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The Gamification of Mobile Marketing

posted on March 18, 2011

The gamification of the digital world was an idea that popped up quite a few times at last week’s SXSW conference. Much of the discussion revolved around a presentation by SCVNGR creator Seth Priebatsch who was quoted as saying, “Game dynamics are too powerful to leave bottled up in games.”

Think about the amount of time the digitally connected adult spends playing games on his phone, online or on a game system. People have been known to spend an entire weekend working their way through the World of Warcraft and have you had enough of those Farmville updates you keep getting from your Facebook friends?

Oliver Burkeman of The Guardian says;

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Eventbrite Looks at Why and When We Share

posted on March 17, 2011

Last year, Eventbrite took a stab at putting a dollar figure on the worth of Facebook and Twitter followers. Now, five months later, they’re digging a little deeper into the data to discover why and when we share.

To begin with, let’s look at the data from October of 2010. Eventbrite sells tickets online and what they’re measuring is social ecommerce through the use of “Dollars Per Share” (DPS). Back in 2010, they found that a share on Facebook generated an average of $2.53 in sales, Twitter was $0.43 and Linkedin was $0.90. Factoring in email sharing, they figured that their average DPS for all social media combined was $1.78. Not bad for a campaign that only costs you the man-hours.

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Kantar Media Reports 6.5 Percent Growth in 2010 Ad Economy

posted on March 17, 2011

 

Kantar Media calls it the “feel good headline” and it’s likely that everyone but the newspapers would agree. According to their new report, ad expenditures across the board rose 6.5% in 2010 for a total of $131.1 billion. The downside is that not everyone benefited from the growth.

Have a look at the chart:

Kantar says that political advertising and a fresh push by the car companies helped lift TV advertising. Auto ads alone, rose 19.8% over last year while Direct Response and Pharma both dropped by 5 to 8%.

Running a close second in growth is Internet Display advertising which rose 9.9%. A bit surprisingly, Outdoor was right there with 9.6% growth.

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Majority of SMB’s Say They Would Have a Hard Time Managing Without Wireless

posted on March 17, 2011

In a recent survey conducted by AT&T,  65% of small businesses surveyed said they could not survive — or it would be a major challenge to survive — without wireless technology.

The respondents felt that wireless technology helped them be more flexible and it allowed them to keep in constant touch even when they were away from the office. In fact, they found wireless to be so essential that even when faced with budgetary issues, 80% of owners said they wouldn’t cut back on wireless. 49% (versus only 16% in 2007) said that wireless was key to staying competitive.

A large part of the reason for the rise in wireless use is the proliferation of easily affordable devices. More than 80% of those surveyed said they used a smartphone for business including:

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Canada Uses Google Maps to Enhance Tourism Ads

posted on March 16, 2011

The Canadian Tourism Commission (CTC) is hoping to encourage new visitors with a unique new display ad that puts the consumer right in the middle of a famous city.

When you click on the ad, you’re taken through a Google Maps display and down into the street view. From there, still navigating inside the ad box, potential tourists can spin the camera 360 degrees while sampling close-ups of shops and other attractions.

After a few seconds, an overlay appears over the street view with a link for more information. In this case it invites you to Explore More of Canada with a Plan Your Trip clickable banner. From there, you go on to a full Canadian tourism website which features videos and slide shows highlighting the features of the city.

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Will New Tax Laws End Amazon’s Affiliate Program?

posted on March 16, 2011

On Tax Day (ironically, or maybe intentionally), Amazon will sever all ties with affiliates in the great state of Illinois, including (also ironically) film critic Roger Ebert.

Back in January, Ebert took some flack from Twitter followers who didn’t think it was right that he Tweet Amazon links. The critic explained in an interview with ClickZ that the small amount of income he made from the links went to keeping his website free for all to read and I agreed. A few ads and a few clicks is a small price to pay in order to keep reading articles such as his half-star review of Battle: Los Angeles. Now, we find the fight was for naught, thanks to a new law signed by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn.

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QR Codes: Bridging the Gap Between Offline and Online

posted on March 15, 2011

In a recent article called “Why QR Codes Will Go Mainstream,” Mashable referred to these quizzical little boxes as “the shortest distance between curiosity and information retrieval.” Very poetic.

The author of the piece suggests that QR codes are likely to become the commonplace connector between all things offline and online. He points out the fact that the code is open-source and freely available for use, that adding it to a magazine page doesn’t cost extra and that the rise in smartphone usage makes them accessible to more people every day.

All of this is true, but there’s one big downside to QR codes that I think will keep them from becoming mainstream; they don’t mean anything when you look at them. They’re cool and for folks who love puzzles, they’re enticing, but for the average person flipping through a magazine, they’re an out of focus eye chart.