iMedia Connection - ad:tech blog

My holiday period scorecard?
Thirteen slices of cranberry bread. More sandies than I care to count. Sips (or was it gulps) of Washington wine that brought a calm end to a frenetic year.
And insights that will make me a better marketer in 2012.
What did I learn in those brief moments when I wasn’t stuffing my face?
The fact that the supposed technology divide between generations is bogus. 
My first inkling?
Soon after receiving her first iPad, my mother-in-law downloaded an app and streamed music that filled a room. She shouted out the ingredients for a holiday dinner, then gleefully taught the rest of us the shortcut of using three fingers to zoom in and out on her tablet.
My mother-in-law is 82. Oh, and she has been using a Kindle for three years and in 2010 learned the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system in about three days.
The second sign?
The same sister-in-law who passed off my gadget time as trivial did not let her first smartphone out of her hands, much less her sight. Sure, she was doing many of the activities we were doing in 2007, but gone were the feature phone, triple-tapping, and inability to effectively reach the Internet and all it has to... Read more

My Super Bowl mobile predictions have been anything but super so I’ll steer clear of forecasting the arrival of mobile calls to action in TV spots in February.
Instead, here are my 2012 predictions for other areas of mobile:
Device price points will continue to be brought down with offers of discounted products in exchange for a consumer agreeing to receive ads. Mobile phones with offers, including perhaps a Google phone, are coming soon.
Savvy marketers will follow research highlighting consumer behavior and interest. They know that just because you can do something technically doesn’t mean that you should. Know your customers and prospects and market to them in ways that you have the best chance of success. One major global brand allocates approximately 70 percent of its mobile efforts to ‘reach efforts’ that include SMS, 20 percent to richer experiences that don’t reach all subscribers, and 10 percent to the shiny object. That is a great example to follow.
2012 will be the year of the mobile web. As we move closer to the time when more people access the web on a wireless device than a PC, brands, agencies and others will realize that they need a mobile web offering that overdelivers.... Read more

Anyone who claims that everything that happened in mobile in the second half of 2011 was predicted is selling you a lie. We’re smarter than falling for untruths, you say?
Yup, call me on the iPhone 5 through the T-Mobile network and give me the details.
We missed – all of us did, including the most dependable of so-called insiders. No fifth generation of the iPhone, no iPhone business at all at T-Mobile, which spent the last six months envisioning a marriage with AT&T that hasn’t made it to the alter. At least Kim and Kris got that far.
Of course, what we got from Apple was Siri, a voice recognition technology that received the fanboy buzz treatment but is already considered a fading novelty by many.
In July, we suggested that with the iPhone in more hands, we would have a repeat of the time when the CEO said, “We need an iPhone app”. That may have come to pass to some degree, but we certainly aren’t fielding request after request at Hipcricket where clients and prospects are more interested in driving leads and building databases which produce remarketing opportunities.
How did I do on my other predictions?
I forecast that the convergence of mobile... Read more

Somehow it became news that we can interact with characters in Starbucks.  Haven’t we been doing that all along?
If you haven’t had your dose of reality – augmented reality, that is – let me fill you in. Beginning next Tuesday, customers who download an app for iPhone and Android devices can experience what Starbucks is calling “Cup Magic”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWwQXi9RG0w&feature=player_embedded
Specifically by firing up the app and pointing it at a holiday cup, one can interact with five characters — an ice skater, a squirrel, a boy and a dog sledding and a fox — on your screen.
And, if you are so inclined, you can share the feature on Facebook and via email.
The object, Alexandra Wheeler, Vice President of Global Digital Marketing for Starbucks told Mashable http://mashable.com/2011/11/08/starbucks-ar-app/, is to “surprise and delight” customers during the holiday season.
My take?
It’s one more case of augmented reality showing off whiz bang technology but not delivering much value. At the risk of being a Scrooge – it wouldn’t be the first time that I’ve been so described – what’s in this for us? I am in Starbucks six days a week, looking for a jolt of Joe, not cuteness.
Sure, Starbucks created buzz with the campaign but don’t... Read more