The New York Times did a study on the Psychology of Sharing Online. There are some very poignant nuggets of truth in there. This quote in particular is very much top of mind for me. "85% say reading responses helps them understand/process events" - If you've ever seen my Facebook page, you'll understand that I love a good comments convo. It's another reason why I love reddit so much. The conversation is the valuable part for me.
For years now mobile developers have been announcing the "year of the mobile payment" or more accurately the "use your cell phone to pay for stuff" movement. Some retailers have jumped onboard, namely Starbucks with their mobile app, but overall people still aren't using their mobile devices to pay for stuff and I think the reason is two-fold.
First, it has to do with trust. For years consumers were weary of buying anything online. They didn't know who was getting their financial information. Respectable companies like Amazon and Paypal spent years earing the trust of consumers, but there is still so much bad press about leaked financial information that no one is anxious to put their credit card on any device, let alone one that can easily be snatched out of their pocket or left behind after lunch. When the worst that can happen is someone buys a $4.00 Mocha using your phone, that's not a huge deal, but the goal of retailers is for consumers to start buying upscale impulse items, like event tickets or apparel just by pulling out their phone.
The second reason consumers are weary of using mobile devices to buy has to do with reliability. Mobile devices losing connectivity is nothing new, but losing connectivity when you're trying to process a payment, that's a disaster. Imagine if you were buying something significant, like concert tickets at $80 a-piece. What if the transaction was interrupted and you got charged twice, or worse yet, it failed and you lost the tickets altogether. This (rational) fear is keeping mobile payments from going main stream, and the fact that mobile carriers are highlighting their own inefficiency isn't helping. Hey Verizon, guess what? Your attack ads (and at&t's rebuttal ads) have set back mobile payments years, just saying.
Despite these setbacks there are still some promising sectors where mobile payments are seeing increases. Charity has seen an increased use of mobile for donation. After natural disasters, aid organizations have harnessed the power of the text message to capture donations through the simple process of sending a text message, something most mobile users do constantly. This sector has had to respond to the trust issue as well, as some would take advantage of others charity, by setting up bogus entities to receive donations. It's pretty sad really. This article by Econsultancy also talks about how advertisers are using mobile integration effectively to give consumers quick access to small purchase like a TV program, or a pizza right from their phone using technology like QR Codes and Microsoft Tag.
As I see it, mobile devices will be used for financial transactions, it's just a matter of time before consumers reach a level of trust with the brands and the mobile carriers establish their reliability. Until then, I'm excited to explore the waters of mobile transactions by taking advantage of new technologies and see which strikes the right balance between inciting impulsive buying and building an atmosphere of trust and reliability.
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I said it while it was happening, this campaign was brilliant. Riding on the back of the swan dive of success, Wieden + Kennedy are happy to highlight some of the metrics from the campaign. The most impressive being Old Spice sales are up 107%. I'm not a bean counter, but I'll venture a guess that's a pretty good ROI.
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From a marketing perspective I haven't seen an execution and integration of social media quite as engaging as the Old Spice Guy Commercial. Not only are they answering tweets of celebrities, but of every-day-Joes like you. On top of that, the writing is clever and the production setup to turn around the responses so quickly is impressive. This one gets a A+ from me! Well done, would love to know the players behind it.
EDIT: Wieden+Kennedy http://www.wk.com/ are the brains behind this campaign. Fantastic work!
Here is a great little write up about HOW the team pulled off this campaign. It would be so much fun to be in that room writing those responses.
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To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man the classic arcade hit, Google has really outdone themselves by creating a fully functional Google logo as the game itself. Want a kicker, the game "works" on the iPad and iPhone as long as you don't want sound. The graphics are in HTML, CSS, using PNGs & JavaScript but the sound is in Flash.
Either way, what a fun way to celebrate Pac-Man. Props to Google today.
Quick note on PC Browser performance for the game:
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Today on Engadget.com there was an article about an ad on Endgadget. The ad was created by Adobe as a response to the Apple’s heavy anti-Flash mission going on now. Clicking the ad takes you to an Adobe site all about freedom of choice.
Here’s the gist: Adobe doesn’t want to lose Flash as a content delivery tool on the fast growing segment of mobile devices. Apple currently owns the mobile device space with iPhone and iPad. Apple has shut out Flash. Adobe is using the openness argument against Apple and Apple's militant control over their popular devices and using the web on those devices.
Included on the Adobe page are a few facts about Flash. One of the most telling is this one: "19 of the 20 top device manufacturers worldwide have committed to shipping Flash technology on their devices." I'll bet you can guess who the lone holdout is. On the Adobe site is also a link to a letter from Adobe founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock about the importance of open markets.
And the battle rages on.
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Save Ferris (on Twitter) - Apparently Ferris Bueller (or someone with a lot of time on their hands) has relived the entire 80's classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off using 2010 technology Twitter and Foursquare. I was lucky enough to see it in action today. Check it out. Reenacting the movie scene by scene using updates from all the real places. Also check out the other characters from the movie on Twitter. Pretty cool execution just in time for the 25th anniversary of the film.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." - Bueller
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