Vision - September/October 2008 - (Page 10)

c4 trendS viewpoints on Ce evolution ] • [ by susan sChreiner “Nearly 40 million Americans, 16 percent of all U.S. mobile consumers, use their handsets to browse on the move according to Nielsen Mobile.” While it is a messy reality today, viral marketing and social media are emerging as the dynamic force for changing how businesses communicate and market their products or services via the Internet. The idea of planting your message in the right place, then sitting back and watching people spread it through social networks, e-mail and word-of-mouth and getting your customers to work for you, is certainly an attractive proposition. In this new world, every consumer, employee and stakeholder has a voice that can be heard within minutes by millions. How does a company harness this new voice for positive outcomes? Brands are starting to use social networks to expand involvement with their products and the system, but according to a recent report by Jupiter Research, 24 percent of the marketers in their study who have run a viral marketing campaign, struggle to get the expected buzz. In this time of experimentation, viral marketing efforts include tools such as contests and ratings games, fan pages, coupons and special videos. Interestingly, other troublesome data for mobile marketers indicates that while in the U.S., the number of people using the mobile Web has increased from 22.4 million in 2006 to more than 40 million today, roughly 95 million Americans are paying for mobile Web access but not necessarily using the service. Given that most handsets require too many clicks to get to the Net, users may be either unaware or disinterested in the Internet access provided. The exception is the iPhone. It is breakingdown barriers regarding the mobile Web, with 82 percent of iPhone owners accessing the mobile Internet—or about five times more than the average mobile consumer. This phenomenon is likely to increase with the recent release of the iPhone 3G, allowing faster Web access. How people use the mobile Web also indicates the types of marketing that would be most effective initially. A variety of surveys indicate that most people use the Web to check e-mail, visit social networks and conduct bank transactions. With the exception of the iPhone, there is still a browsing habit gap between the PC and small screen. “PC Internet users visit more than 100 domains per month, on average,” the Nielsen report said. “By contrast, the average mobile Internet user in the U.S. visited 6.4 individual websites per month.” U.K. use was slightly less at 5.5 per month, while Italian users visit 8.2 per month on average. Mobile marketing is emerging as a viable option for big business and those firms and agencies that easily can put the pieces together that make websites easy to navigate on the small screen. While traditional media is still viable, the question for marketers is how to create consumer demand in a changing environment where certain demographics today rely more on the PC Internet and mobile Web. How can marketers engage this consumer? Email susan@c4trends.com. • www.ce.org New Rules for Mobile Engagement dvertising as a mechanism for reaching customers is no longer just about print, broadcast TV or radio. The digital revolution has changed the advertising paradigm. Advertisers and agencies are trying to figure out how broadband advertising integrates with traditional TV and cable advertising models. What’s the relationship between the three screens: TV sets, computers and mobile devices? A Mobile Marketing “The mobile Internet reached critical mass this year, offering a large and diverse enough base of users to support largescale mobile marketing efforts,” according to a recent report from Nielsen Mobile. Nearly 40 million Americans, 16 percent of all U.S. mobile consumers, use their handsets to browse on the move according to Nielsen Mobile. U.S. cell phone penetration exceeds 80 percent, and advertisers and content providers are betting big that mobile marketing is one of the “next big things”. The growth of the mobile Web is attributed to a combination of increasing numbers of user-friendly handsets, higher speed networks and unlimited data packages. Opportunities abound as handsets and devices enable SMS, podcasting and videoon-the-go, and include GPS and locationbased services for targeted marketing. Using Social Media Advertisers are shifting dollars online. Internet advertising revenues reached $5.8 billion for the first quarter of 2008, according to a June 2008 report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). These first quarter revenues are an 18.2 percent increase over the same period in 2007. “We expect growth to continue, as consumers spend more and more time online, and marketers find more innovative ways to reach them through digital media,” according to Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. 10 September/October 2008 http://www.ce.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Vision - September/October 2008

Vision - September/October 2008 Contents Shapiro's Spectrum In this Issue The Economist Visionary C4 Trends Coming to a Neighborhood Near You IPv6: Connecting People and Things Israelis Spend Big on the Latest CE Devices Tech Speak Tech Policy CEA Newsline Going Global Eye on Business Market Insider Just the Stats

Vision - September/October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.