Over the course of the last several weeks the graduate students in my Mobile Media class at the University of Washington have been seeking out and participating in dozens of mobile marketing campaigns. The idea is to get out there and experience what marketers and designers are doing to engage people via their mobile devices. And what an eye-opening experience it’s been!
“Is mobile marketing really so hard that it leaves today’s digital marketers fumbling around trying to get it right?”
Reading through their blog posts (students are required to blog about the campaigns they experience) I had sense of growing disappointment. So many of the campaigns they were trying, which leveraged things like 2D barcodes, apps, SMS and MMS, simply didn’t work. That is, the student’s experience on their phone was completely broken. In one example, Reebok promoted a new woman’s shoe line in Shape magazine via a SnapTag which, when sent in using MMS, resulted in an SMS containing only a link to a YouTube.com video. OK for some smartphone users but anyone else is out of luck. Another campaign – this one by Ski Utah – offered a look at their “amazing deals” via their QR code, which directed you to their regular Internet site; a very broken experience for anyone not using an iPhone or other smartphone. In fact it didn’t even work on those devices. I was becoming disappointed and a bit embarrassed. Disappointed by all the failed experiences and embarrassed by fellow marketers who can’t put down their iPhones.
The lesson: User experience needs to be considered for all mobile devices, including smartphones.
The students, not all of whom carry smartphones, wondered aloud if mobile marketing is really so hard it leaves today’s digital marketers fumbling around trying to get it right. The answer is no, it isn’t really that hard but it takes some planning; you can’t just slap a 2D barcode on your magazine ad and call it a day. Sure, that approach may seem to work just fine on the Senior Designer’s Motorola Droid but he is the vast minority. Smartphones as a category only make up around 28% of all mobile users in the U.S.* and only a portion of those devices have the large screens for Internet browsing and can play flash video. Good mobile marketing/design gives a great experience to the smartphone holder but acknowledges the majority of non-smartphone holders as well by providing an experience appropriate to their device.
A quick how-to:
Knowing that your customers will be accessing your site from their mobile devices (they’re trying even if you’re not telling them to) you start by planning for some level of ‘graceful degradation’. When your site detects a mobile device, just as it would a regular browser, the elements that get rendered should change according to the capabilities of the device. However, with hundreds of devices it’s nearly impossible to accommodate each one individually so try this: create two mobile sites, one for smartphones and one for everyone else. (There are companies like Knovolo who can help you do this.)
So, marketers and designers, put down your smartphones and plan mobile efforts that work for the majority of mobile users.
*Nielsen, November 1, 2010
Hanson -
Since QR is such a fragmented and therefore confusing and somewhat unreliable technology, the most important decision when employing 2D arcades is to commit to Microsoft Tag over QR. Once you’ve made that critical choice, yes, think long and hard about the user experience and make certain it’s as ubiquitously mobile-optimized as possible.
2D barcoding is going to explode in 2011 its going to be exciting to watch it develop.
I cannot agree more with the proposed solution to create 2 mobile sites, one for smart phones and another for everyone else, and I still don’t understand why marketers have failed to keep up with mobile browsing in all of its forms and devices. There are over 4.6 Billion mobile devices in use worldwide today, 28% of which are smartphones (according to the above). If you do the math, we are talking about nearly 3.2 Billion mobile devices that marketers are not accommodating/reaching; a huge missed-opportunity, especially when we figure in that Mobile web growth is happening 5 times as fast as the Internet, and that Mobile data traffic is expected to rise over 40-fold over the next five years!
I agree with the idea of having some planning in Cell phone campaigns. Thinking that everybody has access to a smartphone seems to me very utopic. Talking with some people of the emerging markets class, I realized how far we are from developing countries in terms of cell phone use and cell phone campaigns. In those countries where cell phones are the most used technology they are doing great things with it (much more innovative and creative than us). I think that they could teach us how to be success with cell phones and bring us some advice of how to deal with this tool.
Feature phones aside, I would be happy if marketers would see that there is more to the smartphone market than the iPhone.
I am especially tired of iPhone apps. The App Store is flooded with apps, and few are significant. But entirely too many companies would spend north of $100,000 to create an iPhone app, and be left with no budget for anything else. Are iPhone users their only target demographic? Do they even fall within their target demographic at all? These iPhone apps so often end up being a waste of time and money.
I appreciate the frustration the Class experienced undertaking their project, and capturing those moments through a class blog was a great idea. I deal with marketers all the time that are equally frustrated, and confused about how to effectively undertake mobile marketing campaigns. The Gowalla’s and Foursquares, Places, and demands of “An App for that” paralyze them with indecision.
Marketers are begging dumb phones somehow do smart phone things and seem at a loss as to how to “crack” the emerging market mobile opportunity without when the majority of devices are not connected to the internet. In many cases local markets have to design these experiences because how a phone is used is as much cultural as it is technological.
Having said that, my view is that marketers should design web experiences for the mobile device: mobile browse experience, mobile form factor experiences based on touch, and finally App experiences. 28% market share of smart phones is significant in itself because IT IS billions of people. An the growth will only accelerate. By focusing on smart phone users, one may miss an important segment of the market but they are likley to be touched in different ways through different media channels. Smart Phone platforms are the only way present brand-building and utilitarian experiences to consumers. For example, gaining experience with good QR code technology now like Microsoft Tag will enable an organization to acquire the institutional experience it needs as smart phone penetration accelerates to 50% over the next 5 years. So I say, 28% today is already enough, and 50% tomorrow is more than enough, so look forward and create campaigns on smart phone platforms from a short list of technologies.
Fantastic view at a new yet old problem. I remember working on websites where the client knew the majority of their customers were on dial-up even when high-speed was the norm. We tailored the site for that demographic even though the marketing itself wasn’t nearly as beautiful or interactive as it could have been. Similar issues must have presented themselves at the advent of radio and television as well. Marketing campaigns are increasingly complex, and it seems this is another iteration of that.
The point about emerging markets is a great one. Sometimes even more innovation comes from working with less instead of the market just driving folks to conform. Clearly there is not a one size fits all answer, but with the great expansion of cell phones throughout the world, it is a wonderful opportunity for many companies and small businesses to reach a huge audience. The developed world may continue to have innovation lead to adoption of new technologies, but the emerging world may instead use innovation to work within old technologies…at least for a while.
Thanks to the Mobile Marketing class for letting us in on this experience!
I found it fascinating how many mobile campaigns simply don’t work as part of the mad rush to “get it mobile” without properly thinking out a strategy and even well-developed software beforehand. It’s the same thing we see with social media campaigns in general. Companies see that everyone is doing it, so they scramble to get in the game without planning it out first. It smacks of trendiness, honestly. At a previous job where I worked with bloggers, many bloggers wanted to create an app of their blog once smartphones started becoming popular. While in some cases it might have been a valuable outlet for users, if you only have 30 readers anyway your resources are probably better served improving your content rather than creating new means of sharing it. Like any new social media tool, mobile apps and campaigns should be employed because for their merit to the overall strategy, not just because it’s hip and new.
At first, I disagreed with this post. Why would marketers want to keep investing in “dumb” mobile campaigns? (I say this with affection, just trying to differentiate) Smartphones are such a high-growth segment of the mobile market right now, outpacing “dumb” mobile devices 2 to 1. Recent projections for 2010 Q4 have even accelerated smart mobile growth worldwide, saying maybe even up 95% year-to-year. Not to mention the fact that smart mobile marketing can deliver on experience while – let’s face it – dumb mobile campaigns clutter your text message inbox.
But I eventually came around. While I wouldn’t dismiss smartphones as only 28% of total mobile devices (that is, after all, 1 in 3 users and growing), the numbers behind mobile marketing – across both smart and dumb platforms – is remarkable. 3 to 5 times more effective than online marketing? Opt-in SMS mobile marketing alerts can impact 1/3 of consumers who’ve signed-up?
I forgot that while the small screen (and not necessarily one powered by a sexy, smart OS) may be mobile marketing’s biggest obstacle, it’s also its biggest asset. It focuses target audience directly on the message at hand, providing a seamless call to action. This unique aspect of mobile that’s shared by both smart and dumb platforms give me a reason to believe that dumb mobile investment is still worthwhile, even if dumb devices can’t compute those uber-hip QR codes.
