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In an article published last Monday, Adage identified 6 applications created independently of retailers that are making a significant impact on the shopping experience. The article speaks to the challenge of retailers to adopt not fight this new transparency.  The applications reviewed are some of the very best at putting the power in the hands of the consumer by offering real-time coupons, in-store product reviews, competitive pricing, alternative store locations and more.

With 41% of iPhone users apparently actively checking prices, it’s obvious some retail CMO’s see these competitive applications as a threat. However the majority of big name retailers have already adopted and created their own integrated shopping applications to compete with these consumer advocate apps that threaten their pricing. North Face, Best Buy, Home Depot, Target, Nike, Gap, Wal-Mart, and Banana Republic all have integrated shopping applications, while Crate & Barrel, and Disney stores have their applications in development.

The challenge however is not to just develop a mobile shopping application, it is to create an incredible user interface that makes it simple and fun for your customers to shop with you. It is to create a fundamentally different way for customers to interact with your store.

For example, the NikeID store let’s you pick shoes out based on colors from photos in your phone. I found some great Nike Dunks just by showing a photo of a Fuji apple. Wal-Mart’s application lets you snap a picture of your living room wall to figure out an appropriate television size.

As more retailers enter the mobile ecosystem, it becomes clear that they must create a mobile shopping experience that goes above and beyond just acting as a portal if they want to keep their customers shopping with them over strictly shopping by price. With a combination of loyalty points, cool customization, interactive features, and convenience it’s still possible for the big name retailers (and brands) to win out.

Learn more about mobile application development at our resource center.

In October of last year, we highlighted news of retailer Wet Seal’s mobile marketing efforts as “best practice” by effectively mapping their strategy to the mobile channel in a manner similar to one we prescribe at Interactive Mediums.  The company continues to build on that success, as outlined today on MobileMarketer.com in an article titled, “Wet Seal exec: Mobile drives retail and online sales.”

From SMS text messaging, to mobile application to a mobile website, Wet Seal has implemented a program which stitches these mobile marketing tactics together in such a way to engage their customer base and drive sales.  SMS has outperformed email in direct marketing tests by the retailer, who uses text primarily to engage customers with in store contests and promotions geared toward learning more about them and drive other mobile interactions.  A mobile website simplified relative to the full online version and optimized to facilitate purchases as well as an “outfit” configurator smartphone application round out the current approach.  Planned projects include mobile purchases paired with in-store pickup scheduling, mobile gift cards and social media integration.

Key lessons others can learn from cited include:

“First, get started early to benefit from early interactions and then fine-tune strategy and tactics.

Second, customers like to choose the way they want to shop. So offer them as many options as possible.

Third, extend the mobile experiences across channels – online and in-store – and optimize. Mobile is often the bridge between other channels.

Fourth, focus on core competency and technology to create excitement within the target customer base.

Finally, integrate customer feedback.”

Wet Seal is among the most progressive users of mobile marketing and their aggressive approach may intimidate those less experienced.  Paired with the urgency to begin competing for consumer mobile mindshare, and you have a recipe for stress.  Interactive Mediums’ platform and professional services are geared around helping customers move rapidly into mobile in a “right sized” fashion and grow over time.  Mapping your business and marketing strategy to the mobile channel is a good first step.

The other day my colleague Drew Myler posted about HTML5 and its ability to serve as a basis for mobile web applications offering a very similar user experience as native applications for the iPhone and other smartphones.   A lot has been written about mobile web browser-dependent applications offering a less ideal basis for engaging experiences due to the latency around data transfer involved in loading pages that a user links to in the browser.

Moreover, should the network connection be lost, a user must re-start the browser session, which does not occur with native mobile applications.  HTML5 apparently has the ability to stage data in memory on a device such that the user cannot perceive the data transfer usually associate with web browsing.

Drew points out HTML5’s ability as well to access device functions that historically were the domain of native apps, such as the built in GPS capabilities of the iPhone.  What this all means for marketers, agencies and others considering mobile application development projects is that the mobile web offers essentially a “write once, run anywhere” experience that alleviates the need to create unique applications for different smartphone platforms.   At least for those devices with browsers supporting HTML5.  Of course, were it that simple, demand for iPhone applications would not be so strong, which Drew correctly identifies as a strength Apple brings to the table via the App Store.

