Media Week

It was only yesterday that I tweeted ‘Need a phone that handles Twitter better. iPhone or G1?’ The answer, as it happens, was G1 hardware with iPhone software, which is not much good.

But, interestingly, what I didn’t think to ask was which network handles Twitter best. For Vodafone obviously thinks that being the one that does is the latest tiny advantage it can steal over its fiercely well-matched competitors. The company has struck a new deal to help absorb the cost of allowing Twitterers to receive updates from the people they follow over SMS.

The back story is that Twitter stopped providing this service to UK users last summer, the reason being it was costing them an absolute fortune. Users can still use SMS to send their own Twitter updates – they just couldn’t see what the people they were following said in the same way.

For those with smartphones, which - until recently - was most of the people using Twitter, this was no real issue. Users have switched to applications on their phones (particularly their iPhones) or simply the mobile web to Twitter while on the move. But, for those with more basic phones, this was not so feasible. That includes teens who – lately – have been discovering Twitter for themselves, along with the beginnings of the mass market, as the service goes past tipping point. It is not hard to imagine Twitter being absolutely massive for this group, particularly if they can use SMS to send AND receive tweets.

So, this looks a smart move in the chase for customers. But, Vodafone says the deal is only temporary – and well they might. If they do attract the mass market - and particularly Twittering teens - with the service, the costs are going to go up very, very quickly.

If there’s one major hope for mobile as an ad channel during the recession, it’s mobile search. But the signs there so far are not particularly encouraging.

The thought was that switching on AdWords for mobile, which Google launched a while back (followed by AdSense a couple of weeks ago), would be an easy way to test the mobile ‘channel’, discover some insight into user behaviour (the terms that worked etc.,) and develop some ROI outside the saturated market that AdWords ‘online’ has become.

But, the word is that interest from advertisers is low. There is some work going on – Autotrader is one brand/media owner examining it – but the uptake will be defined by the existence of proof. That proof needs to come from advertisers using it. Gradually, as with all formats, the ball will start rolling if it proves its worth. As yet, not enough chickens have laid enough eggs.

However, as an agency – particularly as a search agency – I would be seeking to devote some time to trialling clients on AdWords mobile to test it out and get a feel for what works. Where ROI is returned it’ll be an easy route to incremental cash in these tough times, as well as an opportunity to be something approaching experts when more experimental budget is again forthcoming.

There is a risk when talking about media and mobile phones to forget their most useful function. On my HTC Touch Dual, one might consider that to be Ballbreaker, the hopelessly addictive game that comes as standard.

But, there is also of course the ability to call someone. Certain people might also suggest texting since, though it can take them half an hour to type an SMS message, they rightly argue that’s still a shorter time than it would have taken if they’d called the person in question. Answers on a postcard please if you can guess the certain people we're talking about. So, let’s call the phone’s most useful asset the ability to communicate instantly with a real person.

This was brought to mind by a new survey in the US examining whether – and how – people used their mobile phones in shops. It found that 24% of people who said they had used their mobile phones while shopping, did so to compare product prices using the mobile web, while 15% said they used the same function to look at product reviews.

But, before we get carried away with such things, let’s bear in mind that only 29% of the 9,000 people surveyed said they used their phones at all. And 72% of those who did said they used it to call someone (most commonly a significant other I’ll wager) about the purchase.

This is first a reality check on the scope of the mobile phone to change our lives. Just like the web and all successful technologies, mobiles will be at their most disruptive in enabling us to do things we always did better, not in changing the things we do.

Second, it points us to the kinds of services that will succeed most. Let’s be frank, looking at advertising is rarely something we choose to do. Instead, ‘advertisers’ have to look at what they can offer or support that empowers mobile users to do the things they already do. For that reason, Google Maps is in my view the single best mobile application available, since it helps me get where I’m going and - clearly - when I'm mobile, I'm going somewhere.

Last it tells us that, as a default, we do still like to call someone. Once you’ve done your search, Google Maps often has the phone number of the location you’re headed for easily to hand and I’m almost always reliant on a real person to guide me the last few yards. So, let a phone call be your default call-to-action on any mobile ‘push’. In my opinion, it’s what - ultimately – a mobile phone is for.

