Simplicity breeds adoption, especially when it comes to online advertising and marketing. "In an ideal world complexity wouldn't exist; a product would be so simple every small business could use it," said Dan Levy, the social network's lead for small business, at the BIA/Kelsey interactive conference. "Until that day comes, we think there's a lot of third-party service providers that can help companies use Facebook with tools and services." Levy said it's important for Facebook to understand what these companies provide, and how the social network can make it easier for small companies to connect with their customers. Levy also said Facebook will look into supporting third-party companies that offer services, extending its network beyond the preferred marketing developer program it offers today for large and small businesses. It all comes down to helping smaller companies create a Facebook page, with a lot of attention given to mobile, advertising and real-time location. About one-third of the 100,000 small businesses that have published Offers are new Facebook advertisers, and about 30% are claimed on mobile devices. Levy said about 2.5 million posts have been promoted since the product launched in June, and that 75% of daily Promoted Posts are purchased by repeat customers. Facebook supports more than 13 million small and local business pages. Active Pages grew about 40% this year, and the number of Pages owners -- businesses self-identified as local -- who bought advertising nearly doubled. About 150 million people visit Pages daily, and nearly half of those visitors come from mobile, which now contributes 14% to Facebook's global revenue. The recently launched Promoted Posts aims to provide a simplified way for businesses to reach consumers without using Facebook's more complex ad system. About 300,000 pages have used the solution to write a status update and prompt it. About one-quarter are new advertisers on the site. The local-mobile model plays nicely into Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg's description of a recommendation engine for the social site. In the past, he has described the ultimate Facebook search engine as a cross between a recommendation and Q&A tool. "Friends ask friends for recommendations, so if you follow the theme we hear about listening to customers, there's clearly opportunities," Levy said. "Small Businesses from Shutterstock"
Nissan's European operations has done some offbeat things with its offbeat performance car, Nismo Juke-R, like racing on the streets of Dubai against a sheik and his Ferraris. The company has also based an entire marketing program around gaming, with the Nissan GT Academy, via a partnership with Sony Computer Entertainment. As part of that program, which is in its fourth season, really good players of Gran Turismo go to a Hell Week-style racing camp in the U.K. to vie to be a Nissan professional racer. The company is back with another gaming campaign that gives people who have a knack for the digital racetrack a chance to drive the Juke on a real one. To promote the launch of the latest version of the car, which goes on sale early next year, the alliance with game maker Gameloft's Asphalt 7: Heat aims to find the 10 best mobile Nismo drivers and give them a VIP trip to drive the car in Barcelona. The game features the Nissan Juke Nismo, and Juke-R. Part of the deal is a free release download for 48 hours on Dec. 8 and 9 in the App Store, per Nissan. One of the virtual courses in the game is on a Nissan racetrack, in Tokyo, which features a section where drivers pass the Nismo Omori factory, per the automaker. The company says the game has been downloaded by 50 million people for iOS and Android, and to enter, players must first register their details via an app on the Gameloft Facebook page or through the game and then drive a Nissan Juke Nismo in the Asphalt Academy game mode. A leaderboard records the times of the fastest drivers. The competition runs from Dec. 17 to 31, at which point two winners will be selected at random (one iOS and one Android) from the top 10. The effort will be done in the UK, Spain, Germany, France, and Russia.
Amazon may have been a latecomer to the mobile app business, but it has clearly caught on with consumers. The online retail giant on Thursday revealed that downloads from the Amazon Appstore for Android have increased 500% over last year, fueled by the proliferation of its Kindle Fire tablets and growing support from Android developers. Amazon noted the growth in downloads as part of an announcement about the rollout of a new A/B testing capability for Kindle Fire. It’s the latest in a series of tools Amazon has introduced to woo developers, including GameCircle, with features for boosting engagement in game apps. In addition to cultivating developers, growing adoption of the Kindle Fire and the expansion of the tablet line with the release of the HD model in September have helped boost the Appstore’s popularity. IDC data showed that Amazon’s share of tablet shipments in the third quarter increased to 9% from 2.5% in the year-earlier period and 4.8% in the second quarter. Furthermore, the technology research firm projects that Android tablets overall will capture 42.7% of the market this year, closing the gap with the iPad, whose share will slip to 53.8%. Still, the 500% increase in downloads cited by Amazon partly reflects the comparison to a small base with the launch of the Appstore in March 2011. It did not disclose the actual number of downloads Thursday, making it harder to gauge the gains Amazon has made as an app purveyor. But findings from app advertising and analytics firm Flurry in March showed the Appstore was making progress in generating revenue as well. IThe Amazon app storefront had higher sales per user than Google Play, helped by its immense base of customer credit card accounts. While the Appstore can’t match Google Play’s offering of the more than 700,000 titles, its catalog has grown from 3,800 to more than 50,000 in the last 18 months. Also, it vets apps more tightly than Google to maintain a more consistent level of quality.
