The presentation dealt with this idea: That mobile communications does not have to be a tactical endeavor, it can be a deep strategic one enabling companies to run leaner, to reach audiences in new and novel ways, to redefine a company organizationally, and create new markets with new revenues. In ‘creating assets and access in the intention economy’ I challenged our thinking in how mobile communications plays the key role in this rapidly evolving story.

Moving Brands/ Moving World from Moving Brands on Vimeo.

And the presentation of an evolving idea around what a brand for London might look like, inspiring.

Existing models of crowd behaviour  treat moving masses of humanity as though they were fluids. This works, up to a point. But it often fails to predict the changes that happen as a crowd’s density increases and its movement becomes chaotic.

Apparently marching soldiers will automatically break step on a suspension bridge – and over the last 5 years or so I have been fascinated by all sorts of participatory cultures – here is a selection of posts that explores such a fascinating and increasingly important area of investigation

Brian writes,

For several years now, it has been ‘the year of mobile’. And yet despite everyone’s best efforts, it hasn’t really happened yet, has it? Why might that be? There were several opinions expressed at MediaTel’s recent ‘Come on Mobile..Stand Up and Deliver’ event.

Potentially mobile offers commercial users a truly unique integrated channel.

First, mobile is personal; much more personal than any other channel. This is a benefit and a problem. A benefit in that if consumers are prepared to accept messages, and if they’re prepared to participate in a dialogue with a brand then the result is a truly engaged consumer. On the other hand if consumers just tolerate irrelevant messages from advertisers they care little about, then the result is…well, at best an irritated customer, and at worst a customer for whom hell will freeze over before he or she ever buys anything from your client ever again.

An illustration – a while ago I received a text from an insurance company asking me if I would be interested in a quote for business insurance. I don’t remember giving this company permission to contact me; and I don’t know who to be most irritated with – the company or Vodafone. Yes I run a small business, and yes I have business insurance. Does that make me a likely member of the target market? I would say no – because at no point did I knowingly give permission for anyone to contact me. I suspect my operator would say yes – I’m in the target market, as I opted in (or failed to opt out), even if unknowingly.
It seems to me that simply assuming that consumers are prepared to be contacted if they’ve opted in, or not opted out is incorrect. Certainly they may have consciously agreed to receive messages, but we all know that the opt-in process generally works passively, rather than actively. This is not right – and furthermore raises a huge question: who controls what is done with data about me? I think that when it comes to the most personal channel – my mobile phone – then I should. I want to be in control; I want to decide who I hear from.

Our mobile marketing channel Qustodian (www.qustodian.com) launching in the UK later this year following a successful launch in Spain puts consumers in control. They decide who they hear from; they control their data; they benefit (in cash) from the use to which their data is put; and they decide whether to stay with us, or cancel their involvement with us – something they can do at any time.

But Qustodian is a very small player compared to the major operators. For this medium to really take off it needs the big guys to start applying certain principles around active opt-in and active consumer participation, as opposed to believing that passively collected eyeballs, maybe modified by a broad discriminator such as a location in any way equals engaged consumers.

I believe that mobile can deliver engaged consumers. It can be used for messages in virtually any format – including film, text, static images. It can be used to guide consumers through multiple materials on multiple screens within one campaign. It can offer promotions. It can transact. It can measure effect. Every click is collected and can be used to measure the effect of any activity.

So why aren’t advertisers queuing up to use this new medium? Why aren’t the agencies recommending it? Is it, as one speaker at the MediaTel event suggested because everyone is still obsessed with TV (an odd remark coming from an organisation that itself spends tens of millions on television, presumably because it works for them)? Of course not.

Is it (as was also suggested) because the measurement is imperfect? But as we’ve seen, it’s potentially superior to anything from a 5,000 homes panel, or from an online system that doesn’t identify individuals. Can’t be.

Or is it because agencies can’t make money from mobile? But what about agencies’ vaunted ability to offer media neutral thinking? Surely not.

I think the real reason is that mobile isn’t really an advertising medium at all; it’s a complete marketing channel with everything that that implies. I’m not sure that we are yet able to think of mobile as anything other than an advertising vehicle. And, until we are, until we learn to think in a different way about communicating with customers, until we turn all the talk about integrated thinking into integrated action, mobile won’t fulfill its huge potential.

