Mobile Study: Retailers focus consumer mobile efforts on stores

One of the latest research projects “Keeping Up with the Mobile Consumer” by Retail Systems Research (RSR) which was sponsored by Google and SAP Research, states that retailers are eager to engage with consumers via their personal mobile devices, but focus their efforts on driving customers to stores, rather than on mobile commerce. The study offers some orientation and recommendations for successful mobile strategies for retailers (and brands).

The research studied of 83 qualified retailers in the summer of 2011 and divideds the respondents in best performers – Retail Winners – and other performers. It states that 79% ackowledge that a cut and paste version of a full eCommerce site is simply not a viable mobile strategy. It also shows that the “Winners” are somewhat ahead of the market, however it is early days in mobile ecommerce.

For Retail Winners the future of mobile ecommerce is not only an extension of their website to the mobile channel (77% vs. 88% of all others). Most retailers look to outside advertising agencies with mobile experience – 31% to 18% of the Winners.

The best performers take a broader view of what mobile really looks like as it relates to how consumers use mobility, the study suggests. Winners focuse much more on the ability to write once and deploy across multiple mobile platforms than are average and underperformers (73% vs. 35%).

“Overall, 51% of respondents say that their mobile sales will grow significantly in the next 3 years, and another 42% expect at least some growth, if not a significant amount. And while the top mobile channel capabilities for our retail survey respondents include search for merchandise and receive coupons/offers, Retail Winners tell us they are laser-focused on using mobile to help the purchase process,” Nikki Baird, Managing Partner, RSR Research

According to the study for the Winner retailers the main challenge is that consumers are using mobile as part of their shopping experience and that they need to be there and they see (92 vs 81 of others). 42% (versus 29%) see significant online traffic from mobile sources which they need to respond to. Even the Winners (38%) admit that mobile technology is evolving too quickly and they cannot keep up with the pace of innovation (48% of others).

“There’s going to be a lot of trial and error, and even though not all new endeavors will be successful, it’s important to remember that the consumer already wants to use the device she has in her purse; even if a new tactic falls short, she’ll be eager to try it, and she’ll likely reward you for trying,” Steve Rowen, co-author of the report.

Spot On!
Generally speaking, the study shows all retailers are aware of the common and future status of mobile. They recognize the opportunities that mobile devices offer to them, their capabilities, and the shoppers’ willingness to use them. However, it is still difficult for them to predict the best retailers understand that “the next big thing”.

Study: Mobile ads increase user engagement… these days

Mobile advertising seems to be the rock-star among banners these days. For marketers it is becoming an essential digital marketing tool for the future due to its ability to achieve an essential audience reach everytime and everywhere.

The latest global MediaMind study “The Comprehensive Guide on How to Leave an Effective Message” suggests to increase engagement levels and pay-per-click rates through the location where the advertisement is displayed, the time when users see it, and the size of the banner seem to be crucial. For the study MediaMind surveyed about 21 billion impressions, from the second quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011.

The study finds that telecom advertising is the second highest vertical for user engagement. It is just surpassed by sports, still ahead of electronics, travel and retail though. This comes as no surprise as the telco spendings are increasing as of the high competition in the market place. In 2011, US Telecom advertisers are expected to spend over $4 billion on online advertising.

However, awareness is high, click activity still lacks engagement. From one million impressions web users would “dwell” on 70,000 adverts but only click on 1,800. The old question reamins: If we could only measure the final impact of banner awareness before people click banners.

The success factors in a telco advertising campaign: timing and location. Seen from a conversion point of view, telco ads achieved the highest conversion rate after the first impression, generating about 5000 conversions every one million impressions. Users were most likely to convert within the first three exposures to commercials, claims the study. And users converted with a higher probability when telcos targeted them with the most effective ads early in the campaign.

“Out of every one million impressions that are served, 70K impressions are Dwelled, and 1,800 impressions are clicked on. Overall, every million impressions generate 5,300 conversions.” Study Conclusion

Spot On!
In the future, will the high clickrates from mobile banners stay high (0.6% average CTR compared to usual banners reaching not even 0.1% CTR)? A former MediaMind study has also found that users convert at a much higher frequency when exposed to mobile ads. We will see what the mobile evolution of the user brings. In my eyes, it is still the creative aspect and the first message that goes out to the user that makes the change for a great campaign, followed by an “intelligent creative optimisation” which Gal Trifon, MediaMind General Manager obviously suggests.

