Experience Manifesto

Disney, Verizon to turn the cellphone into a theme-park visitor's tool - Los Angeles Times

Disney and Verizon bill it as a way to enhance the "theme park experience," enabling parkgoers to use their mobile phones for tasks such as saving a spot in line at a popular ride and zeroing in on where Cinderella can be found signing autographs.

But the service has broad -- and potentially controversial -- implications for marketers and consumers as each attempts to balance the need for information with privacy. The new service has echoes of the futuristic film "Minority Report," in which Tom Cruise's character is inundated with personalized ad messages as he passes interactive billboards in a mall.

On the face of it, the application appears innocuous enough: Visitors to Disneyland or Walt Disney World would be able to download an application to their mobile phones to make trip plans, including booking hotel rooms and creating a checklist of attractions and shows to see. Once they arrive, they'll be able to use their phones to check wait times at Space Mountain or find the nearest pizza.

"What we're doing is putting tools in the hands of our customers to better personalize their experience," said Scott Trowbridge, vice president of creative research and development for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Link: Disney, Verizon to turn the cellphone into a theme-park visitor's tool - Los Angeles Times.

How deep is your love? Korean passion phones know - Yahoo! News

Valentines Day in South Korea means chocolates, romantic dinners and a high-tech mobile phone device that can secretly check the passion in the voice of a lover. The "Love Detector" service from mobile operator KTF uses technology that is supposed to analyze voice patterns to see if a lover is speaking honestly and with affection.

"We created this service because we thought people would want to know what others were feeling about them," said Ahn Hee-jung, a KTF official.

Users who speak by pointing their mobile phones at themselves for video conferences can see a "love meter" bar on the screen of their handset during a conversation.

They later receive an analysis of the conversation delivered through text message that breaks down the amount of affection, surprise, concentration and honesty of the other speaker.

Link: How deep is your love? Korean passion phones know - Yahoo! News.

Being Peter Kim: What's wrong with mobile marketing

If you want to know what's wrong with advertising and why it has so many problems, take a look at the list of reasons that mobile advertising isn't working. You'll notice that not one person mentioned there's no real value for the consumer. That's why mobile marketing isn't working right now. Once again, for all of our talk about the consumer being in control, we're looking at mobile as a tool that the consumer can't control. Because all we're trying to do is things like forcing bluetooth messages down people's throats. Take a look at this discussion going on at Retail TouchPoints: New Mobile Device Apps Impact Marketing & In-Store Experience - Retail News. Look at how people in the retail industry are talking about using mobile devices. None of the discussion is about how the audience uses it. It's all about how we can use it like traditional advertising.

Take a look at The Problem with the Advertising Model, a piece we wrote back in 2006. The advertising model is simple -- take content and place it on things. You used to place the content in print, radio and TV and it was a pretty simple gig. And today, the industry mainly keeps coming back with advertising placement ideas, not advertising engagement ideas.

So we find a new medium and we simply want to see how we can place advertising on it. We don't really spend enough time trying to think about how we can use these new mediums to create better experiences for the consumer.

So, as we get ready to take mobile advertising and set it's adoption back by several years by forcing a lot of bad ideas onto the consumer, why not take a look at what we can do to use mobile to create a better consumer experience. If the consumer is really in control, then their POV is the first one we should be seeing whenever we look at a new medium.

If you want to know why, here's what I heard today:

From Evan Neufeld of m:metrics: "what is driving us forward and holding us back"

Pricing: consumers are getting nickled and dimed to death for data.
Devices: need better devices to spur usage.
Bandwidth: consumers want to drink from the hose.
Subsidization: Largest audiences for text messaging, a low value ad play.

From Jeremy Wright of Nokia, formerly of Enpocket. "Why isn't mobile advertising bigger today?"

Fragmentation. Buyers say it's hard to make a deal.
Measurable ROI. Reporting isn't great.
Engagement post-click. Lack of ecosystem partners and campaign integration.

From David Verklin, CEO of Aegis Media Americas. "The biggest barrier to mobile advertising."

Speed. 2.5G isn't fast enough.
But most marketers don't even know what we're talking about, 2.5G, 3G and so on.
We need to use mass media to drive people to concentrated places, i.e. from TV to web.

Manish Jha, CEO of Vantrix (and formerly of ESPN Mobile).

His company deals with interoperability issues - they have a database of 13,000 phone types. Think about it. You may have enough of a headache building your website for PC and Mac. Or just on PC, for IE and Firefox. Or just in IE, 6 vs. 7. Think that's bad? Try 13,000 phones.

Verklin actually came out and said it: 2008 isn't the year of mobile. 2009 is.

Link: Being Peter Kim: What's wrong with mobile marketing.

Dominos now accepting pizza orders via SMS... in the UK - Engadget

Thanks to Engadget for this. I probably eat pizza 3 times/week ad this would seriously make my ife easier!

If you thought ordering pizza online was the best thing since Deep Dish, you'll be delighted to know that the next logical step in getting pizza to your mouth with minimal effort is here... if you reside in the UK, that is. Reportedly, Dominos is now allowing customers surrounding its 470 UK-based locations to place their orders via SMS, and this move comes after "successful trials" that began in July. To utilize the service, you must first enter in your details online, but after that initial registration, pizza is simply a text away. Impulse eaters, rejoice.

Link: Dominos now accepting pizza orders via SMS... in the UK - Engadget.

Information that should be shared...

So the picture on the left is a screen grab from today of the AMP's home page. The picture on the right is what you get when you check their Q& A section. Feont page seems completely normal, business as usual. The Q & A, in fairly small print, lets you know that they're probably going out of business on the 31st of this month. Now, don't you think that if you're a phone company that people rely on, that maybe you'd want to post that on your front page? Reassure your customer, perhaps? How many people do you think will stay with them even if they get additional funding. Especially when they've been treated like this.

