Top mobile technologies to watch out for in 2013

I recently spoke with Mobile Marketer's Rimma Kats about 2013's top mobile technology innovations and why existing technology is here to stay.

You can read the full article below, as well as on Mobile Marketer.

Let me know what your predictions for mobile technology in 2013 are in the comments below.

Top mobile technologies to watch out for in 2013

Augmented reality brings content to life

It is evident that mobile has captured the attention of many top brands, and technologies such as QR codes and augmented reality have helped pave the way. Now, marketers are looking for the next big trend that will drive customer interactions and, ultimately, sales.

Mobile is becoming the go-to medium for many companies and marketers are integrating it into their day-to-day initiatives. In 2013, marketers must make a bigger investment into the space and look at new technologies to help develop deeper relationships with consumers.

“Mobile provides marketers a wealth of creative opportunities to get their messages in front of mobile subscribers – for example, geo-fenced advertising, scanable codes, Shazam, and interstitial ads on music and video apps,” said Tim Richie, vice president of North American sales and account management at Open Market.

“Ultimately, each of these technologies aims to do the same thing: drive consumers to action by putting a powerful message in front them when they are open to receiving it,” he said. “This trend and the technologies that support it will gain momentum in 2013, helping marketers deliver more value.

“Businesses are facing many technology challenges today – sharing data across systems and teams, managing multiple vendor solutions, and increasing user demands. This year, companies will look to consolidate systems, and leverage cloud-based solutions for cost savings and improved SLAs. Technology that is modular, flexible and enables a number of use cases will be most attractive to enterprises.”

Key message
To be most effective, marketers need to deliver a message that resonates with the consumer at a relevant time via the appropriate messaging channel.

The extent to which a marketer can execute on this objective dictates their success, per Mr. Ritchie.

Marketers should aggressively seek out flexible messaging systems that facilitate their communications to consumers across multiple channels.

“Over several years, marketers have struggled to identify how mobile fits into the marketing mix,” Mr. Ritchie said. “Initially, it was an interesting experiment, then Apple ushered in the age of mobile applications which became a key mobile strategy.

“Increasingly mobile has become a business-as-usual communication channel alongside more traditional communication and advertising methods,” he said. “The real growth in mobile adoption for businesses in 2013 won’t be sexy.

“Businesses will find ways to leverage mobile to replace or augment existing systems and processes to become more efficient and reduce costs."

Mobile payments
Last year, many were speculating that 2012 was going to be the year of mobile payments and near-field communication.

That proved to not be the case.

However, mobile payments and NFC are seeing a great outlook this year.

Mobile payments will no doubt play a big role this year.

Consumers are becoming more comfortable making purchases using their smartphones and companies such as Starbucks, McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts are making it easy for consumers to order their favorite meals and beverages and pay for it using their mobile phone.

Furthermore, Apple has helped in making mobile commerce a success through its recent Passbook implementation, which helps build on loyalty.

"We should see more mass availability of mobile payments,” said Jeff Hasen, chief marketing officer of Hipcricket, New York.

“While its ridiculous to think that the mobile wallet will make cash extinct by Tuesday, businesses will successfully compete if they make the in-store buying experience painless through Square and the like,” he said. “The wallet hype will continue but is years from becoming a mass activity.

"Overall, mobile will get more of the marketing spend with those who succeed being more pragmatic than groundbreaking with brand new mobile products. SXSW will get lots of headlines, but it’s not the place to go to build a foundational mobile program."

Integrated experiences
According to Wilson Kerr, vice president of business sales at Unbound Commerce, Boston, 2013 will be all about mobile-triggered consumer interactions.

“Now that having an integrated mobile commerce site is established as essential, my prediction is that the next big trend will be around tracked mobile-triggered consumer interaction, at the point-of-sale,” Mr. Kerr said.

“Brands and retailers can drive incremental, secondary, add-on sales and tracked consumer engagement by tapping real-world mobile ‘triggerpoint marketing’ opportunities,” he said.

“QR codes mean adding mobile triggerpoints at point-of-sale is easy and economical. NFC will start to become ubiquitous in smartphones in 2013 and, as such, is something smart marketers are learning about now.”

While most brand and retailer marketing departments lag behind, consumers are thirsty for more ways to interact and engage via mobile.

“The potential of mobile is no longer the story,” Mr. Kerr said. “The story is now the day-to-day reality, regarding the fact that mobile is poised to drive the lion share of tracked consumer interaction and related purchases.

