Mobile Fix: The future is not mobile, it is mobility
Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, on how mobile is disrupting the traditional worlds of retail, publishing, marketing and agencies…
The most surprising news this week was that Yahoo poached one of Google’s top people as its new CEO. While Yahoo! has its problems, it remains a major player on desktops and on the web. If Marissa Mayer can reignite the innovation and continue to deliver a big audience then Yahoo! has a chance.
Meanwhile, Ofcom has published its annual look at the communications market. At more than 400 pages, there is a large amount of data on digital, mobile, TV and everything else in media, which is well worth flicking through.
The statistic that stood out the most to us was that 11% of the UK population already have a tablet and 10% possess an eReader – and most people use their tablets at home.
People sometimes forget that the mobile revolution we are going through is not about devices. It is about the new behaviours that these devices have enabled. As digital don David Armano reminds us: the future is not about mobile – it is about mobility.
As John Donahue of eBay (talking of $10 billion in mobile revenue in 2012, double last year’s amount) said: “Mobile is becoming the digital nexus of consumers’ lives. They want what they want, when they want it.”
Disrupting retail
A new study from Deloitte suggests that mobile already influences around 5% of all retail purchases in the US, and this is forecast to grow to somewhere in the region of 17% and 21%, quite a significant increase.
Considered in terms of actual sales, this suggests that mobile will influence $159 billion in sales this year and around $700 billion by 2016. As Forbes said, Amazon Price Check may be evil but it is the future.
Disrupting publishing
John Battelle recently wrote a typically thoughtful piece on why we need advertising to work online, otherwise the content creation driving the majority of the eyeballs could cease. The challenge is, however, that he doesn’t have the answer.
We have talked in the past how the $50 billion gap between time spent online and money spent online is having a corrosive effect on content creation.
As analogue dollars turn into digital cents, the media organisations creating the content that people value are struggling with the need to produce more content for the same or less money.
Michael Wolff believes that the business model for news is imploding alongside the growth in mobile. Doing the math, Wolff shows that mobile is bringing in a fraction of the revenue of online, which was already much lower than print. In effect, $100 revenue in print shrinks to $1 on mobile.
Disrupting marketing
Of course every agency and every client now includes digital in its thinking, but money has not yet followed audience. Morgan Stanley still talks of the $50 billion gap between how people spend their time and where advertising spend goes.
We are convinced that the mass market adoption of smartphones will accelerate the closing of this gap, however, we think that every element of the marketing industry is going to need to change. It may sound farfetched, but smart brands are already changing.
For Nike, “connecting today is a dialogue” – meanwhile, Mark Pritchard, global brand building officer at Procter and Gamble recently pushed the company’s “digital is more efficient strategy”, emphasising that digital and PR give P&G the greatest return on investment and “go hand in hand”.
Bob McDonald, CEO of Procter & Gamble said: “I believe that over time, we will see a moderate increase in the cost of advertising. There are just so many different media available today and we are quickly moving more and more of our businesses into digital.
“In that space, there are lots of different avenues available. In the digital space, with things like Facebook, Google and others, we find that the return on the advertising investment, when properly designed with a big idea, can be much more efficient.”
A marketer at Nike added: “A whole industry is stuck on trying to force old metrics on to new channels. Once you have established a direct relationship with a consumer, you do not need to advertise to them.”
This shows that these brands are not looking at business as normal. They are recognising that the new digital opportunities are driving a rethink of what marketing means.
Disrupting agencies
Jeff Dachis of Dachis Group, one of the smartest social media “agencies” said that social media represents the key to brand marketers achieving engagement at scale.
Previously, brands could either achieve scale (through buying a Super Bowl ad, for example) or deep engagement (via street teams and events).
How does digital advertising work?
Of the thousands of ads served to me on Facebook, I have noticed very few. When I see that my friends like a brand, that catches my eye, but I cannot really recall any of the brands.
However, this week I have seen ads for an imminent Soul11Soul concert. I canmot imagine they have a big budget, so they have used really effective targeting, which I cannot imagine any other media being able to deliver.
That is advertising so good, it is a service.
Why did I notice this ad when I have not “seen” so many others? As the new book from measurement guru Robert Heath points out, it is all about Perceptual Filtering, based on the so-called “cocktail party syndrome”.
So of all the ads seen, my unconscious knows that I love Jazzy B and alerts my conscious brain about this one. This is how we believe that online advertising works, and why Comscore and DunnHumby research can show that the much-maligned banners and buttons can perform just as well as TV for CPG brands.
Although this thinking is around digital we are seeing clear evidence that mobile can play its part. A new study from research firm Insight Express has shown how, over the past few years, mobile has outperformed online in its ability to drive brand attributes such as awareness, favourability and purchase intent.
Therefore, as well as getting response, mobile advertising can drive the brand too: we simply need to improve the standard of creative work.
People use their smartphones to solve problems – “Where am I? When is next bus? What should I buy? Is this is a good price? How can I kill 10 minutes? Has anyone commented on my Facebook update yet?”
Brands need to find ways of helping people to solve these problems. The technology used to make that happen is not that important; which ad network is selling the ad inventory is not that important. What is important is that the brand objectives are met.
Smart thinkers
Is Marc Andreessen the smartest man in tech? Well, he did invent the browser and went on to launch Netscape, the first internet IPO.
He came up with the idea of cloud computing before anyone else and he was into social very early, launching Ning in 2004 which enabled people to build their own social networks. Andreessen also invested in Skype, Twitter, Groupon, Instagram and AirBnB.
He also believes that technology wants to be free. Andreessen feels that – when the connectivity is good enough – the processing should take place in the cloud rather than on the device. Which means the web model works better than the native app model, but we need the connectivity to catch up.
Finally, given we are on our way to Cornwall, the home of the pasty we thought we would repeat this.
Our favourite story this week is about the Sky-owned WiFi provider The Cloud signing a deal with Greggs, the bakers. So while you are waiting for your pasty to cool to avoid paying VAT, you will be able to check your emails. Their press release had a classic headline – there’s a bap for that.
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