Updates from January, 2012

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  Jim 5:52 pm on January 10, 2012 Permalink  

  Put a code on it 

  

  If you watch the uneven but occasionally hilarious IFC cable series Portlandia, you are familiar with Put A Bird On It: a design movement that enhances objects by adding a bird.

  Marketers have their own version of this fad: Put a QR Code on it.

  These chunky barcodes are showing up on everything from billboards to, alas, urinals. I recently saw a QR Code on a website which accessed (wait for it) another website.

  In theory it’s a great idea. When scanned, a QR Code provides additional content that enhances the host message. A print ad can turn into a full- motion product demo. A real estate flyer can offer a guided tour of a home. A concert poster stapled to a telephone pole can unleash a music video.

  Unfortunately, the public doesn’t share the marketing community’s enthusiasm for QR Codes. According to a recent Forrester Research survey only 5% of Americans with smart phones actually scanned a QR Code during a recent three-month survey period. Those that did tended to be young, affluent and male.

  Does this mean that QR Codes won’t ever be a viable marketing tool? Not at all. But as with any emerging technology, it requires patience and best practices. Here’s how our agency is using QR Codes for maximum effect.

  Get real
  While it’s easy to slap a code on virtually any medium, be realistic. Are consumers inclined to chase a city bus down the street to scan a code on a transit ad for a casino? Probably not. On the other hand, QR Codes make sense at the point of sale, in print advertising and mobile couponing.

  Make the experience worthwhile
  Consumers who take the trouble to whip out a smart phone and scan a code should be rewarded for their efforts. Make sure the content is more than a pointless rehash of the host message.

  Integrate
  Don’t use the technology for technology’s sake. Make sure the scanned message advances your overall brand story.

  Be Patient
  Don’t expect miraculous results from a QR Code effort. The percentage of those who scan the code will be low. The technology relies on third-party apps that can be clunky to use. But smart phone penetration will continue to increase and the QR Code user experience get better with built-in readers.

  By applying common sense (and some uncommon creativity), there’s no reason why you shouldn’t put a code on it.
  

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• 

  Nat 6:15 pm on August 26, 2011 Permalink  

  One-third of Facebook users could be missing your message. 

  This piece from ReadWriteWeb on Facebook usage by platform really got my attention. It links through to Facebook’s statistics page, which shares the following mobile data points.

  • • There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
  • • People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
  • • There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

  These stats underscore the need for brands to take a write once/publish everywhere approach to web content. If we use Facebook as a bellwether, 33% of the potential audience is consuming content on mobile. If marketers want to meet this opportunity, they will need a cross-platform content strategy that delivers users to a responsive, empathetically-designed web presence. We will be writing more on responsive design in the coming weeks.

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• 

  Nat 4:49 pm on March 25, 2011 Permalink  

  Notes from SXSWi 

  Last year South by Southwest Interactive outgrew the music festival that spawned it, and this year expanded to 11 “campuses” spread throughout downtown Austin. It has rapidly evolved into the biggest event of its kind. Some old-time conference-goers grouse about the increasing crowds, expanding footprint and incursion of big brands into their hallowed ground. I was a SXSW newbie this year and wouldn’t be able to tell you if the conference has jumped the shark. I was simply excited at the concentration of smart people all discussing the issues I am most interested in. Here are some of the themes I picked up over five days.

  Serendipity
  Lots of people are concerned about the loss of serendipity in our lives now that we have the ability to get exactly what we want whenever we want it. Referral engines like those behind Netflix and Apple’s iTunes Genius mine our preferences and figure out exactly what we are going to want next. Search engines are seeking to capture as much of our data as they can in order to better refine searches based on our preferences, proclivities and current state of mind. With all this computational power figuring things out for us, are we losing the opportunity to stumble upon random new things? Is it possible to change our perspective when outside news and views come in a pre-selected feed? This concept of serendipity is occupying computer scientists as well as marketers and came up repeatedly through the weekend.

  Content vs. Journalism
  There seem to be two poles when it comes to the current failing state of the newspaper business model. On one side are people who worry that failure on the business side threatens the future of original, sourced, fact-checked journalism. On the other side you see a bit more ambivalence. Builders of ad-blocking and text-parsing apps blame online publishers for creating layouts that are unfriendly to readers. They provide tools to strip out the ads and links that form the basis of the publishers’ business model. Though this seems vampiric, you can hardly blame them. One anecdotal review of an LA Times article page found that just 12% of the page was dedicated to the article itself. Of the rest of the page, 12% was ads, 8% was core navigation and 68% was cross-links and noisy junk dedicated to driving additional page views. The current system isn’t working very well for publishers, their readers or their advertisers. Better page layouts and stronger advertising are needed in online publishing, and soon.

  A Third Era
  Someone has yet to come up with a dumb name like Web 3.0, but it is clear that the surge of smartphone adoption combined with the potential of location services has brought us to a third era of creative potential on the web. In one speaker’s formulation, creativity in Web 1.0 was characterized by the swoosh logo and a clever domain name, in Web 2.0 it was rounded corners and dropped vowels. Today’s great creative web work is going to be all about giving people the ability to do stuff. It is less about aesthetics and more about granting wishes. Having a smartphone in hand gives a person a powerful form of extra-sensory perception. Brands that can find a way to tap into that power are going to win.

  Free Tacos
  Free tacos were huge at SXSWi. Whether it was a branded taco truck or a company using social media to direct their fans to a taco-fueled promotion, tacos are very hot right now.

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• 

  Shawn 10:36 pm on November 22, 2010 Permalink  

  “I got an app for that, holmes” 

  While enjoying one of my guilty pleasures, Sons of Anarchy on FX, I heard the above line and it seemed like a good lead-in to this post. There’s been a lot of debate lately about mobile sites vs native apps. No surprise that Apple has done a majority of the heavy lifting when it comes to driving what can be expected in the mobile experience—and it’s a given that they played a major role in the acceleration of this marketplace.

  But today there more options than ever in the smartphone market, and watching adoption of Android OS surpass the iPhone so quickly is proof that there will continue to be a growing abundance of competitors in the marketplace. From Palm, Windows 7, and RIM phones to the introduction of new tablets, we’ll be guaranteed a hardware/platform rush in the future. Each running their own “app store” with their own development specs and few shared technologies.

  This is one of the first things I discuss with my clients when developing a communications strategy involving the mobile space. Native applications have their obvious benefits, and are many times the right direction to go. Examples are:

  • Gaming and experiences that require the accelerometer or camera*
  • Doesn’t require an internet connection
  • Needs complex animations
  • Needs “app store” placement
  • Needs to cache more information than a web-based solution could

  More often than not, I suggest they take a step back and ask themselves where and how does their brand fit into their consumer’s pocket. Will it find itself competing with a plethora of brand agnostic solutions? Does it make the benefit of their brand easier for the customer to realize?

  Most importantly I ask, “and then what?”

  You’ve set out to create a brand experience that will go wherever your customer goes, but what will motivate them to use it after that first download or visit?

  Many times we end up talking about developing a mobile web solution, creating a platform that can flex and scale to fit all the smartphone / tablet solutions. Where you can write once to be read anywhere. One that you can quickly refine and add functionality to keep consumers using the product, one that you can measure and use to refine future strategies. One that will allow you to cost effectively optimize how that brand of yours will fit into your consumer’s pocket. One that will inform the jump to a more robust “native app” platform when it’s ready to be realized. And that is a crucial step as your placement within the app stores will be determined on user rankings and download volume. It’ll help you win the popularity contest that is the app marketplace. And if your product or communications will exist in physical form, then we’ll probably discuss how QR codes paired with mobile web technology can do amazing things for your brand.

  But first I’ll ask – do we need an app for that, holmes?

  * Android 2.2 and HTML 5 mobile features

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