Garner Consulting, LLC

AdAge article on how NBC is measuring Olympics consumption.

Mobile numbers are interesting, but still tiny compared to TV / Online. I've experimented a bit with the mobile offering and it could have been executed better. That will certainly affect the return-visit / sustaining power of the mobile effort as the games continue.

Quotes:

"To some extent, these Olympics are staring to influence how people use new technology," said Alan Wurtzel, president-research and media development, NBC Universal. "About half of people who use mobile [to watch NBC Olympics content] are using it for the first time."

NBC's Mr. Wurtzel unveiled what the network calls a metric dubbed "TAMi," or total audience measurement index. The data capture in rudimentary fashion the numbers of people watching Olympics content on TV, online, via mobile and through video-on-demand. Results are far from perfect; some of the numbers may represent duplication of viewership.

While NBC will make TAMi information available for all of its programs, don't expect advertisers to buy and sell ad time off of it, said Mr. Wurtzel. "It gives you an insight that you normally wouldn't have about TV viewership across platforms," he said.

I decided to try out "Brandcaster" from Coupons, Inc. It is their latest iteration of technology for distributing CPG brand coupons on the Internet. You can find it down the left hand side of this page.

Let me know what you think.

View Original Article

Mobile Marketing Association releases new revision of U.S. Consumer Best Practices for cross-carrier mobile marketing services

July 9, 2008

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), (www.mmaglobal.com), today released version 3.3 of its U.S. Consumer Best Practices (CBP) Guidelines for Cross-Carrier Mobile Content Services. Updated twice annually, the guidelines have become the baseline set of rules for cross-carrier mobile content services that include, but aren't limited to, text messaging, multi-media messaging, shortcode programs, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and mobile web.

The guidelines are effective immediately and are available for download at

www.mmaglobal.com/bestpractices.pdf

Some info coming out through TechCrunch from ScanBuy and a relatively new demo video on YouTube (below).

Evidently it is cool to have an iPhone app and "use" it in the demo video, even though I suspect the demo is staged. The Techcrunch article states that an iPhone app is "upcoming" and the demo illustrates a different user experience than the one available on significantly older devices. The Windows Mobile version, for example, automatically recognizes the code if the ScanLife app is running and kicks off whatever experience has been determined. There is no need to touch / "capture" the code on the screen.

Can't blame them for riding the iPhone hype wave, though.

TechCrunch article

A German supermarket is encouraging customers to scan and ring up their shopping using mobile phones, and check out without the help of a cashier. It is one of the number of innovations at the new "Future Store" - as Steve Rosenberg discovered when he went along to do his weekly shopping.

A little bit of press recently:

"Mobile phones have greater potential for collecting valuable marketing data than any other medium currently available, said Laird Garner, president of Garner Consulting LLC."

2D mobile barcodes to be launched nationwide after successful trial

Margaret Grady, Staff Reporter

 I said a bit more than that of course...you can see/hear the rest in the 2D code video a few posts down this page. At least it wasn't a misquote.

Embedded Video

In their own social media blunder, Ad Age doesn't allow you to embed video, which would have been much cooler, since it would be right here...

However, Jaffe does a real good job of leveraging case studies from Sprint, Sony, T-Mobile, Target and Starbucks to illustrate how NOT to execute a social media opportunity. 10 minutes well spent.

Video link: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1370868150/bctid1612710731

This is certainly an interesting take on how to extend the breadth of a one-stop mobile campaign. However, it looks like it could be a glorified listing of partners that Nokia brought on to use their ad-serving platform.

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Nokia has announced the launch of the Nokia Advertising Alliance, which brings together leading mobile marketing solutions, including couponing, location-based targeting, image recognition, and other emerging technologies onto a single platform.

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Members of the Alliance are integrated with the Nokia Media Network allowing brands to plan, execute and measure mobile advertising campaigns through a single Nokia interface. A range of companies have been initially certified as Members of the Alliance, including i-movo, Mobile Acuity, Mobiqa, and uLocate, with many additional members in testing. Leading brands from the automotive to entertainment industries have built campaigns using the Nokia Advertising Alliance.

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Full article: http://www.cellular-news.com/story/31732.php

These were assembled by Marketing Sherpa staff and look to be good fodder for inspiration and keeping up with what works.

