Earlier this year, we launched The Mobile Playbook in the US to help brands and agencies develop winning mobile strategies. At the time, most marketers had already moved beyond the “why mobile?” question, but didn’t know where or how to get started. Now it’s become clear that, when done right, mobile works for marketers. As the industry has evolved, we’re seeing examples of marketers designing compelling mobile creatives, and how savvy advertisers are finding ways to measure the real value that mobile has on their businesses. These are two areas that have been top of mind for the thousands of marketers that we’ve talked with and we’re excited to expand the playbook to delve deeper into these topics.
In The Full Value of Mobile section, we dive into the range of mobile conversions possible today and how they provide economic value to businesses in ways that marketers may not realize. For example, Adidas worked with iProspect to evaluate how mobile clicks on their store locator links were driving in-store sales, and ultimately found that each mobile store locator click was worth $3.20.
With mobile debuting as a new category at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity this year, it’s clear that mobile has truly arrived as a creative platform. According to Terry Savage, Chairman of Cannes Lions, "We're now starting to see some marketers build incredibly engaging and immersive creative for mobile. We sought out to celebrate these great mobile creatives at Cannes Lions this year and inspire others to think about how to bring their brands to life on mobile." The Mobile Creativity section explains why mobile is unique and powerful from a creative perspective, and shares examples of how marketers from around the world have used mobile to bring their brands to life.
The Mobile Playbook was created as a one-stop resource to spotlight brands that are making mobile work for them and to reflect our latest recommendations on how marketers can approach mobile strategically. We’ve also rolled out international versions of The Mobile Playbook across different countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, France, and the UK, and will bring the playbook to Japan, Australia and Italy over the coming weeks. We welcome your input, and will keep adapting the playbook as the industry continues to evolve.
Posted by: Jason Spero, Head of Global Mobile Sales & Strategy
Did you see our new research emphasizing why it’s important for businesses to ‘Go Mo’ and build a mobile-friendly site? Last week we featured a study - What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today - in a live webinar. Powerful insights included how a mobile site can turn your users into customers:
67% of mobile users are more likely to buy a site’s product or service when they visit a mobile site;
74% say they’re more likely to return to a mobile site in future.
If you missed it, no problem, you can watch watch the recording instead.
We created the GoMo initiative to help businesses understand why having a mobile site is important and how to get started. The site is a starting point for you to:
We’ve gotten great feedback from businesses about the resource, and we’re thrilled to hear that it recently won a 2012 OMMA Award for the best business-to-business integrated online campaign.
So whether you’re ready to get started, or just thinking about it for the first time today, take a look at howtogomo.com.
Posted by: Michael Schipper, Product Marketing Manager, and Suzanne Mumford, Product Marketing Manager
In this increasingly mobile world, it’s important for marketers to understand whatconsumers are doing on their mobile devices. We recently took a close look at this question in a number of different research studies - Our Mobile Planet, The New Multi-Screen World, What Users Want From Mobile Sites Today. But as we talked with marketers and agencies, especially creative agency folks, we realized there was another important question to answer: why is the mobile space so powerful at a deeper, more emotional level? And how are people finding and making meaning there? These are important questions because it’s hard to tell emotionally resonant stories about brands on mobile unless we understand the resonance of the mobile space itself.
So what isthe meaning of mobile? That’s a big and complex question, but to start scratching the surface we sought the help of an anthropologist who went into the homes of mobile users and spoke with them at length, observing their device interactions and asking them to keep “mobile diaries” to understand the role mobile is playing in their lives. From this investigation, we gained some valuable insights that we hope will help strategic planners and creatives better understand how to make use of the mobile space. For example: Have you ever thought about how miniature items tend to possess the power to unlock imaginations, and how this dynamic plays out with the smallness of our phones? Or how our smartphones enable us to indulge in our innate desire to “read” and “write” meanings onto our physical surroundings? (We hadn’t either.)
We’ve shared our findings with strategic planners and marketers at Cannes, Advertising Week, and at a handful of creative agencies. Today, we are excited to share our insights with you through a new whitepaper that tells the story of what we found -- how mobile is helping us achieve our self-ideals, co-create culture with our communities, and make sense of the physical world around us.
We invite you to put on your anthropologist's hat and to think about mobile in a new and different way. Perhaps some of the findings will inspire you to think about the ways that you can connect with your customers in the mobile space. We’d love for you to join the dialogue and share your thoughts. Posted by: Jesse Haines, Head of Marketing, Mobile Ads, and Abigail Posner, Head of Strategic Planning, Agency Development
Earlier this week we shared how today's consumers expect more -- much more -- from mobile sites. They told us so in our recent research survey, What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today.
Today we'll share more results, with some great examples of businesses giving mobile users what they want. Whether you're a Fortune 500 company or the pizza shop down on the corner, creating a mobile-friendly site is a critical step: 67% of mobile users say that they’re more likely to buy a product or service from a mobile-friendly site, and 74% say they’re more likely to return to that site in the future.
How are smart companies making mobile sites work for them?
