Tag: Smartphone

Ain’t Wastin Time No More

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Had a chance to see the Red Sox vs Angels game yesterday.  What is it about a live baseball game that I love?  Everything 🙂

Looking around the ball park, it is easy to observe just how many people are on their smartphones.  We see it at work everyday, but when you see 37,000 people in one place, it provides an interesting perspective.  Did you know, on average, people check their smartphones or feature phones 150 times per day.  My favorite yesterday at Fenway, was people taking pictures of themselves when their faces appeared on the jumbotron in center field.  Sweet Caroline indeed!  So good, so good, so good….

In 2010, Nokia found 150 to be the number of times the average individual views their phone on a daily basis, which includes both smartphones and feature phones. U.S. carrier T-Mobile, meanwhile, confirmed the same figure for the American market in its own study conducted during 2012. In the United Kingdom, meanwhile, the figure is claimed to have reached 200.

Well, one thing you should not do is walk and text.  Fort Lee, N.J. police said they will begin issuing $85 jaywalking tickets to pedestrians who are caught texting while walking.  “It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said Thomas Ripoli, chief of the Fort Lee Police Department.

Tough to stay focused, isn’t it.  Well, when we are at work there are a number of things that get in our way during the course of the day.  Check out this cool infographic.

Time Wasters

So, stay focused and stop wasting time.  So many good things for you to focus on 🙂

And now a little Allman Brothers to start your Monday – Classic indeed!

Enjoy the day.

Webman

Showrooming

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And yet another new word enters our vernacular.  Use to be we went to the showroon (a noun).  Now we go showrooming (a verb).  Kind of like when Google was a noun (Name of the company) and not a verb, “Just Google it?”

So what exactly is showrooming?  From Wikipedia – Showrooming is when a customer visits a brick and mortar retail location to touch and feel a product and then goes online to buy the product at a lower price. Online stores often offer lower prices than brick and mortar stores because they do not have the overhead cost.

48 million consumers or 20 percent of the U.S. population will use their smartphones to showroom.

The number of shoppers engaging in showrooming during the 2012 holiday season is expected to increase by 134 percent, with mobile behavior influencing between $700 million to $1.7 billion in retail purchases, according to a new report from IDC Retail Insights.

The report reveals some of the ways that retailers can address showrooming, with approximately 70 percent of shoppers planning to showroom this season saying they will be “more likely” to buy from retailers who offer full-featured mobile Web sites, provide omni-channel convenience across stores and Web sites, support smartphone shopping apps and offer price comparisons via QR codes.

  • Big ticket items, in particular those that consumers can easily evaluate by reading descriptions, specifications, ratings, and reviews will be the most showroomed items this year.
  • 7 to 13% of consumer electronics shoppers will use their smartphones at least once in stores this season; showrooming activities will touch 1.4% of consumer electronic sales.
  • Apparel and footwear is the second most heavily showroomed category. Between 4 and 8% of shoppers will showroom this category this year affecting about 1% of its sales.
  • 64% think what they’ll learn in the store with their smartphones will have at least as much influence on their decision as what they’ll learn online before coming into the store
  • 56-60% of shoppers with their smartphones in-hand say that they will be “more likely” or “much more likely” to buy what they find in the store as they shop this season when assisted by trustworthy knowledgeable store associates.
  • 41% of showrooming shoppers say that they will be “more likely” or “much more likely” to rely on their smartphones when they encounter retailers who offer private or exclusive merchandise.

You can check out a bit more on this at http://www.idc-ri.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23789012

Here is an awesome chart from Accenture:

Retail is getting quite complicated.

Webman

Multiscreening

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So many devices, so little time.  So guess what we now do; we use multiple devices at one time.  Yes even men with trouble multi-tasking (At least that is what the ladies think) are utilizing more than one device simultaneously.  Watching/listening to the TV while checking their fantasy teams on their tablets or smartphones while also on the web, social and texting channels.

Digressing for a moment, heard the first song ever played on MTV the other day.  The Bugles – Video Killed the Radio Star – this was when MTV actually played music videos – Enjoy!

