Google Bets (Again) on QR Codes

Will Its Big Local Play Help the Technology Take Off?

By Allison Mooney 

// //

Google is making some big moves in local advertising lately.

A couple weeks back the search giant added a mobile couponing option to its Google Local Business Center listing. This means that when a mobile web search lands you on a business’s “Place Page,” you can get a coupon that is redeemable straight from your phone (no need for printing).

Now, Google has launched a new effort to send window decals to over 100,000 local businesses in the U.S. that have been the most sought out and researched on Google.com and Google Maps.

They’re calling these businesses the “Favorite Places on Google” and you’ll now start to find them in over 9,000 towns and cities, in all 50 states. You can also explore a sample of the Favorite Places in 20 of the largest U.S. cities at google.com/favoriteplaces.

Each window decal has a unique bar code, known as a QR code that you can scan with any of hundreds of mobile devices — including iPhone, Android-powered phones, BlackBerry and more — to take you directly to that business’s Place Page on your mobile phone. With your mobile phone and these new decals, you can go up to a storefront and immediately find reviews, get a coupon if the business is offering one or star a business as a place you want to remember for the future. Soon, you’ll be able to leave a review on the mobile page as well, just like on your desktop.

Related Story: Google Goes After Social-Network Search With Facebook, MySpace Latest Moves Focus on Real-Time Web, Mobile and Local

So just as businesses display a Zagat or Michelin sticker as a badge of honor, the Google sticker could come to be a more organic quality indicator as well as a link to a lot more information about a place. Creating links to Google in the real world is something they’ve also attempted with their Google Maps markers. The stickers seems a lot less obtrusive.

Citysearch pilot-tested a similar program in San Francisco back in March of 2008. In that trial, 500 businesses reviewed by Citysearch placed printed Scanbuy’s brand of bar codes in their windows. Scanning the photo with Scanbuy’s software would send you to the business’ corresponding Citysearch page where you can read reviews and other information.

Around the same time, QVC and Case Western University did some trials in which students could scan QR codes on outdoor print signage. These codes let users get campus bus arrival times, order magazines, enter sweepstakes and get text alerts from USA Today, among other applications.

As Ad Age reported, Google also dabbled with QR codes in newspapers last year: “Google has already seen results from a recent test campaign conducted in three markets with jewelry retailer Blue Nile. Each ad contained a QR code and a response tag, and was tested against the same ads without the tags. The code-enhanced ads ended up driving 6.5 times more revenue than the ads without.”

Despite these tests, QR codes have decidedly not caught on so far in the U.S. While a more concerted effort by Google could change this, they need to try harder than they did with newspapers. One good thing is you can use any QR reader to decipher their codes.

They are also giving away 40,000 Quickmark QR Code Reader apps for the iPhone, which normally cost $1.99 apiece, to promote it.

John Hanke, VP of Google Earth, Maps, and Local, told Techcrunch that Google Maps on mobile phones will also start including businesses as points of interest. (You may have started to see this already and wondered why certain business were featured.) Google calls these “smart maps,” and they are based on a business’s PlaceRank, which tries to figure out how prominent a place is based on factors such as references on the web, reviews, photos, how many people know about it, how long its been around.

Google has nothing to lose by trying this, and they know that both local and mobile are their future. Typing into a little search box is annoying on a mobile phone, and new “mobile paths” like shortcodes, QR codes and image recognition may soon replace text-entry search altogether. By helping businesses add these new calls-to-action that lead to Google’s Place Pages — as well as beef up their mobile presences with mobile coupons — they are attempting to own this emerging space.

Overall, this is good news for the mobile industry — Google can help push adoption of these technologies — but there is still the barrier of cost. QR decoding requires data, which requires money. Will people be willing to pay money (albeit tiny amounts) to read what is ostensibly an ad? Or will Place Pages provide enough value (through information, maps, reviews and now coupons) that people won’t even think twice about it?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Allison Mooney is VP-emerging trends at MobileBehavior, an Omnicom Group Company, and runs their blog Next Great Thing.

