Ahhh operators, you gotta luv ‘em. Just as it seems consumer behavior is really benefiting from the introduction of true smartphones and cheap ‘all you can eat’ mobile tariffs, they go and throw a spanner in the works.
O2 have just announced the end of its ‘unlimited’ tariff for smartphone users, this follows Vodafone last month and no doubt Orange will follow suit soon enough. Any new or upgrading customers will be shoved onto the new plans, existing customers keep the same tariff, but hey, you gotta upgrade sometime right?
There are a number of reasons floating around as what caused this change, one of them involves Apple. They’ve basically said to operators (these are my words) “Stop fucking offering ‘unlimited’ tariffs with the iPhone when you write “subject to fair usage’ in small print at the bottom of contracts, you anti-innovation bastards”.
However the O2 Chief Executive Ronan Dunne has stated another reason – they are seeing data traffic doubling every four months, this means their ‘flat fee’ tariffs aren’t making them any money if everyone is canning it more and more. Dunne reveals some interesting results about how this consumption is happening, apparently 97% of O2 smartphone users actually use less than 500MB per month and a tiny fraction use more than 1GB (0.1%). This means a small percentage of ‘super users’ are ruining it for everyone else by putting strain on the network, resulting in the new capped tariffs.
But wait! By the figures O2 reveal doesn’t that mean that someone who uses less than 500MB today, will in fact be way, way over that number by the end of their 12/18 month contract as usage is doubling every 4 months?
He had this to say:
“But at the same time, we’ll start to change customer perceptions about the value of the data they use; a vital part of ensuring that people share it responsibly and considerately.”
That is exactly the kind of attitude that stunts innovation, do you think we’d be in this great position today where people don’t second guess how much they pay to view a video or use an app if we still had limits and charged per megabyte? All these great things we’re seeing with apps, social networks, location etc would never of happened. I know operators are seeing very little return from the iPhone/Android eco-system, they make no money while developers and Apple make millions, but this is the wrong move. Changing customer perceptions back to the old days? Pssh.
Now back to the original point of this post, The Guardian writer Charles Arthur puts forward a really interesting argument to what the hell these 0.1% of super users could be doing to download gigabytes of data every month. He thinks it’s caused by P2P users who are worried about the new Digital Economy Act and have now switched their illegal downloading to their mobiles to avoid being tracked by the government/ISP and getting ‘three strikes’. Those users are supposedly taking the SIM out of their phones and sticking in a dongle to download their movies, albums and what not. As he says “the tiny number of P2P mobile downloaders are screwing it up for everyone else.”
Couple of things wrong with this argument, Arthur makes the assumption that these users are smart:
“someone who’s using their iPhone SIM as a dongle really isn’t worried about upgrading; they’ve probably got a PAYG SIM stuffed into their iPhone for their phone calls. They’re not stupid.”
If these guys aren’t stupid, why the hell would they using their phones for P2P downloads? Surely they would be using VPN’s, Proxies and dozens of other Digital Economy Act avoidance tricks are much less hassle than having your SIM out of your phone and actually cost a lot less than a dongle. Some methods here revealed by a 5 second Google search.
So now that we’ve established that anyone with a brain wouldn’t use their phone for trying to avoid the Digital Economy Act, what are these users doing? Oh, this is so easy …
PORN.
Come on now, had you forgotten about the old king of the internet before Facebook was around? What do you think happens when phones get bigger screens, faster internet and superior video-watching ability? Yes that’s right, people use them to watch porn from free online streaming sites like Xvideos, Redtube and probably a million more, aaand wouldn’t you know, the two I mentioned have mobile sites too, here and here (warning: porn). In fact just add ‘mobile’ or ‘m’ to any porn site, they’re probably mobile optimised.
I figured I better try and back up my argument with some facts:
An article from 2008 -
“In the last six months internet searches for iPhone porn have increased nearly fivefold according to Google Trends”
“It’s by far the porn-friendliest phone,” Devan Cypher, representative for San Francisco-based Sin City Entertainment, told Time magazine.