SMLXL posts on mobile commerce

#camerjam #mobileculture

I don’t think you need to be a community purist – to see the flawed thinking. Reading through the article, of the usual players and companies lining up to bid for local TV franchises, with the same old, same old business models I found myself, making observations and asking all sorts of questions:

• When we are connected up to and across each other, when we can get what we need for each other, why do we need more of what we don’t need?
• A people will only be free when THEY control their own communications – Frantz Fanon
• Markets are conversations, and markets thrive through, commercial trading, knowledge and information exchange and entertainment, hence the role of the creation of a thriving market place is not about shoving stuff down tubes. Its not one way, and reality of the role of producer and consumer has collapsed.
• Those companies that use revenue sharing to open up, stimulate, motivate and create a rich diverse eco-system are those that are commercially thriving: GrowVC, Qustodian, Android, NTTDoCoMo, Threadless,  are but 5 examples. So why is local TV any different?
• Ask who uses a search engine = 99%? and what are we searching for? Knowledge and information. And we judge the quality of that knowledge and information by its ability for us to take and make decisions and transactions, right now, in 5mins time, this afternoon, tomorrow – we live in the intention economy.
• Where is mobile in all this – because when we have a mobile penetration of 120%+ in the UK but millions cant get in online, surely local commercial communications, must be supported by mobile services? Qustodian certainly believes so, hence their growing relationship with Atletico Madrid. Because local is community – community is local. But this truth does not serve the needs of national media players.

So how on earth do media companies believe they can fund their business models out of the institutional failure of paid for push advertising? The article quotes Pat Loughrey, former BBC director of nations and regions, says: “It’s arse about face. It would be a pity and perverse if what is created a just another metropolitan-dominated TV service, in which the UK is only viewed through national perspective and serving national advertisers.”

Related articles

• Channel 6 bidders explain why Local TV will work (newstatesman.com)
• Two more join bidders for national TV channel (guardian.co.uk)
• DMGT chief voices doubts over Jeremy Hunt’s local TV plans (guardian.co.uk)
• Dyke outlines plan for 80 local TV stations in UK (newstatesman.com)
• How impartial is Jeremy Hunt? (newstatesman.com)
• Ofcom delivers local TV report to Department for Culture, Media and Sport (blogs.journalism.co.uk)

This was never a tech revolution in the same way Gutenberg’s printing press was a tech rev – it was like in Tunisia, Egypt, Libiya, and throughout the western world; a revolt against power, corporate power, political power who has it and who wields it – its interesting to note that Umar Haque although working for Havas struggles with the ethics of living in a world which is unfair. He is I believe representative of many. But the powerful are now beginning the pinch of the powerless, where people sick and tired of the same shit, are learning to get what they need from each other – institutionally American Government has failed, business are failing and we need a new literacy in which people know how to create new and better things. The fact was nobody was really prepared to listen not until it was too late.

Communities Dominate Brands is six years old and yet people still tell me from RIM, to Disney, to startups that it is still mandatory reading. I don’t do it very often but hurrah for us.

You can buy it HERE

It also has a very interesting revenue model.

Fernando Sánchez-Terán, Director General of Qustodian said: “We are very pleased with our launch results, especially with the number of users. Whilst these users were unsure at first, after trying the service the vast majority described Qustodian as verygood and very innovative. In fact, 95% of them would recommend our service to their friends presenting it primarily as a form of advertising for products and services that they would like.” He added:

Advertisers have equally welcomed the arrival of Qustodian to the extent that somehave used it as the reason to start to invest in mobile marketing. They particularly value this new medium for its rich formats (images, videos, links, coupons), user interaction (consumer feedback), detailed user segmentation and its focus in Return on Investment (RoI), with average message opening rate of around 70%.”

About Qustodian:
Qustodian is a new, independent digital media company focused on providing next generation mobile advertising and marketing solutions using the mobile internet to communicate with mobile phone users.

Its goal is to provide a mobile marketing and advertising service that puts the user in control of what they receive, when and how. Members are offered the opportunity to create and manage a digital profile of their preferences so that they receive the financial and commercial benefits of the use of this data. This is in contrast to many large corporations who are currently collecting this profile data from us for their own benefit. This approach not only benefits the user, but also the advertiser, as the advertiser knows that the user has agreed and wants to receive communications from them.

Qustodian was founded in 2009 by Spanish and British professionals from the telecoms and media industries, including experts in mobile marketing, social intelligence and technical innovation. In 2010, Inveready Seed Capital invested in Qustodian. Qustodian are currently located in London, Madrid and Barcelona.

