d Blog

Welcome to d blog, also known as Dan's rant. The content herein is essentially comprised of miscellaneous ramblings and random thoughts on the nature of contemporary existence.

"Going Mobile: Cellfluence The Mobile Rationale"

In an extremely cluttered environment where the customer is hindered by time constraints and oversaturated with the requirements of keeping pace with the latest developments, organizations struggle to be heard. Historically marketers hoped to accomplish this by escalating their efforts to SHOUT over the noise which in turn elicits a response in kind from the competition, whose marketers are also pumping up the volume on their programs.

A different approach

As the cell phone continues to evolve, so many of its most successful forms will follow basic functionality ie; making connections.

Medium’s and methodologies take hold in part because they embody something important about our social and personal circumstances. For instance, the internet’s interactivity and limitless resources conformed perfectly to the nature of our society at the time. We were ready.

The cell phone represents the next stage of that development. Similar in ways to the pc experience of the internet but much more intimate, much more about peer-to-peer connections, self expression and feeling part of an important circle of contacts. After all you wouldn’t let just anybody have your phone #! The relationship is further defined by the proximity in which we address the device as well as the filter effect provided by the mobile platform's inherent limitations.

Getting in with the audience

As marketers we may view the mobile space and interface limitations with horror, but somewhere in the recesses of the customers' mind the confines of the cellphone forms part of its appeal. The mobile device filters the world down to the people and things we value most and those with whom we have the deepest connections. Marketers are going about it wrong if they try to make the phone experience more like surfing the net with a desktop device, because customers like the fact that their phones are different. If marketers really want to make an impact on this platform, then they have to start thinking less about how to get in people's faces and more about how to get inside their personal affinity circle. Consider how to be something closer to a contact than a commercial.

Marketers need to learn to speak using inside voices to their customers. Only those messages that customers want to hear are allowed in.

Of course, all marketing talks about establishing relationships with customers, but the phone allows a level of intimacy, and even persistence, that other technologies can't match. In fact the rise of the cell phone as a device and the new language of relationship marketing are related. The phone extends the familial feeling of workplace intimacy outside the office and throughout the day. Whenever and wherever we are and need it.

If you listen to people walking and talking via a cellphone on the street typically they are just narrating to the person on the other end of the phone what they are doing at that moment, or engaged in the sort of idle chatter you have walking side by side. Ironically, it is the trivial parts of our daily lives we keep for those closest to us. One of the important psychological functions of the cellphone is that it engenders a feeling of intimacy and connectedness and puts it right in our pocket. The circle of friends is always alongside us. The brands we relate to are there as well.

Back in the day people with mobile phones were seen as important. Those semi-conscious impulses inform the desire for relationships with brands as well. The phone would seem to be the embodiment of these trends; customers enhance their own self esteem by making select brands special by awarding that brand access to their personal cellphone.

How do we do this, how do brands establish relationships that get beyond their normal marketing cycles and adopt a persistent connection with interested audiences.

The continuing dialogue

Today marketing needs to be experience based, forget what we used to spend in time and resources chasing affinity. Now we should think about the prospect that shows an interest in our brand and the mechanism we have in place via mobile to stay involved and share their experience. Don't just give me the first wave of promotion. Every other week you need to be thinking about giving me things that will keep me interested in your brand.

If we can find a way not to pester customers but rather engage them with the useful and the interesting, then the phone becomes the best platform for this kind of sharing rather than broadcasting.

In the mobile universe a brand BECOMES a contact, the customer is saying please find a way to become someone on my speed dial, please become like someone who speaks the trivia of their lives to me because I feel connected to who they are.

If you remember the internet at the beginning most brands really didn't get yet that they had to be interactive. People were demonstrating how they wanted the brands to behave online and how they wanted companies to talk to them. Brands also didn't realize that people were coming for more and more information. This medium was about being a resource that users drilled into. Many brands started online with what amounted to virtual billboards, static, unclickable ads that ignored people’s behavior online.

With cell phones, we have people walking around telling us how they value and use the technology. It gives them a sense of connectedness, intimacy, self-importance and they feel special. Essentially, they are telling us how to contact them.

The self-serve nature of digital platforms means advertisers can “experiment” with digital media with the same speed and volume as customers adopt these methods

More than 2 billion people use mobile phones a number that is growing rapidly.

Carriers will make it easier because they are looking to provide a host of revenue-generating services by keeping their subscribers happy.

Suddenly It's ALL mobile

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