text:
News | Views | Analysis
Mobile Retail Summit The lowdown on our essential event for retailers looking to embrace mobile
responsive DESIGN Silver bullet or red herring? We investigate this year's hot topic
alternative ads The start-ups reinventing the mobile advertising business
PRINT / SCREEN Why the publishing industry is pinning its future on tablet editions
VIva app vegas Apps dominate the tech scene at the Consumer Electronics Show
DIFFERENT mBlox CEO Tom Cotney on getting into the heads of consumers with the Engage platform
PLUS: emirates goes mobile • start-up funding • mobile search explained
Winner! Reach, eNgage, MoNetise SponSored Feature
BuSIneSS ModeLS
Most Effective Mobile Advertising Platform/Network
the men behind Infobip explain the benefits of the company's converged messaging services
"Over the last decade, we have seen massive benefits created through messaging on multiple levels across the industry," says Infobip CEO Silvio Kutic as he expounds on Infobip's strategy of converged services, bringing together SMS, mPayments and their latest development, push notifications. Drawing its strength from global connectivity, sales network and the world's largest non-telco network designed and operated entirely in-house, Infobip focuses on the B2B segment and is able to facilitate different mobile technologies for any business. It's Infobip's infrastructure and expertise that allow companies worldwide to quickly leverage their potential and seize the mobile opportunity. Push messaging will be integrated with Infobip's SMS and mPayments services to provide a converged offering, enabling businesses to reach, engage and charge their consumers through a single provider. As Kutic puts it: "With push notifications added to our portfolio, we continue to provide the largest and most universal communication channel, creating new opportunities for our partners and clients."
We're witnessing an explosive growth of smartphone penetration and the trend is only going to pick up even more steam. As this revolution goes on, IP-based services are becoming an essential part of the consumer engagement strategy of any business.
intuitive interface. For developers who seek to add mobile services capabilities to their applications, it means a significant reduction of their development cycle. Ivan Maksic, one of Infobip's key people based in London, has a clear vision of the company's role on the global market. "We are proposing a mobile services cloud as a long-term partnership, based on reliability, support and expertise," he says. "We are focused and well positioned to support our business partners with any mobile technology waiting around the corner. Although often invisible even to our partners, we are in fact performing a number of functions related to their satisfaction and the quality of service they receive." For the fifth consecutive year, Infobip launches new technologies aimed primarily at companies utilising mobile services, either as support of their core business, or as a part of their marketing mix. Just like last year's launch of their direct mobile billing service dubbed Centili, Infobip is planning to use the stage at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona to launch their push notifications service. From 25-28 February, Infobip will be exhibiting in the App Planet hall, at booth 8.1. Both Silvio Kutic and Ivan Maksic will be attending, and they will be delighted to give more details about Infobip's mobile services. MM
Accurate targeting Thank you Mobile Marketing Magazine "Push messaging allows businesses to retain personalised communication and all our clients in the UK with their customers. With vital intelligence gathered through and around the globe for making analytics, geolocation and context added to the equation, marketing Fiksu the world's #1 platform activities can now be very accurately targeted. We fully understand the for mobile app marketing. power of mobile in this respect, and we feel confident about our business-tobusiness value proposition," says Kutic. It's clear that if a business needs direct communication, it needs both SMS and push messaging – and mobile payments seamlessly fit into the mix, says Kutic. By providing a direct mobile billing channel, Infobip allows online businesses to receive payments from mobiles phones, creating revenue opportunities for online merchants. Another key feature of the company's portfolio is the simplicity of integration. Infobip has developed the Parseco API library, a simple way of integrating into its cloud. Businesses can connect with it very easily, using its vast telecommunication and webUK resources through a simple, Office:
Stay tuned for more exciting innovations in 2013!
Ivan Maksic (top) and Silvio Kutic believe successful mobile strategies feature both push and SMS messaging
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MARCH 2013 Welcome to the 13th quarterly issue of Mobile Marketing. If you work in the mobile industry, there's every chance you're reading this as you try to get your bearings at the new home of Mobile World Congress. We're out in force in Barcelona this year, covering all the news from the show floor, and running a number of events. We hope to catch up with friends old and new at the main event, or at one of the many others taking place in the city over the course of the event. So what do we have for you this issue? Well, with some experts claiming that consumers are tiring of mobile advertising even before the nascent industry has reached adolescence, we take a look at some of the new start-ups offering alternatives for the future of mobile advertising. Catch that on p.30. Talking of start-ups, our columnist Russell Buckley (p.21) offers advice on how to get funding for your Big Idea. And in her regular missive, Helen Keegan tells us what she'd like to see at MWC (p.50). Elsewhere, starting on p.26, we look at how schools and universities are changing tack on mobile devices – rather than banning them in the classroom, they're turning to them both to save money and improve the student experience. The publishing sector is also embracing mobile in a big way. On p.23, we look at the myriad tablet publishing solutions available, and at their potential to breathe new life into the ailing print industry. Want more? How about a look at responsive web design, and whether it really improves the way the mobile web works (p.6)? We also lift the lid on our second annual Mobile Retail Summit, showcasing the speakers and the topics under discussion (p.34), and look at how Emirates is using tablets to improve the in-flight experience for passengers and crew (p.5). And in our cover feature, mBlox CEO Tom Cotney explains how data lies at the heart of successful mobile marketing activity (p.18). Enjoy the issue, and if you're at MWC, enjoy the show – and all the other shows taking place alongside it. David Murphy Editorial Director
18 Connect different Tom Cotney, CEO at mBlox, explains how the company's Engage in-app messaging can foster customer loyalty for brands
thought leadership
5 Viewpoint How Emirates staff are harnessing Windows Mobile tablets in-flight
21 Buckley on… … doing what it takes to secure investment for your start-up business
50 Off deck What Helen Keegan hopes to see at this year's Mobile World Congress
14 What happens in Vegas How apps took over this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas
30 New kids on the block Mobile advertising is creaking – check out the companies set to re-invent it
Business models
39 Infobip pushes its buttons How the addition of push messaging has taken Infobip's platform forward
40 Taking on click fraud How marketing platform Trademob is combating fraudulent mobile ad clicks
42 SMS comes to retail's rescue Textlocal's Rob Townsend says retailers can revamp their fortunes with SMS
45 App shopping Digital agency Isobar's Rick Williams outlines how retailers can use apps
47 Real-time hits the big time RTB is the here and now of mobile ads, according to Smaato CEO Ragnar Kruse
Responsive web design Does it, as some claim, hold the answer to mobile device fragmentation?
23 Print / screen Why the publishing industry is pinning its hopes on tablet editions
26 Smart kids Schools across the UK are embracing mobile technology – we ask why
49 Touchy feely Phonitive showcases Touchalize – its interactive mobile video ad technology
34 Mobile Retail Summit 2013 Get the lowdown on attending our essential event for the retail industry
36 Mobile search secrets Rob Thurner, lead trainer at the Mobile Training Academy, explains mobile search
Subscribe today and guarantee your copy If you want to be sure of receiving your copy of the print edition of Mobile Marketing four times a year, you can subscribe today to go on our controlled circulation list. It costs just £30 (UK); or £40 (rest of the world). To take out a subscription, just send an email to: email@example.com and we'll respond telling you what you need to do. Editorial director: David Murphy – email@example.com +44 (0) 7976 927062 Commercial director: John Owen – email@example.com +44 (0) 7769 674824 Business development manager: Richard Partridge – firstname.lastname@example.com Sales director: Shelley Dowsett – firstname.lastname@example.com Sales executive: Lisa Slavin – firstname.lastname@example.com Editor: Andy Penfold – email@example.com Designer: Drew Geary – email@example.com Online editor: Alex Spencer – email@example.com Reporter: Kirsty Styles – email@example.com Contributors: Russell Buckley, George Cole, Helen Keegan, Steve May, Rob Thurner Print: Advent Print Group firstname.lastname@example.com Special thanks this issue to: Jo Murphy, Rowan Chambers, Rob Thurner For a paid subscription please email: firstname.lastname@example.com One Year Subscription Rates – UK: £30.00; ROW: £40.00 Mobile Marketing is published by Dot Media Ltd., 114-116 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3AH www.mobilemarketingmagazine.com
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thought leadership
VIEWPOINT Kevin Griffiths, SVP cabin crew, Emirates Airlines
Tablet technology has helped Emirates improve customer service and staff interaction in-flight, as the airline's SVP of cabin crew Kevin Griffiths explains At Emirates, we strive to deliver the world's best inflight experience. We constantly invest in the best aircraft, products and services. Since 2004, Emirates has been quietly leading the way with in-flight technology providing the pursers with laptops equipped with the latest business applications on board, enabling passengers to upgrade or provide feedback. With the dawn of the tablet, we quickly realised that we could enhance the passengers' in-flight experience by providing the pursers with mobile hardware to assist passengers 'seat side'. With so many tablets on the market it was important to choose a light, attractive, easy-to-use model. The HP ElitePad 900 offered all of these elements and was a platform from which we could create an application for Windows 8 called Knowledge Driven Inflight Service (KIS). Combined with Windows 8's touchoptimised user interface, the crew can spend more time interacting with customers in a unique and efficient way, as with previous apps you'd have to navigate many windows and screens to access the same information. The application supports our cabin crew to deliver a unique, personalised experience with the
'The crew can now spend more time interacting with customers in a unique and efficient way'
necessary information for them to better serve the needs of our customers. Pursers on the flight use the KIS application to bring up the details of the crew in advance of meeting them as well as seeing the languages they speak. The profile of each member of the cabin crew is uploaded onto the system pre-flight, and includes a photograph. This allows pursers the opportunity to build their team quickly.
Team work The tablets are then used to brief the cabin crew before every flight and understand how to best meet the personal preferences and needs of passengers. The application can easily identify customers, check meal preferences, conduct in-flight upgrades to business class or first class for Emirates Skywards members, and even enable customers to give feedback – which is routed to Emirates headquarters upon landing. Another useful element is that the app will highlight any passenger whose Emirates Skywards miles are close to expiring so the crew can bring this to their attention and suggest they use their miles to upgrade or purchase items on 'Emirates High Street'.
During each flight, a number of cabin crew will be appraised on their customer service and this is also conducted through the Microsoft 8 software. The streamlined process makes the feedback swift and easy to do, ensuring each member of the cabin crew is up to date on their assessment and maintaining Emirates' commitment to excellent customer service. We will provide the first 100 pursers with the devices in early 2013 and the rest are being rolled out later this year. Once deployment is complete, there will be 1,000 devices running the KIS application on the Emirates network. So far the feedback has been outstanding. It is so easy to use that the cabin crew are vying with each other to use the tablet. As more and more of our pursers use the tablets in-flight, we look forward to the increased positive effect this will have on the passengers' experience. MM
THe truth about
responsive Design Alex Spencer goes beyond the hype to find out whether responsive design really is the future of the mobile web
Whatever part of the industry you work in, it's likely you've heard the term 'responsive design' being bandied around at some point over the past year. Since The Boston Globe launched its responsive design site at the tail end of 2011, the concept has been adopted by a number of brands – including The Guardian, BBC, Starbucks, Sony, Metro, Harvard University, Microsoft and Disney – and there's no shortage of people in the industry ready to sing its praises. "This is definitely the end of 'm.' sites," says Adam Downes, lead creative at digital agency Pancentric. "It's not the death of apps – they still have a place, because there are still things you can't do without a native app – but I think responsive design will be the death of mobileoptimised sites." But what exactly does the term mean, and is it the holy grail of multichannel web design – or just the latest in a long line of buzzwords?
Alternative approach The term 'responsive design' was first coined in 2010 by web designer Ethan Marcotte, in the article titled A List Apart. Marcotte outlined an approach to web design that would automatically alter a page's layout depending on the device being used.
Responsive design provides to create and maintain content an alternative approach to across platforms, delivering having separate mobile- and automatically resized assets tablet-optimised sites as well based on the size of the screen. as a desktop site. Media queries "Essentially, everything that built into the code detect the could be done with responsive parameters of the device being design within a single site can used, and tell the browser what also be done with individual content to load accordingly. websites for various device This tends to require a site's classes," explains Markus Stuhr, layout to be designed around head of UX design at German modules – blocks of content mobile solutions provider which can be shuffled around. Sevenval. "But this would be a As well as rearranging this much more complex process." content to suit the parameters Future-proofing of a specific device, responsive Perhaps the most attractive design enables pages to do aspect of responsive design is things such as displaying a more the idea of future-proofing your landscape-friendly layout when the user turns their handset or tablet on its side, without having to communicate with the server. Ultimately, the biggest advantages of a responsive design approach can be boiled down to two factors – whatever the device being used, each site is accessed from a unified URL, and a single code-base. A single URL, with no need for a separate site for mobile users, simplifies the redirection process, and can improve SEO, as there's no chance of the desktop and mobile sites being treated as different entities by search engines. A single code-base, Jamie Walters, product meanwhile, makes it development director, Metro quicker and more efficient
'Nothing's truly futureproof, but responsive design prepares you to deal with any screen size'
Take for example, the Channel 4 News site, which relaunched with a responsive site in August last year. Because it works by delivering the full desktop site initially – around 2.5MB of information – and then hiding the extra material, the site loads very slowly, especially over a mobile data connection. However, this isn't necessarily an issue with responsive design itself, but rather a flaw in the particular site's design. It's possible to take a mobile-first approach that doesn't rely on large downloads of data that mobile users won't even see, as Pancentric's Downes points out. "Our mantra at the moment is that you start small and then you grow big," he says. "You start with mobile, and then you basically build up, rather than building the desktop version first, and then adding more code to shrink it down to fit a smaller device. The Metro's responsive website has seen mobile site traffic hit 50 per cent of overall traffic since its launch
site against any devices and form factors launched after you push the finished product out into the world. "Nothing's truly futureproof, but responsive design prepares you to deal with any screen size," says Jamie Walters, product development director for the Metro newspaper, which launched a responsive design site in December last year. "You still can't just stick a site out and never need to look at it again, but responsive design at least provides a starting point to build on, which has more longevity than previous approaches to mobile web design." In the increasingly fragmented mobile landscape, with new devices arriving so quickly it's often hard to keep count, the idea of a consistent, easy-to-manage web presence across all devices looks like just what the doctor ordered. But not everyone is impressed.
