Volvo may not boast the marketing budgets of larger auto manufacturers, but that hasn’t stopped the company from pushing into emerging ad segments including mobile.That effort dovetails with the Swedish carmaker’s more recent focus on challenge luxury brands like BMW and Mercedes with its rollout of the S60 sports sedan and XC60 crossover. Acquired by China-based automaker Geely from Ford in 2010, Volvo saw North American sales increase 24% in 2011 after a down year in 2010. Mobile Marketing Daily recently spoke to Linda Gangeri, who heads national advertising for Volvo Cars of North America, about how mobile fits into the company's broader marketing strategy in the region. MMD: Can you describe Volvo’s overall advertising and marketing focus in 2012? Gangeri: We’re at an interesting point in our marketing approach. There’s been a lot of change at Volvo with detachment from Ford, and new owners and new management. And as part of that, in the fourth quarter of last year, we launched our new brand expression, which really positions us more as a luxury brand because that’s what our vehicles now reflect. We have the S60 which came out in 2010, and XC60 -- which are our two leading products -- and using those products to really forging ahead with this new brand expression to get people’s perception about Volvo to change. I mean we are still entrenched in safety, but this is what I call “safety plus.” MMD: How is Volvo using mobile media as part of that decision to go upmarket? Gangeri: Because we are a small brand, we can’t look at all these channels as OEMs look at them. We don’t believe mobile requires a distinct channel strategy. It really an integral part of our overall holistic digital market efforts, and that’s the way we position it. When any new channel starts to gain momentum -- like social, like mobile, like video -- we tend to do the one-offs that really test the channel and also get you attention in the industry. MMD: So things like Volvo’s sponsorship of free streaming on MLB.com’s At Bat app and the augmented reality ad campaign on YouTube last year? Gangeri: Yes. And as we’ve tested those and learned how really valuable these efforts are both to our audience and to our overall marketing mix, we’ve taken a more integrated approach. And we do believe mobile is what we’re calling the new center, if you will, as a personal touch point that allows for customized experiences. MMD: With Opening Day around the corner, is Volvo renewing the MLB.com At Bat sponsorship this year? Gangeri: No. When you get a first-mover opportunity, and the prices are fabulous, and then you go back, and MLB realizes we delivered quadruple [the response] we said we would-- it got a little pricey. It was out of the ballpark, no pun intended. We proved out an ad opportunity that didn’t exist before. But we like to do a lot of first-movers if it makes sense. MMD: Do you have any particular mobile initiatives in the works now? Gangeri: We have a nine-city experiential tour [for the S60 and XC60] coming up starting in May where we’ll definitely use mobile capabilities and rich media units to not only garner registration, which we feel is a huge opportunity in mobile, but also to continue the engagement through mobile and social together. MMD: With tablets gaining wider uptake, how do you view that device as a marketing platform compared to mobile phones? Gangeri: When you look at smartphones, it’s more of the lean-forward experience. You’re in that lower part of the funnel, and that’s where we’re using location-based capabilities via Foursquare or QR codes that allow customers to go on a dealer’s lot and start learning more about vehicles or finding a dealer locator or click-to-call. When you get into other devices like tablets, that’s where it tends to be that lean-back mode, where you get into more of the initial research and upper-funnel activity. I think most of the apps we have put out are lean-back type apps. So depending on the device, we’re using unique ways to gain engagement with consumers at each part of the funnel. We’re kind of dabbling in many different areas in the tablet space right now and working closely with global counterparts to ensure the idea of consistency across the globe with the new brand expression. MMD: How is Volvo’s mobile spending shaping up in 2012 compared to last year? Gangeri: We’ve increased our spend and it’s really based on the fact that we have seen such great results and insights from consumers. We know that they’re there and spending time there. So we’re really excited to grow our presence in the space. We still have a lot of work to do in mobile -- we have a lot of work to do on our mobile site to make it better. MMD: You can put that spending level in dollar terms? Gangeri: We really don’t give dollar figures. But the two increased areas of focus in digital are mobile and video.
