These Belong On Every CMO's Mobile Shopping List

by Bjorn Hildahl , January 6, 2011

Given the significant revenue potential in mobile applications for consumer brands, companies were in a frenzy in 2010 to launch mobile offerings that would capture the attention of consumers and keep them one step ahead of competitors. The ever-evolving mobile marketplace has made it challenging for Fortune 500 organizations to get a mobile offering right.

However, it couldn't be more essential to building or maintaining a successful brand. From identifying the mobile needs of a brand's target consumers to dealing with the onslaught of new mobile device introductions, CMOs and CIOs are pulled in too many directions and are often overwhelmed by the task of developing a successful mobile offering that reaches all consumers across all devices.

Twenty eleven provides companies with an opportunity to slow down, develop a strategic plan for a mobile offering and find the right partner that will help them to protect their investment and see solid return. With so many new innovations hitting the mobile market every day, it's essential for companies to understand which new features and trends will be most important to leverage in the New Year.

Social Networking

Social media has taken the world by storm; consumers are not only participating in social networks, but are fully engaged in their platforms and value the interactions they have on them. Integration with social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, foursquare and LinkedIn, offers brands a cost-effective method to add value and increase awareness. These programs prompt users to share information with their personal networks regarding a brand, increasing potential conversions and adoption by friends, family or colleagues in your customer's network.

Augmented Reality

Augmented reality became a mobile buzzword in 2010, yet few companies in the U.S. have actually integrated this technology into applications. Applications that harness the power of augmented reality to engage consumers, offering incentivizing information on products in-store, will lead the pack in 2011. Retailers have the most significant opportunity here, with the ability to allow consumers to hold their phone's camera up to a product and see discounts or coupons on the product layered over the real-life image.

Location-Based

Offering consumers localized information creates significant value for the end user through a more personalized experience. Taking advantage of new location-based features such as "geofencing," a feature which allows companies to set up geofences around designated areas, increases potential revenue generation and application adoption. For example, a retailer could set up a geofence to enable them to provide opt-in users with personalized discounts and other incentives as soon as they enter the specified area or within a specific proximity to a brick-and-mortar store.

Increased Security

Fulfilling the consumer mobile market opportunity requires enhanced security. Brands looking to circumvent potential mobile security issues should consider leveraging a single code base development platform, rather than developing and updating new code for each individual device and channel. The massive amount of code generated with an individualized strategy is not only unwieldy and expensive to develop and maintain, it's also a high security risk. A single code base streamlines the coding process, reducing the risk of code flaws that can lead to security blunders and application malfunctions. This unique approach also enables ubiquitous deployment across multiple devices, operating systems and channels, without sacrificing functionality.

HTML5

While the HTML5 Web standard specification is still in a working draft state, nearly all browser vendors have already adopted some or many of the features being proposed in the specification. The new standard brings with it new capabilities for more user-friendly mobile Web sites that make use of specific mobile device features, including:

Geolocation

Faster download speed

Improved imagery, display and look and feel

Access to offline storage and offline browsing when the network is unavailable

Rich media content on the mobile device with full pause and playback control

As brands focus on creating and managing a mobile portfolio in the coming year, these new technologies, features and functions offer increased value for their mobile dollar through greater consumer adoption and further revenue generation opportunities. However, with the constant changes and technology innovations within the mobile market, brands should look to partner with industry experts in design, development and deployment of mobile portfolios in order to gain the maximum return for their investment.

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2 comments about "These Belong On Every CMO's Mobile Shopping List ".

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Edward Hunter from Loop Analytics, January 6, 2011 at 9:24 a.m.
Well, 3 out of 5 ain't bad but consider...
Capability and adoption don't always align, and the case for augmented reality is a perfect example. Compare it to face time for example, of video chat. Its fantastic right? Nobody does it and it matters little how many endearing Santa commercials Cupertino churns out - people aren't adopting video chat because it isn't a natural 'fit' in their behavioral makeup.
Augmented reality is in the same boat. People might look 'for' their phones, they might look 'at' their phones, but these actions both related closely to an existing behavior they've already adopted. Looking 'through' their phones will take significantly longer than 2011 to become anything more than a novelty.
HTML5 might sound like the ideal thing for mobile, but consider a few things, firstly - uniqueness. HTML5 might bring the power of location to the mix, but it still lacks access to the device under layers and specifically, the UUID.
As such, it bears with it the same foibles that any other browser based language currently suffers, you can't be absolutely certain who you are having a conversation with, or if the person you are engaging now is the same person later, or a different person altogether.
Because mobile is still largely a carrier mediated space, things like cookies and IP addresses shuffle about on mobile devices like mad, and in some cases, such as cookies, are blocked completely with the tap of a button.
Even if this issue didn't prevent brands from really understanding the scope and breadth of their link to consumers - the same methodological holes present on the digital web, the lack of talent and the steep learning curve for HTML 5 would.
HTML5 isn't your dad's browser language. There are no WYSIWYG design packages out there that produce anything other than simple templates. It is a highly focused programming language and to be good at it, you better already be coding much of your work by hand in a text editor. This will keep the cost of implementing pure HTML5 'wapapps' out of band for a while until the talent pools fill up.
At Loop, we believe that a good mobile brand marketing strategy starts with understanding what moves to make and when, and not putting tech in the shopping cart because it 'might' be the next big thing. Still, largely I agree with this well written commentary - well done!
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Todd Tilley from Wrecking Ball Media, January 6, 2011 at 9:33 a.m.

Good luck with your final recommendation of partnering with industry experts. We see the same "old dog" doing the same "old tricks" with the same "old masters" who promise CMO's they now have the capability to develop successful digital programs including mobile. Even after many failures, and pure incompetence in the digital space, we see larger companies still willing to let bigger ad agencies try their luck. The experts are frequently called in to clean up the mess and the efforts of the campaign are usually bashed as ineffective and poorly executed by the experts in the role of "janitor". The big ad agency then goes back to the drawing board for another client pitch. And lets be honest, the vast majority of CMO's dont have the confidence to pull the trigger on these types of ventures. With the avg life span of 2 yrs. in the position, the CMO takes 3-6 months to ramp up, 3-6 to get people in place, 3-6 months in removing latent marketing tactics before they even begin to shape a cohesive brand strategy for one, or multiple brands, under their watch. By that time, the current digital offerings have passed them by and they are now confronted with what's new and forward thinking. Without any prior knowledge or real confidence in understanding what has been going on in the digital space in the past, the CMO must now take a leap of faith as to what to do next. The CMO looks for strategic plans and brand stewardship from the ad agency and their in-house team but by the time it comes to approvals, development, testing and implementation, the CMO is on their way out the door with a patchwork, cross your fingers, digital execution cooked up by the so called "new experts" with zero chance of becoming a long term, sustainable, business driver. Rinse and repeat.