4 Reasons To Measure Visitor Behavior At Live Experiences

BY

Originally published at AW360 by Mike Havard.

There’s no denying the popularity of experiential marketing, with brands increasingly allocating budget to activating at live sports events, festivals, shopping malls and various other public spaces. Immersing themselves in these environments enables brands to build human connections with consumers, in ways simply not possible through other marketing channels.

Yet many brands and agencies are still relying on archaic methods such as manual clickers to prove the success of their live experiences.

Fortunately, spatial analytics technology can now deliver a richer insight into visitor engagement.

Here’s four reasons you should consider measuring visitor behaviour at your live events and experiences.

Demonstrate value and ROI 

Impressions or eyeballs are not a true definition of experiential success. Using time and proximity, spatial analytics technology can add depth to any experience’s measurement strategy.

With instant access to accurate, reliable, granular data for decision-making, brands and agencies alike can justify spend and act on validated insight:

  • What percentage of passers-by stopped and engaged with the activation?
  • How long did they spend with the brand?
  • How many times did they return?
  • When were the peak hours?
  • Which zone held the greatest appeal?
  • How many people seen at the activation showed up at the retail store?
  • How long did it take them to visit?

Enable comparisons over time

Engagement metrics help brands understand how much of an impact their presence is having on their ability to attract and convert potential customers.

Comparing performance across different sites, experiences and locations can help with event scheduling and budget allocation, whilst providing benchmarks for different environments.

Optimization of experiences

Spatial analytics delivers deep insight into how visitors are behaving, enabling the optimization of live experiences. Through data and insight, experiential marketers can now adjust their space, staffing and schedule to encourage better results.

Remove subjectivity

Discreet, easy to deploy footfall sensors can be used to remove human bias and inconsistencies around performance reporting. Measuring live experiences and spaces in this way provides a simple, coherent indication of effectiveness, conversion rates and engagement patterns.

If you’d like to learn more about spatial analytics, Jake Pryszlak, Meshh’s Research & Insight Manager will be hosting a panel session at Advertising Week New York with clients Justin Logerfo, Director of Analytics & Data Science at Momentum Worldwide and Nielsen’s VP of Entertainment Research, Kathy Lubner.

The workshop will deliver insight into how Nielsen and Momentum are using spatial analytics for real-world brand initiatives and how the data is translated into actionable insights.

You can buy a pass and find out more about the session at Advertising Week New York.

Or if you’d like to explore measuring your own live experiences, just get in touch and we can arrange a time to demo the technology.

Healthcare Experiential Advertising Is Not An Oxymoron

BY

Originally published at AW360 by Alistair Bryan.

For too long healthcare advertising and marketing has traditionally been one of the most hidebound ecosystems in our industry. Heavily regulated, healthcare marketers have never veered too far from the old playbook. The digital technology revolution of the past decade globally has transformed consumer expectations across all marketing verticals including healthcare. The new generation of healthcare consumers are now demanding high-touch user experiences, something the often impersonal and clinical healthcare industry has not been great at.

Instead healthcare marketers must adapt to this changing paradigm in a way that will create better, more lucrative outcomes for everyone in the healthcare journey: doctors, pharmaceutical companies and, of course, patients. History has proven kinder to those who get ahead of change instead of keeping their heads in the sand. Healthcare marketers in 2019 and beyond have the opportunity to shift to a more purpose-driven, proactive, information and data-centric approach to wellness and care and in doing so create a more memorable experience to drive action.

As part of this new expansive paradigm for patient care, marketers must also be willing to experiment with unfamiliar marketing modalities like experiential advertising. Can experiential advertising truly play a more prominent role? Yes, through live, brand-sponsored experiences healthcare marketers can establish stronger relationships with customers. 

There is already evidence that experiential advertising works in a healthcare context in the B2B realm as much as it does in the B2C arena. For example, ahead of a drug launch to treat multiple sclerosis, pharmaceutical company Merck Serono created a powerful VR, AR, Mixed Reality Experience in the UK whereby healthcare professionals were given the opportunity via the technology to have a tactile, physical and psychological experience that simulated what it would be like to suffer from MS. 

Debuting at a renowned MS conference in Paris, The MS Inside Out Experience, featured multiple rooms devised to simulate the effects of MS. One area’s floors were softened and made uneven. One set-up invited participants to put their hands on a surface that emitted strength-sapping electrical pulses. Participants were also asked to make a simple breakfast with props that were slightly too big or slightly too heavy, causing them to struggle. 

The visceral nature of the experience deepened MS treatment healthcare professionals’ understanding of what their patients must go through. A post-event survey of participants revealed that nearly 80 percent said the experience improved their medical knowledge of MS while 95 percent said that it elevated their holistic understanding of the chronic illness. 

