Juniper Research issued a new forecast Wednesday projecting revenue from mobile search and discovery will nearly triple to $15 billion worldwide in five years. The U.K.-based firm says growth will be fueled in part by high click-through and cost-per-click rates for different types of mobile search. Users are often looking for a discrete set of products and services and can be accurately targeted by advertisers. Juniper suggests local search apps like Poynt, Qype and Yelp represent a bigger opportunity for advertisers than the Web-based mobile search because they provide more relevant ad results and a better user experience. “Web search results, by their very nature, are more generalized, despite the local parameters search engines offer. Furthermore, the Web sites linked-to in search results are often not optimized for mobile devices,” according to report author Daniel Ashdown. Among other findings from the Juniper report: *Google’s domination of the mobile Web search space means other players need to find ways to differentiate their products in a largely commoditized market. *Augmented reality search is increasingly being deployed as an add-on feature, rather than a standalone product. *Adoption of discovery services for apps is driven by the high number of applications on leading storefronts, but faces challenge from big brands, with Apple acquiring Chomp and Facebook launching an app center.
Discounters are upping their digital game this school year, with both Walmart and Target making it easier for shoppers to do more of the season’s heavy lifting online. Walmart says it has launched a microsite called classrooms.walmart.com, which compiles thousands of classroom supply lists, with schools in all 50 states participating. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer says it is the first major retailer to digitize supply lists, which allow shoppers to buy items either online or at their local store. (Local school supply lists will also be available in Walmart stores, it says.) And at Target, a site called Target.com/college and the Target mobile app will direct shoppers to a new feature called uStyler, which allows kids to mix and match dorm looks, and then share via social media. It has also introduced a sweepstakes called the Target Stuff Scholarship, where one lucky winner gets “a one-year supply of Ramen, a one-year supply of makeup and enough flip flops to outfit the entire dorm floor.” To enter, ramen-lovers complete a video interview and post it on their social media pages. A panel of judges will look at the five entries that generate the most votes, and select the final winner. Target also has list features, which can be printed at in-store kiosks, promotions, and coupons. And of course, the Minneapolis-based chain is continuing its after-hours bussing program, now in its 11th year, private shopping events for incoming freshman at 69 colleges and universities across the country. The chain is also offering an additional 5% off online orders using the REDCard, as well as free shipping. For stores, back-to-school kicks off the important fourth quarter, and is the second-most-important sales event of the year, after the winter holidays. But Walmart says that for parents, it may even be more symbolic, with 76% of the moms it surveyed regarding it as more of a fresh start than January 1. Nine out of 10 even make school-year resolutions, it reports, with 78% vowing they will be more organized this school year, 75% hoping to save more money, and 61% making healthy eating a higher priority.
Verizon plans to release an Olympics TV app, dubbed the Verizon Olympics 2012 widget, built on the Ensequence platform to make the TV experience more social. The app automatically populates with content from the NBC Olympics and allows viewers to use their remotes to search for and read top news stories, events schedule, athlete bios, as well as play more than 50 video clips. Opening Olympics ceremonies are July 27. The Verizon Olympics 2012 app supports an auto-scrolling feed about London and keeps count on who and what country won different medals. The viewer can toggle between the application and the video on the full screen via the FiOS TV button on the remote control. The application is available in the Widget Storefront and will be triggered on NBC, NBC Sports, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo and Telemundo starting Wednesday. This is the first implementation of this type of app on Ensequence's cloud storage architecture, but it isn't the first time the company's technology supported interactive enhancements for Olympic Games. The company worked with Olympics and DISH Networks in 2008, and DISH and Verizon using EBIF in 2010. At the Social TV Summit in Los Angeles, Marc Karzen, CEO and executive producer at Relish, said TV is not a screen -- it is an experience. The idea of creating consistent quality content that ties in with social interactions becomes very compelling, he added. There are television shows that will add social interactive features next season, Karzen said. Television, however, isn't the only visual media reaching to combine live and social experiences. YouTube video channels have begun to schedule programming. The YouTube community has been focused on view counts, which helps to attract sponsors and advertisers.