This article I came across yesterday on InternetRetailer.com titled, “Apps versus sites,” doesn’t discuss recent developments aimed at closing the gap between the mobile web and applications, which illustrates how important maintaining touch with the technical community is so critical to success in the mobile channel.  Things are happening so fast, that once defacto stances around what works/what doesn’t are constantly being revised.  For example:

“M-commerce sites and apps differ in four fundamental ways: reach and discoverability, which favor sites, and experience and performance, which favor apps.”

In reality, apps are probably as “discoverable” as mobile websites given the visibility of the App Store.  Their point is that just like SMS text messaging, smartphones of all varieties have web browsers.  But with “experience” and “performance” becoming an immaterial aspect of the debate, it will be interesting to see what decisions marketers make with respect to mobile web and application projects.

Here’s a suggestion:  If torn between smartphone application development platforms due to the demographics and reach associated with each, why not create a rich web-based application that is universally accessible.  Then, in order to leverage the marketing-might of the App Store and other smartphone application stores, simply create small applications that offer a gateway to the mobile web app.  In this way, you lower your costs, ensure access to the widest audience possible while tapping into the demographic niches associated with different smartphones.  Don’t be surprised to see more than a few retailers and other industries begin taking this approach as HTML5 becomes more mainstream.

nextstop offers a smartphone app that finds your location and recommends entertainment spots and restaurants near you. The app is easy to use and blazingly fast — but it can’t be found in Apple’s App Store or in Google’s Android App Marketplace. Instead, nextstop built the app using HTML5 and delivers it via the mobile web. (Learn more about nextstop’s decision to forego the App Store.)

We’ll no doubt see more companies follow suit if for no other reason than economics. Google reports that 60,000 phones running Android are shipped every day. That’s a far cry from the 40 million iPhones in circulation, but it isn’t a drop in the bucket, either. The smartphone playing field is starting to level, and companies that want to reach the growing non-iPhone smartphone market will either need to build another app — which will double development costs — or find another solution. (Even Google agrees that native application development will be too costly to remain sustainable in the long term.)

It’ll be interesting to see if nextstop has timed this move correctly — will the public understand an app outside of the store? Will mobile apps be as successful in their adoption rates? I hope so, but I foresee some hurdles.

The largest challenge: marketing and distribution. People know the app store and rely on it to find and categorize apps. Using the App Store is largely a discovery process; I’m a news junkie, so show me popular news apps. I may never know your company until I stumble across your app in the store. That’s a potential customer/user base of 40 million people, and it’s hard to ignore that kind of exposure. With a mobile web app, the opposite is true; I have to start with you in mind, and know (or hope) that you have a mobile app.

There’s also an existing understanding of how you ‘get’ an app. With native apps, you visit the store, find an app and install it. The process is entirely different with the mobile web. There’s no central, trusted repository, nothing to download, no recommendations, and nothing to ‘open’ on your phone (though you can add a shortcut to the mobile app on your phone’s home screen). Instead you fire up your mobile browser and navigate to the app. An evolution in the perception of what an app ‘is’ has to occur so users realize your mobile app is the same thing they would’ve gotten in the store.

I hope the early adopters of mobile web apps succeed, because the benefits to mobile web application development using HTML5 are pretty enticing (and yes, I’m aware the HTML5 spec is far from finalized):

• It’s easier to deploy. Launching and releasing updates to the app is dependent solely on you, not a third party’s review process.
• It’s cheaper. Supporting multiple mobile browsers is more cost-effective than supporting multiple apps and code bases.
• It’s native app-esque. HTML5 lets developers tap into many of the phone’s functions, including location awareness, thus blurring the lines between mobile and native app.
• It’s fast. HTML5’s offline storage makes the mobile app as responsive as a native app when loading new pages.

Until there’s a distribution model for mobile apps that mirrors the popularity of Apple’s app store, are we largely stuck building native apps? I’m curious as to whether other mobile developers are building web apps instead of native ones, or if you’re holding back for specific reasons. Hope you’ll chime in.

