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Apple iPhone 4s – 4 weeks in

November 8, 2011 By

It’s been nearly a month since I took delivery of my new iPhone 4s, so I thought I’d spend a few minutes taking a look at the latest Apple device that so many people expected so much from.

So what’s new?  Well for me pretty much everything.  Up until my upgrade I was struggling along with the original iPhone 3G so was massively in need of a new phone.  My 3G pretty much ground to a halt when I stupidly updated my software to iOS5 – everything slowed down to a snail’s pace and the phone almost died every time I tried to make a call or even send a text, so the new 4s couldn’t come soon enough.

When it arrived I wasn’t disappointed.  While the masses were left moaning about how boring the new handset was, I was left celebrating the iPhone 4S and the glut of top-end tech features that has bought my mobile phone to life again.

The changes to the iPhone 4S are simple to detail – the camera has been upgraded to 8MP, the CPU is now the same dual-core A5 processor as seen in the iPad 2, and there is a seven time increase in graphical processing power.  Overnight I could take crystal clear pictures and video, check in on Foursquare in seconds and play Angry Birds in real time – basically it’s helped me love my phone again.

The one feature I have yet to be convinced about is the ‘male PA in my pocket’ – Siri.  Yes it can tell me what the weather is going to be like tomorrow and how many calories there are in a bagel, but I have struggled to fully bond with ‘him’. 

Admittedly it’s a smart piece of technology, but it’s a nice to have, rather than a must have feature and isn’t something I can see me really ever needing to use (in fact I have disabled the feature, in part hoping it might help improve my battery life).

This brings me to the issue that has plagued the iPhone since they first launched and the only real problem I have with my new handset – the poor battery life.  Reminiscent of the furore around ‘antenna-gate’ when the iPhone4 was launched, there have been a number of 4s users (including me) reporting issues with the battery life.  Nobody know for sure what is causing the problem, but fortunately Apple has moved quickly to address the problem and is hoping to release a fix in the coming weeks which should sort the problem out.

In summary, for many the 4s is more of an ‘evolution of a handset’ than a ‘revolutionary new handset’ – but for me and anyone else upgrading from a 3G or 3Gs it’s a whole new world.  I have no doubt that the 5 will be the revolutionary device that everyone was craving, but for now  the 4s has everything that anyone could want from a smart phone (other than a longer battery life).  No doubt like the rest of the world I’ll be keen to get my hands on the 5 when it is released but for now the 4s has more than enough features to keep me entertained.

Filed Under: Mobile Tagged With: ,

The ‘bubble’ we work in

August 23, 2011 By

Working in the media industry means it is part of my job to understand and keep up to date with the latest developments in technology and the digital space in general. I primarily do this as I am genuinely interested in all things digital and advertising related, but I also need to be able to talk to my clients about these innovations and understand how we can best utilise these to meet business and media strategy needs. I am not alone and there are thousands more out there who will go out to clients and talk about the latest digital developments and think of ways to incorporate them as part of their strategy. However l do think media (like many other sectors) can be guilty at times of working within a ‘bubble’ and at times forget about who we are actually targeting – consumers.

I am in the midst of reading Groundswell by Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff in which they discuss this exact issue. The books primary focus is around social technologies but we can take their key points and apply this to marketing at a wider scale. They refer to POST when creating strategies – People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology – and they need to be prioritised in that order. The point they make is that there are numerous examples where strategies are created around technology first and not people which is a mistake. We sometimes believe that a consumer will understand and embrace something just because we do ourselves, which is the wrong attitude to have. As an example I believe the use of QR codes is a prime case.

QR codes are not new but they have increased in prevalence over the past 18 months with increasing incorporation within press, outdoor and TV campaigns for a number of different advertisers but do the consumers being targeted actually know what they are?  A few weeks ago I was surprised when amongst a group of friends only 1 out of 9 actually knew what a QR code was – these were all people who had smartphones and were under the age of 30. The general consensus was that they have seen them but didn’t understand what it was as largely these codes are often just within an ad but with no mention of what it is. I have slowly started to see more explanation around QR codes with a recent example being a B&Q ad having a ‘what’s this’ explanation next to one and I believe that advertisers have stopped presuming that everyone knows what they are but this hasn’t always been the case. I remember seeing a Waitrose TV ad around 18 months ago in which a QR code was placed on the end frame for 3 seconds with no copy around it which just highlighted their assumption that consumers would know what it was. I am by no means making the case that each QR code within an ad needs a paragraph but am merely stating that we need to stop assuming all digital developments are embraced by the masses.