The FT has scored an editorial hit with its new mobile site, but what does the commercial side of the business make of it?

The FT’s Rob Grimshaw is right, FT users really could do with a quick way of checking the latest FT news and stock prices on the go (and on, specifically, their Blackberrys and iPhones). And the site delivers. Clean, simple, clear, FT ‘pink’, and all you really need or care about when you’re on the move.

But, the insight into how this new investment will be paid for is also interesting. First, there’s no apparent room made available for served banner advertising. So, while Grimshaw says clients are expressing interest in “sponsorship opportunities” it seems that is indeed what they’ll get, the fixed period ‘tenancies’ of web 0.5.

Also, there are new prompts for users to subscribe to the full FT experience, for example, to be able to customise the stock prices they see, driving, hopefully, the core business.

For the commercial teams inside the FT, this is all a much cleaner way to go about things than they had to get used to on the web.

The sell to media agencies, for example, is very straightforward. Reach this many people of this particular type for this period of time. It’s a clean sell that speaks well to press buyers, rather than the digital departments for whom mobile banners are likely to make even less sense than on the web. It also allows the FT to go after slightly younger AB1 brands since it can reasonably argue that the mobile site delivers a significantly younger audience than the paper.

Things bode well but what we won’t know for quite a while is whether it will make its money back or, God help us, make a profit. If it does, the FT can reasonably claim to be one of the few traditional publisher brands to have successfully navigated the digital storm. If it doesn’t, it’s back in the whirlpool.

A very interesting piece in Ad Age earlier this month explained in more detail the argument I’ve been making about where mobile fits in.

It says, essentially, that mobile is much better for response than branding. It talks about how mobile allows users to go ‘the next step’ – to lead-generation - in a way that backs up my [small] criticism of the iPint.

Through mechanisms like click-to-call and click-to-SMS, we can enable potential customers to do something fast and easy that, for us, generates a valuable lead and, for them, is just a step further in a journey they’ve already started. Why hold them up?

However, I’m just not sure about this continued ‘siloing’ of marketing (or at least advertising) into brand OR direct-response. My view – thoroughly contended by some I know - is that interactive channels blur the lines between the two so far as to make them disappear.

So, when Ad Age talks about the ‘brand vs direct-response debate’, I wonder whether we’re engaging in an argument that’s just not worth having. If a brand, for example, makes it easy to interact and ‘respond’ to a piece of their marketing, it makes me think better of it.
 

One thing you can be sure of in an ad recession is that budgets for unproven marketing channels get gone. This means that – as an ad channel at least - mobile will have to take yet another break; we’re probably another two years away.

Trying to view mobile [phones] as an ad channel in the first place is of course a mistake. In fact, the internet (whether web, email, IPTV, whatever) in general isn’t much cop at 'advertising'. As a marketing channel it’s the absolute business. But, because of its on-demand nature, its real strength is in only one of the four ‘p’s and that’s ‘place’. It is as a distribution channel that the web has proven most disruptive as any newspaper or retailer could testify.

Mobile, in my view, could be just as disruptive but, again, as marketing channel not ad medium – and again in distribution. It stands out most as the channel to deliver on people’s ‘here and now’ needs and as an enabling mechanic. Voucher codes, for example, are getting big in the online retail/affiliate sector. In the US, redeeming online codes in-store is commonplace. How better to do that than have the code sent to your mobile?

Nonetheless we will turn the mobile into an ad platform somehow – it’s what we know. But, now that the Bellwether report has confirmed our fears, we can expect any money that was set aside for its exploration to have been handed back to the finance director.

In mobile, as in any other sector, a downturn – if you have the cash – is the best time to be buying.

Sir Martin Sorrell is a name it’s always far too easy to drop. Nonetheless, here we go, CLANG! When I interviewed him a couple of years ago his view on whether there would be another dotcom ‘crash’ was simple: “If there is, we’ll view it as an opportunity to buy.”

