Study: 82% Of Brands Plan To Boost Mobile Budgets Over Next 12 Months

According to a new study by MediaPost’s Center For Media Research and digital research firm InsightExpress, 82% of brands, agencies and other companies plan to boost mobile ad budgets over the next 12 months.

For starters, here’s the quick facts; four in 10 plan to increase spending by up to 30% and three in 10 by 31% or more in the next year.  Fifteen percent expect no change and, surprisingly, another 3% plan to actually cut mobile ad spend.  Half of mobile ad dollars currently come from Online budgets, 35% from cross-platform buys, 27% from funds specifically earmarked for mobile and 8% from TV budgets.

What’s interesting is that ad-spend for mobile is still derived from other ad-based budgets, even though it’s projected that 43% of mobile spending in the future will come from designated mobile budgets as the industry evolves and matures.What’s interesting is that ad-spend for mobile is still derived from other ad-based budgets, even though it’s projected that 43% of mobile spending in the future will come from designated mobile budgets as the industry evolves and matures.

With so much press and enthusiasm surrounding mobile apps, the study found that utilizing branded mobile applications are the most intriguing aspect of mobile advertising, with agencies, brands, publishers, technology vendors and retailers alike all indicating enthusiasm toward the concept.

Another data point that struck me as surprising was the fact that nearly 50% of respondents indicated a strong desire for mobile video as a primary advantage of mobile advertising, followed closely by mobile coupons at 39%- which was also cited as being the most effective in terms of ROI.

Starbucks rolls out largest mobile payments, loyalty play in US

Starbucks Coffee Co. has unveiled the largest combined mobile payments and loyalty program in the United States.

With the Starbucks Card Mobile application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch, users can check their balance, reload their card and view transactions. In 16 select Starbucks stores in Silicon Valley and Seattle and at any U.S. Target Starbucks store—they can actually pay with their Starbucks Card using their iPhone or iPod touch. “The Starbucks Card platform is a cornerstone of our payment and customer loyalty strategy, accounting for over 15 percent of tender at our U.S. retail stores,” said Alisa Martinez, spokeswoman at Starbucks, Seattle. “As a result, we are focused on building the next-generation Starbucks Card to delight our customers. “The iPhone app marries the benefits of the Starbucks Card with the convenience of the mobile phone,” she said. “Our customers love the ease of checking their balance, using bar code payments and reloading their card – all at their fingertips.”

Starbucks Card MobileStarbucks claims that many of its customers told the company that they wanted to be able to track their loyalty Stars on Starbucks Card Mobile, so the coffee giant added this feature to make tracking Stars more convenient. “In our most recent release, which launched this week, we integrated the My Starbucks Rewards loyalty program into the app,” Ms. Martinez said. “This feature allows our customers to track their progress in the Rewards program and earn their way to free drinks with each Starbucks Card transaction.

“Our aim is to link payment and loyalty into a unified user experience,” she said.

Android overtakes iPhone for No. 2 smartphone OS

We saw Android continue to grow and move into second place for smartphone market share,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis and consumer technology at the NPD Group, New York.Google’s Android is second to Research In Motion’s BlackBerry operating system, beating Apple’s iPhone in the No. 2 slot, per NPD Group research.

According to the company’s report, in order to compete with the iPhone, Verizon Wireless expanded its buy-one-get-one offer beyond RIM devices to include all of its smartphones. Based on unit sales to consumers last quarter, Android moved into second position at 28 percent, with RIM at 36 percent and Apple at 21 percent.   “Our findings show that the carriers are very instrumental in determining which handsets and operating systems gain exposure,” he said. “There’s far more handset models available for the Android operating system. “Verizon wireless has promoted the Droid heavily and at a lower price.”

Android on the rise
“The thing you see with the iPhone is that it is just one device, while Android has different devices on multiple carriers and more devices are coming to the market,” said Noah Elkin, senior analyst at eMarketer, New York.

So what does this mean for advertisers?

“It means that there’s a viable alternative to the iPhone and to the apple platform,” Mr. Elkin said. “Apple is getting ready to launch iAd, and the stakes are pretty high.“They may be too high for many advertisers or simply more than many advertisers are willing to commit to a mobile campaign,” he said. “There are a growing number of Android devices and users who are as active as iPhone users. “That makes Android a good competitor and a good alternative to Apple’s iPhone.”

