At OMMA’s second annual “Tablet Revolution” show Jon Haber, chief innovation officer at media agency OMD, said the tablet is evocative of how humans and machines are approaching singularity, that is, a world in which the interface between devices and people is immediate, natural or maybe completely invisible (versus the mouse and keyboard.) "We are still just pinching, sliding and poking," he said, but "as the camera 'sees' us and SIRI technology advances," the tablet is becoming an intuitive platform that is killing the old computer paradigm on which people, including marketers, still rely. "Even the traditional browser is a vestige of the past, because it is not the natural use of a table to browse the web. Just like files and folders won't survive. So the web site is in as much peril as a print magazine." He said that, because of the impact of mobile devices on digital culture, web sites are being effaced by app-like experiences "that follow you to whatever screen you go to." Another interesting point: tablets are reversing the whole multitasking notion that was pretty much created by the window-based computer interface. "On the tablet you tend to be doing one thing at a time," he said. "And in longer, storytelling form." For marketers, said Haber, "The question is why, when and what should I do differently on this device? Rather than just buying a banner ad, we have begun to create mini-magazines for brands within the FlipBoard experience." General Motors' mid-luxury auto brand Buick is rolling into tablets in a big way. Jim Kruger, digital and social media manager at Buick, told attendees on Thursday that the automaker's double-down on tablet digital is contemporaneous with Buick's efforts to create a new, younger, brand with vehicles like Verano. And he said it reflects Buick's acknowledgement that the PC is going away. "The first iPad was sold on April 3, 2010," he said. "In 2012, nearly one in five people owns a tablet. Over the last holiday season the number of tablet owners nearly doubled." He pointed out that the Kindle Fire moved 6 million units in six weeks. "People want a more immersive experience on tablets," said Kruger. "People didn't want watered-down PC experience." Buick has a three-pronged approach to affinity marketing that applies to how it is using tablets as a platform: culture/connected (early adopters heavy tech users); culinary and discovery; and human achievement. To reach the connected, culturally savvy consumer, Buick, in 2010, was the first to advertise on the Wall Street Journal's iPad ap. "It helped us reach a more tech savvy consumer and early adopters. We saw a 150% benchmark improvement." Kruger said that last year Buick was the only auto brand to be among Amazon Kindle special offers. For the second pillar -- culinary and travel -- Buick partnered with Food and Wine and Travel and Leisure around branded apps. The human achievement vector involves Buick's association with former NCAA athletes. Buick last year was involved in an NCAA app that let people monitor games in real time. "All of these programs are about adding value: it's reaching out to places and content [consumers] would be interested in. It's not just about getting onto tablets. It has to be an engaging, not disruptive, experience." Kruger said people spent an average of 44 minutes engaged in the NCAA app, and some watched the entire game on the app. For a while, he said, it was the number one free app on iTunes. And the brand has tapped its digital agency, Digitas, to make its "Moment of Truth" social media site tablet friendly by redrawing it in HTML5. "Since relaunching it, more than 70% of views are from tablets," said Kruger. When it comes to content for tablets, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. For 'Moment of Truth,' we kept the same content." He said that, like a lot of auto marketers, Buick considers TV culturally first in the media mix. "But TV is going down," said Kruger. "At Buick, we think the future is online."
In another strong indication that the advertising recovery is sustainable, U.S. advertisers and agencies continue to be near their most confident levels of future ad-spending plans, according to the latest installment of the Advertiser Optimism Index from ad industry B-to-B researcher Advertiser Perceptions. The findings, which reflect the sentiment of advertisers and agencies surveyed during October and November 2011, show their second-highest levels of confidence to increase their ad budgets over the next year since the global economic recession began in 2008. While the index dropped two points from AP’s last semi-annual survey in the spring of 2011, it remains near its highest point overall, and individually for most of the major media. In fact, every major medium with the exception of broadcast TV -- which was flat -- and mobile -- which dropped one index point -- increased its level of optimism from the spring 2011 survey. While mobile dropped a point, it remains the highest overall index -- a 60 -- representing the difference in percentage points of respondents who said they were likely to increase, versus those who planned to decrease their ad budgets over the next 12 months. The overall “digital” category gained four points to an index of 52, and cable TV picked up two for an index of 21. Broadcast TV was flat at an index of 5. Magazines gained nine points to an index of 0. And while newspapers continue to be in negative territory, the medium improved six points to an index of -18. News of the improvement in U.S. advertising sentiment comes a day after U.K.-based WARC released an update of its worldwide ad-spending index indicating that the U.S. was helping to sustain a global advertising expansion across the globe, and news that another key ad market -- Japan -- was recovering dramatically from the ad market infrastructure issues caused by last year’s earthquake and tsunami.