Starwood Hotels and Resorts is upping the ante on loyalty programs with an iPhone, iPod and iPad application that extends a new slate of services for its Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program, which the company calls "richest elite program in the industry" for "mega travelers." The new app, which is actually Starwood’s third-generation mobile app, includes things like FaceTime integration -- a first for any company (that isn't Apple.) The app also includes fully integrated booking, member information, comprehensive hotel searches and travel details, customer service and social media. "It's knowing who you are, anticipating your needs and supporting you every step of way through your travel experience," says Alyssa Waxenberg, director of mobile and social media at Starwood. "The value of it is the fact that it covers Starwood's nine brands so it brings one app to SPG members for any of our 1,100 hotels around the world. We think while others have done apps, ours is the most comprehensive." She says the company will promote the app principally through loyalists via digital outreach and social channels. Waxenberg tells Marketing Daily that since Starwood sees its properties as lifestyle-oriented brands (Westin is directed toward healthy-lifestyle consumers, W to culture and music), the application will begin to reflect that. "Our roadmap is to build functionality for those brands by building content into this app. All of these ideas are open." The application, developed with Dallas-based BottleRocket, also employs a technology called "state-aware," meaning it sends an email push 48 hours before a guest is scheduled to arrive at a Starwood hotel or resort, with the “My Stay” interface becoming reflective of the specific brand and property. The home-screen also shows things like hotel address in both English and the local language, weather, directions and hotel amenities. Once at the hotel, the guest can use the app to show their room number, and it offers on- and off-property dining and activity suggestions, and in-app access to social media channels such as Foursquare and Facebook. Chris Holdren, SVP and head of digital at Starwood, tells Marketing Daily that even though the application grew out of the company's loyalty program, one doesn't have to be a member to use it. But "if you are a member, it does give you deeper functionality to manage your account." Holdren says the top 2% of Starwood property customers drive 30% of profit. The risk with apps is that they simply disappear into one's iPhone app list like a pebble in a pool, tossed in once and never seen again. Holdren says he's not worried about this or having to incentivize the use of the new SPG app. "I'd say the beauty of this app is it brings together things that add value and create experience. It's so easy to use and the real value and incentive is that it unites with social channels, allows easy booking, gives you all hotel content and creates a really personalized experience." He says that since launching the first app three years ago on iTunes, the company has seen traffic growth on mobile of over 300%. From a bookings perspective, traffic has grown over 400% with almost 60% of bookings being for stays within the next 24 hours. “So it is a critical need; we are seeing people needing quick access to information." The application has a swipe menu on one margin of the screen designed to allow access with one thumb. Holdren says there is a built-in channel to promulgate the applications. "We have hundreds of thousands of members who have downloaded the previous version, and we are also putting marketing behind it through SPG communications channels," he says, adding that hotels will also communicate to guests talk about the app.
When it launched to a generation of baby boomers in the early 1980s, the “M” in MTV stood for “music” -- but based on some new research, the letter now stands more for “Millennials,” the generation that is reshaping today’s consumer and media markets, and even MTV itself. While it’s no surprise that the Viacom network has been refocusing on the current youth market, it’s also allowing today’s youth to refocus MTV, both from the outside in, and the inside out. On the outside, MTV has just completed one of the most in-depth studies of the work habits of Millennials, the findings of which may surprise some. On the inside, it is using that research -- and some seemingly counterintuitive organizational strategies -- to transform its own workplace, in an effort to remain relevant with a generation MTV believes will reshape everything about, well, everything. “These are the people who are going to be the new idea generators,” says Nick Shore, senior vice president-strategic insights and research at MTV, in a briefing with MediaDailyNews. Shore, who oversaw the research (highlighted below and in an op-ed commentary in today’s edition), says many organizations, particularly marketers, think of Millennials as the same kind of slackers that the Generation Xers that preceded them were perceived as being, but the truth is that they have a strong worth ethic, and in some ways, integrate their work lives with their personal lives in an even bigger way than Boomers have. “They’re really different in the workplace,” he explains, noting: “If there are distinctions between things -- if you put things into boxes of black and white -- Millennials are really good at melting those boundaries, at creating a smoothification of things.” Shore believes this is among the key differences that set Millennials apart from preceding generations, and that companies that understand that will be able to tap their innovation, and create new products, services -- and yes, even work cultures -- for the future. He says MTV believes that so much that the first product it is using the research to transform is its own work culture. In an array of initiatives spawned by President of MTV Stephen Friedman, top MTV executives are now being told what to do by the youngest members of their teams. Friedman coins the concept “reverse mentoring,” and the idea was that the only way MTV’s largely GenX management team would be able to get inside the mindsets of Millennials would be to put them more in charge. Shore says it starts at the top, and that Friedman’s Millennial mentor has already has a profound influence on MTV and even its product: Friedman’s mentor came up with a new category in MTV’s vaunted Video Music Awards recognizing the “best video with a message.” Shore says his own Millennial mentor “is not shy,” and recently asked him “why we don’t get to review you.” In fact, he says an important distinction about Millennials in the workplace is that they actually want a “perpetual feedback loop.” Whereas Xers may have eschewed any feedback -- even an annual review -- Shore says, “Millennials are like, ‘Can you give me daily reviews?’ Their drive to self-improve is extremely high, and it reflects the world they grew up in, because they’re in a constant feedback loop.” Shore says that begins with their parents, the super-achieving Boomer generation that some criticize for over-parenting their kids -- a term Shore calls “peerenting” -- but also the media they grew up with, especially social media. Shore says MTV is in the process of “socializing” the research findings with some of MTV’s biggest clients, but the biggest impact of the new research so far is internal, both in terms of the way MTV is organized and in terms of its product. Because Shore also advises MTV’s programming team, some of the Millennials’ workplace perspectives have begun to infuse MTV’s new programming, especially new Millennial workplace series “Underemployed,” as well as some other series in development. Millennials In The Workplace Research Highlights
Thirteen smartphone users have filed a potential class-action lawsuit against a slew of tech companies -- including Path, Hipster, Twitter and Facebook -- for allegedly collecting or storing users' address books. Path, Twitter and other app developers allegedly distribute apps that "surreptitiously harvest, upload and illegally steal the owner’s address book data without the owner’s knowledge or consent," the users assert in a 150-page complaint filed this week in federal district court in Austin, Texas. The lawsuit appears to be the first stemming from recent reports that app developers were scooping up users' address books without notifying them. "Literally billions of contacts from the address books of tens of millions of unsuspecting wireless mobile device owners have now been accessed and stolen," Austin resident Marc Opperman and the other smartphone users allege in the complaint. "The surreptitious data uploads ... have, quite literally, turned the address book owners’ wireless mobile devices into mobile radio beacons broadcasting and publicly exposing the unsuspecting device owner’s address book data to the world." The litigation was sparked by a series of reports that surfaced earlier this year about privacy and mobile apps. The first report, in early February, came from developer Arun Thampi, who blogged that the mobile social network Path collected users' contacts without informing them. Path CEO Dave Morin apologized in a blog post and said Path had deleted the data. Around the same time, a different developer reported that the mobile app Hipster downloaded users' contacts without their permission. Hipster CEO Doug Ludlow acknowledged that the report was "spot on." He also apologized for the data collection. "We clearly dropped the ball when it comes to protecting our users’ privacy," he wrote. Shortly afterward, reports emerged that a host of mobile companies, including Twitter, were downloading and storing users' address books. In some cases, the companies reportedly asked users for permission to access their contacts, but didn't make clear that the data would be stored. The app developers named in the lawsuit are Path, Twitter, Facebook, Beluga, Yelp, Burbn, Instagram, Foursquare Labs, Gowalla, Foodspotting, Hipster, LinkedIn, Kirk Interactive, Rovio (which distributes "Angry Birds"), and "Cut the Rope" developers ZeptoLab, Chillingo and Electronic Arts. The users also sued Apple for allegedly enabling app developers to scoop up users' address books. The complaint alleges that the companies invaded users' privacy, engaged in racketeering and violated the federal wiretap statute, among other claims. The users are seeking monetary damages and an injunction that would restrict app developers from uploading users' address books without permission.
