Experience Manifesto

FitchWalker Designs Motorola Pop-Up Store

I happened to be in Chicago for the launch of RED at Gap and it's certainly continued to get lots of press since then. Interesting to combine pop-up retail with social good, and I think it's the first time I've heard about such an effort. It'll be interesting to see if this is just a fad or if more companies will become socially active through their products. Does anyone know how RED is doing?

FitchWalker, New York, has designed a pop-up store in Chicago that showcases Motorola merchandise produced expressly to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Motorola is one of the brands participating in Product Red, a global initiative created by Bono and Bobby Kennedy to deliver a sustainable flow of private-sector money to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, along with Gap, American Express, Converse and Giorgio Armani. Features of the 1,000-sq.-ft., FitchWalker-designed Chicago store include curved fabric panels and illuminated Plexiglas floor boxes to focus attention on products. The text of the Red Manifesto is displayed as a silk screen across the fabric panels. "We're delighted to participate in Product Red," said Randall Ng, managing director of FitchWalker. "Motorola gave us exceptional license to help lend physical shape to an unprecedented fusion of retail and activism." To kick off the opening of the store, Oprah shot her show on location at the store last Thursday.

Link: FitchWalker Designs Motorola Pop-Up Store.

Link: (RED) .

Link: (BLOG) RED.

Ageless Marketing: Verizon's Lies

David Wolfe over at Ageless Marketing recounts this recent conversation he had at a Verizon store. Seems he was having a problem with his phone and, not surprisingly, he didn't get quite the service he had hoped for. I had a similar experience with the old AT&T when Jim Keating, their customer service supervisor, told me "It's not our responsibility to meet your customer service expectations."

While he went to get the manager I noticed a large poster board on which was written:

No wireless provider stands behind you like Verizon. If you ever have a problem it becomes our problem – the first time you call.

After a few minutes the manager arrived. I pointed out the words I had just read on the poster and said, “Are those words true or are they just empty claims?”

“Well, want to help you, but we have our policies that we can’t change,” said the manager.

“So my problem today – not being able to send or receive phone calls on my cell phone is not your problem as the poster claims, right?”

“Well, we do want to help you.”

“But it’s still my problem that you are unwilling to make your problem. So your poster is lying, right?”

“We try to do the best we can for all our customers.”

“But your poster is still guilty of false advertising, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I have to get back to a call. Mario will try to help you.”

He ends his piece with:

"So instead of me feeling more loyal, I feel alienated and am writing about my sad experience on the Internet for all to see.

Bye, bye, Verizon."

And that's the thing about this new world. Consumer's have always had the control to say bye, bye. But today, they have the power to tell the whole world about it! So remember that if you're going to make any kind of customer service problem. Today, a lot of people will hear about your failure to live up to your own words & promises.

We wrote about the role of CRM vs. CRE -- Customer Relationship Experience -- a few years back and talked about how companies don't always deliver on their marketing messages. Here's how we ended that piece:

Increased business value used to be a byproduct of good customer service. Today customer service is a byproduct of trying to increase the business value. Consumers are smart. If you want to look into a crystal ball for your company’s future, take a look at where you fall. If you’re closer to lip service than real service, get your resume out today. Your future doesn’t look very good!

Where does your company fall?

Link: Ageless Marketing: Verizon's Lies.

Link: Download TechTripping.pdf

MIT Advertising Lab

I guess if I had a Cingular phone, I wouldn't have had the Best Buy experience that I had! This is a great use of cell phone technology and a smart way to engage the consumer, rather then just throw a marketing message at them.

Dying to know the name of that cool tune on the radio? Dial #43 on your Cingular phone, hold the phone up to the speaker, and the company will text you the name of the piece you have trouble identifying. All for $0.99. Wonder if it works with commercials.

Link: MIT Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology.

newsobserver.com | Technology

Erik Robb's pockets are filled with the usual 10-year-old's loot - a Game Boy, Pokemon cards and holographic temporary tattoos he buys at a dollar store.

Then, there's the cell phone with the built-in flashlight, a birthday gift from his mother.