The long-term trend in digital, as he’d not failed to identify, was up and up some more so any time a dip came along it was a chance to pick up routes to growth and expertise while prices were lower.

Mobile is also a dead cert for long-term growth and it's also gathering pace just as online was (through the rise of search) when the last crash came upon us. When things get back on a more even keel, some more substance will have been added to its device-led style, which means any investments made now (think mobile search, TV and applications) will look very wise in a couple of years’ time.

One example is how the networks are using the global downturn to pick up networks for good prices in emerging markets. Three of the biggest (Norway's Telenor, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, and United Arab Emirates-based Etisalat) have already invested in India where mobile ownership is still only 25%. Another is News Corp's acquisition of Jamba that we talked about a few weeks ago.

Any recession is a real horror because it helps to widen further the gap between rich and poor. If, for example, I had a wad of cash to spare, I’d be scooping up houses at low prices (and low rates of interest) ready to generate further wads when the market rebounds. The media industry’s rich - and there are still a few - should look to do the same in mobile.

There’s a telling difference between the web and mobile that leaves us in the dark about how content on the mobile web will be paid for.

That difference is that the web had free content as its foundation. That legacy has been incredibly hard to break for even the most determined and premium content brands.

However, on mobile, a culture of paying for content already exists. Here we have ringtones and screensavers – what the mobile industry calls ‘personalisation’ – to thank, if not for much else.

So the question is which of these mindsets will prevail when people seek content from the web on their mobiles.

Naturally, the answer must be both. As long as mobile operators help the industry use their billing systems to enable easy payment, we can expect people to be happy to pay where content is unique and valuable enough and prepared to accept advertising where it’s not.

That will lead to three types of model: one, where top-class content is entirely paid-for; two, where middle-ranking content is part paid and part ad-supported; and, three, fully ad-funded bargain basement stuff.

The current platform of mobile content revenues shouldn’t be deserted now that the web proper is arriving in our pockets. Instead, content owners should see it as a new opportunity to reap the rewards they deserve.

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/866719/T-Mobile-offers-ad-funded-gaming/

We talked a while ago about how mobile usage – just like web usage - will be about services rather than content. Thankfully, new figures suggest that wasn’t complete tish. But what does it mean for media owners and advertisers?

Nielsen said that mobile internet usage shot up 25% in the third quarter of this year and the five most popular sites were BBC news, Google search, BBC weather, Facebook and Hotmail.

Kent Ferguson, senior analyst at Nielsen, said of it all: "The fact that weather, sports, news and email sites make up the majority of leading mobile sites shows that mobile internet is mainly about functionality and need at the moment, as opposed to the more entertainment and e-commerce-focused make-up of the leading PC-based sites."

So, now there’s (even more) facts to back up the theory, what can be done about it? Well, as advertisers we shouldn’t be thinking about what content it might be right to tie our advertising to, but what it is mobile users might want and need from our particular brand.

I’m Toyota (picked at random  - well done them). Should I pump out my 30-second spots wherever mobile TV appears? Should I put banner ads on Autotrader’s mobile site? Well, I could. But, better to pick services that my customers want – and that fit the brand – and deliver those. ‘Today. Tomorrow.’ is the company’s current UK positioning. So, journey planners? Travel news? Traffic problems based on your GPS positioning? I’d be all over it.

Toyota could of course do all this work itself and seek to build a mobile site all around this kind of stuff. But, personally - and here’s where the media owners come in - I’d be after an expert brand that has the resources, infrastructure and credibility to attract my audience. And that’s when I’d be on the phone to Autotrader.

I’m positive that mobile ad banners will grow as a revenue source. But I’m equally positive that their value to advertisers will diminish – just as they have on the web – and soon prove an unprofitable format to support. Understanding that digital is about service, not content, will help media owners avoid that issue sooner rather than later, and have something useful to say for themselves the day the Toyota call comes in.

First, no apology, for writing about handsets. For media types, this might sound irrelevant, but the handset - in planet mobile - is everything.

