App vs. WAP & Thai Mobile Marketing

Hi everyone

Interesting to read today that VW in the US is launching the latest Golf GTI car, using ONLY an iPhone application as its sole marketing media

Which raises some interesting questions – like when should marketers invest in an iPhone application (App), as opposed to a mobile web service (WAP)?

And what focus should we put on these strategies, compared to the rest of our marketing mix?

In Thailand, with the lack of a 3G network and slower development of mobile web, getting the answer right has never been more important.

So today I want to look at 3 points when considering the benefits of each:

1. Smart Phone Application
- This presentation App vs WAP – what is a marketer to do? does a great job at comparing the pros and cons of each approach. The key benefits of an app are:

1. Allows you to build a richer experience without impacting data speeds / charges. It’s more focused, fun and faster to use then mobile web.
2. Allows you to take advantage of native phone features (GPS, camera & voice). Localisation services using GPS are often a key to app success.
3. Features can work offline. No problems with bad connections.
4. Integration with other services (i.e. Facebook connect) Works well with many new platforms.
5. Can become a great extension of your brand attributes. It’s useful, fun and they almost always perform very well.

On the other hand, in Thailand with perhaps 200,000 iPhones phones you are only looking at less than 1% mobile penetration. Sure there are apps for BB and Android, but not many yet.

And then what % will find/ take up the app? As good as apps are, the audience reach is still at an early stage, and you need a good strategy to get buzz and generate usage

2. Mobile Web Site (WAP site)
The growth in mobile web sites has been pretty big this year. Most media, technology, social networking, gaming and banking/financial companies have one. Check out this list for an insight into 30 of them. The benefits to mobile are sites are:

1. Can work on 100% of devices. We are not restricted to just iPhones, we can adapt the site reach all mobile users.
2. Experience can be optimized to the highest common denominator. Means we can set a high standard across all platforms.
3. You can publish when you want – no approval process by App store required. No more 1 month delays for app approval!
4. iPhone, new Blackberry, Palm, and Android all share same Safari open source application framework Web kit. Makes developing easier.
5. Easier to drive to mobile web vs. drive to mobile App from mobile advertising networks. Driving traffic to a WAP site is easier for marketers.
6. Content from mobile web is searchable / search friendly. It works more like a Web experience people are used to.

Of course the issue is WAP sites need to be made for phones, they are very different and need to be much simpler than web sites.

And let’s face it, with download times and connection problems and a lack of confidence in transacting over the web here – a mobile site approach needs to be simple, well thought out and highly practical to make it work for this market.

3. The Right Mix?
In this excellent 3 min video from President of Major League Baseball in the US explains why for media organizations like his, you need to have both.

Clearly he makes a lot of sense. With apps you get a great experience, but a much smaller market. Albeit a market you can make money from. But with WAP you can get a much bigger reach. For Thailand it does depend on your industry, but some basic rules apply:

1. For WAP if you’re in media, banking, tech or entertainment you need a WAP first and need it now. Most other industries may not have one yet but with estimates saying a majority of Thais will access the Internet primarily through mobile within 2-3 years – you need a WAP strategy now!

2. For iPhone, apps make sense here and are great for a targeted and quite youthful (20-40), urban demographic. As part of an overall digital marketing strategy though, it is not a silver bullet but a great addition to the digital marketing plan.

Even in the States, some are questioning VW’s iPhone launch approach. And so do I. I tend to a agree with this reader who makes interesting strategy comments then finished with:

“In Volkswagen's quest to be the world's largest car marketer, saving money by launching a brilliant new vehicle with an i-phone app is akin to cutting back on an army's bullet budget...you'll have a little extra cash on hand when you've lost the war.”

Cheers, Rob

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

Times are A-Changin' Again for Marketers

Hi everyone

Over my recent holiday break I watched the latest series from the hit TV show Mad Men, about a New York ad agency set in the 1950’s.

It was a time of real insights and storytelling, of brand creation, and when the ad agency had the influence to shape a company’s future. They were times of great change.

Many agency people, and marketing commentators, would love to go back to that same role we once had.

Some people even wonder, with the advent of Web 2.0 and fast & cheap social network enabled content, whether this is the beginning of the end for marketers? Unilever’s so called crowd sourcing experiment is cited as one example of this outsourced marketing movement.

Are we then, as marketers, becoming obsolete?

Those people who haven’t experienced fully the revolution that’s been going on in agencies in the last few years might think so. But I’d argue that agencies are becoming as important as we were in the Mad Men days, but for totally different reasons.

The agency and client model has radically changed to suit the times. Here’s what we’re doing different now, and why I think it’s so important:

1. Understanding & reaching people better: With the shift to social media, changes in consumer preferences, growth in communities, etc. it has never been more important to not only understand relevant consumer insights, but also work out new ways to provide access to these audiences.

“Agencies now help to create or manage customer communities for their clients. They will also create client specific media channels – whether it’s Twitter feeds or Internet radio – which can be used to deliver specific campaigns.” (Phil Johnson, Ad Age, ‘Creating the future of Adland’)

2. Creating engagement not just advertising : Agencies like ours are now are creating acts, not just ads. We therefore must be able create a large type of different brand experiences in different media, but that all speak with one voice.

That means a marketer and their agency should be able to offer everything from a branded web site, TV campaign, mobile promotion, package design, software applications, PR buzz, online games, branded events, email stream or retail experiences that are all integrated and work together seamlessly.

To do this agencies become more like content super-producers, managing the dozens of technology production and content streams, to come together as one. As Allison Mooney notes, agencies need to think like software companies to survive.

3. Managing the social media experience: Social networking does give more power to our customers – but any marketer will know there is a real challenge in getting a social media project balance right. Just setting it up is not enough, nothing will happen. Spend all your time maintaining it and it will drain your resources. And how do you turn the noise into sales?

An agency is crucial to understand what a brand’s role is in this social media conversation, when to contribute, when to listen, and what tools we can give our consumers to be useful. Ad Age Editor Jonah Bloom said it best: “Social Media isn’t a box to be ticked or a department to be manned or even a campaign to be launched. It’s about thinking differently about marketing, customer service, the entire company.”

4. Helping change the business not just the marketing: This leads to perhaps the biggest revolution has been taking place for marketers: by understanding our changing customers' lives better, we are now better positioned to provide advice on real customer utility. That is, not just better communications – but better products ideas, better services channels, and better ways of being useful in people’s lives.

Look at all the work that’s being done in an agency now, so much of it is about addressing the core issues of the business. In this way, as Wayne Arnold says in this article, we stop being an agency and start being an agent of change.

Welcome to Agency 2.0

Cheers

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