PS… At dmexco I will be moderating the panel: “Mobile rocks! Strategies and Challenges in Mobile Advertisment”. (21.09.2011, 2.45pm, Congress Hall, Cologne). The keynote will come from Greg Stewart, CEO of the MMA. The panel will focus on opinions and answers from the international mobile market. Which strategies should be implemented to build up a successful communication via the mobile channels and which successful case studies are there? Come and join us!

Any further findings on mobile advertising you can add?

News Update – Best of the Day

Looking to increase the number of people who access your Facebook apps? A recent MIT study gives three insights marketers should watch out for…
1. Adding a personalized message feature (such as, “Hey! check out my new favorite app”) substantially increases adoption (three times more effective per message).
2. Notifications and invites outperform ad campaigns used in their recruitment phase on Facebook. Viral strategies are up to 10 times more effective than banner ads in converting users and around twice as effective as email advertising.
3. If companies and brands are looking to secure the most amount of committed users inside of a campaign app, personalized messages might be the way to go.
The study could be summarized that we are still in a trial-and-error mode in what works, what doesn’t work, and “how to improve–instead of choosing one strategy and praying it was better than all of the others”.

Finding valueable Augmented Reality apps is a time-consuming effort. Tripwire Magazine has done a trip through the AR world and found 45 (I would say 20) interesting iPhone apps that are worth exploring. My favorite five ones are… Star Walk, Yelp, Golfscape GPS Rangefinder, Theodolite Pro, and the best branded apps Stella Artois – Bar Guide.

Do you know what sharing means? One of the greatest sharing campaign comes from Casa do Zezinho: Share Project. Watch it, spread the idea, and support the campaign, so it can be expanded throughout the countires that could need it…!

Study: CEOs say that marketers lack business credibility

It is a harsh statement. It is a statement that undermines the value of leading marketers in the world. But it comes from their bosses: CEOs.

A majority of CEO’s believe that marketers lack business credibility. And it is not only that… Marketers are not the business growth generators they should be and are not focused enough on effectiveness. This is the key findings of a recent report “2011 Global Marketing Effectiveness Program” by Fournaise Marketing Group. The report interviewed over 600 large corporation and SMB CEOs and decision makers in Asia, Australia, Europe, and the US.

Nearly three quarter (73%) of CEOs believe marketers are not able to demonstrate how their cross-channel marketing strategies and campaigns help to increase their organisations’ top line in terms of more customer demand, sales, prospects, conversions and market share.

However these findings sound like a slap in the face of marketers, the study makes also clear that vertical metric set-ups are still a challenge for companies. 77% of respondents admitted that they cannot connect EBIT, market valuation or revenues to marketing facts like brand equity, brand values or other marketing ROI metrics.

The study claims that 74% marketers rely too much on the creative element of their job, ‘arty’ and ‘fluffy’ thoughts and too much on their ad agencies to come up with the next big idea. I would like to add that very often publishers make up a lot of these ideas but appear to stay in second line to the client. Just a quick hint to CEO’s…

In some of my latest projects in the last five years, I have seen marketers asking for many and very detailed reportings. The interesting thing is that 70% of CEOs see marketing data marketers provide is hardly useful, or relate to or mean anything for their company’s P&L. Obviously, 69% of marketers say that their campaigns and strategies have an impact on business – but cannot precisely quantify.

“Until marketers start speaking the P&L language of their CEOs and stakeholders, and until they start tracking the business effectiveness of their strategies and campaigns to prove they generate incremental customer demand, they will continue to lack credibility in the eyes of their CEOs and will continue to be seen more as a cost centre than as an asset.”
Jerome Fontaine, CEO, Fournaise

Spot On!
For me one of the main interesting topics is that 74% of CEO’s find that marketers focus too much on the latest marketing hypes (i.e. social media 74%) without explaining the real value it brings to the business. In order to generate ROI, very often marketers are starting discussions with third parties or agencies about latest trends and then jumping on them immediately without even thinking about the ROI it might bring to the business – instead of focussing on where main revenue streams are coming from.