Last week, Google published some interesting data based on research into how consumers are using different devices together, called “The New Multi-screen World: Understanding Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior.” Headline for you – 90% of people move between devices to accomplish a goal. In other words, people may start reading an email on their phone,but finish reading it at home on their tablet.

Here are some really interesting statistics from the study:

Given these options, behavior has changed given the task at hand and has introduced the concept of sequential device engagement.  Here is one example.

Nuggets:

  • 90% use multiple screens sequentially to accomplish a task over time.
  • 98% move between devices that same day.
  • Browsing the internet (81%), social networking (72%), and shopping online (67%) are the top activities performed when sequentially screening between devices.
  • PCs/laptops are most often a starting point for more complex activities.
  • Tablets are most often a starting point for shopping and trip planning.
  • Consumers rely on search to move between devices.
  • We use an average of 3 different screen combinations each day.
  • Smartphones are the most frequent companion devices during simultaneous usage.
  • Emailing (60%), internet browsing (44%), and social networking (42%) are the top 3 activities performed during simultaneous screen usage.
  • 78% of simultaneous usage is multi-tasking, while 22% of simultaneous usage is complementary.
  • 77% of TV viewers use another device at the same time in a typical day.
  • TV is a major catalyst for search.
  • All information was sourced directly from the Google study.

What should a marketer do?

Optimize content for multiple devices. Consumers are increasingly accessing multiple screens in their day-to-day lives. It’s no longer enough to optimize your content for PCs/laptops. Mobile optimization on tablets and smartphones needs to be a priority. Furthermore, considering the popularity of sequential and simultaneous screen usage, it’s important for marketers to make their presence across multiple devices as cohesive and user-friendly as possible.

Context is critical.  Users will choose a particular device based on contextual triggers such as location, timing, goals, and attitude. Therefore it’s critical to understand how your audience accesses your content so you can cater your marketing strategy to accommodate those specific use cases and behaviors.

Getting more and more complicated as it relates to engaging your customers to purchase your product, engage with you socially, have a two-way dialogue with your customer segments and find new prospects that will respond to your brand.  To get great at this, think like your customers – walk through the device messaging sequentially and out of sequence.  What do you see?  Do you see a brand that is coordinated or fragmented?  Did you have an experience that engaged you with the brand/product?  If so, you are doing great.  If not, you need to figure this out.

Webman

Touchscreens – Part 2

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Last week we touched on some of the amazing technology we are now dealing with as consumers and business people.  The touchscreens on our smartphones and tablet devices have enabled amazing things with regard to your creativity, productivity and overall engagement with the content on these devices.

These devices and the rapid emergence of social networks have provided an incredible amount of new advertising inventory for businesses to reach their consumers while also significantly increasing the difficulty of communicating with their customers.  So what is a business to do?  How engaged are consumers on these new devices and how responsive are they to advertising?

The IAB is the Internet Advertising Bureau and they have just published a new study about consumer responsiveness to advertising on touchscreen devices. Ads that appear on touchscreen devices like tablets and smartphones are showing some of the highest levels of engagement of all digital ads.

Before we delve into some of the detail, let’s pop it up a level and frame the different types of the mobile value proposition and consumer engagement.

Mobile value propositions vary by device type:

  • Smartphones are mission-critical devices for life, with nearly 70% of smartphone users saying they “won’t leave home without it.”
  • By contrast, tablets are a media consumption hub, with nearly 70% of tablet users reporting that their tablet is an “entertainment device.”
  • Engagement on tablets surpasses engagement on smartphones. Across key dimensions – use/consumption, the receptivity and action related to advertising, and the activity of shopping – tablet users are more easily engaged.
  • Although smartphones are more likely than tablets to be used outside the home, there is a clear reliance on their smartphones across high-value activities at home as well, for example while reading print media and watching TV.

Mobile affects traditional media consumption in distinct ways. Two audiences are emerging – one that drives traditional media through mobile (so mobile complements or augments their traditional media usage); another that detracts (so mobile substitutes for or replaces traditional media).  Almost half of tablet owners say having a tablet has had an impact (positive OR negative) on the amount of time they spend reading magazines and newspapers.