Tech Radar 2009 : Mobile porn slamming networks’ capacity
and those are out-dated! Think about where we are today.
So there you have it…my conclusion is that the 0.1% downloading over 1GB every month are simply….massive wankers.
This is some pretty big news for mobile that hasn’t got the reaction I think it deserves (or do I just play too much Playstation 3?). It looks like huge efforts are being made to make mobile, console and PC gaming completely compatible.
First up is Microsoft who recently demoed their Windows 7 Mobile playing Indiana Jones, then switching the game to PC, then onto the Xbox 360. Next is BigPoint and Unity Technologies who have developed browser based software that will enable iPhone (and eventually Android, iPad) gamers to play against PC, PS3 and Wii players.
On a basic level this means that you’ll be able to play multi-player games with people sat at their PCs at home whilst on your mobile. Also things like the ability to carry on your game where you left on the PC using your phone would be a typical feature.
But think about the possibilities this has for the actual games themselves; experiences have the potential to be completely immersive. What you do and where you go with your phone in real life can affect what happens to your character in a game using mobile technologies like GPS.
Mobile solutions company Incentivated power the new SMS flight info service for British Airways. Fantastic, SMS is easy peasy, so let’s hear more about it:
According to Mobile Marketing Watch:
The service, available for UK- and US-registered mobile phones, enables users to get up-to-the-minute flight information for yesterday, today and the next five days. Users text D for Departures or A for Arrivals followed by a space, the departure date of the flight (in the form DDMMYY or MMDDYY for the US) and the British Airways flight number (eg BAXXXX) to 60747 in the UK, 70615 in the US.
OOohh laawwd – how the hell is anyone meant to use this service again if they have to remember all that?
So I decided to give it a try and deliberately entered false details to see if I would get a error message back saying explaining how to do it correctly. I.e “Sorry that was wrong, please try again by entering D or A….”
What do you picture when you hear the words “mobile advertising banners”? Probably some 2 or 3 frame, unengaging, pixelated GIF that reminds you of the web in the 1990s. While it’s true they often get a better click through rate than online, this is usually down to the fact that it’s the largest graphical element on the mobile screen.
Mobile banners haven’t really changed much in the last 4 years, however phones have improved beyond recognition with faster processors, 3G capabilities and better screens. However just as important is the improvement in handset targeting by advertising networks, this enables mobile websites to serve ads based on the capabilities of each phone model – so basically serving better ads to better phones.
As you know the mobile landscape is changing, Apple and Google both are now owners of the hardware, software and advertising networks. This means they completely control the mobile advertising eco-system for their handsets, free from the constraints that have handicapped creativity in this part of the industry for so long.
In the future advertising units & banners will have access to features on the phone, either through Flash, Flash Lite or HTML5. We’ve already seen Google’s ‘Near Me Now’ function on its website which directly accesses the phones GPS unit to provide shops and restaurants nearby. I think it’s only a matter of time before we see the accerometer used in the same way.
For those of you who don’t know, the accelerometer is the component in the phone which measures tilt, motion, shaking and swinging. It is responsible for sensing if the handset is portrait or landscape and switches the display accordingly. The iPhone was arguably the first real phone to ultilise it fully within its user interface and applications.
Aaaand did you know that Flash Lite 3.0 already has the power to access to data from the accelerometer on phones such as the Nokia 5800? Flash developers head here and here for example code. Oh and Flash Lite works WITHIN the browser so the following examples can be done today! (I’ll be covering this more in my next post)
Enough talking fool, show me some examples!
So what kind of unique, engaging, mobile-only experiences could you create using this technology?
Here are some examples of online banners that would fit perfectly with the accelerometer and the mobile web. These are a mixture of Flash banners and whole page takeovers, they inspired me and hopefully they’ll get your imagination and creative juices flowing about the possibilities of mobile advertising.