News Corp. unveiled The Daily with much fanfare a year ago, with Rupert Murdoch himself on hand at the New York launch event for the ambitious iPad-only newspaper. The News Corp. chairman set the bar high from the start, saying The Daily would have to pull in 500,000 paying subscribers to be viable, given its weekly operating costs of $500,000. On its one-year anniversary earlier this month, the company announced the publication had amassed 100,000 paid subscribers to date, making it the third top-grossing iPad app in the iTunes Store last year. It’s now the top-grossing app. Still, the paid subscribers level to date is well below the half-million goal set by Murdoch last year. Speaking at MediaPost’s Tablet Revolution conference Thursday, Daily publisher Greg Clayman didn’t discuss whether the publication’s business model is sustainable, given the sizeable investment behind it. He stressed that the 100,000 subs The Daily has drawn so far shows that people are willing to pay for content. He pointed to the hundreds of thousands of digital subscribers The New York Times has attracted since putting up a paywall last year as further evidence of that point. Clayman also shared other user benchmarks. Of the 100,000 paid subs, he said 55% pay the annual rate of $39.99, and the rest pay the weekly subscription fee of 99 cents. The publication, which offers 120 pages of original content each day, has 250,000 monthly readers that each spend about 20 to 30 minutes a day with it. While The Daily launched with an emphasis on video and slick graphics, Clayman said video has proven an even bigger draw than expected. About 30% to 40% watch video regularly. “The typical reader is not the 24-year-old hipster living in Williamsburg, it’s their parents living in Royal Oak, Michigan, he said. Readers are likely to be in the 35-50 age range, highly educated, and with household incomes of $100,000 to $200,000 annually. They use the Internet more than the general population. When it comes to working with advertisers, he noted The Daily is increasingly trying to help brands standardize campaigns across different iPad magazines and newspapers. Clayman did not provide any ad revenue stats. The Daily is also pushing into custom publishing. It has already created a gadget guide, a publication tied to college football’s National Championship Game, and has in the works a guide for Rovio’s upcoming launch of “Angry Birds Space.”
Google, Apple, Research in Motion and other companies with app marketplaces have promised California Attorney General Kamala Harris that they will require developers to post privacy policies if their apps collect personal data from users. The mobile platforms also promised in a signed agreement with Harris to offer users an easy way to report developers that violate their privacy policies. Harris and the companies said in a joint statement the deal marks an attempt to "increase consumer privacy protections in the mobile marketplace." App platforms Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Amazon also signed. Harris said in the agreement that she believes mobile app developers must follow California's Online Privacy Protection Act, a 9-year-old law that requires online companies to post privacy policies if they collect "personally identifiable information" about state residents. Personally identifiable information includes people's names, phone numbers, email address, or any data that can be used to contact or locate people. The agreement between the platforms and Harris comes as mobile app developers are under fire for gathering and storing information from users without first notifying them. Last week, the Federal Trade Commission said in a report that apps aimed at children weren't providing enough information about their privacy practices. It also emerged in recent weeks that popular app developers were collecting or storing potentially sensitive information from users. Path and Hipster were caught downloading users' address books without first notifying them. Twitter, meanwhile, reportedly uploaded and stored iPhone users' address books after only obtaining permission to "scan" their contacts; the company intends to revise its language to ask users whether they want to "upload" or "import" their contacts, according to the Los Angeles Times. A recent survey by the think tank Future of Privacy Forum found that 66% of top free apps had privacy policies, while just 33% of top paid apps had such policies. The Mobile Marketing Association recently released an apps privacy framework that calls on developers to follow practices that will protect users' privacy. The privacy company TRUSTe said Thursday that it offers mobile app developers a free service that allows them to generate privacy policies.
Cambridge, MA-based start-up Swoop is launching a new service that lets Web publishers and advertisers show relevant local offers to consumers at the right time. Formerly Shopximity, Swoop is kicking off the service with a focus on local food offers. For example, if someone is browsing a recipe that calls for butter, Swoop would show an alert about a sale on butter at local stores or a manufacturer coupon for a discount. A user could then click on a link to open a window that shows all the local deals or other related information. People can even use the system to create shopping lists and specify stores they’re interested in by Zip code. At present, all the information on deals comes from weekly circulars published by local supermarkets or other food stores. Integrating Swoop only requires publishers inserting a piece of Javascript code at the bottom of their sites. The idea is that they get free content, which keeps users on the site longer and generates a new, search-like revenue stream. Marketers get access to potential customers at the exact moment someone has shown an interest in their product or service. How does Swoop know what offers to present, and when? Essentially, its software uses natural language processing and semantic technology to understand what the user is reading at a micro level and then combines that with search terms or the general context of an article, plus any information a user has provided, like a Zip code. “Fundamentally it is a technology that brings the power of online search and discovery to Web content,” said Swoop founder and CEO Ron Elwell. The company plans to expand the service beyond food to other industry verticals over time. Kristine Welker, chief revenue officer at Hearst, stated an interest in "how Swoop can integrate with our existing content." For now, the company isn’t charging publishers or advertisers to use the Swoop technology. But Elwell says Swoop plans to charge advertisers on a per-engagement basis. For a brand like Smart Balance, it might show the recipe browser a message asking if they’re interested in a “heart-healthy alternative” to butter as an ingredient. If the user clicks on the link, it will open a larger landing page with information on the brand’s spread and why it’s better for you. "In the end it is very much like search -- the user chooses to engage with the sponsored content, and that’s when we get paid," said Elwell. Until the revenue begins flowing, Swoop has $4.8 million in venture funding that it raised last year from investors, including US Venture Partners and General Catalyst, to help finance operations.
