In my last post, I talked about mobile strategy. The point was that things have changed. But not really. The problems being solved remain, and strategy should reflect that. Mobile is simply a tool, uniquely suited to get certain jobs done. Getting it right requires an understanding of the available mobile technologies and usage scenarios. Here are seven that I can think of:

What are the available mobile technologies and how are they currently being used?

1) Mobile ads

Many highly-engaged ‘eyeballs’ in hightly-contextual situations – yes, mobile ads have huge potential. The introduction of iAds earlier this year opened people’s eyes to the possibilities of mobile ads, and Google’s purchase of AdMob proved how big the market is. (Google’s Mobile Ads Now a $1 Billion Global Business)

This excerpt, from an AdAge article, sums up the current situation:

SMS messaging is still the largest ad format in mobile, projected to hit $327 million this year. However, Apple’s iAd, as well as Google’s bet on mobile display through AdMob and its growing suite of rich-media units, will soon unseat text messaging as the primary mobile-ad medium. Mobile search and display ads are expected to pass messaging in 2012. Upticks in mobile search and display also coincides with growing smartphone penetration; Nielsen says there will be more internet-enabled phones than basic-feature phones in the U.S. at some point next year. Search and display also rely on faster and more pervasive mobile-internet connectivity.

2) Appvertising

Distinct from in-app ads, these are branded apps, usually meant for the purpose of engagement or to create a “cool” factor. The benefit here is that the level of interactivity goes way up when you leverage the functionality of the phone’s hardware. (Although, this might not be such a unique advantage with the introduction of iAds.)

The problem is that apps are notoriously un-sticky. What’s more, there are hundreds of thousands of them, so your app has to really stand out, which often means the app itself has to be advertised.

It is my opinion that, as a stand-alone offering, it doesn’t make much sense to have an app that is soley for the purpose of advertising. Though it is being done, and in some cases with decent success. Here is one example: Juicy Fruit’s “Sweet Talk”

Usually, the most successful (and elaborate) of these apps are actually branded gaming apps that take advantage the phone’s sensors and its always-on-us status. For example, with Nike Grid, the idea is to “run from phone box to phone box, street by street across London to claim the most streets in just 24 hours.”

3) Mobile utility apps

Which brings us to mobile utility apps — IMO the most powerful and worthwhile reason for building an app. Earlier I wrote about digital utility. From my point-of-view, digital utility occurs when the app is an addition to the product ecosystem such that it simultaneously creates unique value while strengthening the value proposition of the overall product.

The example I wrote about was Nike+. Nike realized that by creating Nike+ they could bring all the components of the running ecosystem together — shoes, music, data, people — allowing for innovation and thereby strengthening the product and creating a more compelling way to get the job done.

One caveat: the functionality the app is providng has to be truly compelling. The app has to get a job done that legitimately needs being done — not just be a gee-whiz gimmick. If the effort to find, download, and remember to use the app is greater than the need for that job to get done, it’s likely people will not use it. The key here is to find unmet needs or problems that need to be solved to which the solution would not have been possible before smartphones and ubiquitous mobile Internet. I’m sure there are many. Other examples are the Tesco app and Amazon’s price comparison app.

Oh, and one more point to make: the app doesn’t necessarily have to be an ever-green utility. Sometimes the value is in meeting a temporary, but still important, need. For example, the New York Road Runners Marathon App, which allowed real-time tracking of the marathon, went for $3.99, and shot to No. 1 during the race.

4) Mobile websites

You would think this is a no brainer. The number of people accessing the Internet through their mobile devices is growing rapidly. Often they are browsing at times when they are looking to make a purchase. Almost as often, they encounter a clunky, meant-for-the-desktop website. When this happens it’s a pain point in the customer journey; friction is created.

People are looking for information on their phones because they want to buy stuff: MAKE THAT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE. Having said that, please don’t expect people to download and continually use a branded app just so they can see what’s being sold or so that they can locate a store. (See above point about mobile utility.)

Quick info-bites are a job for the mobile website. Mobile sites have huge potential to be better than the actual site because they strip away all the distractions and give you want you want when you want it. There is so much potential to create a great experience by proving easy access to exactly what the user wants.

Other benefits of the mobile web over an app? 1) Stickiness is a non-issue; everyone has a browser. 2) The Web (or at least HTML5) is truly cross platform – iPhone, Android, Berry, Windows, Simian — it covers them all. 3) There is a lot being done with HTML5 — just look at what Google has done with it.

Here are some fanatastic mobile web experiences.

5) Mobile platforms

Does having a mobile presence require building something? The answer is no. The most-used apps are Social Networking and Gaming apps [source]. There are many mobile platforms out there that are leveraging this behaviour and providing ways for brands join in: Facebook, Fousquare, Gowalla, Kite, SCVNGR, GoldRun,the list goes on.

Location-based services, for example, fall under this category. These platforms can be fun, useful and compelling (think loyalty rewards and CRM). Like Facebook, the infrastructure and user-base is already there — and growing exponentially. The hard part is evaluating how your brand will fit in and use the platform to provide value in some way.