"It sounds like a great idea on the surface," says Phillip Clement, sales and marketing director at Bemoko, which builds mobile sites. "Most people think that you either have a mobile site and a desktop site, or you use something called 'responsive design' That it's an either/or proposition. But that is currently the biggest misconception in the industry."
Resized sites Bemoko uses server-side elements for its mobile sites, meaning that the processing that decides what to deliver is done on servers rather than on the device itself, and Clement thinks that relying on responsive design can cause more issues than it solves. "In essence, you're sending your desktop site – that whole website – to a mobile device, and then relying on the device to decide what it does and doesn't need to display," he says. "What you get is a very slow site, and sites that aren't contextual. You've got a resized desktop site – what's that got to do with mobile?" There are certainly issues with some of the ways the approach has been applied.
'Essentially, everything that could be done with responsive design within a single site can also be done with individual websites for various device classes' Markus Stuhr, Head of UX design, Sevenval
That means there's less code, and you get a faster load time." This is the same approach taken by The Guardian for its own responsive design site, which launched in November – but for now this only applies to devices with a screen size of seven inches or less. The Guardian site is essentially a more flexible version of the traditional mobile-optimised site, and still sits at an 'm.' URL. The tablet and desktop sites are apparently set to follow shortly, but this does shine a light on the biggest potential flaw with the responsive design approach. Surely if a site has to bend to suit any given screen, each of which has such different demands, then one of those platforms is bound to suffer? "It introduces a new creative challenge," says Pancentric's Downes. "We have to be able to design well for mobile, and make sure it translates well too. Websites have to be built around a series of columns, and a single column of items stacked on top of one another looks great on mobile – but how does that work on a bigger screen? Frankly, there's a danger of things all starting to look the same, but finding that point of difference is part of the excitement for designers." On both the technology and creative sides, developers are trying to work out how to make best use of this relatively new approach. There are limits on how
much a single site can be tailored to fit a variety of devices but, as more people adopt responsive design, those boundaries will be pushed.
Success stories Looking at some of the responsive design sites already out there shows how web design is going to evolve around the concept, but the best examples aren't merely prototypes. There are plenty of commendable sites out there which use responsive design to deliver a great experience, whichever device they're being viewed on. The Boston Globe, which is generally cited as the pioneer for big brands adopting responsive design, remains an elegant example of how to handle deep navigation on a mobile screen. The horizontal section menus used on desktop, which present the user with more options and images when hovered over, are simplified down to a horizontal drop-down when accessed on mobile devices. The BBC relaunched the websites for its individual channels in May 2012. The revamped design transfers neatly over to the mobile screen, but the desktop incarnations also manage to retain the
Pancentric's work on Towergate Insurance resulted in a responsively designed website that works across devices
Responding to the changes What responsive design means for creative agencies
Pancentric's Adam Downes says responsive design forces designers and developers to work closer together
esponsive design looks set to change the way mobile sites look and act, but it could also have an effect on how those sites are put together. "From my point of view as lead creative, it's going to change everything," says Pancentric's Adam Downes. "The way we work was too siloed, and we definitely needed to look at how we approach projects. Responsive design is helping us do that." Having a single canvas with strict technical restraints is a challenge for designers, but according to Downes,
this makes the creative and development sides of the agency work closer together, in a way he compares to the collaboration between architects and engineers. "It means the designer has to be less possessive and precious, and learn to see the bigger picture instead," he says. "And on the client side, it forces them to focus on what's really important, and remove the rest. At the moment, clients expect to be shown how lovely their website looks on a desktop, but building from the bottom up enforces discipline, and discourages verbose content and vanity publishing."
distinctive native look of the BBC's other sections, which still use separate mobileoptimised sites. A relaunch using responsive design can also work wonders for the effectiveness of a site. Free newspaper Metro was seeing 30-40 per cent of traffic to its site coming via mobile devices – particularly impressive, given that it didn't have a mobile-optimised site at the time. However, within a month of a full site relaunch using responsive design, the proportion of mobile traffic was regularly topping 50 per cent. Page views per visit have doubled on mobile devices, and on certain days, they're nearly three times higher than before the relaunch – a trend that, Walters says, is most noticeable among tablet users. The site itself is easy to use, doing an impressive job of condensing a lot of content into a clean design which loads quickly. All versions of the site are built around the ability to move right and left between stories. On desktop, this is done by clicking a button or using the arrow keys, but on mobile devices, navigation uses a swipe function. It's the work of a team that understands the principle that Pancentric supported, that with responsive design, less is more.
"Load speed is vitally important, as any business will tell you," says Metro's Walters. "One of the problems of mobile is that you've got a smaller processor, and the standard way to work with responsive design is to either hide or resize elements to fit the device. But you're still loading a pretty heavy page designed for desktop consumption onto something with much lower power. "We wanted to go beyond that, so the default for our site is to load a lighter page, with less content and smaller images than you'd typically get on desktop, and then if there's room for more furniture and images, we'll load those." It's probably worth noting at this point that all of those examples fall within the same vertical. They're all publishing websites with limited types of content – text, images, video – which stays more or less the same across devices. As of yet, not many retailers have adopted responsive design, and there's a good reason for that. "When it comes to complex websites, such as a web shop with advanced functionalities and payment processes, simple adaptation of content delivery will not be enough to create
'What you get with responsive design is a very slow site, and sites that aren't contextual. You've got a resized desktop site – what's that got to do with mobile?' Phillip Clement, sales & marketing director, Bemoko
Starbucks goes responsive How the coffeeshop giant ground its site down for mobile devices
f you want a quick idea of how responsive design is being used by brands right now, you could do worse than quickly checking out the Starbucks site on a few different devices. It's a sleek, attractive site that manages to incorporate a variety of content and functionality without falling down on any device, but the site's not without its flaws. The differences are most pronounced on a smartphone, which condenses a complex site admirably. Whereas the tablet version slightly tweaks the desktop site, mobile navigation is greatly simplified. The main carousel adapts well to the screen size, while deeper navigation is hidden behind a menu button.
The mobile site also puts an increased emphasis on finding the nearest location, bringing in a location-based Google Maps API on mobile. As seems to be inevitable with responsive design, more complex content can suffer slightly. Video content failed to load on some devices, and pages that are more heavy on design elements such as different font sizes and colours don't quite work on a smaller screen. However, the mobile site doesn't stick out as non-native, while the desktop site never feels like a dumbed-down compromise. It's a good example of what to expect from the better class of responsive design as more brands try it.
Starbucks's site on mobile is an easy-to-navigate experience
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a user-friendly experience across multiple devices," says Sevenval's Stuhr. "It is often necessary to make functional changes or adjustments to the processes depending on the device, which are not readily available with responsive web design."
Trick or treat? So what is responsive design: holy grail or buzzword? As is the case with every new piece of mobile technology, the answer lies somewhere between those two extremes. As it stands, responsive design certainly isn't for every brand looking to revamp its site to make it more mobile-friendly. Retailers, at least, might want to stick to a mobile-optimised site, though there are exceptions to this rule (see Starbucks goes responsive, p10). "Responsive design is just a technique," says Bemoko's Clement. "It's just one of the many ingredients you'd use to deliver a great multichannel 'one web' experience. Relying entirely
on it would be like an artist just using one size of brush to create a painting." Sevenval's Stuhr agrees: "The biggest weakness of responsive design, in my opinion, is that it is often seen as a standalone, onesize-fits-all, magical solution." However, responsive design is still a powerful tool for designers, especially when combined with other techniques. 'Progressive enhancement', for example, is a design strategy that layers the content and functionality of a webpage to provide a scaled version, depending on the browser, device, and bandwidth. This can be used alongside responsive design to deliver a more malleable experience. Responsive design is still in its infancy, and it has plenty of obstacles and challenges yet to overcome. Many of these are inherited from other ways of designing for mobile, such as the difficulty of filling out forms and reading detailed tables on smaller screens.
"There are some challenges," says Chris Mulholland, product manager at The Guardian. "If, for instance, there is just so much information that has to be displayed in a single view, that would make it impractical to try to squeeze this onto a mobile device – but that's not a problem specific to responsive design." With iteration, the industry will start to find ways around these problems, and responsive design should only accelerate that process. As well as being a handy technique in practical terms, it's useful as a philosophy, acknowledging the issue of fragmentation and tackling it head on. "The greatest strength of responsive design is that the challenge of content delivery across various devices and browsers is addressed at the start of a project," says Sevenval's Stuhr. "The understanding that content varies according to the client and that pages do not look identical across all devices is becoming more widespread." Is responsive design set to be the death of mobile-optimised sites? It looks unlikely, at least in the foreseeable future. But that doesn't make it any less valuable. With the evolution of mobile hardware, there are a few things that look certain – processors in mobile devices will get more powerful; the speed and bandwidth of mobile data connections will improve; and the shape and size of devices will continue to diversify. Responsive design could help tie all those developments together, and deliver the mobile sites of the future. But it's not for everyone, and it's certainly not the silver bullet some claim it to be. MM
Responsive web design often involves creating a 'modular' design, with blocks of content that can be rearranged
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march 2013
What happens in vegas?
APPS rule CES This year's International CES in Las Vegas was comprehensively app-lified. Steve May reports from the bustling show floor
march 2013
The mobile multiverse had a huge impact on January's International CES event in Las Vegas. The sprawling technology trade show, once the bastion of a conservative consumer electronics industry, fell to an army of apps, mobile devices and wireless functionality. So much so that Consumer Electronics of America (CEA) president Gary Shapiro was moved to declare: "The age of traditional consumer electronics is over, we're now entering the era of product app-lification… this is the biggest app show in the world!" Small screens finally appeared to be competing with large screens on a level playing field, and while CES wasn't a platform for too many major mobile product announcements, their influence was everywhere, from secondscreen interactivity to a barrage of Bluetooth peripherals.
Sony lauded The hottest new handset to emerge from CES came from Sony. Showgoers were the first to get hands-on with the Xperia Z (it was amusing to hear Americans emphasise the 'Zed'). This premium superphone has a 5-inch Full HD display, Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, 13Mp camera and 4G LTE. The high-resolution screen
Pebble is a success story from crowdfunding website Kickstarter.com. The watch features an e-ink screen that lets users change the design of the clock face whenever they want
and BRAVIA picture processor clearly owe a debt of gratitude to Sony's TV boffins, and the camera's image quality seems second to none. The Xperia Z will debut with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean but Sony let it be known that it'll be rapidly upgraded to 4.2 after launch. Upcoming Chinese major TCL also used the show to bolster its Alcatel One Touch mobile portfolio stateside, with the introduction of inevitably larger screens and meatier processors. The brand also unveiled a host of new tablets, including its first 7-inch slates with 4G LTE support. Meanwhile, Samsung was attracting big crowds eager to play with its Galaxy Note 2 LTE edition. 4G LTE remains the big hope for the US mobile market. Following a slowdown during 2012 when handset shipments faltered, all three main operators stateside are now aggressively expanding LTE network coverage and device offerings.
Bluetooth gizmos The influence of Bluetooth was palpable, not least in the preponderance of connected audio systems and headphones on display, not just from stalwarts such as Samsung and Panasonic, but the likes of Dr Dre, whose Beats headphones are already market leaders. It's easy to see some of the smaller brands gaining global traction with inventive Bluetooth gizmos too. Avantree launched the Roxa – essentially a BT-empowered mains plug which receives streaming music and then squirts it out via cable to a hi-fi system. Ingeniously, it allows anyone to upgrade their audio kit to embrace wireless sources. A similar device from the brand, dubbed the Cara, does much the same thing for the car stereo system. Wahoo Fitness even displayed a Bluetooth-enabled weighing scale, able to send a user's weight and body mass index to compatible health
march 2013
Delegates from around the world defied their Vegas-sized hangovers to throng to the CES show floor
and fitness apps. The scales are able to manage 16 different profiles, so multiple dieters can keep track of their progress.
Time for a change One fascinating new trend to emerge from this year's CES was 'Smartwatches'. Bluetooth accessories or futuristic timepieces? No one seemed quite sure, but everyone seemed convinced that the form factor had become 'A Thing'. There were smartwatch entrants from I'm Watch and Martian, but the wrist everyone was looking at belonged to newbie Pebble. Already famous for being the most successful start-up on Kickstarter, the crowdfunded timepiece features a monochrome e-ink display which can be changed at whim to one of hundreds of clock face designs. It can also load custom apps (the SDK has just been released to third party developers) and pairs with a smartphone via Bluetooth for notifications, text, and music
playback. The Pebble begins shipping Stateside this month, initially to project backers. The US retail price is a highly competitive $150. In truth, CES didn't see too many new tablets breaking cover, not least because most major manufacturers appear to have played their hands before Christmas, although that didn't prevent smaller marques unveiling multiple lookalike slates. Coby, Zeki, Naxa, E-FUN, and Polaroid all entered the fray with 7-, 8- and 10-inch models. Sorting one from the other is something of a thankless task, but all will doubtless help fuel the burgeoning app ecosystem.
story jumped to another level as NFC (Near Field Communication) technology crept into the frame. Both Sony and LG confirmed NFC-enabled TVs for later this year, heralding ever closer integration between mobile devices and traditional CE products. Just tapping a compatible smartphone onto an NFC TV tag enables instant device pairing and content sharing between television and phone. "We aim to make content sharing seamless and easy," said George Mead, head of consumer marketing for LG. Other partnering technologies are also gaining ground. Miracast, the peer-topeer wireless standard created by the Wi-fi Alliance, also seems on course to become a feature staple if CES is anything to go by, having secured support from several top tier TV brands. Miracast enables a mobile phone screen to literally be mirrored on a connected TV screen. WiDi, wi-fi direct and other wireless connection permutations were also prevalent.
