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Asians and their love of all things mobile

Being here in Asia, I'm continuously exposed to tidbits of the Asian mobile phone experience, and it is clearly more intense than that in Europe or America. The April edition of Telecom Asia had a great article about Asian mobile phone users, based on an Asia-Pacific wide survey of 16,000 consumers in 29 countries by TNS Global. So this is not just the wealthy parts of Asia like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong etc; but also includes the poor parts like India, Indonesia, Vietnam etc.

And your stats-rat was of course immediately all over these numbers. Here is the big picture. There were about 1.4 billion people here in the 29 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, who have a mobile phone subscription. Or to put it in another way, 42% of all mobile phone accounts are here in Asia-Pacific. And now lets see what kind of findings we have from the TNS Global survey.

SMS text messaging is the most popular service on mobile phones in Asia-Pacific, no surprise here. It is used by 88% of all phone owners here, or that is about 1.23 Billion people. More people in Asia-Pacific send text messages, than the total number of email (or IM Instant Messaging) on the internet worldwide.. Puts it in context?

Games. This is a big number. 71% of Asia-Pacific mobile phone owners play games on their phones. These are obviously not all downloadable games, it includes the preloaded games, such as Snake on Nokia phones, etc. But still, 71% means 994 million people! Almost a billion people entertain themselves with games on their phones, in Asia-Pacific (alone). That is a massive number.

And then the cameraphone feature. The digital camera on a phone is used by 61% of the mobile phone owners here. The number might seem modest, but consider the enormous populations here who are that poor that they cannot afford a new phone, or if a new phone, only the most simple one, without a camera. The total installed base of cameraphones - from the same survey so this data is consistent - is 62% of the mobile phone customers here. So of those mobile phone owners in Asia-Pacific who have a cameraphone - 868 million people (62%), 854 million (ie 61% of all phone owners) use the camera. Among those people who own a cameraphone, 98% use the camera feature..   Still, 854 million people here in Asia-Pacific snap pictures on their cameraphones.

Moving on down, then what do they do with those pictures. Most will save most pictures only onto the phone. But the TNS Global survey found that 48% of all mobile subscribers - or 672 million people - use MMS, the picture messaging service. Out of owners of cameraphones, that is a very respectable 77%. And out of users of the simple SMS text message, it means that 55% of users of mobile messaging in Asia-Pacific have already "upgraded" part of their messaging traffic to MMS picture messaging. A good number. I do need to point out that TNS Global did not talk about the frequency of MMS use, so this is going to be very tiny numbers in terms of traffic and revenues, compared with SMS text messaging traffic. But still, for those who were frustrated by the lack of immediate take-off by MMS, in Asia-Pacific the user numbers keep growing, and today 48% of all mobile phone owners send picture messages at least sometimes. Not bad.

Then lets look at music. Again an interesting number. 43% of all Asia-Pacific mobile subscribers use the music player function on their phones. This is a gigantic number for the music industry - 602 million people! Consider that there are about 150 million iPods, to put that into context. Also please note that most of these users will be "side-loading" music, ie they will not be downloading paid content from mobile music services. But still, this is a dramatic cannibalization of the global music player industry (as we predicted here at Communities Dominate blog way back when..).

Internet users? The percentage is not that impressive, at 34%, but the scale of Asia-Pacific does make that a big total number: 476 million people. Again remember that there are 1.3 billion internet users in total (which includes mobile users) and about 950 million personal computers in the world. And in just the Asia-Pacific region, 476 million people access the internet by mobile phone. And for those who like to argue the definitions of what is and what is not the internet on mobile, this number includes WAP usage and similar services like iMode in Japan etc.

Then they asked about TV and video consumers. 20% of customers here consume those services, which is 280 million people (still almost the size of the population of the USA).

And as a final comment, for all those who pray at the altar of "LBS" location-based services, a word of warning. Only 3% of customers in Asia-Pacific use location based services which is 42 milllion people. Bear in mind, that LBS services were launched around the same time as music, gaming and the mobile internet here in Asia; and even more alarmingly, LBS services were launched several years before cameraphones and MMS picture messaging. Yet LBS has found a total traction of 3 percent in this time, when other services get 30%, 40%, 50% even 70% usage levels. I am serious that I truly do not believe in LBS as a mass market proposition. Don't bet your company, product, brand or career on LBS, ha-ha..

Ok, that was the quick summary of the TNS Global survey covering 29 countries here in Asia-Pacific. I expect these kinds of numbers in Europe very soon, this year, next year or so. And North America will see all of these trends then after another year or two behind Europe.