VIBE Media Group
Click here to see campaign details

General Mills’ Pink for the Cure
Click here to see campaign details

Sporting Portugal
Click here to see campaign details

Pazazz’s Printing’s Alive
Click here to see campaign details

Columbia Sportswear’s Tested Tough
Click here to see campaign details

VeriSign’s Liberty Fillmore, the Cart Whisperer
Click here to see campaign details

THQ’s Frontlines: Fuel of War
Click here to see campaign details

StyleFeeder
Click here to see campaign details

Northwestern Mutual Insurance’s Letyourworriesgo.com
Click here to see campaign details

McKinney’s Snowglobe Boy
Click here to see campaign details

Full article: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.html?id=30625

An answer to CueCat comparisons starts around 42.40.

Saving without Scissors - Test to Pave Way for Mobile Rebates & Coupons

Wednesday May 14, 10:12 am ET

Mobile Discovery and Inmar Launch Nation's First 2D Barcode Mobile Rebate

I you follow Al Ries' commentary / philosophy at all, you know he is not prone to hype. This article in AdAge is quite a statement regarding his beliefs for what the mobile Internet will become.

Quotes:

"On the horizon, there's another profound shift in media, consumer behavior and technology coming. In the near future we are likely to welcome the arrival of a sixth mass-communications medium.

And what is this earth-shaking new medium? It's the Mobilenet."

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"A new medium calls for new brands, not for extensions of existing brands. The internet didn't reward traditional brands like The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, ABC, NBC, CBS, Barnes & Noble and Hallmark. It rewarded new brands created especially for the net. Dot-com brands like Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Expedia, Netflix, MySpace, Facebook and AOL.

The Mobilenet will also reward new brands created especially for the medium."

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" A slimmed-down, warmed-over dot-com brand isn't going to make it on the Mobilenet."

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"[a] missing ingredient is a gadget that integrates telecom service with three technologies in an attractive and convenient package: 1) GPS, global-positioning-system receiver; 2) scanner; and 3) voice-recognition software."

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"The potential Mobilenet marketplace dwarfs the internet. Last year more than 1.15 billion mobile phones were sold worldwide, compared to only 271.2 million personal computers. In other words, more than four times as many mobile phones were bought than PCs. And, in my opinion, most consumers will find a GPS-equipped MobiPhone to be a device they can't live without."

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"A MobiPhone with a 2D barcode scanner will enable consumers to get a wealth of information by scanning products in supermarkets, drugstores, clothing stores."

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Full AdAge article: http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=126880 

Excerpts from FierceWireless:

The survey revealed that there appears to be strong consensus as to what will drive future growth. The vast majority of respondents (70 percent) indicated they derive some revenue today (albeit less than 10 percent) from new alternate forms of media – such as downloading or watching TV programs “on demand,” digital advertising or user-generated content...represents tremendous growth and substantial revenue streams are being derived today from these new forms of media.

...four sources of revenue growth — predicted to be the dominant business model five years from now — are multi-platform distribution, short form video, social media / user-generated content, and advertising.

While half (50 percent) of the executives interviewed said they know which capabilities they need to take advantage of in this new digital market, Accenture believes that many have a false sense of their current capabilities. Sixty-six percent of the respondents have less than 40 percent of required capabilities, a number that is unchanged since last year’s survey, indicating that companies need to implement new digital technologies or be left behind.

 Key findings:

Digital advertising will drive a large portion of future revenues.

The Web 2.0 phenomenon is here to stay.

Uncertainty as to when the mobile market will take off. 

There are several barriers to the mobile market.

 Full Fierce article: www.fiercewireless.com/press-releases/accenture-survey-finds-broad-agreement-within-media-and-entertainment-industry-direct/

Accenture study:

www.accenture.com/2008contentstudy

I just returned from an "Association of Coupon Professionals" conference in Miami. Sure, I am a little biased, but the huge buzz seemed to be all about "digital" while I was there.

I am a co-chair on the ACP's Digital Coupon Task Force with Dwight Moore from Cellfire. To start things off, we had what was supposed to be a task force meeting the day prior to the conference officially kicking off...as it turned out, we had just as many "observers" in the room as there were task force members.

The next day, digital coupons were the topic of one of the break-out sessions and it had higher attendance than any of the others. And this in the land of bundles of paper coupons that get packed up and shipped to Mexico to be counted and verified. Needless to say, there are a lot of industry folks, brands, etc., trying to figure this stuff out.

We still have a great deal of work to do to get standards and best practices wrapped around digital / mobile coupons, but the market is expanding rapidly and there seems to be a significant amount of energy behind getting it done. 

MMA just released its updated Mobile Advertising Guidelines.

Click to go directly to the pdf download.