For a long time it’s been clear in my mind where mobile advertising is heading – firmly in the hands of handset manufacturers. Google and Apple now have their own ad networks meaning the two user experience juggernauts will own where the ads come from as well as where they appear.
I keep banging on about the opportunity they have to ‘redefine’ mobile advertising and ’start from scratch’. What I mean by this is that the limitations of many current methods such as SMS, MMS, Bluetooth and banner ads can be erased because the manufacturers can make up completely new ad channels that utilise features of the phone. And because this will be achieved by using data rather than messaging, it allows for better value for advertisers using CPC, CPA and CPM. All this has influenced the following concept..
The Concept
On device semantic SMS advertising would turn every SMS the user ever sends or receives into an advertising opportunity for the manufacturer. At first that might sound massively intrusive but it’s all about the execution.
The thought that spawned this concept was making advertising so useful that it could change its perception in the eyes of the user so they wouldn’t even question its placement on the phone. I wanted to blur the lines so the user would see it as a tool rather than a direct ad channel.
It works by recognising keywords or the meaning of the sentence/conversation within an SMS and adding dynamic functionality to those words. For example, your friend asks you if you want to go to the cinema, the word ‘cinema’ would be highlighted and clicking it would reveal cinemas in the area.
Within a few clicks you can find out film times and buy a ticket, all within the device interface. This purchase can be tracked and the manufacturer gets a cut of the profits.
I found this old concept while going through some old files, it’s over 4 years old but I thought it would be quite appropriate following this article on how high street estate agents are in decline due to the increase of online property sites. At the time there was no one offering this solution.
[Mock up of MMS enabled print property listings]
Way back in 2006 I was on the hunt for a flat in London, the shit was yet to hit the fan with the economy and house buying was frantic in the city. It was common to be waiting in a queue once you got to a property and some people put offers in without even a single viewing.
Newspapers were saturated with property sections, with estate agents taking out 1 or 2 page spreads which listed either premium or local sellers. Online property sites were popping up all over the place, each claiming better features than the next.
It was all pretty hectic with a ‘if you snooze you lose’ mentally. With all this activity, mobile was barely involved, a few agents started SMS alerts later in the year but mobile was nowhere to be seen.
The previous post about using Augmented Reality at football matches got me thinking – what information would I want instant access to at a football match?
I quickly knocked together these mock ups while it was still fresh in my head. Things like stats and video highlights from the game would be great, especially when you miss a goal or chance because you left to go get a burger.
You could even take it a step further and add voting functions for man of the match or some sort of social network integration (which I haven’t quite thought of yet).
Can you think of anything else?
The statisical data would come from live XML feeds such as ones by Press Association. Tracking players isn’t as hard as it sounds, there are some (amazing) technologies like Stats.com Player Tracking:
STATS utilizes a sophisticated technology software algorithm to collect the X/Y positioning data of the ball and participants (players and referees) within the playing field in real-time. Complex algorithms are employed to analyze the accumulated data streams and compile meaningful information and insights with incredible precision.
[Click to enlarge images]
Here is another concept I found in my sketchbook, this time using NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. NFC is the technology behind cashless ticketing systems like the Oyster Card in London or contactless credit cards such a Visa Wave.
According to Juniper, NFC mobile payments will exceed $30 billion by 2012, this growth will be supported by marketing tools such as coupons and smart posters.
There are big expectations for NFC and mobile. The simplicity for the consumer is one of it’s biggest advantages, you simple need to move your NFC device near the transmitter to interact. Unlike Bluetooth or Wi-fi, there is no need to enter passwords or pair devices. Read More
As you may have noticed in the last couple of years there has been a surge of popularity in online discount vouchers in the UK. A week doesn’t go by without a voucher for Gap, GBK, Ask, Urban Outfitters or H&M landing in my inbox. All you have to do is print them out and take them in-store. Sites like Money Saving Expert are visited by millions looking for discount vouchers to download.
Voucher Background
The peak of the craze was in December 2006 when Thresher’s saw its ‘40% off all wine and champagne’ voucher downloaded and printed by millions of people and was so popular that it made the news. The following year they relaunched the offer.
Since then printable vouchers have exploded and been in constant supply from top high street retailers, in fact I’m holding a 30% one for Gap right now. If you head over to the discount section on Money Saving Expert you can literally download hundreds of different printable vouchers from restaurants to shopping.
At first the vouchers were either PDF or JPEGs that just circulated around via email. Many had a space to fill in your details such as name, age but you never had to fill them out to use them (or they just weren’t enforced properly). Often you don’t even have to hand the voucher to staff, simply display it.
Now it seems these companies have realised that they could be capturing the information of thousands of consumers. This means that store and restaurant websites are requesting some information before allowing to download vouchers such as name, age and email address, some are making it compulsory to sign up to newsletters or become website members. This allows the company to keep the customer updated on new offers, products and news.
A couple of things to note about these printed vouchers is that they almost always contain no unique numbers or barcodes. After asking a few stores about the process, they simply said that staff are told the length of the offer, the button to press on the cash register to apply the discount and to put the store receipt in a separate pile to be counted later. How old school is that process! We are talking about massive chains like Gap here. This is perfect for mobile. Read More
Sometimes it’s the simplest little user experience things about a phone that I get the most joy from. Things like holding down the ‘#’ key for a few seconds to make the phone silent or getting a call duration timer displayed on-screen while on a phonecall. One of the greatest has to be predictive text messaging, it works so well that I can text without barely looking at my phone.
However there is one thing that always annoys me about predictive text, it’s when I get a new phone having to once again ‘teach’ my phone hundreds of words which are unknown in its SMS dictionary. Phone contracts are 12 to 18 months, that’s a lot of time to input the foreign first names, swear words, street names and slang that are in your day to day texting life.
The predictive text and dictionary function on your phone is technology called T9 (you can often see the logo on the screen as you type) and patented by a company called Tegic Communications. Amazingly T9 is used on phones from LG, NEC, Nokia, Samsung Electronics, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, Sanyo and Sagem however none of these have the function to easily move your dictionary between each other.
It would be great if you could have a ‘Transfer Dictionary’ option, this could be done via Bluetooth, Email etc just like the ‘Transfer all contacts’ function. I’m sure there are some technical issues with lower end budget handsets such as dictionary size but I don’t see why smartphones can’t already do this.
Over the last 4 to 5 years a monster has been slowly created as mobile phone companies make their phones better and more feature rich. Mp3 and loudspeaker capabilities have now become standard in even the most budget models meaning that every kid and teenager is armed with a mini annoying ghetto blaster.
If you live in London you have no doubt seen teenagers on the bus, train, wall outside the off license playing crappy sounding tunes from their phones. Ever wondered why they do this when the phone probably came with headphones/handsfree? Read More
The social news site Digg has recently launched an innovative advertising system where users vote on adverts to make them more popular.
If you haven’t heard of Digg, it’s basically a news portal where the community votes on stories and content from around the Internet. The more popular the story the higher it appears on Digg until eventually it appears on the front page. Imagine the BBC website with all the stories on the front page there because viewers voted on them. Alternatively if Digg users dislike a story they can ‘bury’ it, making it go further down the pages.
The same principle applies to ads now appearing on Digg. If the community likes the ad more people will see it, if not, it gets buried and no one sees it. Essentially your recommending it to your fellow users by voting it positive.
This is really interesting because you’re immediately challenging the advertiser to create an engaging ad campaign for the audience. If the brand goes in half hearted then not only will they lose money but the attitude of 2 million plus Digg members could take a negative turn against the product/company.
