoption rates are only the beginning of these speed-of-light changes.

The amount of mobile Web traffic has surged beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

A study by Chitika found that from July 2011 to until the last week of February 2012, mobile Web traffic surged 35 percent.

It also showed for every hour that mobile users accessed the mobile Web, the amount of time they spent accessing the Web on PCs continued to fall.

The conclusion?

It is Armageddon time: the post-PC – and post-feature-phone – world is fast approaching.

“Misunderestimating” other things, too: Data gridlock and the tablet flock

Finally, the world’s rapid uptake of mobile devices – particularly smartphones – has led carriers to revamp their data plans long before individual contract renewals.

The Big Three in North America – Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile – all now employ a system called “throttling” where if users are in the upper percentages of data usage, their download speeds will be “throttled back” to help clear congestion on the mobile network.

Think of it like 45 miles per hour speed limits in places on 65mph highways that never had them before.

Of course, slowing down data speeds enough will inspire – some would say force – customers to spend more money for larger data plans.

For many, their data plans may be still be unlimited, but try driving 65mph in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Not so easy. Who would have thought that in a few short years – and to some extent, only within the past year – that our digital skies would become as congested as our roadways?

And if you thought the challenges are smartphone-centric, think again.

While they tend to receive less notoriety, the relatively infant-like tablets – only in terms of their age, mind you – are rapidly learning how to play the mobile game too.

In Australia, a recent study by Telsyte found that about half of all Australians will be using a tablet by 2016.

Another study by Cisco Systems estimates that by that same year 2016 the number of mobile-Internet-connected devices will reach 10 billion with mobile traffic data of 10.8 exabytes a month, or a billion gigabytes.

Think about that.

In less than 1,500 days, these staggering data usage estimates could be facts – or, as has been shown repeatedly in the realm of mobile, low-balling what actually comes to pass.

So where do mobile marketers go from here?

It is clear that mobile is lightning fast – minus the throttling – and getting cheaper all the time, again minus finicky data plans. It is changing the way we consume media, socialize and, for all intents and purposes, live.

But for all the talk of mobile’s march on humanity, how many mobile marketing campaigns have we seen that are truly turning heads and fully capitalizing on these trends?

The answer is not too many.

And marketers, it is not easy.

As evidenced by the rapid changes facing all of us in the digital realm, it would be unfair to throw all marketers under the proverbial bus.

Just think how much a small child grows and matures in those first precious years of life? Mobile, it seems, is not really different. But, like any good parent, it never hurts to offer a few reminders.

Successful marketing campaigns generate conversation, connect people to brands and help them establish an emotional connection. And that is before we even start talking about the monetization.

When compared to with traditional mediums, mobile is uniquely able to integrate multiple types of marketing campaigns including promotional, experiential, sponsorship and others, and do so across multiple platforms.

But in each of those cases, the mobile device is key in linking back to the other outlets.

Learning to crawl versus learning to walk

With three quarters of 2012 remaining, it is very likely that mobile marketers –and the rest of us – will experience more miracles from smart device.

It is also a forgone conclusion that prices will continue to drop, data networks will continue to fill, and adoption rates will soar.

In these exciting years of rapid mobile device development and industry maturity – even if predictions will be difficult – mobile marketers would be wise to invest in the time, money and staff requirements necessary to keep pace with our increasingly everywhere and anywhere devices, lifestyles and expectations.

Mobile marketers may be fast crawlers, but like world-exploring youngsters, the difference between infant and toddler is that miraculous moment where a child successfully braces him or herself against a solid object, stands tall, and takes his or her halting first steps.

For mobile marketers, perhaps the remaining months of 2012 will be the needed transition period where an industry finds its stride. And it is about time, too.

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Mobile Marketer on 03/26/2012.

Ink and Paper: So Long and Farewell

If you’re of a certain age, born anytime during the age of television and right up until the early 1990s, then it’s likely you’ll remember the iconic educational commercials: kiddies’ faces would light up at the sight of their first encyclopedia collection and parents who would be seen, usually at a kitchen table, considering and calculating the financial investment – which for many, was no small undertaking. Nevertheless, the multi-volume collections stood proud on bookshelves in living rooms and home libraries across the globe. In an age before the Internet, the information superhighway was paved with ink and paper, not gigabytes and downloads.

