Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

Twitter recently released a feature called Fast Follow, which allows just about anyone with a cellphone to follow specific Twitter users. There is no need to sign up for Twitter, simply text "follow [account]" to 40404 and begin receiving SMS alerts from that account.

To promote the use of Fast Follow, Twitter Media has provided a few ideas for media outlets and local businesses.

It’s perfect for on-air. Instead of directing viewers or listeners to their laptops with a URL, you can send them to their phones with Fast Follow instructions. “Text ‘follow [our account]‘ to 40404″—it’s as simple as that. It’s easier to grok, there’s less friction, and viewers are more likely to have their phones within reach. (And note that by “on-air” I definitely mean radio as well as TV. The Fast Follow call to action works great as a spoken prompt—much smoother than “Twitter-dot-com-slash…”)

It’s perfect for breaking news. This is a medium made for real-time information (remember that stat about most text messages being read within three minutes, above). So an account like @cnnbrk makes tons of sense. What constitutes “breaking news” for your audience? What do they want to know as soon as it happens, wherever they are?

Twitter makes sure to remind us that the text message is a sensitive medium, too many SMS alerts will turn users off. Thinking about user experience, "how many texts does a user want to get in a day? What kind of content works best on phones?" Fast Follow is a powerful feature, but it's important that we remember to use it responsibly.

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.

Kima Labs, founded by two Amazon veterans, has released a new mobile application that hopes to transform the physical retail experience. Barcode Hero, available on the Apple App Store and soon for Android devices, lets users scan barcodes, compare prices, share recommendations, and unlock awards.

We've discussed the ability to hijack barcodes and "check in" to products before; apps like Stickybits, Stripey Lines, Red Laser, MyTown and Kellogg's Recalled Products all do this in one way or another. The fact that the UPC barcode system is already in place and so widely accepted (vs generating new QR codes) makes it a lot easier to bridge the digital with physical objects.

The first thing users will see upon launching Barcode Hero is Facebook Connect. Not too long ago, if a developer wanted a social app, they would have to create an entirely new network and sign up process with a need to promote it. Today, users are in with one tap (two or three if you count permissions) and are instantly connected to their existing social graph. With Barcode Hero, this means seeing everything your friends scan, mark as owned, or suggest. This is similar to what Blippy and Swipe.ly, even gdgt, are trying to do. The idea is that we connect around objects -- the things we own say something about us and provide context for conversation.

But while social is the hot new thing, the real opportunity here is personalization. If Kima Labs can keep users scanning through social and financial incentives, over time they will collect detailed information about their users' interests and buying behavior across multiple stores. While your local drug store may use loyalty cards to generate personalized coupons, the data remains siloed. Through a mobile platform like Barcode Hero, your buying behavior would be captured across merchants as diverse as Toys"R"Us, Barnes & Noble, and even the local grocery. Doing this would provide a bigger picture and deeper insights.

When we let them, our mobile phones can potentially understand more about us than we do. Consider the patterns apps like Siri or Foursquare will uncover after years of use. Aggregating and viewing these user patterns and cross-referencing them with other data points can help build predictive models. For example, those that were an only child are more likely to be a cat person. Or, if you have an MBA you probably prefer blue pens to black pens. That's according to Hunch. If Barcode Hero gets enough users, it could return massive amounts of data that can be used to essentially create new recommendations for shoppers and new targeting opportunities for marketers.

Josh Malin is Chief Marketing Officer at GroupTabs. He has a long background in mobile - 10 of his 27 years. In addition to his role at GroupTabs, he is currently Marketing Director at Ez Texting. Prior to that, he participated in what he calls the ringtone bubble. In 2000 he co-founded Mobilesmarts, one of the first distributors of ringtones in the United States.

What is GroupTabs and how does it work?

GroupTabs allows you to check-in for group deals using any phone that has GPS capabilities. Until the deal 'tips,' [meaning enough people sign up] the participating bar or restaurant offers a side-deal, which can be a regular special. We want to reward our members for showing up, even if the deal doesn't tip. That said, our thresholds are low. We're not in the business of selling 2,000 spa coupons; 10, 20, 30 check-ins are the typical check-in thresholds we've agreed to with our merchants. If the deal doesn't tip, the merchant doesn't pay us.

How do you differentiate yourself from other players in the group buying space?

We have a very different model than Groupon, LivingSocial and all of the other group buying clones. Our users don't buy what is essentially a half-priced gift certificate. Our members show up, the deal tips, and then they get the discount offered by the merchant.

Could you give us a picture of what this service would look like in an average user's life?

Our average user checks her email in the morning. She sees a deal for half-priced cocktails at a great low-key bar. She RSVPs. RSVPs are a way for us to gauge interest right now, but in a few weeks we'll allow our members to share their RSVPs with other GroupTabs members if they choose (this will be strictly opt in - we're very serious about privacy). Our member shows up at the bar with a couple of her friends. They enjoy the regular special going on. More GroupTabs members arrive and check-in. The deal tips. Our GroupTabs member flashes the redeem screen of our mobile app to the bartender and she gets her half-priced cocktails.

Why is there this pull towards group buying? What is it that makes services like Groupon and Gilt City so successful?

The difference between the current generation of group buying sites and Mercata, which flamed out during the dot-com bubble, is pretty clear - brick and mortar merchants have room to compress their margins, and more importantly create relationships that will result in future transactions. Mercata tried to drive down prices to compete with national retailers. The margins were already as low as they were going to go...and once you bought that appliance there was no reason to come back.

