Mobile fix – The fireworks issue
Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, on Google v Facebook; Waiting for NFC; and a “mobile Xmas”
Privacy Matters?
It’s clear that the battle between Google and Facebook will be one of the biggest themes of the next 12 months at least. They are battling for talent, the time spent with them by users and for advertisers cash.
A key skirmish is going to be around privacy. In a very entertaining presentation at the IAB engage yesterday new Google Chief Dan Cobley talked about everything going digital. And towards the end points out that society has a role to play if digital is to grow – and states – quite forcefully that Privacy Matters. Followed by Mark Zuckerberg Law of Information Sharing.
It is clear that Google see Google+ as a different way of sharing information – even denying that it’s a social network.
They are promoting their Why These Ads programme – to explain why people see the ads they see and allow people some control over the data used n the targeting.
And even their ads around online safety (in partnership with the Citizens Advice Bureau) seem to promote the concept of privacy.
With Facebook facing more scrutiny over its tracking of users when they have left the site – this time in Germany, where privacy is a really big deal – are we seeing Google attempting to paint Facebook as cavalier with their users privacy?
In a conversation with Eric Schmidt a couple of years ago we were told that Google felt legislators in Europe were more likely to investigate Google than in the US or Asia. Will we now see Facebook facing real problems from regulators over here?
Another problem for Facebook is that, whilst smart brands now see Facebook as strategically important, most of the ways that brands use Facebook don’t involve spending much money with Facebook. In an eery echo of ‘traditional’ online, direct response advertisers spend money on Facebook advertising, but brands tend not to. The WSJ has a good piece on how big brands are underspending on Facebook. And Scoble looks at the money Facebook are leaving on the table, with some thoughts on how their ad model could develop.
Waiting for NFC
Despite all the hype NFC doesn’t seem to be moving that fast. Given Apple chose not to support it with the 4GS and relatively few Android devices have it – yet – the installed base is still low.
We have yet to hear a convincing argument of who is going to pay for NFC readers instore. Chip and pin terminals were introduced everywhere because the banks wanted to reduce credit card fraud – and pass the responsibility to the consumer at the same time. There seems to be no similar business case for NFC so we will have to depend on the replacement cycle for chip and pin terminals etc, with the next generation likely to have NFC capabilities in the chips – as Intel are developing.
So in the meantime smart brands are focusing on technologies that do have mass reach now. We continue to see QR codes being used more and more widely, even seeing them on a Circus poster last week and Unilever have put them on every pack of their Tony & Guy haircare range, opening mobile friendly videos with hair styling tips. This sort of smart use will build consumer usage. (Unilever rather than the circus)
But there are other alternatives. Square is morphing from a neat payment solution into a platform for dialogue between merchants and their customers. Their new iPhone app – called Card Case – uses the geo fencing capabilities of iOS5 to open a tab whenever the customer is within 100 yards of the merchant. This means that to buy a coffee, or whatever, all they need to do is give their name and the merchant can see a tab is open on their iPad.
And Amazon have just launched Flow – an app that uses image recognition (similar to Google Goggles) to identify products and open the relevant page on the Amazon site so you can buy it. It’s not available in the UK yet, so we haven’t tried it, but we struggle to see what the Augmented Reality element is.
First Mobile Christmas
Nearly half the UK population now own a smartphone – and 70% of all current phone sales are smartphones, so we can expect that figure to keep rising. People who get smartphones quickly adopt the new behaviours that exemplify the mobile opportunity; they use the internet on their phones to search and access content, they start to play games with apps, take pictures etc.
So one area we think we’ll see huge changes is retail. Whereas we have seen an online spike at Christmas before, this year we will see mobile commerce spike. Remember those Booz Allen figures we shared a while back? – mobile will influence $110 billion of sales, this year in Europe.
That influence – checking review sites, comparing prices, look to see who has what in stock etc – is going to create winners and losers this Christmas. Against a worsening economic climate people are going to be very careful how they buy. In the US they are being termed smart shoppers and research suggests;
27% of US smartphone users will use the device during in-store holiday shopping: A new Deloitte survey (Oct 26) of 5,000 U.S. consumers says of the 42% of consumers who own a smartphone, 27% will use the device while shopping for the holidays. 67% of these shoppers will use the devices to find store locations, 59% to compare prices, 46% to check product availability, 45% to shop at online stores, and 40% will scan bar codes.
Consequently we believe the big online players will do very well – at the expense of those retailers who just don’t get it.
Liberty – an amazing retailer – are buying mobile search terms that go to their desktop site. Selfridges don’t have a mobile optimised site. Neither does Primark or Top Shop. Fenwicks have a flash intro so their site is just blank on a mobile.
We expect that, come January, these may be amongst the brands Mary Meeker talks of; wondering what just happened.
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