In a typically well-orchestrated PR rollout, CEO Tim Cook yesterday bared -- barely -- Apple’s plans to manufacture some of its products in the United States. The announcement came in two separate interviews -- one a cover story in Bloomberg Businessweek and the other airing last night on NBC’s “Rock Center with Brian Williams” -- and the digital punditocracy is weighing in across the media universe this morning. Cook tells Bloomberg’s Josh Tyrangiel that the company plans to spend about $100 million next year on building Macs in the U.S. “This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money,” he says. “I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job,” Cook says. “But I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs.” Cook tells “Rock Center”’s Williams why only a portion of the jobs will be relocating to the U.S.: “Over time, there are skills that are associated with manufacturing that have left the U.S. Not necessarily people, but the education system stopped producing them…., he says. “The consumer electronics world was really never here. It’s a matter of starting it here.” Hmmmm. As Bloomberg Businessweek’s Adam Satariano writes in a separate article, Apple manufactured many products in the U.S. in such locations as Elk Grove, Calif., and Fountain, Colo., until the late 1990s, when it “moved manufacturing to Asia to take advantage of the region’s lower labor costs.” “What's not to like?” asksSan Jose Mercury News columnist Mike Cassidy. “The world's coolest, richest, most-talked-about company giving a shot in the arm to the Made in America movement; CEO Tim Cook saying that Apple has a responsibility to create jobs; and the prospect of firing up a computer that was shipped from down the street instead of across the ocean.” But then Cassidy, and his sources, set about deconstructing what really amounts to an investment about 1% of Apple’s projected capital spending for 2013. "The cynical rationale, No.1, is publicity stunt," Santa Clara University business professor Andy Tsay tells Cassidy. Later, he adds, “it's always good if somebody is talking about doing something like this, but the devil is in the details.” Let’s not forget, of course, that Apple has already created more than 600,000 jobs here in the U.S., as the “Rock Center” report points out, which “includes everything from research and development to retail to a solar power farm.” Not to mention all those folks creating apps in coffeehouses on their own dime. Apple’s largest overseas partner, China’s Foxconn Technology Group, has been battered by both bad press and worker riots over its working conditions during the past year, as observed by Reuters. Foxconn says this morning that it is “exploring the opportunity to expand its existing manufacturing operations in the U.S.,” CNNMoney’s Charles Riley reports. The AP’s Peter Svensson takes the tack that “Apple is emerging under Cook's leadership as a kinder corporate citizen.” When, in early 2011, President Obama asked Apple co-founder Steve Jobs whether Apple would consider moving some of its manufacturing back home from China, he reportedly replied, "Those jobs aren't coming back." "Cook is a gentler being in terms of how he projects himself," Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi tells Svensson. But that “doesn't mean Cook is a softie,” Svensson writes. "Being gentle and being a pushover are two different things," says Milanesi. Case in point: the ousters of Scott Forstall and John Browett in late October. Bringing assembly home could help Apple protect its intellectual property, Tim Bradshaw points out in Financial Times. “For the first time since the ’90s, Apple is taking steps to control the last pieces of the value chain it participates in,” Asymco mobile industry analyst Horace Dediu tells him. “It’s a baby step and perhaps it’s going to remain symbolic, but one can imagine a trajectory for this effort which will pay off, as well as retail has paid off 10 years after the first Apple store opened.” “Some analysts are hopeful that the move by a big, innovative company like Apple could inspire a broader renaissance in American manufacturing, but a number of experts remain skeptical,” Catherine Rampell and Nick Wingfield write in the New York Times. “I find it hard to see how the supply chains that drive manufacturing are going to move back here,” Andre Sharon, director of the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation and a professor at Boston University, tells them. “… It’s great when a company says they want to create American jobs -- but it only really helps the country if those are jobs that belong here, if it starts a chain reaction or is part of a bigger economic shift.” If all the talk about new jobs is not enough to get tongues wagging in marketing and media-land over the weekend, how about this teaser Cook drops on Williams after suggesting that, indeed, big things are coming to Apple TV: “Our whole role in life is to give you something you didn't know you wanted. And then once you get it, you can't imagine your life without it.” Apple Maps excluded.