Video is killer app for mobile advertising

Video advertising has proved it can move products and heighten brand awareness in measurable ways, so it will be an integral part of the mobile medium going forward, according to industry experts.

Although mobile video advertising has been in the wings for some time, it now finally feels like it is becoming more of a reality. The rise of smartphones and new platforms like the iPad are moving mobile video forward.

“It is evident from our customer demand that the iPad will indeed be an important driver of mobile video advertising,” said Xavier Facon, chief technology officer at Crisp Wireless, New York.

“The HTML5 video support is mature on all mobile devices sold by Apple, but it is particularly well implemented on the iPad, because it is easy to embed the video window in other content and there are API’s to control and track the events related to the video play,” he said.  IPad and similar devices are expected to drive a significant growth for ads that embed video. Already brands are using mobile video.On smartphone devices, the click-to-video ad unit will be increasingly used because it is a great rich-media ad unit for mobile.

PepsiCo drove awareness and participation in its "Pepsi: The Game" program via a mobile video campaign (see story). During Super Bowl XLIV, NFL Players ran a multichannel campaign featuring mobile video to create awareness and interest in the NFL Players Association and its players out of uniform (see story). In January, in-application mobile video ads from Coca-Cola Co.’s Coke Zero, Miller Brewing Co.’s Miller Lite and Warner Bros. Entertainment’s New Line Cinema outperformed their online counterparts (see story). BMW was able to generate test drives through a mobile video advertising campaign (see story). With more advertisers interested in mobile video and seeing great results, it is logical that there will be more brands moving into the space. “

iPhones Are Less Than 10%, But They Matter...

A major point of discussion with TigerSpike clients these days - especially those with smaller budgets - is the best strategy for mobile apps.

In this article Luke shares the advice he has been giving his clients about why apps are important, and which platforms are key.  Imagine a community with 50 bicycles and 1,000 cars in it (i.e. 5% bicycles). It is logical to put up a billboard next to the community highway rather than next to the community cycle path right? Maybe not. And here is why.

Usage

What if each cyclist uses the cycle path 20 times per day, and each car only uses the road once a week. Over the year the cycle path billboard gets 365,000 views, and the road billboard only gets 52,000 views.

Usability

Now imagine that the billboard on the road is so high that only cars that are convertible can read it, and only 50% of cars are convertible. Now you only have 26,000 views.

The mistake that so many people make – usually agencies I have to say – is that they say “well only 7% of people have iPhones: we don’t want to only reach 7% we want to reach the other 93% as well”.

The problem is you can’t reach those people. The other 97% are only using their phones for calls and SMS; not for browsing the web. So there is no point trying to reach them. You can’t. They are like people who have cars but never drive them, so they will never see your billboard.

What to do

50% of all traffic is from smart phones, and more than half of that is from iPhone and iPod*, so if you have scarce marketing dollars and no mobile strategy yet, just do the following (in this order):

• Build an iPhone app.
• Promote the iPhone app (via other iPhone apps).
• Build a mobile site optimised for high end devices. Forget about the low end ones.
• Promote the mobile site (via mobile media).
• Build an Android app (save money by using the same functional specifications and designs as you did for the iPhone app).
• Promote the Android app.
• Tie it all together with messaging!

And if you were really thinking ahead you would gather all the interactions and learn about the behavior of the people interacting, and then work out how to do things better and better. Luke Janssen is the Founder and CEO of TigerSpike

*Bear in mind that this is the case for the USA and UK markets. In India and Indonesia, which are the number 2 and 4 in terms of total mobile browsing, the handset markets are dominated by Nokia. And when I say dominated, I mean the top 10 handsets in each of those markets are Nokia.

comScore Study: Mobile Browsing More Popular Than Mobile Apps In US

Two reports issued by comScore examine the functions which are most frequently used by consumers on their mobile device. The reports cover both the US and European markets, and reveal that in the US, almost 1/3 of mobile subscribers have used their phone to browse mobile websites.