Foursquare has begun rolling out “local updates,” a messaging service that allows businesses to tell customers about things like specials, new products or other information. The tool is free for businesses and will be available to the nearly 1 million businesses Foursquare works with later this week. Businesses can already offer deals through Foursquare, which appear in the venue information page when users check in, and can include a discount with purchase, a free item, or a loyalty-based special. With the new offering, businesses can notify people more proactively about deals at their favorite stores and restaurants. The company envisions the service as the digital equivalent of a sidewalk chalkboard. Foursquare users who check in regularly at a place, or “like” a venue via its app, will get updates from them automatically when they’re in the same city. People can also choose to block updates from a particular business. National retail or restaurant chains already sharing local updates include H&M, Togo's Sandwiches, Outback Steakhouse and Wolfgang Puck. New York City-based businesses and organizations using the new tool include Luke's Lobster, Northern Spy Food Company and New York Public Library. A Foursquare blog post Wednesday showed some sample local updates featuring photos with short text messages, including a pitch from H&M on low-priced summer clothing and a NYC Parks Department message promoting its summer movie series. The ability to provide local updates is the first step in Foursquare’s effort to upgrade its dashboard tools for small businesses to better connect with the location-based service’s 20 million active users. It also serves the company’s broader goal of turning Foursquare from a simple check-in app into a legitimate business. To that end, its redesigned app introduced in June added features to make it a more direct competitor with recommendation services like Yelp. The new updates feature should also help Foursquare better compete with deal sites like Groupon, which have increasingly pushed into mobile, and Square, which last month added its own digital punch cards for small businesses. Exactly how Foursquare will drive more revenue isn’t clear. But the more businesses value its offers, the more likely the company can charge for an expanded set of services or more prominent placement.
Pocket, the startup behind the eponymous app that allows users to save Web content to read later, has raised $5 million in new venture funding. Leading the series B round was Foundation Capital, with participation from prior investors Baseline Ventures and Google Ventures. With the latest funding, Pocket has raised a total of $7.5 million. The San Francisco-based company said it would use the new capital to expand its core “save for later” experience to serve even more devices and platforms, bolster the team, and further improve services for developer and content partners. Formerly Read It Later, the company relaunched as Pocket in April, with an updated version of the service that allows users to save material like articles, Web pages and video for later perusal on their phone, tablet or PC. The Pocket app, completely free since April, is available for IOS, Android devices and the Kindle Fire. In addition to collecting Web content directly, Pocket is also integrated with more than 350 apps, allowing users to save material from content aggregators and social media properties such as Flipboard, Twitter and Zite. The company’s 6 million users are now saving 1 million items a day, and have saved over 200 million over the last five years. About half of the saved content is viewed on mobile screens. Pocket competes most directly with other read-it-later apps such as Instapaper, which charges $2.99 per download, and Readability, which is free. Now that Pocket has discontinued its own paid version, how does it plan to make money? Pocket founder Nate Weiner noted that a quarter of its users had paid for the service. “We know this is a product that brings significant value to users. This funding allows us to focus on building the best possible product for our users,” he said, without elaborating on plans for Pocket’s new business model. What’s clear is that is that its app has proven a hit with users. The latest version of Pocket’s iPhone app has earned a five-star rating in the App Store, based on feedback from about 1,000 users, and a four-star rating for all versions. Weiner said 70% of active users have 2 or more devices synced to the Pocket app, and that Pocket is one of the most “shared to” services on newsreader apps like Zite.
