Category Archives: Mobile

[Guest Post] YuMe on Mobile Video Advertising Technology

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May 17, 2012

Smartphone penetration is currently at 53% compared to last March when it was recorded at 39%. This resulted in smartphone penetration growth of 24% over the last 14 months. People are now spending on average of 84 minutes a day on their phone and are no longer just texting and calling. There is a whole new wave of activity around people watching video and using social media and mobile applications, which presents new opportunities for customer engagement and understanding. Research from a recent Nielson study suggests that people are now viewing more video on their Mobile/Tablet device compared to PC on a monthly basis.  Looking at a study of what people are doing whilst they are on their phone or tablet it was found that TV and being in bed indexes high.

 YuMe Logo

YuMe is a Video advertising network; the largest pure play video network in the US across Connected television, Online and Mobile. They are currently achieving 2 billion impressions a month and some of their publishers include MSN, FOX News and CNN. YuMe broke into the European Marketplace through an acquisition of a company called Appealing Media, that has been established for 2 years and specialize in Mobile Pre Roll Video. YuMe’s Current reach is 1 billion display impressions across Europe and 30 million Videos. In the UK the current reach is 500 million display impressions and 20 million Videos. Some of YuMe’s Publishers include Top Gear, ITN, ESPN, GOAL.com and Shazam. YuMe have just moved into the Connected TV audience in the UK becoming Samsung’s exclusive Partner and having inventory on LG smart TVs achieving 5 million banner to video impressions a month.

 

YuMe has the largest offering of Mobile Ad Formats available through any mobile network; from the Market leading Interactive Pre Roll to Banner to Video and everything from Rich Media Expandable Banner.  We specialize in video advertising across three screens, Mobile, Online and Connected TV.  YuMe’s network runs multiple ad formats in the same content environments, delivering a 70% unique network across publishers like Top Gear, ESPN, ITN, Bauer and IPC (over 125 publishers in the YuMe Network).

 

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Is cash still king? MasterCard’s PayPass

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May 11, 2012

Mobile payment technology took another stride forward recently, when MasterCard announced the launch of a new digital wallet service.

NFC MasterCard Technology

PayPass, which MasterCard claims will offer consumers and merchants a “faster and easier” payment system, will debut in the UK, US, Canada and Australia in Q3, with a further global roll-out planned for 2013. The service will include in-store contactless payment technology and a mobile and online checkout button, which brands can use on their e-commerce websites.

 

Mobile commerce is rapidly moving into the mainstream of everyday life, with major retailers reporting growth of sales through mobile. In 2011, eBay generated about $4 billion through its mobile proposition, with vehicles and fashion proving the most popular product categories (in the UK) for purchases via eBay mobile.

 

Several companies have unveiled “wallet” services, most recently O2, which launched its product last month. MasterCard claims partners will be able to integrate their wallets into the PayPass infrastructure, with the aim of providing a single platform for new payment technology. The brand is also encouraging the developer community to create new payment technologies using PayPass, which it eventually hopes to develop as the ‘app store’ of the payment industry.

 

MasterCard has immediately recognised that success of its service very much depends on the user-friendliness of the product. As Marion King, MasterCard UK and Ireland president, said: “The current situation with digital wallets can be confusing for consumers, with lots of cards and mechanisms, and so we want to join it up and open up the eco-system. It is essential we make digital payment as easy as ‘chip and pin’.“

 

According to King, the service will be marketed around the concept of simplicity and consistency. PayPass will be promoted with a combination of marketing from MasterCard, as well as by partner retailers and banks, including American Airlines and Barnes & Noble, while in the UK, PayPass services will be rolled out by Metro Bank.

 

There are three key components in the rise of contactless mobile payments. Connected handset penetration among the population is already above 45% and rising.  And, trust among users is evident by the sheer volume of mobile transactions – from 99 pence apps through to high-end furniture from John Lewis. Now, it appears the final piece of the jigsaw is in place: simple, secure, contactless payment platforms. Soon your wallet won’t be burning a hole in your pocket; it’ll be part of your phone.