In the US, 29.4% of mobile consumers use their mobiles to browse mobile websites. This represented an increase of 2.4 points compared to the previous three-month period and made browsing the mobile web the second most popular function after sending SMS messages (64%). A little surprisingly, more people in the US browsed the mobile web than used downloaded mobile applications (27.5%).

In comparison, a similar report published on the European market showed that 22.2% of mobile consumers use their mobiles to browse mobile websites. This was the fourth most popular function after sending SMS messages (83.5%), using downloaded applications (33.4%) and listening to music (22.7%).

Also, these figures vary quite significantly from country to country, with mobile browsing being more popular in the UK (30.8%). Mobile browsing is much less in popular in Germany (17.4%) where using downloaded mobile applications is a lot more popular (33.3%).

A similar trend is noticeable in Spain, which leads in the use of mobile applications (36.1%) and listening to music (28.7%) but has a much lower uptake of the mobile web (19.9%). Another clear trend is that the uptake of non-voice functions is consistently lower among French consumers than other European consumer.

The reports also looked at the market share of the different smartphone operating systems.

It found that US consumers where increasing their acceptance ofAndroid (+5.2 points giving it a market share of 9%). The main losers were Microsoft (-4 points giving it a market share of 15.1%) and Palm(-1.8 points giving it a market share of 5.4%). RIM (42.1%) and Apple(25.4%) remained the dominant players.

Social Networking Represents 60% of US Mobile Usage

According to a recent report from Ground Truth, 60% of traffic on the mobile internet in the US is to Social Networking sites. In addition, mobile specific social networks engage users more than online social networks.

Ground Truth data is from a census of 3.05 million U.S. mobile phone users, and is reported weekly. Ground Truth works in partnership with operators to collect and analyze data while protecting the privacy of mobile subscribers. The service allows operators to optimize their networks, understand their audiences.

Evan Neufeld, vice president of marketing at Ground Truth said, “The disparity of time spent between social networking and the next category, portals, which account for 59.83 and13.65 percent of time spent respectively, is a vivid illustration of the impact social networking has on Mobile Internet traffic in a given week.”

The consummate consumer: Your audience is permanently switched on

Consummate Consumer: Impulsive and ready to interact at the drop of a hat. Who wouldn't want to tap into mobile marketing? 

As the 20th century drew to a close, futurologists predicted that we would by now be using our phones to order our shopping, watch football games and download recipes. While that has proved to be one of the few predictions that has taken longer to materialise than many expected, it is finally becoming a reality - and the opportunities for advertisers could prove significant.

According to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), mobile advertising in the UK has continued to grow quarter on quarter throughout the recession and was worth £28.6m last year, a 99.2% year-on-year increase. That is a tiny fraction of the £1.75bn spent on online advertising in the first half of 2009 alone, when, for the first time, more advertising pounds were spent on the internet than on television.

But Russell Buckley, chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association points out that mobile advertising is expanding rapidly. "Considering there wasn't a market five years ago, you could say it has grown more quickly than the internet in some ways - and certainly along the same trajectory," he says. That growth is likely to accelerate as handsets equipped with new technology, including mobile broadband, become ubiquitous and consumer behaviour changes.

Gartner, the IT research company, predicts that within three years more than half of internet users will be accessing the web via mobiles and other handheld devices. Buckley, who is also vice-president of Global Alliances at AdMob, which places ads on mobile websites for clients, points out that in developing nations like India, where PC penetration is low, the majority of internet activity already takes place on mobiles. "Some countries are effectively already living in a post-PC era," he says. Laptops and desktops are firmly entrenched in the west, but in the future, phones and personal organisers are likely to be the new gateway to the online world.

Ten years ago, using phones to download video clips, listen to music, play games or search the internet seemed a distant prospect. Now, those activities are commonplace. Research carried out by Orange earlier this year revealed the popularity of those practices among all age groups. Over half use their phones to access the internet, 64% send picture messages, 55% play games, 49% listen to music and 26% receive email. Some 87% use mobile media at home, and 73% when they are "out and about". Just under half said they used their phones to access the same sites they use on their PCs and 62% said they wanted their phones to do the same things their PCs can. The worlds of computing and telephony have already merged in the minds of many consumers.