Big-screen personalisation The pixel wars that have been driving mobile screen development over the past year or so finally impacted on the world of television at CES, as every major manufacturer scrambled onboard the 4K Ultra HD bandwagon. There may be no native 4K content available, but that didn't quell the enthusiasm of TV makers for 3,840 x 2,160 resolution panels. However, while Ultra HD was deemed to be a luxury
NFC gains ground The development of mobile devices as second screens in the living room has been a reccurring theme over the past 18 months. At CES, the
As consumer enthusiasm for 3D TV wanes, manufacturers have started pushing Ultra HD
march 2013
proposition, regular net-connected Full HD sets were ubiquitous. And with dual and even quad core processors being adopted, user interfaces and functionality were getting dramatically smarter. Samsung, an early advocate of voice and gesture control, refined its second generation voice TVs so that they can (theoretically) respond to everyday speech instead of staccato commands. It remains to be seen if this translates into a more agreeable user experience. Panasonic even took the wraps off a new smart portal user interface that talks back. Called My Home Screen, it features an adjustable grid that allows apps and wallpapers to be arranged according to taste. Sets with integrated cameras can recognise viewers and automatically load personal preferences. The screens answer back as part of the search functionality, using technology originally developed to aid the sight-impaired. Elsewhere, LG revamped its TV user interface with On Now, a content aggregator and search tool that combines terrestrial listings with on demand content. Samsung countered with the rather similar S-Recommendation engine, which simplifies content search and offers personal TV and movie recommendations. Perhaps the most radical UI overhaul came from Sony. For 2013 it's ditching its long standing PS3-inspired Xrossmediabar interface, opting instead for a discrete menu tree. The new look is designed to be used in conjunction with an app called TV SideView. "This allows you to use a tablet or phone as an extension of the main screen," explained Sony's senior product marketing manager for Europe, Tim Page. "You can browse programme EPG data, select TV shows to record onto HDD, or browse our Smart Portal IPTV content and then select it to play on the Home Screen. You can also use SideView to play all your networked AV content. It's a big upgrade on the standard media remote app." While TVs last great trend, 3D, has been hastily parked, there seems much greater enthusiasm for net connectability. In the US, about 25 per cent of the market is now internet-addressable TVs, revealed Shawn
Samsung had a strong presence at the show, and the company's connected devices demo area was popular with delegates
DuBravac, chief economist and director of research at the CEA, adding that it's not a trend that's going to slow down. "We're entering a period where we have a greater number of connected devices than we have people on earth," he said. "Right now we're a little over one per person, but according to predictions by Cisco, by 2020 we'll reach six or seven. In the US alone,
Sony's Xperia Z smartphone was the standout mobile handset of the show, boasting a 1080p 5-inch screen
300m connected devices shipped in 2012, and worldwide shipments will total a billion devices."
Connected trends Literally everything appeared in thrall to the internet in Las Vegas, including Samsung's new top of the line T9000 refrigerator. The clue was the widescreen monitor embedded in one of its four huge doors. Top organisational app Evernote comes preloaded, the idea being that users can write themselves a reminder to buy stuff, which in turn syncs automatically with the Evernote app on their mobile device. The T9000 also links with Google calendar, runs weather apps, displays recipes, and functions as an in-home memo board. The automotive market was also well represented at the show. While the focus seemed more on eco vehicles, brands still found time to unveil a variety of voice recognition and wireless technologies. Kenwood touted head units that offered Siri control and embedded wi-fi to access traffic and weather reports from a tethered mobile. Meanwhile, Chevrolet demonstrated a neat hands-free Siri solution that allows users to fire up voice recognition via a button on the steering wheel. At CES, not only was the future connected, it was entering the fast lane. MM
March 2013
Connect Different
mBox CEO Tom Cotney tells Andy Penfold how the company's Engage messaging platform can reinvigorate mobile campaigns through smart use of data and a strong value proposition Mobile as a marketing channel offers powerful new ways for brands to connect to consumers. mBlox, with its Engage messaging platform, is one company that's enabling marketers to seize the opportunities presented by mobile. But the company's CEO Tom Cotney believes marketers are currently only just scratching the surface of what's possible. "In businesses we all live with the fact that we have finite resources," he says. "Of course, trial and error can be painful, but
I would say if you haven't had success with mobile, talk to people who have and learn more. Because I promise you that the appetite from the consumer is there." Cotney says that marketers often suffer from trying to replicate successes in traditional marketing – outdoor, print, and web – in the mobile space, missing mobile's unique connection to consumers in the process. "The industry is still in second gear," he says. "The early adopters came to the mobile industry with a lot of ideas that had been
The mBlox Engage dashboard allows advertisers to manage their messaging campaigns
ported from the print and outdoor advertising space. They've seen the move to the web and the success of that, but the focus is still on delivering eyeballs for brands."
Taking advantage To take advantage of mobile, Cotney says marketers have to consider the difference between advertising and marketing. He argues that advertising can be characterised as a one-way communication between brand and consumer, while marketing is more of a dialogue. And through intelligent collection of data, mobile can facilitate a specific, less generic discussion between brand and consumer. "Now brands are realising that great customer experiences across all channels, including mobile, can be their greatest differentiation," says Cotney. "Done well, these experiences can deepen relationships and increase loyalty. "Brands need to start to think about mobile as more than just delivery. Let's deliver, collect data, and gain insight. That's where mBlox can be involved. Specifically with Engage." mBlox's Engage is a mobile campaign-management platform. The toolset enables
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brands to build powerful 'push' message delivery and analytics capabilities into their existing iOS and Android apps. The platform can deliver rich content, text, and email based on a wide gamut of targeting data, such as geo-fenced location, time of day, and in-app actions. Real-time analytics features also help brands to evaluate the success of their messaging and learn from their experiences. "It starts with analytics," says Cotney. "Business intelligence is a big industry. We're entering it from a very specific spot – mobile." The mBlox proposition is that by analysing consumer behaviour in such detail, a brand can be ahead of their customers' expectations and deliver messages when they're in the right frame of mind to receive them. Cotney gives the example of a local chain of hardware stores. "Our tool would let you draw a two-mile radius around that store and send local consumers a push message that says 'at the local hardware store, we're thinking about you, and we appreciate your loyalty'," he says. "And if people are opening those messages on Friday nights after work, then you're communicating with people when they're lining up what they're going to do with their time over the weekend." This insight into a potential customer's lifestyle creates a relationship between them and the brand, but Cotney says that respecting privacy is essential if a brand wants to convert messaging into sales. "I have to know you to send you something in context," he says. "But I can't be creepy about it. The communication needs to come across like: 'We have a special bond, you shared some insight with me, now I can anticipate your needs', not: 'I know what you're doing and I'm watching you'. "There's context in both examples, but there's more respect for privacy in the first one. The message from the brand is: 'I won't waste your time and I'll be more respectful of how I interact with you because I've invested in knowing you'." mBlox aims to give its clients the ability to interpret behaviour, so they can then create opportunities to communicate something that is interesting to the consumer and commercially successful for the brand. Since these messages are being delivered
through mobile apps, the idea that messaging and the application itself is useful to the consumer is key. The applications market is busy and getting apps downloaded onto phones and in use can be a challenge. The answer, according to mBlox, is to provide an app that is useful to the user – and then to market it based on its usefulness.
App relationships "I fly in and out of Atlanta frequently and I get a lot of email from Delta about their mobile app," says Cotney. "Messages calling on me to download and use it. Messages that inform me it has been updated and has new functionality. Now my relationship with that airline is centred around this app because it's providing a great customer experience. As a result, my loyalty to their brand is stronger than it's ever been." And while the app market has proved challenging for many brands, Cotney draws parallels with the early days of internet services. "How did we grow up in our use of the web?" he says. "How do you discover that you can do something online? It's through some sort of promotion. In the early days, it was about the push to go paperless, to 'go green'!" "They were communicating a value proposition about the web that's good for both parties, and that's one thing that absolutely ports from call centres to the web and then to mobile." Now brands are realising great customer experiences can be their greatest point of differentiation that translate across channels. Done well, especially on mobile, these experiences can deepen relationships and increase loyalty. mBlox also deals in SMS marketing, and Cotney urges brands to explore the relationship between SMS marketing and push messaging in their market. "Brands need to experiment with these channels," he says. "Learn what their style is and what – given the industry they're operating within – is going to work best for their business and the expectations about entities in that business.
'Now brands are realising great customer experiences across all channels, including mobile, can be their greatest differentiation' Tom Cotney, CEO, mBlox "An app gives customers a more sophisticated window into an organisation's capabilities. Push is a good thing to have on top of SMS capability. Consumers have different expectations for different industries, and brands need to get aggressive about learning what works for them." Ultimately, a mobile strategy should take advantage of mobile's unique connection with consumers. "You just have to travel the world a little bit to see the relationship that people have with their phones!" says Cotney. The golden rules are to make sure messaging has a value proposition for the consumer, and to use it to build a relationship with the consumer. "The industry is going to make it easier to use the mobile channel," says Cotney. "At mBlox, we are certainly dedicating ourselves and our resources to that. We want to make it easier to integrate and easier to get data, so you can understand how to get a better return from your mobile marketing investment." MM
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March 2013
thought leadership
Buckley on… the qualities that get start-ups funded
We may be living in tough economic times, but Russell Buckley argues there's funding out there for start-ups that demonstrate the right mix of drive, skills, and strong ideas… One of the big myths about start-ups is that it's really hard to get funding. This may have been more true in the past, but with funding announcements happening nearly every day, some start-ups are clearly managing to raise money. So what's the difference between the funded and the whingers who go around complaining that no one will give them any money? This is a more fundamental question than it might seem, and lies at the heart of successful funding – and actually, the subsequent success of the start-up itself – and that's the quality of the team. 'Quality' can mean lots of different things, but in this context it means: do they have what it takes to execute their vision? I'm talking about the persistence, the mental toughness, the character to see their project through the rough times (and there will be rough times), as well as those lovely times when you enjoy the first few weeks of success. Marc Lewis, the Dean of the School of Communication Arts, puts it very well when he says that he wants his students to be "Yes, and…" people, not "No, but…" ones. It's a great discipline to cultivate in your own attitude, a must for start-up
'If your view of the Idea is the world
today, by the time you launch, it stands a real danger of being completely irrelevant'
teams and one that experienced investors look for relentlessly. The leadership team simply needs to work really hard, be flexible, and do whatever it takes to succeed. And, let's face it, most people simply don't have this, just as we can't all be professional athletes or best-selling novelists.
People power What does the ideal team look like? I can think of plenty of successful founding teams consisting of solo founders (though this is a tough gig), or two or three people, but four seems too many. Doubtless there are some examples, but they don't exactly trip off the tongue. Whatever the number, one of them needs to be ruthlessly, obsessively focussed on 'product'. If you're a single founder, that's you. Other useful team members are certainly those responsible for tech and a business person can be useful – sadly, for us business people, we're just not as necessary as the other two areas in the early stages. And certainly, if I see a team consisting of three MBAs, with a great track record in corporate finance, alarm bells are clanging in my head. Personally, I think team diversity is vital – diversity in gender (I'd love to see more women founders), culturally, and in skill sets. There are loads of studies indicating that these types of diversity lead to success, so don't think you'll be different. I'm now about 60 per cent through writing this article and
am still banging on about teams. That's no accident – everything else is secondary. I'd say that The Big Idea comes next. However, as this stage, The Big Idea is only a hypothesis and can (and might have to be) changed numerous times before the success seam is uncovered – hence the importance of team and the ruthless focus on product. The one thing I would say though is that the idea for the business must be solving a real problem the target customer genuinely has; indeed, many startups seek to resolve some pain in the founders' own lives or professions. The critical question around this area is: are you doing it because it can be done, or because there's a genuine need for it? Finally, the idea should take into account how rapidly the world is changing, driven by exponential technology evolution. This means that if your view of the Idea is the world today, by the time you launch, and certainly as the Idea takes off, it stands a real danger of being completely irrelevant. As an example, if the Idea doesn't put mobile at its very centre – say, it's very PC centric – it's almost certainly not going to work. People have written books about this subject and I can't cover everything on one page. But if you can look yourself in the eye and say you have a great team and a great idea, your start-up might well attract some interest from potential investors. MM
MobileMarketing Mobile marketing live
Mobile Marketing Live brings together leading brands to talk about their experiences in the mobile channel, and leading practitioners to update delegates on the latest developments in their area of expertise. The second event will run in October 2013.
Mobile retail summit
The Mobile Retail Summit brings together retailers and mobile marketing experts for a day of insight, education and inspiration. This year's event takes place on 24 April in London.
Mobile Gambling Summit
The Mobile Gambling Summit will bring together gambling company executives and mobile experts to explore how mobile can be used to increase loyalty and generate new revenue streams.
Masterclassing Each of the Mobile, Digital and Social Masterclassing half-day events focuses on a particular sector, such as Retail or Financial Services. Delegates attend for free to hear 10-minute presentations from six experts. Each expert then spends 15 minutes on each table, before moving on to the next table, giving each delegate the opportunity to talk to each speaker about their particular needs and plans.
EFFECTIVE MOBILE MARKETING AWARDS We launched the Effective Mobile Marketing Awards in 2010. Last year's Awards program attracted more than 200 entries from leading global brands, including Barclays, Easyjet, Mazda and Starbucks. The Call for Entries for the 2013 Awards will be issued in the Spring.
Mobile Training Academy The Mobile Training Academy, which we run in partnership with digital marketing expert and IAB, IDM and IPM trainer, Rob Thurner (exClear Channel, Incentivated) offers off-the-shelf and bespoke training solutions to brands and agencies, to help them understand the mobile marketing landscape, and develop their own mobile marketing solutions.