Sports events tend to be milestones in media history. The fervor around World Series and World Cups, for instance, helps fuel consumer exposure to new platforms like streaming media and mobile. This is not new to digital media. The 1947 World Series was seen by many TV historians as an important turning point in Americans' embrace of a TV technology that actually had been available for years. Consumers need reasons to get acquainted with new technologies by events that drive them to try new modes of access. And the experience helps persuade the user of possible use cases that he or she may never have imagined. While mobile activation codes are hardly news, their use has been catch-as-catch-can and with hit-or-miss results. They pop up randomly in the pages of newspapers and magazines or bus kiosks -- or most infamously, on subway cars or highway billboards where no one possibly can use them. What we haven’t seen on a large scale is mobile codes used as a comprehensive communications system in a physical venue, where multiple touchpoints and codes in a physical space create a dynamic network that essentially connects the venue with multiple audiences. Something like that may get tested at the Summer Olympics in London. ScanBuy's ScanLife, the popular solutions provider for servicing mobile activation codes, is the official supplier of code services to the Olympics organizing committee for the games. As CEO Mike Wehrs tells me, the committee has not committed to a final deployment strategy, but the promise here is enormous for exploring new ways of using codes in physical space. “What we explained to them is that here is a broad-based communication capability that a vast majority of people attending can interact with and use as a way of communicating to them and getting information out to a lot of people.” Codes likely will show up throughout the various sites, and the possibility is here to broadcast the daily agendas, post the latest scores, and even link to video highlights. The codes can also direct users in a specific spot to nearby restaurants, exits and resources. Since the codes can be location-specific and link to pages with multi-choice menus, the immediate space can offer visitors a kind of personal interactive kiosk of choices. On the most obvious level, an organized execution of mobile codes in such a high-profile event is an important moment, Wehrs says. “From an industry perspective we see this as a massive validation in the largest sporting venue where people congregate. That in itself is transformative for us.” But more to the point, the approach of using a network of codes strewn throughout a physical venue is a proof of concept that can be extended elsewhere. Obviously there are ways of putting codes to use in a range of settings. At a sports arena or ball park, the code can trigger everything from instant replays to from-your-seat food ordering. In music arenas it can be a way for bands to communicate more directly with the audience. Of course, mobile codes are really just a trigger, and there are multiple other ways to activate the mobile dimension: short codes, location-aware apps, etc. But it will be interesting to see if the Olympics committee is smart enough to see the potential here for crafting a network of communications. If the visitors understand that the nearby QR code is location and contextually aware, then the code becomes a way for the visitor lost in a crowd to make contact with the organizers or venue and get contextually relevant information of any kind. The Olympics instance is an interesting case to me, because mobile codes have the feel of a clickable moment. I have always been fascinated by the prospect of the mobile phone being a mouse that can be used to click on the physical world and render data in much the same way we retrieve information from the Web. While a location-aware app in venue might be another obvious way to communicate with a visitor to a venue, the mobile code is a visual hot spot that reminds users in the physical world that there is an opportunity for interaction. Geo-fencing or other passive triggers are fine, although they need to be turned on and opted into by the user. I suspect we will always need some kind of physical world signal to notify us that a space is live with additional data if we activate it via our cell phones. Making the physical world interactive ultimately is the goal here. Finding more coherent and rewarding ways to knit together real and virtual experience is, in my mind, the long-range promise of mobile devices.