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GAME Over – What if they had a second life?

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April 13, 2012

Game Logo

In the final moments of survival, just when you think you’ve done enough to make it through the battle, you’re inevitable taken out by that old nemesis and knocked fatally to the floor. Respawn? Yes.

The game industry has parodied itself. Following the nation’s biggest gaming retail store, GAME, filing for administration, it was only moments before the ‘respawn’ button was activated in the form of a takeover from OpCapita.

It’s easy to see why they found GAME such an attractive acquisition. Gaming is huge. The UK not only leads Europe in its consumption but it punches way above its weight in the development of blockbuster games – further boosted by the recent budget, which has created tax breaks to UK developers.  Yet, GAME is still in a position of resuscitative need. How can it turn things around?

1. Get (away from) physical – It is important to protect the interest of the ‘high street retailer’; they act as a gathering point for the gaming community, a place to try before you buy, to trade games and so on. However, gamers no longer see the benefit in having shelves full of games that take time to unpack, insert and load up. GAME should be looking to invest in digital streaming services that rival the likes of Steam, so they are ready for the inevitability of the future.

Game needed to adapt to survive


2. Why pay more? – GAME is losing out in sales to the supermarkets, who use big launches as loss leading ‘carrots’ and to the online stores who have lower overheads. To beat this, they need to match their deals on not just some, but their entire core boxed products, and upsell to gamers with peripherals and gaming collectables.
3. Gaming is bigger than GAME – GAME must use its expertise in understanding gamers and gaming to reach out to other markets where its unique expertise can add value.It also needs to get control over the huge ‘Casual Gaming’ (social and mobile) market. It won’t be easy – this market is competitive and cluttered but herein lies the opportunity for a trusted category leader to provide direction and endorsement.
4. Riding ‘hype power’ – Picturing the industry without high street game stores is a little like imagining Apple without the App stores. Without instore buzz and overnight queues the need to have it ‘now’ just wouldn’t be as strong, and nor would sales. The publishing industry need to realise this, and invest in maintaining this asset. GAME must use its commanding position to insist on real exclusives that gamers want, such as premier midnight launches and first looks for all big releases.
5. New experiences – Many of the new generation console extensions have not yet given the industry the boost it imagined, and part of the problem must be the lack of opportunity to see them in action. Although, with expensive retail square footage, GAME would understandably rather make the space to stock more products than to offer trial areas, which is what gamers really crave. A GAME outlet centre could be ideal for this, giving plenty of room for trialling, as well as products on shelves.
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Another Day

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February 10, 2012

On Sunday 5th February, What’s Hot was one of the 111.3m viewers who tuned in to watch this year’s Super Bowl final. For the third consecutive year, it attracted the largest audience of a TV programme in US history. At a price tag of $3.5m for a 30 second spot, it is the definition of primetime viewing. With the rise and rise of dual-screening, this year advertisers pulled out all the stops to make sure that, regardless of the platform, they had the viewers’ attention.

Ever since Apple’s iconic ‘1984’ ad, which introduced the Macintosh personal computer for the first time, the Super Bowl ads have become an integral part of the whole extravaganza. Hulu, an American online TV streaming platform, jumped on board this year and partnered with Advertising Age and Toyota to bring viewers the ‘ultimate viewing experience’.  The Hulu Adzone Player allowed viewers to watch the ads in real time as they aired on TV, to vote for their favourite ads and share the clips across social media. Thanks to Hulu, the ads instantly took on another level of engagement.

Coca Cola also embraced engagement by creating entertaining content that ran online throughout the evening, and nicely complemented their spot airtime ads. During the game, two of the brand’s legendary polar bears were decked out in team colours – one in a New York Giants’ blue scarf and one in a New England Patriots’ red scarf. Viewers who logged on to the Coca Cola site could watch the bears react in real time to the match (e.g. celebrating when someone scored) and could follow the bears commenting on Twitter and ask them questions.

