The future is mobile

Some great google-y stats that I got from a recent issue of Marketing Magazine. All stats are from Sarah Speake, Strategic marketing director, Google UK & Ireland…

In the UK, 93% of consumers use their mobile devises to access the web on a daily basis, whether for searching, shopping, engaging across social media platforms, accessing content or playing games.

Already, 22% of UK smartphone owners admit that they intentionally have their mobile with them to compare prices and to get product information, and 16% claim they have changed their mind about purchasing something in-store as a result of information they gathered on their smartphone.

Phew! Hard stats are great, aren’t they? Although I’m surprised at the 16% - I would have thought it would have been more? I guess it will only increase as more and more organisations create mobile friendly sites.

I have to admit I’m one of the 7% who don’t access mobile internet daily – but only because my old phone never has enough battery to let me! Looking forward to my upgrade in the near future!

But it’s information like this that excites me about working in marketing – the future, and possibilities, of mobile marketing are immense. Gamification really interests me, as does augmented reality. I went to a CIM Social Media Bootcamp last year that really opened my eyes to it, showing us the video of iButterflies - it literally blew my mind! It makes me wonder how much of the marketing we're doing today (including direct marketing via the UK postal system!!) we'll be doing in 5-10 years? Will all future enthusiastic marketers need to be techy experts, creating HTML code and mobile aps on a daily basis? Exciting times are ahead...

Going viral

New video content is exciting – creating it feels great – but the expectations of those not involved in video creation can be overwhelming. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard ‘Let’s make this go viral!’ and (the ever-so-slightly accusatory) ‘This should easily get thousands of hits on YouTube!’

Let’s start with this – you cannot MAKE something go viral (I could easily swap the word ‘make’ for ‘force’ or ‘push' in this context, as that’s what people really mean), you can only create compelling video material and present it to the world. The whole point is that people want to share it – the power is with the consumer, which must wrangle the any traditionalists out there. Yes, you heard me correctly, there's been a massive shift of power since the advent of social, and the people have strong and diverse opinions, so us marketers all must work harder.

This makes me think about the success of the Kony2012 campaign in March this year. There are many blogs and articles claiming to share the ‘secret’ of its viral success – just 3 days after its release, more that 70m people had viewed or seen parts of the video – and I’ve tried to round up some sensible information (if only for my own use/sanity!)

This blog post is a great, in-depth (if lengthy!) analysis. My key points from it are about grabbing attention, making sure your video is high quality and to make it SIMPLE. My ultimate favourite point is to ‘measure what you find valuable’ – which in this case is awareness. A difficult task, but if done right is magic!

An opinion piece in Marketingweek emphasised another brilliant aspect of Kony2012 – the dying art of storytelling. The Kony2012 video is quite long for this digital age – 30 minutes – but is captivating and engaging, holding the viewers attention throughout.

A blog post in Marketing Mag talks about the value of listening - Kony2012 was highly criticised as a marketing ploy, with the company's financials heavily questioned. A reply from the organisation was speedily published - emphasising that if you're going to use social platforms, you need to listen and respond to people, whether the feedback is good or bad!

Hopefully these tips can help you, and me, when tasked with video creation!

(I wont go further into the Kony2012 campaign. I hear the second video hardly got any hits and the Cover the Night campaign was a washout. They talk of slacktivism, and the difficulty of conversion from a video to action... All I know is that I watched the first video, but didn't actually do anything.)

50 signs you're an adult

I saw a great piece of PR-able content from an unlikely source today – Skipton Building Society. They asked 2000 people to rank the things that ‘make you a grown up’. As anyone who knows me will know – I am obsessed with this. What is a ‘grown up’ and how do you know that you are one? Skipton will tell me!

Listing 50 things (I tick 24 of the boxes…what does that mean?!) that make you a fully-fledged adult is a very fun piece of content, with a great sales message for Skipton – having a mortgage, pension, insurance and a savings account all ranked highly.

I stumbled across this when browsing my guilty pleasure news website (here) but also found it on The Telegraph’s website. Having a quick search on Twitter, I caught a few tweets (mainly retweeting The Telegraph) but was disappointed to see that Skipton’s own twitter account hadn’t mentioned it (or been used for 7 days…) I know my friends would have loved this – establishing a hashtag and pushing this content via social media would have generated far more interactions, far more interest and (ultimately) far more sales! I was also confused that the Daily Mail had an infographic for the research (MASSIVE fan of infographics!) but I couldn’t find it anywhere else? Again, had Skipton fully utilised this great infographic, using some engaging and exciting tweets (How ‘adult’ are you? What makes a grown-up?) I’m sure this could have spread wider.

And sending out a press release on a Friday?! Big mistake in my book.

PS – surprised to see that the signs I harp on about – owning a pet and having National Trust membership – seem to be missing!