Friday News: Five Mobile Trends to Keep an Eye On

Our pals at Mashable.com are already looking to a post-mobile world, where these five trends will determine who succeeds and who gets left behind.

1. Augmented Reality - Look in the mirror and what do you see? Today’s weather? Your day’s appointments? Then you must have the latest mirror from Cybertecture, a Hong Kong firm that’s making tomorrow’s smart homes a reality today. We may not all have money to burn on a high-tech mirror, but brands are certainly looking at ways to capitalize on this technology and make it the norm.

For example, the wizards at Corning provided an inspiring look at how touch screens made of glass might soon be seamlessly integrated into our environments. Brands such as Starbucks are already seeing strong revenue from their mobile AR program.

2. The New Biotech - When I say biotech, I mean data comes from everywhere, including from within. Companies like FitBit andNike are finding new ways to record and utilize that data. For now, they seem to be focused on helping athletes (and wannabes) build better workouts, but it’s only a matter of time before brands begin to look more closely at how such data might be used to develop new customer relationships.

Nike has already opened its FuelBand API to allow music platforms to experiment with incorporating personal physical data. As these technologies gain traction and developers look at new ways to leverage information, one day soon we could see insurance companies providing discounts to individuals who share their device data. This would be the equivalent of auto insurers, such as Progressive, offering savings to drivers who share their driving behavior.

3. Consumer-controlled Media – One of the most interesting trends we’ve seen is the fragmentation of ownership. Technology has empowered the masses, and they’re leveraging that power in new ways. If brands want to remain relevant to their audiences, they’re going to have to engage in these contexts and in a media landscape where the traditional publishing model no longer exists. In this not-too-distant future we will watch all of our programming online in whatever form that takes. And we will engage with media that we create (not what the media “owners” create) or remix, re-purpose, and pass along.

4. Multi-platform Marketing - Consumers don’t think in silos, so neither should your company. Prepare your brand to work on multiple platforms. As you do that, consider what unique aspects of your offering, your history, and products will resonate with the consumer of the future?

Communicate your brand’s essence through new channels and devices, in an integrated, cohesive manner. But be aware of how and when they want to interact with brands, and the new possibilities to bring them value and not just marketing noise.

5. Innovation Without Borders - Brands and products are no longer geographically confined in the way they once were, and neither are marketing campaigns. Big brands are increasingly tapping into local talent and culture, testing new approaches in one market, and re-purposing them elsewhere.

Coca-Cola took the best of gamification, Shazam, and the second-screen experience and ran with it in China. Tesco is testing out interactive mobile shopping experiences in Seoul that the U.S. is not quite ready for, technologically or socially. It is clear that in the near future, brands will pitch locally but think globally

While all of the above insights offer a tremendous amont of food for thought for the future, it was the fifth point that struck us as the most interesting. Not only are brands and their marketing campaigns no longer geographically confined, but neither are their users. We can now shop in Japan and talk to friends down under straight from our mobile devices while picking up our morning copy.

What does it all mean, you might ask? A lot. While mobile has stealthily been infiltrating our lives over the past few years, it has also been evolving in ist own right. As experts start to look at future mobile trends, they are more and more recognizing how mobile is poised to transcend our actual devices and start to shape our worlds in other ways, through alternative channels.

Take m-commerce, for instance. Not only has mobile changed the way we are able to shop, allowing us to browse and buy from our smartphones, but it is now gearing up to change the actual brick and mortar shopping experience, with mobile devices powering NFCs so we can pay with a swipe and file our receipts in an app, as well empowering sales people to know more about the customers walking through the door by giving them devices that connect with our devices.

The future is mobile and we can’t wait! Can you? Tweet us @plasticmobile and let us know what you think about Mashable.com’s points, or taking mobile out of the phone and into other devices.

Plastic Mobile and Luxury Institute: How the Wealthy are Using Mobile to Shop Luxury Brands from Plastic Mobile on Vimeo.

Award-winning mobile marketing agency, Plastic Mobile, recently partnered with the independent, New York City based Luxury Institute in a study to learn more about how wealthy consumers are using their mobile devices and luxury brand applications.

Watch our video of the findings and learn how mobile is set to change the luxury brand retail landscape by working to enhance the in-store experience.

Ecommerce Camp 9

Join us next Monday to talk about checkout processes with Ecommerce Camp Toronto for their 9^th event! EcommerceCamp is an organization that strives to push the ecommerce space forward. Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or new to the space, this is your chance to learn about the community.

Learn from the experts on their checkout processes as they explore the challenges and how conversion rates were affected.

Who 250+ attendee’s + a great lineup of expert retail merchants including Jacob Kennedy from Sears, Ted Starkman from the The Shopping Channel and more!

Where

Courthouse

57 Adelaide St East

M5C1K6

When:

Monday, April 16^th, 2012 from 6-9pm

How:

Please RSVP here.

Hope to see you there!

Shopper Marketing Forum, March 2012

The Shopper Marketing Forum, held on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, was a huge success. Canada’s leading conference for the development, education and advancement of Shopper Marketing had a number of great presentations, interesting speakers and interactive workshops. One of which was basically a lunch and learn. These round table discussions with topics varying from mobile to were one of the show’s highlights. Our President and COO, and resident mobile guru, Melody Adhami, was of course manning the mobile table. Her round table discussion may have actually been the most popular, with all the seats full, and more than five other people pulling up extra chairs just to join in!

One of the most interesting aspects of this conference focused on the changing consumer behaviours, was seeing the distinct limbo the industry is currently in straddling. With a community of senior marketers known for their traditional practices, paired with a group of new marketers who hold a more technologically inclined approach, the world of Shopper Marketing is at a cross roads of transition. However, by including areas like mobile to forums like this, we’re confident that the current divide will get streamlined and that we’ll see a lot more digital shopper marketing in the near future.

Ultimately, the goal of the forum was to enhance the collaboration between manufacturers, retailers and agencies, and, based on attendee feedback and our own conversations, we’re so pleased that they achieved their goal.

A hot-off-the-press comScore report presents the 2012 Mobile Future in Focus – and things are looking good for mobile!

ComScore examines last year’s mobile landscape through “an exploration of key trends driving smartphone adoption growth, mobile media use in categories such as social networking and retail, mobile ecosystem dynamics, and shifts in multi-device digital media consumption.”

From a proliferation of public WiFi access, an insurgence of app usage in health and commerce to the ongoing battle for top mobile platform – now led by Apple and Android – the report shows that mobile has been the hot topic in tech since early last year.

The report is lengthy and covers those myriad avenues of mobile influence, but one thing is consistent across mobile usage and industries: as mobile continues to grow as a part of core comprehensive marketing strategies, it becomes increasingly important for brands to understand how current trends are shaping the mobile environment – and how the mobile space is shaping future trends.

The report does highlight a few interesting emerging trends, one of which is mobile’s advancement of social media users to interact with brands in the commerce arena.

The study found that, by the end of last year, nearly one in every five mobile (smartphone) users scanned product barcodes and one in eight compared prices on their phone while shopping in an actual brick-and-mortar location.

As mobile retail usage grows retailers are faced with the challenge of understanding how audiences interact with their mobile devices while shopping to take advantage of any opportunities to increase customer conversation and conversion.

Of course, gender behaviours varied – as they are want to do – when it came to mobile commerce. Males preferred to do product research on-the-go, while females were more likely to use their devices to share their shopping experience socially (ahem, Pinterest?). The latter finding is interesting considering we think 2012 will showcase and interesting menage a trois for the mobile + commerce + social media equation.

What do you think? Will mobile and social media continue to change the way we browse and buy from retailers? Tweet us @plasticmobile with your thoughts, comments and general mobile musings.

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.

Plastic Mobile teams up with leading group-buying site TeamBuy to bring the power of shopping to your fingertips – literally! Plastic Mobile announced the launch of the TeamBuy app yesterday in a press release. Our award-winning mobile marketing agency and TeamBuy, a leading Canadian group-buying site, created a channel that allows smart shoppers to get great deals anywhere, at anytime, on the go.

With mobile commerce on the rise and more than 60% of mobile users shopping on their smartphones, the TeamBuy app allows savvy shoppers to get that amazing weekend getaway or a spa-cation deal without rushing to a desktop. The app uses geo-location to offer deals pertinent to the users nearby area and allows TeamBuy users to track their purchases and redeem them directly from any iPhone, iPad, iTouch or Android phone. Built directly into the app, the “Team Bucks” loyalty program ensures users keep coming back to the app for more.

Check out the video to learn more!

The Plastic Mobile elves are working hard to create a real treat for anyone attending Dx3′s showroom floor. The Plastic Mobile booth is shaping up to be a one-stop-shop for a peak into how mobile really works – more specifically, how it can work for brands in the rapidly evolving world of commerce.

While we are certainly not about to divulge our top-secret booth plan (that’s classified intel), we are happy to give you a little something to nibble on while you wait in bated-breath suspense for January 25th and 26th to arrive so you can burst through the doors of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and hurry to see what Plastic’s got in store. The tidbit? Don’t sugar coat your mobile initiatives – quality is key to ensuring the best user experience and repeat usage. Stay tuned for more info on Plastic’s presence at Dx3. Are you getting excited? Tweet us @plasticmobile and tell us what you’re most looking forward to.

Also, take advantage of our exclusive Plastic Mobile Dx3 giveaway!