"If I have to give him some independence, that's a way to keep him next to me," said his mother, Mary Ebert-Robb.

Erik, who is headed to fifth grade at an Auburn charter school this fall, is the first of his friends to carry a cell phone, but he's not the first in his age group.Kids ages 10 to 14 are the fastest-growing segment of the population getting cell phones, according to Lewis Ward, a senior research analyst for IDC, a market research company in Framingham, Mass. About 5.8 million children in that age group carry cell phones and that number is expected to grow 22 percent next year, Ward said.

Children even younger are getting wired as well. About 400,000 kids ages 5 to 9 carry cell phones and 20 percent more will have them next year, Ward said. "With adults, those who are going to get them already have them," Ward said. "So it's a function of reaching younger and younger demographics. ... It's a relatively untapped market."

Cell phone and toy companies have noticed. Mattel is introducing a My Scene Barbie cell phone this summer, Disney will partner with Sprint next year to launch wireless phone service for kids, and a new company, Firefly Mobile, has begun selling glow-in-the-dark cell phones at Target stores.

Firefly, based in Chicago, is unabashedly targeting 8-to 12-year-olds, said chief executive Robin Abrams. "It's a unique demographic. They're not teenagers yet and they're not little kids," she said. "They're right at that breaking point when their lives get more complicated in terms of logistics and scheduling and they're just starting to go out on their own."

The phone caters to 'tweens by offering parents a certain amount of control with pre-paid minutes, buttons to call "Mom" and "Dad," and programmable incoming and outgoing calls. The Firefly Mobile phone, which sells for $99.99, also drops the distractions with no text messaging, video games or cameras, but amps up the "ooh" factor with fun ring tones, animation and flashing lights.

"Kids like the idea of being close to their parents," Abrams said. "It gives kids a higher level of confidence."

But Bernardo J. Carducci, a psychology professor at Indiana University Southeast, thinks young children with cell phones do the exact opposite. While he concedes phones are important and even necessary during emergencies, he worries children won't learn important decision-making skills if they're constantly calling mom or dad for advice.

"There are real big developmental concerns," he said, adding that instant gratification and the failure to learn how to plan ahead are also detriments.

David Anderegg, a child psychologist and author of a book on parenting anxiety, "Worried All the Time," thinks young children with cell phones are plain ridiculous.

"It's an unneccessary expense and I certainly don't think there's any good reason for kids to have cell phones," he said. "It gives a false sense of security in any case - middle school kids need to be supervised by adults and they should always be supervised by adults."

Jon-Paul Kuykendall, 13, of Orangevale, Calif., has been begging for a cell phone since he was a sixth-grader. But he's not getting one until he's a sophomore in high school and he starts driving, insists his mother, Diane Kuykendall.

"There just doesn't seem to be a need," she said, adding that her son has never been unable to reach her. "I think a cell phone is a tool for kids to learn how to use as a tool. It's not a social device."

Link: newsobserver.com | Technology.

TIME.com: How Kids Set the (Ring) Tone -- Apr. 04, 2005

If you're involved in the cell phone biz, or looking to reach the teen market, here are some excerpts from an article in the current issue of Time.

When he needs to figure out what his company should be doing next, Daniel Kranzler often seeks expert advice--from his 18- year-old daughter. Kranzler's company, Mforma, makes games and ringtones for cell phones and, by staying plugged in to teens like Kat, has seen sales double every few months. He's not alone. An explosion is under way in the cell-phone business, as innovative new companies are popping up, feeding not just teen tastes but also, in the process, defining a new future for wireless communications. Kranzler inked a deal in December for Mforma with Marvel for exclusive access to its comic-book characters and is working on a next wave of cell-phone services. "My daughter lets me know what she thinks of the products--with a baseball bat," he says. "Her favorite is, 'Oh, Dad, you so don't get it.'"