Now, the funny thing is that probably most of marketers won’t comment on these findings, I assume. Although it would help all marketers to start discussing now…

Outlook or flashback? The (mobile) reward advertising model…

About 12 years ago, when I was about to join silicon, I remember my first meeting in the Chelsea office. I got to know the founders and management team in London and we had first discussions about the future of the business model. It was all very exciting to be in the UK, talking business with that innovative team that was reaching out to the big VC’s for more venture capital as web TV and community building seemed to have been the new rising starts for the next hundred years. And today all business is focussing on mobile…

At that day, we were brainstorming opportunities how to engage users in advertising, and how to reward them. Reward them, when they were watching the pre-rolls at our daily (on-demand) three minutes news show, when they were clicking on display ads, when were reading articles that might fit their business needs and then send them personalized advertising… and reward them when paying attention to any forms and activities of sponsored areas.

To be frankly open, the time was not ready for these types of advertising rewards from a user perspective (as well as the ad industry understanding the capabilities). However, we thought about clever loyalty programs and how to let users participate in the revenues we are generating. As we were working in the B2B scenario it was even more difficult to get this into the heads of our users. I remember, we even tested the silicon point reward model and had a personalized point counter on our side for some days. Yes, we were quite ahead of our times…

So, where are we today with the reward advertising model?

Some weeks ago, I met Julian Fourgeaud at Rovio (Angry Birds) when I was speaking at the istrategyconference in Amsterdam. Julian told me all about the opportunities they have with their mobile gaming business. If you think about their reach – Angry Birds just cracked the 200 Mio. downloads barrier- it all makes perfect sense. I was surprised how much time people spend with the game, and how addicted people became during the istrategyconference dinner (just ask my kids…) but wondered how to make a clever advertising model out of it. And I thought if reach is as benefitial as relevance form an advertising point of view. But that is another story…

Today, I was reminded of the old silicon days. I came across a new business model which is called kiip. Their business is quite simple. A code is implemented in a game which is basically an ad. The ad is a reward points model or coupon that shows up in mobile games when people achieve certain high-scores or levels in the game. So, when you beat a level, you might get a coffee from Starbucks or a discount from MINI’s merchandising shop. Or you just collect points via their loyalty schemes which motivate you to think about purchasing their latest products.

Here is the video how kiip works…

Kiip: An Introduction from kiip on Vimeo.

Spot On!
There are so many advertising opportunities or loyalty programs (i.e. like Multiply to increase the worth of brand fans) these days that won’t be as offensive as the traditional advertising model. HOWEVER, in my eyes there is one thing which needs to happen: Personalization. With silicon those days we saw who was logged in, just like Youtube, Facebook and Twitter do. So, personalized reward advertising ad models should no be a challenge anymore (under given permission). Still, I cannot see any of these rewarding systems really working for now. Or is Facebook Stories heading towards this idea? Groupon, Foursquare and Gowalla could come up with similar ideas if they just collaborate with the guys from kiip. And if credit card providers as well as loyalty card providers would change their strategies and group with these guys, chances would be amazing to make advertising engaging, personal, rewarding and finally efficient for brands. We would get offers in a personalized format, at the right time and in the right environment.

What do you think about reward advertising models? Is this an exiting area to focus on? Do you fear that data privacy (remember this Google spoof commercial…) becomes an issue as usual? Let us know…

Study: Succession planning – HR Execs don’t give best grades for leadership roles…

According to an online study conducted by Right Management, HR and talent management executives give not the best grades for the quality of their own organizations’ leadership pipelines. The poll by Right Management surveyed the 1,262 executives. It found that there are gaps in the leadership areas of most companies in North America. Just 6% of organizations were reported to have future leaders identified for all critical roles.

The Poll Question…
Do you have future leaders identified for critical roles in your organization?
6%: Yes, for all critical roles
17%: Yes, for most but not all critical roles
55%: Yes, for some critical roles
22%: No, not for any critical roles

“We learned that organizations are all over the map when it comes to implementing a coherent leadership development program. (…) A majority of organizations seem to have ‘some’ critical roles covered, but that’s barely reassuring. What’s really striking is that fewer than one in five has no one slated to take over any key positions. And we’re not talking about small companies.” Michael Haid, Senior Vice President, Right Management

Succession planning seems to be growing when executives rated their leadership pipelines, and were asked if there had been any recent change in their organizations’ approach. 57% stated that succession planning had become a higher priority in the past year. 17% replied it was made a lower priority.