Why Digital Agencies Are Indeed Ready to Lead

They Understand the Technology, the Speed of Iteration and Analytics

By Jacques-Herve Roubert 

// //

 

Jacques-Herve Roubert

Over the past 18 months, a great debate has consumed our industry: Are digital agencies poised to sit at the head of the advertising table? Depending on whom you ask and what you read, the answer seems to flip flop — with a majority of people still having reservations and making claims that digital agencies aren’t ready to lead.

So why does the debate continue? Does offline or online really matter to an oblivious consumer who’s only interested in “no-line” communications? Are we spending too much time focusing on who should lead and not enough asking: What’s next?

Ana Andjelic’s DigitalNext post, provocatively titled “Why Digital Agencies Aren’t Ready to Lead,” mentions several reasons why digital agencies aren’t ready to lead, one of which was their lack of experience in the business (as compared with the “decades of experience” that traditional agencies are known for). I’m sure there are instances where decades of experience can directly translate into success, but there are certainly instances (uh, Lehman Brothers?) where deep roots had no bearing on their ability to produce — and produce well. Furthermore, a certain percentage of the individuals now working and thriving in digital agencies came from traditional agencies.

Additionally, most of the world’s most ingenious inventions were not created overnight, but took years of hard work, research, observation, trial and error, and collaboration to fine tune. The digital ecosystem has required much of the same exploration — and, in most cases, into technologies that are new to all of us. As James March himself said, “Exploration involves being an amateur for a while, but only as a step on the way to being a professional.”

And while the structure of an interactive agency may often mimic “one big crazy family” (by the way: Whose family isn’t crazy?), how could making sure everyone’s opinion is heard be a bad thing? Most interactive agencies subscribe to the notion that you never know where the big idea or concept will come from. Sometimes the big idea can come from the exploration of a new technology or method that enhances consumer connection.

Here’s why:

• That was then, this is now. Like it or not, the days of the ingenious, 30-second TV spot are over. Today’s creative ingenuity lies within the idea, the technology, the concept, the innovation and, perhaps most important, the Holy Grail: consumer connection. Word of mouth is more prevalent than ever and interactive communities have an increasingly louder and more influential voice and are stronger (and sometimes the only) sources of breaking news stories. No one understands this better — nor is better equipped to handle the swift demands required — than the digital agency.

   

• Teaching an old dog new tricks. The “new trick” is immediacy. It’s about faster response times and the concept of immediacy. E-mail, IM, Twitter, Facebook, cellphones — all of these technologies set the stage for consumers wanting and expecting immediate responses, not to mention, immediate access to products and services. Traditional advertising agencies are not adapting to this mentality because they are still working with processes and organizational structures that were developed in a time when the internet and the concept of immediacy simply did not exist.Digital agencies understand that brands are being held to higher-than-ever consumer expectations. The plethora of data we can garner from a $50,000 media buy can leave traditional agencies’ heads spinning with insight and analysis. The truth of the matter is: Interactive agencies are forcing traditional agencies to integrate with digital media to better track and measure campaign results through custom URLs, short codes, etc.

   

• Kickin’ it old school. Not only are the days of the 30-second TV spot gone, so too are the traditional advertising agency gurus like David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach. Today, those figures have been replaced, instead, by financially backed entities. Rather than exploration and exploitation, digital agencies need their own gurus and legends that can lead by example.

Five or 10 years ago, I might agree with the argument that digital agencies weren’t ready to lead, but after sitting at the table with other agencies for the past decade — traditional, branding, public relations, marketing — it’s clear that digital agencies have proven their value, not to mention their ability to innovate, inspire, and create the big idea.

Perhaps the synergy and balance between exploitation and exploration is off kilter for digital agencies, but more and more we’re starting to see the agency structure itself change with new hires in technology and social media. And marketers are noticing:

• According to Media magazine, AKQA was named the lead agency for Nike India earlier this year.
• Precor named Ascentium its agency of record in October 2009. According to Forrester’s Q2 2009 Interactive Agency Wave, Ascentium “received the highest client satisfaction scores in this year’s review.” The assignment with Precor includes strategic planning and execution of all offline and online campaigns.
• McAfee hiring Tribal DDB as its agency of record in 2008. This assignment included all TV, print, outdoor, and digital.