It’s no secret that 18- to-34-year-olds continue to redefine media consumption; new Nielsen research explains why. Along with NM Incite, Nielsen found this demo -- christened “Generation C” -- is taking their personal connections to new levels, devices, and experiences. The latest U.S. Census reports that consumers 18-34 make up 23% of the U.S. population, yet they represent a particularly large portion of consumers watching online video -- 27% -- visiting social networking/blog sites -- 27% -- owning tablets -- 33% -- and using a smartphone -- 39%. With an array of online video content to choose from, consumers increased their monthly online video time in the third quarter of 2011 by 7% from the same period last year. During October 2011, YouTube was the top destination for online video content, accounting for nearly half -- 45% -- of Americans’ total streaming time, while social networks/blogs garnered the most Internet time overall. The majority of mobile phone time was consumed by app usage, with social networking apps -- accounting for the nearly 6% of mobile time. Consumers are increasingly multitasking across various screens. Fifty-seven percent of smartphone and tablet owners checked email while watching a TV program -- their top activity -- while 44% visited a social networking site. Advertisers that are worried consumers might miss their message should note that 19% of smartphone and tablet owners searched for product information, and 16% looked up coupons or deals while the television was on. While nearly all social media users -- 97% -- access social networking sites from their computers, NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey company, found that females are more likely than men to read social media content from their eReaders, while men are more likely than women to access their social content from an Internet-enabled TV or gaming console. Also of note, by the end of 2011, NM Incite tracked over 181 million blogs around the world -- up from 36 million in 2006. Three of the top 10 social networks in the U.S. during October of 2011 were true blogs -- Blogger, WordPress.com and Tumblr -- with a combined 80 million unique visitors. Among the top social networks, Tumblr has shown the strongest growth in visitors, more than doubling its audience from last year. Mobile, meanwhile, is transforming into a powerful commerce tool, facilitating consumer transactions and access to real-time information and deals. Twenty-nine percent of smartphone owners use their phone for shopping-related activities and more than half of mobile users are repeat visitors to daily deal sites. The Groupon app is the 10th most popular app on the iOS platform and ranks 22nd on Android devices. Finally, Nielsen warns that home entertainment landscape is becoming increasingly complex as consumers are presented with a greater variety of ways to consume content, especially with the addition of digital streaming and movie downloads via the Web.
A curious thing about the OMMA Data and Behavioral conference we hosted on Wednesday in New York: There was a lot of talk about the limits and caveats surrounding data. One of the objects of this iteration of the show series (which began on the very day in 2007 that AOL bought Tacoda) was to widen the lens from strictly behavioral targeting to that larger field of digital data of which behavioral targeting is a part. “Big data” was the dominant trope throughout. But it was fascinating to hear our speakers discuss, again and again, how data needs to be used judiciously, in concert with creative intelligence and consumers. Tom Morton, Chief Strategy Officer of Euro RSCG, made the case for “poets” in an age of quants. “Big data still needs big interpreters,” he said. Quantification is inevitable, but targeting needs a brand voice -- and creatives need to understand how to use all this data. The first panel of the day on media planning in an age of data underscored the need for understanding data’s limits. Jason Leigh of Razorfish argued that sometimes a data layer just isn’t worth the cost and added effort -- we need testing to determine when it really matters. The panelists cited Netflix as an example of a vendor that probably does well simply by making massive, low-cost buys everywhere. Even with the waste of missing targets, the price differential may not be worth it. Sometimes spray and pray works, Stewart Pratt of SapientNitro said. Morpheus Media's Toby Evers reminded us that finding the “right audience” is not enough if the person you are targeting is not in the right spot in the purchase funnel for your message. The idea that data has the capacity to build new products, allowing companies to work more transparently with consumers to get them involved, came through during the “Predictive Analytics” panel. Duncan McCall, CEO of PlaceIQ, said that he felt once consumers themselves become more aware of and in control of their own data trail then the industry can really become productive: “Once we bring the consumers in on this, the world is going to change.” Interestingly, C-K's Killian Schaffer picked up on McCall's point and called it “data liberation... Once consumers start realizing that their data is valuable, I am really interested to see what the ecosystem will look like [where] we figure out some exchanges where people will raise their hands and say,'You can use my information – feel free to market to me.'” The role of the