Digital CPG Blog

General Mills is updating the marketing concept of surprises in the cereal box.

“You point to a logo [on food packaging], and things start to appear,” said Chief Marketing Officer Mark Addicks. “Maybe some functional content will pop up on a cake-mix box, or you might see entertainment and games coming from a cereal box. What I’m hoping for is pure entertainment.”

Addicks hopes to update the marketing concept of offering a surprise inside the cereal box. Instead, kids could point a smartphone at the box and “see visual surprises.”

He’s looking at QR (quick response) codes to do this — those little square boxes that appear now in so many ads and, when scanned with a smartphone’s camera, take consumers directly to a website. But he’s also looking beyond the code to apps. He’s already got apps for Betty Crocker and Yoplait Yogurt and is exploring apps for cereal brands. “You point to a logo and things start to appear,” he says. “Maybe some functional content will pop up on a cake-mix box, or you might see entertainment and games coming from a cereal box. What I’m hoping for is pure entertainment.”

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Mobile commerce sales will reach $6.7 billion this year. Wowsa!

If 2011 was a year of apps, commerce and analytics, what does 2012 have in store for mobile marketing? Here are five trends:

1. Your Site, App And Brand Will Be Mobile-ized

Half of all mobile phones currently sold are smartphones. By the end of 2012, we may see eight of every 10 phones sold being a smartphone.

To keep up with the growing market, mobile-optimized content becomes the standard.

Brands will also move rapidly to deploy “tablet-specific” applications that better utilize the form. In 2012, app mania will be as much about tablet apps as 2011 has been about smartphone apps.

2. More Attention – and Dollars – Shift To Mobile

A recent eMarketer CMO survey revealed that more than 80% of all CMOs are prioritizing digital — and specifically, mobile — as two areas of focus for 2012 and moving forward.

3. You Will Buy More Stuff Via Mobile (and Social)

According to new research from comScore, 38% of smartphone owners have used their phone to make a purchase at least once. While digital content purchases like music, ebooks and TV episodes were the most popular items bought in September, clothing, accessories and event tickets were also purchased. There’s a place in the mobile commerce sphere for retailers across all verticals.

4. App Mania Continues — But More Meaningful Ones

In 2012, branded apps will be more about loyalty and commerce and less about awareness and engagement. They will deliver value. They may provide special deals or coupons or exclusive content, but they will be stickier and more meaningful.

5. Marksmanship Marketing: Segmentation, Targeting And Optimization

Insights will allow marketers to create personal level profiles for mobile users, tracking attributes and insights into mobile customer behaviors both within the mobile channel and in relation to a brand’s other digital properties. It will also mean more personalization in terms of advertising and content, and exciting new possibilities with geolocation.

• Adult mobile users who have downloaded an app to their phone nearly doubled in the past two years – rising from 22% in September 2009 to 38% in August 2011. (source)
• The average iOS device owner will download 83 apps in 2011 vs. 51 in 2010, a 61% increase year over year. (source)
• The average smartphone user in the adds just 2.5 new apps per month. (source)
• In May 2010, only about two-thirds (68%) of adults who had apps on their phones reported actually using them. (source)
• In March 2011, 26% of all apps downloaded were opened only once and then never used again. 26% were used 11 times or more. Of the remaining 48% of apps: 13% are opened only twice, 9% are opened only three times, all the way to 2% that are opened 10 times and never again. (source)
• 38% ?iOS & Android users stick with an app after one month. 14% ?iOS & Android users stick with an app after six months. After 12 months, only 4% are left. (source)
• Roughly half (51%) of mobile owners use a handful of apps at least once a week, while 17% report using no apps on a regular basis. Almost a third (31%) could be called app “power users” in that they use 6 or more. (source)
• The top 10 Android apps account for 43% of all the time spent by Android consumers on mobile apps. The top 50 apps account for 61% of all time spent. With 250,000+ Android apps available at the time of this writing, that means the remaining 249,950+ apps have to compete for the remaining 39 percent of the pie. (source)

