American Express is expanding its partnership with the U.S. Open tennis tournament to include new experiences for fans. Now in its 16th year, the alliance this year includes the official U.S. Open iPhone application and virtual gaming with "Challenge a Pro" and "Rally Experience" with tennis pros Sam Querrey, Shahar Pe'er, Caroline Wozniacki and Gael Monfils. "It really brings the experience to another level as the players are integrated into interactive experiences onsite," Jessica Igoe, director of global sponsorship marketing at American Express, tells Marketing Daily. American Express has teamed with the U.S. Tennis Association and IBM on the first-ever U.S. Open iPhone application where iPhone users can access an insider's guide with news, draws and scores, and also tune into USOpen.org Radio. Special American Express features include an interactive grounds map highlighting American Express cardmember benefits, video content with Querrey, Wozniacki, Pe'er and Monfils, and "Ask the Booth," which also allows users to submit questions that will be answered by tennis insiders throughout the tournament on USOpen.org Radio. The American Express "Challenge a Pro" uses interactive GreenScreen technology. Fans are invited to "virtually" play against tennis pros Sam Querrey or Caroline Wozniacki on-site at the U.S. Open "SmashZone." A digital video is captured and then sent to the participant via text, MMS or email, which can also be shared with family and friends and posted to their social networks. Via the American Express "Rally Experience," all tennis fans on-site will be able to simultaneously engage in a virtual tennis match using their mobile phone as a controller with pro players Shahar Pe'er and Gael Monfils. American Express will donate $1 to the USTA's Serves Foundation for every participant who plays throughout the U.S. Open event, up to $10,000. Players and Open attendees can watch as the number of participants is tracked along with the time of each play on a giant LED screen. American Express is bringing back Radio Live at the U.S. Open as a benefit for cardmembers throughout the tournament, which runs Aug. 31 to Sept. 13. Fans can listen to the play-by-play commentary and match updates on CBS, ESPN2 and the Tennis Channel, while they watch the action live from the court. Fans can also hear special live interviews and player spotlights on Querrey, Wozniacki, Pe'er and Monfils. Cardmembers enrolled in the Membership Rewards program can use points to purchase tickets to the U.S. Open. The financial services company is also sponsoring U.S. Open Guest Information, which offers attendees tournament information, along with on-site restaurant and transportation assistance.
After months of controversy surrounding wireless companies, the Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to launch a wide-ranging probe of the wireless industry. "We are transitioning from a voice-centric world to a world of ubiquitous, mobile Internet access," said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. "This transition promises to increase the pace of innovation and investment, but only if we have an open and competitive marketplace that gives every great idea a chance to make its way to consumers so that the best products or services win." The investigation, which could pave the way for new regulations, will encompass a variety of matters, including spectrum availability, wireless networks, devices, applications, and business practices. In addition, the FCC said it's seeking comments about "how the public has used wireless services and technology to solve real-world problems in areas such as health care, energy, education, and public safety." The agency's probe comes as regulators and advocates have increasingly challenged some wireless practices. Earlier this summer, four U.S. senators publicly questioned whether exclusivity deals -- such as the one tying the iPhone to AT&T -- are unfair to consumers. Also, last month the FCC sought answers from Apple, AT&T and Google about an apparent decision to block Google Voice from the iPhone. Google Voice would have allowed iPhone users to send free SMS messages and make cheap international phone calls. Meanwhile, broadband advocacy group Free Press recently urged the FCC to specify that neutrality rules apply to wireless networks. The group argues that consumers should be free to use any lawful applications on wireless networks, and has called for an investigation into Apple's decision to disallow a Skype VoIP app for the iPhone that would have worked on the 3G network. Instead, the approved app works only on the Wi-Fi network. At least one commissioner, Michael Copps, indicated on Thursday that he's open to Free Press's argument on that point. "The freedom to choose devices and applications is, I believe, good for consumers and good for entrepreneurs, too." Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of broadband advocacy group Public Knowledge, praised the FCC's decision to investigate. "The Commission took exactly the right path today when it voted to look at all aspects of competition in the wireless industry," she said in a statement. "For too long, the appearance of competition among a few carriers has masked underlying anti-competitive industry practices ranging from consumer contracts to roaming agreements."