Useful links

Quora – http://www.quora.com/QR-Codes/Why-havent-QR-codes-become-more-widely-adopted-outside-Japan?q=qr+codes (I particularly like the quote ‘QR codes are not understood by anyone outside of the most geeky people on the planet’)

Mashable – http://mashable.com/2011/08/02/qr-code-mistakes/

Filed Under: Mobile, The digital world Tagged With: ,

A Day with a Mobile Phone

August 17, 2011 By

This story is really about a smart phone vs not such a smart phone. I’ll start by referring to the TV report I was watching a little while ago where they established that most people can’t leave their house without their phone. Not the keys or wallet – no, their phone. That’s not going to help you get back in once you’ve shut the door, is it? But never mind, I’m sure that’s still to come for mobile – electronic key for your front door linked to your phone, and we are already on the brink of paying for our coffee with our beloved handsets with NFC. So the fact is that the mobile phone has taken over our lives on a totally new level. It is true to say that without Blackberry messenger (BBM) the riots we are having at the moment wouldn’t be so well organised and pulling in as many opportunists. It clearly illustrates how powerful the two media platforms are when you put mobile and social media together. That’s why we have a dedicated social and mobile media division within Navigate Digital to help brands take advantage of it and reach their customers in a clear targeted way (www.navigatedigital.com/rapport ).

Anyway, back to the story. I decided to do my own research into how reliant we are on our phones and how much time we spend on them. My husband has an HTC smart phone and I am still in love with my old Nokia N95 – I am sure I can get internet on it! Now to do my qualitative research I’ve asked my better half to keep a diary for 1 day and record every action he made on the phone and I had a notepad ready by my side too. So here are the statistics for the day, marking how many times each activity occurred:

My man Me
5 x Phone calls made and received 3 x Phone calls made and received
3 x Text messages received and written 5 x Text messages received and written
2 x Listening to music/radio  
7 x Checked email  
2 x Facebook  
5 x Twitter  
1 x Foursquare  
2 x Games played  
8 x Internet searches  
1 x Looked at map  
1 x Scanned QR code from TV ad  

 You can draw your own conclusion from this and maybe do your own mobile use diary to see how consumed you are by all it has to offer. For me, the results show that once you have a smart phone with ease of access to the internet, apps, email and the rest, you use your phone more and it tends to replace the time you spend with your PC. It even increases the opportunities you have to check in to twitter and facebook and look up interesting facts as you watch TV in the evening as we do tend to multitask mobile with other media.

So what does it mean for us, people working in the digital media world? Research documents published by IAB (if you are registered, I recommend you have a look at some of them: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iabresearchmobile.html ) suggest that “mobile is seen as fastest growing medium which will lead to most media agencies needing a mobile specialist” (Mobile and Market Snapshot 2009), and at Navigate we have done so already. IAB also highlights the need for more understanding of mobile media and lack of tracking, also case studies to illustrate the value mobile marketing brings to brands. Interestingly, 66% of participants in IAB research (Mobile & The Media Day Study,  Jan 2011) cannot live without their mobile and 69% of people accessed content via mobile which means that brands need to ensure their site works on mobile which is becoming part of good customer service. It feels to me that brands need to move quickly and develop m-commerce sites now and not focus only on apps which might exclude people like me, who do not have an app enable phone (yet).

If you represent a brand and want to embark on your mobile marketing journey, call us on 0203 178 8959 – we are here to help!

Filed Under: Mobile, Social Media

We Need You….

June 1, 2011 By

We’ve got some exciting news at Navigate that we’ll be sharing the full details of in the coming weeks – but before we do we need your help.