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The stats (via LukeW):

• Mobile traffic came close to tripling year over year Black Friday 2011 reaching 14.3%. Mobile traffic on Black Friday 2010 was 5.6%. (source)
• In 2009 less than 1% of online sales came from mobile. (source)
• This year there was a 371% increase in the number of customers shopping on their mobile devices. (source)
• Shoppers had a 41.3% bounce rate on mobile devices versus a rate of 33.1% on other computing devices. (source)
• PayPal saw a 516% increase in mobile payments on Black Friday 2011. (source)
• Mobile traffic to Usablenet clients was up 60% from the same period last year. iOS devices accounted for 42% of the traffic. (source)
• The iPhone and the iPad accounted for 10.2 percent of all Black Friday online traffic. (source)
• Shoppers using the iPad accounted for more actual purchases per visit than shoppers using other mobile devices, with conversion rates reaching 4.6% for the Apple device versus 2.8% for overall mobile devices. (source)

What’s Next?

• 46% of smartphone and tablet owners are planning to make holiday purchases through their mobile devices. (source)
• More than 60% of mobile buyers will make their mobile purchases from the confines of their homes. (source)

The Internets… they keep changing things. Like making shoppers more prepared when they reach the store, and less apt to be enticed to products they didn’t come in for:

It’s no secret that technology has changed in-store shopping behavior. Whether it be through mobile phones, barcode scanning, or price comparison shopping sites; consumers are more prepared than ever in the store aisle. According to a new study released from Deloitte, nine in 10 shoppers know what they’re buying before they arrive at a store, and more than eight in 10 (83 percent) have a set of brands in mind that they will consider.

Of course, when considering the holiday shopping season ahead of us, we know in-store shoppers are more mindful of finding online deals or coupons. According to the study, 80 percent of surveyed shoppers say they do their own research online and have a pre-determined price point and a potential savings amount in mind before they step into a store. Furthermore, two-thirds of consumers shop when they know products will be on sale.

Three-quarters (75 percent) of survey respondents assert that they are smarter shoppers than they were a year ago, and nearly nine in 10 (86 percent) believe they are getting more precise in what they buy.

We’ve talked about how difficult and unfriendly mobile commerce experiences are in the past — which means consumers don’t engage in m-commerce nearly at the rate you’d expect them to, considering they’re using their phones for all sorts of activities, according to a recent survey, such as:

56% of respondents were expecting to use their devices for shopping-related activities this holiday. More than a third (38%) will likely use the device to find store locations, 34% to compare prices, 28% to research deals or find coupons, and 27% to get product reviews.

How to get consumers over the hump of information-gathering to purchase? Well, their reticence may be melt… if there’s a deal in it for them!

In a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers, 62% said they were willing to use their cell phones to make a purchase if offered an opportunity by coupon, discount offers, text alerts, gift cards or loyalty points.

The actual impetus to buy by mobile device, however, does plummet without a direct incentive or prompt, as only 22% said they would make a purchase on their devices.

Not only are poorly designed m-commerce experiences holding consumers back, but expecting consumers to pay using payment methods they always have doesn’t work.

Generally, consumers remain unsure as to which mobile payment options are available, let alone reliable and trusted. The survey asked what m-payment solution might increase their use of direct m-commerce. A quarter said that a payment solution tied to their own financial institution would encourage their greater use of mobile payments, and 22% would be encouraged by PayPal availability. Only 18% said the presence of a credit card solution would persuade them to use mobile commerce.

Mobile is now driving an average of 10% of visits to e-commerce sites, but doesn’t convert as well, according to a new study:

The study by e-commerce agency Screen Pages looked at more than 1.5m visitors to 30 non-optimised websites, and found that conversion rates were an average of 41% lower on mobile.

Whether retailers are prepared or not, mobile users are accessing their sites, and this study gives some idea of how mobile users interact with standard sites on mobiles.