In the last two years alone, we have staged more than 50 events, from conferences to private dinners. If you need help in organising an event to get your message across, our events team will be happy to help.
Contact the events team today on 020 7183 2920
STOP the PRESS
As the newspaper and magazine industries continue to struggle against web-based media, could tablet editions be the answer? Andy Penfold investigates
Digital technology has devastated several traditional industries, but printed media is enduring a particularly drawn out battle to save itself from the clutches of the internet-connected world. Magazine publishers increasingly focus on online revenues to subsidise their newsstand presence, while major newspapers experiment with payment models for online content to monetise their output. It is in this context that the boom in tablet devices presents a huge opportunity to publishers. Wayne Holder, head of digital at content agency Redwood (part of the BBDO global network), says that tablets can enhance
both the physical magazine and the digital media experience. "Tablets offer, for the first time, something akin to the experience readers of print magazines have always enjoyed – mobility, visual richness, variety, and to a certain extent tactility," he says. "Before tablets were around, readers were forced to engage with digital content sitting in front of a PC or on a laptop. Tablet editions have also enabled us to be more creative with our content." Mark Porter, principal at Mark Porter Associates, believes that the tablet can deliver a real-time 'web-like' news experience that feels as tactile as print. Formerly The Guardian's creative director, he was
Scott Ritcher's K Composite magazine has been given a new lease of life since he started publishing it for the iPad
instrumental in launching the Guardian's iPad tablet edition. "The Guardian decided that its website, mobile site, and smartphone apps were already delivering real-time updates and fast-moving news, so there was an opportunity to create something for the section of the audience that wanted a more print-like experience – content from the print edition, published daily, but more immersive," he says. "Different publishers will make different strategic decisions about what their audience needs."
the audience I had built," says Ritcher. "It had actually been a couple years since the last print issue was published when my first iPad edition came out in 2011." For a small publisher such as Ritcher, who uses The Telegraph's app is updated daily and subscriptions are sold at £9.99 per month the Mag+ platform to produce K Composite, The Telegraph is one newspaper that going iPad-only served to cut costs, solve has forged ahead with digital editions, and distribution problems, and allow him to Mark Challinor, mobile director at The control the product. "Aside from being able to Telegraph Group, says its audience is ideal for publish worldwide simultaneously for less than embracing tablet publishing. "Oracle's recent the cost of a test-run on a four-colour press, research showed that with older audiences publishing to the iPad gives me incredible (over 35s), it was twice as likely they would control over the quality of the finished use a mobile device of some sort to research product," he says. "Printing and distribution products and services," he says. "In addition, used to cost thousands of dollars for every more than twice as many consumers aged 35 issue, and so much of my time used to be spent and older have made a purchase on mobile obsessing over printing, distribution, shipping, platforms since 2009, and it's growing. This and paper costs, then hustling to sell enough fits exactly with our audiences." ads to pay for all of it. Publishing to the iPad Winning combination lets me to reclaim all the time and resources I Real-time news experiences coupled with used to pour into those tasks and use it instead magazine-like design sensibilities is a winning for creativity." combination from the readers' point of view, Ritcher's experience of taking his but tablet editions can tick a key box for brand global is echoed by bigger players publishers too: cost. Ditching the costs of in the magazine industry. "Tablet editions paper and printing is an attractive prospect can help publishers boost revenue from for publishers large and small. both readers and advertisers," says Karl Scott Ritcher is the independent publisher Schneider, editorial development director at of iPad-only magazine K Composite. The Reed Business Information (RBI) – the UK magazine started as a printed 'fanzine' and magazine publisher behind B2B big-hitters features interviews with non-famous people such as NewScientist, Flightglobal, and Ritcher meets. It garnered a readership of Farmers Weekly. around 7,000 in Ritcher's native Kentucky in "As tablet penetration grows globally, tablet the early 2000s. Ritcher then moved to Sweden editions allow us to reach new audiences in in 2009 and essentially canned the project. regions that would be impractical to address "I presumed I was leaving the magazine with a print magazine, delivering new behind because publishing and distributing paying subscribers and new audiences to it from overseas wouldn't really be feasible. sell to advertisers. The scope to launch new I was no longer going to be able to reach digital-only products, and to enhance existing
products with digital functionality such as video, audio and interactivity, also opens up the possibility to win new subscribers and to offer new opportunities to advertisers."
Cautious optimism The Telegraph's Challinor agrees. "We are now seeing an unstoppable surge of interest from our readers and advertisers in the space," he says. "Revenues now represent a double digit percentage of our entire digital revenues and we expect massive further growth in future months and years." The optimism from the industry tends to be cautious, though – the overwhelming message from publishers of all sizes is that the industry is very much in an experimental phase, with monetisation currently taking a backseat as publishers search for the killer business model to back up the wow factor of the format. However, the ABC now counts digital edition sales alongside print titles, and downloads are somewhat patchy and unpredictable, with some massive-selling print titles seeing lacklustre downloads. The UK's top selling digital edition is Cosmopolitan, with a circulation of 13,298, but compared to that magazine's total average net circulation of over 350,000 in print, it's clear that digital editions won't save print overnight, in the women's glossy market at least. It's a new industry though, and as such is delivering growth. "The percentage of total circulation attributed to digital editions is growing," says Jerry Wright, ABC's CEO. "For example, How it Works showed 21 per cent of its overall combined print and digital circulation from its digital edition. We are expecting a continuing increase in the number of titles reporting their digital editions and the number of digital editions they are reporting in our February 2013 Consumer Magazines Report. The launch of Apple Newsstand generated a real uplift in sales and the emergence of other digital
Platform Games Five platforms and solutions for producing digital editions of magazines… publishing platforms will continue to drive sales in the sector." The Apple Newsstand may be a boon for iPad-owning readers, but some in the industry feel the reader's ability to discover individual magazines is hampered when titles are distributed via closed ecosystems. Redwood's Holder says HTML5 offers publishers a more sustainable future than selling on app stores. "Native apps look great and can leverage fantastic functionality from the various tablet devices, but for the agencies trying to develop longterm publishing strategies, they can't continue to be tied into
'Different publishers will make different strategic decisions about what their audience needs' Mark Porter, principal, Mark Porter Associates
restrictive digital ecosystems such as the Android and iOS App Stores," he says. "When HTML5 is eventually fully supported I expect to see more magazines developed this way, as it also provides publishing freedom." "When I see K Composite ranking in the Newsstand charts alongside titles from Condé Nast, Bonnier and Hearst, it gives me a pretty clear picture of where the larger industry stands," says Ritcher. "It either means that my magazine is doing incredibly well, or there really isn't a whole lot of money in this yet. I think it's the latter. However, it is wonderful that the distribution channels for digital publications are essentially identical now for K Composite as they are for Time Warner. That's something I never could have dreamed of just a couple of years ago." At many publishing houses and brands, the attitude is that it's essential to be "in the game", as Mark Porter puts it, "so that we're ready when the time comes". There is a sense that innovation is necessary before digital editions will really offer a monetising lifeline to publishers. "Outside publishing, developers are finding all sorts of new and exciting ways to work with these devices, and it's still not clear what the future holds," says Porter. "But it seems clear that tablets are set to become a major part of consumers' lives and if publishers want to be a part of that, they need to try harder to offer new and exciting ways to present their content." MM
eDition www.edition-digital.co.uk Clients include… Tesco, M&S, BMW, Mazda A favourite of customer publishing agencies Redwood and Cedar, eDition allows publishers to publish to web and mobile via a WYSIWYG interface. It deals with interactive PDFs and essentially creates a HTML5 microsite for each magazine edition. Mag+ www.magplus.com Clients include… Cosmopolitan Bride, Bloomberg Markets, Men's Fitness Functioning as an InDesign plug-in, Mag+ allows designers to 'pin' elements to the outsides of the viewable area, so that layouts work whether the device is in portrait or landscape orientation. The solution publishes to all the major mobile app stores. 3D Issue www.3dissue.com Clients include… Google, Sony, World Wildlife Fund Aiming to make it easy for brands to get their printed brochures into the online space, 3D Issue is a standalone software app that outputs an HTML5 or Flash site for you to host. Adobe Digital Publishing Suite www.adobe.com Clients include… Vanity Fair, Reader's Digest, WIRED Integrating with InDesign, Adobe's industry standard publishing design software, the company's Digital Publishing Suite outputs to a proprietary format called .folio, which allows for publishing to native apps for various mobile operating systems. WoodWing www.woodwing.com Clients include… Esquire, The Sunday Times, OK! WoodWing's digital publishing services also integrate tightly with the Adobe Creative Suite, and aim to fit in with traditional print workflows and skillsets. The company's Content Station can turn InDesign files into native apps and lets publishers build a branded viewer app.
Smart Schools
You'd think children playing with tablets and phones in class would be a teacher's nightmare – but some schools are embracing mobile with forward-thinking gusto. George Cole reports
Forget daybooks, fountain pens, and PE kits – for many school kids in the UK, the one item they can't forget to put in their satchel in the morning is their mobile. Many schools are encouraging students to bring smartphones and tablets into lessons and use them as part of their learning. In some cases, mobile devices are replacing the traditional textbook and even consigning desktop computers to the scrapheap. At Longfield Academy in Kent – an 11-18 mixed secondary school with almost a thousand students – for example, around three quarters of the pupils have their own Apple iPad. And Longfield is not unique: all 900 students and 140 staff at Essa Academy in Bolton use iPads (See The school with 1,000 iPads, p27). It's not surprising that many schools are now embracing mobile technology. A smartphone is effectively a pocket-sized computer that includes a web
browser, digital camera and multimedia player. Mobile technology is ubiquitous amongst young people: a YouGov survey found that almost three quarters of 10-year-olds in the UK have a mobile phone, while an Ofcom report on media usage by parents and children in Britain found that 62 per cent of people aged 12-15 owned a smartphone, compared with 45 per cent for adults. There are thousands of educational apps covering all subjects and all ages, and mobile devices can be used for everything from accessing online resources – many schools put homework and other content online, which can be accessed by students at home or school – to recording sound, images, and data. Mobile devices can also be used for email, messaging, and collaborative work. But while the use of mobile devices for teaching and learning is an exciting prospect, it also throws up a number of issues.
Torsten Stauch's AppShed Academy aims to help teachers and pupils develop their own apps
A mobile device is a personal device, and so ideally, should be used in the classroom on a oneto-one basis.
Form factor In many ways, tablets are the perfect form factor for mobile learning – they're compact,
lightweight and with a larger screen than a smartphone. This explains why tablet computing is driving the take-up of mobile devices in schools. And it's no surprise to find that one product leads the pack. "The Apple iPad is undoubtedly the device of choice for most
schools," says Valerie Thompson, chief executive of the e-learning Foundation, a charity that aims to narrow the digital divide amongst students. Thompson says there are good reasons for Apple's dominance. For one thing, there's a vast array of 'Apple distinguished educators' – a community of educators who promote learning through Apple products. There are 1,500 of these people worldwide, and around 50 stationed in the UK. On top of this, "there are more than 60,000 educational apps; and you've got the whole marketing power of Apple," Thompson says. Despite the lack of an education hardware discount, Apple does offer a Volume Purchase Programme (VPP),
which allows schools to buy apps in bulk at discount prices (up to 50 per cent off). Apple has also launched the Apple Configurator, a tool for configuring multiple devices with the same settings and apps.
Mobility and flexibility However, some Android tablets sell for under £200, less than half the price of an iPad. This makes them very appealing to cash-strapped schools. But price isn't the only reason for opting for a non-Apple device. Cramlington Learning Village in Northumberland has around 2,300 students, aged 11-18. It has purchased 300 Samsung 7-inch Galaxy Tabs for its Year 8 students, to use at home and school.
Phil Spoors, the school's assistant head teacher, says his school saw the advantages of mobile in school early. "We have an enquiry-based curriculum, with lots of project work, and we wanted our students to be able to move around the classroom, move between groups, move around the school and go outside of school while still being able to access the technology. We were looking for mobility and flexibility," says Spoors. He also adds that the school tested many devices, including tablets, smartphones and minibooks – and decided that
'We used to be a school where 28 per cent of pupils achieved five A*-C grades; in 2011 the figure was 100 per cent' Abdul Chohan, Academy director, Essa
The school with 1,000 iPads How one Bolton school has implemented a one iPad per pupil policy
ssa Academy in Bolton, Greater Manchester, has 900 pupils aged 1116, and 140 staff. In 2009, the school decided to adopt a 1:1 computing strategy, with staff and students having their own mobile device for teaching and learning. Abdul Chohan, Essa Academy director, explains why. "The technology would help us achieve the learning outcomes and experiences we were trying to achieve. Schools should be moving away from the traditional school computer model and towards a more personalised approach to learning, because the technology is there now." In the initial phase, all teachers were given an iPad, and every student had an iPod touch. Late last year, the whole school
moved over to iPads. That adds up to a lot of money, so how has the school achieved this? "All we're doing is shifting money from the backend. We used to spend a lot on infrastructure – the ICT room, servers, cables – and now that's moved to the front," says Chohan. Savings have also been made on text books, printing, photocopying, Windows licences, site licences and in other areas – the school's telephony system now runs on the iPad, saving thousands of pounds a year. The only cost to parents is a one-off insurance contribution of £65 per family, which can be paid over two years. The majority of parents contribute, and there is help available for families who can't afford to contribute.