The balance may not be there today, tomorrow or next month. The truth of the matter is digital agencies have earned their right to sit at the head of the table because they’ve brought what consumers and marketers are looking for: new innovations in measurement; flexibility and nimbleness; and, most importantly, ideas that bring what a magazine spread or 30-second TV spot cannot.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Now president-CEO of Nurun, a global interactive marketing agency, Jacques-Hervé Roubert began his career in advertising at Havas Conseil and subsequently held senior executive positions with BDDP and Young & Rubicam.

Purdue University Adds Twitter and Facebook to Class Participation

By Barb Dybwad

Students at Purdue University are experimenting with a new application developed at the school called Hotseat that integrates Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging to help students “backchannel” during class.

People who have attended technology conferences in the past several years are already familiar with this phenomenon, where social media is leveraged to allow the participants in a session or panel to comment and exchange questions and ideas in real-time. At Purdue, Hotseat is used to allow students to comment on the class as it proceeds, with everyone in the class including the professor able to see the messaging as it happens.

The Hotseat software allows students to use either Facebook, Twitter, Myspace (), or SMS to post messages during classes, or they can simply log in to the web site to post to and view the ongoing backchannel. Right now it’s only being pilot tested in two courses, but has already become a fast favorite for both teachers and students. Professor Sugato Chakravarty, whose personal finance course is one of the pilot tests, said, “I’m seeing students interact more with the course and ask relevant questions.”

And although it’s been optional for students to participate, so far 73% of the 600 or so in the pilot classes have used the software. We’ve seen Twitter become mandatory for journalism students at Australia’s Griffith University to some negative reaction, but this is a less structured implementation which may perhaps account for its more favorable reception.

As Chakravarty goes on to note, though, the application is called “Hotseat” for a reason — and professors will have to be resilient enough to take any potential criticism or even corrections from students in real-time. Nevertheless, he cites it as a “valuable tool for enhancing learning. The students are engaged in the discussions and, for the most part, they are asking relevant questions.”

Check out a video introduction to the Hotseat application below, and let us know what you think. Does social media have a natural place in the classroom? What role should Facebook () and Twitter () play in education?

Pizza Hut’s iPhone App Has Generated $1 Million in Sales

Design Matters: A Mobile UX Manifesto

Mobile Video Gets Ready for the Masses

The Search Continues for the Best (and Most Profitable) Way to Bring Emerging Digital Medium to the Mainstream

by Rita Chang
Published: September 14, 2009

// //

SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) — As with everything in mobile, hype precedes reality and mobile video is no exception. Despite being more than 5 years old, it is a nascent medium searching for a mass audience in a fragmented landscape.

A full-page Coldwell Banker interstitial that pops up in some of the apps created by Rhythm New Media

This year, 6% of U.S. mobile users, or 18 million people, will watch videos on their cellphones, according to IDC, and by 2013 that number will rise to 27 million. Even then, mobile video’s reach is eclipsed by what mobile ad networks already deliver today: Millenial Media said it was reaching 44 million mobile users as of June.

“The campaigns we’ve run to date have shown a lot of promise, but I think the key is that because of the limited reach of mobile video, it works best when combined with other pieces of the mobile marketing toolkit — things like mobile display ads, a solid mobile website for the brand, and even SMS,” said Jeremy Lockhorn, director of emerging media at Razorfish. “Essentially, mobile video can be a bit of a shiny object — much like iPhone applications — sexy and powerful, but chasing after it with irrational exuberance can be dangerous.”

Unlike the desktop environment where people simply head to a website to watch video, in mobile, video-viewing can take place on an app, a mobile website or over the carrier’s streaming TV service.

“Everyone’s trying different things to see what sticks,” said Wayne Purboo, CEO of QuickPlay Media, which powers mobile TV services for carriers such as Alltel and Leap Wireless. “It’s a big sandbox.”

Some startups, like mobile video ad network Transpera, help media companies build free, ad-supported videos that are viewed via an app or the companies’ websites. Transpera charges media clients a service fee for delivering video and shares ad revenue with them. Rhythm New Media, which produces smartphone apps for TV properties suchas “Entertainment Tonight,” charges for some apps but not others, though advertising lives inside all its apps.

Others, like MobiTV, Quickplay Media and MediaFlo, aggregate many channels, replicating a linear TV-viewing experience. They sell their services to carriers, which in some cases brand them as their own and charge viewers a monthly subscription fee, akin to the cable model. Carriers, hungry for data revenue to offset declining voice revenue, realize it’s these types of services that will drive consumers to buy data plans and in some cases are throwing their marketing weight behind them and giving vendors a cut of the subscription revenue. MobiTV also makes money from selling the advertising inventory that comes with licensing its channel partners’ content.

For consumers, the plethora of choices between carrier-branded vs. third-party video services and various ways to access video all add up to a somewhat convoluted landscape. But one trend is starting to emerge: It’s often not free.

After watching online publishers try to unwind the free content giveaway of the last 15 years, some mobile video providers are skeptical that advertising alone can sustain their business. They face the same profitability hurdles that saddle their online peers, including expensive bandwidth, infrastructure and hardware — both Hulu and YouTube, for example, have yet to turn a profit, though both say they’re close.

“There is no one making money today on ad-supported video,” said Mr. Purboo, adding that his company will be profitable within 12 months, and cash flow positive in nine. “I just don’t think we’re going to move to ‘all content is free.’ We’ll move to a mixed model where some content will be free, and quality content that people are willing to pay for will not be free.”

Forrester analyst Neil Strother agrees: “We’ll live in this hybrid world where you can grab some stuff for free but for the richer, deeper content — advertising won’t support that. These guys watched what’s happened with online content and they’re trying to put the genie back in the bottle.”

An open question is whether enough consumers are prepared to pay for small-screen video. Fifty-eight percent of those who have never watched TV on the go rank cost as the top reason for not doing so, according to a survey commissioned by QuickPlay. But the growing subscriber base of channel aggregator mobiTV, which has almost doubled to eight million from a year ago, argues for a more optimistic estimation. The success of Apple’s iTunes, which owns 69% of digital music sales, also suggests consumers will pay for certain content.

And while consumers believe free is an entitlement in the online world, it helps that they haven’t been conditioned to that idea in mobile, where content like ringtones still cost money. There’s also less fear from media owners that mobile channels will cannibalize TV viewing, which means channels like ESPN, which aren’t yet offered in full on the PC web for fear it will cut into its TV audience, are offered through mobile.

Handset fragmentation poses another challenge, and the numerous platforms, ranging from Java to Android, that video providers have to cater to, could potentially sink profitability ambitions.

“Each platform requires new development and costs, and could ultimately either break the model or require consumers to pay more,” said MobiTV CEO Paul Scanlan. “Getting critical mass and meaningful revenue becomes harder to find and-or keep.”

There are a few other things that will need to happen for mobile video to go mass. The first is that more people will need to adopt mobile broadband. Only about 20% of U.S. mobile users have all-you-can-eat data plans, according to Chetan Sharma Consulting. There will also need to be a shift from older, conventional cellphones, whose tiny screens and slow processing power stall video adoption, to smartphones, whose large interactive screens help deliver a better experience. IPhone users, for example, watch six times as much mobile video as a typical mobile subscriber.

That shift is already under way and those in the business say mobile video is on the cusp of significant growth.

“It was only really in 2005 that the [online video] category started to break out and 2006 that it exploded,” said Frank Barbieri, CEO of Transpera. “Mobile video is very close to where online was in early 2005.”

Gartner: Mobile Advertising To Grow 74% In 2009

By Mark Walsh

A new Gartner report projects that mobile ad spending worldwide will grow 74% this year to $913.5 million but not really accelerate until 2011, when advertisers are expected to boost mobile spending as part of an overall shift toward digital marketing channels.By 2013, the research firm expects mobile ad spending to surpass $13 billion, with the Asia-Pacific region leading the way, followed by North America and Europe.

“After 2011, the trend will continue as smartphones and flat-rate data plans become more affordable to mainstream users,” states the report, titled “Mobile Advertising Grows Quietly. “The growth in mobile advertising revenues is primarily driven by mobile Web banner ads, but it also has a strong growth component from mobile search, downloadable applications and SMS advertising.”

Underlying the growth of these formats is increased consumer use of smartphones, which Gartner expects to account for 45.5% of all mobile phone sales in 2013, up from just over 9% in 2008. The embrace of smartphones — especially the iPhone — coupled with a rise in flat-rate data plan pricing, signals that a fundamental change is underway in how consumers interact with high-end devices.

While data usage is growing most rapidly among smartphone users, Gartner analyst Andrew Frank points out that that the increased mobile media consumption is leading Web publishers to create more user-friendly versions of their mobile sites, “which in turn is lifting mobile Web access among non-smartphone users.”

A recent NPD report also noted that regular mobile phones have also increasingly adopted smartphone features such as Qwerty keyboards and touchscreens.

The report highlights location-based targeting, long hyped as one of the killer apps of mobile advertising, as still underutilized by finally coming into its own with the spread of GPS technology. “GPS-aware apps now provide a much simpler and more cost-effective means of achieving location targeting, while lowering the risks of consumer backlash,” since no personally identifiable information needs to be sent by users.

Gartner expects location-based ads to find an audience among young mobile users who are increasingly using mobile devices to navigate and connect with friends on the go. The firm suggests that media companies will have to develop (or acquire) local directory services like Yelp and Citysearch to fully take advantage of location-based advertising on cell phones.

Another as-yet unfulfilled opportunity in mobile advertising lies in third-party advertising in mobile apps. Despite the explosion of apps sparked by Apple’s App Store, most have yet to integrate advertising. And among those that have, the prevalence of house ads indicates that revenue growth is significantly lagging the opportunity afforded by rising usage.

Gartner also predicts that mobile handsets will increasingly complement other types of advertising as a “universal back channel,” especially for out-of-home media. The firm’s research supports the idea that young consumers in particular will accept free mobile content subsidized by advertising.

Even so, the report acknowledges that user acceptance generally, and regulation of more highly targeted and personalized forms of advertising, remain a potential hazard for advertisers, content providers and carriers. Other barriers to mobile ad growth cited by Gartner include the proliferation of non-standard devices and metrics and mobile spam, especially in connection with SMS text marketing.

While encouraging advertisers and agencies to look at precise targeting by time and location, the firm advises them to maintain a keen sensitivity to privacy issues and permission strategies.

The Next Big Thing in Mobile: 5 Trends We’re Watching

Last week I participated on a panel for the Commonwealth Club of California on Microsoft’s Mountain View campus called The Next Big Thing in Mobile. It was moderated by the very engaging Jon Fortt, Senior Writer, Technology for Fortune and included a diverse and talented group of wireless experts:

• Glenn Lurie, President, Emerging Devices Organization, AT&T
• Tim Attinger, Global Head of Product Innovation and Development, Visa Inc.
• Arun Bhikshesvaran, SVP, Multimedia and Infrastructure Solutions, Ericsson Inc.
• Ali Diab, Vice President of Product Management, North America, AdMob
• Peter Hoddie, Co-Founder and CEO, Kinoma

The panel was one of the best attended in Commonwealth Club history and based on the enthusiasm from the audience we could have kept going for hours. My experience at the event prompted me to take a moment to organize a few of the overarching mobile trends that Allison Mooney and the team at Next Great Thing/MobileBehavior have been writing about recently:

1. Socialization
Unlike the PC, which was driven by the needs of businesses, mobile has always been first and foremost a vehicle for socialization. You can really see this coming to life recently with the rise of “prescriptive social software” applications like Booyah and Foursquare that focus so heavily on socialization to drive user behavior and turn life into one big game.

