Abbreviated dialing codes have been around for a while and are about to get very popular with the rise of StarStar technology. StarStar comes to you by The Zoove Corporation, with whom hypnoticmedia is very proud to be associated.
This is direct response at its finest. Consumers simply dial ** and a short code, e.g. **coke (2653), then they get a link to branded content. Very simple, quick, and effective.
You should try it out from any AT&T mobile. StarStar is scheduled to go live across all major carrier networks by this summer.
We heard this week that Sports Illustrated published some of these JagTag codes in their latest swim suit edition.
Only time will tell how consumers will respond to these codes, hypnoticmedia for one is sticking with 2D.
One click, one content load, and that’s that.
Be on the look out for 2D code readers, coming to your mobile phone and all new devices released from here on out.
Old-fashioned television telethons can stretch on for hours. But the latest charity appeal is short enough for Twitter: “Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to @RedCross relief.”
In the aftermath of the earthquake many Americans are reaching for their cellphones to make a donation via text message. And plenty of them are then spreading the word to others on sites like Twitter.
The American Red Cross which is working with a mobile donations firm called mGive, said Thursday that it had raised more than $5 million this way.
“There is an enormous outpouring for this effort,” said Wendy Harman, social media manager at the Red Cross. “It’s such an easy way to give and pass around through social sites on the Web.”
The mobile donations are part of a larger surge of money flowing to the relief effort. The Red Cross said it had collected nearly $35 million as of Thursday night, surpassing the amounts it received in the same time period after Hurricane Katrina and the Indian Ocean tsunami.
“When something like this happens, it’s incredibly frustrating because there isn’t much that we can do,” said Laura Fitton, a media consultant who has raised money for charity on Twitter. “It helps to be able to at least make a gesture, and that is what is catching on.”
The Red Cross expects that donations made through more established channels — writing a check or on the Web — will still far outweigh text-message giving. But the cellphone campaign may be reaching people who might not otherwise have made the effort to get involved.
Convenience is one factor in the campaign’s success. People simply send a designated word to a five- or six-digit number and then confirm that they want to give, and the donation is charged to their wireless bill. At the end of the month, the carriers transfer the contributions to a service provider like mGive, which passes them on to the charity.
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TV Remains the Screen of Choice
Americans may choose to consume video on the “best screen available,” yet traditional TV remains the screen of choice. The recent results of Nielsen’s Three Screen Report a quarterly analysis from Nielsen’s Anywhere Anytime Media
The measurement initiative (A2/M2) shows that the average American watches approximately 153 hours of TV every month at home, a 1.2% increase from last year. In addition, the 131 million Americans who watch video on the Internet watch on average about 3 hours of video online each month at home and work. The 13.4 million Americans who watch video on mobile phones watch on average about 3 ½ hours of mobile video each month.
In addition, Nielsen data shows that consumers’ time with TV, Internet and Mobile video continues to increase across the board. Online video grew 13% in Q1 2009, driven by both strong brand marketing and large media events including the Presidential inauguration, the Super Bowl and March Madness. With broadband levels increasing in the U.S., online video audiences will continue to grow as consumers begin to upgrade their PCs to support increased video consumption.
Mobile video viewing has grown a significant 52% from the previous year, up to 13.4 million Americans. Much of this growth continues to come from increased mobile content and the rise of the mobile web as a viewing option.
Out of all different age groups, 18-24 year olds show signs of watching DVR and online video the same amount of time timeshifting 5 hrs, 47 minutes per month, and watching video online 5 hrs, 3 minutes each month.
Perhaps the merging of web and TV will begin to drive the growth of true interactive TV with Google leading the way.
Another useful term for Mobile Marketers is the “Jump Page”
The page or view to which a user is directed when they click on an active link embedded in a banner, web page, email or other view.
A click-through lands the user on a jump page.
By necessity, the thriving mobile marketing industry has yielded a multitude of new terms and acronyms to describe the various nuances unique to its business space. However, much of this language is not widely understood and, depending on the source, holds various meanings and interpretations.
hypnoticmedia will try and point out some of the key terms from time to time as we encounter them. This is a very popular one with mobile taking off.
AMOE (Alternative Method of Entry)
A no cost or low cost means for an individual to enter a sweepstakes or contest.
Are Digital Agencies Ready to Replace Traditional Agencies?
Any conversation about digital marketing these days includes at least one mention that traditional agencies just “don’t get it.” Heck I have said this dozens of times myself. Coming from the traditional agency side I think I can say it with some authority.
While this may be correct, it is equally true is that digital agencies are not ready to take the lead.
Ana Andjelic a freelance strategist at Barbarian Group doing her Ph.D. dissertation on digital branding had these observations. I think she is right on the money.
Look at the typical digital agency. It excels in exploring new horizons. It supports a flat and loose organizational structure in which a developer has access to the CEO. And it makes sure everyone’s opinion is heard. It’s one big crazy family.
Digital agencies are having a ton of fun experimenting with ideas, technologies and strategies to find new alternatives superior to obsolete ways of doing marketing. That’s what they do best.
The problem is, this is the only thing they are doing.
When they are asked to actually follow through on their ideas, they often come up short. It is because they don’t know the business of marketing (or want to know it, for that matter), and they rarely have the organizational structure or past practices to guide them.
This comes at a cost. Digital agencies impress clients with their passion, drive and technology know-how. Clients then say: “You gave us a lot to think about.” Which often means that the account is awarded to someone else.
Where digital shops fail is giving confidence to the client that all this momentum will be indeed executed in a well-led marketing campaign.
All of this is not new. It is already described in organizational theorist James March’s exploration vs. exploitation dichotomy. The best companies have the optimal balance between the two; those less successful are doing too much of either.
There certainly are places around that represent an uneasy mix of exploration vs. exploitation: Digitas, Razorfish and AKQA. They are sort of stuck in between recently acquired marketing knowledge and their digital savvy, trying to combine them to sometimes embarrassing results.
If digital agencies excel at exploration, traditional agencies thrive on exploitation. A traditional agency is risk-averse, accountable and systematic. It knows its business inside-out. It knows its clients’ businesses and executes campaigns reliably. Its people hang out with the CMOs. A typical traditional agency has decades of experience.
This, too, comes at a cost. A traditional agency, organized around exploitation, ends up doing the same thing over and over again.
For every marketing challenge, their solution is “better creativity.” This is not surprising: If an agency spends all its time making sure that everything goes efficiently, that leaves it with little time to experiment. And then, even if it wanted to do things differently, it would be met with its own organizational inertia.
How is the exploration/exploitation gap closed?
Like most things in marketing, it comes back to the client. As much as people like to talk about the agency of the future, it will never happen until the client gets there first.
Shorter client-agency alliances, smaller budgets and faster review cycles create a more competitive environment that forces everyone involved to be more alert. When relationships are unstable, shifting and temporary, it’s the balance that counts. That means not only having innovative ideas, but also executing them swiftly and flawlessly.
Until digital agencies show they can strike this balance, we are also the ones who don’t get it.
Can the “Droid” dethrone the iPhone?
With Apple posting record profits last week, thanks in large part to brisk sales of its iPhone, it may seem downright crazy to mount a smartphone challenge at all, let alone one that takes direct aim at the iPhone. But that’s just what Verizon, Google and Motorola are doing.
With a teaser ad from Verizon zeroing in on the device’s perceived shortcomings, such as its lack of a physical keyboard, the triumvirate is beginning a big push for Droid, the flagship device of the Google-backed Android operating system. So far, industry observers are unmoved by the buzz and give the Droid long odds in its bid to become the next ubiquitous handset.
So far, Verizon and its partners have kept a tight lid on Droid, but the few early reviews have been effusive, with the influential gadget blog Boy Genius Report calling Droid “the most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone. It’s positively amazing.” TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington, who famously chucked the iPhone because of AT&T’s spotty network service, also gushed: “According to people who’ve handled the device, the Droid is the most sophisticated mobile device to hit the market to date from a hardware standpoint.”
The praise notwithstanding, analysts say it’s doubtful that Droid can dethrone the iPhone — even if the handset will live on what is widely perceived as the best wireless network in the country. The Blackberry Storm, and most recently the Palm Pre, both of which have been held up as credible iPhone challengers, came and went without incident to Apple, which just reported its most profitable quarter after selling the most iPhones in that time.
“There is a graveyard littered with iPhone wannabees, so the bar is pretty high for any new phone, no matter how good it might be,” said wireless analyst Chetan Sharma.
For Verizon, a lot is at stake. The No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier needs something of a super-marquee phone to counter Apple’s iPhone, which has put millions of consumers on the network of its exclusive carrier, AT&T, many of whom are left to regularly carp about dropped calls. Thanks largely to the iPhone, AT&T last quarter added more contract customers than Verizon for the first time in recent history.
Others say Droid will post solid sales, but don’t expect a blockbuster.
“It’s going to be successful within the Verizon network, but it’s not going to come at the expense of the iPhone,” said Matt Thornton, an analyst at Avian Securities. “This device will slow subscriber attrition, but it’s difficult to woo subscribers to another network just for the phone. The iPhone has been the only one that’s able to do that.”
And once those customers settle on the Apple handset, it’ll be tough to tempt them to switch: The iPhone was the top-ranked brand on measures of user loyalty, according to a survey by Brand Keys that looked at 63 product categories. Moreover, for the first time in 12 years since the survey’s inception, three cellphone brands made the top 10 list of brands garnering the most loyalty — Samsung came in after the iPhone, and BlackBerry was ranked fourth.
“This says that cellphone brands are able to meet consumer expectations more than ever before,” said Brand Keys President Robert Passikoff, who also noted that consumer expectations towards smartphones are also higher than ever. This means it’s all the more critical for Droid to live up to the hype, which is partly being manufactured by Verizon. The carrier recently launched a teaser ad attacking the iPhone for all the things it can’t do, but Droid can, leading some to call the strategy risky.