Essa Academy could have opted for a cheaper product than the iPad, but Chohan says: "We looked at many devices, but I wanted more than a device – I wanted a complete ecosystem, and you get that with Apple. If you think beyond the price of the hardware, you see that you get a lot more in terms of reliability, as well as hardware and software that works together." Chohan says mobile technology has transformed his school. "Our students have access to email and (filtered) internet access at any time. We used to be a school where 28 per cent of pupils achieved five A*-C grades; in 2011 the figure was 100 per cent. Obviously, it is not all down to our 1:1 policy, but it has made a huge difference in terms of learning and achievement."
found that personal mobile devices significantly increase access to technology for students, and offer many other benefits, including improved motivation, engagement, parental involvement, and understanding of complex ideas. Computers, calculators, even television, were all viewed with suspicion when they were first introduced into schools. There's a good chance that, one day, we will look back and wonder how pupils ever managed in the classroom without a mobile device. MM
Create your own apps Helping teachers and learners alike discover app development The Essa Academy in Bolton started its mobile program by issuing every one of its students with an iPod touch
the tablet best suited its needs. "I know that Apple is the default for some schools, but in our view, Apple devices don't offer a lot of flexibility for education in terms of apps and support for Flash," he says. "The Galaxy Tab offered more flexibility, and we could easily create our own apps for it." St Thomas CofE Primary School in Kendal, Cumbria, has chosen another mobile device – the Google Chromebook. The school has 220 pupils aged 4-11, and uses a class set of Google Chromebooks. Headteacher Paul Brown says: "We looked at the iPad, Chromebook and other options. The fact that the Chromebook offers students 25GB of free storage in the cloud was very attractive. The iPad doesn't support Flash, but we had educational software and websites that used it. It also helped that a Chromebook was £220 compared with £500 for an iPad. There were other savings to be made, because there are so many free apps."
Bring Your Own Device But whatever the device, schools have to find a way of funding the purchasing of the devices. Some schools have opted for a system which involves parents paying a monthly contribution to purchase the device. Others have gone for a leasing system, while
some have made savings in their IT budget and used these to fund the purchasing scheme. A few schools have introduced a bring your own device (BYOD) system, with students using their own mobile device in the classroom. Not everyone supports the idea of students using mobile technologies in schools, however, with some citing the negative impact they can have on behaviour and concentration. Headteacher Ian Fenn of Burnage Media Arts College in Manchester has banned mobile devices, and says it has reduced the amount of text bullying. Michael Wilshaw, head of the schools standards body Ofsted, is no fan of mobile phones being used in schools, because of their potential to disrupt lessons, and a report by the Scottish government found that mobile devices can be a distraction in the classroom. Add in the criticism from sections of the press of mobile phones being used in schools, and you can see why some teachers are reluctant to embrace the technology. But supporters of mobile devices say that the benefits far outweigh the potential drawbacks. And for every negative report on mobile devices in schools, there is a positive one, such as the iPad Scotland evaluation, carried out by Hull University. Researchers
orsten Stauch, CEO of AppShed, is a big fan of educational apps, but he's an even bigger fan of students creating their own apps. That's the idea behind his company, and its educational offering, AppShed Academy. "The best way of learning something is to do it yourself," he says. "When you make something yourself, you make the creative decisions, which is a very rewarding experience." AppShed grew out of the digital agency Red C, which builds web projects for various clients, including City institutions and government departments. AppShed Academy launched at the BETT educational show in London at the end of January, and is a free, open platform aimed at the education market. It allows teachers and students to create their own apps. The apps can be shared with others, and even published online. For an annual fee, schools can upgrade to a premium service that includes privacy and security features, and a set of tools that makes it easier for teachers to manage and assess AppShed Academy. The key is to make things simple for students and teachers, says Stauch. "Teachers are under a lot of pressure – you don't have to be an apps genius to use our system. We walk the teacher through the process of app creation."
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Header Header Header Header Standfirst standfirst Standfirst standfirst Standfirst standfirst Standfirst standfirst Standfirst standfirst Standfirst standfirst Standfirst standfirst Infobip understands what mobile can bring to a business better than most. Headquartered in London and Zagreb, the company was founded in 2002 by a 24-yearold Silvio Kutic. Infobip has grown from a brave business idea that included SMS, to a mobile specialist with tens of thousands of business clients across the globe. Today, at 35, Kutic is running a company with business operations firmly established on six continents. In this year alone, Infobip has opened offices in Sydney, Warsaw, Vancouver, Istanbul, and Dubai; and has launched three major products and made considerable refinements in its existing portfolio. "Our main product is a high performance transaction platform for a range of mobile services," says Kutic. The company can enable mobile terminated (MT) and two-way SMS, number portability resolution, mobile payments, and push notifications. Infobip's USSD interactive services can be used on any handset for surveys, voting, acquiring public or consumer opinions – essentially wherever interaction is needed. "As we are mostly b2b oriented – these services have brought considerable value to major social networks, OTT players, financial institutions, marketing agencies, and other organisations," says Kutic. "Our technology is supported by
all types of mobile phones, not only smartphones, so our potential reach is vast indeed. It is our mission to innovate constantly, to discover how to do things better. We have plenty of ideas and we are really proud of the scale of our R&D investment." Infobip's technology platform lies at the heart of its proposition. And the platform is the company's greatest asset, says Kutic: "What makes our platform special is the fact that it was built entirely in-house, taking years to build, and involving knowledge and expertise of our people from different corners of the world."
In-house expertise Kutic says that the platform is built for scalability, so new technologies can be integrated easily. And with all software built in-house, the company can offer a high-quality service to clients. "We build our services from scratch and then connect it into the ecosystem by ourselves," he says. "Only a handful of companies in IT business have persisted in such an approach, which allows complete control of the processes and services that are offered. That is how we guarantee high performance and stability throughout the system we maintain. Of course, the platform is matched by 24/7, highly skilled technical support." Offering its services on a cloudbased model means services can be
implemented through a single API. The company also offers directcarrier relationships with more than 100 mobile network operators, as well as access to the majority of the other 800 MNOs currently operating worldwide. "With mobile cloud, one can easily use this massive telecom network – one of the largest in the world," says Kutic. And mobile developers represent the next frontier on Infobip's roadmap. Offering access to a massive network of MNOs, alongside its cloud-based mobile technology platform, means Infobip could bring real monetisation opportunities to app developers. From the boom in SMS in 2002 to the opportunities presented by the developer community today, it is Infobip's in-house expertise that allows it to innovate as the mobile space evolves, says Kutic. "We are an engineering company built on our own knowledge," he says. "It gives us the flexibility to move with the industry and trends, but also the power to create them." MM
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Mobile advertising is broken, or so say its critics, but there is no shortage of companies trying to reinvent it. David Murphy reports Over the past couple of years, it has seemed as if mobile advertising could do no wrong. Everywhere you looked, another set of stats appeared to proclaim how rapidly the market was growing, as more brands entered the space, and those already in it moved from pilot phase to full roll-out. Mobile ad networks were bought – Google snapped up AdMob, while Opera Software bought 4th Screen and Mobile Theory, and Velti bought Mobclix and CASEE. Investment was sloshing around too – $200m (£127m) went to InMobi from Softbank; Trademob snaffled $15m from a range of investors; and Adfonic secured £4.7m from its existing investors.
And Millennial Media IPOd, raising $132m in the process. What could possibly go wrong? Well the fly in the ointment, it seems, is the pesky consumers. Reports are emerging that they actually find the traditional banner ad on mobile sites and in mobile apps interruptive – annoying even. This is reflected in concerns over clickthrough rates. Heck, the term click fraud has even been mentioned – in September, the app advertising network Trademob released a study showing that up to 40 per cent of mobile ad clicks were at best accidental, or at worst fraudulent. The 'traditional' mobile ad industry (if something so new can be called 'traditional')
has responded with Real-Time Bidding platforms, which allow advertisers to buy inventory more efficiently, and with new ad units, best grouped under the umbrella term 'rich media'. These usually still involve a banner that leads to any number of things when clicked – such as an image carousel, a video, a calendar entry, an automatic share on Twitter, or Like on Facebook. But is this enough to save traditional mobile advertising as we know it? Well, the word 'disruptive' could have been invented for the mobile marketing business, and there are plenty of companies out there who think re-invention is necessary. They all have
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designs on being the next big thing in mobile advertising, but do any of their claims and their business models stand up to close scrutiny? Over the next few pages, we present brief profiles of some of the leading alternative mobile advertising platforms. Treat them as a starting point for further investigation, and if there are any great alternative platforms out there we've missed, please use the contact details on p.3 to tell us about them. MM
LoopMe launched in August 2012, with the aim of helping app developers drive app downloads. When a user clicks on the LoopMe button deployed within an app or a mobile site, they open an 'inbox' containing a range of apps to download or offers to take up that have been socially rated and endorsed by the wider community. They can interact with several advertisers in one session, but are not migrated away from the app itself. They can return to Respond's ads appear within white space within editorial content and are the app or site they were using highly targeted towards the topic or browsing at any time simply by hitting the 'Back' button. proving that it is a human trying to access the Advertising inventory is sold on a site. As they do so, the image-based puzzle is cost-per click or cost-per install/download/ transformed into a branded message. acquisition basis. LoopMe currently operates The solution eases the process of in 30 markets and has over 100 advertisers, accessing secure websites for consumers, including FIFA, Fitness First, Honda, Marks & while also generating a revenue stream for the Spencer, and BBC Worldwide. site owner. It works on any device, including The people behind LoopMe are mobile mobiles and tablets. ad industry veterans Stephen Upstone (CEO) Minteye argues that with its solution, and Marco Van De Bergh (CTO), who worked everyone wins. Site owners get high-level together at Ad Infuse and Velti, after Velti internet security and a share of advertising bought AdInfuse. revenues. Advertisers gain a powerful To date, the company has secured $500,000 marketing tool, customised to their targeted worth of 'Super Angel' funding, in a round audience and budget. And for the user, the led by Russell Buckley's Ballpark Ventures Minteye experience is more fun and more investment vehicle. Other investors included meaningful than standard CAPTCHAs, John Taysom, offering a powerful opportunity to capture founder of Reuters the target audience. At the time of writing, Venture Capital Minteye had served 185.5m captchas. which had 16 IPO minteye.com exits including Yahoo; Torben Respond Maajaard, founder Azullo's 'Respond' mobile advertising of Ciklum and platform delivers ads in white space within AdQuota; and Peter editorial content on mobile web pages. Barry, founder of The ads are deliberately simple – just a Vodafone Ventures LoopMe aims to increase consumer small text box in a choice of blue, green, in Silicon Valley. engagement by delivering ads to an ad 'inbox' or orange. Having experimented with more loopme.biz overt branding, the company reverted to the Minteye straight text box when it saw clickthrough Minteye's Sliding Captcha offering combines a rates fall. The ads are targeted, based on the security solution with an advertising platform. type of content on the mobile site the user Instead of requiring the user to type a random is looking at. So a sportswear advertiser can phrase into a Captcha box, the user is required choose to target ads at pages containing to slide their finger or mouse across the screen, sports content, but an advertiser looking
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akin to that of a premium ad network. The publisher has to insert the Respond code on their site, advertisers know the portfolio of sites on which their ads will appear, and there's no involvement with any other ad networks. That said, the text ads could, and often do, appear on the same page as a traditional banner ad served by a traditional mobile ad network. At present, the Respond ads are only served on mobile sites, though Azullo cofounder Guy Cookson says the company is looking at the idea of serving them within apps. Advertisers include Betfair, Netflix and Groupon, and Cookson says advertisers report a 10-fold increase in clickthrough rates over traditional mobile banner advertising. azullo.com
Kiip enables advertisers to offer users rewards for in-app achievements, typically in games or fitness apps
to think a little more laterally also has scope to do so. A car maker, for example, could choose to target users reading content about golf on mobile sites. The click typically takes the user to some kind of mobile experience, usually a mobile site, though advertisers also use the platform for click-to-call and app downloads. Inventory is sold on a CPC or cost per engagement basis, in which, when the button is clicked, the user is served the advertising content in an overlay. This has to be viewed for three seconds in order for the advertiser to be billed. This is designed to prevent accidental clicks from users mistaking the ad for part of the editorial content. Azullo's relationship with publisher sites – it works with IPC, Dennis, Future, the Manchester Evening News and smaller niche players with big audiences – is
content monetisation, which, as the firm points out, is almost entirely dominated by advertising. Qriously says it is trying to address what it describes as "a gross incompatibility" in the roles of end users, advertisers and publishers in the advertising ecosystem. Qriously bagged $1.6m in funding at the end of 2010 from Accel Partners and Amalfi Capital. qriously.com