“PayPal saw a 250 percent increase in mobile payments in 2012 and expects to process $20 billion in 2013,” he said. “Additionally, 15 percent of all ecommerce in 2013 will be conducted via mobile and tablet commerce is growing faster than mobile did.

“A mobile site is no longer something that can be covered by a screen scraped derivative of an ecommerce site. Mobile and tablet commerce sites should be powered by an API ecommerce integration, so they can be distinct channels with distinct mobile marketing opportunities.”

Existing technology
This year we’re going to see companies take the technology that exists and make more use of it, per Vanessa Horwell, chief visibility officer of ThinkInk PR.

“I don’t think we’re going to see an explosion of NFC, but we’re going to see more utilization,” Ms. Horwell said. “Also the key things we’re going to see will revolve around data and analytics.

“We know that consumers are engaged, but how are businesses and marketers going to use that data?” she said. “They have to do something actionable with the data.

“That’s going to be the challenge for any types of marketers. Taking action with all that information. That’s a key thing this year.”

The ThinkInk 2012 Review Has Arrived! Get Your Copy Now

It’s that time again… time for ThinkInk’s annual review of the year gone by as seen through the lens of PR professionals.

Every year has its ups and downs, its moments of jubilation and of terror. A year may pass quickly but a lot can happen in 52 weeks. 2012 certainly felt that way for us at ThinkInk!

Amidst all the news that hit our multiple screens, overflowing Twitter feeds and at times nonsensical  Facebook posts, making sense of what happened in our community and in our 24/7 news cycle proved challenging at the best of times.

This year’s review, called “Think Again,” aims to provide some fresh perspective on the scandals, trends and uproars that really got us thinking (and doing) in 2012. From loose lips to sinking ships, Think Again delves into:

·         Why it’s in poor taste for big brands – or any brands – like Gap and American Apparel to “bank” on a national disaster

·         The reasons why remembering the victims of 9/11 is (definitely) more important than educating TV viewers about Kris Jenner’s breast implants

·         How to avoid the plague of plagiarism that has a habit of impacting journalists and PR professionals

·         Why the US President’s slow-jamming ways on national television translated into a PR win for his camp and really made Obama the ‘POTUS with the mostest’

·         What happened when a cruise ship and the reputation of its parent company both sank in the Mediterranean Sea

Of course, not everyone will agree with the opinions expressed in our annual review, and that’s the whole point. If you feel strongly about any of our commentaries, we want to hear from you! And feel free to share Think Again with your friends and colleagues while taking care to attribute appropriate credit.

You can download the Think Again here.

 

Thought you knew 2012?  Think again…

Happy reading from the ThinkInk team!

Calibrating Your Crisis Management: Sometimes a PR Fail isn’t Fatal

As I dug into NBC’s recent coverage of Boeing Co’s 787 Dreamliner jet, which had suffered its third mishap in as many days, I was ready for action. Here comes another blog post chastising corporate America for failing to be transparent in their PR missteps.

But the story made me cool my jets.

While the Dreamliner’s problems aren’t trivial – a 40-gallon runway fuel leak, brake problems, and an electrical fire on three separate aircraft in three days – no one, not Boeing corporate, not passengers, not aerospace analysts, and not Japan’s All Nippon Airways or Japan Airlines, which purchased the 787s are freaking out.

Instead the news coverage had a very measured tone.  

In an almost deadpan fashion reminiscent of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the story’s point was simple. Take a deep breath. We’ll get the problems fixed. These types of glitches are common on new aircraft – the Dreamliner began service in November 2011. And no one was injured.

Of course, Boeing’s stock price did drop and concerns have been rightly raised. But NBC’s story provided lessons beyond appropriate crisis management.

Knowing your client and knowing how to respond when things don’t go according to plan also comes down to an appreciation of culture. I really believe that if this was a Boeing story with mostly North American players and not Asian companies, there would be a tendency to exaggerate the situation. 

There would be the obligatory quote of a panicked traveler and tacit threats of legal action following the harrowing and stressful experience of being aboard a damaged plane.

Many Asian cultures take respect very seriously. Which is not to say that others don’t. Even our clients and other companies within the same industries can have widely-varying internal cultures. Communications tactics that work for one company don’t always apply to another client, let alone another country.

For goodness sake, it wasn’t the Costa Concordia sinking.

Other airlines still want Dreamliners – NBC pointed out that Air China and Hainan Airlines  plan to keep their orders for 15 and 10 planes, respectively, further calming the situation. Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker even called the planes “revolutionary.”

Imagine that.