Bruce Goerlich, a long-time Madison Avenue media research guru who most recently was the top researcher within Publicis' ZenithOptimedia Group, has landed as Chief Research Officer at Rentrak Corp., one of a group of companies vying to develop a commercialized research marketplace from the burgeoning universe of digital set-top devices. Rentrak also announced that Michael Vinson, former senior vice president-managing director of digital insights and analytics at Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group, has joined as vice president of statistical sciences and analytics. The moves mark part of an ongoing exodus of top media researchers from Madison Avenue to the vendor side of the business, and come at a time when research, analytics and consumer insights are being touted by major ad agencies as a critical resource. Rentrak said the positions - both new in its organization - have been established to help develop new research products aimed at Madison Avenue, as the ad industry shifts from traditional linear television to video-on-demand, online and mobile video advertising platforms. Rentrak, which began as an aggregator and analyzer of videocassette rental data for the major Hollywood studios, has move aggressively into the digital video marketplace, and is now a major player tracking the distribution of video-on-demand content. More recently, it has pushed into the burgeoning digital set-top data marketplace, and is competing with companies such as TNS, TiVo, TRA Analytics, and even Nielsen Co., as they all vie to become the dominant source for audience measurement data derived from so-called "clickstream" databases. According to a recent report in the Financial Times, a coalition of big advertisers, agencies and TV networks is backing yet another soon-to-be-announced player, dubbed CIMM (Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement) that reportedly will launch a new measurement service combing clickstream data from TV, online and mobile databases as soon as this fall. Rentrak executives have long positioned their expertise as one based on aggregating, managing, and analyzing the data streams of video content, and claim it is what enabled the homevideo marketplace to develop a commercialized structure. According to a Rentrak spokesperson, the company currently is processing data from 13 million digital set-top devices in the U.S. with "commercialized data" available from 3.8 million of them via AT&T's U-Verse system. The company was also retained by NBC Universal recently to begin aggregating, analyzing and modeling video-on-demand and mobile video data streams. Goerlich and Vinson are expected to help bridge the gap with Madison Avenue. Both are well known and highly respected among both advertisers and agencies. During his 25 year career at some of Madison Avenue's top shops, Goerlich was a key player in the development of new approaches to media research, including TV audience reach optimization systems and econometric approaches. Most recently, he was the president of strategic resources at ZenithOptimedia North America, and had previously served as chairman of the Advertising Research Foundation, and is a past president of the Market Research Association. Prior to his role at Starcom MediaVest Group, Vinson was chief research scientist at erinMedia, a company that had an ambitious plan to develop a new commercialized TV audience measurement system derived from digital set-top devices that would have competed with Nielsen. After settling a federal antitrust suit against Nielsen for undisclosed terms, erinMedia has since gone dormant.
