The Mobile Future - Are You Ready?
Personalized wake-up calls/deodorant reminders, sheep sending texts and dieting with augmented reality goggles…
Last week SMNZ played a supporting role for the New Zealand Marketing Summit held at the Sky City Convention Centre. My favourite session was the keynote led by Tomi Ahonen. It was all about mobile as the new mass media, and it honestly blew my mind! Tomi emphasised the importance of mobile marketing in a speech that was exciting and captivating, but what I found really fascinating were the examples of successful mobile marketing he used to illustrate his points. Below I’ve summarized a few of my personal favourites, and before you write this off as a yawn-stifling read, just read the first one. I promise, you’ll be amazed! This truly is the stuff of the future.1) Sheep sending text messagesYep, that’s right. Sheep can now cry wolf (literally) through text message. A group of Swiss scientists have developed a system that measures a sheep’s biological changes using a special collar to detect fear when a wolf is lurking around. The collar then automatically sends a cry for help via SMS to the herd’s Shepherd.2) Virtual affairsResearch conducted by ‘whatsyourprice.com’ discovered that 1,000 office romances in the UK started with a “virtual kiss”.3) Personalized wake-up call girlAxe Deodorant in Japan started a promotion offering a personalized wake-up call girl, whom you can design yourself. She’ll wake you up every morning, always in a different outfit and with something new to say. At the end of her greeting, she’ll remind you to put on your (Axe) deodorant. Axe deodorant sales rose by 20 per cent.4) Smart shopping with smartphonesA study revealed that 52 per cent of American smartphone users changed their mind inside a store based on price-shopping they did online at the last minute, using their smartphones. 5) SMS remindersKaiser Health in the US saves half a million dollars a year just by sending SMS appointment reminders to patients.6) Video upsellsSports Illustrated offered a free app version of its swimsuit edition, which generated 570,000 downloads. Within the app, there was an opportunity to ‘click to buy’ the video version for $1.99. 10 per cent of users, ie 57,000 people, bought the video version and Sports Illustrated earned $113,430 off their “free” app.7) Argument ender38 per cent of New Zealanders have settled a bet by finding the answer on their smartphones.8) Remote-control street lampsDial4Light in Germany started a service to conserve power, which offered patrons the possibility to activate the streetlights on their street by sending a text to the company. Streetlights would then be turned on for 15 minutes on request.9) BMW brillianceBMW Snow Tyres in Germany sent a customized MMS (picture message) to each of their customers featuring a photo of a car in the same style and colour as their own (fooling many people into believing it actually was their specific car). This message was sent out on the first day of snow, reminding people to purchase snow tyres for the winter. The total cost of the campaign was $120,000, and total revenues? 45 million in BMW snow tyre sales.10) Weightwatchers watch out…The latest dieting craze appears to be Augmented Reality (AR) goggles, which people wear while eating. The goggles make food on the plate appear 50 per cent bigger, which has proven to result in people eating 10 per cent less. Somebody should let WeightWatchers know…Tomi also noted the importance of Responsive Web Design for any business. For example, Japanese bus service Willer Travel used to have only one website for both PC and mobile. Upon changing this and creating customized websites for each specific viewing platform, bus bookings on the mobile site grew by three times and click-through rates increased by 150 per cent! So for anyone who still thinks mobile-optimized websites don’t make a difference, you might want to take a page out of Willer Travel’s book.In the words of my man Bob Dylan – The times, they are a changin’.