5) Augmented reality

Right now, augmented reality is largely seen as a gimmick, although it has great potential for storytelling, service design, and cross-media advertising. Its unique advantage is that it’s a visual bridge between the online and offline worlds. I expect to see big things, as this space develops.

Some examples are Airwalk’s Invisible Pop-Up Shop, where users must go to a specific location to ‘capture’ a virtual special edition shoe; H&M’s interactive mobile display window, which turns the storefront into a game; and IKEA’s Portable Interior Planner, which let’s you virtually arrange a room with different pieces of furniture. These are just a few of many examples where digital information is layered over the physical world to create a better user experience.

6) QR codes

Augmented reality provides a visual bridge between the offline and online worlds; QR codes are like hyperlinks between these two worlds. This space is still very young, but growing rapidly (scanning up 700% this year), and quite a bit is being done already:

Gap Uses Barcodes to Deliver In-Store Info

Gap is using 2D barcodes to connect online user reviews with its physical retail locations. New in-store displays direct mobile users to a ScanLife mobile site where they can see a video of Gap’s Head of Design and read more about the featured Black Magic jean collection including tips and peer reviews.

QR Codes Come to TV

From the comfort of their sofas, mobile-phone users can scan a bar code embedded in commercials on certain evening shows on Bravo and instantly obtain additional information about a product and a discount to buy it.

Slap A QR Code On That Product So That People Can Like It

Facebook like buttons are now everywhere on the Web… But what about when you are walking along the street and you see something in a window that you really like, or in a magazine, or a product you are holding in your hands? … A new service called Likify, created by Belgian company Boondoggle Lifelabs, just launched that allows marketers to add QR codes to products and signs, and then link those QR codes to a Facebook like button.

And it’s not just hyperlinking. Services like Stickybits creates a way for people to attach digital content to physical objects. Why? It allows the object or place to tell a story: who’s been there? what was happening? where has the object been? etc.. You can imagine the possibilities for discovery and storytelling.

What if you could give any physical object a story simply by sticking a barcode on it and appending a message to that barcode? The message could be a photo, a text message, a video, or a voice note. All anyone would need to unlock the message is a phone with a special barcode scanning app.

7) Mobile payments

A one-click point-of-sale that’s always in your hands AND connected to your most complete social graph. Now, that’s powerful stuff! Mobile payments have huge potential — it’s no wonder the big guys are all trying to get in on the action. While an ‘iWallet‘ might not be here just yet, it’s almost certain that it will be in the near future.

Right now, a few retailers are dipping their toes and some are cashing in big time. (In the summer, Amazon announced that its customers now order $1 Billion of products per year via mobile — most of those via smartphones.)

The other form of mobile payments is in-app purchases. Right now the majority of in-app purchases are for virtual goods used in games, but there is no reason to think this couldn’t extend to digital content. (for more info, read: One Third of Top-Grossing iPhone Apps Are Free)

A look at the top-grossing iPhone apps today finds 34 of the top 100 apps are free, but make their money through in-app purchases of mostly virtual currencies as well as other premium features. Remco van den Elzen, CEO co-founder of analytics firm Distimo, said he believes in-app purchases now represent about 30 percent of all iPhone App Store revenue.

So that’s it. Those are the seven ways mobile is being used today. Did I leave anything out? Any thoughts are welcome.

In the past year, and increasingly as of late, mobile has been getting a lot of attention. The stats are impressive; they show how quickly adoption is occurring and shed light on how the technology is changing our behaviour — and business. At the same time, there is still tons of innovation, a lot of hype, and much confusion; it can all become a little overwhelming. Yet, still, mobile hasn’t really taken off, say, in the way social media has.

To grasp it all it might be useful to step back, start with a bird’s-eye view of the situation and work our way down.

What makes mobile technology so powerful?

• Mobile lies at the intersection of the analog and digital worlds. It is the bridge that connects the two. It is unique in its ability to span all channels, and be a tool for interaction with all touchpoints – TV, radio, print, social, web, and retail, in-home, out-of-home — anywhere, anytime.
• Mobile’s ability to connect offline/online gives it great potential for augmenting a product ecoystem and strengthening a company’s activity system — providing digital utility.
• It is a constantly-present concierge that guides the consumer through their path-to-purchase — from awareness and evaluation, to the purchase itself, to the delivery of value, and through to post-purchase support.
• It is always with us, and it contains our most complete social graph.
• More and more is being used as a tool for personal data collection. (think sensors, gps, always-there cameras, etc)
• It allows for hyper-personalization, and is ideal for managing and building customer relationships and brand loyalty.
• It will inevitably be our method of purchase in the not-so-distant future, replacing credit cards, debit cards, and loyalty cards. It will be the point of purchase — across physical and digital channels.
• Capabilities and adoption will only increase with ever-imporoving devices and wireless infrastructure.

Is there a “mobile” strategy?

It’s easy to see that it’s not adequate to think of mobile as just another channel, the way we do social media, or the Web, or TV, or print. It is not a single mass medium; rather, it is many media and channels in one always-on, always-on-us device. It’s a fragmented app universe, it’s the mobile web, it’s social networks, it’s location-based services, it’s text messaging, IM, and phone calls.

Things have changed. But not really. The problems being solved remain; strategy should reflect that. Mobile is simply a powerful tool, uniquely suited to get certain jobs done by leveraging emerging forms human behaviour, facilitated by technology. I’m going to list what I think are some possible “mobile” strategies:

• Leverage the opportunities created by the convergence of online and offline.
• Reward customers for digital interactions by providing physical-word rewards or vice versa.
• Encourage and reward curatorial behaviour (across online and offline); utilize the data to create personalized offerings.
• Encourage and reward exploration — along the purchase path, in-delivery, and post-purchase.
• Encourage and reward collaborative behaviour.
• Reduce friction to obtaining timely, contextual information required to make a purchase decision.
• Reduce friction to completing a purchase by designing innovative point of sale mobile interaction scenarios.
• Integrate mobile into service design to augment and personalize the experience.
• Surface, reward, and utilize rich behavioural data created by social-mobile interactions.
• Facilitate and reward activities that strengthen the value proposition of the product ecosystem.

When reading these, it’s easy to see that many of them make sense on their own, irrespective of if they are labelled as mobile. Again, in certain cases, mobile simply provides a more effective way to get the job done. And, IMO, that’s how any problem-solving mission should be approached: First, what is the job that needs to get done and why? Second, what is the best way, using what we know about technology, human motivations, and corresponding behaviour, to get that job done?

Of course, that requires an understanding of available technologies and usage scenarios. Even those who are convinced mobile is important, may not be entirely sure of all available use cases, how and when to use each, or how these elements fit with everything else.

Continue reading: 7 ways mobile is being used.

Foursquare is rolling out a new rewards platform that, IMO, pushes them miles ahead of anything else out there — including Facebook Places. Their first trial is going to be built on top of Safeway’s existing loyalty program, enabling users to link their Safeway loyalty accounts to Foursquare, and earn rewards from check-ins.

This is huge. Why?

1) It’s designed to handle the scale required for a national retailer. Why? –>

2) Employees are taken out of the equation. It’s seamlessly connected with existing loyalty programs, which means no having to convince the cashier that you can indeed redeem your coupon. (Which also means not having to train thousands of low-level employees — hence the scalability.) This also makes the user experience much more enjoyable.

3) Brand loyalty is more than deals.

Loyalty is about the local merchant remembering your name and order. Loyalty is about getting a sign on a table at Arby’s saying only the mayor can sit here. The foursquare platform allows for that.

4) It’s designed to reward to user behaviour, irrespective of in-store check-ins. The platform takes the opposite approach of most loyalty programs, which attempt to push new behaviour through incentives, rather than reward existing behaviour. How?

When participating customers earn Foursquare’s “Gym Rat” badge, they might be offered a SoBe Lifewater; or, if you often check in bright and early, Foursquare will recognize you’re a morning person, and may offer Tropicana orange juice or Quaker Oats–all specials on PepsiCo products, redeemable at Safeway stores.

5) It provides rich consumer data by going beyond in-store behaviour.

Collecting consumer data outside the venue is incredibly valuable for tailoring an effective rewards experience. Before, check-in services offered minimal insight: users check in at Starbucks; earn and redeem vouchers for free coffee; and therefore drink coffee.(As if Starbucks couldn’t have assumed that about their customers.)

6) It helps brands understand how location drives behaviour.

How can consumer goods makers utilize geo-location? Imagine the potential of Foursquare’s new program: Do we feel like drinking Gatorade after checking in at baseball practice? Do we want an AMP Energy drink when checking in at the library? A Mountain Dew when checking in at the ski resort?

Looks like pretty powerful stuff. It will be interesting to see what kind of traction this gets.

[via Fast Company]

Based on its study of 1,500 Facebook users, ExactTarget concluded that 38% of online U.S. consumers “Like”  a brand on Facebook.

Naturally, this is a question that comes up a lot:

What motivates people to “Like” a brand on Facebook?

According to a study by American Express OPEN Forum, here’s the breakdown of why users might “Like” your brand, illustrated by the percentage of respondents who said that they use Facebook for the listed activity:

• 40% to receive discounts and promotions
• 39% to show my support for the company to others
• 36% to get a “freebie”
• 34% to stay informed about the activities of the company
• 33% to get updates on future products
• 30% to get updates on upcoming sales
• 29% for fun or entertainment
• 25% to get access to exclusive content
• 22% someone recommended it to me
• 21% to learn more about the company
• 13% for education about company topics
• 13% to interact

Also…

• 65% of Facebook users only access the site when they’re not at work or school – typically meaning early morning or evening.
• Women indicate that their primary focus on the site is on maintaining relationships (by a margin of 63% to 54%)

IMO it makes sense that almost 40 percent of people fall under the “I just plain like the brand and I want people to know that” category. Often the brands that do the best on social are those that have a “likeable personality” that people can identify with, and use to define their own personal narrative — brands that help them tell the world who they are.

[via Mashable]