consumer in cooperating with data exchange was an interesting offshoot of this panel. Rachel Pasqua, who leads mobile at Organic, made the wise observation that the iPhone is doing a great job of accustoming people to opt-in. Any time an app needs to access the phone’s geo-location capabilities it must ask permission of the user. This is a little thing but significant, since it signals to the user that a specific benefit (usually more precise information about nearby resources or mapping) is the result of this exchange of data. As Pasqua pointed out, this gets people in the habit of opting in -- and seeing a demonstrable benefit from doing so. Of course this sort of conscious data exchange requires that brands answer in kind. The pressure is on the publisher or the brand to deliver something of value directly tied to the data points being shared. PlaceIQ, for instance, uses the attributes of a location to infer a user's likely intentions in order to serve the right ads. Someone coming out of a bar is likely to be looking for fast food, as opposed to someone doing a search from a gym two blocks away. Byron Reese, who leads innovation at DemandMedia, followed up on this theme of data as a creative agent in society in his fascinating presentation. He asked us to imagine a world of data created by limitless sensors attached to everything -- where virtually everything we do, from eating to walking, consuming media to sleeping, can somehow be captured. In this world, we will see wild affinities and correlations that beg for explanation. He suggested, much as Tom Morton did, that the mountains of data are a challenge to the creative intelligence to craft new ways of thinking about the world around us. The data requires interpreters and creative types who can turn the inferences about cause and effect into new products and services. One of my takeaways from this week’s show is that as we start moving from discussing “behavioral tracking and targeting” and towards “data” writ larger, the discussion becomes energized with more possibilities. The predictive analytics panel is available in the stream here. Byron Reese’s talk is here. Tom Morton’s keynote is here.
Last week, CNET revealed that nomophobia, the fear of being out of mobile phone contact, is on the rise. Apparently, two in three adults suffer from anxiety when not reachable, up from one in two a year ago. The growing prevalence of nomophobia is unsurprising in light of our ever-increasing obsession with our handheld devices. It is now a documented phenomenon that people experience phantom mobile phone vibrations. Another study has revealed that three quarters of Americans use their mobile phone in the bathroom -- and it’s a safe bet that the phone isn’t getting washed afterwards. And many people -- myself included -- now say the word “LOL” when told a joke. So I have a confession to make: this fixation on our phones scares me. It wasn’t all that long ago that I didn’t have a mobile phone at all, or that all it could do was make phone calls. Now I observe myself glancing at it, periodically waking it up just to make sure I haven’t missed anything. I hear Damon Horowitz in my head reminding me that I have a stronger opinion about my choice of handheld device than about the moral framework I use to make decisions. I wonder if the remnants of my humanity are slipping away, winging their way through the ether on so many cellular frequencies and leaving me devoid of ethics or empathy. I am afraid, not of being without cellphone contact, but of what I am becoming. I have nomophobophobia: the fear of being afraid of being without cellphone contact. I do get anxious when I don’t have access to a cellphone; my nomophobophobia is not ungrounded. So I fight it with enforced separation. I go away with my husband in our campervan to places with no cell signal. I also take planes. It used to be just the smokers who fidgeted from withdrawal on long-haul flights; now it’s everyone. Far from making me happy, the creeping advance of mile-high WiFi is an unwelcome intrusion into the disconnected quiet of the friendly skies. And, despite having a fancy new Samsung Galaxy IIS, I haven’t upgraded my data plan; the outrageous expense of going over my measly 50MB limit is a powerful disincentive to surfing the Net on the small screen. Unlike nomophobia, I find nomophobophobia to be healthy. It is a fear that prompts me to put the phone down periodically. It is a fear that continually provokes important questions: “Am I paying attention here? Am I even aware of my surroundings? Am I really seeing the person in front of me?” It is a fear that reminds me to pay attention to my relationships lest they disappear from sheer neglect. I know I am not alone in battling these temptations. This Sunday is Moodoff Day, an attempt to help people be less dependent on our technology. In a telling indication of how needy we’ve become, Moodoff Day doesn’t even ask us to go 24 hours without the Web; all the organizers ask is that you remain Net-free from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m.: “Breakfast Before Browsing.” All things can be good or bad, depending on our use of them. Cell phones are obviously not evil, and I obviously use mine quite a lot. But it exists to serve me, not the other way around. If I cannot control the impulse to monitor it obsessively, I have a problem, and it’s time to take action. But only until ten in the morning.