Since women turn to online sources for information during critical times in the purchase decision process, marketers might benefit from knowing that 35% turn to sources at the beginning of the process and 42% at the end to narrow their choices, according to BlogHer's Fifth Annual Women and Social Media study. The study identifies emerging platforms that women use to gain information about products and services. It also traces the connection to specific media channels and analyzes the influence of each on purchase behavior. Seventy-seven percent of women use Facebook for fun, while 87% turn to Facebook to remain up to date with with family. More than 61% of active blog readers admit to making purchases based on a blog recommendation, nearly double the rate of Facebook and Twitter active users -- 33% and 31% -- respectively. Purchase conversion among the BlogHer community was 87%. While Facebook ranks the highest for fun and keeping up with friends and family, blogs rank the highest in learning about new products and research recommendations that can turn into purchase decisions. Some 41% seek out blogs to learn about new products, 39% look for product recommendations, and 36% use blogs to make purchase decisions. Aside from Facebook, the BlogHer community tends to gravitate toward emerging tools. Some 43% use Instagram and 77% use Pinterest, compared with the general population at 11% and 19%, respectively. Women don't rely on mobile devices to access social sites when they are shopping. Only 9% of the general population, daily blog readers, compared with 17% of the BlogHer community, access social sites on a mobile phone when shopping in a store. When asked to determine the up-and-coming media, 78% of the BlogHer community participating in the survey said mobile apps, 75% said Twitter, 39% coupons, and 22% location apps such as Foursquare. These results compare to the general U.S. population, at 40%, 21%, 41%, and 14%, respectively. Where do women go to find online and offline inspirational sources for cooking? Some 82% of BlogHer community members go to food blogs; 80%, recipe Web sites; 58%, Pinterest; 60%, cookbooks; 44%; magazines; and 17%, TV shows. This compares with the general U.S. population at 15%, 63%, 8%, 52%, 32%, 30%, respectively. BlogHer worked with market research and analysis firm Vision Critical and its network of 37 million unique visitors in February to ask 2,000 members how and why women use social media tools.
T-Commerce has been one of the new buzzwords around devices in recent months, as early returns show that tablet browsers love to shop and buy from retail sites when in this lean-in/lean-back mode. But lest we forget, tablets are themselves media consumption devices with loads of material to buy and use within the confines of the multimedia touchscreen gadget. And Nielsen’s latest research shows how willing we are to spend on content. According to the Nielsen Mobile Connected Device Report, music is the content that U.S. tablet owners are most willing to buy, with 62% having purchased downloadable tracks for this device. Not far behind are books -- which 58% of users have bought -- followed by movies (51%). Magazine publishers that have been scrambling to build digital editions and business models on the tablet are aiming for the right audience. Nielsen finds that 41% of owners have paid for a magazine here. The same number have acquired TV shows. Sports and news content have attracted 22% and 19% to buy, respectively. Interestingly, streaming radio has been bought by more than a quarter of tablet owners. The U.S. tablet user is, across the board, more willing to pony up cash for content on these devices. Across almost every category, willingness to pay is much higher than among tablet audiences in Italy, the UK and Germany. Most telling, however, is the value placed on premium news content elsewhere. While that category is among the least popular in the U.S. as a paid service, it is the most popular in the other countries. In fact, in Italy 44% of tablet users are paying for news. As tablet sales proliferate this year, the demographics and buying patterns may evolve as well. In its first two years in the market, the iPad was a premium product that attracted affluent early adopters. With the influx of cheaper tablet entries like the Amazon Kindle Fire and broader adoption of the iPad as its third generation launches tomorrow, that profile will change. IDC estimates that 106 million tablet devices will ship in 2012.