Joining Interactive Mediums today are two individuals expected to make a big impact on the company; Amanda Gilmore, Account Executive and Julian Rockwood, Account Manager.

In her new role as Account Executive, Amanda Gilmore will be responsible for our inside sales operation where she will identify sales opportunities, conduct proactive outreach and handle in bound demand requests, and ultimately work with prospective customers to help them understand how mobile marketing solves business problems.  Amanda brings an extensive background in business development for high tech organizations as well as a wealth of experience working with direct clients and channels such as agencies.
 
Before joining the Interactive Mediums team, Amanda was a Business Development Manager for The SAVO Group.  Prior to that, she served as Media Sales Associate for VisualCast Media where she presented and sold outdoor advertising outlets in Chicago to national advertisers.  Amanda graduated from Loras College in Dubuque, IA with a Bachelors of Arts in Communications.

Also joining us today is Julian Rockwood, who as Account Manager assumes responsibility for the day to day tasks associated with ensuring our clients are satisfied and realizing the value of mobile marketing.  He came to Chicago this past July from the rust belt city of Toledo, Ohio, where he served as an account manager with a marketing strategy firm specializing in package design and building materials channel strategy.

Julian brings competencies in account management, marketing strategy, social media, analytics, and B-to-C thought process, and is very excited to bring his experience and enthusiasm to helping customers make the most of their mobile marketing efforts.  His hobbies include soccer, sound design, and running along Lake Michigan.

At first glance, this article yesterday on DMNews.com suggests the one area of mobile advertising thus far overlooked – audio – represents an untapped opportunity for marketers to reach their customers in ways other than text messaging, mobile applications, social media or mobile web browsing.

An internet radio network has supposedly created an advertising product allowing marketers to target listeners with audio commercials in line with station content, according to geography, demographics and device.  Radio advertising tends to be a mass market medium, so this appears to offer marketers the chance to target different audio messages to various listener segments.

Keep in mind, however, that the opportunity for marketers is limited to whatever content the network provides.  The use of mobile devices for audio in general is on the decline and audio messages lack the direct response element of a text message that incorporates a live link to a mobile website or application.

Radio stations have the opportunity to offer a platform for one to one marketing on a completely different scale via text messaging, as outlined in this recent Interactive Mediums paper titled, “Transforming Listeners into Dollars.”  Radio stations can use text message interactions as a means of building out profiles of their audience to offer highly segmented ad units which can drive more revenue.

With respect to the mobile channel, radio stations and their advertisers alike need to separate the notions of offering the usual audio commercial on a device from targeting relevant offers and calls to action via text messaging.  No matter how targeted audio ads become, they cannot facilitate the capture of audience demographics and lack the direct response component of text messaging.

Those new to mobile marketing as well as experienced practitioners will be excited to learn about a new offering coming soon from Interactive Mediums.  Called Zero to Engagement, it’s a software and services bundle designed to help quickly execute a mobile marketing campaign that calls customers to action and in so doing, demonstrate return investment as a step toward leveraging mobile more broadly within a business.  Return on investment is at the core of any marketing investment and mobile is no exception.  Using our Strategy Mapping framework, this offering will:

• Identity a project that aligns especially well with mobile marketing techniques such as SMS text message promotions.
• Help define success metrics to gauge the program’s success.
• Show just how easy our Customer Engagement Platform makes it to configure and execute effective mobile interactions.

To learn more before the official launch of Zero to Engagement, contact us at info@interactivemediums.com.

Today on Brandweek.com, an article clearly written for the advertising professional, claims, “Despite Promise, Mobile Ads Come Up Short.”  The gist here is that despite big bets placed by Google and Apple, as well high response rates, mobile advertising is falling short of expectations.

These expectations include richer, more interactive ad formats necessary for when the “novelty” factor contributing to high response rates for simple text links wears off.

“…mobile will only convince marketers to make serious commitments if it moves beyond the focus on scale with standardized, run-of-the-mill units.  The risk is mobile will follow the same path as the PC Internet and become dominated by direct marketers rather than advertisers used to creating demand via TV ads.”