Users were prompted to engage with brands featured during the ad breaks – 68% of the ads shown had references to websites and social media sites. As viewers of sporting events tend to be passive, the challenge is how do you convince them to interact with an ad? Simple answer: free stuff. Between Shazam and QR codes, goodies up for grabs ranged from two Camrys from Toyota, $50 off a new phone in Best Buy, and exclusive content from Madonna for the half-time show.

And the results? This year’s Super Bowl attracted 12.2m social media comments during and immediately after it – a 578% increase on last year, making it the biggest social media event recorded in the US. Tweets spiked at 10,000 per second. People weren’t just watching – they were interacting.

Looking forward to Superbowl 2013, it would seem that the lesson to learn from this is to keep your eyes on your screens – all of them.

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Best Days

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January 16, 2012

Forget the Chronicles of Narnia, this festive period it’s all been about the Hitwise Christmas Retail Trilogy reports.  The big news this December was that visits to retail sites were at their highest ever level, up 4.8% year-on-year.

Across the month, there were over two billion visits and a total of 343m hours spent shopping on these sites. Interestingly, time spent was down from last December, implying that we have become quicker at browsing and buying. What’s Hot has surmised that this is not only because of faster internet speeds and sites with easier navigation, but also because consumers are increasingly confident about buying online.

Boxing Day was the biggest day ever for traffic to retail sites – 96.2m visits, up 19.5% on 2010. According to Hitwise, the large increase was down the fact that Boxing Day was a Monday, traditionally the busiest online day of the week. However as Boxing Day 2011 was a non-working day – traditionally quieter for online shoppers – we’ll have to wait until next year when Boxing Day is on Wednesday to see which is the bigger driving factor for traffic.

Boxing Day searches this December were also interesting. Only a small 0.9% contained the word “sale” or “sales”.  In 2011 many retailers started their sales pre-Christmas – and online searches for sales actually started increasing as early as 17th December.

Cyber Monday – the term coined for the busiest online shopping day of the year – fell on December 5th in 2011. As you’d expect, traffic was sky high, exceeding 84m visits, up 18% on 2010.  And we did not see the usual trend of falling traffic in the approach to Christmas Day as delivery dates became unattainable. Eager retailers extended delivery dates so much so that the only severe drop was in the week before Christmas.

Within this is the growing platform of m-commerce. This week, IBM reported 11% of all online retail sales in December 2011 originated from mobile devices, doubling from 5.5% a year earlier. Mobile shoppers generated 14.6% of all online sessions on retailer websites, up from 5.6% in December 2010.

Apple’s iPhone and iPad collectively accounted for 9.5%of all mobile device retail traffic last month. In addition, shoppers using the iPad continued to drive more purchases than consumers across other devices, with retail conversion rates reaching 6.3% compared to 3.1% on rival smartphones and tablets.

So is this the final death knell for the high street? In a word, no. You’ll still have some keen bargain-hunters queuing up in the cold on 26th December 2012. That said, the iPad was a big Christmas gift this year  once again – and the future of Christmas shopping may well be tablet-shaped.

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The great outdoors

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October 26, 2011

This morning at the7stars HQ, we had a bit of a catch up on the outdoor market. Want to know what’s going on?

Well, first of all, we’re buying loads of it. As an agency, the7stars’ outdoor spend was up +233% YoY compared to Q3 last year. We are buying a hell of a lot – and making it work hard for our clients. Recently you may have seen our big impactful Converse sites, Discovery’s ‘Alone in the Wild’ as far as the eye can see, many new album launches…and also keep an eye out for our special builds for Phones4U and our Cocosa Bond Street digiwall in the near future.

Looking at the market more holistically, on a macro level, investment in digital outdoor has increased by 12% in Q3 of this year. This mirrors a trend that has run across the whole year, with spend on traditional sites down somewhat, but spend on digital sites increasing. Overall, avails for Q4 are looking very tight as clients from every industry sector gear up for the busy Christmas period. Other things to keep an eye out for include a roll out of new formats; including digital 6 sheets at bus stops, jazzy new ‘social’ digital screens in bars and nightclubs, and some upgraded large formats, such as those in Euston Station and in Manchester.

So looking forward to 2012, what’s coming up? With a year jam-packed with big events, there’s a lot going on. Many of the Olympics outdoor sites have already been booked up by the official sponsors, with taxis in particular being in extremely high demand.  In addition to this, we have a shortlist of a few trends to look out for, namely…

  • Increased augmented reality interactivity with sites,
  • Social media integration,
  • Interactive gaming,
  • Mobile connectivity,
  • More live dynamic content.

The future’s looking bright – has there ever been a better excuse to get out?

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CAN’T HELP FALLING IN LOVE

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August 19, 2011

On Monday, Google announced it had bought Motorola development division Mobility for a staggering £7.7 billion. The deal comes seven months after Motorola split the business into two; Mobility that develops and manufactures mobile phones, and Motorola Solutions that covers wider technologies for corporate customers and government.

As a result of the acquisition Google will own all 17,000 technology patents that Motorola currently has the rights to. Essentially, this means that if another mobile system wants to use that technology they have to pay Google for the right to do so.

Recently Microsoft has been openly critical of Google and the handsets that use Android as an operating system – particularly HTC – as these handsets use Microsoft’s patent technology and therefore pays Microsoft every time an Android phone is sold.

So where does this purchase and associated legal issues, leave the rest of the mobile phone market? Apple, Blackberry and Microsoft have huge advantages in this space, as all own proprietary handset and operating systems. Android, despite its rapid growth, is an open source platform (used by handsets such as HTC and Samsung) and had been at a disadvantage for not owning a handset (and patents) to accompany the operating system to escalate it to the ‘iconic’ status that the iphone has attained. This could well now change.

Google intends to run Motorola as a separate business and to ‘Supercharge Android’ (according to Larry Page, Google CEO), whilst still keeping it as an open platform for other handsets to use. With the Motorola patents, mobile handset technology, Android operating system and the highest smartphone penetration in the UK, it like Google will be providing Apple with some serious competition! This could even reduce market domination by the iPhone – providing Google gets the handsets right.

The move really has has also shaken up the mobile industry and rumours are spreading about Microsoft acquiring Nokia for its patents and technology and Google looking at buying Blackberry for the addition penetration in the UK market. However, from where What’s Hot is standing Google has got an opportunity to dominate the market in the next year or so even without acquiring Blackberry. Exciting times ahead for the global mobile market indeed.

 

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Rule the World

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June 23, 2011

We’ve been scouring the web in the last week or so to find out more about the announcements from Mr Jobs on a raft of new Blackberry-baiting features for the new iPhone operating system (iOS5), stuff about clouds and general Apple gossip.

Let’s start with iMessage which is being touted as the Apple equivalent to Blackberry’s BBM service. BBM has successfully attracted a non-business user (yes teens!) to the Blackberry brand, and it seems that with iMessage, Apple could do the same and improve its position in this market.

Notification Center (sic) meanwhile is a great improvement. New emails, text messages, multimedia messages, reminders, Game Center notifications, mail alerts, Twitter notifications and any other sort of items which could normally trigger a push notification will soon find their way into the Notification Center. They’ll be called to your attention on your iOS lock screen, via a regular pop up alert, or with a small non-intrusive banner which briefly flashes across the top of your screen.

On to iCloud now. This really is the biggest thing from Apple since the iPad launch (which incidentally at 25m units sold makes it a far faster seller than the iPhone). iCloud will be integrated with iOS5 and many of the apps like iPhoto, documents, apps, iBooks, contacts, calendar and mail will have built in iCloud functionality after the update. The iOS5 update is free & includes 5GB cloud storage.

Photostream is another great app that will allow photos to be uploaded to iCloud, then synced across multiple devices and tablets.

With competition fierce on all fronts for Apple (Google Music Beta and Amazon Cloud competing for music storage supremacy; a raft of new tablets all touting iPad-killing features and more) this announcement needed to be a big one, and it sure was.

It may be losing out now in the operating system war with Android, but Apple is still the undisputed king of cool gadgets and great functionality. When they pull it out of the bag with announcements like this, others can only look on in envy.
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