Three nations (four if you include Boeing’s Chicago headquarters), separated by thousands of miles and with widely varying cultures holding similar, non-threatening positions. If only that happened more often. They don’t want to fan the flames of outrage or play the blame game; they want to admit fault, measure the seriousness of the situation and move on.

So, before adopting a communications one-size-fits-all approach, remember this story about airlines and cultural relevance. Sometimes a PR fail isn’t fatal. In other words, a two-alarm fire doesn’t require a four-alarm response – overreacting can be just as dangerous as under-reacting.

What’s your view on a “PR fail” and overreacting in times of perceived crisis?

AIG: Mensch, Schmendrick or Something in Between?

As a PR professional, someone who’s familiar with language, words, wordsmithery, and the subtleties of word meaning, Yiddish is one of the more fascinating tongue twisters. Many languages possess words that are hard to translate into others, but Yiddish earns high marks. Somehow emotion, more than literal translation, is bottled up in those strangely-lettered words.

“Mensch” and “schmendrick” were the two Yiddish terms floating around in my head after reading the latest AIG developments and the insurance giant’s 11^th- hour decision not to sue the federal government.

Dictionary.com defines mensch as: “a decent, upright, mature, and responsible person.” For the purposes of this blog post, we’ll expand that meaning to include companies.

Last week, after mounting concern that AIG would in fact join a lawsuit filed by its former CEO Hank Greenberg over the allegedly “unfair” terms of Uncle Sam’s $182 billion 2008 bailout loan decision, the company’s reverse course – and the motivations behind it – are again getting mixed reviews. 

For a refresher, this was the loan that ultimately saved the company from collapse and what supporters say helped soften the resulting US recession.

The PR industry news source, Bulldog Reporter also raised the question in one of its articles, “Did Insurance Giant Forsake Shareholders To Protect Its Own Reputation?” If so, the article says, it would mark a “PR-affirming” break with the tradition of putting shareholders’ interests ahead of the company.

I, however, don’t think AIG’s decision requires much over thought. A public company’s first duty is toward its shareholders, true, but there are times when a “greater good” must be sought above all. 

Forget shareholders for a moment, if AIG were to throw its support behind the lawsuit, their “Thank You America” advertising campaign would be shot to hell. More than that, the company’s credibility, their “menschyness” (menschy is actually a real word) would be non-existent.

It also shouldn’t require a PR team to advise AIG that biting the hand that fed them would be a PR disaster of bailout proportions. The fuming reactions of millions of Americans should have been enough.

AIG probably doesn’t deserve mensch status for its late-in-the-game wise decision. But nor should it be considered a corporate schmendrick, which dictionary.com defines this Yiddish winner as “a stupid and ineffectual nobody.”

So go on AIG, give yourself a big pat on the back for repaying the money you borrowed, thanking 

America publicly, and ultimately making the right PR decision. 

If you’re still hungry for more on AIG, I suggest reading a rather aggressive post on Gawker, by Hamilton Nolan called It’s All Just a PR Calculation for A.I.G.

Oh, and Happy Monday!

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.

Managing Our Expectations in 2013

There's no disputing that technology has changed our life - and our expectations. Nearly 20 years ago, I was living in the UK and working with a company who was, at the time, a pioneer in ecommerce for high-end kitchen, gourmet and lifestyle goods. The company no longer exists, but it did have some great products and ideas, one of which was to provide speedy service and delivery to customers.

While that may seem like a given in our customer-centric world today, back in 1993 customer and service were rarely used in the same sentence let alone acted upon. One of the “customer service differentiators” that we employed at the company was next day and two-day delivery. Again, this is a given in today’s environment but in the early 90s (and throughout the decade), it was considered as a special service.

What we came to realize over a decade was that the more “special services” we provided to our customers, the less special they became. Instead, they were expected and we were constantly looking to up the ante in terms of faster order processing times, fulfillment and delivery.

But there is a point when those special services become too much. Case in point? A recent article in the New York Times “Instantly Yours, for a Fee” looks at the lengths that some online retailers are willing to go to compete with Amazon.com. Since 2009, the ecommerce behemoth has been offering same-day delivery service in selected US cities to retain its competitive advantage. And after having lost a long and expensive battle with California, Texas, Pennsylvania and other states over charging sale taxes, Amazon is building additional distribution centers in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco to increase customer’s same-day delivery options.

Some may argue that same-day delivery is a wonderful thing and ask “how did we ever live without it?” Most consumers, I suspect, won’t really care. In fact, same-day delivery will simply drive up the cost of goods we buy, put smaller online retailers out of business, and create another level of unrealistic expectations.