Quick: guess where I am right now? There’s a constant throng milling about the shuttle buses ferrying an assortment of geeks from hotel to hotel. You can’t get a cab during peak periods. You can barely squeeze your way into the hottest panels and meetings. The real dirt -- and real business -- is happening over drinks at the Spanish-themed bars which seem to blossom like weeds everywhere. Go to your room if you guessed Austin and SXSW Interactive. Free ice cream on me if you guessed ICANN 43 -- the not-for-geeks-only-anymore-confab in the excruciatingly perfect weather of San Jose, Costa Rica. There’s a solid argument to be made that this was the conference to be at this Spring as the sun poises to rise on what could be the most fundamental remaking of the interwebs since, well, the birth of the commercial Web in the early 90s. I’m talking about the coming new gTLDs. It might not roll trippingly off our tongues yet, but my guess is you will get used to thinking about them, talking about them, and sooner or later, doing something about them for your brand or your business. Or your organization or your product, or your passion or your profession, or your hobby or even your city or town. The reason this ICANN conference was a must attend for anyone with a stake in the future shape of the connected world is that ICANN is currently accepting applications from a mix of global stakeholders who want to own a little string of very powerful characters to the right of the dot –- the place where we currently expect to see “.com” much of the time. When the application window closes on April 12, ICANN will batch, log and then -– on May 1 –- announce and publish the submitted applications for a global audience to puzzle over and parse. May 1 is already circled in bold red for many brands, organizations, VC guys, government officials -- and of course, all manner of players from the deeply arcane, sometimes opaque, but massively critical world of domain registries, registrars and registrants. As I walk the halls here at the bustling, week-long ICANN geek cum entrepreneur fete I am struck by the intensity of the buzz and conjecture, the degree and type of increasingly creative and desperate deal-making and partnering going on here amongst the dazzling palms and insanely friendly Costa Ricans. What’s at stake is a very simple but profound thing: names. The names of spaces -- very particular and potentially important spaces. Spaces which, in our utterly connected world, could end up becoming the glue which connects us to the things, people and stuff that matter and have meaning in our lives -– both virtual and real, as though there remains any true remaining difference. The potential impact of this restructuring of digital domains could become one of the essential new organizing principles for our connected lives. It could likely change the way we discover and find things when using search. It might alter the expectation we have for what we will find and where we will go after the click -– or more likely, the tap or the swipe. It has the potential to enhance the ultimate architectures of our connected experiences, whether we enter into those experiences through our laptops, our TVs, our tablets, our smartphones or the increasing number of connected devices across the Internet that is now truly everywhere. The names we give the spaces we care about spending time are important. These new spaces and the names we give them are likely to become like our social flags planted and waving back at us and those like us across the great amorphous Web. Flags which signal where we are and who were are with and what we do. As I navigate the sea of surprisingly hipster-ish ICANN conferees I am picking up incessant chatter about which “strings” (that’s the magical names to the right of the dot) have the best chance of first making it through to winning ICANN approval of their application and then, more intriguingly, which have the best shot at becoming the first blockbuster gTLD . The buzz seems to be tipping things like .Apple (“no-brainer, 10 million names, automatic”), .Law (“picture it, all the lawyers, in one place, just in case we ever want to …” you complete the thought), and many people’s early favorite .Music -- whose backers suggest “if you’re serious about music, we’ve got your new home address”. Home. That’s a special name for a space in any language. I begin to imagine the evolving world of our connected lives becoming more organically organized around these “homes” –- with all the promise of safety, familiarity, comfort and control we associate with spaces called “home”. Might we begin to organize out affinities and our lives around these new names to the right of the dot which label and group the things that matter to us -- our businesses, our charities, our brands, our churches, our music and our art, our families and our cultural clans? If the energy and critical mass gathering here in Costa Rica this week is an accurate harbinger, here’s the wakeup call to all of us in the business of brand building and storytelling: what we call things matters. It’s been almost five years since brands spent a lot of time, effort and money trying to get consumers to visit our “home pages.” Mercifully we finally realized that people don’t want to visit or spend time hanging out at a brand’s home. But they do like to spend time in connected places that do feel like a sort of “home” for them. Show of hands: how many reading this have their Facebook tab open and have checked it for a little jolt of comfort and familiarity at least once in the past 15 minutes? So here’s the puzzle for us to solve for, my fellow brand owners and marketers -- where is the proper space for a brand in this emerging world of connected places?... Places and spaces connected, identified, organized, and managed within the simplest and most powerful of things: a name. One industry heavyweight here told me "we expect 1,800 total applications, of which 1,200 would be unique strings, and 75% or 900 of them, would be brand TLDs.” And that’s just round one. Once the dust settles and we witness what changes are wrought by this first tranche, sometime in the next 3 or 4 years we can expect another wave –- generation –- of new names for connected spaces on the Web. The great experiment with this restructuring of the Web will commence sometime around this time next year. When that starts to unfold I will think back to the geeks, entrepreneurs and technocrats rubbing shoulders and losing tablets down here in Costa Rica in this spring of 2012. Perhaps too cockily, I will wonder why so many of us chose instead rainy Austin with its tired parade of social mobile apps, when the world of spaces and the names we call them was wending on its unstoppable course here in Cost Rica -- toward, just maybe, changing things forever.