Yes, in this vibrant little corner of the wireless industry, market research can be as simple as asking your children what they like. But that doesn't make the potential any less captivating. The cell-phone phenomenon reaches way beyond teenagers. There are 180 million cell-phone subscribers in the U.S. today, and we are no longer simply talking or text messaging or gaming. We are living inside our phones, even decorating them like a home, with images we call wallpaper. Meanwhile, creative companies big and small are scurrying to persuade us to use our tiny screens in ways we haven't even imagined. Fox thinks we will want to watch 24: Conspiracy, a version of its hit TV show developed just for the phone. The NBA hopes basketball fans will use their phones to get game stats, follow their fantasy leagues and watch replays. One ambitious start-up is betting that people will pay to blog via cell phone.

Teenagers right now are "the sweet spot," says Burris of Sprint. An estimated 76% of kids ages 15 to 19 and 90% of people in their early 20s regularly use their cell phones for text messaging, ringtones and games, and that enthusiasm has turned wireless data services into a significant business. Gartner Research estimates that Americans spent $1.2 billion last year on ringtones, wallpaper and other "personalization" services and an additional $1.4 billion on cell-phone games and other entertainment. Fabrice Grinda, CEO of one of the leading ringtone companies, Zingy, says these services tap into young people's impulse to assert their individuality, as they have always done with clothes and hairstyles. And as with clothing, there's money to be made off these urges. While downloading an entire song from iTunes costs just 99¢, Grinda's customers are willing to pay as much as $3 for a 30-sec. ringtone.

To turn wireless data services into a major source of revenue, carriers will eventually have to move beyond what works with young people. They are relying on an army of small companies to create the cutting-edge content. Many of them start-ups, those companies develop the games, ringtones, etc. and take a cut--as much as 80%--of the fees charged by the carrier for each download. Analysts expect that revenue from ringtones and gaming will eventually level off. "There are only so many ringtones and so many games they can offer," says Phillip Redman, an analyst at Gartner. So those companies are madly trying to come up with the next big thing in cell phones.

Intercasting is typical of the new breed of wireless-content companies. Its founders, Shawn Conahan and Derrick Oien, are both veterans of the digital music file-sharing wars, and they envision a world of mobile phones that bears little resemblance to what we have now. "The mobile landscape of six months ago was ringtones," Conahan says. He and his partner are convinced, however, that the possibilities are much broader. Just as peer-to-peer networks like Napster turned digital music into a global phenomenon, they believe that mobile phones have created a similar kind of untapped network. Cell phones, they argue, link each of us to a personal network of friends and family. Intercasting's service, Rabble, allows you to reach those people through mobile blogs--a combination of photos, text and eventually video--all created with a mobile phone. Imagine, for example, narrating your next vacation via cell-phone blog for all the folks back home. Or creating a real-time blog about the people you're meeting at a party--or at a business meeting.

Camera phones, on the other hand, are available on 27 million handsets, and Snapfish Mobile is trying to turn them into a business too. Cell-phone carriers have seen little in the way of revenue from the huge popularity of camera phones. Snapfish Mobile allows users to share and store camera-phone pictures--and encourages them to pay to turn them into wallpaper or order prints.

Of course, the big boys are also jumping into wireless services. Larry Shapiro, who runs Disney's North American mobile business, first realized the potential in cell phones in 2000, in Japan, where high-speed networks allowed cell-phone content to take off long before it did in the U.S. (Disney characters are enormously popular there, particularly with young women in their 20s and 30s--heavy users of cell phones.) In the U.S., Disney's games and wallpaper images of characters like the Incredibles have done well, but the company is still trying to figure out how to translate its movies and television shows to the mobile-phone environment. "Having a wireless strategy will have to be a part of any brand strategy," says Clint Wheelock, an analyst with NPD Group. "What they're all struggling with right now is to figure out what the business model should be." Shapiro admits that finding the right form for wireless keeps him up at night, but Disney is committed to figuring it out. "We think it has the potential to be a significant revenue stream," he says.

Link: TIME.com: How Kids Set the (Ring) Tone -- Apr. 04, 2005.

Calling Preteens with a Barbie Phone

Mattel hopes its doll-themed prepaid cell phone -- a real working one -- will be a hit with girls and turn its classic toy hip again

It's amazing she doesn't already have one, but Barbie is finally getting a cell phone.