As a public relations professional who has mailed, faxed and emailed her fair share of press releases and press kits (yes I’m that old) to journalists and clients, I was a bit saddened - but not surprised - by the news that Encyclopedia Britannica, a 244-year-old institution of somewhat portable knowledge would cease production of its print edition. The company, which releases updates every two years, announced that 2010’s 32-volume set was its last, already about two years out of date.

In the Case of Hard Copies vs. Hard Drives Where Do You Stand?

While Britannica publisher Jorge Cauz tried to soften the nostalgic blow to print fans, rightly pointing out the need to fully adapt to the digital age and that print sales of Britannica’s encyclopedia were less than 1 percent of the company’s total sales, my sadness isn’t based on nostalgia alone.

Rather, the printed end of Britannica is but another sign that the ink and paper world many of us grew up in continues to weaken. While some lament the emotional connections rooted with older paper products – it’s musty, humidity-induced smell, it’s aged, crinkled look, that, like the lines on an elderly person’s face, suggest wisdom as much as years, the print world’s shuttering raises very real concerns over data storage and information preservation, and what people in the broadly defined information industry (including Public Relations) should do about it and how we should advise our clients.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting the first thing we do is advise clients to invest in off-property climate-controlled storage facilities with copies of all their work. Nor am I suggesting a return to the stone tablet and chisel. I’m suggesting that before we all embrace the paperless office connected with our laptops and iPads and smartphones (and any other digital devices that are coming down the pipeline, we should recognize some of that traditional medium’s advantages over digital. And in some instances, there’s still nothing better than a paper back up. It may be cumbersome, it may feel antiquated, but it’s tangible – you can touch it, smell it, hold it. Combined, ink and paper can do a number on almost all of your senses.

Paper’s greatest strength, perhaps, is its ability to degrade slowly. If untouched and kept in a cool, low humidity location that prevents the formation of paper-eating microbial life, the written pages of history can last hundreds of years. And while it wasn’t paper, but rather a mix of parchment and papyrus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered from 1947 to 1956, survived in that undisturbed state in caves for more than 2,000 years. I’d give you the odds of my laptop’s hard drive lasting that long, but it’d be impossible. Why? Without near-constant backups, and simply retrieving digitally stored data, the magnetic material that encodes the data will fail. What’s more, digital data needs to be kept in a format that future devices will be able to read and translate into useful information. For the most part all that’s required for a paper “translator” is a human brain and a pair of eyes. Last time I checked there’s a nearly 7 billion stockpile of those resources lying around.

To be sure, at a certain level, print material suffers similar shortcomings as digital. Imagine for instance, that in the distant future, there’s no written translation for English. That means that even if the data is stored properly, there’s no one left who can decipher it – no matter how many billions of brains or eyes are trained on the problem.

But paper also has contemporary benefits when it comes to the environment – and a businesses budget. While today’s gadget makers love to taught the environmentally-friendly and cost-effective nature of digital data storage, the fact remains that paper, made from trees, is considered a renewable resource and can be further recycled. Digital, however, requires a significant amount of raw materials, its parts are often hard to reuse, data recovery, if possible at all, can be costly, and digital’s energy demands are continuous. For businesses, that means even more cost.

While the truly paperless office is probably decades or more away, and data shows the global print industry still grew 1 percent in 2010 and likely will continue growing at a 1 to 1.5 percent rate through 2016 – even without Britannica’s help – it’s a good idea to remind ourselves and our clients that the print medium isn’t necessarily the dinosaur it’s portrayed to be.

In 2,000 years, it’s probable that at least something of the original 244-year printed history of the Encyclopedia Britannica will survive. Maybe a vintage copy of Britannica’s final edition will be read on its 2,000^th birthday in the year 4010? As for what will exist of it’s now all-digital content, remains to be seen. In fact, print out this blog post today, put it somewhere safe and read it to yourself in the future as a 2012 “I told you so.”

To our clients and everyone else: happy reading and happier data storage – in whichever analog or digital format you prefer.

Mobilizing and Monetizing The Lobby Experience

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Hotel Executive.

Jackpot!

That’s the exclamation (not to mention double entendre) that’s likely doing cartwheels inside the heads of corporate higher ups and casino/hotel bookkeepers that are busy tallying their property’s profits. It’s a joy especially potent considering that a large portion of the green in their piggy banks stems from those very same gaming additions.