The shock of the old

The leader in the Observer this weekend on the Hay-on-Wye book festival raised some pertinent points of interest for me.

Old technology has a noble history of refusing to die. For decades, vinyl has defied the march of the compact disc. Radio was not killed by television. Nearly every desk in every office in the land is piled with barricades of A4, resisting the proselytisers of paperlessness.

And

The world of publishing is far from untouched by technology. Computers have changed the way writers organise their words - and their thoughts. The internet changed the way books are traded. Blogs have changed the way they are reviewed. As a panoramic account in today's Observer Review illustrates, the books industry has been transformed beyond recognition in the last 10 years. Far more are published. Far greater sums of money change hands.

And finally

New technology has also increased the sheer volume of work published. But a good story, like a good song, has a way of standing out from the crowd. The recipe for success, for creating a literary sensation, is still talent, fired by inspiration, delivered with conviction. A great book remains stubbornly, enigmatically, inimitably analogue.

I find myself agreeing with this sentiment - although I blog and lecture on digital communities and the theories on engagement - those that know me well - will often find me taking out of my bag laptop, iPod and a book I happen to be reading. With a pen inside which I use to underscore those bits I find interesting, useful, provoking.

One billion served - says Flirtomatic of ads to user base of 100K

Flirtomatic is a story that just keeps on giving. We love it here at Communities Dominate blog. They have just released the news that the two-year old flirting and dating service in the UK, in less than a year from the launch of its ad service, Flirtomatic has already served its one billionth mobile advertisement. What? Yes, that is right. One billlionth ad. This to the UK based flirting and dating service which has about 100,000 active users. Wow ! A billion ads served !!!!

That is a breath-taking number. Even if we said Flirto had had its 100,000 user base for the full year, that would mean the delivery of 28 mobile ads on average to every one of their members every day. (and yes, this is consistent with their numbers, and currently they serve 56 million banner and SMS ads per week). Their advertisers are major UK techie brands such as MSN, Samsung and the major operators like Vodafone, O2 and Orange, etc. 1 billion ads served. Congratulations Flirtomatic. You guys are amazing. Keep up the great work. You are almost single-handedly proving to the Western world that mobile social networking is a solid business model. And for anyone of our random readers who hasn't heard of Flirtomatic, they have about 100,000 active users who generate 110 million WAP impressions per month. They also make bundles of money out of virtual gifts, personalization etc. Its the nearest thing to a license to print money on mobile, ha-ha..

Getting deeper into Tohato's snack food wargame in Japan, this is a BIG advertising concept

I really love the web. I posted about Tohato's World's Worst War and how it won an award for the best mobile advertising campaign. And I said it was a great story, and I'd get back to it. Well, before I had even had time to think about trying to find their info, a good friend who specializes on the Japanese mobile market posted a story about it. No surprise, that was our friend Lars Cosh-Ishii over at Wireless Watch Japan. The best part is that he found an english-language video clip describing the game. Its EVEN more COOL than I thought !!

So lets dig a bit deeper. First the big picture. Tohato makes snack foods in Japan, potato chips, that kind of stuff, in bags. They launched two new spicy snacks in October 2007, the "Tyrant Habanero Burning Hell Hot", and the "Satan Jorquia Bazooka Deadly Hot" (yeah, gotta love 'em Japanese and their Western style branding. I don't know if I'd have thought of "bazooka" deadly hot, but hey, why not. I wouldn't want to be hit by a bazooka..)



Then Tohato used Japanese ad agency Hakuhodo to create the launch campaign for the new snacks. And what a campaign they designed, indeed. They designed a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG). Not only that, but their game ran on mobile phones - another relatively rare phenomenon in the MMOG space, most MMOGs like World of Warcraft, CounterStrike and Lineage 2 are designed for personal computers.

Then - the recruitment of the players/gamers/army. Each side recruited an "Evil Army" based on the brand of snack and those who liked that flavour. Gamers could join the Habanero Evil Army, or the Satan Jorquia Evil Army. To sign up, you had to buy a bag of the snacks and scan the 2D barcode with the cameraphone (83% of Japanese already use the 2D Barcode feature, so this is quite commonplace in Japan today, certainly among the youth, who were the target audience, classic Generation C for Community)

Once in the game, gamers were encouraged to recruit friends to join that Evil Army. The recruiter would gain promotions in the army depending on new recruits, and their recruits. A classic pyramid scheme and remarkably viral. A private was promoted to sergeant, then promoted to lieutanent, then to captain, etc..

The armies had 31 battlefields to win the World's Worst War. These had again really appealing names for this generation, like Sweet Sucker's Execution Hall, the City of Anal Torture, and Shadap Bay. Remember the target audience, this is exactly the kinds of names that are cool to them..

