Myne

VodaHutch – a new number 2 force.

 Wow, no such thing as a dull day.

No sooner had we done a round-up on 3G than it looks like things will change again. Based on this morning’s announcement of 3 and Vodafones likely merger as reported, here, here, here and from a media perspective here we wonder what the new carrier landscape may look like?

In terms of total customer numbers Vodafone would still be in third place, but in the key area of 3G would move ahead of Optus.

From a media perspective, this would make Vodafone VHA the #2 player in the mobile marketing and advertising arena. Optus has a nascent commercial model, whereas both 3 and Vodafone are well experienced in commercialising their mobile portals albeit in very different ways.

It will be interesting to see how this blend manifests itself – Vodafone’s team have been very open to trialling opportunities, whereas 3 has tended to favour a more protective stance on customer experience (and making the customer pay for more content). No doubt learning’s from both sides will prove very useful.

The other obvious point is that the new entity will be very strong in the 18-35 segment, a traditional hot spot for many advertisers. As ad dollars begin to flow into all carriers mobile portals (with e-Marketer and several other players predicting 300% growth this year) this should see some stiff competition.

The reality: it will be 6 months before we see any real changes, and it still has to get through a shareholder vote in April and meet with ACCC approval -  although one would think the prospect of a third heavyweight in the market would be appealing.

Any other thoughts?

Australian 3G Penetration at 43%?

Mobile data.

That is good data about mobile. It's pretty scarce. 

It seems that's partly because there's not lot of it about and partly because it changes so quickly.

So many presentations about mobile (mine included) start with the stats piece designed to generate a lean forward moment from the audience - its the same myth-dispelling exercise that online used to have to go through. No issues with that, we just don't think it's in anyone's interest to use out of date data so here's another view on 3G data.

QR Codes – Australian Market Update

Many agencies and clients are asking whether they should be including QR/mobile codes on campaigns, and it’s timely therefore to assess how well on the road to mass adoption this standard is.

QR codes arrived seriously in Australia in August of 2008 with Telstra’s launch of the standard.

There have been a number of campaigns employing the technology to date, driven by clients like Lion Nathan, Toyota, Sony Ericcson, NAB and of course Telstra with their Olympics inspired launch campaign and others subsequently such as Yellow Pages.

For this post we’re going to confine ourselves to the following question:

How well are QR codes faring and what is the prognosis for this still nascent standard?

Lets take the first part of this question.

There is no independent market data available on QR codes so we’ve been thinking about this based on our own experiences and canvassing expert opinion.

My 2009 Crystal Ball

My little prognostication tool is cloudier this year than I can ever remember.  In many ways, looking ahead feels like a deer looking into headlights.  However, being an eternal optimist (and why shouldn’t I be since the world hasn’t ended yet), I do see some shining lights other than headlights.

The shining lights come from innovative, customer-centric brands, growing capabilities in mobile phones, and from consumers themselves. A recent quote from Ian Schafer in Ad Age is a great preface to what I see happening in the year ahead.  Ian was commenting on agencies and clients relegating digital marketing to an “experimental” category.

He said, “But don't forget a big reason these tactics are ‘experimental’: most advertisers have been late to a party that consumers have been hosting for quite some time -- and consumers' usage of digital media is outpacing that of marketers.”

Mgage: Mobile Activation and Measurement

Today marks the launch of a new Myne product called Mgage.

P&Gs Global Head of mobile recently stated that the long value chain of mobile needs to be simplified in order for marketers to start to embrace the channel. That's what Mgage is about.

Mgage is a tool that provides marketers with better access to the benefits of mobile - it's about getting better customer engagement with campaigns and driving better media efficiencies. Mgage works across two key dimensions:

1. Activation - mobilising traditional campaigns using interactive media tags (SMS keywords, QR codes and direct mobile urls). Nothing new in this except that we now have a tool that makes it easy to issue interactive media tags and then track, analyse and optimise multiple media types in real time. It's like adserving for atoms.

2. Content connection - a simple and cost effective mechanism for deploying content to mobile - whatever that content is: a test drive video, a retailer locator, a detailed product descriptor, a request for a sample.

Mgage has been pretty all consuming for the last few months as we have defined the vision, architecture, planning, production, licensing, and business processes - we're pretty happy with the results and we hope our clients are too.

Download mgage_media_release.pdf

For more information on Mgage email me.

[Sincere thanks to Matt H, Jacqui, Bill, Graham, Jeff, Matt N, and the rest of the team. SM]

Marketing in these uncertain times.

Image thanks: http://www.flickr.com/photos/your_teacher/2319678688/

Research indicates many brands will run and hide.
It also suggests that’s not a good plan.

The world is experiencing a serious economic downturn, some might even say a meltdown.  The ripple effect has already begun as many marketing budgets get reduced and new initiatives get put on indefinite hold. In fact in recent interviews with fifty senior marketing managers in the Asia-Pacific region conducted by Beijing-based R3,  a majority expect their ad budgets to decline in 2009, with a quarter expecting shrinkage of more than 20% from this year. It is a bit remarkable, really, that this cause and effect relationship seems to be viewed as part of the natural order of things and is certainly not to be challenged.

The fact is there isn’t anything natural about it at all and smart marketers are the ones who do challenge that traditional reaction to the economy.  Unlike any previous period of economic turmoil in history, the tools marketers can work with today to maintain productive communications and customer relationships are not only exciting and robust, but also remarkably efficient.

6 degrees (make that 6 beers) of separation

Lion Nathan's latest campaign for Toohey's Extra Dry (TED) launched recently.  6 beers of separation is the brainchild of creative agency BMF and digital agency Holler (along with host of other specialists). Myne's role was in defining the mobile strategy and producing the mobile experience.

The idea behind 'six beers' is centred around the 6 degrees of separation notion. TED is creating a  programme to test the theory that we are less than 6 beers away from our personal heroes. It's a great idea for a piece of branded entertainment and plays out over a myriad of channels and touchpoints.

Check out the manifesto video and sign-up here.

Visit the mobile site - scan the code or go to http://6beersofseparation.mobi

Should Aussie marketers be concerned about iPhone?

Three months in and with nothing official from Apple, we'd like to know how many iPhones have been sold in Australia.

Anecdotally we have heard that Apple allocated 900,000 phones to Australia in the first consignment and that 50,000 sold over the first weekend. We doubt those phones have all sold but lets see how feasible that might be. The total installed base of mobile phones is around 21M units. Assuming that conservatively a third of these turnover in a year we're talking about 7M units per year or 1.75M per quarter.

So what percentage of the last three months new mobile sales could iPhone have attracted?

Image credit

What's Taking So Long?

 

We’ve all heard the predictions of the expected size of the mobile advertising market, which in itself is a staggering number according to many experts.  But then we look around and don’t see a host of examples of great mobile advertising campaigns or remarkable success stories. 

So, the questions naturally arise: “When is it going to happen?  And why is it taking so long?”  For many marketers, the longer it takes the less believable are the predictions and the longer they’ll wait to give mobile advertising a go themselves.

Image Credit

Just Imagine

How many people out there would like to be able to creatively decorate a birthday cake?  One major brand determined there are enough of them to warrant the production of a “how to” video it put online.  The next step is to make it available from your mobile phone with a link to “Everything you need to decorate a birthday cake” so your shopping list is handy right there on your phone when you’re at the grocery store.