Xellular Identity - All About Mobile Content & Marketing

Samsung Tries To Go Social Web 2.0

I was just reading at Go2Web2.0 about Samsung & YouTube's NewYears project. Users are invited to answer one of following questions in a short video (less than 1 minute long):

1. Make a video that reveals the one word that is your personal theme for 2008
2. Reenact the best of worst thing that happened to you in 2007
3. What cool things have you done with your mobile phone this year?
4. In 2008 what kind of cool mobile phone should Samsong develop for you?

Users can browse the videos using Google map and pick videos by location.

I can easily answer question #4 and say that Samsung should embed the Flixwagon live mobile broadcasting service in all of the devices :)

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From a marketing point of view, while it is nice to see a huge mobile consumer brand interacting with users, IMO this campaign is not appealing enough; or in other words -- it lacks any real added value for the users.

1. YouTube users can upload their own created content to YouTube any day, therefore there is not much of an offer here. Plus, the current Samsung campaign limits users' videos up to a minute long while YouTube allows up to 10 minutes and 100 MB.

2. There is no clear incentive. Best clips will gain...? What? Self expression? A sense of belonging to a community? The perceived value should be the clearest message in any campaign.

3. And the worst: while a mobile consumer brand is involved in this campaign, there is no use of the mobile channel. How come there is no mobile offering in this campaign? Samsung could easily offer that the best 3 clips will be available on the mobile; or best suggestions (answers to questions 3 and 4) will be taken into development; or best clips will win Samsung handsets... ?

Levi's Goes Mobile

Levi’s, best known for jeans, was known for getting into the mobile phone business with a couple new hand sets. Yesterday came more details about the phones themselves. Levi’s says that their phone embraces mobile technology and enables young people to connect, enjoy music, images and video.

The adults might not understand the fuss around a Levis mobile phone and would say to their teenaged kid "who needs it?!", however mobile phones offer far more than simply a means of voice communication. They can provide entertainment, convey social status, and express one's individuality. It is known that "trendiness" is of high importance when selecting a mobile phone.

The Levi’s look brings a riveted looking case to the phone and a detachable chain that can hold the phone to your pants like those biker style wallets. ”Technology is at the heart of today’s youth culture and mobile phones are the ultimate accessory. Adding a mobile phone to our collection is a natural progression for Levi's®, a brand that is driven to meet the desires of young people”, says You Nguyen, Senior Vice President of Levi's® Product.

The phone will be offered in metallic silver, black and brown copper. Editions aimed more at the ladies will be shiny silver and shiny sand. The phone is made under license from the ModelLabs Group and will be available in stores in Europe in September of 2007. No word on when it will come state side, or any specs other that what colors the thing will come in.

[Via Levi's]

Update: Nokia: A New Flagship Concept in Israel

As promised, I went to the new Nokia flagship store today to bring you some pics and remarks :)

The store is located in one of the popular hi-tech districts of Tel-Aviv. However, it is not in a place that the average man\woman would get to walk through if he\she doesn't work there or have a business meeting...

The 150 aquare meters store is divided into 4 sections: HEAR, SEE, DO and PLAY. In each section visitors are invited to try the relevant handsets and apps:

Tomer gave us a very informative tour, which was great, thank you Tomer! Excuse me for what I'm about to say here, but my favourite Nokia handsets - after the divine N-95 - were the fashionable ones, like the 7380 that looks like a lipstick... :)

However, comparing this flagship store to the Manhattan store, I was somewhat disappointed... I guess I expected to a bigger "wow".

Sprite Ventures Into Mobile Social Networking

Targeting youth, the Coca-Cola Company announced the launch of “Sprite Yard”, a mobile social network. The Sprite Yard will enable users to send messages, chat, download content and share photos. The official launch is set for the 1st of June at China and 22nd of June at the USA.

To register as a new user, you need to text "YARD" to short code 59666, enter a tag name and password; upon completing the registration process, users may create public profiles, compile buddy lists, detail activities in the Planner and send short messages, or Shouts. In addition, Sprint Yard will offer exclusive content like visitones (visual ringtones combining images and music) and animated mobisodes.

What I liked is that awareness will be driven through PIN codes contained in the bottle caps (and not through mass media campaigns)! According to the company, Coca-Cola sells 10 billion single-serve bottles globally each year, providing a powerful activation mechanism for its promotional initiatives.

Only a limited amount of consumer brands have ventured into creating a social network, let alone a mobile one… It will be interesting to follow Sprite Yard's success (or failure). Any speculations?

[via press release]

Mobile Phones as Multi-Functional Accessories

Based on a survey of U.S. users who have a wireless phone, comScore Networks, released yesterday a study that analyzes differences in behavior and attitudes among the following key wireless consumer segments:

• The Cellular Generation - Ages 18 to 24, these young adults grew up with cell phone awareness, experiencing cell phones as a part of their everyday lives.
• Transitioners - Ages 25 to 34, these people fall in between two distinct groups: those who grew up with cell phone knowledge and those who did not. Cell phones began to infiltrate everyday life during their teen years and early adulthood.
• Adult Adopters - Age 35 or older, this group was not exposed to cell phone until adulthood. Adult Adopters tend to have the most functional view of cell phones, with many requiring just the basics and showing limited interest in emerging technologies.

""During the past decade, cell phones have dramatically changed the communication habits of American consumers," said Serge Matta, senior vice president of comScore Telecommunications Solutions. "While the youngest consumers grew up with the technology, those just a few years older did not, resulting in some pronounced differences in attitudes and behaviors towards cell phone usage across the various user segments. As cell phones continue to evolve in terms of design, functionality, and features, it is vital that cell phone providers and manufacturers understand the differing needs and desires of these distinct consumer segments.""

Cellular Generation Views Their Cell Phones as Accessories

"Cell phones offer far more than simply a means of voice communication. They can provide entertainment, convey social status, and express one's individuality. While consumers in both the Cellular Generation and Transitioners are likely to view their cell phones as multi-dimensional devices, adult adopters tend to have a more functional view. Approximately one-quarter of both the Cellular Generation (26 percent) and Transitioners (25 percent) said that "trendiness" was of high importance when selecting a cell phone, as compared to just 10 percent of Adult Adopters. Additionally, 41 percent of Cellular Generation consumers strongly agree with the statement "I like my cell phone to be personalized" with options such as color schemes and ring tones, while only 19 percent of Adult Adopters feel the same."

[via Cellular News]

Ringback Tones Market Challenges (Part I)

After a tremendous success in Asian markets, Ringback Tones are starting to have wide availability in other regions of the world, such as Europe and North America. The ringback tones market is also driven by the disposable incomes rising in China, India and Indonesia. Overall, today, most operators already have a ringback tones service and main mobile industry’s analysts are forecasting that ringback tones global demand will continue to increase in the coming 5 years.

However, Mobile operators, persistently looking for new sources of revenues and ways to increase their subscribers’ loyalty, are constantly launching new services and applications. As a result, in many cases, after launching new applications, operators are finding it challenging to focus on the promotion of the service in the long run. Therefore, operators might face scenarios in which the service reaches stagnation penetration wise but also and especially in terms of usage.

On the same time, with an increasing amount of the Value Added Services (VAS) markets moving off portal, different players in the content value chain (content aggregators, content providers and music labels) have taken over both, the responsibility of marketing services to users and as a consequence, part of the revenues they generate. So far, due to technological constrains, this has not been the case in the ringback tones market.

Taking a look at the ringback tones users, there is relatively low consumer awareness to the ringback tones service, partly because there is no ringback tone generic brand. Many subscribers forget to re-purchase content and need to be constantly reminded about their ringback tones since they never hear it. The more ringback tones will be advertised and its access simplified, the more the number of users registering to the service will grow and the more purchasing ringback tones will become a frequent habit. But operators can’t afford to promote the service on the long run.

Taking a look on its older brother, the ringtone market has had a huge success but so far this success hasn't been leveraged to push the ringback tones service. Unlike the ringtones market, content providers are not “incentivised” to push ringback tones.

Comverse's vision for the future of the ringback tones market is to implement the lesson of the ringtones market success, to promote the ringback tones market. I'm sure you're all curious about what it really means and how it can be done - so tune in next Tuesday for that :)

Interviewing Savka Andic on Mobile Marketing & Youth

Welcome to the third part of the mobile youth trends and behavior coverage. Today, Savka Andic, Research Associate at the Wireless World Forum, who is also the co-author of the mobileYouth 2006 report will be visiting here!

For those of you who missed the first 2 part of the mobile youth trends coverage here are the links: Nick Wright talked about mobile youth trends and Jan Kuczynski talked about mobile music and youth.

And now, let me welcome Savka Andic!

Hi Xen and all my readers, I’m Savka Andic, colleague of Jan and Nick (who spoke with you previously on Xellular Identity) and co-author of the 2006 mobile Youth report. A relatively new arrival to both the UK and the world of mobile, I completed my BA in Political Science and French  in the mountainous city of Vancouver, Canada earlier this year and, degree in one hand and British passport in another, was lured to the urban bustle of London. Shortly thereafter, I joined Wireless World Forum as a researcher.

-How are you?
I’m great, Xen. Very busy, but I guess that’s not always a bad thing.

-What brought you into the world of mobile?
My job, essentially! Only a few months ago, I knew less about mobile than some of the youth I now interview for research. However, my background is in politics and the social sciences, so I find the social implications of mobile, marketing and social media very interesting.

-Other hobbies, fields of interest?
Politics and international relations remain two great passions of mine, along with skiing, traveling, world music and a rather taxing branch of yoga known as Hot Bikram. I also indulge in the occasional bout of cocktail mixing (and drinking), my favorite being the marvellous Mojito.

-Something interesting to share with the world about you?
This isn’t particularly interesting, but I can read words backwards in full sentences, as if it were forwards. Don’t ask :)

Mobile Marketing

-There are many successful marketing tools. What are the key elements for mobile marketing's appeal?

Good question Xen - you’ve gone to the heart of the matter. In fact, one thing we found over the course of our research is that many marketing tools that were previously very successful are not so effective with youth anymore. There are two reasons for this: the huge volume of advertising messages that youth are exposed to today, and the decreasing time which youth spend exposed to traditional media such as TV.

Youth are exposed to hundreds of advertising messages per day (up to three or four more than 40 years ago), with the result that day-after advertising recall rates have plummeted, from 26% in the 1960s to 7% in 2005.  Compounding this is the fact that youth today simply spend much less time exposed to traditional broadcast media such as TV and radio, and much more time online and on their mobiles. In the UK alone, there has been a 16% TV watching among 16-24 year olds constitutes a 16% drop since 2001. In sum, not only are youth less exposed to traditional media and therefore to the marketing messages which appear on these media, they are less likely to act on the messages they do receive if these messages are not directly relevant to their needs and lifestyles.

Basically, marketers today have a problem getting through to youth. This is where mobile comes in: We can identify three specific areas where mobile will prove invaluable to marketers. Firstly, its ability to deliver highly relevant and targeted advertising on a personal platform; secondly, its ability to build communities around brands, and thirdly, its ability to act as a linchpin between a variety of different advertising channels. More on this topic later – this answer is getting way too long!

-Mobile marketing so far has focused on SMS. Is there more to mobile marketing?

Xen, you’ve raised a great point and highlighted a major obstacle to creating successful mobile marketing.  In our report, we distinguish between two approaches to marketing, “reach” and relevance”. Reach is the traditional marketing approach, whereby the success of a campaign is basically judged by how many (potential) consumers it can reach. On the flip side is relevance marketing, where success is measured not by the scale of the campaign but rather how relevant the message is to specific consumers.

Many consumers today associate marketing on the mobile with a stereotypically reach approach, largely because of the SMS push campaigns of the “text-to-win” variety. In fact, mobile today is the perfect example of a reach approach being applied to a relevance platform – that is, a platform with great potential for delivering individualized and targeted relevance marketing.

This skewed approach to marketing on the mobile is basically the result of a temporary incongruence between the medium and the message. Messages will gradually adapt themselves to best suit the vehicle of their delivery, but like any adaptation, it takes a bit of time and a bit of trial and error. In the question above, I outlined three key advantages of mobile marketing: its ability to deliver highly relevant and targeted advertising on a personal platform; its ability to build communities around brands, and its ability to act as a linchpin between a variety of different advertising channels. For example, marketers can set up permission marketing schemes whereby youth divulge valuable information on their preferences to advertisers in exchange for targeted mobile ads – in fact such a service specifically for youth (the ad-supported mobile) will be launched next year by the Finnish company Blyk.

Mobile also allows brands to strengthen youth loyalty by building communities. A good example is Coca Cola’s “Coke Fridge” in Germany, where consumers collect codes from promotional Coke packs which can be redeemed on Coke Fridge - on either the internet site, or a mobile JAVA application version. Consumers can exchange the points obtained for ringtones, wallpapers and mobile games or music downloads via iTunes. Coke Fridge also features an instant messaging application, which offers youth social benefits of communication and allows youth to invite friends, which spreads awareness of the site virally.

Finally, the portability of the mobile phone means it can fuse together many disparate advertising channels to create interactive marketing campaigns. The “Warren” campaign launched in 2003 by Virgin Mobile Australia was a good example of a successful campaign integrating mobile into marketing, as it combined aspects of TV, online, print, radio and mobile advertising to create an interactive and engaging experience for the consumer.

-Are there different marketing strategies when it comes to the youth segment? How?
Absolutely. As I discussed above, young consumers don’t respond particularly well to traditional reach advertising.  To resonate with youth, marketers must craft relevant marketing messages that speak to their specific interests and preferences. Even more so, marketers must create advertising that involves young consumers in some way - interactivity is a key component of successfully attracting and building young consumer loyalty. This is simply because interactivity makes products more fun and more real. Mobile marketing has shown a great capacity for fun and interactive marketing, which makes it an ideal strategy for the youth segment - both the Coke Fridge and Virgin Mobile “Warren” examples. I also said it’s important that products be “real”, ie. authentic. What authenticity really means is that youth feel they have a certain emotional investment in the product, and that it reflects them in some way. A good dose of interactivity always increases the authenticity of a product. A great non-mobile example of this is Jones Soda, a soft drinks company. Jones Soda encourages consumers to send in their favorite photos, selects the best ones and publishes them on the labels of its soda bottles. Young consumers love this, as they gain status from being featured on the bottle and feel an emotional investment in the product and hence greater brand loyalty.

-What are the challenges mobile marketing faces today?
There are three main ones which we talk about in the report: First is that the marketing industry in general lacks confidence in mobile marketing, and a shift in mindset is needed before mobile marketing becomes more accepted. Marketers are holding back from the mobile platform due to a lack of traditional reach-oriented data to confirm the success of mobile marketing campaigns. Change must come from reassessing the metrics employed for measuring “old media” marketing techniques towards metrics that suit the mobile platform more specifically. We have to start focusing on “share of customer” rather than conventional market share, meaning focusing more on knowing your customers well and targeting them with relevant information than simply trying to grab as many customers as possible with generic, watered-down advertising.

Another problem is that Mobile marketing so far has focused on SMS push marketing campaigns which were initially successful because of their novelty value but have ultimately become annoying.

SMS marketing limits the potential of the mobile to engage consumers. Direct marketing may yield short-term results but there is no motivation for peer-to-peer marketing which limits the lifespan of any marketing campaign. When consumers are motivated to market the product to others, target segments become smaller and the result is more sustainable, leading to long-term yields through organically growing campaigns. Generic campaigns, such as mobile banner ads or TV style advertising, will see diminished returns over time as consumers become less receptive.

The third problem is that mobile marketing is frequently isolated from overall marketing campaigns. Mobile is treated as a separate marketing channel with a more technological bent than other platforms, meaning there is little integration with holistic marketing strategies. Mobile marketers are often more focused on one marketing technology rather than a larger solution and the high operator charges discourage the kind of experimentation needed to view the larger mobile picture. Mobile marketing also remains an anomaly amongst advertising platforms in that the consumer is expected to pay to interact, which is likely to disappoint consumers both in terms of the brand advertised and the advertising medium itself.

-Any interesting examples of mobile marketing best practice?
In the report we have pretty interesting case studies, such as the following McDonalds example, proving how effective mobile marketing can be.

McDonalds Japan used the mobile as the principle marketing channel to target young female consumers for the launch of its limited edition Prawn Fillet-o burger.

Aside from contents relating to fashion and teen idols, the mobile site’s main feature was a flash wallpaper heart motif which consumers could download for free. Consumers could customize the motif, changing the colors used to match their mood and share their customized version with friends, giving the site a viral dimension.

Average monthly page views of the mobile site hit 49,000 and sales of the limited edition burger were nearly four times that of previous limited edition menu items.

Thank you Savka! :)

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Next week there will be a new guest visiting here and talking about mobile services and youth. Wanna know who??? - Don't forget to tune in next Thursday to find out! Have a great weekend!

Korean Avatars Market Review - Part IV (Mobile Avatars Offerings)

Recently I was asked to give a presentation about the Korean avatars market, trying to understand the craze and predict other mobile markets’ behavior. Knowing it might interest some of you, I’ll be publishing the content of the presentation at this blog. Due to the length, I’ve been posting it in a few parts every Thursday. If you missed the opening, here’s the link to the first part, second part and third part.

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Mobile Avatars Offerings

The medium of avatars is naturally focused on community, since users need an audience to present their character. As such, avatars can increase operator's attractiveness using its viral affect to mobile operators. Also, operators can use avatars in order to utilize the loyalty established by online communities.

However, the mobile industry had stumbled upon barriers to provide a mobile avatars offering: the mobile internet hasn’t reached the web’s speed, latency, and user interface. Also there’s a big difficulty in implementation.

Having said that, there are already some players in the Korean mobile avatars arena. The first player was NEOWIZ which began supplying mobile avatars to KTF in August 2001, to LG Telecom in April 2002, and SK Telecom in August 2002. According to company’s reports, mobile avatar sales grew to over 2 billion won per month in 2004 (which are about $1.5 B).

The second player was NATE. SK Telecom's Nate launched its avatar service in October 2002 and provides avatar service similar to those provided by web portals. This move was the result of the wired-wireless convergence with SK Telecom’s acquisition of a Korean web portal. Nate offers clothing brands for avatars, providing its users with replicas of the genuine clothing lines. The fashion and consumer brands companies enjoy the advertising by increasing actual product sales, while NATE profits from avatar sales.

What avatars demonstrated to the mobile industry is that mobile phones are a strong extension of self for many users. By personalizing the mobile with avatars, the mobile becomes much more than a communication tool. It has become an extension of either how the user views himself\herself, or would like to.

To summarize, avatars should be linked with other services and not just be a cute application to play with. Avatar service has been generating sales related to community-based services like gaming, forums, chats, IM, and minihomepies. Integrating the web and mobile increases the usage of avatars provide the ability to use the digital identity created practically everywhere.

Korean Avatars Market Review - Part III (Avatars Offerings)

Recently I was asked to give a presentation about the Korean avatars market, trying to understand the craze and predict other mobile markets’ behavior. Knowing it might interest some of you, I’ll be publishing the content of the presentation at this blog. Due to the length, I’ve been posting it in a few parts every Thursday. If you missed the opening, here’s the link to the first part and second part

                                ***

Avatars Offerings

Consumption of all kinds of online content has extremely grown in Korea ever since broadband internet service became popular. I’ll also add here a little piece of valuable info I got last week (Thanks Melanie) to get the idea of “heavy connectivity” that was discussed last week: on average, Korean Internet users spend 12.2 hours online per week and participate in 3-4 community websites!

South Korean users were the first to adopt avatars as their web representation. Respectively, the demand for avatars has grown with the fast adoption of online social interactions in a bodiless, ageless and sexless sphere. This amorphous presence has evoked the need to establish a visual presence by nominating a visual representant.

Most of the avatar providers are portal companies which entered the avatar market to upgrade their web offerings. This companies recognized that avatars can increase revenues by promoting more frequent and longer visits and by serving as a bridge to additional services. Only later down the road service providers realized that avatars are a consumer goods which should have a business model of their own. The avatar service evolved to a pay service which increased the quality of the offerings.

What makes the avatar phenomenon so interesting for many, is the fact that so many users are willing to pay to dress their avatar with clothing and accessories. Understanding that the avatar has a major role in self-representation in the social world over the web, service providers offer only a basic avatar. Many times the basic avatar doesn’t wear more than pajamas or a fig leaf. Service providers understood that users want to have an avatar that resembles them as much as possible, so they offered premium content for extra charge.

The major avatar providers in Korea are NEOWIZ (SayClub), Cyworld, Daum, MSN Korea and Yahoo! Korea.

NEOWIZ operates one of the most popular avatar sites - SayClub. SayClub has over 20 million subscribers which are equivalent to nearly 50% the population of Korea! Neowiz launched the first avatar service in 2000 and has occupied one of the leading positions among Korean internet companies offering avatars and games ever since. According to the company’s reports, Q1 2006 avatar revenues reached $2.4 M!

NEOWIZ was the first provider to employ an “avatars distributed for free, clothes and accessories sold for small amounts” business model. According to this model, users can buy designer avatar clothing and other premium content, with licensing fees being paid to actual consumer brand. This has led to the reality where Korean avatar owners spend more money on clothing for their avatar than they do for themselves. In a society where most of interactions happen over the web – this makes sense.

MSN Korea launched its MSN messenger in 2003 which includes “dynamic avatars”. Dynamic avatar changes according to the typed emoticons or certain words like ‘happy’, ‘angry’, etc’ in the chat window. Dynamic avatars require server capacity which is equal to the online games; which makes it harder for small portals to provide similar services. MSN Korea offers users a “multi avatar feature” which enables the user to employ up to 4 avatars. The displayed avatar depends on the chat partner. To initiate the service, users need to pay cyber money.

The last major avatar provider, which got a lot of coverage after its entrance to the U.S. market, is Cyworld. Cyworld is a social networking leader in Asia with localized sites in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, owned by a subsidiary of SK Telecom, the country's largest wireless provider. The Cyworld service is a combination of minihompies, online communities, music downloads, picture sharing, messenger and eBay. Cyworld’s users have avatars that visit (by linking) each other's "minihompy" [= a miniature homepage that looks like a 3D room which contains user’s blog, photos, and virtual items for sale]. Cyworld users also buy and sell music, ringtones, and clothes for their avatar. They can also buy skins to furnish their virtual minihompy. The service is free yet a big part of the content is available only for a fee, paid in virtual currency. Cyworld has astonishing penetration rates with 90% of the 20-year-old Koreans.

Daum, another major avatar provider is one of Korea's largest portals. Currently it has more than 35 million subscribers.

Next week - I’ll be talking about the next big thing... avatars entering into the mobile arena! So don’t forget to tune in on Thursday.

Jump Higher (and Reach the Virtual Reality)

The encounter of reality with the virtual has led to a very interesting and creative implementation of consumer brand offering in a virtual world:

Adidas is now selling its "a3 Microride" shoes for L$50 to Second Lifers. “Like the real-life shoe, the Second Life counterpart provides “the ultimate blend of bounce and flexibility with minimum weight.” In fact, it’s a great virtual-world product, acting like a kind of pogo stick for your feet, and with the option to keep bouncing you around as long as you’re walking over open ground”, says Mark Wallace.
[via 3pointD.com]

So these “a3 Microride” shoes leverage the power and attractiveness of the consumer brand Adidas in reality while also benefiting from being a virtual product that can have fantasy features\powers. Come to think of it, these Adidas shoes are better than the real ones!

This makes me think what more can be done when brands get extra fantasy benefits at the virtual arena... awesome! :)

Razr, Chocolate and... Nokia 7390, 7373??

Nokia said on Thursday it will name its new phone models in future, following the success of its rivals Motorola with Razr and LG woth the "chocolate" phones.

[via Reuters]

I'm sorry but I'll HAVE to quote, since Tal Dagan phrased it so well long time ago...  :

"notice another small but significant shift...think about the 'device name': no longer Motorola A900, A1000, V980 or E550 but...RAZR! This makes so much sense. Why should a user remember, or care, if his phone is N-90, or P990 or E750??? I bet 99% of users do not remember the device’s name one month after they bought it. However, go check this with RAZR owners...The opposite will be true. Now that's creating brand attachment.

Following the worldwide RAZR success, Motorola has gone out with its PEBL, ROKR and SLVR models. All follow the same path of the RAZR - a new exciting form factor, no focus on technical firsts, and a cool self expressive name (guess what the PEBL looks like...).

This, in my mind, is good old marketing genius."

[via Xellular Identity]

Gender & Self-expression - Burning Questions

According to survey results presented by Sprint:

"Ringtones are more popular among women - 54 percent compared to 42 percent of men. Personalized ringtones also are more appealing to women."

"Women have unique needs and preferences when it comes to the features and look of their wireless phones and accessories," says Alana Muller, Sprint's director of marketing."

[via Wireless Week]

• How come women use the mobile phone as a utility for self expressing more than men do (ringtones as well as mobile accessries)?
• Do women have a stronger need to express their uniqeness than men? If so, why?

Technorati Tags: women, gender, self-expression, personalization, ringtones, mobile accessries, user survey, sprint

Interoperable Avatars?

Yahoo! and MSN have finally put up together interoperability between their messengers, starting with a limited beta test of a service that will enable users of Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger to connect with each other, creating a huge community of nearly 350 million accounts. Finally, I can have one messenger less on my taskbar :))

What I’m curious about is the avatars… up till now, each company has been promoting its own brand (Yahoo avatars vs. MSN Dynamic Display Pictures), having free as well as paid content. So how’s this is going to work from now on? Will MSN and Yahoo take interoperability all the way?

Technorati Tags: Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, interoperability, avatars, Yahoo avatars, MSN Dynamic Display Pictures

Stardoll: An Avatar Or A Doll?

Successful consumer brands allow customers to assign their own meaning to a product or service. This gives them the opportunity to project themselves to others, to get a feeling of self-expression. To provide greater added-value, consumer brands usually use celebrities to promote themselves.

Stardoll has taken the power of celebrities being brands themselves. Instead of dressing your avatar or paperdoll - the way it's called there - with brands you can choose Brad Pitt, Halle Berry or any other celebrity out of a list of 400, and get them dressed from a very limited collection. [I don’t know how they got the approval of all these celebrities to use their faces... Anyhow, copyrights and royalties aren’t my issue here].

The celebrities are a sure attraction no arguing here. Yet, instead of using the power of consumer brands and engage it with the need for expressing the personal identity on the web, these avatars are taken to the childish world of play and fantasy. I’m offered to play with my favorite celebrity’s paperdoll, dress it up, identify with it and become the celebrity during the playing time, just like when girls play with their Barbie dolls or boys play with their action figures. This is why they’re called “dolls” rather than “avatars”: you can play with it for certain time and that’s about it(!). There's no other outlet for your paperdoll, like different messengers, web communities and in the future - the mobile… Having this restricted outlet, this service can only be targeting the segment of 5-13 yrs girls, during the dolls' period of glory, and therefor the sweet pinkish tones of the website.

Anyhow, it is an interesting example of combining web identities and consumer brands.

Technorati Tags: stardoll, avatars, paperdolls, celebrities, consumer brands, self expression, marketing, web identities

And on the 9th Place... Nokia?

Wirefly, a USA based online mobile phone retailer, has released its list of the best-selling cell phones for Winter and Spring (1-1-06 through 5-15-06):

1. Motorola RAZR (Silver)
2. Motorola RAZR (Black)
3. Motorola V360 Video Phone
4. Sony Ericsson Z520a Video Phone
5. Motorola V276 Camera Phone
6. Sony Ericsson W600 Walkman Phone
7. Motorola ROKR
8. Samsung T309
9. Nokia 6101 Camera Phone
10. Motorola RAZR (Pink)

Both the silver and black RAZRs continued to outsell all other mobile devices for over a year now. But where's Nokia???

Technorati Tags: motorola, Razr, nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, mobile, mobile handsets

Apple's Smart Move

A few days ago Apple and Nike have announced their collaboration with a new sports kit which includes Nike's Air Zoom Moire shoes and a device that collects and presents shoe-data (pace, expended calories, time and distance) on the ipod nano.

two thoughts here:

• from consumer's perspective - this is a great example of integration of lifestyle brands and electronic gadgets to bring added value to consumers.
• from industry's perspective - the ipod becomes so much more... it's turning into a platform for other apps, and therefore a competitor to the mobile industry.

Technorati Tags: ipod nano, apple, nike, brands, mobile industry

Bug Found - Mobile Operators As Brand

For quite sometime, my mom’s mobile battery was sending its last vital signs… realizing there’s no other option but going to Orange’s service center to get it fixed/replaced after spending hours of waiting for her turn and later – spending hours for the repair… armed with a heavy book and assertiveness she did it. She planned to spend time but she didn’t have an intention of spending money on a new HS. And yet, Nokia has its own magic on people, *including* on my mom, and she went home with a new one.

But there was another thing she didn’t plan… After opening the box and starting to play with her new toy, she saw that it has an Orange icon on the top right corner of the HS. Unwillingly, she was turned into an Orange walking ad. Yay! I’m not talking about the money issue of buying something for your own use and self expression while in return you become an ad - because in other areas of life we’re actually WILLING to pay more for the visibility of the brand name (on cars, clothing, fashion accessories, personal electronic gadgets, etc); While having your Gucci or Nike brand name visible is a totally wanted thing by many people, being a walking ad for Orange (or any other operator for this matter) is not.

What troubles my mind about this issue is  - why? what’s the difference between clothing/ car manufacturer and mobile operator brands? Why fashion/car brands provide an added-value for self expressing human needs while mobile brands don't? There's probably something operators are doing wrong when it comes to their existence as a brand...

Thoughts are very welcomed! :)

Technorati Tags: brands, mobile brands, orange, nokia, mobile operators, self expression

What Youth Really Wants (on the mobile)

Noted: More than half of UK 18- to 34-year-olds are engaging with brands through their mobile phone.

Technorati Tags: mobile content, mobile, brands, research, youth

New - GTalk's Lame Avatars

As you’ve probably heard, there’s a new version of Google Talk at a special setup URL. It seems to be a pre-release, since the official Google Talk homepage doesn’t have this link just yet. In this update is included the ability to display avatars. Apparently, Gtalk doesn’t have its own avatar brand but some lame cliparts that can be used to personalize your account. Nice move, but not good enough considering the very developed avatars on the IM sphere.
BTW, if we're talking about instant messengers, take a quick look on Weeworld's recent launch of WeeChat.

Big Little Helpers

A bit late, but I just had to comment on something I’ve read on Ad Age. The recent post of “Media Morph” covers the phenomena of Avatars, from marketing point of view. Yet it did that only to a very poorly extent, the concept was so reduced and badly presented…

First, Avatars are a visual mean of self representation in a limited environment, where we can’t use our physicality as our representation. The environments vary from virtual games, to chats, instant messengers, forums, different social softwares and they have even reached the mobile sphere.

Avatars can be used also for interacting with friends, like in more evolved instant messengers (IMVU for example), or like in virtual societies (“Second Life” for example). On these platforms, avatars can have all kinds of interactions with other people’s avatars: they can go on a date over a cup of coffee, shake hands, hug or kiss... Avatars can have formal interactions like buying or selling stuff too. Whatever comes to your mind – your avatar could interact for you!

And to the marketing perspective: Since avatars are our representation, we want them to be as close as possible to the way we are, as close as possible to what we wish to be. That is why from consumer’s perspective, there is no difference between branded content for  avatars to other branded merchandise (clothes, gadgets, cars… you name it). Whatever brands we own in real life we’ll probably want to have for our avatars as well. Here lies the big benefit to marketers - make branded content to be used in the virtual sphere. This can advertise and promote the consumer brand in real life. But it could be another major route for revenues.

So, don't just go underestimating Avatras (or you'll get me writing another post about it! ;-))

Hey Doll, Bratz is Calling

The other day I was reading Darla Mack's post on the new Bratz mobile phone. The makers of Bratz have joined forces with Ztar Mobile to launch a new MVNO targeting young girls. It’s a full-featured Sony-Ericsson T290 handset which has an exclusive Bratz content.

Bratz is a great example of how consumer brands have found a new way to distribute their branded merchandise through the most personal channel – the consumer’s mobile phone. This enables the consumer brands to have a close relationship with their customers. Not less significant, the brands gain customer’s loyalty as well - girls don’t change their mobile handset at the same tendency they change branded dresses, t-shirts or accessories. There is an added value for the operator as well; the operator gains diverse and unique content for its customers. This way, the operator positions itself as having high value for its end-users.

From consumer’s perspective, there is no difference between branded mobile and its unique content to other branded merchandise (clothes, gadgets, cars… you name it). Yet, whatever brands we own in real life we’ll probably want to have on the mobile as well. What some don’t realize is that the only reason to buy Diesel instead of an anonymous pair of jeans is to express our taste, lifestyle and personality. The hell with the price, bring me my Gucci to the mobile!! :) And, we don’t use only one accessory for that purpose; we build the message of “who we are” from the total look, which includes all the accessories available. For girls,  it is only natural to want to have the Bratz mobile, the Bratz T-shirt and the Bratz school bag as well. All together would make her girlfriends “wow” and want to be around her cause she has the coolest stuff ever.

So I’m sure that in the upcoming weeks, all parents and babysitters among us will get their chance to examine closely this new HS, to realize that the Bratz doll doesn’t have a nose and to memorize by heart Bratz’s names… Parents - watch out, or you’ll find yourself closing deals for early bed-time for a new Bratz mobile, and girls know how to play tough!  :)

Technorati Tags: Bratz, MVNO, self expression, brands, mobile content, Sony Ericsson