AccuWeather has struck a partnership with Amobee to use its mobile platform for ad-serving, campaign management and ad targeting for inventory worldwide. Under the agreement, AccuWeather will use Amobee’s Pulse for Publishers solution to power advertising across its mobile Web sites, as well as its smartphone and tablet apps for iOS, Android and other mobile operating systems. The company estimates the global audience for its mobile apps at half a billion devices, driven by deals with the 10 largest device manufacturers. Many sell their handsets pre-loaded with the main AccuWeather app. Underscoring the growth of mobile data use, the weather brand says it fulfills 2.2 billion data requests from mobile devices worldwide, triple the amount at the start of 2011. Jim Candor, executive vice president/chief business officer for AccuWeather, said the pact with Amobee would help the company provide large brands and agencies with the tools to run campaigns across its mobile properties as its global inventory expands, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Last month, Amobee was acquired by Singapore-based mobile phone and services provider SingTel for $321 million. Through the deal, SingTel aims to expand into the mobile marketing arena, especially in the area of one-to-one connections between brands and consumers. In a recent interview, Amobee COO Mark Strecker said the company this year notched its first $10 million ad commitment with a global brand he declined to identify. However, Amobee has publicly cited eBay, Zynga, Skype, Barnes & Noble and Google among its clients. It most recently won the Mobile Advertising & Marketing Agency of the Year Award at the GSMA Mobile World Congress. Through its Pulse for Publishers platform, Amobee provides a full suite of services for monetizing apps and Web sites from ad-serving to campaign optimization to analytics and reporting. It also offers real-time bidding and mediation for unsold inventory. For its part, AccuWeather already provides marketers a wealth of weather/location-related targeting options. The 100-plus attributes range from daily high and low temperatures, the “Dust and Dander” Index (yes, it exists), the Flu Index and jogging- and skiing-related forecasts.
There is a limit to what people will pay for unlimited data plans. Despite finding that nearly half of consumers don’t know how much mobile data they use every month, two-thirds of them are unwilling to pay more than $50 a month for their service plans, according to new research from Parks Associates. Even at that level, unlimited data could become an expensive proposition, says Harry Wang, director of mobile research at the firm. “Consumers’ budgets have a limit, and carriers cannot expect people to pay more for the data,” Wang tells Marketing Daily. “A lot of the current solution –- throttling –- isn’t doing well with consumers. They hate that kind of experience. At a certain point, they will ask for a certain remedy from the carriers.” It’s time, Wang says, for the wireless carriers to “shift consumers’ perception away from raw data to the experience created by their data services.” With more than 90% of smartphone owners downloading apps at an average of two per month, people will spend more than $14 billion this year on downloads, according to Parks Associates. To keep up with the growing demand, wireless operators may look to tie their offerings and data to popular apps and services, offering differing types of plans to different consumers, based on the way they use their phones, Wang says. Such models have begun being used in overseas markets, he says. “At some point [U.S. carriers] have to stop branding the services as unlimited and begin stressing experience services,” Wang says. “Recognizing different types of needs and services would be more appropriate than monetizing on just data consumption.”
Worldwide global tablet sales will reach 232 million units in 2016, up from 64 million units in 2011, per a new report. The Tablet Technology and Markets report from Futuresource Consulting estimates a 200% increase for consumer use across the United States and Western Europe during the next two years. Consumers bought about 52 million tablets in 2011 across the two regions, and the market continues on track to exceed 153 million units in 2013 -- the majority being sold into the United States. Tablet sales will rise, but what about use? U.S. consumers using a tablet at least once monthly will reach 75.6 million in 2013 -- up from 13 million in 2010, according to eMarketer. The research firm estimates iPad users will account for 53.9 million in 2013, up from 11.5 million in 2010. While Apple appears to maintain the dominance since the iPad launch, Android-powered devices from Samsung, Amazon and Asus continue to gain traction and increase in popularity. Apple released earnings on Wednesday, nearly doubling profit on iPhone and iPad sales. Profits, overall, rose 94% for the fiscal second quarter, compared with the year-ago quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook said iPad sales exceeded 12 million in the March quarter. Futuresource believes tablets have cannibalized the demand for netbooks, but consumers still see the device as an addition to conventional PCs or Macs, rather than a replacement. Consumer sales dominated the overall market in 2011, accounting for more than 90% of tablet shipments. Consumers have also begun to download more apps on tablets. Tablets accounted for 10% of total mobile app downloads in 2011. Development and availability of apps across multiple platforms are expected to double in 2016. Tablet owners are also more likely to pay for apps -- especially in the U.S., according to a "Living with Digital" report from Futuresource. Tablets are unlikely to displace large-screen TV sets, but Futuresource estimated the hardware will drive the growth of full-length online video downloads, with key applications allowing content to be played out from one screen to another, providing higher-quality mobile viewing. Tablets will also contribute to the rise in ebooks. Annual trade for digital book sales is forecast to achieve significant growth, with digital downloads in the U.S. expected to account for almost 70% of book sales by 2016 -- a substantial rise from 20% in 2011. Similar progression is expected in the U.K., with digital sales reaching almost 40% share.