A few highlights from the study

• 10% of visits are from mobile devices, although for premium brands targeting a more affluent demographic, there is evidence that this figure can approach 15%.
• 81% of all mobile visits are from Apple devices (47% are iPad & 35% are from the iPhone). Again, this may be a function of demographics, but clearly shows the popularity of Apple products.
• Average bounce rates are lower by 5% (40% vs 35%). Bounce rates are a measure of engagement and show the % of visitors who arrive on a page and leave. Driven by smaller screens and possibly the more demanding mobile user, websites must work harder to engage.
• In terms of sales, e-commerce conversion ratios were 41% lower overall, ranging from 13% to 73% lower. However, one luxury brand showed an increase of 30%.
• Average order values (AOV) were slightly higher on average, with half the sample showing an increase (10 of the sites showing an increase in AOV of 10% or more). Those showing a decrease posted in the range 10-30% less.

“From Procter & Gamble to AT&T and Pandora, firms are taking notice that mothers, newly armed with smartphones, are becoming a new kind of shopping force online,” reports The Washington Post. “A decade ago, these women were single and childless 18- to 34-year-olds who captured the hearts of Madison Avenue marketing executives with their voracious consumer appetites. Now, they are older and often in charge of the household wallet.”

Between business meetings, in carpool lines and at sports practices, moms are spending downtime on smartphones to update the family calendar, buy soccer cleats, research cheap flights and fit in a few rounds of Angry Birds.

Nielsen calls these women“power moms.” They represent one in five online users — a proportion that is growing quickly — and some research shows they are an even greater force on mobile devices.

The number of moms with smartphones is about equal to men of the same age, but they are adopting the technology at a faster pace. The number of moms who purchased iPhones grew 132?percent in the first quarter of 2011 compared with the same time last year — outpacing men, who rose by 121?percent, according to NPD. Overall, adult purchases of the smartphone grew 117?percent.

“Early adopters are no longer young people and men,” said Candace Corlett, president of marketing consulting group WSL Strategic Retail in New York. “What the smartphone does is allow women who are hungry for information to get what they want from the Internet instead of calling up a sister or friend for advice.”

I especially love the last point. Too often we think of technology being dominated by men. Well, moms are hip too! How is your marketing strategy reaching mobile wallets?

I have an iPhone, Kindle, TV, and laptop computer. We have guests staying with us that have all that and an iPad. How many screens do you have and how many strategies does your company have to address each?
Econsultancy reports:

Conversations about three screen strategies became conversations about four screen strategies this year. It looked like tablets would be used concurrently with PCs and mobiles, at least for a while, so fashionable jargon received an update.

Where are we now? Five screen strategies? Five and half screen strategies? The number of screens may explode in the not too distant future.

The three screen strategy referred to the growing tendency for the TV to be on in the living room, with a PC or laptop available in addition to internet capable smart phones.

Those TV ads that urge you to befriend a packet of crisps on Facebook are the baseline example of a three screen strategy; using attention media on one screen to provide an intention media interaction on the other.

It probably is not a mistake to talk about four screen strategies. It looks as if talk of an immediate “post-PC world” is a little premature and that tablets will not be replacing laptops this or next year.

How many screen strategies do you have?

Unilever plans to use mobile as its primary marketing channel within 10 years, in a strategy that includes covering mobile data charges for those interacting with its brands.

Currently, the fast moving consumer goods giant is paying for the mobile data charges incurred by people who download and use the mobile app for its Lynx Stream deodorant brand campaign.

“The app has already launched and the feedback so far has been really good,” Dean said in the article. “The retention and use of those who have downloaded the app has been really high. One thing that’s important to our audience is their phones. Lynx’s audience spends more time on their phones than any other media, plus they go out a lot.”

“Mobile is the most-used channel in growth markets,” he said, adding that Unilever will place mobile advertising, couponing and commerce at the core of its strategy in these markets over the next 10 years.

via CGT.

This is a very smart strategy for Unilever all-around. Developing your mobile, tablet, etc. strategies now means you’ll really be ahead of the curve as people change their browsing and shopping habits and behaviors.