Mobile ad network Millennial Media will begin allowing iPhone, iPad and Android users to opt out of behavioral targeting via a new TRUSTe tool, the privacy compay said on Wednesday. TRUSTe's tool, unveiled in April, places a new identifier on users' devices. That code, which TRUSTe calls a Trusted Preference Identifier, allows people to opt out of receiving targeted ads. But ironically, it also can be used to track people and send them ads based on their mobile activity. TRUSTe developed the combination tracking-and-privacy tool shortly after Apple said it was going to limit developers' ability to access the unique device identifiers for ad targeting. At the time, mobile ad networks weren't sure how they would send behaviorally targeted ads to iPhone and iPad users. Apple subsequently rolled out a replacement, called Identifier for Advertisers. That feature allows networks to send behaviorally targeted ads to iPhone and iPad users, but also enables users to limit tracking by outside companies. Chris Babel, CEO of TRUSTe, says its tool will enable iPhone, iPad and Android users to opt out of targeting on a company-by-company basis. (The TRUSTe tool shouldn't have any effect if iPhone and iPad users opt out of all mobile behavioral targeting via Apple's own mechanism.) Not everyone is enthusiastic about TRUSTe's plan. Jim Brock, CEO of PrivacyChoice, tweeted on Thursday that device fingerprinting for privacy purposes was "questionable." But Babel says that TRUSTe's identifier will ensure that users' choices are respected. He adds that consumers who install the identifier can later effectively delete the data associated with their devices by "renewing" or "revoking" it. Consumers who "renew" the identifier will receive a new one that maintains their opt-out preferences, but isn't tied to their old identifier. People who "revoke" the identifier will simply receive a new one that doesn't include information about their preferences -- which occurs when consumers delete all desktop cookies, including opt-out cookies. Millennial intends to start using the tool next year, according to Babel. Editor's Note: This story has been updated with a correction noting that TRUSTe does not use device fingerprinting technology to recognize users who opt out of online behavioral targeting.
T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere confirmed that the carrier will finally get the iPhone next year, joining the other three major U.S. wireless operators in selling the signature Apple device. The addition of the iPhone will help T-Mobile fill a glaring hole in its device lineup and better compete against its larger rivals for customers. In a prior, vaguer announcement, T-Mobile said only that it had agreed with Apple to sell products together in 2013. Speaking at an investor conference in Germany on Thursday, Legere also said the company planned to end subsidies for smartphones, replacing them with a new system in which customers would “pay an upfront fee for their devices and then pay the balance of the device in affordable monthly installments.” While that would seem to put T-Mobile at a disadvantage, he maintained that the carrier would not be adversely affected, since it would still be offering customers fair pricing with low out-of-pocket expenses. U.S. consumers have grown accustomed to the subsidized model for smartphones, paying $200 at most upfront for handsets, and the balance over the life of a typical two-year contract. Breaking from that approach is a risky step for T-Mobile.