Recent research, conducted by Deloitte Consulting LLP, shows that there may be a more effective approach than sales transactions for determining the impact of mobile and how it influences and drives sales in other channels, particularly in-store sales. According to the analysis, mobile (smartphones for this analysis) influences 5.1% of all retail store sales in the United States, roughly $159 billion in forecasted sales for 2012. That projection far overshadows the $12 billion forecasted for mCommerce sales in 2012. Based on the research, the next four years are going to be huge for mobile, anticipated to grow exponentially to 17–21% of total retail sales, amounting to $628–$752 billion in mobile-influenced store sales by 2016. According to the study, half of consumers surveyed currently own a smartphone. and the conversion rate in the store for shoppers who use a retailer’s dedicated app is 21% higher than those who don’t, most likely because such apps can provide a more relevant and tailored shopping experience that helps people make an immediate buying decision. The mobile influence factor varies by store category, depending on the smartphone adoption rate and frequency of use for that type of store: Mobile Influence by Store Category (June, 2012) CategorySmartphone Used to ShopFrequency of UseMobile Influence (Purchases 2012)ProjectedInfluence (2016; Rounded) Electronics/ appliances 49% 60.9% 8.3% 29-34% GM/department/ warehouse 46 52.5 6.7 24-27 Clothing/footware 38 56.2 5.9 21-24 Food/beverage 35 58.2 5.7 19-23 Books & music 33 57.1 5.2 17-21 Home improvement/garden 31 53.5 4.6 15-19 Sporting/toys/hobby 30 56.7 4.7 16-19 Health/PersCare/drug 27 58.4 4.4 15-18 Furniture/home furnishing 24 58.7 3.9 13-16 Source: Deloitte, July 2012 Based on an estimate that 5.1% of all in-store retail sales in the U.S. are currently influenced by mobile, times the forecasted retail store sales of roughly $3 trillion, suggests that mobile is already set to influence more than $159 billion in sales. The report expect mobile’s influence to grow exponentially over the next four years, driven by smartphone penetration, increased adoption by shoppers, decreasing barriers to use, and improved mobile functionality for retail applications. According to the study results, smartphone use for store-related shopping increases by 40% after the first six months of device ownership, further accelerating the pace of adoption. Also, while initial use of smartphones for shopping varies widely by store category, once consumers start to use the device in a particular type of store, they tend to consistently use it for more than 50% of their trips within that category, regardless of what the category is. The analysis shows that smartphone shoppers are 14% more likely than non-smartphone shoppers to convert in store. The current influence of mobile devices on traditional in-store sales already overshadows the value of direct sales on mobile devices, which is forecasted to be $12 billion in 2012, says the report. The report projects the mobile influence factor will reach 17–21% over the next four years, which will translate to or an average of $689 billion in mobile influenced retail sales. Though mobile is still in its infancy, smartphones already play a greater role in planning and executing store-related shopping trips (used for 33% of all trips) versus laptops/netbooks (31%) and desktop computers (24%). Smartphones are most likely to be used for store-related shopping when the customer is close to or at the point of making a purchase, rather than as a passive shopping device, says the report. Over 60% of mobile shoppers use their smartphones while in a store, and another 50% while on their way to a store. Likely to Use Smartphone on Store Related Shopping TripFrequencyLikelihood to Use (% of Respondents) More than a week before trip 10% More than 2 days before 17 One day of night before 25 On the way to store 52 While shopping in store 61 Source: Deloitte Mobile Influence Survey, March 2012 In addition to revealing additional data on sales conversions with Smartphones, the report concludes by noting that “... the mobile landscape is changing and the pace of innovation is breathtaking... “ and suggesting that retailers can develop appropriate mobile capabilities to support the needs of a smartphone-enabled shopper before, during, and after the shopping experience. Retailers that limit their mobile focus to mCommerce may be overlooking a significant opportunity. Please visit Deloitte here for additional information, and the complete PDF file.
