Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

StarHub recently launched a new social networking value-added service that allows its mobile post-paid customers to enjoy unlimited local access to Windows Live Messenger and Facebook from mobile devices, at no data usage charges. According to the company's press release.

This announcement makes StarHub the first mobile service provider in Asia to offer free local data access to Windows Live Messenger and Facebook, which are fast gaining popularity with mobile customers in Singapore, particularly the youths who are avid users of social networking services to keep in touch with friends.

This is a smart move by Starhub. By making the data and service free of charge, Starhub is sending a message to teens that Starhub understands them. It’s not always about the best price, but also about tailoring freebies to targeted behavior. Plus we’re guessing Starhub also wants to start nurturing mobile web surfing familiarity in as many users as possible from an early age. Today it's mobile facebook applications, tomorrow it’s news, sports, RSS feeds, and anything else under the sun...

With Singtel moving into the mobile music market with AMPed, Starhub and M1 had to respond with some form of strategy to counter what has been a very successful teen marketing campaign. This latest move by Starhub is really clever as data consumption is a very low trade off compared to AMPed’s heavy licensing and royalties.

What will be key to the success of this campaign is to make it less handset-specific and more customer-enabled. Currently, the service is available to customers using selected handset models pre-installed with the Windows Live Messenger and/or Facebook clients, such as Samsung OMNIA II, HTC Diamond 2, Nokia E63 and the new LG GM730 multimedia touch-screen smartphone.

We know that Starhub will continue to roll out more models, but we would also like to see this service extended beyond embedded mobile handsets. If the service is free, we think customers will be more than happy to download an app or widget onto their mobile phones. After all, the point is to encourage socialization. The more customers are able to socialize with each other--regardless of what handset they own--the better.

- Melvin Kee, MobileBehavior Singapore

Twitter Redesigns As Streaming Trends Site [ReadWriteWeb]
We've seen a number of real-time search engines built on Twitter (Collecta, OneRiot, Scoopler), and now Twitter itself has redesigned it's homepage with search and trending topics front and center.

Mobile Music for Teens Who Top Up [BBC News]
Orange, Universal, and Channel 4 are partnering to offer a music streaming service, which it hopes will combat piracy. Dubbed "Monkey," it's specifically aimed at teens--there's no data plan, smartphone, or payment plan required. Instead, Orange has teamed up with Blyk to send users free offers and promotions based on their tastes.

Can a 'URL Killer' Save Our Text-Weary Thumbs? [AdAge]
Garrick Schmidt contends that flurry of new QR code activity from cultural tastemakers and media platforms alike may finally push the barcode into the mainstream. But we wonder whether the OEMs need to preload handsets with a reader before these "URL killers" get true mass adoption.

Surge In Mobile, Online Banking Sparks Closures At BofA [mocoNews]
Bank of America is closing 10% of its U.S. branches because of mobile and online banking. Customers have been increasingly accessing and using the mobile service for more than just balance statements, reducing activity in many branches.

Power to the People Survey [Universal McCann]
Data from Universal McCann on how people use the Internet to share with others. Key stats: 76% of SNS users upload photos, 62.5% of all Internet users have created at least one profile on a social networking site, and mobile Internet usage has reached 1/5 of all Internet users.

Could Twitter Become a Commerce Pulse by 2012 [InfluxInsights]
Twitter's evolution is up in the air, but there is potential for the service to become an on-demand product and service provider. Tweet about needing a plane ticket? Get airlines to bid with their best prices.

How to Build Social Capital - Innovate Early and Often [The Steve Rubel Lifestream]
Brands are competing to develop a strong and respected online presence, but following what is being done will not put you ahead of the game. Acting, instead of reacting, is key to innovation for brands online.

Is Being In the Mobile Biz License to Ignore the Internet? [Searchblog]
With Apple banning two Google apps (Latitude and GVoice), the iPhone platform is still suffering from restrictions that prevent it from becoming the true link between mobile and the cloud.

AT&T Aims To Increase Data Usage With New ‘Social Net’ App [mocoNews]
AT&T has rolled out an app called "Social Net" that offers non-smartphone customers a solution for connecting to their favorite social networks.

There has been a lot of debate about the effectiveness of Bluetooth (aka "toothing") as a mobile marketing technique. As a technology, it undoubtedly holds promise--the key is in implementation. What a company might call "bluecasting," the consumer may consider "bluespamming." In a recent trial we did in Singapore with Aviva, we hoped to uncover some best practices.