Wario Shake It
This is absolutely perfect for mobile, shaking your phone to set off all the elements falling. Plus Flash Lite has access to the vibration on the phone so this could shake the phone too!. Check it out here
Fiat ABS Banner
Imagine interacting with this by tilting your phone. Great Ad.
I’ve written about this before, but last week it resulted in me getting less food for my money – which my friends will tell you makes me very angry, so I’m bringing it up again.
I was meeting a mate after work for something to eat, the plan was to get onto Money Saving Expert and see what was on offer, print out the voucher and go munch. Giraffe had a 2 for 1 on main meals deal which fitted perfectly.
In the rush out of the office I forgot the voucher, because of this I changed my mind and we went next door to Wagamama instead. Why? Because paying full price for something when you know it’s on sale feels like a massive waste of money, you either can’t live with knowing that everyone else around you is probably eating for 50% less or you tell yourself that you’ll return another time with the voucher. Plus I like Wagamama that tiny bit more if paying full price but when it comes down to a good offer like 2-for-1, Giraffe would win every time.
If I could have sent that voucher to my phone rather than to a printer, Giraffe would have had my business. The same has happened in the past with vouchers from Gap, Urban Outfitters and plenty of others. It’s even more of a pain when you don’t have access to a printer.
How many times have you used a mobile SMS voucher compared to lets say, a printed email/pdf voucher? There is no comparison, how can the most commonly used mobile service in the world be overlooked for something you can only do if you have access to a printer? It makes no sense, ask any person who has used a printed voucher if they would rather use a text message instead, what do you think the answer would be?
The question is why hasn’t it happened yet?
Update: Confirmed – the new iPhone has a front facing camera!
Updated: Wrote this post last year before the iPhone 3GS launch, obviously that version didn’t have video calling or mobile tv as its core features but could that change this year? I was a thinking a bit too far ahead last year but now it seems other blogs are mentioning the same thing.
Rumours (and screenshots) are flying round featuring a front facing iPhone camera…9to5Mac has a post with all the theories. Remember the iPhone can’t save video calling on its own, operators will need to create unlimited bundles with standard tariffs otherwise it’s not going to be able to sustain the initial uplift. Maybe this is the kick start video calling needs to begin lowering prices?
Check out the new image and original post below:
The new iPhone is due to be announced soon and I have the feeling that it’s about to change the way people use (and perceive) Video Calling and mobile TV. The two services desperately need a jump start and have been poorly received by consumers for years.
As a consumer I know that Mobile TV is very appealing, I can’t tell you the amount of times I have been out and wanted to catch the football or a episode of Californication. Even at my desk, I can’t be bothered to keep turning my head to watch the plasma and would gladly have a phone in front of me with the TV on. The proposition isn’t hard for the consumer to understand, it’s TV that you love and know…on your phone. Simple.
However the price has always been far too high , I’ve found that most people don’t know that their operator offers TV and the ones that do think it’s too expensive to take up. Currently the price sits at around £3 per month on Vodafone to £8.99 per month on Orange…That’s 35% of my line rental!
Video Calling is just as expensive, on Orange it costs 50p per minute to call someone on another network. Video Calling is a service I would dip in and out of but why would I ever bother at those prices? I know many things have been listed on why video calling isn’t popular, everything from unflattering camera angles to human nature but lets face it, cost is usually king and if it was free people would use it more. Plus video calling is aching for a sprinkling of decent Apple-style user experience.
When I wrote the post about NFC-enabled TVs and Radios to be used with mobile advertising, this is exactly the kind of equipment I had in mind to start making it a reality.
Samsung have started adding Wi-Fi to their LED range of televisions. Not only can you use Twitter and Flickr from the on-screen widgets but you can also watch YouTube (which brings up questions about the future of traditional broadcasting just by itself).
The reason why this is important is because the TV can now send and receive information via the internet. Add a NFC chip onto the television/remote control it then becomes a portal of unlimited opportunities.