As forecast, the iPhone has forced everyone to raise their game so that, not long from now, everyone who matters to advertisers will have a handset in their hands that they can reach.

For example, the first 'G-phone', T-Mobile's G1 is out there and being loved by its users - despite it being very much version 1.0, Blackberry has responded with the Storm and HTC is launching the Touch Fuze in America. All these devices have touch-screen interfaces. Let's remember that almost no handsets had this before the iPhone came along. Chiefly, touch screen allows a wad more space for your screen which, when it comes to media consumption, is crucial.

But, the three competitors are also seeking to fill the iPhone's gaps. First among these is that it has no proper QWERTY keyboard. If you want to use your phone for email and work stuff that too is a usability must since, as good as the iPhone's touch keyboard is, it can't match a slide-out, 'proper' keyboard.

All that means that, if you want to use your phone for email - and, let's face it, most 'ABC1s' do - then there are more and more options out there attempting to steer you away from an iPhone. So, competition is doing its bit to deliver handsets that genuinely can handle all the advanced stuff we need users to be doing to make the mobile a viable media (and thus advertising) platform. Which one would you choose?

The standardisation of mobile operating systems has truly begun as Motorola says all its future devices will have either Windows Mobile or Android as their base system.

It means the manufacturer has cancelled phones due for release this year that were not based on these two and is also a sign that Nokia’s full absorption of Symbian in the summer will most likely reduce that business to a Nokia-only solution. For the mobile industry this is all good.

What it means is that service providers (let’s say Google) and developers (e.g. games people) can begin to focus on building stuff for particular manufacturers rather than for particular operating systems that then need to be adapted for each manufacturer and each handset. The result should be mobile services that are much more usable.

Of course having Windows and Android in the same stable will produce some interesting conversations for Motorola, as well as insight into which system suits which phones. Google and Microsoft are now truly squaring up to each other in mobile. Who are you backing?

It’s been said that if you can think of it, then there’s already a magazine about it. The relaunch of the MMA is a reminder that you can also bet there’s at least one trade body to represent its interests. And so it is in mobile.

Consider online advertising. Control over that particular space is fought for by every single advertising trade association that existed before it came along, plus a complete set of new ones, including one for every specialism you care to name - ad sales houses, search, affiliates, and web analytics to name just four.

The IAB has a rightful claim to consider how the mobile internet might work as an ad medium. Then there’s the GSM and the MDA, which both act on behalf of the operators. The DMA and the ISP (I hope you’ll forgive my dropping of journalistic convention by not spelling out every abbreviation) have had mobile interests for a while. But the equivalent body to the IAB when it comes to mobile is the MMA, the Mobile Marketing Association. And this, after a significant period of hiatus in the UK, has relaunched. So what should it concentrate on?

Here are the three issues I believe it should be focusing on to the exclusion of all others:

1.       Measurement

The GSM, in league with the MMA, IAB and others, is already working to develop a metric for mobile site audiences. This really is a crucial task. As we’ve said before, the web never had a single measurement for site traffic, which hampered agencies’ ability to compare media owners and buy space on a level playing field. Developing one for the web – as is happening now – is a painful process of reverse engineering. For mobile to get this sorted out would help immensely as agencies start to buy mobile ad space in greater volume.

2.       Mobile search

How people will search on their mobiles compared with their PCs is not yet fully understood. Two factors suggest there will be differences: first, inputting text is trickier, which will affect the length and nature of key phrases and, second, people’s searches will be different based on their altered needs when mobile.  Given that mobile search is likely to be the commercial path of least resistance for advertisers and media owners, the MMA needs to provide insight for its members on these kinds of issue.

3.       Mobile TV

There is no question in my mind that, within five years, the bulk of commuters will be watching televisual content (not broadcast TV) on their way to work, just as they consume audio content now. The question is how it will be monetised. Pay-per-download services are bound to get traction but, given that TV comes from a world where content is, predominantly, ad-funded, perhaps it will have more luck than the record labels in integrating advertising. The MMA should investigate.

