Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

The much-hyped and long-awaited shopkick app launched yesterday with a press event at an American Eagle store in New York's Times Square. The location-based shopping service, which lets users earn rewards for in-store activities, already has big brand partners including Best Buy, Sports Authority, Macy's and Simon Malls.

Here's how the app works:

• Open the app in a participating store, and it automatically delivers the user "kickbucks," which can be redeemed for free stuff from partner merchants.
• Users can collect more kickbucks for trying on clothes and scanning a barcode in the dressing room (at American Eagle, at least) and for scanning the barcodes on other specified products.
• The app will also show current offers taking place in the store -- some are for anyone and some are unique to shopkick. Clicking "use this offer" will show the user a code they can present at the register.
• shopkick can also deliver personalized offers bases on past user behavior (which is what Barcode Hero is also attempting to do.)
• Users can also earn kickbucks for visiting non-participating retailers, they just won't get any special in-store deals.

Unlike some other location-based services, shopkick is leading with a business model. They are all about immediate monetization: The idea is to translate performance-based online revenue models into the real world. Cost-per-click becomes cost-per-visit. It also closes the loop between promotion and purchase, tracking precisely who took action on an offer or, in marketing speak, how many "conversions" there were. Retailers only pay when people go to their store, check out their products, and buy stuff. This makes the app a much easier sell.

Not that the sell was all that hard to begin with, we imagine. Retailers must be feeling threatened by the likes of Amazon and Red Laser and eager to provide a reason to stay in their stores.  There has been a "frenzy" around Foursquare but, as Adweek reported, some brands are finding it hard to get involved with that hot mobile social service. shopkick is taking a decidedly brand-friendly approach, providing a way for them to add utility and fun to the in-store  shopping experience while also packaging it in ways their marketing and media teams can understand.

shopkick's value is not in creating a social experience, and in that sense its closer to MyTown than Foursquare anyway. The appeal is earning real money, not social currency. However, they do plan to build in social elements to help spread its growth. shopkick has also found that retail partners are eager to promote the application through their traditional marketing channels (mostly in-store signage), which will be crucial to its success.

Also crucial to success will be teen girls. They seem to be shopkick's sweet spot, and most of their current partners (Simon Malls, American Eagle Outfitters, Macy's...) want to reach this target audience. The app itself has a very playful feel (burst bubbles to collect your points!) and feels like a big game. It's perfect for killing time at the mall with friends and getting free stuff -- both popular teen pastimes. Even the rewards currently on the app seem designed to appeal to teens -- Facebook credits, cause donations, gift cards and DVDs of "Twilight" and "Sex and the City."

Here's the rub: not many teens can currently use the application. See, shopkick uses a very cool technology to detect a user's location: An audio signal is sent from a device located in each participating store. The app detects this signal, knows which store you are in, and gives you points. This is a very clever, innovative (and probably costly) way to detect location on a granular level, beyond what other methods including GPS and cell-tower triangulation are capable of. However, most teens do not have iPhones. While they may WANT one and even  SAY they are going to buy one, mom and dad might not be in on these plans. Currently about 15% of teens actually own one, according to a recent Piper Jaffray survey. Many teens get their app fix through the iPod Touch, but shopkick's audio-based technology does not work on that device because it does not have a microphone.

Of course, the service just launched, so it's impossible to say exactly what audiences the app is most popular with and how they are using it. Much of that will come out in time, and shopkick will surely launch on other platforms as well. But it also goes to show how important it is to weigh technological innovation against consumer behavior.

Wrigley's Juicy Fruit now has its own iPhone app. Sweet Talk, essentially a mobile soundboard, comes with a simple twist -- videos of talking mouths accompany voices. The brand encourages users to "spread their sweet" by letting the app talk for them.

To use it, you simply pick from a bank of five mouthy characters with 25 sweet sayings, hold your iPhone under your nose, and let the sweetness fly. Users can share messages via email or Facebook or create their own videos.

It's simple, and we've definitely seen this before. MouthOff, Hardee's Parisian Pick Up, and Emirates iLingual all provide iPhone users the same quirky entertainment. That being said, the app is already seeing success. This week it reached number one free entertainment app in the iTunes store and number five overall. This goes to show that a brand can provide value through frivolous fun, not just practical utility. Execution is also key. Wrigley's managed to make an old idea seem fresh and funny.

See Sweet Talk in action here:

image via NYTimes.com

Womens' lifestyle newsletter DailyCandy took their sweet time getting into mobile, but what they've ultimately done is worth the wait.

Their new Android app called DailyCandy Stylish Alerts is much more than just mobile-formatted content. Rather, it will alert the user to DailyCandy deals when they are near a store offering one.
This geo-aware approach is the right move at the right time. As Jenna Wortham from the New York Times points out:

Applications that run in the background and alert users with a coupon or special offer as they walk by a store have been something of a holy grail for the mobile phone.

But until recent advances in smartphone software, it has largely been impossible to do efficiently, said Josh Rochlin, the chief executive of Xtify, the New York-based geo-notification company powering the DailyCandy application.

“Instead of physically taking the device out of my pocket and checking into a location, this is taking advantage of passively knowing a user’s location and passing down relevant information,” said Mr. Rochlin.

While this sort of push technology can potentially create distracting real-world spam, Daily Candy already has an engaged, trusting audience, which goes a long way. Also, the app is reaching people who have raised their hands and said "Yes! Show me deals!"

While it's odd that an app launch on Android first, the reason is likely that the iPhone did not until recently allow developers to build apps that run in the background, which this one does. iPhone is coming soon, though, they say. It would also be smart for them to try out geofencing technology, which works through SMS -- no app required.

