Mobile Fix: Google Glass and Twitter ads
Simon Andrews, founder of Addictive! talks mobile disruption, Twitter advertising and Google Glass.
Disruption
For a talk we did at Google last week we focused on the disruption being caused by mobile across a range of sectors.
Mobile Money is a hot area and some new research from Deloitte shows how mobile is becoming key – in the US 8% of transactions are on mobile, versus 53% online and just 14% in Branch.
But another US research piece points out that consumer expectations are not being met by the current banking apps. Just as we found when working on the digital strategy for HBOS, people have high service expectations set by the way GAFA deliver great experiences.
There is a great opportunity to differentiate through mobile, but who will step up?
With new players like Square and Braintree disrupting key parts of the money value chain, will the existing banks retain their hold on customers or could new players emerge? Bain think the credit card business is under threat, but to us Visa seem to be covering the bases with smart investments into some of the new players.
Creating a new mobile focused bank would be a relatively cheap way to enter the market. It’s worth watching what Tesco and Virgin/Northern Rock do – both have mobile businesses as well as money ones. Can they blend them together and take on the incumbents?
Another industry we looked at was publishing. It’s not news that everyone is struggling with the move to digital and mobile. But when you look at the ABC data showing the combined readership across print and digital, one person who looks to have a real problem is Mr Murdoch.
But the digital ambitions of the Times have been dealt another blow this week, with the launch of the new iPad app for the Times and Sunday Times getting a big thumbs down.
A couple of years back News Corp had a really strong digital team working on Project Alesia. But that was axed because (so its rumoured) the money allocated was needed to fund taking full control of BSkyB; with hindsight, not the best decision ever made in Wapping.
Is there a way back? Time will tell but you wonder how much appetite there is to really invest in the newspapers now.
Twitter advertising
Advertising on Twitter reached the next level this week with the launch of their API making it easier for Agencies to buy ads at scale. Right now ads on Twitter are pretty simple to use but if you want optimise campaigns it’s largely a manual process and takes time. The API means people can industrialise the process and plug Twitter into the same systems they use to manage their social content.
And which agency is the first to step up and take advantage of this new opportunity? Salesforce.com. This tech firm bought Buddy Media last year and is now a major player in social.
And Twitter have also shared data on their 10 million UK users. 80% of them use Twitter on mobile and these mobile users are 40% more likely to access twitter more than once a day than the average user – more evidence that Mobile and Social have merged.
Google Glass
As Google Glass gets closer to launch the marketing has kicked in. Previously pre-ordering was only available to developers, but now mere mortals can play. You just have to participate in an interesting social media campaign to say why you want a pair. The lucky winners get the right to preorder – and still pay the $1500 price tag.
We can expect to see some smart product placement as they seek to normalise Glass – moving from a tech thing to a cool thing. And it’s no surprise to hear they are working with cool eyewear firm Warby Harper to make them a little more stylish.
Google search
As Google ‘enhance’ the way they sell search, some people see it as a cynical way to get more brands to spend on mobile – by removing the option not to buy mobile. As this piece details, how you react – and when you choose to ‘upgrade’- depends on how you are using search. If you have a sophisticated mobile search strategy you should wait. If you haven’t, you probably need better advice anyway.
But you should take your time to really understand the new regime and look for the best way to make it work for your brand.
The other news on Google search was an analysts suggestion that Apple probably get around $1billion in 2014 from Google for the right to be the default search engine on the iPhone and iPad. This is up from around $82m in 2009.
With rumours that Yahoo want to extend their new ad partnership with Google from display into search – at the expense of Bing – we still wonder whether Bing will try to steal the Apple relationship from Google at some point. How much would it be worth to Microsoft to have Bing as a significant player in mobile search? $1billion would seem cheap, as Apple is the only real way they can get scale.
newTV
Our thinking around newTV last week got a good reaction. We saw some interesting pieces in the FT this week looking at the same issues, making the point that longer form video on the internet has a good future – with Informa predicting that online video will be worth $37bn by 2017.
In another article they look at the challenges for the advertisers with on demand TV – somewhat overstating the issue as most brands have adapted to the rise of online video pretty well. But the early signs of what could be significant changes can be detected;
“Five years ago, two per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds did not have a TV at home,” said Jonathan Allan, sales director at Channel 4. “Now it’s 6 per cent. These people are watching TV solely through non-TV devices.”