Do we really need to know everything part 2.
Let me first help you understand the paradigm shift in the media environment over the past 50 years. This is important, as media is how we gain general knowledge and become informed.
It took radio 38 years to achieve a reach of 50 million people, it took TV 13 years to do the same, the Internet achieved a 50 million reach in 4 years, and the iPod took 3 years. Facebook reached 100 million people in less than 9 months.
Social media is no longer a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate and become informed. The concept of social networking has evolved and is radically changing the look and feel of online and mobile interaction. Not so long ago, you could count the number of social networks on one hand but now there are thousands.
People have become more socially active through the online and mobile ecosystems and personal presence is no longer the sole domain of rich and famous celebrities. Anyone with an Internet connection or 3G phone can connect and participate. There are now more than 200 million personal blogsites and the figure grows daily. 54% blog or Tweet daily, 25% of the search results for the world’s top 20 brands are links to consumer generated content, 34% of bloggers actively post opinions on products and brands. People now care more about how their social group ranks products and services than how Google ranks them.
One of the most successful consumer generated content sites is Wikipedia with over 13 million posted articles. In a recent report, The Encyclopaedia Britannica admitted that Wikipedia was more up-to-date and accurate.
The fact is, that we no longer search for news, the news finds us. Soon we will no longer search for products and services, they will contact us based on our browsing behaviour, online and mobile purchasing habits and most importantly, our permission.
Successful companies will begin to act more like ‘Party Planners’, aggregators and content providers than traditional advertisers and retailers.
With this in mind, how do brands and services gain permission, communicate and add value? The three technologies that are emerging as contenders are Bluetooth, RFID, and QR codes. Each of these platforms is a technology mutation that has found real relevance in the marketing strategies of progressive and future focused companies as consumer ‘handshakes’.
Bluetooth is the most prolific of the three and the one that has the lowest barrier to consumer entry and engagement. It is free to the user and provides multiple rich media content download.
RFID has not been widely introduced as the cost is still high and few mobile phones have the ability to read or interact with an RFID chip. However this does not mean that the technology will be bypassed, on the contrary, the application of RFID into the media and marketing ecosystem will happen.
QR codes (Quick Recognition) are extremely versatile. At present they are being used in conjunction with SMS, MMS, WAP and Bluetooth to deliver scanable vouchers, tickets and coupons with impressive results. But QR codes can also be used to provide online information links. This is done by a code being photographed using the mobile phone camera. Once the image is captured it accesses a handset resident application that has been previously downloaded by the user. The application ‘reads’ and deciphers the encrypted information, goes online and links the user to a WAP site where the information is displayed. At this point in time, QR codes are not widely used as a result of the differing handset resident applications. However if there were a universal application that could access all QR codes the adoption of this form of content delivery would increase.
There is a fourth technology that could be adapted and used to access online information using the ubiquitous mobile phone camera. At present the technology of scanning business cards is built in to several handsets. The application allows the user to photograph (scan) a business card and then inserts it into the user’s contact folder. This same technology could be used to photograph ‘tiny or bit URLs’, the online equivalent of an SMS short code number, this could then be saved in the handset’s bookmarks and accessed at anytime by the user.
For brands to stay relevant they will need to adopt and embrace both emerging technologies and shifting consumer behaviour. To succeed, brands will have to change their advertising focused marketing strategy and redefine themselves as the ‘Party Planner’, entertainment (Advertainment) and utility provider and publisher.
Consumer communication channels and expectations have changed dramatically, most notably in what is referred to as Generation ‘Y’ who now outnumber the Baby Boomers. Generation ‘Y’ expectations have more to do with added value social experiences than brand centric media that is seen as manufactured and generally mistrusted.
The challenge for brands is to meet their consumer expectations of participation, reward and added value in ways that acceptably commercialise and monetise online and mobile social media networks.
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