A proposal by the Federal Trade Commission to broaden privacy regulations by banning companies from tracking children anonymously “would have substantial negative effects for parents, children and companies alike,” according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. “We encourage the Commission to rethink its approach,” the IAB said in written comments submitted late last week. “The amendments put forward by the Commission would have substantial negative effects for parents, children and companies alike.” The IAB's comments came in response to an FTC proposal to update regulations implementing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. That law, which went into effect more than 10 years ago, bans Web site operators from knowingly collecting "personal information" from children without their parents' permission. COPPA's definition of personal information includes names, telephone numbers and street addresses, but the statute also enables the FTC to define the term as any identifier that “permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual.” The FTC proposed defining personal information as any "unique identifier," including tracking cookies, device serial numbers, and in some cases, IP addresses. Currently, names, email addresses, street addresses and phone numbers are all considered personal information. The IAB opposes that change, arguing that it could “bring a wide range of activities, including online advertising and analytics activities, within the scope of COPPA for the first time.” The organization also argues that the FTC isn't empowered to extend COPPA to online advertising because people generally can't be contacted based on IP addresses or cookies alone. “The proposed rule is not consistent with the plain language of this provision or with COPPA’s legislative history,” the IAB says. The trade group adds that cookies, IP addresses or other persistent identifiers “are readily distinguishable from home addresses and telephone numbers, which are singled out in COPPA because of the risk that sexual predators could locate children by physically going to an address or calling a number.” The IAB notes in its comments that industry self-regulatory principles prohibit the collection of any data from children under 13 for behavioral advertising purposes. Absent a “clear record” that companies are using behavioral advertising techniques on children under 13, the FTC shouldn't promulgate the new rule, the IAB argues. The organization additionally argues that the new rule could limit children's access to Web content. “Many Web sites and online services have been able to design business models and features that do not trigger the existing rule, such as by minimizing and anonymizing their data collection from children,” the IAB says. “The proposed rule could bring many of these business models and features within the scope of COPPA.” Although opposed by the industry, the FTC's proposal garnered support on Capitol Hill. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) praised the FTC's report overall. Advocacy groups also praised the FTC's suggestions. A coalition of 17 organizations, including the Center for Digital Democracy, American Academy of Pediatrics, Berkeley Media Studies Group/Public Health Institute, and World Privacy Forum, said in written comments that marketers shouldn't be allowed to use behavioral targeting techniques on children younger than 13. “Given children’s limited cognitive abilities and the sophisticated nature of contemporary digital marketing and data collection, strong arguments can be made that behavioral targeting is an inappropriate, unfair, and deceptive practice when used to influence children under 13,” the groups wrote in comments filed late last week. “At the very least, marketers should be constrained from engaging in such practices without obtaining meaningful, prior consent from parents.”
Facebook via mobile apps has become a massive platform unto itself, according to the latest calculations from UK analyst Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis. Using Facebook figures and its own models, the company believes that more than 300 million people were accessing Facebook via their smartphone apps this month. Facebook itself declared in September that more than 350 million of its 800 million users were connecting to the service over mobile handsets, although that included mobile Web and feature phone access. Facebook does not say what share of users are now mobile-only. According to Evans’ take on usage on Dec. 27, just over 100 million iPhone and iPod Touch owners are accessing Facebook monthly through their apps, with 87.8 million coming from Android phones. On a daily basis, however, the Google operating system edges out iPhone/iPod Touch, with 59.7 million Facebook app users vs. 58.4 million for Apple handhelds. In all, he estimates that 30% of all Facebook members are using smartphone apps to log in. As maligned as the RIM BlackBerry OS has been this year, as its market share continues to erode, the platform remains strong on Facebook. On a monthly basis, 48.3 million BlackBerry users are accessing the social network -- 30.1 million daily. Evans points out that RIM has a higher Facebook penetration rate among its users than other operating systems. About 70% of BlackBerry users have installed the app, compared to only about half of iOS and Android users. Evans points out that Facebook now has a smartphone app platform that is larger than either Apple or Android’s respective installed bases. As the company unites the experience under a common HTML5 model, the two apps will become merely wrappers for the same app experience and a massive platform on which to serve advertising and promotions. “Next year Facebook will treat that user base as less of a mobile extension to the desktop experience and more as the core product -- starting with advertising,” he says.