Less is more: ProFlowers
For their new mobile site, the flower retailer ProFlowers simplified things by highlighting the most popular bouquets to reduce scrolling, by trimming text, and by cutting checkout steps. How well has it worked? “Since becoming mobile-friendly, we’ve seen our mobile conversion rate jump by 20–30%," says Leif Heikkila, the company's senior director of online marketing. Download the case study.
Bigger is better: FragranceNet.com
FragranceNet sells perfumes and colognes, yes, but also face creams, shampoos, eyeliner and more. For Michael Nadboy, the company's VP of online marketing and strategic development, the trick to mobile success was to show bigger product images and buttons, larger font sizes, and fewer images overall. Mobile users loved it: FragranceNet boosted mobile sales by 48% in just four months. Download the case study.
Speed sells: TicketNetwork
Rock concerts, Broadway shows, NASCAR races: TicketNetwork’s mobile site helps on-the-go fans find tickets for them all. The company redesigned its mobile site with speed in mind, stripping away all non-essential content and graphics. They also trimmed steps from the checkout process to help mobile users buy fast. Four months after introducing the new mobile site, web traffic from mobile devices was up 120% and overall sales from mobile had grown by 184%. Download the case study.
You can see the keys to mobile site success: big buttons and text, less content, fewer steps to checkout, and a focus on speed.
What kind of mobile content is most important? The users we surveyed listed "Get directions”, “Find operating hours" and “Click to call the business” as some of their most-wanted mobile tasks. They also showed clear differences in mobile usage by business category. For instance:
Mobile Banking and Finance customers are most interested in checking account balances, transferring money and paying bills.
Mobile Travel customers are most interested in checking flight status and confirming reservations.
Mobile Retail customers like to contact a store and find product information.
Mobile Automotive customers are most interested in contacting the dealership and making service appointments.
The bottom line: mobile users are ready to make choices on the go. Help them get there fast and you'll help your business grow.
We reviewed these findings yesterday during our webinar: Mobilize your Site and Maximize your Advertising. If you missed it, please keep an eye out for the recorded webinar, which we'll post soon.
In the meantime, check out howtogomo.com for more tips on how to build a mobile-friendly website.
Posted by: Masha Fisch, Google Mobile Ads Marketing
Today we’re releasing version 6.2 of our Google AdMob SDK for iOS developers. This release contains maintenance updates and adds compatibility with iOS 6, in addition to continued support for iOS 5.
We are adopting Apple’s new Identifier for Advertising (IDFA) on devices running iOS 6. SDK 6.2 will continue to use the unique device identifier (UDID) for devices running iOS 5 and below. Developers must obtain appropriate user consent for sending device identifier information in compliance with relevant iOS policies.
The new SDK is available for download here. We encourage our developer partners to upgrade to the latest SDK as soon as possible. For full technical details of today’s release, please see our post on the Ads Developer Blog.
In this world of constant connectivity, consumers expect to find the information that they want, when they want it - especially when they’re on the go. We know that this applies to their web browsing experiences on mobile, so we took a deeper look at users’ expectations and reactions towards their site experiences on mobile. Most interestingly, 61% of people said that they’d quickly move onto another site if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site. The bottom line: Without a mobile-friendly site you’ll be driving users to your competition. In fact, 67% of users are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site, so if that site’s not yours, you’ll be missing out in a big way.
Discover these and more findings from,What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today, a study from Google (conducted by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger, independent market research firms). The report surveyed 1,088 US adult smartphone Internet users in July 2012.
The problem (and opportunity) is big... While nearly 75% of users prefer a mobile-friendly site, 96% of consumers say they’ve encountered sites that were clearly not designed for mobile devices. This is both a big problem and a big opportunity for companies seeking to engage with mobile users.
Mobile-friendly sites turn users into customers The fastest path to mobile customers is through a mobile-friendly site. If your site offers a great mobile experience, users are more likely to make a purchase.
When they visited a mobile-friendly site, 74% of people say they’re more likely to return to that site in the future
67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service
Not having a mobile-friendly site helps your competitors A great mobile site experience is becoming increasingly important, and users will keep looking for a mobile-friendly site until they find one that works for them. That means your competitors will benefit if your site falls down on the job (and vice versa).
61% of users said that if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they’d quickly move on to another site
79% of people who don’t like what they find on one site will go back and search for another site
50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn't mobile-friendly
Non-mobile friendly sites can hurt a company’s reputation It turns out that you can lose more than the sale with a bad mobile experience. A site that’s not designed for mobile can leave users feeling downright frustrated, and these negative reactions translate directly to the brands themselves.
48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that’s not mobile-friendly
36% said they felt like they’ve wasted their time by visiting those sites
52% of users said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company
48% said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business
Takeaways While the research confirms what we already suspected -- that mobile users actively seek out and prefer to engage with mobile-friendly sites -- it’s a sobering reminder of just how quickly and deeply users attitudes about companies can be shaped by mobile site experiences. Having a great mobile site is no longer just about making a few more sales. It’s become a critical component of building strong brands, nurturing lasting customer relationships, and making mobile work for you.