Mattel, the world's largest toymaker and the company that made Barbie famous, will soon start selling cell phones alongside the Barbie My Scene toy line. Barbie My Scene features a series of dolls with a greater air of modernity than the original Barbie -- they tend to wear hip clothes and brandish a personal digital assistant rather than a frying pan.

TRANSCENDING DOLL PLAY.  The new Barbie-brand phones aren't toys at all, but real phones. Mattel expects them to appeal to 8- to 14-year-old girls and will offer them in all stores that carry Barbies, company executives told BusinessWeek Online.

The initial rollout of the Barbie-brand phones is slated for April, and such nationwide stores as Target, Wal-Mart, and Toys 'R' Us will have them on shelves starting in July. In a nifty cross-promotional move, a teen actress in a not-yet-named Hollywood movie will brandish a Barbie phone around that time.

The phones are the first prepaid -- meaning the user prepays for calls -- cell phones targeting the "tween" girl market. It also marks an escalation of Mattel's efforts to make its Barbie doll, which saw sales slip 8% last year, hip once again. Mattel and software and content partner Single Touch Interactive are jointly marketing and distributing the phone. "It transcends traditional doll play," says Timothy J. Kilpin, senior vice-president for girls marketing and design at Mattel. "It's steeped in entertainment. It allows girls to interact with the brand."

FIRST PRETEEN TARGETING.  It's just the latest digital entertainment move by Mattel. On Feb. 17, at the American International Toy Fair in New York City, it unveiled a slew of gadgets, including a handheld entertainment system that allows kids to create their own minimovies out of video clips.

Nokia, the maker of the new phone, may get a boost from the product. The Finnish concern has been struggling to maintain its market share. Ditto for a yet-to-be-named national wireless carrier that will provide the service to this very youthful and unproven demographic. "This particular age group has yet to be addressed in a structured program anywhere in the U.S.," says Richard Siber, CEO of the wireless consulting firm SiberConsulting.

Certainly, Mattel isn't the first outfit to market cell phones to the youth market. In recent years, several wireless-service providers like Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile have successfully sold prepaid cell service to 18- to 30-year-olds. But this is likely the first time a business has gone after preteens.

PARENTAL TOOL?  Mattel and Single Touch are offering the Nokia 3587i phone, which features a full-color screen and voice dialing. It also lights up when a call comes in. The phone, expected to retail for $49.95, will come with 30 minutes of airtime, with additional minutes sold in $5 increments. It also boasts three stick-on faceplates -- so a girl can dress up her phone with a leopard-colored sticker to match her purse, for example -- nine exclusive wallpapers, and three exclusive ring tones.

"It's an 'aspirational' demographic -- young girls looking to the older girls," explains Anthony Macaluso, CEO and founder of Single Touch Interactive in San Diego.

Mattel and Single Touch are also positioning the cell phone as a parenting tool. Moms and dads will be able to buy those additional minutes for their kids online. When parents activate the new phone, they can go to a Web site, MySceneMobile.com, and list chores they want their children to perform to earn extra minutes. These can include making the bed, doing homework, or not fighting with brothers and sisters. At the end of each month, parents can buy extra minutes if their children have, indeed, behaved.

SENSING DEMAND.  The kids and parents will also be able to buy additional faceplates and ring tones through MySceneMobile.com. "It's customization to fit your image," says Bob F. Aniello, director of Mattel Interactive.

Mattel execs say extensive focus-group work and market tests show a demand for the service. In 2003, the toymaker offered Barbie My Scene buyers a cell phone with 300 minutes of prepaid airtime -- more than 40,000 phones were sent out within a month. "In a way, this project was a marketer's dream," says Aniello. "We had real market behavior that would predict appetite for product."

Let's hope Barbie doesn't use that cell phone when she's driving her convertible.

Link: Calling Preteens with a Barbie Phone.

Mobile Marketing: Look Before You Leap

When I got the e-mail announcing a BMW mobile marketing campaign to promote the 3 series, I was pretty excited. I've been keeping an eye on mobile marketing for years, and see a lot of potential for the medium.