More on mobile from SMLXL

Dave Evans

Who gets it and who doesn’t and why? (I say the biggest challenge companies have in adapting is more cultural than anything else.)

I believe that we all “get it” but that there is of course a caveat to this. We all “get” social media, for example, when we are shopping and want the best deal, when we want to know, in advance, that this thing we are about to buy really works for the purpose for which we intend to use it. We want to know where to look for the best jobs, and to be referred or introduced to the best contacts to improve our chances for getting those jobs. On the subject of advertising–being as it is the channel through which we might actually learn of these products and other opportunities–when we are relaxing at home we don’t want interruptions that take us away from the programs we enjoy watching. In this sense, we all “get it.”

However, this odd transformation takes place when we walk into our offices, when we don our “work hats.” Suddenly, we expect everyone to want to pay attention to us (and only us), to show an interest in what we make, and to go out and buy it: To see things our way, and to readily shift attention when our spot or print ad or dinner-time telemarketing call or highway billboard presents itself.

“But wait,” as we say in the business, “there’s more.” We also expect people–customers, employees, suppliers–to do what we say simply because we said it. How much justification, unbiased proof, or fact-based evidence can one really put into a 30 second spot or half page (mostly image) advertisement? As an example of just how little, consider the typical US pharmaceutical print ad: The primary ad components are amazingly free of actual data…but flip the page in the magazine and you’ll see 8.5 x 11 inches of fine print, which ironically contains the actual information needed to properly evaluate benefits conveyed by the smiling couple in the visual ad.

So, there is this whole notion of control–over attention, over the message, over the interpretation of the message, over employees and how they are incented to work–that in many ways, at a practical level, really shows who gets it and who doesn’t. And, it’s often the same people, just in a different context: A middle aged professional walks into an electronics store, wanting to see what’s new and innovative, and to be told, in straight terms, which of these devices makes sense given his stated needs and lifestyle. That same guy walks into the office on Monday and barks at his subordinates, expecting them to do his bidding because “that’s how we’ve always done it” and with little more actual authority than a passing reference to the “SVP” that follows his name on the office door: Same person, operating alternately between “getting it” and “not.”

Social technology disrupts authority, and it does so without regard for the particular subject. The question of “who gets it” and “who doesn’t,” when looked at this way, becomes more a question of “Is it convenient for me to “get it” right now?” This is of course the driver in the push for social technology, embedded in the fabric of the marketplace, of the workplace and in our social infrastructure: By making information available everywhere–regardless of who the actors are–then collaborative behaviors are reinforced across the full range of contexts. It’s difficult, for example, to hold a position–indefinitely and based on only authority–that contravenes the facts when the facts are known to all, and the fact that (we/they) all know this is itself known to everyone.

This is what “Social Media Marketing: The Next Generation of Business Engagement” is all about: As a business leader–where my prior book was distinctly for marketers, I wrote this book for C-level and similar organizational leaders across all disciplines–your employees, partners, suppliers and customers have knowledge that can make your products and services better, that can create a stronger brand and add economic value to your organization. Social technology, applied at a business level, is about creating a strong organizational culture that thrives on collaboration, that listens to customers, and that builds for itself a long-term pathway to profits and growth. But, you have to be willing to operate collaboratively.

So, a personal heartfelt perspective.

My driving ideal remains: To see my son and his generation grow up in a world with less interruption, where the information needed to make a smart choice is available. This is, for me, what the web, and now the advent of social technology is all about. When I talk about “engagement” in terms of business, for example, I talk about it not in terms of “engaging with an ad by clicking it” but rather by “engaging with a business b becoming a part of it.” That is an entirely different proposition, and one that radically redefines the objectives of organizational leadership.

I think it brings people closer to your work?

In the end, we are all a part of this, and we all have a stake in it: Social technology is, in a sense, the infrastructure that will facilitate realization of the solutions needed by the next generation of thinkers, leaders and people everywhere. By connecting, friending, sharing…we can get to know each other, and learn to operate our markets in ways that raise value everywhere through appropriate transparency rather than seeking to exploit information (resources) for the benefit of a few.

If there is one book you should buy to understand what next generation business engagement looks like, using social media then, this is the book. You can follow Dave on twitter @evansdave. Digital Voodoo is Dave’s company