7th Mass Media

7th Mass Media driving convergence between finance and advertising: Coca Cola

Cool stuff. We've seen examples of this concept already before but here is a mass market mobile ad campaign, that delivers actual money benefits to users, and its run by Coca Cola. Each can or bottle of Sprite, Dr Pepper or Fanta will have a unique code, send it in, and receive a credit to your mobile phone account. Story was in New Media Age
 
I told you this is coming (convergence between money and advertising) and discussed it at length in my 5th book Digital Korea, and obviously the primary driving vehicle for it is the mobile phone. Now, is Visa paying attention? Mastercard? Amex? the banking industry? Advertising agencies, the Ogilvys and Saatchis and McCanns? This is the start of something truly huge.

One in seven minutes of media consumption in US is mobile

This finding caught me by surprise. Study of US media consumption by Universal McCann revealed that already one in seven minutes of US media consumption is used with mobile. Now, note that this includes parallel use, so if we watch TV and vote on American Idol, we consumed both TV and mobile. But still, gosh. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the internet - and mobile gets one in seven minutes of media consumption. Story was covered in Adweek.

Part of the answer lies in where mobile media is consumed. 82% use mobile phones to consume media at work (ie listen to the MP3 player for example) and 65% while commuting. Here TV has almost no chance to contest for that time and other media also probably less easy to consume except web at work and radio while commuting (print perhaps also as long as you are not driving..) So mobile has some time slots where it has few rivals. But yes, every one in seven minutes. Easy to memorize, one in seven for the 7th mass medium?

Go Pens. NHL team Penguins achieved 49% adoption of mobile app

The Pens are the Pittsburgh Penguins, the NHL ice hockey team which is also the current Stanley Cup Champions. (mobile app and ice hockey? Tomi to post about it? Surprised?). Yeah, this was pretty cool, ha-ha, ice hockey cool indeed. They launched an app to be used by fans, in the stadium, live while the game was going on. Hey, thats 7th Mass Media, eh? There with us while we watch the game, sitting in the Igloo (the Pens' home rink ie "stadium"). So they offered for example custom camea feeds, the goalie cam of course, and the bench-cam to see whats happening at the bench where the other players were sitting and waiting to get onto the ice, and yes, they had the Evgeni Cam, for Evgeni Malkin, the NHL superstar who was the NHL's top score this season. Cool idea! Now, how popular is a mobile phone service in America, at a live sporting event, intended to be used while the game is going on? Pretty amazing. The service was test-marketed this season to a selected gruop of 850 pilot project fans of the Pens (obviously fans with season tickets). They achieved a 49% adoption rate in this the first season. Cool indeed! Story at Computerworld.

Have launched daily book quotes and stat of day at Twitter

If you have all of my books, thank you very very much. But obviously most who visit my blogs or follow my Tweets and Facebook updates do not have many of my books. So good news: I've just launched a semi-daily quotation service on Twitter. Every day when I'm on Twitter, I will provide a quotation from one of my books, every day from a different one of my 9 books (in random order, more from newer than older books). Its obviously free, so if you're on Twitter, why not add @TomiAhonenBooks to your Twitter following. I won't spam you from there, only one daily quote most days, and an occasional stat-of-the-day as well. Because I also added a frequent but not daily "mobile stat of the day" taking a Twitter size stat from the Tomi Ahonen Almanac. So at worst you'll get two Tweets on any one day, but I'll try to pick really juicy quotes for you. Stop by at Twitter today and take a look at the first 3 Tweets there to see what kind of quotes and stats they will be. I think you'll like them. And yes, if we continue this for 174 years, then we'll eventually give out all 9 books ha-ha..  Isn't that fair?

Another Blyk clone or wannabe? Germany E Plus

German E Plus network will be offering some additional SMS text messages and voice minutes, to users who sign up to receive about 25 ads per week. Sounds like a Blyk-clone or perhaps Blyk-variant, or most likely a Blyk-wannabe. Story from GigaOm.