In the true spirit of social media, we thought we’d do a bit of  ’crowd sourcing’ and get the input of people in the industry before we release full details of our plans – so with this in mind if you’d like to help us by answering a few questions then please email hello@navigatedigital.com by 3rd June.  It should take no more than 10 minutes of your time and anyone who significantly helps us out will be rewarded!

 

 

 

Filed Under: Mobile, Social Media

Media Stacking Starts To Stack Up

May 31, 2011 By

Like many people in this world, I’m a busy person.

I live outside London, have a 9 month old daughter and run my own business – all of which means that ‘me time’ is precious and the days of watching TV in real time are long gone.  It means that when I do get time to myself, my media consumption tends to collide and I end up digesting about 3 or 4 things at once – something increasingly referred to as ‘Media Stacking’.  Whilst ‘Media Stacking’ isn’t a new phrase (it was coined by OfCom about 4 years ago), it is a new phenomenon for many people as their lives get busier, technology evolves and in turn they are offered more ways to consume and share media on a range of platforms and devices.

Primarily driven by people watching TV and using social platforms such as Facebook & Twitter on smart phones, tablets and laptops, this simultaneous consumption of media platforms is creating a platform commonly referred to as ‘Social TV’.  The figures are pretty staggering – with one recent study revealing that 80% of under-25’s use a second screen to communicate with friends while watching TV and 72% use Twitter, Facebook or a mobile application to comment on shows.  You only had to look at what was trending on Twitter during Saturday’s Champions League Final football or last night’s ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ Semi Final to know that these figures are true.

All this is great, but Media Stacking is giving me a couple of problems.

Firstly from a personal point of view, it means I have to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid finding out who was fired from ‘The Apprentice’ before I get a chance to catch up via Sky+ or iPlayer.  Without realising it, I have become a media stacker and I now actually find myself having to avoid using my phone, laptop or tablet for fear of seeing the result tweeted, re tweeted or shared by a friend.   More importantly from a marketing point of view, as media stacking becomes more prevalent in people’s lives, those of us in the media industry need to ensure the  brands  we represent are still being seen and heard in environments where consumers are more distracted than ever before.  The convergence between social platforms and TV channels is increasingly being acknowledged and it’s partly for this reason we have seen an increase in spend on mobile, video and social advertising.  Planners need to realise this trend is real and happening and can use it to their benefit it they are clever about when and how then run through the line campaigns.

In my opinion media stacking is good news for the entire media industry.  Far from media channels operating in silos, we are actually seeing the gap between on and offline media narrow.  ‘Social TV’ may well be what is needed to modernise the TV (advertising) industry by incorporating and encouraging more social interaction to complement rather than compete with programming.  I have no doubt that it won’t be too long before Syco realise this and find some clever way of tying in online and offline channels and shows like The X Factor and BGT become 100% social.

 

 

 

Filed Under: Mobile, Social Media Tagged With:

Mobile finally comes of age

May 27, 2011 By

The term ‘mobile marketing’ seems to have been bounded around the media industry for years but it is only in recent months that the true power of mobile is being adopted by brands.

So what does the mobile user require from marketers?

Jonathon McDonald a mobile expert has identified the three P’s of mobile marketing (Permission, Privacy and Preference). Successful marketers need to adhere to the three P’s by acquiring customer permission, indicating stringent privacy legislation and finally providing relevant and timely offers to the consumer.

With mobile marketing being an intrusive form of media on a personal medium, the importance of relevancy and therefore personalisation cannot be underestimated. Whether mobile search, text message, display ads or vouchers when the right ad finds the right consumer they are more inclined to make a purchase. Today’s mobile shopper is smart, they rely on product recommendations to make purchase decisions and have clear preferences for where and when they want to see them. Therefore the mobile marketer needs to understand consumer interest in order to deliver personalised engaging content. A recent article in New Media Age highlighted a poorly targeted mobile campaign with a consumer being targeted by an Interflora text message reminding them to buy flowers on mother’s day. Unfortunately this consumer’s mother died 18 months previously. As we see the mobile bubble swell great mobile campaigns will focus on personalisation and providing relevant content to the user.