No one can argue that marketers aren’t using mobile: Mobile spending has passed both email and social media, and it’s expected to reach $8.2 billion by 2016. (And consumers are warming up to it, too, with mobile commerce projected to be $31 billion in five years.) But few companies are marketing well: Many simply repurpose their online ads, missing out on the true potential of the mobile audience. In Mobilized Marketing: How to Drive Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile Devices (Wiley; May 2012) Jeff Hasen, Hipcricket’s chief marketing officer, helps advertisers get to the issues that will really drive revenue. Do we have enough metrics to make wise decisions?Mobile has a ways to go before it can provide metrics that will offer more insight into performance. Some envision the day when mobile will be included in a so-called universal dashboard that provides a real-time view of all marketing programs regardless of channel.It’s a lofty goal and not one that necessarily will be met by a pure mobile company.InsightExpress’s Joy Liuzzo agrees that mobile campaigns should be viewed within the context of the larger marketing initiatives.“For our clients, metrics were always important, even if they weren’t ready to do mobile yet,” she says. “Oftentimes the availability of metrics was what encouraged our clients to dip their toe into mobile. They knew they could compare mobile performance to their other media, providing executives with clear roi and hopefully getting a larger budget for future campaigns.“As the campaign budgets grew, we encouraged clients to expand their understanding by conducting cross-media studies to look at the synergistic impact of all their media, including mobile.”Microsoft’s Barbara Williams, a former marketer at venerable Johnson & Johnson and Unilever, is working around the lack of precise mobile measurement.“Now it seems to be very anecdotal,” she says. “We know we spent x amount, and we know the cost per engagement or cost per experience. We’ll look at the percent we spend in media on mobile, or media in other channels, and look at the return on that in terms of visitors or engagement and try to compare it. We’ll say we know we’re not spending nearly as much in mobile as we are in digital, but we’re getting just as much traffic.“Right now we’re at the beginning stages of making it more scientific and more data driven.That’s where we’re starting with the framework — understanding what we’re measuring and making that consistent and standard across the company.”espn’s John Kosner says that a bigger flow of brand dollars to mobile will solve the mobile metrics woes.“It’s weak now, but in my experience the measurement follows the money,” he says. “Everybody complains where it is now. We’ll see significant expansion in the measurement in the next five to 10 years. In the meantime, companies like ours — that have great products, demonstrate scale and represent a safe buy — may benefit disproportionately in a world less measured.”Will consumers continue to seek out offers?Duh.Through more than 150,000 mobile campaigns, Hipcricket has found that mobile subscribers want a deal. That was true before, during and after the recession. Since the beginning, brands have come to Hipcricket for simple delivery of deals — a text message sent in response to a call to action that can be shown at retail. In 2009 the company brought a more sophisticated solution to the market, providing single-use discount codes that consumers could key in anywhere a Visa or MasterCard was accepted.The Yankee Group says that the number of active mobile coupon users is expected to grow from 2.7 million in 2010 to nearly 35 million in 2014.What’s the future of mobile and social?As discussed previously, inserting the mobile device into the retail environment has changed the dynamic forever. Despite the hope of some businesses that the genie will get back in the bottle, don’t expect it. Consumers have made information and access to their networks as important to their shopping experience as comfortable shoes.I’ve yet to forget the Lexus salesman who in 2010 told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about, despite my access to invoice data available to me from Consumer Reports through my iPhone. Worse for him and the brand, even before leaving the dealership, I took to my social networks and spread word of my experience and displeasure.Where are we headed?The latest smartphones are capable of taking at least eight-megapixel photographs and capturing video in high definition. Graphic depictions of those Moments of Trust customer touch points are but an instant away from upload to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. For marketers, those experiences can quickly impact brand perceptions and even sales. What are we to do about it? First, we need to plan to move quickly. Time is our enemy. Before we even get to the next negative experience, we need to impress on our organizations that customer service is more critical than ever. Further, we should celebrate successes at Moments of Trust and mitigate when a bad experience like the one with the Lexus salesman drags down our customer satisfaction scores.Should we be looking for innovation or the maturing of existing technology?As to what’s next, Barbara Williams of Microsoft and Jonathan Dunn of Bell Media in Canada see more maturing of technologies than the introduction of something new that will dramatically change mobile marketing and advertising.