There are lots of things to say about new figures from Nielsen Mobile that show US mobile users now text more than they call. But, most important might be the proof it offers that usability really is the thing to focus on when it comes to providing content and services, especially on our fiddly little mobile devices.

In the first quarter of 2008 texting overtook phone calls in the US for the first time. The US has been very slow to adopt texting compared with the rest of the world for one simple reason - they didn't offer it until 2004. Then, when they did, they weren't compatible with each other (as ours weren't when they first started).

Verisign argued in vain in 2004 that the services should be interoperable from the start. Their research showed that the one thing that prompted texting to leap in any market where it was available was the ability to text someone no matter what network they were on. In the UK, for example, the number of texts jumped 3.5 times once interoperability was established (April 1999).

Being able to text anyone is pretty fundamental to making SMS usable. And what often happens when it comes to new technology is that the industry focuses so much on the abstract benefits ('engage!', 'entertain!', 'connect!') they forget to focus on what really matters - making sure people can actually use it.

This is nowhere more the case than in mobile where the carriers were pumping out grand messages about the wonders of the mobile internet in 2000 when only now is a mobile connection anywhere near good enough to support such claims. And that's not that often.

One of the reasons cited for the jump in SMS use in the US in the past year is the growth in availability of phones with QWERTY keyboards. Users with QERTY keyboards text 54 per cent more says Nielsen. This is more proof that - especially in  mobile where we have less patience and a fiddlier experience - making a service usable is key.

In short, a service can be usable but not useful and gain audience (back to the iPint) but not the other way around.

My views on the iPint (great idea, could have gone further) prompted some to argue that the idea was good enough to preclude any criticism. Now it seems even that might not have been theirs in the first place.

For BMB, which created the iPint for Carling and won a Cyber Lion at Cannes for its efforts, is being sued by an apps developer that created iBeer and claims it refused BMB the rights to use it as the technology behind iPint. BMB instead went elsewhere to create their own.

Now, nicking ideas is not a rare occurrence in adland - particularly now that the 'viral' effect lands loads of them on creatives' PCs on a regular basis - and if iPint was nicked then it's the latest in a long line. But the mistake will have been to have messed with application developers.

Theirs is a close-knit world. They often feel they are fighting towards some undefined common goal (The Matrix, War Games and Tron will almost always feature in their favourite movies) and interlopers, particularly those from the dark world of 'traditional advertising', are not particularly welcome.

If BMB is found to have ripped off a member of this particular sect of the digital landscape, then it will have done much to confirm everything they already think about ad agencies. Since marketers these days need technology on their side to stand any chance of having an impact, that is not a helpful state of affairs

Beattie McGuinness Bungay hit with $12.5m lawsuit for 'iPint' app

Why the iPint fails (abridged)

I hesitate to mention the words Crazy Frog, only so we might avoid putting that damned thing in anyone's heads again. But, News Corp has made that impossible by buying the half of mobile content company Jamba it didn't already own. Jamba trades as Jamster. Jamster made the, erm, barmy amphibian.

So, why should Murdoch want to make buddies with such a blight on our cultural heritage? Well, ignoring the fact that cultural blights are not something he particularly cares to avoid (Fox News, Dream Team, The Sun...), it makes sense.

First, Jamba makes lots of money by peddling ringtones, which is essentially what anyone is talking about when they laud current mobile content revenues. Second, it is a content creator. Jamba already produces versions of Sky TV shows for mobile digestion. So, while people like me talk up the potential for mobile TV - and honestly we'll all be doing it one day - Murdoch picks up a business that makes News Corp very well-placed in the unlikely event that I'm right.

News Corp's digital investments are almost all hits because he (and/or his digital investment guru Jeremy Phillips) manage to stay relatively risk-free. They only buy businesses that already make money (or, in MySpace's case, they know are just about to). If they don't, they only invest for a small share with a view to taking more if it proves its worth.

In mobile, where there are even more wild and uncertain predictions than any other media platform ever, this approach makes even more sense. Unlike that darned ribbity thing.

News Corp acquires Jamba for $200m