In my last post, I said mobile marketing would take on forms that we can't predict. Well, I read about just such a new approach in a Feb. 25 article in The New York Times.

Most of the ideas for location-based marketing are either interruptive (e.g., SMS someone when they walk near your store) or based on old media (e.g., text a request for a coupon based on seeing a printed placard in a store). But now a Chicago-based company, Akoo International, has created something entirely new: a cross between a jukebox and an SMS coupon delivery solution. In a nutshell, the firm places an interactive, large-screen display in a store, bar or other venue. The device allows people nearby to text in requests for videos, music or other short form types of entertainment media. Like a jukebox, it queues up the requests. However, it takes it one step further by using those request interactions to offer coupons, ads and other forms of marketing. The best part is that marketers can now know exactly where a customer is located physically without all the fancy technical challenges of GPS.

I don’t know whether this is the much anticipated killer-app for mobile marketing, but it is most definitely a great example of the next generation of out-of-the-box marketing approaches we'll be seeing in the coming years.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 05:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Does anyone remember back in 2005 and 2006 when mobile marketing was supposed to redefine every aspect of the marketing world? SMS would be delivering all our marketing messages. WAP (mobile-specific pages) would bring interactivity to the wireless phone. We'd be redeeming coupons from in-store banners and swiping our cell phone screens at the cash register. Our phones were supposed to bleep at us when we walked by a store that wanted to hawk us some great sale or new product.

Well, a funny thing happened.

The mobile revolution went ahead and happened, but it apparently didn't pay any attention to all of us marketers predicting its future. Let's look at the revolution as it is playing out now.

SMS did take off. It's used so often now that I wonder how we lived without it. It's become the instant messaging solution for the mobile world, but it's barely budged the needle for marketing messages.

WAP is everywhere, but most people don't seem to care. Dramatically faster networks coupled with increasingly powerful mini-browsers have brought the full Web right onto our little phones. If you haven't tried surfing the Web on an iPhone or an iPod Touch, then you need to rush out and give it a try. WAP didn't change the world; long live the mobile Web browser.

And, while the carriers are trying to figure out how to appropriately make your location data available to marketers, along comes Google. Try downloading the latest Google Maps for your phone. (It works on tons of phones, but best on the iPhone.) Do a map-based search for, say, a sushi restaurant and it'll pop up a list of matching restaurants right near you--all without you even typing in your ZIP code or location. Did I mention Google Maps is free? This is permission-based (implicitly) and non-intrusive, and it completely bypasses the telcos. Who would have predicted that?

So, what has been the biggest impact of the mobile marketing revolution? It's not advertising. It's not even closed-loop, permission marketing. It's branding. Yes, the original stalwart of marketing has taken the early lead on transforming the marketing world onto our phones. Ring tones, wall papers, screen savers, branded games and other applications appear to be dominating the eyeballs and dollars on the mobile marketing front.

This is why I love technology revolutions. They do change everything, but no one (and I mean no one) can ever predict how. I guess that’s why they call them revolutions <grin>. The most exciting news of all is that the mobile revolution is barely underway and, while I have no idea how it will play out, I can absolutely guarantee the most exciting parts are yet to come.

Posted by Bill Nussey at 08:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another guest posting that contemplates the future of email, from my colleague, Scott Voigt...

From Scott:
It dawned on me the other day, that I spend more time with my inbox than I do with... well... anything! Seriously, this is sad, but totally true. Staring at Outlook (or at least having it stare at me) for more hours than I spend with my wife and daughter, what's up with that? Even worse, given the inordinate amount of time that I allocate to the inbox, I still don't feel in control of it. Calgon, take me away!

Unfortunately, I suspect that too many of us suffer from the same symptoms of email overload. The good news is that help may be on the way. As I mentioned last week, there are a number of start-ups that are creatively using technology in an attempt to make life in the inbox more efficient. Of the many inbox tools that I've tried, Xobni (inbox spelled backwards) might be the most interesting thus far.

Xobni (which is pronounced Zahbnee despite the fact that its logo has a macron over the "o"), is an Outlook plug-in that non-intrusively embeds itself at the right side of Outlook and provides a number of nifty inbox productivity tools. (To name a few: email search, quick access to previously received attachments, and a nice view of previous threads that have transpired with specific contacts.) For me, however, one of the most interesting aspects of Xobni is its ability to provide insightful, metric-based views into my personal email habits. Xobni's user-friendly analytics tool let's me slice the data any way I see fit:

• Who do I email the most?
• Who emails me the most on Saturday? (A: Bill Nussey. (Take a weekend every now and then, Bill.))
• When do I spend the most time catching up on email?
• Do I send more than I receive? (A: Yes. I guess I'm part of the problem.)

With this data at my disposal, I've been able to identify ways to take regain a little control over the inbox. For example, I was able to see that one of the folks on my team sent me a steadily increasing stream of emails leading up to our weekly meeting on Friday. By adding a 15-minute check-in meeting on Tuesday, I was able to eliminate a large number of time-consuming back-and-forth email threads.

Xobni has been in beta testing for a few weeks, and, like most beta products, still has a few kinks in the system. (It still doesn't seem to be counting all my incoming messages.) Regardless, if your life revolves around email, I'd recommend that you take it for a spin. Beyond productivity improvements, Xobni will give you a glimpse into factors that are going to play a huge role in the future of the inbox. Next week, I'll dig a little deeper into some of those factors and how they might eventually influence how a consumer views and interacts with messages in the inbox.

Until then...

Posted by Bill Nussey at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)