“Innovation will come through mobile commerce and the use of mobile devices in shopping decisions,” Williams says. “I think it’s the idea of driving commerce whether it’s through the device or the device leading to the store to drive commerce also using the other technologies to enable that whether it’s augmented reality, sms [short message service], or different forms of geotargeting, gaming, social. Using all the different types of mobile technologies and integrating them in a meaningful way that will drive sales or commerce or drive people down the funnel.“I don’t know if innovation comes in new technology or combining what we have already in meaningful ways. People were throwing things against the wall. But when you think about it more strategically and think about the customer journey and that funnel or whatever shape you want to give it, you’re going to start combining things in different ways that ultimately will create something new but components of it are known and exist today.”Dunn is looking for adoption of mobile technologies as the next big thing.“In the mobile media and advertising space, in the next 12 to 18 months, I see broader update and consolidation of existing innovations,” he says. “We’ll see the widespread build out of html5 Web sites/Web apps and tablet sites. We’ll see mobile-rich media ad units becoming commonplace. At the same time, I’m optimistic we’ll define best practices for each to ensure good user experiences that maintain the vitality of mobile media and respect the personal nature of the mobile device. I also expect significant improvements in ad targeting and analytics. Both will get more precise and flexible, which will increase their potency.“Broadly, I think nfc [near field communication] is a huge opportunity for marketers. Payment and mobile wallet gets a lot of ink currently and while that’s important, I think the real play will be in loyalty. The ability to personalize a customer experience and tie that in to device features and user data is powerful. If rumors prove accurate, Apple is including nfc in a next version of the iPhone, which will be a watershed moment. Google is pushing the envelope, but Apple has an excellent track record in frictionless ux [user experience], as well as a distribution and payment platform that’s deeply integrated into peoples’ lives. As always, privacy controls will be a huge topic.”Will hyperlocal work for my brand?A growing number of businesses are sharpening their focus on hyperlocal advertising and marketing. Still in its nascent stage, hyperlocal presents an attractive opportunity: the power to engage with customers at the optimum time and place.The catalysts behind the hyperlocal trend fall into two camps. First is the continued maturation of technologies, namely those capable of delivering marketers the information they need to determine a consumer’s precise location.Today there are multiple categories of information that businesses can tap into, including derived information (mobile phone number, area code, etc.); declared information (registration process, hotel check-ins, vip clubs); network-initiated information (triangulation, carrier, wi-fi, hot spot); and gps (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile).The second driving force behind the hyperlocal trend is the fact that consumers have voiced an interest in locally driven communications. In fact, according to the mma, half of mobile users who noticed any ads while using location-based services took action. The mma also found that most mobile users are “interested in allowing their phone to automatically share their location in exchange for perks, such as free use of mobile applications and mobile coupons.” These are meaningful numbers that clearly demonstrate why a growing number of brands are looking to latch on to this trend.With these figures in mind, the temptation to jump into the hyperlocal waters is high. But consumer trust is critical. They don’t want to be inundated by brands every time they pass their local Starbucks. Your customers are interested in receiving locally relevant ads on their terms. Within this community, brands should develop an intelligent hyperlocal campaign that has a cadence, delivering relevant messages to consumers perhaps twice a month, not every few hours.
Cable and satellite viewers don’t have a clue they can watch shows from their providers anywhere besides the TV, but they sure as heck know how to find videos to watch on their mobile devices. A recent Parks Associates survey found that only 20% of pay-TV customers know about TV Everywhere options from their service provider as of the first quarter of this year, and of those who did, about half use it once a month. That’s not terribly promising for a service that’s supposed to prevent defections to over-the-top options. About one quarter of AT&T U-Verse, Cablevision and Comcast subs knew about the service, with the awareness dipping for Verizon, Dish, Cox, DirectTV and Time Warner customers. These numbers should be concerning to service providers, especially given that consumers are already aware of and actively watching TV on mobile devices -- presumably content they find on their own on existing services such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and Amazon. About 14% of tablet owners watch more TV and 24% watch less TV as a result of having a tablet, although those figures vary widely by demographic, according to a just-released study conducted by ABI Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau. The fact that tablet and smartphone video viewing is impacting TV viewing at all is a trend to be watched by programmers and providers. The smart ones should figure out how to take advantage of this movement, or at least how to market better their own service offerings that extend to mobile devices.