As Apple begins rejecting apps that use its UDID data for tagging and tracking usage, developers and ad networks are scrambling for alternative solutions. This common method of identifying a user for ad management, app metrics and tracking purposes appears to be running afoul of unclear policy changes at Apple. The ad industry is facing the prospect of having to operate within the iOS ecosystem without this reliable way of targeting users and understanding app behaviors. According to ad server MoPub, the absence of UDID will also affect publisher bottom lines and targeting capabilities. In its recent analysis of billions of ad impressions running through the MoPub system, apps that did not access UDI data for iOS devices had a 24% lower price per impression. UDID data is used by advertisers, especially in real-time bidding exchanges, to determine ad effectiveness in converting exposure to action. Within MoPub’s real-time bidding marketplace, publisher inventory that sent UDIDs had an average eCPM of 0.76 cents, while ads inventory without UDID had an average eCPM of 0.58. The survey was done across a three-month period. MoPub’s figures suggest that without UDID widely used in iOS apps, ad effectiveness and pricing will decline. “Here we see a direct correlation between the money paid for an ad and the ability to track an ad,” says MoPub CEO Jim Payne of the data. “It’s clear that Apple needs to address this issue with an appropriate alternative, because the damage to a publisher’s bottom line will likely be material if UDID data actually disappears.” As of now it is still unclear whether Apple intends to eliminate the use of UDIDs in apps or not. But it appears to be weaning the developers from reliance on the tracking technique, forcing them to scurry to alternatives. As Fiksu VP of Client Services and Business Development Craig Palli recently covered in depth at TechCrunch, the field is already fragmenting across many alternative methods, from HTML cookies to an OpenUDID project to MAC address tracking. Ad networks appear to be supporting multiple methods in order to hedge their bets. Many are also hopeful that Apple itself will address the problem with a better solution that allows third-party ad serving and tracking without compromising user privacy.
Even as the big-box stores and major retail chains scramble to polish up their app and mobile Web strategies, the overwhelming majority of small and medium-sized specialty retailers appear to be off the mobile grid. E-commerce solutions provider Briteskies did its own survey of 75 online retailers in the small-to-medium specialty segment across multiple categories to find that only 17%, or 13 of the 75, has mobile-optimized sites. Companies like Fry’s Electronics, Omaha Steaks and Windsor Fine Jewelry were found to have no mobile Web destination. The relative handful of mobile-optimized experiences came from companies like ThinkGeek, Sally Beauty Supply and Springfree Trampoline. It is not entirely surprising that this middle tier of verticals is where larger retail providers sat vis-a-vis the mobile Web two years ago. Briteskies surveyed popular retailers in the electronics, pet supplies, health and beauty, educational supplies, food, gifts, clothing, sporting goods, hardware, and automotive areas. But all of these retailers in the 75-company review are very active online and in e-commerce already. Many of these companies feel stymied by the move to mobile, says Briteskies Director of E-commerce J. Michael Moores. “Many retailers struggle not only to define their mobile strategy but also to ensure that the content and design in the mobile channel support that strategy, all working within the limitations that exist with some e-commerce platforms,” he states. For many companies the actual e-commerce piece of the mobile design is the choke point. Ensuring that mobile experiences match the online experience can be a challenge. And in many cases a mobile-optimized site reverts to the non-optimized experience when it kicks the user over to the payment system.
