Posts Tagged "Smartphones"

This post today on MobileMarketingWatch.com cites a Business Week article in which the Apple honcho bluntly describes his view of the utility offered by current mobile advertising formats.  He also apparently sees this as an opportunity for Apple to innovate and ultimately dominate the mobile ad medium, even in the face of online ad champ Google and its mobile focus.  We have speculated as much here.

Just the other day we blogged about the hype around mobile advertising created by recent acquisitions.  We’ve also covered issues surrounding mobile ad metrics.

We’re keeping close tabs on developments in this area for our customers so they understand where to prioritize mobile advertising alongside their broader customer engagement charters inclusive of SMS text messaging, mobile optimized websites, smartphone applications and social media.

An integrated approach to mobile channel marketing – akin to creating more effective mobile ads – is an innovation which greatly increases the likelihood your mobile marketing efforts won’t suck.

Nowhere else was the popularity of the iPhone as a marketing platform on display than at the National Retail Federation’s 99th Annual Convention this week in New York.  So says this article posted today on RetailWire.com titled, “Apple Hits the NRF Show Floor, Sort of” (registration required).

Both attendees and exhibitors alike were apparently personally armed with the devices and reportedly had either iPhone apps already in the market or were preparing them.  Large technology vendors in attendance also had iPhone apps to talk about, from Oracle and Sterling Commerce to Intel.  Funny that Apple itself was absent.

The observations reported in the article highlight just how powerful a marketing platform the iPhone has become yet retailers should not forget about text messaging as an effective mobile marketing method that can reach almost any mobile phone user.  Although applications are popular, engagement via text messaging is being used by retailers to overcome challenges around loyalty and comparison shopping behavior.

The best strategy is a balanced one considering the impact but lower reach of a rich smartphone application as opposed to the almost universal reach offered by SMS text messaging, especially those facilitating promotions such as sweepstakes and contests.  Targeting the mobile customer experience first, then determining the blend of approaches to achieve your goals is becoming the standard of excellence for successful mobile marketers.

Today on MobileMarketer.com there appears an article sure to be read by many.  It’s about the potential threat to retailers represented by mobile-enabled consumers who may be redirected to other stores to find a better deal by performing price lookups on a particular item.  Considering the ease by which consumers are able to perform this comparison, it appears a scary scenario to already margin-strained retailers.

The article concludes with this statement, making it sound as if retailers attempting to create engaging shopping experiences raise their hands in surrender:

“Consumers will care less about where they shop and more about satisfying their purchase requirements.”

I bet you could find similar statements made about 10 years ago around how e-commerce websites would put brick and mortar stores out of business.  Yet that didn’t really happen, as brick and mortar stores such as BestBuy and others created complementary online stores.  Late to game retailers like Toys R Us paid a heavy price, however.  Why would it be any different if consumers can research and compare products while “on the go?”

One way the article suggests is that retailers will be forced to match lower prices if consumers can prove it by showing their mobile device to a cashier, or worse lose the sale as the customer leaves for another store.  Loyalty, already so hard to engender among customers, is literally out the door as a means of creating a steady flow of business.

In reality, I don’t think the situation will be this dire, but retail marketers have a new mandate to create engaging shopper environments to encourage customers to remain in store and make purchases.  Especially for considered purchases versus impulse buys, consumers will likely perform online research in advance of venturing out to stores.  Items such as plasma screen TVs or washing machines, for example.  In these instances it’s highly improbable a consumer will even perform a comparison price lookup in store because they did so already.

There will be exceptions, but I just don’t see retailers hurt too much by this trend, especially if they work hard toward creating highly engaging – and branded – mobile experiences for their customers.  Those who do will be more akin to the BestBuys of the mobile realm as opposed to the Toys R Us’.

Today I spoke with Donna Longino of UPS about her company’s recently announced Blackberry smartphone application.  A leading delivery service such as UPS is a logical fit for mobile technologies, especially for drivers needing to stay connected while “on the go.”

Yes, that’s a UPS truck snapped today outside the local Starbucks, in all the glory of Chicago winter weather on the company’s busiest day – some 20 million packages according to Donna.

