Firstly, Happy New Year from the 303 digital team, may it be a fruitful one for everyone, both in and out of work.
We wanted to get our blog up and running as soon as possible in the New Year, and although this style is just an interim for now, it gives us a simple platform to share new news, thinking, ideas, creative with you from the start of the year. Watch out for the blog changing in style as the year goes on, as we want to open it up to clients and suppliers, and integrate it with the promised new 303 website, which is due in 2009.
We will be aiming to give you new digital news on the blog intermittently, and will feature stuff in and outside of 303. It could be every day, but will more likely be every week; so please take the time to read it as there is such a wealth of new information in the digital space that we should all be keeping a pace with.
There are hundreds of topics we could kick this off with but we are all getting very excited about mobile here in digital so we thought we'd start with that. After what seems like years of waiting... mobile as a marketing and social tool could finally be here.
It was now a frightening 9 years ago that the UK mobile phone brands were asked to pay a combined $55 billion Aus dollars for the UK 3G licence (nice little earner for the UK Government - money they have long since spent incidentally...), but with the arrival of the iPhone, Google Android, INQ and other smart phones - those UK brands, and other telecoms providers around the world may finally start to see some payback from their investment.
The new generation mobile phone is the ultimate multi-media device, and is often no more than a metre from you - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which makes it the most personal device a consumer owns, and therein lies both the weakness and the opportunity.
The long standing concern for marketers has been the intrusion factor of mobile, and it being such a personal device (how many people let their wives/husbands read their text messages for instance?). But, with the arrival of the next generation platform, integration of work email, calendars, youtube, lastfm and facebook applications etc on phones there may now be a genuine step change in the way people see, and use the mobile device. And as such people seem far more open to being advertised to, and at the same time very comfortable using it for 'proper web browsing' and even using as part of their active sales life - and by that I mean using QR codes to download coupons, or turning on their bluetooth to receive content in a retail store.
This has been the case in Asia for a number of years now, and it is only now that we are starting to catch up. Some of our mobile partners have explained the iPhone has created a real shift in the way people see their phones (despite there only being 250,000 active iPhone users in Australia). As consumers have been calling their operators to ask for an iphone because they want to access the mobile web, not realising they've had it on their existing Nokia, Samsung, Sony etc for the last few years...(!). There are now over 20m active mobile phones users in Australia, so we are at 100% penetration, and with over 8m people on the next G network, the audience is there.
We'll undoubtedly see the use of QR codes increase this year, as it's a very cost effective tool to add to existing campaigns, and with budgets being stretched it may be the less costly trials that clients will be happy to push. It's something I hope and expect 303 to trial with ECU during 2009 - giving potential students more information on the Uni by taking a shot from your mobile phone of a barcode on a poster or press ad. There are now over 1m QR enabled handsets in Australia and there's no reason why this won't be 3m+ by the end of 2009, as the handset operators include the readers on the original app list. If you are wondering what they are http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_Code.
However, there is something that might just usurp QR codes - Snap photos. Simply, the user takes a photo of a poster/press ad etc and sends it to a provided address via MMS or email and receives a link back to receive content on their mobile phone, which could be a mobile site, TVC, vouchers, ringtones, photos etc. it basically removes the need to download any application on to your mobile as you are simply using the camera function already embedded. You can trial it using an Apple poster example here: http://www.snapnow.com/corp/index.html
One product for 2009 that should bring smart phones to the lower end of the market is the INQ1, and will look to take on the iPhone and Google Android (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-9811421-37.html) to the smart phone punch this year. The price point will be very competitive (available exclusively on 3 initially) and as such should be very popular. It is a shame they haven't fitted wifi and GPS to it, which will put off many, but it does have some very cool apps that bring your phone contacts together with your social networking world.
FaceBook, Twitter, Skype, Gmail, Yahoo, Messenger contacts and more are merged grouping contacts with the same name or those with similar (ie, ‘Gordon Kelly' and Gordon K' would cause a prompt asking whether they should be merged or not). Consequently, if the user selects any contact they'll have the option to either call, text, email, Facebook, IM, Twitter or Skype call them, even their avatars and statuses are transposed. Early reviews question the usability, but it's certainly one to watch here in Australia soon. http://www.trustedreviews.com/mobile-phones/news/2008/11/13/3-Launches-Brilliant-INQ1-Social-Networking-Phone/p1.
And there is little doubt the smartphones are changing the face of search advertising for mobile, and brands will need to adapt their strategies to reach target audiences browsing on iPhones, Google Android etc, and they will need to provide additional value to the user with unique landing pages and leveraging device based functionality including mobile couponing, click to call and particularly location based services. The ability to integrate mapping into the search is very powerful, and you only have to see the Around Me iPhone application to see the opportunity.
A discussion on mobile wouldn’t be complete without touching on Twitter – definitely the buzz brand of late 08, if you don’t know it; it’s a social networking tool and/or micro-blogging service. Basically, users can either write or sign up to mini updates of up to 140 characters in length. Barack Obama sent endless ‘tweets’ during the Presidential campaign to hundreds of thousands of followers, and continues to do so as we head to the inauguration... http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/internet/0,39044908,62049668,00.htm
Brands have begun using it as part of wider campaign activity, for a review of some of those see here: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/16-examples-of-huge-brands-using-twitter-for-business/7792/. This includes a dabble from Telstra last year, to much derision from the blogosphere: http://www.itnews.com.au/News/85706,telstra-faces-backlash-on-twitter.aspx. We won’t get too excited in Australia just yet, as you can’t receive tweets on mobile here, but if, as many believe Google buy Twitter then that’ll surely change. Although debate about Twitter’s monetization will need to be looked at before that happens.
Plenty to chew on, and I've only really touched the surface here. All thoughts welcome and if you need any more information or want a more detailed discussion with client on mobile just yell.
See you next time.
Nic Chamberlain