It may seem obvious to any Las Vegas traveler who’s ever stepped foot in the MGM Grand, The Bellagio, or Mandalay Bay, but it’s important to remember that at sometime, at some point, hotel designers reached this no-brainer conclusion: Instead of building casinos and hotels as separate structures, why not build them as single entities? Better still, why not pair the hotel and casino branding? That way, room rates, the mainstay for a hotel’s revenue, can be partnered with an entirely new income stream: gambling money. Everybody knows tourists are coming to cities like Las Vegas to try their hand (and luck) at the one-armed bandit. Why not give hotel guests what they want right in the lobby, and monetize the experience?

A simple idea, for sure, but it’s the aesthetic and business success at the root of the world-famous Las Vegas strip. And when it comes to creating revenue opportunities in common spaces, the burgeoning world of mobile, digital signage and location-aware technologies could learn a thing or two. Like the resort-casino model, mobile’s next frontier - or certainly a frontier as it relates to hotels, is the lobby. It’s a potential revenue, entertainment and loyalty source so significant that hoteliers who choose to mobilize their lobbies should be shouting “jackpot” too.

Mobile’s Winning Combination: Engage, Entertain, Enjoy

Of all the places mobile technology has reached, (through smartphones or tablets) it’s surprising that the hotel lobby has yet to be tapped – even less so than the hotel room, which is beginning, finally, to find its digital footing.

And as an “always on” technology, with penetration rates exceeding 95% for standard phones and upward of 64% for smartphones (in the 25-34 age group within the United States), a central and social meeting place like a hotel lobby is the ideal location to further engage guests throughout the booking and hotel stay process. But also through that same technology, sow the seed for future visits through the technology’s entertainment value allowing guests to download games or video content and continue the mobile hotel marketing experience well beyond the lobby’s main entrance, furthering the customer connection.

In fact, some 82% of business travelers polled in a 2011 Travelport survey said that they expect every hotel room they visit to be WiFi accessible by 2016, no, ifs, ands or buts. Travelport also found that already 56% of business travelers search and book their stays via their mobile device. Google, too, has reached similar conclusions, finding that nearly 60% of personal travelers have looked for travel-related information through their phone or tablet. In other words, travelers of both sets, expect hotels services and amenities to go where they’re already leading.

Hotel Lobby 1.0 versus Hotel Lobby 2.0

Think about a hotel’s loyalty and ROI possibilities and imagine the following scenario. A customer walks into a hotel lobby exhausted from their late-night travels and delayed flight. The last thing on their mind is having to put on that obligatory smile for the front desk and begin the check-in process.

It goes something like this: a hotel guest fishes for their credit card in a cluttered wallet, obtains a magnetic card room key, learns about check-out times, the continental breakfast, and collects a smattering of printed material –some of which might be out of date – and all of it, decidedly so last century in terms of paper and ink technology. Then there’s the added hotel expense of having to pay employees to staff on what can be graveyard shifts. None of this is a recipe for revenue or loyalty success.

Now consider this. A mobile lobby has the potential to radically change this scenario. Imagine instead a tech-centric experience where that same travel-weary customer walks in. But this time, instead of the traditional static entranceway, the guest is surrounded by a collection of interactive digital “smart” signs. Using Bluetooth technology that detects a phone’s proximity to the sign, (and for privacy reasons, not the guest’s exact location) the sign immediately sends the guest’s phone a timely relevant message about their stay. Upon a guest’s opt-in response, the sign can begin sending the guest coupons to the hotel’s restaurant or bar, upgrade packages, or it can even send the phone an augmented reality map of directions to the guest’s room, the fitness center or the pool. Need to find what’s around town? No worries there either as the digital sign-phone partnership all but does away with the need for the concierge. And no need for pen and paper in this scenario either.

And with companies like Orbitz, (which launched its Orbitz-Hotels app for iPad last summer), and Priceline, (that added a “Tonight-Only Deals” to its iPad app in October), estimating upward of 60% to 65% of mobile users book their trips the same day of their stay, finding new ways to engage the traveler both before and after their trip has never been more important. Even if a trip is booked within 24-hours of a stay, that doesn’t mean the proverbial wheels start turning long before that.

The Future (Is Almost) Here: Hotels Mobilizing their Mobile Effort

Little by little hotel chains and technology solution providers are starting to get digital sign’s mobile message. And like the hotel-casino model, they are starting to cash in. In spring 2011 Canada-based iSIGN Media, a provider of location-aware mobile advertising partnered with RTown Communications, also of Canada, to yield the perfect duo: iSIGN supplied the “smart” software and RTown, a digital media marketer, supplied the digital signs within hotel properties. Distributed through a system of some 27,000 hotel rooms in 346 locations throughout Canada, the network effectively delivers a host of branded content, special offers, coupons, discounts, loyalty program messages and other rich-media offerings of guests’ choosing. And by opening up a digital signage network to outside advertising, hotels can accept ads from companies looking to sell to travelers. In addition to delivering real-time content via in-room TV, hotels took the added step of delivering their content via digital signage in hotel commerce areas and even outdoors.