Britain’s Got Talent iPhone App Downloaded 200K Times In 4 Days

The Britain’s Got Talent iPhone app that was developed by talkbackTHAMES digital andMobile Interactive Group (MIG) has reached the number 1 spot in the UK app store thanks to 200,000 downloads in four days. Britain’s Got Talent is one of the UK’s most popular TV shows. The app has all the usual features associated with a TV show app, enabling fans to:

• watch the latest videos,
• access exclusive back stage footage,
• keep up to date with breaking news, gossip and hot stories,
• browse photo galleries of the acts and judges, and
• rate and share information with friends and family.

The app also allows users to participate directly with spin off show,Britain’s Got More Talent during live episodes.

Although it is primarily a means to increase engagement of fans with the show, the app itself is monetized through integrated sponsorship packages.Domino’s Pizza has taken the lead sponsorship, and the app allows consumers to order a pizza for delivery straight from the application. All mobile ads in the app are served by ad network 4th Screen Advertising.

“This year the launch of the App allows us to broaden our digital reach and to entertain and engage viewers on the move, as well as maximizing value for our sponsors and advertisers.” said Robert Marsh, Head of talkbackTHAMES digital.

Translate the real world with Google Goggles

Traveling to another country can be an amazing experience. The opportunity to immerse yourself in a different culture can give you a new perspective. However, it can be hard to fully enjoy the experience if you do not understand the local language. For example, ordering food from a menu you can not read can be an adventure.  Google Goggles will prove useful to travelers and monoglots everywhere: Goggles translation.

Here’s how it works:

• Point your phone at a word or phrase. Use the region of interest button to draw a box around specific words
• Press the shutter button
• If Goggles recognizes the text, it will give you the option to translate
• Press the translate button to select the source and destination languages.

Google Goggles in action (click images to see large version)

Every new release of Google Goggles contains at least one new feature and a large number of improvements to our existing functionality. In addition to translation, Goggles v1.1 features improved barcode recognition, a larger corpus of artwork, recognition of many more products and logos, an improved user interface, and the ability to initiate visual searches using images in your phone’s photo gallery.

Google Goggles v1.1 is available on devices running Android 1.6 and higher. To download, scan the QR code below or go to the Android Market app on your phone and search for “Google Goggles”. 

Tagwhat Debuts Social Augmented Reality Experience, Allows Users To “Tag” The Physical World

I’m a huge fan of the augmented reality (AR) concept and the potential it provides.  With devices becoming more powerful and the technology in place to make it a reality, AR is at the forefront of mobile possibilities.

A shining example of which is a new startup called “Tagwhat,” which made its public debut today to offer what’s its calling “a new augmented reality (AR) experience that fuses the very best of mobile, augmented reality, and location-based social networking services for everyday use and appeal.”

At it’s core, Tagwhat is a fully functional social network, layered on top of the physical world and accessed by “tags” through an innovative augmented reality experience.  By simply holding up the camera view of a mobile device (iPhone or Android), geo-contextual tags from pre-selected friends and community members become visible.

Report: Mobile App Downloads To Peak In 2013, After That It’s All About The Mobile Web

A new report published by ABI Research suggests mobile app downloads from app stores will continue to rise until a peak in 2013, where the Mobile Web will take over as the primary source of mobile interaction.

According to ABI Research data, consumers downloaded some 2.4 billion applications from app stores last year, and the download rate will accelerate over the next few years until 2013 when smartphone downloads are expected to peak at just below seven billion.  At that point, the Mobile Web is predicted to take over.

According to senior analyst Mark Beccue, “App stores aren’t going away: following the 2013 peak in demand, the number of downloads in 2015 will have decreased only seven or eight percent.  But as our use of the mobile Internet evolves, demand will increasingly shift elsewhere.”

Placecast’s ShopAlerts Becomes Official Honoree Of 2010 Webby Awards For Best Use Of GPS Or Location

Placecast, who’s been piling up the awards for its innovative use of digital marketing to drive consumers to physical environments, has been named a Webby Award Official Honoree for 2010 in the “Best Use of GPS or Location Technology” category.