I’ll admit to feeling a bit sacrilegious as I write this, given that I am still a devoted member of the cult of Cupertino. But fair is fair: I nominate Samsung to be Best Tech Advertiser of 2012 (image division) for “The next best thing is already here,” its Galaxy S III campaign. With this witty work from 72andSunny in Los Angeles, Samsung sweeps the category of “Best Brand Usurper.” Indeed, the spots provide a devilishly clever reality check and knowingly bring up subtle distinctions in handsets. But mostly, the South Korean company had the nerve to hit Apple where it hurts by parodying its fervent followers (aka fanboys) who, on the High Holidays of new releases, blindly assemble outside the temples (um, stores) for proper product worship (and purchase.) Actually, Samsung’s first spot that dared to question the hype surrounding Ultraorthodox Apple-ism broke just about a year ago, in late 2011. It showed throngs of faux-hipsters gathered in line outside retail outlets all over the country. While they were waiting (“only 9 hours to go!”) other civilians were moving around freely in the world, happily engaged with their Samsung Galaxies. One guy ogles the Galaxy model sheepishly from behind his barricade, and speaks for many when he says, “I could never get a Samsung. I’m creative.” That’s a brave line to put into a Samsung spot. The response nails him and the economy he rode in on: “Dude, you’re a barista,” his friend deadpans. The truth hurts. It left me muttering angrily. But consider how much the zeitgeist had changed by this September, when the second spot hit, promoting the GS III and directed at the “coming soon” iPhone 5 (which was a bit of a “meh,” it turns out.) While showcasing GS III features that iPhones don’t have (like file-sharing), the spot again showed lines of expectant white-ear-podded drones standing and waiting. This time the joke is that the Samsung guy is there with the group only to hold a spot for his embarrassingly khaki-clad, coffee-carrying, annoyingly self-satisfied Boomer parents. Yikes. What a blow for me in the “if the sensible shoe fits” department. The spot was so right for so many reasons, though, that it immediately grabbed the No. 1 place on Unruly’s viral video (of any kind) list, followed only by the trailer for the new Hobbit movie. Of course, merely parodying the big guy (even if it’s never been done before) is not what sustains a campaign. And granted, part of the ads’ power comes from the growth and acceptance of the Android operating system in general, as the smartphone category explodes and challengers (and copiers) proliferate. That was the point of Apple’s billion-dollar patent suit with Samsung, which is apparently going back to court. At the same time, however, Apple has left itself surprisingly open for parody. The irony in showing iPhone owners as sheep is pretty rich, given that the “think different” company has always prided itself on being the cooler-than-thou outsider, the “square peg in the round hole.” In fact, Apple followed up on its iconic 1984 Super Bowl commercial, introducing the Mac, with a spot in 1985 showing blindfolded lemmings (aka everybody else) falling into the sea. Apple hasn’t shied away from giving its own pounding to the competition, either: you remember the hilarious campaign embodying the Mac and PC by, respectively, a hipster and a dweeb. But speaking of dweebs, the company made a rare (but hugely embarrassing) advertising misstep this past summer during the broadcast of the London Olympics. Three different TV spots showed an actor playing one of the company’s patented, blue-T-shirted “geniuses” being released into the wild. Each spot landed with a thud. Indeed, the Apple store itself, Steve Jobs’ inspiration, was probably the best ad ever for the brand. Anyone who enters and climbs those clear steps can ascend into heaven, attaining holiness by consulting with the geniuses up there, where the air is thinner. Taken out of that elevated place, however, the genius is just another annoying 20something, a cross between the Dell Dude and a Best Buy elf. In the case of the guy on the plane, he’s like a rat running around, solving basic problems for the other idiot flyers. (“21 F is working on a keynote!” the flight attendant tells him.) The tone is totally off: I’m not sure what universe these ads would work in. The situation in the second one, in which “Mr. Green” comes to the genius’ door at 4 a.m. (the genius is still wearing his blue T-shirt and company ID around his neck in his sleep) is full of cliches, the worst being the revival of the dunderhead dad from the 1950s who doesn’t know anything about birthin’ babies. If these were supposed to democratize the brand, they not only fell flat, but they demonstrated the sensitivity of Mitt Romney talking about the 3%. Plus, wasn’t the whole point of the Mac that it plugs and plays, and that you don’t need to be a genius to use it? Any brand with the revenue of a superpower will have growing pains, of course. But the fact that Apple’s image could be considered cheesy and open to ridicule so soon after Steve Jobs’ death actually shocks me. I had no doubt that the company would maintain its edge and fan base in the wake of Jobs’ untimely passing. No one need cry for Apple, obviously. Meanwhile, Samsung faces a lot of competition. But at a time when few think that any single ad (or even campaign) can have a huge impact anymore, Samsung’s “The Next Big Thing” just did. It sure made a believer out of me.
