Mobile Fix: Social sets in, product placement and multi-screen troubles

This week Simon Andrews takes a look at how social is maturing as a strategic discipline, the impact of product placement in the entertainment industry and the unavoidable problem that comes with taking a multi-screen and multi-channel approach when targeting audiences.

Social

Whilst there is rightly some questioning of the business sense of chasing likes and followers, we are seeing social mature as a strategic discipline for brands.

We mentioned Nestle last week and now we read that Mastercard has a social command centre.

As well as disrupting marketing, social is driving new business models. We met Oliver Luckett when he was with Disney and his new business is blending social with the entertainment industry.

“If you are sitting in the boardroom and someone says to you here is our six month strategy and here’s how it is going to work…they are lying to you. They don’t have any idea…,” he said in an interview.

Our friends at Dachis have been amongst the pioneers of professionalising social with tools that turn the data into insight. Here they look at how the sort of cultural relevance that Oliver talks about has worked for H&M through their use of Beyonce.

Product Placement

Ever since soap operas arrived, brands have been looking for ways to get their product associated with content that their customers enjoy. Picking up on how social is being used to promote content, we think there is going to be lots of innovation around integrating product in modern marketing.

I ran a very early product placement test for Kenco Coffee in the early 90s. As an example of what could be done, we had the new packaging featured in Coronation Street – Alf Roberts held the jar clearly as he chatted in the corner shop for around 50 seconds.

It was very impressive but we couldn’t see any real commercial value so didn’t pursue it. But the morning after it ran around a dozen people at the client mentioned they had seen it – a good example of Cocktail Party Syndrome.

And some old research into the Coke sponsorship of American Idol shows similar effect; when people were asked if they had noticed the product placement of Coke in the show nearly everyone said no – but ad tracking showed Coke ads perform much better in breaks in the show than when they ran elsewhere.

The new Great Gatsby film was significantly funded through brand integration and whilst the social element wasn’t as high profile as it could have been, this looks like the type of partnership we will see more of.

Always on

As part of the new Google Think insights there is a good piece on Constant Connectivity – the idea that people are using multiple screens so wherever they are they are constantly connected.

This multi-screen multi-channel approach makes perfect sense and informs much of our current thinking on projects. But it relies on being able to get a connection and as we know, that isn’t always possible in the world’s biggest cities – even with 4G rolling out and increasingly ubiquitous free WiFi.

But Google have predicted that by the end of the decade everyone on Earth will be connected. How’s that going to work?

The GoogleX labs think that Blimps are the answer – tethering balloons in the stratosphere to ‘beam’ down broadband.

As a way to bring in more potential customers for the range of Google products and services this makes sense – like their investment in fiber in Kansas and Austin and free Wifi in Manhattan.

And owning the infrastructure as Africa evolves into a major economic power makes good sense too. Google is very active in Africa and looking to have be involved in a range of ways to provide the internet infrastructure.

Mobile Money

Yet another Square like mobile money service is getting traction with investors. Sumup has raised money from American Express and Groupon.

The Economist has a good look at the success of mobile money in Africa – nothing we haven’t covered before but a good summary.

And NFC seems to be having a few hiccups – it appears that the relatively few NFC enabled readers in retailers have been debiting cards whilst they are still in the customers wallets.

We were told that the Oyster system on the tube didn’t take off at first as people were unsure whether their card had worked, so they introduced the beep when your card was read and the rest is history.

NFC payments – whether by card or phone – need some service design to give users confidence around when a transaction has taken place.