2. Real-Time Mobile Activation
The mobile phone can seamlessly function as a mouse and make any location or out-of-home media instantly actionable. For young people, mobile is the bridge for digital to real-life in real-time. It sits at the center of their world and connects them back to social media, lifestreams, and all of their media. Recently we launched a program with Locamoda for Demi Lovato’s Summer Tour that illustrated this perfectly. The Wiffitti mobile social messaging application that we are using on the tour enables concert fans everywhere to interact and be part of our digital out-of-home media in real-time regardless of their location.

3. Branded Utility
Mobile applications, especially those on the iPhone, have now become the preferred mobile path for marketers. However, a mobile presence, even if it is an application, can be useless if it is not truly integrated into a larger mobile plan. So, to stay relevant and be successful via mobile, brands must become useful. One way to do this is through branded utility–focusing on enhancing “this moment” and creating a continuous 2-way brand-to-consumer, consumer-to-brand value chain that evolves via consuming, activating, and sharing. Zagat’s new augmented reality application is a great example of this as they are effectively using AR to enhance and encourage participation with the restaurant search experience in real-time.

4. ME Advertising
Mobile is ushering in the dawn of “ME” advertising that is proximate and personal. Search is no longer fueled by code, but by like-minded users and friends who act as curators. This is creating an entirely new brand value chain, ROI and branded messaging via mobile that is rapidly becoming a real-time endorsement channel. We can already see this starting to take-off through real-time search services like BingTweets, Collecta, and OneRiot.

5. Mobile Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is destined to become the standard for mobile phones, and while devices today are still relying on their internal memory and CPU capacity, all of this is rapidly transitioning to the web. Google’s investment into Chrome and their move onto campuses, along with Apple sales, presages a future for mobile where software will matter more than the device itself.  When applied to mobile, Cloud Computing is ushering in a new future for Internet-based computing. It will allows for increased collaboration through open APIs, and access to research, analysis, mobile marketing services, and software services without investing in IT. Going forward, this will enable a true focus on the customer and the brand, not on the technology.

Pongr Brings Better Opt-In To Mobile Marketing

By Jason Falls

If I were to tell you about a new technology that enables mobile phone users to take a picture of an ad, send it somewhere and then they’d get a coupon or some other interaction in return, you’d probably think I was talking about QR codes. However, I was recently introduced to a new technology and software platform that enables mobile user opt-in advertising interaction without the ugly bar codes on the ads.

Pongr bills itself as a mobile connection to the brands you care about for savvy shoppers. With your smart phone application (currently iPhone and Blackberry with Android coming) or with simple email, you take a picture of an advertisement or a logo of a brand you’re interested in, send it to Pongr and voila! Coupons, product information, sales materials and more is at your finger tips.

The catch is that the ad or logo as to be with a company that has used Pongr and allowed the service to build an image recognition benchmark from the company’s advertisements and logos. The technology recognizes images on file, then delivers the associated interaction to the user.

At first glance, it doesn’t appear much different than a QR code, but here’s what makes it both better and not as:

By removing the QR code and making the process as elementary as taking a picture of an ad or logo, you are removing a level of technical understanding and intimidation from the user experience. Image recognition is still being used, but on an image the end user understands and is familiar with. While average Joes and Janes can understand QR codes, they don’t.

Plus, the advertising creative directors always want the QR codes small to not intrude upon their “art.” This inevitably means users can’t take a picture of one that is in focus, thus ruining the experience.

Using similar technology on something more familiar to the average person, the process becomes instantly more understandable for the user.

Also, by offering up the applications on smart phones instead of asking users to just text or email the image, Pongr can technically remove a level of opt-in from the typical mobile interaction. While I am certainly not an expert in interpreting Can-Spam Act legalese, provided the information delivered comes through the Pongr application, simply downloading the app is your opt-in.

What Pongr has done is taken two potentially crippling steps out of the typical user experience for mobile marketing.

The challenge that Pongr faces is reach. Sure, their technology is going to wow some folks at ad agencies and on brand teams. But until they can build a critical mass of advertisers, there will be little reason for users to try the app and interact with the ads. Until they have a critical mass of users, they won’t be able to woo the advertisers.