Compare the adverts you sit through on TV to on the internet, I barely notice the ones online but on TV brands have the chance to really grab my attention. My attention is on the screen, I’ve probably got a packet of Pickled Onion Monster Munch in hand (get in), I ain’t moving. Then…wow the new Adidas Predator advert comes on, jeez I sure would like a pair of them, move my phone over the remote and BEEP BEEP > coupons, nearest store, catalogues, competitions, apps, the list could go on. The same applies during programs.
NFC is the technology for the true couch potato.
No sooner than ranting about manufacturers beginning to have the upper hand, Google today confirmed that they intend to turn operators into their bitches.
As you all probably know by now, Google are releasing their own phone called the Nexus One. The phone is nice, good features but definitely no iPhone killer. However as suggested by Mobile Industry Review it represents something much more than that.
About 6 years ago the first Nokia handsets shipped with Wi-Fi capabilities, there was a huge buzz about being able to make free calls over the Internet using your mobile, however operators put a stop to that by strong-arming the manufacturer by literally saying “Disable it or we won’t bulk buy your phones”.
Sure enough the Wi-Fi stayed but the phones never got VOIP calls until YEARS later. And when it did arrive they tried to charge for it. Operators want other stuff too like putting their own maps application on phones, app stores, and a whole bunch of extra crap they were never meant to do. If you’re trying to build something into the core user interface it’s probably better to let the people who made the rest of the phone do it.
This is typical of how things work in the mobile industry, manufacturers bend over backwards for operators because without them it’s extremely difficult to get your latest and greatest mobile into consumers hands.
But what if you’re the most visited company on the web?
This is a great follow up to my previous post about the problems with location-based SMS advertising.
Two weeks ago, O2 launched their very own SMS advertising network called O2 More. The opt-in program aims to “deliver highly personalised campaigns for advertisers and give customers access to a wide range of exclusive and relevant offers from over 50 leading brands.”
It works by the O2 customer signing up and filling out their age and interests online (picture below), O2 will also use their location and usage data:
What other information will be used for O2 More?
Only things we know about how you use your phone since you’ve been on O2. For example, if we know you download music to your phone, we may send you details of a music offer. We want to make the messages you receive from us as relevant as possible.
I dug around and found the O2 Sim card I used for the AQA vs 118188 test and signed up for O2 More. Check out the registration screen below (click to enlarge).
This is the first time one of the big four operators has opened up their customer data to brands and it’s probably long overdue. There’s no reason this couldn’t have been done years ago so why now? Are brands and consumer attitudes changing?
Shaun Gregory, managing director of O2 Media said in a statement:
“Mobile advertising has been slow to deliver on its promise. Much of that has been down to a lack of understanding, limited opportunities and no real accountability or measurement. O2 More is about to change all that and will spearhead the UK’s first truly personalized media business.”
Why Now?
I personally think that operators are seeing power shift over to manufacturers and are making (slightly vain) attempts to combat this. For a long time operators have been holding all the cards for targeted mobile advertising, they have your location, personal details (when you sign the contract) and even your browsing habits. But now everything has changed, advances in technology means that the handset can do all of this and more, putting the manufacturers in pole position.
2009 is over and very soon the Mobile Data Association will be releasing its messaging figures for the year just gone. These are going to be much more interesting (to me anyway) than most years because of one thing – the iPhone.
In June last year, Apple released the 3.0 update which enabled long-awaited MMS functionality on the iPhone 3G. The newer iPhone 3GS shipped with MMS as standard. What affect will all these dormant iPhone have on
Lets take a look at the figures:
Video and Picture messages (MMS) usage stats for the last 3 years in the UK:
2008 total 553 million (+104 million from previous year)
2007 total 449 million (+113 million from previous year)
2006 total 336 million
These statistics can be broken down as follows in 2008:
Year on year growth (2008 vs 2007): 23% growth
As you can see the growth is pretty steady, which is great because it makes any spikes easier to spot. You would normally expect something in the region of +/- 10 million from 2008s figures for 2009.