In creating the concept of “geo-fence marketing,” with its unique ShopAlerts location-based advertising solution, Placecast has won numerous awards already this year, including the top prize for innovation given by the National Retail Federation, the 2010 RACie award and “The BIG Minute of Innovation” award, led by the San Francisco Bay Area Interactive Group (SFBIG).

ShopAlerts is built on a proprietary location-based platform that allows advertisers to target consumers based on where they’re at and where they’re going, while maintaining the ability to reach those consumers across any connected device- the Web, email, mobile and WiFi.

Brand Loyalty Is Sinking, Can Mobile And The Likes Of Foursquare Be A Savior?

A new report published recently by comScore indicates a steep decline in consumer brand-loyalty over the past two years, leading the way for emerging concepts such as mobile marketing and mobile social concepts like that of Foursquare to pick up the slack.

The comScore study evaluated the change in brand loyalty within a number of consumer goods categories, including health & beauty aids, OTC medications, apparel, food, household products and housewares. As the economic downturn has continued, the percentage of shoppers who typically buy the brands they want most has steadily declined across the categories examined.  In March 2010, for example, less than 50 percent of shoppers reported purchasing the brand they want most.Social media, and especially location-based social media marketing is another tool that’s highly under-utilized by brands still.  The ecosystem slowly growing around services like Foursquare, Gowalla and others is creating a truly unique opportunity for brands to engage their audience on completely new levels and through concepts that consumers enjoy the most.

Though the use of direct branding through traditional channels was once sufficient in maintaining brand and customer loyalty, the landscape is perpetually shifting.  As comScore’s survey results suggest, consumers are shifting the way they see their favorite brands, and loyalty is decreasing by a sizable rate.  Utilizing in-direct branding through mobile and social media marketing can be a savior for brands if used properly, it’ll just involve thinking outside the box.

Pepsi rolls out multifaceted LBS mobile loyalty initiatives

Loot's a hoot

PepsiCo Inc. has debuted application-centered mobile initiatives to help its restaurant partners inspire customer loyalty and drive consumers to nearby locations. PepsiCo is working on two separate initiatives. There is an exclusive partnership with location-based mobile social networking application Foursquare and the launch of its own Pepsi Loot location-based application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. “Pepsi Loot is what we hope is going to be the first geo-based iPhone application that has a loyalty program associated with it,” said Margery Schelling, chief marketing officer of PepsiCo Foodservice, Purchase, NY. “Consumers on-the-go always have mobile devices with them, and when they are hungry, they can open Pepsi Loot on their iPhone and it shows them every Pepsi location in a certain area.

“The app tells them what type of food each restaurant serves, and they can share details on Twitter and Facebook,” she said. “App users can earn loyalty points by walking in and hitting ‘check in,’ and it’s geotargeted, so the app recognizes that they’re in the specific location and you earn loyalty points. “The Loot mobile loyalty program is available to every restaurant customer in the U.S. that pours Pepsi products—more than 200,000 locations across the country.” Earlier this year, Pepsi launched the Pepsi Refresh Project in an effort to refresh consumers’ perception of the brand, and this application is an extension of that initiative.

How the iPad changes the future of magazines and single-copy sales

Scott Dunlap, CEO of NearbyNow

If you want to understand the effect that Apple’s iPad will have on the magazine industry, you need look no further than the face of a publisher or editor in chief when you put one in their hands. It is beautiful, it is easy to use, and it can represent advertisers and editorial in breathtaking multimedia clarity.
Add to this the quantitative reality of the iPad – Apple expects 5 million will ship by December and application and ebook downloads in the high billions over the next two years, per ABI Research – and faces turn a familiar ghastly white remnant of the Internet circa 1997.
In short, it is here, it is real, and it is scary as all hell. The first question they ask of me, usually after a long pause to catch their breath, is “Soooo … what do we do now?” I have had a few weeks to use the iPad – I am writing this article on one now – and have spent time with iPad owners ranging from ages 12 to 60 to better understand how they discover and consume media from this new device.


As is often the case, you get a very different view of technology talking to people who already have invited it into their lives, rather than those who critique it from a distance. Early conclusions indicate a raised expectation of media consumption and access, and a willingness to pay a premium for it. Herein lies the challenge and opportunity for the magazine industry, in particular.