I've Alway's Known I was Cool...

It just turns out that I live on the wrong country! According to the Wall Street Journal, my Nokia 9500 Communicator is the hottest phone in Indonesia! It's such a hot phone that not even Blackberry has broken their grip there. They even sold gold-plated Communicators for $2,500 a pop and apparently a businessman in Jakarta paid $5,100 in a charity auction to be the first person to buy the new Nokia E90 Communicator when it's available later this year.

Sure, I know that everyone's hot for the Apple iPhone and I guess it will be pretty cool when it comes out. But, there would only be two reasons I'd think about getting one. 1) I'm hoping it would sync easily with my Mac laptop and 2) yea, it'll be the cool thing to have this summer. But, it really doesn't do things that are really that big of a deal for me right now. I mean, my 40 gig video iPod is sitting on a window ledge collecting dust right now. Sometimes I do miss having it with me, but, for the most part, it just sat in my briefcase for weeks on end without being used.

But my brick, as the 9500 is frequently called, I use all the time. And not just because it's my phone. I do lots of writing and live blogging and use my 9500 as my main keyboard a lot of the time. In fact, although I started this blog post on my computer, I've done the bulk of the writing on my train ride home. Sure is a whole lot easier to write on my 9500 then it is to take out my laptop.

MediaPost Publications - All-In-One: AT&T: Users Can Program DVR From Cell Phone - 04/20/2007

Love this technology! Can't tell you how many times I've forgotten to program something and missed a show!

AT&T, WHOSE TELCO TV SERVICE had a slower-than-promised rollout, is launching a service allowing customers to program DVRs from their cell phones. It gets to the heart of AT&T's goals for the U-verse service, as consumers will have to use an AT&T mobile device for the remote activity. However, the company says it will open it up to other wireless providers in the future.

AT&T is looking to outfox cable operators, which have thrived with so-called triple-play TV-phone-Internet packages, by offering the same bundle -- plus its wireless services -- a fourth option MSOs are deciding how to compete against.

The DVR programming via cell phones allows U-verse TV and Internet customers to schedule shows to be recorded, as well as delete programs. The new service augments an existing option to program U-verse DVRs remotely via computers.

Link: MediaPost Publications - All-In-One: AT&T: Users Can Program DVR From Cell Phone - 04/20/2007.

New Jersey lawmakers may ban texting while driving - Yahoo! News

File this under the obvious laws category! Do we really need a law to tell us that writing while driving is a bad idea? I've always wondered about cars that let you check your e-mail and things like that. I mean, unless the car is going to drive itself, it's sorta' critical that the driver can actually pay attention.

New Jersey drivers who insist on sending text messages on their cell phones or personal digital assistants may find themselves on the wrong side of the law if legislators approve a new bill.

The plan is in response to a recent Nationwide Insurance survey finding that one in five drivers are texting while driving, a figure that rises to about one in three among people aged 18 to 34, said Democratic Assemblyman Paul Moriarty.

Link: New Jersey lawmakers may ban texting while driving - Yahoo! News.

New MVNO plans UK launch

Lot of conversation in this space, about creating free cell phone service in exchange for advertising, so it will be interesting to see how it all turns out. The question is, will the audience that advertisers really want to reach take this service, or will it end up going to an audience that advertisers don''t really want? I'm not really sure the tech savvy, 18 - 34 year olds will want their phone calls interrupted by advertising, I know that I wouldn't (although, at 47, I'm now out of the key audience demo!).

I guess part of it depends upon how the ads will be delivered. I wonder if they'll be contextual based on the number you've died. I keep picturing dialing 911 to request an ambulance for the heart attack I'm having and listening to This call is being brought to your by Lipitor, shown to reduce chest pain by 16%! before my call connects. Or maybe every time I call for a pizza delivery I'll get that ad.

This is not the only ad-supported, mobile program out there, so clearly people think there's merit in this business model. I'm not aware of any up and running right now, so I'll guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes.

In two weeks, a new MVNO will announce its plans for a UK launch. Describing itself as a 'pan-European free mobile operator', Blyk will offer consumers free voice and text as part of an advertising-funded service.Co-founded by Pekka Ala-Pietila, former president of Nokia, and Antti Ohrling, chairman and CEO of Contra Group, Blyk is planning to target the 16-24 age group, using the free calls and texts hook. Orange is thought to be the launch network, although T-Mobile is still an outside bet. One operator source told Mobile: 'It's a really interesting idea, they are a credible organisation, Pekka is a credible guy and he's got the money which makes it very interesting.'

Link: New MVNO plans UK launch.

Advertising Age - MediaWorks - Street Furniture Gets Interactive

The technology inside mobile phones is now so complex that it deserves an advertising medium that reflects that processing power. Airport passengers in Lisbon have been able to experience such a medium thanks to a new campaign from Nokia. Inside the departure lounge is a single site that offers a glimpse of the future of out-of-home advertising.

The world's first interactive street-furniture installation is for Nokia's N-90 and the moment it detects a pedestrian it springs into life. The monolith-like installation first swivels either right or left to ensure that the creative message is directly in front of the consumer. It then snaps a photograph of the person and displays it on a screen.

The execution fits well with the new N Series new "Twist and Shoot" design and brings to life the quality lens and two-mega-pixel camera.

Due to the success of the installation, the placement has been extended from three months to six months at the time of writing.

Airports are essentially laboratories for the outdoor business, and the high quality of the audience enables media owners to create bespoke technology solutions for clients. Plasma screens were first installed in such an environment, for example.

This campaign -- if a single site can be called a campaign -- uses technology to create an automated brand experience.

Link: Advertising Age - MediaWorks - Street Furniture Gets Interactive.