I’ll check over the figures when they are released for any abnormalities, and do a bit of digging to see they can be attributed to the iPhone. The majority of the spike would need to be from O2 as they had exclusivity on the iPhone until late 2009.
A far cry from the MMS is dead talk hey?
After feeling very left out by seeing tons of other blogs post their predictions for 2010, I decided to do my own and why not.
Here are some of my thoughts for the next 12 months.
Enjoy and discuss.
Last month I got a email from the guys at Juniper with some lovely mobile coupon statistics that got a few blogs excited about the progression of mobile coupons:
Personal Marketing Comes of Age with 3 million Britons Now Redeeming Coupons via Their Mobile Phone - According to New Juniper Survey According to a new survey report from Juniper Research more than 3 million consumers have now used mobile coupons in the UK with UK brands benefiting from a 6 fold increase in response rates through mobile coupons. The mobile coupons consumer survey, launched globally today, provides detailed insight into consumers’ current usage of mobile coupons. It also gauges the future prospects for new interactive mobile marketing techniques such as coupon services and smart posters. Howard Wilcox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research, commented: “The redemption rate for traditional paper coupons is typically 1% or less, but, based on our survey, mobile coupons offer 6 times these rates. This means that retailers and brands have the opportunity to exploit the mobile channel via personalised coupon offers direct to the ultimate personal device - the mobile phone.” The survey showed that in excess of three quarters of those questioned were aware of mobile coupons and that once people receive coupons then there is a strong probability that they will also redeem them. The Orange Wednesdays campaign is a prime example of a successful mobile coupons programme.
I think that ‘personal marketing comes of age’ is a bit pre-mature, I hardly ever see mobile coupons in the UK apart from Orange Wednesdays. Do you?
So I emailed the extremely helpful guys at Juniper with the following question:
Would be great to know how many of those 3 million came from Orange Wednesday, I rarely see mobile vouchers so I'm expecting the results to be skewed by initiatives by Orange
No sooner than my post about location about to become interesting for consumers, Techcrunch posted an article about a concept by AT&T for ‘on-the-go’ mobile coupons.
Ever since the dawn of time mobile marketers have been using the ‘Starbucks coupon’ example to sell the idea of location based coupons into brands and businesses. I’ve used it a few times because it’s the easiest way to explain to someone who’s ‘non-mobile’ about location and the possibilities.
The scenario goes like this, you sign up for a mobile coupon service, fill out your profile, ticking coffee and various other things as your interests. You walk past Starbucks one day and BAM, your mobile beeps and it’s a 20% discount SMS coupon for a cup of coffee. Then you stroll in, extremely happy and redeem your coupon. Win for you and a win for Starbucks.
This basically applies to the concept by operator AT&T, the idea is simple, as consumers walk around a city, they get mobile alerts whenever their favourite nearby stores and restaurants have a deal. It works by the mobile operator constantly monitoring the customers location (opt-in of course), then matching that info to available retailers to push coupons/info.
Sounds great, apart from one problem….it uses SMS.
Firstly you will never escape the fact that SMS advertising messages are intrusive. They arrive into your inbox just like personal messages, they don’t have a separate folder, they don’t arrive silently, they don’t generate a different on-screen alert or icon. Oh and if it’s a coupon, you can’t sort by expiry date.
Just like any consumer, I’m interested in around 100+ different brands, everything from clothing, electronics, all the way to peanut butter. Do I want discounts on these brands? Hell yes (I love those printed vouchers), gimme as much as possible. Do I want my phone beeping several times a day and my inbox filling up? Hell no.