In a related digital move, Wyndham Hotel Group, in conjunction with the MCG, in summer 2011 launched a text to win campaign linked to the PGA FedEx Cup. The hotel chain was looking to increase interaction with hotel guests and through the campaign, offer rewards. Additional community outreach was achieved by donations, issued through Wyndham’s charity arm, Wishes By Wyndham. While the campaign did not rely on lobby-based digital signage, it’s the unique kind of guest engagement that such signs in the future might be able to better promote. Rather than just receiving a simple text, imagine if a rich-media image of a 3-D golf ball had come off a digital screen, offering some discount at a nearby golf course? Along with the appropriate text to connect the image to the cause or promotion, greater redemption rates seem likely. It’s also the type of social experience that, if launched in a lobby setting, might set the stage for further in-lobby and social media-driven conversation.

But more on that in the section that follows...

From the Jetway to the Jetsons: Welcome to the Kinder, Gentler Lobby

Ultimately lobby 2.0 won’t just be about the technology. In an ironic twist, it’ll be about how the technology is bringing people together in more genuine ways. As mentioned above, the ability to connect guests to each other in meaningful ways, (say for example, guests looking to organize a hotel-based tour group for the city they’re visiting and an offering from the tour group incentivizing its use via smartphone and digital signs) will help drive both online and offline conversations.

Increasingly, the linked, synched and wired lobby will take a more living room-like or Starbucks approach where guest spend more time hanging out and interacting with their mobile gadgets and other guests who are using them as well, rather than using the lobby as an austere “waiting area” before embarking on the next part of their day. Hotels like A-Loft, Hyatt, Hyatt Place, Marriott Courtyards, and Hilton’s Home2 Suites extended stay brands have already begun installing mega-sized touch-screen TVs that display information like the weather and day-trip excursion information. While that’s a first step, imagine if those touch screen TVs, like digital signs, began offering branded content?

The A-Loft hotel brand is also testing its "smart check in” technology. Starwood Preferred Guest program members are sent a radio frequency identification (RFID) keycard in the mail. On the day of a guest’s arrival, a text message is sent to their mobile device with a room number, allowing the guest to bypass the front desk entirely. And according to David Strom, writing for ReadWrite Enterprise, the technology is in place at A-Lofts in New York, Massachusetts, Texas, Florida, and London. Also, the Oslo Comfort Xpress hotel has automated lobby kiosks that dispense RFID room cards. Admittedly, these technological advancements risk bypassing the lobby altogether. But it’s incumbent on the next generation of interactive digital sign designers to find ways to the keep the digital conversation in the lobby.

Continuing this look into the future, next generation digital signage, as seen by Samsung’s Transparent Smart Window at the recent 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, will merge the aesthetic of real windows with the virtual world. With advanced touch-screen technology, the 4-inch thick screens will allow up to 50 simultaneous “points of contact” or users.

Revenue Per Square Foot: From Slots to Signs

Anyone who’s been to a Las Vegas casino, or any gaming establishment from California to Monte Carlo, knows that it’s the slot machine – not the table game games – that generate the most revenue per square foot. About to turn 117, slot machines have for decades proven their worth to the hotels who’ve turned their lobbies into gaming halls, giving guests what they want, when they want it and in close proximity to their hotel rooms.

The parallels with in-lobby digital signage are striking. Both technologies – one from the 19th century and another from the 21st – engage the guest, build loyalty, and of course, improve return on investment.

Maybe the next generation of a casino-hotel’s digital signage will feature interactive images of slot machines where through contactless data transfer (NFC or Bluetooth connectivity) guests play the slots through their mobile devices? Instead of winning cash, players might receive coupons, discounts and loyalty rewards redeemable at the hotel.

Whether it is casinos, hotels, motels, or any lodging establishment in between, mobilizing the lobby is the revenue and loyalty way forward. Tech-savvy and mobile-equipped travelers continue to lead the way. It’s time for hoteliers to gather their resources and mobilize their lobbies today and hit the digital signage jackpot today.

The following article by Vanessa Horwell, Chief Visibility Officer of ThinkInk, originally appeared on Hotel Executive.