Yet, the Blackberry application, like an iPhone version preceding it, is designed to enable business and consumer customers alike to find a drop off location, receive shipping quotes, order pickups and check on package delivery status.  Dig beneath the details, as we did with Donna, and you gain a greater appreciation for what was involved:

• UPS employs an Information Technology group 5,000 strong, who possess deep mobile application expertise and were responsible for creating applications which interact with UPS’ massive global network of package and delivery data.
• Considerable research went into creating the new mobile application, to understand how best to serve their customers and offer a differentiated user experience from competing delivery services.  To these ends, UPS discovered customers wanted a fully native application as opposed to be directed to a mobile website.  Why?  Because application code can be fully loaded on a handset.  From the user’s perspective, this offers a more natural responsiveness consumers associate with desktop computer applications, with time taken only to bring new data across the network.  Navigating a website, even one optimized for mobile, can often seem more cumbersome and of course in the event of a network lapse the session will end abruptly.  Moreover, the UPS app allows consumers to log into the application once, and automatically upon launch relate any packages to their account to view instant status – no keying in of lengthy tracking numbers are required.
• Some UPS business customers are beginning to request the ability to have text messages sent to recipients and/or senders, providing notification of package delivery.  Even greater reach could be possible were UPS to enable customers to text their tracking numbers to receive instant updates – all of which are capabilities available in Interactive Mediums’ Engagement Platform.

Few organizations have the staff, funding or internal systems to execute a mobile strategy to the extent UPS has; for those who lack any of these critical pieces firms like Interactive Mediums stand ready with a flexible Customer Engagement Platform optimized for mobile interactions as well as a wealth of experience developing mobile applications which map to the way consumers want to engage with a business.

As UPS says “What Can Brown Do For You?” we say “How can Interactive Mediums power more effective mobile interactions for your customers?”

*(Cross-posted with John Wood’s personal blog)*

The mobile industry is exploding. In just a few short years, everybody will have a smart phone. A tiny, internet connected, mini computer right in their pocket. As each month passes, we learn more and more about what the future of this industry holds, and what the mobile handset landscape will look like. If one thing is for certain, it’s that nothing is for certain.

As it stands right now, Apple is king with consumers. Though not the first ones to market with an internet connected mobile device (the Blackberry has been around for a long time, and still holds the majority of the smartphone market share), Apple appears to be the first to really understand what the average, non-corporate consumer wants. A true mini computer. An open device that can play music, run applications, take photos, and provide a pleasant web browsing experience. And they did it in true Apple fashion, making the device extremely easy to use. As a result, the iPhone has become extremely popular with consumers, and is widely considered ”the device to have”.

With the majority of people still without a smartphone, much of the market remains up for grabs. Apple’s competitors are scrambling to catch up, trying to ensure that they they get a piece of the pie. But, one very important question lingers. What can Apple’s competitors offer that would give the average consumer a reason to buy their device instead of buying an iPhone? To me, the reasons are few, and becoming fewer.

(I’d love to hear your reasons in the comments. So please, chime in.)

A comparable feature set

This pretty much goes without saying. Any challenger to the iPhone crown must offer similar features to that of the iPhone. It is very unlikely that a competing device will lure anybody away from the iPhone if it is missing a feature that is now expected to be there. The device must be capable of running apps, taking photos, playing music, etc, for it even to be considered.

A better network

AT&T’s network leaves much to be desired. Having never been an AT&T customer, I can only relay the opinions of my friends and family who are AT&T customers. However, their opinions are one in the same. I’ve not heard a single word of praise when it comes to AT&T’s network. All of my friends and family with iPhones have expressed frustration that the device they love is frequently crippled by a network that is spotty and congested.

It’s no secret that Apple has an exclusive agreement with AT&T, and that agreement has an expiration date. Rumors have been circulating about a jump to another carrier, possibly Verizon, sometime next year. The more wireless carriers offering the iPhone, the less valid of a reason this will become for not purchasing one.

A comparable application ecosystem

Competing devices will need to have an application ecosystem that is at least comparable to the iPhone’s. This is no small task. There are over 100,000 applications in the App Store. Sure, several offer the same functionality, and many are of very poor quality. However, nobody can argue with Apple’s tag line of “There’s a app for that”. There really is an application, in most cases many, for everything you could possibly want to do with your iPhone.