According to the November Millennial Media’s SMART report, focusing on mobile advertising trends within the Retail & Restaurant industry, during the first six months of 2012 Retail & Restaurant advertisers’ spend grew at an average of 11% a month. Top 10 Global Brand Advertising Verticals (Q1&Q2, 2012; Ranked by Ad Spend) Rank Categories 1 Telecommunications 2 Finance 3 Retail & restaurants 4 Entertainment 5 Automotive 6 Education 7 Travel 8 CPG 9 Technology 10 Portals & directories Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 Clothing retailers accounted for 30% of all Retail & Restaurant campaigns in Q1 & Q2 2012, led by department stores that used mobile to drive consumers to their locations and mobile retail websites. Home Products represented 21% of the campaigns studied. Within the sub-vertical, home improvement stores ran mobile campaigns around each season’s home needs. Together, Restaurants and QSR/Fast Food brands represented 16% of the advertiser mix. QSR and Fast Food restaurants, typically owned by franchisees, utilized the location-based targeting abilities of mobile to stay top of mind when users were near one of their locations. Retail & Restaurants Vertical Mix (1st Half 2012) Subset% of Spend Clothing 30% Home products 21 QSR/Fast food 11 Computers & electronics 10 Online retailers 9 Jewelry 7 Retail stores 7 Restaurants 5 Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 Across the vertical, Retail & Restaurant brands leveraged mobile with the goal of driving consumers to their locations, whether in-person or online. Together, Increased Foot Traffic and Site Traffic made up 55% of Retail & Restaurant Advertisers’ Campaign goals in Q1 and Q2 of 2012. The Post-Click Actions that support these Campaign Goals, such as Store Locator, View Map, and m-Commerce, also indexed very high for Retail & Restaurant brands 73% of campaigns with Product Launch/Release goals were Computers & Electronics brands. These advertisers utilized mobile to inform consumers about new technologies and models entering the market. Online retailers most often leveraged mobile to generate sales leads through mobile registrations (57%). Retail & Restaurant Campaign Goals (% of Top 1500 Campaigns Studied in Q1 & Q2 2012) Goal% of Campaigns Increased foot traffic 30% Site traffic 17 Brand awareness 16 Product launch/release 11 Sustained in-market presence 11 Registrations 7 Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 Store Locator, m-Commerce, and View Map all over-indexed for Retail & Restaurant advertisers in the first half of 2012, and were most often delivered to consumers as part of a mobile landing page. Store Locator was the largest, involved in 44% of the post-click campaign action mix. These three actions can all be the results of the largest campaign goal within the Retail & Restaurants vertical, driving customers into stores and onto retail websites to make purchases. In addition to Store Locator, mCommerce, and View Map, the other post-click campaign action that over-indexed compared to all advertisers was Retail Promotion, accounting for 30% of the post-click campaign action mix. By engaging with mobile users around a store location, and providing them with a coupon, discount, or other sales incentives, advertisers were aiming to keep their brands top of mind with shoppers and drive increased traffic to their stores, says the report. Post Click Campaign Action MixActivityRetail & Restaurant AdvertisersAll Advertisers Application download (mobile only) 8% 40% mCommerce (mobile only) 36 8 Mobile social media (mobile only) 30 17 Place call 9 10 Registrations 33 29 Retail Promotion 30 16 Site search 40 21 Store locator 44 19 Catch video 13 16 View map 18 6 Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 Some of the top performing audiences in the Retail & Restaurant Vertical in Q1 & Q2 included Fashionistas, In-Market Auto Intenders, Foodies, and Movie Buffs. Business & Finance Enthusiasts was also a top performing audience on the Millennial Media platform for the Retail & Restaurant Vertical. 61% of Retail & Restaurant advertisers on the Millennial Media platform utilized a form of location-based targeting in their campaigns in the first six months of 2012. Of these campaigns, 60% of them were a restaurant brand, including both Fast Food, Casual, and Fine Dining advertisers. Mobile users search for food and dining-out options on the go, whether they are looking to get a quick snack, or try a new restaurant. Retail and Restaurant Campaigns Leveraging Local Audiences (% of Total)Campaign% of Audience QSR/Fast food 39% Retail stores 22 Restaurants 21 Home products 7 Clothing 7 Computers & electronics 2 Online retailers 1 Jewelry 1 Source: Millennial Media, November 2012 For additional information, please access the SMART report here.