“There’s a growing recognition that management succession is no luxury. Board members, executives and business leaders are now openly acknowledging that talent management plans —which include succession management — are absolutely essential for sustained performance in today’s organizations, as talent is now seen as one of the only competitive differentiators left,” (…) “The world is chaotic and unforeseen events can change a company’s situation overnight, so having a depth of leadership talent as well as a genuine plan for all eventualities are more important than ever. In fact, weak bench strength throughout the company can erode employee engagement and reduce overall performance.”

Spot On!
It is reported by Haid that the study shows how the need for succession planning is becoming more evident, but actual succession management strategies and implementation plans are lagging behind. The question stays whether succession planning is not been overseen by “replacement planning” for key roles very often. Scotiabank offers some education with four videos in their Get Growing for Business blog. For me succession planning is all about the challenge of businesses to continously evaluate the USP of their valid business reason to find evidence for their employees. It is the basis to be able to handle the daily business challenges. It is vital for the long term health of your business, brand and product strategy.

Travel industry marketers like Twitter… and not Facebook?

Finding benchmarks for online marketing practise and business system structures was the idea of an internet-based survey by Verma and McGill. They polled 426 senior marketing executives in lodging and destination organizations looking at budget levels, marketing strategies, and organizational structures.

Twitter seems to be quite popular amoung the travel marketers. 80% of respondents stated they produced Twitter campaigns and Social Media promotions in-house versus pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SSEO) which are in most cases outsourced. However, there is a fine difference between accommodation firms and destination marketers: While accommodation firms often outsource all Social Media activities (i.e. Twitter campaigns and pay-per-click management), destination marketers prefer to handle those activities in-house.

“Each year well over 700 marketing executives gather for TravelCom, which is a high level marketing conference that was held this year in Las Vegas” (…) One major theme this year was online marketing, but we realized that there was no overall knowledge of where the industry stands in this area. This study provides those benchmarks.” Cornell Professor Rohit Verma, Executive Director, Center for Hospitality Research (CHR)

The bigger portion of the respondents (two-thirds) said their 2010 e-commerce budgets had increased compared to 2009. 71% of destination marketers and 60% of accommodation marketers see again an increase for 2011.

Spot On!
The travel industry is in a real change mode seen from a web perspective. Web traffic to travel brand sites decreased by 8% in March 2011 versus March 2010. During the same period, visits to Facebook pages jumped 20% according to the first-ever L2 Digital IQ Index. According to a report by PhoCusWright, an industry research group, the unmanaged business trips reserved online will rise twice as fast as the rest of the market. One in three trips will be booked online in 2012 and reach a value of $313bn. If you look at these numbers it surprises me that not more travel marketers are looking at ways to use Social Media and focus more on Facebook than on Twitter, i.e. like OmniHotels offers direct bookings from Facebook now.

Just a thought…

Web 3.0 – Let’s find a new title…

Many web evangelists are sharing their views about the future of the next web these days. What will The Web 3.0 be, and how will it be named? For years people have foreseen The Semantic Web. Some might say, it is The Mobile Web, and know how to illustrate the opportunities (i.e. Augmented Reality) in their video.

Others deny this theory and state it is The Spatial Web.

“What tend to define Web 3.0 as not semantic, but rather the extension of the Web 1.0 (content) and Web 2.0 (Social Graph) into the spatial domain. Web 3.0 web content and social nodes are both tagged with spatial relationships and able to form social relationships based on current location. (…) We at the Web 3.0 Lab thing that by adding more spatial dimensions you will get improved semantic understanding. Much of our social understanding is spatial. Reasoning that some people hope to get out of triplestores we think will emerge out of geo-tagging of information. Spatial arrangements of data will drive interesting conclusions about how that data relates to the real world, how it is used, and therefore what it means.”

And if we listen to the conversation of Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, and Robert Scoble, at this year’s Web 2.0 conference, then the power of location-based data will be connecting the dots of user behaviour for future business and customer service strategies. Dennis envisions the future of Foursquare in “listening for what’s going on around you (…) You’re walking down the street and normally you eat lunch, but you haven’t yet. And Foursquare will tell you that you’re close to a sandwich place you read about in the New York Times three weeks ago. And that’s what you want to try.”

Thinking about the development of location-based technology the Web seems to move away from being The Global Web to The Local Web.

In the end, some proclaim Web 3.0 will be The Contextual Web.

“It is a robust procedural grid that understands us, and responds appropriately given the user’s current context.”