The rise in popularity of tablets will bring back a focus on creativity -- rather than technology -- when it comes to online advertising, according to IAB President and CEO Randall Rothenberg. He believes 2012 will become a breakthrough year for ad creativity and digital content. Rothenberg calls the movement a "cultural breakthrough," meaning the ads will go direct to the tablet, rather than start on TV or print in magazines and be repositioned to fit on a tablet. These ads, designed for consumption on tablets first, will have a cultural impact on society, similar to Spy magazine in the late 1980s. Upping the ante, creative ads on tablets should also increase the average order value that RichRelevance estimates at $120 on mobile devices for mid-December, compared with $110 on desktops. The findings come from the Holiday Shopping Study analyzing shopping patterns of more than 3.4 billion online shopping sessions of U.S. consumers since April 1. Bring behavioral targeting -- which remains in its infancy -- into the mix, and advertisers can expect to see more data-driven ads. For the most part, BT has been applied to direct response and promotional advertising. It hasn't quite made it into brand advertising -- "either by targeting or audience messaging, or both," Rothenberg said. In 2012, Rothenberg believes technology will target ads to audiences "out of context" and merge the strategy with data-driven ad buying. Rather than Kraft placing an ad for mayonnaise around content related to food or recipes, the brand might buy audience segments too, merging the two types of media-buying strategies. He expects this strategy to become popular, especially with consumer packaged goods companies. He expects to see more brands to combine relevance and analysis through data-driven and contextual advertising. Next year will become a breakthrough year for brand advertising, Rothenberg said. He does, however, point to one major concern that may lead the industry down a wrong path. "I've always been concerned the industry tends to get caught up in its own jargon," he said. "We end up being so focused on technology driven by things like venture capital investments and IPOs that we explain things in a way that's far too complicated for customers to understand." He is concerned that the ad industry will go down that path again, as investments and interests in the ad technology sector pick up steam. Rothenberg believes the ad industry should "ban" words or descriptions, such as "demand side platform," and stop creating acronyms like DSP or SSP, which he believes are meaningless to chief marketing officers. It's more important to explain what these companies do rather than create new words or acronyms.
Amazon on Thursday said 2011 was the best holiday season ever for its Kindle line of devices, with well over 1 million sold each week to date in December. The Kindle Fire, its tablet contender, launched widely in mid-November. It remains the best-selling, most gifted, and most "wished-for" product across the company’s entire product inventory. Rounding out the top three best-selling items are the Kindle Touch and entry-level Kindle. Two weeks ago, Amazon announced that Kindles were selling at a rate of more than 1 million per week as the Fire came under criticism for having certain design flaws and sluggish performance. The online retailer has since issued a software update aimed at addressing consumer concerns. Wall Street and industry analysts expect Amazon to sell about 5 million Kindle Fires in the fourth quarter. JP Morgan last week forecast that 20 million of the devices would be sold in 2012. Based in part on the strength of Kindle Fire sales, the investment firm also raised its outlook for the category overall, estimating worldwide shipments will climb 55% to 99.3 million next year. The popularity of the $199 Kindle Fire and the Kindle e-reader models has also helped spur digital content sales. Amazon said Christmas Day was the biggest day ever for Kindle e-book downloads. It also noted gifting of Kindle books was up 175% between this Black Friday and Christmas Day compared to the same period in 2010. Amazon is counting on the Kindle Fire in particular to sell a wide range of digital goods, including music, movies, TV shows, and magazines and newspapers, as well as physical merchandise. While the company did not provide much insight on sales through its tablet, it did list some of the top-selling items in various product categories on Thursday. Here’s a sampling: -Kindle Books: “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins; “Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins; and “The Litigators” by John Grisham -Video Games: "Just Dance 3"; "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3"; and "Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" -Amazon MP3: “100 Classic Christmas Songs” by Various Artists; “Mylo Xyloto” by Coldplay; and “A Very She & Him Christmas” by She & Him -Amazon Instant Video: “Super 8”; “The Help”; and “Crazy, Stupid, Love” -AmazonWireless: Motorola DROID RAZR 4G Android Phone (Verizon Wireless); Samsung Galaxy S II Epic Touch 4G Android Phone (Sprint); and Samsung Galaxy S II 4G Android Phone (AT&T) -Toys: Rory’s Story Cubes; Qwirkle Board Game; and Perplexus Maze Game