A new social viewing  service called Philo is hoping to differentiate itself from the competition (Miso, Starling, Hot Potato) through some clever stunt marketing. Their "Save Teresa" campaign purports to help Teresa Giudice, a star of Bravo's Real Housewives of New Jersey, and her family "get back on their feet."

Some background: Teresa and her husband Joe filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy back in October, and their belongings are scheduled to be sold at auction on August 22.

For every check-in to RHONJ on Philo, the company will donate $0.01 to the "Save Teresa" fund. All money raised will be used to "repurchase the Giudice's belongings and return them to Teresa and Joe".

The obviously farcical campaign got coverage on Fox News and on Jezebel, Crushable, and other blogs. Whether it will drive people to download the app is debatable, but it definitely raised awareness of the fledgling service.

Overall, Philo is like a combination Miso and Hot Potato. If that means absolutely nothing to you, this is how their site describes it:

Philo makes TV social (again) by letting you connect with your friends and watch, chat, score points, and win awards and credits together.

You can browse around television shows and see what your friends are watching and saying, what's popular, what's on that you may like based on what you've watched, or scroll through a guide to see what else is on. Once you find something you like.... Tune-in!

Once you've tuned into a show, you can follow the conversation about the show and participate by contributing your own comments. Your comments will be posted to your favorite social networks (if you like) with links so that your friends can see what you're watching and join you so you can watch together.

So when you "check in" to Real Housewives of New Jersey, you get a badge that looks like this:

Then you can chat in-line with your friends and other people watching the show, who have also checked in. Overall, its a nice slick interface. But what will determine the winner of the social viewing game? Features? Partnerships? Influential users? We talked about some ideas in AdWeek recently. What do you think?

While we wait for QR codes to take off, there is a huge opportunity for brands to use the barcodes that are already on products and turn them into social media.

One way to do this is through an app called Stickybits, which we wrote about back in April after its launch at SXSW. The app lets users scan and attach media to barcodes, creating a path from physical product to digital media. People connect around objects and often share stories about them, which is essentially what Stickybits enables. You can add a digital picture, a video, or text to a product's barcode, which other people can see when they scan the same barcode with the app on their phone.

Advertising is all about stories as well, so why not attach a brand's stories to a barcode? To demonstrate this idea, we took a can of Diet Pepsi and attached branded wallpapers, nutritional facts, and information on their Pepsi Refresh campaign through Stickybits. (Note: we didn't attach things twice, the app is a bit buggy.)

This weekend we got a number of emails from informing us that "pepsico attached a new bit" to the 'Pepsi 12 oz can' we were using. This turned out to be an "official bit" from the brand -- a video about the storytelling power of barcodes.

Stickybits founder Seth Goldstein announced these “official bits” at the Conversational Marketing Summit in New York City, and that Pepsi is signed up as the first sponsor. Similar to the paid search model, Pepsi paid for their bits to get the "official" stamp and appear on the top of results pages.

According to Techcrunch, Goldstein described the progression of media on the Internet at the conference:

In 1996, Webpages became media. In 2001, search became media. In 2005, people became media. In 2007, status updates became media. Last year, places became media. And in 2010, he predicts, objects will become media.

This is part of the trend we've been following known as the "Internet of Things," wherein physical objects are connected to the web. Digital is now freeing up physical media to play a different role than it ever has before, and mobile phones are an important piece of this puzzle, enabling users – and brands -- to annotate the world around them.

NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) is known for its innovation and forward thinking. We attended the Spring Show 2010, where students showcased their final projects for the world to see. In this edition of MobileBehavior TV, we spoke to several of the students about their work, several of which focused on social viewing and interactive media.

Ian Cleary, Campvideo

Campvideo makes it easier to have "Youtube parties," which involve 2 or more people sharing videos online. The service lets you save videos and add them to a "party" or queue that they can go back to and look at later. Once logged into Campvideo, you can also play the videos from a mobile device. The concept is similar to Boxee's Bookmarklet that saves videos to a Boxee Queue for users to watch later.

Josh Schelling, Snark

Snark is a social viewing application that likens itself to DIY pop-up video. It allows you tag comments or "snarks" to streaming video content through a mobile device. These comments are time-stamped, so they will appear on the app as your friends watch the same video . Think of it as time-shifted social viewing.

Lisa Maria Raphael, Unitv

Unitv is an improvised television show where viewers can send in concepts or ideas in order to have the actors respond in real-time.

See our coverage of previous ITP shows here:
MobileBehavior TV at ITP's Spring 2009 Show - Part 1
MobileBehavior TV at ITP's Spring 2009 Show - Part 2
Inspiration from ITP's 2009 Winter Show
ITP Winter Show 2008

MobileBehavior TV is a running video series where we meet and interview thought leaders and creators in the mobile community. Click here to view past episodes and here to subscribe on iTunes.

From Hong Kong's pill & pillow, Squiggle is an iPad application that presents users with a personalized futuristic string instrument.

Squiggle is an iPad application currently in development that allows you to draw lines on the screen which turn into strings and can be played like guitar. Keeping the device flat, you can draw and modify existing ones. Tilting the device will turn the screen black, allowing you to play them. Turning the device over will clear the screen.

The larger form factor and open nature of the iPad's touchscreen gives musicians creative flexibility. There are piano apps and turntables,  then there are applications like Touch OSC which give the user complete control over what buttons, sliders, and dials are brought up on screen.

See Squiggle demonstrated here.