Here are some initial headlines from the report:

Size matters. Between tablet and smartphone users, the IAB found that those on tablets  are actually more engaged in advertising. When asked if they engage with ads more than once a week — that is, click on an ad for more information — 47 percent of tablet users responded yes, compared to 25 percent of smartphone users. Tablet users were also more likely to “take action” on the ad (that could mean buying something, downloading something, filling out a survey, or visiting another site): 89 percent of tablet users took action versus 80 percent of smartphone users.

The medium is the message. Also, as we’ve seen from other tablet research, people are more likely to be using their tablets to read and consume entertainment media for longer periods of time, while smartphones are about short bursts of use. Those shorter bursts imply that users will be less inclined to spend time clicking around on ads than on the tablet. Among smartphone users, 47 percent of smartphone users say they “never” interact with mobile ads, compared to just 23 percent on tablets.

Context is king. The top three categories for mobile ads, as ranked by respondents, were the same across tablets and smartphones, although their rankings differed. They were coupons related to things users were already browsing;  ads for products that were already being shopped for; and favorite brands (again possibly related to your browsing activity).

Much more information can be found in the 70 page report that was completed.  You can download the full report at http://www.iab.net/media/file/IAB-Mobile-Devices-Report-final.pdf.  More to follow on this once I can dig a little deeper into the findings.

Webman

Goin’ Mobile – Part 2

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As we all know, the spike in smartphone adoption is changing the way users interact with their mobile devices. We use the phone but that has become secondary to all of the other capabilities these amazing little devices have.  With penetration rates continuing to climb, more and more people interact with their smartphones as the first access point to information, e-mail etc. because it happens in real-time and provides both valuable utility, such as directions, prices, and reviews as well as breaking news and information.

How many times do you look at your smartphone everyday?  Most people look at their phone about 150 times a day, (that’s roughly once every 6.5 minutes), according to Qualcomm CEO, Paul Jacobs. Those glances are to check incoming e-mail and text messages, but also to browse the mobile web.

So what is really going on here.  We are at the forefront of a social behavior change phenomenon.  How we communicate with friends and family, how we shop, how much time we spend, how many devices are being replaced by one, shop, how marketers communicate with us, how a marketer measures their advertising spending, how breaking news is distributed and so on.  We have all been empowered by these amazing devices.

Check out these fun facts:

The end of the desktop?

Looks like we are now multi-tasking all the time:

With just an iPhone we can replace many devices and save big bucks:

We don’t need all these stinking devices!

Enjoy the weekend.

Webman

Goin’ Mobile

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One of my favorite classic rocks band is The Who.  Had the opportunity to see them at Madison Square Garden.  Best concert I have ever seen.  When the album Quadrophenia was released, I think it was the only album I listened to in the car for at least a year.  Awesome band.  To this day my best friend Armand still interjects “Tommy, can you hear me” into his conversations.  Don’t question this, just accept it as he is one of the funniest people on the planet.  You just never know where he is going to take you or what historical party reference he will make.  Only have to worry when he starts to sing.  As Dirty Harry said, “A man has to know his limitations”.  🙂

Who’s Next of course is one of the great albums of all time.  With all of the happenings in the mobile world these days, some facts to follow, it reminded me of the classic Who tune, “Goin’ Mobile”.  Were they ahead of their time or what?

I’m goin’ home – And when I wanna go home – I’m goin’ mobile – Well, I’m gonna find a home – And we’ll see how it feels – Goin’ mobile – Keep me movin’ – I can pull up by the curb – I can make it on the road – Goin’ mobile – I can stop in any street – And talk with people that we meet – Goin’ mobile – Keep me movin’ – Out in the woods – Or in the city – It’s all the same to me – When I’m drivin’ free, the world’s my home – When I’m mobile – Hee, hoo! – beep beep!

Goin’ Mobile – The Who

The explosive growth of smartphones and the incredible capabilities provided by these devices has and will continue to have a profound effect on our society and behavior moving forward.  As we become more and more comfortable on our smartphones and tablets and as penetration rates continue to accelerate the entire landscape for customer engagement will be transformed.  It is not an if, it is only a when.  The combination of powerful devices and social communications places more and more of the power in the hands of consumers.  Do you have a mobile ready web-site?  Do your e-mails, graphics, offers transcend the PC world and render in a meaningful, actionable way to influence your consumers at their moment of truth?