Drawbridge matches users across devices, without using personally-identifiable information. It uses statistical methods that rely on anonymous data to track people as they move between their smartphones, tablets, and PCs, identifying the same user across their various connected devices. The company tracks and collects Qriously anonymous desktop web, mobile web and Qriously measures real-time, locationmobile app user interactions, which can be based public sentiment by replacing ads blended to create an anonymous user handle. in smartphone and tablet apps with short, Its algorithms then track those requests over targeted questions. time in order to infer ties among requests. Questions are served Once Drawbridge's in Qriously's network of inference modelling hits apps. Partnerships with a certain confidence ad networks have grown threshold that a desktop this network to around user and mobile user are 50m smartphones. The the same, it pairs that user question appears at the between those devices. bottom of the screen, It enables advertisers to the user answers it, and retarget consumers across the brand that posed devices. For example, a the question can see the consumer visits a retailer's answers in real time on website on their PC. They their personal dashboard. can then be served an ad Brands can ask for that retailer on their whatever they like. It phone the following day. can be used to gauge The company was public sentiment to founded by Kamakshi the company's latest Sivaramakrishnan, former ad, for example. It's a lead scientist at AdMob. Its performance 'question backers include Sequoia network' similar to a Capital and Kleiner Perkins UTuneMe aims to harness the power of performance ad network, Caufield & Byers. audio as an advertising medium in that brands are charged www.drawbrid.ge on a per-answer basis. Bunndle The idea for Qriously came from two Bunndle promotes apps and software market insights. The first was the advent of products by using inventory within other apps real-time search via Twitter; the second was and software products, on a pay-per-install the stagnant state of innovation in free-
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basis. Developers receive a revenue share on install for any apps promoted in their app that the user goes on to install. Bunndle's inventory comes only from apps and software, and all offers are opt-in. Bunndle does not allow any incentivised installs or toolbars. Bunndle also offers open network visibility. Its advertisers know exactly where they are being promoted, and its publishers know exactly what they will be promoting. As a result, the company says, its publishers see high RPM (revenue per 1,000 impressions), and its advertisers see a high ROI on campaigns. The company's partners include Real Networks, Opera, and Trillian. bunndle.com
UTuneMe UTuneMe's geo-targeted mobile ad platform brings together broadcasters, including online radio stations and podcast content, with advertisers who want to reach local audiences, and mobile radio users. Advertisers can target audio ad content based on the user's location or demographic via the UTuneMe Android app. An iOS version is due this year. With someone listening to a London-based station in Dubai, for example, the platform gives advertisers an opportunity to create ads that are more relevant to the user's location and for broadcasters to better monetise inventory with location-based ad spots. Utuneme.com
used Kiip to offer a free bottle of Propel mineral water to users of its MapMyFitness app for every eight miles they ran. Kiip was co-founded in 2010 by Courtney Guertin and Brian Wong. Wong, still just 21, received his Bachelors of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia at age 18, and has been listed in Business Insider's Top 25 Under 25 in Silicon Valley, among other accolades. Tapjoy offers mobile users virtual The company is rewards or premium content in backed by Hummer return for engaging with advertising Winblad, Relay Ventures, True Ventures and others, and has raised $15.4m in funding to date. kiip.com
'There are plenty of companies out there JiWire with designs on being JiWire is a wi-fi media channel that has exclusive the next big thing in partnerships in the US with AT&T, T-Mobile, mobile advertising, but and Boingo; and with BT do any of their claims Openzone in the UK. JiWire delivers targeted third-party and their business advertising across wi-fi hotspots – almost 185,000 in the UK models stand up to alone – including venues such close scrutiny?' as cafes, hotels, airports, and
Kiip Kiip provides a platform for premium brands to provide rewards to app users for their in-app achievements. Kiip started out purely in casual gaming apps, where the user is rewarded for completing a particular level, but in March 2012, Kiip extended its platform to any app. Soon after, Pepsi
wireless cities. The platform enables advertisers to reach an 'on-the-go' audience as it accesses the web via wi-fi on laptops, mobiles and tablets. Advertising can be targeted to the point of connection by location, venue type, and device. In the US, JiWire has enabled over 100 premium brand advertisers, including Microsoft, Jeep, Virgin America, Hyatt Place, and Buick to reach millions of people on the move. www.jiwire.com
Tapjoy Tapjoy's mobile advertising and monetisation platform uses a Mobile Value Exchange model, in which users select personalised ads with which to engage, in exchange for virtual rewards or premium content. Users can watch videos, subscribe to services, install apps, and engage with ads in exchange for virtual rewards that they can use in their favourite apps. Tapjoy's turnkey in-app advertising platform helps developers to cost-effectively acquire high-value new users and monetise their applications, while its advertising marketplace enables brand advertisers to reach a mobile audience spanning more than 73,000 applications globally. tapjoy.com
W3i W3i delivers an Offer Exchange wall that facilitates custom offers to mobile users, including featured alerts. The ad units include videos and app installations, allowing developers to implement advertising in their games without actually having to integrate offer networks into their titles. In 2012, the company signed up Temple Run publisher Imangi Studios for Android monetisation, and also saw a 330 per cent growth in its mobile app monetisation business in the second quarter of 2012. w3i.com W3i's platform delivers an Offer Exchange wall to mobile users
march 2013
MOBILE RET ILSUMMIT Find out what the future of retailing looks like at our one-day conference, now in its second year
The Mobile Retail Summit, now in its second year, takes place in London on 24 April. The event offers retailers the opportunity to find out what their peers are doing in the mobile channel; what works and what doesn't work; and what the future retail landscape looks like, in an age where price comparison is just a barcode scan away, and the physical store is just one of many places where the consumer can go to shop. The event kicks off with a presentation from Matthew Hopkinson, director at the Local Data Company, who will offer delegates a hard-hitting view of how things are on the High Street right now, and why retailers cannot afford to ignore the mobile
channel. After that, the day is divided into four streams – On Device, Driving Footfall, In-store, and The Future. On Device explores how retailers are generating sales on mobile, tablet and other connected devices, through transactional mobile sites, apps and Facebook stores. The Driving Footfall stream explains how to use mobile advertising, couponing, locationbased services and Augmented Reality to drive customers into physical or digital retail outlets. In-store examines how mobile can assist the shopping experience in store, through initiatives as diverse as free wi-fi, on-shelf QR codes, NFC terminals, iPad kiosks, store guide
apps, and mobile payments. Finally, The Future looks at the future of retail and where all this might lead, and at how retailers can successfully embrace mobile and other digital technologies, and incorporate them within a true omni-channel offering. Each session will benefit from the input of retailers and the mobile marketing experts who are helping them turn their mobile marketing ideas into reality. They will share their experiences in the mobile channel, and offer an insight into the next big thing in each subject area. Confirmed speakers from the retail community include Sienne Veit, head of mobile at Morrisons; Shivani Tejuja, eCommerce & multichannel director at New
Look; and Sean McKee, Head of eCommerce and customer services at Schuh. Mobile marketing experts who will be speaking at the event include Millennial Media, Trademob, Brainstorm, Urban Airship, Isobar Mobile and Clash Group. Ted Baker and Homebase are among the retailers registered to attend the event as delegates. MM If you work in retail or with retailers, the Mobile Retail Summit is an event you can't afford to miss. To register to attend the event and claim a 15 per cent discount off the full price of a delegate pass, visit www.mretailsummit.com, hit the Registration tab, and enter the discount code: MRS15
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Confirmed Speakers Include Gold Sponsors
Shivani Tejuja eCommerce & multichannel director
Kamran Saeed Head of product and strategic partnerships
Gavin Stirrat Managing director, EMEA
Silver Sponsors
Sean McKee Head of eCommerce
Sienne Veit Head of mobile
Adrienne Gauldie Country manager UK
Media Partners
Michael Richardson EMEA technical director
Dominic Yacoubian Managing director
Rick Williams Chief technology officer
24 April 2013, The Grange Hotel, St Pauls, London Register at www.mretailsummit.com
march 2013
Mobile Search Secrets Mobile has added a whole new dimension to search engines – and provides huge opportunities for brands to engage consumers via search. Rob Thurner explains
If you want to know something about search, Google is a good place to start. "Truly great search is all about turning intentions into actions, lightning fast," says the search giant in its AdWords blog. "In the early days of Google, users would type in a query, we'd return ten blue links, and they'd move on happy." However, that's not enough for today's mobile users. 50 per cent of mobile interactions start with a search, and these days, users want more from that search. "When searching for great local restaurants, they want places to eat right there on the results page, not another click or two away. It's the same with hotels,
flight options, directions and shopping," the blog continues. Google, a self-proclaimed 'mobile first' company, has invested heavily in technology, slick marketing, and an extensive suite of search tools to drive consumer demand and assist marketers in delivering personalised, time- and location-sensitive results. Google estimates that mobile search is growing eight times faster than PC search, and has grown 500 per cent in the past two years. Mobile search growth is projected to outstrip mobile display advertising for the foreseeable future. It would not be reasonable to give Google all the credit for the growth of mobile search, since competing mobile search platforms from rivals including Bing and Yahoo! provide choice. But let's not underestimate the role Google has played in defining the mobile search market, and its impact in realising one of mobile marketing's greatest consumer and business achievements through its proprietary products and services. Google's Android OS now attracts more than 1m new users every day, while its browserbased tools are particularly relevant for location-based searches. These developments have enabled mass adoption of search by mobile users of all demographic groups, across all handsets. Search sites are now the most popular mobile web destinations, surpassing shopping, social, and gaming. So how do you get the best from mobile search? Read on for our six top tips…
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SIX MOBILE SEARCH TIPS Review the search behaviour of your users As with so many other aspects of mobile marketing, our advice with search is to start by reviewing people's activity. Google's free Keyword Tool lets you assess the number of searches by entering your phrase and then choosing 'mobile' against 'desktop' volumes in the 'Show ideas and statistics for' box. It's worth researching how behaviour varies through the day: variations by daypart will impact how and where you should allocate your mobile search budget. The IAB's study into connected device usage highlights that all three screens (desktop, tablet and mobile) complement each other. The three screens allow for constant connectivity in and out of home, in the evenings and weekends. Mobile can be used most effectively in driving enquiries, with search working alongside banner ads or in-app push notifications to deliver product information.
Deliver geo-location based results Geo-targeting is one of the greatest differences between desktop and mobile search and one of the greatest opportunities. Indeed, Google says 85 per cent of mobile search has a
local intent, and 81 per cent of searchers act upon the locationbased information they find. This explains why shopping, travel, and entertainment top the list for most popular search queries. Your search returns should match mobile users' demands for quick, easy, simple responses to task-oriented searches. Typically, they enter no more than two to three words per query, and want to find directions to your address (with postcodes), a link to your (mobile-optimised) site, and a button to call your number (with correct dialling code).
Make your mobile site SEO-friendly As with desktop search, the majority of mobile searchers still click on the natural or organic listing, so it's important to maximise your visibility here. Gaining good visibility in the natural listings on mobile relies on solid SEO principles that digital marketers will be familiar with, which rely on a similar algorithm to desktop search. But there are some key features to gain visibility: Keyword targeting: To adapt for mobile users' task-oriented behaviour, identify and prioritise the search terms used most commonly on mobile, including 'deals', 'offers', and 'sales' with a local qualifier. Crawlability: Consider how search engine crawlers function, and optimise your visibility. If you have a mobile-specific site with dedicated content then you
should create mobile site-specific site maps. But if you're using a design technique like progressive enhancement (aka responsive web design) with common content for all screen resolutions, then this isn't necessary. Optimise your UX: Mobile users want ease, speed, and a frictionless user experience.
Always try to reduce load times by optimising content, images, and code. Google recommends page load times under five seconds and can penalise slower sites. You can gain an idea of how Google evaluates your site using the 'Test Your Site' option on Google Get Mo: www.howtogomo.com.
Roy says Aloha to search US Hawaiian restaurant chain sees success with mobile search campaign
fter realising that mobile traffic was outperforming desktop traffic in CTR and CPCs, US Hawaiian food chain Roy's Restaurants created a separate mobile-only campaign to maximise the number of calls and clicks. The search solution was based on hyperlocal location extensions to better target on-the-go customers searching nearby one of their local restaurants. "Mobile searchers looking for dining options could effortlessly see how close they were to a nearby Roy's Restaurant and the click-to-call function allowed for instant reservations," says Jason Maloney, VP of marketing at Roy's Restaurants. "Our hyperlocal mobile-only campaign drove a 40 per cent increase in calls with a CPC 67 per cent less than desktop ads. The numbers are impossible to ignore. We have to invest in hyperlocal mobile advertising as part of our long-term growth strategy." The company's mobileonly campaigns delivered 800 per cent ROI, says Maloney.
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Mobile Advertising & Search Predictions that mobile could be worth over £1bn in 2015 FirstPartner UK Mobile Ad Spend 2012 to 2016
£1088m £962m
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Optimise search for highspending tablet users The IAB's research highlights that most people with tablets are dual screening, with 51 per cent of all tablet usage occurring in front of the TV. Tablet owners are 50 per cent more likely to use their tablet to dual-screen than their mobile (35 per cent) or their PC (33 per cent). Touchscreens have changed the way consumers seek product information, and tablet users claim to spend over four hours shopping on their devices each week, with 43 per cent saying they prefer search on tablets compared with PC or mobile. This comes as no surprise when you consider the superior browsing experience that the touchscreen interface allows, and the less time-pressured 'lean-back' experience tablets offer compared to PCs. Critically, tablet browsers also tend to spend more. Based on its analysis of 16bn visits to websites
2015 Search
2016 Display
of more than 150 retailers, Adobe Digital Marketing Insights revealed that tablet visitors spend over 50 per cent more per purchase than smartphone visitors, and over 20 per cent more than 'traditional' visitors using desktop PCs. Marketers can use the search targeting capabilities of AdWords to reach tablet users during the evening, and drive them to tablet-oriented landing pages to maximize engagement and conversion rates.
Bid aggressively on mobile PPC Space constraints on a mobile screen mean paid ads are more prominent relative to natural search returns, with two paid ads appearing on the top and three on the bottom. Google AdWords enables specific targeting of mobile searchers, which is not possible in natural search. So even if you don't advertise in AdWords for
desktop searches, you should consider how you can target mobile searchers using mobile PPC. More limited inventory and specific targeting options make it worthwhile to bid higher on mobile, although many compilations show that mobile CPCs are currently lower than desktop CPCs. Be prepared to bid two times higher to get on the first page of search results. You will be competing to have your ad served on five ad spots, versus 10 for desktop. Make sure you add a click-to-call feature wherever possible.
