The ROI of Social Media.

I really like this animation of an intern at a big corporate discussing the ROI of social media.

I think that the same point could be made about mobile. Companies that don’t embrace mobile in the next 12 months are going to be alienating more and more of their customers. There are already 2.5 million people in the UK that say their primary means of accessing the internet is their mobile phone. This is set to rise to more than 5 million by the end of 2012. OK, so it’s not as many people as watch X Factor on a Saturday night but it’s still a significant constituency. Plus, by the end 2012, there will be well over 30 million people that access the internet from mobile devices at least once a month. If the one time these people access the mobile internet is to engage with your brand, you’re going to piss them off pretty quickly if you’re still using Flash and they get a blank screen.

Thanks to www.digitalbuzzblog.com for pointing out the video, and www.mobilesquared.co.uk for the stats.

Is this the mobile World Cup?

Is this the best we can do?

The World Cup: The worlds biggest sporting tournament, bringing together 32 teams from five continents and watched by billions of people across the globe. A time when advertisers up their game and release amazing TV ads showcasing their creativity and commitment to sport. Adidas have their parody of Star Wars and Nike have their “What if” ad showing Wayne Rooney as an entirely believable down and out. These ads are entertainment in themselves and garner hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube as well as word of mouth excitement. So what can the world of mobile marketing produce for this momentous occasion? Can mobile marketers step up and score a decisive goal that lets the world know they’ve arrived on the World Stage? I’ll let you decide.

First up to the spot is Kit Kat, that well known confectionary from Nestle, once famous for producing great TV ads with the strap line, “Have a break. Have a Kit Kat”. These ads had the same water cooler attraction as the Nike and Adidas ads I mentioned above, and, had YouTube been around back then, I’m sure they would have had the same online popularity. Their world cup iPhone app is called Red Card. In their own words, “Now every football fan can be a referee. Issue red cards with the KIT KAT Red Card iPhone app and take pleasure in sending people off with impunity.” Once downloaded the app allows you to choose whether to show a yellow or red card and then to choose one of a variety of reasons for showing the card, such as Diving, Abusive Language or Denying a goalscoring opportunity. Once you’ve chosen your card, and reason, the ref blows his whistle and sends you off with relevant words of wisdom. The app also has the ability for you to record your own words for dismissal as well as the obligatory option to share your cards on Twitter or Facebook.

Second up is the Pringoooals iPhone app from, you guessed it, Pringles. This app is a similar sound board to the Kit Kat Red Card app allowing you to select various sound effects from goal celebrations to The Great Escape (shame nobody predicted the popularity of the Vuvuzela, or updated the app to include it since the start of the tournament). A P&G representative spoke at the IAB’s Engage for Mobile event yesterday and mentioned the rationale behind this app, which made a certain amount of sense. People who download this app are most likely to use it in the pub when they are watching the game. Pringles are sold in a lot of pubs so using the app will remind you of Pringles and you can immediately act on that by buying some at the bar. My problem with this logic is twofold. First, if you need an iPhone app to add to the atmosphere in the pub whilst you are watching the football then you are in the wrong pub. Second, if you get your iPhone out to celebrate a goal, youre not involved enough in the match.

OK, so I said I’d let you decide but I couldn’t help letting my scepticism show through. Both of these brands are running mobile display ads, targeted to sports content, so they should see a fair number of downloads and I’m sure they will be deemed a success by the brand marketers. But you could run any old ad at half time in the World Cup final and have it be seen by millions of people, that doesn’t make it a good ad or mean that its going to improve your sales or brand image. You may get more brand awareness, but a lot of people will be saying how crap it was and that is reflected in the reviews on the AppStore. Here are some reviews for the Pringles app: “Gold award for “Most pointless waste of space”. Appalling application.” “Rubbish”, “Pointless”, ”Good but needs improvements. Be good if it had a VUVUZELA!”, “It’s alright but I only like the clapping and red card”. As of 14th June it has a 2 ½ star rating from 3,746 ratings. The mobile ads catapulted this app to 2nd in the Entertainment category in its first week but it has since dropped down to 99th.

How are these brands measuring the effectiveness of these apps? Do they have any link to sales or brand affinity? Is it enough to have an app downloaded x number of times? Let me know what you think.

Toshiba almost gets mobile advertising

 

I’ve just been using my Independent iPhone app to catch up on the news and I saw an ad for the new Toshiba TG01 Windows Phone.

Normally I don’t click on the ads but something made me want to check this one out. Tapping the ad opens up the Safari browser and I was looking forward to a nicely laid out site that would fit my iPhone screen properly and be easy to read. Surely this wasn’t too much to expect from a mobile phone ad in a mobile app? Wrong!!!

This is what I got instead.

Not only is this not a mobile optimised web page, it’s for the wrong phone! The ad was for the TG01 and the web page shows the G710, which is a year old. Hey, at least it’s still a Toshiba handset with Windows OS, which is better than Kia managed recently http://bit.ly/3sulwr.