Facebook, Twitter & Social Context Marketing

Hi everyone

Try this, it will only take a minute.

Click here and enter your Facebook login for this Prototype Experience. Then watch the video.

Pretty cool, huh? This is the direction social networking marketing is going, and it is important for 2 key reasons.

1. Context drives engagement
In the future, the Era of Social Context will mean we are able to serve personalized content to users based on their social networking information. And this ‘contextual’ content will not to be limited to just ads or marketing like the Prototype example, but also include all media sites, e-commerce, corporate sites, and TV.

Every brand will adapt, at some level, to this model.

We are moving quickly from fairly static and one-way social marketing model, for example using just a simple Facebook page, to far more engaging applications using features like Facebook Connect that allow us to create a rich, interactive experience and far greater personalization.

The beauty with this approach is that you don’t have to ask people to enter any details, they just log in to Facebook, and you use things they’ve already shared.

Imagine how we could use this data in a campaign? We could use a customer’s personal photos to create personalized marketing with just them as the hero, as with the Prototype example.

Another good example of this is this case study from Doritos called iD3, where coming up with a new flavour has rarely been so socially connected.

2. Engagement drives sales
Importantly, we can also help a customer with an online purchase decision by asking them to connect with Facebook/Twitter so we can give our recommendation/suggestion on what they should buy.

As we all know, customers are far more likely to be involved and interested in a purchase if the message is just right for them. And that’s just what Volkswagen has created in this cute little ad which looks at the info from your Twitter stream and recommends the car most relevant to you.

Test it for yourself here (Volkswagen Rich Media Twitter ad), and if you still do not have a Twitter account, why not try a celeb Twitter name instead!

This is a simple, but totally engaging tool, with huge sales potential. In this interesting article, The Future of the Social Web, Jerimiah Owy explains how the movement towards Social Commerce is quite simply inevitable.

Of course there will be significant hurdles for brands to address in terms of privacy issues. But these will be overcome as people learn how better to filter their social information, and when they see the personal benefits this marketing can deliver them.

Cheers, Rob

Feel free to add comments below, or for further questions or advice contact me at rob.h@th.arcww.com

Virtual vs. Augmented Reality

Hi everyone

This week I wanted to mention 2 areas that hold a fascinating future for marketers - virtual and augmented reality.

To put it simply, virtual reality creates a whole new digital (virtual) world for people to interact with, while in augmented reality we add a digital layer over the real world (via PC, phone or other digital device) to enhance our view of the existing world.

It's the difference between Second Life virtual game for example, and this fascinating TATS augmented reality phone application.

Virtual reality was the hot topic a few years ago when talking about digital marketing potential, but it rarely gets a mention now.

But this recent overview in the Guardian article notes, virtual worlds are alive and doing very, very well - especially among younger audiences. Online world for kids Habbo has 135 million registered users alone, that's more than the population of most countries!

In virtual worlds brands are able to hold meetings, openings, have launch parties, create virtual showrooms, have exposure at different events - the possibilities are enormous. However despite all this success, you won't find a lot of marketers investing much there.

As the Guardian article says about Second Life: "Only a small fraction of its 19 million registered users are active, and it is still the creative laboratory of the genre."

Quite simply, the virtual experience is not interesting or immersive enough for most adults, yet. Until then, most marketers will keep their budgets on hold.

Augmented Reality, to me, is another story. AR has recently been highlighted in various marketing campaigns as a cool way to show your product via PC or mobile phone, such as in this concert launch by the BBC. But it is much more than just a gimmick, and the potential to change product and brand communications in remarkable ways:

- Create virtual maps/marketing information via phones: Check out world's first augmented reality browser, from Layar
- Connect you with social networks: An incredible augmented ID system from TATs to enhance your social and business networks
- Create digital shop fronts: Check out how we could all be buying clothes soon, in this digital shop front from Zugara
- Bring gaming to life: Want to see the future of gaming - how about a virtual pet on iphone?
- Change the way we teach/learn: How cool would it be if we all had school books like this?

There are endless possibilities to add useful and interesting information onto a world we, and marketers, are already in.

If you want a marketing reality we should start thinking about now for our products and campaigns, this is the one to watch.

Cheers, Rob

Feel free to add comments below, or for further questions or advice contact me at rob.h@th.arcww.com

Our Mobile Marketing Future

Hi everyone

For a long time mobile phones have been both the great hope, and the great disappointment, of digital marketing.