Select mobile ad formats to meet user demand Google AdWords isn't just about text ads and blue links – you can choose a number of ad extensions to provide the most useful search returns. The most valuable ones include: Click to Call – Extend my ads with a phone number: Click-tocall is one of the most effective ways to connect directly with your consumers. We have seen CTR increase by 30 per cent by using the CTC feature. Google AdWord's 'Call Extensions' and Bing adCentre's click-to-call drive call traffic directly for search results. Location – Extend my ads with location information: Location presents a significant opportunity for retailers aiming to drive footfall. Such retailers
should use location extensions to promote local details within Google Places and adCenter. This should result in a reallocation of retailers' mobile search budgets in today's cutthroat High Street environment. Sitelinks – Extend my ads with links to sections on my site: Site links are an effective way for brands to provide mobile users with additional options or offers to direct their click into site. This option would take more real estate on the site results page, thereby increasing the chance of clickthrough. Mobile app – Extend my ads with a link to a mobile or tablet app: For retailers with apps to promote, Google's clickto-download feature allows you to download links to iTunes or Google Play. Handset detection software plays a critical role here, filtering iOS/Android traffic to the right app store automatically. Users simply click the link for the correct app, which elegantly sidesteps the major challenge of saving a timely trawl through the 500,000 apps in each app store. MM For a free download of Rob's book, 7 Steps for Mobile Marketing Success, text KNOWLEDGE and your email address to 88600
'Tablet users spend over 50 per cent more per purchase than smartphone visitors, and 20 per cent more than desktop visitors'
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The men behind Infobip explain the benefits of the company's converged messaging services
Ivan Maksic (top) and Silvio Kutic believe successful mobile strategies feature both push and SMS messaging
"Over the last decade, we have seen massive benefits created through messaging on multiple levels across the industry," says Infobip CEO Silvio Kutic as he expounds on Infobip's strategy of converged services, bringing together SMS, mPayments and their latest development, push notifications. Drawing its strength from global connectivity, sales network and the world's largest non-telco network designed and operated entirely in-house, Infobip focuses on the B2B segment and is able to facilitate different mobile technologies for any business. It's Infobip's infrastructure and expertise that allow companies worldwide to quickly leverage their potential and seize the mobile opportunity. Push messaging will be integrated with Infobip's SMS and mPayments services to provide a converged offering, enabling businesses to reach, engage and charge their consumers through a single provider. As Kutic puts it: "With push notifications added to our portfolio, we continue to provide the largest and most universal communication channel, creating new opportunities for our partners and clients."
We're witnessing an explosive growth of smartphone penetration and the trend is only going to pick up even more steam. As this revolution goes on, IP-based services are becoming an essential part of the consumer engagement strategy of any business.
Accurate targeting "Push messaging allows businesses to retain personalised communication with their customers. With vital intelligence gathered through analytics, geolocation and context added to the equation, marketing activities can now be very accurately targeted. We fully understand the power of mobile in this respect, and we feel confident about our business-tobusiness value proposition," says Kutic. It's clear that if a business needs direct communication, it needs both SMS and push messaging – and mobile payments seamlessly fit into the mix, says Kutic. By providing a direct mobile billing channel, Infobip allows online businesses to receive payments from mobiles phones, creating revenue opportunities for online merchants. Another key feature of the company's portfolio is the simplicity of integration. Infobip has developed the Parseco API library, a simple way of integrating into its cloud. Businesses can connect with it very easily, using its vast telecommunication and web resources through a simple,
intuitive interface. For developers who seek to add mobile services capabilities to their applications, it means a significant reduction of their development cycle. Ivan Maksic, one of Infobip's key people based in London, has a clear vision of the company's role on the global market. "We are proposing a mobile services cloud as a long-term partnership, based on reliability, support and expertise," he says. "We are focused and well positioned to support our business partners with any mobile technology waiting around the corner. Although often invisible even to our partners, we are in fact performing a number of functions related to their satisfaction and the quality of service they receive." For the fifth consecutive year, Infobip launches new technologies aimed primarily at companies utilising mobile services, either as support of their core business, or as a part of their marketing mix. Just like last year's launch of their direct mobile billing service dubbed Centili, Infobip is planning to use the stage at Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona to launch their push notifications service. From 25-28 February, Infobip will be exhibiting in the App Planet hall, at booth 8.1. Both Silvio Kutic and Ivan Maksic will be attending, and they will be delighted to give more details about Infobip's mobile services. MM
March 2013
Trademob taking on click fraud How mobile app marketing platform Trademob is bringing transparency to the industry and presenting solutions to the problem of click fraud and low-quality traffic Advertisers beware: low-quality mobile traffic is coming after your ad campaign. The mobile advertising industry is booming, but with more and more money funneling in, it is increasingly a target for fraudsters. The growing ad spend increases the number of people looking to cash in. As a result, the risks of low-quality
traffic associated with mobile ad campaigns increase. Despite how potentially lucrative the mobile ad space can be, an ad campaign impacted by click fraud can cause more than a serious headache. But there are companies in the mobile advertising space that are taking a proactive approach to stopping it. Trademob, Europe's leading mobile app marketing platform, recognises the problems that click fraud and low-quality traffic can cause and is working to prevent and combat it. In a recent study, the platform analysed 6m mobile ad clicks served across 10 different ad networks to search for fraudulent clicks. The study found that 40 per cent of clicks on mobile ads
are useless, meaning that the clicks yielded a conversion rate of less than 0.1 per cent. Within that 40 per cent, 18 per cent of the clicks indicated fraudulent sources; the other 22 per cent of clicks indicated that they happened accidentally. Although 40 per cent is the average figure for clicks with conversion rates below 0.1 per cent, Trademob has seen fraud rates as high as 67 per cent in a single campaign. The number may vary, but the results are more or less the same. With the popular PPC model, these results translate to worthless clicks, costing companies large proportions of their mobile advertising budgets. Eliminating click fraud completely is a near-impossible task, but taking the correct preventative measures can make all the difference. Advertisers, ad networks, and advertising platforms must work together to solve the click fraud problem and to ensure high traffic
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'Trademob is a pioneer in click fraud research and offerings. Its goal is to bring transparency to the market and make the industry run more effectively' advertisers, ad networks and publishers all reap the benefits of Trademob's initiative to set new quality standards in mobile marketing.
With Trademob's anti-click fraud technology in place, you can expect a surge in genuine active users and a lower cost per install (CPI) – resulting in more meaningful mobile advertising campaigns
quality. Trademob is leading the way, and encourages the mobile industry to take action against fraudsters and the low-quality traffic that results.
Fighting the bad guys While understanding how detrimental click fraud and low-quality traffic can be to an ad campaign is paramount, it is also important that an advertiser can deal with the issue when it encounters it. A sophisticated analysis of campaign data can reveal suspicious publishers, for example, by detecting irregular patterns in a mobile campaign. To give a simple example, let's say an advertiser runs a mobile campaign targeted exclusively to Great Britain, but the clicks reported by a publisher came from India. Trademob has developed an advanced solution that enables thorough analysis of mobile campaign data to reveal exactly these kinds of irregularities and other signals that help identify bad publishers. The key to well-targeted, effective mobile advertising campaigns is an advanced tracking technology that provides detailed pre- and post-click campaign data, an independent intention to eradicate lowquality traffic, the capabilities to progress
and analyse the data, as well as the solution to target mobile ads so that no investment is made in the poorly performing and fraudulent traffic sources. Trademob is a pioneer in click fraud research and offerings. Its goal is to bring transparency to the market and make the industry run more effectively. As a result of the company's work in this area, Trademob's expertise can be invaluable to advertisers. Using its access to campaign data across numerous advertising networks and media partners, Trademob helps its clients make intelligent and informed decisions about their mobile ad spend. Its recently launched click fraud protection offering is a fundamental step toward more efficient structures in the market. The platform incorporates click fraud protection within its optimisation engine to pinpoint the most effective publishers and targeting settings for a campaign. These measures can potentially eradicate 40 per cent of ineffective mobile advertising budgets and increase ROI up to 70 per cent. In a space that is evolving quickly, fighting click fraud and low-quality traffic is an important step toward achieving the goal of more effective, trustful mobile marketing campaigns. Ultimately,
Traffic-quality test In an effort to inform all advertisers about how low-quality traffic is affecting their campaigns, Trademob is offering a free test to all visitors at Mobile World Congress. With this test, Trademob will analyse the clicks seen by a campaign and determine the quality of the campaign's traffic. Advertisers will receive a short report that reveals how much of their mobile investment is yielding little to no return, all free of charge. While all clients using Trademob's universal software development kit (SDK) automatically benefit from the program, this test can be used by any advertiser without being a Trademob SDK user. The results from Trademob's traffic quality test provides advertisers with an evaluation of their ad campaigns. Think of it as looking at an ad campaign with a magnifying glass. The more information advertisers have about their ad campaigns the better, and Trademob provides crucial information and data for free. For more information about how advertisers can take advantage of these offerings, contact firstname.lastname@example.com. Trademob's mission is to make mobile advertising an efficient and transparent user acquisition and marketing channel. Its work on click fraud awareness and traffic quality is a major step in that direction. MM For more information on Trademob's solution, visit the company's website: www.trademob.com
March 2013
SOS? SMS Rob Townsend, marketing director at Textlocal, explains how SMS could help to save the High Street mobile strategies have seen mCommerce revenues grow. Argos, which increased mCommerce revenues by 125 per cent in 2012, and Marks & Spencer, which grew mCommerce revenues by 90 per cent in Q3 2012, are two recent examples that spring to mind.
Social experience
The British High Street has been taking a battering in recent weeks and months, but mobile can play a part in getting shoppers into stores
Barely a couple of weeks into 2013, and it was already looking like an annus horibilis for the retail sector in the UK, with three well-known High Street retailers – Jessops, HMV, and Blockbuster – entering into administration. In fact, it was really just a case of business as usual. According to figures from the Centre for Retail Research, 54 UK retailers failed in 2012, affecting 3,951 stores and 48,142 jobs. So the question these
figures naturally beg is simply: How do we save the High Street? Well it turns out, mobile may well have a big part to play in the answer. This will come as no surprise to many, though others would no doubt ask, in an era where you can buy most of what you need from the comfort of your sofa, or even from the back seat of the bus home from work, who actually needs real, physical stores? It's true, retailers that have rolled out fully-baked
But the fact remains that for the majority of consumers, the shop is where it's at, and even those of us accustomed to shopping on our phone, tablet, or PC still enjoy the social experience of shopping on the High Street. So the question shifts slightly then, to one of: How do we attract shoppers into our store, rather than the competition's? To answer this question, it's vital to think local. It doesn't matter whether you have one physical store or 1,000, the only people you can hope to attract into them are those who are local to them at the point in time in question. Search is obviously a useful tool in this respect, and no one gets this more than Google, which has been extolling the virtues of local search for several years. In recent months, Google
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Rob Townsend, marketing director, Textlocal has added to its local offering, snapping up the restaurant review service Zagat and travel guide publisher Frommers to enrich its local search results with user-generated reviews. Last year, Google also replaced Google Places with a local review service, Google+ Local. Google's faith in the power of local search is backed up by the analyst BIA/ Kelsey, a report from whom forecast that the number of local searches on mobile would outnumber those on the desktop by 2015. And a study from Microsoft Advertising revealed that whereas an online search results in a purchase (on average) one month later, on mobile the average time lag between search and purchase is just one hour. But there's more to driving footfall than search. What if, rather than relying on shoppers to seek out your stores, you could push out a message to them, not only to remind them that they are within striking distance of one of your outlets, but also giving them an incentive to come in and shop with you, perhaps in the form of a money-off coupon? Or how about
to share their mobile number with you, seek their permission to use it to communicate with them, give them a reason to allow you to do so, then watch your sales grow. When you consider that, according to an OFCOM study, 97.5 per cent of all text messages are read within a few seconds of arriving on the phone, it's no surprise that so many retailers are harnessing the power of opted-in, one-toone mobile messaging. The only real surprise is that so many still aren't. What was that line in Heroes: "Save the cheerleader, save the world". How about instead: harness the power of SMS, save the High Street. MM Think Local with Textlocal; reach 1,000s of your customers with our exclusive READER OFFER. Text LOCAL to 60777 and get up to 1,000 free SMS credits* www.textlocal.com/thinklocal
Textlocal Messenger gives brands a portal that allows them to manage their messaging campaigns
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'Invite customers to share their mobile number with you. Give them a reason to do so, then watch your sales grow'
targeting them with a message containing a short link to a mobile landing page where, once again, they could be rewarded for their custom with some form of incentive? Textlocal was first to market with 'URL lead tracking'. Our company's platform, Messenger, has given free tracking to our customers for nearly two years now. Tracking mobile clicks from SMS is integral – our business customers with local footfall strategies would be lost without it. The really clever stuff comes in a few weeks with mobile ticketing, vouchers and surveys. Of course, this sort of activity is not just possible, it's a daily reality for thousands of retailers in countries across the globe, ranging from High Street multiples like Domino's Pizza at one end of the spectrum, to small, independent retailers and restaurateurs at the other. In truth, there's no great science to it. Invite customers
UpcomingEvents MOBILE 26th March 26th March 16th April 16th April 2nd July 2nd July
Travel & Tourism Luxury Publishing Entertainment M2M Public Sectors& Charities
London London London London London London
FTSE350 Sport & Automotive Retail Finance
London London London London
Fashion & Luxury Sport & Automative FTSE350 Entertainment
London London London London
DIGITAL 12th March 12th March 14th May 14th May
SOCIAL 7th May 7th May 4th June 4th June
"The masterclass had entertaining and info packed presentations and I made some excellent contacts with senior mobile experts" - Nathan Clapton, VP Mobile, Tripadvisor To speak at any of these events please contact Fraser McGruer on +44 (0) 207 183 2920 or email email@example.com
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Talking shops
Rick Williams, CTO at digital agency Isobar, on how apps in the retail space will soon know consumers better than they know themselves Both the challenge and the opportunity for mobile retail marketing is that as mobile devices become even more integrated into our lives, via digital wallets, passbooks, and intelligent personal assistants, the relationship we form with our device will become our most important. It will extend beyond the devices themselves to the apps and services that run on them. These apps and services will understand us better than we do ourselves and provide us with
suggestions based on who we are and what we like, often without even needing to enter a retail environment. From Google Goggles to SMS payment transactions in Africa, hi-tech and lo-fi mobile innovations are continuing to drive changes in people's behaviour and in how and where products are purchased. These changes in behaviour are the key to unlocking the true opportunities in mobile retail marketing.