Here are some interesting facts about Goin’ Mobile:

Very dynamic changes happening, and we are just scratching the surface.

The research was provided by eDigitalResearch.  You can learn more about them at www.edigitalresearch.com.  You can access the complete infographic at http://kubeblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/explosion-of-mobile.png

Music by The Who.

Have a great day.

Webman

Getting the Deal – Part 2

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The convergence of the coupon and your smartphone is about to happen…….

In part 1, we reviewed many of the “terrestrial” based coupons that are available today through traditional print mediums (Newspapers, FSI‘s, direct mail, in-store, etc.).  Those where we must clip or cut a physical coupon and present it at the point of purchase.  We also discussed the plethora of digital/on-line coupons available; yes they are on-line but most of these still require a printer and are redeemed at the point of purchase in the traditional way.

With nearly 50% of the US enabled with smartphones we are on the precipice of an incredible transformation through the range of applications and capabilities on your smartphone, both domestically and globally.  Innovative companies such as Starbucks have now connected your point of purchase behavior and the capabilities of your smartphone.  Their smartphone application was only one part of this connective tissue.  In order to enable this coupon/purchase card capability at the point of sale, they needed to replace their scanning technology to make sure that these capabilities worked right every time.

For coupon redemption via smartphones in grocery and other retail outlets to become a reality, it is critical that the process and the technology is aligned at the point of sale.  Most scanners in grocery stores cannot read a bar code displayed on the screen of a cellphone.

“Couponing has been one of the tried and tested tools to incentivize consumers to try our products,” said P&G’s VP of Global Business Development Jeff Weedman. “Ads around the world have moved digital but there was a hole in the system. You can deliver coupons digitally, but frankly our customers weren’t happy about it. It doesn’t scan at most grocery scanners and it slowed the system down because the check-out person would have to plug-in the numbers manually.”

One company that is working on this specific opportunity is Mobeam.  www.mobeam.com – In October, Cupertino, Calif.-based Mobeam raised $4.9 million in capital to solve this exact problem, by converting the bar code data into a beam of light that can be read by most scanners found at the check-out counters.  They are still early in the process, but it is apparent that our point of purchase behavior around using coupons is about to change radically.

Enjoy the ride and the savings!

Let me know what you think about this blog by commenting below.

Have a great weekend.

Webman

The Dongle

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Over the last two days we have highlighted how a smartphone is changing the game for people globally by providing easy access, 24x7x365 to information that is relevant to your life, your shopping, your health, interests and breaking news.

Did you know that the average shopper used 10.4 sources of information to make a decision in 2011, up from 5.3 sources in 2010?  Those 10.4 sources range from TV commercials and magazine articles, to recommendations from friends and family, to websites, ratings and blogs online.   www.zeromomentoftruth.com.

But I digress.  Today we are talking about dongles.  Technology folks have such interesting terms.  A bug for example – not good.  Some bugs are good, but not in technology.  Plus they have so many acronyms like SOAP, AJAX etc.  No, not kitchen cleaners.  And this brings us to the dongle.  What exactly is a dongle?  According to Dictionary.com a dongle is a hardware device attached to a computer without which a particular software program will not run: used to prevent unauthorized use.

Well, let’s see how a dongle is being used by an awesome new company called Square.  www.squareup.com.  Square transforms your smartphone into a mobile payment device that can be used by businesses and consumers to collect payments from a customer by swiping their credit cards through the dongle and integrating with Square’s very cool and user friendly application that of course if easily downloaded from the app stores to your mobile device.

Yes, Easy and Very Cool!

Good for business – you bet.  Sales can now be made without the high fees and long term contracts that come along with traditional credit card processing.   How about as an individual.  Having a yard sale this weekend – you can now accept credit cards as well by using the personal Square version.  Very cool.  You can visit www.entrepreneur.com for a great article on mobile payment systems.