The future of mobile will also see a simplification of the payment system with mobile payment convergence. Mobile will fundamentally change advertising, marketing and banking systems. The future integration of Near Field Communication (NFC) chips into mobile phones will enable a secure connection between the phone and another NFC enabled device. Not only will this make tracking mobile offline purchases possible, it could also replace the wallet with one touch payment for products, to pay a friend back money or jump on the tube. Furthermore the integration of NFC enabled shelf tags could allow a consumer to acquire information about a product or an offer simply by tapping the shelf.

The mobile future is moving fast and it is important that brands and marketers are supplying users with promotions, advertising and product information that are targeted, relevant and beneficial to the user. Without this any form of promotion is intrusive, unhelpful and the user will soon opt out.

 

Filed Under: Mobile Tagged With:

Out with the old, in with the new.

May 5, 2011 By

If I had told you in 2001, that in 10 years a guy called Osama Bin Laden who was responsible for the death of nearly 3,000 people in one day would be assassinated by US Forces in a place called Abbottabad, you’d have thought I was talking about the plot of the 1st Series of ‘24’.  If I’d then told you that this story would have been relayed to the world through a micro blogging site called Twitter (by a guy called @ReallyVirtual), shared on a social network called ‘Facebook’ and a photo sharing site called ‘Flickr’, you would probably have thought I was delirious and should be institutionalised.

However, in 10 short years, this is exactly what has happened.

The media landscape we were used to  has changed beyond recognition – and continues to do so on a daily basis.  When it comes to finding out what is going on in the world, more traditional media channels are increasingly being overlooked in favour of an array of weird and wonderfully named social media platforms that can provide almost instantaneous updates.

In Twitter, we have a communications channel we didn’t have 5 years ago (let alone a decade ago) that is now recognised as a mainstream media outlet.  In 140 simple characters, not only can we share with our ‘followers’ where we are or what we’re doing – but it is more often than not now used as THE place to go to get breaking news stories.  No longer is it Newspapers or the 24 Hour TV News Channels with their ‘breaking news’ info bars that people are relying on – but online social platforms.

To highlight this, a week ago Sohaib Athar was an unknown IT consultant ‘taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops’ of Pakistan.  Fast forward 7 days and ‘@ReallyVirtual’ is the ‘Twitterer’ credited with being one of the first to break the news of the assault on Bin Laden’s compound to the world.  As a result, his followers increased from one hundred, to one hundred thousand in a matter of hours.

At around the same time, the White House communications director posted a tweet saying “POTUS [President Of The United States] to address the nation tonight at 10:30 PM Eastern Time.” According to US media sources, it took Fox News a full six minutes more to report the same story. And ABC, CBS and NBC didn’t react until about 20 minutes after that.

Twitter wasn’t the only site seeing surges in usage however.

  • On Flickr, photographs of Barak Obama watching the Bin Laden assassination with his cabinet, were viewed 13,000 times a minute in the first hour that they were released
  • Foursquare users almost instantaneously started to checking in at Bin Laden’s compound
  • Facebook saw over 440k users likes the ‘Bin Laden Is Dead’ page within 24 hours
  • Thousands of people started to search for ‘Osama Bin Laden’s compound’ on Google Maps – resulting in the site actually ‘pinning’ the location
  • Yahoo – Bin Laden search queries increased 98,500% within hours

Whilst this doesn’t signal the end of traditional news outlets, it certainly demonstrates a shift in how business, consumers and (in this instance) Government’s are using online to tell the world what is going on in their world.  Social media still perhaps lacks the credibility that stories we see on TV or read in a newspaper have – but it is clear that the millions of people worldwide are increasingly using these channels to find out what and where things are happening in the world.

Digital technology has changed the way we all live.  To think that 10 years ago we actually had to wait to find out what was happening in the world seems positively archaic.

I guess we should just count ourselves lucky that  Bin Laden’s smart phone was off and he wasn’t following @reallyvirtual otherwise social media could have been blamed for the reason the world’s most wanted man evaded capture.  I’ll blog again in 2021 to see how the next 10 years has shaped the media landscape  – although by then of course it won’t be called a blog and I won’t be using a PC to write it.  You heard it here first.

 

Filed Under: Mobile, Social Media Tagged With: