My Look Into Mobile's Future

Staring at my cell phone this morning I had a vision. I know it sounds a little nutty, but it wasn’t one of these psychic visions – in fact it probably just the result of all of the research I have been doing on this subject. It was more like in the movies where the character looks into the mirror but sees a different world behind it. That’s what happened to me, only it wasn’t a mirror, it was just that piece of glass that shields the LCD screen from being directly pressed against my ear, and the world that I was peering into was clearly the not-too-distant future.

But this is when I realized the opportunity that this future holds.

My vision stared while staring at my Google Map application. I had typed in a local coffee shop to get their phone number, but instead of the typical resutls (address, phone number, etc.), there was also a coupon presented as part of the results. I’ve heard of mobile couponing before. That was not what I found interesting about the vision. What I did find interesting was that it was tied to a particular location, which had shown up as the result of a query I put into my mapping application. Here I was just looking for a coffee shop, but they offered me a coupon… on my phone, for that store, as part of a search! Brilliant! My vision didn’t actually showing me going to that coffee shop and presenting my coupon, but I’m willing to bet I would have gone.

As that vision spirited away, I saw something else. I was reading the news on my cell phone’s internet browser and I was presented a mobile ad (I think it was Spiderman Episode 12 or something). Anyway, I clicked on the ad (I mean of course I did… some mobile ads campaigns have shown click-through rate of up to 10%), but instead of going to a lame static mobile optimized page it opened in my YouTube application and played the movie trailer. Once the movie trailer wrapped up, the phone went back to my browser app and landed on Fandango.com showing the theatres nearest me and the show times. I bought tickets! My phone did all the work for me. I loved it!

(Since my vision this morning, I have come to find out that AdMob, a mobile ad network, is already experimenting with things similar to this.)

My vision ended there, but what I took away from it was this. We are currently there, right at the Mobile frontier. We should learn from the lessons of those who also found themselves on the frontier - like the pioneers during the California Gold Rush. The poor sap that showed up last also went home with empty pockets.

I guess what I am trying to say is this. I am not the only one who is seeing this vision. You have a choice, either you venture into this frontier early (before this vision becomes reality), or be the poor sap that shows up last and goes home with empty pockets.

Posted by Brandon

3:52 PM 1 comments

Integrated Campaign for the San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo has a great tradition of utilizing outdoor. This recent campaign is no exception. It is draped on billboards, buses and trolleys. Vibrant illustrations of mythical creatures such as gryphons, unicorns and sea serpents are paired with the headline, “If they’re not here, they probably don’t exist.” The illustration style is reminiscent of the colorplates you would find in a book published by the Museum of Natural History.

As a creative, I love it. It’s a different direction for a zoo to take in their advertising. And I welcome the lack of anthromorphization that has characterized the recent campaigns. (For the longest time, adding human characteristics to animals in their marketing was big no-no.)

But from a strategic point of view, does this campaign tie into the Zoo’s ongoing commitment to conservation?

When I saw the interactive component, the answer is yes.



The page has web cams of the mythical creatures and they disappear. A headline reads, “Don’t let today’s animals become tomorrow’s mythical creatures.”

A great example of using interactive to complement an offline campaign.

Posted by Anne McColl

4:35 PM 0 comments

Worldwide Internet Ad Spend Grows at Phenomenal Rate

IDC's Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast estimates total worldwide Internet advertising at $65.2 billion in 2008, climbing to $106.6 billion in 2011.

However, compared to traditional advertising, Internet advertising still trails by substantial margins. For instance, it trails direct mail by over $30B, and spending on TV and print ads is nearly twice as much as online ad spending.

The IDC report shows the following:

Keyword ads will dominate Internet advertising through 2011, getting over one-third of the annual online ad spending budget worldwide.

Display ads are next in popularity with over 20% of annual worldwide spending through 2011.

Classifieds are next, with almost 19% of all online ad spending per year.

Rich media ads will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 50% during the 2007-2011 forecast period.

Additional highlights from the study:

The US will lead the world in both total advertising spend and online ad spend throughout the forecast period with expenditures of over $265 billion and $45 billion respectively in 2011.

Over $5 billion will be spent worldwide in 2008 in each of the top four categories of online ads: adult content and gambling, information, electronics, and computing. These categories will continue to lead in 2011.

Source: IDC

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

9:25 AM 0 comments

A cause for celebration

My life changed today. This day, July 11th, 2008. It’s a momentous occasion, an occasion I plan to celebrate for years to come. But like any good occasion, it needs a name. I’m going to call this glorious day “iP app Day”.

You may be asking yourself, “What is iP App Day?” and, “Why, even if I did know what this mysterious day stood for, would I celebrate it?”

Well, iP App Day is short for iPhone Application Day. It’s the day that the first iPhone applications became available to us common people, and it’s a day that I believe will change the marketing forever.

Certainly there have been major advances in phone marketing technologies – but I believe none are remotely as important as this one. Now it’s easier than ever to literally be within one touch of a finger to your customers.

iPhone users can now log into the iTunes store and download custom applications for their phone from such categories as Business, Education, Lifestyle, News, Social Networking, and so on. Now, do not be confused, I am not celebrating the basic unbranded applications that are sprinkled around the application store. What I am celebrating are the fantastic branded applications that will put our client’s brands literally in the palms of the customer’s hands.

Doing a cursory search around the “store”, I see brands like EBAY, Travelocity, Twitter, FaceBook, SalesForce, Frommer’s, and the MLB – I’m sure with hundreds of brands to follow. I stopped in at the Travelocity store, where I found a handy tool to pick up. It was the Travelocity Gnome app. I said to myself, “What the heck. I’ll throw him on my phone.” After all, he was free!

Besides, he’s handy to have on my phone. I don’t travel a lot, but I could see how it would be cool to be able to check flight times on the go, book a flight, or check security wait times. I could see how many of these applications could be handy… but I don’t think that’s the whole point.

I’ve looked at my phone now a few times in the past couple hours and every time I see that welcome screen, there it is, the Travelocity app staring me in the face – and that, I think, is the point. Sure it will lead to increased bookings, etc., etc., but every time I see that app there, it’s just a little more brand enforcement. It’s benignly advertising to me… “Travelocity, Travelocity, Travelocity”. Who do you think I’m going to think of first the next time I have to book a trip?

All that aside, I can see amazing opportunities on the horizon. How long will it be before Pizza Hut offers an iPhone application to order pizza at the touch of a button (With the new GPS functionality of the phone, you likely won’t have to even type in the delivery address - the phone will send all of that information for you), or Wal-Mart has their weekly coupon book available as an application.

I could go on and on, but do I really need to provide any more reasons why we should all be celebrating “iP App Day”? Let’s break out the balloons!

Posted by Brandon

12:50 PM 0 comments

The Road to the New Dew

Has Mountain Dew joined the ranks of CNN's Ballot Bowl and MSNBC's Race for the White House?

It’s hard not to get inundated, especially in our industry, with social media. Clients ask: how do you rate social media and viral marketing as successful? If it gets people talking about your brand, engages them in an interesting and relevant “with the times” manner, instigates action among a network of people, and in this case - got me to venture back into the land of unnaturally yellow drinks.

Yes, Mountain Dew. I used to love them; I am actually not sure why I haven’t had one in years. This time, they aren’t yellow, and I was persuaded by compelling TV commercials during election coverage. You know what? I DO want to take the Road to the New Dew.

While this site seems to have been around for a while already, no matter – it’s acceptable to stay undecided up to a point. Apparently Mountain Dew had its own Primary season, with interactive games for users to create the 3 final flavors (Flavor, Color, Name, Logo, Label) which somehow all ended up with gingseng in them. Now is decision making time… I am sure we are all a little OD’ed on politics, so why not take a break and campaign for a new energy drink (we all need them and love them). And rest assured, a 3rd party isn’t going to screw things up for the rest of us.

Things I like:
Witty campaign news ticker, state-by-state results, campaign count-down clock.
You can create an video without too much effort – just pick & arrange the elements.

Things I don’t like:
You have to have the MyHtml app on facebook to post campaign posters.

All three flavors are available this summer in case you want to become familiar with the issues before committing. I guess the worst outcome would be that the winner just tastes bad, no matter how cool the campaign was. I am supporting Voltage on flavor alone until I can make it downstairs to the 7-11 (Plus, the logo looks like the Las Vegas sign).

Last but not least, please click on my campaign poster to check out the dewmocracy.com site (and help me become a Recruiter of the Week)!

Posted by pilar

10:53 PM 0 comments

Gestural Computing

Virtual nods to Steve Prentice from Gartner for his paper "Gestural Computing: The End of the Mouse" referenced in this month's eWeek in an article called "Whither the Mouse?" by Scott Ferguson for the inspiration for this post.

For a moment, think about the multi-touch screen from the iPhone and the wand movement of the Nintendo Wii. Then, layer on facial recognition technology, electrical activity in the brain, etc. We've had the touchpads from laptops and that funny little eraser-head thing in the middle of keyboards for a while. We've also had fun with the webcam feature that lets you put animated hats, masks, etc. on people in real-time in video. All of these things are either here or close to here in some way or another and we are on the cusp of all of it coming together whether it be in Windows 7, or otherwise.

Right now in our industry, we depend on a mouse for a lot. We, at times (and should more than we do), make accommodations for ADA compliance, but, for the most part, we rely on a user's mouse (and only one of the available buttons) to help them navigate what we produce. Our jobs are about to change; usability and creativity is about to jump to a whole new level. Are we ready to make this leap? Are we ready to accomodate for the next generation of navigation? Imagine all the new fun we can have when users are flipping away at our sites and applications as Tom Cruise did in the Minority Report. It's an interesting time to be us.

Posted by Reid

6:13 PM 1 comments

Search Engine Indexable Flash Sites

As reported on TechCrunch, Adobe now provides a way for search engines to read SWF files and index all information contained therein. Therefore, any text or link in a Flash application can now be indexed.

Evidently Adobe is releasing technology to Google and Yahoo enabling them to crawl and index SWF files, making them searchable. This will give searchers access to millions of Flash files.

As pointed out by TechCrunch, this will not take Flash sites to the top of the SERPs any time soon because in the past, Flash files were difficult to find and link to.

Source: TechCrunch

Posted by Paul J. Bruemmer

11:01 AM 0 comments