The battles were scheduled for 4 AM - when there is least traffic in the network. Obviously this meant the Gen-C members needed to be up at that hour, so probably consumed more of the snacks at that part of the night. They generated enormous traffic, 100,000 page views per day. And the game had a 24 hour news alert service to inform gamers what was going on, who died, which team won the latest battle, who was promoted, etc.



Now, I love this concept in a million different ways. Its clearly interactive and very viral. It is true engagement, in that the users had fun playing with the brand, their characters had shapes in the style of the death masks of the snack of choice, and they had to go and literally fight (and virtually even die) for their preferred brand. Talk about creating passion and involvement. It is clearly capitalizing on many of the the 7th Mass Media benefits, personal (my gaming character on my phone), permanently carried (alerts), always on (4 AM wars), user data (redeeming the 2D coupon) and social context (viral marketing).

It lived in that space between reality and virtuality. And it drove attention and buyers to the new snacks brands. And obviously, it was a totally non-digital brand, that was able to launch a totally digital initiative, fully consistent with its target audience and its passions. Brilliant. The campaign won the "Yellow Pencil" award at the D&AD annual awards. If you'd like to see a short video that describes it in English, go to the Wireless Watch Japan, and follow the story there.

Now, I'd like to find out who won the war (if any of our readers in Japan know, please tell us) and am digging still for more info. Oh, and our congratulations to Hakuhodo, great idea, great execution! This is my fave story right now.

Fans creating ads to run on YouTube, an early example from Nokia Sports Tracker

Our friend Martin Sauter of Wireless Moves sent us the link to this story. Newsweek originally covered it. People start to create ads of the products they like. In this example, some random user created an ad for the Nokia Sports Tracker, which was shot in Curacao, the Caribbean island. See the ad and story here.

Yes, user-generated ads? We told you so, ha-ha.. Yes, this is what we keep saying, Generation C (Community Generation) wants to participate, to co-create. This is the principle for example behind Blyk. We are seeing a radical transformation of the advertising industry. Look at the last two advertising postings I just made, about Northwest Airlines and Tohato chips in Japan. And yes, this story is also a great example of just how big the change is - now Nokia wants to find the original creator of that Curacao clip, so they can get the rights to use it in their advertising... Thanks Martin, great find!

UPDATE AND CORRECTION - actually it turns out to be original Nokia N82 marketing material. There was a follow-up posting at the Wireless Moves blog, by J-P. See this link http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2008/05/02/businessweek-article-and-a-strange-youtube-video/#comment-13939

Sorry about that...

The economics of abundance and human behaviour

What information consumes is rather obvious. It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention. The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.

Said the economist Herbert Simon who developed a theory called Attention Economics

Simon noted that many designers of information systems incorrectly represented their design problem as information scarcity rather than attention scarcity, and as a result they built systems that excelled at providing more and more information to people, when what was really needed were systems that excelled at filtering out unimportant or irrelevant information.

This came to mind whilst reading a story in the Guardian entitled Why we buy what we buy

Dan Ariely [is - sic] one of an increasingly influential group of behavioural economists, who analyse how people behave everywhere from supermarkets to stock markets - and they have found a chasm between what traditional economists and regulators presume we do, and what really happens. One of the most exciting areas of research, behavioural economics could overturn many of the assumptions and assertions that shape modern policy-making.

For the past century, economists have viewed the economy as an equilibrium system made up of perfectly rational agents with access to full information, who produce and consume goods and services in economies with optimally efficient markets and institutions

Eric Beinhocker in his book the Origin of Wealth adds to this new area of economics

Beinhocker argues that neoclassical economics is fundamentally flawed, has a poor record of empirical validation, and that the strong assumptions the theory requires serve to make economics of less relevance to real world issues than the field otherwise might be. Beinhocker claims that neoclassical theory is in the process of being supplanted by what he calls complexity economics - the view that the economy is a complex adaptive system made up of realistically rational agents who dynamically interact with each other in an evolutionary system . Complexity economics is in turn built on foundations of a long-standing tradition of heterodox economics that includes areas such as behavioral economics, institutional economics, Austrian economics, and evolutionary economics.

Back to the Guardian story

"Economists know all about choosing jam," he says, ambling down an aisle with 73 varieties. He describes an experiment where academics set up a tasting booth in a store in California. On some days they put out six kinds of jam, on others 24. When the booth had 24 types, it was mobbed - "there was more colour, more excitement". But it was the sales that were truly remarkable: with six jams on show, 30% of customers bought a jar; when 24 were out, only 3% did. "Jams are hardly complex things, but people saw 24 stacked together and thought: 'I have no idea how to deal with this.'"