That statement stands out among all in the article as pointing to a reality advertising professionals should adjust to sooner than later to ensure a seat at the mobile marketing table.  And that is mobile already is an extension of the PC internet, especially on smartphones, and is perhaps the ultimate direct response platform ever conceived given immediate, “on the go” integration with location based services and the mobile web.

Even if, and when, ad units become more standardized, traditional views of interactive advertising will struggle in the face of strategies geared toward calling consumers to action in-line with their behavior.  Today and for the foreseeable future, that has less to do slickly produced, screen hogging visuals and more with relevant messaging integrated wisely with other mobile channels.

All retailers to varying degrees are dabbling in mobile couponing as a means of engaging their customers, driving foot traffic and ultimately selling more product.  The technologies employed vary from a numeric code delivered via SMS text message through actual digitized bar codes that render on a mobile device for scanning at the point of sale.

Each of these options today represents a compromise over traditional printed coupons that most point of sale systems recognize.  Coupon codes requiring manual entry lengthen checkout time and can be error prone while mobile device displays cannot always render codes compatible with POS scanners.

Despite these limitations, retailers are pressing forward to take advantage of the value presented by location-based marketing.  Yet to really unleash the value of mobile couponing, it must be ubiquitous and require a minimal change to retailer operational processes in order to be cost effective.  That’s the thought which came to mind when I read a February 19, 2010 item at DMNews.com, titled “Provision Interactive Technologies teams with Ping Mobile for in-store mobile campaigns.”

The article describes a new offering as follows:

“Marketers can create an out-of-home/mobile campaign in a mall, airport, stadium or other public venue, and consumers can respond to the call to action on the signage by texting in. Coupons, tickets, vouchers and other printed items then become available from Provision’s 3D Media Centers, which consumers can print the coupons at the kiosks and redeem.”

Rather than focus redemption around legacy POS systems, this approach represents a value added intermediary that could be positioned in retail environments in a standalone fashion – the quantity of stations limited only by space and budget.  The solution is described as optimal for “malls, airports and other public locations,” but should have equal or greater value when resident in a single retail environment — especially for large retailers with hundreds or thousands of locations unable to upgrade all POS systems en masse.

This solution also alleviates the need to worry about technology and compatibility issues, and focus instead on creative ways of engaging customers with the most relevant offers.  Interactive Mediums’ Customer Engagement Platform features a variety of pre-packaged engagement actions designed just for this purpose.

The news seems to be increasingly populated with stories about 2D or “quick response” codes used as mobile calls to action.  As this article points out today on MobileMarketer.com, “bar codes offer a shortcut to accessing mobile content, information and mobile commerce.”  Considering the simplistic analogy to a shortcut, it’s rather amazing Neustar is attempting to solve the reach/incompatibility problem of 2D codes and in so doing add a presumably high growth aspect to their business.

The article outlines how Visa used 2D bar code technology as part of a sweepstakes promotion conducted at the recent Mobile World Congress in Spain.  You can read the specifics but as we mentioned recently here and here, 2D bar codes tend to find the greatest success in highly localized and controlled environments where there is some certainty around consumer handsets capable of reading the codes.

What Neustar wishes to do is offer a “clearinghouse” service so marketers can employ 2D codes without restricting their potential audience.  They plan to do this by standardizing previously incompatible codes across devices and operating systems.  It sounds like a lot of work to enable consumers a “short cut” to redeem information on their mobile devices.

2D bar codes appeal to our visual nature and longtime experience with traditional bar codes such as those scanned at the grocery store.  These codes imply ease of use, as well as data — lots of data about who purchased what product and when.

Marketers considering building sweepstakes or other promotions around 2D bar codes like Visa should consider the ease by which consumers today text a keyword to a shortcode to redeem information or be pointed to a mobile website – the exact same use case as with a 2D bar code.  Not only are you assured universal reach but even more data about the consumer can be obtained since a text interaction is bi-directional and can include a question and answer component in real time.

Marketers should focus less on the technology employed to engage their customers, and more on creating a compelling message or incentive which calls their customers to action — and then evaluate options for packaging and delivering the offer.  Right now marketers appear blinded by the “sexiness” of 2D bar codes, and Neustar is betting a new line of business on it.