Category: Mobile Marketing

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You to your cell phone: I’m feeling lucky

If you want to watch your friends hyperventilate, just suggest that someday soon marketers will be monitoring their behavior on their cell phones, both in terms of buttons pressed on the device, and places the device is carried. Be kind, though. Resist the temptation, and don’t add that it may already be happening. Right now.

And so you don’t freak out right along with your friends, let me reassure you of two things:

  1. I am not doing this monitoring. No way. Honest.
  2. Those who are don’t care about you. They use totally anonymous data.

They have no interest in what you’ve been up to — if it doesn’t involve legal commerce. Ultimately, all they want to do is make your cell phone more valuable in your pursuit of the next purchase.

Mediapost recently interviewed GoTo CEO Lee Hancock about the future of behavioral targeting in the mobile phone space.

He talks about a world where your cell phone serves up relevant ads and opportunities the same way that (for example) Gmail, the email account from Google, serves us ads based on keywords embedded in our messages. In both cases, an automated process eavesdrops on you to a certain extent, but only in the service of customizing the user experience. It’s a good thing. And, I’m sure, this cell phone behavioral profiling will be something consumers can opt out of once it is refined and deployed for real.

How would this particular type of monitoring improve a cell phone experience? Here is Mr. Hancock’s example:

One way [that] interest, behavior and location [data] could work seamlessly together is: Say someone has downloaded Madonna song ringtones and goes to the movie menu frequently. An entertainment company promoting a new Madonna movie can target based on that content and behavior, but also focus on the specific movie theater near where that user is. Then a Starbucks nearby having a special Frappuccino offer can target their promotion or a Barnes and Noble nearby the theater can promote a new Madonna coffee-table book. Very powerful stuff, but obviously something that needs to be done responsibly.

My take on this is that it shows promise, but I wonder how these messages will be presented to the user. We know that cell-based ads are not drawing strong responses when they are embedded in a phone’s web browser. And I, for one, would not want an SMS (text message) ad showing up on my cell phone every time I pass a Starbucks or music store. No, I need to initiate the suggestion process and be ready to consider the opportunities it presents.

A Modest Proposal

What if my cell phone had a single, additional button. When pressed, it “rewards” me. The reward it sends my way would be customized, as Hancock describes, based both on my behavior and where I am physically.

Please bear with me a moment. I’m going to make another Google comparison to illustrate my point.

When that search engine was new, it usually delivered more relevant and correct search results than competing search engines, including the goliath Yahoo! directory.

Google was boastful. The search page ballyhooed this advantage by providing two “Search” buttons. These buttons remain to this day. One delivers the top ten results, as most other search engines do. The other button is called, “I’m Feeling Lucky.” It takes you to the top result. Period. If you’re disappointed, you always have the “Back” button. But more often than not — especially back then, when the web was a smaller and simpler place — you got what you wanted.

That Google button is not something I use, but I’m sure for many it is like the food lever in Skinner’s classic box we learned about is Psych 101. That lever delivered a pellet of food each time it was pressed. It trained lab mice to associate a reward with this action.

Now imagine I’m the mouse — er — consumer. I’m in a mall, let’s say, and I’ve got a few minutes to kill before my wife returns from a shopping sortie. And I figure: What the heck. I press the button on my phone … the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. And I receive via SMS a list of offers that I am likely to welcome. I may even act on one or two of them.

Will this be a game-changing feature on my phone? No.

But like Dr. Skinner and those lab mice, the behavioral targeting geniuses will have caused me to associate the gathering of this type of data with a positive outcome: The delivery of customized goodies that I truly welcome.

The “Lucky” button will connect me in a far richer way with my surroundings. I’ll receive merchants’ offers, yes, but also, possibly, news about nearby friends who have also opted into the system, or even tips on events in the neighborhood that may have passed my notice.

I like it. The button feels right to me.

How about to you?

Would you press such a button? Are you feeling lucky?

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Mobile phones just want to be free

Your cell phone is capable of doing far more than you realize. Okay, not your phone specifically, but your model of phone could have been manufactured to perform some pretty useful tricks. These include preserving your contacts list on your computer, allowing you to more easily share photos and other media, and even tell you what talking on the device is costing you that month, in real time. What’s stopping this progress is not in dispute: Phone companies are scrambling to find ways to charge for these services.

It’s a story that sounds familiar. Two weeks ago I was fascinated to read all of the takes from readers on my music industry post. Its premise was that CD sales are falling because of a changing business model, and this changed way of doing business might be better served by removing digital rights management (DRM) protections. It’s an appealing idea if you’re Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who recently posted an essay, called Thoughts on Music, proposing this change. And it’s a terrifying idea if you’re a typical music label executive.

Similarly, if you’re Columbia law professor Tim Wu, you call the removal of cool features from a cell phone “feature crippling.” He presented a paper to the Federal Trade Commission last month, where he makes a compelling argument for using legislation to free the phone manufacturers to innovate. Currently, the features they build into cell phones sold domestically are dictated (he would say stymied) by the big wireless carriers: Verizon, AT&T / Cingular, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobil.

Mr. Wu makes his case on his blog, and in an interview on this week’s On The Media podcast. He calls the atmosphere “restrictive” of any significant application innovation, and quotes one mobile application developer who characterizes the atmosphere these restrictions have created as, “a tarpit of misery, pain and destruction.” Working every day with bright, imaginative application developers and designers, I can understand this developer’s frustration. Your cell phone really does want to be free.

The crux is how are these innovations to be paid for? Each new feature requires additional support, and that support has to be offset by increased revenue. And although new features offer an opportunity for greater profits, how do you get consumers to pay for them as a service? This argument was made in the On The Media piece by Chris Guttman McCabe, the VP of regulatory affairs for CTIA, The Wireless Association. He ultimately says regulation should not be imposed because competition and the free market is working in this industry, albeit slowly. Even Mr. Wu admits that although each of the big wireless carriers are restrictive, the degree to which they restrict this innovation varies greatly from one to the other.

It’s a tough quandary. I got extremely excited about the Microsoft Zune when I thought it could allow for the free exchange of music files and podcasts. Then I learned that DRM deals restricted sharing to “three plays or three days,” whichever comes first. After that the file you’ve exchanged goes away, even if it’s an MP3 produced by a struggling garage band that posts the very same MP3, for all the world to trade, online. Similarly, the new Apple cell phone, due for release this summer, is designed to work for only one carrier, AT&T / Cingular. That’s a big limitation.

Meanwhile, as the free market sorts this out, I’m using hacks to play music on my cell phone, and I’m using shareware and an expensive connection cord to sync my contacts list with my computer — even though both use Bluetooth. And if you want to see the photos I took last night? I only hope you use Verizon. Otherwise I can’t text them to your phone. Not at any cost.

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Voice recognition arrives one solution at a time

The Smart ShopperVoice recognition seems to be a theme in my life lately. I just finished setting up Naturally Speaking on my wife’s computer, so she can save wear-and-tear on her joints by dictating instead of typing. Then I read a piece by David Pogue of the NY Times, about another terrific productivity tool: Voice mail services that take your calls and convert them into email text, for you to review, sort and save. Finally, I read about the device pictured here, which allows you to rattle off the groceries you need and have it assemble your marching orders as a finished list.

Someone has already commented on the engadget blog entry where I learned about this device that it will fail. The reason: You can buy a lot of groceries for its purchase price.

As a marketer, I would disagree for two reasons:

  1. The long tail — We’ve observed that nearly everyone listens to music, yet relatively few listen to any particular artist. Some really obscure artists have made successful careers for themselves, thanks to lowered distribution costs.* Because of this same long tail phenomenon, a $150 device will be bought by enough people to be a success, especially because the concept behind it is sticky.**
  2. It helps ease a reviled chore — In my entire life I’ve only known one person who actually enjoys buying groceries. Just one. Everyone else just wants the stuff to magically arrive in their kitchen. Although it doesn’t go that far, this Top 10 New Product winner (at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas) does help family members collaborate on a job almost nobody enjoys.

I predict it will do quite well. I’m also confident that this is the beginning of a trend in technology. There will be more voice recognition tools, helping us get more work done. And more often than you might imagine, they will be combined with the cell phone. Sooner rather than later.

In November I was speculating that some day in the distant future, mobile voice recognition would help automate the construction trade. This past week has made me think this future is closer than anyone might imagine.

*Watch for a post from me later this week on the future of the music industry, as music labels become nothing more than the distribution arm that a recording artist needs to survive.

**Watch for another post this week on the art of making a product or concept sticky. It’s a review of a great book that expounds on the last third of Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point.

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As long as you’re stuck in traffic, can we talk?

Actor, comic and screenwriter Steve Martin wrote the character of God — or at least an omniscient sage — into his 1991 romantic comedy L.A. Story. This is car-centric Los Angeles he’s talking about, so the voice of God wasn’t in the form of a burning bush or an intervening angel, but was the flashing lettering of a freeway sign. Instead of the sign reporting the typical warnings of delays, it gave the lead character personal advice and admonishments. Our star eventually heeds these digital messages, and his own personal heavy traffic magically lifts for a happy Hollywood ending.

Digital BillboardI was reminded of this when I pulled to a stop at a notoriously busy intersection near my home. There, in the muted half-daylight of dusk, was a glowing billboard so rich in color and crisp in detail that it almost seemed to open my door and climb in beside me. I was riveted.

This was a new digital billboard by Lamar Advertising. Both Lamar and competitor Clear Channel Outdoor have posted these LCD boards in my city, along with many others. Over coffee this past Sunday, a friend of mine mentioned the sighting of one of them. They are noteworthy enough that their arrival gets people talking.

It also got me thinking.

LCD billboards grab attention by their picture quality and brightness, and also by the fact that they can rotate ads as frequently as every six seconds. These boards have helped fuel incredible growth in this ad category, called out-of-home advertising. The category is second only to Internet ads in terms of its growth. These boards have also fueled traffic safety concerns, as reported in this recent New York Times article:

“There’s a perception in the advertising industry that you have to up the ante,” said David Zald, assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University. “We see so much information coming at us that for it to actually leap out and capture our attention, one has to go at a more salient level than you used to.”

But, he added, “there’s a trade-off between the advertiser’s need to grab our attention and the actual safety implications of that attention capture.”

It’s a real concern, especially when the signs are new to a particular roadside. But the danger caused by their novelty will fade. Perhaps their introduction can even be made less jarring by slowing the rotation time — less to gawk at, and thus, more time to think about driving.

What really got me thinking was how a formerly analog medium can work harder when it goes digital. I’d like you to consider for a moment a digital billboard that’s smart enough to anticipate traffic speeds and potential dangers. There are a couple of methods being tested now using things like anonymized cell phone signals to better understand in real time the traffic speeds and conditions of pinpointed stretches of road. Using this sort of information, the signs could respond. When traffic speeds up, rotation could be throttled back.

Now take that traffic-sensitive capability a step farther. Remember, these digital billboards have essentially taken a two-dimensional ad medium and added the third dimension of time. Driven by a computer, anything can be served up on a board, and changed at any time (sometimes the computers fail, with comical results).

What if, when traffic slowed to a crawl, a message was flashed that drivers could respond to immediately, with their cell phones. When you’re bumper-to-bumper, it’s easier to manage a phone conversation and still remain safe. This slowly passing line of drivers would be flashed direct response offers that they have the capability — and free time — to respond to immediately.

Anything that eases their frustration with the wait would drive interest and action. As a public service, and as an added incentive to make the call, the end of the recorded message that consumers would hear would be specific information about the cause of the slow-down — an accident, stalled car or construction — along with verbal instructions on what might be done to ease the slowdown.

Is this smart? Dumb? I’d like to know. What do you think? One thing I’m quite sure of. This idea absolutely cries out to be tested.

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iPhone changes several games at once

iPhone and Steve JobsYesterday Steve Jobs showed off Apple’s long-rumored mobile phone. The iPhone combines cell calling with a widescreen video iPod and WiFi-driven Internet communicator. It will change many games.

It will certainly improve the growth of mobile marketing. Apple truly understands how to provide pleasing user experiences, so I suspect that the iPhone’s broad, 3.5 inch color screen will make viewing video and web-based email not only easier, but fun. And the ability to browse your voice mails the same way you do emails will certainly add to the calling experience. Other cell phones would have to struggle to catch up if this interface resonates with users.

But another game-changer will be in movies on demand. David Denby wrote in this week’s New Yorker about how the tiny screen is changing the big screen. Hollywood is scrambling to adjust to a new type of movie viewer, one who is “platform agnostic,” and really doesn’t care if a film is projected in a theater, played from a DVD or downloaded in some form. This person is still in the minority, however. Denby explained that the tiny hand-held video players are fine for movies about talking heads, but the blockbuster, action/adventure films look sad and flimsy. They also strain the arm of the user, as you work to support a tiny player in your hand. Or you have to loom close to it as it rests on something, placing your body into some rather uncomfortable contortions.

The iPhone won’t change this film-viewing limitation, or reduce the crick in your neck. But it will add a new reward to the early adopter — a cool, hand-held analogy to the ever-growing home theater flat screen TVs. It will be perceived as the biggest little screen in town, and will make hand-held screen size an important bragging point.

Denby ends his analysis by speculating that dreary, uncomfortable multi-plexes will have to respond to this tiny threat in a way that can benefit every type of movie-goer. They may have to reinvent themselves, offering amenities and settings that once again make watching a movie in a theater a pleasure . If this comes to pass, no small part of the reason for these innovations will be from the iPhone and its nascent imitators. Many theaters, according to Denby, will even have ushers, to personally remind audiences to turn off their game-changers before the lights dim and the feature begins.