Jello & Betty Crocker Get iPhone Apps: Who's Next?

Yes it's true, America's most loved cookbook has gone mobile. A free Betty Crocker iPhone application offers meal suggestions based on what's in your pantry. An even bigger surprise is that the $.99 iFood Assistant from Kraft is one of the 100most popular paid iphone applications. With 19th century brands leading the way, mobile marketing may finally be making some headway.

Mobile marketing is getting a big assist from the iPhone. It's hard to believe but the iPhone won't even celebrate its 2-year birthday until June. That's right, only 18 months old.

On June 30, 2007 Apple sold Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the first thirty hours, and has gone on to sell another 17 million globally through the end of 2008, helped by rapid introductions of faster speeds, lower prices and new app's. And there's no end in sight. While iPhone accounts for just 30% of the 'smart phone' category, it has left competitors like RIM in the dust. When we talk about apps for 'smart phones', we all know what we're talking about.

Another amazing statistic: Over half a billion iphone app's have been sold since their introduction in July 2008. I did a little digging on what are the most popular. No one will be surprised to learn that among the premium (paid) app's games rule. (Will GameBoys be the next victim of convergence?) Among the free iphone applications, Apple's list released in December includes many games, but also two social networking apps--Facebook and AOL's AIM. It also includes two travel apps, Google Earth and Urbanspoon. The list also features a pair of entertainment apps, Apple's Remote and The MacBox's Lightsaber, along with two music apps, Pandora Radio and Shazam. Time magazine published its list of top 10 most useful app's. These include Around Me, which tells travellers what is of interest nearby, including stores & restaurants, AP's News on Demand, Wikipanion, and Ocarina (turns your phone into a wind instrument).Notable shopping related app's are Save Benji's which provides comparison prices and Yelp, consumer reviews.

For marketers wishing to reach mobile Millennials (is there any other kind?), iPhone app's are a dream come true. iphone app's are:

1) as targeted as search

2) potentially as close-to-the-sale as in-store

3) as trackable as email

4) as interactive as a web site

According to a recent slide share presentation by Marta Kagan of Viximo, iphone users have higher than average discretionary income and iphone app's enjoy a higher than average response rate. Put all that together and branded app's may be the killer app of all time.

The key for marketers is making a branded app that Millennials will use and will also benefit the brand, which is not as easy as it may sound.

I had trouble finding success stories in this space. Zippo's Virtual Lighter is interesting as a novelty but doesn't really offer any functionality or buzz value. Audi's Driving Challenge didn't get good reviews, even in 2.0. Maybe Millennial marketers need to look at those 19th century brands a little closer? Feel free to send me examples of successful BRANDED mobile app's.

Marketers to Millennials: To Text or Not to Text?

If you listen to Millennials, it's an easy decision not to send commercial messages on their mobile phone. Most Millennials pay for their text messages. As Marty Predd, Research Associate at Brand Amplitude puts it, "They ration text messages like bread in WWII".

Yet, SMS has powerful potential for delivering just the right message at the right time. The sheer volume of text messages is impressive. In Q2 2008, the average text messager sends or receives an average of 357 text messages per month, the average teen, 1752 messages a month. That's more than the number of phone calls. ("Realizing Potential", September 2008).

What about advertising messages? The numbers here are also impressive. Well over half of all U.S. cell phone users have a text message plan and 16% of texters in the U.S. see some form of text-message advertising each month. (The number shoots up to 35% for teens). Consumers are not only seeing text message ads, Nielsen says 45% have responded in some way. The most popular response to mobile advertising (text, video, Internet, etc.) is sending another text-message; one-quarter of responders sent another text-message. These figures make a compelling case for figuring out how to overcome Millennial's barriers to text marketing messages.

There are some successful cases worth looking at. A subsequent Nielsen report ("The Short Code Opportunity", Dec. 2008) points out that President-Elect Barack Obama’s “V.P. pick” text message remains the most notable example of short code marketing in the U.S. In August 2008, the campaign attempted to announce Joe Biden as the vice presidential candidate over SMS text message. Nielsen estimates that the Biden text was received by 2.9 million mobile phone users in the U.S. over the course of that weekend. The next most prominent example of a text message-based effort is is Coca-Cola’s My Coke Rewards program. This program had engaged 1.1 million AT&T and Verizon Wireless customers as of Q3 2008.

"Through My Coke Rewards, Coca-Cola customers collect unique codes found on various Coca-Cola products and enter them into an account they’ve registered at mycokerewards.com. When they reach certain point levels, they are able to redeem points for rewards. The mobile component of the program allows consumers to enter the codes over their mobile phone on the go. Coca-Cola’s mobile users typically send and receive about 32 messages a month to Coca-Cola. Importantly, it’s not just kids or teens who are an active audience for short code marketing. In the Coca-Cola example, nearly half (47 percent) of users were 35 or older. That age diversity is not unique to Coca-Cola either. Overall, 53 percent of those engaging with free (standard rate) short codes, such as those used by brands in marketing, are sent by texters 35 and older."