I think this probably works best for viral types of advertising, I can’t imagine people voting up the launch of a new breakfast cereal or shampoo. Viral ads like the Nike ‘Ronaldinho R10‘ or John West ‘Bear Fight‘ video could be the way to conquer it. I would certainly hire one of the most active Digg users to consult on my ad.
Another problem is relevancy. Ads that appear are based on other peoples votes which could lead to hugely inaccurate results for the end user.
However assuming some funky algorithm is involved and I only get shown ads from people who are my friends and those who have voted on the same types as story as me (Sports, Technology, Gaming etc) it could be positive or negative. Just because you and me vote up the same type of news stories/online content doesn’t mean we like consuming the same things. Even if I myself voted on video about a basketball player scoring from the halfway line on the buzzer. It doesn’t mean I want to be sold the latest basketball gear. I don’t even like basketball, I could have just appreciated the shot.
I think socially recommended ads can be great, I’ve found through research in consumer testing that things to buy that are recommended by friends are much more trusted than those recommended by sites like Amazon. Check out the example below, which products would you be more likely to click on? (privacy considerations aside)
Mobile banking has come a long way over the last few years with the majority of major UK banks offering SMS alerts and a select few offering full control of your account via mobile applications.
The SMS alerts are really useful, I can now see instantly when I’m overdrawn or received payments into my account as well as my weekly mini statement. However the one thing I need the most is to be able to check my balance without having to make expensive calls from my mobile to the banks call center.
By 2010, upwards of 70 percent of US bank center call volume will come from mobile phones. Half of those calls will be related to very basic balance inquiry information. The benefit to the bank by providing SMS balance enquiries is simple, it saves them money and allows them to provide a more efficient service. Read More
Over the last few days I have been trying out Spotify as I was really interested in seeing how it uses audio ads to fund the service.
If you haven’t heard of Spotify it’s a free music streaming program (imagine iTunes with all the content in the Store being free) with over 3 million tracks and 1 million users since launching in February. You can’t download songs but you can listen to as many as you want.
So what’s the catch? Audio ads play at the rate of 4 to 5 per hour plus a few banner ads on the program itself and if that bothers you there is a paid-for premium service at £9.99 per month.
After listening for a few hours and trying all the features of the service I was amazed that you get so much for such little ad exposure. I would go as far to say that even 7 to 9 audio ads per hour would be fine. The ads themselves are pretty polished and low on annoyingness, it’s cool that the banners in the program change to match the audio ad when playing.
Audio ads are usually some of the most disliked by consumers in my experience through focus groups. Pandora famously conducted a trial in 2007 serving an McDonald’s ad to just over 100,000 users, with 100 writing in to complain and far more complaining around the web. Pandora decided to halt all advertising until announcing in January this year that they will start serving ads again. I’m guessing the great execution of audio ads on Spotify made them have a rethink.
So why did it work for Spotify and not Pandora originally? Read More
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, it’s only a matter of time before we see Facebook utilising user location via its mobile site. I think it fits in perfectly for status updates done on the move on WAP or SMS, even for mobile uploads.
Friends could glance at their newsfeed on the go and see where friends are, potentially this will be far more useful than Google Latitude as not all my friends have a Gmail account or compatible Latitude phone whereas all of them have a Facebook account.
Obviously there would be user control such as a tick box to toggle displaying your location or choosing to only display it to certain groups you have defined (work, family etc).
The problem they would have is that user location is only available to the operator when accessing websites on your mobile. They would have to do a deal with every mobile network which doesn’t sound too far fetched considering Facebook is Vodafones most browsed mobile site and deals have been done with O2 and Vodafone previously, Twitter too.
In Q4 2008 Facebook mobile hit over 15 million users and is growing at a crazy rate (up from 5 million at the beginning of 2008). Nearly 20% of its user base are now on mobile.
I think this would be a cool feature to Facebook/Twitter and would enhance the experience. What do you think?
Wow mobile gaming is moving Fast!! webOS to Work with Unreal Engine 3 