That said, it's more than just applying group buying to a different type of transaction. The 'Great Recession' has played an undeniable role in the success of group buying sites and flash sale sites. We've stabilized things, but it doesn't seem like we're bouncing back in a real way anytime soon. Consumers' attitudes have shifted, in a fundamental way. Perhaps we'll see things differently in a few years (or a few dozen years), but right now it does seem like Fall 08 was one of those moments when things stopped, turned, and went down a new path.

Finally, is there anything we can look forward to from GroupTabs?

We're excited about rolling out basic social networking features - allowing you to share your RSVPs and check-ins with other members. If (when?) Facebook rolls out their geo API, we'll definitely hook up to it. Our goal isn't to build a new check-in service. We're platform agnostic. If you have a Foursquare account, great, we'll check you in. If you don't have an account on a LBS, that's fine too. Our plan was to launch with Foursquare, Brightkite, and Twitter integration. Gowalla finally opening their API to check-ins changed our priorities, [to also support their platform].

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.

Food52, a website "where kitchens meet", is using stickybits and 1D barcodes to deliver recipes to its readers.

We've recently come up with a new way for you to access food52 recipes while you're at the grocery store, or even while you're wandering around your kitchen looking for something to cook. Using the stickybits application, we, along with a few intrepid volunteers, have linked hundreds of our community's recipes to the bar codes on ingredients all over the country.

Using the stickybits iPhone or Android app to scan Domino's light brown sugar will pull up a recipe for Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies. Organic Valley Sour Cream points to Blueberry Almond Breakfast Polenta. This is almost two months after Pepsi announced its support for stickybits and attached official bits to its products. Food52 has also encouraged users to attach their own recipes, turning the pantry into a channel for sharing recipes.

Last July we wrote about "social shopping" and a new site called Fashism that lets users solicit fashion advice from an online community in real-time. We wrote:

Snap a photo, email it to the site, and get pinged back with comments and ratings from other users. People are doing this anyway—taking photos in stores and sending to friends for thoughts. This site hopes to create a fashion-conscious community to advise you on your wardrobe in real-time. What fuels the site is our universal need to tell people what we think—we don't just want opinions, we want to share ours.

Photo via NYTimes.com

Since then, we've seen the site take off and similar services such as Go Try It On emerge. It even earned a feature on today's CBS Early Show and an article in the New York Times:

In some ways, these sites are similar to other user-generated fashion sites that are riding the crowd-sourcing wave. Sites like FashionStake and Catwalk Genius champion up-and-coming designers, and invite users to window-shop and even finance new talent. Show-and-tell sites like LookBook and I Like My Style allow users to post new looks, as well as critique other postings, much like contestants on “Project Runway.”

But those sites tend to cater to people in or who want to be in the fashion industry. Fashism and Go Try It On are for everyday people including teenagers trying out new looks at the mall, and office workers confused by what to wear. So far, they seem to be among the only sites of their kind, and both were created by fashion neophytes, with no involvement from designer companies or brands.

“I’m not professing to be a fashion expert and neither are most people who use it,” said Brooke Moreland, who started Fashism last September.

via informationisbeautiful

The site harnesses our "cognitive surplus," as Clay Shirky calls our surfeit of intellect, energy and time. It's in our nature to be creative and generous, and digital crowdsourcing tools like Fashism enable us to act on these altruistic impulses and contribute our collective brainpower easily. (They also help us waste time at work.)

On the flip side, social technology makes it much easier to solicit help and advice. The networked masses can become our outboard brain. Of course, some people might be hesitant to post a photo of themselves online and ask for critiques, which is understandable, but increasingly not the case. We are a becoming culture of sharing. Young people have grown up broadcasting and socializing online, and this is not going to change. In a new report from Pew, "Millenials will make online sharing in networks a lifelong habit," Matt Gallivan, senior research analyst at National Public Radio, says "Sharing is not 'the new black,' it is the new normal." And the truth is, we have always wanted to show off our new outfits or get people's opinions before we bought things. Technology provides a fast and easy way to do this.

This is largely thanks to mobile. Many people are packing web-connected cameras with them at all times, instantly enabling our inclination to capture and share things. According to the Pew report, "A fundamental change is occurring in human identity and activity in communities. As is often the case, some of it is driven by social change that is facilitated by technological change, especially the new capabilities offered by mobile devices." A separate report from Pew, "Mobile Access 2010," says that three-quarters of cell phone owners have taken a picture with their phone (up 10% from last year) and half have used their mobile device to send someone a photo or video.

We conducted video-based interviews with people of all ages, asking about how they used their phones. One 21-year-old NYU student told us about how she regularly took pictures of potential outfits and sent them to her friends for feedback. This is also supported by the numbers. A new Compete survey found that 39 percent of smartphone owners have sent a text and 30 percent have sent a picture of the product to solicit feedback. Sites like Fashism are smart to enable and amplify this existing behavior.

Furthermore, 33% of 18-29 year olds have posted a photo or video online. These percentages will only increase and mobile crowdsourcing will become a de facto decision-making tool. Retail brands would be smart to pay attention to these mobile behaviors taking place in their stores. How can they enable it? How can they influence the decision-making process as it's happening? How can they become part of the conversation? One way would be to leverage and promote existing communities like Fashism in store (just as merchants are hanging Foursquare decals in their windows.) Another might be to comment on uploads or offer discounts and purchase incentives to users. Even something as simple as arranging displays so they can be easily photographed would be a smart move.