The technology may exist to facilitate such a service, but as consumers, we’re not driving this demand. Amazon is. 

So how about we start 2013 as we mean to go on, and manage our (technology) expectations?  Will our lives be better or worse off by not having same-day delivery?

I know how I feel about this, but you tell me…

My Hopes for the PR Industry in 2013

With so many year-end forecasts and predications out this month, I thought I’d take a different approach and focus on my hopes for the PR industry in 2013.

Doctors, it is said, are often the worst patients. Why? Well, not to generalize too much -- but many feel compelled to interfere with their own health management, trampling the jobs of accomplished nurses and other qualified physicians because, after all, they are doctors too. And damn it, they know what’s best for their own bodies!

True enough. But doctors aren’t the only professionals blinded at times by their own confidence and arrogance. Many others are guilty of letting pride block rational thinking, stymieing best courses of corrective action.

Countering the signs and symptoms of a communications illness  

Right up there with MDs are our very own PR professionals. As we close out 2012 and face a New Year, I fear our industry has developed an infection -- caused in part by an outdated way of measuring our own “health” (or revenue and client success) and the failure to cede some of our communications control to others in our industry who might be able to heal our ailment. Maybe we should call it acute communicative technological undermining and paralysis, or ACTUP for short.

The signs of ACTUP include:

·       The reliance on dated metrics like advertising value equivalency, as well as the Web’s equally rickety ad value formula that is as much substantive as it is subjective. While both formulas no doubt strive for empirical accuracy and consistency, they fail to incorporate the vagaries of a news story’s importance to a reader, and whether the length of an article is truly a measure of its worth. In other words, bigger isn’t always better and color (versus black-and-white) may not always bring in more green (cash).

·       Failure to appreciate that in many circles, public relations gets some rather bad press -- even from within its own ranks. An October 2012 study by research firm Edelman Berland (part of the Edelman PR empire) found that when asked the question “Which profession provides the most value to society?” only 11% of consumers felt “PR Professional” met that standard. Think marketers themselves would reach a healthier conclusion? Think again. Less than a third of those working in communications (23%) felt their job held societal value. Coming from an industry that prides itself on message management, this is an abysmal finding.

·       An almost allergic reaction to many forms of social media. And in the select cases where it is adopted, its integration into the messaging plan is haphazard and ad-hoc. Sometimes that means big failures with little impact. Case in point: a little error, one keystroke long, caused quite the embarrassment for the United Nations in November 2012 when UN Information Officer Nancy Groves tweeted about the UN General Secretary’s desire for a 1-state Palestinian solution when in fact his official position supports a 2-state resolution. Oops.

PR patient prognosis: healthy if we ACT now

To be clear, I’m not saying I have ACTUP’s cure. Nor have I been holding out all this time as the PR industry was ridiculed both privately and publicly earlier after it tried to give itself a new definition of what exactly it does -- the first attempted definitional overhaul since 1982. I won’t bore you with rehashing it, but suffice it to say it’s loaded with enough jargon and wordsmith gobbledygook to make you hang your head in shame and consider a new profession. Doctor maybe? But as we begin 2013, the adage remains sound: recognizing there’s a problem is the first step toward recovery. It’s the conversation starter that inspires feedback, makes waves and, frankly, gets sh*t done. 

In fairness, the fact that the PR industry has tried to redefine itself speaks to the beginning of that conversation. However, that’s not good enough. Traditional metrics aren’t likely to change much any time soon. But as the Web, carried by smartphones and tablets, grows ever more complex and critical for communications, we must as an industry better embrace these technologies. Not as gimmicky add-ons and apps, but through integrated, ground-up measures.

Although we may struggle to define ourselves and ad values remain notoriously suspect, there’s no doubt that in the tech-savvy, 24/7 news world we live in, our services are vital to the clients and corporations we serve. So we better get healthy and ACT fast.

Here’s to a happy New Year knowing we’re actively addressing our communications shortcomings. And here’s to a healthier one as little by little, brainstorming session by brainstorming session and conversation starter to conversation finisher, we tackle and triumph over each of our collective symptoms! It won’t happen in a day, a week or a month. But as with medical professionals, nothing inspires us quite like a challenge and the discovery of a new illness.

Together, let’s prove we can be better patients after all.

I would love to hear what your hopes or wishes are for the PR industry in. Feel free to email me at vanessa@thinkinkpr.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn or visit my company’s website at www.thinkinkpr.com.

Here’s to a healthy and successful 2013!

PS – the above article originally appeared in Marketing Daily on December 27, 2012.