A new Gartner report projects that mobile ad spending worldwide will grow 74% this year to $913.5 million but not really accelerate until 2011, when advertisers are expected to boost mobile spending as part of an overall shift toward digital marketing channels. By 2013, the research firm expects mobile ad spending to surpass $13 billion, with the Asia-Pacific region leading the way, followed by North America and Europe. "After 2011, the trend will continue as smartphones and flat-rate data plans become more affordable to mainstream users," states the report, titled "Mobile Advertising Grows Quietly. "The growth in mobile advertising revenues is primarily driven by mobile Web banner ads, but it also has a strong growth component from mobile search, downloadable applications and SMS advertising." Underlying the growth of these formats is increased consumer use of smartphones, which Gartner expects to account for 45.5% of all mobile phone sales in 2013, up from just over 9% in 2008. The embrace of smartphones -- especially the iPhone -- coupled with a rise in flat-rate data plan pricing, signals that a fundamental change is underway in how consumers interact with high-end devices. While data usage is growing most rapidly among smartphone users, Gartner analyst Andrew Frank points out that that the increased mobile media consumption is leading Web publishers to create more user-friendly versions of their mobile sites, "which in turn is lifting mobile Web access among non-smartphone users." A recent NPD report also noted that regular mobile phones have also increasingly adopted smartphone features such as Qwerty keyboards and touchscreens. The report highlights location-based targeting, long hyped as one of the killer apps of mobile advertising, as still underutilized by finally coming into its own with the spread of GPS technology. "GPS-aware apps now provide a much simpler and more cost-effective means of achieving location targeting, while lowering the risks of consumer backlash," since no personally identifiable information needs to be sent by users. Gartner expects location-based ads to find an audience among young mobile users who are increasingly using mobile devices to navigate and connect with friends on the go. The firm suggests that media companies will have to develop (or acquire) local directory services like Yelp and Citysearch to fully take advantage of location-based advertising on cell phones. Another as-yet unfulfilled opportunity in mobile advertising lies in third-party advertising in mobile apps. Despite the explosion of apps sparked by Apple's App Store, most have yet to integrate advertising. And among those that have, the prevalence of house ads indicates that revenue growth is significantly lagging the opportunity afforded by rising usage. Gartner also predicts that mobile handsets will increasingly complement other types of advertising as a "universal back channel," especially for out-of-home media. The firm's research supports the idea that young consumers in particular will accept free mobile content subsidized by advertising. Even so, the report acknowledges that user acceptance generally, and regulation of more highly targeted and personalized forms of advertising, remain a potential hazard for advertisers, content providers and carriers. Other barriers to mobile ad growth cited by Gartner include the proliferation of non-standard devices and metrics and mobile spam, especially in connection with SMS text marketing. While encouraging advertisers and agencies to look at precise targeting by time and location, the firm advises them to maintain a keen sensitivity to privacy issues and permission strategies.
Behavioral targeting may no longer mean that the advertiser buys media armed with a browser-based cookie and a pixel tag. It appears that public Wi-Fi access hotspots can tell more about a person than some initially thought. A study released by JiWire on Monday analyzes Wi-Fi access trends between January and June 2009. The report, which highlights market trends for advertisers, provides a snapshot of trends and the type of people who access data over public Wi-Fi. Knowing the specific longitude and latitude of a person builds the foundation to serve up an ad as the person sits at Starbucks on Market Street in San Francisco, but integrating demographic data, data collected from local surveys, and prism clusters based on "ZIP-code-plus-six data" from Nielsen Claritas provides specifics. Targeting consumers over public Wi-Fi access points has become more appealing for several reasons. For starters, past research shows that people spend on average of five hours daily outside the home or office, although many stay connected to the Internet through Wi-Fi, according to David Staas, senior vice president of marketing at JiWire. Out-of-home marketers that reach out to consumers through billboards have been relying on a similar type of strategy for years. "With the shift, marketers want to know how this change impacts consumer lifestyles and behaviors, and the best methods to reach consumers who stay connected," Staas says. "We also see a 70% increase in the number of mobile devices accessing public Wi-Fi in the first half of this year." Since June 2004 through June 2009, there has been 400% growth in public Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide. New York ranks No. 1 with 887 access locations for the top U.S. cities, followed by San Francisco at No. 2 with 872 and Chicago at No. 3 with 792. In North America, public Wi-Fi access users jumped to 18.4%, up from 5.4% in March 2009. The majority -- 55.3% -- of people access public Wi-Fi through hotels and resorts, followed by 27% at airports, 10.5% at coffeehouses, 4.4% on cruise ships, and 2.7% on metro. Most people who connect through public Wi-Fi in coffeehouses are upscale males in management positions, according to the JiWire study. In fact, 74% are male and 40% have management titles. About 80% of Wi-Fi café users connect locally. Forty-one percent connect for both work and fun. Of the 38% of Wi-Fi café customers who make purchases, 51% buy personal items, 15% make business-related purchases, and 34% make personal- and business-related purchases. JiWire also looked at how people who frequent coffeehouses differ in different cities. So, the company analyzed coffee shops in San Francisco and Dallas. People in both cities had many of the same attributes, such as age, whether they owned a home or banked online. Things that differed included household income. People who frequent coffeehouses in Dallas are 41% more likely to have a household income of more than $200,000 compared with San Francisco. In Dallas, 28% were likely to have a home valued at more than $500,000, and 17% more likely to have management titles. Mobile has promise, but is largely seen as experimental. There had been concerns about tracking metrics, Staas says. JiWire has built partnerships with more than 30 network providers, such as AT&T and T-Mobile, to deliver media and advertising across 30,000 public Wi-Fi locations, from coffeehouses to college campuses reaching about 20 million unique users monthly. Staas says the industries that have had the most success targeting consumers over Wi-Fi include travel and hospitality, automotive, consumer electronics, entertainment and telecom. For example, Hyatt experienced a 39% click-through rate for a promotion that required people to take a virtual tour of the hotel demonstrating amenities for business travelers in exchange for free Wi-Fi access time. The results from the survey reflect 2,057 randomly selected people connected via Wi-Fi in more than 6,500 coffee shops across the United States.