I think I may be on the verge of being banned from Best Buy. My wife and daughter already refuse to go into the store with me. “You stalk people,” they contend. “I do research,” I counter. “You try to see what total strangers are doing on their phones. They are going to call Security on you.” I see a lot in the aisles of Best Buy and Sears. The instances of people perusing the store shelves with cell phones in hand have increased noticeably in just the last few months. I have already recounted here my favorite case of a tandem m-shopping team: the wife calling out models while the husband in tow is doing look-ups on some smartphone app responding with online prices. One of the critical contests going on in the store aisles is which app gets the user’s attention. Can retailers use their apps, or partnerships with third parties, to keep the shopper in the retail brand’s universe of influence? Or will third parties like eBay’s RedLaser or ShopSavvy get user loyalty by their applicability across retail experiences? I asked the folks at Mobile+Positive to run some numbers regarding the popularity of shopping apps -- both those branded by retailers and those generated by some of these upstart third-party mobile developers. They use the Luth Research App Traffic Index to determine the lifetime download activity for apps. It is a bit of a black box: an algorithm that does statistical analysis of app comments, ratings, pricing, category placement and release dates as a recipe for indexing the relative downloads of an app since it launched. Obviously this is not a measure of overall usage across apps. It is a rough approximation of overall popularity of certain apps relative to one another. But here is what we got, using the LTI (Luth Traffic Index) to indicate relative lifetime downloads, but only in the Apple iTunes App Store. Target 46.6 Amazon Mobile 45.6 ShopSavvy 23.7 SnapTell 22.7 Walmart 22.0 Pic2shop 21.9 Shopkick 14.3 CheckPoints 11.2 Sears2go 4.6 Shopper 3.4 RedLaser 2.5 Kmart 1.6 Smoopa 1.2 Goodzer 1.1 Kohl's 0.6 KeyRing 0.3 More caveats. Since there is no actual “shopping” category in iTunes the list is not necessarily comprehensive in picking up all the contenders. eBay, for instance, is not here -- and probably should be the next time we run it, although its RedLaser app is. But there are some interesting insights to be gained from this rough first run at comparing shopping app popularity. Notably, the big brand stores are in a serious battle for consumer attention against third parties. Target appears to have achieved singular visibility among its customers, succeeding in capturing them with their own app. But for the 16 apps we checked, only six among the most popular shopping tools carries a retail brand -- and one of those brands, Amazon, is actively looking to poach customers with its app. Clearly the app ecosystem has opened up an opportunity for new shopping brands to emerge. Companies like ShopSavvy (which works on 2D codes and UPCs) and SnapTell (image recognition and 3D codes on books, DVDs and CDs) have received considerable attention simply from their presence in the new ecology of the app store. Their popularity rivals known brands. Also noteworthy is the popularity of the rewards-driven shopping apps like shopkick and CheckPoints. Both of these apps come at the retail situation a bit differently. Shopkick works directly with major retailers like Best Buy and Old Navy to encourage pre-store and in-store use with a points system. CheckPoints focuses more on the CPG brands themselves rather than specific retailers. In either case there appears to be some traction among users for these models, which reward them for use. But overall, what we see in this metrics round up is a cacaphony of voices. Mobile introduces to the retail space a confusing set of players all vying for notice. You not only have the retailer, hoping to leverage their apps. You have third-party partners, non-partners and even shopping malls. For retailers, the missing component in all of this tends to be salespeople on the ground working with the mobilized consumer. In my retail spying runs, I have seen all manner of responses by salespeople to someone holding up a smartphone with a rival’s price or product information that conflicts with what the clerk just said. I have seen everything from puzzled puppy dog cocked heads to boilerplate rationales for why someone should buy here. What I have not seen yet is a clerk pull out his or her own smartphone and work with the customer on her own turf. Here is an opportunity for retailers to show off the branded app or just to show the customer that the seller and the buyer are on the same wavelength. Retailers don’t just need a mobile app or mobile Web strategy. First and foremost, they need an in-store staff strategy that works with -- not against -- the mobilized consumer.
Last year, shortly before Black Friday, two malls announced plans to track shoppers' physical locations via their mobile phones. The malls -- Promenade Temecula in California and Short Pump Town Center in Virginia -- put up small signs notifying people of this plan and telling shoppers that they only way to avoid the tracking was to turn off their cell phones. The malls intended to track people until the end of the year, but once news of the initiative got out, a backlash forced the shopping centers to retreat. At the time, observers suspected that most consumers wouldn't be fond of this type of surveillance. Now, researchers from UC Berkeley Law have confirmed that virtually no one thinks this type of tracking is acceptable. In a report issued this week, "Mobile Payments: Consumer Benefits & New Privacy Concerns," researchers say 96% of respondents in a recent survey said they didn't think their phones should share browsing information with stores. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they would "definitely" not allow this type of tracking, while 17% said they "probably" wouldn't allow it. Physical tracking by retailers is only one potential privacy issue raised by mobile phones. Another stems from the fact that phones can be configured to transmit data about users -- including email addresses and phone numbers -- when people use mobile payment systems This type of disclosure also raises consumers' concerns, the researchers report. More than eight in 10 survey respondents (81%), said they wouldn't want to let their phones transmit telephone numbers or addresses to stores. People weren't quite as protective of their email addresses, but 67% said they either "definitely" or "probably" wouldn't allow it. "Overall, Americans strongly reject systems that would track them as they browsed stores and those that would share personal information with the merchant at the register," the report states. Results are based on a survey in January and February of more than 1,200 people.