Aviva's Futurator Campaign

Through a dedicated Bluetooth kiosk, users could receive a banner encouraging them to experience Aviva's Futurator in the actual shopping mall, and a chance to win $10,000. For people to receive the banner, they had to be in the range of the kiosk and activate the bluetooth on their mobile phone.  The results were more than encouraging as we achieved over 4% banner ad download rates over 3 days reaching out to more than 790 unique mobile phones.

Right Message At the Right Time

At the beginning, questions were raised  about the number of people who would actually turn on their  Bluetooth without any pre-seeded knowledge of the campaign. Often, with Bluecasting campaigns, a lot of emphasis is placed on awareness marketing, essentially telling costumers and consumers to ‘Turn on your Bluetooth’. While awareness marketing has its advantage and is a big part of successful proximity-based campaigns, we also learned that the location of whatever is being distributed is an understated and overlooked ingredient in any successful Bluecasting campaign. Where your customer is actually located when the message arrives is a major factor in influencing their behavior. This makes sense on many levels, from immediate customer engagement to shortening the decision process, getting the right message at the right time is essential. The old cliche ‘quality not just quantity’ was on every one's lips when we were doing our post campaign analysis.

Setting up Shop

Another insight from the campaign came when we discovered that by setting up various Bluecasting stations inside and outside our mall location, the highest participation rate was found outside the mall. This reaffirmed two of our understandings of mobile behavior and usage:

1) Information that is fed at an early stage of the shopping decision making cycle  is crucial to influencing decisions on where to go and what to do

2) Engaging the user in a somewhat neutral environment is better than engaging him/her in an environment in which advertising and buying is expected

Setting up shop at a very visible, prominent location also helped create buzz. Not only was the audience intrigued but they opted-in as well. We saw many customers pause to receive the file and then look around for some marketing presence, seeing our tent outside got them to duly walk over to sign up. This movement and engagement sparked others to follow the herd.

Conclusion

We were pleased with the results and continue to advocate bluecasting as a great mobile marketing tool when relevant. By understanding consumer expectations and reactions to activity on their personal device, we have begun to see more and more how understanding mobile behavior is so important in delivering great mobile campaigns.

- Melvin Kee, MobileBehavior Singapore

Music is a passion point for youth all over the world, and Asia is no exception. According to a Synovate survey presented during the 2009 Music Matters Asia Pacific Music Forum, 68% of Asian youth say music is a very important part of their lives, and mobile phones are one of the leading devices they use to listen to it. Mobile companies is Asia are getting wise to this youth behavior and developing new ways of integrating music usage into the device.

Just days after our last post on Nokia’s “comes with music” service, Singtel launched a new service called AMPed, a multimedia music offering that gives Singtel’s customers unlimited music downloads and exclusive music services.

“Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) today launched SingTel AMPed, an interactive music experience for postpaid mobile customers. This unique service, developed in strategic partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG), is the first-of-its-kind in Asia that goes beyond offering unlimited music downloads.

AMPed customers can access music videos, the latest entertainment news and gossip, as well as pre-album releases for free. There will also be opportunities for them to meet their favourite stars and interact online with like-minded music fans. The multi-platform service will be available on the widest range of 3G handsets across brands, which is another outstanding feature of AMPed.

AMPed is offered at no additional cost on selected mobile plans, allowing SingTel customers to enjoy the ultimate mobile music experience with peace of mind. Customers can browse and download songs to their hearts’ content, on their handsets and PCs, without having to worry about data charges. The AMPed music library comprises popular songs from different genres and eras, ranging from evergreen to contemporary hits.” Read the rest here.

To celebrate their new offering, Singtel and Universal Music brought Lady Gaga down for an exclusive showcase. Enjoy this acoustic performance that was taken by a good friend of ours (thanks to his mobile phone!). See below or here.

Although the music is free, accessing the service will require a data plan, a feature that Singtel has had trouble promoting. In recent years, the telecom company has been struggling to increase its data usage, and even though they carry the iPhone, they have not really been able to convert customers to data subscriptions. Taking a play out of Nokia’s book, this seems to be a great incentive for existing 3G users to hop onto a data plan and start enjoying the unlimited downloads. While the jury is still out on whether this will be a success, it’s clear that the winners are the mobile audience and the medium itself.

- Melvin Kee, MobileBehavior Singapore

The mobile music landscape has been an area of interest for awhile on this site, and today Melvin Kee of MobileBehavior in Asia looks at the success of Nokia's Comes with Music program in his home country of Singapore.