Given their head start, beating Apple at this game will not be easy. Google’s Android OS currently stands the best chance of challenging Apple on this front, with over 10,000 applications already available. The Android OS is open, and capable of running on hardware from any manufacturer. In addition, applications written for Android are capable of running on any device that runs the OS (for the most part). Next year is going to be a big one for Android, with several new devices coming to market from many different manufacturers. Some analysts are even predicting that the number of Android devices in the hands of consumers will surpass the number of iPhones by 2012. This will no doubt attract more application developers to the platform.

However, Android has its own set of challenges awaiting. The fact that manufacturers are free to run Android on devices with very different hardware specifications (screen size, input controls, etc) poses a major challenge for application developers. Perhaps the risk of rendering thousands of existing Android applications useless by releasing a device with dramatically different hardware specs will be enough to convince manufacturers not to do it. Perhaps Google will provide a set of Android APIs that can help application developers deal with this issue. Perhaps a set of best practices will emerge as a guide for developers looking to tackle this issue. Perhaps we’ll see something similar to the PC application market in the mid-late 90′s (and the Blackberry application market today), where only certain devices will be capable of running certain applications. Only time will tell if these issues will prevent the development of the Android application ecosystem.

A killer feature

One wild card that is always in play is the killer feature. Apple’s competitors are only one, innovative, killer feature away from stealing the spotlight for themselves. By “killer feature”, I mean a feature so awesome that when you see it in action, you say to yourself, “I need one of those!”.

Version 2.0 of the Android OS took a stab at this with the introduction of Google Maps Navigation. A fantastic feature, Google Maps Navigation morphs your mobile device into a fully functional GPS unit, complete with a synthesized voice telling you where to go, real time traffic information, and several map overlays showing you the location of everything from ATMs to gas stations. But, is this a killer feature? Frankly, I’m not sure. But, its announcement was enough to cause a significant drop in the stock price of traditional GPS manufacturers, and it certainly has potential.

An incredibly easy to use device

Making devices that are intuitive and easy to use has always been one of Apple’s strengths. Look no further than the iPod for an example of this. Competing devices will need to be as easy to use as the iPhone is to appeal to the average consumer.

How do I get my music onto the device? How to I get the photos I take off? These operations should be simple and intuitive. Motorola’s new Android 2.0 device, the DROID, is seriously lacking in this area. Several steps are required to store data on or pull data off of the device:

For the iPhone, the list of steps is much smaller.

Are the steps required to store data on the DROID too much to handle for an experienced computer user. No, of course not. But, there is still a large percentage of people out there who would struggle with completing those tasks. Believe me, I know. Many are family and friends of mine who I help complete “simple” tasks on their computers all of the time. These people make up a significant portion of the market. If you want them to buy your device, then you have to make it stupid simple to use.

Summary

Apple has set the bar high with the iPhone, very high. While I can think of several reasons why developers and techies would prefer a different device, I can’t think of many reasons why the average consumer would. And, there are a lot more average consumers than there are geeks.

But make no mistake, Apple’s competitors have the iPhone in their sights. The tide can shift very quickly in this market, especially since most people get a new phone every couple of years. Will the iPhone challengers be able make a dent in the iPhone’s market share? Or, will the iPhone be the de-facto standard for smart phones? Only time will tell.

Marketers seeking to develop an iPhone or other Smartphone application as part of their customer relationship development strategies have often gone down the path of determining the iPhone is the most suitable platform; Apple does a lot of the marketing, the applications are easy to access and the iPhone user experience is very consumer friendly.  At some point leading to this decision, marketers logically ask: “Why can’t I pay for one mobile application that will work across every device?”  This question will get posed now even more as Google Android-based Devices like Motorola’s Droid gains traction and becomes a viable mobile application ecosystem in its own right.

This issue is likely to be raised increasingly by top marketers not interested in the details, but who control the dollars and wonder why the rich mobile web cannot be leveraged to achieve the same ends as with a dedicated Smartphone application.  Today I came across a great article that doesn’t seek to answer this question, but does anyway, by describing how close (or far) we are from being able to approach mobile apps with a “write once/run anywhere” promise, like was promoted by Sun Microsystems when the Java programming language debut.

This November 10, 2009 post titled “One Mobile App for Multiple Platforms Almost a Reality” on the ReadWriteWeb.com site points to three approaches which offer the potential to develop a single application capable of running on nearly all devices.  The key qualifier is the word “potential,” however, as a poor Mobile Customer Experience represents a huge gating factor.