But with the launch of the iPhone, and development of smart phones like the Blackberry & Pre, things are getting really interesting for marketers. For the first time our phones are becoming a primary source for many to access the web and communicate with each other.

And this is driving a huge growth in mobile marketing opportunities in Asia, beyond just the usual mobile 'hot spots' of Japan and Korea.

Thailand in particular has a fast growing smart phone uptake, and one of the highest uses of mobile phones in Asia, so the possibilities here are tremendous.

But before we can realize these opportunities, it's worth highlighting the top mobile marketing mistakes . Too often in the past, marketers have done a poor job at adapting digital to mobile environments. The main points are:

- Design for mobile not PC: Customers want fast access to relevant information. So they need services that recognize they are on the move. They also want location-aware, activity-specific experiences. So thousands of words, massive images, slow downloads, and lots of clicks are NOT the answer.
- Don't ignore mobile's limitations: The phone can't replicate the PC experience. Remember that the screen is smaller, there’s no mouse, no printer, the keyboard is limited, bandwidth may be restricted, and megabytes cost money. But creative marketers can still overcome all of these to deliver fast, fun, fantastic experiences designed just for mobile handsets.
- Do exploit mobile's capabilities: The best mobile experiences take advantage of mobile's strengths. Remember It’s a phone, a camera, a video camera, it sends text messages, It’s location-aware, it’s a micro-payment device, it sends email, has a music player, a video player, a calendar & a browser . If all this doesn’t inspire you and your campaigns, nothing will.

Okay then, so what are our options? Below is a list of mobile marketing tools, and recent best practice examples, that show the beginning of the new mobile marketing revolution:

1. Mobile Web (WAP) Sites: These are great for everything from online retail utilities, to campaign supported sites. But the best sites don't try and do everything, but keep it simple to serve the specific needs of its users. The Bank of America mobile site is often given as an example of a site that does a great job. Find other great WAP sites here.

2. SMS/MMS Campaigns: It's perhaps been around the longest of all mobile marketing desciplines, and is still the most powerful tool for mass interactivity, and continues to evolve. Great SMS campaigns now are about opt-in, two-way involvement and immediate reward. Here's a good example of a campaign to launch an album from the popular Gorilaz band.

3. Mobile applications: With nearly 100,000 iPhone applications now developed, this is now a massive growth area which some people think could rival mobile web access for mobile marketing budgets. Mobile apps range from the fun, to the useful, to the silly. But if done right they can really provide a new way to interact with your audience and drive sales. My favourite branded apps at the moment are Barclays Card app, Grolsch beer fun and Pizza Hut ordering!

4. Mobile Advertising: One marketing tool which has promised much but rarely delivered has meen mobile advertising. The nature of the media and user reluctance to engage rarely makes this a compelling experience. Even advertising supported-mobile models such as Blyk have failed to really catch on. Having said that there is a place for mobile advertising with the right audience and as part of a more integrated mobile approach, as this campaign from K-Mart shows.

5. Mobile Video: As I discussed last week, video is exploding on the web, including on your mobile phone. Consumer generated mobile content, video sharing sites and even specialised video channels for mobiles - such as this mobile TV show from Sony Ericcson - are taking off.

6. Mobile Retail: It's not just marketing, our mobile phones are allowing us to search/shop/buy online like never before. Anything you can do on the web you can do more conveninetly - and often more simply - on your mobile. As this article shows, there are so many ways that creating shopping opportunities via mobile can be used effectively by brands.

7. QR/Short Codes: These so-called 'URL Killers', that allow you to scan a code on your mobile and get immediately connected to a mobile (WAP) site, have been around for a while in Japan and Korea - but not much elsewhere. All that is changing with smart phones and WAP access becoming popular, and you can see here that brands such Green Day, Firefox and Louis Vuitton are just some of the companies getting in on the act.

8. Location Based Services: The best thing about mobile is it's always with you - which means doing something out and about where you are is so relevant when done well. I've always loved this Hong Kong Airport campaign from Motorolla, but what really caught my imagination is how location marketing and social networking are combing to create some really interesting possibilities, such as this service from Four Square. Compelling stuff.

9. Future Mobile: I'll discuss more on this next week, but the integration of digital technologies to 'augment (add to) reality', such as giving you information overlayed on the real world when seen through your mobile, will be a really exciting area for marketers in future. To see what may be possible with this concept of augmented reality , check out here how we could use it to enhance our social networks!

But more on augmented reality vs virtual reality next week...

Cheers, Rob

Feel free to add comments below, or for further questions or advice contact me at rob.h@th.arcww.com