There are a number of other companies in this space such as Pay Anywhere and Swipe.  The traditional credit card companies are working on alternative payment programs.  And of course, given the power of your smartphone, there will be a day when that is all you will need to make a payment.  We don’t need no stinking credit cards!

Let me know what you think by commenting below.

Have a great day!

Webman

InfoPower and You

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Yesterday we briefly covered the topic of ZMOT, the zero moment of truth.  There are three key drivers making this pervasive:

Many of us already have smartphones and those that do not will likely own one in the next year or so.  Here is some interesting information from a recently published article in CNET, interviewing Marc Andreessen, general partner for the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.  Mr. Andreessen  is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely-used web browser, and co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation.

One of his key thoughts in the article centers on the prolific accessibility and growth of smartphones.  Mr. Andreessen states “Most of the people in the world still don’t have a personal computer, whereas in three to five years, most people in the world will have a smartphone…. If you’ve got a smartphone, then I can build a business in any domain or category and serve you as a customer no matter where you are in the world in just gigantic numbers–in terms of billions of people.”  So the headline is that unlike the PC world, most of the world’s population will be connected via a smartphone in the next three to five years.  Big wow!  Here is the link to the full interview with Mr. Andreessen http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57345138-93/marc-andreessen-predictions-for-2012-and-beyond/

Further supporting this incredible growth is the following technology adoption curve from Mary Meeker at Kleiner Perkins, one of the leading VC firms on the planet.

Smartphones Rock

Right now we are all comfortable with text search but search has already taken on new forms, such as image search, QR (Quick response) codes and through new services such as Pinterest, which lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.  You can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.  So now you can also search for specific items of interest within the “context” of your search criteria.  This is really advancing quickly!

All of this infopower is now in the palm of your hands.  A very powerful way for all of us to become smarter, more knowledgeable, buy the right products and importantly save money for our lives.

Now you are the one in control!

Let me know what you think of this blog by commenting below.

Have an awesome day.

Webman

ZMOT – You Have Changed

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Continuing our thread on information overload and the power of information in our lives, I had the opportunity this weekend to read a recently published book, ZMOT, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth.  It was written by Jim Lecinski.  Jim is the managing director, US Sales & Service for Google.  He works with many major brand marketers and media agency partners.  His book is brilliant and articulates clearly just how much has changed for consumers because of technology, information, Google and mobile devices.

You can download the book for free at www.zeromomentoftruth.com.   Today’s blog will highlight some fascinating statistics about behaviors and influences in our lives.  Please download the book and read it.  A fast read, full of great nuggets and game changing to your business.  If you are not thinking about ZMOT, you better start.

Here are some initial nuggets:

  • 70% of Americans look at product reviews before making a purchase
  • 79% of consumers use a smart-phone to help with shopping
  • 83% of mom’s do on-line research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them

ZMOT, or Zero Moment of Truth, is Google’s definition of the critical moments that lead to an individual’s decision to purchase a product or service.  Since we are now connected almost all the time through high bandwidth connections, we now have the ability to learn about products that interest us whenever we want; watching a ball game, in the store, walking down the street or engaged in a conversation with our friends.  We can now be experts whenever we want – well we can certainly believe we are experts anyway!

  • As consumers, we are in charge
  • We get smart on stuff quickly
  • We engage in multiple conversations with friends, strangers, marketers, websites and experts in real time

Think about how your behavior has changed.  Would we ever consider buying a car without extensive research on quality, price, options, availability or comparing brands?  Nope.  This same behavior has now cascaded down to everyday products such as groceries, school supplies and gas prices. Mom’s are leading the charge, but we are all doing it.

People are now asking three questions before making purchases:

  1. Will it save me money?
  2. Will it save me time?
  3. Will it improve my life?

Hmm, tough battlefield to compete on.  You bet.  The reality is if you are a selling a product or service the ZMOT is becoming more and more critical to being considered.  If you are a business owner, start learning.  If you are a consumer, enjoy the power that you now have.  It will only continue to grow.

I have only scratched the surface on this topic and will dig in a little deeper over the upcoming weeks.  Read the short book though – it does a terrific job of identifying what is going on and what has changed.

Let me know what you think about this blog and about the book when you can.

Have a great day.

Webman