Regular readers of the blog (or the book) will know the secret of Blyk's amazing 25% average response rates, after 2 years, over 2,000 ad campaigns in the UK to over 200,000 customers - note that advertisers had run on average 10 campaigns already in the first 18 months, think of how much it must have successful if giant global brands do 10 campaigns on a new media - but yes, the secret is not to give free ads, it is to build the engagement. I calculated at the CDB blog in March that an average Blyk campaign had a microtargeted focus of only 8,000 users, and generated an average dialogue length of 14 outbound messages from brand to consumer and received on average 4 separate replies. To do that kind of engagement campaign - plan the dialogue for a 2 week discussion - is VERY creative new media work. THAT is the key to Blyk's success, not just giving free minutes and messages. But lets see how E Plus's service turns out to be. Will it be Blyk clone or wannabe. Stay tuned

Also Americans snoop inside phones of spouces, kids..

Similar to the Australian Virgin Mobile study from last year, now Best Buy Mobile in America has surveyed 1,000 consumers and found that one in four Americans will snoop inside the phones of loved ones, withouth permission, meaning spouces, partners and children. Yeah, yet another universal trend. Lesson 1 - if this is the reported level, expet the reality to be bigger. Lesson 2 - take your phone with you when you go to the bathroom, only way to prevent the snooping, is to keep the phone with you at all times, eh? Story was reported in Wall Street Journal.

PC will continue: 30 minute vs 30 second tasks

I just twittered about the 30 minute and 30 second metaphor. Here is a bit longer version of the story, obviously from the book Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media:

There are 30 minute tasks, and 30 second tasks. Considering digital interactive services, content and applications, the two will continue. 30 minute tasks are more suited for PCs including laptops and netbooks and 30 second tasks for phones, not just smartphones but any modern mobile phones.

30 minute tasks are planned activities. We prefer to be seated doing them, with a good screen and keboard and mouse. We create this way and we concentrate on our activity.

30 second tasks are unplanned activities. We do them suddenly, walking and standing. We use the available technologies often meaning the small screen and tiny keypad of the phone. We consume more than create this way, and we often mult-task with 30 second tasks.

For more see Chapter 2 of Mobile as 7th Mass Media.

Flirtomatic is cool. Now? Virtual ice cubes. Yes, they melt

I just love the creativity at Flirtomatic. Their latest silliness, the virtual ice cube. Of course you want to send your friend an ice cube to his or her phone! Maybe your friend is at a bar, you send the ice cube for the drink. More likely, when the friend is having a bad day, or is in some hot situation (overcrowded bus for example or elevator) then send an ice cube. Wouldn't that be a wonderful way to note that your friend cares, and shares your heated situation, as you see the ice cube arrive onto your phone screen? And yes, like real ice cubes, Flirtomatic virtual ice cubes melt (of course). How cool is that? And how many did they sell - 5,000 in the first week... Yes, mobile is the magical money-making machine.
 
PS Remember that Flirtomatic and its creative money-making is one of the 16 case studies in the signature book for this blog (Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media) and that Mark Curtis (their CEO) wrote the Foreword to my latest eBook, Tomi Ahonen Pearls Vol 2: Mobile Social Networking. And Mark's own book, Distraction should be in the book cases of every one reading this blog...

To achieve customer satisfaction? Exceed expectation via Tesco Mobile

Simple yet so elegant. Tesco Mobile has now for 4 years finished first among UK main mobile phone networks for customer satisfaction. How can a "discount" brand achieve that? By consistently exceeding the customer expectations. Like now with economic downturn. Tesco in UK has offered special top-up offers to its customers. Pay 15 UK pounds for a regular top-up, get 3x the value (45 pounds worth). You don't need to do this often, the customers will appreciate and notice and thank you with loyalty. Now Tesco won an award for this innovation as reported by International Supermarket News (my regular reading materials, yeah sure...). Thank you Tim Harrap for the link.

Don't copy the internet, lets make it better on mobile

I saw a brilliant, thought-provoking and full-of-evidence slide presentation about the real mobile internet. Not copying the 6th mass media legacy dumb PC based internet to mobile; but utilizing the 7th mass media assets to make a better, magical experience. Who did this? A New York based advertising guy, Razorfish's John Pettengill. If you are not sure "should it be the real internet on the phone", or something else, and want a fresh angle to it - or if you want to show a slide presentation about this opportunity, gotta see Pettengill's slides. (Thank you to Jonathan MacDonald for pointing me to the presentation, yes it really made me smile..) Here is the link: How to Save Mobile Web