To learn more about our study
Click here and join our free webinar on September 26 at 1 p.m. EST / 10 a.m. PST
Get help on building a mobile-friendly site, visithowtogomo.com.
Posted by: Masha Fisch, Google Mobile Ads Marketing
Earlier this year, mobile took the stage as a category at Cannes for the very first time. Earlier this week, we launched theCreative Sandbox Gallery, a crowdsourced collection of global campaigns that push the boundaries of creativity and technology across digital platforms. It’s becoming clear that mobile has truly arrived as a creative platform, and we can feel a new awakening brewing within the creative agency community around the possibilities of mobile.
When creatives embrace and believe in the power of mobile, beautiful, impactful work is produced. We wanted to share a few of our favorite examples here, in our first ever video tour of mobile creativity. Below we share a sampling of some creative mobile branded experiences as well as some of our favorite rich media mobile and tablet ad executions. Be sure to check the Creative Sandbox Gallery regularly for more cutting edge mobile examples as more are submitted.
Branded Mobile Experiences We’ve seen brands from all verticals investing in creative mobile experiences. We recommend focusing on creative executions with broad reach, but we wanted to share a few noteworthy Augmented Reality and QR code executions as well. Here are a few of the most creative branded mobile experiences we’ve seen:
Heineken: With the insight that many people watch UEFA Champions League matches at home alone from their couches while using their smartphones instead of in a social setting, Heineken introduced the mobile game StarPlayer. To score points, players predict what will happen in the next few seconds of the game.
Band-Aid (Cannes Lions Mobile Gold Winner 2012): What better way to take a hurt kid’s mind off their boo-boo than this augmented reality Magic Vision app featuring the Muppets? After applying the bandage, children can use the app to interact with Muppets.
eMart (Cannes Lions Mobile Gold Winner 2012): This major retailer in Korea faced a challenge: sales slowed during lunchtime. To drive in store traffic during this time of day, they installed a shadow QR code in a heavily foot trafficked area that would only be scanable when the sun was directly overhead at lunchtime.
Toyota (Cannes Lions Mobile Gold Winner 2012): Toyota created an extremely entertaining app that takes advantage of the fact that mobile devices are location aware. Consumers can be a backseat driver as their real world route is pulled into this engaging mobile game:
Red Tomato Pizza (Cannes Lions Mobile Gold Winner 2012): In Dubai, where hundreds of languages are spoken, ordering pizza can be challenging. With the invention of the VIP Fridge magnet (aka Pizza Emergency button) that communicates via bluetooth with your smartphone, a simple push of a button transmits your exact order for delivery.
Airwalk: To promote their limited edition shoes, Airwalk created an “invisible pop up store”. For one day, if people downloaded the app and came to a specific location, they could visit an invisible virtual store made possible through augmented reality and purchase the shoes.
Chevy (Cannes Lions Mobile Gold Winner 2012): With the insight that consumers are increasingly engaging with their smartphones and tablets while watching TV, Chevy introduced their Game Time app, effectively hijacking the Super Bowl by adding a second screen. This app gave viewers a reason to engage with Chevy for the entire game and watch their ads closely for the chance to win prizes including a free car.
Rich Media Mobile Ads
Often, when we talk to creative agencies about mobile creativity, they immediately think about apps and augmented reality. However, an often overlooked and under-planned area in mobile creativity is mobile ads. Many creatives (and media buyers and brands, for that matter) are unaware of the creative possibilities of mobile ads. Using HTML5, app-like rich media executions can be created to run at scale to an engaged mobile audience as they browse apps. Take a look at the examples below to understand the cutting edge of mobile ad creativity, uniting the digital and physical worlds:
Coke (Cannes Lions Mobile Grand Prix Winner 2012): The classic “Hilltop” campaign was reimagined for the digital era through Project Re:Brief. Through this rich media HTML5 ad execution in mobile, consumers can literally buy the world a coke via specially configured vending machines set up in cities around the globe, delivering on a brand promise Coke made to consumers more than 40 years ago.
Bradesco Seguros (Cannes Lions Mobile Gold Winner 2012): Bradesco found a creative way to leverage rich media ads on tablets to promote car insurance plans to tablet users in Brazil. A simple swiping gesture between pages of content led the car in the ad to crash, driving home the message that “Unexpected events happen without warning. Make a Bradesco car insurance plan.”
The results? While many of these example have not publicly released their data or simply mentioned that they had strong engagement with their audience, some of these companies included sales results in their videos above. eMart indicated that their Shadow QR code drove sales during the lunch rush as intended and Red Tomato Pizza reported becoming so inundated with orders that they are considering expanding their operations. Research has also demonstrated the critical role plays in brand building. The bottom line is that mobile is a highly creative medium that works for building brands and driving sales.
We are inspired by the brands and agencies behind these industry-leading campaigns and we hope you enjoyed this quick video tour of mobile creativity. Please visit the Creative Sandbox Gallery to view new best-in-class mobile campaigns as more are added. If you’re a creative agency, we hope you’ll submit your work to be featured in the gallery. We can’t wait to see what you create.