The author cites HTML 5, Adobe Flash and JavaScript Native Applications as three approaches, and each has its good and bad points.  I will get to the good points in a minute but the key issues with the first two are the potential to lose a network connection and thus have an application “close” abruptly.  This is a psychological hurdle significant enough to discourage users from these apps relative to ones which are fully operable on a device without a connection.  The latter of the three suffers from a user interface which works for many but is optimized for none; Javascript allows rich applications but that require interface technologies which are general purpose.  These lack a Smartphone app’s native look/feel which attracts consumers to mobile apps to begin with.  Now the good news:

• HTML 5: Think mobile optimized web pages with significant database access, and this offers a lot of application-like capabilities.
• Adobe Flash: Similar value to the above, maybe more so by virtue of greater visual and interactive controls.
• Javascript: Allows creation of encapsulated, self standing applications, which can run on multiple devices.

It goes without saying that customers demand more from a mobile application than they would a desktop one; it must “fit” more in line with their “on the go” behavior and so the design and user experience are as important as any other factor in a successful application.

Given limitations, real or imagined, around the connectivity between a device and the network, and the role a native look/feel has in ensuring an apps’ adoption by its target audience, we are not going to see “write once/run anywhere” mobile apps anytime soon.  Instead, marketers will have to pick their battles, so to speak, based on alignment of their customer demographics with those of Smartphones.

Mass marketing is passé, right?  That has long been the trend, as more companies experienced greater success focusing instead on one to one marketing.  Isn’t mobile the most personal of communication channels and therefore the ultimate expression of customer centric marketing?

These thoughts came to mind upon seeing an article on eMarketer.com today titled, “eMarketer Cuts Through the Mobile Penetration Hype.”  The article debates whether distinctions between “mobile subscriber” and “mobile subscriptions” are material in research suggestion the penetration for mobile ranges between 75 and 90 percent of the U.S. population.  Some multi device owning mobile subscribers may be double counted in estimates using subscriptions as the measure, as in figures published by CTIA – The Wireless Association.

As a marketer, whenever I see presentations illustrating the vastness of the mobile marketing opportunity based on the number of people with devices, I cringe a bit.  By now, it should be common knowledge that the majority of people you would wish to market your products or services to have a mobile phone.  The discussion should instead be focused on (1) who are my customers, (2) how can I serve them better, (3) how can I serve them better via the mobile channel, and (4) what means are at my disposal to do so.

Almost everyone has a text message enabled phone, some demographics more closely align with the iPhone and Smartphones more generally, and soon most mobile device users will be capable of receiving a rich mobile web experience.  The mobile industry does itself a disservice by emphasizing the vastness of mobile device penetration, particularly when talking to marketers who will only achieve results by focusing on relevant and timely interactions with their customers.

For the past decade pundits and casual observers alike have been asked the question: “is this the year of mobile?”  Or stated more clearly, “will mobile as a business, commerce and marketing channel become a really big industry this year?”  Based on the rapid adoption of Google’s Android platform by device makers and carriers alike, 2010 may be the start of a significantly new phase of the mobile marketplace.

Two days ago, The New York Times ran an article titled, “Big Cellphone Makers Shifting to Android System.”  By offering a free, open source, rich platform — unlike Microsoft — and that features capabilities similar to that of the iPhone, Google is doing more than either Apple or Microsoft to accelerate the promise of mobile.  If both scale and capabilities are key to a large potential market, Android seems to be satisfying both requirements.  Consider:

“Twelve Android handsets have been announced this year, with dozens more expected next year. Motorola has dropped Windows Mobile from its line entirely in a switch to Android. HTC, a major cellphone maker, expects half its phones sold this year to run Android. Dell is using Android for its entry into the cellphone market.”

“All four of the largest carriers in the United States have now agreed to offer Android phones.” – even AT&T, home of the iPhone.

“Android is ramping with more manufacturers and more price points. It is going to have a pretty significant impact.”

“Android is free, while Windows Mobile costs manufacturers $15 to $25 a phone.”

“Android has attracted far more applications for consumers in the first year than Windows Mobile has in a decade.”

The article raises the specter of failure, however, given the general lackluster response to the initial three Android devices available.  Still, the marketing and commerce possibilities today will pale in comparison to those available once a majority of consumers replace today’s devices with those supporting a rich end user experience like Android offers.