This Merck project brings into sharp relief the power of empathy, which is the secret sauce of experiential advertising. This example shows that focusing on functional, rational messaging to drive B2B brand preference is now simply table stakes. Meeting emotional needs truly drives customer choice in B2B just like it does in B2C. 

A truly new, expansive paradigm for healthcare marketing is emerging and unfamiliar marketing modalities like experiential advertising are coming to the fore. And for every progressive company like Merck, there are many more who are still relying on traditional methods. Experiential advertising is being transformed by new technologies like VR but it is also being powerfully shaped by the data-driven technology model that is driving change and growth in marketing on an omnichannel level.

Marketing In The Digital Age: How To Close The Leadership Gap

BY

Originally published at AW360 by Lynne Kjolso.

Marketing has always been both a left-brain and right-brain discipline.

From a left-brain perspective, marketing is all about the data and quantification of results and measurement of ROI.

At the same time, marketing is a creative, right-brain pursuit. It’s about storytelling, emotion, connection, and a beautifully crafted message.

But now that we’ve entered the digital age, left-brain marketing activities have become super complex. We’re creating massive volumes of data. The data sources are fragmented. And the technology required to bring it all together involves complicated algorithms and analytics.

It can feel completely overwhelming and out of reach for many marketers. But there is a contingent of marketers who are thriving in the digital age and racing ahead of their competitors.

And they’re coming from companies of all sizes and across all industries.

Introducing the Customer Experience Quotient

Microsoft Advertising, in partnership with Advertising Perceptions, recently studied more than 200 marketers from companies of all sizes and industries. We found that the marketers in this study fell into two camps: those obsessed with understanding the customer decision journey and those focused on driving performance and ROI.

We also found a third camp comprising approximately 20 percent of the marketers in our study who are outperforming everyone else. These marketers are experts in both understanding the customer journey and using that knowledge to market to the customer journey. This expertise is what my Microsoft Advertising colleagues and I call Customer Experience Quotient (CXQ) maturity.

I recently got the chance to talk through this study and the insights we garnered from it at Advertising Week APAC. Here is how I unpacked some of this data and showed how you can improve your CXQ maturity to become a high performer.

Here’s what the high-performing marketers have in common

We discovered that high-performing leaders share three key commonalities that are helping them excel at CXQ marketing: the right talent, the right resources, and the right data and technologies.

  1. High performers use agencies

The first commonality is that they are not doing it alone. They’re engaging outside experts for their data strategy and technology. They’re giving agencies access to first-party data and asking agencies to get third-party data and deliver one view of the customer. Among the agencies we spoke to, 72 percent are getting access to all their clients’ first-party data.

  1. High performers have a designated CDJ lead

The second thing we found is that 91 percent of high performers have someone designated to lead the customer journey effort–and the rest plan to have one in the next year. This role has complete visibility across all customer touchpoints. This person also has the authority to drive decisions and improvements across the customer lifecycle to influence and optimize the customer journey.

  1. High performers prioritize data & technology

Finally, high performers prioritize data and the application of technology. Seventy-eight percent say that combining first- and third-party data is essential. They’re also much more likely to be experimenting with emerging media and are investing heavily in digital media.

Below, I’ll break down what these marketers are doing in terms of data strategy, marketing performance, technology, and privacy and personalization.

High performers inform customer-centric marketing with data

The go-to sources for first-party data for high performers include organic search data, site analytics and site visitor data, CRM data, and call center and ad-serving data. However, high performers realize that only 54 percent of the full customer picture is included in their first-party data and that they need third-party data to see what customers are doing and buying outside their channels. To fill in the gaps, they are looking to third-party data providers, market researchers, location data companies, and data management platforms.

Virgin Australia is a great example of this. They worked with Adobe and Microsoft to bring their first-party data together with third-party data on the Microsoft Advertising Network. As a result, they discovered that the Microsoft audience was willing to spend about 5 percent more, yielding an 18 percent YOY increase in revenue.

High performers are optimizing marketing performance

Seventy-three percent of high performers believe they have an excellent understanding of when their customers are mostly likely to purchase, as compared to just 23 percent of lower performers. High performers are applying data to map the customer journey and using that knowledge to create and personalize customer touchpoints along the journey.

On average, these marketers are enjoying 45 percent greater ROI on ad spend than their counterparts. They are driving sales, aligning purchasing processes to customer preferences, improving shopping experiences, and creating new touchpoints (which generate more insights).

They’re also using this data for dynamic and personalized ad creative and custom recommendations and cross-selling opportunities. Meanwhile, lower performing marketers are still focused on customer/segment targeting, media planning and behavioral insights.

High performers are mastering the right technology

You cannot have effective marketing these days without strong technology enablement. There’s simply too much data. Both high-performing marketers and agencies in our study are using cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud solutions, to help them map and market to the customer journey.

Cloud solutions

Marketers must be able to combine data sources in the cloud, to action on the data. The top performers in our study are nearly twice as likely to use cloud data solutions. In addition, 73 percent of high-performing marketers are using martech partners, and 68 percent are using data management platforms (DMPs) to implement more sophisticated customer journeys.

One important thing to note is that we found that while agencies are being entrusted with client data, when we compared agencies with marketers in their adoption of cloud technology, we found that agencies have room to improve. While agencies are using DMPs and martech partners more than marketers, just 50 percent of agencies are using cloud data solutions, as compared to 55 percent of all marketers.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

As a former philosophy teacher, I find AI fascinating. As a marketer, I find it essential. High performers are twice as likely to use AI technologies as low performers. High performers are using AI to help them engage with customers in a more human-like way through chatbots, digital assistants, and cognitive services such as natural language processing and visual recognition.

When we look at the high performers in our study, cognitive services are giving them the biggest bang for the buck, with 88 percent listing cognitive services as delivering an improvement to customer engagement (as compared to just 29 percent of low performers).

Machine Learning 

Machine learning, a subset of AI, is an essential marketing tool. High performers are using machine learning to achieve two times greater sales and revenue lift. Machine learning is helping high performers be more efficient by going through data, detecting patterns, and enabling predictive models. Machine learning also helps to reduce marketing grunt work such as lead scoring and A/B testing.

As we look to the future, 45 percent of high performers intend to increase their use of AI vs. just 10 percent of low performers—a worrisome trend that will widen the competitive gulf.

High performers are protecting privacy and data

Finally, high performers are very concerned about customer privacy and data protection. In fact, high performers are 4.5 times more worried about consumer backlash when it comes to privacy and data protection than their counterparts.

To deal with privacy, 50 percent of high performers have abandoned cookie strategies to rely on first-party data. They are reducing the data that they collect. Also, they’re not afraid to have frank conversations with customers and are up front with what they’re doing with data, why they’re doing it, and how it benefits customers.

So, how are you going to close leadership gap? 

If you boil it down, to be a high performer you’ve got to have a data strategy, you’ve got to have the right technology, and you’ve got to find a partner to help you.

For starters, I recommend that you figure out where you are on the CXQ maturity model. Prioritize the collection and unification of high quality, first- and third-party data. Use smart technologies like the cloud, AI, and machine learning to help you make the most of your data and to create more engaging customer experiences. Look for solutions that have AI and machine learning capabilities built in. Foster trust and protect your brand by doing everything you can to safeguard data and privacy. And remember that you don’t have to do it alone. Rely on partners like Microsoft Advertising to help you.

Advertising Week: CMOs Discuss How To Recover From Failure

BY

On Tuesday, AList presented our panel ‘THE REBOUND: Recovering From Failure’ at Advertising Week New York. The notion of failure conjures of up feelings of fear and dread but stumbling is an inevitable part of life. We gathered chief marketing officers from GE Ventures and Business Innovations, Equinox, Sundance Institute and Getty Images to share insights into how they maintain a healthy attitude around failure and how to react when it happens.

We often look at the concept of failure as somewhere you end up if you don’t achieve perfection.

“Failure is not a destination, it’s just a point along the way,” said Vimla Black Gupta, chief marketing officer of Equinox. “As I’ve gone throughout my career, every failure has been a gift because it informed a future success.”

Gupta said that when she began her career, failure was not an option. Now, she fails mindfully.

It’s one thing to accept that failure happens, but we asked our panelists how they try to prevent it from happening in the first place. Getty Images CMO Gene Foca told us that he borrowed a preparation technique from his days at Amazon. Every document and every idea from his junior staff must be carefully explained in detail along with supporting data so that they take ownership.

“Rather than plan for the eventuality of failure, you prepare to minimize failure,” explained Foca. “Failure is an inevitable part of what we do as business leaders, decision-makers and marketers. In our world at Getty Images, failure can range from daily testing all the way to a much bigger event that might entail promoting a book for one of our photojournalists.”

At the Sundance Institute, CMO Monica Halpert and her team have changed the way they prepare for the unexpected. They adopted two mindsets that she says have been pivotal to this preparation—”safe to try” and “progress over perfection.” After reviewing all the angles, Halpert and her team will move forward with an idea if they believe it to be “safe to try.” That way, she said, if they fail they do so while living their best life. Halpert admitted to losing sleep over details like fonts and colors, a behavior that got in the way of progress. Now, she encourages her team to keep moving forward, even if the result hasn’t exceeded their wildest dreams.

For young marketers especially, speaking up about a problem can be just as scary as failing altogether. Once you realize something isn’t going as planned, everyone on the panel agreed that it’s better to express your concerns than keep it in and watch everything go up in smoke.

“Make sure you own your seat at the table,” advised Dara Treseder, CMO of GE Ventures. “I think finding and using your voice is so critical. Give yourself permission to speak up.”

Another piece of advice for audiences at Advertising Week’s NewGen Stage was to listen to your gut. Halpert recalled a time when she failed by taking the wrong job. Even though she convinced herself and the company that it was perfect for her, she knew it wasn’t right. If you don’t feel like something is right on the job, be sure you can clearly articulate it so courses can be corrected.

“At the end of the day, we’re all consumers—we’re all people.  I [tell my team], ‘if you feel it, find a way to articulate it. Even when the answer is not readily available or apparent and ist time’s it’s not, it’s really about having a discussion and scenario of planning of what we do next. I feel like that moment of honesty is so important.”

If you’d like to watch a replay of THE REBOUND: Recovering From Failure, click here.

Nintendo Continues Travel Theme With Southwest Airlines Partnership

BY

Nintendo has partnered with Southwest Airlines in a continuation of its travel-themed Super Mario Odyssey marketing. The video game has remained consistent in its approach to marketing both the Nintendo Switch console and latest Super Mario game, even after a successful launch of both products a year and several months ago, respectively.

Southwest Airlines is hoping the famous video game character will strike a sense of wanderlust into the hearts of consumers just in time for spring and summer travel. The partnership makes sense, considering the very first trailer for Nintendo Switch showed what gameplay could be like during air travel.

The Nintendo Switch console combines at-home and mobile play, so travel has been an ongoing theme from the very beginning. Ahead of its March 2017 launch, The “Unexpected Places” campaign hosted pop-up locations—not at game stores or malls, but places like the desert of California and the snowy peaks of Colorado.

Since its announcement, Super Mario Odyssey marketing has centered around a theme of travel and adventure. Ahead of its October release, a special tour bus drove from California to New York, stopping at events along the way to offer demos, prizes and photo ops with Mario. The tour culminated in a launch celebration at the Nintendo New York store, where the first 200 attendees could purchase a copy of Super Mario Odyssey.

Nintendo game developers Yoshiaki Koizumi and Shinya Takahashi also took a globetrotting tour of San Francisco, France, Germany, London and more, bringing their Nintendo Switch and posting photos from the official Nintendo and Super Mario social channels.

Thus far, Super Mario Odyssey has been a big win for Nintendo. The title became the second-best-selling game on Amazon for 2017 before it even launched. According to SuperData, the game went on to sell 191,000 copies, the biggest Nintendo Switch digital launch to date.

Through March 16, eligible residents of the US may enter to win Nintendo Switch prize packs and travel accommodations through Southwest Airlines’ website. One grand prize winner will receive a Southwest Airlines prize package that includes round-trip air travel for four, a $1,000 Starwood Preferred Guest gift card and a Nintendo Switch prize pack.

The Nintendo Switch prize pack includes one Nintendo Switch system, one Game Traveler: Deluxe Super Mario Odyssey Travel Case, one Super Mario Odyssey Collector’s Edition Guide and the Super Mario Odyssey video game. In addition to the grand prize winner, a total of 29 runners-up will receive a Nintendo Switch prize pack.

What Marketers Need To Know About Mobile World Congress 2018

BY

Over 100,000 industry executives and 2,300 exhibitors are slated to attend Mobile World Congress (MWC), held this year from February 26 to March 1 in Barcelona. Marketers who go will have opportunities to experience new tech and meet the C-Suite of phone manufacturers—all while considering their brand’s vitality in the digital marketplace.

In addition to an array of announcements around smartphones, tablets and smartwatches and other areas of mobile, marketers can plan to get a better understanding around the maturation of artificial intelligence—like voice and machine learning—as well as digital transformation, AR, VR, IoT and 5G.

“This year will be about evolution, not revolution,” said Nitesh Patel, director of wireless media strategies for Strategy Analytics. “Marketers will see more demonstrations around 5G and IoT use-cases and discussion around business models as these technologies are a year closer to reality.”

As marketers look to unlock new levels of consumer engagement, advertising, media and marketing spend is gravitating more toward mobile-first campaigns and platforms and will likely continue on that path with the widespread roll-out of broadband networks.

Patel, an analyst who covers consumer mobile entertainment products and services, said MWC is designed for attendees to start new conversations and leave with fresh ideas to evolve their brands. This year, he anticipates marketers using the space to move more toward personalization as well as looking to provide strong value propositions for consumers.

“More important than any technology-based solution is how it can be deployed to address fundamental business challenges, which include improvements in efficiencies, delivering superior customer experience and strategic opportunities for revenue growth,” he said.

In addition to the ongoing rollout of 5G and wireless networks, marketers who attend MWC are also looking to learn about new opportunities to differentiate vis-à-vis competitors, not to mention which buzzwords will be in fashion over the next 12 months.

The early frontrunner for buzz-phrase of 2018 may very well be “sonic branding” because prognosticators are pointing to voice as the next emerging platform officially entering the vernacular and equation for marketers. At MWC, it is also one of the scheduled keynotes on the agenda.

Yet, as brands from all walks of life pour marketing resources into voice, Patel said it’s still the early days for the nascent space, and in the much bigger picture, we’re far from seeing it as a primary platform.

“As [voice] matures and becomes more widely adopted it shouldn’t be ignored,” he said. “For marketers, I’d position it as a mobile-first marketplace rather than mobile-only.”

Last year at MWC, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) was leading the conversation on surviving in mobile-only marketplaces in arenas including VR, AR, the connected home and tapping into AI for smarter marketing.

For the fourth consecutive year, the IAB and dmexco will continue talks around how to build a “mobile-always brand” in the 21st century. There will also be discussions later this month centering around cross-screen consumer engagement and new revenue streams that AI like voice and the connected home.

Beyond voice, Patel said that AR and VR innovations are still “rapidly emerging and maturing.”

Susan Welsh de Grimaldo, director of service provider strategies for Strategy Analytics, is expecting to continue seeing discussion around big data and machine learning at MWC as marketers look toward better targeting consumers and using data as a tool.

“The evolution of MWC will extend to data privacy issues and smart home solutions that are building a stronger platform for brand engagement and marketing to consumers,” she said.

Welsh de Grimaldo also sees the trend of the mobile operators opening up the ecosystem and business models to incorporate brands to seek market traction for offerings to consumers. An example of this is sponsored data and data rewards where users get free mobile data for engaging with brands.

“Content-based add-on bundles for mobile services are ways that brands and marketers can further work with operators and engage their target customers on the device they use the most—the smartphone,” she said.

IAB Encourages Brick-And-Mortars To Become Direct Brands

BY

To survive today’s marketplace, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) says that brands must be able to sell directly to consumers. New research shows that growth in most consumer categories has shifted to brands focused on direct consumer relationships.

“For incumbent indirect brands, you must become a direct brand,” IAB chief executive officer Randall Rothenberg said with the company’s findings. “For upstart direct brands, you must break through the revenue and share barriers that are keeping you small. For every other company that serves them, you must help them become direct, and grow their business in that environment.”

Brands must traverse the last three miles to the head, to the heart and to the home, says IAB.

Brick-and-mortar stores are closing en masse, but it’s not because consumers don’t like or need retail products anymore. Over the last year, online channels drove 90 percent of fast-moving consumer good (FMCG) such as food and toiletry items, despite brick and mortar stores holding 93 percent of the market.

Why? “A two-way relationship is more valuable than a one-way impression,” says IAB in its new report, The Rise of the 21st Century Brand Economy.

Direct brands like Blue Apron and Dollar Shave Club are disrupting the way consumers expect retail experiences to be. Two-thirds of all US consumers expect direct connectivity to the companies from which they buy goods and services, says IAB, and 67 percent of consumers have used a company’s social media site for servicing.

“It’s not that mass advertising won’t matter,” said Rothenberg. “It will become less valuable as more and more consumer-facing brands cross the chasm and concentrate their activity on creating, reinforcing, and extracting value from their direct consumer relationships.”

The dynamic shift from recognized, but unapproachable brands to direct consumer relationships spans across the board from grocery to mattresses.

Gillette’s share of the US men’s razors market fell from 70 percent in 2010 to 54 percent in 2016, with most of that share shifting to Dollar Shave Club, Harry’s and others.

While grocery store revenue is projected to grow about one percent annually through 2022, the market for meal kits is expected to grow by a factor of 10 times.

Direct-to-consumer mattress companies garnered more than 16 percent of the market in 2016, and are expected to have doubled that share in 2017.

Online shoe retailers sent US brick-and-mortar shoe revenue tumbling 5.2 percent, the biggest year-over-year loss since 2009. It’s hard to drive anywhere without seeing another “store closing” sign at Stride Rite, Crocs or Payless ShoeSource. Meanwhile, online-only retailers like Allbirds, Jack Erwin and M. Gemi have gained nearly 15 points of market share over the past five years.

 

These Are The Mobile World Congress Events Engaging Marketers

BY

Here is what’s on our radar for Mobile World Congress, between the show’s official daily agenda and evening events.

Saturday, February 24 to Wednesday, February 28 

GSMA’s Meet & Eat / Networking Events and Lounges
Time: Feb. 24; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. / Feb. 25; 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. / Feb. 26-28; 12 to 9 p.m. All times are Central European Time Zone (CET).
Location: plaça d’Europa, within walking distance from the south entrance to de Fira Gran Via Venue, next to the L9 and FFCC (Fira-Europa) stations (Map)

GSMA, the trade organization that puts on MWC, has organized a “Meet & Eat” experience to give attendees the opportunity to network or plop with their laptops outside while experiencing Catalonian culture and culinary delights. There will also be music and other performances throughout each day.

The GSMA has also arranged 10 networking events by brands like Oath, Citi and Visa from Monday to Wednesday. Each will feature complimentary food, drinks and entertainment in a relaxed environment. There are four separate networking lounges.

Sunday, February 25

MWC won’t officially begin until Monday, but apparently Samsung didn’t get the memo—the electronics manufacturer has all but confirmed it will announce its flagship phones, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus, during an event it’s orchestrating a day before show doors open.

Mobile Lunch
Time: Not available
Location: Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, Plaça de les Arts (Map)

For the third consecutive year, Mobile World Capital Barcelona is organizing a lunch designed to unite companies, entrepreneurs and SMEs to share and explore business opportunities and ideas around mobile marketplaces.

Monday, February 26 

What You Need To Know: Augmented Advertising
Location: Hall 8.0 NEXTech, NEXTech Lab
Time: 1:30 to 2 p.m. CET

The rise of smartphone users and their desire for mobile entertainment has ushered in a new era of mobile advertising. It’s also led brands to increasingly develop augmented advertising experiences. This session will aim to explain how AR experiences lead to higher viewability, engagement and brand lift than traditional advertising.

Tuesday, February 27

How To Build A 21st Century Mobile-Always Brand
Location: Hall 8.0 NEXTech Theatre C
Time: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. CET

Its fourth time running the event, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and dmexco will lead conversation around mobile marketing, cross-screen consumer engagement and new revenue streams for AI and the IoT-connected home. Other topics include storytelling innovation in OTT, brand safety on mobile, cross-platform addressability and mobile-to-offline retail experiences.

Women In Mobile
Location:La Bonne, Sant Pere Més Baix 7 (Map)
Time: 7:30 to 11 p.m.

This year’s female-focused event focuses on “personalization based on AI” and will feature panel discussions around how AI-based products deliver what users really want, handing out the Women in Mobile 2018 Award and a networking party to cap of the night.

Wednesday, February 28

CMO Summit
Location: Hall 8.0 NEXTech Theatre D
Time: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. 

The day-long affair will feature 37 speakers and have multiple sessions and partner events, aiming to offer CMOs a wealth of opportunities to learn from peers and engage in discussion. Key marketing themes include maximizing exposure, protecting the brand, embracing AI, utilizing networks, creating a personalized context for audiences and staying within regulation. 

VR/AR Association Dinner
Location: H10 Casa Mimosa, Pau Claris, 179 (Map)
Time: 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. CET 

May be best for those first dipping their toes into immersive technology. Dinner is served with insights and discussion about VR and AR trends and issues affecting companies, projects and roles.

Thursday, March 1

Gamelab Mobile
Location: Hall 8.0 NEXTech Theatre B
Time: 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

This one-day, gaming-oriented summit brings mobile gaming leaders to discuss trends, opportunities and the convergence of entertainment, technology and media. Sessions will be divided into mobile gaming, mobile esports, player content, mobile VR and AR and how what prospects 5G, data, cloud gaming and IoT present. 

YoMo: The Youth Mobile Festival
Location: La Farga de L’Hospitalet, Carrer de Barcelona, 2 (Map)
Time: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CET (Monday to Thursday)

If you’re a brand considering STEM as part of a larger marketing strategy and looking inspire the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers and designers to succeed in an increasingly mobile world while you’re at it, then join over 15,000 students and educators from across Catalonia at The Youth Mobile Festival.

Brands Show Their Love To Compete For Valentine’s Spend

BY

Valentine’s Day is a time for celebrating love, and US consumers love to shop—spending is expected to reach $19.6 billion on February 14 and these brand activations are waiting with open arms.

According to the National Retail Federation, 55 percent of the US population plans on celebrating Valentine’s Day this year, and spend an average of $143.56 while they’re at it. Competition, as always, is fierce, but here are some marketing campaigns that stand out.

Love: Play It Or Say It

On Feb 7, Teleflora gave secret admirers the opportunity to confess their love in a big way—literally. As part of its ongoing Love Out Loud campaign, the floral brand created a pop-up film set and romantic’s corner in New York where over 100 participants recorded a video message confessing their secret love. The videos were transmitted in real time onto a giant billboard in Times Square.

Valentine’s Day is the second-largest holiday for exchanging greeting cards, according to Hallmark, and this year the legacy brand is offering something different—cards with vinyl records built in.

Through a partnership with Rhino Records, each Hallmark Vinyl Record Card comes with a 45 RPM vinyl record featuring two songs from either Bruno Mars, Aretha Franklin or INXS built into a sleeve on card’s cover.

Timed with the Valentine’s Day holiday without mentioning it specifically, “What It Means to Love” is the third chapter in American Greetings’ “Give Meaning” campaign. The latest video ad depicts a number of scenarios in which people don’t or can’t say what they mean, even though they care—a problem remedied with the help of a greeting card.

https://youtu.be/b0qVZXR2uac

 

Love, Delivered

Tinder partnered with Maroon 5’s Adam Levine and Postmates to surprise select users on Valentine’s Day. Levine showed up at their homes with gifts ranging from a private concert to beer. Twitter users can also have their Valentine’s day wishes granted if they tweet Tinder and Postmates using emojis of the gift they would like to receive and the hashtag #VDayandChill.

If you ask Bachelor star Arie Luyendyk, Jr. the best way to show affection this holiday, he’ll say that safety is the new sexy. Luyendyk, Jr. partnered with Cooper Tire’s Tread Wisely program to educate teens and young adults on how to check their tire pressure and tread depth. Videos featuring the reality show personality are now available on the Tread Wisely mobile app.

“Nothing says love like keeping yourself and the people you care about safe on the road,” said Luyendyk, Jr.

You’re A Wizard, Valentine

Warner Bros. Studio Tour London is offering Harry Potter 18+ fans Valentine’s Day dinner in the Hogwarts Great Hall set from the movie franchise. On February 9 and 10, February, guests attending the event will receive a Love Potion cocktail, magic wand and access to other key sets from the Harry Potter films such as the Gryffindor common room, Dumbledore’s office, the Weasley kitchen at The Burrow, Forbidden Forest and Platform 9¾.

Ring, Bling Or Just Be Bitter

Jolly Ranger encouraged fans to Tweet about their last-minute gift giving woes to win jewelry shaped like hard candy. The two-day event ran Feb 12-13 and required the hashtags #Sweepstakes and #ValentinesDaySucks to enter. The jewelry, made to look like Jolly Rangers candy, was designed by Mary Ping and Fabrice Covelli and come in five “flavors.”

A toll-free WingStop hotline is available to call through Feb 14, offering everything from vocal warm-up routines to a Valentine’s Day mixtape. Callers can cycle through the comedy recordings and press zero to pre-order the Wing Luv kit, which turns chicken wings into a bouquet. The kit contains a heart-shaped wing box, skewers for wing “roses,” decorative cellophane, tissue paper, ribbon and DIY instructions.

The Golden Arches are giving away some actual gold this Valentine’s Day with a diamond-encrusted ring made to look like a Big Mac sandwich. Dubbed the “Bling Mac,” this ring can be won by pledging one’s undying love for the famous burger on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/McDonalds/status/961254108132007937

McDonald’s has also teamed up with American Greetings to offer Valentine’s Day crafts inside Happy Meals this holiday.

A Dunkin’ Donuts Instagram contest running through February 15 offers customers a chance to a trip for two to any US city of their choice. Followers can enter the #DDLoveContest by sharing how their friendship or relationship “runs on Dunkin’” on Instagram. Valentine’s Day emoji are also now available on the Dunkin’ Donuts Emoji keyboard through the Dunkin’ Donuts mobile app.

A Snapchat game by champagne brand Moët & Chandon challenges users to shoot corks at a tower of glasses. “Love Unconventional” is a repeat of a successful Snapchat game first introduced for New Year’s Eve. This time, however, winners will get to collaborate on a love poem generated with input from poet Cleo Wade.

Valentine’s Day can be hard on those not in a relationship, but Hooters is encouraging the bitterness with a promotion called “Shred Your Ex.” Customers are invited to bring a photo of their former lovers to Hooters restaurants on February 14. Tearing, shredding or having the waitress destroy the photo earns them 10 free chicken wings to soothe their broken heart. Photos can also be shredded through the restaurant’s website. Users answer a few questions about the doomed relationship such as how long they were together and how it ended. The site then recommends the “most satisfying” method of disposal and allows virtual destruction by uploading the offending photo.

Calling Cupid

1-800-Flowers has launched an Alexa Skill that allows users to order flowers with their voice. The skill is integrated with Amazon Pay and responds to streamlined dialogue such as “Alexa, ask 1-800-Flowers to send my wife roses.”

Valentine’s Day marketing for 1-800-Flowers focuses on the brand’s AI integration, including Gwyn, a chatbot that lives on the official website and the Facebook Messenger chatbot. The brand is encouraging users to try digital methods of ordering by offering discounts exclusive to the mobile app, PayPal, Google Assistant and Facebook Messenger.

Huawei ecommerce brand Honor is offering a limited edition red version of its 7X smartphones for Valentine’s Day. Five Honor Instagram followers can win two red Honor 7X phones through a contest called “You had me at . . .” Consumers are asked to post a reenactment video on Instagram of the first time they met someone or something they love.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Be1I_6fhHWs/?taken-by=honorusa

Mobile Game Marketers Share Video Ad Strategies For 2018

BY

There are several emerging video ad formats that mobile game publishers should be aware of this year.

Brian Bowman, CEO of adtech company Consumer Acquisition, said publishers should watch out for “brand in motion,” “demo in motion” and “six-second videos.” These are all short animations that emphasize specific aspects of the game, from the brand name to its gameplay.

“Publishers may want to start testing six-second videos and brand in motion videos from simple assets, and then graduate to the more interactive formats,” he explained.

These short-form ads, in addition to rewarded video, are the most effective formats for engaging and converting players, but he also warns that users may quickly grow bored of ad creatives, decreasing returns over time. In a recent blog post, Consumer Acquisition wrote that on average, 95 percent of video and image creative “fail to outperform best-performing ads on a portfolio making heavy creative testing necessary to achieve and sustain Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).”

Where Mobile Game Ads Thrive

Naturally, mobile game developers and publishers have turned to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for their marketing over the years to acquire users and strengthen engagement with their titles. Bowman said Facebook is the platform of choice for most companies and marketers are allocating between 20 to 60 percent of their monthly user acquisition budgets there.

“Compared to other platforms where we’ve tested video ads, such as Pinterest and Snapchat, Facebook is miles ahead in efficiency, and this is why it continues to be a key platform for advertisers,” said Bowman.

But many marketers have found stronger returns from other mobile games than from video or social platforms.

“YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are excellent sources of user acquisition, but are inherently different environments than mobile games,” Tapjoy’s VP of performance sales Sarah Chafer told AListDaily.

Chafer explained that rewarded ads on other games offer the best returns for discovery. In a game, players clearly understand that they’re watching videos in exchange for in-game currency, boosts or other benefits.

“Not only does this defined value exchange generally drive greater advertiser return on investment, but studies have shown that consumers are in a more relaxed and open state of mind when playing mobile games than when engaging with social networks, so they are more receptive to hearing advertising messages,” she added.

This relationship means that video ads within mobile games have better engagement, higher completion rates and ultimately bring in better quality users. There are no wasted impressions when it comes to using mobile games because publishers know that the audience is already interested in gaming.

While rewarded videos offer high returns, marketers stand to benefit from engaging players on other platforms.

Phil Hickey, SVP of brand marketing at Seriously, noted that creatives on rewarded videos in other mobile games tend to be very straightforward, whereas YouTube and Facebook allow the developer to reach its target audience in unique ways by mixing creativity with data.

“For YouTube, our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are based on Cost Per View (CPV) at scale, resulting in the Cost Per Install (CPI) we are happy with,” Hickey said. “We generally compare against our own benchmarks, since we’re already aware of what success looks like for us.”

Hickey also said that Facebook has a clear ROAS, which needs to be hit within the first week of an ad going live to know if it will be profitable or not.

Working with influencers to livestream games across Twitch, YouTube and Facebook remains critical to helping games grow an audience. Discovery occurs as viewers seek to learn more about a specific game or tune in to watch their favorite streamers. Both happen at close to the same rate.

“Viewers generally come for the game itself and stick around if they like the streamer,” explained SuperData senior analyst Carter Rogers. “Education about games is nearly as important as entertainment for livestream viewers. Among US livestream viewers 13-and-up, 72 percent watch to learn about games they are interested in, while 78 percent watch to be entertained.”

Rogers also said that livestream viewers ages 13-and-up in the US are 29-years-old on average, and they have a 69 percent male 31 percent female gender split. However, those statistics differ greatly when it’s an esports title. Esports viewers tend to be young and skews heavily toward males. Among US esports viewers 13-and-up, 84 percent are male and have an average age of 28. Rogers said that this also contrasts greatly with the overall gaming audiences, which has a gender split of 52 percent female and 48 percent male with an average age of 34.

According to Hickey, the key to knowing which platforms to extend a marketing mix to is in understanding the audience.

“After you have insights into your audience’s interests, it’s important to find platforms that can scale, such as radio, TV, out-of-home or even interesting digital media platforms that are unexpected, like Grindr,” said Hickey.