Singapore is one of only three countries in the world where Nokia has rolled out its “comes with music” service. All new owners of a Nokia “comes with music” phone get unlimited access to millions of songs online from the Nokia music store. Singapore as a market has over 3 million downloads in 2 months since its launch and while Nokia has yet to release information on its sales figures, this is an incredible model of exploiting mobile usage behavior through relevant content.

A year ago when Nokia originally announced this exclusive and global first initiative, many observers were wondering why Nokia would want to invest in what they considered a marketing gimmick. How would free music relate back to brand equity and sales? Was the cost of providing the free music carrot an acceptable one to bear? Recently, Digital East Asia reported this quote:

“The love affair between music and young urban Asian consumers remains inseparable and it’s no surprise that music continues to be an important part of their daily lives. Our overall findings showed that 25% were listening to music more in the last 12 months.

Ideally, the music industry should be working with telecommunications companies to deliver music via mobile phone while marketers and brand owners should be exploring or realigning their strategies by incorporating music as a platform to reach this fast-growing and digitally driven segment.”
– Steve Garton, Executive Director - Media, Synovate

What Nokia has now in Singapore at least is a market leading reach in consumers who actively enjoy music from Nokia’s branded portal. This incentive will continue to ensure that traits such as brand loyalty and WOM evangelism are alive and kicking with their core audience. Also, the fact that these songs are non-convertible and only playable on Nokia phone sets, Nokia has also managed to offer more compelling reason for their consumers to throw away their old mp3 player and replace it with a Nokia music-enabled mobile phone.

We at MobileBehavior often talk about opportunities brands should take advantage of within the mobile phone environment. By offering value and content, brands can now be a part of a mobile user’s individual experience through their personal phone. From the iPhone/BlackBerry applications to bookmarked WAP sites to Java games, the opportunities are endless and waiting to be explored. Nokia’s “comes with music” mobile strategy also comes with branding. How about yours?

- Melvin Kee, MobileBehavior Singapore

We recently attended a mobile marketing forum where the focus was on visual code technology or QR codes, and it got us thinking: Is there a place for QR codes in mobile marketing here in Southeast Asia, where not only is there a disconnect in software but also, a huge gulf in visual code services?

Unlike Japan, where the technology is native to the camera, users here in Southeast Asia require separate code readers for different codes. This lack of singularity makes QR code marketing seem troublesome and complicated. Besides the obvious answers like embedding the technology in handsets and unifying readers, there are other less obvious ways we believe QR codes can still be a powerful mobile marketing weapon.

Remembering that QR codes evolved from shipping product barcode scanning, why not return to its origins? We would love to scan products sold in supermarkets and find additional information. From nutritional facts to price to even recipes, these QR codes could be a source of value to say diabetics, who want to know if certain products are sugar free. It would make sense for the supermarket to develop its own in-house reader since it stocks all of these products on its aisles and presents this information as its value-added services.

How about libraries? Scanning a QR code on an unavailable book cover could tell you when the book was going to be available and allow you to reserve via WAP access. How about concert tickets? We would love to read more about an artist and access a content portal to listen to songs or download lyrics while waiting for the opening act to start. The mobile phone has replaced the lighter, and we think singing along from your screen could be the next big thing.

So even though we may not have the same ease of access as our neighbors from across the ocean, QR codes are useful as long as it presents a real-time value to consumers. The issue of singular readers will undoubtedly affect nationwide adoption, but if your business is in it for the long term, and you see QR codes as a long-term investment to bring mobility solutions to your customers, than surely its worth exploring.

- Melvin Kee, MobileBehavior Singapore

We're excited to announce that our agency, MobileBehavior, has teamed up with the Asia-Pacific hub of fellow Omnicom agency BBDO/Proximity as a fully integrated mobile marketing arm.

The partnership brings together BBDO/Proximity's award-winning digital services with our mobile research, strategy and marketing solutions. Starting immediately, MB will have an account and production team within BBDO/Proximity Asia in Singapore to provide mobile integration into campaigns from the get-go.

MobileBehavior was formally launched as an Omnicom company in October and we've been working with BBDO/Proximity ever since. Today’s announcement formalizes our collaboration, which will combine traditional, digital and mobile marketing.

“This alliance creates a model that introduces mobile competency on a level that is understandable and valuable to our clients, and fits seamlessly with our digital capabilities," says Richard Fraser, Proximity Asia Regional Managing Director. "It helps us connect the dots across the full range of mobile enablers, putting the mobile value chain to work for brands in innovative ways.”

Read what BrandRepublic Asia has to say about it here.