Marketers with an eye on iPhone applications now should look to partners with diverse capabilities so that application requirements, work flow concepts and user experience plans can be re-purposed for creating versions for Android and other rapidly improving platforms such as Blackberry.

Offering greater reach than any one Smartphone and providing more content than an SMS text message interaction can ever hope to, the mobile web is an appealing component of the mobile customer experience.  Success on the mobile web is a function of developing sites for its unique form factor as well as considering how targeted customers will consume the content – often in tandem with text messaging, as in linking from the message to a browser, or in similar fashion between an application and web-accessed data.

Having been in meetings with businesses considering iPhone development projects, I can say not all view the mobile web this way.  Without a well researched understanding of how a customer would interact with the mobile web and derive value from such interactions, many businesses have been offering mobile versions for some time simply because it makes sense (be wherever possible customers might want to find you, convert your site to size correctly on a small screen).  Next, they are looking at Smartphone apps, iPhone in particular, as “must have” novelties to be pursued quickly via re-packaging existing small form web content into an application “container.”  Smart business people are choosing these short sighted paths.  How could this be?

Today I came across two different articles that help explain the situation.  One, titled “The sad state of the mobile Web gets even sadder,” from an InfoWorld blogger, describes how ill-suited the mobile web today is for application developers – especially those using tools such as Adobe Flash, which  recently has been positioned as a rich app development platform to run within mobile browsers.  It goes without saying (but I will anyway), that this means the mobile web for now is a viable content delivery platform alone, to complement other mobile interaction strategies – it cannot practically be otherwise.   So the mobile web has a valuable place within the mobile customer experience, but as basis or reason for developing a Smartphone application it is not.

The other post, from the TechFlash blog, “Microsoft’s Ballmer: The Internet is not designed for the iPhone,” quotes Microsoft’s Steve Balmer answering the question of whether mobile phones could supplant PCs as the technology of choice for mobile consumers:

“Let’s face it, the Internet was designed for the PC.  The Intrnet is not designed for the iPhone…That’s why they’ve got 75,000 applications — they’re all trying to make the Internet look decent on the iPhone.”

Of course his answer is colored by Microsoft’s position, or lack thereof, within the Smartphone space, but it also illustrates how many businesses are incorrectly viewing the mobile web versus applications.

Without widely adopted best practices for navigating the mobile customer experience based on business objectives, too many marketers are taking siloed approaches to mobile.  No, the internet was not designed for the iPhone, but it can provide a conduit to real-time data for an application designed for the unique form factor of a handset and intended to help a consumer perform some task or make a better decision.  The internet was also not designed for the mobile web, but likewise web content can be a powerful contributor to mobile interaction strategies.  Some businesses are doing it right, like Newser, and others would be wise to follow their lead.

Today I came across this October 13, 2009 article on eMarketer.com titled “Which Smartphones Fill Consumer Content Needs?”  As a platform for rich applications, Smartphones are a great fit and as the article points out they also are being increasingly used to browse the mobile web.  This seemingly bodes well for marketers interested in taking advantage of the unique capabilities of Smartphones as part of their marketing strategies.

Yet, the article mentions an often “lost in the shuffle” player in the Smartphone market; Microsoft, and its Windows Mobile Operating System.  Microsoft recently launched a new version of its mobile platform, to unfortunately unflattering reviews.  The eMarketer.com article more subtly implies the same:

“Smartphones running the Symbian or Windows Mobile operating systems aren’t even a part of the conversation, even though they run on the majority of smartphones, according to the report. These platforms do not adequately support the consumer-oriented functionality that new adopters of smartphones desire.”

That would not be of much consequence for mobile marketers if not for the fact Windows Mobile is currently and for the near future among the most popular Smartphone interfaces. Symbian too:

“In spite of that, iSuppli Corp. expects the installed base of Windows Mobile smartphones to reach 67.9 million worldwide by 2013, putting the Microsoft OS in second position—with Symbian in the lead. Together, the two systems will account for 62.9% of the worldwide smartphone market that year.”

In the U.S. and across the globe, marketers will need to consider this aspect of the Smartphone space as they go about developing their plans.  Understanding the demographics of Smartphone users and targeting applications based on those realities means the ubiquity of text messaging will not be soon eclipsed by applications.