Helping unlock these opportunities for retailers are innovations in CRM coming from the likes of Index, a startup focused on CRM (Customer Relationship Management) for brick-andmortar retailers; and Google Zavers, the recently launched real-time couponing system. Both of these companies are providing retailers with the tools they need to offer a more personalised, more relevant experience to their customers. MM
MAKE MORE MONEY WITH YOUR APP THROUGH RTB MEET THE LEADING GLOBAL MOBILE AD EXCHANGE AT MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2013 90 Ad Networks 50 DSPs Connected 230+ Countries 70.000 Publishers SCHEDULE A MEETING AT SMAATO.COM/MWC
Visit us at: App Planet, Hall 8.1, Booth #D45
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real-time Real deal Smaato CEO Ragnar Kruse says that real-time bidding isn't just a technology to watch – it's the here and now of effective mobile advertising As the world's largest global mobile advertising exchange, Smaato has been a pioneer in developing the concept of mobile Real-time Bidding (RTB) technology for delivering in-app advertising. However, as far as the company's CEO Ragnar Kruse is concerned, RTB is no longer a hot concept, or a 'technology to watch' – it's the de facto best way to advertise on mobile. "Companies and decision makers who see RTB still as a trend in 2013 are totally wrong in their perception of the massive impact RTB has on the ecosystem," says Kruse. "RTB is no longer a trend; it's a mature way of connecting buyers and sellers efficiently." Mobile RTB allows advertisers to bid on specific impressions, based on the value of that impression, leading to better campaign performance and higher ROI, says Kruse. "This is exactly what advertisers and agencies are looking for – improved efficiency," he says. "At the same time, publishers gain huge benefits from more competitive bids because interested advertisers bid at the same time, and the best bid wins. All this happens in milliseconds based on the latest, state-of-the-art technology, big data, and intelligent algorithms." And the importance of RTB as the smartest ecosystem for dealing in mobile advertising is emphasised by the importance of mobile generally in the marketing mix. "Mobile advertising in general simply cannot be ignored by advertisers, marketers, and agencies any more," says Kruse. "More
and more people are spending their time on mobile devices, looking actively for information, services, and products to buy. "Now, RTB is unlocking the huge mobile potential because it brings transparency, control, efficiency, and relevance into mobile ads for the first time. It introduces a powerful mechanism into the mobile advertising ecosystem – the interplay of demand and supply in the most transparent way." Smaato is well placed to facilitate this new interplay. Kruse says the integration of a Demand-side Platform (DSP) into the Smaato ad exchange platform is quick and easy, taking just a matter of hours in some cases. Smaato's DSP Integration Portal also brings enormous cost and time savings for DSPs and ad networks who want to be part of global RTB auctions.
Record growth "Since the introduction of our mobile ad exchange platform, we have seen record growth on the demand side, with over 45 DSPs integrated as of today," says Kruse. "We also got extremely positive feedback from the market about our self-service DSP integration portal. The base for our success is superior inhouse technology that makes us a frontrunner in mobile RTB." The company's global reach speaks for itself. Connected DSPs and ad networks get instant access to over 70,000 publishers around the globe, delivering up to 45bn ads per month.
'RTB is unlocking the huge mobile potential because it brings transparency, control, efficiency, and relevance' "We are facing strong and ongoing growth of RTB volume since the introduction of the platform. More than 30 per cent of ad requests are now going through RTB. Our target is to reach over 50 per cent RTB share in 2013," says Kruse. With RTB established in the mobile ecosystem, Kruse says rich media and enhanced data analysis are the real hot trends for 2013. "Rich ad formats, combined with geo-targeting and behavioural data, will drive the relevance of mobile advertising for local, mobile commerce," he says. "Enhanced data analysis, measurement, and management will be key trends in 2013, since data and the possibility to analyse it in real-time will be a critical factor in mobile advertising. Why? Because decisions are based on that. If you work smart and have the right technology in place, advertisers will be able to place an ad in front of a consumer exactly at the right time and the right place, and that's something any advertiser would want." MM
March 2013
Type of business
Buying platform and DSP (Madison)
Ad Network, Rich Media Creative and Platform, Mobile Payments
Ad Network & Ad Exchange & Ad Optimisation Platform
July 2009
January 2007
January 2012
sales offices
London (HQ), Madrid, Munich, New York, Paris, Singapore
San Francisco, New York,Chicago, London, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Madrid, Milan, Stockholm, Moscow, Dubai, Singapore, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Sydney, Bangalore, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul
Lisbon (HQ), São Paulo, Singapore, South Africa, and New York. Soon in London
Blind, Transparent
Premium, Prem Blind, Semi-blind
Premium and Semi-blind
In-app advertising?
ad formats
Banners, rich media, expandable banners, tap-to-video, pre- and mid-roll video, text links, interstitials / full page, all MMA and IAB formats
3D, rich media, video, social media, banners, text, full range of MMA and IAB formats
Text ads, banner ads with animated GIFs, Rich Media: (Motion Creatives – in-page, expanding banner, floating; Video Creatives – in banner video, in-stream video, Interactive pre-roll, video/interstitials video/pre-app video)
Demographic, Channel, Exchange/SSP, Country, geo-location, platform, device, day-part, mobile operator
Category, handset technology (e.g. manufacturer, device, OS), demographic, location-based
Geo-localization, Operators, Device type (Feature phone, Smartphone or tablet), Device manufacturer, Specific Device, Operating System, mobile site advertising and/or in-app advertising, wifi, gender, age range, and channel targeting
No adult, violent or generally offensive content
No adult, culturally sensitive, political, offensive
Restrictions on Adult, violent or generally offensive content and non fully legal Gambling
min spend (US$)
no. of publishers/ siTes/apps
unique publishers
monthly impressions
Total: 100 billion plus ad requests US: n/a UK: n/a France: n/a Germany: n/a Italy: n/a Spain: n/a
Total: 93bn US: 10bn UK: 3bn France: 900m Germany: 700m Italy: 350m Spain: 1bn
Total: +48bn US: 2 548 664 953 UK: 963 779 289 France: 383 099 070 Germany: 393 754 888 Italy: 146 756 952 Spain: 263 001 146
average fill rate
3 recent advertisers
Sky, Warner Bros, Renault
Sainsbury's, Samsung & Kia
Unilever, Guinness, GM
contact address
they say
Adfonic is the smarter buying platform for mobile which gives advertisers and agencies access to global mobile web and app inventory through a single buying point. Adfonic's customers can run performance, rich media and video ad campaigns across a wide range of inventory sources to drive direct response, increase consumer engagement and build brand awareness. Through Adfonic, advertisers and agencies benefit from access to over 100 billion monthly impressions. Their campaigns are powered by pioneering technology, big data and smart algorithms which optimise performance and drive results. Adfonic is headquartered in London with further operations in New York, Paris, Madrid, Munich, San Francisco and Singapore.
InMobi is the largest independent mobile advertising network. With offices on five continents InMobi provides advertisers, publishers and developers with a uniquely global solution for advertising. The network is growing and now delivers the unprecedented ability to reach 578million consumers, in over 165 countries, through billions of mobile ad impressions daily. The recent acquisition of Sprout, a leading HTML5 authoring platform for mobile rich media, helps expand the InMobi offering to creative agencies and brands.
MobYD is a mobile advertising marketplace for advertisers, agencies, operators, publishers and developers. A proprietary Platform developed for Ad Optimization, a powerful tool for performance and engaging brand awareness campaigns with Rich Media and social media integrated solutions.
InMobi is venture-backed by investors including: SoftBank, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures. The company hasoffices in Bangalore, Johannesburg, London, Nairobi, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo. To learn more, please visit www.inmobi. com/research, follow us on Twitter @InMobi, or read our blog at www.inmobi.com/ inmobiblog/.
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Touchalize takes off
Phonitive CEO Guillaume Lemoine explains how making the consumer the hero of mobile interactive video ads can generate remarkable engagement Video advertising on mobile offers opportunities for engagement beyond simply porting TV ads to a smartphone screen. That's the view of Phonitive – the Toulouse-based company behind the 'Touchalize' technology platform. Touchalize allows advertisers to create interactive video ads that the viewer can customise via on-screen controls, and Phonitive's CEO Guillaume Lemoine says the technology offers possibilities limited only by the creativity of the video professionals using it. "Touchalize is really focused on capturing the individual user's attention during mobile video ads, and making the video ads exclusive to each customer, targeting them on an individual level," he says. "Touchalize makes the mobile video experience fun and interactive for customers, allowing them to share their new video ads with their friends via social media, making video ads viral." Touchalize ads can be personalised in a range of ways. For example, users could change the colour of a dress in a fashion show, or a car in
'Personalised ads captivate customers' attention and allow them to take control of their own video experience'
an action scene. Users could also choose the background for a scene, or even customise the story – choosing between a happy or a sad ending, for example.
Hero worship Engagement can be taken even further – by making the user the hero of the ad. "Users can add in their own text, videos, or new photos that they have taken during the video, or even older photos from Facebook or their mobile photo albums," says Lemoine. "If a customer becomes the hero of an ad they become more emotionally involved with the brand, and want to share their 'new hero' with their friends, extending their engagement with the video over social media." Encouraging ads to go viral is a real strength of Touchalize, and indications from early trials of the technology suggest this could be a popular feature. Phonitive's results show that one user generates around 10 additional views from friends – with the top performing user generating 415 views. "What really fascinated us was how well people engaged with the video," says Lemoine. "Not only did customers use new and recent photos but we had customers taking pictures from old photo albums to add into the apps, showing a real emotional attachment with the campaigns. Stats also showed us that users engaged with the videos in the apps for a much longer period
than entertainment apps without interactive video interaction." Numbers like these are hugely promising for advertisers, but how would a brand then convert this high level of engagement into sales? Touchalize also features 'touch to buy' functionality for this purpose, encouraging highly engaged users to make impulse purchases and providing instant gratification for the advertiser. Touchalize offers comprehensive analytics services, too. Touchalize allows brands to measure key metrics such as the number of 'touch to buy' conversions, but also offers the ability to measure touch interactions with editable content – so that the advertiser can see what the most popular choices were for people interacting with the ad. "Touchalize can provide a vast range of analytics, adapting to the brands requirements and tracking the most important interactions for each company." Ultimately, Lemoine believes the technology can take rich media video advertising on mobile to the next level. "Personalised ads captivate customers' attention and allow them to take control of their own video experience," he says. "We are confident ad personalisation will improve engagement." MM If you'd like to see Touchalize in action and give your feedback, visit Phonitive at Mobile World Congress – stand 8.1C51 in App Planet!
thought leadership
March 2013
OFFDECK Helen Keegan muses on mobile
As the Mobile World Congress juggernaut thunders onto the horizon again, Helen Keegan hopes for some brave new thinking from the big-hitters at the show It's that time of year again when the mobile industry decamps en masse to Barcelona for a week of learning, networking, deal-making, and (let's be honest) a bit of fun. This year, Mobile World Congress has a new home, so the unfamiliar surroundings will present a fresh challenge to the 60,000 or so mobile executives trying to make the most effective use of their time in the city. The venue's bigger, but it remains to be seen if that means better. There's always been a strong operator focus at the event, and while the GSMA has been keen in recent years to place more emphasis on apps and mobile marketing, and to attract more brands, this year will probably be no different. So what can we expect to see at MWC 2013? I'm wary of attempting to predict the future. What I can do, though, is share with you what I hope to see coming out of this year's event. For starters, I'd like to see more focus on stuff that is actually new and innovative, rather than just bigger, faster banners in mobile websites. I'd like to see evidence of innovation in new devices too. Here, I'm looking beyond mobile phones, towards mHealth, mLearning, the Internet of Things, and the impact all this
'I'd like to see services and solutions that are designed around real consumer needs and desires'
might have on how brands and media companies engage with customers. It's really interesting to see mobile apps and TVs converging, and it's much more fun watching big TV shows with Twitter as a companion. I know a few people who own Smart TVs but I know no-one who uses any apps on them beyond iPlayer and other catch-up TV services. Hmm…
Brave new world I'd also like to see customer- rather than platform-centric thinking. Services and solutions that are designed around real consumer needs, desires and insights, rather than the latest bit of techno-wizardry the geeks in the lab have come up with. I'd like to see some bravery too, particularly from the bigger companies. Bravery in embracing our new world, thinking collaboratively, and working together. Large corporates in any industry often tend to stifle self-expression and individuality, and I think this is particularly true in many telcos. The big players, who could learn and benefit so much from some of the clever start-ups trying to do things differently, instead put up a brick wall to obstruct the new order and instead obstinately refuse to change. These huge companies have to reinvent their business, which may mean killing the existing business. They should be nurturing new companies and new talent and investing in their
future, because the old models are simply not sustainable. I appreciate this is difficult. It requires a change of mindset, for people to be more open, more connected, and to think beyond the way they have always done things. It also requires internal change in business processes, structure, and indeed thought processes. But for those brave enough to do it, the results can be amazing. I think the phrase goes, 'change or die', doesn't it. You don't want to be the next Jessops, HMV, or Blockbuster. The other thing I expect to see this year is more visitors to congress taking in more of what's on offer on the fringes. Indeed, there's a whole festival going on! There's a vast array of events taking place in the city – everything from innovation showcases, to walking meetings looking at smart cities to Mobile Marketing's own Barca Starta and Mixer events. Not to mention the parties, including the annual Swedish Beers BCN shindig. There's something for everyone, and these events, which are typically less formal than the stuff going on inside the Fira, are a great place for like-minded people to connect, whether you're from the corporate world or start-up land to meet, learn, and network in a more relaxed environment. For a full list of what's going on, head for: www.mobileheroes.net. MM
MOBILE RETAIL SUMMIT LONDON 24th APRIL 2013
TOPICS INCLUDE: On Device
Driving Footfall
In Store
The Future
For more information about sponsorship and speaking opportunities contact Shelley Dowsett on firstname.lastname@example.com or 02071835308 For more information about being a delegate, contact Lisa Slavin on firstname.lastname@example.com or 02071835285
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