If that is how choosing between strawberry or plum makes us feel, imagine the toll looking at mortgage options takes on the nerves. What Ariely's jam study suggests is that, contrary to economic belief that more choice is better, confronted with too much complexity, we make bad decisions, or stick with what we have already got.

Great book about wireless by Rod Ghani Agha

I want to briefly mention a new book by our friend Rod Ghani Agha. It is called Wireless Dawn, and looks at the wireless opportunity a bit more broadly than I tend to do, as I tend to focus on on "mobile" ie cellular telecoms based mobility; but wireless is certainly a more broad context, and this book has a good amount of coverage also of WiMax, not just cellular. And it has a very good focus on field resource managemnet. I hope to post a more thorough book review a bit later, but I can certainly recommend this book. See more about it at its book description page The Wireless Dawn.

Engagement Marketing Japan Style: Snack brand Tohato creates a multiplayer online wargame

I need to do this quickly, and will return to this for more. But this is in my mind, the best example of everything about our blog. Its true engagement marketing. It is truly multiplatform. It brings a totally non-digital brand into the digital space and is fun, addictive, engaging and has a good mobile element to it as well. And it comes from Japan.

Tohato makes snacks. They have two popular brands of spicy snacks sold in small bags, similar to potato chips. They are "Habanero" and "Satan Jorquia".

So the campaign asked consumers to pick their favourite brand of snack, and join their "evil army" and enter the "World's Worst War" to go fight the other side. So if you liked Habanero, you would join the Habanero Evil Army. Or if you preferred Satan Jorquia, you would join their evil army.

To join - you had to buy a bag of the snacks, and enter the game using your mobile phone, via a 2D barcode printed on the bag. Then there were over 20 battlefields, where these two armies would do battle, and you would initially enter as a private in the army. But to use viral marketing methods - if you used your phone and recruited friends to join, then you would be promoted. And as your friends recruited friends to your side of the war, they too would be promoted, and you would be promoted higher still, in the Evil Army of your choice.

Then both sides would go online and do battle, in large masses. The game included things such as a 24 hour news service via the mobile phone, so who had died in battle, who had been promoted, which battlefield had been captured by which side, etc.

The game was developed by Japanese creative ad agency Hakuhodo and just won some big global advertising awards for best mobile campaign last week. I will dig more into this (the images are cool, the whole thing is so much exactly of the style, that my nephews who are into multiplayer gaming, would love it..)  My thanks to David Wheldon of Vodafone who brought this to my attention after it won the award. And so if this is how Japan deals with Generation C and their love of virtual worlds and multiplayer online fantasy games, then when do we see the first Western company do the same? The Cola Wars? Coke vs Diet Coke? Sign up now!

UPDATE - I have much more on this story including some pictures, please follow it here: Getting Deeper into Tohato's Snack Food Wargame

Now the Star Trek Tricorder? Mobile Phones as serious medical instruments

I love the way reality starts to mimick the fictional world. We've seen Maxwell Smart's shoephone turn into our current mobile phone, James Bond's GPS map from Goldfinger and his text messaging wristwatch from The Spy Who Loved Me morph into our mobile phones. So now we get again a step further ("going where no one has gone before.."). The Star Trek "Tricorder" measuring instrument. We've seen many PDAs and smartphones taking on some of the computing and communication abilities that the fictional Tricorder had, but this week's The Economist talks of projects to turn regular cameraphones into microscopes for the developing world - and better than microscopes, these would also be networked.

At this point the attachments are prototypes (lenses added to a standard phone) but the scientists expect more commercial models will become available for something like 100 dollars a piece. Then doctors and even minimally trained medical staff can get benefits of microscopes in diagnosing diseases etc, by connecting their cameraphone to these gadgets.

Pretty cool..  "These are the voyages..."

Be careful with your ringtone, lesson from Japan

The weekend Financial Times (Date 17 May 2008) had an interesting story from Japan about insensitive user of ringtones. An employee by a Japanese debt-collection agency, Takefuji, had selected a song by a Japanese rock band ULFULS as the ringtone. That song has lyrics saying "Return the money you have borrowed." Then the debt-collection agency employee would have the phone with the ringing on, and accept calls at offices where they were attempting to collect on debts. In this way Takefuji was causing embarrassment to the companies who owed them money. The Japanese Financial Services Agency punished Takefuji for this practise. It does remind us that as technology advances, there will be always newer ways to also abuse the technologies. Still, fined for the wrong ringtone? Must be a first.