Then, I actually looked at the BMW campaign. Here's how it works. You phone a number (703-286-BMW3) on your Internet-enabled mobile phone, and hear a recorded message. Then, you receive a text message on the phone (presumably, caller ID technology allows the company to harvest your phone number). If your phone is capable (my late model, $400 Nokia phone apparently isn't), you can click the link in the text message to visit the mobile Web site. What I finally had to do was type the fairly lengthy URL into my phone's Web browser.

What I saw was overwhelmingly underwhelming: several pages of text and a few images. What was missing? Meaningful interactivity, a trivia quiz, for example. Or wireless-specific features, like ringtones and wallpaper. In short, it lacked anything that would have made it appropriate for the medium.

After all these years, marketers are waking up to wireless. BMW deserves kudos for innovation. Yet now that marketer adoption is finally happening, let's not screw it up. To succeed, mobile marketing must be a good, rewarding consumer experience. It also needs to achieve success for marketers. Mobile marketing has been around a while now, particularly in Europe and Asia. Let's learn from that and move ahead.

Link: Mobile Marketing: Look Before You Leap.

WHY SMS MARKETING WILL SOON MATTER IN THE U.S.

Back in my native Britain for Christmas -- they don't do that PC "holidays" guff in Blighty -- I was struck by the omnipotence of the mobile phone. There are lots of people here who would tell you their cellphone is important to them, but in the U.K. the mobile has attained the kind of lifeblood status most of America still reserves for cars and TVs.

Perhaps the difference lies in the breadth of functions for which cellphones are used. In the U.K., radio or TV "call-ins" have been replaced by "text-ins." A pub discussion about a new album prompts a friend to whip out his Nokia and play it to me there and then. My mum hands me her cell so I can watch a video of my nephew doing his first crawling. When I drive into London's traffic congestion charge zone, I text message my credit card and license plate numbers to London Transport, which texts me back to thank me for my 5 pounds.

Link: WHY SMS MARKETING WILL SOON MATTER IN THE U.S.

Cell Phones Ring for Marketers

Mobile advertising is rushing to find its way into handsets everywhere. While the effort is still in its infancy, the audience is too big to ignore

At a hip singles bar in Las Vegas earlier this year, attractive urbanites were busy typing messages into their cell phones. But messages like, "Who's the hottie at the end of the bar?" weren't just going to friends -- they were being posted on a giant video screen as part of a promotion at several events organized by Anheuser-Busch (BUD ) and Maxim magazine.

These kinds of promotions have become rampant at sporting events, concerts, and ultra-trendy bars in the latter part of 2004, and they're poised to explode next year, say marketers like Alex Campbell, CEO of Vibes Media, a small interactive marketing firm that put on the Vegas event. Idle cell-phone users are being encouraged via big-screen TV, or video scoreboard, to text messages to one another, answer trivia questions, or enter sweepstakes. Sometimes, participation is as high as 30%, Campbell and others say.

It may seem like just a gimmick for restless audience members and barflies. But it's the beginnings of the much-hyped, much-anticipated rush to mobile advertising, in which marketers connect to consumers in a variety of ways via their cell phones. And industry watchers say 2005 is set to be the year a lot of big brands finally give it a shot -- despite the difficulties that still loom. At this early stage, it's still hard to predict a how much will be spent on mobile advertising since the cost of these campaigns can range from thousands to millions. But like spending on video ads online in 2004, this new category looks poised to go from virtually nothing to millions in pilot investments in 2005, agencies say.

Link: Cell Phones Ring for Marketers.

Forbes.com: Get Ready To Call ITunes

Interesting news for all of us Mac fans! Now we need them to bring the Newton back and come out with a tablet Mac and all my Mac dreams would come true!

Apple Computer and Motorola could soon show us the mobile phone they are developing to play music purchased from Apple's iTunes online music store.

"We've said we have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we're definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you'll be able to see more about it soon," says Eddy Cue, vice president in charge of applications at Apple.

If the phone is as far along as Cue suggests, then Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs would be likely to announce it during his annual keynote speech at MacWorld Expo, scheduled for Jan. 11, 2005 in San Francisco.

Link: Forbes.com: Get Ready To Call ITunes.