It's that time of year when fashion houses come out with fall fashion "look-books" that showcase their lineup of clothing, collectibles and accessories. One firm, Kidrobot, with stores in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami and Dallas, and global distribution, is using a different approach to promote its designer toys. The small New York firm is using a digital idea that is big in Japan to get people engaged in a lighthearted way with the Kidrobot brand: QR codes. The QR (quick read), two-dimensional matrix, the most popular code in Japan, was used initially for tracking vehicle parts in manufacture. With the advent of smartphones, it is used widely in Japan for mobile tagging, wherein Japanese consumers take a snapshot of the Mondrian/ chessboard-like codes to go to a URL, for instance, get product or retail information or coupons and pricing info. The codes are central to Kidrobot's five-day scavenger hunt in New York City called "Dunny Hunt." The effort, via New York-based We Are Plus and promoting Kidrobot's 2009 Dunny Series of toys, requires participants to use their smartphones to scan QR codes on Kidrobot promotional items hidden around town. The company, whose products sell in over a thousand stores around the world, is using the New York program as a test, and plans to roll it out in the four other cities in which it has stores -- and perhaps elsewhere. "This is version 1.0," says Paul Budnitz, principal of Kidrobot. Kidrobot's newsletter subscribers, community members, Manhattan store shoppers and Twitter feed followers can opt-in for daily clues that lead them to a Kidrobot promotional display (posters, postcards, stickers and/or t-shirts). People who find the codes and scan them add one of a series of virtual Dunny toys to their digital "collection." They also become eligible for prizes, including rewards for the first person to scan the QR Code from that day's hidden item. The grand prize is a full set of the Dunny Series 2009 designer toys. To play, participants get a link to a free smartphone application for scanning the QR bar codes in the hidden promotional displays. Posters will go up near the main store on Prince Street on Saturday. Budnitz says that while the digital scavenger hunt is new, "we do all kinds of interesting events, like scavenger hunts around limited-edition toys, all the time. We have had [launches] where you could only buy the toy at a Chinese restaurant downtown or one where they had to send in a 'junk food' photo of themselves to buy a toy." He says the QR codes are ideal because they can be put anywhere, "on stickers, t-shirts, billboards -- they can be photocopied on sheets of paper, we can put them on the back of peddie cabs, so they will be all over the city on different places." Budnitz says thousands are likely to participate based on interest in the company's products. "When we offer new toys, we will have a line of four or five hundred people just waiting to buy it at one store." Principal Jeremy Hollister and co-creative director Judy Wellfare at We Are Plus got the idea after spending time in Japan. "This technology has been used in Japan for some time, but it's still relatively new here in America," says Hollister. "Creating a nice-looking, mobile-optimized Web site that functions properly was the biggest challenge."