Increasingly this year, developers and agencies are helping clients mobilize their B2B channels in addition to their consumer-facing presence. At next week’s OMMA Global in San Francisco (March 19-20 at the Marriott Marquis), our OMMA Mobile show-within-a-show will include two fascinating cases of brands leveraging mobile in the sales channel itself. Both Plantronics and Aflac have developed device-based programs that touch the salespeople who touch the consumer, but arm this important link in the supply chain with the right information. For instance, we all know the pain of dealing with big box and telecom retail saleskids who know less about the technology than we the buyers do. Generally, they are young, at varying levels of commitment to the job, and more of them than not are new. It is difficult to fault the retailers themselves for this. Turnover is outrageous. Pay is meager. Online competition is both fierce, and the Web is super-educating consumers before they walk in the door. And the range of products any salesperson must fathom is daunting. As we recounted here recently with the Etymotic brand of earphones, some manufacturers are trying to get their wares noticed in the sales channel by becoming part of the training cycle, and they are using mobile as the best way to reach these young staffers. “If you look at the age demographics of the sales associates, I want to get to them with tools they are already comfortable with,” says Amber Gravely, channel marketing manager for popular mobile headset maker Plantronics. Her company sells through the big-box stores like Best Buy as well as the carrier retail outlets, Verizon, Sprint and AT&T. Typically, face-to-face training at the retailer is the most valuable part of the process for her because it puts the Plantronics sales team on the floor showing the associates how best to sell. “But once we leave, we’re gone,” she says. Usually they leave behind flyers to keep the brand top of mind with the sales staff, but that is costly and quickly outdated. When Gravely surveyed the salespeople themselves, it turned out they all preferred to get communications via that device. Working with AvatarLabs, they developed a series of retailer-specific mobile Web sites that incentivized and inspired the salespeople to sell. Understanding that they were developing for a younger tech-savvy audience of associates, Plantronics and AvatarLabs devised these sites to look and feel much more like consumer-facing affairs than the typical button-down B2B asset. Bright brand colors splash across the site. The user is invited to consult the three top points worth making about the product at hand. “We are putting the key features of the product at their fingertips and why they should sell one product over another,” says Gravely. In other words, they are training young and often inexperienced associates how to sell. In some cases (when the retail partner agrees) the associates are incentivized to register and provide their email with sweepstakes. The videos are very popular, and they serve a dual purpose. The demos of the product help the seller understand how it works, but it is also an asset that can be shared with the consumer. By harvesting emails from the salespeople, Gravely is able to remind them of the presence of the mobile site and push new product information or just maintain a conversation. But all of this is done in concert with the retailer and their existing training programs. Gravely says the companies have been enthusiastic partners so far. For one retailer, Plantronics will make the experience available for their in-store PCs as well because the company does not subsidize their staff’s cell phones. For Plantronics, the mobilized training system opens up a new channel of communication with the sales floor itself. They can see what the associates are and are not coming to use, and can push out to the salespeople real-time updates and incentives. Ultimately, this sort of multichannel approach to mobile at retail may move us away from both retailers and even consumers weaponizing the in-store use of the cell phone. In this first wave of smartphone use in-store, retailers seemed threatened by overeducated consumers and the prospect of having customers poached by the newly portable Internet. Manufacturers can be part of the solution by speaking directly to sales forces with information that is customized for the specific retail setting. In the end, you don’t want salespeople sniffing at the smartphone some customer is waving at them with a lower price or specs the clerk didn’t know. You want the salesperson and the consumer working collaboratively toward finding the right solution -- and perhaps doing so by sharing the one interactive platform they are accustomed to using. How about the next time you walk into a retailer, the salesperson says, got a smartphone with you? Let’s get to this site to help you find what you need.
According to February 2012 survey results from Briabe Mobile and MocoSpace, African American consumers say they are influenced by mobile advertising when planning to see a movie. The study, to understand how African American moviegoers utilize their mobile phones when planning to see a movie, found that 68% of African Americans rely on their mobile phones. Use Mobile Phone Planning to Go To MovieAge GroupUse Mobile to Plan 18 to 24 62% 25 to 34 73% 35 to 44 75% 45 and over 64% Source: Briabe & MocoSpace, February 2012 On average, African American moviegoers go more than twice a month, and account for 195 million trips to the movie theaters annually. 62% of AA moviegoers admit to seeing movies they like multiple times, accounting for an additional $513 million in movie studio revenue: