Plastic Mobile’s Pizza Pizza App To be Demoed By Amber Mac

Two days, 3,469 Canadian Marketers and one remarkable event. That was this year’s Dx3. On January 25 and 26, the Toronto Metro Convention Centre was filled with tonnes of engaging conversations around Canada’s digital advertising, marketing and retail landscape.

Plastic Mobile was very proud to be a participant in the inaugural forum for Canadian digital innovation.

For me, some of the highlights included, Visa’s touchless payment transaction ice cream exhibit, which not only kept my team full of delicious ice cream, but also demonstrated to attendees the future of NFCs. Visa’s Derek Colfer gave a session on the future of NFC in the Canadian mobile industry, saying that it’s still going to take awhile for things to get going. He cautioned his audience to consider that it took nearly a decade to get the credit card chip and PIN rolled out in Canada, so we shouldn’t expect to see mobile payments rolling out in 2012. Nevertheless, the Visa booth allowed visitors to practice using NFC technology to get some ice cream. Pretty awesome.

Also, Doug Stephens, President of Retail Prophet Consulting, and Candice Faktor of ShopCatch began the second day of Dx3 with an interesting keynote on the retail space. Stephens was a man of the future, looking ahead into retail 20 years from now, whereas Faktor focused on present-day retail. Both speakers concurred that mobile has shaken up the retail industry unlike anything ever before seen.

Another exciting event was the startup “pitch-off” at the Intertainment Media Incubation Zone. Five contestants were given five minutes each to pitch their plan. The winner was the Toronto-based startup, Stylsize, who showcased their very cool online retail mobile solution with its advanced apparel-fitting technology.

Two interesting mobile-related myths that were actively debunked at the show were about group buying and broadcasting apps. There was a charge to make attendees better understand that the emphasis for group buying is not about “will I make a profit?”, rather customer acquisition. And that broadcasters are missing the mark by creating apps that just copy their TV experiences without adding value and making them “Mobile friendly.”

And of course Plastic Mobile was there, bringing the mobile-retail relationship to life with our interactive candy shop, which was the talk of the Dx3 highlight list.

After such a great forum this year, we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2013.

Every Friday, Plastic Mobile brings you a video blog that answers some of the burning questions surrounding mobile, e-commerce, the future of retail and other exciting mobile topics. Watch the “Queen of Apps,” Melody Adhami, and other industry experts, squeeze their answers into “60 Mobile Seconds” (or, close enough, anyway).

What happens when you don’t go mobile? Well, you can ask Sears and K-Mart – that is if you can find a store that’s still open (was that mean?).

Sears recently announced it would be closing between 100 and 120 Sears and K-Mart stores because of abismal holiday sales numbers, and the blame fingers are pointing at e-commerce, mobile and social technology, among others.

An article in Forbes suggests that brick-and-mortar stores are becoming little more than showrooms for shoppers to see, hear, touch and smell (?) the products in real life, before they turn online to make their actual purchases. The article also states that the depleted economy is partially to blame, suggesting that recession-shocked shoppers are looking for the best steals and deals to make their buys, which can often be found online. Take for instance Amazon’s most recent app that actually encourages consumers to walk into retail stores and quickly and easily compare costs to the online giant’s low low prices. Greedy or genius, one thing is certain; Amazon saw an opportunity to use mobile commerce to its advantage, and boy did it take it.

So how can real-life retailers marry their needs with consumer needs to better battle the inherent advantages of online? One answer lies in the many benefits of mobile marketing and social media to bolster brand presence and awareness.

The fact is, the mobile space is developing at an amazing pace. And, more and more brands such as  Lexus and American Airlines are finding new and exciting ways to harness the power of mobile to increase the value of their brands through providing better service and consumer experiences.

It should come as no surprise that consumers are relying more and more on their mobile smart devices – haven’t we all seen someone nearly walk into someone else (or a lamp post, if you’re lucky) while they talk, text or play on their favourite pocket pal? In an Oracle research report published in May of 2011, the stats showed that mobile commerce is growing dramatically and that that three in 10 consumers are making mobile purchases, and close to half are researching and browsing products and services on their mobile devices. The simple conclusion: mobile is becoming a connector of all other shopping channels.

AND, the beauty of the mobile arena is that it still remains largely untapped, so the potential for innovation is boundless. With the financial resources available to large big box stores like Walmart and Best Buy, finding new and exciting ways for people to utilize their mobile smart phones could be a critical move to their future.

Had Sears better adapted to the evolving digital space, making it easier, cheaper and more convenient for shoppers to get what they wanted from retail locations, maybe they wouldn’t be looking bleakly into a similar fate to the dodo.

What do you think? Could Sears have saved itself some stores, and possibly some $, if they had innovated using e- and m-commerce?

A recent InsightExpress study suggests that mobile and print would make a great team. The company found that mobile users are also print junkies: “Based on our findings, it’s clear that brands and retailers should be incorporating mobile into their print strategies,” said Joy Liuzzo, vice president and director at InsightExpress.

Print and Mobile, sitting in a tree...

Liuzzo goes on to say that there’s more to this relationship than just a little QR coding. There are a number of ways to strengthen this bond, including article archiving or sharing and information gathering. The company specifically focused on QR codes and user engagement, finding that smartphone owners who use their mobiles for six or more daily activities were also reading or subscribing to print publications. These users are a hot target for advertisers as they have diverse tastes extending even beyond their reading mediums to any number of lifestyle routines (eating, shopping, etc.). The study found that these people were also more inclined to connect with companies via their mobile devices. “The biggest surprise to me was with the segment of smartphone owners that do six or more activities on their phone every day and their print media consumption,” said Ms. Liuzzo. “This group is both subscribing to, and reading more, print materials than any of the other groups (smartphone or regular phone owners).”

According to our friends over at Mobile Marketer, InsightExpress then delved into an investigation of this market’s varying reading behaviours and discovered that magazines came out on top in terms of user engagement. For example, tearing out articles or tracking down a product mentioned in an article or ad.

Turns out, traditional print media isn’t out of the game just yet. It just needs to get wiser and learn a thing or two from it’s new young partner. From here, who knows where this dynamic duo can go? What do you think? Are print and mobile a match made in heaven? Tweet us your comments to @plasticmobile.

In the News

Just some of the people who think we’re pretty cool (thank you!).

Bloomberg

Market Wire

Yahoo! Finance

Canadian Business Opportunities

Euro Investor

Reports listed in a Venture Beat article this morning state that Cyber Monday is set to kick Black Friday’s butt in overall sales.

This year, the two made-up shopping holiday’s book-ending the US Thanksgiving weekend will once again likely post dramatically different numbers. Cyber Monday sales are estimated to hit 1.2 billion, with 122 million Americans expected to participate in the online shopping extravaganza. While Black Friday sales were up 26 per cent from last year, they still fell short of the billion mark. Shucks.

The mania continued this year as news reports of pepper spraying moms, and dads and kids coming to fist-a-cuffs over Xboxes, hit the airwaves. In spite of that, the shopping holiday raked in $816 million in sales. But, thanks to e- and m-commerce, Cyber Monday is still expected to be the reigning champion.

Shopping chaos can be avoided via e-commerce

The physical experience of “shopping” continues to morph into an entirely different beast as the amount of consumers using their smartphones to shop is expected to double, according to a recent survey by BigResearch.

Cyber Monday’s rising popularity is, of course, directly correlated to the increase in e-commerce and mobile shopping in general. Andrew Lipsman from ComScore points out that Cyber Monday was just the 12th-biggest online shopping day back in 2006, but it steadily rose throughout the years, reaching the No. 1 spot for the first time last year.

It was shop.org that dubbed the Monday online shopping extravaganza with the moniker “Cyber Monday” back in 2005. They used the term to identify the noticeable rise in online shopping sales the Monday after US Thanksgiving when it was suspected that consumers followed up with purchases they didn’t make over the weekend.

This isn’t actually that peculiar once you consider just how dramatically Cyber Monday’s mobile shopping has exploded in recent years. In fact, 3.6 million consumers used their phones to shop for deals in 2009, a number which is expected to triple to 17.8 million for 2011 and is double last year’s figures (7.3 million).

Do you have a Cyber Monday wish list? if so, will you be purchasing any or all of your must-haves via your mobile smartphone? Let us know on Twitter, @plasticmobile.

We found this great infographic from G+ and wanted to share it on our blog as it illustrates the state of mobile commerce pretty well.  The infographic shows the continued pattern of growth with m-commerce and the major impact from NFC.

Our Melody Adhami (aka Queen of Apps) speaks with Rob Woodbridge for UNTETHER.tv. The interview discusses the fast growing pace of mobile, how companies should implement an effective mobile strategy, as well as predicting the future of the mobile space.

See video below. Here’s the full article.

(May 3^rd, 2011)  Plastic Mobile and Pizza Pizza are honored to win a Webby Award for their recently launched pizza ordering iPhone app. Under the category of Mobile Shopping for smartphones, the members of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences awarded the Webby to our Pizza Pizza app. This mobile ordering app was in the running with giant US brands such as Target, Walgreens, Consumer Reports, and Gilt.

In the entire category of mobile, both Plastic Mobile and Pizza Pizza are the only Canadian company to receive this prestigious award. “We are absolutely thrilled to receive this award and excited to represent Canada at the Webby Gala,” says Melody Adhami, co-founder of Plastic Mobile and crowned Queen of Apps, Globe & Mail.

The 15^th Annual Webby Awards attracted nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 US states and over 60 countries worldwide, as it’s the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet that includes mobile, websites, online film & TV, etc. The Pizza Pizza app has been ranked #1 Lifestyle app in the Apple iTunes store, and a favorite app among Canadians.

Share this news on Facebook and Twitter – use a shorten URL:

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Our Twitter & Hashtag:
@PlasticMobile
@PizzaPizzaLTD
@TheWebbyAwards
#webbys

Download the Pizza Pizza app:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/pizza-pizza/id425026119

Graphics of the app:

http://www.plasticmobile.com/media-pizza-pizza-iphone-app/

Media Contact for Plastic Mobile:

Salome Sallehy