"You need a vacation, Dad." "No you need a vacation. You just want me to give you one and have me and my credit card tag along in case we're needed." "See, he's cranky." She appeals to my partner. "You two need a vacation." "This is what I am saying," my better half chimes in. She has been waiting all summer for this discussion about the absence of a vacation. "See how snippy he is." "Knock it off or I will write about both of you in the next column." "Fine," my daughter replies. "And don't forget to tell them what a crank you are because you spent all summer down in that cave of yours writing about media and programming conferences where other people talk even more about media. Haven't you people figured this out yet?" Consider it done. They have been told. Since I now have been sworn to a new resolution that summers must include a vacation, let's spread the joy around. If I have to make resolutions to change, then so does everyone else, dammit. The one thing I have learned after all of these months here in "the cave" surrounded by cell phones is that more work needs to be done. How about some resolutions in the mobile marketing industry to make our 2010 better than 2009? To wit: Provide real mobile search results. I have been whining about this all year, but I still find it maddening that the major engines aren't floating mobile-friendly sites to the top of the search results. Hell, for much of the year Google "mobile" searches were presenting me with the same results page as their Web searches. The search experience will be better on mobile when the search experience is, well, mobile. Stop kicking me out of apps and into browsers. The entire mobile app experience is undermined when a developer can't keep the ad experience contained within the original application. Ads are less intrusive when the user can see clearly she can back out of them. The NYTimes apps are still one of the best examples. The new ad units in that app from Medialets are full-screen takeovers, but they take place in the confines of the news brand. Banish the landing pages that tell me to "sign up at the Web site." No joke. I keep running into half-heartedly mobile ad experiences that won't let me register with a brand or complete an action in the mobile space itself. Improve the app store experiences. The early thrill of the mobile application model is waning and some of the same problems of discovery and limited choice that plagued the decks for years are now apparent in the stores. Palm Pre really needs apps. It is just sad in there. Android, you need a decent online catalog. The on-deck store is cluttered with bikini wallpapers and meaningless sound boards and the online store is not flexible or complete. BlackBerry has all of its App World applications nicely indexed on the Web site. Let's make this a model. And while I am at it -- iTunes needs to grow up. In the music library I actually like the Genius recommendations for similar tunes, and it has been responsible for my buying tons of single tracks. But we need a stronger recommendation engine in the App Store to surface truly relevant programs. Banish the Michael Jackson text alerts. Nothing involving the late singer is "breaking news" anymore. Sending subscribers an SMS alert about the latest rumor about a coroner's report abuses the privilege. Nintendo, please come to my phone? This may be my last annual plea for Nintendo to bring some of its brilliant portable game design sense to phones. This week the company released its Professor Layton and Diabolical Box, another brilliant mobile media experience. While the iPhone and the applications model have led to a gratifying flowering of fun mobile gaming (finally), it is good to remember that one company mastered the portable game years ago...but they seem uninterested in mobile. One more time, Nintendo. The window of opportunity to make a splash here is closing -- but whenever you are ready to bring Warioware, Zelda or the Mario RPGs here, feel free. And bring that back catalog of Final Fantasy games with you. 2D Codes. Somebody make this work? I know I will take it in the knees (again) from all of you 2D code vendors out there who think your own fugly code will remake mobile marketing. I have no idea how many codes are now in the field, let alone how to distinguish one from another. The bottom line is that so long as users have to download a discrete program to make someone else's marketing program work, then this platform is for mobile geeks only. The promise is great; the hurdles are obvious. Speaking of which... . A seamless mobile couponing experience. It is hard to imagine a marketing platform with so much promise that needs so much work on all of its levels. The front-end experience of getting coupons is haphazard. None of the aggregators has established enough direct partnerships with retailers to attract much consumer interest, and there are too many companies just scraping Web coupons that are barely visible on a phone. At the point-of-sale too many stores clerks are clueless when faced with a mobile coupon. But when this fractured system finally comes together, there is no doubt in my mind that a gusher of innovation and marketing dollars will be in there somewhere. It just makes too much good sense. A moratorium on "is this the year of mobile?" Spare us this shallow attempt to take the temperature of a mobile marketing segment that continues to evolve slower than hoped. Don't ask questions for which the answer would be meaningless. Mobile marketing is going to be a prolonged evolution of platforms, experimentation and marketers feeling their way toward a proper strategy for their brands. Even if there were a "year of mobile," we'll only know after it happens.