2011 has been an important year for mobile marketing. It was the year of app mania. It was the year that mobile marketers realized that measurement was mission critical. It was the year that mobile commerce finally meant big bucks. Per eMarketer, mobile commerce sales will reach $6.7 billion this year. If 2011 was a year of apps, commerce and analytics, what does 2012 have in store for mobile marketing? Here are five trends that will define mobile marketing in 2012. Your Site, App And Brand Will Be Mobile-ized Half of all mobile phones currently sold are smartphones. By the end of 2012, we may see eight of every 10 phones sold being a smartphone. To keep up with the growing market, mobile-optimized content becomes the standard. We will see a mass deployment of sleeker, easier to navigate mobile-optimized versions, making it easier for consumers to purchase, search, consume videos and play games on mobile devices. Brands will also move rapidly to deploy "tablet-specific” applications that better utilize the form. In 2012, app mania will be as much about tablet apps as 2011 has been about smartphone apps. More Attention – and Dollars – Shift To Mobile In 2012, being relevant in mobile will be more important than ever. Consider that one-third of all of Facebook's site traffic stems from mobile devices and over half of Pandora's and Twitter’s traffic also comes from mobile. A recent eMarketer CMO survey revealed that more than 80% of all CMOs are prioritizing digital -- and specifically, mobile -- as two areas of focus for 2012 and moving forward. The growth in mobile use and the greater allocation of marketing spend in this sector means that the measurement of mobile marketing efforts will be more prevalent than ever. You Will Buy More Stuff Via Mobile (and Social) According to new research from comScore, 38% of smartphone owners have used their phone to make a purchase at least once. While digital content purchases like music, ebooks and TV episodes were the most popular items bought in September, clothing, accessories and event tickets were also purchased. There’s a place in the mobile commerce sphere for retailers across all verticals. eBay effectively doubled its mobile commerce revenues from 2010 to 2011, and now has approximately $5 billion in revenue that stems, in some form, from m-commerce. eBay has identified mobile commerce as the future of the company, which is why it acquired GSI and Magento. Other well-known retailers, including Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, JC Penney and countless others are building out their mobile commerce efforts. These brands realize that their future is intimately tied to dominating commerce in mobile and social channels. App Mania Continues -- But More Meaningful Ones The number of branded apps that are "failures" is skyrocketing. In 2011, brands created apps just for the sake of creating apps, without necessarily understanding how to bring added value to their customers. As a result, the apps were abandoned by both consumers and the brands themselves. Marketers have learned their lesson. In 2012, branded apps will be more about loyalty and commerce and less about awareness and engagement. They will deliver value. They may provide special deals or coupons or exclusive content, but they will be stickier and more meaningful. Marksmanship Marketing: Segmentation, Targeting And Optimization Segmentation and targeting is already at the top of digital marketers’ wish lists for 2012. According to a recent survey by eMarketer, 81% of respondents said they are prioritizing spend in digital analytics to better segment, target and optimize experiences for their customers. However, the vast majority of mobile sites and apps deal with purely anonymous behavior. It’s not surprising, then, that the next level of marketing maturity -- segmentation, targeting and optimization -- is virtually unknown in the mobile channel. Industry players, including Webtrends, provides marketers with the capabilities to take all of the data from their mobile channel and create profiles with it, much like traditional Web data today. These insights allow marketers to create personal level profiles for mobile users, tracking attributes and insights into mobile customer behaviors both within the mobile channel and in relation to a brand’s other digital properties. It will also mean more personalization in terms of advertising and content, and exciting new possibilities with geolocation.