Certainly, that doesn’t mean Pongr won’t be successful. I think the user experience alone could easily propel it beyond what most mobile companies are selling with QR and other two dimensional codes, and fast.

I downloaded the Pongr app on my iPhone last night. I took a picture of a Diet Pepsi bottle. There was no offer associated with the image I took. But if I’d gotten a “buy one 20-ounce, get one free” offer, or similar in return. I’d have cashed it in on the way to work this morning. (Wonder if Bonin Bough reads SME?)

If you’re with a brand or an agency, you owe it to your company or clients to look into technologies like this. Smart phones are moving toward 20% market share quickly. The types of mobile marketing interaction Europe and Asia have enjoyed for years is already in North America. As the consumer familiarity with it expands, so will the necessity for your company to offer mobile touch points.

If you’re a consumer, check out the app or learn more about how it works on Pongr’s website. My hope is that someone from Pongr might share some of the advertisers you can interact with now to get you started.

As you learn more about it, tell us what you think in the comments. And do you agree? Does image/ad recognition software indeed make it easier to grasp and less confusing an experience than QR codes? Please — the comments are yours.

MasterCard Launches ‘Priceless’ iPhone App

But Is Deal-Sharing Tool too Disconnected From Card’s Sentimental Campaign?

by Beth Snyder Bulik
Published: July 27, 2009

// //

YORK, Pa. (AdAge.com) — There’s an app for everything — and now there’s even one for everything else.

MasterCard’s ‘Priceless’ iPhone app

MasterCard, which has built its marketing around the theme, “There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard,” is extending that strategy with an iPhone app that allows users to upload their own “priceless” favorites into a socially networked nationwide grid. But in a seeming disconnect from the sentimental moments a MasterCard allows one to enjoy, as depicted in its 12-year-old ad campaign, the app seems to encourage consumers to share deals, bargains or simply favorite places they’ve “found,” such as nail salons or florists. MasterCard also has deals with ShopLocal and Not for Tourists, which will also aggregate offer-related picks from merchants.

The ‘brag factor’
“The human nature of people, call it the brag factor, is that they like to talk about things they’ve discovered,” said Chris Jogis, senior VP-U.S. marketing for MasterCard Worldwide. While MasterCard would not disclose how many downloads the app has gotten since it launched earlier this month, a spokeswoman characterized it as “a very positive reception.” Reviews from TechCrunch and several iPhone app review sites were generally upbeat.

A TV-only ad campaign launched last week in support of the app, featuring three creative executions in heavy rotation on network and cable. It will continue to run through the rest of the year. MasterCard’s agency is McCann Erickson Worldwide, New York, part of Interpublic Group of Cos.

While the iPhone app is just one part of MasterCard’s digital strategy, digital in general is a much bigger focus for the credit-card transaction giant. As the company sees it, there is an opportunity to connect more directly with consumers as well as provide value and utility for them while building a stronger brand connection, Mr. Jogis said.

He doesn’t see an advertising disconnect with the campaign, which focuses on the freedom a MasterCard affords the holder to share experiences, vs. an app that allows consumers to share bargains. “Certainly most of the things we look to do are connected to convenient ways for consumers to buy things,” he said, adding: “But even when it’s about a deal or a great price, it’s also about the find and the adventure and the experience.”

Obvious advertising?
While Tom Anderson, managing partner of Anderson Analytics consultancy, said “user-generated reviews tied to GPS are great” and they do tie “perfectly to the MasterCard brand and specifically their much successful ‘Priceless’ slogan,” he expressed concern about some of the obvious third-party deals communicated on the app in his local area.

“Ads I saw, such as ‘$10.99 2X Ultra Tide or Gain,’ I would hardly consider ‘priceless,’” Mr. Anderson said. “You only have one chance with an app like this. If users come to it and it smells like an ad, then it is an ad, and with no value added it will die quickly. … No one wants to carry around a piece of advertising in their pocket.”