Spot On!
Isn’t it funny how we all try to invent our own Web 3.0 stamp as web specialists? And I could imagine different other namings or titles. The Authentic Web. The Realtime Web. The Live Web. And be sure, I will find some explanations for all of the above named. In the end, the Web is about people. People invented and continue to drive the Web – from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 – now more conversational, engaging and transactional than ever before. So, why not name it The People’s Web or The Human(ity) Web?

You decide. What title seems most appropriate for you? Come on, let’s discuss…

Content Marketing – Insights in an emerging digital topic for CMO’s

This week, the Custom Content Council and ContentWise released their American survey “Characteristics Study: A Look at the Volume and Type of Content Marketing in America for 2011” that indicates the future for a young type of branding: content marketing. The study states that CMO’s are spending an all-time high of $12.5 billion of their budgets in emerging platforms for custom content marketing with virtual events, mobile, video, and educational content.

The platforms for content marketing are still ruled by a $24 billion spent on print production and distribution. It shows the relevance of print for their marketing activities. CMO’S dedicate 29% of their average overall marketing, advertising and communications budget to content marketing activities. Those custom content products and platforms are becoming increasingly important to chief marketing officers. The study reveals that 87% see content marketing is valuable, and more than one-third of CMOs (35%) believe custom content marketing is the future of marketing, an increase by 19% in 2006.

“While print remains the choice du jour for most custom media programs, new media channels are providing more growth opportunities for the custom content industry” (…) “This year’s study underscores multiple expansion areas for content. As the economy continues to rebound, the future of content looks very promising.” Lori Rosen, Executive Director, Custom Content Council

Some further key findings of the study are that for example video content is growing: 57% of marketers will produce video, (increase of 3% to last year). Website and blogs are still on of the main topics CMO’s are focussing on next to print custom content marketing formats: Website updates of articles, blog posts and other content is for 79% the main activity.

Spot On!
Consumers seem to value the custom content from brands and companies. 69% like when custom content marketing targets their interests and 67% see it is valuable. An even more important finding for me is that 61% admit they feel better about brands when these deliver custom content. AND: These consumers report to be more likely to make purchases with these brands and companies. Marketers should pay attention to this development of the power of digital content marketing, especially as content curation will affect their SEO strategies of their social web activities acording to a study by Curata. Although probably most CMO’s agree with these motivations, more than 73% also admit that creating original content is the main challenge for marketers. There’s obviously a lot that content marketing could do for brands and companies in the future. As money seems to be made available by companies, it’s just depending on the usual bottle-necks: people and time.

Cebit Interview – Über die Zukunft der Arbeitswelt

Die Arbeitswelt verändert sich. Die Menschheit fägt sich, ob Social Software, Social Media, Social Networking oder Web 2.0 harte Arbeit ist, oder die Produktivität der Businesswelt an den Abgrund treibt. Geht es nur um die Erhöhung des persönliche Reputationsindex, des Personal Scoring Index, oder ergibt sich nachhaltige Lead Generierung -erst kürzlich als Salestainability umschrieben- und neues Business einfach selbstständig aus Gesprächen?

Wenn man zum Interview auf der Cebit von IBM eingeladen wird, kann man in ein paar Minuten nicht alles sagen, was man gerne sagen würde. Man kann auch keine 3-Säulen-Strategie im Detail erläutern, die man in der Zukunft als essentiell für den erfolgreichen Einsatz des Social Web für die Webstrategie eines Unternehmens ansieht.

Ich wollte im Interview so verständlich wie nur möglich auf die wichtigen Trends und erfolgversprechenden Taktiken eingehen, die sich abzeichnen und teilweise heute schon gelebt werden in der Businesswelt. Hoffen wir, mir ist es gelungen…

Die Idee der Visualisierung meiner Gedanken von Anna Lena Schiller während des Interviews finde ich sehr gelungen. Sie greifen den Gedanken des Personal Web Managers auf (links oben), sowie die zukünftige zentrale Herausforderung für den Einzelnen, einen 24 Stunden Tag so effizient mittels Social Software zu nutzen wie einen 36 Stunden Tag.

Der IBM Social Business Channel gibt im übrigen noch weitere Einsichten diverser Vordenker im Social Web. Ich empfehle sich auch die Meinungen mal anzuhören bzw. anzusehen.

Nun interessiert mich eure Sichtweise der Zukunft der Arbeitswelt. Wie stellt ihr euch den Arbeitstag von morgen vor? Was fehlt euch heute, was wünscht ihr euch morgen? Bin gespannt, auf eure Gedanken…

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