Subway, Arby’s, Jiffy Lube, BestBuy, Papa Johns, Village Inn, and other major brands have also provided special offers through text and multimedia messaging.

Papa Johns, Domino’s Pizza and Pizza Hut all allow customers to register ordering details online and then order pizzas over text message. Nielsen estimates that 552,000 AT&T and Verizon Wireless subscribers texted with Domino’s Pizza, 279,000 texted with Pizza Hut and 182,000 texted with Papa John’s in Q3 2008

Foot Locker sends special offers to its “VIP program” participants—they sent those texts to approximately 306,000 AT&T and Verizon Wireless subscribers in Q3 2008.

Subway’s FRESHBUZZ service allows Subway customers to receive news and promotions via text message. Nielsen estimates that Subway sent these sandwich deals and news flashes to 212,000 AT&T and Verizon Wireless subscribers in Q3 2008.

Short codes are not limited to brand marketing. Traditional media is also using text messaging to enhance participation (e.g.“American Idol”). In radio, Nielsen’s tracking of short codes showed more than a million transactions in 2Q 2008 with the short code “A-L-I-C-E” (or 25423), a short code assigned to the station Alice 97.3 KLLC-FM in San Francisco. Alice listeners are invited to send text messages directly to the studio to make requests, win prizes, and enter polls.

Given Millennials adamant stance against text message ads, any marketer considering using SMS should take a cautious approach and make sure that the messages are both useful and welcome. But these marketers have shown it can be done.

Reaching Millennials With Mobile Media

As this very cool video from Nokia demonstrates, the so-called fourth screen 'changes everything' by bringing the big screen to your pocket. If you want impressive statistics on global market for mobile youth marketing, look no farther than "The Mobile Shift" a slide show by Graham Brown at Mobileyouth.org. A sample: "By 2010, American mobile owning youth under 30 will number 100 million. The USA is the most valuable mobile youth market in the world currently producing 17% of the world’s total telecoms youth revenue, or $48 billion per year." (Reminder, 2010 is next year!)

However, understanding how to make mobile youth marketing acceptable to youth is harder. In focus group after focus group, Millennials tell us, often emphatically, they do not welcome commercial messages on their personal phone -- especially if they have to pay data or text messaging charges to receive them. What's a youth marketer to do?

For clues to making mobile marketing work, I turned to some youth bloggers.

1. Arielle Patrice Scott: 19-year old blogger, Arielle Patrice Scott, a student at Berkeley and entrepreneur, recommends meeting your target in person, then continue the conversation digitally.

You really only need two marketing methods to establish long-lasting relationships with Gen Y. The first is face-to-face communication and the second is social media. It’s really simple. You use face-to-face to introduce yourself. You use social media for building and maintaining our friendship. Face-to-face marketing refers to any form of guerilla, event or physical interaction communication between you - the brand - and us. The key is you want to make a great first impression and ask for permission to get to know us better, almost as if you’re looking to go on a second date. Social media is the most effective for keeping in touch and afterward, it’s the perfect medium recommend your products to us. We already know you and are looking forward to your messages at this point. We are ready to get to know you.

2. Josh Kowitt: Arielle's insight no doubt accounts for the presence of campus 'ambassadors' for brands like Apple, Red Bull and more. Taking the brand to the target is also expensive and fraught with pitfalls, as Josh Kowitt, the 24-year old entrepreneur behind College Boxes, explains in his guest entry for the blog, 'Big Brand on Campus' . Just giving something away free at a fraternity party does not guarantee you will be noticed or loved. Josh suggests carefully selecting the venue to ensure students will be present who will value your effort and spread the word to others.

3. Benjamin Leis: Benjamin Leis is the Millennial blogger and entrepreneur behind Big Brand on Campus. He describes a campus appearance by Havaianas Sandals that made the transition to digital successfully, to his great surprise!

Upon learning about the Havaianas' Color War Campus Tour I joined their Facebook page and posted a complimentary comment on the wall. A few days later I was thanked by the page administrator/brand ambassador for 1. becoming a fan of the page and 2. "participating in the community". I was shocked. I am a fan of over 15 business' Facebook Pages and I have never once received a personal message from any of them. The representative then went one step further and asked me for my sandal size and mailing address. SHE WANTED TO SEND ME A FREE PAIR OF HAVAIANAS!! Now that is remarkable! I have told just about everyone I know about this. It is super low cost marketing. The cost of postage will probably rival that of the manufacturing cost of the sandals themselves. Divide that by the number of people I have told and you have an incredible word of mouth marketing metric. Ironically this wouldn't be remarkable if it weren't for the status quo, so that is something marketers should be aware of as well.

4. Tyler Reed: Tyler Reed, 20 is the founder of Younique and Project Wolf. Tyler suggests that mobile advertising should be location-focused, even if it is not triggered by a location search, per se.

Why is location based advertising so special? Once again, it ties in with being able to target people who looking for specific information at or withing a specific location. Therefore if advertising is location relevant or specific, it has a greater chance of being more relevant to the person. Even if they are not performing a search, information that is location specific to the person’s current position can be just as relevant.

Next time: Effective mobile media campaigns.