No matter how targeted the coupon is, there is no way a location based SMS service can remain useful and scale to cover the amount of brands an average consumer likes without severely pissing them off, regardless of opting-in. Read More
I remember testing out QR codes for clients 3 years ago when considering if we should include them into a few campaigns. None of them went for it, the main problem was that such a small percentage of mobiles were compatible with the QR code application, plus no phones actually shipped with the reader installed meaning that you would have to get the user to download something before they could even interact. This didn’t sit well with any brands and eventually all talk of using them vanished from future projects.
Fast forward to today and isn’t it funny that Augmented Reality has exactly the same problem, but brands and advertisers are going absolutely nuts for it?
I’ve always steered clear of making someone download an application to interact with advertising (excluding typical iPhone apps). It’s no secret that drop off rates are increased massively when you throw in a download. We have App Stores now to make that process a lot easier along with unlimited data plans which eliminate cost concerns for the users. But as super duper as it is, I still have a niggling feeling about AR. Read More
[Image by Scott Campbell]
Aside from doing the mobile marketing campaign stuff, I also spend a lot of time designing WAP sites and mobile banners for various promotions that require landing pages/advertising across different publisher sites. I’ve been making mobile banners since 2006 when I was at Enpocket and even though mobile has come a long way to become cemented in advertising and brand strategy, some things are still exactly the same as they were 3 years ago…there is a serious lack of love for the mobile banner.
If you work in advertising/creative in any shape or form you will have no doubt come across brand guidelines before, these are the documents provided to agencies, partners and freelancers to ensure that the company is represented clearly and consistently both inside and outside the organisation. This includes rules for print, outdoor and online, such as size of logo, spacing between elements, colours, tone of voice etc. The guidelines often need to followed to the letter otherwise any designs you’ve done will get thrown out during the brands internal sign off process. This is where the trouble begins…
I’ve made hundreds mobile banners and WAP sites, in that time I’ve seen brand guidelines include specifications for mobile just once - both for regular advertisers and those dipping their toes in. Instead you’re expected to apply the same rules and assets for online to any mobile designs. This causes a number of problems because in many cases, it’s impossible to do on mobile.
Mobile screens are small and banners are even smaller (as well as being highly restricted but more on that later). Meaning that any logos, graphics and mandatory slogans/copy often become illegible as they scale down. You would assume this allows you some leeway with getting designs approved, after all if you can’t make out half the things in the advert it’s pretty pointless.
Often the only way to fit something into a banner is by re-working some of the assets, such as making a portrait logo into landscape by moving the elements side by side or removing some copy heavy slogans. Nothing radical. But exceptions are rarely made by brand teams, partly because they don’t understand the limitations of mobile or have anything other than online to reference it against. This means they would rather let barely legible creative through the approval process than something that is clearer, more effective and likely to get a click. Once brand team sign-off the creative it usually goes live without anyone from the company checking it over again as responsibility is delegated. In the end you’re left with a banner that leaves you wondering “who is actually going to click on this thing?”.
Check out this logo I picked completely at random as an example:
The static banners above show the difference it makes by adapting for mobile. Would you rather have your advert unrecognisable but adhere to the guidelines? Or work on getting the best out of your money by considering how to adapt for the medium?
Some brands have logos, slogans and assets that luckily already work well for mobile but those who don’t can count the cost in a number of ways including:
- The ad campaign doesn’t perform well, wasting money and affecting the brands confidence in spending money on mobile advertising again in the future.
- The poor quality creative has a direct effect on the consumers perception of the brand, which is kinda ironic after the brand team signs it off.
- The brands Competitors DO create mobile brand guidelines, making their ads look considerably better to the consumer.
Working on the ad-serving team at Nokia, I got to see how major ad campaigns were doing and it’s no surprise that click through rates have a direct correlation to the quality of creative. If I would have had all the banner creatives on the screen and hidden the results, you could have easily guessed which ones got the best CTR just by looking at the graphics. Obviously there are other elements involved in attracting the user to make that click but in my opinion the creative is the most important. If it wasn’t then everyone would just run text ads right? In Google’s own words, “Text is often useful, but sometimes videos and pictures are a more effective way to receive information.” Read More