I had an opportunity to join a seminar on mobile yesterday and naturally smart versus feature versus dumb came up. General thinking in the marketing space is a strong focus on Smart phone marketing development and a view that, although sites should be optimized for mobile web browse experiences, more granular site tasks — especially those that would benefit from os and hardware access — would be better built as apps consumers intall on their phones. HTML5 is expected to revolutionize the online browse experience on mobile but due to limitations in accessing hardware and PII services like ones on-phone calendar, contact list, as well as hardware accelerators and the like, web browsing will remain less than 1/3 of time spent online via mobile. The remainder of internet time will be via applications.
When marketers launch campaigns that can only be accessed by these smart phone users, it just simply deprive the desire of a considerable part of consumers from fostering their loyalty to the brand.
I am using iphone now, but I was a anti-smartphone person before, I just don’t like smartphones. But does that mean I am losing the chances of getting closer to the market? I felt a little bit insulted.
I totally agree to create 2 mobile sites, and I agree with Lisa that marketers should not do mobile campaigns or use mobile apps just for their own sake, even if there are good reasons to do that, remember to leave an access for the non-smartphone users.
Nowadays with the pervasiveness of android and the advent of MS Win7 mobile platform, it would be a travesty if marketers continue the path that they have been taking by only developing worthwhile applications for iphone. 24 months ago that business model seemed sound but with other smartphones coming into the fray, and by the rate at which they are coming in, it would be shortsighted of them to not develop applications that are ubiquitous across the platform.
To comment of Marina Ferrer comment, it is true that the ‘emerging countries’ are utilizing their smartphones to its full potential more than the ‘westernized’ countries are. But what we must bear in mind is that it is inevitable that trend will exist. The ‘west’ has had the privilege of telecommunication since its invention; from landline, to paging and now to cellular phone so they have had the time to build the infrastructure for the entire communication medium. In other words they have had, and continue to have options for a long time yet.
However, most of the ‘emerging countries’ such as countries in the west Africa; Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon etc, first taste of telecommunication was cellular phones. They went straight from nothingness to using mobile phones and therefore do not have the privilege of multiple telecommunication infrastructures as they have in the west. The effect of that situation is that they rely heavily on the use of cellular phones and as such they have devised multiple applications with their cell phones……more so than the west.
This experience reminds me of Kathy Gill’s smartphone applications class this past summer. We evaluated dozens of iOS apps and found that many marketers celebrate the fact they have an app and compromise on functionality. We also found that some companies have simply rewritten what is already available on their site into an iPhone app just so they can advertise the fact they have an app. It’s always refreshing when a company comes out with a truly novel idea for a mobile app that actually makes sense.
I agree with Lisa Kennelly and think that we’ve seen a lot of the same trends with mobile that we’ve seen with other Internet related marketing campaigns. There’s always a big push for marketers to be at the front lines of technology yet they often don’t have the needed skills or budget to properly plan and execute innovative campaigns.
A few days ago I heard about Google Hopot and a new technology called Near Field Communication (NFC) that promises to be the next hot topic for mobile marketers. WebProNews.com recently announced that Google will soon be testing NFC-enabled window stickers connected with Hotpot in Poland. To encourage customers to rate the businesses, they’re offering a chance to win the “Hotspot Jackpot”.
It’s amazing to me how mobile marketers don’t see the big picture. They don’t see past the “call to action” and fail to understand what’s on the landing page is just as important, if not more important, than the call to action itself. They are forever linked. And not giving full thought to your consumers’ experiences once that take the bait so to speak is just bad form. Mobile marketing presents so many unique opportunities, but it’s the marketers’ responsibility to make sure point A leads to point B. It’s not enough to convince somebody to click point A and leave it at that.
So what’s the solution? My hunch is many mobile marketers aren’t treating these projects like they treat print ads, billboards and television spots. Which is crazy! These need to be put into the marketing mix alongside your other projects. If integrated marketing is the goal, it starts with the goal and ends with the execution. For some reason, companies aren’t making this connection.
A great example of strong mobile marketing was Paramount’s 2010 campaign around the newest Shrek movie. The project yielded a 6.2 percent click-through rate by targeting iPhone users on the Yahoo! homepage. The ad featured slick animation and users who tapped Shrek’s head were given icons for tickets and showtimes.
Users who click something want something. It’s that simple. Understand this and you will go far. Don’t trick them into clicking your advertisement just to tell your boss you got X clicks. Once they click/tap your ad, they’re in. Make the sale. Hook, line and sinker.